Something like this would be nice. It's especilly funny how fast you can plot to assassinate Joffrey in the GoT-mod since everyone hates the little c*nt 
The "Fear Feature"
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I love this idea and it's one I've often pondered - I bet fear played a large part in keeping vassals in line in those days. Traits like cruel and insane could give small opinion bonuses like "Fear +5 opinion" and any cruel actions could add to it. A blinding or a castration, +10. That sort of thing.
Except for the vassals and family and friends of the person who got blinded/castrated. They should get no bonus. Just everybody else lol.
Except for the vassals and family and friends of the person who got blinded/castrated. They should get no bonus. Just everybody else lol.
This idea has been around since 2012, although I admit that this time around it's nice to see people not holding up Medieval: Total War as an example to be emulated.
The main problem is that most of the awful, tyrannical actions that people are proposing should give a "fear bonus" are actually the kinds of things that already benefit the player. If you get a "fear bonus" for arbitrarily imprisoning and banishing people, in addition to the material bonus of getting to keep their land, the only reason not to rule this way would be to RP.
The main problem is that most of the awful, tyrannical actions that people are proposing should give a "fear bonus" are actually the kinds of things that already benefit the player. If you get a "fear bonus" for arbitrarily imprisoning and banishing people, in addition to the material bonus of getting to keep their land, the only reason not to rule this way would be to RP.
I don't think simply being Cruel is something that would keep vassals in-line. A cruel weak ruler should be more likely to be plotted against than a non-cruel weak ruler IMO. I personally look at "opinion" as a measure of how likely someone is to try and take actions opposing a ruler, rather than necessarily what they think about said ruler.
Well obviously there needs to be a limit. Or a point where you cross a line and your entire realm begins to plot against you because you're so tyrannically insane.
Yeah, this.
As reasonable as the argument is, it's yet another advantage given to the human player that the AI won't be able to utilize. Unless there's hard penalties given to the player that prevents them from plotting or attacking after they've been "made afraid" by the AI - which nobody would want - it would just make the game easier than it already is.
Yes the traits are a bit black and white when it comes to comparison with reality. I have a hard time believing that actually being kind would be a recipe for success in these vicious circles. Creating the public appearance of being kind is whole another thing. That and at the same time being behind the scenes ruthless enough to keep your things from being taken would seem a much better skill set for staying in power.
Remember how TW has dread/chivalry. It could be useful to reflect it's effects and how they could translate to CK. For example dread makes enemies more likely to flee in the battle (morale effect). Chivalry boosts town growth. Similar or tangential effects could work in CK. But having one "slider" of either dread or chivalry is not detailed enough for CK. You should be able to be both.
Remember how TW has dread/chivalry. It could be useful to reflect it's effects and how they could translate to CK. For example dread makes enemies more likely to flee in the battle (morale effect). Chivalry boosts town growth. Similar or tangential effects could work in CK. But having one "slider" of either dread or chivalry is not detailed enough for CK. You should be able to be both.
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So, going by the quotes from Machiavella posted before, there are three things which seem to be important for how secure your rule is, namely love, hate and fear. If we define hate and love as opposites of each othen, then love is expressed well enough by high opinion, and hate by low opinion. Thus, it follows that only fear would need to be added as a new mechanic. I think a good fear mechanic would be one which functions like the opinion mechanic we have; a scale from 0 (no fear) to 100 (high fear). Every vassal has his own fear number of his direct liege, calculated in the same way opinion is calculated now. Some examples of what gives fear would be executing someone (justified or not), events in which the character distinguishes himself as a good combatant and the difference in rank between liege and vassal (ie, count is more frightened of an emperor than a king is). Things which lower fear would include -not- dealing with people who have acted dishonorably against you in your realm (as a ticking modifier like the levies raised opinion malus), even in which the liege is a bad combatant or in which the vassal is a good one and the amount of land/military power a vassal has (more power means less fear). Note that things which increase fear can just as well have an impact on opinion, negative or positive. Being found out plotting against a vassal should make you more feared, but at the same time less liked.
For this mechanic to work well, you'd have to juggle opinion and fear. It might sometimes be a good idea to randomly execute a vassal of yours to instill fear in your vassals and keep them from rebelling against you, even if it makes you less liked. Some examples of how this works would be as follows:
High opinion + high fear = Vassals do what you say
High opinion + low fear = Vassals do what they please, since they know they will get away with it
Low opinion + high fear = People plotting to get rid of you
Low opinion + low fear = Open rebelion
Some traits would need to be reworked too. Strong, for example, should make a liege more feared instead of more liked, while weak should make a liege less feared. On the side of the vassal, strong should make them less frightened while weak should make them more so. An imbecile or incapable ruler would be far less feared but not necessarily less liked. As for which stats should have an impact on fear, I think both military and intrigue should have one.
For this mechanic to work well, you'd have to juggle opinion and fear. It might sometimes be a good idea to randomly execute a vassal of yours to instill fear in your vassals and keep them from rebelling against you, even if it makes you less liked. Some examples of how this works would be as follows:
High opinion + high fear = Vassals do what you say
High opinion + low fear = Vassals do what they please, since they know they will get away with it
Low opinion + high fear = People plotting to get rid of you
Low opinion + low fear = Open rebelion
Some traits would need to be reworked too. Strong, for example, should make a liege more feared instead of more liked, while weak should make a liege less feared. On the side of the vassal, strong should make them less frightened while weak should make them more so. An imbecile or incapable ruler would be far less feared but not necessarily less liked. As for which stats should have an impact on fear, I think both military and intrigue should have one.
How many times have you been a Catholic ruling nothing but Muslims? How often does that happen in your games? Because it has never happened in my games. Yes, I have been King of Jerusalem, while simultaneously Emperor of more places than I can name, and they were (briefly) Muslims. But I've never been a Catholic King/Emperor/Duke ruling nothing but Muslims.
And even then, won't my zealousness be employed in trying to CONVERT the Muslims? Sure, kill a few here and there, but all men are God's people through Christ, even if they don't know it yet. I'm trying to CONVERT, not kill.
Something like this would be nice. It's especilly funny how fast you can plot to assassinate Joffrey in the GoT-mod since everyone hates the little c*nt
And he does die pretty quickly in the books(if you count by time passed) so that's entirely in line with lore.
As someone mentioned on the last page, I agree it's silly that vassals can fight landed members of the royal family without being branded as traitors. You should be able to look out for your sons really.
I suggested on another thread that fear should be represented by army morale and by the number of soldiers you can raise in a war against them. It could also be a consideration for deciding whether or not to join a plot (i.e. fear ----). I'd imagine it could be represented like a trait which slowly advances depending on your actions. Let's say there are ten levels, and you advance through them if you imprison plotters (or even plotters), if you fight faction wars to the bitter end, if you execute prisoners/enemies where possible. While Castration, blinding, impaling, murder and general acts of cruelty may also generate fear, they also create negative modifiers which will counteract the positives effect ofear.
fear is already represented in the "rebellion recently took down" bonuses. Maybe executing someone could send an event to all plotters against you with the chance of making them cowards or valient. I know if I was plotting against my leige David Camron of Eton and he executed a traitor I would think twice.
+1 i would really enjoy being able to rule with fear over diplomacy, there really is no reason to pick up the negative traits over the ones that over diplomacy.
Fear is represented by your army, isn't it? If you have a powerful demesne, retinue, and a few loyal cronies, your vassals won't revolt no matter how much of a tyrant you are. They fear you. But if you're a petty tyrant with nothing to back it up with, they revolt.
Example--I was playing the HRE which encompassed all of western europe, brittania, north africa and jerusalem. All king vassals. I decided I wanted to switch to viceroys, so I began revoking all of the king titles. Except for the kings of jerusalem and portugal, nobody put up a fight as I stripped them of their titles simply since my retinue was huge (Pict culture unit has very low cap usage, so it was an army in the tens of thousands). To me, this seems to accurately represent tyranny. Tyrants are successful when they have the brute force to assert their power, but weak tyrants are quickly deposed. Nobody will be afraid of a cruel lunatic who blinds his prisoners if he has no army to maintain his rule.
Example--I was playing the HRE which encompassed all of western europe, brittania, north africa and jerusalem. All king vassals. I decided I wanted to switch to viceroys, so I began revoking all of the king titles. Except for the kings of jerusalem and portugal, nobody put up a fight as I stripped them of their titles simply since my retinue was huge (Pict culture unit has very low cap usage, so it was an army in the tens of thousands). To me, this seems to accurately represent tyranny. Tyrants are successful when they have the brute force to assert their power, but weak tyrants are quickly deposed. Nobody will be afraid of a cruel lunatic who blinds his prisoners if he has no army to maintain his rule.
Which is why we need retinue/levy revolts. They're people too, not just blindly loyal automatons, and as such if you've offended them too much (not paid them enough, lost too many troops/land/wars/etc) they should be liable to consider replacing you with someone more pliable.
I agree, it'd help spice up centralized Empires with lots of retinues. It makes a lot of sense, when you consider how common military coups were in the Byzantine Empire (the main historical centralized "state" on the map).
The main issue for the player, though, is that unless they are a Republic a successful retinue revolt which deposes you and installs a new Emperor will lead to an instant game over, rather than just a smaller realm like an independence revolt would. Ideally there would be some way to continue your dynasty even after being deposed.
Especially if the Strategoi who lead the Retinues are those in with a chance at being the next Emperor...
Personally I think fear cannot be properly represented in the current game because it's too complex to represent with a linear "opinion" like we have now. This could be a great advance in CK3 though, if opinion were split into three different relationship values. It would be worth doing this as opinion is such a central part of the game.
So you could split it into:
Love/Hate - represents two characters' personal interaction. A lot of traits would affect this, and ending up too far on the negative side is a very bad idea.
Fear/Contempt - affected by military power, proclivity towards executions, and certain traits like Impaler and Craven. Most important for vassal/liege interactions, but also for when rulers decide to go to war.
Respect - A more neutral one for things like reign length, rank, prestige etc.
So you could split it into:
Love/Hate - represents two characters' personal interaction. A lot of traits would affect this, and ending up too far on the negative side is a very bad idea.
Fear/Contempt - affected by military power, proclivity towards executions, and certain traits like Impaler and Craven. Most important for vassal/liege interactions, but also for when rulers decide to go to war.
Respect - A more neutral one for things like reign length, rank, prestige etc.
You also get a large bonus for "subjugating" vassals, something they'd personally be none too happy about.
I'd say the tooltip should show relationship bonuses which concern fear or power in a blue colour (to distinguish it from bonuses which concern actually liking the ruler,) but this would be a purely cosmetic change.
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Fear of punishment only produces good behavior in the presence of the punisher.
Children will still disobey if they think they can get away with it. Vassals will plot and rebel if they think they can get away with it.
Fearing mutilation at the hands of the Basileius did not stop the Byzantines from facing internal problems.
Children will still disobey if they think they can get away with it. Vassals will plot and rebel if they think they can get away with it.
Fearing mutilation at the hands of the Basileius did not stop the Byzantines from facing internal problems.
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