No Non-aggression Pact coming along with Tributaries?

[JonathanOfArc]

With the addition of Tributaries I was hoping Non-aggression Pact's would be added as well. However I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere I've looked. I guess I don't really know the purpose of this post, I already know the answer, they're not there. So I suppose only to lament....sigh.... Oh how I miss those from CK2. So many princesses I'd really like to marry off but don't want full alliances. A simple pact keeping us from attacking each other is perfect for me, I don't want to attack the lands I just set my daughter up in.

Am I the only one who misses this?

 

[WestuHal]

This may be of interest - it’s taken from the CK3 floor plan dev diary published by PDX in October 2022:

“Alliances are too binary as they stand, while it’s true that it’s easy to understand how they work, it also results in a lot of unwanted busywork when you have to fight in wars you’ve no interest in (or you have to take a big prestige hit…) - at the same time, it’s much too easy to get a lot of allies that, at a moments notice, are ready to drop everything in order to help in your wars. I’d like to see a pact-based system where you have to negotiate more, without making it annoying to find and get the alliances you need. You should, for example, never be fooled into a marriage hoping to get an offensive alliance, where it turns out you simply can’t. Exactly how/what we’d do is still in the works, but it’s high up on my list.”

 

[DiabloDeVille]

Allainces really shouldve been fleshed out day 1 compared to ck2 but alas, you'd hope the roleplaying focus would make allainces more dynamic on when they form, break, and call to arms

 

[DeanTheDull]

With the addition of Tributaries I was hoping Non-aggression Pact's would be added as well. However I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere I've looked.

...did you look back to Wards and Wardens approaching two years ago?

Dev Diary 130 - 1 Aug 2023

In Wards & Wardens, hostages are a new type of relation somewhere between a prisoner and a foreign court guest. They reside at your court as a guest would, but cannot leave of their own accord, nor can they become knights. They are generally - though not always - children, and have found themselves in such a predicament due to their liege exchanging them away as a guarantee of non-hostility following a war, or exchanged via interaction during peacetime. Such an arrangement not only eases the mediation process, but also gives both sides some peace of mind.


Hostages are essentially living non-aggression pacts. Harming a hostage is a significant diplomatic incident, but it’s also a way to deter your former enemies from getting any more bright ideas about exactly to whom that border county belongs. Any ruler that you have a hostage from will suffer significant debuffs and penalties should they try and attack you - and any wardens attacking home courts also suffer similar debuffs - so hostages present one of the strongest forms of deterrent possible.

I guess I don't really know the purpose of this post, I already know the answer, they're not there. So I suppose only to lament....sigh.... Oh how I miss those from CK2. So many princesses I'd really like to marry off but don't want full alliances. A simple pact keeping us from attacking each other is perfect for me, I don't want to attack the lands I just set my daughter up in.

Am I the only one who misses this?

If you are willing to marry off a daughter for a non-aggression pact, you have a potential hostage for a potential non-aggression pact.

 

[JonathanOfArc]

...did you look back to Wards and Wardens approaching two years ago?

Yeah I'm aware of the hostages but it's not the same. Very different vibe, and I don't think they did the hostages very well to begin with. For myself anyways, it's more that I want to marry my daughter off, and want her to have a life outside my realm. Marrying a Duke or King somewhere is pretty cool. I'm not doing it for the non-aggression pact for my defense. It's just that it's lower commitment between the two parties than a regular alliance. I find alliances with weaker realms gives them blood lust since they're now allied to me the player and want to start wars with realms way more powerful than them. With hostages, they just go and live there and sit.....don't get education or anything, just sit there and wait.

They pretty much nailed it in CK2 as far as I remember.

 

[Benismann]

With hostages, they just go and live there and sit.....don't get education or anything, just sit there and wait.

Yeah that sucks so much. Same with varangians you send through an interaction, except they at least get some events. But hostages might as well stop existing when you send them somewhere, the most that can happen to them is that they might get a court position.

Hostages are also not intuitive at all (at least to me), i barely use them (usually just demand one from an already won war coz i can), but aren't they kinda backwards? Like, you send someone of yours to your neighbour, and that ensures YOU wont attack THEM.... But wouldn't you want to do that for the exact opposite reason? Maybe AI threats it the same as if they have sent someone to you, idk, but the whole system to me is either counter intuitive or just clunky in general.

And that's ignoring that AI stops posing any threat very early in the campaign so i usually dont even remember that hostages are an option

 

[DeanTheDull]

Yeah that sucks so much. Same with varangians you send through an interaction, except they at least get some events. But hostages might as well stop existing when you send them somewhere, the most that can happen to them is that they might get a court position.

Or the typical events that can happen to members in courts. Or the involvement in schemes and rivalries. Or the unique hostage-events. At which point, you have as much / more interaction than the marriage-NAP or Varangian alternative, since the Varangian doesn't require any coordination to occur- it doesn't matter what your relationship with the Byzantine Emperor is, you can still send the relative.

If the complaint is 'I want to see more events of foreign-sent hostages,' that's fine. But that's not something the CK2 model of married-off NAPs has over CK3 hostages.

Hostages are also not intuitive at all (at least to me), i barely use them (usually just demand one from an already won war coz i can), but aren't they kinda backwards? Like, you send someone of yours to your neighbour, and that ensures YOU wont attack THEM.... But wouldn't you want to do that for the exact opposite reason? Maybe AI threats it the same as if they have sent someone to you, idk, but the whole system to me is either counter intuitive or just clunky in general.

Wanting the exact opposite is why you negotiate for a hostage from them before a war. Which typically requires special arrangements whether good relations, a hook, or offering your own in exchange.

A would-be attacker not accepting a hostage exchange is fundamentally no different than a would-be attacker not accepting a NAP-marriage.

And that's ignoring that AI stops posing any threat very early in the campaign so i usually dont even remember that hostages are an option

The lack of necessity argument applies the same to any non-aggression pact model.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

...did you look back to Wards and Wardens approaching two years ago?

Dev Diary 130 - 1 Aug 2023






If you are willing to marry off a daughter for a non-aggression pact, you have a potential hostage for a potential non-aggression pact.

Ai can still attack through a hostage, and if they become landed you cant even get a ransom to return them, not to mention the "can i go home to get soldiers" event firing for random peasant revolt wars you'll easily win

 

[DeanTheDull]

Ai can still attack through a hostage,

And players can break truces. Should dishonorable AI be unable to break non-aggression pacts?

 

[DiabloDeVille]

And players can break truces. Should dishonorable AI be unable to break non-aggression pacts?

Ai should probably weight it up better when the balance of forces mean theyll likely lose, and their kid can be killed

 

[Azarias59]

I really hate that every marriage = an alliance. I hate even more that it is ***ing IMPOSSIBLE to re-negotiate these things beteween generations, because the AI accept logic is so different.

 

[Voy]

If we could get away from the military aspect of marriages and alliances, I think this game could blossom into something else.

Imagine if marrying an influential vassal in a region they're heavily intermarried with would bring you into their kin-group and thus make them more loyal? What if marrying an influential border vassal to another king made him less likely to attack you because they're in the same kin-group or they're too powerful to want to mess with his interest (their investment in this marriage hinges on your success and survival too)? I think stuff like that would make the system more interesting.

 

[jun10rzeraBrabo]

I'd rather marry my children to another rulers to gain more renonw but I can't stand the AI calling me to arms in some stupid war so I don't.

For roleplay reasons, it's very frustating to have to marry my children off to random people outside my court because I don't want an alliance.

 

[Benismann]

I really hate that every marriage = an alliance. I hate even more that it is ***ing IMPOSSIBLE to re-negotiate these things beteween generations, because the AI accept logic is so different.

That's coz the acceptance for negotiating alliances is way less generous (and there're a lot more stacking modifiers for marriage acceptance). In fact, did you know that "+40 desires alliance" is a conditional acceptance modifier on marriage? Because i dont remember a single time in vanilla when i wouldn't get it.

 

[Lot]

I'd rather marry my children to another rulers to gain more renonw but I can't stand the AI calling me to arms in some stupid war so I don't.

For roleplay reasons, it's very frustating to have to marry my children off to random people outside my court because I don't want an alliance.

Mary them to your vassals instead, also improves realm stability.

That said, a marriage should be a NAP, which could then be upgraded to a defensive pact or full alliance.

 

[Rudolf Nechvile II]

I played an Orthodox Pechenegs game recently and absentmindedly accepted marriage requests from Sweden and Norway, because I had lots of daughters I didn't care about, and it was super annoying getting called into random inconsequential wars. I swear, every time I was about to declare my own wars, the king of Sweden would drag me into yet another tyranny war halfway across the continent, because the stupid AI is still trigger happy with revoking titles (yet another unresolved issue)!

I also don't see why it would be functionally so difficult to just include a reversion to the CK2 system? Functionally, a non-aggression pact is basically just a truce, and the ability to negotiate alliances already exists in-game between relatives. Even if they're planning a more extensive rework, I'd very much prefer a small temporary fix than wait another year or two for the diplo DLC.