Offering vassalization should not increase threat level

[szmik]

People really lack patience these days, I actually tried such Abbasid game, there was enough to do without expanding, some holy wars for/against my neighbours, defending against nomads with Khiva now under my control and internal factions/decadence struggle. Before I knew it I was just above 50% and could ignore coalition thing.

 

[indika_tates]

It´s primarily supposed to stop AI blobbing, not your blobbing. Why, you ask? Because experienced players can circumvent any game mechanic by exploits and the like. Your "argument" works with any mechanic in any game.

By the way, you do realize that threat distinguishes now between religion groups, yes?

Your statement is what is false. First off AI doesn't expand. It explodes. The AI doesn't have the capability of managing a large empire and this is a fact. Abassids explode, Byzantine explodes, and Charlemagne explodes. Sooner or later, but without no doubt the AI managed empires fall into pieces. Decadence, rebellions, or wrong inheritance laws do the rest.

If this mechanic was supposed to prevent AI expansion, why does it apply to the player? Easy to respond. Because it was designed to stop warmongering nonsense. And the last thing is that this "threat" doesn't distinguish between religious groups as soon as you hit 50% threat if I recall correctly.

I have played almost the same hours EU4 and CK2 since the beginning. I know how both games evolved. And this was an attempt to implement something like aggresive expansion that Eu4 has. The problem is that the EU4 aggresive expansion is fine and threat is not. Because in this game there aren't monarch points or cores expansion is very easy. Holy war, then another holy war until the world is yours. Devs should have add a similar mechanic to EU4 coring (overextension) where you simply can't expand without exploding.

But the easy solution was to create a stupid threat mechanic where you conquer a duchy from the Ummayads as Asturias and the pope join into a coalition against you. This is an insult to the players. You know how much time devs spent in coding the threat mechanics? No more than an hour.

 

[BD13]

Holy war, then another holy war until the world is yours.

I see this as the main issue when it comes to blobbing. IMO the holy war CB is op. A single county at a time vs a whole duchy would be more effective than the threat mechanic at preventing blobs.

 

[Siggerad]

Indika_tates you have a patience of a saint for playing to 1227 with this absurd threat mechanic, but if you want expand Bizantium empire you have a little time with all this stop wait for a tick go down.

I dont understand how gdj is always in mod fanboy-all is perfect-you are wrong and crazy.

For me the only way to fix this issue is remove threat mechanic of the game, with conclave there is alot of rebelions and Council mad things to need a threat "antiblop" mechanic; if pdx only nerf threat this will be a issue.

 

[indika_tates]

Indika_tates you have a patience of a saint for playing to 1227 with this absurd threat mechanic, but if you want expand Bizantium empire you have a little time with all this stop wait for a tick go down.

I dont understand how gdj is always in mod fanboy-all is perfect-you are wrong and crazy.

For me the only way to fix this issue is remove threat mechanic of the game, with conclave there is alot of rebelions and Council mad things to need a threat "antiblop" mechanic; if pdx only nerf threat this will be a issue.

I used to live on 100% threat. I had an indian defensive pact against me And I never put a foot on them. When you have a retinue of 60k pikemen nothing stop you from spam assaults until your score raise to 100% in three weeks. First world war on every declaration of war even if it was for reclaiming a holding of my de-jure provinces. But it didn't solve anything because you can blob as previous patches. There is nothing that can stop you from eating your small neighbours. I'm not complaining about a defensive system of small nations vs blobs. I think that's fine. My complains are about the threat mechanic is the most absurd thing they ever did to this game.

There are a lot of options to prevent blobs. Just take a look to EU4. You can expand, slowly over time. Don't worry this mechanic is going to be changed sooner or later, for the sanity of the game.

 

[gdj]

Your statement is what is false. First off AI doesn't expand. It explodes. The AI doesn't have the capability of managing a large empire and this is a fact. Abassids explode, Byzantine explodes, and Charlemagne explodes. Sooner or later, but without no doubt the AI managed empires fall into pieces. Decadence, rebellions, or wrong inheritance laws do the rest.

If this mechanic was supposed to prevent AI expansion, why does it apply to the player? Easy to respond. Because it was designed to stop warmongering nonsense. And the last thing is that this "threat" doesn't distinguish between religious groups as soon as you hit 50% threat if I recall correctly.

I have played almost the same hours EU4 and CK2 since the beginning. I know how both games evolved. And this was an attempt to implement something like aggresive expansion that Eu4 has. The problem is that the EU4 aggresive expansion is fine and threat is not. Because in this game there aren't monarch points or cores expansion is very easy. Holy war, then another holy war until the world is yours. Devs should have add a similar mechanic to EU4 coring (overextension) where you simply can't expand without exploding.

But the easy solution was to create a stupid threat mechanic where you conquer a duchy from the Ummayads as Asturias and the pope join into a coalition against you. This is an insult to the players. You know how much time devs spent in coding the threat mechanics? No more than an hour.

Firstly, (non-muslim) AI empires dont explode. They just used to blob out, Byzantium eating Sicily, the Balkans and anything east of them, the HRE stomping Flanders, Aquitaine and anything their border-dukes have claims on. It´s been years now that i´ve seen Byzantium collapse or the HRE disintegrate. It used to be like that when TOG or LOR came out, but that´s quite a while ago. Since then, (non-muslim) empires who get in trouble just get elective and stay stable until 1453.

Conclave/patch 2.5.2. arguably changed this. No matter how often critics like to post that it only "slows blobbing, but does not prevent it" it is simply not true. I havent seen Sicily being eaten entirely, or Aquitaine being swallowed by the HRE since then. The AI has become far more agressive leading to some weirdness in North Africa among other things, but the AI will usually refrain from wars when threat builds up, and this slowing comes to a grinding halt because at some point there just are too many powerful vassals.

It is irrelevant how much time the devs spent on coding this. Fact remains, that it´s basic premise to stop or limit snowballing works, and i´m still waiting for arguments against it that don´t just come down to "make blobbing easier". You say, it is an insult to players, but the question is why do you hit such high threat levels at all?

 

[Robert II]

Firstly, (non-muslim) AI empires dont explode. They just used to blob out, Byzantium eating Sicily, the Balkans and anything east of them, the HRE stomping Flanders, Aquitaine and anything their border-dukes have claims on. It´s been years now that i´ve seen Byzantium collapse or the HRE disintegrate. It used to be like that when TOG or LOR came out, but that´s quite a while ago. Since then, (non-muslim) empires who get in trouble just get elective and stay stable until 1453.

Conclave/patch 2.5.2. arguably changed this. No matter how often critics like to post that it only "slows blobbing, but does not prevent it" it is simply not true. I havent seen Sicily being eaten entirely, or Aquitaine being swallowed by the HRE since then. The AI has become far more agressive leading to some weirdness in North Africa among other things, but the AI will usually refrain from wars when threat builds up, and this slowing comes to a grinding halt because at some point there just are too many powerful vassals.

It is irrelevant how much time the devs spent on coding this. Fact remains, that it´s basic premise to stop or limit snowballing works, and i´m still waiting for arguments against it that don´t just come down to "make blobbing easier". You say, it is an insult to players, but the question is why do you hit such high threat levels at all?

I reach high threat levels because when you are big 2 holy wars give you high threat levels. I'd sit there and not expand but I've nothing to manage I'm a grey eminence so the majority of my vassals love me.

 

[Unready]

I reach high threat levels because when you are big 2 holy wars give you high threat levels. I'd sit there and not expand but I've nothing to manage I'm a grey eminence so the majority of my vassals love me.

Eat all OPMs close to you with sudden attack of retinues.
Intervene in any neighborhood revolts (they don't join coalitions), quick assault of one fort and they can't surrender to their liege anymore.
It doesn't matter because threat level will be still 100%.