Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

[Unready]

Ok. But how about gavelkind and division of realm?
For example I'm king of France, Aquitaine, Burgundy and Italy.
I have conquered a lot and now died. My four sons divided realm for four piece. Who will get infamy? Or numbers will be divided? How?

 

[Boucicaut]

Are there any historical examples of coalitions within the timeframe of the game? We already have crusades/jihads.

The occasional muslim/crusader alliances and crusader/mongol alliances do count as coalitions I suppose. Though they were mostly offensive and not defensive.

 

[brobman22]

I.......... am intrigued by this. I'm hopeful that it'll introduce a new and interesting twist on gameplay, but I'm concerned that PDX will overdo it. My concerns are:

Overall, it looks like the theme for this patch is "reduce all-around alliances (see: dynasty not proving alliances anymore) and replace with defensive alliances". I guess I'll wait and see how it all plays out. I'd like to think that this is a positive development, but I've seen far too many instances of PDX going completely overboard and making the game nigh-unplayable till a patch comes out a few weeks or months later.

Don't forget that I think the patch is releasing with the expansion which we don't know what the focus is on right now but im willing to bet it will probably combo with infamy and coalitions

 

[brynjarg]

Will this feature ensure that for instance Fairhair in the Old Gods start will have to fight all of Western and Southern Norway at once in his quest to unite Norway, like he had to do in real life at the battle of Hafrsfjord?

 

[brobman22]

This is really bad. It's not going to prevent blobbing, it's only going to make it take longer and be more tedious. And as people pointed out in the thread, this is against the essence of the series, which is more character-based. At LEAST make it so infamy drops on a character's death. I can understand a character inheriting some infamy, but all of it just doesn't make sense. I think this DLC will be remembered as the one that put the final nail in the coffin for ck2. What a shame that a game with such a great start would devolve into this.

Its dynasty first which means people aren't just going to forget your dad was a dick and are you really going to say this is the death of ck2 when we have no idea what the expansion is even focused on let alone the majority of new features so lets just calm down with the hyperbole and wait and see what else gets revealed before we start ringing the bell of the apocalypse and if it does end up killing the game I'll eat my hat and socks and shoes okay.

 

[Rostan]

This is really bad. It's not going to prevent blobbing, it's only going to make it take longer and be more tedious. And as people pointed out in the thread, this is against the essence of the series, which is more character-based. At LEAST make it so infamy drops on a character's death. I can understand a character inheriting some infamy, but all of it just doesn't make sense. I think this DLC will be remembered as the one that put the final nail in the coffin for ck2. What a shame that a game with such a great start would devolve into this.

Well, let us see the full features of this patch and expansion. Sadly, if EU4 is anything to go by, it can get quite bad. The recent EU4 expansion wrecked the game, and it probably has the worst reviews of anything to come out of Paradox. We can only hope (or plot?) that CK2 will not go that path.

Also, I am thinking about a couple of potential issues:
- what will players starting in 1337 hope to go for? Will there be a timeline extension (maybe to 1492?)
- will coalitions open the specter of geographically dispersed or cross-cultural alliances? This is hugely buggy for a while in EU4, with Egyptian, Russian and Burgundian rulers forming weird, unnatural alliances. This would be a huge flavour-breaker and anti-period.
- how will non-sovereign vassals behave in the system? Crucially, your vassals.
- are added mechanics going to take a CPU toll? Poor performance mid and late game is an issue with CK2 already. Won´t further character traits (like infamy) add a bit into that without further optimization? (ok, I know the drain is likely to be weak, but performance is already critical late-game)

 

[Thure]

People wanted a Check to the Karlings, Greyskin, Blurple and The Muslim blobs running around Stomping everything, Now they have it.

Speed 5 is the once again the best friend of an ambitious conqueror, same as Eu3/4 and Vicky 2.

I would prefer to have internal reasons and not external ones

 

[brobman22]

I would prefer to have internal reasons and not external ones

Im just wondering how infamy interacts with your vassals and if there going to introduce more or better internal mechanics which I am leaning towards probably but that's just an assumption so... long live hedgehog

 

[Dagda]

The amount of Infamy you gain is based on the action you do, how much land you take and how large your realm already is. So for instance the Kaiser of the HRE declaring a war for Flanders and taking it is going to make the neighbours more worried than if Pomerania manages to take Mecklenburg.

Sounds great to be honest. With EU 4 99% of the coalitions are usually formed against minors because they took a mere two provinces while the big scary blobs seem to go unchecked. For instance, I'm currently in a game where the Otto AI blobbed through Hungary, into HRE and took Austria proper. Not a single coalition in sight.

 

[dragoon9105]

They tried internal reasons with Factions and then Vassal limit, neither worked. Barring adding the Megawar system from GOT your never going to get civil wars that actually threaten to rip realms apart which while it can be fun i can see it not being that for some people. Worst case with the current system someone is running a dangerous pretender faction,just start mass imprisoning, and clean up the scum 1 war at a time, Oh you have Tyranny do you? Dont worry you'll be assassinated or die eventually and it all cleans up, not like your vassals can revolt once they are all in jail.

Add to that Generally alot of players dont like internal factors arbitrarily threatening to break them apart even if they play well. Generally the changes we have gotten, Factions and Vassal limits have massive glaring work arounds. Since the AI still plays like complete garbage, they need to ally up to stand a chance.

Theres a reason alot of games end before 1100, and its not lack of interest, its lack of challenge once you hit Empire tier, even playing like a complete maniac once you get powerful enough you can absolutely crush anything and everything without trying to deliberately sabotage yourself.

Its a Good Change, Though i can see some problems with it

Namely cleaning up succession shenaniganry where random provinces are inherited out of your empire that you now have to de jure war for these provinces back, meaning you could shoot your Infamy up to 100% just taking provinces that really should be yours.

 

[Slayen]

While I'm going to hold final judgment until we know more, at the moment, the more I think about this new system, the less I like it,

 

[Jorlem]

Could you explain the 25% threshold? Considering that AIs join coalitions based on how threatened they feel, it seems just unnecessary and arbitrary, adding a layer of complexity and confusion.

Plus, coalitions seem to be a good opportunity to create situational alliances even against realms with 0% infamy that still can feel threatening.
Really I don't understand the threshold when you developed a gradual mechanic that can stay clean and simple.

If I had to guess, I's say the 25% is a baseline so that various factors* will have something to modify in order to determine if a character is willing to join the faction. Infamy appears to be something on the character, not a relationship between two characters, so every character on the map, from England to India, would see that 41.44% in the example screenshot.


*Distance, religion, ect.


I hope distance is based on distance between closest borders, and not distance between capitals, incidentally.

 

[Thragka]

How will this affect historical grand conquests, such as those of the Mongols, William the Conqueror, the Aztecs Magyars or what have you?

 

[Dirt McStain]

Can we mod this for internal infamy - e.g. infamy between liege and subjects, as well as between subjects?

 

[Deaghaidh]

Are there any historical examples of coalitions within the timeframe of the game? We already have crusades/jihads.

Arguably some of the crusades were coalitions of western Christians ganging up on big Muslim powers that were threats to friendly regimes.

Iirc, the King of France at the time tried to rally just the kind of Coalition this mechanic seems to call for when the Mongols were steamrolling in. Since afaik neither he nor any of the other Christian monarchs involved weren't responding to blood or marriage alliances, that sort of behavior wouldn't be seen in CK2 as things stand.

I'd like to see this be context sensitive. If my irish tribe is Conquering my fellow small irish tribes, the other tribes should absolutely gang up on me, and possibly pull in a neighbor. But Charlemagne showing up to put me in my place would be stupid.

 

[Abnwtwtud]

I honestly don't understand how you all can be so obsessed with this trivial infamy stuff, when we have yet to determine the true and deeper meaning of hedgehog.

 

[Atlantians]

DEVs: please add mechanics to releasing vassals.

Examples:
-On release, a vassal becomes a tributary.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

...I'd like to see this be context sensitive. If my irish tribe is Conquering my fellow small irish tribes, the other tribes should absolutely gang up on me, and possibly pull in a neighbor. But Charlemagne showing up to put me in my place would be stupid.

Having infamy being influenced by distance of region affected in a war ?
I mean we have regions now. What for if not for such thing...
Makes sense to me.

edit: Then again i forgot how "threat" as a value is determined, as..

For an AI to join a coalition they will consider the relative strength between the target and themselves, how threatened they think they are and how much infamy the target has accrue

So if distance plays a role in "threat" then we'd already have that and wouldn't need infamy itself to be affected by it ...somewhat...i'm too tired to think clearly...too late..

 

[Groogy]

The small fry, vassals and small kingdoms, shouldn't face the exact same penalties that Empires face.

Which it doesn't, the dev diary even tells you that we have thought especially about this.

 

[Zooboss]

Just curious would there be anything to allow vassals to form coalitions against their liege?

As in, non successful assassinations, imprisonments, revocations, etc result in the coalition being called into the War Against the Tyranny of [Liege]?

This seems like it might be a decent way to have both internal and external factors working to prevent blobbing