What should be fixed in the faction mechanic ?

[unmerged(362834)]

Nothing, aside from a few more faction types (like pushing a candidate to become a councillor, or pressure that a councillor be removed, or Imperial Elections" and more "middle ground" pressures rather than black-and-white, "Obey me or I revolt" events.

I was thinking about such possible factions too... but the one I would love to see (in addition of those I mentioned earlier) is "faction to put your (decadent) liege under you trusteeship": the liege will stay the formal ruler but the faction leader would play as if he is the actual liege... he'll be able to declare war on behalf of his liege, negotiate peace agreements, choose advisors, revoke his other liege vassals, create new vassals, change succession laws, deal with other factions...

if such faction succeeds, unhappy vassals would be able to form a faction to demand the end of the trusteeship, or a faction to replace the present regency ...


That makes me think of some other faction ideas like :

- Faction to end the rule of a decadent dynasty... no need to have a claim on the title this dynasty holds. The requirement would be a high level of liege's decadence... to create such faction, vassals would need to be significantly less decadent

- Faction to replace the present king by his heir after the loss of a major war...

- Faction to prevent the liege from decalring wars...

 

[JonStryker]

Something clearly is wrong with those factions. They at least should lower the bar at which people stop joining factions. 80 is just too damn high.

Just for fun I did the following thing: When the independence-faction fired I just surrendered to them.
Then I got ~20 new independent states on the map. But guess what: 3 out of 4 of these "revolters" were willing to swear fealty to me. Who in his right mind would fight for independence and give it up shortly afterwards? Makes no sense at all.

While I mopped up the remaining revolter states another independence faction fired. OK, same routine.
When the third one came along I ragequitted. First time I did that.

It's either that or fighting 70000 mystery soldiers in a place like Surgut. The war arithmetics for a war like this are odd, too: The revolters get a bonus for holding their capital. If I take it it doesn't matter much. They can reach 80% by sieging down 4-5 provinces. One occupied province accounts for less than 1% for me, the defender.

Maybe creating an empire and handing out kingdoms finally has become a useful option.

 

[pewpewlasers]

I'm not going to claim that it isn't broken, or that it is broken, but in my experience so far, if a faction appears that's looking to put another person in power or lower authority or whatever, I can actively break it by raising opinions(of the leader or the members). If it's a faction that's pro-independence or pro-put-faction-leader-on-the-throne, I can't. That doesn't seem wrong to me.

 

[Talq]

Re independence factions - on my first civil war I couldn't revoke their titles without tyranny, presumably because my king died (from natural causes at age 38) during it (so it was finished by his sucessor).

So now I have a bunch of people in prison who I have a choice of letting free (big whoop), asking for ransom (of which like only 2 can pay), or leaving there until some other vassal asks to let them free. (Or killing for -10 relations to all vassals or banishing for -50+ to all vassals (lol)). This is deeply unsatisfying. (Especially when you add in that they were all at positive relations when the war began).

I would have thought at high crown authority the expected penalties for treason would be a little harsher. The leader especially should expect to lose their head without the other vassals throwing a sooky fit. Dukes should also be expected to offer ransoms at the very least. Oh yes, and fix the revokation thing. Treason is treason - you shouldn't get a freebie just because the leader died while assaulting all your provinces while the pitiful remnants of your army wandered the map like lost sheep.

 

[unmerged(362834)]

On a second thought, I'd like to outline few more suggestions :

- Let the strongest member of a faction take the lead, even when he had not initiated the faction...

- Sometimes factions support pretenders living in MY court... I only need to put him in prison ad kill him... maybe they should put the pretender in a safe place before lauching the ultimatum

- It makes more sense that vassals belonging to the same de jure kingdom, raise together to form that kingdom... instead of only fighting for independence...

- Under some conditions, foreign powers should be able to support some factions...

 

[dr eng1ish]

The only time (so far) I get caught in a faction war is when I have a child come to the throne. My bribery method can only do so much at that point.

My problem though is the way war score is counted. I'm fighting against about 1/4 of my empire right now, and it's totally easy (I don't even know why they revolted, I had way more troops). The war has gone on for 5 years at this point. I've sacked so many of their holdings that I can't view the entire list in the tooltip. But each one only gets me about 0.7%. Meanwhile, they sack ONE holding and it gets 12%. I can't even look at the occupation screen to see which holdings they have because I occupy so many. And yet, I'm currently at 20% warscore.

There is no challenge in this (particular) war, only tedium. No one can raise more than 3,000 trooops. I have 60k still alive and 60k in reserve. I shouldn't have to sack every single holding just to get them to submit.


Edit: Maybe the AI has similar patience to me as they finally offered a white peace, which I was glad to see still results in the ringleader being imprisoned.

It's a good start and an improvement over the meaningless revolts from before, but needs some work for sure.

 

[Tirunus]

I love the faction system, it makes having a empire actually hard to keep and retain, it just needs to have the AI make more reasonable choices in what factions they join.

 

[Iron Chariots]

The only time (so far) I get caught in a faction war is when I have a child come to the throne. My bribery method can only do so much at that point.

My problem though is the way war score is counted. I'm fighting against about 1/4 of my empire right now, and it's totally easy (I don't even know why they revolted, I had way more troops). The war has gone on for 5 years at this point. I've sacked so many of their holdings that I can't view the entire list in the tooltip. But each one only gets me about 0.7%. Meanwhile, they sack ONE holding and it gets 12%. I can't even look at the occupation screen to see which holdings they have because I occupy so many. And yet, I'm currently at 20% warscore.

There is no challenge in this (particular) war, only tedium. No one can raise more than 3,000 trooops. I have 60k still alive and 60k in reserve. I shouldn't have to sack every single holding just to get them to submit.


Edit: Maybe the AI has similar patience to me as they finally offered a white peace, which I was glad to see still results in the ringleader being imprisoned.

It's a good start and an improvement over the meaningless revolts from before, but needs some work for sure.

Were you occupying the faction leader's counties? I'm pretty sure in a faction war the leader's lands are treated as the "target area." It's like when attacking a kingdom for a particular duchy, you want to specifically occupy the counties in that duchy if you want to get significant warscore.

 

[unmerged(527492)]

I want them to add an "eliminate liege title" faction for situations when crown authority is lowered to autonomous vassals. If I can get the crown authority to almost zero, why can't I have a faction to destroy the entirety of its authority?

Not sure what to do about this, but I've also noticed that the Muslim states very rarely suffer from Independence Factions. I think perhaps reworking the Independence Leagues so that AI strongly prefers Independence vs fighting for lowered crown authority or other things when they are not de jure members of their master's title versus the current system.

I also think that Independence leagues should generate alliances that survive the lifespan of the members of that league. This prevents the issue of the former liege just being able to gobble up all the former vassals. The AI also needs to have something built in to prevent them from choosing vassalage again after revolting.

 

[Lannock]

Lords should join factions WHEN THE DONT LIKE THEIR LEIGE. The number of dukes I see wanting independance with 60+ relations isn't even funny.

I agree with this. It's so annoying to have half a dozen factions conspiring against you even when you keep everyone happy. We should be able to do something about people in factions. If I was a ruler and I knew my vassals were creating a faction to rise up against me I damn sure wouldn't just wait for them to become powerful enough to be a real threat.

 

[Talq]

I suspect a few of the people who join at 80+ relations have been encouraged by spymaster action. It does start to become problematic when it lets them get enough numbers to launch while your chancellor and spymaster are still sitting around going 'why are we here?' (they could also up the difficulty of those mission substantially or make them always fail at 80+ or even 100 relations).

Other ideas:
Stopping people from starting lower crown authority/succession in a kingdom unless its the king's primary title, or they are in its de jure area. Yes your friends can join, but factions consisting of people wanting to lower crown authority in an area none of them are in is head-scratching to say the least.

Letting foreigners join factions would also be good especially letting foreign monarchs meddle in the HRE (but they are having difficulty already with faction wars breaking vassalage in other countries).

 

[Arizal]

I may have a little issue with the Scheme option : why cannot you walk and munch a gum at the same time? I understand that the spymaster can be at only one place at the same time, but what if he had some people below him? It would be more accurate if you could challenge many people at the same time, maybe with a diminished efficiency. Because right now, the only thing that makes faction "dangerous" (and except a disastrous reign start, I never had one) is that if you are too large you cannot handle them, not because of their complexity or whatever, but because there are just too many of them.

 

[Heartsbane]

I'd like the ability arrest them without taking a -20 or -40 relations hit. They are plotting to usurp the crown, I as the monarch know about this, and yet I have to sit back and either bribe everyone involved or wait for them to gain enough support to issue their demands. Why? At least change the mechanic so the factions are always secret and my spymaster has to discover them before I can act instead of having a big "dangerous faction" icon pooping up at the top of my screen every time a new duke inherits or when my heir becomes King. Seems silly that I can't intervene and arrest them without a penalty like I can when they are plotting normally.:glare:

 

[MartinSWE]

The 'key' is that since you fight as a 'defender' in a faction war you don´t have to get 100 % war score to 'win' the war. It is enough to get a white peace since by doing so the war ends and the faction is dissolved. Often the only thing needed is to occupy the faction leaders demesne or even win a few major battles. As an added bonus every memeber of the faction is considered a 'traitor' so you can freely revoke titles from them without tyranny.

 

[Gunnarr]

The only way to fix it is to delete the whole system, I really don't see the point of it, whats the difference between this and plots?

Yeah... I am starting to miss plots... these factions are getting REALLY annoying

 

[Yellowjacket]

Much of this has been said, and I'll agree:

I'd like to see faction member smarter in what factions they join (faction for independence and then you immediately accept vassalization, really? Faction for independence when the Fatamids are just waiting to gobble your dumb ass up, really?)

I'd like to see vassals who like me far less willing to join them. AI just needs to be tweaked a bit from each individual lord's perspective. He should ask himself, "Is this faction's goal REALLY in line with my desires?" Independence should be a powerful motivating influence, but NOT when it would obviously lead to absorption into a less preferred foreign power, or when the rebellion is fairly futile. The feudal system did have advantages for the vassals, as well - it should not be viewed by them only as a shackle they wish to throw off.

 

[dr eng1ish]

Were you occupying the faction leader's counties? I'm pretty sure in a faction war the leader's lands are treated as the "target area." It's like when attacking a kingdom for a particular duchy, you want to specifically occupy the counties in that duchy if you want to get significant warscore.

Pretty sure I was but I could be wrong. If that's the case then that actually makes a lot of sense.

 

[Laotze]

Much of this has been said, and I'll agree:

I'd like to see faction member smarter in what factions they join (faction for independence and then you immediately accept vassalization, really? Faction for independence when the Fatamids are just waiting to gobble your dumb ass up, really?)

I'd like to see vassals who like me far less willing to join them. AI just needs to be tweaked a bit from each individual lord's perspective. He should ask himself, "Is this faction's goal REALLY in line with my desires?" Independence should be a powerful motivating influence, but NOT when it would obviously lead to absorption into a less preferred foreign power, or when the rebellion is fairly futile. The feudal system did have advantages for the vassals, as well - it should not be viewed by them only as a shackle they wish to throw off.

While I couldn't agree more, I don't see the AI in this game ever getting to that point. There doesn't appear to be any concern at all about blobs in the this game from any AI at any level except to be scared of declaring war on opponents who are bigger than him.

For my part, I'm playing my first LoR game and got sick of the faction creation and joining spam that I had to tweak messages. But it does appear that if AI can join a faction it will join or create a faction even if it serves no purpose at all. Putting X person on the throne should seriously be limited to actual pretenders and not any random person with claim on throne.

 

[yourworstnightm]

1) Find ways to actually give the AI reasons to not join factions, make the vassals that actually like their liege more reluctant to join or create factions. Introduce a hostage system so a defeated family don't just start the same civil war over and over again.

2) Don't make factions with the aim to install a claimant without the claimant joining the faction. If the claimant don't wish to join the faction should be disabled. When it comes to underaged claimants, the claimant wouldn't have to join, but the founder of the faction must be a close relative to the claimant or his/ her guardian.

3) The claimant should always be arrested after the revolt, even if he/ she didn't start it. And there should be options to execute the claimant, banish the claimant or be merciful and release him/ her.

 

[unmerged(362834)]

My suggestion is about the huge free stacks independence factions get... it should be disbanded when the war ends without a winner, like when the head of the faction is killed.

I had a game where one of my vassals got about 100k free warriors... I wasn't in the mood to raise all my levies to face this stack so I just sent someone to take care of the leader of the faction.

Those "rebels" who had joined the fight, should have been disbanded immediately after the end of the war... it's none sense that my vassal could keep for years such a huge stack without paying maintenance or suffering attrition...!!!!

Besides this, instead of giving revoltees such bonus, it would have been more interesting that factions members actively seek support inside and outside the realm...