Power base dilution in the game

[IsaacCAT]

Characters - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

Power base is very important in the game as it represents the power that characters accumulate, decreases loyalty and it is used to trigger civil wars.

However, as the game plays, power base dilutes to the point of almost irrelevance, even that most of the power base sources area percentage of the total number.

The way power base dilutes is clear with population and military units. At the start of the game almost all population and military units will be under one or two characters. Making them very powerful. However, when the nation grows, the percentage of the total population/units is divided by many characters (governors and generals) making it trivial.

What are your ideas to have power base relevant through the game?

 

[IsaacCAT]

One idea could be that not all population or armies are equal.

Thus some pops and cohorts will not increase total population or armies for the calculation of power base.

POPs

One could say that governors of non integrated POPs should not accrue Power Base. The non integrated POPs may rebell but not give power to a governor from an oppressing nation.

This will reduce the power base dilution only to those regions that have integrated POPs, giving governors of these regions the power to create a civil war.

Armies

Cohorts that are loyal to a general should count 10x to the total number of armies.

This way a veteran general with many loyal cohorts will have more power base than a rookie that has just been received a levy/legion.

 

[Herennius]

Interesting topic - and yes, I share the impression and opinion that powerbase dilution over time is a problem (especially because it tends to spare bigger empires, where internal threats should be bigger).

For the suggested changes, the one with non-integrated pops not helping a governor sounds interesting.
Higher impact of loyal cohorts over (only) commanded ones makes sense as well, though here a problem would arise with the current implementation of mercs in relation to powerbase - they heavily affect it...and they draw most out of the loyal cohort factor, so a change in that direction might even worsen this... Not sure how to fix that...mercs affecting powerbase doesn't even feel unrealistic...it is just that the current implementation feels a bit too exploitish, where a bit of cash and a short hire of mercs can supress any CW by resetting the timer.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Interesting topic - and yes, I share the impression and opinion that powerbase dilution over time is a problem (especially because it tends to spare bigger empires, where internal threats should be bigger).

For the suggested changes, the one with non-integrated pops not helping a governor sounds interesting.
Higher impact of loyal cohorts over (only) commanded ones makes sense as well, though here a problem would arise with the current implementation of mercs in relation to powerbase - they heavily affect it...and they draw most out of the loyal cohort factor, so a change in that direction might even worsen this... Not sure how to fix that...mercs affecting powerbase doesn't even feel unrealistic...it is just that the current implementation feels a bit too exploitish, where a bit of cash and a short hire of mercs can supress any CW by resetting the timer.

You are right that mercs cohorts are loyal to the general.

I have looked at game files and sadly I could not see where powerbase is calculated in order to change it. But sure, mercs loyal cohorts should not count to the total powerbase of the nation.

 

[Bovrick]

It's where Families/Factions should pick up the slack to consolidate Powerbase back into a few agents to worry about.

 

[Jiben]

Honestly just let large landholders or army commanders revolt on their own ck style without reaching some arbitrary threshhold. Sure some revolts will be "doomed" or will require the state being busy with other things but it should not need to be nothing or half the country revolts in civil war.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Honestly just let large landholders or army commanders revolt on their own ck style without reaching some arbitrary threshhold. Sure some revolts will be "doomed" or will require the state being busy with other things but it should not need to be nothing or half the country revolts in civil war.

But that will disantangle the nice not of characters in your nation.

The whole is bigger than its parts, knowing that your characters can be generals, officers, admirals, etc… in different times of their life and they are part of one patrician family that will get power base through the prestige that accruing jobs gives.

I really would like to have a family log to follow their spoils, and how a family power rises and falls with time.

 

[lucaluca]

It's a bug that they never fixed, and that leads to civil wars with 2-3 provinces and tiny armies.. I hope they will fix it at some point because it basically breaks the game. It seems the scaling is broken, so small countries are still in reasonable condition but for large countries it doesn't work.

 

[BloodAsp]

I kinda like system as it is now.
Civil wars should only happen when you %^&* up - you give one family\individual too much power, or your nation is unstable (AG\STAB\WE high for long time).

Idea that unhappy characters should just revolt for sake of it is stupid - it's a suicide to take your 3 militias or whatever vs 4 legions and levies from whole empire.
Unhappy characters (no job + family scorned +++) could just leave, escape\migrate to another country or retire.
Or just accumulate holdings and wait for next ruler.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Wealth isn't a factor in loyalty, and perhaps it should be. Additionally, if governorships were paid not with wages but by a portion of the region's revenue, governors in wealthy regions could gain enough to tip the scales just a bit towards disloyalty (and it won't take much to tip the scales back into balance)

Another option would be to make a small loyalty malus for "provincial" governors. Rome's history abounds with both miserable governors at the edge, far from the city itself, as well as governors with large armies who become rather disloyal when far from watchful eyes. This could either be managed as:

1. A number of "core" regions, limited by country rank and tech (say, the most civilized, wealthiest, and closest to home ones), with a loyalty debuff outside them
2. A loyalty debuff to governors considered "periphery" (say, not adjacent to capital region and not enclosed by your land)

Importantly, I wouldn't impose a "distance from capital" stacking debuff, as we don't want to force players into a silly game of finding optimal capital placement.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Wealth isn't a factor in loyalty, and perhaps it should be. Additionally, if governorships were paid not with wages but by a portion of the region's revenue, governors in wealthy regions could gain enough to tip the scales just a bit towards disloyalty (and it won't take much to tip the scales back into balance)

Another option would be to make a small loyalty malus for "provincial" governors. Rome's history abounds with both miserable governors at the edge, far from the city itself, as well as governors with large armies who become rather disloyal when far from watchful eyes. This could either be managed as:

1. A number of "core" regions, limited by country rank and tech (say, the most civilized, wealthiest, and closest to home ones), with a loyalty debuff outside them
2. A loyalty debuff to governors considered "periphery" (say, not adjacent to capital region and not enclosed by your land)

Importantly, I wouldn't impose a "distance from capital" stacking debuff, as we don't want to force players into a silly game of finding optimal capital placement.

The idea of decreasing loyalt by wealth is a bit contentious. Why a wealthy individual will not pursue a position in the government as an ambition instead of rebelling?

I would tie wealth with events, like it is now, where the wealthy characters ask for a position in the government and if they do not achieve it, they have a loyalty penalty for many years.

On Governors, they are paid a portion of the region's revenue already:

Position - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

Low loyalty for governors at the edge of the empire is a good idea. However, it must be tied up with the existing system not to lose out with this change.

As it is now in the early stage of the game, edge regions will have less POPs than core regions, thus power base will be greater in core regions. If we decrease loyalty for non core regions, we can have a cascade to civil war in the early game.

I would like to have an event, where a wealthy/prominent governor in a border province asks for a position in the government, like the other event mentioned before. In case the player does not provide that position, there will be a loyalty penalty to the governor, making him a contributor to a future civil war.

 

[religiousphanatic]

Characters - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

Power base is very important in the game as it represents the power that characters accumulate, decreases loyalty and it is used to trigger civil wars.

However, as the game plays, power base dilutes to the point of almost irrelevance, even that most of the power base sources area percentage of the total number.

The way power base dilutes is clear with population and military units. At the start of the game almost all population and military units will be under one or two characters. Making them very powerful. However, when the nation grows, the percentage of the total population/units is divided by many characters (governors and generals) making it trivial.

What are your ideas to have power base relevant through the game?

Power base is simple in this game, it corelates with prestige of the family. If family haves negative prestige (yes it can have negative) power base of that family members stays at 0 and you will never have a civil war if you keep other families at negative prestige.

 

[Herennius]

Power base is simple in this game, it corelates with prestige of the family. If family haves negative prestige (yes it can have negative) power base of that family members stays at 0 and you will never have a civil war if you keep other families at negative prestige.

Beside that I think reaching zero or negative prestige for families is hard to achieve (at least within normal gameplay - I hardly notice many situations where it drops and out of my head I don't even see what I need to exploit to make it happen)...does a family prestige of 0 really set power base of any character of that family to zero, meaning that even powerbase from other factors e.g. (like office, holdings, cohorts) is the ignored? Or does it only mean that the big chunk of extra powerbase for the family head is gone? While in the former case you are technically right then that powerbase is no longer factor (though I'm not sure if it makes the game better/more interesting), in the latter case I think this can also heavily backfire - in most cases not families are a problem at the same time and civil war is triggers when a certain percentage of overall powerbase is illoyal. If I now achieve to remove all family-based powerbase the pool dwindles a lot - and then I imagine that other characters suddenly become a problem, because the counterweight is missing (like governors)

 

[Decius]

Power base is simple in this game, it corelates with prestige of the family. If family haves negative prestige (yes it can have negative) power base of that family members stays at 0 and you will never have a civil war if you keep other families at negative prestige.

I guess there is an exploit in the game, how you can easily achieve families having 0 prestige or even below

 

[religiousphanatic]

You do have a lot of questions and luckily i have all the answers

I guess there is an exploit in the game, how you can easily achieve families having 0 prestige or even below

Ofc there is , depends on the time in the campaign ,, the easiest is at start of the game by imprisoning the family members. Over time this will generate negative prestige and when it drops bellow 0 power base of that family becomes 0 . Even if loyalty is 0 character will not be able to generate civil war ..

Beside that I think reaching zero or negative prestige for families is hard to achieve (at least within normal gameplay - I hardly notice many situations where it drops and out of my head I don't even see what I need to exploit to make it happen)...does a family prestige of 0 really set power base of any character of that family to zero, meaning that even powerbase from other factors e.g. (like office, holdings, cohorts) is the ignored? Or does it only mean that the big chunk of extra powerbase for the family head is gone? While in the former case you are technically right then that powerbase is no longer factor (though I'm not sure if it makes the game better/more interesting), in the latter case I think this can also heavily backfire - in most cases not families are a problem at the same time and civil war is triggers when a certain percentage of overall powerbase is illoyal. If I now achieve to remove all family-based powerbase the pool dwindles a lot - and then I imagine that other characters suddenly become a problem, because the counterweight is missing (like governors)

Basically in this game to trigger the civil war you need family head/s to be disloyal ,, maybe not if your nation is small but proportionally to the size of the nation you need more powerfull characters to be disloyal to start the civil war . When nation size is big , one family head will not be enough, sometimes you need 3 disloyal ones to start a civil war.

Keeping family members imprisoned will generate negative prestige for that family and in some time it will become negative and power base of the family will be 0 .
Game can't make rebalance by making small characters enough to start a civil war , you need head of the family so if he haves negative prestige , power base is 0 ,, there is no civil wars and you can play with your own family only .

One modifier which you can use at start of new game too push family in negative is imprisoning and banishing their family members , each banish reduces i think 50 prestige, so , you will need 11 banishes to push family in negative prestige and / 0 power base,,, now im not sure do they keep generating negative prestige by being banished but i think they do if i remember correctly..

Yes it can backfire if you exploit civil wars to refresh loyalty of characters/provinces + to generate bonus PI , not having powerfull characters prevents you to have a civil war and since i know how to have 10 days civil wars i didnt use this mechanic a lot . I think maybe you could by making your pretenders unhappy to trigger the civil war..

Pool of characters is fine if you play with one family only,, cause they are greatfull family they multiply like mouses

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