A concern about Empire growth:

[dearmad]

In most conquest games, such as KoH where you grow an empire, I've noticed that once the empire is large it's no more difficult to manage than when it was small- in fact it's *easier*!

I am hoping that KoH will add things to an empire as it grows to make it a little more difficult to keep it together as it grows, so that bigger, while always better, isn't just SO MUCH BETTER that it's no fun.

What I mean is: I think the developers, if they're smart (and they are) will introduce NEW thing for the play to think about and/or play with as your empire grows, not jsut MORE armies and people, but new details like- more often there are revolts, or it's more difficult to keep[ spies out when you're la large empire so you need to be extra careful and thoughtful, etc..

I write this after having played Lords of the Realm 3 and returned it to the store. I found, among other problems, that once you got BIG there was NO STOPPING YOU. The Land=power formula to the gameplay they had made the game NOT FUN! Big empires are notorious for fracturing apart...

[Havoc]

totaly with u on that 1 man

[hulkster225]

I don't know, in Medieval Total war, rebellions sure got to be a problem for me when my empire got pretty large. STUPID PEASANTS!! RRRR

[Angryminer]

EUII managed this by adding cultures and religions to provinces.
If your state has "French" culture your kingdom will be in peace as long as it solely consits of french provinces. But all german provinces you conquer will be very likely to revolt and declare independence.
In KoH the governors of provinces should take this into account too. They should think about declaring independence together with other provinces of their culture to become a even greater threat to your kingdom.
This would force you to take europe slowly because you need to stabalize your country after every war and still it's a multi-cultural nation and thus very likely to break apart.
This matter also encourages you to declare vasall-states instead of annexing every square meter of ground you can hold.

Angryminer

[Henrik]

@Angryminer, i think you have a good point there, coz what's the point of having vast empire there are constantly attemts to rebillion from the inhabitants - this is why it make a good sense to make'em versal states instead :)

[fallen_saint]

i dunno about you rebellion is realist, but i don't know if i want constant rebellion on my hands. i mean if you over the country for like 20 yrs ago and a new generation sets i would hope the rebelling would go down if im a good ruler and they support me enough, and im really lucky the people will assimilate:D

[Angryminer]

Let's look back to Napoleon's days.
Napoleon I conquered Germany and other parts of Europe and brought the "Code Civil" to the people. But though he gave rights to the poor people they hated him. He ended all the wars in Germany (there were lots of 'em) but everyone in Germany hated Napoleon. Even the simple farmworkers who took advantage of the Code Civil and the unified rulership of Germany hated Napoleon.

This is a perfect example of the above explained behaviour. The people just don't like to be ruled by a foreigner.
And the game should take account of this.

But you can still keep an europe-wide empire by setting up vasall-states which are formally independent but in fact stand under your rule. This way you can evade revolts and still gain a decent amount of money (Vasall-states usually had to give a yearly tribute to their master-country.)
As an example of this you might count the UdSSR with it's satilite-nations. They were formally independent but their foreign and domestic politics were set by the UdSSR.

Angryminer

[Lamaz]

Very nice idea indeed :D

[dearmad]

I think more simple solutins may work:

It becomes harder to fight foreign spies.

The Church takes an added interest in you because you're big and supposedly rich now, so the Pope demands more of you, perhaps. Like telling you what to do a bit more.

What I'm trying to say is that when you get big you don't just fight more rebellions. You should get more things to do that are fun and that you don'tg et to do when you are small- so it's like a reward almost for getting bigger.

It follows the Sid Meier principle of game design that you give the player more to do that is *fun* as the game goes on- don't just let things cale up and get bigger but add new folds to the fabric so it's constantly interesting.

Make sense? I'm hoping the creative people in this forum can come up with what THEY'D like to see added to your list of options as you get bigger so it's not jsut a more of the same expereince as you had when you were a small kingdom.

[Elewyn]

I agree on that thing about vassal states and almost everything said here. Only the Church IMO will stand with you when you become ruler of big part of Europe (dream of universalism), but you should not be dangerous for Vatican. So rule Europe, don't think anbout conquering Italy (especially Rome) and you have churche's support. But yes, it also means that pope will demand more from you as almost universal defender of christtianity-the Church-pay more to Rome :)

[timurlenk]

Originally posted by Angryminer
Let's look back to Napoleon's days.
Napoleon I conquered Germany and other parts of Europe and brought the "Code Civil" to the people. But though he gave rights to the poor people they hated him. He ended all the wars in Germany (there were lots of 'em) but everyone in Germany hated Napoleon. Even the simple farmworkers who took advantage of the Code Civil and the unified rulership of Germany hated Napoleon.
The people just don't like to be ruled by a foreigner.
And the game should take account of this.


thats a myth in my opinion.
its a story told by 19th century nationalists, that german people didnt like the french - an thus bonaparte.

napoleon raised hugh amounts of taxes - unknow to german population! also he conscripted loads of soldiers, mostly in not-french territories. two good reasons to hate him...