Is the Byzantine Emperor (and probably most of his vassals) supposed to get an income of -30 per month every time they're forced to raise troops? I think it's from having so much heavy cavalry plus increased levy costs, but the sheer extent of it.
Project Balance
- Thread starter Meneth
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Is there no way to change the AI? My brother took my kingdom by force and he has nothing but 'good' (or noble) traits. Nothing ambitious or anything. It's kinda weird he keeps me imprisoned for life on the grounds that I have a "claim on his titles".
Yeah, actually, I forgot to bring this up myself. (Been way too busy the last month or so!) A few weeks ago my brother and I were playing a multiplayer PB game as Byzantine vassals and levies were so expensive that buying mercs seemed to be about the same monthly cost, if not slightly cheaper.
(Also, many apologies for not having any Faction system feedback. I really want to contribute, but I haven't gotten to play lately at all.)
A second faction revolt!
... yeah, this is so frustrating as to make any sizeable body of land uncontrollable. It doesn't matter if most of your vassals like you*, you sooner or later get a 'change this law or else' demand, and the rebellion consists of working out what places are under siege so you can stick soldiers on them. And by this point of the game (AKA still only on the second generation--well, third, the second one all died off...), nobles will somehow keep producing armies of 1000 or so once you've already beaten them once. Meanwhile, you keep getting Siege of X: Defeat, Battle of X: Victory (probably, unless your troops are that spread out) almost incessantly. As for actually winning this war? Seems to me that it's only possible--only--by cheating yourself a huge bunch of cash and hiring every mercenary band in the game. There's just too many small forces around otherwise, and as soon as you turn to attack one another three will lay siege to the unoccupied land.
So, by playing fairly, you effectively surrender all control over crown laws. Because being a well-liked ruler with a powerful demesne isn't enough to maintain authority for even a single generation.
*How many disliked me? Without the 'refused ultimatum' demand? Two. TWO, out of an empire with sixty direct vassals in it. If you're that admired and respected amongst the nobility, why would they take up arms against you? ... over free title revocation of infidels, no less, when there isn't a single non-orthodox duke.
This isn't helped by the impossibility of getting the rebelling faction to surrender (given the sheer amount of land they have), leading to getting most of your court back with a shiny new -50 opinion malus (because you refused their demands, and refused their demands recently), which necessitates locking them all up, which means a new round of revolts (easier to put down at least) as 100% success is impossible...
Using the SWMH map (which I am), I think even England would become effectively impossible to exert much in the way of authority over. :/
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End cost to put down this revolt in full: six years, 15k in cash.
If you get an average or bad ruler (bearing in mind that this one's a Genius Brilliant Strategist with no vices, several virtues, and high diplomacy), I can't see how you'd be able to exert any control over your own realm. And whilst revolts amongst the nobility were historically problematic, it's generally been possible to go several generations without the entire realm descending into chaos over a single law that's been in place for the better part of the last century.
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So, only about five years later, I get a demand from the autonomy faction to get rid of title revocation... again. They didn't follow through, but I... what. Oh, and the only non-imprisoned vassal with a negative opinion of me is some lowly count. And it's the same ruler. Who put down a revolt about title revocation.
... yeah, this is so frustrating as to make any sizeable body of land uncontrollable. It doesn't matter if most of your vassals like you*, you sooner or later get a 'change this law or else' demand, and the rebellion consists of working out what places are under siege so you can stick soldiers on them. And by this point of the game (AKA still only on the second generation--well, third, the second one all died off...), nobles will somehow keep producing armies of 1000 or so once you've already beaten them once. Meanwhile, you keep getting Siege of X: Defeat, Battle of X: Victory (probably, unless your troops are that spread out) almost incessantly. As for actually winning this war? Seems to me that it's only possible--only--by cheating yourself a huge bunch of cash and hiring every mercenary band in the game. There's just too many small forces around otherwise, and as soon as you turn to attack one another three will lay siege to the unoccupied land.
So, by playing fairly, you effectively surrender all control over crown laws. Because being a well-liked ruler with a powerful demesne isn't enough to maintain authority for even a single generation.
*How many disliked me? Without the 'refused ultimatum' demand? Two. TWO, out of an empire with sixty direct vassals in it. If you're that admired and respected amongst the nobility, why would they take up arms against you? ... over free title revocation of infidels, no less, when there isn't a single non-orthodox duke.
This isn't helped by the impossibility of getting the rebelling faction to surrender (given the sheer amount of land they have), leading to getting most of your court back with a shiny new -50 opinion malus (because you refused their demands, and refused their demands recently), which necessitates locking them all up, which means a new round of revolts (easier to put down at least) as 100% success is impossible...
Using the SWMH map (which I am), I think even England would become effectively impossible to exert much in the way of authority over. :/
_______________
End cost to put down this revolt in full: six years, 15k in cash.
If you get an average or bad ruler (bearing in mind that this one's a Genius Brilliant Strategist with no vices, several virtues, and high diplomacy), I can't see how you'd be able to exert any control over your own realm. And whilst revolts amongst the nobility were historically problematic, it's generally been possible to go several generations without the entire realm descending into chaos over a single law that's been in place for the better part of the last century.
_______________
So, only about five years later, I get a demand from the autonomy faction to get rid of title revocation... again. They didn't follow through, but I... what. Oh, and the only non-imprisoned vassal with a negative opinion of me is some lowly count. And it's the same ruler. Who put down a revolt about title revocation.
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Well, levies should certainly be expensive. Sounds like there might be some issue making them too expensive though; they should definitely be quite a bit cheaper than mercs (except maybe the Varangian Guard, of course).
What can be done with the AI is rather limited I'm afraid.
That part sounds mostly like an issue I can't do much about due to how the AI works. Once I put in an event letting people who voted against revolting have a chance of leaving the faction that should help alleviate it though.
It is worth noting that in CKII, it is implausibly easy to get everyone to love you. They'll love even extremely mediocre rulers.
PB tries to alleviate that to some extent, but the problem remains to such an extent that you really shouldn't consider an opinion below 30 or so to actually be positive beyond simply "eh, this guy is an okay person, maybe".
Positive opinion is so much easier to get than negative opinion unless you're an absolute tyrant, and there's limits to how much can actually be done about it.
Also, I'd recommend you take a look at the list of factors that make them vote more positively and negatively when it comes to the faction:
Note that all the traits are the traits of the faction member, not the liege.
It's possible I should increase the factor from opinion a bit. Maybe a 50% increase or so.
Suggestions for further factors (both positive and negative) would also be appreciated
Looking at that, it's implausibly likely you're going to get revolts unless you drop all crown laws to the lowest point. Any revocation allowed and an internal peace (because letting dukes wage war on each other and gather vast demesnes is a recipe for disaster) already balances out the maximum positive opinion. So unless you get really lucky with their traits, you're facing a revolt from just being kinda liked rather than adored.
Why does ambitious not add a negative trait, though?
Let's have the hypothetical example of a small kingdom, four or so dukes + demesne. There's a complete King's Peace, Protected Inheritance, Max Levies, Infidel Revocation--the lot. The King's thrown a lot of feasts, given out loads of money, prestige like mad, and his father was the last one to change a crown law before dying. So, everybody likes him 100. Overall, he's on -7. Even if those four dukes are all his brothers (or sons), that's still an overall malus of -3. Unless all his family is saintly, there's a big problem.
And so he puts the rebellion down (since it's a small place), revokes all the titles, and hands them out again. It repeats! So he puts them all in jail and gives up on the feudal system.
Maybe there should be some sort of opinion bonus for not tampering with crown laws?
Why does ambitious not add a negative trait, though?
Let's have the hypothetical example of a small kingdom, four or so dukes + demesne. There's a complete King's Peace, Protected Inheritance, Max Levies, Infidel Revocation--the lot. The King's thrown a lot of feasts, given out loads of money, prestige like mad, and his father was the last one to change a crown law before dying. So, everybody likes him 100. Overall, he's on -7. Even if those four dukes are all his brothers (or sons), that's still an overall malus of -3. Unless all his family is saintly, there's a big problem.
And so he puts the rebellion down (since it's a small place), revokes all the titles, and hands them out again. It repeats! So he puts them all in jail and gives up on the feudal system.
Maybe there should be some sort of opinion bonus for not tampering with crown laws?
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One of the reason I want more factors, and might strengthen the opinion factors.
It does; I simply forgot to include it on that list when I made it
I really can't see maximal crown authority in the CKII timeframe being particularly realistic. Especially not in the first couple of centuries, though maybe in the last century or two.
I might add a small modifier based on legalism tech so that over time vassals become more accepting of the decay of the feudal system, like happened historically. There's 8 levels of legalism, so something like -2 at 0 and adding 1 for each tier might be reasonable, for a +6 factor towards the end of the campaign.
Any way of adding a positive factor if there's been a rebellion (both within a certain timespan and the ruler's... well, rule)?
... also, is it possible for vassal republics and theocracies to join the factions? If it is, wouldn't they get a bonus for... well, not being feudal vassals in the normal sense?
I like it. It gives something you can do about the negatives other than cross your fingers and hope for the right traits. As it is you can make things worse but not better.
... also, is it possible for vassal republics and theocracies to join the factions? If it is, wouldn't they get a bonus for... well, not being feudal vassals in the normal sense?
I like it. It gives something you can do about the negatives other than cross your fingers and hope for the right traits. As it is you can make things worse but not better.
I've now added -2 to +6 depending on legalism tech.
I've also increased all the opinion factors by 50% except for 10+ and 30+, so at 75+ you now get a factor of +10 instead of +8, but at -75 you get -12 instead of -8. So high opinion is a bit better now, but really low opinion is quite a bit worse.
It might be possible to code in a bonus for there having been a revolt, yeah.
Republics and theocracies can indeed join. Currently they don't get any special handling, but I'll probably give them some in the future, yeah.
Bear with me on this, my knowledge is very limited, but:
# AI creation weight
chance = {
factor = 1
If I understand this line correctly in the context of faction creation, would reducing the factor to, say, ".5" decrease the chance for creation by 50%?
# AI creation weight
chance = {
factor = 1
If I understand this line correctly in the context of faction creation, would reducing the factor to, say, ".5" decrease the chance for creation by 50%?
The only other thing I can think of would be as a reaction certain ruler traits/achievements--for instance, if the ruler is the Saoshyant, mended the Great Schism, remade the Kingdom of Israel, or something similar, they would probably not have to worry about their same-religion vassals staging an uprising in their life.
Essentially, yes. Though exactly how it works only Paradox knows. It is entirely possible it simply has to pass a certain threshold for someone to join.
True true. Remind me of that after the 3rd when I'm back to a proper computer and can look into stuff like that more easily. Bit difficult to do anything that'd require real testing when CKII takes four minutes to even start on this laptop :/
Time to see if I have better realm stability with the other changes, at least. XD
Well... I got asked to give up a county for some reason.
More pressingly, that money issue with the Byzantines? If I raise my levies and ships, I lost -115 a month. Normally I'm at around +25-+30 in the same span of time--so to actually raise my forces for a month costs nearly five times more than I make.
Well... I got asked to give up a county for some reason.
More pressingly, that money issue with the Byzantines? If I raise my levies and ships, I lost -115 a month. Normally I'm at around +25-+30 in the same span of time--so to actually raise my forces for a month costs nearly five times more than I make.
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Minor bug reports:
The coastal_county_republic CB has jewish for a religion group instead of jewish_group
The shia_caliphate_rising CB has a reference to d_shiite which should probably be k_shiite
The coastal_county_republic CB has jewish for a religion group instead of jewish_group
The shia_caliphate_rising CB has a reference to d_shiite which should probably be k_shiite
Okay, so most of that cost was ships. The cost for my levy (once it was cut down to 7k) was still -30 a month, though. :/
Yeah, in my case in the game with my brother we were purely fighting on land and no ships were involved.
Another very minor bug:
Both the create_hre and create_hre_france decisions currently fire meneth.427, even though if I'm not mistaken create_hre_france should be firing meneth.437 instead.
Both the create_hre and create_hre_france decisions currently fire meneth.427, even though if I'm not mistaken create_hre_france should be firing meneth.437 instead.