Conclave: The Near Future

[King Dave]

france as its modern borders currently are an in game de jure empire. until germany truely united it was the dominant land power in europe. it was once a literal empire, with an emperor. it was for much of its existence and to this day once of the great powers of the world. france is massive in size, bigger than germany, and as big as the hispanian peninsula. true its changed from an empiral structure to a republic, but the national borders are still the same.

Never really got the global recogintion of say the British Empire though did it. The French Empire doesn't really come readily to mind when people are asked to name an empire.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

Read my post again.
I said how people who call for removal of coalitions are not a majority.
Most of the people who dislike them, simply want them revised. Including me.

thats not my experience to be honest. most of the people calling for revision instead of removal are on this forum. most(though addmitingly not all) of the rest ive seen calls for removal instead.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

Never really got the global recogintion of say the British Empire though did it. The French Empire doesn't really come readily to mind when people are asked to name an empire.

that does not change the fact that it was an empire, with all the power and problems that such a state has.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

A more authentic way than either the old way or the new would be if a beaten army disbanded after the initial defeat, and then had to be raised again. However, provinces whose troops are disbanded whilst in the same province as an enemy lose those troops, so it's a bit of a problem. And if those provinces didn't lose their troops when disbanded then it opens up an exploit to disband to avoid an overwhealming defeat. A tactic that the ai isn't sophisticated enough to use to it's own advantage, and also a tactic that would have human player calling foul because of the ai's insight into the numbers being crunched and just how the battle is likely to progress.

and yet despite its problems its still a far better idea than shattered retreat ever was.

 

[yezhanquan]

that does not change the fact that it was an empire, with all the power and problems that such a state has.

Indeed. Come to think about it, French Indochina and Algeria featured prominently in the history of decolonisation.

 

[King Dave]

and yet despite its problems its still a far better idea than shattered retreat ever was.

There's got to be a reason they didn't go down that route, would be interesting to know.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

There's got to be a reason they didn't go down that route, would be interesting to know.

oh, there is a reason, just not a good one. the reason is that shattered retreat is a massive part of EU4, and mechanics wise, its not difficult to copy it from eu4 over to ck2. they copied it, because they like the mechanic and thought it might be good to have it in CK2. judging by how such a majority hate it, it seems they were wrong.

 

[sreckom92]

i thought the vassal limit was a good idea, it was just handled very badly and soured everyone on the idea.

charlemagnes empire did. also, the roman empire was still around, we just call it byzantium.

france, england, byzantium, HRE. each of these held together for centuries. and there were many more.

also, i agree that coalitions become localized is a good idea, but doing so would nerf them to such an extent that there would be no point in having them around.

Charlemagne's empire was broken into pieces rather quickly.
England and France were not empires in this period. So called 'Angevin Empire" was the biggest territory ever controlled by England in the Middle Ages. It controlled parts of France, but never entire kingdom. And some people here nonchalantly say "I just conquered the kingdom of Poland"....
HRE didn't really expand dramatically. It reached it's peak when it controlled parts of Italy, and then dwindled.
Byzantine Empire expanded on several occasions during the Middle Ages. But never so dramatically as it did under Justinian. Most of the time it was fighting to retain it's territories. And it dwindled with time, until it was destroyed.

If I play in Russia, as one of the Grand Princes, and form kingdom of Rus, I usually come under threat from Poland, Lithuania or Hungary individually. That threat is not so significant for me, since I believe I'm smart enough to handle AI kingdoms smaller than me. But if those realms combined their power, and joined a coalition against me, I would be worried.
And that's exactly what I want. A challenge.
It is not a challenge to have a Cuman-Norse-Polish coalition. It sounds (and is) ridiculous.
Coalition of Baltic States and Finnic tribes would be a far lesser threat, but still more serious than those realms individually.

Or if I am the Emperor of ERE, and I get a coalition of Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria. That would give an actual challenge in the Balkan peninsula. It still wouldn't be too hard, but at least it would be interesting. Those countries as of now stand no chance against me. Or maybe a separate coalition of Italian States, Sicily and North Africa. That would make me think twice before expanding in that area.

You say that such coalitions would have no point to exist. Do you still think so?

Gameplay-wise, it would be great. Maybe you could still find arguments that it's not as historical. But really, there are so many mechanics in the game that ignore history, simply for better gameplay.

 

[King Dave]

oh, there is a reason, just not a good one. the reason is that shattered retreat is a massive part of EU4, and mechanics wise, its not difficult to copy it from eu4 over to ck2. they copied it, because they like the mechanic and thought it might be good to have it in CK2. judging by how such a majority hate it, it seems they were wrong.

But then they had to come up with something better than the old way, it wasn't really authentic. I guess this was the best they could do and maybe they did choose the easy way but then again maybe something completely new and untried may have been too difficult to implement in old game with lots of added content.

Anyway, I'm off to play some 2.3.6 now, it's a long standing game I want to finish. Yes, that's right I haven't played Conclave yet, but from what I can garner from the forum most of the changes will fit with my style of play (Ha that sucker will soon change his tune I hear you say.) The only thing I'm thinking I might miss are the old laws, I do like to review them when they come available and consider whether I can squeeze a bit more here or there.

 

[Langkard1]

oh, there is a reason, just not a good one. the reason is that shattered retreat is a massive part of EU4, and mechanics wise, its not difficult to copy it from eu4 over to ck2. they copied it, because they like the mechanic and thought it might be good to have it in CK2. judging by how such a majority hate it, it seems they were wrong.

I am inclined to agree with the first part, but claiming a majority for any side is fallacious. Besides being an example of the argumentum ad populum fallacy, it is an example of false-consensus bias. The sample on these forums or reddit or the Steam forums is not even close to being a majority of the owners of CKII. And it is simply impossible to identify a majority of current players of CKII as opposed to those who own it but stopped playing it years ago. Even just attempting to claim a majority of people posting in this forum alone is a major effort which no one to this point has undertaken. One would have to go post by post and thread by thread through the entire forum counting pros and cons for each idea, making assumptions about qualified agreement or disagreement or simply neutral, and would end up being mostly a judgement call anyway. We simply don't know at this point what the majority think about any one or all of the contents of Conclave and the patch. We can't say if the majority is for or against or in between the two. All we can say, and only after making a complete count, is that the majority of people posting in this forum or some other venue have expressed a particular opinion.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

Charlemagne's empire was broken into pieces rather quickly.
England and France were not empires in this period. So called 'Angevin Empire" was the biggest territory ever controlled by England in the Middle Ages. It controlled parts of France, but never entire kingdom. And some here people nonchalantly say "I just conquered the kingdom of Poland"....
HRE didn't really expand dramatically. It reached it's peak when it controlled parts of Italy, and then dwindled.
Byzantine Empire expanded on several occasions during the Middle Ages. But never so dramatically as it did under Justinian. Most of the time it was fighting to retain it's territories. And it dwindled with time, until it was destroyed.

If I play in Russia, as one of the Grand Princes, and form kingdom of Rus, I usually come under threat from Poland, Lithuania or Hungary individually. That threat is not so significant for me, since I believe I'm smart enough to handle AI kingdoms smaller than me. But if those realms combined their power, and joined a coalition against me, I would be worried.
And that's exactly what I want. A challenge.
It is not a challenge to have a Cuman-Norse-Polish coalition. It sounds (and is) ridiculous.
Coalition of Baltic States and Finnic tribes would be a far lesser threat, but still more serious than those realms individually.

Or if I am the Emperor of ERE, and I get a coalition of Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria. That would give an actual challenge in the Balkan peninsula. It still wouldn't be too hard, but at least it would be interesting. Those countries as of now stand no chance against me. Or maybe a separate coalition of Italian States, Sicily and North Africa. That would make me think twice before expanding in that area.

You say that such coalitions would have no point to exist. Do you still think so?

Gameplay-wise, it would be great. Maybe you could still find arguments that it's not as historical. But really, there are so many mechanics in the game that ignore history, simply for better gameplay.

charles empire did control half of europe though, no matter how shortly it lasted.

what the hell, does their agressive polices have to do with this? these were examples of large realms that held together through centuries, not realms that conquered huge chunks of lands then disolved immediatly.

as for me still thinking coalitions have no busniss existing, i still say yes. they dont. what youre describing, is to make coalitions localized, so that only your direct neighboors will join up together. i however would argue that this is pointless, as such an coalition would be too weak. you cant have your cake and eat it too. either all your neighboors join in a coalition to oppose you and have the power to do so, or just a few of them do, and then in most cases they wont have the power to oppose you.

also, what youre describing isnt what the developers want out of coalitions. its there to stopp blobbing of massive realms. not to prevent realms from coming into being at all. also, none of these suggestions of yours fix the problem that coalitions wont prevent blobbing at all, because 1. they fade over time, and 2. theyre entierly defensive in nature, and as such they do not pose an actual threat to you. it simply is a speed bump that youll overcome, one way or another.

i want a challenge too, i just want it to make some sense, not for the mechanic to exclusively be there to hamstring players. when the shattered retreat mechanics and coalitions were introduced i thought that the coalition system had some potential, unlike the shattered retreat(which just couldnt be saved). that feeling has since evaporated, once i discovered that coalitions dont affect the AI at all. one of my favorite things about this game is that you and the AI play by the same rules. you have the same tools, the same mechanics and so on. the coalition system does away with all of that. its not there to prevent large ralms from becoming bigger and bigger. its there to punish players that likes to make big realms.

what i want, is a smarter war AI, not for the computer to gain a massive advantage over me that i can never use against it.

 

[Kollatius]

You're still going on about this?
I'm going to say something that might annoy you:
Coalitions are obviously NOT going to be removed, only tweaked
Same for shattered retreat

So no matter how long you argue back forth about this subject it only ultimately going to lead nowhere...
And historical accuracy? Let's be honest here, CK2 is anything BUT historically accurate...

 

[sreckom92]

what the hell, does their agressive polices have to do with this?

Aggressive policies generate infamy in the game. If you start playing as HRE in 1066, you will get coalitions. But such coalition will not attack you, unless you attack them.
Those historical examples expanded to a certain size (you could say, from a game view, to a point where infamy starts to matter), and either maintained their size, or dwindled.

i however would argue that this is pointless, as such an coalition would be too weak. you cant have your cake and eat it too. either all your neighboors join in a coalition to oppose you and have the power to do so, or just a few of them do, and then in most cases they wont have the power to oppose you.

So, your solution is to remove coalitions, and go back as it was before Conclave? My suggestion is to find a middle ground. To have something that will give you bigger challenge than before, but still not look ridiculous. Serbia cannot ever hope to stop ERE controlled by me. Serbia, together with Bulgaria and Croatia would be a significant nuisance. And I can easily see AI ERE losing such a war.

what i want, is a smarter war AI, not for the computer to gain a massive advantage over me that i can never use against it

Well, you're just asking for a smarter AI.
Piece of cake.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

You're still going on about this?
I'm going to say something that might annoy you:
Coalitions are obviously NOT going to be removed, only tweaked
Same for shattered retreat

So no matter how long you argue back forth about this subject it only ultimately going to lead nowhere...
And historical accuracy? Let's be honest here, CK2 is anything BUT historically accurate...

im not such a fool that i havent considered that it might not be removed, however i have no plans to not make my case for how both of these mechanics are terrible and should be removed.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

Aggressive policies generate infamy in the game. If you start playing as HRE in 1066, you will get coalitions. But such coalition will not attack you, unless you attack them.
Those historical examples expanded to a certain size (you could say, from a game view, to a point where infamy starts to matter), and either maintained their size, or dwindled.

So, your solution is to remove coalitions, and go back as it was before Conclave? My suggestion is to find a middle ground. To have something that will give you bigger challenge than before, but still not look ridiculous. Serbia cannot ever hope to stop ERE controlled by me. Serbia, together with Bulgaria and Croatia would be a significant nuisance. And I can easily see AI ERE losing such a war.

Well, you're just asking for a smarter AI.
Piece of cake.

note here that you use the word, "nuisance" not threat. i dont see any point of coalitions unless they actually do pose a real threat to you. also, as i said earlier, then the AI should be affected as well.

well at least thats a step in the right direction. all the time that was wasted on trying to make coalitions and SR viable mechanics that in the end wont be worth it, could instead have been used to develop a smarter AI.

 

[Kollatius]

im not such a fool that i havent considered that it might not be removed, however i have no plans to not make my case for how both of these mechanics are terrible and should be removed.

The whole point was that the whole discussion is going in circles and leading absolutely nowhere. And whether they should be removed or not is subjective.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

The whole point was that the whole discussion is going in circles and leading absolutely nowhere. And whether they should be removed or not is subjective.

so in other words, youre saying that no one should ever complain about anything ever.

 

[sreckom92]

note here that you use the word, "nuisance" not threat. i dont see any point of coalitions unless they actually do pose a real threat to you. also, as i said earlier, then the AI should be affected as well.

And note that I said "significant" nuisance.
For someone with thousands of hours in CK2, coalitions as of now are a threat. And for such people, a coalition of 3 kingdoms is indeed a nuisance.
But for your average CK2 player (like me), that clocked "only" several hundred hours, a coalition of 3 kingdoms is a threat. Maybe not an impossible obstacle, but it would still be a challenge. As opposed to steamrolling individual realms, as it was the case before.

 

[Kollatius]

so in other words, youre saying that no one should ever complain about anything ever.

Edit: Removed the original point as it was unclear.
Now, let me explain something: You clearly have a strong opinion on the matter, and are not going to change your mind. But would stop repeating the point after someone disagreed with you? If you still insist on repeating the same point over and over, the whole discussion will eventually devolve in a massive flame war, resulting in negative gains for both sides of the argument. And for what?

 

[TheKingofWinter]

And note that I said "significant" nuisance.
For someone with thousands of hours in CK2, coalitions as of now are a threat. And for such people, a coalition of 3 kingdoms is indeed a nuisance.
But for your average CK2 player (like me), that clocked "only" several hundred hours, a coalition of 3 kingdoms is a threat. Maybe not an impossible obstacle, but it would still be a challenge. As opposed to steamrolling individual realms, as it was the case before.

they still arent able to attack offensively, and the AI isnt affected at all. unless those two are changed i see no point in the mechanic being there.