Hey everyone -
I have some strong feelings about what CK3 needs right now and was wondering if others agree. Basically, I feel like an overhaul of managing vassals, courtiers, and your capital is really needed. Yap warning.
Not saying the conclave update from CK2 is the perfect fix, because I know it was controversial. But maybe having to manage your vassals’ and even courtiers’ unique desires for themselves and the future of the realm could add difficulty.
For example, a vassal could want the realm to be more expansionary if they were ambitious, and support laws that could fuel military. Therefore, I think an overhaul to the law system would naturally accompany this.
Another idea is changing factions so they are not always about dislike of a liege. Maybe instead they could be about supporting/opposing certain laws. Maybe you yourself could actually be in these factions in government types where you didn’t have full say over the laws passed.
In terms of courtiers, I don’t have a lot of ideas, but I think it would be smart to improve the role play aspect with these people. After all, they are supposed to be people you interact with on a daily basis. Improvements to romance would be one way to go. Another could be involving the new trading system - if you wanted to automate trading, you could assign it to a courtier who does better depending on stewardship. EU5 has lots of automation for normally complicated systems- I wonder if this is a way for CK3 to add complicated systems, but keeping the game beginner friendly by allowing courtiers to automate them. It would still feel flavorful imo because it would be like you are delegating to your smartest merchants, diplomats, etc.
Another idea I had was sending courtiers with high intrigue TO vassals in order to influence them to support laws or make other decisions you want like focusing on building millitary buildings, economic buildings, etc. Again this might add some flavor and give courtiers more importance. Perhaps if they don’t like you, however, they could turn on you in some way and begin helping the vassal.
The above mechanic could also be used to sway foreign vassals in an effort to get them to rebel (and you would then aid them, granting them independence in some respect)
You could also send them to help vassals. For example if your courtier has great stewardship he could help your vassal build quicker.
I also think legitimacy should play some role in how your vassals act, in that if you aren’t very legitimate, your vassals may begin to make important political decisions without you, allying with strong nearby powers and testing the waters for independence. Right now it seems like this only occurs in the form of revolt, but vassals having a smarter method of trying to gain independence would be cool imo.
If you are a vassal yourself, I think some system of getting in bed with your liege (literally, or not) in order to improve your position needs to be fleshed out. For example if you help quell a rebellion, the liege might then grant the rebellious county to you!
This next idea I totally stole from another thing I saw on here but I think it is awesome - having close advisors play a bigger role. Like, you could have your most trusted friend and grizzled veteran as your right hand man, giving you advice which would boost your martial ability. You could even have many advisors. The drawback would be that they could be swayed to give you poor advice - obviously there would have to be a way to keep whether they have been bought off or not a secret, and I’m not sure what that could be, but I think the idea is cool enough to mention.
The last thing I’ll say about courtiers is there definitely needs to be a way to invite women to court. Inviting champions is good but it often results in your court being a total sausage fest and you’re not able to arrange many marriages.
Lastly, I think a cool thing to add, if your capital has a castle, would be something similar to the camp mechanic, where you could build specific buildings in your castle walls. It would help with role play imo.
I know this was a total yap sesh but the jist is that the way forward I would like to see CK3 take is a re-examining of managing your realm and the people in it. I was just spitballing ideas so if others have any I’d love to hear them. My hope is if enough people agree the post will be seen by Paradox and we can finally get a better sex DLC!