izigame.me

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.