The Citadel

As requested. We can use this thread for whatever discussion specifically related to our initial scenario.

This will be our initial scenario, and the only one available in the mod for some time. It will depict the War of the Usurper, where an alliance lead by Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, Hoster Tully and Jon Arryn rebelled against Aerys Targaryen "The Mad King" for his brother's kidnapping of Lyanna Stark (Robert's bethroted and Ed's sister), the torture and murder of Rickard and Brandon Stark (Ed's father and older brother) and for generally being a crazy vicious bastard.

The Rebels:

- House Baratheon
- House Stark
- House Tully
- House Arryn
- House Lannister (late entry)

The Loyalists:

- House Targaryen
- House Tyrell
- House Martell

The best way to simulate the chain of alliances would probably be to create a plot beforehand with all the rebel houses in it. The initial neutrality of the Lannisters and later entry on the rebel's side might have to be emulated by event.

If possible, no white peacing should be allowed. I think this is implemented in-game already for some kinds of wars (such as succession crises), maybe we could add a new cb with this feature. If we can't avoid it and a white peace is reached, we should relaunch the war by event after the truce is over.

Please post further suggestions, issues or anything else you might want to add.

I'm actually not sure we need to worry so much about forcing events to follow canon. With Aerys' position, even if peace is reached he'll have a hard time keeping his vassals on side in the long run. We should simply set up
- Plot or ouright War including the first four rebels
- High relations between Aerys and The Reach/Dorne
- Low relations between Aerys and Tywin, plus an ambitious trait for the latter.

Then balance and tweak as needed.

Yes indeed, half the fun is the "What if's".
What if Robert decided to make peace with Rhaegal? ect...
Nothing should be nailed to the ground, IMHO.

Good idea, you are right. But how can we make the Lannisters neutral in the beginning? Since they are subjects of the Iron Throne, either they'll rebel or they'll have to put their troops at the King's disposal.

Well, I guess if they have very bad relations with the King they won't give him many troops, so that might work.

Precisely; poor relations mean they send few troops and will be prone to revolting at some point.

The only thing that I don't see happening is the Lannisters joining the Rebellion itself; they'd start their own. I believe that plotters can invite others to join the plot in CKII, even after it's started? But I don't think that you can ask to join a plot.

I really wish there was a "join plot" option. Or "expose plot", but mostly the former. That would help us out nicely. As is, we'll probably get Lannisters fighting a war of independence at the same time, but hey, do what we can.

Just a minor thing, but do I remember that you can't go to war with someone if your son is in their prison? Is this also true of daughters/sisters? It'd be completely superficial but I'd appreciate if Lyanna was imprisoned in Rhaegar's court if that doesn't mess with anything.

Also, is there some way that we were able to set two characters as "friends", seeing as they took that out. We can give Jon Arryn a mentor bonus for Ned and Robert, but Robert and Ned are going to have a lot of bad modifiers between them based on traits and culture, and if the Rebels win I don't just want Ned to be like "okay Robert, peace out!"

Hm, that's an idea... creating some sort of "bonds of war" and/or "bonds of childhood" opinion modifier is probably a good idea anyway.

AlecTrevelyan006 wrote:Also, is there some way that we were able to set two characters as "friends", seeing as they took that out. We can give Jon Arryn a mentor bonus for Ned and Robert, but Robert and Ned are going to have a lot of bad modifiers between them based on traits and culture, and if the Rebels win I don't just want Ned to be like "okay Robert, peace out!"

I'm quite sure there is a "friend" modifier as there is an outcome of the feast chain that you have made friends with a vassal (and I'm certain I have lost a friend somewhere down the line during an event). If not, I think that could be modded in fairly easily.

Also:

It'd be completely superficial but I'd appreciate if Lyanna was imprisoned in Rhaegar's court if that doesn't mess with anything.

This is subject to some speculation, so I'm not quite sure how to properly handle that situation.

Paul wrote:

AlecTrevelyan006 wrote:

It'd be completely superficial but I'd appreciate if Lyanna was imprisoned in Rhaegar's court if that doesn't mess with anything.

This is subject to some speculation, so I'm not quite sure how to properly handle that situation.

Well, we know that, canonically, Lyanna is in Rhaegar's court and thought to be imprisoned at the start of the game. She certainly isn't leaving. I think that's doable. Obviously, we probably don't want to get into the whole R + L = J issue, but I guess we could might be able to make Lyanna start off pregnant with Rhaegar's baby if we really wanted to.

Do I understand it correctly that The Iron Throne will be an emperor-like title, and that Stark, Arryn and Baratheon will be in rebellion?

One problem with Grell's original mod was that Targaryen and the usurpers were already at war when the mod started, so the alliance with/ fealty of Tyrell and Martell did not kick in unless there was a peace and the war was restarted.

Well, now you can call in allies at any time during a war, it doesn't have to be at the start of a war.

Or at least, you can ask them to join. If they say no, I think you have to wait like 5 years.

I'm sure you guys have already considered this, but the winds of winter scenario that Grell made for his ck1 mod ended up being a massively different experience than the original scenario. Granted, robert's rebellion is the natural place to start, but a lot of players might find more enjoyment playing with a starting situation that doesn't have the entire realm divided into two massive power blocks. Lotta smaller, independent holdings to work with in other time frames. Please don't put off an alternate scenario for too long.

Gavinn wrote:I'm sure you guys have already considered this, but the winds of winter scenario that Grell made for his ck1 mod ended up being a massively different experience than the original scenario. Granted, robert's rebellion is the natural place to start, but a lot of players might find more enjoyment playing with a starting situation that doesn't have the entire realm divided into two massive power blocks. Lotta smaller, independent holdings to work with in other time frames. Please don't put off an alternate scenario for too long.

We'll definitely do something like that eventually, but we definitely want to make sure everything is playable on the "Robert's Rebellion" scenario first. Better to have one playable scenario than two unplayable ones.

Other potential scenarios
Aegon's Conquest - 7 Independent Kingdoms, invading Targaryens
Blackfyre Rebellion - Targaryen Civil War For Monarchy
War of Five Kings - 5 Way War

Vassal lords should be able to side with or against the Targaryens independently as several went against their Lord Paramount.

Another thing to consider is the power of the Iron Throne-title. I do not have much experience with the Holy Roman Empire myself, but it will surely be boring if once either Targaryen or Baratheon wins the game will just stale into one unbreakable realm.

We can tinker with the mechanics of crown authority. There are a lot of people working with mods right now on the Paradox forums, hopefully some of them will hit onto a good balance that we can bring into play once we have all the basics set up.

imo, there should be more restrictons on increasing crown authority and higher penalties to cause more civil wars/plots.

Has the culture/religion of Greyjoy been discussed? In Grell's mod, at least the Winds of Winter-scenario, they were heathens and usually attacked more or less everyone, and everyone attacked them. With all other realms locked in to the same faith, these recurring Greyjoy-wars became very predictable after running the scenario a few times. On the other hand, it does make some loreish sense to have Ironborn raiding the western coast, but I always felt it went a bit too far in Grell's mod.

Just a few thoughts.

I believe the plan is currently for them to have their own religion, though we may mess with the holy war CB so that you don't get a freebie war with them. Really, we don't need anyone to have a holy war CB as it currently is between Christians and Muslims/Pagans (or perhaps make them available for Greyjoys but not against Greyjoys so they'll piss everybody off but not get exterminated)

Of course, we can't do raiding except through event trees, and they're going to be a bit inherently weak, so it will probably be a while before the Greyjoys are balanced.

I think the Greyjoys should have a "raid" CB. Allowing them to declare war but gain just money & prestige. Fits the canon, screw balance.

It more or less try to hold together once your the top dog.