Solving the Crown Authority problem - an idea.

[Me_]

What if instead of five levels that can be changed once in a lifetime we had 6 but with the following limits:
1-2 - available to everyone;
3 - available at legalism lvl1;
4 - available at legalism lvl2;
5 - available at legalism lvl3;
6 - available at legalism lvl4.

That might make it considerably more difficult to max-out Crown Authority in a century.

Thoughts?

 

[omnipotentatus]

I like it, but there should also be considerable prestige requirements for increasing crown authority.

 

[Lessing]

Why is everybody so hot for high CA?

If you wanted to achieve something, it would be much easier with low CA. High CA is for control freaks who want to minmax/prettify their realm. It does not go well with expanding.

 

[riknap]

Why is everybody so hot for high CA?

If you wanted to achieve something, it would be much easier with low CA. High CA is for control freaks who want to minmax/prettify their realm. It does not go well with expanding.

I think it's because not everyone plays as the liege, and a lot here prefer playing as vassals. And if CA is high, you can barely do anything. And the AI is quite fond of increasing CA, especially since they have a tendency of playing musical thrones.

 

[Faulty]

Why is everybody so hot for high CA?

If you wanted to achieve something, it would be much easier with low CA. High CA is for control freaks who want to minmax/prettify their realm. It does not go well with expanding.

It stops your dukes conquering your direct vassal counts and stops them blobbing so easily, preventing civil wars by spreading the dukes out between factions. It also gives you bigger armies. I don't see what you mean about not helping with expanding.

 

[Mauer]

If you wanted to achieve something, it would be much easier with low CA. High CA is for control freaks who want to minmax/prettify their realm. It does not go well with expanding.

I think that's kinda the problem, with the AI raising it's own CA too quickly in realms that weren't as centralized historically.

 

[Lessing]

I think it's because not everyone plays as the liege, and a lot here prefer playing as vassals. And if CA is high, you can barely do anything. And the AI is quite fond of increasing CA, especially since they have a tendency of playing musical thrones.

So you want to prevent the liege from cranking up CA? What about the plots and CBs that exist for that purpose?

It stops your dukes conquering your direct vassal counts and stops them blobbing so easily, preventing civil wars by spreading the dukes out between factions. It also gives you bigger armies. I don't see what you mean about not helping with expanding.

High CA is detrimental to expansion. You get the maximum amount of levy at maximum levy law and with all your vassals at opinion +100. If you have low CA and +100 across the board, you get maximum levies. Cranking up CA is the opposite way to go at it: forcing unhappier vassals to give you minimum amounts of levy despite their opinion, and you prolly end up with LESS levies.

Which of the two strategies is better? Low CA. Because a lot of stuff depends on having good relations with your vassals. You will not achieve much with your vassals simmering close to the breaking point. And before you say "I can have high CA AND good relations because I gift and I release prisoners and I ..." : well hooray, you could do the same on low CA and save the money, and probably have higher levies. Adding to the fact is that the closer to operate to the critical 0 opinion threshold, the riskier it is, because each vassal below 0 pays less taxes. Not to mention the willingness to rebel or join factions. Not to mention the disaster when you have a bad succession, and high CA adds yet another penalty to the public opinion that you'd rather avoid.

Higher CA gives more minimum troops. It has other benefits, which, for 99% of your game time, are absolutely insubstantial. Revokation of infidel titles? How often does that happen? Titles cannot leave the realm through succession? How often does that happen when you expand aggressively? And who cares, you will conquer what you lost in no time.

The one big danger if you want to expand is a rebellion. High CA doesnt stop that. High CA rather contributes to it. And so there's a duke that grabs more and more land, so what? Just imprison him. Or excommunicate him. Or marry his heir with your children. Or one of the other thousand things that can be done. However, with low CA, he probably never rebels anyway, so why bother?

 

[A_Dane]

I could see people rushing for high CA to get to agnatic primogeniture.. Which is also quite unrealistic.

But really, I think it's mostly an AI issue - and don't just throw around "but you got plots for that". Yes you do, but the AI is not very fond of joining said faction, atleast not in my experience, and the way the game is currently set up in regards to levies, you kinda need the backing of atleast half the kingdom..

 

[Divi]

Move them one degree further - 2 to 6 corresponding to legalism 1 to 5.

No country should be able to be at absolute at the end of the game except in exceptional conditions so this fits just fine. Even high should be hard to reach.

 

[SweetHalcyHS]

Look, CA wasn't that high during the timeframe because they didn't try. If they could, they could get CA as high as they want just as in-game.

France, one of the big examples, only started to seriously try to ramp up CA after the HYW, because they got trampled on by England, whom they should have easily beaten, even without Joan d'Arc. The Byzantines had high CA - for all their plotting, the emperor was the emperor. We can just look at Justinian, who probably had Godlike CA or something, and that was centuries ago. Or, we can even look at England, whom under the Bastard, was High CA. William scourged the North, destroyed castles when they were built without permission, etc.

It should be the AI that's ramping the CA that should be tweaked, not CA itself.

 

[Lessing]

I could see people rushing for high CA to get to agnatic primogeniture.. Which is also quite unrealistic.

Yea, especially considering elective is much better than primogeniture.

 

[A_Dane]

Yea, especially considering elective is much better than primogeniture.

That, IMO, is completely relative.

I've had my fair share of problems with elective, especially when I'm expanding a lot.

Personally I don't powergame to get the most capable leader on my throne.

 

[Divi]

Look, CA wasn't that high during the timeframe because they didn't try. If they could, they could get CA as high as they want just as in-game.

France, one of the big examples, only started to seriously try to ramp up CA after the HYW, because they got trampled on by England, whom they should have easily beaten, even without Joan d'Arc. The Byzantines had high CA - for all their plotting, the emperor was the emperor. We can just look at Justinian, who probably had Godlike CA or something, and that was centuries ago. Or, we can even look at England, whom under the Bastard, was High CA. William scourged the North, destroyed castles when they were built without permission, etc.

It should be the AI that's ramping the CA that should be tweaked, not CA itself.

They tried.

William's heirs lost many civil wars.

The French had wars that in game terms would be to reduce CA well after the Hundred years' war, including the Guerre Folle and (1490s) the Fronde (17th century).

The Salians tried to reinforce imperial authority and lost everything including the duchy of Franconia.

They tried and nobody had the wealth or powerbase to pull it off in the time period. Claiming otherwise is being ignorant of medieval history.

 

[Mauer]

High CA is detrimental to expansion. You get the maximum amount of levy at maximum levy law and with all your vassals at opinion +100. If you have low CA and +100 across the board, you get maximum levies. Cranking up CA is the opposite way to go at it: forcing unhappier vassals to give you minimum amounts of levy despite their opinion, and you prolly end up with LESS levies.

There's more to High CA than just levies, and yes, you can achieve many of those other things via other means, that doesn't mean everybody should just disregard ramping up their CA because you don't find it useful. Not everyone plays aggressive expansionist games.

 

[merserm]

I agree high CA makes the game unfun/boring for everyone except the Emperor/King in question.

That said can anyone tell me how to mod the Negative opinion modifier for CA? I'd like to Double the negatives at Med, High and Absolute.

Thanks

 

[Lessing]

There's more to High CA than just levies

which is?

Not everyone plays aggressive expansionist games.

well yea. my entire comment was based on expansionist viewpoint, as I said before.

 

[riknap]

I agree high CA makes the game unfun/boring for everyone except the Emperor/King in question.

That said can anyone tell me how to mod the Negative opinion modifier for CA? I'd like to Double the negatives at Med, High and Absolute.

Thanks

It's in decisions/crown_laws.txt

 

[giancarlo]

I think the race for high CA makes things more interesting. If I am the vassal, i usually work to gain allies and reduce the CA. I have successfully done so 3x in my current game as an Italian Duke in the HRE. It has led to think on a local scale and work to marry my family with powerful nobles in the HRE to contain the emperor, needless to say the Emperor is now severely weakened and has lost a lot of family land which they gave out.

 

[sorrowofwind]

Personally I actually hope high CA would somewhat limit plotting. I only play as a vassal (and only start from a count) and sometimes I want to play peacefully. However, once, I gave turf to my character's son, and within a month my liege revoked it without major notice screen pop out. Maybe with (improved) high CA, the king can interfere the dukes/counts' conflicts or something, like I transfer a baron to the king's control then king'll take care of the duke or something similar? I'm really tired of seeing lieges after lieges using plot to revoke land from a lowly count under high CA, yet never see kings revoking land from these aggressive dukes.

 

[tuareg109]

The only answer:
Constantly expand by inviting claimants or fabricating claims, educate your vassals' heirs yourself to get good traits and an opinion bonus from them (as well as curtailing the -50 "ambitious" penalty), and by revoking and imprisoning old revolters.