Just When You Thought CK2 Couldn't Get Any Dumber

[imspartacus2]

Months ago I started a thread inviting people to list the things they consider dumb about CK2 in the hope that maybe the developers might listen & try to fix them in CK3. Well the trouble was each time I started with the words; "This has to be the dumbest thing yet.", something else came along even dumber. But alas I really need now to try it again because this next thing HAS TO BE THE DUMBEST THING YET.

So its like this. Im the Emperor of Espania. Ive just crushed two rebellions by my vassals, imprisoned them and revoked their titles. So its time to award new titles right? So what do I do. I look for the male Courtiers who most like me & I award the titles to them. So what happens? This is what happens. I give the first title (A dukedom) to a non landed courtier who liked me by 60 green. But immediately after he gets the title he hates me by 100 red. I figure no, this isn't happening, its just too dumb, so I try it again. So I turn to the next Courtier who loves me by 47 green, has never owned any land before & whose great aspiration in life is to get himself a wife. Well not only do I give him a young attractive wife, I also give him a dukedom. And what do you think happens? You guessed it. Immediately upon having all these benefits bestowed upon him, he hates me to the max; 100 red. I repeated this 3 more times and the same happened. Really? how on earth does that make any sense. In what alternative universe do people react that way? Go on fix this CK2. You know you got to.

[Narrowmind]

It's not dumb. There are legal contracts that you aren't fulfilling. Hover over the reasons for his dislike and fix it. If you have an unfair number of titles, this causes negatives, too.

One thing is that the creators actually are trusting in you to have the intelligence enough to understand the tools put in place. They are trusting you not to be dumb enough to call the game dumb because you don't want to observe land limits and reasonable held titles. If the game is dumb, what does it say about the one who spends his time playing it?

[Comestibles]

No no no the DUMBEST THING YET is losing a duel to a 92 year old imbecile, club footed, inbred, one eyed, one legged, one handed, slow, severely wounded woman when you have 300 PCS

[楚哲]

I think you didn't transfer de jure vassals to your courtier or he just wants a position in your council.

[salatrin]

Originally posted by Comestibles:

No no no the DUMBEST THING YET is losing a duel to a 92 year old imbecile, club footed, inbred, one eyed, one legged, one handed, slow, severely wounded woman when you have 300 PCS

Your still sour about that? Come on, i beat ya in that duel fair and square, Deal with it! :P

[imspartacus2]

Originally posted by Ratlegion:

It's not dumb. There are legal contracts that you aren't fulfilling. Hover over the reasons for his dislike and fix it. If you have an unfair number of titles, this causes negatives, too.

One thing is that the creators actually are trusting in you to have the intelligence enough to understand the tools put in place. They are trusting you not to be dumb enough to call the game dumb because you don't want to observe land limits and reasonable held titles. If the game is dumb, what does it say about the one who spends his time playing it?

Oh dear, there's always the apologists. And the worst thing is they're so desperate to deny that there's anything wrong with the game that they pretend not to see the most glaring obvious point.

OK look Ratlegion if you indeed genuinely missed the point I ask you to please read carefully and follow what Im about to say. Ready?

OK: Immediately before I gave that landless courtier a dukedom my demesne was way to big. Thats why lots of my vassals hated me & thats why I needed to give land away quick smart. So what did I do. I chose a courtier who already knew I had a huge demesne (for which he disliked me) AND already had a number of other things against me BUT DESPITE ALL THAT he already knew about me, OVERALL he still liked me by 60 green. So in any other rational world, he's going to like me even more once I give him a dukedom. But not in CK2 he's not. Quite the opposite. Now he's so incensed that he wants to risk everything I just gave him (& remember before that he had nothing) by joining in another rebellion against me. Admit it. Its stupid, just stupid. Nobody reacts that way.

As to the legal contracts you say I may not be fulfilling. Contracts between whom? Me and him? He didn't have any land until I gave him some. So how could I have breached any contractual obligations to him by giving him land out of the blue.

But yes 2 new reasons for hating me did appear in his profile. (1) I gave him the duchy instead of the Kingdom? Really! I literally picked this guy up out of the gutter and his response in the CK2 world of absolute dumbness is that he hates me intensely for only making him a duke instead of a king. And we're supposed to think that thats a rational believable reaction. Only a hopeless apologist would pretend that that makes sense. (2) His second new reason for hating me is that I didnt put him on the council. Again, how do you take that seriously? Yesterday he had nothing with no prospects but today he's a duke thanks to me but this guy is supposed to hate me because i didnt put him on the council. Please stop the apologising. When the game does dumb things have the presence of mind to admit it with some grace.

[Azunai]

courtiers don't care about your demesne size or too many held duchies. only landed characters care about that.

the transition phase can be silly as you already noted, but that's really just a temporary thing. once you hand out all the excess titles (like you're supposed to do) then the opinion of your new vassals will end up at +100 since they no longer have any major negatives and are overwhelmingly grateful for the titles they receives (at least for the next 10 years, then the modifier ends)

[Narrowmind]

He knows, just trolling.

[mr_bman]

If you don't give a Duke all of the holdings in a Duchy, they'll get mad at you.

[imspartacus2]

Originally posted by Azunai:

courtiers don't care about your demesne size or too many held duchies. only landed characters care about that.

the transition phase can be silly as you already noted, but that's really just a temporary thing. once you hand out all the excess titles (like you're supposed to do) then the opinion of your new vassals will end up at +100 since they no longer have any major negatives and are overwhelmingly grateful for the titles they receives (at least for the next 10 years, then the modifier ends)

How does any of what you've just said make the game any less dumb. We're to think its OK that Courtiers don't care about the size of the Emperor's demesne but vassals care immediately & without delay to the point of rebelliousness. Dont you see thats exactly the point. Thats exactly why this aspect of the game is dumb and needs to be fixed. It would be no big deal to adjust the program so an unlanded Courtier (who had nothing yesterday & you just turned into a billionaire on today's standards) reacts differently to a landed vassal who more realistically could have disappointed expectations. A simple time mechanism so the hatred doesnt automatically kick in or grows at say 25% a year for example.

As to your other point, sometimes you cant just give all your titles out all in one go. In my case i just married with no heirs & I want to give the rest to a son if possible b/c it means less chance of another rebellion. So I ask why is the game configured in a way so that I dont get any benefit for giving my titles away until the very last one or two I give away. Why not a more sensible realistic approach like vassals liking me progressively more, with each title I give away. No, CK2 has a better way; give a title away and they automatically hate you. Admit it, its dumb and needs to be changed.

[imspartacus2]

Originally posted by mr_bman:

If you don't give a Duke all of the holdings in a Duchy, they'll get mad at you.

Again. Its really a very simple point. Its sheer dumbness that the game is configured in a way that a Courtier who had zero, zilch, nadda before i gave him a title, automatically hates me to the point of rebelliousness because I could have given him more. In what universe other than the dumb CK2 universe does that ever happen?

[wven]

Originally posted by imspartacus2:

Originally posted by mr_bman:

If you don't give a Duke all of the holdings in a Duchy, they'll get mad at you.

Again. Its really a very simple point. Its sheer dumbness that the game is configured in a way that a Courtier who had zero, zilch, nadda before i gave him a title, automatically hates me to the point of rebelliousness because I could have given him more. In what universe other than the dumb CK2 universe does that ever happen?

Just stop playing the game if you dislike it so much...problem solved.

[eightiesboi]

Well, I am definitely *not* an apologist for the devs. However, I don't know if I agree with you, @imspartacus2. Since you didn't provide much info to go on with the details of what happened, let me fill in the conversation between your Courtier, John, and his best friend, Jack (all dialogue is real, the participants are not actors, void in Alabama, etc).

Jack: "What's wrong John? You look horrible. You didn't get the Pox, did you?"

John: "Naw, worse. The King made me a Duke. I hate that MF now."

Jack: "What? That's terrific! What's wrong with being a duke?"

John: "Nothing, except the old tyrant kept all the counties to himself. So, sure I got a duchy, but it's pretty much in name only. No real lands, no levies, zilch."

Jack: "Yeah, but he'll surely appoint you to be on his Council!"

John: "Nope. Nothing. I was fat, dumb, and happy at court, not a care in the world, just wanted a wife, and now he made me a target, didn't give me any of the counties in my own duchy, and doesn't want me to advise him. I swear, I'd revolt if I had any armies to do so with. I could do a better job than him, that's for sure."

Jack: "Well, I know a guy who knows a guy..."

----

Seriously though, one of the things I've learned is that giving someone power may or may not make them have a net "good" opinion of you, but it generally sets them up to be a rival or at least envious of your power. Imagine if the president of a modern day major company picked an office worker who was happy in their job and made them a VP, but had all of the new VP's subordinates reporting directly to the president AND didn't let the new VP attend staff meetings. That new VP might resent the "gift" pretty quickly.

It sound though like what really frustrates you is the immediacy of the change in opinion, not the reasons for the change. If so, I get that. On the other hand, there was definitely a design decision made regarding information flow. Consider that, during the time being portrayed, it could take weeks or months for messages to be conveyed; yet we can give real-time orders to our troops and send communiques at a moment's notice. Yes, the game might be more authentic if people's opinions took more time to change, but it would also be more realistic if you had to send the order to raise levies by couriers from your home county and those couriers could be intercepted, etc. Likewise, the first one might know that an enemy was at the doorstep might be when said enemy's army was pillaging an outlying county. And while these mechanics would certainly be interesting to some, it would be frustrating to others and raise the bar to entry to new players.

My two cents.

[bri]

Yes, the game might be more authentic if people's opinions took more time to change, but it would also be more realistic if you had to send the order to raise levies by couriers from your home county and those couriers could be intercepted, etc.

The original CK actually worked like that (except the interception part) it could take literally months just to raise all your levies never mind gather them into an army.

[Azunai]

Originally posted by imspartacus2:

Originally posted by Azunai:

courtiers don't care about your demesne size or too many held duchies. only landed characters care about that.

the transition phase can be silly as you already noted, but that's really just a temporary thing. once you hand out all the excess titles (like you're supposed to do) then the opinion of your new vassals will end up at +100 since they no longer have any major negatives and are overwhelmingly grateful for the titles they receives (at least for the next 10 years, then the modifier ends)

How does any of what you've just said make the game any less dumb. We're to think its OK that Courtiers don't care about the size of the Emperor's demesne but vassals care immediately & without delay to the point of rebelliousness. Dont you see thats exactly the point. Thats exactly why this aspect of the game is dumb and needs to be fixed. It would be no big deal to adjust the program so an unlanded Courtier (who had nothing yesterday & you just turned into a billionaire on today's standards) reacts differently to a landed vassal who more realistically could have disappointed expectations. A simple time mechanism so the hatred doesnt automatically kick in or grows at say 25% a year for example.

As to your other point, sometimes you cant just give all your titles out all in one go. In my case i just married with no heirs & I want to give the rest to a son if possible b/c it means less chance of another rebellion. So I ask why is the game configured in a way so that I dont get any benefit for giving my titles away until the very last one or two I give away. Why not a more sensible realistic approach like vassals liking me progressively more, with each title I give away. No, CK2 has a better way; give a title away and they automatically hate you. Admit it, its dumb and needs to be changed.

i'm just pointing out how the game actually works. i don't care whether you like it or not.

[Rodi]

Make an AI then dood.
Its a numbers game. And if you dont understand numbers then fk off.
It is "unrealistic", yet working as intended in gameplay.
You seem turbo autistic, which is PRETTY DUMB.