Conclave DD #6 The 2.5.2 Patch

[SigurdStormhand]

I'm not even arguing about that. If you read my post and my previous post you would see that I was arguing that people need to stop making ridiculous claims, because it doesn't help their cause. From KoJ can't expand because whole world would unite against them, to restoring the Roman Empire is impossible. Neither of these are true, people need to stop making stuff up to prove their points.

I didn't say restoring the Roman Empire was impossible, if you read my post you'll see I said it was impossible whilst staying under 25% Infamy, or by waiting for Infamy to go down.

See here:

It makes sense that seizing Rome and those counties in Croatia would make people nervous but the Holy Wars?

Nobody in Europe should care, or rather everybody should be telling me what a great guy I am, liberating the Holy Land.

So, rather than 99% threat with everyone I should have under 50% threat with Muslims and Christians.

What I should be doing now is launching the next attack against the Muslims, reclaiming the rest of Palastine whilst they're weak.

As it happened I had an opportune moment a few years later, so I seized Aquiline:

The nasty Coalition didn't stop me.

It did make the war-score board for those counties claims in Croatia look absurd though:

As you can see, I won most of the battles and the battles I lost didn't dent war-score enough to actually hamper my conquest - it just took a long time.

So - what about this was hard?

Nothing - I had some minor issues getting my Council to agree to fight everyone in the whole world but a bit of shuffling and some gold fixed that.

What about this was fun?

Nothing, really, it was a lot of work - as in me clicking the mouse to move armies around, but there was no challenge and no real sense of satisfaction at breaking the game mechanic by forming a couple of alliances and bribing a few Councillors to vote with me.

 

[MadManMark]

In response to my last post, this was posted:

Why do people feel the need to exaggerate their claims to make their points? .... My main point is, this thread has tons of people making up imaginary scenarios that aren't possible/don't make sense, and this really does not help your cause at all.

Well ... OK. You could have said "that seems too extreme, there must be something more to this, give me more information?" or a variation of that. You know, constructive discussion. I might've readily conceded that some unstated things that could be exacerbating the extremity of situation, though I still would disagree they have any relevance to my basic point that my fellow crusaders should not be pledging to protect the Muslims we just finished fighting together against to secure Jerusalem. But at least we might've found middle ground, for my part I'd agree that this would not be game crippling for every case. For example here I am playing 1066 Willaim (Norman) start with two quick invasions (England, France) that netted me a lot of territory there, and I leveraged territorial gains via an intensely focused campaign of court invites to multiply invasion gains by appointing foreign heirs as my vassals, which made me the largest realm in my game despite that I still don't have enough within any one de jure empire to form it (to be clear, this has no direct connection to the infamy or coalitions, that happened playing previous versions, but it makes for a larger realm than most Kings of England have). You would learn that I like the concept of infamy and coalitions in general, that I actually hope they do stay in the game, just in a less botched way. We might have had a civil discussion where maybe we both learn something. But instead ... you chose to go straight to that I am "making things up" (a diplomatically clumsy way to call someone a liar).

Other than adding SigurdStormhand did a good job summarizing my POV, I'm going to take the high road here, and just go back to my last save before I loaded the "no coalitions" mod to to give a screenshot.

Spoiler: coalition map screenshot

 

[Slayen]

Spoiler: coalition map screenshot

View attachment 159974

.....

Why....how....

That's HORRIFYING!

What we have here is a situation where I think there SHOULD be a coaltion. One with a "Oh god we need to do something about this hideous border gore" CB.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

You can kinda see how all those people might join a Coalition there, because your territory is spread out and quite close to a lot of regions. However, it still shouldn't be one Coalition.

For example, I can see the HRE sending troops to support Ireland, possibly, but I can't see Italy or Leon getting involved unless you're fighting in Mainland Europe.

I think what we really need is a "Defensive Alliance" option where two states can form a bond based on both sharing a border or being within a certain see-range of the same larger power.

 

[MadManMark]

.....

Why....how....

That's HORRIFYING!

What we have here is a situation where I think there SHOULD be a coaltion. One with a "Oh god we need to do something about this hideous border gore" CB.

I don't know if you skipped right over my words to look at the pretty picture, but I preemptively already agreed with you:

....t I like the concept of infamy and coalitions in general, that I actually hope they do stay in the game, just in a less botched way...

So I agree with you that this is too easy to do. The game is flawed in how it makes this easy. OK? Can we move on to my actual point now? With respect to that, there's only two teentsy-eentsy tiny little things wrong with your argument:

1. My point was all about Christians agreeing to defend Muslims in the holy land. Are you saying that makes sense in this game, or in any historic sense, if said Christian kingdom is large enough? Or are you completely oblivious to my point? Here it is also cut and pasted: "my basic point that my fellow crusaders should not be pledging to protect the Muslims we just finished fighting together against to secure Jerusalem." Yes I know this is supposedly going to get fixed in the next patch, but (at the risk of beating my point to death to make sure you get it, because it doesn't look like you read all my words), my original post that I was jumped on and called a liar over was a reply to someone who said there is nothing wrong with coalitions as they are in 2.5.1.
2. The immense irony of that map and your reaction to it, is that literally all of the "hideous border gore" was achieved by getting foreign heirs into my court and giving them titles == ones they would inherit in lower crown authority regions (again -- did you even read my post?!?) . These intial footholds have in some cases grown because the foreign dukes, once they inherited, have the resources of two dukedoms at their disposal and so have the power to autonomously expand their foreign territory. The irony is that you're saying "we need to do something about this hideous border gore," but (AFAIK?) the tactic I used does not generate s single ounce of "infamy" & so this thing you seem to be suggesting needs to be in place to stop it, ironically does not do anything to prevent it!

Well at least there is some forward progress I suppose - I'm merely having people miss my point now, at least that is better than someone saying whatever I say shoudl be ignored because I must be lying

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

If coalitions were just localized, like extremely localized as in only those directly affected, then they'd be somewhat okay. If I'm expanding into Ireland, I should be facing a small coalition of Irish counts. If I'm expanding into France, I should face a small coalition of France, their allies, and the other Christian nations directly bordering France. It shouldn't include anyone out of the area being affected because then it takes on an unrealistic scope. These are the people who'd care. I really like the idea of coalitions being like plots/factions that users have been recommending since it would ensure that only the people you've screwed over or don't have good relations with would join. But even then it would still have to be limited to a very localized area.

 

[MadManMark]

You can kinda see how all those people might join a Coalition there, because your territory is spread out and quite close to a lot of regions. However, it still shouldn't be one Coalition.

For example, I can see the HRE sending troops to support Ireland, possibly, but I can't see Italy or Leon getting involved unless you're fighting in Mainland Europe.

I think what we really need is a "Defensive Alliance" option where two states can form a bond based on both sharing a border or being within a certain see-range of the same larger power.

Exactly. Thank you. I don't disagree, although like I said in the previous post, ironically coalitions do zilch to stop my inheritance strategy, so ironically this patch reinforces the incentive of doing the very things that created this territory spread (it does nothing to slow it down, while it immensely cripples my capability to do it the way I "should" be doing it, pressing de jure claims for existing vassals).

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

This conversation just goes to show how hard it is to implement big chance to core game mechanics 4 years after release. There is no way you can make all your players happy.

Yes there is. Just don't do it. It's not as if anyone was really asking for these changes. They're mostly just concepts the Devs adopted from EU4 without really considering that the two games are very different -- that perhaps the very best thing about CK2 is how different it is (used to be) from EU4.

The patch is a classic case of a fix in search of a problem.

 

[blackninja9939]

Yes there is. Just don't do it. It's not as if anyone was really asking for these changes. They're mostly just concepts the Devs adopted from EU4 without really considering that the two games are very different -- that perhaps the very best thing about CK2 is how different it is (used to be) from EU4.

The patch is a classic case of a fix in search of a problem.

Lots of people have been asking for thing to prevent as much blabbing and this was paradox's solution to that. I am not saying it is the best solution they could've implemented especially in its current state but at the same time not too many other solutions exist that aren't even worse.
I think we should all at least give paradox a chance with the new patch before further repeating the same points of criticism to do with infamy and coalitions which have been made hundreds of times over

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Lots of people have been asking for thing to prevent as much blabbing and this was paradox's solution to that. I am not saying it is the best solution they could've implemented especially in its current state but at the same time not too many other solutions exist that aren't even worse.
I think we should all at least give paradox a chance with the new patch before further repeating the same points of criticism to do with infamy and coalitions which have been made hundreds of times over

They could reinstitute the old faction system and activate the distance to capital penalty.

Then realms would be able to expand but prone to lose peripheral territory.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

They could reinstitute the old faction system and active the distance to capital penalty.

Then realms would be able to expand but prone to lose peripheral territory.

Yes! The solution for blobbing is not to accelerate the invention of the internet by a thousand years thus giving far remote kingdoms instant knowledge (and interest) in things happening thousands of miles (and dozens of cultures) away from their own realms. The ability to communicate with, much less control, a vast inter-continental kingdom was the main check on expansion in the era before the rise of nation-states.

The saying "All politics is local" should apply to every design decision in CK2. Make it hard to expand because my nephew hates me, not because some king 10,000 miles away hates me.

 

[Hector of Troy]

They could reinstitute the old faction system and activate the distance to capital penalty.

Then realms would be able to expand but prone to lose peripheral territory.

Unfortunately, the developers were afraid players would not take well the slightest possibility of losing a war against factions, thus being forced to cede land or even lose their emperor status. So they came up with the constraining new features introduced in the latest patch. Infamy and Coalitions may slow you down, but they won't add instability and implode larger empires.

I, for one, get frustrated because of the opposite reasons. To be assured that I will always defeat all of the rebellions within my empire and never lose anything is what gets me frustrated.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

Unfortunately, the developers were afraid players would not take well the slightest possibility of losing a war against factions, thus being forced to cede land or even lose their emperor status. So they came up with the constraining new features introduced in the latest patch. Infamy and Coalitions may slow you down, but they won't add instability and implode larger empires.

I, for one, get frustrated because of the opposite reasons. To be assured that I will always defeat all of the rebellions within my empire and never lose anything is what gets me frustrated.

Exactly. Somewhere along the way - I guess with the change in the design team - the Devs became afraid that folks would want to play the game they originally made.

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

Exactly. Somewhere along the way - I guess with the change in the design team - the Devs became afraid that folks would want to play the game they originally made.

What's the difference between the original design team and the one right now? Did somebody leave or what?

 

[Audoucet]

What's the difference between the original design team and the one right now? Did somebody leave or what?

Yep, the lead.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Unfortunately, the developers were afraid players would not take well the slightest possibility of losing a war against factions, thus being forced to cede land or even lose their emperor status. So they came up with the constraining new features introduced in the latest patch. Infamy and Coalitions may slow you down, but they won't add instability and implode larger empires.

I, for one, get frustrated because of the opposite reasons. To be assured that I will always defeat all of the rebellions within my empire and never lose anything is what gets me frustrated.

Yes, well this is apparently what they're saying to the press now - they made realms more stable because they felt players should not be frustrated by the Empire cracking apart. Oddly, I have mostly seen people celebrate their heroic failures. If I recall the CKII wiki has a whole section on how to lose the game creatively.

My reading of the situation right now is the current Dev team are NOT the people who actually made the game originally and with each DLC they have gradually moved away from the original vision by introduing vassal limits, faction titles etc. etc.

With Conclave they have made a radical departure and overhauled the core mechanics of running the realm. The chages have not been directed primarily at the Council but at the whole system of laws and the Crown's Authority of the realm. Note that Crown Authority and the King's Power are two separate things - one relates to the Institution of the Crown and the "Rights" thereto and the other the monarch's ability to actually make decisions without reference to other people.

Now we have seen a backlash against both the DLC and, even more so, the changes to mechanics in the patch, Conclave has dropped another 1% in score, down from 48 to 47% in the last week. Conclave is the only major DLC with a rating below 50%, the majority of the others are around the 75% whilst Legacy of Rome and Sword of Islam are the high 80's and Sons of Abraham scores a whopping 93%. Conversely, the next-lowest rated are Sunset Invasion with 58% and then the Republic with 64%, but the Republic has only been reviewed 17 times. The only thing other than music and cosmetic packs ranked lower than Conclave is the Converter.

The Devis have declared that they think 2.5.2 will address all out concerns but the proposed changes have already been picked apart and now people are criticising the core mechanics in detail.

None of this looks very good for Paradox and I would hope that discussions are being had about where things went so wrong.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

What's the difference between the original design team and the one right now? Did somebody leave or what?

Yep, the lead.

My understanding is that the majority of the team are all post-launch now. I know Groogy has mentioned joining the project after the game was actually released.

That in no way makes them inherently bad as game designers or the wrong people to work on CKII but it means they aren't the people who conceived the game and its mechanics.

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

Yep, the lead.

Who was the previous lead?

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

The really disappointing thing is that Conclave -- at least what it was described to be -- is what really got me excitied about playing CK2 again. I hoped it would bring a return to the inward, personality-based focus that made the original CK2 such an enjoyable (and completely unique) strategy/RPG hybrid.

And Conclave, by itself, actually isn't all that bad. The real problem is the idiotic "patch" they dumped on us that so wildly wrenches the game toward a global, EU4-style focus.

Just a bizarre design decision. But I guess the change of design lead explains a lot.

 

[Audoucet]

Who was the previous lead?

I don't know the names, but the previous one wasn't even the first one himself.