About Ambitions and NPC acting

[Burned Coffee]

Here's a little thing I've noticed.

Since the last patch (playing with conclave) the getting married and getting married to a ruler ambitions have been removed and replaced with "Groom an heir", arguably a nicer more involved event.

How much did this affect the NPC actions? Do NPCs "want to marry" anymore or do it merely based on powerplay?

I know that their ambitions have certain effects on NPCs and that they have some obscure factors that make them act according to their character, still I wonder how is it that people suddenly stopped caring about getting married? I understand that this was mostly an easy way for the player to get some opinion bonuses but I'd imagine that the computer does it too, and now especially without the "marry a ruler" it seems like the characters have... less ambition.

Well, I know it sounds silly but the fact that a character that is not a ruler can have an ambition like this seems to humanise them and from my point of view at least makes it into a more involved game.

Same with the "having a son/daughter" ambitions.

Now, these were exploitable by players and they are rather simple but they did add to the internal life of the characters, or at least I felt it did.

A simple suggestion would be to put the ambitions back in but only for RP (no bonuses) or make them variable in rank where barons and courtesans have these simpler ambitions instead of say grooming an heir when they have higher ranks.

Perhaps this is a non-issue as it is something that only I can perceive. However since I am one of those that plays most of this game for the roleplaying elements I have to say, sometimes little things even when they are just fluff add to the experience in general.

What do you think?

 

[Fitzjacob]

I agree and actually considered bringing this up myself just now. To the best of my knowledge, seven such ambitions were removed: amass wealth, get married, marry ruler, have daughter, have son, gain title, and specific versions of become councilor.

Raise war taxes is superior to amass wealth so there's no reason to bring it back. The same goes for the new version of become councilor. Rather than asking for a specific position, you'll take whatever is offered. It works better I think, and it was always annoying to become a steward when you "wanted" to be chancellor.

The problem with the removal of "get married" and "gain title" is that it removed events from the game. Your cousins who're keen on marriage are no longer asking you to find them a bride, eventually running off with a lady in waiting. Your sons no longer ask you for land and you no longer get to tell them that they're not ready. Acquire title came with Conclave but that's only available for vassals to an independent liege.

The new ambitions are better for playable characters as they are more fleshed out and add decisions (exhort subject, ask liege for title etc) but the old ones should have been kept in the game for courtiers and possibly barons as you say. Having the basic vanilla events for barons shouldn't affect performance too much as they enable no decisions (no introduce heir to court) or few events. Have son/daughter should be merged though since you somewhat weirdly didn't want to have a child of the gender you chose since the fertility boost was worth more than 10 piety.

To sum it up then, the following ambitions should be re enabled:
Courtiers: get married, have child, gain title (only family members who aren't heirs)
Barons: get married, have child

 

[thevmag]

Raise war taxes is superior to amass wealth so there's no reason to bring it back.

Some of us liked our free and permanent +1 Stewardship

 

[Burned Coffee]

The problem with the removal of "get married" and "gain title" is that it removed events from the game. Your cousins who're keen on marriage are no longer asking you to find them a bride, eventually running off with a lady in waiting. Your sons no longer ask you for land and you no longer get to tell them that they're not ready. Acquire title came with Conclave but that's only available for vassals to an independent liege.

One would hope those events are repurposed for new event chains. I think right now the problem is that whatever not landed courtesans live in your court do nothing, I know the system is getting set up to get rid of inconsequential characters, but the ones that remain just sort of exist and nothing more.