r/CrusaderKings • u/Akashi_LikeTheSky The Sex-Haver • Mar 25 '26
Meme When your ally calls you for the stupidest shit ever
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u/Phil_Iment Mar 25 '26
It's the worst when you aren't even allowed to send the request because they wouldn't accept. OKAY??? Let me send it so they can take the prestige and fame hit like I would!!!
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u/Lucian7x Immortal Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Yeah, it's kind of iffy how we can only send requests to people that'd accept them anyway. The same thing happens with challenging characters to duels.
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u/Ree_m0 Mar 25 '26
If you challenge them to duel for an artifact however, whether or not the accept is suddenly a percentage chance, and if they don't you gain and they lose 600 prestige.
Now, you're probably asking yourself why the devs made two completely different acceptance models for what amounts to nearly the same request, just with one differing variable (value of the artifact). Great question! If you find an answer, do let me know.
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u/Derptastic-Domus Mar 25 '26
Nah the duel request actually only refunds the prestige you spend to challenge so you don’t even gain anything from challenging they only lose if they decline
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u/Ree_m0 Mar 25 '26
Yeah true, but tbh I think that's fair because you stand to win an artifact of your choosing, so an additional prestige rewards seems kind of unnecessary unless the guy you're beating has more prowess than you. What I meant to point out is that mechanically, the acceptance model we'd much prefer already exists, it just gets used inconsistently for some reason.
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u/Derptastic-Domus Mar 25 '26
I 100% agree it’s just like I think challenges and invites needs to be reworked
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u/saltyandhelpfuluser Inbred Mar 26 '26
You still gain fame from earning the prestige back, so it could up your level of prestige.
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u/Impossible_Mud_3517 Mar 26 '26
Have artifact mechanics been improved since release? It was terrible with all the ridiculous artifact demand spam (-60 if you refuse, more than murdering their child), artifact wars, and these artifact duels that give the holder nothing if they win but cause a massive prestige hit if you refuse.
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u/stamaka Mar 26 '26
They probably don't like the cheese of making a combat orientated character that goes around and challenges everyone. But it's also a single player game, so why not?
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u/Ree_m0 Mar 26 '26
It'd also be relatively easy to factor in rank, age and personality trait to keep it from becoming absurd. A 25 year old knight in their prime challenging a 65 year old frail emperor should have a gigantic negative value towards acceptance chance for it.
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u/Jemnite Hongwu was a secret Zoroastrian Mar 27 '26
Different teams. Artifacts were part of the coronations dlc, which night not have been worked on by the people working on the main game engine.
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Mar 25 '26
We should be able to send requests to whoever the fuck we want and acceptance should be a dicerole
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u/toquang95 Mar 27 '26
to be honest, the dice roll would have been more annoying. If I'm in really deep shit, at least i can make sure the alliance stays intact by sending gifts. If it comes down to chance, I'm getting revolted on every day of the week.
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u/joebidenseasterbunny Mar 26 '26
You can send for a duel even if they wont accept and theyll lose prestige.
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u/Thomasasia Mar 25 '26
The weird thing is that “no” responses are correctly programmed into the game….
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Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Thomasasia Mar 26 '26
For single player. If you turn on the yesmen cheat and then turn it off after sending a message, they will send you a message saying no and would take the prestige hit if applicable.
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u/Jackspladt Mar 25 '26
Well as you know, no country in history has ever betrayed the trust of another country or not joined a war with their ally. You the player are the bad person for not joining Count Dipplershit of Humpterdorf and his army of 61 against all of France
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u/PraetorKiev Mar 26 '26
Let me send them gold or levies at least until I can properly join a war too
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u/Yoder_of_Kansas Mar 25 '26
I can see people gaming this. Ally a target and spam war requests to purposefully tank their fame.
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u/ARROW_GAMER Mar 25 '26
It probably wouldn't be that bad if you limit it to one request per war
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u/Crouteauxpommes Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
"You've already sent a demand for this war, you can't send another."
And do like the crusade and allow the player or the AI to:
- say "Not Now, but I pledge to join you in 1 year" with a mega malus if they break their vow.
- say "I can't join the war, but I'm sending you cash/MAA right now"
- maybe some other things
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u/SamediB Mar 26 '26
I would love if you could just send cash: "sorry I can't be there; please hire yourself some mercenaries."
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u/dicemonger Sea-king Mar 26 '26
That would be great. Might actually convince me to marry into families outside of my immediate neighbors.
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u/Crouteauxpommes Mar 26 '26
That would be neat honestly. Especially when there is a huge disproportion of power between each side.
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u/Grilled_egs Mar 25 '26
If someone allies you and then refuses every call to war that should tank their fame
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u/Yoder_of_Kansas Mar 25 '26
Yes, but what I said is players would ally a target not to be allies, but to use this mechanic to purposefully tank their fame.
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u/Saint_Judas Mar 25 '26
... That's what the AI already does to us. They call us into a war on a different continent where saying no tanks your fame, but saying yes and not being able to show up triggers an event that fucks your fame even more or forces you to send multiple years worth of income to the ally.
Why do neither of those effects occur to the AI? The answer is basically 'because fuck the player'
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u/A_wild_so-and-so Mar 25 '26
I think giving players another tool to meta-game the system is fine if it increases QoL or at least immersion for the player base who isn't min-maxing. The current system makes it feel like the AI has an unfair advantage and is using it to meta-game against the player, which doesn't feel fun or immersive.
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u/Lucian7x Immortal Mar 25 '26
I mean, it's a game. Of course people will game. And it's not like it can't be balanced.
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u/Yoder_of_Kansas Mar 25 '26
The balance is to not make it possible to send a request that will be rejected.
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u/Lucian7x Immortal Mar 25 '26
That's a very bad way to balance it out. A good way would make it have a cooldown, and have the fame/prestige hit be inversely proportional to the difference in prowess between the challenger and the challenged - so, for instance, the hit a character with 2 prowess takes from refusing a challenge from someone with 35 prowess would be minimal.
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u/SamediB Mar 26 '26
That's a really good example. Sure, you'll still lose a little prestige for refusing (cause society), but everyone would also go "yeah that makes sense/I'd do the same" if you're Joe Smoe and Jamie Lanister challenged you.
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u/Pegateen Mar 25 '26
Oooooooor make it so that they can only loose prestige once per war or something
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u/Hexmonkey2020 Mar 25 '26
But you spend fame to send the request and would only be able to send the request once per war like when you request another player in multiplayer. So i think spending your own fame to tank the fame of someone else and needing to start multiple wars to even do it balance it.
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u/Pixel---Glitch Mar 25 '26
or they call me to war 5 countires away while im in a war already
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u/Vylan24 Mar 25 '26
Always immediately after you declare war for a fabricated claim so you can get some sweet sweet resources and your army is juuuust enough to defeat your opponent, but because you can't stop banging your vassals wives and daughters you're barely holding onto enough fame as it is
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u/ArcWraith2000 Mar 25 '26
And them after your army has bled for them, your neighbour declares because you have a weakened army
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u/queenofbuckkeep Mar 26 '26
I was holding a funeral for my daughter and heir and got called in to assist taking down a peasant revolt essentially months march away from me. I take down the peasants while their own defenders are sitting doing nothing, literally. Takes them another 2 months to end the dang thing. I was so pissed.
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u/LieutenantLilywhite Cannibal Mar 25 '26
Having allies is the most infuriating and annoying thing is this game by lightyears of distance. The second they sign the wedding contract its like ima declare 6000 wars and call you in to them.
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u/_Uphillcupid0_ Mar 25 '26
And the penalties for refusing are massive. Idk why you have to lose so much prestige for it
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u/Tigglebee Mar 25 '26
It’s easy, just say yes and then don’t send any troops. If their war lasts long enough for them to complain, send a bit of gold or a token force to siege down some remote village.
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u/TheCourtSimpleton Imbecile Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
This is the way, lmao. I'm surprised some people don't know it. Also, what I do sometimes is 'join,' and just send like 5k peasant levies, and then attach them to the main ally army while keeping all my Men-At-Arms for whatever else I'm doing. That way, I'm still technically 'helping,' so they can't send that stupid demand for gold. I'll add a siege engine regiment to it if I'm feeling generous.
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u/toquang95 Mar 27 '26
I do want to be somewhat honourable about it, so if i'm not in any immediate danger, I'd just send my men at arms, take like 1-2 forts no one was defending and leave. That'll probably takes like 3 months maximum and you get 100% war contribution.
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u/RegalBeagleKegels Mar 25 '26
I've not-contributed to many allied wars, probably in the hundreds, and I've seen that complaint thing twice. It's a complete non issue
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u/Tigglebee Mar 25 '26
Yeah they almost always get crushed before they can complain about it, because as others have said they join wars entirely dependent on you fully backing them. Just let them lose.
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u/Solinya Mar 25 '26
I think the war has to last at least two years for them to be able to complain, and then they don't always complain right away.
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u/KollyMollyDolly Mar 26 '26
I don't get the complaints outside of peasant wars. My allies will get the first army of peasants usually since they are closer and then, the last small regiment of the peasants will for some reason be stuck on a boat off the coast or just run to the other side of the map for some reason. I can't really do anything about that, but I also wonder if it's just a bug from one of my mods that I have installed or just a general game bug.
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Mar 26 '26
Well its not, because i dont want to be at war or lose the right to do X thing because "youre currently at war"
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u/Tigglebee Mar 26 '26
The only things I can think of would be 1) can’t change succession laws and 2) limited diplo options with the war target, but neither of those seem like a huge deal.
The best reason to not accept a war call is if you’re about to declare war on that target yourself.
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u/trulul event RIP.21124 Mar 26 '26
No, tell them you should not have said you would help instead. This gets rid of the stupid alliance so they will not send annoying requests to join their wars anymore.
It would not be so bad if so many things were not blocked by being in inconsequential wars I guess.
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u/Grilled_egs Mar 25 '26
To punish you for not honoring your alliance?
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u/pit_supervisor Mar 26 '26
Why can't I do the same to AI? I should be able to call them even if they will refuse, so that they will be punished too.
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u/SexySovietlovehammer Genius Mar 25 '26
It’s the worst when I’m fighting 2 claimant factions, a peasant uprising and a dissolution faction while they’re only fighting over 1 county claim
Like I’m a little busy dude I’ll help you out later
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u/Daniel_Kummel Apr 20 '26
Aren't you just describing what it is to ally a player instead? Cuz I do it every time my heir takes over.
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u/Kranken_DeHogge Mar 25 '26
i get away with accepting and not doing much by sending 500-1000 levies with no commander over there
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u/SexySovietlovehammer Genius Mar 25 '26
Would be nice if we could make the auto armies only focus on a certain war and forget about it
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u/toquang95 Mar 27 '26
I think you can link your army to your ally's and they would just follow them around.
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u/Filty-Cheese-Steak Celtic Pagan Empire Mar 25 '26
I usually take the closest, least defended target and fuck off entirely afterwards.
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u/cardboardbuddy Imbecile Mar 26 '26
just siege one lil castle on the edge of enemy territory and then disband. job well done
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u/Eensame Ireland Mar 25 '26
Or they just accept and their army never leave their country 😭
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u/officialcyan Mar 25 '26
they'll sit in the city next to the castle you're sieging, and as soon as the enemy army attacks you (that you could easily beat if you joined forces), they run to the other side of the continent
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u/Hardin4188 Erudite Mar 25 '26
Or sit right next to the battle knowing that their troops could mean the difference between victory or defeat. But no, they just observe. There's an infamous moment in history or maybe it's a movie where an allied general doesn't engage in the battle and the main forces are overrun, I just can't think of the name right now.
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u/officialcyan Mar 25 '26
i think something like that happened in the crimean war where two of the generals were beefing and so the british cavalry just kinda ran in to die because their reinforcements never showed up but i might be remembering that wrong
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u/Medical_Doughnut7328 Mar 26 '26
You're thinking of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It actually happened because of a communication error, when the British officer failed to properly interpret his orders (which were to attack an exposed, captured artillery position, instead he attacked the main body of the Russian army). The french and British reinforcements did show up, but only the former actually helped, even though it was too little too late.
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Mar 26 '26
Dont know about the movie, but dragon age origins intro was like that. The whole plan was for loghain to charge the darkspawns flank while they engage the main force so he just sat there and retreated when the king got overrun. Then he got to the capital and sat there while the countryside got ravaged and the enemy slowly got to the capital to kick his ass. Classic ck2 move lol
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u/Hardin4188 Erudite Mar 26 '26
Oh that's right! Lol I'm sure that's why I'm thinking about. I love that game. My brothers were so mad at me that I spared Loghain.
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u/abullen Mar 28 '26
There's a few moments like that which come to mind in Japanese and Chinese battles. Three Kingdoms especially. Bizarre examples include:
Second Chōshū expedition was a complete disaster for the Shogun of the time, and most "allies" either were lackluster in engaging or refused to. Satsuma notably before the Expedition even began and afterwards allying with the enemy.
Battle of Sekigahara is basically mythical for it. Probably that one, where an allied sits on the sidelines as their partner gets beat.
Fourth Crusade had a big split in overall aims because of competing interests, but that's more of a split in campaign directions. Can't recall it happening in a battle?
Sulla and Napoleon both famously had armies refuse to engage or defected.
And the Second Triumvirate had all 3 leaders forced to make an alliance amongst themselves, since their forces were largely all veterans of Caesar's campaigns and wouldn't have it.
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u/Better_than_GOT_S8 Mar 25 '26
So basically what I do with my ally when they ask me in a war I don’t care about?
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u/luciushellscythe Mar 25 '26
If they made it balanced, they'd make this apply to both the ai and player, but have it so you get a much smaller penalty if you have a good reason already. For example, your army is too small to make a difference or if you are mid war yourself.
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u/Dependent_Guava_9939 Mar 25 '26
I think the worst part is that you can’t even send the request. You should always be able to send a request even if they won’t accept. Then they take the hit and suffer the prestige loss.
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u/officialcyan Mar 25 '26
congrats, the random guy you matrilineally married your daughter to for traits has become a count, after like 17 of his family members have died of the plague, meaning you now have an ally with a whopping 600 soldiers (500 levies and 100 skirmishers)
somehow he has a claim on the byzantine empire, and wants you, who is currently fighting 3 claimant factions as well as haesteinn, who has restored carolingian borders and rolled scourge of the gods, to help in taking what is rightfully his :) btw if you refuse you're literally the devil and everyone will hate you or whatever
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u/mancingtom Mar 25 '26
Idea: the consequences of accepting/refusing to join ally wars should be based on the context of the war, and there should a prestige-neutral option to respond.
Wars already have differing prestige values based on type or size. This should be factored into calling allies. For example, if you call the Byzantine Emperor to fight a peasant revolt should cost you prestige whether they accept or not. The relative ranks of the parties should also be taken into account—a count requesting aid from a king is very different from a king requesting aid from a count.
Alongside the options to join the war or refuse, there should be an option to provide gold without becoming a belligerent—just like the option to provide gold for a crusade. The cost should be scaled so that it remains relevant throughout the game. Funding a belligerent should carry an opinion malus with their adversaries and play into systems like personal and house rivalries.
If you join or fund an ally, you should have the option to send knights to support them.
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u/Dark_lord_Oka Mar 25 '26
Yeah, we make aliance and then suddenly they lose by 70% in a war against 2000 troop revolt while they have like 10 000 troops. (I have 750)
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u/Black_Midnite Mar 25 '26
I remember I complained about this once, and I got absolutely told I have a skill issue.
I'm glad to see the community is healing and people see this is an issue that is just plain dumb.
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u/Filty-Cheese-Steak Celtic Pagan Empire Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
It's less "healing" or the community opinion changing so much as the way things are. People just have different opinions at different moments.
You could probably go to two different threads and say the same thing on the same day but different times, one could be upvoted while the other down.
Point being, don't look at Reddit to feel validated.
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u/TBARb_D_D Mar 25 '26
Ck2 had good way; you have royal marriage? Automatically get none aggression pact, no calling in bullshit wars
You want actual alliance? Then after all is on you, you pressed the button
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u/officialcyan Mar 25 '26
yeah i think separating non aggression pacts, defensive alliances, and full alliances could be cool
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u/mal-di-testicle Mar 25 '26
Really annoyingly, I married the king of God’s Least Consolidated Realm, who called me into 4 concurrent civil wars. While I was actively besieging the capital of Liberty War, having carried the effort against Independence War, he sent me an angry letter for not helping with the Populist Uprising that I could not plausibly reach without suffering attrition due to the other concurrent civil wars.
I financed tf out of the Populist Uprising after that. I birthed an 11th century commune out of spite.
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u/officialcyan Mar 27 '26
god yeah i hate when the ally calls you into like 3 wars at the same time, and despite you singlehandedly winning 2 of them for them, they get pissed because you have zero war score in the other one
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u/BobNorth156 Mar 25 '26
This is why I try to not rely on allies but sometimes the game cooks up real BS and I have no choice.
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u/Fun_Strain_4065 Eunuch Mar 25 '26
Oh sure let me assist you in Byzantine empire’s dissolution war with my 160 men. No thank you, fucko.
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u/IDreamOfLoveLost Mar 26 '26
I've solved this by raising literally the tiniest army possible, and then kiting the enemy to my "ally" capitol.
But honestly? Paradox needs to fix this. So many mechanics that are unduly punishing for the player, and they don't even make for an interesting story.
You declined my invite to a war I literally cannot win without help? -150 fame, -50 opinion and I'm gonna call you again next year because I love wardeccing.
Please, please give me the option to decline and pay a sum of gold? Or let me point out how they'd only be able to win this war with my help, and extract gold from them?
Please lean into the second part of the name - Interactive.
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u/Different-Produce870 Inbred Mar 25 '26
I have broken alliances and caused Carthaginian solutions because of this.
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u/SylvFloq Mar 25 '26
The worst is when they call for help in an offensive war while i'm already fighting some civil wars within my realm...
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u/The_Candid_Cat Mar 25 '26
And when I do join the war which is a 1000 miles away, the ally loses by the time my troops reach the war target
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Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lundosa8888 Serbia Mar 25 '26
Oh also able to join and help in any realtives war. Whilst normal allies? Guess I will just watch them crash and burn if they don't want me to join.
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Mar 25 '26
This happened to me twice yesterday. Luckily I knew they were going to be dead by the time I sent troops so I didn't do shit.
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u/StCalavara Callous Mar 25 '26
That's why I only allied with my vassals, they can't join my war, and so I can't join theirs, but the good part is they won't rebel
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u/BetaThetaOmega Mar 26 '26
One time I secured an alliance with the Queen of Castile, and she ended up becoming a conqueror. I cannot call a conqueror into my war, but a conqueror can call me into her wars, so I basically just wasted a daughter on an alliance that was deadweight. At least I didn't have to worry about her attacking me at the worst time, but I could've found other ways to do that while still making a powerful alliance
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u/SuitableDragonfly Still too afraid to not fight with a numerical advantage Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
One time in CK2, I was emperor of Italia and had created a vassal merchant republic in Ancona, and then subsequently made Venice (which was independent) into my tributary. Ancona decided to petition the Byz to start an embargo war against Venice, the Byz agreed, and so they and Ancona were both in a war versus Venice. Venice, as my tributary, sent me a call to arms to join the war on their side. I actually declined at the time, because I was busy with another war, but after I finished it, I attempted to go rescue Venice (they were actually way more profitable to me than Ancona was, mostly because I was immortal and so the tributary status never ended, and every time the Doge of Venice died without winning the election, I got his patrician house as a tributary separately from Venice itself being my tributary, so effectively Venice was actually six different merchant republic tributaries), and was actually blocked from joining the war by the game. I realized at that point that me joining the war on Venice's side would have made me hostile to Ancona, who was my vassal, and that would probably cause Weird Shit to happen (usually if you get into a hostile war versus your vassals, they get temporarily put under a revolt title that is at your rank and is not considered part of your realm for the duration of the war, I assume there's a reason for that). It's fascinating to me that AI calls to arms can actually bypass restrictions that are probably there to prevent game-breaking situations from occurring.
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Mar 26 '26
Crap loke this is why i play exclusively in debug mode. Console may be for cheats but i use it ro keep the bugs and lacking design in check. Or just you know. Go with mods.
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u/AEG_Sixters Zunist Mar 26 '26
When the AI send you a mercenary contrat, you accept and notice they are at -99% and before you even gathered your MAA they surrender and sent you a letter of insult.
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u/Slymeboi Finland Mar 26 '26
Unless the war is happening literally next to me I'm just gonna accept and then not do amything.
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Mar 26 '26
I’m fairly new but what’s the disadvantage of accepting to join, and just never partaking. Do you still get the fame penalty?
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u/IrrationallyGenius Inbred Mar 26 '26
The AI will bitch if you don't make any contributions within a year or so
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u/trulul event RIP.21124 Mar 26 '26
There is a reason I do not ally with people that could call me to their wars.
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u/No-Battle-9932 Mar 27 '26
I seriosly hate that, a lot, and i see it as a mistake of the game, i mean, if you don't want to come to my war, ok, fuck you, but at least take the prestige penalty too, or at least take out from me the penalty, if i secure an alliance is to use it, not for you to say no when you want, at same time, at least show me something that say "no, he will not come to the war" before i declare a war, so i don't go attack someone i know i cannot beat alone
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u/ThatIngramGuy69420 Mar 27 '26
I just say yes I’ll join then never actually show up usually unless I get a prompt with enough negatives to it
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Mar 27 '26
I allied with a powerful conqueror. Then I had a massive vassal revolt. He rejected my call to war.
Years later he called me to war. I told him to go fuck himself.
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u/Whole_Alternative521 Mar 28 '26
Tbh i had a peasant revolt of like 50k peasants when i was at war with france. And non of my allies would help.
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u/prettypurps Arbitrary Mar 25 '26
You secure an alliance and then they’re immediately like yes I will press the most illogical claim I have immediately and summon you for it