it is me or with the new dlc it's harder to control your kingdom ?

[wolfFRdu64/Lounna]

i buyed the last dlc and i find it way more difficult to hold a kingdom together than without, it's only me or not ?

[Sinfulmoon]

IMO Doesn't it make it incredibly easier? The only hard part is saving up money for the grand tours but they give you incredible options to increase vassal opinion and county control and culture acceptance.

[Kimlin]

I thought the idea was to make it more interactive which could mean harder.

[Harris]

Well, feasts give you honorary guest and befriend intent which allow you to trivially befriend a vassal of choice even if you're not a diplomacy character. Hunting with your vassals gives all of you hunter trait, increasing opinion of each other. So it should be easier, not harder, at least in theory.

What makes the old dog learn new tricks however is the new vassal stances, which means your vassals no longer like/hate you for same actions universally. Way I see it, the game design intent is for you to plan around which kind of vassals you want to have, and then reap the benefits.

For example, grab Strong Believers tradition (after you convert your realm to the faith of choice obviously, else it's a disaster waiting to happen), most vassals of your culture will be Zealous, will automatically adopt Zealot stance, and you'll be able to keep them loyal all at once with a piligrimage build (Erudition and the new Activities legacies). Meanwhile Charitable tradition makes two blue color traits more common, making most of your vassals Courtly stance.

Like if I ruled France, I'd want most of my vassals Courtly, but I would also have some Zealots from Prince-Bishoprics. Fortunately, social/compassionate traits are also virtues for Catholics, so you should be able to please both at the same time. While the "preferred heir" bonus should ensure a smoother succession.

[wolfFRdu64/Lounna]

Originally posted by Sinfulmoon:

IMO Doesn't it make it incredibly easier? The only hard part is saving up money for the grand tours but they give you incredible options to increase vassal opinion and county control and culture acceptance.

well, i often play a tribal that reform to feodal, so money is a problem

[Deacon]

I think it's great. Lots of things going on to make the game interesting. I wouldn't say harder either. Just more drama in the courts.

[Ruffio]

Imho it's easier to gain control over the vassals after old king dies and new emerge. Throw up some feasts and everyone become your buddies.

[Harris]

Originally posted by wolfFRdu64/Lounna:

well, i often play a tribal that reform to feodal, so money is a problem

Now this is something we can work with.

To be honest, at this point I believe that if you start tribal - you shouldn't feudalize ever. That's unless you're a viking biting off a chunk of France or England, assimilating and becoming a vassal there. But if you're playing somewhere like Russia or Siberia then going feudal is the single worst decision you could make in the game.

Consider this - tribal vassals bring you 16% their gold at Distinguished, 24% at Illustrious, 32% at Exalted among Men and whopping 40% at Living Legend - which is not that hard to achieve with a legacy for double fame from battles and a focus on medicine in the later years. And let's not forget thousands of free prestige from tours and hunts which all contributes to your level of fame, making achieving at least 24-32% contribution trivial. You can routinely make 20-30 gold income from a large tribal empire, which is the envy of every early game feudal ruler short of Basileus in Constantinople.

Now when you feudalize, all your vassals contribution drops to measly 10% - you can manipulate it with individual contracts and crown authority, but realistically you are stuck with this number for quite a long time. All your 1000 varangian veterans now cost a ridiculous sum of gold to maintain, and your only ability to get more - that is, to raid - was taken away from you. You are eventually left with no other option than to disband them - at which point you become weak and lose power. Game over. Was feudalizing worth it in the end?

The only feasible point of feudalizing would be competing in the arms race with the rest of the world - but in this race, Western Europe already got a huge head start, having all those towns and monasteries from 867. While you're busy capturing 3 sacred sites to reform your tribal religion - England and France are gonna get enough development to start their nuclear programs and there's no way you're gonna catch up.

Of course, raiding will eventually stop being effective, but at that point you should have more gold than you know what to do with.

[Machiavelli]

Good. The game is way too easy

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by wolfFRdu64/Lounna:

well, i often play a tribal that reform to feodal, so money is a problem

Now this is something we can work with.

To be honest, at this point I believe that if you start tribal - you shouldn't feudalize ever. That's unless you're a viking biting off a chunk of France or England, assimilating and becoming a vassal there. But if you're playing somewhere like Russia or Siberia then going feudal is the single worst decision you could make in the game.

Unfortunately due to (what I believe is) a design flaw, your vassals can sneakily feudalize even though you the liege have not. This was not possible in Ck2, and even if you did come into possession of feudal vassals ,you could just revoke their feudal holdings and burn them to the ground (which caused high revolt risk) and rebuild a tribal holding. Once a county has feudalized in CK3, it will remain so unless you personally hold it as an extra holding other than your capital. But because it is still a castle, as soon as you grant it to someone they become feudal and once that +40 for granting a county runs out they hate you just as much as your other feudal vassals.

CK3 on the other hand really puts pressure on you to feudalize. -20 opinion if you are a tribal liege basically forced me to feudalize because I got tired of empire-wide rebellions even though I was actually trying to be a good mongolian descendant of Genghis Khan and stay tribal and continue raiding. I did manage to stay tribal for 2 rulers after my 'greatest of all khans' character died but it got old fast.

[Richie Rich]

I think its easier XD the Learning way of life is kinda OP now, you can literally play pacifist, get a lot of Piety, Prestige, Gold, do activities, and your vassals will love you.

[wolfFRdu64/Lounna]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by wolfFRdu64/Lounna:

well, i often play a tribal that reform to feodal, so money is a problem

Now this is something we can work with.

To be honest, at this point I believe that if you start tribal - you shouldn't feudalize ever. That's unless you're a viking biting off a chunk of France or England, assimilating and becoming a vassal there. But if you're playing somewhere like Russia or Siberia then going feudal is the single worst decision you could make in the game.

Consider this - tribal vassals bring you 16% their gold at Distinguished, 24% at Illustrious, 32% at Exalted among Men and whopping 40% at Living Legend - which is not that hard to achieve with a legacy for double fame from battles and a focus on medicine in the later years. And let's not forget thousands of free prestige from tours and hunts which all contributes to your level of fame, making achieving at least 24-32% contribution trivial. You can routinely make 20-30 gold income from a large tribal empire, which is the envy of every early game feudal ruler short of Basileus in Constantinople.

Now when you feudalize, all your vassals contribution drops to measly 10% - you can manipulate it with individual contracts and crown authority, but realistically you are stuck with this number for quite a long time. All your 1000 varangian veterans now cost a ridiculous sum of gold to maintain, and your only ability to get more - that is, to raid - was taken away from you. You are eventually left with no other option than to disband them - at which point you become weak and lose power. Game over. Was feudalizing worth it in the end?

The only feasible point of feudalizing would be competing in the arms race with the rest of the world - but in this race, Western Europe already got a huge head start, having all those towns and monasteries from 867. While you're busy capturing 3 sacred sites to reform your tribal religion - England and France are gonna get enough development to start their nuclear programs and there's no way you're gonna catch up.

Of course, raiding will eventually stop being effective, but at that point you should have more gold than you know what to do with.

i often try to unifie africa and i reform because, well, many around convert to Islam or christanity (with one time a Welayta character converting into a judaism, appen one time and it was odd) so they all rurn feodal or clanic and so if i don't want them to rebel all the 15 of the month i have to reform (and also have more men at arms, because without them i die quick, or lose land as quick)

[The Former]

Originally posted by Harris:

To be honest, at this point I believe that if you start tribal - you shouldn't feudalize ever. That's unless you're a viking biting off a chunk of France or England, assimilating and becoming a vassal there. But if you're playing somewhere like Russia or Siberia then going feudal is the single worst decision you could make in the game.

[...]

The only feasible point of feudalizing would be competing in the arms race with the rest of the world - but in this race, Western Europe already got a huge head start, having all those towns and monasteries from 867. While you're busy capturing 3 sacred sites to reform your tribal religion - England and France are gonna get enough development to start their nuclear programs and there's no way you're gonna catch up.

The thing about feudalizing is that you get access to technologies, see. So if you don't feudalize, great, you get to raid and have huge armies with little gold cost. Wonderful, it really is, tribal is fun for that reason.

The issue is... Well, manifold.

1. It's one thing to not catch up on technology. It's another to stay in the early iron age while your opponents have massive bastions, plate armor, and siege cannon. You may never WIN the arms race, but you can at least stay halfway competitive. If you don't you'll just be swept away.

2. Even if you don't go for England or France, your rivals in Scandinavia or wherever? What if they start feudalizing? Then you're lagging behind immediate rivals, when you could be matching them or even getting an edge on them.

3. Raiding becomes less profitable as strongholds level up and protect more loot. Not to mention, a greater risk as empires coalesce and knights clad in steel plate come to throw your party into the sea.

4. Wanna keep your army? You'll need prestige, and a lot of it. A feudal king, to stay competitive with potential rivals of the same scale, requires a ton of prestige. It's not optional. Prestige doesn't have as many passive generation methods as gold, and thus your main source will be through either conflict or hosted events. Hosting events requires gold (see point 3) anyway, and fighting requires being competitive with your rivals.

In other words... On paper, going tribal until 1453 is unsustainably difficult. Obviously it's not impossible and there will be plenty of exceptions, but there's every good reason to feudalize. It's just a matter of doing it at the right time and with the right amount of prepartion.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, Paradoxriddaren:

The issue is... Well, manifold.

I answered a part of this above - you form a large-ish empire which takes care of your gold income even as raiding ceased to be viable (and it ceases to be viable anyway, with the recent nerf to practiced pirates), making sure you have enough gold to host stuff. Otherwise - I feel the game right now suffers from some form of -centrism, where it assumes that more development = better and that feudal is intristically superior to tribal, which Mongols proved wrong.

The income of counties is very oversimplified, with walls of all things being able to give you flat 10 gold income. This leads to the situation where economically viable counties are those with mines or cathedrals, while something like Kyiv is inferior to that without much hope to compete. It does not account for certain places booming because of being important centers of trade, as trade mechanics don't exist in the game. If you switch to the Economy overlay you'll see there's barely any unique building spots east from Poland.

It all leads to the situation where a fish is evaluated by its ability to fly, and it was arguably only exacerbated by the free patch alongside T&T. A difference of one era is not just having 20% bonus to m@a as opposed to your neighbour's 40%. It's now also a difference in the number of such buildings.

[Sneaky_Koala]

Originally posted by Fellington:

Good. The game is way too easy

I still enjoy the game but you're dead right.

- CK2 inheritance and gender Laws:
Agnatic
Agnatic-cognatic
Absolute Cognatic
Enatic-Cognatic Enatic
--
GavelKind
Elective Gavelkind
Fuedal elective
Primogeniture
Ultimogeniture
Seniority
Open
Tanistryu
Eldership.

CK3... lol

[wolfFRdu64/Lounna]

Originally posted by Sneaky_Koala:

Originally posted by Fellington:

Good. The game is way too easy

I still enjoy the game but you're dead right.

- CK2 inheritance and gender Laws:
Agnatic
Agnatic-cognatic
Absolute Cognatic
Enatic-Cognatic Enatic
--
GavelKind
Elective Gavelkind
Fuedal elective
Primogeniture
Ultimogeniture
Seniority
Open
Tanistryu
Eldership.

CK3... lol

and you can disinherit in ck3, making a character in less to worry (and for some religion, make them part of the church and making them unelegitible to henerite)