Is paradox really telling us all to quit the game?

[bfunk86]

That was... very poor phrasing on my part, and the criticism it's caused is completely justified.

The question as posed in the Q&A suggests that increased difficulty is an easy fix that we're just choosing not to do. What I was trying to say is that it's not that straightforward; it's hard to make content that's challenging for veteran players without wiping new players out, but that doesn't mean we're not trying. We just want difficulty that's fun to engage with, and not frustrating.

We want to make the player lose in ways that encourages them to adapt their strategy and try again, rather than sit there looking at a game over screen feeling like the game screwed them over with mechanics that were incomprehensible or completely out of their control. There's already a variety of ways to crank the difficulty up by artificially boosting the AI or hobbling the player themselves via game rules, but given that the discussion around difficulty persists I think it's safe to say that even the veteran players feel that's not an acceptable solution to the problem. And to be clear, I do consider it a problem.

Part of the disconnect I think is it seems like a lot of the team (not just you) give the impression that it comes down to just the players abusing modifier stacking or optimizing builds saying the game is too easy. It isn't. There's a very large segment of the player base that doesn't do those things and the game is still far too easy.

Diplo range (or at least alliance range) should be heavily nerfed for lower tier lords in my opinion. It makes no sense a one count minor in southwestern france can ally with a lord with 5 times his troops in eastern Poland in the 9th century and effectively immunize himself from invasion by AI players because of a total-allied-troops count that exceeds their own. Nobody was doing this in the 8 or 900s. It should be a lot more local, and the player should be forced to learn his nearby counts likes and dislikes because they should be the only ones he should be concerned with. It would make the player actually care about intrigue on the local level.

Lieges need to have some kind of recognition of threat by expansionist vassals. As it is I can be a one count minor under a Duke with 8 vassals, and as long as I chip away at them one at a time I can gobble up the majority of territory in his own Duchy in less than a decade -- with help from foreign lords rampaging through his territory no less! -- while he apparently remains completely unaware at the existential threat developing under him. Why does no one care that Count BillyBob appears to be finding claims to foreign lands under his bed every 3 years? Wouldn't people eventually say, "wait a minute..." A straight up cooldown would probably feel too artificial here, but there's got to be an immersive way for other lords to call BS once in awhile.

The economy...there's nearly everything wrong here if you ask me. The economy only truly feels balanced for lords with less than maybe 3 titles. I don't know the solution, but it's far far too easy to make money quickly. The things that are intended as money sinks can easily be avoided without real penalty early on, and the player is so quickly rolling in cash that they don't even need to avoid them after the 2nd generation and can spend with abandon. It would maybe feel less bad if it didn't seem like the AI completely squanders their own money and posed a legitimate threat, but as it is this one requires serious work and I can kind of get why you guys haven't tackled it yet.

 

[klopkr]

Ok but with all the mentioning of CK2 being 'as easy' lets all recognize that the council mechanics of CK2 that came with conclave actually added some challenge to internal realm management... at least until you revoked all their voting rights.

 

[ray243]

Part of the disconnect I think is it seems like a lot of the team (not just you) give the impression that it comes down to just the players abusing modifier stacking or optimizing builds saying the game is too easy. It isn't. There's a very large segment of the player base that doesn't do those things and the game is still far too easy.

Diplo range (or at least alliance range) should be heavily nerfed for lower tier lords in my opinion. It makes no sense a one count minor in southwestern france can ally with a lord with 5 times his troops in eastern Poland in the 9th century and effectively immunize himself from invasion by AI players because of a total-allied-troops count that exceeds their own. Nobody was doing this in the 8 or 900s. It should be a lot more local, and the player should be forced to learn his nearby counts likes and dislikes because they should be the only ones he should be concerned with. It would make the player actually care about intrigue on the local level.

Lieges need to have some kind of recognition of threat by expansionist vassals. As it is I can be a one count minor under a Duke with 8 vassals, and as long as I chip away at them one at a time I can gobble up the majority of territory in his own Duchy in less than a decade -- with help from foreign lords rampaging through his territory no less! -- while he apparently remains completely unaware at the existential threat developing under him. Why does no one care that Count BillyBob appears to be finding claims to foreign lands under his bed every 3 years? Wouldn't people eventually say, "wait a minute..." A straight up cooldown would probably feel too artificial here, but there's got to be an immersive way for other lords to call BS once in awhile.

The economy...there's nearly everything wrong here if you ask me. The economy only truly feels balanced for lords with less than maybe 3 titles. I don't know the solution, but it's far far too easy to make money quickly. The things that are intended as money sinks can easily be avoided without real penalty early on, and the player is so quickly rolling in cash that they don't even need to avoid them after the 2nd generation and can spend with abandon. It would maybe feel less bad if it didn't seem like the AI completely squanders their own money and posed a legitimate threat, but as it is this one requires serious work and I can kind of get why you guys haven't tackled it yet.

Most feudal lords accumulate wealth only in the form and size of their lands. It comes down to CK3 making development very easy and allows players to keep building things that don't have entropy or increasing upkeeps. Old buildings should require greater and greater upkeep over time, and players just should be spending a lot of their wealth just maintaining their status as it is for the most part.

 

[ArynI]

That was... very poor phrasing on my part, and the criticism it's caused is completely justified.

The question as posed in the Q&A suggests that increased difficulty is an easy fix that we're just choosing not to do. What I was trying to say is that it's not that straightforward; it's hard to make content that's challenging for veteran players without wiping new players out, but that doesn't mean we're not trying. We just want difficulty that's fun to engage with, and not frustrating.

We want to make the player lose in ways that encourages them to adapt their strategy and try again, rather than sit there looking at a game over screen feeling like the game screwed them over with mechanics that were incomprehensible or completely out of their control. There's already a variety of ways to crank the difficulty up by artificially boosting the AI or hobbling the player themselves via game rules, but given that the discussion around difficulty persists I think it's safe to say that even the veteran players feel that's not an acceptable solution to the problem. And to be clear, I do consider it a problem.

I appreciate your answer. May I ask what exactly are you doing or preparing in the context of chalenge for this year? I don't mean that in a bad way but whenever the topic of difficulty is discussed here or on reddit its remains usually unaswered or - when it gains a lot of likes - the statement is along the lines that you consider it an issue but want to come with meaningful way how to solve it without just buffing AI. Thats aproach I love in theory. But game was published in 2020 and situation is still the same, your answers are still the same while difficulty remains significantly below the average rpg/strategy you can find on the market. It makes me little sad because the concept of the game is such unique and great... so why not to tailor difficulty for each group of players as they would like??

 

[ray243]

I appreciate your answer. May I ask what exactly are you doing or preparing in the context of chalenge for this year? I don't mean that in a bad way but whenever the topic of difficulty is discussed here or on reddit its remains usually unaswered or - when it gains a lot of likes - the statement is along the lines that you consider it an issue but want to come with meaningful way how to solve it without just buffing AI. Thats aproach I love in theory. But game was published in 2020 and situation is still the same, your answers are still the same while difficulty remains significantly below the average rpg/strategy you can find on the market. It makes me little sad because the concept of the game is such unique and great... so why not to tailor difficulty for each group of players as they would like??

Honestly we really just need a sort of scaling difficulty. The bigger your empire, the more challenge you face in ruling it.

That and also making established dynasty decline if there's a run of several bad rulers.

 

[Benismann]

Honestly we really just need a sort of scaling difficulty. The bigger your empire, the more challenge you face in ruling it.

That and also making established dynasty decline if there's a run of several bad rulers.

I may be biased, but I would bet lategame challenges like that is something paradox can totally add without upsetting anyone, because ruling a massive empire/dynasty with no friction is sad and boring even for more casual players

 

[ray243]

I may be biased, but I would bet lategame challenges like that is something paradox can totally add without upsetting anyone, because ruling a massive empire/dynasty with no friction is sad and boring even for more casual players

Right now they only add challenge only in form of external challenges and not internal challenges. Conquerors and black deaths etc. Which isn't the kind of friction that's really fun to play.

Even introducing something like distance to capital or distance to liege penalty might offer something more challenging.

 

[TripleAgent]

Honestly, one thing that would potentially make late-game snowballs more interesting to play against would be implementing the current stability rule options on a more granular level; being able to run around doing things as a lowly count or duke should be fairly easy and straightforward, but the difficulty in holding together lands and peoples should ramp up as soon as you start getting to Kingdom/Empire levels. I hate that I can put together an empire in less than 50 years in that will largely last for the rest of the game; when my great conqueror of a character dies, there should be a chance for chaos, but instead it always seems to veer towards stability. Buffing local religious and cultural rebellions to be more than just flies to swat would probably go a long way towards fixing the snowballing issue as well.

Again, I think that the "difficulty" issue that PDX has talked about in the past re: new players has been greatly mitigated by having a fallback role as adventurer that you can then work through to return to power.

 

[ray243]

Honestly, one thing that would potentially make late-game snowballs more interesting to play against would be implementing the current stability rule options on a more granular level; being able to run around doing things as a lowly count or duke should be fairly easy and straightforward, but the difficulty in holding together lands and peoples should ramp up as soon as you start getting to Kingdom/Empire levels. I hate that I can put together an empire in less than 50 years in that will largely last for the rest of the game; when my great conqueror of a character dies, there should be a chance for chaos, but instead it always seems to veer towards stability. Buffing local religious and cultural rebellions to be more than just flies to swat would probably go a long way towards fixing the snowballing issue as well.

Again, I think that the "difficulty" issue that PDX has talked about in the past re: new players has been greatly mitigated by having a fallback role as adventurer that you can then work through to return to power.

Or even the last surviving heir of the dynasty going into exile if main dynasty is overthrown. Maybe they get lucky and keep their estates.

 

[Voidian]

Honestly we really just need a sort of scaling difficulty. The bigger your empire, the more challenge you face in ruling it.

That and also making established dynasty decline if there's a run of several bad rulers.

The real issues with the game arise long before you can even form an empire.

As a duke, without any exploits it's perfectly possible to beat every single army in the game, by stackwipe, and even the mongol invasion with extreme issue, addressing this does nothing to the state of the game, there's a lot that needs fixing before we even get to that

In fact, it can even be done as a Count without any vassals, you just need the income to sustan a single, or 2 full MAA stacks and station them in proper buildings, that's all it takes to break the game, a few thousand varangians stationed with tier 2~3 barracks and possibly a blacksmith. And even the full force of an entire religion, like a Crusade or Jihad, can be beaten.

Hell even a few average knights with some cultural bonuses, a skill tree with very low level skills and (proably unecessary) a ducal building can do the same, stackwiping every army in the planet, and they don't even cost any gold.

Anything that doesn't address this won't change the game, at all.

The game doesn't lose it's point when you're an emperor and there's nothing higher to reach for, and no opponent in the map, it happens even if you're trying to play as a count or duke under an empire, and your own emperor try to do something to you, you get to tell them "no", and you beat the crap out of your own emperor the instant your armies encounter one another.

And then you go out of your way to conquer entire kingdoms/empires on your own, while staying under your emperor, because even as a count/duke there is, already, no challenge in the game.

This suggestion would probably change the world for worse, if those changes affect the AI, which already fails at keeping kingdoms and empires together, I'd imagine it would still be trivial for the player to ignore those modifiers, stackwipe any possible rebellions the instant they trigger, but the AI would never be able to keep a kingdom together.

It's like playing on low realm stability and apocalyptic plagues all over the world, it actually makes the game even easier for the player.

 

[ray243]

The real issues with the game arise long before you can even form an empire.

As a duke, without any exploits it's perfectly possible to beat every single army in the game, by stackwipe, and even the mongol invasion with extreme issue, addressing this does nothing to the state of the game, there's a lot that needs fixing before we even get to that

In fact, it can even be done as a Count without any vassals, you just need the income to sustan a single, or 2 full MAA stacks and station them in proper buildings, that's all it takes to break the game, a few thousand varangians stationed with tier 2~3 barracks and possibly a blacksmith. And even the full force of an entire religion, like a Crusade or Jihad, can be beaten.

Hell even a few average knights with some cultural bonuses, a skill tree with very low level skills and (proably unecessary) a ducal building can do the same, stackwiping every army in the planet, and they don't even cost any gold.

Anything that doesn't address this won't change the game, at all.

The game doesn't lose it's point when you're an emperor and there's nothing higher to reach for, and no opponent in the map, it happens even if you're trying to play as a count or duke under an empire, and your own emperor try to do something to you, you get to tell them "no", and you beat the crap out of your own emperor the instant your armies encounter one another.

And then you go out of your way to conquer entire kingdoms/empires on your own, while staying under your emperor, because even as a count/duke there is, already, no challenge in the game.

This suggestion would probably change the world for worse, if those changes affect the AI, which already fails at keeping kingdoms and empires together, I'd imagine it would still be trivial for the player to ignore those modifiers, stackwipe any possible rebellions the instant they trigger, but the AI would never be able to keep a kingdom together.

It's like playing on low realm stability and apocalyptic plagues all over the world, it actually makes the game even easier for the player.

The point is you can make things easier the more you grow in power currently. Yes you can win with just being a count or a duke, but in the end, it's missing the point here.

The point isn't how well you can defeat someone, but rather the game should scale in challenges the longer you play. Even if you fix the AI issue it isn't going to make the long term campaign more fun because you're still stuck with the same problem. The longer you play, the easier the game gets.

 

[Voidian]

The point is you can make things easier the more you grow in power currently. Yes you can win with just being a count or a duke, but in the end, it's missing the point here.

The point isn't how well you can defeat someone, but rather the game should scale in challenges the longer you play. Even if you fix the AI issue it isn't going to make the long term campaign more fun because you're still stuck with the same problem. The longer you play, the easier the game gets.

No, the point is quite literally how easy it is to beat everyone, you're missing the entire point of the thread, nothing matters until the base systems are fixed. And the AI can learn how the game works.

Yes, the longer you play the easier the game gets, it has nothing to do with vassal opinions or realm size.

Hell, right now I could start a game and piss off my entire empire with a permanent -100 relations with everyone and other than the annoying muder attempts, the game would still be trivial, more annoying, sure, but trivial. Revolts have no meaning when you can beat them with ease on your own.

Likewise having upkeep costs won't mean anything while the money left over is still enough to fully develop my own domain, while the AI doesn't keep up.

Those are future problems that also need to be addressed (and to some extent, they have already) after the core of the game is fixed, great conquerors can already make empires that should, in theory, be on par with the player's, but they still lose to count/duke level players, just like all the other empires & kingdoms in the world.

Any suggestion, issue, difficulty or problem that can be stackwiped by 2k varangians is not really relevant and won't solve anything. Until this is even a possibility in the game, the game's broken beyond repair.

 

[Chaotic_Good]

The problem with Ck3 is that it's like Eu4 at its worst.

They keep releasing content while still failing to fix core issues and accumulating more bugs with each release.

The AI is laughable, the economy is nonexistent, the warfare is a disaster, and the star mechanic, character management, is very flat with barely any interaction between characters.

There's also the issue of immersion; playing a german count is exactly the same as playing a chinese one.

This isn't solved by adding more playable maps.

 

[ray243]

No, the point is quite literally how easy it is to beat everyone, you're missing the entire point of the thread, nothing matters until the base systems are fixed. And the AI can learn how the game works.

It doesn't matter because the game offers snowballing modifiers and stat stacking. Once you did it first it will soon spiral anyway.

Yes, the longer you play the easier the game gets, it has nothing to do with vassal opinions or realm size.

I'm not talking about vassal opinions or realm size. I'm saying the stats stacking makes it easier to make vassal likes you and keep realm size huge because things evolve to a more stable and powerful state for the player.

Hell, right now I could start a game and piss off my entire empire with a permanent -100 relations with everyone and other than the annoying muder attempts, the game would still be trivial, more annoying, sure, but trivial. Revolts have no meaning when you can beat them with ease on your own.

Likewise having upkeep costs won't mean anything while the money left over is still enough to fully develop my own domain, while the AI doesn't do it to theirs

Those are future problems that also need to be addressed (and to some extent, they have already) after the core of the game is fixed, great conquerors can already make empires that should, in theory, be on par with the player's, but they still lose to count/duke level players, just like all the other empires & kingdoms in the world.

Any suggestion, issue, difficulty or problem that can be stackwiped by 2k varangians is not really relevant and won't solve anything. Until this is even a possibility in the game, the game's broken beyond repair.

Again, the issue is to remove stat and modifier stacking to begin with. Okay, so if they make an AI that can also know how to station MAA and get all the modifiers bonus as well as the player. Now what? It just becomes a game that still offers the higher tier rulers more modifier advantage as they have access to either more developed capitals or better MAA like Varangians while the your Strategos can't recruit Varangians.

 

[Voidian]

The problem with Ck3 is that it's like Eu4 at its worst.

They keep releasing content while still failing to fix core issues and accumulating more bugs with each release.

The AI is laughable, the economy is nonexistent, the warfare is a disaster, and the star mechanic, character management, is very flat with barely any interaction between characters.

There's also the issue of immersion; playing a german count is exactly the same as playing a chinese one.

This isn't solved by adding more playable maps.

To be fair the immersion part is starting to get fixed.

Yes, tribals are still using a placeholder system with feudal mechanics, everyone else was doing the same.

But in LoP they added proper clan mechanics to differentiate muslins from christians.

Admin governments now have their own unique mechanics as well.

Landless is also a different experience.

Nomads are getting their own unique mechanics soon

I'm sure there's a unique system planed for asian countries as well, but soon it won't be possible to say that everyone plays the same as feudal christian anymore.

 

[Voidian]

It doesn't matter because the game offers snowballing modifiers and stat stacking. Once you did it first it will soon spiral anyway.






I'm not talking about vassal opinions or realm size. I'm saying the stats stacking makes it easier to make vassal likes you and keep realm size huge because things evolve to a more stable and powerful state for the player.




Again, the issue is to remove stat and modifier stacking to begin with. Okay, so if they make an AI that can also know how to station MAA and get all the modifiers bonus as well as the player. Now what? It just becomes a game that still offers the higher tier rulers more modifier advantage as they have access to either more developed capitals or better MAA like Varangians while the your Strategos can't recruit Varangians.

Yes, the stats can be stacked when you're tiny, and really, it's not even about bloat or stacking mechanics from different expansions, the core, base mechanics already break the game, as I was mentioning, a tier2~3 barracks and perhaps a blacksmith is -all- you need to lose all interest in a game and feel forced to start over. We don't even need to get into how cultures or accolades screwed up the balance further, yes, those are also issues, but they are so far down the line of what needs to be fixed that changing them right now, without addressing the core issues would do absolutely nothing.

And like I said, even if all vassals hated you the game would still be trivial and boring, that is not the issue. Not yet anyway.

Now what? Now the game's mostly fixed, the rules may be bad but if every single army in the planet is keeping up with you the game's going to be challenging, if every enemy can punch back at the same height as the player then no war would ever be trivial, the game would be, mostly, "fixed".

Then we could discuss how not having formations, combat phases, flanks, sub commanders, coalitions, war exhaustion, manpower, -insert new suggestion here- etc... Makes the game less interesting and how these things should be added, but at least the game wouldn't be broken.

Like I said, any suggestion given that can't be fixed by just marching 2 full MAA stacks (or a couple dozen knights) and stackwiping the supposed "problems" is not worth discussing right now, this part needs to get out of the way above all else. Whether it's the core systems changing, the AI being improved, or some weird difficulty option, it's all the same to me as long as the result is achieved.

I've said this as half a joke, but it wasn't really a joke, I don't even care if they had to add aircraft carriers or battleships to make the AI more challenging at this point, if it fixes the game I don't really care about anything else.

 

[ray243]

Yes, the stats can be stacked when you're tiny, and really, it's not even about bloat or stacking mechanics from different expansions, the core, base mechanics already break the game, as I was mentioning, a tier2~3 barracks and perhaps a blacksmith is -all- you need to lose all interest in a game and feel forced to start over. We don't even need to get into how cultures or accolades screwed up the balance further, yes, those are also issues, but they are so far down the line of what needs to be fixed that changing them right now, without addressing the core issues would do absolutely nothing.

If we are to keep some sort of modifier/stats bonus, then those investment should cost a lot of time, money and resources. And those stats should not be permanent but something you have to constantly invest in.

A small count shouldn't find it easy to build a padded-stats MAA unit anyway to begin with.

And like I said, even if all vassals hated you the game would still be trivial and boring, that is not the issue. Not yet anyway.

Now what? Now the game's mostly fixed, the rules may be bad but if every single army in the planet is keeping up with you the game's going to be challenging, if every enemy can punch back at the same height as the player then no war would ever be trivial, the game would be, mostly, "fixed".

Then we could discuss how not having formations, combat phases, flanks, sub commanders, etc... Makes the game less interesting and how these things should be added, but at least the game wouldn't be broken.

The solution isn't to keep adding more and more options for players to win against AI, but rather level the playing field by streamlining and reduce the various ways a player can make decisions to defeat an AI.

The game so far is designed like a race to the finish line in terms of attaching modifiers and stats to your army. I just don't think this is really fun in any way.

 

[Voidian]

If we are to keep some sort of modifier/stats bonus, then those investment should cost a lot of time, money and resources. And those stats should not be permanent but something you have to constantly invest in.

A small count shouldn't find it easy to build a padded-stats MAA unit anyway to begin with.




The solution isn't to keep adding more and more options for players to win against AI, but rather level the playing field by streamlining and reduce the various ways a player can make decisions to defeat an AI.

The game so far is designed like a race to the finish line in terms of attaching modifiers and stats to your army. I just don't think this is really fun in any way.

WIth that I don't disagree, I think it's unlikely they'd change all of the systems completely to change the nature of the game, but if you could convince them to do it I'd support you.

But I'm guessing it's far more reallistic to expect them to teach the AI how to use the current systems as they work right now and keep up with the player, like I said, that isn't "the" fix for every problem in the game, it wouldn't get the AI, or the challenge issue to the finish line, it would just get them to the starting line, right now it doesn't even do that.

The AI needs to improve several times over to reach the level of "too easy" or "terrible", that's why I keep saying it's not even bad, it's turned off.

IE: I'd be okay with an AI that keeps up or surpasses even the best players trying to stack stats.

But at this point, since it seems like an emergency, i'd also be okay with a blanked baindaid fix that removed all stat modifiers from the game, knights and made every unit, MAA and levy have the exact same stats.

It's the same issue with the Stellaris pop system they had to nerf over and over again, great idea, I really like the pops as a concept, but if they are making the game unplayable (and they were, before they were artificially gutted in a "recent" patch, not because of balance, performance) I'd prefer to not have them at all. The same goes for Vic3 requiring over 34gb ram and a next gen CPU to handle anything past the midgame, I really like knowing that there's a province in Canada in which 5 muslins live, and 2 of them are radicals, but if that's the reason the game's running so poorly I'd rather not have that mechanic at all.

 

[ray243]

WIth that I don't disagree, I think it's unlikely they'd change all of the systems completely to change the nature of the game, but if you could convince them to do it I'd support you.

But I'm guessing it's far more reallistic to expect them to teach the AI how to use the current systems as they work right now and keep up with the player, like I said, that isn't "the" fix for every problem in the game, it wouldn't get the AI, or the challenge issue to the finish line, it would just get them to the starting line, right now it doesn't even do that.

The AI needs to improve several times over to reach the level of "too easy" or "terrible", that's why I keep saying it's not even bad, it's turned off.

IE: I'd be okay with an AI that keeps up or surpasses even the best players trying to stack stats.

But at this point, since it seems like an emergency, i'd also be okay with a blanked baindaid fix that removed all stat modifiers from the game, knights and made every unit, MAA and levy have the exact same stats.

It's the same issue with the Stellaris pop system they had to nerf over and over again, great idea, I really like the pops as a concept, but if they are making the game unplayable (and they were, before they were artificially gutted in a "recent" patch, not because of balance, performance) I'd prefer to not have them at all. The same goes for Vic3 requiring over 34gb ram and a next gen CPU to handle anything past the midgame, I really like knowing that there's a province in Canada in which 5 muslins live, and 2 of them are radicals, but if that's the reason the game's running so poorly I'd rather not have that mechanic at all.

Given they were willing to revamp Imperator Rome, that could be possible. I just see this as PDX having a underlying tension with their game design because they can't seem to quite decide if they want a traditional grans strategy game or if they wanted a character management simulator.

As a result, the game is neither quite here or there in terms of direction.

Warfare for example can be balanced if having to manage the different commanders of an army is more important than the stats of an MAA unit. This makes it more of a game of having good commanders Vs bad commanders etc.

 

[Voidian]

Given they were willing to revamp Imperator Rome, that could be possible. I just see this as PDX having a underlying tension with their game design because they can't seem to quite decide if they want a traditional grans strategy game or if they wanted a character management simulator.

As a result, the game is neither quite here or there in terms of direction.

Warfare for example can be balanced if having to manage the different commanders of an army is more important than the stats of an MAA unit. This makes it more of a game of having good commanders Vs bad commanders etc.

Sounds like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga's Ambition games

yeah, I wouldn't mind, the only thing I care about is balance/challenge, how it's achievend is 100% secondary, if it's made to be a game with zero bonuses to MAA and commanders are the only sources of it all AND the AI can have some great commanders on par, or greater than the player to challenge them at every stage of the game I wouldn't mind it either

But that would be a radical change, to make players stop thinking "oh, that's a mounted army, I better bring lots of crossbows" and instead start thinking in terms of "Oh, that's Gengis Khan's army, no general is a match for him, so I'll need 10x his numbers to stop him", there'd need to be a very valid reason.

Like removing all stats from all units, making the army stats 100% dependant on commanders and instead use them as a light rock x paper x scissors mechanic, which is what those games (specially ROTK) use.