CKII is released.

[Zero Credibility]

Well, how is this change going to affect the stability of AI (and player) elective realms? Not at all. Having your older brother duke inherit instead of your young son isn't going to make the realm more unstable or the game harder, just more annoying if you were playing the genetics game. That +20 bonus is the reason why elective realms (especially AI realms) are stable, and not being able to pick your heir if everyone likes you. A king is universally loved and he can't secure his choice of heir? He can't buy the votes with love or money? Why?

The only reason I can see is that someone at Paradox decided players shouldn't be able to do that. More attrition free troops than the biggest realm in the game can support suddenly appearing out of thin air to fuck you up because some landless, moneyless and universally useless asshole decided he likes your land - perfect! Being able to pick your heir if you are liked enough - nerf it!

And if elective is not supposed to be used for that, well what is the alternative? I'm no student of history (and can't be bothered to actually research this further), but I think that the succession laws weren't as clear cut as they are in the game and that kings did occasionally determine who is going to get what. Weren't idiot or even just unliked children ever passed over? Didn't the Emperor of ERE just designate his heir straight out, regardless of who it was? This is all I want, to be able to say who am I going to play as next. And if my vassals and other kids don't like that, well they are free to try to do something about that

As for replacing electors with members of my dynasty, I don't see how this nerf is going to change that strategy in the slightest. Anyway, I didn't actually do that in my games. Don't dynasty members get a relationship penalty instead of a bonus in elective? I preferred to keep my family at county level, with possible exception of an emergency heir or two if I get unlucky or if a branch of my family strikes jackpot on the genetic lottery.

 

[RK47]

not if you toss all the duchy to a single successor. ^_^

 

[Zero Credibility]

I actually prefer not to let my heir out my court until he inherits. Less chance of them getting killed, maimed or doing stupid shit to undo my careful upbringing before they inherit. Especially since I'm playing greeks lately and they have disturbing tendency to blind and castrate everyone in their prison (I've seen kind, just and charitable characters doing that to unimportant characters that eloped!) and so end up turning my kind diplomats into cruel torturers. Brothers too - that way the new ruler can hand them out some land I set aside as the old ruler just for that as his first action to smooth the relationship with his siblings.

 

[RK47]

Yes, but I like it when my favorite heir gives me all 10,000 of his levy with 0 complaints.
Also, less chance of revolts if my favorite boy gets every single thing.
His lesser fortunate siblings stick with me and fight at the front line.

 

[Grinolf]

Well, how is this change going to affect the stability of AI (and player) elective realms? Not at all. Having your older brother duke inherit instead of your young son isn't going to make the realm more unstable or the game harder, just more annoying if you were playing the genetics game. That +20 bonus is the reason why elective realms (especially AI realms) are stable, and not being able to pick your heir if everyone likes you. A king is universally loved and he can't secure his choice of heir? He can't buy the votes with love or money? Why?

The only reason I can see is that someone at Paradox decided players shouldn't be able to do that. More attrition free troops than the biggest realm in the game can support suddenly appearing out of thin air to fuck you up because some landless, moneyless and universally useless asshole decided he likes your land - perfect! Being able to pick your heir if you are liked enough - nerf it!

And if elective is not supposed to be used for that, well what is the alternative? I'm no student of history (and can't be bothered to actually research this further), but I think that the succession laws weren't as clear cut as they are in the game and that kings did occasionally determine who is going to get what. Weren't idiot or even just unliked children ever passed over? Didn't the Emperor of ERE just designate his heir straight out, regardless of who it was? This is all I want, to be able to say who am I going to play as next. And if my vassals and other kids don't like that, well they are free to try to do something about that

As for replacing electors with members of my dynasty, I don't see how this nerf isn't going to change that strategy in the slightest. Anyway, I didn't actually do that in my games. Don't dynasty members get a relationship penalty instead of a bonus in elective? I preferred to keep my family at county level, with possible exception of an emergency heir or two if I get unlucky or if a branch of my family strikes jackpot on the genetic lottery.

I am not discussing historical accuracy of this changes. Fron pure game mechanic point of view ability to easy pick any heir that you like from your numerous relativies is insanely powerful, so I used elective in my every single game in CK2. And even in real life long steak of rulers adopted and appointed by previous ruler brought Rome to it's Golden Age, that ended very quickly after returning to a heredity system. And player have an ability to prolong such Golden Age to all course of the game. So if PI announced removal of opinion bonuses instead, my reaction would be: "Meh, I pick it anyway without a second thought", which make the nerf a failure.

Most dynasty members don't get penalties for Elective, but they also don't get elective bonuses for vassals either. And since the only real drawback of Elective until now was a possibility to loose titles in case of very fast death of your character, it was only natural course of action to eliminate the risk altogether by making all candidates to members of your dynasty. And it gives even more options for picking the best ruler possible. Do this +20 isn't really something to be holding of.

 

[RK47]

my reaction would be: "Meh, I pick it anyway without a second thought", which make the nerf a failure.

Instead of nerfing Elective to such an extent - I'd rather they buff the rest somehow. Fixing Gavelkind would be a good start. There's not enough pros to outweight the cons.

 

[Grinolf]

Instead of nerfing Elective to such an extent - I'd rather they buff the rest somehow. Fixing Gavelkind would be a good start. There's not enough pros to outweight the cons.

I saw the posts of some Gavelkind on Paradox forum, that picked it because of demesne size and then ensured to have only one heir. But this is too gamey for my tastes. Not to mention that it's a very uncomfortable and risky to have only a single heir.
But it's not like succession laws were equal in the real world in the first place. And making something as notoriously awful as Gavelkind into a valuable game strategy should be pretty much impossible. So I don't think that Paradox instead made it a challenge that pagans should overcome instead.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I am not discussing historical accuracy of this changes. Fron pure game mechanic point of view ability to easy pick any heir that you like from your numerous relativies is insanely powerful, so I used elective in my every single game in CK2. And even in real life long steak of rulers adopted and appointed by previous ruler brought Rome to it's Golden Age, that ended very quickly after returning to a heredity system. And player have an ability to prolong such Golden Age to all course of the game. So if PI announced removal of opinion bonuses instead, my reaction would be: "Meh, I pick it anyway without a second thought", which make the nerf a failure.

Most dynasty members don't get penalties for Elective, but they also don't get elective bonuses for vassals either. And since the only real drawback of Elective until now was a possibility to loose titles in case of very fast death of your character, it was only natural course of action to eliminate the risk altogether by making all candidates to members of your dynasty. And it gives even more options for picking the best ruler possible. Do this +20 isn't really something to be holding of.

Eh, what I'm saying is that this particular nerf isn't going to change this strategy at all. Nothing has changed here - if all or most electors are members of your dynasty then there is bound to be at least one not completely awful one among them and he is likely to win because if they like you, they are going to vote for a member of your dynasty and he is likely to be the most liked. The only thing that has changed it is now harder to get your kids elected and shaping my heir was one part of the game that I liked the most.

As for historic accuracy, I'm hardly the one to talk about it given how my games have gone in the past. It's just that this was the one way of choosing who inherits what among your kids for christian feudal rulers that doesn't involve mass murdering your own familly or turning them all into priests (both of which are much harder to do now anyway) or, as RK has pointed out, just giving every elector title to your heir. What's the alternative for me now? Play as a budhist in Europe?

 

[Grinolf]

Eh, what I'm saying is that this particular nerf isn't going to change this strategy at all. Nothing has changed here - if all or most electors are members of your dynasty then there is bound to be at least one not completely awful one among them and he is likely to win because if the like you, they are going to vote for a member of your dynasty and he is likely to be the most liked. The only thing that has changed it is now harder to get your kids elected and shaping my heir was one part of the game that I liked the most.

Non-awful still isn't the best one. And it much more likely for the best possible candidate be one of your kids.

And it's not like I support the change. In fact, I become so used to Elective, that it samewhat put me off. But my point is, that for the purpose of nerfing it they went for the right thing. Idea to make a heir the only other elector is interesting, but it have some inconvenience, like not having a direct control over him or possibility of him dying before inheriting. Also there is such thing now as vassal limit, that should make it unusable for the large realms.

 

[RK47]

Eh, what I'm saying is that this particular nerf isn't going to change this strategy at all. Nothing has changed here - if all or most electors are members of your dynasty then there is bound to be at least one not completely awful one among them and he is likely to win because if the like you, they are going to vote for a member of your dynasty and he is likely to be the most liked. The only thing that has changed it is now harder to get your kids elected and shaping my heir was one part of the game that I liked the most.

Non-awful still isn't the best one. And it much more likely for the best possible candidate be one of your kids.

And it's not like I support the change. In fact, I become so used to Elective, that it samewhat put me off. But my point is, that for the purpose of nerfing it they went for the right thing. Idea to make a heir the only other elector is interesting, but it have some inconvenience, like not having a direct control over him or possibility of him dying before inheriting. Also there is such thing now as vassal limit, that should make it unusable for the large realms.

Ironically, gifting him all the duchies solve the vassal limit issue for me. He can deal with the penalized income and levy. I don't.

 

[Zero Credibility]

If the point of nerf was to remove fun from elective, then it was certainly the step in the right direction. Me, I would have just cut the vassal bonus, which would make elective more unstable and vassals less likely to pick the lieges' chosen heir anyway. And make pretenders more proactive in securing votes for themselves, with bribing, alliances and intrigue. Politics. The negative side of elective was supposed to be the danger of losing control of the realm and unless the player really doesn’t know what they are doing it's just not there, not before this nerf and not now either. But I guess it was easier to just copy code from the tanistry to the elective.

 

[Grinolf]

Ironically, gifting him all the duchies solve the vassal limit issue for me. He can deal with the penalized income and levy. I don't.

That starting to sound like an exploit.

If the point of nerf was to remove fun from elective, then it was certainly the step in the right direction. Me, I would have just cut the vassal bonus, which would make elective more unstable and vassals less likely to pick the lieges' chosen heir anyway. And make pretenders more proactive in securing votes for themselves, with bribing, alliances and intrigue. Politics. The negative side of elective was supposed to be the danger of losing control of the realm and unless the player really doesn’t know what they are doing it's just not there, not before this nerf and not now either. But I guess it was easier to just copy code from the tanistry to the elective.

You stubbornly stuck in your position and don't want to hear anything else.
Again, vassals of your dynasty don't get an opinion bonus from an Elective in the first place. So all this change would accomplish is eliminating the only reason to have a vassals from other dynasties. So it's only AI, that would have troubles because of it. I don't known how one still miss such an obvious flaw after several posts pointing in it.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Er what? Look, the problem with elective is that it too fucking good, both for the player and the AI. It's supposed to be about politics and shit - it's not. And this doesn't do anything for this apart from irritating players that liked to pick their heirs. Nothing more.

 

[Grinolf]

Er what? Look, the problem with elective is that it too fucking good, both for the player and the AI. It's supposed to be about politics and shit - it's not. And this doesn't do anything for this apart from irritating players that liked to pick their heirs. Nothing more.

Removing opinion bonus wouldn't make Elective any worse for humans because standard human strategy with it involved placing relatives on elector titles. And even the ones who didn't do it, would start doing it as result. So this "nerf" wouldn't nerf anything for humans. And I couldn't care less about how good it for AI.

 

[Zero Credibility]

The thing is, if the sole point of that vassal bonus it to prevent the player from doing that, it's a really shitty way to do it because it's clearly not working now either. Honestly, if people creating dynastic electors is such a big problem then it needs to be handled differently. Maybe dynastic electors create cadet branches over time that will not let you play as them if they win or something like that. So you can secure the throne for your dynasty in one or two generations by stacking the elector deck, but after that who knows.

Anyway, maybe I can still use elective as it is to select my heir, provided I never, ever land my family. After all, it doesn't matter that my vassals prefer my landed dynasty members over my candidate if there aren't any to be found. So I can keep a couple of family branches in my court and work on them directly. If my kids are a failure, I just candidate a nephew or a grandkid in my court. Maybe it would work if my vassals don't just prefer anyone over my candidate, even if it would make a mess of my court.

Of course, not landing your family completely sucks as well - I liked rewarding my family with land (not too much though) just for roleplaying and to kick them out of my court. I wonder what are the rules for viceroys and voting - do they even get to vote? And hell, if everything else fails maybe it is time for sudden emergence of budhism in central Europe, because being able to select who I play as is pretty fucking important for me in this game.

 

[RK47]

I liked rewarding my family with land .

The content one gets a city to govern.
The ambitious ones get closer to god. Either by Church... or the heavens.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Nah, I usually hand out counties to my siblings. Good counties with plenty of holdings that I took and held as a previous ruler even if I was over my demesne limit just for this purpose. Everyone gets something, the heir gets the core holdings that I spend most of my money on and the primary title. The +40 bonus smooths the transition nicely too and I like having an empty court. Bishoprics and cities I usually hand out to random courtiers that keep showing up in my court.

Basically I treat it like gavelkind, only with more fucking sense.

 

[IDtenT]

All my direct vassals tend to be family members. Game just seems more fun that way.

 

[Abelian]

All my direct vassals tend to be family members. Game just seems more fun that way.

My biggest gripe about having family members as direct vassals is that they have strong claims on my titles, so I tend to either give counties and duchies to more distant family members (not children, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts), or if I do give a close family member a title, I try to but a buffer vassal duke/king in between.

 

[Hoodoo]

hows charlemang?

 

[RK47]

hows charlemang?

Pr gud. Char Aznable plot direction certainly felt satisfying enough when executed successfully.

 

[Mirage]

On the one hand I like the new content added via DLC but on the other hand I'm tired of the bugs it introduces each time, and to be honest it starting to get pretty expensive for a game, I mean if you buy all of the DLC full price it's 175,53€

With the new update they have also removed a core feature from the ruler design DLC! Wtf

I know it's paradox and it is how it is with them but I sure miss the day when we unlocked bonus content by actually playing the game.

 

[Zero Credibility]

With the new update they have also removed a core feature from the ruler design DLC! Wtf

What did they remove?

 

[Hoodoo]

hows charlemang?

Pr gud. Char Aznable plot direction certainly felt satisfying enough when executed successfully.

what
link pls

 

[Mirage]

What did they remove?

Key Features of the dlc from the steam page:

• Customize your portrait
• Name your Dynasty and design a Coat of Arms
• Assign skill points and traits
• Create a spouse and offspring
• Replace a historical character with your own

They removed "the design a Coat of Arms" : You cannot use another religion shield if you want to, you're stuck with the preset of your chosen religion (region) design.

Before: (Note the style menu)

Spoiler

After:

Spoiler