23rd Feb DD - No news is good news

[Rationalsanity]

Darkrenown - Could you please add most of the other ambitions back? You can scale the benefits for completing them down to balance them. The thing is, those smaller ambitions, like "get married" - or setting up marriages for vassals and Court are really wonderful for immersion and gave us more to do in the game when we don't have much to do holdings wise.
I really miss that sense of helping my people out, with all those ambitions gone. It makes me less connected to my realm and the game feels much more dry without them.

Thanks for considering this and I really hope you'll make it happen.

Agreed, there is no logical reasons for those ambitions to just be taken out. A further nerf to fertility on top of the opinion nerf also wasn't needed.

 

[jpinard]

Also, you should seriously considering giving us the option to decline favour requests and war invitations (penalties included obviously), but I don't like my hand being forced. The game is about choices, diplomacy and medieval geopolitics

I agree with this 1,000%. While Game of Thrones (the tv show) is fantasy and not a Medieval history simulation, this is like when the Starks want to go to war, and his wife's sister will not join them. The "choice" is a critical element in the game and taking that away narrows each game. This game thrived and made sales on its unpredictability. If you take the same scenario, and it only goes in one direction every time, it gets boring. If you take one scenario and it changes every time, it opens up a blossom of wonderful possibilities.

So give us the choice to decline, and make the penalty a whopper.

 

[Red Earth]

The portrait for the daughter on the event window is broken too.

And I have to ask did you happen to decrease the frequency of this event because I have definitely had at least one daughter each generation go shack up with the Lombard band, or the commander of the adriatic galleys ffs.

I notice it seems to happen to unwed daughters that are just loitering at court. And I have to say if the purpose of this event is to discourage the player from the strategy of just putting daughters on shelves to avoid claimants..

This is a different event. Not when a daughter falls for a mercenary, it's when a daughter becomes a mercenary, starting her own company. It ended my game about a dozen times.

 

[Rationalsanity]

This is a different event. Not when a daughter falls for a mercenary, it's when a daughter becomes a mercenary, starting her own company. It ended my game about a dozen times.

Yes, it happened even when she wasn't the heir, or even in an agnatic realm.

 

[Steel_atlas]

I dont see the fixes to Charlie gaining high threat from inheriting his brothers lands and the Saxon war event, I know they were mentioned by devs.

Also really hoping to see some fixes to allow the AI Charlie to form the HRE.....

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

Also, you should seriously considering giving us the option to decline favour requests and war invitations (penalties included obviously), but I don't like my hand being forced. The game is about choices, diplomacy and medieval geopolitics, it should stay that way and player freedom should be a no-brainer.

Yes! Please!

Has anyone heard any coherent rationale for why the player should not have that option? I agree it should be a no-brainer.

 

[erhpdm]

C´mon when this is out? I want buy Conclave

It would be nice it they would at least give a hint. We hope to have a beta by "...". But nothing. Doomdarks "very soon" on Feb 4 seems very distant by now...

 

[masdog]

Loyalist faction should, IMO, be more than just a harmless vassal: they should be vassals who are fiercely loyal to their liege and will try to combat any threat to their liege, their wishes and their heirs. For plotters, this would mean that they would also need to get rid of them to stay safe, stay undetected or get the result they'd want.

Your vassals should have to worry about their vassals breaking away to join the loyalist faction and fighting against them - ie if you have a few powerful dukes in the anti-liege faction, their counts should have the opportunity to break away and join the loyalist faction against them.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

It would be nice it they would at least give a hint. We hope to have a beta by "...". But nothing. Doomdarks "very soon" on Feb 4 seems very distant by now...

Since they seem to have been badly confused about what they were trying acheive when they created the problems, my guess is they're now equally confused about how to fix them.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Since they seem to have been badly confused about what they were trying acheive when they created the problems, my guess is they're now equally confused about how to fix them.

I dunno I think the idea behind coalitions is solid, its just that there isnt much interaction with them.

Outside of granting independence, which only feels right if you end up taking territories you dont want. Your basically waiting around for the timer to tick down.

There should be more active ways to lower your threat. Maybe supporting OPMs against other blobs etc.

Also they dont really stop blobs against OPMs because their vassals end up declaring war, or they just wait untill the threat level ticks down, the AI cant get bored after all.

 

[Hecaton]

First part; not really, because that's just an opinion modifier with one person, where threat is a global thing.

Second part; wish i had a more intelligent way to say this, but that's just stupid. If anything your new vassals would have a POSITIVE opinion boost for sympathy!

Even given the negative way people looked at suicides in the christian world at that time, it's just stupid. Especially if your heir has good traits like gregarious, kind, and/or just. And high diplomacy.

How about some more creative ways to challenge the player, besides just slapping negative opinion modifiers everywhere.

Next will be the modifier "Just Because -50"

You're right, and it's scary you're getting downvotes. The bootlicking is strong atm.

 

[MadManMark]

These sound like solid improvements. But did I somehow miss the statement that you are going to fix the bug that all children educated abroad (at least under non-conclave game) do not return to their home court after reaching 16, instead they are "lost in space" have not location, and are impossible to invite to court, etc)? I ask because on the bug report thread for it someone from paradox said that you were already aware of it & fix would be in next patch.

Also regarding this:

Non dynastic or close kin children in your court get auto assigned educations at age 15

Does this mean that even education assignmentsI've made as a player will always be broken/replaced once the child turns 15? I'm not very thrilled about this if so.

 

[Hecaton]

Yes! Please!

Has anyone heard any coherent rationale for why the player should not have that option? I agree it should be a no-brainer.

I think it does screwy things in multiplayer games. Which, you know, basically nobody plays outside of the PI offices, but the implication that the customer base of CK2 exists to monetarily support their house games is becoming more realistic with every botched DLC.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

I think it does screwy things in multiplayer games. Which, you know, basically nobody plays outside of the PI offices, but the implication that the customer base of CK2 exists to monetarily support their house games is becoming more realistic with every botched DLC.

Whenever something doesn't work well in SP, developers always say it's because of deference to MP.

Or if a game's AI is poor, developers always say the game is best enjoyed in MP.

MP has long been used to justify a multitude of design sins.

 

[vandevere]

Whenever something doesn't work well in SP, developers always say it's because of deference to MP.

Or if a game's AI is poor, developers always say the game is best enjoyed in MP.

MP has long been used to justify a multitude of design sins.

If you're going to have a game that's both SP and MP, you need to balance the two game modes separately. What would balance a MP game will run a SP game into the ground.

I never play MP, personally. Why should *MY* SP game get nerfed into the basement and beyond for a game mode I never even play?

 

[jamaicam]

The martial amount is able to be balanced - and levy # is power, so not including it is truly counter intuitive no matter how you slice it. The two things that gave you power in the middle ages was army size and wealth - which ironically neither are considered in the formula. The age thing is just ridiculous. That would mean a 1 holding province in the mountains (even multiple low upgraded provinces) completely devoid of buildings with an owner of 90 years old is more powerful than a fully upgraded 1 holding province with a 30 year old. Explain the logic in that (and this is not an exaggeration - you can find situations like this all over the map).

The fact is that with the current formula as is you will NOT consistently see your most powerful vassals listed as powerful vassals which sort of defeats the whole purpose of their coding when you put all the pieces together. This is simply not a good design choice. Sorry. And despite this being listed under minor, this issue has huge implications since so much revolves around these select vassals.

The problem is that levy numbers go up and down continously due to lots of different factors so using them as a tie breaker could mean that two vassals switch back and forth as powerful. The cooldown for fired councilors makes that very annoying. Holdings is also much easier to calculate for the player as you can check the ledger and determine if giving a vassal a new title will make them powerful or not.

 

[Delicate Danseuse]

Thanks you for sharing the patch notes. Nearly all seem like they are at least steps in the right direction, and I'm quite pleased to see the effort you guys are putting in to try and make the recent major changes playable. I concerned that Shattered Retreats continues to result in invincible retreating armies in my territory, and will not use it unless/until that is changed, but overall I think this looks like a really good patch. There were only two notes I have real concerns/questions about:

1) That council authority law - it makes it so we can not fire a councilor, no exceptions? This despite it sometimes being impossible to operate unless you fire a councilor? And the fact that councilors sometimes suffer debilitating conditions which would make their continued service completely unrealistic? At what level does this kick in, and is this on or off by default? It seems like this is an unnecessary, unrealistic, un-fun, and over-simplified mechanic, and will rush straight to the top of the list of "laws every player immediately changes when starting a game."

2) Bigger malus for a large vassals not on council. Why? It's already enormous, and it's absurd that it applies equally to content characters and ambitious characters. It basically feels like a second version of the "Ambition" trait, automatically assigned to whomever happens to be relatively big, despite the fact that most players spend their entire game carefully selecting and rewarding vassals for being the opposite, and worming out those who are like this.

Both of these things basically feel like ways to try and force players in to unrealistic corners so that the council mechanic overall can screw them. That is not enjoyable gameplay.

Again, thanks for the information and for the patch - most of it looks like positive steps and I know a lot of hard work is going in to it. Those two items above are just big red flags!

100% agreed. Everything in this post is dead-on. I've had powerful vassals that through no fault of my own end up blinded or worse but still get angry for not being on the council. I've had powerful vassals with such awful stats and skills become less powerful through their own incompetent ruling, but still demand a seat. Or possibly the worst, I've had people resign from my council and then get mad at me for not having them on the council! What!

Anyway, the idea that traits should effect how the AI feels about not being on the council is a brilliant one and I'd like to endorse that.

 

[Dracko81]

That's quite the opposite, I want to listen to their opinions... That's why I want to have even more vassals on the Council. Why to remove the Advisor positions, in first place?

Then you need to give them power. This is why the option is there. Abolished power means you don't listen to them. You want to listen, then empower the council and get advisors.

I didn't see any thing related to tribal-governance in the patch notes. Not even on the 2.5 or 2.5.1 ones. But there obviously some strange/new things.

Looking at that thread I don't see anything wrong. What exactly is the problem?

 

[Metz]

I was playing as tribal pagans in the middle of Finland. Then I get that the wife of the Byzantine Emperor came through and enjoyed her stay. This allowed me to sign a Non-aggression Pact with the Byzantines.

Anyways to fix this? Some people aren't gonna go far far away and visit randomly then want to sign a NAP. That vacationing event thing should probably only apply to similar sized realms or something.

 

[Korashy]

For real though... fix the pillage button...