What to do with Byzantium?

[Rylock]

I'm usually loathe to touch the Byzantine Empire. It's very popular among a group of players who are either hoping for the type of historical accuracy which CK2 just isn't geared to deliver (for this particular realm, anyhow) or really seem to want playing the empire to be incredibly easy -- a quick route to re-creating the Roman Empire and world conquest. So every time we put something in for the Byzantines, it seems to come up against the desires of one or both of these groups, and the resulting request for tweaks and features seems endless.

However.

There is one big issue with the Byzantine Empire currently (though not truly specific to it), and that's the way the CK2 viceroy system works. Which is to say "not well". Viceroys have had a host of issues since they were introduced, and the most the developers have done is band-aid it -- vassals under viceroys can't rebel (period), all things other than the title which would normally go to the primary heir go to the liege (including wealth, opinion mods, and infamy), succession issues if and when the viceroy decides to rebel, and so forth. If you're playing the emperor, you're constantly annoyed with duke titles you have to reassign upon the viceroy's death, a problem which gets worse as you get larger, and forget trying to play a vassal in the empire.

Do I blame them? Not really. It's easy to see what they were trying to do with the system, and the only real way to fix it is to dump the entire thing and start over, which requires an investment of time and resources they're unlikely to devote when they have so much else on their plate. This does leave us, however, with a system that's never quite worked and has forced us to code around so many times the worth of it as a whole is brought into question.

So the question is, then, what to replace it with? And, if I'm going to muck around in the Byzantine system, should I do anything else while I'm there? A few thoughts come to mind:

1) Ducal revocation: Personally, I think returning to the system where duke titles could simply be freely revoked would be easier. You can't give a viceroy title to someone who doesn't have counties in the duchy already anyhow, so the idea of truly representing the landless strategos as a bureaucratic-type position is already out the window -- and I'd prefer a system that didn't micro-manage an emperor having to reassign the title after every death. The only question, in my mind, becomes what to do with revolts against a duke whose title can be freely taken away -- why revolt for it? What does that revolt do? And should the title be easily revoked without consequence?

2) Imperial Government: people keep asking for this -- a special government just for the Byzantines (and, presumably, the Roman Empire) which is a bureaucratic system and not a feudal one. I'm fine with that, insofar as it can be replicated (in that the basic unit of land management is always going to be the vassal-held county). My question has always been what this government type would entail other than the free ducal revocation. I'm not going to implement free revocation of other tiers, so there's no need to suggest that...but is there anything else that this type of government could have which would distinguish it from feudal?

3) Powerful families: this is something I always wanted to try, and that's to simulate the "patrician house" on an imperial scale. Namely a titular title which belongs to a family and which they maintain so long as they're a powerful enough house -- a ducal title, perhaps, that the emperor can't revoke. Some events to simulate the desires of these families to gain titles and power, and I think it could be a pretty decent system.

So why did I post this here? Well, here's your chance to offer your two cents before I commit any work to it. Really, really love viceroys and don't want them to go away? Here's your opportunity to tell me. Have another idea, or a thought pertaining to the things I've mentioned above? Let me know. There's a good chance that an idea can't really be done with the modding tools (or time) we have, but I'll at least consider it...with the knowledge that my foremost goal here is playability. Not historical accuracy. Historical accuracy is all fine and well, but it must be in the service of good and/or interesting gameplay or I'm just not interested in doing it.

 

[zijistark]

Really, really love viceroys and don't want them to go away?

Really, really hate viceroys for all of the reasons that you mentioned, and I would love to see them gone. There's so much missing from the potential play experience within and atop the ERE due to all of the viceroy system's limitations; it's just hard to see what's not there unless you're quite familiar with the code. Even if we replaced viceroys with nothing but free ducal title revocation, we would be improving the player experience in the ERE. Provided that a suitable and agreeable alternative can be drafted (which I have no doubt will happen), EMF/HIP will move as CK2Plus does here.

Here's your opportunity to tell me. Have another idea, or a thought pertaining to the things I've mentioned above? Let me know. There's a good chance that an idea can't really be done with the modding tools (or time) we have, but I'll at least consider it...with the knowledge that my foremost goal here is playability. Not historical accuracy. Historical accuracy is all fine and well, but it must be in the service of good and/or interesting gameplay or I'm just not interested in doing it.

Historical accuracy is certainly important, but players have to realize that the ERE-- a highly bureaucratic and yet still decentralized and unstable state historically based upon rule by those who may not even be landholders-- is just not a realm that we can model well with CK2 mechanics (and viceroys are no exception to that), so we must make concessions for playability and, of course, fun-- for a vassal and for an emperor.

We've already discussed some ideas. I'd really like to see what CK2Plus users might be able to share with us to inspire more concrete plans for new mechanics, although I'm sure that most of what folk would really like to do is probably not in the cards. Nevertheless, I encourage folks to toss-out ideas and think simple (and forget about systems that fully override hard-coded succession).

I will be linking to this thread from the HIP forum, and should any of them care to venture here and comment, I've got cookies to hand-out.

 

[Furion Matsuya]

I'd go for a combination of family title and ducal revocation myself.

I never use vicroyalties due t forgetting about them, do they really work so badly?

 

[Rylock]

I never use vicroyalties due t forgetting about them, do they really work so badly?

Yes, for the reasons I mentioned. We've managed to code around a number of the limitations, but some of them we just can't -- like vassals under a viceroy being unable to rebel. And I personally find the system where viceroy titles keep coming back to the liege to re-assign to be almost intolerable.

 

[Rylock]

Historical accuracy is certainly important, but players have to realize that the ERE-- a highly bureaucratic and yet still decentralized and unstable state historically based upon rule by those who may not even be landholders-- is just not a realm that we can model well with CK2 mechanics (and viceroys are no exception to that), so we must make concessions for playability and, of course, fun-- for a vassal and for an emperor.

Yeah, I don't want to knock historical accuracy too hard...the win-win situation is when you can model something to be similar to what it was in history, but have it still be fun and balanced.

I use the argument regarding "ERE should get free revocations on everyone" as an example. Yes, technically the emperor had that right -- but technically every ruler in CK2 has that right, provided you have the title revocation law at the right level. It's more a matter of whether it should be consequence-free, and I really doubt the emperor got to employ that kind of power without having some backlash if the ruler was powerful enough.

Ideally I'd like to see if there's some balance that can be struck which gives the emperor some more powers but also models the kind of court intrigue he would have faced at the same time, something that fits in with the rest of the Byzantine setup in an interesting manner.

We've already discussed some ideas. I'd really like to see what CK2Plus users might be able to share with us to inspire more concrete plans for new mechanics, although I'm sure that most of what folk would really like to do is probably not in the cards. Nevertheless, I encourage folks to toss-out ideas and think simple (and forget about systems that fully override hard-coded succession).

I will be linking to this thread from the HIP forum, and should any of them care to venture here and comment, I've got cookies to hand-out.

That sounds excellent. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.

 

[tajerio]

Going back to the free ducal revocation is definitely better than what we currently have. If nothing else is done, that ought to be at least.

The family title idea sounds interesting. Would it work off patrician mechanics or be done some other way? And what would be the cutoff for deciding who got to have a family title?

EDIT: Upon reading Rylock's post, yeah, it probably doesn't make sense to remove the revocation penalty entirely. Maybe halve it?

 

[Ispil]

It doesn't help that you can't actually transfer a vassal to a viceroy which isn't dejure. I've had several viceroy bugs come up in their use, including somehow winding up with a viceroy-succession title as the ERE- as in, a title that thought that I wasn't the top liege. It reverted to some random guy upon my death who then held it primogeniture. It denies expansion opportunities to vassals, essentially making them powerless.

I, for one, won't miss them.

 

[ajjr]

I hear you guys a NEW system needs to be made and I mean NEW!

 

[Rylock]

The family title idea sounds interesting. Would it work off patrician mechanics or be done some other way? And what would be the cutoff for deciding who got to have a family title?

We couldn't use patrician mechanics specifically -- I'll look into it, but I'm pretty sure that the barony-tier family palace can only be given to actual patricians within a merchant republic. So I'm talking about a "family head" with a titular title that is a vassal of the emperor, and the title passes solely down to family members. The question I would be investigation would be how easily such a title could be dynamically created (and I think it can -- I've had some luck playing with that previously), and then what mechanics they should otherwise have...which, I think would be in the realm of special events to simulate their presence in the imperial court.

As for the cutoff? I imagine I would allow for a set number of them, and have a system where a more powerful upstart family could attempt to "usurp" their place as one of the preeminent families in the empire -- thus destroying their family title and creating one for the upstart. That's just off the top of my head, though.

 

[StarlightTW]

I absolutely love the idea of powerful families, especially if you adopted something within the Patrician system for it as I've always rather enjoyed the play of a merchant republic despite rarely playing as one. I think it would also add a lot of interesting gameplay as a vassal within the empire. I recently was playing a Byzantine game before Conclave hit, and I got pretty massive. The ducal revocation got so annoying at times that I just started handing out kingdom level viceroyalties wherever I could. This does pose a somewhat different problem, though....

Especially early on, the Byzantine system was not at all like the feudal system as seen in the rest of Europe. It was a bureaucratic system and as such you were unlikely to have powerful nobility in the same sense as in, say, France. At the same time, the emperor had to be aware of said powerful families as rebellions 'did' happen rather famously. The one thing I liked about the viceroyalty system was the ability to enjoy the opinion modifiers that came with handing out those titles. It provided at atmosphere where I wasn't constantly plagued by incessant revolts, though these did still happen, especially upon succession (as they often did historically for various reasons). I'm rather loathe to suggest a flat opinion modifier to the vassals of the emperor, but perhaps something to ensure that 'the nobility demands this and that' is less an issue than elsewhere in Europe. Instead, ideally, there should be more focus on court intrigue.

One idea I'd like to throw out, if it's possible to code in, is that the honorary title that proclaims someone as co-emperor be implemented in a way that provides a very large opinion boost to that person (and perhaps a general one to either vassals or everyone within the family if it is one of the powerful families)...but also gives them a claim on the throne. Mind, I'm just throwing out ideas, but that's what you asked for.

Edit to address Rylock's post: I love that idea. Especially the usurpation and special events.

 

[zijistark]

EDIT: Upon reading Rylock's post, yeah, it probably doesn't make sense to remove the revocation penalty entirely. Maybe halve it?

If we did have a system of powerful families, then certainly revoking titles from them would absolutely inflame them [all], and perhaps claims upon the empire can be generated in this way. Another thought would be to limit the amount of free revocations that an emperor can use before the tyranny and/or opinion effects start scaling-up quickly toward those of a normal realm as the emperor approaches his limit.

 

[StarlightTW]

If we did have a system of powerful families, then certainly revoking titles from them would absolutely inflame them [all], and perhaps claims upon the empire can be generated in this way. Another thought would be to limit the amount of free revocations that an emperor can use before the tyranny and/or opinion effects start scaling-up quickly toward those of a normal realm as the emperor approaches his limit.

That could work. I mean, there's only so many legitimate revocations you really need to do. Anyone who's revoking left and right would quickly make everyone feel threatened and they'd unite against him. So while appointing some new positions is the emperor's prerogative, doing so on a massive scale would be discouraged. I like the idea of the emperor not being able to tangle with the powerful families in that way. Which leads me to wonder...

How moddable is the Powerful Vassal system introduced with Conclave? Would it be possible to link that instead to Powerful Families, so that rather than having Strategos Bob as your Martial when he'd much prefer managing his own stuff anyway, he'd be instead happy so long as someone from the Bobenson family was appointed to your Council?

 

[Woody Man]

Would it be possible to create an Imperial system of government inspired by the Republic mechanics? Namely families which don't necessarily have to landed. Then ideally we could have prominent nobles governing provinces without messy inheritances which screw up the Theme system.

Really, all Byzantines should either clamour to be in the capital, or in the provinces building their support base for their own play for the throne.

 

[DorlasAnther]

There could also be added options for court intrigue (including deposing and replacing the emperor, this would although be really hard to achieve...similar to fabricating claims on duchy through Inrigue). Even if there were normal dukes in Roman Empire (I refuce to call it Byzantine Empire) instead of viceroys, it would just provide same experience as in rest of Europe. It would once again be the same "get bigger, get stronger and then either become independent or get the empire through war or marriage". But it should be the exact opposite. Look at Basil I. He was son of a peasant who rose really high and then gained throne through asassination. There should be something like that in CK2 too.
Patrician system, maybe with increased amount of families based on size of the empire (I doubt that´s possible, but here´s hoping) would be the best for it. You could get everything you own revoked, yet still be able to survive as some version of courtier and in time, get it back (or focus on intrigue, becoming Basileus in the end).

By the way, did you think of making Roman Empire its own government system, separate from all existing ones? Just like it is in Warhammer or Game of Thrones mods. I think that could give you much more options how to customize everything, while keeping feudal system intact.

 

[zijistark]

Remember, the units of land management are going to remain vassal-held counties. Strategos/Doux will have land. The family title concept is not to prevent Strategos from Game Over if they lose all their land. In fact, in that case we'd want to destroy their family title, because they're no longer one of the most powerful families in the realm.

EDIT: Also, while we can offer an "Imperial" government type, it's mostly mental masturbation; the only feature we can add for that government which makes any sense (government types are not just moddability free passes for anything we want) is simply free duchy revocation. However, we can already do that even more dynamically via a simple law (essentially what the current Imperial Administration law does if CM is disabled).

 

[ngppgn]

Here are my two cents (out of historical and mechanical ignorance, mind you)

a) It seems to me that there is one "easy" way of working around the hardcoded-ness of viceroyalties: just treat them as normal vassal titles with appointment succession. This should deal with vassal transfer-blocked outsidede-jure territory, and a number of other issues. However, presumably this wouldn't deal with the transfer of cash, courtiers, tech points, etc on viceroy's death.
a.1) These last issues could be avoided if, instead of used "actual" appointment succession, the titles reverting to the liege business is done with an event on inheritance. Given that this would be an instance of title changing hands rather than inheritance, the cash/court/tech problems are definitely solved.
b) I think characters with (pseudo) viceroyal titles should get a custom government, if only to flag them for events, and mark them not as feudal (and also to provide for other special rules in the scripting), this should satisfy both the fans that want a custom government and mark the difference between administrative and feudal titles (also, the viceroys/strategoi could also hold cities, if this is historical).
c) this could be combined with the "powerful families" idea that @Rylock proposed: the powerful families expect to hold Xamount of land, so you can revoke titles from them, but then they will get angry and would be prone to revolt. The emperor should be able to confirmto strategos X that his dynastic heir is going to maintain the title, this would inhibit the emperor from the ability to revoke but givea boost of opinion with X (there could be a "switch" decision where the emperor can guarantee all strategoi that their heirs will get the strateos titles, thus allowing those players which would prefer not to micro do avoiding so).Also, it would be very interesting if the ability to decide wether to maintain a character's heir in his predecessor seat was mediated by the council.

To sum up: I think that the mechanical concept embodied by viceroyalties can be recreated from scratch via script,avoiding the hardcoded edges of Paradox implementation and increasing it's flexibility (incidentally, also opening it to those who don't use the CM DLC).

 

[Ritmas]

Maybe this is slightly offpoint, but I'd really like to see prestige really matter, not some currency for cbs or something. But something like if you are not prestigious you can go to hell and be seen as not worthy/illigitimate and have more effect than the crowned/strong basileus. I'd go nerfing all prestige events, prestige gained from wars, and make prestige generating decisions like hunting, triumph very expensive. The main source and most "OP" would be leading battles, so if your general does all the fighting, he will be the prestigious one, winning wars will suit only to pleasure glory faction, followed by land titles. Also making honorary titles and council postions give way more prestige, so it will be something more than an opinion buff, as you don't want your vassals to have more prestige than you do as the armies may declare them a new emperor and mess with you. So until you reach somewhere 1k-2k prestige you would have a nasty opinion penalty, this also forces you to not hide your heir in court somewhere, but make him lead battles, rule, do something to be recognized as capable future leader.

As well, more prestige loss events/conditions are needed, letting your demense get raided, losing a battle, not fulfilling demands from council/citizens(adding some events it)[like increasing pay for soldiers, some infrastructure reforms and so on] should tank your prestige hard. The CK2 suffers from lack of such events, as the time goes and without doing anything you keep racking prestige/piety and opinion bonuses, EU4 did something well with random disasters, stability hits, estate revolts etc.

 

[Rylock]

Would it be possible to create an Imperial system of government inspired by the Republic mechanics? Namely families which don't necessarily have to landed. Then ideally we could have prominent nobles governing provinces without messy inheritances which screw up the Theme system.

Really, all Byzantines should either clamour to be in the capital, or in the provinces building their support base for their own play for the throne.

The family titles themselves could belong to unlanded characters. The de jure county and duchy titles cannot, however. As I mentioned, the basic unit of land management is based on the landed count -- heck, even the current system of viceroy titles has to be given to landed counts in said duchy. I have a hard time buying a family being truly preeminent, however, if it didn't hold counties somewhere.

 

[Rylock]

There could also be added options for court intrigue (including deposing and replacing the emperor, this would although be really hard to achieve...similar to fabricating claims on duchy through Inrigue). Even if there were normal dukes in Roman Empire (I refuce to call it Byzantine Empire) instead of viceroys, it would just provide same experience as in rest of Europe. It would once again be the same "get bigger, get stronger and then either become independent or get the empire through war or marriage". But it should be the exact opposite. Look at Basil I. He was son of a peasant who rose really high and then gained throne through asassination. There should be something like that in CK2 too.

Possibly. It could be a plot, for instance. The thing about that, however, is that it's a pretty interesting story if you're playing as said courtier rising to power...if you're playing as a ruler, however, you'd need to have plenty of visibility into when a plot was happening and what to do about it. Otherwise you're having coups throw you out of power and ending your game, and that's the kind of gameplay I'd rather avoid.

By the way, did you think of making Roman Empire its own government system, separate from all existing ones? Just like it is in Warhammer or Game of Thrones mods. I think that could give you much more options how to customize everything, while keeping feudal system intact.

I'd need to know what those mods do with it, exactly. I don't know what you mean by "much more options how to customize everything" -- customize what?

 

[Rylock]

a) It seems to me that there is one "easy" way of working around the hardcoded-ness of viceroyalties: just treat them as normal vassal titles with appointment succession. This should deal with vassal transfer-blocked outsidede-jure territory, and a number of other issues. However, presumably this wouldn't deal with the transfer of cash, courtiers, tech points, etc on viceroy's death.
a.1) These last issues could be avoided if, instead of used "actual" appointment succession, the titles reverting to the liege business is done with an event on inheritance. Given that this would be an instance of title changing hands rather than inheritance, the cash/court/tech problems are definitely solved.

Appointment succession itself wouldn't work, as that would mean all of a ruler's titles reverting to their liege upon death (remember that all of your non-primary titles of Duke or lower tier assume the succession of your primary), and your liege would still be your primary heir and thus assume all that goes along with that (wealth, prestige, opinion, etc.)

Having the main title only revert after succession would work, though then we're back to the emperor receiving titles after every duke's death which he must then micromanage and hand to others manually. I'd rather avoid that, if I can.

b) I think characters with (pseudo) viceroyal titles should get a custom government, if only to flag them for events, and mark them not as feudal (and also to provide for other special rules in the scripting), this should satisfy both the fans that want a custom government and mark the difference between administrative and feudal titles (also, the viceroys/strategoi could also hold cities, if this is historical).

That can be done, but to what end? Why would they need to be different from other feudal titles?

I must also consider that, if the emperor is able to hand out titles as a viceroyalty, I'd need to figure out some way to mechanically do that. Currently there is only "grant landed title" and "grant title as viceroyalty", with the latter being the actual viceroy system. There's no way to grant a title as something else, and I can't even do it as a diplo-action (since those cannot specify third parties, such as titles).

c) this could be combined with the "powerful families" idea that @Rylock proposed: the powerful families expect to hold Xamount of land, so you can revoke titles from them, but then they will get angry and would be prone to revolt. The emperor should be able to confirmto strategos X that his dynastic heir is going to maintain the title, this would inhibit the emperor from the ability to revoke but givea boost of opinion with X (there could be a "switch" decision where the emperor can guarantee all strategoi that their heirs will get the strateos titles, thus allowing those players which would prefer not to micro do avoiding so).Also, it would be very interesting if the ability to decide wether to maintain a character's heir in his predecessor seat was mediated by the council.

Hm. My only issue here is the element of micromanagement -- in that you need to actively tell each individual that they will pass on the title to their heir (or all of them at once), or have the title revert back to you...whereas the opposite, going in and actually revoking a title, is likely to be required far less often.