Anyone else feel like the cultural tech group needs reworking?

[BIna]

I feel like I can't be the only one who finds the noble, popular, and religious customs techs very low-priority. The only things they give is a passive opinion boost, but that's so minor compared to what legalism, tolerance, and majesty gives, which is why I always get cultural techs in that order before I even think about clicking up a customs tech.

Although, the majesty tech also feels kind of minor too, the only time I ever get it is if I'm playing pagan and I get hit with that triple short reign penalty. But if I reform and get Stability I pretty much just forget the majesty tech even exists, especially when Legalism way outweighs the importance of every other cultural tech. I know that majesty also unlocks some techs later on, but man, I dunno. I pretty much never play with imperial administration even if I have it unlocked just because I like having an empowered council.

I mean, with Conclave, the Tolerance tech at least became useful since it gives you more women rights laws, but once I unlock that final women law tech, I pretty much don't invest anymore points into it, since the rest of the techs only really give a passive bonus.

I dunno, it just feels like Legalism is disproportionally useful compared to the rest of the cultural tech group. With the changes Conclave made to vassal obligation laws, I don't really see why they can't be matched to the customs laws instead. Like having better popular customs allows you to better justify higher tax rates with your city vassals or something. I dunno what that would do to the balance but I feel like that's a better way of handling it rather than just slapping everything onto Legalism.

I mean, hey, who knows, that probably wouldn't even work out well, and maybe the best way to approach improving the cultural tech group would be to just rework/restructure the whole thing? I dunno, it feels like ever since military techs was reworked, cultural techs has been the only one that feels dated.

 

[Thrake]

I kind of disagree, most technology levels only really feel relevant once they add up. Then a passive bonus is nowhere significant. I only don't really like it because I feel that we now have too many positive modifiers that have been added recently with no counter weights (bonus from corronation, artifacts, technology, societies,...).

Something like legalism can be hudge if you can use the centralization, otherwise if you need the realm size it doesn't offer all that much.

I mean, with Conclave, the Tolerance tech at least became useful since it gives you more women rights laws, but once I unlock that final women law tech, I pretty much don't invest anymore points into it, since the rest of the techs only really give a passive bonus.

I'm not sure what's so big about it, unless you want to do it the Basque way. Otherwise it's a passive modifier that removes a fraction of a malus affecting a fraction of courtiers which are going to be a minority, unless you are in a niche situation like non prosoletizing religions. I mean, most of the technologies are in my view small passive modifiers. Even army branch is here a fraction of your troops now deal a fraction extra damage... It adds up, but one level isn't going to win a war like it does with EU4 key technologies. And these passive modifiers don't look weaker, +3 opinion means that it might save you from a faction war, or from a discontent councilor, and it will award either a fraction extra levies or a fraction extra income.

 

[DPS]

In contrast to the OP, I do generally like to get Imperial Administration, so getting to Majesty 5 is a big deal for me. And in game terms, I don't care at all about what minorities think or empowering women, so I almost never worry about Tolerance.

 

[Castimirr]

I like having an empowered council too. Once you activate Imperial Administration you don't have to keep absolute rule to keep it. I generally re-empower the council and give them war declaration committee as soon as I adopt Imperial Administration.

I do think Tolerance is incredibly useful with Conclave. Higher levels make it much easier to buy favors from infidels and invite them to join plots. Once you get it high enough, you can usually even get zealous infidel characters to sell you a favor with just a gift.

I do think culture tech needs some work though. With most of the effects being global/realm level, there is little reason to spread it compared to the economic techs.

 

[TankRush]

If anything, the 'Popular Customs' triplets are the ones that need the most reworks...

Maybe if they added some beneficial events that could randomly fire off along with them (church ceremonies, village faires, minor local tourneys... things like that), and increasing the Tech level unlocked or increased the event bonuses. Otherwise, the other Cultural techs are all used by me for various things, Majesty and Legalism being the top ones like everyone else, but also Tolerance, since I play a lot of Pagan and Zoroastrian games and find it helps especially early on. Some tweaks here and there might be necessary, but nothing compared to the main 3 techs.

 

[BIna]

I like having an empowered council too. Once you activate Imperial Administration you don't have to keep absolute rule to keep it. I generally re-empower the council and give them war declaration committee as soon as I adopt Imperial Administration.

I'm not gonna lie, I did not know that. And now that I do I think I'll try doing that the next time I play and see how it goes.

I kind of disagree, most technology levels only really feel relevant once they add up. Then a passive bonus is nowhere significant. I only don't really like it because I feel that we now have too many positive modifiers that have been added recently with no counter weights (bonus from corronation, artifacts, technology, societies,...).

Something like legalism can be hudge if you can use the centralization, otherwise if you need the realm size it doesn't offer all that much.



I'm not sure what's so big about it, unless you want to do it the Basque way. Otherwise it's a passive modifier that removes a fraction of a malus affecting a fraction of courtiers which are going to be a minority, unless you are in a niche situation like non prosoletizing religions. I mean, most of the technologies are in my view small passive modifiers. Even army branch is here a fraction of your troops now deal a fraction extra damage... It adds up, but one level isn't going to win a war like it does with EU4 key technologies. And these passive modifiers don't look weaker, +3 opinion means that it might save you from a faction war, or from a discontent councilor, and it will award either a fraction extra levies or a fraction extra income.

Not gonna lie, I actually don't get Legalism for the passive bonuses, I get it for the laws it unlock, since I always try to maximize city or temple vassal taxes if I can. So I always find Legalism to be invaluable since it gives me larger cash via city and temple taxes and more vassal levies via noble levies.

In regards to the small bonus thing though, I guess it's partially because I never really have trouble building relationships with vassals that I just don't really see the importance of small opinion bonuses from techs, as opposed to a small bonus to the military, which I always find to be practical. Since I always sway, improve relations, etc. (which isn't tough since I always try to raise/elect high diplo characters) until my vassals like me enough not to join factions. And when I reach empire size, I often just give newly conquered provinces via holy wars to direct vassals who don't have maxed out opinions of me yet, which easily maxes their opinions of me out at 100, even if they're my rivals. So getting a +3 opinion from a technology pretty much always means like... basically nothing to me since I can easily get more than +3 if I want to.

RE:tolerance tech at like everyone
I dunno, I personally find the laws it unlock fairly practical, since it gives a much larger councilor pool, but more importantly, absolute cognatic means I can land female courtiers with claims and press them to get entire kingdoms at once. I should probably try the Basque thing more though, but I dunno, I do still find the more flexible council and commander to be pretty practical.

 

[Thrake]

I'm not gonna lie, I did not know that. And now that I do I think I'll try doing that the next time I play and see how it goes.



Not gonna lie, I actually don't get Legalism for the passive bonuses, I get it for the laws it unlock, since I always try to maximize city or temple vassal taxes if I can. So I always find Legalism to be invaluable since it gives me larger cash via city and temple taxes and more vassal levies via noble levies.

In regards to the small bonus thing though, I guess it's partially because I never really have trouble building relationships with vassals that I just don't really see the importance of small opinion bonuses from techs, as opposed to a small bonus to the military, which I always find to be practical. Since I always sway, improve relations, etc. (which isn't tough since I always try to raise/elect high diplo characters) until my vassals like me enough not to join factions. And when I reach empire size, I often just give newly conquered provinces via holy wars to direct vassals who don't have maxed out opinions of me yet, which easily maxes their opinions of me out at 100, even if they're my rivals. So getting a +3 opinion from a technology pretty much always means like... basically nothing to me since I can easily get more than +3 if I want to.

RE:tolerance tech at like everyone
I dunno, I personally find the laws it unlock fairly practical, since it gives a much larger councilor pool, but more importantly, absolute cognatic means I can land female courtiers with claims and press them to get entire kingdoms at once. I should probably try the Basque thing more though, but I dunno, I do still find the more flexible council and commander to be pretty practical.

I'm not gonna lie, I actually would say that if you are at a point that vassal opinions are maxed out for everyone technology isn't really an issue. Been playing this for years with varying degrees of min maxing and I cured most of my "bad" habits like constantly revoking non content vassals to get high stats content concilors everywhere, that sort of things (for the better IMO). Like yes, you can min max everything to make the game a cakewalk, be count to liege in a handful years but if you press the game mechanics hard enough then nothing really matters. Playing more casually and RPing though, then opinions do matter. If it does not matter then you are not interacting with like a 3rd of the game's mechanics being surrounded by yes men.

That's a choice of course, but it does not mean that opinion bonus in and for themselves are useless. If you squeeze it hard enough anyway mercenaries will carry you for a good portion of the game and win otherwise one-sided wars for desperate starts. Therefore it could be said that military technologies are useless because you can just throw money at problems to make them go away.

With reguards to tolerance, if you don't like your concilors, you revoke and land new ones, with varying amount of abuse to trigger the free revokation. Then you open character finder and land the right guy from your entire realm's talent pool. If you're into min maxing you can't rely on AI to breed decent councilors anyways.

 

[Karlington]

I mean, with Conclave, the Tolerance tech at least became useful since it gives you more women rights laws, but once I unlock that final women law tech, I pretty much don't invest anymore points into it, since the rest of the techs only really give a passive bonus.

I dunno, it just feels like Legalism is disproportionally useful compared to the rest of the cultural tech group.

My experience is pretty much exactly what you wrote here. First I rush Legalism to be able to adopt whatever laws and succession form I'm aiming for, then Tolerance to get to full Status of Women so I have better choices for councilors and commanders, and then Majesty V so I can adopt Imperial Administration once I reach empire tier. This is the formula that I'd say I follow in 95% of my games. And I only say 95% rather than 100% because I think I may have forgotten, but as far as I can remember it's probably 100%.

I almost always play feudal, and playing as feudal it's hard to imagine a playstyle that would approach things too differently. Sure, if you have a start where you quickly form the Holy Roman Empire you may aim for Majesty V before Tolerance, but I don't think the changes would be very major overall.

I do kinda like the gradual approach of the * Customs techs, it's just that the Big Three are not gradual and give disproportionate benefits for certain levels.

 

[BIna]

My experience is pretty much exactly what you wrote here. First I rush Legalism to be able to adopt whatever laws and succession form I'm aiming for, then Tolerance to get to full Status of Women so I have better choices for councilors and commanders, and then Majesty V so I can adopt Imperial Administration once I reach empire tier. This is the formula that I'd say I follow in 95% of my games. And I only say 95% rather than 100% because I think I may have forgotten, but as far as I can remember it's probably 100%.

I almost always play feudal, and playing as feudal it's hard to imagine a playstyle that would approach things too differently. Sure, if you have a start where you quickly form the Holy Roman Empire you may aim for Majesty V before Tolerance, but I don't think the changes would be very major overall.

I do kinda like the gradual approach of the * Customs techs, it's just that the Big Three are not gradual and give disproportionate benefits for certain levels.

I suppose you are right in that the gradual approach isn't bad, and that it's just the Big Three being disproportionally powerful, that it makes the Customs techs feel insignificant in comparison. I do still feel like distributing the vassal obligation laws amongst the Customs tech would make more sense, but then it would render Legalism kind of insignificant, so... I dunno, that's something for PDX to figure out in their future updates if they decide to tackle that.

I mean I suppose I could try making a mod that changes the way cultural techs work, but I already have two mods in the works that I'd rather finish up first, so.

Hm, that is interesting though. I am seeing a lot of people talk favourably of imperial administration, and that makes me curious in trying it out. I think I've just never gotten around to doing it because for the longest time, before I git gud at realm management and aggressive expansionism, the -10 vassal opinion for +25 vassal limit never felt like a good deal. But now that I'm doing WCs and have no problem with maxing out vassal opinions of me, I suppose that the -10 vassal opinion is more than negligible, and the +25 vassal limit is more than useful. I think I'll try out imperial administration the next time I boot up my game.

 

[Castimirr]

Hm, that is interesting though. I am seeing a lot of people talk favourably of imperial administration, and that makes me curious in trying it out. I think I've just never gotten around to doing it because for the longest time, before I git gud at realm management and aggressive expansionism, the -10 vassal opinion for +25 vassal limit never felt like a good deal. But now that I'm doing WCs and have no problem with maxing out vassal opinions of me, I suppose that the -10 vassal opinion is more than negligible, and the +25 vassal limit is more than useful. I think I'll try out imperial administration the next time I boot up my game.

The ability to retract vassals without making the others cranky is also quite helpful. Early access to viceroys can be as well, though I seem to like them in theory more than in practice. In my current game I'm considering disabling those laws since I'm not using them.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

I usually prioritize getting Majesty first since prestige and piety gain actually improves relations, provides more interactions (that cost piety/prestige,) and whatnot.

Customs are extremely low on my list because stats inflation = opinion inflation. No point bothering, really.

After Majesty I really only get to Legalism 3, and then dump tech points into tolerance to open up women laws for kicks. Also because I generally maintain a multi religion realm.

 

[Tapio]

I usually go for 3 legalism, then alternate majesty and tolerance, though depending on who I play as I might go full tolerance or majesty for a while. After the objectives are reached I just dump everything in majesty until it's full. Yes it's quite mechanical to me also.

 

[BIna]

I usually prioritize getting Majesty first since prestige and piety gain actually improves relations, provides more interactions (that cost piety/prestige,) and whatnot.

Customs are extremely low on my list because stats inflation = opinion inflation. No point bothering, really.

After Majesty I really only get to Legalism 3, and then dump tech points into tolerance to open up women laws for kicks. Also because I generally maintain a multi religion realm.

I usually go for 3 legalism, then alternate majesty and tolerance, though depending on who I play as I might go full tolerance or majesty for a while. After the objectives are reached I just dump everything in majesty until it's full. Yes it's quite mechanical to me also.

That's interesting, it is true that the prestige and piety gain can be fairly useful. I do find that there have been times when I'm running short on prestige or piety to form a new empire or kingdom or even declare a holy war, esp after an inheritance, and I wanna get a holy war or two declared before the coalition reforms.

I know that Legalism III tends to be like the baseline since that's when you get better succession laws like primo and ultimo, but I do like to keep going until I have all of the vassal obligation laws unlocked though. I always try to max out temple and city vassal taxes (unless playing as Catholic, in which case temple vassals are more trouble than they're worth), and increase noble levies (not max tho, noble taxes good too). That, combined with merchant republic vassals, always tends to give me really large yearly incomes so I can build wonders and maintain big retinues.

The ability to retract vassals without making the others cranky is also quite helpful. Early access to viceroys can be as well, though I seem to like them in theory more than in practice. In my current game I'm considering disabling those laws since I'm not using them.

I suppose that's true, although I don't think I've ever really retracted vassals before tbh. I've also tried out the viceroys before as well, and I dunno, I didn't really find them to be too terribly useful. While it is true that giving someone a kingdom title more or less ensures they'll love you, and being able to choose who you want to be your vassal kings also means you can appoint vassals who are easy to manipulate and put to good use, I think my strategies with empire-building renders viceroys to be too much micromanagement. Since usually, once I've expanded past a certain point, I stop creating new vassal kings, and instead give newly conquered land to existing vassals to manage, so they're bigger and stronger, and so I have less direct vassals. That way, I can do a WC without going over like, 40 or 50 vassals or something.

But at that point, having to appoint a new viceroy every time a king dies means a LOT of micromanagement. That, combined with the fact that when granting kingdoms to a vassal, they only get the vassals within that kingdom's de jure borders, would mean that I would have to give one person a lot of viceroy kingdom titles to ensure that they can reduce my direct vassals, since I can't transfer ducal vassals to anyone not holding their de jure kingdom title. So I dunno, viceroys are neat, but I don't think it works well with my strategy.

At least the expanded vassal limit that comes with imperial administration will become more than useful. It'll help keep that vassal limit high, so I don't have to constantly elect an heir with extremely high diplomacy married to a spouse with extremely high diplomacy just to juggle 40 or 50 vassal kings. So yeah, I might also disable the viceroy laws too once I get imperial administration, since the benefits they offer in exchange for lower vassal limit aren't really too terribly useful to me.

 

[Rockphed]

But at that point, having to appoint a new viceroy every time a king dies means a LOT of micromanagement. That, combined with the fact that when granting kingdoms to a vassal, they only get the vassals within that kingdom's de jure borders, would mean that I would have to give one person a lot of viceroy kingdom titles to ensure that they can reduce my direct vassals, since I can't transfer ducal vassals to anyone not holding their de jure kingdom title. So I dunno, viceroys are neat, but I don't think it works well with my strategy.

At least the expanded vassal limit that comes with imperial administration will become more than useful. It'll help keep that vassal limit high, so I don't have to constantly elect an heir with extremely high diplomacy married to a spouse with extremely high diplomacy just to juggle 40 or 50 vassal kings. So yeah, I might also disable the viceroy laws too once I get imperial administration, since the benefits they offer in exchange for lower vassal limit aren't really too terribly useful to me.

You can transfer vassal dukes to vassal kings (or viceroys) if their de jure kingdom does not exist.

 

[BIna]

You can transfer vassal dukes to vassal kings (or viceroys) if their de jure kingdom does not exist.

Really? The option never came up for me for some reason.

...Then again that might be because the kings I try to usurp titles from are always at war against my vassals, so the kingdom titles just keep on existing.