I've heard pretty negative things about both, I was planning on picking up some dlc during the sale but not sure if they are worth it. (I normally play with CK2+)
Conclave or Way of Life any good?
- Thread starter cheesesalsa
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I personally would pick Way of Life. The main issue with this used to be seduction, and the AI somehow would abuse this feature so much. It's gotten way better now so seduction wasn't a giant problem like it used to be. It's a nice DLC if you like some RP as well.
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I'd grab way of life. As Dakilla says it's gotten a lot better. The aI would fuck your wife and kidnap you all day every day now they only do it on weekends. Plus since you play ck2+ and don't care about achievements you can easily not allow the ai access ton either of the intrigue focuses with another mod if you don't want to be in count Davey von fuckwits dungeon every Saturday.
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The worst thing is having 70 year old Count Dick de Cock seduce your attractive/genius midas touched 16 year old daughter. As an Emperor, all I could do is shake my fists and cry while my kid gets old man herpes.
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I don't know old man herpes is pretty bad but being imprisoned or worse killed by a count with nothing to gain from it who likes you and is only doing it because he's the ai and paradox never taught it to say no is worse for me. WoL could have been great if it wasn't such a stupid mess. Do paradox even play test? If they do they need some new testers.
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I've recently returned to CK2 after a year hiatus. Last I had played was Sons of Abraham. My, how things have changed.
So I've pumped a few more 'tens' of hours into CK2 and these are my thoughts on Way of Life and Conclave so far (Hope it helps with your decision):
Way of Life:
This is a good grab. It gives you a bit more control over your character and allows you to augment your stats, often at a moment's notice. Say for instance a succession happens and your heir has mediocre Stewardship, and now you're over your demnse limit. Switch to 'rulership' focus for a boost in stewardship. It makes sense because in reality if I were the new ruler who was not a good administrator, I could supplement my lack of skill with hard work in that area.
Other perks, you get new decisions based on focuses such as 'duel' (gives you a chance to kill a guy without tyranny penalties). Useful for the Karling and Jimena dyansties.
Conclave:
This one, I could go either way. If like me you love a challenge then I'd say give it a go. What I've learned so far is that the powers you took for granted get seriously marginalized. That's why it gets a lot of criticism. For instance, do you like the idea of vassals telling you who you can imprison, revoke titles from, give titles to, declare war on?
The more powerful your council is (based on laws), the less decisions you have to yourself - but on the flip side the less you have to deal with factions. The less powerful your council is, the more power they will demand with threats of civil war.
It basically comes down to consolidating unruly vassals into a dukedom or kingdom and putting that one vassal on the council to prevent civil war, then bribe him to vote your way, if he's not already agreeable - or a loyalist. But I find a vassal in prison is just as good, if not better, than a vassal on the council; so sometimes you may prefer a faction to fire.
Added to the defensive packs, playing conclave basically comes down to fighting only one to two major external wars per ruler, and learning to live with internal border gore. If you can deal with compromise - often resulting in changing your goals - than conclave is worth the challenge.
Understand that playing Charlemange, or almost any emporer, is tough. Use tyranny sparingly.
Good luck.
So I've pumped a few more 'tens' of hours into CK2 and these are my thoughts on Way of Life and Conclave so far (Hope it helps with your decision):
Way of Life:
This is a good grab. It gives you a bit more control over your character and allows you to augment your stats, often at a moment's notice. Say for instance a succession happens and your heir has mediocre Stewardship, and now you're over your demnse limit. Switch to 'rulership' focus for a boost in stewardship. It makes sense because in reality if I were the new ruler who was not a good administrator, I could supplement my lack of skill with hard work in that area.
Other perks, you get new decisions based on focuses such as 'duel' (gives you a chance to kill a guy without tyranny penalties). Useful for the Karling and Jimena dyansties.
Conclave:
This one, I could go either way. If like me you love a challenge then I'd say give it a go. What I've learned so far is that the powers you took for granted get seriously marginalized. That's why it gets a lot of criticism. For instance, do you like the idea of vassals telling you who you can imprison, revoke titles from, give titles to, declare war on?
The more powerful your council is (based on laws), the less decisions you have to yourself - but on the flip side the less you have to deal with factions. The less powerful your council is, the more power they will demand with threats of civil war.
It basically comes down to consolidating unruly vassals into a dukedom or kingdom and putting that one vassal on the council to prevent civil war, then bribe him to vote your way, if he's not already agreeable - or a loyalist. But I find a vassal in prison is just as good, if not better, than a vassal on the council; so sometimes you may prefer a faction to fire.
Added to the defensive packs, playing conclave basically comes down to fighting only one to two major external wars per ruler, and learning to live with internal border gore. If you can deal with compromise - often resulting in changing your goals - than conclave is worth the challenge.
Understand that playing Charlemange, or almost any emporer, is tough. Use tyranny sparingly.
Good luck.
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I don't own either DLC, so I can't say whether they're worth it or not. However, I can say that most of the complaints about Conclave are actually complaints about the free patch that got released alongside it. People just don't know the difference. Defensive pacts, shattered retreat, and automatic call to arms are all features of the 2.5 free patch. So if you're playing with the latest patch you already have all those in your game and can ignore the vast majority of the negative reviews that Conclave got on Steam.
Most complaints about Way of Life are also complaints about the Seduction focus and AI characters "going wild" with it. This has also been reigned in considerably in the 2.5 patch where now a failed seduction attempt makes the target immune to any further seduction attempts from anyone at all for a period of time.
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I think both are solid. As mentioned, Way Of Life gives a bunch more personalization options and events - if you enjoy the roleplaying aspects it's a must IMO.
I guess Conclave might be annoying for the powergaming approach, but for me it added another layer of depth to internal realm politics and gave that extra bit of storytelling far as vassal relations go. There are a lot more decisions to make now, you can't just mechanically put individuals with the highest appropriate attributes in their correct slots, you've got to weigh who's going to vote with you and when (there are several different inclinations they can have: Zealots, Glory Hounds, Malcontents, Loyalists, etc), plus the expectations of powerful vassals that they have a plum spot on your council. If you flesh it out with a little imagination you can develop all sorts of storylines and interrelationships that didn't exist before.
I'm even a fan of the Shattered Retreat mechanic (which Dragatus correctly mentions isn't even a true part of Conclave). Beforehand it had always bothered me that you could hire an assload of mercs and meet a powerful opponent in one single battle of annihilation, then disband the mercs have basically free reign afterward with little more cost. Now that opponent's forces will disperse and then reconstitute to some extent - which more mirrors medieval reality, albeit imperfectly - so you'd better be able to maintain those troops for an extended period. Makes war preparation & cost-benefit considerations more important.
I guess Conclave might be annoying for the powergaming approach, but for me it added another layer of depth to internal realm politics and gave that extra bit of storytelling far as vassal relations go. There are a lot more decisions to make now, you can't just mechanically put individuals with the highest appropriate attributes in their correct slots, you've got to weigh who's going to vote with you and when (there are several different inclinations they can have: Zealots, Glory Hounds, Malcontents, Loyalists, etc), plus the expectations of powerful vassals that they have a plum spot on your council. If you flesh it out with a little imagination you can develop all sorts of storylines and interrelationships that didn't exist before.
I'm even a fan of the Shattered Retreat mechanic (which Dragatus correctly mentions isn't even a true part of Conclave). Beforehand it had always bothered me that you could hire an assload of mercs and meet a powerful opponent in one single battle of annihilation, then disband the mercs have basically free reign afterward with little more cost. Now that opponent's forces will disperse and then reconstitute to some extent - which more mirrors medieval reality, albeit imperfectly - so you'd better be able to maintain those troops for an extended period. Makes war preparation & cost-benefit considerations more important.
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Both are solid, and if you want the game balanced you can't just get one or the other.
Conclave slows down stat gains by several generations. As in your next generation will not retain as many stats as your previous character. Translates to taking several hundred years to get across the board decent stat characters, while in the meantime you have to make do with characters that have most stats in single digits and a primary stat in the teens (or worse.)
Way of Life however makes stat gains overpowered as hell since you can easily gain permanent stats in your lifetime, while the base game only lets you focus on raising stats up to 8. Without Conclave to mitigate that you can easily have a teen character with low teens in everything and 20 in one stat by the third generation, or ~100 years.
Looking at it from this angle, it is best to either get both or forego both.
Conclave slows down stat gains by several generations. As in your next generation will not retain as many stats as your previous character. Translates to taking several hundred years to get across the board decent stat characters, while in the meantime you have to make do with characters that have most stats in single digits and a primary stat in the teens (or worse.)
Way of Life however makes stat gains overpowered as hell since you can easily gain permanent stats in your lifetime, while the base game only lets you focus on raising stats up to 8. Without Conclave to mitigate that you can easily have a teen character with low teens in everything and 20 in one stat by the third generation, or ~100 years.
Looking at it from this angle, it is best to either get both or forego both.
I think both are good for the role player. Conclave especially produces a lot of gameplay. Both of them let you interact with your character, court and realm more which is great for the non-powergamers. I would strongly suggest way of life, and slightly less enthusiasticly suggest conclave, but only because it makes the game more complicated.
I too am a fan of shattered retreat, and the levy replenishment while in friendly territory.
Ok, so most of the conclave complaints are from powergamers? I prefer the role playing aspect and don't really go for crazy expansion so that'd be perfect.
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I enjoy WoL, was really looking forward to it. Though the events seem to come few and far between, not as often as I thought there would be. Still, maybe thats because i play on AGOT mod. Either way I would recommend. Though i think the sale is over!
Well, wouldn't say that. Conclave is just frustrating. If you can RP sorry AI education, utter hate from random retards who want in your council by virtue of sporting two archers more than their better gifted neighbour, unblockable favours
I find it hard.
Edit: Scratch feminism, player doesn't have to pass laws and I haven't seen AI do it, at least not yet. Thus it can be RPd fine.
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If you are playing the last patch already, yeah, go ahead, have a blast.
Conclave is good. Medieval feminism is literally only available to the player and that's if you decide to put the effort into it, because it is hard as hell. The education thing literally means that you pick a specific focus for the children education, that's it, is not that horrible, it is literally just that.
Way of life is a collection of events and the ability to Focus on a specific area during the life of your character, making them more than just the stats of your country.
They are fine.
Conclave is good. Medieval feminism is literally only available to the player and that's if you decide to put the effort into it, because it is hard as hell. The education thing literally means that you pick a specific focus for the children education, that's it, is not that horrible, it is literally just that.
Way of life is a collection of events and the ability to Focus on a specific area during the life of your character, making them more than just the stats of your country.
They are fine.
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No. A lot of the complaints are from people like me who liked the idea of a harder game and factions having some more bite but instead got a bad education overhaul that wasn't needed and every ai realm going elective. Oh and the factions remain a joke of you are not crap.
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Seduction is still broken.
You can have a massive empire with lots of counts and dukes. It only takes 1 vassal with the seduction focus of all those vassals to seduce your wife and daughters. He my live in the farthest corner of your empire, so far away from your capital as you can get. He will still be able to rule his county and banging your wife at the same time. He will still be able to wait ready the very day your daughters come of age to seduce and bang them too.
In a smaller realm you can to some extent control this, in that it is possible to actively identify and assassinate most vassals that have the focus. But as your realm grows this turns into an impossible task.
The only remedy is in fact to only marry homosexual women. They are immune to seduction, and with only -15% fertility will have no problems giving you heirs.
To fix seduction, a heavy restriction on distance should be applied. In addition there should be severe consequences for a vassal caught seducing his liege's women. Historically this was considered high treason, so if you discover a vassal seducing your wife or daughters you should be fully justified in stripping him of all his titles and then executing him. Now you cant even imprison him without getting the tyrant modifier.
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The seduction focus is hilarious. I always take it when I play Venice and I seduce everyone.
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I wouldn't mind a distance modifier or heck, in the new DLC there will be more diseases, and I'm hoping STDs are implemented and are stronger and more deadly so Duke Dick IV de Cock can die early from a nasty rash downstairs.
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Can't help but hope that it wouldn't be the other way around i.e. your random bald-and-80-years-old 'Underhanded Rogue' count catch a horrible STD only manages to survive and start spreading all those 'pox' things to your supposed 'lover' wife (and of course you can't do anything about it cause infidelity is neither a sin nor a crime in the CK2 'muhg medieval' world) then your wife will die from it.
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