The main focus of CK2, in my mind at least, has always been the medieval court. A game about managing the your empire and dynasty, while always keeping an eye not only on your rivals but your own court as well.
Yet the court doesn't really interact with you much. The nonlanded courtiers only have some events that fires rarely and matters almost not at all. The landed and your family interact a bit more with you but still, mostly through events. And plots, but thats only to mess you up. And, almost worst of all, you can treat all your courtiers like dirt without consequenses. The game actually punish you for not doing it.
Example?
You're the king of england. you've maxed your demesne, and now you conquer ireland. Who do you give it to? The general who did the conquering? a talented courtier'? your great steward who has, unlanded, served you for 30 years?
Of course not. Either you give it to a dynasty member, or you spam random courtiers until you get someone who's content. Because nobody cares that you don't reward good performance.
we can also flip the coin. If you play as duke of burgundy and, rallying your own troops, you push back the germans who is invading your liege to conquer frisia.
Does he thank you? nope.
You get prestige for the battles, that hardly fair payment for raising you army and hiring mercs, getting your army to become the size of your lieges, thereby beating back the germans.
Therefore, i propose the mechanic of Entitlement and Expectations
So, the basic idea is that whenever your courtiers do something for you, this creates entitlement. examples of them doing something is: leading your armies as generals (in battle), serving in your council if they are good at it (especially, perhaps only, from the positive events about doing a good job), fighting with their own troops in your wars, etc.
Entitlement means that they think they deserve a reward for what they've done. It works kind of like the warscore for crusades. the more you do, the more entitlement you get. as entitlement rises, so does the maluses of ignoring it. ticking prestige hits, loosing just/gaining traits like arbritary or greedy and - to relations. And not only with the one you ignore.
As the total of all your courtiers with entitlement rise, you start to see the effects of expectations. The fact that you don't reward people who work hard for you, makes people wary of you. inviting courtiers from other courts get more difficult. random courtier spawn more expensive. all your vassals and courtiers like you less. your courtiers also tend to get slothful.
Giving land to people is a surefire way to piss off everyone who has more entitlement and therefore feel that THEY should have gotten that land, maybe giving them the envious trait as well.
So, how do you get rid of entitlement?
easy, you give them what they deserve. If you have an awesome general who leads all your battles, you'll eventually have to actually reward him for this. This can be done by giving him titles, land, gold, marrying him into your family if he's lowborn, or give him a council title. (though beware of the last one as doing well there will eventually increase it again) All of these give a onetime drop of the persons entitlement (thereby also lowering expectations)
On the other hand, you may want to NOT use your awesome general for all your battles. He might, for example, be ambitious or a family member of your powerful neighbour. Instead, you give command to your middling son who will one day inherit (because you want to give him stuff anyway)
The result I am trying to achieve with this is to create something resembling politics, actual manouvering between vassals for their liege's favor and competition for the honor of conquering the enemy capital. Making the player act more like a medieval king had to, weighting pros and cons about giving command of the army to a duke instead of leading yourself (even if your martial kind of sucks)
you may also find yourself playing as a duke with three or so duchy title having to give one away to your genious brother to avoid having to give him too many counties. Or your children. Notice that in in both russia and byzantium children often rule with the same rank as their father (yes i KNOW that byzantium probably have that for another reason.)
a feature I'm considering is making the landing of close family of already landed characters with high entitlement lower it. as long as the reward is lower (maybe equal) than the already landed character.
To my non-existant knowledge of AI-coding, this should be doable. And similar systems are in the game, only covering other things.
So, what do you think? is it good? is it doable? will it make the game too hard/easy/boring?
keep in mind that this is hardly a refined idea. Suggest improvement if you like the basic concept
Yet the court doesn't really interact with you much. The nonlanded courtiers only have some events that fires rarely and matters almost not at all. The landed and your family interact a bit more with you but still, mostly through events. And plots, but thats only to mess you up. And, almost worst of all, you can treat all your courtiers like dirt without consequenses. The game actually punish you for not doing it.
Example?
You're the king of england. you've maxed your demesne, and now you conquer ireland. Who do you give it to? The general who did the conquering? a talented courtier'? your great steward who has, unlanded, served you for 30 years?
Of course not. Either you give it to a dynasty member, or you spam random courtiers until you get someone who's content. Because nobody cares that you don't reward good performance.
we can also flip the coin. If you play as duke of burgundy and, rallying your own troops, you push back the germans who is invading your liege to conquer frisia.
Does he thank you? nope.
You get prestige for the battles, that hardly fair payment for raising you army and hiring mercs, getting your army to become the size of your lieges, thereby beating back the germans.
Therefore, i propose the mechanic of Entitlement and Expectations
So, the basic idea is that whenever your courtiers do something for you, this creates entitlement. examples of them doing something is: leading your armies as generals (in battle), serving in your council if they are good at it (especially, perhaps only, from the positive events about doing a good job), fighting with their own troops in your wars, etc.
Entitlement means that they think they deserve a reward for what they've done. It works kind of like the warscore for crusades. the more you do, the more entitlement you get. as entitlement rises, so does the maluses of ignoring it. ticking prestige hits, loosing just/gaining traits like arbritary or greedy and - to relations. And not only with the one you ignore.
As the total of all your courtiers with entitlement rise, you start to see the effects of expectations. The fact that you don't reward people who work hard for you, makes people wary of you. inviting courtiers from other courts get more difficult. random courtier spawn more expensive. all your vassals and courtiers like you less. your courtiers also tend to get slothful.
Giving land to people is a surefire way to piss off everyone who has more entitlement and therefore feel that THEY should have gotten that land, maybe giving them the envious trait as well.
So, how do you get rid of entitlement?
easy, you give them what they deserve. If you have an awesome general who leads all your battles, you'll eventually have to actually reward him for this. This can be done by giving him titles, land, gold, marrying him into your family if he's lowborn, or give him a council title. (though beware of the last one as doing well there will eventually increase it again) All of these give a onetime drop of the persons entitlement (thereby also lowering expectations)
On the other hand, you may want to NOT use your awesome general for all your battles. He might, for example, be ambitious or a family member of your powerful neighbour. Instead, you give command to your middling son who will one day inherit (because you want to give him stuff anyway)
The result I am trying to achieve with this is to create something resembling politics, actual manouvering between vassals for their liege's favor and competition for the honor of conquering the enemy capital. Making the player act more like a medieval king had to, weighting pros and cons about giving command of the army to a duke instead of leading yourself (even if your martial kind of sucks)
you may also find yourself playing as a duke with three or so duchy title having to give one away to your genious brother to avoid having to give him too many counties. Or your children. Notice that in in both russia and byzantium children often rule with the same rank as their father (yes i KNOW that byzantium probably have that for another reason.)
a feature I'm considering is making the landing of close family of already landed characters with high entitlement lower it. as long as the reward is lower (maybe equal) than the already landed character.
To my non-existant knowledge of AI-coding, this should be doable. And similar systems are in the game, only covering other things.
So, what do you think? is it good? is it doable? will it make the game too hard/easy/boring?
keep in mind that this is hardly a refined idea. Suggest improvement if you like the basic concept
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