How did Conclave ruin the game?

[Druesling]

I'm at year 1420 now, with the new patch, and the gaming experience was quite fun. I control all of Ireland, Wales and England, and my dynasty expanded into france, spain and north africa. I sometimes got infamy (or now "threat") but it never triggered anything. At two times there were defensive pacts against me, but they were of countries i did not plan to attack anyway.

Shattered retreat and capped warscore from battles lead to me not being able to win one particular war. I wanted to imprison a bishop, he rebelled, i sieged him, and warscore was at 50%. He didn't have any armies anymore, and I couldnt find another holding. No idea why i could not win, maybe he had another bishopry in another country or something.

Council mechanics are mostly fun, the only thing that bugs me is the constant hard on of all the nobles for elective sucession. My country never had elective sucession. If they wanted to go back to seniority, i would understand, maybe. Why arent they okay with primogeniture, even though its the thing since 500 years now? And they try and rebel every 50 years even though they dont have nearly as much troops as they need.
At the end there is no way to get a functional council running. I always assign faction leaders random free positions now, so they keep quiet. That's probably not the way you are supposed to do that.

Does conclave ruin the game? I think not, it's still fun, and you have indeed more stuff to do in peace time.

 

[Alfy]

So coalitions got toned down into oblivion, SRs don't work properly, and councils still behave like headless chickens? Sounds utterly fantastic, big thumbs up to the devs.

Of course the game is still fun. It's built on a pretty strong base, I would not have spend so many hours on it otherwise. It'll probably take another couple of patches to actually ruin it.

 

[Tempte]

I think at this time with HIP/EMF installed CK2 is the best it has ever been for me.
I have all the goodies from the last expansion, AND I can reject calls to arms for a prestige hit if i want to.
+ ofc all the HIP awesomeness

 

[DMcCool]

I'm sure plenty of others have given the same sentiment, but my thoughts are these:

Conclave the expansion is one of the best ever, maybe the best since The Old Gods.

The free patch everyone was forced to use that came with it on the other hand is almost entirely made up of poor design decisions that, in many cases, has made the game dramatically worse. While Conclave's gameplay additions feel right away like they fit and could have been in there from the start, adding new nuance to the game, the free patch features have uniformly had a negative effect. And I'm not even talking about Threat/Defensive Pacts, I'm yet to encounter them being a problem.

 

[Alfy]

I think at this time with HIP/EMF installed CK2 is the best it has ever been for me.
I have all the goodies from the last expansion, AND I can reject calls to arms for a prestige hit if i want to.
+ ofc all the HIP awesomeness

Did not know HIP had been updated to the latest patch. Thanks for that, I'm gonna try at asap.

 

[Druesling]

So coalitions got toned down into oblivion,

They are toned down, so they don't personally disturb me, but I don't tend to blob.

SRs don't work properly,

In ONE instance over a game that's running over 600 years already. That's hardly a statistic you can base "don't work properly" on.

and councils still behave like headless chickens?

No, they don't. What do you base that on? The constant push for elective monarchy is sure annoying tho.

Sounds utterly fantastic, big thumbs up to the devs.

I didn't call the expansion "utterly fantastic". People getting instantly sarcastic when you say something remotely positive about conclave is the most annoying thing about conclave.

Of course the game is still fun.

Many people here say otherwise. Hell, look at the thread title. My post was directed at that. I'm pretty new to grand strategy and not the best at it, but even I can play this game with conclave and the new patch. I can't see how the game got unplayable. And since it's still fun, I can't see how it's "ruined".
If conclave made it worse - I don't think it did - the word "spoiled" would have been better.

 

[Alfy]

Well, sorry for the sarcasm, although I would argue it's not remotely the most annoying thing about conclave.

 

[Chunakun]

, but even I can play this game with conclave and the new patch

As long your empire does not get to big it is managable. England, Wales and Ireland together are quite managable. HRE would be more of a challenge. I am still not a fan though of shattered retreat, defensive pacts and the lower opinion modifiers (e.g when granting titles).

 

[Siggerad]

I kind of think that conclave is the best expansion since they put in factions its finally a little harder middle to end game and not that you are just waiting for the truce timer to expire.

The first question after read your post is have you play recently CK2? because is not a middle or late game issue, try bizantium early game and be ready to sit and wait for looooong to make a war, and ready for aloooooot of revolts. Infamy is a tick down forever, your vassals are inmune so they conquer more and more duchys, they win duchys and you win more infamy, so is a never ending wait. Ahhh if you offer vassalization via diplo again you win infamy too.

 

[TurtleShroom]

I only see three fixes that are needed to repair these damages.

1. Eliminate Shattered Retreats.
2. Make it possible to sever a Non-Agression Pact.
3. Council Revolts should only spawn when you get close to absolution.

I have an extreme hatred of "negative opinions are inherited". It makes incurring crazy tyranny and then dying with a clean slate impossible, and that is unrealistic.

 

[Bargey]

Any other examples of coalitions? Do Charles' forces at Tours even qualify as a Coalition?

Not really. He rallied the army himself. It was essentially an army he raised, not a coalition.

 

[Mrakvampire]

I have 203 hours on record, but after recent DLC/patch actually dropped playing this game at all.
I'm tired of several things:
1. Relationship bonus nerf / Factions. It's obvious that whole game was balanced around "symmetrical" math, but devs decided to make game more challenging by just nerfing all positive relation bonuses by half! I'd like to know why by 50% and not by 90%? It will make game even 'harded', lol. Now, owning even small kingdom, I can't even hope changing my succession law as game REQUIRES me to have positive opinion from all my vassals of count+ level. How nice, without gaming the system and getting ruler with all positive traits and 0 negatives it's impossible. Devs basically force me to game the system instead of immersing myself in the game.
I give a person a whole country (!), I'm granting non-noble person A TITLE and it basically gives him a bonus that can be compensated just by 2-3 bad traits? By 'bad rumors" and the fact that he doesn't like cowards/fat people/etc? Is it realistic? Is it plausible? It is just broken math.
They couldn't find a way to make big realms more unstable and they basically shoehorned this change. My final decision to drop this game was made when I've seen... I can be wrong by +-1... I've seen something like "8th rebellion for elective monarchy" in one of european kingdoms after just 120 years of gameplay! "What the hell is going on?" - I asked myself and finally uninstalled the game.
I'm talking about recent patch. They promised to get rid of this 'elective monarchy' bullshit.

2. Threat/Infamy - probably good concept with really bad implementation. Even after recent patch it is broken as hell.

 

[naisel]

Not really. He rallied the army himself. It was essentially an army he raised, not a coalition.

Plus the forces of Liutprand, king of the Lombards, but they were in a classic alliance; sealed not with a marriage, but by Liutprand adoption of Charles' son.

 

[Lord Ausar]

I Like most of the changes in this expansion, but they needed fine tuning, especially "Coalitions". Except for the Automatic call to arms (which I despise for many reasons). Overall I think it's good, gives you more to consider and adds quite some depth to the game. At least in the Beta patch at the moment, would not be able to recommend it playing without Beta.

 

[chadsteam]

It looks like the Alliance priorities are based on whose formed first. When I want to DoW and our mutual Ally is planning on joining my target, you can get around this and trump their alliance. If you DoW somewhere else hopefully small, and "pull" the Ally into your war, then you can DoW on your main target and your mutual Ally will stay with you. I've used this a couple of times to keep a powerful Ally from interfering against me.

I've found this to be faster than Intrigue (murder) to try to break their alliance. Also, this can be used when you don't have an alliance but your main target does. if the opportunity is there, I may marry an extra daughter to form the mutual Alliance, then DoW somewhere else gain the Ally joins war to trump my main target and effectively nullifying their alliance. It works best with Muslims who have 4 wife slots, but it also works for Feudal with unmarried close relatives.

 

[Anerkas]

From what i hear most People seem to think that Conclave and the alongside patch single handed ruined a Great game Like CKII but to me this is just the tip of the iceberg of a decline that has begun just after old gods ever since RoI every addition of new DLC and patches seems to have been added just to keep the game alive rather than to improve it or make it deeper so i guess the recent changes (at least for me) is where everything broke up too much for most people including me but again it's not all patch 2.5 fault this is just the end of the road the game took long ago.

 

[LaWoGGamer]

Not a fan of the new council and education system; game with all the DLC is now "Elective Councilmembers 2 ft. places and people that aren't related to Crusaders or Kings". Tbh Sons of Abraham was the only good DLC while the rest negatively affected the vanilla game.

 

[nestorius]

I dont really understand what is the issue here.

Council and elections are much better than before plus they make it harder to balance the realm
Defensive pacts prevent the middle to late game being a walkover
Only slight issue is the alliances as in the automatic call to arms but to be honest I think there is too much whining here. as. 1. if you loose it doesnt hurt you at all unlike in EUIV. 2. you dont have the physically take part. When taking these things into account really having auto call to arms really isnt much of an issue. I guess the only problem would be if two of your allies declare war on each other but here I am unclear how it works.

What is the problem then?

 

[Siggerad]

I dont really understand what is the issue here.

Council and elections are much better than before plus they make it harder to balance the realm
Defensive pacts prevent the middle to late game being a walkover
Only slight issue is the alliances as in the automatic call to arms but to be honest I think there is too much whining here. as. 1. if you loose it doesnt hurt you at all unlike in EUIV. 2. you dont have the physically take part. When taking these things into account really having auto call to arms really isnt much of an issue. I guess the only problem would be if two of your allies declare war on each other but here I am unclear how it works.

What is the problem then?

Council: now you cant use your best people in your spymaster, diplomat, etc. you have to use a retard with 5 or less because is a powerful vassal. Is a mayor revolt simulator.
Defensive pacts middle to late game? have you play recently? is a early game issue.
Alliances and automatic call to arms yes is a issue. again have you play the game recently? with revolts and more revolts and automatic call to arms is really fun.

The problem is sit and wait doing nothing for infamy tick down, vassals always revolting, nerf to opinion, try to pass a law with this nerf, vassals are immune to infamy (threat) so they continue conquest and your infamy (threat) never tick down, if you diplo vassal you gain infamy.

For more details read the forum is only 5 pages.

 

[Noobified]

Council: now you cant use your best people in your spymaster, diplomat, etc. you have to use a retard with 5 or less because is a powerful vassal. Is a mayor revolt simulator.
Defensive pacts middle to late game? have you play recently? is a early game issue.
Alliances and automatic call to arms yes is a issue. again have you play the game recently? with revolts and more revolts and automatic call to arms is really fun.

The problem is sit and wait doing nothing for infamy tick down, vassals always revolting, nerf to opinion, try to pass a law with this nerf, vassals are immune to infamy (threat) so they continue conquest and your infamy (threat) never tick down, if you diplo vassal you gain infamy.

For more details read the forum is only 5 pages.

i agree. that infamy and coalition only bothered me when my gold and men are low. When I became emperor of a vast amount of land, i laugh in the face of coalitions.

It honestly makes it real god damn hard in the early game if you were a religion separate from everyone in the region. No one wants to have a marriage alliance, everyone wants to holy war you, and then you are stuck waiting for that infamy to go down before you can expand to get more money and troops.