[Chatting Thread]: political overhaul released into submod section - PIGS

[Jake Armitage]

CHECK PIGS INTO SUBMOD THREAD
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?793347-Submod-a-political-overhaul-PIGS-Beta_01-(for-DeI-1-2-4a)-TESTERS-NEEDED!


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Ok guys, in the last months there has been a lot of people rightfully "complaining" about the vanilla political system.
About that, 3 things can be said:
1) the vanilla system is pretty new, so have some patience
2) a political overhaul is coming soon
3) the overhaul intentions are quite vast. They will try to extensively mod:
- political power
- intrigues
- family system
- party system
- event system (incidents/dilemmas)
- civil war
- governments

Explaining properly how this "overhaul" will work is not an easy thing.
There are a lot of scripts and db tabs involved, some things are hardcoded, some are not. And interpolating a lot of factors is not an easy thing. Nor to do, nor to explain.
Moreover, there are new scripting possibilities coming from last CA updates, which will be better studied after the beta release.

The political overhaul will be done step by step, due to the many things involved and for having a better control over balancement.
I'm not sure yet what will be better and what will not. It will require time and trials to understand this.

First beta (almost done) will contain:
- reworked most of the intrigues, rebalance for political power, family system, civil war
- easier possibilities (for intrigues) to move chars between parties or just erase them
- some new features (for intrigues) involving chars in stratmap commanding armies, both civil and military
- some new features (for intrigues) regarding province control and interactions with the pop system
- some new features (through incidents/dilemmas triggered by specific intrigues) to add depth/variability (maybe in the first beta, maybe not, have to decide this yet)
- some other minor things

To devs/tester: please, check the coming soon thread in devs forum
To modders: please, wait for the beta pack/guide to be released, it will considerably simplify your moddings
To players: have some patience
To anyone: please, report here everything you think about the vanilla political system. Please keep reporting and concentrating on beta 1.2.3f features in other threads.
please, upload some mid/advanced save games for various factions/situations, so i can check better

After some testing, the political overhaul will be released as a submod in another thread 'cause I'll need space to rationalise different system/explanations.
Please, don't expect too much from the first beta pack.

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

Moving this to the proper thread.

Jake, regarding the upcoming political overhaul, when it comes to party loyalty, is it going to be overall easier or more difficult for the player to control the loyalty of other parties?

I've played a couple of campaigns thus far and I have yet to see a party secession. The party loyalty is thus normally versy easy to control in my opinion.

Though, I don't normally more than 150-200 turns before starting another campaign. Don't know if that might be the reason...

[Jake Armitage]

^ Loyalty is/will be linked to a lot of things, so it depends on how much attention are you paying on it.
Don't think the standard DeI user wants to have too many civil wars for DeI, so, at some point, it is better to divide into 3 packs: normal/softcore/hardcore.
I think that for low imperium levels it's better not to have civil wars, for higher they will give you something more to do. Mostly as it is now.
What will change will be the loyalty pace felt and the +/- loyalty possibilities.

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

This is good to hear!

I wouldn't definitely like to see any party secessions on lower EM levels, either. Or at least I'd rather have the possibility of a secession very low on this level.

A welcome change, though, would be to make the political system more interactive on each level for every government type.

Thus far I've observed that the kingdom government type makes it very easy to control the loyalty to such an extent that the whole system feels a bit superfluous.

I would still take a look at the political panel in the game now and then, but that's the mere formality as the loyalty for all parites is always very high.

The only time that I felt that it was more challenging it was in my campaign with Carthage and that involved mostly one party, the landowners, whose loyalty would most of the time be on the verge of rebellion.

The other two parties needed some attention now and then, too, but mostly it was the landowners.

The reason for this was the government type that was in this case the republic, which as far as I remember gives -4 to loyalty as opposed to kingdom giving +4.

I played that campaign also with the fides populi submod. My popularity was bascially on the highest level throughout the whole campaign, which resulted in -3 (or -4, can't remember now) penalty to the parties' loyalty.

The campaign difficulty was normal, just for the record.

It was thus only in this kind of setup that I felt like the political system was more significant, challenging and that it actually required my close attention every second, third turn.

Hope you find these observations useful.

[Jake Armitage]

I wouldn't definitely like to see any party secessions on lower EM levels, either. Or at least I'd rather have the possibility of a secession very low on this level.
I agree, anyway you could always trigger a civil war. I haven't decided yet what to do with the provoke civil war button, but there will be an intrigue to lower loyalty only

A welcome change, though, would be to make the political system more interactive on each level for every government type.
Thus far I've observed that the kingdom government type makes it very easy to control the loyalty to such an extent that the whole system feels a bit superfluous.
Governments will be checked with future updates

I would still take a look at the political panel in the game now and then, but that's the mere formality as the loyalty for all parites is always very high.
I'm planning to let spring become the month when you check the political situations, changing most of the turns on a 4x, so making it simplier.
Think loyalty will be lower but anyway easy to control on low emperium levels.
Anyway I want loyalty to be a limit to consider for some actions

I played that campaign also with the fides populi submod. My popularity was bascially on the highest level throughout the whole campaign, which resulted in -3 (or -4, can't remember now) penalty to the parties' loyalty.
yeah fides pupoli will be mostly overhauled after the first political patch, don't consider it as it is

It was thus only in this kind of setup that I felt like the political system was more significant, challenging and that it actually required my close attention every second, third turn.
Hope so

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

My body is ready...

[ScipioTheGreat]

Oh boy, this is going to be an absolute thrill ride [emoji38] Testuedo meets DEI politics, woohoo. Everyone better hunker down and prepare for what’s coming. It’s about to get DANGEROUS in the character and politics tabs [emoji1598] [emoji3517]

[Aristeides]

I'm thinking Seleukid "brotherly love", and can it be scripted that different parties support different brothers... and instead of Seleukid only scripts, can inheritance civil wars between brothers (and sisters) be generalized - with character traits affecting choises of offspring? When the old ruler dies(/is badly wounded), a period of several turns when civil war between siblings (and parties/clans supporting them) is likely to happen in monarchies and empires.

Hmm, just realized different political systems can be made really different with different focus (senate/boule more important in republics, etc etc) with their own types of civil wars, and political system is also inseparable from character traits...

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

I'm thinking Seleukid "brotherly love", and can it be scripted that different parties support different brothers... and instead of Seleukid only scripts, can inheritance civil wars between brothers (and sisters) be generalized - with character traits affecting choises of offspring? When the old ruler dies(/is badly wounded), a period of several turns when civil war between siblings (and parties/clans supporting them) is likely to happen in monarchies and empires.

Hmm, just realized different political systems can be made really different with different focus (senate/boule more important in republics, etc etc) with their own types of civil wars, and political system is also inseparable from character traits...

I'm not sure about wars between siblings, but currently there is a period of political instability after the death of the faction leader when the loyalty for all parties drops down, thus making the civil war more probable.

[Frosthammer]

Pay attention to "Do a favor" and "Praise" option, that boost authority and zeal. In previos campaign i was able to stack it Many times (in current campaign i spent a little time and money for politic option). In previous campaign i was able to stack it Many times (in current campaign i spent a little time and money for political option).

[MoraleBooster]

does this mean I need to wait before I can play DEI?

[ScipioTheGreat]

does this mean I need to wait before I can play DEI?

Huh? This is just an announcement post about a political rework in the coming future that will be available for testing. You don’t need to wait for anything, and all updates are usually savegame compatible whenever they do come out.

[waidizss]

As a long-time serving roman general I suggest for 'hardcore' which I'll refer to 'roleplayer' way, the following. When it comes down to civil wars, anything above whatever the limit (-10 atm, should be 0 why would it be -10 that's so dumb, like imagine if Celsius was freezing temperature -10 and boiling 90 instead of 0 and 100 why would anyone commit to that it's justdumb) should immediately hit you with 99.9% chance civil war (or say scale it that from 0 to -10 it's 0-100% that civil war will erupt). this because it is so super easy to manage faction loyalty that it is silly by now, I mean there is absolutely 0 balance in this entire system. If it is possible, make a coherent function for civil wars where there are real sources for loyalty and real penalties for disloyalty. Remove all those arbitrary ties to income/edicts and concentrate purely on character interaction: intrigue, promotions, battles, characters. Make bribing expensive and last resort and when you disconnect civil wars from economy that is when managing it becomes REAL, however rich you are you can't buy your way out of a secession here and there you know what i'm saying?

To continue, the problem with %based civil war is that you can cheat it by reloading, so I suggest we simulate what PI games do - events triggered by situations. So that if you hit negative loyalty, you are 100% guaranteed to have a civil war, no save-reloading, no bribes, no - just a good ol' civil war. Me - I don't even look at the party loyalty tab because it is faster to reload the game than to check that menu every single turn. Something goes wrong? Boom reload that 1% of civil war and you're good, there's no point in checking up that disgusting menu that takes millions of clicks to get to.

Also, the menu oh my lord please give it some life it is ugly beyond reckoning I am slowly getting eye cancer from the tabs and the the small buttons next to giant-ugly portraits. And the dead babies??? PLEASE REMOVE THE DEAD BABIES, they are everywhere my ruler is popping out some dead kids every day. In general, the entire interface is a joke and those potatoes wrapped in sheets are just a nuisance.

Never even used most of the intrigue options, use the noassassinations submod, don't really care for it. It's a retarded system i sent my diplomat out once just to see what happens and he got me a province from some neighbor i'm like lol should i just do a playthrough where u conquer the world by spamming this one option? That gave me slight cancer, but I just forgot about that tab and moved on. If it's possible, it should make sense, send a diplomat - improve relations so you can start trading or smth, but otherwise the event outcomes from this entire 'intrigue' tab is dumbening. I am not sure if anything can be done apart from damage control but hey if we got a cool new trait system maybe it's possible.

Regarding dignitas, ambitiousness and some other weird misc things I never had a purpose for, simplify the system perhaps? I mean the guy has thousands of dignitas points but they don't really matter, If you at least cut down to hundreds of points by dividing all gains/expenses by 10 maybe then it will be easier to keep track of cause atm one guy has like 20 dignitas another 20000 and I honestly just get lost in all the numbers and all the characters. I don't even know what they gain each turn so no clue who will be future faction leader, but then again 24tpy noone dies expect in battle.

Faction bonuses - give factions some real bonuses. Atm the bonuses are kind of relevant to history but not enough really, and the worst part is that i pick patricii just for the negative diplo so it's not as easy to make deals so yeah there's that. I don't even know what bonus they get I just care about the diplo impact because otherwise noone declares war on me which is sad.


So much for now, let's see how this develops. We need to stop this endless cycle of spamming my rep points for strategos, jake and astrocat when he pitches in it's disgusting abuse of the system. As always, body ready, lubed up and ready to do a perfect rome campaign with the system, please bring life to the dark side of Roma!

edit: ah, what a classik one liner from TW

[ThePoshBarbarian]

Could it be possible to add a sort of building chain that acts like a sort of a costly loyalty dispenser for the families that own the region in which it is built? (sort of like the estate system in thrones of Britannia)

[waidizss]

Could it be possible to add a sort of building chain that acts like a sort of a costly loyalty dispenser for the families that own the region in which it is built? (sort of like the estate system in thrones of Britannia)

Do not tie loyalty to economy that will make it as retarded as it can be we will revert to a system where loyalty does not matter. It's not modern capitalism, it's ancient rome, economy matters only for waging war there is no central bureaucracy no agencies to deal with potential revolt it's just some good ol' patronage politics and intrigue.

[Jake Armitage]

@scipio
no, I won't do anything too hardcored, at least for the first pack. Like waidziss said it will be more rpg style (hope so)

@Aristeides
I'm not planning to redo faction/party traits

@Frosthammer
Intrigues will no more give permanent +/- to aut/cun/zea. Some intrigues will give temporary effects to aut/cun/zea. Delta needed will be lowered to 1.

@waidziss
- civil war %random system is hardcoded. There's nothing that can be done, neither changing the -10 start. There is no way to link a script to a party loyalty (I'll check it better but I don't think so)
- disconnect civil wars from economy that is when managing it becomes REAL, however rich you are you can't buy your way out of a secession
mmh, I'm afraid this will lead to a less controllable system. I'll keep that in mind anyway.
- I'm not planning to redo background UI but it should be doable, I've seen once a mod on steam doing this
- assassinate will become "ostacize politician" (erase char and get his ownings through incident/dilemma with some backlash obvoiusly). Suicide will become "political retirement" (for every char, an easier way to erase chars with some minor backlashes). Send diplomat will be more focused on diplomacy +/- (and some other things). Think that getting a region might be erased.
- not possible to remove dead babies. I'm trying to set the game not to go beyond 1/2 childs per couple and removing young deaths
- gravitas will be the money to perform intrigues (as it is now, but differently). There will be 3 intrigues focused on increasing/decreasing gravitas to have a better control over this (and for political power too, consequently)
- I'm not planning to redo faction/party traits

@poshbarbarians
I've still to understand if it's possible to script something depending on specific parties (and not for ruling/other only). If it's possible it might open the doors to various systems similars to the one you're proposing

[Basilius]

I think the essential thing is to have a civil war be mandatory late game, preferably with your generals/armies betraying you, not simply spawning new units. These turn-cloaks can come from any party.

[Jake Armitage]

I think the essential thing is to have a civil war be mandatory late game, preferably with your generals/armies betraying you, not simply spawning new units. These turn-cloaks can come from any party.

mmhh, don't think you can change faction for an existing army, but I'll check

[VektorT]

Bringing the discussion from another topic, I'm having a serious problem in late campaign that while my family tree keeps growing and growing, the other noble houses doesn't replenish naturally, throwing away the balance of power even if I focus on developing their generals. At some point it was easy to buy new politicians, but since their price scale, it already became VERY expensive (over 60000) and I barely can keep up recruiting more of them. In some time their cost will be prohibitive and the balance of power will go totally off. For very long campaings (over turn 300 now) it's a time bomb.

[Jake Armitage]

It means that you recruited 120 chars, probably.
For my pov, you don't need to recruit generals if they just sit as politicians.
You don't need to get them married, either.
Apart from childs (yet to see how effectively lower their number) you shouldn't have more chars than the ones you need to command armies. Or just a couple more.
One of the aims of the political overhaul is to have the chars you need, no more, no less. I'm working on this. Then, obviously, people can do what they want/prefer.