Comments and Suggestions on 2.5.2 Conclave beta

[Darkrenown]

please fix this paradox!! literally two numbers to change. thanks!

Specify what you mean - the retinue model?

 

[Darkrenown]

In general, I very much like the new Conclave mechanics. But after playing it quite a few dozen hours now, I have some comments, notes, and suggestions. If there is a more appropriate forum in which I should post this, please let me know.

1. The new alliance mechanic - auto-join wars - is nowhere near as nice as the previous 'request' mechanic, with it's optionality, opinion hits for asking, huge opinion hits for refusing, etc. In fact, I'd say that refusing to honor an alliance should result in a global opinion hit just a bit under 'truce-breaker'. But there should be a reason to not always ask, and the *option* of refusing - just as there is an option to break a truce, however bad an idea that may be in practice.

1a. If an alliance breaks in the middle of a war, then the ex-allies should be removed from the war.

1b. There should be a difference between offensive and defensive wars. If an ally gets attacked, I should be asked to join automatically, and suffer a huge malus if I refuse - oathbreaker level. However, if an ally goes and attacks someone, I should be able to refuse the join his war with much less penalty, if any. Alliances should primarily be shields, and only be usable as swords if my ally really likes me.

1c. There should be a way to dissolve non-aggression pacts, presumably with wide-scale malus, equivalent to breaking a truce.

2. It's really annoying that some characters can never be invited to court, as they are always 'away' from their home courts. This is almost certainly a bug of some sort.

3. It's likewise really annoying that neither party in a matrilineal marriage can be invited to court, as wives can apparently *never* be invited, and neither can matrilineally-married husbands. I think the primary spouse in any marriage should be invitable.

4. I think there's too much a piety gain/loss for letting courtiers join holy orders or not. 100 pity is really large just for granting permission; so large, in fact, that's it's become my primary source of piety (I keep a very large court). The person asking should get some piety for asking, even more for joining (say 100), but the liege who grants/refuses the request should get like +/-25 at most.

5. Holy order members should not be able to be invited out of the order. I often have a situation where I let a courtier join, he hates his new lord, so i invite him back, and then he asks to go again in a few years - at which point i get another piety gain from the same character, and the cycle repeats. I think that once a person joins a holy order, they should not be allowed to be invited back out of it, as it's taking a holy orders, same as becoming a bishop or monk.

6. WoL opinion modifiers are now overpowered. While Conclave halved most opinion modifiers, it did not seem to touch the ones from WoL - most obviously, the huge plusses for seducers. E.g. the +50 for Master Seducer used to be in line with other modifiers, but is now way too much - especially since it applies to queens of other realms.

7. OTOH, I very much like that it's now way easier to invite characters to court. It used to be that if they had over 14 opinion of their liege, they would never leave. Now, it's much more balanced and playable, especially since I can use a favor. Good change! (Except, of course, that my +50 for master seducer makes some things way too easy.)

8. I should be able to revoke a viceroyalty without the same 'all other vassals also hate me' opinion penalty that I would get from revoking a feudal title. Sure, they guy I revoked it from will hate me, but the whole point of a viceroyalty is that it's an office held at the ruler's pleasure, not a life-long position.

9. I very much like the new council mechanics. Good job! However, I'm noticing that by buying favors, rather than trading them, I can pretty much keep my council in my pocket forever. This is not a bad thing, though.

10. I'd like it it if had some idea ahead of time how much my threat will increase before I start a war. I very much like the new threat and defensive pact mechanics. However, I was totally floored when my threat increase for taking a infidel duchy in a holy way was greater that the increase I got for conquering The Kingdom of Castille, which held half of Iberia! I assume this was because I started with way more threat before the second conquest. Still it would have been nice to have a heads up ahead of time, telling me that taking a little duchy would give me +50 threat!

11. As I have noted in the request forum, I'd like some indication if a realm has implemented the 'Controlled Realm Inheritance' law, which negates the strategy of granting titles to heirs so that I get more land when they inherit. A simple '(Controlled)' text after the inheritance law when I click on a realm's shield would be great!

12. I'd like to be able to search for multiple traits in the character search bar. I like the new system for raising kids. However, because guardian traits *do* affect the traits of a kid, albeit in more limited ways, I find I'm spending more time than I'd like looking for guardians with the proper traits. The search bar in the character panel allows me to search for one trait, but not two or more. It would be really, really nice if there were some way of search for multiple texts in the search bar, e.g. using '&' to separate multiple search keys.

13. I'd like to be able to set a 5yo kid's guardian at the same time I set the kid's focus. It's really annoying that I get notified that a kid needs a focus at age 5, but can't set the kid's guardian until age 6. Yes, I can see that guardians won't *affect* anything until age 6, but I should be able to *set* a guardian at the same time I set the focus. As it stands, it's a real nuisance that I have to go to the character panel every six months or so to set guardians for kids turning age 6.

14. I'd like to get top-of-screen 'needs focus' popup icons for every kid in my court, not just kids of my family. As it stands, I have to look at every 6 yo and 12 yo kid in my court at least once a year, to set the foci and guardians of kids not in my family. I have noted this in the bug reports forum, but I mention it here in case this misfeature was intentional.

And finally, last but not least:

15. Thank you thank you thank you for allowing me to pass a series of laws leading to full status of women in my realm, WITHOUT forcing me to to become Cathar to do so! Well done!

Again, thank you for a great DLC!

-- Galen

I'm going to reply with my personal thoughts, these should not be taken as any promise of upcoming changes though (and saying this I know at least one person will jokingly claim these are promised and make me pull a sad face) as we're not free to just iterate over sub-optimal stuff all day.

1. I partly agree, the old system was exploitable, but the new one is too. We won't be going back to the old system, but the new one could use more work.
1c. Agree.

2. Maybe! Is there a bug report on this, or a good way to reproduce it?

3. Agree.

4. Agree.

5. Agree.

6. Agree.

7 -

8. Agree.

9. It's not ideal, characters could have some sticking points they won't fold on, and/or resistance to repeatedly selling favours, and/or make more audacious demands I suppose.

10. Your example seems strange, but agree with the idea.

11. Agree.

12 -

13. Agree

14. It was changed on purpose, others didn't like being bothered to set unrelated kids' focuses. I suppose a separate alert would keep everyone happy, but time etc.

15.

 

[Darkrenown]

Besides the fact that you need a favor just to do it. I advocate to leave it in because it isn't fair that some sons stay in court and others leave for a holy order when you order them to take the vows. I think there is something based on their traits or stats that determines it but it of course isn't clear to you ahead of time. Its frustrating to prep a son to be a Prince-Arch-Bishop of a duchy only for him to join the Templars. And where previously it had no fix, now with a gift and a favor you can invite him back he is still celibate and good to go.

The fact that some stayed was due to them being married and the divorce action making them go home instantly. Should be fixed in 2,5,2 though, unless there are additional issues.

 

[Darkrenown]

Thanks for save, will take a look tomorrow.

Same for Taking vows, will check what it's actually meant to do.

For the Overthrow faction, no it isn't meant to require tyranny, but I did decrease the opinion at which the AI will create the faction - people with positive opinion won't do it.

 

[Darkrenown]

Would it be possible to have a toggle in defines for the old system, or better yet, a toggle that can be put in individual CBs, so certain CBs will call everyone, while others will give you a choice like the old way. (If I'm just county claiming a barony, why would I want to call in all my allies? Or if Random Peasant Revolt # 27 fires, why would I need to call my allies in to help with that? But if the Vikings launch a prepared invasion of my lands, well, I'd want my allies there for sure.)

Edit:
Also, more moddability never is a bad thing.

No, I don't believe so. We looked into this the other day, but the alliance rework involved an overhaul of the code and the old system no longer exists

 

[Darkrenown]

I think it was more to make alliances serious commitments rather than something you could pick and choose when to follow, and to put the player and AI on an equal footing (since it's difficult for AIs to know if a player would honour an alliance or not).

For the taking vows thing above, it is correct that characters can stay as a monk or leave to join a Holy order, as long as the outcome matches that the confirm box dialogue says they'll do then that's all WAD.

 

[Darkrenown]

I only moved to CK2 after Conclave was done, so I'm afraid I don't know the thought process involved. I'd agree with you that I don't need my Allies helping out in every war though.

 

[Darkrenown]

My reply to the response in Darkrenown's comment on #14 is, the why not make things like this toggle-able? I read many of the posts of these "others" that didn't like this, but what about the other "others" who didn't mind and/or liked this because it added to immersion, etc.?

The simple answer is, it takes longer. Sometimes surprisingly longer depending on how the system is set up. But ideally yes, we should have a toggle or just two different alerts so you can disable one if you don't care.

The distance limit on character finder is a feature I've wanted since I saw RoI in development, so hopefully I can get it added.

 

[Darkrenown]

I do, although QA and our main programmer read the forum a lot, they just don't all post.

(As an aside, I read that Cossacks review and was pretty surprised Kaiser finds Estates worthless - I thought Estates were one of the cooler additions to EU)