[Suggestion] A new way to deal with a disloyal vassal.

[Unit 744]

Note: this post was edited to reflect changes in post #2. The original idea was to force a vassal to continue paying taxes to its overlord regardless of liberty desire.



I would hardly call myself an EU4 expert, so if something along the lines of this suggestion is already possible, do please let me know how to do it. This is a long post, so prepare yourself.


Let's say you have a few vassals, and one in particular is becoming rather uppity. Liberty desire is above 50%, the taxes have stopped flowing in to your coffers, and their soldiers suddenly become 'rather tired and must rest for a while' whenever you enter a war. "Unacceptable!," you declare. Except, you cannot really declare any such thing. They are your vassal, they stopped paying you, they stopped helping you, and there is nothing you can really do about that.

I thus propose an overlord be able to do something about it:

When a vassal has liberty desire of 50% or greater and the overlord has a diplomat available, a new subject interaction called 'Demand compliance' becomes available. Upon selecting that action, an event will popup will inform the player that they have begun demanding compliance from their vassal, and "only time will tell if they will accept our rightful demands of continued compliance." Choosing the single option of this event will also give an opinion malus to all of the player's vassals for "aggressive negotiation." It will stack if done to multiple vassals at the same time. The diplomat will be occupied in the meantime.

This will start an event chain for the player. The next event pop-up will come in one year. During this year, all vassals with a liberty desire of at least 50% (including vassals who gain 50% mid-way through the year) will more aggressively seek out alliances and other independence-related support, in preparation for a possible war. If the vassal is player-controlled, he will receive an event popup that just informs him the overlord is demanding resumed compliance, and suggest the player ally in preparation for war.

The overlord can cancel this action at any time to immediately free their diplomat and cancel the event chain. However, the opinion malus will remain.


At the end of this year, a few possible options might occur:

1, If the vassal in question now has a liberty desire of less than 50%, an event popup will inform the overlord that a "change in the popular opinion of our vassal has swayed its leaders to our viewpoint." The player then has two options:
a, "Great news!" Nothing happens.
b, "Press the issue and send an ultimatum." This will cost some diplomacy monarch points and give an opinion malus to the target subject for 'ultimatum received.'

2, If the vassal in question still has a liberty desire of at least 50%, an event popup will inform the player that negotiations have failed, and he may have to send an ultimatum. He will have a few options:
a, "A wasted effort!" Lose some diplomacy monarch points. The vassal receives an event popup in which they gain some diplomacy monarch points. Nothing else happens, and this ends the event chain.
b, "Send an ultimatum." This will cost some diplomacy monarch points and give an opinion malus to the target subject for 'ultimatum received.'

If the overlord sent an ultimatum, the vassal receives an event popup "Ultimatum received" with two options:
1, "Accept demands," wherein the vassal's liberty desire is reduced by 50, as if their overlord won an independence war against them. This also creates a truce for 10 years.
2, "Refuse demands," wherein nothing immediately happens to the vassal.

The next month, the overlord will receive an event popup informing him of the vassal's decision. If the vassal chose "refuse demands," the overlord gains a 'Enforce Compliance' casus belli against the vassal. This allows the overlord to declare war on the vassal and ignore all penalties associated with declaring war on a subject.

If the overlord chooses to declare war, his other subjects will behave as they normally would in a standard independence war.

During a peace resolution, the overlord may only demand money, demand a concede defeat, or demand compliance; the vassal may only demand money, demand a concede defeat, or demand independence.



Well, this was a long one. What do you all think? The specifics might need tweaking, but what do you all think of the general structure of this event chain and options it gives the player? I think this provides a meaningful option to any overlord nation to better control their subjects. If their subject is over 50% liberty desire, but the overlord believes he could beat the subject in a war, the overlord should be able to demand the vassal behave and help him in wars. If, however, the subject thinks otherwise, he can refuse the demands. Then, a war can determine who was actually right.

I think this option still strikes a nice balance in terms of being costly for an overlord. Aside from wars being costly in their own right, the overlord loses some diplomacy points to acquire this casus belli, a diplomat is occupied for a year, and he suffers an opinion malus with all his vassals, which might make these other vassals rise above 50% liberty desire, themselves. All in all, vassals below 50% liberty desire are still preferable to an overlord, and maintaining a lower liberty desire in rebellious vassals might require a war every now and again. For this reason, I think an AI vassal should consider accepting the demands of the ultimatum if he feels he would lose in a fight against the overlord after considering his and all his likely allies' forces.



Adding as part of my edit, copied from my post #2:

It seems rather misplaced that a vassal can act rebellious (50%+ liberty desire), and if the overlord is 'too strong' and the vassal refuses to actually fight for its independence, there is nothing the overlord can do to bring the vassal back in line.

I would also add that it is entirely possible for a vassal to be at or above 50% liberty desire when their opinion of their overlord is at 200. Improving relations in these cases would make no difference.

This would be targeted more at an overlord who is militarily superior (this is possible because vassal liberty desire from development is absolute and not relative to the overlord) and wants to keep a useful vassal (a large march, for example), but the vassal's liberty desire makes it useless in war.

Now I, an overwhelmingly superior overlord, can tell my vassal (who has a rather large amount of development, but a comparatively tiny army), to either obey me (accept ultimatum), or witness my military superiority (refuse ultimatum).

[Malvastor]

Personally, if this were an option I can't see myself ever using it. There are already ways to reduce a vassal's liberty desire, and I rarely find myself in situations where they don't work. With this, it looks like I spend a bunch of diplo points, piss off my other vassals, and at the end of it I get either taxes from my vassal or the option to declare war on them. But vassal taxes never make up a large proportion of my income, and I've never been in a situation where I really wanted to declare war on my vassals (especially if the only thing I can get out of the war is money).

All in all, the few ducats I make from my vassals aren't worth declaring a war over. If they are disloyal for some reason, the diplomat is better spent improving relations with them.

[Unit 744]

You do bring up a very good point - the reward for doing this is comparatively small for the cost. What if we upped the reward a bit and made this mechanic a bit more interesting?

Keep all of the above (changing flavor text as necessary), except instead of enforcing 'resumed tax payments,' the game simply treats this as a normal independence war.


So essentially, we have two things going on here:

1, Vassal refuses ultimatum: The overlord can initiate an independence war against their subject to lower their liberty desire (the normal -50% if the overlord wins) and make them more compliant for a time.

2, Vassal accepts ultimatum: If the overlord is handily superior militarily, and so the vassal feels an actual independence war is futile, the overlord can enforce the liberty desire reduction anyways, even without war.


I think this change keeps with my general premise, except it makes the vassal as a whole useful again. Not only would the vassal resumes its tax payments, but it would also assist you in wars once again.

It seems rather misplaced that a vassal can act rebellious (50%+ liberty desire), and if the overlord is 'too strong' and the vassal refuses to actually fight for its independence, there is nothing the overlord can do to bring the vassal back in line.

I would also add that it is entirely possible for a vassal to be at or above 50% liberty desire when their opinion of their overlord is at 200. Improving relations in these cases would make no difference.

This would be targeted more at an overlord who is militarily superior (this is possible because vassal liberty desire from development is absolute and not relative to the overlord) and wants to keep a useful vassal (a large march, for example), but the vassal's liberty desire makes it useless in war.


Now I, an overwhelmingly superior overlord, can tell my vassal (who has a rather large amount of development, but a comparatively tiny army), to either obey me (accept ultimatum), or witness my military superiority (refuse ultimatum).

I am going to edit my OP to reflect these changes to avoid confusion.

[Malvastor]

Adding the liberty desire reduction does a lot to make it more useful. Ultrix is right though that you'll have better visibility at the PParadox forums.

[Vyndicu]

Ultrix Prime původně napsal:

Ideas and suggestions only get traction with Paradox on their suggestion forum. They don't really pay attention here for this sort of thing

A certain community over at the Paradox own forum has been woefully neglected lately.

I am having a hard time believe that is true. Although I will admit EU4 community is in a much better shape.

[Unit 744]

Ultrix Prime původně napsal:

Ideas and suggestions only get traction with Paradox on their suggestion forum. They don't really pay attention here for this sort of thing

I have posted this on their suggestion forums as well. I guess we will see what happens to it.

I suppose if nothing else, this would not be overly difficult to mod in. EU4 is pretty dang easy to mod.

I just think this should really be a vanilla option. I think it is rather unrealistic that a subject can sit there and give their overlord the middle finger for years and years, and the only way for the overlord to get the vassal back in line is for the overlord to win an independence war *that only the vassal can initiate.* Why can't the overlord initiate something to lower liberty desire?

[EA Latium]

Unit 744 původně napsal:

I have posted this on their suggestion forums as well. I guess we will see what happens to it.

I suppose if nothing else, this would not be overly difficult to mod in. EU4 is pretty dang easy to mod.

I just think this should really be a vanilla option. I think it is rather unrealistic that a subject can sit there and give their overlord the middle finger for years and years, and the only way for the overlord to get the vassal back in line is for the overlord to win an independence war *that only the vassal can initiate.* Why can't the overlord initiate something to lower liberty desire?

I don't want to be a buzzkiller, but I doubt we will have any more major reworks after 1.30.

[Unit 744]

EA Latium původně napsal:

I don't want to be a buzzkiller, but I doubt we will have any more major reworks after 1.30.

"Bad news!"
All vassals gain +10 liberty desire.

[EA Latium]

Ultrix Prime původně napsal:

Yeah I think this is the last version before they mess over those of us that bought everything right away and paid top dollah, sigh

I have got that feeling too, I only hope they will still look after it with various fixes at least.

Unit 744 původně napsal:

"Bad news!"
All vassals gain +10 liberty desire.

Damn vassals, not again! lol

[Medicles]

EA Latium původně napsal:

I don't want to be a buzzkiller, but I doubt we will have any more major reworks after 1.30.

Even so it sounds somewhat plausible, i actually have a hard time believing this.

Let me explain why:

1. This major rework can be nothing else than a test before calling it the last big update. Paradox alone is not able to test it thouroughly, compared to at least 10k people testing it on a daily basis after its release. If nothing else, this update will still be worked on for at least a year.

2. Other parts of the world still havent gotten any major updates, nations and religions alike. They have made clear that europe shouldnt be the whole focus of the game.

3. The huge problem of Europa Universalis 5. Either it will again start as a completely new game, disregarding most things in EU4, which means it will have the same problems as Imperator: Rome. A skeleton game that needs a huge amount of updates until it becomes eventually good enough. This problem is more severe for EU5, since we have EU4 already, so the community wont buy EU5 in the first place, possibly even spam negative reviews to end it.

The other possibility would be EU5 continuing where EU4 stopped, which would mean that the only difference is the engine, since they could just continue with EU4 instead, or just do a remaster of EU4 and then continue. Personally, i really dont see any reason to start the development of EU5, unless there is actually a huge difference, like playing it via VR or as a hologram.

I also vaguely remember an official statement mentioning the exact same problems. Not seeing a reason to develope EU5 when it wouldnt change much compared to further working on EU4.


Having those points in mind, i do not think "Emperor" will be the last major rework. It may be the last major rework in terms of europe for a long time, but not for the whole game.

[EA Latium]

Medicles původně napsal:

Those are actually very interesting points, I really hope this is the case. What makes me think we are approaching the end is that it reminds me of Holy Fury in CK2 but that was obviously a different story.

I remember in one of the Dev Diaries they mentioned their UI team being moved onto another project, while it may not mean much it made think they were probably done with EU4.

I also vaguely remember an official statement mentioning the exact same problems. Not seeing a reason to develope EU5 when it wouldnt change much compared to further working on EU4

This rings a bell, there are so many features right now that I'm struggling to imagine an eventual EU5 being worth it as well, unless they really change the core gameplay.

I'd rather have Vic 3 next and more DLC for EU4 personally, but I don't think it will happen.

[Medicles]

EA Latium původně napsal:

Medicles původně napsal:

Those are actually very interesting points, I really hope this is the case. What makes me think we are approaching the end is that it reminds me of Holy Fury in CK2 but that was obviously a different story.

I remember in one of the Dev Diaries they mentioned their UI team being moved onto another project, while it may not mean much it made think they were probably done with EU4.

I also vaguely remember an official statement mentioning the exact same problems. Not seeing a reason to develope EU5 when it wouldnt change much compared to further working on EU4

This rings a bell, there are so many features right now that I'm struggling to imagine an eventual EU5 being worth it as well, unless they really change the core gameplay.

I'd rather have Vic 3 next and more DLC for EU4 personally, but I don't think it will happen.

Yeah, i have red it several times from others, stating that other Paradox games were finished after a last major update and then succeeded by the replacement. But like you said, its a different story and i support that.

I think we can only speculate at this point but i will stay with my assumption, that we will still see further updates and minor dlc for EU4. Frankly, i wouldnt like the possibility of it just being "finished" at this point, because its really not. It still has so much that could be worked on.

[EA Latium]

Medicles původně napsal:

Yeah, i have red it several times from others, stating that other Paradox games were finished after a last major update and then succeeded by the replacement. But like you said, its a different story and i support that.

I think we can only speculate at this point but i will stay with my assumption, that we will still see further updates and minor dlc for EU4. Frankly, i wouldnt like the possibility of it just being "finished" at this point, because its really not. It still has so much that could be worked on.

Indeed, I really hope so, if they still make money maybe they'll continue. There are so many things that still needs some work, as Op suggested some rework to vassals could be interesting as well.

[EA Latium]

Good news guys "We aim to continue working on Eu4 after Emperor." -Johan

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/eu4-after-the-emperor-update.1395018/#post-26621744

[EA Latium]

Ultrix Prime původně napsal:

Notice he said “aim”

In the past they said at least x versions that, when you did the math it came to 30

Note he did not say “have plans to”

They have a product road map (everyone does) and if they had more plans they’d say so as they have in the past

I think I was a bit too enthusiastic when I read it

[Medicles]

Its indeed quite an ambiguous statement, but not a surprising one. Looks like they have reached a threshold with 1.30 and are now getting on the slow ride with EU4, like maybe one update a year instead of 2-3.