Thoughts on Conclave

[persona23]

I have most DLCs now and I'm currently wondering whether to get Conclave or not. I read through a few threads and it seems that people are quite split on the matter. So instead I decided to list the things that make me uneasy about it and maybe my someone will put my concerns to rest.

Incompetent council - I hear that big vassals want to be on the council and I'm worried that I might end up with a bunch of councilors with low stats. Arguably this wouldn't matter that much at the start of the game but having a spymaster with 5 Intrigue just seems really annoying when you have a lowborn with 20 in your court and you can invite someone with 25 from another realm to do the job.

Education system - This is based on my own experiences with the vanilla education system but it seems to me that as long as you assign a guardian with a really high stat, the child would often get the best trait from that 'school'. And since I often educate my children myself this could snowball and lead to a lot of competent rulers. For example in one of my previous runs I had a run of rulers all getting Midas Touched. Can you do something similar in the Conclave system?

Passing laws - This is actually what got me thinking about Conclave first. I had just adopted feudalism in my latest run and I decided to try to get to Medium Crown Authority. Since almost all of my king and duke vassals liked me I thought it would be a piece of cake, maybe I would need to bribe a couple of people but then it would be fine. And then I realized that after all of my big vassals supported me I only had about 60 votes and I would need more than 110... So I imagine that passing laws like that would be much easier if you only have to worry about the opinion of 6 guys, especially with the new sway mechanic. Is that actually the case?

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Based on my experience, the hopes and fears you list above are real.

Incompetent councilors - Yes, You can often end up with weak skilled big vassals demanding council positions to avoid the -40 malus they will have if they aren't on the council. You either put them on the council and accept the crap skills, or try to find a way to imprison them, so that it doesn't matter if they hate you, since they won't be rebelling anyway. Also, many players marry their close relatives to big vassals, so they can't rebel against you for not being on the council.

Education - I am not an expert on this one, but I think there are many guides out there to help you boost your chances of a good outcome.

Passing laws - this is likely the best part of Conclave. Only need to buy favors, sway, or bribe 3-4 councilors, and you can pass any law you want. Just try not to use the "request council support" option, which gives your councilor a favor over you. They can force you to start dumb wars and other things like that. Also need to be wary of one councilor buying favors with other councilors, if they do this and get a majority on the council, they can undo decades worth of your work in getting the tax/levy obligations just the way you wanted. If that happens, fire/imprison/murder the scheming council before they wreck your laws.

Better obligation laws - you didn't list this one, but it is nice to have the "sliding scale" of levy vs. taxes, instead of trading off each versus opinion. The wiki has lots of good info on the options available to you.

No more stacking opinion malus for crown authority levels - this is another good one. When you change an obligation law, you get a temporary "changed obligation law" malus with your vassals, but it goes after a few years. So if you are planning a long run, you can set up all your laws they way you want early, then all those opinion maluses will be in the past.

 

[Serenity84]

With the council it's a choice if you want to appease vassals or have someone more competent. You can have some random courtier on the council instead and appease the vassal by other means. You can also permanently abolish the council and live with the higher risk for rebellions. Either one works.

The Conclave education system has more randomness. Traits and stats matter, but things can go wrong. With Thrift education it's a bit more easy than others to give your heir good traits, but they won't necessarily have great stats. Sometimes it works, but you won't always get your super heir.

As for opinions, I kind of like how it's without Conclave. At least with the obligation laws. Having people be permanently upset about high taxes or high levies makes more sense.

 

[Patriarch of Bub]

I like conclave. I spent 2 rulers battlinh the council like crazy. At one point they all hated me and were forbidding me to declare war.

I went against the council, led my own armies, and became extremely cruel as everyone was against me.

It was a real challenge.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

I think fears of Conclave are overblown. In the early game you definitely just have to accept less competent council members, but as time goes by and you establish a power base, three things happen.

First, your subjects' opinion of you rises over time, both due to the long rule bonus and the positive stats you are probably generating. If you rule for 10+ years without tyranny, your vassals are generally not going to hate you, and you can get away with marginalizing the incompetent ones.

Second, and related, you improve your military power base and have less to fear from incompetent would-be council members who you leave out in the cold. Filling out your demesne limit and building an extra barony in your capital work wonders at keeping the peace.

Third, and I believe this is often overlooked, the heirs of your council members tend to improve *their* stats through focuses, events, good education, good parent stats, etc. Your subjects are dynamic and within 20-30 years I find that vassal base stats are pretty respectable, and they usually have at least 1-3 stats that would make them worthwhile council members.

Education is even easier to manage due to the "Court Tutor" role, which I love. Find a same-culture court member with great stats and put them in the role - a well-groomed daughter is ideal, as is a Benedictine due to the potential extra stat buffs. (Just make sure that they are not giving too many wards the Ambitious trait via an event by having two stats with 12 or higher, which will make them a rival and thus eventually that target of a massive murder plot - that can cut short a great career in tutoring...)

Passing laws is simple, especially when 1-2 strong council members die after you have established a power base and are loved by your subjects - you can just install a few loyalists for long enough to pass laws, then replace them if you feel like factions are generating heat. Alternatively, buying favors from non-loyalists and then using them to force them to vote for your laws is an option that is often available.

Bottom line is that I like Conclave a lot, and I find that many of the fears that people have about it are unfounded.

 

[Zoomun]

Conclave is one of the best DLCs. I would recommend it before almost all of the others. The biggest problems people had with it were things introduced in the patch like defensive pacts and shattered retreat.

 

[Castimirr]

I've been playing for a long time now, and I think Conclave is easily one of the best DLCs. It and WoL are the two I'm most likely to suggest to a new player just because they make relationships between the characters matter, and add a lot more to do other than "go press another claim". The changes to education are also really good.

Incompetent council
I find the constant need to balance "keep vassal happy" with "competent counsel" is a great addition to the game. You really have to balance which ones you need good stats in vs which ones you don't, especially early in your reign. I will almost always go for the most loyal and competent spymaster I can, and if that pisses off someone there is a good chance I catch them plotting and they get to live their life under arrest. With the other jobs, it really depends on what is going on and what I need. As my reign goes on, I tend to wind up with a council that is completely non-landed. By then the malus for "wants seat on the council" doesn't really matter much compared to the positive bonuses I probably have.

Also, children and woman (barring certain laws/succession types anyway) don't get mad about not being on the council. Also, they only count as "powerful" based at certain levels compared to you (I think). Sometimes you have fewer powerful vassals than you have slots. The advisor slots help too as you get higher in rank since that means you can placate the worst one or two of them without having them cluttering things up.

Also, the addition of favors allows a lot of fun things. It's good for getting them to vote your way, but it also has a lot of uses in terms of inviting people to your court and setting up marriages.

Basically, it makes realm management and the internal relationships matter a lot more while giving you a lot of good tools for managing those relationships.

Education System
You can still get a good education generation after generation. If anything it is nicer since you can switch your heir to another eduction type if you need to and still educate them yourself. (Say, as martial stops being useful and you want to go stewardship). It also gives you more control over how they develop, so it is easier to encourage certain children towards certain paths while still maintaining some control over it. The only complication it can add is if an heir gets a childhood trait that impedes the education type you wanted them to get. You can limit that somewhat with the early childhood focus, but it is still a thing. You can ignore it and hope it works out or put them into an education that fits them better.

In either case, the real advantage, in terms of adding fun gameplay, is that you get a lot more points where you can make decisions rather than just picking a guardian and hoping the RNG goes well. There is still enough RNG to keep it from being too predictable/easy, but it really helps reduce the frustration from it screwing you with no way to really interact with the process and try to mitigate it. It still might screw you, but at least you can try to fight back.

It also makes it possible to more easily shape the heirs of your vassals when you feel the need to do so (I don't do it that often but it has its uses.)

Passing Laws
It does make it easier to pass laws. You can focus on who to bribe or use other mechanics to get them to agree (or replace them with more agreeable people).

Where it really adds to the fun though is you can see who is willing to vote for something and why they feel that way. Knowing why gives you a lot more options for dealing with the issue beyond just "get opinion high enough". It's really the additional visibility combined with the tools to use that visibility that make it fun.

Also, one of the best parts to me is the new laws. Rather than being a very abstract "crown authority" level with different things requiring different levels, it replaces it with a set of specific laws that control what you need their approval for. Other than the first two laws, you can activate or deactivate them in any order. As an example, I rarely need to banish people. I can easily pass the law that lets them vote on that if I need to get the opinion bonus from increasing council authority with everyone without really constraining me (or the increase the vassal limit).

Also adjusting the obligation laws doesn't give a permanent penalty to opinion. It just creates a temporary malus as they get used to it.

(Very) occasionally they even give you good advice. I actually prefer leaving them with the war declaration law just so I can see why they think I should and shouldn't fight someone. I've had my pragmatists save me from blundering into some nasty fights before because "the enemy is too strong". "How is it too strong? He's just a count with three counties? Oh... who has an alliance with the two major empires I border. I see." Seeing their preferred war target has also helped me notice some opportunities I'd have otherwise missed.

 

[Bulldog773]

I Love conclave, its my favorite DLC. I couldn't imagone playing without it. I wpuls get it & I believe its on sale right now. You could always disable if you dont like it but I think you will. Let us k ow what you decide

Oh and the above post is so true. You can actually see why they chose to go against you. They might save your butt once or twice

 

[Narvait]

Without Conclave it would feel somewhat empty.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

On top of most comments above, Education system is more realistic than the base game.

You ever go into regency and find out the guardian just arbitrarily gives you traits? That's much less of an issue in Conclave. In Conclave education aside from that one event (ambitious rival, diligent stressed, patient stat loss,) the child is the one who chooses his traits. The guardian gives him the options.

This is the opposite in the base game, which sounds ridiculous in hindsight.

 

[IntoTheMaelstrom]

Arguments against - pagans start with totally powerful council - which may bite you if you want to conquer and reform fast. Passing laws - gifting 30 people instead of bribing four. Okay, but its not that bad because well, they all like you more after gifting.

All of these are not important to me when I can't prevent vassal internal wars - if you don't care about this you can buy Conclave freely. At worst, you will play some games with it, and some without it

 

[Tryvenyal]

The only problem with Conclave is there was a game before it. What Conclave brought should have been there already on day one or brought in with a free but forced update. It beeing a DLC is a huge problem, that has totally forked the game. It´s breaking the DLC definition by changing core functionality instead of bringing/unlocking new stuff. It´s more the "Expansion" type of update, where everything coming after should have a dependency.

That said, Conclave is a must have.

(Counting on getting a huge number of disagrees here.)

 

[ruzen]

Here is my thoughts on the conclave: the most divisive DLC in the history of mankind. Lets not poke this one too much.

 

[Spaninq]

No one has mentioned this about having weak councilors: You can *usually* find some task that will get them killed off or imprisoned within a few years if their stats are terrible:

Bad Chancellors can be killed via event while trying to fabricate on someone else's land (need to have low intrigue or marshal,.

Bad non-tribal Marshals can get wounded/maimed while researching mil tech.
(Trying to remove tribal Marshals is kinda out of luck this way, but with Holy Fury's hunting lodges for pagans, it's easy to get them killed or improve via the lodge)
Also, (found in the job_offmap event file) bad Marshals that are organizing the army can get wounded/maimed from fighting with a commander

Bad non-tribal, non-nomadic Stewards can get killed trying to collect taxes.
Bad tribal Stewards can get wounded trying to settle tribe.
Bad nomadic Stewards are out of luck, but nomads are usually pagan, so hunting lodges can help out again.

Bad spymasters have two different methods (which is normally my go-to for getting rid of "powerful" characters):
Failure while scheming can get them killed, and sending them off to study technology usually gets themselves imprisoned (bonus: can get them castrated/blinded if you send them off to the Byzantine Empire, where the best tech levels usually are)

Finally, bad court chaplains also have multiple methods, although you only really can make bishops/imams/etc into court chaplains:
Sending them to proselytize usually gets them killed, studying cultural tech can cause them to convert to a heresy (giving you a valid reason to imprison them), and muslims' perform charity can be attacked by a mob or you can catch them embezzling (another valid reason to imprison them).

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

In my experience, Conclave is more than manageable. It makes some laws even more beneficial at certain situations than without the DLC. Plus, children education is extremely useful. There are certain situations when you need to get favours from certain councilors to get them vote the way you like. But that's only at the beginning of the game. Beyond that, if you don't have enough loyalist vassals at your realm and you are not strong enough to ignore any other vassal's ambition, you are playing the game wrong.

Swaying, gifts, honorary titles, artifacts, festivals, high prestige, carousing and making friends, funding buildings in their demesne, marital ties, fulfilling ambitions of your councilors/vassals, dueling rivals, plotting, pressing claims, same dynasty, firing disloyal councilors, imprisoning plotters, granting a ward, revoking titles from traitors and probably a dozen more of methods that don't immediately come to my mind - there are numerous ways that you can affect the loyalty of your councilors and direct the decisions to your benefit. Also, remember that by being a popular ruler you make your heir's life easier, as well.

Eventually, you can limit the council's power completely and it will be like playing without the DLC, but I wouldn't recommend that, because every restriction of the council's power reduces your vassal limit by 2.

For example, in my current playthrough, all but 4 of my direct vassals are of my dynasty. I can have +45 to their opinion of me just from 3 books about our dynasty in my treasury, if I need, but often I don't even need the books - the opinion of the predecessor and my huge prestige gives me a lot of points already. Almost all my vassals have at least 70 opinion of me and it's like that for the last 150 years.

The Conclave is NOT hard. It's all about resource management, patience and choosing the right moment.

 

[Colossal_Elk]

I consider it a general QoL upgrade for gameplay. I like the Council being troublesome sometimes, and the moddability of council positions and the like.

 

[Jaevelklein]

I have most DLCs now and I'm currently wondering whether to get Conclave or not. I read through a few threads and it seems that people are quite split on the matter. So instead I decided to list the things that make me uneasy about it and maybe my someone will put my concerns to rest.

Incompetent council - I hear that big vassals want to be on the council and I'm worried that I might end up with a bunch of councilors with low stats. Arguably this wouldn't matter that much at the start of the game but having a spymaster with 5 Intrigue just seems really annoying when you have a lowborn with 20 in your court and you can invite someone with 25 from another realm to do the job.

Education system - This is based on my own experiences with the vanilla education system but it seems to me that as long as you assign a guardian with a really high stat, the child would often get the best trait from that 'school'. And since I often educate my children myself this could snowball and lead to a lot of competent rulers. For example in one of my previous runs I had a run of rulers all getting Midas Touched. Can you do something similar in the Conclave system?

Passing laws - This is actually what got me thinking about Conclave first. I had just adopted feudalism in my latest run and I decided to try to get to Medium Crown Authority. Since almost all of my king and duke vassals liked me I thought it would be a piece of cake, maybe I would need to bribe a couple of people but then it would be fine. And then I realized that after all of my big vassals supported me I only had about 60 votes and I would need more than 110... So I imagine that passing laws like that would be much easier if you only have to worry about the opinion of 6 guys, especially with the new sway mechanic. Is that actually the case?

When I first got Conclave, I was like: "Eh...? What is this?" and I immediately thought about disabling the DLC. But I kept on playing and eventually I came to like it more than the Vanilla version.

So let me try to answer your questions. Incompetent council: Despite what others have said this isn't a problem. Conclave allows you to vote on what rights your council has. It basically works like a "regency" in this regard. Where you as the king don't have full authority. But you can weaken the council's authority, basically making you the supreme ruler. This in turn gives you +2 demesne. With this +2 demesne you will be pretty strong, right? So even with -40 opinion from some of your Vassals, this shouldn't matter. Just assign whoever you want on the council. Early game they will be too weak to rebel, since your greatest vassals together make up at about 50% of your faction power at most. In late game you will assign viceroy titles if you have Legacy of Rome, so they will have a constant +100 even if they are not on the council.

Education system: This will be harder. The education system is 3-part based. The first part is when they are a young child. 0-12. You can assign them a type of focus from a couple of options. Each option comes with their strengths and weaknesses. Some options are purely good though, and other's purely shit. So depending on whether you want the kid to become good or shit, you can choose his child focus. The focus you chose determines which characteristics he will develop. I.e is he playful as a child? When the kid is between 12-16 we enter the second part. So your kid has grown to get a few traits. Alright, so he's playful? Well, that makes him a bad theologian but good at intrigue. Every childhood trait gives a [Red] or a [Green] focus on the focus list. So playful is red if you want to give him an education in learning, but green if you want to give him an education in intrigue. It can be red-red, red-green, or green-green. Or none. Depending on the reds, his success in the field will be lower, whereas green makes him better. So you gotta choose what he's naturally good at, or you risk it by forcing him to try to learn something he's crap at. The third part, which works between 0-16, is the Guardian having an impact on the child. If the guardian is Brave, he can teach the child to be brave as well. Stuff like this. Conclave also comes with a few new traits such as shrewd-dull, brawny-weak.

Passing laws: Passing laws are easier since you can make yourself the absolute dictator. You don't have to worry about Vassal opinion. There's also a greater variety of laws, which makes it feel as though you have more things to do than just increasing the Crown Authority.

All in all I'd say I was a bit skeptical about Conclave at first. But the more I played with it on the more I came to like it. More laws to work on and a better representation of how the council-affairs really worked. I.e the council wanting to keep the council strong, whereas you as a ruler want to have absolute power. It adds to the realism part. And it also makes playing as a Vassal better. You have more of an influence, and it adds to the gameplay aspect. Though as a ruler I'd discourage you from giving power to the Council. It sounds like it good make for a fun game every now and then, but the execution of how the AI-council works should be tweaked. Right now they just act according to whether or not they are a loyalist, a discontentionist who hate you regardless of what you do, a pragmatist or a glory hound. Opinion of you + traits = category. And category sways how they vote on laws. So it has to be tweaked from a game-play point of view [because I will be honest with you, it's kind of a disappointment], but it's awesome when it's abolished. So with the council abolished [and therefore the problem neutralized] the +2 increase in demesne is awesome. If you play Zoroastrian who starts with an abolished council, it allows for expanding and keeping counties without having to give it away so early. And last but not least your characters feel more individualistic rather than a copy of their guardian with always maxed out stats. You can sway it somewhat, but also to some degree RNG what they have a natural affinity for.

 

[jonjowett]

Eventually, you can limit the council's power completely and it will be like playing without the DLC, but I wouldn't recommend that, because every restriction of the council's power reduces your vassal limit by 2.

I disagree with this point. Absolute authority gives you +2 demesne size. This enables you to set the centralisation law 2 levels lower, which in turn gives you +10 vassals. Also, absolute authority is required for imperialism - this give you another +25 vassals. IMO, absolutism is always the end goal - although you might have to take a detour along the way (eg. tribal reformation, or to become elective as a Muslim).

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

I disagree with this point. Absolute authority gives you +2 demesne size. This enables you to set the centralisation law 2 levels lower, which in turn gives you +10 vassals. Also, absolute authority is required for imperialism - this give you another +25 vassals. IMO, absolutism is always the end goal - although you might have to take a detour along the way (eg. tribal reformation, or to become elective as a Muslim).

I max out all laws, whenever I can. Before getting to the Imperial Administration, it's hard to manage a large empire with just 15 vassals (that I'd have with completely restricted council), especially if they have gavelkind succession.

Currently, I'm at Late Feudal and reached a point where I have to appoint Viceroys to keep my empire together.

I'm not using Gavelkind, so my demesne size is 10 or 11 (depending on the ruler). Planning to expand it to 12 or 13. But I usually don't max it out, because my different rulers have different stewardship and different spouses. I can beat any viceroy and any duke with just my retinue alone. I can beat even all of them combined with my personal troops (levy included), and, if I couldn't, I'd just hire mercenaries.

I'm not relying on my levy, so vassal limit is more important to me than demesne size. I use my levy only to fight off raiders, if my retinues are far away, or for GHW, if there are too many enemy participants. Otherwise, I use only my retinues and my vasalized holy order.

Short story: quality over quantity.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

I disagree with this point. Absolute authority gives you +2 demesne size. This enables you to set the centralisation law 2 levels lower, which in turn gives you +10 vassals. Also, absolute authority is required for imperialism - this give you another +25 vassals. IMO, absolutism is always the end goal - although you might have to take a detour along the way (eg. tribal reformation, or to become elective as a Muslim).

But there is more than one way to play this game. If your method works for you, I'm happy for you.