Threat needs to be changed for the sanity of the game

[KingNothing]

So here is my issue with threat. This game doesn't have much to do in its "down time" (ie time between wars). I played a Germanic game where I took over Britain then Scandanavia. It's been 300 years and I've just formed Scandanavia. I peacefully vassalized a 10 province Sweden which gained me nearly 50 threat. (Prior to that I peacefully vassalized the county of Finland for just over 8 threat). My threat currently decays at 0.21 / month. So it will take me 20 years to get rid of it.

An entire generation of sitting watching time pass. Since I'm Norse, at least I can raid, but because I'm pagan, I can't even do diplomacy with other realms. It makes for extremely boring play. It would be a different scenario if I had something engaging to do in the down time, but basically I manage vassal happiness, sort out kid education and raid to buy more buildings. Not very stimulating.

You actually can do some diplomacy. You can buy favors from other realms, and use those to force marriages. Im 99% sure you can even do this across religious lines. You may need to be a little patient and wait for them to be in a war and their money to get low, at which point they will accept your favor. Then bam, the largest part of the enemy coalition now has a non aggression pact with you and they will leave the coalition. You may even be able to form an alliance with them if you want to.

 

[Afterthot]

You actually can do some diplomacy. You can buy favors from other realms, and use those to force marriages. Im 99% sure you can even do this across religious lines. You may need to be a little patient and wait for them to be in a war and their money to get low, at which point they will accept your favor. Then bam, the largest part of the enemy coalition now has a non aggression pact with you and they will leave the coalition. You may even be able to form an alliance with them if you want to.

I don't think you can force marriages against the "refuses to marry an infidel" malus I'll try again, but pretty sure I'm SOL.

Even with that though - its still not particularly stimulating game play. I'm all for the "make it realistic" cry, but I really need something to do. Really - if I'm reading a book to pass the time waiting for the ability to do something, I'm not sure that speaks highly of good gameplay? I do realize everyone plays for different reasons, and enjoys different things, but this does seem to be pretty extreme. As n example in EU4 you could still do things even with some hefty AE by focusing your attentions elsewhere. The threat mechanic doesn't allow that - once you hit a threshold, everyone piles in.

 

[Siggerad]

Fanboys and more fanboys, ok is all perfect in your game, all is perfect in PDX, so why tell other players use a mod, back to old patch, if they pay for a playable, not boring new DLC.

 

[Nuraihyon]

I really feel like so many problems could be solved by having different threat levels for each religious group. Let's say that my Catholic ruler retakes Iberia. Why, then, is Germany in a defensive pact against me? I have been exclusively taking lands from heathens. In what world does it make sense that Europe would band together to prevent me from taking land from heathens in Africa?

Fanboys and more fanboys, ok is all perfect in your game, all is perfect in PDX, so why tell other players use a mod, back to old patch, if they pay for a playable, not boring new DLC.

Well, that's a bit unfair. Some people like the mechanic, others don't. Some people that don't mind it are reasonably pointing out that no one needs to use it if they don't want to.

 

[StarSword]

Threat is all fine and dandy, except it only annoys the player, and not the main muslim nations, who not only grow large but never implode.

Yeah, that's my big problem. Right now in my game there's two AI-on-AI coalitions (one Catholic, one Muslim) against the Byzantines which seem to have blown up after they successfully holy-warred for Aleppo a while back (they've also crushed a sh*tload of revolts and shipped out troops to help me at least once, but I don't know if that counts). Meanwhile you have the Umayyads dominating Spain except for a piece I helped Aquitaine reconquer, the Muhallabids controlling the entire Sahara and the western half of the Persian Gulf down to Abyssinia, and whichever Muslim controls the Middle East, and none of them get a defensive pact to keep them from, well, doing exactly what they're doing right now which is trying to holy-war Barcelona back from Aquitaine.

I have to say, they picked a great time for it: due to a f*ckup of my alliance network I'm currently enemies with Aquitaine over them trying to snatch Middle Francia (I had the Aquitainian alliance, but not the non-aggression pact, deactivated because I didn't need them for a quick land-grab in Britain), so I can't move in to help keep the Sheikh of Castilla from taking Barcelona back for the Umayyads.

 

[Greybeard0815]

Even with all those tweaks Threat is still a joke.

For example: I don't get ANY threat for winning a Crusade. I didn't get any threat when my German Catholic Kingdom of Jerusalem swore fealty to the ERE and then immediatly used a faction to force a Civil war that puts my King on the throne.
But damn if I use a claim on Sicily (duchy not kingdom) and get 50% threat for it causing even the High Chief of Pruthenia to join a defensive pact against Jerusalem. I doubt this guy even knows what Jerusalem is much less where it is.

But you what? I just lol'ed and fought them all anyway. It even had the nice benefit that I got to smash many potential targets and then started multiple wars against their drained worthless realms.
And it was sort of funny to see Muslims and Pagans all rising up to prevent the Catholic German ruler of the ERE from claiming the Papacy for some useless relative, while all Christian realms didn't give a damn due to NAP's.

This threat mechanic is just an epic fail. I don't even want to know what the original version of it looked like.
I'm not sure if laughing or crying is the proper way to adress this.

 

[Audoucet]

I have been exclusively taking lands from heathens. In what world does it make sense that Europe would band together to prevent me from taking land from heathens in Africa?

Well, simply because [One-timer irrelevant example from history], obviously.