Performing "miracles"

[ZechsMerquise73]

Why should the game deny or confirm the existence of miracles to endorse your philosophy or confirm another? Why cant it just deal with the effects of it as it would effect the character the player is in charge of? And leave it up to the player to decide whether he reads that as a miracle or ignorant peasants?

Like I said, I think it should be like it was in the first game. I said "it should be made clear that a miracle is not taking place", and to me, that's what the first game did. Perhaps what I really mean is "plausible deniability".

Miracles in the game like "miracle worker can raise our dead son back to life!" "if we pray to dead relative, we will have an abundant harvest." remove plausible deniability if their effects are certain to happen.

Here's my idea for the event that was in CK I:

"Sire, your son has fallen deathly ill. We must appeal to a Higher power to save his life! This will be costly, but we must put our faith in God! Also, my lord, the local barbers are said to preform many cures."

Option 1: I will not waste money on this foolery! *No money lost, child has 50% chance of survival, gains traits: penny-pincher, doubter, and other traits that give the Plebs a negative view of him*

Option 2: Give the Holy Man what is needed for the cure! *-300 gold, child has 50% chance of surviving. gain pious, generous, loving parent, etc.

Option 3: Send in the barbers! *-600 gold, child has a 20% chance of survival. gain traits: innovative, heretic, and specifically traits that improve tech research and make life easier for doctors?*

 

[Orinsul]

and thats not remotely plausible
the way CK had it was good, the way you have it is just offensive, why not just leave well enough alone. Improvement is good, but theres no need to take something that was alright and make it terrible.
Were talking about the middle ages, not the mad greeks. Just because you personally think that miracles are ridiculous doesnt mean that people who believe in them also believe in the ridiculous. People on the whole always defer to reason and common sense. And just because it was athousand years ago doesn't stop that from being true, indeed owing to lifestyle it was more true then than now.

If they are local barbers, why is it an event? not just the already in place so not mentioned system? It has to be an opportunity, not something that was there the whole time and you didnt think of that.
And travelling miracle workers as they are in CK work with that.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

and thats not remotely plausible
the way CK had it was good, the way you have it is just offensive, why not just leave well enough alone. Improvement is good, but theres no need to take something that was alright and make it terrible.
Were talking about the middle ages, not the mad greeks. Just because you personally think that miracles are ridiculous doesnt mean that people who believe in them also believe in the ridiculous. People on the whole always defer to reason and common sense. And just because it was athousand years ago doesn't stop that from being true, indeed owing to lifestyle it was more true then than now.

This is why I think using something akin to Rome's system, but have the benifit stack more with poor traits is best.

1. It gives an in-game reason for someone to justify keeping the person alive.
2. Unlike the legitimacy problem, there will always be a deciding weight of whether to keep the current ruler or not. For Sute's legitimacy idea it always has a point where no matter what you want to try and remove the ruler because his successor will be more of an asset because of game-mechanics which seems unhistorial and overtly gamey.
3. The miracles are performed by altering people's psychology whether the people then believe it or not. That you, a lowly count can convince the King of Sweden to part with his 2nd daughter is not an impossible feat - just highly improbable.

It might very well take a "miracle" - a grand alignment of external and internal factors as well as a just the right timing and words - but it is still possible. It's would take a miracle - the internal and external factors aligning, the right words spoken by the right person to another at the right time - to get it, but it is still a possibility. It is that kind of miracle - the rare, but plausable kind - that I am talking about, not the zombie apocalypse kind.

 

[Orinsul]

But the Rome system both puts the player [i.e the state, character etc] in command of miracles, and it says miracles are magic that can be called on regularly to save the day.
Avoiding the kinslayer trait is enough motivation to keep your bad stat heir alive. And of course you dont need an in-game reason if you have a story-reason, i.e. dont kill your son for gamey reasons.

The Rome was doesn't make sense, especially not for the Middle Ages. Maybe it does alittle for about two generations in the middle of the punic wars when the romans were mad on omens. But on the whole it says all people are stupid and priests are evil and use pretend miracles to tyrannically control the masses. And with effects, sudden and all powerful.
It has no plausibility. If youre going to do that why not replace taxes with money that comes from a talking tree.

Miracles should be random events or event chains. That only effect the player is so much as they would effect the lord of the province they happen in.
Maybe a Miracle happens in province X, you can hold a festival to boost province loyalty or hold a feast to boost random neighbour relations. or something.
Or for an event chain, later on a Devil's Advocate might arrive and theyrd be a chance of the miracle being confirmed, giving you a choice between a permanent pilgrimage destination province modifier for a price or a temporary provincial celebration modifier.
And a chance of the miracle being false and getting a prestige hit and a negative happiness temporary province modifier

But Miracles should not be made into a gamey gimmick, not only is that bad for the game in game-play terms to have something like that no matter what you call it. But its damned offensive too and removes all reason and plausibility from the game.

You only deal with events that are things the character would deal with, on the whole you only control that the character would deal with. Why should the handling of Miracles be any different?

A Bad heir should mean a trouble horizon, a compromise with the lords and barons or a civil war or atleast some unhappiness and refusal to raise troops or pass on taxes. And the game would be less fun if it didnt.
And there are many ways to avoid trouble without resorting to mad magics

 

[unmerged(2456)]

But the Rome system both puts the player [i.e the state, character etc] in command of miracles, and it says miracles are magic that can be called on regularly to save the day.
Avoiding the kinslayer trait is enough motivation to keep your bad stat heir alive. And of course you dont need an in-game reason if you have a story-reason, i.e. dont kill your son for gamey reasons.

Don't play MP do you? There gameplay > roleplay any day of the week because if you have roleplay > gameplay, you lose. This mentality is brought over to SP by a lot of members, but it does become important for MP where people do like RP aspect and making AARs and such and would love to have an in-game reason to keep their pitiful ruler, but they won't do it if there is none.

Also there are plenty of events in CK you can chose to simply do the most dangerous one if your current ruler is worse than your heir apparent all without having him gain the kinslayer trait and perhaps profiting you for chosing the gamey choice on top of getting a better ruler.

The Rome was doesn't make sense, especially not for the Middle Ages. Maybe it does alittle for about two generations in the middle of the punic wars when the romans were mad on omens. But on the whole it says all people are stupid and priests are evil and use pretend miracles to tyrannically control the masses. And with effects, sudden and all powerful.
It has no plausibility. If youre going to do that why not replace taxes with money that comes from a talking tree.

You need to brush up on your history. The sway of the church on the masses was far stronger than you think it was and even on the educated elite it had signifigant sway. The rituals changed, but they were still there; many RCs back then actually believed that the eucurist rituals actually did transform the bread and wine.

But Miracles should not be made into a gamey gimmick, not only is that bad for the game in game-play terms to have something like that no matter what you call it. But its damned offensive too and removes all reason and plausibility from the game.

Then tell me how you deal with the issue I raised. It's easy to say no because you don't like something and ingore the core issue something tries to resolve. And before you state it, Sute's legitimacy has just as many flaws as this proposal has and is grounded in just as much reality as this and furthermore cannot deal with situations where you have a currently long-running poor ruler who might in-game have a great deal of political clout and a successor who is very legitimate who doesn't. The choice there would still be the same as CK1: a no brainier to off the current ruler by gamey means necessary.

You only deal with events that are things the character would deal with, on the whole you only control that the character would deal with. Why should the handling of Miracles be any different?

Well then why hand off character selection to a game mechanic instead of making it an event? Why hand off DoW to a game mechanic rather than an event? Why hand off marriage to a game mechanic rather than an event (as they do in Rome)? You can hand off anything to a game mechanic because its better served than through events, such as what I propose.

A Bad heir should mean a trouble horizon, a compromise with the lords and barons or a civil war or atleast some unhappiness and refusal to raise troops or pass on taxes. And the game would be less fun if it didnt.
And there are many ways to avoid trouble without resorting to mad magics

Again, your assuming things wrong. I'm talking about times when the heir is a great one stat-wise and trait-wise, but poor politically and prestige/piety-wise. The gamey thing would be to remove the current ruler. The actual historical thing, since you're playing the current ruler, would be to keep himself on the throne as long as possible unless he might be humble.

I mean imagine your ruler was scitzo, inbred, stressed, kinslayer hole-in-the-pocket with 3/1/2/0 for stats and his heir was a wise, energetic, midas touched and 9/7/9/15 for his stats and you had an event (knowing you can see the results):

Their is a cute fluffly bunny next to a cave. Some of your companions seem deathly afraid of it. Do you:
A - Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!
gain reckless
lose coward
75% chance death

B - Pet the rabbit
guaranteed death

C - Run away
gain wise & coward

Now what if the positions of heir and ruler were reversed? There are obvious choices based on this because their is no benifit for having an incompitent ruler which leads to those gamey decisions people want to avoid. My proposal offers a way to give players an in-game reason to pick other choices.

 

[Orinsul]

Then give a plausible action that someone could do.
If you want a mechanic for switiching out heirs, then give the barons and/or the player the right to challenge the succession laws to skip over a bad side, or give the player the option of backing a pretender/younger brother in a palace coup.
Rathing than using magic why not try politics and intrige.

Miracles arent something lords controlled in order to maintain their power or manipulate internal politics. Why the hell should they be in game?

Yes there is an issue with legitimacy and being stuck with bad rulers. But why should it have anything to do with miracles? Because the two are utterly separate.
Thats like saying the tax system should be replaced with miracles. What you are talking about is in no way related to your solution which is why it is.
There could [and should] be a system in place for the player as the dynasty to back another branch of the family over the current head or aid a son is ousting his father. But there is no reason to have it have anything to do with miracles or the church.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Yes there is an issue with legitimacy and being stuck with bad rulers. But why should it have anything to do with miracles? Because the two are utterly separate.

Wrong its about having a bad ruler when a better ruler is waiting around the corner. Nothing at all to do with legitimacy. It's about gaming the system to kill off your current character to inspite the political problems because of their stats and traits and bad and the heir apparent are decent to great.

You can't really solve that with legitimacy because as I said players look at the stats and traits and take those into high consideration and a low legitimacy is something they know would be raised over time whereas the same isn't true for someone whose born with inbred trait.

Sometimes you have to do stuff that doesn't make logical sense to balance things out. Not saying its this, but the only counter-proposal I've seen is legitimacy which doesn't deal with the core problem I've explained.

 

[Orinsul]

Wrong its about having a bad ruler when a better ruler is waiting around the corner. Nothing at all to do with legitimacy. It's about gaming the system to kill off your current character to inspite the political problems because of their stats and traits and bad and the heir apparent are decent to great.

You can't really solve that with legitimacy because as I said players look at the stats and traits and take those into high consideration and a low legitimacy is something they know would be raised over time whereas the same isn't true for someone whose born with inbred trait.

Sometimes you have to do stuff that doesn't make logical sense to balance things out. Not saying its this, but the only counter-proposal I've seen is legitimacy which doesn't deal with the core problem I've explained.

Which a short way of saying that, is stuck with
But find one reason why miracles are a good answer to this?
they have as much to do with it as shrimp does

Given that youre playing a Dynasty, not an individual ruler, then why not have an option to remove said individual if its in the interest of the dynasty.

Maybe a little button or decision to depose the current ruler in a palace coup [arrest but with a chance of murder] and put his legal heir on the throne. With a chance of throwing your country into a civil war with the current ruler is wildly popular or the heir both unpopular and with far lower stats than the current king? As you need to have consequences or atleast the risk of consequences or else where's the game.
Given all the political and intrigueical options for this, why have it have anything to do with miracles?

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

and thats not remotely plausible
the way CK had it was good, the way you have it is just offensive, why not just leave well enough alone. Improvement is good, but theres no need to take something that was alright and make it terrible.
Were talking about the middle ages, not the mad greeks. Just because you personally think that miracles are ridiculous doesnt mean that people who believe in them also believe in the ridiculous. People on the whole always defer to reason and common sense. And just because it was athousand years ago doesn't stop that from being true, indeed owing to lifestyle it was more true then than now.

Why does taking the percentage from 60% and 20% to 50% and 50% make it terrible? To me, its neutral. 60% chance for giving money to the miracle worker, and 20% for not says to me, not that there's deniablity that a miracle is taking place, but that if the miracle worker fails when you give him money, its because he didn't have enough faith.

"People on the whole always defer to reason and common sense"? Really? That must why we see so many murders over stupidity and materialism. People on the whole don't think very much at all.

Please, don't assume things about me. I could assume things about you and make snide comments, but have chosen to try and not do that.

The "mad Greeks" are largely responsible for many of the modern advancements made in the last two centuries. What exactly made the Greek way of worshiping different from the Catholic way, that you call them "mad" in their religious thought?

If they are local barbers, why is it an event? not just the already in place so not mentioned system? It has to be an opportunity, not something that was there the whole time and you didnt think of that.
And travelling miracle workers as they are in CK work with that.

Note that the traveling miracle worker event was not rare, but happened almost every time your heir was about to die.

My idea is that the "medical practitioners" are considered outcasts, thus appealing for their help would be akin to appealing to a traveling miracle worker. That it would be on the same line with supporting those who, in later times, would dig up bodies to study anatomy.

The point is to sacrifice an heir (possibly) and a large sum of money for better tech investment and perhaps, appeal to the bourgeoisie. The low chance of survival is basically there for historical effect; according to my understanding, they often killed more people for stupid reasons than they saved.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Which a short way of saying that, is stuck with
But find one reason why miracles are a good answer to this?
...
Given all the political and intrigueical options for this, why have it have anything to do with miracles?

Because right now they are the best thing I've seen to give a good balance to the situation I described before. The player must weigh whether its good to keep the current ruler who has piss poor stats and bad traits or go with the great heir. This works under any circumstance because the longer you have the current poor ruler under my proposal, the more you rack up so it becomes increasingly a tough decision to sack them because the player is getting a cumulatively better deal. On the other hand, their also paying a price with poor leadership and possibly someone insane ruling who isn't making the best choices (ie randomly executing the great Steward because he saw him talking to Satan).

When you have a young ruler, you don't know how well they will turn out so yes, sometimes waiting a few years is good, but you can't get that kind of weighted balance with legitimacy because it becomes increasingly easier to sack the ruler as the character ages rather than increasingly difficult.

Given that youre playing a Dynasty, not an individual ruler, then why not have an option to remove said individual if its in the interest of the dynasty.

Because unless the situation becomes dire, it actually reflects negatively on the whole dynasty.


Look, I would rather have a more logical way, if it addressed that core concern. However, there's been nothing proposed to address it except that. It's easy to say "O don't like this" and not address the issue. It's harder to actually come up with a proposal that deals with the issue.

 

[Antoine]

However, there's been nothing proposed to address it except that. It's easy to say "O don't like this" and not address the issue. It's harder to actually come up with a proposal that deals with the issue.

Actually, there are other ideas to deal with "why play bad rulers" question, they are just not in the thread about your particular proposal, but for example in the thread about the issue, mine being as a stick a far smaller list of heirs allowing you to continue the game, and as a carrot dynastic achievements unlockable by long reign of bad monarchs and giving specific and (trying to be) logical traits to the next generations (ie : after decades under an heretic ruler, the family has developped a tradition of tolerance for different beliefs, helping to deal with non christian or heretic provinces).

Now your proposal has the advantage to adress a completely different issue, the (excessive ?) randomness of characters fate (make the game less like prehistoric rpgs where everything is completely dice rolls based, and more like modern rpgs where a game system allow you to spend points to influence your fate when you really want something to happen).

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Actually, there are other ideas to deal with "why play bad rulers" question, they are just not in the thread about your particular proposal, but for example in the thread about the issue, mine being as a stick a far smaller list of heirs allowing you to continue the game, and as a carrot dynastic achievements unlockable by long reign of bad monarchs and giving specific and (trying to be) logical traits to the next generations (ie : after decades under an heretic ruler, the family has developped a tradition of tolerance for different beliefs, helping to deal with non christian or heretic provinces).

That would only work if Pdox makes heresy a real threat to the game - either it needs to threaten to undermine and thus weaken in-game the power of the Chruch (something not easy, but still possible, to do through game mechanics even if its stamped out, or threaten to splinter as they join with separatists. There doesn't have to be the recreation of the reformation. It can be other types of separatist movements that get spun into heretical ones. At the same time it undermines the church power, it needs to have some risk to those who embrace it beyond being excommunicated or ostrasized because otherwise it will be embraced too quickly. It needs to be a double-edged sword.

CK1 only gave annoying penalties to those with heresy. Even if your realm was a heretical realm and you were a heretic it didn't make ruling it much easier nor did it offer any real advantage. You'd still want to stamp it out because there were only downsides to being a heretic. If they do all of that, it might be a viable alternative, but that's a big if atm.

As for smaller number of heirs, I don't think that'll happen because they've seen the complaints of having no heirs in Rome and what that can do. No one wants a continuous game-over. That just hurts sales. An occasional one is fine.

Now your proposal has the advantage to adress a completely different issue, the (excessive ?) randomness of characters fate (make the game less like prehistoric rpgs where everything is completely dice rolls based, and more like modern rpgs where a game system allow you to spend points to influence your fate when you really want something to happen).

Not all systems are like that, but I know what you're talking about. Even those that don't have more user control than the older ones.