Suggestion: Require 10 years before vote on Crown Authority becomes available

[NewbieOne]

Or else whichever claimant wins will undo the CA penalty immediately on accession as long as he has enough votes and isn't particularly hated by his vassals. A chain of quick successions can also fast-track the realm from e.g. Autonomous Vassals to Medium or from Medium to Absolute, especially given the opinion penalty for increasing crown authority is not heritable, meaning that the successor is not affected by it, and starts with a clean slate.

You may disagree with me but I believe it would make more sense to restrict crown authority changes heavily than to do so with some of the changes to succession law. From the point of view of a vassal not belonging to the royal dynasty or not having either a strong position in the line of succession or the means to support his claim forcibly, taking away his right to conduct wars and messing with his own inheritance (inheritance outside the kingdom) should matter much more than whether the succession is Agnatic Primo or Agnatic-Cognatic Primo, or, in many cases, primo vs gavelkind (where there is just 1 top title, especially given that vassals tend to care mostly about the de iure title they belong to, rather than the entire de facto realm).

For example, suppose I'm the Duke of Toulouse under France. I don't care whether the King will hand out counties and duchies to his sons when they turn 16 or when he dies, or whether the crown will go to his brother or daughter. But I do care when I'm forbidden from meddling with my neighbours, let alone from participating in holy wars in Spain, or crusades, or effectively precluded from sharing inheritance with my cousins in Provence on the Imperial side (or Spanish lordships).

In the long term, I believe it could make sense to split the various competences of the kings and emperors and the restrictions on nobles into individual decisions. If you think about it, it is kinda strange that if you want your vassals to stop in-fighting, you can only do it in bundle with increasing the size of the levies they're supposed to provide. We could even keep a 'Crown Authority' index calculated as a (weighted) average of such individual decisions--thus effectively a shorthand. But this is just speculation. In the short term, I do think restricting the AI from rushing to higher crown authority immediately after winning a civil war to depose the liege or install a claimant would be a good solution. (As well as cutting off too significant impact of insignificant reigns.)

 

[1alexey]

No.

CA can be changed quickly in case of fast succesions, but you need vassals to not object, which, usually is not easy. What if they are objecting? In HRE, you may need a few thousands of gold worth of bribes to get wotes. In small, good mamaged kingdom, Kings will should be very easy to enforce anyway.

What if you`re stuck for 50+ years with same monarch? Everything is great, my vassals love me, and would easilly wote for higher CA, but you have your one-in lifetime try already used. Crap, wat for the new heir to succed, which vassals will hate. Maes no sence.

There is no need for any time limit or attempts limit, changing law should just provide a one-time, decreasing over time oppinion penalty.

 

[Divi]

No.

CA can be changed quickly in case of fast succesions, but you need vassals to not object. What if they are? In HRE, you may need a few thousands of gold worth of bribes to get wotes.

What if you`re stuck for 50+ years with same monarch? Everything is great, my vassals love me, and would easilly wote for higher CA, but you have your one-in lifetime try already used. Crap, wat for the new heir to succed, which vassals will hate. Maes no sence.

There is no need for any time limit or attempts limit, changing law should just provide a one-time, decreasing over time oppinion penalty.

Your vassals would not love you if you increased crown authority, especially not in the HRE. The opinion penalty for raising CA a second time in the same reign, if it was even possible, should be enough to plundge all but the most fanatical supporters into red anger. This is a ridiculously ahistorical understanding of how the empire or medieval feudalism worked.

 

[1alexey]

Your vassals would not love you if you increased crown authority, especially not in the HRE. The opinion penalty for raising CA a second time in the same reign, if it was even possible, should be enough to plundge all but the most fanatical supporters into red anger. This is a ridiculously ahistorical understanding of how the empire or medieval feudalism worked.

Well, i inherited HRE with lowest CA possible and had monarch reign for 60 years. My vassals were perfectly fine with upping CA again after 40+ years of rule, but,..

What is possible or not, should be determined by relations, not arbitrary rules.

 

[Mattobro]

CK2+ does this, so you should go try that out OP. It's quite a good mod, although I like Prince and The Thane better, Prince and The Thane doesn't work with 1.08.

 

[A_Dane]

Well, i inherited HRE with lowest CA possible and had monarch reign for 60 years. My vassals were perfectly fine with upping CA again after 40+ years of rule, but,..

What is possible or not, should be determined by relations, not arbitrary rules.

Problem is that the relations in this game are quite flawed.. Way too easy to get them high up. The only time the HRE dosn't go to atleast high crown authority within the first 4 generations are when the Salians die out in my games - if the AI can do that, it's simply too easy.

I don't get why you get a relationship boost for autonomous vassals at all for example

 

[MartinSWE]

I would also like the AI to have a different 'priority' when it comes to laws. It is extremly annoying as a vassal to have a Liege that via the Pope Event is 'forced' to enact Papal Investiture, the AI always choose to obey since the prize for not doing so is quite severe. The issue here is that the AI Liege ALWAYS starts a vote on increasing the crown law whenever a new ruler accends the throne even if it leads to huge civil wars instead of making his vassals happier by changing back to Free Investiture.

 

[1alexey]

Problem is that the relations in this game are quite flawed.. Way too easy to get them high up. The only time the HRE dosn't go to atleast high crown authority within the first 4 generations are when the Salians die out in my games - if the AI can do that, it's simply too easy.

I don't get why you get a relationship boost for autonomous vassals at all for example

Not really. By the default, vassals should not hate you, nor like you. Also, being on the good side of liege list is usually better, unless you have the power to challenge him.

Since AI is smart enought to keep the vassals small, it works pefectly.

And Retinues to not bother rasing vassal levies also work wonders for HRE.

Also, I`ve seen sussesfull plots to lower CA, so,..

I would also like the AI to have a different 'priority' when it comes to laws. It is extremly annoying as a vassal to have a Liege that via the Pope Event is 'forced' to enact Papal Investiture, the AI always choose to obey since the prize for not doing so is quite severe. The issue here is that the AI Liege ALWAYS starts a vote on increasing the crown law whenever a new ruler accends the throne even if it leads to huge civil wars instead of making his vassals happier by changing back to Free Investiture.

Well, the pope was fairly powerfull at the time.

 

[Thure]

Not really. By the default, vassals should not hate you, nor like you. Also, being on the good side of liege list is usually better, unless you have the power to challenge him.

Since AI is smart enought to keep the vassals small, it works pefectly.

Say it the real Emperor of the HRE... He had try it, and it didn't work. Look at the Imperial Reform. it's absolutly bullshit, that the AI so easy reform the HRE in 100 years to a absolutle state, what the real HRE had never managed in 1000 years of history.

 

[Bahmedino]

Your vassals would not love you if you increased crown authority, especially not in the HRE. The opinion penalty for raising CA a second time in the same reign, if it was even possible, should be enough to plundge all but the most fanatical supporters into red anger. This is a ridiculously ahistorical understanding of how the empire or medieval feudalism worked.

Well IMHO the CA as now represented in game is ridiculously ahistorical. It is almost some magical law a monarch can use once in a lifetime. In real life CA was depending on strenght of the monarch. If a monarch is a strong emperor so he can rule with his CA quite high, medling in his vassals quarrels, even expand his realm. But if he is followed by his son who is arbitrary drunk, than the CA should definetely drop. That was how it worked in CK2 era in history. But it would be extremely hard to simulate in the game so we were given this CA once in life law.

 

[1alexey]

Say it the real Emperor of the HRE... He had try it, and it didn't work. Look at the Imperial Reform. it's absolutly bullshit, that the AI so easy reform the HRE in 100 years to a absolutle state, what the real HRE had never managed in 1000 years of history.

Yes, the 1495 reform is very representative of 11 century.

But since you go with out of timeframe examples, look at France and Russia, where monarchs did just that.
Msybe IRL HRE just had a streak of incompetent rulers and ambitios vassals?

 

[Divi]

Yes, the 1495 reform is very representative of 11 century.

But since you go with out of timeframe examples, look at France and Russia, where monarchs did just that.
Msybe IRL HRE just had a streak of incompetent rulers and ambitios vassals?

France spent 300 years almost continuously in a state of civil war and by the time it was an absolute monarchy most of the duchy level titles in the country would have been held by the king or as appanages, estates only granted for life with limited or no actual powers over their province; less and less as time passed.

Russia did it by conquering and eliminating the other grand princes.

The salian emperors did not remotely have the kind of powerbase to do it in the 12th century, neither did the french kings, and guess what, they didn't either.

 

[1alexey]

Russia did it by conquering and eliminating the other grand princes.

The salian emperors did not remotely have the kind of powerbase to do it in the 12th century, neither did the french kings, and guess what, they didn't either.

Oh, so what you are arguing is that a generic one-size fits all mechanics fails to represent the realities of a single country.
So what?

And by the way, what does entire "realism" has to do with the idea of creating arbitrary limitations, like having to rule at least X years before doing Y. Maybe you want to point out what is realistic about that thing.

 

[Zireael]

CK2+ does this, so you should go try that out OP. It's quite a good mod, although I like Prince and The Thane better, Prince and The Thane doesn't work with 1.08.

This is a good mod, and I think the limitations on how quick a given law can be passed should be ported over to vanilla. This stops the HRE from reaching Absolute Crown Authority in the 1150s.

@ OP: I agree that Crown Authority would be better represented by events, too.