Studies on Tribal Rebalance

[Iosue Yu]

So the Druids, Augurs and Priests would be aiming at some future updates on Religion?

I would appreciate depicting more Religion for all countries across the board for the whole game. It feels if politics, especially Republican, is not related to the State Religions, you don't understand both Antiquity and Medieval times. No idea why most of the countries have been designed to be somewhat secular.

I think even the Patrician families all sent their kids to learn under some priesthood in the temples. So having good relationships with the gods and their servants should be a prerequisite on participating politics. This one I am sure.

No idea on the Druids in particular then. But if Romans and Greeks were really fanatically faithful, the Tribes should be too.

 

[Autonomous]

3.1: Levies take from all pop, regardless of city or not. It sounds like what you really want is artificially inflated tribal levies, which seems like a stretch. Why would tribes better mobilize their pops than civilized states? The way to get larger armies is migrating, and so mobilizing your entire population.

There is a problem here with the ridiculous equilibrium slave ratio in tribes. Half the population? 10%~20% would seem more reasonable, and it would be a considerable boost to tribal fighting power.

There's also a general problem with the low granularity of the simulation producing degenerate behaviour for small states with low populations- skewed levy comps due to rounding, inability to reliably meet the minimum numbers for sieging a fort, limited returns on increasing population due to floor bounce. That's not, I hasten to note, a problem with tribes per se, but with all low pop states under this system. An "easy" fix would be to simply increase the granularity of the system- reduce men per cohort (to 200?) and increase cohorts per pop to match. Though, to lift a seven pop Irish OPM off the floor you'd need to quadruple the cohort to pop ratios, which is going to mean a 10k stack is going to have eighty cohorts in it, which seems like it could be a problem. Can you imagine that lil battle chessboard if it had 160 squares to a line, lmao.

(I note that, despite using very similar systems, this is not a problem CK2 ever ran into, because it had no concept of cohorts and levy blobs could be as large or as small as they needed to be).

It might also help if light infantry didn't suck so dang much.

 

[Todie]

There is a problem here with the ridiculous equilibrium slave ratio in tribes. Half the population? 10%~20% would seem more reasonable, and it would be a considerable boost to tribal fighting power.

There's also a general problem with the low granularity of the simulation producing degenerate behaviour for small states with low populations- skewed levy comps due to rounding, inability to reliably meet the minimum numbers for sieging a fort, limited returns on increasing population due to floor bounce. That's not, I hasten to note, a problem with tribes per se, but with all low pop states under this system.

Another option would be to reduce the garrison size for tribes (while potentially tweaking defensiveness / assault ability / provincial fort capacity to compensate)

 

[Decius]

So the Druids, Augurs and Priests would be aiming at some future updates on Religion?

I would appreciate depicting more Religion for all countries across the board for the whole game. It feels if politics, especially Republican, is not related to the State Religions, you don't understand both Antiquity and Medieval times. No idea why most of the countries have been designed to be somewhat secular.

I think even the Patrician families all sent their kids to learn under some priesthood in the temples. So having good relationships with the gods and their servants should be a prerequisite on participating politics. This one I am sure.

No idea on the Druids in particular then. But if Romans and Greeks were really fanatically faithful, the Tribes should be too.

In the antiquity religion played a "strange" role in comparison to religion since the middle ages. First the polytheistic religions were pretty tolerant towards other polytheistic religions and even some monotheistic ones (one religion about another: "they are basically the same as our gods, just with other names and minor differences" - casual description of a professor at university). You just got problems, if you didn't adapt some rituals into your life (christians e.g. were also not best friends/hated by the Romans the first few hundred years, because they didn't follow rituals of other religions (were/are not allowed to follow other gods by their religion). While the high priests played a major role, religion wasn't as important to the common people as it is since the middle ages. So the impact of religion on pop happiness in I:R is ahistorical, but I'm fine with it. Common people attended to some rituals, festivals and public holidays within a year, but other than that you were able to ignore religion without having to fear negative consequences by the other people or the "church"/religious office holders. Of course most people were religious and Atheist were an absolute minority, but religion didn't play such an important role within the society as later in history. There was also never the intention to occupy territories and convert them into the own religion like it was in the middleages.

Just some background information - this post doesn't critize the quoted post.

 

[Autonomous]

You just got problems, if you didn't adapt some rituals into your life (christians e.g. were also not best friends/hated by the Romans the first few hundred years, because they didn't follow rituals of other religions (were/are not allowed to follow other gods by their religion). While the high priests played a major role, religion wasn't as important to the common people as it is since the middle ages. So the impact of religion on pop happiness in I:R is ahistorical, but I'm fine with it. Common people attended to some rituals, festivals and public holidays within a year, but other than that you were able to ignore religion without having to fear negative consequences by the other people or the "church"/religious office holders. Of course most people were religious and Atheist were an absolute minority, but religion didn't play such an important role within the society as later in history.

Just want to emphasise the bolded part here. Religion "wasn't as important" insofar as whether you used Greek or Roman or Gaulish names to address the gods didn't really matter, but it was important insofar as blasphemies and other impieties were considered deathly serious matters. Pops perhaps shouldn't care half so much about wrong-religion rulers as they do, but they should absolutely care much more about the desecration of holy sites and the proper observance of rituals and the maintenance of temples.

There's a very good series of essays on this topic by professional historian Bret Devereaux on his blog: part i, part ii, part iii, part iv.

A lot of the posts on that blog are very good reading in the context of Imperator, actually.

 

[Decius]

Just want to emphasise the bolded part here. Religion "wasn't as important" insofar as whether you used Greek or Roman or Gaulish names to address the gods didn't really matter, but it was important insofar as blasphemies and other impieties were considered deathly serious matters. Pops perhaps shouldn't care half so much about wrong-religion rulers as they do, but they should absolutely care much more about the desecration of holy sites and the proper observance of rituals and the maintenance of temples.

There's a very good series of essays on this topic by professional historian Bret Devereaux on his blog: part i, part ii, part iii, part iv.

A lot of the posts on that blog are very good reading in the context of Imperator, actually.

Agree with you! Of course the desecration of Holy Sites upset people and there were some strict rules especially for priests, augurs or the roman vestals, which were taken seriously, but there weren't really that much strict rules for the common people, how they must live their life or on which god they have to believe in particular like it was/is the case in monotheistic religions. Not that polytheistic religions were good and fine, but they were very different from monotheistic religions, not only in the number of gods.

Edit: I'm currently reading part i of the blog. I really enjoy reading it!

 

[Pro]

Simply having tribal governments have a higher +tribesmen desired amount in all territories might be the easiest way to balance their power a little.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

Tribes are weak because they obey the same "Yes" for the above questions in our current game. But they have their terrible Civilisation Values, Happiness Values, Pop Ratios and basic sizes, making them absolutely miserable.

I do like the ideas you mentioned, but I just wanna say that the idea tribes have "terrible civilization, happiness, etc" is a bit simplistic. Capture one city. Just one. Tribesmen can be moved just like slaves can, so you can move them all out of the countryside and into the city to diversify into more useful things like citizens and nobles. It's also much easier to maintain a dominant culture for cultural conversion.

I mean yeah it costs money though.

 

[Doldenberg]

First, a preface: I'm generally not super-interested in the "what is historical" circlejerk, I think ultimately all Paradox games are about representing a fantasy of a certain period and fun should stand above realism. That said, I think for that very reason it would be better to go with the "tribes were more organized than given credit for"-argument as laid out in this.

There's two core things that I would change about tribes:
a) They need some sort of raiding mechanic similar to Crusader Kings. This would make them more viable, since they can leech money - and possibly tech? - from nations better at making those resources; while empires would need to be more concerned with defending their borders, which would then also mean that they can't concentrate all their military forces on a singular conflict.

b) The whole problem of a tribal "kingdom". The way it works right now, tribes are this weird inbetweeny kind of system between monarchy and republic, where rulers reign for life, bu dynastic succession simply doesn't happen, which I feel there is no real basis for.
Here is how I feel a tribal monarchy vs. a "civilized" monarchy should be represented:
- A civilized monarchy has established a certain sense of statehood. So there is always, say, a somewhat defined Kingdom of Macedon, and succession crises are about who is the owner of that kingdom. The default state would be a dynastic succession, but this gives rise to pretenders, based on familial relations. It can also lead to a particular weak king (say a child needing a regent) with some actor from within the centralized state structure (like an influential military commander) assuming power for himself. (perfectly illustrated through the wars of the Diadochi)
- A tribal monarchy is still much more based on interpersonal relationships and direct loyalty to the ruler, rather to the concept of kingship itself. So a succession crisis is very much about who the various tribes accept as their leader.

So how would this work in gameplay terms?
I think a tribal kingdom should essentially be immune from Civil War. Rather than that, disloyal tribal chiefs just break away with a part of the territory after some time if you can't make them loyal again (so no treshold here either) and you get a claim on them. Dynastic succession would be possible and you might gain some perks for it, but every possible successor (so the heir of the current leader as well as other tribal chiefs) has a rating for how respected they are, the less support they have, the more chiefs will break away on succession, and so you might instead decided to pass power to another family that can keep the kingdom together.
In turn, it would also be possible for other independent tribes to submit willingly to yours if you're particularly renowned leader.
When you annex another tribe in whatever way, you get the choice to either make their current leader a new tribal chief (improving the output of the territory and giving them a bit of loyalty), with one of your existing Clans getting demoted; or you give it to an existing clan who might be more loyal, but giving big maluses to the territory, who will not immediately accept their new rulers. Tribal leaders offering their submission themselves would obviously always demand to become a new clan chief.
On the culture level this would also mean that tribes get improved conversion in their own core territory where they are the dominant culture; while clan chiefs would eventually start to represent other cultures that are then immune against getting integrated.
It would require to either change how levies are calculated for tribes - they would get them from unintegrated cultures as long as they have a loyal tribal chief representing that culture - or just have multicultural tribes represented as vassal-swarms in the future.

This would solve two problems at once: it would buff tribes while they are united and enable major tribal coalitions against others (being close to an expansive power like Rome could raise the chances for tribes to willingly submit to other tribes); while simultaneously keeping them distinct from monarchies.

 

[Surimi]

a) They need some sort of raiding mechanic similar to Crusader Kings. This would make them more viable, since they can leech money - and possibly tech? - from nations better at making those resources; while empires would need to be more concerned with defending their borders, which would then also mean that they can't concentrate all their military forces on a singular conflict.

They actually kind of have this. Migratory tribes can pillage high civilization provinces to earn money and political influence, and can also raze unfortified or controlled cities, damaging the civilization level and gaining a little bit of AE in exchange for a little bit of tech progress. They don't even need to be at war to do either of these things.

As a migratory tribe, I actually think it's worth keeping some of your pops as a horde simply because those hordes don't need military access. They can run all over the map pillaging everything they like. It's actually pretty powerful.

 

[Crosswire]

Tribes really could use a bit of help given how easy they are to roll over. Jugurtha and the Numidians lasted seven years in war against everything Rome could throw at them and it only ended when they were betrayed by an ally. There isn't a chance a tribe could last that long in game against Rome or even a moderately sized power.

 

[Iosue Yu]

I've just found out something also interesting to the Tribes of this game by playing as Caledonia. It's absolutely game-breaking, although not directly related to the points we've discussed.

1. Settled Tribes have a sudden leap of power.
   1. You get 12.5% of Levy % for a regular Tribe. And if you are owning mostly Settlements, you'd really have a lot of Slaves and they just don't migrate to your Cities, despite your Cities may be sitting at 12/25 Pops. So you basically would just have 17-19 Slaves when you have like 58 Pops, making you having 4 to 5 Units in your Levy in constant fluctuations.
   2. But... When you have done your first Formable and become a Federated Tribe. You get 17.5% of Levy %. So you just suddenly get 7 Units from 5 all of a sudden without increasing number of Pops.
   3. Now as a Federated Tribe, you'd be an absolutely unstoppable Power.
2. Still strange Unit Compositions.
   1. My Culture has 20% Heavy Infantries, 25% Chariots and 55% Light Infantries. But it is giving me 2 Heavy Infantries, 4 Chariots and 8 Light Infantries. I don't get why 2:4 when the difference is just 5%.
3. Still ridiculous Food
   1. If you get a Donkey in your Levy, it goes to the 1st Levy Band. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th Bands have no Food and they don't share Food with the 1st Levy. So what's the point of carrying a Donkey in the first place when it's just supplying 3 Units, while 4 x 3 = 12 other Units are seperated into 3 different Bands and begin with 0 Food that you have to start collecting from your Territories from the beginning.
   2. I also hear if you have like 3 Donkeys in your large Levy, all of them would be in the 1st Levy, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Levies still have 0 Food at start. Since Food isn't shared across armies, I don't know what's the point.
4. No point in Sieging. You can just use Assault all the time since Manpower recovers so quickly.
   1. In 1.5, Manpower was often the thing stopping you from going into War. In 2.0, Manpower is more like a thing to tell you your War is nearing its limit. Once you are at peace with all Levies standing down, you just recover quickly.
   2. So you really don't need to preserve your number of men. You can just use Assault and take down Forts within days. Well, this is oddly in line with historical Tribal Fortifications.
5. Due to scarcity of Tribal Pops, preserving life is a priority for Tribes. But it's Micromanagement.
   1. First you need to avoid Stackwiping your enemy's Levy, or it's a loss of 4 Pops.
   2. Second you need to make sure your Ruler is the one who leads the Siege. So you sometimes have to check the leader of the Siege and move him/her away and back so your Ruler now leads the Siege. If it's led by anyone else, you lose another 2 or 4 Pops.
6. Yeah and also if you have more than 9 Units in your Levy, you get a random attrition
   1. This is due to how an extra Unit of Donkey is added to your Levy, but without adding number of Units that you can support.
      1. Example: Say you can raise 15 Units, and another Donkey is added due to having more than 9
      2. Levy Raised, you get 16 Units. But you can only support 15.
      3. Now it says 16/15 Units raised. So... Attrition go brrrr.

At this point I am speechless.

My Caledonian Confederation has become so strong. I jumped from just having 5 Units of Levies into having 16. Other Tribes are just miserable.

1. They don't Integrate Cultures to get extra Leviable Pops.
2. They have 12.5% Levy Ratio while I get 17.5% due to Confederated Tribal Government.
3. They also suffer the same lack of Cities like I do. Tribal Cities usually don't hold more than 30 Pops and Pops don't really migrate into it so it's sitting at 9 to 12 Pops.
4. They get like a whole lot of Slave Pops (around 15 out of 40 Pops) giving them money that don't actually need.
5. What are they spending money on?
   1. They don't hire Mercs.
   2. They just build ridiculous useless Tribal Settlemens and Farms when those places have like 5 Pops.

 

[Iosue Yu]

Just discovered something even more intriguing. It's the Levy Ratio.

1. A City State gets another 12% Bonus
2. Migratory Tribes and Confederated Tribes both get 10%, but Settled only 5%
3. Negative Centralisation gives you 7.5% for -50% Centralisation. I think it's scaled up to 15%.
4. Civilised Countries have 0% Base. But they always have a corresponding law to add some. 5% is basic.
5. Budget gives 7.5% regardless.

So, that's the fun part. A City State with 21 non-Slave Pops will have 5 Levies (24.5%). But Tribes... You need to get as many as 60 Pops to get enough for your 5th Unit, due to how small your Capital / Cities are, and how unwilling your Pops are to migrate into a centralised non-50%-Slave Territory.