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Conclave Dev Diary #2 Power to the Council

Greetings!

I know last year featured a lot of dev diaries with very little information about new features of the game. The reason for this was the lack of an announcement of the expansion and we had decided not to talk about the expansion before the announcement. All that has changed now and last week @Doomdark gave you an overview of the features we’ve added and the aim of the expansion.

This week we’re going to go a bit deeper into the new council mechanics.

@Groogy has written the following presentation of the council:

So to the meat of this expansion and my favorite part. The empowerment of the council. As we promised we were gonna let the council in on the day to day governing of your realm becoming more than simply a privy council. Now in fact the strongest vassals in your realm will threaten with civil war if they are not given a position where they can become part of your council and in turn giving them influence on the politics of your realm. Having them on the council prevents them from joining factions and as a liege you can use this to stabilize his/her realm. The councillor will adopt a certain position, these are the colorful icons you see, and this position will dictate how they align themselves with the decisions you take but we will cover that in a later dev diary.
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Since King Alfonso is a paranoid guy and constantly in hiding, his realm is mostly ruled by his council...

The councillors can choose to either yay, nay or abstain from a vote. You also get a vote (always voting yes when you’re suggesting something) and your own vote decides in the case of a tie. The characters abstaining from a vote are always swayed by the distribution of diplomacy skill between the yay and nay sayers. Meaning that some highly influential members might turn the tide in a vote as they persuade the voters that have no opinion on the matter. If the council has a majority voting yes on an action, you’ll be free to take that action, but if the council votes against the action, you face the choice of either going against the council or do something else. Going against the council will make it discontent as you have broken the contract with them. Such action also incur tyranny and the council members become free to create and join factions again for a limited time.

For conclave we have also changed how regencies work and the old system with a single regent deciding everything is gone. Instead, If you are in a regency, the regent is put on the council and will vote instead of you and you don’t have the option of going against a council vote.

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The council also have powers to vote on your laws and even propose that a vote shall be started on something they want by cashing in on a favor they might have with their liege. But we will cover the redone laws in the next dev diary as well.

Next up @Moah, our newest addition to the team, will explain some of the new tools you have to influence your council members and how you as a vassal can make your liege do things for you:

Hello everyone,

I’m @Moah and I joined Paradox and the CK2 team recently. I’m here today to talk about Favors. As you know, in the game relationships to other characters are important, especially family. But family, friendships and rivalries are not the only kind of relationships that exist. Sometimes you just do a favor for someone, and hope that somewhere down the line, they’ll return it.

And since in the CK2 timeline debts, honor and duty had such a huge impact, we’ve modelled that through a mechanic we cleverly called “favors”.


Getting Support on the Council

As a liege (or part of the council), you can call in a favor on a council member to make them vote like you on the council for one year. This can be used to get an ok to revoke that title you want, execute someone you want to see dead and start that war that you’ve longed for, but the killjoys of the council is constantly saying no to, without the hassle of tyranny and factions. If you don’t have a favor to call in, you can request support from a council member in exchange of a favor. They can turn this down, but if they accept they’ll vote just as if you called a favor on them. The difference is that now you owe them a favor. This is one of the basic generators of favors and a way that vassals gain favors on their lieges. As a liege you can often gain a favor by fulfilling the ambition of a vassal and everyone can accept a sum of money in exchange for a favor. When dealing with powerful lords, you can expect their price to be quite high however.

You can only owe someone at most one favor at a time, so if you already owe them, you’ll have to wait in requesting support again until they’ve used that favor to gain something back. Council members can also call favors on each other and a clever vassal can set up scenarios where they control how the council votes.


Forcing Acceptance

Say you’ve accepted to support your liege on the council, or you paid the emperor of the HRE a large sum of money and you want your investment to pay off. With a favor in hand you can make them accept a marriage (some limitations apply) and gain that Non-Aggression pact you’ve been longing for.

Invite to Court, Educate Child and the Embargo interactions can also use favors to force acceptance and as the liege you can use a favor to keep a character out of factions.


Building a Strong Faction

If you have favors from your fellow vassals, you can use those to get them to join your faction (if they are valid to join the faction) and since they’re bound by the favor, they cannot freely leave the faction.


Pressing a Claim

If your liege owes you a favor, you can use that favor to propose a war declaration where he/she presses one of your claims. In order to do this, the council needs to vote in favor of the war declaration. The liege can deny your proposition, but doing so incurs tyranny and makes the council discontent.


There are more uses of favors that will be presented along with their respective features, but these were some of the basic ones.

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Now @rageair will walk you through another new feature, the Realm Peace and how it will help you bring order to the realm.


Realm Peace

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Previously, your level of Crown Authority decided if vassals were allowed to declare war or not. As of Conclave we’ve replaced this system with a more intuitive one - Realm Peace. With Realm Peace the ruler, in accordance with the Council, decide when wars waged between your vassals have to end. Do you need to change your Succession Law but your vassals just won’t stop fighting? Is the precarious balance of power in your realm being shifted by warmongering vassals? Enforce Realm Peace to make them stop!


After pressing the Realm Peace button your vassals have 3 months before the peace takes effect, after which all wars will end with a white peace. The Peace is then enforced for 60 months before your vassals can declare any internal wars. A long cooldown ensures that you’ll only want to use this ability when it’s really important, and when playing as a vassal you won’t ever find yourself in a completely deadlocked position where you’re not able to attack at all any longer!


Favors and Realm Peace

As a vassal, you can use a favor on your liege to interact with realm peace in two ways. First, you can block your liege from using the Realm Peace or stop a pending Realm Peace from taking effect. This makes sure that you actually get time to win the war that you invested all your precious coin to hire those Swiss mercenaries to fight for you and don’t just end up with nothing gained and empty coffers.

Secondly, you can ask your liege to use the Realm Peace for you. This can be pretty handy when you’re working your way to power and your rivals decide it’s time to partition your lands and join those parts into their own lands.
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That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll take a closer look at how council members vote, the new education system and how we’re turning feudal lords into small business owners.
 
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So, "free_revoke_on_tiers = { count }" should work with Imperial Administration?

Thought you meant as part of a government. Not sure if it works with Imperial Administration (probably not).
 
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(...)

I'd also give late administration the ability to demand unlawful territory from dukes/kings holding counties outside of their de-jure borders (doing so forces them to give the land to the holder of the de-jure duchy), and imperial administration the ability to freely revoke unlawful counties from anyone. Taking power in the byzantine empire should be more above networking and intrigue rather than seizing lands from other strategoi until you're more powerful than the emperor.
(...)

First of all we need to wait and see what Late Administration will entail. Also IMHO that should only apply to 'unlawful' territory within the de jure bordes of a kingdom of empire, if it's a part from another de jure kingdom or empire than it's outside your jurisdiction.
 
Ok, this thread is moving to quick for me to answer in time. Much of this might have been answered already.

"Send Gift" seems obsolete now that there is "Buy Favor", doesn't it?
What really is the difference?

Gift gives better opinion. Favor gives you a one time use token that have special use. Gifts are also cheaper than favors.

Can't join a faction if you're on a council huh? Take that Littlefinger!

This has been stated already, but when the council is discontent, you'll be free to join factions for a time. Every succession will make the council discontent, thus a ruler should do best in making sure the realm is stable before dying (ie don't piss everyone off on your deathbed).

Will there be an option to refuse a favour when someone comes to collect on it? Obviously this would have penalties which could be severe depending on who you're denying.
It just seems strange to me that a favour would act like some sort of binding contract. When someone comes to collect, you absolutely have to do what they ask, no matter what?

Some uses are binding and some give you the option of turning it down. If you give someone a favor token, you've basically already accepted some future action. From an rp-perspective you can consider that the deal was struck when the favor was gained and not when it was actually used.

Do you still incur regular penalties for executing/imprisoning people without charge or revoking without a claim?

Yes

Are favors inheritance or do they cancel if either party dues?

They're personal and not inherited.

Sorry, but fulfilling ambitions does not work correctly.

For example, a girl in my court wants to be married desperately. I marry her to some courtier in another realm. Now she has "fulfilled my ambition" relations bonus to the ruler of that other realm, not me.

I don't think tying major features to a broken mechanic is a good idea.

Ambitions have been reworked for Conclave.

Will we be able to mod council votes into targeted decisions?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but the voting system is moddable.

Can't a sufficiently powerful vassal ignore realm peace?

Say a vassal who control 50-60% of the land, has a spot on the council, but still the council call for peace. Can't the vassal just force the war through anyway, risking war with liege?

If you don't like it, just declare war on your liege. Realm peace won't block independence.

Also a question: is there a viable way to play a certain ruler by consistently ignoring your council and doing what you and only you wish? Or is it inevitable that you'll soon find yourself in a precarious situation in that case?

In other words, the question (which was discussed before numerous times) is can you be successful as a tyrant under certain circumstances?

Yes. You can either just ignore the council and gain some tyranny, or you can make sure you don't have a council by having the correct law setup. More on laws next week, but absolute rule is a perfectly valid play style, especially for smaller realms where factions can't grow too big.

This sounds quite good but I can see a glaring weakness already.

Faction revolts are laughably weak right now, because they are almost always much, much smaller in realm size (thus levy size) than their liege, but use the same levy calculations. Since "dangerous" factions, such as those made up of the largest/most powerful vassals, are now more a result of strategic player decisions, shouldn't the teeth be put back in them (give rebel titles a hidden law/effect that gives them 100% vassal levies, as it was in the glory days of vassal revolts)?

How strong will revolts be, or will they remain non-threatening to the liege?

Factions have been improved and are more dangerous in terms of troop sizes now. The ai has also been changed to prioritize fewer strong factions than to have every lord push his/her own agenda by themselves. Some of the new factions are actually better to just yield to now.

If you go against the vote of your council, will you still take a relations hit with those who supported you?

Yes, they're not angry for you doing something they don't like, but for being a tyrant and not respecting the will of your subjects.
 
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Yes. You can either just ignore the council and gain some tyranny, or you can make sure you don't have a council by having the correct law setup. More on laws next week, but absolute rule is a perfectly valid play style, especially for smaller realms where factions can't grow too big.

Now I'm hyped for next week. I want to know more about the laws!
 
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This forum isn't run on Danelaw. We demand that you speak the Queen's English.
Would be nifty if the forum was part of Danelaw though.
 
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Make the forum run on Danegeld so that we have to pay tribute to Danes in order to be left alone.
Yep; I am looking forward to your payment already. Don't force me to make an example by giving somebody a blood eagle.:p
 
Yep; I am looking forward to your payment already. Don't force me to make an example by giving somebody a blood eagle.:p
Don't do it, it's a trap!
Rudyard Kipling said:
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
but we've proved it again and again,
that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
you never get rid of the Dane.
 
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The new portraits. A rant in broken english? (or is that just insecurities of mine?)
index.php

The things about them that bugs me:
  • From what I've seen, for now they are for balts and eastern slavs only (maybe finougric too). My problem, as a lithuanian, would be that while lithuanians do look slavic, most of the east slavic people do not look like lithuanians. In fact, I can tell who is russian/of russian descent, or polish/of polish descent just by looking at their faces in the street. Poles are closer to lithuanians in the looks departament, but that may be because of close historical ties(and that is not in the game's timeline).
  • The faces. While I do like the faces of men, the faces of women look a little too eastern for balts. In my opinion they should be closer to western slavs (poles), or even norse for that matter (my great grandmother actually shares similarities a little bit with the norse portraits).
  • The old russian portraits (to me) seemed closer to reality than new (assuming these are new russian and not just baltic). Well, the male ones did. Most old russian women portraits seemed ugly and (in my opinion) even unrealistic. Why not just leave the old russian portraits and just rework the women?
  • The clothes. Personally, while for the winter, the clothes pictured would fit nicely, it would be quite absurd to see portraits with the same clothes in the summer. I don't know if that would be possible/wouldnt be too much work with this game engine, but if I would suggest to change clothes during the seasons. If that's not possible then it would be more logical to see balts with summer clothing all the time versus winter furs all the time.
That's all for now, I think.
/\
DISREGARD THAT
more:
  • Clothes in general shouldn't be similar to slavs as traditional clothing and even recreations of ancient baltic ( IX - XII) clothing differ very much from slavic
 
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The new portraits. A rant in broken english? (or is that just insecurities of mine?)
index.php

The things about them that bugs me:
  • From what I've seen, for now they are for balts and eastern slavs only (maybe finougric too). My problem, as a lithuanian, would be that while lithuanians do look slavic, most of the east slavic people do not look like lithuanians. In fact, I can tell who is russian/of russian descent, or polish/of polish descent just by looking at their faces in the street. Poles are closer to lithuanians in the looks departament, but that may be because of close historical ties(and that is not in the game's timeline).
  • The faces. While I do like the faces of men, the faces of women look a little too eastern for balts. In my opinion they should be closer to western slavs (poles), or even norse for that matter (my great grandmother actually shares similarities a little bit with the norse portraits).
  • The old russian portraits (to me) seemed closer to reality than new (assuming these are new russian and not just baltic). Well, the male ones did. Most old russian women portraits seemed ugly and (in my opinion) even unrealistic. Why not just leave the old russian portraits and just rework the women?
  • The clothes. Personally, while for the winter, the clothes pictured would fit nicely, it would be quite absurd to see portraits with the same clothes in the summer. I don't know if that would be possible/wouldnt be too much work with this game engine, but if I would suggest to change clothes during the seasons. If that's not possible then it would be more logical to see balts with summer clothing all the time versus winter furs all the time.
That's all for now, I think.
/\
DISREGARD THAT
more:
  • Clothes in general shouldn't be similar to slavs as traditional clothing and even recreations of ancient baltic ( IX - XII) clothing differ very much from slavic
Queen of Poland on that picture seems to be using default European portraits.
So, perhaps this portrait set isn't for Slavs? Unless of course, these are new Russian portraits, which I doubt.
I'm not so sure whether these faces fit for the Finno-Ugric cultures, but they would be certainly better than default ones. Either these are re-doing of certain portraits, or they are specifically for Baltic peoples.
 
What about having events like if in battle, you save another character and then they are indebted to you and owe you a favor, or paying ransom and releasing a character from captivity? Would add extra flavor to the game.
 
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The new portraits. A rant in broken english? (or is that just insecurities of mine?)
index.php

The things about them that bugs me:
  • From what I've seen, for now they are for balts and eastern slavs only (maybe finougric too). My problem, as a lithuanian, would be that while lithuanians do look slavic, most of the east slavic people do not look like lithuanians. In fact, I can tell who is russian/of russian descent, or polish/of polish descent just by looking at their faces in the street. Poles are closer to lithuanians in the looks departament, but that may be because of close historical ties(and that is not in the game's timeline).
  • The faces. While I do like the faces of men, the faces of women look a little too eastern for balts. In my opinion they should be closer to western slavs (poles), or even norse for that matter (my great grandmother actually shares similarities a little bit with the norse portraits).
  • The old russian portraits (to me) seemed closer to reality than new (assuming these are new russian and not just baltic). Well, the male ones did. Most old russian women portraits seemed ugly and (in my opinion) even unrealistic. Why not just leave the old russian portraits and just rework the women?
  • The clothes. Personally, while for the winter, the clothes pictured would fit nicely, it would be quite absurd to see portraits with the same clothes in the summer. I don't know if that would be possible/wouldnt be too much work with this game engine, but if I would suggest to change clothes during the seasons. If that's not possible then it would be more logical to see balts with summer clothing all the time versus winter furs all the time.
That's all for now, I think.
/\
DISREGARD THAT
more:
  • Clothes in general shouldn't be similar to slavs as traditional clothing and even recreations of ancient baltic ( IX - XII) clothing differ very much from slavic

The portraits seem to be baltic only.
 
Don't do it, it's a trap!
What are you talking about; we Danes never trick anybody.
*Escorts richvh down into the dungeons*
 
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Except slavs and baltics are actually related peoples unlike the fenno-ugrics who aren't related to anyone.

1. Slavs and Balts are groups inside the Indo-European family like Finnics (Estonians, Finns, Ingrian, Karelians, Veps etc) are in the Finno-Ugric group. You are comparing something very big with something medium (apples and pears)

also, what do you mean by Finno-Ugrics not being related anymore?

Lithuanians definitively had more contact with the Slavs, but Livonians and Estonians were more closely related to the Fenno-Ugrics than the Slavs (Estonians still are). Livonian, Estonian, and Finnish, as well as the various dialects of Northern Russia (Siberia excluded) are all Uralic in origin.

Livonians and Estonians were and are Finno-Ugrics who had 0% Baltic-Slavic heritage, how can they be more closely related to themselves as they are the Finno-Ugrics.

The Livonians did stop the Baltic migration so much that in the course of human history, no Balts have ever lived on the territory of Estonia.

Yet lettish is a baltic language not a ugric one. In fact I can't find the words ugric urlic of finnish on the wikipedia article of lettish, lettgallian or curonoian. Can I have asource on lettish having anything besides a rough georgraphical area in common with estonians?

There are no Ugric languages spoken in Northern-Europe, Ugric languages are spoken in Hungary and Siberia. Lettish is a Baltic language but in the CK2 timeframe, most of the Lettish areas should be Livonian.

Lettish is a relatively modern language though, the people of modern Latvia would be speaking Livonian at the time of CK2, which was an Uralic language.

That's true, only modern-day eastern and southern parts of Latvia had a Baltic presence.

Except the people in latvia in ck2 are lettigallians not livonians. The livonians aren't distinguished from estonians in the game.
And the lettigallians were a baltic people.
Baltic and Fenno-Ugric shouldn't use the same face pack, east slavic and baltic would be way more fitting.

The Livonians were extremely close to the Estonians but yeah they should be different people. I also agree with you, Balts and East Slavs should use the same face packs.

Only at the coast of the Gulf of Riga The others would speak Lettigallian, Selonian, Semgallian or Curonian...

In the CK2 timeframe even the Livonian peninsula should be Livonian and also Central-Latvia should be Livonian. Currently only a small part of the true extent of the Livonians is seen in CK2. In the CK2 timeframe, Balts were a minority and lived on the southern parts of modern-day Latvia. Even in 1200, Livonians were the mayor power of Latvia., 500 years later than the Charlemagne start date.

Livonians were a distinct people though, distinct from both the Estonians and the Lettigalians, neither them nor Estonians have anything to do with Slavs or Slavic languages.

If anything, a split between the Southern Slavic-Baltics and Northern Uralic-descended Baltics should be made.

Estonians and Livonians are not Baltic in the first place, there is already a massive split in that field. Calling Northern-European Finno-Ugrics with a Nordic background, "Baltic" is something from 1920, Finns nor Estonians aren't Baltic and the Finns convinced other European states to stop calling them Baltic after WW2 when 3 of the 4 so called Baltic states were occupied.
 
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In the CK2 timeframe even the Livonian peninsula should be Livonian and also Central-Latvia should be Livonian. Currently only a small part of the true extent of the Livonians is seen in CK2. In the CK2 timeframe, Balts were a minority and lived on the southern parts of modern-day Latvia. Even in 1200, Livonians were the mayor power of Latvia., 500 years later than the Charlemagne start date.

Not really. The whole east of modern Latvia was Latgalian. As I said... it was mostly the Gulf of Riga which was Livonian.

Some maps:
senlatvijas-karte.jpg

image020.jpg