Am I crazy or does this game confuse slowing down with difficulty?

[Siegfriedfr]

I couldn´t agree more to that!

Unfortunately it is simply incompatible some of the core mechanics of the game. Charlemagne´s realm can have civil wars to no end, it won´t split if there is only 1 primary title. The caliphate won´t shrink as such, beacause there is only 1 Sunni Caliphate. The greeks slowly lost ground, but it never happens in the game when as long as they are so ridiculously overpowered, regarsless of mechanics, and noone else can crown himself "emperor of the romans" as many historical rivals did.

CK2 is a game not a history simulator. Playrs want to have fun, and there is no fun seeing what you have build being torn to pieces because reasons or "it happened in History".

 

[gdj]

One thing that I think would weaken the various blobs would be if all vassals get the chance to break free if the liege loses an independence war or gives in to the demands of the Independence faction (with the liege getting a claim if they do so). Regarding rival emperors for the ERE/RE, that could probably be handled via a faction modelled more or less after the Antiking or Overthrow factions (but without the "become elective if the faction wins" part) with it becoming available if the liege recently lost a major war, if the liege isn't BitP, if the liege has a regency, etc.

OK, things like that might work, though splitting would still be fairly hard to model. But, as i said, i like the idea!

CK2 is a game not a history simulator. Playrs want to have fun, and there is no fun seeing what you have build being torn to pieces because reasons or "it happened in History".

Sure, we all play CK2 for having fun. It´s not my idea of "having fun" to have practically no challenge anymore after you hit realm size 50 (or much less, depending on the region). This has nothing to do with history simulating, i just brought some examples what might happen or not.

 

[naisel]

CK2 is a game not a history simulator. Playrs want to have fun, and there is no fun seeing what you have build being torn to pieces because reasons or "it happened in History".

That's a matter of opinion, I have the most fun in CKII when I'm losing, having my realm on the brink of destruction sounds like a lot of fun.

 

[jjjdddsss]

One thing that I think would weaken the various blobs would be if all vassals get the chance to break free if the liege loses an independence war or gives in to the demands of the Independence faction (with the liege getting a claim if they do so). Regarding rival emperors for the ERE/RE, that could probably be handled via a faction modelled more or less after the Antiking or Overthrow factions (but without the "become elective if the faction wins" part) with it becoming available if the liege recently lost a major war, if the liege isn't BitP, if the liege has a regency, etc.

I think there would have to be some way for independence factions to become kingdoms when they split off, at the moment if you don't have Kingdom titles they just become independent dukes that are trivial to eat back up. Maybe if for example most of Ireland joined the faction they could crown the faction leader king, maybe even merge it with liberation revolts.

CK2 is a game not a history simulator. Playrs want to have fun, and there is no fun seeing what you have build being torn to pieces because reasons or "it happened in History".

I think there is no fun in the game being completely unchallenging, I think a lot of people feel that way. There seems to be a decent group of people who would have fun with empires falling.

 

[Silversweeeper]

OK, things like that might work, though splitting would still be fairly hard to model. But, as i said, i like the idea!

I have done some experimenting with it in my personal mod (trying to weigh in traits, religion, distance, tier, culture, dynasty, and de jure status), with varying results. Sometimes people who should be very unlikely to split off decide to do so while those who should be very unlikely to not split off decide to stay loyal. It would be possible to make it very random or very rigid, or somewhere in between, but sometimes the RNG will likely cause strange things to happen.

I think there would have to be some way for independence factions to become kingdoms when they split off, at the moment if you don't have Kingdom titles they just become independent dukes that are trivial to eat back up. Maybe if for example most of Ireland joined the faction they could crown the faction leader king, maybe even merge it with liberation revolts.

If it makes sense, that could work; though it would need to ensure that there isn't a big cultural/religious mismatch (and possibly that ambitious vassals refuse to swear fealty to someone they don't like) and that the new kingdom only contains people in its de jure area or very close nearby as the independence faction could have members from opposite sides of the map in it. Something else that could be a possibility (though that doesn't really work with the current mechanics) is if the newly independent states formed local alliance blocs that only allows calls if they are attacked by someone who isn't part of said bloc (e.g. Italian breakaways from the HRE generally defending each other from the Kaiser, the Pope, and various MRs, but infighting amongst themselves from time to time as they try to form Italy first).

The former liege could also be forced to refrain from foreign wars for X number of years (5-10 probably would be long enough to prevent an instant reblob while not preventing the former liege from doing anything for a too long period of time) as the focus should be consolidation, which should make the AI a bit less suicidally stupid when the realm is much weakened and there might be nearby realms that wants to take a bite from it.

 

[gdj]

An easier solution might be a "dismantle empire/kingdom"-faction, or a similar cb that simply destroys the primary title of the target, leading to various successor kingdoms, or many smaller independent entities. Over time, new larger units would form again. This is a very, very rough abstraction, but many historical occurences could be interpreted like this, from the fragmentation of Ireland to the dismantling of Byzantium in 1204.

 

[Red Earth]

I understood the title and that paradox was not literally slowing the game down. Just his expansion.

I guess I just took the part I quoted as literal. My mistake.

Well they're not unrelated. If the maximum speed could one year a second then waiting 10 years wouldn't be a big deal.

 

[jvm504]

An easier solution might be a "dismantle empire/kingdom"-faction, or a similar cb that simply destroys the primary title of the target, leading to various successor kingdoms, or many smaller independent entities. Over time, new larger units would form again. This is a very, very rough abstraction, but many historical occurences could be interpreted like this, from the fragmentation of Ireland to the dismantling of Byzantium in 1204.

Yeah, more so than anything, we need a mechanic to destroy a title. Whether it's a dismantle faction or just a condition where you lose a title if you lose a certain percentage of land.

Also independence factions should either form their own unified kingdoms or at the very least all be allied with each other after breaking off for independence. Something to make it more of a hindrance than just slowly re-conquering all the small states that broke away.

Conclave did a decent job with slowing down realm expansion, but they still really need to address the concept of realm disintegration. If anything, in conclave, realms are more stable than ever.

 

[jjjdddsss]

CK2 is a game not a history simulator. Playrs want to have fun, and there is no fun seeing what you have build being torn to pieces because reasons or "it happened in History".

I have done some experimenting with it in my personal mod (trying to weigh in traits, religion, distance, tier, culture, dynasty, and de jure status), with varying results. Sometimes people who should be very unlikely to split off decide to do so while those who should be very unlikely to not split off decide to stay loyal. It would be possible to make it very random or very rigid, or somewhere in between, but sometimes the RNG will likely cause strange things to happen.



If it makes sense, that could work; though it would need to ensure that there isn't a big cultural/religious mismatch (and possibly that ambitious vassals refuse to swear fealty to someone they don't like) and that the new kingdom only contains people in its de jure area or very close nearby as the independence faction could have members from opposite sides of the map in it. Something else that could be a possibility (though that doesn't really work with the current mechanics) is if the newly independent states formed local alliance blocs that only allows calls if they are attacked by someone who isn't part of said bloc (e.g. Italian breakaways from the HRE generally defending each other from the Kaiser, the Pope, and various MRs, but infighting amongst themselves from time to time as they try to form Italy first).

The former liege could also be forced to refrain from foreign wars for X number of years (5-10 probably would be long enough to prevent an instant reblob while not preventing the former liege from doing anything for a too long period of time) as the focus should be consolidation, which should make the AI a bit less suicidally stupid when the realm is much weakened and there might be nearby realms that wants to take a bite from it.

It would obviously need a lot of thought but it definitely would be workable.