CKII is released.

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Depends on the size from my experience, empires have no problem with rebellions but most kingdoms with just their de jure are fucked.

 

[Jarpie]

Does that work better in HiP or CKPlus? As someone wrote in here, in early starts catholics are fucked. I'm just in the year 814 and I can already see muslims conquering france without my intervention from the british isles. Which of the mods is better though?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

IIRC Plus is the one that had anti-blobbing mechanics and the option to tag certain rulers (and their successors) as Lucky, which generally helped a great deal in steering the game.

 

[Zero Credibility]

HIP has vassal levy penalties for all realms depending on the number of vassals and a kind of decadence for empires that increases with succession and reduces effectiveness of levies / taxes. Lucky rulers as well I think. Both HIP and CK2 try to contain blobbing, but how successful that is is debatable.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You'd really have to alter the way armies are raised and how their size is determined works to get that to fully work, particularly considering that basic composition and size matter so much.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Making fielding an army a bigger problem would help. Make offensive wars expensive as hell, and maintaining an army in enemy territory for longer duration a huge pain in the ass. Right now you just raise vassal levies and make them pay (and even that just a fraction of cost). By the time they get angry the war is over, and then just wait a couple of years and start over again. Get the ball rolling and there is no stopping you as long as you have good CBs against neighbors.

 

[Stavrophore]

Making fielding an army a bigger problem would help. Make offensive wars expensive as hell, and maintaining an army in enemy territory for longer duration a huge pain in the ass. Right now you just raise vassal levies and make them pay (and even that just a fraction of cost). By the time they get angry the war is over, and then just wait a couple of years and start over again. Get the ball rolling and there is no stopping you as long as you have good CBs against neighbors.

I think about another mechanics, that would be already well integrated with ingame mechanics -just make the council discontent, every month per -1 or -2 malus from levies raised too long[of course some treshold would be needed, like effect start at -10 or -20]. That would truly make things interesting and unstable. If you have abolished council power, than increase the desire to factionalism/increase council power by some percent per malus.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I'd have to disagree that the council is well integrated with the core mechanics in the first place. I think councilors should be discontent if they have a reason to be discontent, there's too many events and mechanics in the game already that don't care about opinion. A vassal councilor with raised levies might get discontent after a while, but there is already a mechanic for that, it's vassal levy penalty. It just needs buffing and making it last longer. But a vassal councilor whose troops are not fighting in the war? Or a loyal courtier councilor that has no stake in this war whatsoever? I don't see why they would suddenly turn against you just because you are fighting a war. And especially if you are winning.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Better idea would be to simply make all levies like retinues, and instead have a relatively low hardcap that puts a very tiny difference between dukes and kings/emperors when it comes to how much they can bring to bear besides mercenaries. And indeed, the key thing there should always be that the vassal armies are THE VASSALS armies first and foremost, never YOUR armies. So the biggest concern would really be if the vassals are willing to come fight in the first place (ie, have vassals have an opinion on the war itself as well to influence this).

Another thing would be to ape off Nobunaga's Ambition and heavily restrict routes between many smaller regions, ie there's only so many ways into and out of Switzerland, along with adding "empty" spaces in provinces in addition to holdings (let's say for example your average compact province has 15 spaces, at most seven of which might be holdings, with the attrition provinces like say Norrland's having even more; this might also have applications to siege process) and a HoI style "moving to same space = combat" rather than "in the same space = combat" (which for one thing would make pincer attacks a thing).

 

[Zero Credibility]

So the biggest concern would really be if the vassals are willing to come fight in the first place (ie, have vassals have an opinion on the war itself as well to influence this).

This would be great if it could be done. Make the vassal levies depended not only on opinion of liege, but also on the opinion of the war in question. Sure, that duke likes the emperor, but is that war over some patch of dirt on the other side the empire really his fight? So he sends a bare minimum he can get away with legally. Now, if it's in his neighborhood, that's different. And if the emperor is pushing his claim or even defending his lands, then of course he would give all he can and then some.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Could also be used as an anti-blobbing mechanism.

 

[Jarpie]

AFAIK that's how it was basically at least in the 12th and 13th centuries when The Plantagenets ruled the england, one of the kings wanted to reconquer the lost lands in France, but the barons thought that the king is too retarded to succeed, so they refused him to raise taxes, nor give him troops, this was thanks to Magna Carta IIRC. Not sure how it was in other countries. Going to the war should be very fucking expensive, especially if it's going to be two big countries fighting, like England vs. France, or like in my current game as de Hauteville ruling the lower-half of Italy, going against the Byzantium Empire.

The cost of conquest would really make it harder for the player to blob if the cost would be much higher. CK2Plus makes it less profitable by reducing the taxes and manpower for five years after you've gained the province, but five years is very short time in CK2.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That'd be again where the mercenaries come in. If the hardcaps to army size means you don't have much difference between dukes, kings, and emperors without all their vassals cooperating (highly unlikely, since I also think vassals should be allowed to defect during war, Burgundy style) it would mean that mercenaries will be used and they will cost much, particularly if as I wish wars would generally be slower, longer, and more local (since I for one think it's rather ridiculous when realms go to war across sea, aside from the Channel of Friendship of course). And as I said before, attrition should not be based just on some relatively arbitrary support limit, but instead replaced by a system based on weather, time of year, and the supplies carried by the army. The single most important thing to just blatantly steal from Nobunaga's Ambition for your feudal strategy game should be harvest season and the supplies it provides for sale and stockpile, so the fundamental basis of war is that armies march on their bellies. Implementation of a rudimentary population mechanic and a relation between it and taxation (taxes being largely in form of the harvest rather than direct cash, as is historical, since vast majority of the populace paid in agricultural products) would also benefit this and add more to do in peacetime than just test your patience waiting for gold to build up and your chancellor to finish the next bullshit claim for you.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Oh yes, the game needs population as well. Even with the recently conquered / new administration penalty it is way too easy to get money and troops out of territory that was just burned to the ground by stampeding armies and long sieges.

Maybe in CK3, but that sure as hell isn't happening while they can still squeeze some shekels out their increasingly silly DLCs.

 

[Jarpie]

HiP has deminishing returns on levy sizes based on how many provinces you own (or realm size), not sure how well that works though. Anyone have experiences with it?

 

[Fedora Master]

Oh yes, the game needs population as well. Even with the recently conquered / new administration penalty it is way too easy to get money and troops out of territory that was just burned to the ground by stampeding armies and long sieges.

Maybe in CK3, but that sure as hell isn't happening while they can still squeeze some shekels out their increasingly silly DLCs.

lol, Paradox isn't smart/sensible enough to do population mechanics. CK3 will just get the same arbitrary ruler mana EUIV does.

 

[Zero Credibility]

HiP has deminishing returns on levy sizes based on how many provinces you own (or realm size), not sure how well that works though. Anyone have experiences with it?

It's a vassal levy penalty based on direct vassal number. Larger realms generally have more direct vassals so can pull less vassal levies unless they centralize strongly. It caps off at 50% relatively quickly, so if you are like me and like decentralized realms with large number of smaller vassals you have to count on only getting half of their levies you would normally get.

 

[IDtenT]

Oh yes, the game needs population as well. Even with the recently conquered / new administration penalty it is way too easy to get money and troops out of territory that was just burned to the ground by stampeding armies and long sieges.

Maybe in CK3, but that sure as hell isn't happening while they can still squeeze some shekels out their increasingly silly DLCs.

That's why they introduced prosperity mechanics. When last did you play the game?

 

[Zero Credibility]

I did play with those, but I've never seen a county depopulated due to warfare, only diseases. And I dislike how those are handled, with ludicrously expensive buildings and the AI completely helpless to deal with them.

 

[IDtenT]

I did play with those, but I've never seen a county depopulated due to warfare, only diseases. And I dislike how those are handled, with ludicrously expensive buildings and the AI completely helpless to deal with them.

Mmm. I wonder if it can be made warfare based too with a mod.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I think there already is some connection between presence of hostile armies and prosperity because I do remember seeing a tip about keeping hostiles out to increase it somewhere. But as I said, I've never noticed actual depopulation happen just because of warfare. Maybe the effect is just not strong enough?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There is an effect from Recently Looted and sieges, but it's kind of a strange system that is a tad too random for its own good (and super-determined by the hospital holding).

Also the general problem with levies I think is that it's a way of handling armies that's really annoying and just busywork due to the way the armies are built. There are too many troop types and buildings for the system to work out and it doesn't stress importance of individual provinces. To again reference a game that does this thing exceptionally well, Nobunaga's Ambition handles provincial armies extremely well and key components are 1) army composition is an elegantly simple system (you have infantry, cavalry, and musketmen for unit types, which is then affected by level of martial training in the province for what formations they can use), 2) armies cannot be fused into stacks (this is the way provincial armies should work if you have them; plus it also adds to how pivotally important the army's leaders are), 3) provinces have limited development capacity so you have to prioritize (in case of war, a basic example is better troops vs more troops).

 

[Average Manatee]

I played EU:Rome recently and it really is nice that you can have cities with 100s of pops next to wasteland with 5 pops. Sadly Paradox seems to be afraid of adding real complexity to games any more in favor of easily learnable event chains and easily gamed stuff like how the Chinese tributary system turned out.

I think there already is some connection between presence of hostile armies and prosperity because I do remember seeing a tip about keeping hostiles out to increase it somewhere. But as I said, I've never noticed actual depopulation happen just because of warfare. Maybe the effect is just not strong enough?

I think hostile armies only affect prosperity if they win sieges. Events suggest that looting also affects it but I'm not sure if that means looting by seiging settlements or just running around on loot mode. Not sure if either can take a province into depopulation, I think that's only disease.

The big thing is that prosperity of all counties only ticks up while not at war IIRC. Even if you don't raise levies and no enemy armies are present, you are effectively missing out on prosperity just for the at_war status.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Ugh, I hate that at_war status. Not sure if this is a HIP thing or something, but the last time I played it the moment I go to war, even only to crush a peasant rebellion in bumfuck nowhere, everyone immediately stops paying me taxes. Even if I didn't raise their levies at all. Way to be loyal vassals assholes.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

If you want to include more realistic warfare, then they need to include Campaign Seasons. As it is, you can raise thousands of peasants and only have to pay for them, and your crops will still get planted and reaped.

Of course, that would be really perfect with an actual economic system.