Can generals be selected?

[GShock]

I thought we had this function but I can't seem to find out how to assign a general to an army.
I think the death rate in combat is somehow too low. Countless battles, never had a vassal (or myself killed). It looks like the only way to die is to die for seppuku, old age or resign. Shouldn't characters die more often? It's about war after all.

For example, if there's no retinue on the field, a vassal would be leading the levy. If the levy is destroyed, what happens to the vassal? When... is it possible to lose a character during a defensive siege?

I think this would add GREAT spice to the game (succession wars for leadership or for the control of a Kuni) and the AI could benefit (plotting has always a major chance of success when there are pretenders... and if a level1 leader dies, the level2 steps in but at level3 right below him there's more pretenders out of the pictures in each kuni that helps with seceding/plotting).

Ultimately, I think there's something wrong in the way revoke title / transfer vassal works. It looks like it cost ME more to revoke a title than for my vassal to refuse it. Shouldn't it be the other way round? It's the vassal who must abide to my wish, I am the leader and the buck stops here as they say.

Same goes for transferring.
If I have a vassal and I want him to be moved below the Daimyo of this vassal's kori, I shouldn't be paying so much honor (though YES I should be paying a lot with attitude on this moving vassal and the exact amount should be recovered with the daimyo of the land I am moving that vassal to).

For ease of explanation: If I transfer my own vassal of Satsuma to the Daimyo of Higo, I should not lose so much honor but I should lose attitude with the Vassal of Satsuma and WIN attitude with the Daimyo of Higo who's gaining a new vassal.


Finally, how comes the transfer vassal only works with your direct vassals? This doesn't make it much easier to organize the vassals. Following the aforementioned example, I moved the Kokujin of Satsuma to the Daimyo of Higo. There's no way to take that move back and I wish there was.
So... if I want the kokujin of Satsuma to come back with me as his Liege, I can't ask the Daimyo of Higo.
Are we crazy? The Daymio of Higo IS my vassal and all of his vassals are my vassals too... can we do something about it ?
:happy:

 

[womble]

I thought we had this function but I can't seem to find out how to assign a general to an army.
I think the death rate in combat is somehow too low. Countless battles, never had a vassal (or myself killed). It looks like the only way to die is to die for seppuku, old age or resign. Shouldn't characters die more often? It's about war after all.

Damn straight. Samurai Lords fought for glory. There would be deaths on both sides in any battle.

 

[GShock]

There's a subtle but important way things work here ... I know it's WAD but perhaps it shouldn't.
It appears that as the Leader may have Kokujin and Daimyo below his rule, the Daimyo seems to be unlinked to the territories of the kuni he refers to.

So, basically, you can name someone Daimyo without ever giving him a Kuni by simply giving him a single Kori. This makes him elegible for the title of Daymio whereas you can retain ALL of the kokujins of that kori under your rule (and not his).
This choice doesn't make much sense gamewise.

A Daymio without subjects is an empty shell. You may yourself give a guy 10 titles as Kokujin without ever making him a Daymio and you can even retain the title for yourself while still giving ALL the kokujin titles of that Kuni to anyone you like.

Considering the important factor in gameplay of managing vassals I think this is a TOP development priority to fix... because you can easily keep everyone under control by just making sure you have enough subjects to split your lands with. When no one of them can by himself fight your entire clan, the threat of civil war is non existent and this time I am sure it's not WAD.

In summary, if I have 30 Kori and hold 5 in my demeasne, I can have a guy handle at best 2 Kori. They will unendingly improve their lands and each of them has no power to rebel succesfully on his own, unless they all secede together (which is 99.99999999% impossible). It's an exploit of the game design a better designed Daymio title would surely fix.

1) a Kokujin must have a maximum limit of Kori you can give.
2) you must be forced to name Daymios and Daymios must be transferred control of the kokujins of their Kuni.

And finally, you must be allowed to do this under severe penalties if you don't but this means you must be able to transfer all vassals not just your direct ones (someone's kokujin is still your vassal even if indirectly).

Mods, please update thread title.
Devs, please advise on the issue.

 

[unperson]

The strategy you describe is not a good idea.

If every vassals only has 2 kori you won't get any tax from them(or maybe very little). There more land they have the more tax you get but there is a limit income under what they don't to pay anything.

Also your vassals can gain new land by taking kori with their personal retinues, it won't be long before the system of 2 kori/vassal breaks apart and some vassals will have more land, then the more land they have, the easier it will be for them to gain even more...

Also if you plot and people join you that way the system is broken again..and if your not plotting, well your missing out

 

[GShock]

Whatever number of provinces you give your vassal he will still give you the same % of its income bc if he doesn't give you, the others will with the lands you gave them instead of him. The AI beats the minimum $ big time because it develops much much faster than the player (a la paradox, it's a design choice shared with all paradox games of this type).

The real issue here is daymios with 1 province and no vassals to control and a more general way to see the title of Daymio in Sengoku like a honorific title attached to 1 kori (which allows you to give that title) but, under all aspects, treated the same as the title of Kokujin (3 honor boost for giving it out). Sure... the Daimyo can conquer new lands and give them to his own Kokujins, but when and how many since you have access to all levies and he just accesses his retinue? Even if he gets to some castle before you, the enemy AI will most of the times repel him and you get there and take the land for yourself not for him.

The thing with 2kori/vassal was just an example to show how impossibly they would be at breaking from your clan and how uselessly to plot against you but the real issue is with Daymios.
Let's not forget you may also retain such title for yourself once you capture the original Daymio. You can give all kori to different kokujins hence keep the title which in this case is not linked at all to the territories nor does it seem to give any benefit and that's another "candy" to change IMO.

 

[unperson]

Whatever number of provinces you give your vassal he will still give you the same % of its income bc if he doesn't give you, the others will with the lands you gave them instead of him.

Nope, it doesn't work like that. As I said there is a tax limit. You can check it easily. Load up as Nanbu and give 1 province each to 4 different vassals and look at your income. Then restart and give all 4 provinces to 1 vassal, check your income again. The vassals with 1 province won't pay you any tax.

Of course they will improve the provinces a lot faster but for a long time you won't get any money from them, and in the long run you will get more tax from 5 province vassals.

Btw don't underestimate how strong daimyos can become. This is my strongest vassal from my latest game. He did start with a strong position but after a while he got way powerfull, actually more powerfull then me and all my other vassals combines. My only luck was that I had a 25 diplo clan leader so he didn't rebel.
The map shows all the provinces + vassals of the daimyo.



And I often see daimyos getting realy powerfull in AI clans too.

 

[GShock]

The tax limit you mentioned doesn't change mathematics. The time it takes for 1 province to exceed the limit and start giving a % of its revenue is the time its vassal takes to upgrade it (and it does faster than you). In the end, all provinces build revenue and it might seem odd but a vassal who manages 1 Kori should be far more effective than a vassal managing 5 or 10 because he is supposed to be more attentive to the province needs and production.

However, as I said, the real problem here is the title of Daymio being dislinked from the Kuni itself. As it is, we have an honorific title which allows sub-vassals (the Kokujins) but the Daimyo as it stands is not necessarily linked to a Kori. It's rather linked, initially, to a character.

Once that character is eliminated, the clan leader assumes this title which is worth 3 honor points (and it should be much higher than that). You may choose to retain it for yourself or assign it to someone else. In the example of a 5 province Kuni, In the first case, you keep the Daymio title for yourself and may assign 5 kokujins. They will be your direct vassals but nobody can have the title of Daymio EXCEPT any of those 5.
So we have a situation with a daymio having no land of his own and kokujins managing the kuni. The title itself can only be passed to any of these 5 but you can keep it without a direct control over the Kuni. If one or ALL of these Kokujin secede, you will keep the title WITHOUT the land which is totally absurd.

In the second case, you may give a kokujin who has land in this kuni the title of Daymio but retain the other 4 Kokujins. So you gain 3 honor for the Kokujin and 3 more for the Daymio and there you go you have a Daymio with just 1 Kori, he's supposed to manage all the Kuni but YOU are the Liege of the vassals of his Kuni. You have created an empty title, robbed 6 honor points and made sure this Daymio will most likely never secede.
Even if his ambition was high and he did secede bby joining a plot, he'd bring ONE kori with him against your whole clan empire... in the game it is possible of course but realistically he would never do that because he would be crushed. Realistically speaking what chances does a low power Daymio like that to grab new lands? Virtually none since he has a very limited number of retainers while YOU control his levy. The more he upgrades, the more Levies you get and with the game going on and castles being developed he doesn't have the power to win a siege.

I am just trying to say if the Daymio was linked to the Kuni so that essentially when you create one, the owners of those Kori are transferred to him, the game would work more in a historical way and I would like to know if steps could be taken in this direction for a future patch.
Possible steps may follow the guideline of events so that Daymios actually ask you to transfer the Kokujins of his kuni under his control rather than asking new kokujin titles somewhere else. This means you must be allowed to transfer ALL vassals not just your direct ones and since it implies heavy honor losses at present time I am proposing an attitude variation instead of honor variation when transferring vassals.

I'd love to know what the DEVs think of this idea (of course I'd love to know what EVERYONE thinks of the Daymio title as it is right now as well).

 

[delra]

Wasn't it like that in Crusader Kings?

My own idea would be:

- Kokujins automatically get transferred under the Daimyo once Daimyo title is assigned.
- Holding Daimyo titles from your vassals should be penalized with global lower vassal loyalty. You are supposed to make them dukes after all and it's an exploit not to do it.
- A loyal and happy Daimyo should be willing to give up control of a province he took outside of his assigned kuni so you can just ask them to give up lands and reorganize the whole blob you've just conquered regardless of who took that land.
- When you are a Daimyo under a clan leader, you'd get a pop-up asking you to give land back and you'd be able to refuse it. AI Daimyos wouldn't refuse though.
- We should be able to promote Kokujins from under Daimyos into Daimyo titles making them our own direct vassals rather than staying under their current master. Reverse transfer vassal basically.

 

[unmerged(382543)]

Actually if you decide to have fifty direct vassals with just two shares of land it becomes more likely that they WILL all join a plot to leave your clan because they will have constant penalties from denied promises and never will they have the boost from being granted titles. Note though that they are not limited to plots where they must be able to fight you off on their own power- they can, and in all probability would, join the plots of AI clans to attack you. Due to the bad relations and the vast treasuries of many large AI clan leaders they should very much be ready to jump into such plots.

And besides- you want to give them at least 3 provinces so that they don't keep building a castle in the same one because the master of ceremonies is going to be gone for another two days. Doing the earlier improvements in several provinces gets you cash and troops much sooner than maxing one before you work on another (specifically tier 1, 3, and 5 have the largest impacts.)
I bump them up to five a little later on as I take territory already improved by other clans for the tax reasons and eventually make them Daimyos as I attempt to keep few enough direct vassals that I can fulfill a few promises yet enough of them that they won't try to form their own clan purely because I'm fighting a difficult war.

Family relation bonuses could probably mitigate the risk a good deal but you can't pump out kids quite fast enough to have one for every two titles you grab up and by electing a ton of them you'll definitely get some prick trying to claim clan heir- and taking care of that can really slow down your war efforts.

 

[Madman01]

Countless battles, never had a vassal (or myself killed).

I had a vassal (age 37) die while besieging a castle. He wasn't in charge of the seige, but he was one of two generals there. Was he killed in battle? I don't know, because they never tell us what a person died from; all I got was the notice that his 1 year old son was the new kokujin.

 

[delra]

Sometimes you are stuck with an army without a general, and can't select a new one. That's the worst part of this mechanic.

 

[James_Manring]

Sometimes you are stuck with an army without a general, and can't select a new one. That's the worst part of this mechanic.

If you go to reorganize that army, it will organize a second army with a general. You can then transfer every unit to that army. When the first army no longer has a unit it will then get a general too. You can then look at both of their stats and move all of the units to the general with the best stat. It is annoying, but it does solve the problem of having no general.

 

[GShock]

Problems with generals are related to sudden deaths and transfer of vassals. When the army changes retinue leader and the leader is a minor for example but it's no big deal (there's another thread for infos on that).

I think the game portraits the attrition between vassals and lieges pretty well. What remains really is the ability to organize all vassals so that Daimyos ask for lands to set their own Kokujins. I find it really unacceptable that revoking titles and transferring vassals is so expensive on honor when it should be on attitude but the real problem (to me at least) is that Daymios are not strictly linked to the lands of their Kuni. If the transferring of lands/vassals is limited to your own vassals only then it's impossible to fix this problem. As of Daymios wanting their kuni, this can be done with events (andmore lands out of their kuni is already taken care for with them asking you as it is right now).

I just hope something can be done to address this. For example, if I want the Kuni of Satsuma and I am Shimazu clan leader, I can't stand the fact it costs me so much honor to claim what is mine from my vassals in Taki and Satsuma. That's all right to lose honor but if my vassal denies my request he should lose much more than me (which would force him to give me the land back sooner than it does now).

System is not flawless but not bad either and can be bettered, imo. Still waiting for an opiniion from the DEVs. That counts a lot to me.
And Ah... I can't wait for the new Dev diary!