This reminds me to CKII, and I believe casus belli would certainly make things slower.
But, this is something of late medieval age, where Nobles and King's wanted to keep a status quo, by not allowing "commoners" to become nobles by conquering something.
Also as any potential conquering faction as Romans, Vikings, Nomads this would go against their politics.
Also for the player this could become a hindrance because if you manage to conquer a castle and it has a claimant within your faction they would have the upper hand in the election.
Yea I've played ck2 for years alongside Warband so it is inspired.
I would say that with regards to being more a late medieval phenomenom in terms of Casus Belli and claims, absolutely you are probably right however I should point out William the Bastard invaded Egland in 1066 to press his claim that Edward the Confessor had appointed him as heir to the Kingdom of England, and presenting a 'Just' reason for war was a key part in gaining papacy approval and solidifying, rightfully or otherwise, his claim to the throne.
As for other more appropriate Casus Belli for other cultures I left that out of the initial post as to keep the idea concise and directed to the overall systems rather than convolude the post. Imperials should absolutely gain Casus Belli against other Imperial factions and/or reconquest. The Nords (when their added) should get outright conquest reasons for war. However for initial balance (which I have no idea about) I felt limiting the scope would help applying the game practically.
As to the final part about claims becoming a hinderance, that's actually part of the reason for the internal claims to be allowed. Players should have to deal with internal power struggles alongside external and seek to either exploit it for their gain, or fail and potentially see revolt as the only means to further the clan's goals. Its just as much about giving NPC clans teeth to cause internal strife instead of just opposing votes, potentially letting players form personal vendettas against clans, perfect meme potential if not for creating a lively back story.
The system is mostly in place already (at least for the War Exhaustion mechanic) since the number of casualties, succesful sieges and raids are already tracked in the diplomacy tab.
I like the idea of War Exhaustion and I feel like it would go a long way to prevent snowballing. As for numbers and mechanics, I would say that casualties / battles should absolutely be counted towards War Exhaustion, otherwise an inferior faction won't be able to win the war at all, since it doesn't have enough men to take and hold enemy settlements against a larger faction (in this case, the inferior faction should be defensive and seek to protect its cities and villages rather than trying to conquer enemy lands).
Another mechanic I feel would greatly benefit the game is Threat, where other factions view a larger / more powerful faction as a threat to their existence and seek to ally each other (or to declare war simultaneously on the larger faction, putting it on the defensive and forcing it to fight on multiple fronts).
Aside from that, I feel like there should be a lot more animosity among clans in the same faction. For example, clans could dispute settlements that are already in their faction among each other given certain requirements, having other clans back their preferred side or just abstain. If the clan claiming ownership of the land feels like it has the upper hand, it could demand the settlement be handed to them or go to war, bringing in the supporters on their side. Otherwise, the king could try to mediate peace by promising future conquered lands, giving away money or just outright supporting one side. If both sides can't come to a solution but also don't want to fight (maybe they feel war would be too costly, or that a stalemate would be more likely), then clans on the same side would gain relations amongst themselves and lose relations with the clans on the other side.
I suppose the background for tracking background is in place as you said. So yea, I agree with you that battles and casualties could contribute to War Exhaustion, the original idea was to keep it simple and sweet as possible, but if there's already tracking there; a few formulae could be applied to work out an adequete war exhaustion tick.
As for threat I definitely see the appeal and the claim system of keeping a claim for 10 years is a form of that, just simplified. If a faction takes land then the faction that lost it should keep a claim for a while at the least, and if lots of small limited wars take place eventually a faction will accrue Casus Belli against it leading organically to almost consistent wars against the initial agressor. This is in conjunction with the mentality of this suggestion that the ideas should be as simple as possible (If you can keep ideas "simple stupid" they will work much better at practise)
Internal wars between clans in a faction would absolutely be a dream of mine in future, a tad out of scope of this suggestion but the background to that is definitely what I was going for, proper internal intrigue, diplomacy, warring politics
Somebody likes EU too much
The concept WOULD be a nice addition to the game. It would also make sense that the higher the War Exhaustion, the cheaper it is to make peace, which would make it easier for players when fighting a much larger Kingdom. If you can hold out for a while, the political pressure will lead the enemy to value the peace more.
However, a 10 year claim man? That seems way too long for this game
I wouldn't say so much it should be cheaper to make peace, just that the AI should be pushed towards it. If the 'defender' of the war can punish an enemy for marching into their lands then that would be fantastic application of War Exhaustion. (also aye I like EU4 too
)
As for length of claims, I honestly pulled the numbers from my ass. I reckoned 10 years was a good middle ground between life long dynasty styled political gameplay and more casual burning through the map as quick as allowed. Just came down to personal preference for what I think the game's pace should be.
Just as a last point for any reading, cheers for having a take on the idea, I hope someone is inspired by this to include some ideas in the game or a mod. The idea is based around looking to encourage
limited wars between factions. Some would see that as boring and restrictive, but I think Bannerlord would really excel with elongated campaigns.
