Conspiracies

Overview
Plots are a set of secret agreements made between characters to achieve some goal. Plots can have characters of many levels of participation.

Example Conspiracy
Here is a scenario where you are overthrowing an empire with the general system of the HRE. Let's say you have one ally who openly joins your rebellion. This is the riskiest assistance you can be given. You will strip a loyalist elector of their title and present it to your open ally. Another ally has a secret desire for the hand of the daughter of one of your other allies. Secret desires will be discussed in the explanation of the seventh major change. You promise to set this up in exchange for his troops sitting out a major battle. Finally a third ally had a major core province seized in a prior war between a loyalist lord and their father. In exchange for the return of that province and a substantial sum of gold this secret ally will march with the loyalist army to attack your smaller army.

Your army of public allies had 50000 troops. The loyalist army had 80000. Your first secret ally sits out with his 15000 troops. Your second ally switches sides with his 25000 troops allow a pincer movement. The fight is now your force of 50000, the neutral force of 15000, the loyalist force of 40000, and the traitor army of 25000 attacking from the rear. From a 30000 troop disadvantage to a 35000 troop lead with a pincer movement in place, you are now sitting in the cat bird seat thanks to clever espionage and dirty politics. Perhaps you even used spies and bribes to determine the secret desire of the second noble who sat out the battle.

Agreements
Plots are enabled by a system of agreements similar to treaties. Plots also possess special actions. As part of the above plot you ask one army to sit out a fight and another to switch sides once battle is joined. Further you are asking them to wait until a significant battle. There are many other potential combinations of actions you can request.

Your promises are mainly normal diplomatic actions to be finalized upon the successful completion of the plot. Promises that fail to be followed through on at the appropriate time will generate a very large opinion penalty with the other party. Some promises may be made public after they or broken or be discovered and anyone with knowledge of them will get an opinion hit towards the promising party. Kept promises will produce the opposite effect in those situations.

Other Goals
Different plots can involve assassination, feeding information, smuggling or other things.

Creating A Plot
A plot is created with a specific goal in mind. Characters can then be invited to the plot and then promises can be made to them and extracted from them. Different characters can be given different levels of knowledge about the plot including being informed of other members. Members can request to be secret contributors as well though this can be promised and then secretly reneged on. Members can be tested as to their commitment and secrecy requests can be made on the condition that secret members are revealed to invested parties. Parties who discover the plot independently can request an invitation and provide a benefit they will provide.

Decisions on who to include in a conspiracy should be weighed carefully. You should have a good reason to believe that a person will agree or at least keep silent before inviting them. This could include their opinion of the target, their commitment to you, or some secret that suggests they will support the plot.

Discovery
Characters engaging in espionage have a chance to discover a plot. Furthermore a character who discovered a plot can become the victim of espionage and the origin of that espionage can discover the plot. Depending on what character has the existence of the plot revealed by them knowledge of the plot may be incomplete protecting significant members or even allowing it to proceed.

Responses
You can immediately out the plot with any info you have. This obviously cancels the plot. Anyone you exposed gets a strong opinion hit with the target/s. Everyone who learns of the plot has a small opinion penalty due to the plotter being sneaky. Depending on your association with the target they get a nice opinion boost towards you. You can also, for less broad opinion affect but a strong singular bonus, out the plot just to the target/s.

Another option you have is to foil the plot in some way. You could subvert one or more members. This is an excellent if risky strategy because you could let them go ahead with a slight troop lead only to realize they were actually moderately down. You could also build up troops or secure allies so that you can surprise plotters even if you can't subvert any of them.

Another option involves the propaganda system. You can put quite a lot of work into putting the populations in a position where they support you and might revolt individually or rise up as a group to take down the plotters.

There are also more desperate options. You could do a runner to some foreign court and work there to build up armies to retake the homeland. You'll draw loyalist troops, perhaps some troops from your host, and possibly you can put out a call to mercenaries and adventurers promising great rewards. If the population supports you even a tenuous victory can eventually result in a full restoration.

Ancient Conspiracies
Depending on the goals of a conspiracy it may take centuries to bring to fruition. Early on you'd ideally give only critical players knowledge of the plot and assign them tasks to pursue. Perhaps you would conceive a web of marriages, alliances, and life debts which might ripen centuries hence. You might even choose to empower morally corrupted characters, for instance having an ally assassinate a just and honorable heir to a state or province. You might then invite the corrupt second, now only, son to your plan and give him tasks to pursue. You could also hold off, involving him only when necessary.

You also have the option of creating sub-conspiracies designed to further your goals without revealing them. Other major conspiracy members may or may not be aware of these. You could also create competing conspiracies for treachery and backstabbing. You are mostly limited by your imagination. The AI will have some facility with this system but of course it can't compete with a motivated human.