Even in the most recent beta patch. I did an experiment with scripts recently to amuse myself - took all the fiefs for my own clan, created a kingdom, hired many companions, and created new clans with them, one for each fief. All fiefs were fully upgraded before granting them, too, and all towns got a few million units worth of food, so prosperity, loyalty etc is through the roof. And relation with all clan leaders was at 100.
So basically there's one kingdom that is insanely rich, and a bunch of landless ones that constantly wage war on it, but, of course, get steamrolled all the time because they are outnumbered and have no money. They can't even loot a single village, because there's always a party nearby to defend one.
So, why the hell would the lords in the rich kingdom ever defect to the landless ones that the rich kingdom is already at war with? They literally have nothing to gain doing so - their fief is immediately surrounded by the enemy, their villages are raided almost instantly, and then the fief itself is predictably besieged and taken. Enticed with money? The other rulers don't have have any to speak of, while my clan has literally billions.
And yet, after a couple of in-game years after setting it all up and letting it run, this is the map:
As you can see, most of the non-Imperial cities have defected to other kingdoms by now. The ones that did so last obviously had good reasons; but, again, the map was entirely white initially.
Mind you, if this happened over time - say, 2-3 generations - I'd even consider it realistic; regional separatist tendencies rearing after a long period of unification etc. But the lords who defect are still the same ones who were granted fiefs by me in the first place, not their grandkids. And they still have 100 relation with me. So is the defection basically just random then?
So basically there's one kingdom that is insanely rich, and a bunch of landless ones that constantly wage war on it, but, of course, get steamrolled all the time because they are outnumbered and have no money. They can't even loot a single village, because there's always a party nearby to defend one.
So, why the hell would the lords in the rich kingdom ever defect to the landless ones that the rich kingdom is already at war with? They literally have nothing to gain doing so - their fief is immediately surrounded by the enemy, their villages are raided almost instantly, and then the fief itself is predictably besieged and taken. Enticed with money? The other rulers don't have have any to speak of, while my clan has literally billions.
And yet, after a couple of in-game years after setting it all up and letting it run, this is the map:
As you can see, most of the non-Imperial cities have defected to other kingdoms by now. The ones that did so last obviously had good reasons; but, again, the map was entirely white initially.
Mind you, if this happened over time - say, 2-3 generations - I'd even consider it realistic; regional separatist tendencies rearing after a long period of unification etc. But the lords who defect are still the same ones who were granted fiefs by me in the first place, not their grandkids. And they still have 100 relation with me. So is the defection basically just random then?