Why am I not getting murdered?

[jtorr]

Over 300 hours in CK3 now and I realised that not once have I ever been assassinated. Even with strong rulers it used to happen occassionally in CK2, one time my widely-beloved Augustus was the victim of a murder plot by some random lunatic count who (to my knowledge) had never interacted with my character beforehand. It might not be something anyone actually wants, but I did come to enjoy how suddenly getting murdered spiced up the game every now and then.

Have they changed it so that it's much easier to avoid getting murdered? Is it a bug? Is it just due to how easy CK3 is? (where it's easy to stack opinion boosts and have 20+ skills on rulers and councillors) Am I just lucky? If you've been assassinated, I'd love to hear your story.

Note: Setting your character up to get murdered on purpose obviously does not count.

 

[pttaylor]

Also if they removed it you'd just get 10 different plots with 5% success chance because there aren't enough accomplices to go around. Now that I think of it, why do I never get asked to be an agent in a plot? I remember getting invited to plots in ck2. Maybe it's because I don't play as vassals often enough?

that, unfortunately, is because the player can't be an agent in a plot, much like the player can't be a knight.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Thank you for sharing that. Kind of odd for them to make it that way when the game is already so easy most of the time.

It's too avoid the appearance it being unfair when/if you get multiple competent characters attempting to murder the played character.

Especially if (due to the retained modifier for vassals' opinion of the previous ruler) you were to then get *another* clutch of competent characters attempting to murder that character as well, resulting in a very tedious series of murders in quick succession, and potentially having a chain of murders that leads to a game over.

To prevent this they slow does the player murder by having the restriction on plots against the player at any one time.

"Fair" isn't always popular with players, because a run of bad luck can really sour people on a game - especially if it happens in quick succession on an early playthrough.

 

[AlipheeseXV]

It's too avoid the appearance it being unfair when/if you get multiple competent characters attempting to murder the played character.

Especially if (due to the retained modifier for vassals' opinion of the previous ruler) you were to then get *another* clutch of competent characters attempting to murder that character as well, resulting in a very tedious series of murders in quick succession, and potentially having a chain of murders that leads to a game over.

To prevent this they slow does the player murder by having the restriction on plots against the player at any one time.

"Fair" isn't always popular with players, because a run of bad luck can really sour people on a game - especially if it happens in quick succession on an early playthrough.

Why can't pdox then give us a game rule for murder plots against the player?
Something along the lines like:
- No murders against the player
- Only one murder at a time against the player
- Less murders against the player
- Same rules for the player like for the AI with murders
- More murders against the player at the same time
- Everyone wants to murder the player at the same time
So a player could seek out the challenge he/she prefers and pdox could deactivate achievements on those rules, who are to easy.

 

[TimCarhill]

The AI is blocked from ganging up on player - in other words, having a murder plot active against you prevents any other character from starting one against you. Often this leads to characters with no real chance of succeeding taking up that spot, never finishing the plot, and being replaced by another of the same like.

Wow I never knew this, I really dont like it, hopefully they add a game rule or something so players who want the challenge of multiple murder plots can try it.

 

[grommile]

Why can't pdox then give us a game rule for murder plots against the player?

Because someone has to sit down and do the work, and other things are considered a more important use of those people's time.

 

[Niall9]

I've been murdered a couple of times, usually as a Count or Duke. But it usually is fairly rare. Mostly because as you move up in ranks well, you just get better quality councilors. Meaning that your Spymaster is just that much better at breaking up plots (even if not assigned to it). And most of the time the people who do set up plots don't really seem to be all that competent. But I've noticed a lot of events coming along that I knew from being on the other side of, were murder plot events. Like some soothsayer coming by to give me a Bad Omen. Or getting a load of poisoned gold delivered to me.

Now the funny enough I never ran into until my last run? People using "Claim Throne on Liege" plots. While at the end of my last run I actually got a lot of pretenders running those schemes. To the point where I had on any given reign about 4 people claiming the Imperial Throne without any Imperial Bloodline.

I seem to get the claim throne once every century in the game

 

[AlipheeseXV]

Because someone has to sit down and do the work, and other things are considered a more important use of those people's time.

As the many complains in the forum about the 'lack of challenges' in ck3, game rules for more harder challenges and therefor more individual challenges would please a significant amount of players and ultimately would justify that such game rules for individual challenges are considered important!
Or at least from a players perspective - what pdox themselves deem important is naturally beyond my knowledge.

 

[DamonIsa]

Well there's an odd cross point to it. Right now a lot of late game CK3 gets frustrating. Not necessarily from challenge of what you're doing. But (and this can apply early game as well) just the sheer amount of pop ups you're bombarded with. Spymaster discovers plot. Someone gave birth. Someone is cheating on their spouse. Someone is a bastard. Etc. Etc. Etc. Things that come off as just annoying chaff. Particularly when you are trying to click something just to have a pop up notice jump up.

Letting more plots happen would just multiple the amount of that chaff. As the end of my last run I was growling in frustration as is by the fact that I couldn't go about 3 in game days without a pop up about something like that.

So ideally I'd like to see fewer notices and events in general... but also more meaningful ones. A lot of the murder plots I discover kind of make no sense as is. Like... my Niece wants to randomly kill an unlanded courtier bumming around my realm hoping I might give them land in a future war perhaps. For no particular reason I can tell. But it will still spawn a bunch of pop up messages about finding agents and discovering the plot, etc.

 

[x4077]

Because someone has to sit down and do the work, and other things are considered a more important use of those people's time.

And we all know how so many 'important' things for the gameplay aspect of CK3 are being worked on.

Well there's an odd cross point to it. Right now a lot of late game CK3 gets frustrating. Not necessarily from challenge of what you're doing. But (and this can apply early game as well) just the sheer amount of pop ups you're bombarded with. Spymaster discovers plot. Someone gave birth. Someone is cheating on their spouse. Someone is a bastard. Etc. Etc. Etc. Things that come off as just annoying chaff. Particularly when you are trying to click something just to have a pop up notice jump up.

So ideally I'd like to see fewer notices and events in general...

If only Paradox knew how to write a message notification system of some sort, but I'm sure they've never seen or heard of such a thing before.

 

[Furya]

Murder schemes are pretty easy very often. For example in 867 you can easily murder the King of West Francia. You only need to bribe his wife and the scheme is at 95/95 or pretty close to it. I have tested it several times. And you only need around 60 - 70 gold.

After the murder scheme has succeded it is also easy to kill the next ruler. Once I had 95/95 without the necessity of bribery.

Now just imagine you would start in 867 as the King of West Francia and someone would scheme continuously against you. Many people would smash their keyboards into their monitors.

 

[x4077]

Now just imagine you would start in 867 as the King of West Francia and someone would scheme continuously against you. Many people would smash their keyboards into their monitors.

For that to happen I would also have to imagine that I am playing in a manner as stupid as the AI does, such as not generating any dread and not hiring a spymaster more competent than a potato. That is much harder to imagine.

 

[aswitz87]

Not counting the mentioned likely to die starting characters, I've had only one assassination. I was a kid, my uncle stood to inherit and everyone liked him (and hated me because 2 years old).

 

[Torredebelem]

For that to happen I would also have to imagine that I am playing in a manner as stupid as the AI does, such as not generating any dread and not hiring a spymaster more competent than a potato. That is much harder to imagine.

While I agree with your answer, there is a caveat, at least for me: Dread (and the higher, the riskier) should lead to an event with an assassination attempt on the character, the probabilities of which should be given by the Intrigue and Prowess of the character. Otherwise Dread continues to be extremely abused as the way of playing once someone rises to the throne.

 

[Bernard de Clairvaux]

Over 300 hours in CK3 now and I realised that not once have I ever been assassinated...

I still remember Crusader Kings II had the "assassinate" button. And it was so much fun.

CK III is all polished and nice-looking.. but it's lacking that fun. I rather play CKII with some nice mod enabled.

 

[grommile]

I still remember Crusader Kings II had the "assassinate" button. And it was so much fun.

The problem is, the very existence of that button as a separate thing from murder plots was negative fun for a bunch of people.

 

[melarkhan]

While i agree that it not happens often i got murdered a couple of times. My fondest memory is from my recent "Great Mordvin" (Empire of Volga-Ural) run. After my current ruler passed away by way of a hunting accident (a real one, i took a chance and rolled badly) both my genius 10 year old son and his sister after him had "accidents" in rapid succession, despite me being able to keep the realm stable due to huge reserves of gold.
Afterwards their uncle took over and i didn`t even realize he had two secrets concerning two certain murders until i got blackmailed by some vassal. I wasn`t even angry. It seemed just so natural and thematic.

 

[Niall9]

While I agree with your answer, there is a caveat, at least for me: Dread (and the higher, the riskier) should lead to an event with an assassination attempt on the character, the probabilities of which should be given by the Intrigue and Prowess of the character. Otherwise Dread continues to be extremely abused as the way of playing once someone rises to the throne.

I do like this as a counterpoint to dread that if you reach certain levels there is an increased chance of an event firing where you get murdered

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

The problem is, the very existence of that button as a separate thing from murder plots was negative fun for a bunch of people.

Let's just say that I became an ardent "assassinate button" abolitionist in CK2 after an early MP game where one unscrupulous player played assassinater kings.

 

[Andrzej2]

The AI is blocked from ganging up on player - in other words, having a murder plot active against you prevents any other character from starting one against you. Often this leads to characters with no real chance of succeeding taking up that spot, never finishing the plot, and being replaced by another of the same like.

I didn't know about that but Im not suprised at all. According to the current paradox design philosophy games need to be accesible and easy so no player would quit from frustration.

They should at least give us some game rules to make game more difficult. More in a style of Ck II.

Like rule which would remove OP perks like meritocracy. Rule that would make eugenics harder. Rule that would result in mobilisation system like in Ck2, rule that limits fabricating claims so you would have to search for proper marriages and claimants.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

This is a serious thread, with lots of good comments about game mechanics. But the thread title- "Why am I not getting murdered?"- while entirely appropriate on a Crusader Kings forum, but would raise alarm bells anywhere else.

Reminds me of some classic old CK2 forum threads like "How can I marry both my mother and daughter?" or "Need help trampling the Pope with elephants", which would often receive serious and thoughtful responses.