Failing at plots and not learning a lesson

[Brownbeard]

Having played the demo through three generations of rulers it turned out that the greatest threat to my Kingdom was not external, but internal, and even more precisely my family members and kinsmen.

My children wanting to kill each other, distant kin wanting to kill them, powerful relative plotting to change succession laws to seniority and lower crown authority... I was very lucky to have an excellent spymaster, and she caught and stopped a ton of these plots.

Now, while all these things add to *fun*, there should be some balance how much this occurs. Having one and the same person immediately initiate the same plot that I had just asked them to end is not fun, its more like manualy sending merchants to EU3 CoTs.

I'd suggest a cooldown for a plot if it fails or is exposed, say 10 years minimum, with potential penalty to intrigue stat to discourage plotting once caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.

As things stand now, the only way to keep my sons from assassinating each other was to throw them all in prison. Which is not all that befitting a future king.

And I'd also like to see the AI weigh the consequences a bit better to see the net worth of plot, the potential prize versus the potential loss.

I would also like to see AI plot behaviour influenced by previous ruler action. Harsh and just law should discourage plots while arbitrary and lenient law should encourage behaviour. If the guy before got imprisoned, executed or banished, think twice about going the same road.

 

[Slaxl]

I'd also like some modifier that discourages people from doing the same plot again so soon. Only a modifier though, so that you can still get really determined people doing it again. So like a -75% chance of them doing it, and it loses 1% a month, so in a little over 5 years they can be back to full desire to plot.

 

[DanJonMin]

Absolutely agree with this. Played a game that spanned about 5 generations, 3 of my 5 rulers ended up with the kinslayer trait because they killed their younger brother/some random distant kinsperson. Also I've had the problem of people with claims revolting due to me rejecting the plot blackmail, me putting them down, freeing them to get +rep and the next day getting ANOTHER revolt, same person, same backers.

Sort it out, not ever Irish prince is a kinslayer >.<.

 

[A_Dane]

Generally, I just think the kill plots are a bit too common. In my most recent game as the Vermandois family, I ended up with the following (and this was only 20 years of playing the demo..): A) I murdered my husbands brother because he was for some reason, plotting to kill me. It wasn't discovered. B) My wife, a year later, decided she wanted to get rid of me as well, it was discovered, told her to back off, but she just went at it again, so she was thrown in jail. C) then my liege, the king of bloody france, decided he was gonna plot to kill me, so i tried an preemtive strike. (I got caught and was thrown in jail though xD). D) I die, and take over as my son. Immediatly my sons wife picks up what her mother-in-law had started: kill her husband. E) then, my previous ruler's lover, and mother to his bastard son who i only acknowledged, decides I need to die as well.

And this was only plots i actually found out about, and I think they all happened in a 10-year gap.. I might understand people wanting my first guy dead, but my second ruler was as noble as they get -.-

 

[Actinguy]

I'm pretty happy with the plots as is, haven't seen a ton of murderers. In one game, my second-pretender brother tried to kill my first-pretender brother, was unsuccessful, and jailed. In the second game, my mother (spymaster) figured out that my brother's sister was planning to murder my newborn baby daughter (her husband had been the heir before her birth). I jailed her before she was able to make the attempt.

My most successful AAR ever (in the sig) had a string of mostly random deaths within a 25 year period...it was so bad that there wasn't a single child born in 25 years (leaders and heirs didn't live long enough to have children). So I created an AAR where one female courtier had plotted four decades worth of murders (many looking like accidents) so that her lover could take the throne.

Now that the game handles such motivations itself, I'm really looking forward to some interesting AARs!

 

[N Katsyev]

I do agree that a failed plot shouldn't be immediately available again.

 

[Arizal]

I think there should be, with this temporary modifier (I like the idea -75% decreasing to 0 in 5 years) an additional caution. If you plot your independance 4 times, retaliation should be bigger each time. Maybe you should lose more prestige, and at some point have your king able to rightly execute you. I mean by that that there should be something like the player's mind : "AGAIN?!". I played as Bohemia yesterday in the demo and imprisonned my brother which, for some reason, was called the handsome (really?). When my kind nephew asked me to release him some years later, I was willing to give him a chance, but in two months he tried to assassinate my heir (my other nobody brother). He was a kinslayer, and almost a double-one.

I don't see this as game breaker, but it's a bit unrealistic that someone just thrown out of the jail wouldn't consider that tempting the devil once again isn't a good idea (unless he is an idiot, or unless (this is probably the problem while balancing the AI) the situation changed and his liege/brother is weaker (for example by losing his spymaster and his marshall)).

 

[InnocentIII]

Well, if you can imprison people, there really doesn't need to be a multi-year modifier. Isn't it entirely reasonable for someone to say "yes, Your Majesty, thank you for being so forgiving" and turn around and try again before they'd left the castle? So long as the plotters lose all progress, then uncovering the plot does delay the process some.

Imprisonment, followed by the first available Oubliette, seems powerful enough to me to do what we need.

 

[Maizel]

The amount of kill plots seem alright to me.

 

[OsRavan]

i think its a little unrealistic to have so much family strife on the level of killing and kinslaying. I mean yes it can be fun and should happen... but it should be relatively uncommon. At the very least there should be as much chance of one son SUPPORTING his brother because they are family as there is trying to kill him cause he has the title.

 

[kingsword]

Well, there's a reason rulers tended to hang 'em high right away rather than forgiving them. I agree that the plot should be on cooldown (maybe it is? I'm not sure) for a while but being caught and getting away doesn't exactly mean they have repented sincerely.