I just mean... well, factions...

[Akka le Vil]

I just...

Yeah, well, I just...
I know I'm not the first one to complain about the insanity of factions, but I still needed to vent. Having your empire filled by conspiracies filled themselves by people who love you is just... dumb and irritating.
Notice that even when I try to mod the Factions.txt file to say someone should not join/should leave when he's above 50 opinion, I still have most of these factions up and showing me an ultimatum soon.

And no, it's not because of some horrible flaw form my basileus : he's a genius with all-green traits and zero tyranny.

I tried a mod (as said above), but I think I'm just fed up with the idiocy and I'll simply play without Conclave. I like the ideas, but between the impossibility to keep vassals in line (the PERMANENT fighting to revoke titles/increase conclave power/replace the liege is just as comical as it is irritating) and the pure annoyance that the factions are, it's just not fun.
I guess my hat to those who manage to find the game too easy in general and even more faceroll with the Byzies, for me it's just a long painful way trying to game the system to prevent it to blow in my face.

 

[vyshan]

This is why I wish that vanilla just used the CK2+/HIP Factions which are much better. In these mods you got several different factions(Glory, Tradition, Prosperity, and Court) and they vye for power and influence. Its hard to keep them all happy because they want different things(such as high crown laws vs low crown laws, or peace vs war). However if they are happy they tend reward you(often with gold i found) and generally make the realm better, angry they don't help you and make the realm more chaotic as they use their power against you.

For me I got HIP, but vanilla people could use it as well.

 

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Did you look at their traits. The people with a high opinion of you that won't leave the factions could have a bunch of other things contributing to it. Do they have claims on titles? Are they arbitrary, envious, ambitious, deceitful, etc? Are they holding a Viceroy? and most important: Did you check if they are returning a favor to someone for faction support.

I quite enjoy Conclave because it changes vassal management from a simple opinion game to making your vassals absolutely evil.

 

[Dahoota]

Huh. I thought there was a hard cut off at 80 opinion in vanilla - once they reached that characters left a faction. As Humanoid mentioned they are likely influenced by a favour.

Characters who are not you culture/religion and outside your dejure land as an empire will almost always be in independence factions.

TBH aside from council power faction shenanigans I haven't seen much craziness with factions for a while. Hell, if I've had a problem with them, it's because they trigger drastically under strength.

 

[Ciniod]

Huh. I thought there was a hard cut off at 80 opinion in vanilla - once they reached that characters left a faction. As Humanoid mentioned they are likely influenced by a favour.

Characters who are not you culture/religion and outside your dejure land as an empire will almost always be in independence factions.

TBH aside from council power faction shenanigans I haven't seen much craziness with factions for a while. Hell, if I've had a problem with them, it's because they trigger drastically under strength.

I think unless they are forced into a faction with the spymaster scheme thing, or in the factions due to favours. Then they should leave if they get above 80 opinion.

 

[Akka le Vil]

That's a lot of favours thrown around by people who aren't even the main backers and main starter then...
They are ALL of the same religion, and the only one not of the same culture is the Croatian queen (who is in my de jure borders). Regardless, I find the idea of vassal management and the idea that sometimes someone can cripple you with the judicious use of favours (happened to my council when someone was malcontent, it was irritating but in an engaging way) fun, but having nonstop factions filled with green-opinion people is just vastly overdone.

Also, all this happen with an unnaturally line of godly monarchs (I only select genius wives without bad traits, and I save-scum to at least get my heir with genius trait) and without any bad modifier I can control (no tyranny, no levies being used, no decision upsetting people...). I don't even want to think what hell would break loose if I ever get an actually bad one, or if I ever dared to do something that piss off my vassals...

It's simply too gamey for me at this point. People who love their liege, who has very good stat, in a situation where there isn't any reason for discontent, and still the empire is crumbling - empire should crumble in a crisis, and a crisis should happen when the shit hit the fan, for a reason (usually bad decisions and/or bad rulers and/or unrest for a reason).
It shouldn't happen just because the design requires that it happens all the time and that the player should know all the inner working and gamey abuse to prevent it.

 

[alertiu5]

At least there is at least SOME glint of a challenge for blobs, unlike in EU4 for example. God forbid that.

On topic: it is, probably, favor returning at work, as was said above. Just find an instigator of that chain and kill him / imprison him / persuade to leave factions.

 

[Akka le Vil]

At least there is at least SOME glint of a challenge for blobs, unlike in EU4 for example. God forbid that.

I'd prefer God to forbid nonsensical/gamey challenge.
Having revolts against a tyrannical/incapable government is one thing. Having revolts because one huge vassal wants to take over might be okay depending on the circumstances (hint : last part is the important one).
Having the kingdom exploding in pieces under the rule of a well-liked, competent king "because we need to hamstring the player" is stupid, not immersive, and not fun.

All the CONCEPTS are sounds. I can find some historical justification/example for basically everything in the system.
It's the execution which is insanely annoying and, for those who don't master and use every hidden game trick, crippling.

 

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Even well liked competent rulers through out history had to fight against being ousted from power.

You're not looking at this from both sides of the coin. If you were one of your vassals what would you want to do, Be a good little duke and sit there peacefully while your liege has all the fun conquering foreign lands or oust him from power and take control of the country from yourself?

 

[Akka le Vil]

Even well liked competent rulers through out history had to fight against being ousted from power.

I don't remember a well-like, competent ruler who had his empire explodes in his face, sorry.

You're not looking at this from both sides of the coin. If you were one of your vassals what would you want to do, Be a good little duke and sit there peacefully while your liege has all the fun conquering foreign lands or oust him from power and take control of the country from yourself?

You're looking at it as a player. That's precisely the part I'm blaming.
As a player of a video game, obviously I'm often going to try to rise as high as I can (though when RPing, not everyone gets into this mindset). But if I were a duke IRL ? You bet I'd be happy and stay there. My liege would REALLY have to be an asshole for me to rise against him.
And even in this case, I would seek to overthrow/replace him, not leave the empire with my duchy alone.

 

[Humanoid Typhoon]

I don't remember a well-like, competent ruler who had his empire explodes in his face, sorry.

This happened a couple times in the ERE actually.

You're looking at it as a player. That's precisely the part I'm blaming.
As a player of a video game, obviously I'm often going to try to rise as high as I can (though when RPing, not everyone gets into this mindset). But if I were a duke IRL ? You bet I'd be happy and stay there. My liege would REALLY have to be an asshole for me to rise against him.
And even in this case, I would seek to overthrow/replace him, not leave the empire with my duchy alone.

I wasn't speaking for myself, I was speaking for the AI. They're finally acting a little bit more like a human player now and it's amazing. They're cold, calculating, unrelenting beasts and if they can find a chink in your armor you can bet your ass that they won't think twice before they slide the sword in.

 

[Akka le Vil]

This happened a couple times in the ERE actually.

Palace coup, yeah, not widespread revolt to secede.

I wasn't speaking for myself, I was speaking for the AI. They're finally acting a little bit more like a human player now and it's amazing.

Except it's not amazing, it's unimmersive and annoying. Good for you if you like gaming the system, but you might have noticed that's actually the point of the complaint.

 

[Robert II]

This happened a couple times in the ERE actually.



I wasn't speaking for myself, I was speaking for the AI. They're finally acting a little bit more like a human player now and it's amazing. They're cold, calculating, unrelenting beasts and if they can find a chink in your armor you can bet your ass that they won't think twice before they slide the sword in.

The ai is a cold calculating unrelenting beast to you? To me it remains the same retarded mess only now it's constantly in civil wars over elective factions or depose the king factions.

 

[Humanoid Typhoon]

The ai is a cold calculating unrelenting beast to you? To me it remains the same retarded mess only now it's constantly in civil wars over elective factions or depose the king factions.

Yes they are when you're looking at AI run countries. They are much better at tearing a realm apart from the inside now than actually ruling it hence why you see nations explode everywhere.

 

[Rubidium]

Palace coup, yeah, not widespread revolt to secede.

Sure, but you can't have palace coups in CK2.

 

[Ciniod]

Sure, but you can't have palace coups in CK2.

Id imagine a palace coup is when the ruler says yes to the faction demand, or if you plot to kidnap/kill the ruler or whatever.

 

[Asiak]

You've already started to divide it up among kings this is good. Just bury as many dukes as you possibly can. After that focus on the Queen that doesn't like you. Remembering that you can establish NAPs with certain related vassals, and vassals with NAPs can't faction against you.

Using gifts, and honorary titles, and family ties nullify the remaining dukes.

Most likely those Kings at such high opinion might be getting forced into this faction, maybe through favors or through dirt from spying.

Plop your Spymaster to scheme on his capital to try and find some dirt and blackmail him out.

Even if that's true though, you're right it is stupid that a 100 opinion of you can join factions against you, even when being forced.

And I'm sorry but Conclave makes wide empires way to un-fun in the name of increasing challenge.

Factions themselves are a needed gameplay mechanic.

But the post Conclave increase in frequency makes them imo unrealistic, not a compelling challenge, and just annoying.

 

[Akka le Vil]

And I'm sorry but Conclave makes wide empires way to un-fun in the name of increasing challenge.

Factions themselves are a needed gameplay mechanic.

But the post Conclave increase in frequency makes them imo unrealistic, not a compelling challenge, and just annoying.

Yeah, that's pretty much my feeling too.
Also, I can give money and a few titles, but that's what, +20 to +30 to a handful of people.

I'm going to mod a few things to make it more manageable (reduce the opinion at which people can join factions, and increases a bit some bonus to opinions), reload a previous game and manage it from there. Hopefully I can deter these factions before they appear.

 

[mrstevehazzard]

Those despots that love you are either forced into the faction through favors or a spymaster. For the latter, you can use your own spymaster to get them out of it...you might be able to if it's favor-induced too, I'm not sure. Anybody know for sure one way or another?

 

[Iron Chariots]

I don't understand why people are having such large factions in Conclave. Conclave made it much easier to avoid factions:
Any vassal you marry into an NAP with can't faction, plus you get the 5 council positions+advisers who can't faction against you either. Between those, the majority of your realm's strength generally can't faction, and the remainder can be placated with spymaster/honorary titles/the essentially infinite gold any large realm has.