Board Thread:Off-topic Discussion/@comment-31808207-20180108112749/@comment-31808207-20180109020216

Hmm, that's an interesting thought. One issue with it, though, is that it wouldn't have a good way to model one shard holder killing another to take their shard. The Rise of the Shia mechanic does definitely seem relevant... Hmm. Some thoughts of my own: If you made shards a trait, but tied them to empire-level or king-level titular titles by event, it could be interesting. Maybe lock the titular titles a certain succession type, like Open Elective or the feudal fallback where the most powerful vassal takes a title if the holder dies with no heir, then if the shard and its corresponding title weren't taken by another IK (maybe you can use a special CB to go for another IK's shard and corresponding title instead of their actual lands, kind of like the Install Khagan CB for nomad factions?) it would always be grabbed by their most powerful vassal.

Of course, you could also faction for it along with their whole empire as a vassal, in which case on success you kill them and claim the title. Probably disable "normal" assassination plots vs IKs given that they're so hard to kill, but could possibly be more special event chains for trying to kill them more directly. Maybe they would have to contend with Rise of the Shia type events occasionally as well, representing a Simon-style rise of a minor shardholder out of nowhere? Though, I guess my proposal doesn't have a good way for shards to be "lost" if the king dies and no one specifically was trying to take it. I guess instead of always passing to the most powerful vassals, there could be several options if a holder dies that way? Shard passes to strongest vassal, shard passes to random character, shard disappears and respawns on a random character in X years... In the latter two cases, the titular title would be destroyed and a new one created later on. Since every peasant revolt or faction revolt creates a titular title, it should be possible to create these limitlessly if you wanted to allow for potentially unlimited shards...

Another thought, using that system, would be to tie the power of the shard to the level of the titular title it gets. A count level title for a very minor shard, a duchy for a medium-small, king for relatively large, and emperor tier for the big five-tier. That would have the side effect of meaning a weak IK could be a vassal to almost anyone, but it would be literally impossible for anyone with an Emperor-tier shard to submit to another ruler, simulating the way the shards clash with each other.

[For the record, I've not actually modded CK2 myself, so I'm also going off of what I've gathered from lurking on various forums, haha.]

Edit: If factioning for an IK's title sounds too easy... Well, I imagine you'd need a mechanic to represent their personal power as army strength, but moreover, they'd probably strongly favor female vassals and get a very strong attraction opinion to represent their ability to just dominate, making it very hard to successfully get a faction together. Sure they might wrack up Tyranny points like nothing, especially one like the King of Arclent, but it would take a lot of that to get enough negative opinion to actually override their attraction opinion, especially with therir succubus vassals living short lifespans. Or possibly give them a Dominate diplo action to give female vassals/courtiers an "Enslaved" modifier that gives a massive boost to liege opinion. That way they still get to eat malices to attraction opinion for being a lunatic XD I wonder if it's possible to make a bisexual trait that lets you get attraction opinion from both genders?