I like your fix better than vanilla. It closes an "exploit" that makes the game easier. The AI will not go above the domain limit due to programming, so all this is doing is leveling the playing field. The game is too easy as it is, so anything that addresses player advantages and can make the game a little more challenges is welcome.

I'm not a fan of the current implementation of no tax and levies for being over the domain limit. It creates a big problem that actually in some ways encourages a "North Korea" playstyle in that there is no longer any penalty at all of being over domain limit. No benefit in terms of levy and taxes but also no opinion penalties. Vassals don't dislike you for having a too large realm so you can have a very large domain and use it to get MAA costs down to nothing from focusing on those buildings. I realise there's a tradeoff in that you get less income and levies overall but I can imagine a situation where the tradeoff of no-cost MAAs (that are upgraded a ton from duchies) could still be a strong strategy.

In the same vein and on a bit of a tangent the current system that seeks to remove the optimal strategy of just keeping duchy capitals as your personal domain doesn't quite work as there are many duchy buildings that doesn't affect MAA costs. This makes it so the optimal strategy is still to hold nothing but duchy caps in your personal domain.

What the base game does very well is it pushes you to get back down to domain-limit in a timely manner since you're losing both leviex tax and opinion, but if you want to hold out for getting a higher stewardship for example or you're anticipating dying soon, there are circumstances where you can decide to accept the penalty and hold out.
Where vanilla stumbles is only in putting a cap on the penalties. Why not just keep the vanilla system but remove the cap? Make 6 holdings over limit give 0% levy or taxes from whole realm and of course another -10 opinion ad infinitum per extra holding over the limit.

@Gilese581

1. It is true that you can thereotically get your MAA costs to nothing with enough (fully built-up) holdings, but that is already possible in vanilla, and much easier to do so. Not to mention the vanilla domain limit system did nothing to discourage that - it encouraged it, in fact.

Consider this :

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Current North-Korea fixed system :

- You need at least 16 fully built up holdings to get your men-at-arms to be free, and another five for every duchy building you decide to construct (which's where a lot of MAA power comes from).

- You need the technology to build up these buildings, so its not something you can ever do early game, or even mid-game.

- Sure, you can play "properly" first, and then switch to this strategy lategame - but if you do so, your income will become abysmal, so... you cannot hire mercs, unlike everyone else. You have almost no levies, compared to what most relevant realms will have. And levies are relevant in the mod.

- All you have is your 10k uber-buffed MAA... And you cannot reinforce them if you ever run into red. And by uber-buffed I mean much, much weaker than in vanilla with just a couple duchy capitals.

Even if you somehow have, say a huge amount like 120 baronies and 21 duchy capitals (way more than the entire Britannia), all fully built up (where are you going to get all that gold? The game is long over by that point)...

Congratulations, you got your MAA to 22x the base strength. In vanilla, with that setup, you would have gotten them to around 184x the base strength...

The former is absolutely killable by any other realm, if with great losses, provided that they have the stock standard lategame 200% MAA efficiency.

Say they counter you with even numbers, that is 50% damage on your guys. Say they outnumber you 3 to 1. Say they pick favourable terrain. Say they get +40 defensive advantage (which is huge and quite easy at that point).

Suddenly you are doing maybe 0.5 (counter) x 0.75 (terrain) x 0.5 (advantage) = 18-19% of the damage you should be doing with those, and all that into a three times the numbers.

So, congratulations, you have maybe 4x strength MAA against competent players. In singleplayer, sure you can set this up, but with that amount of conscious effort, you would have won ten games in the meantime.

Vanilla "90% capped reduction" system :

Hold 500 counties, get the tax/levies of 50, have more gold&levies than any other empire, and your men-at-arms too on top of those. Not to mention this gets really snowbally, because more gold = more buildings. So even stronger, and way faster to set up.

When it comes to its effects on MAA balance in particular, I fail to see any argument against keeping the current system?

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2. Does it, really?

- First off, duchy buildings only work if you are holding duchy titles, which pisses off your vassals, which you likely need to have, or at least having them is certainly not as suboptimal as in the vanilla game.

- Duchy buildings that do not increase MAA maintenance do not provide you with nearly as big a military edge as the ones that do, and many of them have local impacts like marches.

- Even if you spam royal armouries and/or knight academies - it still does not make you as strong militarily as just... you know, having happy vassals with proper contracts. Levies matter all game long, and combat width is a thing.

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3. Err... because that makes little sense? Why should you make absolutely no income and have absolutely no levies just because you are 6 over your domain limit? The domain limit represents your ruler's (and his administration's) capacity to govern. The bigger it is, the more land you can effectively tax, and get levies from.

So getting an arbitrary (and not even realtive % based) amount above it shouldn't mean your administration is suddenly unable to get any taxes or levies. They just can't govern a lot of areas they nominally rule over, is all.

Why should vassals get pissed if you hold more land than you can govern? You are not governing it in anything but theory, anyways - the local nobles are not paying the taxes, nor drafting men, so it is vassal's land in all but name, not yours - except those "vassals" don't even have any obligation to their liege.

I did not know you need to hold duchy titles for the duchy buildings to work, that does indeed change things dramatically. Without that in place I would still assert that duchy holdings are superior to other holdings since you can get very strong economic boosts if you don't pick the military ones, giving much more benefit than a normal holding could give.

I'm not trying to argue that your changes overall with the mod aren't much better than vanilla.

As for the change to domain limit the other thing I dislike about the system you implemented is that it is "safe" to hold on to extra domains for as long as you wish when there is no direct demerit. Do you need 5 or 10 years to get to that perk in stewardship to extend your domain limit? No problem, you don't have to make a hard choice about sacrificing a lot of the money and levies you already have by simply holding on to the land.
You do give up the opportunity cost of getting extra vassal levies and taxes but these are really small compared to the effect of being over limit in vanilla and will often be a no-brainer.

It is also much easier to control vassals when you're in absolute control over how many of them you have and when you take them. With the vanilla system you're punished for not making this decision within a years time of aquiring new territory that puts you over your domain limit. Sometimes there's not a very good candidate to be found, perhaps your religion or culture is rare, perhaps you wanted a zealot to make him convert the faith of a country, perhaps you needed to bribe a guy, but not right now, in a couple of years time from now. No problem, just keep the land and wait for the optimal circumstances. I just feel that the opportunity cost for doing so is way too low with this change.

There is a direct demerit. You are not getting anything tax/levy-wise from that holding, whereas you would be if you gave it to a vassal.

I'd even argue that under the vanilla system holding onto land in excess of your domain limit is too detrimential while doing so in reasonable amounts (14/9 shouldn't be so terrible), but it becomes completely unpunishing when you go to extremes (500/9), which is the opposite of how it should be working, imo.

I have no intention of ever doing a North Korea mode nor playing multiplayer so I prefer having a tough choice upon going over domain limit. It's fine though I can mod this one feature back to vanilla for my own purposes. I enjoy the rest of the changes you've brought to the game.

Originally posted by Gliese581:

I have no intention of ever doing a North Korea mode nor playing multiplayer so I prefer having a tough choice upon going over domain limit. It's fine though I can mod this one feature back to vanilla for my own purposes. I enjoy the rest of the changes you've brought to the game.

That's fair, and thanks :)

The easiest way to do that would probably be to make a very small personal mod that just contains whatever.defines.txt and within it one line, changing HOLDING_GRACE_PERIOD in N_Domain from 1000000 (2400 years) to the vanilla 365.

Load it after Sane Warfare in the load order so it overwrites. But you probably know that already. This won't change the localization back to what it is in vanilla, but mechanically speaking it will be the same, since the penalties are still the same, they just don't ever happen with that long a grace period.

Thanks. I already tried only changing that value but I found I had to remove your localization changes regarding holdings as well for the game to revert to vanilla system. I have a copy of your unaltered mod setup for future reference if I need to dabble with it again.

@gilles - will you post this a submod? I was going to do the same thing, but you beat me to it :-)

No need actually! I am implementing this as a game rule for the ease of everyone, since I just found out how to do that ^^

EDIT :

Or not (yet), since Paradox intended on implementing a functionality to overwrite define changes with game rules, but didn't yet do that.