Quote Originally Posted by Cynwulf View Post
This can't be done.
Sure it can. Let me explain in detail.

Step #1 is to create a faction specific building, for every faction in the game, that increases loyalty quite drastically.

Step #2 is to assign to each of these buildings region restrictions. This is perhaps the hardest part of all, in that one has to decide at the outset how much the factions will be able to expand smoothly.

Step #3 is to bump the default rebellious factor by something that reflects the loyalty bonus received from the new buildings. If this is done properly the increase in rebelliousness will not be noticed if one has a "new" loyalty building in the region.

This way, the Turkish, for example, will be able to construct their loyalty building only in, say, Asia minor and the Khazars. This means they'll be able to keep these provinces happy with traditionally sized garrisons, whilst a conquest of the Balkans would require much larger ones. The hardcoded acclimatization is, of course, still in effect, as well as religious zeal, and will be noticed as before.

The tricky part is, as said, to determine the region restrictions for each faction, since this will limit their possibility to expand. It will have to be done arbitrarily. But that's just more of the same, keeping unit "homelands" in mind (something that really refreshed the gameplay for me). The balancing process of rebellious factor vs. loyalty bonus might be tedious, but certainly not difficult.

This would mean more battles and an increase in average faction life length, since a lot more invasions would be rebelled against.

This wouldn't be perfect by any means, though. Considering that there is nothing that guarantees that the new loyalty building would be destroyed in an invasion, thus bypassing the whole function. Maybe it's not that big of a problem? One could view this as a random liking of the invaders type thing. Or would one have to keep check using -ian, manually enforcing the destruction of conquered loyalty buildings? Still. Better than nothing, imo.