CK3 Dev Diary #17 - Governments, Vassal Management, Laws, and Raiding

[DominusNovus]

I saw a big thread of responses spin off from yours about toxicity and feedback and the like but cause you were the first post I saw I am gonna respond to yours, not hard feelings you just got the unlucky quote I could use


The way said complaints are done is very important, a fair amount of this thread is not giving constructive feedback. Loud complaints about how shit something is, how shit we are, and that we just wanna milk you all for expansion money is not something we can take and do any direct actions with because at best its generic dislike of something and at worse its just insulting to our team instead of helpful.

As we've said in other responses in this dev diary, we hear you all, we get there are things with this system that are disliked by our hardcore fans after seeing your responses. But we also want to have actual constructive feedback we can take as action points for the future, what in the system makes it feel bad?

Is it the vassal contracts themselves being on character level instead of realm level?
Is it not enough options in the contracts? What sort of options would you like to see?
Is it the different government types playing differently? Or not differently enough? What differences or similarities would you like to see?

We are unlikely to do any big changes before release to systems as the fact of the matter is we have limited time until then and almost all of that already has plans for what to do in it. We don't develop by picking the next focus point based on dev diary feedback, that just isn't feasible to plan for in any way.

But we can promise to look into this more for changes in the future, especially if we have a concrete idea of specific things that the community dislikes so we have targeted improvements instead of more generic things.

0% hard feelings! I appreciate my points being engaged with. [removed sentence by admin]

I would, however, like to push back on the implication that your customers owe you more constructive suggestions than just expressing their dislike. If they simply downvoted the OP from @Meneth into oblivion, they’d be conveying little more info to Paradox than if they post how much they hate everything said, and expounded on how Meneth’s low character is the subject of Greek plays. Without encouraging people to be rude, there is more information conveyed when they rudely express their opinion - namely, how strongly held said opinion may be. That is useful, in and of itself.

Beyond that, just knowing that people hate X, even when they don’t have a counter suggestion of Y, is useful. A company can get that information simply through low sales, of course, but I’d say it is more cost effective to deal with outrage on an internet forum prior to release. Just imagine if Coca Cola had paid more heed to just how vehemently some people hated New Coke (focus group responses could be said to be toxic). If the focus is more on preventing toxic responses than encouraging productive feedback, many will self censor in excess of what is useful.

Now, as for specific suggestions, others have already provided some excellent suggestions:

1) Regarding feudal contracts, it looks like a good foundation for a mechanic, but is far more barebones than CK2 veterans will be satisfied with.
- The idea of varying obligations per vassal is very good, much better than a blanket system for every vassal (this was an occasional request in CK2).
- There needs to be more variety and flexibility than just three levels. Provide the ability to tweak what obligations are expected to greater degree than what is here. Have more levels, and different obligations for tax, troops, or even other currencies (piety/prestige, perhaps?). Go nuts.
- Tying it to character rather than title is good, but I prefer a ‘both and’ approach. Some obligations should be negotiated every time there is a new vassal or liege, some should be permanent. Maybe that means when a new duke inherits, they have the same obligation as their predecessor, but have the liberty to knock back one of their contracts down a tier, at only the cost of annoying their liege. Maybe that means having two tracks of contracts, one being the de jure obligations for each title, one being the personal obligations for each character. There’s several ways that could be implemented.

2) Regarding governments, there needs to be diversity. Playing a bureaucratic imperial state should feel very different than a feudal monarchy.
- Keep in mind that feudal societies are a collection of rights and obligations that resemble, but are not, what we consider to be nations. Embrace that whenever possible - feudal contracts do seem to be taking this to heart.
- Bureaucratic governments 100% must feel different. They should also be an aim for particularly ambitious feudal rulers.
- Such a large step back for governments as cutting out imperial succession should not be taken. For all of the flaws of representing BYZ in CK2, Imperial succession actually is one of the best mechanics implemented to try to represent them.
- If the management of viceroyalties is too much of a pain (it is), then strip the entire feudal system down to the bones for a Bureaucratic government and then add back only what feels right. What does that mean? Well, why not start from as blank a slate as is reasonable for a CK game: cut out all vassals between ruler and barons (kind of something like North Korea mode). If the Byzantines start out with that and Imperial Succession, then that may not be perfect, but it will feel different, and leaves you plenty of flexibility with how to flesh them out.
- In addition to having no higher vassals, I’d suggest making the council more important/powerful (since they’re basically doing all the work your vassals would normally do), and include an array of titular titles (no idea what you’re doing with minor titles in CK3), particularly so that capable barons can be playable. Maybe this means your tax revenues are almost entirely dependent on your steward, your levies are almost entirely dependent on your marshal, etc. Maybe your councilors are actually the ones developing the various holdings that vassals would normally develop.
- Along with more powerful councillors that are in charge of actually running your realm comes the threat from all these powerful leaders, conspiring with/against each other, all in the capital. Sounds... byzantine.
- If something like this suggestion is followed, then consider how such a system would interact with feudal rulers. When you conquer new land, do you allow the feudal rulers to stay in power as your new vassals or attempt to impose your imperial administration on them? This indirectly helps provide a break on expansion of bureaucratic governments, who can’t take full advantage of newly conquered territories until they conform them to their system.

3) Renaming the succession types to ‘simple english’ versions is not ideal. These games help educate people about history, embrace that as a good thing. How many CK2 players probably never heard the words agnatic or cognatic before playing the game? Without getting too snarky, I think that taking such flavor out of the game is ungood.

I do have other ideas, but only so much time, and typing on a phone is a pain. But please, embrace the feedback your customers that want to give your their money provide. When your body tells you that your hand is very hot, do you get annoyed at your nervous system for conveying that searing pain, or do you just pull your hand off the burner?

 

[blackninja9939]

I would, however, like to push back on the implication that your customers owe you more constructive suggestions than just expressing their dislike. If they simply downvoted the OP from @Meneth into oblivion, they’d be conveying little more info to Paradox than if they post how much they hate everything said, and expounded on how Meneth’s low character is the subject of Greek plays. Without encouraging people to be rude, there is more information conveyed when they rudely express their opinion - namely, how strongly held said opinion may be. That is useful, in and of itself.

Beyond that, just knowing that people hate X, even when they don’t have a counter suggestion of Y, is useful. A company can get that information simply through low sales, of course, but I’d say it is more cost effective to deal with outrage on an internet forum prior to release. Just imagine if Coca Cola had paid more heed to just how vehemently some people hated New Coke (focus group responses could be said to be toxic). If the focus is more on preventing toxic responses than encouraging productive feedback, many will self censor in excess of what is useful.

Thanks for the good response and great feedback! Feel free to write more or PM me later if you think of other stuff!

I will disagree with this part of the statement I quoted though that a rude response is better than no response, a rude response is not something our team should have to put up with and will likely just get removed, because we are all people here to and having someone write out a paragraph saying how awful/malicious/incompetent/whatever you and your team are is not useful and demotivates people so is not beneficial to anybody involved. It is our job to make a game, not to put up with angry online messages

A big red number of disagrees going up conveys the same dislike of a feature but does not have the targeted salt/anger at the team in word vomit form.

One can easily make a post saying "I dislike this feature as I think it is too simplistic, I don't have any specific ideas to fix it though" and we are totally fine with that! You can even use a bit more colorful language as long as you don't break any forums rules But the second it gets aggressive or toxic about our developers its just gonna be ignored by us cause we don't have to read rude posts and quite likely removed by forum moderation as it probably breaks rules.

 

[treb]

0% hard feelings! I appreciate my points being engaged with (though not being swept up in whatever post purge happened in this thread, since I don’t regard my post itself as particularly rude, but that probably wasn’t your doing).

I would, however, like to push back on the implication that your customers owe you more constructive suggestions than just expressing their dislike. If they simply downvoted the OP from @Meneth into oblivion, they’d be conveying little more info to Paradox than if they post how much they hate everything said, and expounded on how Meneth’s low character is the subject of Greek plays. Without encouraging people to be rude, there is more information conveyed when they rudely express their opinion - namely, how strongly held said opinion may be. That is useful, in and of itself.

Beyond that, just knowing that people hate X, even when they don’t have a counter suggestion of Y, is useful. A company can get that information simply through low sales, of course, but I’d say it is more cost effective to deal with outrage on an internet forum prior to release. Just imagine if Coca Cola had paid more heed to just how vehemently some people hated New Coke (focus group responses could be said to be toxic). If the focus is more on preventing toxic responses than encouraging productive feedback, many will self censor in excess of what is useful.

Now, as for specific suggestions, others have already provided some excellent suggestions:

1) Regarding feudal contracts, it looks like a good foundation for a mechanic, but is far more barebones than CK2 veterans will be satisfied with.
- The idea of varying obligations per vassal is very good, much better than a blanket system for every vassal (this was an occasional request in CK2).
- There needs to be more variety and flexibility than just three levels. Provide the ability to tweak what obligations are expected to greater degree than what is here. Have more levels, and different obligations for tax, troops, or even other currencies (piety/prestige, perhaps?). Go nuts.
- Tying it to character rather than title is good, but I prefer a ‘both and’ approach. Some obligations should be negotiated every time there is a new vassal or liege, some should be permanent. Maybe that means when a new duke inherits, they have the same obligation as their predecessor, but have the liberty to knock back one of their contracts down a tier, at only the cost of annoying their liege. Maybe that means having two tracks of contracts, one being the de jure obligations for each title, one being the personal obligations for each character. There’s several ways that could be implemented.

2) Regarding governments, there needs to be diversity. Playing a bureaucratic imperial state should feel very different than a feudal monarchy.
- Keep in mind that feudal societies are a collection of rights and obligations that resemble, but are not, what we consider to be nations. Embrace that whenever possible - feudal contracts do seem to be taking this to heart.
- Bureaucratic governments 100% must feel different. They should also be an aim for particularly ambitious feudal rulers.
- Such a large step back for governments as cutting out imperial succession should not be taken. For all of the flaws of representing BYZ in CK2, Imperial succession actually is one of the best mechanics implemented to try to represent them.
- If the management of viceroyalties is too much of a pain (it is), then strip the entire feudal system down to the bones for a Bureaucratic government and then add back only what feels right. What does that mean? Well, why not start from as blank a slate as is reasonable for a CK game: cut out all vassals between ruler and barons (kind of something like North Korea mode). If the Byzantines start out with that and Imperial Succession, then that may not be perfect, but it will feel different, and leaves you plenty of flexibility with how to flesh them out.
- In addition to having no higher vassals, I’d suggest making the council more important/powerful (since they’re basically doing all the work your vassals would normally do), and include an array of titular titles (no idea what you’re doing with minor titles in CK3). Maybe this means your tax revenues are almost entirely dependent on your steward, your levies are almost entirely dependent on your marshal, etc. Maybe your councilors are actually the ones developing the various holdings that vassals would normally develop.
- If something like this suggestion is followed, then consider how such a system would interact with feudal rulers. When you conquer new land, do you allow the feudal rulers to stay in power as your new vassals or attempt to impose your imperial administration on them?

3) Renaming the succession types to ‘simple english’ versions is not ideal. These games help educate people about history, embrace that as a good thing. How many CK2 players probably never heard the words agnatic or cognatic before playing the game? Without getting too snarky, I think that taking such flavor out of the game is ungood.

I do have other ideas, but only so much time, and typing on a phone is a pain. But please, embrace the feedback your customers that want to give your their money provide. When your body tells you that your hand is very hot, do you get annoyed at your nervous system for conveying that searing pain, or do you just pull your hand off the burner?

On the Byzantines I think a better stopgap solution would be a feudal+ government that like ck2 can hold cities and a unique feudal contract for Stratagoi at a duke or kingdom level, something like:
Revocable at any time.
higher mil stat allows more levies/men at arms(The theme system was at its base a set of military Governorates that basically rewarded military service with land)
lesser tax

 

[Andrzej I]

If they simply downvoted the OP from @Meneth into oblivion, they’d be conveying little more info to Paradox than if they post how much they hate everything said, and expounded on how Meneth’s low character is the subject of Greek plays

I mean... tales of his misdeeds are told from Ireland to Cathay...

(Just kidding! <3 you Meneth et al.! Just a little disappointed at what seems like simplification of core game systems!)

- Bureaucratic governments 100% must feel different. They should also be an aim for particularly ambitious feudal rulers.

Definitely! And this ties in to what I wrote, too, where ideally one could blend systems together. Imperial bureaucratic governments should be high risk, high reward, with it requiring strong rulers to bring to fruition, while strong vassals will seek to undermine it. This was, after all, one of the main struggles of the period, seeking to bring the nobility in line under the crown, centralizing the state.

- Such a large step back for governments as cutting out imperial succession should not be taken. For all of the flaws of representing BYZ in CK2, Imperial succession actually is one of the best mechanics implemented to try to represent them.

Agreed! I was a little surprised Princely Elective was kept, but Imperial Elective was cut!

 

[treb]

@blackninja9939
A few questions

Will governments be as moddable as they were in CK2?
Are there elective successions and Tanistry? A lot of people are worried by the lack of them in the screenshot, I know lack doesn't mean they are not there but confirmation either way would be nice just to calm the speculation and fears.
Will there be more room to mod successions than CK2? A lot of people wanted Rota succession and or proximity of blood, which seem like fertile grounds for Modding.

Thanks in advance for taking your time to at least read this.

 

[Denkt]

Definitely! And this ties in to what I wrote, too, where ideally one could blend systems together. Imperial bureaucratic governments should be high risk, high reward, with it requiring strong rulers to bring to fruition, while strong vassals will seek to undermine it. This was, after all, one of the main struggles of the period, seeking to bring the nobility in line under the crown, centralizing the state.

I feel there should be more graduality between government types, like it should be possible for a feudal state to become something close to the byzantine empire government form and probably the opposite should be true as well. Right now all the game will have is 3 blob government types with the only difference between two realms of the same government type is their authority level, which is less than the difference in CK2 that have many different laws. Even among the Catholic European countries, it is quite simplistic to give them all the exact same government types, that work exactly the same way. I suspect in reality governments, while sharing some similarties may also have important differences.

 

[Kelestin]

I don't see any mention about heir designate. Maybe in a dd for religious?

 

[treb]

I feel there should be more graduality between government types, like it should be possible for a feudal state to become something close to the byzantine empire government form and probably the opposite should be true as well. Right now all the game will have is 3 blob government types with the only difference between two realms of the same government type is their authority level, which is less than the difference in CK2 that have many different laws. Even among the Catholic European countries, it is quite simplistic to give them all the exact same government types, that work exactly the same way. I suspect in reality governments, while sharing some similarties may also have important differences.

Historically the Byzantines did over time become more feudal in structure as their empire waned into the 13 and 14 centuries.

 

[Kainser]

I can understand wanting to make the game feel less hostile to newcomers to the series but I feel that renaming the succession laws is ridiculous. Partition is fine since gavelkind was a pretty narrow name but "oldest child succession" and "youngest child succession" just looks terrible. Primogeniture is an established term! It has a wiki page! Why not just use those fancy tooltips you showed in the last update so confused players can mouse over the laws and see "Ultimogeniture is a rare form of succession where the youngest child inherits"

 

[Manbearpig]

I can understand wanting to make the game feel less hostile to newcomers to the series but I feel that renaming the succession laws is ridiculous. Partition is fine since gavelkind was a pretty narrow name but "oldest child succession" and "youngest child succession" just looks terrible. Primogeniture is an established term! It has a wiki page! Why not just use those fancy tooltips you showed in the last update so confused players can mouse over the laws and see "Ultimogeniture is a rare form of succession where the youngest child inherits"

Yeah, I really don't want my sense of immersion or overall depth of the game to be reduced just so the game is more appealing to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Dogukan91]

I did not read the DD yet but I'll just enforce my opinion: PLEASE when it comes to Muslims at some point, consider the Ghulam reality (coups, factions, ghulam army recruitment, ghulam governors..etc) that dominated the politics of the region. And consider the propositions of the user Elvain with regards to Arabs and tribes.

As for the rest of the DD, I trust in the paradox forum people to adress any potential dumb-downs of the system and suggestion for plausible features to make the game for immersive/dynamic.

I believe paradox games often misses its potential by not making population/society/economy management dynamic. There is often a great basis for many features but they end up being simplified. That is my only concern, please try to make the game as dynamic and alive as possible.

Also, a possible progression to an imperial form of governance as technology, communication, infreastructure etc develops would be nice. Something that is based on both spatial economic development and ability of leadership to enforce its demands being accumulated over centuries would be a nice touch giving the game a unique late-game dynamic.
(something like the Communication Efficiency in MEIOU and Taxes mod for EU4)

I think it would be waste for such a beatiful map to ignore spatial aspects of economics and governance.

 

[Silversweeeper]

@blackninja9939 (and any other devs that might be interested), my two cent:

- Not really a fan of "Oldest/Youngest Child Inherits" over "Primo-/Ultimogeniture", but the other renamings don't bother me much (not having to see "Gravelking" and other spellings will certainly be welcome), even if I certainly wouldn't mind Agnatic/etc.

- Individual contracts seem nice, but it would be nice if you didn't have to change everything to change everything as you e.g. might not care about the levies from some backwater but always could use more gold. Also, the "Can only raise obligations once per lifetime" rule feels like something that a) should be changed to a "Only once per X years" (X = 25, or something else that's sufficiently high) rule to account for long reigns and b) where several exceptions might be warranted (e.g. potent blackmail allowing you to raise it more than once, or it being a bargaining chip, e.g. "Sure, I could give you that duchy you've got a claim on, but you'd have to agree to provide more taxes/levies").

- Not having unique mechanics for the ERE isn't ideal, but as someone that's done quite a bit of modding for CK2 I definitely understand that it is impossible to do everything (and depending on what would have had to be sacrificed for it it might have been the lesser evil to sacrifice this) and that it probably is too late to change what is included on release. I rather hope for improvements there early on, but I'd rather see it done well than see it done in a rushed fashion.

- While I'm quite biased due to having asked a bunch of questions about it, the current answers regarding moddability (outside of the inability to have separate obligations) are rather vague ("X is very moddable"). More answers there -- as well as possibly code snippets for government type definitions or the like -- would be appreciated, and might make it possible to give feedback about/ask about things there (even if it obviously isn't possible to change everything).

 

[Will Steel]

I hope it becomes possible to “soft” challenge a feudal contract. Like during a war as a vassal you can refuse to send levies or money (or only a smaller amount), at the risk of your liege finding out and getting a valid excuse to arrest you

This feature used to be in CK1, and I would love to see it return.

You could refuse to give troops to your liege at the cost of loyalty (and his anger), and the AI could do the same to you. It actually made wars in places like Europe or Syria a bit more realistic because you could not raise your entire army unless you had a stable, loyal kingdom. You could not conscript a gigantic wehrmacht out of HRE like you can in CK2.

 

[Mindel]

Every feudal vassal (except barons) has an individual contract with you

On the topic of feudal contracts, has there been anything implemented to model the King of England being a vassal of the King of France for Normandy and Aquitaine?

 

[Farabi]

I have to say that I agree that bureaucratic imperial government with viceroyal appointments really is a necessity for this game, especially given the fact that there are only two bookmarks, and the two most significant empires on the world map in the former date - the Byzantines and the ‘Abbasids - have systems of centralised government more alike to each other than they are to medieval western feudalism, CK2’s vision of Iqta', or what I understand of the clan system you’ll be using here.

Although in 867 the ‘Abbasid government was barely functioning and some provinces had become de facto independent of Samarra, it still theoretically operated through a system of appointing bureaucrats and loyal retainers to court positions and governorships, particularly in cities and provinces close to the capital.

It is a few generations later as the empire completes its terminal decline that we see the quasi-feudal Iqta’ system emerging, and the imperial mindset finally slipping away entirely as the ‘Abbasid court becomes almost completely politically irrelevant in a world of military strongmen.

The Anarchy at Samarra was not an issue of Turks trying to seize absolute dynastic authority from the ‘Abbasids for themselves or their leaders; rather, it was arguably a result of seeing their privileged position within the imperial state threatened by rival factions and seeking to gain the security and financial rewards to which they felt entitled. The caliph was still the necessary guarantor of this, even if practically speaking it was impossible for him to give them what they wanted (Caliph Mu’tazz [this bookmark] was imprisoned and killed by his retainers for want of a sum which Harun al-Rashid might have thought nothing of lavishing on a favourite poet).

So this bookmark doesn’t really make much sense unless a centralised imperial system is in effect. The end of the universal caliphate was not yet a foregone conclusion, and a player who wants to see the ‘Abbasids overcome the several crises they face and rebuild their authority to the level it had been a mere generation or two previously doesn’t appear to have a suitable system to use.

I’m happy to elaborate on any details of the government of the caliphate if needed, or recommend books on how it functioned.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Is it not enough options in the contracts? What sort of options would you like to see?

For me the most critical thing is that the system needs to support multiple independent toggles for each ruler. This is absolutely critical for mod support.

As for the exact options, I'd prefer to have vassal types or the crown's authority over them be the individual contract laws rather than obligations if there's only going to be one branch in the base game. Then use realm wide blanket laws to set the obligations for each of these.

• Tributary realm: Crown laws do not apply, titles cannot be revoked, subject only pays taxes.
• Autonomous march: Crown laws do not apply to these vassals and their titles cannot be revokes, subject only pays levies.
• Decentralized contract: Crown laws apply, titles can be revoked for tyranny, subject always pays minimal contributions.
• Feudal contract: Crown laws apply, titles can be revoked for tyranny or with justification, contributions are based on state's feudal obligation laws.
• Centralized contract: Crown laws apply, titles can be revoked for tyranny or with justification, vassal cannot attack or be attacked by fellow vassals, inheritance may not pass out of the realm, contributions are based on state's feudal obligation laws.
• Crown land: The vassal is considered an extension of the king's personal domain. All liege laws apply and cannot be changed, a title subject to crown lands may be revoked without tyranny every five years, vassal cannot declare war or be attacked by another vassal, inheritance may not pass out of the realm, subject pays maximum contributions. Requires very high crown authority to implement.

Edit: These could also determine how much vassals contribute to vassal limit. Say decentralized vassals contribute 0.75x, centralized ones 2x, and crown lands 4x.

 

[LordofLight]

The Holy Roman Empire does have Princely Elective - a succession form that we've put quite a bit of effort into, and that suits the Elective framework we've created quite nicely.

How is the interregnum handled? The HRE was so dysfunctional they had periods of time with no elected emperor. For the uninitiated: They had 3 interregnums (Time with no emperor) lasting 38, 55 and 67 years.

Interregnum sounds like a lot of opportunity for "FUN" things to happen.

 

[Nameless_Ensign]

What's the simple english for Cruades?

 

[Pied-Noir]

What's the simple english for Cruades?

'Religious War' probably - that would be a truly hilarious screenshot reveal. I hope they actually do that.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

'Religious War' probably - that would be a truly hilarious screenshot reveal. I hope they actually do that.

Game renamed to: Religiously Waring Hereditary Warlords with Religiously Ordained Authority 3