Cruising along at zero Legitimacy

[Incompetent]

I find that it's easy to tank your Legitimacy/RT by annexing lots of vassals, or in the case of a Monarchy, just bad luck with heirs.

If you're a Republic, the legitimacy of the government is fatally compromised and you collapse into a Monarchy.

If you're a Monarchy (not counting Celestial Empire or Steppe Horde), the legitimacy of your king is completely gone and... no biggie. No succession crises, revolutions, or anything like that, just a bit of extra revolt risk (which is only going to lead to a collapse of government if you are incompetent at putting down revolts) and reduced diplomatic reputation (which can be compensated for with a Statesman and/or ideas). Other rulers are still quite happy to marry you, you're still eligible to inherit other realms or force claims, and so on.

Is it just me, or is life a bit too comfortable at zero Legitimacy (assuming you are a normal European monarchy)? Because legitimacy can't go below zero, you can carry on annexing vassals, switching governments and even allowing useless kings to be deposed, and it won't make things anything worse. Or am I missing something - are there nasty hidden consequences to having no Legitimacy for a long time?

 

[StatikShocker]

try that revolt risk plus a bit of overextension plus a bit of war exhaustion plus lack of religious unity... like the mughals at any give second. it stinks

 

[quoms]

I'm playing Aztec right now - westernisation tanked my legitimacy and my religious unity and even after getting my stab back up I've been playing constant whack-a-mole for a couple decades even after westernisation finished. Low legitimacy isn't bad on its own but it does get you into a very precarious position in terms of revolt risk.

 

[FrigidSoul]

Peasants' war is one thing to look out for, though low Legitimacy alone won't trigger it. Low Legitimacy will also tank your votes in the HRE, and lower your DipRep.

Those are the only things that pop to mind; I'm sure there are other events that are keyed on Legitimacy, but in principle, I think you're right: low Legitimacy is pretty comfortable on the whole. The only problem with making the penalties harsher is that Legitimacy is almost wholly arbitrary; one king with a weak claim and you might be looking at 50 years in the red.

If anything, I think the penalties for low Republican Tradition should be significantly softened. Or maybe the whole Legitimacy/RT mechanic could be changed so that it's more deterministic. Or maybe the Legitimacy cost for annexing vassals could be reduced or eliminated, because the ability to annex vassals is absolutely crucial. Or maybe all of the above.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Republics can just trade a stab to get 20 more, which is a decent deal with religious ideas.

The rebel whackamole can get really bad with lots of hostile culture and low legitimacy. Hordes basically need religious ideas to keep their unity up so they don't collapse into a pile of peasant pitchforks.

 

[aitaituo]

Having been stuck at less than 20 legitimacy for 15 years recently, I can most certainly say it is not comfortable.

 

[pkderek]

Peasants' war is one thing to look out for, though low Legitimacy alone won't trigger it. Low Legitimacy will also tank your votes in the HRE, and lower your DipRep.

I find most of the game is played with low manpower. I don't often play with weak heirs anymore, but when I do I often get a peasant's war. In fact, I find someone gets a peasant's war every game I start now within the first 50 years, though not me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Low manpower is one thing...but you don't get peasant's wars unless below .25, and that's a mandatory requirement for them. No way should you be in that range much.

 

[Sandmann]

Republics can just trade a stab to get 20 more, which is a decent deal with religious ideas.

The rebel whackamole can get really bad with lots of hostile culture and low legitimacy. Hordes basically need religious ideas to keep their unity up so they don't collapse into a pile of peasant pitchforks.

How do you trade a stab for 20 legitimacy as a republic? I wanna do that

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How do you trade a stab for 20 legitimacy as a republic? I wanna do that

It's RT, not legitimacy. That said, if you get below 50 there's an event with MTTH that's pretty low that will give you the option of +1 stab and -20 RT or -1 stab and +20 RT.

Most republics, even without the + .5 bonus/year that a few nations get, should re-elect as frequently as they have leaders expected to live through the term. You take fewer stab hits due to no -stab on ruler death, and a leader who lives out his term gets more monarch points than you'd spend on the stab hit anyway, especially with religious ideas giving more +stab events than -stab ones and the 25% reduction.

With something like merchant republic, religious ideas, and re-election spam on anybody young, you can match what monarchies will give, or even surpass it. While you don't get the diprep and your -rr is only soso this way, you also never get regency and your ruler never has a worse total income than 6.

Republics have grown on me...IMO they're actually solid, though unfortunately if you want one it's Europe, Tibet, or bust at first.

Now, monarchies and low legitimacy is a bit more of an issue. Even there, however, high religious unity will keep the revolt risk manageable (as Mongol Khanate I'm regularly below 30 since I just fish for good leaders using horde gov't all the time - killing bad heirs). The main problem is diprep at that point.

 

[FrigidSoul]

Low manpower is one thing...but you don't get peasant's wars unless below .25, and that's a mandatory requirement for them. No way should you be in that range much.

Right. It might come up in the extremely early game -- for example after winning the HYW as England -- but once you've gotten off the ground, manpower shouldn't be that big an issue, at least in a single-player context. And even if you do fall below 25% manpower, you still need to satisfy other requirements (like lowish Legitimacy) before Peasants' War will fire.

I only mentioned the Peasants' War because it's the only major, negative, and Legitimacy-related event that leapt to mind. I'm sure there are others.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Right. It might come up in the extremely early game -- for example after winning the HYW as England -- but once you've gotten off the ground, manpower shouldn't be that big an issue, at least in a single-player context. And even if you do fall below 25% manpower, you still need to satisfy other requirements (like lowish Legitimacy) before Peasants' War will fire.

I only mentioned the Peasants' War because it's the only major, negative, and Legitimacy-related event that leapt to mind. I'm sure there are others.

Annexing vassals. It's the premier way to expand, and 0 legitimacy is murder there.

 

[AnonHobo]

Right. It might come up in the extremely early game -- for example after winning the HYW as England -- but once you've gotten off the ground, manpower shouldn't be that big an issue, at least in a single-player context. And even if you do fall below 25% manpower, you still need to satisfy other requirements (like lowish Legitimacy) before Peasants' War will fire.

I only mentioned the Peasants' War because it's the only major, negative, and Legitimacy-related event that leapt to mind. I'm sure there are others.

Low legitmacy is a very unpleasant experience... it is seriously whack a mole for a very long time and drains your manpower.

Of course if you get hit with a peasant war... now that is REALLY unpleasant... but exciting as you fight for your VERY life and PRAY that no one invades you at the same time.

 

[Miganto]

Low legitmacy is a very unpleasant experience... it is seriously whack a mole for a very long time and drains your manpower.

Of course if you get hit with a peasant war... now that is REALLY unpleasant... but exciting as you fight for your VERY life and PRAY that no one invades you at the same time.

That's when a coalition war becomes a rage quit

 

[Incompetent]

Annexing vassals. It's the premier way to expand, and 0 legitimacy is murder there.

The only problem there is a penalty to dip rep, but there are ways of making up for that. It's not like you can lose any more legitimacy when the annexation is complete.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The only problem there is a penalty to dip rep, but there are ways of making up for that. It's not like you can lose any more legitimacy when the annexation is complete.

You don't lose legitimacy, but it slows you down. If you're doing major vassal --> annex strategy the annex rate and #concurrent vassals to annex are both significant factors in your overall expansion rate. Yes, you can still get +8 from ideas and +5 from advisor, but instead of +5 for having 100 legitimacy, 0 legitimacy actually removes diprep, which has a very real net slowing event. Maxed rep will annex a vassal faster than you can core it in large empires, and a >5 rep swing is a big deal.

 

[HansBaer]

You should at the very least not be able to get any PUs at a legitimacy below 75 yet alone integrate existing ones. If your legitimacy gets below 25, you should be swarmed by independence wars of your biggest vassals and PUs. Not getting PUs is one major drawback about being a republic (additionally to countless others), so a monarch who isn't legitimate shouldn't get them either.
Last game, i got a PU with France as Genoa (i converted to a monarchy after i got my 666, like always sadly), my legitimacy was at 20% at this moment and stayed round about there until i integrated her. It didn't pose any problem, only a small "Incompetent Ruler" relations modifier.
The low dip rep only poses a problem if you have neither expansion nor dip ideas nor an NI bonus or the dip rep adviser, which isn't the case in 95% of the games i would assume.

Having low RT is arguably the harsher penalty, it enables many of the worst events (loose 2 stab or pay an enormous amount of money to loose only 1 for example) in addition to enormous stab costs. Granted, stability isn't that big of an issue anymore since they nerfed the comets, unless you are cruising around with high OE all the time.

Incompetent, although it seems en vogue in this forums to only outline the faults of someone's proposals, i have to agree with you on every point you made.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You should at the very least not be able to get any PUs at a legitimacy below 75 yet alone integrate existing ones. If your legitimacy gets below 25, you should be swarmed by independence wars of your biggest vassals and PUs. Not getting PUs is one major drawback about being a republic (additionally to countless others), so a monarch who isn't legitimate shouldn't get them either.

Introducing ridiculous nonsense that is so heavily based on luck, beyond the luck in the mechanics you already mentioned, is a recipe for bad design.

Having low RT is arguably the harsher penalty, it enables many of the worst events (loose 2 stab or pay an enormous amount of money to loose only 1 for example) in addition to enormous stab costs.

That is not a republic event. Anybody can get it.

in addition to enormous stab costs.

They also don't lose stab on ruler switch and have a 0% chance at regency. Low RT also lets you hike up mercantilism, potentially to ridiculous values otherwise unattainable. Low RT has no impact on diprep (just as high doesn't) so it's arguably easier to work with in this regard.

Also, contrary to what you say, additional time to annex/integrate is not insignificant, and that penalty still exists no matter what you take to mitigate it...it still nerfs down the effects of said ideas.

 

[FrigidSoul]

You should at the very least not be able to get any PUs at a legitimacy below 75 yet alone integrate existing ones. If your legitimacy gets below 25, you should be swarmed by independence wars of your biggest vassals and PUs. Not getting PUs is one major drawback about being a republic (additionally to countless others), so a monarch who isn't legitimate shouldn't get them either.
Last game, i got a PU with France as Genoa (i converted to a monarchy after i got my 666, like always sadly), my legitimacy was at 20% at this moment and stayed round about there until i integrated her. It didn't pose any problem, only a small "Incompetent Ruler" relations modifier.

Not unless the entire Legitimacy mechanic gets an overhaul first. As of right now, the player can end up with decades of crap Legitimacy through no fault of his own. (King with weak claim takes the throne.)

The game needs fewer unavoidable random penalties, not more of them. If you wanna argue that the game also needs fewer random and game-changing rewards (PUs of enormous countries, for example), then I'm with you, but that's a different discussion.

 

[Peanutcat]

0 legitimacy is devastating if you're a trade nation