Struggle is a Pandora's Box

[Paragon Badger]

Firstly, the Struggle is really cool conceptually. It opens up a lot of game play. But there's just one problem... it also taints the entire rest of the game.

Just during the Opportunity Phase, all involved characters get access to... Befriend, Demand Payment, Abduct, Claim Throne, Fabricate Hook. These are abilities granted by lifestyle perks representing the devotion of a good deal of your lifespan, a decade at the very least. To get all of those naturally, you'd need to dip into the Diplomacy, Stewardship, and Intrigue trees. Every single ruler in Iberia gets them for free.

During Hostility, all involved characters get an additional hostile scheme. This is the Level 10 ability of an Intrigue Court, accessible to only Kings with a very grand court and a Bellicose or Communal culture.

Likewise, Conciliation gives all involved characters an additional personal scheme, the Level 10 ability of a Diplomacy Court or the final bonus of the Gory Legacy (but just for Sway in that case)

On top of a MYRIAD of bonuses. Far far far too many to name here. An absurd amount of bonuses and penalties. Huge ones like +50% befriend scheme power or +50% enemy fatal casualties. Just for being there and existing on the peninsula at a certain time. These bonuses are both monumentally large while at the same time being just one out of several dozen that you need to keep track of. It's a laundry list of massive bonuses that you'd see tethered to a culture tradition or a religious tenet.

I have enjoyed playing in Iberia just because of the sheer amount of broken freedom the Struggle gives you. How could I resist being able to make three seduce schemes simultaneously and cuck every single independent ruler and vassal in Iberia? But this is a Pandora's Box of features. Aside from the annoyance of the phase changes changing your playstyle... why would you ever want to end the Struggle? The renown, maybe, but ending the struggle suddenly returns you to normal and actually limits your options compared to the ridiculous freedom you had while it was ongoing.

Now every time you start a new game outside of Iberia, just know that you could have instead selected a character who is just getting 5 lifestyle perks for free.

The struggle is a very cool and super fun... but wow is it NOT gonna be good for the game as a whole. It's a Pandora's Box of messy implementation that I'd expect from an overambitious modding team... and you can't just stuff it back into the box now that people have paid for it.

 

[The Shacks]

It works for me personally, all felt fitting. But I see your concern forsure.

 

[YellowPress]

Ending struggle means more stable vassals

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

Or you can see it the other side. This freedom could be given to every character on the map, with huge malus, and the perk just give you the counter bonus. (perhaps not the double schemes tho). I personnaly won't be able to play anywhere else on the map now, because I'll miss this freedom and the ability invite a neighbor to a hunt, or try to be friend with him, because you need a perk to become friend with someone.

 

[SeraphAscending]

I haven't played yet, so i have to ask:
Are the unlocked schemes unlock to be used freely or only against other involved characters?

Because that would make a significant difference, but i do see your concern, overall.
Maybe there should be additional limitations to the "normal" befriend schemes that are universal. (i.e. only involved characters as targets if you don't have the normally requird perk.)

 

[PDX-Trinexx]

Are the unlocked schemes unlock to be used freely or only against other involved characters?

All of the hostile schemes you gain access to from Struggle phases should only be applicable against other Involved characters.

 

[YellowPress]

All of the hostile schemes you gain access to from Struggle phases should only be applicable against other Involved characters.

I can purchase a truce with rulers outside the struggle so some mechanics leak

 

[The Shacks]

Can use many of them on Interlopers too (Yemenis near Aragon 1066 etc.) but thats fine. So far nothing has felt out of place. Actually having a very logical, fun, storydriven gameplay experience in CKII for once. Mostly playing on very slow for the feels though, so it could still all go wrong
Small thing but disinheriting kids, especially now that it will be more prevalent should make that child's mother unhappy, especially if you have a primary heir by a different mother/former wife.

Is there no event chains for El-Cid though by the way in the style of some of the CK2 character events back in the day. Only thing I got for him was some of my vassals being unhappy about him when I first nicked him off Castille. Or did I just get unlucky?

 

[RexTotiusBritanniae]

I agree with the sentiment here. In my first game I conquered most of Iberia as Asturias and resolved the Struggle with Asturleonese dominance, but afterwards it felt a little stale. I also found the clash option to be a little too OP for my liking - I felt like it made my reconquista too easy. But with all that being said, I loved the flavor and events.

 

[Dionysus42]

Yeah, people have been sleeping on a big flaw of this game being how so much basic gameplay is locked behind perks. The inability to make friends without dedicating years of your life to 'diplomacy', the fact that everything has half a decade or more cooldowns as the only real attempt at balance (consider how stress would never be an issue if you weren't arbitrary restricted in your ability to hunt)

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

agree with the sentiment here. In my first game I conquered most of Iberia as Asturias and resolved the Struggle with Asturleonese dominance, but afterwards it felt a little stale. I also found the clash option to be a little too OP for my liking - I felt like it made my reconquista too easy. But with all that being said, I loved the flavor and events.

Agree, there's imho a problem with the new attack at will cb (but I like the Pillage one). But is that the struggle mechanic in itself?

 

[RexTotiusBritanniae]

Agree, there's imho a problem with the new attack at will cb (but I like the Pillage one). But is that the struggle mechanic in itself?

Wait, I never came across either of those two, probably because I've only played the single Asturias game I mentioned above. By pillage do you mean "border raid"? I never did any of those because it felt kind of pointless - I'd rather seize a county than get a bit of gold

 

[Dionysus42]

They mean the CB that targets all neighboring provinces they have, and which takes Prestige to attack other faiths and Piety inter-faith. It allows you to take massive bites out of a realm by targeting the little ones around them first, to get the max number of provinces in one war​

 

[RexTotiusBritanniae]

Ahh, the "struggle clash" CB.

Yeah, I thought it was a little OP

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

e. By pillage do you mean "border raid"?

Yes.
War at will cb should be border skirmish or something like that in English. I play in my own language when unmoded so I don't know their name

 

[Pilchowski]

The devs have said the mechanic is going to be used in some other for other regions, but I do worry this will create a 'tiering' problem where cultures in a struggle area are significantly strong than one outside of it. Iberia is its own little corner of the map, but other places might not be as lucky.

 

[Jarolleon]

Yeah, people have been sleeping on a big flaw of this game being how so much basic gameplay is locked behind perks. The inability to make friends without dedicating years of your life to 'diplomacy', the fact that everything has half a decade or more cooldowns as the only real attempt at balance (consider how stress would never be an issue if you weren't arbitrary restricted in your ability to hunt)

This is probably why characters live so improbably long, the perk system makes early death too costly, especially with a child heir.

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

Just during the Opportunity Phase, all involved characters get access to... Befriend, Demand Payment, Abduct, Claim Throne, Fabricate Hook. These are abilities granted by lifestyle perks representing the devotion of a good deal of your lifespan, a decade at the very least. To get all of those naturally, you'd need to dip into the Diplomacy, Stewardship, and Intrigue trees. Every single ruler in Iberia gets them for free.

The bigger problem in the base game that I see, that the DLC studio to their credit are correcting, is why are all these fun mechanics hidden behind lifestyle trees and made very difficult to access and enjoy, and almost impossible to have two or three of?

The way perk's gatekeep mechanics is anti-fun. Having the struggle mechanic open them all up is a big step forward in making the game more enjoyable to play.

 

[Atossa]

The bigger problem in the base game that I see, that the DLC studio to their credit are correcting, is why are all these fun mechanics hidden behind lifestyle trees and made very difficult to access and enjoy, and almost impossible to have two or three of?

The way perk's gatekeep mechanics is anti-fun. Having the struggle mechanic open them all up is a big step forward in making the game more enjoyable to play.

Yep. Also the lifestyle perk are clearly intended to be part of the roleplaying aspect of the game as each path and choice has different events and storytelling. Tying basic human actions such as, try to make friends with someone, behind that defeats the purpose.

 

[Paragon Badger]

Perhaps the lifestyle tree, instead of enabling certain actions, should greatly enhance their success rate? That is already how it works with Seduce and Murder. Honestly, I think it's a little backwards that Befriend is perk-locked but Seduce is not. Medieval lords were probably doing a lot more befriending than seducing in those times... CK2 had an 'antagonize' action, which I greatly enjoyed. It was kind of a lesser version of the murder scheme.

But returning to the struggle system... I think it does too much and PDX knows it. That's why the characteristics of each phase are divided into Military, Cultural, Religious tooltips. The Struggle mechanic feels like a multiplayer HOI4 lobby. If you're unfamiliar, what I mean by that is that the host often has a very clear vision of what the game SHOULD be played like... so often there's a literal google doc full of server rules to ensure that crazy meme stuff doesn't happen.

Here, I found an example from Reddit. This is typical of a server's rules to ensure a balanced vaguely 'historical' multiplayer match;

1. NO F***ING PAUSING
2. No Coups or Boosting another nation against their will
3. Cannot mass delete your army to only 1 division for training
4. Majors must stay their historical ideology
5. No spiking tension unnecessarily (E.G. Justifying on a random country)
6. May only send volunteers to one nation at a time
7. No tank division volunteers
8. No mass releasing puppets; limited to one per year (Exception: Japan may release Cambodia and Laos for a player Siam to take and form their formable nation)
9. Cannot release puppets in an active warzone
10. Cannot request people’s land without prior consent
11. Must maintain starting factions with the exception that Japan can disband their faction and join the Axis
12. No deleting factories with the exception of removing dockyards as a minor to make space once you have run out of building slots.
13. No justifying outside of national focus or if you have cores and claims before Danzig or war,1940, or 100% world tension.
14. Cannot Join factions until 1938
15. Do not abuse exploits (ask the host if unsure of what is an exploit)
16. No disbanding or changing templates of divisions that are encircled, about to be encircled or being attacked while being transported at sea.
17. Cannot spawn divisions in a province that is under attack, or being moved into by the enemy
18. No airwing size below 100 unless it is air volunteers, carriers, or less than 100 planes
19. No using Force attack, Last stand, or Siege artillery
20. Cannot put your navy on do not engage unless retreating from a lost naval battle
21. Cannot Naval invade with volunteer units unless the enemy has no navy
22. Cannot Naval invade from territory that is neutral to the country you are attacking
23. Cannot disband your navy unless you’re on low manpower while on service by requirement
24. Cannot use strat bomber tech beyond strat bomber 1
25. Only countries with unique focus trees can use nukes
26. Cannot use Submarine 4s
27. No Renaming weapons so they get used first in lend-lease before other nations
28. Tank Division design rule, 1 type of infantry(Cavalry, Motorized, Mechanized, Leg Infantry) per one type of armor(All variants of armor)
29. Cannot use mines
30. Nations with default focus trees cannot use Kamikazes
31. Only the Soviet Union can send land volunteers during the Sino-Japanese war
32. If an enemy capital is encircled and no enemy player units are in the capital you must take it
33. No using spies for pressure trade or propaganda missions
34. Paratroopers must be at least 10 width to paradrop
35. No deleting naval order after launching invasion

Axis Rules:

1. Germany cannot guarantee or ally Finland if they sign the Molotov pact until after the Winter war
2. Italy must finish the war with Ethiopia by July of 1936 or else any nation is allowed to support them.
3. Spain cannot join a faction during the civil war
4. Spain cannot join the axis until Germany does the “Befriend Spain focus” or their post civil war spirit expires
5. Japan must declare war on China before 1st January 1938
6. Japan can only Kamikaze in Sea of Japan, Coast of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea
7. Japan can only invade the Soviet Union if India has capitulated

Allies Rules:

1. Cannot guarantee Portugal or call them into the allies if there is no Spain player
2. Cannot deny Rhineland
3. Cannot accept China, or any other Chinese minors into the faction unless the Allies are at war with Japan
4. Cannot give China naval docking rights to convoy raid Japan
5. The USA cannot do focus union representation act
6. The USA must do focus Neutrality act
7. The USA cannot join the allies/lend-lease/send volunteers until France has fallen, it is June of 1940, Japan is at war with the UK, or the axis has captured a state in the UK
8. The USA must demand compensation from the Japanese in the Panay incident
9. The USA cannot use its focuses to declare on any other nation besides the Axis nations and Japan
10. Mexico must join the allies and cannot map paint Latin America
11. The Netherlands cannot flood the country and must be declared on if Germany does around the Maginot
12. Brazil and Mexico cannot call the US into any war until the US has joined the allies

Commintern Rules:

1. USSR cannot lend-lease China or PRC prior to Sino Japanese War
2. USSR cannot strat bomb Japanese ports in China, because interception is broken
3. USSR must accept concessions with Finland if Finland is a player and the Molotov Pact is signed and have to accept the event immediately

It's... a huge pain in the ass to keep track of this stuff but HOI4 server hosts feel obligated to create these huge laundry lists of house rules if they want the game to play out in a sane vaguely historical manner. That's what the Struggle feels like, a laundry list of house rules to make sure the desired outcome is achieved.

Now in the Struggle, most of these things are additions to the player's capabilities instead of subtractions which makes it feel really good. But now everywhere else kinda... sucks in comparison. Having just finished an achievement run outside of Iberia (Kings to the Seventh Generation), I immediately felt the power creep. If the Struggle is just going to let me have more freedom, I want a struggle *everywhere*. In which case, what would make Iberia's special? Why buy the DLC? It's gonna be a major problem...

I have a feeling that this DLC might be the most contentious one since Sunset Invasion...