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Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

Hey! So today we will talk about some mechanics we’ve added to make other rulers react to what happens in the world. We want to slow down the snowball and prolong the time it takes to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t be as easy to do. Snowballs are pretty evil, just like medieval rulers.

Just as with the shattered retreat mechanic we took inspiration from Europa Universalis 4 in our decision to add Coalitions. Our coalitions however are based on an Infamy value instead of Aggressive Expansion. You might recognize the name Infamy from our old games, but even though it shares the name it will work quite differently.

Infamy is limited to be within the range of 0 to 100% and will slowly decay over time based on how strong your max military potential is. When you hit 25% infamy, coalitions will be unlocked and AIs will start joining them based on how threatened they feel.Your infamy will serve as a hint on how aggressive and dangerous other rulers think your realm is. You gain infamy primarily by conquering land through war or by inheriting a fair maidens huge tracts of land.

The amount of Infamy you gain is based on the action you do, how much land you take and how large your realm already is. So for instance the Kaiser of the HRE declaring a war for Flanders and taking it is going to make the neighbours more worried than if Pomerania manages to take Mecklenburg.
capture(56).png


Coalitions themselves are mostly defensive in Crusader Kings, if any member gets attacked by the target of the coalition they will automatically be called into the war. If a member starts a war against the target they only get a normal call to arms which they can choose to decline.

For an AI to join a coalition they will consider the relative strength between the target and themselves, how threatened they think they are and how much infamy the target has accrued. You can view the current coalition someone has against them by the diplomacy field on the character screen.

capture(54).png


But it might not be the easiest way to view it so we also added a mapmode to more easily visualize Coalitions. A nation which turns up white is the nation you have currently selected, blue will be targetable for coalitions, yellow means they have a coalition against them and Red means they are members of the coalition against the currently selected one.

capture(55).jpg
 
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Asiak said:
But thats completely inconsistent. I'm a person not a nation this isn't EU4.
Click to expand...

It is consistent. You inherit titles. You inherit money. You inherit ancestral sin. So it would be logical if you inherited infamy. Everyone will see you as the heir of that d*ck.
 
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I hoped you would incentivise peace, rather than disincentivize war.
I hope tat inheriting will produce way less AE than war. After all, it's harder and requires more planning. It should be more rewarding.
I also think that you might add some AE for murder plots, to make other plots sligtly more relatively useful.
 
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Asiak said:
But thats completely inconsistent. I'm a person not a nation this isn't EU4.
Click to expand...

Just because you switch to your heir doesn't mean that suddenly all the conquests the father did magically disappears. Neighbors would still be worried about you even if you are a 18 year King.
 
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This seems like a very promising feature.

But more importantly, I can finally buy that hedgehog I've always wanted!
 
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I like this idea as a secondary measure to prevent snowballing, but not as a primary one. The reason is that if it were to have enough bite to prevent snowballing, it will need to be ridiculously unrealistic: for example all of Europe going to war against the HRE because it attacked a tribe in Poland.

Having a single coalition per target will lead to situations where the game is just one world war after the other. That could stop snowballing, but at what expense? Realism and fun out the window.

My suggestions:

1) Make it possible to have multiple coalitions per target. And make rulers join coalitions that are geographically/culturally/religiously close to them.

2) Like others said above, consider internal mechanics as primary means to stop snowballing.

Thanks to the devs for this excellent update!
 
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TheDungen said:
The sins of the father...
Click to expand...

This. I remember that tidbit too.

Van der Gent said:
It is consistent. You inherit titles. You inherit money. You inherit ancestral sin. So it would be logical if you inherited infamy. Everyone will see you as the heir of that d*ck.
Click to expand...

No you don't, or at least in this game you don't, not yet at least. There is no AI memory between you and your father, if your father kills someone and then dies that person's family doesn't hate you, so why would they care about the land he conquered?

The answer is they are going to. I think this is finally going to be the expansion where we get dynastic rivalries and an AI that actually remembers stuff.
 
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Does the cb used impact infamy gain? It would seem silly for a claim or de jure cb to cause the same amount of Infamy as a conquest or invasion cb.

What about allies? How are they impacted? Can allies be part of a coalition? What about non-aggression pacts?

Does any Infamy bleed off upon passing the crown? What about in the case of gavelkind that splits the realm? Do all the sons in inherit the full amount? And what about a landed ruler that has their own infamy score and then inherits their fathers throne? How much, if any, does the infamy stack? What about in the case of elective and the crown switches to another dynasty? Do they keep all the infamy of the previous ruler despite having no blood relation?

Does religion/culture have any impact on infamy gain or the reaction to?

Will, for example, christian nations really care all that much if you've been expanding by holy waring Muslims and pagans into next Tuesday?

Does Infamy have any impact on other diplomatic actions, such as marriage proposals or inviting people to court?

If you are a vassal and expanding inside your lieges realm, does infamy impact fellow vassals? Can they form coalitions against each other?

Are their any ways to actively reduce Infamy? like by granting vassals Independence? By handing out top level titles, IE, being a king, and than granting a kinsman a newly conquered Kingdom of his own? Answered

How do dynasties interact with Infamy? Will rulers of the same dynasty as yours be more or less likely to join/form a coalition?

Will doing things like attack allies or truce breaking generate more infamy than normal?

Almost forgot a big one. How MODABLE will these values be?
 
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Groogy said:
Just because you switch to your heir doesn't mean that suddenly all the conquests the father did magically disappears. Neighbors would still be worried about you even if you are a 18 year King.
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This is true.

I guess I just don't associate these wars as "about me personally." I mean come on occasionally I hold a province but for the majority of wars you take land you make new vassals you move on. It's for the realm, we're incorporating these lands into the realm not me.
 
Asiak said:
No you don't, or at least in this game you don't, not yet at least. There is no AI memory between you and your father, if your father kills someone and then dies that person's family doesn't hate you, so why would they care about the land he conquered?

The answer is they are going to. I think this is finally going to be the expansion where we get dynastic rivalries and an AI that actually remembers stuff.
Click to expand...

The ancestral sin part was more a joke of religious nature rather than in-game mechanics. (The purgatory isn't portrayed in-game.)

Mods have implemented traits that makes one "pay" for the sins of ancestors though.

Because you're his heir. They won't care about the person as much as e g "the king of England captured half of Europe, now we make the king of England pay", one wouldn't care if it's you as a person or your ancestor, the King must pay! Face it, you'll be viewed as the heir of that tw*t, and judged because of it.
 
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How are traits going to impact this infamy?

If I am a kind, just and content king, it wouldn't make much sense for my neighbours to hate me as much for a rightful holy war as if I was an ambitious, cruel and wrathful ruler. They will certainly not think they would be the next (even if the player's plans may be otherwise).
 
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For the Gods sake... When are You going to understand, that WC is too easy, because wars are too simple? Your response to everyone who complains about difficulty is increasing AI ability to gang against player. When medieval ruler wanted to go to war, even against weaker and smaller opponent, he didn't simply send declaration of war and called upon his banners-men. He had to prepare everything- supplies for army, organize his troops into single force, prepare border for troubles, design regent (if he wanted to be present), raise taxes for upkeep...

How is it in CK2? DOW-> raise levies->single pitched battle->occupying provinces until warscore hits 100%. Great.
 
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WeissRaben said:
Why are you so set against giving internal problems? Those should arguably the biggest reason for empires to be restrained, or for their bloating, weakening, and collapse. The HRE diluted because the Emperors tried to wiggle some concessions from a horde of vassals and ended up giving too much; the ERE started creaking when the old governors lobbied for hereditary rule, and got it; the Anarchy at Samarra, the English Anarchy, the dissolution of Al-Andalus, and the near collapse of France, were all movements that started on the inside. Sometimes they got a final push from outside, but those were pushes that a sane country of their size would have born without difficulties. So, why? Why add coalition, which are iffy but workable in EU4 but make absolutely no sense in CK2?
Click to expand...

While I do think coalitions as described by the dev diary will be good for the game, I strongly agree with the quoted post that increasing the difficulty of vassal management should be the key to CKII's anti-blobbing mechanics.
 
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alscon said:
How are traits going to impact this infamy?

If I am a kind, just and content king, it wouldn't make much sense for my neighbours to hate me as much for a rightful holy war as if I was an ambitious, cruel and wrathful ruler. They will certainly not think they would be the next (even if the player's plans may be otherwise).
Click to expand...

If you conquer like an expansionist conqueror, you're an expansionist conqueror.

"My liege, the king of France has just usurped the crown of Aragon. Should we seek allies to curb his future expansion?"

"I don't know, he's just so nice..."
 
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