Are Regency COMPLETELY broken?

[Jirki88]

So it doesn't seem to matter who the actual regent is - be it your brother, mother, diviner, marshal or a random leper from the street - they don't care, regardless of whether they like you or not. Not even with +100 relation, my regent won't let me do anything whatosever. Declare wars, hand out titles of any kind... Nothing.
Most regents have only one modifier, and it's a -1 Base Reluctance, a few have a +1 Don't Care... In the end, they won't let you do anything. Whatsoever. Seriously, is this how it should be? Is it even reasonable? A regent that just want to sit around and do nothing whatsoever? Ok if they actually wanted to rule the realm their way or whatever, but as it stands, the only thing a Regent does is to sit around, eat a grape and drink copious amounts of wine. And make sure you won't do anything at all while they bend over for the occasional faction.

Seriously, yeah, this is a rant, because Regencies just break the game. If unlucky enough to get there with an incapable ruler of 30yo, or a 5yo kid, and have 10+ years of Regency to look forward to... I just get so tired of this mechanic. -_-

Edited to remove some references - Had a dad

 

[Korashy]

They need to have the right traits. Kind and Just Regent for example will let you pretty much do whatever you want.

 

[SaddestRobots]

My last two regents were a Just Diligent mom and a Kind Patient Deceitful spymaster and they allowed me to do everything except set up marriages to people they absolutely hated (no big deal). It was absolutely painless.

IIRC, in addition to traits, non-landed regents tend to be more chill about stuff.

Also, if you're struggling with this, at the moment, you can cheat the system a bit, even in Ironman, by just saving and reloading after you get a "Your regent got replaced by a rando for reasons you can't understand..." message. Looks like the game just recalculates your regent instead of saving the information, so whoever is your "natural" regent will tend to come back again.

 

[Anonymous01]

Yes.

 

[Dakilla TM]

And they always siphon money out of the treasury, and lower crown authority. No matter who it is, whether it's my own mom who loves me with +100 relations or a rival duke with -100, they both do the same exact thing. This should be changed, A LOT.

 

[Summercat]

My son and then my wife had the Regency. They took titles for themselves, and gave cash away, but didn't touch the Crown Authority.

 

[Zhetone]

I once had crown authority lowered twice during a long regency. Made me pretty mad. There was some retribution upon my ruler reaching maturity...

 

[ninoallen]

i wouldnt hold my breath on a fix...

 

[Pigeoncount]

I once had crown authority lowered twice during a long regency. Made me pretty mad. There was some retribution upon my ruler reaching maturity...

This makes me want to really play as a vassal just so I can get my ruler in regency, and just spam lower crown authority factions until there is none left. As the regent will always cave, no matter relative power, I can take it down from absolute to none in less than a week.

 

[Rationalsanity]

This makes me want to really play as a vassal just so I can get my ruler in regency, and just spam lower crown authority factions until there is none left. As the regent will always cave, no matter relative power, I can take it down from absolute to none in less than a week.

The problem is that a player regent doesn't have a fraction of the power an AI regent does.

 

[Zhetone]

The problem is that a player regent doesn't have a fraction of the power an AI regent does.

One might say though that it's because being spammed with 500 events due to bad AI decision-making so you make the decisions for the AI isn't fun gameplay, just like how the Pope isn't playable.
However there should be a limit of one law reduction per regency, it's stupid that a super-centralized Empire can become entirely flipped on its head in the space of a couple of years. Yeah, we just demolished all the bureaucracy and no one complained! Sensible.

 

[Korashy]

And they always siphon money out of the treasury, and lower crown authority. No matter who it is, whether it's my own mom who loves me with +100 relations or a rival duke with -100, they both do the same exact thing. This should be changed, A LOT.

Again. It all depends on traits and to some degree luck. The "proper" traits can't fully prevent lowering of crown authority or prevent siphoning, etc, but they generally increase the MTTH to so high that it just won't happen unless you get unlucky. If your stuff fall apart because of a regency it's entirely the fault of your poor planning. Thinking Opinion is the key, is a pitfall. It's all about traits (the wiki should have the MTTH conditions and factors for all the events, alternatively, you can just read them in the game files).

Coincidentally, you also want your chosen regent to have high intrigue so they don't get replaced easily. If you are looking at a 16 year regency, then you'll probably take some damage, but to be honest, that's expected in the maximum (natural) regency.

 

[Summercat]

Too bad there can't be a faction or conspiracy to increase crown authority. I could see some of the smaller nobles wanting that, to have a strong Crown to defend their holdings against much larger nobility.

 

[Llyw olaf]

Why doesn't my current regent and steward allow a betrothal between my 12 year old emperor and his 14 year old daughter? he has a good opinion of both and has behaved himself until now, I find it strange that he will allow the emperor to marry some nobody but doesn't want his daughter in the imperial family, doesn't make any sense. I really hope Paradox will one day bring some logic to regents and seducers.

 

[DorlasAnther]

Why doesn't my current regent and steward allow a betrothal between my 12 year old emperor and his 14 year old daughter? he has a good opinion of both and has behaved himself until now, I find it strange that he will allow the emperor to marry some nobody but doesn't want his daughter in the imperial family, doesn't make any sense. I really hope Paradox will one day bring some logic to regents and seducers.

It is the same as logic of king of Aragon not willing to marry one of his 3 daughters to emperor of Rome, because he desires better alliance. There is just no logic at all.

Also, when you start the game, you don´t have anyone as regent before unpausing. So, you can declare wars, replace advisers, commanders, revoke titles and offer marriages freely before you unpause (and once the deal has been offered, it cannot be cancelled even by regent).

 

[Alastor]

Also, when you start the game, you don´t have anyone as regent before unpausing. So, you can declare wars, replace advisers, commanders, revoke titles and offer marriages freely before you unpause (and once the deal has been offered, it cannot be cancelled even by regent).

Which is probably a bug, but oh well. It sounds also like sth I have noticed, if you are caught by surprise by your ruler's death/incapacitation without having designated a proper regent, you can still do it provided you don't close the event and unpause.

 

[Hecaton]

Regencies are terrible. This was already known.

 

[Komujeese]

Regencies suck. They didn't use to be so bad a couple of years ago, but they've just gotten worse over the years.
My pet peeve is that regents often refuse to allow even bethrothals that were signed long ago. For example, character A bethroths his son to a girl.
Character A dies, his son becomes the ruler under a regent. When both the son and the girl become adults they cannot get married, since the regent refuses it.
I've seen this thing so many times, and it pisses me off every time.

 

[Moah]

Character A dies, his son becomes the ruler under a regent. When both the son and the girl become adults they cannot get married, since the regent refuses it.

If the son is an adult, he shouldn't have a regent anymore...

 

[Djacir]

I believe that is actually a good system that needs to get better. You shouldn't be really able to make decisions as a 8 year old King, that's not realistic. Indeed, i would prefer that the regent should have even more power, in a Byzantium with viceroyalties, he should be able to give them to whoever he wants. That will make the realm possibly a mess? Yes, but regents rarely were paragons of loyalty to a young monarch. Young children must have a rough time, to be manipulated, to have the treasury looted by a unscrupulous regent, and maybe even have the risk of usurpation. Yes, even to refuse a betrothal, actually the regent could even have some voice to decide whoever their young liege would marry.

However, to be a regent should be great, but hard to keep. In a big empire, there would be a lot of people wanting to topple you and win your position, a smart regent would have to prevent himself against plotting. Why not even a casus belli to remove someone as regent? These mechanics need to be expanded, not reduced, and i don't believe that they are broken. It's Middle Ages, folks, that wasn't a time kind to young or incapable rulers.