Mother of God....

[General Karthos]

So, this isn't a complaint. Actually, I'm rather happy about this. My Kings keep living an extremely long time (first one died at 78, next at 69, next at 72, so their grandsons (who are out of my direct control) keep inheriting. (I am playing with the old age mod, which means MOST characters tend to die before hitting 60. My first King had very high health, evidently, and his children have inherited that.)

Anyway, as a result, I am playing an EXTREMELY weak King. (No stat above 10, except for Martial, and for King of England, Ireland, and Wales, that means some discontent vassals.) I've already waged one civil war to keep the Council from acquiring any influence at all, and I'm headed towards a second. I could, obviously, acquiesce to their demands, but I don't want the Council voting on my every move.

The difficulty stems from the fact that my King sucks at everything except Martial, but he's got a diplomatic education, so there's only so much he can do with the martial. His son is a Grey Eminence, and is plotting his father's death, but as I'm roleplaying, I've asked him to stop. Three times now. Unlike previous generations, he's actually the best heir I have. I wish my primary heir in previous generations had been caught plotting, as that would have made succession so much better, Kinslayer be damned.

My point is, the game has become MUCH more challenging, and keeping a large realm happy and stable is harder than it used to be. Maybe I haven't figure out how to game the new system, but isn't this what people were asking for? Heirs that ALWAYS rocked (30+ Diplomacy) and MASSIVE Empires that were easy to keep together are no more. All my heirs have been sub-par, this one more than the past, and the Pope doesn't like me enough to grant me a divorce, and my vassals don't like me enough to help me murder my wife, so I'm restricted to fairly small demesne, and the moral authority of the Catholic church is in the basement, so the Waldensian Heresy keeps popping up in my terrotires, which almost invariably results in a revolt or two....

Point is, I'm having one hell of a time forming the Britannian Empire, and I LIKE it. I'm being challenged again.

 

[descarado84]

some of it is fun, some of it is freaking tedious.

i first tried out conclave with Byz, and that was a lot of fun.

but then with Charlemagne, starting out at a Kingdom level with far weaker centralization, it became a real pain. there's the issue of snowballing vassal discontent, especially because Charlemagne has a whole bunch of triggers (Carloman's death, conquest of Saxony) that allow you to grab a bunch of territory all at once.

the Kingdom pretty much collapsed after multiple rebellions. I crushed the first Independence one, but then as the mounting manpower losses added up, no way I could polish off an Elective Monarchy rebellion and a Greater Conclave Influence one.

I caved on the greater conclave influence only to see less than a month later, the next faction forming for greater conclave influence.

perhaps this should be added to the "issues" thread, but i'd propose the following changes:

- Crushing a major revolt modifier should be more significant than +15, it should probably be +25.
- Crushing a major revolt should keep "greater conclave influence" from popping up for 2 years or so-- you just showed them who's boss.
- Conversely, caving on conclave influence should get you double that, 4-5 years (same as time in between law changes).

also, the influence of honorary titles has been nerfed into uselessness-- +5 does pretty much nothing.

 

[General Karthos]

some of it is fun, some of it is freaking tedious.

i first tried out conclave with Byz, and that was a lot of fun.

but then with Charlemagne, starting out at a Kingdom level with far weaker centralization, it became a real pain. there's the issue of snowballing vassal discontent, especially because Charlemagne has a whole bunch of triggers (Carloman's death, conquest of Saxony) that allow you to grab a bunch of territory all at once.

the Kingdom pretty much collapsed after multiple rebellions. I crushed the first Independence one, but then as the mounting manpower losses added up, no way I could polish off an Elective Monarchy rebellion and a Greater Conclave Influence one.

I caved on the greater conclave influence only to see less than a month later, the next faction forming for greater conclave influence.

perhaps this should be added to the "issues" thread, but i'd propose the following changes:

- Crushing a major revolt modifier should be more significant than +15, it should probably be +25.
- Crushing a major revolt should keep "greater conclave influence" from popping up for 2 years or so-- you just showed them who's boss.
- Conversely, caving on conclave influence should get you double that, 4-5 years (same as time in between law changes).

also, the influence of honorary titles has been nerfed into uselessness-- +5 does pretty much nothing.

I agree with much of this. As fun as it is to be challenged, the greater Council Influence should definitely be prevented from happening multiple times without a gap. 10 years for council increasing influence if they are successful. If they are unsuccessful with a "defeated" outcome, 2-3 years. With a white peace, let it happen again after 6 months to 1 year.

Also, isn't your council not supposed to be able to join factions? Because my Council members are joining factions left and right, and this is not with the "Council is Discontent" modifier.

EDIT: Council can join factions until "War Declaration by Vote" law is passed. After that, they can no longer join factions.

 

[StarSword]

I got sorta lucky with my current emperor (started as a king but was able to make Alba). His father made him the Earl of Cataibh as a young man and he promptly took the Seduction focus and sired six bastards and two legitimate sons before his coronation. Then his queen got murdered (probably by a rival he created by cheating on her) and I betrothed him to the prepubescent daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, and he got two more daughters on her. The only factions left in the realm are pretty weak because a bunch of the more powerful dukes are either married into or blood relatives of the royal family's main branch (e.g. my spymaster the Duke of Iceland is one of my son-in-laws, and the bastard daughter he married already had two kids with the Duke of Mumu before he had a heart attack at about 40).

And the moral is, if you can't control a vassal, marry him.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

I wish it was a bit more situational though - as in civil wars don't represent an existential threat to the kingdom and your religion and way of life for a lot of places in Western Europe or in the heartlands of Islam, but the small kingdoms and duchies bordering powerful infidel realms ought to get some sort of "marcher lands" modifier IMO so that rebellions don't open the gate to the enemy. If I am one of those kings I will often concede to a faction rather than risk the realm and I wish vassals thought the same.

 

[gdj]

One part about the faction/civil war mechanic i dislike is that you can easily stay neutral and just watch who wins. In reality, staying neutral would have been a difficult thing to do. I wish the mechanic could be changes in a way that gives you an incentive to actively help a faction (by joining it) or help your liege (by fighting the civil war on his side, with your own demesne troops if needed). Losing the war as a participant in a faction currently has consequences, you get imprisoned, revoked, you can even get blinded or castrated if your liege is greek. Losing the civil war as a loaylist currently has no consequences at all. It should.

Likewise, if you have troubles with factions and civil wars all the time, it would be nice if some of your dukes (or kings) will be loyal enough to do more than just provide the normal taxes & levies. "My liege, your cause is just, i will stay by your side in this bitter hour and provide 5000 of my best men....blabla.."

 

[General Karthos]

One part about the faction/civil war mechanic i dislike is that you can easily stay neutral and just watch who wins. In reality, staying neutral would have been a difficult thing to do.

This isn't really neutrality. I mean, your liege lord still calls your vassal levies and you still provide them as required by your obligation.

 

[gdj]

This isn't really neutrality. I mean, your liege lord still calls your vassal levies and you still provide them as required by your obligation.

Yes, but you face no consequences if he loses. If a pretender takes the throne, he should regard you, the former loyalist, as a traitor, or at least as "unrealiable". See, i was just pointing out what civil wars really were (and are): a stupid mutual mass slaughter where you just can´t stay uncommitted, where the losing means losing everything, and where even the winning side has to ask "was it worth all that?". Currently, factions and civil wars are pretty boring, you have barely a reason to join one, and no reason at all to actively sabotage one. And as a liege, you are always alone against the faction; when it fires, it makes no difference whether you are a virtous demigod, or an imbecile tyrant.

 

[General Karthos]

Yes, but you face no consequences if he loses. If a pretender takes the throne, he should regard you, the former loyalist, as a traitor, or at least as "unrealiable". See, i was just pointing out what civil wars really were (and are): a stupid mutual mass slaughter where you just can´t stay uncommitted, where the losing means losing everything, and where even the winning side has to ask "was it worth all that?". Currently, factions and civil wars are pretty boring, you have barely a reason to join one, and no reason at all to actively sabotage one. And as a liege, you are always alone against the faction; when it fires, it makes no difference whether you are a virtous demigod, or an imbecile tyrant.

See, what you are saying makes sense on the surface, but it's wrong.

If you look historically, that's not how it happened in most real Civil Wars. When a new King took the throne, having deposed the old King, most of the time he just called on the old vassals (except the ones who were SUPER LOYAL to the old King) to swear fealty to him, and life went on as normal.

To quote a modern(ish) example, it's not like Abe Lincoln had all the southern governors lined up and executed after the American Civil War.

To quote one closer to the time period of Crusader Kings, even Richard II's death was not something desired by Henry IV, even though he had deposed him. He killed a few loyal Richard vassals, but that was during the war, not after the fact. It made very little difference to the "unaligned" vassals who was in charge. They just had to provide the levy as promised when their liege lord called for it, pay their taxes, etc.

Thousands of people who didn't matter (to the nobles) died in wars, a handful of people who did matter, and in the end, not a whole lot changed.

In Crusader Kings II, you're not even allowed to kill your defeated foes when you win a civil war without an opinion malus, and that is AFAIK, par for the course.

 

[gdj]

See, what you are saying makes sense on the surface, but it's wrong.

If you look historically, that's not how it happened in most real Civil Wars. When a new King took the throne, having deposed the old King, most of the time he just called on the old vassals (except the ones who were SUPER LOYAL to the old King) to swear fealty to him, and life went on as normal.

To quote a modern(ish) example, it's not like Abe Lincoln had all the southern governors lined up and executed after the American Civil War.

To quote one closer to the time period of Crusader Kings, even Richard II's death was not something desired by Henry IV, even though he had deposed him. He killed a few loyal Richard vassals, but that was during the war, not after the fact. It made very little difference to the "unaligned" vassals who was in charge. They just had to provide the levy as promised when their liege lord called for it, pay their taxes, etc.

Thousands of people who didn't matter (to the nobles) died in wars, a handful of people who did matter, and in the end, not a whole lot changed.

In Crusader Kings II, you're not even allowed to kill your defeated foes when you win a civil war without an opinion malus, and that is AFAIK, par for the course.

Well, i guess we both see things a bit too black/white, with neither being completely right or wrong.

You put the modern(ish)example of Lincoln forward, i could as well put the (slightly less modernish) rise of power of Tokugawa in Japan forward, where the daymio families who fought against the Tokugawas were strictly discriminated until the Meiji Restauration. But with neither example being medieval or even in Europe, we are derailing a lot here

Some loyalist nobles would no doubt lose their lands after a civil war (you would call those "super loyal"), and the question is who would be rewarded. Even if not so extreme as in my previous post, fighting on the winning side was (and should be) rewarding, and losing could be...bad.

Currently we don´t even have opinion modifiers for either side, and i still wonder what incentive a player has to join factions or to sabotage those.

 

[Rationalsanity]

I do agree that the Increase Council Power wars need a cooldown, say 5 or 10 years? You shouldn't be able to spam Council power with warfare; that should be limited to a web of favors and/or a liege with a opportunistic regent.

 

[StarSword]

Well, i guess we both see things a bit too black/white, with neither being completely right or wrong.

You put the modern(ish)example of Lincoln forward, i could as well put the (slightly less modernish) rise of power of Tokugawa in Japan forward, where the daymio families who fought against the Tokugawas were strictly discriminated until the Meiji Restauration. But with neither example being medieval or even in Europe, we are derailing a lot here

Some loyalist nobles would no doubt lose their lands after a civil war (you would call those "super loyal"), and the question is who would be rewarded. Even if not so extreme as in my previous post, fighting on the winning side was (and should be) rewarding, and losing could be...bad.

Currently we don´t even have opinion modifiers for either side, and i still wonder what incentive a player has to join factions or to sabotage those.

I think a better example might be the Wars of Scottish Independence. A lot of nobles who fought for the wrong side ended up losing their land and were forced to hire themselves out as mercenaries to Irish lords, which is where the in-game Irish Gallowglass retinue comes from (the term comes from gall oglaigh, "foreign Gaels" or "foreign soldiers"; they were armored spearmen good at holding their ground, and became an integral part of Irish armies well into the Renaissance).