Suggestion: Dragon rider host invasion

[DorlasAnther]

I think everyone who ever played dynasty with dragons knows this: Some courtier of your dynasty gets dragon egg. It hatches. Everyone is happy. After 2 years, he proceeds to tame it. Everyone is still happy.
Then, year after that, he sails to Free Cities with his 3 years old dragon and declares host invasion for your title, because he hates you. And you are meanwhile sitting there, with your 45 martial dragon and your 2 commanders with 2 another big dragons and you just wonder, what the hell is he thinking.

Basically, AI is stupid. When it has claim on your title (and it does, because it has dragon and is of your dynasty) and dislikes you, it prepares host invasion. What does it matter that you have more troops, bigger dragons and all other advantages? He has claim, he doesn´t like you, he has dragon with 5 martial, that´s all he needs.
I have no doubts that in case of hated ruler, LPs join adventurer and since you can also have vassal dragon riders, he gets strong dragons too. But most of times, it follows few steps (every time, in my case):
1. War is declared. LPs either join or ignore the call. Doesn´t matter, army from Crownlands is still bigger than his.
2. First bunch of soldiers, about 6k, arrives. They are lead by that idiot and after short battle on land and in air, his forces are destroyed and his dragon dead (I tried to avoid it last time, but somehow, my brother with dragon showed up on battlefield and killed it anyways, even when he wasn´t commander).
3. Second army, about 15k troops, arrives and is destroyed.
4. War is won.
So, my suggestion is: Don´t allow courtiers with small dragons to declare adventurer wars. Just like you can´t declare dragon conquest when none of your dragons has at least 10 martial. This way, it would be at least a little bit realistic and not just plainly sad and futile effort on their side. Although, there should also be some other conditions. For example, if owner of title is not dragon rider and neither of his vassals are dragon riders with positive opinion, he should be allowed to start his little adventure even with small dragon, because he may as well own the last one in the world.

To sum it up:
Host invasion lead by dragonrider with big dragon: Great! Let´s do aerial battle and hope that I don´t die, leaving my 2 years old son to rule.
Host invasion lead by dragonrider with few years old dragon: Pathetic. What a thrill, my 3 dragons with 50, 39 and 62 martial will surely have problems with that 5 martial whelp. Oh, look, he´s dead.

 

[queermobile]

I would like to see the invasion restricted to those who have adult dragons only. Also on the topic of dragon invasions, I would very much like it if my wives would stop going off and trying to conquer a single county in the Summer Isles. My current kings wife is dead set on conquering Volantis, as well, and has done so twice now only to have me console it away from her and back to the Triarch. Tiresome. The easiest solution for this I can think of would be to make it so your wife only goes off conquering if she has below a 50 opinion of you, or something like that.

 

[DorlasAnther]

I would like to see the invasion restricted to those who have adult dragons only. Also on the topic of dragon invasions, I would very much like it if my wives would stop going off and trying to conquer a single county in the Summer Isles. My current kings wife is dead set on conquering Volantis, as well, and has done so twice now only to have me console it away from her and back to the Triarch. Tiresome. The easiest solution for this I can think of would be to make it so your wife only goes off conquering if she has below a 50 opinion of you, or something like that.

Well, that conquering is based on Daemon Targaryen, who together with Corlys Velaryon decided to conquer Stepstones. Daemon ended up being king of Stepstones for few years, before giving up his crown and returning to Seven Kingdoms. And it can sometimes be interesting to see your relatives managing their own small realm.
But I agree with you, those spouses creating adventurer armies are just pain in the ass. Especially when their sons are supposed to inherit world´s biggest empire...and they go to conquer some county. Awesome.

IMO, I would just restrict it to ambitious men, who have positive opinion of king and ambitious matrilineally married women. They also shouldn´t be heirs to anything. Because, even though there was one Targaryen, who chose to create his own kingdom with help of his dragon...there was only one Targaryen during 150 years. Yet you can see many dragonriders in game just leaving everything behind, just to get one county.
Same goes for adventurers, actually. If we don´t count Maegor, who lived in some messed up times, there were only 2 civil wars for someone´s claim on IT. Both of those cases were cause by unclear inheritance, not by "my grandfather was king, I want to be a king and I have a dragon, duh". Yet you can consider yourself lucky, if you manage to rule through entirety of your reign without some idiot doing his own version of last few Blackfyre rebellions (coming with few thousands soldiers, getting support of few small lords and soon after that smelling flowers from the bottom, because he never had any chance to win), just because he can.
I would gladly accept events similar to Dance of Dragons, but unfortunately, this game (and by that I mean game, not mod) is really stupid in this. I am right now in game with second king from younger line, who was declared heir by council after his older brother died. And there is lord of Dragonstone, who has 3 out of 4 tamed dragons at his disposal, he has real claim, one of 2 biggest dragons as his own and what does he do? Nothing. Because he likes me. His wife conquered Myr (duchy, not kingdom...so there are 2 Myrs now), his younger son came with his 3 years olf dragon as adventurer, but what does he do? He serves faithfully to his uncle and then his cousin/brother (yes, right now, I am both of those) after him...because he likes them.

 

[queermobile]

I agree, I would absolutely love to see Dance of Dragon style events, maybe once every few generations or something. Hopefully Conclave will end up making more interesting/dynamic civil war possibilities (they seem to have skimmed ideas from HIP, hopefully they did from CK+ as well). It would be fascinating to see something like what happened to Maegor as well; the King is discredited in the eyes of the kingdom, and he flies across the Narrow Sea, and before you know it two or three LPs have stabbed you in the back.

Kind of off topic: does anyone know if the current system of adventuring allow for anything but top level lieges to offer support?

 

[DorlasAnther]

Kind of off topic: does anyone know if the current system of adventuring allow for anything but top level lieges to offer support?

If by that you mean LPs, then no. I had some duke septon, who offered support to adventurer, after his liege (Riverlands) chose not to participate.

 

[SgtSmuckers]

It would be fascinating to see something like what happened to Maegor as well...

We need his suicide to be an event, death by iron throne.

 

[blackninja9939]

I agree, I would absolutely love to see Dance of Dragon style events, maybe once every few generations or something.?

That already exists, a ruler can name their female heir to be their permanent heir even if they later have a son. On the rulers death the mother, castellan or kingsguard can place the son on the throne and fighting follows

 

[DorlasAnther]

That already exists, a ruler can name their female heir to be their permanent heir even if they later have a son. On the rulers death the mother, castellan or kingsguard can place the son on the throne and fighting follows

Is it in Intrigue or somewhere else? Because I never saw it, even when I had only daughters.

Although, I think he meant civil war between dragonriders in general, not special occasion, where daughter is declared heir, while there are living sons.

 

[queermobile]

I've never seen it either, though it sounds interesting. But yes, I did mean a civil war between dragonriders in general, sort of like is taking place between Aegon son of Aenys vs Maegor in the Faith Militant Uprising (though that is essentially just a war between Dragonstone and the Crownlands).

What I meant in regards to adventurers only requesting aid from top tier lieges, is I was wondering whether or not they could ask for additional help from LPs after asking the King. I've never been a LP long enough to have any adventurers ask me (if it's even possible).


Also, on the topic of the Brindlemen and Yellow Emperors and their dragons....weren't these supposed to be rare occurrences? Every single game I've started in 1.0 has seen an invasion by both within the first 25 years (Aegon's Landing bookmark)....obviously, observer bias, but I was still expecting to see one maybe once every ten games. Or maybe a century or two after starting when things have become stale. Can't count the number of Brindleman archons of Lys I've seen lately.

 

[DorlasAnther]

I've never seen it either, though it sounds interesting. But yes, I did mean a civil war between dragonriders in general, sort of like is taking place between Aegon son of Aenys vs Maegor in the Faith Militant Uprising (though that is essentially just a war between Dragonstone and the Crownlands).

What I meant in regards to adventurers only requesting aid from top tier lieges, is I was wondering whether or not they could ask for additional help from LPs after asking the King. I've never been a LP long enough to have any adventurers ask me (if it's even possible).


Also, on the topic of the Brindlemen and Yellow Emperors and their dragons....weren't these supposed to be rare occurrences? Every single game I've started in 1.0 has seen an invasion by both within the first 25 years (Aegon's Landing bookmark)....obviously, observer bias, but I was still expecting to see one maybe once every ten games. Or maybe a century or two after starting when things have become stale. Can't count the number of Brindleman archons of Lys I've seen lately.

It was Aegon, son of Aenys, not Aenys. But in that case, I would say it was more like adventurer invasion. One guy, one dragon, few supporters, killed in first battle against much bigger dragon.

About adventurers, I thought you meant those who choose to attack their former liege, not those who go to create their own kingdom. In that case, I have no idea, but they most likely can ask only top liege.

I also happen to see those invasions very often. Brindled men, who never attacked Essos in history, suddenly do so even multiple times through span of one century. I could argue about Yi Ti, where it is more likely to be just host invasion to claim the empire and is usually defeated, so this doesn´t matter that much. And their dragons...yep, emperor or king dies and dragon will never be tamed again, just like Shadowlands dragons, who have MTTH of 300 years, yet sometimes show up even twice through reign of one king. My first long game was as Aegon VI. and after 70 years, only half of living dragons were Daenerys´ dragons and their descendants. After that one, I use console to kill every non-Targaryen dragon I see.

 

[queermobile]

I also kill all non-Targ dragons...I'm a very selfish dragon rider. Also I thought I did say Aegon, son of Aenys. If not, I meant to.

Just played a Dance of Dragons game and by 8239 Baela, who was married to my first born Velaryon son had declared two separate invasions, one for Lorath (lost), and another for Volantis (won). While she was invading Volantis, her sister Rhaena was trying her hand at her own invasion of Lorath. It's gotten a little absurd. Is there a quick fix for this? Some sort of MTTH I can edit to deal with it until the next release version?

 

[blackninja9939]

Also, on the topic of the Brindlemen and Yellow Emperors and their dragons....weren't these supposed to be rare occurrences? Every single game I've started in 1.0 has seen an invasion by both within the first 25 years (Aegon's Landing bookmark)....obviously, observer bias, but I was still expecting to see one maybe once every ten games. Or maybe a century or two after starting when things have become stale. Can't count the number of Brindleman archons of Lys I've seen lately.

Yeah they have been toned down a lot both in frequency and how strong they are