The biggest thing that messed with CK2's realism

[Qaraq]

The biggest thing that messed with CK2'realism was that you knew everything about other characters.At a glance you knew how much martial a random man in the other side of the world got,you knew if you could trust him or not and you knew his personality as much as he does.There must be restrictions about your knowledge of other people in the next game.there could do something along the lines of showing for example the martial points being between 4-7 much like how hoi4 gives you an estimate of how much manpower a country has and how you estimate other characters stats and traits should be based on many factors like how close you are to them,their prestige,their traits and your own stats,while physical traits should be visible to everyone.

 

[Arko]

The biggest thing that messed with CK2'realism was that you knew everything about other characters.At a glance you knew how much martial a random man in the other side of the world got,you knew if you could trust him or not and you knew his personality as much as he does.There must be restrictions about your knowledge of other people in the next game.there could do something along the lines of showing for example the martial points being between 4-7 much like how hoi4 gives you an estimate of how much manpower a country has and how you estimate other characters stats and traits should be based on many factors like how close you are to them,their prestige,their traits and your own stats,while physical traits should be visible to everyone.

I don't know about things like martial, but they say some things will be secret.

 

[Mackus]

It would be interesting if you had courtiers that looks to have all his stats in high 20s, but actually he's just an utter incompetent who's just good in bullshitting.

 

[Krajzen]

I agree, and this problem is even bigger than commonly understood.
It is one thing that we know all traits of people surrounding us and can be prepared to counter them regarding political intrigues. But most people don't realize what OP mentioned, that by knowing exact martial score of every commander - you are never surprised by enemy's competence.

Imagine if enemies of Alexander , Hannibal, Genghis Khan or Khalid ibn al Walid (that's the main guy responsible for islam's expansion and utterly moping the floor with Byzantium and Sassanids despite their great superiority) knew way before the war that this country has incredible military genius as their commander. They could avoid them or 'cheat' (assasinate etc) in so many ways. We players are in this situation - without any investment in espionage you are never surprised by the quality of your enemy.

There should be some degrees of knowledge about other characters.
*Some traits should by their nature be mostly secret to everybody (homosexual) - this is already going to happen in ck3 IIRC
*Characters close to you - your family, court, realm, allies - should have most of statistics and traits uncovered entirely
*Character from neighboring or culturally/politically close realms should be not known so well without some investment in espionage (assigned individuals or entire realms)
*Characters from really far lands and cultures should be enigma with only vague display ("Known as good warrior" instead of "martial 15" and meaning scope of like "martial 10-20") until you interact with them for extended time or specificaly invest in spies and ambasadors to know them.

This could be customizable rule as well. So if you want to suffer for arrogance and be surprised by military/diplomatic genius from underdog barbaric realm - you can.

 

[Calahir]

Agree, and the same should apply to the ledger. Paradox games lack an espionage system. Information is seldom free, we should pay for it and it should cost a lot of resources to establish a wide spy network so players and AI likewise would need to assess the importance of different 'nations' and choose on which to focus ("which one of my two neighbours is more dangerous or likelier to attack me?"). Some news would reach us naturally without necessity to pay as gossips (which can be true or not, e.g. "They say in the taverns that King Ragnar is gathering warriors to invade a country in the south"). Some gossips could be wrong. This alone would add a lot of immersion and strategic depth. Morover we can never be certain whether the news is true or our spy had been compromised and an enemy is feeding us spurious data. A spy game within the game would be amazing. Imagine both roleplaying and strategic prospects from such a feature: my character who shaped the political landscape of Europe without fighting a single war - he simply encouraged others to think and do what he pleased using his carefully vowen network of spies.

 

[Franet]

I agree, and this problem is even bigger than commonly understood.
It is one thing that we know all traits of people surrounding us and can be prepared to counter them regarding political intrigues. But most people don't realize what OP mentioned, that by knowing exact martial score of every commander - you are never surprised by enemy's competence.

Imagine if enemies of Alexander , Hannibal, Genghis Khan or Khalid ibn al Walid (that's the main guy responsible for islam's expansion and utterly moping the floor with Byzantium and Sassanids despite their great superiority) knew way before the war that this country has incredible military genius as their commander. They could avoid them or 'cheat' (assasinate etc) in so many ways. We players are in this situation - without any investment in espionage you are never surprised by the quality of your enemy.

There should be some degrees of knowledge about other characters.
*Some traits should by their nature be mostly secret to everybody (homosexual) - this is already going to happen in ck3 IIRC
*Characters close to you - your family, court, realm, allies - should have most of statistics and traits uncovered entirely
*Character from neighboring or culturally/politically close realms should be not known so well without some investment in espionage (assigned individuals or entire realms)
*Characters from really far lands and cultures should be enigma with only vague display ("Known as good warrior" instead of "martial 15" and meaning scope of like "martial 10-20") until you interact with them for extended time or specificaly invest in spies and ambasadors to know them.

This could be customizable rule as well. So if you want to suffer for arrogance and be surprised by military/diplomatic genius from underdog barbaric realm - you can.

I can only positively once: / deserves a minimum of 1000.

 

[Chlodio]

Omniscience is a serious issue; much like the people on /r/askHistorians pointed out the fact you have strength estimate of all your neighboring realms is bound to cause gamy behavior.

 

[Ezumiyr]

That's an interesting idea. But the problem is that such a system would rapidly become very complex. IRL there are many ways to know about people's skills or even test them, even if there are frauds.
In CK3 diplomacy and intrigue could help to lie about one's skills, but also how well you know another character. That seems very complex, especially for the AI, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. It's probably easier to just have "hooks" (already confirmed) and maybe "intentions" (like who wants to attack who).