Promises, promises.

[LeonOfOddecca]

In last week's dev diary, Secrets, Schemes and Hooks, I made the following suggestion:

It would be nice if there was a promise mechanic, whereby you promise to give something to someone upon the execution of a task, such as the success of a scheme. It should be possible to promise something that you don't currently have, but would have, if the scheme is successful. It should be possible to reneg on promises, which would lead to a massive opinion hit with that character and possibly a hit to overall reputation if this is something you do on a regular basis. I think a promise mechanic could fit well into a number of other systems, not just schemes, and is certainly very thematic.

I wanted to post it here in the hopes that it'll get more attention, and some critical discussion. Such a mechanic strikes me as a natural addition to CK. In general, the more ways there are for characters to interact with each other in ways that affect other systems, the more immersive the character simulation becomes.

Because none of us have actually seen the game, it's difficult to speculate exactly what could be promised, or what other systems the promise mechanic might tie into. The obvious ones are titles, council positions, money, favour, marriage, knightship, items, and probably some others that I'm missing. However, it would also be cool if you could give someone knowledge, help them seduce the woman they're in love with, join their scheme (if you find out about it), promise to marry a girl if she sleeps with you (that's one way of seducing her!), or to marry that strong young man with no titles or inheritance to his name if he kills your husband and then have him executed for murder. The possibilities are always endless in CK

Edit based on feedback

As some people (@Ezumiyr and @Arko ) have pointed out promises are very similar to favours. It was an omission on my part not to clarify how the two systems differ, whether they should co-exist, and if so, how.

What originally inspired the idea of this promise mechanic is to be able to promise something to a character, in exchange for them joining your scheme, that you don't currently have, but would have, if the scheme is successful. I then thought it would be cool if you can reneg on promises. This highlights three respects in which promises are different from favours in ck2.

• Promises are for specific things (favours are for anything that qualifies)
• Promises are delayed till a specific time (favours can be called in at any time)
• Promises can be broken (favours can't be withdrawn)

Based on these differences it seems to me that there is room for both systems to coexist, with some modification to the way favours work currently. Owing favours should be for relatively low powered things, because the character to whom the favour is owed can demand any one of them, whereas promises should be for almost anything that the game mechanics could allow.

On the issue of broken promises, I agree with @Lordlory95 that this is potentially quite exploitable, and hence not as fun as it sounds on paper, however there is a way to limit its exploitability. Suppose you promise to Charles that you will give him council support in exchange for marrying his daughter. This means that on the condition that you marry his daughter you owe him council support (but not before the condition is met). Once the condition is met, you then have to decide whether to fulfil the promise; you can't wait till the vote initiates and then break it at the last minute. This allows Charles to make plans, based on what he is owed, and hence is much less exploitable.

 

[Dragatus]

I agree and support the general sentiment. My one worry is how the AI would handle the system.

 

[G S Palmer]

Sounds great, and would add a lot of fun new ways to have emergent stories.

 

[Lordlory95]

Sounds good, doesn't work (imho).
It would make the whole Favor system lame, I can already picture the tipical situation in my mind:
>"Alright, I bought favors from all my councilors, it's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>"Alright, new councilors, new favors! It's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>Repeat until you drop the game

The game already has here and there events or rng that simulate occasions where someone lie. It's not necessary to add a mechanic of non-binding promises.

Inb4 you can't separate Favors and an eventual non binding promises system

 

[Ezumiyr]

Mechanically it's exactly the same thing as favours.

 

[G S Palmer]

Sounds good, doesn't work (imho).
It would make the whole Favor system lame, I can already picture the tipical situation in my mind:
>"Alright, I bought favors from all my councilors, it's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>"Alright, new councilors, new favors! It's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>Repeat until you drop the game

The game already has here and there events or rng that simulate occasions where someone lie. It's not necessary to add a mechanic of non-binding promises.

Inb4 you can't separate Favors and an eventual non binding promises system

Well, I'd make Promises and Favors separate, probably. Also, breaking a promise should cost you piety, and cost more depending on the rank/importance of the person you break it to. So breaking a promise to (from the OP's example) a young commoner who murdered your husband would cost much less piety than breaking a promise to, say, one of your Dukes. (Plus it would naturally give a massive opinion malus).

Also, only certain people would be willing to accept promises from you, based on their opinion. This would be significantly reduced by being a "Known Liar", which could be a new trait.

 

[Arko]

Not sure why it should be something apart from favors or not dealt through simple events. I don't think we need to stack a ton of micro-systems honestly.

 

[travro]

Mechanically it's exactly the same thing as favours.

I'm not sure that's true. If you owe someone a favor, the condition you owe is determined by the receiving party later. In a promise (If I'm reading them correctly), the condition you owe is determined by you in the beginning, with the added ability to break it.

 

[Kanaric]

I feel like this mechanically is something that goes along with this new plots system. Mechanically similar so a natural addition.

 

[LeonOfOddecca]

I agree and support the general sentiment. My one worry is how the AI would handle the system.

Yes, I agree, that's a worry, but as someone who is not a programmer (not sure if you are), I don't want to overthink it. If the devs believe it's not feasible for that reason, they can tell us.

Sounds good, doesn't work (imho).
It would make the whole Favor system lame, I can already picture the tipical situation in my mind:
>"Alright, I bought favors from all my councilors, it's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>"Alright, new councilors, new favors! It's time to vote to reduce the council authority!"
>Vote fails becuase some councilors lied and you could not prevent it
>*Ten years later*
>Repeat until you drop the game

The game already has here and there events or rng that simulate occasions where someone lie. It's not necessary to add a mechanic of non-binding promises.

Inb4 you can't separate Favors and an eventual non binding promises system

Mechanically it's exactly the same thing as favours.

Not sure why it should be something apart from favors or not dealt through simple events. I don't think we need to stack a ton of micro-systems honestly.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've addressed most of these concerns by editing the OP.

 

[Dragatus]

I'm not sure how the AI handles basic operations, but the way it handles event options in CK2 is through a weighted random decision and I'm guessing the same method is applied to at least parts of the rest of the game. It starts with an equal chance to pick all options and then this chance is modified by various multipliers to get a final weight. If options A, B, C, and D all have a weight of 1 then they all have a 25% chance of being picked. If option A has a weight of 2 and the rest are still 1 then option A has a 40% chance of being picked and the rest has a 20% chance of being picked. Each option has a chance to be picked equal to 100% * (weight of the option) / (the sum of the weights of all the options).

 

[Tryvenyal]

Mechanically it's exactly the same thing as favours.

No, its not.

Buying a favor from Mr Badass to get him accept an invite, he joins your court and all are fine and forgotten.

Promising him something(land, prestigous marriage, payment of 80 gold... etc) let you invite him to enable you to fulfill your promise. IE, all are not fine by this point.
if your promise are to reward him 80 ducats, and you do that when he arrives at your court, then it´s the same, though not "technically". Probably you can make up more such cases.

 

[Lordy's]

I'd also like to see promises in the game.
One way to prevent cheesing might be that an abstract, dynasty wide "trust" stat. If you break a promise, it will go down. The lower it is, the lower the chance that AI characters will believe you. So that way breaking promises is a long term problem and not something that resets with your characters death. Additionally it might give you the "liar" trait, reducing that chance further with that character and decreasing general opinion.
Also, in some cases characters might undo their part of the contract if you don't do what you promised. So a marriage might get anulled.

 

[Axis89]

Nice idea, and this could tie well with the rumor mechanic with hooks and secrets etc. Who promised you my title, who! Find out if he's speaking the truth!

 

[ramblymanguthri]

Yes, this is exactly something like I have wanted for CK2. I agree that it is related to favours, but also a lot more specific.

I also see this as a related feature of the new "characters 'wander' around courts" mechanic. If a pretender to Bohemia is going around asking people for help with pressing his claims, I would like to be able to send word to him to "come join my court and I'll back you" directly instead of just waiting for the RNG to maybe send him to me.

 

[Andrzej I]

Promising him something(land, prestigous marriage, payment of 80 gold... etc) let you invite him to enable you to fulfill your promise.

This right here is what I've wanted in CK2 for some time. There have been instances where I've pressed a claim and gained a title, removing a dynasty from their dynastic lands... but I have wanted to then reinstate them (maybe not under the fellow I just deposed, mind you!) as a vassal with a subordinate title. However, with the way inviting works in CK2, I could not bring them to my court, as I supposedly could not "press their claim"... to a title I want to give them.

 

[Failtier]

Mechanically it's exactly the same thing as favours.

A promise relates to actions in the future whereas a favor results from completed actions in the past. There is a considerable difference between both since promises can potentially be broken yet favors always need to be returned (according to CK2 game mechanics).

@LeonOfOddecca Regarding the exploitation of breaking promises: Maybe it would suffice to introduce a massive penalty on this, e.g. on prestige, piety, general and specific opinion. It would make sense, then, if the opinion hit would be linked to the specific circumstances depending on the respective ranks and to whom the characters are related.

If the German Emperor breaks the promise to promote an electoral prince, e.g., it would be plausible if other electors (and princes) would also be affected while breaking the promise to promote a minor character would have less effects. (Imagine the aggressive expansion in EUIV.)