Can we talk about hooks and how I find them annoying and don't really care about aquiring them?

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

It probably isn't possible for performance reasons but ideally you wouldn't have a "hook" system at all. That's exactly the kind of gamey, rigid, and unintegrated mechanic that CK3 and V3 have been overdoing and really putting players off with.

Back in 2014/2015 there was a game in development that came up with a Secrets system, before CK3 was even in dev, and it was far more dynamic, flexible, and expansive.

You can google old blog posts and fandom wiki entries:

Espionage And Dirty Politics In 4X Games

So Espionage in most 4x games is shit. Its not even a debate. Paradox is all about waiting for timers to tick and dice to roll. Civ barely ...

axiomsofdominion.blogspot.com

Secrets

Secrets are a major new feature in Axioms that exists in no other game. Secrets come in many forms and represent valuable knowledge that can be used in many ways to influence the person the secret concerns. Personal secrets are secrets related the the character. A great chief in a society who...

axioms-of-dominion.fandom.com

There's some more expansive posts on old webforums but they appear to have been lost to time.

Generally the idea is that any given secret exists on a very broad spectrum of importance, and that secrets are more or less relevant to different other characters.

Star Dynasties, a game that is actually released, had a distinct take from this game or from CK3, although it has limitations as well, because you can't actively exploit secrets in the same way.

Secrets

Secrets are concealed information that, if uncovered, can potentially damage a noble's reputation. Ambitious nobles seek to uncover the secrets of others for leverage while taking steps to conceal their own.

stardynasties.fandom.com

Many of the posts in this thread seem to support generally similar ideas especially the idea that you don't only have two tiers of hooks which can be used for a wide array of demands basically no questions asked.

 

[davidproxy]

Could we also use hooks to advance our own people to different court and council positions? In the build-up to a civil war or coup attempt, We could push for our own characters to be positioned as the bodyguard, knights, poison testers, etc for a ruler.

 

[Portable Grump]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, we'll forward this on to the devs! (As always we can't make any promises but we will be sure to pass it on)

 

[m00zesss]

the hook system is meh ... like other said before: looking for hooks grants you potential hooks on unlanded courtiers and are only good when you start a fresh game to get some cash

intrigue skill tree is moderate like most others. Most of the time i use the same skills, no matter where i play or who i start with: few years in stewardship, few years in learning, rest in martial.

I think instead of adding more half-finished DLC, why don't you start optimising the game in its current state
- lifestyles rework (or random order of perks) ... you can check stats of what people use in the game: i think it will tell you how many skill trees are actually unused
- friends and foes just added a popup saying you have a rival but that's about it
- wards and wardens seems to add a lot of 'count x wants your kid as a hostage' spam, and 'person x is no longer your wet nurse'
- fix traits: blademaster, loyal/disloyal, add the traits that are provided by cultures but not actually in the game (bumbling squire etc)
- tours & tournaments still gives you popups for grand tour(nament) available while you don't even have 25% of the required funds, popups for events that you can never reach in time, can't train for your own tournament, being stuck for 6 months unable to do anything at all because you started an event

i mentioned this before in another thread: why don't devs look at what some modders created: RICE/VIET/Obfuskate are some of the mods that are really adding content/events and fix the game to make it a lot more immersive and enjoyable

 

[DaBombXXX]

-> Stopping Vassal wars is also useful, but only until you get CA3. However: The fact that you even *need* hooks in order to protect your landed sons from the aggression of their fellow vassals is still stupid in my opinion.

Wait, is this still actually not fixed yet? God that is so lame, there should just be a flat out checksum where landed children can not be invaded by people that aren't members of your house or something.

 

[naq29]

Interesting feedback, thanks for sharing it! Out of curiosity though, what would your expectations of the hook system be? That is, if you had total creative control, what would your hook system look like?

That goes for pretty much anyone in the thread; hit me up with your ideas.

Bringing back the council from CK2 can make hooks more valuable. Or you just have to add more interactions for hooks to be used. Currently there is too little use for hooks, mostly not worth the trouble of acquiring them.

 

[pengoyo]

For me part of the problem is that a lot of hooks you get are on characters you don't care about. As mentioned above, if you set your spymaster to find secrets in a given court most of the secrets you find will a lot of secrets belonging to random courtier rather than the ruler, who is usually the one you want the hook on. It'd be nice if we could use these hooks on random courtiers in some productive ways (besides just to blackmail them into joining a murder plot or coming to our court). For instance, maybe we could blackmail them into helping us find secrets on the character in their court we care about or to have them improve our relations with their liege (or a friend/lover/spouse/family member) by singing our praises. Or if a meaningful courtier in our liege's court, have them have a chance of convincing them to give us something we want by talking to our liege on our behalf (kind of like the petition system). There is the event about your spouse wanting you to fire a person from your council, I could see that being an event triggered by such a system. Ultimately I think being able to usefully leverage hooks on non-rulers would give you that feeling of being able to build a network of spies.

On the flip side, I think having more control when a hook is used on us would make it more palatable (and thus more willing to give out hooks). For instance, if someone uses a hook to demand a seat on the council. Instead of them automatically getting the position they want, you can offer a different council position instead with maybe some extra gold or lose in opinion as the cost of adjusting the demand (with maybe stubborn characters sticking to their original demand).

 

[Nevars]

I need way more to use hook.

Currently unless I set up my succession with elective titles then I don't bother with hook at all.

 

[davidproxy]

For me part of the problem is that a lot of hooks you get are on characters you don't care about. As mentioned above, if you set your spymaster to find secrets in a given court most of the secrets you find will a lot of secrets belonging to random courtier rather than the ruler, who is usually the one you want the hook on. It'd be nice if we could use these hooks on random courtiers in some productive ways (besides just to blackmail them into joining a murder plot or coming to our court). For instance, maybe we could blackmail them into helping us find secrets on the character in their court we care about or to have them improve our relations with their liege (or a friend/lover/spouse/family member) by singing our praises. Or if a meaningful courtier in our liege's court, have them have a chance of convincing them to give us something we want by talking to our liege on our behalf (kind of like the petition system). There is the event about your spouse wanting you to fire a person from your council, I could see that being an event triggered by such a system. Ultimately I think being able to usefully leverage hooks on non-rulers would give you that feeling of being able to build a network of spies.

On the flip side, I think having more control when a hook is used on us would make it more palatable (and thus more willing to give out hooks). For instance, if someone uses a hook to demand a seat on the council. Instead of them automatically getting the position they want, you can offer a different council position instead with maybe some extra gold or lose in opinion as the cost of adjusting the demand (with maybe stubborn characters sticking to their original demand).

I really like this idea. You could have an increased chance of the search being found out as you rope more courtiers into the investigations especially if one has low intrigue.

Alternatively, I also think it would be pretty rad if we could set our Spymaster to either look for information on a particular character directly (at a lower % of success) or have the ability to set a filter where they don't tell you about unrelated findings and when their investigation is concluded they could provide you a note with all of the extraneous information they found which would show up in your Secrets tab.

 

[32ndLaw]

I just wish half my vassals didn't get random hooks on me every time I go on tour. Honestly just makes me not want to do tour events.

 

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

I just wish half my vassals didn't get random hooks on me every time I go on tour. Honestly just makes me not want to do tour events.

That's just one of the many, many different facets of "shallow social simulation" that plague CK3. There's no effort to represent the actual causes of "hooks" or any other aspect of socialness that exists in the real world. It's all just RNG and in this case RNG without even a "flavor facade" pretending like it represents any real relationship between the characters. This is the same issue that taints the new Regency system as well. Secrets are, similarly, bland and interchangeable. And you can't even build up leverage from this stuff. You can't know 10 things that someone wants/needs to keep secret and have any variation in what you can exploit that leverage for. Just single strong or week hooks. And there isn't any variation in the different things you can use your hooks for. Every hook, weak or strong, and every demand, weak or strong, are precisely equal.

A proper simulation would involve you and the other party both knowing that a particular revelation or refused favor would impact the standing of the target in such a way as to be more costly than agreeing to the demand, or not if that is the evaluation. Then you could gain multiple points of leverage that could combine to be enough to gain the specific thing you wanted as well.

 

[Drakken]

For me part of the problem is that a lot of hooks you get are on characters you don't care about. As mentioned above, if you set your spymaster to find secrets in a given court most of the secrets you find will a lot of secrets belonging to random courtier rather than the ruler, who is usually the one you want the hook on. It'd be nice if we could use these hooks on random courtiers in some productive ways (besides just to blackmail them into joining a murder plot or coming to our court). For instance, maybe we could blackmail them into helping us find secrets on the character in their court we care about or to have them improve our relations with their liege (or a friend/lover/spouse/family member) by singing our praises. Or if a meaningful courtier in our liege's court, have them have a chance of convincing them to give us something we want by talking to our liege on our behalf (kind of like the petition system). There is the event about your spouse wanting you to fire a person from your council, I could see that being an event triggered by such a system. Ultimately I think being able to usefully leverage hooks on non-rulers would give you that feeling of being able to build a network of spies.

On the flip side, I think having more control when a hook is used on us would make it more palatable (and thus more willing to give out hooks). For instance, if someone uses a hook to demand a seat on the council. Instead of them automatically getting the position they want, you can offer a different council position instead with maybe some extra gold or lose in opinion as the cost of adjusting the demand (with maybe stubborn characters sticking to their original demand).

That could be mitigating by using the minor courtiers' hooks to fabricate a Strong Hook on their court's Ruler.

 

[Lithane97]

So, what I'm reading is, people want hooks to work like sphere of influence in victoria 2... Interesting, I could probably get behind something like that.

 

[apollo1989vieten]

I just wish half my vassals didn't get random hooks on me every time I go on tour. Honestly just makes me not want to do tour events.

You want to leave a carving on a tree to commemorate your lover/soulmate. Vassal gets a strong hook on you. Seems like a fair trade.

 

[naq29]

That's just one of the many, many different facets of "shallow social simulation" that plague CK3. There's no effort to represent the actual causes of "hooks" or any other aspect of socialness that exists in the real world. It's all just RNG and in this case RNG without even a "flavor facade" pretending like it represents any real relationship between the characters. This is the same issue that taints the new Regency system as well. Secrets are, similarly, bland and interchangeable. And you can't even build up leverage from this stuff. You can't know 10 things that someone wants/needs to keep secret and have any variation in what you can exploit that leverage for. Just single strong or week hooks. And there isn't any variation in the different things you can use your hooks for. Every hook, weak or strong, and every demand, weak or strong, are precisely equal.

A proper simulation would involve you and the other party both knowing that a particular revelation or refused favor would impact the standing of the target in such a way as to be more costly than agreeing to the demand, or not if that is the evaluation. Then you could gain multiple points of leverage that could combine to be enough to gain the specific thing you wanted as well.

CK3 is plagued by RNG in general.

 

[Montelbon]

On the subject of leaving your spymaster on a single task, I find that to be true of most councilor tasks. The decision making process for directing your councilors is extremely simplistic at best and unimpactful at worst. Do I have wrong faith counties? Then use the chaplain to convert them otherwise he spends his days fabricating claims. It is an extremely simple decision requiring very little critical thinking

The Chancellor and Marshall are the worst offenders here since it seems like none of their tasks really matter much at all but every counciller has at least one task that is either so blatantly situational that there's no question about when to use it or one or more tasks that is basically a waste of time. I'm hoping that we get an overhaul to council mechanics in the future that make both directing your council and playing as a counciler to your liege more engaging

 

[GiantSpaceHamster]

My issues with hooks at the moment are:

1. Not enough ways to interact with them
2. Not impactful enough

My dream "hook" system wouldn't have the distinct Weak/Strong/etc, but rather would be "Leverage" points that could accumulate and become even more powerful than Strong hooks.

For the sake of argument, say a Weak hook = 1 Leverage, Strong hook = 2 Leverage.

Regarding #1: I want to be able to offer Leverage, not just receive it. For example, join me in this faction, I'll give you 3 Leverage. Oh you're greedy? Here's 4. Or dissuade a rebellious vassal, or tip that marriage acceptance score over the edge, or call an ally for an offensive war. Which leads to #2...

Very high Leverage should allow someone to make extreme demands. The dude who helped my claimant faction and now has 4 Leverage can demand a duchy, so I go ahead and select which one to give him. The other guy who only got 3 Leverage demands a marriage. The Current Situation dropdown should warn me of people who have high Leverage, and what they could demand.

There are loads of ways you could take it... You could have an event where a complete nobody saves your life and uses their Leverage to become a vassal. That random woman I gave Leverage to help with a murder plot is now at my court and is demanding to be looked after. You get the idea... I want them to be way more impactful and to be able to use them more creatively.

I like this idea a lot, it's much more flexible than the hook system. You could use your leverage straight away or bank it for something big.

One weakness of the hook system is that it can feel too much like a business contract where the bearer of a hook can demand something unspecified at a later date and you have no choice but to accept. Sort of a Rumpelstiltskin-type bargain. Leverage system can take account of personalities of characters involved much better.

For example, doing a favour for a character will get you 10 leverage fom a Just or maybe Compassionate character, 5 leverage for most other characters and 0 leverage from an Arbitrary or Arrogant Character. Blackmailing someone will get you double leverage from a Cowardly character, and half the leverage from an Honest, Brave or an Arrogant character.

The system could be used for things other than blackmail and favours. For example you could threaten people to get leverage, which again would work better on cowards and would not only not work but get you enemies if used on Vengeful characters. You could get leverage by asking Compassionate characters for help. A while ago I had an idea in Suggestions, translated into this system it would mean passively gaining leverage over certain characters just by being someone they trust / rely on.

 

[DiplomaticIntrigue]

I like this idea a lot, it's much more flexible than the hook system. You could use your leverage straight away or bank it for something big.

One weakness of the hook system is that it can feel too much like a business contract where the bearer of a hook can demand something unspecified at a later date and you have no choice but to accept. Sort of a Rumpelstiltskin-type bargain. Leverage system can take account of personalities of characters involved much better.

For example, doing a favour for a character will get you 10 leverage fom a Just or maybe Compassionate character, 5 leverage for most other characters and 0 leverage from an Arbitrary or Arrogant Character. Blackmailing someone will get you double leverage from a Cowardly character, and half the leverage from an Honest, Brave or an Arrogant character.

The system could be used for things other than blackmail and favours. For example you could threaten people to get leverage, which again would work better on cowards and would not only not work but get you enemies if used on Vengeful characters. You could get leverage by asking Compassionate characters for help. A while ago I had an idea in Suggestions, translated into this system it would mean passively gaining leverage over certain characters just by being someone they trust / rely on.

This is *probably* the best bet for a game like CK3 where you can't store too much complicated data and you don't wanna do too many expensive calculations either.