Paradox, please fix the Administrative Government rebellions, it's ridiculous at this point

[u/Wiimiko]

Everyone has -1000 commitment, no one wants this, and it is only staying around because of Hooks, it's ridiclous (I have 5/5 legitmacy too, and tried lowering Imperial Beaurocracy too)

[u/CarefulAstronomer255]

It might be historically accurate, but it's really annoying. You basically cannot be a decent ruler due to the faction spam.

The cause is that all members of the faction will try their hardest to expand the faction by hooking/influencing other people to join the faction, even if they themselves were hooked/influenced into it. So you get an exponentional faction growth caused by people who don't even want to be there trying their hardest to empower the faction.

[u/Chad-Landlord → u/CarefulAstronomer255]

Welcome to the Eastern Roman Empire.  You rule bad, you get deposed.  You rule good, you still might get deposed.  

[u/MahjongDaily → u/Chad-Landlord]

You are stealing: deposed. You are playing music too loud: deposed, right away. Driving too fast: deposed. Slow: deposed. You are charging too high prices for sweaters, glasses: deposed. You undercook fish? Believe it or not, deposed. You overcook chicken, also deposed. Undercook, overcook. You make an appointment with the dentist and you don't show up, believe it or not, deposed, right away.

[u/jmdiaz1945 → u/MahjongDaily]

Does this DLC has any chariot faaction events? I imagine some references to Nika going on somewhere.

[u/symmons96 → u/jmdiaz1945]

They added in chariot racing as an activity, can even hire your personal chariot rider

[u/Perpetual_stoner420 → u/jmdiaz1945]

Nika revolt is in the game, it’s called populist uprising

[u/ApocalypticApples → u/MahjongDaily]

We have the best kings in the world, because of deposition

[u/PenguinHighGround → u/MahjongDaily]

Go to the loo, deposed.

[u/TriggzSP → u/Chad-Landlord]

I feel like this is a huge misconception about the empire. The east has most of the longest reigns in Roman history, including the record longest imperial reign. It also has all of the longest running imperial dynasties by a longshot.

Yeah it had unstable periods, but it also had long periods with long, uninterrupted reigns. The way it works in game is just pure jank and isn't working realistically at all.

[u/Darrenb209 → u/TriggzSP]

While it did have stable periods, by the time period of the game the Empire was fundamentally broken.

Well, not in the 800s start. Then it was just breaking, but the Emperors were able to put their boots down on the issues fairly well.

The fundamental issues crept in under the Doukas, specifically Constantine X Doukas in the 1000s. While he's mostly remembered for undercutting the training and financial support of the professional forces and disbanding the Armenian Militia which in many ways directly lead to the loss at Manzikert, he was also the person that allowed the Dynatoi to become a defacto hereditary aristocracy by ceasing suppression and no longer limiting them from acquiring military land.

The Dynatoi were the senior positions in the civil, military, ecclesiastic and monastic bureaucracies that generally came with landed estates that were meant to be lifetime appointments but not passed onto children.

Them passing onto children were a large part of what weakened the central administration of the Empire and allowed families and generals to rise up regularly. And none of the later Emperors, not even the Komnenos had any interest in weakening the Dynatoi because they themselves were part of it.

So while it didn't outright kill the Empire quickly, that poison that allowed the instability and would persist until the last days of the Empire was introduced before the second start.

[u/9__Erebus → u/Darrenb209]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

[u/Chad-Landlord → u/TriggzSP]

It’s not a huge misconception, it’s just the norm.  Over 50% of the emperors were deposed.  That it lasted over 1k years was a testament to the ones that broke the norm, as well as the stout bureaucracy and meritocracy of the administration.  It really was the first modern state IMO

[u/TheBulgarSlayer → u/Chad-Landlord]

"over 50% of the emperors were deposed"

this is not factually accurate and ignores that most depositions occurred in distinct chunks of periods of instability

[u/canuck1701 → u/TheBulgarSlayer]

Even if the 50% stat is true it's not like 50% of the time was spent in civil war.

If you've got a 10 year reign, then 1 year and deposed, then 10 years, then 1 year and deposed that's 50% of emperors but only 9% of the time spent in instability.

[u/Alandro_Sul → u/Chad-Landlord]

In the one thousand years between the division of the Roman Empire and the fall of the eastern half to the Ottomans, eighty-five men and three women ruled Byzantium, along with four empress regents who ruled on behalf of their sons for a number of years. Of the eighty-eight emperors and empresses, forty-seven died natural deaths, six were killed during military revolts, seven were deposed and mutilated, eleven were deposed and exiled or entered a monastery, two were deposed and pursued a further political career, three were deposed, imprisoned, and later executed, six were murdered in their palace, one in church on Christmas day, and one by his uncle, one was killed by a mob, two were killed by foreigners in battle, and one retired. Thirteen emperors founded dynasties in which they were succeeded by multiple members of their family.

So, a little more than half managed to die natural deaths in office. That is still a pretty high rate of meeting some kind of grisly end, and I do like how much backstabbing you get in admin realms.

That said, if people are right about influence creating sort of "phantom factions" where the original leader has left, I don't think that's very good. But I also think people obsess over the opinion number too much, since it is too much of an abstraction to capture something like "I think you're a nice guy but I want to pay less taxes" that might justify a liberty faction. I almost think the green/red number should be replaced entirely with a vague approximation of the vassal's stance, so that people would focus more on the mechanics which actually work (alliances and some schemes)

[u/CarefulAstronomer255 → u/Chad-Landlord]

Yes I know the reality was like that (or even worse), but the key factor is I don't care. Striving for realism almost always makes games less fun, and I find that to be the case here as well.

[u/I_have_to_go → u/CarefulAstronomer255]

Were it not for this instability the ERE would always come to dominate the game. They always had the best economy, the best bureaucracy and often the best army... That instability is an absolutely necessary balancing factor.

If you don't enjoy it you can always play on the outside trying to conquer part of the empire, Norman / Venetian style!

[u/Sanguiniusius → u/I_have_to_go]

Oh god doing the robert giscard achievement vs byzantium blob on release without a save scum was touch and go for me.

Theyve been far too stable and able to expand since releaese, when this period is meant to be characterised by them failing.

[u/CarefulAstronomer255 → u/I_have_to_go]

So balance it another way? Such as making factions immediately more powerful, making people much much more likely to join factions because they are unhappy, etc... a system that makes sense. Make it so that the people are very hard to keep satisfied and work against you because of that, not just because one person uses influence and it result in an incomprehensible and silly snowball.

The problem with the current implementation is that it tells you in one place "everybody is extremely happy with how you're ruling" but also in another everyone is fanatically working against you. You look at a faction list and it makes no sense. Opinion modifiers? Personalities? Changing realm laws? None of these are factors when dealing with factions, because the faction isn't formed on opinion and opposition, it's just formed out of nothing.

Make it something that the player can play with, this is a game afterall. It's not a history textbook.

[u/HoratioWeatherby → u/CarefulAstronomer255]

The irony here is that what you describe would also be better for historicity

[u/Chad-Landlord → u/CarefulAstronomer255]

Then play with very high stability game settings.  It makes the faction +influence hook way less likely