In CK1 4/5 court members simply added one of your stats to your own. This would create problems with balance issues because you could stack the two togther and get ungodly stats. In addition the use of stats made it too compelling for the player to swap out the character for one with the highest stat.
First thing would be to make only the character with the highest stat matter, ie the ruler or the adviser, not both. Thus if your King has 8 Marshal and your Marshal has 6, only the King's score counts. This would make regencies and weak ruler more beholden to their advisers, but a strong ruler could easily maneuver without such worries.
Second, like vassals these court positions generally had some history to them and often a ruler couldn't just chose anyone to replace them. This is true even when one of the characters died. This gives more problems with keeping a highly skilled chancellor to compensate for your lack of diplomatic skills as his skills deteriorate when he develops manic depression. He might have to make a great blunder before you can really kick him out and if his family is powerful then it might have repercussions even then.
Finally, these advisers should get regular pay from the treasury instead of it magically appearing. This could give the ruler a good incentive to fire his steward and not hire a new one if there's no one decent to fill the role and suffer through the other negative consequences, such as probably negative prestige for being seen as too poor (or stingy) to have a fully stocked advisory court.
First thing would be to make only the character with the highest stat matter, ie the ruler or the adviser, not both. Thus if your King has 8 Marshal and your Marshal has 6, only the King's score counts. This would make regencies and weak ruler more beholden to their advisers, but a strong ruler could easily maneuver without such worries.
Second, like vassals these court positions generally had some history to them and often a ruler couldn't just chose anyone to replace them. This is true even when one of the characters died. This gives more problems with keeping a highly skilled chancellor to compensate for your lack of diplomatic skills as his skills deteriorate when he develops manic depression. He might have to make a great blunder before you can really kick him out and if his family is powerful then it might have repercussions even then.
Finally, these advisers should get regular pay from the treasury instead of it magically appearing. This could give the ruler a good incentive to fire his steward and not hire a new one if there's no one decent to fill the role and suffer through the other negative consequences, such as probably negative prestige for being seen as too poor (or stingy) to have a fully stocked advisory court.
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