Idea Brainstorming: Replacing Retinues in LoR

[Jorlem]

The devs have stated that they regret having tied the retinue mechanic to a DLC, as it has grown to become something that vastly alters the balance of the game. So, why not just seperate it from the DLC? Because it would greatly decrease the value of the LoR DLC, and could easily anger those that have spent money for that content.

I think there is a fair solution to this: remove the DLC requirement for retinues, and add in some new content that would be exclusive to the DLC to replace it. That way, the devs could more easily expand or rebalance the retinues into a solid standing army mechanic, and owners of the DLC would still have roughly the same amount of DLC exclusive content.

So, I ask all of you, what addition or combination of additions do you think would be appropriate as a replacement for the retinue mechanic as LoR exclusive content? I'm hoping that if we can come to something approaching a consensus, I could post it in the bug forum as an enhancement request.

 

[InfernalMachine]

Some more fleshing out of the Orthodox religion.

 

[Desslok]

An event that would allow a forced culture conversion to "Roman", either with or without Hellenic religion, if the Byzantine Empire ever expanded far enough and incuded the County of Rome (or whatever it happens to be named in game at the moment). There should also be a Roman Legion heavy infantry cultural retinue if so, with a new mercenary band of "Praetorian Guard" which would NOT replace the Varangians, just complement them.

I think the requirements for this should probably be roughly the same, or possibly exactly the same as those required to actually reform the Roman Empire. I think the mechanic that auto-converts a province's religion from Catholic to Orthodox when the Byzantines mend the Great Schism should be ported over to each county's culture, and make roughly 50% of them take the new Roman culture.

If this is done let's also prepare for it by increasing the number of Roman names, especially female names, in the game files as well.

 

[awzc26]

An event that would allow a forced culture conversion to "Roman", either with or without Hellenic religion, if the Byzantine Empire ever expanded far enough and incuded the County of Rome (or whatever it happens to be named in game at the moment). There should also be a Roman Legion heavy infantry cultural retinue if so, with a new mercenary band of "Praetorian Guard" which would NOT replace the Varangians, just complement them.

I think the requirements for this should probably be roughly the same, or possibly exactly the same as those required to actually reform the Roman Empire. I think the mechanic that auto-converts a province's religion from Catholic to Orthodox when the Byzantines mend the Great Schism should be ported over to each county's culture, and make roughly 50% of them take the new Roman culture.

If this is done let's also prepare for it by increasing the number of Roman names, especially female names, in the game files as well.

Got to admit I don't like the sound of that - it would be like being able to force convert everyones culture to 'Brythonic' if you united Britannia. By the games start, the 'Roman' culture was long dead, replaced by the Greek culture of the Byzantines and the Italian, Norman, Frankish, Arabic, Germanic and Frankish cultures of the Italian peninsula. It would make zero sense - people don't just culture convert to a long dead culture because the old empire had been resurrected.

That being said the OP's suggestion holds merit - it would allow Paradox to balance retinues fully in the game (let's face it, they are horribly unbalanced right now). I'm all for more Byzantine event chains, extra Orthodox options or a fleshing out of the Byzantine government style (which is lightyears away from feudalism) as potential features for this.

 

[Desslok]

Got to admit I don't like the sound of that - it would be like being able to force convert everyones culture to 'Brythonic' if you united Britannia. By the games start, the 'Roman' culture was long dead, replaced by the Greek culture of the Byzantines and the Italian, Norman, Frankish, Arabic, Germanic and Frankish cultures of the Italian peninsula. It would make zero sense - people don't just culture convert to a long dead culture because the old empire had been resurrected.

That being said the OP's suggestion holds merit - it would allow Paradox to balance retinues fully in the game (let's face it, they are horribly unbalanced right now). I'm all for more Byzantine event chains, extra Orthodox options or a fleshing out of the Byzantine government style (which is lightyears away from feudalism) as potential features for this.

My response would be that it is all more historically plausible than Sunset Invasion. Of course that is the easy cop-out. Actually, I would argue that the legend of Rome was strong enough in the game's time frame to make a reversion to Roman Culture among many culture groups marginally plausible, if the right very strong leader and very strong country had seized the initiative with just the right tone at just the right time. Again, marginally plausible. I would see most Arabic Muslim cultures marginally accepting of Romanization, certainly the Greeks and Italians and Ethiopians and Romanians(Vlachs in game), probably Iberians and Gauls, and possibly Britons. I could see building in some kind of stopper to prevent Germans, Norse, Slavs, Persians, Hungarians or anyone else who was never really Romanized at all from accepting it as I admit the plausibility level there is very low indeed.

Still, I generally disagree with your argument, especially the Brythonic example. There was (at this time anyway) never any history of a united British Empire, ever.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

I'd like to play without retinues once in a while as it stands (retinues too big/important for anyone outside of ERE and Russia), so no, it being part of a DLC at least make it easy to turn it off.

Though if they rework it....

 

[Orctavius]

A little more work on the Orthodox Church would be appreciated. The Pentarchy is a nice bit of flavor, but it can create a situation where vassals have a different religious head from their liege.

 

[Talq]

My response would be that it is all more historically plausible than Sunset Invasion. Of course that is the easy cop-out. Actually, I would argue that the legend of Rome was strong enough in the game's time frame to make a reversion to Roman Culture among many culture groups marginally plausible, if the right very strong leader and very strong country had seized the initiative with just the right tone at just the right time. Again, marginally plausible. I would see most Arabic Muslim cultures marginally accepting of Romanization, certainly the Greeks and Italians and Ethiopians and Romanians(Vlachs in game), probably Iberians and Gauls, and possibly Britons. I could see building in some kind of stopper to prevent Germans, Norse, Slavs, Persians, Hungarians or anyone else who was never really Romanized at all from accepting it as I admit the plausibility level there is very low indeed.

Still, I generally disagree with your argument, especially the Brythonic example. There was (at this time anyway) never any history of a united British Empire, ever.

1. Most of the populations starting in 867 within the former Roman empire actually migrated to their positions, so don't actually have a tradition affected by rule under rome. 'Corrupt empire that we pushed out' isn't exactly a role model anyway.
2. rome itself took hundreds of years to Romanize some areas, and didn't really succeed in a number of places (thus why the Eastern empire shifted to Greek). So instantly is silly.
3. Hellenic religion? So masses of cultures would convert to a specific form of paganism thats long dead and they never practiced anyway?
4. Sunset invasion is its own DLC - it can be not bought (I don't have it, and will never buy it) or turned off. Your proposal would be on for anybody using LoR and the rest of its content (so no, you actually came up with something WORSE than SI, an allegedly serious DLC with high fantasy drivel in it)

 

[clockworkBabbag]

My response would be that it is all more historically plausible than Sunset Invasion. Of course that is the easy cop-out. Actually, I would argue that the legend of Rome was strong enough in the game's time frame to make a reversion to Roman Culture among many culture groups marginally plausible, if the right very strong leader and very strong country had seized the initiative with just the right tone at just the right time. Again, marginally plausible. I would see most Arabic Muslim cultures marginally accepting of Romanization, certainly the Greeks and Italians and Ethiopians and Romanians(Vlachs in game), probably Iberians and Gauls, and possibly Britons. I could see building in some kind of stopper to prevent Germans, Norse, Slavs, Persians, Hungarians or anyone else who was never really Romanized at all from accepting it as I admit the plausibility level there is very low indeed.

First off, comparing anything to SI in terms of "more historically plausible" is incredibly useless, seeing as how SI was never intended to be historical. It's a fun way to balance out the Mongol hordes for Western Europe, and can be turned off/doesn't have to be bought.

Second, resurrecting a long-defunct culture and having swathes of people just drop their own customs and language in favor of it simply because the Byzantine Empire is now recognized as the true successor to the Roman Empire is less historically plausible than the Aztecs figuring out how to make ocean-going ships. I don't think you're going to be able to easily argue that it makes more sense. Just because regions used to be ruled by Rome doesn't mean that the idea of Roman culture is still a thing, and the provinces of Rome kept their own distinct culture under Roman rule for the most part anyway. Rome definitely had some influence on them, but Roman life decidedly did not completely supplant the local populations' cultures.

If anything were to be added to the Byzantines, I'd want to see some stuff for the Orthodox church. It's not that it needs to be more powerful (complaining that it's not as good as Catholic because everyone has different religious heads seems to me like people just wanting the game to be even easier than it already is for the Byzantines with their amazing free duchy revocation/vassal retraction), but it sure is boring.

 

[Oriflamme]

Actually, I would argue that the legend of Rome was strong enough in the game's time frame to make a reversion to Roman Culture among many culture groups marginally plausible, if the right very strong leader and very strong country had seized the initiative with just the right tone at just the right time.

Then go ahead and argue it, because I couldn't possibly imagine such a thing as being even marginally possible. Besides, what was the "legend of Rome" in the mind of the average medieval person? The German aristocracy often saw themselves in Medieval times as being legitimately Roman. What basis did they have for such a claim? Their emperor was crowned by the Pope, and they were a strong country. That was enough.

People have this strange idea that conquering Rome in the Middle Ages would have been at all significant. Rome was a podunk town, sitting among ruins, just as it had been since before the days of Diocletian. Even during the time of the Roman Empire, Rome had gotten to where it wasn't even close to being a suitable capital of the country that bore its name.

If the Byzantine Empire had a string of miraculous conquests in the west, you would see a pretty significant change of culture, but not a reversion of culture back to the way things were many centuries before. That simply doesn't happen.

 

[Latheloi]

+1 to the OP's idea of switching out the retinues mechanic for something new as a good way of dealing with balancing the game.

As for what to switch it for? Content covering the schism in the 867-1066 period (specifically) and in general. Perhaps tweaks to include the Byzantine role in the crusades? More fancy mechanics to represent the non-feudal nature of the empire?

Not that I would be really upset at them just moving them out of the DLC only and rebalancing things without putting anything extra into LoR. But new stuff is new.

 

[Thure]

The problem with seperate retuines from the DLC is... All people who just bought the DLC because of retuines would have paid money for a DLC they don't want...

 

[clockworkBabbag]

The problem with seperate retuines from the DLC is... All people who just bought the DLC because of retuines would have paid money for a DLC they don't want...

Was that not the point of this thread? Suggestions to make it not awful for the people who paid money?

 

[Thure]

Was that not the point of this thread? Suggestions to make it not awful for the people who paid money?

Maybe. But replace it with another content isn't really the right way. I mean... People who just buy LoR because of retuines... Are not interested in other content. If they don't buy it for the Byzantine Empire... Why would they happy about more content for the Byzantines? They are not. This would make the people happy because of the Byzantine Empire, because they would get more content.

 

[Actalo]

I've never understood the hoopla over retinues. They're so ridiculously expensive to effectively maintain in battle that I believe it balances the edge they may give initially.

 

[A_Dane]

I've never understood the hoopla over retinues. They're so ridiculously expensive to effectively maintain in battle that I believe it balances the edge they may give initially.

A heavy cavalry retinue can pretty effectively crush double their numbers in levies and they're a hell of alot cheaper to maintain than mercenaries..

Longbows are even more horrifying

 

[Thure]

I've never understood the hoopla over retinues. They're so ridiculously expensive to effectively maintain in battle that I believe it balances the edge they may give initially.

Because the game is balanced around retuines. The game without retuines is much harder than with retuines.

 

[Actalo]

A heavy cavalry retinue can pretty effectively crush double their numbers in levies and they're a hell of alot cheaper to maintain than mercenaries..

Longbows are even more horrifying

By the time retinues gain the size to be effective (Empire realm) the historical precedence for large standing armies is already there. Like I said, the noise is unnecessary, Paradox made a reasonable decision concerning retinues sizes. Most large kingdoms or empires had standing armies. The only difference being the composition and effectiveness of those armies.

 

[Rotkohl]

As someone who bought LoR - I'd have no problem to see it seperated from the DLC.

 

[sealy300]

I would like to see a more flesh out Orthodox religion, especially the conflict with CaesaroPapism, Maybe with a system like the AGoT's Faith Authority system, with costs and benefits, For example lower faith Authority means that you can appoint the Patriarch but it is harder to force convert people or somthing to that effect, and TBH I am ok with someone taking out retinue and making them available, I mostly got LoR for the Byzantine stuff, and I have had many good games as them so money well spent.