CK2: Game of Thrones mod (or CK2 general question)

[Dance]

/beginrant

So here's the synopsis of my campaign:

- I began in the 7999 scenario, with the Hightowers of Oldtown.
- I ended up storming the Reach when they were mid-civil war and weakened, taking The Kingdom of the Reach for myself.
- My 'king' married the Princess of Dorne (ruler of Dorne), gaining me Dorne.
- My heir was made heir to the Kingdom of Dorne.
- I was given an opportunity to call a conquest. I invaded The Kingdom of the Rock and after a tough fight, I made King Robin Lefford my vassal (Lord Paramount Robin Lefford), who might I add, was +76 opinion of me.

Now, I have Dorne, The Reach, and The Rock, and am 1 kingdom conquered away from establishing The Kingdom of Westeros, as per requirement.

My king's wife died, leaving our son as reigning Prince of Dorne (Principality rather than a Kingdom).

With this particularly powerful ally, I feel I am certainly going to conquer Westeros.

Then, low and behold, one of my Reach vassals declares himself as ruler of The Reach (stupid and unwarranted, as my reigning king has over 5k prestige and is respected by EVERYONE).

On top of this ridiculous claim, THE ROCK backs him completely. Like really, be more unrealistic.

So now, The Rock pulls 70k men out of nowhere (ironically fully backed by every one of their vassals, despite how half of them sided with me in my conquest of this same king/lord), to back about 10-20k from The High Lordship of Westmarch, who declares somehow claim over my crown despite no familiar links...

Now, I'm facing an army of 100k men, but I can only call a good 69k, with about 15,000 mercenaries. No way plenty enough to top a combined army of 100k (out of nowhere). So, I call my son in response, who musters 15k, but it is too late. This massive 100k army is halfway to my capital, where I confront them. I lose ofcourse, due to the impossible imbalance of 70k vs. 100k (no strategy required in this game, just mass numbers).

Now, I must know...

When you begin to conquer different territories is this kind of ridiculous crap always the outcome? If so, I seldom find conquering fun. Pulling 100k men out of nowhere, especially when the Lord Paramount of them IS ON AMAZING TERMS WITH YOU, is ridiculous. What's the point of opinions, then? Conquering? Loyalty? Respect?

What's the point in conquering if all you ever get, regardless of what you do, is backstabber after backstabber after lame claim?

Hard work of 160 years of meticulous planning and careful political moves culminates to a back stab on this level? Only within 5-10 years of conquering a territory, only to have a High lord in MY OWN NATION betray me randomly? Even my king, whose prestigious and respected?

I'm so flustered right now at this. It's HIGHLY unrealistic and ridiculous for a game that claims to historical accuracy. I'm sorry, when the Targaryens conquered Westeros, they weren't constantly being assassinated and back-stabbed by their newly conquered vassals. There has to be some breathing room at least...

/endrant (open to comments that could help me understand this more)

[ccllnply]

You've just brought up my biggest and probably only gripe with this game, the faction system. An absolutely great idea that has been poorly implemented and needs fixing. I'm currently playing 2.1.4 vanilla and it doesn't seem to be too bad but it's been very annoying in past games. Every single ruler having to put down 3 or 4 major revolts during their reign is just ridiculous.

In a recent game as King of England I remember a faction had about 20% power so I just ignored them since they wouldn't have the power to fight me. Regardless of this they demanded the installation of their claimant and when I refused they went to war with me. Fine, I thought, I'd easily put them down. That was until they used the diplomatic option to call my other vassals who weren't in the faction in to the war. The entire realm answered the call to arms so a 20% strength faction turned in to an almost 100% strength. It caused me to rage quit, which I usually try to avoid.

The AI are just too trigger happy when it comes to starting factions. It just seems that if it's available they just seem to start a faction regardless of the claimant. In another game of GOT mod as the High Lord of Westmarch, my uncle deposed me with a faction and then immediately started another faction for me against the claimant he had just installed. He pressed it and I was the Lord of Westmarch again.

All the said, the Reach should defintely have more troops then the Rock. The Rock definitely should not be able to muster 100K. They must have hired mercenaries

[Dance]

And another general gripe...

Now, I'm playing with The Rock. I found a chance to claim Dorne, through a marriage relation. So I call to arms 74k under my command. Being very careful with army sizes, crossing provinces, and supply limits per province, I was able to cross the reach without issue. Once in Dorne I immediately start suffering from attrition. By the time I CAREFULLY cross Dorne, I have 11,000 out of an original 70,000 that entered Dorne... Like this is beyond ridiculous. If attrition rates were that horrible, nobody would ever be able to conquer, historically...

I mean... Like come on lol.

In a redo of the war, I try an alternative method of attack. I send 20k by ship to the capital of Dorne, Sunspear: On the first of five towns/septs/castles to conquer here, I lose 10k/20k before I'm even done the first one (5k defenders). Then, an army of 15k comes and swoops in for the win, before turning around and going after my other armies, each split, also suffering massive attrition, dwindling to as low as 6-8k men, easily taken by this sizable local force. Attrition is ridiculous though. Like I can't get through a single regional siege without losing 5-10k men per army. Like something's gotta give. I'm keeping my armies split to no more than 10-14k each, with maybe one at 20k. Still attrition tears over half the armed force in half, just enough for a 15-20k enemy army to come pounce on the mass attrition loss. Like, is there some sort of trick or is this just the BS that comes with the game?

[ccllnply]

As for that, I think it's pretty correct. Even the dragons couldn't conquer Dorne. Aegon the Conqueror gave up trying to conquer the Dornish. Daeron I lost 60,000 and died himself trying to attack and hold Dorne and Dorne was only subdued through marriage.

For your situation you were essentially marching 70,000 through a desert and, unless you had conquered the Reach, their only supplies were coming from the Westerlands, half a continent away, a pretty impossible task. Even Daeron I wrote in his very "vainglorious" book, "Conquest of Dorne", that:

The arms of House Martell display the sun and spear, the Dornishman's two favourite weapons, but of the two, the sun is the more deadly

As for your second attempt, well you may have avoided the long march through the desert but your still sitting 20,000 men outside a massive city in the Dornish desert while their supplies are coming from by sea and half to sail from the Westerlands all the way around the Arbor and the south coast of Dorne. A massive operation and when you think that the Stepstones (just east of Sunspear) is crawling with pirates (as well as possibly the Summer Isles) it becomes even bigger and this is under the impression that the Dornish don't take to their trademark Guerilla warfare.

I know it's frustrating but conquering Dorne militarily shouldn't be easy. Napoleon lost nearly 400,000 men when he invaded Russia and Aegon couldn't conquer Dorne with 3 powerful dragons so it really is pretty realistic.

[absinthia]

this mod can be quite fun when playing a lesser lord, but for independent kingdoms it does not seem to be working properly. that is the vasal system is screwed during war.

playing Daenerys Targaryen i easily took the Iron Throne from Tommen. then i realized the Reach was held by the Ironborn, a proper independent kingdom.
i declared war for the Reach and with my dragon i easily won. during the short war a lot of lesser lords appeared independent but suported the Greyjoys.
problem was that when the Iron Isles surendered those independent Reachman lords reverted back to the Greyjoy and i only got half the Reach. WTF!?

are there perhaps some finesse that i have not grasped or is the mod inherently bugged?