DD8: Trade-offs

[Nirmara]

Reduce the levies available from you vassals when you are in an offensive war. It should give the defender an advantage making aggressive wars more risky.

Increase the opinion penalty for raising vassals levies in an offensive wars, but remove it for a defensive war. The opinion penalty should also decay more slowly.

Gives an opinion bonus for being at peace for a certain amount of time.

Make vassals levies and taxes scale with their opinion rather than being only reduced if they are bellow 0.

When a ruler set-up anti-pope, it should be possible for it's vassals to choose their religious head. Not acknowledging the same pope would be treated as the same relation as the one between heretics.

Make faction more like they were in RoI and able to call their allies during a civil war. Direct vassal levies should not fight in a civil war alike holy order when facing "true religion" foes. In exchange, you can issue a call to arm to your vassals that remained loyal. This should make civil war more... entertaining.

 

[Gnostiko]

Opinion boost for your character if he leads troops into battle. Right now, there's no real reason to risk sending your character into battle, but a newly ascended monarch could prove himself to his uncertain vassals by leading the army to victory...

 

[CVDE]

Please stop derailing. You are late to the party. There is really nothing to discuss anymore. Thanks.

2nd Dev diary:

Whoa sorry not sorry but someone ask me a question so I answered. Also if you dont like please ignore, its not that hard thanks.

 

[Martian Gamer]

This may have been said but I'm late so here goes.

• A soft cap rather than a hard one for trade posts. Anything over the cap might go pirate rebel or something and have large mauleses.
• A way to be a dictator/tyrant. Especially in republics. For instance, forcing an election through military means and being able to revoke titles without just reasons.
• Have dynasties befriend one another through large amounts of marriages.
• Allow the leige to interject in a vassal to vassal inheritance so I don't have my Bulgarian King ruling half of Sicily and vice versa.
• Have bonuses to directly owning multiple baronies in a province and multiple provinces in a duchy rather than owning a mish mash of random provinces.
• Have far away exclaves more likely to rebel. For example if I'm the King of Sweden and one of my vassals is the Duke of Anatolia, that Duke should declare independence more often and possibly ge assistance from Byzantium or Rum.
• Have a opinion bonus or penalty based on what a Vassal thought of the previous monarch. A "Your father was a good man" or "Your father was a scoundrel" modifier.

 

[Gatkramp]

One thing I'd like to see is a revamp of the Factions system, mainly along the following lines to make them less arbitrarily binary:

• Factions would be persistent and semi-permanent "power blocs" rather than the ad hoc arrangements they are now.
• Rather than being hostile by default to the monarch, Factions are simply neutral bodies with a declared goal that only present ultimatums when their members are sufficiently aggravated.
• Members of a particular faction are more likely to vote in favor of Crown and Levy Laws that support their Faction goals, and passing laws in one Faction's favor improves relations between the monarch and the faction members (and consequently deteriorates those of an opposing faction). This would make Faction allegiances a good indicator of what laws your nobles would most likely allow you to pass.
• More Faction goals, such as "Expand the Realm" (or, conversely, "Maintain the Peace").
• Faction leaders occasionally make non-ultimatum requests for the monarch to act in a certain way.
  
• Monarchs could pick a Faction to favor, indicating that they're more likely to try to achieve that Faction's goals and giving a small relations boost (though also greater penalties for ignoring requests).
• Factions can propose law votes themselves, rather than simply forwarding an ultimatum to the monarch. (In tandem with this, possibly tie law voting to faction strength in general; make it so that no one can propose a law unless there's a strong enough faction that might look favorably on the law.)
  
• Factions can act against each other, allowing for civil wars to be more dynamic than just "Monarch vs. Revolters" (and, of course, while two factions are at war with one another, the monarch would have only limited access to either sides' resources unless he explicitly declares in favor of one faction or another).

Agreed with this so much. The factions now are a bit of a bland feature of everyone hating the king/ruler.

I personally would like to see more progressive scaling as far as vassal opinions go. At the moment opinions can drastically change in a very short period for very little reason, while sometimes you can be a terrible ruler and seemingly have no negative impact on your overall relations with the people.

Also, it might be valuable to think of an absence of a opinion bonus to be the same as a opinion penalty. This is one way in which penalties can be applied in a manner that doesn't make people see too much red and then immediately get annoyed with the game.

I'd also like to see more dynasty features, because at the moment there seems to be little to no real interaction between members of the same dynasty beyond immediate inheritances or alliances to close relatives. I'd like to see dynasty members, and other relatives, get upset if they are not favoured for titles (and other vassals get upset when they are). I'd like to see more opportunities to help dynasty members in other states (including those in church or republican states). I'd like to see greater chances for you to try and install dynasty claimants on titles, even if you aren't the liege of that dynasty member (within reason). I'd like to see dynasty members be more willing to set aside temporary grievances to protect dynasty interest, unless it would advance their own interests more.

More soft-penalties on large empires (less soldiers contributed in conflict, inability to despawn army in one area and then raise it somewhere else simply by assigning subjects provinces across the empire - effectively teleporting armies... maybe only raising all subject armies in a contigious area each time) and far-flung conflicts (desertion, would also be greater the further troops get from their homeland - not the empire, but their own province).

 

[KelrynGrey]

I would like to see an EU style stability mechanic, as well as something like Republican Tradition. You can sacrifice X to gain Y is a nice mechanic in EUIV and I'd love to see it in CK.
I'd also really like to see Noble Republics become playable, instead of just Merchant Republics.

 

[acsa4]

Honestly I just want to see Factions a little bit more stronger than what they used to be back in the day. I remember when CK2 first came out and rebellions where something to really be feared and a force to be reckoned with. Now not so much anymore. I especially remember being able to call in other vassals into your civil wars for support. Though they should not just leave to join rebels just cause they can or stay loyal to the liege as they are now, instead they should be more dynamically inclined to help rebels if there is a benefit to them or if they just don't plain like the ruler out of spite.

What I'm trying to say is if they per see have a marriage with a the rebel leader, shouldn't the A.I be more inclined to help their in-laws? All vassals should be given a choice at a beginning of a revolt whether or not they consider it "righteous" enough cause to join it. The choice should be affected primarily be Traits, Marriages, and Opinion to influence this choice. As a vassal player the choice is up to you altogether.

Also not a that a much a biggy, but newer plots would be nice as well. Other than that thank you and have a nice day.

 

[Rags17]

So many ideas I don't know where to start ! Some of these are repeats or summaries of ideas I have put forward elsewhere but here goes –



Rule by Tyranny

All tyranny should create a short term bonus but a longer term malus. Revoking a title say might make all other vassals have a +25 bonus towards you for 12 months, PLUS a -20 malus for 5 years. It should thus be very easy to fall into the trap of “acting tough” for short term gain, only to have to deal with the consequences later or ramp up the terror to unsustainable levels.



Dynamic opinions

For simplicity this is a mechanic that could be applied to players only. Simply make all other characters in a players realm and/or with a certain net opinion level (say +/-50 ?) gain further bonuses or malusses every time you benefit another character. If they like another character then they will like you more for helping them, if they don’t like them then they will like you less, and vice versa.



This alone would make each and every decision fraught with peril as you had to try and work out the net effect across multiple key agents in your realm.



More factions

Noted elsewhere, I’ll just add my two cents to say that factions should be like germs – always there in the background, sometimes annoying, sometimes downright nasty. There should be more factions the larger your realm until past a certain point the ruler’s entire game should be dealing with the implications of factional infighting, or suffer the consequences.



Improvement of the Realm

Everything in the game is a closed loop – troops begets money begets holdings and buildings begets income begets troops etc. Nothing ever leaves this system except maybe by way of gifts and even then it is sometimes possible to get these back.



There should be the option to simply improve the lives of the peasantry, either by way of freewill gold donation or prestige sacrifice in return for piety or some other measure. At the moment since all a player is measure against at the end o the game is prestige plus piety that’s all that they seek. If the option was given to allow a player to choose what measure was to be used at the game AND compare the player’sresult to the AI that would allow players to set their own goals apart from simply conquest and development.



Courtly Love

I always try to make sure that my well respected councillors get compatible wives, if not attractive or smart then at least similar in disposition. I also always make sure never to marry my daughters off to Wrothful or Drunkard husbands. Ther should be a bonus for making your courtiers and family members truly happy and not just paired up with some Ugly Imbecile purely for the dynastic link.



That’s all I got for now.

 

[Olligarchy]

My personal house rule is that unless the characters personality and goals are fitting to a single generation construction of an empire, all 'conquered' rather than inherited crowns must be granted to another kinsman to ensure the dynasty prospers, not just the individual. Maybe there should be more impetus to give away non-dejure crowns to kinsmen via vassals not being happy with you!

 

[BrokenSky]

How about a provincial manpower mechanic? Basically when I go to war against my weaker enemy there really isn't much incentive not to just pile all my armies into a doom-stack, load up my best commanders and then continually attack the enemy army, losses be damned, assuming I have enough men that I can do that and still win the war; that is to say, taking losses has very few consequences and losing vassals troops has even fewer. Now obviously this isn't always the case; if I have a neighbor just waiting to declare war on me, this would be the chance they want, but in general I don't, so there's very little consequence. Why? Because levies regenerate from a limitless pool of the population.

Therefor I think each province could have a total population and a manpower value (with manpower being a portion of total pop.) Levies would draw men out of this manpower pool, until it was empty and then levies wouldn't regenerate until it wasn't. In addition, the value of holdings in the province would be tied to populations in such a way that constantly warring might drain away large enough parts of the population so as to cause economic problems. In addition things like plagues would leave a permanent dent on the province population.


This would provide penalties for constant war, but also make things like plague have log term effects.

 

[majorlupa]

This thread basically turned into 'Suggestions' sub-forum. Not cool

 

[Buladelu]

We already have Prestige and Piety which are used sort of like a currency. I feel they're underused somewhat and could be more involved into some mechanics.

Demense limits feels sort of right. It explains why feudalism existed. Vassal limit - not so much. When you go over demense limit your economy suffers. It's OK but I'd prefer to see some more dynamic problems generated. After all, economy was not so important for medieval lords. You can get events heavily hitting your prestige, piety, rising revolt risk and putting you under stress when you're over demense limits. All those vassals expecting you to give away titles you can't use properly anyway feel OK to me as long as it's clear it only happens cause your demense is too big.

Another thing I'm curious about is soft title limit. If you have too many Duke titles you get penalty. Same for King titles but I'm not sure. You get opinion penalties. Anyway it's just asking for rework. Direct opinion modifier feels lazy to me. You don't respect proper lord-vassal relations. You should get monthly prestige/piety loss. A big one. Perhaps events reminding you it's not what your vassals want.

Let the ruler who does not play by the book be pariah. I'm not even talking about Tyranny mechanic from EU Rome, just make sure that prestige he gets from conquests and having a big empire is negated by his empire being in disarray, laws and traditions ignored. Make this be more important than economy penalty. And do it through events, interactive stories.

 

[LemonMonk]

I think that the Chivalry/Dread mechanic from Medieval Total War II was a poorly implemented feature, but a great idea for roleplaying purposes that could be used in other games.. such as CKII.

If a Character has 'Dread' style traits (Envious, Deceitful, whatever) they should have to roleplay as an unsavoury character. If they do not, the trade off could be that you're seen to be arbitrary. An arbitrary character would feel that they should act in a Chivalrous/Dreaded manner, but do not.

To this point, I feel that the arbitrary trait should be given more importance. Being arbitrary is to break from roleplaying - your Kind ruler isn't going to randomly start killing prisoners for the hell of it.

By being a tyrant or a fair leader, I feel that you should have the exact same bonuses, lowered revolt risks (either by being feared, or popular), but maybe change the localisation, so that if you're feared the bonus can be named 'feared', while if you're popular the bonus could be known as 'respected'.

This would be a trade off, of playing how your character should (arguably), and how you want to.

There could be more events, some that create Chivalric/Dreaded leanings. If you're playing a young king, you might see your regent embezzle. Seeing this, you could be horrified (add Chivalric leaning), or impressed (add Dread leaning).

 

[Gooner]

I'd like to see rewards for enhancing your family. I feel like that's the point of the game (dynasty manager) yet it is not particularly rewarded.

I'd like to see prestige rewards for handing titles to dynasty members. Having a realm that is controlled by largely your dynasty should have great prestige effects, both to the head of the dynasty, and the dynasty as a whole. The same can be said for going to war to install a dynasty member on the throne of another realm. That should be a real prestige treasure. If a Duke was able to install a dynasty member as king of England, there should surely be massive prestige boost. I keep thinking about how in Game of Thrones, everything is done for the family, and I'd like to think that's what the game should be about.

On the other hand, there should be great difficulties that come with this. For example, the sense of entitlement should lead to factions all the time. Everyone is part of the great family, and they all want a piece of the pie. Constant civil wars should be a norm. Not just for the top throne, but for the smaller titles as well. After all, claims must be aplenty. There should also be many adventurers, especially if you can't expand fast enough to satisfy all the ambition.

It can even lead to diplomatic penalties. For example, difficult to invite anyone non-dynasty to court because they don't think you'll treat them as fairly as you do your own family. There can be an increasingly mythical status about the dynasty, and so the members inter-marry more and more, increasing the chances of inbreeding.

 

[Draculdraconis]

I was playing a game starting as Ivar the Boneless before there was a Vassalllimit and I only had 10 Kings as Vassals 8 of them my dynesty or at least a Bastarddynesty a big Theokracy and a King level Repuplic. I had to go to war all the time to be able to grand them new lands to offset the -50 is King panelty and every now and then the short reing penalty. Each of the Kings had a levy from around 50k and a Retenue of around 10k. I had two retenue stacks to fuel the conquests of 20k each.

Now with Vasallimits the Limit for an empire is around 30ish. so what I am proposing is to get an point of Opinion bonus with your direct Vassals for each vassalslot that isn't used. For they are the true Elite of the Empire.

PS: sorry if it was proposed before, for I did not read beyond entry #20 before writing this.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Whoa sorry not sorry but someone ask me a question so I answered. Also if you dont like please ignore, its not that hard thanks.

..and Asiak had responded to your earlier post, so you were the instigator so to say, nobody asked you,
and others got confused by that, so i thought to inform you and everyone else.
That was all and no i won't just ignore some statement i don't like as you said.
Welcome to the age of communication.
Have fun playing.
Cheers.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Gavelkind
Something should be done to Gavelkind. It's not a succession law, it's a malus. Entire gameplay of gavelkind realms is focused on changing it to ANYTHING. Right now, I cannot imagine a single thing that could justify staying with gavelkind. No amount of bonuses will justify crippling blow after succession happens.
Tyranny
For now, it is not possible to play as a ruthless ruler, holding his vassals in fear with iron grip. Entire strategy of stability in CKII goes against Machiavelli's "better be feared than loved". Try to punish your vassals and others will rush to a suicidal revolts, all vassals will ignore that you blinded, castrated and burned those who tried to oppose you and will revolt. There should be option to rule by fear, and not just one or two years. History is full of example that rule by fear could be long and stable.

 

[iron0037]

I haven't the time to read through 137 posts, so apologies if similar ideas have already been put forth.

1. Remove the limit on the number of children a character can educate, but give them a modifier that reduces their skills in certain areas. For example, reduce the characters military and stewardship skill by 2 for each pupil to reflect the character's diminished free time to run a government. Thus the player has a tradeoff between the current and future administration of the realm.
   
2. Remove the retinue cap and let players hire as many as they can afford. But the fixed retinue cost should be increased, and there should be a chance that retinues defect to rebellions. Thus the player has a tradeoff between military and economic strength/internal strife.
3. Landing sons is currently a tradeoff between your prestige and the risk that they'll foul up their traits. I'd rather see it be a different tradeoff. Staying at court should slowly increase claimants base learning and intrigue while decreasing military and stewardship. Landing them should increase their base military and stewardship skills while decreasing learning and intrigue.

Like others have said here, I believe the game to be way too easy once you learn the ropes. Thus I'm not in favor of new "bonuses" being added and would prefer more penalties. I'd really like to see a more noticeable difference between game difficulty levels. Very Easy should be the only viable setting for players who want a casual game where they can WC as a Norse Hindu. Very Hard should be made a lot harder to give a challenge to players who seek it.

 

[DeathBurst]

Sorry, off-topic, but is there really a large fraction of players using difficulty levels? I looked on the wiki what they change, and basically, it's the AI cheating by getting more gold/morale, it's not really the game being harder because the AI is more aggressive/smart/zealot/etc.

 

[CVDE]

..and Asiak had responded to your earlier post, so you were the instigator so to say, nobody asked you,
and others got confused by that, so i thought to inform you and everyone else.
That was all and no i won't just ignore some statement i don't like as you said.
Welcome to the age of communication.
Have fun playing.
Cheers.

What and the hell are you talking about lol?? I think you might be confusing me for someone elses post because I wasnt Instigating anything at all and what would I be Instigating?

My original post was me saying didnt Paradox state awhile back that they were going to release two Dlc before the end of 2015, and how disappointed I was in this update as I was expecting something else. Then someone ask when did they say that, and I replied I couldnt find the post but it was sometime when they announce they were making this dlc.

If you felt offended I DC but that was not my intention =P.