loyalty doesn't seem to matter

[Sllhouette]

i'm almost to max turns in my campaign, past year 1500. no matter if my generals are 1-2 loyalty, or my armies travel between cities without a general, nobody ever betrays me. even through all my civil wars there was never any betrayals, just unrest. i remember only ONE time that one of my generals turned traitor and left. he might've been stolen by a princess, i don't remember any notification, i just saw next turn he wasn't mine. i can use any general i want, even 0 loyalty half a world away from my capital, and he'll do my bidding. crowned or uncrowned, doesn't matter. it kind of ruins the immersion that the mod attempts with inner politics, because i don't have to keep a tight leash around shady nobles, nor do i have to summon them to the capital to remind them of their oath, nor do rewards and titles really matter if they never turn anyway. all great ideas, all useless at the moment

[Jurand of Cracow]

i'm almost to max turns in my campaign, past year 1500. no matter if my generals are 1-2 loyalty, or my armies travel between cities without a general, nobody ever betrays me. even through all my civil wars there was never any betrayals, just unrest. i remember only ONE time that one of my generals turned traitor and left. he might've been stolen by a princess, i don't remember any notification, i just saw next turn he wasn't mine. i can use any general i want, even 0 loyalty half a world away from my capital, and he'll do my bidding. crowned or uncrowned, doesn't matter. it kind of ruins the immersion that the mod attempts with inner politics, because i don't have to keep a tight leash around shady nobles, nor do i have to summon them to the capital to remind them of their oath, nor do rewards and titles really matter if they never turn anyway. all great ideas, all useless at the moment

I have never seen a campaign after 1500! I'm excited to see your save!
On loyalty - well, it should matter... it's probably an issue of the balance. We have to tweak the parameters...

[a Dictator's Cigar]

throwback to 2020, he left us for an Abbasid Sugar Princess who made him 2nd in-line for the Caliphate in 1991AD. he was never heard of again.

................................................................. Interestingly I noticed the presence of Foreign Generals in the ranks of the Fatimids. mainly from Germany. It's impressive how the AI led that General towards Egypt and gave him a functioning military role.



This phenomena repeated itself as one of my generals married an Abassid princess leading him to become the faction heir of the Abbasids, I found it ironic since he had the "Dislikes Muslims" trait. I lost track of that general after few turns, I wonder what his fate was.

[Sllhouette]

i've finally had desertions again. two brothers, from a far-distant junior branch of the royal family. first the second brother deserted, then 2 years later the eldest turned to work for the rus because he couldn't say no to a beautiful ukrainian girl. I KILLED THEM BOTH BEFORE THEY EVER LEFT MY EMPIRE. nobody leaves.

these desertions happened because i have an unworthy heir, the king passed, he didn't have enough authority. now he's a usurper too, and almost every noble is near 0 loyalty. so it makes sense this happened

[Sllhouette]

i've finished my campaign. in more than 800+ turns, i've only had desertions (besides above) at the very end. i stopped caring about excommunication because i was about to conquer the world anyway, and when i let it sit for a turn or two, i had i think 4 generals desert me, and some captain-led armies too. that was the only time it ever happened.

for most of the campaign, almost all my generals had near 0 loyalty. my final king was a usurper, and was the one who saw most of the conquering, so he never had a crown this whole time. only thing i did to make it better was move the capital to rome, more central. it got to the point where i didn't even care about loyalty because people would never leave anyway, crown or not. one of my generals actually came from scotland (where he held a title) and conquered his way to persia, that's how far from home he was.

i will say though, i was glad that loyalty didn't work how i thought it would...there was 0 chance i would've conquered the entire map if so. i needed to send generals who would spend 50+ years on campaign, they and their men could never see their hometown again. i justify it as M2TW being an old game that can't properly accommodate complicated mechanics. why would a powerful member of the main branch of the royal family desert in the middle of nowhere and decide to become a bandit when he has a castle and servants at home?

i can see the loyalty system was designed around early era, and smaller kingdoms. it begins to conflict with gameplay when you try to become unrealistically large. it needs something to rome 2 with the conversion of republic/kingdom into empire

[Napovanni]

I hope the Loyalty systems gets improved within this Mod as the message above from Sillhoute worries me. You should not be able to paint the whole map without any consequences of loyalty. I think one of the biggest objectives of this mod is to keep it realistic.