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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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It does make some sense, sins of the father and all that.

I will be exceptionally annoyed if its the full amount of infamy that transfers between succession though. There best be SOME bleed off.
I'd be willing to bet that around 50% bleed off OR that it goes down faster if the son has not declared any wars yet
 
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I'd be willing to bet that around 50% bleed off OR that it goes down faster if the son has not declared any wars yet

This is just an arbitrary guess of something the developers already decided.
 
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So... who was complaining Paradox should focus on internal conflicts instead of this? As it seems they can do both ;)
Also having internal mechanics does not make this a good feature.

That, and we will need to pay for said mechanics while this will be foisted on all who update to the next patch.
 
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But when you are a nice guy, and make a friend, and later you give him lands, you give him gold and grant their ambition of getting marrying you can be sure the guy will not remember anything when you die. He will have no problem starting an independence faction when your heir takes the power. If bad reputation for conquering land is passed to your next chararter then is just fair than good reputation will pass to your heir (making succesion more easy). Also, i dont like the idea of agressive expansion, but i am fine with it as long as i do not have to conquer different religion neighbours duchy by duchy, while having to wait truces. If i beat a coalition i want to be able to make the allies of my target pay for they daring, so only the main defender gets a truce, but the other countries not. Its fine if all their other buddies join in, as long as i can snatch like five duchies from a coailition in less than 15 years. Its dissapointing how in EU4 everybody can join a coalition and get away with it. Napoleon beat a lot of coalitions and snatchet a good chunk of land from every member of the letsstopthefrench club.
 
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So... who was complaining Paradox should focus on internal conflicts instead of this? As it seems they can do both ;)
Exactly. Although we still have to wait and see for more details concerning the coalitions as well as those. It is too early to make any conclusions, in my opinion.
 
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That makes me feel like this mechanic is going to restrict the player, and no one else...

But guys, the AI in EU4 causes coalitions from huge expansions all the time too so its fair right? Riiiiiiiiiight?

(But really though, these features never hurt the AI in anyway and only make the game slower and less interesting for the player.)
 
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Centralisation should make councillors more dangerous; these are the people who you're giving power to enforce your will. The standard medieval parable of an evil Sheriff of Nottingham or nefarious Vizier is all about grasping state officers misusing the power accumulated by an absolutist monarchy.

*Sees Conclave announced*

Wow, they work fast!
 
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And get renamed? I don't consider a different name "self-destruction."

Yeah.. are you forgetting all the independence revolts? It fragments. Sure the main blob is still there, but all the bits and pieces have fallen off so all it controls at the end is Mesopotamia and Syria, usually. My point still stands that the AI rarely expands it, or even keeps it all together.
 
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Yeah.. are you forgetting all the independence revolts? It fragments. Sure the main blob is still there, but all the bits and pieces have fallen off so all it controls at the end is Mesopotamia and Syria, usually. My point still stands that the AI rarely expands it, or even keeps it all together.

I swear, we're playing different games.
 
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