Will the new travel system allow us to stay in multiple "Capitals"?

[greywulfos]

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I think it's really bizarre that in this game you can currently hold land on either side of a literal sea and not have to move regularly between different power bases on either side.

For instance, say I'm William of Normandy - will I be able to move to England to deal with problems up in England, then stay in London for a while, before moving back down to Normandy when problems arise there? This kind of system could allow for making loose personal unions feel a lot more like a loose personal union instead of any addition to your empire being the same, be it on the other side of a mountain range or not.

It would be a shame to add the notion of a character's position on the map into the game and then have all plotted courses eventually return to the same place.

 

[Cooleatack]

The thread was titled "Tours are already confirmed as pointless" and the body of the thread was claiming that Tours are either one of two things; a waste of time which does not yield meaningful rewards (contrary to screenshots and statements provided in the dev diary), or a bonus farm which will render the game trivially easy.

The demands in the thread were to introduce something which made them "mandatory". But what is mandatory, exactly? As I stated in the thread, most game mechanics; existing activities, schemes, declaring war, etc. are not "mandatory". You are incentivized to do them based on whatever the game state is. Want someone dead? We have murder schemes for that. Need a boost in control, cultural acceptance, vassal management, and so on? We have Tours for that. It's a tool, same as any other in the game.

The suggestion that kept coming up in the thread was to make a negative modifier (either character or opinion) if you have not completed a Tour recently. This is a terrible idea for a number of reasons; it is an arbitrary punishment which forces the player into engaging in content they may not otherwise need, it makes Tours into a chore you must complete rather than a tool at your disposal, it runs counter to the central design philosophy of activities as a concept, it's boring, it's ahistoric (not every medieval ruler did Tour, and even then it wasn't expected necessarily), it does not introduce new challenges, it forces the player into playing a certain way rather than aligning with their interests. Would a negative character modifier for not completing murder schemes make murder schemes better or more interesting? I don't think so. Would it make sense? Also no.

I talked about balance because that seemed to be the central concern; that Tours would either be powerless or overpowered without an arbitrarily applied character modifier. So, I addressed that elsewhere in the title we intend to adjust numbers accordingly with new bonuses; subtler incentives throughout the title which would drive you to Tour. I couldn't get into specifics partly because there are many of them in small areas, and partly because they related to unannounced features like vassal stances.

My frustration with this topic stems from the fact that it has felt very conspiratorial surrounding my use of a single word, and it feels like this whole discussion would never have happened had I not used that word or addressed this thoroughly and early, but I had signed off believing that it would not have been misconstrued and conspiratorialised in this way.

Plus forum titles like that are just really shitty and hostile. I've just spent months working tirelessly on this feature just for a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start denouncing it as "confirmed to be pointless" merely because of one word I chose to use. It's felt like my follow-up comments and the body of the development diary itself including screenshots has been completely ignored due to this one word.

Hope that clarifies things and we can put this god forsaken topic to bed.

I understand that the negativity is very draining for you personally, and I have defended the devs in this regard in this dev cycle. You are people, and not just robots working on the game. It is easy to forget that, while it is also easy to forget that the commentators do not mean it personally when address an issue. Some are better at communicating without coming accross as mean or blunt, it’s the way a forum goes, unfortunately. I can only say for myself that I never mean to insult anyone, as I wouldn’t want to be insulted myself. I am sorry if any of my comments contributed to any souring of your week.

That being said. Fine. Tours are a tool. I am much less concerned about the vassal balance after this week’s Dev Diary. I think it will be a much better game after the patch, and tours as an activity will have more of a place in it.

However, if tours remain just that, would you be willing to design or think about a different system/activity/tool to address itinerary courts, and vassals visiting lieges that makes the distance of vassals to the liege more challenging? So a conquest four kingdoms over would be harder to maintain?

At the moment I just chuck in a dynasty member with my faith/culture to hold the titles, and change the religion, and they’ll be good to go for generations. I think what others and I wanted to see with tours is to reflect how a distant vassal would seize power if the ruler did not interact with them.

Tours could be one way of doing this, but I agree we should let it go and look beyond. Perhaps you could rework taxation? Or give more types of autonomy? Not to go into suggestions for once: Is this something you could look at from another angle than just tours? To stay on topic, perhaps relating to capitals, and their distance from vassals?

 

[JesterInYellow]

My frustration with this topic stems from the fact that it has felt very conspiratorial surrounding my use of a single word, and it feels like this whole discussion would never have happened had I not used that word or addressed this thoroughly and early, but I had signed off believing that it would not have been misconstrued and conspiratorialised in this way.

If it helps, our frustration stems from the fact that Paradox has consistently failed to deliver, and moreover consistently seem to be completely unaware of what people even want, to the point of responding with complete non sequiturs and vague floorplans that don't seem to be materializing into anything this side of 2025, and Paradox has exactly 0 credibility with "just trust me bro" statements at this point in development. CK3's development has been completely aimless, and the reason they were upset is because they were desperately asking the question "does this expansion have any point at all??? is this literally just another event pack that stacks buffs???" and they got the answer "It's completely optional."

Now personally I didn't take that short answer as confirmation that T&T is pointless, and in a vacuum I'd agree that it was entirely hasty on the part of the community to jump on it, but given the circumstances it's understandable that so many people were unable to grasp the nuance of that statement. It was not what people wanted to hear at the time, and you're absolutely right: The whole discussion would never have happened if you addressed this thoroughly, which you and the rest of Paradox had eons to do during the glacial development of CK3, but you didn't, so here we are.

Plus forum titles like that are just really shitty and hostile. I've just spent months working tirelessly on this feature just for a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start denouncing it as "confirmed to be pointless" merely because of one word I chose to use. It's felt like my follow-up comments and the body of the development diary itself including screenshots has been completely ignored due to this one word.

I get that it feels shitty, but please take a moment to consider it's not just this one word, it's the momentum of several years of disappointment with this product, the slow pace of work, the relative inconsequence of highly priced DLCs, and the non-addressing of severe problems. It found a focus point (undeservedly, maybe) around that one comment, but if you consider it for a few moments, it's obviously not that one comment, it's that people were already upset and the team didn't do anything to address it.

I'm not the face of the company. I'm some guy.

Look I'm not gonna ask you to be a boyscout in the holy name of Paradox Interactive but you got the forum flair and everything my guy.

 

[The Lights]

The suggestion that kept coming up in the thread was to make a negative modifier (either character or opinion) if you have not completed a Tour recently. This is a terrible idea for a number of reasons; it is an arbitrary punishment which forces the player into engaging in content they may not otherwise need, it makes Tours into a chore you must complete rather than a tool at your disposal, it runs counter to the central design philosophy of activities as a concept, it's boring, it's ahistoric (not every medieval ruler did Tour, and even then it wasn't expected necessarily), it does not introduce new challenges, it forces the player into playing a certain way rather than aligning with their interests. Would a negative character modifier for not completing murder schemes make murder schemes better or more interesting? I don't think so. Would it make sense? Also no.

I talked about balance because that seemed to be the central concern; that Tours would either be powerless or overpowered without an arbitrarily applied character modifier. So, I addressed that elsewhere in the title we intend to adjust numbers accordingly with new bonuses; subtler incentives throughout the title which would drive you to Tour. I couldn't get into specifics partly because there are many of them in small areas, and partly because they related to unannounced features like vassal stances.

Interesting read. But if I may, I have shared my thoughts on a few of those threads and I’m still curious as to what you think about them.

I argue the general opinion (maybe not one being expressed, I admit) is not a conversation about game balance as much as it is about having an interesting active system for realm management. Warfare gameplay is active, it keeps the players focused on a whole bunch of things. It doesn’t play itself.
Peace time is a bit different. You set up a few things and from there, you could technically leave the room for a few minutes with the game unpaused and things would be pretty much fine. We’re not worried about how easy or hard it is, we’d just think the Travel System could be a very interesting tool to introduce more active gameplay during peacetime.

I agree that nobody wants a “you have not gone on Tour for at least 5 years” notification, followed by an arbitrary debuff. But I think, since the travel mechanic is part of all activities, and that you can add any stop to any traveling you do, the game should push you to semi-regularly visit your vassals in person, at least the distant-remote ones. The game pushes you to host feasts or go on hunts when you’re stressed. Why not push you towards travelling your vassals (with Tours OR during smaller but more frequent activities) when you have a large realm?

I feel that what I described here varies quite a bit from what you’ve said and I’d like to know your thoughts.

 

[Spartakus]

The thread was titled "Tours are already confirmed as pointless" and the body of the thread was claiming that Tours are either one of two things; a waste of time which does not yield meaningful rewards (contrary to screenshots and statements provided in the dev diary), or a bonus farm which will render the game trivially easy.

The demands in the thread were to introduce something which made them "mandatory". But what is mandatory, exactly? As I stated in the thread, most game mechanics; existing activities, schemes, declaring war, etc. are not "mandatory". You are incentivized to do them based on whatever the game state is. Want someone dead? We have murder schemes for that. Need a boost in control, cultural acceptance, vassal management, and so on? We have Tours for that. It's a tool, same as any other in the game.

The suggestion that kept coming up in the thread was to make a negative modifier (either character or opinion) if you have not completed a Tour recently. This is a terrible idea for a number of reasons; it is an arbitrary punishment which forces the player into engaging in content they may not otherwise need, it makes Tours into a chore you must complete rather than a tool at your disposal, it runs counter to the central design philosophy of activities as a concept, it's boring, it's ahistoric (not every medieval ruler did Tour, and even then it wasn't expected necessarily), it does not introduce new challenges, it forces the player into playing a certain way rather than aligning with their interests. Would a negative character modifier for not completing murder schemes make murder schemes better or more interesting? I don't think so. Would it make sense? Also no.

I talked about balance because that seemed to be the central concern; that Tours would either be powerless or overpowered without an arbitrarily applied character modifier. So, I addressed that elsewhere in the title we intend to adjust numbers accordingly with new bonuses; subtler incentives throughout the title which would drive you to Tour. I couldn't get into specifics partly because there are many of them in small areas, and partly because they related to unannounced features like vassal stances.

My frustration with this topic stems from the fact that it has felt very conspiratorial surrounding my use of a single word, and it feels like this whole discussion would never have happened had I not used that word or addressed this thoroughly and early, but I had signed off believing that it would not have been misconstrued and conspiratorialised in this way.

Plus forum titles like that are just really shitty and hostile. I've just spent months working tirelessly on this feature just for a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start denouncing it as "confirmed to be pointless" merely because of one word I chose to use. It's felt like my follow-up comments and the body of the development diary itself including screenshots has been completely ignored due to this one word.

Hope that clarifies things and we can put this god forsaken topic to bed.

Thank you.
I was completely oblivious to the former thread title. That and possibly some snarky responses might have been subject to moderation and therefore no longer in plain sight.
I hope you can understand my utter confusion about why not only the first dev response in an apparently perfectly reasonable thread was a snarky one but also looks as if the passive-aggresiveness is brought into the thread by a developer. This response from you makes this much more clear.

I would however disagree with you that the central concern is about balance. The OP in this thread here, The thread referenced above as well as My own contribution are all about how distant parts of your realm don't feel distant. Sure they may have a different culture and religion but not the problem that no north italian duke has even seen the emperor in their lifetime.
Tour and Travels which I think have been overwhelmingly well recieved as concepts are such an obvious tool do deal with this, that we would really, really want to have a problem with distant parts of our realms realized as a game mechanic. And balancing however necessary or well done will only take us partways there, especially when you consider that Tours are tied to a DLC.

 

[Meka66]

However, if tours remain just that, would you be willing to design or think about a different system/activity/tool to address itinerary courts, and vassals visiting lieges that makes the distance of vassals to the liege more challenging? So a conquest four kingdoms over would be harder to maintain?

In the future I think that's a great idea and it's something we've already discussed a bunch on the team, it's just not going to be addressed in this expansion. Personally I'd love to see some stuff where things on the perifery of your realm become more distant and prone to breaking away, and Tours could interact with that in the future. It's just not for this expansion.

Look I'm not gonna ask you to be a boyscout in the holy name of Paradox Interactive but you got the forum flair and everything my guy.

You can argue against it all you like, but what I've said is just a fact; community engagement is not part of my employment contract. I do it because I want to, and all I'm meaning to say is that if you want me to continue to choose to do this, you need to understand I'm not a faceless avatar of the company or your customer service rep. I am a developer volunteering my time, and I'll only continue to volunteer it if I feel like it.

Won't be replying further as there is much work to be done at this stage. Hope you all enjoy the expansion when it's out

 

[grommile]

the game should push you to semi-regularly visit your vassals in person, at least the distant-remote ones.

It should push you to meet your vassals. How that is arranged should communicate something about your realm; you visiting them gives more of a primus inter pares vibe than sending a message requiring them to visit you.

 

[TripleAgent]

The thread was titled "Tours are already confirmed as pointless" and the body of the thread was claiming that Tours are either one of two things; a waste of time which does not yield meaningful rewards (contrary to screenshots and statements provided in the dev diary), or a bonus farm which will render the game trivially easy.

The demands in the thread were to introduce something which made them "mandatory". But what is mandatory, exactly? As I stated in the thread, most game mechanics; existing activities, schemes, declaring war, etc. are not "mandatory". You are incentivized to do them based on whatever the game state is. Want someone dead? We have murder schemes for that. Need a boost in control, cultural acceptance, vassal management, and so on? We have Tours for that. It's a tool, same as any other in the game.

The suggestion that kept coming up in the thread was to make a negative modifier (either character or opinion) if you have not completed a Tour recently. This is a terrible idea for a number of reasons; it is an arbitrary punishment which forces the player into engaging in content they may not otherwise need, it makes Tours into a chore you must complete rather than a tool at your disposal, it runs counter to the central design philosophy of activities as a concept, it's boring, it's ahistoric (not every medieval ruler did Tour, and even then it wasn't expected necessarily), it does not introduce new challenges, it forces the player into playing a certain way rather than aligning with their interests. Would a negative character modifier for not completing murder schemes make murder schemes better or more interesting? I don't think so. Would it make sense? Also no.

I talked about balance because that seemed to be the central concern; that Tours would either be powerless or overpowered without an arbitrarily applied character modifier. So, I addressed that elsewhere in the title we intend to adjust numbers accordingly with new bonuses; subtler incentives throughout the title which would drive you to Tour. I couldn't get into specifics partly because there are many of them in small areas, and partly because they related to unannounced features like vassal stances.

My frustration with this topic stems from the fact that it has felt very conspiratorial surrounding my use of a single word, and it feels like this whole discussion would never have happened had I not used that word or addressed this thoroughly and early, but I had signed off believing that it would not have been misconstrued and conspiratorialised in this way.

Plus forum titles like that are just really shitty and hostile. I've just spent months working tirelessly on this feature just for a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start denouncing it as "confirmed to be pointless" merely because of one word I chose to use. It's felt like my follow-up comments and the body of the development diary itself including screenshots has been completely ignored due to this one word.

Hope that clarifies things and we can put this god forsaken topic to bed.

You keep on saying that a malus is an "arbitrary punishment", what do you mean by arbitrary? I take that it as "without reason," which is why I'm confused; a negative modifier for not touring isn't arbitrary, it's logical! If you don't tour, your vassals and smallfolk don't see you, and if they don't see you and your entourage/grandeur/tournaments/etc they start to stew against you! Your other example, not completing murder scheme, would be arbitrary because there's no logical reason why people would have a negative opinion of you for not murdering someone. There is a logical reason why not touring would not go over well with vassals. I think that's the disconnect here.

As I've said re: previous threads on this:

If a monarch refuses to visit his vassals, to make a show of force and splendor to the locals, shouldn't that be reflected in the gameplay in a negative way? The game already suffers from a lack of challenge for a lot of us, adding this wrinkle and actually encouraging the use of the TT mechanics in a sensible, logical, and realistic way would at least be something to address that, especially with extremely large empires that might not be easy to hold together without a LOT of effort on the part of the ruler, in part using this cool system! I fear this is going to end up like RC, where I only really click on it because I get the notification and want the notification to go away, because it isn't integrated with the rest of the game in an interesting, compelling way (plus seeing the same court events over and over in a playthrough gets them feeling a bit bland).
we have so many optional mechanics that don't feel at all impactful other than "exchange gold for prestige, exchange gold for stress relief, exchange gold for piety" and there's no mechanical benefit for doing so (or detriment for not doing so).

If I don't go on a pilgrimage in my entire 30 year reign, my pious vassals shouldn't like that. If I don't go on hunts or hold feasts, my powerful vassals shouldn't like that. The fact that these events currently lack detrimental mechanics shouldn't be a justification for those detrimental mechanics not existing! If we're revamping these for the current system, isn't it reasonable to reevaluate how the player mechanically interacts with them? I go on a pilgrimage when I need more piety, I hold a feast when I need to relieve stress, I go hunting when I need prestige. At this point it feels like buttons to press to get things, not meaningful to the gameplay loop or RP.

...
I mean I don't think people are saying we want it so that you MUST tour, it's that there should be negative consequences for NOT touring for long periods of time and that touring will resolve those negative consequences while also potentially giving you either positive things or other smaller negative things. Those are different things. Not that you MUST tour, but that you should feel fairly compelled to tour in a way that makes sense for the mechanic and for RP purposes.

See also: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-diary-119-tours-and-travel.1573700/post-28829395

 

[Meka66]

You keep on saying that a malus is an "arbitrary punishment", what do you mean by arbitrary? I take that it as "without reason," which is why I'm confused; a negative modifier for not touring isn't arbitrary, it's logical! If you don't tour, your vassals and smallfolk don't see you, and if they don't see you and your entourage/grandeur/tournaments/etc they start to stew against you! Your other example, not completing murder scheme, would be arbitrary because there's no logical reason why people would have a negative opinion of you for not murdering someone. There is a logical reason why not touring would not go over well with vassals. I think that's the disconnect here.

No, I understand, I just think it's a bad idea.

It's mainly the use of a modifier to represent this that I think is arbitrary, but that's arguing semantics which I think is pointless. The core of it is I just think a negative character modifier to force the player into doing an activity is bad game design. It makes it into a chore you maintain instead of something you engage with because it just makes sense in the context of the game.

We have people in the beta program and QA delivering feedback about Tours the whole time, and I decided to ask them what they thought of this modifier idea, and we agreed that this is kinda just bad. Tours don't need extra incentive, it already makes sense to go on Tours so why would we even want to have this cheap little modifier show up every few years to force you? I'm just not sure why this small collection of people on the forums think this would be fun.

But I mean if you're really committed to this idea, and you still feel like this when the game releases, you can always mod it in and it wouldn't be hard. Just throw it into the yearly on_action, then make it go away when you start a tour, and it's done.

 

[TripleAgent]

Tours don't need extra incentive, it already makes sense to go on Tours so why would we even want to have this cheap little modifier show up every few years to force you? I'm just not sure why this small collection of people on the forums think this would be fun.

Because that seems to be the approach with Royal Court and, as I described in that other thread I linked, it makes the mechanic feel less connected and less fun if it's just a disconnected benefit with no real drawback mechanically integrated into the game. You aren't forced to hold court, despite the logical reasons why you would be expected as a monarch to hold court, and because of that it feels like a tacked on event window that you can optionally engage in instead of an integral part of ruling your kingdom.

I don't want a cheap modifier! But I feel like a cheap modifier to add a little friction to the new system is better than nothing, like we had with Royal Court. I'd prefer greater integration into the intrigue system, increased risks of revolts without visiting your vassals, something that actually forces players to make hard choices. I don't consider this a "chore", I consider this a hard, meaningful choice on how your character is going to rule and the consequences of doing so. As it stands, the game severely lacks consequences for actions in many respects, and it feels like rather than adding actual consequences for different playstyles you're adding new avenues to deal with problems that we already easily deal with.

I (and many others) want more difficulty and friction. What you call a chore, I call compelling gameplay. I think that's part of where this disconnect is. I miss councils saying that I can't do things. I miss factions that couldn't just be bribed out of existence. I miss consequences for conquering half of Europe as a single character.

 

[grommile]

But I feel like a cheap modifier to add a little friction to the new system is better than nothing

I see a bad incentive as worse than no incentive.

Tours are a tool. They're not necessarily the right tool for the problem you need to solve or the goal you need to pursue, and even if they're a good tool, they're not necessarily the most authentic tool (as noted, tours apparently weren't a thing the Basileus did) or the most fun tool (maybe you, the meatbag, are more in the mood to use some other good tool).

If your current goals and problems are best handled by some other tool, the game shouldn't be strong-arming you into doing a tour by giving you a crude numeric penalty pulled out of someone's hat because it's "too long" (according to some metric also pulled out of someone's hat) since you did one.

 

[gamerk2]

I wouldn't be against revising the hard restrictions we have on moving capitals personally. A travelling court system would be quite difficult to do, but loosening the restrictions on when you can move your capital wouldn't be super hard to do, it's a balance concern mostly.

Just a thought, maybe having a secondary/administrative Capital that a King/Emperor could choose (via decision) to re-locate to? Obviously you'd need some restrictions on where that could be, but that would probably be the easiest implementation if you wanted to have some ability to rule from elsewhere.

 

[TripleAgent]

Just a thought, maybe having a secondary/administrative Capital that a King/Emperor could choose (via decision) to re-locate to? Obviously you'd need some restrictions on where that could be, but that would probably be the easiest implementation if you wanted to have some ability to rule from elsewhere.

On a slightly related note, and this probably won't be part of the expansion but I think it's still worth discussing; an "evacuation" style traveling mechanism might also be interesting.

For example, say you're at war and in danger of having your capital besieged. You can pack up your family, court, artifacts, etc, to evacuate and move to a new capital, probably for a severe gold/prestige cost, but you'd be vulnerable during the travel so you'd probably want your armies to travel nearby to protect you.

 

[rugger7]

No, I understand, I just think it's a bad idea.

It's mainly the use of a modifier to represent this that I think is arbitrary, but that's arguing semantics which I think is pointless. The core of it is I just think a negative character modifier to force the player into doing an activity is bad game design. It makes it into a chore you maintain instead of something you engage with because it just makes sense in the context of the game.

We have people in the beta program and QA delivering feedback about Tours the whole time, and I decided to ask them what they thought of this modifier idea, and we agreed that this is kinda just bad. Tours don't need extra incentive, it already makes sense to go on Tours so why would we even want to have this cheap little modifier show up every few years to force you? I'm just not sure why this small collection of people on the forums think this would be fun.

But I mean if you're really committed to this idea, and you still feel like this when the game releases, you can always mod it in and it wouldn't be hard. Just throw it into the yearly on_action, then make it go away when you start a tour, and it's done.

I won't speak for everyone, but I think there's a misunderstanding of what the malus should be. Personally, I don't think it should be of the form: "-15 Haven't toured in 5 years", or anything similar. Instead, I think tours should be one way of solving a realm/vassal problem that can also be solved with other tools. Another poster called it "neglect" in another thread. Maybe "autonomy" would be better. We should have to interact with our vassals. Feasts, swaying, hunting, tours, sending our troops or marshall or chancellor, etc. should all be ways to reduce this "neglect". Vassals close to our power base would be easy to tour or invite to feasts or interact with in general. Those further away would be harder. So neglect doesn't force a tour like you seem to think we want in a malus, but a tour would be an effective way of reducing neglect in a larger number of vassals but at an opportunity cost. Neglect could reduce taxes, levies, maybe increase likelihood of rebellion. Neglect is not a "you haven't toured" malus, but it is a malus that touring can reduce along with other interactions. What makes this interesting is that I now have choices about how to deal with my vassals. Maybe I have a rival who's not paying taxes and won't be swayed or come to a hunt. I can do an intimidation tour to bring them in line. So tours is the right tool to solve that specific problem, but other cases might be better suited by a feast if the danger and cost are lower. This ties tours into the rest of the game, not just as another system in isolation. Where neglect adds to vassal opinion is that it encourages interaction. Maybe dread can counteract neglect so that you aren't forced to interact with vassals, or you can use your army as the Byz emperor to control far away provinces allowing you to continue lounging in Constantinople.
The point is that more of these systems start interacting and you can choose the tool you want to solve different problems in different ways. This same idea is combined in the OP of this thread with the movement of a capital to increase local control. While not a perfect idea yet, I think further discussion could start fleshing out a mechanic that is a win/win for a lot of different groups in the community.

Sorry for a rambling post, typing this while pretending to be listening to a meeting.

 

[Cooleatack]

In the future I think that's a great idea and it's something we've already discussed a bunch on the team, it's just not going to be addressed in this expansion. Personally I'd love to see some stuff where things on the perifery of your realm become more distant and prone to breaking away, and Tours could interact with that in the future. It's just not for this expansion.

Thank you for making this the last reply I am very happy that the team is thinking about this! Complexity in this area was what I was preaching for, so colour me satisfied. Since this expansion comes with some interesting vassal changes, I am completely fine with this being for the future.

What I gained from this whole discussion is that you guys are indeed thinking to make the game more complex, whereas I started out worrying it was aiming to not be as deep, like many others. So, it was a rough few threads, but I think we can all take away that the game does have a bright future ahead. Let’s keep giving them suggestions in a civil manner, and look forward to the rest of the expansion.

 

[Bisonmask]

The demands in the thread were to introduce something which made them "mandatory". But what is mandatory, exactly? As I stated in the thread, most game mechanics; existing activities, schemes, declaring war, etc. are not "mandatory". You are incentivized to do them based on whatever the game state is. Want someone dead? We have murder schemes for that. Need a boost in control, cultural acceptance, vassal management, and so on? We have Tours for that. It's a tool, same as any other in the game.

This paragraph confuses me because while I can see what you mean I don't think its possible, in normal gameplay, to ignore schemes or war as a whole and I think that's in the direction of what people are asking for.

Like you can choose to never open the military tab, always accept faction requests, and pray to the Virgin Mary daily and maybe nobody will declare war on you but that's extremely unlikely over three generations or even a single lifetime. You can similarly chose to ignore scheming and never appoint a spymaster but if you have things that people want you're likely to have a bad time. The same goes for things like factions, the council as a whole, succession, marriage, etc. Technically yes, all of these things aren't mandatory but the "incentive" to use them is a fundamental part of loading up a game of CK3

To me Tours themselves aren't even the point its about regularly seeing/interacting with your vassals. If they're characters in the story being told and pieces of the system that is your realm in my mind the game should incentivise you to interact with them regularly and punish you for not doing so. Its the same as how the game incentivises you to be at war and punishes you for not being prepared for that inevitability

 

[grommile]

This paragraph confuses me because while I can see what you mean I don't think its possible, in normal gameplay, to ignore schemes or war as a whole and I think that's in the direction of what people are asking for.

A Tour is a positive action, like starting a hunt or declaring war or initiating a Hostile Scheme.

There seems to be a very specific vibe of "you should be penalized for not taking this specific positive action often enough" coming off a certain slice of the forum population when they talk about Tours... but there's no penalty for not going hunting, not holding feasts, not declaring war, not initiating hostile schemes, etc.

 

[Cooleatack]

This paragraph confuses me because while I can see what you mean I don't think its possible, in normal gameplay, to ignore schemes or war as a whole and I think that's in the direction of what people are asking for.

Like you can choose to never open the military tab, always accept faction requests, and pray to the Virgin Mary daily and maybe nobody will declare war on you but that's extremely unlikely over three generations or even a single lifetime. You can similarly chose to ignore scheming and never appoint a spymaster but if you have things that people want you're likely to have a bad time. The same goes for things like factions, the council as a whole, succession, marriage, etc. Technically yes, all of these things aren't mandatory but the "incentive" to use them is a fundamental part of loading up a game of CK3

To me Tours themselves aren't even the point its about regularly seeing/interacting with your vassals. If they're characters in the story being told and pieces of the system that is your realm in my mind the game should incentivise you to interact with them regularly and punish you for not doing so. Its the same as how the game incentivises you to be at war and punishes you for not being prepared for that inevitability

I completely agree with the need for “neglect” and distant vassals to be more of a challenge. I would like to see more interaction and storybuilding, because after I grow, I stop caring about my vassals at all. Just make them +100 through fame and gifts and it’s done. Setting yourself up to not fail is too easy.

However, he just stated that they are actively looking into making this for the future. They just don’t want to do it with tours directly, but then also said tours could play into it.

So, let’s move on from the tour discussion, check out how the new vassal stances and travel impact the game, and have tours, tournaments, and other new activities be just activities for now. With them showing they do care about mechanics, and event generators aren’t just the focus, let’s stop circlejerking about it. I think our suggestions have been noted, and will be taken into consideration.

Then, after we have been able to play with the new mechanics, we can see how the dust settles, and if the vassals are still a joke to manage. I honestly doubt it with the vassal stances, as it makes every choice a poor choice for at least some of the vassals. The regent will throw in another layer of complexity and intrigue, so let’s hold our horses for a bit, and give them some leeway.

 

[thundershield]

Because that seems to be the approach with Royal Court and, as I described in that other thread I linked, it makes the mechanic feel less connected and less fun if it's just a disconnected benefit with no real drawback mechanically integrated into the game. You aren't forced to hold court, despite the logical reasons why you would be expected as a monarch to hold court, and because of that it feels like a tacked on event window that you can optionally engage in instead of an integral part of ruling your kingdom.

I've seen the comparison between tours and holding court a few times, and I feel the comparison is not an especially useful one to make, because how they operate is significantly different. We can look at feasts to see how they differ.

Feasts are a useful tool for a variety of situations. Firstly, feasts can relieve stress, something that many rulers constantly have to deal with. Secondly, feasts grant you prestige, and one of the few ways to convert gold into prestige when at peace. Finally, feasts grant opinion bonuses to all who attend, making them a useful first activity to a new lord who wants to counteract that new ruler penalty. Now, there are several different events that can happen at a feast, but you know that you can count on feasts to help out with these issues at the very least. Feasts are a tool your ruler can use.

Compare this to holding court. When you hold court, you don't know what problems you're solving. It's not a reliable tool for anything. All that you know is that you are going to get 3 random events, and that's it. Now, those 3 random events might help fix problems your currently dealing with, or present new opportunities for you to exploit, but they also might be entirely irrelevant or occasionally even harmful. You can't count on holding court to help you with any specific problem, making it not a useful tool for your ruler.

Now if we look at tours, they hew far, far closer to feasts then holding court. While we don't know exactly how tours will work, we do some details. We know you can choose which vassals you want to visit. We know you can choose your intent for the tour, specifying what you want to get out of it. While we don't know most of the events that will surround tours or how effective they will be, we do know what problems they will help with. This makes tours a useful tool, where you can see a problem ,like say lack of gold, and use a taxes tour to help fix that problem.

Also, viewing tours in this light helps explain why it doesn't automatically need a negative enforcement mechanic associated with it. It's a tool to solve problems, but it shouldn't be the only way to solve a problem. Of course, this does cause some slight problems where the player will be able to better make use of tours then the AI, but that is true for nearly every single mechanic in the game and tours are probably not the best place to address this imbalance.

 

[The Lights]

In the future I think that's a great idea and it's something we've already discussed a bunch on the team, it's just not going to be addressed in this expansion. Personally I'd love to see some stuff where things on the perifery of your realm become more distant and prone to breaking away, and Tours could interact with that in the future. It's just not for this expansion.

Well, I find that very promising and I'm excited to see what the team cooks up when the time comes. I imagine it will include travelling in some way, it would seem logical afterall. To me that's all that matters, more active systems for realm/vassal management... whatever form it ends up taking.

I just need to add...

Tours don't need extra incentive, it already makes sense to go on Tours so why would we even want to have this cheap little modifier show up every few years to force you? I'm just not sure why this small collection of people on the forums think this would be fun.

But I mean if you're really committed to this idea, and you still feel like this when the game releases, you can always mod it in and it wouldn't be hard. Just throw it into the yearly on_action, then make it go away when you start a tour, and it's done.

It's possible this reply isn't talking about EVERYONE who raised concerns, and instead only to those who are specifically asking for this recurring modifier. But just in case, it's just a bit discouraging to see a whole spectrum of different arguments and opinions be boiled down to "this cheap little modifier" that shows up every few years reminding you to do a Tour.
You yourself have recently talked about people going crazy with conspiracies regarding the whole "optional" thing. The criticism is completely fair, but on the filp side, the people who have given more nuanced/varied opinions would appreciate their thoughts be considered as well. Nobody is expecting the devs to answer to everything, but a basic aknowledgement that there are varying opinions would be nice.
We're under no allusion we have the answers to make the perfect game, but it's clear these opinions stem from somewhere. It just seems a bit like they're all being bunched up and thrown away indiscriminately.

Anyway, like I said, I love the basic elevator pitch in the first quote. I'm satisfied.

 

[Tomray94]

… Instead, I think tours should be one way of solving a realm/vassal problem that can also be solved with other tools. Another poster called it "neglect" in another thread. Maybe "autonomy" would be better. We should have to interact with our vassals. Feasts, swaying, hunting, tours, sending our troops or marshall or chancellor, etc. should all be ways to reduce this "neglect". Vassals close to our power base would be easy to tour or invite to feasts or interact with in general. Those further away would be harder. So neglect doesn't force a tour like you seem to think we want in a malus, but a tour would be an effective way of reducing neglect in a larger number of vassals but at an opportunity cost. Neglect could reduce taxes, levies, maybe increase likelihood of rebellion. Neglect is not a "you haven't toured" malus, but it is a malus that touring can reduce along with other interactions. What makes this interesting is that I now have choices about how to deal with my vassals. Maybe I have a rival who's not paying taxes and won't be swayed or come to a hunt. I can do an intimidation tour to bring them in line. So tours is the right tool to solve that specific problem, but other cases might be better suited by a feast if the danger and cost are lower. This ties tours into the rest of the game, not just as another system in isolation. Where neglect adds to vassal opinion is that it encourages interaction. Maybe dread can counteract neglect so that you aren't forced to interact with vassals, or you can use your army as the Byz emperor to control far away provinces allowing you to continue lounging in Constantinople.
The point is that more of these systems start interacting and you can choose the tool you want to solve different problems in different ways. This same idea is combined in the OP of this thread with the movement of a capital to increase local control. While not a perfect idea yet, I think further discussion could start fleshing out a mechanic that is a win/win for a lot of different groups in the community.

I think this is absolutely the right call to make in regards to that system. It has to have some tangible, real, effect in-game for it to really matter. It doesn't have to be the ONLY solution to a problem, but it should be a solution to some problem. In this sense, and I say this with all respect towards the devs, I don't understand dev hesitation on this matter.

I enjoy holding court, I enjoy artifacts, I enjoy furnishing my court in interesting ways. Despite that though, I still view that activity as rather disconnected from the rest of the game and it shouldn't be this way. This is what players don't want, this relative "isolation" of the mechanics, which also forces them to be too "tame", for lack of a better term, since they are not allowed to "force" players (again, I am saying this respectfully, not playing with the words of the developer here).