30 years unrest for reducing autonomy is way overboard

[digitCruncher]

Yip. Whenever I conquer a new province ATM, I just make the religion the same, make the culture the same, and *usually* by the time both of those two things are done, nationalism has fallen sufficiently to mean I have smaller than -10 unrest in the territory. This means I can quickly decrease the autonomy of a province with no repercussions.

To reduce the autonomy of a province with -7 or higher unrest is just silly. If you reduce the autonomy of a province with -10 unrest, and something happens to increase national unrest, you can use any of the above tactics to counteract the effects of the rising national unrest.

 

[Pugman]

Granted I haven't played all that much with this new system yet, but typically I like to keep all my provinces without unrest/RR while in peace time because I don't like a bunch of rebellions during war with WE.

 

[nicechinos]

Have you played anything other than a European country?

The problem is that you want to play Kongo as rich and stable European country with tons of accepted cultures, troops and money. What's the point of playing Africa then? Can you imagine level of centralisation in tribalistic Africa IIRC? Unrest is much more manageable. Blobbing is easy. Just increase the autonomy, it will fade away. Or play England or France.

 

[Squirrelloid]

The problem is that you want to play Kongo as rich and stable European country with tons of accepted cultures, troops and money. What's the point of playing Africa then? Can you imagine level of centralisation in tribalistic Africa IIRC? Unrest is much more manageable. Blobbing is easy. Just increase the autonomy, it will fade away. Or play England or France.

Historically, Kongo was a centralized state *in this time period*, even in 1444. And accepted cultures was never the problem. (You have so little basetax that accepting another culture is frequently easy - 20% of 20 is 4, and you don't even start with 20BT, you start with 14 as Kongo).

Gameplay-wise, the RotW didn't need a massive nerf relative to Europe. Plus getting a weak heir is close to game-ending, because rebel stack sizes are out of control for anyone but rich european nations.

What I'd like is to be able to do things and not need to sit with speed 5 (choppily) on for several hours before I can do anything, nor should i be more scared of rebels than any or *all* of my neighbors. It was vastly more interesting to play in the RotW before, despite the reworked patch, because you could actually *play the game*.

I don't need tons of troops or money, I want the game to be playable for nations that don't have tons of troops or money.

The severe nerf to harsh treatment is especially egregious here.

Finally, the lack of decisions for non-Christian, non-Muslim countries is not related to being poor, it's related to being non-Christian and non-Muslim. (Advisors costing the same whether in Europe or far-flung Africa is also kind of non-sensical, but then, the game's handling of wealth is ridiculously bad too).

Oh yeah, and lack of money... the pagan gold-income nerf certainly doesn't help. Something else that doesn't affect europeans or islamic nations...

 

[Gaamel]

At least you get -20RR as soon as rebels are crushed. The mechanic already exists in CK2, it's a very good change.

 

[Deuterium Dawn]

It really just needs to go down over time like nationalism, then it would be fine.

 

[Arizal]

I would like the minimum time for changing autonomy to move from 30 to 20 or 10 years. There is already a tradeoff, but I like the fact that rebellions cannot be entirely avoided by increasing the autonomy (when the unrest is above 10). Those things take time.

I would say 20 years, which is twice the time needed for the nationalism modifier to disappear (I think) and four time the time a province could defect after a successful revolt, would be a good number for the time between a change in autonomy.

Or maybe it could be a modifier simulating the efforts given to increase/decrease autonomy overtime. But then unrest would decrease at the same pace autonomy is decreasing, which wouldn't work...

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

Gameplay-wise, the RotW didn't need a massive nerf relative to Europe.

And they didn't get one. They got nothing but buffs. I have no idea why you think autonomy and unrest are somehow more damaging to RotW than they are to Europe. They're simple to manage. I certainly didn't have any problems with them as Manchu, and I used the reduce autonomy button a lot.

 

[Squirrelloid]

And they didn't get one. They got nothing but buffs. I have no idea why you think autonomy and unrest are somehow more damaging to RotW than they are to Europe. They're simple to manage. I certainly didn't have any problems with them as Manchu, and I used the reduce autonomy button a lot.

The revolts are way oversized when they do occur relative to most RotW nations FLs.

And yes, if you're lucky and have a perfect run of strong claim heirs, you can easily use reduce autonomy a lot. But if you get unlucky and get a weak heir, that's a 6-7 RR hit when the ruler dies. Since reduce autonomy lasts *30 years*, its virtually impossible to predict when you hit it what your situation will be like in even 20 years. Heirs die, rulers kick the bucket at 25 instead of 50, etc... Bad luck completely out of player control can lead to a cascade of brutal consequences.

Due to a young ruler death (not in combat) and no heir yet, I had to weather revolts with stack sizes equal to my force limits, better generals, and 3 stacks each time, every 5 years for 20 years. I did nothing wrong except get a bad dice roll on ruler longevity. And that was with only a single province taken in the preceeding 10 years, conquered, cored, and converted, before I ever touched the reduce autonomy button. (It never revolted).

If that's supposed to be 'rewarding' gameplay or evidence of 'strategic difficulty', you don't know what those words mean.

On that alone this is a ridiculous nerf to the RotW. And that's not the only way the RotW suffers. (Not going to go into all of them now, but same continent colonization - nerfed and pretty much only affects the RotW, and the Harsh treatment nerf has an outsize effect on the RotW because they need more points to tech - europe has more excess points to burn. That's not a complete list, those are just examples).

 

[StatikShocker]

It was rough as a poor somali nation suppressing ethiopian coptics in those mountain river provinces. I decided I'd give them autonomy... but they had over +20 unrest, so I could only lower it 10 for 30 years. Basically no options there. Tough but it all worked out.

I like how you can stack -unrest over -10 so that you can do a "Free" autonomy drop. With high tolerance of the true faith in an accepted culture province you can freely lower autonomy without getting unrest above 0. If that isn't the case then don't lower it.

 

[Teije]

The autonomy and unrest system is one of the best changes in this expansion. Quite versatile and much improved from the old revolt risk system.

 

[StatikShocker]

The autonomy and unrest system is one of the best changes in this expansion. Quite versatile and much improved from the old revolt risk system.

I agree it is a step in the right direction and also consolidates a few mechanics in to one more realistic abstraction.

The metrics can be debated though. Is 30 years a fair amount of time between autonomy changes? should colonized provinces have 50% autonomy permanently even when they border your capital and the natives were your cultures and religion?

but the system is an improvement.

 

[keynes2.0]

Autonomy drops are great. If anything they are slightly overpowered.

 

[Kyoumen]

Routinely used autonomy dropping in every diploannexed vassal in my Inca game (and there were quite a few of them chewing through Mesoamerica). Once I'd converted religion, they were stacked to about -11 revolt risk (almost always have a theologian thanks to +advisors, Reformed religious fervour, etc), and that was fine.

So what if something bad can happen and you could suffer from the consequences of your action? If your good king dies and you lose legitimacy and those regions you lowered autonomy on revolt, then you got what you deserved, didn't you? What, is it magically supposed to have no consequence ever, just click a button for free money, spending no points? The feature is broken if something unexpected happens and you end up with revolts?

Harsh treatment (prior to 1.8) also gave a permanent, unchanging revolt risk decrease for its entire duration, and I've never heard anybody complain about that. But when it's an unchanging level of something negative for a time period, suddenly people are up in arms about it.

As for why it is... you took away their independence and forced them into your foreign system. You have a generation of people who remember that and will leap at the chance to strike if you slip up. If you don't like it, if you can't handle the possibility that anything you do in the game might backfire on you, then don't push that button. I'll keep using it, as my non-European country that it never backfired on even once.

 

[Squirrelloid]

Routinely used autonomy dropping in every diploannexed vassal in my Inca game (and there were quite a few of them chewing through Mesoamerica). Once I'd converted religion, they were stacked to about -11 revolt risk (almost always have a theologian thanks to +advisors, Reformed religious fervour, etc), and that was fine.

So what if something bad can happen and you could suffer from the consequences of your action? If your good king dies and you lose legitimacy and those regions you lowered autonomy on revolt, then you got what you deserved, didn't you? What, is it magically supposed to have no consequence ever, just click a button for free money, spending no points? The feature is broken if something unexpected happens and you end up with revolts?

Harsh treatment (prior to 1.8) also gave a permanent, unchanging revolt risk decrease for its entire duration, and I've never heard anybody complain about that. But when it's an unchanging level of something negative for a time period, suddenly people are up in arms about it.

As for why it is... you took away their independence and forced them into your foreign system. You have a generation of people who remember that and will leap at the chance to strike if you slip up. If you don't like it, if you can't handle the possibility that anything you do in the game might backfire on you, then don't push that button. I'll keep using it, as my non-European country that it never backfired on even once.

So let me get this straight: You support getting your game totally ruined by a chance event you have no control over. In a strategy game.

I have no words.

And apparently no one but rich European countries are supposed to use the decrease autonomy button, according to you, because they're the only ones who actually have the resources to deal with the ridiculous numbers of rebels that spawn when it does happen, and you'll have to deal with it several times since the "Recent Uprising" modifier lasts like 3 years. (I have in fact gone to pretending the decrease autonomy button doesn't exist - since I have zero control over heir claim strength or survival, then according to you there's never a safe time to use it, because 30 years is *longer than the expected duration of rule for a monarch*)

Harsh treatment was good in its previous form because it let you pay a price for increased predictability. That's a lot different than having a decision that will be safe most of the time, but there's a very small chance of a hugely swingy event occurring that will then punish you for 10-25 years, repeatedly, and beyond your capacity to handle even with your full army at FL (assuming you can afford it in the first place).

 

[Vordeo]

My main thing is that the malus for lowered autonomy needs to decay. The hit for nationalism goes down over time, lowered autonomy should as well.

"So, sir, you were conquered recently. How do you feel about that?"

"Well, I'm not happy, but it's been around 10 years, and things haven't been all bad, so I'm still a bit angry, but not as much as I used to be."

"Alright, that sounds reasonable. Now, how do you feel about that time before that when your rulers lowered this provinces' autonomy?"

"I AM COMPLETELY OUTRAGED!!!"

"Even though it happened 30 years ago today?"

"YES, I- wait, exactly 30 years today?"

"Yep."

"Then I'm now completely okay with it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My main thing is that the malus for lowered autonomy needs to decay. The hit for nationalism goes down over time, lowered autonomy should as well.

You don't get decay for raising it either.

Lowered autonomy doesn't strike me as being in a bad place. Depending on how you use it, you can easily lower autonomy to a degree without getting revolts or using harsh treatment in some cases, and in others you can get manageable revolts depending on situation. In other words, it's something you use sometimes but not always and requires planning. This is not one of the bad design elements of 1.8.

 

[Squirrelloid]

You don't get decay for raising it either.

Lowered autonomy doesn't strike me as being in a bad place. Depending on how you use it, you can easily lower autonomy to a degree without getting revolts or using harsh treatment in some cases, and in others you can get manageable revolts depending on situation. In other words, it's something you use sometimes but not always and requires planning. This is not one of the bad design elements of 1.8.

Well, the problems with it aren't so much the system itself as *all* the systems it interacts with. From the hugely outsized impact going from 100 to 20 legitimacy has on RR (or just the size of the swing from a strong to a weak claim ruler), to legitimacy being a stat you can't really do anything to improve in reasonable time (most countries will never go from 20 to 100 legitimacy during the lifetime of a ruler), to heir claim / survival and monarch longevity being pure chance, to the rebel system creating ridiculously large stacks, to the horribad harsh treatment system, to how this leads to repeated brutal punishment in those chance bad-case scenarios.

It's hard to believe they did any playtesting of the *range of possible outcomes* the system could generate.

But a shorter duration on the lock, even if only for moving in the opposite direction, would at least put a bandaid over a number of issues.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, the problems with it aren't so much the system itself as *all* the systems it interacts with. From the hugely outsized impact going from 100 to 20 legitimacy has on RR (or just the size of the swing from a strong to a weak claim ruler), to legitimacy being a stat you can't really do anything to improve in reasonable time (most countries will never go from 20 to 100 legitimacy during the lifetime of a ruler), to heir claim / survival and monarch longevity being pure chance, to the rebel system creating ridiculously large stacks, to the horribad harsh treatment system, to how this leads to repeated brutal punishment in those chance bad-case scenarios.

It's hard to believe they did any playtesting of the *range of possible outcomes* the system could generate.

But a shorter duration on the lock, even if only for moving in the opposite direction, would at least put a bandaid over a number of issues.

Let's not confuse things. The implementation of a reasonable mechanic should not bend over backwards to shoddy ones. For example, if you're going to "fix" something between autonomy lowering and legitimacy, the latter is by far the worse mechanic and that's the one that should be fixed; autonomy has a significant strategy element to it and your choices can matter. Legitimacy...has minimal influencing factors and given its global impact a potentially larger result.

If I had to pick between mechanics similar to raising/lowering autonomy, and those similar to legitimacy and monarch point income for the vast majority of 1444 starts, I'd take the former any day without question, even if they're more punishing. When playing a strategy game, more meaningful choices is an appreciated design element. I just wish I could delve into it more, but that's not going to happen until the game starts working for me again.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

But if you get unlucky and get a weak heir, that's a 6-7 RR hit when the ruler dies.

If you go directly from 100 to 0, then it's -6, but that rarely happens (weak claims are iirc anywhere in the 0-30 range), and otherwise you're exaggerating.

You don't need to lower autonomy manually ever, and when you do choose to do it, you have to calculate your risk. Humanist, Religious and Plutocratic all help.