The faction system needs to change

[cybrxkhan]

As I think was inted before, the problem with factions is that players don't realize many of the factors that contribute to it - if you look at the code, there's plenty of things influencing faction creation and joining, ranging from traits to opinion to cultural and religious circumstances and more. Those things aren't the issue. It's the fact that all of them come together at once, resulting in a seemingly random mess as it's hard to pinpoint exactly why someone starts or joins a faction - even though there is, oftentimes, a reason why.

 

[TAoD]

I can play CKII for a long time, but factions always makes me rage quit because Im always convinced it was put there on purpose to make you lose. I wish I could get rid of it to be honest.

 

[ChildeR]

Factions are IMO the best feature added to the game. The only gripes I have are the independence faction declaring war too soon and failing to take into account a large external threat.

They don't really make the game in general more difficult; they make playing with vassals more difficult, but playing a vassal easier and more interesting.

 

[Alyiakal]

Factions are vastly preferable to the impotent OPM independence revolts we used to have; those were simply a chore and no actual threat. The removal of a lot of plots into the factions was also good, because plots are generally just an excuse to imprison someone indefinitely (so they will never cause a problem), or attempt to imprison them so they revolt, you crush them, and then revoke titles (while also imprisoning them indefinitely). You can still do that with the plots to kill, but now there are less plots, so less ways for the AI to shoot itself in the foot and get imprisoned.

If you're having to deal with giant faction revolts every succession, perhaps you should re-evaluate your strategy and see what is wrong there; there's almost certainly something you could be doing better to prevent it.

 

[unmerged(635163)]

Lots of interesting and valid points in this thread. For one, I didn't know about the foreign culture, I though it was only an opinion penalty. That sure explains why all my vassals in france are always plotting against me. So far I have been succesfull with a lot of bribing.
I will start paying more attention to culture.
The only thing bothering me are the "opportunists flocking" which turns a strong independance revolt into a nightmarish deathstack and ragequit! I know it's too easy to put the rebelion down if it's the count-of-nowhere leading the revolt, but does that mean he should immediately be granted a 10k stack of troops while you are struggling to form your own scattered army? I have been losing thousands because of this, as I was unable to regroup my armies and all my little stacks were picked apart.

 

[americanu197]

I know it's too easy to put the rebelion down if it's the count-of-nowhere leading the revolt, but does that mean he should immediately be granted a 10k stack of troops while you are struggling to form your own scattered army? I have been losing thousands because of this, as I was unable to regroup my armies and all my little stacks were picked apart.

Thank you sir a very good point
Generally speaking you never ever want to go to war with any factions because you will most probably lose
Thats my first point to make about the factions system

My second point is that while its interesting managing people and a court it leaves very little for RPing...i mean you have to prepare your leader to be mahatma gandhi all the time otherwise youre going to have a very hard time...nobody cares if your king is a powerful military ruler if he doesnt have high diplomacy he is screwed

And playing a vassal is sucky with your liege randomly joining crusades or far away alliance wars and taking your men and money or getting mad at you for not providing them...i try getting out of those situations as fast as possible

 

[Klarum]

Factions is actually a very good system the way it is now.

I dont know if you played the game from launch but back then every little count would raise his armies agaisnt you ALL THE TIME just because he felt like it. If you were emperor of half the world count "Stupid MacMoron" would still raise is 1k army when you could summon 100k??? Oh and succession crisis were a SURE thing.

Now factions actually look at the power balance. I never experienced a faction with less than 50% military power versus me raising their flag. So far i only had one succession crisis and that was because my heir was a de facto imbecil (trait). If you actually put some strategy on how the lands in your kingdom are divided you minimize succession crisis. Give big titles to all your sons and yes you will have a war as soon as you die.

On top of that you can actually control factions before war comes out. Your chancellor can be sent to dissuade lords, you can assassinate powerfull lords in the faction, imprision them, etc. You can actually do things to prevent the war were before you just got pop up message and say "here we go again!".

Factions are fine.

 

[joos]

I think you should try out the CK2Plus Mod. They have overhauled the faction system quite satisfactorily in my opinion. It is much easier to manage factions, and they also have logical aims.

PS: I am in no way related to the mod or its developers and am just a satisfied user.

 

[Pannonian84]

To be honest: I build my characters mostly as diplomats. While i lack in intigue, stewardship and martial, it has one huge benefit: Rebellions/Dangerous Factions almost never occur. Heck even in the last MP Session when i blobbed like made and had about 20 vassall kings it ran extremly smooth.

 

[Tikinaattori]

My biggest problem is short reign penalty, and I really hope devs can figure out a better way to represent it. I mean we already have claimants, so where do we really need this short reign penalty? I mean it really wasn't like every time there was a landed brother or relative new king had to go through civil war. Also it is really stupid feature that rebelling vassals can call loyal vassals to their war, even those vassals did not want to join their faction in the first place. You can imagine what happens when most of the vassals are of same dynasty, and what kind of negative opinion modifiers dynasty members already have against their same dynasty liege ( short reign, crown authority, claims, anything else except gavelkind etc. ) so it's unfair to check which one vassal likes more, the rebelling dynasty member or the liege. So if they did not join the faction, there really should not be another check.

Also I hope devs introduce fear factor to the game. I mean vassals like your diplomatically gifted, generous, kind and just ruler, and that is understandable, because he is mr. niceguy. But if ruler is military genious, wroth, arbitrary and cruel torturer vassals really should think twice before they get any ideas too. Loosing that rebellion is not an option.

 

[Gemberkoekje]

I'm somewhat confused, in my latest (1.09) game, I had little problems with factions. The factions that did pop up, got smashed down and stripped of their highest titles. If they had any title left, I left them in the dungeon for the rest of their lives, so the -80 penalty didn't matter much. I redivided count and baron titles between my highest relations courtiers (divide and conquer) and I redivided my ducal titles between the counts that are actually in that ducal area.

I guess being faced with a life-long visit to the oubliette made sure my vassals think trice of rebelling.

And I should add that this was with 3 (accidental) generations of Italians ruling over Irish/Wales/Scotts.

 

[Klarum]

To be honest: I build my characters mostly as diplomats. While i lack in intigue, stewardship and martial, it has one huge benefit: Rebellions/Dangerous Factions almost never occur. Heck even in the last MP Session when i blobbed like made and had about 20 vassall kings it ran extremly smooth.

Considering that all the kingdoms under the HRE, Bizantine Empire and several others arent actually formed, you are claiming that in a multiplayer game you took control over roughly 70-80% of the map? Riiiight ....

 

[Pannonian84]

Starting as Duke of Aquitaine in 1066 - After an idiotic showdon in HRE turning heretic, Fatimid invasion of Bavaria and crusade for germany. Currently in Year 1330 i have as vassall kings (i don't hold a king title myself): France, Aquitaine, Lotharingia, Burgundy, Aragon, Italy, Sicily, Bavaria, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Jerusalem, Egypt, Africa, Anatolia, Armenia - ok only 18...

and thats not even 50% of the map...

This is a Screenshot taken from the game 70 years "ago". As you can see it is before the crusade for greece starts. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118284391773271954/61EB189A55197A2C3FEDEEB40917E92AD621B40E/

btw.: we started the game 1066 with patch 1.08 and continued it through 1.09 and yesterday on 1.091 - as soon as i am home i can show you how the game looks now (-10 years, cause i always take screenhots while waiting for the savegame to load (which takes 5-10 minutes)

 

[Klarum]

After an idiotic showdon in HRE turning heretic, Fatimid invasion of Bavaria and crusade for germany.

:blink:Ok under such ridiculous circumstances I can see the possibility

 

[Pannonian84]

:blink:Ok under such ridiculous circumstances I can see the possibility

Haven't ever seen this happening. We both thought that the old Emperor will be dethroned soon, but he was a strong ruler and eventually all his vassals also went for Waldensian. Byzantine got snacked by Fatimids, and when they attacked HRE for Bavaria no one wanted to help (because heretics). Meanwhile pope called crusade against HRE for Germany which was won by England, who in turn lost it to fatimids. So we were able to take a lot of HRE lands from fatimids while the HRE stayed heretic and was consumend in the following 50 years.

Back to the point: As said i mostly play with high diplomatic characters and most of the time with genius. Therefore i take big hits in prestige for marrying (most genius are courtiers and its a big hit to prestige) and i also have to play with elective, because sometimes it takes a lot of children even if both partens are genius. But on the other hand i wouldn't even play with primogeniture even if the firstborn was genius, just because i think that it adds a lot. As I am goot at diplomacy, genius, vassal bonus through elective, AND free investiture (which gives ridiculous bonus of +20 and only costs 200gold/ruler) i never had any problems getting my favourite heir. All these things work together perfectly and have high synergys. Also i never go for high/absolute authority. And of course - i try to get my own dynasty as my vassalls (for another nifty +5). In said MP Game i have one independence faction early on (must have been around 1100) but since then i sometimes get an angry vassal creating independence faction, but most of the time he likes me again faster than he can get supporters.

Sure there disadvantages like low intrigue and lacking of good spymasters/stewards (as most of the high nobility are trained as diplomats) but i can get them from other courts...

Oh and my mp-partner urged me to inform you that Germany is of saxon culture!

 

[americanu197]

Starting as Duke of Aquitaine in 1066 - After an idiotic showdon in HRE turning heretic, Fatimid invasion of Bavaria and crusade for germany. Currently in Year 1330 i have as vassall kings (i don't hold a king title myself): France, Aquitaine, Lotharingia, Burgundy, Aragon, Italy, Sicily, Bavaria, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Jerusalem, Egypt, Africa, Anatolia, Armenia - ok only 18...

and thats not even 50% of the map...

This is a Screenshot taken from the game 70 years "ago". As you can see it is before the crusade for greece starts. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118284391773271954/61EB189A55197A2C3FEDEEB40917E92AD621B40E/

btw.: we started the game 1066 with patch 1.08 and continued it through 1.09 and yesterday on 1.091 - as soon as i am home i can show you how the game looks now (-10 years, cause i always take screenhots while waiting for the savegame to load (which takes 5-10 minutes)

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL wales through most of central europe including moldau

 

[Klarum]

I play with similar strategy of high diplomacy but when I get empire level I shy away from elective because for some reason even electors with 100 opinion of me sometimes vote for someone else. I find it hard to control 10+ electors. Heck vassals with 100 opinion of me even make plots to overthrow me. I think the current AI thinks too much like a player

 

[I Killed Kenny]

Well, normally I'm a forgivable guy if I'm a middle ages King, If I'm old I start imprisoning everyone so my heir has less enemies when he arise to the throne, if I know there might be a faction war, try to imprison the leaders or assassinate. I don't think it's a bad system, it's just an other layer of strategy

 

[Pannonian84]

I play with similar strategy of high diplomacy but when I get empire level I shy away from elective because for some reason even electors with 100 opinion of me sometimes vote for someone else. I find it hard to control 10+ electors. Heck vassals with 100 opinion of me even make plots to overthrow me. I think the current AI thinks too much like a player

Yeah one point i forgot about: You cannot change your heir in a short time. Yesterday i made my third daugther heir (1 out of 10 childen -.-) and after my wife suddenly died in a tragic accident i took a new wife (sweet 16) and so my 62 year old emperor finally got his genius son. Now i have to change my candidate... and it took nearly 2 years til my son had more votes than my daughter. I don't think its because of relations, but some vassal take their time... So if you want to switch instantly, thats one of the big elective disadvantages.

 

[Pannonian84]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL wales through most of central europe including moldau

Wales is now known as Brittania and is currently building the russian kingdom Funniest mp-game i had...