Alas if there was one thing that should be added to the game, it should be some sort of sensibility to the AI about what it wants to achieve. In EU4, you know, I'm amazed by the single-mindedness of the Coptic nations: They want to get their five holy sites. That's all that matters to them, and damn if they don't do a good job of expanding in that direction.
But in the game I'm continually surprised at weird decision-making. Why would Pratihara decide "no, we don't want to unite India, let's just conquer west until we hit the Atlantic"? The best (worst) example is that Byzantium tends to expand
north instead of
south and
west, making an AI Roman Empire essentially impossible; even when the Byzantines go ham, they tend to end up becoming some sort of Greco-Russian Empire instead of Rome... The other classic example is that France always conquers Algiers, and Italy (or, barring that, usually Pisa) conquers Tunisia. Every time. And while I'm on it, whoever controls Egypt always expands southwards into Ethiopia/Abyssinia unless the Coptics unite into a single power, because why would they ever not? It's just free land! And in a few generations, it's all Sunni Egyptian. Maybe it's something about how Holy Wars work that is messed up...
Does anybody feel like it's way too easy to join the societies? I feel like there should be stricter requirements for Satanist than "has any single one of the extremely common Seven Sins", for example, and something more special than 10 learning for joining the Hermetics.
If I had my druthers, I'd split up societies by distance, (maybe only within a single realm or region; how would people in Ireland command secrets in the Byzantine Empire?), possibly having the leaders tenuously report to some single leader or branch representing the "head" in societies that makes sense for, and add ways for small scale societies to be broken up and reformed. I'd make it harder to join them, and that the actual process itself take longer (you should not be able to just join a secret society the minute you get in the game). I also have a ton of balance concerns based on what I've heard (I swear to god the things I've heard people pulling off already is ridiculous), but that's a whole different can-of-worms (biggest concern: when would you ever not join a society? Not being in a society seems strictly suboptimal).
Incidentally, There is surprisingly little about society formation or local societies in the game; the only formable one appears to be the religious cults, and even those require that you start off as religion A, where religion A is some religion that is NOT a heresy or Nestorianism or something, AND that you have a liege who is a different religion from you, and that you decide to convert falsely; and then, you need prestige just to form it (why not piety? And maybe a small gold fee.) Other then that, there's no way to be secretly anything. Of all things that are missing, this surprises me the most, because it fits with the whole stereotypical CK2-player modus operandi of bringing dead or mostly dead religions to power and prominence. I imagine that a lot more can be done in terms of societies with mods, but it's kind of strange.
Anyway, once I've gotten my fill of satanism and alchemy, I think I'm going to try to run an LP on the forum. Any suggestions for interesting areas? I can play anybody but Indians and Jews (and I don't have Horse Lords, so the Mongols are tribal rather than nomadic.)
Probably zoroastrian I would suggest. Take down the abbasids from the inside.
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Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released. (Read 2125345 times)