[DISCUSSION] Concerns about automation and removal of player choice

[R'hllor]

I've been complaining about the problems of automation and the removal of player choice for a while now in various threads, so I decided to compile them into a single post, which Paradox will hopefully read, and hopefully others will share their thoughts too.

First of all, I think that all the automation and removal of choice make The Conclave and the 2.5 patch the worst dlc/patch yet. There were good ideas, and even some good changes, but overall the implementation is just bad and lacks depht. Mostly because many new systems lack player choice, or even worse, remove player choice from previously good mechanics.

Let's take a look at them then, shall we?

1) First off, automated call to arms. It is by far the worst change in the patch. I've covered the problems in detail before, but I will do it again. First, I don't want every single one of my allies in every single war, and I don't want a suffering ally to get destroyed because their army was creating attrition for me when I'm taking a county on the other side of the continent. Second, I don't want to get dragged into wars if I'm in civil war or getting invaded myself. If I have a good reason, and even if I don't, I should be able to decline (with properly big penalties). And third, I might want to screw my allies and join their attacker. This is a dynasty simulator, so I should be able to betray and be betrayed. And to make this even worse, the old manual call to arms, even with their lack of consequenses, still portrayed the reality of the time period immensely better than this current system. I can see no legitimate reasoning for removing choice in such a terrible way.
2) Then there are favours. They have the same problem as alliances, which is that you absolutely must do what the person you owe to wants, with no exceptions ever. I'll quote myself from a few lines back: "I should be able to betray and be betrayed". Favours too should be declineable, like they are in real life, with properly big penalties for doing so. This would add much needed court intrigue to a game about court intrigue.
3) Non-Aggression Pacts are also unbreakable, again without exceptions. Again this should be a possibility, and again with proper consequenses. I'm starting to see a pattern here. But seriously, it's not like every person is totally and completely honest and would never break a deal.
4) Council voting. I was excited to be able to vote on wars and such, but the system is completely automated. My excitement soon faded because of this. I know the devs stated that it's because it should happen instantly, but having to wait would still be better than have only little influence on what you do with your own character.
5) Enforce realm peace is currently a bacon button, with no choice for vassals. Vassals should be able to refuse it, even if they then get branded as traitors. It's nonsense that everyone will settle their differences when the liege asks them, especially if the liege is weak. So I suggest that when realm peace gets enforced, vassals can decide to not end wars, if they think they're strong enough to win a potential war against the liege. In return for refusing, the liege would get a rightful cause to imprison troublemakers that go against realm peace. I also suggest that realm peace should be breakable, with opinion penalties towards other vassals and a legitimate reason to imprison the attacker. Finally, I would also like to see Kings Peace alongside the enforce realm peace button, or by itself if the bacon button isn't changed. However changing Kings Peace to stop internal wars should require internal peace, so then the two ways of peacekeeping could be used naturally together.

After constructive criticism come constructive suggestions, which are similar in every problem I presented. Simply the player should have to have the options for declining call to arms and favours, breaking pacts and voting as they wish, and they should face serious but reasonable penalties for their actions (not something like lose 25 prestige and opinion with your ally). Overall in a sandbox-style game like this, game mechanics shouldn't force a player to do or not do anything, especially if they're trying to roleplay their characters. Rather a game like CK2 needs realistic choices and consequenses for them. I for one hope that Paradox focuses on player freedom in the last few patches and dlcs, and not on restrictive systems.

Thanks for reading, and please share your thoughts!

EDIT: Added section 5 about realm peace and related suggestions

 

[horizon1984]

4) Council voting. I was excited to be able to vote on wars and such, but the system is completely automated. My excitement soon faded because of this. I know the devs stated that it's because it should happen instantly, but having to wait would still be better than have only little influence on what you do with your own character.

Paradox for the love of god, a million times this ^
This had a potential to be one the best addition to CK2. Forget about complains about shattered retreats or coalitions. This is the biggest missed opportunity in my opinion.

 

[cerpintaxt475]

I know the devs stated that it's because it should happen instantly, but having to wait would still be better than have only little influence on what you do with your own character.

I just had a thought, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, but couldn't the whole "needs to happen instantly" thing be worked around by forcing the game to pause and prompting you to make a decision?

 

[R'hllor]

I just had a thought, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, but couldn't the whole "needs to happen instantly" thing be worked around by forcing the game to pause and prompting you to make a decision?

I didn't even think of that myself, but yeah seems like a working idea, like how events force the game to pause.

 

[Gnorrosch]

I just finished a full campaign from the earliest start date to 1453 and came to very similar conclusions: Due to attempts to prevent gamey strategies, you now have to rely on gamey strategies. Blobbing is often the only way to achieve anyting unusual.

I used to do strange stuff during the early editions, like converting Lithuania to Miaphysitism. That was quite tough, you had to invite someone to your court, who then would educate your child and impressed the new religion, but kept the old culture. Instead of consequences for inviting strangers to my court and offering them great power, the game simply prohibits me from doing so: Out of diplomatic range, false religion, must nor marry an infidel and so on.

Nowadays, converting Lithuanian to Miaphysitism would require me to conquer all my way from the Baltic Sea to Armenia. And afterwards, I would need to conquer the holy places for Miaphysitism as well, because otherwise the religious authority plummets into nonexistance, preventing any further conversion. Instead of pretending that my ruler heard legends of powerful realms in the south and invited merchants or scholars to visit his realm, I need to blob.

The automatic allies are similar. There is no choice, there is no risk, there are no consequences.

Coalitions are meaningless as well, and I cannot understand why anybody complains about them. They only hamper the AI, as a player your infamy either drops quickly (small realm) or it does not matter, because you can easily beat the whole world with one arm on your back (big realm).

Several people claim they would role play, but I can hardly imagine how they do it, as the game goes out of its way to hamper any role playing. Even the most ambitious and cynical warlord cannot conspire with his equally ambitious and cynical heathen neighbour for whatsoever nefarious purposes. Even the most wroth and arbitrary ruler cannot punish the guy who molested his wife without his realm breaking apart around him.

Furthermore, the game is often about finding the one working tactic and then applying it again and again. (That is probably why so many people complain about the late game being boring.) The last couple decades in my last game were simple grinding for the Seven Centuries achievement.

 

[tngen toppa]

Several people claim they would role play, but I can hardly imagine how they do it, as the game goes out of its way to hamper any role playing. Even the most ambitious and cynical warlord cannot conspire with his equally ambitious and cynical heathen neighbour for whatsoever nefarious purposes. Even the most wroth and arbitrary ruler cannot punish the guy who molested his wife without his realm breaking apart around him.

i consider myself a role-player,but i don't share the view that this DLC/patch improves role playing,this dlc and patch are intended to cripple the meta-gamers but it actually hurts the RPers,while the guys that love painting the map and breeding uber-rulers will continue to do so as soon as they figured out the new ways to do so.

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

The concept is great, the execution (he he) isn't really that good. I agree with every stated aspect and would add another point:

Friendship or relations don't really count for the council. I don't know why, but when one member is my friend with +100, very often he isn't something useful. "I don't want that you attack small realms to fulfill your De-Jure territory. Attack greater realms! Asap!"

Uhm, shouldn't a real friend loyal?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Agreed. Betrayal is an important aspect of the game, and not having the opportunity to go back on your word (with appropriate penalties) removes a lot of roleplaying opportunities. Even leaving aside the times when you decided to move directly against your supposed allies, there were times when it was not in your best interests to join a war (e.g. due to having internal difficulties, due to defending in another war, or due to your allies expanding into areas that you have an interest in), but now you don't have a choice beyond the number of men you wish to send over to fight alongside your allies. It was a lot more risky to go to war when you didn't know for certain if your allies would show up, and it was always interesting if your ally decided that your civil war isn't worth their attention or even got the idea that putting the sister you married off to them on your throne would suit their interests.

When it comes to favours, it can get quite strange as well. Not only is it impossible for a dishonourable character (or non-roleplaying player) to go back on their word, but you can also run into cases where someone buys a favour from you, does someting to become your rival (or that just should upset you a lot), and then calls in a favour that cannot be refused, which makes very little sense from a roleplaying perspective. It should be costly (relation- and/or prestige-wise) to refuse a favour (barring circumstances like the other person being a known traitor, your mortal enemy, or similar), but it should be possible to say "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." every now and then when someone decides to try yo call in a favour that you don't feel like granting them (regardless of whether you try to roleplay it as something that was agreed well in advance or not).

 

[Castorem]

Completely and full-heartedly agree.

 

[klopkr]

4) Council voting. I was excited to be able to vote on wars and such, but the system is completely automated. My excitement soon faded because of this. I know the devs stated that it's because it should happen instantly, but having to wait would still be better than have only little influence on what you do with your own character.

Oh god if i had to vote every time my liege does something to do with the council I would never be on it. That's a mess of spam just waiting to happen.

 

[acsa4]

Kind of reminds me of Game of Thrones a little: “Men are men, vows are words, and words are wind."

Should revolve around as simple as that for everything stated so far.

Maybe A.I. choice should revolve around personality and Opinion?

 

[Zolotaya]

First, I don't want every single one of my allies in every single war, and I don't want a suffering ally to get destroyed because their army was creating attrition for me when I'm taking a county on the other side of the continent. Second, I don't want to get dragged into wars if I'm in civil war or getting invaded myself. If I have a good reason, and even if I don't, I should be able to decline (with properly big penalties). And third, I might want to screw my allies and join their attacker.

This ability in the past was too open to exploitation. The real issue is that with the earlier versions, the player and the ai were working under different rules. The ai never broke truces, the ai always responded to appropriate calls-to-arms, the player, even if honoring calls, never raised troops... etc.

 

[cerpintaxt475]

Oh god if i had to vote every time my liege does something to do with the council I would whenever be on it. That's a mess of spam just waiting to happen.

I imagine they could leave it the way it is now where you can pick a position and "auto-vote", and just add one more option for manual voting.

 

[MrParadux]

Fully agree on all your points. Even it is generally expected for a person to behave like they promised, there should be a way do behave differently (e.g. decline a call to arm, don't return a favor etc.). Instead of locking a player (or the ai for that matter) out of certain behavior, there should be fitting penalties like loss of opinions, prestige, rivalries and the like.

And even though getting to vote on every little detail as empowered council member would probably lead to many more popups, I would still prefer it than to automatically have it decided for everything. What if I don't want my liege to declare a war against the neihboring kingdom that I have an alliance with, but don't care if he attacks some heathens? The same for voting on title destribution or revocation.

 

[R'hllor]

I imagine they could leave it the way it is now where you can pick a position and "auto-vote", and just add one more option for manual voting.

This is what I had in mind.

This ability in the past was too open to exploitation. The real issue is that with the earlier versions, the player and the ai were working under different rules. The ai never broke truces, the ai always responded to appropriate calls-to-arms, the player, even if honoring calls, never raised troops... etc.

The AI also never acts like a tyrant or anything, because it's hard to make the AI break rules like a player would. They didn't always respond to all calls to arms. In any case, the point of this thread is player freedom, and not AI improvement (which would also always be great). For honouring call to arms and never going to help, there's now a new event that breaks the alliance when the player does that (which is pretty weird considering that you're forced to wars against your will, so you could lose your allies if you fight rebels etc.) The system was open to exploits, because there weren't significant consequenses for your actions. In my opinion it's just lazy and bad game design to remove a good system instead of fixing it.

 

[richvh]

You actually have more choice now. You choose your allies now, rather than acquiring them automatically through birth or marriage. You can also dishonor alliances by not sending troops, and if the AI is sufficiently upset by your non-help they can cancel the alliance.

 

[MrParadux]

You can also dishonor alliances by not sending troops

That doesn't stop the enemies of your ally to siege your holdings or allow you to decide on which side of the war you want to fight on, if your are allied to both sides

 

[R'hllor]

You actually have more choice now. You choose your allies now, rather than acquiring them automatically through birth or marriage. You can also dishonor alliances by not sending troops, and if the AI is sufficiently upset by your non-help they can cancel the alliance.

Being able to choose your allies is a good change, which is why I never criticised it. However as Korea-Man said, not sending troops isn't exactly dishonouring alliance. The only way to properly dishonour an alliance is to be able to actually not go to war in the first place, or even join the enemy of your ally. The event that breaks the alliance would rather only be a check to prevent the old "join war but don't send troops" exploit.

 

[richvh]

Then the question must be asked: Why did you ally to both sides of a potential conflict? If you make poor choices, you suffer the consequences. Or you take the initiative and break the alliance, and suffer the consequences of that.

While you no longer have the choice to dishonor calls to arms (unless you're a tribal or nomadic vassal, which is not really an alliance between equals like we're discussing), you made the informed decision to ally, and (unless it is with a close relative) to form a non-aggression pact prior to the alliance. If you get stuck in wars you don't want, pick your allies better.

 

[tngen toppa]

regarding the alliance mechanism there would have been many possibilities to actually achieve the devs goals,namely preventing players of abusing the system,while at the same time maintaining a wider degree of player choice.

for instance if they just implemented how it is now but without the forcing to join an allies war.
if you decide to join the call to arms but don't do anything the alliance will break.(this could also be expanded upon by introducing an opinion malus that includes your vassals)
if you decide to not answer the call to arms you would suffer harsher consequences as they were.(who cares about loosing 100 prestige,who cares about prestige at all as long as its not negative....)they could have introduced an opinion malus for declining call to arms,not just for the guy you declined but for your vassals(-15 unhonorable or something like that)