Are factions broken now?

Not that I noticed. But I build my domain slowly and do not get my vassals hating me. The only time I have an issue is if my ruler dies young and my heir has not had a chance to be on the council. And that is not a real major issue, nothing a fake title and bribe cannot handle.

Factions seem to be working fine. The more you expand, the more dangerous they may get though since you're not getting many levies from vassals who aren't de jure.

Of course if you're playing as a Catholic you can always do the ol' excommunicate and imprison. In fact, it has become even easier to do this in the most recent patch since you can now do a gold -> piety exchange at a 1:1 rate. So even if you're short on piety to issue some excommunications, you can just buy some piety.

In my opinion, yes, but not as broken as the event troops. Basically the problem is that outside your du jure area you get almost no troops that you can raise, while that duke/king can raise the full amount for himself. So, for example, if you're the king of Sicily and can raise ~15k troops yourself, if you expand into Tunis via holy war and give it all to one person (which I used to do to ensure that my vassals were strong), you *might* get ~1500 troops that you can raise from there, but that single duke can raise 10k on his own. Suddenly he alone is at almost 60% of your available troop levels, and if he starts a faction there's a good chance he'll fire it. If he gets another of your dukes (Apulia or something) to join that faction they'll be over 100% and they'll definitely fire it. I've had times when I had ~13 dukes under me, and just 3 of them in a faction would be at the ~75% range necessary to fire the event.

To balance this out they raised the bar for firing a faction event (it was 30% for the dangerous factions, now it's 50% I believe), but in general do anything you can to not have dukes (or kings). Period. You get far fewer troops, and each one is far more powerful in relation to your own levies, both vassal and personal. If you're going to expand, give every county to a separate person, have Medium CA so that they can't expand via internal wars, and focus on getting retinues as fast as possible.

As a suggestion for PI - Maybe have a "support your liege" option where you send ALL of the troops that you can raise to fight his wars? This is a player tactic, raising all of your levies and linking them to one of your liege's armies so that he gets the warscore credit, but maybe make it a formal option for the AI, particularly in defensive wars?

Levies fluctuate a lot more now that they are martial dependent and there are all the capital considerations. I haven't seen any factions actually give ultimatums before the danger limit, but it's possible that circumstances push them above the limit quite suddenly. That they take advantage is great.

Ravenous.BE said:

Never will a king surrender its titles, not even if he is outnumbered by 400% and all vassals are against him.

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Don't know about titles, but when I saw my liege being on the losing end of several wars, I formed an independence faction and got 150% by myself to which my liege replied by granting me my freedom.

He was getting annoying, granting random duchies to vassals of my duke vassals. Like the duchy of Coloneia to some count in southern Arabia. Anyone else had this problem, btw?

They seem to be working fine for me. I got a King to hand over his title when I had 150% his forces after he depleted his army in a war, and I've had a few revolts for Independence and install claimants against me when I've been weakened or newly inherited.

They are a lot more touchy with the levy changes and so require more careful and proactive management, but I wouldn't say they are broken.

What is broken is the AI giving into faction demands without fighting. I just had, for what seems like the billionth time, a vassal king kinsmen successfully put down two faction rebellions to just give into a third faction without a fight. Then because his only county was the de jure capital of the kingdom, he got it revoked a few weeks later and became unlanded. Since the new king is my vassal, I can't do anything to make it right except revoke the king title for a massive amount of tyranny.

Tyranny seems sort of broken too, you should be able to get at least one free banishment after a civil war. Revoking a vassal's kingdom title doesn't count for much when he still controls a couple of powerful duchies and his family hates you.

The worse are independence revolts with only 30%. I would understand 30% if you are say, England trying to break free from some mainland empire (for whatever reason) or Italy using mountains against HRE, or some terrain/ distance impasse. But when a couple of Dukes in burgundy rebel for independence from my Britanny/West Francia/ most of Aquitaine, I just laugh and stomp them, appreciating the free relations boost they are giving me.

scelestus13 said:

The worse are independence revolts with only 30%. I would understand 30% if you are say, England trying to break free from some mainland empire (for whatever reason) or Italy using mountains against HRE, or some terrain/ distance impasse. But when a couple of Dukes in burgundy rebel for independence from my Britanny/West Francia/ most of Aquitaine, I just laugh and stomp them, appreciating the free relations boost they are giving me.

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I don't know about the 30%. In the situation you described, it seems ridiculous. On the other hand, when there is a far-flung realm, 30% kind of works. The dukes rebelling for independence can be so far apart from each other that the distance alone makes them somewhat challenging. For example, while you are busy crushing a rebel in France, his ally in Jerusalem is busy racking up war score. That makes it so the war will go on long enough that there is a continuing possibility of other bad things happening.

It seems to be a good percentage for some situations but not others. I do have a problem with it because it is so much lower than other factions. In realms where independence revolts are possible, the independence faction is almost always the only relevant one.

sosasoser said:

I don't know about the 30%. In the situation you described, it seems ridiculous. On the other hand, when there is a far-flung realm, 30% kind of works. The dukes rebelling for independence can be so far apart from each other that the distance alone makes them somewhat challenging. For example, while you are busy crushing a rebel in France, his ally in Jerusalem is busy racking up war score. That makes it so the war will go on long enough that there is a continuing possibility of other bad things happening.

It seems to be a good percentage for some situations but not others. I do have a problem with it because it is so much lower than other factions. In realms where independence revolts are possible, the independence faction is almost always the only relevant one.

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Very true. When you're a small kingdom though, they become a joke. Probably once you get oversea provinces is when it becomes tricky.

Ravenous.BE said:

What I don't get is this situation. He only has 50% strenght, no followers and only 2 counties, while i have 7 holdings and can easily bring in some mercs if necessary.

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What does the AI have to gain in this situation, other than dragging it out for a while because I am preoccupied with another war?

Maybe a tooltip of "likelyhood of vassals joining his side" would be useful? Because obviously the AI knows that he'll be able to drag other vassals into the war on his side.

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50% manpower plus another war would be good enough that I might press a claim against AI. Some mercs and luck is enough to turn it, plus there's always the chance that something goes wrong for you (random ruler death or a neighbor piling on you). How should the AI know you are better at handling such situations?

scelestus13 said:

The worse are independence revolts with only 30%. I would understand 30% if you are say, England trying to break free from some mainland empire (for whatever reason) or Italy using mountains against HRE, or some terrain/ distance impasse. But when a couple of Dukes in burgundy rebel for independence from my Britanny/West Francia/ most of Aquitaine, I just laugh and stomp them, appreciating the free relations boost they are giving me.

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An independence war is very easy to win if the liege is distracted, because the ticker is faster and you get lots of warscore for sieges. 34%, which is the current limit, may be a bit too low, though.

Ravenous.BE said:

What I don't get is this situation. He only has 50% strenght, no followers and only 2 counties, while i have 7 holdings and can easily bring in some mercs if necessary.

View attachment 95990

What does the AI have to gain in this situation, other than dragging it out for a while because I am preoccupied with another war?

Maybe a tooltip of "likelyhood of vassals joining his side" would be useful? Because obviously the AI knows that he'll be able to drag other vassals into the war on his side.

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Well the 50% can actually be quite problematic, not in your situation, but in others. Remember that 50% number includes your levies that you are getting from him. If he revolts, you will no longer get those levies, so the percentage is actually going to be higher. Plus add in that they almost always get the "flocking" event when weaker, and their army should be about the same size as yours.

ChildeR said:

An independence war is very easy to win if the liege is distracted, because the ticker is faster and you get lots of warscore for sieges. 34%, which is the current limit, may be a bit too low, though.

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Fair enough, but I generally find it easy enough to blitz one holding to stop ticking, before getting a real army in to deal with the problem.