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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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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.

Did people in the Middle Ages really gave a crap about this? Religion, yes, but culture/nationalism? Isn't that a thing much later in history? Being ruled by a foreigner was more of a rule than an exception in some regions. Of course, difference in culture does not help in a conflict, so the modifiers that also exist in CK2 make sense, but was it really the cause of any European medieval war to 'fight for your own country' and that 'a ruler should be from my culture'?
 
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Did people in the Middle Ages really gave a crap about this? Religion, yes, but culture/nationalism? Isn't that a thing much later in history? Being ruled by a foreigner was more of a rule than an exception in some regions. Of course, difference in culture does not help in a conflict, so the modifiers that also exist in CK2 make sense, but was it really the cause of any European medieval war to 'fight for your own country' and that 'a ruler should be from my culture'?

Actually it makes alot of sense, at least in my country during the High and Late Middle Ages. And I can also bring some additional examples if you want.

Armies raised in Sweden with a commoner base fought several wars against the kings of the Kalmar Union to not have a king based in Denmark as their king. Now this a matter of how the administration and politics were done rather than nationalistic sentiments but its remained that locals didn't like an administration that pushed out the local nobles from said administration, brought in people used to lording it over serfs, and then the free peasants didn't take kindly to being treated like serfs.

Or getting taxed and having trade cut in the Baltic Sea because the king was warring down in Germany where the spoils would to my knowledge predominantly go to Danish nobles, for that matter.

The result was rejection of rule from a king based mostly in Denmark.

*****

A very important aspect for getting nobles onboard for a rebellion to create a new country is that in a larger realm they may be so far in the margins that their access to honors, privilages and wealth at the court is non-existent. If they would form a smaller realm these guys would suddenly find themselves much closer to a centre of power. I think its kind of like that either you're part of a pack where you get to watch other dogs chew the bones, or you can for a small pack with smaller bones, but where you may get a small bone at least.
 
The HRE constantly had issues in Italy and Bohemia. And later on Karl V wasn't too popular at first when he inherited Spain. He was certainly seen as a foreigner and had to make a lot of concessions to be accepted.

Realms didn't all function the same. Sometimes they were very centralized with the king having most of the power. Sometimes there was a lot of power with local nobles or assemblies. A foreign king imposing a different way go govern wasn't accepted easily. There could also the usual complaints about taxes, like why should people in some area pay a lot of taxes for military adventures elsewhere.
 
Did people in the Middle Ages really gave a crap about this? Religion, yes, but culture/nationalism? Isn't that a thing much later in history? Being ruled by a foreigner was more of a rule than an exception in some regions. Of course, difference in culture does not help in a conflict, so the modifiers that also exist in CK2 make sense, but was it really the cause of any European medieval war to 'fight for your own country' and that 'a ruler should be from my culture'?
braveheart_freedom.jpg
 
This was about local nobility gaining power.
And the faction we are talking about can be joined by vassals who want to throw off their current overlord. It just can also be joined by counties that are different enough from their ruler to make them mad. So if Al Andalus conquers Castille and leave a christian count in one of the counties and gives the others to family members the counties might form a populist faction and the count might join in. If Al Andalus gets bogged down in a war in Magreb and has its levies constantly depleted for a couple years the populists might see their chance to revolt.
 
Playing a Vassal, you don't even have to try to become King. Playing the Power behind the throne can also be loads of fun.

You get to make all the decisions. The King gets all the headaches...
 
Okay, I'm curious. Given what we know so far, realistically speaking, how likely is anyone here to frequently play a vassal of an AI ruler?

I would certainly give it a try. In CK2, I ended up playing as an independent most of the time, but I would really like to see if playing as a vassal is more interesting in CK3. It certainly could shift the focus away from just expanding your realm and more towards political character-interactions and the stories that arise from that.
 
Looking at the independence war map. Why is there so much impassible land in Germany and around Czechia? Especially compared to Croatia, Southern France, and the Apennines. Feels like there should be either less impassible land in Germany and around Czechia OR more impassible land in Croatia, Southern France and the Apennines. Either way, love the strategic passes in the Alps

On a more relevant note, glad to see the temporary civil war title is gone. In terms of the factions, could be interesting to have a loyalist faction who have pledged to support you in civil wars (maybe they could also give you optional mission that further increase their opinion). Having a loyalist faction could allow for some parts of your realm to remain neutral at the beginning of a civil war, later picking a side (the parts of your realm not in the loyalist or opposing faction could be neutral at the start of a civil war).


Edit: Also shouldn't the Apennines Mountains stop above the city of Genoa or at least have a pass to give the city of Genoa direct access to the Po Valley
 
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This looks nice, but I am kinda worried we don't see a larger improvement over what was already there in CK2. The CK2 factions were single-issue rebels that sometimes had no real coherence, and their function was awkwardly given to conclave's councils. Instead, the factions from CK2+ mod (and HIP, AGoT and others) were far more interesting as they were not just simple rebels and they had actual functions.

I was hoping for things like -

- Factions that are based on positions rather than single-issue rebellions. Like the prosperity faction of CK2+ which wants rulers to focus on development of trade and infrastructure (i.e. buildings) or capture trade routes. Or the militarist faction, which wants to launch a large war of conquest. Or the zealot faction. And probably a few more.
- The same factions mentioned above should have the ability to be pleased or annoyed based on player action. If pleased they would reward you, if annoyed their members would start joining actual rebel factions.
- If possible, factions should sometimes give out quests like societies do in CK2. After all, PDS wants to make CK3 more RPG-ish and this would be a perfect opportunity.
- Happy, pleased factions contributing money and resources to liege in times of dangerous invasions, and their members who are also on the council would support your vote. Each faction could also have its own unique reward if they are satisfied for a long time - like a special conquest CB, or a truckload of money, or bonus papal influence and clergy relations and so on.
- Inter-faction management. Like faction members electing their leader instead of basing it on a "first come first serve" where whoever forms faction first becomes leader. Or faction members contributing money to the leader. Or the leader gaining the power to kick out a member from their own faction at the cost of influence and such. This is actually one scenario where mana points would work.
- Debate events and such within factions, where factions can change their claimant/target.
- Factions that have actual influence in councils and their decisions.
- Traits, claims, opinions, attributes etc. being taken into account when deciding which AI character joins which faction. Greedy, kind and diligent would likely go for prosperity faction. Martial education warlords would likely go for militarist faction. Zealots and theologians would probably go for the religious faction and so on.

...And if possible, inter-faction wars.

Now those would look like a real faction rework. And would be very enjoyable to play with. :)

Also, what about two Clergy themed factions? Keeping the clergy on their side was very important for a lot of medieval rulers, including outside Abrahamic religions. They could be -

A) Clergy faction - If your clergy hates you enough, the landed clergy characters could have their own faction where they rebel for concessions that would vary. They could ask for Papal/Ecclesial primacy, reduction of clerical taxes/levy duty, or forcing the ruler to pay to churches/mosques/temples, forced abdication of a heretic/heathen lord and so on.

B) Heresy/Heathen county faction - Just like peasant rebellions, these would build up in heretic/heathen counties (rather than characters) and seek to rebel with much more powerful forces on their side, with a chance that sympathetic same-faith lords in the realm could join them. Like an upgraded version of CK2's religious revolts, working like small but dangerous wars.

This! It is such an excellent opportunity to make the game more engaging. I'm actually quite shocked they didn't go this route.
 
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Here's what I really wish they had / would add:

  1. Allow factions to have outside allies - especially nationalist and religious factions. If I'm the Tengri King of Bulgaria, and Orthodox rebels are rising up against me, it might make sense for them to call in the Basileus.
  2. Program factions to save up and treat the rebellion like the all-or-nothing event it usually is, and e.g. not quit until all their gold has been spent on mercs
  3. If MaA play like retinues did (and the math works out that top level lieges can virtually always outnumber their angry vassals with skirmish troops) give commanders who join factions a chance to lead your MaA in rebellion
 
  1. Allow factions to have outside allies - especially nationalist and religious factions. If I'm the Tengri King of Bulgaria, and Orthodox rebels are rising up against me, it might make sense for them to call in the Basileus.
It would be absolutely infuriating if you're the target, and thus probably won't get in for gameplay reasons, but it would be fascinating to see a successful rebel faction go directly to being the vassal of a (King-tier or above?) ruler rather than an independent ruler in exchange for backing, yeah. (Peasant leader: "If you help us liberate the Orthodox duchy of So-and-so from the heathen Tatars, we'll gladly become your vassal, mighty Basileus.")
 
It would be absolutely infuriating if you're the target, and thus probably won't get in for gameplay reasons, but it would be fascinating to see a successful rebel faction go directly to being the vassal of a (King-tier or above?) ruler rather than an independent ruler in exchange for backing, yeah. (Peasant leader: "If you help us liberate the Orthodox duchy of So-and-so from the heathen Tatars, we'll gladly become your vassal, mighty Basileus.")
At the very least there should be some way for you to support the rebels. If you outright join, that should mean that others should be able to join in as well on both sides.
 
...
Currently no, you can not ignore the hook just because you really don't want to have it. In general you really want to avoid people getting hooks on you, especially if they are your liege.

It would be pretty simple to mod in a decision that lets you remove a hook in exchange for substantial prestige penalties or something, though.

Currently, is the reason that you cannot ignore the hook because it is not something that can be coded properly for the AI to do when interacting with a human player who has a hook on them?

It appears that a lot of things that you as a development team are trying to implement accentuate and double down on role playing elements. I think it would be a good fit for this reason that players (and the AI) have a choice to ignore a hook at the consequence of a severe opinion penalty. Perhaps for some characters (ones who are cynical) and are in the faction, those people would have a lesser penalty towards someone ignoring the hook.
 
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Unless there's some other common way to gain independence, that faction is far too restricted. Historically, times of crisis routinely gave effective independence to most vassals, and even strong empires often had vassals on their fringes seize independence.

Some sort of "vassal disobedience" mechanic where, if the time is right, vassals can cease granting their liege anything, putting the onus on the liege to bring them back into the fold would be historically accurate and counter blobbing.
 
Unless there's some other common way to gain independence, that faction is far too restricted. Historically, times of crisis routinely gave effective independence to most vassals, and even strong empires often had vassals on their fringes seize independence.

Some sort of "vassal disobedience" mechanic where, if the time is right, vassals can cease granting their liege anything, putting the onus on the liege to bring them back into the fold would be historically accurate and counter blobbing.
I think you'd need a realm stability and realm collapse system for that to work. As well as maybe something where a fringe lord can get free independence while there's something seriously distracting going on but can be reconquered without being very annoying to the player.