Investigate Death Intrigue Action

[Captain_Jin]

Posted this a little while ago on the CK2 Reddit and I was advised to post here as well so hopefully the idea could get picked up by the studio or someone with modding experience.

In the case that a character died of suspicious circumstances, I thought it'd be a fun idea if characters that were close to them could try to find out what happened with an Investigate Death action in the Intrigue screen. For this to happen, it would require a character to die of suspicious circumstances, and for a character to be a close relative or friend of their's. For gameplay purposes, instead of just being a solved/unsolved binary outcome or boring repetitive failed attempts, a successful search could give a clue to who the killer was (define a trait, give a location/heraldry, last name, etc), with enough clues revealing the killer and giving a cause to imprison. And with excessively low Intrigue and a number of traits that would make such a task harder, even a small chance of getting a false clue (which could be correct with more investigating).

With that, if someone fits 2 or more clues, you can accuse someone and the courts opinions affect whether or not they're ok with you imprisoning them. I feel like this could lead to a lot of fun events/interactions, especially if you get into the more detailed things like if someone is Paranoid or a Lunatic and they begin investigating the death of their mother who died from Cancer, or maybe you could frame someone for the murder if you have high intrigue and a low opinion of them.

And with the basic premise there are plenty of other trait-based interactions that could be thrown around to make it more interesting; maybe the actual killer with high enough intrigue could work to thwart such investigations. Maybe someone with the wroth and paranoid trait could end up executing rows of people not convinced the murderer has been found. Maybe a Craven killer is forced to go into hiding or develops the Lunatic trait because of his guilt, or the Paranoid trait because of his fear of getting caught. Honestly there are dozens of minor fun ideas me and a few people have brought up on this, and I think any implementation of it would be a really cool addition.

 

[Matihood1]

Revealing all my masterfully executed murder plots? *shrugs*

 

[huigo]

This would remove some of the RNG with murdering or at least make it more balanced. Maybe being able to investigate satanic events or investigating a heretical cult would be cool to.

 

[BaxterBeaton]

I fully endorse this. Pls paradox more intrigue pls

 

[Tryvenyal]

Great suggestion! But how to teach AI to properly use it? Sounds huge on that part

 

[Captain_Jin]

This would remove some of the RNG with murdering or at least make it more balanced. Maybe being able to investigate satanic events or investigating a heretical cult would be cool to.

Oooo that'd be a lot of fun. Suddently what was a basic murder investigation becomes a full-on Satanic conspiracy

 

[vandevere]

Great suggestion! But how to teach AI to properly use it? Sounds huge on that part

It would still be better than what we have now, where a Count can murder all five of the Emperor's sons, get caught each and every time, and still be untouchable because imprisoning the "Known Murderer" of the Ruler's sons would be Tyranny...

 

[Matihood1]

It would still be better than what we have now, where a Count can murder all five of the Emperor's sons, get caught each and every time, and still be untouchable because imprisoning the "Known Murderer" of the Ruler's sons would be Tyranny...

That could easily be fixed by making it a valid reason for imprisonment.

 

[vandevere]

That could easily be fixed by making it a valid reason for imprisonment.

One can only hope...

 

[Rags17]

Great suggestion! But how to teach AI to properly use it? Sounds huge on that part

<Puts modders hat on>

• The game already knows a character's real killer so we can use that.
• Player takes Intrigue action against target deceased character that "Died under suspicious circumstances" (most character decisions are blocked to dead characters but this can be overridden).
• Success will depend upon the investigator's Learning and Intrigue total plus bonuses for favorable traits, eg Scholar, Renowned Physician, Genius, Quick, Shrewd, Diligent etc.
• Each success yields a random trait reveal of the killer and a Evidence flag on that killer for say 5 years, stacking up to say three levels.
• Player may accuse any character of being the killer by clicking on the character decision. The chance of a successful accusation will depend upon the a range of factors including level of Evidence, relative Pieties, accuser and target's Learning and Diplomacy etc.
• If accusation succeeds then target gets a new trait (Proven Killer) that has both an Imprison and an Execution/Banishment reason, player may then attempt to deal with the target as normal. This trait should disappear after say 10 years, there may also be an additional way to remove this, say via Papal dispensation similar to remove Kinslayer.
  
• if the accusation fails then the player should suffer a massive penalty in Piety and Prestige as well as general opinion (Tyranny). The accused will also become their Rival.
  
• To make this new mechanic especially useful an accusation should NOT depend upon there being any Evidence at all - it should be possible to succeed with an accusation based purely on the player's skills and attributes alone. Naturally this will make this very powerful in the right hands, but probably no more powerful than Seduction or assassination in the hands of Master Seducers or Schemers.
• Finally, I would limit the Accusation option to players with the Rulership focus as it is nominally the dispensation of justice and not an intrigue function, Rulership is also currently pretty light in interesting interactive mechanics.

Note - Since a successful accusation will not necessarily depend upon having the right target it may be possible for the player to successfully accuse, imprison and execute a character against which he has tons of Evidence but who is in fact innocent. A final twist would be to add a set of additional events whereby the player is haunted by the dead prisoner or the actual killer confronts the player with the truth just before he attempts to kill him...