[MOD] Submission to Authority - a Mostly Mechanical Mod

[Chatoustikmou]

"Submission to Authority" is a Mostly Mechanical Mod that focuses on enhancing the Authority mechanic.
The mod is not Achivements compatible, and is not savegame compatible.
Version v1.0
Updated for v1.5.0.1 Fleur-de-lis

Disclaimer: v2.0 has undergone a major overhaul, mechanics have been rebuilt from the ground up.

---

Long gone are the days when rulers could assert their Authority by the flick of a pen for a small Prestige cost !

With Submission to Authority, Rulers will need to consolidate their Authority overtime by ensuring the Submission of their vassals. Tyrannical rulers counting on their Dread and Tyranny to keep their vassals in line will need to tread carefully!

Tyrannical rulers counting on their Dread to keep their vassals in line will need to tread carefully, as even the most fearful ruler can find the strength to rebel if pushed hard enough.

---

Title-based Authority Capacity

---

Feudal rulers now handle Authority on a regional level: as King Charles the Bald, Authority in the kingdom of France and the kingdom of Aquitaine will not be the same.

Different realm laws can be set on different titles - if you have the Authority for it - enabling you to fully exert your power on your core territory, while cutting some slack on the fringes to avoid trouble.

Enacting a Title Realm Law changes the Feudal Contracts of all vassals that pledge allegiance to that title (through their primary title). But you can always chose to negotiate their contract with a vassal directly, in which case they will not be subject to the Title Realm Law anymore - for better or for worse.

Authority over a title realm depends on factors such as:

• Court Grandeur: Owners of Royal Court will find it much easier to exert their Authority if their court is respected.
  
  
• Rank and Innovation Era: Those playing without Royal Court will gradually increase their base Authority as they rank up and over time.
  
  
• Average Vassal Submission: Depending on how much vassals bow to their liege, Authority can be increased - or decreased - dramatically.

---

Vassal Submission

---

Each Vassal has a Submission value, representing the extent to which they submit to their liege's rule.

AI personality plays a major role in this:

• Dread: Dread will increase submission of cowardly vassals - but bold vassals will react very negatively to their liege's Dread, making it a double-edged sword.
  
  
• Tyranny: Vassals with a high sense of honor will react very negatively to tyrannous acts from their liege. Imprison with caution.
  
  
• Resentment: Some Vassals hold a grudge. They don't like their liege very much, for whatever reason, and their resentment shows. Might be worth trying to smoothe things over a bit.
  
  
• Bowing to a higher power: Not everyone will be humbled by that pilgrimage of yours. Some will highly respect your display of zealousness - but unpious vassals might not respect your bowing down to a higher authority. Unless the liege themselves are unpious, in which case it goes the other way around.

Other criterias include:

• Not de jure liege: Vassals whose primary title pledges allegiance to a non-de jure title have decreased [submission|E]. Getting a de jure title to their primary title will remove that penalty.
  
  
• Powerful vassal: Powerful vassals are naturally less submissive. Granting them a council position cuts that penalty in half.
  
  
• Cultural Acceptance: Low cultural acceptance between a liege's culture and their vassals culture greatly impacts [submission|E]. Sharing a cultural heritage, and knowing one another's culture language mitigates that penalty.
  

---

Planned features

---

• Introduce more varied Title Realm Laws
• Tie the mechanics to Factions
• Introduce AI logic (for the moment, the AI negotiates contracts like before).

---

Credits

---

This mod benefited from the invaluable help of the CK3 Mod Co-op.
All remaining bugs are our own.

 

[G.Strategos]

Very nice! Keep it up!

 

[Chatoustikmou]

The mod has been updated a couple of times, with a couple of noticeable changes to balance.

For Clan and Tribal vassals, tax and levies obligations level are now tied to Submission, instead of being directly tied to opinion or fame level respectively. So any changes to Submission will mechanically impact vassal obligation levels for vassals of all 3 government types

The Liberty faction has been modified, as its goal (reducing Authority) didn't make sense anymore. If it's demands are accepted or enforced :
- Feudal vassals will see their tax and obligations level go down from one level each
- Clan and Tribal vassals get a -25 Submission modifier that lasts for 10 years, hence bringing their obligations down as well


Next steps will probably be :

- further changes to the UI : showing the players Submission to his liege if he has one ; showing the breakdown of the Submission and Authority values in tooltips ; updating tooltips related to the Liberty Faction, and to the levies and taxes obligations, which currently do not reflect the recent changes

- have new Feudal contracts's obligations be set according to the current Authority level (when granting a title to an unlanded character, or when a ruler gets his title usurped from one of his vassals)

- probably take away the ability for Feudal vassals to renegotiate their contracts with a hook. It is currently the only way the AI actually does negotiate the contracts, and since vassals can now also lower their obligations via the Liberty faction, it puts AI lieges to an unfair disadvantage, and they will probably have a hard time reaching High Authority and unlocking Primogeniture.


Plans going forward :

I'll probably be exploring triggering a realm meltdown if Authority reaches 0 and stays there for long enough. At the moment, there is nothing preventing a realm from slugging along at very low Authority for a long time, and I'd like the mod to create a more dynamic world.

 

[klopkr]

This is very cool and the exact kind of emergent design that CK3 needs. I hope to see something similar implemented in the base game and you getting some royalties or a job.

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Quite a sizeable update this week. Changes might not look like much, but there's been quite a rework under the hood =)

Authority is now a ticking value. The target is recalculated every month, based on the weighted average Submission of vassals, but the actual Authority only ticks by 0.5pt each month toward the target. This will make it easier to plan ahead, and react to changes in vassal submission. There's also a fancy new UI to reflect that change, and buttons for Authority levels have been replaced by a progress bar, the color of which changes depending whether Authority is ticking up (green), ticking down (red), or stable (silver).

New Feudal contracts are now set depending on the current Authority level. This applies to vassals gained through wars of conquest, to vassals changing from being overthrown, or to unlanded characters being granted a title for the first time.

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Version 0.6 has just rolled out, with a rework of the War against the Tyranny of liege !

While you wait for AGOT to bring the whole shebang, you can play a pretend Daenerys : if you're tyrannical enough, a civil war could very well snowball out of control, ending up with you decapitated, your titles redistributed amongst your vassals, and your primary heir fleeing in the nick of time to a foreign court, where they can regroup, and maybe try to reclaim their father's land.


# Bug fix

- Fixed feudal vassal contracts being reset on inheritance

# Balance

- Sumbissivness is now modified by dread, so dreadful rulers will have higher vassal submission and authority

- Rolled back the possibility for player feudal vassals to renegotiate their contract with their liege (but not for AI vassals)

# Gameplay

- When a ruler triggers a war against his tyranny, if his Tyranny is higher than his Authority, each month the attackers will get a chance to rally other vassals to their cause.
If they succeed, each vassal that is not yet in the war will get a chance to join the war, inversely proportional to their Submission.
With this change, high Tyranny will somewhat offset the dissuasive power of Dread : rulers abusing Tyranny run the risk of seeing these civil war snowball out of control quite rapidly.

- When a ruler loses a war against his tyranny, consequences are now much more drastic, as the ruler is stripped of all his titles, which are redistributed to existing vassals or local nobles, following de Jure whenever possible.
The ruler is also beheaded by the mob storming their castle. This means that the heirs do not inherit any land.
If the primary heir was unlanded, they manage to flee, as a distant relative or a compassionate foreign ruler of the same faith will grant them a county.

# Interface

- Updated the localization of Liberty War and Tyranny war pop-ups

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Hotfix 0.6.1 just rolled out. It seems random numbers in recursive on_actions are not so random, so the whole "vassals join in War agains the Tyranny of liege" thing didn't work like it should... but now it does !

These things are hard to test and balance properly, any feedback on whether to make it easier or harder is appreciated. As it is, getting Tyranny above Authority can be quite dangerous quite fast

Coming next :

- Actually show Tyranny somewhere, probably on the Realm screen, as for now it's only in vassal opinion tooltips, which isn't great. It'll be a good place to explain what risks you take by bringing it high

- Work on the UI from a vassal's perspective, which hasn't been my focus until now

- Bring in missing vassals in the Submission system (theocratic, republican, and barons), so Counts / Dukes without count vassals can still get their Authority up somehow, as for the moment it's stuck at 0

- Probably a lot of localization to update still

- Maybe some flavour around the edges, especially when a War of Tyranny doesn't end well, as it is quite consequential for everyone involved


See you then folks, hope you all enjoy this as much as I do scripting it !

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Version 0.6.5 is up. The most noticeable changes are :

- the mod is now localized in French

- additions have been made to the interface :
A ruler's Authority level is now shown on his character screen
On his vassals tab, you can now see the Submission of other character's vassals

Got a couple of bug reports on Steam, but as far as I know, those are due do the mod being loaded on an existing save, and not at game start.

 

[Chatoustikmou]

So, a lot has happened since OPB's kind coverage of the mod !

On the one hand, in the last 10 days, we got from 250 to more than 1500 subscribers ! That means more people playing (and hopefully enjoying !) the mod, and a lot of interesting feedback.

On the other hand, work started again for me last week, so unfortunately, updates won't be as frequent as they had been up to then. But I'm still certainly committed to :
- bring the mod to a 1.0 version that I consider feature complete
- work on compatibility with other mods that tie-in well with Submission to Authority (suggestions have already been made for Res Publica, and Rhomaioi)
- update the mod for compatibility whenever a patch drops
- expand on the mod's features whenever an expansion / a flavor pack drops, if they tie-in well with new vanilla mechanics


Update to version 0.7

For now, I've got the 0.7 update ! The two most consequente changes are :
- Theocracy vassals and Republic vassals now have a Submission score, so all vanilla vassals are now covered by the mechanic
- the rulers Domain also have a Submission score ( = control - popular opinion if negative)

That means that 100% of the ruler's realm is now covered, and also that Counts and Dukes with no vassals won't be stuck at 0 Authority anymore !

Some love has been given to tooltips as well, to make it clearer what leverage the player has over their vassal's Submission.


Plans going forward

I feel like mechanically, the mod is mostly done, so next updates will focus on adding content and tweaking balance.

Content

- Tyranny War : this one is rather divisive, so I'm looking to trigger events whenever additionnal vassals join the war, to give the player a chance to either cave in early (and not risk being decapitated and lose everything), or push his luck (but making it very clear what the possible outcomes might be). I do want to keep the "destitution, titles usurpation, heir flees to a foreing court" outcome as a possible one, but make it possible to avoid it if the player so wishes.

- Council task side effect events : I'll be adding at least a couple of events that make a vassal's submission go up or down for a period of time, as a possible side-effect of the Internal Affairs council task.

- Clan vassals : I feel like basing Submission on Opinion of leage isn't interesting. I did that because it's the base for taxes and levies obligation system in vanilla, but I'd love to come up with something more interesting. I have some ideas, not sure yet if they are practical, and in any case I'm open to new ones !

- Dueling : I'll try to add a Submission modifier as a possible outcome of Duels between a Tribal ruler and a Tribal vassal

Balance

- Non-rightful liege penalty : although it doesn't necessarily make sense as an opinion modifier, to me it certainly does make sense as a Submission modifier

- Zealous vassals : I might toy with the idea of a Zealous vassal being more or less submissive depending on his liege's reliigion and piety.

- Ticking authority : as it stands, Authority ticks by +/- 0.5/month, so it takes about 4 years maximum to rank up or down, which is much faster than the vanilla 20 years cooldown. Either I'll tweak this way down, or else I'll make Authority go down on certain events : inheritance, war lost, call to war denied, etc.

 

[MatthewP]

This looks so cool. I’ve been happily playing EU4 waiting for enough dlcs to get CK3 to a point I’m as excited to come back to it, but I think I’m going to give it a try with this mod.

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Released a hotfix this morning to adress the most glaring issues that were reported. Thanks to anyone who pointed those out !

version 0.7.1

# Bugs
- Fixed a bug preventing Tribal rulers from ever reaching higher authority levels because of an unintended innovation lock
- Fixed a design error locking barons with "Title revocation protection", which effectively prevented barony titles from ever being revoked and had their obligations level forever set at Exempt. Workaround is, baron's feudal contracts are now reset monthly to the default contract according to the current authority level.

# Balance
- Nerfed the "hoarded duchies" penalty for tribal rulers' vassal submission. It now only takes into account held and creatable titles of duchy or above rank, and not all created duchy titles in the realm. This should make it easier to build up Authority as a tribal ruler, and effectively permit feudalization, pending a more thorough rework of the whole mechanic.


No further updates planned until 1.4 drops sometimes next week. I'll focus on updating for compatibility as soon as I can, before expanding on the mod's content.
I've also got some other things I'm working on, which I'll hopefully be unveiling soon™ !

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I like the mod, though figuring out how to improve my authority isn't always clear yet. And since you can only change the contract just once in a lifetime you have to carefully think, which option you choose.

Feudal Vassals' Submission is embodied by their Feudal Contract, so negotiating those early, often, and in a way that is most beneficial to you, will be of the utmost importance if you want to bring your Authority up - or your liege's Authority down !

It would be nice if there were tooltips which would say what the effect on submission will be. f.e. is it better to remove the 'no title revocation' or to raise the taxes or the levies. Which of the changes to a contract have the most effect on submission.

Have played with the mod a while together with Rhomanoi, but I got the feeling that, that didn't work well yet, so I turned this mod of. Played another game as king of England, raising my authority didn't go well.

And yes the revolt of the liberty faction is now something you best avoid, while in the vanilla game it is something I don't really worry about, I just lower the crown authority when they demand it and then 20 years later can increase it again.

I also like it, how the authority goes down when your ruler dies

 

[Chatoustikmou]

I like the mod, though figuring out how to improve my authority isn't always clear yet. And since you can only change the contract just once in a lifetime you have to carefully think, which option you choose.

It would be nice if there were tooltips which would say what the effect on submission will be. f.e. is it better to remove the 'no title revocation' or to raise the taxes or the levies. Which of the changes to a contract have the most effect on submission.

Vassals have an opinion modifier towards their liege, depending on their Feudal Contracts. When you change the Feudal contract, it shows how much the vassal's opinion will change of you. The vassal's Submission will change by opposite that value (so if the new contract means the vassal will get -10 opinion of you compared to his current opinion, he will also get +10 Submission). I'll try to show that in the tooltips somehow.

Have played with the mod a while together with Rhomanoi, but I got the feeling that, that didn't work well yet, so I turned this mod of. Played another game as king of England, raising my authority didn't go well.

That's probably because the mod introduces a new government form, that I'm not handling in my mod. At some point I'll be looking into making that a thing, if you have any ideas on the subject, please let me know =)

I also like it, how the authority goes down when your ruler dies

That's not actually a thing, unless I'm mistaken. I mean, when a ruler dies, a lot of things change, so Authority might change as a consequence of those changes, but there's no hardcoded Authority drop when a ruler dies.

I was considering, on ruler death, making Authority drop, but not the target it ticks towards, so the drop would be temporary and Authority would slowly build back up on its own. But as far as I know, I never actually put that in

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I was considering, on ruler death, making Authority drop, but not the target it ticks towards, so the drop would be temporary and Authority would slowly build back up on its own. But as far as I know, I never actually put that in

I thought that is exactly what happened. But when I think about it, it could also have happend because I got some new vassals, his brothers, who also got titles when the father died.

 

[Drakken]

I really love where this mod is going. However, I must express some reserves with the following feature:

"Those wars, if lost, also come with a much higher price : if the oppressed masses manage to take the upper hand, they will strip their liege of all their titles, and redistribute them amongts themselves, leaving the heirs with nothing. Fortunately, an unlanded primary heir will always find a distant relative or compassionate soul to grant them a piece of land, enabling them to regroup, and maybe reclaim their ancestors land."

This seems highly questionable from a historical point of view. Even during the height of the Barons' Wars or the Despensers' War, the Plantagenets dynasty itself was never in danger of being completely deposed. Henry III was made a figurehead King and Edward I remained Prince of Wales, and no one disputed that Edward III would be succeeding Edward II. The logic behind these revolts was never that the King was wrong (because he couldn't be), but the evil and misguided advices of his councillors were the problem; they needed to be "replaced" with themselves, the good councillors with the better advice to guide the King - even against himself.

Neither Montfort nor Mortimer had any real claim to become Kings themselves. The threat was either to depose the King and place the heir as figurehead king, or keep the King himself as the figurehead, both with themselves and their cronies as the real power in front of the throne.

That a whole dynasty could be deposed and replaced by an entirely unrelated one without any lineage claim to the throne is very... non-medieval. Wouldn't be better, instead, to go with the following suggestion:

1. - The current "tyrannical" King either becomes "Incapable", is deposed and put in house arrest, or killed. In the latter cases, the primary heir takes his place.
2. - If a member of faction has a claim on the primary title, then the dynasty can be deposed. Priority to the Strongest Claim, or the closest in lineage to the target Liege.
3. - Authority brought back to Zero.
4. - Heavy penalty against Submissiveness for all vassals.
5. - All feudal contracts are put to their lowest rating in levies and taxes.
6. - All members of the faction get Strong hooks for their lifetime (or until these hooks are lost). The vassals could use these Strong Holds to get their contract modified down to their advantage, force education and guardianship of the monarch's heirs, plus force marriage of their own children with the Royal Family.

This would simulate much more closely the danger of becoming a "crowned republic" that faced all Medieval monarchs if they went too far. And the player would have the feeling of working toward restoring real royal authority from the brink of destitution, like the real Edward I and III had to undertake.

 

[Chatoustikmou]

This seems highly questionable from a historical point of view.

That a whole dynasty could be deposed and replaced by an entirely unrelated one without any lineage claim to the throne is very... non-medieval. Wouldn't be better, instead, to go with the following suggestion:

1. - The current "tyrannical" King either becomes "Incapable", is deposed and put in house arrest, or killed. In the latter cases, the primary heir takes his place.
2. - If a member of faction has a claim on the primary title, then the dynasty can be deposed. Priority to the Strongest Claim, or the closest in lineage to the target Liege.
3. - Authority brought back to Zero.
4. - Heavy penalty against Submissiveness for all vassals.
5. - All feudal contracts are put to their lowest rating in levies and taxes.
6. - All members of the faction get Strong hooks for their lifetime (or until these hooks are lost). The vassals could use these Strong Holds to get their contract modified down to their advantage, force education and guardianship of the monarch's heirs, plus force marriage of their own children with the Royal Family.

This would simulate much more closely the danger of becoming a "crowned republic" that faced all Medieval monarchs if they went too far. And the player would have the feeling of working toward restoring real royal authority from the brink of destitution, like the real Edward I and III had to undertake.

To be honest, I'm more interested in whether features make for interesting gameplay, than whether they're strictly historically accurate

But I do get your point, and besides, this feature is contentious for many reasons. I'm at the point where I'll probably remove it altogether in the next update, and make it into its own mod a little later down the road, so I can take the time to get it right.

The one thing I *do* like about it, and intend to keep, because it was the main motivation behind the whole thing, is the snowball factor. I feel like the game needs to be more punishing when you abuse of tyrannical actions, and that factions need to have more bite. But as far as the outcome of the war go, I knew I'd have to change them eventually
I make a note of your suggestion, and I'll certainly give that a try !

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Drakken]

To be honest, I'm more interested in whether features make for interesting gameplay, than whether they're strictly historically accurate

But I do get your point, and besides, this feature is contentious for many reasons. I'm at the point where I'll probably remove it altogether in the next update, and make it into its own mod a little later down the road, so I can take the time to get it right.

The one thing I *do* like about it, and intend to keep, because it was the main motivation behind the whole thing, is the snowball factor. I feel like the game needs to be more punishing when you abuse of tyrannical actions, and that factions need to have more bite. But as far as the outcome of the war go, I knew I'd have to change them eventually
I make a note of your suggestion, and I'll certainly give that a try !

Thanks for the feedback

I totally agree with you on this - tyranny must be a double-edged sword, and falling on the wrong side should be very painful an experience for the player, but without removing any chance for a possible comeback in a distant future.

I do admit, though, that I had missed your mention for future plans when I wrote my post :

Content

- Tyranny War : this one is rather divisive, so I'm looking to trigger events whenever additionnal vassals join the war, to give the player a chance to either cave in early (and not risk being decapitated and lose everything), or push his luck (but making it very clear what the possible outcomes might be). I do want to keep the "destitution, titles usurpation, heir flees to a foreing court" outcome as a possible one, but make it possible to avoid it if the player so wishes.

I like your plan of giving the player a way out to avoid the worst option, the deposition of the whole dynasty, but still at a heavy political cost.

My suggestions above would perfectly fit that direction, especially giving the vassals Strong hooks to continually renegociate their vassal contracts, force the King to act in their interests, embezzle funds, and push for marriage of their own family members with the members of the Royal Family.

 

[Drakken]

Also, I have a question.

As Duke of Luxembourg I installed a claimant as my Liege, King of Lotharingia. How do I use my Weak Hook to renegociate my own contract with my new Liege?

 

[Chatoustikmou]

Also, I have a question.

As Duke of Luxembourg I installed a claimant as my Liege, King of Lotharingia. How do I use my Weak Hook to renegociate my own contract with my new Liege?

I think at the moment you can't, because I've disabled renegociating contracts as a vassal altogether. That was another poor design decision that I'll rollback on the next patch. I made it because liege AI doesn't seem very good at negotiating contracts, so it was a way to give him a buff, but that's not a good enough reason to block the option for vassal players.

Instead I added to my plans to try and tweak the AI decision making on the subject

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I think at the moment you can't, because I've disabled renegociating contracts as a vassal altogether. That was another poor design decision that I'll rollback on the next patch. I made it because liege AI doesn't seem very good at negotiating contracts, so it was a way to give him a buff, but that's not a good enough reason to block the option for vassal players.

Instead I added to my plans to try and tweak the AI decision making on the subject

That is why I couldn't find the option