CK2 Dev Diary #52: Rhythm is a Lancer

[SchwarzKatze]

I guess the argument is that it's not a fun penalty. Fun penalties are things that players can overcome through their abilities and planning, randomness isn't something you can overcome.

Like the non-plague diseases?

 

[lokomoko]

Then do what every feudal lord who ever felt threatened in reality did, bend the knee to someone powerful enough to protect you.

You can't bend the knee as a one-province count to a count with double your land, men and tax (when you're already both subject to the same king/duke).

I have faith Paradox will balance it adequately, but I'm not entirely sure it'll end up being a worthwhile change.

 

[lokomoko]

Like the non-plague diseases?

Realism and fun have to be balanced. They've removed randomness a bit in the sense that they've added recruitable and trainable court physicians, as well as potions Hermetics can brew to cure mental afflictions. You can additionally take actions as a player that make it extremely difficult to die of normal diseases (WoL focuses), assuming you're below 50 or so.

 

[klopkr]

Well however you feel about this change I think nearly everyone can agree it would be nice to have unjustified wars as a game rule.

 

[TheDungen]

Good idea, but it raises a problem that has been seen time and time again. The AI cannot use a feature with restraint; we saw it with the Intrigue and Seduction foci, and with the secret cults. You put this in without safeguards, and every faith will be at MA0 in 2 years after game start.

Actually it's not that bad I added it long ago for muslims using the conquest cb on other muslims and while it does dip it doesn't really hit 0. Then again Muslims pretty much always have all their religious sites so it'd hit catholics harder.

 

[blaidd]

I haven't seen much discussion of how unjustified wars would work INSIDE of a kingdom. Prestige, threat, pope points, whatever... what about the relationships with your liege and fellow vassals? My family holds this castle in fief to a dude in a shiny hat and we've been here for a hundred years. If the knave in the next glen thinks he's going to ride over and burn it all down without even claiming that it used to belong to his great grandma's poodle, I expect that would have the potential to cause a serious upset in the realm. Maybe I'm an arbitrary cruel drunkard and the Council is like... you know, whatever, never liked that guy anyway... but, maybe I'm the king's best friend and hunting buddy. Or maybe the guy trying to take my land is. Or maybe one of us is actually a Councilor and has important friends. I feel like there are so many factors that could come into play. Some folks would probably hate it, but I think there should be a lot more opportunities for the other powerful nobles or even the King to intervene in an unjustified internal war if they greatly favor one side over the other, even without a formal alliance. Kind of like a Holy War. Could have an EU IV war declaration pop-up showing who is likely to take sides so it's not a surprise (surprises make bad game play mechanics for sure). Then you'd have some incentive to stay on good terms with the King and the superdukes before you make a move on some neighboring count and you'd need to consider that your rival from childhood has a big army and is likely to try to humiliate you in front of the whole realm.

Too complex, I imagine, but I'd love that game.

 

[Johuotar]

The Fabricate Claim job is bad for three main reasons:

• Unpredictable Time
• Unpredictable Cost
  
• Unpredictable Outcome

In this case, I prefer a solution that gives more direct player agency. (There will be appropriate penalties for using the new CB.)

My suggestion would be that after a certain time the chance to succeed is increased by amount that is dependant of the diplo skill of chancellor. For example: base 3% + 3 if skill 10 or more OR + 6 if skill 20 or more. This increase can be one time or repeating depending on what the result looks like in the testing.

The cost depends on your wealth so its not unpredictable. The result is either county or duchy, but it's almost always county so I don't see it as too unpredictable. It's just a nice surprise sometimes.

I like this mechanic because it allows taking counties that aren't bordering you. Nice for taking holy sites to reform faith.

 

[King Tony I]

Well, we are adding a bunch more CBs, mentioned in dev diary #50.

it looks like you want to simplify this game

It works, but IMO not very well. We're going to tread lightly though.

For me its better than the "new system", x2 of threath is nothing for me because i play with defensive pacts off...

PS: thanks for do a game rule for this

 

[JJness]

I'm honestly all for a unjustified war as long as theirs decent repracussions to using it. While still being useable. Also please keep fabricated claims. I enjoy the aspect of taking the years role playing that my guy is garnering support for me or making up fake historical right to some other guys land. I like taking a more patient and slightly rng route sometimes. But I'd definitely make use of a unjustified war if it's added.

 

[Admiral Fischer]

Ideally, I’d also like to replace the “Fabricate Claim” job with something else (maybe something to do with foreign embassies and arranging marriages, or something to do with Laws. Suggestions are welcome!) However, we might decide leave it there as it is (it does still have some uses.)

Perhaps it could be changed to less about plain claim fabrication and more about ancestral claim. Like, reviving forgotten claim on the Kingdom of Sweden from the character's great-great-grandfather, something like that.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Perhaps it could be changed to less about plain claim fabrication and more about ancestral claim. Like, reviving forgotten claim on the Kingdom of Sweden from the character's great-great-grandfather, something like that.

It'll become completely useless for the first century of the game though.

 

[Admiral Fischer]

It'll become completely useless for the first century of the game though.

For most of characters maybe, but there are many playable characters with some hundred years of character history, so it wouldn't be so useless.

 

[_Perun_]

it looks like you want to simplify this game

i play with defensive pacts off...

?

 

[AntZudan]

Please don't remove fabricated claims. It feels like an integral part of the game. Gives an important reason for imprisonment. And also gives good rp reasons for firing or conspiring against your useless Chancellor

 

[Kayden_II]

Funny since I have to say - Remove fabricated claims without any replacement since it's the most obvious reason for bordergore and claims (everywhere).

 

[malibooth]

A few thoughts about this.

Not at all sure about the idea of the unjustified war concept, sounds like it will make weaker starts impossible. Possible exception – tribal/nomadic rulers, because that’s probably historically correct, I doubt if the Vikings had a casus belli to conquer parts of England, it was just a case of might is right.

Maybe the Fabricate Claim should be reworked to turn no claim into a weak claim, and a weak claim into a strong one. Also allow your spymaster to go to the same place as the chancellor to boost the fabrication plot – which could lead to a new event where your spymaster reports that your chancellor has been bribed by the ruler.

Regarding sieges, there should be a chance that the garrison will come out and attack the besieging army, the chance being higher the more the defenders outnumber the besiegers. Obviously it might go wrong (fortunes of war), the siege will then continue with reduced number/morale for the defenders. Otherwise the siege is broken. This would make sieges more interesting, and stop those situations where a useless little army attempts to “besiege” a garrison that outnumbers it several times over.

Regarding war morale, maybe the difference in army numbers should have an effect on this. For example, if an attacker outnumbers the defender by 10 to 1, maybe the war score should jump to 90 per cent immediately, although if the defender calls in allies it can then go back down. I mention this because of the number of times I’ve seen hopeless wars drag on after one side has had their army smashed.

 

[PK_AZ]

I haven't seen much discussion of how unjustified wars would work INSIDE of a kingdom. Prestige, threat, pope points, whatever... what about the relationships with your liege and fellow vassals? My family holds this castle in fief to a dude in a shiny hat and we've been here for a hundred years. If the knave in the next glen thinks he's going to ride over and burn it all down without even claiming that it used to belong to his great grandma's poodle, I expect that would have the potential to cause a serious upset in the realm.

It seems EU4 HRE already has it done (unjustifed war against co-prince is an act of war against emperor).

 

[Andrelvis]

That makes no sense. Casus belli basically means "justification for war". You can not have an unjusitified justifiation for war as reason to go to war..

You can have a justification that is so flimsy that nobody really believes it, but still serves as an excuse. That's what those "unjustified war" CBs represent, it seems.

 

[Balesir]

A holding which has been built up to lvl6 fort level has a garrison of 2,3k-3k usually so you would need 25-30k troops to assault it anyway and your losses would still be high. I feel the disallowing assault is quite unnecessary in this case but oh well. We shall see what happens, I won't be optimistic. Paradox has always been god tier in concept and trash tier in balance.

I don't agree, either from a historic or a game perspective. With a L.6 castle you are talking Krak des Chevaliers or Chateau Galliard; armies of 30,000+ failed to assault such places. It really doesn't matter if you have an army of 100,000; as long as the garrison is fit, fed and has high morale such places are essentially un-assaultable. That is their purpose. You simply have to spend time and resources to "reduce" them before they will fall - or pull off a coup of intrigue or trickery. Having such places injects a stability that gives better gameplay, IMO.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Greetings all!

One of the great things about meeting our dear players - you folks - in real life (such as at PDXCON) is getting to hear such a lot of constructive, persuasive suggestions for improvements. For example, two things that were brought up last week were how annoying the “Fabricate Claim” job is, and the fact that Siege Assaults are rather overpowered when you have the numbers to just blitz down even heavily fortified Holdings. So, we decided to experiment with some changes…

First off, we’re going to deemphasize the “Fabricate Claim” job by giving all playable entities (including Christians) a form of “Unjustified War” Casus Belli that will allow you to seize a single County for an upfront cost of Piety, Prestige or Gold (depending on your Religion and Government Form.) Ideally, I’d also like to replace the “Fabricate Claim” job with something else (maybe something to do with foreign embassies and arranging marriages, or something to do with Laws. Suggestions are welcome!) However, we might decide leave it there as it is (it does still have some uses.)

Next, we’re adding a Game Rule for Siege Assaults. The options are “Unlimited”, which works like before, “On”, which disables Assaults against Holdings at Fort Level 6 or above, and “Off”, which disables Assaults entirely. We’re currently playing around with these changes, so the exact rules for the “On” setting might change. On a related note, the time it takes to siege down Holdings is also being tweaked, to make it quicker overall but also making the Fort Level matter more.

View attachment 268105

When we sat down and talked about the above tweaks, we also decided to (rather dramatically) increase the “Ticking Warscore” rate for the attackers in wars. This necessitated splitting some defines (CONTESTED_TITLE_OCCUPIED_WARSCORE_BONUS, etc) into defender and attacker versions.

We are still evaluating how well these changes turned out. It’s likely we’ll tweak some numbers (or even backtrack on something.) So far though, it appears quite promising, positively altering the “rhythm” of warfare!

View attachment 268104

That’s all for now, stay tuned for the CK2 livestream, starting at 16:00 CET today. Until next time!

As others have said, I think these are good changes but balance could be tricky.

As regards the "Fabricate Claim" job goes, I think it should stay as it gives you options for dealing with the internal organisation of your realm. This is particularly important in Republics where you can't usually take arbitrary actions.