So, you're paying lack of councilors for full control. When you don't need said councilors (quite possible; actually, it this point you don't need anybody, that's true), I'd say it's nice trade-off.
The Byzantine Empire, and how Holy Fury ruined them.
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Well, yes, you can do that. It will piss off your powerful vassals and prevent you from using any vassals that happen to have great stats as advisors, but if your only priority is to game the council and inheritance system, it is possible. It is not a universal solution, though, because it has very notable disadvantages.Yes, this is the solution and also proofs the system is wonky at best. I just fired everybody, literally all eight commanders and 4 council members, I only kept the spymaster and the marshal, at this point you dont need the other guys really, but I get back to that. The crucial part is these fellows are NOT nobles, just peasants I slapped some bagdes on, while commanders need to be landed, council members are still free. Thus they can be bribed with 80 gold which is nothing and you can put glitterhoof on the imperial throne. Works for me
Now the idea is you keep a peasant only council, hence everyone only needs the occasional 80 gold to vote for your chosen one and all is good. You dont need to buy all the votes, just enough.
Maybe I am a bad player, but Martial 40 is incredibly rare in 3.0, even as a Germanic Norse Viking. Perhaps you are confusing Martial with personal combat ability?
Martial 18 is a very good martial stat for a commander, at least in my experience. In my Vikings-turned-Normans-turned England game where I use both Norse and Norman commanders from my realm (i.e. one of the better pools you can have) and the best invitable christian characters, the commanders range perhaps between 15 and 20. Anything above 20 is a snowflake in AI-educated guys and something you have to work quite hard to keep up as a standard in your own characters (and at the expense of the other stats, which isn't always ideal if those guys could be a ruler).
All that aside, I don't entirely buy your "solution": making your marshal a commander will usually prevent him from performing any marshal tasks - which can be a decent tradeoff, but not one without disadvantages. Having a competent marshal train troops in Constantinople will give you quite a few more levies.
As Byzantium you will quite often be required to and able to field two, three or even more armies at the same time. Sure, you can run those armies without flank commanders, but that will lose you battles or at least more men than you need to lose in battles. You probably also could micromanage teleporting commanders from army to army. Which has - besides its gameyness - the disadvantage of being incredibly tedious and hardly fail-safe (both because you can make mistakes here and because sometimes you cannot avoid all of your armies getting involved in battles).
Again: yes, you can do all that, and it will make dealing with the inheritance law a little easier. It does come at a cost, though, and therefore it is quite far from a perfect strategy. Which doesn't mean that sometimes, when you desperately need the empire to pass to your underage genius son, it can be a situational solution.
No, it's definitly possible. That's the same thing we had with Learning when Hermetics was introduced.
Oh, I am sure it is possible, and I have had characters with Martial 40 (or at least in the high 30s, would need to check) in said Norman game. Warrior lodges do allow for absurdly high Martial stats. They aren't accessible to everybody though.
Yes, there is no perfect solution, and the example I brought up was an extreme one I would not recommend or use for the whole game, but shows what you can do if need be. Essentially you can vote on your own and noone cares. You always piss off someone even if you try not to, in a realm that large you have more powerful vassals than council spots anyways, and you cant keep them all happy. I usually try to replace powerful vassals frequently in general, if they plot or do something I try to arrest them and fail on purpose to purge them. Then the title goes to someone else.
Having lets say 2 or 3 councilors who are powerful vassals would work if they are good and it helps keeping the realm stable and you simply buy the votes of the other guys who are peasants. I need to do alot more testing but basicly I would have peasants mostly with high stats, which is my general strategy, bribe them and get the money back when they die, and have no heirs you get their stuff, its a 50% chance I think, so you potentially get the bribe money back.
As for the martial score, I have had characters in the 30s range recently, but with all that insane gear you can have as an emperor, tier 4 weapons and armor, additional artifacts plus the books on war that accumulate over the generations, plus the warrior lodge, I think you can get to 50 or higher, personal combat skill was 179 so far but thats not the limit either.
Here's an old character with 32 martial, one eyed, stressed, no martial focus and tier 2 gear.
https://imgur.com/a/rsHpouB
You can do the math what he would be as a quick or genius character tier 4 gear and martial focus, definetly more than 40 points id wager.
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Not really, it's still easier to stomp a multi-Count than it is a multi-Duke once the Exarch dies. Now keep in mind we are not talking about a designed tradeoff here, the game making sth too tedious to enjoy doesn't mean it's not the better strategy, the game either should not offer that option or should make it less annoying.
Indeed that bug is rather painful to watch. Same happens when you inherit your viceroyal titles back, everyone suddenly is at -100 and you can't make even reasonable requests. Worst it's not even the only issue. See what happens with layered viceroys during a civil war. It's an absolute mess. With viceroyalties turning hereditary left and right. Another pet peeve of mine is that a viceroy can use viceroyal duchies to create a hereditary kingdom. How? He is just a viceroyal Duke, the titles are not his to do as he pleases with them. It's not his power, at best that's an usurpation, which should give his liege the power to kick him down, but nope all good. Generally the whole viceroy thing requires work. Unfortunately it being an expansion feature, means it's a lower priority for Paradox. Sigh...
If there is another dlc or patch,however,i hope HF is the last dlc.But if there is another dlc,i think Paradox should make available to everyone some essentials features,like EU4 and stellaris have do recently.Personally,essential features for me are the retinues from Legacy of Rome for example.
Cordially.
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Yes! It annoys me how you need to be lightning fast to create duchies or kingdoms before your opportunistic viceroy can. I say either this should not be allowed or you instantly get a strong claim on the title after it is created.
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I havent tried it yet wanted to do my next game as Byzantium but if someone got elected as Emperor and it wasnt who the previous ruler wanted it was more of a coup so wouldnt it be better to give the other characters a strong claim with the potential of civil war rather than an election which didnt really happen?
I know everyone already chimed in on bribing the councilors (as in buying favors, not just giving them money so they like you), but I couldn't help but notice that the OP's screenshots show over 8k in gold. More than enough to bribe every single elector into voting for whomever your chosen heir is, even if they're an inbred, ugly, slow, incapable, heathen 2 year old girl.
At empire size, wouldn't it be more prudent to rely on retinues? Mountains of pikes. Or mountains of light infantry if you just want to fluff up your numbers for internal/external security, but that's never been my style. Levies, yours or vassals', become a bonus. A nice thing to augment your main troops or carry on raider defense while your main troops are away.
Are game rules the new "If you don't like it mod it?
I'm not asking for a normal empire, I'm asking for more mechanics, not fewer. Not exactly easier either (despite heir designation).
Pretty much. If we put in every rule people asked for, you'd have to take 30 minutes at the start of game just flipping through them all.
Yes, this is one of those quality of life things that would be nice if they could fix. It gets really tedious granting all those viceroyalties.
I mean, if we are discussing about certain mechanics we may like or not and how to improve them saying "If you don't like it mod it" adds nothing to the discussion.
Specially when you look at the history files and see every Inherited/Granted everyone someone dies, it's too polluted.
The point is not to vote for the candidate that you like the most, but to find one that gets the approval of people, a compromise. You for one are voting a female relative, something which is (and should be) difficult, because many electors believe that a female monarch would destabilize the realm.
Why are you so afraid of losing the title? If defeat is certain, why not put preferred heir to a position of power and keep a war chest? When you die, just overthrow the new emperor with your retinue and mercenaries.
As it pans out it is basically a palace coup. The previous emperor's heirs of course get a claim already, and can go for a war to reclaim the throne.
Because it's not possible now - new Emperor would take all your titles. Thing is, to prevent it you'll need to separate succession of main title with a sucession of others, and this way it's quite possible you'll get a problem - your new heir would take main title, but lose all other.
I do agree.