• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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
 
  • 310
  • 230
  • 40
Reactions:
I honestly don't understand how you all can be so obsessed with this trivial infamy stuff, when we have yet to determine the true and deeper meaning of hedgehog.
+1
 
  • 17
  • 9
  • 5
Reactions:
Which it doesn't, the dev diary even tells you that we have thought especially about this.

Thank you for adressing my concern...
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Firstly, I don't think naming the mechanic 'coalitions' makes sense since that denotes something that didn't really exist in this timeframe. Secondly, this will likely be the cause of me not playing CK2, depending on how it pans out.

Just the other day I was saying to myself that EUIV is starting to not be fun anymore. CK2 and Victoria 2 are the games that still stick out as a lot of fun to play. Adding this sort of player punishment is going to take fun away from the game. When I don't want to blob, I just don't. But when I do I already have to deal with factions, vassal rebellions, etc. Maybe CK2+ makes the game harder to begin with, but I sure as hell hope those modders find a way to not include this mechanic when that mod is enabled.

Seriously this is upsetting news. At least Paradox isn't likely to corrupt Vicky2 at this point.
 
  • 16
  • 10
Reactions:
It is affected by that a little but mostly it's about realpolitik. "You can kill me? Then I'm gonna try to defend me "

In my test he get 300% for conquering Iberia. So 10% is a bit low for half of Europe.

I'm trying to read between the lines here but it looks as if they have basically tweaked the existing Decadence system and given it different effects. Instead of Decadence going up or down with various actions and traits it's Infamy, instead of fixed modifiers to income and troop morale it's the chance that an event will fire making an individual join the coalition against you.

That's why Groogy said that traits and religion will matter "somewhat", they are all just factors in the AI decision process. My guess is that getting to 100% Infamy will be like getting to 100% Decadence or 100% Faction strength - suddenly coalitions will form against you and stay there until the Infamy bar cools down.

FWIW, this is also keeping in line with a previous Dev Diary in which they asked what people thought of adding more "soft" limits - people were all generally favorable to that but once they actually see one being proposed they all lose their heads.

My guess is that Infamy will be gained and lost per holding, not by percentage increase or loss. A OPM who doubles in size is still just a minor noble, but of the HRE were to gain the K of Italy (say a 20% increase in levies and income) there would be furious diplomacy to stop them from going further. This means that a world of swirling petty states would (should) see little global infamy, but a system of proto-nation states should see all sorts of diplomacy and scheming to maintain the status quo.

Finally, it would be REALLY good if Infamy were somehow tied to Technology level, it would be great to see the concept of nationhood and the balance of powers arise just as the game transitioned into the EUIV world . . .


So I'm assuming the Hedgehog is code for something big they don't want to spoil. What could it be? Land, perhaps? Or claims? Maybe this has been added as a way to peacefully expand in our new age of infamy mechanics.

Or maybe its just Groogy having fun with his own custom decision as he works to perfect the Infamy mechanic.


Are there any historical examples of coalitions within the timeframe of the game? We already have crusades/jihads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid–Carolingian_alliance


Ok. But how about gavelkind and division of realm?
For example I'm king of France, Aquitaine, Burgundy and Italy.
I have conquered a lot and now died. My four sons divided realm for four piece. Who will get infamy? Or numbers will be divided? How?

It would make perfect sense that Infamy be divided upon death, just as the ream holdings are - people will tend to stop fearing a growing beast if it suddenly broke into pieces.
 
  • 4
  • 3
Reactions:
Pardon me if this was said in the DD, but is this patch or DLC content? I would hope DLC, if only so I don't have to deal with AE/wait for a mod to deal with it.
 
  • 5
  • 2
Reactions:
Finally some really important and needed change. I have dreamed about coalition system in Ck2 ever since I realised how boring and easy game is when you can just snowball and how good it's resolved in Europa Universalis IV. You suprised me - I thought that I won't see this in Ck2 becouse you told us many times that your policy is to keep each game focused on different things and that you won't be introducing features from one game into other. Im very glad that coalitions will be in Ck2.
 
  • 24
  • 8
Reactions:
Cheers for the DD Groogy :). This sounds like a good change, too - while it's still a bit easy to snowball in EU4, there is at least some limiting factor. I remember on a 'recreate the Roman Empire' playthrough, once you were a certain size, it was all very straightforward unless you had a run of bad luck/messed up your vassal management (which the more I played CK2, the less likely was to happen - my Rome playthrough was early-ish in my CK2 time, so I had a couple of good vassal rebellions). This'll hopefully make things a bit more interesting if I decide to grow a bit.
 
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
Pardon me if this was said in the DD, but is this patch or DLC content? I would hope DLC, if only so I don't have to deal with AE/wait for a mod to deal with it.

They don't even announce any DLC untill now... everything we see is patch content. Especially something like this which effects balancing a lot.
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
The thing that worries me is that it seems like each character has a global Infamy value instead of each other ruler having their own opinion of someone's Infamy. While it makes sense that there is some Realpolitik going on, I would prefer it to work like AE in EU4, with countries of the same religion/culture or in the same general area being likely to form a coalition if you have been expanding in a certain direction rather than everyone in the world agreeing that your conquest is equally bad.

I suppose some CBs only might call part of the coalition (e.g. a holy war only calling in those of the defender's religion (or religion group, if they don't share the attacker's religion) while a claim war calls everyone), but otherwise it could get really odd sometimes. If the ERE gets dogpiled (because they got some Infamy when pressing their de jure claims in Sicily) by everyone on their borders (regardless of religion) when they declare a holy war against someone, I personally think that it would feel very strange. It might not be in the interest of all rulers to allow the ERE to expand like that, but due to various factors (their traits, their opinion of the target, etc.) some would likely think "Well, they are smiting heathens/heretics right now..." and refuse to get involved.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
I'm going to reserve final judgement for when I actually get to see it ingame, but this was definitely not what I was thinking of when anti-blobbing measures were suggested. I do hope that this comes in conjunction with some sort of dearly lacking internal controls on expansion...
 
  • 14
Reactions:
More I look at those screen shots, the more I wonder "Why the heck do the Karakhanids and Ghaznavids give a hoot about the Seljuk taking Armenia from the ERE?"
 
  • 22
Reactions:
More I look at those screen shots, the more I wonder "Why the heck do the Karakhanids and Ghaznavids give a hoot about the Seljuk taking Armenia from the ERE?"
That's actually a good point. It makes me wonder if countries that win crusades are going to instantly get isolated by everyone.
 
  • 10
Reactions:
Just curious would there be anything to allow vassals to form coalitions against their liege?

As in, non successful assassinations, imprisonments, revocations, etc result in the coalition being called into the War Against the Tyranny of [Liege]?

This seems like it might be a decent way to have both internal and external factors working to prevent blobbing
Wouldn't a coalition of vassals against their liege be a faction? Hopefully the faction mechanic is adjusted to take advantage of these new mechanics as well.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
More I look at those screen shots, the more I wonder "Why the heck do the Karakhanids and Ghaznavids give a hoot about the Seljuk taking Armenia from the ERE?"

Egypt actually tried to work with the Crusaders to defeat the Mongols in Persia ;)
 
  • 9
  • 3
Reactions:
Will it be possible for me to defect from my coalition mid-conflict to the opposing side for a significant impact to others opinion of me?