Treaty system, ck3

[V1bezz]

Why are there no treaty system in ck3

 

[YellowPress]

Imagine how unplayable vassals would be with an EU4 styled treaty system. In current CK3, when your liege is at war, you know exactly what is on the line and if your sub-realm is at risk. With dynamic treaties, your liege could just randomly give away your provinces at the end of the war. You'll have no idea that it is coming and no chance of intervening to prevent it outside of literally joining every single liege war as a defender, just in case.

Depends how dynamic treaties are implemented.
Vic2 add war goals
Eu4 limited cbs
Both could have you know whats on the line, as you just check their claim list

 

[Jia Xu]

Depends how dynamic treaties are implemented.
Vic2 add war goals
Eu4 limited cbs
Both could have you know whats on the line, as you just check their claim list

Victory 2 allows you to add war goals when the war is almost over. You want the AI to shoot for your entire domain when your liege is at -70% war score do you?
EU4 has something called no CB wars and you can take any provinces you want at the end of the war as long as you can afford them in war score.

Further, this would completely ruin multiplayer and it would be impossible to balance.

Sorry but this is just a terrible idea for CK3. These are different games and their mechanics are not freely interchangeable.

 

[Secuter]

Victory 2 allows you to add war goals when the war is almost over. You want the AI to shoot for your entire domain when your liege is at -70% war score do you?
EU4 has something called no CB wars and you can take any provinces you want at the end of the war as long as you can afford them in war score.

Further, this would completely ruin multiplayer and it would be impossible to balance.

Sorry but this is just a terrible idea for CK3. These are different games and their mechanics are not freely interchangeable.

No CB casus belli is a horrible one to choose. Your AE is going through the roof and you take some pretty nasty stability hits too. Can you do it? Sure, but if you aren't afraid of the consequences of it, then at that point you wouldn't really be afraid of anything the game could throw at you.
For MP part: CK3 isn't aimed at people playing multi player. It is reasonable to suggest that most people who play CK3 do so in Single Player. Those who play it in MP - and I have no way of backing this up - usually do it with a friend or two.

CK3 has the worst of all the peace treaty systems in PDX's games. I don't like Stellaris' system, as it emphasizes border changes (mostly just empty space, but still). EUIV too allows for the player to simply grab large areas.

But honestly, CK3 is no different. Hell, you should reasonably be able to own a large portion of Europe over the course of 3 rulers. Moreover, CK3 is horrible to the defender. You get some pocket money, and that is it. The worst part about CK3 is not it doesn't adapt to the circumstances. The whole treaty is written out in advance. Imagine some huge fictive war - both realms goes at it for several years, sieging, counter sieging, battles and thousands of soldiers die and lands are ruined. At some point, one realm gets the upper hand, and sieges down half the enemy's land. Yet, they can still only ask for... that one county they went to war over. Why not press the advantage as would've realistically have happened? But you can't because for whatever reason, the entire treaty was written in advance and both parties somehow agreed that this is what will happen if you win/lose.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Why not press the advantage as would've realistically have happened?

because the bulk of wars are about people's claims. CK is a game about people.

 

[Blk82]

No CB casus belli is a horrible one to choose. Your AE is going through the roof and you take some pretty nasty stability hits too. Can you do it? Sure, but if you aren't afraid of the consequences of it, then at that point you wouldn't really be afraid of anything the game could throw at you.
For MP part: CK3 isn't aimed at people playing multi player. It is reasonable to suggest that most people who play CK3 do so in Single Player. Those who play it in MP - and I have no way of backing this up - usually do it with a friend or two.

CK3 has the worst of all the peace treaty systems in PDX's games. I don't like Stellaris' system, as it emphasizes border changes (mostly just empty space, but still). EUIV too allows for the player to simply grab large areas.

But honestly, CK3 is no different. Hell, you should reasonably be able to own a large portion of Europe over the course of 3 rulers. Moreover, CK3 is horrible to the defender. You get some pocket money, and that is it. The worst part about CK3 is not it doesn't adapt to the circumstances. The whole treaty is written out in advance. Imagine some huge fictive war - both realms goes at it for several years, sieging, counter sieging, battles and thousands of soldiers die and lands are ruined. At some point, one realm gets the upper hand, and sieges down half the enemy's land. Yet, they can still only ask for... that one county they went to war over. Why not press the advantage as would've realistically have happened? But you can't because for whatever reason, the entire treaty was written in advance and both parties somehow agreed that this is what will happen if you win/lose.

Actually, the longer a war lasts, the less borders changes. Massive border changes are often a result a quick war in which one army completely collapses in one or a few battles, such as Alexander's conquest of Persia or the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks. If the war takes years to resolve, and involves sieging down half a kingdom, then it will likely end in a stalemate, or at most, a marginal victory.

The "long war" argument seems like a reason for the player to meta-game the system by dragging out the war just to add more CBs to bypass the truce timer. It is also counter-intuitive, because you can stack-wipe the enemy army and siege down the war goal, but you'll be forcibly stopped from taking more than the CB because the AI will surrender. In other words, you're claiming that the more resistance you encounter and the slower your advance, the more land you should be able to get. Or, are you suggesting that every claim war should allow you to take multiple CBs worth of land?

 

[Secuter]

Actually, the longer a war lasts, the less borders changes. Massive border changes are often a result a quick war in which one army completely collapses in one or a few battles, such as Alexander's conquest of Persia or the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks. If the war takes years to resolve, and involves sieging down half a kingdom, then it will likely end in a stalemate, or at most, a marginal victory.

The "long war" argument seems like a reason for the player to meta-game the system by dragging out the war just to add more CBs to bypass the truce timer. It is also counter-intuitive, because you can stack-wipe the enemy army and siege down the war goal, but you'll be forcibly stopped from taking more than the CB because the AI will surrender. In other words, you're claiming that the more resistance you encounter and the slower your advance, the more land you should be able to get. Or, are you suggesting that every claim war should allow you to take multiple CBs worth of land?

I get what you are saying, and it is a good point. The reason I made the example as I did, was to emphasize that you throw a lot of resources into a war, so why wouldn't you go for an arrangement that favor you? In the example, simply change it into: one side takes the other completely by surprise, mauls the defender army and steam roll their lands. You are still only able to take whatever you went to war over. Should the defender make a miraculous come-back, then I suppose its just too bad that they can only ask for something they didn't even have the ability to change themselves.

In any case, the length of the war is not the core of my argument.

I'm claiming that it is ridiculous that the defender can't take lands in wars, because for whatever reason they can only ask for a predetermined amount of money. I'm also arguing that while I may have a claim on one area, it is completely artificial that I can't take over different areas even though I don't have claims on them. There are loads of medieval wars, where one side attacked the other with no real claim other than wanting to gain more power and curb that of their rivals. The French king's invasion on Normandy (their vassal) in 1054, as a good example. Although I don't quite remember all the details, the french king didn't really have a claim on the area. His goal was probably to either take the lands for himself or perhaps to depose the Norman ruler and find someone more loyal for the area. In any case, he went to war without a claim.

This is what I would love to see for CK3:
Copied from a different thread:

CK3 could benefit from taking inspiration - not from EUIV but from Total War Three Kingdoms. The main difference is that EUIV does not allow both parties to raise demands simultaniously. It will always be one side that raises demands unless it is a white peace.
Total War Three Kingdoms differs in that it allows both sides to raise demands simultaneously:

A very crude image of it would be like this:

Demand:	Give:
The county of Toulouse	350 ducats
The county of Carcassonne	Marriage with Marianne (your daughter)
The Title: Duke of Toulouse	The county of Nevers
Establish Non-aggression pact	Establish Non-aggression pact

This would make CK3 a lot deeper on multiple fronts. Most importantly, though, it actually allows you to raise relevant demands.
For instance, I remember that my liege - a 1-county duke - attempted to revoke one of my counties. I refused, and won, which meant that he abdicated.. I didn't care about his abdication, and his heir promptly attempted the same thing.
With the system above I would've asked for his title, maybe even his lands. Or we could've worked out some other arrangement - maybe a better contract etc.

A system that would allow both parties to raise demands would play directly into CK3's dynastic struggles, marriages, roleplays and so on.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I'm claiming that it is ridiculous that the defender can't take lands in wars, because for whatever reason they can only ask for a predetermined amount of money.

cos i can imagine duelling ticking warscores resulting in a stalemate.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

i've said before that i wouldn't mind more complex peace deals, but let's not go all EUIV. i could live with trading a hostage for some claimed real estate.

 

[Amtep]

A feature of ck3's system is that going to war is 'safe'. As attacker you know your realm won't get wiped out if the war goes badly. As defender you know the max you might lose, and can prioritize the war accordingly. I think these are good aspects of game design. The way one bad war can cripple your country is actually something I don't like about playing EU4.

I wouldn't mind some more flexibility, but I would want to keep those aspects.

 

[matgopack]

Actually, the longer a war lasts, the less borders changes. Massive border changes are often a result a quick war in which one army completely collapses in one or a few battles, such as Alexander's conquest of Persia or the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks. If the war takes years to resolve, and involves sieging down half a kingdom, then it will likely end in a stalemate, or at most, a marginal victory.

The "long war" argument seems like a reason for the player to meta-game the system by dragging out the war just to add more CBs to bypass the truce timer. It is also counter-intuitive, because you can stack-wipe the enemy army and siege down the war goal, but you'll be forcibly stopped from taking more than the CB because the AI will surrender. In other words, you're claiming that the more resistance you encounter and the slower your advance, the more land you should be able to get. Or, are you suggesting that every claim war should allow you to take multiple CBs worth of land?

I think it does depend on the situation, but you're right that generally it's a major collapse that creates those big changes in territory. But it also depends on how we slice the wars up - Paradox's approach to longer historical wars would probably divide it into a number of wars in game.

Eg, the 100 Years War would not be a single war, it'd be a series of them I imagine. But it's tough to have a singular system that can appropriately model when a war would be stretched out for years with no change in border, or when a single lost battle can effectively lead to an entire region being lost for good. Especially when whatever is done, players will abuse

 

[grommile]

i've said before that i wouldn't mind more complex peace deals, but let's not go all EUIV. i could live with trading a hostage for some claimed real estate.

I mean, that's kind of in the game already, in that certain captives (not just the warleaders themselves), when taken in war, count towards warscore and are released when a peace is signed.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I mean, that's kind of in the game already, in that certain captives (not just the warleaders themselves), when taken in war, count towards warscore and are released when a peace is signed.

fer sure, but using a hostage as a bargaining chip after the war could be fun

 

[YellowPress]

fer sure, but using a hostage as a bargaining chip after the war could be fun

Especially when you capture the whole royal family but the king is bankrupt so you get nothing extra, no choice to arrange marriages eg

 

[Slow Bathroom]

The reason is that they deliberately (as a game design choice) decided to go with CBs dictating what can be taken. You have to have some sort of claim or CB, and then if you win that's what you get.

EU4 style peace deals are great, but much more so for huge expansions without the need for claims.

On the whole, I don't mind it - it's a good way of grounding that wars in this time period were more fought over small chunks of land, and in how important personal claims were for it. Rather than EU4 style taking of territory.

This sounds like something you might think if you've read about CK3 but never played it. If you're trying to expand you're pretty much only going to use holy war and conquest casus belli and get tons of territory at a time. Claims hardly matter at all in CK3 unless you're trying to restrict yourself.

 

[YellowPress]

This sounds like something you might think if you've read about CK3 but never played it. If you're trying to expand you're pretty much only going to use holy war and conquest casus belli and get tons of territory at a time. Claims hardly matter at all in CK3 unless you're trying to restrict yourself.

Agreed, as a Christian if you really want to expand, you just need to marry for claims on like ten kingdoms before youve unified Europe and then push into all the muslims of the world

 

[matgopack]

This sounds like something you might think if you've read about CK3 but never played it. If you're trying to expand you're pretty much only going to use holy war and conquest casus belli and get tons of territory at a time. Claims hardly matter at all in CK3 unless you're trying to restrict yourself.

Sure, they're the easy ways of expanding in areas of the world where you have access to those CBs. But that's not the entirety of the CK experience, and also not what it was first designed around.

Eg, if you play in 1066 France or the HRE as a vassal, you're not getting those big territorial gains - and that's the feudal system that the game was originally built around. Here, you're getting your claim and grabbing it slowly, and only what you have claims on.

In actuality, once someone gets to a kingdom or especially empire, there's much quicker ways to gobble up territory (landing someone with a claim and going to war to enforce it, for instance) - but that has nothing to do with the reason there's no peace negotiations and why wars are restricted to what the original claim/CB was. I think it's a bit strange to take my remarks about the game design as some sort of sign that I've not played CK3 (or 2), and then immediately assume that anyone playing will be in a border region for faith (holy war) or play a tribal (conquest)

 

[Slow Bathroom]

Sure, they're the easy ways of expanding in areas of the world where you have access to those CBs. But that's not the entirety of the CK experience, and also not what it was first designed around.

Eg, if you play in 1066 France or the HRE as a vassal, you're not getting those big territorial gains - and that's the feudal system that the game was originally built around. Here, you're getting your claim and grabbing it slowly, and only what you have claims on.

In actuality, once someone gets to a kingdom or especially empire, there's much quicker ways to gobble up territory (landing someone with a claim and going to war to enforce it, for instance) - but that has nothing to do with the reason there's no peace negotiations and why wars are restricted to what the original claim/CB was. I think it's a bit strange to take my remarks about the game design as some sort of sign that I've not played CK3 (or 2), and then immediately assume that anyone playing will be in a border region for faith (holy war) or play a tribal (conquest)

I don't think the game was built around being a vassal at all. Almost none of the recommended starts are vassals, and mechanics like factions and vassal contracts seem like they were barely thought about from a player vassal's point of view. I'm pretty sure the most popular starts are vikings who can just take as much as they want without any claims. And with how the game seems to encourage you to make your own religion, and how Paradox changed holy wars so that realms of the same faith don't defend each other anymore, I'm pretty sure they expect players to holy war all the time.

 

[matgopack]

I don't think the game was built around being a vassal at all. Almost none of the recommended starts are vassals, and mechanics like factions and vassal contracts seem like they were barely thought about from a player vassal's point of view. I'm pretty sure the most popular starts are vikings who can just take as much as they want without any claims. And with how the game seems to encourage you to make your own religion, and how Paradox changed holy wars so that realms of the same faith don't defend each other anymore, I'm pretty sure they expect players to holy war all the time.

The games were originally built around playing christian rulers - you originally couldn't play as muslims, tribals, vikings, etc. Some of the original ideas around the game design from back then has lasted through to here.

Yes, CK3 is not great for playing as a vassal (or, at least, *staying* as a vassal - it works fine for working your way up). And yes, people like to play options where they can balloon out of control fast (eg, vikings). But that doesn't change the fact that the war system was originally designed around the claim system, and that's still a very important part of it if playing as a christian. If the game were built around the concept of holy wars and tribal conquests from the start, rather than claims to land, then an EU4 style peace treaty system would probably have been put in. But it's not, because despite those existing (along with other CBs for making big conquests easier) they're just layers on top of the core design.

For the faith stuff, it's an option to make your own religion but I wouldn't call it overly encouraged. That is, it's up to the player to do so - I like that it's an option, but it's not really one where the expectation is that you're making a custom religion every run. It's certainly possible to have holy war CBs available all the time, but it's not a given like you seemed to assume previously.

 

[YellowPress]

The games were originally built around playing christian rulers - you originally couldn't play as muslims, tribals, vikings, etc. Some of the original ideas around the game design from back then has lasted through to here.

Whilst ck2 didn't have vassal contracts, it did have favour, and you could keep revolting until the crown could do nothing without the council's approval

Yes, CK3 is not great for playing as a vassal (or, at least, *staying* as a vassal - it works fine for working your way up). And yes, people like to play options where they can balloon out of control fast (eg, vikings). But that doesn't change the fact that the war system was originally designed around the claim system, and that's still a very important part of it if playing as a christian. If the game were built around the concept of holy wars and tribal conquests from the start, rather than claims to land, then an EU4 style peace treaty system would probably have been put in. But it's not, because despite those existing (along with other CBs for making big conquests easier) they're just layers on top of the core design.

Eu4 style peace deals would work great, from moving a war being about your duchy in a neighbouring kingdom to be about you claiming the crown of said neighbouring kingdom, especially if it went well, but also cutting losses and just taking some land at a time but the ai revoking their claim to said lands

For the faith stuff, it's an option to make your own religion but I wouldn't call it overly encouraged. That is, it's up to the player to do so - I like that it's an option, but it's not really one where the expectation is that you're making a custom religion every run. It's certainly possible to have holy war CBs available all the time, but it's not a given like you seemed to assume previously.

How is it not encouraged, Catholicism is not the fleshed out juggernaut it was in ck2, now its a husk where all your vassals easily apostatise if they have a positive opinion of you, and you can choose 3 tenets of varying use

 

[matgopack]

Whilst ck2 didn't have vassal contracts, it did have favour, and you could keep revolting until the crown could do nothing without the council's approval

Eu4 style peace deals would work great, from moving a war being about your duchy in a neighbouring kingdom to be about you claiming the crown of said neighbouring kingdom, especially if it went well, but also cutting losses and just taking some land at a time but the ai revoking their claim to said lands

How is it not encouraged, Catholicism is not the fleshed out juggernaut it was in ck2, now its a husk where all your vassals easily apostatise if they have a positive opinion of you, and you can choose 3 tenets of varying use

If you think EU4 style peace deals would work fine, I can understand that - it's not an unpopular opinion here. But it's not universal either, and there's a reason they haven't put it in there. Personally, I don't think an EU4 style peace deal would work great - it'd need to be a lot more restricted to fit the setting/period, and it'd be especially bad with vassal play.

The game gives you the option to make your own religion, which can be fun. But it's not encouraged more than that - catholicism fits from an RP perspective, from the perspective of having a huge swathe of Europe that has it, the Pope handing out money, etc. It's not nearly as powerful as in CK2, sure, but it's still *fine* to stay catholic.

There's a variety of ways to play CK, which is part of the fun of it. But I'd personally get bored of it if I did end up always playing with custom faith map painting runs, and I'm glad that the game pushes other options as well, especially when they make it feel more like a medieval european setting.