My biggest wishes for the patch are pretty simple. I'm kind of getting tired of all of the nitpicky changes. For example, I'm tired of having to re-start my game every patch because nobody can seem to figure out what to do with Wales/Cornwall/Brittany. Can we all just agree that it's not going to have a satisfactory conclusion until there is an extra tier of titles kind of like "petty king" that is below the current king tier and can be vassalized by kings. Then all of these issues can be solved by putting them in multiple realms. I think I'm not going to enjoy having to re-mod my revolt risk modifiers because Paradox is going to probably going to add more modifiers increasing risks to people who prefer to sandbox. I'm probably not going to enjoy figuring out all of the new ways that they're nerfing my game (really, taking out the invite courtier, give him land, then press claim option to expand is a pretty clear move in my opinion).
To be honest, I still have the same concerns about the game that I had at release. I think the religions in the game are woefully under-utilized. As it stands, the Pope is only interesting because he'll spam excommunications and occasionally will confront you about free investiture, but it's pretty easy to make him go away. Sometimes he calls a crusade, but nowadays I just eat the church opinion bonus and don't participate because unless you get there first and blitzkrieg you won't expand enough to make the risks that having holdings in the Holy Lands entails. Every now and then I used to use him to get an invasion claim, but now that kingdom titles are much harder to get claims on, I doubt I'll be using that much in the future. I like that they fixed the anti-pope mechanic because it was always annoying having a neighbor who was willing to be the jerk and destroy the moral authority of the church for that cash money and having nothing to do about it. But now it's just a part of the game that I accidentally created an antipope the other day because I have to see the tooltip these days to even remember what the antipope button does.
As boring as the Catholic church is, at least it isn't the Orthodox church. The Eastern church has nothing. That's part of the reason I've never really played as the Russians.
I mean, the game is about the Crusades. You'd think there'd be some reason to care about the head of your religion. Heresy is an annoying problem, but it's helped me as many times as it's hurt me so that's a wash.
I also wish dynasties would matter at all. As it stands in the game, it seems they really only matter in three areas. You get additional prestige and 'score' for giving your dynasty land and spreading your family's influence but I've never really had issues with not having enough prestige and the 'score' doesn't particularly matter to me. You get permanent allies as long as they're not your vassals, but you can only call an alliance once every five years and my AI family is pretty awful at keeping their thrones. You can also vassalize family members much more easily than other people. That's about it. These minor advantages to giving family seem to be clearly outweighed by the massive disadvantages.
The way the game represents dynasties is remarkably simplistic. In practice in most games, the only ways I've seen dynasties really work internally are that everyone inside that dynasty will plot to kill the children of everybody else at the expense of everything else. I can see the AI now, "Hmmm, my first born son is third in line for a county somewhere that I could easily grab by force of arms for a small amount of resources? Better waste all of my money spamming assasinations and plotting to kill them!" That and if you put your dynasty in important positions it makes switching your succession laws very tricky. I don't understand why my father's youngest brother's fourth son is angry that I'm switching from primogeniture to elective. Elective only places them closer to the throne. Your dynasty doesn't effect how people think of you. If the three rulers of your dynasty have been tyrants, the next one gets no reputation from his family name. And if you give a dynasty an important place in your realm (a kingdom under an emperor for example) none of the other dynasty members will care. Heck, if you give land to somebody's children it doesn't change how they feel about you at all.
Another complaint I have that's been the same since launch is that the republics could be better utilized in the game. They feel pretty boring as is. Doges and lord mayors never attempt to make their republics dynastic. I have only been able to get mayor type characters to accept marriage proposals as their liege. And even then only with my own daughters. I turned London into the most inbred place on earth with this tactic. It's strange to click on a woman courtier's available husbands and see the holy roman emperor but see absolutely no lord mayors that would accept her hand in marriage. Pretty choosy dudes.
One more minor wish, I wish there was a "send to convent option" for women courtiers. My court gets clogged up with old women or celibate woman and there's really no way go get rid of those ladies so they'll trigger the too big of a court modifier. I wish I could just have her go to a random bishop's court or something.
