Honor balance at Big Clans

[NexusSix]

Anychance they can code the winning two and put the option in at game start a bit like difficulty ?

[Nemo29]

May I suggest a "Bash the leader" mechanism, where honor cost for actions directed AGAINST someone who is about to win (say over 40%) are greatly reduced?
That would maybe induce all other clans to try to attack him, before he "usurps" the Shogun title.

I voted for 3 but I also think this could be a decent move too.

[Tiki989]

That could be done just by coding the AI to plot against the big beasts.

[oddible]

I think there are some things missing from this list. At present the honor system often feels like dead weight. It needs less arbitrary scaling and more dependencies based on in-game situations.

"Scale honor for declaring war based on foreign actions."

So this would mean:

• Gain (or cost less) honor when declaring against someone who recently broke away from you or sent a ninja after you.
• Lose honor for declaring war on someone who has your family in their court or marriage (or vice versa).
• Etc. (I'd be interested in seeing a longer brainstorm of event-dependent honor modifiers)

Regarding the voting options:

Scale cost depending on relative size when declaring war, ie, don't hit the small guy

True, there is little honor in attacking a little guy. But you also don't bring your clan honor by attacking the sea (attacking a larger enemy doesn't mean it is more honorable).

Scale gain from buildings by size of clan.

This is an ok idea in that honor should be based on actions, not just existing. Small clans should be just have similar capacity for peacefully gaining honor. However, this further reduces the value of buildings. On the other hand, there is opportunity cost in building buildings, you have a Master of XXX out in the field - takes much longer for larger clans - would this undermine this and maybe you'd find less people even bothering to upgrade?

Scale cost of wars from possible title gain

This is interesting idea but problematic. There is no difference in this game between a clan leader title that is 1 province versus a clan leader title that is 20 provinces.

Event series to reduce honor.

Yuk. No way. Arbitrary to the max, only if there are equal events to raise honor but then it defeats the point.

Scale honor cost of actions depending on size of clan.

This doesn't sound that attractive, it solves the problem created by buildings but I worry this opens up a new can of worms. Too arbitrary.

[Sylon]

How about giving powerful daimyos a relationship penalty? Say, '-10 We feel threatened by your power' or something along those lines. It makes perfect sense in the context of the game, reduces the honour required to declare war on a large clan, and prevents the 'We like them better than we like you' modifier from coming into play in such cases.

[Wilsonrtf]

@Oddible: Yuk is a yes?

[Becephalus]

I like the idea of having lower honor costs when attacking larger people. Such that ganging up is more likely. It might also be cool if joint wars (plots or whatever) cost less honor then unilateral wars.

I wish I could figure out how plots work, I make some, but nothing ever happens and eventually I just declare war and no one has asked me to join one.

[seasnake]

This is why I love Paradox, that they would actively seek advice to make the game better is just too cool.

Love option 3, also like the Smash the Leader mechanic discussed. Further, I think Revolt should increase the longer you are at war with someone in any province that borders your adversary. This would force both sides to invest in border stability and give incentive to settle disputes with neighbors eventually.

[Julyan]

Scale gain from buildings by size of clan.
Not really a problem. Shinto shrines gives honor just the right amount. The problem is that since honor gain from elsewhere is so out of control, belonging to shinto faction is pointless.

Scale cost of wars from possible title gain
So declaring war on a big clan with 20 provinces would cost more honor? I'm not sure if that's very smart. AI is already too keen on wasting their honor beating on some easier target instead of uniting against the Yamana Avalanche.

Scale cost depending on relative size when declaring war, ie, don't hit the small guy
Yes please if the opposite is also true, small guy declaring war on big guy is cheaper on honor. The biggest reason why plots against big clans fail is because co-conspirators never seem to have enough honor. If declaring war on big guys was cheaper the AI would be much more keen on ganking the big guy.

Event series to reduce honor.
I'd rather see you reduce the amount of honor gained in the first place or implement better methods to control enemy honor without relying on random chance. Less honor gained from granting titles, easier to find and use ninjas to reduce honor (put it on a flat timer instead of random chance), peaceful plots aimed at reducing the target's honor (bunch of clan leaders spread rumours that the enemy clan leader is a douche. Increase the honor and/or plot power required to use the plot based on how high the enemy honor is so it's more costly and more difficult to dishonor someone who is known to be very honorable), etc. Events are such a cheap way to deal with out of control honor gain.

Scale honor cost of actions depending on size of clan.
Sure why not.

[oddible]

@Oddible: Yuk is a yes?

Hehe ugh... NOoooooo. Clarified in the post. Too arbitrary. Anything that happens by chance rather than choice reduces player agency and undermines meaningful responses to play choices, pulling players out of the flow - it isn't part of the challenge.

[oddible]

Scale cost depending on relative size when declaring war, ie, don't hit the small guy
Yes please if the opposite is also true, small guy declaring war on big guy is cheaper on honor. The biggest reason why plots against big clans fail is because co-conspirators never seem to have enough honor. If declaring war on big guys was cheaper the AI would be much more keen on ganking the big guy.

Really excellent point. If this only applied to players then it is a problem, if it applied to NPCs as well, then it will loosen up the absurdly rigid plot system.

[Cabezaestufa]

How about making it so the more honor you have, the harder it is to increase it even further? And/or the easier it is to lose it. You know, like when a nice guy does nice things people tend to take it for granted; but when a jerk does the same things it's usually quite shocking.

The amount of honor you earn for giving land to your vassals or donating money to the emperor could be inversely proportional to your current honor, and the peacetime gain could be reduced likewise. At the same time, the honor loss when declaring war could be bigger the more honor you have.

[Wilsonrtf]

Hehe ugh... NOoooooo. Clarified in the post. Too arbitrary. Anything that happens by chance rather than choice reduces player agency and undermines meaningful responses to play choices, pulling players out of the flow - it isn't part of the challenge.

I think events could be a good idea, if correctly triggered to prevent complete arbitrarity.

[Featauril]

Yeah I think the runaway honor thing is caused by mid-big clans having enough money to just throw at the emperor and only declarations of war basically to make you lose some.

I declared war yesterday at -45 honor for being inside the territory on declaration, and by the time the war ended I was already back at 100. So, I think you should scale gain, not just loss. But that wasn't in the options.

[Becephalus]

How about making it so the more honor you have, the harder it is to increase it even further? And/or the easier it is to lose it. You know, like when a nice guy does nice things people tend to take it for granted; but when a jerk does the same things it's usually quite shocking.

The amount of honor you earn for giving land to your vassals or donating money to the emperor could be inversely proportional to your current honor, and the peacetime gain could be reduced likewise. At the same time, the honor loss when declaring war could be bigger the more honor you have.

This is a really excellent idea, though maybe tricky to implement.

[Silverhood]

One of the issues right now is that if you're next to a 1 province minor, it costs a lot of honour for relatively little gain. At least early on. Once you become an honour power house (currently in 1520, hold 80 provinces, gain 1.4 honour a month without imperial titles), then it's somewhat unimportant. So the honour cost doesn't scale properply -when you're tiny, 20 honour is a lot. When you're massive, it's nothing. What is needed is several systems:

An influence system / coercion system where you can threaten / flatter small states into becoming your vassals or declaring war. This would have a honour cost too, but less than declaring war. Right now, Sengoku is all stick and no carrot. If I have 300,000 soldiers, would I really need to declare war on a lord with 5000 soliders?

A guarantee system. If my daughters are married to my neighbors, I want a way to guarantee them against aggressors. Right now it's far too easy to dog-pile someone who is losing. Your best course of action is to join in the land grab before your enemies grab it all. This way you could ensure that smaller clans got to duke it out without being blobbed to bits by massive doomstacks. Exploiting weakness is one thing, but steamrolling is another. Guaranteeing someone should cost honour initially then have a modifer to gain it back over a period of time.

By joining a steam roller, you can often subjugate your target into your clan, gaining provinces seiged by other clans. If a clan is losing, it should be possible to provide them safe haven, in return for a relationship hit with their agressors, without declaring war. Especially if you already have decent relations or they're married to someone in your clan.

[Captain Gars]

An influence system / coercion system where you can threaten / flatter small states into becoming your vassals or declaring war. This would have a honour cost too, but less than declaring war. Right now, Sengoku is all stick and no carrot. If I have 300,000 soldiers, would I really need to declare war on a lord with 5000 soliders?

This would just make it even easier for large clans to blob. Just check out the screenshots thread where someone exploited that clans already were too easy to subjugate. He took 100% of Japan before 1550...

[Ephafn]

I agree with the previous posters that the too large honor gain is a big part of the problem. Once your clan is decently sized and developed, then the imperial position costs become mere peanuts. Their costs should be proportional to your income or something of the kind.

Also, making it cheaper to attack bigger clans than you would help plots a lot, and slow down blobbing somewhat.

[Silverhood]

This would just make it even easier for large clans to blob. Just check out the screenshots thread where someone exploited that clans already were too easy to subjugate. He took 100% of Japan before 1550...

I've just done almost the same (think 1962 I had all but 7 provinces). The counter to subjugation is making vassals more likely to revolt. If I'm a clan lord and some bully wants to curb-stomp because me he has 150,000 troops and I have 30,000, I'd gladly become his vassal until I get the opportunity to break free, ideally at a moment of over extended weakness. Maybe with a few other ambitious lords. But the AI rarely seems to plot to break free. Maybe they need something like a sub-plot - a conspiracy perhaps, that lets you find out who else is plotting against your lord / neighbors.

I've beaten the game twice now, first as Nagao (quite hard, civil wars saved me twice) and Kono (fairly easy) and I've seen maybe 2-3 AI plots kick in, only 1 involving 2 weaker clans taking on a stronger party. I have tried 1 plot against a stronger party myself, and it was just too much effort arranging marriages and sending bribes. Took me nearly 15 years. In that time, I could have beaten 2-3 smaller clans and had enough clout to stand up to the bigger clan myself.

My point is still this though, why should a 100 province Shogun contender clan go to war against a clan with 3 provinces. There's no system of alliances and guarantees like in the EU games, so the outcome is already known: splat! Unless they were willing to subjugate themselves, they died.

[feelotraveller]

One of the reasons I am a proponent of events is that they are modifiable by other elements existant in the game. Part of the fun and replayability of games is that they are variable. We have dice rolls in combat and RNG stats for characters, not to mention the very vagaries of life and death itself. Variability does not mean arbitrariness, uncontrollability or chaos. Okay, enough with the soapbox...

This is what none of the other proposed solutions have - variability. Why is this important? Well I guess it depends on the game you want to play. For me, it is a problem if the potential stability of big clans remains the same throughout the game. What I would like to see (and I freely admit that your vision may vary from mine) is that early in the game (medium to) big clans are unstable (that is, have a good chance at being unstable, not predestined), prone to internal strife, fracturing and civil war, whereas late in the game (approaching 1600 or 1620) the viability of similar big clans rises. Both for the AI and the player. This adds an additional element of challenge - it becomes harder to win quickly as the direct result of it being harder to maintain internal cohesion of a large clan at an earlier date. It also means that it should be somewhat more likely (if still exciting) to emerge from obscurity in the early game.

Whew, unfortunately a much more fun and lively version of this post got swallowed up by the ether.

p.s. I'm sure you guys and gals at Paradox knows what you're doing.