Hello, everyone!

We have an important update to share today for people looking to get into Crusader Kings III for the first time: we're retiring the old Royal Edition and replacing it with a new Starter Edition for our game. This new edition is designed to offer a comprehensive and value-packed entry point for new players, ensuring access to the best of what Crusader Kings III has to offer from the get-go.

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[h2]Included with Crusader Kings III: Starter Edition[/h2]

[h3]Crusader Kings III Base Game[/h3]

• Whether you start as a lowly count or a mighty emperor, no throne is safe as you compete for power against thousands of other nobles for prestige and dominance. Write your own histories, with a wide range of personality types, ambitions, and cultural preferences. Play as a haughty duke, a pious prince, or a cunning queen, and then play as their heir as the wheel of time grinds on.
  

• Host thrilling tournaments, grand feasts and splendid weddings to bolster your prestige or win new honors for your dynasty. Travel to distant lands on pilgrimage or inspect your vassals on a grand tour of your realm - whether to extort taxes or bolster loyalty.
  

• Deepen your relationships with those around you, forming lasting friendships with childhood companions, bitter rivalries with distant foes or eternal love with a beauty of your choosing.
  

• Immerse yourself in the Holy Roman Empire with a collection of outfits for both commoners, warriors and rulers of Central Europe.
  

• Based on the garments and regalia of Emperor Henry II and the Empress Cunigunde, this pack includes not only new robes and dresses, but historically appropriate crowns and other items.
  

• Give your court a dashing new look with a set of outfits and cosmetic clothing options for the Middle East and North Africa.
  

Are you stepping into the vast and intricate world of Crusader Kings III for the first time? We understand that beginning your journey into the Middle Ages can be daunting; That's why we're excited to introduce Legends of Crusader Kings III, a specially crafted initiative to ease new players into the game's rich historical tapestry and complex gameplay mechanics.

We've selected five legendary characters from the game's extensive roster, each offering a unique perspective on the medieval world and showcasing different aspects of gameplay. Whether it's military conquest, deft diplomacy, or intricate plotting, these legends serve as both a tutorial and a teaser of the possibilities that lie ahead.

There's news for existing players as well: these characters are set to receive comprehensive overhauls as part of a free update in May, enhancing their stories and gameplay even further.

The journey doesn't end with these legends, though. Crusader Kings III is about carving your own path through history, and with Legends of Crusader Kings III, we encourage you to start forging your own legacy. Create a character, build your dynasty, and make decisions that will echo through the ages. Will you be a benevolent ruler, or a tyrant feared by all? The choice is yours.

Getting started with Legends of Crusader Kings III is simple. Visit the official website for guides on each legendary character and tips for creating your own. You'll also find links to our social media pages and various community platforms, where you can ask questions, share your journey, and connect with other players.

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.12.4 to address some outstanding issues, as well as implement several changes to Legends and the Legends UI. Most of these changes are the direct result of community feedback we've received here on Steam and elsewhere over the past weeks; your feedback remains an invaluable tool for helping us improve Crusader Kings III, so thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts and suggestions with us since the release of Legends of the Dead!

[hr][/hr]

Update 1.12.4 Changelog

[h2]Game Content[/h2]

• Legend chapters will now change in response to the player's actions: winning a battle, a siege, being released from prison, taking the vows, a deceased spouse, a newborn child, etc.
  
• Added more variations to legend titles.
  
• You are now alerted when a new legend enters your realm.
  
• Winning a Great Holy War now offers a chance to get a Holy Warrior legend seed.
  
• Added a Legitimacy modifier to the "Writing History" perk.
  
• "Shy" and "Reclusive" characters now have a higher Plague Resistance.
  
• The capitals of rulers with high level Legends will now become Points of Interest to visit during travel.
  
• Added a player Legend Library, which contains completed legends.
  
  
  
  • Legends in player Libraries will never fade, even if their bonus-giving reach has decayed to zero provinces.
    
  • Legends you own or were actively promoting are automatically added.
    
  • Completed legends that reached your domain are automatically added.
    
  • You can remove legends from your Library at will (beware that you might not be able to get them back!)
    
  • You can add distant completed Legends to your library if you are traveling in lands that the legend has reached.
    
  • Your Legend Library persists on inheritance / character switching.
    
  
  

• Improved legend window interface - completed legends now take up less space.
  
• Legend headers are directly clickable.
  
• Legend list items now contain more information, such as the protagonist name, and start/completion date.
  
• Legend chronicle window has a clearer scrollbar, and a nameplate for the protagonist.
  
• Legend chronicle portrait animation is now based on chronicle type, and they are also animated - to remember them as they were in life.
  
• Added pan to legend button and right-click action for legend list items.
  
• In the Legend List, promotion costs for legends you cannot promote are no longer shown.
  

• Fixed broken invalid obligations notification.
  
• The "Royal Touch" event doesn't give out permanent Measles anymore.
  
• Clarified the "Isolationist" cultural tradition to reflect its plague resistance.
  
• Legend protagonist portraits no longer show characters in their nightgown, if they had the misfortune of dying while ill (dead protagonists from old savegames might still be in their nighties)
  
• Fixed certain UI sounds to match levels from previous versions.
  
• Observers get a nicer legend listing.
  

Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.12.3 to address some issues reported to us by the community as well as deploy a couple of balance tweaks. Notably for our MacOS and Linux users, this update merges in the previously experimental fix for crashes related to tooltips and mousing over portraits. A huge thank you goes out to the community for providing their crash reports and insights on this issue!

[hr][/hr]

PC Update 1.12.3 Changelog

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Rebalanced the AI logic for asking characters to promote their legend.
  
• If you have taken gold in exchange to promote someone's legend and stop, then you're asked to give the gold back.
  

• User Modding: Added on_legend_start_promote to legend types.
  
• User Modding: Added on_legend_stop_promote to legend types.
  

• Clearing the Grounds for a Legendary Hunting Lodge now correctly states the additional requirements.
  
• Reworded the description of the "Upward Mobility" achievement.
  
• Advanced Research icon has been updated to be more historically accurate.
  
• Clarified the description for Extol Domestic Legend.
  
• Changed the title of 4 similar legends.
  
• Added Cremation funerary tradition to Zunbil.
  
• Added happy reaction for when disliked spouse dies in death_management.1200
  
• Added 25% cultural fascination bonus for fifth level of learning trait.
  
• Fixed Horse Hastiluder XP not disbursing upon winning the horse racing event at tournaments.
  
• Fixed Sar-i Sang mine not scaling modifiers correctly into fourth level.
  
• Fixed Palace of Aachen not correctly displaying feast cost reduction.
  
• Ensured Your Highness event (host_dinner_events.1009) targets the correct characters.
  
• Ensured you cant save yourself in travel_events.2105
  
• Fixed multiple localisation typos.
  
• The Sons of Scota legend now lets you diverge your culture to Ancient Egyptian at Mythical level.
  
• The Sons of David legend now lets you diverge your culture to Hebrew at Mythical level.
  
• Fixed a bug where regional portrait accessories, for example cultural swords, would not properly display.
  
• Fixed rare crash to desktop when a character has an invalid instance of their character modifier.
  
• Fixed wrong header for cost breakdown when you are a legend promoter, rather than the legend owner.
  
• Reduced crashes related to tooltips and portrait clicking on Mac and Linux. Note: We might not have found all instances of this issue. Special thanks to all assistance from the Paradox Forums for helping us with this issue.
  
  
  
  • If you're using the experimental beta branch with this fix, then you will need to opt out of it to receive today's update.
    
  
  

• Added explicit game concepts for owned legends and promoted legends.
  

Hello everyone!

Back in December of 2023, halls of Studio Black buzzed with an exciting flurry of activity for the teams inaugural Black Forge Jam: a three-day extravaganza of creativity and innovation, with just a dash of chaos. This wasn't your average development sprint. We threw the rulebook out the window (figuratively speaking, of course) to dive into the realms of "What if?" and "Why not?" for Crusader Kings III.



[h2]A Dive into Uncharted Waters[/h2]

Imagine a space where time, budget, and the usual game plan constraints are sidelined, allowing for pure, unadulterated creativity. That's what the Black Forge Jam was all about. With 11 different projects on the table, different groups from the CK3 Dev team embarked on a journey to explore the unexplored and build the unbuilt, all fueled by a passion for innovation and perhaps a copious amount of caffeine.

Take a look behind the scenes of the Black Forge Jam:

[previewyoutube=vVBBUXCpysY;full][/previewyoutube]

[h2]What If?[/h2]

While the team experimented with 11 different projects during the event, these 5 ideas stood out after the work was done.

Medieval Menagerie: Envision a court where your royal advisors are joined by loyal pets, each bringing a unique flair and emotional depth to your reign. This project focused on incorporating pets into the game, understanding the emotional impact they have on players, and exploring how to enhance that aspect of gameplay.

Immersive Barks: Picture interacting with your subjects and hearing their whispered allegiances and concerns, enriching the tapestry of your kingdom's story without a single voice actor. Inspired by real-time strategy games, this project aimed to add small textual feedback from characters when players interact with them, enhancing the immersion and interaction.

Death and Succession Dynamics: Delve into the complexities of royal lineage where death and succession are more than mere formalities but pivotal moments that can shape the destiny of your dynasty. This project aimed at making the death and succession process more interesting and giving players more choice in who they continue as, addressing scenarios where a players favorite character is not their heir.

Karnffel: Discover the joy and strategy of integrating Europes oldest known trick-taking card game, offering a new layer of historical immersion and leisure within your court.

Intrigue Warfare: Imagine a realm where the dark art of intrigue directly influences the battlefield, allowing for more nuanced and strategic warfare decisions. This project aimed to better integrate the Intrigue system with warfare by creating new ways to use hooks on opposing commanders or knights and to interact with mercenaries.

The above projects represent the broad spectrum of creativity and innovation that our team poured their hearts into. But it didnt stop there; ideas flowed, code was written, and the foundations for potential future expansions to Crusader Kings III were laid, so were just as excited as you to see what the future brings!


[h3]The Spirit of the Forge[/h3]
What truly stood out wasn't just the projects themselves but the incredible energy and dedication of the CK3 team. There was laughter, challenges, and yes, the occasional cry of despair over a stubborn piece of code. But above all, there was an undeniable sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. The jam wasn't about delivering polished, finished products but about embracing the beauty of imperfection and the thrill of exploration.

[h3]Now Its Your Turn[/h3]
This jam was a testament to our commitment not just to Crusader Kings III but to you, our amazing community. Your enthusiasm, feedback, and support fuel our creative fires and guide our ventures into new territories. So, we're turning the spotlight over to you now. We've shared a glimpse into our world of creation and innovationnow tell us, what captured your imagination? Which of these projects would you love to see come to life in the game?

Your insights, dreams, and wishes are what help shape the future of Crusader Kings III, so drop your thoughts on the projects worked on during the Black Forge Jam in the comments here on Steam or on any of our other social platforms!

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Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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Hello everyone! Today were releasing Update 1.12.2.1 to address some issues reported by the community after Mondays release of Legends of the Dead and the 1.12.1 Scythe Update.

Most notably, this update resolves an issue that resulted in Legends disappearing too quickly after being completed.

Please check the changelog below for more information!

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Update 1.12.2.1 Changelog

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Raising a Runestone now increases your Legitimacy.
  
• Hooked in Legitimacy loss to some plague flavor events.
  

• Added easter egg disease names.
  
• Added Hildegard von Blingin song to the game.
  

• Fixed a bug that made Legends disappear too quickly upon completion.
  
• Roaming, Raving event - Zealous option now uses the correct form of Faith name.
  
• Yearly Cultural Acceptance increase now happens yearly over time instead of bi-monthly.
  
• Death Management events for Spouses now reflect your opinion of them.
  
• Very Rare epidemics game rule now influences the spread of epidemics.
  
• Grand Rite activity now correctly states the reason for why you can't host the activity.
  
• The Mourn intent now has the correct animation.
  
• Tooltip for penalty information due to exceeding domain limit now has correct localization.
  
• Fixed bookmark characters clipping issues.
  
• Clearer toast for marrying a lowborn.
  
• Great Expectations Event can now trigger again.
  
• Can now hold funeral for recently dead spouse.
  
• Enter Seclusion and Isolate Capital Decisions now have more consistent localization for ending seclusion/isolation.
  
• There is now information about Initial Legitimacy change in Virtuous and Sinful traits.
  
• From Dust can no longer target your own capital.
  
• Pope no longer hosts tournaments.
  
• Some legend chapter update now properly gets pronouns and no longer ends abruptly.
  
• A Sinful Ancestor event can no longer trigger when you do not have any ancestors.
  
• Custom map table style and HUD style settings are now remembered.
  
• Legendary Building "Hunting Lodge" is now available to build when completing the appropriate legend.
  
• Conquering land as an Interloper now triggers the 'Lose a Title within the Struggle Region to an Interloper or Uninvolved Ruler' catalyst.
  
• Accolade Attribute "Reeve" now correctly gives control boost for Martial councilor task.
  
• Fixed a crash on going back during the Court Grandeur tutorial.
  
• Fixed a crash on Activity Intents.
  
• Increased the requirements for "The Most Pious Life" legend.
  

• "Sons of David" Legend does not let the player diverge their culture to any of the Israelite cultures.
  
• "Sons of Scota" Legend does not let the player diverge their culture to ancient Egyptian.
  
• Leisure palace modifier for feasts lacks localization.
  
• Player is not informed about the legitimacy loss from one of the options when faced with a Peasant Uprising.
  
• Iranian army lacks models of siege weapons while siege is in progress; all siege weapons are shown as trebuchets.
  
• "Form Portugal" decision incorrectly has Bengali culture.
  

Hello everybody! Today we're releasing our first Core Expansion for Crusader Kings III: Legends of the Dead and an accompanying free 1.12.1 "Scythe" Update.

Check out the release trailer below, and then the changelog itself under that.

[previewyoutube=_3KXin9Zuns;full][/previewyoutube]



Expansion Features

• Added Legends: a new system that allows you to create stories based on Legend Seeds (with events, decisions, court position tasks, and other ways to obtain them), a Legend Chronicler to visualize them, and special rewards.
  
  
  
  • 3 Legend Types: Heroic, Legitimizing, and Holy, with bespoke flavor, effects, and rewards, including special Legendary Buildings and decisions.
    
  • 3 Legend Quality Types: increasing the rewards upon completion and during its spread.
    
  • Legend Promoters: sponsor someone else's legend for a much smaller cost.
    
  • Added Historical Legends to characters in both start dates that would have a Legend Seed in history.
    
  • Added many events, decisions and interactions to spread Legends, affect the rewards, and change the Chronicle.
    
  • Added Legendary Buildings, with powerful rewards, unlocked after completing high quality legends and investing in the new Heroic Dynasty Legacy - all of them with special 3D models on the map, changing depending on the culture.
    
  • Added Legend Seeds to the old Major Decisions, allowing you to start legends based on previous content.
    
  • Added Legend Chronicler visual variations based on culture.
    
  • Added a new Dynasty Legacy: Heroic, focused on Legends and unlocking new rewards for completing one.
    
  
  
• Added a special Black Death event chain for when the Black Death spawns, with special art, music, content and effects.
  
• Added new Diseases: Holy Fire, Bloody Flux and Measles, all of them available as potential plagues.
  
• 28 new character assets to immerse you into the late medieval era and give ailing patients and skilled physicians a distinct look:
  
  
  
  • 3 variants of male late style western nobility clothes
    
  • 1 variant of male bedchamber clothes
    
  • 1 physician male clothes
    
  • 2 variants of male late style western nobility cloaks
    
  • 4 variants of male late style western nobility headgear
    
  • 2 variants late style western commoner headgear
    
  • 1 variant western royalty headgear
    
  • 1 hooded male headgear
    
  • 2 variants of female late style nobility clothes
    
  • 2 variants of female bedchamber clothes
    
  • 1 physician female clothes
    
  • 2 variants of female late style western nobility cloaks
    
  • 3 variants of female late style western nobility headgear
    
  • 2 variants of female late style western commoner headgear
    
  • 1 hooded female headgear
    
  
  
• Added a new Funeral activity: bury a close relative in a whole new activity, with new events, options, intents and rewards.
  
• Added a new Legendary Feast option to the Feast Activity focused on getting new promoters for your legend and increasing its spread.
  
• Added new Activity Intents: Extort Legitimacy and Spread Legend.
  
• Added a new building line to temple holdings: Scriptoria, which increases legend spread and county control.
  
• Added a new building line of Duchy buildings: Burial Sites. Build up your family mausoleum and obtain legend bonuses, plague resistance, piety, court grandeur, county control and popular opinion.
  
• Added a new Court Chronicler court position, focused on finding new legends and helping you spread yours both inside and outside of your realm using new Court Position Tasks.
  
• Added an exclusive Map Table, with unique assets that reflect both Plagues and Legends.
  
• Added map graphics VFX for the spread of legends.
  
• Added new legendary and fateful music tracks as well as new both Legend and Plague Mood Tracks.
  

• Added Plagues: some diseases will now be treated as epidemics and spread through the map, causing Fatalities and infecting characters in that location.
  
  
  
  • Added many new plague events, both for when a plague is in your realm and when it's approaching, and decisions to protect yourself, your family, or your entire capital.
    
  • Added new events for the Court Physician, focused on plagues.
    
  • Reworked old health events, adding new flavor, animations and art.
    
  • Added new court position tasks for Court Physician - focused on helping with plagues, increasing piety and lifestyle experience - and for the Court Musician and Poet, focused on the spread of legends.
    
  • Added a new Hospice building line, available in all sorts of holdings, and providing Plague Resistance and Piety.
    
  
  
• Added Elderly and Child Health, affecting younger and older characters more with certain diseases.
  
• New Disease Game Rules and special Black Death rules, affecting its frequency, year and place of spawn, including historical settings.
  
• Added Legitimacy: a new system to measure the perception of your right to rule, including the Legitimacy Expectations from both Powerful and Regular Vassals.
  
  
  
  • Added Legitimacy rewards to old decisions, traits, and activities.
    
  • Added a new Dynasty Legacy: Legitimacy, focused on increasing Legitimacy, unlocking new intents and improving your dynasty's education.
    
  • Added Legitimacy penalties to some character interactions: Disinheriting a child, asking them to Take the Vows, or marrying a Lowborn.
    
  • Added Legitimacy modifiers to title creation: allowing you to create a title from less de jure counties if you have a high Legitimacy level.
    
  
  
• Added a new Faith Doctrine: Funerary Tradition, that affects the main event and rewards from Funerals.
  
• Added a new Cultural Tradition: Water Rituals, that helps with plague resistance.
  
• Added new disease graphics on the character models.
  
• Added new epidemic travel danger type for locations with plagues present
  
• Added map graphics VFX for the spread of disease
  
• Added option to hide the disease map graphics
  
• Added a default Map Table, with new assets and art, that improves immersion and offers a physical place for the map.
  
• Restructured and polished Event Window so that it can accommodate VFX.
  
• New Event VFX: Flies, Fog, Legend Glow, Rain, Smoke and Snow.
  
• New animations and instruments: hurdy-gurdy, flute, lute, qanun, and shawn.
  
• Remastered music and effects, bringing the map to life.
  
• Monthly county control is now split into two separate 'Growth' and 'Decline' figures, each with their own modifiers.
  
• Added new birds flying over the map, with seagulls in coastal provinces and crows flying over infected holdings.
  
• Added a coughing animation to armies passing through infected provinces.
  
• Added new map models like Healers' Camps, Burial Grounds, and Funeral Pyres spawning naturally in infected provinces.
  
• The Scarred Trait is now tiered, with gradually more drastic visuals and effects according to the level of the trait.
  
• Added balding hairstyles and a system for male pattern baldness. Characters have a baldness value in their DNA which affects the age at which (male) characters start losing their hair.
  

• All Plague Diseases are now more deadly, especially the Black Death.
  
• Rebalanced other Diseases to account for Elderly and Child Health.
  
• Made Brythonic heritage less likely to destroy the title of England.
  
• Removing a guardian will now only reduce unity once every three months rather than every time.
  
• The Ill trait is now more deadly to adult characters.
  
• Slightly reduced the legend spread rate from buildings, shared languages, and culture heritages.
  
• Inbred trait now reduces initial Legitimacy.
  
• AI now considers epidemics quite an important factor while thinking about hosting and joining activities.
  
• Completing Roman Heritage legend now gives claims in Italy, North Africa, Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
  
• Increased development gain from coastal provinces.
  

• Fixed AI being unintentionally less aggressive immediately after save-game load.
  
• AI should now be able to choose the "Dominate the Caliph" struggle ending option successfully.
  
• Make the AI remember when it last finished an offensive war between save games.
  
• Fix issue where activity intents were not being set correctly for AI activity attendees (would take default intent).
  
• Fix AI rulers waiting very long to convert their betrothal into marriage, if they gained their first title while being betrothed.
  
• Characters from savegames that were players before, and are no longer, will now get an AI strategy (and not sit brainless in their castle until death takes them).
  
• Fixed issue where add_{budget}_gold triggers would not give extra gold, but only make the AI think they had more gold to spend, getting them to try and spend gold they do not have. Gold now actually gets created.
  

• Reworked interface for court positions:
  
  
  
  • Entries are smaller so as to show more court positions at the same time.
    
  • Court Positions can now have actions, similarly to Council Positions.
    
  • Each Court Position has their own icon.
    
  • Court Positions are color coded by their most important skill category.
    
  • Courtier aptitude is color coded and has an icon to be more distinguishable.
    
  
  
• Added monthly change descriptions of control and development to holding view so players can take action on it directly.
  
• Added max_height property to widgets. Works just like max_width.
  
• Added min_height property to widgets. Works just like min_width.
  
• Consistently use our tooltip-style throughout the game (fixes breakdown tooltips in county view, HUD budget list, tax slots, ruler designer, and more).
  
• Explain county absolute control in tooltips where possible.
  
• Fix text alignment of long texts in breakdown tooltips, and apply better bottom margins.
  
• Fixed various icon and text alignment issues in the tax jurisdictions interfaces.
  
• Highlight development loss or stagnation in holding view.
  
• Removes expiration information from timed character modifiers that do not have a set expiration.
  
• Fix Regent portrait to no longer push Lovers portraits out of the UI window.
  
• Court position UI now allows filtering by if they have tasks or not.
  
• Marriage UI now shows the specific chance of inbreeding happening.
  

• Chaplains now use Fate of Iberia temple art in the council view when relevant.
  
• Character view for Theocratic rulers, Chaplains, and Physicians now uses temple and study backgrounds.
  
• Concubine interaction now uses the faith temple background instead of a generic corridor.
  
• New loading screen illustration for "Legends of the Dead" expansion.
  
• 4 new Trait icons: Measles, Dysentery, Ergotism, Legendary.
  
• 2 new Memory icons: Plague and Legend.
  
• Travel Danger icon for Epidemics.
  
• 2 new Map Mode icons: Plague and Legends.
  
• 6 new Decision images:
  
  
  
  • Archers
    
  • Legitimacy
    
  • Legend
    
  • Family Tree
    
  • Black Plague
    
  • Tale
    
  
  
• 4 new Artifact icons: Animal Figurine, Chronicle, Jar, Northern Mace.
  
• 5 new Story Event images:
  
  
  
  • Apocalyptic Disease
    
  • Black Death
    
  • Heroic Legend
    
  • Holy Legend
    
  • Legitimizing Legend.
    
  
  
• 2 new Legacy Track illustrations: Legitimacy and Heroic.
  
• 2 new Activity Intent icons: Legitimacy, Legends.
  
• 11 new achievement icons.
  
• Polished Council and Courtier Task icons.
  
• 7 new Courtier Task icons:
  
  
  
  • Neutral
    
  • Espouse Legend
    
  • Generate Seed
    
  • Promote Legend
    
  • Attend Poor
    
  • Guard Family
    
  • Treat Epidemic
    
  
  
• Polished all circular progress bars.
  
• 7 new Event Backgrounds:
  
  
  
  • Catacombs
    
  • Oasis
    
  • Pyre
    
  • MENA Physicians Study
    
  • Tribal Physicians Study
    
  • Indian Physicians Study
    
  
  
• Condemned Village
  
• 3 new full body disease decals
  
• 16 new Legendary Building models:
  
  
  
  • Christian Shrine
    
  • Norse Mead Hall
    
  • Norse Shrine
    
  • Desert Hunting Lodge
    
  • Dharmic Shrine
    
  • Indian Heroes PIllar
    
  • Hunting Lodge
    
  • Indian Palace
    
  • Islamic Palace
    
  • Islamic Shrine
    
  • Mediterranean Monument
    
  • Norse Runestone
    
  • Steppe Shrine
    
  • Western Hero Statue
    
  • Western Palace
    
  • Western Watchtower
    
  
  
• 7 new Building icons:
  
  
  
  • Graveyard
    
  • Hospice
    
  • Legendary Shrine
    
  • Legendary Hunting Lodge
    
  • Legendary Watchtower
    
  • Legendary Palace
    
  • Hero Statue
    
  
  
• 9 new props:
  
  
  
  • Alto Flute
    
  • Bronze Mortar
    
  • Bronze Pestle
    
  • Chifonie
    
  • Lute
    
  • Northern Mace
    
  • Book
    
  • Qanun
    
  • Shawn
    
  
  
• Ritual Washing Culture Tradition icon
  
• New Character Portrait shader. Gives characters a painterly look to them.
  

• Fixed a typo in the Find a new Faith for Persia decision.
  
• Fixed missing type when localizing HOSTAGE_OATH_OF_FRIENDSHIP.
  
• Fixed untranslated weapon type name in Exotic Arms event.
  
• Fixed a typo in City Walls of Toledo description.
  
• Fixed missing loc in Demand Conversion.
  
• Fixed AI acceptance tooltip to Request Incursion.
  
• Fixes trigger tooltips for options in Embellish Capital Decision.
  
• Fixes invalid tooltip for Take the Vows option in the Negotiate Release character interaction.
  
• Shortens event text in Travel: A Feast for Falcons to avoid a scrollbar.
  
• Fixed broken text in the House Feud rivalry reciprocation event.
  
• The tooltip in the event option for ending a house feud is now fully localized.
  
• Removed incorrect cannot march here text in tooltips for army units.
  
• Adds missing localization for modifier affecting faction join chance regarding Detractor trait.
  
• Fixed Wetlanders cultural tradition description.
  
• Propose Alliance interaction tooltip now correctly informs about existing hook on target character.
  
• Fixed a tooltip info about losing house unity when refusing the independence faction demands.
  
• The tooltip for the Wootz Steel innovation now lists the terrain requirement for the Wind Furnace building.
  

• Added Situation Log entry if a Vassal is waging a war which would make them independent or change Liege upon victory.
  
• Removed regency option from Challenge House Head interaction.
  
• Vassals now receive a message if their liege or above starts or succeeds in converting a county in their sub-realm.
  
• Child rulers under 12 are now allowed to sponsor inspirations. (Kid: "Goo goo pretty", Inspired Courtier: "Sire has Spoken! Thy will be done.")
  

• Add complex trigger support to morph_gene_value.
  
• Added NCamera::START_ZOOM_STEP define for more control over starting map view when selecting a character.
  
• Added new county triggers:
  
  
  
  • monthly_county_control_growth
    
  • monthly_county_control_decline
    
  • monthly_county_control_growth_factor
    
  • monthly_county_control_decline_factor
    
  
  
• Allow changing trait XP on dead characters
  
• County trigger 'county_control_rate' is now called 'monthly_county_control_change'.
  
• County trigger 'county_control_rate_modifier' gone, it is split into 'monthly_county_control_growth_factor' and 'monthly_county_control_decline_factor'.
  
• Tags set on portrait accessories can now influence decals and texture_overrides (Example: a hairstyle can trigger a head decal to be on/off now).
  
• Feed messages of the same type can now be auto-combined into one by using combine_into_one = yes.
  
• Text icons can be colorized by specifying a color definition in their configuration, such as `color = "color:red"`.
  
• Color of text icons can be overridden in localization strings by doing `@icon_name:color_name!` or inherit from the current formatting by doing `@icon_name:inherit_color!`.
  
• Deprecated is_widget_open trigger, preferred trigger for this functionality is new faster is_widgetid_open trigger, which works on widgetids instead of widget names.
  
• Added possibility to store script variables on dead characters.
  
• Added on_yearly effect to court positions.
  
• Renamed tooltip_enabled to tooltip_visible in gui script.
  

• Cleaned up naming for some Houses and Dynasties in India to be more consistent with how other house and dynasty names are represented.
  
• Marzoban Zahhak of Upper Ghur is now the uncle of Ghurshah Sri of Ghur in the 867 bookmark
  
• The Badami, Kalyani and Vengi Chalukyas are now considered branches of the same dynasty.
  
• Shazhou's culture is now Han rather than Sogdian in 867.
  

• Celibate trait no longer modifies opinion about characters with Eager Reveler trait.
  
• Event chain Great Expectations no longer can result in a potential game over due to heir gender.
  
• The Umayyad Strikes Back achievement now correctly requires Sunni Caliphate title.
  
• Non-clan rulers now get notifications about tax jurisdictions if they have Clan vassals.
  
• Raj'a tenet now is available for custom Zoroastrian faiths.
  
• Manage Royal Guards Martial Task decreases success chance for Enemy Hostile Scheme instead of increasing it.
  
• Skill bonuses from Confidants are now named correctly.
  
• The Tomb of Batsheba now increases close relative opinion of holder instead of increasing holder opinion of female rulers.
  
• Seljuks will no longer try to become your vassal if you are duke or below.
  
• House Feud ending event has now fully localized and truthful tooltips.
  
• Exaltation of Pain tenet no longer has a pink description. Sad.
  
• Fixed notification about a wrong artifact being stolen from you.
  
• Knight training from Mentor accolade now tells you the truth about the hastiluder track your knight is being trained on.
  
• Prevent the player from being able to deselect all radio buttons in the interaction window.
  
• Fixed Canterbury Cathedral not being a Point of Interest when upgraded to lvl 2 and 3.
  
• Fixed Castles not showing a 2D icon when upgrading them.
  
• Fixed OOS issue related to timed modifiers on travel plans.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Request Contract Assistance interaction so that it's finally usable.
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where players could generate different names for an accolade, leading to an OOS error.
  
• Fixed incorrect lighting setup in one of the Zoroastrian temple event backgrounds.
  
• Fixed issue where dead characters might both have both a 'former' and 'current' spouse that is the same.
  
• Fixed travel modifiers stacking when they should not (stacking quarreling entourage modifiers could escalate into a shouting match of epic proportions).
  
• Fixed you referring to yourself as your liege when changing stance during the Iranian Intermezzo.
  
• Fixed a graphical issue in the inventory with historical artifacts when their culture isn't set.
  
• Fixed House head succession if both the house head and heir die on the same day (house no longer cursed with a dead house head for eternity).
  
• Iranian rulers will now use Iranian clothes much more often.
  
• Off to play event will no longer trigger if the host of the event has died.
  
• Partially shaved hairstyles now have a proper 'clean' dome.
  
• Player will get correct notification & better GUI when "Abbasid Humiliation" struggle ending with "Dominate the Caliph" option is available.
  
• Positive county control change % modifiers now no longer make negative control changes bigger (they do not affect those anymore).
  
• Prevent you from becoming your own tax collector after succession.
  
• Raised armies now start with full supply instead of a fixed 100 (relevant if their supply capacity was increased by modifiers such as the Living off the Land perk).
  
• Reduced time on disrespected elders modifier.
  
• Replaced all instances of script values for aptitude expecting incorrectly a level distribution with the correct distribution of.
  
• The Denounced, Disinherited, Extolled by House, and Accused of Decadence traits will now be removed if a character becomes Dynasty Head/House Head respectively.
  
• When marrying a wandering character via a grand wedding, they will no longer run back to their previous location after the wedding.
  
• When title is revoked from a ruler they can steal counties from vassals if the ruler has any other non-titular non-head of faith title and has any vassals to steal from.
  
• You can now revoke all titles of a vassal that hold a HoF-title, causing the HoF-title to be destroyed.
  
• You can now revoke vassal-of-vassal Holy orders where appropriate (via decision or button-interaction on barony).
  
• Fixed an edge case where viziers would, under certain circumstances, reduce your tax gain from vassals rather than increase it.
  
• Fixed bug where part of the Tutorial button was unclickable.
  
• Yearly cultural acceptance changes will actually trigger roughly yearly instead of sort-of bi-monthly.
  
• Fixed that potential knights come knights immediately, instead of waiting a day (or longer for AI).
  
• Added safety check to travel_completion_event.1000 so it does not trigger if the current travel plan was aborted.
  
• Control Growth multiplier modifier no longer applies its modifier if the growth is negative.
  
• Court Scholar court position now correctly only requires Legacy of Persia DLC, and not Royal Court as well.
  
• Ethos is now correctly listed in the Cultural Pillar encyclopedia entry.
  
• Fixed Dismantle Byzantine/Holy Roman Pretenders decision being available more than once per lifetime, which broke the war declaration.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Hostage could remain a hostage after the Warden inherits the Home Court from a family member.
  
• Fixed a bug where the attacker's max troop count was always used as the losing side's max troop count when calculating war score from battles.
  
• Fixed a bug where winning a battle as the attacker would use the defender's scaling for calculating the war score.
  
• Fixed an issue where an aborted travel plan could progress travel days.
  
• Fixed an issue where an aborted travel plan could skip to the next destination.
  
• Fixed an out of sync where host and client disagree on who won a battle.
  
• Fixed bug where a recently landed, former court position employee could sometimes get the salary twice in a month.
  
• Fixed characters sometimes not being correctly added to entourage and court in travel events.
  
• Fixed issue where accepting demands when negotiating to Challenge House Head would not make you the House Head.
  
• Fixed issues with the Challenge House Head events when playing as House Head.
  
• Fixed OOS error on hotjoin where an unlanded court position employee becomes landed, loses their position and gets their salary later in the month due to changed rank.
  
• Fixed the Execute a Detractor/Supporter Iranian Intermezzo catalyst never firing.
  
• Fixed the Homeward Bound travel event breaking if your entourage was empty.
  
• Fixed war victory against same or higher tier ruler Iranian Intermezzo catalysts not firing.
  
• Fixed wiping the Seljuk's invasion not allowing you to end the war, added war target title to its name and disabled hostage peace options.
  
• Fixes issues with sexuality, tooltips, and pregnancy in the Adventurer Inspiration event Lady/Lord X's Lover.
  
• Holding Court will now always grant a small amount of Court Grandeur at a minimum.
  
• It is now only possible to share a Spouse with a family member in Polygamous faiths if all parties believe in Unrestricted Marriage.
  
• Prevented negative AI acceptance modifier being added to Offer Vassalization acceptance after having purchased a truce.
  
• Religious heads are no longer given the option to embrace Jesus in the Wanton Desires stress event.
  
• add_courtier and set_employer effects can no longer be used to return a hostage to their home court.
  
• Viziers (and Stewards) without titles now correctly receive a monthly gold income too, based on their liege. It shouldn't require a title to mooch off some funds.
  
• You should not be able to grant lessee temple holdings to other characters when your court chaplain position is empty
  
• The Dome of Soltaniyeh is now correctly considered to be a Wonder travel point of interest.
  
• Fixed "weight_multiplier" for events - multiplied value was used to filter out "0-weight" events, but not for actual weight picking.
  
• Fixed Coat-of-Arms graphics to update immediately when the new or old holder is a clan and overrides the default CoA.
  
• Fixed re-activating a dynasty house when a new member wondrously appears again (usually happens when the last member dies while their wife is pregnant - the baby being born will revive the house).
  
• Fixed crash that could happen when opening up the barbershop while playing an unplayable character (through observer mode for example).
  
• Couture of the Capets character assets are now properly available in the barbershop.
  
• Allow lieges to build in holdings they lease out.
  
• Fix court amenity expenses costing piety or prestige to actually use those resources and not gold.
  
• Character tooltips in Activity Window and Event Window have been adjusted to not block characters in certain resolutions.
  
• Added missing Faction triggers.
  
• Fixed broken Iranian Resurgence check.
  
• Disallowed courtiers being taken hostage by their own liege.
  
• Fixed a very unperformant Seljuk effect.
  
• Fixed event with two childhood Traits.
  
• Fixed Seljuk Invasion target.
  
• Fixed Zakat Tax Decree.
  
• Fixed an edge case where you were able to start planning a Grand Rite without a witch trait or witch secret.
  
• Fixed bug where the vizier position was invalidated due to us checking if our liege could have one, not us.
  
• Fixed Iqta description and effects are not at odds with each other anymore.
  
• Made it harder to steal parents from their children's court, and impossible to steal unlanded guardians, court position holders, and councilors.
  
• Fixed max limit on scaling House Unity modifiers.
  
• Fixed scrollbar in friendship letter.
  
• Fixed an error when a dog seller leaves your court.
  
• Fixed error log showing errors for decision items in observer mode.
  
• Fixed double notification when someone else "Renewed the Caliphate".
  
• Fixed removed stray modifiers if a Grand Wedding invalidates.
  
• Fixed the history of artifacts stolen during a siege.
  
• Fixed accusing servants of being the real father of someone else's heir when they are younger than the heir in question.
  
• Fixed Mozarabism appearing as a regional heresy outside of Iberia.
  

Hello and welcome to the 146th Dev Diary for Crusader Kings III! Im Matthew, the Code Owner on Legends of the Dead. From the highly anticipated Epidemics feature to the Black Death itselfand what happens after your land is ravaged and your family taken to the gravetoday were going to be covering all things Death!

Discuss Dev Diary #146 on our forums!



As stated in the Vision Dev Diary, weve wanted to include Epidemics for a long time nowdoing them bigger and better than CK2 ever did.

Plagues should be an impactful part of the game, ranging from a mild illness in a localized area to the sweeping spread of diseases across continents. Not only should they cause death in their wake, but those who survive should have their trust in your rulership tested.

Every barony with a holding is susceptible to an outbreak of disease, and many factors can influence the chance of an outbreak:

• The development of the county
  
• Terrain of the province
  
• Number of buildings
  
• Specific buildings such as trade posts and markets
  
• Cultural era
  
• If there is a nearby epidemic already
  
• Game rules
  

Hello and welcome to the first of our feature breakdown Development Diaries! I'm a game designer on Crusader Kings 3 and I surely hope that you have a nice cup of coffee next to you and the will to read for a while, as today's entry is on the chonkier side! Today we will talk about Legends, Legitimacy, and the Art behind Legends of the Dead.

So, let's get right into it! Legends!

Discuss Dev Diary #145 on our forums!





[h2]Legends[/h2]

We've already covered the original reasoning behind legends in our previous Vision Dev Diary, but to go over it quickly (and in a very oversimplified manner) again: medieval people really loved legends, and above all of them, rulers really loved legends. One of the first times we ever hear of King Arthur is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which is, as the name says, a list of the kings of Britain.

The Plantagenet kings of England quickly latched onto the figure of Arthur as a legitimizing tool. This was partly a reaction to the German and French (specially the Capetians), that exalted their connection to Charlemagne in this "race for historic-mythical sponsorship" as the medieval historian Jacques Le Goff writes. All across Europe, medieval monarchs scrambled to find an older, more heroic figure, that would secure the throne for their dynasty.

And now, so can you!

Legends have a Type and Quality level. Because no legend can be entirely mundane, they start at Famed, then Illustrious and finally Mythical, each of them giving out progressively more powerful rewards; you can increase the quality of the legend when it has spread far enough, including having to extend outside of your realm.


[Image: Rewards for completing a Famed Legitimizing legend]


[Image: Rewards for completing a Mythical Legitimizing legend]


As for the Types, Legends can be Heroic, Holy or Legitimizing.

Heroic legends give additional Prestige modifiers and other thematic rewards that reflect your heroism, like the decision of launching a Legendary Adventure, or Demand Local Submission.


[Image showing one of the special Heroic Legend rewards]


Holy legends are focused around Piety and are greatly inspired by medieval hagiographies, specifically the Golden Legend, allowing the Protagonist to even gain the Saint at the highest levels, if the appropriate Dynasty Perk has been unlocked.


[Image showing one of the Dynasty Perks for the new Heroic Bloodline Dynasty Legacy, focused on Legends]


Lastly, Legitimizing legends will give you double the amount of Legitimacy and allow you to get new, powerful claims to expand your realm, as shown in the rewards above.

You also can, of course, choose the Legend Protagonist, the author of these heroic deeds. Among the possible options are your relatives (even if dead) and choosing someone other than yourself will also grant you extra Legitimacy, so you can dedicate your legend to your dragon-hunting grandpa.

But how can you start a legend? Well, every legend is born from a Legend Seed. Some characters start with historical seeds on game start, like the Capetians Heirs of Charlegmane, or the Hunnic Heritage, available for Nomadic cultures that claim to be descended from Attila himself.


[Image: The Heirs of Charlemagne legend seed]


[Image: Hunnic Heritage legend seed]


However, this is not the only way to get legend seeds, as winning important wars, hunting a legendary animal, and taking major decisions are also some of the most common ways of getting one.

Even hiring a capable Court Chronicler and paying them enough gold can manage to make an ancient document appear mentioning your long-lasting dynasty.


[Image: Mending the Great Schism will grant you a Holy Legend seed]


But supporting a legend is not only beneficial for its owner, as becoming a promoter (a much cheaper alternative) will also grant you special bonuses, as well as helping the legend spread on your lands - the higher quality the legend, the bigger the rewards for you too.


[Image: Promoter bonuses]


While you spread your legend, you'll get flavor events of both people reacting to your legend in different manners along with your Chronicler and courtiers fervently asking you to recount the story just once more, my liege, making it possible to introduce ehem minor alterations to the text.

Use the new Court Position Tasks to make your Musicians and Poets sing your legend to make it easier to spread inside your realm, or get them to try and convince supporters abroad!


[Image: Court Musician performing the new Extol Domestic Legend task]


Turn your legend into an artifact, celebrate a feast in its honor, or simply enjoy the control boosts from having it spread over people that now believe you a hero. Legends were a core part of the medieval world, a powerful tool to root your power in something greater than you.

"Lineage and geste are synonymous, as the epic cycle constitutes itself according to a pattern of affiliation between families of heroes and families of poems." (R. Howard Bloch, 1983: 94).


[And here it was written, Paradox Forum, 20th of February, 2024 AD.]

[h2]Legitimacy[/h2]
For Legitimacy, our aim was to put together a measurement of different systems that already existed in the game, but were not directly connected to each other: Short Reign penalties, Popular Opinion, Vassalization and Marriage acceptance, etc. The game was already trying to reflect how legitimate of a ruler you were, but was trying to do so with Prestige and Renown in non-consistent ways. Prestige is a reflection of the social influence of the character, not an indication of them being the "right" person to the throne - you can be a highly prestigious king of the Capetian dynasty, but should you be the emperor of Byzantium?

Legitimacy and its effects scale with title tier. It's not the same being a level 5 Emperor - where everyone expects you to be the right person for the job - than a level 5 Duke, where everyone is impressed with your overachieving.



[Images: Count with Legitimacy level 0 and 5]



[Images: Emperor with Legitimacy level 0 and 5]


It's also easier to go up and down levels the lower your tier, as it's harder to convince people once they've formed an idea of who their king is.

Legitimacy also scales with the in the game era, and the levels are smaller in the Tribal and Early Medieval eras.

Legitimacy is calculated through a series of factors, mainly attached to who you are in relation to your title: the level of splendor of your dynasty, how long you've been on the throne, who your parents were (are you the child of kings or just random lowborns?), your traits, being a bastard, etc. When you die, a part of your legitimacy will be passed down to your heir, but they will get a calculation of their own based on who they are - it's not the same to have your firstborn inherit than a third cousin.


[Image: The Sayyid traits increases your Legitimacy]



Legitimacy can be gained through various means that will reassure the public opinion that you have the right to be in the throne: legends, for one, are one of the main ways to gain it. Holding activities, holding court, and doing what's expected of a ruler will also help increase it, as well as winning wars - but this will also be relative, as it's not the same to win a war against a Duke as an Emperor than be the Duke beating up the Emperor.

Legitimacy can also be lost. Losing battles, especially to factions (and especially to Claimant factions) will make you look pretty bad, or even managing to have a Peasant Rebellion appear will signify that you're not taking good care of your subjects. Rulers were also blamed for plagues, as the representatives of God on earth, so allowing them to hit your capital will also make you appear less legitimate in the eyes of your vassals. Disinheriting or forcing kids to take the vows also exposes a ruler that doesn't take good care of their dynasty and will also make you lose Legitimacy.


[Image: Disinheriting your heir will cost you more Legitimacy]


Your vassals, of course, have Expectations of you. This is calculated based on your tier, era, and how long your family has ruled over theirs, besides their opinion and relationship to you. Not meeting your vassal expectations will make them discontent and more likely to join factions against you.


[Image: King with Legitimacy level 3]


As we've already seen in the tooltips, Legitimacy levels affect all sorts of things in the game: Casus Belli cost, Marriage and Alliance acceptance, Faction formation and even the counties necessary to create a title.


[Image: The art for the new Legitimacy Dynasty Legacy]

[hr][/hr]

The Lady of Shalott
Hello! My name is Pavel Golovii and I am a senior illustrator at Paradox. I have been working on a number of illustrations for this expansion and today I am going to talk about processes behind the scenes of illustration work. As an example, I will take arguably the most challenging kind of illustrations we have in game - the loading screen. This illustration is the player's first introduction to the expansion and bears the responsibility of giving them a feeling of anticipation.

[h2]Ideation[/h2]
Every picture starts with an idea. With the introduction of epidemics in Legends of the Dead I regarded the opportunity to feature a physician, a healer as very fresh and appealing. It would be a positive, reassuring subject matter when compared to the intrigue, war and power struggles that dominate the themes of our other illustrations. Truth be told, a lot of inspiration was coming from The Physician movie and some orientalists paintings.


[Image: A couple of the initial ideas featuring an eastern theme with a physician.]


Another idea that was suggested and actively supported by game designers is the legend of The Lady of Shalott. This medieval themed story is a beautiful blend of tropes for both legend and death and provides a very suitable metaphor for the new expansion. At the same time this theme was depicted in many paintings by a number of renowned artists. It was especially popular in the Pre-Raphaelite era with a series of paintings by John Waterhouse featuring the legend. This potentially added to the challenge of making it relatively unique and unwittingly could bring up an unfavorable comparison with a masters work. Somewhat reluctantly I took a stab at it and did some sketches.


[Image: Composition sketches for The Lady of Shalott theme.]


After discussing all of the above ideas with the team and the art director we decided to further develop the last (bottom one) variant as the most original and also well-fitting to present the Legends of the Dead DLC. Yet the physician theme was not trashed and made its way to become one of the story event illustrations. The composition of the chosen variant underwent a few changes afterwards following art-directors feedback. We decided to get rid of the straight top-down view in favor of a more traditional perspective and closer look at the character yet retaining dynamic shapes of the water weeds and flowing dress.


[Image: Final composition that was approved.]


In many ways decisions made at this early stage affect the overall success of the final image. A good outcome is not guaranteed of course, but if properly made it creates a firm foundation for further work. On the contrary, skipping crucial steps assuming these can be tackled at a later stage can turn the painting process into a struggle, even though digital medium allows to change things easily at any moment.

[h2]Color Explorations[/h2]
I rarely do color explorations before final shapes and values for the composition are established. But this time I started experimenting with colors a bit earlier using AI which gave me an extra bit of flexibility and an abundance of variations. A locally installed Stable Diffusion with Control Net was used for generating rough color thumbnails based on my composition sketches. Black & white composition images were used to restrict image generation to shapes defined in them. Another color image that just contained the color palette of my preference was fed to Control net to roughly define color to be applied. Text prompt was of little importance, and I kept it very simple and basic. The results are pretty far from highly detailed crisp digital pictures that are usually expected from AI generated images. They are quite inconsistent and rough and have a great deal of randomness. But this is actually what I appreciate in these. I like that level of abstraction. Accidental interpretations of my composition ideas by AI provided me with extra inspiration. Not only the colors, but also values, shapes, edges and textures that start to loom in these thumbnails can give a new hint regarding a certain aspect of the artwork.


[Image: There was a sheer number of AI interpretations of my composition sketches.]


The major caveat with these AI generations is that you can do so many of them in a relatively short amount of time that you need to be quite decisive to stop that dopamine trap and move on. Otherwise they just pile up as photos on a mobile phone that you never return to.

Now the chosen AI generated color samples need to be applied to composition with proper distribution of size, shapes and accent placement (here AI is not of much help, not yet at least).


[Image: AI generated color blobs and sketches painted after them.]

[previewyoutube=UOXTeFFxbyc;full][/previewyoutube]
[Video: Creation of a color sketch based on an AI generated thumbnail.]


The animation above shows the process of turning a generated color thumbnail into a color sketch that is submitted for the art team review. The greenish-violet palette was acknowledged as the most appropriate for the theme, with a flavor of mystery and slight surreal feel of goldish light reflections in the water.

[h2]Painting[/h2]
After major decisions have been made it is time to make that final leap to the finished painting. Here the biggest challenge for me is to keep the overall image balance while adding details. Even when painting over a well-defined sketch, the image inevitably changes during the process. Defining a hand gesture or dress design may change the flow of the shapes and force readjustments in other places. It is very easy to get carried away by a certain area of the picture and then realize that the detail you have just painted does not work when viewed from a distance or pops out too much and breaks the general balance of tonal values. Some elements of the image require more attention than the others. Character face is obviously a detail number one in that specific images hierarchy, and it took me a while to paint it and find the proper expression. At the same time a number of secondary parts of the image I may have left untouched since the color sketch creation.

A crucial role in that process of image balancing plays feedback from the art director and the team. Over time while working on an illustration I get less perceptive of it. And during the regular art reviews I can get a fresh view from my team that helps to notice mistakes and flaws or even to recognize the moment when it is time to stop and call the image done.





[Image: Art directors feedback suggesting perspective and tonal corrections.]
[CMs Note: Tastefully censored.]


Here at Paradox, we have regular drawing sessions where our artists can draw either live models or from references. While the primary purpose of this is to train general drawing skills (a kind of an art gym), this can also be used for more specific tasks. I can ask a model to take a specific pose or gesture that I am working on in my current assignment. This can be quite helpful to make characters in an illustration look more convincing, find a better gesture or just simply avoid crude drawing mistakes.


[Image: A few examples of sketches and studies done with ongoing illustration assignments in mind.]
[CMs Note: Also censored.]


[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
On a final note, I have to confess that romanticized stories like the one about the Lady of Shalott are not that inspiring for me in general. The drama of these stories often seems too quixotic and naive to me. Yet one can find in their symbols and metaphors some true inspiring moments. For me in the case of the Lady of Shalott it was the contrast of young and flourishing life and premature death it was doomed for. I hope I managed to convey a bit of my sensations in the illustration.

Map Tables
Hello! My name is Joacim Carlberg and Im the 3D Environment Lead on CKIII.

Im going to introduce our new visual map tables, a feature weve wanted to add for a long time. With the new chapter a table scene will now appear as you lift your gaze higher from the map for an overview of the world. With the release of Legends of the Dead we have added two new map tables, the tables are chosen dynamically or if you have a preference you can also change the active one in the settings menu.


[Image: The map table as it appears in Legends of the Dead.]


If you do not have Legends of the Dead a base table will still be included with the accompanying patch, which can be seen below.


[Image: The map table as it appears without Legends of the Dead enabled.]


We think this will give a more immersive experience when overlooking the extent of your kingdom, the tendrils of plagues spreading the lands, and your legends spreading across the realms.

For those that love visual mods or total conversion mods for the game will find that this framing is also quite moddable.

[h2]Legendary Buildings[/h2]
As you finish your legends you will find opportunities to add a new site in your kingdom that commemorates or relates to the legend youve sown and grown. These legendary locations provide bonuses, but also show up in the landscape of your realm.


[Image: Legendary Statue, MENA Legendary Palace, India Legendary Palace, Legendary Runestone]


Theres more of these, but well let you discover them in your own playthrough.

[h2]Instruments[/h2]


[Image: Lute, Flute, Shawm, Hurdy Gurdy, Qanun in back]


While working with El Tyranos with the recent content creator pack the environment team also collaborated with him to bring a set of new instruments into the game for courtiers and rulers to bring some music and levity, and for minstrels to spread legends and great deeds.

[h3]Flute/Recorder[/h3]
A ubiquitous instrument in many musical traditions, the flute has been a part of human history for millennia. While many of us first encounter music through the recorder, a flute variant, the broader family of flutes offers a diverse range of sounds. The flute's origins can be traced globally, with evidence of similar instruments found across various cultures. Its simple yet elegant design and versatility make it a staple in both classical and contemporary music.

[h3]Hurdy-Gurdy[/h3]
The hurdy-gurdy, popular until the 19th century and experiencing a resurgence, is recognized for its distinctive drone. Its mechanism involves a rotating wheel running along the strings, making it a precursor to modern violins and influencing the design of the nyckelharpa.

[h3]Lute[/h3]
A stringed instrument associated with minstrel songs of the Middle Ages, evolved from the medieval Islamic oud. It has a versatile range, transcending time and leaving a mark on musical history. The lute is synonymous with troubadours and courtly melodies.

[h3]Shawm[/h3]
A woodwind instrument and precursor to the modern oboe, gained popularity from the later Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Its distinctive double reed and conical bore contributed to the development of subsequent woodwind instruments. The shawm's vibrant tones were integral to courtly festivities and religious ceremonies during its heyday.

[h3]Qanun[/h3]
The qanun is an Arabic harp-like instrument with origins dating back to antiquity. It holds a significant place in the musical traditions of the middle east and has influenced a diverse array of musical instruments globally. The qanun's intricate design and delicate strings produce a sound that echoes with the rich history of ancient musical craftsmanship.

All of these instruments will also be found as animation options in the barber shop.


[...Anyway, heres wonderwall]

And with that it's time for us to wrap up todays Dev Diary, more interesting things will be coming next week when well be talking more about Plagues, the Black Death, Funerals, Mod support and showcasing new Character Art (thatd make Papa Nurgle proud).

[hr][/hr]

Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

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Hello everybody! Welcome to this Developer Diary explaining the creative vision behind Crusader Kings IIIs first Core Expansion: Legends of the Dead, courtesy of one of our talented game designers (and resident historian on medieval plagues!)

Discuss Dev Diary #144 on our forums!




In the year of the lord 1346 the Crimean port of Caffa was being besieged by the Golden Horde. The contemporary Italian notary de Mussis writes down that diseased corpses were thrown over its walls and thus, the Black Plague entered Europe. That same year, Edward III of England defeated the forces of king Philip VI of France in Crecy. Two years later, Edward would try to create the Order of the Round Table, inspired by the heroic deeds of King Arthur, and later transformed into the Order of the Garter.

As our Game Director already mentioned in last week's Chapter III overview, we're exploring a new type of expansion focusing on systems that affect the whole map, rather than just adding flavor to a specific region. We didnt have a name for it at the beginning, but we knew we wanted to do something bigger with the time we had, while planning the next Major Expansion.

We've been wanting to cover Plagues since approximately the 12th of January 2021. We still have the early designs stored somewhere, but we put that aside for a while in order to develop the huge endeavor that was Tours & Tournaments. However, the team stayed highly passionate about plagues throughout the entire time (as many of us have fond memories of The Reaper's Due), and we knew it was something that we wanted to tackle again.

Soon after the release of Tours & Tournaments it became apparent that it was the moment to pick up plagues again, but that presented its own challenges, among them a very important one - how to make this distinct from its Crusader Kings II version?

We were also very aware of the circumstances of the world, so we decided it was important to have some hope spreading across the map as well.



When researching the way medieval people saw plagues, we noticed that on many occasions they moved towards blaming the monarchs; If they're a representative of divine power on earth, and God is punishing us, then it must be because the representative is doing a bad job, right? That made us think of the impact that would have on a ruler's Legitimacy... and then we started thinking about Legitimacy itself.

Sure, we already had Prestige in the game, but that felt like a representation of what you've done and how you present yourself, rather than "are you fit to rule?", "do people believe in you?", "are you really the right person for this?" Legitimacy was born as a way to represent these questions within the game, which raised the question: how do you prove your rule is legitimate?

Soon, we thought of the medieval royal genealogies, tracing back the lineages to Trojan heroes, Charlemagne, mythological kings and even gods. Proving that you're the descendant of Aeneas is the easiest way to say, "I am the right person to rule."

"To be noble," the medieval historian George Duby notes, "is to be able to refer to a genealogy."

This, obviously, led us to Legends, and legends certainly did spread during the Middle Ages. King Arthur and his knights became so popular that they soon received translations and new material in French, German, Spanish and Italian. Legends got out of control, changed and expanded through the centuries, creating new stories that had little to do with their original purpose.

In Legends of the Dead, we unite the brightest and darkest moments of humanity - tales of greatness illuminating a devastated land. Desolation and despair, but also the hope that comes after.

Plagues will ravage your realm, causing development to plummet, and kill characters indiscriminately, for Death knows no master. In addition to our existing diseases, you'll be able to suffer from Holy Fire, Bloody Flux, and Measles. Holy Fire was the medieval name for ergotism, while outbreaks of dysentery (frequently occurring in the wake of passing armies) were known as Bloody Flux. Measles in particular is a danger to infants, and could be a dynasty killer if players aren't careful.

Well cover these in more detail when we talk about Plagues in a later Dev Diary, however.



[Image: A Consumption outbreak follows the coast of the English Channel]


[Image: New (and full body!) graphics for measles]

Legends will allow you to write down the heroic deeds of your ancestors or sing about your own glory. Cover the map in the stories that you create, gaining powerful control and skill boosts, among other effects.

Its not just the likes of Hercules who get their own legends, however; being a faithful devotee can also spawn legendary tales of martyrdom and sacrifice. And, of course, you'll be able to trace your Legend back to the most legitimate monarchs of the past. Spreading a Legend (and increasing its quality) will give you unique rewards, such as special Decisions or new Buildings. In such a highly systemic expansion with both Plagues and Legitimacy, Legends also allow for some nice historical flavor and roleplay elements.


[Image: The Custody of the Holy Site legend spreads over Galicia]


[Image: A Legendary Statue built to commemorate a hero's legend]


[Image: A legend turned into an artifact]



We will touch more on Legends and Legitimacy and how they work in-game next week, in addition to a deep dive into the heroic (and sometimes grimy) art created for this expansion! And worry not, Plagues - the most famous of them all in particular - will receive some more attention soon after.

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[previewyoutube=vWUlPnbXUW4;full][/previewyoutube]

What good are grand accomplishments and heroic deeds if no one sings of them after you have gone?

Crusader Kings III: Legends of the Dead adds new heroic gameplay, letting you stoke the flames of your legends into a towering bonfire, as the greatest scourge of the Middle Ages strikes down noble and commoner alike.

Prepare your realm and your soul to face the Final Enemy, and live a life worth singing about!

Legends of the Dead releases on March 4th, but you can purchase Chapter III right now to receive all of the content within it as it releases throughout the year.

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Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
Official Forums Official Discord Steam Discussions
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Note from Community Management: If you missed the premiere video for Chapter III, you can see it below!

[previewyoutube=ClkhKHePN4U;full][/previewyoutube]

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Greetings!

Im Rageair, the Game Director for Crusader Kings III, and today Im excited to present to you Chapter III - in this Dev Diary well briefly go over the themes of each of the expansions that will make up the full package and take sneak a peek at their features!

Chapter III is definitely our most ambitious chapter yet, with a Core Expansion, Major Expansion, and an Event Pack (as well as an instant chapter unlock!) New ways of playing the game, and big, sweeping systems is the name of the game this year. Let's have a look, shall we!

Discuss Dev Diary #143 on our forums!



Core Expansion - Legends of the Dead
Legends of the Dead is all about the map - specifically that which spreads throughout it! Core Expansions will, as mentioned in previous Dev Diaries, focus on broad systemic changes to the core gameplay loop, or high-impact systems that affect large parts of the game world. As this is our first Core Expansion, we wanted systems that were big and all-encompassing, affecting all rulers on the map in one way or another! With that said, heres a high-level list of what you will see in the Expansion and its accompanying update:

[h2]Legends[/h2]
Tales of your or your ancestors' epic deeds will travel across the map, spreading news of your glory across borders into foreign realms. Embellished tales of heroism or piety were a massive and common part of medieval life, and here were allowing you to write your own saga - quite literally! As your legend spreads, a book will be updated with your story - and events you get along the way may allow you to alter certain aspects to suit you better, after all perhaps it was a dragon that your grandfather slew rather than a bear! The more your legend spreads across the map, and the more rulers that propagate it, the more famed it will become.

[h2]Plagues[/h2]
Plagues are the second thing that spreads across the map, but unlike legends they are destructive and nefarious - with a promise to shake up the game! Deadly diseases can sweep across your lands, spawned by either random chance or the activity of armies, and they will destroy development and kill characters with a vengeance. All plagues are different, with varying effects - such as consumption ending the lives of elders with haste, measles shortening the lives of children, and Holy Fire (aka the Dancing Plague) making rulers move erratically. Of course, there will be ways to combat and recover your lands from these terrible maladies!


[Image - One of the ways plagues are visualized]

[h2]The Black Death[/h2]
A looming threat that appears towards the later eras - there is no escape from the Black Death, no matter how much you prepare, the end is nigh!

[h2]Legitimacy[/h2]
This is a new measurement of your right to rule and affects a whole host of other systems from factions, vassalization, and even title creation. Of course, this new value will heavily tie into both Legends and Plagues, but also a myriad of other systems. A legitimate ruler will have a much easier time running a realm but some very tempting actions, such as unrightful title revocation, will decrease legitimacy - making it a precarious balancing act!


Major Expansion - Roads to Power
Climbing your way up from Count to Emperor is a challenge - but to claw your way up the treacherous political ladder of the Byzantine bureaucracy or claiming a new realm as a destitute Adventurer are more challenging yet! This Major Expansion introduces two brand new ways of playing the game, one focused on the Administrative governance of Eastern Rome, and the other on traveling the map in search of fame and fortune. These features have been oft-requested since the early days of Crusader Kings, and we thought it high time to do them - we're pulling out all the stops!

[h2]Imperial Administration[/h2]
Take the reins of a powerful Noble Family within Byzantium and lobby for powerful governorships. Use your influence to improve your standing, improve your estate, and ultimately convince the other families that you should rule as emperor!

[h2]Adventurers[/h2]
Set out across the world as a historical adventurer, one of your own making, or keep playing your beloved character after being unfortunately deposed from your lands! Travel to distant realms, take on contracts, gather friends, wealth, and fame - do mercenary work, or settle in new lands.

[h2]Everything Byzantium[/h2]
Im not exaggerating when I say that this expansion will be dripping with Byzantine flavor. From imperial fashion to new buildings, historical flavor, beautiful mosaics, and much more - the game will immerse you in the setting with a passion.


[Image - Everyone likes grapes]


Event Pack - Wandering Nobles
Travel is a mechanic that really connects your characters to the map, and in this Event Pack we want to flesh the mechanic out with even more reasons to travel, and things that can happen on the road - new sights to see, new paths to take, and new stories to weave together into an immersive narrative!

Is it about the journey, or the destination? Your characters can decide for themselves as they engage with a new Traveler Lifestyle!


Instant Unlock - Couture of the Capets
The French were a fancy lot, and with this Instant Unlock you can admire their splendor during the high medieval period. As always weve put a lot of effort into research to make sure that the clothes are not only glorious, but as historical as we can make them!


Thats it for now! Next week well begin posting Dev Diaries for Legends of the Dead, so keep your eyes out! Also, a reminder that Chapter III is available right now, and if you purchase it now you will immediately get access to the Couture of the Capets (as well as the expansions as soon as they are released, of course!)

Were very excited to show off the work weve done, this really is the biggest chapter weve ever done! Until next time!


[hr][/hr]

Write glorious new sagas of military conquest and romantic adventures with Chapter III.
This Chapter includes two expansions, one event pack, and one cosmetic enhancement. Enjoy new mechanics, new events, and new historical flavor to add greater depth to Crusader Kings III!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
Official Forums Official Discord Steam Discussions
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Hello everybody! With Chapter III now available, we're releasing the instant unlock for the expansion pass, Couture of the Capets. We're also adding some models from our Content Creator Pack, North African Attire, as personal and court artifacts for Berber Cultures.

Existing save games should be fully compatible with this update, but any mods that add or alter clothing may need compatibility patches to function properly on this version of the game.

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[h2]PC Update 1.11.5 Changelog[/h2]

• Couture of the Capets - Added several new clothing items based on the fashions of High Medieval France.
  
• North African Attire - Made some props available as personal/court artifacts for Berber cultures.
  

Interested in seeing what 2024 will bring to Crusader Kings III? Then be sure to check our YouTube channel on February 6 at 18:00 CET, where our Game Director will be giving a full breakdown of the next content drop for the game as well as an overview of all of the content releasing throughout the year.

[previewyoutube=ClkhKHePN4U;full][/previewyoutube]

Be sure to check out our social media accounts as well, where we're counting down to the reveal with a series of teasers. Join the rest of our community in deciphering the clues and see if you can discover what's coming up next!

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing version 1.11.4 of Crusader Kings III. This update brings in new cosmetics as part of our first Content Creator Pack, North African Attire. See the full changelog below.

As there are no script, code, or database changes, this version should be fully compatible with existing mods and save files.



PC Update 1.11.4 Changelog
[h2]Content Creator Pack: North African Attire[/h2]
Added new cosmetics focusing on North African culture.

• 10 new clothing items
  
• 16 new headgear items
  
• New sword and dagger models
  
• New cloaks, legwear, and patterns
  

Hello and welcome to this developer diary introducing the Crusader Kings III Content Creator Pack: North African Attire, Im Pierre El Tyranos Azuelos and you might already play with some of my work in the Community Flavor Pack mod.

I have been playing Crusader Kings franchise since 2012 and mod my favorite games since 2004. I naturally switched to CK modding as soon as 3D characters were announced. Since then, I have made over 260 models for my mod: headgear, clothes, artifacts, royal courts, ships, props, etc. I also broadcasted several video tutorials to help beginner artists to make their way inside the 3D engine.

Today, Paradox Interactive gives me the opportunity and immense privilege to release an official cosmetic pack for our favorite game, so lets jump into it in detail!

Discuss Dev Diary #142 on our forums!



Introducing the Content Creator Pack
The Content Creator Pack is an initiative that started at PDXCON 2022 when I submitted the idea directly to the Game Director for CKIII, Rageair. The decision to make North African Attire came after a process where I pitched different concepts for a Content Creator Pack, developing the philosophy, expectations, interests, risks and scope for 4 options. We then had a meeting diving deeper into what a cultural clothing pack would look like, this time with regional suggestions, and North Africa stood out from the rest. I documented for a few weeks until the project was finally ready to enter production.

The key objective of the project was to create something that added value to the game compared to a mod and blend in seamlessly with the rest of the content. Over the last 4 years, Community Flavor Pack received about 6 original clothings, the remaining ones are vanilla model retextures. Over the 260-ish models from the mod, clothing only represents a dozen. Why? The time and energy investments are barely worth it when youre doing this for fun and for free. For example, I submitted 8 turbans in this Content Creator Pack that I never did before, because of their complexity. I dedicated more than 2 weeks just to manage to make the first one, see illustration below.


[From left to right: first trial, understanding the workflow, final sculpt of one of the models]

The Content Creator Pack, which becomes officially part of Crusader Kings III, comes with a higher quality standard: more attention to visuals, better optimization, models have all their blendshapes, there is a lot more time spent per asset. Paradox provides Quality Assurance and will offer official support for the content as well.

Why am I saying this? Paradox Interactive trusted me with an ambitious project when I submitted something I still had to prove I could do. Our collaboration was honest and benevolent, my creativity was respected and I tried to do my best in return, they guided me to achieve better visuals all while supporting my initiatives. I've done my best to push the sliders as far as possible, with the weight of not disappointing the community that has always supported my work and within the inherent limit to a commercial project.

Character Art
The first thing to note is that documentation is woefully lacking, there is, to my knowledge, no surviving artifact but a pair of 11th century shoes. Another terrible fact is that medieval art shows almost no women and no other Berber than Andalusians used in Fate of Iberias documentation!

Fortunately, Berber culture is very unique as it kept its own decorations and fashions all the way up from high antiquity all while being permeable to other cultures it met. This is the concept of Berber permanence (Gabriel Camps, 1987) and it helped a lot in the outlining of this DLC. Some simple examples: the traditional woman dress is a Greek peplum, the filigree silver work is Phoenician, the enamel techniques are Roman. Some geometric symbols can even be traced up to the Neolithic! There is obviously a deeper blending after Islamic conquests but no replacement, it is even considered that the Islamic art built upon the Berber abstracted symbols in its early stages.

What you will see below is only an abstract of the content pack, not everything is presented. As a matter of numbers, the production took 6 months - on top of my work and family life - and there are 33 new models added to the game.

I have done my best to represent an authentic version of the Berbers in the Middle Ages, with obvious biases due to the lack of sources. I hope you'll be able to get past my misinterpretations.



[Photos: Berber Arts Museum of Marrakech; Berber memories: women and jewelry in Morocco, Michel Draguet, 2020.]

This is a typical North African attire from the Atlas: the loubane amber necklace is prominent and the massive silver fibulas are holding the elhaf together, striking the eye with beautiful abstract engravings. The elhaf is a Dorian-style peplum and the appearance of this type of fibula dates back to the Bronze Age in the Maghreb (Camps-Fabrer, 1964). The tamizart cloak is stripped, similar to a 4-6th century BC artwork found in the Tumulus of Djorf Torba in Algeria (illustration).



[Photos by Michel Draguet, 2020; Illustration by Emile Galois, 1946]

At the royalty tier, the look is largely different. She wears a shirt under her elhaf, the fibulas are featuring enamel and complex silver filigree, representative of the Souss valley. The circlet is a talgamout with three hinged silver plates and glass cabochons, representative of the Tagmout tribe located in the central anti-atlas. Anti-atlas has always been a refuge against persecutions. Its considered as a conservatory of the Berber culture as the weather is harsh and access is difficult, allowing vernacular forms of dress and ornamentation to survive. The top right image is a high-definition sculpture I made from the reference.



[Photos: Michel Draguet, 2020]

Imperial headwear (left) is a Taounza, again from the Souss valley while high nobilitys coin diadem is from Dads valley in the High Atlas. As you can see the styles are completely different. Actually, there are so many styles with their own uniqueness and beauty that it was a nightmare to decide which one should make it into the project and at what tier.




Knights outfit was way more straight forward. It is based on a wall painting of Muslim knights during the conquest of Majorca, created around 1285 and conserved in Barcelona. The sword is a Tuareg takouba. Current learned opinion is that these swords are a distinct and entirely indigenous African type, although speculations of possible influence from Spain via the Almoravides in the 11th Century (Nicolaisen, 1997).



[Illustrations: Arab bearded scribe. He wears a turban tied around a conical cap. Cappella Palatina, Palermo, Sicily (1131-1140) and Drawing of Man with Lamp, Fustat, Fatimid Egypt, 11th Century. Keir Collection No. 75781]

Commoners wear a pointy hat with a tassel, held in place by a turban. Conical hats are widespread across North Africa, as seen on those paintings.



[Illustrations: Spanish Codices, 11th and 12th century; Men-at-Arms N348, Osprey editions, 2001; Costumes of Morocco, Jean Besancenot, 1990]

Low nobles wear two kinds of wicker hats called tarazas. One is Algerian and the other one featured here is Moroccan. The hat is carried above the turban. This is a unisex fashion, and the oldest representations are in Andalusian art (Weiditz, 1530). The tunic is a jillaba, a long, loose-fitting unisex outer robe with full sleeves. Almost all djellabas of both styles (men or women) include a baggy hood called a qob. The hood has a different color and the cut is one of a city dweller, the most widespread.



[Illustrations: Sala de Los Reyes, Alhambra, 14th century]

This sultan carries a Tuareg tagelmust or litham with a golden plate showing his wealth, the litham became a distinctive sign of the Almoravids, meaning its wearer should be treated with honor and respect.
He also wears a kaftan based on the surviving marlota of Boabdil (Nasrid Dynasty). Interestingly, the modern style of Rabat kaftan looks a lot like it. In Morocco, the kaftan is a very old tradition, deeply rooted in the country's clothing habits. It is a unisex clothing that soon became a symbol of power and wealth among the moors, worn by royals, even up to the queen Isabella as she conquered Granada in 1492. However, the evolution and adaptation as a ceremonial dress for women has made it a very different garment from the Persian and Ottoman ones.



The pack finally includes a new feature (special_genes) which allows headgears to deform when a character has a long beard. It allows for models to get out of the way, reduces the amount of clipping and gives them a more organic look.



While I can only invite you to read and learn about this extremely rich culture, I hope you enjoy looking at characters garments during your next playthrough in North Africa.

Finally, Id like to thank Paradox Interactive for the trust they put in this project as well as for the opportunity to bring my work to the next level. I extend all my gratitude to the members of the community, your support over the last few years helped me to continue working and honing my skills.

--Pierre

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In the first cosmetic content pack made in co-operation with a member of the Crusader Kings III community, Paradox Interactive joins modder El Tyranos in a Content Creator Pack to add even more style for the games characters.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2671030/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_North_African_Attire/

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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Greetings!

For those of you who do not know - I am Rageair, the Game Director of Crusader Kings III, and as were coming up to the end of 2023 it's time to look at this year in review - and take a quick glance toward the year to come! I will share our reflections, learnings, and opinions on the content weve made this year, and - while this diary will not be a roadmap/floor plan per se - Ill make sure to share as much as I can about 2024.

Discuss Dev Diary #141 on our forums!



2023 in Review
So, what have we done in 2023? Quite a few things, it turns out!


[h2]The Community Choice Poll [/h2]
We started out the year by having a Community Choice Poll for the theme of the upcoming Event Pack, where among the three themes (Wards & Wardens, Love & Lust, and Villains & Vagabonds) the winning theme was Wards & Wardens, which gained 41.5% of the over 10,000 votes.

While it was fantastic to see all the engagement, we won't be doing another poll for this year's event pack - mainly because we want something that will improve and expand upon existing content as well as content we're introducing next year, and we already have the perfect event pack for that in mind!

We will instead continue reading your discussions, thoughts, and suggestions and focus on making content for areas that you would like to see expanded - its a more indirect way, but remember that you still have plenty of opportunity to affect what we do by simply discussing themes, ideas, or mechanics as you do normally.

That said, its not impossible that well have another poll in the future, especially if theres demand for it!


[h2]Tours & Tournaments[/h2]
The highlight of the year was definitely Tours & Tournaments, our second Major Expansion. It made strides to connect the characters to the map, with travel, activities, and much more - and its obvious that the efforts were appreciated! While the expansion and its update leaned more towards roleplaying with its centerpiece Grand Activities, it also contained plenty of systems that enhanced the game overall, such as travel, regencies, MaA Stationing, etc. This combination made it a quintessential CK3 expansion that appealed to most (if not all) of you in the community, and well definitely take a lot of learnings from the things we did right when looking into what to do for the future. All in all, we consider T&T a huge success!

Of all the features we developed, travel is the one that we didnt necessarily expect to be as fun as it turned out to actually be - we knew that it would be good, and fill a void that has existed since the early days of CK, but it turned into a very versatile system that were very likely to keep developing and progressively weave into as many other systems that we can. Travel also provides a great and versatile foundation for all sorts of features that may or may not appear in future updates

The expansion itself took a lot of time and effort to develop, over 10,000 days of work from various disciplines. During, and especially towards the end of the project, we started doing parallel development in order to up our cadence of releases, something which were successfully carrying with us into 2024. For those of you who might not be familiar with the concept, it means that we worked on several different expansions & updates with smaller teams-in-teams, all at the same time. During 2023 we have been working on roughly three different things at once, and at certain points as many as five! With the learnings weve gained from T&T, were keeping up the momentum as we want you to have a steady stream of content to look forward to - and we always want to make sure that we can make one Major Expansion per year!


[h2]Legacy of Persia[/h2]
Persia is the first region weve expanded that is situated outside of Europe, which was an interesting and very fun challenge! At the start of the project, we sought out anyone at Paradox who was well-versed in Iranian history (it turns out there were quite a few individuals!) and started formulating plans for what content we would focus on making. Our goal was to make the content grounded and historical, while still enabling powerful player fantasies such as reviving Zoroastrianism. We knew that we wanted a central core system to connect flavor to, which is how the Iranian Intermezzo struggle came to be. Unlike the Iberian struggle, we wanted this one to have a much wider spread of plausible alt-history paths to pursue, as the history of the region could have gone in many different ways - and this is something that were sure youre experiencing when you play. You never know who will be a powerful actor, which faith will dominate, etc.

While the historical ending is the Concession timed ending, were very pleased with the other ways in which you can conclude the struggle - from the community-favorite Iranian Resurgence where the Persian cultural identity and ideals dominate (be it as Zoroastrian or not!) to essentially breaking the very thought of Persian independence and empowering the Caliph to create another Dar-al-Islam with the Renewed Caliphate ending. The Intermezzo really sets the scene for how the rest of the game will play with large and sweeping effects on the region and beyond. This quicker style of struggle is something weve noticed that you in the community seem to like, so its something well definitely keep in mind!


[h2]General Improvements[/h2]
As some of you may remember, we have an ambition to continually update and change parts of the game to make them better over time - and in 2023 we managed to do a lot. While we did an absolute ton of stuff, such as adding a nickname system, rebalancing domain limits, changing how building slots are gained, added vassal stances, etc, etc, etc - we also got to some of the general areas that we outlined in the floorplan, so let's take an extra look at those!


[h2]Clans[/h2]
In Legacy of Persia we got around to making Clans unique; previously they worked almost identically to how the Feudal government worked in CK2 - heavily opinion based, with angry vassals paying you nothing and happy ones giving you a lot. Now the economy of clans is heavily inspired by the Iqta system, with Tax Collectors assigned to Tax Jurisdictions, taxing them based on various Tax Decrees. Managing a Clan realm well gives you very clear advantages, and with the addition of House Unity you can also draw significant benefits from good old-fashioned nepotism!

House Unity, fundamentally a part of Clans, brings a chaotic and character-driven element to the stability of clans. If your family is Harmonious you will enjoy a period of peace and stability, while an Antagonistic family is driven to expand and compete. This makes Clans ebb and flow in power, with the potential to rise quickly, and fall as quickly - simulating how many of the areas dominated by Clans in-game behaved historically.

With these changes we feel like Clans are truly distinct from their Feudal counterparts, and playing them is an entirely different type of challenge. Feudal realms are generally more stable, while Clan realms have a much higher maximum potential.


[h2]Modifier Stacking[/h2]
With the building slot rework followed Men-at-Arms Stationing, which aimed to curb the mono-unit type armies that dominated previously because buildings gave global bonuses to MaA types. This caused battles to be completely trivialized as long as the player started optimizing their buildings even a little bit - and this is obviously not fun. You want to be able to defeat the AI by putting in time and effort, you dont want them to just roll over. With these changes the AI can now also field incredibly powerful units, and they will also tend to buy significantly more MaA overall than they used to - especially if they are Warmongers.

For next year we will aim to continually improve the game. In fact, weve set up a massive sheet internally where we detail areas of the game that are in need of balancing or reworking. Exactly what well be tackling is still up in the air, but know that we still aim to continually improve the game!



Whats happening in 2024?
And now for the perhaps extra interesting bit of the Dev Diary - what have we got cooking for 2024? Also quite a bit, it turns out!


A New Experiment
At the beginning of next year, weve got another small experiment lined up. While I cannot go into detail about what it is, I can say that it has something to do with the game directly and that involves something weve never done before. We are very excited about it, and we hope you will be too - the idea for it actually came directly from the community itself, during a PDXCon where the Crusader Kings III team got to interact with some of you!

You will be able to get your hands on this experiment very early next year, before the release of the new chapter! Speaking of:


Chapter III
We will indeed be having another Chapter next year! Similar to this year the chapter will include four items, including one Major Expansion. One difference from Chapter II is that we have swapped out the Flavor Pack in favor of a larger type of expansion that we call a Core Expansion - I will clear up what this means in just a bit! Other than that, there will be an instant unlock to start Chapter III off, and an event pack to close the package.

So what is the difference between a Major Expansion and a Core Expansion? The new Core Expansion format refers to the core gameplay loop: it focuses on adding, changing, or updating mechanics that are applicable for most rulers and/or high-impact systems that affect large parts of the game world, unlike Flavor Packs which are strictly regional in nature. Major Expansions are wider, and will either apply sweeping updates to the world, give you new ways of playing the game (such as new playstyles), or both!

This means that Core Expansions are scoped in between Flavor Packs and Major Expansions. They are bigger and more impactful than Flavor Packs, but smaller with fewer sweeping changes than Major Expansions. Seeing how we want to shift towards more high-impact content that appeals to a majority of the community, we decided to up our pace and make a Core Expansion instead of a Flavor pack next year.

That said, I want to emphasize how excited we are for next year, and though I really want to tell you what were working on I must limit myself to obscure hints and extremely non-telling images for now


[h2]Instant Unlock[/h2]
The instant unlock will be similar to Elegance of the Empire, the one we had for Chapter II. This time were also aiming to make clothes that embody the very essence of royalty. Inspired by the couture of the French, they will be gilded and lavish - and as with all assets we make - they are real, well-researched, and historical! Heres a little peek of a crown:


The gilded angel is a personal highlight.


[h2]Core Expansion[/h2]
The Core Expansion will, among other features, introduce something that has been frequently requested by you in the community. Without saying too much, it will definitely make the game more challenging - and weve spent a lot of time making sure that its as dynamic and immersive as possible, while also presenting you with new ways to strategize. Were also going to introduce a feature dripping with medieval flavor, a system that can be used by clever players to really make their mark on the world. All in all, this expansion will lean more towards the systemic side of the game.




[h2]Major Expansion[/h2]
As with the Core Expansion, the Major Expansion will focus on several things that have been requested by you in the community for ages - some of what were choosing to do has been asked for since the early days of Crusader Kings as a game series. One of the feature sets comes up very frequently when we see you discuss what youd like to see in expansions - and another is brought up now-and-again as a powerful player fantasy. No matter what, we promise that this expansion will provide several new and fresh perspectives, and should please you regardless of which style of expansion you prefer, systemic or roleplay-focused. We can barely wait until you get your hands on this one, and personally, I can say that its one of the expansions Ive been wanting to make since my early days working on CK2 - its time will soon come!




[h2]Event Pack[/h2]
As mentioned above, this time there will be no poll about the theme. Instead, weve been seeing an overwhelming amount of discussions about a certain well-liked feature for months. Weve chosen to expand that feature with more things to do and experience, and this time well be focusing on highly visible content!





Thats it for this year! Well be back in early 2024 with more updates, but until then we wish you all a fantastic winter holiday season, and a God Jul!

[hr][/hr]

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Hello everybody! We've got one more update before the holidays releasing today. It's a small one reenabling the OpenGL renderer for MacOS users. Please note that this renderer is still unsupported, we're just restoring the option to use it anyway.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]PC Update 1.11.3 Changelog[/h2]

• Reenabled OpenGL renderer for MacOS users. Please note that this renderer remains unsupported; were just restoring the ability to use it anyway for users who choose to do so.
  

Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.11.2 for Crusader Kings III; With this update, we've focused on resolving several issues that have emerged since the release of Legacy of Persia to help ensure a smoother and more enjoyable experience.

This update also includes a couple of experimental fixes specifically for our Linux and MacOS players to improve stability and performance on these platforms. If you continue to encounter stability issues on these platforms after today's update, then please perform a clean reinstall of the game. Thank you to everyone who submitted crash reports from these platforms!

As always, we appreciate your feedback, support, and reports. Your feedback is crucial to helping us shape the future of Crusader Kings III, so don't hesitate to reach out with any thoughts or issues you have after today's update.



1.11.2 Changelog
[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issues with upper-case filenames causing stalls and crashes on certain platforms.
  
• Added missing localization for locked "Rich in Diversity" achievement.
  
• Added missing localization for not having specific combinations of culture ethos.
  
• At least one Zoroastrian faith has to complete the Magi restoration decision for them to be able to create HoF titles.
  
• Characters from Heresy outbreaks will keep the Heresiarch trait.
  
• Converting a county resulting in Iberian Struggle catalyst will display the holder's name in catalyst history.
  
• The Research Project event chain will now correctly add the Mural Sextant innovation as a reward if its path was chosen.
  
• Event where you find a competent Quadi\Magistrate will properly check if they don't have any relations with you or are not an already picked competent Tax Collector.
  
• Fixed a doubled "by" inside a tooltip when someone resigns from a tournament.
  
• Fixed a typo in the Traveling Thinkers travel event causing a missing scope.
  
• Fixed a typo in the names of cued music for East Europe events.
  
• Fixed incorrect names of music cues in tax rivalry story cycle events.
  
• Fixed missing custom tooltip text in an option for a tournament duel event.
  
• Varangian Adventurers now correctly receive additional MaA if they have a culture of North Germanic heritage or are Estonian/Estonian heritage.
  
• Removed unnecessary blockers from Communal Possession and Exaltation of Pain tenets, making them now possible to be picked during faith creation.
  
• Sar-i Sang mines are now an economic point of interest.
  
• Seljuk invasion will always spawn with an army and will be more aggressive as a vassal.
  
• The Saoshyant nickname description uses the correct name of a god that could devour the light.
  
• When trying to push your secret faith on someone, the game will now correctly look for any sad memory they have for you to exploit.
  
• Winning an Independence war will now always result in getting a title revocation reason on all losing vassals.
  
• Zoroastrians can bypass the decision to restore the Magi.
  
• Fixed Seljuks trying to become your vassal if you have the same title tier in the opening Seljuk story cycle event.
  
• Fixed a number of additional issues with the Seljuk invasion story cycle.
  

Hello everyone! Were releasing Update 1.11.1 today to address a variety of issues reported to us by the community since the release of Legacy of Persia, as well as a few outstanding issues. Please check the changelog below for specific fixes and adjustments.



Update 1.11.1 Changelog

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Removing a guardian will now only reduce unity once every three months, rather than every time.
  
• Slightly increased the prestige reward for beating the Seljuk invasion.
  
• Holding Court will now always grant a small amount of Court Grandeur at a minimum.
  
• Fixed the Execute a Detractor/Supporter Iranian Intermezzo catalyst never firing.
  
• It is now only possible to share a Spouse with a family member in Polygamous faiths if all parties believe in Unrestricted Marriage.
  

• Reduced the chance for Counts to declare war to levels similar to those before the Legacy of Persia update, both for immersion reasons (this gives Dukes+ more opportunities) and performance reasons (fewer wars)
  

• Removes expiration information from timed character modifiers that do not have a set expiration.
  
• Blocked the player from being able to deselect radio buttons in the interaction window.
  
• Fixed invalid tooltip for Take the Vows option in the Negotiate Release character interaction.
  
• Fixed you referring to yourself as your liege when changing stance during the Iranian Intermezzo.
  
• Ethos is now correctly listed in the Cultural Pillar encyclopedia entry.
  
• Character tooltips in Activity Window and Event Window have been adjusted to not block characters in certain resolutions.
  
• Fixed trigger tooltips for options in Embellish Capital Decision.
  
• The history of artifacts stolen during a siege is now correct.
  
• Fixed AI acceptance tooltip to Request Incursion.
  

• Iranian rulers will now use Iranian clothes much more often.
  
• Fixed Castles not showing a 2D icon when upgrading them.
  
• Fixed incorrect lighting setup in one of the Zoroastrian temple event backgrounds.
  
• Fixed an issue where Iberian Goatees were missing from the barbershop.
  
• Fixed a graphical issue in the inventory with historical artifacts when their culture isn't set.
  

• Fixed a typo in the Find a new Faith for Persia decision.
  
• Fixed untranslated weapon type name in Exotic Arms event.
  
• Shortened overly long event text in Travel: A Feast for Falcons.
  
• Forming the Persian Empire should no longer mess up the names of the titles of all characters in Iran.
  
• Adds missing localization for modifier affecting faction join chance regarding Detractor trait.
  

• Vassals now receive a message if their liege or above starts or succeeds in converting a county in their sub-realm.
  
• Fixed a range of issues with the Seljuk Invasion, which should now behave more as expected.
  
• Fixed an issue where landed vassals could sometimes become Viziers, which in turn resulted in a number of other issues.
  
• You can now revoke all titles of a vassal that hold a Head of Faith-title, causing the Head of Faith-title to be destroyed.
  
• Fixed an edge case where viziers would, under certain circumstances, reduce your tax gain from vassals rather than increase it.
  
• Reverted logic for auto filling the Court Chaplain position to the one before the Legacy of Persia update, fixing a number of unintended issues related to the Court Chaplain position being empty for now.
  
• Fixed broken text in the House Feud rivalry reciprocation event.
  
• Fixed issues with sexuality, tooltips, and pregnancy in the Adventurer Inspiration event Lady/Lord X's Lover.
  
• You won't be able to accuse servants of being the real father of someone else's heir when they are younger than the heir in question.
  
• Made it harder to steal parents from their children's court, and impossible to steal unlanded guardians, court position holders, and councilors.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Request Contract Assistance interaction so that it's finally usable.
  
• Fixed all newly created faiths having the Full Tolerance doctrine set.
  
• Prevented you from becoming your own tax collector after succession.
  
• Fixed Dismantle Byzantine/Holy Roman Pretenders decision being available more than once per lifetime, which broke the war declaration.
  
• Fixed war victory against same or higher tier ruler Iranian Intermezzo catalysts not firing.
  
• Fixed wiping the Seljuk's invasion not allowing you to end the war, added war target title to its name, and disabled hostage peace options.
  
• Religious heads are no longer given the option to embrace Jesus in the Wanton Desires stress event.
  
• Fixed Canterbury Cathedral not being a Point of Interest when upgraded to level 2 and 3.
  
• Fixed characters sometimes not being correctly added to entourage and court in travel events.
  
• Fixed issue where accepting demands when negotiating to Challenge House Head would not make you the House Head.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies in Iqta description.
  
• Fixed an error when a dog seller leaves your court.
  
• Removed stray modifiers if a Grand Wedding invalidates.
  

• Marzoban Zahhak of Upper Ghur is now the uncle of Ghurshah Sri of Ghur in the 867 bookmark.
  
• Shazhou's culture is now Han rather than Sogdian in 867.
  
• East Bantu Culture now properly has starting innovations.
  

• Fixed imperformant Casus Belli for the Azariqa rebellion.
  
• Clarified that the Support/Detractor is killed Iranian Intermezzo catalyst only applies to rulers.
  
• Critical failure in the Age of Knowing event will now correctly expose your secret faith to the world.
  
• Fixed rare as hen's teeth crash where a ruler-at-war's yearly update coincided with their monthly. update with immaculate timing, where it would try to update knights on two separate threads at the same time.
  
• Fixed rare out of sync where an invalid law could make it into a landed character's list of laws.
  
• Fixed rare out of sync where an invalid law could make it into a title's list of laws.
  
• Made sure that auto assigning taxpayers option is persisted properly.
  
• Added missing names in credits.
  

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Hello everyone! We're releasing a hotfix today to address some issues reported to us in the aftermath of yesterday's 1.11.0 release. Please check the changelog below for specific fixes!

[hr][/hr]

1.11.0.1 Changelog

• The AI will no longer try to claim your throne if it is not at least a count and has the appropriate personality
  
• Only Powerful AI vassals will now try to claim your throne using the Iranian struggle rules
  
• Iranian culture castles will now properly display the new Iranian Graphics
  
• Fixed that Court Scholars were locked to owners of both the Royal Court DLC and Legacy of Persia. Just Legacy of Persia is now enough.
  

Hello and welcome to the final development diary for Legacy of Persia!

With the release now upon us, what I have to share today, apart from general excitement, is the list of new achievements with Legacy of Persia and the update notes for the free 1.11 Peacock update!

As with previous achievements our aim has been to have a good mix of achievements with a focus on new features, the new struggle, and the focus region of the flavor pack itself.

Discuss Dev Diary #140 on our forums!



Legacy of Persia Achievements


[h2]Easy Achievements[/h2]
[h3]Rich in Diversity[/h3]

As a character of a faith with the Jizya or Tax Nonbelievers doctrines, have ten vassals of other faiths.

[h3]Abbasid Might[/h3]

Take the Renewed Caliphate ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.

[h3]Royal Flush[/h3]

As a character of a faith with the Fedayeen doctrine, dispose of a lowborn, a king, and an emperor.


[h2]Hard Achievements[/h2]
[h3]Iranian Revival[/h3]

Take the Iranian Resurgence ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.

[h3]All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us[/h3]

Take the Dominate the Caliph foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.

[h3]Shia Reborn[/h3]

Take the 'Found a New Caliphate' foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.

[h3]Mulct Them Dry[/h3]

Loot four Illustrious-tier Vizier Extravagance modifiers from your Vizier.

[h3]Fiscal Responsibility[/h3]

Fill five Tax Collector slots with excellent aptitude characters.


[h2]Very Hard[/h2]
[h3]The Umayyad Strikes Back[/h3]

Starting as a member of the Umayyad dynasty, hold the Empire of Arabia and the Sunni Caliphate.

[h3]Darius Revenge[/h3]

As a character of Iranian heritage, hold the Empire of Persia, Kingdom of Thessalonika, and Kingdom of Hellas.

[hr][/hr]

1.11 Peacock Changelog

[h2]Legacy of Persia Features[/h2]

• Added the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle covering the conflict in Iran between the Caliphate and resurgent Iranian dynasties. The struggle can be ended by fulfilling one of three decisions or by triggering the Concession ending phase. During the struggle supporters and detractors of the Caliph will have access to new rules, decisions, interactions and events.
  
• Added a new Dynasty Legacy: Brilliance, focusing on reclaiming the glory of the old dynasties of Persia.
  
• Added a new UI Skin for Iranian Heritage cultures and characters living in the region.
  
• New Portrait Assets: added new hairstyles, clothes, and beards in the Greater Iranian region.
  
• Added many new events, decisions and interactions when playing in the Greater Iranian area relating to the new Struggle, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Clan realms, characters traveling in the Iranian Region, Tax Collectors, and more.
  
• Added a number of new Cultural Traditions to Iranian culture: Fierce Independence, Pragmatic Creed, Jirga, Enlightened Magnates, Beacon of Learning, Irrigation Experts, and Frontier Warriors.
  
• Added new types of Men at Arms: Asawira (unlocks within the Brilliance dynasty legacy), Tarkhan (unlocks from Frontier Warriors), Zupin (unlocks from Pragmatic Creed), and Tawashi (unlocks from Fierce Independence).
  
• Added two Extra Tax Decrees when playing inside the Iranian region. Dehqan and Maguh. For more about tax decrees see Clan Vassals under Free Features.
  
• Added a new Court Scholar court position for cultures with the Beacon of Learning cultural tradition. When employed, court scholars will over time increase in skill and good or excellent Court Scholars can be sponsored to create a Research Project inspiration, resulting in new innovations for your culture or new modifiers for your clan. Court Scholars also have an increased chance of gaining the book or alchemy inspirations.
  
• Added a new Master Assassin court position which boosts murder schemes. Rulers with a faith that belongs to a faith with the Fedayeen tenet can recruit Master Assassins.
  
• Added 3 new struggle music tracks as well as 3 new Persian Region Mood Tracks.
  

• Added a new bookmark page for Iran in 867, with recommended playable characters and biographies.
  
• House Unity is a new measure of the internal stability in the ruling house of a Clan realm. Unity comes in 5 levels, from Antagonistic to Harmonious and is shaped by the actions taken by clan members towards each other. Clans with high unity levels will enjoy a high level of internal stability while making conquest harder while those with a low unity level will be better at conquering new lands but be internally unstable. Each level unlocks special rules, decisions, interactions and abilities.
  
• Clan Vassals can now be assigned to Tax Jurisdictions, handled by a Tax Collector. Depending on the aptitude of the Tax Collector and what Tax Decree is assigned to the Jurisdiction the associated Vassals will provide and enjoy different benefits and penalties. The existing Vassal obligations, Ghazi, Iqta and Jizya, are now Tax Decrees in the new system.
  
• Viziers: Clan realms of duchy tier or above can now assign a landless character to be their Vizier. Viziers provide extra tax jurisdictions and their aptitude helps all tax collectors in the realm. The more empowered they are the bigger the benefits, though Viziers may also try to embezzle your funds. Vizier excesses can be fined via the Mulct interaction. A Vizier can also substitute your spouse in the confidant counselor position, if you desire.
  
• When starting in 867 the Turkic Seljuk dynasty will now invade Iran in the late 10th century, an associated game rule can regulate when the invasion happens.
  
• Added event chain for the Zanj Rebellion in lower Mesopotamia shortly after the start of the 867 campaign.
  
• Added a number of new special buildings in the Iranian region: The Minaret of Jam, the Walls of Gorgan, Alamut Castle, Falak-ol-Aflak Citadel, the Dome of Soltaniyeh, The Rainbow Mountains, the Imam Reza Shrine, the Sar-i Sang mines, the Ark of Bukhara, the Tomb of Batsheba, and Maharloo Lake Necropolis of Rostam, Tomb of Cyrus the Great, Palace of Ctesiphon, and the ancient Mines of Sar-i Sang.
  

• Cost for disinheriting bastard children or children with disputed heritage is lowered. If the illegitimacy is a secret and the father knows the secret, the cost is lowered and the secret is revealed.
  
• Certain Wars will now resolve quicker, as the warscore from battles and attacker occupations have been increased by 150%: conquests (county & duchy), holy war (county & duchy), subjugation, vassalization, struggle clash, border raid, expel interloper, and excommunication war.
  
• Conquest & Invasion CBs now have a dynamic cost scaling with realm size, this should make the CB's cheaper for smaller realms and more expensive for very large ones.
  
• Chthonic Redoubts are no longer impossible to convert in Mountains (-75% instead of -100%).
  
• De Jure CBs are now available one era earlier than before.
  
• Forming the HRE is now possible using any core Carolingian kingdom, not just East Francia, and the De Jure can now include the Empire of Francia if West Francia or enough Francian kingdoms are part of the realm of the one forming the HRE.
  
• Rebalanced the Piety & Prestige costs for Conquests and Invasions to make them more accessible for smaller realms.
  
• Reduced prestige gain from Amenities and exceeding your Grandeur level.
  
• Reduced prestige gain from the Marauder Accolade.
  
• Removed all sources of prestige % gain bonus from innovations to reduce inflation (total 20%).
  
• Significantly reduced Prestige gain from Artifacts (monthly gains, prestige per dread/knight, etc).
  
• Slightly reduced prestige % bonuses from Diplomacy lifestyle perks.
  
• Slightly reduced prestige from the Bodyguard position.
  
• Switched some innovations around for Arabic Heritage cultures so that the Caliph can revoke titles on game start.
  
• The AI should now have a much easier time forming the HRE from an 867 start.
  
• The AI no longer pays Prestige to revoke Court Positions, as they would never abuse court positions in the first place - and the prestige loss would cause them to fairly often be unable to declare wars.
  
• The Mongols now get better Siege Engineer characters.
  
• The Mongols now have a bonus to cavalry damage and toughness, to offset their lack of Stationing Bonuses.
  
• The Mongols now spawn with trebuchets instead of mangonels.
  
• Harm events will no longer target the player by default, only the AI.
  
• Increased the odds of successfully getting through harm events unscathed from 80:20/50:50/60:40 for poor/average/good options to 40:60/60:40/70:30.
  
• Reduced the overall likelihood of harm events of all kinds by an order of magnitude (except for the general incapability due to age chainlet), and of incapability foreboding events specifically by a further half again.
  
• Camel cavalry accolade only gives bonuses to camel cavalry.
  
• The Create Cadet Branch is now available for Clan Members only if they are in another realm than their House Head.
  
• Some common activity pulse actions now grant mystic lifestyle experience for pilgrimages and witch rites.
  
• If you have an epiphany about the sanctity of nature during a hunt you will also get some mystic lifestyle experience (this is another activity pulse action, though somewhat rarer than the very common one for pilgrimages).
  
• You will get Mystic Lifestyle experience for visiting points of interest in religious sites and wonders while traveling. This is not restricted to religious sites of your own religion, and it also means it's easier to get mystic XP once more grand cathedrals are built up later in the game.
  
• Added Mystic Lifestyle experience to some events, mainly travel ones that already had to do with mystics.
  
• Holding a mystical communion will grant some mystic xp.
  

• Lowered the value of higher tier alliances and increased the penalty for Female above 30 years.
  

• Character modifiers can be now clicked and display an expanded view of all existing modifiers. Players can now see all modifiers on the character, and not only the first 10 items.
  
• Show a difficulty warning in the lobby for rulers in regency.
  
• Remove decision_custom_widget_container option from decision configuration window.
  
• Remove decision_has_second_step for decisions. Now if a decision needs to use the custom step, the decision must specify decision_to_second_step_button.
  
• The MaA stats shown in their tooltip in the military view now properly adds bonuses from being stationed, like they already do in the separate MaA window.
  
• Added steam rich presence for Iberian Struggle.
  
• Added steam rich presence for Persian Struggle.
  
• Clan Rulers now display their house crest instead of their main title coat of arms in the bookmark screen.
  
• Significantly reduced the amount of suggestions for hostages.
  

• Added Managed Forest to the Barbershop backgrounds.
  
• Added Coat of Arms: 26 new coats of arms, between muslim and Iranian imagery and writing.
  
• Added 6 Event backgrounds (Bathhouse, Cave, Zoroastrian Temple, Iranian Courtyard, Iranian Docks and Iranian Throneroom).
  
• Added 3 Male Iranian Nobility Clothes (with low and high nobility variations).
  
• Added 3 Female Iranian Nobility Clothes (with low and high nobility variations).
  
• Added 1 Iranian Armor (male and female).
  
• Added 1 Iranian War Helmet (male and female).
  
• Added 2 Turkic-heritage headgear (Count and Duke level, male).
  
• Added 8 Iranian-Heritage headgear (Count, Duke, King and Emperor levels, both male and female).
  
• Added Disfigured Mask for Iranian and Turkic characters.
  
• Added 3 Iranian Beard Styles.
  
• Added 6 Iranian Hairstyles (3 male and 3 female).
  
• Added 8 patterns for Iranian clothes (with 8 trim variations).
  
• Added new Iranian Military Unit Models (3 levels).
  
• Added Iranian-Heritage holding 3D Meshes and Illustrations (Castles and Cities).
  
• Added Zoroastrian holding 3D Meshes and Illustrations (Temples).
  
• Added unique art for 6 Court artifacts (Sassanian Sword, Peacock Throne, Oxus Bracelet, Turkic Casket, Achaemenid Drinking Vessel, Incense Burner Cat Sculpture).
  
• Added 14 new Special Building Meshes (Minaret of Jam, Alamut Castle, Ark of Bukhara, Falak-ol-Aflak Citadel, Great Mosque of Samarra, Great Wall of Gorgan, House of Wisdom, Imam-Reza Shrine, Maharloo Lake, Mount Damavand, Palace of Ctesiphon, Rainbow Mountain, Soltaniyeh, Tomb of Cyrus).
  
• Trait Icons for Extolled by House, Accused of Decadence, Supporter and Detractor of the Caliphate.
  
• Added 6 Men-at-Arms icons and illustrations (Asawira, Mubarizun, Tarkhan, Tawashi, Zupin Spearmen, Ayyar).
  
• Added 11 Decision (and Story Event) Illustrations.
  
• Added New Loading Screen.
  
• Added 5 Icons for House Unity levels.
  
• Added Iranian Skin for the HUD.
  
• Added 8 Tax Decree Icons.
  
• Added Tax Collection alerts and icons.
  
• Added 2 Religious Tenet Illustrations (Communal Possessions and Fedayeen).
  
• Added 7 Cultural Tradition Illustrations (Frontier Warriors, Jirga, Beacon of Learning, Pragmatic Creed, Fierce Independence, Garden Architects, Irrigation Experts).
  
• Added Legacy Track Illustration (Brilliance).
  
• Art Script: Split up the portrait modifiers to different files with groups based on priority. Higher priority value means it will override any modifiers with lower priority. This way we don't have to weigh everything against everything else; instead, we can know with certainty that armors, for example, will always override regular clothes. Scripted characters are now found in the priority just above base modifiers, with priority 2.
  
• Art Script: Changed the old way of assigning accessories to scripted characters. Instead of per-accessory we now do per-character. So, each character has a single entry in a single file where all their accessories are added. This goes for developer characters as well.
  
• Fixed an issue where many western women wouldn't wear any headgear after the year 1300.
  
• For players with Northern Lords, those cloaks will now be used by more culture groups than just the Norse.
  
• Fixed certain millennials refusing to wear anything but filthy rags.
  
• Enforce Divorce interaction now has an icon.
  

• 3 new struggle music tracks.
  
• 3 new Persian region mood tracks.
  
• 1 new declare war music track for the Struggle.
  
• 2 new struggle ending effects for positive and negative outcomes.
  
• 3 new special building sound effects for the Persian special buildings.
  
• 2 new bookmark sound effects for the involved Struggle characters.
  

• Fixed Dutch patronymic surnames not being possessive for daughters.
  
• Fixed broken localization in some Right-Hand Man feed messages.
  
• Added localization when Influence Ward's Personality interaction is blocked by the Ward having too many traits already.
  
• Fixed missing text when accused of violating sumptuary law by your liege.
  
• Fixed row break issue for Simplified Chinese letter event.
  
• Various other minor localization fixes.
  

• Added a new set of unique succession laws for Clan, activated by the Unity level.
  
• Jizya is now a Special Doctrine for most of the Islamic faith except: Alhomadism, Druze, Alevism, Alawite and Qarmatians. The former tenet still exists for custom faiths.
  
• Ashari now has Legalism instead of Jizya.
  
• Ismailism now has Mendicant Preachers instead of Jizya.
  
• Muladism now has Communal Identity instead of Jizya.
  
• Maturidi now has Legalism instead of Literalism and Adaptive instead of Struggle and Submission.
  
• Adjusted for community feedback about Life in Color event background, plus adjusted text to compensate.
  
• Added mother/father and bastard variations for child born memories.
  

• Add on_action when realm capital is changed.
  
• Smug Kid is now judging you .
  
• Enable ignoring interaction recipient cooldowns.
  
• Added set_house_head effect.
  
• Added on_building_cancelled effect to the province on actions when construction of a building in the province is canceled.
  
• Added on_building_started effect to the province on actions when construction of a building begins in the province.
  
• Added on_canceled effect to building types to execute when construction of a building type is canceled.
  
• Added on_start effect to building types to execute when construction of a building type starts.
  
• Added paying character to building effect and on_actions.
  
• Renamed 'ai_war_chest' to 'war_chest_gold' for consistency.
  
• Renamed 'war_chest_gold', 'war_chest_prestige', 'war_chest_gold' to 'ghw_'+previous name for consistency.
  
• Inline values in comparison triggers using = only are now not valid, this is to prevent syntax ambiguity between a scope comparison and a scope change. You must use == for an inline comparison to be explicit.
  
• Added set_character_secret_faith to set a secret faith on a character.
  
• Added remove_character_secret_faith to remove the secret faith on a character.
  
• Added a simpler has_any_artifact_claim trigger and set it to be used by the artifact_war cb to lessen its performance impact.
  
• Changed bookmark field from default = yes/no to weight = scriptablevalue, used to determine default bookmark.
  

• Updated databases for landholders throughout Iran, ensuring that there are more historical characters to play as, and that all rulers have a suitable amount of vassals on start.
  
• Updated the 867 start date to better reflect the ongoing conflicts as part of implementing the Iranian Intermezzo struggle.
  
• Updated the cultural and faith setup of the Greater Iranian region, including adding the new Brahui culture.
  
• Armenian rulers in 867 and 1066 now start religiously protected, to avoid their faith disappearing much too quickly every game.
  
• Added Nestorian community to Suyab in Zhetysu in 867, representing their metropolitan see.
  
• Made the Karenids a cadet house of the ancient Arsacids, from which they descend.
  
• Merged Abbasids back into the Hashimid dynasty.
  
• Nizam al-Mulk now starts as Alp Arslan's vizier, and the two have a good working relationship.
  
• Made Upper/Lower Lotharingia the default duchy titles, with Lorraine a French variant, and added Krain as a German variant of Kranj.
  
• Added the Sayyid trait to some characters from the Hammudid house who were missing it.
  

• Temporal, for life doctrine does not allow for the unlimited firing of court chaplains anymore. Except for the first time after starting the game. That one is a freebee. Under the Temporal Clerical Appointment doctrine, the Realm Priest or Court Chaplain seat will not get auto-filled the moment the previous holder dies.
  
• Event Extracurricular Learning shall never clone or lose a herbalist
  
• Fixed an Out of Sync that can happen when joining a game where a character who was involved in a struggle has become the leader of a mercenary group.
  
• Fixed a crash related to expanding weight and prisoner modifiers.
  
• Fixed toast messages sometimes not showing up.
  
• Made sure Tournament environment backgrounds show up as they should (jungle was unused).
  
• You can no longer demand the conversion of someone you're at war with.
  
• Added missing nickname desc for "the Crownless", which an unnamed cheese-loving designer hid in a secret file away from the rest of the nicknames.
  
• Changed Tocharian color to differentiate them from the surrounding heritages a bit.
  
• Unlocked a load of struggle parameters that were previously hardlocked to the Iberian struggle in script, making them a bit more mod-friendly.
  
• Added a temporary fortification when trying to depose a Diarch with no fort level.
  
• County modifiers were never recalculated when a struggle ends, so they could keep positive or negative modifiers for a long time after the struggle has completed.
  
• Denouncing a dynasty member will now always apply the associated trait correctly.
  
• Fixed war declared overview window pausing observer mode.
  
• Fixed all instances of incorrect max level of aptitude.
  
• Fixed an issue where modifiers from vassal contracts were not fully applied correctly.
  
• Fixed the AI never considering giving gifts to a bankrupt liege in the Send Gift interaction.
  
• Fixed the filter window in the character list of the struggle involvement window not being clickable if it was sticking out of the main involvement window.
  
• Hostages will no longer appear as someone you can marry when using Find Spouse interaction.
  
• The Disrespected Elders modifier from getting yelled at by an old man during Meet Peers activity will now disappear much sooner.
  
• Adds clarifying text to Succession Law selection window explaining that special title succession laws always take precedence over realm succession laws.
  
• Children will no longer gain more than 1 childhood trait after turning 3 years old or when generated through templates.
  
• Fixed any ruler who had their capital as Mecca gaining the Hajjaj trait, instead of only Muslim rulers.
  
• Fixed incorrect values and loc in Invite to Activity rank difference modifiers.
  
• Invasion wars will highlight the correct counties in war overview.
  
• Invasion wars will highlight the correct counties that the attacker is going to win when victorious
  
• Temporary bride and groom modifiers are now removed if the Wedding is invalidated before completion.
  
• Reduced amount of AI wearing glasses.
  
• Fixed Educate Child message not containing any text.
  
• Fixed all cases where playable starting ruler's governments did not match their holding type.
  
• Fixed issues with avalanche in county letter event.
  
• Fixed it being possible to request wards or guardians from other courts if another is already traveling to the target.
  
• Fixed missing loc for hostile scheme reluctance modifier for own Head of Faith.
  
• Fixed stated kinswoman/man relations between lowborns with no shared family.
  
• Fixed traveling wards, guardians, and hostages who were invalidated not returning home.
  
• Mades some decision titles more stylistically consistent.
  
• Not returning a hostage upon reaching adulthood will now reduce your Prestige income from hostages, and the chance of other ruler's sending child hostages to you, for 10 years.
  
• Ensure random_list weights cannot get negative weights.
  
• Court event "Basileusophile" no longer displays an unlocalized line in the purple undergarment creation option.
  
• Fixed unavailable option tooltip in Under the Weather travel event.
  
• Ghazi Status CB piety reduction now only applies to holy wars.
  
• Removed a minor character from Austria, as their associated barony does not exist.
  
• Fixed an issue where calling a baron to an offensive war would deduct 700+ prestige.
  
• Infants will no longer get Wet Nurse events about child development.
  
• Incapable Clan Vassals will no longer demand your children.
  

Hello and welcome to the Developer Diary focusing on 3D Art for Crusader Kings III: Legacy of Persia. Im Lucas Ribeiro, the Art Lead for the project. Before we move on to looking at some of the amazing 3D artwork the team has created for the Flavor Pack, I would like to give an overview of our decision-making process.

Discuss Dev Diary #139 on our forums!



When creating art for Legacy of Persia, we were looking for ways to represent the resurgence of the Iranian identity in the Iranian Intermezzo after two centuries of intermingling and struggling with the Arab and Turkic peoples. This meant we needed to give Persian characters their own new look and at the same time reinforce the visual identities of the Turks and Arabs.

We focused on 8th - 11th century references, basing our work on the art produced by Iranians that were inspired by Sassanian and-or Zoroastrian sources while at the same time not looking anachronistic. The clothes we see in Legacy of Persia should be as close as possible to what we might see a 10th century Samanid Amir wear.

To this end we created loads of new artifacts, buildings, military units, beards, hairstyles, clothes and of course HATS aimed mostly at the Iranian culture, while creating a few new key recognizable extra assets for the Turkic and Arab cultures.

Now, onto the art!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Environment Art[/h2]

Stina Arvidsson Rdestig was our main 3D Environment Artist for the project, and shell give us some nice insights into the process of creating Monuments, Holdings and Artifacts for Legacy of Persia

We had the honor of researching the artifacts, ruined structures, natural wonders, and special monuments of ancient Persia and providing a list of candidates to serve as the basis for court artifacts and special buildings for this flavor pack. Given the rich history of this region, and the large body of interesting and beautiful monuments; geographical variety; and the surviving works of art from this time period, it was a very difficult task to narrow the list down to the ones we would want to make it into the game.

Our aim was to achieve variety - both from an aesthetic and game mechanical perspective - in order to create a balanced gameplay experience.



[h3]Court Artifacts[/h3]

Court artifacts are amazing to work on, because they are based on real world historical artifacts - special items, works of art, or trinkets that have survived through the ages, impressing historians and laymen alike either with backstory, craftsmanship, or beauty. (Or, as in the case with the complaint letter to Ea-Nasir - just for being plain silly!). As 3D artists, apart from the technical constraints set by our game engine and triangle count, there are few things limiting our freedom to portray these beautiful and interesting artifacts as accurately as possible. We strive to do these items justice - while still keeping the assets practical and optimized - , so we make sure to gather a large body of verified references, including photographs, illustrations, and descriptive texts. We want the players to feel as if they are looking at the real thing - not just a bleak, filtered interpretation - thats why our approach is to capture the form, the details, the ornamental patterns as accurately as possible, only omitting tiny details or making changes if necessary for practical reasons.

Typically, we sculpt ornamental detail in Zbrush using either curve brushes, traditional sculpting brushes, or modeling tools. Sometimes taking a node-based approach in Substance Designer, or using image-based techniques. Each method has its own pros and cons - sometimes we even combine multiple methods for one asset.



[The image on the left shows a photograph of the Oxus Treasure Bracelet artifact. The middle and right images show the finalized 3D asset.]



[Photograph of the Il-Khanid brass casket artifact]



[Wireframe and final 3D asset]



[A few other court artifacts that can be found throughout Persia: A Sassanian Sword, an Incense Burner Cat Sculpture, and an ancient drinking vessel.]



[h3]Special Buildings[/h3]

Making the special buildings present an entirely different challenge compared to court artifacts. Monuments are very small, and they use a premade texture atlas. Each time a new flavor pack is made, the texture atlas is changed to better fit with the building materials, and color scheme of the region. Details are minimalistic - but it works really well in game! This atlas is made using a texture-making software called Substance Designer. The challenge is to create a symbolic representation of the real-world counterpart - yet to stay true to historical references! Much like with court artifacts, we look closely at references to find the answer to questions like: What did the entrance gate of this castle really look like? Did this fortress have a moat? What is the plan layout of this temple? And from there, we work to exaggerate the most visually distinct parts, whereas more redundant, less noteable details may be toned down.

Another thing that we like to do is look for signs of old ruins and structures, and try to restore them in our models.

Take a look at the comparisons below, to see the differences between some real-world locations and our monuments:



[Real-world Soltaniyeh Monument, and our interpretation of it in-game]



[Current days Ark of Bukhara and our interpretation]



[Ctesiphon ruins and our interpretation of what it mightve looked like if restored.]



[The texture atlas used when texturing all holding models and Special Buildings in Legacy of Persia.]


We like to take a modular approach whenever possible - this saves a lot of time! It means that we will make simple structures like a piece of a wall, a tower, a door, for example and model and texture them to completion, only to duplicate them later. Sometimes, we make use of symmetry and mirroring functions within my 3D software (usually Autodesk Maya), to model only a quarter of a model, and then instantly turn it into a whole model.



[h3]Holdings[/h3]

Holdings are the fortresses, walls, temples, and cities of Crusader Kings III. Their visual design follows a specific formula and is usually based not on any one single existing building, but rather the general architectural style of the era.

Zoroastrian temples are especially unique as they have smoke billowing out of them to represent the holy fires they mightve had going inside.





[h3]Natural Wonders[/h3]

We also had the chance to include a few unique natural wonders of the region. Such as the seasonally magenta Maharloo Lake, the breathtaking Rainbow Mountains and the sacred Mount Damavand, steeped in myth and legend.




[hr][/hr]

[h2]Character Art[/h2]

Lets look through some of the many new assets that the team has created to make this region even more flavorful, with Elena Zenko as the main character artist on the project

The first step of making character assets is to collect references and gather information of how these assets should look like. And it was an extremely tricky though fun part of the FP3.
Not that many historical depictions of how people dressed have survived until this day. That influenced us to be even more thorough in our attempt to be as accurate as possible. (Sharbush) Hats off to our Principal Character Artist Nils for helping out with research and concept work on these. It was definitely not easy to collect, contextualize and ascertain the validity and quality of our references.

As inspiration we were using different sources like The Book of Fixed Stars, and plenty of surviving murals from different parts of ancient Persia, that nowadays are Iran, Tajikistan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and even China. Sometimes we had just written descriptions from Encyclopaedia Iranica. We used these many sources as evidence to some of the new assets that would otherwise look like they were straight out of high fantasy!

Lets take a look at the new clothes:



The images show the process of creating the asset from reference to concept to finished asset in the game. As a main reference we used wall paintings from one of the Ghaznavid palaces at Lakar Bzr in central Afghanistan. The men are wearing qab, a mid calf-length coat that opens up in front with one side of the coat hanging on the chest. On the sleeves you can see irz in the form of armbands - those are Persian embroidery that are inscribed in the coat. One cool feature of the asset is many belts, and a humble artist cannot resist making them for the game. It brought some pain later on with testing animations, but we sacrifice ourselves for beautiful clothes.




Another cool asset that is primarily based on kitb suwar al-kawkib or The Book of Fixed Stars. The illustrations there are quite unique, and we had some moments of concern if these clothes existed in real life and how we recreate something like this in the game. Eventually, the temptation to make unique and sophisticated cloth was higher than common sense and time restriction, so we ended up making this. The asset contains the outer rich styled robe khaftn, that is made from silver or gold brocade or silk. The most interesting part of the asset is elaborately cut sleeves and the skirt decorated with irz that you may see present on the illustrations from The Book of Fixed Stars.




This picture represents male and female cloth assets that are based on the real Seljuk robe of the 11-12th century. Another reference was a 10th century bowl with a Figure and Bird. Both of these assets have belts with ornamental discs that weve found present on the pictures of painted terracotta sarcophagus cover in the Monastery in Fondukistan.




These pictures represent a female cloth asset based on stucco relief from the book Negar-e Zan that shows a, presumably, female attendant at the court of Kalhana. We also used a reference of the Seljuq Standing Figure that might depict a sultan or one of his vassals. Interestingly, female attendants at the court were supposed to wear mens dress, which sometimes makes it hard to tell who is in the picture. As for the belt we returned back to The Book of Fixed Stars and found some interesting rectangular belt fittings that we sure added in our collection of Absolutely Historically Accurate belts.



[h3]Headgears[/h3]




Its a small, flattened cap with a diadem and a bow that is based on our favorite Book of Fixed Stars. This time we spent a significant amount of time making concepts and contemplating if the headgear had a cap or if it was some sort of the strap holding the diadem and pushing the hair.




Another asset that we made was a Seljuk stiff cap edged with fur, with a metal plate over the forehead. Turkic characters of duke rank will be seen wearing this very recognizable asset!




And here are new Persian crowns that sometimes seem out of fantasy, though they are indeed based on late Sasanian coins and 7-8th century murals. The most common type of royal headgear we found from the period was the winged crown. Additionally, the shape of the wings on the male crown resembles hands that we found fascinating. The depiction of these wings was found on the wall paintings of the Afrasiab murals, a rare example of Sogdian art.




Here is another set of the new Imperial crowns that were based on our beloved Book of Fixed Stars. You can see another version of the winged crown, though this time the wings are bigger as fits an imperial figure. A well-known fact - with the big power comes big wings (and strong neck).





We thankfully still have many surviving patterns on fabrics from the time period. Common motifs were mythological Iranian creatures such as the Simurgh or the Huma. Pheasants and ducks were also very popular imagery.

Diving deep into the aesthetics of this twilight period in Iran was incredibly rewarding. We discovered beautiful imagery and pieces of craftsmanship that we were honored to interpret and combine into these 3D assets that gave Persia and its inhabitants their own unique look and feel.

[hr][/hr]

Join the struggle for medieval dominance in Legacy of Persia, the new Flavor Pack for Crusader Kings III, releasing on November 9.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313540/Crusader_Kings_III_Legacy_of_Persia/

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Hello and welcome to this development diary about flavor additions to the greater Iran area. That means in this diary you will get a test of many things that, while individually small, aim to increase the overall authenticity and uniqueness in this part of the world.

I will also begin with a shout out to Vaniljkaka who worked on the first draft of this DD and did a lot of the event and research work for Legacy of Persia.

Discuss Dev Diary #138 on our forums!



[h2]Historical Flavor[/h2]

One way to significantly improve the state of the game in a given start date is to look into what unresolved issues were ongoing in a specific location at the time. To a large degree that is the thinking behind the struggle system itself but and as already described in a previous development diary there is now both a new 867 bookmark start, and a struggle called the Iranian Intermezzo to achieve this.

But the struggle alone cannot cover everything that was important for a ruler in medieval Iran in 867 or 1066. We have therefore taken the opportunity to more thoroughly research the starting situation for both starts, adding new rulers, dynasties, rivalries, as well as less politically influential characters such as scholars or artists active in our time period. Existing family trees have also been significantly expanded in many cases and should also now make use of a new set of coat-of-arms using Iranian or Islamic elements.

Additionally, there has been a general go over of the cultural and religious setup of the entire region, with adjustments here and there aiming to better reflect the political realities of the time.



The biggest changes are to certain religious groups or sects that were important in 9th century Iran - the Mutazila, the Khurramites, the Azariqa. The rebellious, egalitarian Khurramites would be particularly suited for underdog playthroughs though none are landed at the start, whereas the fanatic Azariqa stand ready to unleash a terrifying wave of assassinations, to avenge the Battle of Nahrawan and the many slights they believe that theyve suffered since. Both these faiths have been given new tenets to portray their unique worldviews. At game start in 867 there is also an ongoing Azariqa rebellion, which you can partake in if you want to attempt to form an Azariqan Caliphate.


[The Fedayeen tenet is shared by the Azariqa and the Nizari, and allows you to recruit and utilize fearsome assassins - fanatics devoted to slaying the unbelievers.]



[The rural, rebellious Khurramites are present in pockets all over Iran, though their great rebellions of the mid-9th century have long since been suppressed. Also featured in the screenshot is the new geographic special location of Mount Damavand. One of multiple new special buildings in the update.]



[The cultural map should be largely familiar, with some notable exceptions like 1066 and 867 now having differing setups in the region of Balochistan.]

When it comes to cultures, we have added a number of new cultural traditions, some of which add new gameplay elements such as the Qanat building line (from the Irrigation Experts cultural tradition which replaces Dryland Dwellers) or the new Court Scholar court position (from the new Beacon of Learning tradition) which can be sponsored to unlock new innovations.


[The Persians in particular have been given three new traditions to reflect all the refinement and enlightenment that made them so admired by Arabs and Turks alike.]

For the greater region covered by the update we now also have Jirga (for the Afghan, Baloch and Brahui cultures) which among other things unlock the Tribal Elective Succession form as well as new regional traditions that unlock unique Man-at-Arms types such as the Zupin (Pragmatic Creed) Spearmen or the Tarkhans (Frontier Warriors).



We are also adding historically inspired decisions and events to the region, with the aim of opening up the same possibilities to rulers in our game that historical rulers of the era would have had. This also means that some previously unlikely historical scenarios are now encouraged, for instance Turkic conquerors in general and the Seljuks in particular are more likely to show up and make a new home for themselves in the Iranian plateau, and as a rising ruler in Iran you have new ways of promoting alternate Islamic faiths in the region that are not as present yet at game start (such as the Maturidi denomination of Sunni Islam or Shia Imamism).

For the Seljuk arrival in the late 900s there is also a game rule to make their entrance more random or to turn it off entirely.
Last but not least the chaotic setup in 867 is now further improved by an early event chain about the Zanj rebellion which should add even more uncertainty and dynamism to an already quite open starting situation.



[hr][/hr]

[h2]Viziers[/h2]

A new type of diarchy coming in Legacy of Persia, viziers were historically many things. They were powerful private landholders, vital linchpins of the civil service, some of the most corrupt people in the world, and extravagantly dramatic party-hosts.



Mechanically, Viziers may be appointed by duke-tier or higher clan-government characters. Whilst incumbent, they grant you extra tax jurisdictions (scaled to their stewardship) and add a portion of their own tax collector aptitude directly to all of your tax collectors aptitudes, providing a powerful direct modifier on how much gold you get per month. How large a portion of aptitude they grant scales with how heavily the Scales of Power are swung towards them, so a more empowered vizier offers both benefits and drawbacks to their liege.



Unlike regents, being a vizier isnt a prestigious position for a noble you are, after all, merely a civil servant, and whats worse one with actual work youre expected to do instead, landless courtiers and minor barons from your faiths dominant gender compete for the post. Having the vizier in your pocket is still desirable, though, so prospective viziers at court will politick behind the scenes, gaining friendships and rivals with other prospective candidates, their lieges spouses, and their lieges stay-at-home adult children.

These relations in turn directly contribute to vizier succession score, so a candidate whos friends with the current vizier will see themselves climb the ranking, whereas one whos made an enemy of their lieges spouse will see their score fall. For the same reason, prospective viziers will often learn their lieges language, seeking to further their prospects for promotion.

As civil servants, viziers dont have access to quite as many powers as regents. Predominantly theyll embezzle and try to give negative county modifiers to vassals in exchange for gold, though a complacent liege who lets the Scales creep too far towards their supposedly-loyal vizier will find that theyre still capable of launching coups. Viziers are also usable in the new-ish confidant council position, which allows you to substitute them in instead of your spouse for spousal council tasks (your choice of which, naturally).

Though such functionaries can be fired at any time, removing the vizierate regardless of the status of the Scales of Power, a vizier with high swing is one whos enmeshed themselves thoroughly, and who cannot be removed completely without consequence. Above a certain Scale swing threshold, firing your vizier will give you a severe negative economic modifier that harms your monthly income. This scales to how much swing the vizier had so sure, you can fire them at 80+ swing if you like, but dont think they wont have arranged a little job security for just such an occasion.



An easier way to remove civil servants is to kick them upstairs: giving your vizier a county (or, if the Scales are really swung in their favor, a duchy) will also end the vizierate, this time without any economic fallout. Everyone loves a promotion, after all.

Finally, you may recall that I mentioned viziers were legendarily corrupt: though not always strictly true, this was generally the case, and actually a feature of the position rather than a bug. The role of a corrupt vizier was to run the realms finances, and it was generally understood that theyd enrich themselves in the process. It was fairly common for viziers to pay significant bribes straight to the liege to get the position that and to capture and audit the last vizier for undeclared revenue.

The advantage to this for the liege was that, when they needed money in a pinch, rather than have to collect a special tax from the realm as a whole, force powerful vassals and governors to cough up more cash, or individually audit every petty tax collector, there was one person in the realm they could generally guarantee not only had money but had more money than they should have. Minimal overhead, maximum convenience. At least, for the liege.



In-game, we represent this through your viziers income and extravagance modifiers. They receive an income from positional corruption proportional to your own income (this doesnt count towards the embezzlement secret, as its technically part of their official remuneration). Every so often, theyll spend this money on character modifiers for treasure, activities, properties, or charity. Once they have one modifier of each type, theyll begin again, spending more money on more expensive extra types of each modifier, up to four tiers.



Lieges can then mulct their viziers via interaction, fining them for their excesses. This deletes a rank of the viziers extravagance modifiers, liquidating them and transferring gold to the ruler that increases with the tier (and number!) of modifiers liquidated. Naturally, viziers arent generally too happy with this, even if the process further enmeshes them as the most important state official, but theres not much they can do about it other than rebuild their losses. Which, naturally, makes them more attractive to mulct again down the line



Weve included about ~160 different modifier descriptions for what viziers are spending their money on, of which about half are explicitly historically attested (comments in the script file for anyone particularly interested in which), and another quarter reasonably probable. The remaining quarter is us trying to keep up with the lavish standards for extravagances set by historys actual vizierates. These do vary vizier by vizier, so you should see your viziers purchasing extravagance modifiers relevant to their traits and interests.

That was all for this diary! I hope it has given a general idea of the type of flavor content that you can expect in Legacy of Persia, without spoiling all of what there is to discover.

[hr][/hr]

Join the struggle for medieval dominance in Legacy of Persia, the new Flavor Pack for Crusader Kings III, releasing on November 9.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313540/Crusader_Kings_III_Legacy_of_Persia/

Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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Salutations!

Its been a while since I last wrote a DD, so a quick (re)introduction might be in order. Im Emil, aka Servancour, one of your resident CK3 game designers. Ive been on the project since way before release, and tend to mostly focus a lot on game mechanics and systemic features. Which, in fact, brings me to why Im here today. When we settled on Persia as the focus for our upcoming Flavor Pack, we soon came to realize that this would be an excellent opportunity to revisit the Clan Government and give it a much-needed update.

Discuss Dev Diary #137 on our forums!



Clans, as you currently know them, are very similar to Feudal. There are only two real points of difference between them. Opinion is a major factor in their obligations, meaning that a vassals opinion of their liege affects how much taxes and levies they will give to their liege. Secondly, they have access to and utilize vassal contracts, albeit in a slightly stripped-down version, with less available options than their Feudal counterparts.

This begs the question; How can we make Clan Government stand out? Weve already identified one aspect above, so our first action and problem to solve is this - How do (or should) Clans manage their vassals? Secondly, and perhaps much more important, is what does a Clan actually represent? What does the name mean for gameplay?

But Im getting ahead of myself. Lets start with the first question, shall we? And have a look at Clan obligations.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Tax Jurisdictions and Tax Collectors[/h2]

While we knew we wanted to add something new to Clan obligations, we had to ask ourselves how we wanted to make it different. As with all things Crusader Kings, adding a new element that makes use of characters felt like a natural fit, to give obligations some personality if you will. Meet the Tax Collector.



Youll have access to a limited number of Tax Jurisdictions. To which you assign your Clan vassals as Taxpayers, allowing you to gain both taxes and levies from your subjects. A Jurisdiction requires a Tax Collector to function, however. So, before you can collect any taxes, you need to appoint one of your courtiers as a Tax Collector for each Jurisdiction.



With Tax Collectors, you wont manage the obligations of your vassals directly. Instead, you manage them through your Tax Collector. Similar to a Court Position, a Tax Collector uses their aptitude to set the obligations of the vassals assigned to them. Higher levels of aptitude means that youll get more taxes and levies. Aptitude is primarily based on their skills, with Learning being the more important one, but their opinion of you also plays a significant part. To maximize the use of your Tax Collectors, youll want to find and appoint a skilled character, and then put the sway scheme to good use in order to squeeze as much gold from your subjects as possible.



While your Tax Collectors act as your intermediaries, you are still able to exact a certain degree of control of how they should manage your vassals. This is where Tax Decrees come into play. A Tax Decree is essentially how you want your vassals to be taxed, changing the obligations and providing an assortment of additional benefits.




With the introduction of Tax Decrees, it made perfect sense to move over some aspects of vassal contracts to this new system instead. For example, this is where youll find Iqta, Ghazi, and Jizya to use as you see fit. While you wont have to bother with decrees if you dont want to, they do give you opportunities to min-max in different ways. Decrees change the obligations of your vassals, either increasing or reducing them, in exchange for other boons. Take Iqta as an example. Iqta is a great option if you find yourself with vassals who are slightly upset, just enough for you to start taking notice, and if you also find yourself being at war frequently, as Iqta provides you with increased Men-at-Arms Damage based on the number of assigned vassals alongside an opinion bonus.



One thing to consider is that the modifiers applied to the obligations occur on the level as set by your Tax Collector. Which makes Decrees more or less powerful depending on the Tax Collector in question. Again, looking at the effects of Iqta, -20% to both taxes and levies wont be very noticeable if your Tax Collector has a terrible aptitude. This makes Iqta very rewarding for the price you pay, since the gained benefit is pretty good. If your Tax Collector is excellent on the other hand, youll feel the impact of those 20%.


That about sums it up for how Tax Jurisdictions, Collectors, and Decrees work. With obligations out of the way, lets go back and answer our second question!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]House Unity[/h2]

As the name suggests, Clans should be all about the clan itself and its members. Something that we really dont represent at the moment. Nor does it have any real impact on how you play the game. To solve this and put a significantly larger emphasis on your House when you are playing as a Clan, we are introducing House Unity.

Unity represents the overall state of a House. Essentially the internal relationships between its members and the attitude they have towards each other. In many ways, Unity is the result of how you choose to interact with your fellow House members. We show everything regarding Unity in each Clans House view, allowing you to easily inspect your own Unity, and the Unity of other Houses.



We measure Unity on a scale between 0 and 200, divided up into five distinct ranges, or levels. Each level comes with a set of impactful rules and tradeoffs that may have a noticeable impact on how you play the game. By default, most Houses start in the middle. Essentially a neutral level. From there, theyll be able to actively increase or decrease their Unity.

The levels are as following, listed from lowest to highest level of Unity:

• Antagonistic
  
• Competitive
  
• Impassive
  
• Friendly
  
• Harmonious
  

Greetings!

It is time to dive into the upcoming Flavor Pack - Legacy of Persia - giving a brief overview of the why and the what! The region has a rich and vibrant history making it both exciting and interesting to work with, not the least because it differs significantly from the regions we've chosen to cover in the past - Persia lies at the crossroads of the world, with a multitude of external influences combined with strong local traditions. Naturally while our focus has been on the Persian region itself, we've also aimed to shake up a portion of the world at large by revising how the Clan government works, so even if you're not playing in the Persian region there's something new and exciting to experience.

Co-writing this Dev Diary with me is Lucas Ribeiro - our skilled and multitalented 2D Art Lead at PDX Studio Black, who has been deeply involved with many of the features of this pack!

Discuss Dev Diary #136 on our forums!






[h2]So, why Persia?[/h2]

For starters, our data pointed out that Persia is already a very popular starting location for our players. The region is within the top ten most picked starting locations and the most popular one outside of Europe.
Despite originally not having much flavor dedicated to the area and no bookmark characters attached to it, our players were still going for Persia playthroughs. Theres no better endorsement of the interest in the region than that!

But, player data aside, all history enthusiasts know how rich and interesting Persia is, even more so during Crusader Kings IIIs time period. We saw this as a chance to create very interesting gameplay opportunities.

At the 867 game start, the Abbasid Caliphate is reeling from the Anarchy at Samarra. A moment in history when many Caliphs fell victim to a deadly struggle for power while insurrectionists raged up and down the Tigris and the Euphrates, such as the Kharijite and the Zanj Rebellions. Meanwhile in the east, Iranian rulers rose to challenge the Abbasid Authority. This time period, known as the Iranian Intermezzo saw a partial revival of Iranian culture with the ascension of the Saffarid and Samanid dynasties. About a century after the start date of 867, the Iranian Daylamite Buyids came to power, subjugating the Abassid Caliphate.

This Iranian comeback is then cut short by the Seljuk Invasion. A dynasty of turkic warrior nomads take over Persia and the Levant, submitting both Arabs and Iranians to their rule. Further on the east the Ghaznavids defeat the Samanids, cementing the end of the Iranian Intermezzo and leading into the state of Persia as we see in the 1066 start. The Buyids are not playable on the 867 start, as their founder, a warrior from the mountains of Daylam had yet to leap into history. But a last holdout of the dynasty can be found in Shiraz at the 1066 start.




[h2]Clan Government Rework[/h2]

Since the area of the flavor pack is almost entirely made up of Clan Rulers, for Legacy of Persia, we have decided to reimagine how the Clan government works.

Our aim is to more closely represent the familial struggles of the powerful clans of the time and the bureaucratic apparatus that backed their interests.

The Clan government is now directly tied to how your house members interact with each other. Each house will have a Unity Level that can be changed by intervention of the house head and by its members treating each other kindly or badly. A harmonious clan will have a consolidated succession, while an antagonistic one, not so much!

Clan rulers employ an office of bureaucrats, their Tax Collectors, to levy troops and coin from their vassals. The competence of a Tax Collector will dictate how much they manage to extract from the vassals assigned to them. Each Tax Collector manages a Jurisdiction with an associated Tax Decree. For example: You might want to place all your non-muslim vassals in a Jurisdiction with the Jizya Decree and maximize your gold income.

More details on the Clan Government design on a future dev diary.




[h2]Iranian-Heritage Cultures[/h2]

Persia and its surrounding areas are populated by a variety of different iranian-heritage cultures. We strived to give each one of them an original combination of cultural traditions that allow for a variety of new playstyles. The Kurds with their hard-to-convert culture and mountain cavalry, the Daylamites with their two-pronged spear wielding mercenaries and so on.
Persian culture, of course, received special attention. With new traditions about their famous scholarly pursuits and elaborate systems of water cooling and irrigation.

Iranian cultures have also received new clothes, headgears, hairstyles, beards and unit models, making them more appropriately distinct from the Arabic cultures. Also, due to their importance in the region, Turkic cultures have also received some sorely-missed assets, such as the Sharbush hat and the very recognizable Seljuk braids.




[h2]Islam and Zoroastrianism[/h2]


In Crusader Kings 3 starting date of 867, Islam has been the dominant religion of the upper classes in Persia for over a century. Still, Zoroastrian practices are still very much alive and widespread in the peasantry. Weve done a general pass on religion in the region, adjusting provinces and characters to a more accurate historical representation. Tenets and doctrines for both Islam and Zoroastrianism have also received lots of adjustments and tweaks. Jizya, for example, has been moved to a tax jurisdiction type unlocked for muslim clan rulers. Both religions have received new decisions and events to flesh them out some more. Theyre also strongly tied to the Struggle system in the region, speaking of which





[h2]A New Struggle, the Iranian Intermezzo[/h2]

With Legacy of Persia, we are bringing a new Struggle, the Iranian Intermezzo.

This struggle seeks to represent the historical dissolution of the Caliphal authority over Persia and the ascension of new, powerful, Iranian Rulers In the 9th and 10th centuries. It also reflects a shorter historical period when compared to Fate of Iberias Struggle, so it is likely to be resolved more briefly and intensely.

Unlike Fate of Iberia, participant characters are clearly divided into factions. The Caliphal Supporters against the Detractors. A lot of new interactions are unlocked by this dynamic, such as convincing a character to switch sides, sponsoring turkic invasions against supporters, or waging war to install Caliphal Supporters.

The struggle has three phases, Unrest, Stabilization and Concession. The Concession phase is of a new type, a so-called Ending Phase. If a struggle gets to an Ending Phase, it will instantly trigger an ending. So, unlike Struggle Ending Decisions, where there is a dominant character that pushes the button to trigger it, every involved character can contribute to an Ending Phase by triggering relevant catalysts.

We have designed four struggle endings (three as decisions, one as an ending phase), which can be pursued in different ways, depending on the personal perspective of your character.

Will the Caliph be able to reestablish their power over the region? Will a powerful Shia ruler overtake the Sunni, creating a new Caliphate? Maybe an Iranian ruler will usher in an era of Persian dominance, forever boosting cultures of Iranian-heritage? Or, a Sunni Caliphal Detractor might oust the Caliph and take their place as head of faith?

In the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle we went for a more nuanced, granular approach, where the endings are subdivided into options that have different effects, according to your characters culture, religion and whether they are part of the Supporter or Detractor faction.




[h2]New 867 Bookmark[/h2]

With Legacy of Persia we are adding a new bookmark, the Persian Revival, with five Iranian-heritage characters to choose from. These were picked both for their historical importance and to provide for a wide variety of gameplay styles.

In the mountains of Daylam we see a fan favorite, Rostam Bavandid, one of the last Sassanids in the game and a secret Zoroastrian. A great character if you are going for a Sassanian Restoration style playthrough.

In the southern reaches of Persia, Muhammad of the Tahirids is a loyal vassal and supporter of the Caliphate. His nephew, though, rules an independent emirate in Khorasan and is desperate for help against the invading Saffarids. This character was a great pick for us, since hes split between internal and external conflicts in the Caliphate.

Since we mentioned Saffarids, we have Yaqub, the coppersmith. This lowly peasant rose to power through extraordinary military prowess. In one of his many battles, he was swordstruck and horribly disfigured. But, despite all these difficulties, this upstart is pushing back against the might of the Abbasids. He was an obvious choice for us, since he is an interesting historical figure and a sort of folk hero of the Iranian traditions, having restored Persian as the official dialect of the region (after it was supplanted by Arabic).

Next, we have one that will be familiar to the achievement hunters, Suri of the Ghurids. Although historically Suri is mostly known for running away from the Saffarids and hiding at his buddy Abdullah Habbaris court, his dynasty eventually grew into a huge Empire. Being Tajik and Mahayana, hes stuck between the Muslim and the Buddhist world, creating opportunities for interesting gameplay. Theres also a lot of juicy mines in the region that Suri can go claim and fuel his future conquests. Good luck to all players out there going for the Rise of the Ghurids achievement!

Lastly, we have Ismail of the Samanids. Despite being distant in the line of succession, historically Ismail came to supplant all of his relatives and assume control of his brothers Emirate. The Samanids under Ismail grew into a true empire, only to be overtaken later by the Ghaznavids and the Seljuks. An interpretation of Ismails likeness can now be seen stamped on the Tajikistani currency, the Somoni, which is named after his dynasty.

That's it for this time! More details will follow soon!

[hr][/hr]

Join the struggle for medieval dominance in Legacy of Persia, the new Flavor Pack for Crusader Kings III, releasing on November 9.

https://youtu.be/kwKbVALjXpE

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313540/Crusader_Kings_III_Legacy_of_Persia/

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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.10.2 for Crusader Kings III. This update is aimed primarily at addressing balance issues with the University activities introduced in 1.10, but we also took the opportunity to knock out some outstanding issues elsewhere.

As always, if you run into issues after this update, please let us know on our bug report board on the official Paradox Plaza forums, or on our Community Support board here on Steam!

[hr][/hr]

Update 1.10.2 Changelog

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Rebalanced costs of the University interaction.
  
  
  
  • While remaining one of the most expensive Activities, the cost has now primarily moved onto the options; the lowest option reduces the base cost, the normal option costs significantly more, and the good option almost doubles the cost of the activity. This should lower the barrier of entry, while letting the activity remain an effective gold sink.
    
  
  
• Removed the extra cost for having a higher tier title from the University Activity.
  
• The books gained from the highest University Activity books option are now better.
  
• The skill point gained from the University Activity books option is no longer random, but is instead based on your education. This should make it easier to improve a skill you care about.
  

• The Player must now have promised a Grand Wedding in order to plan one.
  

• Added warning about potential hostage execution when offering to join another characters war.
  
• Fixed University costs accidentally scaling up by almost an order of magnitude in later eras.
  
• Betrothals will no longer stop you from promising a new Grand Wedding if the old promise was related to someone who is now dead.
  
• Hostages departing toast message will no longer be doubled when Defender wins a war.
  
• Activities can now be planned even if you have insufficient funds to start them.
  

Hello everyone! September 1st marks the third anniversary of the release of Crusader Kings III, and we're excited to share this day with our loyal players! You've all helped make this game what it is today through your comments, feedback, and suggestions over the last three years, and we can't thank you enough for the support you've given us and the time you've put into our game.

To help celebrate this milestone, we've prepared a special anniversary video for you, featuring some highlights and statistics of the game, as well as a teaser for what you can expect from us later this year.

[previewyoutube=ZTsxaZpYmXk;full][/previewyoutube]

We've also prepared a set of high-resolution wallpapers from our wonderful art team, and for those who want to see even more there's a full Art Blast article available on Artstation!

Finally, we want to hear from you! What are your favorite moments of Crusader Kings III? Share your stories (in-game or real life!), screenshots, memes, or whatever else you'd prefer with us here in the comments or on our social media channels (linked below). We'll feature some of our favorite submissions next week!

Thank you again for playing our game, and for being part of our community. We hope you enjoy the anniversary video, and continue being a dedicated player of Crusader Kings III. The last three years have been an incredible journey for us at Paradox, and we can't wait to show you what we have in store for the next three years of Crusader Kings III.
[hr][/hr]
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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.10.1 for Crusader Kings III. This update focuses primarily on resolving issues reported since the release of Wards & Wardens and the associated 1.10.0 "Quill" Update, but also targets some older outstanding issues. We hope this makes your experience playing CKIII smoother and more enjoyable!



As always, if you run into issues after this update, please let us know on our bug report board on the official Paradox Plaza forums, or on our Community Support board here on Steam!



Update 1.10.1 Changelog

[h2]Localization[/h2]

• Fixed some problems with translated localization entries for Spanish and Korean
  
• Fixed problems with some English text being unintentionally displayed under some circumstances for localized text strings
  

• There is now a playable Saura-faith vassal ruler in 867, Sussala of Multan
  
• Vaticano now starts with a Grand Cathedral already built, representing the Old St. Peter's Basilica
  

• Added letter event when your request to Recall a Hostage is declined.
  
• Added missing description text for receiving a recall hostage request.
  
• Added missing description text for the notification message when the parent fails to influence a childs personality.
  
• Added notification feedback of the outcomes of skill changes for the child in the event "A Rulers Path"
  
• Adopted children will no longer immediately send a congratulatory letter to themselves.
  
• Adopting a hostage will no longer immediately result in them leaving your court.
  
• Character Memories are now created when a character becomes an acclaimed knight.
  
• The Childhood event "A Blow, Returned" now properly notifies involved parties of the outcome.
  
• The Childhood event "A Potential Crush" will now properly use an adverb and not a definite article when referring to your love interest.
  
• Events for being neglected in prison will now properly look for if there is actual neglect going on.
  
• Petra, the Iron Pillar of Dhar, and the Doge's Palace should now properly count as Points of Interest during travel.
  
• Fixed problem in the prisoner relation text, where it erroneously tried to make claims about a prisoner's origin.
  
• Fixed the "Daring Scout" modifier having no icon.
  
• Fixed the Activity Pulse Action for Sight-Seeing (used in Pilgrimages as well as University Visits) having broken text.
  
• Fixed the Eccentric trait improperly subtracting customization points in the Ruler Designer.
  
• Fixed the Garuda court position having a lower modifier at highest aptitude than it did at the level below.
  
• Fixed the Rock story cycle not properly referring to the named rock in some cases.
  
• Fixed the text in the Wards & Wardens event "An Encouraging Friend" calling your bully by your name instead of bully's own name
  
• Fixed unnecessarily large effect lists in wars using the Invasion Casus Belli.
  
• Fixed various issues with the travel plans of wards and hostages.
  
• Grand tour orgy event "A Chance Meeting" will now display the right participants in the event window.
  
• Guardians will now once again be able to influence the religion and culture of their Wards.
  
• Horse Archer attribute for Accolades will now properly affect Horse Archers instead of Light Cavalry.
  
• Hostage event "Who Am I?" now properly refers to the name of the host's culture
  
• Hostage execution events will now display better information when you have multiple possible hostages to execute at the same time.
  
• Hostage transfers should now be available as an option in most peace resolutions.
  
• Hostages can no longer acquire the Marshal council position.
  
• If a regent has a promise for a Grand Wedding, they are now allowed to leave the court to attend their wedding in order to avoid diplomatic consequences.
  
• Infertile wedded couples are now properly described as such in game when shown in effect tooltips during Grand Weddings.
  
• It is no longer possible to kidnap your hostages.
  
• Landed rulers can now once again be Guardians for landed Wards.
  
• Resolved an out-of-sync error in Multiplayer that could occur if the player canceled travel to Pay Homage or Petition Liege.
  
• Reduced effect of reinforcement rate for same faith from artifacts since these were 10 times too high
  
• Reforging an artifact now properly depends on remaining relative durability instead of absolute durability
  
• Refusing to return a hostage upon them reaching the age of majority now damages their home court's opinion of you.
  
• The acceptance entry for hostage-related interactions is now properly colored in the interface.
  
• Children will now correctly gain the ill-trait as an outcome of the "A Sick Leave" event.
  
• The Childhood event "Lasting Heartbreak" now properly displays its negative modifier as red instead of green.
  
• The event "A Sick Leave" and its follow-up events now properly describe the court chaplains relation to you.
  
• The guard in the Throne room of African Royal Courts will no longer stab the character next to the throne when no-one is looking.
  
• Level 5 educations will now correctly state their bonus percentages in the Lifestyle screen.
  
• Level 5 Learning education now significantly improves Physician aptitude.
  
• Level 5 Intrigue education now gives all of its bonuses.
  
• Vassalization acceptance from the Level 5 Diplomacy education is now applied correctly.
  
• Tooltips for University locations when planning a University Visit should now be more consistent with other activities.
  
• Upon being adopted, the adoptee will now make their way to their new parents' court.
  
• When imprisoning a hostage, they will no longer take a hike back home.
  
• You no longer get two identical penalties when trying to murder a Head of Faith.
  
• Fixed a crash related to army movements.
  
• Fixed a rare situation where the event "A Murder Delayed" could end up in a loop and soft-lock the game from progressing.
  
• Fixed a text issue with the "First Words" event.
  
• Fixed an issue related to Varangians which could result in female eunuchs.
  
• Fixed an issue where children born by a hostage could, under certain circumstances, escape the court.
  
• Fixed an option that could be empty in the Child/Regent event "A Tool for the Wielding" when the regent demands access to a child ruler.
  
• Fixed bad reference to the Gregarious trait in the Influence Ward's Personality interaction.
  
• Fixed broken tooltip in "The Apple Falls" event.
  
• Fixed Cave Hermits not looking suitably destitute.
  
• Fixed confusing text in the "A Dream of Glass" trait event.
  
• Fixed Hapless Knight not being kicked out of tournament contests.
  
• Fixed issues with the decision to Unite the Spanish throne, including not including the kingdom of Toledo.
  
• Fixed Legendary hunts and Falconry having inverted difficulty modifiers.
  
• Fixed multiple issues with scopes and animations in cultural festival events.
  
• Fixed minor visual issues with the Rites of Passage event chain.
  
• Fixed miscommunicated education trait rewards at end of University Visit activity (the traits were given out correctly, but the tooltip would sometimes lie).
  
• Fixed missing icon for "Thuggish Recruiting" modifier.
  
• Fixed more issues with hostages failing to return home.
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to dying while your heir was a hostage in a foreign court.
  
• Fixed multiple misleading relationship reason tooltips.
  
• Fixed multiple presentation issues with Wet Nurse events.
  
• Fixed multiple problems with AI logic for recalling hostages.
  
• Fixed multiple text issues in the "Bully For You?" travel event.
  
• Fixed multiple text issues with the "Killer Charm" travel danger event.
  
• Fixed petition liege sometimes calling the wrong court position when trying to ascertain a suitable one.
  

Hello everyone! We're releasing a hotfix today to address some of the issues with yesterday's 1.10.0 update. While we have fixes for other reported/known issues coming up shortly, we felt the ones listed below were severe enough to warrant an immediate update.


[h2]1.10.0.1 'Quill' Hotfix Changelog[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where AI rulers do not marry as much as intended.
  
• Fixed an issue that removed the two buttons under the Wards tab in the character interface.
  
• Fixed an issue resulting in crashes for resumed games from older versions.
  

Today marks the release of Wards & Wardens, and we hope you'll have plenty of fun wrangling unruly young rulers-to-be, managing your royal hostages, and visiting scholarly universities in the pursuit of knowledge!

As always, we want to keep updating and improving the game alongside each release - this time we've especially honed in on multiplayer stability, something that was unfortunately lacking after the last update. We've spent a lot of time hunting down annoying out-of-syncs, and we've managed to squash all of them that we could find - bar one that'll be fixed in an upcoming update (but it's fortunately avoidable; don't select Pay Homage/Petition Liege and cancel it before setting out on travel!)

Another change of note is that the AI will now purchase and manage Men-at-Arms more dynamically, especially later in the game - instead of all AIs wanting the exact same ratio of income-to-MaA. Warmonger Archetypes, powerful rulers, and strong mid-to-late-game economies will want to spend significantly more on having a powerful army, while Builder Archetypes make for excellent targets for conquests as they tend to favor buildings!

Without further ado, here is the full changelog:



Expansion Features

• Over one hundred new events and event chains expanding upon childhood, guardianship, education, and more - both for young lords, parents, and knowledge-hungry rulers! Many game systems, both new and old, now have unique events and content to really strike home how it actually was to grow up during the middle ages!
  
  
  
  • Enjoy a more lively Childhood with a host of new events for both young rulers and parents, and see the choices made early in life echo far into adulthood!
    
  • New events for Courtly Education let you both educate and be educated in new and interesting ways, where young rulers can be led down a path of eccentricity!
    
  • Hostages at court will mingle with your own children, be homesick, get into trouble, or even give you opportunities for both lasting friendships and gaining a new type of Perpetual Hook!
    
  • Employing a Wet Nurse will aid the development of your heirs and increase the well-being of children at court, alongside a healthy dose of courtly drama!
    
  • slew of new events for Childhood Regencies sees a benevolent regent aid you as a young ruler by teaching you skills, giving you gifts, or stabilizing your realm - just beware less-than-scrupulous regents!
    
  • New events for the Meet Peers activity; play ball with your fellow children, hone your skills, or get up to hijinx!
    
  • Experience several rare story cycles which can see your young ruler aspire to become one of the greatest builders of all time, pursue a nebulous but enticing destiny, meet new friends of esoteric provenance, reform your realm in the image of former wardens, and more!
    
  
  
• New interactions and decisions allow you to take a more hands-on approach to the task of child-rearing!
  
  
  
  • Attempt to directly influence the Personality Traits of your Wards via a new interaction
    
  • Have your children pass through Coming of Age-trials in Tribal realms.
    
  
  
• As a ruler with a less-than-ideal education you will now want to visit Universities! This new Activity sees you travel to any holding with a University or Cathedral in search of higher studies.
  
  
  
  • Spend gold on books, mingle with students and teachers, and either study hard or live like a Goliard!
    
  • Being studious will reward you with lifestyle perk points and the potential for upgrading your education - and if youve studied REALLY hard you could even reach the new fifth-tier education!
    
  
  
• New mood music to enhance your game regardless of where you play.
  

• A new system for rulers giving or trading Hostages brings a new side of historical medieval politics to life - Hostages are powerful tools for ensuring peace, as they can be executed during wars to make your enemy suffer a great blow to their morale and stability. Hostages can be identified by a new portrait icon.
  
  
  
  • They can be demanded, exchanged, or even used to bargain beneficial peace deals during wars!
    
  • Having Hostages of notable status will reward you with both prestige and renown.
    
  • While hostages are most often children, theres no guarantee that their warden will send them back as they come of age after all, they are great bargaining chips!
    
  
  
• The new Perpetual Hook type lies in-between Weak and Strong Hooks, acting like a Weak hook that can be re-used every few years.
  
• A new Adoption interaction allows certain rulers to bring in new members to their family and dynasty. Characters with the Compassionate trait or of a culture. with certain Traditions can Adopt, but the restrictions can also be tightened or removed via a new Game Rule!
  
• A new Eccentric personality trait allows characters with it to develop their Lifestyles with ease at the cost of public perception, as their methods might be seen as erratic and odd! Several new event options have been added for the trait, and some of the more out there events have been updated to require this trait to fire.
  
• Added 6 new events to the Pet Cat story Cycle.
  

• Builder AI's are now less concerned with buying MaA than before, and are slower to purchase up to their ideal amount
  
• Cautious AI's want to spend slightly more on MaA and are very inclined to purchase up to their comfortable minimum level
  
• Genghis Khan now starts as an Exalted Warlord rather than a Brilliant Strategist
  
• Spouse-Regents can now do both jobs at the same time
  
• The later into the game, and the more gold the AI earns, the more they will want to spend on MaA (previously AI's would always aim for spending 40% of their income on MaA maintenance, they can now go as high as 90% with the correct circumstances fulfilled)
  
• Warlike AI's will now want to spend more on MaA in general, and are much more inclined to purchase MaA over buildings than other archetypes
  
• You can now get more than three events per Meet Peers, especially if you are the Host (up to 6)
  
• playdate.3008, the event where another child drowns in Meet Peers, is now only available to the players/the host, and is now on a 3-year cooldown rather than 3 months.
  
• The hook gained in the playdate.3008 event is now also a strong 'saved my life'-hook.
  
• All Abrahamic faiths are now able to restore Rome, not just Christians.
  
• Either Italia, HRE, or Byzantium will become the "real" Rome depending on which one is your primary title upon reforming Rome.
  
• The Sultanate of Rum can now be formed by either Muslims or Turkic heritage characters, but not Christians.
  

• Events unlocked by Friends & Foes and Wards & Wardens are now decorated with special visuals that show from which Event Pack they originate; this feature can be disabled in the settings.
  

• Several new Animations have been added:
  
  
  
  • Happy Teacher
    
  • Stressed Teacher
    
  • Eccentric
    
  • Manic
    
  • Go to your room!
    
  • Playing Peekaboo
    
  • Crying (children only)
    
  • Clutching Ball
    
  • Clutching Doll
    
  • Stick Horse
    
  • 6x Weapon Animation Variants with Wooden Swords
    
  
  
• Added several new Event Background Illustrations:
  
  
  
  • Nursery
    
  • Western University
    
  • Arabic University
    
  • Western Inner Courtyard
    
  • An Indian Garden Variant
    
  • An Indian Study Variant
    
  • An Arabic Tavern Variant
    
  
  
• Added possible longsword artifact icon and model variation to swords of Late Medieval Western cultures.
  
• Added Toy sword, Training sword, Toy Doll, Stick Horse.
  
• Added Carolingian commoner clothes variants to the barbershop.
  
• Cloaks in general are now a bit more common for Western and Northern European characters.
  
• Cloaks will now sometimes be used together with armor.
  
• Elegance of the Empire cloaks will now be used roughly as much as the regular western royalty cloak.
  
• Fixed a bug where some consorts would use clothing far below their status, for example the Byzantine Basilissa in the 867 start date.
  
• For players with Northern Lords, Norse cloaks will now be used by more culture groups than just the Norse.
  
• Made it so that western royalty always wear cloaks.
  
• Northern Lords crowns are now also used by other Northern cultures.
  
• Improved skinning and blendshapes on male wrestling pants.
  

• Wards and Guardians will now use the Travel system to go to their respective courts to receive tutelage.
  
• Most Meet Peers events have been rebalanced and updated to use new backgrounds and animations.
  
• Activity log entries have been added to the Meet Peers activity.
  
• Memories have been added for Accolades.
  
• Added the Saura faith, a sun-worshipping branch of Hinduism, and added the faith to some characters and counties in both start dates.
  
• Added new outcomes to the Sun Trial event chain, in order to facilitate its deaths if you manage to end up worshipping the sun in an area without much sun.
  
• Developing a Crush in childhood now creates a memory.
  

• Weak hooks can now be perpetual and used multiple times
  
• Add can_embrace_tradition trigger
  
• Add data binding macro CalculateScriptValue to calculate the named script value with designated character as root scope.
  
• Add data binding macro GetScriptValueBreakdown to break down the named script value with designated character as root scope.
  
• Add x_lifestyle_xp_gain_mult modifier that stacks with monthly xp modifiers.
  
• Adds new trigger for checking if a culture has more discovered innovations than another culture in a specified era.
  
• All trait triggers and effects can now use a trait scope as well as a database key.
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_CHANCE_EXPENSE_BELOW_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_chance_expense_below_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_CHANCE_EXPENSE_BELOW_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_chance_expense_below_min
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_MAX with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_max
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_min
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_MAX with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_max
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_min
  
• Add any/random/every_tradition scripted list for cultures.
  
• Add has_tradition_category trigger that works on culture traditions.
  
• Has_cultural_tradition trigger, add_culture_tradition, and remove_culture_tradition effects now can take tradition as scope.
  
• Add free_tradition_slot trigger to test if culture can have more traditions.
  
• Casus belli now has an option to allow or forbid hostage exchange.
  
• The chance to assign specific personality, education or childhood traits for generated characters can now be set by random_creation percent value.
  

• Fixed an Out of Sync caused by expiring Memories
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync caused by players setting Decisions to notify me
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync relating to Accolade History
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync relating to Diarchs being updated out of order
  
• Fixed several rare Out-of-Syncs
  
• Fixed crash on succession with a landed character without any titles
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen when opening the war overview in certain large-scale wars
  
• Fixed the Character Search not remembering the selected Sort by filter between being closed/opened
  
• Fixed Accolade History being lost when loading the save
  
• Fixed Tournament event Hapless Knight option not removing jouster from contest
  
• Fixed animals captured on hunts not being saved properly
  
• Fixed crime for escaping from prison not being an imprisonable crime
  
• Fixed feuding house AI members being not aggressive enough
  
• Fixed issue with desc of war won memory
  
• Fixed issues with relation loc for fellow attendees of activities
  
• Fixed missing localization for memories of peasant and populist revolts
  
• Fixed missing scope loc in "lay with" effects for other characters
  
• Fixed relation loc for deceased spouses
  
• Improved presentation of Restore Carolingian Borders decision's effects
  
• Fix a rare case when childhood focus is invalidated
  
• Fix a rare case when childhood focus is invalidated and wrong education trait is given when coming of age
  
• Fixed "A vassal between friends" not accounting for the two involved friends being at war
  
• Fixed childhood personality events being largely blocked for traveling children, which resulted in some childhood personality events being way too common
  
• Fixed garrisons not refilling correctly after sieges
  
• Fixed many instances of Regents traveling with their lieges, especially during Hunts and Tournaments
  
• Improved tooltip why sometimes you cannot change intent during activities
  
• Increased maximum allowed years in activity passive phase (travel time) from 3 years to 10
  
• May now plan activities regardless of insufficient funds to start them
  
• Memory descriptions expect character memory as root scope
  
• Show correct regent when designated regent has been deposed by a scheme
  
• Characters are no longer intimidated by 0 dread
  
• Mercenaries and holy orders can now use MaA from culture traditions
  
• Swinging the scales of power will now tell you in which direction & towards whom they've swung
  
• Fixed unnecessarily large effect lists in Invasion casus belli wars
  
• Fixed bastards being born in faiths which had none
  
• The HRE title holder no longer needs to exist to establish the Carolingian Empire
  
• Champion the Faith of Country Basques decision now includes the new provinces added for Fate of Iberia
  
• Can now use "Grant to..." action in county view even if there's a leased out barony
  

As the release date of Wards & Wardens draws near, we're taking a moment to reflect on the artistic endeavors that have brought it to life. This time our focus is on animations and some of the 2D icons and illustrations.

Discuss Dev Diary #134 on our forums!



Icons
Hey there! I'm Nicolas, 2D artist working on this royal game CK3.

I'm pretty sure many of you checking out this dev diary must get pretty stoked about game designers writing about numbers going up and down, but as cool as it is to dive into the game's new meta, my piece of this dev diary is all about the art! Let me tell you a bit about creating game icons - in particular, how I went about creating the new icon for the eccentric personality trait!

Alright, let's break it down in a kinda rough step-by-step. First things first, the game designers sent me a short brief describing what they needed, as well as ideas of what the icon might look like. Luckily for me, I was given the idea that the icon could depict a bag of marbles of various colors. I think its a pretty fitting metaphor for an eccentric individual, embodying their propensity for collecting unconventional ideas and perspectives, much like the colorful assortment of marbles within the bag.

A guideline we try to adhere to when creating icons is to not necessarily create an image that literally depicts what the function/meaning of the icon will be. Instead, we want to be more figurative in our approach. For example, the icon for craven doesn't show a person being cowardly, but instead shows a frantic chicken, a symbol of cowardice.


Starting off, I create a handful of initial sketches outlining the basic composition and values. These sketches don't require fine detailing; their purpose is solely for experimentation and estimating the best read of the image.


When I have decided (When my art director decides which one he likes the most), I move on to making a more refined value render of the image. Paying close attention to the values and how they aid in the composition. For example, how the image goes from brighter in the focal point in the middle of the icon out to a much darker value on the edges, forming a vignette of sorts.



Quite a straightforward step, adding colors to the image. Going over color theory is beyond my paygrade, so let's just say that these colors of warm red/yellow and cool blue look good together!


Now it is time for my favorite part of the process - the refining stage! Now, I fine-tune the image, adding those last touches of light, textures, intricate details, and any minor adjustments to give the icon that final polished look. Make it feel like candy, like an old art director of mine used to say.


And there you have it: resize it to the appropriate size and slap a border on it and we have anew, fresh personality icon! Hopefully the trait is good according to the meta, so people will actually see and appreciate it sometimes!

Here are also a few interesting images of game concepts that depict the same thing, but in various styles - depending on the context in the UI.




Illustrations

Naturally, we are also adding some new scene illustrations. With the option to pursue education as an adult, we've incorporated a University setting tailored for your scholarly characters. Additionally, we've added a Nursery and several scenes that enrich the cultural diversity of some existing locations.


[University]


[Courtyard]


[Nursery]


[Tavern - MENA variation]


[Study - Indian variation]

Animations
For this Event Pack we have added child-related animations, such as playing with toys. Among our new props we have a ball, a doll, stickhorses, and wooden swords, which all get used in the animations.




Nothing more comforting when running a kingdom than your favorite toy!

Thats it for this time. Stay tuned for next week's update as we gear up for the release of "Wards & Wardens" on August 22nd!

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Hello everyone! This is my first time writing a dev diary and I want to share with you almost everything I worked on for Wards and Wardens. Lets set the stage first: you are a ruler and your seed is stronger than ever, flourishing with your many offspring. Children play and run around all over your court, but you have more pressing matters to attend to! Perhaps the mother of your children has become incapable, unable to provide milk for your infants. Who are you gonna call? Wet nurses, of course!

Discuss Dev Diary #133 on our forums!



[h2]Wet Nurse[/h2]
Historically, a Wet Nurse was a woman of the court charged with the care of infants in need of breastfeeding, for whatever reason there might be. However, the position evolved over time and, in some circles, the wet nurse became an integral part of the family. She might care for older children and become an influential advisor, or even a second mother. Strong bonds were created not only between wet nurse and child, but also between children that were nurtured by the same nurse. Such children were called suckling siblings and were treated on the same level as blood siblings.

[Decision to search for a suitable candidate for Wet Nurse Court Position]

In the game, the Wet Nurse is represented as a Court Position. A child ruler, a ruler with children or one holding children hostage can hire a suitable woman as a Wet Nurse. In return, she provides illness resistance to children of the court and will inform her employer about significant milestones in childhood development, like a wee ones first spoken words or first fallen teeth.

[Example of childhood development event: first fallen teeth]

Who can become a Wet Nurse, you may ask? Any able woman that has no particular noble roots. In history, these were commoners from the court: widowed mothers or just those in need of another source of income.

[Wet Nurse Court Position tooltip]

[Wet Nurse aptitude tooltip]

[h2]Rites of Passage[/h2]
As part of our focus on children in this Event Pack, we pay some attention to the moment they become adults. Changing your societal status in such a way is a big deal even today, as seen in school graduations, specific birthdays and religious thresholds. Usually, this transition is signified by a ceremony or a ritual. I decided to look into tribal rites of passage and ended up with a decision, an amalgamation of different rituals from all over the world, with the most common or interesting rituals selected to represent the practice.

[Rites of Passage decision window]

Possible rites:

• Duel: using the existing duel combat system, the child has to fight against an adult from the same culture
  
• Scarification: a facial ravaging that may result in the Scarred trait
  
• Seclusion: using the travel system, the child ventures into the wild on their own and comes back wiser and more worldly
  
• Hair-shaving: similar to the halq in Islam, the child sacrifices their fair hair for adulthood
  
• Elemental Cleansing: a baptism by either water or fire
  

Hello everyone! Summer break is now wrapping up in Sweden and everyone's coming back into the office, so now's the time to start diving into our dev diaries for our upcoming event pack, Wards & Wardens! Today's DD comes from one of our Game Designers working on Crusader Kings III, and covers what you can expect to see with the new Eccentric trait and Adoption systems coming to the game with W&W later this August.

Discuss Dev Diary #132 on our forums!



Eccentric
Hello hello hello, welcome to another Wards and Wardens dev diary! Today I'm going to be talking you through two new features: adoption and the Eccentric trait! We'll start off with the simpler of the two features: Eccentricity.

[h2]Why add a new trait in Wards and Wardens?[/h2]
Friends and Foes added the Loyal and Disloyal traits, but unfortunately these came quite late in development and as a consequence they were quite under-utilized, so we decided to have the discussion around new traits quite early this time around and we went over a few different ideas including Superstitious, Silly vs Serious, but we kind of knew all along that what we really wanted was something analogous to the Wild Wasteland trait in Fallout or CK2 Lunatic.

For those unfamiliar, Lunacy in CK2 was usually where we made our more out there content. There are still echoes of this here and there in CK3, but for the most part, Lunacy isn't really the same as it was.


The decision was made quite early in CK3's development that the lunatic trait would be analogous to real-world mental illness so this kind of content was typically deemed inappropriate. As a result of that decision, we've not really had an easy way to gate the sillier side of things when it comes to the player character. This has been a bit of a divisive subject on the forums, so we felt we needed some way to gate the content without resorting to game rules.

[h2]What is Eccentric? Who is Eccentric?[/h2]
Eccentric is a personality trait meaning it is an essential part of a character's personality. Eccentrics are erratic and irrational, but there is a method to the madness so they may be able to see things that other characters dont.

Numbers are subject to balancing

Wards and Wardens being all about children and childhood made it the perfect fit for a new Personality trait, and as with all other Personality traits in the game, Eccentric can be acquired during childhood.




People have been known to lose their marbles later in life, so a particularly stressed character may have a mental break which causes them to start seeing things in a more Eccentric way.


As you can see in the below screenshot, a non-Eccentric child would just guess at the options presented to them, but an eccentric may think of something a bit more creative.



There has also been an audit of some existing content to add checks for the Eccentric trait where sensible. The now-infamous Cat-apult event, for example, has now been made into an Eccentric event.

Something I'd like to nip in the bud quite early is that the Eccentric trait is not intended to reflect any real-world disabilities, illnesses, or neurodivergence. I think it's wonderful if you are able to project some of your own experiences onto the trait, but making a direct and conscious effort to make the Lunatic trait analogous to real-world mental illnesses is the reason why we ended up making Eccentric to begin with and we'd rather not have to come up with another trait for our silly content.

Eccentric is a free feature and will be available to everyone, but some unique content related to the trait will be exclusive for DLC-owners.

Adoption
Now onto the next feature of this diary and one that's quite exciting to me personally is the Adoption interaction! Now many many patches ago we introduced the Same-Sex marriage rule and ever since then it's just kind of been there and we've yet to introduce a way to actually make same-sex play well, playable.

[h2]Who can adopt?[/h2]
Under the default game rules, Adoption is available to characters who are in a same-sex marriage, the childless and elderly/infertile, and Compassionate characters. Compassionate has long been a bit of a weak trait to have, so it's nice to give them a powerful way to secure succession and bring talented orphans into the family.


[h2]Who can be adopted?[/h2]
Children can be adopted as long as: they're not a ruler, they're not in prison or otherwise unavailable, nobody in their family is a ruler, they're not already part of your house, and they're not in the realm of someone of their dynasty. This does mean you're technically allowed to adopt noble children, and children whose parents are still alive, but they are highly reluctant to accept adoption in those circumstances.


[h2]Noble Adoption[/h2]
If you want to role-play a culture where adoption is commonplace (as it was in some off-map and out-of-period cultures), you can take up the Noble Adoption cultural tradition!


[h2]Hold on a minute, isn't this anachronistic?[/h2]
Sort of! While adoption amongst nobility was exceptionally rare, it wasn't completely unheard of. As such, we've restricted access to adoption quite a lot as described and the AI is quite reluctant to do it.

[h2]Can the restrictions be loosened?[/h2]
Absolutely! Adoption comes with three new game rules that can forbid it or make it easier!




Just like the Eccentric trait, Adoption is part of the free update releasing with Wards & Wardens on August 22nd. Next week we will talk about the new Court position and share more details on what to expect from this event pack. See you then!

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Hello everyone! We hope you're all enjoying Tours & Tournaments and the accompanying 1.9 feature update.

Today we're releasing a small hotfix to address an issue that could prevent characters from hosting more than one Grand Wedding. Thank you to everyone for submitting your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]1.9.2.1 Changelog[/h2]

• Fixed an issue that prevented characters from hosting more than one Grand Wedding.
  

Good afternoon, and welcome to your first class of the semester! My name is Dr. Areysak, and Ill be your CKIII University 101 lecturer.

I already see some raised hands. You, in the first row, ask away.

Why a University Activity? What does it have to do with Wards and Wardens?

Discuss Dev Diary #131 on our forums!



This is a very interesting question. During the early development of Wards and Wardens, talks of hostages education led us to a realization: everything that could influence a characters education trait happens during childhood. Once a character reaches 16 years of age, they are locked out of any further improvement! And if the player character isnt directly responsible for the education of their heir, a player can find themselves inheriting an already adult heir character with an education trait they have had no way to influence.

The University Visit activity is the solution we have chosen to open up new possibilities to the player to influence their characters personal growth. Therefore, as a first aim, it fulfills a gameplay need; secondly, it allows us to expand upon one of the Middle Ages many successful inventions, Universities; thirdly, we got to add a new activity!

When we talk of Medieval Universities, we are immediately led to think of the famous names of Western Europe, such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Bologna. The name University, in fact, comes from Latin and was born to describe specifically the communities (= universitates) of Latin-speaking teachers and students that congregated in these European cities. However, similar institutions existed all over the Old World. Particularly famous are the Indian universities, such as Takshashila and Nalanda; the House of Wisdom in Baghdad was one of the most renowned centers of studies of its age, and Madrasas schools were widespread throughout the Islamic world. In this period, its also often difficult to separate, as we would do today, between lay and religious centers of studies, since Christian cathedrals, Muslim mosques and, in particular, Buddhist temples were themselves libraries, scriptoria (i.e., where manuscripts were copied), and educational institutions, or had these institutions develop in their immediate vicinity.

The Activity

Lets now have a look at the activity itself, though!

The University Visit is a minor activity that adult landed rulers can always initiate, as long as they have the gold! To keep it in line with the pre-existing decision to Go to University, it is quite expensive. To keep the challenge balanced, the final cost is dynamic (like with all activities) and changes with your tier and era.


(Activity selection interface showing the University Visit)

The activity takes 6 months, and can only be started once every 20 years, and only once per location.

In order to Visit a University, you have to select a valid location in your diplomatic range and travel there.


(Activity destination selection interface)

You might have noticed, however, that not all valid locations are University seats. As discussed above, large religious centers were often centers of study too, and have been included as potential destinations.


(The tooltip of a large religious center)

Being a minor activity, the choice of intents and options is limited but flavorful.
There are only two intents available, but they represent two contrasting approaches to your university experience, and will significantly change both your approach to your studies and the results you can achieve. In fact, every activity event will have at least one special option unlocked by each intent!
Study Hard is quite self-explanatory: you went there to study, and study hard you will, no matter the stress cost youll have to pay! You try to make the most of your time at University, in order to maximize your chances of success at the end of the activity and increase your rewards.
In fact, the results (and rewards) you obtain at the end of your studies are measured by a value called Studiousness, which is a success chance similar, e.g., to a Pilgrimages Piousness. The activity cant fail per se, but the entity of your rewards will depend on this value.

Goliardic Lifestyle is a completely different approach, inspired by the European Goliards, wandering students and clerics famous for their satirical poetry (for instance the Carmina Burana) exalting the art of drinking and carnal pleasures. With this intent, your aim is to gain as much first-hand experience of life, both inside and outside the walls of the University, indulging in so-called Goliardic Shenanigans. Ill leave you the pleasure of discovering exactly what your character can get up to; the general idea of the intent, however, is to gain less success chance (and therefore less rewards at the conclusion of the activity), but more immediate bonuses such as lifestyle traits, lifestyle xp, and skill points.


(Intents view)

On the other hand, we only have one option with 3 levels, which represent how much money you plan to invest in study materials. The option chosen will influence your success chance and final rewards, including an Illustrious artifact! (cost values are still wip)


(Options view)


(Arrival event)

As you can see, your level of Studiousness is easily traceable from the activity view. To make the interactions more impactful, we have limited the number of guests, which are only a handful of students and teachers, which will be among the wisest minds on the map!


(Activity view and teachers character view)


(Event with Study Hard option)


(Event with Goliardic Lifestyle options)

Be ready to gain a whole bunch of stress! Nobody said that getting a degree was easy

I did mention that your teachers will be among the most brilliant minds around, and Id like to stress it again because if you manage to make a very good impression on them


(Conclusion event)

You will be able to invite one of them to move back to your court with you!

But hold on, there is something weird with this teacher What is that?!


(Teachers character view with education trait tooltip)

Is that A fifth level of the Education Trait?!

YES!

Concurrently with the University Visit activity, we have added a new level to all education traits. This final level will be super rare, and mostly reserved for University teachers and University graduates who already started with the fourth-tier trait.

Rewards

As you might have guessed from what has been discussed so far, the main reward for the activity is increasing your education trait one level up. However, there is only a chance to succeed in this endeavor! This chance is higher the lower you current level is (i.e., its easier to get from tier 1 to 2 than it is from 2 to 3) and the higher your Studiousness level is.


(Tooltip of Tier 4 of Studiousness with the rewards)

However, even if you were to fail at improving your education, you are ensured to gain a number of Perk points that increases with your achieved Studiousness, an assortment of xp and skill points depending on your event choices, and even an Illustrious book if you chose the most expensive option during the activity setup (and therefore went splurging on rare manuscripts)!


(A randomly generated Illustrious book)

Conclusions
This concludes todays lecture. I hear some buzzing from the end rows, are there any questions?

But thats not how Universities worked! No ruler would go to University like a commoner!!

You are, of course, correct. We are perfectly aware of it. However, we believe that the combined bonuses offered by new gameplay possibilities (i.e., improving your characters education and skills) and the historical flavor of showing a slice of the life at Medieval Universities more than warranted the exception!

I hope you are excited to Visit a University soon!

This is the last Dev Diary before the July break, so it seems fitting to just say:

Schools out! Have a nice summer! And see you all back in August!

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Hello all!

It's been a few weeks since we spoke but it feels like longer, what with all of you having been busy traveling, touring, tournamenting and the rest! It is time for us, nonetheless, to leave behind that world for now and take a look ahead at what we have coming up next.


[h2]Vision[/h2]

Our first Event Pack, Friends & Foes, gave us something of a chance to experiment. Since then, weve had the chance to take a look at exactly what direction we want to start moving in with these packs, and build on what worked.

One area that we hit upon was diversity of content and how the player experienced the game. Events are the ink that we daub on to the fabric of the narrative, but its how, what and why these events happen that govern their efficacy. Introducing new avenues for that content to reach the player is a great thing, provided its done in an unobtrusive way.

With that in mind, were going to outline a few of the new features that youll find in Wards & Wardens (the event-pack that you voted for last January) and its accompanying patch - both available on August 22nd. Some of them well talk about more in the future, so dont expect anything too exhaustive here, but lets start off with


[h2]Captivating features[/h2]

Hostages arent quite what youd think of when you hear the term. Rather than forced holding of a person to ransom, hostageship in the Middle Ages was a political and legal status that was absolutely widespread.

Put simply, hostages were generally given, not taken. They were, essentially, transactional guarantees. In this case, weve zeroed in on the most common reason for hostages to be exchanged: as a means to guarantee a peace treaty.

In Wards & Wardens, hostages are a new type of relation somewhere between a prisoner and a foreign court guest. They reside at your court as a guest would, but cannot leave of their own accord, nor can they become knights. They are generally - though not always - children, and have found themselves in such a predicament due to their liege exchanging them away as a guarantee of non-hostility following a war, or exchanged via interaction during peacetime. Such an arrangement not only eases the mediation process, but also gives both sides some peace of mind.



Hostages are essentially living non-aggression pacts. Harming a hostage is a significant diplomatic incident, but its also a way to deter your former enemies from getting any more bright ideas about exactly to whom that border county belongs. Any ruler that you have a hostage from will suffer significant debuffs and penalties should they try and attack you - and any wardens attacking home courts also suffer similar debuffs - so hostages present one of the strongest forms of deterrent possible.

The hostages themselves are kept in line via something else new and shiny:


[h2]In Perpetuity[/h2]

We have two types of Hook extant in the game already: Strong and Weak. The latter are the type of hooks youd get if you were to, for example, manipulate a person in some way. They are single-use, and can be refused at cost. Strong hooks, on the other hand, can be used multiple times and in a range of scenarios, but are also much rarer.

Perpetual Hooks are a new sort of hook, which wardens can get on hostages who they treat well, and represent something of a middle ground. They are refuseable like Weak hooks, but also permanent like a Strong hook. At the moment hostages (and those that have previously been hostages) are the only characters youd expect to see with a Perpetual hook, but just as Memories were built with expansion in mind for Friends & Foes, so too should you not be surprised if in the future you find more and wider examples of Perpetual hook usage.


[h2]What An Odd Fellow![/h2]

One of the spots that weve been somewhat hamstrung by in CKIII is in mediating the existence of characters that dont quite fit the mould, as it were.



In CKII, youd have insane and possessed characters who did all kinds of wacky things - immortal horse chancellors and such; you know how it goes. CKIIIs takes a more grounded approach to how traits are represented: Lunatic, for example, was used increasingly loosely in CKII, ending up as an umbrella for anything ranging from slightly kooky to genuine mental illness, but CKIII sticks much more rigidly to the latter.

This is where the Eccentric trait comes in, as a trait dedicated to the slightly odd. This allows us to group some of the more unusual situations youd find under this new personality trait, giving them both more reason to happen for a certain character but, critically, also barring those characters who wouldnt engage in such strange distractions from doing so. Well talk about this more in the coming weeks!


[h2]A Midwife Crisis[/h2]

As you might expect given how hostageship skews very much towards the young, a fair percentage of what weve been working on has been filling out the experience of non-adult existence in Crusader Kings III. Weve come some way in this regard since release, with Friends & Foes adding a swathe of new events and a revamp of childhood personality traits, as well as of course the Regency mechanic giving a whole new layer of intrigue to a child navigating the dangerous Medieval world.

In Wards & Wardens, weve added to this with another fresh layer of childhood content - in no small part focused on hostages and their experiences - but also the addition of a Wet Nurse court position. Wet nurses held an interesting status amongst the medieval court, and adding this court position adds another layer of intricacy to the trials and tribulations of raising a child.



[h2]Mature Students[/h2]

We have been delighted to read just how much you all have been enjoying all the new - and the old! - activities in CKIII since the release of Tours & Tournaments. With this in mind, weve attempted to utilize it to approach something thats previously been static in Crusader Kings: education as an adult.



Previously, once you had come of age, an education type and rank was assigned to you and that was that. You, aged 16, were as educated as youd ever become! Now, whilst properly reflecting the rate at which humans grow as people as they age is something of an impossible task for a game, the current system felt a little too rigid for our liking. As such, the Adult Education activity now gives players a chance to tickle their brains at a center of learning, in hope that they can actually upgrade their education trait to a higher level!

But what of those of us who enter adulthood with the finest education life has to offer? What steps can those people take to better themselves in adulthood?

Worry not. We have a plan for that, too, but it will have to wait!


[h2]Goodbye For Now[/h2]

Thankfully, however, you wont have to wait all too long. Whilst were saying bye for now, next week we'll cover the Adult Education Activity in CKIII from top to bottom. Hope to see you all then!

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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.9.2 for Crusader Kings III. This update primarily resolves a number of issues reported by the community, as well as adjusting the Accolades interface based on player feedback. A full list of changes in this update can be found below.

We hope you're all enjoying Tours & Tournaments and the 1.9 'Lance' Update!

[hr][/hr]

Balance

• Reduced aggressiveness of House Feud AI family members starting schemes against rival house
  

• Accolade Attribute tooltip now shows first & last rank for better insight
  
• Accolade Rank progress bar now splits out modifiers by attribute name
  
• Accolade attributes now shows which Men-at-Arms type it will (eventually) unlock
  
• Accolade creation now shows which un-knighted court members, or visiting guests are available, and allows you to hire them on the spot
  
• Added Accolade Attribute list when hiring for an accolade
  
• Characters with long names will no longer push the Accolade 'Reinstate' or 'Destroy' buttons away. No Jimmy Drop Tables-ing.
  
• Activity Intent selection now offers a standard selection of search / sorting filters
  
• Fixed a bug where the current situation button would disappear after closing the barbershop
  
• The interface now jumps to the newly created Accolade after creation
  
• Warning added for using Men-At-Arms Accolade attribute as a secondary attribute
  
• You can now swap Accolade attributes in-place when creating an accolade
  
• Added tournament backgrounds to character view of characters attending tournaments
  

• You can now choose to ignore interaction recipient cooldowns for players.
  

• AI marriage suggestions no longer block players from matchmaking between their own courtiers.
  
• Changed Coat of Arms will now properly get their new texture applied
  
• Characters will no longer inherit the cooldown for designating diarchs
  
• Display achievement availability correctly in the ruler designer.
  
• Empire sub-kingdom capital point of interest tooltip now shows the appropriate kingdom name in the tooltip
  
• Fix OOS where macOS (and possibly Linux) clients AI were missing the white peace interaction.
  
• Fix crash that sometimes occurs when viewing activity intent success GUI
  
• Fixed Harm event target rules not applying as expected
  
• Fixed Hunt event A Beautiful Specimen not creating a hare artifact if you don't have the Royal Court DLC
  
• Fixed a crash that can happen when expanding the dynasty tree
  
• Fixed an issue that could break certain interfaces after the player dies
  
• Fixed being blocked from starting activities forever if you joined a war while meditating
  
• Fixed crash when characters with no current valid location try to travel out of their locational limbo.
  
• Fixed droves of occult botanists using Playdates as recruitment centers for witches
  
• Fixed event pools for Swell Armies and Promote Authority regent mandates being swapped
  
• Fixed events which added Contest score even if you weren't competing, and removed general health requirements for Contests in favor of explicit trait checks based on type
  
• Fixed hunt murder event firing when you don't have the murder intent
  
• Fixed loc and portrait issues in Premature Death hunt invalidation event
  
• Fixed option for withdrawing from contests in For Family event not actually withdrawing you from the contests
  
• Fixed options for not competing allowing you to still compete in tournaments
  
• Fixed rare crash when loading into title screen if a particularly large coat of arms exists in one or more save games
  
• Fixed the name of the PLAYER_ACTIVITY_INVITE_GRACE_TIME define so that the game properly utilizes it
  
• Fixed your gamekeepers refusing to let you set out to hunt the Legendary animals you have heard rumours of
  
• Imprisoned, landed characters who get their last title revoked will no longer change their location away from their place of imprisonment
  
• Made Accolade bonuses from Marshal council tasks much less rare
  
• Mass ransom button will no longer generously not demand Hooks if prisoners have no money
  
• Physicians brought forward by the Search decision should now generally have more Aptitude
  
• You can no longer assign any guest as a special guest when going through the Other Guests button when planning an activitiy
  
• Fixed "Tent Camp: Stealing a Moment" event that could not trigger during a tournament
  
• Fixed African Swords being used for african sword in the court but not in duels
  
• Fixed Court Physician not being able to help you in "Travel Danger: Under the weather" even though they were travelling with you
  
• Fixed cannibal feast being possible without any cannibal guests
  
• Fixed missing descriptions of effects in activity log entries for French, German, Korean, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish versions of the game
  
• The Body Guard court position selection will no longer display safety and speed since it affects neither
  
• The activity pulse action for donating gold at a pilgrimage site will no longer give you more gold instead of taking it away
  
• Travel Danger event "Flawed Fare" will now correctly account for if you have good traits for surviving in the terrain you are trying to forage food from. These checks existed but did not modify the actual outcome prior
  
• Tweaked Travel Danger event "Flawed Fare" to have a lower risk for a catastrophic outcome and to use the highest learning character in the entourage for the learning challenge. The overall danger in this event is now also more dependent on what terrain you are in
  
• Befriending people during a hunt event makes them friends not lovers
  
• Fixed opinion gains in A Foreign Treat
  
• Fixed broken loc in A Memorable Performance
  
• The Feral Child won't be hanging around instead of going back to nature anymore
  
• Fixed the bug that prevented custom faiths from getting a Head of Faith
  
• Fixed a pilgrimage event potentially giving adult wards
  
• Only Muslims can now make use of the Mosque of Imam Ali
  
• Catharism can now be reformed to keep Reincarnation
  
• Characters who joined your travel through Travel Options now leave your court when the travel is done
  
• Fully localized Sorcerous Metallurgy
  
• Coastal Warriors are finally safer in Coastal Sea travel
  
• Suspicion Opinion now stacks
  
• No more double dread for A Chance to Start Over
  
• Fixed certain millennials refusing to wear anything but filthy rags
  

Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.9.1 for Crusader Kings III. A non-exhaustive list of changes introduced in this Update are listed below; please visit our forum for a complete list of changes, as the full changelog is too large to share via Steam.

Discuss Update 1.9.1 on our forums!



Update 1.9.1 Changelog

[h2]Expansion Features[/h2]

• Tours and Tournaments: Added a new set of clothing for Western High Nobility (male & female)
  

• Added "Points of Interest" to the travel system, which rewards you for going out of your way to visit interesting places around the world. Examples include Special Buildings, Kingdom/Empire Capitals, and Natural Wonders.
  
• Added foreboding events, which make characters eligible to receive awful harm or death down the line
  
• Added incapability harm events, which risk characters being forcibly made incapable after receiving a suitable foreboding event
  
• Added death harm events, which risk characters dying before their time after receiving a suitable foreboding event
  
• Added commander harm events, which puts characters commanding armies at risk of dying for reasons outside of combat (especially if they don't have a suitable commander trait for the terrain they're in, or are unhealthy
• with how much health they need to be "healthy" going up as they age)
  
• Added game rule for controlling the frequency of harm events: turn them down, turn them off, turn them up, turn them up but specifically at interesting characters, or turn them up and turn them up extra specifically at interesting characters
  
• Added game rule for controlling targeting of harm events: just the AI, just the player, or both
  
• Added a decision for Jewish cultural heads to adopt Hebrew as their culture's language
  
• Converted the Kuzarite random event for faith reformation into a full "Break with the Old Ways" decision
  
• Jewish faiths now have a Halakha authority main doctrine with 4 types: Rabbinic, Toraic, Kohenimic, Samaritan
  

• Contemplative Pilgrimages now give 25% bonus Piety instead of 50%
  
• Dynamic Gold Values used in Events, Decisions, and other content now have Max Caps based on Era. This means that, for example, the 'major gold value' will not cap out at 500 gold in the mid-late game where such a sum of gold could be trivial. This makes rulers with very high incomes both pay and receive relevant sums of gold in the mid-late game. The new values are: 25% less in Tribal era, unchanged in Early Medieval, 50% higher in High Medieval, and 300% in Late Medieval.
  
• Grand Wedding Activity Option Prestige Rewards have been reduced by 25%
  
• If a vassal acceptance of Tour demands now consider more factors, such as loyal/disloyal traits, opinion, honor, greed, etc.
  
• Characters involved in the Iberian Struggle are now allowed to take the Hostility Ending if they completely control Iberia, and their primary title is at least a Kingdom they held for 5 years or more. This can be done regardless of the current phase.
  
• Increased tyranny incurred from refusing Pay Homage by 1 to 2, and thus Vassal Opinion lost to 1
  
• It's now valid to petition your liege for a fellow vassals capital title
  
• Lowered Reward Prestige from Tours by 50%
  
• Taxation Tours now give 50% less Reward Prestige, on top of the new 50% reduction
  
• Lowered average Renown gain from Tours
  
• Lowered the chance of becoming a drunkard in ep2_wedding.3400 significantly
  
• Lowered the frequency of the 'Feral Child' event and made the cooldown on getting it again much higher
  
• Made certain events where you get to recruit knights appear in more Locales during Tournaments
  
• Players with the trusting trait will no longer give out hooks via feast APA's, as there is no way of avoiding them
  
• Rebalanced the modifiers gained in tour_travel.3010 so that you don't get fooled by the green/red colors
  
• Reduced the Vassal opinion gain from Number of Courses in Feasts (roughly -5 on each level)
  
• Reduced the frequency of the 'A-pope-riate Clothing' Event and made the cooldown longer
  
• Slashed Siege % Modifiers from Buildings in half, to reduce the speed of late-game sieges somewhat
  
• Slightly reduced the Prestige gain from Dish complexity in Feasts (25%)
  
• The Era cost increase for activity costs is now much sharper; unchanged in Tribal & Early Feudal, 50% higher in High Medieval, and 300% higher in Late Medieval
  
• The Pilgrimage Piety bonus from the Humble or Ceremonial Options is now 100 instead of 250
  
• The Pilgrimage Piety bonus from the Throng Option is now 250 instead of 500
  
• There are now five Tournament Prize options; simple, decent, fine, good, and splendid, which control the rarity of artifacts given out by the tournament. The higher settings now cost a significant amount of gold, and Illustrious artifacts can only be gotten if one of the latter two options are chosen.
  
• Tour Stop costs are now scaled in cost per era, as all other Activity costs
  
• Tribal rulers can no longer go on Taxation Tours (other Tour Types are fine)
  
• Windmills, Watermills, and Caravanserai Buildings can now only be constructed in County Capitals to avoid insane Development growth stacking
  
• Windmills, Watermills, and Carvanserai can now be built in Counties where any County Province matches their terrain requirements
  
• Workshops now give slightly less Siege Speed %
  
• You can now petition your liege for claims held by subvassals
  
• Reduced the general opinion thresholds required for characters to consider cheating to low positives or early negatives for somewhat honorable characters, added a second tier of honor checks for dishonorable characters so that they'll consider cheating at close to (but still a little reduced from) the old higher opinion thresholds, drastically lowered the threshold for any character to cheat regardless of honor in the high minuses
  
• Reduced the health penalty on the incapable trait so that we can all spend a little longer enjoying the care of our regents :)
  

• The AI will no longer send children to university unless they're very rich
  
• The AI will now very often revoke titles from traitorous vassals with less than 0 opinion of them that they have in their prison, unless they are very compassionate, non-greedy, and honorable
  
• Vengeful rulers now more often revoke titles from vassal prisoners
  

• The Activity Log will now properly display effects and modifiers associated with the entry
  
• Activity Intent Target Selection Window will no longer show targets that will not accept the activity invitation, and will warn if they don't think they will get there in time.
  
• Activity invitation confirmation has gotten updated visuals.
  
• Add a setting to turn off realms being named after dynasties.
  
• Added more appropriate memory icons for Tournament, Grand Wedding, and Tour memories
  
• Added more portraits to culture conversion notifications to make them more informative
  
• Besieging accolades will now properly show the source name in the tooltip
  
• Caravan Master speed/safety contributions now show a breakdown when hiring
  
• Court positions interface has been updated.
  
• Current Caravan Master speed/safety contributions shown when hiring
  
• Fate of Iberia Struggle Events now correctly send toasts instead of Feed messages
  
• Fixed grand wedding activity backgrounds/animations resetting to use the travel graphics under certain circumstances
  
• Fixed the Agent entry in Invite Agent not being clickable everywhere
  
• Fixed tooltip inside the End Regency button
  
• Hide and expand button in contestant leader board doesn't disappear when clicked in a contest anymore.
  
• Holdings will no longer claim that there are a Tribal holding when trying to construct a new holding while not having enough Gold (it was only a UI bug)
  
• If the activity invite details view tries to open an invalid activity, it will no longer display the estimated travel time as an arbitrarily large number.
  
• Improved activity and danger map icon stacking and re-use to prevent flickering
  
• Interface improvements to activity log.
  
• Layout of acceptance has been updated.
  
• Locale Activity Window Conclusion now looks more like the regular activity window conclusion screen.
  
• Locale Activity Window now uses the same Activity Log Window as the regular Activity Window
  
• Marriage proposal interface has been updated.
  
• More traits gained through childhood will now be shown in the education finished event (such as Organizer or Forest Fighter)
  
• Moved the Activity Log Window into the top layer
  
• Names have been added below small character portraits in activity events.
  
• The Appoint Court Position UI now shows personality, so it's easier to choose for example a loyal Bodyguard
  
• The Host in Grand Weddings now use the Admiration default animation, rather than the Idle animation
  
• The Locale Window now explicitly sets the background based on locale_background instead of background.
  
• The War ended popup will no longer use white text on a light background, and not show a sigil when theres no signature
  
• Tournament invites will now state, in flavorful terms, what kind of prizes you can come to expect if you win
  
• Travel Safety and Travel Danger aptitude for the Caravan Master no longer displays negative numbers. This had no effect on the gameplay.
  
• We now show your designated diarch as the diarch-to-be in the interface
  
• When planning a Tour, we now show vassal opinion and portraits on the map for easier decision-making
  
• You can now hover the Aptitude value in the Appoint window
  
• Fixed some cases where Glory would show up with a lot of decimals
  

• Added eyes to many animals on coat of arms
  
• Added simpler variants of early era clothing for commoners and unlanded characters.
  
• Made it possible to combine crowns with certain other headgear. For now only veils for female western characters. This will now happen dynamically in the game as well so that duchesses and queens will wear a veil combined with their crown
  
• Made the Iberian helmets a bit more common, also made the HRE armor show up a bit earlier and the chainmail coif should now show up as well
  
• Updated all bookmark characters to match better between the bookmark screen and the game. Improved the appearance of some of them and added DNA for most of the secondary characters, so that their appearance will not change between game versions.
  
• Updated Boleslaw II the Bold with historically accurate beard with mustache.
  
• Major update to Bookmark characters to use a bigger selection of accessories.
  
• Multiple clothing, headgear, hairstyle, and cloak improvements to alleviate clipping issues.
  
• Improved Zealous animation pose to alleviate clipping issues.
  
• Added late era western war nobility legwear to Barbershop.
  
• Added a new version of Female Western Era 3 clothes
  

• Corrected two broken keys in african godname localization
  
• Fixed a few broken death reason texts
  
• Fixed loc issue in fp1_other_decisions.0022
  

• Added contest pivotal moment outcome tooltips, as these were not telegraphed before
  
• Added The Heroes of Our Time, a feast event about acclaimed knights
  

• Activity Types now define triggered backgrounds explicitly for locale backgrounds as locale_background.
  
• Added 'special_building_province' effect for faster special building lookups
  
• Added activity 'special_guest' script list
  
• All trait triggers and effects can now use a trait scope as well as a database key.
  
• Allow portrait 'scripted_animation' being used in most places where 'animation' is allowed, including within scripted animations themselves
  
• Fix all scope types reporting they can store variables.
  
• Fix attending_character not obeying the specified activity state.
  
• Fix toggle-all-AI console button & command
  
• Prop genes are now specified for handedness: props_right, props_left, and animated_props.
  

• Assigned Huesca, Sobrarbe, and Pallas to the Old Vasconia region
  
• Correctly made Beatrice di Canossa a woman
  
• Made Sancha Baio into Galician culture as Portuguese doesn't exist when she lives
  
• Made several of the Zirid dynasty members Sayiids
  
• Updated the Tournament Background image
  
• Israelite cultures have had their languages updated: Ashkenazi
• High German, Sephardi
• Iberian Vulgar, Radhanite
• Shaz Turkic, Kochinim
• Tamil
  
• Added the Bavlim culture to represent Israelite people in the Middle East
  
• Kuzarite now begins the game as an Unreformed faith, and can become organized via the "Break with the Old Ways" decision
  
• The Communal Identity doctrine is now given the unique "Chosen People" name and description when used by a Jewish faith
  
• Esotericism is now named "Kabbalah" when used by a Jewish faith
  
• All Jewish faiths except Samaritanism now begin the game with the Prophecy of Malichi special doctrine which prevents the Head of Faith title from being created through any means other than the Restore Head of Faith decision
  
• All Jewish faiths now begin in 867 with Polygamy, with an event in the year 1000 to make Rabbinic faiths become Monogamous. Rabbinic faiths begin in 1066 with Monogamy
  
• Removed the holy site in Ethiopia for all Jewish faiths except Haymanot
  
• Rabbinic Judaism now has a holy site in Al-Hila to represent Babylon
  
• Karaite Judaism now has a holy site in Hamadan to represent what is believed to be the tomb of Esther and Modechai
  
• Samaritanism now has a holy site in Al-Hila
  
• Added the new Merkabah faith to the Judaism religion
  
• The Samaritan High Priesthood now exists in both start dates as a vassal of whoever owns Jerusalem
  
• The Samaritan High Priesthood will become a vassal of anyone who conquers Jerusalem of above Duke rank, unless the Priesthood is a vassal of a Samaritan character or independent
  

• Many, MANY fixes for reported issues. Check the forum link here for a comprehensive list.
  

This Dev Diary will talk about some of the extra content coming with our next post-release update, 1.9.1! The update will of course also include a ton of fixes and tweaks, as weve been monitoring all the ways youve been playing with the big 1.9.0 update and the Tours and Tournaments DLC.

Discuss Dev Diary #129 on our forums!



Points of Interest
Hi everyone! I am Daan, also known as Joror, and I am a programmer on the CK3 team.

[h2]It is I, le Joror[/h2]
First off a little background info about me so were no longer strangers: I have worked at Paradox for over five years, and in a couple of different roles. First in our online department (DevOps) as a software engineer and Developer Relations specialist, then as a Clausewitz Engine programmer and tech lead, and finally I have been working in the CK3 team as a programmer!

Before joining Paradox I also dabbled in making mods and modding tools for Paradox games - which has helped me a lot in understanding how the games work from the outside, before moving to the inside.
I am Dutch, like cats, fancy beers, the occasional Goth party, game-jamming, and in general games of all varieties!

[h2]Resurrecting Darlings[/h2]
Making games is hard - it is a space where ideas are easy, but time is short, and success is measured by a graspable but fickle thing called fun.
So when developing, we design, build, evaluate, and cut. Many ideas fall by the wayside during each of those steps, including some personal darlings. Often not because the ideas are bad, but because there is not enough time, or they would be too risky, or one of many other reasons.

Luckily, we also bake various ways into our process that give us space for personal agency and creativity! And one such way is PDT - Personal Development Time.
This is dedicated time in our busy schedule where every developer can work on improving their skills in an area of their choice. And (after checking with leads) we can also work towards adding darling features or pet peeve fixes that can make it into the game.

The Points of Interest travel system is such a feature! Its also the reason why it is in a post-release update. Of course, it is not just a one person effort. Lovely icons and GUI elements were added by a crafty Artist, code was reviewed by discerning Programmers, the user experience checked for consistency and purpose by a UX Designer, its rewards evaluated for balance by a Game Designer, the end product tested by perceptive QA, while being supported by a whole range of other disciplines that make the work environment organized and smooth.

[h2]A Travel Carrot: Points of Interest[/h2]
While working on Tours and Tournaments, one of the main systems I was involved in was the Travel system. For a little dev-insight, this is what route planning looked like early on in the process:

A screenshot of an early state of development of travel route planning, with different colors and icons.

We added Danger as one of the main friction mechanics of travel, where players get to make planning decisions and have reasons to change their route. But Danger is mostly a Stick - a punishment if you will - and it would be nice to have a Carrot as well - a positive reason to change your route!

Enter: Points of Interest - a small system that rewards you for visiting interesting places.
These points of interest will give a reward the first time you visit them during your lifetime. The same also applies to your entourage, so bringing people along will also help them improve.

An adjusted travel plan which travels through Pisa, a province that contains a Point of Interest.

[h2]Types and Rewards[/h2]
These Points of Interest are not static locations - but grabbed from the living world of CK3.

All Special Buildings (if they are built) give a Point of Interest based on their type, and give different rewards depending on the Special Building type:

Visiting the Pyramids is something to boast about.

Special building type rewards:

• Walls and Forts: +100 Martial Lifestyle Experience
  
• A part of a multi-province defensive structure (Hadrians Wall, etc): +25 Martial Lifestyle Experience
  
• Universities & Places of Learning: +100 Lifestyle Experience in your currently selected Lifestyle
  
• Religious Sites & Buildings: +100 Learning Lifestyle Experience, and +100 Piety if they are of your Faith
  
• Palaces and Political Buildings: +100 Diplomacy Lifestyle Experience
  
• Ancient Wonders & Natural Wonders: +100 Stewardship Lifestyle Experience, and +150 Prestige
  
• Economic Buildings (mines, ports): +100 Stewardship Lifestyle Experience
  

Hello everyone!

In lieu of a dev diary today, we're releasing Update 1.9.0.4 to resolve some issues reported to us by the community.

[h2]1.9.0.4 Changelog[/h2]
[hr][/hr]

• Fixed some crashing issues
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed a regent to accompany a ruler on their travels
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from planning activities after they canceled travel plans for "Petition Liege" and "Pay Homage" decisions
  
• Fixed an issue that got tournaments stuck in the "Waiting for Tournament to start" phase
  
• Fixed alliances gained through the Diplomacy Intent in Grand Weddings invalidating on the next day
  
• Fixed the AI inviting players to Playdates, Witch Rituals, and Blots, no matter where in the world they are
  
• Grand Wedding promises are now inherited by the player heir
  
• Fixed an issue that caused players to be blocked permanently from planning activities due to them waiting for the Tour of their Liege
  
• Fixed buildings increasing activity costs rather than reducing them
  

Attention Rulers,

To celebrate the release of our latest expansion, Tours & Tournaments, Crusader Kings III will be free to play until Monday, May 15th at 10:00 PST!

We're also discounting the base game and previous DLCs until Thursday, May 18th at 10:00 PST, so if you've been waiting to pick up some of our older content, now's the time!

[h2]Current Discounts[/h2]

• Crusader Kings III -50%
  
• Fate of Iberia -20%
  
• Royal Court -20%
  
• Northern Lords -20%
  

We're releasing hotfix 1.9.0.3 today to address an issue that could be caused by failing a hunt.

Thank you to all of you for sharing your feedback and reportsour team is working to address all reported issues. For updates, please check our Known Issues post.

[h2]1.9.0.3 Changelog[/h2]

• Players will no longer get soft-locked from progressing further into the game after failing to hunt the animal in the "Hunt: Softly, softly" event
  

[previewyoutube=sD5GsZaF39k;full][/previewyoutube]

Tours & Tournaments is now available! Check out the full list of changes introduced with our latest expansion and the accompanying free 1.9 'Lance' Update here.




Let wanderlust overtake your rulers desires during a monumental Tour, and seek out your subjects in a realm that can be both dangerous and richly entertaining. Prove yourself in one of the many forms of gallant Tournaments, either abroad or at home, or use the festivities to murder a quarrelsome rival. Be the host of new Grand Activities, be it grand weddings or stirring falconry hunts. But beware! Many celebrations are the perfect cover for the dastardly scheme against foes or family.

[h2]Features[/h2]

• Handpick your Entourage and customize your Route carefully. The road ahead might be long, but is filled with colorful characters, exotic cultures, and life-changing events.
  
• Pay your vassals a visit and interact with them closely. Inspect their holdings, and get to know how your subjects live their lives in the most distant corners of your realm.
  
• Manifest your benevolence and bestow gifts and rewards. Or, bring a horde of tax collectors and finally get your due from those conveniently hard-to-reach vassals.
  
• Join Contests to win extraordinary Prizes and gain valuable experience in new skills.
  
• Host a magnificent Tournament with all its splendor and festivities. Prepare yourself well by paying a visit to the blacksmith or gain some liquid courage in the local tavern.
  
• Beguile your opponent with setting Intents, then bash their heads in or win the heart of your quarries with your excellent jousting skills.
  
• Gain an edge in backroom diplomacy by organizing a Grand Wedding. Negotiate beneficial prenuptial Pacts, please your Courtly vassals, and gain favors at these new intricate ceremonies.
  
• Bestow your knights with honors, allowing your warrior nobles to specialize, whether in politics or on the battlefield. Train them up, sending them to tournaments or war for even more experience.
  
• Admire the new museum-worthy character art, showcasing in detail the evolution of armor and dazzling changes in western medieval clothing, from the early to late Middle Ages.
  

Greetings!

Today is the day when Tours and Tournaments and the accompanying 1.9.0 Lance Update will be released! To tide you over until then wed like to share the full update log.

Read Dev Diary #128 on our forums!



1.9.0 Lance Update

• Added regencies, so that characters unable to rule for a short time (e.g., because they're traveling) have someone to watch their realm whilst they're gone
  
• Added entrenched regencies, so that characters unable to rule for a long time (e.g., children) can be bullied by regents gone mad with power or sedately supported by regents who just want to do right by them
  
• Added a baker's dozen new mechanical interactions around characters becoming regents or thoroughly abusing their power whilst they are regents
  
• Added diarchies system, allowing mod-scriptable power sharing arrangements between two characters at a time (for the sake of sanity, you're restricted to only _one_ diarch at a time, so you can't have a regent and a Custom Modded Evil Prime Minister at the same time, but you could have either or contextually)
  
• Added the Coups feature, allowing regents to, with some effort, overthrow their liege and steal all their shinies at the low, low price of extreme risk of death or imprisonment and an unpleasant nickname
  
• Added trilateral interactions where intermediary can veto or allow the interaction before the recipient can accept or decline. This way liege can have a say if diarch wants to (ab)use their powers
  
• Added the Travel System so characters now actually move across the map and through individual provinces when traveling to Activities, optionally with an entourage of other characters
  
• Added 130+ events that occur while traveling, both dangerous and non-dangerous in nature
  
• Added the Caravan Master court position that affects travel stats and organizes the logistics of their lieges travel
  
• Added several Travel Options which allow for customization of travel plans (e.g. hiring specialists to counteract terrain danger)
  
• Added travel route editor so that you can place waypoints on the map to adjust your travel route
  
• Every character now has a bonafide location on the map
  
• Characters Paying Homage, Petitioning their Liege, and going to Meditate in Seclusion now travel to their destination
  
• Added Vassal Stances, every vassal now has a stance based on their personality, various opinion modifiers that previously impacted any vassal/feudal vassal now impact only vassals of a given stance
  
• Vassal Stances have a preferred heir, when succession happens they get a temporary opinion boost with the new ruler if it was their preferred heir, or an opinion penalty if not.
  
• Men-at-Arms can now be stationed in a specific holding, most building modifiers that previously impacted all men-at-arms now only impact the one stationed at that province.
  
• Revised the rewards and balance of practically all buildings in the game to account for Men-at-Arms Stationing and other new changes, more details in the Balance section.
  
• Significantly refined the game's economy; Building Slots now increase with time, many new Buildings have been added, Building Costs have been completely revised, Domain Limits have been lowered, etc. More details can be found in the Balance section.
  
• Adult Count+ Rulers (excluding Mercenaries) now have a chance to passively gain nicknames such as 'the Able', 'the Fat', or 'the Terrible'. The chance to gain a nickname goes up with rank, age, and prestige/piety, and the types of nicknames you can get are based in large part on traits, skills, and circumstances. For example, 'the Careless' can be gained while in a civil war of your making, if you have low diplomacy and some tyranny. When you get a nickname, an event will tell you which one you got, accompanied by a small reward or penalty.
  
• Added 75+ new Nicknames, most of which can be gained passively.
  
• Nicknames can now have descriptions, visible when moused over, finally allowing the use of ironic nicknames without an immense amount of explaining.
  
• Added descriptions for most historic nicknames and all in-game given nicknames.
  
• Added a Game Rule to control the frequency of random passive nicknames appearing on rulers
  
• Added a Game Rule to tweak the Domain Limit of all rulers; +1, +2, +3, -1, -2, -3
  
• You can now offer to Pay Ransom for your courtiers, vassals, close family members, dynasty members, lovers, friends, or anyone who is married to a member of your close family or dynasty
  
• Added the Economy Mapmode, accessible from the Additional Modes menu or by pressing Ctrl-S. It shows income on a per-County basis, allowing you to plan your conquests properly. It also reveals the location of all Special Buildings in the game, whether they are constructed yet or not.
  
• Added the Control Mapmode, accessible from the Additional Modes menu or by pressing Ctrl-F. It reveals the Control levels of all Counties in the world and also shows where Absolute Control is in effect.
  
• Added a Destroy Artifact button, which allows you to destroy any Common or Masterwork artifact you no longer want in order to recuperate some of the gold cost. If you are Iconoclast you can destroy Artifacts of any Rarity, and will get Piety for doing so.
  
• Significantly updated the Current Situation widget to be more user-friendly and useful for both new and experienced players; weve updated several entries with more information, added several new situations, added icons to all entries, etc. More info can be found in the Interface section.
  
• When hiring a Physician you can now see what Aptitude they will have directly in the Event Option
  
• Weve added a HUD Skin Selector which allows you to switch between any of the existing HUD skins, overriding the default. This means that you can, for example, use the Norse skin from Northern Lords when playing outside of Pagan Scandinavia.
  
• The Outliner has been significantly updated to be more useful: Pinned characters show more info (health, powerful vassal status, if theyre in a faction), Armies now have icons that show what theyre doing (moving, fighting, embarking, etc.), Armies show more general info (quality, supply status, attrition), and finally the Outliner will remember your last settings (it will start open if you had it open last game, etc.)
  
• Canterbury Cathedral has been added as a special building with a set of modifiers, three levels of upgrades, and new on-map 3D models for each stage
  
• Traits can now have Tiers with individual xp bars; this is in effect for the new Traveler and Hastiluder traits, but has also been added to all of the older tiered traits such as Reveler, Hunter, and Pilgrim.
  
• The Barbershop has been updated to be Fullscreen with a host of new tools and settings: you can select which Background you want (which comes with appropriate lighting by default), which characters should be in the shot, which animations they should use, and at which zoom level all characters should be displayed. Characters can be moved around the scene with drag-and-drop, and can be rotated 360 degrees. Weve added quick-access character presets (self-portrait, council, family), a screenshot button, and a Hide UI button. You can also pin characters and bring them into the scene. All drop-down lists can be searched with fuzzy text input. Several characters can be edited without closing the barbershop or resetting your scene in between. You can add dynasty/title shields and names to the scene, as well as character names, should you want to create a family portrait or similar.
  
• Legwear is now accessible as a customization option in the barbershop
  
• You can now pick your hair color using a color wheel in the barbershop
  
• The rules for who you can edit in the Barbershop are now consistent with who you can edit the title/dynasty of, which means that you can now customize your vassals and subjects.
  
• Added an event where your Realm Priest riles up your Zealot vassals against you
  
• Added 5 Martial lifestyle events
  
• Added 1 Wealth lifestyle event
  
• And much, much more
  

Welcome to this Dev Diary, just ahead of the release of Tours and Tournaments! Today, we will take a dive into the senses: the music and the visual art youll spot throughout your travels and activities. And, at the end, well reveal the achievements yearning for the completionist to try them out.

Read Dev Diary #127 on our forums!



Once again, we have a Dev Diary too large to fit practically into a Steam announcement, so head over to our forums via the link above to read today's post!

Hello, Crusaders!

Less than a week to the release of Tours & Tournaments!

On May 11, you will be able to travel through your realm to check on your vassals. Attend royal weddings to demonstrate your loyalty to a distant lord. Or, if you are brave enough, enter competitions of body or mind in tournaments. As always, there are no guarantees, and danger still lurks around every corner. But with great risk, comes great renown...


Take a look at the video below presenting the feature breakdown for Tours and Tournaments!

[previewyoutube=0Q_5-nj0M5k;full][/previewyoutube]


Alexander Oltner breaks down features included in Tours & Tournaments, as well as the Free Update 1.9.0 'Lance!'

Travel

• Plan and plot your route to Grand Tournaments & Weddings
  
• Assemble your Caravan & select a Caravan Master
  
• Customise your route to avoid danger
  
• New trait 'Traveller'
  

• Visit up to 10 subjects
  
• Go on a Majesty Tour, Intimidation Tour, or a Taxation Tour
  
• A Regent will rule in your place as you embark on your Tour, select a Regent to rule in your stead
  

• Locale screen to visit the Village, Tavern, Temple, Tent Camp, Artisan Quarters, and Tournament Grounds
  
• Train for upcoming contests
  
• Decide to compete in Recitals, Duels, Melee, and Jousts. These will improve your skills
  
• Knights can gain an Accolade and provide you with special bonuses
  
• Using intrigue you can sabotage events and win by alternative means
  
• Bet on contests
  

• Preform Diplomacy and Intrigue
  
• Impress neighbouring rulers and gain them as vassals
  
• Eliminate the other family in a Bloody Wedding
  

• Activities have been massively reworked, from Hunts to Tournaments
  
• Plan travel to get there and partake
  
• Go on a normal Beast Hunt, Falconry Hunt, or a Legendary Hunt
  
• Travel on a Pious Pilgrimage or a Worldly Pilgrimage
  
• Choose an intent for each activity, if you succeed or fail you can select a new one whenever you like
  
• Grand Weddings allow you to marry above your station
  

• All Armour has been improved
  
• Coat of arms appear on armour
  
• Armour will evolve over the era, from early Armour to full Plate Armour
  

• Several new systems
  
• Updated how buildings work
  
• Updated how Vassals view your rulership
  
• Improved Barbershop
  
• And much, much more!
  

Hello and welcome to the 126th CK3 Dev Diary. Im Matthew, one of the programmers on the team, and today were going to be covering changes to modding support coming alongside Tours and Tournaments as well as how modding activities themselves can work.

Discuss Dev Diary #126 on our forums!



Activity Modding
Activities are fully moddable, and as I mentioned in prior dev diaries they are composed of a variety of options and phases, where a phase is made up of a type and a location.

There are a lot of scripting options in activities so Im going to also attach our info file on them for a more detailed overview. For this dev diary Im just going to cover a handful of the bigger things.

[h2]Options[/h2]
Options are one of the more simple things, they are grouped into categories with different options which can be shown and picked and it is scripted which is default. This default picking is a trigger so that different defaults can be set for different people, in vanilla we use this to make Hajj the default for Muslims so they go on that first.


Additionally every option can forcefully add characters to the entourage of the host and invited guests, it will pick from their court characters and allows a weight for selecting them and a maximum to pick from for player and AI.
These invited characters also get an invite order, which Ill cover in more depth shortly.


Lastly one option category can be set as the special category, this option will be picked first when planning an activity. In vanilla we use this for the special activity types like which type of Tour you are going on. It is fed into many triggers and scripted values in the activity setup for checking.

[h2]Phases[/h2]
Setting up phases can be quite complicated, mainly centering around how the location of them should be picked.

You can think of there being two types of phases: Predefined and Pickable.

Predefined phases are always present and not removable, they can be selected either by the script picking a location or automatically set to the first or last phase.

For example, in a Tour the final phase is Journey Home is predefined and has a scripted selection of always taking you to your capital province so you return home.


For pickable phases the player instead selects a province themselves, phases can be repeatedly picked and have a max limit so you cannot go on a Tour to visit every vassal.

Every phase also has an order in which it happens, for a simple activity like a feast where all phases are predefined this just controls the order they happen. In more complicated activities where the player can pick things the order becomes more complicated, it will respect the order you script but also if the order is matching it will be the last one the player picked.

To take Tours as an example again in the above image you can see order is set to 2, and for the pickable phases where you visit different vassals the order is set to 1.
So that means the Journey Home is always at the very end of everything, and for the vassal stops whichever you the player picked last will be towards the end of your journey.

[h2]Special Guests[/h2]
Special guests can be selected in two ways, either a trigger which you then pick from all invited characters who match it or they can be automatically filled by an effect. This allows weddings to automatically set the bride and groom whereas in a feast you can pick your honorary guest.



Additionally, as you may have spotted special guests can be required or not, if required then the activity will not be plannable without them and if they decline then it will be invalidated.

[h2]Invite Rules[/h2]
Every activity has multiple invite rules which control who can be invited, these rules are reusable and can be shared among different activities and are defined in their own files.

On its own an invite rule is just an effect which adds character to a list, how you get those characters from the host is up to you really.


When an activity decides to use those invite rules it can decide if the rule should be enabled by default and more importantly what order the invite rule should be applied. This comes into play when the invite rules are adding more characters then your activity can support, it will try to invite characters based on the order and later less important characters will be skipped.


Special guests are always invited first since the activity to some degree revolves around them. Equally those you manually invite via interaction will be put to the front of the invite list.

[h2]Intents[/h2]
Like invite rules our intents are defined in their own files and can be reused by different activities. The default intent for hosts and guests is defined per activity, the player and AI will pick their own specific one from there.

Every intent can optionally have a target character and they are scripted similarly to interaction targets. One thing to keep in mind when modding intents is the AI target usage, since every invited character is a target you should make liberal use of the AI target filtering we provide and put maximus on potentially very large groups of people.


[h2]Plugin Widgets[/h2]
Due to the nature of activities wanting to display special information, and in the case of Tournaments basically showing its entire own window, we came up with a system of allowing the activity script to define what plugin widgets it would like inserted into the main window.


The format of these is that the left-hand side refers to the name of the plugin widget and the name of the file it will be in, similar to the event window widgets, all of which are found under the gui/activity_window_widgets directory.

The right hand side refers to the name of the widget in the main activity window they should be inserted under. Weve got a few that we use already in vanilla but mods can expand and add more places they insert widgets and use custom widgets for their own activity information.

Leveled Traits
As shown off in some earlier dev diaries we now have leveled traits built into the game instead of needing to be handled purely in script.

Script wise they are very simple; any trait can define one or more tracks and what XP thresholds needs to be met for modifiers to apply. The modifiers are stacking so you always get the rewards of previous levels on top of them.

Any trait can be made into a leveled trait, for now weve done it to lifestyle traits where you can level them up. But we may apply this in the future to other things!


Currently unused in vanilla weve also added it so the trait XP can degrade over time which I am sure mods will be able to put to good use. The below will make the XP degrade by 5 every month, but only to a minimum of 20 so you dont lose all your hard-earned XP.


Alongside this rework we also went through and added more documentation to traits and combined some properties that could never coexist and now give better errors.

Database Scopes
One larger rework that will be a work in progress over the next few patches is that now database types can be registered as scope types.

Ive reworked our backend to support this better now and still keep things safe, mainly by disallowing effects to be run on these database scopes since they are not modifiable. So now for example traits and activity types are scopes which can be saved and used in script.

Currently the support is mostly in its bare minimum state, but in future patches I plan to make a variety of database types into scopes. This should hopefully improve mod compatibility and reduce down script duplication of manually checking over every single trait by hand.

Coming in the next release after Tours and Tournaments Ive made traits fully integrated into this for both triggers and effects, so you could look for a random opposite trait of someone and then add it to your character for example.

For Tours and Tournaments weve mostly used this in the activity system to support alerts better, so instead of having a hard coded alert about activities you can host we can just check them like normal script.


So modders reading this Id love to know what types youd like added as scopes and what triggers and effects that take database keys youd like to see take scopes. Ive already got traits done for a future patch, so I am interested in others I can do!

Data Models
Ive reworked the backend of how data models work, which now allows us to in gui script dynamically get sub-sections of a datamodel as well as set a datacontext to a specific item in the data model.

For example you can now limit a datamodel to the first three people:
datamodel = "[DataModelFirst( ActivityWindow.GetCharacters, '(int32)3' )]"

Or you can get the skip the first few of them:
datamodel = "[DataModelSkipFirst( ActivityWindow.GetCharacters, '(int32)3' )]"

There also exists a Last version of these which gets/skips the end and DataModelSubSpan which lets you do both an offset and desired size.

Using datacontext_from_model you can also get a specific item, oftentimes this will be the very first one so you can show the top scoring character, or first completed intent etc.


The index can also be dynamic so you can save a value in script and then get that character out of your data model.

Conditional Scope Change
As some of you eagle eyed people might have spotted, or if youve modded Vicky and see they released with our change first, is the new conditional scope change operator ?=.

Normally when you change to a scope you will get errors if it does not exist, but in many cases you know that the thing may not be set in which case you dont want an error but to fail the trigger.
The previous way of doing that is to add an exists trigger on the line above every time as that then returns false if they are not around, but that could be quite cumbersome.

Now you can combine that together so instead of loads of extra typing it's just one convenient ? being involved!


This also works for scope comparisons where it will return false if the left-hand side does not exist. When used in effects it will just skip running the effects in that scope change if the scope doesnt exist.

And lastly as a little sneak peek of the patch notes here is the user modding section!

###################
# User Modding
###################

• Added character modifier, Men-at-arms Counter Resistance
  
• Rename hidden_effect_new_artifact to hidden_effect_new_object
  
• Add GetBaronyNameExplicitly and GetBaronyNameExplicitlyNoTooltip to provinces to get the barony even if it's the capital.
  
• Add building_slot_add modifier for holdings.
  
• Add prowess_no_portrait trigger.
  
• Add trait modifiers based on faith doctrine parameters, analogous to culture
  
• Added defines for simple text glow formats
  
• Adds the hostile_county_attrition_raiding to modify the hostile county attrition of raiding armies. Will apply from both commanders and owners of armies. This IGNORES the regular lower limit of 10%, such that hostile county attrition for raiding armies can be reduced to 0. Go forth, land vikings! Pillage! Rule!
  
• Adds the movement_speed_land_raiding to modify the speed of raiding armies moving over land. Will apply from both commanders and owners of armies.
  
• Consistently use reference for triggered background/textures instead of sometimes duplicating with event_background.
  
• Custom loc can now have the "all" type which lets it match to any scope type.
  
• Interactions can now also set a cooldown on all other interactions in the same category via the 'category_cooldown' and 'category_cooldown_against_recipient' properties
  
• Make province GetName and GetNameNoTooltip both return the county if capital.
  
• Remove 'goto' field from 'send_interface_message' and 'send_interface_toast'
  
• Remove GUI support for 'PlayerMessageItem' members 'GetGotoProvince', 'HasGotoProvince', and 'OnGoto'
  
• Remove the add_building_slot effect, only use the new building_slot_add modifier.
  
• Rework how open_view and open_view_data handle additional script provided data, the view_message field has been renamed to data and can be used in either of those effects it will now pass the additional data to the specific interface it is opening which will use it as appropriate.
  
• The 'duel' script effect can now use multiple skills at once, averaging their value. Up to six skills can be compared.
  
• Add diarchy_succession_character script list builder
  
• Add effect change_diarchy_type
  
• Add effect set_diarch
  
• add trigger is_diarchy_successor
  
• Per modder request, added some instructions (and a small correction) to on_actions.info to help newbie modders just getting started
  
• Per modder request, added standardised cultural parameters for raiding overland and overseas to increase mod interoperability. Also made it easier to add dynasty modifiers, house modifiers, & cultural innovations that unlock raiding (either according to standard restrictions for non-tribals or, optionally, without restrictions)
  
• Per modder request, replaced almost all instances of has_government with government_has_flag (and added relevant flags to each government type) to allow for easy hooking in of additional government types to vanilla content & systems, as well as better mod interoperability
  
• Add function [Army.GetArmyStatusTooltip]
  
• Introduce [Army.GetArmyStatusOutlinerIcon]
  
• Renamed [Army.GetArmyStatusIcon] to [Army.GetArmyStatusIllustration].
  
• add change_diarchy_power_level effect
  
• add diarchy_has_parameter trigger
  
• add diarchy_power_level trigger
  
• add set_diarchy_power_level effect
  
• Converted tribal imprisonment block to use a government flag for marginally higher mod compatibility
  
• Added 'memory_creation_date', 'memory_end_date' and 'memory_age_years' triggers for Character Memories.
  
• Add HasCharacterFlag datafunction for characters
  
• Added IsDateAfter promote that takes a date and a target date.
  
• Added IsDateBefore promote that takes a date and a target date.
  
• Added IsDateBetween promote that takes a target date, a start time and an end time.
  
• Added IsDateToday promote that takes a date.
  
• Added GetDateAsTotalDays promote for Dates
  
• Added promote HasFlag to the (Player) MessageType in order to allow specializations for message appearances.
  
• Added effect start_travel_plan, which opens the travel planning window for the player and can take multiple (optional) input parameters like destination(s), companion(s), events/on_actions, et al.
  
• New `*_neighboring_province` list can be used to efficiently get adjacent provinces in script
  
• New `*_army_in_location` list can be used to quickly find armies in a province
  
• The "Settings" window doesn't pop up anymore when reloading localization data
  
• New expand auto-complete mode for console: Toggle via `settings` -> Tools -> Console auto-complete mode
  
• Can kick out existing councillor "nicely" by using `remove_existing_councillor = yes` in `assign_councillor_type` effect
  
• Interactions targetting artifacts can now directly open up a specific artifact
  
• You can now actually generate a 'lowborn' character from character templates (`dynasty = none` is now correctly honored)
  
• The PdxData data_binding 'macro' system now supported for mods too
  
• You can attach character portrait assets to the root of a 3D entities via `at_root_of_entity` (same config location as `shared_pose_entity` / `node`)
  
• New 'scope exists' script operator "?=" added, so we don't have to write "exist = bla bla = { stuff }" thousands of times and can just do bla ?= { stuff }
  
• Scope exists operator `bla ?= {}` in effects will not execute effects inside scope if the scope `bla` does not exist
  
• Added new 'ransomed' artifact history state
  
• `set_location` effect now has `stick_to_location = yes` if you want to pin down someones default location to be different from their capital or court
  

Knights, Accolades and Glory

Hey! Were CKs resident gang of big, beefy, vascular knight bannerets and were here to talk knights! Specifically, the brand-new Accolades feature. So slap on your jerkin, grab your bodkin, strap on your slaying-sword, and dont you dare get distracted by any damsels in distress.

Accolades are about adding depth and flavor to knight management, giving you cause to care about the low-ranked NPCs youre sending to untimely deaths. This is a smaller feature, but its an excellent tie-in to the new Activity System, particularly Grand Tournaments. Activities are ideal less-than-lethal reasons to get your knights out of the house, and get them known as the budding warriors and leaders they are.

[h3]Hey, is this just adding more Knight Effectiveness?[/h3]
No. But your knights will probably get a few new things to offer the battlefield.

Discuss Dev Diary #125 on our forums!



Whats an Accolade?
In death thy glory in heaven, in victory thy glory on earth. Arise therefore, Arjuna, with thy soul ready to fight - The Bhagavad-Gita

An Accolade represents the special honors - the eminent status - a liege affords to a favored knight. It represents an awe-inspiring reputation passed through generations of fighters; as Accolades improve over time (and as more storied martial deeds are done), they offer more bonuses to the knights who hold them and to their liege (you).


[Image: Accolades reside at the top of the Knights Window]

By spending prestige to create an Accolade on a worthy knight, you make the character your Acclaimed Knight. They serve just as normal knights do, with no additional effects but those provided by their Accolade Attributes (Ill get to those shortly).

Heres what creating an Accolade looks like:


[Image: Pictured: who you can Acclaim and whats so very praiseworthy about them]

Note that not all your knights are shown as Accolade candidates here. Only unlanded and baron-rank knights can become Acclaimed Knights. Candidates must also have at least 8 prowess - nobody wants them constantly dying of incompetence. Finally, they have to be eligible for at least two Accolade Attributes.

[h2]Accolade Attributes[/h2]
He who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune. - Marie de France

Accolade Attributes reflect the traits, skills or other qualities of your knights that make them stand out. Theyre the source of Accolade bonuses, which scale as knights gain Glory (a new stat: Accolade XP).

Every Accolade has two Attributes. The Ranks earned through Glory gain alternately provide one Attributes bonus and then the others. So, if your Accolade has a Mentor Attribute, youll gain the Mentors aid to their fellow knights only with every second increase in Rank.

Some Attributes simply herald an element of a knights personality and, while they can be interesting, arent particularly impressive. Others (like the aforementioned Mentor) depend on the knight being exceptional and, in return, offer potent men-at-arms modifiers, lifestyle trait boosts, etc.

Lets check out some Attributes.


[Image: The lowest-level Outrider Attribute bonuses]

The Outrider, shown above, is mostly about boosting light cavalry. Below, you can see what its effects look like when they reach their max. If youre interested in these kinds of Men-at-Arms bonuses: theres more on that later in the Dev Diary, including a hot scoop on special Accolade MaA units.


[Image: The highest-level Outrider Attribute bonuses]

To be an Outrider, your knight needs the Open Terrain Expert trait or XP in the Horse track of the shiny new Hastiluder tiered trait (gained from Grand Tournament participation). Being, say, a salt-of-the-earth Thug is more common. Wrathful, Arbitrary, Impatient, Arrogant and Reaver characters all qualify.

The Thugs is not exactly a rich lineup of bonuses. But hey, if youre a bad guy, you might still want a Thug on your side!


[Image: the lowest-level Thug Attribute bonus]


[Image: The highest-level Thug Attribute bonuses]

Given knights are a lieges military muscle, most Accolade bonuses are martial and army-focused. Nonetheless, for those more interested in singing chansons than cleaving skulls, theres Acclaimed Knights like the rare Master of Revels:


[Image: The lowest-level Master of Revels Attribute bonuses]


[Image: The highest-level Master of Revels Attribute bonuses]

If you find yourself curious about Attributes, a full list with requirements and effects are listed in the in-game Encyclopedia. Have a Marauder and Thug-led gang of bully-boys backing you up, if you wish - or get yourself a Tactician and a House Paragon!

One thing to clear up: while its possible to have multiple Acclaimed Knights, you may only ever have one instance of each Accolade Attribute. Lets keep the modifier stacking reasonable, folks.


[Image: An Accolade]

[h2]The Accolade View[/h2]
Youve created an Accolade. Its visible above your knights list. When opened, youre faced with the Accolades name, its Acclaimed Knight, the Successor (if ones been found), its Attributes, and the bonuses it provides.

Note that your Accolades can be freely renamed, just in case the randomly-filled templates like The Sword of Death or Senior Knight of the Polish Guard don't do it for you.

And the track in the middle is showing Glory? Thats XP, right?

[h2]Glory[/h2]
He who does more is of greater worth - Geoffroi de Charny, The Book of Chivalry

Heck yeah, XP. Glory is gained whenever something happens that might make your Acclaimed Knight and their Accolade more respected, more famed and glorious, in the eyes of loyal warrior and hateful foe alike. Accolade Rank is increased with Glory; theyre what provide you with the good stuff.

Heres a list of common Glory sources for an Acclaimed Knight:
Fighting in winning battles
Wounding/killing other knights in battle
Winning single combats
Attending Activities with their liege
Participating in/winning Tournament Contests
Their liege winning wars against higher-ranked war targets

On that last point: indeed, the feat of besting an Emperor as a Count nets the Counts Acclaimed Knights a tasty bit of extra Glory. This amount varies based on the size of the war target and the Casus Belli type.


[Image: Glory gain on victory should this victory somehow happen]

Some new events will also provide opportunities to increase your Accolades Glory. This may be the knight-iest one of all:


[Image: An imminent training montage]


[Image: Tooltip of Option A, with Accolades shown in its bottom two entries]

Glory will not accrue endlessly; it is also sometimes lost. This happens when knights lose battles, are defeated, and on Accolade Succession. The last one might seem harsh, but can you really expect a brand-new Acclaimed Knight to command the same respect as their predecessor? Give them some time.


[Image: A n00b.]

[h2]Accolade Succession[/h2]
For I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame - Malory, Le Morte dArthur

Knights die. Its a hazard of the job. If Accolades, as a system, were about the rise of an individual knights personal legend, itd necessitate a lot of frustration and loss of investment. Therefore, Accolades carry on from master to pupil, from Acclaimed Knight to Successor.

Accolade Successors are filled in automatically, but the Accolades liege is free to remove them and select replacements.


[Image: Successor requirements and candidates]

What if one has no valid Successors among their knights? Well, willing players can try to recruit characters who fulfill Attribute requirements, by hook (literally and otherwise) or marriage offer.

But if poring through character lists is not your cup of tea, never fear!

[h2]Seek Worthy Accolade Successor[/h2]
Your prowess, Roland, is a curse on our heads - The Song of Roland

Worried that one day your Acclaimed Knight will be dead and gone? For a nominal prestige cost, a brand new Accolade Successor can be yours!


[Image: This Interaction is available from the Successor window]


[Image: Top-quality chivalric virtue, on demand!]

There is a bit of fine print to Seek Worthy Accolade Successor, including a fair amount of cooldown. Also, Successors will not necessarily fulfill both of an Accolades Attributes, and when that happens - things get funky.

[h2]Primary & Secondary Attributes[/h2]
Accolades all have two Attributes. First displayed is the Primary, the core of the Accolades identity, which will never change. Below is the Secondary Attribute, which Successors arent required to qualify for. Successors must simply fulfill the Primary Attribute requirements (listed in the Successor screen) and qualify for any other Attribute.

An example: you create an Accolade with a Politicker Primary Attribute and an Idealist Secondary Attribute. The Accolade is named something warm and fuzzy like Most Loyal of the Banners. Then the Acclaimed Knight dies, and guess what? His Successor is no Idealist, hes a dang Thug! Your new knight is putting his unique unsavory spin on your Politicker Accolade.

On the bright side, the mutability of Secondary Attributes allows you more flexibility with Accolade bonuses. This boon is offset by increased Succession Glory loss whenever an Accolade has to change over to a new Secondary Attribute.

[h2]Inactive Accolades[/h2]
Ubi sunt

What if, god forbid, you fail to find a Successor for your Accolade? Fear not, sweet gamer. The Accolade isnt destroyed, but rather it becomes Inactive. If you want to free up the slot, you can Retire the Accolade even while its still filled by a knight, and itll become Inactive.

Clicking on the Inactive Accolades button which, when needed, appears in the Knights and Accolades window will take you here:


[Image: Some out-of-commission Accolades]

These Inactive Accolades no longer provide any effects. You may Reinstate them, choosing a knight to fill them when doing so, or delete them if you wish.

But what if you have an Inactive Accolade and theres no one up to the task of filling it?

[h2]The Restore Accolades Decision[/h2]
Are there such heroes among you / Whose bones would not crackle in my fingers? - The Epic of Jangar

Of course, youre free to hunt down characters who meet the requirements of your fallen Accolades manually. But this Decision exists to make things a little easier:


[Image: SOUND THE HORNS, SEND THE MINSTRELS]

Neat little aside: this Decision first looks to recruit existing characters, but if none available meet requirements, new characters are generated. The new characters Skills and Traits will be appropriate for your Accolades Primary Attribute. The individuals culture should be both A) situated realistically near to yours, B) friendly with yours, and C) either suit the Primary Attribute or generally be well-known for exceptional knights. Basically, this just sets up Norman knights appearing as Accolade candidates all over Christendom.

Plus, if youre Emperor of Byzantium, theres a decent chance the elite fighting men who show up will be Armenians or Varangians. Pretty neat.

[h2]Acclaimed Knights & Grand Tournaments[/h2]
Lets switch gears and talk Tournaments. Theyre an outstanding one-stop destination for all things knight. Not only do your Acclaimed Knights stand to gain Glory from competition and victory, but the Hastiluder Trait earned with the honing of warrior skills unlocks powerful Men-at-Arms Attributes. Attend equestrian contests if youre interested in Attributes like Lancer or Camel Rider; hold dismounted combats to pursue knights like the Vanguard and the Skirmisher, and do some archery to get Archers and Crossbow Captains.

Those particularly interested in improving their stable of knights can attend Tournaments with the Recruit Intent, and improve their odds of going home in chivalrous company.


[Image: A Tournament attendee selecting the Recruit Intent]

Interested in your own tale-worthy tournamenting knight? Want an Ulrich von Lichtenstein to dazzle the crowd with skin-tight armor and miraculous skill? Well


[Image: Reference reference]

[h2]Accolades for Everybody! No, Wait[/h2]
The keen-eyed among you may have noticed earlier theres but 5 spaces for Accolades in the Knights and Accolades window. This is no mistake: 5 is the maximum number of Acclaimed Knights youll ever have simultaneously. And Im afraid to say youll often have far less. Sometimes, even no capacity for Accolades at all.

What gets you from no Accolades at all to a whole squad of Acclaimed Knights? These do:

• King-tier Rank
  
• Emperor-tier Rank
  
• Bannus (Innovation)
  
• Knighthood (Innovation)
  
• Renowned Name (Dynasty Legacy Perk 2)
  

[h2]Of Weddings, Feasts, and Other Merry-Making[/h2]

Welcome, one and all, royal peers from faraway lands, faithful vassals, and errant knights! You are hereby invited to Duchess Matildas Grand Wedding!


(Invitation to Duchess Matildas Grand Wedding)

Todays town crier, bringing you news about royal marriages, is game designer Areysak.
Following that, my colleagues will take over to introduce todays other topics: Bloody Weddings, Feasts, Grand Blots, Grand Rites, and Playdates. We have a packed day, filled with exciting activities, so lets get started!

Read Dev Diary #124 on our forums!



Once more, our dev diary is too big to fit into a Steam announcement! Head over to our official forums through the link above to read the Dev Diary in full.

Mine lords, mine ladies, and everybody else not seated upon a cushion! On this day! On this day thee find thineselves equals, for thee are all equally blessed! We haveth the privilege, nay, the joy of giveth introduction to a most joyous occasion. Our exalted majesty hath proclaimed that a tourney is to be held! Right here! In nary a few moons thine village shalt be hosts to a Grand Tourney! Rise, rise to this momentous occasion! Rejoice and partake in the glorious festivities!

Hello everyone, and welcome to Developer Diary#123! We are your hosts: Elisabeth, also known as Oxycoon - a programmer on Crusader Kings 3; Nick, also known as Noodle - a designer on Crusader Kings 3; and Jon, also known as just Jon - a 2D UI artist on Crusader Kings 3, and today we are discussing Grand Activities. Specifically, the Grand Tournament.

Read Dev Diary #123 on our forums!



Yet another Dev Diary too big to fit into a Steam post! Head over to our official forums through the link above to read the Dev Diary in full.

Welcome, comrades! First up today well be talking about a subject very dear to my heart, and thats regencies what happens when you cant effectively rule your realm, either because youre out travelling or because you are a small baby with lacking social skills.

Read Dev Diary #122 on our forums!



Three dev diaries in a row that are too large for Steam! Head over to our official forums through the link above to read the Dev Diary in full.

Hello everyone and welcome to the 121st CK3 Dev Diary!

Im Matthew (@blackninja9939), one of the Programmers on the team, and today were going to be talking about the overhaul weve done to the activity system as well as the improvements to two existing activities; Hunts and Pilgrimages. Well be covering the other improved existing activities (Feasts, Blot now known as Festival, and Playdates) in the future as well.

Im gonna kick things off with how weve changed the activity system to better support our goals.

Read Dev Diary #121 on our forums!



For the second week in a row, this Diary is so large that it exceeds the maximum size for Steam announcements! Head over to our official forums through the link above to read the Dev Diary in full.