Discussion about starting conditions+reflecting feudalism

[Overlord.ru]

Hello everyone! I've just come to a bold idea - what if all factions had only 2-3 starting positions?

Reasons why I came to this thought:
1) Better reflection of medieval feudalism, especially in the time frame SS is currently focused on.
2) Much more interesting, improved, challenging, less predictable gameplay.
3) This fully reflects the main idea of the game - to give the player the best opportunity to reproduce the way of arising as an unimportant, unknown noble to the emperor of Europe.

I've just thought - there are such factions like Venice, Aragon, Teutons etc, which have only 1-2 starting positions and the gameplay for such factions is rather interesting because:
1)You can build your empire in any direction, in any way you want; you can build your relations with other factions and diplomacy any way you want, you have more space and opportunities for that
2)Increased usage of diplomacy\agents since you need to be a very wise administrator not to be swallowed in one turn and overally deepened gameplay.
3)This gives other factions a time to develop and personally YOU to get to the XIV-XV century without boredom. While you'll be growing, another factions will also develop so when you come to a 1400-1500 time frame you'll have strong enemies with professional armies with gun-troops, cannons, highest tier heavy cavalry\infantry + greater tier castles and cities which will be harder to assault and that, again, will add interest.
For example, playing as HRE I already start with a great Empire and it's rather easy and boring to eliminate neighbors + then I get enormous boost of money and even late campaign VH\VH the gameplay will hardly last enough that I could develop to high-tier rifles\cannons\knights and it's even more fantastic if at least 2 factions will have the same size\level of progress to challenge me. Except I'm using some insane AI which will restrict the gamplay to mindless zerging of everything on it's and your path, what is a complete loss of historism and interest(if I wanna some meat I'll better play Diablo).


How can that reflect the era of feudalism?
Quite easily.
During the medieval period rebellions(no matter of peasant or nobles) and independent duchies\towns - were a common matter. Simple people fought for their rights, against the pressure of taxes and nobles and for freedom. Nobles just couldn't wait a single opportunity until the King goes on a crusade\quest to take the power in their hands, or even to proclaim themselves the TRUE King.
The medieval Europe was a constant battlefield and the power of the ruler was often at a question, it was often restricted to his own estate. So except the outer politics and waging wars, the rulers had to get back to their homeland to pacify the rebellions, to сonvince a rebel lord to put the arms away or to conquer a rebel settlement.

EVEN if you'll manage to gather all the lands around you, this shouldn't prevent you from a chance of a rebellion or even civil war(especially if your kingdom is already large enough to be called Empire). There are lots of ways to reproduce that - traits, ancillaries, scripts.

For example
If the generals stats are not matching the certain conditions, increasing the taxes to very high will give you that "blue face" under the settlements name, and whenever that happens in any settlement the next turn you'll get a large rebel stack coming to this town.
The larger your family, the more chance of a particular nobles getting traits like " Dislikes the king" or " Feels unfairly not getting crowned", something like that, which will cause a rebellion.
Hah! Excommunication! To be honest - I've NEVER seen this causing ANY problems, except the chance of one of your settlements to become a target of the crusade. Just remember the first Medieval TW game! Excommunication could cut down your kingdom from 10 to 2 provinces because of your people didn't want to live under the excommunicated ruler.
The further your king gets from capital - the greater chance of getting a rebellion.
Even such a fantastic idea - Make a certain amount of permanent stone forts in a region and if the player doesn't control all of them, or the has no garrison in a single one - rebel stacks will spawn.

These are just ideas, but I suppose there are THOUSANDS of ways to reproduce them, and it's up to the developers to enrich the game and make it more challenging not by just increasing AI's aggressiveness or cutting player's finances, but by deepening and developing the gameplay.

Phew, guess I'm finished
But I think I'll have more ideas

[Medkirtys]

Can anyone give us a tl;dr summary?

[Tears of Destiny]

Can anyone give us a tl;dr summary?

Summary: Learn to read in-depth complicated ideas. Not everything can be one or five sentences...

[bɑne]

Can anyone give us a tl;dr summary?

That would be the first line of his post.

[Overlord.ru]

Summary: Learn to read in-depth complicated ideas. Not everything can be one or five sentences...

That would be the first line of his post.

Sorry guys I'm not sure I understand what you mean :/

[bɑne]

Sorry guys I'm not sure I understand what you mean :/

Ignore it.

Ontopic: It's an interesting idea and fairly easy to implement I'd think, that is the reduced starting provinces. I'd say go for it but try to balance it city/castle vise and go from there. You could switch the start year of the campaign to make it interesting, maybe go for a 13/14oo one with those limited positions.

[Overlord.ru]

Eh... I wish I had skill for that. To be honest, I don't even know how to take a settlement from a faction and make it independent :C
Anyway, just cutting off some territories from the faction won't change the situation, in fact - it'll only add problems, such as VERY slow cash flow thus more boredom cuz you'll be just clicking through turns to collect enough sums and the main problem - even when you'll get all settlements around you, the gameplay again will be the same - to slaughter everything around you without care about the inner politics. My idea is not only removing some starting positions, but make player pay more attention to his actions regarding the family members, taxes and settlements' governing. So that he always felt the opportunity to get a rebellion\civil war and to reflect the feudalism by some family members having a chance to start a rebellion. That's what SS has a big lack of.
This requires researching, to pick the best time frame which will allow the most historism regarding which territories were under full control of the ruler, and which were only formally.
+ Even if changing the current time frames,like, for example, late campaign - there are such problems like Mongols, Crusader States etc. Because according to my logic, if you take settlements from Khwarezm it'll be completely impossible for them to stand against the Mongols because they'll spend everything on taking rebel settlements and then will be completely weakened against the Mongols. Or, if you reduce turks and fatimids' settlements you can't do the same with crusaders, which will be completely unhistorical and ridiculous, but if you don't do that - crusaders will be overpowered compared with their neighboring factions.
So it'll require come rebalancing.

+ settlements, taken from the starting positions and made independent should have a full garrison + Leader with high stats so that it wasn't a piece of cake for you to take all those settlements in 4-5 turns, and they also should be active i.e. they could invade territories which are under you control or when you enter independent province they attacked you at once.

I just hope some skillful modders will be interested in my ideas and try somehow to implement them

[SirRobin]

I support these propositions.

And I did indeed read the whole post

On the same topic, I'd like to add that maintaining authority should be more difficult, and the traits of your king should affect the game MUCH more. Also excommunication and other changes of standing should have a much bigger impact.

[Overlord.ru]

On the same topic, I'd like to add that maintaining authority should be more difficult, and the traits of your king should affect the game MUCH more. Also excommunication and other changes of standing should have a much bigger impact.

Right! The king's stats should have a bigger impact, good idea. For example, if the king's authority is not high enough, most of the family members will likely start to rebell. And how good the player deals with that will affect the king's authority increase\fall.

[SirRobin]

Right! The king's stats should have a bigger impact, good idea. For example, if the king's authority is not high enough, most of the family members will likely start to rebell. And how good the player deals with that will affect the king's authority increase\fall.

• Family members close to the king should be unlikely to rebel, distant cousins more likely, and adopted sons even more rebellious. A character's loyalty level should be a real concern.

• Also, more powerful generals should be less loyal, especially if you put them in charge of a massive army. This would mean you would have to balance military skill and loyalty, instead of just pumping up the star rating.

• Maybe your powerful general is loyal NOW under your high authority king, but what happens the moment the king dies and his incompetent son takes over?

• Chivalrous generals should be more loyal (they honour their oath) while dreaded generals should have big loyalty hits (after all, they care only about themselves)

• Also the piety of the king should be much more important. In medieval times, religion was a dead serious matter in politics, in the game it is hardly relevant as far as I can tell..

[TheBard]

France, especially, needs to be cut way down in the beginning. You start with far too many cities. It doesn't accurately represent the notion that "The King only really controlled the area around Paris and the nobles controlled the rest." The way to do that is make all the rest rebels.

[Ichon]

France, especially, needs to be cut way down in the beginning. You start with far too many cities. It doesn't accurately represent the notion that "The King only really controlled the area around Paris and the nobles controlled the rest." The way to do that is make all the rest rebels.

King also controlled his families lands which were quite large in south and a few other areas. Probably France could lose 2-3 starting regions at least though and be more historic for 1100 start date.

[Rahvin]

• Family members close to the king should be unlikely to rebel, distant cousins more likely, and adopted sons even more rebellious. A character's loyalty level should be a real concern.

I think adopted sons should be extremely loyal while the royalty that adopted him is alive. Once the benefactor is dead there should be a chance for the adopted family member to rebel or even be killed via console command showing that the rest of the family preferred the upstart to meet with an unfortunate accident.

[JorisofHolland]

Eh... I wish I had skill for that. To be honest, I don't even know how to take a settlement from a faction and make it independent :C
Anyway, just cutting off some territories from the faction won't change the situation, in fact - it'll only add problems, such as VERY slow cash flow thus more boredom cuz you'll be just clicking through turns to collect enough sums and the main problem - even when you'll get all settlements around you, the gameplay again will be the same - to slaughter everything around you without care about the inner politics. My idea is not only removing some starting positions, but make player pay more attention to his actions regarding the family members, taxes and settlements' governing. So that he always felt the opportunity to get a rebellion\civil war and to reflect the feudalism by some family members having a chance to start a rebellion. That's what SS has a big lack of.
This requires researching, to pick the best time frame which will allow the most historism regarding which territories were under full control of the ruler, and which were only formally.
+ Even if changing the current time frames,like, for example, late campaign - there are such problems like Mongols, Crusader States etc. Because according to my logic, if you take settlements from Khwarezm it'll be completely impossible for them to stand against the Mongols because they'll spend everything on taking rebel settlements and then will be completely weakened against the Mongols. Or, if you reduce turks and fatimids' settlements you can't do the same with crusaders, which will be completely unhistorical and ridiculous, but if you don't do that - crusaders will be overpowered compared with their neighboring factions.
So it'll require come rebalancing.

+ settlements, taken from the starting positions and made independent should have a full garrison + Leader with high stats so that it wasn't a piece of cake for you to take all those settlements in 4-5 turns, and they also should be active i.e. they could invade territories which are under you control or when you enter independent province they attacked you at once.

I just hope some skillful modders will be interested in my ideas and try somehow to implement them

I'm afraid some of it isn't possible: rebels (the 'slave' faction) cannot be active, it cannot expand. I don't think creating a special faction for it will work, but perhaps we could give it a try. I have some modding ideas and will lend support to anyone trying this.

I support these propositions.

And I did indeed read the whole post

On the same topic, I'd like to add that maintaining authority should be more difficult, and the traits of your king should affect the game MUCH more. Also excommunication and other changes of standing should have a much bigger impact.

Agreed, agreed, and agreed. First one's easy, second one will probably require a lot of scripting and third one is easy to do with a small script.

[Overlord.ru]

I'm afraid some of it isn't possible: rebels (the 'slave' faction) cannot be active, it cannot expand. I don't think creating a special faction for it will work, but perhaps we could give it a try. I have some modding ideas and will lend support to anyone trying this.

Well, I didn't mean them being So active, so that they attacked your settlements. I just wanted to suggest them being active only in the region their inside. OR when you besiege a castle with a weaker army, they'll ( I don't know the right word) go out and kick your ass )) I know 100% it's possible, I remember playing DLV mod: if you besieged rebel castle, and there was another rebel stack in the region, it would 100% attack your besieging army.

[DeMolay]

King also controlled his families lands which were quite large in south and a few other areas. Probably France could lose 2-3 starting regions at least though and be more historic for 1100 start date.

The problem with France and it is the case also for the Balkans or HRE , is that some key small factions that had a crucial role are missing (ie Burgundians , Comté de Toulouse , Duché de Guyenne in Aquitaine , Comté de Bretagne etc)

Also the "Rebels" faction cannot really make up for some Duchies ou Counties that were on the paper not controlled by the King , but in practice allied or fought him depending the circumstances (ie lords of Brittany or Burgundy for instance who allied with the King of England , then the King of France )


But yeah , kingdom of France in 1100 should start with less settlements , basically without Brittany , Aquitaine , Normandy , Flanders , Burgundy and Lyon region on the game map , as well as Marselle region of course . i removed the map because the green color was misleading , i prefer to post a map under Phillipe Auguste at his death , will do it later , cause it's then easier to realize how actually small was the kingdom of France even one century later (after 1100)

ok this is after King Phillipe-Auguste died : as you can see the Royal domain is limited although of course , treaties of alliances with nighbouring counties and duchies existed during some specific period of time

[Ichon]

I was thinking of Languedoc but that was later than 1100 so you are correct that the Capetian lands were quite close to Paris in that period. Burgundy was quite a power and its too bad not enough factions slots to have it there. I wish the rebel regions showed that.

[RyuNoKami]

from a gameplay perspective, i find it much more interesting to start with fewer provinces. Thats why I really hate playing the Turks, Byzantines, and HRE even though I really want to. Too much management right from the start.

[Ichon]

Byzantines I agree except in 1450 campaign where there is actually a challenge. HRE is interesting because while you start as a major power the first 25 turns are still a puzzle to maintain dominions and even try to expand when every neighbor wants a piece and you have to actually consider logistics in such a big land locked empire, only K-Shah in late campaign comes close and only due to Mongols- not every front. HRE though if you survive past the first 25 turns reasonably strong becomes easy and just tedious. I actually enjoyed Turks campaign... even though start out reasonably large the regions are spread out and poor and as soon as things seem to get organized you get 3 large empires coming after you which in most ways is more challenge than HRE which faces a lot of enemies but mostly smaller kingdoms.

Aside from Turks though I do tend to enjoy the smallest factions the most. Portugal, Genoa, Lithuania, CS so maybe more rebel territories could be interesting. It would increase replay alot I'd guess with different factions becoming dominate. I don't know if every faction should go to 3 starting territories but some of the larger ones definitely could lose a few territories to rebel at start and it might be more fun. The middle east then becomes quite large and empty... need Abassids or someone else there although for 1100 start lots of rebels actually would be historical.

[DeMolay]

from a gameplay perspective, i find it much more interesting to start with fewer provinces. Thats why I really hate playing the Turks, Byzantines, and HRE even though I really want to. Too much management right from the start.

I agree with you , i also almost never play factions that are too large these days , especially with SS6.3+stock submods like RR/RC and Byg grims , as turn times are much slower and management more demanding in term of planning

When i play Byzantines nowdays ,in order to save time , i usually end up occupying only Greece and sell/give/let rebel all other settlements . With less settlements , there is less borders to defend , and it's quite fun to defend Greece (with mountains , good navy , quick army deployment ) and launch orthodox "crusades" against the Pope from time to time