Imperial authority is too weak

[unmerged(26671)]

Dear friends,
i note that CK is quite unplayable for the building empire assect.
I know that this isn't a bulding empire game, just a dynasty game, but the two aspects are too united to be divided.
i note that (playing as Byzantion or Germany) vassals fidelity goes down too fast as soon as i attack a county...and the game becomes unplayable...
i feel so stupid as emperor...

 

[Chaingun]

Are you sure this happen only into one county? Your reputation drops a lot(which has an effect on loyalty), if you start to annex Christians. Furthermore if you borrow a vassal's regiment, have bad traits in your ruler, or have bad scutage settings there is a higher loyalty drop (hover the mouse above the loyalty meter to see how large). In order to recover reputation you can annex Muslims and Pagans that are relgious enemies; they should satisfy your taste for conquests.

 

[unmerged(26671)]

yes, but the problems remains...about the CK parameters, EU2 would be unplayable...then i don't understand why CK can be converted to EU2 game...they are so different!

 

[unmerged(21937)]

So, if the game doesn't allow you to make an easy world conquest it's unplayable?

In CK Badboy has more significant effect than in EU2, which is very good thing because it makes large conquests of christian land much more harder. Also it is historical, because during CK period, wars fought between christians didn't very often end up with large land areas in changing ownership.

 

[Freodin]

But this quick fragmentation of kingdoms is very inhistorical. For example, the German princes quibbled and fought all the time - but they always accepted the existence of the kingdom, and the authority of the king (if perhaps not just that person who held the title)

In CK, a small feud is enough to destroy a kingdom forever. Say the Duke of Bavaria wants to realize his claim on the County of Swabia. He declare war. Swabia´s liegelord, the Duke of Swabia joins in, and declares war on Bavaria.
Now Bavaria´s liege, the German king declares war on the Duchy of Swabia.
Regardless of how that war ends - Germany has lost the Duchy of Swabia for good.
Repeat this game some times, and twenty years later the Kingdom of Germany - the main power of the Holy Roman Empire - is nothing but an empty title held by a petty prince in some obsucre Black Sea province, and will fall to a muslim sheik.

This is exactly what happened in my current game - and there is no way to reform the Kingdom, short of my personal conquest of two thirds of the german principalities.

If that was how history went, Germany would have never existed. In history, the German dukes agreed on a king to rule them (preferable with a light hand and little power). But never did the core provinces try to gain independence. They chose counter-kings, deposed kings and elected new ones, waged war against the king - but they always accepted being part of a kingdom.

I think there are two ways to include such a behaviour in CK.

First, it should be possible to demand the vassalization in peace negotiations, as it was in EU2. Thus it would be possible for a king to keep a duke that he has warred against as vassal.

Second, if a kingdom does not exits, there should be an event in which the possible duchies are presented with the option to form it.

Both things are, AFAIK, not possible by modding. Perhaps PE should consider it.

 

[Swuul]

In history, the German dukes agreed on a king to rule them (preferable with a light hand and little power). But never did the core provinces try to gain independence. They chose counter-kings, deposed kings and elected new ones, waged war against the king - but they always accepted being part of a kingdom.

Heeh.... We are stil talking about the 12th century Germany and not the late-19th century Germany here, are we?

During the period of CK Germany ceased to exist. Sure, there always (most of the time anyway) was a (ore more) King of Germany, but Germany was not a Kingdom in the essence like England.

The AI-Kings *do* have problems to comprehend to actions taken by their human unforutanelly too creative vassals. The AI kings usually however handle their Kingdoms better than the average players in MP. CK is actually the one game of Paradox where I am happy to let the AI sub in MP's unless a top-class human BB-manager is available

 

[unmerged(33729)]

I just choose the best land, take it, then take some Pagen lands, then repeat.
When you got a larger army, instead of using Pagan lands, use Muslim.

 

[unmerged(26671)]

I agree with freodin

 

[unmerged(490)]

I completely disagree. If anything, world conquest is too easy. I have started the game as a minor Swedish count and gone on to make myself ruler of half the map with 17 King titles.

Of course, all of this falls apart when the ridiculously unbalanced mongol invasion comes along...

 

[Freodin]

Heeh.... We are stil talking about the 12th century Germany and not the late-19th century Germany here, are we?

During the period of CK Germany ceased to exist. Sure, there always (most of the time anyway) was a (ore more) King of Germany, but Germany was not a Kingdom in the essence like England.

Yes, the central authority in Germany was quite weak at some times - but it always did exist. And there were several instances where the princes elected a new king - something that is impossible in CK.

An example from History and the (impossible) parallel in CK.

In 919, after the death of Konrad I, the nobles of Saxony and Franconia offered the crown to Duke Heinrich of Saxony. The southern duchies did not accept him as rules and had to be subdued or bought.

But Heinrich DID get the crown, and WAS able to excert his authority to the "rebelling" duchies. In CK, he would be unable to claim the title of King of Germany, because he himself would not hold two thirds of the provinces.


You mentioned Germany not being a kingdom like England. Yes, there were differences, but not much in regard to the problem mentioned here.
The civil war between King Stephen of Blois and Empress Maud was an affair of the lords accepting a ruler, as was the solution of this war, when again the lords decided on Mauds son Heny Plantagenet.
Here also the lords of the land had accepted that they were part of a greater realm, and only quibbled about the person of the rules, and the extent of his authority.

And again we can go back to my current game: The Kingdom of England consists of three provinces in southern England and a province in Normandy. The rest of Britain is independent counties/duchies. The same is the case with France. The Kingdom of Sweden has fallen, Norway is fragmented, as is Poland. The only existing REAL kingdom is Hungary (yes, and Byzance).

There are muslim provinces in France, which no one dares to conquer - because all the petty princes of France are to weak to take on the 30000 man army of the Emirate of Lut. Does it surpise anyone if there is no real crusade against the Fatimides?

It is highly inhistorical. The existence and authority of the King was a part of the divine order in this era. The unity of Christendom was a core doctrine of occidental self-image.
The history of that era is filled with examples of the people uniting under a king to defend them against non-christian enemies. Otto I and the Hungarians. Hugo Capet and the Normans. Alfred the Great and the Danes.

Sorry. I can understand why the crusades in reality did not succeed - but if the inability of the Christian rules to unify in the face of outside danger had been as huge as presented in CK, reality would look like my current CK game: the Califate of Europe!

 

[unmerged(4852)]

I'm not quite sure if this falls off topic. But anyway, here goes:

I can definately see the problem with building empires. I have a game where I'm the king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden... Everything was fine and dandy when I just ruled Denmark and also later on in the game when I had annexed Sweden. But when Norway fell all hell broke loose. I fought a lengthy civil war and managed to get all my lands back. Then I redistributed the lands so my sons were given the titles of Duke (About five in all) and the most gifted in my court were given a few counties to bring my demesne down to 12 counties.

But then history repeated itself. All of my vassals loyalty dropped to 0.00 within months and I had another civil war on my hands.
How can I keep my vassals happy?
I lowered the scuttage to 0.0 which I had hoped would make them, if not loyal then at least docile.

Could it figure in that my piety rating was about -200?
And if so, then how is a Scandinavian king supposed to go on a crusade!?

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Hover your cursor over vassal's loyalty bar in his character screen (the thing that pops up when you click on his face). There will be a popup telling what is affecting his monthly loyalty and I am quite sure there you will find something like -10.0 (reputation). So, when conquering, pay attention to that reputation growing and chill out and wait it go down when it's too high. You need positive piety for it to go down though.

 

[unmerged(8894)]

Remember everytime you go to war and every time you annex a christian county, ducary or kingdom your reputation suffers. Unless you have high piety to combat that you really need to keep you conquests to Pagan and Muslem counties. Bad reputation effects your vassels loyalty greatly. Best was to gain Christian lands is to try to marry into the families and inherit. A few times I got it so my king became heir to lands that I didn't even know I was linked to! One game as croatia I inherited Denmark, Nubia and Leon without knowing how and Serbia <declared itself free from Byzantium>, Germany (considing of 3 counties and two vassel dukes at that point) and Poland by good marriages.