Council Pushing Agenda's is out of control.

[DocDesastro]

You're overstating it. That certainly wasn't the case in the West, and even in Byzantium (the closest Christian equivalent to the ancient god-kings), people revolted all the time.

Vassal option on kingship was far more often "yeah, you're in charge, i'll send you some money now and then, but stay out of my affairs".

Might be but OTOH: "O.k., I am in charge and will let you rule in peace in your lands. I will accept your obligations and will fulfill my part of the feudal contract (yes contract. And oaths of fealty were sworn) and come to your aid in war. But when i am giving out MY personal demesne and titles YOU stay out of MY affairs - should be like this. While I think a council might be useful on the other state affairs...in this case it is clearly not.

 

[Bernard95]

At least during 2.5.2 and you started with no (or almost no) council authority, it was trivial to give them one more notch of power upon succession, then as soon as the cooldown was up you use favors to revert the laws back. You could get away with it almost indefinitely until you're running a large empire. Another trick is that you can juggle your council around so you don't have owe a favor to someone of importance, since I have seen favors chained together for less than desirable results a time or three.

I can wholeheartedly agree though your council can be an absolute pain if you take a start where they already have full or nearly rights.

 

[dragoon9105]

Converting from Tribal is the absolute worst really. Especially after you win an invasion and are trying to give out land but the council tells you, you cant. So your in this situation where you cant give out land becuase everyone will hate you for going against the council and you cant keep it becuase everyone will hate you. There really should be some sort of "Recently Won Invasion" override that lets you just distribute the land.

 

[Sunspawn]

Converting from Tribal is the absolute worst really. Especially after you win an invasion and are trying to give out land but the council tells you, you cant. So your in this situation where you cant give out land becuase everyone will hate you for going against the council and you cant keep it becuase everyone will hate you. There really should be some sort of "Recently Won Invasion" override that lets you just distribute the land.

Fire the council, distribute land, hire new council from the newly-minted vassals.

 

[DocDesastro]

Yes, the gamey approach...but should it be like that? This works but feels not like the way to cope with such a situation. It lacks immersion or at least damages it.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

Might be but OTOH: "O.k., I am in charge and will let you rule in peace in your lands. I will accept your obligations and will fulfill my part of the feudal contract (yes contract. And oaths of fealty were sworn) and come to your aid in war. But when i am giving out MY personal demesne and titles YOU stay out of MY affairs - should be like this. While I think a council might be useful on the other state affairs...in this case it is clearly not.

Yeah, I agree they should be less resistant to handing out titles when you're getting a penalty for having too many titles.

 

[Sunspawn]

Yes, the gamey approach...but should it be like that? This works but feels not like the way to cope with such a situation. It lacks immersion or at least damages it.

Paradox is against sane solutions, so all we have are the gamey ones.

 

[ssorgatem]

If the council doesn't let younland strangers... give the land to the council members: they won't be against that. And that's perfectly realistic.

Or you can also fire them all if you're allowed to. Much easier.

 

[thevmag]

Yes, the gamey approach...but should it be like that? This works but feels not like the way to cope with such a situation. It lacks immersion or at least damages it.

Every time there's a perfectly valid solution that works and does not require any difficult exploit, "it's gamey".
I missed the part where we were all given a strict script that we must never deviate from.

 

[dragoon9105]

Fire the council, distribute land, hire new council from the newly-minted vassals.

Doesn't work actually becuase absent council members count as saying No. So the first guy you give land will have -120 Tyranny next guy -110 next guy -100 and so on. And Council members will vote yes to land for themselves but other council members wont.

From what I've seen the only way to do it is right before clicking End war, call in council support from the majority, then they'll support an infinite amount of actions you want to do until the favor runs out. And Since your tribal they cant mess with anything besides Levy and tax laws which can be reversed whenever.

Still that really shouldn't be the only option.

 

[thevmag]

Trick is to get a bunch of landless nobodies or low-stat baron-level nobodies, and ask them to support you in council: as many as it takes to secure majority.

Now you have 36 months of guaranteed favourable council action, but you don't even need all that time. You've got a council willing and ready to vote for every single action you take, be it land distribution or war declaration or title revocation or changing the law back to absolute monarch authority with everyone paying 100% taxes from hereon out.

Then, fire the nobodies, and give those newly-vacant positions to either your pissed off pre-existing vassals or your new (and likely skilled and heavy-levied) vassals.

If you've got some council authority, even better. That extra advisor position is great for giving to a useless nobody for votes or placating a bitter but useless vassal that would just waste space elsewhere: free opinion boost!

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

Opinion penalty for a powerful vassal not being in your inner circle (council) should definitly be that big.

I don't care for their competencies, and neither do they. In the game they are objective stats, but in reality they are mostly subjective. Many people don't understand the Dunning Kruger effect plays a massive role here, let alone back then.

Point is there is an objective way to measure power in this game, and that is through holdings. More means more powerful, and powerful people don't like getting their advice ignored in favor of some count or baron. Much less so if you take the advice of some landless foreigner, or heavens forbid, a filthy jew (provided your realm isn't jewish of course) or eunuch.

 

[Iron Chariots]

I don't care for their competencies, and neither do they. In the game they are objective stats, but in reality they are mostly subjective. Many people don't understand the Dunning Kruger effect plays a massive role here, let alone back then.

Beyond that, even if they do know they're not particularly good at a job... they still want the prestige and power that goes along with it.

 

[TheKingofWinter]

just centralize, build up your forces, and when the council tries to assert its will, you bitchslap them and ransom them for money to buiild up your forces. add, rinse repeat. hell, now that shattered retreat is finally a thing of the past(and ironmode aproved no less) thats an even better strategy, as now you dont instantly lose if the revolters outnumber you and you dont have money for mercs.

 

[Iron Chariots]

just centralize, build up your forces, and when the council tries to assert its will, you bitchslap them and ransom them for money to buiild up your forces. add, rinse repeat. hell, now that shattered retreat is finally a thing of the past(and ironmode aproved no less) thats an even better strategy, as now you dont instantly lose if the revolters outnumber you and you dont have money for mercs.

Honestly, even with shattered retreat... the AI isn't too hard to beat if they outnumber you. If you get your army together faster than they do, you can easily do enough damage to keep them from being able to beat you... and unless you just don't use retinues, you can usually do that pretty easily.