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CK3 Dev Diary #19: Factions and Civil Wars

Hello kings and queens, dukes and duchesses! I am back with another Dev Diary, and today we’re going to be talking about Factions and Civil Wars in Crusader Kings III!

Much like in CK2, vassals who are unhappy with the current state of affairs in the realm will create a Faction that other vassals can then join. Factions that grow large enough will eventually deliver an ultimatum to their liege, demanding certain concessions in exchange for continued peace.

Anatomy of a Faction
DD_WM_ExampleFaction.png

[A screenshot showing a Claimant Faction with Faction Members, Discontent, and Military Power displayed]

All Factions have a Military Power rating, which is a ratio between the combined military strength of all members and the military strength of their liege. Factions also have a Discontent score, which gauges how close the Faction is to sending their ultimatum.

Factions will begin accruing Discontent once their Military Power goes over a certain threshold, typically 80%. Stronger Factions acquire Discontent rapidly in an attempt to seize the moment, while weaker Factions hem and haw a little in the hopes that more supporters will join their cause. Either way, once Discontent reaches 100% the Faction will soon deliver their ultimatum; at that point, their liege must either accept their demands or fight all joined faction members in a civil war.

Civil Wars
DD_WM_CivilWarBorders.png

[A screenshot of the map showing several Faction Members at war with their liege, who is the player]

Unlike in CK2, when a civil war is declared faction members do not form a new temporary realm. While they nominally remain vassals of their liege, they will immediately stop providing taxes and levies to them, and their liege will lose access to certain powers (such as imprisonment).

During a civil war the faction members turn hostile to both their liege and all non-faction vassals, though they will focus on fighting their liege. The exact war goal varies depending on the Faction type, but both sides earn war score by defeating hostile armies and sieging down hostile provinces.

Once one side emerges triumphant, they will enforce their demands. A victorious Faction will enforce their ultimatum with some additional concessions thrown in, while a victorious liege will imprison all faction members and gain title revocation reasons against them. If a white peace is agreed to, things largely go back to the way they were, though the liege gains an imprisonment reason against all the rebels. Actually imprisoning the rebels is another matter entirely, as a failed imprisonment attempt can trigger another rebellion.

Types of Factions
There are currently 5 distinct types of Factions, each of which has its own goals.

  • The Independence Faction, seeking to gain independence from their liege.
  • Claimant Factions, seeking to replace their liege with a new one.
  • The Liberty Faction, seeking to reduce Crown Authority in the realm.
  • Populist Factions, seeking to form a new realm of their religion and culture.
  • The Peasant Faction, seeking to pay fewer taxes to their liege.

Vassals only join The Independence Faction if they feel like they do not belong in their liege’s realm. This can be due to a variety of reasons, but it generally boils down to a combination of three major factors: not being a de jure vassal of their liege, not sharing their liege’s culture [group], and their religious hostility towards their liege (more on that in a future Dev Diary!). As a result, Independence Factions tend to be ‘clumpy’, forming distinct regional blocs within a realm.

DD_WM_IndependenceWarTerms.png

[A screenshot of an ongoing Independence Faction War against the HRE, showing the clustering of rebels within Italy]

Claimant Factions, on the other hand, are all about opinion. Vassals who personally dislike their liege while still feeling like they belong to their liege’s realm will favor this type of Faction. Of course, Claimant Factions are also an area where opportunistic vassals can push to acquire titles for themselves or their relatives!

The Liberty Faction is the place for vassals who are almost happy with the current state of affairs. They want to lower either the realm’s crown authority laws or their obligations to their liege, and are typically the easiest Faction to manage.

Populist and Peasant Factions are special in that they are not created by unhappy vassals. Instead, they are created by unhappy counties.

DD_WM_CountyFactions.png

[A screenshot of the Faction Tab showing an active Kurdish Apostolic Populist Faction and a Peasant Rabble Faction]

Much like vassals, counties have an opinion of their holder which is influenced by culture, religion, events, and war. When the opinion of a county drops too low, they will join one of these two factions. Like the other factions, if these factions gain enough Discontent, they will send an ultimatum, and will revolt if the ultimatum is refused. This completely replaces the random province revolt chance that existed in CK2 — gone are the days of “Duke McPeasantFace has declared the 19th Orthodox Uprising on you.”

Populist Factions are the more dangerous type of county faction and form when counties wish to be governed by a ruler of their own culture and/or religion. While Populist Factions are created by and primarily consist of counties, sympathetic vassals in your realm may also pledge loyalty to their cause. A successful Populist revolt will cause all member counties and vassals to break away and form a new realm!

While an Independence Faction causes all members split off into their own separate realms, a Populist Faction will create a single realm with all members united under one ruler. That ruler will always share the Faction’s culture and religion, and as a hero of the liberation war they will almost always be a competent commander. In addition, a successful Populist Faction will automatically usurp or create an appropriate title for their leader to hold, which can even generate new Kingdom-tier titles in certain circumstances!

DD_WM_SuccessfulPopularRevolt.png

[A screenshot of the Kingdom of Jüterbog, split off of the HRE by a successful Polabian Popular Revolt]

All of this taken together means that any realm formed by Popular Revolt will end up being a formidable foe that likely has several De Jure claims on its neighbors. This can substantially alter the balance of power in your region — even if you weren't the initial faction target!

On the other hand, Peasant Rabble are the simplest and least dangerous type of Faction. Unlike all other Factions, there is no minimum Military Power requirement for the Peasant Rabble to revolt, and its Discontent will always tick upwards at a constant rate. When the Rabble inevitably revolt, they will almost certainly be weaker than the liege they are targeting — but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security! Every time the Rabble’s forces occupy a county, all of that county’s levies will immediately join them. What started as a minor uprising can quickly balloon out of control if left unchecked! Luckily their only demands are to pay reduced taxes and provide fewer levies to their liege, which is an annoying if manageable setback.

Faction Management

So as a ruler, how do you manage all of these Factions? Well, there are several ways!

For starters, any alliances you have made with your vassals will prevent them from joining a Faction against you. This makes arranged marriages within your realm valuable even if you don’t benefit as much militarily as you would from a foreign marriage.

Adding to this, any vassals you have a hook on will be unable to join a Faction against you, whether that hook is due to them owing you a favor or due to blackmail.

You can also attempt to intimidate vassals away from their Faction, as a high Dread will lower their willingness to be in one. If the threat of imprisonment and torture doesn’t work, actual imprisonment will — vassals in your dungeons can not be part of any Faction. Just be careful, as an unjust imprisonment attempt may provoke a powerful Faction into revolting early, regardless of their Discontent!

DD_WM_FactionRetaliation.png

[A screenshot warning the player that imprisoning this vassal may trigger a Faction Revolt]

Finally, if all else fails you can actually address the grievances your vassals have with you. Vassals who are happy enough will never join any kind of faction, which means improving their opinion of you and fixing structural issues in your realm will ensure that nobody challenges your rule!

That is all for this week, but I have an extra special treat in store you next time when we finally begin diving into how religion works in Crusader Kings III!

Blooper Reel: The Extremely Popular Revolt
Very early on in CK3's development, I started looking into ways to make Popular Revolts more challenging. No matter how large a revolt got, their forces would always be spread out across all of their member counties, making it trivial to pick off their armies one at a time.

To help remedy this, instead of letting each county spawn its own army I made it so each duchy would spawn a single army based on the combined military power of all faction counties inside of it. However, I made a mistake — instead of adding up the military power of all counties in a duchy, I accidentally added up the military power of all counties in the world... per duchy.

DD_WM_Blooper_RevoltingPeasantsCut.png


It turns out that no matter how many knights you have or how good of a commander you are, 8.8 million angry peasants will overwhelm you in battle every time.
 
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How do multiple factions of the same type work? From the wording, it looks like there's only one Independence, Liberty, and Peasant Faction. If you're in a civil war against one Peasant Faction (for example) and you make counties angry that aren't in the faction you're at war with, can they join the revolt or start their own Peasant Faction?
 
How do multiple factions of the same type work? From the wording, it looks like there's only one Independence, Liberty, and Peasant Faction. If you're in a civil war against one Peasant Faction (for example) and you make counties angry that aren't in the faction you're at war with, can they join the revolt or start their own Peasant Faction?
that would be interesting, I would like to see for example a badly-handled peasant uprising result in peasants across the realm joining in, since it's somewhat historical to have these massive peasant wars.

It would also be interesting to have rare cases where peasants have a great victory and form peasant states, though they would probably not last very long. I don't expect that to happen since it would only make sense with a unique government form, but it would just be a fun thing to see little peasant states rise up in some areas. That's sort of what happened in Dithmarschen around the game's end-date, right?
 
Crushing a Peasant or Populist Revolt will give all counties in the faction a substantial opinion boost of their holder for 10 years
So that would just be an old CK2 "intimidation system" when you have -100 hate modifier, but intimidate someone for +20 and he just hates you for -80 now? Shame... Hoped that new dread system would be used here somehow too
 
I hated how factions worked in CK2. Although this looks to be clear improvement, it still doesn't seem very fun. I wish there would be some way to make concessions without giving to their ultimate demand, ie. agree to make the claimant heir, reduce vassal taxes in exchange for not revolting for indepence...
But... You already can send some gifts, award honorary and land titles, and, overally, do everything to please character and increase character's opinion of you - that's a way to get rid of him possibly causing him to leave the faction over time. Additionally you can blackmail him and force him out of all factions so I, honestly, don't see a big problem here.
 
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Hello, I am very new to paradox games especially and strategy games generally. I was advised to try CK2 about a month ago and it really caught my interest. That being said, when it comes to civil wars and rebellions I was wondering why not introduce a system whereby vassals can switch sides during rebellions through promises or shift in interests (In claimant wars the pretender promises specific vassals lands or gold which prompts them to join a war their cause). Also, allowing the vassals of vassals to switch side to the ultimate liege in promise of getting the rebels titles. Veteran CK2 players would probably come up with more detailed suggestions but this is my opinion on a dynamic system :D
 
Can factions have a de facto leader nominated by other faction members?

Can you peace out with faction members or make them switch sides if you offer them something?

Can a white peace option have a tick for amnesty as a way to achieve a white peace faster if you are slightly losing?

Can non-faction members claim neutrality in exchange for a relations drop for both their liege and the faction's members? This may lead to imprisonment later as they did not opt to help their liege.
 
Can a white peace option have a tick for amnesty as a way to achieve a white peace faster if you are slightly losing?

I can see several levels of civil war resolution. From rebels get what they asked for plus a bit more, rebels get what they wanted, white peace without imprisonment reason, white peace with imprisonment reason, faction leader gets imprisoned and everyone else pays a ransom, all faction members imprisoned.

I personally would like to see this sort of thing on regular wars too. Being able to pick up a tributary when somebody declares war and I completely trounce them or having a peace-out option like the status-quo peace in Stellaris, but only on things like invasions.
 
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Yeah I kinda wish your vassals actually actively aided you.

Honestly having an army system similar to I:R wouldn't be bad... slap that boy on auto.
 
In CK2 one can start a claimant faction even if the claimant is the best friend of the titleholder. It will be the same in CK3? It would be more realistic if the claimant could be neutralised by the titleholder by raising his/her opinion or getting a Hook against him/her. So the claimant could deny the possibility to seize the throne.
 
I completely understand what you're saying, but unfortunately the realities of our warfare system require all parties in competing wars to be hostile to each other. Otherwise you can end up in the extremely frustrating situation where as Asturias you have occupied half of the Umayyad's territory, the Catholic rebellion has occupied the other half, and neither of you can earn enough war score to actually win the war.

The are many ways of working around this that are ostensibly better than doing nothing. For example, if a populist rebellion triggers while at war against an enemy with that religion and culture, that enemy could get an event giving him several choices (joining their wars, becoming non-hostile, or becoming hostile). If the populist rebellion triggers while at peace, a compatible foreign ruler could be able to support them directly or indirectly. If the populist rebellion is close to triggering, it could approach a foreign ruler for promises of support, etc.

In the case of CK2, it would have been as simple as not spawning the rebellion in a province if it is being control/besieged by an enemy, and the rebels not being hostile towards people that are not allied/enemy/hostile to the rebellion target. So many lives would have been saved.
 
In CK2 one can start a claimant faction even if the claimant is the best friend of the titleholder. It will be the same in CK3? It would be more realistic if the claimant could be neutralised by the titleholder by raising his/her opinion or getting a Hook against him/her. So the claimant could deny the possibility to seize the throne.
Even as a player you cannot refuse the throne that a claimant faction gives you or renounce claims. Realistically that wouldn't stop the claimant faction from starting their war, it just would change who they put in charge once it was over.
 
Even as a player you cannot refuse the throne that a claimant faction gives you or renounce claims. Realistically that wouldn't stop the claimant faction from starting their war, it just would change who they put in charge once it was over.
You can't, but you as a player should be able to do so. It makes no sense that a facion wants to get someone on the throne, who does not want their support. He could afterwards turn around and brand them as traitors, before abdicating.
That does not apply though, if the claimant is incapable. Then it makes a lot of sense that there are lords that want a weak puppet on the throne. And since the claimant is known to be incapable, he can't renounce his claim.
 
Lets say I’m King of Scotland and have a claim on England, can I use hooks on english vassals to support my claim, can I make them join a faction to make me king? Can I support their war as an ally?
 
So no anti-king faction to dethrone kings with anti-popes or factions to change succession laws.

do faction members protect each other if the liege tries to attack one of them (imprisonment, take land away).
 
So no anti-king faction to dethrone kings with anti-popes.
Well, it's already been established that the papal game will be rather threadbare at release, with no mechanics for investiture or anti-popes being included, so sadly, no anti-king faction is not of much surprise :(
 
Hopefully Populist revolts will be quite strong.

Something I disliked in CK2 is that once a culture fell under control of a realm ruled by someone of a different culture it was only a matter of time before that culture was wiped out due to the top liege always setting up vassals of his own culture, existing vassals of the native culture slowly taking on the ruler's culture and county culture conversion. Part of that problem is also the general stability of realms in CK2, which hopefully CK3 will address (but I have to say, there's not much to suggest it at this stage).
 
Maybe it will be different in CK3:
Each County also has an opinion of their holder, referred to as the ‘Popular Opinion’. This represents the sentiment of the local peasants, and tends to decrease if you’re not of their culture or faith, promoting the use of ‘local lords’, vassals of the local culture/faith, to handle such territory for you - as converting it will take quite some time. Unhappy Counties tend to cause problems down the line… more on this in another DD.