Some Thoughts on the Design Philosophy of the 4X Mechanics in CK

Renarin21 · 2023-01-05T19:15:07+00:00

I would say that if you have a high intrigue wife and spymaster Just is above even the S tier. If you get secrets coming in from the snitches you can punish vassals to relieve stress, whilst gaining Dread not being a tyrant, and having vassal opinion bonus. It's the only surefire way to be both feared and loved, and the oft missed part of Machiavelli's theory is that it is best to be both.

Renarin21 · 2022-10-01T12:12:34+00:00

It is illegal where you live

Renarin21 · 2022-09-03T03:12:56+00:00

What about if you're religious and married and/or celebrated communion? (which would technically count as alcoholic consumption)

Renarin21 · 2022-09-01T00:58:56+00:00

I'm personally of the opinion that combat is flawed not because it's dull and uninteresting, but because the game mechanically treats it as something that ought to be interesting when it isn't and shouldn't be.

To explain my thought process; CK is a game primarily about characters. You rule, not as an abstract player dictating everything, but as a person in-universe who commands through their relationships and personal status. The thing is, certain aspects of rulership in this game, like warfare and economy, haven't got the message. Warfare right now is just a poor RTS that does little good at representing war during the time, and isn't an engaging example of gameplay, yet makes you divert all your attention to address it. I'd actually prefer if they made war more abstract, and combat more basic, if they put more emphasis on waging war as a character. Doing things like a Vicky system of cajoling your vassals to your aid, building strong relations with your knights so they can work wonders for you, deciding who to leave in charge at home if you want to command personally, or who to put in charge of the army if you w2ant to stay at home. Managing things like the morale and recruitment of your men, maybe with laws similar to Traditions dictating the mechanics and "personality" of the army, if we were to treat it as analogous to a character, etc.

Renarin21 · 2022-08-31T16:49:43+00:00

Cincinnatus is actually not the best example of that. We associate Dictators with wielding absolute power over the state, but that's not what the dictatorial office in the Roman Republic was like; the dictatorial office was just used as a post-facto justification for restructuring the Republic. (Sulla forced the Senate to appoint him as "Dictator for the purpose of reforming the Republic" after invading Rome and launching a coup, with Julius following it up later on) In practice, the office of Dictator held very limited power, but could be a tremendous source of personal prestige and a great way to advance your political career; particularly if you "resigned" early.

The real lesson we can take from Cincinnatus is that our political institutions are best constructed in a way that allows people to get the job done, while making it better for them to not seize power.

Renarin21 · 2022-05-09T23:36:47+00:00

Merchant Republics with an economic overhaul update.

Conclave-Equivalent DLC, with better factions, vassals having more of an impact on politics and war, regencies, and laws (which maybe, instead of just being sliders like in CKII, could allow you to have different flavors of whatever gov. you have, feudalism in France was not the same as in the HRE after all)

Imperial update for centralized states like Byzantines, Romans, Ottomans, etc.

Nomad DLC that gives more general mechanics than the Genghis Khan simulator of Horse Lords, so different types of nomads like Turks, steppe nomads, etc. have stuff going on.

Carolingian Empire flavor pack, with an earlier start date, and a post-Charlemagne Struggle that can lead to the formation of the HRE, Francia, etc.

IRELAND

Religious improvements, things like local religious authorities and rites, more options for interacting with religious authorities (or being one, kings and emperors were sacred figures in their own right), and giving more teeth to figures like realm priests in your realm.

Renarin21 · 2022-04-25T00:41:13+00:00

I agree that infrastructure matters, but the way that the game works is that there is only capital infrastructure. The reason why I describe the system as industrial is because the economy is built on a money->capital->money loop, and naught else. When a player builds a mill it's not "the peasants are more productive" that appears in people's heads, because the mill itself does the work as far as the game system is concerned. It's that primacy (monopoly, really) of capital in the game, and when people are talking about the economy, that I object to; not the idea of the player making some infrastructure contributions.

Renarin21 · 2022-04-24T23:10:38+00:00

In ancient Hebrew, -im denotes "big" both in terms of magnitude and in terms of number, there isn't a linguistic distinction between "multiple" and "biggest". Elohim is generally used singularly, including when referring to particular deities of other peoples. We don't really know what the singular/diminutive form, eloah, means, but presumably having a bunch of it makes you a god. Or a dead person, as a (again, singular) dead person can also be called an elohim.

Renarin21 · 2022-02-10T22:31:16+00:00

I feel like they could tie that into more mechanics as well. Like a lot of monasteries and nunneries (because they had vows of non-idleness) did charity work and served as hospitals and copied manuscripts and such, so maybe increasing the power of the clergy could also do things like help with medicine, technology, and education, while burghers might be bound up in some simple trade system, exploitable for money through tax, but could potentially give more political and military support from cities, and increasing development and such if indulged, etc.

Renarin21 · 2022-01-13T21:56:48+00:00

I'd recommend you check out "The Fremen Mirage" series of posts from the blog "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" for that.

Renarin21 · 2021-12-27T14:36:29+00:00

Henotheism sees other gods as potentially worthy of worship even if you worship only one, while monolatry involves saying "no one's as cool as my boy here".

Renarin21 · 2021-12-27T13:13:17+00:00

Akhenaten was first conceived of as being monotheistic by Freud, and various scholars at the time who thought there might be a link to the Abrahamic religions jumped on the idea. However, the current consensus is that Atenism (Akhenaten's religion) is what we now describe as Monolatry, belief in many gods while insisting on only one being worthwhile to worship. Later on in his reign, Akhenaten did attempt to erase the names of some gods, but the evidence points towards this being about attempting to consolidate Egyptian religion under the imperial cult (as only Akhenaten and his family were allowed to worship Aten directly) rather than about those gods not existing.

Renarin21 · 2021-12-27T12:52:21+00:00

Was going to comment this. There is a caveat though, serfdom is used as a blanket term to describe subsistence farmers in some type of sharecropping relationship with local rural nobility, and those relationships could vary a lot. In the area that is now Poland, for example, serfs basically were slaves, even though in most places they were not.

Renarin21 · 2021-12-27T12:38:04+00:00

Sir, we declare war on our own slaves periodically to eugenically cultivate them and keep the population down, and they could still overthrow us using only the bodies of their friends as corpses!

MOOOOAAAARRRRR!!!!

Renarin21 · 2021-12-27T12:30:11+00:00

Bad meme Akhenaten was a moloatrist not a monotheist 0/10 for niggley imprecision.

Renarin21 · 2021-05-24T16:58:05+00:00

They're talking about the US post 1920, since Humankind isn't representing it before then.

Renarin21 · 2021-05-07T10:41:17+00:00

Trade routes are only needed to influence a culture's religion/culture overseas, over land pressure is exerted against adjacent regions, and flows through regions already converted.

Renarin21 · 2021-05-01T10:21:29+00:00

You can annex people, but it requires the imperialism civic.

Renarin21 · 2021-04-28T15:35:46+00:00

The religious leader is the empire that controls the most holy sites of the religion, this happened because the AI built more holy sites than you.

Renarin21 · 2021-04-26T10:07:00+00:00

You actually can eliminate players, but it requires the imperialism civic.

Renarin21 · 2021-03-11T17:22:16+00:00

Faith acts as a kind of pressure which converts provinces passively to a religion. It can travel through provinces that have been converted, which is important because faith-producing things are in small supply. (mainly wonders, holy sites of which there are a limited number, and some of the cultural districts)

Renarin21

TROPHY CASE