Clarifying Coalitions

[aono]

The AI will look at a couple of factors when deciding whether it wants to join the coalition, true; but if Charlie inheriting his brother's lands and taking pagan Saxony gets Irish tribals, the Slavic feudals in the Balkans, Muslim Africa, and the Magyars upset enough to join a coalition due to the infamy gained despite Charlie not having made any move in their general direction these factors cannot have a meaningful impact as it stands right now.

You see my problem here is that there are a lot of claims, some of them legit, some of them looks legit, but they're just not true. And they're mixed without separation.
Question "should everybody who is in range (by the way, didn't see it with Africa) be afraid a kingdom that just expanded essentially twice and taken northern neighbor" is legit, and intresting enough. It can (and should) be discussed.
But question "In CK2 all you have is one value (infamy) for one character" is just simple - no they don't.
Also they aren't upset, that can be easily seen by their relations. And by no means coalition OBLIGE it's members to enter war. I'm not sure there is even a prestige hit for "regretfully not coming to your wars".

Declare holy war for Oman. Even the pope jumped in against me.

Maybe Pope don't want some great muslim empire in Holy Land and on the opposite side of Mediterranean Sea from him, who really can use ships? Hmm, it's impossible to understand. Silly silly pope.

 

[thekaje]

People keep using the pope in their arguments. It's interesting how much weaker the case becomes when you take out the pope.

However, I'll concede that it's weird for any Christian kingdom to care about an Islamic emperor waging a holy war against another Muslim.

They should probably have thought the coalitions through a little more.

 

[Thure]

However, I'll concede that it's weird for any Christian kingdom to care about an Islamic emperor waging a holy war against another Muslim.

The Muslim realm gets larger: more threat.

 

[BD13]

It's good that Paradox does listen:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/conclave-the-near-future.906388/

Thanks! Missed it while typing.

 

[Sociopsychoacti]

Just to ask something about the mechanics (which is what this thread is here for, right?)

What influences infamy decay? I'm decaying at .22 per month, fine, but a decade ago it was .33, and thats quite a difference when you add it up. I saw others hinting at retinue/levy size, is that true?

When I DO declare war on a member of a coalition for a NONE holy CB, do all members always join, or do they get to choose?

And to add an opinion. I think the infamy system works fine, but tweaking it a bit would help. Specifically I don't understand why I get pretty much the same amount of infamy for a ruler of my religion accepting my peacefull offer of vassalisation as I do for burning down the abbey of some christians in a merciless slaughter then handing it over to my son in a viking conquest with no CB other than 'You have land I want'.

Definately tweak how the CB effects it please, maybe less infamy for inheriting/peacefully vassalising?

 

[Enriador]

In my pre-Conclave games, that's how blobs rose and fell: a strong ruler forges an empire, his strong heir dies, then the ruler himself dies, the inbred second son rises, the Independence faction is joined by everyone, it declares war, it wins the war, and it's the END of the blob.

As you guys have already pointed out, just like History. Coalitions (even if restricted to religion) doesn't make sense. With the new Favor/NAP/Form Alliance systems, it's easier than ever to (even cross-religious) neighbors to unite against a common enemy.

Damn it Paradox, you are stubborn as hell. Decadence = orientalist, Seduction = broken, and Coalitions = ahistorical. Get over it, everybody makes mistakes. We still love you!

 

[thekaje]

In my pre-Conclave games, that's how blobs rose and fell: a strong ruler forges an empire, his strong heir dies, then the ruler himself dies, the inbred second son rises, the Independence faction is joined by everyone, it declares war, it wins the war, and it's the END of the blob.

As you guys have already pointed out, just like History. Coalitions (even if restricted to religion) doesn't make sense. With the new Favor/NAP/Form Alliance systems, it's easier than ever to (even cross-religious) neighbors to unite against a common enemy.

Damn it Paradox, you are stubborn as hell. Decadence = orientalist, Seduction = broken, and Coalitions = ahistorical. Get over it, everybody makes mistakes. We still love you!

Huh? Why are you talking about breaking up blobs? That's still the main way blobs are broken up.

Coalitions are purely defensive and decay over a relatively short amount of time. A coalition will never break up an empire because it will only be triggered on the defender's side of an aggressive war that follows quickly after a large territorial acquisition.

 

[Kollatius]

In my pre-Conclave games, that's how blobs rose and fell: a strong ruler forges an empire, his strong heir dies, then the ruler himself dies, the inbred second son rises, the Independence faction is joined by everyone, it declares war, it wins the war, and it's the END of the blob.

As you guys have already pointed out, just like History. Coalitions (even if restricted to religion) doesn't make sense. With the new Favor/NAP/Form Alliance systems, it's easier than ever to (even cross-religious) neighbors to unite against a common enemy.

Damn it Paradox, you are stubborn as hell. Decadence = orientalist, Seduction = broken, and Coalitions = ahistorical. Get over it, everybody makes mistakes. We still love you!

Blobs don't live very long with the patch anyway... I've only seen Andalusia (and myself) expand in any meaninful manner
Basically everyone else is being constantly under attack by factions after factions after factions

 

[Comrade Chernov]

Infamy should be, at MOST, a tenth of what it currently is now.

 

[Enriador]

Huh? Why are you talking about breaking up blobs? That's still the main way blobs are broken up.

Coalitions are purely defensive and decay over a relatively short amount of time. A coalition will never break up an empire because it will only be triggered on the defender's side of an aggressive war that follows quickly after a large territorial acquisition.

Coalitions are NOT "purely" defensive. Check the OP. =(

 

[thekaje]

Coalitions are NOT "purely" defensive. Check the OP. =(

"Coalition members can start offensive wars against you, they won't join if the goal is to take a lot of land from you. It's very, very uncommon for the AI to do this."

This is kinda too vague to interpret. Oh well.

 

[Thure]

Coalitions are NOT "purely" defensive. Check the OP. =(

But they will be

Coalitions:

• 25% Infamy threshold issues (Coalition formation should be a far more gradual process depending on your Infamy level.)
• Immersion/realism issues concerning distance and differences in religion.
• Coalitions should be purely defensive (no exceptions or extra rules.)
• There should be reasonable caps on Infamy gain and lowest possible Infamy decay rates.

(Btw, Coalitions were primarily added to make the game more challenging for huge, aggressively expanding player realms. That intention should serve as the primary measuring stick for the system.)

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...onclave-the-near-future.906388/#post-20607544

 

[Kollatius]

Infamy should be, at MOST, a tenth of what it currently is now.

So that you cound conquer half of Europe without getting a coalition? Lowering infamy will probably happen, but reducing it by 90% would make it redundant now wouldn't it?

 

[Iron Chariots]

What? Factions were one of the most heavily criticized aspects of CK2 because of how simplistic and gamey they were. In fact every single major overhaul mod used CK2+'s faction system instead which was much better. Paradox even adopted that exact same faction system themselves which is the one we just got in the patch.

You might have liked the old factions, but you're certainly a minority there.

And yet, factions were a HUGE improvement over each individual vassal having a separate revolt chance. Granted, the +10 revolt risk per rebelling vassal helped make that somewhat workable, but it was terrible and clunky.

 

[Enriador]

But they will be



https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...onclave-the-near-future.906388/#post-20607544

I know, and it's good news. Yet they ARE not purely defensive...

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

What? Factions were one of the most heavily criticized aspects of CK2 because of how simplistic and gamey they were. In fact every single major overhaul mod used CK2+'s faction system instead which was much better. Paradox even adopted that exact same faction system themselves which is the one we just got in the patch.

You might have liked the old factions, but you're certainly a minority there.

I remember people criticizing factions being too easy to deal with since they didn't revolt together, but when Paradox changed it so they did, people complained that they are too easy to deal with since they did revolt together...

So, what now?

 

[Gball]

I can't replicate this at all, do you have a savegame with the war ready to be pressed for peace?

There is literally no way I can force a 80% victory from a count level to a Duke of that size with a single war.

I continued the ironman save (so no save game, sorry) last night. Wasn't 80%, it was 64%. My bad, still absurdly high.

 

[Comrade Chernov]

So that you cound conquer half of Europe without getting a coalition? Lowering infamy will probably happen, but reducing it by 90% would make it redundant now wouldn't it?

By the time you had gotten the claims to conquer half of Europe your infamy would have ticked down anyway. As it currently stands, you should be able to actually play the Charlemagne start and go through the events and get all the stuff that Charlemagne did without having to fight 3/4s of the world for it.

 

[Shadenuat]

If coalitions looked believable, interesting and historically inspired (Europe uniting against Mongols, Crusade against muslims after conquest of Constantinople, Pope + Republics against HRE) people probably would like them fine.
Paradox just isn't great at giving good presentation for their mechanics. Everyone probably realises that CK is an abstract game, but at times it can be too abstract.
And often you're not even sure if what is happening is actually a bug or a feature (Crusaders + Aleppo vs. Egypt/Crusaders + Egypt vs. Byzantium/Crusaders vs. Crusaders vs. Crusaders deathmatch extravaganza - all happened, but in game it might look weird without knowing nuances behind those; if game even can understand and implement those nuances... it probably can't and never would be able to).

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

I just thought I'd drop this here. This was just for subjugating Poland.