On pressing claims for foreigners after granting them a holding...

[yezhanquan]

I've asked this at the Quick Answers thread, but felt that I may get more views here. I've seen comments that doing this is gamey. Well, in terms of roleplaying, my king is "Hmmm... I'm a little bored, and I want to weaken my neighbours." He then invites a foreigner with claims on a foreign duchy to his court, grants him a holding, and then presses his claim. The king's realm gets expanded and a neighbouring realm is weakened.

Thoughts?

 

[Cymsdale]

I don't see what's "gamey" about it at all. You're making an offer to another noble to help increase his power in exchange for vassalage.

 

[Malibu Stacey]

It's no worse than inviting someone to your court with a claim on a title you want, marrying them matrilineally to one of the females in your dynasty then killing off the poor chap once his progeny is born.

 

[unmerged(424234)]

Another exploit that has been in the game since version 1.0 is that after you declare war, you can raise your levies (and of your vassals!) and fight the war with those troops. I don't know why Paradox is doing some fantasy expansions while exploits like this are still not fixed.

 

[nyah]

I think it becomes gamey if you do it a lot, and expand massively through invited claimants.

But then, it is a game, and a sandbox game at that. Play it how you want. Personally I find it more fun to play with strict house rules, and I'm thinking of making them stricter - no matri-marriages except for rulers, no marriages for anything other than alliance, no forging claims, no inviting then granting, no assassination, and only gavelkind succession. I might think of some others.

 

[Arizal]

I had a nice use of this function when I :

1. Invited the claimant of Savoy to France;
2. Forged a claim on Britanny;
3. Conquered Britanny;
4. Installed a bunch of people in britanny's holdings except I let him one county;
5. Made him duke of Britanny;
6. And then pressed his claim to Savoy.

A few years later, I agreed to his vassals demand that he was destituted of Britanny, but he kept Savoy and still loved me since I pressed his claim to Savoy. I though I made brilliant moves, not that I cheated or exploited the game functions. Really, it was gamey when you could give one baronny to a claimant and then press his duke claim without losing him. Now, it is more a gambling since you could by this way form mega-dukes and be challenged by them. The current rules are okay for me, except maybe that you shouldn't be able to auto-vasssalize your own family. I miss too the "press multiple claim option", but this is another thing.

 

[Malibu Stacey]

Another exploit that has been in the game since version 1.0 is that after you declare war, you can raise your levies (and of your vassals!) and fight the war with those troops. I don't know why Paradox is doing some fantasy expansions while exploits like this are still not fixed.

Eh? Are you trying to hard to be funny or something?

I think it becomes gamey if you do it a lot, and expand massively through invited claimants.

I don't see why it's considered 'gamey'. Sounds like something people would've done in medieval times, press someones claim to a title for them with the caveat they become your vassal. The game lacks a lot when it comes to diplomacy & intrigue so workarounds like this are necessary until those areas of the game are developed further.

 

[unmerged(457738)]

Doing it once or twice isn't gamey. The reason people call it gamey is that if you focus on it you can build a snowball effect (more vassals = more claims to press etc) and rapidly conquer everything. Compare to other methods of expanding such as marriage (typical lag of 10-20 years +assassination cost and risk) or fabricating claims (lag of 1-10 years and gold cost) and it's far more powerful. Done right, once you have a hub of a few counties you can maintain a continuous offensive war until you own the whole map.

 

[Lwantssugar]

How does one go about doing this and keep the claimant as a vassal afterwards? The only times I've done it is where I personally was the claimant in question

 

[Cymsdale]

How does one go about doing this and keep the claimant as a vassal afterwards? The only times I've done it is where I personally was the claimant in question

If they are already a vassal (from you giving them a title), they will remain so, unless the claim you press is a level equal to your own (like you are a King and you press a vassal's king title, you won't have a vassal king under you).

 

[unmerged(88697)]

Not gamey. As Byzantium, I installed a newly made vassle as king of Hungary. As a vassilated state Hungary now pays Byzantium a tithe to, in effect, not go to war with it. This situation happened all the time in the middle ages, for instance Scotland was dominated by England (until Bannockburn) this way.

 

[groan]

Eh? Are you trying to hard to be funny or something?

I think it was his tongue in cheek way of saying exactly what you said. It's not 'gamey' it was built into the game from day one and is actually half way historical (cue historian buff coming in to thread to totally discredit me).

 

[Crater122]

I think it was his tongue in cheek way of saying exactly what you said. It's not 'gamey' it was built into the game from day one and is actually half way historical (cue historian buff coming in to thread to totally discredit me).

It's pretty much how Justinian made his gains. Supporting foreign claimants.

 

[Me_]

It is gamey. It also isn't. It depends on the fine print.
Inviting foreigners to press their claims is something that the AI is incapable of, so it is gamey if you use it to abuse the AI's weakness. It is, however, perfectly fine when used against other human players. Also marrying people and pushing their claims is something that the AI ocassionally does, even if not strategically, so I wouldn't call that very gamey.
It is gamey in the same way that playing the Byzantines with LoR is. A lot of LoR events are player-only and they are mostly positive. But just because something is gamey doesn't mean it should not be used. The AI has no brain, so using it is gamey as well. The only not-gamey way to play is to let the AI play on its own.

 

[Malibu Stacey]

It is gamey. It also isn't. It depends on the fine print.
Inviting foreigners to press their claims is something that the AI is incapable of, so it is gamey if you use it to abuse the AI's weakness. It is, however, perfectly fine when used against other human players. Also marrying people and pushing their claims is something that the AI ocassionally does, even if not strategically, so I wouldn't call that very gamey.
It is gamey in the same way that playing the Byzantines with LoR is. A lot of LoR events are player-only and they are mostly positive. But just because something is gamey doesn't mean it should not be used. The AI has no brain, so using it is gamey as well. The only not-gamey way to play is to let the AI play on its own.

That's like saying using betrothals is 'gamey' just because the AI never does it. Even though the AI will issue a marriage proposal the very day someone turns 16 which unless you sit and watch every child you want to marry of would be a complete waste of time for you not to use.

 

[Arizal]

You are right on that extent, Me_ : The AI should be able to use this feature. But there are surely other feature the AI uses less commonly than the player. It is not by removing them that we will make the game more interesting.