Non-Crusading Kings

[Panther8]

I was playing EU4 for a long while, but I came back to CK2 when I saw a new DLC was released (didn't buy it until testing the new patch). I played the Hindu nation in the north bordering on the Sunni, figuring I could get lots of juicy holy wars.

I took a ton of India provinces to consolidate my position and strength. There was this new thing called threat, but it seemed like no big deal.

Man, was I wrong!

After a couple of holy wars past Afghanistan and Bulcharistan, I could no longer wage holy war without nearly every single nearby nation wanting to join! Even Ethiopia in Oman joined in? Really? Christians fighting FOR Muslims in a holy war?

Is this game now called No-Longer-Gonna-Crusade Kings?

Or was I doing something totally wrong?

So much for going back to the game. Seems like a waste of time to me.

 

[klopkr]

It's the threat mechanic. All you can do is wait it out or fight the whole coalition. You're not supposed to expand fast anymore.

 

[Tapio]

Threat gets annoying when it's over 70% I think.

 

[Panther8]

It is 75%, I think. And they are punishing us for blobbing. I get that. They have done the same thing on EU4 for about a year now.

But the problem is not that in my mind.

I eventually took 100% of India and threat was inconsequential. No one king was strong enough to stand in my way. Plus the threat increase seemed minimal, and I kept in under 50% most of the time by doing all the fun things in CK2. Like giving my 3rd cousin a tiny province inside the next Kingdom I wanted. And marrying a heretic princess with bad traits because my firstborn was going to inherit all her claims.

No, the problem was the holy war. Each holy war generated 50% threat. Once I started down that path, threat almost never fell below about 85%.

And once I got near Anatolia, I knew the Byzantium were going to join their sworn enemy, the Abbasids, in my holy war. This was despite them fighting so many crusades against each other in the past 2 centuries that I lost count.

It just makes zero sense to me. One of the big selling points in this game is holy wars. So why punish us for playing this game in the way it was intended?

This is why I suggested changing the name of the game in my title of this thread.

 

[Thrake]

Nothing about holy wars. It's that the bigger you are the more threat you get.

 

[Bernard95]

To an EU4 guy, threat is nearly the same thing as AE though it's probably closer to Victoria 2's infamy system (with the idea of having a set threshold that is). You get too much, you start getting defensive pacts (defensive coalitions) formed. With 5% a minor defensive pact will form along religious lines, 50% members can be of any religion, and with 100% you're asking for most of the world to challenge you. Really it's not that big of a deal as long as you alternate times of war with times of peace. For around kingdom-rank and below, this pretty much just means declare holy war > be at peace for 2 years > repeat. When you end up blob-sized/empire-sized, then you can just ignore your threat level and blitz your victim before any of the other pact members show up en masse.

 

[Panther8]

Nothing about holy wars. It's that the bigger you are the more threat you get.

Thank you. This does explain it. It also explains why I never noticed a problem in my earlier holy wars with an independent Afghanistan and Bulcharistan.

Of course, that does not make it any less of a stupid idea from Paradox. Holy wars and Crusades should automatically have much lower threat since that is the point of the whole dang game. I could easily see me getting increased threat while I was conquering India since I was killing my own religious group. It did make that part of the run more interesting.

The biggest issue was that the threat countdown was something like 5 times as slow as the peace timer countdown.

And yes, I did think of it as a poorly implemented AE factor. Nothing posted here has changed my opinion about that.

 

[Panther8]

Here is my game. Note that it would take another 15 years for threat to drop below 50%, which is the magic number to prevent Christians and Muslims from joining together in a holy war.

But the issue is that my peace timer is close to running out. And therein lies the problem with this feature. I gave up before I got close enough to Turkey to see Byzantium and Muslims joining together against me. That would be so incredibly against everything I thought I knew about this game, that I could not bear to witness it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=671645722

 

[Arcvalons]

It is 75%, I think. And they are punishing us for blobbing. I get that. They have done the same thing on EU4 for about a year now.

But the problem is not that in my mind.

I eventually took 100% of India and threat was inconsequential. No one king was strong enough to stand in my way. Plus the threat increase seemed minimal, and I kept in under 50% most of the time by doing all the fun things in CK2. Like giving my 3rd cousin a tiny province inside the next Kingdom I wanted. And marrying a heretic princess with bad traits because my firstborn was going to inherit all her claims.

No, the problem was the holy war. Each holy war generated 50% threat. Once I started down that path, threat almost never fell below about 85%.

And once I got near Anatolia, I knew the Byzantium were going to join their sworn enemy, the Abbasids, in my holy war. This was despite them fighting so many crusades against each other in the past 2 centuries that I lost count.

It just makes zero sense to me. One of the big selling points in this game is holy wars. So why punish us for playing this game in the way it was intended?

This is why I suggested changing the name of the game in my title of this thread.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. An expansionist, land-grabbing Empire that conquered all of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and has now even reached Asia Minor? The Byzantines would make a coalition with Satan itself to stop that! You are basically saying "Waaah! Conquering the World is too difficult with Coalitions trying to stop me!" and I can just respond: Git Gud.

 

[geckoman1011]

I dont mind an anti-blobbing mechanism, but I do feel they go overboard trying to prevent blobbing instead of putting out a challenging and edifying game. One thing Ive found with the current system is that when a ruler dies, the full threat is passed on to their heir. Im trying to figure out if this is WAD or a bug, but I was under the impression that it was supposed to be discounted (by 15% I think). I dont find the current threat system too bad, but it could use a few tweaks to get back to rampaging holy wars.

 

[The Duke of GTFO]

That makes a lot of sense, actually. An expansionist, land-grabbing Empire that conquered all of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and has now even reached Asia Minor? The Byzantines would make a coalition with Satan itself to stop that! You are basically saying "Waaah! Conquering the World is too difficult with Coalitions trying to stop me!" and I can just respond: Git Gud.

Random count in Norway should care? Nah.

 

[Panther8]

That makes a lot of sense, actually. An expansionist, land-grabbing Empire that conquered all of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and has now even reached Asia Minor? The Byzantines would make a coalition with Satan itself to stop that! You are basically saying "Waaah! Conquering the World is too difficult with Coalitions trying to stop me!" and I can just respond: Git Gud.

I never said it was too difficult. I have only lost 1 coalition war so far, and that was primarily caused by a couple of stupid miro-managing stack wipe blunders. By the time I get to Turkey, I will likely have twice the army size as both of them put together.

All I am saying is 2 things:

1. The Byzantines and Muslims have been fighting nearly continuously for centuries. Both Holy Wars and Crusades included. That is the way the game was originally designed. But suddenly, they will join together in a holy war??? Makes zero sense to me, But each his own.
2. Why punish a player for a fighting a Holy War? Does this mean when France wins a crusade for Jerusalem, the Pope will join the Muslims to help them take it back because France is such a huge threat to the world? How far does this really go?

 

[Tapio]

To an EU4 guy, threat is nearly the same thing as AE though it's probably closer to Victoria 2's infamy system (with the idea of having a set threshold that is).

In EU they are a huge pain though since they tend to attack, in here you can just sit there with 100% and not be worried about them moving in on you.

 

[Bernard95]

In EU they are a huge pain though since they tend to attack, in here you can just sit there with 100% and not be worried about them moving in on you.

In retrospect, I probably should have said that plainly. In the next sentence I tried to say "defensive coalitions" though I never did explain what that actually meant.

 

[Panther8]

In retrospect, I probably should have said that plainly. In the next sentence I tried to say "defensive coalitions" though I never did explain what that actually meant.

Being both an EU and CK player, I did fully understand what you meant without this clarification.

And I do know I was being a bit facetious with my Pope helping Muslims comment. But, based on the direction Paradox is going with both games, that unfortunately does not seem all that far off to me.