Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

[ruzen]

Nice !! This could be the best penalty for seduction! Just give some Infamy for getting cought!

 

[Slayen]

Nice !! This could be the best penalty for seduction! Just give some Infamy for getting cought!

That wouldn't even make the tiniest bit of sense give the mechanic.

 

[Rags17]

If you are France and the HRE just inherited all of Iberia, would you not feel threatened?

See also Charles V.

Not unless they have a bloodthirsty ruler at their head who is eyeing lands for whatever reasons. And I would definitely NOT automatically start forming a coalition against them.

I would in fact also strongly consider strengthening my diplomatic ties with them.

Just look through medieval history. How many coalitions / grand alliances were formed outside of religious conflicts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid–Carolingian_alliance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance[/URL]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Alliance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Alliance

 

[Zooboss]

Are you forgetting that this game is about characters and not nations? This sort of mechanic has no place in Crusader King

Yeah, this game is about characters not nations after all, that's why people don't mind Gavelkind. Because most rulers would be perfectly fine with the lands being split among his sons.

In all honesty, I have fun RPing Gavelkind. Do I want my heir to inherit these eight counties in my main two douchies? Time to conquer other duchies and then use them to land his brothers. After all, if you're playing the character, you don't mind doing this

But CK2 is not about "nations" it's about the characters of your Dynasty. This is where the devs have lost sight.

And to say that infamy carries down through generations is preposterous.

"It's about the Dynasty!"

"But infamy shouldn't be a Dynastic thing!"

Personally I might rename it to 'threat' rather than infamy.

Also, I don't have quote for this one, but here's another thing I've heard:

"Because the Abbablob starts with all their land they'd have 0 infamy, this is so unfair"

"Because my previous character conquered everything, my new one should start with 0 infamy, this is so unfair!"

I'd assume Abbablob also gets infamy for inheriting half the map.

 

[Donelloth]

But CK2 is not about "nations" it's about the characters of your Dynasty. This is where the devs have lost sight.

And to say that infamy carries down through generations is preposterous. There must be dozens of historical examples of Kings who have been power-hungry for titles and land and their heir's turns out completely different but yet their father's infamy represents the way themselves are seen by the world? Absolute rubbish.

There are a lot of things that a strictly character focused system do not handle well. Casus Belli come to mind. If war declaration were more state focused we'd see far less unnecessary war invalidation. Quite frankly, we could use to see more consequences for the children when the father runs around doing horrible shit and then kills over.

I do feel like infamy itself is a little arbitrary. I would almost prefer it if the AI could just recognize threats to it's realm and interests and would coalition up against large countries of, lets say, different cultures to protect the status qua while they tried to eat each other. Like if the Irish counts would coalition Scotland and England and any outside force that isn't Irish with a claim and whenever an outside force came in they would defend each other even if that force was the same religion with a legitimate claim. I don't know if the historical president is there but that'd be preferable.

A better fix to the snowball would also be some tuning to the faction system. I remember when factions firing off would fracture a realm. It makes sense that factions are treated as one country when they fire but I rarely see them win. They aren't as dangerous as they use to be. From what I can tell, they can't call in allies and anyone not in the faction when it goes off can't really do anything help. At one point in time, the major deterrent to having a large realm was trying to heard the cats. I kind of hope we see a return to that.

But I'm optimistic. And if nothing else, the game /is/ often too easy. I'll take an arbitrary restriction.

 

[Mengli Giray]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid–Carolingian_alliance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Alliance

None of those were grand alliances/coalitions.

 

[Calad]

A better fix to the snowball would also be some tuning to the faction system. I remember when factions firing off would fracture a realm. It makes sense that factions are treated as one country when they fire but I rarely see them win. They aren't as dangerous as they use to be. From what I can tell, they can't call in allies and anyone not in the faction when it goes off can't really do anything help. At one point in time, the major deterrent to having a large realm was trying to heard the cats. I kind of hope we see a return to that.

But I'm optimistic. And if nothing else, the game /is/ often too easy. I'll take an arbitrary restriction.

This. Reason why nations did not take over the world was not that everybody united against them but because of internal conflicts which paradox simply ignores now.

 

[Konair0s]

I don't like this change, can be an obstacle towards fun.

Right now I experience more natural thing: as a Kiev -> Ruthenia converted to Orthodoxy, to the South there are hordes which are too stronk (even the smallest), to the West there are Slavs, to the North there are Suomi (who managed to get Ilmen -> Rus). And it is much more fun, if I try to holy war some Slavs when these are all in peace, they easily gather army 10k (Western tribals + Southern feudals) versus my 2-4k, if I try to holy war Suomi it is easier but coupled with the severe attrition not that nice as well.

The stuff above feels good, interesting and natural. The stuff with arbitrary coalitions? Where totally different states jump in against you for arbitrary reasons? Not really.

In my case I guess the Slavs and the Suomi would team against me after I conquered Balts?

 

[Allastair]

By the love of gods! Guys, please, we got snipet of the feature/mechanic, without any knowledge how it would work. In OP it is said that the coalition is not aggresive against you, but defensive in case you attack one of the members. The team is said not to attack, but to defend. Secondly, on screenshot is shown that only neighbouring countries team up, and not all of them (ERE for example is not in coallition).

Whot bugs me the most is how the Infamy would influence internal politics. IF it also made all of your vassals angry at you... I WANT IT NAO.

 

[Silversweeeper]

I do feel like infamy itself is a little arbitrary. I would almost prefer it if the AI could just recognize threats to it's realm and interests and would coalition up against large countries of, lets say, different cultures to protect the status qua while they tried to eat each other. Like if the Irish counts would coalition Scotland and England and any outside force that isn't Irish with a claim and whenever an outside force came in they would defend each other even if that force was the same religion with a legitimate claim. I don't know if the historical president is there but that'd be preferable.

This would be rather nice. If coalitions and Infamy in CK2 worked like coalitions and AE in EU4, people ganging up on someone expanding towards them/their culture/their religion much more frequently than they gang up on someone who expands in another direction (if you conquer a couple of kingdoms in a decade, it is reasonable that some people in another direction would start to be worried; but not to the same extent as if you ate the kingdom next to them), and something like the Federations in EU4 was possible. Federations, for those who aren't familiar with them, basically work like an alliance against an outside threat with no specific target, but does nothing against the rest of the federation. For example, the Anglo-Saxons in 867 might have a Federation (or whatever the CK2 name would be) so that they could (try to) defend against Karling Europe, Scotland, *and* the Norse if any of these foreigners tries to get their land, but some of them might decide that unifying England is better and go to war with some of the others while still agreeing with the others that having them there is better than having a foreigner.

Edit: I am not saying "Let's bring over more of EU4 because EU4", rather "Okay, EU4 coalitions seem a bit more realistic than the coalition in the screenshot in the OP, and there's another mechanic that could be used to make several blobs reconsider attacking a group of smaller nations rather than just the one".

 

[cobaltseraphim]

lets make ck2 = eu4. thats what the people want right? right????!!! RITE !!?!?!?!?

 

[Konair0s]

By the love of gods! Guys, please, we got snipet of the feature/mechanic, without any knowledge how it would work. In OP it is said that the coalition is not aggresive against you, but defensive in case you attack one of the members. The team is said not to attack, but to defend. Secondly, on screenshot is shown that only neighbouring countries team up, and not all of them (ERE for example is not in coallition).

Whot bugs me the most is how the Infamy would influence internal politics. IF it also made all of your vassals angry at you... I WANT IT NAO.

It is never too early to express discontent.

 

[Slayen]

I really would just like to know how mod-able this is going to be.

If its possible to mod this out or, at the very least, mod it into irrelevance, than I'm going to be a lot less concerned.

 

[Siggerad]

Infamy sounds nice. I hope new land come with the DLC, EU4 cossaks got mixed review for only new mechanics and high price. And fix achievements pls.

 

[Rostan]

See also Charles V.

Yeah, that is in the EUIV timeline. The Italian Wars of the time are the first time real coalitions were formed. But those were in the 16th century, decades after the end of the CK2 timeline.

 

[Checco]

In the present system, you get a negative opinion modifier towards subjects/other characters if you:

-Revoke a title without reason
-Imprison/Execute/Banish without reason
-Kill someone (especially kin) and get discovered .
-Have a dubious moral conduit (adulterer, steal money from the church...)

In other words, socially unacceptable actions are very dangerous, and within your demesne you cannot do as you please.

If negative opinions grows, you get:

-Less money/levies from your vassals
-Less support from your vassals when it comes to reforms/elections
-Peers plotting/Dowing you, lieges retracting vassalage, Popes excommunicating

Every greedy action has potentially fatal consequences, and all build upon each others.

My question is: "What's wrong with this system? It seems to work efficiently, doesn't it?"

Instead someone wants to sail to bug-ridden waters of creating new game mechanics because "EU4 has them". Like if coalitions did stop blobbing in EU4, instead of raising the learning curve for little to no gain.

Are we sure the "coalition system" will achieve something that could NOT be simply obtained with a "-10, 20 or 30 modifier to General Opinion"?

The Opinion system works very well to control the game, arguably better than any system EU4 has.
Why not simply using it?

 

[Thure]

In the present system, you get a negative opinion modifier towards subjects/other characters if you:

-Revoke a title without reason
-Imprison/Execute/Banish without reason
-Kill someone (especially kin) and get discovered .
-Have a dubious moral conduit (adulterer, steal money from the church...)

In other words, socially unacceptable actions are very dangerous, and within your demesne you cannot do as you please.

If negative opinions grows, you get:

-Less money/levies from your vassals
-Less support from your vassals when it comes to reforms/elections
-Peers plotting/Dowing you, lieges retracting vassalage, Popes excommunicating

Every greedy action has potentially fatal consequences, and all build upon each others.

My question is: "What's wrong with this system? It seems to work efficiently, doesn't it?"

Instead someone wants to sail to bug-ridden waters of creating new game mechanics because "EU4 has them". Like if coalitions did stop blobbing in EU4, instead of raising the learning curve for little to no gain.

Are we sure the "coalition system" will achieve something that could NOT be simply obtained with a "-10, 20 or 30 modifier to General Opinion"?

The Opinion system works very well to control the game, arguable better than any system EU4 has.
Why not simply using it?

The opinion system don't act against blobbing. You can easily blob and keep everyone happy.

And coalitions have nothing to do with EU4... they are completelly different. Just the name is the same...

 

[Elenhil]

Guys, seriously. Why would you even care about infamy being 'wrongly' inherited by successive rulers? Are you worried that a pacifist inheriting huge tracts of land would be wrongly considered a threat by his neighbours? If he's a pacifist, will he even give a damn? These coalitions are defensive, not offensive. A pacifist will not be preoccupied with 'how to keep expanding', and so won't feel the effects of infamy!

 

[Slayen]

Guys, seriously. Why would you even care about infamy being 'wrongly' inherited by successive rulers? Are you worried that a pacifist inheriting huge tracts of land would be wrongly considered a threat by his neighbours? If he's a pacifist, will he even give a damn? These coalitions are defensive, not offensive. A pacifist will not be preoccupied with 'how to keep expanding', and so won't feel the effects of infamy!

I'm not sure about anyone else, but on this possible issue, it's not so much the infamy passing to a fellow dynast that is an issue. That can actually make some sense.

I'm more curious about the possibility of inheriting the infamy of a non-dynastic predecessor.

Case in point, you are playing as a duke in the hre. The current emperor in on the war path gaining lots of infamy. He dies without issue and you are then elected emperor.

Should you then inherit your predecessors infamy, despite not having any relation to the man other than the crown? I'm not so sure.

 

[Tapio]

Death to world domination.

It will be slower, but not impossible. i hope pdx make an achievement for that.