u/Ree_m0

I get what Paradox was trying to achieve, but as usual the execution leaves a lot to be desired. First things first, shouldn't this policy force attackers to at least declare war on top level vassals? What is the point in me building up my vassal kings and emperors if any would-be invader can just ignore their existence entirely and simply go after *their* count and duke level vassals directly?

Secondly, why do I need to wait three years to join in defense of *my own realm*?! Let me worry about whether sending 100.000 men to deal with a minor border conflict is a wise choise - just *let me make the choice!* The whole point is that this border policy is supposed to simulate how rulers of extremely large realms couldn't possibly be everywhere at once, but if I've got literally nothing else going on and *want* to get involved personally, why the hell can't I? It's MY realm, after all. "Oh sorry mate, those invaders still got 2 1/2 years left to beat you, getting involved now would be just unsportsmanlike on my part. Good luck!"

Found this out the hard way when I thought I'd just murder a few newly aquired pirate vassals in the stepstones in order to get their counties. Problematically, since I didn't need to revoke titles or imprison them for that, I did not notice that my crown authority had gone from 4 to 1 until a few years later, so I can't just load an autosave. It'll now take at least 30 years to get that back to 4, and in the meantime until I reach 3 the remaining pirate vassals are allowed to attack the weak new feudal counties held by my grandchildren.

What I've been unable to figure out is whether this same problem also happens when inheriting from feudal or free city vassals - I assume it's only related to the pirate government because otherwise it'd be a kind of gamebreaking oversight. Then again that'd probably mean it's not an AGOT issue but a CK3 issue, which would only surprise me in the sense that I haven't noticed it sooner. Please correct me if that should be the case.

https://preview.redd.it/cxae5o9krwbh1.png?width=1138&format=png&auto=webp&s=d5d73315546356cffb0a8422ed9215b3052580ff

Not to mention my fallen Jedi (saboteur) supported Acina on Iokath, so Vowrawn is still merely another councillor himself - your 'master' is the same rank as you, why are you introducing yourself as an underling to a guy my character canonically never heard of before? This kind of blatant nepotism wouldn't have flown under Vitiate's leadership. It's outrageous, it's unfair!

I like to use the season objectives as motivation to repeat KOTFE and KOTET chapters in master mode difficulty. It's by far the most challenging solo content in the game for me - which is perfect. Some enemies that I never even viewed as "bosses" in the story playthroughs will take 90% of my health with their opening move and stuff like that. It takes me dozens of attempts to complete a chapter, and the fact that I can't afford to keep repairing my shit at this pace is now keeping me from attempting it for this week's objective.

I'm well over 400 years into my current Long Winter save, and am trying to get Sauron (Lord of the Earth settings) to conquer enough of the map to trigger the Valinor invasion (I'm good aligned and an elf, so I can't simply stay his vassal and conquer everything for him).

Basically, Sauron has four main problems:

1. The bigger his realm gets, the longer it takes him to raise his troops. Currently, his dominion stretches from Khy to the Anduin Vale - it takes *two years* for him to finish raising his troops! Elves and dwarves in particular easily siege down enough territory to get 100% warscore in that time, so Sauron is effectively a lame duck against them. Perhaps he could get like a 90% boost to rallying speed or something like that?

2. The Witch-King controls half of his territory (and basically all the borders), doesn't join defensive wars automatically and is hoarding the Nazgul in his court. The event for Sauron's return from Dol Guldur should make all the Nazgul except the WK join his court immediatly as well as grant Sauron every kingdom title the WK holds except for Minas Morghul (and perhaps give Dol Guldur to Khamul immediatly if Sauron still holds it at his return)

3. Sauron can't manage MaA to save his life. He occasionally inherits MaA regiments from vassals or something like that, and once he has them he neither builds them up nor deletes them. He returned 200 years ago and currently has a few thousand orcs and black uruks, 100 retinue vanguard, 50 retinue lancers, 100 Gondorian bowmen, 600 Tirandazâ archers and 10 trebuchets. My personal suggestion: His MaA regiments should get deleted when they get stackwiped, but the speed at which he recruits new ones increased drastically

4. Every time Sauron loses an offensive war - no matter against whom or for what - he need to pay every single gold he has plus another five to ten thousand as reparations. Why? The "reward" for his enemies is the five year truce from him attacking them. When has *Sauron* of all people ever paid reparations?

It would also help if Sauron more actively pursued tributary wars (as in, him defeating indepentent realms and turning them into tributaries, possibly converting them to regionally fitting Sauronic faiths). I haven't seen either him or the WK attempt that in all these centuries, and all Sauronic faiths except the cult of the lidless eye die out rather quickly in my experience.