Conclave or Way of Life any good?

[Buttons12345]

Not at all. I just face constant revolts now over giving the council more authority because "hey 38th time's the charm right." I can literally give a random lowborn guy his own kingdom and every holding in it to distribute, give him a place on my council, make him my regent, give him all the honourary titles and money I can and he will still revolt over council authority. Then when the revolt is put down executing him is considered tyrannical for some reason.

 

[Rubidium]

Not at all. I just face constant revolts now over giving the council more authority because "hey 38th time's the charm right." I can literally give a random lowborn guy his own kingdom and every holding in it to distribute, give him a place on my council, make him my regent, give him all the honourary titles and money I can and he will still revolt over council authority. Then when the revolt is put down executing him is considered tyrannical for some reason.

I've found Conclave actually makes revolts much easier to handle; between putting people on the council and using extra relatives to form Nonaggression Pacts, it's really easy to keep people from joining factions. You just need to be willing to give them power over war declarations (which keeps council members from joining factions outside of specific circumstances), and be willing to spread some bribes around as needed if they get disagreeable. In comparison, without Conclave, if a major faction formed, your choices were either tyranny or hope to get lucky with the spymaster/intrigue focus.

 

[Dragatus]

If you can pump out enough babies for NAPs you don't even have to put powerful vassals on the council and you still won't suffer any rebellions.

 

[GuileMike]

I have way of life and enjoy it. Conclave I have not plunged into it due to the negative reviews I have seen on steam. I do plan to get the conclave portrait pack when it goes on sale.

 

[Dragatus]

I have way of life and enjoy it. Conclave I have not plunged into it due to the negative reviews I have seen on steam. I do plan to get the conclave portrait pack when it goes on sale.

I suggest you ignore the negative reviews on Steam. Many of them complain about things that were shipped in the free patch that was released along with the DLC so if you're using the latest version of the game you already have them anyway (shattered retreat, defensive pacts, automatic call to arms for allies).

 

[PK_AZ]

Way of Life offer reactive gameplay. It do not give you hundreds of options (through there are two active focuses, both intrique-based, and about three quite active). It give you hundreds of events, sometimes good (family focus), sometimes bad (90% of stewardship events, through the other 10% ARE op). At first I was disappointed that I cannot for example improve relations with my wife even with family focus, but I have to wait for event. Through I found out that many role-players are reactive gamers, so I guess you'll be satisfied.
On the other hand, WoL is must-have for every powergamer.

Conclave... well, my beloved Conclave.
Two coolest features are new education system and new vassal management. Education is superior in every possible way, through it's also more complicated and the last time I played (about 2 months ago?) it really needed more tooltips. (and maybe general childhood focuses redesign, because some of them seems quite bad).
On the other hand, vassal management is IMHO better than vanilla one, but I cannot say it's in every aspect superior. When vanilla CKII was a story about natural centarlisation conflict between vassals and liege, Conclave is more about king vs council conflict over domination in already centalised kingdom. You have more interesting laws, but there's still too few of them. New obligation laws are OP from liege perspective. Crown laws were de facto removed.
On the other hand, we FINALLY get something at least similar to negotiating. We get council minigame ("where that powerful 0-stat idiot will do less damage?"). Councillor intentions are easier to understand. Vassal agenda actually means something. New king peace mechanism give player more choices - both as liege and as vassal.
I cannot say its perfect, but let's face it - no feature in Paradox games is. For me, it's not that Conclave make something bad. It's like it throw away 50% of vanilla vassal management concept, when it should throw away 80%. I hope Conclave vassal management will get some tuning in future patches and DLCs and I cannot imagine CK III vassal management not being based on Conclave one.

 

[Rognvaldr19]

Both add a good layer of depth to politics and religion, it was just the patches to both of those expansions which caused the hubbabaloo.

 

[Mauer]

I stopped playing for almost a year because other games and got both expansions and Horse Lords only a few weeks ago so I don't exactly know which of the newer features are part of which DLC, but the game is greatly improved IMO. I don't get why they are considered bad by some people, maybe the early versions had some issues, but I'm not really seeing seduction happening all the time everywhere or having too much trouble managing the council, which in fact I really like.

In short I recommend both.

BTW I don't power-game, but if anything the game seems easier than I remember, at least as a tribal Germanic pagan it was much much easier to deal with the Catholics and their myriad of religious orders.

 

[Hecaton]

I suggest you ignore the negative reviews on Steam. Many of them complain about things that were shipped in the free patch that was released along with the DLC so if you're using the latest version of the game you already have them anyway (shattered retreat, defensive pacts, automatic call to arms for allies).

The Conclave material was still made with the same piss-poor quality that the concommitant patch was. Buying Conclave means you're tacitly endorsing that level of quality.

 

[Naufragus]

I honestly couldnt play without Way of Life anymore.

 

[Findulidas]

Both are good, but they change how the game must be played making it more difficult. This is essentially why people give them bad reviews I think.

Get chaste wives and pick family lifestyle and your wife will NEVER get seduced ever. The family focus seems to nullify the chase -fertility in my experience. Plus the family lifestyle instantly gives you +1 health, fertility and diplomacy without even having to go through random events.

Conclave you want to read up on if you buy cos now you have to actually deal with the "feelings" of AI characters. That said going for grey eminence diplomacy children and giving your most annoying vassals advisor slots solves many problems by themselves. Basically what you would expect.

 

[Darkgamma]

The Conclave material was still made with the same piss-poor quality that the concommitant patch was. Buying Conclave means you're tacitly endorsing that level of quality.

Oh you.
Get into modding and do something better then, instead of complaining. Might be good for all of us

 

[PK_AZ]

Both are good, but they change how the game must be played making it more difficult.

Sorry, Way of Life makes game more difficult? I could argue about Conclave, but WoL? You need some time to learn it, but then it became porn for powergamers.

 

[Sonmi]

Both are good, but they change how the game must be played making it more difficult.

They made it both more complex, but I wouldn't say it made the game harder.

Way of Life is pretty much an "easy mode", whatever you need, you can get if you pick the appropriate focus. Stay on "Rulership" long enough and your character will pretty much always end up diligent/just/charitable/the whole kit.

Conclave is a mixed bag, but if you manage out of gavelkind and manage to consolidate your power, then it makes internal conflicts extremely simple to take care of. Early game is kind of harsh though, and it completely screwed over Tribals and Nomads by requiring them to be at full council power. (All the time for Nomads, if they wish to switch to Feudal/Merchant for Tribal)

 

[sreckom92]

Two of my favorite expansions.

 

[TheDungen]

Easy conclave, WoL is fun but Conclave makes the game a lot better.

 

[SaunteringLion]

I found Way of Life to be pretty alright, but nothing special.

 

[Fishman786]

Way of life is nice and I've had zero problems with it, not even seduction. Conclave on the other hand is a bit of a nuisance sometimes. The council mechanics work fine for catholic European feudal realms, but when you're dealing with anything outside of that they can get clunky. Most of the really bad decisions were made in the patch rather than the expansion, like nerfing the nomads to hell, the education system, the weird new laws, and most controversially threat and shattered retreats.

 

[atraphoenix]

Conclave allows you what you want to do internally: you can go on killing spree, reign of terror -not tyranny- your council members never enter factions.
WoL is fun, it allows your ruler to improve his main weaknesses. Personally I either go on absolute rule after I have 20k+ retinues or with 2 council laws. The choice depends on you -realm peace or +2 personal holdings-. Early on I go with first choice, later mostly take the second one especially after I reach 500 realm size that never allows you expand without realm peace and non-factionalist council members.

 

[konjad]

I don't know about Conclave, but Way of Life is a great DLC adding a lot to role-playing in the game, you just have to tone down annoying Seduction to an appropriate level.