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Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

Hey! So today we will talk about some mechanics we’ve added to make other rulers react to what happens in the world. We want to slow down the snowball and prolong the time it takes to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t be as easy to do. Snowballs are pretty evil, just like medieval rulers.

Just as with the shattered retreat mechanic we took inspiration from Europa Universalis 4 in our decision to add Coalitions. Our coalitions however are based on an Infamy value instead of Aggressive Expansion. You might recognize the name Infamy from our old games, but even though it shares the name it will work quite differently.

Infamy is limited to be within the range of 0 to 100% and will slowly decay over time based on how strong your max military potential is. When you hit 25% infamy, coalitions will be unlocked and AIs will start joining them based on how threatened they feel.Your infamy will serve as a hint on how aggressive and dangerous other rulers think your realm is. You gain infamy primarily by conquering land through war or by inheriting a fair maidens huge tracts of land.

The amount of Infamy you gain is based on the action you do, how much land you take and how large your realm already is. So for instance the Kaiser of the HRE declaring a war for Flanders and taking it is going to make the neighbours more worried than if Pomerania manages to take Mecklenburg.
capture(56).png


Coalitions themselves are mostly defensive in Crusader Kings, if any member gets attacked by the target of the coalition they will automatically be called into the war. If a member starts a war against the target they only get a normal call to arms which they can choose to decline.

For an AI to join a coalition they will consider the relative strength between the target and themselves, how threatened they think they are and how much infamy the target has accrued. You can view the current coalition someone has against them by the diplomacy field on the character screen.

capture(54).png


But it might not be the easiest way to view it so we also added a mapmode to more easily visualize Coalitions. A nation which turns up white is the nation you have currently selected, blue will be targetable for coalitions, yellow means they have a coalition against them and Red means they are members of the coalition against the currently selected one.

capture(55).jpg
 
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I have a question. Does this infamy only apply to your ruler, for example if you do a crusade and take all of Mesopotamia, and then the next day your ruler dies, do you start with 0 infamy (unless your heir did some conquering alone)? Also, if your vassals go conquering outside your realm do you get any AE from them?
 
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Interesting.
 
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If a vassal conquers stuff outside the realm you gain 50% of the infamy he generates. (this propagates up so if a count of a duke conquers something, the duke gets 50%, the king 25%, the emperor 12.5%)

And no, Infamy stays over generations. You can't be a dick then die and think you will get away with it.
 
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Can coalitions only be formed against independent rulers or can they also be formed by vassals of a realm who worry about that colleague ambitious duke that is gaining a lot of titles in rapid succession?
 
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Interesting. How will this impact scripted conquerors like the Mongols? Will they receive bonuses to Infamy reduction, or just essentially ignore it due to their strength?

Also....#FlandersForFrance confirmed?
 
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If a vassal conquers stuff outside the realm you gain 50% of the infamy he generates. (this propagates up so if a count of a duke conquers something, the duke gets 50%, the king 25%, the emperor 12.5%)

And no, Infamy stays over generations. You can't be a dick then die and think you will get away with it.
Do Crusades/Jihads/Great Holy Wars give you infamy if you win the war target, given to everyone who participated, or to the religious head?
 
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I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks the Buy Hedgehog button needs to be removed. It's just way too gamey for a rich Emperor to be able to hammer away at the Buy Hedgehog button until he has an impenetrable wall of spiky cuteness. The button needs to be replaced with a Seduction focus event chain, where the number of hedgehogs you attract scales with the total egg production of your realm.
 
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This is an awesome and most welcome addition!

Yet I think there should be "negative infamy hits" everytime a ruler dies. Successions are always troublesome, and this might be a good and interesting trade-off to add to the game!
 
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If a coalition member attacks the coalition target realm and wins does the truce rule apply to all coalition members who participated or just the one who declared war?
 
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Is Infamy a global value? If so, how does the AI handle it? Will France join a coalition with the Fatimids if the HRE gets Jerusalem and then oppose holy wars in the Middle East?
 
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This seems great, just one thing, don't have less coalitions on easy. Less coalitions make the game easier since it's a lot less likely that your enemies will blob out of proportion.
 
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