PDX Games IX: Western Pre-Turkic Empire

[Purpelia]

How would that model the fact that every couple generations a big general or provincial leader would just declare him self emperor and start a civil war?

"Maybe give all the powerful vassals strong claims on the title as well"

Not a bad idea. Although you'd have to include advisors, family members and generals as well. I also imagine that you'd want to have them constantly scheming to start civil wars on succession. And have some mechanism by which vassals join the side they like more or think will win. So you end up with sort of the current system, only with heir designation and civil wars bolted on. That might be fun. Than again I feel like the Byzantines are way too unstable as is. All they do is fight civil wars.

[Lunas Legion]

How would that model the fact that every couple generations a big general or provincial leader would just declare him self emperor and start a civil war?

"Maybe give all the powerful vassals strong claims on the title as well"

Pretty much this. If a vassal can amass enough land and allies, or the Emperor fucks up and gets their armies butchered, they're capable of taking a shot at the Emperor. Probably have a very major opinion malus for losing defensive wars as well.

[Valrifell]

"Maybe give all the powerful vassals strong claims on the title as well"

Pretty much this. If a vassal can amass enough land and allies, or the Emperor fucks up and gets their armies butchered, they're capable of taking a shot at the Emperor. Probably have a very major opinion malus for losing defensive wars as well.

That would also probably send the Byzies into a death spiral where they would lose territory, overthrow the Emperor, and then lose more territory (repeat). So bonus for historical accuracy.

[Lunas Legion]

Pretty much this. If a vassal can amass enough land and allies, or the Emperor fucks up and gets their armies butchered, they're capable of taking a shot at the Emperor. Probably have a very major opinion malus for losing defensive wars as well.

That would also probably send the Byzies into a death spiral where they would lose territory, overthrow the Emperor, and then lose more territory (repeat). So bonus for historical accuracy.

Exactly. A skilled player might be able to turn the death spiral around though Alexios-style, so it's not grossly unfair either.

[Bralia]

Even though such Dev Diaries are largely incomprehensible, the fact there are going to be more than 80 folders devoted to the workable code surely means that CK3 is HIGHLY moddable.

[Genivaria]

Anyone else tried the free trial for Surviving the Aftermath yet?
It's a Tropico-esque strategy/survival game set in a post nuclear wasteland.

Played the 60 minute free trial on Xbox One.

And yes it's by Paradox.

[The Rich Port]

A little help here? Did the new update change the rules for forming the New Providence pirate republic?

I'm trying to form it as a shitty Portugal but despite having 22% trade power with my privateers in the Caribbean the event won't fire early. Am I missing something? I even spent all my admin points into having +3 stability.

[Bralia]

AH FUCK. Shit, balls. Other real expletives I've said repeatedly over the past 30 seconds because I forgot the CK3's doing it's second livestream right now.

[Grootfries Rijk]

AH FUCK. Shit, balls. Other real expletives I've said repeatedly over the past 30 seconds because I forgot the CK3's doing it's second livestream right now.

Right. I'll prolly be watching the uploaded version tmrw.

[North German Realm]

You know, I really like CK3 from what I'm seeing in the streams. The setting (It's IR-ish theme) will get some time for me to get used to, but it seems to be pretty good. I especially like the new system where you can actually see stuff about other religions/etc. in specific mapmodes.

[Purpelia]

That would also probably send the Byzies into a death spiral where they would lose territory, overthrow the Emperor, and then lose more territory (repeat). So bonus for historical accuracy.

Exactly. A skilled player might be able to turn the death spiral around though Alexios-style, so it's not grossly unfair either.

The obvious issue being that the AI is about as far from a skilled player as you can get which will lead to the byzantium being a mess if you aren't playing them. Just as it is now.

[Lunas Legion]

Exactly. A skilled player might be able to turn the death spiral around though Alexios-style, so it's not grossly unfair either.

The obvious issue being that the AI is about as far from a skilled player as you can get which will lead to the byzantium being a mess if you aren't playing them. Just as it is now.

That's more of a commentary on the nature of making AIs for strategy games than any flaws with the system itself. If it's going to be a mess either way, it's better to have a mess that's hopefully interesting when you play as it and not extremely frustrating like the current system.

[Purpelia]

The obvious issue being that the AI is about as far from a skilled player as you can get which will lead to the byzantium being a mess if you aren't playing them. Just as it is now.

That's more of a commentary on the nature of making AIs for strategy games than any flaws with the system itself. If it's going to be a mess either way, it's better to have a mess that's hopefully interesting when you play as it and not extremely frustrating like the current system.

All I am saying is we might need some sneaky cheats for the AI.

[Lunas Legion]

That's more of a commentary on the nature of making AIs for strategy games than any flaws with the system itself. If it's going to be a mess either way, it's better to have a mess that's hopefully interesting when you play as it and not extremely frustrating like the current system.

All I am saying is we might need some sneaky cheats for the AI.

Hm. Better idea. How about we have the cheats on for the AI at some points when Byzantium should be 'recovering' and off when it should be 'collapsing'? With that flag being determined by the AI char's skill points or something.

[The Rich Port]

Pro-tips on forming a pirate republic:

1.) Make sure there's nobody in the Caribbean or else you won't get the Golden Age of Piracy event. The Spaniards are usually the first there and can also have a monopoly better than Portugal

2.) Absolutely demolish Spain before you switch, preferably while you are privateering the Caribbean or maybe once the game pauses you to form the country; if you don't they will eat you like the ate me =3=

3.) Boost the shit out of the Bahamas, you're going to need it, because literally every asshole colonial nation is going to want your booty.

4.) It's not racist if you make the Indians also pirates

5.) Make sure you have at least one major colonial nation as an ally in case someone gets jumpy.

[Salus Maior]

Tfw the smith runs away with your 2k gold twice in a row.

I JUST WANT A LANCE.

[Impaled Nazarene]

The only fix I want for the Byzantines is for every woman who is even the slightest bit related to the current or recent dynasties to no longer have strong claims on the Empire. It is pure torture to see an Iconoclast Isauros woman be put in charge by a faction consisting of 0 Iconoclast characters who immediately suffers from a civil war for being a tyrant.

Oh and the best parts? These random empresses will never have a matrilineal marriage unless the player wants to marry them. AND if you put an empress on the throne to have a marriage with one of your sons or already married to your son they abdicate to the first faction with over 50% power.

[Lunas Legion]

The only fix I want for the Byzantines is for every woman who is even the slightest bit related to the current or recent dynasties to no longer have strong claims on the Empire. It is pure torture to see an Iconoclast Isauros woman be put in charge by a faction consisting of 0 Iconoclast characters who immediately suffers from a civil war for being a tyrant.

Oh and the best parts? These random empresses will never have a matrilineal marriage unless the player wants to marry them. AND if you put an empress on the throne to have a marriage with one of your sons or already married to your son they abdicate to the first faction with over 50% power.

Yeah, only pretenders should ever get strong claims, everyone else should get weak ones.

[Purpelia]

All I am saying is we might need some sneaky cheats for the AI.

Hm. Better idea. How about we have the cheats on for the AI at some points when Byzantium should be 'recovering' and off when it should be 'collapsing'? With that flag being determined by the AI char's skill points or something.

Honestly the simple fact is that I like blobbing as a game style. And I feel that the natural counter to blobbing should be the AI blobbing and creating blobs like the Byzantines and the HRE to counterblob the player and hem you in that way. Instead of making your realm unmanagable and generally preventing it from growing make it so that there is always an AI controlled big kid on your block to make life difficult. But that has of course to be balanced with having the player play as those nations and it being fun.

[Lunas Legion]

Hm. Better idea. How about we have the cheats on for the AI at some points when Byzantium should be 'recovering' and off when it should be 'collapsing'? With that flag being determined by the AI char's skill points or something.

Honestly the simple fact is that I like blobbing as a game style. And I feel that the natural counter to blobbing should be the AI blobbing and creating blobs like the Byzantines and the HRE to counterblob the player and hem you in that way. Instead of making your realm unmanagable and generally preventing it from growing make it so that there is always an AI controlled big kid on your block to make life difficult. But that has of course to be balanced with having the player play as those nations and it being fun.

That's kind of the antithesis of what I think CK2/EUIV should be like, where growing larger should obviously provide benefits, but it should also make it progressively more difficult to hold the empire together as it expands, but I can understand why you like the game style.

[Renoa]

No, I'm totally fine that we're losing to the Ottomans even when our alliance has more troops because our armies refuse to gather together and fight battles, why do you ask? It's not like we need to stop their advances into Eastern Europe or anything, they can march all the way to Danzig for all I care.

Playing EU4 is basically just me cyberbullying myself.

Now that I think about it, I guess it's pretty historically accurate that Christian Europe could have probably defeated the Ottomans if they stopped being self-serving pricks and banded together for even the smallest amount of time, but were too busy jerking off directly into their own eyes to see that far ahead.

[Bralia]

Tfw the smith runs away with your 2k gold twice in a row.

I JUST WANT A LANCE.

Always check the prospective smith's traits before letting them do work for you. Their stats matter big time.

[Ithalian Empire]

Hm. Better idea. How about we have the cheats on for the AI at some points when Byzantium should be 'recovering' and off when it should be 'collapsing'? With that flag being determined by the AI char's skill points or something.

Honestly the simple fact is that I like blobbing as a game style. And I feel that the natural counter to blobbing should be the AI blobbing and creating blobs like the Byzantines and the HRE to counterblob the player and hem you in that way. Instead of making your realm unmanagable and generally preventing it from growing make it so that there is always an AI controlled big kid on your block to make life difficult. But that has of course to be balanced with having the player play as those nations and it being fun.

Yeah but big empires have always been hard to keep together. And in a game thats supposed to give me the feel of ruling an unwieldy feudal state I want it to be a challenge to build an empire and to keep it whole fr as long as I can.

[Purpelia]

Honestly the simple fact is that I like blobbing as a game style. And I feel that the natural counter to blobbing should be the AI blobbing and creating blobs like the Byzantines and the HRE to counterblob the player and hem you in that way. Instead of making your realm unmanagable and generally preventing it from growing make it so that there is always an AI controlled big kid on your block to make life difficult. But that has of course to be balanced with having the player play as those nations and it being fun.

Yeah but big empires have always been hard to keep together. And in a game thats supposed to give me the feel of ruling an unwieldy feudal state I want it to be a challenge to build an empire and to keep it whole fr as long as I can.

That's kind of the antithesis of what I think CK2/EUIV should be like, where growing larger should obviously provide benefits, but it should also make it progressively more difficult to hold the empire together as it expands, but I can understand why you like the game style.

To some extent definitively. The game wouldn't be fun if it was too easy and if there were no internal threats and you could just blob HOI4 style. That would remove a lot of the fun roleplay elements from the game as well. But I feel that lately the game has been going too far in that direction. It basically went from way too easy to way too hard to the point where its become almost impossible to keep a large empire together. And what's worse a lot of it is just fake difficulty. That is to say mechanics that you can't really interact with deeply enough for your skill to make a difference.

I mean, look at for example the faction system. It's designed to allow vassals to gang up on their monarch. And they just do. Always. Every single time. Until eventually it just becomes impossible to run your empire. I'd much rather if it was designed in a way that would allow the monarch to use the factions by playing vassals against one another. Which is what historical monarchs did. And if you fail to do that and allow them to all come together than and only than have it become a fail condition.

Same with the plot system. You have 1 plot per character. Therefore you will inevitably just get overwhelmed as everyone plots against you and you can only respond one at a time. No amount of player skill is going to help me take out the leaders of the two separate plots to kill me.

For a complete contrast look at the council system. The whole favor system is a bit too powerful for my taste. Like I'd make it so that you can use a favor to counter someone elses use of a favor. But that's a tiny nitpic. And other than that the idea of gathering favors and the tradeoff between staffing your council full of people who'll do your bidding at the expense of angering powerful vassals or keeping them happy at the cost of having a council of malcontents is exactly the sort of mechanic I'd want to see more of. It gives me as a player meaningful choice and room to strategize. It forces me to stop and think.

TLDR the difficulty right now is a 5/5 where as in my view it should be around 3. And a lot of it is due to mechanics deliberately rigged against the player as opposed to a skill challenge.

[Bralia]

Everyone needs a Rogue Servitor in their lives.