Dr. Tough posted:

You should have just save scummed when your kid died

DerLeo posted:

If you don't like inexplicably superpowered Chinese conquest I'm not sure what makes you happy, this is great fun.

Gyra_Solune posted:

I personally think it would be a bit neat if there were HRE-like institutions for numerous regions - the British and Iberian Leagues, the...Seljuk places since that's the only name for them I remember maybe the Turkic Poly-Caliphate or something with a less lame name, and possibly that kind of apparatus for vassal states of ours that are less in our control - the Pechenegs and others like them. I wonder if that kind of thing with numerous HREs is even possible, or how glitchy it would be.

Rincewind posted:

France in particular will be split up and balanced around our own power level, since preliminary work on the mod all points to them being our main enemy.

So if B wins, France will be more nerfed than if A wins, which might just see a couple of the more important ck2 vassals released.

Blackunknown posted:

Perhaps give them a Shogunate style system where one is the leader and the rest are slowly annexed by said leader?

Rincewind posted:

EDIT: Given our emperors' and empress' track record on the battlefield, I really shouldn't let any of them lead armies.

quote:

Oh, and they killed all the Bretons at some point, too.

BwenGun posted:

Schedule the first multiplayer session. One person plays France, and then another player takes every neighbour or ally of a neighbour to France. What follows is the war of the first coalition, hopefully ending with France cut back to its traditional borders, with the added bonus of actual players adding some spice to the conduct of the war.

Rincewind posted:

Yeah, anyone can vote! You don't need to have joined a party or participated in Senate sessions or whenever. I can't really blame people for just skimming over Senate sessions at this point.

Tomn posted:

Now I'm hearing a common theme here - "The Bogomilists are radicals ANYWAYS, so we shouldn't have to defer to them in the least because they wouldn't listen to us." But is this really an intellectually rigorous analysis of Bogomilism, or is this simply giving in to intellectual sloth - a justification that allows the Church to act as it desires, not as it needs to do?

For consider this: Bogomilist radicals there are, surely, who wish to see all state and church hierarchy overthrown. But at least as common, I am sure, are Bogomilist moderates who wish only to live in peace, without being ruled by the church. After all, if they are not willing to die in foreign lands for the sake of the Mother Church, how much more willing would they be to die in Roman lands for the sake of "liberating" others from the oppressive grip of the Mother Church - so long as they are left alone?

Yet here is the Council, proclaiming that Bogomilism is the foulest heresy, to be opposed to the furthest extent of the law. Keep in mind that people turn to Bogomilism because they distrust the Church, and do not believe it will do what it says it does. How easily then will they believe that the Church will stay perfectly within the letter of the law, let alone the spirit? And after all, how much might they be harassed even within those legal limits? And given that the Council has just derided Bogomilism as rank heresy, how restrained do you imagine the priests on the ground to be - those without the wisdom to realize that they exist at the sufferance of their community?

The Council has in effect declared that for Bogomilists, it is either the Church way or the highway. But Bogomilists, even moderate Bogomilists, already have one foot on the highway. Does the Council's decree not force them further and further into radicalism? Will they not come to view the struggles of distant Bogomilists as their struggles, believing that they will be next? Will they not come to think of the Church as an implacable foe that will give them no peace? Will not the smallest transgression (and transgressions there will be) come to be viewed in the most sinister of lights, proofs of the openly-stated hatred the Church has for them? Do you not force them to unite, force them indeed to listen to their greatest radicals who will preach that the only path to peace and self-protection is to destroy the Church that attempts always to destroy them?

"But we don't wish to destroy them!" you cry. "The Edict of Athens forbids our interfering with them! We can and will act only peacefully, and do only peaceful things!" What does that matter? You are not personal friends with the Bogomilists, that they might divine your true will and desire and capabilities. They know only this: That you are the Church which has done them so much evil in the past, and that you are now the Church who has decreed the very existence of their creed to be unacceptable. This is not a state of mind that lends itself to generous interpretations and forgiving souls. No matter what the truth of your own desires may be, it is never the truth that matters in politics, only the perception of the truth - and the perception the Council offers is not a good one.

Bogomilists there may have been willing to sit quietly and watch the effects of the Edict of Athens. Bogomilists there might have been, indeed, who may have been swayed back to the Mother Church. But the Council of Smyrna creates two armed camps who with every conflict great and small will come to believe more and more than they cannot exist under the same sun. The large and unmotivated mass will be thus motivated to act, where previously they might have been willing to act only in purely local self-defense. Is this, truly, what is best for Rome? Is the lofty morality of doing what you find pleasing worth the price to be paid?

Now I'd like to change tack here for a moment to discuss something which I feel hasn't been adequately addressed - namely, the doubtlessly very great frustration of the members of the Council. You have, I understand, been long and hard at work hashing out the issues of the Council. I understand that there have been disagreements amongst you, and compromises have been made. Lengthy and tedious hours were no doubt spent creating something you could all be satisfied with, and I can only begin to imagine the incredible, incredible frustration you must feel when the fruits of your labor are met with skepticism, derision, and criticism. It is easy to tear things down - it is not so easy to create. We who stood on the outside - what do we know of your arguments, of your complaints, of your worries and fears and concerns and the loggerheads that needed breaking down? What do we know of the tears, the sweat, yea, even perhaps the blood that went into the final resolution of the Council?

Yet it is this feeling, however bitter, that I want you to focus on, for this is precisely how the Bogomilists will feel as they learn of the Council. They too have spent much time and effort creating for themselves a creed and belief they feel good and true. The hostility you now feel towards those who dare pull down your hard work - will this not be the same hostility the Bogomilists feel when they see how the Council has declared their theology outright unchristian? The sense you may have of the Senate in arms against you - will this not be the same sense of threat that afflicts the Bogomilists when they learn that the Church wishes them gone? The sense of isolation and bitterness, the sense that nobody understands you or even wants to understand you except those who are already of your creed - is this not the selfsame reaction the Bogomilists shall have to the Council of Symrna? The hardening of your hearts and the rash actions you may even now be contemplating - will not the Bogomilists too harden their hearts and contemplate actions just as rash to protect themselves, only magnified a hundred-fold because of their weakness?

To those of you who were at the Council, you poured your very souls into a work which you hoped to last a thousand years and more, I say to you this: Look into your hearts now. Look into the seeds of bitterness and frustration, and know that the Council will plant that very seed in the hearts of Bogomilists throughout the Empire. Look closely, and thus you will know what the Bogomilists might be capable of if they feel threatened and forced.

Consider then: Do you wish the Bogomilists to feel as you do now?

Tomn posted:

Also, screenshots from other games absolutely do get used from time to time. Having about two screenshots of the actual game going on per update isn't uncommon, and it's not a surprise to come across updates sometimes that have no images of the game going on at all.

Rincewind posted:

Akratic Method posted:

This has become an exceedingly blobby world.

Stephen9001 posted:

I'm going to be boring and just say that this is incredibly silly.

willing to settle posted:

I've heard that the USA tag is hardcoded to receive extra immigration on top of the new world bonuses (and also the ridiculous statue of liberty event). Probably best to not reuse that tag.

Gyra_Solune posted:

The real question is what do we do with the smoldering remains of Europe once this is all done

...does Victoria...or for that matter any of the Paradox games even have anything in place like that? Like, wherein a province capital is trashed and the earth scorched that it's just total no-man's land for a while?

Rincewind posted:

While we're sharing EU4 manpower horror stories, reminder that this happened in the Deluge: