Expansion - Crusader Kings II: Conclave DLC

I must say I didn't like it at first... I was overwhelmed because after 2k hrs on this game, I absolutely knew how to manage vassals and keep my realm strong & stable. So, at first, it ruined the gameplay experience due to (what I called) the stupidity and nonsensical penalties that it applies throughout all your vassals for stupid and nonsensical reasons (-40 for a seat on the council? come on dude...). However... after a few more hours I must say I agree now, and I like it. Taking a look at history, you'll see that no realm was free of stupid & ambitious dukes/counts/etc who didn't care about their realm stability and prosperity, their liege, the people in the realm... they just wanted a seat on the council, feel important, carry the crown themselves, etc etc. Realms all throughout the middle ages were chaotic, totally and completely disrupted by civil, succession, religious, rivalry, etc wars and I totally feel this DLC adds to that atmosphere of utter chaos/realism. I like it because after 2k hrs, it forced me to learn the vassal management game all over again.

Delivering as promised, the new Council mechanics make the game much more interesting and indepth. Gone are the days of easy placation of your vassals and alterations to your council as soon as a better qualified person comes in to play. You will come to dread the red fist of a powerful Vassal who assumes he should be on the council, and the ramifications if you can not appease them. The new child education mechanics are everything I had hoped they would be. Long and short, if you are looking to make the game more interesting, and more indepth, but less easy - this is the expansion you have been waiting for. I am pretty excited to get in on a Multiplayer game and start sitting on someone elses council.

No update should ever remove features that are only replaced by buying a dlc. There's a lot of negative things said about this dlc, which is hardly surprising given the overall feel of Paradox's dlc policy mania. However, the dlc brought a lot of changes to the game (by the forced update that was implemented regardless of purchase). Some choices were limited, some features removed, and some strange new features implemented - and only by buying this dlc are things implememted in the intended and most playable manner post release. Many would probably prefer how the game played before the forced update that came with this dlc (I personally find the changes fine), but now that it's here, you are practically forced to buy this dlc for the game to make sense. Once again: No update, that comes with a dlc, should remove features that are only replaced by buying the dlc.

I stayed away from this DLC for a long time because of the negative reviews. But I love it. Whether or not you love it depends on how much time and effort you want to devote to bending your council to your will, battling against them, or waiting for the day they will love you and despair. Conclave adds a ton of complexity to the internal workings of your realm. It makes ruling hard. Figuring out how to work the system to your advantage will be a major part of your game play. (Incidentally, it works GREAT with the new Imperial Elective rules in Byzantium with 3.0 and Holy Fury. 10/10. I would put my nephew and heir on the council as master of whispers again, and delight when he murders me in a toxic shitblast inferno). I would not recommend this DLC for new players. The complexity will probably frustrate. I recommend it, instead, for those who want more intrigue.

While I originally wanted to recommend this DLC after initially getting it, I will say that after getting this DLC, my CK2 experience feels less enjoyable. And while I will admit, there are both positives and negatives to this DLC, and there will be times when I enable this DLC to give myself greater difficulty and challenge, I personally believe the negatives seem to carry more weight than the positives. So, I'll start off by mentioning the positives, and then finish with more ambiguous or negative features that make this DLC feel like a deterrent at times. To start, one of my most favorite features in Conclave is how raising your children was changed. I love the addition of focuses that you can apply to your children, allowing them to be tailored to what you want them to be, whether it be the dutiful first-born who shall run your realm under his large demense, or the brutish bastard who shall earn your favor in victory over enemy armies. Before, it seemed to mostly just be a bunch of RNG events where whoever the guardian was decided what trait to give or get rid of, but now, you can ensure your child has a chance at diligence, temperance, or any of the traits you so desire your children to have. Additionally, a person is no longer restricted to two wards, allowing you to have more control over children in your court, meaning you can raise a ton of them, hand them off to someone else, or let the new court guardian (forget the name but it's an honorary title for the person who you want to raise any children who aren't assigned a guardian) take care of them for you. After children though comes the changes in policies that contrary to my complaints that will come later, actually give you a good amount of control in terms of realm policies, like levies and taxation. Now, it's no longer just minimum to maximum levies and taxes, with lowered opinions as you increase to maximum. Instead, levies and taxes are not just intertwined, but set up in such a way that not only seems realistic, but beneficial. You'll start off at a medium level, and you can tell your cities or castles if you want them to focus on contribution via levies or taxation, without ever getting much of an opinion debuff as you go one way or the other, if at all, allowing the realm to remain stable as you change these laws, and ensuring everybody that owns land doesn't utterly hate you after a few hundred years. Also, rather than four stages (minimum to maximum), there are about six to eight levels on each side, meaning changes in law won't be drastic in terms of levies or tax immediately, but you can benefit in the long-run should you choose to go full-on one way or another, or tailor it to personally suitable levels that will reap greater rewards as you expand. Now, for the changes to military in this expansion, other than the levy policies, I feel fairly neutral on this one, simply because I didn't really notice it, or I guess didn't experiment with it enough to truly see how decisive it is. I never really noticed changes like how morale can impact a battle, especially since in non-conclave games, there were already times where I'd still lose to smaller forces without godly generals, so I never saw an impact mechanics like morale had especially in comparison to games like EU4. As for the changes to mercenaries, and the ability to start your own mercenary companies with a portion of levies, I never used it because I never really saw a use for it. Sure, you might get a bit of income when they're rented out, but why not just use said portion of levy to make money by other means. Instead, you can establish a tributary for your ruler's lifetime, who will give you money, fight in your wars if called, and you will have no obligation to defend if ever attacked. Additionally, if your Altaic, pagan, or can just raid for whatever reason, take said levy, and barge into your rich neighbors' lands, loot their realm, take their family as captives, and ransom them back to add insult to injury. Now, here is where things will start to get negative, as I will now talk about the one thing turned around my opinion on Conclave: the changes to your council. For starters, it is a real shame how your council will basically be made up of the most powerful vassals in your realm, which would be okay... if they weren't the garbage descendents of good council members whom I gave land to. Basically, in your realm, your vassals who consider themselves powerful (even if you could easily crush them in a revolt and revoke everything you gave them) will demand a position on the council, and you must fulfill said request no matter how terrible they are, unless you want a -40 to their opinion of you, making them ripe to join factions, assasination plots against you, or just make every part of rule hard for you. Additionally, couple this with the Charlemagne DLC, where just about everyone except Muslims, Kernev, Wessex, Byzantium, and hordes have non-gavelkind succesions, you will never be able to change to primogeniture or a reasonable kind of succession (especially in large realms), because you'll either have to be a b***h to your vassals by giving them more land and money until they like you at least a little, and maybe go carousing for good measure, just so you can change succession, or have one child, join a society, and go celibate/sacrifice new children to the Devil (depending on society, and if you have Monks & Mystics DLC). Or, alternatively, you can give little Jimmy, your inbred imbecile distant cousin with 0 everything whose parents you gave a duchy he inherited, the title of spymaster, and be technologically backwards, murdered because he can't scheme, or in a foreign jail cell (actually that last one might be good so long as he doesn't convert), cause that's the only way you're gonna have him like you. So, say goodbye to the days where you could have eunuch spymaster as great as Varys, a female martial so tactically brilliant she would be Joan of Arc's precedent, or a chaplain so zealous you would've thought St. Peter was reborn. Instead, settle for five malcontents who will try to undermine your rain and the realm's prosperity in the pursuit of personal interests, which brings up another negative to the changes in councils. Not only may you experience frustration as your council members may not be as skilled as more capable courtiers and lowborns, but even if they do manage to be good, then you have to deal with their personalities. A council member can be a loyalist (the yes men), a pragmatist (exploit weaklings), a glory hound (prefers suicide missions), a zealot, or a malcontent (there to hate you). And so, they may disagree with your decisions, which when beneficial in expanding your realm, and beneficial in non-Conclave games, they may see problems with how you did it, what you prioritized doing it, etc. And that brings me to what is my deal breaker with this DLC. In Conclave, in your games, the player will start off in absolute control of their realm, and the council is there to do previous council tasks like in vanilla games, such as fabricating claims, collecting taxes, increasing plot power, and so on... That is... until you click one button which will empower the council, which means that the realm is a monarchy or whatever in name, but in reality, it's a democracy in the king's court, and the king is more of a president, technically in power and proposing things, but really, he's just the one that signs things off. And because of this, truly absolute and large kingdoms and empires become harder to maintain or even achieve as you face the dilemma of empowering the council but restricting your power. Or you go absolute, but face factions demanding council powers like voting on wars, who you can grant titles to, and so on. And because of this feeling of eternal regency, I would say this DLC isn't one for the average player, and can create more stress than fun at times.

I held off buying Conclave after the mostly negative reviews I read, but decided to go ahead and try it a few weeks ago. After a few playthroughs, I actually enjoy it and couldn't see myself playing without it anymore. Don't get me wrong: I can see where the negativity is coming from. The council idea does restrict your rule, especially if you let it become more and more powerful, with a say in many of the decisions we were used to be able to make without consequences. I felt however that it added some major strategic layers into the game, and these added more weight to how we treat our vassals, especially the more powerful ones, and a higher degree of difficulty which I welcomed after a while. After some practice, I found that keeping the council happy and limiting its power, through favors and diplomacy, is definitely achievable. In fact, I really like the favors system as a whole, as they add yet another dimension to relationships in the game, and can be used in a variety of useful ways - or against you to create some interestingly unpredictable situations. I also appreciated the added depth in who to add to your council instead of simply choosing the courtier with the highest pertinent stat. It definitely feels more realistic to have to balance "political" appointees against those more skilled to the tasks they perform. If your idea of fun is to play as a despotic ruler in a huge empire where your every word is law, then perhaps this DLC isn't for you (and there's nothing wrong with that, I might add). But if you seek more depth into vassal relationships, the need to balance your interests and goals with those of the people under you, and an added layer of depth to an already very deep and engrossing game, then you might want to give Conclave a try.

I don't normally review things but I felt compelled to in this case because Conclave has such a bad reputation. Because of the mixed reviews and the initial reaction to this DLC I avoided it for the last two years until the recent sale - which was a massive mistake. tldr - get this expansion. It adds a whole new political layer which comes with whole new objectives and ways of playing. It is excellent. To start with the new council: it makes sense now and is not just a characterless way of improving your leader stats. You now have to balance whether or not you give positions based on competence or vassal power, and this is not just more realistic but also a huge gameplay improvement that significantly improves the internal politics 'mini-game' of your empire. When picking your council you now have to factor in vassal power and whether or not you should appease them, competence, and how they will vote on the council. This is complicated at first but if you can deal with the vassal system in the original game, you can learn how to do this. The reason this is *fun* is partly because it adds in new challenges, like the difficult period when a new ruler takes over and the council becomes a major tool for stabilising the realm (or failing to, of course). But it also leads to situations like making a life-long friend with a major vassal who is also incredibly intelligent, and so can not only fill a number of council positions, but will always vote for you as a loyalist. Things like that are very satisfying, and give you a whole new range of tasks to work for. As for the system itself, its really not as arbitrary as some reviews suggest. When the council go against you it's for reasons that make complete sense - for instance I wanted to land one of my sons, who was on the council. I had two other unlanded sons on the council. They voted against it because they thought they were entitled to land first. To sort this vote out I had to replace my Diviner with a loyalist, and then improve my relations with a vasal who was calling in favours to force two other council members how to vote. It was really easy and I then had a pliant council for the next ten or twenty years. The only thing you have to accept is that this often means you can't have the best people as councillors, but this is not always the case (a significant number of my councillors have still been the best skilled) and regardless, you usually end up with, say, an 11 skill steward rather than a 16 skill one. Finally, because you can move councillors between different positions without a negative opinion hit, it's actually quite easy to tweak the council when a space or spaces become available - because, for instance, you're a new ruler, or a councillor died, or you plotted their downfall some way, or because they were simply unlanded and therefore expendable. There are dozens of ways of manipulating the council that add a whole new layer to the game. The one thing that is routinely annoying however is that it's not always obvious that your're making a decision that goes against the council, and therefore includes a tyranny penalty - just some red text. This is really irritating and requires some getting used to. To finish by giving some examples - the new council makes things like rivalries and friendships, which were pretty pointless in the last game, much more important now. Like I said above, making friends with a strong and smart vassal is incredibly useful. So is choosing one as a lover (and so this DLC goes really well with Ways of Life). Making a rival can be a compete disaster, although it may not be obvious at first. Giving some of your land to an unlanded noble or commoner with good stats and promoting them to the council is a good way of getting a competent loyalist. Pressing the claims of land outside the empire for council members is a great way of improving their opinion of you - and on top of all that, there is the blunt favor system, where you promise a favour for 36 months of a councillor voting with you, which I think works pretty well (although should be used as a last resort). Finally, I should add - once you learn how to deal with the Council, you will have fewer civil wars caused by factions. In the non-conclave games this became a bit dull, as you'd usually have at least one per leader. It is much more fun to engage with this system than constantly try and bribe factions away (factions and civil wars do still happen of course). Briefly, on the other elements: the new education system is fine. I liked the old system but playing with the conclave system made me realise a couple of problems with it: after several years of playing having the same old events come up all the time got a bit boring. But more importantly it was also unwieldy, and once you had a big family giving x many kids tutors was tedious. I like the semi-random element, and there is still a degree of interaction as there are various events involving education still. The mercenaries thing I haven't explored much yet. I did send someone off to start a mercenary company at one point, although I think they died so I didn't get far with it. But I can instantly see that it's a useful tool for getting money/getting certain people out of your court. To conclude: this is much maligned. I've liked the last few DLCs but this is the first in a while that makes me feel like its a whole new game with new ways of playing.

[h1]The DLCs in a nutshell, and in order of my opinion of necessity:[/h1] [b]More cultures / governments / religions available to play:[/b] [b]Charlemagne[/b] (earliest start date, more cultures) [b]Sword of Islam[/b] (Islamic cultures, Iqtar, Islamic government / religion) [b]Old Gods[/b] (Vikings + new start date) [b]Horse Lords[/b] (Nomads, Mongol Hordes, Silk Road) [b]Rajas of India[/b] (Hinduism, Buddhism) [b]Legacy of Rome[/b] (Byzantine, retinue's, factions) [b]The Republic[/b] (Merchant republics) [b]Jade Dragon[/b] (China, but hardly) [b]Sunset Invasion[/b] (Aztec, but even less so than China) [b]More actions / events while you play:[/b] [b]Way of Life[/b] (form your character) [b]Holy Fury[/b] (more control over religious aspects and wars) [b]Monks and Mystics[/b] (adds secret societies and items) [b]Conclave[/b] (council votes on your actions) [b]Sons of Abraham[/b] (Abrahamic religious options) [b]The Reaper's Due[/b] (adds court physician, illnesses and hospitals) Conclave adds the factor of a council, which essentially raises the difficulty, but also the realism of CK2. Its fun when they agree with you, and for some (most?) players, annoying when they don't. Annoying can be fun. Difficult can be fun. I really like this DLC and the difficulty/options it adds to CK2, but you shouldn't start your learning curve with it.

Conclave DLC is the only one out of all other DLCs released until this day that I simply hate with passion. Not just because it makes the game harder, nothing like that - reaper's due makes game significantly harder and I actually love it. The problem with conclave DLC is the fact that it doesn't offer any possibility for you to actually rule anymore. Ok, I get it that life of a king or emperor is not really absolute monarchy and he needs to care about what he's doing to not upset too many people at once. This is what we have factions for, right? So conclave DLC adds council that is basically made out of your 5 core people being in charge of every aspect of your kingdom, plus optionally 1/2 advisors that don't really do anything but vote. Okay, that's not bad. Now, imagine that you must actually appoint your most powerful vassals on those positions, yes, ALL of them, to avoid glorious -40 opinion penalty from, let's point it out again, MOST powerful vassals from your entire realm. At this point you should already stop for a second evaluating how your council is now made out of incompetent morons only because you need to do something as stupid as keeping those spots for those people. But that's not everything, you thought just making your council out of incompetent powerful morons was it? Forget, now whenever you have actual power to change a law, literally every single one of your vassals joins faction to increase council power just to f**k you up. It doesn't matter at all that he's a freaking nobody, owning one castle in your entire byzantine empire, he's here to increase council power just because. And since you can't really run out of it at this point, not only because your 5 most powerful vassals have double plot power but your entire realm plots as well, you need to allow it. Unless you don't want to appoint those people in the first place, then expect a constant revolt out of your 5 most powerful vassals, which is a lot of fun I can assure you. Alright then, we appointed morons on positions, enforced council power, so where we're at? Are we done yet? Sure thing, apart from the fact that your council is created out of your most powerful vassals that are your direct rivals, and since they now have actual say in every law and every war you're making, they'll make their best to vote against you in every single situation, just because. Making as stupid rule change as shifting your mayors into taxes and not levy now requires asking for bunch of favors, just because you actually want to change something in the first place. And repeat with every law and every war you're making. Also forget about any real possibility to ever reach more-demanding laws with higher requirements, since you have no longer say in any of that. Oh yeah, and never ever get into regency, since you can wake up with council passing new law that now allows them to manage your titles as well. Emperor on a paper that can't even hold his castles anymore. You're guaranteed at least one heavy revolt on each succession, since council will become discontent and join the rest of your vassals in a plot anyway. This DLC literally adds nothing of value apart from making your nice CK2 experience a constant hassle of increased council power faction, having incompetent people ruling your kingdom and a constant juggling with favors just because you want to actually do s**t as actual ruler. Oh yeah, and since you're emperor/king, also expect extra -10 vicious rumors opinion from all your vassals, just because there will be always somebody plotting behind your back. No, you can't get rid of it, have fun. This DLC could have a great potential if it wasn't that freaking troublesome to activate in the first place. Even if personally I can manage all of that and call myself CK2 God just because I'm not overthrown by my own people, doesn't mean that I'm actually enjoying it. I find no fun in it at all, and I'd suggest you to avoid it unless you feel like there are not enough revolts and factions in your life as it is. It can be a nice challenge, and I totally want to have such possibility in case I'd ever want to kill myself, but all of this trash should be made switchable on per-game rules basis, and not forced with activation of the DLC. Hell, even if we just limited that freaking faction to be made out of your most 5 powerful vassals alone (the ACTUAL council that wants ACTUAL power) then it could be actually possible to keep under control, but you can't keep every single one of your vassals on constant +50 opinion, and somebody f****d up balance so hard that literally every vassal on < 50 opinion joins it regardless. You have a choice of either a major revolt every few years, or powerful council where you no longer have a say in anything and a possibility to lose everything you managed to build just because all vassals are now plotting against you in increase council power faction now. I love DLCs that add nothing to the game but punishment regardless of what you do, that's totally what I'd pay for as a DLC to my favourite game. Buy now and maybe if you're CK2 God then you'll be punished only mildly and not heavily. I wish my council created out of incompetent morons could actually agree with me on something and not do everything to punish me for keeping us safe from our enemies. I get it that sometimes there is no way to win and you just have to accept lesser evil, but in this case lesser evil is like having 10 kingdoms in gavelkind without empire and counting days till your death. I mean what's a difference, your council will soon strip you out of all of those titles anyway, assuming they won't claim independence in the meantime that is. To me this DLC is 100% useless garbage that doesn't make the game any more enjoyable, in fact, it makes it far LESS enjoyable. Maybe if you're masochist that instead of focusing on enemies would like to focus on revolts in your own realm the you should get it, otherwise avoid like plague. It's not necessarily the DLC that is bad, but lack of balance and creating no-win situation in which you can do nothing but accept your fate simply takes the entire fun out of the game. At the same time if you ignore all of the above (which applies to majority of the players) and create 60k retinues of marionette army that is here only to fix faction numbers (requires legacy of rome DLC, and it's the only way to actually handle all of the above), then I can say that I love some changes this DLC brought in, especially getting rid of a single crown authority law and dividing it into actual laws that can co-exist at the same time. Allowing only external wars, enabling revocation (including free revocation from infidels) and making titles pass out of your realm illegal now costs only -5 penalty (for external wars) and not at least -10 (medium crown authority), but very likely -20 for high. What I dislike is that there is no longer ulti succession allowed without at least late feudal administration, but that's not necessarily the worst thing. All of that is awesome, probably one of the most awesome changes of all DLCs combined, yet for some reason it comes with this annoying council system that changes the DLC into "you'll love it if you're CK2 God, and absolutely hate it otherwise". Personally I do play with it, but I don't consider it good for majority of players, hence the negative review.

Update: Aside from education, the rest of the issues this dlc had at release have been fixed. I think it adds a lot to the game now; makes realm management more interesting. I'd recommend it at this point. Thanks Paradox for fixing most of the issues! Okay so I've spent about 20+ hours with the new patch and dlc. Whoah does the game feel different, and not in good way. If I had to sum up this dlc I'd say great concepts terrible execution. It's not all bad, but some of the things that are bad are god awful. The Good -- - New Alliance System: The inclusion of non-aggression pacts is really nice, you can get the marriage you need without a full blown alliance. Alliances are much more stable ie you will automatically call in your allies and vice versa. I like and don't like this because sometime dishonoring an alliance is the logical thing for the ai or human player to do. Takes a bit of the immersion/choice for predicatbility. - Legal System is now ala carte vs getting this or that crown law. Gives the player more control over what they want their realm to look like. - Favor System - the concept is great and the execution is pretty good. By helping others you can gain favors to accomplish other tasks, getting a law passed getting a marriage etc. Pretty well done. The Bad: - Holy Mother of God the coalition mechanic is broken. An awesome concept with crap execution. Infamy is gained really quickly and anybody and their mother can join a coallition against you. Ck2 had a problem, blobbing was too easy. This solves that problem with an even larger one. This breaks the immersion for me when I see catholics, muslims, and pagans in one big happy coalition. To improve it coalitions should be separate based on religion and be limited by distance ie duke of iceland can't join a coalition against Raja of India. Right now this mechanic is broken, great idea and should be hopefully easy to patch. Right now though yuck, sad this was released in the free patch so I can't turn it off. - Education System - Let's take a great system and throw it out. Instead of picking the right educator and mentoring your kid it feels pretty much random now. Before you could create progressively better characters with eugenics and mentoring now its a crapshoot. Way less invested in my characters, This really hits rpg ck2 fans bad. Honestly wish we could flip back to the old system or at least mix them together. It's functional but a step backward. - Council Mechanics - Great Idea, but it turns ck2 into a rebellion simulator. I've crushed 10 increase council power factions in a 100 years. There is no real benefit to giving the council power (there should be some). My current playstyle is keep the council weak, wait till they rebel hire mercs crush them revoke and ransom. Rinse and Repeat. If the council is content this shouldn't be happening. Makes realm management super tedious. I'd rather there be a reason to give them power. Right now it feels like I'm fighting game mechanics than actually using them. I think this was a step in the right direction that fell flat on its face. Hopefully with patching this feature will be strong addition, right now it makes me not want to play ck2. - Shattered Retreats After defeating an enemy army it will retreat far far away recovering morale. This is huge change from the old ping ponging ck2 strategy. I can see the argument for the change, but the penalty for losing is almost laughable. There needs to be a larger penalty for losing a pivotal battle than suffering 10% casualties then coming back. If you are a smaller power who used to be able to blitz using mercs and good positioning kiss that good bye, larger realms will ground you to dust. Miss the old decisive battles, but if losses are more punishing and retreat distances are lowered it wouldn't be as bad as it currently is. Conclusion This dlc had the right vision but was an fail in execution. Conclave does offer the opportunity of greater immersion, but in its current state it is step backward for ck2. There are some good changes but they are overshadowed by how truly awful some of the changes in the dlc and free patch are. My advice is to not purchase it till the super bad stuff has been patched. Once it has been patched these features will add a lot to the game. Right now though the dlc and free patch have curbed my desire to play.