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Content Bundle Changes + Win Prizes in Our Updated Legends of CK Quiz!
[previewyoutube=-Zy4ge7OXqA;full][/previewyoutube] With Legends of the Dead, Roads to Power, and Wandering Nobles, we've had a captivating journey of new content, flavor, and mechanics released for Crusader Kings III in 2024. You've crafted your own legends, danced through illness, relocated camps, blinded co-emperors, and finally... took a hike. From all of us at Paradox Development Studio, thank you for a fantastic year. We're incredibly grateful to have players as passionate about the medieval era as you are, and we wouldn't trade (most of) you for the world. With all of the content in Chapter III now released, the time is quickly approaching to retire the content bundle. While all of content within Chapter III will still be available individually (and as part of the Collection Bundle), you will no longer be able to purchase the Chapter III bundle itself after January 9, 2025. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036/Crusader_Kings_III_Chapter_III/ [hr][/hr]
Speaking of the Collection Bundle, we've increased the permanent discount on that bundle from 10% to 20%, so it's now cheaper than ever before to complete your Crusader Kings III collection. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/36586/Crusader_Kings_III_Collection/ [hr][/hr]
While a true ruler never gives away treasures lightly, you can take our Which Ruler Are You? quiz (freshly updated with new rulers!) to prove your mettle and enter for a chance to win in our giveaway. While we don't offer titles, holdings, or court positions, we do have some intriguing artifacts to send out to winners of the giveaway.
[ 2024-12-20 19:14:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
End of an Era
[previewyoutube=-Zy4ge7OXqA;full][/previewyoutube] With Legends of the Dead, Roads to Power, and Wandering Nobles, we've had a captivating journey of new content, flavor, and mechanics released for Crusader Kings III in 2024. You've crafted your own legends, danced through illness, relocated camps, blinded co-emperors, and finally... took a hike. From all of us at Paradox Development Studio, thank you for a fantastic year. We're incredibly grateful to have players as passionate about the medieval era as you are, and we wouldn't trade (most of) you for the world. With all of the content in Chapter III now released, the time is quickly approaching to retire the content bundle. While all of content within Chapter III will still be available individually (and as part of the Collection Bundle), you will no longer be able to purchase the Chapter III bundle itself after January 9, 2025. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38036/Crusader_Kings_III_Chapter_III/ [hr][/hr]
A Good Deal Gets Even Better
Speaking of the Collection Bundle, we've increased the permanent discount on that bundle from 10% to 20%, so it's now cheaper than ever before to complete your Crusader Kings III collection. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/36586/Crusader_Kings_III_Collection/ [hr][/hr]
Win Artifacts from Afar (Or, Well... Sweden)
While a true ruler never gives away treasures lightly, you can take our Which Ruler Are You? quiz (freshly updated with new rulers!) to prove your mettle and enter for a chance to win in our giveaway. While we don't offer titles, holdings, or court positions, we do have some intriguing artifacts to send out to winners of the giveaway.
- 5 lucky winners will receive: 1 Crusader Kings III Displate signed by the development team, 1 physical copy of our Many Roads to Power comic book, and 1 Legends of CKIII mouse pad.
- 15 winners will get: 1 Legends of CKIII mouse pad and 1 physical copy of our Many Roads to Power comic book.
- 10 winners will receive: 1 physical copy of our Many Roads to Power comic book.
[ 2024-12-20 19:14:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #161 - 2024 in Review
Let's take a look at Chapter III, what it was, and which learnings were taking with us!
Legends of the Dead and the accompanying update introduced a new system for spreading things on the map - deadly plagues that ravage development and family trees alike, and glorious legends to bolster your legitimacy and make sure your name is known across the world. We knew that you in the community had been asking for plagues for a long time, therefore we wanted to introduce them sooner rather than later - and itd also introduce some very CK-appropriate challenge, as the perfect heir suddenly dying from an illness and leaving everything to the less talented younger brother makes for a good story. At large, weve hit the goal of making plagues feel immersive and dynamic, with names taken from the state of the map (Kaiser Heinrichs Plague, French Boils, etc.) and varying levels of intensity - of course, it took a while to get the balancing right, but we now feel like theyre in a good spot (and of course, were always open for further feedback on this). From the start, we knew that we wanted the plague feature to be free. We generally avoid having such features as part of feature sets of expansions to avoid a general feeling of pay-to-lose. Thats why we sat down and thought about what else could spread across the map. That's where we came up with legendsstories about an individual embellished throughout the ages, ultimately ending up as founding myths or even folklore. During this development cycle, we had really inefficient communication. Dev Diaries presented the features in a much too embellished and flowery way, making them appear as something they werent. This meant that the feedback we got wasnt really for the features that we were making, which made it difficult to apply. Most of the significant changes to the system came after the release, as the stage of development we were in during the Dev Diary phase didnt allow for major pivots at the time. Now, we know that Legends as a system is a divisive one, with most of you wanting to see changes to it for the legends to feel truly legendary. Without promising too much, the team who worked on the Legends feature has been gathering feedback and has proposed some improvements to enhance the immersion and player agency of the system. Were currently looking into when we would be able to commit to doing it. For those of you who dont already know, we develop several expansions in parallel, which means that our timelines are somewhat strict. So finding the right time to add something can take time, especially if that something needs to be done by very specific people (in this case, members of the LotD team). That said, the improvements will surely happen sometime next year!
Contrary to LotD, our communication strategy for Roads to Power was to have the Dev Diaries earlier (allowing for harder pivots, if needed) and as I mentioned earlier make them more matter-of-fact, leaving no room for misunderstandings. This paid off in a major way - we were able to gauge what you thought about the features well ahead of them being fully finished, and were able to integrate a LOT of feedback immediately. Of course, you have to strike a fine balance as showing something too early also carries risk - you might get reactions such as is this it? which in the worst case can deflate someone's excitement - you have to show things not too early, and not too late. This is the undoubted strategy well be working with going forward! Now, this expansion is by far the most well-received one weve made so far, and it can be explained in a simple way; we chose features that you had been asking for for a long time, going back way before CKIII was even released! We also chose complimentary features, so no matter who you are or what your preferred playstyle is, there was something for you - whether you enjoy creating stories of adventure on the open road or want to partake in the complex bureaucracy of Byzantium! For the first time in the CK series were able to represent the administration of Byzantium, a landmark realm in any of our start dates, and the Middle Ages in general. The constant intrigue, political machinations, and jockeying for prestigious positions differentiate the Administrative government from all others in a way that hadnt been explored until now. While weve done attempts to represent this form of governance in previous iterations of the game, theyve come nowhere close to what weve achieved with RtP - and it feels great to finally be able to represent such an important and pivotal realm in an appropriate way. After all, the fall of Constantinople is the symbolic end of the Middle Ages, and Constantinople is the beating heart of the Empire itself Another first is having Adventurers roam the map in search of fame, gold, or revenge! Synergizing fantastically with the Travel system introduced last year, these characters, unburdened by land-holding, are free to go where they please, presuming they have the resources to do so Whether youre playing a displaced noble, a historical adventurer like El Cid, or an adventurer of your own making, you are sure to make a name for yourself in one way or another, be it by conquest, mercenary work, or kingmaking! One of my favorite aspects of this feature is that you can now create your own ruler-designed character without having to displace a real-life historical character, something that never sat right with me personally. The advent of landless play, as an adventurer or noble family, opened up the game like never before - we were able to get rid of the most traditional of game-overs, losing your last title, and replace it with stories of vengeance and comeback. We were able to truly represent the governance of a state as complex as Byzantium, where most of the power didnt come from enforcing a hereditary succession of land, but from political influence held by powerful families located in the Jewel of Cities herself. Not to say that this opens limitless possibilities for the future.
Wandering Nobles also synergised heavily with the Travel system, giving (primarily) landed rulers many new reasons to leave their capitals and set out on the road! This is the first time weve released a new Lifestyle, but itll hopefully not be the last. Its also a highly interactive Lifestyle, with each tree unlocking a new Activity for you to undertake - be it active de-stressing via Hikes, bolstering your Domain with Inspections, or increasing your skills by Exploring distant monuments. An interesting tidbit from the development of this one is that, because of our parallel development setup that I mentioned earlier, we realised mid-development as the Roads to Power Adventurer feature started taking form that we also wanted the Lifestyle to work for Adventurers, despite originally planning it only for landed rulers. This resulted in using the system for dynamically switching out Perk bonuses from RtP to make sure that we had interesting tie-ins that affected adventurer-specific mechanics also. This had some fun emergent effects, the Monument Expeditions primary gating mechanic is the fact that monuments become more and more distant (and thus you might not want to leave your realm for literally 10 years just go gain a skill point), but for adventurers it enabled a true tourist playstyle, as they wander the world all the time anyway! A learning from Wandering Nobles is that its generally better to focus on something visible and more instantly available rather than just collections of events - its both easier to see what you get, and enables new styles of play. It's very likely that future Event Packs will follow a similar setup.
With the end of the year also comes the end of Chapter III, after which the contents will be folded into the collection bundle, and of course, the individual expansions will still be available standalone. If you still want to buy the chapter with its current discount, you should consider doing so soon! The last date for purchasing Chapter III is January 9th! But thats not all, were also increasing the discount on the Collection Bundle from 10% to 20% on December 19th! [hr][/hr]
This year, weve started a new program where we collaborate with modders to release Content Creator Packs, and for this year, weve had the opportunity to work with El Tyranos, the lead for the excellent Community Flavor Pack, in releasing two of them! Both North Africa and the Western Slavs have new looks and attires, both well-researched and beautiful. The latter we even decided to pair with a brand new Polish localization of the game (and a big thank you to you in the community for helping us find & fix issues with it, its never easy to localize into a new language!). From our perspective these collaborations have gone fantastically, we get to work with talented modders - acknowledging their skills and the value they bring to the community, and the game gets more variety of content. Its a win-win. We will continue to collaborate with our excellent modding community to create even more content for the game, and we have some modders that were excited to be working with lined up for 2025 already! While were currently focusing on graphical assets, we are looking into if we could expand the scope to include other things in the future, too.
One of the initiatives we launched during 2024 was the Legends of CKIII, where we highlighted a collection of characters both outside and inside of the game, making the game more approachable for new players while at the same time giving something new and interesting to existing players! We even found time to make some bespoke content for most of the characters, such as events pertaining to the marital dilemma that Matilda of Tuscany was in at the start of the game, or Vratislav of Bohemias conflict with his brother Jaromir. We actually have a couple of new highlighted characters launching alongside this Dev Diary, though they will only be highlighted outside the game for now! Its possible that well make some bespoke content for the ones that dont have any in the future, though See the characters HERE! We're also giving away a ton of stuff left over from this year. Signed Displates, extra physical copies of the Many Roads to Power comic, and the Legends of CKIII mousepads. If you take the quiz here you have a chance to get one of these! [hr][/hr]
Were currently hard at work on Chapter IV, and have been for quite some time. While its too early to give any specifics on the content, its safe to say that its likely going to be our biggest year yet! While the themes are already decided, were of course still interested in what youd like to see in the game as anything you mention now can be accounted for in our future plans. All of the expansions and features weve made in 2024 will allow us to do so much more going forward into 2025 and beyond. Our current philosophy is that we want to create expansions that build upon and synergise with what weve created previously, we want to have a logical progression of features that both make sense from a development standpoint, and match with what you are asking for! We've seen a lot of discussions about merchants lately, now, we won't be implementing them next year, but we hear you - we have some things that we want to do first, things that will make the merchant experience stronger when it eventually comes out. In the most likely scenario a mercantile expansion will be planned for the following chapter, and this is because we're seeing the many engaging posts and conversations that you are having about this topic - as I mentioned earlier we're working in a parallel development setup which requires us to decide expansion themes very, very early. What will be in Chapter IV are all things that have been requested in the past! So keep discussing what you want to see for the future, it will help us form the content of upcoming chapters.
[Image - Automated Warfare feature coming next year, WIP screenshot] Next year, we will also aim to have a free update sometime in the first quarter of the year (probably towards the end), which were stuffing with improvements, fixes, and quality-of-life features. We are, for example, looking into improving the Warfare AI in multiple ways (work on this is ongoing: well see what the extent of the changes will be, so far theyre promising)! Were also looking into improving interfaces like the Court Positions, and bringing over and improving the automated warfare feature that the console version of the game has - among many other things.
[Image - Court Position overhaul - More compact, immersive, and useful with all positions having Tasks. Numbers are WIP and from a massive late-game empire so keep that in mind] [hr][/hr]
This year has been a fantastic one, and we couldnt have done it without you in the community. Weve released landmark features such as Plagues, the Administrative government, and Landless Adventurers - and were paving the way for a future that is unbelievably exciting! Truly, I see CKIII as a game with endless potential, and next year and the years beyond will see it grow to new heights, that I say with utmost confidence. Once again Ill invite you all to share your thoughts about the year and what you hope 2025 and beyond brings to the game. And do not worry, for even if what you wish for isnt what were doing next, it might just be what were working on after that - you expressing your desires is what makes us able to plan for the future! Now thats it for this year! Well see you again in 2025 where well be talking more about what the free update will bring. Until then, have a wonderful winter, fantastic holidays, and a very God Jul!
[ 2024-12-17 13:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
[previewyoutube=lVnfzDMVKOU;full][/previewyoutube]
Greetings!
2024 is coming to a close, and with it the conclusion of Chapter III and everything weve done this year - weve hit some big-ticket milestones, including one Ive been dreaming of since I started working on Crusader Kings way back in 2015! In fact, back in 2017-2018, when we were planning the features for the CK2 expansion Holy Fury, I had a design for a rudimentary Adventurer mechanic that we ultimately decided not to go with because itd fit CK3 much better! Interestingly enough, some elements of that design survived to this day, such as the concept of officers, mercenary work, and contracts on the map.
Discuss Dev Diary #161 on our forums!
Some of the heavy-hitting features weve managed to tackle this year include having the Black Death (and other plagues) ravage the world, a bespoke and truly unique Administrative government for Byzantium, and, of course, the aforementioned Adventurers roaming the map in search of fame and glory. For Chapter III weve focused a lot on making the map more interesting; with disease and legends spreading bloody tendrils and beams of light over the world, estates and camps representing the seat of power of powerful families or ambitious travelers, contracts and issues denoting local opportunities and disruptions, and more reasons than ever to travel with new activities ranging from chariot races to local inspections. This focus on tying features to the map is something that well definitely be bringing with us in the future!
Weve also changed and improved how we gather and work with feedback from you in the community, making sure that were working on the right things in the right way going forward. We moved from small and aspirational Dev Diaries (LotD) to chunky and very matter-of-fact and this-is-what-the-feature-is diaries (RtP, WN) over the course of the year - this allowed us to collect as much useful feedback as we could from your discussions during a time where there was still time to make changes.
But the most important thing weve done this year is to lay the foundation for the future, as were not slowing down any time soon! Were already working on what's to come next year, and while we wont go into what it is yet, its going to be big.
[hr][/hr]
Chapter III
Let's take a look at Chapter III, what it was, and which learnings were taking with us!
Legends of the Dead
Legends of the Dead and the accompanying update introduced a new system for spreading things on the map - deadly plagues that ravage development and family trees alike, and glorious legends to bolster your legitimacy and make sure your name is known across the world. We knew that you in the community had been asking for plagues for a long time, therefore we wanted to introduce them sooner rather than later - and itd also introduce some very CK-appropriate challenge, as the perfect heir suddenly dying from an illness and leaving everything to the less talented younger brother makes for a good story. At large, weve hit the goal of making plagues feel immersive and dynamic, with names taken from the state of the map (Kaiser Heinrichs Plague, French Boils, etc.) and varying levels of intensity - of course, it took a while to get the balancing right, but we now feel like theyre in a good spot (and of course, were always open for further feedback on this). From the start, we knew that we wanted the plague feature to be free. We generally avoid having such features as part of feature sets of expansions to avoid a general feeling of pay-to-lose. Thats why we sat down and thought about what else could spread across the map. That's where we came up with legendsstories about an individual embellished throughout the ages, ultimately ending up as founding myths or even folklore. During this development cycle, we had really inefficient communication. Dev Diaries presented the features in a much too embellished and flowery way, making them appear as something they werent. This meant that the feedback we got wasnt really for the features that we were making, which made it difficult to apply. Most of the significant changes to the system came after the release, as the stage of development we were in during the Dev Diary phase didnt allow for major pivots at the time. Now, we know that Legends as a system is a divisive one, with most of you wanting to see changes to it for the legends to feel truly legendary. Without promising too much, the team who worked on the Legends feature has been gathering feedback and has proposed some improvements to enhance the immersion and player agency of the system. Were currently looking into when we would be able to commit to doing it. For those of you who dont already know, we develop several expansions in parallel, which means that our timelines are somewhat strict. So finding the right time to add something can take time, especially if that something needs to be done by very specific people (in this case, members of the LotD team). That said, the improvements will surely happen sometime next year!
Roads to Power
Contrary to LotD, our communication strategy for Roads to Power was to have the Dev Diaries earlier (allowing for harder pivots, if needed) and as I mentioned earlier make them more matter-of-fact, leaving no room for misunderstandings. This paid off in a major way - we were able to gauge what you thought about the features well ahead of them being fully finished, and were able to integrate a LOT of feedback immediately. Of course, you have to strike a fine balance as showing something too early also carries risk - you might get reactions such as is this it? which in the worst case can deflate someone's excitement - you have to show things not too early, and not too late. This is the undoubted strategy well be working with going forward! Now, this expansion is by far the most well-received one weve made so far, and it can be explained in a simple way; we chose features that you had been asking for for a long time, going back way before CKIII was even released! We also chose complimentary features, so no matter who you are or what your preferred playstyle is, there was something for you - whether you enjoy creating stories of adventure on the open road or want to partake in the complex bureaucracy of Byzantium! For the first time in the CK series were able to represent the administration of Byzantium, a landmark realm in any of our start dates, and the Middle Ages in general. The constant intrigue, political machinations, and jockeying for prestigious positions differentiate the Administrative government from all others in a way that hadnt been explored until now. While weve done attempts to represent this form of governance in previous iterations of the game, theyve come nowhere close to what weve achieved with RtP - and it feels great to finally be able to represent such an important and pivotal realm in an appropriate way. After all, the fall of Constantinople is the symbolic end of the Middle Ages, and Constantinople is the beating heart of the Empire itself Another first is having Adventurers roam the map in search of fame, gold, or revenge! Synergizing fantastically with the Travel system introduced last year, these characters, unburdened by land-holding, are free to go where they please, presuming they have the resources to do so Whether youre playing a displaced noble, a historical adventurer like El Cid, or an adventurer of your own making, you are sure to make a name for yourself in one way or another, be it by conquest, mercenary work, or kingmaking! One of my favorite aspects of this feature is that you can now create your own ruler-designed character without having to displace a real-life historical character, something that never sat right with me personally. The advent of landless play, as an adventurer or noble family, opened up the game like never before - we were able to get rid of the most traditional of game-overs, losing your last title, and replace it with stories of vengeance and comeback. We were able to truly represent the governance of a state as complex as Byzantium, where most of the power didnt come from enforcing a hereditary succession of land, but from political influence held by powerful families located in the Jewel of Cities herself. Not to say that this opens limitless possibilities for the future.
Wandering Nobles
Wandering Nobles also synergised heavily with the Travel system, giving (primarily) landed rulers many new reasons to leave their capitals and set out on the road! This is the first time weve released a new Lifestyle, but itll hopefully not be the last. Its also a highly interactive Lifestyle, with each tree unlocking a new Activity for you to undertake - be it active de-stressing via Hikes, bolstering your Domain with Inspections, or increasing your skills by Exploring distant monuments. An interesting tidbit from the development of this one is that, because of our parallel development setup that I mentioned earlier, we realised mid-development as the Roads to Power Adventurer feature started taking form that we also wanted the Lifestyle to work for Adventurers, despite originally planning it only for landed rulers. This resulted in using the system for dynamically switching out Perk bonuses from RtP to make sure that we had interesting tie-ins that affected adventurer-specific mechanics also. This had some fun emergent effects, the Monument Expeditions primary gating mechanic is the fact that monuments become more and more distant (and thus you might not want to leave your realm for literally 10 years just go gain a skill point), but for adventurers it enabled a true tourist playstyle, as they wander the world all the time anyway! A learning from Wandering Nobles is that its generally better to focus on something visible and more instantly available rather than just collections of events - its both easier to see what you get, and enables new styles of play. It's very likely that future Event Packs will follow a similar setup.
Concluding and Retiring Chapter III
With the end of the year also comes the end of Chapter III, after which the contents will be folded into the collection bundle, and of course, the individual expansions will still be available standalone. If you still want to buy the chapter with its current discount, you should consider doing so soon! The last date for purchasing Chapter III is January 9th! But thats not all, were also increasing the discount on the Collection Bundle from 10% to 20% on December 19th! [hr][/hr]
Content Creator Packs
This year, weve started a new program where we collaborate with modders to release Content Creator Packs, and for this year, weve had the opportunity to work with El Tyranos, the lead for the excellent Community Flavor Pack, in releasing two of them! Both North Africa and the Western Slavs have new looks and attires, both well-researched and beautiful. The latter we even decided to pair with a brand new Polish localization of the game (and a big thank you to you in the community for helping us find & fix issues with it, its never easy to localize into a new language!). From our perspective these collaborations have gone fantastically, we get to work with talented modders - acknowledging their skills and the value they bring to the community, and the game gets more variety of content. Its a win-win. We will continue to collaborate with our excellent modding community to create even more content for the game, and we have some modders that were excited to be working with lined up for 2025 already! While were currently focusing on graphical assets, we are looking into if we could expand the scope to include other things in the future, too.
Legends of CKIII
One of the initiatives we launched during 2024 was the Legends of CKIII, where we highlighted a collection of characters both outside and inside of the game, making the game more approachable for new players while at the same time giving something new and interesting to existing players! We even found time to make some bespoke content for most of the characters, such as events pertaining to the marital dilemma that Matilda of Tuscany was in at the start of the game, or Vratislav of Bohemias conflict with his brother Jaromir. We actually have a couple of new highlighted characters launching alongside this Dev Diary, though they will only be highlighted outside the game for now! Its possible that well make some bespoke content for the ones that dont have any in the future, though See the characters HERE! We're also giving away a ton of stuff left over from this year. Signed Displates, extra physical copies of the Many Roads to Power comic, and the Legends of CKIII mousepads. If you take the quiz here you have a chance to get one of these! [hr][/hr]
Coming in 2025
Were currently hard at work on Chapter IV, and have been for quite some time. While its too early to give any specifics on the content, its safe to say that its likely going to be our biggest year yet! While the themes are already decided, were of course still interested in what youd like to see in the game as anything you mention now can be accounted for in our future plans. All of the expansions and features weve made in 2024 will allow us to do so much more going forward into 2025 and beyond. Our current philosophy is that we want to create expansions that build upon and synergise with what weve created previously, we want to have a logical progression of features that both make sense from a development standpoint, and match with what you are asking for! We've seen a lot of discussions about merchants lately, now, we won't be implementing them next year, but we hear you - we have some things that we want to do first, things that will make the merchant experience stronger when it eventually comes out. In the most likely scenario a mercantile expansion will be planned for the following chapter, and this is because we're seeing the many engaging posts and conversations that you are having about this topic - as I mentioned earlier we're working in a parallel development setup which requires us to decide expansion themes very, very early. What will be in Chapter IV are all things that have been requested in the past! So keep discussing what you want to see for the future, it will help us form the content of upcoming chapters.
[Image - Automated Warfare feature coming next year, WIP screenshot] Next year, we will also aim to have a free update sometime in the first quarter of the year (probably towards the end), which were stuffing with improvements, fixes, and quality-of-life features. We are, for example, looking into improving the Warfare AI in multiple ways (work on this is ongoing: well see what the extent of the changes will be, so far theyre promising)! Were also looking into improving interfaces like the Court Positions, and bringing over and improving the automated warfare feature that the console version of the game has - among many other things.
[Image - Court Position overhaul - More compact, immersive, and useful with all positions having Tasks. Numbers are WIP and from a massive late-game empire so keep that in mind] [hr][/hr]
Outro
This year has been a fantastic one, and we couldnt have done it without you in the community. Weve released landmark features such as Plagues, the Administrative government, and Landless Adventurers - and were paving the way for a future that is unbelievably exciting! Truly, I see CKIII as a game with endless potential, and next year and the years beyond will see it grow to new heights, that I say with utmost confidence. Once again Ill invite you all to share your thoughts about the year and what you hope 2025 and beyond brings to the game. And do not worry, for even if what you wish for isnt what were doing next, it might just be what were working on after that - you expressing your desires is what makes us able to plan for the future! Now thats it for this year! Well see you again in 2025 where well be talking more about what the free update will bring. Until then, have a wonderful winter, fantastic holidays, and a very God Jul!
[ 2024-12-17 13:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.14.2.2
[ 2024-11-28 15:33:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a small update today to tackle some localization issues reported to us since the introduction of Polish language support alongside the launch of Update 1.14.2. This update should be fully compatible with mods and save files supporting 1.14.2. Thank you to everyone who reported issues to us after the release of Update 1.14.2! As always, if you encounter issues after today's update, then please let us know by submitting a report in the Bug Report board of our official forums. [hr][/hr]
1.14.2.2 Changelog
Bugfixes
- Fixed UI overflow when playing in Polish in:
- County View
- Interaction options
- Scheme Headers
- Law descriptions
- Struggle cultures
Localization
- Changed the name of poborowi (levies) to pospolite ruszenie
- Changed the names of West Frankia and East Frankia to Francia Occidentalis and Francie Orientalis respectively. Unfortunately, all the Polish versions of those realms were creating highly visible, broken loc strings in the game, hence the Latin
- Fixed the missing Wanderer lifestyle name in the perk selection window
- Fixed the UNLOCKED_PERKS string in the perk selection window gluing itself to the previous string
- Fixed the desc and/or names for the following Roads to Power decisions:
- visit_local_settlement_decision
- gather_provisions_decision
- seasoned_visitor_decision
- zealous_missionary_prep_decision
- zealous_missionary_start_decision
- bandit_king_decision
- start_city_construction_decision
- separatist_uprising_decision
- go_fishing_decision
- butcher_animals_decision
- Changed the name of domicile temperament modifiers
- Fixed the lowercase in governorship gov desc in foreign character panel
- Fixed the text overflow on Move Domicile button in the Domicile window
- Fixed the EPIDEMIC_OUTBREAK_LOCATION in the epidemic window
- Changed too modern and too long AI personality names to more suitable ones
- Fixed the text overflow in the character window from being a vassal
- Fixed the text overflow for landless adventurers in the character window
- Fixed the missing loc string in when selecting a new court position task
- Fixed the text overflow in the invite_to_court_interaction and recruit_guest_interaction names
- Changed armored_footmen, armored_horsemen, cataphract and guanch_vaulter MaA names
- Changed the trait_adventurer name
- Changed the trait_tourney_participant name
- Changed the trait_gallowsbait name
- Added a missing apostrophe in game_concept_iberian_reclamation_desc
- Fixed all truncated game rules descriptions
- Removed incorrect translations of landless in the context of landless adventurers
- Shortened the choose random destiny text to fit the button in Choose New Destiny window
- Changed the concubinage doctrine name
- Removed doubled dashes in visit settlement event options
- Removed all mentions of "period of time"
- Allowed modifiers header in schemes window to be translated in all languages
- Removed all uses of superfluous "as follows"
- Fixed missing diarchy scope in notifications about diarchies
- Fixed link to the into description in recruit wet nurse event
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[ 2024-11-28 15:33:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
"West Slavic Attire" Content Creator Pack - Now Available!
Immerse yourself into Western Slavic culture with diverse new fashions. This pack includes:
We are pleased to release free Polish language support for all players. You heard that right, the Polish language is now officially supported in Crusader Kings III! We would like to give a special mention to modders Santroy, Hora, Witcher, sano2, and Blizzer for their hard work - their community translation gave us a solid footing for this new localization. From the Crusader Kings III team, thank you all! Aktualizacja pobierze si automatycznie, po czym bdzie mona wybra jzyk polski w menu ustawie w grze. Dzikujemy za Wasze wsparcie!
[ 2024-11-27 17:18:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Princes and Princesses of Fashion, sound the horns for the arrival of Polish language support and our next Content Creator Pack, West Slavic Attire! Crafted by the talented Pierre "El Tyranos" Azuelos, West Slavic Attire features new clothing and accessories, bringing Western Slavic flavor to your court. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3275760/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_West_Slavic_Attire/
Discover Western Slavic Culture
Immerse yourself into Western Slavic culture with diverse new fashions. This pack includes:
- 6 clothing models
- 1 new legwear model
- 15 pieces of headgear including the crowns of Bolesaw I and Casimir III the Great
- 2 additional war nobility headgears (a crown and a crest)
- 1 new sword
- The Szczerbiec artifact - the royal coronation sword of the Polish monarchy
- 11 clothing patterns and trims
Free Polish Language Support
We are pleased to release free Polish language support for all players. You heard that right, the Polish language is now officially supported in Crusader Kings III! We would like to give a special mention to modders Santroy, Hora, Witcher, sano2, and Blizzer for their hard work - their community translation gave us a solid footing for this new localization. From the Crusader Kings III team, thank you all! Aktualizacja pobierze si automatycznie, po czym bdzie mona wybra jzyk polski w menu ustawie w grze. Dzikujemy za Wasze wsparcie!
[ 2024-11-27 17:18:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #160 - Vision and Art
Before showing you some garments, explaining the artistic direction and getting into more technical details, I wish to (re-)introduce you to the vision of this project. The philosophy remains the same as North African Attire and this Content Creator Pack has been designed to be of similar size: you get an entire set of clothes, headwear, armors and trousers for Western Slavic characters. These assets are exclusive new content and they will be officially supported by Paradox Interactive in the future.
At the interface between Western and Eastern influences, contemporary sources tend to show a Westernized or Byzantine ceremonial fashion in the highest ranks of the medieval polish societies. On the opposite, archaeology brings out that the lowest ranks wear similar clothes as the other regional Slavic groups (Sloveins, Ruthenians, Kievans, etc.), inherited from Great Moravia and the Viking age. Considering the many Western options already in CK3 and even if historical sources show no evidence that Polish high nobility ever dressed as lowborn western Slavs, this Content Creator Pack tries to prioritize Slavic garments as if a Slavic lower nobility fashion outbreaked in courtly dressing.
The tunic with apron is THE woman outfit of Eastern Europe and you will get two of them (for a total of 6 variants). Architectonics of pra-Slavic costume had double or probably tipple layered structure which was kept in the Middle Ages as well (NSEN, 2020). The main difference between Rus and Western Slavs is the jewelry, in particular the temple rings since they all wear coral necklaces. In contrast to fabrics those are very well documented in archeology. All pieces of jewelry are 1:1 reproductions of actual Polish or Czech artifacts.
[Mannequins from Archeology museum of Biskupinie and Museum of the Origins of the Polish State, Gniezno, Poland]
[Left: Duchess Agnes of Gogw-aga, Kodeks lubiski, 1353 ; Right: Reenactment by Fibularius] The svita was the wool outer clothing in the 10th through 13th centuries. Its an unisex garment. It was made of heavy horizontal strips of a contrasting color fabric, braid or galoons (Kireyeva & Stamerov). The hat is very represented in 14th century Polish sources.
[Right: Henry the Bearded, Duke of Silesia and his son Henry II Pobony, duke of Silesia and Greater Poland, Kodeks lubiski, 1353] Theres no strong evident sources for such a garment, but it allows complex clothing for higher classes without falling back to Byzantine or Western options that are already in the game. The hat is likely Czech, also poorly represented.
[Left: pitlky, Vestibule of the church detail of a silver disc portraying a horseman holding a short baton, the so-called Falconer from grave 16, 2nd half of the 9th century ; Right: Around 1385 - detail of a fresco in the Church of St. James the Greater, Slavtn nad Oh, photo by Martin Hibc ] For royalty and imperial tiers, youll find several famous crows, from left to right :
Kings and Emperors also get a special version of the svita with a golden belt, pearls and gems fastener as well as a reproduction of Szczerbiec. Szczerbiec is also available as a court artifact. For other characters such as knights and marshals, they will wear a Type Z Starigard sword.
Speaking of swords, are you planning to go to war early in the game? Then grab your gambeson, scale armor and Giecz helmet. Based largely upon a little-known but important carved bone or ivory chess piece found in Cracow, this foot soldier illustrates the mixture of Western and Eastern traditions which continued to characterize parts of Poland, especially its eastern provinces. The cuirass is also based upon the chess piece, the details of its construction being taken from an inverted lamellar system seen in neighbouring Russia. (Osprey M.A.A. 445)
Did you expand peacefully for a century? Its never too late. As I know you all liked the crazy Aragon golden Dragon Crest from Community Flavor Pack, I could not resist to fit in this adaptation of Pranckhs Topfhelm displayed in Vienna. The crest is inspired from the Battle of Legnica (1241) representation in Kodeks lubiski. Use it anywhere as long as you crush your enemies and see them driven before you. It will show up for Western Slavic high nobles during Era 3. Regular characters will enjoy the basic helm.
Same setup for the bascinet (Era 4, crown for royalty and regular version for others). Side note: enhanced experience for Tours and Tournament owners who will be able to reenact Casimir the Great in his full plate armor glory. Chodmy!
It has been a blast to work on these two Content Creator Packs together with Paradox Interactive. I know the CK3 team has been very happy with this experience and that they have expanded the amount of Content Creators they are working with. I look forward to seeing the results of these new collaborations! It is now time for me to conclude this Dev Diary and also this chapter of my life. You, the community, are the fuel that made me able to reach this point and I will forever be grateful for your enthusiasm. I will now focus on other projects of Paradox Interactive, including for CK3. So until next time! [hr][/hr]
[ 2024-11-26 12:57:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there! Im Pierre El Tyranos Azuelos, the creator of the Community Flavor Pack mod. The past couple of months have been busy again and I am once again delighted to collaborate with Paradox Interactive on a second Content Creator Pack named Western Slavic Attire. This second project is a little more special as it does not come alone, for the 8th official language of Crusader Kings III will be released at the same time. The game will be entirely translated into Polish and for free of course!
Introducing the Content Creator Pack
Before showing you some garments, explaining the artistic direction and getting into more technical details, I wish to (re-)introduce you to the vision of this project. The philosophy remains the same as North African Attire and this Content Creator Pack has been designed to be of similar size: you get an entire set of clothes, headwear, armors and trousers for Western Slavic characters. These assets are exclusive new content and they will be officially supported by Paradox Interactive in the future.
Artistic Direction
At the interface between Western and Eastern influences, contemporary sources tend to show a Westernized or Byzantine ceremonial fashion in the highest ranks of the medieval polish societies. On the opposite, archaeology brings out that the lowest ranks wear similar clothes as the other regional Slavic groups (Sloveins, Ruthenians, Kievans, etc.), inherited from Great Moravia and the Viking age. Considering the many Western options already in CK3 and even if historical sources show no evidence that Polish high nobility ever dressed as lowborn western Slavs, this Content Creator Pack tries to prioritize Slavic garments as if a Slavic lower nobility fashion outbreaked in courtly dressing.
Character Art
The tunic with apron is THE woman outfit of Eastern Europe and you will get two of them (for a total of 6 variants). Architectonics of pra-Slavic costume had double or probably tipple layered structure which was kept in the Middle Ages as well (NSEN, 2020). The main difference between Rus and Western Slavs is the jewelry, in particular the temple rings since they all wear coral necklaces. In contrast to fabrics those are very well documented in archeology. All pieces of jewelry are 1:1 reproductions of actual Polish or Czech artifacts.
[Mannequins from Archeology museum of Biskupinie and Museum of the Origins of the Polish State, Gniezno, Poland]
[Left: Duchess Agnes of Gogw-aga, Kodeks lubiski, 1353 ; Right: Reenactment by Fibularius] The svita was the wool outer clothing in the 10th through 13th centuries. Its an unisex garment. It was made of heavy horizontal strips of a contrasting color fabric, braid or galoons (Kireyeva & Stamerov). The hat is very represented in 14th century Polish sources.
[Right: Henry the Bearded, Duke of Silesia and his son Henry II Pobony, duke of Silesia and Greater Poland, Kodeks lubiski, 1353] Theres no strong evident sources for such a garment, but it allows complex clothing for higher classes without falling back to Byzantine or Western options that are already in the game. The hat is likely Czech, also poorly represented.
[Left: pitlky, Vestibule of the church detail of a silver disc portraying a horseman holding a short baton, the so-called Falconer from grave 16, 2nd half of the 9th century ; Right: Around 1385 - detail of a fresco in the Church of St. James the Greater, Slavtn nad Oh, photo by Martin Hibc ] For royalty and imperial tiers, youll find several famous crows, from left to right :
- The crown of Bolesaw I the Brave after representations of its second version (made for Ladislaus the Short in 1320) before it was melted in 1794 ;
- The crown of Casimir the Great as sculpted on his contemporary effigy (made just after his death in 1370) ;
- The crown of Emnilda sowiaska, wife of Bolesaw I the Brave, after a statue of her at the cathedral of Naumburg (1250) ;
- The travel (or funerary) crown of Casimir the Great, mounted on his display bascinet and, found in his tomb in Krakow.
Kings and Emperors also get a special version of the svita with a golden belt, pearls and gems fastener as well as a reproduction of Szczerbiec. Szczerbiec is also available as a court artifact. For other characters such as knights and marshals, they will wear a Type Z Starigard sword.
Speaking of swords, are you planning to go to war early in the game? Then grab your gambeson, scale armor and Giecz helmet. Based largely upon a little-known but important carved bone or ivory chess piece found in Cracow, this foot soldier illustrates the mixture of Western and Eastern traditions which continued to characterize parts of Poland, especially its eastern provinces. The cuirass is also based upon the chess piece, the details of its construction being taken from an inverted lamellar system seen in neighbouring Russia. (Osprey M.A.A. 445)
Did you expand peacefully for a century? Its never too late. As I know you all liked the crazy Aragon golden Dragon Crest from Community Flavor Pack, I could not resist to fit in this adaptation of Pranckhs Topfhelm displayed in Vienna. The crest is inspired from the Battle of Legnica (1241) representation in Kodeks lubiski. Use it anywhere as long as you crush your enemies and see them driven before you. It will show up for Western Slavic high nobles during Era 3. Regular characters will enjoy the basic helm.
Same setup for the bascinet (Era 4, crown for royalty and regular version for others). Side note: enhanced experience for Tours and Tournament owners who will be able to reenact Casimir the Great in his full plate armor glory. Chodmy!
Conclusion
It has been a blast to work on these two Content Creator Packs together with Paradox Interactive. I know the CK3 team has been very happy with this experience and that they have expanded the amount of Content Creators they are working with. I look forward to seeing the results of these new collaborations! It is now time for me to conclude this Dev Diary and also this chapter of my life. You, the community, are the fuel that made me able to reach this point and I will forever be grateful for your enthusiasm. I will now focus on other projects of Paradox Interactive, including for CK3. So until next time! [hr][/hr]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2024-11-26 12:57:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
"West Slavic Attire" Content Creator Pack from El Tyranos - Available Nov 27th!
Dive into the world of Western Slavic societies with a rich array of new clothing and accessories. The pack includes:
Alongside this release, we are delighted to introduce Polish as the 8th official language of Crusader Kings III. This update will be freely available to all players. We would like to thank modders Santroy, Hora, Witcher, sano2, and Blizzer for their hard work on this localization. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the release date!
[ 2024-11-20 15:01:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are thrilled to announce the next Content Creator Pack coming to Crusader Kings III: West Slavic Attire, crafted by the talented Pierre "El Tyranos" Azuelos. West Slavic Attire will arrive on November 27th. [hr][/hr]
Discover Western Slavic Culture
Dive into the world of Western Slavic societies with a rich array of new clothing and accessories. The pack includes:
- More than a dozen new distinct clothing items
- New legwear
- New unique headgear
- New intricate patterns
Free Polish Language Support
Alongside this release, we are delighted to introduce Polish as the 8th official language of Crusader Kings III. This update will be freely available to all players. We would like to thank modders Santroy, Hora, Witcher, sano2, and Blizzer for their hard work on this localization. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the release date!
[ 2024-11-20 15:01:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.14.1
[ 2024-11-19 10:05:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a hotfix today to address several issues reported to us since the release of 1.14 "Traverse" Update. Please check the changelog below. [hr][/hr]
Update 1.14.1 Changelog
Game Content
- Reorganized the Wandering lifestyle trees slightly, so the activity opening perks would be one row further up, and easier to open up early.
- Moved around the three perks 'Mercenary contacts', 'Been there, done that', and 'Journey planner'.
- The 'Second try' modifier for failed inspections will now go all the way up to 30% (if you fail it three times in a row).
- Changed the merge France decision to be visible even if you don't hold both titles.
- Made the dynamic battle points of interest slightly more likely to happen in general, and particularly if a player is involved.
Bugfixes
- Fixed all adventurer invasion casus belli granting you incorrect or no land on victory to always give you the targeted title capital county and counties held directly by the defender in the targeted title de jure hierarchy.
- Adjusted the amount of lifestyle experience points gained by dynamic battle points of interest, so they are in line with historical ones.
- Fixed an issue where province occupation would not get cleared properly after a vassal became independent due to an independence revolt.
- Tweaked the wording of the Souvenirs aplenty perk to be clearer.
- Changed one of the alternative descriptions for when you start a hike, which refers to a court, so it'll also fit for landless adventurers.
- Made sure that babies wouldn't talk about what a good day it is for fishing.
- Fixed an issue where a castle wouldn't properly upgrade in certain cases when you found a holding as a landless adventurer.
- Removed a betrothal in certain cases where a grand wedding wouldn't go through, so you wouldn't be stuck being unable to marry the character you are betrothed to.
- Added a missing toast description when one of your knights is injured while sparring whilst visiting a castle as a landless adventurer.
- Fixed bug that could make the travel itinerary target a special building visited where no building actually existed.
- Fixed the gender of Judyta of Poland.
- Fixed the localization issue of the 'Possession by Lust Demons' modifier in the odds prediction of seduction schemes.
- Fixed an issue that made the Searching for Talent event unable to trigger.
- Added more stringent checks on a scheme event, so you wouldn't get a duplicate character in it.
- Made sure that prestige and stress effects are applied when exposing secrets.
- Adjusted the vfx of activity events slightly, so they don't go outside the event window in specific cases.
- Removed the line mentioning adventurers as possible acclamation candidates, as that is not the case.
- Added stricter checks and ensured that some characters would not be pruned, so the dynamic battle points of interests would not end up with broken localization.
- Fixed the localization issue with the 'The Great & the Good' event, where the second option would only be a period.
- Fixed an issue where the contract 'Settle Theological Disputes' would not end properly if you had your domicile in the start location of the contract.
- Changed the 'Pilgrim's Guide' artifact to be a journal, instead of a trinket.
- Fixed the contract Fighting Corruption, so you cannot accidentally leave the travel planner and proceed to get stuck during one of the events.
- Changed the Embrace English culture decision to be above 14 pacification instead of 16, so it is in line with the game concept.
- Made sure that you also receive a tiny bit of Hastiluder experience when you return from pilgrimages, so it is line with other types of travel.
- Fixed an issue where you could get an invalid female bodyguard from the 'Mercenaries of
' travel event. - Fixed an issue with the chance of gaining a trait from battle point of interests, where the game would think you had gotten one even if you had not.
- Moved the text saying you would get a legitimacy boost from the Diplomat trait to the August trait, since internally that has been the one who has actually gotten legitimacy all along.
- Added a missing bonus from the legalistic culture tradition for the administrator trait.
Game Balance
- Increased the language learning scheme bonus from the journey perk.
Interface
- Restricted the regency tutorial to basic regencies.
Modding
- Added the effect set_designated_heir_allow_non_direct_children, use it with care!
[ 2024-11-19 10:05:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.14.0.2
[ 2024-11-06 14:08:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a small hotfix today to address a bug with sieges. Please check the changelog below for the specifics! [hr][/hr]
Update 1.14.0.2 Changelog
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where siege occupations would last forever if the attacker was ousted from their realm by a third party during war.
[ 2024-11-06 14:08:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Wandering Nobles & Free 1.14.0 "Traverse" Update - Available Now!
[ 2024-11-04 17:11:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello all! Today we are releasing the Event Pack, Wandering Nobles. Alongside this, we are also releasing Update 1.14.0 "Traverse". Check out the release trailer just below this text, and then the changelog a bit further down! [previewyoutube=po5FKZ9vuNo;full][/previewyoutube] [hr][/hr]
Update 1.14.0 "Traverse" Changelog
Expansion Features (Paid)
- New lifestyle, Wandering, split into three new lifestyle trees
- Inspector: Landed characters can survey and improve their realm; landless characters can specialize in a terrain type
- Wayfarer: Travel to reduce stress and pursue fame for your exploits.
- Voyager: Improve linguistic skills and live the life of a tourist and sightseer.
- Three new activities linked to the new lifestyle
- Inspection: Inspectors can examine their realm and pursue improvements
- Hike: Wayfarers can reduce stress with a walk in the wilderness
- Monument Expedition: Voyagers can set forth to see special buildings in other realms
- New events connected to travel, new lifestyle trees, and the associated activities
Free Features
- Added a new set of buildings, Breweries, available to Catholic temples, a building giving a lot of county-wide bonuses
- Added a new cultural tradition, Brewing Culture, where you can unlock the Breweries building for cities of your culture
- Added new Court Position, Court Brewmaster, related to the Breweries building line, with three Court Position tasks:
- Empty the Cellars
- Share with the Court
- Experimental Brew
- Added a new decision to merge the kingdoms of France and Aquitaine in the 867 bookmark
- Added a new decision to restore the Bosporan Kingdom
- New Points of Interest, Battle
- Added 11 Historical Battle Points of Interest:
- Battle of Yarmuk
- Battle of Aror
- Battle of Tours
- Battle of Talas
- Battle of Lechfeld
- Battle of Svolder
- Battle of Dandanaqan
- Battle of Civitate
- Battle of Stamford Bridge
- Battle of Hastings
- Battle of Manzikert
- Added dynamic Battle Points of Interest, where particularly large and bloody battles will be remembered and be able to be visited after the fact
- Added a salacious Grand Wedding event chain
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue with adventurers checking distance incorrectly
- Fixed error with a wedding event not checking faith correctly
- Fixed errors in siege events with a scope that does not exist
- Fix flavorization title tier names for landless adventurers
- Tweaked some events animations/portraits
- Fixed a rare issue where the player loses all war progress after enemy liege dies
- Add raid block reason to map tooltip
- Fix raid immunity being applied to the wrong character
- Any plague that appears in a realm that shares a border with you (land or sea) will now show up in the nearby section
- Removed incorrect land loss notification when a Governor's county vassal is in line to inherit a Governorship
- Fixed many issues with the family chronicle event decision and story cycle
- Now the Pope will be referred to as the Pope rather than a King-Bishops in many events
- Adjusted some Hunt modifier icons so they are appropriately shown as mixed (yellow) instead of positive/negative
Balance
- Placing bets in a chariot race no longer grants or reduces stress.
- Journals are now a new type of inventory artifact. Only one journal can be equipped at any time. Many books that were previously trinkets are now considered journals
- Family chronicles are now generally better with more modifiers; they are also either considered books (if you have a court) or journals
- Artifacts that boost terrain advantage now give a more significant boost.
- The kingdom of Aquitaine is now a part of the De Jure kingdom of France in the 1066 bookmark
- Rebalanced inbred/pureblooded chance, due to inbreeding risk now being calculated based on the degree of relatedness instead of the number of missing ancestors
Art
- Added a cheers icon.
- Added a new court position icon, new court position task icons, and a new building icon. All related to the new brewery building.
- Added icon for new activity option inspection allocated funds.
- Added a new wanderer lifestyle icon.
- Added several art assets as well as GUI adjustments
- Added several new events backgrounds:
- Hills (Winter)
- Plains (Winter)
- Wetlands (Winter)
- Mountains (Winter)
- Steppe (Winter)
- Riverside
- Coast
- Added new animations:
- Survey with Walking Stick
- Idle with Walking Stick
[ 2024-11-04 17:11:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #159 - Active Living
As mentioned last week, it is set up like all the other lifestyles in the game, with 27 perks spread across 3 lifestyle trees, 3 new traits, and 3 attached focuses. Unlike our other lifestyles in the game, it is not connected to an education trait but to the Traveler trait. Now, you will gain a 10% monthly gain from the base Traveler trait and an additional 20% for every level in the Wanderer trait path.
The way we see this lifestyle is that for some characters, it might be something to go for right away to use some of its bonuses. For many others, however, it would rather be a natural step after finishing a tree in another lifestyle and having had time to travel around to build up their Traveler trait. Last week, we looked at the whole tree to see what it looked like for a landed character, whereas this time, I will show what it looks like for a landless character. The two rightmost trees have minor variations, whereas the Inspection tree had to be almost entirely recreated for the new play style.
As we start looking through each perk, I will show variations of each perk, if any, and talk a bit about each. That said, its only natural to start with the first tree we made for the new lifestyle.
When explaining the fantasy of the tree to people, I often used my father as an example. This is not the person who goes out in the forest for the sake of going anywhere, but rather someone who enjoys the journey itself. They enjoy traveling, and exactly where they end up is less important. Before we start, one last thing to say is a bit about lifestyle philosophy when we created these new lifestyle trees:
This perk was supposed to give you a simple way to make traveling safer. If you want to travel around a fair bit, which is the point of this tree, we want it to be less costly and dangerous. We also included a supply boon because it fits the name of the perk.
This is the first perk dipping into the fame synergy we wanted for the tree. By letting you travel around more safely (from the first perk) and now giving you a fame gain, you can start racking up fame while participating in activities or traveling to distant lands.
This is inspired by the two educational perks in the game: the Pedagogy perk in the Scholar (Learning) tree and the Groomed To Rule perk in the Family Hierarch (Diplomacy) tree. I wanted a way to enable the player to prepare their heir for the tree if they wanted to dip into it with their next character and give them a solid way to pass on the Traveler trait from one character to another. As a fun little side note, the name is inspired by my father, who would always respond with a Just one more hill and were home! or Its just around the corner now! whenever my sister or I would ask if we would be home soon when we were out walking as kids. Of course, that was a lie; it was not just one more hill or just around the corner.
The first capstone perk of the tree enables both the fame and the stress loss synergy. It gives you fame from hikes and random travel events (particularly danger-related ones), and the activity is intended to be a very effective way of removing Stress (similar to feasts).
The first perk in this tree has two different variations, one playing into the friendly ruler fantasy and the other into the fame theme. In both cases, we wanted to inspire the character to move around often.
For the Wayfarer tree specifically, we made the perk of both lines leading up to the trait a bit of a capstone perk. In this case, the Local Hero one is intended to be a great boon for those grabbing all that fame, giving them a decent Diplomacy boost. It also gives you access to two new travel options, one of which provides you with another way to play into fame and stress loss:
This is just a simple perk that increases the opinion of everyone traveling with you at any given time and improves the Caravan Master aptitude of anyone currently serving that role for you.
This is the capstone perk for stress loss. You can increase your stress while traveling and open up a new activity option: expanding the time spent on a hike. This should give you more options to lose stress or gain fame.
Finally, for Wayfarer, the trait tries to tie together the two synergies that we have played into throughout the tree. It gives you higher stress loss the more fame you have, as well as giving you the Prowess fame bonus. It does mean, at the end of the day, that how many boons you get from these last perks matter how much fame you have managed to scrounge together, but we felt that was fine and played into one of our philosophies from earlier; you have to (most likely) be active to get fame, which in turn will give you a good boon at the end here.
So, on to our second tree, the Voyager tree. If the Wayfarer tree was about the one who enjoyed the journey but didnt care about the destination, then the Voyager tree is the opposite. They dont care about their journey but about where they are going. When explaining their fantasy, I have often described them as the tourist tree. The themes we have explored for this tree focus on Points of Interest and Languages. The points of interest theme was an obvious fit for it, whereas the language theme just happened as we played around with themes that might fit the tree. Of course, the tree isnt limited to just those two things.
When we originally made the perk for landed gameplay, being able to handle your regent at home would help someone who would regularly travel abroad to see things. If the idea was that you should be able to travel to distant places, we didnt want you to get punished too hard immediately. That idea did not easily reflect into a landless variation, so we instead tried to dip more into our idea of having something that is just generally good to dip into for landless play, and that was an across-the-board boon to provisions and travel speed.
We wanted to give the Voyager an easy, cheap option to provide general boosts to their travels, but taking a travel option spot. This means you can travel far with fewer dangers, presumably, but you are giving up other opportunities. Due to the name, we attached a bonus to hiring regular mercenaries.
Looking into opportunities to go to distant locations, we figured a boon to diplomatic range would be an exciting option. One thing to note is that it is not an easily obtainable modifier in many places in the game, giving another reason for dipping into the tree. Another thing to note is that the tree unlocks diplomatic range matters for the Monument Expedition activity, so increasing it slightly means you will have access to more locations for that activity if you so wish.
We wanted to empower the player when they finally reach their destination in a journey, to play into the core idea of the tree. Initially, we simply gave the player a prestige and stress bonus every time they reached their destination in a journey. However, this didnt quite work when we looked at the tree for landless characters, as Well They could reach a destination every other day if they kept moving their camp about. Instead, we attached the same idea directly to Points of Interest, which synergizes surprisingly well with another perk further down the tree. We initially kept the original idea for landed gameplay, but after seeing the synergy and how much cleaner it looked, we changed it to be the same as the landless one.
The mid-way capstone perk of the tree, where you unlock the Monument Expedition. The activity was strong enough that we did not need to attach many other effects to this one. The first perk that plays into the language theme, making it slightly easier to learn new languages.
As part of this tree, we wanted to include at least one perk where you could effectively bring home development, but we wanted to ensure it couldnt be stacked infinitely. In that sense, we figured it might be fun if you, as a, for example, slightly backward Scandinavian, traveled to Constantinople to see the sights and were inspired to improve your homeland. This is another one that didnt reflect well as a landless one. We tried different variations, some decreasing building costs for a period, etc. But in the end, none of them felt quite right, so we simplified it and reimagined it as a perk where going to new places would give a (non-stacking) opinion boon with your camp.
We imagined this perk as someone who has often been traveling to other cities and knows the etiquette and manners expected of you no matter where you are. Someone who can equally serve up an impressive feast for strangers on one side and attend one in an exotic court on the other. This is the primary payoff perk for the language theme, as you get a neat bonus for all your court positions. Its not grand or super impactful, but it can add up if you have a lot of active court positions.
This is the other perk I mentioned in the Finally There perk. It increases almost all rewards you gain from Points of Interest by 30% (with a few exceptions, like events triggering or gaining traits). This is the absolute capstone perk of the tree, and it enables a playstyle mostly traveling around and seeing Points of Interest with Monument Expeditions and Pilgrimages while still racking up lifestyle experience points, a lot of prestige, and reducing stress.
Unlike its Wayfarer equivalent, we wanted this trait to play less into the synergies of the tree but more be a composite of the tree. It bumps up the diplomatic range gain even further and increases your travel speed, giving you access to even more points of interest previously out of range.
The final tree of the lifestyle is the Inspector tree, and as you might notice, we will split this into two different sections altogether, rather than simply showing the variations of the perks. This was the one tree that saw a significant rework for landless gameplay due to how the tree was initially structured for landed gameplay. When we started making this tree, we wanted a tree that was very much built up around a managerial figure who would travel the realm regularly to make sure everything was up to scratchthe one who periodically shows up unannounced in a vassals domain to ensure they are doing their job correctly. The themes for this tree are fuzzier, and it is more playing into a specific idea of having to travel to holdings around the realm to give them a temporary boon. You go somewhere, host an activity, or make a decision somewhere, and that place is improved for a while.
The first one is a simple boon as you travel through holdings of your realm, improving any Stationed Men-at-Arms there by about 5-10% for 15 years. In other words, consider preparing before going to war, making sure to do the rounds and inspire your men so they get that fighting boon.
This is a mouthful but less impactful than it first seems. The parochial and minor landholder vassal bonuses should be negligible, and the importance lies in the marriage acceptance boon. It means that within your realm, you have a significantly higher chance of being able to grab any marriage you may wish, both for yourself and your extended family. Want to ally with a pesky vassal who keeps being an issue to your rule? This could push up the acceptance level enough to make it happen. I understand that certain players will read this as marriage acceptance with close and extended family, and technically speaking, that would also be true as long as they are within the realm.
As part of our work on this lifestyle tree, we wanted to give the player more active tools for gaining control and development, of which this perk is a key part. By hosting feasts, hunts, inspections, or other activities, you can now focus on where you want to improve something. Need to hold a feast, and you recently had a popular revolt ruin the control in your domain? Now, you can handle both of those at once.
We often noticed that many players ensured that they only traveled relatively safely, so the Seasoned Trait Track had little time to shine. As a ruler who was actively trying to make sure their realm was safe and well taken care of, it felt natural that you would be able to increase this trait track even if you didnt directly experience the danger, simply because you were so directly working against it.
The first capstone perk of the tree opens up the inspection activity. This should open up the fantasy of traveling around your realm more appropriately, as we will see later when discussing the activity. We also attached some tax bonuses,
This unlocks a new decision where you can stop a journey to manage the domain for a while. Effectively, you will trade some prestige and travel time to gain legitimacy and either remove corruption in that domain or gain a temporary modifier that will increase levy size, holding taxes, or development. This plays into the same logic as with No Stone Unturned, where you can more directly manage one holding and take care of any issue it might have.
This unlocks a new decision: You can write a book about your travels somewhere. This is a leftover from when the tree was focused more on surveying the land rather than inspecting it when we focused more on mapping out your realm, etc. We like how the decision turned out, so we kept it as is, even if things around it have changed slightly.
This is the proper capstone perk of this tree, binding together No Stone Unturned, Inspection, and Arbitration in one, either giving you them for free or improving them. This should be a noticeable boon for those who want to simply do realm gardening and ensure their little realm runs smoothly.
With a similar logic to the Voyager trait, this is supposed to, at a glance, tell a player what kind of fantasy this tree is supposed to provide to you as a player. Its about realm management and gardening and ensuring all the little bits and bobs work as they should.
As we approached making a landless variant of the Inspector tree, we asked ourselves if we could keep the same logic as we did for the landed tree. After all, it was a tree focused on improving your realm, which is hard to simulate with a character that does not hold land. In the end, we decided to do away with the central theme of the tree and look for something that might work better for the landless playstyle instead. We landed (see what I did there?) on a theme around improving your understanding of a specific terrain. Simply put, you can become the master of a particular field or area.
So, the very first perk of this tree is critical to setting up the rest of the tree. We unlock a new decision for you where you choose a designate a type of terrain that you would like to focus on:
As we looked at changing the Knowing Your Land perk, we still wanted to try and keep some of the same fantasy. But rather than knowing your land or its people, you know the terrain you specialize in and how you keep yourself alive as you travel through it. As a significant boon to the Gather Provisions decision, it is an even more helpful tool in getting extra provisions, particularly if you spend most of your time in your Designated Terrain.
We knew we wanted to put a battle bonus to this one. After all, as we started playing around with the idea of specializing in a terrain, one of our first ideas was to be a renowned bandit group holed up in a mountain pass. We want you to feel like when you are fighting in your terrain, you are truly in your element.
Replacing the Inspection trait wasnt easy, as it was vital to the original tree. What we looked at was to continue the logic from the Knowing the Land perk, where provisions are less of a problem as you travel through your Designated Terrain. Opening up the Quartermaster and Head Porter positions irrelevant to your buildings means you will always have effective ways of handling provisions.
After making Earths Bounty, we felt we had a tiny sub-theme of Officers in the tree, so we thought we could play further into that with this trait. The Second officer is the most crucial position you can have as a landless character, and this is a way to ensure they are doing their utmost for you. The second part of the perk was my experimentation to see if it would be interesting for the player to gain skill bonuses based on their current Camp Purpose, slightly inspired by other perks such as Friendly Counsel in the Family Hierarch (Diplomacy) tree or Learn on the Job in the Scholar (Learning) tree. As you might imagine, the exact skills will change depending on your camp purpose, such as Martial and Prowess for Swords-for-Hire or Learning and Stewardship for Scholars.
This is the capstone perk of this lifestyle, unlocking a decision to hyper-focus on a specific terrain from the ones in your Designated Terrain. For example, if you chose Highlands the first time, you can now select between Mountains, Hills, or Desert Mountains as your terrain to master. The idea was that since you specialize in a particular terrain, you are likely to be often forced to take action outside of that terrain and then get 0 bonuses from this perk, so in turn, they should be extra strong when you finally get the chance to shine.
As we started working on the DLC, we knew we wanted to add activities so the player could open up more travel options. We already have many options across base-game activities (see Hunts, Pilgrimages, and Feasts) and DLC-locked ones (see grand activities), but we wanted to make something symbolic of each tree. In the end, though we had many different potential options, we ended up with three activities we wanted to go for:
Speaking of hikes, it is the first activity we will talk about.
You can set out with your guards and up to 1 special companion to leave life at court for a short bit. If you bring a companion, the events will change slightly based on that, and you will have opportunities to build a bond with them. Or torment them if they arent built for hiking. You will set out towards a location, usually quite remote from anything. As you reach the area, the activity will start, and you will take a short hike before you start the return journey back home. You will go through several events detailing your experience in the wilderness, some rarer than others. Some examples:
The systemic events of the activitythe start, mid-activity, and end eventsdont have options, but any randomized events in between those will. You will meet people, see sights, or experience nature's good and bad sides.
The Monument Expedition is the only one of the three that lets you travel outside your borders, which felt fitting considering the lifestyle trees and how they have been set up. You can go to any barony in the world with a special building, so its not just for any point of interest, but it will let you visit most of them.
When you arrive at the activity's location, you can choose one skill to focus your efforts on as you explore the local sights. The alternatives will be based on the building and its type, and then throughout the activity, you will have opportunities to increase or decrease the chance of getting skill boons.
Most events related to the activity will either increase your chance of getting extra skill boons or give you options for good court position holders.
Finally, at the end of your journey, you will gain a slight skill improvement, with the possibility of a second one based on how things turned out.
Now then, to the final activity, Inspection. Similar to the hikes, this can only be done within your borders, giving you a few options based on where it is and what you want to do. One thing to note is that numbers might be higher than they should be in the following pictures (success chance and gold gain).
As you arrive, you will have three options to choose from (the first one is only available in border counties). They are:
Here, you get to choose even further. In this case, we decided on Taxes/County Control (which is invisible due to already being at a 100)/Development as our first option, and here, we get to choose between Taxes and Development to hyper-focus on. This lets us decide which will have the strongest effect in the case of a successful Inspection. Throughout the inspection, you will encounter a fair number of events that give you opportunities to affect the county in some way. Most of these will have opportunities to increase or decrease the chance of success, which is at the heart of the activity.
And if things work out, you will get the rewards you sought.
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And thats all for this time. Hopefully, you all enjoyed this glance at the new lifestyle and new activities. With winter soon upon us up here in the north, I figured Id give you one last art piece to look at before I jump out. Look at it and freeze, like I do.
[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
[ 2024-10-29 13:00:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there!
Last week, we got a glimpse of what we are adding to the Wandering Nobles DLC. Today, we are back to discuss the new Wandering lifestyle and the new activities it unlocks in more depth.
Discuss Dev Diary #159 on our forums!
New Lifestyle
As mentioned last week, it is set up like all the other lifestyles in the game, with 27 perks spread across 3 lifestyle trees, 3 new traits, and 3 attached focuses. Unlike our other lifestyles in the game, it is not connected to an education trait but to the Traveler trait. Now, you will gain a 10% monthly gain from the base Traveler trait and an additional 20% for every level in the Wanderer trait path.
The way we see this lifestyle is that for some characters, it might be something to go for right away to use some of its bonuses. For many others, however, it would rather be a natural step after finishing a tree in another lifestyle and having had time to travel around to build up their Traveler trait. Last week, we looked at the whole tree to see what it looked like for a landed character, whereas this time, I will show what it looks like for a landless character. The two rightmost trees have minor variations, whereas the Inspection tree had to be almost entirely recreated for the new play style.
As we start looking through each perk, I will show variations of each perk, if any, and talk a bit about each. That said, its only natural to start with the first tree we made for the new lifestyle.
Wayfarer
When explaining the fantasy of the tree to people, I often used my father as an example. This is not the person who goes out in the forest for the sake of going anywhere, but rather someone who enjoys the journey itself. They enjoy traveling, and exactly where they end up is less important. Before we start, one last thing to say is a bit about lifestyle philosophy when we created these new lifestyle trees:
- We wanted each tree's first perk (intro perk) to be generally suitable for anyone, so it is easy to dip into any of them and still feel like you get some kind of bonus worth taking. We believe it is easier to entice people to go further down the tree if they have invested some points.
- Then, we have a midpoint where we unlock the activity, which we wanted to be a halfway-capstone traitit is supposed to define the tree.
- We also included one capstone perk right before the trait so you would feel it is worth finishing up the rest of the tree.
- Every tree should have at least two themes that will synergize throughout the tree.
- You should be active to gain the tree's bonuses. You engage with this lifestyle; the lifestyle does not engage with you.
Well Prepared
This perk was supposed to give you a simple way to make traveling safer. If you want to travel around a fair bit, which is the point of this tree, we want it to be less costly and dangerous. We also included a supply boon because it fits the name of the perk.
Far and Wide
This is the first perk dipping into the fame synergy we wanted for the tree. By letting you travel around more safely (from the first perk) and now giving you a fame gain, you can start racking up fame while participating in activities or traveling to distant lands.
Just One More Hill
This is inspired by the two educational perks in the game: the Pedagogy perk in the Scholar (Learning) tree and the Groomed To Rule perk in the Family Hierarch (Diplomacy) tree. I wanted a way to enable the player to prepare their heir for the tree if they wanted to dip into it with their next character and give them a solid way to pass on the Traveler trait from one character to another. As a fun little side note, the name is inspired by my father, who would always respond with a Just one more hill and were home! or Its just around the corner now! whenever my sister or I would ask if we would be home soon when we were out walking as kids. Of course, that was a lie; it was not just one more hill or just around the corner.
Storyteller
The first capstone perk of the tree enables both the fame and the stress loss synergy. It gives you fame from hikes and random travel events (particularly danger-related ones), and the activity is intended to be a very effective way of removing Stress (similar to feasts).
Of the People
The first perk in this tree has two different variations, one playing into the friendly ruler fantasy and the other into the fame theme. In both cases, we wanted to inspire the character to move around often.
Local Hero
For the Wayfarer tree specifically, we made the perk of both lines leading up to the trait a bit of a capstone perk. In this case, the Local Hero one is intended to be a great boon for those grabbing all that fame, giving them a decent Diplomacy boost. It also gives you access to two new travel options, one of which provides you with another way to play into fame and stress loss:
Travel Companion
This is just a simple perk that increases the opinion of everyone traveling with you at any given time and improves the Caravan Master aptitude of anyone currently serving that role for you.
The Home Away from Home
This is the capstone perk for stress loss. You can increase your stress while traveling and open up a new activity option: expanding the time spent on a hike. This should give you more options to lose stress or gain fame.
Wayfarer Trait
Finally, for Wayfarer, the trait tries to tie together the two synergies that we have played into throughout the tree. It gives you higher stress loss the more fame you have, as well as giving you the Prowess fame bonus. It does mean, at the end of the day, that how many boons you get from these last perks matter how much fame you have managed to scrounge together, but we felt that was fine and played into one of our philosophies from earlier; you have to (most likely) be active to get fame, which in turn will give you a good boon at the end here.
Voyager
So, on to our second tree, the Voyager tree. If the Wayfarer tree was about the one who enjoyed the journey but didnt care about the destination, then the Voyager tree is the opposite. They dont care about their journey but about where they are going. When explaining their fantasy, I have often described them as the tourist tree. The themes we have explored for this tree focus on Points of Interest and Languages. The points of interest theme was an obvious fit for it, whereas the language theme just happened as we played around with themes that might fit the tree. Of course, the tree isnt limited to just those two things.
Power at Home/Organized Camp
When we originally made the perk for landed gameplay, being able to handle your regent at home would help someone who would regularly travel abroad to see things. If the idea was that you should be able to travel to distant places, we didnt want you to get punished too hard immediately. That idea did not easily reflect into a landless variation, so we instead tried to dip more into our idea of having something that is just generally good to dip into for landless play, and that was an across-the-board boon to provisions and travel speed.
Mercenary Contacts
We wanted to give the Voyager an easy, cheap option to provide general boosts to their travels, but taking a travel option spot. This means you can travel far with fewer dangers, presumably, but you are giving up other opportunities. Due to the name, we attached a bonus to hiring regular mercenaries.
Journey Planner
Looking into opportunities to go to distant locations, we figured a boon to diplomatic range would be an exciting option. One thing to note is that it is not an easily obtainable modifier in many places in the game, giving another reason for dipping into the tree. Another thing to note is that the tree unlocks diplomatic range matters for the Monument Expedition activity, so increasing it slightly means you will have access to more locations for that activity if you so wish.
Finally There
We wanted to empower the player when they finally reach their destination in a journey, to play into the core idea of the tree. Initially, we simply gave the player a prestige and stress bonus every time they reached their destination in a journey. However, this didnt quite work when we looked at the tree for landless characters, as Well They could reach a destination every other day if they kept moving their camp about. Instead, we attached the same idea directly to Points of Interest, which synergizes surprisingly well with another perk further down the tree. We initially kept the original idea for landed gameplay, but after seeing the synergy and how much cleaner it looked, we changed it to be the same as the landless one.
Journey
The mid-way capstone perk of the tree, where you unlock the Monument Expedition. The activity was strong enough that we did not need to attach many other effects to this one. The first perk that plays into the language theme, making it slightly easier to learn new languages.
Souvenirs Aplenty
As part of this tree, we wanted to include at least one perk where you could effectively bring home development, but we wanted to ensure it couldnt be stacked infinitely. In that sense, we figured it might be fun if you, as a, for example, slightly backward Scandinavian, traveled to Constantinople to see the sights and were inspired to improve your homeland. This is another one that didnt reflect well as a landless one. We tried different variations, some decreasing building costs for a period, etc. But in the end, none of them felt quite right, so we simplified it and reimagined it as a perk where going to new places would give a (non-stacking) opinion boon with your camp.
Gracious Host, Impeccable Guest
We imagined this perk as someone who has often been traveling to other cities and knows the etiquette and manners expected of you no matter where you are. Someone who can equally serve up an impressive feast for strangers on one side and attend one in an exotic court on the other. This is the primary payoff perk for the language theme, as you get a neat bonus for all your court positions. Its not grand or super impactful, but it can add up if you have a lot of active court positions.
Been There, Done That
This is the other perk I mentioned in the Finally There perk. It increases almost all rewards you gain from Points of Interest by 30% (with a few exceptions, like events triggering or gaining traits). This is the absolute capstone perk of the tree, and it enables a playstyle mostly traveling around and seeing Points of Interest with Monument Expeditions and Pilgrimages while still racking up lifestyle experience points, a lot of prestige, and reducing stress.
Voyager Trait
Unlike its Wayfarer equivalent, we wanted this trait to play less into the synergies of the tree but more be a composite of the tree. It bumps up the diplomatic range gain even further and increases your travel speed, giving you access to even more points of interest previously out of range.
Inspector - Landed
The final tree of the lifestyle is the Inspector tree, and as you might notice, we will split this into two different sections altogether, rather than simply showing the variations of the perks. This was the one tree that saw a significant rework for landless gameplay due to how the tree was initially structured for landed gameplay. When we started making this tree, we wanted a tree that was very much built up around a managerial figure who would travel the realm regularly to make sure everything was up to scratchthe one who periodically shows up unannounced in a vassals domain to ensure they are doing their job correctly. The themes for this tree are fuzzier, and it is more playing into a specific idea of having to travel to holdings around the realm to give them a temporary boon. You go somewhere, host an activity, or make a decision somewhere, and that place is improved for a while.
Mustering
The first one is a simple boon as you travel through holdings of your realm, improving any Stationed Men-at-Arms there by about 5-10% for 15 years. In other words, consider preparing before going to war, making sure to do the rounds and inspire your men so they get that fighting boon.
Know Your Land, Know Your People
This is a mouthful but less impactful than it first seems. The parochial and minor landholder vassal bonuses should be negligible, and the importance lies in the marriage acceptance boon. It means that within your realm, you have a significantly higher chance of being able to grab any marriage you may wish, both for yourself and your extended family. Want to ally with a pesky vassal who keeps being an issue to your rule? This could push up the acceptance level enough to make it happen. I understand that certain players will read this as marriage acceptance with close and extended family, and technically speaking, that would also be true as long as they are within the realm.
No Stone Unturned
As part of our work on this lifestyle tree, we wanted to give the player more active tools for gaining control and development, of which this perk is a key part. By hosting feasts, hunts, inspections, or other activities, you can now focus on where you want to improve something. Need to hold a feast, and you recently had a popular revolt ruin the control in your domain? Now, you can handle both of those at once.
Travel Logs
We often noticed that many players ensured that they only traveled relatively safely, so the Seasoned Trait Track had little time to shine. As a ruler who was actively trying to make sure their realm was safe and well taken care of, it felt natural that you would be able to increase this trait track even if you didnt directly experience the danger, simply because you were so directly working against it.
Inspection
The first capstone perk of the tree opens up the inspection activity. This should open up the fantasy of traveling around your realm more appropriately, as we will see later when discussing the activity. We also attached some tax bonuses,
Arbitration
This unlocks a new decision where you can stop a journey to manage the domain for a while. Effectively, you will trade some prestige and travel time to gain legitimacy and either remove corruption in that domain or gain a temporary modifier that will increase levy size, holding taxes, or development. This plays into the same logic as with No Stone Unturned, where you can more directly manage one holding and take care of any issue it might have.
Charts & Itineraries
This unlocks a new decision: You can write a book about your travels somewhere. This is a leftover from when the tree was focused more on surveying the land rather than inspecting it when we focused more on mapping out your realm, etc. We like how the decision turned out, so we kept it as is, even if things around it have changed slightly.
Personal Touch
This is the proper capstone perk of this tree, binding together No Stone Unturned, Inspection, and Arbitration in one, either giving you them for free or improving them. This should be a noticeable boon for those who want to simply do realm gardening and ensure their little realm runs smoothly.
Inspector Trait
With a similar logic to the Voyager trait, this is supposed to, at a glance, tell a player what kind of fantasy this tree is supposed to provide to you as a player. Its about realm management and gardening and ensuring all the little bits and bobs work as they should.
Inspector - Landless
As we approached making a landless variant of the Inspector tree, we asked ourselves if we could keep the same logic as we did for the landed tree. After all, it was a tree focused on improving your realm, which is hard to simulate with a character that does not hold land. In the end, we decided to do away with the central theme of the tree and look for something that might work better for the landless playstyle instead. We landed (see what I did there?) on a theme around improving your understanding of a specific terrain. Simply put, you can become the master of a particular field or area.
Finding Your Way
So, the very first perk of this tree is critical to setting up the rest of the tree. We unlock a new decision for you where you choose a designate a type of terrain that you would like to focus on:
- Woodlands - Forests/Jungles/Taiga/Wetlands
- Highlands - Mountains/Hills/Desert Mountains
- Lowlands - Plains/Steppe/Farmlands/Floodplains
- Drylands - Deserts/Drylands/Oasis
Knowing the Land
As we looked at changing the Knowing Your Land perk, we still wanted to try and keep some of the same fantasy. But rather than knowing your land or its people, you know the terrain you specialize in and how you keep yourself alive as you travel through it. As a significant boon to the Gather Provisions decision, it is an even more helpful tool in getting extra provisions, particularly if you spend most of your time in your Designated Terrain.
Navigating the Wilds
We knew we wanted to put a battle bonus to this one. After all, as we started playing around with the idea of specializing in a terrain, one of our first ideas was to be a renowned bandit group holed up in a mountain pass. We want you to feel like when you are fighting in your terrain, you are truly in your element.
Earths Bounty
Replacing the Inspection trait wasnt easy, as it was vital to the original tree. What we looked at was to continue the logic from the Knowing the Land perk, where provisions are less of a problem as you travel through your Designated Terrain. Opening up the Quartermaster and Head Porter positions irrelevant to your buildings means you will always have effective ways of handling provisions.
Right-Hand Man
After making Earths Bounty, we felt we had a tiny sub-theme of Officers in the tree, so we thought we could play further into that with this trait. The Second officer is the most crucial position you can have as a landless character, and this is a way to ensure they are doing their utmost for you. The second part of the perk was my experimentation to see if it would be interesting for the player to gain skill bonuses based on their current Camp Purpose, slightly inspired by other perks such as Friendly Counsel in the Family Hierarch (Diplomacy) tree or Learn on the Job in the Scholar (Learning) tree. As you might imagine, the exact skills will change depending on your camp purpose, such as Martial and Prowess for Swords-for-Hire or Learning and Stewardship for Scholars.
King of the Wilds
This is the capstone perk of this lifestyle, unlocking a decision to hyper-focus on a specific terrain from the ones in your Designated Terrain. For example, if you chose Highlands the first time, you can now select between Mountains, Hills, or Desert Mountains as your terrain to master. The idea was that since you specialize in a particular terrain, you are likely to be often forced to take action outside of that terrain and then get 0 bonuses from this perk, so in turn, they should be extra strong when you finally get the chance to shine.
New Activities
As we started working on the DLC, we knew we wanted to add activities so the player could open up more travel options. We already have many options across base-game activities (see Hunts, Pilgrimages, and Feasts) and DLC-locked ones (see grand activities), but we wanted to make something symbolic of each tree. In the end, though we had many different potential options, we ended up with three activities we wanted to go for:
- Hikes for the Wayfarer tree, so you can travel just for the sake of traveling
- Monument Expedition for the Voyager tree so that you can get to the points of interest you want to see
- Inspection for the Inspector tree so you can improve the specific counties you want to improve
Hikes
Speaking of hikes, it is the first activity we will talk about.
You can set out with your guards and up to 1 special companion to leave life at court for a short bit. If you bring a companion, the events will change slightly based on that, and you will have opportunities to build a bond with them. Or torment them if they arent built for hiking. You will set out towards a location, usually quite remote from anything. As you reach the area, the activity will start, and you will take a short hike before you start the return journey back home. You will go through several events detailing your experience in the wilderness, some rarer than others. Some examples:
The systemic events of the activitythe start, mid-activity, and end eventsdont have options, but any randomized events in between those will. You will meet people, see sights, or experience nature's good and bad sides.
Monument Expeditions
The Monument Expedition is the only one of the three that lets you travel outside your borders, which felt fitting considering the lifestyle trees and how they have been set up. You can go to any barony in the world with a special building, so its not just for any point of interest, but it will let you visit most of them.
When you arrive at the activity's location, you can choose one skill to focus your efforts on as you explore the local sights. The alternatives will be based on the building and its type, and then throughout the activity, you will have opportunities to increase or decrease the chance of getting skill boons.
Most events related to the activity will either increase your chance of getting extra skill boons or give you options for good court position holders.
Finally, at the end of your journey, you will gain a slight skill improvement, with the possibility of a second one based on how things turned out.
Inspections
Now then, to the final activity, Inspection. Similar to the hikes, this can only be done within your borders, giving you a few options based on where it is and what you want to do. One thing to note is that numbers might be higher than they should be in the following pictures (success chance and gold gain).
As you arrive, you will have three options to choose from (the first one is only available in border counties). They are:
- Claims/Vassalization Acceptance
- Taxes/County Control/Development
- Levies/Opinion/Popular Opinion
Here, you get to choose even further. In this case, we decided on Taxes/County Control (which is invisible due to already being at a 100)/Development as our first option, and here, we get to choose between Taxes and Development to hyper-focus on. This lets us decide which will have the strongest effect in the case of a successful Inspection. Throughout the inspection, you will encounter a fair number of events that give you opportunities to affect the county in some way. Most of these will have opportunities to increase or decrease the chance of success, which is at the heart of the activity.
And if things work out, you will get the rewards you sought.
[hr][/hr]
Conclusion
And thats all for this time. Hopefully, you all enjoyed this glance at the new lifestyle and new activities. With winter soon upon us up here in the north, I figured Id give you one last art piece to look at before I jump out. Look at it and freeze, like I do.
[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
[ 2024-10-29 13:00:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.13.2
[ 2024-10-23 08:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Good day everyone! We're releasing an update today to tackle some balance, bugfixes and interface issues affecting Roads to Power and the associated 1.13x "Basileus" Update. Notable changes include the addition of a game rule to limit the amount of adventurers in game and Administrative governments having a new "Realm" interface. See the changelog below for a full list of changes. [hr][/hr]
PC Update 1.13.2 Changelog
Expansion Features
- Administrative government now has access to a new tab in the Realm interface, listing additional laws that can be changed independently of imperial bureaucracy to allow an administrative top liege to have greater agency and control over their realm.
- Added a new law for administrative to prevent governors from using the boundary dispute and subsume governorship schemes, ensuring that your internal borders stay somewhat more constant over time.
- Added a new law for administrative, which allows the top liege to prevent governors from declaring external wars.
Free Features
- Added a new game rule to limit the amount of adventurers in a game.
- Added a new game rule to adjust the amount of damage gained by point of advantage in battles.
- Options include 1, 2, 5, 7, and 10.
Game Balance
- Default damage adjustment is now 5% per advantage in battles, down from 10%.
- The martial lifestyle perk Strict Organization now provides increased governor efficiency for administrative rulers.
- Increased the cost of refilling MAA with provisions by 68.75% for adventurers.
- Rebalanced cost and bonuses of the great tower of silence.
- The stewardship lifestyle perk Detailed ledgers now provides some additional administrative vassal tax obligation for administrative rulers.
- Increased the base levy obligation for administrative to 30%, up from 10%. While admin has less levies in general, there is no need for the governors to keep that many levies for themselves.
- Civilian themes no longer provide less levies to the liege. They are meant to generate income and provide development, which means that they have less reason to keep their levies than other administration types.
- When a populist faction sends their demands to a ruler with a state faith, the ruler can only choose to change the state faith if the factions faith is of the same religion as they are, or if the faith covers a majority of their realm (60% or more of the realms counties).
- Enabled raiding for governors of frontier themes, allowing them to raid neighboring realms.
- Governors will now spend a higher portion of their income on men-at-arms. This should prevent governors from disbanding their troops too easily when their governor efficiency changes, or when they are replaced by a new governor with a lower efficiency.
- The emperor now has 0 candidate score for appointment, making sure to avoid inheriting titles needlessly if there are others in the line of succession with low scores.
- Significantly reduced the likelihood and frequency of the AI asking for a council position (not accounting for when they force themselves onto the council).
- The Men-at-Arms innovation in the high medieval era now increases the size of title MAAs by 1.
- Reduced the amount of gold you receive from dividends when you found a holding as a landless adventurer.
- Added a grace period after you take the Stand with Us contract. No longer will you be called out as an Oathbreaker if the war immediately ends and you have no time to join it.
- Increased the chance of a vassal governor to accept, and to accept without making any demands, when you ask them to end their war.
- Asking a vassal to end their war now takes the Loyal and Disloyal traits into account, increasing and decreasing acceptance respectively.
- Higher levels of imperial bureaucracy now increases republican tax obligation in addition to administrative tax obligation.
- Level 3 provides a base +5%, while level 4 provides a base +10%, bringing the total obligation to +30% at maximum bureaucracy.
- In an effort to make sure that titles are created at a rate we want them to within an administrative realm, administrative government now has an innate -50% title creation cost bonus.
- AI vassals will no longer adopt a state faith if their top liege follows the same faith as they do. If the emperor can have it, then so can we!
- Non-admin vassals will only consider to adopt a state faith if their faith hostility is low enough, and will not adopt it by themselves if they consider the state faith hostile or evil.
- Enabled the Demand Administrative Governance interaction towards republics, allowing you to convert mayors into admin.
- Lowered the defensive advantage the vassal gains from frontier administration to 6, down from 8.
- Lowered the coastal advantage the vassal gains from naval administration to 10, down from 15.
- Updated acclamation succession to take the palace politics cultural tradition into account for reducing candidate score based on disfigurement. Not having this tradition will no longer reduce a candidates score if they are blind, disfigured, infertile, etc.
- Increased the penalty to a candidate's score for appointment succession when of the non-preferred gender to -80%, up from -66%.
- Made it a bit easier for vassals to convert with you when creating a new faith when you also have a state faith.
- If you hold a lot of sway within the realm (i.e. you have high diplomacy, learning, legitimacy, influence level, is part of a powerful family, etc.) vassal acceptance will increase.
- Additionally, having the Prophet lifestyle perk will increase acceptance based on your diplomacy and learning.
- The Influence candidacy interaction no longer requires the target character to belong to a noble family. This allows you to promote lowborn and nobles who have yet to become a noble family to governorships, without having to resort to revoking a governorship and using Grant Appointment.
- The AI will no longer force others to join their faction if they themselves were forced to join.
- The influence option in the Force to join faction interaction can no longer be used on characters who actually like their liege.
- Administrative can now adopt the cultural tradition City Keepers.
- Administrative vassals who are not a part of your de-jure can now be granted independence.
- Administrative rulers can now grant independence to tribal vassals who are a part of their de jure.
- Made it more expensive for administrative to convert tribal holdings, increasing the base cost by 25%. Admin should not want to conquer tribal land, but rather wait until someone else does it first and make it more civilized.
- Moved 1 MAA limit from the Roaring campfire building to the Swords-for-Hire and Legitimist camp purposes directly in order to promote specialization.
- Moved one MAA max size from the Proving Grounds to the Lockwagon building (unlocked by Freebooters, Swords-for-Hire, and Legitimists) in order to promote specialization.
- Reduced knight limit from Roaring Campfire significantly.
- Reduced adventurer government knight limit by 8 (10 -> 2), added 8 knight limit to Swords-for-Hire and Legitimists, added 3 knight limit to Freebooters.
- Moved knight efficiency from Proving grounds to Roaring Campfire.
- The base acceptance for the Make a Request interaction has been reduced to 0 (down from +30).
- AIs are now less willing to give adventurers gold using the Make a Request interaction just because the adventurer is poor.
- AIs now give less gold when adventurers use the Make a Request interaction.
- AIs will no longer give adventurers using the Make a Request interaction more gold if they have 25+ opinion of them. It now only counts being friends/lovers.
- Best friends/soulmates will give adventurers more gold when using the Make a Request interaction.
- Requesting a new contract now only reduces opinion by -5, and the AI gets +30 acceptance for the request.
- AIs are now less willing to give adventurers gold using the Make a Request interaction if they themselves are poor (from -10 to -30).
- AIs are now less willing to give maa using the Make a Request interaction if the adventurer is powerful (-25 at 400 max strength, -50 at 800 max strength).
- AIs are now less willing to give maa using the Make a Request interaction if the adventurer is stronger than themselves (using max troops count).
- Reduced the acceptance bonus for the Make a Request interaction based on your prestige level (from 10, 20, 30, 40 to -> 5, 10, 20, 30).
- Lowered opinion malus from demanding artifacts.
- Rebalanced options in stewardship_wealth.1051.
- Significantly lowered gold costs in travel_events.2013.
- Removed stress from opting out of buying a trinket in travel_events.4036.
- Gather Provisions now has a chance of critical success and critical failure: critical success awards more provisions, and failure can result in wounds, illness, or frostbite (depending on terrain).
- Removed the MAA max size modifiers from excellent aptitude camp officers.
- Reduced the piety gained from Proselytize to Locals by 50%.
- Reduced the Max MAA regiment limit that you could get from your adventurer camp by 4 (across multiple buildings).
- Reduced the Max MAA regiment size that you could get from your adventurer camp by 5 (across multiple buildings).
- Reduced the individual MAA max size modifiers from the Baggage Train camp building by 2 (3 -> 1).
- Updated the AI acceptance in Contest Appointment. Spending influence now takes your influence level into account, and instead of comparing direct influence with the target governor, we now compare influence level instead.
- The AI will now avoid calling players to war if the player is in debt.
- Increased difficulty for adventurers attempting to chain church-robberies.
- Added an upper limit to gold reward from the Stand with Us contract of 1 yearly income of the employer and their current gold.
Bugfixes
- Eliminate performance degradation when zooming in and out close to terrain - map icons should now be much more efficient.
- Added missing localization and formatting to the administrative_government_vassal_opinion modifier.
- Fixed issue causing religion and culture to not show up for characters in the Arrange Marriage list of potential spouses.
- Fixed elope.1003 being broken.
- When restoring Rome and converting to Hellenic it will now destroy all head of faith titles you hold.
- Fixed a softlock in the Conduct census contract when the first destination was the same as your camp location.
- Allowed Turfida to start the game inside her husband Hereward's camp.
- Enabled Adventurers to complete betrothals without having to use another request for marriage.
- Fixed an exploit where you could keep reducing your stress when using the petition liege decision. By canceling the travel planner before you start to travel, you would lose stress, despite not having gained any stress yet.
- Fixed the effects of granting prestige and influence without gaining experience in their corresponding levels having no text.
- Fixed the petition liege decision not refunding your influence if you decided to cancel it before reaching your liege's capital.
- Fixed the Caravan Master and Wet Nurse court positions not being affected by the family business cultural tradition.
- Updated the script for when an estate is damaged, as it would deal much more damage than intended by removing entire buildings. An estate building should instead typically lose a level (or several) instead.
- Locked DLC only dynasty legacies for AI too.
- All cultural traditions lifting terrain restrictions on buildings will now properly check for the county culture instead of the holder's culture.
- Fixed an issue where you could use the Force to Join Faction interaction without having enough influence.
- Fixed the faction join-chance modifier Liege was preferred heir being applied twice.
- Fixed a previous change to the holding triggers which prevented you from constructing holdings in most baronies with desert or desert mountain terrain in the areas in and surrounding the Sahara. Only the corridors across the Sahara will remain empty.
- Updated the logic for the transferring of titles in the Force to Step Down interaction. Titles and vassals should behave more consistently as a result.
- Added missing petition type names in the Petition Liege invalidation event.
- Fixed a crash that occurred when hovering on a rally point icon that is moving with your adventurer camp, or on a province you've just lost in a war.
- The Varangian Guards men-at-arms and the Akolouthos court position are no longer strictly locked to the Byzantine Empire. All emperors who have the cultural tradition unlocking these have the option to use the decision to found the Varangian Guard for their primary title.
- When restoring the Roman Empire with the Varangian Guard founded, you get to keep access to the Varangian Guard MaA and the Akolouthos court position.
- Restoring the Roman Empire will now transfer your title Men-at-Arms to your new title, making sure they won't get lost as the old title gets destroyed.
- In order to befriend an ally you are helping at war you now have to actually contribute something to the war score.
- Blocked the decision to form Portugal if Portugal already exists.
- Changed the lone clan Portuguese vassal into feudal.
- Made it easier for landed rulers to become a legitimist landless adventurer by ensuring you get claims to all of your former titles on transition.
- Fixed an issue preventing the top liege of an administrative realm from granting the duchy containing your de jure capital to a vassal. It now checks de facto capital instead.
- You can no longer renounce personal ambition using the decision Renounce Imperial Aspirations if you are a diarch.
- The "Formation Fighting" cultural tradition now provides bonuses to the Strategist trait, providing a higher combat roll and reduces enemy defensive advantage.
- Removed the warning telling you that you have less than expected court grandeur, if you do not own the 'Royal Court' expansion.
- Fixed the domicile outline element being broken if you switched from admin to feudal.
- Fixed charnel grounds being missing from the duchy building list.
- Fixed the displaying of gold from mercenary contracts in the war overview.
- Fixed occurrences where adventurers may get stuck in contracts that became invalid while traveling.
- It's no longer possible as a landless adventurer to kidnap people and wait for their liege to offer you a contract to prison break them.
- Fixed tutor child contract to invalidate properly if the child or the employer is dead.
- Fixed hold_court.6080 to no longer target provinces with holdings and changing their holding types, instead target only empty provinces.
- You can no longer use the "contest appointment" interaction if you are invalid to be a governor for the requested title.
- Fixed the "Commission Artifact" decision cost reduction from estates not being applied correctly.
- As a head of faith, you can no longer use the Adopt State Faith decision. It wouldn't change your faith anyway.
- Artifacts you are wearing will now be correctly shown in your portraits and in the barbershop.
- Fixed characters that lost all titles, due to their liege losing a war, not having a chance to become landless adventurers.
- The Discovered Secret Schemes tab will now correctly display all known schemes.
- Administrative heads of faith will no longer lose their family head titles when their administrative titles are revoked.
- Moved the "Summon to War" interaction to the expanded section of the interaction list, and it is no longer shown on governors who don't have frontier or naval administration.
- Fixed becoming a wanderer instead of landed when getting promised land from support a faction contract.
- Fixed becoming a wanderer instead of either losing the game or becoming an adventurer when your last title is revoked.
- Discovering agents in hostile schemes against you will no longer expose agents that you were forced to remove from the scheme. Added a weak hook on the agent if you decide to not remove them.
- Fixed convert to witchcraft odds prediction to be more precise.
- Added missing localisation for the court gardener trigger.
- Fixed the court gardener court position requiring the employee to have, or have finished, an inspiration. It no longer does so.
- State faith will no longer change when the title gets inherited by landless rulers.
- Fixed an issue where granting an appointment as a vassal would give the new sub-vassal a noble family, even though they shouldn't get one.
- Added missing text for the heavy infantry pursuit and screen multiplicative modifiers.
- Added some text explaining that a governance issue is unavailable while you have an active issue already.
- Fixed the reception hall upgrade for the estate providing additional legitimacy for every title the emperor would get, including when revoking titles. The bonus is now only applied for the primary title.
- Fixed the reception hall not resetting the stored legitimacy upon being gained.
- Fixed global_culture.0015 being empty with an inappropriate background.
- The Scholars of Baghdad event can now only happen if you own and are located in baghdad.
- Fixed background of fp1_jomsvikings.1001.
- You can no longer start the depose scheme if you are disfigured, blind, etc. and the top liege has a culture that frowns upon these traits in regards to succession (e.g. the palace politics tradition). The scheme implies that you will take the title yourself, but due to your low score for having either of these traits, this will rarely happen.
- Fixed the description not always showing for the depose scheme interaction.
- Custom appearances in the ruler creator will no longer be automatically overwritten when changing culture.
- Removed options from the Have child study language interaction - you're already paying a tutor for that.
- Fixed the liege regency tutorial not progressing when it should.
- Bp1_yearly.5720 can now only happen if the rival is in the same location as you.
- Shortened the text and fixed animations of bp1_yearly.5720.
- Fixed an issue where you could accidentally enable Roman Empire hard-mode even if you never chose that option.
- Changed odds predictions in romance schemes to be more accurate.
- Fixed an issue when attempting to release a prisoner in exchange of becoming your executioner, where they would not end up becoming your executioner as expected.
- Fixed the secrecy grace period for the Challenge status scheme.
- The Save preset window in Game rules view will now be fully visible on 1080p resolution.
- Make sure the Refill MAA with gold option for adventurers states the correct numbers in the tooltip.
- Fixed the Offer eunuch interaction not allowing you to replace the selected character, should you have multiple eunuchs available.
- Clarified in the localization that you only have access to runestones before the High Medieval era.
- The Offer eunuch interaction now requires the target to be a ruler and have a court.
- The Roaming, raving event now correctly states it has a 25% chance of spreading the modifier, rather than the incorrect 15%.
- Fixed a small history issue with the County of Coburg being a prince-bishopric in 867.
- Your bishop will check a bit closer before claiming your marriage is consanguineous in nature.
- The Warrior culture cultural tradition will not properly explain that you need a tribal government to choose it.
- Fixed an issue where in some rare cases, when replacing a bodyguard in events, you would fire the best one instead of the worst one.
- Fixed a minor issue with the event Ruin rumbling where one of the characters wouldn't be assigned a proper nickname.
- Blind and maimed people will no longer take part in archery contests.
- Fixed an issue with the Guest of honor APA in camp parties, where they would occasionally not be able to find the host properly.
- Fixed an issue in the Another lover event where a character would check if they were attracted to themselves. Narcissus is before our time.
- Fixed an error in the event Another lover where you kept a best friend lover even if you broke up with them.
- The friendly language learning letter should be less likely to call you a mud-eater, even if you might deserve it.
- Added an event reason for some camp officers which were missing.
- Fixed an issue with cooldowns in the wedding event Oath in moment.
- Updated the text when attempting to change a tribal vassal into administrative. It will now say that only settled governments can change directly to admin.
- Fixed the Do you know who I am perk to actually give +20% acceptance instead of 50%.
- Fixed the reason not being shown when attempting to pick the cultural tradition city keepers without having an eligible government type.
- Set_designated_heir effect can now only be applied to direct children. Prevent some crashes when this becomes circular.
- Made a fix for Designate Heir to line up with recent code changes. The recipient now has to be your child to be eligible for being designated. (This should only affect administrative, who could designate close family members.)
- The Request co-emperor interaction will only designate the co-emperor as heir if they are a child of the current emperor.
- Added missing text for when you have a hook available in the 'Summon to War' interaction.
- Fixed a bunch of animations not working in a large number of events.
- Removed duplicate war score values in the adventurer raid contract CB.
Art
- Added the correct grudge icon to the game concept.
- Added struggle trait background for modders.
History
- Saxon culture now starts in the high medieval era when starting a game in 1178.
- Corrected dynasty house for Robert de Dreux.
Game Content
- Added an event for adventurers where a follower wants to get married to a local.
- Added a new interaction named Aid Tribal Development, allowing lieges to support their non-tribal vassals in converting their tribal holdings into castles.
- Enabled the decision to restore the Roman Empire for administrative. You can now adopt the administrative government first and still restore Rome, instead of having to do it in a particular order.
- The Byzantine cultural traditions Roman ceremonies and Palace politics can now be adopted if you restore the Roman Empire and don't have the traditions already.
Interface
- Removed mentions of antiquarians being needed to repair artifacts from tooltips and court position description.
- Fixed Music player not being localized.
- Hid the commission legend artifact decisions unless youve completed a legend, and made the decision major.
- The breakdown tooltip for candidate score in appointment now explains the gender penalty in a better way by showing the % penalty, and not just the value.
- Fixed cut off text on Fight Corruption contracts.
- Added advanced features to the Ruler Designer: you will now be able to generate random appearances based on the selected Culture, only load Traits or Appearance from a saved Ruler, and decide whether to regenerate the Appearance when changing Culture.
- Added potential gold gained from mercenary contracts/interactions in the war overview for all participating landless adventurers.
[ 2024-10-23 08:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #158 - Wandering Nobles
As we set out to create this piece of content, our primary goal was to see if we could spend more time with the traveling system from Tours & Tournament. It was a system that was generally well-liked internally and externally, and we knew we would most likely be used a fair bit by adventurers (though exactly how that game loop would turn out was unclear at the time). We wanted to continue experimenting with it and see if we could add more content to it in different ways. Since I have seen some confusion about this, one thing to clarify is that the Wandering Nobles is not a Landless Adventurer DLC. It was made primarily for landed gameplay, and though much of it is also available to landless characters, they are not the pack's focus. In other words, this DLC will not have unique landless features, new contracts, or anything locked to the adventurer playstyle. Even though I will not go into detail about events, a plethora of new events are spread throughout the different features that will be detailed here, as well as a slew of new travel events. In this event pack, we tied them all into things the player will choose to engage with, see activities, lifestyle, and travel, rather than having them appear seemingly at random.
Besides the traveling focus, what you can find in the pack is our first new lifestyle since the game's release. This avenue of content has remained almost untouched since the game was first released, except for adventurer-specific perks in Roads to Power, which we wanted to try and experiment with. It is set up like all other lifestyles in the game, with 27 perks split across 3 lifestyle trees, 3 focuses, 3 traits, and landless perk variants where needed. One essential philosophy of the new lifestyle tree is that we wanted it to be a tree where you had to engage with it rather than having it simply engage with you. In other words, there are fewer passive bonuses, and most bonuses are gained by engaging in travel or activities. In that sense, we tried to go for impactful effects and bonuses from the perks, but at an opportunity and gold cost. We will talk at length about the lifestyle trees and perks next week, but I wanted to give you a small look at what it looks like.
In the DLC, we have included three activities, each associated with (and unlocked by) one of the new lifestyle trees. They are intended to be about the size of the University Visit we introduced in Wards & Wardens, giving landed rulers more opportunities to travel through your realm or abroad. Two of the new activities are set in your realm, whereas one takes you outside your borders. When we created these new activities, one of our philosophies was that we wanted them to be deeply tied to each of the lifestyle trees, synergizing in different ways and playing into the strengths of the lifestyle tree. That way, investing in the lifestyle tree opens up an activity that lets you continue to build down that route. The first activity we will examine is Inspection, where you can choose to travel to a specific part of your realm to ensure that it is well-run. You will be able to decide what parts of realm management you would like to focus on, and if you travel to a border county, you might even get vassalization acceptance from neighboring rulers or claims on their lands.
Our second activity, the Monument Expedition, involves traveling to a distant city to see its sights. This allows you to visit specific places with Points of Interest, which youd previously have to drop by as you pilgrimage elsewhere.
The final activity, the Hike, is one where you can temporarily leave behind the stress of court life and seek the calm of nature. Shy characters, you poor souls who would desperately try to lose stress through feasts, I see you.
As a travel-focused pack, we wanted to include something new for the players to see as they traveled around the map. One I had wanted to include for a while was points of interest focused on battles. These new points of interest will come in two forms: dynamically created ones as particular battles happen on the map and historical ones set up from the start of the game. For the historical ones, we have some that can be seen in all our bookmarks and others that can only be seen in later bookmarks, like two related to the fight over England in 1066.
One minor addition to this patch is a new building and court position, primarily for Catholics but accessible by anyone with a new cultural tradition. The building can only be built in Catholic churches by default, but in any city for those who choose to get the cultural tradition. It is intentionally made to have a fair number of county-wide bonuses rather than holding specific ones and opening the new Court Brewmaster Court Position for whoever is in charge of the county.
That was all for this week. I hope you enjoyed this first look at Wandering Nobles. We will look in-depth at the activities and lifestyle perks next week. Until then, I figured Id show some of the new art we have in the DLC to tide you over.
[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
[ 2024-10-22 12:00:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #158
Wandering Nobles
Hello there!
Its been a while since I wrote one of these, so I figured I could give a short presentation of myself. Im Joachim, one of the two Design Leads on CK3, and I have been around at Paradox on different projects since CK2s Holy Fury (my first DLC). Its my pleasure to present our last entry in Chapter 3, namely, the Wandering Nobles DLC.
Discuss Dev Diary #158 on our forums!
Vision
As we set out to create this piece of content, our primary goal was to see if we could spend more time with the traveling system from Tours & Tournament. It was a system that was generally well-liked internally and externally, and we knew we would most likely be used a fair bit by adventurers (though exactly how that game loop would turn out was unclear at the time). We wanted to continue experimenting with it and see if we could add more content to it in different ways. Since I have seen some confusion about this, one thing to clarify is that the Wandering Nobles is not a Landless Adventurer DLC. It was made primarily for landed gameplay, and though much of it is also available to landless characters, they are not the pack's focus. In other words, this DLC will not have unique landless features, new contracts, or anything locked to the adventurer playstyle. Even though I will not go into detail about events, a plethora of new events are spread throughout the different features that will be detailed here, as well as a slew of new travel events. In this event pack, we tied them all into things the player will choose to engage with, see activities, lifestyle, and travel, rather than having them appear seemingly at random.
Lifestyle
Besides the traveling focus, what you can find in the pack is our first new lifestyle since the game's release. This avenue of content has remained almost untouched since the game was first released, except for adventurer-specific perks in Roads to Power, which we wanted to try and experiment with. It is set up like all other lifestyles in the game, with 27 perks split across 3 lifestyle trees, 3 focuses, 3 traits, and landless perk variants where needed. One essential philosophy of the new lifestyle tree is that we wanted it to be a tree where you had to engage with it rather than having it simply engage with you. In other words, there are fewer passive bonuses, and most bonuses are gained by engaging in travel or activities. In that sense, we tried to go for impactful effects and bonuses from the perks, but at an opportunity and gold cost. We will talk at length about the lifestyle trees and perks next week, but I wanted to give you a small look at what it looks like.
Activities
In the DLC, we have included three activities, each associated with (and unlocked by) one of the new lifestyle trees. They are intended to be about the size of the University Visit we introduced in Wards & Wardens, giving landed rulers more opportunities to travel through your realm or abroad. Two of the new activities are set in your realm, whereas one takes you outside your borders. When we created these new activities, one of our philosophies was that we wanted them to be deeply tied to each of the lifestyle trees, synergizing in different ways and playing into the strengths of the lifestyle tree. That way, investing in the lifestyle tree opens up an activity that lets you continue to build down that route. The first activity we will examine is Inspection, where you can choose to travel to a specific part of your realm to ensure that it is well-run. You will be able to decide what parts of realm management you would like to focus on, and if you travel to a border county, you might even get vassalization acceptance from neighboring rulers or claims on their lands.
Our second activity, the Monument Expedition, involves traveling to a distant city to see its sights. This allows you to visit specific places with Points of Interest, which youd previously have to drop by as you pilgrimage elsewhere.
The final activity, the Hike, is one where you can temporarily leave behind the stress of court life and seek the calm of nature. Shy characters, you poor souls who would desperately try to lose stress through feasts, I see you.
Battle Points of Interest
As a travel-focused pack, we wanted to include something new for the players to see as they traveled around the map. One I had wanted to include for a while was points of interest focused on battles. These new points of interest will come in two forms: dynamically created ones as particular battles happen on the map and historical ones set up from the start of the game. For the historical ones, we have some that can be seen in all our bookmarks and others that can only be seen in later bookmarks, like two related to the fight over England in 1066.
A Toast for Your Travels
One minor addition to this patch is a new building and court position, primarily for Catholics but accessible by anyone with a new cultural tradition. The building can only be built in Catholic churches by default, but in any city for those who choose to get the cultural tradition. It is intentionally made to have a fair number of county-wide bonuses rather than holding specific ones and opening the new Court Brewmaster Court Position for whoever is in charge of the county.
Until Next Time
That was all for this week. I hope you enjoyed this first look at Wandering Nobles. We will look in-depth at the activities and lifestyle perks next week. Until then, I figured Id show some of the new art we have in the DLC to tide you over.
[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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[ 2024-10-22 12:00:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Wandering Nobles - Available November 4
[ 2024-10-21 16:16:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Rulers! Today we are happy to announce the release date and final part of Chapter 3, Wandering Nobles! Building on the travel system introduced in Tours and Tournaments as a ruler, wander both your realm and beyond with the new lifestyle! Wandering Nobles will be released on Steam November 4th! Choose to set out for exotic cities and distant lands, or travel through your realm to ensure the prosperity and loyalty of your lands and vassals. Wandering Nobles Features include: - New Wandering Lifestyle with three new branches: - Inspector: Landed characters can survey and improve their realm, Landless characters can seek environmental specialization. - Wayfarer: Travel to reduce stress and pursue fame for your exploits. - Voyager: Improve linguistic skills and live the life of a tourist and sightseer. - New Activities designed for the new Lifestyle branches: - Inspection: Inspectors can examine their realm and pursue improvements - Hike: Wayfarers can reduce stress with a walk in the wilderness. - Monument Expedition: Voyagers can set forth to see special buildings in other realms - New Events connected to travel, the new lifestyles and the associated activities. Be sure to check back tomorrow, October 22nd, for our first diary on Wandering Nobles! [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
[ 2024-10-21 16:16:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.13.1.2
[ 2024-10-10 09:46:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a hotfix today to tackle a couple of issues reported since Update 1.13.1's release on Tuesday. Please check the changelog below. [hr][/hr]
Update 1.13.1.2 Changelog
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where certain religions couldn't properly appoint a Court Chaplain.
- Repairing artifacts as an adventurer should now work properly.
[ 2024-10-10 09:46:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing the Crusader Kings III Merch Store
[ 2024-10-09 15:59:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Governors and Gallivanters!
We are happy to announce that our Crusader Kings 3 merch is finally being replenished! Now you can show your love for map painting, vassal arresting, and child banishing to all. Who among us wouldn't want to be readily identified as an ardent fan of the most vaunted of Grand Strategy RPGs?
T-shirt? Hoodie? Both? Whatever weather the map brings, you will be ready.
Visit our shop here, and let all of the realm know that you are a member of the Crusader Kings family*.
May your realms prosper and your garments be the most fashionable across all of the land.
*Warning, being part of our family might come with schemes, stabbings, and occasional poisonings.
[hr][/hr]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2024-10-09 15:59:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.13.1
[ 2024-10-08 13:04:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a sizeable update today to tackle some balance and interface issues affecting Roads to Power and the associated 1.13x "Basileus" Update. Notable changes include reducing the maintenance cost of Akritai men-at-arms, ensuring that factions have at least one member who actually wants to be there, and a myriad of bug fixes. See the changelog below for a full list of changes. [hr][/hr]
PC Update 1.13.1 Changelog
Balance
- Significantly reduced the maintenance cost of Akritai. Due to a math error, the cost was way higher than intended. Math is hard.
- Increased the AI weights for estate buildings slightly. The AI should hopefully construct new buildings more evenly between holdings and estate compared to before.
- Landless administrative characters can no longer use the Request governorship interaction on titles held by non-admin rulers.
- Changed the AI slightly for how likely it is to use the Adopt state faith decision.
- Reduced the base chance and made zealous characters never wanting to do it, but added a few additional modifiers which increases the overall chance.
- Updated the Adopt state faith decision to be available to all vassals, regardless of government type, when the top liege has a state faith.
- Adjusted the AI acceptance for requesting a council position in exchange for influence to make it a bit more difficult to become a councilor.
- The AI is now more reluctant to accept if your skill is significantly lower than the target councilor's, but is in return more likely to accept if you belong to a powerful family while the councilor does not.
- Instead of making it more likely for the AI to adopt administrative government if they have the hereditary hierarchy cultural tradition, the tradition will instead slightly reduce the AI's willingness to become administrative.
- Updated several cases of when administrative rulers are forced to change government in order to better transition into a government type you would expect. The government a character gets should be more consistent across the board as a result.
- Updated the cost logic in the Depose Governor interaction and how it uses Governor Efficiency to influence the cost.
Bugfixes
- Fixed the AI not upgrading more than one internal slot in their Domiciles.
- Fixed game lobby so you can create landless adventurers in theocratic or republic realms.
- Made sure that not every single member of a faction could have been forced to be there. You figure at some point someone would ask the awkward question if everybody actually wants to start a rebellion.
- Fix locked domicile building slot tooltip.
- Clarified The X path ascension tooltip to inform the player that the holy site used must also worship your faith.
- We now display how many marriageable characters a ruler has when using Make a request, including filtering out anyone they'd be unlikely to offer in marriage.
- Become an adventurer decision will now list all cultural traditions and faith tenets that unlock the decision, and not just the really cool ones.
- Fixed an issue where a diarch could become independent and be called co-co-co-co-co... and so on. This should hopefully no longer happen.
- Fixed the selected amount of influence in the request imperial expedition interaction not matching the threshold at which you can force your liege to accept. Now, if the liege doesn't have enough influence compared to how much you are spending, the liege will always say yes.
- The imperial expedition cb is now only visible in the list of cbs when you are the co-emperor.
- Corrected a niche issue where the increase county control contract could get into an infinite rewards loop if only one county was valid.
- Made sure the right ship models were used while traveling, instead of always falling back to the default ship model.
- The governance issue "Public Land" should no longer target dead characters. They've earned their final rest.
- Added a tooltip for the mandatory admittance fee to the chariot races.
- The Confirm governor decision now tells you what you'll get if your audience is accepted.
- Added a missing loc key label to the tooltip for offering a eunuch to someone you have a hook on.
- Corrected an issue where historically defined adventurers would sometimes be treated slightly differently in inheritance logic than dynamically created adventurers.
- For a bit of gold event will no longer offer you discounted upgrades only to fail to deliver them if your domicile could not build them.
- Corrected a minor temporal anomaly in the event loc for A bit of gold event.
- Corrected some minor issues in the populist faction copy for administrative realms.
- Added missing event option reasons for the head groom, kenneler, and chief engineer camp officers.
- Corrected an issue where the faith ascension events could refer to your own faith as flawed (which, naturally, it definitely, definitely couldn't be).
- Fixed a minor typo in the Abundant initiative eunuch event.
- Ransom cages now correctly unlock the abduct scheme for adventurers regardless of whether they have the appropriate perk or not.
- In administrative realms the most powerful noble family heads are now considered as powerful vassals
- Landed guardians will no longer travel to wards that are landless administrative rulers.
- Added reduce stress as a valid intent for attending chariot races, so that everyone can attend medieval nascar for something other than politics.
- Adjusted clan succession. Friendly and harmonious gave the player heir a smaller portion of your titles than intended (33% and 66% respectively). Values have been increased to 50% and 75%.
- Made the grant title blocker loc for giving governors a second title of their highest held tier a little more precise.
- The marriage window now informs you if you have vassals that would be upset by you marrying that attractive genius lowborn.
- Adventurers can no longer attempt to earn influence whilst attending chariot races.
- Added legitimacy-specific loc to whispers in the wind.
- Using adopt faith on your spouse/liege will now, if appropriate, open the cheaper & more beneficial adopt state faith decision window instead.
- Moved Hasan story cycle decision triggers to be visible at all times and grouped them into a new category.
- Enabled event on caliph death in the hasan story cycle to be able to progress the story on the assassins path even if the caliphate had no heir.
- Put in some extra exception logic to help stop co-emperors from occasionally silently invalidating out of their positions.
- Appointing someone your co-ruler now moves them to your court/retracts their sub-vassal status, if appropriate.
- Fixed an edge case where great conquerors who had either not killed anyone or killed someone not on the battlefield would have an inaccurate recollection of their first kill.
- Court positions that cost no upkeep for adventurers now correctly tooltip the reason they're free in their salary breakdown.
- Made it possible for bookmakers to be terrible by lowering their base aptitude slightly.
- Forced the bookmaker to stop tricking their employer. The chariot race cost reduction provided by said court position now correctly scales with their level of aptitude, as stated by the description.
- Now prevents war leaders from disbanding their armies, instantly losing the war. Secondary war participants are always allowed to disband their armies in their domicile location.
- The Adopt State Faith decision will now correctly tell you that the decision is unavailable when you are involved in an activity.
- Fixed a case of AI reasoning related to being a powerful vassal not showing the value of how much it affected the acceptance.
- Fixed the administrative "request council position" interaction to not refund any of the spent influence. It will now refund half the cost if the liege declines. Updated the description in the interaction to reflect it.
- Succeeding at impersonating as a tax collector as part of a landless adventurer contract will now properly grant the critical success reward.
- Fixed the explanatory loc string in the rustle animals contract to correctly refer to the actual event chain challenge it creates, rather than saying it'd offer a prowess scheme.
- Fixed a case of dead people being selected as heirs, which could cause various glitches on ruler death.
- Added the icon for governor efficiency to a number of places that were missing it, such as a number of character modifiers.
- Added a missing description for the "restored theme" character modifier.
- Fixed a grammar issue when attempting to change the administration of a theme when you don't have one.
- Added new text for the influence gained of being a co-emperor.
- When a scheme target is ambitious, the text will now specify that it is, in fact, the target that has the trait.
- Target's learning impact in the challenge status scheme now clearly indicates that it's the target's learning skill we are looking at.
- Fixed the cost of archery and duel tournaments if you have the militia camps or blacksmiths building, so it properly provides a 50% cost reduction rather than 10%.
- The encyclopedia entry about accolade attributes is now clearer and has no duplicate entries.
- Changed the amount of buildings at startup for estates, so they no longer grab locked slots in certain bookmarks.
- The barony window will no longer open for water tiles.
- Knight regiments will no longer be counted incorrectly in some tooltips.
- The expose secret window will now show the correct view.
- Displayed decision description in the first step of the recruit for a court position decision.
- Ensured that you can choose your own chaplain, instead of it being auto-filled, if you have ruler clerical appointment.
- Ensured you can use the "retire from governorship" decision in admin kingdoms.
- Fixed primogeniture succession for byzantium, if played by someone who does not have the roads to power dlc.
- Fixed a loc issue with a house feud event, when the last remaining member of the feuding house dies in your prison.
- Implicit claims from admin rulers have been disabled.
- Long reign opinion bonus now correctly scales on the ruler's dynasty's splendor instead of the vassal's.
- Made it more likely to show other loading screens besides the latest one.
- Tweaked medi study event scene illustration.
- Blocked characters from requesting a character to support themselves for an appointment.
- Baronies now have zero loot after a siege and will get the appropriate modifier applied.
- Included liege's noble family title in noble_family script lists if they have one.
- Fixed travel option tooltip data when they're shown outside of the travel planning UI.
- Fixed tooltip names for MaA belonging to mercenaries and holy orders.
- Clarified effect localization for adding and removing house modifiers.
- Barred the AI from marriage for the defined time period only if their liege or top liege is the player.
- On_end effects for court position tasks are now run if the court position is revoked or the holder dies.
- Added clarifying text to travel speed and safety game concepts explaining that a character's contribution can never be below 0.
- Fixed empty state text for imperial armies tab.
- Added error logging when trying to check prowess with highest_skill trigger which isn't supported.
- Fixed guardian being referred to as parent in smuggling sweets event.
- Fixed wrong legacy requirement in legendary watchtower build condition.
- Fixed broken text if your dog saves you in a murder scheme.
- Fixed potential for ludicrously large county list tooltip in a romantic revenant event.
- Trampled baker in maunds of wheat now added to kill list.
- Improved current situation log entry for debt when landless.
- Jizya status feudal vassal contract can now be used by lieges with the jizya or tax non-believer tenets once again.
- Fixed missing text in mentor in governance events if target was not a governor.
- Fixed capitalization in rites of passage: hair-shaving event.
- Added missing tooltip for cooldown for chief eunuch recruitment.
- Fixed empty random outcomes in I could do better! event.
- Fixed broken text in Admires Legitimacy message.
- Fixed broken text in the event Prisoner Escaped!.
- Fixed overflowing description in event to belong somewhere.
- Fixed a devoted follower camp temperament event option not adding agent to scheme.
- Fixed close-zoom map icon offsets.
- Fixed Message Settings correctly saving or discarding changes.
- Fixed message settings shortcut obscuring 2nd character.
- Expanded trigger to make sure the AI only stops supporting a character's candidacy for the top title when they don't want it, instead of doing it for all titles.
- The Governor trait is now called Governess for women.
- Raiding armies will no longer count as defenders when being attacked in settlements without forts by the owner of the settlement.
- Fixed issue where some agent slots would show up as empty in schemes for rulers.
- Fixed issue where landless adventurers wouldnt be able to raise armies in provinces they had occupied.
- You can no longer ask a candidate to support themself when using the Request Appointment Support interaction.
- Loyalty or Fear Event no longer assumes landless rulers have vassals.
- Fixed the issue of the AI literally ALWAYS auto accepting wars. They have been convinced that they have something worth fighting for after all.
- Fixed the tournament cooldown loc for Make a Request.
- Fixed the issue of eyelashes brightening by decreasing specular light.
- Added audio stinger when creating a legend.
- Added cultural context to the message when losing Culture Head title.
- Fixed knight regiments count in the top-right counter.
- Prowess is no longer included in the "Sum of skills" used for sorting.
- Fixed court position appointment tooltip for camp officers.
- Clarified that only personal artifact claims are lost on losing a duel.
- Fixed text issues in murder event "En Route" referring to terrain, which wouldn't refer to the terrain of the target's capital as expected, and instead use the target's location.
- Updated the description of a couple of triggers for Grant Appointment to improve clarity.
- Fixed an OOS where domicile buildings could get mixed up.
- Fixed some edge cases where Commanders could be raised as Knights and still keep commanding their armies, potentially making them appear in two different locations at once.
- Improved several game concepts and messages related to the Harrying.
- Fixed crash to desktop from travels when stars aligned with the moon while the moon is in a waxing phase. That is to say: fixed CTD when a travel plan is created from the on_action of an ending travel plan during the daily update while the list of active travel plans is at its exact capacity.
- Fixed a crash when holding trying to calculate the number of free building slots.
- Fixed rare crash from vassal contracts when attempting to load older save games.
- Fixed various issues related to the usurpation of admin titles.
- Petition liege no longer always results in gold and renown for feudal characters.
- Non-Temujin Genghis Khans no longer get a secondary education trait upon becoming Great Khan, which could happen if they had a non-martial education trait.
- You will now actually return the reclaimed artifact to the contract giver in the Reclaim Artifact contract.
- Reduced frequency of spectacles for Scholar camp characters by 75%.
- Byzantium should now give in to same-culture populist demands to change the state faith much less often, and never at all if the populists demand a change to another religion (such as from Orthodox -> Ashari).
- Fixed an issue where you could get stuck if you tried to travel whilst doing a contract.
- Fixed an issue where you could get stuck if you were imprisoned while petitioning your liege.
- Fixed an issue where same-sex characters could end up married in specific circumstances, despite the game rules saying otherwise.
- Fixed an issue where you could not get prisoners from sieges in wars.
- Fixed some issues with the history files around Byzantine lands for those who don't own Roads to Power.
- Added rain VFX to the event 'Shelter from the Storm'
- The 'A Worthy Chief Eunuch' event is now more likely to have one alternative of your culture and faith.
- Fixed Byzantine Throne Room being lost when forming Rome
- Fixed Roman capital being in Rome even if you formed Rome as Byzantium
- Nobles holding only their Family Title will no longer join factions due to the Byzantine Emperor not being their De Jure Liege.
- Filters in the Courtiers window now correctly affect both hired positions and empty positions.
- Fixed a Modifiers OOS on hotjoin
- We will now return your gold and prestige if you choose to postpone the "Travels of " decision when you get the follow-up event.
- Fixed an issue where the contract "Eager Explorers" could get stuck if the contract employer died while you were doing it.
- Removed duplicate script for scaling modifiers using influence levels. These modifiers should be using nothing but influence levels now.
- Fixed numerous issues with the Duchy Expansion CB. Rather than always attempting to take the title, it will primarily vassalize the target if possible, and only usurp the title when applicable. This fixes issues where you would not always get all of the targeted land. The duchy title will also be created if it isn't already, and you take enough land to have more than 50% of its de jure.
- The Naval Duchy Expansion CB didn't match one-to-one in functionality with its land based equivalent. This has been fixed and the Naval variant now behaves as intended.
- Solved a "Secrets" hotjoin OOS.
- Leaving or switching sides in a war that you'd contracted yourself to assist in no longer blocks you from contracting again
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes add a helmet crest without a helmet to court physicians who are also knights.
- Fixed OOS where domicile buildings would be mixed up.
- Fixed inappropriate artifacts sometimes being made for aniconic faiths.
Interface
- When traveling with a Domicile (such as a Camp) a 3D model of cart and horses are shown on the map
- We now show if a character has been forced to take part in a faction in the faction commitment screen, so it is clearer who wants to be there versus those who have been forced to be there.
- Added tooltips to a couple of buttons that didn't have any in the imperial armies ui.
- Fix collapsible groups for the domicile buildings overview.
- Added an option to write a custom message to yourself.
- Added a shortcut from messages to their settings.
- Add foldable groups to message setting filters
- Added an accepted task contract HUD icon.
- Revamped Duel Event window.
- Fixed bug with background in Activity Event Window shifting in size and not scaling properly.
- Added improvements to window header art textures and various general improvements.
- Added a dead icon next to jousting portraits if the character died.
- Added Domicile information to the outliner, allowing you to see ongoing constructions, income, etc. at a glance.
- Updated the name of the overview tab in the domicile window to include the name of the domicile type.
- Added a max width to the Diarchy label in the Relationships tab, in order to keep it from colliding with the Lovers label.
- Added a sorting option for Candidate Score, available as a sorting for characters in applicable interactions and list when playing as administrative.
- Fixed text issues in event health.3103 referring to chambers and not tents for adventurers.
- History, Claimants, and other windows anchored to the Title Window will now open further to the right as to not overlap their parent window
- Fixed the Grant Title to Vassal list entries being misaligned and having information outside the screen
- The landless mapmode now only shows the CoA instead of the full portrait when zoomed out.
History
- Added some extra landless adventurers in 1066 & 867.
- The universities of Bologna and Oxford are now constructed if you start a game in 1178.
Game Content
- Added a new map cart model for when you are moving your camp.
- Added a new game concept for provincial/thematic armies, to better explain some of their mechanics. for example when they are returned. Added links to it where appropriate.
- Added new events when you as an administrative ruler change government, to better explain why and when your government changes.
- Added a new effect to the mortal adoration perk in the intrigue lifestyle for admin, allowing rulers to request provincial troops from lovers.
- Added a new effect to the friendly counsel perk in the diplomacy lifestyle for admin, allowing rulers to request provincial troops from friends.
- Added a new decision for administrative government, allowing characters to renounce any and all efforts to gain the throne, preventing the ai from supporting you and significantly reducing your candidate score. this should make it vastly easier to avoid becoming the emperor when you don't want to, yet be valid to compete for governorships.
- Setting a new culture for a character now looks for a culturally appropriate name equivalent from the name equivalency scripted lists.
- Made it possible to override the background on interactions via script.
- Added rival relation to realm conquered adventurers.
- Updated the county trigger in the Adopt Centralized Administrative decision to show how many counties you currently have, to make it easier to know how close, or far away, you are from completing the requirement.
User Modding
- Added two new flavourization rules.
- Adds ability to define custom character sorting options per interaction in script.
- Add has_domicile_construction trigger to domiciles.
- Updated the info file for character interactions to include additional information.
- Removed old save game optimization in regiment chunks where if a regiment's current soldier count and max soldier count were the same, it would instead write it as size. Normally this would not be in change logs, but we know some mods rely on this information, so here you go.
- Added add_supply effect to army scope.
- Added subtract_supply effect to army scope.
- Added clear_supply effect to army scope.
- Added refill_supply effect to army scope.
- Added army_supply trigger to army scopes.
- Changed gui structure in the court positions window by combining the empty and filled court positions into the same list.
- Added defines for default fallback sounds for messages with one for each type
[ 2024-10-08 13:04:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.13.0.4
[ 2024-10-03 08:04:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone! We're releasing a small update today to address some issues reported to us by the community. Notably, this update improves performance when rendering character portraits, as well as adding an easier way to check the status of your current contracts as an Adventurer. If you encounter any issues after todays update, please check our Known Issues list and submit a bug report if your issue isnt already listed there. [hr][/hr]
PC Update 1.13.0.4 Changelog
Bugfixes
- The game will now run expensive portrait script every few frames instead of every frame, to improve FPS.
- Fixed several triggers erroneously including Adventurers in the ending decisions for the Iberian Struggle, making them near impossible to succeed.
- Fixed recreating Byzantium via the Decision not setting the correct State Faith
- Fixed not being able to use interactions on Wanderers as an Adventurer.
- Removed unnecessary blockers for owning expansions on achievements that didn't warrant them.
- Fixed 'A Legacy to Last the Ages' Achievement not unlocking with newer legacy tracks.
Balance
- Adventurers can no longer use a hook to force faith conversion of landed rulers (that option was supposed to be restricted to lieges)
Interface
- Added a task contract icon to the bottom-right of the HUD, next to Schemes. It should be easier now to find and access your currently active contracts, to check their status or to abandon them.
[ 2024-10-03 08:04:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.13.0.3
[ 2024-09-26 13:09:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everybody! Were releasing a small hotfix today to address some of the issues reported to us by the community since the release of Roads to Power and the 1.13.0 Basileus Update on Tuesday. Most notably, Adventurers have received a few balance adjustments to their military strength and income. If you encounter any issues after todays update, please check our Known Issues list and submit a bug report if your issue isnt already listed there. We hope this hotfix improves your enjoyment of new content! [hr][/hr]
PC Update 1.13.0.3 Changelog
Balance
- Fixed an issue that would frequently cause adventurers using the Refill Men-at-Arms interaction to be told they were going to be charged significantly more gold or provisions than they were; this has meant removing scaling provision costs based on maximum army size, so the overall cost of refilling with provisions has been boosted by about 25% to compensate
- Rebalanced buffs to Adventurer MaA from officers and Buildings; they should now be much more consistent between unit types (moved additive bonuses to be multiplicative by-and-large) and on average lower. Adventurers will still be very powerful (esp. early on) but should not crush enemy armies into a fine powder with just a handful of upgrades.
- General contract gold rewards decreased by about ~30%
- Travel contract gold rewards decreased by about ~25%
- Crime contract gold rewards decreased by about ~16%
- The Settle Boundary Dispute contract had its gold rewards significantly decreased (~50%), due to it being so much easier than most other contracts
- Provision contract rewards decreased by approximately 1 tier:
- 500 -> 250
- 750 -> 500
- 1250 -> 1000
- 2000 -> 1500
- "Free Provisions" in the Visit Settlement decision has been nerfed
- Halved the amount you would gain from trying to charm the salesmen
- Halved the amount you would gain from trying to steal provisions
- The refund for aborting your Rite of Passage now matches the initial cost. Changing your mind should not conjure up gold and prestige from thin air.
- Nerfed the "Reinstated the Theodosian Borders" modifier gained from the decision to re-establish said borders. The Renown gain has been removed. It was, frankly, quite insane to give everyone in your dynasty a 10% boost. You'll gain a flat amount of Renown by taking the decision instead.
- Significantly reduced the amount of AI's willing to leave their realms behind to become adventurers, as it became almost impossible to manage a realm under some scenarios because your vassals kept packing their stuff up and leaving
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where loading an old save into 1.13 would cause armies to number in the billions
- Fixed an instance where the players Adventurer camp could get cleaned up because their heir wasnt cool enough, this should no longer happen and the player should be able to continue on their merry way!
- Fixed an issue where Bookmark adventurers wouldnt inherit from landed rulers properly (they would break free from realms rather than stay subjects as intended)
- Fixed an issue where your vassals would gain Strong Blackmail Hooks on you without you having a say in it
- Fixed some Administrative-specific events firing for non-Administrative rulers
- Fixed the issue with the lingering Eunuch story cycle, even after the Eunuch left court.
- Made sure you couldn't inherit any titles with the Gallivanter trait.
- Adventurers who win Crusades should now adopt a more logical government (more often Feudal instead of Clan)
- Fixed the 'Not Content to Serve' achievement not triggering when playing as Alexios (if youve already started a game as him before the update you need to restart unfortunately)
- Fixed a crash that occurs when loading old saves with mismatching provinces.
- Fixed guests showing up as blank agent spaces in the Agent selection window for Hostile Schemes.
- The estate/domicile window will now close rather than crash when the estate ceases to exist due to the character dying.
- Fixed the issue where you would occasionally try to settle down peacefully as the Champion of a Culture, and fail to receive any land.
- Ensured that you aren't petitioning your liege repeatedly in an infinite loop.
- You can no longer recruit a hooded figure infinitely from the tavern.
- You can no longer create Custom Rulers as Landless Administrative Vassals, as that would cause the game to crash.
- Fixed the issue where you could be asked if you wanted land in an Administrative realm, but not receive anything besides a Duchy title (and not transferring Counties), leaving you as a non-ruler
- Ensured that there is only one estate per Noble Family. This should also fix the issue where Estates could reset on inheritance.
- Fixed a crash when trying to calculate the number of free building slots in holdings.
- Fixed a crash in vassal contracts that could occur when loading an older save
- Fixed an OOS that could occur when Hotjoining
- Fixed the LotD soundtrack not showing in the Music Player
Interface
- The decision menu will now close itself when taking certain decisions; Visit Settlement, Gather Provisions, etc. This should make the flow smoother.
- The Relationship Reason icons will now be visible for other characters again in the relationships tab, so you can see the reason why two characters are friends, rivals, etc
[ 2024-09-26 13:09:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Roads to Power & Free 1.13.0 "Basileus" Update - Available Now
Hello everybody! Today we're releasing our Major Expansion for the year and the centerpiece of Chapter 3: Roads to Power. We're also releasing Update 1.13.0 "Basileus" alongside this expansion.
Check out the release trailer below, and then a partial changelog under that. The full changelog is well beyond the limits of what we can fit into a Steam announcement, so check out our forums for a more comprehensive list of changes coming in today's update!
[previewyoutube=ueVWWXG4JRg;full][/previewyoutube]
Read the full 1.13.0 changelog on our forums!
Expansion Features (Paid)
- Added Administrative Government: A new government heavily inspired by the Byzantine Empire which introduces a completely new playstyle focused around the bureaucracy of a large realm.
- Noble Families: Families are ranked and put into three categories depending on their overarching rating; Noble Families, Powerful Families, and Dominant Families, unlocking actions and various benefits as your family increases in importance.
- Family Attribute: Set an attribute for your Noble Family, giving you a small bonus to all members of your house.
- Influence: A new resource representing your political capital.
- Earn it by scheming, landing your family members, being a successful governor, and, most importantly, constructing buildings in your estate.
- Spend it on making your family members governors, or asking the emperor for various favors.
- New Succession Law: Appointment - Spend your influence to put yourself and the members of your family first in the line of succession of the many provinces throughout the realm.
- New Succession Law: Acclamation - Vie for control of the throne and become emperor. While skills, suitability, and family status is important, influence is the deciding factor in whether you will succeed in putting yourself, or someone else, on the throne.
- Has access to Estates: A domicile type owned and controlled by the head of a noble family.
- Upgrades and buildings provide valuable gold and influence income, and can be tailored to suit your own needs and playstyle.
- Governors: Administrative vassals act as governors, making use of several new features:
- Governor Efficiency: Based on a governors skill, they may increase or decrease the amount of taxes holdings provide, and the effectiveness of their Imperial Armies.
- Governance Issues: On-map interactive pieces on content, issues appear for governors to solve or somehow address, gaining valuable resources and Governor Trait experience.
- Governor Trait: A trait that represents a governors overall skill at governing. Experience is primarily gained by successfully solving Governance Issues, but older content has also been updated to provide experience whenever it makes sense, such as successfully reducing the impact of Plague outbreaks.
- 14 Political Schemes: A new category of schemes custom tailored to Administrative gameplay - Such as teaching others to become better governors, or raiding the Estate of another family.
- Imperial Armies: Recruit and maintain Men-at-Arms for titles.
- All governors can maintain a provincial army by recruiting any available Men-at-Arms for their provincial title.
- The liege has a unique access to armies, and can freely seize control of any available provincial army by spending influence.
- Other governors may request provincial armies from their fellow vassals, assuming they have a valid reason and enough influence.
- The efficiency of Men-at-Arms is affected by the respective governors Governor Efficiency.
- New obligation types: Have your vassals govern their provinces in the way you want with six new obligation types, Balanced, Civilian, Military, Frontier, Navy, and Imperial.
- Imperial Bureaucracy: A new law that replaces crown authority - Instead of individual levels of crown authority, the top liege of an Administrative realm sets the law level and all Administrative vassals will follow suit.
- State Faith: Decoupled from the ruler, a state faith is the primary faith of a given realm, making it easier to convert vassals to the state faith, but more difficult to convert them away from it.
- Reactive event content to the current state of the empire, the status of the emperor, and the nature of your governorate.
- Confirm Governorship: An Administrative version of Pay Homage sees the Emperor bestow his grace upon Appointments.
- Petition Emperor: Administrative vassals have new options for Petitions, including Gold, Family Governorship Appointments, and a bonus to House succession score.
- New Byzantine Throne Room - A spectacular throne room is made available for the Byzantine Empire (or any would-be conquerors of Constantinople!), including:
- Marble floors and walls.
- Stunning mosaics.
- Mechanical roaring lions with slamming tails.
- Added historical artifacts for Byzantium: hydraulic organ, (half of the) statue of the four tetrarchs, and statue of a Roman woman.
- New Dynasty Legacy: Bureaucracy - A new legacy with a focus on Administrative gameplay, unlocking new buildings for the Estate, improving Governor Efficiency, improving political schemes, and more.
- Added new Chariot Race activity.
- Host a Chariot Race to gain Legitimacy and Popular Opinion.
- Place bets on your favorite team, and favored charioteer, in an attempt to win large amounts of wealth.
- Interact with other nobles and governors, gaining influence, opinion, and more.
- Make skilled individuals compete for you by appointing them to the Champion Charioteer Court Position, providing you with influence.
- Added an exclusive Map Table, that reflects the marbled luxury of Byzantium.
- New Men-at-Arms:
- Ayrudzi - Light cavalry unit available to Armenians.
- Conrois - Heavy cavalry unit available to Normans.
- Akritai - Skirmisher unit available to Greeks.
- Ballistrai - Archer unit available to Greeks.
- Skoutatoi - Spearmen unit available to Greeks.
- Varangian Guards - Heavy infantry uniquely available as special Men-at-Arms recruitable only as title troops for the Byzantine Empire.
- New Greek Cultural Traditions: These have a heavy focus on Greek flavor, adding new Men-at-Arms, decisions, Court Positions, and more, as well as having several tie-ins with the new Administrative government type.
- Imperial Tagmata
- Roman Ceremonies
- Palace Politics
- Cultivated Sophistication
- New Norman Cultural Tradition: Audacious Cadets.
- New Armenian Cultural Tradition: Indomitable Azatani.
- Flavor Content: a stable of misc events, mainly for Greeks but some available also for neighboring cultures. Traits like Beardless Eunuch (with genuine hairlessness!) and Despoiler of Byzantium. New interactions and decisions such as:
- Castrate Kin
- Offer Eunuch
- Prepare Greek Fire
- Found the Varangian Guard
- Re-Establish the Theodosian Borders
- Refound the Pandidakterion
- Hold a Triumph
- Reinstate the Grain Dole
- Restore Greece
- Ask for Support - seek military aid from the Catholics of Western Europe.
- Evangelize the Pagans
- Restore the Byzantine Empire
- Establish Silk Production
- Commission Icon
- Commission Silk Regalia
- Splintered Crusade/Frankokratia: Catholic rulers can break their Crusade in two and redirect attackers in an assault against Byzantium. This unique war can destroy the Byzantine Empire, and begin a turbulent era as the new Latin Empire fights with Byzantine successor kingdoms.
- Crusader and Byzantine flavor events.
- Dynamic story cycle has multiple semi-historical outcomes and provides choices for both Byzantine vassals and victorious Crusaders.
- New decisions for Latins and Greeks to switch de jure kingdom ownership back and forth.
- Seize Imperial Duchy casus belli available to all rulers in former Byzantine lands: it provides special troops on attacker victory.
- Many new character assets to give the Byzantine Empire a distinct look:
- 26 unique new variants of byzantine clothing for both male and female characters
- 8 unique new variants of byzantine cloaks for both male and female characters
- 22 unique new variants of byzantine headgears for both male and female characters
- 12 unique new hairstyles for both male and female characters
- 4 new beards for male characters
- Added 7 New Artifacts:
- Statue of the Four Tetrarchs
- Statue of Constantine
- Statue of A Roman Woman
- Tree Automata
- Hydraulic Organ
- Byzantine Icons
- Throne of Solomon (Byzantine)
- Added 11 new music tracks
- 01 Roads to Power - Main Theme
- 02 Easter Prayers
- 03 Knowledge from the Past
- 04 Divine Mercy
- 05 Greek Fire
- 06 Ectenia
- 07 Constantinople at Sunrise
- 08 In the Name of the Lord
- 09 A Journey to Adventure
- 10 Awaiting Nightfall
- 11 The Winds of Fortune
- Added Co-Emperors
- Sufficiently powerful entrenched regents can, if their liege's title or culture would allow a co-emperor, forcibly appoint themselves as co-emperor.
- Co-emperors and their senior emperors can now publicly scapegoat each other to the rest of the realm, sacrificing their relationship for influence.
- Co-emperors may request (or coerce) a private despotate out of their senior emperor at a certain scales of power level.
- Co-emperors may be blinded, castrated, disfigured, maimed, or killed to remove them from office they may likewise do this to their senior emperor to steal control of the empire.
- Rulers able to have co-emperors can now (generally) dissolve powerful factions against them by appointing the faction leader as their co-emperor.
- Administrative emperors with Roman Ceremonies may now raise one of their children as a nominal co-emperor, graduating to a full co-emperor on their majority.
- Added Request Imperial Expedition interaction for co-emperors, allowing them access to a powerful cb to expand the realm's borders (_if_ their senior emperor is willing to risk it).
- Added Landless Adventurers, a new government focused on informal groups of characters (from small bands of scholars to large mercenary companies), allowing players to traverse the map and use the medieval world as a backdrop for smaller, character-focused roleplay.
- Contracts: adventurers cannot easily obtain significant fixed incomes, so they have to earn their gold and prestige from serving landed rulers via contracts. These can consist of mercenary work, decisions, event chains, and one-off events.
- Added 26 basic contracts.
- Added 4 dedicated warfare contracts for starting different types of wars + the mechanics for getting hired as a mercenary in an on-going war.
- Added 8 types of transport contracts.
- Added 11 misc/reactive contracts.
- Provisions: a new resource that adventurers require to travel across the map. As they travel, they deplete provisions (with the amount going up for some terrain types, as well as with the amount of Men-at-Arms they have).
- Has access to Camps: a domicile type owned by the leader of each adventuring party. Buildings and upgrades focus on the culture and specialities of the group youve gathered, providing powerful bonuses representing your position as a powerful (yet scorned) outsider.
- Several bespoke buildings are made available by your Camp Purpose
- Switch between six Camp Purposes representing different types of adventurers, each with different unlocks and a little added flavor:
- Travel the world as a Wanderer
- Kill for money as a Sword-for-Hire
- Teach as a Scholar
- Sojourn to far-off lands as an Explorer
- Commit many crimes as a Freebooter
- Regain a lost throne as a Legitimist
- Gallowsbait: adventurers that indulge in criminal acts will find that society no longer affords them the same respect a landed ruler would get. Petty crimes level up their gallowsbait trait, slowly making the world hate them.
- All landed-specific lifestyle perks have been redesigned for adventurers, effectively giving them a (mostly) entirely new set of lifestyle perks to choose from.
- The functionality for changing perk bonuses according to government is available for future vanilla use cases, as well as modding.
- Many ways to become an adventurer:
- A selection of historical adventurers can be picked from the ruler selection screen.
- Adventurers can be custom made in the ruler designer.
- Rulers that would otherwise game over due to losing all their land may become adventurers.
- Various ways for minor rulers or unlanded characters to spontaneously become adventurers during gameplay.
- Historical characters may appear in gameplay and become adventurers that players can switch to.
- Many new interactions for adventurers to interact with the world around them, from requesting support to buying land to leaving wars.
- Unlocked Iberian Struggle Offer Contract Assistance interaction for landless adventurers.
- Added adventurer-specific Casus Bellis, unlocked by reaching higher Prestige Levels.
- Added the Seize Realm scheme unlocked when reaching a very high level of Prestige, allowing you to seize an entire realm (while significantly destabilizing it).
- A new micro-activity, the camp revel, that replaces feasting for adventurers.
- Added special Men-at-Arms refill mechanics for adventurers.
- They pay no maintenance on their armies, but do not refill them naturally. Instead, they have a brace of interactions that they can take to refill them in exchange for currency costs.
- Successfully sieging holdings also returns a small amount of troops, enough for their armies to recoup most siege losses (and maybe a little extra) most of the time.
- Added 28 camp officers, the adventurer equivalent of court positions (which they generally replace), most of which are unlocked by different domicile upgrades.
- Added Visit Settlement decision, allowing adventurers to explore the holdings they pass through.
- Added 7 new major decisions for landless adventurers:
- Become a Great Conqueror
- The [Your Faith Here] Path
- The Travels of [Your Name]
- Found a Holding
- The Knight of the Swan
- Champion Your Culture
- Levy the Outcasts
- Added various minor decisions alongside, including a small one for going fishing.
- Added story content for:
- Hereward the Wake
- Hassan Sabbah
- Wallada bint al-Mustakfi
- El Cid
- Added an interaction for expelling adventurers from your realm.
- Contracts: adventurers cannot easily obtain significant fixed incomes, so they have to earn their gold and prestige from serving landed rulers via contracts. These can consist of mercenary work, decisions, event chains, and one-off events.
Free Features
- Added new game rules
- Name of Byzantium - Dont like the name of the Byzantine Empire? Pick the name you like the most with several options available!
- Added game rule for giving the historic ruler of Munster, Toirdelbach Mac Tadg, his rightful fiefdom (including becoming the player character if Murchad was selected; with credit to maniacal inc's thorough video on the subject for the switcharoo).
- Added a game rule allowing manual determination of the Conquest of England's victor in 1066. If left to default, this will be overridden if Hereward is a player and no one else is playing a key belligerent.
- Added a small slew of game rules for turning various arguably-administrative historical empires (plus the Carolingians, who only recently transitioned out of being administrative) into administrative empires, even if these realms aren't best suited to the mechanics of the government or already have their own distinct government flavors.
- Added game rules to turn off the Iberian Struggle and/or Iranian Intermezzo mechanics, should you wish to play without them.
- Added an optional game rule for restricting the creation of new empire titles neighboring/sharing a de jure with existing empires unless you have a stronger military, are married to their close family, or have a strong hook on them.
- Added a new start date, 1178, featuring two bookmarks: Call of the Empire and Swords of Faith.
- Added a grand city style event for visiting Constantinople while traveling.
- Added the Conqueror feature - rulers across the world can now be designated as a great conqueror, giving them special bonuses, content, and altering their AI behavior.
- Conquerors switch over to a hyper-aggressive version of the AI, which is much faster to declare wars, can declare multiple wars at once, and invests all of their resources into warfare, Men at Arms, and means with which to declare more and better wars (such as hunt activities if theyre low on prestige and youve disabled their special bonuses via game rules, or taxation tours if theyre low on gold, etc.). They switch to the objectively best lifestyle focuses, use schemes in a very realpolitik way, etc.
- Frequency, inheritance, and extra bonuses are fully customizable via Game Rules.
- Added Message Settings: customize notifications to your own liking to have them appear in the message feed, as toasts, or pop-ups.
- Added the Vassal Directives feature - You will now be able to give Directives to your vassals, presuming that they respect you!
- Directives are either given from the character interaction menu, or via the Vassals tab in My Realm, the latter having the benefit of showing you the current directive. All government types can issue directives to their vassals - if you fulfill the triggers!
- Administrative realms can give directives without the Vassal being able to refuse.
- Historical Characters can now appear across the map!
- Historical Characters such as Hildegard von Bingen or Ibn Battuta will appear in their historical birthplaces and seek employment with the local ruler. Recruit them, or set them on their own path throughout the world!
- Customize how youre notified of their appearance via a new Game Rule.
- If you own Roads to Power, you can set out as an Adventurer as one of these characters should they spawn in your realm.
- Choose a New Destiny
- When you die, you now get the opportunity to switch to another character of your Dynasty that is not necessarily your direct Heir. Our game is a dynastic simulator, and we want to unlock playing through more branches of your Dynasty!
- Players will be offered up to three categories of Destiny characters: An Interesting Destiny, a Challenging Destiny, and an Adventurous Destiny. Each category aims to offer a different flavor. The last category specifically will allow you to go Adventuring, if you own Roads to Power!
- You can also select a Favorite Child (direct child or grand-child), who will then always appear as a New Destiny character. They will not get any extra titles or gold - in fact their siblings might get a bit jealous of their favorite status.
- For those who like to roll the Die of Fate - we have a special Random Destiny option with several random variants, to continue as any Dynasty character. It might still be your Heir, if that is what Fate determines.
- You only get to Choose a New Destiny if you have a valid heir when you die. Securing your succession is an important part of CK3, and we want everyone to keep respecting that goal.
- Character of the Week: Each week a new character will be highlighted when you start the game, giving you information about them and a suggestion for goals to achieve!
- Music Player: Pick the track you want to listen to and customize which tracks to play
- Reworked the Scheme System
- Schemes have been reworked to include several new parameters, affecting the overall success and progression of any given scheme
- Success Chance: The current success chance of a scheme
- Potential: The maximum potential success chance a scheme may get
- Phases: Schemes have phases, where the length can vary between different types, which increases success chance and provides advantages with each completed phase
- Secrecy: How likely it is a scheme is discovered over time and when the scheme is executed
- Breaches: The number of time a scheme is discovered - Gain enough breaches and the scheme will fail
- Advantages: Spend these to recruit agents and increase the success chance when the scheme is executed
- Schemes utilizing agents now have dedicated agent slots - Each agent boosts the scheme in different ways
- Basic schemes only have a success chance and a single phase - Usually with a longer duration - Sway is an example of a basic scheme
- Updated characters portrait animations in older scheme events
- Added 19 new Special Buildings
- Etchmiadzin Cathedral
- Cattolica di Stilo
- Cilician Gates
- Church of Saint Lazarus
- Church of Saint Sophia
- Despots Palace
- Hagios Demetrios
- Hosios Loukas
- Jvari Monastery
- Kassiopi Castle
- Maidens Tower
- Meteora
- Mount Athos
- Patras Castle
- Saint Catherine's Monastery
- Sant'Apollinare Nuovo
- Sumela Monastery
- Temple of the Theotokos
- Troglodytic Settlement
- Added co-monarchies for king+ feudal rulers, a permanent diarchy type that allows early access to designate heir in exchange for opting into one
- Added new Achievements:
- The Old Man of the Mountain
- Band of Brothers
- Mio Cid
- Birthright
- Historically Inaccurate
- Quantum Leap
- Regnum Dei
- New Management, same as the Old Management
- Rags to Riches to Rags to Riches
- Tamar Mepe
- Despoiler of Byzantium
- Chaos is a Ladder
- Epic Paperwork
- Against the Odds
- In Good Estate
- It's OK, I Got a Permit
- Despotic
- Byzywork
- Not Content to Serve
- Started from the Bottom now we're ERE
[ 2024-09-24 16:14:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #157 - Schemes & Stories
Alright, those of you who are paying attention will have likely seen the reworked schemes interface in several previous dev diaries what have we done here, and why have we done it?
[The new intrigue window, with a murder scheme spinning up] Put simply, we felt the old scheme system was a bit too random. Its difficult to conduct political machinations when the machinery by which you politic is more of a catapult than a crossbow. Itd rarely be practical to have a foe murdered on a strict timer (say, for war or a timely inheritance), but more than that, it was very binary. You could either almost definitely pull a scheme off, or it wasnt even worth attempting, with a very small middle ground for maybe-worthwhile schemes. This wasnt helped by most positive aspects of a scheme being strongly positively correlated, so if your chance of doing it at all isnt high, then youll likely also be slow and lacking in secrecy. Likewise, when on the receiving end of a scheme, you were generally either completely safe or utterly screwed, with no real room for manoeuvre or concern due to changing circumstances and enemies. If Ive got good intrigue and my spymaster likes me, you aint murdering me. What we wanted to do was to significantly widen the gap in the middle between schemes done the second I start it and scheme isnt even worth attempting, making it easier to both murder and be murdered by allowing characters to invest resources other than intrigue and gold in their schemes, as well as making agents more individually meaningful. The idea has been to give you more precise tools and interactivity within schemes, without notably increasing the micro required to conduct a basic one.
[An adventurer contract scheme] Early on in development, we had actually intended for most of what adventurers do to be different varieties of schemes that would require vastly different characters as agents. This didnt turn out quite how wed hoped, so we iterated, and eventually pivoted away from it to the current contract model a few scheme contracts are still scattered through adventurers, though, theyre just not the only thing they do.
We wanted to get away from agents as faceless masses of people who hate a schemes target and little else. Most of the time, you dont even know whos in your scheme unless theyre a victims spymaster. Instead, we wanted agents to be generally just a few people who you pick carefully, fitting the right characters to the right job. What weve done to accomplish this is reduce the number of agents you get down to a general max of around 5, and give them each a specific role in the scheme, their agent type.
[The tooltip for an agent type, the Footpad, which makes schemes faster] These roles all boost some aspect of the plot, so one might help it go faster, another helps keep it secret, and a third helps increase success chance. Different agent types have different requirements, so not every character is a good fit for every role, and different schemes have different agent types available.
[The tooltip for an agent type, the Assassin, which increases a schemes maximum success chance] At the start of a scheme, you choose which broad type of agents you want to focus on from a set of several packages, generally selecting between focusing on success chance, focusing on speed, focusing on secrecy, or going for a balanced mix. We initially trialled adding agents randomly over time from event options, letting the player select between two choices, but this proved frustrating and micro-intensive, so we moved away from it and towards the current system of pre-defined groups.
[The new murder interaction window] What we hoped to create here was a situation where you might have different specialities within your scheme based on who you could get to join it, as well as be able to configure the same scheme type in different ways for different purposes heres my speed-focused murder scheme, were gonna get the job done and fast but it wont be quiet, that type of thing. In order to humanise them a bit more, weve also added a smattering of agent-specific (rather than scheme-specific) events. These let them have interpersonal conflicts, learn on the job, or bond over common hatreds, as well as dole out rewards for selecting agents that work well together and punishments for doing things like putting two nemeses in the same plot and asking them to work closely together.
[An agent event] Lastly, we do still have an auto-invite agents button, so you dont have to micro-manage agent adding if you dont want to. The button wont always grab the best person, and it wont help you with bribes or anything, but if someone would be easy enough to murder, itll do the job.
Agents can now come from a broader pool, too; this changes a bit per scheme, but notably you can often bring in your own courtiers and vassals to help you conduct illicit business abroad, making intrigue-focused realms better able to wage war from the shadows without depending entirely on their targets weaknesses.
[Inviting an agent to a scheme, with many new bribes pictured though not all] In order to lure in better possible characters, weve added many new types of bribes besides hooks and gold: if you really, really, _really_ need someone dead, well, you can empty your treasury, expend your good word, maybe proffer land or use your schemes progress to sway them.
Other than agents, the other big change weve made is to scheme progression. Under the old system, a scheme had a random chance to progress every X months. This could be very slow and ponderous, and meant that (barring event content interference) you could not murder someone in less than ten months, regardless of your own skill or how much people hated them. Your chance to succeed was also largely fixed outside of adding more agents. You plod through the progress bar chunks, then you execute the scheme. Under the new system, your success chance starts out low (sometimes below 0%, especially for higher tier targets), and grows over time up to a maximum. Instead of having a progress bar with discrete chunks, your speed determines the interval of time it takes to gain a boost of success chance. Every time you complete one of these phases, you gain an advantage point: you can use these to help you recruit agents and a certain amount are required to execute a scheme. This means that you: Start with a low chance to succeed (exactly how low mostly depending on the target). [olist] Grow your actual success chance by a certain amount every phase (exactly how much is mostly determined by your intrigue skill).
Can increase your speed, giving you faster phases, by adding the right agents.
Increase your maximum success, your schemes potential, by adding the right agents.
The general idea is that high intrigue will very much aid you in speedy, stealthy kills, but strong agent composition is needed to get to the finish line reliably. Scheme potential is tied extremely heavily to agents, having a base of only 30%, so you cant do schemes by yourself reliably.
[/olist]
[The tooltip for a schemes current success chance, showing how much has been gained over time] TL;DR = theres a bar for success chance that grows over time, you affect how the bar grows over time and to what level, and you decide when you want to risk an ending.
Since the new system makes schemes, on average, much shorter, weve also increased the frequency with which theyre detected. Theres a grace period of about six months, and then after that, a low chance to be detected monthly. To help you make an informed choice about whether its worthwhile executing a scheme early, weve formalised the old system of segmented scheme discovery into a simple number that you can see in the interface, your schemes breaches. Every time your target gets a notification about your scheme, whether it be rumours of someone plotting to kill them or an agent rooted out or the actual scheme being exposed, that constitutes a breach. When you hit the maximum number of breaches, your scheme is automatically destroyed.
Once youre ready, you execute (most) schemes manually. If youve accrued excess advantages, you can use them to boost your scheme success even further here. After you execute, the scheme proceeds just like it used to.
[Schemes may now be executed manually, as pictured] This lets you make a meaningful choice on when to finalise your plans: is 60% success good enough if this dude is bearing down on me with an army? Can I simply murder a rival commander or troublesome spouse? How many breaches can we afford before discovery? Likewise, weve done some magic behind the scenes to make the blocking of different types of murder a bit more consistent. The mechanics of this are a bit specific, but in short, rather than the prior system of determining which murder method was being used then looking to see if the victim had anything that might block it (which made balancing murder blocks virtually impossible), we roll two flat checks. One to see if theyve got a one-use murder blocker (e.g., a dog throwing itself in front of the knife) and then pick the highest from that list and one vs. repeatable murder blockers (e.g., bodyguards), which takes a sum of all repeatable chances to a max of 75%.
Another thing about schemes as-is is that you cant really do much about them. You can replace your spymaster (if you didnt hire the best one you could before unpausing on day 1), and you can set them to Disrupt Schemes (if you werent already just defaulting to that). To complement a more varied scheme system with more tools to interact with it from the schemers side, weve added scheme countermeasures. These provide ways to proactively oppose hostile schemes, acting a little bit like council tasks. Their benefits are varied and excellent for buying time, but each also comes with severe drawbacks that mean you dont want to have one toggled on for long without good reason.
[The various countermeasure focuses] If you suspect someone is plotting to murder you or seduce someone you dont want seduced, countermeasures can give you a solid way to oppose them in the short to medium term at the cost of potential eventual instability. All countermeasures come with different tiers, generally unlocked by religious tenets or cultural traditions, though sometimes traits help too. These generally lower the penalties and increase the effects, meaning that some cultures, faiths, and just people are better able to resist scheming than others.
[A specific countermeasure, reducing opposing secrecy drastically for a significant cost] Odds replace the old scheme chance prediction they dont give an exact value, because thats very difficult to successfully build with the new mechanics, but they give a general idea of how likely a scheme is to succeed.
[Sway, a basic scheme, still uses simple mechanics] Basic schemes are what weve done with schemes that dont have agents: they have a simple success chance prediction ala the old system, and one long phase after which they execute automatically. We actually did experiment with adding agents to all schemes initially (even sway and seduction), but this proved very unfit for purpose during play-testing, so we created basic schemes as a way to allow plotting without all the extra clicks of the new agents system. [hr][/hr]
Coming up this DLC, weve got some pre-scripted historical story content for four of our new landless adventurer characters. Unless Im very much mistaken, this is CKs first venture into this type of thing since Charlemagne aaaaallll the way back in CK2, and Im sure some of you are curious as to why. As people came over from the Legends of the Dead team to Roads to Power, we had a bit of a grey zone whilst they were onboarding to working on a different DLC. We took a bit of a risk, and asked some of them to try making story content for our more famous landless adventurers we had some really cool people lined up, and couldnt easily represent why without giving them some bespoke mechanics (is it really Hassan Sabbah if you dont found the assassins? Can you call Hereward Hereward if he never murders a Norman?). That just sorta ballooned into this experiment into narrative content. As a result, we ended up with narrative content for four characters:
[The new adventurer bookmark] All story content is optional, so if you dont want to engage in it, you dont have to.
As El Cid, youll go through a small chain representing his travails through Iberia after being exiled by his foolishly-misled lord, King Sancho the Strong of Castille. As you progress, you will get opportunities to demonstrate your loyalty or assert your independence. If you remain steadfast and resolute even in exile, King Sancho will doubtless eventually welcome you back to the fold (assuming he lives), though a more ambitious Rodrigo may set his eyes on the prize of Valencia in the south. El Cid also starts with many of his historical friends and family, like Alvar Fanez & Martin Antolinez, as well as his uncle, nephew, and mother. Alas, in 1066, he is not yet married, though his future wife Jimena de Oviedo is yet available to romance and elope with from her brothers court. He begins as a Sword-for-Hire, and has plenty of work for him amidst the Iberian Struggle.
Wallada is the last of the Umayyads in 1066, daughter of Caliph Muhammad of Andalusia, and inheritor of a great legacy and great wealth. Historically, she spent her life writing poetry, tutoring women at a school she founded, and generally causing consternation in her home city of Cordoba. She never married, nor did she have children, though she did take a broad variety of lovers, making her something of an eccentric by the standards of her time. As an adventurer, her story content revolves around securing an adopted child, tactical use of seduction and romance, and writing and selling poetry in order to level up both her unique Violet Poet trait and the Double-Moon Tome (an artefact collating her works). She can also found a literary salon for the ages in a county of her choosing, once she has acquired suitably talented courtiers. Wallada begins as a Scholar with ample starting gold and a decent prestige level. As she is quite old in 1066, her story may be inherited by her chosen successor and played for an additional generation.
Hasan Sabbah is not a particularly religious teenager in 1066. He is, however, about to become one after a chance encounter with an Ismaili preacher, he finds himself radicalised and set on a path to found the deadly Hashashins, eventually becoming the legendary Old Man of the Mountain. As an adventurer, his story content lets him fast-track the religious conversion of counties. By doing so, he will eventually be summoned to Egypt, convert once more to Nizarism, and then take on the fierce might of Seljuk Persia. With the people of the land behind him (or not, depending on how conversion goes), Hasan tries to lead a revolution against the Sunni Turks. Eventually, he may found the Assassins, leaving them in a mountain fastness to defend all good Nizaris going forwards. Hasan starts play as a Scholar, though given the nature of the work set out before him, he may not stay one for long.
Hereward begins exiled to the continent, but unless theres a player involved in the Conquest, he wont stay that way for long. The decisive win of William of Normandy puts a Norman yoke on English necks, and begins the elaborate mechanics of the Harrying of the North, where Hereward, William, Norman invaders, and Anglo-Saxon lords compete to pacify or incite the countrys populace to revolt against the new status quo. As he kills Normans and rallies the locals against their attacker, Hereward levels his unique trait, becoming a better and better guerrilla fighter in his native fenlands in the east of England. Hereward begins play as a Freebooter, and history could hardly describe him as anything else.
Weve also got a smattering of smaller pieces of story content available Prince Suleyman Qutalmishoglu, another bookmark character, has a small introductory event where he chooses how to react to his exile in the mountains of Cilicia
Basileus Basileos has an introductory event featuring the (early) murder of his predecessor and a tie-in to the Many Roads to Power comic
and Siward Barn has a small chain forking off of Herewards content where you can go on to found the colony of New England in its natural, rightful, obvious place the shores of the Black Sea.
Right, and that about does it for our final dev diary before release. Next week will be the release of Roads to Power itself! [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
[ 2024-09-17 12:02:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome comrades! Im Wokeg, and today well be going over some of the upcoming changes to the scheme system, as well as some of the story content were adding for a few lucky landless adventurers this DLC.
My word count is going to be restricted in this Dev Diary because Community says that if I cant edit myself down, theyll edit it for me. Please send help.
[CMs note: Woe, word-count limit be upon ye.]
Discuss Dev Diary #157 on our forums!
Schemes
Alright, those of you who are paying attention will have likely seen the reworked schemes interface in several previous dev diaries what have we done here, and why have we done it?
[The new intrigue window, with a murder scheme spinning up] Put simply, we felt the old scheme system was a bit too random. Its difficult to conduct political machinations when the machinery by which you politic is more of a catapult than a crossbow. Itd rarely be practical to have a foe murdered on a strict timer (say, for war or a timely inheritance), but more than that, it was very binary. You could either almost definitely pull a scheme off, or it wasnt even worth attempting, with a very small middle ground for maybe-worthwhile schemes. This wasnt helped by most positive aspects of a scheme being strongly positively correlated, so if your chance of doing it at all isnt high, then youll likely also be slow and lacking in secrecy. Likewise, when on the receiving end of a scheme, you were generally either completely safe or utterly screwed, with no real room for manoeuvre or concern due to changing circumstances and enemies. If Ive got good intrigue and my spymaster likes me, you aint murdering me. What we wanted to do was to significantly widen the gap in the middle between schemes done the second I start it and scheme isnt even worth attempting, making it easier to both murder and be murdered by allowing characters to invest resources other than intrigue and gold in their schemes, as well as making agents more individually meaningful. The idea has been to give you more precise tools and interactivity within schemes, without notably increasing the micro required to conduct a basic one.
[An adventurer contract scheme] Early on in development, we had actually intended for most of what adventurers do to be different varieties of schemes that would require vastly different characters as agents. This didnt turn out quite how wed hoped, so we iterated, and eventually pivoted away from it to the current contract model a few scheme contracts are still scattered through adventurers, though, theyre just not the only thing they do.
Making Agents People
We wanted to get away from agents as faceless masses of people who hate a schemes target and little else. Most of the time, you dont even know whos in your scheme unless theyre a victims spymaster. Instead, we wanted agents to be generally just a few people who you pick carefully, fitting the right characters to the right job. What weve done to accomplish this is reduce the number of agents you get down to a general max of around 5, and give them each a specific role in the scheme, their agent type.
[The tooltip for an agent type, the Footpad, which makes schemes faster] These roles all boost some aspect of the plot, so one might help it go faster, another helps keep it secret, and a third helps increase success chance. Different agent types have different requirements, so not every character is a good fit for every role, and different schemes have different agent types available.
[The tooltip for an agent type, the Assassin, which increases a schemes maximum success chance] At the start of a scheme, you choose which broad type of agents you want to focus on from a set of several packages, generally selecting between focusing on success chance, focusing on speed, focusing on secrecy, or going for a balanced mix. We initially trialled adding agents randomly over time from event options, letting the player select between two choices, but this proved frustrating and micro-intensive, so we moved away from it and towards the current system of pre-defined groups.
[The new murder interaction window] What we hoped to create here was a situation where you might have different specialities within your scheme based on who you could get to join it, as well as be able to configure the same scheme type in different ways for different purposes heres my speed-focused murder scheme, were gonna get the job done and fast but it wont be quiet, that type of thing. In order to humanise them a bit more, weve also added a smattering of agent-specific (rather than scheme-specific) events. These let them have interpersonal conflicts, learn on the job, or bond over common hatreds, as well as dole out rewards for selecting agents that work well together and punishments for doing things like putting two nemeses in the same plot and asking them to work closely together.
[An agent event] Lastly, we do still have an auto-invite agents button, so you dont have to micro-manage agent adding if you dont want to. The button wont always grab the best person, and it wont help you with bribes or anything, but if someone would be easy enough to murder, itll do the job.
Agent Acquisition
Agents can now come from a broader pool, too; this changes a bit per scheme, but notably you can often bring in your own courtiers and vassals to help you conduct illicit business abroad, making intrigue-focused realms better able to wage war from the shadows without depending entirely on their targets weaknesses.
[Inviting an agent to a scheme, with many new bribes pictured though not all] In order to lure in better possible characters, weve added many new types of bribes besides hooks and gold: if you really, really, _really_ need someone dead, well, you can empty your treasury, expend your good word, maybe proffer land or use your schemes progress to sway them.
Anatomy of a Scheme
Other than agents, the other big change weve made is to scheme progression. Under the old system, a scheme had a random chance to progress every X months. This could be very slow and ponderous, and meant that (barring event content interference) you could not murder someone in less than ten months, regardless of your own skill or how much people hated them. Your chance to succeed was also largely fixed outside of adding more agents. You plod through the progress bar chunks, then you execute the scheme. Under the new system, your success chance starts out low (sometimes below 0%, especially for higher tier targets), and grows over time up to a maximum. Instead of having a progress bar with discrete chunks, your speed determines the interval of time it takes to gain a boost of success chance. Every time you complete one of these phases, you gain an advantage point: you can use these to help you recruit agents and a certain amount are required to execute a scheme. This means that you: Start with a low chance to succeed (exactly how low mostly depending on the target). [olist]
[The tooltip for a schemes current success chance, showing how much has been gained over time] TL;DR = theres a bar for success chance that grows over time, you affect how the bar grows over time and to what level, and you decide when you want to risk an ending.
Secrecy
Since the new system makes schemes, on average, much shorter, weve also increased the frequency with which theyre detected. Theres a grace period of about six months, and then after that, a low chance to be detected monthly. To help you make an informed choice about whether its worthwhile executing a scheme early, weve formalised the old system of segmented scheme discovery into a simple number that you can see in the interface, your schemes breaches. Every time your target gets a notification about your scheme, whether it be rumours of someone plotting to kill them or an agent rooted out or the actual scheme being exposed, that constitutes a breach. When you hit the maximum number of breaches, your scheme is automatically destroyed.
Execution
Once youre ready, you execute (most) schemes manually. If youve accrued excess advantages, you can use them to boost your scheme success even further here. After you execute, the scheme proceeds just like it used to.
[Schemes may now be executed manually, as pictured] This lets you make a meaningful choice on when to finalise your plans: is 60% success good enough if this dude is bearing down on me with an army? Can I simply murder a rival commander or troublesome spouse? How many breaches can we afford before discovery? Likewise, weve done some magic behind the scenes to make the blocking of different types of murder a bit more consistent. The mechanics of this are a bit specific, but in short, rather than the prior system of determining which murder method was being used then looking to see if the victim had anything that might block it (which made balancing murder blocks virtually impossible), we roll two flat checks. One to see if theyve got a one-use murder blocker (e.g., a dog throwing itself in front of the knife) and then pick the highest from that list and one vs. repeatable murder blockers (e.g., bodyguards), which takes a sum of all repeatable chances to a max of 75%.
Countermeasures, Odds, & Basic Schemes
Another thing about schemes as-is is that you cant really do much about them. You can replace your spymaster (if you didnt hire the best one you could before unpausing on day 1), and you can set them to Disrupt Schemes (if you werent already just defaulting to that). To complement a more varied scheme system with more tools to interact with it from the schemers side, weve added scheme countermeasures. These provide ways to proactively oppose hostile schemes, acting a little bit like council tasks. Their benefits are varied and excellent for buying time, but each also comes with severe drawbacks that mean you dont want to have one toggled on for long without good reason.
[The various countermeasure focuses] If you suspect someone is plotting to murder you or seduce someone you dont want seduced, countermeasures can give you a solid way to oppose them in the short to medium term at the cost of potential eventual instability. All countermeasures come with different tiers, generally unlocked by religious tenets or cultural traditions, though sometimes traits help too. These generally lower the penalties and increase the effects, meaning that some cultures, faiths, and just people are better able to resist scheming than others.
[A specific countermeasure, reducing opposing secrecy drastically for a significant cost] Odds replace the old scheme chance prediction they dont give an exact value, because thats very difficult to successfully build with the new mechanics, but they give a general idea of how likely a scheme is to succeed.
[Sway, a basic scheme, still uses simple mechanics] Basic schemes are what weve done with schemes that dont have agents: they have a simple success chance prediction ala the old system, and one long phase after which they execute automatically. We actually did experiment with adding agents to all schemes initially (even sway and seduction), but this proved very unfit for purpose during play-testing, so we created basic schemes as a way to allow plotting without all the extra clicks of the new agents system. [hr][/hr]
Stories
Coming up this DLC, weve got some pre-scripted historical story content for four of our new landless adventurer characters. Unless Im very much mistaken, this is CKs first venture into this type of thing since Charlemagne aaaaallll the way back in CK2, and Im sure some of you are curious as to why. As people came over from the Legends of the Dead team to Roads to Power, we had a bit of a grey zone whilst they were onboarding to working on a different DLC. We took a bit of a risk, and asked some of them to try making story content for our more famous landless adventurers we had some really cool people lined up, and couldnt easily represent why without giving them some bespoke mechanics (is it really Hassan Sabbah if you dont found the assassins? Can you call Hereward Hereward if he never murders a Norman?). That just sorta ballooned into this experiment into narrative content. As a result, we ended up with narrative content for four characters:
- El Cid
- Wallada bint al-Mustakfi
- Hasan Sabbah
- Hereward the Wake
[The new adventurer bookmark] All story content is optional, so if you dont want to engage in it, you dont have to.
El Cid
As El Cid, youll go through a small chain representing his travails through Iberia after being exiled by his foolishly-misled lord, King Sancho the Strong of Castille. As you progress, you will get opportunities to demonstrate your loyalty or assert your independence. If you remain steadfast and resolute even in exile, King Sancho will doubtless eventually welcome you back to the fold (assuming he lives), though a more ambitious Rodrigo may set his eyes on the prize of Valencia in the south. El Cid also starts with many of his historical friends and family, like Alvar Fanez & Martin Antolinez, as well as his uncle, nephew, and mother. Alas, in 1066, he is not yet married, though his future wife Jimena de Oviedo is yet available to romance and elope with from her brothers court. He begins as a Sword-for-Hire, and has plenty of work for him amidst the Iberian Struggle.
Wallada bint al-Mustakfi
Wallada is the last of the Umayyads in 1066, daughter of Caliph Muhammad of Andalusia, and inheritor of a great legacy and great wealth. Historically, she spent her life writing poetry, tutoring women at a school she founded, and generally causing consternation in her home city of Cordoba. She never married, nor did she have children, though she did take a broad variety of lovers, making her something of an eccentric by the standards of her time. As an adventurer, her story content revolves around securing an adopted child, tactical use of seduction and romance, and writing and selling poetry in order to level up both her unique Violet Poet trait and the Double-Moon Tome (an artefact collating her works). She can also found a literary salon for the ages in a county of her choosing, once she has acquired suitably talented courtiers. Wallada begins as a Scholar with ample starting gold and a decent prestige level. As she is quite old in 1066, her story may be inherited by her chosen successor and played for an additional generation.
Hasan Sabbah
Hasan Sabbah is not a particularly religious teenager in 1066. He is, however, about to become one after a chance encounter with an Ismaili preacher, he finds himself radicalised and set on a path to found the deadly Hashashins, eventually becoming the legendary Old Man of the Mountain. As an adventurer, his story content lets him fast-track the religious conversion of counties. By doing so, he will eventually be summoned to Egypt, convert once more to Nizarism, and then take on the fierce might of Seljuk Persia. With the people of the land behind him (or not, depending on how conversion goes), Hasan tries to lead a revolution against the Sunni Turks. Eventually, he may found the Assassins, leaving them in a mountain fastness to defend all good Nizaris going forwards. Hasan starts play as a Scholar, though given the nature of the work set out before him, he may not stay one for long.
Hereward the Wake
Hereward begins exiled to the continent, but unless theres a player involved in the Conquest, he wont stay that way for long. The decisive win of William of Normandy puts a Norman yoke on English necks, and begins the elaborate mechanics of the Harrying of the North, where Hereward, William, Norman invaders, and Anglo-Saxon lords compete to pacify or incite the countrys populace to revolt against the new status quo. As he kills Normans and rallies the locals against their attacker, Hereward levels his unique trait, becoming a better and better guerrilla fighter in his native fenlands in the east of England. Hereward begins play as a Freebooter, and history could hardly describe him as anything else.
Smaller Stories
Weve also got a smattering of smaller pieces of story content available Prince Suleyman Qutalmishoglu, another bookmark character, has a small introductory event where he chooses how to react to his exile in the mountains of Cilicia
Basileus Basileos has an introductory event featuring the (early) murder of his predecessor and a tie-in to the Many Roads to Power comic
and Siward Barn has a small chain forking off of Herewards content where you can go on to found the colony of New England in its natural, rightful, obvious place the shores of the Black Sea.
Right, and that about does it for our final dev diary before release. Next week will be the release of Roads to Power itself! [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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[ 2024-09-17 12:02:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #156 - Modding & Achievements
When building the feature, I made it in close collaboration with artists, designers and UX. Nobody wanted to work with another activity locale window again. So gathering the learnings and feedback, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone to set the amount of building slots, their positioning or size and appearance based on triggers, all while having it updated by hot reloading in real time.
To get some terminology out of the way, we decided on 3 different domicile building slot types:
[Highlighted external building slot states of the Camp]
[Highlighted internal building slots of the Estate]
With Roads to Power we add Camps and Estates as two new domicile types. What domicile type to use is set per government type. Each domicile has base_external_slots which sets how many slots always are unlocked before the domicile_external_slots_capacity_add modifier is applied. In the domicile_building_slots array you define the amount of external building slots the domicile type has. Because its an array youre free to add as many or as few building slots as you like. Camps have fewer building slots than Estates so we made its artwork slightly bigger to get the zoomed in feeling. For each slot you can define if its main or external, its position and size and what image to select for the empty and under construction slot states (meaning each slot can look unique if you so wish).
[Database of domicile type displaying how the array of domicile building slots is defined] The order of definition is only relevant when drawing the slots on the screen as the first items will appear behind the last items of the array. In the above example you can see we have several empty_slot_asset defined where slot appearance is selected by a trigger depending on current location. Make sure to have at least one empty_slot_asset and one construction_slot_asset per slot to cover the states. The background of the window is selected in the same manner by defining domicile_asset that will pick the first triggered match starting from the top.
[Database of domicile type showing how window background is selected using triggered domicile assets] If a domicile type uses provisions or not while moving is determined by a bool. Whether the domicile type will have a followers window and handle follower temperament will automatically be enabled if you start adding domicile_temperament_low_modifier or domicile_temperament_high_modifier.
[Example building of the domicile building database] Some things in the above example are self explanatory but other parts are not that straightforward.
[Picture of a more complex tree structure. Note you wont find this particular building in the game]
As you might have noticed in some screenshots we have structured the decisions window into collapsible groups. What decision belongs to which collapsible group and in what sort order is fully moddable.
[Displaying decisions sorted into collapsible groups] The only thing you have to do is to set decision_group_type = on the decision to have it show up within a specific collapsible group. The keys are defined in the decision group types database.
[Displaying decisions sorted into collapsible groups] We use gui_tags as an arbitrary string to check for within gui files changing how they should be presented and you can easily append with your own in the same manner if you want a unique look.
To talk about this I also have to reveal some updates to Message Settings we will ship later with the patch.
[Picture of the Message Setting window in the patch version]
Each message can define its own message_filter_type to be handled as. These filters are defined in a separate database. In the filters database you can set the default behavior of messages of the filter. You can set its display type, always_show if it never can be hidden, auto_pause by default and finally the collapsible group it will belong to. All but the always_show would get overridden as a players starts changing their own settings.
[Example of the Message Setting Filter database]
Works exactly like decision groups mentioned above, but without the gui_tag functionality.
Added shortcut on each message, quickly locating their respective filter.
[Image of shortcut icon on a toast message to its message settings filter] This one is from Joror: Added text field to search through your message filter list.
[Text search field for message filters] And as a parting gift requested by Mindel in a previous dev diary I present to you: Custom Messages! Giving you the ability to write messages to your future self reminding you about things of importance.
[Screenshot displaying the Custom Message feature] [hr][/hr]
Hiya, this is Joror - programmer on CK3 - I have been a modder myself before my Paradox days, and was also part of our central GSG Tools team before I joined CK3. So you can say that I have experienced our dev-tools from many different angles! Developing or modding any grand strategy game can be an overwhelming task, given the sheer amount of systems and visualization layers that work together to create a believable world. But we can help ourselves by improving the weapons that we have to wrangle this beast - our development tools. The modding community knows this all too well. (And often it has created better tools than the dev teams themselves. You do outdo us often, but you do outnumber us as well.) We have improved a number of the in-game dev-tools during the development of this expansion. And as a modding-friendly game, you get to use them too! Here is a probably-not-complete overview.
A tool often used to check out what is going on in the simulated world while it is running; we tweaked its UX a bit. To access this tool you can run explorer console command. You can also open the Inspector part of it by ctrl-alt mouse clicking any portrait. Improvements:
[The Object Browser with more information and bigger input fields]
[Picture of several stacked Object Browser window, also demonstrating it remembers a Default size and position]
That honker of a text file called `errors.log` - it is usually filled with messages of shame from a strict and mysterious machine overlord. We have cautiously convinced it to perhaps tell us a bit more than Error on line 0. Improvements:
[The same error reported in the old log style and the new] We also now follow script-execution-chains through more layers. More verbose, but ultimately easier to track down where things went wrong. For example with events triggering other events:
[A long chain of script calls, from a hold_court_decision initial call, all the way through a series of triggered events]
Almost all of the text of our game lives in a large amount of .yml (sort-of YAML) text files. We call these files and their entries loc - after localization - but theyre also responsible for our text-formatting, and they can call Data script functions as well. A complex database, where it is easy to make a small mistake that goes unseen. Until spotted by our talented translators, or our very observant player base. Improvements:
[Map debug menu - all these button now again do things, nice for streamers and modder that want to enable/disable visuals]
[The script profiler at work, showing us how much time was spent on various script statements]
One of the tools at our, and modders, disposal is the Watch Windows. Some of these are receiving some minor improvements. First improvement to speak of is the AIWatch window, which contains various information regarding some of the AI logic and how the AI considers things like marriage, activities and relevant to this entry: available casus belli. One of the improvements weve made to the AI is that they will now consider a rulers military power rather than their military strength. Allow me to clarify the distinction: strength is the raw numbers a ruler has, no matter what troops they are. All military calculations up until now have been based on this. Power is a more accurate representation, in that it combines a regiments combined damage and toughness and multiplies that with the strength of the regiment. The short of it is: the AI now knows that levies are much weaker than MAAs and Knights when both declaring wars and picking battles. To make it easier for ourselves when investigating how the AI picks available casus belli, we are exposing the AIs power calculation, and the power they estimate other rulers to have. It is important to note that this calculation is affected by the rulers personality when targeting administrative realms, such that a craven ruler will overestimate a targets power, while a bold ruler will underestimate a targets power; a craven ruler will assume all governors operate at peak efficiency, while a bold ruler will assume them all to be useless administrators barely fit for office. These calculations can now be seen in the AIWatch Window in the Casus Belli section.
[AIWatch Window with military power in the CB tab] Furthermore, while in debug mode, the military strength tooltip in the character window will also show an entry for the rulers military power. Next is an improvement to the AI War Coordinator Watch Window. While this is not a window that helps modders too much, as the items shown within are more relevant to us who have access to the source code, it can be of worth for those who modify the strength of levies and knights.
[AI War Coordinator Watch Window] While rarely relevant for modders, the ai war coordinator watch window can be of value when modders change the calculus of war by modifying the strength of levies, men at arms and knights, to see if their tweaks have the desired effect on strength on the sides of war. The military power information is also available in the character window when in debug mode.
[Character Window showing Our Military Strength tooltip with debug mode enabled]
New modders often ask the question: can I mod armies and regiments? For the longest time we have not allowed any sort of warfare modding to the point where our modding community has had this little command on their Discord server, first proposed in 2022.
[CK3 Mod Co-op !warfaremodding command proposal and first use] Now we retire some of these points. We are adding a whole suite of effects and triggers that affects regiments. Yes, we are making regiments a scope and various ways to access them. Youll now be able to create, destroy, change size of, and add troops to regiments from script. Lets look at the refill_maa_with_provisions_effect as an example where one of them is used.
[Warfare modding example with change_maa_troops_count] Another thing were adding with Roads to Power is dynamically changing commanders in battles. While not directly moddable, this does mean that one can add temporary modifiers to commanders to swap them around.
The start_war script effect has some downsides because you have to specify exactly which war you want to start, and you might not know which Casus Belli and targets might be available to a character. Troublesome. You will have to wait for the general AI war background process to kick off a war you want to start. So to give our script a bit more power, we have added a new complex effect called ai_start_best_war, which can be used only for AI characters. It will go through all the valid wars a character can start at this moment, and gives you the opportunity to select them via the is_valid trigger. Out of all the wars selected this way, the effect will start the one with the highest AI score. (as determined by the regular AI scoring mechanism for wars, which is a combination of a code-based score and script-based ai_score calculation on Casus Belli) The outcome of the effect can be further acted on by its two sub-effects: on_success and on_failure. It is a key component of how we made characters with our new Conqueror trait extra aggressive!
The contents of the music player are moddable. For those who're already modding music into the game, there's just a few more steps you have to do in order to have the songs show in the music player. We add the Music tracks we wish to put into the Music Player into categories. To do this they must be implemented with the following files structure:
[Music Player Modding directories] The music.txt files contain information on the tracks themselves, and in order to have them localized they all must have a name = loc_key field. Example:
[music.txt entry example for music player modding] The music_category.txt files will then contain information on the categories and tracks contained within:
[music_category.txt example for music player modding] It is important to note that the id field in these categories must be unique. Finally, heres where you can add illustrations for the music player. Using the above category as an example:
[Directory structure to add illustration for music player] Of course all the audio banks and all that must also be added into it.
Some changes are coming to the Flavourization system. For the uninitiated, this is what separates the Petty-King from the Duke, the Emperor from Basileus, and the Divine Empress from Empress-Bishop. The big thing of note from before is that were encapsulating previous true/false flags in a container to collect them all. This is to improve legibility when new rules are added. Lets look at the full structure of supported members.
[Complete structure of the flavourization, minus the detailing documentation] This entire structure was undocumented previously, so all modders had to go on was how we had previously used it. An up to date .info file on the structures will be coming with Roads to Power so you can make your own, flavourful modifications to titles, names and the like. As of Roads to Power, naming conventions of characters with their titles (Emperor Chad to Holy Emperor Chad), title tier names (duchy to petty-kingdom) and domicile names (Estate to Family Holding) are supported. As an example:
[Example flavourization entry for Badass Queen] An interesting thing we discovered while adding features to the Flavourization system was: we already supported looking for character flags. It was just never documented. Our designers were enthusiastic about this revelation. Our programmers were not so enthusiastic about the designers enthusiasm:
[Slack thread on Flavourization changes and discoveries] Fair warning to our modders: the Flavourization system can get very expensive to do in terms of execution, so as much as I know better than to say this but use it responsibly. [hr][/hr]
Hello! Rageair here with a preview of the Achievements coming with Roads to Power! Ill start off with the easy ones, getting harder as we go down the list
As mentioned in a previous Dev Diary we have Historical Characters such as Dante or Fibonacci spawning across the map. If you get one of them to appear in your realm while owning Roads to Power, you will have the option to set out on an adventure as them!
Take care of the people in your camp and this one should come rather easily! Its not entirely trivial to get people to join your camp in the first place, though
A callback to an old way to play the game, harkening back to the CK2 days (there were several YouTube series with this gimmick!) - switching which character you played every time you died. Now this is supported by the game, making it easier than ever!
Now were getting into the intermediate difficulty achievements. This one can happen naturally, but a fun thing to try is by playing Harold in the 1066 invasion of England, and then returning to reclaim the crown from William!
Quite straightforward - create a large realm, then adopt the new government form!
Deceptively hard seeing as there are a lot of buildings to construct in your Estate!
Buddy up with the emperor and then smite your enemies with his permission! You will probably find a lot of enemies while playing in Byzantium, so you should be motivated to pursue this.
If youre really chummy with the emperor you might be named co-emperor, and as a co-emperor you can demand a larger share of the realm to rule as your own
This achievement is based on history; the Palaiologos dynasty became the longest-ruling dynasty in Byzantine history after having served faithfully for a long time.
A fun challenge! Save up a lot of gold in order to weasel your way into becoming a noble family (hint: this is easier to do if you adopt Byzantium's State Faith), and then use your influence to claim the throne, good luck!
Time for the harder achievements - if you follow the story of the historical founder of the assassins it will culminate with the dissolution of an empire (historically the seljuks, but you can take him anywhere!)
Playing as El Cid you will have plenty of choice; this achievement is unlocked by following his historical path.
Saladin starts out as a Conqueror, so this is a tall feat to pull off. You have a few years to prepare for his invasion as he tends to go for central arabia before holy warring Jerusalem.
If its not broken, dont fix it! Having a turkic-dominated islamic administrative empire is a fun challenge to pursue, especially seeing how Byzantium still can pack quite a punch despite having lost a lot of territories to you in the 1178 bookmark.
A natural continuation of the venerable Rags to Riches achievement from the base game!
Georgia had plans on holy warring for these territories, but in history this plan didnt come to fruition - an interesting and plausible alternative history scenario to pursue!
You have to work hard in climbing the political ladder to achieve the position of dominant family! Try putting as many family members on important positions as you can!
In 1178 Byzantium is at a low point, making it a fun challenge to not only survive, but thrive!
Perfect achievement to pursue in combination with Chaos is a Ladder.
If you wish to pursue this I recommend the 1178 bookmark, as its very likely for this to happen around that time. [hr][/hr] That's all we have for this week; come back next Tuesday as we dive into the details behind the new Scheme rework coming in Roads to Power! [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
[ 2024-09-10 11:58:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there! Weve got some new stuff available for you to tinker with and Im happy to have the honor of presenting it for you! Im Jens, the programmer behind the Barbershop upgrade and Message Settings. But first I want to talk about Domiciles, the system behind Estates & Camps.
Discuss Dev Diary #155 on our forums!
Domiciles
When building the feature, I made it in close collaboration with artists, designers and UX. Nobody wanted to work with another activity locale window again. So gathering the learnings and feedback, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone to set the amount of building slots, their positioning or size and appearance based on triggers, all while having it updated by hot reloading in real time.
Domicile Slots
To get some terminology out of the way, we decided on 3 different domicile building slot types:
- Main: The building slot of your home building. It differs from the external slot in that its building is auto-constructed at start for free and is indestructible. Otherwise its handled just like any other external building slot. We decided on one main slot per domicile type, but there is no cap so technically you can add as many as you want.
- External: The visual building slot you see as you open the window. It has 4 states: locked, unlocked, under construction and constructed. Clicking an unlocked slot opens the building panel where you select what building you want to construct in the slot. Theres a new character modifier domicile_external_slots_capacity_add which sum determines how many extra slots are unlocked.
- Internal: For Estates we added internal building slots for its main building and for Camps we put them in the external buildings, but it's not enforced so any external building can host internal slots. They share the same 4 states as external slots even though it's visually presented in another way.
[Highlighted external building slot states of the Camp]
[Highlighted internal building slots of the Estate]
Domicile Types
With Roads to Power we add Camps and Estates as two new domicile types. What domicile type to use is set per government type. Each domicile has base_external_slots which sets how many slots always are unlocked before the domicile_external_slots_capacity_add modifier is applied. In the domicile_building_slots array you define the amount of external building slots the domicile type has. Because its an array youre free to add as many or as few building slots as you like. Camps have fewer building slots than Estates so we made its artwork slightly bigger to get the zoomed in feeling. For each slot you can define if its main or external, its position and size and what image to select for the empty and under construction slot states (meaning each slot can look unique if you so wish).
[Database of domicile type displaying how the array of domicile building slots is defined] The order of definition is only relevant when drawing the slots on the screen as the first items will appear behind the last items of the array. In the above example you can see we have several empty_slot_asset defined where slot appearance is selected by a trigger depending on current location. Make sure to have at least one empty_slot_asset and one construction_slot_asset per slot to cover the states. The background of the window is selected in the same manner by defining domicile_asset that will pick the first triggered match starting from the top.
[Database of domicile type showing how window background is selected using triggered domicile assets] If a domicile type uses provisions or not while moving is determined by a bool. Whether the domicile type will have a followers window and handle follower temperament will automatically be enabled if you start adding domicile_temperament_low_modifier or domicile_temperament_high_modifier.
Domicile Buildings
[Example building of the domicile building database] Some things in the above example are self explanatory but other parts are not that straightforward.
- allowed_domicile_types: This is an array defining what domicile types this building will be available for. If not specified this building wont show up anywhere.
- previous_building: Is arguably the most complex as setting what building comes before this is what the upgrade tree structure will be based on. It is fully dynamic so you can make the tree as simple or as complex as you wish regardless what slot type the building is.
- slot_type: This determines in what slot you may construct the building. Note that setting the previous building of an internal building requires its predecessor to either also be an internal building or being the base building of an external or main building track. Internal buildings cannot be base buildings so all internal buildings require a previous_building.
- internal_slots: Defines how many internal slots this building hosts regardless if its an external or main building. (Please dont add internal slots to internal buildings as that would start getting silly).
- asset: Works just like assets for the domicile types and may be selected by triggers as well.
[Picture of a more complex tree structure. Note you wont find this particular building in the game]
Decision Groups
As you might have noticed in some screenshots we have structured the decisions window into collapsible groups. What decision belongs to which collapsible group and in what sort order is fully moddable.
[Displaying decisions sorted into collapsible groups] The only thing you have to do is to set decision_group_type =
[Displaying decisions sorted into collapsible groups] We use gui_tags as an arbitrary string to check for within gui files changing how they should be presented and you can easily append with your own in the same manner if you want a unique look.
Message Settings
To talk about this I also have to reveal some updates to Message Settings we will ship later with the patch.
[Picture of the Message Setting window in the patch version]
Message Filters
Each message can define its own message_filter_type to be handled as. These filters are defined in a separate database. In the filters database you can set the default behavior of messages of the filter. You can set its display type, always_show if it never can be hidden, auto_pause by default and finally the collapsible group it will belong to. All but the always_show would get overridden as a players starts changing their own settings.
[Example of the Message Setting Filter database]
Message Groups
Works exactly like decision groups mentioned above, but without the gui_tag functionality.
Message Settings Patch Updates
Added shortcut on each message, quickly locating their respective filter.
[Image of shortcut icon on a toast message to its message settings filter] This one is from Joror: Added text field to search through your message filter list.
[Text search field for message filters] And as a parting gift requested by Mindel in a previous dev diary I present to you: Custom Messages! Giving you the ability to write messages to your future self reminding you about things of importance.
[Screenshot displaying the Custom Message feature] [hr][/hr]
Development Tool Improvements
Hiya, this is Joror - programmer on CK3 - I have been a modder myself before my Paradox days, and was also part of our central GSG Tools team before I joined CK3. So you can say that I have experienced our dev-tools from many different angles! Developing or modding any grand strategy game can be an overwhelming task, given the sheer amount of systems and visualization layers that work together to create a believable world. But we can help ourselves by improving the weapons that we have to wrangle this beast - our development tools. The modding community knows this all too well. (And often it has created better tools than the dev teams themselves. You do outdo us often, but you do outnumber us as well.) We have improved a number of the in-game dev-tools during the development of this expansion. And as a modding-friendly game, you get to use them too! Here is a probably-not-complete overview.
Object Explorer
A tool often used to check out what is going on in the simulated world while it is running; we tweaked its UX a bit. To access this tool you can run explorer console command. You can also open the Inspector part of it by ctrl-alt mouse clicking any portrait. Improvements:
- Made the edit input box bigger
- Added provider name to title of dockable
- 'Save as Default' also remembers size and position of the object browser window
- Object Browsers 'stack' when opened on top of eachother
- Object Inspector will now always open to the right of the Browser window instead of on top of it
- Hitting ctrl-enter while typing in the text box will auto-apply it
- Bugfix - Alt-Tab no longer kills half your typed text in the text box
[The Object Browser with more information and bigger input fields]
[Picture of several stacked Object Browser window, also demonstrating it remembers a Default size and position]
Script Debug Logs
That honker of a text file called `errors.log` - it is usually filled with messages of shame from a strict and mysterious machine overlord. We have cautiously convinced it to perhaps tell us a bit more than Error on line 0. Improvements:
- Scripted effects/triggers state their actual line-number instead of the 'relative' line-number
- Scripted effects/triggers state their full file name
- Multi-line script errors go "last-to-first" instead of "last, first-to-last" (they're now in an order like most stack traces)
- Script file lines mention extra context in (...) behind them - the name of the object they were in, with potentially their sub-part
- Mean-time-to-happen script calls now actually put their script location in the logs too
- A bit of extra indenting for visual clarity
[The same error reported in the old log style and the new] We also now follow script-execution-chains through more layers. More verbose, but ultimately easier to track down where things went wrong. For example with events triggering other events:
[A long chain of script calls, from a hold_court_decision initial call, all the way through a series of triggered events]
Localization Syntax Checker
Almost all of the text of our game lives in a large amount of .yml (sort-of YAML) text files. We call these files and their entries loc - after localization - but theyre also responsible for our text-formatting, and they can call Data script functions as well. A complex database, where it is easy to make a small mistake that goes unseen. Until spotted by our talented translators, or our very observant player base. Improvements:
- Added a high-level localization syntax checker at game startup on all localization keys of the current language (when in debug mode)
- Checks for extra / unterminated loc symbols `[...] (...) $...$ '...'`
- Checks for invalid usage of Text replacement within Data functions
- Other loc-key replacements via `$...$` can now also apply formatters via `$...|u$`
- Escaping single quotes in `$...$` can be done via a new formatter `q` : `$...|q$` - youll see a bunch of our localization has been tweaked to add this.
Various improvements
- The map debug menu buttons work again in our release version (they still worked in our internal development builds, but modders brought this to our attention)
[Map debug menu - all these button now again do things, nice for streamers and modder that want to enable/disable visuals]
- The Script Profiler (originally from Victoria 3 ) has been ported to CK3!
[The script profiler at work, showing us how much time was spent on various script statements]
Various AI Watch Window Changes
One of the tools at our, and modders, disposal is the Watch Windows. Some of these are receiving some minor improvements. First improvement to speak of is the AIWatch window, which contains various information regarding some of the AI logic and how the AI considers things like marriage, activities and relevant to this entry: available casus belli. One of the improvements weve made to the AI is that they will now consider a rulers military power rather than their military strength. Allow me to clarify the distinction: strength is the raw numbers a ruler has, no matter what troops they are. All military calculations up until now have been based on this. Power is a more accurate representation, in that it combines a regiments combined damage and toughness and multiplies that with the strength of the regiment. The short of it is: the AI now knows that levies are much weaker than MAAs and Knights when both declaring wars and picking battles. To make it easier for ourselves when investigating how the AI picks available casus belli, we are exposing the AIs power calculation, and the power they estimate other rulers to have. It is important to note that this calculation is affected by the rulers personality when targeting administrative realms, such that a craven ruler will overestimate a targets power, while a bold ruler will underestimate a targets power; a craven ruler will assume all governors operate at peak efficiency, while a bold ruler will assume them all to be useless administrators barely fit for office. These calculations can now be seen in the AIWatch Window in the Casus Belli section.
[AIWatch Window with military power in the CB tab] Furthermore, while in debug mode, the military strength tooltip in the character window will also show an entry for the rulers military power. Next is an improvement to the AI War Coordinator Watch Window. While this is not a window that helps modders too much, as the items shown within are more relevant to us who have access to the source code, it can be of worth for those who modify the strength of levies and knights.
[AI War Coordinator Watch Window] While rarely relevant for modders, the ai war coordinator watch window can be of value when modders change the calculus of war by modifying the strength of levies, men at arms and knights, to see if their tweaks have the desired effect on strength on the sides of war. The military power information is also available in the character window when in debug mode.
[Character Window showing Our Military Strength tooltip with debug mode enabled]
Warfare Modding
Retiring [strike]some of[/strike] !warfaremodding
New modders often ask the question: can I mod armies and regiments? For the longest time we have not allowed any sort of warfare modding to the point where our modding community has had this little command on their Discord server, first proposed in 2022.
[CK3 Mod Co-op !warfaremodding command proposal and first use] Now we retire some of these points. We are adding a whole suite of effects and triggers that affects regiments. Yes, we are making regiments a scope and various ways to access them. Youll now be able to create, destroy, change size of, and add troops to regiments from script. Lets look at the refill_maa_with_provisions_effect as an example where one of them is used.
[Warfare modding example with change_maa_troops_count] Another thing were adding with Roads to Power is dynamically changing commanders in battles. While not directly moddable, this does mean that one can add temporary modifiers to commanders to swap them around.
Starting wars never was easier!
The start_war script effect has some downsides because you have to specify exactly which war you want to start, and you might not know which Casus Belli and targets might be available to a character. Troublesome. You will have to wait for the general AI war background process to kick off a war you want to start. So to give our script a bit more power, we have added a new complex effect called ai_start_best_war, which can be used only for AI characters. It will go through all the valid wars a character can start at this moment, and gives you the opportunity to select them via the is_valid trigger. Out of all the wars selected this way, the effect will start the one with the highest AI score. (as determined by the regular AI scoring mechanism for wars, which is a combination of a code-based score and script-based ai_score calculation on Casus Belli) The outcome of the effect can be further acted on by its two sub-effects: on_success and on_failure. It is a key component of how we made characters with our new Conqueror trait extra aggressive!
Music Player
The contents of the music player are moddable. For those who're already modding music into the game, there's just a few more steps you have to do in order to have the songs show in the music player. We add the Music tracks we wish to put into the Music Player into categories. To do this they must be implemented with the following files structure:
[Music Player Modding directories] The music.txt files contain information on the tracks themselves, and in order to have them localized they all must have a name = loc_key field. Example:
[music.txt entry example for music player modding] The music_category.txt files will then contain information on the categories and tracks contained within:
[music_category.txt example for music player modding] It is important to note that the id field in these categories must be unique. Finally, heres where you can add illustrations for the music player. Using the above category as an example:
[Directory structure to add illustration for music player] Of course all the audio banks and all that must also be added into it.
Flavourization
Some changes are coming to the Flavourization system. For the uninitiated, this is what separates the Petty-King from the Duke, the Emperor from Basileus, and the Divine Empress from Empress-Bishop. The big thing of note from before is that were encapsulating previous true/false flags in a container to collect them all. This is to improve legibility when new rules are added. Lets look at the full structure of supported members.
[Complete structure of the flavourization, minus the detailing documentation] This entire structure was undocumented previously, so all modders had to go on was how we had previously used it. An up to date .info file on the structures will be coming with Roads to Power so you can make your own, flavourful modifications to titles, names and the like. As of Roads to Power, naming conventions of characters with their titles (Emperor Chad to Holy Emperor Chad), title tier names (duchy to petty-kingdom) and domicile names (Estate to Family Holding) are supported. As an example:
[Example flavourization entry for Badass Queen] An interesting thing we discovered while adding features to the Flavourization system was: we already supported looking for character flags. It was just never documented. Our designers were enthusiastic about this revelation. Our programmers were not so enthusiastic about the designers enthusiasm:
[Slack thread on Flavourization changes and discoveries] Fair warning to our modders: the Flavourization system can get very expensive to do in terms of execution, so as much as I know better than to say this but use it responsibly. [hr][/hr]
Achievements
Hello! Rageair here with a preview of the Achievements coming with Roads to Power! Ill start off with the easy ones, getting harder as we go down the list
As mentioned in a previous Dev Diary we have Historical Characters such as Dante or Fibonacci spawning across the map. If you get one of them to appear in your realm while owning Roads to Power, you will have the option to set out on an adventure as them!
Take care of the people in your camp and this one should come rather easily! Its not entirely trivial to get people to join your camp in the first place, though
A callback to an old way to play the game, harkening back to the CK2 days (there were several YouTube series with this gimmick!) - switching which character you played every time you died. Now this is supported by the game, making it easier than ever!
Now were getting into the intermediate difficulty achievements. This one can happen naturally, but a fun thing to try is by playing Harold in the 1066 invasion of England, and then returning to reclaim the crown from William!
Quite straightforward - create a large realm, then adopt the new government form!
Deceptively hard seeing as there are a lot of buildings to construct in your Estate!
Buddy up with the emperor and then smite your enemies with his permission! You will probably find a lot of enemies while playing in Byzantium, so you should be motivated to pursue this.
If youre really chummy with the emperor you might be named co-emperor, and as a co-emperor you can demand a larger share of the realm to rule as your own
This achievement is based on history; the Palaiologos dynasty became the longest-ruling dynasty in Byzantine history after having served faithfully for a long time.
A fun challenge! Save up a lot of gold in order to weasel your way into becoming a noble family (hint: this is easier to do if you adopt Byzantium's State Faith), and then use your influence to claim the throne, good luck!
Time for the harder achievements - if you follow the story of the historical founder of the assassins it will culminate with the dissolution of an empire (historically the seljuks, but you can take him anywhere!)
Playing as El Cid you will have plenty of choice; this achievement is unlocked by following his historical path.
Saladin starts out as a Conqueror, so this is a tall feat to pull off. You have a few years to prepare for his invasion as he tends to go for central arabia before holy warring Jerusalem.
If its not broken, dont fix it! Having a turkic-dominated islamic administrative empire is a fun challenge to pursue, especially seeing how Byzantium still can pack quite a punch despite having lost a lot of territories to you in the 1178 bookmark.
A natural continuation of the venerable Rags to Riches achievement from the base game!
Georgia had plans on holy warring for these territories, but in history this plan didnt come to fruition - an interesting and plausible alternative history scenario to pursue!
You have to work hard in climbing the political ladder to achieve the position of dominant family! Try putting as many family members on important positions as you can!
In 1178 Byzantium is at a low point, making it a fun challenge to not only survive, but thrive!
Perfect achievement to pursue in combination with Chaos is a Ladder.
If you wish to pursue this I recommend the 1178 bookmark, as its very likely for this to happen around that time. [hr][/hr] That's all we have for this week; come back next Tuesday as we dive into the details behind the new Scheme rework coming in Roads to Power! [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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[ 2024-09-10 11:58:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #155 - The Shattered Empire
Salvete! You might remember me from the previous dev diary about Byzantium. Im Chad, a Game Designer (now turned Programmer) working on CKIII. Today Ill be discussing one of the smaller updates were making to the classic Restore Rome decision in Roads to Power. Even though they knew themselves as Romans, Byzantium was not the same as the Roman Empire that you can restore in game. And thoughts of restoring this idealized version of ancient Rome were not common during our period. If youd like to play a grand strategy game as the Roman Empire, may I point you towards a great one called Imperator: Rome? I think youd love it. It even recently received an update! With that aside, however, Id like to show off some of the content weve updated for reconquering pieces of Romes past.
[Event showing the reconquering of Tunis which is fired from the new important locations system] In Roads to Power, youll get updated event content for conquering pieces of the historical Roman Empire. This is part of a great new feature from my colleague were calling important locations that modders will likely be interested in. You can now script a relationship between a landed title and another higher tier title and fire content when they enter and exit the realm. These can be scripted on the fly as well, allowing for dynamic content about titles changing hands.
[Script example of setting the county of Rome as an important location for the Byzantine Empire]
[Full documentation of the set_important_location script effect showing information about parameters and scopes] Weve updated how you can restore Rome as Byzantium with an eye towards how the Byzantines may have thought about such a thing, primarily through the lens of Justinian. With this comes gorgeous new art as well as a new decision to make.
[Event that occurs when youve taken the decision to restore the Roman Empire]
[First option when restoring Rome, which provides access to unique bonuses and converts your realm to Hellenism, but turns on hard mode]
[Second option for restoring Rome, which keeps the original functionality] We wanted to create an interesting choice here. There were concerns that this increase in difficulty might be perceived as too gamey but we ultimately decided that restoring the ancient Roman Empire in the Middle Ages is already a gamey notion. Managing a massive empire like the de jure territory of Rome should be hard and create a new challenge for players. Of course, if its too difficult to keep the whole enterprise together and functioning, you can opt for the historical decision to split it into East and West. Many historical emperors tried their best to maintain control over such a vast territory and failedultimately deciding on some variation of dividing power. Perhaps you will be the one to succeed in keeping the realm unitedbut as I said, it wont be a walk in the park.
[Decision to Cleave the Empire which splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western parts and ends hard mode] This also means that there is now a legitimate way to convert to Hellenism in-game. Upon reforming Hellenism, players have access to a new Faith Tenet called Household Gods.
[New art for the Household Gods tenet for Hellenism]
[Household Gods tenet for Hellenism which gives bonuses to conversion speed among other things] Thats all from me today! Ill leave you with a heartfelt parting quote from Catullus: Frater ave, atque vale. Goodbye, brother, and fare well. [hr][/hr]
[CMs Note: This section contains a lot of spoilers for the 4th Crusade mechanics. If youre bothered by that, then please skip ahead to the next section! (ctrl+f -> "rageair")]
Uh the 4th Crusade? God. God willed it, duh. God was so into it. And besides Him, there was the Marquis de Montferrat, Mathieu de Montmorency, Pierre de Bracieux, and many others. Maybe the Doge of Venice masterminded the whole debacle (if CK2 is to be believed)? As far as CK3 content is concerned I guess Im the Doge, the architect of our lurid misadventure. My names Jason and Im the most hydrated designer on CK3. I started work on the Fourth(ish) Crusade as something small and simple. But and no one could have seen this coming the subject matter proved a little complex. And a little dramatic. It seemed to merit a whole hullabaloo. So the Fourth Crusade in CK will happen regularly and it absolutely will prove a great and terrible threat to the Byzantine Empire. The Mongols are an apocalypse for all the world; the Latins are an apocalypse to the Greeks. Their empire stands tall, crumbles or is succeeded by some hideous aberration based on whether this strange fight is won or lost.
[Later artwork of the siege of Constantinople.]
In 1202, Catholic lords and knights began gathering to retake Jerusalem in a new Crusade. A number of these western crusaders chose Venice as their setting-off point. This involved a good bit of sitting and waiting for their fellow lords to show, and it soon became apparent few others were coming. But the Venetians still had to be paid in full. The first repayment effort involved sacking the Dalmation port of Zara, and staining their righteous swords in Christian blood. There, the Crusaders were joined by the Marquis of Montferrat and, with him, a claimant to the Byzantine throne, Alexios IV Angelos. Still low on funds, the Crusaders accepted an offer from this claimant: he promised them lavish support, money and troops for the holy cause, if the Crusaders could install him on his rightful throne. Though some dissenters instead departed directly for Jerusalem, the rest of the knights got onboard for Constantinople. Emperor Alexios III Angelos (who has the same name as the other Greek, yup) failed to fight these foreigners off. He was forced to abdicate in favor of the pilgrims claimant. The new Emperor Alexios, however, seeing the impossibility of making good on his promises to the Crusaders, reneged on their deal. The capital was stormed and he, overthrown.
[Now this is one salty mosaic.] Yet another Emperor Alexios would soon meet the same fate and, after that, Constantinople was truly and historically ravaged by the Latin crusaders. When the pillaging and slaughter was over, so too was the Byzantine Empire. At least, for a time. The sort-of Crusaders named their own Latin Emperor, divided newly-won Byzantine territories amongst themselves, and set about the business of establishing their rule. I really recommend Geoffroi de Villehardouins description of these events. His is a rare medieval firsthand account, as he was one of the Crusader leaders. It offers such a fresh, direct, farm-to-table kind of bias.
Well this is one of those cases where gamefying history means sort-of choosing a narrative; it, too, means truncating events somewhat. And adding a bit of dynamism, as suits the sandbox of CK3. Jason, you ask will the Fourth Crusade happen around 1202? No. It is most likely to happen from the 1178 start date (and, fair warning, can happen very promptly), but its possible from other start dates, though only once the Catholics are onto their second (or later) Crusade. Well, its the Fourth Crusade though Not necessarily, not in-game. Were not adding a counter that permits this story only once the # of Crusades = 4. No. In game, this is referred to as the Crusader War for Imperial Claim or the Splintered Crusade. It was hard to come up with a nice-sounding term that actually fit, Ill be honest. The dynamism of when this thing will strike is matched by it having relatively open ownership. You dont have to play the Marquis de Montferrat to introduce a wannabe-Byzantine Emperor to some Crusaders; you can be pretty much any European Catholic ruler who has a relation to one such claimant at the right moment. This has kinda tipped our hand: the leader of the Splintered Crusade will be the above-named champion of the Byzantine aspirant. Putting this character at the helm centralizes authority over the Latin Crusaders more than is historical, yes, but its a big plus for playability and agency. Oh, and the Splintered Crusade? It isnt actually a Crusade. This thing is a big, fat, ugly limpet sucking off the underbelly of a proper Catholic Crusade. Lets get into that.
It begins with a Catholic Crusade against lands east of the Mediterranean. Sure, theres a Christian Byzantine Emperor, but hes not involved in this Catholic initiative. Everything seems normal and then some paltry little Catholic lord is hit with this:
[A sudden flash of purple: the opening event for the Splintered Crusade] YOU OPT IN AND SHIT IS GONNA GO DOWN. JUST NOT RIGHT AWAY. As you wait for the Crusade (that you will, at least temporarily, bail from) to launch, youre waiting to see who in Christendom is down to say You son of a Byz! Im in. The Pope is first to weigh in.
[The Popes letter to his most misguided crusader.] This story would be incomplete without an avaricious financier, and Venice or the most Venice-y ruler available fills that role.
[Your financier goes all in.] As the months pass, other Catholics pledged to the Crusade will instead pledge to join you. And t hen the Crusade is launched, robbed of your confederates! Yall set off on a war of your own.
[The Crusader War for Imperial Claim begins.] The Byzantine Emperor will be fairly outnumbered, but all he needs to do is repel his attackers and this will be ended. If he fails, though
[The victorious crusaders must deal with their new emperor.] Your claimant may choose to bankrupt the empire in order to properly pay off every Crusader. More often than not, though, hell simply offer you a bribe to leave in peace. You can accept, of course, and may then even perhaps join the proper Crusade with your well-earned reinforcements (if it isnt too late). Is anyone really going to leave in peace, though?
[Its Latin Empire time, baby. And it isnt pretty.] Unlike in a normal Crusade, you can choose to leave your old realm behind and gain the newly-made Latin Empire title yourself. Or you can give it to a relative. Or maybe youll reward that kind old selflessly helpful Venice fella, just as the historical crusaders almost did. Below the Latin Empire title, are Greek duchies and counties distributed among the most powerful crusaders. These rulers choose new holders for their assigned title much as the Latin Emperor is chosen.
[Bye bye, Byzantium.]
[Whoomp! (There It Is)] The Latin Empire is born; Byzantium dies. Though not cleanly, and not all at once. The collapse is scripted to prefer historicity, but it happens dynamically. The capital kingdom of the (now destroyed) Byzantine empire will go to the Latins. The Venetian Stato da Mr claims some Byzantine maritime holdings. Yet most of the Greeks do not bow to Latin dominion: some mighty governors become Administrative kings, while lesser magistrates claim feudal independence. A Crusader trait for these first Latin lords wouldnt be quite right. They get a new one called Despoiler of Byzantium instead, and it also makes their AI personality aggressive as hell.
[The new, rare and shiny Despoiler of Byzantium trait.] But how does this all look to an unsuspecting Greek?
SWEET GOD IN HEAVEN, THE FUCKING LATINS ARE- Im getting ahead of myself. The Byzantine Emperor is the first to learn of the threat to come, and is given over a year to adequately gird his loins. For the rest of the empire, the cult of Rome strikes rather more suddenly.
[The Byzantine flavor on this war declaration does read just a bit different.] Then, if the foreign invaders arent repelled
[The news from Constantinople isnt exactly good.] This is right as everything in Byzantium is falling apart. If youre powerful enough, you can now seize the title of Despot (king), and remain administrative. Otherwise, keeping your estate will mean pledging to another soon-to-be Despot. Your alternative is goin back to feudal. And landless house heads? They should find themselves under one of the new Greek Despots. In sum: their empire is a wreck, but this isnt game over for the Greeks. The world marches on.
The brief, tumultuous age of Latin rule in Greek lands was referred to as such. The Latin Emperor faces some interesting choices in the early days of rule.
[The Venetians offer a quid pro quo.]
[The Greeks suggest the Latin Emperor become Administrative?!?] In order to achieve maximum CK3 turmoil, the fall of Byzantium unlocks a new CB everywhere in the empire: Seize Imperial Duchy. For, in this age of uncertain aftermath, any who possess Byzantine de jure land can lay claim to other such titles.
[The Latin Emperor uses Seize Imperial Duchy to expand his realm.] And, in a broken realm haunted by armed hosts, earning victory attracts armies to your banner! This should help stronger Latins, Turks and Greeks in the region push their way to dominance. But what is de facto dominance without de jure righteousness?
[Legitimize Latin Dominion Decision.] Latin Emperors of sufficient legitimacy have a unique decision that lets them claim the kingdoms of Byzantium and the hearts of the Greeks, one by one.
[Expunge Latin Dominion Decision.] And the Byzantines, when/if they manage a comeback, can claw their kingdom titles back. Should they retake Constantinople and establish themselves well enough the Restore the Byzantine Empire Decision gives the Greeks a pretty easy means to scrub all this nonsense out. But yknow, probably just in time for the Ayyubids or the Mongols or the Ottomans or someone else to wipe them out for good. Krie, elison :( [hr][/hr]
Greetings! Rageair here with a small feature coming in the free update. Something Ive felt the absence of for a long time are certain historical figures appearing as the game progresses. Im not talking about the likes of Frederick Barbarossa or Mansa Musa - rulers and their kin are simulated with vast branching dynastic trees, divergences here are core to the game! No, Im talking about the great poets, scientists, scholars, commanders, and tricksters of history - those without a lineage of nobility to back them up. In the update following Roads to Power you will see certain well-known historical figures appear across the map, which you can employ - or in case you own RtP - set out on an adventure as!
[Hildegard von Bingen - everyones favorite eccentric nun!] Characters will appear in their historical place of birth (or our best approximation), Hildegard will appear in the barony of Worms, for example. By default you will only be notified if they appear in your Domain or if they are extremely well known (and you are the liege of any vassal holding the barony) - this can be altered via game rules, should you wish.
[Game Rule controlling how Historical Characters spawn] Now, its no fun if these historical characters are too static! After all, no two games of CK are the same, and in one game the barony of Worms might be of the Ibadi faith and Baranis culture, for example, who knows! In any case, for most characters (who dont fall into the category of a specific religious minority or proponent) they will adapt to the faith/culture of their place of birth. As an example, heres Hildegard again, but with the setup mentioned above.
[Hildegard, in case the barony of Worms was Ibadi and Baranis] All historical characters spawned this way (not historical landed rulers, Im afraid) have a snippet of information attached to them, explaining who they were in real-life. This snippet can be accessed from a widget near their opinion, and from their Historical Character-trait. Of course, the destiny that theyll have in your game is almost always going to differ from their historical one, but its fun to compare with nonetheless!
[Thomas Aquinas also spawns with a Book inspiration - unfortunately we didnt have time to hook in historical book titles, so they remain random, alas] The trait helps you find them via the character finder, should you desire to see whos around, and what theyre up to! I like to use it in order to invite them and land them as my vassals
[The trait allows for easy searching] If youre lucky enough to have one of these characters spawn in your realm, you have three options:
[William Wallace - Illustrating the options] You can choose to ignore them, should you not be in need of their services - or you can employ them and get an obligation hook. As mentioned, you can also abandon your dynasty and set out on an adventure as them - the only time in CK3 where I think its fair to do so, because its just too cool to be able to go on an adventure as someone like William Wallace or Ibn Battuta, and it would be a crime not to offer you that opportunity!
[Ibn Battuta will set out on adventure if dismissed, as he did historically!] As the Expansion focuses on Byzantium, I took extra care to add every interesting character that I could for Byzantium and their surroundings, which does mean that an extraordinary amount of characters will appear in constantinople. At the start of 1066, no less than two well-known figures will make their appearance within a year or so
[Michael the Stammerer was technically already at court in 1066, so his text mentions that he made a name for himself at court, rather than wandering my realm!]
[Joseph is very useful in fighting the Seljuks, indeed] We tried to add as many interesting historical characters as we could to this new system, and we ended up with exactly(!) 100 of them, spanning most of the map! There are many very well-known figures, and some that are more obscure but that Im sure will pique your interest when you see them. Heres a sample of some of them:
[Omar Khayyam will also appear close to the 1066 start date]
[Perhaps youd like to set out on a real journey as the famous Dante Alighieri?]
[Or maybe youd like to literally take Ockhams razor to the throat of your enemies?]
[This somewhat controversial pair will appear as lovers, and if you set out on an adventure as Heloise, Peter will join you!]
[You didnt think wed forget about the Norse, did you? Snorri here is the author of most of what we know about norse mythology today.]
[Many famous Jewish personalities, such as Rashi here, will appear across the map]
[And were not forgetting about India! Heres Vidyapati, one of the most famous poets and scholars of the area.]
[Rumi hails from a non-Persian area in Anatolia, and instead of appearing Greek or Turkish will take his faith and culture from Balkh, as a compromise! Several historical characters hail from one place but take their faith/culture from another.]
[Alright alright, not all of the characters are 100% historically verifiable like Jangar here, but if they could have existed and are interesting enough - why not!]
[And some most certainly existed, but their stories were embellished over the centuries. Anyone from Turkey here who recognizes this funny fellow?]
[You might be familiar with a character named Varys who is a very influential eunuch from a certain popular franchise - John here is the real-life inspiration for that character!] As mentioned above weve added a hundred characters (technically 101 but Hlose d'Argenteuil & Peter Abelard is a package deal!), and heres the full list (not in chronological order!) Karunakara Tondaiman Sekkilhar Omar Khayyam Bhaskaracharya Joseph Rabban Atisha Hemachandra Kshemendra Akka Mahadevi Namdev Madhvacharya Vidyapati Abhinavagupta Basava Hildegard von Bingen Thomas Aquinas Dante Alighieri Thomas Becket Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) Chrtien de Troyes Egil Skallagrmsson Gunnlaug Ormstunga orbjrg the Seeress Erik Rde Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) Ibn Battuta William of Ockham Geoffrey Chaucer Roger Bacon Aaron of Lincoln John Wycliffe Hlose d'Argenteuil & Peter Abelard Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) Giotto di Bondone Leonardo Fibonacci Giovanni Boccaccio Christine de Pizan Snorri Sturluson Hrotsvitha Ramanuja Arnaldus de Villa Nova Ibn Khaldun Jalaluddin Rumi Avicenna Averroes Al-Biruni Rashi (Shlomo Yitzchaki) Yehuda Halevi Hasdai ibn Shaprut Levi ben Gershon (Gersonides) Abraham ibn Ezra Solomon ibn Gabirol Nachmanides (Moses ben Nahman) Hasdai Crescas Saadia Gaon Yusuf ibn 'Awkal Benjamin of Tudela Marco Polo Bridget of Sweden Johannes Eckhart (Meister Eckhart) Jangar Zawisza Czarny Theophanes the Greek Nicetas Choniates Michael Psellos John Tzetzes Theophylact of Ohrid Eustathius of Thessalonica Nicephorus Blemmydes Georgius Pachymeres Manuel Moschopoulos Theodore Metochites Michael Choniates Joseph Tarchaneiotes Gemistus Pletho Arethas of Caesarea Basil Lekapenos John the Orphanotrophos AKA totally who Varys is based on Samonas Peter the Eunuch Constantine the Paphlagonian Peter the Stratopedarches Basilios Bessarion Demetrios Kydones Manuel Holobolos John Axuch Mkhitar Gosh Shota Rustaveli Grigor Tatevatsi Sargis Pitsak Averardo de' Medici Alfonso de Borgia William Wallace La Hire (tienne de Vignolles) Rabban Bar Sauma Nasreddin Hodja Widukind of Corvey Roger de Flor Regino of Prm Geoffrey of Monmouth [hr][/hr] Thats all we have for this week! As always, thanks for your time and attention. Well be back next week to discuss the details of the new Scheme system coming in the Free Update releasing alongside Roads to Power. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave them in the replies and well do our best to address them. [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
[ 2024-09-03 11:59:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everybody! Im PDX-Trinexx, the Community Manager for Crusader Kings. This weeks dev diary will be slightly different, as were going to cover several topics from several different authors. Key subjects are Roman Restoration, the 4th Crusade, and the addition of dynamically spawned Historical Characters once the game has actually started.
Well start off with the new Roman Restoration content coming with Roads to Power, so Ill hand it over to our resident Byzantine scholar now.
Discuss Dev Diary #155 on our forums!
Restoring Rome
Salvete! You might remember me from the previous dev diary about Byzantium. Im Chad, a Game Designer (now turned Programmer) working on CKIII. Today Ill be discussing one of the smaller updates were making to the classic Restore Rome decision in Roads to Power. Even though they knew themselves as Romans, Byzantium was not the same as the Roman Empire that you can restore in game. And thoughts of restoring this idealized version of ancient Rome were not common during our period. If youd like to play a grand strategy game as the Roman Empire, may I point you towards a great one called Imperator: Rome? I think youd love it. It even recently received an update! With that aside, however, Id like to show off some of the content weve updated for reconquering pieces of Romes past.
[Event showing the reconquering of Tunis which is fired from the new important locations system] In Roads to Power, youll get updated event content for conquering pieces of the historical Roman Empire. This is part of a great new feature from my colleague were calling important locations that modders will likely be interested in. You can now script a relationship between a landed title and another higher tier title and fire content when they enter and exit the realm. These can be scripted on the fly as well, allowing for dynamic content about titles changing hands.
[Script example of setting the county of Rome as an important location for the Byzantine Empire]
[Full documentation of the set_important_location script effect showing information about parameters and scopes] Weve updated how you can restore Rome as Byzantium with an eye towards how the Byzantines may have thought about such a thing, primarily through the lens of Justinian. With this comes gorgeous new art as well as a new decision to make.
[Event that occurs when youve taken the decision to restore the Roman Empire]
[First option when restoring Rome, which provides access to unique bonuses and converts your realm to Hellenism, but turns on hard mode]
[Second option for restoring Rome, which keeps the original functionality] We wanted to create an interesting choice here. There were concerns that this increase in difficulty might be perceived as too gamey but we ultimately decided that restoring the ancient Roman Empire in the Middle Ages is already a gamey notion. Managing a massive empire like the de jure territory of Rome should be hard and create a new challenge for players. Of course, if its too difficult to keep the whole enterprise together and functioning, you can opt for the historical decision to split it into East and West. Many historical emperors tried their best to maintain control over such a vast territory and failedultimately deciding on some variation of dividing power. Perhaps you will be the one to succeed in keeping the realm unitedbut as I said, it wont be a walk in the park.
[Decision to Cleave the Empire which splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western parts and ends hard mode] This also means that there is now a legitimate way to convert to Hellenism in-game. Upon reforming Hellenism, players have access to a new Faith Tenet called Household Gods.
[New art for the Household Gods tenet for Hellenism]
[Household Gods tenet for Hellenism which gives bonuses to conversion speed among other things] Thats all from me today! Ill leave you with a heartfelt parting quote from Catullus: Frater ave, atque vale. Goodbye, brother, and fare well. [hr][/hr]
The 4th (more or less) Crusade (sort of)
[CMs Note: This section contains a lot of spoilers for the 4th Crusade mechanics. If youre bothered by that, then please skip ahead to the next section! (ctrl+f -> "rageair")]
Who Thought Doing This Was a Good Idea?
Uh the 4th Crusade? God. God willed it, duh. God was so into it. And besides Him, there was the Marquis de Montferrat, Mathieu de Montmorency, Pierre de Bracieux, and many others. Maybe the Doge of Venice masterminded the whole debacle (if CK2 is to be believed)? As far as CK3 content is concerned I guess Im the Doge, the architect of our lurid misadventure. My names Jason and Im the most hydrated designer on CK3. I started work on the Fourth(ish) Crusade as something small and simple. But and no one could have seen this coming the subject matter proved a little complex. And a little dramatic. It seemed to merit a whole hullabaloo. So the Fourth Crusade in CK will happen regularly and it absolutely will prove a great and terrible threat to the Byzantine Empire. The Mongols are an apocalypse for all the world; the Latins are an apocalypse to the Greeks. Their empire stands tall, crumbles or is succeeded by some hideous aberration based on whether this strange fight is won or lost.
[Later artwork of the siege of Constantinople.]
Historical Brief
In 1202, Catholic lords and knights began gathering to retake Jerusalem in a new Crusade. A number of these western crusaders chose Venice as their setting-off point. This involved a good bit of sitting and waiting for their fellow lords to show, and it soon became apparent few others were coming. But the Venetians still had to be paid in full. The first repayment effort involved sacking the Dalmation port of Zara, and staining their righteous swords in Christian blood. There, the Crusaders were joined by the Marquis of Montferrat and, with him, a claimant to the Byzantine throne, Alexios IV Angelos. Still low on funds, the Crusaders accepted an offer from this claimant: he promised them lavish support, money and troops for the holy cause, if the Crusaders could install him on his rightful throne. Though some dissenters instead departed directly for Jerusalem, the rest of the knights got onboard for Constantinople. Emperor Alexios III Angelos (who has the same name as the other Greek, yup) failed to fight these foreigners off. He was forced to abdicate in favor of the pilgrims claimant. The new Emperor Alexios, however, seeing the impossibility of making good on his promises to the Crusaders, reneged on their deal. The capital was stormed and he, overthrown.
[Now this is one salty mosaic.] Yet another Emperor Alexios would soon meet the same fate and, after that, Constantinople was truly and historically ravaged by the Latin crusaders. When the pillaging and slaughter was over, so too was the Byzantine Empire. At least, for a time. The sort-of Crusaders named their own Latin Emperor, divided newly-won Byzantine territories amongst themselves, and set about the business of establishing their rule. I really recommend Geoffroi de Villehardouins description of these events. His is a rare medieval firsthand account, as he was one of the Crusader leaders. It offers such a fresh, direct, farm-to-table kind of bias.
Interpreting this Mess into CK
Well this is one of those cases where gamefying history means sort-of choosing a narrative; it, too, means truncating events somewhat. And adding a bit of dynamism, as suits the sandbox of CK3. Jason, you ask will the Fourth Crusade happen around 1202? No. It is most likely to happen from the 1178 start date (and, fair warning, can happen very promptly), but its possible from other start dates, though only once the Catholics are onto their second (or later) Crusade. Well, its the Fourth Crusade though Not necessarily, not in-game. Were not adding a counter that permits this story only once the # of Crusades = 4. No. In game, this is referred to as the Crusader War for Imperial Claim or the Splintered Crusade. It was hard to come up with a nice-sounding term that actually fit, Ill be honest. The dynamism of when this thing will strike is matched by it having relatively open ownership. You dont have to play the Marquis de Montferrat to introduce a wannabe-Byzantine Emperor to some Crusaders; you can be pretty much any European Catholic ruler who has a relation to one such claimant at the right moment. This has kinda tipped our hand: the leader of the Splintered Crusade will be the above-named champion of the Byzantine aspirant. Putting this character at the helm centralizes authority over the Latin Crusaders more than is historical, yes, but its a big plus for playability and agency. Oh, and the Splintered Crusade? It isnt actually a Crusade. This thing is a big, fat, ugly limpet sucking off the underbelly of a proper Catholic Crusade. Lets get into that.
A Great and Pious Venture! - The Latin Perspective
It begins with a Catholic Crusade against lands east of the Mediterranean. Sure, theres a Christian Byzantine Emperor, but hes not involved in this Catholic initiative. Everything seems normal and then some paltry little Catholic lord is hit with this:
[A sudden flash of purple: the opening event for the Splintered Crusade] YOU OPT IN AND SHIT IS GONNA GO DOWN. JUST NOT RIGHT AWAY. As you wait for the Crusade (that you will, at least temporarily, bail from) to launch, youre waiting to see who in Christendom is down to say You son of a Byz! Im in. The Pope is first to weigh in.
[The Popes letter to his most misguided crusader.] This story would be incomplete without an avaricious financier, and Venice or the most Venice-y ruler available fills that role.
[Your financier goes all in.] As the months pass, other Catholics pledged to the Crusade will instead pledge to join you. And t hen the Crusade is launched, robbed of your confederates! Yall set off on a war of your own.
[The Crusader War for Imperial Claim begins.] The Byzantine Emperor will be fairly outnumbered, but all he needs to do is repel his attackers and this will be ended. If he fails, though
[The victorious crusaders must deal with their new emperor.] Your claimant may choose to bankrupt the empire in order to properly pay off every Crusader. More often than not, though, hell simply offer you a bribe to leave in peace. You can accept, of course, and may then even perhaps join the proper Crusade with your well-earned reinforcements (if it isnt too late). Is anyone really going to leave in peace, though?
[Its Latin Empire time, baby. And it isnt pretty.] Unlike in a normal Crusade, you can choose to leave your old realm behind and gain the newly-made Latin Empire title yourself. Or you can give it to a relative. Or maybe youll reward that kind old selflessly helpful Venice fella, just as the historical crusaders almost did. Below the Latin Empire title, are Greek duchies and counties distributed among the most powerful crusaders. These rulers choose new holders for their assigned title much as the Latin Emperor is chosen.
[Bye bye, Byzantium.]
[Whoomp! (There It Is)] The Latin Empire is born; Byzantium dies. Though not cleanly, and not all at once. The collapse is scripted to prefer historicity, but it happens dynamically. The capital kingdom of the (now destroyed) Byzantine empire will go to the Latins. The Venetian Stato da Mr claims some Byzantine maritime holdings. Yet most of the Greeks do not bow to Latin dominion: some mighty governors become Administrative kings, while lesser magistrates claim feudal independence. A Crusader trait for these first Latin lords wouldnt be quite right. They get a new one called Despoiler of Byzantium instead, and it also makes their AI personality aggressive as hell.
[The new, rare and shiny Despoiler of Byzantium trait.] But how does this all look to an unsuspecting Greek?
A Calamity of Fools! - The Byzantine Perspective
SWEET GOD IN HEAVEN, THE FUCKING LATINS ARE- Im getting ahead of myself. The Byzantine Emperor is the first to learn of the threat to come, and is given over a year to adequately gird his loins. For the rest of the empire, the cult of Rome strikes rather more suddenly.
[The Byzantine flavor on this war declaration does read just a bit different.] Then, if the foreign invaders arent repelled
[The news from Constantinople isnt exactly good.] This is right as everything in Byzantium is falling apart. If youre powerful enough, you can now seize the title of Despot (king), and remain administrative. Otherwise, keeping your estate will mean pledging to another soon-to-be Despot. Your alternative is goin back to feudal. And landless house heads? They should find themselves under one of the new Greek Despots. In sum: their empire is a wreck, but this isnt game over for the Greeks. The world marches on.
Frankokratia: The Rule of the Franks
The brief, tumultuous age of Latin rule in Greek lands was referred to as such. The Latin Emperor faces some interesting choices in the early days of rule.
[The Venetians offer a quid pro quo.]
[The Greeks suggest the Latin Emperor become Administrative?!?] In order to achieve maximum CK3 turmoil, the fall of Byzantium unlocks a new CB everywhere in the empire: Seize Imperial Duchy. For, in this age of uncertain aftermath, any who possess Byzantine de jure land can lay claim to other such titles.
[The Latin Emperor uses Seize Imperial Duchy to expand his realm.] And, in a broken realm haunted by armed hosts, earning victory attracts armies to your banner! This should help stronger Latins, Turks and Greeks in the region push their way to dominance. But what is de facto dominance without de jure righteousness?
[Legitimize Latin Dominion Decision.] Latin Emperors of sufficient legitimacy have a unique decision that lets them claim the kingdoms of Byzantium and the hearts of the Greeks, one by one.
[Expunge Latin Dominion Decision.] And the Byzantines, when/if they manage a comeback, can claw their kingdom titles back. Should they retake Constantinople and establish themselves well enough the Restore the Byzantine Empire Decision gives the Greeks a pretty easy means to scrub all this nonsense out. But yknow, probably just in time for the Ayyubids or the Mongols or the Ottomans or someone else to wipe them out for good. Krie, elison :( [hr][/hr]
Historical Characters
Greetings! Rageair here with a small feature coming in the free update. Something Ive felt the absence of for a long time are certain historical figures appearing as the game progresses. Im not talking about the likes of Frederick Barbarossa or Mansa Musa - rulers and their kin are simulated with vast branching dynastic trees, divergences here are core to the game! No, Im talking about the great poets, scientists, scholars, commanders, and tricksters of history - those without a lineage of nobility to back them up. In the update following Roads to Power you will see certain well-known historical figures appear across the map, which you can employ - or in case you own RtP - set out on an adventure as!
[Hildegard von Bingen - everyones favorite eccentric nun!] Characters will appear in their historical place of birth (or our best approximation), Hildegard will appear in the barony of Worms, for example. By default you will only be notified if they appear in your Domain or if they are extremely well known (and you are the liege of any vassal holding the barony) - this can be altered via game rules, should you wish.
[Game Rule controlling how Historical Characters spawn] Now, its no fun if these historical characters are too static! After all, no two games of CK are the same, and in one game the barony of Worms might be of the Ibadi faith and Baranis culture, for example, who knows! In any case, for most characters (who dont fall into the category of a specific religious minority or proponent) they will adapt to the faith/culture of their place of birth. As an example, heres Hildegard again, but with the setup mentioned above.
[Hildegard, in case the barony of Worms was Ibadi and Baranis] All historical characters spawned this way (not historical landed rulers, Im afraid) have a snippet of information attached to them, explaining who they were in real-life. This snippet can be accessed from a widget near their opinion, and from their Historical Character-trait. Of course, the destiny that theyll have in your game is almost always going to differ from their historical one, but its fun to compare with nonetheless!
[Thomas Aquinas also spawns with a Book inspiration - unfortunately we didnt have time to hook in historical book titles, so they remain random, alas] The trait helps you find them via the character finder, should you desire to see whos around, and what theyre up to! I like to use it in order to invite them and land them as my vassals
[The trait allows for easy searching] If youre lucky enough to have one of these characters spawn in your realm, you have three options:
[William Wallace - Illustrating the options] You can choose to ignore them, should you not be in need of their services - or you can employ them and get an obligation hook. As mentioned, you can also abandon your dynasty and set out on an adventure as them - the only time in CK3 where I think its fair to do so, because its just too cool to be able to go on an adventure as someone like William Wallace or Ibn Battuta, and it would be a crime not to offer you that opportunity!
[Ibn Battuta will set out on adventure if dismissed, as he did historically!] As the Expansion focuses on Byzantium, I took extra care to add every interesting character that I could for Byzantium and their surroundings, which does mean that an extraordinary amount of characters will appear in constantinople. At the start of 1066, no less than two well-known figures will make their appearance within a year or so
[Michael the Stammerer was technically already at court in 1066, so his text mentions that he made a name for himself at court, rather than wandering my realm!]
[Joseph is very useful in fighting the Seljuks, indeed] We tried to add as many interesting historical characters as we could to this new system, and we ended up with exactly(!) 100 of them, spanning most of the map! There are many very well-known figures, and some that are more obscure but that Im sure will pique your interest when you see them. Heres a sample of some of them:
[Omar Khayyam will also appear close to the 1066 start date]
[Perhaps youd like to set out on a real journey as the famous Dante Alighieri?]
[Or maybe youd like to literally take Ockhams razor to the throat of your enemies?]
[This somewhat controversial pair will appear as lovers, and if you set out on an adventure as Heloise, Peter will join you!]
[You didnt think wed forget about the Norse, did you? Snorri here is the author of most of what we know about norse mythology today.]
[Many famous Jewish personalities, such as Rashi here, will appear across the map]
[And were not forgetting about India! Heres Vidyapati, one of the most famous poets and scholars of the area.]
[Rumi hails from a non-Persian area in Anatolia, and instead of appearing Greek or Turkish will take his faith and culture from Balkh, as a compromise! Several historical characters hail from one place but take their faith/culture from another.]
[Alright alright, not all of the characters are 100% historically verifiable like Jangar here, but if they could have existed and are interesting enough - why not!]
[And some most certainly existed, but their stories were embellished over the centuries. Anyone from Turkey here who recognizes this funny fellow?]
[You might be familiar with a character named Varys who is a very influential eunuch from a certain popular franchise - John here is the real-life inspiration for that character!] As mentioned above weve added a hundred characters (technically 101 but Hlose d'Argenteuil & Peter Abelard is a package deal!), and heres the full list (not in chronological order!) Karunakara Tondaiman Sekkilhar Omar Khayyam Bhaskaracharya Joseph Rabban Atisha Hemachandra Kshemendra Akka Mahadevi Namdev Madhvacharya Vidyapati Abhinavagupta Basava Hildegard von Bingen Thomas Aquinas Dante Alighieri Thomas Becket Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) Chrtien de Troyes Egil Skallagrmsson Gunnlaug Ormstunga orbjrg the Seeress Erik Rde Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) Ibn Battuta William of Ockham Geoffrey Chaucer Roger Bacon Aaron of Lincoln John Wycliffe Hlose d'Argenteuil & Peter Abelard Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) Giotto di Bondone Leonardo Fibonacci Giovanni Boccaccio Christine de Pizan Snorri Sturluson Hrotsvitha Ramanuja Arnaldus de Villa Nova Ibn Khaldun Jalaluddin Rumi Avicenna Averroes Al-Biruni Rashi (Shlomo Yitzchaki) Yehuda Halevi Hasdai ibn Shaprut Levi ben Gershon (Gersonides) Abraham ibn Ezra Solomon ibn Gabirol Nachmanides (Moses ben Nahman) Hasdai Crescas Saadia Gaon Yusuf ibn 'Awkal Benjamin of Tudela Marco Polo Bridget of Sweden Johannes Eckhart (Meister Eckhart) Jangar Zawisza Czarny Theophanes the Greek Nicetas Choniates Michael Psellos John Tzetzes Theophylact of Ohrid Eustathius of Thessalonica Nicephorus Blemmydes Georgius Pachymeres Manuel Moschopoulos Theodore Metochites Michael Choniates Joseph Tarchaneiotes Gemistus Pletho Arethas of Caesarea Basil Lekapenos John the Orphanotrophos AKA totally who Varys is based on Samonas Peter the Eunuch Constantine the Paphlagonian Peter the Stratopedarches Basilios Bessarion Demetrios Kydones Manuel Holobolos John Axuch Mkhitar Gosh Shota Rustaveli Grigor Tatevatsi Sargis Pitsak Averardo de' Medici Alfonso de Borgia William Wallace La Hire (tienne de Vignolles) Rabban Bar Sauma Nasreddin Hodja Widukind of Corvey Roger de Flor Regino of Prm Geoffrey of Monmouth [hr][/hr] Thats all we have for this week! As always, thanks for your time and attention. Well be back next week to discuss the details of the new Scheme system coming in the Free Update releasing alongside Roads to Power. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave them in the replies and well do our best to address them. [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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[ 2024-09-03 11:59:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #154: Art & Music of Roads to Power
Lets start off with the first thing that will greet the player in Roads to Power, the Loading Screen. Before picking a definitive subject matter for our loading screen, we created many composition studies. We went for themes such as nautical, imperial, religious and triumphal.
1. The Emperor stands on a galley armed with a flamethrower and inspects the fleet. 2. An Imperial comitive struts through the Boukoleon palace waterfront. 3. An imperial comitive receives foreign dignitaries standing under the Boukoleon. 4. The emperor returns from his victorious campaign and receives a triumph. A one-eyed man guides an army of blinded soldiers of the defeated army. 5. The emperor is crowned 6. A religious debate between Orthodox and Catholic priests. 7. The emperor is crowned in the Hagia Sophia 8. Another religious debate. The coronation in the Hagia Sophia and the imperial comitive striding by the docks were picked as the best ones. As a next step we created color sketches based on those chosen compositions. You can see the results here:
(Color sketches of the two favorite ideas) After some debate, we decided that the coronation had the most unique and striking composition out of the two. But, since the team liked the imperial comitive color sketch so much, we decided to save it and use it for the bureaucratic dynasty legacy.
[Our selected loading screen.]
[Dynasty legacy based on the rejected color sketch.] [hr][/hr]
To mark great events that happen to the world or player characters we had originally introduced Story Event illustrations for Fate of Iberia. These dramatic splash screens would pop-up anytime something happened during the Iberian and Iranian struggles. On Legends of the Dead this format of illustration came back to represent major disease outbreaks and the black death. For EP3 we decided that these evocative images would be fitting for memorable events such as Triumphs, the Restoration of Rome and in the story of Hereward the Wake, the Harrying of the North.
[hr][/hr]
While we had generic Mediterranean background images, it felt like they were insufficient to represent the particularities of Byzantine culture. The team thus made new versions for the feast, market, throne room, study, temple and relaxing room. This allowed us to represent some Greek particularities, such as the use of lavish recliners on their ostentatious feasts.
1. A view of the Chrysotriklinos, also used as the main menu background for greek characters. 2. A Byzantine study. Governors will be pondering administrative dilemmas in this office. 3. A Greek market, full of color and exotic goods. Your traveler will probably stumble on this during their travels. 4. An orthodox church or holy site. The striped walls really give it away. 5. A Greek relaxation room. It is impossible to relax without some marble and mosaics under your feet. 6. A Byzantine feast. The reclining chairs allow for maximum decadence, albeit the back pain. The hippodrome deserved special attention, as we have a background looking down from the stands into the track and one close down by the track directly.
We wanted to make sure you would feel in the middle of the action when the chariots were neck and neck, racing to the finish line. Hagia Sophia could not go without receiving their own unique background as well. At first we considered having the camera on the walkway. Our hope was to show the scale of the edifice this way, but our designers informed us that these were normally reserved for female visitors only, so we opted for a different composition.
[The abandoned sketch]
Constantinople is the focus of many new events, both of doom and glory. Accordingly we have made the appropriate backgrounds.
We put a lot of effort into trying to get everything in the right position in the city by following reconstructions and historical references. Our adventurers also demanded new backgrounds. Their camp life is represented by a variety of views of their encampment. By day or night, inside or outside.
[hr][/hr]
In Roads to Power, our environment team and animation team worked together to give our characters even more life, with new animations and assets for them to wield or ride on. Here are some of the highlights:
[Charioteers will ride on appropriately colored chariots, according to their team.]
[The emperor flaunts his shiny stick to remind everyone whos the boss.] We have added around thirty new animations or variations of older animations. Some of these will be applied in place of the regular idle animation the character usually has to present their newfound situation, such as when they are incapable or imprisoned. Some councilors will also change their animation depending on what task they are assigned to at the moment. Hopefully this will make characters feel more alive than ever in Roads to Power. We also expanded on event visual effects. Instead of using bink videos like we did for Legends of the Dead, we have opted for shaders that are a lot lighter. The new event effects include: Earthquake, heavy smoke, sand storm, rainy fog and lightning storm.
[hr][/hr]
[Initial experiments for the estate screen.]
[Initial Experiments for the camp screen.] Settling on a style for the domicile screen was quite a struggle for the team. At first, we meant to have them be very similar to locales (as in, the Tournament Screen). While this would make for more internal consistency in art style, for four reasons we decided to deviate from this initial plan: First, we wanted this NOT to be full-screen, as unlike the tournament screen, we do not mean to take the player away from their plots and immerse them in the event. The domiciles (estates and camps) communicate directly with your actions in the game world, and should be convenient to navigate. This made for a smaller screen and thus, a more symbolic representation of buildings and their purpose would work better in this medium. Second, we felt that our 3D environment team efforts were better used elsewhere, it was unlikely we couldve created cultural variations of buildings while depending on them. Keeping the work exclusively on the 2D artists expanded our capacity to create more buildings and have cultural variety on top of it. Third, The domiciles operate in a totally different way from tournaments, visual similarities would incorrectly communicate to the player that they should function the same way. Fourth, the team fell in love with the mockups we presented in the medieval art style. The non-descript isometric buildings ended up paling in comparison to the charming illustrations we had come up with.
Estate buildings have different visuals according to culture. For now, we have Western, Byzantine and MENA themes. Camp buildings are the same regardless of culture, except for the main tent, which has western, steppe, tribal and mena themes. Besides variation of buildings by culture, we also wanted to reinforce the sense of place in the world of the domiciles by creating different backgrounds that change according to the position of the estate or the camp. Estate Background can be: Dry, Green, Jungle, Rough and Urban. While Camp Backgrounds can be: Dry, Green, Jungle, Rough, Snow and Snowy Mountains. [hr][/hr]
While the Greeks showed less propensity to utilize coat-of-arms in the fashion we observe in western Europe, they did attach to the identity of their families certain symbols on their coins, murals and reliefs. It makes for an interesting variety that they would claim not only secular imagery, inspired on greco-roman myths, but also christian religious symbols. Their connection to the sea would also inspire many aquatic motifs. Thus, we can see mermaids, ophiotaurus and manticores side-by-side with Jesus, Mary, Archangel Gabriel and Saint George. These might be adorned with crosses, stars or shells.
[Randomly generated Greek coat of arms.] [hr][/hr]
With Roads to Power we had the chance to greatly expand the Byzantine wardrobe, which was historically quite distinct and interesting looking, and very notably different from surrounding cultures. As usual our work began with collecting references, preferably from first-hand contemporaneous sources, but we also looked for modern books and other material that focus on this subject matter (a special shout-out to a book called By the Emperors hand by Timothy Dawson - which contains a lot of amazing research and conclusions!).
[A snapshot of (a small part of!) the Miro board put together by Nils and the character art team to collect references for everything related to Byzantine clothing.] There are quite a lot of both first and second hand sources that survive from the Byzantine Empire (perhaps not too surprising considering how vast it was and for how long it survived). Of particular value to note here are the Coptic garments that have survived in fantastic condition through the centuries in graves from Byzantine Egypt. Actual extant examples like these provide the best type of source we can wish for, and there are dozens of them! Most of them do pre-date the game by some margin, but we can see from 9th and 10th century manuscripts and mosaics that clothing in the same style was clearly still in use by our early start date.
[Some examples of Coptic tunics that have been excavated from Byzantine era Egypt.]
[Here we see very similar looking tunics depicted in the Paris Gregory from c. 880 and the Paris Psalter from the mid 10th century.] Following what we started with Western European clothes for Tours and Tournaments, we decided quite early on that Roads to Power should also include different clothes for early and late eras. This fits especially well with the new 1178 start date; Byzantine characters by that time will look quite different from those of three hundred years prior. Since there are very few preserved items of clothing from the later time period, we based those designs primarily on depictions in manuscripts and mosaics.
[From the Menologion of Basil II, 11th century (which - as a side note - is filled to the brim with these beautiful and disturbing paintings of saints being brutally tortured and murdered, people being burned alive, babies being skewered, with everyone looking slightly bored) and the Madrid Skylitzes, from around 1150.] Since we are depicting a lot of the Creme de la Creme of people of the time, we are always looking for suitable Bling to add as accessories to these outfits. This expansion was no exception. Again, we turn to primary sources of jewelry that have survived to the present day.
[Some spectacular Byzantine jewelry from museums around the world that we recreated for Roads to Power.] We then created concept-art to synthesize these disparate sources and fuzzy imagery into a more concrete form the 3D character artists could base their work on.
[Examples of concept art based on our collected references.]
[And some finished clothing assets showing a comparison between the early and late eras. ]
[This might look a bit funky, but we have to create many blendshapes so that the clothes can morph along with the character as they age and get thinner, fatter or muscular.]
We were grateful for the opportunity to bring to life many memorable headgear and accessories of the Byzantine world, such as the Propolma hat or the Imperial Delmatikion with Diadma. Most of them have their proper (Medieval Greek) names in the Barbershop. Overall, weve added 8 new hairstyles, 4 beards, 18 clothing sets, 2 armors, 3 sets of legwear, 4 cloaks and 24 different headgear. This great variety, layered on top of the original assets from the base game will make each character in the cast of your personal Greek drama be unique and memorable.
[Early and late era Byzantine courtiers dressed in some of the new clothes added with Roads to Power. ] [hr][/hr]
Thanks to the fortunate survival of many textiles from the Byzantine times, we had our pick of the litter when it came to which trims and brocades to represent. It was more a matter of choosing the most characteristic, unique and interesting ones. Unlike other patterns, we have used a new type of texture map setup, where the bottom part of the medium trims is used for roundels. This permitted us to have specific bits of the pattern transform from a trim to a framed rounded-ish composition.
[hr][/hr]
The Byzantine throne room was a daunting task undertaken by our 3D environment Team. Our objective was to represent the Chrysotriklinos, the main ceremonial hall of the Great Palace of Constantinople. Unfortunately, the palace has been destroyed and there are no contemporaneous representations of the place. We had then to follow descriptions made at the time and observe other structures that take inspiration from the palace in some capacity (such as the Church of Ravena and the Palace of Aachen).
[Concept of the throne room.] The overall shape of our interpretation is quite similar to the Palace of Aachen, but we opted to optimize the shape so that it could better be captured by our throne room camera setup, so the dome is probably a bit lower than it wouldve been at the time. We also knew we wanted to decorate the room with many mosaics, as was the fashion at the time.
Instead of copying existent mosaics, we opted to create our own version, inspired by surviving examples. We wanted to have bigger individual mosaic bits. If we had made the individual tiles as small as they were in real-life, theyd become unreadable from a distance as being a mosaic.
[Here we can see the constituting texture maps to make up a mosaic, created by hand by our 2D Artists.] For the trims and patterns that frame the architecture and make up the more geometric parts of the mosaic, we created a variety of trimsheets and materials.
For subject matter, we knew from contemporaneous descriptions, the apse was dominated by christ on a lyre throne. We also knew emperors, saints and angels were represented. As well as verdant fields and flowers. When it came to deciding which figures to display, we wanted to do a nod to the fact that these mosaics were removed during the time of aniconism and then restored before our game starting date. We went with some staunch defenders of icons such as Irene of Athens and Theophanes the Confessor. We also included some classic characters such as Justinian, Constantine, St. Helen and Demetrius of Thessalonica.
From the writings of an emissary to the Byzantine court, we got reports of chirping mechanical birds and roaring metal lions. We have done our part in emulating these marvels, as the golden lions flanking the Throne of Solomon will intermittently bang their tails on the ground and roar. We also added the mechanical birds and the Water Organ as a court artifact.
[Some of the new statue assets that can be found in the Byzantine court.] [hr][/hr]
Besides the terrain rework mentioned on previous dev diaries, our 3D environment team has populated Anatolia and Greece with a variety of special buildings. We had great inspirations to draw from such as monasteries built against sheer cliffs or ancient temples repurposed as orthodox churches.
Greek-culture holdings now have unique graphics, distinguished from the generic Mediterranean ones.
You can now see the characteristic warm colors, red striped walls and rounded roofs. [hr][/hr]
Our environment team created a Byzantine version of the map table to make for an even more immersive experience for our players. The lamps and silverware are inspired by surviving pieces of Byzantine craft. The sword and the bag of gold on the rightmost area of the table are a nod to the adventurer aspect of the expansion. While playing as a Greek character, players will also enjoy a mosaic inspired HUD skin. Nature motifs are depicted by bits of colorful tiles. Some of the HUD elements have also been reworked to be modular, so its easier to add new buttons on the side panels and currencies on the top. Hopefully modders can make good use of that. [hr][/hr]
The UI team also dedicated some time to making the game look and feel better by improving on some older features. Toasts have been reworked, they are now more clearly color coded so the player can tell if they failed or succeeded on an event quite more clearly. Toasts are also built in a way that they vary in size according to the amount of information to be displayed, which means you will get less hidden results marked by a nondescript ....
Alerts are now color coded as well, so players will have a clearer distinction of when they are being offered an opportunity (purple), if its something that needs their immediate attention (red) or if they have a boon they can click to collect (green).
We have also reworked all of the event headers. Icons were made crisper, their design improved. The mosaic header itself is now colored differently depending on which type of event the player is engaged with.
I will now hand the Dev Diary over to Ernesto Lopez, our Audio Director to tell us more on the audio work for Roads to Power. [hr][/hr]
Hey everyone, We're thrilled to share some exciting news about the latest expansion for Crusader Kings III, and today we're focusing on something truly special: the music. As you dive into the new content, we want to give you a peek behind the curtain at the fascinating process that brought this soundtrack to life. One of the standout elements of this expansion is the incorporation of Orthodox Chants, a unique and evocative addition that adds a profound layer to the game's atmosphere. We had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with Prof. Dr. Konstantin Nikolakopoulos, a renowned expert in orthodox music. Together with our talented composers from Audinity, Yannick S and Robin Birner, we embarked on a journey to capture the essence of these ancient chants. The recording process was something truly extraordinary. The team, alongside Prof. Dr. Nikolakopoulos, ventured to the Salvatorkirche in Munich, Germany, where they recorded these chants live. This wasn't your typical studio sessionit was raw, unstructured, and entirely authentic. With no predefined tempo or strict direction, the music was allowed to evolve organically from the live performance. What emerged was a soundtrack that not only captures the emotional depth of orthodox chants but also seamlessly integrates the signature Crusader Kings III vibea blend of medieval authenticity with a modern twist. Audinity deserves huge credit for how they approached this. They managed to maintain the integrity of the chants while infusing them with what we like to call a "modern-medieval" sound. It's a unique blend that feels both timeless and fresh, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of Crusader Kings III. The new Main Theme is a testament to this, showcasing the power and presence of Prof. Dr. Nikolakopoulos' performance in a way that is both majestic and haunting. But that's not allwe're also introducing a brand-new music player for Crusader Kings III. This has been a highly requested feature, and we're excited to finally bring it to you. The initial release will offer basic functionality, allowing you to have greater control over your in-game music. Whether you want to cue up specific tracks or mix and match songs from the base game with those from the Byzantium Empire expansion, the music player gives you that agency. You can enable or disable tracks at your discretion, allowing you to tailor your auditory experience to your exact preferences.
We believe the music player is a fantastic addition, and we're committed to continuing its development based on your feedback. It's a significant step forward in giving you more control over how you experience the rich musical landscape of Crusader Kings III. So, dive into the new expansion, enjoy the incredible new music, and explore the music player to make your game soundtrack truly your own. We can't wait to hear what you think and to continue refining these features with your input. [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
[ 2024-08-27 11:59:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello!
Lucas Ribeiro here, 2D Art Lead at CKIII. Im here to share with you the results of our art struggles to represent both the awesome splendor of the Byzantine Empire and the mud-splattered travels of medieval adventurers.
Discuss Dev Diary #154 on our forums!
Loading Screen
Lets start off with the first thing that will greet the player in Roads to Power, the Loading Screen. Before picking a definitive subject matter for our loading screen, we created many composition studies. We went for themes such as nautical, imperial, religious and triumphal.
1. The Emperor stands on a galley armed with a flamethrower and inspects the fleet. 2. An Imperial comitive struts through the Boukoleon palace waterfront. 3. An imperial comitive receives foreign dignitaries standing under the Boukoleon. 4. The emperor returns from his victorious campaign and receives a triumph. A one-eyed man guides an army of blinded soldiers of the defeated army. 5. The emperor is crowned 6. A religious debate between Orthodox and Catholic priests. 7. The emperor is crowned in the Hagia Sophia 8. Another religious debate. The coronation in the Hagia Sophia and the imperial comitive striding by the docks were picked as the best ones. As a next step we created color sketches based on those chosen compositions. You can see the results here:
(Color sketches of the two favorite ideas) After some debate, we decided that the coronation had the most unique and striking composition out of the two. But, since the team liked the imperial comitive color sketch so much, we decided to save it and use it for the bureaucratic dynasty legacy.
[Our selected loading screen.]
[Dynasty legacy based on the rejected color sketch.] [hr][/hr]
Story Event Illustrations
To mark great events that happen to the world or player characters we had originally introduced Story Event illustrations for Fate of Iberia. These dramatic splash screens would pop-up anytime something happened during the Iberian and Iranian struggles. On Legends of the Dead this format of illustration came back to represent major disease outbreaks and the black death. For EP3 we decided that these evocative images would be fitting for memorable events such as Triumphs, the Restoration of Rome and in the story of Hereward the Wake, the Harrying of the North.
[hr][/hr]
Event Backgrounds
While we had generic Mediterranean background images, it felt like they were insufficient to represent the particularities of Byzantine culture. The team thus made new versions for the feast, market, throne room, study, temple and relaxing room. This allowed us to represent some Greek particularities, such as the use of lavish recliners on their ostentatious feasts.
1. A view of the Chrysotriklinos, also used as the main menu background for greek characters. 2. A Byzantine study. Governors will be pondering administrative dilemmas in this office. 3. A Greek market, full of color and exotic goods. Your traveler will probably stumble on this during their travels. 4. An orthodox church or holy site. The striped walls really give it away. 5. A Greek relaxation room. It is impossible to relax without some marble and mosaics under your feet. 6. A Byzantine feast. The reclining chairs allow for maximum decadence, albeit the back pain. The hippodrome deserved special attention, as we have a background looking down from the stands into the track and one close down by the track directly.
We wanted to make sure you would feel in the middle of the action when the chariots were neck and neck, racing to the finish line. Hagia Sophia could not go without receiving their own unique background as well. At first we considered having the camera on the walkway. Our hope was to show the scale of the edifice this way, but our designers informed us that these were normally reserved for female visitors only, so we opted for a different composition.
[The abandoned sketch]
Constantinople is the focus of many new events, both of doom and glory. Accordingly we have made the appropriate backgrounds.
We put a lot of effort into trying to get everything in the right position in the city by following reconstructions and historical references. Our adventurers also demanded new backgrounds. Their camp life is represented by a variety of views of their encampment. By day or night, inside or outside.
[hr][/hr]
Animation
In Roads to Power, our environment team and animation team worked together to give our characters even more life, with new animations and assets for them to wield or ride on. Here are some of the highlights:
[Charioteers will ride on appropriately colored chariots, according to their team.]
[The emperor flaunts his shiny stick to remind everyone whos the boss.] We have added around thirty new animations or variations of older animations. Some of these will be applied in place of the regular idle animation the character usually has to present their newfound situation, such as when they are incapable or imprisoned. Some councilors will also change their animation depending on what task they are assigned to at the moment. Hopefully this will make characters feel more alive than ever in Roads to Power. We also expanded on event visual effects. Instead of using bink videos like we did for Legends of the Dead, we have opted for shaders that are a lot lighter. The new event effects include: Earthquake, heavy smoke, sand storm, rainy fog and lightning storm.
[hr][/hr]
Domiciles
[Initial experiments for the estate screen.]
[Initial Experiments for the camp screen.] Settling on a style for the domicile screen was quite a struggle for the team. At first, we meant to have them be very similar to locales (as in, the Tournament Screen). While this would make for more internal consistency in art style, for four reasons we decided to deviate from this initial plan: First, we wanted this NOT to be full-screen, as unlike the tournament screen, we do not mean to take the player away from their plots and immerse them in the event. The domiciles (estates and camps) communicate directly with your actions in the game world, and should be convenient to navigate. This made for a smaller screen and thus, a more symbolic representation of buildings and their purpose would work better in this medium. Second, we felt that our 3D environment team efforts were better used elsewhere, it was unlikely we couldve created cultural variations of buildings while depending on them. Keeping the work exclusively on the 2D artists expanded our capacity to create more buildings and have cultural variety on top of it. Third, The domiciles operate in a totally different way from tournaments, visual similarities would incorrectly communicate to the player that they should function the same way. Fourth, the team fell in love with the mockups we presented in the medieval art style. The non-descript isometric buildings ended up paling in comparison to the charming illustrations we had come up with.
Estate buildings have different visuals according to culture. For now, we have Western, Byzantine and MENA themes. Camp buildings are the same regardless of culture, except for the main tent, which has western, steppe, tribal and mena themes. Besides variation of buildings by culture, we also wanted to reinforce the sense of place in the world of the domiciles by creating different backgrounds that change according to the position of the estate or the camp. Estate Background can be: Dry, Green, Jungle, Rough and Urban. While Camp Backgrounds can be: Dry, Green, Jungle, Rough, Snow and Snowy Mountains. [hr][/hr]
Coat of Arms
While the Greeks showed less propensity to utilize coat-of-arms in the fashion we observe in western Europe, they did attach to the identity of their families certain symbols on their coins, murals and reliefs. It makes for an interesting variety that they would claim not only secular imagery, inspired on greco-roman myths, but also christian religious symbols. Their connection to the sea would also inspire many aquatic motifs. Thus, we can see mermaids, ophiotaurus and manticores side-by-side with Jesus, Mary, Archangel Gabriel and Saint George. These might be adorned with crosses, stars or shells.
[Randomly generated Greek coat of arms.] [hr][/hr]
Character Art
With Roads to Power we had the chance to greatly expand the Byzantine wardrobe, which was historically quite distinct and interesting looking, and very notably different from surrounding cultures. As usual our work began with collecting references, preferably from first-hand contemporaneous sources, but we also looked for modern books and other material that focus on this subject matter (a special shout-out to a book called By the Emperors hand by Timothy Dawson - which contains a lot of amazing research and conclusions!).
[A snapshot of (a small part of!) the Miro board put together by Nils and the character art team to collect references for everything related to Byzantine clothing.] There are quite a lot of both first and second hand sources that survive from the Byzantine Empire (perhaps not too surprising considering how vast it was and for how long it survived). Of particular value to note here are the Coptic garments that have survived in fantastic condition through the centuries in graves from Byzantine Egypt. Actual extant examples like these provide the best type of source we can wish for, and there are dozens of them! Most of them do pre-date the game by some margin, but we can see from 9th and 10th century manuscripts and mosaics that clothing in the same style was clearly still in use by our early start date.
[Some examples of Coptic tunics that have been excavated from Byzantine era Egypt.]
[Here we see very similar looking tunics depicted in the Paris Gregory from c. 880 and the Paris Psalter from the mid 10th century.] Following what we started with Western European clothes for Tours and Tournaments, we decided quite early on that Roads to Power should also include different clothes for early and late eras. This fits especially well with the new 1178 start date; Byzantine characters by that time will look quite different from those of three hundred years prior. Since there are very few preserved items of clothing from the later time period, we based those designs primarily on depictions in manuscripts and mosaics.
[From the Menologion of Basil II, 11th century (which - as a side note - is filled to the brim with these beautiful and disturbing paintings of saints being brutally tortured and murdered, people being burned alive, babies being skewered, with everyone looking slightly bored) and the Madrid Skylitzes, from around 1150.] Since we are depicting a lot of the Creme de la Creme of people of the time, we are always looking for suitable Bling to add as accessories to these outfits. This expansion was no exception. Again, we turn to primary sources of jewelry that have survived to the present day.
[Some spectacular Byzantine jewelry from museums around the world that we recreated for Roads to Power.] We then created concept-art to synthesize these disparate sources and fuzzy imagery into a more concrete form the 3D character artists could base their work on.
[Examples of concept art based on our collected references.]
[And some finished clothing assets showing a comparison between the early and late eras. ]
[This might look a bit funky, but we have to create many blendshapes so that the clothes can morph along with the character as they age and get thinner, fatter or muscular.]
We were grateful for the opportunity to bring to life many memorable headgear and accessories of the Byzantine world, such as the Propolma hat or the Imperial Delmatikion with Diadma. Most of them have their proper (Medieval Greek) names in the Barbershop. Overall, weve added 8 new hairstyles, 4 beards, 18 clothing sets, 2 armors, 3 sets of legwear, 4 cloaks and 24 different headgear. This great variety, layered on top of the original assets from the base game will make each character in the cast of your personal Greek drama be unique and memorable.
[Early and late era Byzantine courtiers dressed in some of the new clothes added with Roads to Power. ] [hr][/hr]
Patterns
Thanks to the fortunate survival of many textiles from the Byzantine times, we had our pick of the litter when it came to which trims and brocades to represent. It was more a matter of choosing the most characteristic, unique and interesting ones. Unlike other patterns, we have used a new type of texture map setup, where the bottom part of the medium trims is used for roundels. This permitted us to have specific bits of the pattern transform from a trim to a framed rounded-ish composition.
[hr][/hr]
Throne Room
The Byzantine throne room was a daunting task undertaken by our 3D environment Team. Our objective was to represent the Chrysotriklinos, the main ceremonial hall of the Great Palace of Constantinople. Unfortunately, the palace has been destroyed and there are no contemporaneous representations of the place. We had then to follow descriptions made at the time and observe other structures that take inspiration from the palace in some capacity (such as the Church of Ravena and the Palace of Aachen).
[Concept of the throne room.] The overall shape of our interpretation is quite similar to the Palace of Aachen, but we opted to optimize the shape so that it could better be captured by our throne room camera setup, so the dome is probably a bit lower than it wouldve been at the time. We also knew we wanted to decorate the room with many mosaics, as was the fashion at the time.
Instead of copying existent mosaics, we opted to create our own version, inspired by surviving examples. We wanted to have bigger individual mosaic bits. If we had made the individual tiles as small as they were in real-life, theyd become unreadable from a distance as being a mosaic.
[Here we can see the constituting texture maps to make up a mosaic, created by hand by our 2D Artists.] For the trims and patterns that frame the architecture and make up the more geometric parts of the mosaic, we created a variety of trimsheets and materials.
For subject matter, we knew from contemporaneous descriptions, the apse was dominated by christ on a lyre throne. We also knew emperors, saints and angels were represented. As well as verdant fields and flowers. When it came to deciding which figures to display, we wanted to do a nod to the fact that these mosaics were removed during the time of aniconism and then restored before our game starting date. We went with some staunch defenders of icons such as Irene of Athens and Theophanes the Confessor. We also included some classic characters such as Justinian, Constantine, St. Helen and Demetrius of Thessalonica.
From the writings of an emissary to the Byzantine court, we got reports of chirping mechanical birds and roaring metal lions. We have done our part in emulating these marvels, as the golden lions flanking the Throne of Solomon will intermittently bang their tails on the ground and roar. We also added the mechanical birds and the Water Organ as a court artifact.
[Some of the new statue assets that can be found in the Byzantine court.] [hr][/hr]
Holdings and Special Buildings
Besides the terrain rework mentioned on previous dev diaries, our 3D environment team has populated Anatolia and Greece with a variety of special buildings. We had great inspirations to draw from such as monasteries built against sheer cliffs or ancient temples repurposed as orthodox churches.
Greek-culture holdings now have unique graphics, distinguished from the generic Mediterranean ones.
You can now see the characteristic warm colors, red striped walls and rounded roofs. [hr][/hr]
Byzantine Hud and Table
Our environment team created a Byzantine version of the map table to make for an even more immersive experience for our players. The lamps and silverware are inspired by surviving pieces of Byzantine craft. The sword and the bag of gold on the rightmost area of the table are a nod to the adventurer aspect of the expansion. While playing as a Greek character, players will also enjoy a mosaic inspired HUD skin. Nature motifs are depicted by bits of colorful tiles. Some of the HUD elements have also been reworked to be modular, so its easier to add new buttons on the side panels and currencies on the top. Hopefully modders can make good use of that. [hr][/hr]
Miscellaneous Improvements
The UI team also dedicated some time to making the game look and feel better by improving on some older features. Toasts have been reworked, they are now more clearly color coded so the player can tell if they failed or succeeded on an event quite more clearly. Toasts are also built in a way that they vary in size according to the amount of information to be displayed, which means you will get less hidden results marked by a nondescript ....
Alerts are now color coded as well, so players will have a clearer distinction of when they are being offered an opportunity (purple), if its something that needs their immediate attention (red) or if they have a boon they can click to collect (green).
We have also reworked all of the event headers. Icons were made crisper, their design improved. The mosaic header itself is now colored differently depending on which type of event the player is engaged with.
I will now hand the Dev Diary over to Ernesto Lopez, our Audio Director to tell us more on the audio work for Roads to Power. [hr][/hr]
Music Player
Hey everyone, We're thrilled to share some exciting news about the latest expansion for Crusader Kings III, and today we're focusing on something truly special: the music. As you dive into the new content, we want to give you a peek behind the curtain at the fascinating process that brought this soundtrack to life. One of the standout elements of this expansion is the incorporation of Orthodox Chants, a unique and evocative addition that adds a profound layer to the game's atmosphere. We had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with Prof. Dr. Konstantin Nikolakopoulos, a renowned expert in orthodox music. Together with our talented composers from Audinity, Yannick S and Robin Birner, we embarked on a journey to capture the essence of these ancient chants. The recording process was something truly extraordinary. The team, alongside Prof. Dr. Nikolakopoulos, ventured to the Salvatorkirche in Munich, Germany, where they recorded these chants live. This wasn't your typical studio sessionit was raw, unstructured, and entirely authentic. With no predefined tempo or strict direction, the music was allowed to evolve organically from the live performance. What emerged was a soundtrack that not only captures the emotional depth of orthodox chants but also seamlessly integrates the signature Crusader Kings III vibea blend of medieval authenticity with a modern twist. Audinity deserves huge credit for how they approached this. They managed to maintain the integrity of the chants while infusing them with what we like to call a "modern-medieval" sound. It's a unique blend that feels both timeless and fresh, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of Crusader Kings III. The new Main Theme is a testament to this, showcasing the power and presence of Prof. Dr. Nikolakopoulos' performance in a way that is both majestic and haunting. But that's not allwe're also introducing a brand-new music player for Crusader Kings III. This has been a highly requested feature, and we're excited to finally bring it to you. The initial release will offer basic functionality, allowing you to have greater control over your in-game music. Whether you want to cue up specific tracks or mix and match songs from the base game with those from the Byzantium Empire expansion, the music player gives you that agency. You can enable or disable tracks at your discretion, allowing you to tailor your auditory experience to your exact preferences.
We believe the music player is a fantastic addition, and we're committed to continuing its development based on your feedback. It's a significant step forward in giving you more control over how you experience the rich musical landscape of Crusader Kings III. So, dive into the new expansion, enjoy the incredible new music, and explore the music player to make your game soundtrack truly your own. We can't wait to hear what you think and to continue refining these features with your input. [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!
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[ 2024-08-27 11:59:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Free "Many Roads to Power" Comic Book - Available now!
[ 2024-08-22 13:08:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our free tie-in comic made in collaboration with Dead Good Comics, Many Roads to Power, is now available! Read about the rise of Basil I the Macedonian" to the throne of Byzantium, and then write your own conclusion to the story when our next Major Expansion, Roads to Power, releases on September 24.
This comic is available for free to all owners of Crusader Kings III via Steam, and available to anyone whether they own the game or not via our website.
[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
Twitter Facebook Instagram Youtube
[ 2024-08-22 13:08:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #153 - Byzantine Flavor
Byzantium has been our main point of inspiration and the impetus for Administrative Government. We outlined this in the two previous dev diaries on Admin, but I wanted to discuss this in a bit more detail. Essentially, all the content weve made for Administrative Government has been designed with an eye towards Byzantium as the model. This doesnt mean that this content cant appear if playing as a different admin realm. Far from it. What it does mean is that all the content you encounter while playing as Byzantium should feel tailored and appropriate to the context. There is alternative text for other admin realms. So fret not, we havent siloed all the content to a single empire. Playing admin should generally feel different and exciting, but playing as Byzantium should feel special.
Weve revamped Greek Cultural Traditions and added special integrations with Admin Government and the other unique aspects of the DLC. In the descriptions below, youll undoubtedly find references to features and concepts that we havent yet discussed, but will be discussed either later in this or a future dev diary.
[Palace Politics & Cultural Traditions] In addition to this gorgeous new art, weve added loads of integrations with new content exclusive to Roads to Power. Palace Politics is a great example. Not only does it unlock the new Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms type and the Akolouthos Court Position, but also incorporates several unique bonuses to demonstrate the Greek affinity for Administrative Government. Maiming and disfiguring characters was a primary way to take your political opponents out of the running in the Byzantine political milieu, and weve reflected that here with reduced monthly Influence. Weve added unique bonuses to Greek characters for scheming. Not only do they get special bonuses to a new type of Scheme Countermeasure, but they can also execute Political Schemes faster. Political Schemes are a new category of Schemes that weve added as a central aspect to the Administrative Government experience. Ill go into more detail about this, but suffice it to say that you cant play in Byzantium without engaging with these new Schemes. And of course, your Chief Eunuch will be a major player. Weve added a new trait, called Beardless Eunuch, to differentiate characters castrated as children from characters who were castrated as adults.
[Beardless Eunuch Trait & Eunuch Scheme Agent Type] As you can see, these characters also affect Influence. They are generally disliked by other vassals in the realm because they make for excellent Scheme Agents in Political Schemes. Roman Ceremonies contains a slew of new features for Byzantium, including access to the Hold a Triumph Decision, the Chariot Race Activity and its associated Court Positions, and a new type of Diarchy called a Duumvirate.
[Imperial Tagmata & Cultivated Sophistication Cultural Traditions] Imperial Tagmata unlocks the Byzantine Men-at-Arms discussed in the next section, but also provides some unique bonuses that are useful for Administrative realms. This Cultural Tradition allows Governors with the Frontier Administration type to borrow Title Men-at-Arms from non-Frontier neighbors in the realm. They also get an additional Title Men-at-Arms Regiment slot and a bonus to their Heavy Cavalry Regiment maximum size. Cultivated Sophistication provides a variety of Culture-related effects in addition to granting Development from building Estate Buildings. Moreover, it allows House Heads to adopt characters into their House.
[Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms and the Decision to Found the Varangian Guard] The Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms type is now available to the Emperor of Byzantium as Title Men-at-Arms. This means they can only be recruited for the Byzantine Empire Title. Furthermore, you cant recruit them right off the bat if you start in 867. You must take the Found the Varangian Guard Decision first.
To head up these new Men-at-Arms is a brand new Court Position: the Akolouthos. Historically, this was an office in the imperial palace tasked with overseeing the Varangians. An Akolouthos with good Aptitude will increase Heavy Infantry Toughness of your Men-at-Arms overall and make Characters with the Varangian trait both more common and better at being Bodyguards.
[Akolouthos Court Position filled by Glum]
Aside from the Varangian Guard, we have added 3 new Men-at-Arms types for Greeks which are unlocked by the Imperial Tagmata Cultural Tradition.
[Akritai, Skoutatoi, and Ballistrai Men-at-Arms Types]
Additionally, weve added Ayrudzi for Armenians and Conrois for the Normans.
[Ayrudzi and Conrois Men-at-Arms Types]
An expansion wouldnt be complete without a new Dynasty Legacy. This time, weve created one specifically for characters with Administrative Government.
[Art for the new Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy] All of these perks buff how well you can play within an Administrative Realm. Unlocking perks will propel your family forward whether you are aiming for the imperial throne or you wish to pull strings from the shadows of your Estate.
[Effects of Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy Perks] Youll notice that two of these perks unlock unique Estate upgrades, namely the Reception Hall and the Cabinet of Curiosities. These are special internal Estate upgrades that provide powerful bonuses for your House members. The Reception Hall provides Legitimacy to House Members who accede to the imperial throne. For every Feast or Grand Wedding that House Members host in the Barony where the Houses Estate is located, the counter on this internal building increases. Once a House Member wins the Acclamation Succession and becomes the Emperor, the counter resets.
[Description and Effects of the Reception Hall internal Estate upgrade] Upgrading this internal building decreases the Legitimacy counter lost whenever a House Member becomes Emperor and increases monthly influence gain for the Estate owner. The Cabinet of Curiosities, on the other hand, provides opportunities based on how many Artifacts the Estate owner puts on display. Once an artifact has been added to the Estate, it is irretrievable and only contributes to the quality of the Cabinet of Curiosities building.
[Hall of Wonders (Cabinet of Curiosities Level 2) Effects & Contributed Artifacts Breakdown] The image above shows the second level of the Cabinet of Curiosities, which is available after you have contributed enough artifacts so the quality level is 15 or higher. You can see the breakdown of scores below. Essentially, the higher quality the Artifact is, the greater it boosts the quality of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Upgrading this internal Estate building makes it cheaper and easier to attain higher quality Artifacts and allows you to request Artifacts from other House members. The more you upgrade this building, the more bonuses you receive to your Stewardship and Learning skills as well as your Renown and Influence gains. Finally Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy unlocks the Order Mass Arrests Decision, which Ill let you discover for yourselves upon release.
As we mentioned in the dev diaries about Administrative Government, weve created a new category of Schemes called Political Schemes which are available to characters with Administrative Government. Byzantium, and by extension, Administrative Realms, should be much more about Intrigue and Scheming than War. In these realms, palace politics and backhanded trickery reign supreme. For example, at some point youll want to run a smear campaign against one of your political rivals. You can do that now with the Slander Scheme.
[The Emperor schemes to slander the reputation of one of his vassals] If successful, this Scheme lowers the Targets Candidate Score for Acclamation (to be the Basileus) and Appointment (to be a Strategos) Successions in the Realm and lowers their Governor Efficiency by 5% for 10 years. This combo makes them a much less desirable candidate for any position. Another Scheme youll definitely want to try out is Raid Estate, in which you attempt to successfully stage a raid against another Noble Familys Estate.
[A Noble Family Head schemes to raid a fellow vassals Estate] Of course, its imperative that this kind of activity remains under the radar or there will be consequences. The potential rewards, on the other hand, are quite large: Gold for yourself and fewer political rivals from the other Noble Family. Disrupting your political rivals base of operations can prove quite fruitful. With plenty of these new Political Schemes in addition to a veritable buffet of new Character Interactions, youll have all the tools you need to plot and scheme your way to power in Byzantium.
Byzantium would not be complete without a Chariot Racing Activity and beautiful new art for the Hippodrome. Period. Sure, the sport wasnt at the peak of its popularity during the High Middle Ages, but it is part and parcel of the Byzantine experience. So weve added it.
Weve also added a few custom Intents for this Activity that better fit its historical and political context. The default Intent will always be to Increase Influence, but you may want to choose Appease the Populace if your Popular Opinion is low. Of course, there are a variety of traditional Intents to choose from. Of course, youll need to be wary. Activity Guests have an additional Intent option to Sow Discord which aims to reduce the Popular Opinion of the current Emperor and sabotage their County Control.
At the very beginning of the Chariot Race, youll have the opportunity to place a wager on the Charioteers competing in that days competition. Youll see representatives here in a unique interface from the four traditional teams of the Hippodrome: the Venetoi (Blues), the Prasinoi (Greens), the Leukoi (Whites), and the Rhousioi (Reds). You can easily see which character is your own Champion Charioteer from the icon next to their name.
[Choosing a team to place a wager on during a Chariot Race Activity] Youll be approached by the Emperors Bookmaker, a new Court Position added in this DLC, and they will ask if youd like to place a wager. You then have a series of choices: [olist] Which team would you like to place your wager on?
Would you like to place your wager on a specific member of the team or hedge your bets and bet on the team as a whole?
What type of wager would you like to place?
[olist]
Win - The character or team will come in First Place
Place - The character or team will come in First or Second Place
Show - The character or team or will come in First, Second, or Third Place
[/olist]
[/olist]
You may well want to place a wager on your own Charioteer if youve brought them along! Be wary, though, for if they perform poorly, youll gain stress. There are also chances to steal another attendees Champion Charioteer if you do not already employ one.
Every Landed and Landless title holder with the Roman Ceremonies Cultural Tradition has access to the new Champion Charioteer Court Position. If hired, these characters will travel with you to Chariot Races and compete on your behalf.
[Champion Charioteer Court Position & Charioteer Trait] Every Charioteer is assigned a Charioteer Trait indicating which team theyre on and how much experience they have competing. The more experience they have, the better they are. If you want to train up your Charioteer in between races, which can happen every 10 years in game, you can work on upgrading your Stables Estate Building. It has a special track which unlocks a new Court Position Task for the Charioteer, enabling them to gain trait experience outside of the Chariot Race Activity.
[Charioteer Training Grounds Estate Building]
[Charioteer Training Court Position Task]
Before the race begins, youll have some opportunity for politicking and rubbing shoulders with other important people in the realm, depending on your stature. You only get to sit in the kathisma, the imperial box, if the Emperor invites you as his Guest of Honor.
[Event where the Emperor may decide to invite an additional guest into the kathisma]
Then begins the actual race what everyones come to see. This always begins with the Emperors address, which provides special options based on Activity Intent and current situation.
[Event beginning the Chariot Race where the Emperor decides how to frame his opening address] You can track the Charioteers and their place via the new UI element on the side of the Activity window. And, of course, weve added chariot animations complete with horses, which are also available in the Barbershop.
[Event in a Chariot Race where one charioteer passes another] But now an interlude on what happens when you have two Emperors at the helm from my beloved colleague Wokeg! [hr][/hr]
Ill bet you thought you were safely out of the Wokeg info dump mines, didnt you? Youre never safe. Not from my word vomit. Lets talk co-emperors.
[Byzantium has historical co-emperors in both 1066 & 1178]
Youd be surprised. Yes, the Roman Empire was very much an autocracy from Augustus onwards, and by the medieval period, that autocracy had decided fairly thoroughly that power rested entirely in and flowed exclusively from the emperor, but the key word there is emperor, not the. If its the position of emperor that is in charge, you simply appoint a second emperor. A slightly more junior emperor to the other emperor, but theyre both in charge. One is just a little more in charge than the other. This addresses who the next emperor will be (Emperor A is dead, but Emperor B is still emperor), mollifies powerful pretenders, or even just gives your child some practical experience of rule. Its also an absolute recipe for petty personal conflicts, drama, civil wars, and comes with the delightful incentive to murder the other emperor in pursuit of indisputed power. If youve ever wondered why the Byzantines have such a reputation for civil wars and intrigue, well, personally, Id peg this practice as a major contributor.
So, the challenge here was to model something that caused Byzantium a lot of problems, but also make it fun. We settled on a type of diarchy focused around settling the question of your succession, grooming your heir, and farming influence. In exchange, you get a diarch that can be helpful but who may, over time, grow too big for their boots and decide to take drastic action. Were introducing three new diarchies to represent this:
Co-rulers take their loyalty first and foremost from how likely they are to inherit soon.
[A co-emperor much younger than you receives a substantial loyalty boost] Theyre happier the greater the age gap. Conversely, if you have a co-ruler for decades, theyll start to get more and more annoyed with you not dying. We track both the years count for this, and how healthy you are vs. your age.
[Being unduly healthy, starting in your 50s and scaling up to your 90s, will cause a co-ruler to get progressively less loyal to you]
Sometimes, youre just looking to help secure the succession. Though appointing one of your infant children co-emperor isnt a silver (sling) bullet ensuring theyll win the purple, it does help quite a lot. Such a child cant really wield any _true_ power, but they can start growing accustomed to the ceremonies of rule. Nominal co-emperors have access to no Borrowed Powers. Instead, as the Scales of Power swing towards them, they become more cost-efficient to promote for Administrative offices and earn progress towards base skill points granted when they come of age.
[An emperor names one of his children as nominal co-emperor] Basically, the more power they have when they hit 16, the more skill bonuses they get from their apprenticeship as emperor. The older a nominal co-emperor gets, the more the natural resting point of the Scales of Power will swing towards them. To hurry the process, you may voluntarily cede authority to them. When your little partner reaches adulthood, the diarchy type is immediately converted over to a true Duumvirate.
[A tooltip showing the potential skill rewards on offer for a well-trained nominal co-emperor] The Long Tail As long as you have them, both nominal co-emperors and full co-emperors boost your influence gain per month and give some directly to themselves. If you elevate and support one from a young age, theyll be not only a fountain of influence for you, but hopefully have a ready supply of influence themselves when they inherit. All you have to do is keep them sweet until then.
Co-emperors can be picked up in a few ways: they might be nominal co-emperors that reached adulthood, you might nominate an adult family member, or you might diffuse a faction by elevating its leader (forcibly putting truces on everyone in the faction). They carry over the passive influence gain and Administrative office promotion efficiency we talked about in the last section. Additionally, as a full co-emperor is always an adult, provided all relevant circumstances permit, their children are considered to be Born in the Purple just as those of the full emperor. Co-emperors have access to the standard suite of Borrowed Powers that we give most diarchs, though things like Diarch Revoke Title and Diarch Retract Vassal cannot be used against the empires administrative vassals. Like all diarchs, theyre also somewhat better at scheming within the realm. Finally, they interact with their lieges realm law slightly differently. Co-emperors can ask to have it increased, taking the blame as diarchs usually do, but may also ask to have the Imperial Bureaucracy reduced. This reduces any strife that the co-emperor has accrued substantially, and makes co-emperors the only character other than the realms liege who can directly affect its primary law. Scapegoat Counterpart When two people hold ultimate power in an institution, petty personal spats can not only get out of hand quickly, theyre actively incentivised: you can always blame the other guy. One of the first Borrowed Powers a co-emperor unlocks is the ability to Scapegoat Counterpart. Fortunately/unfortunately, their senior emperor can also use it back on them. Scapegoating your fellow emperor requires you to have either higher diplomacy or higher intrigue than them. You receive influence and gain a little tyranny/strife to cause your target to gain even more tyranny/strife, and lose opinion with them.
[A senior emperor humiliates his co-emperor in order to earn influence] Influence, tyranny, and strife gain (as well as opinion loss) all scale with your relative skill, and whether you are being subtle or obvious. Demand Despotate A powerful co-emperor demands their own slice of the realm to rule. First, they must actually have a governorate of their own, but what self-respecting co-emperor could be happy with a mere duchy-tier title? With this interaction, they may demand they be given a kingdom title within the empire as their own private fief. This immediately creates said kingdom if it didnt exist, and grants it and all of its de jure vassals to the co-emperor. Refusing this interaction costs the senior emperor double the influence that the co-emperor paid to send it. There are other ways to acquire a despotate, but they generally involve more underhanded means and dont necessarily come with an immediate grant of (potentially) many vassals. Imperial Expedition With two emperors, you can afford to risk one doing something a little grandiose. This Borrowed Power gives the co-emperor a single usage of a very powerful Casus Belli: an Imperial Expedition, to be launched against realms that either border the empire or have territory de jure belonging to it. They can target all duchies that match either of these criteria and belong to the target. Every governor bordering the defender is forcibly called to war as an ally. Non-bordering governors with martial Province Administrations are given the choice to join. Upon victory, the co-emperor is given four choices:
[A co-emperor launches an expedition to reclaim lands lost to the Turks] Gods Perfect Vessel Gods vice-regent on Earth understands that killing (even when justified) is a sin. It does a ruler good to show a little mercy when dispensing justice, and what is more mercifully just than sparing a usurpers life whilst denying them the chance to look upon Gods right-hand ever again? Co-emperors, senior emperors, and even appropriately-cultured co-monarchs have access to the new Maim Co-Ruler interaction. This allows you to choose whether you wish to cut away their testicles, eyes, nose, a leg, or an arm. If a co-ruler maims their senior ruler, they then immediately usurp their top tier titles plus the entire capital duchy. If the senior ruler maims their co-ruler, then their diarchy ends and their former co-ruler is demoted back to whatever rank is granted by any titles they hold. The same logic is applied on execution.
[A co-emperor maims his father (the option to cut off the nose is obscured by the tooltip for stabbing or boiling out the eyes)]
Lastly, weve added in a reduced form of co-emperorship for feudal rulers, in the form of co-monarchies. These have no new Borrowed Powers, are unique to feudal kingdoms and empires, and are primarily intended as an early game mechanism. Since a co-ruler is your designated heir, raising one of your children as king or emperor in your lifetime allows you access to the designate heir mechanics much earlier than usual with the advent of Choose a New Destiny and loosened restrictions on who you might play after death, this is much less of a balance concern than previous patches. Your new co-ruler can only be deposed by execution (or maiming if you have the appropriate cultural tradition), has the same dubious loyalty mechanics as a co-emperor, etc., so consider this a roleplay-friendly alternative for putting your preferred heir on the throne to disinheriting your three eldest children to get to the fourth you actually wanted. Instead of influence gain, co-monarchs give vassal opinion scaling with their diplomacy to the liege, and gain considerable monthly prestige that scales slightly up for empires.
[Henry the Young King is a historical co-monarch in 1178] Okay, thats all from me. For now. Back to your regularly scheduled dev diary host! [hr][/hr]
Weve added a bunch of new decisions with associated content to make playing in Byzantium feel more unique. Ill highlight a few of those here.
The Byzantine Emperor can now use the Hold a Triumph Decision after a major accomplishment, like winning a War. This is a chance to capitalize on your successes and reap the rewards. You may gain Legitimacy, Influence, and Prestige depending on your actions.
[Decide whether your Triumph should conclude at the Hagia Sophia or the Hippodrome] The following events are reactive to what youve done most recently as the Emperor. For example, should you win the war against the Seljuks in 1066 and hold a triumph, youll have unique options for how to focus your speech.
[Decide how to craft your imperial speech while holding a triumph]
Were not adding Naval Warfare to CK3 with Roads to Power, so get that idea out of your minds right now. But! We have added some representation for Greek Fire, the famed Byzantine weapon primarily utilized in naval warfare.
[Prepare Greek Fire Dromons Decision] Taking this Decision as the Byzantine Emperor unlocks a new Scheme that, upon completion, gives you the ability to harm or even destroy embarked armies near Byzantion.
[Event where the Emperor decides how to start the Scheme to construct Greek Fire Dromons]
Taking this decision unlocks the unique Mulberry Copse Estate Building, which gives powerful bonuses. Upgrading the Building to level 4 unlocks the Commission Silk Regalia Decision, a means of acquiring a unique Artifact one of the many perks of being Emperor.
[The Decision to Commission Silk Regalia alongside the Estate Building art for the Large Magnanery]
A while back, there was a forum post that caught our attention suggesting Terrain changes for Anatolia. With some changes, we decided to implement these suggestions. Heres an updated Terrain map of Anatolia:
[New Terrain Map Mode changes in Anatolia] Most noticeably, we added a bunch of Steppe Terrain, changed the Impassable Terrain layout around Cilicia, and adjusted some County boundaries in that area as well, including the Baronies of Soloi and Tarsus.
One of my favorite things that we have added in Roads to Power is what were calling the Gloss functionality. We have always wavered about adding historically niche words or phrases to the game, especially if they wouldnt be translated. To me, this expansion just wouldnt feel right without adding some Byzantine Greek words and phrases. So to make this all work, weve implemented a new type of tooltip, which you can see an example of below.
[An example where we highlight a quotation in Ancient Greek from Homers Iliad] Weve added quite a few of these around the new content we have created and hope to include this more in future expansions. Alright, folks! Thats all from me for today. As Ive said, these are but a few examples of what weve made so as not to spoil any surprises awaiting you in Roads to Power.
[ 2024-08-20 11:59:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
! Im Chad, a game designer here on the CK3 team. Today, Ill be walking you through some highlights of what weve added in terms of Byzantine flavor in Roads to Power. Some cursory but important notes to begin our discussion:
- These images may be works in progress. We are still working away at polishing Roads to Power to provide the best experience possible.
- Yes, I will refer to Byzantium as Byzantium in this dev diary. I know that the endonym is more properly the Roman Empire, but its our policy to not use endonyms in the game. Those of you who have strong opinions about this get a special game rule to rename Byzantium with several options.
Flagship for Administrative Government
Byzantium has been our main point of inspiration and the impetus for Administrative Government. We outlined this in the two previous dev diaries on Admin, but I wanted to discuss this in a bit more detail. Essentially, all the content weve made for Administrative Government has been designed with an eye towards Byzantium as the model. This doesnt mean that this content cant appear if playing as a different admin realm. Far from it. What it does mean is that all the content you encounter while playing as Byzantium should feel tailored and appropriate to the context. There is alternative text for other admin realms. So fret not, we havent siloed all the content to a single empire. Playing admin should generally feel different and exciting, but playing as Byzantium should feel special.
Improved Cultural Traditions
Weve revamped Greek Cultural Traditions and added special integrations with Admin Government and the other unique aspects of the DLC. In the descriptions below, youll undoubtedly find references to features and concepts that we havent yet discussed, but will be discussed either later in this or a future dev diary.
[Palace Politics & Cultural Traditions] In addition to this gorgeous new art, weve added loads of integrations with new content exclusive to Roads to Power. Palace Politics is a great example. Not only does it unlock the new Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms type and the Akolouthos Court Position, but also incorporates several unique bonuses to demonstrate the Greek affinity for Administrative Government. Maiming and disfiguring characters was a primary way to take your political opponents out of the running in the Byzantine political milieu, and weve reflected that here with reduced monthly Influence. Weve added unique bonuses to Greek characters for scheming. Not only do they get special bonuses to a new type of Scheme Countermeasure, but they can also execute Political Schemes faster. Political Schemes are a new category of Schemes that weve added as a central aspect to the Administrative Government experience. Ill go into more detail about this, but suffice it to say that you cant play in Byzantium without engaging with these new Schemes. And of course, your Chief Eunuch will be a major player. Weve added a new trait, called Beardless Eunuch, to differentiate characters castrated as children from characters who were castrated as adults.
[Beardless Eunuch Trait & Eunuch Scheme Agent Type] As you can see, these characters also affect Influence. They are generally disliked by other vassals in the realm because they make for excellent Scheme Agents in Political Schemes. Roman Ceremonies contains a slew of new features for Byzantium, including access to the Hold a Triumph Decision, the Chariot Race Activity and its associated Court Positions, and a new type of Diarchy called a Duumvirate.
[Imperial Tagmata & Cultivated Sophistication Cultural Traditions] Imperial Tagmata unlocks the Byzantine Men-at-Arms discussed in the next section, but also provides some unique bonuses that are useful for Administrative realms. This Cultural Tradition allows Governors with the Frontier Administration type to borrow Title Men-at-Arms from non-Frontier neighbors in the realm. They also get an additional Title Men-at-Arms Regiment slot and a bonus to their Heavy Cavalry Regiment maximum size. Cultivated Sophistication provides a variety of Culture-related effects in addition to granting Development from building Estate Buildings. Moreover, it allows House Heads to adopt characters into their House.
New Men-at-Arms Types
The Varangian Guard
[Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms and the Decision to Found the Varangian Guard] The Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms type is now available to the Emperor of Byzantium as Title Men-at-Arms. This means they can only be recruited for the Byzantine Empire Title. Furthermore, you cant recruit them right off the bat if you start in 867. You must take the Found the Varangian Guard Decision first.
Akolouthos Court Position
To head up these new Men-at-Arms is a brand new Court Position: the Akolouthos. Historically, this was an office in the imperial palace tasked with overseeing the Varangians. An Akolouthos with good Aptitude will increase Heavy Infantry Toughness of your Men-at-Arms overall and make Characters with the Varangian trait both more common and better at being Bodyguards.
[Akolouthos Court Position filled by Glum]
Byzantine Men-at-Arms
Aside from the Varangian Guard, we have added 3 new Men-at-Arms types for Greeks which are unlocked by the Imperial Tagmata Cultural Tradition.
[Akritai, Skoutatoi, and Ballistrai Men-at-Arms Types]
Additional Men-at-Arms
Additionally, weve added Ayrudzi for Armenians and Conrois for the Normans.
[Ayrudzi and Conrois Men-at-Arms Types]
Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy
An expansion wouldnt be complete without a new Dynasty Legacy. This time, weve created one specifically for characters with Administrative Government.
[Art for the new Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy] All of these perks buff how well you can play within an Administrative Realm. Unlocking perks will propel your family forward whether you are aiming for the imperial throne or you wish to pull strings from the shadows of your Estate.
[Effects of Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy Perks] Youll notice that two of these perks unlock unique Estate upgrades, namely the Reception Hall and the Cabinet of Curiosities. These are special internal Estate upgrades that provide powerful bonuses for your House members. The Reception Hall provides Legitimacy to House Members who accede to the imperial throne. For every Feast or Grand Wedding that House Members host in the Barony where the Houses Estate is located, the counter on this internal building increases. Once a House Member wins the Acclamation Succession and becomes the Emperor, the counter resets.
[Description and Effects of the Reception Hall internal Estate upgrade] Upgrading this internal building decreases the Legitimacy counter lost whenever a House Member becomes Emperor and increases monthly influence gain for the Estate owner. The Cabinet of Curiosities, on the other hand, provides opportunities based on how many Artifacts the Estate owner puts on display. Once an artifact has been added to the Estate, it is irretrievable and only contributes to the quality of the Cabinet of Curiosities building.
[Hall of Wonders (Cabinet of Curiosities Level 2) Effects & Contributed Artifacts Breakdown] The image above shows the second level of the Cabinet of Curiosities, which is available after you have contributed enough artifacts so the quality level is 15 or higher. You can see the breakdown of scores below. Essentially, the higher quality the Artifact is, the greater it boosts the quality of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Upgrading this internal Estate building makes it cheaper and easier to attain higher quality Artifacts and allows you to request Artifacts from other House members. The more you upgrade this building, the more bonuses you receive to your Stewardship and Learning skills as well as your Renown and Influence gains. Finally Bureaucracy Dynasty Legacy unlocks the Order Mass Arrests Decision, which Ill let you discover for yourselves upon release.
Political Schemes
As we mentioned in the dev diaries about Administrative Government, weve created a new category of Schemes called Political Schemes which are available to characters with Administrative Government. Byzantium, and by extension, Administrative Realms, should be much more about Intrigue and Scheming than War. In these realms, palace politics and backhanded trickery reign supreme. For example, at some point youll want to run a smear campaign against one of your political rivals. You can do that now with the Slander Scheme.
[The Emperor schemes to slander the reputation of one of his vassals] If successful, this Scheme lowers the Targets Candidate Score for Acclamation (to be the Basileus) and Appointment (to be a Strategos) Successions in the Realm and lowers their Governor Efficiency by 5% for 10 years. This combo makes them a much less desirable candidate for any position. Another Scheme youll definitely want to try out is Raid Estate, in which you attempt to successfully stage a raid against another Noble Familys Estate.
[A Noble Family Head schemes to raid a fellow vassals Estate] Of course, its imperative that this kind of activity remains under the radar or there will be consequences. The potential rewards, on the other hand, are quite large: Gold for yourself and fewer political rivals from the other Noble Family. Disrupting your political rivals base of operations can prove quite fruitful. With plenty of these new Political Schemes in addition to a veritable buffet of new Character Interactions, youll have all the tools you need to plot and scheme your way to power in Byzantium.
Chariot Racing Activity
Byzantium would not be complete without a Chariot Racing Activity and beautiful new art for the Hippodrome. Period. Sure, the sport wasnt at the peak of its popularity during the High Middle Ages, but it is part and parcel of the Byzantine experience. So weve added it.
Intents
Weve also added a few custom Intents for this Activity that better fit its historical and political context. The default Intent will always be to Increase Influence, but you may want to choose Appease the Populace if your Popular Opinion is low. Of course, there are a variety of traditional Intents to choose from. Of course, youll need to be wary. Activity Guests have an additional Intent option to Sow Discord which aims to reduce the Popular Opinion of the current Emperor and sabotage their County Control.
Place Your Bets
At the very beginning of the Chariot Race, youll have the opportunity to place a wager on the Charioteers competing in that days competition. Youll see representatives here in a unique interface from the four traditional teams of the Hippodrome: the Venetoi (Blues), the Prasinoi (Greens), the Leukoi (Whites), and the Rhousioi (Reds). You can easily see which character is your own Champion Charioteer from the icon next to their name.
[Choosing a team to place a wager on during a Chariot Race Activity] Youll be approached by the Emperors Bookmaker, a new Court Position added in this DLC, and they will ask if youd like to place a wager. You then have a series of choices: [olist]
Charioteer Court Position
Every Landed and Landless title holder with the Roman Ceremonies Cultural Tradition has access to the new Champion Charioteer Court Position. If hired, these characters will travel with you to Chariot Races and compete on your behalf.
[Champion Charioteer Court Position & Charioteer Trait] Every Charioteer is assigned a Charioteer Trait indicating which team theyre on and how much experience they have competing. The more experience they have, the better they are. If you want to train up your Charioteer in between races, which can happen every 10 years in game, you can work on upgrading your Stables Estate Building. It has a special track which unlocks a new Court Position Task for the Charioteer, enabling them to gain trait experience outside of the Chariot Race Activity.
[Charioteer Training Grounds Estate Building]
[Charioteer Training Court Position Task]
Politicking
Before the race begins, youll have some opportunity for politicking and rubbing shoulders with other important people in the realm, depending on your stature. You only get to sit in the kathisma, the imperial box, if the Emperor invites you as his Guest of Honor.
[Event where the Emperor may decide to invite an additional guest into the kathisma]
The Race
Then begins the actual race what everyones come to see. This always begins with the Emperors address, which provides special options based on Activity Intent and current situation.
[Event beginning the Chariot Race where the Emperor decides how to frame his opening address] You can track the Charioteers and their place via the new UI element on the side of the Activity window. And, of course, weve added chariot animations complete with horses, which are also available in the Barbershop.
[Event in a Chariot Race where one charioteer passes another] But now an interlude on what happens when you have two Emperors at the helm from my beloved colleague Wokeg! [hr][/hr]
Duumvirates
Ill bet you thought you were safely out of the Wokeg info dump mines, didnt you? Youre never safe. Not from my word vomit. Lets talk co-emperors.
[Byzantium has historical co-emperors in both 1066 & 1178]
Co-Emperors? The Emperor does not share power!
Youd be surprised. Yes, the Roman Empire was very much an autocracy from Augustus onwards, and by the medieval period, that autocracy had decided fairly thoroughly that power rested entirely in and flowed exclusively from the emperor, but the key word there is emperor, not the. If its the position of emperor that is in charge, you simply appoint a second emperor. A slightly more junior emperor to the other emperor, but theyre both in charge. One is just a little more in charge than the other. This addresses who the next emperor will be (Emperor A is dead, but Emperor B is still emperor), mollifies powerful pretenders, or even just gives your child some practical experience of rule. Its also an absolute recipe for petty personal conflicts, drama, civil wars, and comes with the delightful incentive to murder the other emperor in pursuit of indisputed power. If youve ever wondered why the Byzantines have such a reputation for civil wars and intrigue, well, personally, Id peg this practice as a major contributor.
Co-Rule in CKIII
So, the challenge here was to model something that caused Byzantium a lot of problems, but also make it fun. We settled on a type of diarchy focused around settling the question of your succession, grooming your heir, and farming influence. In exchange, you get a diarch that can be helpful but who may, over time, grow too big for their boots and decide to take drastic action. Were introducing three new diarchies to represent this:
- Duumvirates
- Nominal Duumvirates
- Co-Monarchies
Loyalty
Co-rulers take their loyalty first and foremost from how likely they are to inherit soon.
[A co-emperor much younger than you receives a substantial loyalty boost] Theyre happier the greater the age gap. Conversely, if you have a co-ruler for decades, theyll start to get more and more annoyed with you not dying. We track both the years count for this, and how healthy you are vs. your age.
[Being unduly healthy, starting in your 50s and scaling up to your 90s, will cause a co-ruler to get progressively less loyal to you]
Nominal Duumvirates
Sometimes, youre just looking to help secure the succession. Though appointing one of your infant children co-emperor isnt a silver (sling) bullet ensuring theyll win the purple, it does help quite a lot. Such a child cant really wield any _true_ power, but they can start growing accustomed to the ceremonies of rule. Nominal co-emperors have access to no Borrowed Powers. Instead, as the Scales of Power swing towards them, they become more cost-efficient to promote for Administrative offices and earn progress towards base skill points granted when they come of age.
[An emperor names one of his children as nominal co-emperor] Basically, the more power they have when they hit 16, the more skill bonuses they get from their apprenticeship as emperor. The older a nominal co-emperor gets, the more the natural resting point of the Scales of Power will swing towards them. To hurry the process, you may voluntarily cede authority to them. When your little partner reaches adulthood, the diarchy type is immediately converted over to a true Duumvirate.
[A tooltip showing the potential skill rewards on offer for a well-trained nominal co-emperor] The Long Tail As long as you have them, both nominal co-emperors and full co-emperors boost your influence gain per month and give some directly to themselves. If you elevate and support one from a young age, theyll be not only a fountain of influence for you, but hopefully have a ready supply of influence themselves when they inherit. All you have to do is keep them sweet until then.
Duumvirates
Co-emperors can be picked up in a few ways: they might be nominal co-emperors that reached adulthood, you might nominate an adult family member, or you might diffuse a faction by elevating its leader (forcibly putting truces on everyone in the faction). They carry over the passive influence gain and Administrative office promotion efficiency we talked about in the last section. Additionally, as a full co-emperor is always an adult, provided all relevant circumstances permit, their children are considered to be Born in the Purple just as those of the full emperor. Co-emperors have access to the standard suite of Borrowed Powers that we give most diarchs, though things like Diarch Revoke Title and Diarch Retract Vassal cannot be used against the empires administrative vassals. Like all diarchs, theyre also somewhat better at scheming within the realm. Finally, they interact with their lieges realm law slightly differently. Co-emperors can ask to have it increased, taking the blame as diarchs usually do, but may also ask to have the Imperial Bureaucracy reduced. This reduces any strife that the co-emperor has accrued substantially, and makes co-emperors the only character other than the realms liege who can directly affect its primary law. Scapegoat Counterpart When two people hold ultimate power in an institution, petty personal spats can not only get out of hand quickly, theyre actively incentivised: you can always blame the other guy. One of the first Borrowed Powers a co-emperor unlocks is the ability to Scapegoat Counterpart. Fortunately/unfortunately, their senior emperor can also use it back on them. Scapegoating your fellow emperor requires you to have either higher diplomacy or higher intrigue than them. You receive influence and gain a little tyranny/strife to cause your target to gain even more tyranny/strife, and lose opinion with them.
[A senior emperor humiliates his co-emperor in order to earn influence] Influence, tyranny, and strife gain (as well as opinion loss) all scale with your relative skill, and whether you are being subtle or obvious. Demand Despotate A powerful co-emperor demands their own slice of the realm to rule. First, they must actually have a governorate of their own, but what self-respecting co-emperor could be happy with a mere duchy-tier title? With this interaction, they may demand they be given a kingdom title within the empire as their own private fief. This immediately creates said kingdom if it didnt exist, and grants it and all of its de jure vassals to the co-emperor. Refusing this interaction costs the senior emperor double the influence that the co-emperor paid to send it. There are other ways to acquire a despotate, but they generally involve more underhanded means and dont necessarily come with an immediate grant of (potentially) many vassals. Imperial Expedition With two emperors, you can afford to risk one doing something a little grandiose. This Borrowed Power gives the co-emperor a single usage of a very powerful Casus Belli: an Imperial Expedition, to be launched against realms that either border the empire or have territory de jure belonging to it. They can target all duchies that match either of these criteria and belong to the target. Every governor bordering the defender is forcibly called to war as an ally. Non-bordering governors with martial Province Administrations are given the choice to join. Upon victory, the co-emperor is given four choices:
- Turn the conquered lands over to their senior emperor for disbursement, reaping opinion and influence proportional to the amount of land captured.
- Keep the territories for themselves, losing proportional opinion with their senior emperor.
- Handing over most of the territories whilst keeping the best duchy for themselves (giving slightly reduced influence and opinion).
- Appointing local interim governors. This gives no influence or opinion with their senior emperor, but does give plenty of opinion with the newly elevated governors, as well as hooks on them. Perfect for producing a batch of loyal future supporters.
[A co-emperor launches an expedition to reclaim lands lost to the Turks] Gods Perfect Vessel Gods vice-regent on Earth understands that killing (even when justified) is a sin. It does a ruler good to show a little mercy when dispensing justice, and what is more mercifully just than sparing a usurpers life whilst denying them the chance to look upon Gods right-hand ever again? Co-emperors, senior emperors, and even appropriately-cultured co-monarchs have access to the new Maim Co-Ruler interaction. This allows you to choose whether you wish to cut away their testicles, eyes, nose, a leg, or an arm. If a co-ruler maims their senior ruler, they then immediately usurp their top tier titles plus the entire capital duchy. If the senior ruler maims their co-ruler, then their diarchy ends and their former co-ruler is demoted back to whatever rank is granted by any titles they hold. The same logic is applied on execution.
[A co-emperor maims his father (the option to cut off the nose is obscured by the tooltip for stabbing or boiling out the eyes)]
Co-Monarchies
Lastly, weve added in a reduced form of co-emperorship for feudal rulers, in the form of co-monarchies. These have no new Borrowed Powers, are unique to feudal kingdoms and empires, and are primarily intended as an early game mechanism. Since a co-ruler is your designated heir, raising one of your children as king or emperor in your lifetime allows you access to the designate heir mechanics much earlier than usual with the advent of Choose a New Destiny and loosened restrictions on who you might play after death, this is much less of a balance concern than previous patches. Your new co-ruler can only be deposed by execution (or maiming if you have the appropriate cultural tradition), has the same dubious loyalty mechanics as a co-emperor, etc., so consider this a roleplay-friendly alternative for putting your preferred heir on the throne to disinheriting your three eldest children to get to the fourth you actually wanted. Instead of influence gain, co-monarchs give vassal opinion scaling with their diplomacy to the liege, and gain considerable monthly prestige that scales slightly up for empires.
[Henry the Young King is a historical co-monarch in 1178] Okay, thats all from me. For now. Back to your regularly scheduled dev diary host! [hr][/hr]
New Decisions
Weve added a bunch of new decisions with associated content to make playing in Byzantium feel more unique. Ill highlight a few of those here.
Hold Triumph
The Byzantine Emperor can now use the Hold a Triumph Decision after a major accomplishment, like winning a War. This is a chance to capitalize on your successes and reap the rewards. You may gain Legitimacy, Influence, and Prestige depending on your actions.
[Decide whether your Triumph should conclude at the Hagia Sophia or the Hippodrome] The following events are reactive to what youve done most recently as the Emperor. For example, should you win the war against the Seljuks in 1066 and hold a triumph, youll have unique options for how to focus your speech.
[Decide how to craft your imperial speech while holding a triumph]
Prepare Greek Fire Dromons
Were not adding Naval Warfare to CK3 with Roads to Power, so get that idea out of your minds right now. But! We have added some representation for Greek Fire, the famed Byzantine weapon primarily utilized in naval warfare.
[Prepare Greek Fire Dromons Decision] Taking this Decision as the Byzantine Emperor unlocks a new Scheme that, upon completion, gives you the ability to harm or even destroy embarked armies near Byzantion.
[Event where the Emperor decides how to start the Scheme to construct Greek Fire Dromons]
Establish Silk Production
Taking this decision unlocks the unique Mulberry Copse Estate Building, which gives powerful bonuses. Upgrading the Building to level 4 unlocks the Commission Silk Regalia Decision, a means of acquiring a unique Artifact one of the many perks of being Emperor.
[The Decision to Commission Silk Regalia alongside the Estate Building art for the Large Magnanery]
Terrain Changes
A while back, there was a forum post that caught our attention suggesting Terrain changes for Anatolia. With some changes, we decided to implement these suggestions. Heres an updated Terrain map of Anatolia:
[New Terrain Map Mode changes in Anatolia] Most noticeably, we added a bunch of Steppe Terrain, changed the Impassable Terrain layout around Cilicia, and adjusted some County boundaries in that area as well, including the Baronies of Soloi and Tarsus.
Gloss Tooltips
One of my favorite things that we have added in Roads to Power is what were calling the Gloss functionality. We have always wavered about adding historically niche words or phrases to the game, especially if they wouldnt be translated. To me, this expansion just wouldnt feel right without adding some Byzantine Greek words and phrases. So to make this all work, weve implemented a new type of tooltip, which you can see an example of below.
[An example where we highlight a quotation in Ancient Greek from Homers Iliad] Weve added quite a few of these around the new content we have created and hope to include this more in future expansions. Alright, folks! Thats all from me for today. As Ive said, these are but a few examples of what weve made so as not to spoil any surprises awaiting you in Roads to Power.
[ 2024-08-20 11:59:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #152 - Landless Adventurers (Part 2)
You can read the full dev diary by following this link to our forums or you can watch our video covering this dev diary below. [previewyoutube=5Jy9mEs5za4;full][/previewyoutube] [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
[ 2024-08-13 11:59:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcomes back, comrades, to Landless Adventurers Part 2! Im Wokeg, and last week, we went over the general core gameplay (what we expect you to be doing, where your resources come from, and what you spend them on). This week, were gonna be doing uhhh literally everything else.
Just like last time, everything shown here is a work in progress. Features wont shift massively but values (and occasionally modifiers or parameters) potentially will. Costs, gains, and some requirements in particular are all undergoing active adjustment at present.
Discuss Dev Diary #152 on our forums!
Unfortunately, this DD exceeds the character limit for a Steam news post!
You can read the full dev diary by following this link to our forums or you can watch our video covering this dev diary below. [previewyoutube=5Jy9mEs5za4;full][/previewyoutube] [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!
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[ 2024-08-13 11:59:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Medieval Adventurers and Travelers
[ 2024-08-08 17:59:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Grab a seat by the campfire as medieval historian Eleanor Janega tells tales of some of the great adventurers of the Middle Ages, some of whom you can encounter in Crusader Kings III: Roads to Power. Learn about the motivations and meanings of their travels, and what these journeys tell us about ourselves. [previewyoutube=pmOMp1eYKLs;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2024-08-08 17:59:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #151 - Landless Adventurers (Part 1)
You can read the full dev diary by following this link to our forums or you can watch our video covering this dev diary below. [previewyoutube=UDl-F0OYOP8;full][/previewyoutube] [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
[ 2024-08-06 12:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome comrades! Wokeg here: I hope everyone enjoyed their window into how the other half lives with the Administrative Government Dev Diaries, because today were gonna be going back down into the mud with our favourite homeless wanderers Landless Adventurers.
As usual, everything shown here today is a work in progress. Values are likely to be changed, features are final but details are not, all that good stuff. In particular, some of the adventurer contract rewards are currently a smidge high right now, so well be taking those down a bit (specifically gold and prestige) pending further playtesting before release.
Discuss Dev Diary #151 on our forums!
Unfortunately, this DD exceeds the character limit for a Steam news post!
You can read the full dev diary by following this link to our forums or you can watch our video covering this dev diary below. [previewyoutube=UDl-F0OYOP8;full][/previewyoutube] [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!
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[ 2024-08-06 12:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
A Short Introduction to the Byzantine Empire
[ 2024-07-02 12:32:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
We sat down with Professor Anthony Kaldellis from the University of Chicago to talk about the Byzantine Empire, the medieval incarnation of the Roman Empire and the inspiration behind our upcoming expansion for Crusader Kings III: Roads to Power.
Learn more about the history, system of government, and religions of one of history's greatest empires!
[previewyoutube=1iw-rYmZOTI;full][/previewyoutube]
[hr][/hr]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2024-07-02 12:32:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #150 - New Start Date, Message Settings, and More
Lets start with the obvious question that I know some of you have been asking: why choose 1178 specifically? Thats a great and very natural question; unlike our preexisting start dates of 1066 or 867, 1178 isnt well known for any major, paradigm-altering historical events, but there are a few key factors that weighed the scales in its favor. One of the first things we look at when adding something like a new start date is who would be alive and interesting and playable at the time; we want to give you as many options for worthy historical figures as possible. This part of the process involves a little bit of back-and-forth at first; every time you move the year forward or backward you gain some figures and lose others, so we have to decide whom we cant live without and who were willing to consider an acceptable though unfortunate sacrifice. We knew, for example, that we wanted to have the Crusader states and particularly Jerusalem under Baudouin IV which gives you a preliminary range of 1174 to 1185 for his reign. Then we thought it could also be good to have Heinrich the Lion as Duke of Saxony and a rival and counterweight to the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, which would require a year before 1180/1181, when Heinrich was deposed. Just imagine doing this with a few more names and you should have a reasonably solid picture of the calculus involved. However, thats not to say that this was our sole consideration, although it certainly accounted for a healthy amount of the discussion. Another factor that heavily influenced our choice was that we wanted to make sure that any new start date would be in a good position to integrate not only the new mechanics being introduced in Roads to Power, but also a wide range of components of potential future expansions going forwards whatever they may be. No matter whether its the allied city-states of Lombard League asserting their independence from imperial suzerainty in northern Italy, or the iron men marching eastward to wage holy war at the urging of the men of the cloth, or a young man of as-yet untapped potential named Temjin beginning to make a name for himself on the steppes, we will relentlessly and enthusiastically take advantage of everything 1178 brings to the table whenever and wherever the opportunity occurs. And please dont take the above as indication of any specific plans for future expansions or the order in which they may or may not appear Ive merely highlighted a few relevant aspects that I personally find compelling and take it instead as a declaration of our intent to make sure that 1178 remains a vital, thriving, fully integrated, and fun part of your Crusader Kings gameplay experience from here on out. Hopefully this has given you a bit more insight into the logic behind our choice of 1178. Its perfectly alright if you still have more questions in fact, I hope you do because next were going to delve much deeper into the bookmarks themselves.
[Overview of the Call of the Empire bookmark] Now, since Roads to Power is the expansion introducing Administrative government, lets take a look at Call of the Empire first. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the particulars of this era, the Byzantine Empire is presently enjoying a resurgence under the adroit rule of the aging Basileus Manuel Komnenos, but the specter of his cousin Andronikos (an ambitious and reckless adventurer of preternatural charm) looms forebodingly over the prospects of Manuels underage son and heir, young Alexios. Furthermore, the Byzantines have suffered a recent blow to their aspirations of reclaiming the Anatolian interior defeat at the Battle of Myriokephalon at the hands of the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, Kilij Arslan II (whose name means Sword Lion, for the etymologically curious). The great-grandson of Suleiman ibn Qutalmish (the sultanates founder), Kilij Arslan has reigned ably in both war and peace thus far, but an abundance of potential successors (no less than eleven sons!) may bode poorly for the sultanates future stability. A more auspicious future may be in store for princess Tamar Bagratuni, the eldest daughter of King Giorgi III of Georgia, and another one of those historical figures who was an influencing factor on the start date; 1178 was the year her father officially confirmed her as his successor after hed put down the rebellion of the Orbeli family. Historically, her subsequent rule over Georgia marked her as one of its greatest rulers to quote a chronicle of her reign (The Life of Tamar, the Great Queen of Queens), the entire world was full of her praise, and every language in which her name was pronounced, exalted her. Governing along the Wallachian frontier of the Byzantine Empire youll find Ioannes Kantakouzenos according to Niketas Choniates Historia, a man huge in size and most courageous of heart, and with a booming voice. However, the historian goes on to add that despite Kantakouzenos extensive military experience, his arrogance and impetuosity resulted in failure more often than success. As a bit of interesting genealogical trivia, the 14th century Byzantine emperor of the same name descended from a cousin of Ioannes. The early genealogy of the Palaiologoi is more than a little Byzantine pardon the pun and so Ill clarify that our Alexios Palaiologos, governor of Bulgaria, is the Alexios Palaiologos who was the grandfather of the (future) emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, and not his younger cousin of the same name (the Byzantines were not renowned for their innovative choice in names), who is historically best known for his association with the emperor Alexios III Angelos. And, lastly, we have Andronikos Angelos governing in Epirus (where his illegitimate nephew Michael will one day establish an independent despotate), cousin to Basileus Manuel and grandson of Alexios Komnenos himself, and among whose sons are the future emperors Alexios III (mentioned above) and Isaakios II Angelos. Although exhibiting an authentically Byzantine inconsistency in what surname they prefer to use, the Angeloi are a sizable family by contemporary standards and well placed to stack the empires offices with their kindred.
[Overview of the Swords of Faith bookmark] Before we get into detail on Swords of Faith, I do want to be transparent up front that an overhaul for crusades themselves is not a component of this expansion. Something of that magnitude and significance would need and deserve more than would be possible as second billing in an expansion with a very different mechanical focus. We know its important to you, so its important to us that we make sure what we deliver meets or exceeds your expectations. Now, to many of you, I expect some of the names in this bookmark will seem a good deal more familiar, in large part due to Ridley Scotts Kingdom of Heaven (and, of course, the CK3 mod of the same name). Though set a few years earlier than the events adapted by the film, here too the leprous Baudouin IV rules the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem with immense dignity and dedication despite his dreadful affliction although our historical Balian dIbelin is a baron from the beginning, not a blacksmith. Given the nature of his malady, particular attention must be paid to his heir, his elder sister Sibylla, who is historically (and conveniently for us) between husbands in this particular year. Although historically Baudouin would be succeeded by Sibyllas son, also named Baudouin, before Sibylla herself, at this point she was still being treated as the presumptive successor over the newborn infant. In addition, while bouncing baby Baudouin takes after his fathers dynasty at the start of the game, worry not as Sibylla, youll get an event shortly to let you determine which side of his parentage he ought to take after. Rounding out the Jerusalemite cast is Raimon de Toulouse, son of a murdered father (Nizari assassins happened) and brother to a spurned sister (Basileus Manuel happened), a regent of the kingdom during Baudouin IVs minority who had previously endured nearly a decade of captivity in a Zengid prison. The ruler of the county of Tripoli, the future of his lands is inextricably intertwined with that of the kingdom of Jerusalem itself. And, of course, what mention of Jerusalem could be made without acknowledging the exceptional character of Salh ad-Dn Yusuf, the last vizier to the Fatimid caliphs and the first Ayyubid sultan of Egypt? Of all our bookmark characters in this start date, he perhaps requires the least introduction his victory over the crusaders at the Battle of Hattin and the reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187 would soon lead to the launch of the famous Third Crusade in response. As an additional point of interest, Id like to mention that weve made some slight adjustments to how names are structured, in that Salh ad-Dn, his famous honorific (meaning Righteousness of the Faith), is now a prefixed nickname. Previously, many such honorifics were treated as components of given names and could be inherited as such, and so in the interests of accuracy and better representation weve gone through and reassigned a great many of them as historical nicknames instead. Segueing into our next bookmark character, Muzaffar ad-Dn Gkbri is one of the preeminent military commanders in service to the Zengids, as was his father before him. Deposed and exiled from his fief of Erbil in favor of his younger brother, Gkbri presently rules in Harran but historically would go on to betray the Zengids and joined forces with Salh ad-Dn (even playing a key role at the Battle of Hattin) to reclaim his patrimony, which he ruled prosperously until his death on the eve of the Mongol invasions. Truly, a man with an excellent sense of timing. Last, but certainly not least, is Levon, younger brother to Roupen III, ruler of Armenian Cilicia. Historically, Roupen III is remembered as a kind and humane ruler, but one of retiring character who abdicated in Levons favor perhaps his noblest deed of all, for Levon would be crowned the first true king of Armenian Cilicia and thoroughly earn the appellation Metsagorts, which is commonly translated as the Magnificent'' or the Great, but can also be read as the Thaumaturge, in the sense of one who performs marvels.
Its been an immense personal pleasure to play a part in bringing 1178 to fruition, and I truly hope youve enjoyed todays look at our new start date because were not done just yet. You see, my mandate is to tell you all about the new start date, and that just means I have no alternative but to tell you all about all the other interesting parts of it, too, doesnt it?
[Overview of England and France in 1178] King Henry II of England has imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for inciting his sons against him in a significantly more literal form of teenage rebellion than is typically meant by the term. Among said sons is the athletic 12th century tournament celebrity Henry (called the Young King for having been crowned during his fathers reign), leonine Richard, smooth-tongued Geoffrey, and young John, who would go on to enjoy such harmonious relations with his vassals during his reign that they enthusiastically invited the future king of France to replace him. In this period, the French are ruled by king Louis VII, the former husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine and perhaps better known as the Younger than the Young at this particular stage in his life. Louis eldest daughter is married to one of his preeminent vassals, Henri the Liberal, ruler of Champagne, who contributed greatly to the expansion of the famous and prosperous Champagne fairs. Meanwhile, in the south, the heretical Cathar creed has taken hold in the lands of Raimon of Toulouse, which would soon lead to the Albigensian Crusade.
[Overview of the Holy Roman Empire in 1178] The formidable Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (Redbeard, after the color of hiswell, you get the idea) is rivaled within his realm only by Heinrich the Lion, duke over both Saxony and Bavaria the feud between their families gave rise to the enduring labels Guelph (after Heinrichs house of Welf) and Ghibelline (after the Hohenstaufen castle of Waiblingen). Within the empire, Id like to draw your particular attention to Berthold von Andechs, patriarch of an interesting and mildly obscure family that rose high in both the empire and Hungary and then burned out and went extinct within only a few generations. Some fifty years past, a young Afonso the Conqueror knighted himself on Pentecost in the Cathedral of Zamora, assembled a host beneath the banner of rebellion, and proceeded to emancipate himself from his mother and her Galician lover in near-legendary fashion, triumphing over them in the battle of Battle of So Mamede. For anyone else, this might have been enough adventure for a lifetime, but for Afonso this was only the prologue; he would soon become the first and founding king of Portugal. Now in his twilight years, Afonso has largely handed over management of the kingdoms affairs to his favorite daughter Teresa named, curiously, after his mother.
[Overview of Iberia in 1178] Sharing the name of the Portuguese monarch are Alfons the Troubadour, king of Aragon, and Alfonso VIII, king of Castile. Of the two, the former has managed to expand his realm to encompass territories well beyond the Pyrenees, possessing lands of his own in the south of France as well as having seated his brother in Provence although said brother would soon be murdered after embroiling himself in a war with the lords of Languedoc. It is the latter Alfonso, however, who will earn enduring fame as the future victor over the Almohad army at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. Jumping now to another corner of the map, the historically last of the Seljuk sultans of Persia, Togrul, is still a child, with true power in the realm resting in the hands of Jahan Pahlavan Mohammed, the Ildeguzid atabeg of Azerbaijan, subjugator of rebellious princes and emirs, and one of my personal favorites among the cast of this start date his honorific, incidentally, can be translated variously as Hero of the World or World Champion.
[Overview of Ciscaucasia in 1178] Immediately east of the dwindling Seljuk state is the realm of the Ghurids, where power is presently split between Muhammad of Ghor and his older brother, who is technically also Muhammad of Ghor they share a given name. Of the two, the younger is the more famous, and his exploits into India would ultimately give rise to the Delhi Sultanate only a few decades later. Standing in opposition to the Ghurids is Prithviraja III Chauhan, whose resistance against the foreign invaders earned him a legendary reputation, and has perhaps had more films made about him than anyone else in this list.
[Overview of Mongolia in 1178] Lastly, even further to the east, as mentioned earlier, youll find a young man named Temjin Borjigin, who will soon earn himself another appellation, one to make all the world tremble Genghis Khan. Need I say more?
This time, truly, weve reached the end the list of those Ive named is by no means exhaustive (I could easily name a good dozen more, and dont even get me started on Montferrat, but if I start thinking of more names we really will be here all day), and I fully expect youll turn up countless more interesting figures to play as or against! However, theres still one more thing the team would like to share with you today and its something Im pretty happy about, too. [hr][/hr]
Before we go, also coming with the free update is a small but oft requested quality of life improvement, Message Settings! You will now be able to customize the appearance of a variety of common interface messages to your hearts desire.
[Location of the Message Settings options] Messages are now sorted into Filter Groups. How each Group should appear is now up to you, as either a tried-and-true Toast message (banner messages that display near the top of the screen), a familiar Feed message (messages that appear in the notification feed at the bottom-right side of the screen), a Popup window (a new addition!), or simply be disabled entirely.
[Examples of Message Filter customization] As you might have noticed, it is also possible per Filter Group to set whether the game should automatically be paused as it appears, regardless of its display type. Note: Certain Filter Groups, integral to giving the player information about the game state or the outcomes of their actions, cannot be disabled.
[The new Popup message window] This is possible thanks to a new and fully moddable database of message_filter_types that may be freely edited or expanded upon, adding new types for more granularity or mod-specific needs.
[An example of how Filter Groups can be manipulated via modding] [hr][/hr]
In the last two Dev Diaries we picked up on the idea that some of you would be interested in giving your vassals orders, and after thinking about it we came to the conclusion that its not only a sound suggestion, but one that can help reinforce the difference that Administrative realms has over other government forms.
[Overview of the Vassal Directives menu] You will now be able to give Directives to your vassals, presuming that they respect you! Directives are either given from the character interaction menu, or via the Vassals tab in My Realm, the latter having the benefit of showing you the current directive. All government types can issue directives to their vassals, in the picture its the Holy Roman Emperor doing it.
[Requirements to give a directive to a Feudal vassal] As you can tell from the requirements, its not too easy to make them follow your orders. You have to work your way to a high level of crown authority, pursue specific lifestyles, or gain significant opinion with them. If you no longer fulfill this trigger, they will not follow your directive until you regain their trust. Directives are inherited, so you do not have to worry about setting them again as your vassals die.
[Differences in Vassal Directives for Administrative vassals] Of course, if youre Administrative, then following the directives you set is simply your vassals job! They will only ever refuse your directives if they are your rival, but otherwise youre free to set any directive you wish. Theyre fully baked into the Administrative UIs to maximize visibility. Oh, and Administrative also has access to three more directives; Improve Development, Boost Men-at-Arms, and Recruit Men-at-Arms - all significantly more powerful than the default set.
In previous Dev Diaries we gathered some feedback regarding the upcoming Choose a New Destiny feature, where it seemed as if a popular addition would be to add a random mode. If youre not interested in any of the three options, you can now choose to let the die of fate determine your destiny for you!
[Overview of the new Random Descendant options in the Choose a New Destiny screen] We based the choices on what we could gather were popular fantasies, and added some extra for good measure!
[Several different options are available when selecting a random character] Some restrictions still apply - such as being of your Dynasty, and keeping the difficulty reasonable (anything above Extremely Hard is, essentially, a game-over situation.) Its still possible to add further categories, so if you feel like you think weve missed something feel free to give feedback! [hr][/hr] And that's everything for today! I sincerely thank you all for your time and attention; I hope youve found today's dev diary interesting, and that youre looking forward to Roads to Power as much as I am (and especially 1178, I say with a deep and profound personal and professional bias). We still have a few dev diaries to go ahead of the release of Roads to Power, but it'll be a bit longer until the next one - its now the start of the Swedish summer break, and so we'll be temporarily parting ways until the team returns in early August. We intend to make it well worth the wait, though! When we come back, we'll be showing off another major feature that I think you'll find very intriguing: Landless Adventurers. Until then, if you have any questions about todays topics, Ill be here and do my best to answer. Thanks again, and have a great summer! [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
[ 2024-06-25 12:00:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Good day, everyone!
I'm Cordelion: weve not had the pleasure of meeting before, and thats because since I joined Paradox last year Ive been working almost exclusively on the new start date and its two bookmarks that will be releasing as part of the free update alongside Roads to Power. Ive been closely following what you have to say about it and I cannot overstate just how happy I am to see people excited by it, and so today it will be my pleasure and honor to give you a closer look at all it has to offer.
Discuss Dev Diary #150 on our forums!
The Who, What, When, Where, and Why
Lets start with the obvious question that I know some of you have been asking: why choose 1178 specifically? Thats a great and very natural question; unlike our preexisting start dates of 1066 or 867, 1178 isnt well known for any major, paradigm-altering historical events, but there are a few key factors that weighed the scales in its favor. One of the first things we look at when adding something like a new start date is who would be alive and interesting and playable at the time; we want to give you as many options for worthy historical figures as possible. This part of the process involves a little bit of back-and-forth at first; every time you move the year forward or backward you gain some figures and lose others, so we have to decide whom we cant live without and who were willing to consider an acceptable though unfortunate sacrifice. We knew, for example, that we wanted to have the Crusader states and particularly Jerusalem under Baudouin IV which gives you a preliminary range of 1174 to 1185 for his reign. Then we thought it could also be good to have Heinrich the Lion as Duke of Saxony and a rival and counterweight to the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, which would require a year before 1180/1181, when Heinrich was deposed. Just imagine doing this with a few more names and you should have a reasonably solid picture of the calculus involved. However, thats not to say that this was our sole consideration, although it certainly accounted for a healthy amount of the discussion. Another factor that heavily influenced our choice was that we wanted to make sure that any new start date would be in a good position to integrate not only the new mechanics being introduced in Roads to Power, but also a wide range of components of potential future expansions going forwards whatever they may be. No matter whether its the allied city-states of Lombard League asserting their independence from imperial suzerainty in northern Italy, or the iron men marching eastward to wage holy war at the urging of the men of the cloth, or a young man of as-yet untapped potential named Temjin beginning to make a name for himself on the steppes, we will relentlessly and enthusiastically take advantage of everything 1178 brings to the table whenever and wherever the opportunity occurs. And please dont take the above as indication of any specific plans for future expansions or the order in which they may or may not appear Ive merely highlighted a few relevant aspects that I personally find compelling and take it instead as a declaration of our intent to make sure that 1178 remains a vital, thriving, fully integrated, and fun part of your Crusader Kings gameplay experience from here on out. Hopefully this has given you a bit more insight into the logic behind our choice of 1178. Its perfectly alright if you still have more questions in fact, I hope you do because next were going to delve much deeper into the bookmarks themselves.
Call of the Empire
[Overview of the Call of the Empire bookmark] Now, since Roads to Power is the expansion introducing Administrative government, lets take a look at Call of the Empire first. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the particulars of this era, the Byzantine Empire is presently enjoying a resurgence under the adroit rule of the aging Basileus Manuel Komnenos, but the specter of his cousin Andronikos (an ambitious and reckless adventurer of preternatural charm) looms forebodingly over the prospects of Manuels underage son and heir, young Alexios. Furthermore, the Byzantines have suffered a recent blow to their aspirations of reclaiming the Anatolian interior defeat at the Battle of Myriokephalon at the hands of the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, Kilij Arslan II (whose name means Sword Lion, for the etymologically curious). The great-grandson of Suleiman ibn Qutalmish (the sultanates founder), Kilij Arslan has reigned ably in both war and peace thus far, but an abundance of potential successors (no less than eleven sons!) may bode poorly for the sultanates future stability. A more auspicious future may be in store for princess Tamar Bagratuni, the eldest daughter of King Giorgi III of Georgia, and another one of those historical figures who was an influencing factor on the start date; 1178 was the year her father officially confirmed her as his successor after hed put down the rebellion of the Orbeli family. Historically, her subsequent rule over Georgia marked her as one of its greatest rulers to quote a chronicle of her reign (The Life of Tamar, the Great Queen of Queens), the entire world was full of her praise, and every language in which her name was pronounced, exalted her. Governing along the Wallachian frontier of the Byzantine Empire youll find Ioannes Kantakouzenos according to Niketas Choniates Historia, a man huge in size and most courageous of heart, and with a booming voice. However, the historian goes on to add that despite Kantakouzenos extensive military experience, his arrogance and impetuosity resulted in failure more often than success. As a bit of interesting genealogical trivia, the 14th century Byzantine emperor of the same name descended from a cousin of Ioannes. The early genealogy of the Palaiologoi is more than a little Byzantine pardon the pun and so Ill clarify that our Alexios Palaiologos, governor of Bulgaria, is the Alexios Palaiologos who was the grandfather of the (future) emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, and not his younger cousin of the same name (the Byzantines were not renowned for their innovative choice in names), who is historically best known for his association with the emperor Alexios III Angelos. And, lastly, we have Andronikos Angelos governing in Epirus (where his illegitimate nephew Michael will one day establish an independent despotate), cousin to Basileus Manuel and grandson of Alexios Komnenos himself, and among whose sons are the future emperors Alexios III (mentioned above) and Isaakios II Angelos. Although exhibiting an authentically Byzantine inconsistency in what surname they prefer to use, the Angeloi are a sizable family by contemporary standards and well placed to stack the empires offices with their kindred.
Swords of Faith
[Overview of the Swords of Faith bookmark] Before we get into detail on Swords of Faith, I do want to be transparent up front that an overhaul for crusades themselves is not a component of this expansion. Something of that magnitude and significance would need and deserve more than would be possible as second billing in an expansion with a very different mechanical focus. We know its important to you, so its important to us that we make sure what we deliver meets or exceeds your expectations. Now, to many of you, I expect some of the names in this bookmark will seem a good deal more familiar, in large part due to Ridley Scotts Kingdom of Heaven (and, of course, the CK3 mod of the same name). Though set a few years earlier than the events adapted by the film, here too the leprous Baudouin IV rules the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem with immense dignity and dedication despite his dreadful affliction although our historical Balian dIbelin is a baron from the beginning, not a blacksmith. Given the nature of his malady, particular attention must be paid to his heir, his elder sister Sibylla, who is historically (and conveniently for us) between husbands in this particular year. Although historically Baudouin would be succeeded by Sibyllas son, also named Baudouin, before Sibylla herself, at this point she was still being treated as the presumptive successor over the newborn infant. In addition, while bouncing baby Baudouin takes after his fathers dynasty at the start of the game, worry not as Sibylla, youll get an event shortly to let you determine which side of his parentage he ought to take after. Rounding out the Jerusalemite cast is Raimon de Toulouse, son of a murdered father (Nizari assassins happened) and brother to a spurned sister (Basileus Manuel happened), a regent of the kingdom during Baudouin IVs minority who had previously endured nearly a decade of captivity in a Zengid prison. The ruler of the county of Tripoli, the future of his lands is inextricably intertwined with that of the kingdom of Jerusalem itself. And, of course, what mention of Jerusalem could be made without acknowledging the exceptional character of Salh ad-Dn Yusuf, the last vizier to the Fatimid caliphs and the first Ayyubid sultan of Egypt? Of all our bookmark characters in this start date, he perhaps requires the least introduction his victory over the crusaders at the Battle of Hattin and the reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187 would soon lead to the launch of the famous Third Crusade in response. As an additional point of interest, Id like to mention that weve made some slight adjustments to how names are structured, in that Salh ad-Dn, his famous honorific (meaning Righteousness of the Faith), is now a prefixed nickname. Previously, many such honorifics were treated as components of given names and could be inherited as such, and so in the interests of accuracy and better representation weve gone through and reassigned a great many of them as historical nicknames instead. Segueing into our next bookmark character, Muzaffar ad-Dn Gkbri is one of the preeminent military commanders in service to the Zengids, as was his father before him. Deposed and exiled from his fief of Erbil in favor of his younger brother, Gkbri presently rules in Harran but historically would go on to betray the Zengids and joined forces with Salh ad-Dn (even playing a key role at the Battle of Hattin) to reclaim his patrimony, which he ruled prosperously until his death on the eve of the Mongol invasions. Truly, a man with an excellent sense of timing. Last, but certainly not least, is Levon, younger brother to Roupen III, ruler of Armenian Cilicia. Historically, Roupen III is remembered as a kind and humane ruler, but one of retiring character who abdicated in Levons favor perhaps his noblest deed of all, for Levon would be crowned the first true king of Armenian Cilicia and thoroughly earn the appellation Metsagorts, which is commonly translated as the Magnificent'' or the Great, but can also be read as the Thaumaturge, in the sense of one who performs marvels.
Various and Sundry Concluding Words
Its been an immense personal pleasure to play a part in bringing 1178 to fruition, and I truly hope youve enjoyed todays look at our new start date because were not done just yet. You see, my mandate is to tell you all about the new start date, and that just means I have no alternative but to tell you all about all the other interesting parts of it, too, doesnt it?
[Overview of England and France in 1178] King Henry II of England has imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for inciting his sons against him in a significantly more literal form of teenage rebellion than is typically meant by the term. Among said sons is the athletic 12th century tournament celebrity Henry (called the Young King for having been crowned during his fathers reign), leonine Richard, smooth-tongued Geoffrey, and young John, who would go on to enjoy such harmonious relations with his vassals during his reign that they enthusiastically invited the future king of France to replace him. In this period, the French are ruled by king Louis VII, the former husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine and perhaps better known as the Younger than the Young at this particular stage in his life. Louis eldest daughter is married to one of his preeminent vassals, Henri the Liberal, ruler of Champagne, who contributed greatly to the expansion of the famous and prosperous Champagne fairs. Meanwhile, in the south, the heretical Cathar creed has taken hold in the lands of Raimon of Toulouse, which would soon lead to the Albigensian Crusade.
[Overview of the Holy Roman Empire in 1178] The formidable Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (Redbeard, after the color of hiswell, you get the idea) is rivaled within his realm only by Heinrich the Lion, duke over both Saxony and Bavaria the feud between their families gave rise to the enduring labels Guelph (after Heinrichs house of Welf) and Ghibelline (after the Hohenstaufen castle of Waiblingen). Within the empire, Id like to draw your particular attention to Berthold von Andechs, patriarch of an interesting and mildly obscure family that rose high in both the empire and Hungary and then burned out and went extinct within only a few generations. Some fifty years past, a young Afonso the Conqueror knighted himself on Pentecost in the Cathedral of Zamora, assembled a host beneath the banner of rebellion, and proceeded to emancipate himself from his mother and her Galician lover in near-legendary fashion, triumphing over them in the battle of Battle of So Mamede. For anyone else, this might have been enough adventure for a lifetime, but for Afonso this was only the prologue; he would soon become the first and founding king of Portugal. Now in his twilight years, Afonso has largely handed over management of the kingdoms affairs to his favorite daughter Teresa named, curiously, after his mother.
[Overview of Iberia in 1178] Sharing the name of the Portuguese monarch are Alfons the Troubadour, king of Aragon, and Alfonso VIII, king of Castile. Of the two, the former has managed to expand his realm to encompass territories well beyond the Pyrenees, possessing lands of his own in the south of France as well as having seated his brother in Provence although said brother would soon be murdered after embroiling himself in a war with the lords of Languedoc. It is the latter Alfonso, however, who will earn enduring fame as the future victor over the Almohad army at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. Jumping now to another corner of the map, the historically last of the Seljuk sultans of Persia, Togrul, is still a child, with true power in the realm resting in the hands of Jahan Pahlavan Mohammed, the Ildeguzid atabeg of Azerbaijan, subjugator of rebellious princes and emirs, and one of my personal favorites among the cast of this start date his honorific, incidentally, can be translated variously as Hero of the World or World Champion.
[Overview of Ciscaucasia in 1178] Immediately east of the dwindling Seljuk state is the realm of the Ghurids, where power is presently split between Muhammad of Ghor and his older brother, who is technically also Muhammad of Ghor they share a given name. Of the two, the younger is the more famous, and his exploits into India would ultimately give rise to the Delhi Sultanate only a few decades later. Standing in opposition to the Ghurids is Prithviraja III Chauhan, whose resistance against the foreign invaders earned him a legendary reputation, and has perhaps had more films made about him than anyone else in this list.
[Overview of Mongolia in 1178] Lastly, even further to the east, as mentioned earlier, youll find a young man named Temjin Borjigin, who will soon earn himself another appellation, one to make all the world tremble Genghis Khan. Need I say more?
The Almost Very Definitely Real Final Conclusion
This time, truly, weve reached the end the list of those Ive named is by no means exhaustive (I could easily name a good dozen more, and dont even get me started on Montferrat, but if I start thinking of more names we really will be here all day), and I fully expect youll turn up countless more interesting figures to play as or against! However, theres still one more thing the team would like to share with you today and its something Im pretty happy about, too. [hr][/hr]
A Special Message
Before we go, also coming with the free update is a small but oft requested quality of life improvement, Message Settings! You will now be able to customize the appearance of a variety of common interface messages to your hearts desire.
[Location of the Message Settings options] Messages are now sorted into Filter Groups. How each Group should appear is now up to you, as either a tried-and-true Toast message (banner messages that display near the top of the screen), a familiar Feed message (messages that appear in the notification feed at the bottom-right side of the screen), a Popup window (a new addition!), or simply be disabled entirely.
[Examples of Message Filter customization] As you might have noticed, it is also possible per Filter Group to set whether the game should automatically be paused as it appears, regardless of its display type. Note: Certain Filter Groups, integral to giving the player information about the game state or the outcomes of their actions, cannot be disabled.
[The new Popup message window] This is possible thanks to a new and fully moddable database of message_filter_types that may be freely edited or expanded upon, adding new types for more granularity or mod-specific needs.
[An example of how Filter Groups can be manipulated via modding] [hr][/hr]
Vassal Directives
In the last two Dev Diaries we picked up on the idea that some of you would be interested in giving your vassals orders, and after thinking about it we came to the conclusion that its not only a sound suggestion, but one that can help reinforce the difference that Administrative realms has over other government forms.
[Overview of the Vassal Directives menu] You will now be able to give Directives to your vassals, presuming that they respect you! Directives are either given from the character interaction menu, or via the Vassals tab in My Realm, the latter having the benefit of showing you the current directive. All government types can issue directives to their vassals, in the picture its the Holy Roman Emperor doing it.
[Requirements to give a directive to a Feudal vassal] As you can tell from the requirements, its not too easy to make them follow your orders. You have to work your way to a high level of crown authority, pursue specific lifestyles, or gain significant opinion with them. If you no longer fulfill this trigger, they will not follow your directive until you regain their trust. Directives are inherited, so you do not have to worry about setting them again as your vassals die.
[Differences in Vassal Directives for Administrative vassals] Of course, if youre Administrative, then following the directives you set is simply your vassals job! They will only ever refuse your directives if they are your rival, but otherwise youre free to set any directive you wish. Theyre fully baked into the Administrative UIs to maximize visibility. Oh, and Administrative also has access to three more directives; Improve Development, Boost Men-at-Arms, and Recruit Men-at-Arms - all significantly more powerful than the default set.
Choose a New Destiny Improvements
In previous Dev Diaries we gathered some feedback regarding the upcoming Choose a New Destiny feature, where it seemed as if a popular addition would be to add a random mode. If youre not interested in any of the three options, you can now choose to let the die of fate determine your destiny for you!
[Overview of the new Random Descendant options in the Choose a New Destiny screen] We based the choices on what we could gather were popular fantasies, and added some extra for good measure!
[Several different options are available when selecting a random character] Some restrictions still apply - such as being of your Dynasty, and keeping the difficulty reasonable (anything above Extremely Hard is, essentially, a game-over situation.) Its still possible to add further categories, so if you feel like you think weve missed something feel free to give feedback! [hr][/hr] And that's everything for today! I sincerely thank you all for your time and attention; I hope youve found today's dev diary interesting, and that youre looking forward to Roads to Power as much as I am (and especially 1178, I say with a deep and profound personal and professional bias). We still have a few dev diaries to go ahead of the release of Roads to Power, but it'll be a bit longer until the next one - its now the start of the Swedish summer break, and so we'll be temporarily parting ways until the team returns in early August. We intend to make it well worth the wait, though! When we come back, we'll be showing off another major feature that I think you'll find very intriguing: Landless Adventurers. Until then, if you have any questions about todays topics, Ill be here and do my best to answer. Thanks again, and have a great summer! [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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[ 2024-06-25 12:00:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #149 - Administrative Government Part II
[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
[ 2024-06-18 12:01:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Salutations! Welcome back as we take another look at all things Byzantium and how our new government, Administrative, works. If you havent already, I highly recommend that you first go and read up on our previous Dev Diary and Part 1, posted last week. As with last week, please keep in mind the following:
- All of the included screenshots show a work in progress and do not necessarily represent the final product, as we are still heavily at work on the expansion itself.
- This is especially true when it comes to several aspects of the UI, such as layouts and visuals. We believe that showing what we have right now, even if not final, gives you a much better idea of what you can expect.
- All values and numbers in these screenshots are subject to balancing and will likely change before release.
Unfortunately, this DD exceeds the character limit for a Steam news post! Please follow the link to our forums to read this dev diary.
[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
[ 2024-06-18 12:01:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #148 - Administrative Government Part I
First things first. Administrative (or Admin for short) is a new government type that draws a lot of inspiration specifically from the Byzantine Empire. While Byzantium isnt the only inspiration, it is by far the most significant. Just like the historical inspiration, an Administrative realm is all about the empire itself. You have the emperor situated neatly at the top, with the many governors and noble families serving underneath. They are all small cogs, part of one big machine. They need each other, just as much as they are competing against one another. Regardless of their motives or actions, they serve the empire first and foremost. For a prosperous realm is much more worthwhile to be in.
[The Byzantine Empire and its internal structure of Themes (or governorships).] The emperor is the ultimate authority of the realm. It is the emperor who creates new governorships and appoints the governor of a Theme. The pool of available candidates can be vast, and the emperor will have to consider if they want to appoint that troublesome nephew to keep as much power as possible within his own family, or if a member of another noble family would be a better choice. Having a more competent but docile governor might just be more useful, at least as far as the realm is concerned. Just as the emperor manages the overall structure of the empire, so too does he support and supervise his governors. He can lend them troops if needed, have them go to war on his behalf, and reward them when they are performing well to be in their good graces. The power of an Administrative realm is very much intended to ebb and flow. When the empire is well managed, it runs smoothly like a well-oiled machine, able to beat down its opponents with ease. When mismanaged, however, it becomes significantly weaker, unable to defend itself against opportunistic conquerors looming on its doorstep. Expect a playstyle where wars give way to schemes, intrigue, and good old-fashioned politics. Internal wars between vassals are practically non-existent, as your primary way of expanding within the realm will be to make efficient use of schemes and leverage your influence as you jockey for governorships and other influential positions. Governors are unable to create or join independence and dissolution factions, making Administrative realms excel as large and sprawling empires. While they are significantly less likely to collapse or break apart, succession is a much riskier business. Claimants wont sit idly by while the empires fate lies in the hands of an inept emperor. The Byzantine Empire will play significantly differently from how you are used to playing the game. You would normally gain titles through proven means, such as wars or marriage, but to gain lands and extend your own power in an Administrative realm, you will have to engage in politics. Youll scheme against your rivals, leverage hooks against your peers, and make use of your influence to sway the emperor to your side. To reinforce this new playstyle, schemes have been updated to be more engaging, and we have a new scheme type available only within Administrative realms Political schemes. There are several new schemes of this type, as well as a swath of new interactions, that will help you manage the realm, interact with your liege, your vassals, and your peers. Ultimately, these are all tools with which you can leverage your influence to shape the realm to your will. Well go more in depth into these throughout this dev diary. Byzantium is the main focus of the expansion and will be the only realm that will have Administrative on game start, trading a lot of conventional gameplay in exchange for new and powerful tools, at the cost of increased micromanagement and a less secure succession. Any feudal or clan ruler can strive to surpass Byzantium and attempt to adopt this new government type if they so choose, but more on that later.
Administrative Governments are unique in that they allow for the existence of Noble Families. Every House in an admin realm is a player in the vast political game, whether they hold land at a certain moment or not. All these families are jockeying for power, titles, and even control of the empire itself. As the head of a Noble Family, it is your prerogative to garner power in the form of securing appointments and positions for your house members, improving the family Estate, and undercutting any political rivals that would challenge your name. Directly owning landed titles on the map is not a requirement for rulers within Administrative realms. If you are appointed to a title and any corresponding counties, you are there to do a job. This is not your personal fiefdom to do as you please. Admin realms should feel like a sort of proto-nation state, as Byzantium can be described during our period. As an admin governor are meant to manage the land and act publicly on behalf of the realm and your liege. Thats not to say you cant set something aside for yourself, however It's a tough job managing the realm, after all. This means that you can quite easily also lose any land you hold, should you be forced to resign, unable to secure the succession, or you may even give it up willingly if you so choose (you might want to put yourself in line for a better Theme, for example). Owning land can, in other words, be seen as temporary. You can expect your House members to hold some land most of the time, but there will be times when you wont. If that happens, you can keep playing as a landless noble within the realm. Should the empire fall, however, you shall fall with it. While not holding land, you are still a powerful political force and can take a lot of actions to claw your way to power. Unlike the more mobile Adventurers you are still very much a part of your realm, as you cannot simply pick up your things and leave, and you will always retain access to your Estate (more on that later). Landless nobles are made playable with a new type of title, the Noble Family title. This new title is a duchy-tier title, typically held by the House Head. You can draw comparisons to how Mercenaries or Holy Orders are set up. They exist with a duchy-tier title held by their respective leaders. There is an important caveat to mention here. This means that if you dont have a Noble Family title, you will be unable to play as a landless noble. You will almost always be playing as the House Head. However, if you find yourself in the extremely rare case that you arent, weve made the decision to create a cadet-branch much easier for Admin. As the player, you can take this at essentially any time if you arent the House Head. Doing so will give you a new Noble Family title, allowing you to keep playing even if you lose your land.
[Each Administrative House Head has a new title associated with their position.]
Noble Families are sorted into Normal, Powerful, and Dominant families. These designations are based on something called Powerful Family Rating (discussed below) and indicate each familys level of power within an Admin realm. Think of Powerful Families as a whos who of the realm. If a Powerful Family manages to become Dominant, they have by-and-large subdued the political milieu of the realm to their will. Should you so desire, you can manipulate and control an admin realm as the head of a Dominant or Powerful Family without ever becoming the Top Liege. Rather than having individual vassals playing a big role within the realm, it is the different Houses; the most influential of which have a greater impact on the realm at large. Powerful Families remain so regardless of the position of the House Head, who may go from being a governor to landless and back again. With this, we aim to create a sense of stability among the many and frequent vicissitudes of Administrative realms. Becoming a Powerful Family entitles your House members to several benefits and tools. For example, only members of Powerful Families can use the new Depose and Subsume Governorship Schemes. They get a flat discount to Promoting candidates in the new Succession type (discussed in our next dev diary) and are generally better at Political Schemes. It is also easier for them to be made Co-Emperor, which well discuss in a later dev diary. Any Powerful Family that is able to also control a significant part of the realm will become a Dominant Family. This happens when they control enough governorships to cover 25% of the realms total realm size, so your family must control a fair amount of land in order to become Dominant. A Dominant Family enjoys all the benefits accorded a Powerful Family, but to a greater degree. They are much more of a problem, or nuisance, for the liege. Once reaching such a position of influence and power, they are difficult to dislodge. They have a much easier time becoming governors for one thing, by significantly reducing the cost of investing in candidates (covered in detail next week) and have a much easier time requesting support from lesser families. Additionally, all members of a dominant family are even better at political schemes than other powerful families. Every familys rating also affects how likely the members of a House are to inherit the top lieges title. E.g. becoming emperor of Byzantium, as a portion of the rating is added to a candidates score (discussed below). It will be much easier to compete for the title with a high rating, or to keep it within your family if you are already emperor. Its important to note that Administrative realms don't have the concept of powerful vassals like other governments do. You can still have powerful vassals, should you have vassals of other government types, as those will be able to become powerful vassals as per usual. Administrative vassals, however, cannot. This is only relevant in the case where a Feudal or Clan vassal becomes part of an Admin realm.
There can only be a handful of Powerful Families at any given time 5 to be exact. The top lieges House is always considered Powerful, and does not take up one of these 5 spots. Houses are then sorted and ranked according to their rating. In order to become a Powerful Family, a House needs to have a rating above a certain threshold. This prevents small and seemingly insignificant Houses from becoming Powerful, as they need a certain amount of sway within the realm before they can gain the benefits of being a Powerful Family. When above the minimum threshold, it is the 5 Houses with the highest rating that are considered Powerful.
[An example of what the rating of a powerful family may look like.] There are several factors that have an impact on a familys rating. We have smaller factors, such as the current number of living House Members, which exists as potential tie breakers if families have a similar rating. Your Estate and the buildings you construct in it also play a central role in your rating. If the Estate is located in the realm capital, you gain yet another small bonus. Other factors you can actively pursue is being a part of your lieges council, where every position counts. If you can get other family members onto the council, the rating increases for each councilor. Or you can pick up the Heart of the Family diplomacy perk, which grants a small, but not insignificant bonus. The most important factor, however, is the number of governorships your family holds. Each held governorship adds to a multiplier, increasing the value of all other factors. Which means that for each governorship your family controls, the family rating will increase quite significantly.
To give each family some additional flavor, they have access to what we call a Family Attribute. Its a small set of bonuses that apply directly to all House Members, as well as a separate bonus that only applies to their liege. A familys attribute is only active if and when they are considered a powerful family. Since there is a limited number of powerful families, the liege wont be able to stack these modifiers indefinitely. Instead, we hope they serve as an incentive to keep certain families around, making sure they remain a powerful family so that you dont lose out on the bonus they provide. Dominant families are a bit special. Their House Members get to benefit from their attribute, but the liege will not. Theres a number of bonuses available, pertaining to different scheme types, improving troops, generating more Influence, and more.
[The window in which you can set your Family Attribute, showing the benefits of the Confident Schemers attribute.] The attributes exist to give the different families some added flavor, to give them some additional identity and character. Not all families are alike, and the attribute symbolizes what they are good at, or perhaps their origin. The AI wont change these on the fly, so when you are playing as the emperor, you know what bonuses each family provides at all times. As a House Head yourself, you are free to change the attribute at any time. Theres no cost attached. Youll activate a short cooldown before you can change it again, but thats it. All in all, Noble Families are at the heart of Administrative realms. Their members make up the body of ruling characters and they are constantly positioning themselves to grasp more power, station, and influence within the empire at large. [hr][/hr]
Influence is a brand-new resource, which represents your political capital and the sway you hold within an Administrative realm such as Byzantium. It's about your ability to manipulate others and leverage your political standing in order to achieve a favorable outcome. In many ways, Influence is the tool that will make you successful, and gaining Influence will be key to achieving your goals. Unlike other resources, Influence is hard to come by in great quantities, and it has many varied uses. It is the lifeblood of an Administrative realm; while a powerful Emperor or high-ranking Governor might be allowed to do what he wishes in theory, the reality is much more complex than that. This resource symbolizes how gracefully someone navigates the politics of the realm, and a truly powerful Emperor will secure their rule and might through clever use of influence - for example, by securing army support or ousting troublesome governors.
[The new Influence resource as shown in the top bar.]
[Influence has Levels of Influence, just like Prestige and Piety.] Some Levels of Influence directly affect how well you perform Schemes within the new Political category, making a truly influential character assume the form of a masterful political manipulator.
Your monthly Influence gain very much depends on your position within the realm, your skills at manipulation, and your success with schemes. Here are a few examples of what you can gain influence from:
To track just how much skill characters have after becoming a governor, weve implemented a new Governor trait (flavored Strategos here for Byzantium). This trait offers tiered bonuses to monthly influence gain, among other things.
Having a seat on the emperors council is an easy way to secure some additional influence. Alongside some other bonuses pertaining specifically to the playstyle of an Administrative realm.
[Being on your lieges council grants some significant influence gain each month.]
Governors in particular have some additional ways of acquiring influence. You are an administrator; first and foremost meant to oversee and manage the land you are appointed to. If you perform your duties well, youll be rewarded for it, primarily with influence, but more on this below.
Alliances are important for every realm and government type and Administrative is no different. If you manage to secure an alliance with the head of another noble family within the realm, youll get influence every month. These stack, so the more alliances you have, the more influence youll get.
[You gain monthly influence from having alliances with your liege and the heads of other noble families. Do note that the values are currently not formatted correctly.]
The primary building of your Estate offers compounding influence bonuses as it gets upgraded. There are additional internal and external buildings you can construct on your Estate to gain even more influence, like Guest Chambers, for example.
[The Mansion provides a flat +2 influence per month.]
[Guest Chambers provide a +4% bonus to monthly influence at level 2.]
Constructing or holding certain buildings within your holdings also provides influence gains. For example, we have added a new Murex Fisheries building type which can be built around the Mediterranean. It provides additional monthly influence, which increases as you upgrade the building.
[Murex Fisheries Building.]
Now that we know how to get Influence, the next question naturally becomes: what can we do with it? Plenty, in fact! First and foremost, Influence is a key factor in securing governorships both for yourself and your family members by investing in succession candidates (I'll come back to how this works later), but you will generally use it to climb the political ladder in different ways. For example:
Administrative vassals have the option to request a council position by spending influence. Itll cost you a fair bit of influence, but there are ways to reduce this amount. You also have the option to demand a council position with the use of a hook, which is significantly more cost effective since you will gain some influence once you are on the council.
[The interaction to request a council position costs influence and may be refused by your liege.]
Not having to rely solely on hooks, you can force other vassals to join your factions by spending influence. A handy tool when you just need a tiny bit of additional support for your claimant faction, so that you can push your claim for the throne.
[Force to Join Faction allows influence to be spent instead of a hook.]
When proposing an alliance, you can spend your influence to make the target character more likely to accept.
[Propose Alliance allows you to spend influence as a means of increasing acceptance.]
For characters in an Administrative government, the decision to petition your liege costs influence instead of the usual prestige.
[The Petition Liege decision from the perspective of a governor.]
You can put your influence to good use by aiding and improving your governors, while also granting you some opinion in the process.
[The Bolster Governance interaction costs influence to use and improves your governors.] [hr][/hr]
Weve shown you a preview of Estates in a previous dev diary, so you may already know what they look like. If you havent seen them though, here is an Estate, located in Constantinople no less, in all of its glory.
[An Estate with several buildings constructed and upgraded.] It took us a while until we settled on the final art style. We went over a few options before we decided upon what you see above, a style inspired by medieval manuscripts. Not only does it look great, but it has a lot of quirkiness to it. Perspectives are slightly off, or people may have odd postures, etc. More or less what youd expect from actual medieval illustrations.We opted for this art style over reusing the previous style found in the Tournament interface as it feels more flavorful and authentic to the time period, as well as being far more flexible for other locations. The buildings you construct all look different from each other, and there are different backgrounds that are dependent on the local terrain of where your Estate is located. The backgrounds provide a lot of visual variety, but we really wanted to give a better sense of location. If your Estate is placed in mountains, we want the game to reflect that. It gives a much stronger feeling of belonging and immersion. A shout out to the art team for a job well done! In an Administrative realm, its the families of the nobles that really matter, i.e. their Houses. Each House Head will have access to an Estate, which is a representation of the familys overall wealth and any small tracts of land they may own. While a noble family might not hold any governorships, they are still influential nobles that own a significant amount of real estate. The purpose of the Estate is twofold: It gives you a powerbase you can rely on at all times, acting as your home and the place where your character resides when you dont have any other titles. Secondly, it exists as a means of progression; one that you can tailor to suit your own needs and playstyle. Estates grants you access to a whole bunch of buildings and upgrades, providing you with various bonuses, unlocking new interactions or decisions, and improving your existing toolbox in various ways. It is, without a doubt, one of the primary sources of increasing your Influence.
[The Guard Lodging building and its tooltip, showing the effects.] Estates can become quite powerful on their own. So they are restricted to one per family, owned and controlled by the House Head. Its only the House Head that may construct new buildings and upgrade existing ones, similar to how only the Dynasty Head can pick and unlock Dynasty legacies. One of our primary goals is to provide you with plenty of options as to what you can build, but buildings should also have a certain degree of synergy with each other. As you consider your options and what to build, we want you to be on the lookout for how buildings and upgrades complement each other.
There are two distinct types of improvements you can build within your Estate. The first is buildings. You have one building slot dedicated to your villa, or mansion, which is a bit special, as you will always start with this building on at least level one, and you can never demolish it. Aside from your mansion, you have six slots in total in which you can construct whichever available buildings you want. Two of these slots are available from the get go. Then youll unlock an additional slot with every level of your mansion. Youll have two slots on level one, three slots on level two, and so on until you reach the maximum of six slots at level five. There are plenty of more buildings available than you have slots, so youll be forced to choose what you want to build. Buildings can be easily replaced whenever you want though, so you wont be stuck with anything if you ever change your mind. It wont cost you anything to replace a building other than the gold it requires to construct the new building. Your choices wont end there, however. Some buildings (but not all) have multiple branches where you can choose to specialize your buildings further. Branches often share some effects from the base levels before it splits into separate branches, but will then go on to provide slightly different bonuses revolving around a similar theme.
[The Shrine building and its different branches and levels.]
[The Storehouse building and its different branches and levels.]
The second type of improvements for Estates are building upgrades. Unlike buildings themselves, these are built inside of existing buildings. For Estates, upgrades are available in the mansion. The mansion has a limited number of upgrade slots available: Youll have access to two slots from the get go, and you will gain more slots as you upgrade your mansion. When your mansion is brought up to level five, youll have no less than ten upgrade slots to fill as you please. Upgrades can also have branching building paths, but most of the upgrades do not. They also tend to have fewer levels in total compared to buildings. Buildings typically have six levels, but may have less in some cases, while upgrades tend to be closer to four levels. All of this variation should give you plenty of options throughout the many hundreds of years the game spans.
[The upgrades and upgrade slots for your mansion.]
Lets look at another few examples of what you can build, and what type of effects you can expect. Your mansion can be upgraded with a library, in which the primary focus is on Learning Lifestyle experience. This particular upgrade has two distinct branches available. One of which ties in nicely is dedicated to education, improving your Tutor Court Position and allowing your children to get a rank five education.
[The Education Hall upgrade provides a number of useful bonuses.] The mansion can also be upgraded with a Wine Room, which in turn is upgraded into a Wine Cellar. The upgrade unlocks a new activity option for feasts, allowing you to spend some gold to gain Influence for every guest attending your feast. Each level unlocks a corresponding level for the activity, allowing you to spend more gold for a larger amount of Influence gained. Feasts are no longer just a means of gaining prestige and opinion, but become a much more central tool as you attempt to gain more and more Influence.
[The Wine Room upgrade for the Estate serves as a potential source of generating Influence.] The Vineyard is another great example. The building provides you with a steady income of gold, which is quite useful already, but the true value comes from also having the Wine Room mentioned above, as it increases the amount of Influence gained when you use the unlocked activity option for feasts.
[The Vineyard building, an excellent choice for when you need both gold and additional Influence.]
As per usual, you can expect Estates to be highly moddable. Changing, removing, or adding buildings is easy to do directly in script. You can add as many levels or branching options as you want. Icon and graphics can easily be adjusted as well, as you set these per building. You can, for example, see how we use unique icons for each building branch in the screenshots above. Any character modifier works out of the box, and these are applied to the owner of the Estate. For anything more complicated, weve enabled the use of parameters, much like those we already have for cultures or faiths. You can even set up new types, completely separate from the Administrative Estate, to be used however youd like. We cant wait to see what all of you can come up with! [hr][/hr] Thats it for today! We are not nearly done just yet though, so well be back with Part II next week; well be going more into depth regarding governors, how they work and what they do on a daily basis, how an administrative realm manages its troops, and more! [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
[ 2024-06-11 10:00:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders!
My name is Emil, resident game designer here on Crusader Kings III. Today Im joined by Chad, my fellow game designer and comrade in arms when it concerns all things Byzantium, to invite all of you, from the most distant governors of our great empire to the esteemed nobles residing here in the capital, to our first in-depth dev diary for our upcoming Major Expansion Roads to Power.
Discuss Dev Diary #148 on our forums!
More specifically, well be going over a brand-new government type: the Administrative Government. All of you who enjoy playing in Byzantium might wanna pay extra attention. Ill be going into a fair amount of detail in an attempt to give you a clear picture of what to expect, how the new government plays, and what it is not.
Please keep in mind the following:
- All of the included screenshots show a work in progress and do not necessarily represent the final product, as we are still heavily at work on the expansion itself.
- This is especially true when it comes to several aspects of the UI, such as layouts and visuals. But that wont stop us from including screenshots anyway, since we believe that showing what we have right now, even if not final, gives you a much better idea of what you can expect.
- All values and numbers in these screenshots are subject to balancing and will likely change before release.
- This is only part 1 (of 2) for the dev diaries on Administrative Government. Some of the things you might be dying to learn about (e.g. how Appointment Succession works) will be covered in part 2!
What is Administrative?
First things first. Administrative (or Admin for short) is a new government type that draws a lot of inspiration specifically from the Byzantine Empire. While Byzantium isnt the only inspiration, it is by far the most significant. Just like the historical inspiration, an Administrative realm is all about the empire itself. You have the emperor situated neatly at the top, with the many governors and noble families serving underneath. They are all small cogs, part of one big machine. They need each other, just as much as they are competing against one another. Regardless of their motives or actions, they serve the empire first and foremost. For a prosperous realm is much more worthwhile to be in.
[The Byzantine Empire and its internal structure of Themes (or governorships).] The emperor is the ultimate authority of the realm. It is the emperor who creates new governorships and appoints the governor of a Theme. The pool of available candidates can be vast, and the emperor will have to consider if they want to appoint that troublesome nephew to keep as much power as possible within his own family, or if a member of another noble family would be a better choice. Having a more competent but docile governor might just be more useful, at least as far as the realm is concerned. Just as the emperor manages the overall structure of the empire, so too does he support and supervise his governors. He can lend them troops if needed, have them go to war on his behalf, and reward them when they are performing well to be in their good graces. The power of an Administrative realm is very much intended to ebb and flow. When the empire is well managed, it runs smoothly like a well-oiled machine, able to beat down its opponents with ease. When mismanaged, however, it becomes significantly weaker, unable to defend itself against opportunistic conquerors looming on its doorstep. Expect a playstyle where wars give way to schemes, intrigue, and good old-fashioned politics. Internal wars between vassals are practically non-existent, as your primary way of expanding within the realm will be to make efficient use of schemes and leverage your influence as you jockey for governorships and other influential positions. Governors are unable to create or join independence and dissolution factions, making Administrative realms excel as large and sprawling empires. While they are significantly less likely to collapse or break apart, succession is a much riskier business. Claimants wont sit idly by while the empires fate lies in the hands of an inept emperor. The Byzantine Empire will play significantly differently from how you are used to playing the game. You would normally gain titles through proven means, such as wars or marriage, but to gain lands and extend your own power in an Administrative realm, you will have to engage in politics. Youll scheme against your rivals, leverage hooks against your peers, and make use of your influence to sway the emperor to your side. To reinforce this new playstyle, schemes have been updated to be more engaging, and we have a new scheme type available only within Administrative realms Political schemes. There are several new schemes of this type, as well as a swath of new interactions, that will help you manage the realm, interact with your liege, your vassals, and your peers. Ultimately, these are all tools with which you can leverage your influence to shape the realm to your will. Well go more in depth into these throughout this dev diary. Byzantium is the main focus of the expansion and will be the only realm that will have Administrative on game start, trading a lot of conventional gameplay in exchange for new and powerful tools, at the cost of increased micromanagement and a less secure succession. Any feudal or clan ruler can strive to surpass Byzantium and attempt to adopt this new government type if they so choose, but more on that later.
Noble Families: The Heart of Admin Realms
Administrative Governments are unique in that they allow for the existence of Noble Families. Every House in an admin realm is a player in the vast political game, whether they hold land at a certain moment or not. All these families are jockeying for power, titles, and even control of the empire itself. As the head of a Noble Family, it is your prerogative to garner power in the form of securing appointments and positions for your house members, improving the family Estate, and undercutting any political rivals that would challenge your name. Directly owning landed titles on the map is not a requirement for rulers within Administrative realms. If you are appointed to a title and any corresponding counties, you are there to do a job. This is not your personal fiefdom to do as you please. Admin realms should feel like a sort of proto-nation state, as Byzantium can be described during our period. As an admin governor are meant to manage the land and act publicly on behalf of the realm and your liege. Thats not to say you cant set something aside for yourself, however It's a tough job managing the realm, after all. This means that you can quite easily also lose any land you hold, should you be forced to resign, unable to secure the succession, or you may even give it up willingly if you so choose (you might want to put yourself in line for a better Theme, for example). Owning land can, in other words, be seen as temporary. You can expect your House members to hold some land most of the time, but there will be times when you wont. If that happens, you can keep playing as a landless noble within the realm. Should the empire fall, however, you shall fall with it. While not holding land, you are still a powerful political force and can take a lot of actions to claw your way to power. Unlike the more mobile Adventurers you are still very much a part of your realm, as you cannot simply pick up your things and leave, and you will always retain access to your Estate (more on that later). Landless nobles are made playable with a new type of title, the Noble Family title. This new title is a duchy-tier title, typically held by the House Head. You can draw comparisons to how Mercenaries or Holy Orders are set up. They exist with a duchy-tier title held by their respective leaders. There is an important caveat to mention here. This means that if you dont have a Noble Family title, you will be unable to play as a landless noble. You will almost always be playing as the House Head. However, if you find yourself in the extremely rare case that you arent, weve made the decision to create a cadet-branch much easier for Admin. As the player, you can take this at essentially any time if you arent the House Head. Doing so will give you a new Noble Family title, allowing you to keep playing even if you lose your land.
[Each Administrative House Head has a new title associated with their position.]
Powerful and Dominant Families
Noble Families are sorted into Normal, Powerful, and Dominant families. These designations are based on something called Powerful Family Rating (discussed below) and indicate each familys level of power within an Admin realm. Think of Powerful Families as a whos who of the realm. If a Powerful Family manages to become Dominant, they have by-and-large subdued the political milieu of the realm to their will. Should you so desire, you can manipulate and control an admin realm as the head of a Dominant or Powerful Family without ever becoming the Top Liege. Rather than having individual vassals playing a big role within the realm, it is the different Houses; the most influential of which have a greater impact on the realm at large. Powerful Families remain so regardless of the position of the House Head, who may go from being a governor to landless and back again. With this, we aim to create a sense of stability among the many and frequent vicissitudes of Administrative realms. Becoming a Powerful Family entitles your House members to several benefits and tools. For example, only members of Powerful Families can use the new Depose and Subsume Governorship Schemes. They get a flat discount to Promoting candidates in the new Succession type (discussed in our next dev diary) and are generally better at Political Schemes. It is also easier for them to be made Co-Emperor, which well discuss in a later dev diary. Any Powerful Family that is able to also control a significant part of the realm will become a Dominant Family. This happens when they control enough governorships to cover 25% of the realms total realm size, so your family must control a fair amount of land in order to become Dominant. A Dominant Family enjoys all the benefits accorded a Powerful Family, but to a greater degree. They are much more of a problem, or nuisance, for the liege. Once reaching such a position of influence and power, they are difficult to dislodge. They have a much easier time becoming governors for one thing, by significantly reducing the cost of investing in candidates (covered in detail next week) and have a much easier time requesting support from lesser families. Additionally, all members of a dominant family are even better at political schemes than other powerful families. Every familys rating also affects how likely the members of a House are to inherit the top lieges title. E.g. becoming emperor of Byzantium, as a portion of the rating is added to a candidates score (discussed below). It will be much easier to compete for the title with a high rating, or to keep it within your family if you are already emperor. Its important to note that Administrative realms don't have the concept of powerful vassals like other governments do. You can still have powerful vassals, should you have vassals of other government types, as those will be able to become powerful vassals as per usual. Administrative vassals, however, cannot. This is only relevant in the case where a Feudal or Clan vassal becomes part of an Admin realm.
Powerful Family Rating
There can only be a handful of Powerful Families at any given time 5 to be exact. The top lieges House is always considered Powerful, and does not take up one of these 5 spots. Houses are then sorted and ranked according to their rating. In order to become a Powerful Family, a House needs to have a rating above a certain threshold. This prevents small and seemingly insignificant Houses from becoming Powerful, as they need a certain amount of sway within the realm before they can gain the benefits of being a Powerful Family. When above the minimum threshold, it is the 5 Houses with the highest rating that are considered Powerful.
[An example of what the rating of a powerful family may look like.] There are several factors that have an impact on a familys rating. We have smaller factors, such as the current number of living House Members, which exists as potential tie breakers if families have a similar rating. Your Estate and the buildings you construct in it also play a central role in your rating. If the Estate is located in the realm capital, you gain yet another small bonus. Other factors you can actively pursue is being a part of your lieges council, where every position counts. If you can get other family members onto the council, the rating increases for each councilor. Or you can pick up the Heart of the Family diplomacy perk, which grants a small, but not insignificant bonus. The most important factor, however, is the number of governorships your family holds. Each held governorship adds to a multiplier, increasing the value of all other factors. Which means that for each governorship your family controls, the family rating will increase quite significantly.
Family Attributes
To give each family some additional flavor, they have access to what we call a Family Attribute. Its a small set of bonuses that apply directly to all House Members, as well as a separate bonus that only applies to their liege. A familys attribute is only active if and when they are considered a powerful family. Since there is a limited number of powerful families, the liege wont be able to stack these modifiers indefinitely. Instead, we hope they serve as an incentive to keep certain families around, making sure they remain a powerful family so that you dont lose out on the bonus they provide. Dominant families are a bit special. Their House Members get to benefit from their attribute, but the liege will not. Theres a number of bonuses available, pertaining to different scheme types, improving troops, generating more Influence, and more.
[The window in which you can set your Family Attribute, showing the benefits of the Confident Schemers attribute.] The attributes exist to give the different families some added flavor, to give them some additional identity and character. Not all families are alike, and the attribute symbolizes what they are good at, or perhaps their origin. The AI wont change these on the fly, so when you are playing as the emperor, you know what bonuses each family provides at all times. As a House Head yourself, you are free to change the attribute at any time. Theres no cost attached. Youll activate a short cooldown before you can change it again, but thats it. All in all, Noble Families are at the heart of Administrative realms. Their members make up the body of ruling characters and they are constantly positioning themselves to grasp more power, station, and influence within the empire at large. [hr][/hr]
Spheres of Influence
Influence is a brand-new resource, which represents your political capital and the sway you hold within an Administrative realm such as Byzantium. It's about your ability to manipulate others and leverage your political standing in order to achieve a favorable outcome. In many ways, Influence is the tool that will make you successful, and gaining Influence will be key to achieving your goals. Unlike other resources, Influence is hard to come by in great quantities, and it has many varied uses. It is the lifeblood of an Administrative realm; while a powerful Emperor or high-ranking Governor might be allowed to do what he wishes in theory, the reality is much more complex than that. This resource symbolizes how gracefully someone navigates the politics of the realm, and a truly powerful Emperor will secure their rule and might through clever use of influence - for example, by securing army support or ousting troublesome governors.
[The new Influence resource as shown in the top bar.]
[Influence has Levels of Influence, just like Prestige and Piety.] Some Levels of Influence directly affect how well you perform Schemes within the new Political category, making a truly influential character assume the form of a masterful political manipulator.
Gaining Influence
Your monthly Influence gain very much depends on your position within the realm, your skills at manipulation, and your success with schemes. Here are a few examples of what you can gain influence from:
Governor Trait
To track just how much skill characters have after becoming a governor, weve implemented a new Governor trait (flavored Strategos here for Byzantium). This trait offers tiered bonuses to monthly influence gain, among other things.
Lieges Council
Having a seat on the emperors council is an easy way to secure some additional influence. Alongside some other bonuses pertaining specifically to the playstyle of an Administrative realm.
[Being on your lieges council grants some significant influence gain each month.]
Governor Duties
Governors in particular have some additional ways of acquiring influence. You are an administrator; first and foremost meant to oversee and manage the land you are appointed to. If you perform your duties well, youll be rewarded for it, primarily with influence, but more on this below.
Alliances
Alliances are important for every realm and government type and Administrative is no different. If you manage to secure an alliance with the head of another noble family within the realm, youll get influence every month. These stack, so the more alliances you have, the more influence youll get.
[You gain monthly influence from having alliances with your liege and the heads of other noble families. Do note that the values are currently not formatted correctly.]
Estate Upgrades
The primary building of your Estate offers compounding influence bonuses as it gets upgraded. There are additional internal and external buildings you can construct on your Estate to gain even more influence, like Guest Chambers, for example.
[The Mansion provides a flat +2 influence per month.]
[Guest Chambers provide a +4% bonus to monthly influence at level 2.]
Holding Upgrades
Constructing or holding certain buildings within your holdings also provides influence gains. For example, we have added a new Murex Fisheries building type which can be built around the Mediterranean. It provides additional monthly influence, which increases as you upgrade the building.
[Murex Fisheries Building.]
Spending Influence
Now that we know how to get Influence, the next question naturally becomes: what can we do with it? Plenty, in fact! First and foremost, Influence is a key factor in securing governorships both for yourself and your family members by investing in succession candidates (I'll come back to how this works later), but you will generally use it to climb the political ladder in different ways. For example:
Demand Council Position
Administrative vassals have the option to request a council position by spending influence. Itll cost you a fair bit of influence, but there are ways to reduce this amount. You also have the option to demand a council position with the use of a hook, which is significantly more cost effective since you will gain some influence once you are on the council.
[The interaction to request a council position costs influence and may be refused by your liege.]
Force to Join Faction
Not having to rely solely on hooks, you can force other vassals to join your factions by spending influence. A handy tool when you just need a tiny bit of additional support for your claimant faction, so that you can push your claim for the throne.
[Force to Join Faction allows influence to be spent instead of a hook.]
Propose Alliance
When proposing an alliance, you can spend your influence to make the target character more likely to accept.
[Propose Alliance allows you to spend influence as a means of increasing acceptance.]
Petition Liege
For characters in an Administrative government, the decision to petition your liege costs influence instead of the usual prestige.
[The Petition Liege decision from the perspective of a governor.]
Bolster Governance
You can put your influence to good use by aiding and improving your governors, while also granting you some opinion in the process.
[The Bolster Governance interaction costs influence to use and improves your governors.] [hr][/hr]
Estates
Weve shown you a preview of Estates in a previous dev diary, so you may already know what they look like. If you havent seen them though, here is an Estate, located in Constantinople no less, in all of its glory.
[An Estate with several buildings constructed and upgraded.] It took us a while until we settled on the final art style. We went over a few options before we decided upon what you see above, a style inspired by medieval manuscripts. Not only does it look great, but it has a lot of quirkiness to it. Perspectives are slightly off, or people may have odd postures, etc. More or less what youd expect from actual medieval illustrations.We opted for this art style over reusing the previous style found in the Tournament interface as it feels more flavorful and authentic to the time period, as well as being far more flexible for other locations. The buildings you construct all look different from each other, and there are different backgrounds that are dependent on the local terrain of where your Estate is located. The backgrounds provide a lot of visual variety, but we really wanted to give a better sense of location. If your Estate is placed in mountains, we want the game to reflect that. It gives a much stronger feeling of belonging and immersion. A shout out to the art team for a job well done! In an Administrative realm, its the families of the nobles that really matter, i.e. their Houses. Each House Head will have access to an Estate, which is a representation of the familys overall wealth and any small tracts of land they may own. While a noble family might not hold any governorships, they are still influential nobles that own a significant amount of real estate. The purpose of the Estate is twofold: It gives you a powerbase you can rely on at all times, acting as your home and the place where your character resides when you dont have any other titles. Secondly, it exists as a means of progression; one that you can tailor to suit your own needs and playstyle. Estates grants you access to a whole bunch of buildings and upgrades, providing you with various bonuses, unlocking new interactions or decisions, and improving your existing toolbox in various ways. It is, without a doubt, one of the primary sources of increasing your Influence.
[The Guard Lodging building and its tooltip, showing the effects.] Estates can become quite powerful on their own. So they are restricted to one per family, owned and controlled by the House Head. Its only the House Head that may construct new buildings and upgrade existing ones, similar to how only the Dynasty Head can pick and unlock Dynasty legacies. One of our primary goals is to provide you with plenty of options as to what you can build, but buildings should also have a certain degree of synergy with each other. As you consider your options and what to build, we want you to be on the lookout for how buildings and upgrades complement each other.
Buildings
There are two distinct types of improvements you can build within your Estate. The first is buildings. You have one building slot dedicated to your villa, or mansion, which is a bit special, as you will always start with this building on at least level one, and you can never demolish it. Aside from your mansion, you have six slots in total in which you can construct whichever available buildings you want. Two of these slots are available from the get go. Then youll unlock an additional slot with every level of your mansion. Youll have two slots on level one, three slots on level two, and so on until you reach the maximum of six slots at level five. There are plenty of more buildings available than you have slots, so youll be forced to choose what you want to build. Buildings can be easily replaced whenever you want though, so you wont be stuck with anything if you ever change your mind. It wont cost you anything to replace a building other than the gold it requires to construct the new building. Your choices wont end there, however. Some buildings (but not all) have multiple branches where you can choose to specialize your buildings further. Branches often share some effects from the base levels before it splits into separate branches, but will then go on to provide slightly different bonuses revolving around a similar theme.
[The Shrine building and its different branches and levels.]
[The Storehouse building and its different branches and levels.]
Upgrades
The second type of improvements for Estates are building upgrades. Unlike buildings themselves, these are built inside of existing buildings. For Estates, upgrades are available in the mansion. The mansion has a limited number of upgrade slots available: Youll have access to two slots from the get go, and you will gain more slots as you upgrade your mansion. When your mansion is brought up to level five, youll have no less than ten upgrade slots to fill as you please. Upgrades can also have branching building paths, but most of the upgrades do not. They also tend to have fewer levels in total compared to buildings. Buildings typically have six levels, but may have less in some cases, while upgrades tend to be closer to four levels. All of this variation should give you plenty of options throughout the many hundreds of years the game spans.
[The upgrades and upgrade slots for your mansion.]
Building Examples
Lets look at another few examples of what you can build, and what type of effects you can expect. Your mansion can be upgraded with a library, in which the primary focus is on Learning Lifestyle experience. This particular upgrade has two distinct branches available. One of which ties in nicely is dedicated to education, improving your Tutor Court Position and allowing your children to get a rank five education.
[The Education Hall upgrade provides a number of useful bonuses.] The mansion can also be upgraded with a Wine Room, which in turn is upgraded into a Wine Cellar. The upgrade unlocks a new activity option for feasts, allowing you to spend some gold to gain Influence for every guest attending your feast. Each level unlocks a corresponding level for the activity, allowing you to spend more gold for a larger amount of Influence gained. Feasts are no longer just a means of gaining prestige and opinion, but become a much more central tool as you attempt to gain more and more Influence.
[The Wine Room upgrade for the Estate serves as a potential source of generating Influence.] The Vineyard is another great example. The building provides you with a steady income of gold, which is quite useful already, but the true value comes from also having the Wine Room mentioned above, as it increases the amount of Influence gained when you use the unlocked activity option for feasts.
[The Vineyard building, an excellent choice for when you need both gold and additional Influence.]
Modding
As per usual, you can expect Estates to be highly moddable. Changing, removing, or adding buildings is easy to do directly in script. You can add as many levels or branching options as you want. Icon and graphics can easily be adjusted as well, as you set these per building. You can, for example, see how we use unique icons for each building branch in the screenshots above. Any character modifier works out of the box, and these are applied to the owner of the Estate. For anything more complicated, weve enabled the use of parameters, much like those we already have for cultures or faiths. You can even set up new types, completely separate from the Administrative Estate, to be used however youd like. We cant wait to see what all of you can come up with! [hr][/hr] Thats it for today! We are not nearly done just yet though, so well be back with Part II next week; well be going more into depth regarding governors, how they work and what they do on a daily basis, how an administrative realm manages its troops, and more! [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
[ 2024-06-11 10:00:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Roads to Power - Available September 24!
[ 2024-06-03 16:04:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
[previewyoutube=PxamTWMq1M0;full][/previewyoutube]
See the World, Seize the Purple! The glory and might of the Byzantine Empire take center stage in the latest Major Expansion for Crusader Kings III.
Rule from Constantinople through the new Administrative Government type and experience a variety of new Byzantine-themed events and flavor, or be truly daring and live a life where your noble reputation is not tied to the land, roaming the map as an Adventurer for hire.
Roads to Power releases on September 24th, but you can purchase Chapter III right now to get the free Instant Unlock Couture of the Capets and receive all of the Chapter content within it as it releases throughout the year.
Want to know more about the artwork shown here? [url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/behind-the-scenes-making-the-roads-to-power-artwork.1682636/]Check out the art featurette for Roads to Power on our official forums.
Be sure to check back next Tuesday, June 11th, for our first Dev Diary detailing the new Administrative Government!
[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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[ 2024-06-03 16:04:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Free-to-Play Weekend, Giveaway, and More!
Discover which Legend of Crusader Kings III you are with our quiz, and until May 31st be entered for a chance to win a custom CK3-themed G502 X mouse and desk mat from Logitech!
[previewyoutube=VbeGxt7wVBA;full][/previewyoutube] Want to try Crusader Kings III but dont know where to start? Update 1.12.5 brings an additional express tutorial to the game, introducing new mechanics and interface elements one-at-a-time to help you ease into the Middle Ages. For more detailed explanations of mechanics, check out these tutorial videos from content creators like Party Elite, HeyCara, and others covering each of the five major lifestyles in Crusader Kings III, or learn how to create your own dynasty from scratch with our custom Ruler Designer system.
[previewyoutube=ccq82Qy9FZo;full][/previewyoutube] Find out which lifestyle path suits you best and embark on a journey through the perils of medieval court with our Choose Your Own Adventure video series! Will you be a mighty warrior, a shrewd diplomat, or something else? Can you even survive long enough to find out?
Roads to Power, our third major expansion, is coming later this year and with it comes a massive free update! Get a sneak peek at an overhauled succession system, new start date, message settings, and more in our latest dev diary straight from our Game Director himself.
[hr][/hr]
[ 2024-05-09 17:36:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Experience the medieval era in Crusader Kings III for FREE this weekend on Steam!
If youve been thinking about trying Crusader Kings III (or trying to talk your friends into it), nows the perfect time with our 1.12.5 Update. Take command of your house and grow your dynasty across nearly 600 years of history at no cost until Monday, May 13.
Additionally, select Crusader Kings III content is on sale this weekend, so you can continue your journey with 60% off of the base game, or expand your collection further with discounts on additional content for the game.
Take the Quiz, Win Prizes
Discover which Legend of Crusader Kings III you are with our quiz, and until May 31st be entered for a chance to win a custom CK3-themed G502 X mouse and desk mat from Logitech!
Take the quiz here!
Tutorials & Tips
[previewyoutube=VbeGxt7wVBA;full][/previewyoutube] Want to try Crusader Kings III but dont know where to start? Update 1.12.5 brings an additional express tutorial to the game, introducing new mechanics and interface elements one-at-a-time to help you ease into the Middle Ages. For more detailed explanations of mechanics, check out these tutorial videos from content creators like Party Elite, HeyCara, and others covering each of the five major lifestyles in Crusader Kings III, or learn how to create your own dynasty from scratch with our custom Ruler Designer system.
Choose Your Own Adventure
[previewyoutube=ccq82Qy9FZo;full][/previewyoutube] Find out which lifestyle path suits you best and embark on a journey through the perils of medieval court with our Choose Your Own Adventure video series! Will you be a mighty warrior, a shrewd diplomat, or something else? Can you even survive long enough to find out?
On the Road to Power
Roads to Power, our third major expansion, is coming later this year and with it comes a massive free update! Get a sneak peek at an overhauled succession system, new start date, message settings, and more in our latest dev diary straight from our Game Director himself.
Read the dev diary here!
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[ 2024-05-09 17:36:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.12.5
[ 2024-05-08 08:06:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everybody! Today we're releasing Update 1.12.5 for PC. This update brings adjustments to plagues, event frequency (are there no sick houses?), and various balance changes. This update also includes new historic event chains for our Legends of Crusader Kings III characters, as well as an additional "express" version of the tutorial. Check the changelog below for precise update information!
We hope this helps alleviate some of the pain points you've reported to us since the release of Legends of the Dead. As always, if you encounter any issues after today's update then please ensure you're running a fresh save with no mods enabled, and then report the problem to us if it persists!
1.12.5 Update Changelog
Game Content
- Added a few historically-inspired events for Matilda di Canossa, Robert the Fox, Yahya Dhunnunid, and Vratislav of Bohemia. Events include themes such as Matilda's marriage to Geoffrey the Hunchback, Vratislav's rivalry with his brother, and Robert's usage of Raiktor the Byzantine pretender-monk.
- Added a new, shorter, version of the Tutorial. The old longer tutorial is still available.
Bugfixes
- Added missing cooldown to physician_epidemic_events.1040 (Alms), set it to 20 years
- During the first 15 years after an epidemic has left a province, further outbreak chances now properly follow the harsher, 50-year epidemic specific, cooldown instead of lesser, 15 year epidemic type agnostic one.
- An empty Legitimacy Gain toast will no longer appear when winning wars against targets you shouldn't get legitimacy for defeating
- Fixed travel completion event so it fires normally, this will allow Traveler Trait XP to be gained again
Balance
- Plague events now only happen if they are present in your Domain, or within a certain distance of your Capital (roughly the length of one Ireland). This should drastically reduce the amount of insignificant plague events in large realms.
- Lowered the general occurrence of plague events by roughly ~30-50%
- The AI is now significantly more likely to enter seclusion when a plague appears in their domain, or in a county bordering their capital (unless brave or deeply irrational)
- The AI will now exit seclusion within 6 months of every plague having left their domain (though they will still not leave before 1 year has passed since they secluded)
- The Secluded modifier penalties have been changed, instead of reducing all stats, it reduces diplomacy, prestige gain, opinion with courtly/glory hound vassals, and increases legitimacy loss
- The Isolate Capital decision now comes with a small legitimacy loss
- The AI is now significantly more willing to isolate their capital, unless brave, greedy, or deeply irrational
- The AI will now unisolate their capital within 6 months of every plague having left their domain
- Reduced frequency of Minor plagues by roughly 20%
- Increased frequency of Major and Apocalyptic plagues by roughly 5%
- Added a new option the the Plague Frequency Game Rule: Disabled, which removes the spawn chance for all plagues (except the Black Death)
- The lower Plague Frequency Game Rule options no longer disable Achievements
- When a disease becomes endemic in a province, it will no longer fully override the recent epidemics cooldown for outbreaks
- Lowered the chance of epidemic outbreaks in provinces that have recently recovered from the specific epidemic on the 'often' and very often' game rule frequency
- The AI will now refrain from hosting hunts, feasts, and pilgrimages for the first three years of any new game (to give them more time to purchase buildings, maa, etc)
- Cut the amount of hunts hosted worldwide by roughly 2/3rds, as it was vastly more common than any other type of activity by far
- Activity guests will now refuse to come if there's an epidemic in your domain or their capital county, rather than if one exists anywhere in your realm
- The AI will now generally avoid hosting activities if there's a plague in their domain, rather than their sub-realm
- Reduced the Prestige rewards from Majesty Tours, both from the demand (medium -> minor demand) and the general prestige rewards (200/600/800/1000/1200 -> 100/300/500/700/1000)
- Reduced gold gained from taxation tours by reducing the gold gained from the various Activity Pulse Actions (Local Tax instituted, Rich Local Taxed, etc)
- Increased Intimidation Tour rewards, added dread on successful demands, and increased faction block from 5 -> 10 and 15 -> 20 years
- Pilgrimage Piety reward values have been lowered, but the Piousness mult has been increased to 10%/25%/75%/150%, this means that it'll be much harder to gain a lot of piety from pilgrimages unless you take a lot of pious options
- Pilgrimage events have had their piety rewards lowered by one step (medium piety -> minor piety, etc)
- Pilgrimage Event Pulse Action piety rewards have been significantly lowered (they now give 10-25 piety)
- Hospices, Monasteries, and Watchtowers now provide Plague Resistance to the Barony instead of the County, this makes it harder to stack Plague Resistance to the point of immunity
- Boosted the tax gained from Pastures from poor to normal
- The 'Pressed my Claim' modifier is now 100 opinion (up from 50) and lasts for 50 years (up from 20)
- Reduced the frequency of the 'Pharmaceutical book' event (physician_epidemic_events.1030)
- Increased the cooldown of epidemic_events.2001 (The Plague of War) to 30 years (from 10)
- Increased the cooldown of epidemic_events.1030 (Leeches!) to 15 years (from 5)
- Increased the cooldown of epidemic_events.1040 (Flagellants at Court) to 15 years (from 5)
- Increased the cooldown of epidemic_events.1040 (Doomsday) to 6 years (from 2)
Interface
- Each Legend now gets a unique map color to make sure different legends do not blend into each other
Localization
- Shortened the text of the 'A Shadow Over X'-event to focus more on what's important
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[ 2024-05-08 08:06:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #147 - Some Words from the Game Director
Plagues is the feature that has been the easiest to collect and action feedback for - even if various types of feedback are sometimes conflated and need to be untangled for us to know what we should change. Your sentiment is somewhat split between plagues either being too easy or too hard, but uniformly they are perceived as annoying by the sheer amount of events they can summon (especially in larger realms). For Plagues, were looking into having balance changes go out together with an update on the 8th of May. The full changelog can be found at the end of this post. The vast majority of the event spam was due to one seemingly-innocent bug in the Alms event; it didnt have a cooldown set. This means that regardless of our intentions, itd always be valid to fire, which is of course not as intended. In fact, a lot of the events were set up to simulate negative consequences of unchecked plagues - but as many of you have rightfully pointed out, the general negative modifiers to development and other things are more than enough to represent this. That said, increasing the cooldowns significantly for most of the events that either have easy-to-happen triggers or major negative effects should go a long way in making this feel better. The second part of making sure the events you get are relevant for you was to make it so they only happen if theyre near an area you care about: if youre the emperor of a world-spanning empire, you dont care about the goings-on of a distant backwater, or even if youre just the King of France you dont necessarily care whats going on in the very southernmost parts of Aquitaine - after all, the risk of the plague reaching your lands from there isnt that great. It seemed that the most common feedback here was to limit the events by distance, so thats exactly what we did - they can now only happen if the plague is in your domain or within a certain distance from your capital (roughly one Ireland, its less than you might think). Alongside this, weve reduced the overall frequency of plague events and shifted the ratio between minor/major/apocalyptic plagues away from minor and towards major/apocalyptic in an effort to make the content you receive more impactful - this should mean that you get fewer plagues overall, but the ones that happen are more significant. Weve also removed the block on achievements when you lower the frequency, and added an additional option where you can choose to disable plagues (minus the black death) entirely should you wish. Another recurring point of feedback is difficulty, or rather the lack of challenge - it is felt like the AI is much worse at handling plagues than the player, and this I agree with. While the AI will never be as responsive as the player when it comes to isolating or secluding, they should all treat it as a threat to be countered - choosing to defend themselves shouldnt be dependent on minor quirks of personality; only truly major ones. Currently, larger Counties (with more Baronies) are better at defending against plagues - and that was never our intention, as this is literally the opposite of what happened historically - therefore weve shifted the plague resistance granted by buildings from County-wide to Barony-wide. This should encourage an alternative playstyle of having fewer-barony Counties in your domain in order to protect development. This is also much more of a challenge for players than it will be for the AI, evening the playing field a bit. The full changelog for the 1.12.5 update can be found at the very end of this Dev Diary.
Legends are a completely different beast altogether, and are much harder to collect feedback for - opinions on what to do or change differ wildly at this point in time. Of course were aware of the general sentiment surrounding the feature, which is why were still looking at as much feedback as we can. The update we deployed close to the release targeted some of the widely agreed-upon points of feedback, such as adding a Legend Library where you can see completed legends forever, and more reactive variations in chapter texts to things your character does (such as winning battles, having children, etc.), among other things. For this update, weve mainly improved the Legends mapmode as we found it uninspiring and not pleasant to look at due to its limited color palette (and similar colors tended to blend together).
[Image - New legend colors] The feedback were collecting now is hard to act upon. As I mentioned, opinions vary greatly - from thinking that they are underpowered and useless, too overpowered and way too good, or that they should be something else altogether. Some of you are bringing up the example of CK2 Bloodlines (which is interesting to me, seeing as I designed them back in the day.) The Bloodlines of CK2 were designed to be more of a fantasy feature, where great, lasting reputations were built by people *actually doing* the great and/or implausible deeds the reputations spoke of - this would then be literally transferred in their blood to either a patrilineal or matrilineal lineage (with some convoluted breeding necessary to stack multiple lines on the same character). On the contrary, Legends in CK3 were designed to mimic what medieval rulers actually did; embellish otherwise mundane stories into epics of great renown - all in order to bolster their legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects or the renown of their dynasty. Which of the two approaches is the best can be debated, and I think theres merit to both. We wanted to go for the more true-to-history one for CK3 - if nothing else - because its something we hadnt done before. Truth be told though, I think the problem with Legends lies less in the feature itself and more in how we communicated them in Dev Diaries and similar - we werent clear enough what they were going to be. This is something we can act upon. Going forward, any Dev Diary were making on a feature will aim to be less open for interpretation. As with diaries of old, well try to describe features in as much detail as possible. We dont want any misconceptions about what the features are or how they work. You can expect the diaries for Roads to Power to be detail-filled behemoths when they start.
Next up, Id like to share some details on how we work to make the game better over time. No matter if were working on an expansion, free update, or other type of release, we always try to improve the game by doing various initiatives and looking at feedback.
There are different ways were doing this, such as through the dedicated Balance Days we have every three weeks - for which we keep a big sheet of game balance areas that we review and add to. Currently, these days are focused on improving some of the older content weve released, as well as doing balance passes on resources such as Prestige and game components such as Cultural Traditions. The main philosophy were following when reviewing old content is to balance it for fun. If a piece of content isnt already engaging, flavorful, interesting, or fulfilling a specific purpose, then it needs to at least be made entertaining or useful. Right now, were working on updating Court Events from Royal Court - a set of events that are regarded to be fairly poor and inconsequential by many of you, and we do agree with that assessment in hindsight. Were ripping out and replacing much of the content within that pool, hopefully for the better. As for Prestige, weve also taken a look at what causes the AI to go into Prestige debt and thus be unable to declare war - all in order to make it more challenging and not feel as inert. Many Cultural Traditions presented very small or narrow trade-offs that players would rarely choose, so we decided to change our philosophy to work with larger buffs and more significant/interesting tradeoffs. Updating older content or doing large balance passes is always on our radar, and will often arrive together with larger updates - all of what I mentioned here, Court Events, AI Prestige debt, and Cultural Tradition balance, will arrive alongside Roads to Power.
[Image - One of the revised court events] We also work with Community Reports - our community team scours the various platforms where you have discussions, looking for trends and issues, and then they compile reports. These reports are very useful and show us if an issue or topic keeps being brought up. A lot of the changes were making to the plagues were measured using these reports. In addition to this, we also have Fix Weeks (every three weeks, we focus exclusively on fixing bugs), Improvement Days (where we look at a backlog of improvements weve gathered, including your wishes!), and more. Much of our time is spent on making the game better, and were constantly evaluating how were working to see how we can best improve the game as much as we can.
A common topic that I see discussed in many places is the frequency of events, that they can feel spammy - not necessarily because theres always too many of them at once (although that certainly happens every now and then), but because you often see the same events often. The more insignificant or punishing a (random) event is, the less often you want to see it happen. Having a flavorful situation appear now-and-then is fine, but being blocked by a challenger on the road or hearing a duck quack several times per character feels off. Now, the method we have when creating pools of content is to have a generous amount of events that have easy-to-happen triggers and can happen in many situations. This we do in order to make sure youre always valid to see something. While making an event that triggers for a niche situation feels really good, the likelihood of it being seen at all drastically decreases the more complex the situation is, making it less and less valuable to spend time making - to the point where it might be half a percent or less of the playerbase who sees them. This means that we aim for way more general events as a rule of thumb, a ratio between general and niche (which varies depending on the pool were filling). Of course, a consequence of this is that youre going to see the events with easy-to-happen triggers way more often - sometimes with every character you play, and sometimes multiple times per character (depending on the event cooldown). Reading your feedback Im inclined to make some changes to our philosophy, and Id appreciate further feedback on this before we make any decisions. What we are looking at is a combination of more significant cooldowns and a new system to restrict certain events for some characters you play could have the following effects:
Another type of spam that is often (rightfully) brought up is that of messages, notifications (the bottom-right ones) and toasts (the top center ones that fade after a few seconds) have been accumulating for some time, and sometimes reach critical mass when playing - especially if youre further into a session. The solution to this has been clear for a while, and weve finally found the time to realize it. With the update releasing together with Roads to Power you will have access to Message Settings. This means that you can disable or change any feed or toast message stemming from a systemic source (in other words, anything that isnt the result of an event outcome such as a skill duel, etc.) This should allow you to tailor what you see and are notified with based on personal preference.
[Image - CK3 message settings, modified by me to fit my playstyle] As a bonus, this also allows you to automatically pause the game if something specific happens, and you can even set messages to be delivered in the form of a pop-up should you really want to not miss something! For example - I know that a lot of you who used to play CK2 set hostile sieges to pause the game so you wouldnt miss them, now you can do the same in CK3.
[Image - Popup and pause on enemy sieges]
When developing expansions you have to make many calls of what should be paid and what should be free. Back in the day (Ive worked at Paradox for 10 years now, time truly flies), we were not very good at determining what could be paid and what should be free. This had several unfortunate side effects; players who didnt have certain expansions would be alienated, us developers would have to spend extra time supporting multiple parallel systems within the same game (including all manner of permutations between different expansion combinations), and it sometimes made it harder to further develop popular systems. As a company we develop games that can live for a very, very long time - this implies a lot of work keeping the game healthy by updating features, fixing issues, doing balance work, and other things that arent just about making new expansions. Over the years, weve started to make more and more base systems free at their core, which is something that came from listening to you in the community. The reason why were doing this is because we want your experience to be better - for the game to be healthy, for systems to be more accessible to modders, and so that we can update areas of the game that we feel would simply make the experience better. This alleviates the unfortunate side effects I mentioned above. Speaking of modders; we love them, and we love the fact that so many people want to mod our game. This is why we spend extra time making new systems as flexible as possible, and why we take some of our time to do things that are pure support for mods (one of the latest examples here.) We appreciate the work they do and their creativity, but we don't want to rely on them to make the game for us - we only rely on them to share their passions about the game! It's important that the game is feature complete and enjoyable without mods. Now, we dont aim for a fixed ratio between free or paid - we aim to make the game better in as many different ways as we can. We dont want to lock systems away if theyd make more sense being free. Sometimes this means that well be making more free features than paid ones in an update, and sometimes more paid ones than free - it depends on what the update is about. It is important to note that we have limited time; the time to make free and paid features come out of the same pool. By choosing to make more paid features wed be making fewer free ones, and that could ultimately hurt the game. Which is why I want to reinforce that I dont want to change how we work. I believe that its important for the game and community that certain things are free, to avoid divides and splits, and keep the game in good shape. We, like you, are fans of the game, and we want to make it as good as it can be - paid features exist in order to fund continued development, they are not goals in and of themselves. Its together with you in the community that we decided to have this philosophy, and I strongly believe in it. That said, while Roads to Power is going to have plenty of free systems (more than this Dev Diary will cover), it will definitely lean more towards having paid features than Legends of the Dead did.
The difficulty of the game is a topic that is often brought up. The truth is that CK3 is not a particularly hard game when youve mastered it - and thats something weve always been fine with, seeing as, unlike other GSGs, were focusing more on stories and dynamically evolving narratives. That said, if the game is too easy, or systems are too trivial to overcome, then that impacts the quality of the stories. Therefore Id like to explain my philosophy regarding what difficulty in CK3 should be. I am not a fan of traditional Hard difficulties, where all AIs are simply given extra resources and bonuses the player cannot get - or alternatively the player is hit with a series of nerfs and inefficiencies that feel artificial and forced. I like when difficulty is immersive and opt-in. It shouldnt get in the way of you telling your stories (up to a certain degree) by the AI only doing objectively good things, such as stacking wars, spamming murder schemes, etc - it should help you create stories of triumph, or stories of overcoming hardship. The AI is there to immerse you in the game, and to provide an enjoyable challenge. Unlike the player, the AI cannot game over, and should therefore focus on immersion over pure survival (although it should obviously not feel suicidal - thats not immersive!). As we want the AI to play in an immersive way where they dont always take optimal decisions, we try to be wary of changing the overarching difficulty - making the game harder overall will always hit the AI harder than the player, as the player can more easily adapt. There are systems that are easier to change than others to introduce more challenges to the player without inadvertently making the game harder for the AI. For example, the AI will almost always marry for Alliances or Prestige - never for Genetics. This means that if we were to make it more of a challenge to reinforce good genetic traits (which is on our radar, but perhaps not for Roads to Power) it would barely harm the AI at all. Of course this isnt true for most systems, which is why we need to always be careful. When we change things, we try to think of what implications itll have for the AI so that we dont inadvertently make the game less challenging. Many things that relate to adding more challenges are present on the balance sheet I mentioned earlier in this diary (the How We Work section). Now, difficulty comes in different flavors; one of these flavors is to optimize your resources to overcome challenges. This is when you use your gold, prestige, lands, vassals, etc. to outcompete your rivals and neighbors - very common in all GSGs. The lack of mid-to-late game AI challengers makes this difficulty peter out quickly after youve formed a decently-sized realm. Another flavor of difficulty is to overcome specific challenges where the rules you play by are different and not controlled by you. This is when you guide a blind 4-year-old through a viper's nest of rivals in order to reach adulthood and subsequently thrive - this is a more uniquely CK3 thing. The fact that you have a lot of control over education, inheritance, and that youre restricted to a direct line of inheritance makes it so youre challenged less often. Both of these are connected to player fantasies that are very common to have when playing CK3 - and both are difficulties we want to improve. We work continually with general difficulty balance in our systems, but sometimes we decide to do things that are a lot larger in scope, such as these:
While I dont enjoy having all AIs cheat, I enjoy when certain characters stand out from the rest. When certain rulers, either because of historical reasons, or in-game suitability, are granted special bonuses and a new way of interacting with the world. The middle ages are full of these conquerors who forged large empires (which often later fell) like the Ghaznavids, Ayyubids, etc. I wanted something like this for CK - dynamic challengers, controlled in detail by game rules, who can rival players in efficiency while being immersive and appropriately flavorful.
[Image - Game Rules for Conquerors] Conquerors switch over to a hyper-aggressive version of the AI, which is much faster to declare wars, can declare multiple wars at once, and invests all of their resources into warfare, MaA, and means in which to declare more and better wars (such as hunt activities if theyre low on prestige and youve disabled their special bonuses via game rules, or taxation tours if theyre low on gold, etc.). They switch to the objectively best lifestyle focuses, use schemes in a very realpolitik way, etc.
[Image - Conqueror economical Archetype] By default, they get the Conqueror trait which provides a host of powerful boons, making them have an easier time fielding a large army and keeping their realms stable. If you prefer to not give the AI any handicap, you can turn this off in the game rules. I avoided certain types of bonuses, such as making their troops fight better, or them having an artificially high advantage in combat, because such bonuses can feel unfair - instead opting for areas in which the player often has an advantage (economy, realm stability, etc.).
[Image - Conqueror trait bonuses] Of course, if you fancy a truly unfair challenge you can set the game rule to extreme, where theyll get an additional scourge of god modifier. This is masochistic and not really recommended!
[Image - Scourge of God bonuses] With default game rules, rulers around the world have a very, very small chance to become Conquerors. The likelihood goes up the more suitable they are based on traits, government, available CBs, etc. A global pacing mechanic makes sure that there arent too many of these characters worldwide, and that they mostly appear in areas where youd expect large upheavals in the regional power structure (but there are never any guarantees - they could appear anywhere!). You can also control via game rules if you only want already-powerful rulers to have the chance. Everything good has to come to an end - if they are defeated repeatedly in wars, lose all of their prestige, or similar, they will stop being conquerors and lose all bonuses. On succession, being a conqueror is inherited by default - but if an AI is Cautious (in other words; a craven coward) they will also stop being a conqueror. This creates a dynamic ebb and flow of challenge.
[Image - Two conquerors, the Ghaznavids and the Somavamsi, splitting India between them] This feature will help the mid-to-late game feel less stale when youve forged a grand realm, and will be coming in the update alongside Roads To Power.
Those of you who followed what we did for the Black Forge Jam know about this feature; when you die, you now have the opportunity to switch to one of three carefully-selected dynasty members. These picks are chosen based on an interest score, where various subjective things are chosen to make a character more or less interesting. Feel free to suggest things that you consider interesting, such as various combinations of traits and/or skills. Having rare traits or being in peculiar situations (such as being the only one in your dynasty of a certain faith) will score a character higher, while being awfully rich will weigh them down (as that isnt as much fun as just trivializing the challenge.)
[Image - Updated death screen with the new Choose a New Destiny button] The point of this feature is to give you opportunities to take on challenges - perhaps you have an awfully interesting one-eyed albino uncle whos a count of a foreign faith within a distant realm? Now you will have the opportunity to change the course of your game and experience these much rarer situations. Situations that dont exist when you start the game within the bookmarks. When you feel accomplished and finished with what youre currently doing, you can treat it as a New Game+ within the same session.
[Image - example characters in a Choose a New Destiny] Currently theres no inherent bonus associated with making this switch - and Im in two minds if there should be any. Ive been considering adding a small renown boon for choosing to switch, perhaps based on their difficulty. I welcome feedback on this point.
As Ive seen a lot of discussions about how Adventurers will play, I thought I would give a brief overview of how were designing them. This will not be exhaustive (that will come in later Dev Diaries), but I think its interesting to share how we see the experience. Playing as an average Adventurer will be a zero-to-hero experience, a completely separate experience from how you play a landed character, where you work your way up in the world. You will travel a lot, and accumulate resources to improve your standing. It wont be easy to gain land depending on the goals you set for yourself - gaining a small plot of land will naturally not be as difficult as doing something epic like invading a kingdom (except if youre an Adventurer with the special Legitimists purpose, in which case its intended that you can amass a big army and lots of support quickly! This will be rare though). It will also definitely be possible to play as a multi-generational adventurer, should you want. Before ending this Dev Diary, Id like to leave you with some screenshots of upcoming features of Roads to Power and its accompanying update. Firstly, weve already hinted at this, but the free update coming alongside the expansion will introduce a new 1178 start date, alongside two bookmarks - one focusing on the Byzantine Empire and its surroundings, the Call of the Empire. 1178 provides a more built-up starting situation than the 867 or 1066 starts do, and also gives you access to a whole host of new historical characters and dynasties to play, such as Saladin of Egypt or the Plantagenets in England - not to mention that the centerpiece realm of Roads to Power, Byzantium, is in a challenging situation with the Sultanate of Rum on its doorstep.
[Image - Call of the Empire bookmark in 1178] Secondly, Id like to show off a screenshot of the Estate feature that Noble families inside of Byzantium (or other administrative empires) will have access to. As you can see, the estate has a location on the map from where it can be accessed (in this case Athens) and a whole host of building upgrade options - ranging from the mansion itself, external buildings (the Watchtower, Storehouse, and Hay Barracks in the picture), and internal upgrades (like the Granaries shown to the right), theres even branching upgrades where you have to choose what you want the most. The Estate is managed by the House Head, and theres one per family.
[Image - An estate in 1178, map location visible, with an external building slot upgrade tree shown] As I mentioned earlier in this diary, were committing to having more detailed Dev Diaries for Roads to Power. While there are some more teaser-like sections in this Dev Diary, that will not be the norm going forward - there should be no room for misinterpreting what were making, or how it will work!
(Community Manager note: Including the changelog would push us over the character limit for a Steam announcement! Check our forum thread for the list of changes.)
[ 2024-04-30 12:00:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings! This Dev Diary will be a mixed bag of various things - theres a lot going on, and therefore a lot to talk about. I want to take this opportunity to address feedback, talk design philosophy, shine some light on how were working, set some expectations for Roads to Power, tease some things coming in the future, and show off the 1.12.5 changelog for a free update happening on May 8th. In other words, this will be a big and a little bit all-over-the-place diary, but bear with me.
Discuss Dev Diary #147 on our forums!
To start off, let's talk about Community Feedback!
Theres a lot of feedback coming in for the features of Legends of the Dead, and were doing our best to collect it. We try to find as much feedback as we can from as many different sources (forums, Reddit, videos, reviews, etc, etc.) as we can - even if you feel like were not there, I promise that we read everything - or we try to - and have it in the back of our minds. That said, let's start off with Plagues.
Plagues
Plagues is the feature that has been the easiest to collect and action feedback for - even if various types of feedback are sometimes conflated and need to be untangled for us to know what we should change. Your sentiment is somewhat split between plagues either being too easy or too hard, but uniformly they are perceived as annoying by the sheer amount of events they can summon (especially in larger realms). For Plagues, were looking into having balance changes go out together with an update on the 8th of May. The full changelog can be found at the end of this post. The vast majority of the event spam was due to one seemingly-innocent bug in the Alms event; it didnt have a cooldown set. This means that regardless of our intentions, itd always be valid to fire, which is of course not as intended. In fact, a lot of the events were set up to simulate negative consequences of unchecked plagues - but as many of you have rightfully pointed out, the general negative modifiers to development and other things are more than enough to represent this. That said, increasing the cooldowns significantly for most of the events that either have easy-to-happen triggers or major negative effects should go a long way in making this feel better. The second part of making sure the events you get are relevant for you was to make it so they only happen if theyre near an area you care about: if youre the emperor of a world-spanning empire, you dont care about the goings-on of a distant backwater, or even if youre just the King of France you dont necessarily care whats going on in the very southernmost parts of Aquitaine - after all, the risk of the plague reaching your lands from there isnt that great. It seemed that the most common feedback here was to limit the events by distance, so thats exactly what we did - they can now only happen if the plague is in your domain or within a certain distance from your capital (roughly one Ireland, its less than you might think). Alongside this, weve reduced the overall frequency of plague events and shifted the ratio between minor/major/apocalyptic plagues away from minor and towards major/apocalyptic in an effort to make the content you receive more impactful - this should mean that you get fewer plagues overall, but the ones that happen are more significant. Weve also removed the block on achievements when you lower the frequency, and added an additional option where you can choose to disable plagues (minus the black death) entirely should you wish. Another recurring point of feedback is difficulty, or rather the lack of challenge - it is felt like the AI is much worse at handling plagues than the player, and this I agree with. While the AI will never be as responsive as the player when it comes to isolating or secluding, they should all treat it as a threat to be countered - choosing to defend themselves shouldnt be dependent on minor quirks of personality; only truly major ones. Currently, larger Counties (with more Baronies) are better at defending against plagues - and that was never our intention, as this is literally the opposite of what happened historically - therefore weve shifted the plague resistance granted by buildings from County-wide to Barony-wide. This should encourage an alternative playstyle of having fewer-barony Counties in your domain in order to protect development. This is also much more of a challenge for players than it will be for the AI, evening the playing field a bit. The full changelog for the 1.12.5 update can be found at the very end of this Dev Diary.
Legends
Legends are a completely different beast altogether, and are much harder to collect feedback for - opinions on what to do or change differ wildly at this point in time. Of course were aware of the general sentiment surrounding the feature, which is why were still looking at as much feedback as we can. The update we deployed close to the release targeted some of the widely agreed-upon points of feedback, such as adding a Legend Library where you can see completed legends forever, and more reactive variations in chapter texts to things your character does (such as winning battles, having children, etc.), among other things. For this update, weve mainly improved the Legends mapmode as we found it uninspiring and not pleasant to look at due to its limited color palette (and similar colors tended to blend together).
[Image - New legend colors] The feedback were collecting now is hard to act upon. As I mentioned, opinions vary greatly - from thinking that they are underpowered and useless, too overpowered and way too good, or that they should be something else altogether. Some of you are bringing up the example of CK2 Bloodlines (which is interesting to me, seeing as I designed them back in the day.) The Bloodlines of CK2 were designed to be more of a fantasy feature, where great, lasting reputations were built by people *actually doing* the great and/or implausible deeds the reputations spoke of - this would then be literally transferred in their blood to either a patrilineal or matrilineal lineage (with some convoluted breeding necessary to stack multiple lines on the same character). On the contrary, Legends in CK3 were designed to mimic what medieval rulers actually did; embellish otherwise mundane stories into epics of great renown - all in order to bolster their legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects or the renown of their dynasty. Which of the two approaches is the best can be debated, and I think theres merit to both. We wanted to go for the more true-to-history one for CK3 - if nothing else - because its something we hadnt done before. Truth be told though, I think the problem with Legends lies less in the feature itself and more in how we communicated them in Dev Diaries and similar - we werent clear enough what they were going to be. This is something we can act upon. Going forward, any Dev Diary were making on a feature will aim to be less open for interpretation. As with diaries of old, well try to describe features in as much detail as possible. We dont want any misconceptions about what the features are or how they work. You can expect the diaries for Roads to Power to be detail-filled behemoths when they start.
Bettering the Game
Next up, Id like to share some details on how we work to make the game better over time. No matter if were working on an expansion, free update, or other type of release, we always try to improve the game by doing various initiatives and looking at feedback.
How We Work
There are different ways were doing this, such as through the dedicated Balance Days we have every three weeks - for which we keep a big sheet of game balance areas that we review and add to. Currently, these days are focused on improving some of the older content weve released, as well as doing balance passes on resources such as Prestige and game components such as Cultural Traditions. The main philosophy were following when reviewing old content is to balance it for fun. If a piece of content isnt already engaging, flavorful, interesting, or fulfilling a specific purpose, then it needs to at least be made entertaining or useful. Right now, were working on updating Court Events from Royal Court - a set of events that are regarded to be fairly poor and inconsequential by many of you, and we do agree with that assessment in hindsight. Were ripping out and replacing much of the content within that pool, hopefully for the better. As for Prestige, weve also taken a look at what causes the AI to go into Prestige debt and thus be unable to declare war - all in order to make it more challenging and not feel as inert. Many Cultural Traditions presented very small or narrow trade-offs that players would rarely choose, so we decided to change our philosophy to work with larger buffs and more significant/interesting tradeoffs. Updating older content or doing large balance passes is always on our radar, and will often arrive together with larger updates - all of what I mentioned here, Court Events, AI Prestige debt, and Cultural Tradition balance, will arrive alongside Roads to Power.
[Image - One of the revised court events] We also work with Community Reports - our community team scours the various platforms where you have discussions, looking for trends and issues, and then they compile reports. These reports are very useful and show us if an issue or topic keeps being brought up. A lot of the changes were making to the plagues were measured using these reports. In addition to this, we also have Fix Weeks (every three weeks, we focus exclusively on fixing bugs), Improvement Days (where we look at a backlog of improvements weve gathered, including your wishes!), and more. Much of our time is spent on making the game better, and were constantly evaluating how were working to see how we can best improve the game as much as we can.
Event Frequency
A common topic that I see discussed in many places is the frequency of events, that they can feel spammy - not necessarily because theres always too many of them at once (although that certainly happens every now and then), but because you often see the same events often. The more insignificant or punishing a (random) event is, the less often you want to see it happen. Having a flavorful situation appear now-and-then is fine, but being blocked by a challenger on the road or hearing a duck quack several times per character feels off. Now, the method we have when creating pools of content is to have a generous amount of events that have easy-to-happen triggers and can happen in many situations. This we do in order to make sure youre always valid to see something. While making an event that triggers for a niche situation feels really good, the likelihood of it being seen at all drastically decreases the more complex the situation is, making it less and less valuable to spend time making - to the point where it might be half a percent or less of the playerbase who sees them. This means that we aim for way more general events as a rule of thumb, a ratio between general and niche (which varies depending on the pool were filling). Of course, a consequence of this is that youre going to see the events with easy-to-happen triggers way more often - sometimes with every character you play, and sometimes multiple times per character (depending on the event cooldown). Reading your feedback Im inclined to make some changes to our philosophy, and Id appreciate further feedback on this before we make any decisions. What we are looking at is a combination of more significant cooldowns and a new system to restrict certain events for some characters you play could have the following effects:
- Pro: You would see the same events way less often
- Pro: You would have more varied general event content between characters
- Pro: Rare events would become somewhat more visible, due to fewer general events being valid
- Con: Some event pools might give you less event content over time (which might be a Pro for some of you)
Message Settings
Another type of spam that is often (rightfully) brought up is that of messages, notifications (the bottom-right ones) and toasts (the top center ones that fade after a few seconds) have been accumulating for some time, and sometimes reach critical mass when playing - especially if youre further into a session. The solution to this has been clear for a while, and weve finally found the time to realize it. With the update releasing together with Roads to Power you will have access to Message Settings. This means that you can disable or change any feed or toast message stemming from a systemic source (in other words, anything that isnt the result of an event outcome such as a skill duel, etc.) This should allow you to tailor what you see and are notified with based on personal preference.
[Image - CK3 message settings, modified by me to fit my playstyle] As a bonus, this also allows you to automatically pause the game if something specific happens, and you can even set messages to be delivered in the form of a pop-up should you really want to not miss something! For example - I know that a lot of you who used to play CK2 set hostile sieges to pause the game so you wouldnt miss them, now you can do the same in CK3.
[Image - Popup and pause on enemy sieges]
The Philosophy of Free
When developing expansions you have to make many calls of what should be paid and what should be free. Back in the day (Ive worked at Paradox for 10 years now, time truly flies), we were not very good at determining what could be paid and what should be free. This had several unfortunate side effects; players who didnt have certain expansions would be alienated, us developers would have to spend extra time supporting multiple parallel systems within the same game (including all manner of permutations between different expansion combinations), and it sometimes made it harder to further develop popular systems. As a company we develop games that can live for a very, very long time - this implies a lot of work keeping the game healthy by updating features, fixing issues, doing balance work, and other things that arent just about making new expansions. Over the years, weve started to make more and more base systems free at their core, which is something that came from listening to you in the community. The reason why were doing this is because we want your experience to be better - for the game to be healthy, for systems to be more accessible to modders, and so that we can update areas of the game that we feel would simply make the experience better. This alleviates the unfortunate side effects I mentioned above. Speaking of modders; we love them, and we love the fact that so many people want to mod our game. This is why we spend extra time making new systems as flexible as possible, and why we take some of our time to do things that are pure support for mods (one of the latest examples here.) We appreciate the work they do and their creativity, but we don't want to rely on them to make the game for us - we only rely on them to share their passions about the game! It's important that the game is feature complete and enjoyable without mods. Now, we dont aim for a fixed ratio between free or paid - we aim to make the game better in as many different ways as we can. We dont want to lock systems away if theyd make more sense being free. Sometimes this means that well be making more free features than paid ones in an update, and sometimes more paid ones than free - it depends on what the update is about. It is important to note that we have limited time; the time to make free and paid features come out of the same pool. By choosing to make more paid features wed be making fewer free ones, and that could ultimately hurt the game. Which is why I want to reinforce that I dont want to change how we work. I believe that its important for the game and community that certain things are free, to avoid divides and splits, and keep the game in good shape. We, like you, are fans of the game, and we want to make it as good as it can be - paid features exist in order to fund continued development, they are not goals in and of themselves. Its together with you in the community that we decided to have this philosophy, and I strongly believe in it. That said, while Roads to Power is going to have plenty of free systems (more than this Dev Diary will cover), it will definitely lean more towards having paid features than Legends of the Dead did.
A Challenging Game
The difficulty of the game is a topic that is often brought up. The truth is that CK3 is not a particularly hard game when youve mastered it - and thats something weve always been fine with, seeing as, unlike other GSGs, were focusing more on stories and dynamically evolving narratives. That said, if the game is too easy, or systems are too trivial to overcome, then that impacts the quality of the stories. Therefore Id like to explain my philosophy regarding what difficulty in CK3 should be. I am not a fan of traditional Hard difficulties, where all AIs are simply given extra resources and bonuses the player cannot get - or alternatively the player is hit with a series of nerfs and inefficiencies that feel artificial and forced. I like when difficulty is immersive and opt-in. It shouldnt get in the way of you telling your stories (up to a certain degree) by the AI only doing objectively good things, such as stacking wars, spamming murder schemes, etc - it should help you create stories of triumph, or stories of overcoming hardship. The AI is there to immerse you in the game, and to provide an enjoyable challenge. Unlike the player, the AI cannot game over, and should therefore focus on immersion over pure survival (although it should obviously not feel suicidal - thats not immersive!). As we want the AI to play in an immersive way where they dont always take optimal decisions, we try to be wary of changing the overarching difficulty - making the game harder overall will always hit the AI harder than the player, as the player can more easily adapt. There are systems that are easier to change than others to introduce more challenges to the player without inadvertently making the game harder for the AI. For example, the AI will almost always marry for Alliances or Prestige - never for Genetics. This means that if we were to make it more of a challenge to reinforce good genetic traits (which is on our radar, but perhaps not for Roads to Power) it would barely harm the AI at all. Of course this isnt true for most systems, which is why we need to always be careful. When we change things, we try to think of what implications itll have for the AI so that we dont inadvertently make the game less challenging. Many things that relate to adding more challenges are present on the balance sheet I mentioned earlier in this diary (the How We Work section). Now, difficulty comes in different flavors; one of these flavors is to optimize your resources to overcome challenges. This is when you use your gold, prestige, lands, vassals, etc. to outcompete your rivals and neighbors - very common in all GSGs. The lack of mid-to-late game AI challengers makes this difficulty peter out quickly after youve formed a decently-sized realm. Another flavor of difficulty is to overcome specific challenges where the rules you play by are different and not controlled by you. This is when you guide a blind 4-year-old through a viper's nest of rivals in order to reach adulthood and subsequently thrive - this is a more uniquely CK3 thing. The fact that you have a lot of control over education, inheritance, and that youre restricted to a direct line of inheritance makes it so youre challenged less often. Both of these are connected to player fantasies that are very common to have when playing CK3 - and both are difficulties we want to improve. We work continually with general difficulty balance in our systems, but sometimes we decide to do things that are a lot larger in scope, such as these:
Conquerors
While I dont enjoy having all AIs cheat, I enjoy when certain characters stand out from the rest. When certain rulers, either because of historical reasons, or in-game suitability, are granted special bonuses and a new way of interacting with the world. The middle ages are full of these conquerors who forged large empires (which often later fell) like the Ghaznavids, Ayyubids, etc. I wanted something like this for CK - dynamic challengers, controlled in detail by game rules, who can rival players in efficiency while being immersive and appropriately flavorful.
[Image - Game Rules for Conquerors] Conquerors switch over to a hyper-aggressive version of the AI, which is much faster to declare wars, can declare multiple wars at once, and invests all of their resources into warfare, MaA, and means in which to declare more and better wars (such as hunt activities if theyre low on prestige and youve disabled their special bonuses via game rules, or taxation tours if theyre low on gold, etc.). They switch to the objectively best lifestyle focuses, use schemes in a very realpolitik way, etc.
[Image - Conqueror economical Archetype] By default, they get the Conqueror trait which provides a host of powerful boons, making them have an easier time fielding a large army and keeping their realms stable. If you prefer to not give the AI any handicap, you can turn this off in the game rules. I avoided certain types of bonuses, such as making their troops fight better, or them having an artificially high advantage in combat, because such bonuses can feel unfair - instead opting for areas in which the player often has an advantage (economy, realm stability, etc.).
[Image - Conqueror trait bonuses] Of course, if you fancy a truly unfair challenge you can set the game rule to extreme, where theyll get an additional scourge of god modifier. This is masochistic and not really recommended!
[Image - Scourge of God bonuses] With default game rules, rulers around the world have a very, very small chance to become Conquerors. The likelihood goes up the more suitable they are based on traits, government, available CBs, etc. A global pacing mechanic makes sure that there arent too many of these characters worldwide, and that they mostly appear in areas where youd expect large upheavals in the regional power structure (but there are never any guarantees - they could appear anywhere!). You can also control via game rules if you only want already-powerful rulers to have the chance. Everything good has to come to an end - if they are defeated repeatedly in wars, lose all of their prestige, or similar, they will stop being conquerors and lose all bonuses. On succession, being a conqueror is inherited by default - but if an AI is Cautious (in other words; a craven coward) they will also stop being a conqueror. This creates a dynamic ebb and flow of challenge.
[Image - Two conquerors, the Ghaznavids and the Somavamsi, splitting India between them] This feature will help the mid-to-late game feel less stale when youve forged a grand realm, and will be coming in the update alongside Roads To Power.
Choose a New Destiny
Those of you who followed what we did for the Black Forge Jam know about this feature; when you die, you now have the opportunity to switch to one of three carefully-selected dynasty members. These picks are chosen based on an interest score, where various subjective things are chosen to make a character more or less interesting. Feel free to suggest things that you consider interesting, such as various combinations of traits and/or skills. Having rare traits or being in peculiar situations (such as being the only one in your dynasty of a certain faith) will score a character higher, while being awfully rich will weigh them down (as that isnt as much fun as just trivializing the challenge.)
[Image - Updated death screen with the new Choose a New Destiny button] The point of this feature is to give you opportunities to take on challenges - perhaps you have an awfully interesting one-eyed albino uncle whos a count of a foreign faith within a distant realm? Now you will have the opportunity to change the course of your game and experience these much rarer situations. Situations that dont exist when you start the game within the bookmarks. When you feel accomplished and finished with what youre currently doing, you can treat it as a New Game+ within the same session.
[Image - example characters in a Choose a New Destiny] Currently theres no inherent bonus associated with making this switch - and Im in two minds if there should be any. Ive been considering adding a small renown boon for choosing to switch, perhaps based on their difficulty. I welcome feedback on this point.
On the Road to Power
As Ive seen a lot of discussions about how Adventurers will play, I thought I would give a brief overview of how were designing them. This will not be exhaustive (that will come in later Dev Diaries), but I think its interesting to share how we see the experience. Playing as an average Adventurer will be a zero-to-hero experience, a completely separate experience from how you play a landed character, where you work your way up in the world. You will travel a lot, and accumulate resources to improve your standing. It wont be easy to gain land depending on the goals you set for yourself - gaining a small plot of land will naturally not be as difficult as doing something epic like invading a kingdom (except if youre an Adventurer with the special Legitimists purpose, in which case its intended that you can amass a big army and lots of support quickly! This will be rare though). It will also definitely be possible to play as a multi-generational adventurer, should you want. Before ending this Dev Diary, Id like to leave you with some screenshots of upcoming features of Roads to Power and its accompanying update. Firstly, weve already hinted at this, but the free update coming alongside the expansion will introduce a new 1178 start date, alongside two bookmarks - one focusing on the Byzantine Empire and its surroundings, the Call of the Empire. 1178 provides a more built-up starting situation than the 867 or 1066 starts do, and also gives you access to a whole host of new historical characters and dynasties to play, such as Saladin of Egypt or the Plantagenets in England - not to mention that the centerpiece realm of Roads to Power, Byzantium, is in a challenging situation with the Sultanate of Rum on its doorstep.
[Image - Call of the Empire bookmark in 1178] Secondly, Id like to show off a screenshot of the Estate feature that Noble families inside of Byzantium (or other administrative empires) will have access to. As you can see, the estate has a location on the map from where it can be accessed (in this case Athens) and a whole host of building upgrade options - ranging from the mansion itself, external buildings (the Watchtower, Storehouse, and Hay Barracks in the picture), and internal upgrades (like the Granaries shown to the right), theres even branching upgrades where you have to choose what you want the most. The Estate is managed by the House Head, and theres one per family.
[Image - An estate in 1178, map location visible, with an external building slot upgrade tree shown] As I mentioned earlier in this diary, were committing to having more detailed Dev Diaries for Roads to Power. While there are some more teaser-like sections in this Dev Diary, that will not be the norm going forward - there should be no room for misinterpreting what were making, or how it will work!
1.12.5 Update Changelog
(Community Manager note: Including the changelog would push us over the character limit for a Steam announcement! Check our forum thread for the list of changes.)
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[ 2024-04-30 12:00:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Starter Edition
[ 2024-04-03 16:04:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
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. [hr][/hr]
Included with Crusader Kings III: Starter Edition
Crusader Kings III Base Game
- 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.
Tours and Tournaments
- 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.
Friends and Foes
- 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.
Garments of the Holy Roman Empire
- Immerse yourself in the Holy Roman Empire with a collection of outfits for both commoners, warriors and rulers of Central Europe.
Elegance of the Empire
- 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.
Fashion of the Abbasid Court
- Give your court a dashing new look with a set of outfits and cosmetic clothing options for the Middle East and North Africa.
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[ 2024-04-03 16:04:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Legends of Crusader Kings III
[ 2024-04-03 08:30:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
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[ 2024-04-03 08:30:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.12.4
[ 2024-03-27 14:04:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Game Content
- 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.
Interface
- 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.
Bug Fix
- 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.
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[ 2024-03-27 14:04:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.12.3
[ 2024-03-19 14:05:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Balance
- 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
- User Modding: Added on_legend_start_promote to legend types.
- User Modding: Added on_legend_stop_promote to legend types.
Bugfix
- 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.
Game Content
- Added explicit game concepts for owned legends and promoted legends.
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[ 2024-03-19 14:05:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing the Black Forge Jam!
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]
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!
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.
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! [hr][/hr]
[ 2024-03-08 07:26:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
A Dive into Uncharted Waters
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]
What If?
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!
The Spirit of the Forge
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.
Now Its Your Turn
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! [hr][/hr]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2024-03-08 07:26:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.12.2.1
Due to an issue with how Steam treats filename capitalization, you may need to completely uninstall and reinstall Crusader Kings III to avoid stability issues. We are aware of an unrelated crashing issue on these platforms. If you experience crashing, please try the fix above and submit a bug report if the issue persists afterward. [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
[ 2024-03-07 13:04:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
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! [hr][/hr]
Update 1.12.2.1 Changelog
Balance
- Raising a Runestone now increases your Legitimacy.
- Hooked in Legitimacy loss to some plague flavor events.
Game Content
- Added easter egg disease names.
- Added Hildegard von Blingin song to the game.
Bug Fixes
- 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.
Known Issues - 1.12.2.1
- "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.
Special note for MacOS and Linux users
Due to an issue with how Steam treats filename capitalization, you may need to completely uninstall and reinstall Crusader Kings III to avoid stability issues. We are aware of an unrelated crashing issue on these platforms. If you experience crashing, please try the fix above and submit a bug report if the issue persists afterward. [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!
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[ 2024-03-07 13:04:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Legends of the Dead & Free 1.12.1 "Scythe" Update - Available now!
[ 2024-03-04 17:14:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Free Features
- 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.
Balance
- 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.
AI
- 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.
Interface
- 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.
Art
- 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.
Localization
- 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.
Game Content
- 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.")
User Modding
- 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.
Databases
- 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.
Bug Fixes
- 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.
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[ 2024-03-04 17:14:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #146 - It Started With a Cough...
Each disease will leave the infected with a specific associated trait, and any character located in an infected province is at risk of getting sick. All outbreaks will get a dynamic name. Some will be named after the culture of the area, while others will claim the name of the regions rulersince if they were truly a legitimate ruler, the Gods would not punish them with such disease, right? Every ongoing epidemic can be seen on the map too, both as an effect in normal map modes or in its own dedicated map mode.
If you zoom in closer, then we hide the epidemic pulsing blood and instead show the desolate gray land now haunted by death
When there is an epidemic nearby or in your realm, you will be notified by the new HUD widget, which if you open (or switch to the map mode manually) will show you more info about ongoing epidemics.
If you click an epidemic on the map, or from the list, then youll be able to see an overview of the epidemic for every province in your domain it has infected, as well as the vassals in your realm and other independent rulers. This also shows you which provinces are at risk of being infected by the epidemic and what the chance of it spreading is.
The chance of spreading to a neighboring province, as well as across two sea provinces, is influenced by many factors, such as how developed the provinces are, their buildings, cultural traditions, if they have immunity from prior infection, and more! Speaking of province infection, you can see here that every province tracks how infected it is as a percentage. Different infection thresholds will cause different modifiers to be applied to the province and its holder.
The maximum infection rate is reduced by Plague Resistance, which can be increased through various means. You can preemptively increase it by constructing buildings that raise it, such as the new Hospices building chain or the Burial Site duchy building.
You can also increase it by having your Court Physician work to Control Plagues using the new Court Position Tasks, or by taking the decisions to isolate in your capital or close the gates.
Legends of the Dead also features three new illnesses that can take the form of Plagues. Measles, the Bloody Flux (Dysentery), and Holy Fire (Ergotism). As mentioned before, Measles is especially deadly to children, lowering their health even more than everyone elses. This uses two new modifiers weve added for child and elderly health respectively, most diseases are more deadly to the elderly by default.
Of course, it wouldnt be one of my dev diaries if I didnt also point out that all of these things are very moddable: you can create custom epidemics, change how they spread, outbreak, infect characters, even how their blood splatter looks on the map! Both Plagues and Legends come with a handful of game rules for controlling how they play, as well as specific rules for the Black Death.
Speaking of which, the Black Death holds a special place amongst the rest of the pantheon of epidemics, and as such, has some extra bells and whistles to go along with it. [hr][/hr]
Hello all, Noodle here to ask the old question: , s , ?
No history of the medieval world is complete without reference to the Black Death. Killing up to half of Europes population over the course of seven years, the Bubonic Plague that swept across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East in the 14th century altered the very fabric of society. Everyone - man, woman, adult, child, noble, pauper - found themselves at the mercy of the merciless pestilence. From the outset of development, we knew the Black Death had to be done proper justice. This naturally involves a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, the Black Death should behave within the confines of the mechanics weve built, so that reaction to it is natural and swift. Presenting you, the player, with an unfamiliar new set of ways to deal with this unique event would be complicating matters for no real gain. After all, the plague itself is simply the scariest amongst a whole host of potential pandemics that could occur. On the other hand It's the Black Death. Anyone should feel the fear of God and be reaching for their rosaries when they see that seeping dark mass wend its way on to their screen.
As such, the tack we took involved a deeper look at how the plague rolled out across the land. Like any good movie monster, half the fear is in the anticipation of the reveal rather than the monster itself, after all. Its one thing to be dealing with the plague, but consider instead the stormy horizon: first come the missives of death and devastation, then the bedraggled and petrified refugees staggering to your borders, and then all of a sudden your armpit begins to swell That is the frame of mind we want the player to be in when the plague erupts. When the scythe starts swinging theres not a whole lot anyone can do, but the precious moments before that wicked blade reaps its harvest are the ones worth investigating.
To move on from setting such an overly-elaborate scene, then, the actual mechanics of the Black Death follow the pattern laid out by other very large epidemics in-game. The notable difference is that - unless youre incredibly unlucky (or have a truly massive empire, in which case I allow you no sympathy) and happen to have it take hold within your own realm - youll be getting fair warning of the coming storm. As the panic mounts, youll be able to at very least begin to make provisions for protecting your realm, aided or hindered by a set of unique Black Death events that will give you opportunities to stock up some counties beforehand. These vary from calming panicking crowds right through to instructing your physician to dissect infected bodies to try and glean some meager information. I wont spoil those events any further here, but between them and the advanced warning a player can get, the Black Death becomes less strictly about waiting for the inevitable and more about a race against time. You will have to utilize all your options to the fullest to even withstand it, let alone escape relatively unscathed. As with any Apocalyptic-level disease, the damage wrought by the plague can be mighty. More developed areas of your realm will suffer harder in comparison, and the sickness can wipe out entire branches of families. The issue with the Black Death in that case is its violent effects. Its modifiers are brutal, and its cocktail of lethality and infectiousness makes for the single greatest consistent threat to a realm in the entire game. This is already getting rather lengthy, so Ill leave it there. Hopefully you all have as much fun battling the Black Death as I did making it! [hr][/hr]
Of course, with Plague comes Death, and with that comes a time to mourn your lost friends and family: And with all this desolation there also comes the opportunity to remember the dead. With Legends of the Dead, we're introducing a new type of Activity: Funerals.
[Image: Decision to host a Funeral] You can hold a Funeral for any deceased member of your family in the past 5 years, and a new specific intent "Mourn" is available as default, allowing you to lose some stress after going through the process of grief.
[Image: Funeral planning] The Activity Planner will suggest the best place in your realm to host a Funeral, prioritizing baronies with a temple, and high-level temples within that; if you choose one of them you will get extra Piety as a reward.
[Image: Selecting a place for your Funeral] The different levels of the "Ceremonials" Activity Option also offer better final rewards for a higher gold cost, focused on Piety, Legitimacy and Stress loss. The first phase of the Funeral is the Wake, the wait until the Burial, and it features all guests reminiscing about the life of the deceased, their memories together and their more characteristic traits. They may also interact with each other and even in these distressed times there will be someone waiting patiently just to get a hook or increase the funeral numbers.
The "Burial" phase has different descriptions and general flavor depending on your faith's tenets, and will reflect your religious traditions, not always being a burial per se. All throughout the celebration, Active Pulse Actions (or APAs) will also inform you of what the other guests are doing meanwhile, bringing the activity to life (pun not intended).
Funerals mainly reward your Piety and Legitimacy, as a moment to reflect on both the brevity of life and the legacy that we leave behind. [hr][/hr]
As part of this Core Expansion, weve also decided to implement more ways of showing the declining health of your ruler & their kin. Now, most of you might know the plague was already grotesquely displayed in the game prior to Legends of the Dead - and hopefully youll be excited to welcome two new diseases to the visual roster: Smallpox and Measles.
[Image: Now might be a good time to remind the good player that this box can be un-ticked in the settings]
And while well mostly leave it up to you to figure out what to do with those diseases, as far as prevention and treatment is concerned, I think its safe to say youll definitely want to employ a court-physician. Fortunately, us from the character art team have been hard at work making that option as lucrative as possible - by adding some new sick physician clothes (along with a bunch of other new garments as well of course). [hr][/hr]
And last but not least we have the new achievements! As always, they are listed in order of difficulty.
Legendary! - Complete a Legend
You'll Never Take Me Alive! - Travel to a safe holding while your Capital is infected by an Epidemic
Pay Respects - Host a Funeral for your Legend Protagonist
Neverending Story - Complete your ancestor's Legend after their death
Divine Right - Reach the maximum level of Legitimacy
Canonized - Manage to make your Legend Protagonist a Saint
Upward Mobility - Successfully claim your Liege's title while having a higher Legitimacy Level than them
Local Legend - As a Count, complete a Mythical Legend
Not Today - Contract, and recover from, the Bubonic Plague
The Pharaoh Islands - As a Scottish character, complete a Legend claiming your descent from Ancient Egypt
Can't Touch This - Have an infected Barony at the maximum Epidemic Resistance Thank you all for reading! We hope youre as excited as we are for the release of Legends of the Dead next Monday to kick off Chapter 3! [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
[ 2024-02-27 13:00:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Each disease will leave the infected with a specific associated trait, and any character located in an infected province is at risk of getting sick. All outbreaks will get a dynamic name. Some will be named after the culture of the area, while others will claim the name of the regions rulersince if they were truly a legitimate ruler, the Gods would not punish them with such disease, right? Every ongoing epidemic can be seen on the map too, both as an effect in normal map modes or in its own dedicated map mode.
If you zoom in closer, then we hide the epidemic pulsing blood and instead show the desolate gray land now haunted by death
When there is an epidemic nearby or in your realm, you will be notified by the new HUD widget, which if you open (or switch to the map mode manually) will show you more info about ongoing epidemics.
If you click an epidemic on the map, or from the list, then youll be able to see an overview of the epidemic for every province in your domain it has infected, as well as the vassals in your realm and other independent rulers. This also shows you which provinces are at risk of being infected by the epidemic and what the chance of it spreading is.
The chance of spreading to a neighboring province, as well as across two sea provinces, is influenced by many factors, such as how developed the provinces are, their buildings, cultural traditions, if they have immunity from prior infection, and more! Speaking of province infection, you can see here that every province tracks how infected it is as a percentage. Different infection thresholds will cause different modifiers to be applied to the province and its holder.
The maximum infection rate is reduced by Plague Resistance, which can be increased through various means. You can preemptively increase it by constructing buildings that raise it, such as the new Hospices building chain or the Burial Site duchy building.
You can also increase it by having your Court Physician work to Control Plagues using the new Court Position Tasks, or by taking the decisions to isolate in your capital or close the gates.
Legends of the Dead also features three new illnesses that can take the form of Plagues. Measles, the Bloody Flux (Dysentery), and Holy Fire (Ergotism). As mentioned before, Measles is especially deadly to children, lowering their health even more than everyone elses. This uses two new modifiers weve added for child and elderly health respectively, most diseases are more deadly to the elderly by default.
Of course, it wouldnt be one of my dev diaries if I didnt also point out that all of these things are very moddable: you can create custom epidemics, change how they spread, outbreak, infect characters, even how their blood splatter looks on the map! Both Plagues and Legends come with a handful of game rules for controlling how they play, as well as specific rules for the Black Death.
Speaking of which, the Black Death holds a special place amongst the rest of the pantheon of epidemics, and as such, has some extra bells and whistles to go along with it. [hr][/hr]
The Black Death
Hello all, Noodle here to ask the old question: , s , ?
No history of the medieval world is complete without reference to the Black Death. Killing up to half of Europes population over the course of seven years, the Bubonic Plague that swept across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East in the 14th century altered the very fabric of society. Everyone - man, woman, adult, child, noble, pauper - found themselves at the mercy of the merciless pestilence. From the outset of development, we knew the Black Death had to be done proper justice. This naturally involves a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, the Black Death should behave within the confines of the mechanics weve built, so that reaction to it is natural and swift. Presenting you, the player, with an unfamiliar new set of ways to deal with this unique event would be complicating matters for no real gain. After all, the plague itself is simply the scariest amongst a whole host of potential pandemics that could occur. On the other hand It's the Black Death. Anyone should feel the fear of God and be reaching for their rosaries when they see that seeping dark mass wend its way on to their screen.
As such, the tack we took involved a deeper look at how the plague rolled out across the land. Like any good movie monster, half the fear is in the anticipation of the reveal rather than the monster itself, after all. Its one thing to be dealing with the plague, but consider instead the stormy horizon: first come the missives of death and devastation, then the bedraggled and petrified refugees staggering to your borders, and then all of a sudden your armpit begins to swell That is the frame of mind we want the player to be in when the plague erupts. When the scythe starts swinging theres not a whole lot anyone can do, but the precious moments before that wicked blade reaps its harvest are the ones worth investigating.
To move on from setting such an overly-elaborate scene, then, the actual mechanics of the Black Death follow the pattern laid out by other very large epidemics in-game. The notable difference is that - unless youre incredibly unlucky (or have a truly massive empire, in which case I allow you no sympathy) and happen to have it take hold within your own realm - youll be getting fair warning of the coming storm. As the panic mounts, youll be able to at very least begin to make provisions for protecting your realm, aided or hindered by a set of unique Black Death events that will give you opportunities to stock up some counties beforehand. These vary from calming panicking crowds right through to instructing your physician to dissect infected bodies to try and glean some meager information. I wont spoil those events any further here, but between them and the advanced warning a player can get, the Black Death becomes less strictly about waiting for the inevitable and more about a race against time. You will have to utilize all your options to the fullest to even withstand it, let alone escape relatively unscathed. As with any Apocalyptic-level disease, the damage wrought by the plague can be mighty. More developed areas of your realm will suffer harder in comparison, and the sickness can wipe out entire branches of families. The issue with the Black Death in that case is its violent effects. Its modifiers are brutal, and its cocktail of lethality and infectiousness makes for the single greatest consistent threat to a realm in the entire game. This is already getting rather lengthy, so Ill leave it there. Hopefully you all have as much fun battling the Black Death as I did making it! [hr][/hr]
Funerals
Of course, with Plague comes Death, and with that comes a time to mourn your lost friends and family: And with all this desolation there also comes the opportunity to remember the dead. With Legends of the Dead, we're introducing a new type of Activity: Funerals.
[Image: Decision to host a Funeral] You can hold a Funeral for any deceased member of your family in the past 5 years, and a new specific intent "Mourn" is available as default, allowing you to lose some stress after going through the process of grief.
[Image: Funeral planning] The Activity Planner will suggest the best place in your realm to host a Funeral, prioritizing baronies with a temple, and high-level temples within that; if you choose one of them you will get extra Piety as a reward.
[Image: Selecting a place for your Funeral] The different levels of the "Ceremonials" Activity Option also offer better final rewards for a higher gold cost, focused on Piety, Legitimacy and Stress loss. The first phase of the Funeral is the Wake, the wait until the Burial, and it features all guests reminiscing about the life of the deceased, their memories together and their more characteristic traits. They may also interact with each other and even in these distressed times there will be someone waiting patiently just to get a hook or increase the funeral numbers.
The "Burial" phase has different descriptions and general flavor depending on your faith's tenets, and will reflect your religious traditions, not always being a burial per se. All throughout the celebration, Active Pulse Actions (or APAs) will also inform you of what the other guests are doing meanwhile, bringing the activity to life (pun not intended).
Funerals mainly reward your Piety and Legitimacy, as a moment to reflect on both the brevity of life and the legacy that we leave behind. [hr][/hr]
Disease Decals & How to Prevent Them
As part of this Core Expansion, weve also decided to implement more ways of showing the declining health of your ruler & their kin. Now, most of you might know the plague was already grotesquely displayed in the game prior to Legends of the Dead - and hopefully youll be excited to welcome two new diseases to the visual roster: Smallpox and Measles.
[Image: Now might be a good time to remind the good player that this box can be un-ticked in the settings]
And while well mostly leave it up to you to figure out what to do with those diseases, as far as prevention and treatment is concerned, I think its safe to say youll definitely want to employ a court-physician. Fortunately, us from the character art team have been hard at work making that option as lucrative as possible - by adding some new sick physician clothes (along with a bunch of other new garments as well of course). [hr][/hr]
Achievements
And last but not least we have the new achievements! As always, they are listed in order of difficulty.
Very Easy
Legendary! - Complete a Legend
You'll Never Take Me Alive! - Travel to a safe holding while your Capital is infected by an Epidemic
Easy
Pay Respects - Host a Funeral for your Legend Protagonist
Neverending Story - Complete your ancestor's Legend after their death
Medium
Divine Right - Reach the maximum level of Legitimacy
Canonized - Manage to make your Legend Protagonist a Saint
Upward Mobility - Successfully claim your Liege's title while having a higher Legitimacy Level than them
Local Legend - As a Count, complete a Mythical Legend
Hard
Not Today - Contract, and recover from, the Bubonic Plague
The Pharaoh Islands - As a Scottish character, complete a Legend claiming your descent from Ancient Egypt
Very Hard
Can't Touch This - Have an infected Barony at the maximum Epidemic Resistance Thank you all for reading! We hope youre as excited as we are for the release of Legends of the Dead next Monday to kick off Chapter 3! [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!
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[ 2024-02-27 13:00:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary 145 - Legends & Legitimacy
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.]
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
[ 2024-02-20 13:01:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
Legends
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.]
Legitimacy
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.
Ideation
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.
Color Explorations
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.
Painting
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.]
Conclusion
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.
Legendary Buildings
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.
Instruments
[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.
Flute/Recorder
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.
Hurdy-Gurdy
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.
Lute
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.
Shawm
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.
Qanun
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
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2024-02-20 13:01:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #144: Legends and Lesions
[ 2024-02-13 13:01:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
[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!
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[ 2024-02-13 13:01:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Legends of the Dead - Available March 4
[ 2024-02-06 18:31:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
[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.
[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!
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[ 2024-02-06 18:31:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #143 - The Next Chapter
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:
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.
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]
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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]
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!
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
[ 2024-02-06 17:31:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Note from Community Management: If you missed the premiere video for Chapter III, you can see it below!
[previewyoutube=ClkhKHePN4U;full][/previewyoutube]
[hr][/hr]
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:
Legends
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.
Plagues
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]
The Black Death
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!
Legitimacy
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!
Imperial Administration
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!
Adventurers
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.
Everything Byzantium
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!
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[ 2024-02-06 17:31:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.11.5 - Couture of the Capets
[ 2024-02-06 17:11:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
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. [hr][/hr]
PC Update 1.11.5 Changelog
- 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.
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[ 2024-02-06 17:11:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Chapter III Reveal - February 6th
[ 2024-02-02 17:02:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
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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[ 2024-02-02 17:02:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.11.4 - North African Attire
Added new cosmetics focusing on North African culture.
[ 2024-01-23 14:37:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Content Creator Pack: North African Attire
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
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[ 2024-01-23 14:37:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #142: Vision and Art
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.
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 [hr][/hr] 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/
[ 2024-01-16 13:15:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
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 [hr][/hr] 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!
Official Forums Official Discord Steam Discussions
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[ 2024-01-16 13:15:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #141: A Year in Review
So, what have we done in 2023? Quite a few things, it turns out!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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:
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
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.
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.
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!
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]
[ 2023-12-12 13:01:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
The Community Choice Poll
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!
Tours & Tournaments
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!
Legacy of Persia
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!
General Improvements
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!
Clans
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.
Modifier Stacking
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
Instant Unlock
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.
Core Expansion
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.
Major Expansion
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!
Event Pack
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]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-12-12 13:01:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.11.3
[ 2023-12-11 15:20:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
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]
PC Update 1.11.3 Changelog
- 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.
[ 2023-12-11 15:20:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.11.2
[ 2023-11-30 13:06:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Bug Fixes
- 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.
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[ 2023-11-30 13:06:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.11.1
While we dont anticipate this update will cause compatibility issues with mods or existing save files, we do ask that you start a fresh campaign without mods enabled before reporting any issues to us. A list of known issues as of Update 1.11.1 can be found here; if you encounter any issues not on this list, then please report them to us via the Bug Report board on our official forums. Thank you for your continued support, and we hope that todays update improves your experience in Crusader Kings III!
[ 2023-11-23 13:06:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Balance
- 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.
AI
- 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)
Interface
- 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.
Art
- 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.
Localization
- 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.
Game Content
- 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.
Databases
- 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.
General Bug Fixes
- 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.
While we dont anticipate this update will cause compatibility issues with mods or existing save files, we do ask that you start a fresh campaign without mods enabled before reporting any issues to us. A list of known issues as of Update 1.11.1 can be found here; if you encounter any issues not on this list, then please report them to us via the Bug Report board on our official forums. Thank you for your continued support, and we hope that todays update improves your experience in Crusader Kings III!
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-11-23 13:06:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
From Home to Throne - The "For the King" Bundle is live now!
[ 2023-11-22 17:28:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
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Forge your dynasty's reputation in Medieval Dynasty's unique blend of survival and colony-building gameplay, then ascend to nobility and decide the course of history itself in Crusader Kings III.
Grab the bundle while it lasts to master your medieval destiny!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/36404/For_the_King/
[ 2023-11-22 17:28:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.11.0.1 Hotfix Update
[ 2023-11-10 13:39:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
[ 2023-11-10 13:39:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Legacy of Persia & 1.11 "Peacock" Free Update - Available Now!
As a character of a faith with the Jizya or Tax Nonbelievers doctrines, have ten vassals of other faiths.
Take the Renewed Caliphate ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
As a character of a faith with the Fedayeen doctrine, dispose of a lowborn, a king, and an emperor.
Take the Iranian Resurgence ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Take the Dominate the Caliph foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Take the 'Found a New Caliphate' foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Loot four Illustrious-tier Vizier Extravagance modifiers from your Vizier.
Fill five Tax Collector slots with excellent aptitude characters.
Starting as a member of the Umayyad dynasty, hold the Empire of Arabia and the Sunni Caliphate.
As a character of Iranian heritage, hold the Empire of Persia, Kingdom of Thessalonika, and Kingdom of Hellas. [hr][/hr]
[ 2023-11-09 17:02:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Easy Achievements
Rich in Diversity
As a character of a faith with the Jizya or Tax Nonbelievers doctrines, have ten vassals of other faiths.
Abbasid Might
Take the Renewed Caliphate ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Royal Flush
As a character of a faith with the Fedayeen doctrine, dispose of a lowborn, a king, and an emperor.
Hard Achievements
Iranian Revival
Take the Iranian Resurgence ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
All Your Caliphate Are Belong To Us
Take the Dominate the Caliph foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Shia Reborn
Take the 'Found a New Caliphate' foundation as part of the Abbasid Humiliation ending in the Iranian Intermezzo Struggle.
Mulct Them Dry
Loot four Illustrious-tier Vizier Extravagance modifiers from your Vizier.
Fiscal Responsibility
Fill five Tax Collector slots with excellent aptitude characters.
Very Hard
The Umayyad Strikes Back
Starting as a member of the Umayyad dynasty, hold the Empire of Arabia and the Sunni Caliphate.
Darius Revenge
As a character of Iranian heritage, hold the Empire of Persia, Kingdom of Thessalonika, and Kingdom of Hellas. [hr][/hr]
1.11 Peacock Changelog
Legacy of Persia Features
- 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.
Free Features
- 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.
Balance
- 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.
AI
- Lowered the value of higher tier alliances and increased the penalty for Female above 30 years.
Interface
- 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.
Art
- 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.
Audio
- 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.
Localization
- 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.
Game Content
- 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.
User Modding
- 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.
Databases
- 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.
Bug Fixes
- 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.
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[ 2023-11-09 17:02:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #139 - The Art of Legacy of Persia
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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]
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.
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/
[ 2023-10-31 13:01:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
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]
Environment Art
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.
Court Artifacts
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.]
Special Buildings
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.
Holdings
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.
Natural Wonders
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]
Character Art
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.
Headgears
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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[ 2023-10-31 13:01:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #138 - Persian Delights
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]
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/
[ 2023-10-24 12:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
Historical Flavor
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]
Viziers
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/
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[ 2023-10-24 12:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #137 - Machinations of a Clan
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]
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:
Other than the passive effects, you also gain access to a set of unique decisions. Most of which are available only to the House Head, as they provide powerful boons for the entirety of a House. The primary currency for these decisions is Piety. Since most Clans belong to an Islamic faith, this felt like a natural fit. Besides, Piety is generally more difficult to get than Prestige, making you consider where and how to spend that hard earned Piety. Some of these decisions make use of a completely new type of modifier; a modifier that scales on the number of landed House members. If you are like me, and like to utilize nepotism to the fullest, these modifiers can become incredibly powerful. Be mindful that the Piety cost will increase accordingly. For all you modders out there, you can use scaling modifiers in every place you use regular modifiers. You simply feed it a value for how you want it to scale. Lets look at an example. If your House is Antagonistic, you can use the decision Reinforce Army with Loyal Officers:
Last, but certainly not least, Unity directly affects the outcome of your succession. Each level has an impact on the outcome of how titles are inherited, and the succession changes automatically as your Houses Unity changes. They all maintain a variant of Partition, meaning that titles will always be split to some extent. When you are Antagonistic, all eligible children inherit equal shares. If you are Harmonious, the primary heir inherits the majority of the titles (at least two thirds). With varying degrees in-between. At worst, this means that you dont have to deal with Confederate Partition, and at best, you have an easier time accessing a superior version of High Partition. The drawback? While you can try to get a single heir succession law, such as Primogeniture, it will be more difficult and expensive to do so.
Now that we know what Unity does, lets explore how its impacted by gameplay. As mentioned previously, Unity is all about the members of a House and how they interact. This will become apparent as you start interacting with your family members. A lot of existing interactions have been updated to also have an impact on your Unity in different ways. Whenever you are playing as Clan that is. Taking what we call divisive actions, such as Revoke Title or Imprison, against fellow House members will naturally reduce your Houses Unity. Meanwhile, unifying actions, such as Negotiate Alliance or Offer Ward, will increase Unity. Unity is therefore really a byproduct of how you and your fellow House members interact with each other. With that said, the House Head enjoys a number of additional actions, giving them a greater degree of control in how they want to direct the Unity of their own House. The foremost of these is a decision in which the Head actively takes a stance and chooses a direction to steer their Unity. Then we also have two new interactions the Head can use on members of their House, both of which act as a double-edged sword and have some clear advantages and drawbacks.
There are of course many more interactions, far too many to list all of them here, which will have an impact on your Unity. Worth mentioning is that the immediate impact of these interactions is fairly small, but they stack up over time, especially when you are not the only one within your House who will be using them. Rest assured that youll have plenty to explore as you get your hands on the updated Clan Government later this year, which will be included with the free update launching alongside Legacy of Persia! [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/
[ 2023-10-17 12:00:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
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]
Tax Jurisdictions and Tax Collectors
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]
House Unity
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
Other than the passive effects, you also gain access to a set of unique decisions. Most of which are available only to the House Head, as they provide powerful boons for the entirety of a House. The primary currency for these decisions is Piety. Since most Clans belong to an Islamic faith, this felt like a natural fit. Besides, Piety is generally more difficult to get than Prestige, making you consider where and how to spend that hard earned Piety. Some of these decisions make use of a completely new type of modifier; a modifier that scales on the number of landed House members. If you are like me, and like to utilize nepotism to the fullest, these modifiers can become incredibly powerful. Be mindful that the Piety cost will increase accordingly. For all you modders out there, you can use scaling modifiers in every place you use regular modifiers. You simply feed it a value for how you want it to scale. Lets look at an example. If your House is Antagonistic, you can use the decision Reinforce Army with Loyal Officers:
Last, but certainly not least, Unity directly affects the outcome of your succession. Each level has an impact on the outcome of how titles are inherited, and the succession changes automatically as your Houses Unity changes. They all maintain a variant of Partition, meaning that titles will always be split to some extent. When you are Antagonistic, all eligible children inherit equal shares. If you are Harmonious, the primary heir inherits the majority of the titles (at least two thirds). With varying degrees in-between. At worst, this means that you dont have to deal with Confederate Partition, and at best, you have an easier time accessing a superior version of High Partition. The drawback? While you can try to get a single heir succession law, such as Primogeniture, it will be more difficult and expensive to do so.
Now that we know what Unity does, lets explore how its impacted by gameplay. As mentioned previously, Unity is all about the members of a House and how they interact. This will become apparent as you start interacting with your family members. A lot of existing interactions have been updated to also have an impact on your Unity in different ways. Whenever you are playing as Clan that is. Taking what we call divisive actions, such as Revoke Title or Imprison, against fellow House members will naturally reduce your Houses Unity. Meanwhile, unifying actions, such as Negotiate Alliance or Offer Ward, will increase Unity. Unity is therefore really a byproduct of how you and your fellow House members interact with each other. With that said, the House Head enjoys a number of additional actions, giving them a greater degree of control in how they want to direct the Unity of their own House. The foremost of these is a decision in which the Head actively takes a stance and chooses a direction to steer their Unity. Then we also have two new interactions the Head can use on members of their House, both of which act as a double-edged sword and have some clear advantages and drawbacks.
There are of course many more interactions, far too many to list all of them here, which will have an impact on your Unity. Worth mentioning is that the immediate impact of these interactions is fairly small, but they stack up over time, especially when you are not the only one within your House who will be using them. Rest assured that youll have plenty to explore as you get your hands on the updated Clan Government later this year, which will be included with the free update launching alongside Legacy of Persia! [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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[ 2023-10-17 12:00:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #136 - Our Vision for Persia
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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/
[ 2023-10-11 15:19:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
So, why Persia?
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.
Clan Government Rework
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.
Iranian-Heritage Cultures
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.
Islam and Zoroastrianism
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
A New Struggle, the Iranian Intermezzo
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.
New 867 Bookmark
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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[ 2023-10-11 15:19:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.10.2
[ 2023-09-12 11:08:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Balance
- 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.
Interface
- The Player must now have promised a Grand Wedding in order to plan one.
Bugfixes
- 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.
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[ 2023-09-12 11:08:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Three Years of Crusader Kings III!
[ 2023-09-01 12:02:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
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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[ 2023-09-01 12:02:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.10.1
[ 2023-08-31 11:10:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Localization
- 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
Databases
- 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
Bugfixes
- 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.
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[ 2023-08-31 11:10:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.10.0.1 'Quill' Hotfix
[ 2023-08-24 11:07:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
1.10.0.1 'Quill' Hotfix Changelog
- 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.
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[ 2023-08-24 11:07:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Wards & Wardens and 1.10.0 "Quill" Free Update - Available now!
[ 2023-08-22 15:12:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Free Features
- 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.
Balance
- 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.
Interface
- 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.
Art
- 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.
Game Content
- 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.
User Modding
- 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.
Bugfixes
- 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
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[ 2023-08-22 15:12:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #134: The Art of Wards & Wardens
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.
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]
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
[ 2023-08-15 12:01:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
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[ 2023-08-15 12:01:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #133 - Wet Nurses
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]
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:
[Rites of Passage: fire cleansing ritual] This decision is available for any landed tribal teenager or any landed tribal parent/warden of a teenager. So it is possible to welcome your feudal hostages into your tribe and make them go through the rites. Three of the rite types will be available, the selection determined by the rulers cultural ethos. Each has a different effect on a child's personality, their skills, and more.
[Rites of Passage setup event: choosing a ritual]
Have you ever felt that being a guardian offers little impact on the personality traits of your ward? Well, not anymore! The guardian now has access to an interaction which allows them to choose one of their own personality traits and try to push it onto the ward. The interaction is available for the player as well as an AI guardian, so choose them wisely! Otherwise, your sadistic, shy or paranoid guardian might just pass on their vile traits to your precious genius heir. This interaction is even available for wardens, letting them influence their child-age hostages.
[Example of a successful Influence Wards Personality interaction for the shy trait]
[Example of a failed Influence Wards Personality interaction for the callous trait] The outcome is decided by the child, so the bulk of it is left to whatever RNG gods you believe in. However, the more alike the ward is to the guardian, the more likely the brainwashing is to succeed.
[Influence Wards Personality interaction window and acceptance tooltip] All features mentioned above are part of the Event Pack Wards & Wardens. Next week will be the last DD before the release! In it, we will cover our new, beautiful art and animations. [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
[ 2023-08-08 12:02:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
Wet Nurse
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]
Rites of Passage
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
[Rites of Passage: fire cleansing ritual] This decision is available for any landed tribal teenager or any landed tribal parent/warden of a teenager. So it is possible to welcome your feudal hostages into your tribe and make them go through the rites. Three of the rite types will be available, the selection determined by the rulers cultural ethos. Each has a different effect on a child's personality, their skills, and more.
[Rites of Passage setup event: choosing a ritual]
A Guardians Influence on their Wards Personality
Have you ever felt that being a guardian offers little impact on the personality traits of your ward? Well, not anymore! The guardian now has access to an interaction which allows them to choose one of their own personality traits and try to push it onto the ward. The interaction is available for the player as well as an AI guardian, so choose them wisely! Otherwise, your sadistic, shy or paranoid guardian might just pass on their vile traits to your precious genius heir. This interaction is even available for wardens, letting them influence their child-age hostages.
[Example of a successful Influence Wards Personality interaction for the shy trait]
[Example of a failed Influence Wards Personality interaction for the callous trait] The outcome is decided by the child, so the bulk of it is left to whatever RNG gods you believe in. However, the more alike the ward is to the guardian, the more likely the brainwashing is to succeed.
[Influence Wards Personality interaction window and acceptance tooltip] All features mentioned above are part of the Event Pack Wards & Wardens. Next week will be the last DD before the release! In it, we will cover our new, beautiful art and animations. [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
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[ 2023-08-08 12:02:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #132: Eccentricity & Adoption
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
[ 2023-08-01 12:00:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Why add a new trait in Wards and Wardens?
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.
What is Eccentric? Who is Eccentric?
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.
Who can adopt?
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.
Who can be adopted?
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.
Noble Adoption
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!
Hold on a minute, isn't this anachronistic?
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.
Can the restrictions be loosened?
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
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[ 2023-08-01 12:00:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.9.2.1 Hotfix Update
[ 2023-06-21 11:04:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
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]
1.9.2.1 Changelog
- Fixed an issue that prevented characters from hosting more than one Grand Wedding.
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[ 2023-06-21 11:04:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #131: CKIII University 101
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.
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)
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
[ 2023-06-20 12:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
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! [hr][/hr] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/
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[ 2023-06-20 12:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #130: Wards and Wardens
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
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:
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.
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!
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.
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!
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! [hr][/hr]
[ 2023-06-15 15:04:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Vision
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
Captivating features
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:
In Perpetuity
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.
What An Odd Fellow!
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!
A Midwife Crisis
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.
Mature Students
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!
Goodbye For Now
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! [hr][/hr]
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[ 2023-06-15 15:04:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.9.2
[ 2023-06-15 11:10:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Interface
- 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
User Modding
- You can now choose to ignore interaction recipient cooldowns for players.
Bugfixes
- 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
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[ 2023-06-15 11:10:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.9.1 'Lance' Post-Release Update
[ 2023-05-30 11:12:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
Expansion Features
- Tours and Tournaments: Added a new set of clothing for Western High Nobility (male & female)
Free Features
- 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
Balance
- 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 :)
AI
- 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
Interface
- 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
Art
- 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
Localization
- Corrected two broken keys in african godname localization
- Fixed a few broken death reason texts
- Fixed loc issue in fp1_other_decisions.0022
Game Content
- Added contest pivotal moment outcome tooltips, as these were not telegraphed before
- Added The Heroes of Our Time, a feast event about acclaimed knights
User Modding
- 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.
Databases
- 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
Bugfixes
- Many, MANY fixes for reported issues. Check the forum link here for a comprehensive list.
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-05-30 11:12:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #129: Post Release Update Extra Content
Hi everyone! I am Daan, also known as Joror, and I am a programmer on the CK3 team.
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!
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.
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.
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:
The Byzantine Empire has an Intrigue Court - and will give Intrigue Lifestyle Experience when visited Giving out these Lifestyle rewards is very narratively fitting for expanding the horizons of your character, but also substitutes nicely for the normal Lifestyle events you are not getting while traveling. Some locations can also trigger a Great City sight-seeing event chain, which is actually hooking in a PDT project of another CK3 developer, TrinTragula!
When you visit, you get a message and the Point of Interest is marked as visited. To seek similar rewards, you will have to visit different places in the future!
A point of interest has been visited, and the rewards given. Once you have picked up the Traveler Trait, you also start getting a bit of experience towards the different tracks within that Trait. (Martial and Economic building Points of Interest give Seasoned track experience, where the rest give Wanderer track experience.)
Getting Seasoned travel track experience. To conclude, here is a snapshot of the Points of Interest that exist in 1066:
A zoomed out map showing Points of Interest in 1066 To note, this system is part of the Free Update - so no specific DLC required. Happy sight-seeing in Update 1.9.1.0~! [hr][/hr]
Welcome comrades, to the Wokeg section of the DD! Im afraid I dont have anything quite as meaty for you as Joror. Instead of lovely new player carrots, well be talking about the oldest and wackiest of all sticks with which to whack the player: death. Something weve generally been a bit reluctant to do in CK3 is to just kill you. Luck plays a decent roll in the events you get and guiding your own luck is an element of many core mechanics, but weve been really reticent to have you just die unexpectedly. This was a stylistic design choice. It doesnt really feel great when a random event pops and just kills you mid-run with no set-up or warning it can be impactful every now and then, especially if it happens at a narratively dramatic time, but its just such a quit moment for so many people, and in wanting to provide an experience that felt fair, we over-corrected somewhat and scrubbed a vital element of friction from much of the title. Whether youre building your realm, planning marriage alliances, or carefully organizing your succession, these little shake-ups are needed to keep you course-correcting. Theyre the firm, unexpected kick to the back of the knee that keeps you guessing and makes you react on the fly. Not just that, of course, because random death and dismemberment were absolutely staple features of the medieval world too: you might be struck down by a virulent camp disease whilst marching, you might fall from the window of a tall tower, you might die in a house fire, you might be thrown from your horse whilst riding, you might be playing too roughly with another child, you might be old and just fall down the stairs, the list goes on. Paupers, kings, and clergy alike all have to walk the danse macabre eventually, and not everyone gets to go from the traditional big three of honorable combat, succumbing to wasting disease, or expiring from the ravages of age. Sometimes you just die. The challenge we set ourselves, then, was adding in more ways for death to happen unpredictably without making for an irritatingly frustrating experience. Enter, the harm event.
Harm events are out to do one of two things: if youre unlucky, they want to kill you, and if youre lucky, they want to render you incapable. There generally isnt a direct gameplay benefit to surviving them, and theres always a stress cost. Their odds are generally pretty harshly against you, though depending on the event, high skill levels might give you a much better chance of success, and some traits will let you trade stress for negating a specific harm event entirely. With these, theres a whole variety of new ways to unexpectedly expire or be reduced to a bed-ridden shell! Fun stuff, ylove to see it. I did also say, though, that we were trying to avoid frustrating rocks-fall-PC-dies situations, and thats still true. To avoid that, almost all harm events are partnered with a foreboding event something that fires first and alerts you that hey, you are now eligible to [spins tombola] unexpectedly choke to death! Rather than spring immediate death/incapability on you out of the blue, we alert you that you are now at risk of it. It can now just happen, at any time. In fact, just _getting_ a foreboding event gives you a 50% chance of getting the follow-up harm event within the next 4-8 years, though youre also eligible to fire it forever after. For example, heres a foreboding event:
And its follow-up harm event:
The goal is to warn you that a new type of random harm is on the table, so that the notion is playing around at the back of your mind. Maybe itll come to nothing, maybe youll forget about it, maybe youve got just a few short years left to live. Do you want to make rapid preparations for succession? What if it never happens at all? What if you just pushed to do things a little bit faster so the realmll be ready for your heir? What if it happens sooner than expected? Lots of little questions to ask yourself. Or, if youre one of the coworkers testing or playing on internal builds since we added these, lots of questions to menacingly direct to me when Im making tea, demanding to know when they can stop being worried about impending doom. WAD, I whisper back to them, WAD. Theres sixteen new harm-foreboding pairs for becoming incapable (well, fifteen pairs and one triplet: becoming incapable due to the march of time vs. your declining health sees your mind weaken, your body start to fade a little, then you risk becoming incapable), twelve new harm-foreboding pairs for dying unexpectedly, and six new events for dying/becoming incapable whilst on campaign.
Those last six arent paired with a foreboding event. Like I said, almost all harm events are, and the exceptions to this are the ones that fire for army commanders. Warfare could kill you quickly and unexpectedly without you ever donning your armor, and history is replete with examples of even fairly hale and hearty warriors succumbing to sudden unexpected disease, poor luck, or taxing environmental conditions, from John Lackland to Richard the Lionheart to Frederick Barbarossa. Instead, opting to put yourself in charge of an army is your warning that youre in a dangerous, taxing position, where poor luck might cost you dearly at any moment. High health will protect you from many of the potential ravages of campaigning (with the amount needed going up more the more you age), but the best way to stave off the risk of death outside of battle is to campaign in terrain you have the correct commander trait for.
Maybe youre not too big a fan of this change - perhaps you prefer a more predictable world, or you want to have the occasional sudden death but mostly skate on by just fine. For you, we have the Safe & Illusion of Safety settings for the new Random Harm game rule, so you dont have to deal with this stuff if you dont want to. Maybe, though, youve been waiting for something like this. Maybe you want more uncertainty in the world, or for life to be just that little bit more mean-spirited than most. For you, weve got the Tragic setting, making harm events much more likely generally. If youd prefer that the tallest blade of grass be the first under the scythe, then weve also got the Spiteful setting, which specifically weights up the likelihood for harm events to target proportionally better or more interesting characters. And if you want both, welp, Tragically Spiteful, the single edgiest game rule weve added to date, has got you covered. As long as youve got harm events set to anything but Safe, they do run on a cooldown. Players cant be subject to a harm event more than once every fifty years, and the AI not more than once every thirty per house. These cooldowns help to reduce frustration whilst keeping the threat present, and mean that even playing on Tragically Spiteful, you can still thrive and survive. Just, with the occasional setback.
and thats it from me! Hope you like the harm events, I tried to cover a variety of types from historic references and common causes of death or severe injury either still present in the modern day or mitigated only in the last few centuries, and Im very happy to be able to resurrect this particular darling for 1.9.1. Have fun with the update! [hr][/hr]
[ 2023-05-23 12:38:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
It is I, le Joror
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!
Resurrecting Darlings
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.
A Travel Carrot: Points of Interest
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.
Types and Rewards
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
The Byzantine Empire has an Intrigue Court - and will give Intrigue Lifestyle Experience when visited Giving out these Lifestyle rewards is very narratively fitting for expanding the horizons of your character, but also substitutes nicely for the normal Lifestyle events you are not getting while traveling. Some locations can also trigger a Great City sight-seeing event chain, which is actually hooking in a PDT project of another CK3 developer, TrinTragula!
When you visit, you get a message and the Point of Interest is marked as visited. To seek similar rewards, you will have to visit different places in the future!
A point of interest has been visited, and the rewards given. Once you have picked up the Traveler Trait, you also start getting a bit of experience towards the different tracks within that Trait. (Martial and Economic building Points of Interest give Seasoned track experience, where the rest give Wanderer track experience.)
Getting Seasoned travel track experience. To conclude, here is a snapshot of the Points of Interest that exist in 1066:
A zoomed out map showing Points of Interest in 1066 To note, this system is part of the Free Update - so no specific DLC required. Happy sight-seeing in Update 1.9.1.0~! [hr][/hr]
Whats the Harm?
Welcome comrades, to the Wokeg section of the DD! Im afraid I dont have anything quite as meaty for you as Joror. Instead of lovely new player carrots, well be talking about the oldest and wackiest of all sticks with which to whack the player: death. Something weve generally been a bit reluctant to do in CK3 is to just kill you. Luck plays a decent roll in the events you get and guiding your own luck is an element of many core mechanics, but weve been really reticent to have you just die unexpectedly. This was a stylistic design choice. It doesnt really feel great when a random event pops and just kills you mid-run with no set-up or warning it can be impactful every now and then, especially if it happens at a narratively dramatic time, but its just such a quit moment for so many people, and in wanting to provide an experience that felt fair, we over-corrected somewhat and scrubbed a vital element of friction from much of the title. Whether youre building your realm, planning marriage alliances, or carefully organizing your succession, these little shake-ups are needed to keep you course-correcting. Theyre the firm, unexpected kick to the back of the knee that keeps you guessing and makes you react on the fly. Not just that, of course, because random death and dismemberment were absolutely staple features of the medieval world too: you might be struck down by a virulent camp disease whilst marching, you might fall from the window of a tall tower, you might die in a house fire, you might be thrown from your horse whilst riding, you might be playing too roughly with another child, you might be old and just fall down the stairs, the list goes on. Paupers, kings, and clergy alike all have to walk the danse macabre eventually, and not everyone gets to go from the traditional big three of honorable combat, succumbing to wasting disease, or expiring from the ravages of age. Sometimes you just die. The challenge we set ourselves, then, was adding in more ways for death to happen unpredictably without making for an irritatingly frustrating experience. Enter, the harm event.
Harm events are out to do one of two things: if youre unlucky, they want to kill you, and if youre lucky, they want to render you incapable. There generally isnt a direct gameplay benefit to surviving them, and theres always a stress cost. Their odds are generally pretty harshly against you, though depending on the event, high skill levels might give you a much better chance of success, and some traits will let you trade stress for negating a specific harm event entirely. With these, theres a whole variety of new ways to unexpectedly expire or be reduced to a bed-ridden shell! Fun stuff, ylove to see it. I did also say, though, that we were trying to avoid frustrating rocks-fall-PC-dies situations, and thats still true. To avoid that, almost all harm events are partnered with a foreboding event something that fires first and alerts you that hey, you are now eligible to [spins tombola] unexpectedly choke to death! Rather than spring immediate death/incapability on you out of the blue, we alert you that you are now at risk of it. It can now just happen, at any time. In fact, just _getting_ a foreboding event gives you a 50% chance of getting the follow-up harm event within the next 4-8 years, though youre also eligible to fire it forever after. For example, heres a foreboding event:
And its follow-up harm event:
The goal is to warn you that a new type of random harm is on the table, so that the notion is playing around at the back of your mind. Maybe itll come to nothing, maybe youll forget about it, maybe youve got just a few short years left to live. Do you want to make rapid preparations for succession? What if it never happens at all? What if you just pushed to do things a little bit faster so the realmll be ready for your heir? What if it happens sooner than expected? Lots of little questions to ask yourself. Or, if youre one of the coworkers testing or playing on internal builds since we added these, lots of questions to menacingly direct to me when Im making tea, demanding to know when they can stop being worried about impending doom. WAD, I whisper back to them, WAD. Theres sixteen new harm-foreboding pairs for becoming incapable (well, fifteen pairs and one triplet: becoming incapable due to the march of time vs. your declining health sees your mind weaken, your body start to fade a little, then you risk becoming incapable), twelve new harm-foreboding pairs for dying unexpectedly, and six new events for dying/becoming incapable whilst on campaign.
Those last six arent paired with a foreboding event. Like I said, almost all harm events are, and the exceptions to this are the ones that fire for army commanders. Warfare could kill you quickly and unexpectedly without you ever donning your armor, and history is replete with examples of even fairly hale and hearty warriors succumbing to sudden unexpected disease, poor luck, or taxing environmental conditions, from John Lackland to Richard the Lionheart to Frederick Barbarossa. Instead, opting to put yourself in charge of an army is your warning that youre in a dangerous, taxing position, where poor luck might cost you dearly at any moment. High health will protect you from many of the potential ravages of campaigning (with the amount needed going up more the more you age), but the best way to stave off the risk of death outside of battle is to campaign in terrain you have the correct commander trait for.
Maybe youre not too big a fan of this change - perhaps you prefer a more predictable world, or you want to have the occasional sudden death but mostly skate on by just fine. For you, we have the Safe & Illusion of Safety settings for the new Random Harm game rule, so you dont have to deal with this stuff if you dont want to. Maybe, though, youve been waiting for something like this. Maybe you want more uncertainty in the world, or for life to be just that little bit more mean-spirited than most. For you, weve got the Tragic setting, making harm events much more likely generally. If youd prefer that the tallest blade of grass be the first under the scythe, then weve also got the Spiteful setting, which specifically weights up the likelihood for harm events to target proportionally better or more interesting characters. And if you want both, welp, Tragically Spiteful, the single edgiest game rule weve added to date, has got you covered. As long as youve got harm events set to anything but Safe, they do run on a cooldown. Players cant be subject to a harm event more than once every fifty years, and the AI not more than once every thirty per house. These cooldowns help to reduce frustration whilst keeping the threat present, and mean that even playing on Tragically Spiteful, you can still thrive and survive. Just, with the occasional setback.
and thats it from me! Hope you like the harm events, I tried to cover a variety of types from historic references and common causes of death or severe injury either still present in the modern day or mitigated only in the last few centuries, and Im very happy to be able to resurrect this particular darling for 1.9.1. Have fun with the update! [hr][/hr]
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-05-23 12:38:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.9.0.4 'Lance' Update
[hr][/hr]
[ 2023-05-16 12:00:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
1.9.0.4 Changelog
[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
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-05-16 12:00:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III Free Weekend and Sale
Thanks to all of you for your continued support; it means the world to us to have such a passionate and dedicated community.
[ 2023-05-12 14:35:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
Current Discounts
- Crusader Kings III -50%
- Fate of Iberia -20%
- Royal Court -20%
- Northern Lords -20%
Thanks to all of you for your continued support; it means the world to us to have such a passionate and dedicated community.
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-05-12 14:35:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.9.0.3 'Lance' Hotfix Update
[ 2023-05-12 12:07:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
1.9.0.3 Changelog
- 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
[ 2023-05-12 12:07:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Tours & Tournaments: Available Now!
[ 2023-05-11 16:06:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
[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.
Features
- 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.
Join the conversation and connect with other Paradox fans on our social media channels!
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[ 2023-05-11 16:06:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.9.0 'Lance' Update
[ 2023-05-11 12:38:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
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
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[ 2023-05-11 12:38:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #127: Joust Art & Achievements
[ 2023-05-09 12:36:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
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!
[ 2023-05-09 12:36:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Tours & Tournaments - Feature Breakdown
[ 2023-05-05 14:01:56 CET ] [ Original 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!
[ 2023-05-05 14:01:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #126: Modding Activities
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 ###################
[ 2023-05-02 12:30:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Options
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.
Phases
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.
Special Guests
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.
Invite Rules
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.
Intents
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.
Plugin Widgets
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
[ 2023-05-02 12:30:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #125: The Most Valiant of Them All
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.
No. But your knights will probably get a few new things to offer the battlefield. Discuss Dev Diary #125 on our forums!
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.
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]
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?
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.]
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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]
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:
[Image: The Knighthood Innovation, looking pretty stronk]
This man was very rich and very proud of his bravery, courage and conspicuous lineage; for every Frank is anxious to outdo the others - Anna Comnena, huge fan of the Latins Some cultures members tended to care a little more than others about glorious feats of arms, and thus weve given them a boost to Glory gain. Cultures with Traditions like Chanson de Geste, Royal Army, Performative Honor: those cultures Acclaimed Knights have the best shot at being the greatest in all the world.
[Image: Futuwaa, with its new Glory Gain modifier] The Chivalry lifestyle tree is a good source of Glory bonuses too.
[Image: Chivalric Dominance: a little preview of the Gallant trait]
He has many men about him and is himself the best of fighters, and is not at a loss for wise counsel. - The Laxdla Saga Before closing things out, lets take a moment to explain Accolade effects, such as the new Knight Army Modifier. Wherever you see this term, it means your Acclaimed Knight will improve an army simply by being in it. Theres no requirement for the Acclaimed Knight to be the Armys commander. Mouse over the Acclaimed Knight icon (helmet with the lil colorful scarf) on the army containing your Acclaimed Knight to see what modifiers are being applied to the army by Acclaimed Knights.
[Image: This commanders got a bit of skirmishing backup]
When you choose a Men-at-Arms-boosting Accolade as a Primary Attribute and level it up, youll unlock a fun reward: special, extra-strong Men-at-Arms. Only one Regiment of these can be recruited and they have a limited troop count. However, their high base stats synchronize well with your Acclaimed Knights relevant modifiers and the new bonuses from stationing Regiments in your Holdings. Furthermore, these Retinue MaA perform better in appropriate terrains, they are twice as good at countering, and some of them receive stat increases as the Cultural Eras go by. Heres a taste. And its just lowly skirmishers with bonuses from game start, because Im an irrepressible tease.
[Image: Left: regular skirmishers. Right: skirmishers unlocked by a high-ranked Skirmisher Accolade. Bear in mind effects from Knight Army Modifiers arent visible here]
That about wraps it up! Id love to leave you with one last wise quote from de Charny, who may or may not be a greater knight than a certain Willy Marshall or Rodrigo de Vivar: Avoid quarrels. Thanks for reading!
[ 2023-04-25 12:30:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
Hey, is this just adding more Knight Effectiveness?
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.
Accolade Attributes
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]
The Accolade View
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?
Glory
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.]
Accolade Succession
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!
Seek Worthy Accolade Successor
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.
Primary & Secondary Attributes
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.
Inactive Accolades
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?
The Restore Accolades Decision
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.
Acclaimed Knights & Grand Tournaments
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]
Accolades for Everybody! No, Wait
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)
[Image: The Knighthood Innovation, looking pretty stronk]
Who is the Most Glorious of Them All?
This man was very rich and very proud of his bravery, courage and conspicuous lineage; for every Frank is anxious to outdo the others - Anna Comnena, huge fan of the Latins Some cultures members tended to care a little more than others about glorious feats of arms, and thus weve given them a boost to Glory gain. Cultures with Traditions like Chanson de Geste, Royal Army, Performative Honor: those cultures Acclaimed Knights have the best shot at being the greatest in all the world.
[Image: Futuwaa, with its new Glory Gain modifier] The Chivalry lifestyle tree is a good source of Glory bonuses too.
[Image: Chivalric Dominance: a little preview of the Gallant trait]
Knight Army Modifiers
He has many men about him and is himself the best of fighters, and is not at a loss for wise counsel. - The Laxdla Saga Before closing things out, lets take a moment to explain Accolade effects, such as the new Knight Army Modifier. Wherever you see this term, it means your Acclaimed Knight will improve an army simply by being in it. Theres no requirement for the Acclaimed Knight to be the Armys commander. Mouse over the Acclaimed Knight icon (helmet with the lil colorful scarf) on the army containing your Acclaimed Knight to see what modifiers are being applied to the army by Acclaimed Knights.
[Image: This commanders got a bit of skirmishing backup]
Everybody Loves Men-at-Arms
When you choose a Men-at-Arms-boosting Accolade as a Primary Attribute and level it up, youll unlock a fun reward: special, extra-strong Men-at-Arms. Only one Regiment of these can be recruited and they have a limited troop count. However, their high base stats synchronize well with your Acclaimed Knights relevant modifiers and the new bonuses from stationing Regiments in your Holdings. Furthermore, these Retinue MaA perform better in appropriate terrains, they are twice as good at countering, and some of them receive stat increases as the Cultural Eras go by. Heres a taste. And its just lowly skirmishers with bonuses from game start, because Im an irrepressible tease.
[Image: Left: regular skirmishers. Right: skirmishers unlocked by a high-ranked Skirmisher Accolade. Bear in mind effects from Knight Army Modifiers arent visible here]
A Knights Own Dev Diary of Chivalry
That about wraps it up! Id love to leave you with one last wise quote from de Charny, who may or may not be a greater knight than a certain Willy Marshall or Rodrigo de Vivar: Avoid quarrels. Thanks for reading!
[ 2023-04-25 12:30:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #124: Celebrate Good Times (Come On)
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.
[ 2023-04-18 12:30:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Of Weddings, Feasts, and Other Merry-Making
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.
[ 2023-04-18 12:30:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #123: Hastiluding for Glory
[ 2023-04-11 12:31:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
[ 2023-04-11 12:31:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #122: Regencies and Elegance of the Empire
[ 2023-04-04 15:42:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
[ 2023-04-04 15:42:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #121: An Active Life
[ 2023-03-28 12:30:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
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.
[ 2023-03-28 12:30:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #120: Systemic Refinements
[ 2023-03-21 13:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Today, well take a look at some of the smaller but numerous changes weve made to various systems, as well as some of the more notable quality-of-life changes. We want the game to stay challenging and immersive, especially now that were providing a host of new tools to deal with, for example, Vassal dissatisfaction - but we also want to tackle older balance issues, while weaving new solutions into upcoming changes! Of course, this includes us looking at a lot of community feedback from previous rounds of balancing (such as when we updated how the AI built Buildings in the Friends & Foes update).
In this Diary, we will delve into Vassal Stances, Men-at-Arms Stationing, Domain Limit Rebalancing, the Building Slot Revamp, Rebalanced & New Buildings, the Improved Personality Tooltip, Rich Presence, Destroying Artifacts/Aniconism, and Improvements to the Current Situation. Grab a beverage of your choice and get comfortable, this is going to be a long one!
Read Dev Diary #120 on our forums!
In fact, this Diary is so large that it exceeds the maximum size for Steam announcements, so head over to our official forums through the link above to read more!
[ 2023-03-21 13:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #119: Tours and Travel
As we said in last weeks dev diary, we want to reinforce the connection between the character and the map. And whats the best way to do that? Travel. Every character in the game now has a bonafide Location. With the new Travel Mechanic in place, every character travels to activities that arent held in their current location (including the AI). Whenever you plan a Grand Tournament or accept an invitation to your vassals Feast, you now also have decisions to make about how you get there. Will you be daring and choose a dangerous route or play it safe? Who will you hire as your Caravan Master to ensure the journey goes smoothly?
Every Travel Plan has two basic stats: Speed and Safety. Speed is represented by a percentage, where 100% is standard (roughly similar to army movement speed). To no ones surprise, this affects how fast a character moves from province to province. Safety is a value ranging from 1 to 100 and counteracts Danger. You can expect to encounter a dazzling array of situations as you travel across the map. Perhaps you will encounter a hermit living among the wilderness
[Image: Event where you encounter a hermit] Or perhaps youll meet someone from a different culture who can speak your native tongue
[Image: Event where you encounter someone from faraway who can speak your native language] Or maybe you will even chance upon a knight-errant and convince them to join your entourage?
[Image: Event where you encounter a knight-errant] Danger lurks in every corner of the map. Every province has a Danger score based on a variety of factors like terrain, county control, owner, et cetera. Traveling through the mountains might expose you to treacherous cliffs, while sailing the seas presents its own, unique hazards, for example.
[Image: Event where one of your entourage members falls from a cliff in mountainous terrain]
[Image: Event where you encounter a squall destroys your sails while traveling at sea] There are also several dynamic factors that affect how dangerous provinces are. For example, Holdings decrease Danger while any army activity (sieges, battle, raiding) greatly increase danger. While there is always a possibility of encountering Danger, a well-prepared traveler who invests in their Safety will encounter dangerous events far less frequently. So how do I prepare to set out on the open road? Glad you asked, lets take a look at the brand new Travel Planner.
[Image: Example of planning to travel for a Pilgrimage]
Along with the Travel System, we introduce the Caravan Master as a new Court Position. The Caravan Master is the face of your journey and handles all the banal, practical aspects to traveling. Hiring a skilled character will increase both your Speed and Safety while providing some passive bonuses to Army Movement Speed, Supply Limit, and Court Grandeur.
[Image: Selection window for choosing a Caravan Master court position]
Every time you set out on a journey, you have the chance to pick 2 Travel Options. These additional features provide a range of possible bonuses when added to your travel.
[Image: Selection screen for choosing Travel Options] Most Travel Options have an associated cost for the benefits they provide. Hiring Experienced Sea Captains will add a salty sea dog to your Entourage, thus making your journey across open water safer. Some are unlocked by Buildings in your domain or your characters Traits. To illustrate, if you have built Stables or Camelries up to level 4 or higher, you can unlock the Superior Mounts Travel Option and get a nice boost to Speed. It costs nothing, of course, since you own the Stables already.
[Image: Superior Mounts Travel Option] Another example is the Train Knights Travel Option, which is unlocked by having Military Academies built in your domain. When selected, 3 of your least-skilled Knights are added to your Entourage. It increases your Safety and there is a chance for each Knight to increase their skills along the journey.
[Image: Train Knights Travel Option] While its not required to select Travel Options (especially for short journeys), they can prove quite useful when setting out on a longer journey, such as a Pilgrimage. This is also a way to affect which characters join your Entourage, the group of characters who travel at your side. Some characters, such as your Court Physician and Bodyguard, will automatically join your Entourage if you employ those Court Positions. Otherwise, your Entourage is primarily composed of characters relevant to the Activity to which you are traveling. Your Knights will join you for Tournaments, for example.
When planning a journey, you will always be presented with the shortest path towards your destination. But perhaps you really dont want to travel through your Rivals lands or maybe youve always wanted to see the splendor of Rome? Well fear not, for we have included a Custom Route Editor!
[Image: Example of adding waypoints to a journey via the Custom Route Editor] We allow you to customize your route by adding waypoints along your path. If employed cunningly, you may be able to avoid assassins hired by your Nemesis or gaze up at Caesars Needle from the hallowed streets of Rome.
Since Travel inevitably touches nearly every aspect of the game, I figured Id spend some time here at the end attempting to answer a few questions that are sure to arise. The focus for this expansion has been to create a Travel System that will specifically work for getting characters to and from Activities. With that said, weve endeavored to make this system as flexible as possible for future work and iterationswhich is why its a free feature. The Travel Mechanic has also been integrated into smaller activities such as Meet Peers, Grand Blot, and Grand Rite. We are currently working on integrating the mechanic into more game systems. Some Schemes are still completable while you or your Target is traveling. For example, you can still sway a character or attempt to learn their language while either of you are traveling. You cannot, however, attempt to seduce someone who is not in your location. (The power of letters only goes so far) These Schemes will be frozen until both characters are no longer traveling. I know youre all eager for things like trade routesso are we! That wont be coming in this expansion, but it is something we have our eye on for the future.
Hello hello hello, I am Meka66 and it has been a while since I was last able to write a dev diary, way back in my Hearts of Iron days. Today I'm here to talk to you about Grand Tours! What is a tour? Well, more broadly a Grand Tour is your opportunity to use the travel system to hold royal visits across your realm; bringing you closer to your direct vassals and giving you the opportunity to get closer to sub-realms usually in your periphery, yielding powerful rewards to help you manage your unruly subjects; both noble and lowborn.
[The art in this screen is placeholder until we get our more complete gorgeous art.] Primarily, you will be visiting vassals, choosing from one of three things to do on your visit: Tour the Grounds, Attend a Dinner, or Attend a Cultural Festival. Each of these will yield different rewards both for the realm you're visiting and for yourself personally. Let's start with Tour the Grounds.
Here you can plan your route around your kingdom
Arrival at a Tour of the Grounds, the layout of this window is still being worked on. When Touring the Grounds of your vassal's holding, you're having a look around at daily life in your vassal's capital; visiting the village, hanging around their holding, and exploring their hunting grounds. Overall this results in a boost in Control in counties within your vassal's realm, since it is difficult to ignore the authority of the King when he's right on your doorstep.
One of many opportunities to raise control in your vassal's holdings You'll also have opportunities to boost your prestige and renown, by flexing your hunting skills on your dear vassals.
An opportunity here to show off your hunting skills
Arriving at a dinner Next up we have the Hosted Dinner. The dinner is much like a feast, but far more intimate. The dinner will give you opportunities to not only share some time with your vassal and form friendships and gain hooks, but it is also an opportunity to interfere with their court; offering their courtiers a better life in the capital, becoming the guardian for your vassal's heir, and discovering secrets at your vassal's court.
One of many opportunities you have to make friends, learn secrets, and gain hooks.
Arriving at a Cultural Festival in Sweden. A true oxymoron if ever there was one. Lastly we have my personal favorite, the Cultural Festival. A realm is typically made up of all sorts of people belonging to different faiths and cultures, and what better way to demonstrate the magnanimousness of your rule than to experience the strange traditions of your subjects? If you're a highly diverse realm like Khazaria or a stranger in a strange land like a Norman invader, this is an excellent opportunity to get some powerful bonuses to cultural acceptance.
Spreading cultural acceptance around your realm by showing your subjects you embrace their traditions. Here we have the Emperor visiting a Bulgarian nativity play. But no culture is a monolith of course, and Cultural Festivals can still yield powerful rewards even if you're visiting a county of your own culture. Showing your respect for the customs of folks outside of the capital will result in potent popular opinion gains, allowing you to bring your unruly subjects in line.
Same-culture festivals still yield powerful rewards.
Your tour consists of several stops across your realm, with one of the above activities taking place at each location. Here we have our beloved Byzantine Emperor planning a tour of his realm; having dinners with his powerful vassals, touring the grounds of his distant subjects, and observing the local culture of his Armenian and Bulgarian subjects.
A roundabout route of the Byzantine Empire
But visiting nobles isn't the only thing you're doing on your tour, of course. You are traveling with your court! On your journey, you'll get a chance to meet with your lowliest of subjects, and what you do with them exactly is up to you! You may encounter drunkards muttering of rebellion in a tavern, or be accosted by highwaymen on the road. While most travel events are just about things that happen on your journey, a tour travel event is an opportunity to remind the commoners that their liege is ever present. To this effect, we have several Intents. Intents in Tours determine what exactly it is you hope to do with commoners while on the road; do you want to show charity, assert your authority, or just drink and visit brothels on your merry way across your realm?
Here we have the intent selection screen, which can be changed at any time before or during your tour! We'll start with the more stone-faced intents: Altruism and Justice. The Altruism intent is inspired much by the concept of both charity and the Royal Touch; the belief that Kings had the power to heal the sick just with their touch. On an Altruistic route across your realm, you will show your piousness and generosity to your realm; giving piety, popular opinion, and stress loss with the right traits (compassionate, zealous, etc). An altruistic opportunity to show you are not disgusted by your subjects or not Justice is your chance to remind commoners that the crown is ever-present, and you can show justice, whatever it may mean to you. This can include judging local trials, meeting with peasant leaders, and sending in your men to clear out bandits. Justice results in stress loss for the appropriate traits, and some chances to fill your dungeon and increase control along your route.
A chance to bring the Crown's justice to the countryside Lustful characters can also benefit from the Lechery intent, giving them the opportunity to seek out new paramours on the road and pay visits to local brothels to reduce their stress and find new lovers. If you're a player who enjoys lustful content, this intent is for you; otherwise, the lechery intent is entirely opt-in. What you want to get out of your tour is up to you!
This intent can be particularly useful if your spouse is unable to give you an heir Lastly we have the Relax intent, which is the default. In this intent, you just want to use your time on the road to visit taverns and take it easy on your tour, giving you large gains in stress reduction.
There are all manner of ways to reduce stress on your Tour.
But there is more! What primarily motivates your tour is determined by your Tour Type, of which we have three: Majesty, Taxation, and Intimidation. These options will determine what exactly it is you demand from your vassals when you stop by for a visit, is it just to show how much of a great ruler you are? Or is it to extract taxes? To strike fear into your unruly subjects? A Majesty Tour is all about vassal opinion and prestige. During your visits, you will show your grace and magnificence to all.
A Taxation Tour is all about finding those little loopholes and oversights your vassals have been taking advantage of and tying them up, and taking what is rightfully yours. You may cause some upset, but it's all worth it to fill the treasury, right?
Intimidation Tours are all about showing how much your vassals should fear you. You'll get chances to do all manner of things to unsettle your subject. Direct confrontation can be a powerful tool, and can even motivate some vassals to leave their hostile factions against you.
Which Tour type are you most interested in trying first? We would love to hear your thoughts! Each time you perform an action which corresponds with your selected tour type, it will increase this tour success bar here. The rewards you get at the end of your tour will scale and change depending on just how successful you've been in achieving your goals, and if done right, it can be a powerful tool for strengthening and stabilizing your realm.
Here we have the Majesty success bar Tours are a big investment in both time and money, but they also yield powerful and long lasting rewards; everything from cultural acceptance to control to dread to prestige, a tour is an all-encompassing realm management tool, taking your court on the road and bringing the presence of the crown wherever it is needed. That's all for now, we'll be around to answer questions as always. See you next week where we'll talk about some of the smaller-but-broader systemic changes we've made to vassals, buildings, men-at-arms, and more!
[ 2023-03-14 13:32:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello! My name is Chad and this is my premiere here on the forums. Were really excited to kick off a series of dev diaries showing off all the work we have put into Tours and Tournaments. To briefly reiterate a bit of what was covered in our last dev diary, the Tours & Tournaments Expansion will provide a comprehensive rework of the Activity system. Not only have we reworked Feasts, Hunts, and Pilgrimages, but we have added brand spanking new Grand Activities: Tours (also in this dev diary), Tournaments, and Grand Weddings! Along with this rework comes the new Travel System (which Ill be talking about in more detail today) and the long-awaited Regencies featureboth free additions. You can expect to hear more about all these additions in subsequent dev diaries!
Read more about Dev Diary #119 on our forums!
Please note the standard disclaimer that all images are of things currently in development and are subject to change before release.
Travel
As we said in last weeks dev diary, we want to reinforce the connection between the character and the map. And whats the best way to do that? Travel. Every character in the game now has a bonafide Location. With the new Travel Mechanic in place, every character travels to activities that arent held in their current location (including the AI). Whenever you plan a Grand Tournament or accept an invitation to your vassals Feast, you now also have decisions to make about how you get there. Will you be daring and choose a dangerous route or play it safe? Who will you hire as your Caravan Master to ensure the journey goes smoothly?
The Basics: Speed, Safety, Danger
Every Travel Plan has two basic stats: Speed and Safety. Speed is represented by a percentage, where 100% is standard (roughly similar to army movement speed). To no ones surprise, this affects how fast a character moves from province to province. Safety is a value ranging from 1 to 100 and counteracts Danger. You can expect to encounter a dazzling array of situations as you travel across the map. Perhaps you will encounter a hermit living among the wilderness
[Image: Event where you encounter a hermit] Or perhaps youll meet someone from a different culture who can speak your native tongue
[Image: Event where you encounter someone from faraway who can speak your native language] Or maybe you will even chance upon a knight-errant and convince them to join your entourage?
[Image: Event where you encounter a knight-errant] Danger lurks in every corner of the map. Every province has a Danger score based on a variety of factors like terrain, county control, owner, et cetera. Traveling through the mountains might expose you to treacherous cliffs, while sailing the seas presents its own, unique hazards, for example.
[Image: Event where one of your entourage members falls from a cliff in mountainous terrain]
[Image: Event where you encounter a squall destroys your sails while traveling at sea] There are also several dynamic factors that affect how dangerous provinces are. For example, Holdings decrease Danger while any army activity (sieges, battle, raiding) greatly increase danger. While there is always a possibility of encountering Danger, a well-prepared traveler who invests in their Safety will encounter dangerous events far less frequently. So how do I prepare to set out on the open road? Glad you asked, lets take a look at the brand new Travel Planner.
[Image: Example of planning to travel for a Pilgrimage]
Caravan Master
Along with the Travel System, we introduce the Caravan Master as a new Court Position. The Caravan Master is the face of your journey and handles all the banal, practical aspects to traveling. Hiring a skilled character will increase both your Speed and Safety while providing some passive bonuses to Army Movement Speed, Supply Limit, and Court Grandeur.
[Image: Selection window for choosing a Caravan Master court position]
Travel Options
Every time you set out on a journey, you have the chance to pick 2 Travel Options. These additional features provide a range of possible bonuses when added to your travel.
[Image: Selection screen for choosing Travel Options] Most Travel Options have an associated cost for the benefits they provide. Hiring Experienced Sea Captains will add a salty sea dog to your Entourage, thus making your journey across open water safer. Some are unlocked by Buildings in your domain or your characters Traits. To illustrate, if you have built Stables or Camelries up to level 4 or higher, you can unlock the Superior Mounts Travel Option and get a nice boost to Speed. It costs nothing, of course, since you own the Stables already.
[Image: Superior Mounts Travel Option] Another example is the Train Knights Travel Option, which is unlocked by having Military Academies built in your domain. When selected, 3 of your least-skilled Knights are added to your Entourage. It increases your Safety and there is a chance for each Knight to increase their skills along the journey.
[Image: Train Knights Travel Option] While its not required to select Travel Options (especially for short journeys), they can prove quite useful when setting out on a longer journey, such as a Pilgrimage. This is also a way to affect which characters join your Entourage, the group of characters who travel at your side. Some characters, such as your Court Physician and Bodyguard, will automatically join your Entourage if you employ those Court Positions. Otherwise, your Entourage is primarily composed of characters relevant to the Activity to which you are traveling. Your Knights will join you for Tournaments, for example.
Custom Route Editor
When planning a journey, you will always be presented with the shortest path towards your destination. But perhaps you really dont want to travel through your Rivals lands or maybe youve always wanted to see the splendor of Rome? Well fear not, for we have included a Custom Route Editor!
[Image: Example of adding waypoints to a journey via the Custom Route Editor] We allow you to customize your route by adding waypoints along your path. If employed cunningly, you may be able to avoid assassins hired by your Nemesis or gaze up at Caesars Needle from the hallowed streets of Rome.
Additional Notes
Since Travel inevitably touches nearly every aspect of the game, I figured Id spend some time here at the end attempting to answer a few questions that are sure to arise. The focus for this expansion has been to create a Travel System that will specifically work for getting characters to and from Activities. With that said, weve endeavored to make this system as flexible as possible for future work and iterationswhich is why its a free feature. The Travel Mechanic has also been integrated into smaller activities such as Meet Peers, Grand Blot, and Grand Rite. We are currently working on integrating the mechanic into more game systems. Some Schemes are still completable while you or your Target is traveling. For example, you can still sway a character or attempt to learn their language while either of you are traveling. You cannot, however, attempt to seduce someone who is not in your location. (The power of letters only goes so far) These Schemes will be frozen until both characters are no longer traveling. I know youre all eager for things like trade routesso are we! That wont be coming in this expansion, but it is something we have our eye on for the future.
Tours
Hello hello hello, I am Meka66 and it has been a while since I was last able to write a dev diary, way back in my Hearts of Iron days. Today I'm here to talk to you about Grand Tours! What is a tour? Well, more broadly a Grand Tour is your opportunity to use the travel system to hold royal visits across your realm; bringing you closer to your direct vassals and giving you the opportunity to get closer to sub-realms usually in your periphery, yielding powerful rewards to help you manage your unruly subjects; both noble and lowborn.
[The art in this screen is placeholder until we get our more complete gorgeous art.] Primarily, you will be visiting vassals, choosing from one of three things to do on your visit: Tour the Grounds, Attend a Dinner, or Attend a Cultural Festival. Each of these will yield different rewards both for the realm you're visiting and for yourself personally. Let's start with Tour the Grounds.
Here you can plan your route around your kingdom
Stops
Tour the Grounds
Arrival at a Tour of the Grounds, the layout of this window is still being worked on. When Touring the Grounds of your vassal's holding, you're having a look around at daily life in your vassal's capital; visiting the village, hanging around their holding, and exploring their hunting grounds. Overall this results in a boost in Control in counties within your vassal's realm, since it is difficult to ignore the authority of the King when he's right on your doorstep.
One of many opportunities to raise control in your vassal's holdings You'll also have opportunities to boost your prestige and renown, by flexing your hunting skills on your dear vassals.
An opportunity here to show off your hunting skills
Hosted Dinner
Arriving at a dinner Next up we have the Hosted Dinner. The dinner is much like a feast, but far more intimate. The dinner will give you opportunities to not only share some time with your vassal and form friendships and gain hooks, but it is also an opportunity to interfere with their court; offering their courtiers a better life in the capital, becoming the guardian for your vassal's heir, and discovering secrets at your vassal's court.
One of many opportunities you have to make friends, learn secrets, and gain hooks.
Cultural Festival
Arriving at a Cultural Festival in Sweden. A true oxymoron if ever there was one. Lastly we have my personal favorite, the Cultural Festival. A realm is typically made up of all sorts of people belonging to different faiths and cultures, and what better way to demonstrate the magnanimousness of your rule than to experience the strange traditions of your subjects? If you're a highly diverse realm like Khazaria or a stranger in a strange land like a Norman invader, this is an excellent opportunity to get some powerful bonuses to cultural acceptance.
Spreading cultural acceptance around your realm by showing your subjects you embrace their traditions. Here we have the Emperor visiting a Bulgarian nativity play. But no culture is a monolith of course, and Cultural Festivals can still yield powerful rewards even if you're visiting a county of your own culture. Showing your respect for the customs of folks outside of the capital will result in potent popular opinion gains, allowing you to bring your unruly subjects in line.
Same-culture festivals still yield powerful rewards.
The Tour Planner
Your tour consists of several stops across your realm, with one of the above activities taking place at each location. Here we have our beloved Byzantine Emperor planning a tour of his realm; having dinners with his powerful vassals, touring the grounds of his distant subjects, and observing the local culture of his Armenian and Bulgarian subjects.
A roundabout route of the Byzantine Empire
A Travelling Court
But visiting nobles isn't the only thing you're doing on your tour, of course. You are traveling with your court! On your journey, you'll get a chance to meet with your lowliest of subjects, and what you do with them exactly is up to you! You may encounter drunkards muttering of rebellion in a tavern, or be accosted by highwaymen on the road. While most travel events are just about things that happen on your journey, a tour travel event is an opportunity to remind the commoners that their liege is ever present. To this effect, we have several Intents. Intents in Tours determine what exactly it is you hope to do with commoners while on the road; do you want to show charity, assert your authority, or just drink and visit brothels on your merry way across your realm?
Here we have the intent selection screen, which can be changed at any time before or during your tour! We'll start with the more stone-faced intents: Altruism and Justice. The Altruism intent is inspired much by the concept of both charity and the Royal Touch; the belief that Kings had the power to heal the sick just with their touch. On an Altruistic route across your realm, you will show your piousness and generosity to your realm; giving piety, popular opinion, and stress loss with the right traits (compassionate, zealous, etc). An altruistic opportunity to show you are not disgusted by your subjects or not Justice is your chance to remind commoners that the crown is ever-present, and you can show justice, whatever it may mean to you. This can include judging local trials, meeting with peasant leaders, and sending in your men to clear out bandits. Justice results in stress loss for the appropriate traits, and some chances to fill your dungeon and increase control along your route.
A chance to bring the Crown's justice to the countryside Lustful characters can also benefit from the Lechery intent, giving them the opportunity to seek out new paramours on the road and pay visits to local brothels to reduce their stress and find new lovers. If you're a player who enjoys lustful content, this intent is for you; otherwise, the lechery intent is entirely opt-in. What you want to get out of your tour is up to you!
This intent can be particularly useful if your spouse is unable to give you an heir Lastly we have the Relax intent, which is the default. In this intent, you just want to use your time on the road to visit taverns and take it easy on your tour, giving you large gains in stress reduction.
There are all manner of ways to reduce stress on your Tour.
Tour Type
But there is more! What primarily motivates your tour is determined by your Tour Type, of which we have three: Majesty, Taxation, and Intimidation. These options will determine what exactly it is you demand from your vassals when you stop by for a visit, is it just to show how much of a great ruler you are? Or is it to extract taxes? To strike fear into your unruly subjects? A Majesty Tour is all about vassal opinion and prestige. During your visits, you will show your grace and magnificence to all.
A Taxation Tour is all about finding those little loopholes and oversights your vassals have been taking advantage of and tying them up, and taking what is rightfully yours. You may cause some upset, but it's all worth it to fill the treasury, right?
Intimidation Tours are all about showing how much your vassals should fear you. You'll get chances to do all manner of things to unsettle your subject. Direct confrontation can be a powerful tool, and can even motivate some vassals to leave their hostile factions against you.
Which Tour type are you most interested in trying first? We would love to hear your thoughts! Each time you perform an action which corresponds with your selected tour type, it will increase this tour success bar here. The rewards you get at the end of your tour will scale and change depending on just how successful you've been in achieving your goals, and if done right, it can be a powerful tool for strengthening and stabilizing your realm.
Here we have the Majesty success bar Tours are a big investment in both time and money, but they also yield powerful and long lasting rewards; everything from cultural acceptance to control to dread to prestige, a tour is an all-encompassing realm management tool, taking your court on the road and bringing the presence of the crown wherever it is needed. That's all for now, we'll be around to answer questions as always. See you next week where we'll talk about some of the smaller-but-broader systemic changes we've made to vassals, buildings, men-at-arms, and more!
[ 2023-03-14 13:32:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Tours and Tournaments - The Vision
[ 2023-03-06 17:17:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Come one, come all! The grand tournament awaits your attendance - your steeds have been readied and your entourage assembled for the journey ahead! Its time to show the world your graciousness as host and worth in the arena but to get there, were better off routing our journey around the treacherous mountain passes of Stipon, as I hear theyve been crawling with highwaymen since your, ahem, dalliance with Duke Andronikos wife during his son's wedding. Then theres the matter of your unruly vassals: perhaps its time for a royal tour?
Read more about Dev Diary #118 on our forums!
The life of a ruler was always active - there were many things to attend to, and most courts at the time were itinerant, roaming from place to place constantly. Tours and Tournaments aims to give rulers plenty of things to do, especially during times of peace, by introducing new systems of Travel and Grand Activities!
As mentioned in the Floorplan Dev Diary, we want to reinforce the connection between character and map - after all, the game is played on a beautiful medieval map, and no longer will the only time your ruler leaves the safety of their capital be when youre at war. Theres an entire world out there to explore, filled with both great opportunities and adventurous obstacles.
By assembling an entourage, selecting options for your travel, and hiring a caravan master, you are ready to set out on the road and travel to activities across the world. The Travel system is an integral part of activities, with both the host and guests traveling to reach them - creating a stronger feeling of place as you see your route being plotted and your character moving directly on the map.
[Image: The Duke of Bohemia setting out on a Tour]
So what are these activities you can travel to, you ask? Theres plenty - firstly weve updated and revamped Feasts, Hunts, and Pilgrimages completely - the bread-and-butter of activities. Theres now a reason to hunt in a specific forest within your domain, as a ferocious wolf or legendary stag might have been spotted there - or a reason to hold a feast in a holding with leisure palaces, as you might need to impress a particularly unruly vassal. Pilgrimages will now be epic journeys, potentially taking years if youre going far - making it necessary for a regent to rule in your stead. All activities have dedicated interfaces with easily-accessible information and beautiful art to set the scene.
Of course, there are Grand activities that are even more impactful - each of them different in their own magnificent way! They have Options and Intents which affect rewards and what type of content you might encounter. Our aim is to make each activity have a clear purpose and be interesting in its own right, therefore we chose to make Grand Tournaments, Grand Tours, and Grand Weddings - three vastly different activities with vastly different executions and purposes!
[Image: Example of Activity Types, initial step]
Grand Tournaments are where you go to test your mettle: spectacles to be announced far and wide, with rewards ranging from precious trinkets to fabulous prizes! Grand Tournaments arent only for martially-inclined characters - while there are contests such as melees and jousts, there are also more cerebral ones such as recitals or erudite board games. You can join your knights in slippery wrestling, eagle-eyed archery, dangerous horse racing, and vicious team melees - all clad in gleaming armor brandishing your coat of arms for the masses to see! Participating and winning in these contests will see your characters and knights grow in skill and receive prizes; living the life of a frequent tournament-goer is a valid path to take. Exploring the tournament Locale and choosing the right Intents might help you out in other ways as well, be it finding friends or dispatching rivals. If youre in need of renown, hosting tournaments yourself will grow your standing significantly, as rulers from foreign realms come flocking to the fateful grounds, eager to compete!
[Image: Snapshot of part of the Tournament UI. Tournaments, unlike other Grand Activities, have an extra special interface - more on that in the Tournaments Dev Diary]
Grand Tours see you assemble your entire court and set out to visit vassals in your realm - an activity commonly undertaken by medieval rulers. This is a way to assert your overlordship, while also enjoying the hospitality your vassals have to offer. There are various paths to take: Intimidation, Majesty, or Taxation, all affecting the rewards and opinions of your vassals. At its core, Tours are a tool for realm stability - and something a newly-ascended ruler should undertake quite early to avoid factions and revolts. You also get to choose between ways of approaching your vassals individually; you might want to tour the grounds, observe a cultural festival, or simply have a private dinner hosted for you.
Grand Weddings allow you to marry above your station if youre willing to pay the cost! They also provide ample opportunity for diplomatic shenanigans, such as impressing neighboring rulers into becoming vassals, forming hard-to-get alliances, or creating favorable matches for your children. Of course, these spectacles come with everything youd expect out of a medieval ceremony - revelries, drama, and even a bedding ritual at the end. Or you can invite a group of mercenaries to color the halls crimson with the blood of the other House, should you desire it.
[Image: Planning a Grand Wedding]
As some of you managed to cleverly figure out, theres also a brand-new regency system where weve made sure that its both interesting to have and to be a regent. Loyal regents help you by dutifully fulfilling their Mandates, and being the regent of your liege gives you opportunities to (with varying degrees of bloodshed) seize the throne for yourself, should you be doing a good job.
Theres also a myriad of other changes which well go into in future dev diaries - smaller systemic updates to buildings, knights, vassal opinions, and so on - all to support a more interesting and living map, where your choices matter more.
So take to the road, ruler - great opportunities await!
Tours and Tournaments will be released in late spring, and until the release we will have weekly Dev Diaries.
Dont forget to wishlist:
Wishlist on Steam
[previewyoutube=YUpC4IdfXuE;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2023-03-06 17:17:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #117: Shave and a Map Mode
[ 2023-02-28 13:30:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
My name is Jens and this is my first appearance on this forum. Ive got the opportunity to share some details with you on my probation project for CK3, which is making it all the way into the upcoming release (because thats where I pushed my changes, lol)!
Im happy at least one of you caught on to the subtle hint in the previous DD. I was like Wokeg, did you use my new thing to set up the screenshots? Well yes, because all of a sudden most assets and characters have become way more accessible. So what is it Im talking about? At this point, most of you have probably guessed it - but yes, we have upgraded our old friend the Barbershop.
Read more about Dev Diary #117 on our forums!
Ive scrambled through the webs looking for feedback and wishes of what you would like and expect from such a tool. Heck, no mediocre fix would do: I want only the best for you! I distilled the info down, looking for the essence of how youd want to use the tool, set up the tasks, prioritized them, and spent the last few weeks going through them all. Well, Ill spare you the fluff. Lets get into some details.
First off, we have expanded the Barbershop into two tabs. The first is focused on changing the appearance of your character. Additionally, Ive added a fuzzy search box next to the drop downs, in case you already know the name of what youre looking for.
[Image: Barbershop, tab for changing appearance]
In the second tab, weve added drag and drop support for the portraits, so you may click, drag and place them wherever you want. You can also rotate them 360 degrees and weve also got 4 different zoom levels for you to play around with. Every character has their own dropdown of poses and animations and weve also added a wide variety of backgrounds. The only limit now is your own imagination.
[Image: Barbershop, tab for placing characters in the scene]
One of the big reasons we play is to create stories and make memories. I took a deep dive into the forum history and found out some of you want to use the Barbershop to relive past events between characters, dress up a serious ruler in a funny outfit or take family photos. To support this Ive added presets. The Custom preset lets you import characters simply by pinning them. Another preset I really wanted in (based on a comment) was an easy way to view your entire Council, so for that end I present to you:
[Image: Barbershop, easily view your council]
Also, note the council preset supports modding if thats your thing.
[Image: Barbershop script]
With only a few polish tasks left, people have already begun discovering this tool in-house and started trolling and meme-ing each other. I hope you guys will enjoy the new Barbershop as much as we do. Let me know if you have any last minute requests and I will see what I can do. Now, our Game Director also has something in store for you.
---
Greetings! In addition to the above we also want to show some additions to our collection of Map Modes - namely the introduction of the Control and Economy map modes! These two new tools are very useful in managing your realm and planning your conquests.
[Image - New Map Mode Buttons]
The Control map mode is very straightforward, showing you exactly what youd expect. It spans from a dark purple (denoting very low control) to a light yellow (showing just a slight lack of control), and a bright white shows where theres Absolute Control.
[Image: Control Map mode Example]
The Economy map mode is a little bit less straightforward - but we aspired to make it as useful as possible. The nebulous concept of economy is a bit harder to represent, but we decided to include what most of us thought were key factors in making informed decisions.
[Image: Economy Map mode Example, Southern France]
Similar to the Development Map mode, the color spans from dark purple to bright yellow; bright yellow indicates an area is quite rich. The area colors are based on Counties, including income from Cities, Bishoprics, and so on - for an overall approximation of the Countys use to the player (of course, Counties with more Castles might be better in the eyes of some, but we had to make a call and thought that this was the most useful overall). This coloring is relative to the state of the world, meaning that the most brilliant yellow County is the richest one in the world at that moment. This map mode doesnt care about the current Control Level of the County, which makes it useful for planning conquest targets.
[Image: Economy map mode, showing India]
Something else that you no-doubt notice is that Special Buildings are shown on this map mode! Theyve been hidden away for much too long, and we decided that this was an excellent time to reveal them and maybe add a handful of new ones. Getting Special Buildings in your domain was always a fun goal for the player to achieve, and now its not only possible to see where they are - but also whether you can use them, if they are already built, what they provide, and so on!
As an added bonus, weve added an absolute ton of new mines strewn around the map, and weve also revised the system for founding Universities - now its no longer a decision, but rather the institutions are constructed as normal special buildings (and in many more places than before!), with the same rewards on offer.
This means that there are many, many more great capital locations strewn across the world, and its now easier than ever to find them!
---
Thats it for this time! But stay tuned our spymaster sends word that whats next for Crusader Kings III will soon be announced! Make sure to mark Monday next week, March 6th, in your calendars and visit this link!
[previewyoutube=HCbJZqnuNYg;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2023-02-28 13:30:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #116: Agrarian Research Techniques
[ 2023-02-21 13:30:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
... Anyone watching? No? Good.
Ok, just you and me. Great, because I've only got a few wee lil morsels today and I don't want to share them with too many people. So let's all just keep this quiet and, if anyone asks, the dev diary was about how we research thirteenth century agrarian techniques in rural France. Got it? Good.
Read more about Dev Diary #116 on our forums!
I want you to tell me what this historical character...
... this historical character...
... and this historical character all have in common.
Figured it out? Yes? No? Waiting for someone else to scan through every character in the game before you hazard a guess? Ok, well, to be a bit fairer, it's got something to do with this:
Hint 1: [spoiler]The list includes all the interactions in a particular category. You would not see all of them at the same time like this.[/spoiler]
Hint 2: [spoiler]:D This has nothing to do with Wards & Wardens.[/spoiler]
Finally, none of them are directly connected to this chap:
Alright, that's all I've got for you today, but I expect to be going over that list again soon. And in detail. If anyone asks, remember: rural France, agriculture, thirteenth century, yada yada.
Till next time!
[ 2023-02-21 13:30:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #115: Monumental Foundations
When creating the first tier of the Canterbury Cathedral, which references the Anglo-Saxon church extant in the 867 & 1066 start dates, it was important to acknowledge the lack of available visual reference material. Historically speaking, the Anglo-Saxon church was burnt down in 1067, but we do have some conceptual renditions and blueprints of the estimated building layout to work from, courtesy of the archeologists (our heroes).
Sometimes luck strikes and blueprints or estimated ones can be found. From this, I created a fairly basic interpretation of the church that serves well as the first/starting stage for the Canterbury Cathedral. Additional geometry, like pillars and an external house, was added to the building to create a more compelling in-game silhouette.
The original Anglo-Saxon church - Tier 1
After the first fire, a second church was built in its place, distinctively making use of the Romanesque style. As we move forward in history, more references become available, and fortunately the church foundations are described as rather similar to the church of today. The more significant differences to modern Canterbury Cathedral are, for example, the front and main towers: they are still Romanesque.
Canterbury Cathedral - Tier 2
If this happens to be your first time coming across these terms, some explaining might be in order. Romanesque and Gothic are two styles of architecture which defined buildings and churches throughout the Medieval era. Romanesque, the older of the two, emerged sometime around the year 1000 and lasted until around 1150. Its a style arising from and defined by Germanic, Byzantine and old Roman influences, favoring circular Roman arches and a more solid-looking facade compared to later churches.
Romanesque Abbaye de Lessay From the Romanesque emerged the Gothic in the 12th-13th centuries. In Gothic architecture, Roman arches find themselves replaced by Gothic ones; we also see elaborate ribbed vaults, towering flying buttresses, and church interiors brightened by large stained glass windows.
Chartres Gothic Cathedral
I technically started with the third tier of the structure of the Canterbury Cathedral, rather than the second tier. Because we work with modular pieces and texture atlases, I find it easier to work from the complete cathedral, then remove any additional geometry. It also meant that the last tier would have most of the same layout as the modern cathedral, minus some of the later additions.
Modular pieces used for building the Cathedral With the modular pieces ready, it was then just a question of assembling the cathedral.
We could see in the final version of the Cathedral that a lot of areas had been raised since the time of the second, so I simply made minor tweaks to the height of some walls and roofs, while preserving the original UV. The back of the cathedral had also been extended and rebuilt, with the addition of two new structures. The south-west tower was rebuilt, but not the north-west tower as of yet: that happened later historically.
The cathedral with the towers in the front. The main tower however was a new construction past CK3s timeline.
Canterbury Cathedral - Tier 3 The third tier takes on a Gothic style, with flying buttresses along the length of the cathedral, and it also puts a golden angel on the pinnacle of the main tower.
In order for us to be certain that our holdings will be placed correctly on the map, we extend the basement of the mesh into the ground to accommodate for the maps height differences. This ensures we have no areas free flying in the air. Usually this is a bigger issue for holdings than monuments, as monuments have a single specific place on the map where they exist.
Decal texture in Substance Painter We also create decals that show a more interesting ground variation around the structure. In my case, I painted out some roads to give life to the area. Some color variation to the grass to better blend in with the rest of the map, and darker areas where the cathedral would be located. The decal plane is on average twice the size of our building.
Anglo-Saxon church , Romanesque Cathedral, Gothic Cathedral T1 - T2 - T3 After all the buildings were done and I was happy with the progression from tier 1 to tier 2 and tier 3, I could finalize the UVs. We use two UV maps to layout the textures: one is for the ambient occlusion that we bake in, and the other for the texture atlas. The texture atlas lets us reuse textures to save on performance. I did the baking in marmoset with a low poly to low poly set up. Normally you have a high poly to bake down to the low poly mesh, but I was only after the ambient occlusion.
A new set of cultural stone bridges will be added over the world, replacing some of the old wooden bridges and overall making it a bit clearer where the safer river crossings are. We will be adding a total of four standard bridge types, for Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Indian regions.
These bridges have been based on historical examples sampled from these regions. The Western and Mediterranean bridges are based on arched bridges from Europe, with the appropriate local flairs. The Middle Eastern bridge is based upon Sassanid designs like the Marnan and Kohneh bridge, among others, and are mostly found in the regions around modern Iran and Iraq. The Indian bridges take their inspiration from the Athernala bridge in eastern India.
[ 2023-02-07 13:50:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to this dev diary where we will be looking into some new map visuals thatll be added in the future. As the team grows, weve had the opportunity for our new artists to warm up by sprucing up the map a little. Among the things well show off today, chief is the Canterbury Cathedral and its evolution over time: made by our new Environment artist Joel, whos written about his process and the research involved.
Read more about Dev Diary #115 on our forums!
Building a Monument Canterbury Cathedral
The Original Church - Tier 1
When creating the first tier of the Canterbury Cathedral, which references the Anglo-Saxon church extant in the 867 & 1066 start dates, it was important to acknowledge the lack of available visual reference material. Historically speaking, the Anglo-Saxon church was burnt down in 1067, but we do have some conceptual renditions and blueprints of the estimated building layout to work from, courtesy of the archeologists (our heroes).
Sometimes luck strikes and blueprints or estimated ones can be found. From this, I created a fairly basic interpretation of the church that serves well as the first/starting stage for the Canterbury Cathedral. Additional geometry, like pillars and an external house, was added to the building to create a more compelling in-game silhouette.
The original Anglo-Saxon church - Tier 1
The Norman Cathedral - Tier 2
After the first fire, a second church was built in its place, distinctively making use of the Romanesque style. As we move forward in history, more references become available, and fortunately the church foundations are described as rather similar to the church of today. The more significant differences to modern Canterbury Cathedral are, for example, the front and main towers: they are still Romanesque.
Canterbury Cathedral - Tier 2
Romanesque and Gothic
If this happens to be your first time coming across these terms, some explaining might be in order. Romanesque and Gothic are two styles of architecture which defined buildings and churches throughout the Medieval era. Romanesque, the older of the two, emerged sometime around the year 1000 and lasted until around 1150. Its a style arising from and defined by Germanic, Byzantine and old Roman influences, favoring circular Roman arches and a more solid-looking facade compared to later churches.
Romanesque Abbaye de Lessay From the Romanesque emerged the Gothic in the 12th-13th centuries. In Gothic architecture, Roman arches find themselves replaced by Gothic ones; we also see elaborate ribbed vaults, towering flying buttresses, and church interiors brightened by large stained glass windows.
Chartres Gothic Cathedral
Modeling
I technically started with the third tier of the structure of the Canterbury Cathedral, rather than the second tier. Because we work with modular pieces and texture atlases, I find it easier to work from the complete cathedral, then remove any additional geometry. It also meant that the last tier would have most of the same layout as the modern cathedral, minus some of the later additions.
Modular pieces used for building the Cathedral With the modular pieces ready, it was then just a question of assembling the cathedral.
The Gothic Cathedral - Tier 3
We could see in the final version of the Cathedral that a lot of areas had been raised since the time of the second, so I simply made minor tweaks to the height of some walls and roofs, while preserving the original UV. The back of the cathedral had also been extended and rebuilt, with the addition of two new structures. The south-west tower was rebuilt, but not the north-west tower as of yet: that happened later historically.
The cathedral with the towers in the front. The main tower however was a new construction past CK3s timeline.
Canterbury Cathedral - Tier 3 The third tier takes on a Gothic style, with flying buttresses along the length of the cathedral, and it also puts a golden angel on the pinnacle of the main tower.
Basing and Decal
In order for us to be certain that our holdings will be placed correctly on the map, we extend the basement of the mesh into the ground to accommodate for the maps height differences. This ensures we have no areas free flying in the air. Usually this is a bigger issue for holdings than monuments, as monuments have a single specific place on the map where they exist.
Decal texture in Substance Painter We also create decals that show a more interesting ground variation around the structure. In my case, I painted out some roads to give life to the area. Some color variation to the grass to better blend in with the rest of the map, and darker areas where the cathedral would be located. The decal plane is on average twice the size of our building.
Anglo-Saxon church , Romanesque Cathedral, Gothic Cathedral T1 - T2 - T3 After all the buildings were done and I was happy with the progression from tier 1 to tier 2 and tier 3, I could finalize the UVs. We use two UV maps to layout the textures: one is for the ambient occlusion that we bake in, and the other for the texture atlas. The texture atlas lets us reuse textures to save on performance. I did the baking in marmoset with a low poly to low poly set up. Normally you have a high poly to bake down to the low poly mesh, but I was only after the ambient occlusion.
Bonus Bridge Update
A new set of cultural stone bridges will be added over the world, replacing some of the old wooden bridges and overall making it a bit clearer where the safer river crossings are. We will be adding a total of four standard bridge types, for Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Indian regions.
These bridges have been based on historical examples sampled from these regions. The Western and Mediterranean bridges are based on arched bridges from Europe, with the appropriate local flairs. The Middle Eastern bridge is based upon Sassanid designs like the Marnan and Kohneh bridge, among others, and are mostly found in the regions around modern Iran and Iraq. The Indian bridges take their inspiration from the Athernala bridge in eastern India.
[ 2023-02-07 13:50:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #114 - And the Winner is...
Read more about Dev Diary #114 on our forums!
Which Im very excited about! Not only because it was the theme I personally liked the best, but because theres a lot of interesting history to explore! Well definitely aim to make both rearing and playing as children more historically immersive, while also adding timeless content such as the (sometimes tenuous, sometimes wholesome) relations between parent and child. As mentioned in the previous Dev Diary, this event pack will be worked on later this year, after the next expansion is finished. For now, we will slowly start drawing out plans of content wed like to make, and areas thatd be fun to explore - and here you can help! If you have a specific topic youd like to see made into an event, or a situation youd like to see expanded upon, please reply in this thread! For example, a specific topic might be 'Id like to see an event about one of my foreign wards missing their home' or Id like an event where I as a child can become best friends with a vassal child. Examples of situations youd like to see improved could be Id like to have the ability to impose a specific personality trait on a ward, or Id like if educating another rulers child would have more diplomatic benefits/complications. Finally, Id like to leave you with another small teaser for the expansion. Last time some of you came extremely close to the truth, to the point where we had the artist of the image giggling with excitement were hoping this one will throw you off a bit.
[ 2023-01-27 13:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings! The polls are closed, and the winner is
Wards and Wardens
Read more about Dev Diary #114 on our forums!
Which Im very excited about! Not only because it was the theme I personally liked the best, but because theres a lot of interesting history to explore! Well definitely aim to make both rearing and playing as children more historically immersive, while also adding timeless content such as the (sometimes tenuous, sometimes wholesome) relations between parent and child. As mentioned in the previous Dev Diary, this event pack will be worked on later this year, after the next expansion is finished. For now, we will slowly start drawing out plans of content wed like to make, and areas thatd be fun to explore - and here you can help! If you have a specific topic youd like to see made into an event, or a situation youd like to see expanded upon, please reply in this thread! For example, a specific topic might be 'Id like to see an event about one of my foreign wards missing their home' or Id like an event where I as a child can become best friends with a vassal child. Examples of situations youd like to see improved could be Id like to have the ability to impose a specific personality trait on a ward, or Id like if educating another rulers child would have more diplomatic benefits/complications. Finally, Id like to leave you with another small teaser for the expansion. Last time some of you came extremely close to the truth, to the point where we had the artist of the image giggling with excitement were hoping this one will throw you off a bit.
[ 2023-01-27 13:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Choice Event Pack Poll
Take a deep dive into what being a child in the Middle Ages was actually like, and explore what guardianship meant in practical terms. Wards & Wardens would feature events revolving around childhood, being a guardian, children at court, and more.
Let your love life take the reins! While lovers and spouses take on a larger role in Love & Lust, explore events related to more intimate relationships, expanded seduction, married life, and more.
Leverage your fearsome reputation and learn what it truly means to be dreaded. Villains & Vagabonds will feature events embracing the consequences and opportunities of being a tyrant, while considering contrasting themes of fairness and honor. Have ideas for how these themes could be thoroughly explored in CK3? Share them with us and the rest of the communitywed love to hear what you think! Not yet sure which theme to choose? Feel free to discuss the pros and cons you see for each choice, just remember to cast your vote by January 27, 8am CET when the poll closes. The choice is yours, so vote now on our official forums!
[ 2023-01-23 17:42:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Later this year, after our next big expansion is already released, the Dev Team will begin working on a new event pack one chosen by you! Vote now on our official forums between three different event pack themes to determine which area will become more fleshed out in the game next.
Read more about this poll and cast your vote on our forums!
Potential Event Pack Themes
Wards & Wardens
Take a deep dive into what being a child in the Middle Ages was actually like, and explore what guardianship meant in practical terms. Wards & Wardens would feature events revolving around childhood, being a guardian, children at court, and more.
Love & Lust
Let your love life take the reins! While lovers and spouses take on a larger role in Love & Lust, explore events related to more intimate relationships, expanded seduction, married life, and more.
Villains & Vagabonds
Leverage your fearsome reputation and learn what it truly means to be dreaded. Villains & Vagabonds will feature events embracing the consequences and opportunities of being a tyrant, while considering contrasting themes of fairness and honor. Have ideas for how these themes could be thoroughly explored in CK3? Share them with us and the rest of the communitywed love to hear what you think! Not yet sure which theme to choose? Feel free to discuss the pros and cons you see for each choice, just remember to cast your vote by January 27, 8am CET when the poll closes. The choice is yours, so vote now on our official forums!
[ 2023-01-23 17:42:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #113 - Community Choice Event Pack
[ 2023-01-17 13:32:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Were all back, gathered from the holidays, and ready to set sail for 2023! Actually, most of us have been back for a few weeks by this point, working away on this year's big release, but we're not going to be talking about that just yet. That's not to say we're not going to in the future, but until we are ready to, we want to give you something to dig your teeth into as a community. This is the first of a small series of Dev Diaries about some more minor things, teasers, and today, about a brand-new community initiative!
But first, heres a small teaser of something coming in the expansion:
Read more about Dev Diary #113 on our forums!
Later this year, after weve released the next big expansion and before we start working on the next large project, well have a period where we have the time and opportunity to work on an event pack. For the last event pack we chose friends and foes as the core theme, as it was something practically everyone in the team felt strongly about, and something that needed more content in the game. Since then, weve had so many ideas for future event packs, both from within the team and outside, and this time its harder to choose
Therefore wed like to invite all of you to help us decide which theme to pick! We have three themes that weve curated, which means a few things; each theme has designers on the team that are passionate about them, and we know roughly what free feature wed like to add to the update that will accompany the event pack: generally we'll be aiming for something with a similar size and impact as Friends & Foes' Memories system, which heavily ties into the events we're making but is relevant across the game as a whole.
We dont have final names for the event packs yet, but as we enjoy alliteration heres what were calling them and a very brief description of each:
Wards & Wardens - Anything childhood-related, with themes such as: playing as a child, being a guardian, handling children in court, and so on. A deep dive into what being a child in the Middle Ages was actually like, and what guardianship meant in practical terms.
Love & Lust - An exploration of more intimate relationships, with themes such as: expanded seduction, romance, married life, and so on. This would be a great time to allow lovers and spouses to take on a larger role in the game.
Villains & Vagabonds - Events and content around Dread and Tyranny, exploring what it means to be dreaded, leveraging your fearsome reputation, making dread more visible, and the consequences and opportunities of being a tyrant. Itd also be interesting to explore the other side of the coin from Dread - fairness, and honor.
Even though this event pack is something well work on later this year, its good to get your input now - this way we can start working on it without delay as soon as the next big expansion is out! As we have a lot of talented event-crafters on the design team, we feel quite confident that we can adapt to whatever theme you, as a community, choose.
If this turns out to be a popular activity, it is possible that we will do it again in the future! The themes that do not get chosen this time will likely make a comeback, alongside some new challengers.
The poll to vote is located in a separate forum thread here. Voting will begin today and you will have until January 27, 8am CET to discuss the different themes and cast your vote. Were looking forward to seeing which theme you like the most!
[ 2023-01-17 13:32:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.8.1] CK3 - Now Available
[ 2022-12-13 11:04:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
A minor Update, 1.8.1, is now live. The main improvements are: Tooltips close as expected Height maps render correctly Heresies no longer forced on player's character Truth is Relative perk works as intended Localization in order See the full Changelog on the forums.
[ 2022-12-13 11:04:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #112 - Year in Review
[ 2022-12-06 13:32:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
The wintery season is upon us, and soon most of us will be joining our friends & family (or friends & foes?) for the holidays - this is an excellent time to reflect on the year that has gone by, and look at all that weve done. I also wish to leave you with a small teaser of things to come (nothing major though, as mentioned before that communication will begin sometime in Q1 next year!)
Read more about Dev Diary #112 on our forums!
Early in the year, we released Royal Court, the first major expansion for CK3. With kings squabbling over who has the grandest court, impressive artifacts being crafted and displayed, court position holders scheming, and cultures diverging, hybridizing, and shifting - to name only a few things that were in the update - its safe to say that the game got a shakeup with lots of new things to do. We also drew a lot of good learnings from it, both from the process (which was undoubtedly troubled, seeing the state of the world at the time) and the reception. Good lessons that well bring with us in the future.
The Fate of Iberia followed and breathed new life into the Iberian peninsula. With content such as bonds of friendship stronger than iron, titles changing hands over a game of chess, and the revival of lost faiths (if youre observant enough) The Struggle, a central mechanical core surrounded by flavor, struck a balance that was enjoyed by many - a winning formula that were more than likely to follow in the future.
Friends & Foes was an experiment that played to the strengths of the game - by adding dramatic content, and proved how its always a nice thing to have more of it! Not only did it seem to be an appreciated format, but it was very motivating for us to make. For more news on this, stay tuned early next year
And to round the year off we released the Robe update, which focused on adding graphical variety and fixing issues. It revamped the bookmark screen, added a full set of art for tenets, and made custom rulers saveable, in addition to balance and AI fixes. We will always strive to make sure the game is in a good, healthy state.
---
Now, some of you know the above already, and want to see something new! As we wont be back with Dev Diaries for a while (theyll start back up sometime in January) I want to leave you with something that can be discussed for a while. Weve seen a lot of discussions regarding Nicknames, or rather the lack of them, and have taken your feedback to heart!
In an upcoming update, well be adding in a new system for gaining nicknames passively, not too unlike the system in CK2, but vastly improved (in CK2, it was just a highly obfuscated system with little-to-no fanfare at all). These nicknames can be earned at any point during the game, and will reflect your characters status as well as they can. They can be bad or good, with most (if not all) being overwritable by more prestigious nicknames should you do something extraordinary (such as uniting the Spanish Thrones, or Uniting Africa, etc). Gaining a nickname comes with a small boon or penalty to prestige and opinion, just enough to make it matter.
A positive nickname, celebrated by a good friend.
A negative nickname, gained while in prison, with the news delivered by someone whos not exactly a fan of yours.
This system focuses on nicknames that arent particularly active, it wont give you the Conqueror for example. It will, however, pick one of 200+ appropriate passive nicknames. These are in part existing nicknames in the database that didnt exist outside of historical characters (the Fat, the Poet, the Brave, the Tyrant, etc.), nicknames adopted from CK2 (the Zealot, the Lucky, the Resilient, the Strange, etc.), historical nicknames that were never used before (the Desired, the Idle, the Wrathful, Longsword, etc.), and community suggestions (the Navigator, the Berserker, etc.). All of these nicknames have triggers so that they only appear where logical, for example; you can only gain the Tyrant if you have a certain amount of tyranny opinion, and you can only gain the Fat if your character is of the heavier persuasion. A lot of these also take your prestige or piety levels into account, so having a high prestige level can protect you from gaining poor nicknames. Theres also a game rule that controls the frequency.
Some examples of nicknames you can get through this system.
We aspire to keep most nicknames in line with history, or what would be plausible. That said, feel free to suggest more nicknames! Who knows, perhaps youll suggest something thatll make it in just remember that they shouldnt be too active, so no the Conqueror or the Destroyer.
To make nicknames a bit more spicy than they are, weve also added a small new feature that allows you to see what a nickname actually means! Charles the Bald, for example, wasnt without hair but rather without a suitable crown for most of his life. By hovering over nicknames, you can now see an explanation.
Charles wasnt so bald after all, and now you know why.
Quite self-explanatory, but still informative.
Finally, a word from our community manager Pariah about a QnA session we will be having with some of the devs on our Discord server:
[quote=Pariah]As the holiday season approaches, we will also be holding a QnA session where you can feel free to ask any burning questions or just anything on your mind about the game. While we cant give away any company secrets or tell you exactly what we are working on next, it will be a chance to sit down and discuss things with members from most if not all disciplines of the game!
The QnA session will be taking place on our Discord server on Tuesday December 13 from 16:00 - 18:00 CET, which is a terrific place to help supplement these Forums. The Discord is filled with tons of your fellow Crusader Kings community and always a good place to find knowledge and conversation. If you are not already part of our terrific Discord family and would like to get in ahead of the QnA, you can find a link HERE![/quote]
Thats it for this year - well see you in 2023! Have a God Jul and a Gott Nytt r as we say here in the frigid north!
[ 2022-12-06 13:32:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
"Robe" 1.8.0 Release & Changelog
[ 2022-12-01 13:07:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
Im Henrik nice to e-meet you Im a crazy plant person and producer at Paradox Interactive. I'm here to let you know that we have a release coming up for you today:
1.8.0 ROBE FREE UPDATE
The update should be rolled out to a store near you some time during the day. I promise to keep this short because I understand youre here for the changelog. As my dear colleague, and ambassador of horchata, Hugo presented last week, weve taken some time to put together an update that, apart from a couple of new features, focuses a fair bit on improved stability and bug fixes. We hope you are as excited as we are to continue the endeavours as rulers of lands and kingdoms (hopefully) both beautiful and prosperous.
But enough me chit-chatting to the details!
Read more about this update on our forums!
1.8.0 Changelog
Free Features
- You can now save and load Custom Rulers! Create templates you can easily re-use everywhere on the world map. All the attributes besides the Dynasty and the Coat of Arms are saved.
- Completely reworked the Bookmark Screen; its now reorganized to allow more room for bookmarks, and they are now sorted by the year they belong to (867 and 1066). This comes with new and improved art for elements and buttons, as well as showing which DLC you have active.
- Added new and unique illustrations for every Tenet currently in the game!
- Added 17 new Custom Faith icons for use when creating new faiths, ranging from Ankhs and Boromian Circles to Doves and Chi Rhos!
Hardware
- Added support for Vulkan rendering on Macintosh hardware
Game Balance
- Disinheriting is now free for children with a disputed heritage or known bastard. There is however a global opinion penalty which is always applied when taking the interaction
- Mozarabs can now use a strong hook to force/coerce the pope into binding with rome
- Updated the consequences for revoking hostile Holy order, it now adds Fervor to their Faith, and potentially a negative county modifier
- Literalism is legal for all faiths to adopt
- If the game rule "strict regional heresy" is activated, the Mozarab faith will only appear in Iberia and North Africa
- Added additional reward to forming the Kingdom of Aragon
- Rulers will no longer be deposed if they happen to inherit a tyranny war from a lower tier ruler
- Added gold cost to the "truly special board" in the board game event A Stroke of Luck
- Breaking away from Rome now requires you to be in poor standing with your HoF
- Properly set low obligations on Custom Rulers who are vassals of the HRE
- A Beautiful Specimen will be only triggered for lovers and soulmates now; not powerful vassals
- Iberian Conciliation achievement is now classified as "Hard" instead of "Medium"
- Auto-fire the Court Chaplain if they are excommunicated, except if you are also excommunicated yourself
- Contracting Assistance is now scaled by army size.
AI
- Fixed a case where a raiding unit could not find a path to go home in case when the capital was moved. In that case the unit will be disbanded
- The AI will not try convert children of a vassal with religious protection anymore
- The AI will marry young men to old women less often: the weight of alliances and the impact of age has been rebalanced
- The AI will now send fewer requests for chess challenges
- Blocked the AI from sending two interactions simultaneously, which could cause UI issues
- AI characters are a lot less likely to accept a war assistance contract against you if they are allied with you
Interface
- Fixed issue with change/revert buttons in interaction lists only being responsive on a small part of it
- Fixed so the Army Reorganization scroll area no longer scroll to the top when unit is moved
- The bookmark lands of Emir Yahya now match the actual in-game shape
- Holy orders no longer cause "Grant to..." button to disappear in the county capital
- Offer Guardianship notification and window now use the Offer Guardianship title instead of Send Proposal
- Unselectable beneficiaries will now be shown in the list with a tooltip explaining why they cannot be selected
- Adultery events (adultery.2001 & adultery.2002) now have improved texts for duels
- You can now always open the list of potential agents, even if none will accept to join the scheme. This can be used to, for example, plan who to seduce or fabricate hooks against to further your interests.
- Vassal contract modification window now warns when current liege is not the rightful liege
- Activated Regnal numbers for Count-tier characters to avoid non immersive lineages
- The "Is imprisoned = no" condition for all court positions is now hidden
- Court positions no longer display requirements that are the opposite of what they seek
- Added a section for showing the DLCs that are installed and active. It can be found in the main menu and the bookmark area
Bug Fixes
- Fixed issue where players couldn't accept/decline artifact gifts
- Fixed issue with event learning_theology_special.1001 where doctrines from the same group wouldn't be removed before applying the new one
- Fixed German court grandeur tooltip for being above expected level
- Fixed issue where achievements would still be enabled after creating a custom ruler and not starting the game as them
- You no longer get "the Thief Slayer" nickname if you already have a positive nickname.
- Fixed issue where artifact repair cost would show wrong value in the repair window, now shows same value as in the repair button tooltip
- Fixed issue where ironman would reset when going into select any ruler
- Fixed issue where overwriting same ruler multiple times would block achievements to be enabled
- Bestow Royal Favor chancellor task is now canceled if the target vassal declares war on you
- Fixed an issues that would cause some hedonistic sins to be incorrectly categorized as virtues or vice versa
- Created missing localization for threatened_by_buildup_opinion
- Petitioning liege in Russian now uses correct localization macro
- Struggle messages will now only be shown for interlopers and involved characters
- Fixed chinese localization doing infinite recursion on localization macro
- Moved the locators for special buildings in Tenerife to spawn buildings on landmass rather than in the water
- We now properly communicate in advance that the Subjugation war is only available once per lifetime
- Notifications for struggle endings are no longer sent to every single player in the lobby, instead selecting those either involved in the struggle or within a certain proximity of the region.
- fp2_struggle.2021.a.a is no longer blatantly misleading
- The tooltip of Invite to Activity displays a proper explanation when none of them is available
- "Desires of the Flesh" now checks what world region you are in before selecting a faith for you to follow
- Properly handle Duchy and Kingdom Holy Wars within the Struggle
- Removed duplicated check that were done for characters joining some factions
- Holy Wars properly deactivated after the Detente ending for the relevant cultures
- Fixed namespace issues with fp2_Struggle.2024 (now martial_chivalry.4001)
- Explicitly say that a Faith or Culture needs to control 80% of the counties to get involved within the Iberian Struggle
- Fixed issue where FP2 3D assets were being overwritten by their generic counterparts.
- We now display the right cost for the "Invite to Activity interaction"; it used to be swapped
- Head of Faith titles can no longer be granted to vassals
- Prevent players from cloning their mercenary armies
- Fixed localization in invitation to lieges council letter for Spanish
- Character info is now hidden for the thief in fp2_struggle.2009
- Player now receives heresiarch trait when converting to Adoptionism
- The Found an Empire is now blocked for Involved and Interloper of the Iberian Struggle. The new condition is however only displayed for characters with an involved Faith or Culture, and living nearby
- Fixed parsing issues with fund_inspiration.2080
- Fixed an issue where multiplayer got out of sync when a player hot joined the session
- Offering Relief events no longer gives you an improved opinion towards yourself. With that fixed, it's still important to remember to love thy self, you're doing good, keep it up!
- Expanded acceptance criteria for christian bones, christian syncretists can now display christian bones in their court. Finally allowing Basque pagans to equip and enjoy christian bones.
- Added the word been to I have riding to result in I have been riding in fund_inspiration.6001
Other
- Updated name of "Reconquista" cultural innovation to something more historically accurate
- Added the Sayyid trait to some characters from the Hammudid house who were missing it
- Added new outcomes to boardgames
- Fixed line breaks in select Chinese localization keys
- Aragonese now speak the OcRomance language
- Set Wanda as a daughter of Krak I as it should be in 867
- Tabletop Warriors now has a more natural reading description
- Fixed the dynasty reference for the Chinese Xue Dynasty
- Clarified the consequences of Dissolution faction
- Added new localization for creating a new faith that keeps the former pope as the new pope
- Refresh factions against liege after player character change
- Fate of Iberia: the Struggle Ending Achievements now have greater clarity as to what ending they refer to
- Zandaqa can now be rejected when pledging submission to a caliph
[ 2022-12-01 13:07:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #111: 1.8.0 Robe Feature Highlight
The biggest thing youll notice when starting a new game with 1.8.0 will certainly be the new and shiny bookmark screen, which has been redesigned to more cleanly fit new scenarios.
Everyone loves a good image collage, right? The new bookmark screen not only looks better but it is also more streamlined: for example, the scenario information box and the character information tab become a single togglable tab once you select a bookmark character, avoiding unnecessary clutter on the screen.
To top it off, alongside the new bookmark screen we have also updated the main menu to conveniently display all the downloadable content you own and easily access any that you may be missing out on. Youll be able to find it on the bottom left corner of the main menu screen.
To complement the new bookmark screen, weve also added the ability to save and load custom characters! At long last, you can finally use for multiple playthroughs that one character that youve spent so much time detailing to perfection. Saving and loading is done through buttons that youll find at the bottom left of the ruler designer. Selecting load will bring up a list of all saved characters and allow you to conveniently preview your selected creation before loading them into the designer itself.
Additionally, saved rulers are stored as individual files in
Yes, you heard right. Get ready for art galore because our artists have been hard at work making new illustrations for every single tenet in the game that was previously missing one.
We dont want to spoil all of them here, so look forward to seeing them in-game for yourself when the update releases. The art team did a great job making these, especially considering how tenets can have very abstract concepts, which I am sure must have taken a lot of back-and-forths to get just right.
Weve worked very hard to fix as many bugs as possible for this release. I hope our commitment to making a high-quality product will be made apparent when you see the size of the final changelog in an upcoming dev diary. As mentioned at the start of the post, Ill be sharing some highlights with commentary on some of the more interesting entries. Please note that the current titles may not match their name on the final changelog.
If you have a strong hook on the pope, you can now use it to skip the requirements for binding with Rome. Though the pope will not like that.
It goes without saying that if you fulfill all requirements, but also have a hook, it will pick the regular outcome before the coercion one.
Pledging submission to a caliph will send out an actual in-game letter rather than instantly consulting the AI upon selecting the option. If you enjoy playing as a Caliph in multiplayer mode, look forward to deciding the fate of the Zandaqa players for yourself.
Alright, that is everything Ive got to show for now. I hope that weve managed to excite you for whats coming in the immediate future for Crusader Kings. Let us know your thoughts below!
[ 2022-11-22 13:30:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello crusaders! Im Hugo Cortell, game designer and horchata drinking aficionado at Paradox Thalassic, and today I am here to present everything new and exciting with the upcoming 1.8.0 Robe free update.
Weve worked hard to ensure that this update is a wonderful blend of bug fixes, refinements, and brand-new features. Since this is a Feature Highlight, Ill be keeping it short and sweet and focusing on the latter two, but worry not, there will still be highlights with commentary for notable changelog entries.
Without further ado, lets begin.
Read more about Dev Diary #111 on our forums!
New Bookmark Screen
The biggest thing youll notice when starting a new game with 1.8.0 will certainly be the new and shiny bookmark screen, which has been redesigned to more cleanly fit new scenarios.
Everyone loves a good image collage, right? The new bookmark screen not only looks better but it is also more streamlined: for example, the scenario information box and the character information tab become a single togglable tab once you select a bookmark character, avoiding unnecessary clutter on the screen.
To top it off, alongside the new bookmark screen we have also updated the main menu to conveniently display all the downloadable content you own and easily access any that you may be missing out on. Youll be able to find it on the bottom left corner of the main menu screen.
Custom Ruler Saving
To complement the new bookmark screen, weve also added the ability to save and load custom characters! At long last, you can finally use for multiple playthroughs that one character that youve spent so much time detailing to perfection. Saving and loading is done through buttons that youll find at the bottom left of the ruler designer. Selecting load will bring up a list of all saved characters and allow you to conveniently preview your selected creation before loading them into the designer itself.
Additionally, saved rulers are stored as individual files in
..\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\ruler meaning that you will be able to easily share your magnificent creations & abominations with the rest of the CK3 community. I look forward to seeing a mix of gorgeous and cursed creatures in the forums once this release comes to be.
Unique Illustrations For Every Tenet
Yes, you heard right. Get ready for art galore because our artists have been hard at work making new illustrations for every single tenet in the game that was previously missing one.
We dont want to spoil all of them here, so look forward to seeing them in-game for yourself when the update releases. The art team did a great job making these, especially considering how tenets can have very abstract concepts, which I am sure must have taken a lot of back-and-forths to get just right.
Changelog Highlights
Weve worked very hard to fix as many bugs as possible for this release. I hope our commitment to making a high-quality product will be made apparent when you see the size of the final changelog in an upcoming dev diary. As mentioned at the start of the post, Ill be sharing some highlights with commentary on some of the more interesting entries. Please note that the current titles may not match their name on the final changelog.
Mozarabs can now use a strong hook to coerce the Pope into binding with Rome
If you have a strong hook on the pope, you can now use it to skip the requirements for binding with Rome. Though the pope will not like that.
It goes without saying that if you fulfill all requirements, but also have a hook, it will pick the regular outcome before the coercion one.
Zandaqa can now have their pledge of submission rejected by the Caliph
Pledging submission to a caliph will send out an actual in-game letter rather than instantly consulting the AI upon selecting the option. If you enjoy playing as a Caliph in multiplayer mode, look forward to deciding the fate of the Zandaqa players for yourself.
Alright, that is everything Ive got to show for now. I hope that weve managed to excite you for whats coming in the immediate future for Crusader Kings. Let us know your thoughts below!
[ 2022-11-22 13:30:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #110 - A Study in Black
The story of Paradox Development Studio goes back more than a quarter of a century - a pretty incredible feat in itself and a testament to the sheer talent, passion and motivation of the people working here. As weve added more games and grown the studio over the years, there came a point where we wanted to get the studio closer to to our games again, and at the end of 2020 PDS was divided into three sub-studios: Green (Stellaris), Gold (Hearts of Iron) and Red (Crusader Kings & Victoria). At this point, our friends at Europa Universalis had already set sail to warmer latitudes and set up Tinto in Spain. As Victoria III was ramping up their efforts (and a big shout-out and CONGRATULATIONS is in order - the release is happening TODAY steamhappy), it was time to build a castle of our own, hence studio Black was born on February 14th (Im sure you can figure out why I chose this date).
Random quotes, part 2
Having the right people in the right place is of course paramount to any kind of development - in our case, that means we rely on our Programmers, Designers, Artists, QA Testers and Producers to bring our game to life, with the help of central support from Audio, Engine Team, User Research, Marketing and many other departments. Building a studio around an existing development team is quite a luxury - most often, you would start from scratch; with limited funding, resources and just a great dream (and hopefully a team) to carry you forward. In our case, it was rather the other way around (great game & team = check!), which means we can focus more on filling skill gaps and making sure we have a good support structure in place.
Random quotes, part 3
You might think that with the roots firmly planted in the dynasty of PDS, we all share the same culture DNA? Youd be wrong. Something I discovered back in the day (moving from the EU4 team to the CK2 team at the time), was how some subtle, yet noticeable, parts of the team culture seemed to stem from a very central core. This theory was confirmed as I stepped away to the realm of Stellaris for a while; the essence of the project team culture was as firmly rooted around Jeff and other shared moments as CK ever was around keeping it in the family. However quirky and meme-friendly each game teams culture might be, there are also some very noticeable similarities that confirms what Paradox is very much about, when it boils down to it: Helpful, Curious & Nerdy (in that Hey, Im really into cross-stitching medieval tapestry, want to know more? kind of way).
Random quotes, part 4
So where are we headed as a studio, you might ask? Well, we are all here to keep the legacy of Crusader Kings alive and well. We have an amazing game at the earlier stage of its lifespan, and a team of highly creative and skilled people to help realize the incredible potential of CK3. I wont pretend that 2 years of pandemic havent had an impact on our work, but we are truly committed to keep making releases for CK3 that we are proud of - and that we hope you will find hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of enjoyment from, for many years to come! Thats it for today folks, next time well have some more game specific updates for you all!
A part of our team, having a royal blast at this year's PDXCON!
[ 2022-10-25 12:43:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
A few weeks ago we shared our floor plan for the future, and this week Id like to give you some tidbits from the studio itself. I will tell you a bit about the history of our studio and what we are about - interlaced with random quotes from the team collected throughout the year (courtesy of Wokeg - I think they paint a pretty accurate picture of the minds in our midst).
So if you are eagerly awaiting updates on whats coming for the actual game, Im afraid you will have to wait a little longer.
Read more about Dev Diary #110 on our forums!
Firstly though, a brief introduction might be in order since I am very much a behind the scenes kind of character (and you will rarely catch me writing diaries):
I was the Lead Producer on Crusader Kings III (until after its release in 2020). Having then spent some time with the space faring folks over in the Stellaris studio, I rejoined the CK3 team at the start of this year to create Studio Black - home of Crusader Kings - as the Studio Manager. And here we are.
Random quotes, part 1
PDS - A Tale of Studios
The story of Paradox Development Studio goes back more than a quarter of a century - a pretty incredible feat in itself and a testament to the sheer talent, passion and motivation of the people working here. As weve added more games and grown the studio over the years, there came a point where we wanted to get the studio closer to to our games again, and at the end of 2020 PDS was divided into three sub-studios: Green (Stellaris), Gold (Hearts of Iron) and Red (Crusader Kings & Victoria). At this point, our friends at Europa Universalis had already set sail to warmer latitudes and set up Tinto in Spain. As Victoria III was ramping up their efforts (and a big shout-out and CONGRATULATIONS is in order - the release is happening TODAY steamhappy), it was time to build a castle of our own, hence studio Black was born on February 14th (Im sure you can figure out why I chose this date).
Random quotes, part 2
Court Positions
Having the right people in the right place is of course paramount to any kind of development - in our case, that means we rely on our Programmers, Designers, Artists, QA Testers and Producers to bring our game to life, with the help of central support from Audio, Engine Team, User Research, Marketing and many other departments. Building a studio around an existing development team is quite a luxury - most often, you would start from scratch; with limited funding, resources and just a great dream (and hopefully a team) to carry you forward. In our case, it was rather the other way around (great game & team = check!), which means we can focus more on filling skill gaps and making sure we have a good support structure in place.
Random quotes, part 3
Character DNA
You might think that with the roots firmly planted in the dynasty of PDS, we all share the same culture DNA? Youd be wrong. Something I discovered back in the day (moving from the EU4 team to the CK2 team at the time), was how some subtle, yet noticeable, parts of the team culture seemed to stem from a very central core. This theory was confirmed as I stepped away to the realm of Stellaris for a while; the essence of the project team culture was as firmly rooted around Jeff and other shared moments as CK ever was around keeping it in the family. However quirky and meme-friendly each game teams culture might be, there are also some very noticeable similarities that confirms what Paradox is very much about, when it boils down to it: Helpful, Curious & Nerdy (in that Hey, Im really into cross-stitching medieval tapestry, want to know more? kind of way).
Random quotes, part 4
Keeping the Legacy
So where are we headed as a studio, you might ask? Well, we are all here to keep the legacy of Crusader Kings alive and well. We have an amazing game at the earlier stage of its lifespan, and a team of highly creative and skilled people to help realize the incredible potential of CK3. I wont pretend that 2 years of pandemic havent had an impact on our work, but we are truly committed to keep making releases for CK3 that we are proud of - and that we hope you will find hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of enjoyment from, for many years to come! Thats it for today folks, next time well have some more game specific updates for you all!
A part of our team, having a royal blast at this year's PDXCON!
[ 2022-10-25 12:43:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #109 - Floor Plan for the Future
As a project, we aspire to have a cadence of roughly four releases per year, not including post-release support in the form of patches or hotfixes. During this year weve released Royal Court, Fate of Iberia, Friends & Foes, and as mentioned previously were aiming to have a free update out before the year is over. We want to have a steady stream of new content, while also maintaining the game by acting on feedback. For next year, our ambition is to have somewhere around four updates (barring unforeseen circumstances). Going even further (long-term) we have the ambition to shorten our cycles, so we can get more content and updates out. The project is (by Paradox Development Studio standards) still young, and has a long future ahead of it. Theres so much to do, and so many ideas still to explore. Though as I mentioned this is an ambition and not a promise - it might be complicated to get everything in place, but rest assured that were always evaluating what we can do to achieve this. Of course, were also watching initiatives that other studios are driving, such as the Stellaris Custodian Initiative, with interest. While were not organized in a way where we could adopt a similar structure today, its something thats worth investigating - again, this is a long-term thing, and its very possible that we would find another setup that works better for Crusader Kings. For next year we want to do something similar to Royal Edition again, an Expansion Pass with a bundle of intriguing content. One drawback of the Royal Edition was the fact that the main beat, the Major Expansion, came later in the cycle. For the next one, we want to either start off the cycle with the Major Expansion, or make it obvious what the theme is going to be from the start. This should make it much clearer what youre actually getting in the package as a whole. Were also exploring what formats and formulas of expansions could make up a future Expansion Pass, as the 1 Expansion, 2 Flavor Pack formula is not set in stone. In addition to this, we also aim to do experiments now and then. For this year, the experiment was Friends & Foes; a smaller content format that was born out of the minds of the team. Were looking into a few different experiments for the future, which I can unfortunately not share right now. Though something we can share is that were looking into more community involvement.
As Ive mentioned before, its too early to reveal the theme. However, the next Expansion is leaning towards the roleplaying side of the game. Without revealing too much were focusing in large parts on reinforcing the connection between map and character. The theme is not one that has been the subject of an expansion in previous iterations of CK - to make things extra clear; were not doing trade, imperial/byzantine mechanics, nomads, or similar this time. That said, I know that many of you are also hungry for more systemic expansions, and thats understandable! Of course, the next Expansion isnt devoid of systemic changes or mechanics just because its leaning heavily towards roleplaying. CK, like all GSGs, requires systemic content to remain true to what they are. There will be plenty of systems, both as part of the Expansion and the free update that comes along with it. For Flavor Packs were also going to aim to have systemic content as part of the formula - Fate of Iberia proved that a combination of flavor (events, clothes, illustrations, etc.) and a central systemic feature (the struggle) served to elevate the experience as a whole. As of now, we have a team of designers that is unlike anything weve had before - its not only a large team, but theyre also highly skilled and competent. This, in part, is why weve chosen to do an Expansion focusing on the roleplaying side of things, and its also the reason why we had the capacity to do the Friends & Foes experiment. My aspiration is to shift focus towards more systems-heavy expansions after the next one, and were gearing up the team to be able to do just that. Im of the opinion that there must be balance, and as well have had two roleplay-focused expansions in a row, by then itll be time for the scales to shift towards the systemic side. Weve expanded our team of programmers significantly, so the future looks bright for those of you that crave new and exciting systemic content
Now, there are a lot of areas that I want to explore in the future! Please note that anything I write or list here is not in any way chronological, and theyre not explicit promises. Great ideas come along at any moment, from any direction, and we want to stay flexible with our plans. The current formats of Major Expansions, Flavor Packs, and Event Packs I believe let us cover every style of content we want to do, and we intend to keep these formats (while maybe tweaking the formulas a little bit here and there!).
Starting off with Flavor Packs; the regional focus is great and allows us to deep-dive into the history of a particular area - but as fun as it is to hit the books on a specific region, its possible that well also be looking into non-regional Flavor Pack variants. Anything can be possible as long as theres a central system where flavor can be woven in. That said, at least the next Flavor pack is likely to remain regional in nature. A long-term goal is to revitalize and create diverse and varied gameplay throughout the map. Something we want to do is to explore regions outside of Europe, as both of our Flavor Packs so far have been within the region. We want to show how much fascinating history and intriguing gameplay can be found around the world. Examples with a lot of surprisingly deep history include regions such as Tibet, Persia, the Caucasus, and North Africa, to name only a few. Of course, in due time we also want to explore regions within Europe that are very popular for players, some examples including Britain, France, and the West/East Slavic lands. Its likely that well alternate a bit, especially if someone on the team is extra passionate about a theme. Also one final thing; a lot of you are asking for a Byzantine Flavor Pack, but I know for a fact that the scope of a Flavor Pack wouldnt sate your ravenous hunger for East Roman content when we eventually get to them, itd more than likely be as the part of a Major Expansion! As for non-regional, there are some ideas floating around; further exploring governments such as the Tribal Government, or building flavorful systems around for example Epidemics (which is a system that would, foundationally, be free if/when we make it), etc. A benefit that this format would have is that wed be able to make systems that dont fit the larger theme of a Major Expansion, but that we still feel would be great for the game. Just to reiterate; dont take anything I say here as a statement that were doing one of these themes right now!
There are already years worth of ideas for what we could do for Expansions. Ill go through a handful of the areas Id like to explore in the future, focusing on some of the topics commonly seen around the community. Note that these are not necessarily standalone Expansion themes, some might be combined, others divided. While there are some themes that I think are more important than others, theres really no saying what well look at first or in what order.
Trade & Merchant Republics is something I hear a lot about - and its something that I really want to get to in time. However, I found the CK2 implementation in The Republic to be incredibly lackluster; in a game with thousands of interesting starts, it added only a handful more, and it didnt actually have that much to do with trade. For CK3 my vision would be different - medieval rulers didnt trade, per se, and noble rulers didnt regularly barter resources with each other, so while thats not a thing Id want, there are a lot of interactions that could be added around trade and the people who did the trading. A system for CK3 would be character-driven, and theres definitely an opportunity for new playstyles that arent as limited as the ones in CK2 Imperial Mechanics, especially in relation to the Byzantine Empire, is another common topic. Empires are generally not very exciting, essentially having the same mechanics as a king does. I believe that theres an opportunity not only for emperors, but to be part of an empire. In many cases, such as in Byzantium, the Abbasids, or even the HRE, being a part of the empire should be as interesting as ruling it. There are many ways of going about this, but ideally, Id want to get a lot of differences in there - no two empires were ever really the same, after all. Laws were another system that was lackluster at best in CK2. While they allowed a degree of customization and mechanical impact, the implementation was static and fairly uninspired. Conceptually laws were a huge part of being a ruler and being part of a realm, and while we do have vassal contracts (which Id like to revise at some point, too) theres room for more. For CK3, a law system would be deeply driven by characters, rather than confined to a static setup. Dynamism and evolution would be two keywords for the vision here. Religion in CK3 took a great step up from previous iterations, but theres always more we can do. There are a plethora of ideas floating around, and as religion was such a common part of everyones lives by this point in history, its hardly surprising. Its hard to nail down exactly what Id like to do here as theres just so much, but CK3 is uniquely suited to simulate all the drama that happened between everyone involved within the sphere of faith, be they Pope, Grandmaster, or simply an influential ruler. Theres also a lot of potential around crusades, and all the happenings before, during, and after them. Id also really like to get faith to play a larger part in the everyday lives of rulers, as its much too easy to ignore as it stands. Nomads are just one part of the whole; the Steppe. This region is unique, and weve never done it real justice. In CK2 every ruler on the Steppe was a Genghis-in-the-making, with little focus beyond war. In reality, the Steppe was like an ocean - and the nomads were the only ones who had mastered it. Id like to make the Steppe as a region stand out with mechanics of its own, and Id like a large part of nomadic life to be about moving, focusing on the dynamism of the place and the people within. The Late Game is another area that Im very interested in expanding, as the game currently plays very similar across the entire timeline. Sure, there are some differences, primarily in how easy it is to rule, and how much youre able to claim in wars, but the differences could be more fundamental. This is one of those topics where there are a million things we could do, but an ambition I have is that the game should stay interesting for longer than is currently the average play session (around 200 years or so). Looking at Eras and their effects on the game is one venue, so is taking a look at holdings, economy, and other fundamental components of the game. I think its quite obvious that I eventually want to Expand the Map, to include the rest of the Old World. If wed do it all at once or in segments is still up in the air, but regardless of what approach we take, its imperative that the area feels different to play in from the western half. While its obvious that the area would require a lot of unique art, Id also want it to work differently from a mechanical standpoint - governments, faiths, etc. Its an ambitious goal, but one I wish to tackle eventually.
An incredibly rough floor plan for the future.
Of course, there are also areas of the game that I want to revisit, rework, rebalance, or expand in general - its not all about expansions or flavor, existing systems, and core loops must be revisited now and then to keep the game in a good state. Of course, this would be done in free updates, either free-standing or as part of a bigger release. Here are some of the things that Id like to get to within a reasonable timeline, some more important than others. This is not an exhaustive list. Alliances are too binary as they stand, while its true that its easy to understand how they work, it also results in a lot of unwanted busywork when you have to fight in wars youve no interest in (or you have to take a big prestige hit) - at the same time, its much too easy to get a lot of allies that, at a moments notice, are ready to drop everything in order to help in your wars. Id like to see a pact-based system where you have to negotiate more, without making it annoying to find and get the alliances you need. You should, for example, never be fooled into a marriage hoping to get an offensive alliance, where it turns out you simply cant. Exactly how/what wed do is still in the works, but its high up on my list. Clans do not feel unique enough, while they have some mechanics that simulate the spheres tendency for spectacular rises & falls, theres more we can do to show the differences from Feudal. Id like to explore what made Clan realms so different historically and draw upon that for a more flavorful set of differing mechanics. I definitely also want to make the Clan, as in the group of people, matter more in the government bearing its namesake. Warfare is not and never will be a primary focus for CK3, that said its not as character-driven as it could be, outside of commander advantage and the occasional great knight. Theres also a real problem with delivering content (usually in the form of events) during times of war, as the player more often than not gets interrupted by something appearing in the middle of the screen while maneuvering units. Id eventually like for us to be able to deliver content in a way that doesnt interrupt warfare, and use that system to highlight characters and heroic acts (Battle of Agincourt, anyone?). Id also like to rework the major annoyances of warfare, such as supply. Modifier Stacking is becoming an issue in some places, especially for Men-at-Arms modifiers (primarily from buildings) and Building Cost Reduction modifiers. While some issues can be solved by tweaking numbers (weve for example reduced prestige sources in the past) others require a redesign/revisit of the underlying problem. For example, Id like to take a long, hard look at MaA modifiers, seeing as the player can very easily destroy AI armies with little work. Id like to not only rebalance the sources of MaA boons but potentially also create new options for fun management. AI is an enigmatic beast, with aspects that are incredibly diverse. One of them is warfare AI, where Crusades stand out as an area in need of improvement - on one hand, historical crusades were incredibly disorganized, but on the other, we dont want the player to feel like theyre hopeless endeavors. No matter what we decide to do, well have to strike a balance - if the AI played perfectly optimally, crusades would steamroll everything, and I dont want that. There are of course other aspects of the AI where I want to see improvements, such as the marriage AI, but weve at least made some good strides with the economical AI over the last few updates, so thats not a priority. We eventually want personalities to shine through every aspect of the AI, and we have some plans for that, which will likely come in steps.
As I touched upon earlier, wed like to invite you in the community to take part in some of the things were doing in the not-too-distant future - my guess would be within Q1 of next year (though still TBD). Without spoiling too much itd have something to do with the content well be making While not directly related to the game, an (at least if you ask me) incredibly cool initiative that well be driving is to have more collaborations with historical media - this goes hand-in-hand with what I mentioned early on in this diary, regarding us wanting to show how medieval life actually was! This means that youll be seeing even more podcasts, videos, etc., about themes close to the game. Who knows, we might even get historians or professors to be guests or consult for our upcoming content. For those of you playing on console there will be a post later this week, answering some of the questions you have. Thats it for now! I invite you all to discuss what you see here - share your thoughts about the themes, ideas for what youd like to see, suggestions on how things could be done, and so on!
[ 2022-10-04 12:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
A long time in the making, this diary is dedicated to plans, and what we have in store for CK3. From more present matters to musings and thoughts ranging into the far future. Crusader Kings is a unique game series, and one that has been close to my heart for a long time - the focus on characters as the driving force, emergent narratives, and player freedom make it truly stand out.
Read our Dev Diary #109 - Floor Plan for the Future!
Ever since I took the reins of the project Ive continued to follow the original vision, which some of you might remember from the very first Dev Diary: Character Focus, Player Freedom and Progression, Player Stories, and Approachability. As you can see, the points correspond fairly well with my initial sentiment, and I do not intend to deviate too far from these points - that said there are always things we can do better or differently within them, and I think that we could do even more to, for example, improve the cohesion of player stories or the sense of progression. I am a firm believer in that everything in the game should help you in making stories (while not necessarily being explicitly connected).
Internally weve always worked with the premise Live the life of a Medieval Ruler, which means that we want the game to be uniquely true to how life was during the period. We want to attribute more than just death, suffering, and war to the era we portray. Highlighting things that you might not see elsewhere, such as family, or the challenges of rulership, is important to us. Going forward this will remain a priority, though it is important to note that we do exaggerate and romanticize a lot - it is a game after all!
This all leads me to the next point; what are we doing?
As a project, we aspire to have a cadence of roughly four releases per year, not including post-release support in the form of patches or hotfixes. During this year weve released Royal Court, Fate of Iberia, Friends & Foes, and as mentioned previously were aiming to have a free update out before the year is over. We want to have a steady stream of new content, while also maintaining the game by acting on feedback. For next year, our ambition is to have somewhere around four updates (barring unforeseen circumstances). Going even further (long-term) we have the ambition to shorten our cycles, so we can get more content and updates out. The project is (by Paradox Development Studio standards) still young, and has a long future ahead of it. Theres so much to do, and so many ideas still to explore. Though as I mentioned this is an ambition and not a promise - it might be complicated to get everything in place, but rest assured that were always evaluating what we can do to achieve this. Of course, were also watching initiatives that other studios are driving, such as the Stellaris Custodian Initiative, with interest. While were not organized in a way where we could adopt a similar structure today, its something thats worth investigating - again, this is a long-term thing, and its very possible that we would find another setup that works better for Crusader Kings. For next year we want to do something similar to Royal Edition again, an Expansion Pass with a bundle of intriguing content. One drawback of the Royal Edition was the fact that the main beat, the Major Expansion, came later in the cycle. For the next one, we want to either start off the cycle with the Major Expansion, or make it obvious what the theme is going to be from the start. This should make it much clearer what youre actually getting in the package as a whole. Were also exploring what formats and formulas of expansions could make up a future Expansion Pass, as the 1 Expansion, 2 Flavor Pack formula is not set in stone. In addition to this, we also aim to do experiments now and then. For this year, the experiment was Friends & Foes; a smaller content format that was born out of the minds of the team. Were looking into a few different experiments for the future, which I can unfortunately not share right now. Though something we can share is that were looking into more community involvement.
But what are we doing? Whats the next Expansion about?
As Ive mentioned before, its too early to reveal the theme. However, the next Expansion is leaning towards the roleplaying side of the game. Without revealing too much were focusing in large parts on reinforcing the connection between map and character. The theme is not one that has been the subject of an expansion in previous iterations of CK - to make things extra clear; were not doing trade, imperial/byzantine mechanics, nomads, or similar this time. That said, I know that many of you are also hungry for more systemic expansions, and thats understandable! Of course, the next Expansion isnt devoid of systemic changes or mechanics just because its leaning heavily towards roleplaying. CK, like all GSGs, requires systemic content to remain true to what they are. There will be plenty of systems, both as part of the Expansion and the free update that comes along with it. For Flavor Packs were also going to aim to have systemic content as part of the formula - Fate of Iberia proved that a combination of flavor (events, clothes, illustrations, etc.) and a central systemic feature (the struggle) served to elevate the experience as a whole. As of now, we have a team of designers that is unlike anything weve had before - its not only a large team, but theyre also highly skilled and competent. This, in part, is why weve chosen to do an Expansion focusing on the roleplaying side of things, and its also the reason why we had the capacity to do the Friends & Foes experiment. My aspiration is to shift focus towards more systems-heavy expansions after the next one, and were gearing up the team to be able to do just that. Im of the opinion that there must be balance, and as well have had two roleplay-focused expansions in a row, by then itll be time for the scales to shift towards the systemic side. Weve expanded our team of programmers significantly, so the future looks bright for those of you that crave new and exciting systemic content
Looking toward the future, what will we be doing over the coming years?
Now, there are a lot of areas that I want to explore in the future! Please note that anything I write or list here is not in any way chronological, and theyre not explicit promises. Great ideas come along at any moment, from any direction, and we want to stay flexible with our plans. The current formats of Major Expansions, Flavor Packs, and Event Packs I believe let us cover every style of content we want to do, and we intend to keep these formats (while maybe tweaking the formulas a little bit here and there!).
Flavor Themes
Starting off with Flavor Packs; the regional focus is great and allows us to deep-dive into the history of a particular area - but as fun as it is to hit the books on a specific region, its possible that well also be looking into non-regional Flavor Pack variants. Anything can be possible as long as theres a central system where flavor can be woven in. That said, at least the next Flavor pack is likely to remain regional in nature. A long-term goal is to revitalize and create diverse and varied gameplay throughout the map. Something we want to do is to explore regions outside of Europe, as both of our Flavor Packs so far have been within the region. We want to show how much fascinating history and intriguing gameplay can be found around the world. Examples with a lot of surprisingly deep history include regions such as Tibet, Persia, the Caucasus, and North Africa, to name only a few. Of course, in due time we also want to explore regions within Europe that are very popular for players, some examples including Britain, France, and the West/East Slavic lands. Its likely that well alternate a bit, especially if someone on the team is extra passionate about a theme. Also one final thing; a lot of you are asking for a Byzantine Flavor Pack, but I know for a fact that the scope of a Flavor Pack wouldnt sate your ravenous hunger for East Roman content when we eventually get to them, itd more than likely be as the part of a Major Expansion! As for non-regional, there are some ideas floating around; further exploring governments such as the Tribal Government, or building flavorful systems around for example Epidemics (which is a system that would, foundationally, be free if/when we make it), etc. A benefit that this format would have is that wed be able to make systems that dont fit the larger theme of a Major Expansion, but that we still feel would be great for the game. Just to reiterate; dont take anything I say here as a statement that were doing one of these themes right now!
Ambitions for Expansions
There are already years worth of ideas for what we could do for Expansions. Ill go through a handful of the areas Id like to explore in the future, focusing on some of the topics commonly seen around the community. Note that these are not necessarily standalone Expansion themes, some might be combined, others divided. While there are some themes that I think are more important than others, theres really no saying what well look at first or in what order.
Trade & Merchant Republics is something I hear a lot about - and its something that I really want to get to in time. However, I found the CK2 implementation in The Republic to be incredibly lackluster; in a game with thousands of interesting starts, it added only a handful more, and it didnt actually have that much to do with trade. For CK3 my vision would be different - medieval rulers didnt trade, per se, and noble rulers didnt regularly barter resources with each other, so while thats not a thing Id want, there are a lot of interactions that could be added around trade and the people who did the trading. A system for CK3 would be character-driven, and theres definitely an opportunity for new playstyles that arent as limited as the ones in CK2 Imperial Mechanics, especially in relation to the Byzantine Empire, is another common topic. Empires are generally not very exciting, essentially having the same mechanics as a king does. I believe that theres an opportunity not only for emperors, but to be part of an empire. In many cases, such as in Byzantium, the Abbasids, or even the HRE, being a part of the empire should be as interesting as ruling it. There are many ways of going about this, but ideally, Id want to get a lot of differences in there - no two empires were ever really the same, after all. Laws were another system that was lackluster at best in CK2. While they allowed a degree of customization and mechanical impact, the implementation was static and fairly uninspired. Conceptually laws were a huge part of being a ruler and being part of a realm, and while we do have vassal contracts (which Id like to revise at some point, too) theres room for more. For CK3, a law system would be deeply driven by characters, rather than confined to a static setup. Dynamism and evolution would be two keywords for the vision here. Religion in CK3 took a great step up from previous iterations, but theres always more we can do. There are a plethora of ideas floating around, and as religion was such a common part of everyones lives by this point in history, its hardly surprising. Its hard to nail down exactly what Id like to do here as theres just so much, but CK3 is uniquely suited to simulate all the drama that happened between everyone involved within the sphere of faith, be they Pope, Grandmaster, or simply an influential ruler. Theres also a lot of potential around crusades, and all the happenings before, during, and after them. Id also really like to get faith to play a larger part in the everyday lives of rulers, as its much too easy to ignore as it stands. Nomads are just one part of the whole; the Steppe. This region is unique, and weve never done it real justice. In CK2 every ruler on the Steppe was a Genghis-in-the-making, with little focus beyond war. In reality, the Steppe was like an ocean - and the nomads were the only ones who had mastered it. Id like to make the Steppe as a region stand out with mechanics of its own, and Id like a large part of nomadic life to be about moving, focusing on the dynamism of the place and the people within. The Late Game is another area that Im very interested in expanding, as the game currently plays very similar across the entire timeline. Sure, there are some differences, primarily in how easy it is to rule, and how much youre able to claim in wars, but the differences could be more fundamental. This is one of those topics where there are a million things we could do, but an ambition I have is that the game should stay interesting for longer than is currently the average play session (around 200 years or so). Looking at Eras and their effects on the game is one venue, so is taking a look at holdings, economy, and other fundamental components of the game. I think its quite obvious that I eventually want to Expand the Map, to include the rest of the Old World. If wed do it all at once or in segments is still up in the air, but regardless of what approach we take, its imperative that the area feels different to play in from the western half. While its obvious that the area would require a lot of unique art, Id also want it to work differently from a mechanical standpoint - governments, faiths, etc. Its an ambitious goal, but one I wish to tackle eventually.
An incredibly rough floor plan for the future.
General Areas
Of course, there are also areas of the game that I want to revisit, rework, rebalance, or expand in general - its not all about expansions or flavor, existing systems, and core loops must be revisited now and then to keep the game in a good state. Of course, this would be done in free updates, either free-standing or as part of a bigger release. Here are some of the things that Id like to get to within a reasonable timeline, some more important than others. This is not an exhaustive list. Alliances are too binary as they stand, while its true that its easy to understand how they work, it also results in a lot of unwanted busywork when you have to fight in wars youve no interest in (or you have to take a big prestige hit) - at the same time, its much too easy to get a lot of allies that, at a moments notice, are ready to drop everything in order to help in your wars. Id like to see a pact-based system where you have to negotiate more, without making it annoying to find and get the alliances you need. You should, for example, never be fooled into a marriage hoping to get an offensive alliance, where it turns out you simply cant. Exactly how/what wed do is still in the works, but its high up on my list. Clans do not feel unique enough, while they have some mechanics that simulate the spheres tendency for spectacular rises & falls, theres more we can do to show the differences from Feudal. Id like to explore what made Clan realms so different historically and draw upon that for a more flavorful set of differing mechanics. I definitely also want to make the Clan, as in the group of people, matter more in the government bearing its namesake. Warfare is not and never will be a primary focus for CK3, that said its not as character-driven as it could be, outside of commander advantage and the occasional great knight. Theres also a real problem with delivering content (usually in the form of events) during times of war, as the player more often than not gets interrupted by something appearing in the middle of the screen while maneuvering units. Id eventually like for us to be able to deliver content in a way that doesnt interrupt warfare, and use that system to highlight characters and heroic acts (Battle of Agincourt, anyone?). Id also like to rework the major annoyances of warfare, such as supply. Modifier Stacking is becoming an issue in some places, especially for Men-at-Arms modifiers (primarily from buildings) and Building Cost Reduction modifiers. While some issues can be solved by tweaking numbers (weve for example reduced prestige sources in the past) others require a redesign/revisit of the underlying problem. For example, Id like to take a long, hard look at MaA modifiers, seeing as the player can very easily destroy AI armies with little work. Id like to not only rebalance the sources of MaA boons but potentially also create new options for fun management. AI is an enigmatic beast, with aspects that are incredibly diverse. One of them is warfare AI, where Crusades stand out as an area in need of improvement - on one hand, historical crusades were incredibly disorganized, but on the other, we dont want the player to feel like theyre hopeless endeavors. No matter what we decide to do, well have to strike a balance - if the AI played perfectly optimally, crusades would steamroll everything, and I dont want that. There are of course other aspects of the AI where I want to see improvements, such as the marriage AI, but weve at least made some good strides with the economical AI over the last few updates, so thats not a priority. We eventually want personalities to shine through every aspect of the AI, and we have some plans for that, which will likely come in steps.
Community & History
As I touched upon earlier, wed like to invite you in the community to take part in some of the things were doing in the not-too-distant future - my guess would be within Q1 of next year (though still TBD). Without spoiling too much itd have something to do with the content well be making While not directly related to the game, an (at least if you ask me) incredibly cool initiative that well be driving is to have more collaborations with historical media - this goes hand-in-hand with what I mentioned early on in this diary, regarding us wanting to show how medieval life actually was! This means that youll be seeing even more podcasts, videos, etc., about themes close to the game. Who knows, we might even get historians or professors to be guests or consult for our upcoming content. For those of you playing on console there will be a post later this week, answering some of the questions you have. Thats it for now! I invite you all to discuss what you see here - share your thoughts about the themes, ideas for what youd like to see, suggestions on how things could be done, and so on!
[ 2022-10-04 12:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.7.2] Live Now!
[ 2022-09-29 11:54:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Howdy all!
Today we are releasing a Minor Update to the game to help with stability and performance. While this is not a major Update and should not affect saved games, we always recommend that you make sure you have a fresh game ready to go with a new version.
Discuss this update on our forums!
As stated, this is a relatively small Update, but also full of highly impactful changes reported by you in the Community! Here is the Changelog:
- Fix offer vassalization being slow if you had too many neighbors and vassals due to evaluating opinion too many times too slowly.
- Fix Out-Of-Sync issue
- Fix AI feud seduction targeting wrong spouse
[ 2022-09-29 11:54:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #108: Dev Diary Scheduling & Community Activities
Discord: Chat with your fellow Community members, staff members, Modders, and other Content Creators. Also a perfect place if you want tips or a game to join! Twitch: We stream weekly and go through all the latest and greatest content that we have. This is also a great place to chat with others and ask questions of our team. YouTube: If you havent happened to catch our Streams or just want to see a collection of all our videos, this is your one stop shop for all Crusader Kings III official videos. Twitter: Our latest and greatest spot for news and interaction with our Community. We are always online, as they always say. Feel free to follow us and see what we have going on from day to day. Facebook: Just a nice relaxed place to hang out and socialize with our Community and see what everyone is up to. Reddit: If Facebook isnt your speed, we also have a great resource in Reddit for conversations and more detailed threads regarding the game and any questions you might possibly have. Steam Workshop: While we do not control the content of Steam Workshop, it does contain a great number of highly interesting and resourceful Mods from our Community and has a ton of troubleshooting and technical information.
[ 2022-09-20 12:33:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Its been (almost) two weeks since the release of Friends & Foes, and the sheer amount of reactions and feedback to it and the accompanying Bastion Update has been fantastic to see! From the many emergent stories that have been posted around the Internet (one about a peasant crush ascending to the position of councilor and subsequently being murdered by a noble out of spite comes to mind) to the impressive screenshots of vast Mongol Empires and powerful AI realms - its great to see how many of you returned to the game and think that it got a breath of new life. In fact, despite the smaller size of this update, more of you came back to the game and ran a longer campaign than ever before!
Read more about Dev Diary #108 on our forums!
Of course, if youre experiencing any issues, pop over to the Bug Forums and report them: Link
As of the newly released 1.7.1, weve concluded the planned updates for this release, though if something significant appears, well look into fixing it before the next update.
As for the future, were hard at work on upcoming content, and weve been for quite some time. Previously weve explained that we run our projects in parallel - what were working on in the Stockholm studio has been in the works since before Friends & Foes (but its bound to take some time yet, do not expect anything too soon). Our sister studio in Thalassic is also hard at work heading up the work on upcoming content and updates, this too in parallel with work in Stockholm. While we can say that Friends & Foes was the last paid content of the year, were hoping to have another smaller free update out before the year is over (no ETA for now). Additional clues about what were working on might appear over the next few months
A change we want to make going forward is to be more transparent with our Dev Diary schedule. We dont want to post so-called filler Dev Diaries, and with the cycles being longer between updates we instead want to use this time for other kinds of activities with the community. For the sake of full transparency, for smaller updates (such as free patches or event packs) well have at most two Dev Diaries. For larger updates (such as Flavor Packs) well have around four, while Expansions will have roughly 2-4 months' worth of Dev Diaries.
So what will we do instead? A variety of things - we might have Discord AMAs, hangout streams with Devs, or sometimes we might post a Dev Diary about something not related to an update - for example, about how we work or plans we have for the future.
If you want to partake in some of this, heres where you can find us:
Discord: Chat with your fellow Community members, staff members, Modders, and other Content Creators. Also a perfect place if you want tips or a game to join! Twitch: We stream weekly and go through all the latest and greatest content that we have. This is also a great place to chat with others and ask questions of our team. YouTube: If you havent happened to catch our Streams or just want to see a collection of all our videos, this is your one stop shop for all Crusader Kings III official videos. Twitter: Our latest and greatest spot for news and interaction with our Community. We are always online, as they always say. Feel free to follow us and see what we have going on from day to day. Facebook: Just a nice relaxed place to hang out and socialize with our Community and see what everyone is up to. Reddit: If Facebook isnt your speed, we also have a great resource in Reddit for conversations and more detailed threads regarding the game and any questions you might possibly have. Steam Workshop: While we do not control the content of Steam Workshop, it does contain a great number of highly interesting and resourceful Mods from our Community and has a ton of troubleshooting and technical information.
[ 2022-09-20 12:33:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.7.1] CK3 Live now!
[ 2022-09-15 13:18:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we have released Update 1.7.1 which includes a lot of changes to issues that you have been reporting and a few that we found on our own!
Discuss this update on our forums!
1.7.1 CHANGELOG
AI
- AI can no longer hire and fire court position in the same decision cycle, this should fix the issue where AIs could end up in massive prestige deficits
Balance
- Slightly relaxed requirements for Reviving Taltoism to make it not entirely impossible in 1066
- Crusade Targeting - Fixed so that Crusades check for current military strength when excluding target kingdoms instead of max military strength
- Crusade Targeting - Completely rebalanced Crusade Kingdom Selection; while Jerusalem will still be the most attractive target (for Christians), there will now be much more variation in targets and a faith will tend to defend what is assigned to be their Heartlands to a much greater degree
- Crusade Targeting - Distance is now a much greater factor when determining a crusade target
- Crusade Targeting - Catholic Crusades are now much less likely to select a kingdom in the African interior, and slightly less likely to pick a north African kingdom (if the Holy Land is taken, we want the crusades to focus on going deeper into the middle east rather than to die from attrition in the Sahara)
Bugfix
- Crusade Targeting - Fixed so that Crusades cannot target an area below 5 counties in size
- AI House members in Feuds will now be much more likely to start schemes against their enemies
- Characters will now be more reluctant to allow Feud enemies to raise their children
- Characters will now be more likely to join schemes against Feud house members
- Added explanation of score tooltip when ending a Feud
- Feuds can now only be started against Houses with at least 5 adult members and with Heads within one title tier of your own
- Added 25 year cooldown between Feuds
- Reduced frequency of Feud start events
- Added explanation of Feud reward modifiers to encyclopedia entry
- Fixed Feuds starting from murders where the murderer is still a secret
- Fixed an issue where Unpredictable Economical AI's didn't build enough new holdings
- Handle dead/alive for memories more consistently
- Fixed an issue where Cautious Economical AI's weren't cautious enough in the early stages of the game
- Fixed yearly.9110 missing an equals sign, also adjusted down dynasty prestige
- Fixed a missing equals sign in the Loyalty trait definition
- Fixed bp1_yearly.5704 missing an is_adult check
- Fixed pilgrimage.6007 so it does not fire for blind characters
- Fixed issue where Feud scale tip tooltips would be repeated
- Added additional missing checks for the A Man in Our Bed event
- Fixed missing adult and other checks in the A Man in Our Bed event
- Fixed Guanche Vaulter Infantry leaping across the world as mercenaries
- Fixed rivals not being less likely to accept alliance proposals
- Fixed Vengeance event firing alongside At My Mercy for Norse characters who captured a rival in battle
- Fixed incorrectly displayed/repeating Coat of Arms during longer sessions
Localization
- Fixed MAX_RECURSIVE_DEPTH error in Chinese localization
- Fixed grammar of Ibn Marwan of Badajoz's bookmark character
[ 2022-09-15 13:18:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III Minor Update - Post 1.7
[ 2022-09-12 14:26:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have released a minor update addressing an issue affecting certain processors after the 1.7 "Bastion" Update. This fix was considered high priority, so it is being released ahead of a broader update we will be releasing in the near future.
- CK3 - Stability - Game doesn't launch when starting the game on an older CPU (non-AVX)
[ 2022-09-12 14:26:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes is now available!
Family, friends, and those out for your blood are fully brought to life in this rich and stirring event pack.
Know thy past to understand the present.
[ 2022-09-08 12:13:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Beware, ruler - tread carefully with those you call friend or enemy; they are two sides of the same coin. Your relationships matter more than ever, and with Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes, witness those closest to you come alive in the most intimate detail. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2114760/Crusader_Kings_III_Friends__Foes/ Over one hundred unique new experiences of medieval larger-than-life drama wait to be discovered in the new event pack. From rival noble houses holding lifelong grudges to childhood bullies, summer crushes, and spoiling spouses with lavish gifts. Your rulers everyday existence has never been more fraught - or more exciting - than with Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes.
False Friends and Open Enemies
Family, friends, and those out for your blood are fully brought to life in this rich and stirring event pack.
- Your rulers day-to-day is filled with a myriad of new events. Experience over one hundred player-driven stories involving childhood, memories, nemeses, wrangling unruly sons, or wooing your significant other with sumptuous attention.
- With a little help from your friends, uncover novel ways to become pals with those you hold dear or even achieve the coveted best friend status.
- Be prepared for ever more dangerous rivals, sharpening their vengeful knives to get back at you. Or pre-empt your nemesis with devious new options if you dare.
Memories, Those Sweet Memories!
Know thy past to understand the present.
- Your characters will reminisce about their personal history with those closest to them, be it a romantic getaway or the painful humiliation that is the seed of a well-nurtured murder plot.
- Childhood is a place where happy memories rest or not. Experience a characters youth in full, from brutish bullies to wistful teenage love.
- Past deeds will not be forgotten. Be watchful of the wrath of rival noble houses, plotting to right a perceived wrong, even after many generations.
[ 2022-09-08 12:13:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #107: 1.7.0 "Bastion" Update Notes
[ 2022-09-08 11:38:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Heya everyone!
This is your friendly neighborhood Tech Lead Zack. Someone made the rather unwise decision to allow me to write this dev diary for the "Bastion" update (I think everyone else was sick) and I intend to milk it as much as I can. "Bastion" goes live later today with Friends & Foes and I'm so happy to finally be able to share it with you. I'm the Tech Lead "in charge" of Friends & Foes which means that I work with the team to determine what tech ( see: code ) we can actually add to the update, that it works as it should and that we at the end of the day have a functioning build to deliver to you ( among other things, I also sit in a lot of meetings where I usually have a lot of wise and important things to say ;) ). This is the first Event Pack that we have done for CK3 so me and the team have been treading a lot of new ground, which has been very exciting, and I also think that it's the best one so far!
Read the full update on our forums!
[ 2022-09-08 11:38:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #106: A Fistful Of Friends & Foes
You should always be able to rely on your friends to support you not only in good times, but also in bad. Moreover, a true friend is one who will have difficult talks with you because they truly care about your wellbeing. Perhaps even an intervention, should the actions you take to deal with stress so completely consume your life:
Despite the name, its not just friends who come into the spotlight in this pack. Your family are an active part of your life at court. Your parents offer sage advice, your children chances to bond, and your siblings are solid confidants - when theyre not trying to take your throne for themselves, of course. Even your beloved darling spouse also has the opportunity to raise you up, praise you, and, er, ask if youd maybe consider sponsoring his mum to make you a lovely set of jewellery:
Still, trusting your mother-in-law could have its upsides. It might turn out the old girl is quite the metalsmith!
Even when youre looking after your family and all is seemingly well, intrigue is never too far away. The demands of a multiple-spouse marriage becomes a little more unique in Friends & Foes, as now you might be getting a few eyebrow-raising requests:
Every mother wants to see her son get ahead in life, so its no wonder Tamrust here is so eager to please. In my case, however, Im more interested in getting a-head in a rather different way: seeing my rival Sholah get their comeuppance would be a mighty fine way to do a deal.
Ah, Tamrust, you shouldnt have!
In the games time period, as it is today, the death of a loved one can leave the bereaved with so many conflicting feelings. Regret over lost time together, sadness at the knowledge that the departed will no longer be around, perhaps even relief at their suffering finally ending. In one of our new events, a visit from one person to their friends deathbed can go a few different ways. Perhaps you are the one bedridden, simply waiting for death. What would you desire from your friend? Or maybe you are the one visiting them, your lifelong friend, with whom you have forged so many memories and shared so much of your life with. What would you do when faced with this scene?
The possibilities here are rather wide. That third option you see is somewhat randomised and based on the bedridden persons personality. Sometimes you wont have a third option at all. Sometimes, as you can see above, you may even have to do your beloved friend the ultimate favour. Sometimes, as seen below, youll come into possession of a small gift.
Whilst seeing your friend breathe their last is desperately sad, theres also something to be said for the brutal moments when a sibling rivalry gets way out of hand. Ambition and envy drives the closest of brothers and sisters to do the most heinous of things.
This rare event may fire if your sibling doesnt like you, and happens to have a trait that might cause them to view you as dispensable in the pursuit of their wider ambitions. Of course, youre not going down without a fight; the throne is yours and as the saying goes, might does indeed make right:
The young king survives this particular attempt from their sibling, but their relationship is irreparably damaged. Suffice to say, however, much nastier outcomes could well have arisen. Luck and wits will save many a monarch, but sooner or later your wits fade and your luck runs thin
Like the glorious sprinkles on this Medieval doughnut (which were actually a thing: theres references in The Forme of Cury to honeyed fried dough Cryspels which were essentially the precursors to modern doughnuts!) we of course have some of the slightly more unusual events that you can stumble across during your rule. The subject of this DLC made for fertile grounds for such events. Interpersonal relationships are at the heart of CK3, and how you interact with others depends often on whether theyre your foe or your friend. In order for you to have a friend, of course, you must first have a person to be friends with. I know, I know, it sounds obvious, but they do say the real miracle Jesus performed was having 12 close friends in his thirties. Well, that, and also the following:
If you take your religious leaders excitement and fervour at face value, youll not just acquire a friend, but also a Delicious Face of Jesus artifact:
Of course, if you dare to doubt their obviously-correct opinion on divinely-shaped confectionery, youre dead certain to make a rival of them. Or, as you can see in the third option, theres an even more dramatic decision to be made. What price do you put on friendship versus the chance to literally eat Jesus face? Mind you, theres some things you can find that shouldnt be eaten. Bog bodies are known worldwide, but are particularly prevalent in Northwestern Europe. Such findings continue to intrigue archeologists, but I suspect finding one would be rather more of an unpleasant surprise for your average Medieval child:
This event ties nicely in with the new memory system; sometimes if someone in your realm dies in that particular county, they have a chance of turning up here! Now I wont spoil any particular outcomes to this small event chain, but naturally all is always exactly as it seems. You just found a body in a bog. These things do happen. Its perfectly normal.
Petty rivalries are an inextricable part of any Crusader Kings game. Ive been a CK player for years, and I know exactly what I - and all of you - get up to when someone wrongs you. After all, who amongst us has not exterminated an entire dynasty for the vicious crime of their grandfather once having accidentally tripped over your dog?
Thankfully, you now have the opportunity to codify your hatred for those hated dog-trippers! House Feuds are a new system that can be triggered by a wide range of sources. It could be as simple as your House Head sharing a mutual dislike of each other with another House Head and those embers sputtering into the flames of true conflict. It could be as serious as a family member of your House being killed by a member of the other House, or as complicated as the two having competing Claims. These Feuds can be inherited between generations, ebbing and flowing, each party exacting a toll from the other. These squabbles can escalate to horrific ends if all parties continue to seek revenge upon the other, and only the actions of calm heads can end it; but even then, often only once the debt has been repaid or one family has suffered so horribly under the other that they will surely never recover. I was going to give you a runthrough of some of the 31 events (remember: for us, it still only counts as one!) that comprise House Feuds, but when I was playing around with Friends and Foes this last Sunday on a post-PDXCon rest day, I happened to hit upon a perfect mini-AAR to show you to illustrate exactly how these can generate organically. You join me on the steppes of modern-day Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where I am waging a war against a neighbour to expand my territory. (A small note: I am playing with some custom gamerules including equal genders and majority-bisexual, hence why things might seem a little unusual with who is leading armies and the like. Or, if youre one of those super cool and wonderfully attractive people who also play with those rules, high five, consider your ruleset officially dev-approved)
As battle concludes, it is with no small amount of grief that I receive the news that my knight, daughter and heir Princess Sarantay has fallen in battle at the hands of the vile and base Chieftain Malyy. And we know him to be vile and base, for who else but a true monster would snatch away my daughters life from the world so cruelly? I try to put it out of my head - as much as any parent can do so with the death of their beloved child - but the flames of hatred still lick balefully at my heart. During the day it is all I can think about, and at night dreams of vengeance and retaliation poison my mind. Try as I might, I cant bring myself to move on and let Allah enact retribution: I must pursue this myself.
Now, I wont go too in-depth on what exactly transpired in the years this feud went on for. One such action involved seducing the enemy head of houses wife - a fairly impressive feat, despite how sprightly I am at 68 years old - and revealing him for the cuckold he was. This disrespect was met with bared knives, and a minor member of my dynasty was struck down from the shadows. It was an escalation I would not - could not! - ignore. House Kurgani were all too ready to unsheathe blades, but they soon found themselves on the wrong end of them. Three murders, one after the other, left them without the flower of their youth. The feud was clearly in our favour, the rival house a shadow of what they once were, and it even left me considering whether it was worth continuing. After all, Malyy was a mere chieftain, and I a mighty Khan. Surely it was time to let bygones be bygones?
Yet every time I considered it, all I could think of in my minds eye was my precious daughter. The feud would continue until the damnable Malyy was dead. I called my trustiest cutthroat and sent him on one final mission It is strange how fate works. The hired knife was drawing closer and closer still to Malyy, aided by no less than his own wife - who it seemed had grown rather fond of me, not that thats surprising - but it appeared someone else had got there first. Perhaps he had many enemies. Perhaps, even, a member of my own house had enacted their own revenge. Either way, he now lies in the cold ground.
(Another note: This event isnt actually part of the House Feud ones, but instead is part of a reworked couple of events when Best Friends or Nemeses die and can happen to anyone lucky enough to have their worst antagonist die on them. Suffice to say, that Vengeful option there does some fun stuff) The blood has been spilt, the eye has been taken for the eye. There is no longer any reason to prolong this blood feud. House Dulo has conclusively proven the dominance of our bloodline and emerges triumphant from the crucible of intra-house conflict.
Ill leave you to discover most of the rest of the peaks and troughs of the cycle of ceaseless vengeance that signify House Feuds, but I do want to leave on one particularly interesting note. Malyys son, Tyueykezhut, was grateful that the bloodshed had ended, even if House Kurgani were crushed underneath our boot heel. He didnt let go of the past, though, and the fire that once consumed my heart no doubt now consumes his; a grim reminder of how he spent his childhood raised to hate anyone who bears the name Dulo. And so the flames of open conflict die away to smouldering embers, all too ready for the right person to come along and nurse them back into a roaring crescendo once more
That will be all from me for today! Thank you very much for reading this, my very first dev diary! Friends & Foes releases this week on the 8th of September, and I hope you enjoy your time with it.
[ 2022-09-06 12:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
Nice to meet all of you! A little background on me: I am Noodle, a Game Designer on CK3. Ive been on this project since before the release of the game, but for most of its life Ive been some delicious flavour of QA. Anyway, enough about me, I know youre all here for more on our Event Pack!
Read our DD #106: A Fistful Of Friends & Foes
Last time out Trin took you through some of the more mechanical changes, such as the memory system and viewer, the loyalty traits and some of our childhood event changes. Today Ill walk you all through some of the flavour-driven content you can expect to find in the Event Pack, though well also look at a neat little system weve mentioned in passing before towards the end.
Weve been hard at work creating over 100 new standalone events for this pack, and at this point it probably behooves me to explain that when we say over 100 we mean something a little different than just counting out each individual event weve made. To avoid any grey areas, we count both big event chains and small, one-off events exactly the same. No matter if youre counting a singular event or a behemoth 14-event long chain: as Gimli would put it, it still only counts as one. As such, whilst weve bandied around a figure of 100, youll all be getting quite a bit more than that!
All of the new events pertain to the relationships between characters in some fashion, meaning that all relationships - from lieges to vassals, from friends to spouses, from lovers to foes to lover-foes - have new events tied to them, to greater or lesser degrees. Im going to take you through some of the joyful and jocular, the serious and the sad, and of course the weird and the wacky of this pack.
Lets begin by addressing an event or two that could bring your character happier times, shall we?
The Good
You should always be able to rely on your friends to support you not only in good times, but also in bad. Moreover, a true friend is one who will have difficult talks with you because they truly care about your wellbeing. Perhaps even an intervention, should the actions you take to deal with stress so completely consume your life:
Despite the name, its not just friends who come into the spotlight in this pack. Your family are an active part of your life at court. Your parents offer sage advice, your children chances to bond, and your siblings are solid confidants - when theyre not trying to take your throne for themselves, of course. Even your beloved darling spouse also has the opportunity to raise you up, praise you, and, er, ask if youd maybe consider sponsoring his mum to make you a lovely set of jewellery:
Still, trusting your mother-in-law could have its upsides. It might turn out the old girl is quite the metalsmith!
Even when youre looking after your family and all is seemingly well, intrigue is never too far away. The demands of a multiple-spouse marriage becomes a little more unique in Friends & Foes, as now you might be getting a few eyebrow-raising requests:
Every mother wants to see her son get ahead in life, so its no wonder Tamrust here is so eager to please. In my case, however, Im more interested in getting a-head in a rather different way: seeing my rival Sholah get their comeuppance would be a mighty fine way to do a deal.
Ah, Tamrust, you shouldnt have!
The Sad
In the games time period, as it is today, the death of a loved one can leave the bereaved with so many conflicting feelings. Regret over lost time together, sadness at the knowledge that the departed will no longer be around, perhaps even relief at their suffering finally ending. In one of our new events, a visit from one person to their friends deathbed can go a few different ways. Perhaps you are the one bedridden, simply waiting for death. What would you desire from your friend? Or maybe you are the one visiting them, your lifelong friend, with whom you have forged so many memories and shared so much of your life with. What would you do when faced with this scene?
The possibilities here are rather wide. That third option you see is somewhat randomised and based on the bedridden persons personality. Sometimes you wont have a third option at all. Sometimes, as you can see above, you may even have to do your beloved friend the ultimate favour. Sometimes, as seen below, youll come into possession of a small gift.
Whilst seeing your friend breathe their last is desperately sad, theres also something to be said for the brutal moments when a sibling rivalry gets way out of hand. Ambition and envy drives the closest of brothers and sisters to do the most heinous of things.
This rare event may fire if your sibling doesnt like you, and happens to have a trait that might cause them to view you as dispensable in the pursuit of their wider ambitions. Of course, youre not going down without a fight; the throne is yours and as the saying goes, might does indeed make right:
The young king survives this particular attempt from their sibling, but their relationship is irreparably damaged. Suffice to say, however, much nastier outcomes could well have arisen. Luck and wits will save many a monarch, but sooner or later your wits fade and your luck runs thin
The Zany
Like the glorious sprinkles on this Medieval doughnut (which were actually a thing: theres references in The Forme of Cury to honeyed fried dough Cryspels which were essentially the precursors to modern doughnuts!) we of course have some of the slightly more unusual events that you can stumble across during your rule. The subject of this DLC made for fertile grounds for such events. Interpersonal relationships are at the heart of CK3, and how you interact with others depends often on whether theyre your foe or your friend. In order for you to have a friend, of course, you must first have a person to be friends with. I know, I know, it sounds obvious, but they do say the real miracle Jesus performed was having 12 close friends in his thirties. Well, that, and also the following:
If you take your religious leaders excitement and fervour at face value, youll not just acquire a friend, but also a Delicious Face of Jesus artifact:
Of course, if you dare to doubt their obviously-correct opinion on divinely-shaped confectionery, youre dead certain to make a rival of them. Or, as you can see in the third option, theres an even more dramatic decision to be made. What price do you put on friendship versus the chance to literally eat Jesus face? Mind you, theres some things you can find that shouldnt be eaten. Bog bodies are known worldwide, but are particularly prevalent in Northwestern Europe. Such findings continue to intrigue archeologists, but I suspect finding one would be rather more of an unpleasant surprise for your average Medieval child:
This event ties nicely in with the new memory system; sometimes if someone in your realm dies in that particular county, they have a chance of turning up here! Now I wont spoil any particular outcomes to this small event chain, but naturally all is always exactly as it seems. You just found a body in a bog. These things do happen. Its perfectly normal.
For a Feud Dollars More
Petty rivalries are an inextricable part of any Crusader Kings game. Ive been a CK player for years, and I know exactly what I - and all of you - get up to when someone wrongs you. After all, who amongst us has not exterminated an entire dynasty for the vicious crime of their grandfather once having accidentally tripped over your dog?
Thankfully, you now have the opportunity to codify your hatred for those hated dog-trippers! House Feuds are a new system that can be triggered by a wide range of sources. It could be as simple as your House Head sharing a mutual dislike of each other with another House Head and those embers sputtering into the flames of true conflict. It could be as serious as a family member of your House being killed by a member of the other House, or as complicated as the two having competing Claims. These Feuds can be inherited between generations, ebbing and flowing, each party exacting a toll from the other. These squabbles can escalate to horrific ends if all parties continue to seek revenge upon the other, and only the actions of calm heads can end it; but even then, often only once the debt has been repaid or one family has suffered so horribly under the other that they will surely never recover. I was going to give you a runthrough of some of the 31 events (remember: for us, it still only counts as one!) that comprise House Feuds, but when I was playing around with Friends and Foes this last Sunday on a post-PDXCon rest day, I happened to hit upon a perfect mini-AAR to show you to illustrate exactly how these can generate organically. You join me on the steppes of modern-day Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where I am waging a war against a neighbour to expand my territory. (A small note: I am playing with some custom gamerules including equal genders and majority-bisexual, hence why things might seem a little unusual with who is leading armies and the like. Or, if youre one of those super cool and wonderfully attractive people who also play with those rules, high five, consider your ruleset officially dev-approved)
As battle concludes, it is with no small amount of grief that I receive the news that my knight, daughter and heir Princess Sarantay has fallen in battle at the hands of the vile and base Chieftain Malyy. And we know him to be vile and base, for who else but a true monster would snatch away my daughters life from the world so cruelly? I try to put it out of my head - as much as any parent can do so with the death of their beloved child - but the flames of hatred still lick balefully at my heart. During the day it is all I can think about, and at night dreams of vengeance and retaliation poison my mind. Try as I might, I cant bring myself to move on and let Allah enact retribution: I must pursue this myself.
Now, I wont go too in-depth on what exactly transpired in the years this feud went on for. One such action involved seducing the enemy head of houses wife - a fairly impressive feat, despite how sprightly I am at 68 years old - and revealing him for the cuckold he was. This disrespect was met with bared knives, and a minor member of my dynasty was struck down from the shadows. It was an escalation I would not - could not! - ignore. House Kurgani were all too ready to unsheathe blades, but they soon found themselves on the wrong end of them. Three murders, one after the other, left them without the flower of their youth. The feud was clearly in our favour, the rival house a shadow of what they once were, and it even left me considering whether it was worth continuing. After all, Malyy was a mere chieftain, and I a mighty Khan. Surely it was time to let bygones be bygones?
Yet every time I considered it, all I could think of in my minds eye was my precious daughter. The feud would continue until the damnable Malyy was dead. I called my trustiest cutthroat and sent him on one final mission It is strange how fate works. The hired knife was drawing closer and closer still to Malyy, aided by no less than his own wife - who it seemed had grown rather fond of me, not that thats surprising - but it appeared someone else had got there first. Perhaps he had many enemies. Perhaps, even, a member of my own house had enacted their own revenge. Either way, he now lies in the cold ground.
(Another note: This event isnt actually part of the House Feud ones, but instead is part of a reworked couple of events when Best Friends or Nemeses die and can happen to anyone lucky enough to have their worst antagonist die on them. Suffice to say, that Vengeful option there does some fun stuff) The blood has been spilt, the eye has been taken for the eye. There is no longer any reason to prolong this blood feud. House Dulo has conclusively proven the dominance of our bloodline and emerges triumphant from the crucible of intra-house conflict.
Ill leave you to discover most of the rest of the peaks and troughs of the cycle of ceaseless vengeance that signify House Feuds, but I do want to leave on one particularly interesting note. Malyys son, Tyueykezhut, was grateful that the bloodshed had ended, even if House Kurgani were crushed underneath our boot heel. He didnt let go of the past, though, and the fire that once consumed my heart no doubt now consumes his; a grim reminder of how he spent his childhood raised to hate anyone who bears the name Dulo. And so the flames of open conflict die away to smouldering embers, all too ready for the right person to come along and nurse them back into a roaring crescendo once more
That will be all from me for today! Thank you very much for reading this, my very first dev diary! Friends & Foes releases this week on the 8th of September, and I hope you enjoy your time with it.
[ 2022-09-06 12:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes
[ 2022-09-01 12:00:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings rulers! Next week, youll have the chance to tell even more stories about how your oldest friend betrayed you or how you ruined your rival through decades of soap opera level scheming. Friends and Foes is an Event Pack for Crusader Kings III that adds over a hundred events related to your characters relationships to those closest to their heart, or their throne. Strong friendships can grow from childhood into lifelong alliances, and formative memories could shape how you see the world around you. Not to mention the challenges of keeping your large family in line. This event pack will be available on September 8. We look forward to hearing about your new adventures and experiences. See our Store page for more information! [previewyoutube=jOFJ4TfJ1tg;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2022-09-01 12:00:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #105: 1.7 "Bastion" Update
While the characters often get up to quite memorable things in our games there has up to now not been a way to keep track of exactly what, when and with whom each character has had a particular experience. What we have done in the new update in order to show more clearly how alive the game world is, is to introduce memories to characters. Characters will remember things that happened to them, from important things like the births of their children, important battles, deaths of close ones, and succession, to more mundane things like the event interactions with other characters during their childhood.
At any time you can view the memories of your character as well as non-private memories of other characters. This lets you quickly get an idea of not only what a character is like, but also how they got there. One can think of it as a feature somewhat similar to the character history that we had in EU:Rome many years ago. One important difference to a character history though is that over time some memories will fade away, while others will remain. For player characters and characters likely to become player characters we err on the side of keeping memories longer, mostly because you are more likely to have a need of them as the game progresses. Memories can be viewed at any time by opening the Memory Viewer from the character window, via a button in the same place as the Kill List, Inventory, and Lifestyle.
Memories are not only there as a log for the player to enjoy, however. The new system allows us to make use of memories that a character has both to trigger content and to make use of in events. This means that you may now find memories used in content that previously had to be vague, an assassin might now actually cite a specific slight you committed against their employer, for instance. What this also means is that we are now able to create new content that is based entirely on your character having a certain type of memory or sharing a memory with another character. Last of all I should mention that it is possible to export the memories of a character to clipboard in order to share it outside of the game for those that want others to know of their characters exploits.
Another addition coming with this update to further open up how things are connected in the games world is that we have wanted to make it clearer which characters are your friends, enemies, nemeses, etc, as well as clearer why a character has a special relationship with that particular character. This is accomplished by a new set of icons in the interface to highlight relationships. Additionally whenever a relationship is formed the game notification will now not only say that it happened but also why it happened. The reasons for relationships will then always be visible in its tooltip: clearly telling you how they became friends, lovers, best friends, nemeses, etc. In cases where a more advanced relation (such as best friend or nemesis) exists we will show the reason for both the basic relationship and the more advanced one, so a best friend will keep track of both how you originally became friends and when you actually became best friends. Together with character memories this should now make it more clear what has led you to the current point in your game, a small change that brings a surprising amount of context, highlighting parts of the interpersonal simulation that can right now be a bit hidden away.
Another thing that we wanted to revisit in order to improve on how we deal with characters in the game world is the revamping of all existing childhood personality events as well as the addition of 12 new ones. This will significantly alter what personality trait combinations are likely to appear and will open up some combinations that were previously impossible simply due to how the old events for growing up worked. The ambition apart from adding more content to the childhood period is to have the choices you make as a guardian be more interesting, avoiding any easy best choices in any single childhood event. The new trait combinations that will be pitted against each other are:
Last but not least for today is the addition of two new traits with the upcoming update. Through their actions (or indeed as they are subjected to the actions of others) characters can now gain traits for having loyal or disloyal personalities, which among other things will impact how likely they are to cheat on their spouse, join factions or plot against their liege. The traits are also integrated as sins/virtues and can be more valued or common depending on cultural traditions. That was all for today. The new update will also bring new bug fixes, event pictures, and things that I have not brought up today but this was a sneak peak of what is to come. Next week @PDS_Noodle will be talking some more about what the future will bring.
[ 2022-08-30 12:34:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to another Development Diary for Crusader Kings 3. Today I will talk a bit about the free 1.7 Bastion update and what new things it will bring to the game. Today we will not be talking about [REDACTED] which will be released together with the update.
The changes to Factions and AI have previously been covered in posts by @Servancour and @rageair and I will therefore not mention them again, but I recommend checking out their diaries if you missed them before: AI, AI, AI and Let's Talk Populist Factions
Read our Dev Diary #105: 1.7 "Bastion" Update
Character Memories
While the characters often get up to quite memorable things in our games there has up to now not been a way to keep track of exactly what, when and with whom each character has had a particular experience. What we have done in the new update in order to show more clearly how alive the game world is, is to introduce memories to characters. Characters will remember things that happened to them, from important things like the births of their children, important battles, deaths of close ones, and succession, to more mundane things like the event interactions with other characters during their childhood.
At any time you can view the memories of your character as well as non-private memories of other characters. This lets you quickly get an idea of not only what a character is like, but also how they got there. One can think of it as a feature somewhat similar to the character history that we had in EU:Rome many years ago. One important difference to a character history though is that over time some memories will fade away, while others will remain. For player characters and characters likely to become player characters we err on the side of keeping memories longer, mostly because you are more likely to have a need of them as the game progresses. Memories can be viewed at any time by opening the Memory Viewer from the character window, via a button in the same place as the Kill List, Inventory, and Lifestyle.
Memories are not only there as a log for the player to enjoy, however. The new system allows us to make use of memories that a character has both to trigger content and to make use of in events. This means that you may now find memories used in content that previously had to be vague, an assassin might now actually cite a specific slight you committed against their employer, for instance. What this also means is that we are now able to create new content that is based entirely on your character having a certain type of memory or sharing a memory with another character. Last of all I should mention that it is possible to export the memories of a character to clipboard in order to share it outside of the game for those that want others to know of their characters exploits.
Relationship Reasons
Another addition coming with this update to further open up how things are connected in the games world is that we have wanted to make it clearer which characters are your friends, enemies, nemeses, etc, as well as clearer why a character has a special relationship with that particular character. This is accomplished by a new set of icons in the interface to highlight relationships. Additionally whenever a relationship is formed the game notification will now not only say that it happened but also why it happened. The reasons for relationships will then always be visible in its tooltip: clearly telling you how they became friends, lovers, best friends, nemeses, etc. In cases where a more advanced relation (such as best friend or nemesis) exists we will show the reason for both the basic relationship and the more advanced one, so a best friend will keep track of both how you originally became friends and when you actually became best friends. Together with character memories this should now make it more clear what has led you to the current point in your game, a small change that brings a surprising amount of context, highlighting parts of the interpersonal simulation that can right now be a bit hidden away.
Revamped Childhood Events
Another thing that we wanted to revisit in order to improve on how we deal with characters in the game world is the revamping of all existing childhood personality events as well as the addition of 12 new ones. This will significantly alter what personality trait combinations are likely to appear and will open up some combinations that were previously impossible simply due to how the old events for growing up worked. The ambition apart from adding more content to the childhood period is to have the choices you make as a guardian be more interesting, avoiding any easy best choices in any single childhood event. The new trait combinations that will be pitted against each other are:
- diligent, gregarious, temperate
- zealous, ambitious, sadistic
- shy, paranoid, craven
- lazy, gluttonous, compassionate
- lustful, chaste
- just, greedy, callous
- humble, cynical, content
- vengeful, deceitful, calm
- generous, fickle, arrogant
- forgiving, trusting, patient
- honest, arbitrary, impatient
- brave, stubborn, wrathful
The Loyal and Disloyal Traits
Last but not least for today is the addition of two new traits with the upcoming update. Through their actions (or indeed as they are subjected to the actions of others) characters can now gain traits for having loyal or disloyal personalities, which among other things will impact how likely they are to cheat on their spouse, join factions or plot against their liege. The traits are also integrated as sins/virtues and can be more valued or common depending on cultural traditions. That was all for today. The new update will also bring new bug fixes, event pictures, and things that I have not brought up today but this was a sneak peak of what is to come. Next week @PDS_Noodle will be talking some more about what the future will bring.
[ 2022-08-30 12:34:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #104: AI AI AI!
The key to success in CK3 is a strong and stable economy, and such a thing is driven by buildings (and, partly, MaA). Weve set out to change how the AI uses its gold so that it builds up its realm more. Weve taken considerations to make sure that the AI does this in a way so that it, for example, doesnt become too easy to defeat for the player. The backbone of this work rests upon a framework of Economic Archetypes.
There are four economic archetypes that AI rulers can fall into, of which three are significant: Warlike, Cautious, and Builder. If a character falls into none of these archetypes, they will be Unpredictable and use aspects of other archetypes in a semi-random fashion. Warlike
The Warlike archetype wants to be ready to declare war, always. This is the archetype that is most similar to how the AI behaves in the game right now. They will put their gold into a war chest before considering other options. If a Warlike archetype is at peace for an extended period of time, they will use the gold in their war chest to develop the realm - but they will first and foremost prepare for war, even in the early game. Bold and greedy AIs tend to be Warlike. Common traits include Wrathful, Impatient, Sadistic, Ambitious, Vengeful, Irritable, and Zealous. Tribal rulers and cultures with the Bellicose Ethos are also drawn to this archetype, as well as any character in the Iberian struggle that wants to escalate towards the hostility phase. Cautious
Not to be confused with cowardly, the Cautious archetype wants to be prepared for having war be declared upon them. They are somewhat averse to declaring offensive wars, instead preferring a slow buildup. This archetype will save up a minimum buffer of gold, depending on their tier. When choosing to invest gold into buildings or MaA, they will evaluate the state of their military, how long theyve been at peace, how many allies they have, and their level of dread - depending on these factors, they will feel safe and invest more gold than they would otherwise, while keeping the aforementioned minimum buffer. Non-bold AIs tend to be Cautious. Common traits include Patient, Calm, Craven, Paranoid, and Content. Rulers with the Fickle or Lunatic trait will never be cautious. Rulers with the Stoic Ethos or the Stalwart Defenders Cultural Tradition are also drawn to this archetype. Builder
The Builder archetype wants to invest all of its gold into the realm. They will empty their treasury in order to build buildings and MaA as quickly as they can, and will also tend to construct more economical buildings and new holdings than other archetypes. They are bold and a bit reckless, only saving up a war chest if they are under a direct threat (such as a strong faction). This is the rarest of all archetypes. Bold AIs with a propensity for building and no particular inclination for war fall into this archetype. Common traits include Calm, Patient, Diligent, Generous, Stubborn, Profligate, and Improvident. Where Warlike AIs want to expand their realm, the Builder wants to build up their domain. Rulers with the Domain Focus also tend to fall into this category. Unpredictable
The Unpredictable archetype doesnt have a propensity towards anything in particular, and might decide upon any strategy. They can decide to boom their economy much like the Builder archetype, but they do so randomly (weighed up by traits such as Diligent or Architect), and the amount will be modified by how bold they are. Otherwise, they will want to build up their realms to a minimum degree (higher than a Warlike archetype), keep a decent buffer (lower than a Cautious archetype), and go to war at a normal pace. AIs who do not qualify for any of the above categories will fall into this archetype.
The AI divides its economic game into three stages; Capital Development, Domain Development, and Late Development. The first two of these are early stages that should be all but over roughly 100 years into the game. Each of these stages modifies how the AI spends its gold, which is then again modified by the economic personalities above. Early Capital Development The most important holding to develop is your capital, Im sure you all agree. The AI will strive quite hard to fill all of the empty slots in its capital before doing many other things, as first-level buildings have a significantly higher return of investment than upgrades do. At this stage, the archetypes matter less, but this phase is also over somewhat quickly. This has a quite significant effect on the AI overall. By being able to kickstart their economy earlier than before, you will see them doing much better in the mid-late game. In the current version, you see a lot of provinces with open building slots well into the late game: even places of prominence, such as Paris, can sometimes be devoid of buildings - after these changes, this will be exceedingly rare. Early Domain Development In the second stage, the AI wants to develop its secondary counties by constructing first-level buildings there too. Truth be told, many AIs elect to buy MaA or keep developing their capital during this phase as the choice of what to do/construct is semi-random and weighted - but this really just results in more powerful rulers overall. At this stage, the archetypes are manifesting, with Warlike AIs saving war chests (albeit for shorter periods than in the Later stage!), Cautious AIs saving up buffers, etc. When first-level buildings are present in an AIs entire domain, they move on to the Later Economic Behavior. Later Economic Behavior During this stage, the archetypes will manifest fully. Builder AIs will constantly build up their realm. Cautious AIs will want a buffer, allies, and a powerful military, Warlike AIs will only invest their gold if theyve been at peace for many, many years - and so on. Interestingly enough, despite the AI being disincentivized from declaring frequent wars (previously all AIs were constantly gearing up for war), there are no fewer wars in the world. The wars that are declared are, however, more intense and exciting, as the AIs are generally more built up and have a stronger economic backbone. While the Economy part of this update isnt the only thing contributing to what youre about to see, heres a comparison of the Live version of the game compared to the upcoming update. The sample size is 200 years, and there are no major deviations except for the Mongol Empire not having collapsed yet in the Live comparison.
Counts+ in this context means Counts, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors.
One of the AIs faults is that it underuses the tools given to it, choosing to use them only sporadically and without much direction. The AI acting out its personality is all well and good, but in many instances, personality didnt even matter at all, for example when choosing to revoke a title. Weve done many small things that together add up to a vastly improved experience.
The AI is now going to strive towards having a strong capital and domain, prioritizing first and foremost the consolidation of lands within their De Jure Capital Duchy. For example, the king of France will want to hold Isle-de-France and all counties within the duchy of Valois. In order to do this, they are now willing to take on a modicum of Tyranny via revoking or retracting, modified by their personality. For reference, the AI has never before willingly taken on Tyranny and has always waited for a revocation reason. All AIs will want their capital county and at least a small domain (3 or so), regardless of personality, but Just and Generous AIs will stop after that point. Depending on the AIs rationality, they will be willing to take on more or less Tyranny. Wise and rational rulers will want to let their Tyranny decay completely before taking a tyrannical action again, while more irrational rulers are willing to keep their Tyranny high in order to consolidate their domain. In order to consider revocation, the AI looks to its reserves of gold and military strength, making sure to not get into Tyranny wars it doesnt think it can win (of course, it still happens that a ruler is overthrown via Tyranny, but its rarer!). Of course, relationships are accounted for, so you wont see the AI revoking from their friends, lovers, children, etc. In practice, this means that the average AI ruler is much more powerful, and you wont see things such as the king of France being content with having one single domain county in Brittany, just because they dont have a revoke reason on the current ruler of Isle-de-France. In combination with the previously mentioned economic changes, this results in economically powerful AI rulers.
The AI has also been taught to revoke secondary baronies in the counties it owns, which is especially useful for Clan rulers, as they can hold temples. This makes it so that much of the Clan sphere has a stronger economy, especially early on, and is able to match European and Indian feudal realms which generally have more favorable terrain.
One of the things that weve changed a lot is how vassalization works and how the AI uses it. This isnt a pure AI change, as weve also rebalanced all the modifiers that affect whether a character wishes to accept your overlordship or not. But, yes, simultaneously weve taught the AI to consider these facts and try to make their neighbors into vassals. A sub-goal here was to make vassalization into a viable alternative to military conquest, while also dialing back the most powerful sources of vassal acceptance and adding more interactive modifiers. While I wont go into all of the detail here, Ill say that the modifiers from Diplomatic Court and True Ruler have been lowered, while modifiers such as Average Powerful Vassal Opinion (-20/+20) have been added to promote alternatives to only being militarily powerful. Weve also tweaked the opinion modifiers for Clan rulers so that Feudal rulers dont have a fundamental advantage when it comes to vassalization (by offering low Contracts). The AI will now much more frequently check if neighbors would accept vassalization, and they will actively seek to sway or befriend neighbors if the AI considers them targets for diplomatic expansion. This means that the player does not have a monopoly on vassalizations any longer; if you take too long, AI rulers will sweep in and offer overlordship to your small independent neighbors. In practice, this means that areas stay shattered and stagnant for less time, while also creating more interesting realms where different cultures (and even faiths) are represented in the vassal strata. As an example, you might see a great unifying Sultan appear somewhere in Persia and diplomatically sweep up the remains of a shattered Seljuk Empire.
As it turns out, rulers of the same faith as the defender in a Holy War would never join in their defense, despite the game claiming they would. This is our bad: a set of triggers were looking at the wrong character, and thus no one would consider joining. This is now changed, and weve put some effort into ensuring that the rulers who join up against you feel right. Protecting the boundaries of your faith is important, and the AI is now aware of this. Depending on personality and economic readiness, they will now assist their brothers-in-faith against encroaching heathens. Zealous and bold AIs are the first to join, while you can be certain that cynical and cowardly rulers will not. Vassals of your target wont join in, though vassals of neighboring rulers might - generally, you need only look within the immediate area as you declare wars. Extremely zealous rulers, though, might decide to join in from further away. In practice, you have to prepare well before declaring a holy war, but taking stock of your neighbors will help you here - personalities are telling, so you shouldnt be overly surprised when someone aids your target. From a game perspective, this makes it much less likely for the Middle East to be completely overtaken by either Catholics or Orthodox Christians (which seemed to happen in at least 90% of all observer games that ran until the end date). Major religious upsets are now rarer, but when they happen they are all that much more likely to stick, as theyve probably been launched by strong rulers during an opportune time.
AI rulers should now be somewhat more aware of the state of their realm, and proactively try to improve its stability. There are many flavors of stability, some more underhanded than others Firstly, the AI is now much more likely to sway, and when they choose who to sway they are much more likely to pick important characters. For example, they will sway their realm priest, spymaster, and angry powerful vassals much more often, and also keep swaying them for a longer time. This also goes for the befriend scheme, should it be available. In the comparison screenshot at the end of the economy section, youll note that there are significantly more AIs with bishops/realm priests who endorse them. AI rulers with a more unsavory disposition will use the Find Secrets council task, which the AI previously didnt use. Theyll tend to target their vassals or rivals, if the chance of being found out isnt too great. Theyll then blackmail and use the ensuing hooks to improve vassal contracts. Rulers who have unlocked the Fabricate Hook scheme will also much more often use it on vassals whose contracts can be modified. Over the generations, this means that the contracts AI rulers have with their vassals tend to be much better than they used to.
In general, weve taken a pass on when AIs will use certain Council Tasks. They will avoid certain things completely (using bestow royal favor on vassals-of-vassals), and more proactively switch to tasks that support them in the short term (support schemes when any hostile scheme is active, Organize Army when gold is running very low, etc). Theres a whole lot more that weve taught the AI to do, most of them small - but small things add up. They will send non-primary children to be educated by vassals they want to appease (its 15 opinion per child after all!), make their children learn the languages of their subjects to prepare them for a smooth succession, hire seneschals if they have more than one county with very low control, etc, etc. It really does add up. All of these changes lead to AI realms being more stable and better at recovering from bad wars or messy successions. Of course, theres still a lot of the hallmark CK3 chaos that we all know and love - its just not all there is, now! Let's compare two areas, one from the Live version, and one from the upcoming update. They are 200 years from game start (in fact, these are the same saves used for comparison stats earlier in the DD).
Do note that these changes do not mean youll see the same realms in every game. Its still as its always been, where you might have a powerful Burgundy in the south or a Wales controlling the British Isles; its just that, now, the emerging Burgundian and Welsh realms will be much stronger and able to thrive! Additionally, given the AI is now consolidating a larger, more centralized domain, partition splits are nicer and border gore is reduced.
No matter what changes weve made to the Mongols in the past, they always fall on one single point: when they grow large enough, it takes them too long to march their troops to their target, and thus lose too many troops to attrition and too much warscore to time. Weve taught the AI to raise their troops closer to the target of their wars. They will seek to raise in a safe county within their realm that is close, but not bordering, to the wargoal. While this is the most impactful for the Mongols, all Duke or above rulers will now do this. What this means for the Mongols: they will no longer march all the way from far eastern Mongolia after every conquest. This change alone magnifies their potential for conquest tenfold (at least). They now fulfill their purpose; they shake up the world and reshape the lands they conquer. More than ever, you must now seriously consider if you wish to submit to the Great Khan In addition to the new raising behavior, we have improved the way the Mongols pick their targets (making them less likely to gallop into the mountains of Tibet or immediately crash against a massively strong Byzantine empire), and weve changed how successor khanates work. The Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, Chagatai, etc, were never long for this world after they spawned. There were many reasons for this: they didnt get a proper domain, no de jure lands, no gold, etc. While they still dissolve with some regularity (as they should) they now sometimes persist, and even thrive, as weve improved their starting positions by assigning them some starting resources, domain, and De Jure land depending on what theyve managed to conquer. While it isnt overly common that the Mongols exceed their historical conquests, heres an example of how far they can spread under somewhat-ideal circumstances (long-lived Khans).
Initial state of the world.
Some years in: note that Tibet was taken because had land in Mongolia.
The newly-shattered Persia gets absorbed.
Strategically avoiding a Byzantium that is almost their strength, the Mongols go towards Eastern Europe.
After taking all of eastern Europe, they turn to Arabia and the Fatimids.
Eventually, Hungary falls after an intense war.
The Khan dies and successor khanates spawn in. Who knows how long theyll last? Thats it for now. The full update notes with all the details will come soon, so stay tuned!
[ 2022-08-23 12:31:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
One of the trickiest bits about GSGs is making a good AI. You want it to pose a challenge and play well, but you dont want it to ruin the players fun by acting out of character. Weve read a lot of discussions and threads in various places across the community, and we understand that there is room for improvement. Over the summer weve been working on a few aspects of the AI, specifically the economy (and a little bit of diplomacy). Weve not focused on warfare, except for one thing which well get to later.
All changes outlined in this Dev Diary will be released in a future update.
Read our Dev Diary #104: AI AI AI!
For the player to feel motivated to do well, the AI must show that it can do well alongside you. It doesnt have to be fantastic or play optimally (in fact, thats usually immersion-breaking), but it must be capable of progress. We want the AI in CK3 to be able to provide a good challenge and do well enough to motivate you to do even better. Also, we want it to do this without cheating.
Before delving deeper into what weve done, Id like to explain some of the challenges we set out to solve for the Economy:
- Economically, all AIs currently play the same. We want their personality to affect how an AI decides to spend their hard-earned gold, and on what. You should be able to look at an AIs personality traits and, roughly, be able to tell what theyre up to.
- A player understands that there are certain ways of using gold that are optimal and appropriate regardless of their situation; that there are certain risks worth taking. We want the AI to understand this, employing decisions that make them prosper and are suitable to the stage the game is in.
- We want the AI to build more buildings, so that the world becomes more and more developed over time. Right now, only players realize the value that buildings bring in the long run, while AIs spend most of their gold on wars.
- The power of a ruler lies within their domain. The AI, much like the player, should strive to build a base of power and cultivate it over time.
- AI realms tend to fall apart, and never reform. Vast seas of counts and dukes, unwilling to accept the overlordship of neighboring kings. We want the AI to be able to diplomatically expand, much like the player is able to. New realms with great monarchs should rise out of the ashes of former empires.
- A stable realm is a prosperous realm, and there are many tools for achieving this. The AI should not hold back when using available methods of stabilization, be they diplomatic schemes or underhanded council actions.
- The AI should understand that Tyranny is sometimes appropriate. Its for the greater good of the realm. Within reason, of course - personality and relationships must play a large role here. As it stands, the AI will never willingly take on Tyranny, under any circumstance.
- In real life, the Mongols were an existential threat. Currently, in CK, they are not. We want them to be. There is one pivotal change that enables this: the ability to gather armies closer to their target.
The Economy, fools!
The key to success in CK3 is a strong and stable economy, and such a thing is driven by buildings (and, partly, MaA). Weve set out to change how the AI uses its gold so that it builds up its realm more. Weve taken considerations to make sure that the AI does this in a way so that it, for example, doesnt become too easy to defeat for the player. The backbone of this work rests upon a framework of Economic Archetypes.
Economic Archetypes
There are four economic archetypes that AI rulers can fall into, of which three are significant: Warlike, Cautious, and Builder. If a character falls into none of these archetypes, they will be Unpredictable and use aspects of other archetypes in a semi-random fashion. Warlike
The Warlike archetype wants to be ready to declare war, always. This is the archetype that is most similar to how the AI behaves in the game right now. They will put their gold into a war chest before considering other options. If a Warlike archetype is at peace for an extended period of time, they will use the gold in their war chest to develop the realm - but they will first and foremost prepare for war, even in the early game. Bold and greedy AIs tend to be Warlike. Common traits include Wrathful, Impatient, Sadistic, Ambitious, Vengeful, Irritable, and Zealous. Tribal rulers and cultures with the Bellicose Ethos are also drawn to this archetype, as well as any character in the Iberian struggle that wants to escalate towards the hostility phase. Cautious
Not to be confused with cowardly, the Cautious archetype wants to be prepared for having war be declared upon them. They are somewhat averse to declaring offensive wars, instead preferring a slow buildup. This archetype will save up a minimum buffer of gold, depending on their tier. When choosing to invest gold into buildings or MaA, they will evaluate the state of their military, how long theyve been at peace, how many allies they have, and their level of dread - depending on these factors, they will feel safe and invest more gold than they would otherwise, while keeping the aforementioned minimum buffer. Non-bold AIs tend to be Cautious. Common traits include Patient, Calm, Craven, Paranoid, and Content. Rulers with the Fickle or Lunatic trait will never be cautious. Rulers with the Stoic Ethos or the Stalwart Defenders Cultural Tradition are also drawn to this archetype. Builder
The Builder archetype wants to invest all of its gold into the realm. They will empty their treasury in order to build buildings and MaA as quickly as they can, and will also tend to construct more economical buildings and new holdings than other archetypes. They are bold and a bit reckless, only saving up a war chest if they are under a direct threat (such as a strong faction). This is the rarest of all archetypes. Bold AIs with a propensity for building and no particular inclination for war fall into this archetype. Common traits include Calm, Patient, Diligent, Generous, Stubborn, Profligate, and Improvident. Where Warlike AIs want to expand their realm, the Builder wants to build up their domain. Rulers with the Domain Focus also tend to fall into this category. Unpredictable
The Unpredictable archetype doesnt have a propensity towards anything in particular, and might decide upon any strategy. They can decide to boom their economy much like the Builder archetype, but they do so randomly (weighed up by traits such as Diligent or Architect), and the amount will be modified by how bold they are. Otherwise, they will want to build up their realms to a minimum degree (higher than a Warlike archetype), keep a decent buffer (lower than a Cautious archetype), and go to war at a normal pace. AIs who do not qualify for any of the above categories will fall into this archetype.
Economic Stages
The AI divides its economic game into three stages; Capital Development, Domain Development, and Late Development. The first two of these are early stages that should be all but over roughly 100 years into the game. Each of these stages modifies how the AI spends its gold, which is then again modified by the economic personalities above. Early Capital Development The most important holding to develop is your capital, Im sure you all agree. The AI will strive quite hard to fill all of the empty slots in its capital before doing many other things, as first-level buildings have a significantly higher return of investment than upgrades do. At this stage, the archetypes matter less, but this phase is also over somewhat quickly. This has a quite significant effect on the AI overall. By being able to kickstart their economy earlier than before, you will see them doing much better in the mid-late game. In the current version, you see a lot of provinces with open building slots well into the late game: even places of prominence, such as Paris, can sometimes be devoid of buildings - after these changes, this will be exceedingly rare. Early Domain Development In the second stage, the AI wants to develop its secondary counties by constructing first-level buildings there too. Truth be told, many AIs elect to buy MaA or keep developing their capital during this phase as the choice of what to do/construct is semi-random and weighted - but this really just results in more powerful rulers overall. At this stage, the archetypes are manifesting, with Warlike AIs saving war chests (albeit for shorter periods than in the Later stage!), Cautious AIs saving up buffers, etc. When first-level buildings are present in an AIs entire domain, they move on to the Later Economic Behavior. Later Economic Behavior During this stage, the archetypes will manifest fully. Builder AIs will constantly build up their realm. Cautious AIs will want a buffer, allies, and a powerful military, Warlike AIs will only invest their gold if theyve been at peace for many, many years - and so on. Interestingly enough, despite the AI being disincentivized from declaring frequent wars (previously all AIs were constantly gearing up for war), there are no fewer wars in the world. The wars that are declared are, however, more intense and exciting, as the AIs are generally more built up and have a stronger economic backbone. While the Economy part of this update isnt the only thing contributing to what youre about to see, heres a comparison of the Live version of the game compared to the upcoming update. The sample size is 200 years, and there are no major deviations except for the Mongol Empire not having collapsed yet in the Live comparison.
Counts+ in this context means Counts, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors.
Diplomatic Matters
One of the AIs faults is that it underuses the tools given to it, choosing to use them only sporadically and without much direction. The AI acting out its personality is all well and good, but in many instances, personality didnt even matter at all, for example when choosing to revoke a title. Weve done many small things that together add up to a vastly improved experience.
Domain Consolidation
The AI is now going to strive towards having a strong capital and domain, prioritizing first and foremost the consolidation of lands within their De Jure Capital Duchy. For example, the king of France will want to hold Isle-de-France and all counties within the duchy of Valois. In order to do this, they are now willing to take on a modicum of Tyranny via revoking or retracting, modified by their personality. For reference, the AI has never before willingly taken on Tyranny and has always waited for a revocation reason. All AIs will want their capital county and at least a small domain (3 or so), regardless of personality, but Just and Generous AIs will stop after that point. Depending on the AIs rationality, they will be willing to take on more or less Tyranny. Wise and rational rulers will want to let their Tyranny decay completely before taking a tyrannical action again, while more irrational rulers are willing to keep their Tyranny high in order to consolidate their domain. In order to consider revocation, the AI looks to its reserves of gold and military strength, making sure to not get into Tyranny wars it doesnt think it can win (of course, it still happens that a ruler is overthrown via Tyranny, but its rarer!). Of course, relationships are accounted for, so you wont see the AI revoking from their friends, lovers, children, etc. In practice, this means that the average AI ruler is much more powerful, and you wont see things such as the king of France being content with having one single domain county in Brittany, just because they dont have a revoke reason on the current ruler of Isle-de-France. In combination with the previously mentioned economic changes, this results in economically powerful AI rulers.
The AI has also been taught to revoke secondary baronies in the counties it owns, which is especially useful for Clan rulers, as they can hold temples. This makes it so that much of the Clan sphere has a stronger economy, especially early on, and is able to match European and Indian feudal realms which generally have more favorable terrain.
Vassalization
One of the things that weve changed a lot is how vassalization works and how the AI uses it. This isnt a pure AI change, as weve also rebalanced all the modifiers that affect whether a character wishes to accept your overlordship or not. But, yes, simultaneously weve taught the AI to consider these facts and try to make their neighbors into vassals. A sub-goal here was to make vassalization into a viable alternative to military conquest, while also dialing back the most powerful sources of vassal acceptance and adding more interactive modifiers. While I wont go into all of the detail here, Ill say that the modifiers from Diplomatic Court and True Ruler have been lowered, while modifiers such as Average Powerful Vassal Opinion (-20/+20) have been added to promote alternatives to only being militarily powerful. Weve also tweaked the opinion modifiers for Clan rulers so that Feudal rulers dont have a fundamental advantage when it comes to vassalization (by offering low Contracts). The AI will now much more frequently check if neighbors would accept vassalization, and they will actively seek to sway or befriend neighbors if the AI considers them targets for diplomatic expansion. This means that the player does not have a monopoly on vassalizations any longer; if you take too long, AI rulers will sweep in and offer overlordship to your small independent neighbors. In practice, this means that areas stay shattered and stagnant for less time, while also creating more interesting realms where different cultures (and even faiths) are represented in the vassal strata. As an example, you might see a great unifying Sultan appear somewhere in Persia and diplomatically sweep up the remains of a shattered Seljuk Empire.
Holy Wars
As it turns out, rulers of the same faith as the defender in a Holy War would never join in their defense, despite the game claiming they would. This is our bad: a set of triggers were looking at the wrong character, and thus no one would consider joining. This is now changed, and weve put some effort into ensuring that the rulers who join up against you feel right. Protecting the boundaries of your faith is important, and the AI is now aware of this. Depending on personality and economic readiness, they will now assist their brothers-in-faith against encroaching heathens. Zealous and bold AIs are the first to join, while you can be certain that cynical and cowardly rulers will not. Vassals of your target wont join in, though vassals of neighboring rulers might - generally, you need only look within the immediate area as you declare wars. Extremely zealous rulers, though, might decide to join in from further away. In practice, you have to prepare well before declaring a holy war, but taking stock of your neighbors will help you here - personalities are telling, so you shouldnt be overly surprised when someone aids your target. From a game perspective, this makes it much less likely for the Middle East to be completely overtaken by either Catholics or Orthodox Christians (which seemed to happen in at least 90% of all observer games that ran until the end date). Major religious upsets are now rarer, but when they happen they are all that much more likely to stick, as theyve probably been launched by strong rulers during an opportune time.
Realm Stability
AI rulers should now be somewhat more aware of the state of their realm, and proactively try to improve its stability. There are many flavors of stability, some more underhanded than others Firstly, the AI is now much more likely to sway, and when they choose who to sway they are much more likely to pick important characters. For example, they will sway their realm priest, spymaster, and angry powerful vassals much more often, and also keep swaying them for a longer time. This also goes for the befriend scheme, should it be available. In the comparison screenshot at the end of the economy section, youll note that there are significantly more AIs with bishops/realm priests who endorse them. AI rulers with a more unsavory disposition will use the Find Secrets council task, which the AI previously didnt use. Theyll tend to target their vassals or rivals, if the chance of being found out isnt too great. Theyll then blackmail and use the ensuing hooks to improve vassal contracts. Rulers who have unlocked the Fabricate Hook scheme will also much more often use it on vassals whose contracts can be modified. Over the generations, this means that the contracts AI rulers have with their vassals tend to be much better than they used to.
In general, weve taken a pass on when AIs will use certain Council Tasks. They will avoid certain things completely (using bestow royal favor on vassals-of-vassals), and more proactively switch to tasks that support them in the short term (support schemes when any hostile scheme is active, Organize Army when gold is running very low, etc). Theres a whole lot more that weve taught the AI to do, most of them small - but small things add up. They will send non-primary children to be educated by vassals they want to appease (its 15 opinion per child after all!), make their children learn the languages of their subjects to prepare them for a smooth succession, hire seneschals if they have more than one county with very low control, etc, etc. It really does add up. All of these changes lead to AI realms being more stable and better at recovering from bad wars or messy successions. Of course, theres still a lot of the hallmark CK3 chaos that we all know and love - its just not all there is, now! Let's compare two areas, one from the Live version, and one from the upcoming update. They are 200 years from game start (in fact, these are the same saves used for comparison stats earlier in the DD).
Do note that these changes do not mean youll see the same realms in every game. Its still as its always been, where you might have a powerful Burgundy in the south or a Wales controlling the British Isles; its just that, now, the emerging Burgundian and Welsh realms will be much stronger and able to thrive! Additionally, given the AI is now consolidating a larger, more centralized domain, partition splits are nicer and border gore is reduced.
Ikh Mongol Uls
No matter what changes weve made to the Mongols in the past, they always fall on one single point: when they grow large enough, it takes them too long to march their troops to their target, and thus lose too many troops to attrition and too much warscore to time. Weve taught the AI to raise their troops closer to the target of their wars. They will seek to raise in a safe county within their realm that is close, but not bordering, to the wargoal. While this is the most impactful for the Mongols, all Duke or above rulers will now do this. What this means for the Mongols: they will no longer march all the way from far eastern Mongolia after every conquest. This change alone magnifies their potential for conquest tenfold (at least). They now fulfill their purpose; they shake up the world and reshape the lands they conquer. More than ever, you must now seriously consider if you wish to submit to the Great Khan In addition to the new raising behavior, we have improved the way the Mongols pick their targets (making them less likely to gallop into the mountains of Tibet or immediately crash against a massively strong Byzantine empire), and weve changed how successor khanates work. The Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, Chagatai, etc, were never long for this world after they spawned. There were many reasons for this: they didnt get a proper domain, no de jure lands, no gold, etc. While they still dissolve with some regularity (as they should) they now sometimes persist, and even thrive, as weve improved their starting positions by assigning them some starting resources, domain, and De Jure land depending on what theyve managed to conquer. While it isnt overly common that the Mongols exceed their historical conquests, heres an example of how far they can spread under somewhat-ideal circumstances (long-lived Khans).
Initial state of the world.
Some years in: note that Tibet was taken because had land in Mongolia.
The newly-shattered Persia gets absorbed.
Strategically avoiding a Byzantium that is almost their strength, the Mongols go towards Eastern Europe.
After taking all of eastern Europe, they turn to Arabia and the Fatimids.
Eventually, Hungary falls after an intense war.
The Khan dies and successor khanates spawn in. Who knows how long theyll last? Thats it for now. The full update notes with all the details will come soon, so stay tuned!
[ 2022-08-23 12:31:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Grand Campaign starts tomorrow!
The story of a Grand Campaign is written in the senate, where Community-formed and led parties propose and vote on laws, that our developers have to follow on stream. This Grand Campaign spans the timeframe of four of our games, spanning several thousand years of alt-human history. Starting in the Crusader Kings era, all the way to Stellaris. In between games, we will transfer elements of one era to the next, so that the entire game is played in the same universe. This year, we've teamed up with some of your favorite modders, to make it that much more entertaining!
Join the Senate on discord! Parties on discord are still accepting newcomers, and while the bills have been passed for Crusader Kings, there are still around a thousand years of history, and ~40 hours of streams that your laws can directly affect! There will also be quick votes held on discord for in-game events deemed appropriate to pass to the senate by our Game Masters.
Join us on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive, starting at 10:00 AM CEST (08:00 UTC)!
PDXCON2022 is an opportunity to meet some of your favorite developers, live in person at our annual Paradox Convention! Join a massive board game session, attend Paradox games orchestra & play our games (potentially including some cool new unreleased content)! Get the tickets while supplies last! [url=https://paradoxinteractive.com/pdxcon]
See you there!
[ 2022-08-02 14:21:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON2022 returns to Stockholm this September! Join us on the road to PDXCON2022 with another Grand Campaign!
Watch our developers as they play through a customized game of Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Stellaris and follow laws passed by our Community-led Senate. Following the great tradition laid down last year for PDXCON, there may be familiar faces, returning arch-rivals, and maybe some new friends!
What is a Grand Campaign?
The story of a Grand Campaign is written in the senate, where Community-formed and led parties propose and vote on laws, that our developers have to follow on stream. This Grand Campaign spans the timeframe of four of our games, spanning several thousand years of alt-human history. Starting in the Crusader Kings era, all the way to Stellaris. In between games, we will transfer elements of one era to the next, so that the entire game is played in the same universe. This year, we've teamed up with some of your favorite modders, to make it that much more entertaining!
How can I get involved?
Join the Senate on discord! Parties on discord are still accepting newcomers, and while the bills have been passed for Crusader Kings, there are still around a thousand years of history, and ~40 hours of streams that your laws can directly affect! There will also be quick votes held on discord for in-game events deemed appropriate to pass to the senate by our Game Masters.
Where can I watch?
Join us on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive, starting at 10:00 AM CEST (08:00 UTC)!
What is PDXCON?
PDXCON2022 is an opportunity to meet some of your favorite developers, live in person at our annual Paradox Convention! Join a massive board game session, attend Paradox games orchestra & play our games (potentially including some cool new unreleased content)! Get the tickets while supplies last! [url=https://paradoxinteractive.com/pdxcon]
See you there!
[ 2022-08-02 14:21:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.6.1.2] CK3 Live now
[ 2022-06-29 13:05:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
We released Update 1.6.1.2 for PC today at 3 PM CEST. This is a quick update intended to address some issues reported in 1.6.1x before our development team takes a rest for the summer and shouldn't break compatibility with existing saves.
Read more about this update on our official forums.
Some of the fixes included in this update:
- Fixed icon overlap in the character view, preventing players from accessing their tooltips
- Properly applied the Priesthood Slaughtered modifiers on the different counties for the Toledan Nights event
- The Guanches culture properly unlocks their Men-at-Arms, the Vaulter Infantry
- The notification event for forming the Canaries should no longer have missing localization
- Properly displayed the liege title requirement for the "Consolidate the Canaries" decision
- Iberia should now have much fewer provinces becoming Sephardi
[ 2022-06-29 13:05:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #103: Summer Break
[ 2022-06-28 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Summer is upon us, and with Fate of Iberia and the 1.6.1 update(s) (note: another small fix update will be released this week), we feel confident that the game is in a good place where it can be enjoyed over the break! (As always, keep those reports up if you find an issue) Soon well all be out enjoying the beautiful Swedish summer, taking some well-deserved rest, and recharging for the time ahead!
Read our Dev Diary #103: Summer Break
As mentioned in Dev Diary 100, we have big and small plans, some of which will be revealed later this year. Were very excited to see what you think, but we cant say anything yet!
From this point onwards we will not have any regularly scheduled Dev Diaries until were all back! There may be a small dev diary here and there, but no promises. Well be back before the end of August.
If you want to keep discussing the game over the break, head over to our Discord. Also, note that well have videos every Wednesday and Friday throughout the summer, mostly of the DevClash that wrapped up recently.
Before we leave you for the summer, did you know that we added several historical figures that can appear under the right circumstances? Heres an overview written by Ola, known as Vaniljkaka on our forums!
- Abbas ibn Firnas (~810-887), known in Latin as Armen Firman, was an Andalusian polymath. Sources claim that he made an attempt at flight by jumping from a tower in Crdoba clad in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. For this, he got immortalized, and now has a statue outside Baghdads airport. Though Ibn Firnas would be alive in our 867 bookmark, youll only encounter him if the right event fires.
- al-Zahrawi (9361013), known as Albucasis in Latin, was one of the greatest surgeons of the Middle Ages, and court physician to the caliph in Crdoba. If you manage to encounter him in the game (youll need some luck for this, and an event about medicine), hell even tell you an anecdote from his career.
- Ibn al-Wafid (997 1074), known as Abenguefith in Latin, was a pharmacist and agronomist in Toledo in the middle of the 11th century. Historical sources claim that he was a pupil of al-Zahrawi, but this seems improbable, as al-Zahrawi died before 1013. Ibn al-Wafid is a great court physician if you play emir Yahya in the Rags to Riches bookmark.
- Al-Zarkali (1029-1100), known in Latin as Arzachel, was a craftsman and astronomer based in Toledo. He fled the city when Castille conquered it in 1085. His work formed part of the basis for the Toledan Tables, a set of astronomical tables that were later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. He is in the court of Toledo in the 1066 start.
- Joseph ibn Nagrela (1035-1066), also known as Joseph ha-Nagid, was vizier to the incompetent, alcoholic emir Badis of Granada. Ibn Nagrela belonged to a prominent lineage of Sephardic Jews; his father Samuel was a famous scholar, warrior, and poet. Ibn Nagrela was the chief victim of the Granada Massacre in December 1066, crucified by an angry mob for supposedly trying to usurp the throne. However, our game begins in January 1066, so perhaps he will fare better in this history
- Ibn Zuhr (1094-1162), known in Latin as Avenzoar, was a physician and poet, who seems to have had a dramatic fallout with one of his employers, the Almoravid ruler. This fallout was very much the inspiration for one of the events in Struggle for Iberia
- Ibn Tufail (1105 1185), known in Latin as Abubacer Aben Tofail, was a physician, novelist, and astronomer, among other things. He was quite keen on autopsies, as youll notice if you encounter him, which will require the right event at the right time.
- Gerard of Cremona (~1114-1187) was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin, active in the kingdom of Castille. After the fall of Toledo, his work was instrumental in making Arabic knowledge available to the Western European intellectual sphere, ushering in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Gerard can be encountered if you get an appropriate event during the years when he was active - make sure that conciliation is the prevailing mood in Iberia!
- Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), known in Latin as Averroes, was a polymath and jurist and one of the most influential intellectuals of the Middle Ages, with a whole school of thought, averroism, that bears his name. In his youth, he seems to have been a pupil of both Ibn Zuhr and Ibn Tufail. There seem to be claims that he experimented with flight, just like ibn Firnas. Though he is very famous, he lived after our games current bookmark dates, and youll only encounter him with a bit of luck through an event in the right time period
- Qasmuna (11th-12th century) was a female Sephardi poet. Some of her poems are preserved, but little is known of her life. However, there is a theory that she was the sister of Joseph ibn Nagrela. I chose to go with this, since it made their family tree more interesting and allowed us to include her in the game. Youll likely find her with her brother in the court of Granada.
[ 2022-06-28 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Summer Sale is here!
[ 2022-06-23 16:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Create your own stories in Crusader Kings III Check out the Steam Summer Sale from June 23 to July 7. Crusader Kings III: -20% Northern Lords: -20% Crusader Kings III - Royal Edition: -10% https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III [previewyoutube=yIYS2eOm-vw;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2022-06-23 16:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.6.1.1] CK3 Live now
[ 2022-06-22 14:33:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone,
Today we're releasing a minor 1.6.1.1 update to improve stability. Existing saves and mods compatible with 1.6.1 should continue to work with this version. Update notes can be found below.
Changes in 1.6.1.1:
- Corrected an issue causing a crash when court events timed out.
- Corrected an issue with AI Clan characters using Conquest CB.
[ 2022-06-22 14:33:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.6.1] CK3 Live now
[ 2022-06-21 13:20:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Read the Update 1.6.1, live now.
###################
# Expansion Features
###################
- Additional events about Conversos, Sephardic Jews, and other religious themes for owners of Fate of Iberia
- West African pagans now have an alternative path to feudalism, allowing them to obtain it by building successful kingdoms rather than requiring faith reformations
- New content related to the Canary Islands
- The Guanche Culture has been added
- Found the Kingdom of Canarias Decision
- A new Megalith Tenet
- A new Pagan Faith: Achamanism
- New game rule to control the fall of the Umayyads. You can choose between:
- From game start
- Only after the death of the initial Caliph
- Only after 1020
- Added more Andalusian Arabic names to the database
- Hostility ending conditions were modified. You can now either own 2 kingdoms or unite the Spanish Thrones. Moreover, uniting the spanish thrones lower the conversion of counties to 75% instead of 100%
- Added Prestige to the King of Asturia in 867 to avoid starting with -600 prestige
- Adjusted the weight gain from Feasts
- Lowered the cooldown between 2 games of chess from 5 to 1 year
- Readjusted education tier threshold to make the level 4 more likely to happen while still being rare
- Improved the balancing of the Dissolution faction
- Blocked the demands from Claimant if the Realm is managing Civil Wars which could lead to a loss of territory
- Trgoviste is now the de-jure capital of Wallachia
- Galician now uses Monastic Communities instead of Agrarian
- The Struggle Clash CB now has a cost after the Struggle ended
- Adjusted the reward for Secure the Mediterranean
- Adjusted the chance for the poetry to be lauded / mocked in order to improve with your Diplomacy instead of worsening
- The Sephardi culture is now Involved in the Struggle
- Refined the odds and cooldown for the new events
- They will wage holy wars again
- Added a blocker for the AI to not give away their relics
- Fixed crash when hovering unavailable court amenity upgrades in Tribal Court
- Restored the missing assets from Northern Lords in the Barbershop
- Reduced crippling empathy in characters receiving stress when their dying rival/nemesis has ANY ritual best friend anywhere
- Fixed a bug when University (and all special buildings) doesn't apply county holder character modifiers (county_holder_character_modifier)
- Reviving Adoptionism now grants you the heresiarch trait
- Fixed some map names being displaced
- Adjusted the culture of the two Visigothic characters that snuck back in after Visigothic was removed
- Regnal numbers will no longer appear after the first *word* in a first name, instead appearing after the entire first name
- Conquest CB now provides more feedback about it's requirements during the struggle
- Added de jure kingdom splitting logic for edge case where there are kings which don't hold their capital duchy
- Fixed Map Mode in struggle interface not being localized
- There is a proper feedback if you don't have enough money to wage in a board game
- Rite tenet now actually reduces hostility with same-HoF faiths to Astray, instead of leaving you hopelessly enamored of a Head of Faith who still says you're a heretic
- Fixed Portugal going to Hispania when created after Compromise
- Fixed edge cases where empires were created for competing kings, due to order of kingdom creation
- Improved script logic of Status Quo de jure transfers and title creation
- Elvira Jimena is definitely unlanded now
- Removed the remains of debug option in the By Another Man event
- You can now choose to banish El Cid even if he becomes your vassal. Doing so will make you a tyrant and may lead to becoming rivals or worse with El Cid.
- The Secret to Freedom is now more likely to trigger. Prisoners may earn stress if they are the kind that does not usually reveal secrets.
- Fixed a bug which caused tall characters to float over MENA and Indian thrones
- You can now challenge someone to chess, even if they have an active event they need to answer to.
- The break truce catalyst now works against Count as well
- Demanding payment works against any involved Ruler (or any other use of a hook)
- Titles which will be destroyed by the Dissolution Faction are properly displayed
- We now keep the chosen education traits for custom children rulers
- An indecent event has been blocked against children
- All non-muslim iberian culture uses the Mediterranean Court Room now instead of fallbacking on the Indian Court Room
- Added a cooldown to "invite to activity" to avoid spamming and weird edge cases
- Removed redundant option in fp2_struggle.2050 if el cid is your vassal
- Displays the activity cost in the interaction window for "Invite to Activity"
- Properly displays the icon and related description for the Share Secret interaction
- Split the Involvement and Phase conditions for the Ending Decision into two to avoid being involved as an implicit condition
- Only trigger the development gain for city holdings for the Prestigious Development Perk
- Lubb Musa is now properly described as having a clan government in the bookmark screen
- Holy order are properly ignored for Struggle Ending Decisions
- Iberian Foothold is available when owning the land for 15 years or more, not only for 15 years only
- Fixed issue where betting land causes the county to get permanently set as "in wager"
- Enforce Truce can properly be enforced post-Struggle
- Bells of Santiago is now active for Iberian cultures once the Struggle ends
- The new Dynasty track stays available after ending the struggle for Dynast living in Iberia or with an Iberian Heritage culture.
- Fixed some clipping issues
- Fixed a localization error in the tooltip of the hybridization cost
- Fixed an error in an options tooltip for the Meet Peers event Playing House
- Fixe Out of Syncs due to players having different languages
- The Iberian sword will be held properly and without its stand during duels
- Historys best friends is now only triggered when seducing / romancing your best friend
- Children cannot become Thief-Slayers anymore: they are forbidden from dueling
- Adjusted the margin in the character window to allow hovering over and lock tooltips
- Fixed connectivity issues between counties
- The missing name "At" (for occitan0066) is now in the list of names
- Lots of localization fixes in the different languages
[ 2022-06-21 13:20:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #102: Stabilizing the Iberian Peninsula
[ 2022-06-21 13:04:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there,
We are wrapping up our work on Fate of Iberia as the summer break is on the horizon. We are releasing Update 1.6.1 today.
Read our Dev Diary #102: Stabilizing the Iberian Peninsula
Hello there,
We are wrapping up our work on Fate of Iberia as the summer break is on the horizon. We are releasing Update 1.6.1 today, which will notably contain:
The content we revealed two weeks ago
Tweaks to the Dissolution faction and a new set of game rules to tweak it for the Al-Andalus. You can now decide to either:
Activate it from the start
Block it until the death of the starting Caliph
Block it until 1020
The full update notes are available at the end of this post. You can scroll through if you are impatient.
I wanted to seize the opportunity to thank you for your feedback on Fate of Iberia. We learned a lot through reading your threads and comments on our forum, as well as the discussions had on other platforms. We also enjoyed the funny anecdotes and were (happily) surprised by your love for cheese and the other stories you shared.
Most of all, your comments and feedback regarding the Struggle itself have been invaluable and will continue to help us in the future. If you have any grievances, or wishes regarding the system, please discuss them on our forum! While we are not always able to respond directly, we do keep a keen eye on what is being discussed!
Cheers,
P.S.: A crash was identified recently, which we were unfortunately not able to resolve in this update. We are however working on a resolution for this issue, which we will release as soon as possible.
The crash occurs if you let a Court Event sit in your Royal Court unanswered, meaning the game will crash when the event would time out.
This can be worked-around by answering your Court Events before they time out.
###################
# Expansion Features
###################
- Additional events about Conversos, Sephardic Jews, and other religious themes for owners of Fate of Iberia
- West African pagans now have an alternative path to feudalism, allowing them to obtain it by building successful kingdoms rather than requiring faith reformations
- New content related to the Canary Islands
- The Guanche Culture has been added
- Found the Kingdom of Canarias Decision
- A new Megalith Tenet
- A new Pagan Faith: Achamanism
- New game rule to control the fall of the Umayyads. You can choose between:
- From game start
- Only after the death of the initial Caliph
- Only after 1020
- Added more Andalusian Arabic names to the database
- Hostility ending conditions were modified. You can now either own 2 kingdoms or unite the Spanish Thrones. Moreover, uniting the spanish thrones lower the conversion of counties to 75% instead of 100%
- Added Prestige to the King of Asturia in 867 to avoid starting with -600 prestige
- Adjusted the weight gain from Feasts
- Lowered the cooldown between 2 games of chess from 5 to 1 year
- Readjusted education tier threshold to make the level 4 more likely to happen while still being rare
- Improved the balancing of the Dissolution faction
- Blocked the demands from Claimant if the Realm is managing Civil Wars which could lead to a loss of territory
- Trgoviste is now the de-jure capital of Wallachia
- Galician now uses Monastic Communities instead of Agrarian
- The Struggle Clash CB now has a cost after the Struggle ended
- Adjusted the reward for Secure the Mediterranean
- Adjusted the chance for the poetry to be lauded / mocked in order to improve with your Diplomacy instead of worsening
- The Sephardi culture is now Involved in the Struggle
- Refined the odds and cooldown for the new events
- They will wage holy wars again
- Added a blocker for the AI to not give away their relics
- Fixed crash when hovering unavailable court amenity upgrades in Tribal Court
- Restored the missing assets from Northern Lords in the Barbershop
- Reduced crippling empathy in characters receiving stress when their dying rival/nemesis has ANY ritual best friend anywhere
- Fixed a bug when University (and all special buildings) doesn't apply county holder character modifiers (county_holder_character_modifier)
- Reviving Adoptionism now grants you the heresiarch trait
- Fixed some map names being displaced
- Adjusted the culture of the two Visigothic characters that snuck back in after Visigothic was removed
- Regnal numbers will no longer appear after the first *word* in a first name, instead appearing after the entire first name
- Conquest CB now provides more feedback about it's requirements during the struggle
- Added de jure kingdom splitting logic for edge case where there are kings which don't hold their capital duchy
- Fixed Map Mode in struggle interface not being localized
- There is a proper feedback if you don't have enough money to wage in a board game
- Rite tenet now actually reduces hostility with same-HoF faiths to Astray, instead of leaving you hopelessly enamored of a Head of Faith who still says you're a heretic
- Fixed Portugal going to Hispania when created after Compromise
- Fixed edge cases where empires were created for competing kings, due to order of kingdom creation
- Improved script logic of Status Quo de jure transfers and title creation
- Elvira Jimena is definitely unlanded now
- Removed the remains of debug option in the By Another Man event
- You can now choose to banish El Cid even if he becomes your vassal. Doing so will make you a tyrant and may lead to becoming rivals or worse with El Cid.
- The Secret to Freedom is now more likely to trigger. Prisoners may earn stress if they are the kind that does not usually reveal secrets.
- Fixed a bug which caused tall characters to float over MENA and Indian thrones
- You can now challenge someone to chess, even if they have an active event they need to answer to.
- The break truce catalyst now works against Count as well
- Demanding payment works against any involved Ruler (or any other use of a hook)
- Titles which will be destroyed by the Dissolution Faction are properly displayed
- We now keep the chosen education traits for custom children rulers
- An indecent event has been blocked against children
- All non-muslim iberian culture uses the Mediterranean Court Room now instead of fallbacking on the Indian Court Room
- Added a cooldown to "invite to activity" to avoid spamming and weird edge cases
- Removed redundant option in fp2_struggle.2050 if el cid is your vassal
- Displays the activity cost in the interaction window for "Invite to Activity"
- Properly displays the icon and related description for the Share Secret interaction
- Split the Involvement and Phase conditions for the Ending Decision into two to avoid being involved as an implicit condition
- Only trigger the development gain for city holdings for the Prestigious Development Perk
- Lubb Musa is now properly described as having a clan government in the bookmark screen
- Holy order are properly ignored for Struggle Ending Decisions
- Iberian Foothold is available when owning the land for 15 years or more, not only for 15 years only
- Fixed issue where betting land causes the county to get permanently set as "in wager"
- Enforce Truce can properly be enforced post-Struggle
- Bells of Santiago is now active for Iberian cultures once the Struggle ends
- The new Dynasty track stays available after ending the struggle for Dynast living in Iberia or with an Iberian Heritage culture.
- Fixed some clipping issues
- Fixed a localization error in the tooltip of the hybridization cost
- Fixed an error in an options tooltip for the Meet Peers event Playing House
- Fixe Out of Syncs due to players having different languages
- The Iberian sword will be held properly and without its stand during duels
- Historys best friends is now only triggered when seducing / romancing your best friend
- Children cannot become Thief-Slayers anymore: they are forbidden from dueling
- Adjusted the margin in the character window to allow hovering over and lock tooltips
- Fixed connectivity issues between counties
- The missing name "At" (for occitan0066) is now in the list of names
- Lots of localization fixes in the different languages
[ 2022-06-21 13:04:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #101: The CK3 Beta Program
As a Beta tester you get access to content currently in development. The role is to play early versions, give feedback on experience playing with the new features and if you encounter any issues whilst playing. Since Crusader Kings is a Paradox game at its core, we have another layer in our beta program that is the Historical aspects of the game. Since we try to a large extent to be historically accurate, there is usually a lot of discussions and feedback on those areas of the game as well. From the Devs side, we are a group of people that interact with the program continuously. Reading through feedback and thoughts, similarly how we monitor the forum and social channels, but with content not yet available to the public. We value the interaction and feedback from you guys a lot, and the Beta program is an important part of the Player / Developer interaction. So, if you enjoy playing CK3 as much as we do, and perhaps have a niche knowledge that would benefit the group, such as a burning interest in the Kingdom of Ireland in 1101 or an extended knowledge of Medieval fashion choices in Iberia? Either way, if you think it sounds exciting to help us in the development process of upcoming content and love the Medieval period, we encourage you to send in your application to the program. Please fill out the form HERE, and we will get back to you shortly! Until then.. Tess & Troy
[ 2022-06-14 12:51:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Howdy all, The number #101 really set the expectations to be both the start of something new, as well as a continuation of a long standing tradition, right? So that is exactly what this entry will be about - the renewal of the Crusader Kings III Beta program. Read our Dev Diary #101: The CK3 Beta Program Our Beta program has been around since before the launch of the game. We have had people joining us in different periods over the years, and there are still people with us that have been around from the very start! Their feedback is not only super insightful and valuable, but has also helped shape the landscape of the game. These things can sometimes seem trivial, but can also sometimes be the difference between a successful piece of content and something that might otherwise have been well received in a different block of content. Their efforts truly are the backbone of the testing process as well as the voice of the people! As part of the continuous development of the program, we have now decided its time again to open up for new applicants!
What does it mean to be a Beta tester?
As a Beta tester you get access to content currently in development. The role is to play early versions, give feedback on experience playing with the new features and if you encounter any issues whilst playing. Since Crusader Kings is a Paradox game at its core, we have another layer in our beta program that is the Historical aspects of the game. Since we try to a large extent to be historically accurate, there is usually a lot of discussions and feedback on those areas of the game as well. From the Devs side, we are a group of people that interact with the program continuously. Reading through feedback and thoughts, similarly how we monitor the forum and social channels, but with content not yet available to the public. We value the interaction and feedback from you guys a lot, and the Beta program is an important part of the Player / Developer interaction. So, if you enjoy playing CK3 as much as we do, and perhaps have a niche knowledge that would benefit the group, such as a burning interest in the Kingdom of Ireland in 1101 or an extended knowledge of Medieval fashion choices in Iberia? Either way, if you think it sounds exciting to help us in the development process of upcoming content and love the Medieval period, we encourage you to send in your application to the program. Please fill out the form HERE, and we will get back to you shortly! Until then.. Tess & Troy
[ 2022-06-14 12:51:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Update 1.6.0.1] CK3 Live now
[ 2022-06-09 13:11:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Update 1.6.0.1 is Live now!
Read the Update 1.6.0.1.
We have released Update 1.6.0.1 for PC at 10am CEST this morning.
The latter aims to fix the recent CPU Support Issue for Fate of Iberia (AVX issue) that you have reported after the release of Flavor Pack 2.
Update 1.6.1 will be released in the coming weeks, where were tweaking some balance, fixing issues found by you in the community, and also adding in a few new goodies (Sneak Peak Here).
Remember to pop by the bug forums if you have a problem, so we can investigate and fix the issues you experience with CK3.
Some of the issues that will be fixed in 1.6.1:
- Crashes when changing Amenities in Tribal Royal Court // At the moment the workaround is to change from Tribal to Feudal, we know it is not the best but we are working on it.
- Northern Hairstyles are not available for Northern characters
- King of Asturias starts with negative prestige in 867 bookmark
- Achievement "History's best friends" is achieved upon seducing/romancing anyone
- More improvements & bug fixes
[ 2022-06-09 13:11:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #100: A Royal Journey
[ 2022-06-07 13:54:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Fate of Iberia was released just last week, and we hope youre all enjoying shaping the peninsula according to your own ideas and ideals! Are you dominating it by force, or trying to reconcile the inhabitants differences? Have any of you encountered the elusive wandering monk yet?
Anyhow, were hard at work with the 1.6.1 update, where were tweaking some balance, fixing issues found by you in the community, and also adding in a few new goodies (more on that below). Were also working on a fix for those of you who cant start the game (the AVX issue), which will come out before the full 1.6.1 update. Remember to pop by the bug forums if you have a problem: its the best way to make sure we know about your game issues!
Read our Dev Diary #100: A Royal Journey
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
With Fate of Iberia in your hands, weve now concluded the Royal Edition, and were overjoyed to see so many of you playing and enjoying the game. Please, keep sending us great feedback, we appreciate it a lot - your thoughts are very valuable to us!
We are now setting our eyes on the future. We have many plans, both big and small - I cannot go into detail as its too early yet, but rest assured that we have many exciting things coming up! Were taking a long, hard look at what weve done and achieved since the release of CK3; were evaluating, adjusting, and setting a course that were sure will be to your liking!
Now, to round this Dev Diary off, wed like to tease some new content coming along with the 1.6.1 update:
For owners of Fate of Iberia, were adding a few religiously-flavored events about Sephardic Jews, Conversos, the direction of mosques, and so on - with interesting choices on how to handle various situations. Heres one example (dont want to spoil them all!)
Outside of Hispania, but still in the vicinity, were doing a small update to the Canary Islands, who will, among other things, receive their own pagan faith and some monolithic ambitions.
Were adjusting how feudalization works in the West African sphere, enabling rulers to transition out of the tribal government while retaining their native faiths without requiring them to reform those faiths. This is to better model methods of urbanization and centralization in West Africa, though they will also retain access to the old path too.
That's it for this time, cheers for now!
[ 2022-06-07 13:54:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Fate of Iberia, available now!
[ 2022-05-31 16:00:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III's Flavor Pack Fate of Iberia & Free Update 1.6 Castle: available now!
The Struggle, a new conflict mechanic
New Buildings, Artifacts, and Dynasties
Iberian Cultures & Faiths
New Art & Music
More Events & Customisation
Free Update: Balancing, Clan Contracts, Dissolution Faction, Map Update, Shared Head of Faith...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
The sun-kissed lands of Iberia await your glorious rule with Crusader Kings III: Fate of Iberia flavor pack. Deeply rich in history, culture and people, the peninsulas medieval destiny is ready to be shaped by your majestic hand, be it clad in conciliatory velvet or as an iron fist.
The new major multi-stage Struggle feature lets you decide on the fate of a lively and complex region across realms and cultures. Be the one to unite Iberia under a single banner, or watch as conflict marks generations to come.
From the Christian kingdoms in their northern mountain strongholds to the sumptuous Muslim taifas of al-Andalus, immerse yourself in Crusader Kings III: Fate of Iberia with all its splendor and art. Breathe life into your Iberian adventure with new events, music, traditions, models, and style your ruler as a royal Castillian knight or dashing Umayyad emir.
The Fate of Iberia lies in your hands
The Struggle is an expansive new feature found in Crusader Kings III: Fate of Iberia, simulating multi-stage, large-scale conflicts across decades, or even centuries.
- You tell the ever-evolving saga of Iberia with each decision you make. Appeasing or hostile, influence the constant turmoil on the peninsula to your liking during each phase of the Struggle.
- Follow the path of history with a definite end goal in mind or play out a completely new fate for the region. Be the early founder of a Hispania steeped in blood, or bring together a multicultural caliphate in peace.
- A dazzling array of new thematic events, decisions, and cultural traditions unique to Iberia can be explored. All are historically accurate and meticulously researched.
- Dress up your character as a true hidalgo or a Muslim prince, or choose your pick from well-groomed beards and curly hair, armor, clothes, new turban styles, or some of the tallest headgear medieval Europe has to offer!
- A host of new 3D models and environments, including holdings, units and ships, can be encountered.
- Not only are a series of new Iberian-inspired artifacts, heirlooms and treasures yours for the taking, Crusader Kings III: Royal Court owners are also able to display their full regalia in their personal court. A new throne, council weapons, treasures, and other themed customization options will enrich your courtroom even further!
- Get carried away by the richly themed soundtrack, as you admire the stunning new art, from loading screens to icons and revamped user interface.
[ 2022-05-31 16:00:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #99 - 1.6 Castle Update
[ 2022-05-31 13:21:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Buenos das Crusaders!
The time has finally come to decide the Fate of Iberia.
Everything went according to plan since the last diary (phew!), so today we are really excited to release our new Flavor Pack.
In todays Dev Diary, well be sharing with you the final Release Notes and some news on the release of the last installment of the Royal Edition.
Read our Dev Diary #99: It is time to decide the Fate of Iberia
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
[previewyoutube=w0Av16wx6Y8;full][/previewyoutube]
First thing, note that the Garments of the Holy Roman Empire are now available for all!
You have spoken and we are always listening! We are throwing in a little something alongside this release that we hope you will enjoy.
Many of you have requested a way to buy the collection of Garments of the Holy Roman Empire, so we have decided to make it available from today to all players for free. This is a collection of outfits for commoners, warriors and rulers of Central Europe, for your full HRE immersion.
Bug Fixing
As always, we strive to fix as many of those pesky bugs as possible. Thank you all for helping out by reporting them in the forum and reacting to those that matter the most to you. It does help us prioritize fixing so keep them coming!
Oh well, it is time to stop reading and start struggling over Iberian territory. I hope you enjoy playing Fate of Iberia as much as weve enjoyed creating it.
Changelog 1.6 Castle Update
###################
# Flavor Pack Features
###################
- Added the Iberian Struggle: decide the fate of the peninsula. The Struggle is divided into phases, each opening unique opportunities and leading to different endings. Use the new content (interactions, casus belli and decisions) to dominate the peninsula, or to find a more peaceful alternative.
- Added a new set of iberian artifacts:
- Chalice of Dona Urraca
- Santiago aquamanile
- Bells of Santiago de Compostela. Upon capture, they are melted down into an aquamanile. Upon recapture, they are melted down. Upon re-recapture, they are melted down. Etc.
- Visigothic votive crown
- Armillary sphere
- Andalusian aquamanile
- Chessboard for 2 players
- Chessboard for 4 players
- Added new models for the Cities and Castles of Iberia
- Added new models for Christian and Muslim temples in Iberia
- Added a new set of special buildings on the map
- Aljaferia
- Alhambra
- Basilica de Santiago
- Tower of Hercules
- Rock of Gibraltar
- Alczar de Segovia
- City walls of Toledo
- Roman walls of Lugo
- New Portrait Assets: added a bunch of new headgear, clothes, hairstyle and beards for both the Muslim and Christian fashion of Iberia
- New unit models for Iberian Heritage cultures.
- New Dynasty legacies
- The Metropolitan legacy focuses on the development of the Realms cities.
- The Coterie legacy focuses on the collaboration between the members of the House.
- New flavor events drawing on Iberian cultures as well as struggle-specific events
- New Cultural Traditions: State Ransom, Ritualized Friendship, Tabletop Warriors, and Malleable Subjects
- New UI Skin for Iberian Heritage cultures and characters living in the peninsula
- New audio cues when waging war in Iberia and progressing the Struggle.
- New mood tracks have been added for Iberian cultures
- Added a wandering monk with a small dream
- You can now convert to Era Zaharrak when you're an established Basque-cultured sinner in your current faith
- Several faiths can now have the same Head of Faith:
- Several Islamic faiths now share a Head of Faith at game start, temporal Islamic faiths need to decide on creation which existing caliph they'll submit to (optional for Muhakkima & Zandaqa)
- Conversos, Mozarabic, Insular and Catholic all have the Pope as their Head of Faith
- Added Rite tenet, allowing theocratic faiths to retain their old Head of Faith on creation if they don't differ too heavily from their mother faith
- Added Mozarabic Christianity as a Rite-faith, sharing their Head of Faith with Catholicism
- Reworked the Found Aragon decision to create Aragonese culture, be more frequent, and allow for slight varieties in Aragonese
- Reworked the Avenge the Battle of Tours decision: it now shifts Aquitaine under the De Jure of Hispania when taken as its hard to accomplish.
- Reworked the Form Portugal Decision: it can now be taken during the opportunity phase of the Struggle without being independent.
- Added new special contracts for Clans: Marriage Favor, Jizya, Iqta, and Ghazi
- Added a new faction type: the Dissolution faction will destroy the primary titles of their target, removing a Realm from the map
- Added a new 867 Bookmark for Iberia: play one of the influential vassals and forge the destiny of your dynasty!
- Added a dozen of new emblems for Coat of Arms and new patterns for Iberian cultures
- Added a new field Face item for the Barbershop to, well, customize the characters face
- Insular Christians now have the Rite tenet rather than the Pastoral Isolation tenet
- Removed blockers to invite close/extended family children from foreign courts (they still have to accept though, most useful for getting wayward children of your own back to court)
- Tribals with a Royal Court are no longer penalized for having too few Servant Amenities when Hunting
- Gave Haesteinn the existing learning lifestyle health buffs & reduced his base health to match the extra health gained, *then* shaved off a little more, hopefully making him a bit less likely to consistently live to over 100
- Characters will now evaluate their friendship with opponent when answering a call to war from an ally
- Martial Custom is once again dictated by Faith if the Royal Court expansion is not enabled.
- All Slavic cultures in 867 now start with a decent degree of mutual cultural acceptance, representing their still being very similar to each other in the earlier bookmark
- Converted Sayyid, Saoshyant, Saoshyant Descendant, & Chakravarti to use the new specific religious opinion modifiers, rather than same-faith opinion
- Historical artifacts no longer iterate through every ruler in the game on start 20+ times, Excalibur(s) can now spawn in a much broader range of Western Europe, simply preferring Arthurian heartlands, Norse paganism can now actually spawn its magical branch artifacts
- Made the March special contract available in the Tribal Era, tied to the Bannus innovation, allowing historical marches to be modeled or emulated
- Increased the overall stats of the Callaberos MAA
- Told Haesteinn to chill about invading kingdoms that cannot possibly outlast his death (looking at you, Viking East Francia), *unless* Vikings are set to Apocalyptic, in which case he'll only attack at least kingdom-tier realms
- You can now benefit from the bonuses of the Salamanca university by being the County holder
- Islamic, Jewish, & Christian Syncretism tenets now allow the syncretising faith to use artifacts from the religion they're syncretizing with at full benefit
- Castille & Leon will now generally eventually be created in 867 starts, unless Asturias successfully integrates Castille completely
- Added Basque Pagan faith, with no counties at game start but able to be brought into favor via decision
- Also added the Chthonic Redoubts tenet, providing benefits to faiths in mountainous areas.
- Added Hafizi faith to diversify the number of Shias who obey the Ismaili caliph
- Added Purchase Truce interaction, accessible via the Defensive Measures perk or being in a Struggle
- Added a decision for Islamic rulers whose head of faith is not the same faith as them to splinter off into their own caliphate (newly created temporal Sunni and Shia faiths generally have to use this to get their own HoFs)
- Cartagena now spawns rather than Cieza as the city holding for Murcia
- Added Malleable Subjects, Ritualized Friendship and Tabletop Gamers to the Andalusian culture. Malleable Subjects replaces Xenophile.
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Basque
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Castillian, and replaced Hit and Run by Tabletop Gamers
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Catalan
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Portuguese
- Added Ritualized Friendship and Malleable Subjects to the Visigothic
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Galician
- Added Ritualized Friendship to the Asturleonese
- Added State Ransoming to the Aragonese, and replaced Wedding Ceremonies with Ritualized Friendship
- The AI now desires less strength on its side in a war, calling fewer allies if it doesn't have to
- adjusted involved struggle AI to variously focus less on uninvolved/interloper characters (or more for some aggressive actions) when picking marriage targets, murder/seduction targets, and certain types of war
- The AI is now further motivated to press claims for its family members
- The AI is now significantly more inclined to prioritize warring for their De Jure land
- The AI now more strongly prefers warring for neighboring territories
- The AI receives an agenda when participating in the Iberian Struggle that will motivate them to take actions tied to the different Catalyst: They will either aim for escalating the struggle, or de-escalating it.
- Updated the color of the Seljuk Empire to be closer to Persia
- Updated the color of Majorca to be easier to distinguish from the Umayyad Caliphate
- Updated the color for Asturias (k_asturias and d_asturia)
- 'El Cid' will be more handsome
- King Adelfonso III of Asturias is better looking now
- King Garzia and his wife did a relooking
- The Sultan Muhammad and his wife also went to the hairdresser
- Improved some of the facial animations
- The Martial Custom Pillar within the Culture Window is no longer shown if the Royal Court expansion is not enabled.
- Transformed the "player changed" popup into a feed message
- Adding faith discount tooltip when converting to an involved faith in the Iberian Struggle
- Added various Andalusian cultural names to titles in Iberia
- Dynasty title naming disabled within Iberia to allow for more recognisable (and appropriate) cultures
- Independent Muslim dukes within Iberia will now use (or rather, have used _for_ them) the title of "Taifa" for their realm tier title
- Jazzed up the Christian heaven-hell alternate locs a little
- Removed several niche anachronistic references to smoking
- Add dynamic modifiers for religious family, religion, and faith opinions.
- Allowed titles to be the head of multiple different faiths
- Enabled to script bookmark characters dynasty or dynasty house to be used in bookmark screen
- Remove bypass requirements from impacting law validity as it would cause issues in succession and other code by applying laws that make no sense.
- Rework custom modifiers in faiths sins and virtues, now must specify the key of a static modifier instead of trying to read a modifier inline.
- Added a new type of modifier for the buildings: county_dynasty_modifier. You can now check for the countys holder dynasty perk to unlock modifiers
- Added a new modifier for building to apply them directly on the county holder: county_holder_character_modifier
- Added a bunch of functionality allowing to implement new Struggles
- Eased up the triggers for a variety of book topics.
- East Francia in 867 will now mostly split into de jure Bavaria and de jure East Francia on the death of Ludwig II, rather than a tiny Bavaria materializing between two giant slabs of East Francia
- Fixed duplicated price and counter entries for the Lenkas MAA. They should now have the right price and properly relate to archers and pikemen rather than to pikemen and light cavalry.
- Gave a more concrete sense of (Franconian) cultural identity to the single remaining generic German character in the title
- Provinces without forts occupied by allies no longer change color to war leader after several days
- Fixed some historical characters not being bastard founders, leading to strange dynasties/inheritance
- The AI will stop endless loop of hiring / firing court positions
- Vassals joining Populist faction will now properly gain independence
- Fixed a localization bug in Spanish for the Scheme secrecy value
- Fixed a typo causing Christianity & Taoism to look for "adjerents" rather than "adherents"
- Fixed the typo for Sjlland
- Fixed the death icon status for dead characters: they will not be displayed a dying anymore
- Fixed several instances of characters referring to themselves (eg: spymaster revealing secrets about themselves or ruler kneeling in front of themselves)
- The AI can now properly select the Council task Develop Country task from the Steward
- The side effects of Manage Royal Guard will be properly triggered now
- Death icons are color-coded again
- Petition Liege now requires at least 1 valid option, that will automatically be selected instead of defaulting on ask for a Council position
- Historical Bernards should be where they belong now. We hope.
- Also axed one _false_ Bernard.
- Several clipping issues for female children haircut have been fixed
- You can now romance your incestuous lover: the tabou penalty is not applied if you are already a lover of the target
- Elvira Jemina now receives a proper holding and will be harder to marry
- The opinion penalty from Warmonger is now properly applied
- Added historic Kingdom of the Visigoths for tracking assorted old Visigothic kings from before 720 - there's no practical function for this, we just think it's neat
- Added detail to a bunch o'Castilians, exiled a single Castilian to Occitan
- Added Basque culture to two counties on the French side of the Pyrenees
- Renamed the Tigris river to actually be called, eh, Tigris.
- Updated the map in the duchies of Barcelona and Aragon, adding new counties and new baronies to improve the overall level of detail along the Pyrenees.
- Visigothic split now happens before game start, rather than during gameplay
- Added & improved hundreds and hundreds of name equivalencies, chiefly (though not exclusively) within or related to Iberia in some fashion
- Added & updated various historic Portuguese characters, as well as updates for one historic Suebi character
- Added a raft of new Asturleonese characters
- Added new Aragonese characters, moved a handful of mislabelled Aragonese characters to French
- Added or reworked numerous (Iberian) Galician characters
- Added or reworked various Catalan characters, shuffled a few Catalan/Catalan-adjacent characters out to Occitan & French
- Added or reworked various minor historical characters across half a dozen cultures only related to Iberia in a secondary capacity (spouses, parents, concubines, etc.)
- Added pre-scripted Head of Faith title for Muwalladis, available via decision in 867 and for recreation in 1066
- Deprecated titular Duchy of Zaragoza title, made Duchy of Aragon pull double functional duty as both Aragon and Zaragoza, with some shenanigans for changing the current name (this means that the rulers of Zaragoza are now actually regarded as the rightful rulers of... Zaragoza, and the area around it)
- Moved a load of folks who were ruling caste members *over* Andalusians from Andalusian and into Bedouin, Berber (either), Mashriqi, or Yemeni
- Moved an errant Armenian character hiding amidst the Greeks out to Armenian
- Shuffled various characters that got lumped into Bedouin into Yemeni, Mashriqi, and Andalusian
- Shuffled various historical personages out of or into Basque
- Shuffled various misc minor characters out from Berber to Mashriqi, Bedouin, Andalusian, and the _other_ Berber
[ 2022-05-31 13:21:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #98: The Castle's foundation
Since Iberia in 867 has several clan realms that play big parts in the region, we wanted to add some new options to clan contracts:
There are now cool options to get the most of out your vassals as Clan Liege now. We are looking forward to working more on clan governments in future updates as this was a first step to making them as complex and interesting as they were historically.
To model some of the big historical shake-ups in Iberia, weve introduced a new faction type. The Dissolution Faction will aim to destroy the primary title of the top liege of the realm, as well as any other same tier title. This makes all vassals independent, shattering a kingdom or empire. In FP2, this means that the Umayyads can collapse as they did in history, but it also means that any large realms in decline will face this challenge. Anything detracting from a realms unity will increase the risk of a Dissolution Faction forming. That means short reigns, low cultural acceptance, war losses, and unallied vassals will all be dangerous to King and Empire tier rulers. Realms where the vassals either like the heir or can elect their own are less likely to face a Dissolution Faction. And if a vassal can make a claim for the title themselves, theyll do that instead.
There is a high chance of the Umayyad falling when starting in 867
To go along the theme of the flavor pack, weve updated the map for Iberia. The map changes are fairly small in scope this time around though, and the focus was to update northern Iberia, more specifically the kingdom of Aragon. In order to improve the overall accuracy we added new counties such as Rossello and Pallas. For a better depiction of the area, existing baronies were moved around and new ones added in order to increase the granularity of the area.
In addition to the county set up, the terrain type of some provinces also changed. In addition to the changes in Aragon, we added cultural naming variations for many Berber and Arabic cultures to many titles across Iberia.
Heads of faith can now be set as characters of a different faith. This is done through script, rather than manually in-game. This means for insular Christians, Conversos, and Mozarabs, the Pope will be their Head of Faith, even though they are of a different faith.
Historical faiths can be emulated by using the Rite tenet. Provided you dont meet certain red lines for your old Head of Faith, at the cost of a tenet slot, you can keep your old faiths Head of Faith while converting.. Ecumenical Christians taking this decision keep ecumenism, making them astray from the Catholic perspective.
Islam now has a bespoke system for choosing the correct caliph: though Shias are still fairly split between several caliphates and imamates, the mainline Sunnis (Ashari, Muwalladi, and Maturidi) now share the Sunni caliph as a Head of Faith. Muslims who share a Head of Faith view each other as righteous. Influential members of an Islamic faith whose Head of Faith doesnt share their faith can attempt to Appoint a Righteous Caliph, claiming (and creating) the caliphate for themselves and splintering the Ummah.
Once splintered, a faith cannot be brought back into the fold. Islam is stronger together, but its differences often become irreconcilable. New temporal Sunni and Shia faiths cannot appoint themselves as caliphs immediately if theres a caliph available (either the orthodox version or their prior faiths caliph). Instead, they must show submission to an existing caliph from whom they derive their authority, even in rebellion, and then follow the path to Appoint a Righteous Caliph themselves. Characters intending to do this all along can get a little boost on the path.
As Im sure some of you have noticed in the streams and such, weve removed Visigothic from the map 867, starting Iberia off pre-split between the 1066 cultures (save for Aragonese, which now emerges as part of the creation of the Kingdom of Aragon). Theres a few reasons for this - Visigothic was always a bit of a wonky culture, a holdover from CK2s Charlemagne DLC that made mapping 9th century Iberia very inexact but which added some fun flavour to the region. Since cultures before 1.5 were mostly cosmetic, it didnt really affect actual gameplay much, even if it fudged history somewhat (not least by making the Visigoths hang around long after theyd diverged or hybridised). The release of Royal Court changed that situation, making playing in Iberia a very weird flow. You start, you have one set of traditions, then within a few decades an event shifts your culture and you almost certainly end up with a radically different set of traditions with no feasible way to do much about it. This, plus just being bad history, clinched it for Visigothic, and we had it taken out to the block and given the ol Royal Anti-Pardon. As with Suebi and co before it, Visigothic will continue to exist in the files, along with its associated namelist, where it remains useable for history and in mods and such.
Further on from this, weve updated, added, and occasionally removed hundreds and hundreds of characters all across Iberia (as well as a smattering in Occitania - if we never read about another character named Bernard, well be happy), adjusting relations, lifespans, traits, and dynasties. Thisll add a bit of life in both major bookmark dates, but most importantly, itll be a bit of colour for those of us who enjoy spelunking the history databases and checking to see if titles in-game have their Migration Period rulers properly associated. Title-nerds need love too. On that note, the Visigothic Kings now have a titular historical title to give them their correct royal dignity & regnal numbers. For folks who like actual gameplay more than interactive reading, weve added the Mozarabic strand of Christianity - Arabicised Catholics who carry on the strongly independent liturgical and ecclesiastic traditions of pre-Islamic Iberia but view the Pope as their Head of Faith (with the aid of the Rite tenet). Squeezed between the Catholic North and the Islamic South, the Mozarabs struggle to preserve their way of life, and since you can see a lot more of them in 867 than 1066, you can probably guess how its going for them. Previously, weve portrayed the sparsely-regulated Leonese portion of Iberias Inner Plateau as being, variously, either under nominal Andalusian control (since they notionally held it) or nominal Asturian control (since they grabbed it soon after the Andalusians stopped caring about it). Neither of these were quite perfect solutions, and relied on fictitious local characters either way, so weve now given this rural area over to a collection of minor Mozarabic characters. Abandoned by their Islamic overlords, eyed greedily by their orthodox brethren, these minor landholders soldier on as they have for centuries. At least, they try to, but its a difficult life being a one-county minor wedged between larger realms Its not all doomngloom for Iberias new minors though, because, on the subject of those larger realms, weve also split them up a tad! Asturias has lost Portucale, which theyre actually only in the process of trying to snatch, whilst Andalusia has been given a reality check. Both Portucale and Toledo, whilst paying nominal homage to Cordoba, were functionally independent, with Toledo in particular resisting repeated military expeditions and attempts at taxation.
Andalusia is in the process of making a play to subjugate Toledo more firmly in 867, with Portucale also being on the books, so we represent this as a brace of wars on start. Andalusia is trying to quell its powerful border districts of Toledo and Portucale, keeping them in the realm, whilst Asturias tries to snatch Portucale mid-rebellion. Finally, Asturias has been tweaked, losing its starting title law of feudal elective. The current kings father decisively abolished the notion of the nobility electing their kings in the short term, and his son carried that on, so they start sans-title law now. In addition to this, Castile also starts with de jure territory in 867, making it creatable in the earlier bookmark - if Castile actually is created for any reason, Asturias is reduced to Leon. If Asturias is able to de jure drift Castile into itself before Castile can be created, then the union is preserved and Asturias earns its right to perpetually exist for 867 starts.
And last but not least, they are not part of the free update, but the community poll spoke:
Don't click on the Achievements if you don't want to be spoiled of course ;)
And that concludes todays Dev Diary! See you next week for the release note! Until then, you can follow Hugo and Olas adventure in Iberia in tomorrows stream :) Cheers,
[ 2022-05-24 13:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there,
The release is approaching and before sharing the release notes with you next week we have a few topics to cover!
Today we will be focusing on what is going to be added in the free update "Castle" released along Fate of Iberia. For the modders, you will also find the updated documentation attached to this post, in case you want to have an early look at the new functionality!
Read our Dev Diary #98: The Castle's foundation
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
Clan Contract
Since Iberia in 867 has several clan realms that play big parts in the region, we wanted to add some new options to clan contracts:
- Marriage Favor: the goal is to get benefits in exchange for a promise. Not fulfilling it will have consequences though..
- Ghazi: encourage your vassals to wage holy wars, but get less levies from them
- Iqta: less tax and levies but better synergy for Men-At-Arns for both parties
- Jizya: unlocked by the Tenet of the same name, this is a specific contract for people of a different faith, increasing their tax but lowering the levies their liege receives
There are now cool options to get the most of out your vassals as Clan Liege now. We are looking forward to working more on clan governments in future updates as this was a first step to making them as complex and interesting as they were historically.
Dissolution Faction
To model some of the big historical shake-ups in Iberia, weve introduced a new faction type. The Dissolution Faction will aim to destroy the primary title of the top liege of the realm, as well as any other same tier title. This makes all vassals independent, shattering a kingdom or empire. In FP2, this means that the Umayyads can collapse as they did in history, but it also means that any large realms in decline will face this challenge. Anything detracting from a realms unity will increase the risk of a Dissolution Faction forming. That means short reigns, low cultural acceptance, war losses, and unallied vassals will all be dangerous to King and Empire tier rulers. Realms where the vassals either like the heir or can elect their own are less likely to face a Dissolution Faction. And if a vassal can make a claim for the title themselves, theyll do that instead.
There is a high chance of the Umayyad falling when starting in 867
Map update
To go along the theme of the flavor pack, weve updated the map for Iberia. The map changes are fairly small in scope this time around though, and the focus was to update northern Iberia, more specifically the kingdom of Aragon. In order to improve the overall accuracy we added new counties such as Rossello and Pallas. For a better depiction of the area, existing baronies were moved around and new ones added in order to increase the granularity of the area.
In addition to the county set up, the terrain type of some provinces also changed. In addition to the changes in Aragon, we added cultural naming variations for many Berber and Arabic cultures to many titles across Iberia.
Shared Head of Faith
Heads of faith can now be set as characters of a different faith. This is done through script, rather than manually in-game. This means for insular Christians, Conversos, and Mozarabs, the Pope will be their Head of Faith, even though they are of a different faith.
Historical faiths can be emulated by using the Rite tenet. Provided you dont meet certain red lines for your old Head of Faith, at the cost of a tenet slot, you can keep your old faiths Head of Faith while converting.. Ecumenical Christians taking this decision keep ecumenism, making them astray from the Catholic perspective.
Islam now has a bespoke system for choosing the correct caliph: though Shias are still fairly split between several caliphates and imamates, the mainline Sunnis (Ashari, Muwalladi, and Maturidi) now share the Sunni caliph as a Head of Faith. Muslims who share a Head of Faith view each other as righteous. Influential members of an Islamic faith whose Head of Faith doesnt share their faith can attempt to Appoint a Righteous Caliph, claiming (and creating) the caliphate for themselves and splintering the Ummah.
Once splintered, a faith cannot be brought back into the fold. Islam is stronger together, but its differences often become irreconcilable. New temporal Sunni and Shia faiths cannot appoint themselves as caliphs immediately if theres a caliph available (either the orthodox version or their prior faiths caliph). Instead, they must show submission to an existing caliph from whom they derive their authority, even in rebellion, and then follow the path to Appoint a Righteous Caliph themselves. Characters intending to do this all along can get a little boost on the path.
History Changes (and friends!)
Visigothic is Visigone
As Im sure some of you have noticed in the streams and such, weve removed Visigothic from the map 867, starting Iberia off pre-split between the 1066 cultures (save for Aragonese, which now emerges as part of the creation of the Kingdom of Aragon). Theres a few reasons for this - Visigothic was always a bit of a wonky culture, a holdover from CK2s Charlemagne DLC that made mapping 9th century Iberia very inexact but which added some fun flavour to the region. Since cultures before 1.5 were mostly cosmetic, it didnt really affect actual gameplay much, even if it fudged history somewhat (not least by making the Visigoths hang around long after theyd diverged or hybridised). The release of Royal Court changed that situation, making playing in Iberia a very weird flow. You start, you have one set of traditions, then within a few decades an event shifts your culture and you almost certainly end up with a radically different set of traditions with no feasible way to do much about it. This, plus just being bad history, clinched it for Visigothic, and we had it taken out to the block and given the ol Royal Anti-Pardon. As with Suebi and co before it, Visigothic will continue to exist in the files, along with its associated namelist, where it remains useable for history and in mods and such.
Fresh Faces & Further Foes
Further on from this, weve updated, added, and occasionally removed hundreds and hundreds of characters all across Iberia (as well as a smattering in Occitania - if we never read about another character named Bernard, well be happy), adjusting relations, lifespans, traits, and dynasties. Thisll add a bit of life in both major bookmark dates, but most importantly, itll be a bit of colour for those of us who enjoy spelunking the history databases and checking to see if titles in-game have their Migration Period rulers properly associated. Title-nerds need love too. On that note, the Visigothic Kings now have a titular historical title to give them their correct royal dignity & regnal numbers. For folks who like actual gameplay more than interactive reading, weve added the Mozarabic strand of Christianity - Arabicised Catholics who carry on the strongly independent liturgical and ecclesiastic traditions of pre-Islamic Iberia but view the Pope as their Head of Faith (with the aid of the Rite tenet). Squeezed between the Catholic North and the Islamic South, the Mozarabs struggle to preserve their way of life, and since you can see a lot more of them in 867 than 1066, you can probably guess how its going for them. Previously, weve portrayed the sparsely-regulated Leonese portion of Iberias Inner Plateau as being, variously, either under nominal Andalusian control (since they notionally held it) or nominal Asturian control (since they grabbed it soon after the Andalusians stopped caring about it). Neither of these were quite perfect solutions, and relied on fictitious local characters either way, so weve now given this rural area over to a collection of minor Mozarabic characters. Abandoned by their Islamic overlords, eyed greedily by their orthodox brethren, these minor landholders soldier on as they have for centuries. At least, they try to, but its a difficult life being a one-county minor wedged between larger realms Its not all doomngloom for Iberias new minors though, because, on the subject of those larger realms, weve also split them up a tad! Asturias has lost Portucale, which theyre actually only in the process of trying to snatch, whilst Andalusia has been given a reality check. Both Portucale and Toledo, whilst paying nominal homage to Cordoba, were functionally independent, with Toledo in particular resisting repeated military expeditions and attempts at taxation.
Andalusia is in the process of making a play to subjugate Toledo more firmly in 867, with Portucale also being on the books, so we represent this as a brace of wars on start. Andalusia is trying to quell its powerful border districts of Toledo and Portucale, keeping them in the realm, whilst Asturias tries to snatch Portucale mid-rebellion. Finally, Asturias has been tweaked, losing its starting title law of feudal elective. The current kings father decisively abolished the notion of the nobility electing their kings in the short term, and his son carried that on, so they start sans-title law now. In addition to this, Castile also starts with de jure territory in 867, making it creatable in the earlier bookmark - if Castile actually is created for any reason, Asturias is reduced to Leon. If Asturias is able to de jure drift Castile into itself before Castile can be created, then the union is preserved and Asturias earns its right to perpetually exist for 867 starts.
Achievements
And last but not least, they are not part of the free update, but the community poll spoke:
Don't click on the Achievements if you don't want to be spoiled of course ;)
And that concludes todays Dev Diary! See you next week for the release note! Until then, you can follow Hugo and Olas adventure in Iberia in tomorrows stream :) Cheers,
[ 2022-05-24 13:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
PUBLISHER SALE WEEKEND, up to -20%
[ 2022-05-20 14:00:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Create your own stories in Crusader Kings III Check out our Publisher Sale Weekend on Steam from May 19 to May 23. Crusader Kings III: -20% Northern Lords: -20% Crusader Kings III - Royal Edition: -10% https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III [previewyoutube=2QtZlEjQ7tM;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2022-05-20 14:00:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #97: Event Illustration Showcase and Workflow
These are the illustrations that show up as backdrops in CK3 events. They have a different style and context than those in CK2. As opposed to being the main storytelling device, their purpose is now to support our amazing new 3D characters and the story they are telling through their appearance and animations. The images are there to add context to the characters situation, but make no mistake: the characters are the star of the show. As such, we make a number of artistic choices to support this goal:
The Story Event is a new, yet familiar, addition to Fate of Iberia. Not every type of Event we would like to create fits neatly into the previous format of Character standing in a scene. Some Events are more epic, involving a bigger cast of figures, or describe a more abstract idea not well captured by a single posed character. This type of illustration is a more epic version of the old CK2 event format we know and love. These images are painted in a more expressionistic style and can contain a variety of characters and action. Here are some added in Fate of Iberia - expect to see more in the future!
The first step starts with Game Design. The Designers have some idea of which types of events they would like added to any expansion, and from this emerges a prioritized list of images. We typically want some images that can be used in many instances and some that are more unique and interesting. The Designers will provide an initial set of references deemed suitable and historically accurate. The Artist will then supplement these with more artistic references, like inspiration for lighting, materials, and details. This is a collaborative process.
The base for these illustrations is always a 3D scene. This provides us with several benefits:
Our main priority is always framing the characters such that they are clearly legible.
Here, for example, you can see how the same corridor could be longer.
Or shorter. The choice of using a shorter corridor here was twofold:
When we approach the final iteration, we keep doing tests to make sure we are respecting our goals. Here, for example, you can see elements that are too close to the character, which were then corrected in the final image. The vanishing point lines are placed in such a way as to not to excessively distract the player.
It is helpful to view the image in grayscale to get a clearer sense of how the light and dark values work. If we do our jobs correctly, we end up with an image that is interesting, pretty to look at, and doesnt overpower the character. Example 1: MENA Interior By Ahmed
The modeling process starts with a template scene in Blender which includes a correct camera lens and human models for scale.
To speed up the process, materials are sourced from various free and commercial sources online. Common materials like Wood, Stone, Tiles, Fabrics and much more can be found in very high quality. The image shows various PBR Materials (source: www.textures.com)
Blocking out the big details of the scene to get a feeling of the space.
Walls were added behind the camera to block the sunlight and have the room closed from all directions, to make it darker. The focus was storytelling at this stage, and any added details should support this goal.
Some adjustments in Photoshop were made to get a feeling of the mood. *God rays were added as well as some coloring tweaks:
Placing a character and UI to see how it will appear in-game. The flipped scene looked better!
After some feedback, it turns out some changes to the composition were needed. Placing the table further back in the scene looked better for the overall composition and prevented the character from looking off-scale. The simplest way to solve this was going back to Blender. The table is now placed further back in the scene.
Back in Photoshop again, the color temperature was adjusted. Less greens and more reds.
Fixing the lighting, making the lights pop more, adding color temperature to the lights.
3D Characters with correct lighting done by our Character Artists.
The Background behind the blonde bearded guy needed more separation. I went back to Photoshop and some fog was added.
The result. I hope you found this interesting and enjoyed the process as much as we enjoyed working on these images! As you can see the process can differ and each event image can present a distinct set of challenges, but with guidance and support from our art leads and colleagues we can reach those results. Example 2: Iberian Throne Room By Alessandro I was excited to be able to do the background of the main menu, partly because it presented a new challenge for me, partly because it was an eye-catching and immediately visible image. First, we had some discussions about plausible historical references and moods for the scene, as well as the relation to previous works on the game.
Because of the setting, the warm and welcoming atmosphere seemed appropriate, so I immediately started thinking about a yellow and red color scheme. In the references, white is often used, and it was an interesting idea, but in order not to do something too like the standard Mediterranean Throne Room I opted for a real color. In my image there are still some white elements, but since I decided to use a very saturated sun, the result is still tending towards yellow.
After the initial sketch stage, some technical problems became apparent. The throne itself, one of the focal points in the background, was completely covered by the characters. The second problem concerned the mood. I wanted to create some interesting shadow patterns from the sun, but this would have created problems of credibility and shading with respect to the characters, so I had to opt for a different solution. Often when I find myself in complex situations, I prefer to think about it in the final stages, it helps me not to get stuck on an illustration for too long, thinking about too many alternative solutions that in practice I do not yet know how to deal with, making myself waste time. I started to define the details of the image, making it more saturated and darker, adding purple as a complementary color for the light seen from the windows, to create richer color variations. I tried different approaches especially for the furniture elements and the floor. I liked the idea of creating a texture that combined large, open areas with more detailed areas - so I tested out a variety of materials.
Speaking during the review meetings we decided to work the floor further, and I decided to add an additional color to create a darker but still rich texture, which I interrupted by larger elements, creating that type design that was in my plans from the beginning.
At this point I started to make the whole image more harmonious. Since it will show up in the Main Menu, it needs all the necessary care and detail. You can see that a whole series of patterns have been added to the walls, like plants and more.
When we got to the end, we felt it lacked something, and there was still an issue with the strange shadow that had been looking for at the beginning. The solution was to cut the shadow and make the floor pattern less invasive (but still visible), and in general made the whole image deeper, and with distinct levels of reading. I hope you enjoy the result as much as I enjoyed making it.
Example 3: MENA Dungeon By Jon
This was the first time I did an event scene illustration for CK3, which was exciting and maybe a little bit intimidating. I really like the art style used in these illustrations and I was looking forward to trying it out myself. When I started working on this illustration, I had a few things in mind. Since it was going to be a dungeon, it would be sparsely decorated and only have the most basic, roughly cobbled together, furnishing. There was not much room for props, architecture or artworks that could connect this illustration with the area. In order to make this illustration stand out from the other dungeon scenes, I focused more on materials and mood.
Before I started to work on materials and other details, I needed to come up with a good layout for the image. I started by blocking out some basic objects - walls, arches, bars, doors - and tried various layouts and lighting for the scene. Each layout was tested with characters and UI elements on top, to get an idea of how it would look in-game. It was important that the illustration didn't compete with the other elements by being too busy or by having too much contrast.
After going back and forth, I eventually settled on this design.
When I had settled on a layout, I started to play around with the materials in the scene. I imagined this area being one of the older parts of the building, perhaps it was used for something more extravagant at one point, but now the walls are eroded, the stones have shifted, and the surfaces are worn. The only source of natural light would be a small window placed high on the wall. I gathered references of buildings in the area, looking for interesting textures and variations in the materials. I tried to achieve a combination of chiseled stone blocks in some areas, with rough, eroded walls and uneven patches of mortar in others.
Another area that I experimented with quite a bit was the metal bars separating the rooms. The first versions of these were based on Moorish patterns, but I wasn't happy with the way they came out. To improve them, I collaborated with our content designers, who helped me find references of other types of Moorish artworks to base the new designs on. In order to make these appear less fancy - this was a dungeon after all - I gave them an eroded material and banged them up a bit.
In addition to the material and design of the bars, I also put in some extra attention to the lighting to make the silhouettes more clear. The left panel would receive a fair deal of natural light from the window, making it stand out from the dark corridor behind it. The left panel would receive less light, so in order to make it more clear I placed an artificial light source behind it, perhaps a lantern burning next to a sleeping guard.
Lastly, I worked on the props for the scene. I wanted to keep them simple - the unfortunate residents would only have a couple of rough benches to sleep on, and would only have access to the most basic necessities.
Once I had everything I needed in my 3D scene it was time to render it. At this point I want all the major aspects of the illustration solved. Since I know that I am going to paint over it, it is not the end of the world if a texture looks wonky somewhere, but I want to avoid doing any major changes once I start to work in photoshop. I did some test render where I tweaked the lighting and some details until I got a result that I was happy with. After that it was time to bring the illustration into photoshop. This is what the raw render looks like compared to the final image.
When I started in Photoshop I focused on the major things first, such as darkening some areas, tweaking saturation and adding haze and other effects. Then I started to paint over the 3D image - simplifying some areas while adding additional detail to others. This is where I push the image and try to make it as nice as I can. While doing this I am also paying attention to the mockup, testing it regularly to make sure that the image works well in the game.
Throughout this process I worked closely with my colleagues. The support and feedback that I get from my art team is incredibly valuable and appreciated, and I know for a fact that this image would come out way worse if I didn't have their input. I also get a lot of help from our designers, providing tons of cool ideas and references for what to put in the illustrations. At this point I am mostly doing minor changes, looking for ways to improve the image and testing it in the game. Creating this illustration was incredibly fun and rewarding, and its since become one of my favorite things to do for our games.
Process: Story Event Illustration By Oscar
Our Designers and Game Director had this idea for a scene showcasing the possibilities that the Struggle represents - a sense of standing at a crossroads overlooking the landscape and not knowing what the future holds.
With this in mind, I started making some simple shapes in black and white to get a composition going. I wanted a strong triangular shape with some characters on it that would lead the eye toward the right side of the image and the horizon.
I kept refining and adding details and tried to add some more definition to the values. I looked closely at various reference images to get inspiration. I made the foreground elements darker so that you get a good separation between elements and a clear focal point. Color
Time for color! I overlay some textures with color and use blend modes to establish a mood. I want it to feel a stormy with patches of light shining through the clouds to illuminate the landscapes and characters. This will allow me to model the lights to highlight the important elements to create focus. I also thought it would be a nice detail to give the characters colored flags, it would add a sense of wind and add some much-needed color variation to the scene.
I remove the characters for now and start working on the environment, I add rocks and grass and block out the tree from the first sketch. I add some photos of foliage that I paint on top of to add some color and texture variation to the ground.
I add some more small bushes and work out textures for the ground. I also work a bit on the background so I keep all elements of the environment on the same level of finish. I add a second tree and refine them for some depth in the foreground, adding just a bit of light hitting the top of the trees is a nice way to further push the feeling of dappled light in the scene.
I add back characters and clouds and some brighter clouds on the horizon, to reflect stormy weather and I thought the scene needed some more variation in the sky.
Now Ive added back all the characters that were planned, I added back the colors of their banners and now its mostly a question of where all characters should be positioned to create a nice flow in the image. Im pretty happy with how the clouds turned out and I think they convey a feeling of wind quite well.
The finishing touches, mostly has to do with small fixes and changes to characters and clouds, I move some elements around and push values ever so slightly to make the image finished. I add some extra small details, like the small tree sticking out of the hill and do some light color adjustments and vignetting to make the composition just a little bit stronger. Im happy with how the picture turned out. Throughout the entire process the art team and our content designers have given me many references and plenty of excellent feedback to push the image further.
[ 2022-05-17 13:42:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello! This Dev Diary is collectively written by members of the Art Team who work on these illustrations. We would like to share our process and some of the artistic choices that go into making these images. If you would like to see more of our excellent 2D Artists' work, we are launching a Displate contest starting today and running until the launch of Flavor Pack 2 on May 31. This contest will provide the winners with either a Displate of their own or a discount code for a few more lucky winners. For details on the contest, see here. [link]. This fantastic team of artists will also be hosting a Live Art Stream on May 18 from 14:30 - 16:00 CEST on our Twitch channel!
- Petter: Lead 2D Artist
- Oscar: Illustrator
- Alessandro: Illustrator
- Ahmed: Illustrator
- Jon: Illustrator
- Nils: Lead Character Artist
Types of Event Illustrations
Scene Illustrations
These are the illustrations that show up as backdrops in CK3 events. They have a different style and context than those in CK2. As opposed to being the main storytelling device, their purpose is now to support our amazing new 3D characters and the story they are telling through their appearance and animations. The images are there to add context to the characters situation, but make no mistake: the characters are the star of the show. As such, we make a number of artistic choices to support this goal:
- We avoid characters in the background and other elements one would expect to move.
- We do our best to design the composition in such a way that draws attention to the characters instead of the background.
Story Illustrations
The Story Event is a new, yet familiar, addition to Fate of Iberia. Not every type of Event we would like to create fits neatly into the previous format of Character standing in a scene. Some Events are more epic, involving a bigger cast of figures, or describe a more abstract idea not well captured by a single posed character. This type of illustration is a more epic version of the old CK2 event format we know and love. These images are painted in a more expressionistic style and can contain a variety of characters and action. Here are some added in Fate of Iberia - expect to see more in the future!
Process - Scene Event Illustration
Step 1 - Concept and Brief
The first step starts with Game Design. The Designers have some idea of which types of events they would like added to any expansion, and from this emerges a prioritized list of images. We typically want some images that can be used in many instances and some that are more unique and interesting. The Designers will provide an initial set of references deemed suitable and historically accurate. The Artist will then supplement these with more artistic references, like inspiration for lighting, materials, and details. This is a collaborative process.
Step 2 - Modeling and Lighting
The base for these illustrations is always a 3D scene. This provides us with several benefits:
- Accurate scale and perspective become trivial.
- Iteration of lighting and camera angles happens much faster.
- We can reuse assets in multiple scenes, speeding up the process significantly.
Step 3 - Polishing
Our main priority is always framing the characters such that they are clearly legible.
Here, for example, you can see how the same corridor could be longer.
Or shorter. The choice of using a shorter corridor here was twofold:
- The more intimate space is suitable for a broader range of events, rather than just those set in a massive palace.
- The corridor lines that go towards the vanishing point far away risk guiding the eye out of the scene. By making the line shorter, we allow the character to take more focus.
When we approach the final iteration, we keep doing tests to make sure we are respecting our goals. Here, for example, you can see elements that are too close to the character, which were then corrected in the final image. The vanishing point lines are placed in such a way as to not to excessively distract the player.
It is helpful to view the image in grayscale to get a clearer sense of how the light and dark values work. If we do our jobs correctly, we end up with an image that is interesting, pretty to look at, and doesnt overpower the character. Example 1: MENA Interior By Ahmed
The modeling process starts with a template scene in Blender which includes a correct camera lens and human models for scale.
To speed up the process, materials are sourced from various free and commercial sources online. Common materials like Wood, Stone, Tiles, Fabrics and much more can be found in very high quality. The image shows various PBR Materials (source: www.textures.com)
Blocking out the big details of the scene to get a feeling of the space.
Walls were added behind the camera to block the sunlight and have the room closed from all directions, to make it darker. The focus was storytelling at this stage, and any added details should support this goal.
Some adjustments in Photoshop were made to get a feeling of the mood. *God rays were added as well as some coloring tweaks:
Placing a character and UI to see how it will appear in-game. The flipped scene looked better!
After some feedback, it turns out some changes to the composition were needed. Placing the table further back in the scene looked better for the overall composition and prevented the character from looking off-scale. The simplest way to solve this was going back to Blender. The table is now placed further back in the scene.
Back in Photoshop again, the color temperature was adjusted. Less greens and more reds.
Fixing the lighting, making the lights pop more, adding color temperature to the lights.
3D Characters with correct lighting done by our Character Artists.
The Background behind the blonde bearded guy needed more separation. I went back to Photoshop and some fog was added.
The result. I hope you found this interesting and enjoyed the process as much as we enjoyed working on these images! As you can see the process can differ and each event image can present a distinct set of challenges, but with guidance and support from our art leads and colleagues we can reach those results. Example 2: Iberian Throne Room By Alessandro I was excited to be able to do the background of the main menu, partly because it presented a new challenge for me, partly because it was an eye-catching and immediately visible image. First, we had some discussions about plausible historical references and moods for the scene, as well as the relation to previous works on the game.
Because of the setting, the warm and welcoming atmosphere seemed appropriate, so I immediately started thinking about a yellow and red color scheme. In the references, white is often used, and it was an interesting idea, but in order not to do something too like the standard Mediterranean Throne Room I opted for a real color. In my image there are still some white elements, but since I decided to use a very saturated sun, the result is still tending towards yellow.
After the initial sketch stage, some technical problems became apparent. The throne itself, one of the focal points in the background, was completely covered by the characters. The second problem concerned the mood. I wanted to create some interesting shadow patterns from the sun, but this would have created problems of credibility and shading with respect to the characters, so I had to opt for a different solution. Often when I find myself in complex situations, I prefer to think about it in the final stages, it helps me not to get stuck on an illustration for too long, thinking about too many alternative solutions that in practice I do not yet know how to deal with, making myself waste time. I started to define the details of the image, making it more saturated and darker, adding purple as a complementary color for the light seen from the windows, to create richer color variations. I tried different approaches especially for the furniture elements and the floor. I liked the idea of creating a texture that combined large, open areas with more detailed areas - so I tested out a variety of materials.
Speaking during the review meetings we decided to work the floor further, and I decided to add an additional color to create a darker but still rich texture, which I interrupted by larger elements, creating that type design that was in my plans from the beginning.
At this point I started to make the whole image more harmonious. Since it will show up in the Main Menu, it needs all the necessary care and detail. You can see that a whole series of patterns have been added to the walls, like plants and more.
When we got to the end, we felt it lacked something, and there was still an issue with the strange shadow that had been looking for at the beginning. The solution was to cut the shadow and make the floor pattern less invasive (but still visible), and in general made the whole image deeper, and with distinct levels of reading. I hope you enjoy the result as much as I enjoyed making it.
Example 3: MENA Dungeon By Jon
This was the first time I did an event scene illustration for CK3, which was exciting and maybe a little bit intimidating. I really like the art style used in these illustrations and I was looking forward to trying it out myself. When I started working on this illustration, I had a few things in mind. Since it was going to be a dungeon, it would be sparsely decorated and only have the most basic, roughly cobbled together, furnishing. There was not much room for props, architecture or artworks that could connect this illustration with the area. In order to make this illustration stand out from the other dungeon scenes, I focused more on materials and mood.
Layout and Lighting
Before I started to work on materials and other details, I needed to come up with a good layout for the image. I started by blocking out some basic objects - walls, arches, bars, doors - and tried various layouts and lighting for the scene. Each layout was tested with characters and UI elements on top, to get an idea of how it would look in-game. It was important that the illustration didn't compete with the other elements by being too busy or by having too much contrast.
After going back and forth, I eventually settled on this design.
Materials and Mood
When I had settled on a layout, I started to play around with the materials in the scene. I imagined this area being one of the older parts of the building, perhaps it was used for something more extravagant at one point, but now the walls are eroded, the stones have shifted, and the surfaces are worn. The only source of natural light would be a small window placed high on the wall. I gathered references of buildings in the area, looking for interesting textures and variations in the materials. I tried to achieve a combination of chiseled stone blocks in some areas, with rough, eroded walls and uneven patches of mortar in others.
Props and details
Another area that I experimented with quite a bit was the metal bars separating the rooms. The first versions of these were based on Moorish patterns, but I wasn't happy with the way they came out. To improve them, I collaborated with our content designers, who helped me find references of other types of Moorish artworks to base the new designs on. In order to make these appear less fancy - this was a dungeon after all - I gave them an eroded material and banged them up a bit.
In addition to the material and design of the bars, I also put in some extra attention to the lighting to make the silhouettes more clear. The left panel would receive a fair deal of natural light from the window, making it stand out from the dark corridor behind it. The left panel would receive less light, so in order to make it more clear I placed an artificial light source behind it, perhaps a lantern burning next to a sleeping guard.
Lastly, I worked on the props for the scene. I wanted to keep them simple - the unfortunate residents would only have a couple of rough benches to sleep on, and would only have access to the most basic necessities.
Rendering
Once I had everything I needed in my 3D scene it was time to render it. At this point I want all the major aspects of the illustration solved. Since I know that I am going to paint over it, it is not the end of the world if a texture looks wonky somewhere, but I want to avoid doing any major changes once I start to work in photoshop. I did some test render where I tweaked the lighting and some details until I got a result that I was happy with. After that it was time to bring the illustration into photoshop. This is what the raw render looks like compared to the final image.
Painting
When I started in Photoshop I focused on the major things first, such as darkening some areas, tweaking saturation and adding haze and other effects. Then I started to paint over the 3D image - simplifying some areas while adding additional detail to others. This is where I push the image and try to make it as nice as I can. While doing this I am also paying attention to the mockup, testing it regularly to make sure that the image works well in the game.
Finalizing
Throughout this process I worked closely with my colleagues. The support and feedback that I get from my art team is incredibly valuable and appreciated, and I know for a fact that this image would come out way worse if I didn't have their input. I also get a lot of help from our designers, providing tons of cool ideas and references for what to put in the illustrations. At this point I am mostly doing minor changes, looking for ways to improve the image and testing it in the game. Creating this illustration was incredibly fun and rewarding, and its since become one of my favorite things to do for our games.
Process: Story Event Illustration By Oscar
Sketch and brief
Our Designers and Game Director had this idea for a scene showcasing the possibilities that the Struggle represents - a sense of standing at a crossroads overlooking the landscape and not knowing what the future holds.
With this in mind, I started making some simple shapes in black and white to get a composition going. I wanted a strong triangular shape with some characters on it that would lead the eye toward the right side of the image and the horizon.
I kept refining and adding details and tried to add some more definition to the values. I looked closely at various reference images to get inspiration. I made the foreground elements darker so that you get a good separation between elements and a clear focal point. Color
Time for color! I overlay some textures with color and use blend modes to establish a mood. I want it to feel a stormy with patches of light shining through the clouds to illuminate the landscapes and characters. This will allow me to model the lights to highlight the important elements to create focus. I also thought it would be a nice detail to give the characters colored flags, it would add a sense of wind and add some much-needed color variation to the scene.
I remove the characters for now and start working on the environment, I add rocks and grass and block out the tree from the first sketch. I add some photos of foliage that I paint on top of to add some color and texture variation to the ground.
Refinement
I add some more small bushes and work out textures for the ground. I also work a bit on the background so I keep all elements of the environment on the same level of finish. I add a second tree and refine them for some depth in the foreground, adding just a bit of light hitting the top of the trees is a nice way to further push the feeling of dappled light in the scene.
Finishing and characters
I add back characters and clouds and some brighter clouds on the horizon, to reflect stormy weather and I thought the scene needed some more variation in the sky.
Now Ive added back all the characters that were planned, I added back the colors of their banners and now its mostly a question of where all characters should be positioned to create a nice flow in the image. Im pretty happy with how the clouds turned out and I think they convey a feeling of wind quite well.
The finishing touches, mostly has to do with small fixes and changes to characters and clouds, I move some elements around and push values ever so slightly to make the image finished. I add some extra small details, like the small tree sticking out of the hill and do some light color adjustments and vignetting to make the composition just a little bit stronger. Im happy with how the picture turned out. Throughout the entire process the art team and our content designers have given me many references and plenty of excellent feedback to push the image further.
[ 2022-05-17 13:42:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #96 - Fate of Iberia 3D Art Showcase
With the Struggle being the main focus of Fate of Iberia, we decided early on that we would put equal attention into the portrayal of both the Muslims and the Christians there. The character art team has brought forth new headgear, clothes and hairstyles for both parties which you might have seen floating around in the wilds of the web or in the trailer. Meanwhile, on the environment art side the focus has been on bringing life to the Iberian map. You might remember a few of the monuments featured in last week's Dev Diary, but this time we will give you a sneak peek into the creation process. Those of you who are looking to add some Iberian flavor to your courtrooms fear not, we got you covered with several new court artifacts!
Nils: When designing new clothes, headgear and hairstyles, the first step - unsurprisingly - is to decide how they should look. In stark contrast to most historical movies and TV shows, we actually at least try to base them on historical examples. With Fate of Iberia, we were fortunate that there are quite a few good sources available of how people dressed and looked in the Iberian peninsula during this time. So we start by collecting all the reference material we can find, put it in an enormous pile and begin forming an idea of what kind of assets we want to add. In addition to historical accuracy, we also look for things like interesting and unique appearance, how well it would translate to a 3D model (i.e. how much pain its going to cause us when making it), and if it fits in with other styles already in the game. As a bonus, a lot of nerd points can be earned during this process. I mean, who isnt going to be impressed when you start casually throwing around Spanish or Arabic words for obscure medieval clothing items? Lets look at some examples:
Showing reference image, concept art and the finished asset of one of the new Christian outfits. We designed these clothes primarily based on a 12th century manuscript illumination depicting Alfonso II of Aragon. The outfit consists of an undergarment with narrow sleeves called a Brial and a looser outer garment known as a Piel. The latter has decorative trims on sleeves, collar and at the hem of the skirt. Both Brial and Piel were often split in the front and back to better allow for riding.
One of the new Muslim outfits. This one was based mainly on an illustration in the 13th century Codex Rico, a part of the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" - A famous collection of four codices containing medieval poems with musical notation and many detailed illustrations. The image depicts the Almohad caliph Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada wearing a loose robe known as a Jubba. On the upper sleeves are sewn on Tiraz bands, a very popular fashion throughout the medieval Islamic world. The sleeves and neck opening are also decorated with embroidered or brocade trims.
This is based on several sources depicting very similar styles of garments. The examples shown here are from an Andalusian manuscript telling the story called "Hadith Bayad wa Riyad" - An Arabic love story and the "Libro de los Juegos" (Book of games) - A 13th century book commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile containing rules for a large number of medieval board games as well as 150 miniature illustrations. As you can see the clothes are quite similar to the male garment above. Female and male fashions at this time generally had more similarities than differences, and sometimes it is even hard to tell whether an illustration portrays a man or a woman.
This Christian Armor is based on 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca by James I of Aragon, presently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. The sword, with leaf shaped pommel and guard decorations, is based on a sword still in existence, allegedly from the 13th century, at the Royal Armory in Madrid. The armor consists of chainmail Hauberk with mittens, chausses (leggings), a surcoat and something called a Perpunt - a light gambeson worn on top of the rest of the armor for additional protection. For head protection a chainmail coif and a Cervellera helmet is worn. NGL, this must have been a sweaty experience in the Spanish summer!
This interesting looking headdress is based on numerous examples from both illustrations and sculptures and must have been considered extremely fashionable at the time. It was probably constructed from strips of ruffled linen or silk wrapped around a light wood base, decorated with embroidered or woven bands and held in place by a Barbette (chinstrap). As with most things, the taller the better is the rule here!
The very badass helmet above might look like some impractical fantasy creation but is in fact based on numerous depictions in the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" illustrations. The conical shaped helmet is decorated with a large gilded metal leaf. A day when the Rule of Cool perfectly aligns with primary sources is a good day, in my book.
If were really lucky, there might be a suitable extant item that survives to this day, as is the case with this Capiello of Fernando de la Cerda, the heir of Alfonso X of Castile (Who seems to - Fernando that is - have had a very CK life and tragically died a father of two at the age of 19). This distinctive cylindrical headgear was hugely popular in 13th century Spain. An extant example like the one shown above is, of course, the ideal type of reference, but unfortunately very few medieval garments have survived in as good condition as this.
So, weve decided what to do, thats all nice and well, but what are the steps involved in actually creating one of these assets? Follow along in this exclusive behind the scenes look at the Character Art workflow! Exciting, right!
Once we have the finished concept art, we start off in a program called Marvelous Designer to create a 3D version of the garment. This is similar to designing clothes in real life as you work with sewing patterns that are simulated to create a natural fall. Again, whenever possible, we try to base the patterns on surviving examples.
The pattern, created using Marvelous designer, for one of the new female Christian outfits. This dress, called a Brial, is constructed based on historical patterns from similar garments that have survived to our time. We then add any additional details by 3D modeling in a program like Maya or Zbrush. In this case, the belt and brooch at the neck were added at this stage.
The final High poly model. This model consists of several million polygons, which is too much to render in the game (if you appreciate frame rates above 0.1 anyway). Therefore, the next step is to create the low poly - meaning the model that will actually be exported to the game. We do this by matching the shape of the high poly model as closely as possible but with - you guessed it - a much smaller number of polygons (in this case around 4400, which is around 1000 times less than the high poly model!).
Showing the low poly model being created with the high poly model as a guide. The details are then transferred from the high to the low resolution mesh using a normal map. We do this in a software called Marmoset Toolbag.
The models both low and high - imported into Marmoset Toolbag for the baking step. Coloring is temp.
The resulting textures that we get out of Marmoset allow us to display all the fine details from the high poly mesh. From top left they are called Normal map, Curvature map, Ambient Occlusion map and Color ID map. This will all be on the test so you better pay attention. We create textures in a program called Substance Painter. But because we use dynamic colors and materials in CK3 the textures at this stage are mostly a neutral white in the game those white areas will make use of dynamic materials.
Before exporting to the game we need to create something called blend shapes - which we use to deform the asset to fit different body types. We also do something called skin bind at this stage - which means attaching the clothes to the skeleton that animates the body.
Showing blend shapes before export. From left to right: Average, Overweight, Underweight, Muscular, Old.
Showing the clothes skinned (attached) to the rig (animation skeleton). The pose is anachronistic. Finally, we are ready to export the asset and look at it in the game. This involves a considerable amount of scripting work to make sure the game knows how to find the asset and when it should show up, what it should be called, who should wear it and so on.
Above you can see the final result with dynamic materials applied. We created new sets of patterns and color combinations for the Iberian assets (of which you can see more examples in the screenshots below). After all that is done and looking good we can move on to working through the never-ending list of clipping bugs that arise when combining these assets with each other And thats all there is to it! As you can see, very quick and easy.
With Fate of Iberia, were adding two new sets of army units representing the Christian and Muslim styles, to be used by Iberian heritage culture. Of course, each model represents a specific tier of army quality so we need to keep this in mind when designing their appearance. Generally, the first tier is supposed to represent something like a drafted peasant, the second tier a professional soldier, and the third tier a knight or equivalent. Below you can see the concept art and 3D models for all 3 Tiers of the Christian Unit. The Tier 1 model was mainly based on manuscript illustrations depicting commoners and peasants. As you can see, he is not wearing any armor at all. The simple armor of Tier 2 consists of a gameson and a steel helmet. Lastly, we have the Tier 3 unit model its design is similar to the one used for the new Christian armor that characters can equip, and was based on the 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca of James I of Aragon, currently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Much like its Christian counterpart, the design of the Tier 1 Muslim unit represents an unarmored soldier wearing the same kind of clothes as a civllian. Tier 2 is also dressed similarly to the Christian Tier 2, with a gambeson and a helmet. Finally, the design for Tier 3 represents a more heavily armored warrior, with a hooded chainmail hauberk and helmet with noseguard.
How different is the process of creating units from other character assets? Well, lets delve a bit into that. To create a unit, we go through the same steps outlined above. We start off by creating the pattern in Marvelous Designer and simulating the cloth there.
Belts and similar elements are simulated alongside the cloth to get the fabric to fall correctly, but details are added in the next high poly stage in Zbrush. Below you can also see the shield and sword that the unit will use in battle.
The next step is creating the low poly version of this unit. Of course, the unit appears quite small on the map so the polygon budget is smaller than for other character assets.
Finally, texturing is done in Substance Painter. Units have a fair amount of wear and tear added in the texturing stage (things can get muddy when youre fighting wars). Similarly to other character assets, the white parts of the texture will receive a dynamic material in-game.
And that's how units are made! Now, over to my eminent colleague Joacim for a look at the environment art side of things.
For the Iberian peninsula we looked at creating a style of holding that represented the region and makes it stand apart from the Mediterranean, Western and MENA styles. Since Iberia was such a mix of cultures and architectural styles mingled between the cultures and religious influences, weve created a style that works for the area as a whole. Below you can see screenshots of the two Iberian cities together with four new castle models.
Here we have the new church and mosque temple holdings.
Lastly, the models for new walls can be seen in the screenshot below:
All over the landscape youll now find multiple different kinds of monuments. Some magnificent works that have stood since the age of Rome, others that have been erected since, and some that are yet to be initiated by your architects.
These walls in Galicia were built sometime around 263 and 276 A.D. to protect Lugo, or Lucus Augusti as it was known to the Romans.
Just like with units, we try to hold off from investing too much of our polygon budget into the 3D models for holdings and monuments. Below you can see a screenshot of the low poly model for the Roman Walls of Lugo. Positioning map assets correctly in Maya is an essential step, to prevent them looking out of place once they are actually in the game.
The great mosque of Cordoba is claimed to have been built on the site of a Visigothic basilica, and is one of the oldest structures still standing from the Muslim era of Al-Andalus.
One of the distinct monuments of Iberia from the base game that has now gotten some visuals. A fortress palace whose construction began in 1238 historically. Will you begin the construction early to show off your splendor?
The Cathedral (construction historically began in 1075) was built in the Romanesque style. While the modern day cathedral has seen its facade rebuilt and modernized over the centuries, weve recreated this original look of the cathedral for this era.
If you have the Royal Court expansion, you will also be finding some of these new artifacts having unique visuals when presented in your court. But worry not, artifacts are also available as trinkets if you don't have the Royal Court to display them in.
Don't let the animal shape of this bronze craft fool you! Its actually an ewer for dispensing water which was generally used for washing your hands.
To determine the path, journey and position of celestial objects, scholars would have these spheres created to better understand the skies and stars above them.
After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a basemesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale. After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a base mesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale. Its important to make sure that the silhouette and the shapes appear distinct and are readable from a distance, since Artifacts are seen from a certain distance by the player in the courtroom.
High poly details are added in Zbrush, after which a game-ready low poly model is created in Maya or Blender:
A votive crown is one not meant for wearing, instead it is a religious offering, made for display and to be suspended at altars or shrines. Just like a regular crown they consist of fine craftsmanship, precious metals and stones. Most of the surviving examples of these today come from 7th century Visigothic Iberia.
One of the two swords of the famous El Cid, the other being the sword known as Colada. Its design is based on the museum displayed sword claimed to be the famous blade.
In Iberia, games of skill and tactics were highly praised, and multiple types of chess can be acquired to show your strategically inclined mind.
This grand bell (which you might remember being featured in a previous Dev Diary), if recaptured and recast, can be put in your court to display that feat.
We hope that this sneak peek has got you excited for Fate of Iberia and we cant wait for you to get your hands on the full experience on May 31st! For those of you who are interested in seeing more of the behind the scenes process of creating 2D and 3D assets for CK3, we have some good news. On May 18th, 14:30 - 16:00 we will host an art livestream with several artists from the team. We will walk you through the pipeline without holding back on the technical details, so if thats something for you, be sure not to miss it! The livestream will air on the ParadoxInteractive Twitch channel, at twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive. As always, we look forward to your thoughts and we will stick around in the thread for a few hours to answer any questions.
[ 2022-05-10 12:37:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey folks!
Lucia, Nils, and Joacim from the CK3 Art Team are very excited to walk you through some of the new 3D art that you will soon be seeing all over the Iberian Peninsula!
This will be a long one, so grab a hot beverage of your choice and enjoy the ride!
Read our Dev Diary #96 - Fate of Iberia 3D Art Showcase
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
Goals
With the Struggle being the main focus of Fate of Iberia, we decided early on that we would put equal attention into the portrayal of both the Muslims and the Christians there. The character art team has brought forth new headgear, clothes and hairstyles for both parties which you might have seen floating around in the wilds of the web or in the trailer. Meanwhile, on the environment art side the focus has been on bringing life to the Iberian map. You might remember a few of the monuments featured in last week's Dev Diary, but this time we will give you a sneak peek into the creation process. Those of you who are looking to add some Iberian flavor to your courtrooms fear not, we got you covered with several new court artifacts!
Character Assets
Nils: When designing new clothes, headgear and hairstyles, the first step - unsurprisingly - is to decide how they should look. In stark contrast to most historical movies and TV shows, we actually at least try to base them on historical examples. With Fate of Iberia, we were fortunate that there are quite a few good sources available of how people dressed and looked in the Iberian peninsula during this time. So we start by collecting all the reference material we can find, put it in an enormous pile and begin forming an idea of what kind of assets we want to add. In addition to historical accuracy, we also look for things like interesting and unique appearance, how well it would translate to a 3D model (i.e. how much pain its going to cause us when making it), and if it fits in with other styles already in the game. As a bonus, a lot of nerd points can be earned during this process. I mean, who isnt going to be impressed when you start casually throwing around Spanish or Arabic words for obscure medieval clothing items? Lets look at some examples:
Showing reference image, concept art and the finished asset of one of the new Christian outfits. We designed these clothes primarily based on a 12th century manuscript illumination depicting Alfonso II of Aragon. The outfit consists of an undergarment with narrow sleeves called a Brial and a looser outer garment known as a Piel. The latter has decorative trims on sleeves, collar and at the hem of the skirt. Both Brial and Piel were often split in the front and back to better allow for riding.
One of the new Muslim outfits. This one was based mainly on an illustration in the 13th century Codex Rico, a part of the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" - A famous collection of four codices containing medieval poems with musical notation and many detailed illustrations. The image depicts the Almohad caliph Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada wearing a loose robe known as a Jubba. On the upper sleeves are sewn on Tiraz bands, a very popular fashion throughout the medieval Islamic world. The sleeves and neck opening are also decorated with embroidered or brocade trims.
This is based on several sources depicting very similar styles of garments. The examples shown here are from an Andalusian manuscript telling the story called "Hadith Bayad wa Riyad" - An Arabic love story and the "Libro de los Juegos" (Book of games) - A 13th century book commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile containing rules for a large number of medieval board games as well as 150 miniature illustrations. As you can see the clothes are quite similar to the male garment above. Female and male fashions at this time generally had more similarities than differences, and sometimes it is even hard to tell whether an illustration portrays a man or a woman.
This Christian Armor is based on 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca by James I of Aragon, presently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. The sword, with leaf shaped pommel and guard decorations, is based on a sword still in existence, allegedly from the 13th century, at the Royal Armory in Madrid. The armor consists of chainmail Hauberk with mittens, chausses (leggings), a surcoat and something called a Perpunt - a light gambeson worn on top of the rest of the armor for additional protection. For head protection a chainmail coif and a Cervellera helmet is worn. NGL, this must have been a sweaty experience in the Spanish summer!
This interesting looking headdress is based on numerous examples from both illustrations and sculptures and must have been considered extremely fashionable at the time. It was probably constructed from strips of ruffled linen or silk wrapped around a light wood base, decorated with embroidered or woven bands and held in place by a Barbette (chinstrap). As with most things, the taller the better is the rule here!
The very badass helmet above might look like some impractical fantasy creation but is in fact based on numerous depictions in the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" illustrations. The conical shaped helmet is decorated with a large gilded metal leaf. A day when the Rule of Cool perfectly aligns with primary sources is a good day, in my book.
If were really lucky, there might be a suitable extant item that survives to this day, as is the case with this Capiello of Fernando de la Cerda, the heir of Alfonso X of Castile (Who seems to - Fernando that is - have had a very CK life and tragically died a father of two at the age of 19). This distinctive cylindrical headgear was hugely popular in 13th century Spain. An extant example like the one shown above is, of course, the ideal type of reference, but unfortunately very few medieval garments have survived in as good condition as this.
Character Art Process
So, weve decided what to do, thats all nice and well, but what are the steps involved in actually creating one of these assets? Follow along in this exclusive behind the scenes look at the Character Art workflow! Exciting, right!
Once we have the finished concept art, we start off in a program called Marvelous Designer to create a 3D version of the garment. This is similar to designing clothes in real life as you work with sewing patterns that are simulated to create a natural fall. Again, whenever possible, we try to base the patterns on surviving examples.
The pattern, created using Marvelous designer, for one of the new female Christian outfits. This dress, called a Brial, is constructed based on historical patterns from similar garments that have survived to our time. We then add any additional details by 3D modeling in a program like Maya or Zbrush. In this case, the belt and brooch at the neck were added at this stage.
The final High poly model. This model consists of several million polygons, which is too much to render in the game (if you appreciate frame rates above 0.1 anyway). Therefore, the next step is to create the low poly - meaning the model that will actually be exported to the game. We do this by matching the shape of the high poly model as closely as possible but with - you guessed it - a much smaller number of polygons (in this case around 4400, which is around 1000 times less than the high poly model!).
Showing the low poly model being created with the high poly model as a guide. The details are then transferred from the high to the low resolution mesh using a normal map. We do this in a software called Marmoset Toolbag.
The models both low and high - imported into Marmoset Toolbag for the baking step. Coloring is temp.
The resulting textures that we get out of Marmoset allow us to display all the fine details from the high poly mesh. From top left they are called Normal map, Curvature map, Ambient Occlusion map and Color ID map. This will all be on the test so you better pay attention. We create textures in a program called Substance Painter. But because we use dynamic colors and materials in CK3 the textures at this stage are mostly a neutral white in the game those white areas will make use of dynamic materials.
Before exporting to the game we need to create something called blend shapes - which we use to deform the asset to fit different body types. We also do something called skin bind at this stage - which means attaching the clothes to the skeleton that animates the body.
Showing blend shapes before export. From left to right: Average, Overweight, Underweight, Muscular, Old.
Showing the clothes skinned (attached) to the rig (animation skeleton). The pose is anachronistic. Finally, we are ready to export the asset and look at it in the game. This involves a considerable amount of scripting work to make sure the game knows how to find the asset and when it should show up, what it should be called, who should wear it and so on.
Above you can see the final result with dynamic materials applied. We created new sets of patterns and color combinations for the Iberian assets (of which you can see more examples in the screenshots below). After all that is done and looking good we can move on to working through the never-ending list of clipping bugs that arise when combining these assets with each other And thats all there is to it! As you can see, very quick and easy.
Iberian Army Units
With Fate of Iberia, were adding two new sets of army units representing the Christian and Muslim styles, to be used by Iberian heritage culture. Of course, each model represents a specific tier of army quality so we need to keep this in mind when designing their appearance. Generally, the first tier is supposed to represent something like a drafted peasant, the second tier a professional soldier, and the third tier a knight or equivalent. Below you can see the concept art and 3D models for all 3 Tiers of the Christian Unit. The Tier 1 model was mainly based on manuscript illustrations depicting commoners and peasants. As you can see, he is not wearing any armor at all. The simple armor of Tier 2 consists of a gameson and a steel helmet. Lastly, we have the Tier 3 unit model its design is similar to the one used for the new Christian armor that characters can equip, and was based on the 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca of James I of Aragon, currently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Much like its Christian counterpart, the design of the Tier 1 Muslim unit represents an unarmored soldier wearing the same kind of clothes as a civllian. Tier 2 is also dressed similarly to the Christian Tier 2, with a gambeson and a helmet. Finally, the design for Tier 3 represents a more heavily armored warrior, with a hooded chainmail hauberk and helmet with noseguard.
How different is the process of creating units from other character assets? Well, lets delve a bit into that. To create a unit, we go through the same steps outlined above. We start off by creating the pattern in Marvelous Designer and simulating the cloth there.
Belts and similar elements are simulated alongside the cloth to get the fabric to fall correctly, but details are added in the next high poly stage in Zbrush. Below you can also see the shield and sword that the unit will use in battle.
The next step is creating the low poly version of this unit. Of course, the unit appears quite small on the map so the polygon budget is smaller than for other character assets.
Finally, texturing is done in Substance Painter. Units have a fair amount of wear and tear added in the texturing stage (things can get muddy when youre fighting wars). Similarly to other character assets, the white parts of the texture will receive a dynamic material in-game.
And that's how units are made! Now, over to my eminent colleague Joacim for a look at the environment art side of things.
Holdings
For the Iberian peninsula we looked at creating a style of holding that represented the region and makes it stand apart from the Mediterranean, Western and MENA styles. Since Iberia was such a mix of cultures and architectural styles mingled between the cultures and religious influences, weve created a style that works for the area as a whole. Below you can see screenshots of the two Iberian cities together with four new castle models.
Here we have the new church and mosque temple holdings.
Lastly, the models for new walls can be seen in the screenshot below:
Monuments
All over the landscape youll now find multiple different kinds of monuments. Some magnificent works that have stood since the age of Rome, others that have been erected since, and some that are yet to be initiated by your architects.
Roman Walls of Lugo
These walls in Galicia were built sometime around 263 and 276 A.D. to protect Lugo, or Lucus Augusti as it was known to the Romans.
Just like with units, we try to hold off from investing too much of our polygon budget into the 3D models for holdings and monuments. Below you can see a screenshot of the low poly model for the Roman Walls of Lugo. Positioning map assets correctly in Maya is an essential step, to prevent them looking out of place once they are actually in the game.
Mosque of Cordoba
The great mosque of Cordoba is claimed to have been built on the site of a Visigothic basilica, and is one of the oldest structures still standing from the Muslim era of Al-Andalus.
The Alhambra
One of the distinct monuments of Iberia from the base game that has now gotten some visuals. A fortress palace whose construction began in 1238 historically. Will you begin the construction early to show off your splendor?
Santiago de Compostela
The Cathedral (construction historically began in 1075) was built in the Romanesque style. While the modern day cathedral has seen its facade rebuilt and modernized over the centuries, weve recreated this original look of the cathedral for this era.
Artifacts
If you have the Royal Court expansion, you will also be finding some of these new artifacts having unique visuals when presented in your court. But worry not, artifacts are also available as trinkets if you don't have the Royal Court to display them in.
Aquamanile
Don't let the animal shape of this bronze craft fool you! Its actually an ewer for dispensing water which was generally used for washing your hands.
Armillary Sphere
To determine the path, journey and position of celestial objects, scholars would have these spheres created to better understand the skies and stars above them.
After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a basemesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale. After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a base mesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale. Its important to make sure that the silhouette and the shapes appear distinct and are readable from a distance, since Artifacts are seen from a certain distance by the player in the courtroom.
High poly details are added in Zbrush, after which a game-ready low poly model is created in Maya or Blender:
Votive Crown
A votive crown is one not meant for wearing, instead it is a religious offering, made for display and to be suspended at altars or shrines. Just like a regular crown they consist of fine craftsmanship, precious metals and stones. Most of the surviving examples of these today come from 7th century Visigothic Iberia.
Tizona
One of the two swords of the famous El Cid, the other being the sword known as Colada. Its design is based on the museum displayed sword claimed to be the famous blade.
Chessboard
In Iberia, games of skill and tactics were highly praised, and multiple types of chess can be acquired to show your strategically inclined mind.
Bell of Santiago
This grand bell (which you might remember being featured in a previous Dev Diary), if recaptured and recast, can be put in your court to display that feat.
Closing Comments and Upcoming Livestream
We hope that this sneak peek has got you excited for Fate of Iberia and we cant wait for you to get your hands on the full experience on May 31st! For those of you who are interested in seeing more of the behind the scenes process of creating 2D and 3D assets for CK3, we have some good news. On May 18th, 14:30 - 16:00 we will host an art livestream with several artists from the team. We will walk you through the pipeline without holding back on the technical details, so if thats something for you, be sure not to miss it! The livestream will air on the ParadoxInteractive Twitch channel, at twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive. As always, we look forward to your thoughts and we will stick around in the thread for a few hours to answer any questions.
[ 2022-05-10 12:37:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #95 - Flavor of Iberia
Iberias cultures were in a pretty good place already, thanks to the culture rework in the Royal Court. But, weve done a pass on their traditions to make sure theyre fitting and interesting. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, youll be able to make some compelling hybrid cultures here - why not Sephardi-Norse, or Berber-Castilian? It can also be a good way to get involved in the Struggle from the outside. Among other additions, youll find that Castilians are now Tabletop Warriors, able to challenge others to a grand game of chess!
The Kingdom of Castles, indeed! Concerning faith, our new shared Head of Faith mechanic will add dynamism to Iberias fractured religious landscape. More info regarding this will come in a future Development Diary! There are events for Muslims, Christians, and pagans, but the big addition is the Mozarabic Faith. Theyll encourage historical what if playthroughs and some dramatic decisions, exploring the deep Visigothic roots of Iberian faith. Try to take control of Toledo if you play a Mozarabic Christian - it can allow you to convene a new great church council, echoing the one in 711. But take heed - such a council might also affect the struggle How will your realm be affected by the vicious debates to follow? There are also other new decisions available to Mozarabs - including the ultimate prize, the restoration of the Kingdom of Toledo!
The Mozarabs have a long history of adapting to changing circumstances.
Toledo plays a central role for the Mozarabic faith. Basque Paganism, the other new faith, is a syncretistic belief with Christian and pagan elements, the most prominent vestige of pagan faith in Western Europe, ensconced in the Pyrenees. Among rulers, it is a dead religion at game start, but its traditions persist among the common folk, and an opportunistic ruler might find reason to Champion the Faith of the Country Basques, and bring it back to prominence.
Remnants of pagan belief have endured in the redoubt of the Pyrenees.
For monuments and special buildings, there are some you might expect - the great mosque of Crdoba, the basilica of Santiago, the walls of Toledo - and some you might not. Weve begun exploring having natural wonders as province features, so youll find the Rock of Gibraltar here, too. While Iberia certainly has a rich history, its not as overcrowded in ruins of past splendor as say, Mesopotamia or Rome, so while there are some Visigothic and Roman monuments here, we focused on things built over the course of the Middle Ages. Theres accordingly also a few you can build yourself, after the game has started.
The Great Mosque of Cordoba in all its glory! Art has done a tremendous job in bringing the monuments to life.
The Tower of Hercules, as it is also called, still stands today, the oldest extant lighthouse in the world. Were adding new artifacts as well of course, among them the famed Bells of Santiago - or in 1066, their melted-down and reforged state as aquamaniles in the Muslim Court of Toledo. Historically, of course, they were turned into mosque lamps, but that would have been hard to represent well in our 3D courts, so we went with aquamaniles instead. Youll also be able to find armillary spheres, scallop shells from the pilgrim road to Santiago, chess boards, Visigothic votive crowns, and much more. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, of course some will be impressive items that our art team devoted lots of attention to, to be proudly displayed in your court.
Once the pride of Galicia, they now decorate the Toledo court. The two new dynasty legacies are Metropolitan and Coterie, expressing the themes of flourishing cities and interwoven, intrigue-riddled dynasties that seemed fitting for medieval Iberia. In the Coterie legacy, you can gain various benefits related to your dynasty and its members, useful for diplomacy and intrigue. The Reliable House perk, will give you 10% of your councillors primary skills, while the ultimate perk in this legacy, Pragmatic Roots, makes the Disinherit interaction available for all dynasty members. The Metropolitan Legacy will aid you with development, construction and prestige, unlock a unique Expand Cities decision, and give you some added motivation to build new city holdings in your realm. The Republican Education perk introduces the Town Maven trait, that dynasty members might receive if they are educated in a county with hig development. Metropolitan is a great track if you prefer playing tall, building an economically strong realm.
Coterie members can share secrets with each other. Ill now leave it to Hugo, to talk more about our decisions and events.
Fate of Iberia contains a multitude of events and decisions ranging from struggle-specific events which shake-up plans, to flavor events designed to enrich the experience with classic paradox comical occurrences and references to regional curiosities.
As mentioned above, struggle events help add a bit of chaos to the overall equation, presenting many opportunities themed around the current phase for cunning strategists to turn ones disaster into anothers advantage during the greater conflict. Struggle events are exclusive to characters partaking in the struggle.
Such as this event, in which the player is able to give their word in exchange for a claim on a county. Failing to keep your word will certainly have consequences
Some events will have you deal with unexpected losses, though you can still gain something from the situation if you play your cards right. Protecting someone's secrets is a great way to make new friends. Always trust someone in a sombrero, they clearly know what they are doing. Other events can grant you advantages when you least expect it, but tread carefully as success is not guaranteed and things can always take a turn for the worse.
Struggle events though all related, are quite different in the opportunities, benefits, and challenges that they present, encouraging players to adjust their strategy as circumstances call. I would certainly start conquering my neighbors if I got ahold of some good steel, especially since itd help me get those catalysts Ive been after for a while
We have also included a variety of smaller, flavor-focused events that help bring the Iberian peninsula to life and create a greater breadth of content for players in the region to experience. Many of these events are inspired by recorded happenings in the region, while others are simply classic Crusader Kings events in a Mediterranean flavor. From a story about frightening thunder stones, to the myth of legendary Christian mobsters to a peaceful siesta event, you can be sure you will be getting a full Iberian roster of fascinating, action-packed, and ridiculous events.
Would you eat a whale? Would Allah approve? It probably tastes like chicken anyway.
For anyone who has had horchata, this story should sound familiar. Well, with the exception of the whole now you must only ever make horchata option. People from far away come to Iberia in search for a better life, can you provide that? The Content Design team recommends you read books, they are good for you!
There'll be no shortage of opportunities to improve your realm.
Besides new events, Fate of Iberia also features unique decisions which can be taken throughout the duration of the struggle at specific phases. Lets take a quick look at two of them now. Weve seen a lot of comments and requests in the previous dev diaries not to ignore the Jewish achievements of the period. In Fate of Iberia, one of its decisions allows you to make the most out of these achievements by enabling you to sponsor a golden age of science.
Sponsoring sciences is a noble but expensive endeavor. As the sponsor, you will receive various positive modifiers, though everyone else in the struggle will receive a weaker version of them too. This decision is not exclusive and anyone can steal the golden age from you, doing so will strip you of the modifier and replace it with its weaker counterpart. I fully expect this to be the correct kind of chaotic during multiplayer matches.
Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies. Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies. Of course, this decision isnt just a couple of modifiers strapped to a button. Sponsoring a golden age will lead to one of three random events that provide you with the opportunity to easily recruit highly talented scholars and members of the scientific community.
Making the doctor wait will add them to your court, while performing the operation may help you improve relations with your elderly vassal. Of course, under the... "right mindset", this can also become a learning opportunity for your young child, pre-industrial cataract surgery was a lot more successful with a young assistant present. Now, for a more standard decision example: In classic Crusader Kings 3 fashion, we also have plenty of decisions to form titles and gain control over land, such as the Iberian Foothold decision, which encourages large foreign powers to make a dash for their piece of the metaphorical Iberian cake by letting them end the struggle from the outside. Though the military investment will certainly be large and the many disunified states in Iberia wont take their conquest laying down
There are plenty of opportunities to rewrite history in Crusader Kings, will you unite Iberia under the French banner or will a post-unification Iberia conquer Europe?
We hope the content displayed in this dev diary has gotten you excited about our upcoming Flavor Pack, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the discussion comments below.
[ 2022-05-03 12:35:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to Dev Diary #95, about the flavor that makes the flavor pack!
I am Hugo (@Hugo Cortell), and today my fellow content designer Ola (@Vaniljkaka) will walk you through some of our design for culture, faith, and everything else before I introduce you to our events & decisions.
Read our Dev Diary #95 - Flavor of Iberia
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
In a region as dynamic and well-documented as Iberia, we were truly spoiled with possible content, and had to make some hard choices as to what would work best in the context of Crusader Kings III. Yet we have filled the Fate of Iberia with flavor content high and low, from fairytales whispered by a fireplace to grand designs of priests and kings. In the Fate of Iberia, you might encounter the Estadea, the wandering dead of Galician myth, the legendary Gardua thieves, great smiths of Toledo, cheese-making Vikings, and Andalusian polymaths dreaming of flight.
For Fate of Iberia weve roped in talented content designers from all over our organization to help us pack Iberia full of historical flavor. There is hardly any subject that does not get some love.
Culture and Faith
Iberias cultures were in a pretty good place already, thanks to the culture rework in the Royal Court. But, weve done a pass on their traditions to make sure theyre fitting and interesting. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, youll be able to make some compelling hybrid cultures here - why not Sephardi-Norse, or Berber-Castilian? It can also be a good way to get involved in the Struggle from the outside. Among other additions, youll find that Castilians are now Tabletop Warriors, able to challenge others to a grand game of chess!
The Kingdom of Castles, indeed! Concerning faith, our new shared Head of Faith mechanic will add dynamism to Iberias fractured religious landscape. More info regarding this will come in a future Development Diary! There are events for Muslims, Christians, and pagans, but the big addition is the Mozarabic Faith. Theyll encourage historical what if playthroughs and some dramatic decisions, exploring the deep Visigothic roots of Iberian faith. Try to take control of Toledo if you play a Mozarabic Christian - it can allow you to convene a new great church council, echoing the one in 711. But take heed - such a council might also affect the struggle How will your realm be affected by the vicious debates to follow? There are also other new decisions available to Mozarabs - including the ultimate prize, the restoration of the Kingdom of Toledo!
The Mozarabs have a long history of adapting to changing circumstances.
Toledo plays a central role for the Mozarabic faith. Basque Paganism, the other new faith, is a syncretistic belief with Christian and pagan elements, the most prominent vestige of pagan faith in Western Europe, ensconced in the Pyrenees. Among rulers, it is a dead religion at game start, but its traditions persist among the common folk, and an opportunistic ruler might find reason to Champion the Faith of the Country Basques, and bring it back to prominence.
Remnants of pagan belief have endured in the redoubt of the Pyrenees.
Special buildings, Dynasty tracks and Artifacts
For monuments and special buildings, there are some you might expect - the great mosque of Crdoba, the basilica of Santiago, the walls of Toledo - and some you might not. Weve begun exploring having natural wonders as province features, so youll find the Rock of Gibraltar here, too. While Iberia certainly has a rich history, its not as overcrowded in ruins of past splendor as say, Mesopotamia or Rome, so while there are some Visigothic and Roman monuments here, we focused on things built over the course of the Middle Ages. Theres accordingly also a few you can build yourself, after the game has started.
The Great Mosque of Cordoba in all its glory! Art has done a tremendous job in bringing the monuments to life.
The Tower of Hercules, as it is also called, still stands today, the oldest extant lighthouse in the world. Were adding new artifacts as well of course, among them the famed Bells of Santiago - or in 1066, their melted-down and reforged state as aquamaniles in the Muslim Court of Toledo. Historically, of course, they were turned into mosque lamps, but that would have been hard to represent well in our 3D courts, so we went with aquamaniles instead. Youll also be able to find armillary spheres, scallop shells from the pilgrim road to Santiago, chess boards, Visigothic votive crowns, and much more. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, of course some will be impressive items that our art team devoted lots of attention to, to be proudly displayed in your court.
Once the pride of Galicia, they now decorate the Toledo court. The two new dynasty legacies are Metropolitan and Coterie, expressing the themes of flourishing cities and interwoven, intrigue-riddled dynasties that seemed fitting for medieval Iberia. In the Coterie legacy, you can gain various benefits related to your dynasty and its members, useful for diplomacy and intrigue. The Reliable House perk, will give you 10% of your councillors primary skills, while the ultimate perk in this legacy, Pragmatic Roots, makes the Disinherit interaction available for all dynasty members. The Metropolitan Legacy will aid you with development, construction and prestige, unlock a unique Expand Cities decision, and give you some added motivation to build new city holdings in your realm. The Republican Education perk introduces the Town Maven trait, that dynasty members might receive if they are educated in a county with hig development. Metropolitan is a great track if you prefer playing tall, building an economically strong realm.
Coterie members can share secrets with each other. Ill now leave it to Hugo, to talk more about our decisions and events.
Events & Decisions
Fate of Iberia contains a multitude of events and decisions ranging from struggle-specific events which shake-up plans, to flavor events designed to enrich the experience with classic paradox comical occurrences and references to regional curiosities.
Struggle Events
As mentioned above, struggle events help add a bit of chaos to the overall equation, presenting many opportunities themed around the current phase for cunning strategists to turn ones disaster into anothers advantage during the greater conflict. Struggle events are exclusive to characters partaking in the struggle.
Such as this event, in which the player is able to give their word in exchange for a claim on a county. Failing to keep your word will certainly have consequences
Some events will have you deal with unexpected losses, though you can still gain something from the situation if you play your cards right. Protecting someone's secrets is a great way to make new friends. Always trust someone in a sombrero, they clearly know what they are doing. Other events can grant you advantages when you least expect it, but tread carefully as success is not guaranteed and things can always take a turn for the worse.
Struggle events though all related, are quite different in the opportunities, benefits, and challenges that they present, encouraging players to adjust their strategy as circumstances call. I would certainly start conquering my neighbors if I got ahold of some good steel, especially since itd help me get those catalysts Ive been after for a while
Flavor Events
We have also included a variety of smaller, flavor-focused events that help bring the Iberian peninsula to life and create a greater breadth of content for players in the region to experience. Many of these events are inspired by recorded happenings in the region, while others are simply classic Crusader Kings events in a Mediterranean flavor. From a story about frightening thunder stones, to the myth of legendary Christian mobsters to a peaceful siesta event, you can be sure you will be getting a full Iberian roster of fascinating, action-packed, and ridiculous events.
Would you eat a whale? Would Allah approve? It probably tastes like chicken anyway.
For anyone who has had horchata, this story should sound familiar. Well, with the exception of the whole now you must only ever make horchata option. People from far away come to Iberia in search for a better life, can you provide that? The Content Design team recommends you read books, they are good for you!
There'll be no shortage of opportunities to improve your realm.
Decisions
Besides new events, Fate of Iberia also features unique decisions which can be taken throughout the duration of the struggle at specific phases. Lets take a quick look at two of them now. Weve seen a lot of comments and requests in the previous dev diaries not to ignore the Jewish achievements of the period. In Fate of Iberia, one of its decisions allows you to make the most out of these achievements by enabling you to sponsor a golden age of science.
Sponsoring sciences is a noble but expensive endeavor. As the sponsor, you will receive various positive modifiers, though everyone else in the struggle will receive a weaker version of them too. This decision is not exclusive and anyone can steal the golden age from you, doing so will strip you of the modifier and replace it with its weaker counterpart. I fully expect this to be the correct kind of chaotic during multiplayer matches.
Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies. Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies. Of course, this decision isnt just a couple of modifiers strapped to a button. Sponsoring a golden age will lead to one of three random events that provide you with the opportunity to easily recruit highly talented scholars and members of the scientific community.
Making the doctor wait will add them to your court, while performing the operation may help you improve relations with your elderly vassal. Of course, under the... "right mindset", this can also become a learning opportunity for your young child, pre-industrial cataract surgery was a lot more successful with a young assistant present. Now, for a more standard decision example: In classic Crusader Kings 3 fashion, we also have plenty of decisions to form titles and gain control over land, such as the Iberian Foothold decision, which encourages large foreign powers to make a dash for their piece of the metaphorical Iberian cake by letting them end the struggle from the outside. Though the military investment will certainly be large and the many disunified states in Iberia wont take their conquest laying down
There are plenty of opportunities to rewrite history in Crusader Kings, will you unite Iberia under the French banner or will a post-unification Iberia conquer Europe?
Closing Comments
We hope the content displayed in this dev diary has gotten you excited about our upcoming Flavor Pack, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the discussion comments below.
[ 2022-05-03 12:35:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
PC Dev Diary #94 - Anatomy of a Struggle
A struggle is a long-form conflict (generally not just a war, though they likely include them) covering a particular chunk of the map. They have different phases, each of which have different variant gameplay rules (e.g., holy wars are disabled, characters of different religions may marry without, or Jerusalem cant declare or be declared war on). Phases progress between each other by way of catalysts, specific gameplay actions (declare war on an involved character, two involved characters become soulmates, etc.) that accrue points towards a future phase. When enough points are accrued, the phase changes to the new one. Struggles can be resolved, permanently affecting their area in some way, through dramatic and difficult ending decisions. They are assumed to last at least a couple of centuries: a conqueror carving out a new realm from the ruins of an old giant wouldnt be a struggle by itself, but if it includes dramatic aftershocks that last for generations, then it just might be.
So why are we introducing this mechanic attached to a flavour pack? Well, simply put, we didnt think we could do the historical realities of Iberia justice without something like this. The changing moods and temperaments of the peninsula over different decades, the way particular activities fluctuated between oddly permissive (by the standards of much of the rest of the world) and intensely strict, the role of notable characters and their policies in shaping the shifting tides of public opinion whether intentionally or not Medieval Iberia is just such a fascinating smorgasbord of mercurial special rules that we had to create a system that would allow us to model them, one that guided roleplay whilst giving it consequences, and provided default end goals for players other than just conquering all of Hispania. Though Iberia badly needed such a thing, it would have been a waste to create a system tailored for only Iberia. Complex and shifting local circumstances and long-form conflicts that dont always take the form of actively-prosecuted warfare are things seen in many parts of the world, and a setting-agnostic system that catered to the peninsula but could be easily repurposed elsewhere seemed like a very worthwhile project to spend time on. So lets get into how it works!
Struggles are, first and foremost, local things. Local to large areas (Iberia, for instance, is a decently sized little peninsula), but still local. The most basic thing that defines them, then, is the struggle region - a predefined group of titles that the rules of the struggle apply within. For FoIs struggle, weve used the ol reliable world_europe_west_iberia region thats been in the title since launch, but any region or combination of regions can be defined in the appropriate parameter. At the moment, these are static and only take regions, but were considering other options (e.g., titles, regions selected as part of the starting effect, etc.) for the future.
Cultures and faiths are regarded as either involved or not. This defines whether a specific culture or faith is seen as being a part of the in-group for the region, even when members of that in-group may occasionally (or frequently) be very hostile to each other. For the Iberian Struggle, for instance, a Castilian and an Andalusian both understand the changing nature of the peninsula instinctively in a way that an Anglo-Saxon would struggle to acclimate to. Cultures become involved either on first starting a struggle, manually via script, or automatically when a certain percentage of their total counties are within the struggle region (the number is set per struggle, currently at 80% for the Iberian Struggle). Hybrids and divergent cultures automatically become involved if they convert at least one county within the region on creation. Neither cultures nor faiths lose their involvement automatically. Once theyre in, theyre in permanently, unless manually removed via script. For Fate of Iberia, this is necessary to keep the ruling class of al-Andalus, predominantly culturally insular families of Arabs or Berbers, involved, but its generally there to prevent wonky behaviour with struggles incorporating cultures and faiths from beyond their region who dont actually have county within it. A simpler example would be a hypothetical Anglo-Norman struggle for after the Conquest. Wed probably want to set Norman up as an involved culture, and wouldnt want them to immediately become uninvolved because there are no Norman counties in the British Isles.
Within the region, characters are defined by their personal involvement: the degree to which theyre considered part of the ongoing medley of social and cultural fluctuations that define an active struggle, and so how other characters (and counties) treat them. There are three levels to involvement:
Alright, so we know how a struggle covers an area, and how people are divided up into categories within that area. What do these categories and this area actually do? For that, we need to look to phases. Each phase reflects a sort of mood or temperament within a struggle region specific to that struggle, the outcome of many prior actions leading to a shifting tide of general opinion about what is and isnt acceptable. Maybe some things that were taboo become mainstream for a time, and things otherwise considered acceptable are baulked at by even very conservative characters. Though well talk about how exactly you transition between phases a bit more in a moment, its worth noting that each phase has at least one (and usually more) future phase predefined for it, a phase that actions take in the course of play will gradually move the regions mood towards. Within the Iberian Struggle, phases are on a loosely even cycle: though theres some lateral movement and backtracking possible, they mostly move evenly in a circle. This is purely a design choice, and more esoteric flows are entirely scriptable.
The actual effects of each phase can be split into three broad categories - parameters, character modifiers, and county modifiers. These are then further split by the involvement of different characters. Parameters work similarly to doctrine parameters in faiths, or tradition parameters for cultures. Theyre special rules, entirely defined within script (and so fully moddable) that can be referred to elsewhere in script to unlock unique content, provide special exemptions, or block off specific actions. For example: in one phase, involved characters might be able to intermarry between faiths, in another, interlopers might receive cheaper holy wars whilst involved characters have them blocked entirely, and in both uninvolved characters may be blocked from culture converting involved cultures.
As with other breeds of parameter, struggle parameters are identified purely by their exact spelling and can thus be reused simply by duplicating them, either within a struggle or in other struggles, making them very versatile rules. Character modifiers can be applied directly to involved or interloper characters. This generally chiefly affects involved characters, making some things easier and others harder, but we also use it to let interlopers occasionally have an easier time of bending or breaking local rules. Though these are our current guidelines, since these are all entirely scriptable, they can be changed according to the tonal needs of any given struggle. Uninvolved characters do not have a character modifier slot - we dont want characters in India getting negative modifiers for not being involved or interlopers in a struggle in Iberia! Finally, we have county modifiers. These are applied to any county in the struggle region according to the direct holder of each county and their involvement; they generally have situational variables depending on phase for involved characters, mild to moderate debuffs for interlopers, and moderate to heavy debuffs for uninvolved characters.
Transitioning from a phase to any of its future phases requires the activation of catalysts: notable events, gameplay actions, and consequences to existing mechanics that drive the current phase towards a specific future phase. Catalysts themselves can be anything. A war being declared, a type of character being seduced, a certain type of scheme failing, and so on. Theyre set inside a phases future phase block, and, as with other elements of struggles, are entirely scriptable. Virtually any effect block in the entire title can be made into a catalyst with a bit of thought. Whenever a catalyst is activated, meaning that the thing that sets them happens, the current phase gains points towards the future phase that that catalyst was tied to (for instance, a notable interfaith marriage might help an uncertainty-focused phase gain points towards a tolerance-focused phase). Catalysts themselves are repeatable and the points they give vary with the difficulty of the catalyst in question - two notable characters becoming soulmates might well be worth more points than a notable character being executed, for instance. Points for put into simple tallies: when one tally for a future phase is met, that future phase becomes the new current phase, though theres a grace period of a month before the actual switch. On the off chance that all of the dozens or hundreds of characters involved in a struggle are being incomprehensibly boring, we should note the existence of one special catalyst: the passage of time. Every phase has a default future phase, and receives a single point per year towards that phases tally, representing the natural trend of public discourse towards particular conclusions. This can (and essentially always will) be overridden or exacerbated by more dramatic catalysts being activated, but even in very calm struggle, change is always coming.
A core part of the identity of struggles is that theyre not things that can be solved just by painting the map - after all, if they were, then the Iberian Struggle wouldve ended in its first decade when Musa ibn Nusayr had essentially subjugated the entire peninsula. We wanted to provide more difficult and interesting goals for ending a struggle than just conquering the whole struggle region. After all, it really doesnt matter if youve conquered everyone if that hasnt dealt with the underlying societal causes besetting a struggle locale. Ending decisions are our solution to this, being major, demanding decisions with consequences for the entire struggle region when taken and usually pretty intricate requirements. In order for a struggle to be endable through the usual flow, at least one phase must have an ending decision defined, though they can be ended manually through script also. The Iberian Struggle has three ending decisions, each tied (both mechanically and thematically) to a different phase).
To finish up, lets take a look at the new Iberian Struggles design (though Ill put an obligatory reminder that this stuff isnt final and that we generally continue to adjust things as we balance and playtest). The Iberian Struggles phases are Opportunity, Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation. Opportunity can lead to either Hostility or Conciliation, depending on how the peninsulas leaders treat each other, whilst both Hostility and Conciliation respectively build or degrade towards Compromise, which in turn decays into Opportunity, starting the cycle again. In Opportunity, Iberia is approaching a stage of uncertainty after notable spikes (hostile or friendly) in prior relations between faiths and cultures have abated. Struggle modifiers and parameters make war easier and cheaper, changing cultures and faiths easier and cheaper, but also unlock interfaith marriages and block off holy wars. Friendly interrelations between disparate characters activate catalysts guiding it towards Conciliation, whilst violent ones do the same for Hostility. For Hostility, aggressive actors have brought tensions to a simmering fever pitch, and even the slightest differences may be cause for aggressive persecution. The phases effects make wars cheaper and more brutal for all involved, reduce economic and technological progress, and increase the capacity of many characters for hostile schemes. Violence cant persist forever though, and either efforts at building bridges or simple exhaustion will eventually bring even the most violent Hostility phase towards Compromise. Standing opposite Hostility is Conciliation, where pragmatic politicking builds bridges between even very disparate realms. Characters in this phase arent really tolerant by the modern meaning of the word, but many of the harsher biases of their time are temporarily dropped or ignored in the name of expediency. Wars become more expensive and truces longer, but theres opportunity to unite against outsiders intervening in Iberian matters, and ruling over more multicultural and multifaith realms becomes easier and more beneficial. Periods of interreliance like this dont generally last. Granted privileges decay, ignored biases relapse, and power-hungry nobles tear down bridges for short-term gain. Even the most wholeheartedly supported Conciliation phase decays towards Compromise eventually. Finally, Compromise. In this phase, Iberia has reached a point of equilibrium. Wars are less likely and most costly, but economic investment and other forms of passive stability are easier and better, whilst interfaith marriages flourish. The exhausted pragmatism of Compromise isnt permanent, and will someday give rise to the cynical dynamism of Opportunity. The cycle begins anew. Naturally weve peppered all of this with phase-specific events, decisions, interactions, the odd CB, and so on. Most phases also add variant unlocking criteria to existing pieces of content, adjusting the circumstances under which things like the Claim Throne scheme or Found Holy Order decision can be used - most commonly temporarily extending them to characters whod usually not have access. Say you dont want to move on from a phase, though. Maybe you think Hostilitys the place for you, or youd prefer a more permanent Conciliation, and want to break the endless cycle of social transmutation - well, unless you wanted permanent Opportunity, youre in luck, because weve got ending decisions for Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation.
Hostilitys ending decision is Dominance, reflecting the final ascension of one of Iberias warring states to a position of not just military dominance, but social and spiritual hegemony. This gives your house an incredibly powerful modifier, making county and faith conversion within Iberia markedly faster, improving relations with those who share your faith or culture but markedly worsening them with other involved cultures or faiths, and making Holy Wars and Conquests cheaper and easier to access. It requires holding several important duchies, having a monocultural, monofaith primary kingdom, and being the only major player independent ruler in Iberia.
Conciliations ending decision is Dtente, making temporary accommodations into more permanent ones. Involved cultures gain a huge amount of cultural acceptance with each other, a house modifier that improves the opinion of different faiths and cultures, and several signature mechanics of the Conciliation phase become permanent for involved culture characters within Iberia: namely, interfaith marriage and disabled holy wars. Additionally, Iberian characters may join defensive wars for targets within Iberia against any aggressor from outside of Iberia. It requires a certain level of fame, being allied to every other independent involved Iberian ruler, and completely controlling an Iberian kingdom without controlling more than a certain fraction of Iberian territory.
Compromises ending decision is Status Quo. Where Dominance is enforcing will and Dtente finding accommodation, Status Quo is accepting that times have changed, that attempts to unite the peninsula are futile, and that its peoples and realms should go their separate ways and leave their neighbours be. Status Quo balkanises Iberia, transferring duchies to connected kingdoms if appropriate and making every kingdom within Iberia its own de jure empire whilst permanently destroying Hispania. Ruling houses across the former struggle region gain a modifier for two centuries making them better at fighting in lands of their own cultural heritage, whilst the capital counties of all independent rulers become strongholds for the next century. Some CBs within Iberia become more expensive. The requirements for Status Quo are a bit byzantine, essentially because it functions as the opt out decision if Dominance or Dtente prove too difficult to work towards. If Iberia cant be subjugated or coerced into cooperation then, in extremis, it can always be destroyed.
The Iberian Struggle is our first go at a struggle system, and its one were fairly pleased with. That said, weve certainly taken note of how the feature seems to have caught the popular imagination over the last week or so, and were very interested to hear your thoughts now that theres a bit more information available. First up, though, lets get a little disambiguation out of the way. The basic mechanic here, the struggle system, is free. It will be merged into the base game with 1.6 and available for use in mods (and potentially future DLCs) immediately. The Iberian Struggle itself, however, is paid content attached to the Fate of Iberia DLC. Though anyone can add their own struggles without needing to depend on this flavour pack, this particular struggle and its content are part and parcel of the DLC. With that out of the way, are there parts of the system youd like to see refined and made more flexible? What are the struggles youd like to see made in future? Whats your jankiest idea for hope for how to use the struggle system? As ever, Ill be around in the thread for the next hour or so to answer your queries.
[ 2022-04-26 15:04:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to a dev diary Ive been champing at the bit to write for months!
Coming with our next Flavor Pack "Fate of Iberia" is a new mechanic called the Struggle which will propose new challenges for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula.
Read our Dev Diary #94 - Anatomy of a Struggle
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
The Basic Pitch
A struggle is a long-form conflict (generally not just a war, though they likely include them) covering a particular chunk of the map. They have different phases, each of which have different variant gameplay rules (e.g., holy wars are disabled, characters of different religions may marry without, or Jerusalem cant declare or be declared war on). Phases progress between each other by way of catalysts, specific gameplay actions (declare war on an involved character, two involved characters become soulmates, etc.) that accrue points towards a future phase. When enough points are accrued, the phase changes to the new one. Struggles can be resolved, permanently affecting their area in some way, through dramatic and difficult ending decisions. They are assumed to last at least a couple of centuries: a conqueror carving out a new realm from the ruins of an old giant wouldnt be a struggle by itself, but if it includes dramatic aftershocks that last for generations, then it just might be.
Philosophy
So why are we introducing this mechanic attached to a flavour pack? Well, simply put, we didnt think we could do the historical realities of Iberia justice without something like this. The changing moods and temperaments of the peninsula over different decades, the way particular activities fluctuated between oddly permissive (by the standards of much of the rest of the world) and intensely strict, the role of notable characters and their policies in shaping the shifting tides of public opinion whether intentionally or not Medieval Iberia is just such a fascinating smorgasbord of mercurial special rules that we had to create a system that would allow us to model them, one that guided roleplay whilst giving it consequences, and provided default end goals for players other than just conquering all of Hispania. Though Iberia badly needed such a thing, it would have been a waste to create a system tailored for only Iberia. Complex and shifting local circumstances and long-form conflicts that dont always take the form of actively-prosecuted warfare are things seen in many parts of the world, and a setting-agnostic system that catered to the peninsula but could be easily repurposed elsewhere seemed like a very worthwhile project to spend time on. So lets get into how it works!
Involvement
Struggles are, first and foremost, local things. Local to large areas (Iberia, for instance, is a decently sized little peninsula), but still local. The most basic thing that defines them, then, is the struggle region - a predefined group of titles that the rules of the struggle apply within. For FoIs struggle, weve used the ol reliable world_europe_west_iberia region thats been in the title since launch, but any region or combination of regions can be defined in the appropriate parameter. At the moment, these are static and only take regions, but were considering other options (e.g., titles, regions selected as part of the starting effect, etc.) for the future.
Cultures and faiths are regarded as either involved or not. This defines whether a specific culture or faith is seen as being a part of the in-group for the region, even when members of that in-group may occasionally (or frequently) be very hostile to each other. For the Iberian Struggle, for instance, a Castilian and an Andalusian both understand the changing nature of the peninsula instinctively in a way that an Anglo-Saxon would struggle to acclimate to. Cultures become involved either on first starting a struggle, manually via script, or automatically when a certain percentage of their total counties are within the struggle region (the number is set per struggle, currently at 80% for the Iberian Struggle). Hybrids and divergent cultures automatically become involved if they convert at least one county within the region on creation. Neither cultures nor faiths lose their involvement automatically. Once theyre in, theyre in permanently, unless manually removed via script. For Fate of Iberia, this is necessary to keep the ruling class of al-Andalus, predominantly culturally insular families of Arabs or Berbers, involved, but its generally there to prevent wonky behaviour with struggles incorporating cultures and faiths from beyond their region who dont actually have county within it. A simpler example would be a hypothetical Anglo-Norman struggle for after the Conquest. Wed probably want to set Norman up as an involved culture, and wouldnt want them to immediately become uninvolved because there are no Norman counties in the British Isles.
But Characters Tho?
Within the region, characters are defined by their personal involvement: the degree to which theyre considered part of the ongoing medley of social and cultural fluctuations that define an active struggle, and so how other characters (and counties) treat them. There are three levels to involvement:
- Involved
- Interloper
- Uninvolved
Phases
Alright, so we know how a struggle covers an area, and how people are divided up into categories within that area. What do these categories and this area actually do? For that, we need to look to phases. Each phase reflects a sort of mood or temperament within a struggle region specific to that struggle, the outcome of many prior actions leading to a shifting tide of general opinion about what is and isnt acceptable. Maybe some things that were taboo become mainstream for a time, and things otherwise considered acceptable are baulked at by even very conservative characters. Though well talk about how exactly you transition between phases a bit more in a moment, its worth noting that each phase has at least one (and usually more) future phase predefined for it, a phase that actions take in the course of play will gradually move the regions mood towards. Within the Iberian Struggle, phases are on a loosely even cycle: though theres some lateral movement and backtracking possible, they mostly move evenly in a circle. This is purely a design choice, and more esoteric flows are entirely scriptable.
Manifesting the Mood
The actual effects of each phase can be split into three broad categories - parameters, character modifiers, and county modifiers. These are then further split by the involvement of different characters. Parameters work similarly to doctrine parameters in faiths, or tradition parameters for cultures. Theyre special rules, entirely defined within script (and so fully moddable) that can be referred to elsewhere in script to unlock unique content, provide special exemptions, or block off specific actions. For example: in one phase, involved characters might be able to intermarry between faiths, in another, interlopers might receive cheaper holy wars whilst involved characters have them blocked entirely, and in both uninvolved characters may be blocked from culture converting involved cultures.
As with other breeds of parameter, struggle parameters are identified purely by their exact spelling and can thus be reused simply by duplicating them, either within a struggle or in other struggles, making them very versatile rules. Character modifiers can be applied directly to involved or interloper characters. This generally chiefly affects involved characters, making some things easier and others harder, but we also use it to let interlopers occasionally have an easier time of bending or breaking local rules. Though these are our current guidelines, since these are all entirely scriptable, they can be changed according to the tonal needs of any given struggle. Uninvolved characters do not have a character modifier slot - we dont want characters in India getting negative modifiers for not being involved or interlopers in a struggle in Iberia! Finally, we have county modifiers. These are applied to any county in the struggle region according to the direct holder of each county and their involvement; they generally have situational variables depending on phase for involved characters, mild to moderate debuffs for interlopers, and moderate to heavy debuffs for uninvolved characters.
Catalysts
Transitioning from a phase to any of its future phases requires the activation of catalysts: notable events, gameplay actions, and consequences to existing mechanics that drive the current phase towards a specific future phase. Catalysts themselves can be anything. A war being declared, a type of character being seduced, a certain type of scheme failing, and so on. Theyre set inside a phases future phase block, and, as with other elements of struggles, are entirely scriptable. Virtually any effect block in the entire title can be made into a catalyst with a bit of thought. Whenever a catalyst is activated, meaning that the thing that sets them happens, the current phase gains points towards the future phase that that catalyst was tied to (for instance, a notable interfaith marriage might help an uncertainty-focused phase gain points towards a tolerance-focused phase). Catalysts themselves are repeatable and the points they give vary with the difficulty of the catalyst in question - two notable characters becoming soulmates might well be worth more points than a notable character being executed, for instance. Points for put into simple tallies: when one tally for a future phase is met, that future phase becomes the new current phase, though theres a grace period of a month before the actual switch. On the off chance that all of the dozens or hundreds of characters involved in a struggle are being incomprehensibly boring, we should note the existence of one special catalyst: the passage of time. Every phase has a default future phase, and receives a single point per year towards that phases tally, representing the natural trend of public discourse towards particular conclusions. This can (and essentially always will) be overridden or exacerbated by more dramatic catalysts being activated, but even in very calm struggle, change is always coming.
Ending Decisions
A core part of the identity of struggles is that theyre not things that can be solved just by painting the map - after all, if they were, then the Iberian Struggle wouldve ended in its first decade when Musa ibn Nusayr had essentially subjugated the entire peninsula. We wanted to provide more difficult and interesting goals for ending a struggle than just conquering the whole struggle region. After all, it really doesnt matter if youve conquered everyone if that hasnt dealt with the underlying societal causes besetting a struggle locale. Ending decisions are our solution to this, being major, demanding decisions with consequences for the entire struggle region when taken and usually pretty intricate requirements. In order for a struggle to be endable through the usual flow, at least one phase must have an ending decision defined, though they can be ended manually through script also. The Iberian Struggle has three ending decisions, each tied (both mechanically and thematically) to a different phase).
The Iberian Struggle
To finish up, lets take a look at the new Iberian Struggles design (though Ill put an obligatory reminder that this stuff isnt final and that we generally continue to adjust things as we balance and playtest). The Iberian Struggles phases are Opportunity, Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation. Opportunity can lead to either Hostility or Conciliation, depending on how the peninsulas leaders treat each other, whilst both Hostility and Conciliation respectively build or degrade towards Compromise, which in turn decays into Opportunity, starting the cycle again. In Opportunity, Iberia is approaching a stage of uncertainty after notable spikes (hostile or friendly) in prior relations between faiths and cultures have abated. Struggle modifiers and parameters make war easier and cheaper, changing cultures and faiths easier and cheaper, but also unlock interfaith marriages and block off holy wars. Friendly interrelations between disparate characters activate catalysts guiding it towards Conciliation, whilst violent ones do the same for Hostility. For Hostility, aggressive actors have brought tensions to a simmering fever pitch, and even the slightest differences may be cause for aggressive persecution. The phases effects make wars cheaper and more brutal for all involved, reduce economic and technological progress, and increase the capacity of many characters for hostile schemes. Violence cant persist forever though, and either efforts at building bridges or simple exhaustion will eventually bring even the most violent Hostility phase towards Compromise. Standing opposite Hostility is Conciliation, where pragmatic politicking builds bridges between even very disparate realms. Characters in this phase arent really tolerant by the modern meaning of the word, but many of the harsher biases of their time are temporarily dropped or ignored in the name of expediency. Wars become more expensive and truces longer, but theres opportunity to unite against outsiders intervening in Iberian matters, and ruling over more multicultural and multifaith realms becomes easier and more beneficial. Periods of interreliance like this dont generally last. Granted privileges decay, ignored biases relapse, and power-hungry nobles tear down bridges for short-term gain. Even the most wholeheartedly supported Conciliation phase decays towards Compromise eventually. Finally, Compromise. In this phase, Iberia has reached a point of equilibrium. Wars are less likely and most costly, but economic investment and other forms of passive stability are easier and better, whilst interfaith marriages flourish. The exhausted pragmatism of Compromise isnt permanent, and will someday give rise to the cynical dynamism of Opportunity. The cycle begins anew. Naturally weve peppered all of this with phase-specific events, decisions, interactions, the odd CB, and so on. Most phases also add variant unlocking criteria to existing pieces of content, adjusting the circumstances under which things like the Claim Throne scheme or Found Holy Order decision can be used - most commonly temporarily extending them to characters whod usually not have access. Say you dont want to move on from a phase, though. Maybe you think Hostilitys the place for you, or youd prefer a more permanent Conciliation, and want to break the endless cycle of social transmutation - well, unless you wanted permanent Opportunity, youre in luck, because weve got ending decisions for Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation.
Hostilitys ending decision is Dominance, reflecting the final ascension of one of Iberias warring states to a position of not just military dominance, but social and spiritual hegemony. This gives your house an incredibly powerful modifier, making county and faith conversion within Iberia markedly faster, improving relations with those who share your faith or culture but markedly worsening them with other involved cultures or faiths, and making Holy Wars and Conquests cheaper and easier to access. It requires holding several important duchies, having a monocultural, monofaith primary kingdom, and being the only major player independent ruler in Iberia.
Conciliations ending decision is Dtente, making temporary accommodations into more permanent ones. Involved cultures gain a huge amount of cultural acceptance with each other, a house modifier that improves the opinion of different faiths and cultures, and several signature mechanics of the Conciliation phase become permanent for involved culture characters within Iberia: namely, interfaith marriage and disabled holy wars. Additionally, Iberian characters may join defensive wars for targets within Iberia against any aggressor from outside of Iberia. It requires a certain level of fame, being allied to every other independent involved Iberian ruler, and completely controlling an Iberian kingdom without controlling more than a certain fraction of Iberian territory.
Compromises ending decision is Status Quo. Where Dominance is enforcing will and Dtente finding accommodation, Status Quo is accepting that times have changed, that attempts to unite the peninsula are futile, and that its peoples and realms should go their separate ways and leave their neighbours be. Status Quo balkanises Iberia, transferring duchies to connected kingdoms if appropriate and making every kingdom within Iberia its own de jure empire whilst permanently destroying Hispania. Ruling houses across the former struggle region gain a modifier for two centuries making them better at fighting in lands of their own cultural heritage, whilst the capital counties of all independent rulers become strongholds for the next century. Some CBs within Iberia become more expensive. The requirements for Status Quo are a bit byzantine, essentially because it functions as the opt out decision if Dominance or Dtente prove too difficult to work towards. If Iberia cant be subjugated or coerced into cooperation then, in extremis, it can always be destroyed.
Future Use
The Iberian Struggle is our first go at a struggle system, and its one were fairly pleased with. That said, weve certainly taken note of how the feature seems to have caught the popular imagination over the last week or so, and were very interested to hear your thoughts now that theres a bit more information available. First up, though, lets get a little disambiguation out of the way. The basic mechanic here, the struggle system, is free. It will be merged into the base game with 1.6 and available for use in mods (and potentially future DLCs) immediately. The Iberian Struggle itself, however, is paid content attached to the Fate of Iberia DLC. Though anyone can add their own struggles without needing to depend on this flavour pack, this particular struggle and its content are part and parcel of the DLC. With that out of the way, are there parts of the system youd like to see refined and made more flexible? What are the struggles youd like to see made in future? Whats your jankiest idea for hope for how to use the struggle system? As ever, Ill be around in the thread for the next hour or so to answer your queries.
[ 2022-04-26 15:04:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #93 - Turmoil in the Peninsula
[ 2022-04-19 16:06:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Winter is slowly fading behind us (at least in the northern hemisphere), and spring is starting to take over. A new season calls for an announcement. Im happy to present you with our next Flavor Pack: Fate of Iberia, due to be released on the 31st of May!
We are obviously talking about Mediterranean Iberia, not the former Kingdom in Georgia.
Read our Dev Diary #93 - Turmoil in the Peninsula
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/
In addition to being one of the most played regions, the Iberian peninsula is interesting because of the complexity of the geopolitical situation, and the richness of the events occurring during the time period of Crusader Kings 3.
It gives us a good opportunity to bring more flavor for both the Christians and Muslims living there.
With this new flavor pack, we want to offer you the opportunity to truly decide the fate of the whole peninsula, either by reenacting history or creating an alternative that pleases you more. In order to model the complexity of the situation, we are introducing a new system, the Struggle.
It will be changing the rules and increasing the challenge for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula. You can have an idea of how the game will be affected in the screenshot below. The effects will vary a lot depending on the stage of the struggle, but we will go into details in the next dev diary :)
The Struggle will both create new opportunities and add constraints for the rulers within Iberia
A new 867 bookmark features a revamped Iberian cast of characters, giving players the perfect place to jump in and deflect history as they see fit. The Struggle will persist into the 1066 start date as well. The bookmark lets you choose between different vassals, either from the Christian Kingdoms, or Al-Andalus. Each of them offers different starting challenges and choices.. For instance, in the south, Emir Adanis and Ibn Marwan are both Dukes under the Sultanate of Al-Andalus. But they also are neighbors and rivals. Starting with one of them will certainly imply crossing swords and scheming against the other.
The new 867 bookmark will be available for everyone, while being more interesting to experience if you own Fate of Iberia
We also seized the opportunity to update the map, refining the county and duchy divisions, as well as the cultures and faiths. This means the stage is more accurately set for the start of our game.
Screenshot of the new county division in Iberia
We mostly focused on the Northern part of the region.
The new culture set up for the year 867
The new faith set up for the year 867
You might have noticed the addition of the Mozarabic faith, but again, we will detail that in a future dev diary, along with the rest of the content you can expect from a Flavor Pack!
We are excited to go into the details and share all of this with you in the coming weeks! Until then, I wish you a lovely day and enjoy the trailer!
[previewyoutube=yIYS2eOm-vw;full][/previewyoutube]
Cheers,
P.S.: While we do not expect the save versions to be incompatible, please make sure you wrap up your previous playthrough to ensure a seamless transition. If you encounter issues, you can of course roll these saves back to a previous version UNLESS you are playing in Ironman.
[ 2022-04-19 16:06:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #92: From Report to Resolution
[ 2022-04-05 12:39:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's talk about the process a bug goes through from being reported to being resolved and put into an update for CK3!
Read our Dev Diary #92: From Report to Resolution
This week, please visit our forums to see the images & memes prepared for you crusader_helmet
Whenever you launch the game, get yourself a your favorite gamer juice and steel your resolve for a few good hours of managing a medieval kingdom, there is a lot of stuff that happened behind the scenes to make it a memorable experience, free from issues. For a game as complex as Crusader Kings 3, this is even more important, and as the features get added to the game, it becomes more and more complicated, like a careful balancing act between economy, AI, warfare, interactions - all to ensure the experience you receive in the newest update is something worth waiting for!
We are but a few humble people, whose job is to find out what works and what doesnt and report any and all issues to the team before the game hits your platform of choice. But what happens when sometimes issues do remain hidden away and they will take spitting behind your shoulder 3 times on a 3rd fortnight of a 5th month on a leap year, during a full moon while dancing hokey-pokey to uncover?
This is where you can come in and help! We can get rid of serious, big issues, find them ahead of time before you even realize they existed in the first place, and try and deliver a polished product. For anything else - well, its the economy of scale. With the variety of systems, languages, experiences, playstyles - YOU are the biggest help of all, in how a game can be shaped. And for that we have a special platform, called Bug Report Forum, where you can air out your grievances, provide feedback, reproduction steps and situations that irk you on the constant, so that our QA team can go through them much more efficiently and supply the team with a steady stream of new bugs to iron out for the next bug fix patch or release.
[Comic on logging]
Once you take your valuable time to report the issue that ruins your mojo when playing Crusader Kings, it lands on our Forum as a thread. We then take turns, employing QA power to go through the forums and reproduce them locally on our machines to ensure if the issue is serious, or perhaps we can offer support by providing advice on how to avoid it.
Once the ticket is verified internally, using your reproduction steps, your description, screenshots, crash logs and saves, we then take the time to translate it into a language that our internal team can understand - Jira.
Theres an art to this. Jira is an extremely helpful and smart tool to use, and QA by nature becomes naturally adept at using it skillfully. Its usually the QA who does project-wide database evaluations, scrubbing it from obsolete tickets and updating any and all lingering ones to make sure the project team can focus on whats important - making more fun stuff!
Wait Obsolete? You mean you just CLOSE old tickets?
We do sometimes. For example, if we had an issue lingering around in some hidden away system for a long time (and sometimes not even you, our community, are able to find it for years on end) - the issue becomes obsolete - either we just make the bug into a feature, or because we change a system entirely - it becomes changed so its not even a problem anymore. Happens on occasion, and even we are quite surprised that some bugs that linger for long never get picked up by the players, but hey - bugs are features too! Right?
Riiiiiiiiiight?
[Excerpt from How to JIRA guide]
Now that might look like a lot, but trust me - theres a way to learn this. First of all, its pretty straight forward; complex, but not complicated. We have been campaigning for the team to use Jira tickets efficiently. For example, if we get a ticket that says Fix the thing we talked about yesterday and there is nothing else in it, how can we remember what we have done, what needs to be done and how do we go back to it to retest? And again - fast-forward time to a month later and believe me - nobody will remember what in the world such a ticket meant.
As a result, making sure all the fields are appropriately filled out is paramount to an efficient use of the database, and to make our teams lives just a little bit easier when having to deal with a big pile of bugs that come from you or from our internal reporting.
If everything is sorted, and everyone is on the same page, it makes it a lot easier for the producers to schedule when and how to report. And the upvoting on the forum? Thats an incredibly powerful tool to let us know which tickets need to be prioritized and fixed, no matter what. Thats how we can influence what is important to be fixed first.
[QA chasing the Programmers]
The (un)lucky Programmer/Designer
Once the bug has been verified, put into Jira, assigned a version and prioritized, a Developer can pick the bug up for fixing. This is typically either a Designer or a Programmer, depending on where the bug originates. In some cases the bug is reassigned to another role if the bug is found to be caused in another part of the game. Now that we know what the issue is and how its experienced, we need to investigate the how and why it happens.
As an example of this, let us look at the recently fixed issue where the Holy Orders would raise themselves and immediately disband if they were called into a war. This issue was a side effect of letting Holy Orders raise themselves for Great Holy Wars: whenever a Holy Order is at war as an ally (which they qualify as during the Great Holy Wars), they would raise their armies.
We start by looking at why the Order is disbanding the armies. If theyre raised, they must have something to fight against, right?
[Code controlling if a orders armies should be disbanded]
Through developer magic known as debug mode and source code, we can step through each individual function call to see whats going on. Stepping through this function leads us to finding that the war they are fighting in is not relevant to them, causing them to disband. Looking at the enemies in the war theyre in, none of them are of a hostile Faith. We also see that they are hired by the Grandmaster of the Order, so the Order itself decided to raise their armies, not another character hiring them.
Holy Orders will not fight in wars where the opposing side does not have any participants of hostile Faith. Because we found the Holy Order disbanding due to being raised against an irrelevant enemy, we must look at the logic which controls how they are raised.
I will spare you the initial dig down the AI code, but the short of it is: if a Holy Order can be raised, raise it. So we need to see why the Holy Order can be raised when it clearly should not be able to. We arrive at the following function.
[Code to check the Holy Order can be hired by a Character]
This logic checks if the Order can be hired by a character. This goes for any character looking to use the Order in question, even the Grandmaster of the Order. The Grandmaster of the Order is part of the war, so let us see where it leads us. Starting from the top, we check if the character can use the Order. Let us take a look at how that goes.
[Code to check if a character can use the Holy Order]
This is the code that checks if a character can use a Holy Order. When the Holy Order joins a war on its own, pCharacter is the Grandmaster, which is the Owner of the Holy Order. Makes perfect sense that the Grandmaster can make use of his own Holy Order. But, make notice further down: there is a check there, verifying if the character is in a relevant war. This is the same function that caused the army to disband earlier.
Returning back to the function which checks if a Holy Order can be hired by our Grandmaster.
[Code to check the Holy Order can be hired by a Character 2]
To simplify things, I have collapsed all the irrelevant parts; contained within each if section is something which will cause the function to fail, and not allow the Grandmaster to hire their own Order. Lets go through these relevant parts. We dont run afoul with the hire limit, as we dont hire any other Holy Orders as the Grandmaster of one. We are not already hired by someone else, so we skip that part. We own this order, so we dont touch the third if statement. Finally, we can afford to hire our own Order. Look at that, this means we can hire the Holy Order!
But returning back to the finding that the Holy Order would immediately disband because were not in a relevant war. This is where we find our solution: if we own our own Holy Order, we can always use it, but because of this we will not look if the war we are in is relevant at all. So we have a very simple solution to the problem.
[Solution to preventing the Holy Order from being raised]
We know that the check for relevant wars is only skipped if we are the Grandmaster of the Order, we dont need to check the faith of our own Grandmaster, so this is what were left with: if the one who wants to hire the Holy Order is the Owner of the Order, check if they are in a relevant war or not.
The merge request process - everyone judges you
When the fix has been created, it is put into what is called the merge request; this is the step before the fix is put into the upcoming build. Before it gets merged, there are a bunch of steps. It starts with one or more members of the team of appropriate discipline reviewing the changes being applied. This is the first step to spotting any unintended side effects that may occur with any given fix. The scrutiny of these reviews increase drastically with several more steps if the fix will go into an upcoming release.
[Merge request overview for Preventing Holy Orders from raising themselves in irrelevant wars]
Merge requests have a template that must be filled in when filed. This process gives both the fixer and reviewer the chance to review the implications of a fix and whether or not to actually commit it to a particular version. We make a serious consideration on how risky a fix is, can the fix have unintended knockon effects and the like, and how it impacts the overall performance of the game, does the fix contain a lot of computationally heavy code or script that will degrade performance.
The golden rules of managing a merge request are:
Reviewer is right until proven wrong.
Discipline leads are always right.
Adding a fix to a build generally requires approval from the discipline lead, tech lead and another reviewer, and only the tech lead can actually merge the fix into the build when were getting close to release.
[The commit fixing the issue]
The reviewer(s) give feedback on the merge request, and these must be addressed in one way or another. In the overview, you can see that the fix ended up being five commits in total, where just one of them was the fix itself. The rest were either addressing comments made in the review process or issues raised by the automated build and testing system, which we call pipelines. Speaking of pipelines.
[Pipeline for merge request]
Pipelines verify the integrity and quality of the code, build the game and test the game while the review process is going. All of these must pass for the merge request to be allowed to merge, unless explicit permission is given from the programmers, and in the case of an upcoming release the pipelines must be green. No exceptions.
Once the fix has been merged, we hand it back over to the sadistic wonderful QA team.
[Happy tears from QA after a 2 year old issue was resolved]
Once a ticket gets processed, churned through the complicated development machine, the issue is removed from the game, the correct code, script or asset gets merged into the game, the ticket is then marked as resolved.
This is when we get our hands on it one more time to verify if the fix has not only resolved the issue listed therein, but also that it has no other knock-on effects. Think of big fixes like a domino - you push one piece and the others will fall. Sometimes a different set of dominos, that we set up a long time ago, gets randomly pushed and some older issues reappear out of nowhere. It happens when you deal with a complex codebase, in which case you sometimes do see returning fan favorites.
But all we have to do is revisit the older system, fix it (again), and away we go! Unless yet another bug is retriggered, in which case Well, we have to revisit yet another system. Videogames are hard, mkay?
This is why we sometimes need to go through the same ticket again, and again, and again, until we are very sure it fixes more things than it breaks. Sometimes bugs linger in our database for a long time. Trust us - we know that issues you mentioned on release still persist and we want to fix everything, but with every release we get a new batch of tickets we have to go through
So.
Many.
Times.
However, once the fix is confirmed, and the build is locked in - we are ready to press the large green button and release it for your scrutiny and repeat aforementioned hokey-pokey jig again!
The Update - Are we done yet?
Not really. On our end we close the bug as resolved, but there is one last thing that comes into play on resolving a bug. This is all of you, the community. The QA team catches most of the problems before a release is made, but sometimes for an issue to reoccur, you need the stars to align on a laptop manufactured on 29th of February 2020 while the player is doing the Macarena.
Paraphrasing, of course, but there are cases where an issue can reemerge later. This can happen due to a myriad of factors that are hard to account for. Some issues can be related to hardware and specific circumstances we dont have the capacity to test for. This is when we rely on you all to be vigilant and report issues back to us. The more detailed and specified, the better. Once this is done we go back from the top of this expose and do the dance one more time.
If no one in the community experiences the issue again, then it stays resolved.
I hope you all have enjoyed this little expose into the life of a game developer! Thank you for your time, and we wish you a very pleasant day.
Until next time!
[ 2022-04-05 12:39:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream: The Bright Ages (Medieval History) || Friday, April 1, 4pm CEST
[ 2022-04-01 13:30:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Special Livestream: The Bright Ages Friday, April 1 || 4pm - 7pm CEST We will discuss our passion for history with Alexander Oltner, CK3 Game Director, and our special guests Matthew Gabriele & David Perry, co-authors of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe! Join us on Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2022-04-01 13:30:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III has launched on PlayStation 5 & Xbox X|S!
[ 2022-03-29 16:27:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III has launched on PlayStation 5 & Xbox X|S! Go forth my Vassals, and make your King proud in CK3. Buy Crusader Kings III on consoles [previewyoutube=rAAmj0ww_a4;full][/previewyoutube] The legendary TPAIN is back in Crusader Kings III and you won't want to miss it! To celebrate the release of CK3 on console, we're releasing 5 new videos over the next week!
[ 2022-03-29 16:27:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Controllers, to rule in style!
[ 2022-03-24 19:22:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Have you been looking high and low for a remarkable Royal Artifact to place in your gaming court? Our finest artisans have just completed a masterpiece that may interest you we present the regal Crusader Kings III controller from XBox!
Buy your Controller
While the PC version of Crusader Kings III does not currently support controllers, you can still show off your sovereign style when playing other games with a controller made for royalty.
[ 2022-03-24 19:22:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Console DD #3: UI/UX and Controls
[ 2022-03-22 13:41:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Howdy y'all!
We are glad to announce that we have a fantastic Dev Diary from our friends at Lab42 where we will cover the long anticipated and much sought after UI and UX for the Console version releasing soon!
Lab42 have been hard at work and there is not much time left until release, so we hope you enjoy the information and vision they have presented for you. Now with screenshots!
Read our Console DD #3: UI/UX and Controls
As you would expect, user interface and controls were core components of the adaptation from PC to console. One of the main aims was to create a UI that was easily accessible and facilitated fluid gameplay. There is no set standard for UI and controls for Grand Strategy Games on console, with most approaches being subjective and as a consequence weve taken an approach that suited the unique Crusader Kings Gameplay.
[Map Overview and controls]
This started with a control hierarchy that marries UI and button control placement, for example ... using shoulder buttons for the top tier menus the Command Bar and bumpers to tab between sub-menus within the main menus. In addition, the decision was taken to assign controls to unique game functions rather than using lots of contextual buttons. Control prompts specific to each menu, screen / game context are displayed at the bottom of the screen to assist the user. The aim is to provide the player with a lexicon of controls that when learnt facilitate fluid interaction with the game UI and functionality.
[Earl Alfred Character View]
We could've taken a very conservative approach to development, but this was not what Lab42 or Paradox wanted. For example, the conundrum of turning a PC control system and UI into a viable console offering could've involved retaining the PC UI and using the controller thumbstick as a virtual mouse, but this approach was dismissed out of hand. User research also showed how popular the D-Pad was as a means of game navigation, especially when dealing with menus. Moving away from the use of a virtual mouse and freeing up the D-Pad for game navigation (as opposed to invoking menus as used in other console strategy games) presented a new set of challenges to overcome.
[Family Tree]
The UI and controls we've adopted is a hybrid approach, leaning on best in class examples as reference and applying them to the unique CK game framework (e.g. top level onscreen menus (the Command Bar), Radials (Character and Maps), and quality of life shortcuts (e.g. Quick Access Bar, Hints, Notifications).
[Council Tab in Top Menu]
When looking at the Crusader Kings user interface it was clear that most of the community want as much information at their fingertips as possible in order to form and execute game strategy. Flicking between menus, the map and popups is a feature of the PC title that we wanted to retain on console. This is also enhanced by the Radials to access your Character Wheel and another that introduces the Map View Radial accessible at any time from the main gameplay window. Allowing you to quickly change between Map Modes and easily accessing your character features without in-depth menu navigation.
[Radial Map Wheel]
Avoiding the use of lots of fullscreen menus that potentially break the immersion of gameplay was a driver here, and this led to the concept of switching focus being introduced. This essentially allows the gamer to quickly move between any open screen elements as well as allowing easy Map Interaction a critical component of Crusader Kings gameplay.
[Start Date map]
[Martial View]
[Martial View]
That does it for the Console portion of the Developer Diary fresh and hot from the Lab42 presses!
[ 2022-03-22 13:41:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.5.1.1: Available now!
[ 2022-03-22 12:44:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hi everyone,
Crusader Kings III, Update 1.5.1.1: Now available!
We have been working to enhance our Update 1.5.1 thanks to your feedback & bug reports.
Thank you for supporting CK3, we can't wait to show you what we have in store next!
Heres the changelog 1.5.1.1:
###################
# Game Balance
###################
- Vassals can no longer join factions if they have a Truce with their liege
###################
# Localization
###################
- Fixed missing text and tooltips for Cultural Traditions and Cultural Aesthetics in Spanish
- Fixed county title macros in Korean
- Fixed missing translations for the south asian event pool
- Fixed inspired person text not being translated in Korean
###################
# User Modding
###################
- Fixed a crash in the map editor
- Tree mask assets should now be visible again in the map editor
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fix law tooltips in tooltips not showing up correctly
- Fixed an issue that caused the Coat of Arms designer to repeat the same patterns if players were scrolling up and down the list
- Fixed an issue that caused the game to sometimes incorrectly display your custom Coat of Arms for other dynasties
- Fixed a rare crash that occurred when the AI was forming a new hybrid culture
- Fix text offset for icons in law tooltip
- Fixed Aslaug, daughter of Ivar the Boneless, being married instead of betrothed at age 1
- Fixed CTD happening on loading a save after rejecting a culture conversion request.
- Holy Orders can no longer raise themselves in wars without a hostile faith participant, even if they are somehow allied in the war
- Renaming event description now targets other characters properly
- Fixed Ivars sons being older than himself in the bookmark screen
- Fixed missing key for culture conversion interaction
- Added correct naming of new eye socket types in the Customize Appearance menu
- Fixed the Train Commanders task not consistently improving Knights/Commanders and also not boosting the strength of new Men-at-Arms types
- Map pin portrait no longer freezes animation of all the other portraits of the same character
- Relaxed Turkish Eagle achievement culture criteria to not require branching directly from Turkish or Greek anymore. It is enough if these two cultures exist somewhere in the parentage of your new culture
- Trade ports should now be clearer on why they cannot be built when you lack the right cultural tradition or innovation
- Turkish Eagle achievement should now fire again for new saves
- Adjusted triggers and localisation for 'Establish the Theravada Faith' decision and event chain
- Fixed some unnatural looking shadows in certain court room setups
[ 2022-03-22 12:44:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Two Million copies sold for Crusader Kings III!
[ 2022-03-16 17:09:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
One and a half years later, you have told over 2 Million stories!
Every story is unique and every story has led us to where we are now.
What is your story and how will you tell it in CK3?
In the latest news for CK3:
Console
- The release date for PlayStation 5 & Xbox One X|S is set for March 29!
- We are sharing some details in our Dev Diaries on our forums. The next information will share more screenshots, previews, videos and even Livestreams as we get closer to the release date.
- Crusader Kings III on consoles is being ported by Lab42. Paradox Interactive develops the game on PC.
PC
- Update 1.5.1 has been released!
- We are working on the next Update to further support 1.5.1. Thank you for your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports!
- Once our focus on Console Dev Diaries are done later this month, we will then dive into a whole new series for PC... so keep your eyes peeled!
[ 2022-03-16 17:09:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.5.1: Available now!
[ 2022-03-10 12:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Crusader Kings III, Update 1.5.1: Now available!
Better Coat of Arms designer
Tribal Court
Improved Cultures
Enhanced AI
New Events
And more Balance, Performance, Art, Content, Database, and Bugfixes brought to #CK3!
Read our Dev Diary #90: The 1.5.1 Update
Heres the changelog 1.5.1:
###################
# Balance
###################
- AI's will now leave factions more quickly when they are pleased with you as their liege
- AI's will no longer press factions for Claimants they like if they also like their current liege a lot, with a decreasing chance at higher opinions (the AI will be less likely to press a claimant they have 80 opinion of if they have 60 opinion of their liege, for example)
- The AI now considers Faith Hostility when selecting claimants
- AI vassals are now more likely to offer a gift when paying homage
- Added a Game Rule (Empire Obscurity) that makes empires that control below 20% of their De Jure counties be destroyed. This should solve empires sticking around forever as micro-realms.
- Boosted the control gain from requesting Bailiffs from your Liege in a Petition
- Corrected the modifiers of the Cup of Jamshid
- Forcing same vote by using a hook on an elector will now last 100 years instead of 5
- It's now much harder to invite Inspired people to your court, and practically impossible to invite anyone who's currently being sponsored
- Landless AI's will now try to equip artifacts you gift them via the interaction (depending on rarity)
- Only House Heads will now demand the return of artifacts if there's only a house claim
- Strategy Lifestyle bonus to Skirmishers has been moved to the Hit and Run Perk
- The AI now has a 5 year cooldown towards asking to educate the players children if the player refuses
- The AI will no longer demand artifacts from players they like a lot, and will no longer keep asking after you've refused once
- The Chaste trait now only reduces Seduction scheme power
- The Development progress from the Industrious Cultural Tradition is now applied at most once a year
- The Holy Site of Qayaliq now gives Archer Cavalry bonuses
- The Jousting Lists and Archery Ranges Duchy Buildings now give bonuses to camel, elephant, and archer cavalry
- The Parthian Tactics perk now boosts Elephant and Camel cavalry
- The Prestige gained from the Architect trait when it's boosted via cultural traditions have been changed from 50% to a flat +0.5/month
- The War Camps and Hunting Grounds buildings now give Horse Archer bonuses
- Tweaked various factors in the war for England, in order to reduce the chances of Harold winning
- AI now moves capital to London on victory in Norman conquest, if possible
- Northern Lords legacies can now be gotten by dynasts of any culture descendent from Norse as well as Norse culture itself.
- Sacred Childbirth now grants piety each time a child is born and considers Pregnant a virtuous trait
- Rebalanced artifact gift opinion gain
- Tribal Kings and Emperors can now access the Royal Court, but it plays differently:
- The 'Expected Grandeur' is always the same as their current Grandeur level. It cannot be above or below.
- All Amenity Levels except the first two are blocked if playing Tribal
- Amenity Costs are greatly increased if tribal (it was trivially cheap)
- They only have access to one Court Type: Tribal. This one can be kept if feudalizing, but it doesn't give many benefits, and the AI will switch out of it fairly quickly.
- All Tutorials and Game Concepts now mention Tribals and the differences they have
- Several events that were ill-fitting for tribals will not appear for them (i.e. founding new City holdings)
###################
# AI
###################
- A unit stack wanting to resupply will spread out its subunit stacks into neighboring provinces even though said provinces might not allow resupplying, in order to try and avoid attrition.
- AI should take player units into account for supply situation when selecting target province.
- AI stops to raise levies with very small amount of troops
- Allow units to ignore hostile attrition as a last resort when moving to a target in a neighboring county.
- Added missing check for if a unit is moving or not when calculating troop strength for supply.
- For combat evaluation, only count available subunit stacks if they are close enough.
- If the main subunit stack is already moving, then don't deny being available for order because some units are still technically sieging.
- Desperate AI will be more bold when selecting targets near enemy units, or when engaging enemy units.
- Ignore non-castle provinces when giving extra score to province targets near the war goal area.
- In Great Holy Wars the AI will be more focused on fighting about the war goal and less likely to shy away from confrontation due to numerical weakness.
- Instructed the AI to adjust its court amenity spending in a more responsive manner
- AI will no longer go to war for artifacts that are below masterwork, cursed or that it cannot use (like toys).
- Lowered the AI cooldown on Pay Homage to 2 years from 3
- Blocked the AI from overspending in Hold Court events
- Fixed an issue where AI's could get stuck and never go home after a raid
###################
# Performance
###################
- Significantly improved the performance of all portraits in the game
- Improved the performance of the Throne Room scenes
###################
# Interface
###################
- Add check boxes for flipping coat of arm emblems in detail edit mode
- Budget tooltip entry on liege taxes are now shown as a breakdown instead of being within the budget tooltip
- Fixed too low left margin for crown authority buttons
- Recruited prisoners can now be forced to Take the Vows when Negotiating Release
- When gifting an Artifact, the entry will now show if it is equipped
- Added a prestige icon to council task descs
- Empty court positions you cannot hire are now correctly sorted to the bottom of the list
- Dead characters now have a skull next to their age
- Renamed the Court tab to Courtiers to differentiate between it and Royal Court
- Made text labels have more correct margins.
- Cleaned up margins and spacings in the Faith View.
- Changed the standard window margins so they no longer overlap the vertical lines at the sides of the window.
###################
# Art
###################
- Significantly improved the lighting and shadows in all throne rooms
- Fixed CoA on shield artifacts being mirrored when displayed in the Royal Court
- Added unique icons for all different types of inspirations
- Added a new set of Legwear for Arabic clothes sets
- Added unique art for the Throne of Solomon
- Olifant now has a unique 3D appearance
- African and Norse swords now have unique 3D appearance
- Steppe Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- African Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- Steppe Maces now have a unique 3D appearance
- Mediterranean Maces and Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- Added several new 2D icons to artifacts
- Changed which texture quality settings are used on each preset level in the graphics settings menu so that the highest preset default to using the highest quality textures
- Made it so that orthodox priests should always have a beard
- Adjusted eyelids that were sometimes causing characters to have overly squinty eyes
- Added a hybrid culture art pattern for options that can mix from two different cultures
- Added unique CoA for HRE that reformed Roman Empire
###################
# Localization
###################
- Fixed error string in spanish inspiration sponsored toast
- Fixed duplicate chinese character issue in court grandeur rank text
- Fixed the alliance popup string in spanish to use correct custom loc
- Fixed Spanish warning message for player marriage and betrothal status
- Fixed broken string in spanish for inspiration
- Fixed spanish localisation for intrigue window
- Fixed 2nd and 3rd tier of beauty traits sharing Hermoso localization in Spanish, 2nd tier is now Atractivo
###################
# Game Content
###################
- Added an additional event for losing language when reached cap for max known
- Added notification, personal artifact claim, and prestige loss after losing a war banner in battle
- Added three additional hunt events
- Added three additional Feast events about artifacts
- Added a new yearly event about medieval football
- Added a new martial lifestyle event about improvised weapons
- Added a new Skulduggery lifestyle event about siege tactics
- Added a new Intimidation lifestyle event about a forest of corpses
- Added the establish Yamagate of Samarkand decision
- Added a new set of events surrounding the Athletic trait
- Added a new event for characters with the Lisp trait
- Added an event where you can combine a relic artifact with a weapon artifact
- Added the 'Passion Play' theology lifestyle event
- Added a new murder save event about artifacts
- Added two hostile scheme ongoing events about knowing languages
- Added the Establish Theravada Faith Event Chain to the Burmese region
- Added the Olifant artifact as a new artifact that can be found by adventurers
###################
# User Modding
###################
- Added can_pick trigger to Court Amenities
- Added equip_artifact_to_owner effect
- Added equip_artifact_to_owner_replace effect
- Added unequip_artifact_from_owner effect
- Court scene editor will now save only current active scene and not overwrite all the other variants
- Allow setting any angle for pitch in court scene settings
- Add light type controls to court scene editor
- Add indications for lights that are enabled and with shadows
- Add shadow fade per light source
- Add shadow settings as sliders to scene editor
- Allow shadow depth fade factor to be influenced by a define
- Allow lights be affected by all shadows according to a define
- Fix the has_icon trigger not correctly detecting a faith's icon
- Fix the past_holder list builder being incorrectly registered as any_any_
- Added a debug interaction for taking an artifact
###################
# Databases
###################
- Added Karelian culture in counties between Finnish and Bjarmian
- Added more straits connecting Zeeland to surrounding counties
- Adding missing accents to French titles
- Fixed death date of Konrad Wettin
- Fixed gaps in history of Sunni caliphs
- Improved historical setup of Sankt Gallen
- Yughur is a now divergence of the Uyghur culture
- ngd is a now divergence of the Shatuo culture
- Added Ayneha language for Sorko, Gaw, & Songhai to model one of their major gulfs from the other major cultural blocks of the western Sahel
- Added in Rasad, the mother of the Fatimid Caliph in 1066.
- Cleaned up loose characters in the Chola dynasty tree.
- Reverted Uxkull to being on the Latvian side of the river
- Made Ostmark/Brandenburg, Meissen, and Lausitz default names Polabian, changing to German
- Lubeck and Mecklenburg now use Slavic names as default and change to German
- Remove anachronistic names in Russia/Central Asia
- Kanuri now speak Tubu (Saharan) rather than Chadic language
- Muslim Volga Bolghars are now Clan instead of Feudal in 1066
- Fixed typo in name of Otranto
- Fixed two counties sharing name Naissos, and added Ni as a Slavic name for the real one
- Fixed inconsistent transliteration of Rashka, and name of its capital barony
- Replaced erroneous Wallachian Bolghar rulers in 867 with Vlachs
- Fixed misplaced Irish strait graphics between Carrickfergus and Wigtown
- Fixed historical ruler of Hraland, now is correct Eirikr
- Fatimah is now guaranteed pious traits
- Renamed Wilhelmshaven to more historical Jever
- Changed Bulgarian Warrior Culture tradition to Stand and Fight
- Added Croatian to history of Bulgarian and made Vlach formation later
- Capital of Bulgaria is now Preslav in 867
- Extended Avar settlement of Balaton in 867
- Early bookmark Polish duchies now have tribal names
- Nupe culture now speak East Kwa language
- Fixed names of Petropavl and Petropavolsk
- Changed the english name of Kiev to Kyiv
- Renamed Courland to Curonia
- Nizhny Novgorod is now called Obran Osh unless Russian, rather than only if Finnic
- Fixed leftover Russian Slovianskan chief in 1066
- Fixed Finnic Russian overlaps in 1066
- Updated culture around Provence/Savoy borders to reflect Occitan and Frankish dialect spreads
- Fixed Pecheneg feudal rulers at start
- Tied Syriac culture to Nestorian faith in both bookmarks
- Fixes for missing Mayzadids, Syrian borders in 1066, incorrect duke of Cappadocia in 1066, and more
- Fixed titles used by Arpitan hybrid culture from Anjou to Provence
- Fixed some Siguic counties which should have been Bidaic
- Fixed some Mashriqi counties which should have been Bedouin
- Improved historical cultural setup of Estonia/Latvia
- Charleroi renamed to Dinant
- Adjusted Empire borders in the area formerly covered by the South Baltic Empire
- Improved historical setup of Langres, moved county to Duchy of Burgundy
- Added more name equivalencies, mostly Sicilian
- Added missing accents to French titles
- Improved historical/cultural setup of Sicily in 1066
- Sicilian culture now hybridizes in 950, to prevent it stating in 1066 that it hybridized in 700 when it doesn't exist in 867
- Orissa is now a Kingdom at start in 1066
- Added the Baudh Bhanjas in Kinjali Mandali in 1066
- Fixed the Somavamsi family tree, and another branch of the Somavamsi dynasty now holds the western part of the kingdom in 1066.
- Added the Chikitiki Gangas in Swetaka Mandala in 1066.
- Qocho's vassals should now be Feudal instead of Clan
- Updated the Unite the West Slavs decision to give you the West-Slavia title
- Zurvanism is now a doctrine for Zoroastrians rather than a distinct faith
- Added Behafaridism as a Zoroastrian faith
- Changed Polabia to be named Sorbia by default
- Fixed some historical Georgian Bagrationi characters remaining Armenian
- Remodeled Ari faith, added historical figures in Burma, adjusted pre-existing ones
- Switched Ari's color to 'roasted plum'
- Cathars no longer believe in ritual suicide and now believe in reincarnation
- Renamed Consolementum to Endura
- Ivar the Boneless is now the youngest son of Ragnarr rather than the oldest
- Gave Neftegorsk a more appropriate name
- Moved Hereward and Turdifa to Count Baldwin of Flanders' court. Adjusted Hereward's traits and gave him a pressed claim on Cambridgeshire. Added "the Wake" nickname.
- Removed Anglo-Saxon id 90029 = 'Edith' was the name of Hereward's mother, not his wife. Added Dutch id (pending) = 'Turfida' was his actual wife, raised in Saint-Omer.
- Added a dynasty for Hereward the Wake
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed a lot of various issues with Hold Court events which were caused by subsequent events sometimes 'stealing' characters from those ahead in the queue
- Fixed some cases when a royal court owner dies but events are still in progress, avoiding soft-locks when visiting "dead" royal courts
- Council task events should now fire again as intended
- Fixed Prince Electors needing to hold titles as their primary to vote
- Fixed Gradient Borders not updating when they should
- Fixed cultural divergence bonuses not updating until you reload the game
- Children will no longer vie for their lieges attention in Getting Ahead event
- Defender value in sieges should no longer become insanely high due to changing underlying factors, and sieges should no longer lose progress when the total value falls under current progress.
- Don't open the decision view behind the court scene when you try to hold court, just open the one decision detail view we need and close just that.
- Electors will no longer rate themselves based on rank under Saxon Elective
- Estonians should now have access to Varangian Adventures for owners of Northern Lords
- Fix add_achievement_variable_effect not incrementing variables properly causing the "Seductive" achievement to never fire.
- Fix becoming malnourished sending the toast you became obese instead.
- Fix pending interactions not expiring after the timer runs out.
- Fix the culture head learning sometimes being out of date in the culture window UI.
- Fix the hold court decision window being empty if you use a two step decision, like commission artifact, and then open the royal court view.
- Fix the no cooldown option in hybridizing cultures not correctly applying.
- Fixed Blackmail interaction being unavailable forever if someone you were blackmailing died before they replied
- Fixed Go Outside! event firing for celibate characters
- Fixed Ruler Designed characters receiving banners of historical dynasties they replaced
- Fixed Slovianskan adventurers being more likely to find Roog artifacts
- Fixed Sultanate of Rum decision disappearing if capital was in Syria
- Restore the Papacy in Rome should now be less hidden
- Fixed all Anglo-Saxon counties forcibly converting to Scots if their ruler owned any counties in Scotland
- Fixed being able to choose medical treatment for other character's prisoners
- Fixed being able to use Revoke Title on characters you have a truce with, and thereby avoid truce by forcing war
- Fixed broken name in artifacts made from deceased pets
- Fixed characters living in foreign realms being invited to feasts, and having such a good time they never go back
- Fixed creating a new cadet branch not granting claims on dynasty banner
- Fixed duplicate Gauthier de Brienne and dynasty
- Fixed mismatched triggers in Civic Rivalry event
- Fixed end of partition of Danelaw and England giving Scandinavian Elective and Danelaw CoA to non-Scandinavians
- Fixed house banner appearing twice in new court event if not a dynasty head
- Fixed ill characters wearing helmets and coifs with their nighties
- Fixed issues caused by being able to Petition Liege or Pay Homage while your own court events were awaiting input
- Fixed lieges who refuse petitions losing opinion of themselves
- Fixed misleading dynasty trigger in Archduchy of Austria decision
- Fixed missing loc, empty councils blocking decision, and other minor issues with Petition Liege
- Fixed not being able gift Dynasty Banners to their Dynasty Head
- Fixed rewards and text in The King of Livonia event
- Fixed some Electors being excluded as Candidates due to low rank under Feudal Elective succession
- Fixed some anachronistic title names in Slovenia
- Fixed toast from Urban Development stating a Temple is being built instead of a City
- Fixed issues with scopes in Hero of the Frontier event
- Improved display of Found Witch Coven decision requirements
- Fixed clerical gender in Unconventional Preacher event
- Holy Orders can now raise themselves when at war or pledged to a Great Holy War
- Information Brokering event no longer includes known secrets of your own children's parentage
- Missing text in the automatic law change notification should be corrected
- Unified Songhai color
- The follow up event of the Cadastre is not hiding in the court view anymore
- Angelicas Ring will no longer be stored on the floor if found and brought to court by an adventurer
- Improved tooltip for elective score required to change a character's vote
- Fixed electors voting themselves based on education
- Fixed Estonian characters using non-Estonian names in bookmarks
- Fixed perspective of Introduce New Fashion cooldown trigger
- Achievement Delusions of Grandeur requirements now work properly
- Adjusted the achievement The True Royal Court to have more intuitive triggers
- Adjusted effect of performance-enhancing drugs
- Children should now always lose their childhood traits/guardians upon reaching 16 years of age
- Claim wars started via Hold Court events no longer cost prestige to declare
- Corrected incorrectly saved scopes in Cupbearer/Bodyguard/Food Taster murder save events
- Count only available innovations for progress towards the next era
- Executing prisoners should no longer sometimes apply stress twice for the same trait.
- Fix enable/disable light source checkbox in court scene editor
- Fixed an instance of missing loc in a seduction event if the target was a wanderer
- Fixed an issue with Claimant factions constantly forming/disbanding under certain circumstances
- Fixed an issue with the 'The Northerner Menace' event where it could fire for invalid wars
- Fixed button sometimes missing the name of an executioner in Public Accusation event
- Fixed incorrect reference to the Bedchamber event picture
- Fixed issue that would sometimes cause a bad tooltip for executing prisoners when execution happened due to an event choice
- The game now tells you that vassals cannot become executioners
- Fixed several hybrid names incorrectly looking for Saxon culture rather than Anglo-Saxon
- Fixed the Beta Israel achievement being available to ruler designed characters
- Fixed the referenced character sometimes being wrong in the text for the outcome events of the rival duel event chain
- Hide ghost widgets visible for few frames when game map just appears on screen
- If a scheme is exposed, your spymaster won't reveal themselves as the plotter anymore
- Lowborn characters with a lowborn liege will no longer pretend like they're nobles for purposes of 'marrying down'
- Republican Legacy is now properly categorized as a Regional Tradition
- Restore missing shortcuts in the tooltips for side panel buttons in HUD
- Revoking a lease should now only give stress once
- The 'Land of the Bow' Tradition is now properly available to cultures with the East African Heritage
- The Hybrid Culture notification will now only show up if you're in diplomatic range of the founder
- The Inventory button is now hidden for dead characters
- The standard seduction outcome event now uses the bedchamber background
- The traditions Mountaineer Ruralism and Mountain Homes are now properly mutually exclusive
- Vassals will no longer show up in court and complain about having imprisoned their own relatives
- Visigothic Culture now starts with Visgothic Codes
- You can no longer game over if your designated heir becomes a monk, eunuch or otherwise invalid for inheritance
- You can now click the button to adopt a Court Language in the Culture View
- You can now only rename children that are your close family, no more renaming any child in the world!
- FP1 traditions should no longer show up if they're impossible to take
- Celebrating another culture should no longer have missing effects
- Excluded children from trying to murder you in The Timely Artifact
- Fixed issues with A Sweet Farewell event
- Fixed Marble Scepter using bone visuals, now use regalia
- Fixed pagan faiths losing their court chaplain titles when reformed
- A Shadow in the Night should no longer show percent chances of nothing
- Fixed hunt hide/skull event not firing if no skull was available to make it more common, and improved/fixed other issues with hunt events
- Fixed OOS caused by duplicate players
- Fixed another rare OOS
Thats it for this time, we hope youll enjoy the changes were making in 1.5.1!
[ 2022-03-10 12:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #90 - Update 1.5.1
[ 2022-03-10 11:41:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Royal Court has been out for a while now, and its been great to see everything youve done with it - fascinating Coat of Arms designs, impressive courts, intriguing cultural hybrids keep it coming!
Seeing how creative you are with the new tools gives us a lot of energy!
Read our Dev Diary #90: The 1.5.1 Update
Royal Court has been out for a while now, and its been great to see everything youve done with it - fascinating Coat of Arms designs, impressive courts, intriguing cultural hybrids keep it coming! Seeing how creative you are with the new tools gives us a lot of energy!
The CoA designer has even given rise to a CK3 Heraldry Reddit board! If you want to check it out, heres a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/CKHeraldry
We also want to show some of the fantastic CoA creations weve seen over the past weeks right here in the DevDiary, of course! Feel free to check a few of them on our forums.
In the team, weve been hard at work on the upcoming 1.5.1 update - theres a lot in it (check out the changelog below)!
Weve been following your reports and listening to your feedback. Were addressing many issues, and were even adding some more content! Here are a few examples of new stuff were adding:
Firstly, we've spent a lot of time improving the lighting and shadows of all court scenes.
Here's a sample of a few rooms (before is to the left, after to the right):
We're also adding some more artifact 3D models, of which the Throne of Solomon truly towers above the rest!
We're adding some new events, here's a sample (don't want to spoil everything, of course!):
And heres the changelog 1.5.1:
###################
# Balance
###################
- AI's will now leave factions more quickly when they are pleased with you as their liege
- AI's will no longer press factions for Claimants they like if they also like their current liege a lot, with a decreasing chance at higher opinions (the AI will be less likely to press a claimant they have 80 opinion of if they have 60 opinion of their liege, for example)
- The AI now considers Faith Hostility when selecting claimants
- AI vassals are now more likely to offer a gift when paying homage
- Added a Game Rule (Empire Obscurity) that makes empires that control below 20% of their De Jure counties be destroyed. This should solve empires sticking around forever as micro-realms.
- Boosted the control gain from requesting Bailiffs from your Liege in a Petition
- Corrected the modifiers of the Cup of Jamshid
- Forcing same vote by using a hook on an elector will now last 100 years instead of 5
- It's now much harder to invite Inspired people to your court, and practically impossible to invite anyone who's currently being sponsored
- Landless AI's will now try to equip artifacts you gift them via the interaction (depending on rarity)
- Only House Heads will now demand the return of artifacts if there's only a house claim
- Strategy Lifestyle bonus to Skirmishers has been moved to the Hit and Run Perk
- The AI now has a 5 year cooldown towards asking to educate the players children if the player refuses
- The AI will no longer demand artifacts from players they like a lot, and will no longer keep asking after you've refused once
- The Chaste trait now only reduces Seduction scheme power
- The Development progress from the Industrious Cultural Tradition is now applied at most once a year
- The Holy Site of Qayaliq now gives Archer Cavalry bonuses
- The Jousting Lists and Archery Ranges Duchy Buildings now give bonuses to camel, elephant, and archer cavalry
- The Parthian Tactics perk now boosts Elephant and Camel cavalry
- The Prestige gained from the Architect trait when it's boosted via cultural traditions have been changed from 50% to a flat +0.5/month
- The War Camps and Hunting Grounds buildings now give Horse Archer bonuses
- Tweaked various factors in the war for England, in order to reduce the chances of Harold winning
- AI now moves capital to London on victory in Norman conquest, if possible
- Northern Lords legacies can now be gotten by dynasts of any culture descendent from Norse as well as Norse culture itself.
- Sacred Childbirth now grants piety each time a child is born and considers Pregnant a virtuous trait
- Rebalanced artifact gift opinion gain
- Tribal Kings and Emperors can now access the Royal Court, but it plays differently:
- The 'Expected Grandeur' is always the same as their current Grandeur level. It cannot be above or below.
- All Amenity Levels except the first two are blocked if playing Tribal
- Amenity Costs are greatly increased if tribal (it was trivially cheap)
- They only have access to one Court Type: Tribal. This one can be kept if feudalizing, but it doesn't give many benefits, and the AI will switch out of it fairly quickly.
- All Tutorials and Game Concepts now mention Tribals and the differences they have
- Several events that were ill-fitting for tribals will not appear for them (i.e. founding new City holdings)
###################
# AI
###################
- A unit stack wanting to resupply will spread out its subunit stacks into neighboring provinces even though said provinces might not allow resupplying, in order to try and avoid attrition.
- AI should take player units into account for supply situation when selecting target province.
- AI stops to raise levies with very small amount of troops
- Allow units to ignore hostile attrition as a last resort when moving to a target in a neighboring county.
- Added missing check for if a unit is moving or not when calculating troop strength for supply.
- For combat evaluation, only count available subunit stacks if they are close enough.
- If the main subunit stack is already moving, then don't deny being available for order because some units are still technically sieging.
- Desperate AI will be more bold when selecting targets near enemy units, or when engaging enemy units.
- Ignore non-castle provinces when giving extra score to province targets near the war goal area.
- In Great Holy Wars the AI will be more focused on fighting about the war goal and less likely to shy away from confrontation due to numerical weakness.
- Instructed the AI to adjust its court amenity spending in a more responsive manner
- AI will no longer go to war for artifacts that are below masterwork, cursed or that it cannot use (like toys).
- Lowered the AI cooldown on Pay Homage to 2 years from 3
- Blocked the AI from overspending in Hold Court events
- Fixed an issue where AI's could get stuck and never go home after a raid
###################
# Performance
###################
- Significantly improved the performance of all portraits in the game
- Improved the performance of the Throne Room scenes
###################
# Interface
###################
- Add check boxes for flipping coat of arm emblems in detail edit mode
- Budget tooltip entry on liege taxes are now shown as a breakdown instead of being within the budget tooltip
- Fixed too low left margin for crown authority buttons
- Recruited prisoners can now be forced to Take the Vows when Negotiating Release
- When gifting an Artifact, the entry will now show if it is equipped
- Added a prestige icon to council task descs
- Empty court positions you cannot hire are now correctly sorted to the bottom of the list
- Dead characters now have a skull next to their age
- Renamed the Court tab to Courtiers to differentiate between it and Royal Court
- Made text labels have more correct margins.
- Cleaned up margins and spacings in the Faith View.
- Changed the standard window margins so they no longer overlap the vertical lines at the sides of the window.
###################
# Art
###################
- Significantly improved the lighting and shadows in all throne rooms
- Fixed CoA on shield artifacts being mirrored when displayed in the Royal Court
- Added unique icons for all different types of inspirations
- Added a new set of Legwear for Arabic clothes sets
- Added unique art for the Throne of Solomon
- Olifant now has a unique 3D appearance
- African and Norse swords now have unique 3D appearance
- Steppe Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- African Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- Steppe Maces now have a unique 3D appearance
- Mediterranean Maces and Axes now have a unique 3D appearance
- Added several new 2D icons to artifacts
- Changed which texture quality settings are used on each preset level in the graphics settings menu so that the highest preset default to using the highest quality textures
- Made it so that orthodox priests should always have a beard
- Adjusted eyelids that were sometimes causing characters to have overly squinty eyes
- Added a hybrid culture art pattern for options that can mix from two different cultures
- Added unique CoA for HRE that reformed Roman Empire
###################
# Localization
###################
- Fixed error string in spanish inspiration sponsored toast
- Fixed duplicate chinese character issue in court grandeur rank text
- Fixed the alliance popup string in spanish to use correct custom loc
- Fixed Spanish warning message for player marriage and betrothal status
- Fixed broken string in spanish for inspiration
- Fixed spanish localisation for intrigue window
- Fixed 2nd and 3rd tier of beauty traits sharing Hermoso localization in Spanish, 2nd tier is now Atractivo
###################
# Game Content
###################
- Added an additional event for losing language when reached cap for max known
- Added notification, personal artifact claim, and prestige loss after losing a war banner in battle
- Added three additional hunt events
- Added three additional Feast events about artifacts
- Added a new yearly event about medieval football
- Added a new martial lifestyle event about improvised weapons
- Added a new Skulduggery lifestyle event about siege tactics
- Added a new Intimidation lifestyle event about a forest of corpses
- Added the establish Yamagate of Samarkand decision
- Added a new set of events surrounding the Athletic trait
- Added a new event for characters with the Lisp trait
- Added an event where you can combine a relic artifact with a weapon artifact
- Added the 'Passion Play' theology lifestyle event
- Added a new murder save event about artifacts
- Added two hostile scheme ongoing events about knowing languages
- Added the Establish Theravada Faith Event Chain to the Burmese region
- Added the Olifant artifact as a new artifact that can be found by adventurers
###################
# User Modding
###################
- Added can_pick trigger to Court Amenities
- Added equip_artifact_to_owner effect
- Added equip_artifact_to_owner_replace effect
- Added unequip_artifact_from_owner effect
- Court scene editor will now save only current active scene and not overwrite all the other variants
- Allow setting any angle for pitch in court scene settings
- Add light type controls to court scene editor
- Add indications for lights that are enabled and with shadows
- Add shadow fade per light source
- Add shadow settings as sliders to scene editor
- Allow shadow depth fade factor to be influenced by a define
- Allow lights be affected by all shadows according to a define
- Fix the has_icon trigger not correctly detecting a faith's icon
- Fix the past_holder list builder being incorrectly registered as any_any_
- Added a debug interaction for taking an artifact
###################
# Databases
###################
- Added Karelian culture in counties between Finnish and Bjarmian
- Added more straits connecting Zeeland to surrounding counties
- Adding missing accents to French titles
- Fixed death date of Konrad Wettin
- Fixed gaps in history of Sunni caliphs
- Improved historical setup of Sankt Gallen
- Yughur is a now divergence of the Uyghur culture
- ngd is a now divergence of the Shatuo culture
- Added Ayneha language for Sorko, Gaw, & Songhai to model one of their major gulfs from the other major cultural blocks of the western Sahel
- Added in Rasad, the mother of the Fatimid Caliph in 1066.
- Cleaned up loose characters in the Chola dynasty tree.
- Reverted Uxkull to being on the Latvian side of the river
- Made Ostmark/Brandenburg, Meissen, and Lausitz default names Polabian, changing to German
- Lubeck and Mecklenburg now use Slavic names as default and change to German
- Remove anachronistic names in Russia/Central Asia
- Kanuri now speak Tubu (Saharan) rather than Chadic language
- Muslim Volga Bolghars are now Clan instead of Feudal in 1066
- Fixed typo in name of Otranto
- Fixed two counties sharing name Naissos, and added Ni as a Slavic name for the real one
- Fixed inconsistent transliteration of Rashka, and name of its capital barony
- Replaced erroneous Wallachian Bolghar rulers in 867 with Vlachs
- Fixed misplaced Irish strait graphics between Carrickfergus and Wigtown
- Fixed historical ruler of Hraland, now is correct Eirikr
- Fatimah is now guaranteed pious traits
- Renamed Wilhelmshaven to more historical Jever
- Changed Bulgarian Warrior Culture tradition to Stand and Fight
- Added Croatian to history of Bulgarian and made Vlach formation later
- Capital of Bulgaria is now Preslav in 867
- Extended Avar settlement of Balaton in 867
- Early bookmark Polish duchies now have tribal names
- Nupe culture now speak East Kwa language
- Fixed names of Petropavl and Petropavolsk
- Changed the english name of Kiev to Kyiv
- Renamed Courland to Curonia
- Nizhny Novgorod is now called Obran Osh unless Russian, rather than only if Finnic
- Fixed leftover Russian Slovianskan chief in 1066
- Fixed Finnic Russian overlaps in 1066
- Updated culture around Provence/Savoy borders to reflect Occitan and Frankish dialect spreads
- Fixed Pecheneg feudal rulers at start
- Tied Syriac culture to Nestorian faith in both bookmarks
- Fixes for missing Mayzadids, Syrian borders in 1066, incorrect duke of Cappadocia in 1066, and more
- Fixed titles used by Arpitan hybrid culture from Anjou to Provence
- Fixed some Siguic counties which should have been Bidaic
- Fixed some Mashriqi counties which should have been Bedouin
- Improved historical cultural setup of Estonia/Latvia
- Charleroi renamed to Dinant
- Adjusted Empire borders in the area formerly covered by the South Baltic Empire
- Improved historical setup of Langres, moved county to Duchy of Burgundy
- Added more name equivalencies, mostly Sicilian
- Added missing accents to French titles
- Improved historical/cultural setup of Sicily in 1066
- Sicilian culture now hybridizes in 950, to prevent it stating in 1066 that it hybridized in 700 when it doesn't exist in 867
- Orissa is now a Kingdom at start in 1066
- Added the Baudh Bhanjas in Kinjali Mandali in 1066
- Fixed the Somavamsi family tree, and another branch of the Somavamsi dynasty now holds the western part of the kingdom in 1066.
- Added the Chikitiki Gangas in Swetaka Mandala in 1066.
- Qocho's vassals should now be Feudal instead of Clan
- Updated the Unite the West Slavs decision to give you the West-Slavia title
- Zurvanism is now a doctrine for Zoroastrians rather than a distinct faith
- Added Behafaridism as a Zoroastrian faith
- Changed Polabia to be named Sorbia by default
- Fixed some historical Georgian Bagrationi characters remaining Armenian
- Remodeled Ari faith, added historical figures in Burma, adjusted pre-existing ones
- Switched Ari's color to 'roasted plum'
- Cathars no longer believe in ritual suicide and now believe in reincarnation
- Renamed Consolementum to Endura
- Ivar the Boneless is now the youngest son of Ragnarr rather than the oldest
- Gave Neftegorsk a more appropriate name
- Moved Hereward and Turdifa to Count Baldwin of Flanders' court. Adjusted Hereward's traits and gave him a pressed claim on Cambridgeshire. Added "the Wake" nickname.
- Removed Anglo-Saxon id 90029 = 'Edith' was the name of Hereward's mother, not his wife. Added Dutch id (pending) = 'Turfida' was his actual wife, raised in Saint-Omer.
- Added a dynasty for Hereward the Wake
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed a lot of various issues with Hold Court events which were caused by subsequent events sometimes 'stealing' characters from those ahead in the queue
- Fixed some cases when a royal court owner dies but events are still in progress, avoiding soft-locks when visiting "dead" royal courts
- Council task events should now fire again as intended
- Fixed Prince Electors needing to hold titles as their primary to vote
- Fixed Gradient Borders not updating when they should
- Fixed cultural divergence bonuses not updating until you reload the game
- Children will no longer vie for their lieges attention in Getting Ahead event
- Defender value in sieges should no longer become insanely high due to changing underlying factors, and sieges should no longer lose progress when the total value falls under current progress.
- Don't open the decision view behind the court scene when you try to hold court, just open the one decision detail view we need and close just that.
- Electors will no longer rate themselves based on rank under Saxon Elective
- Estonians should now have access to Varangian Adventures for owners of Northern Lords
- Fix add_achievement_variable_effect not incrementing variables properly causing the "Seductive" achievement to never fire.
- Fix becoming malnourished sending the toast you became obese instead.
- Fix pending interactions not expiring after the timer runs out.
- Fix the culture head learning sometimes being out of date in the culture window UI.
- Fix the hold court decision window being empty if you use a two step decision, like commission artifact, and then open the royal court view.
- Fix the no cooldown option in hybridizing cultures not correctly applying.
- Fixed Blackmail interaction being unavailable forever if someone you were blackmailing died before they replied
- Fixed Go Outside! event firing for celibate characters
- Fixed Ruler Designed characters receiving banners of historical dynasties they replaced
- Fixed Slovianskan adventurers being more likely to find Roog artifacts
- Fixed Sultanate of Rum decision disappearing if capital was in Syria
- Restore the Papacy in Rome should now be less hidden
- Fixed all Anglo-Saxon counties forcibly converting to Scots if their ruler owned any counties in Scotland
- Fixed being able to choose medical treatment for other character's prisoners
- Fixed being able to use Revoke Title on characters you have a truce with, and thereby avoid truce by forcing war
- Fixed broken name in artifacts made from deceased pets
- Fixed characters living in foreign realms being invited to feasts, and having such a good time they never go back
- Fixed creating a new cadet branch not granting claims on dynasty banner
- Fixed duplicate Gauthier de Brienne and dynasty
- Fixed mismatched triggers in Civic Rivalry event
- Fixed end of partition of Danelaw and England giving Scandinavian Elective and Danelaw CoA to non-Scandinavians
- Fixed house banner appearing twice in new court event if not a dynasty head
- Fixed ill characters wearing helmets and coifs with their nighties
- Fixed issues caused by being able to Petition Liege or Pay Homage while your own court events were awaiting input
- Fixed lieges who refuse petitions losing opinion of themselves
- Fixed misleading dynasty trigger in Archduchy of Austria decision
- Fixed missing loc, empty councils blocking decision, and other minor issues with Petition Liege
- Fixed not being able gift Dynasty Banners to their Dynasty Head
- Fixed rewards and text in The King of Livonia event
- Fixed some Electors being excluded as Candidates due to low rank under Feudal Elective succession
- Fixed some anachronistic title names in Slovenia
- Fixed toast from Urban Development stating a Temple is being built instead of a City
- Fixed issues with scopes in Hero of the Frontier event
- Improved display of Found Witch Coven decision requirements
- Fixed clerical gender in Unconventional Preacher event
- Holy Orders can now raise themselves when at war or pledged to a Great Holy War
- Information Brokering event no longer includes known secrets of your own children's parentage
- Missing text in the automatic law change notification should be corrected
- Unified Songhai color
- The follow up event of the Cadastre is not hiding in the court view anymore
- Angelicas Ring will no longer be stored on the floor if found and brought to court by an adventurer
- Improved tooltip for elective score required to change a character's vote
- Fixed electors voting themselves based on education
- Fixed Estonian characters using non-Estonian names in bookmarks
- Fixed perspective of Introduce New Fashion cooldown trigger
- Achievement Delusions of Grandeur requirements now work properly
- Adjusted the achievement The True Royal Court to have more intuitive triggers
- Adjusted effect of performance-enhancing drugs
- Children should now always lose their childhood traits/guardians upon reaching 16 years of age
- Claim wars started via Hold Court events no longer cost prestige to declare
- Corrected incorrectly saved scopes in Cupbearer/Bodyguard/Food Taster murder save events
- Count only available innovations for progress towards the next era
- Executing prisoners should no longer sometimes apply stress twice for the same trait.
- Fix enable/disable light source checkbox in court scene editor
- Fixed an instance of missing loc in a seduction event if the target was a wanderer
- Fixed an issue with Claimant factions constantly forming/disbanding under certain circumstances
- Fixed an issue with the 'The Northerner Menace' event where it could fire for invalid wars
- Fixed button sometimes missing the name of an executioner in Public Accusation event
- Fixed incorrect reference to the Bedchamber event picture
- Fixed issue that would sometimes cause a bad tooltip for executing prisoners when execution happened due to an event choice
- The game now tells you that vassals cannot become executioners
- Fixed several hybrid names incorrectly looking for Saxon culture rather than Anglo-Saxon
- Fixed the Beta Israel achievement being available to ruler designed characters
- Fixed the referenced character sometimes being wrong in the text for the outcome events of the rival duel event chain
- Hide ghost widgets visible for few frames when game map just appears on screen
- If a scheme is exposed, your spymaster won't reveal themselves as the plotter anymore
- Lowborn characters with a lowborn liege will no longer pretend like they're nobles for purposes of 'marrying down'
- Republican Legacy is now properly categorized as a Regional Tradition
- Restore missing shortcuts in the tooltips for side panel buttons in HUD
- Revoking a lease should now only give stress once
- The 'Land of the Bow' Tradition is now properly available to cultures with the East African Heritage
- The Hybrid Culture notification will now only show up if you're in diplomatic range of the founder
- The Inventory button is now hidden for dead characters
- The standard seduction outcome event now uses the bedchamber background
- The traditions Mountaineer Ruralism and Mountain Homes are now properly mutually exclusive
- Vassals will no longer show up in court and complain about having imprisoned their own relatives
- Visigothic Culture now starts with Visgothic Codes
- You can no longer game over if your designated heir becomes a monk, eunuch or otherwise invalid for inheritance
- You can now click the button to adopt a Court Language in the Culture View
- You can now only rename children that are your close family, no more renaming any child in the world!
- FP1 traditions should no longer show up if they're impossible to take
- Celebrating another culture should no longer have missing effects
- Excluded children from trying to murder you in The Timely Artifact
- Fixed issues with A Sweet Farewell event
- Fixed Marble Scepter using bone visuals, now use regalia
- Fixed pagan faiths losing their court chaplain titles when reformed
- A Shadow in the Night should no longer show percent chances of nothing
- Fixed hunt hide/skull event not firing if no skull was available to make it more common, and improved/fixed other issues with hunt events
- Fixed OOS caused by duplicate players
- Fixed another rare OOS
Thats it for this time, we hope youll enjoy the changes were making in 1.5.1!
[ 2022-03-10 11:41:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update and Dev Diaries
[ 2022-03-08 13:34:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hi everyone, While we are still working on Update 1.5.1, here is a preview of what is coming very soon to CK3. As most of you are aware, we have two different teams working on Crusader Kings right now! One is hard at work at Lab42 to bring you the Console edition of the game! The other team is our very own Stockholm crew who are making sure everything looks right and is working properly for the 1.5.1 Update after Royal Court. While the Update is not quite ready yet, we are working hard to make sure that we include as much of your feedback, technical issues, and quality of life as possible into the next version of the game as humanly possible. But, we promised you that we would keep you in the loop, so here we are! With that in mind, we are here to let you know what is going on and how things look. Without further ado, here is a little list of sneak peeks coming up:
- Improved AI - including Warfare and Crusades - Lots of work has gone into this one and we are excited to see and hear what you think
- Fixed the Council Task events not triggering properly or at all (including "Train Commander" as reported by Community)
- Balance to the War for England
- Fixes to Demand Artifact for the AI
- Fixes to disbanding/reforming Factions
- Improved Shadows and Lighting for the Throne Rooms
- William the Conqueror never seeming to win
- And of course, there will be a WHOLE lot more
[ 2022-03-08 13:34:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Changelog 1.5.0.2 is now Live!
###################
###################
###################
[ 2022-02-17 10:04:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Update 1.5.0.2 is Live now!
There will be no Dev Diaries for the time being as our teams are fully focussed on the next Updates for Crusader Kings III.
We are working hard to collect your feedback, suggestions & bug reports.
Keep sending us your feedback about Royal Court via your preferred platform!
Read the Changelog 1.5.0.2
==========
# Art
###################
- Tweaked and improved the appearance of the areas around characters eyes.
- Updated DNA of historical characters to fix problems with the eyes.
# Localization
###################
- Fixed missing text and tooltips for Cultural Traditions and Cultural Aesthetics in Spanish.
- Fixed Missing translations for Grandeur bar tooltip in Korean and Russian
- Fixed instances of texts not having translations in Korean.
- Removed instances of visible debug text.
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed an issue that prevented players from unpausing the game while petitioning their liege.
- Fixed an issue that caused the player character to appear at their own court instead of their lieges court when picking the Petition Liege option.
- Fixed an issue with the event for the murder scheme to steal an artifact.
- Fixed an issue that caused a soft-lock if the player character died during a court event.
- Fixed an issue that prevented players from interacting with the UI to adopt a court language.
[ 2022-02-17 10:04:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Royal Court, available now!
[ 2022-02-08 17:04:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III's First Expansion "Royal Court" & Free Update 1.5 Fleur-de-Lis: available now! Revamped Cultures Languages Customisable Coat of Arms & Banners Throne Rooms Artifacts & Inventory New Events And more! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303182/Crusader_Kings_III_Royal_Court/ There is but one true center for power and prestige: a rulers court. Step into your own fully immersive throne room with Crusader Kings: Royal Court, and get ready to impress vassals and courtiers with your splendor and treasure on display. Watch visitors pay respect or family members squabble as you pass judgment in royal audiences, establishing the vital link between your people and your realm. In Crusader Kings: Royal Court, you can commission great works of art from inspired craftspeople. Impress your rivals with the grandeur of your court, or awe them with your noble houses heirlooms and relics. An enhanced Culture system lets you guide your people to novel cultural understandings as they merge or splinter off, embrace their heritage, learn languages, or acquire new traditions. [previewyoutube=8_q6FTD08bM;full][/previewyoutube] Features of Crusader Kings III: Royal Court include: A Royal Court on display
- As King or Emperor, watch as your personal throne room comes to life with the vast range of drama and intrigue of your court. Step into a fully 3D realized space, available in one of four major cultural visual styles, and fill it with regalia and majesty.
- Harsh or benevolent, pass judgment on those seeking arbitration. Hold court and watch as your courtiers scheme and vie for your attention.
- Match yourself against your greatest rival with your courts grandeur. Or fail to impress them and suffer the sad diplomatic consequences of bad taste.
- Show off your exquisitely crafted relics, or focus on your noble houses history with your family heirlooms. A whole range of new artifacts can be admired in the series return of the inventory system.
- Talented craftspeople, from jewelers to weavers, can be employed on special projects, adding even more unique items to your domain.
- Commission special great works of art or win artifacts in battle. Be careful, as they can just as easily be lost in a botched duel or rivals scheme.
- A greatly overhauled Culture system lies ready at your fingertips. Major new Cultural Traditions allow you to significantly change the way you play, from choosing the right benefits due to your realms terrain to giving your military new bonuses. Determine your heritage through Cultural Pillars or have your subjects learn new languages.
- Create a truly dynamic melting pot through the new Hybridisation feature, mixing and matching the defining traits of your people into a unique cultural fusion. Become a great Bedouin conqueror who merges with freshly subjugated people or follow the adventurous Norse ruler who came to adopt the local Sri Lankan ways.
- Witness your realms culture evolve with the new Divergence feature, with the hands of time subtly transform a single cultural strand into smaller sub-cultures. Shape it as you see fit, or sow the seeds of change, and watch as one monolithic culture grows into a collection of many different people.
[ 2022-02-08 17:04:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #89: 1.5.0 "Fleur-de-Lis"
[ 2022-02-08 13:46:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Kings & Queens!
Today is the big day, and soon you will be granted audience to the Royal Court and everything therein. And not only that - we have a quite sizeable Update 1.5 that goes along with the expansion, which we have dubbed Fleur-de-Lis.
Please join us on the Forums CK3 to read the full changelog, which can hopefully tide you all over until the release later today!
Everyone here from the DevTeam is very excited about the release, and hope that youll enjoy what weve spent so much time making!
Read our Dev Diary #89: 1.5.0 "Fleur-de-Lis"
[ 2022-02-08 13:46:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
MIDWEEK MADNESS Sale, up to -33%
[ 2022-02-08 10:42:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
MIDWEEK MADNESS!
Crusader Kings III: -33%
Northern Lords: -20%
Crusader Kings III - Royal Edition: -10%
The Midweek Madness Sale runs from 7-10 Feb.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/?utm_source=twitter-owned&utm_medium=social-owned&utm_content=post&utm_campaign=crki3_ck_20210624_ste_misa
[ 2022-02-08 10:42:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3: Royal Court - Free Update
[ 2022-02-05 17:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
As is tradition, we have a big free update going out for all owners of Crusader Kings 3 alongside Royal Court expansion. All sorts of new gameplay, features, and mechanics to improve the game for everyone! [previewyoutube=QUkFWiQpf6s;full][/previewyoutube] Find more videos by SurrealBeliefs here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Surrealbeliefs Buy Crusader Kings III's first expansion: Royal Court. Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-02-05 17:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3: Royal Court - Inspiration & Projects
[ 2022-02-04 18:21:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Royal Court expansion is packed with new features, such as inspirations and projects! SurrealBeliefs is here to walk us through these features in this Crusader Kings 3 tutorial [previewyoutube=y3VICr57eKU;full][/previewyoutube] Find more videos by SurrealBeliefs here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Surrealbeliefs Buy Crusader Kings III's first expansion: Royal Court. Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-02-04 18:21:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3: Royal Court - Cultural Divergence
[ 2022-02-01 16:09:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3's expansion, Royal Court, brings in a historical trend called cultural divergence where your culture will now shift, grow, or decline throughout time! Cultural Divergence will change the whole world. [previewyoutube=d0i4oRvrFjE;full][/previewyoutube] Find more videos by SurrealBeliefs here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Surrealbeliefs Buy Crusader Kings III's first expansion: Royal Court. Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-02-01 16:09:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #88 - Achievements
Patronage
Fund an Inspired character's Project, and receive the end result.
I Made This
Loot an artifact you do not have a claim on and pass it down to your heir Polyglot
Personally know 10 languages Changing Course
Create a Divergent Culture Converging Paths
Create a Hybrid Culture
Hoarder
Have an artifact in every slot in the Inventory and Royal Court Crme de la Crme
Reach the maximum amount of Court Grandeur One of a Kind
Obtain an Epic artifact from an Adventurer Inspiration Brave and Bold
Starting as the Piasts in 867, rule Poland, adopt Feudalism, and own a Famed or Illustrious-rarity regalia, crown, weapon, and armor. They Belong in a Museum
Appoint a character with a completed Adventure inspiration as your Antiquarian The True Royal Court
As a vassal king to an emperor, have a higher court grandeur than they do
Beta Israel
Starting and staying as a Jewish ruler in East Africa, rule a Kingdom and diverge your culture Rise of the Ghurids
Starting as the Duke of Ghur in 867 or 1066, conquer the borders of the historical Ghurid Empire Turkish Eagle
As the Seljuk Count in Samosata, form Rum and create a Hybrid Culture between Oghuz and Greek Bod Chen Po
As a member of the Pugyel Dynasty, re-create the Empire of Tibet Delusions of Grandeur
Be at least 6 levels above your expected Court Grandeur True Tolerance
Rule a realm containing at least 10 cultures with 95% or more acceptance of your culture Inspirational
Sponsor 30 successful inspirations in one game
Lingua Franca
Have every Royal Court in the world speak your Court Language Nobody Comes to Fika
With the County of Fika as your primary title, diverge your culture and spread it to 30 Counties That was all for today and for the very last development diary prior to the release of the Royal Court! Next Tuesday the patch notes for the update that goes along with the Royal Court expansion will be posted.
[ 2022-02-01 13:30:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to another development diary for the Royal Court!
With release drawing nearer the time has come to show the 20 new achievements that come with the update. As with previous achievements we have aimed to have a good mix of easier to harder achievements with some focusing on new features and others on interesting challenges or starts.
Read our Dev Diary #88: Achievements
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Very Easy
Patronage
Fund an Inspired character's Project, and receive the end result.
Easy
I Made This
Loot an artifact you do not have a claim on and pass it down to your heir Polyglot
Personally know 10 languages Changing Course
Create a Divergent Culture Converging Paths
Create a Hybrid Culture
Medium
Hoarder
Have an artifact in every slot in the Inventory and Royal Court Crme de la Crme
Reach the maximum amount of Court Grandeur One of a Kind
Obtain an Epic artifact from an Adventurer Inspiration Brave and Bold
Starting as the Piasts in 867, rule Poland, adopt Feudalism, and own a Famed or Illustrious-rarity regalia, crown, weapon, and armor. They Belong in a Museum
Appoint a character with a completed Adventure inspiration as your Antiquarian The True Royal Court
As a vassal king to an emperor, have a higher court grandeur than they do
Hard
Beta Israel
Starting and staying as a Jewish ruler in East Africa, rule a Kingdom and diverge your culture Rise of the Ghurids
Starting as the Duke of Ghur in 867 or 1066, conquer the borders of the historical Ghurid Empire Turkish Eagle
As the Seljuk Count in Samosata, form Rum and create a Hybrid Culture between Oghuz and Greek Bod Chen Po
As a member of the Pugyel Dynasty, re-create the Empire of Tibet Delusions of Grandeur
Be at least 6 levels above your expected Court Grandeur True Tolerance
Rule a realm containing at least 10 cultures with 95% or more acceptance of your culture Inspirational
Sponsor 30 successful inspirations in one game
Very Hard
Lingua Franca
Have every Royal Court in the world speak your Court Language Nobody Comes to Fika
With the County of Fika as your primary title, diverge your culture and spread it to 30 Counties That was all for today and for the very last development diary prior to the release of the Royal Court! Next Tuesday the patch notes for the update that goes along with the Royal Court expansion will be posted.
[ 2022-02-01 13:30:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3: Royal Court - Artifacts & Events
[ 2022-01-31 10:17:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
What would a court be without artifacts, collections, plots, jesters, intrigue, and drama? SurrealBeliefs is back to share more about the events that will happen in your Royal Court with this CK3 expansion. [previewyoutube=r2Q8WCuhgXY;full][/previewyoutube] Find more videos by SurrealBeliefs here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Surrealbeliefs Buy Crusader Kings III's first expansion: Royal Court. Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-01-31 10:17:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3: Royal Court - Grandeur
[ 2022-01-28 16:04:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
Your court's grandeur is your wordly display of power, prestige, and influence. SurrealBeliefs has created a guide to show you all of the brand new features of Royal Court, the first major expansion of Crusader Kings 3. Sit back your highness, and enjoy! [previewyoutube=s7z1OVhV4HI;full][/previewyoutube] Find more videos by SurrealBeliefs here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Surrealbeliefs Buy Crusader Kings III's first expansion: Royal Court. Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-01-28 16:04:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Lunar Sale is here!
[ 2022-01-28 15:03:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Save up to 33% on CK3 with the Steam Lunar Sale! It is time to invite your friends at your court Buy Crusader Kings III https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2022-01-28 15:03:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Pre-order Crusader Kings III NOW on Next-Gen consoles!
The noble pageantry of medieval grand strategy is coming soon to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. In partnership with the development team at Lab42, Paradox has adapted the dynamic and ever-changing gameplay of Crusader Kings III to a new environment, taking advantage of the unique characteristics of console play. Few other games have as rich a tapestry of strategic options, with political marriages to bind noble houses, brutal wars to enforce quasi-legal claims, personal relationships to unite a fractured realm, and even subtle scheming to undermine or eliminate rivals. [previewyoutube=emobBLz5x2g;full][/previewyoutube] Crusader Kings III on console features an adapted interface and control scheme specifically tailored to larger screens and console gamepads. The all-new control map lets players quickly and easily navigate the games menus via triggers, bumpers, and quick flicks of the analog stick. The console edition also utilizes the key capabilities of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, like super-fast load times for a seamless gameplay experience as well as Haptic and Adaptive Trigger controller feedback. Players will be able to switch between gameplay and other applications, like YouTube, using Quick Resume, where they can consult a tutorial on how to quell a peasant revolt. PlayStation 5 users will experience the games stress mechanics themselves, as their DualSense controllers physically react to in-game events as they unfold. The more stress a character has accrued, the more resistance will be applied to the DualSense controllers Adaptive Triggers, for instance. The PS5s Activities and Game Help also provide a platform to assist new players as they take their first steps in the world of Crusader Kings. Features of Crusader Kings III include:
[ 2022-01-26 16:10:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Live the life of a medieval ruler and build historys greatest dynasty from the comfort of your sofa, on March 29, 2022. Pre-order now through Microsoft Hub or Playstation Store!
Your Sofa Becomes Your Throne: Crusader Kings III for Console Coming in March
The noble pageantry of medieval grand strategy is coming soon to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. In partnership with the development team at Lab42, Paradox has adapted the dynamic and ever-changing gameplay of Crusader Kings III to a new environment, taking advantage of the unique characteristics of console play. Few other games have as rich a tapestry of strategic options, with political marriages to bind noble houses, brutal wars to enforce quasi-legal claims, personal relationships to unite a fractured realm, and even subtle scheming to undermine or eliminate rivals. [previewyoutube=emobBLz5x2g;full][/previewyoutube] Crusader Kings III on console features an adapted interface and control scheme specifically tailored to larger screens and console gamepads. The all-new control map lets players quickly and easily navigate the games menus via triggers, bumpers, and quick flicks of the analog stick. The console edition also utilizes the key capabilities of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, like super-fast load times for a seamless gameplay experience as well as Haptic and Adaptive Trigger controller feedback. Players will be able to switch between gameplay and other applications, like YouTube, using Quick Resume, where they can consult a tutorial on how to quell a peasant revolt. PlayStation 5 users will experience the games stress mechanics themselves, as their DualSense controllers physically react to in-game events as they unfold. The more stress a character has accrued, the more resistance will be applied to the DualSense controllers Adaptive Triggers, for instance. The PS5s Activities and Game Help also provide a platform to assist new players as they take their first steps in the world of Crusader Kings. Features of Crusader Kings III include:
- Character Focused Gameplay: Every character you play or interact with has their own unique personality. Events and options in the game are largely determined by the type of person you are.
- Infinite Possibilities: Play as any noble house from Iceland to India, Finland to Central Africa, over five centuries. Interact with wandering guests, stubborn children, devious spymasters, and saintly holy men in an elaborate tapestry of medieval life.
- Waging War: Rally your vassals and raise your men-at-arms to besiege enemy castles or put down rebellions. Personal prowess on the battlefield can win you great honor, but strategic planning is the path to victory.
- Royal Marriages: Spread your dynastic DNA throughout the world, stamping your royal seal on the crests of kingdoms and duchies far and wide. Marry for power and raise children to press claims on new lands.
- Saints and Sinners: Keep faith with your religious leaders or perform great crimes in the interest of the state. When the going gets tough, you can always embrace a heresy or craft a new religion more in line with your characters priorities.
[ 2022-01-26 16:10:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Royal Court Livestream, today 2:30pm CET!
[ 2022-01-26 13:03:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join us for a Royal Crusader Kings III livestream, you don't want to miss it!
Today, 14:30 CET: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive
[ 2022-01-26 13:03:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #87 - Royal Modding
The character window with the localization data system disabled showing the raw function calls In a more mechanical improvement weve also added a boilerplate reduction for having events on a cooldown, instead of needing to manually check and juggle flags and variables yourself you can now specify a cooldown on the event in days/weeks/months/years as some value and it will automatically handle applying a flag that will clear after that time blocking the event from being fired on a character. Console Commands We have added a variety of new console commands in 1.5 to help make creating and testing mods a bit easier, and instead of explaining them myself I am just gonna cheat and rip their change log entries out!
The script for various culture tradition based modifiers on buildings Clocks a ticking Release day is coming soon and were very excited to see what mods are going to do with Royal Court, especially with the court scene itself which we hope in the future to see some fantastic 3D scenes especially from fantasy mods. Im gonna get back to the last minute release period scramble, thank you for reading and I hope youre looking forward to Royal Courts release and the great mods were gonna be able to see in the future too!
[ 2022-01-25 13:38:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone and welcome to the 87th CK3 Dev Diary!
Im Matthew, one of the Programmers on the CK3 team, and today I am going to talk to you about a variety of improvements and changes weve done to modding for the 1.5 patch which will be accompanying the Royal Court Expansion.
Read our Dev Diary #87: Royal Modding
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Weve added a variety of mod support in 1.5 so Im not gonna cover everything, but I will give a few big ticket items that will let mods do a lot more fun custom things as well a few smaller fun ones. Ive also attached the output of script_docs on 1.5 at the end so modders curious about the new triggers and effects in game can get a bit of a sneak peek for the release.
The Royal Court
Of course the Royal Court itself is open to mods, it is all defined in the gfx/court_scene folder though the majority of the complex scene_settings itself is best built using the in-game editor that we are shipping with the court scene. It lets you position and change objects and switch between different settings much faster than trying to edit them all by hand.
Trust me, cause I remember the time whilst the editor was work in progress and doing changes by hand crushed my soul.
The in-game editor tool for the royal court 3d scene
I am not going to go into a huge amount of detail on the royal court modding because it is actually pretty straightforward with the editor, you position things and pick the assets you need for a configuration and then it just puts things there.
One aspect I will go into a bit more info on quickly is the character positioning, because the rest of the positioning is set within the editor but the characters are not positioned individually because of course not every court has the King of England to reference.
Instead the character positions are given a set of valid roles, and you pick a position where someone who has one of those roles may go. For example the two guards you see in the back are two positioned instances of the guard and knight role, which has a variety of rules of who it should pick.
If you have a bodyguard or champion court position appointed for example then it tries to use them as a special guard, but if you do not then it will fallback to picking any of your knights instead. You can also have some more special roles such as if you have a court jester or poet appointed then they can show up in your court too.
The script for the poet court scene role
Characters can not show up in multiple different roles and it is a greedy picking of first come first served in who is taken up, but you can write some fairly complex rules to decide who can go where as well as what animations they can choose from!
Same-Sex Marriage
Coming with 1.5 is support for same-sex marriage, not only just in mods either but as a new game rule alongside the Same-Sex relations game rule so you can use it in un-modded games too. We've updated a variety of AI logic and interactions and content to take that into account when playing.
Same-sex marriage between the Duke of Brittany and his husband
Mods are of course able to implement this into their different worlds without it having to be a game rule, it can be based on different cultures or anything in the game world at all.
This is something that were very happy to be able to put into the game and have support in the game rules for unmodded games too, it is something that a lot of the team and community wanted and we are glad it is finally going to be shipped in 1.5.
Scripted Widgets
CK3 is one of our most moddable games yet, not just in terms of the content that can be added but the system's mods can script. And our new UI system is the most open weve had in terms of what custom UIs mods can add and edit, but one issue it had was letting you add brand new things entirely and keeping compatibility nicely.
In 1.5 there is a new system called scripted widgets, what they allow for in essence is a mod to define their own brand new windows in the gui files and then add an entry into the gui/scripted_widgets folder with the name of their gui file and the main window.
For example:
gui/test_custom_widget.gui = my_first_cool_test_widget
gui/test_custom_widget.gui = my_second_cool_test_widget
Then with that simple line of script their window will appear in the game in the same way any of the windows we support in code do. Now of course there are some limitations, the windows do not have any special data context like a code one does but it can access anything that is set globally or on the local player character which covers more than enough cases normally.
A scripted widget making a new example window with a testing button
This may not sound hugely impactful, but it means that mods going forward can easily create large systems which can then more easily be compatible with other mods that add systems or if they feel brave enough even with larger Total Conversions if they do not cross over in incompatible design choices.
I am really excited to see the new UIs that mods end up making for their gameplay systems and getting to try a few different mods together. Hopefully their windows have a bit more functionality and effort put into it than my testing one
Value Breakdowns
Another bit of UI functionality that mods could not nicely mimic is getting breakdowns of their numbers in the same way we break down a value like your prestige income or how much piety its gonna cost to start that war in their own UI.
In 1.5 weve added the GetScriptValueBreakdown UI function which lets you specify the name of the script_value you want to break down and the scope context to do it on and it gives you the exact same data as if wed natively done it from code.
For example in my custom widget Ive made the button tooltip give a breakdown of the cost if I were to increase my crown authority entirely separate from the usually needed button to evaluate that cost in the realms UI.
Example of custom value break downs in custom UIs
We hope this will let mods better explain their own custom values in a more clear way, be that something like your mana in a fantasy mod or custom score for a special event chain.
Events and Localization
To make life easier for our modders and designers to work with events weve added and reworked a few debug buttons in the event window.
Now every event has these five icons in the top right corner.
The 5 debug icons in the event window
In order they let you:
- Regenerate the event contents, useful if youve changed something that cannot hot reload.
- Toggle the data system globally, this makes most everything in square brackets show exactly what you typed instead of localizing to some output, this is available via the console commands too
- Copy the event text to your clipboard
- Shows you the trigger evaluation that had to be true for you to get this event
- Debug info about the current scope context and how keys used to build the description
The character window with the localization data system disabled showing the raw function calls In a more mechanical improvement weve also added a boilerplate reduction for having events on a cooldown, instead of needing to manually check and juggle flags and variables yourself you can now specify a cooldown on the event in days/weeks/months/years as some value and it will automatically handle applying a flag that will clear after that time blocking the event from being fired on a character. Console Commands We have added a variety of new console commands in 1.5 to help make creating and testing mods a bit easier, and instead of explaining them myself I am just gonna cheat and rip their change log entries out!
- Added console command "bypass_requirements" (alias "bypass") that lets you do decisions, interactions, schemes, laws, and title creation despite the requirements not being met
- Added console command "instasiege"
- Added console command "save_every" and startup parameter "-save_every=x". These will make a save every x years, and ensure they do not get overwritten by normal autosaves
- Added console command AI.try_send_decision
- Added console command AI.try_send_interaction
- Added console command Ironman.ToggleIgnore. When ignored, saves will act as if they're not ironman, including that when you hit save it'll result in a non-ironman save. This can be toggled during gameplay
- Added console command ToggleShowAllKillers
- Added console command complete_schemes, guaranteed_scheme_success/failure, and guaranteed_scheme_secrecy_success/failure. The success/secrecy ones only affect the player
- Added console command set_date
- Added console command show_regions_in_tooltip
- Added console command toggle_keys_on_map
- Added console commands "yesmen_instant" (AKA "ymi") and "instant_responses". The yesmen button in the console can now be right-clicked to run "yesmen_instant"
The script for various culture tradition based modifiers on buildings Clocks a ticking Release day is coming soon and were very excited to see what mods are going to do with Royal Court, especially with the court scene itself which we hope in the future to see some fantastic 3D scenes especially from fantasy mods. Im gonna get back to the last minute release period scramble, thank you for reading and I hope youre looking forward to Royal Courts release and the great mods were gonna be able to see in the future too!
[ 2022-01-25 13:38:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #86 - Under the Banner
[ 2022-01-18 13:33:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Well met!
There is a possibility you have noticed the colourful banners decorating the halls of the upcoming Royal Court expansion and wondered just how they work. If so, you are in luck!
Read our Dev Diary #86 - Under the Banner
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
As Im sure youve heard if you follow these diaries, equippable Artifacts are returning to the franchise in a big way, and banners are one of the types of Court Artifact which can adorn your hall.
Banners
There are currently three types of commissionable banner: Dynasty and House banners depict the respective arms of your family, while Realm banners display the arms of a specific title (generally the primary title of the commissioner). These banners are a cut above the standard colors carried by your armies and heralds; heirlooms in their own right.
You may wonder what happens if the design of a crest changes during gameplay, such as after the Norman conquest, or when using the new Coat of Arms designer to make ground-breaking contributions to the field of heraldry.
Never fear, you will not need to commission new banners every time you nudge a fleur-de-lis; the Artifacts designs are tied to their corresponding dynasty, house, or title, and will automatically reflect the results of your questionable artistic skills.
All Courts begin the game with a House banner, and also with a Dynasty banner if the ruler is a Dynasty Head. Additional banners may be commissioned at any time if you employ an Antiquarian. You will also be presented with these banners upon gaining a Court for the first time if relevant, reflecting your new status as a King or Emperor.
You can also see above that you must be a member of the respective family or cadet branch to gain the full benefits of a Dynasty or House banner. While you may gloat by displaying the banners of other families acquired through war or subterfuge doing so will only improve your Courts grandeur.
The three banner types grant different bonuses when equipped, with greater benefits from better quality Artifacts. While House and Realm banners use the same logic as other Artifacts to determine their quality (based on the skill of the weaver and other factors), Dynasty banners are their own breed.
Dynasty Banners
Each Dynasty will generally only have one banner in the world at any given time. Unlike House and Realm banners which can be commissioned at will, Dynasty banners can only be commissioned by Dynasty Heads, and only if one does not already exist within range of you.
However, House Heads of a Dynasty will always have claims on their Dynastys banner, allowing them to duel or wage war for them at will.
In addition, the quality of a Dynasty banner is directly tied to its Dynastys Renown, granting greater benefits as your familys fame grows.
The highest tier is unlocked upon reaching Legendary Dynasty Renown level. You may be relieved to hear Dynasty banners will never lose tiers, only gain them.
To avoid unnecessary headaches, the AI knows that a Dynasty banner really belongs to the Dynasty Head, and is inclined to return it to its proper place if it ends up elsewhere, even if they are from another House (as long as they have good relations with them).
War Banners
In addition to these creatable banners, there is also a type gained only by event: the War Banner.
These captured banners can only be gained after battles, and will display the emblem of the defeated sides primary title; perfect for commemorating your glorious victories.
Banner Relics
Lastly, there are also some historical banners knocking around, such as the Banner of Muhammad, and others of more dubious provenence may be found by adventurers.
I hope this has temporarily sated your hunger for banner information.
Until next time!
[ 2022-01-18 13:33:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #85 - An Artifact's Life
[ 2022-01-11 13:32:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to Dev Diary 85 for Crusader Kings III!
This is Areysak, Content Designer (some of you might remember me from Imperator).
As the release date draws nearer and nearer, Im here to talk to you about Artifacts.
Again?! - you are probably thinking.
YES, because artifacts still have more to offer! Lets take a closer look.
Read our Dev Diary #85 - An Artifact's Life
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
First, you probably know by now that artifacts are an investment that requires time and gold. An inspired character makes them for you, but how can you make them feel like they are really yours?
Why not inscribe your name on them!
While an inspired character is hard at work making a fancy artifact for you, they might ask for your input on dedications: do you want this artifact to preserve the glory of your name for posterity? Or maybe you want to impress your lover, memorialize your deceased soulmate, or even make the artifact testify to your faith. A dedication is forever!
Event to add dedications to artifacts in the making
Event to add dedications to artifacts in the making
Dedicated artifact
Occasionally, an inspired character might also seek your input on what functionalities you expect out of their artifact. Should your armor shine so bright that all your knights are inspired to greatness on the battlefield whenever you lead them, or should it favor practicality and make you more effective in mountain areas? You can choose an angle for your artifact that will make certain modifiers more likely to appear at creation.
Event to set the artifacts focus
On a separate topic, artifacts dont exist in a void, but are living items in a living world, meant to be used, exchanged, stolen and damaged. With use and time, an artifacts durability lowers. What happens when your grandpas armor gets rusty, or your sword loses its edge? You need an expert! The Antiquarian at your court specializes not only in maintaining but also in repairing your artifacts. With just a couple of clicks (and some gold) your artifacts will be as good as new!
Repair interface
Sometimes, however, just repairing an artifact doesnt really strike your fancy Grandpas armor has seen its fair share of adventures, but its ancient, and you have newer and cooler stuff to wear! Before you hit a flea market to get rid of it (and possibly have Grandpa curse you from his grave), you have another choice: reforge! By reforging an inventory artifact, you change it into a pedestal artifact to expose in your court. Of course, its modifiers will change accordingly - wearing armor might make you tougher to kill, but it will hardly be of any help if it stays on a stand by your throne! On the other hand, your courtiers might be impressed by its fine decoration.
Reforge interface
Reforged armor
Reforged weapon
In some cases, however, you might not care enough about an artifact to repair or reforge it When artifacts reach 0 durability they get destroyed and disappear from the game. Before that happens, however, other possibilities might open up for you through events. Perhaps a scrap collector will offer to buy it in exchange for some gold (dont expect too much, though, they collect scraps, not riches!), or your antiquarian might find a way to repurpose it.
Event for decaying artifacts
Event for decaying artifacts
Finally, some artifacts gain a reputation or a story through time! The sword of an often-triumphant general will be remembered as a fearsome weapon, while the crown that sat on the heads of your dynastic predecessors for generations will be recognized as a symbol of your people. But be careful, because if either you or your artifact gain an ominous reputation, your artifact might be known as a cursed item!
Crown with a reputation
Event from an artifact's life
Armor gains a reputation
An artifact can gain a reputation
Thats it for today! I hope you enjoyed this DD, and are looking forward to next months release as much as we are!
[ 2022-01-11 13:32:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter Teaser #5 - Mendicant Mystics Making a Mess
[ 2022-01-04 13:32:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome comrades! Weve not got anything major on the docket for the days dev diary, so well be taking a little peak at a cultural tradition thats dear to my heart instead.
Just to whet the appetite for more content a little.
To fully experience our Teaser on the forums and share your thoughts, you can click the link below.
Read our Winter Teaser #5 - Mendicant Mystics Making a Mess
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Mendicant Mystics is a moderately uncommon tradition, one that synergises well with faiths that already boost the mystic lifestyle. Moreover, though, theres something that just _speaks_ to me, personally, about the idea of impassioned people wandering the world, sharing their wisdom and message.
Consequently, Ive spruced it up a little bit, adding some flavour to the idea of living in a culture where wandering know-it-all is a valid career choice. To reflect this, the following events will all _try_ to grab characters from the pool first, so wandering characters of such a culture are often at risk of deciding to become a mystic once they hit the road, and if a mystic breaks in to annoy you once, theres every chance the same mystic might come knocking a second time down the line...
After all, who better than a stranger covered in twigs and mud to teach your children some valuable life lessons?
Or, indeed, yourself.
Really, theyre altruists...
of course, for some folks, the wandering may get too much eventually.
Hmmm, cant really put my finger on why I like the idea of mendicant mystics so much. Something about them just seems delightfully familiar to me, I guess. Ah well.
Thanks for reading folks, and well see you next week for the first dev diary of the year!
[ 2022-01-04 13:32:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter Teaser #4 - Artifact Weapons
[ 2021-12-28 13:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
On the First day of Christmas
My good lord brought to me
A sword with a gilded filigree.
Hello and happy holidays! Hope youve had a grand time celebrating, or maybe youre already preparing for the new year?
To fully experience our Teaser on the forums and share your thoughts, you can click the link below.
Read our Winter Teaser #4 - Artifact Weapons
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
With the Royal Court a plethora of new weapon looks will be made available.
They can be carried into duels, or shown off in your courts where they will be placed prominently on weapon stands for all to view. In this teaser well be showing off a few more of them up close.
The King of France, Charles II, trying to live up to his ancestor Charles Martel The Hammer name in battle, wielding the signature weapon.
When they are crafted or generic weapons are wielded the game will pick an appropriate weapon from either the culture of the character's origin. So any weapon a character has acquired and equipped in their personal inventory will be wielded.
Swords and sabers, elegant and a way of showing off one's wealth
Daggers may not have reach, but theyre much more up close and personal. Et tu, Brute?
What self respecting berserker would be caught without his axe?
Mace, for chasing off attackers since before recorded history.
For the experienced spearman.
And with that its a wrap for this short teaser, hope your holidays have been a great one and until next time, Happy new years!
[ 2021-12-28 13:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Winter Sale is here! Up to -20% on CK3
[ 2021-12-22 18:03:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Winter Sale is here! Up to -20% on Crusader Kings III, treat yourself with a royal gift for Christmas and invite your friends to play as your vassals! Buy Crusader Kings III https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2021-12-22 18:03:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter Teaser #3 - Cultural Traditions
[ 2021-12-21 13:35:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to another winter teaser :)
In this short teaser today I bring you more cultural traditions as well as previews of some cultures we havent shown you before.
To fully experience our Teaser on the forums and share your thoughts, you can click the link below.
Read our Winter Teaser #3 - Cultural Traditions
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Chanson De Geste
In some cases cultural traditions are regional variants on more generically available one. Instead of the more widely available Martial Admiration tradition that weve shown previously the cultures that have a Frankish heritage will have access to the Chanson de Geste tradition. This both grants access to the Valets innovation when the Late Medieval era comes around and highlights the role of troubadours in the French region.
Performative Honor Cultural Tradition
For those that have Flavor Pack 1 Northern Lords, the Shield Maiden related content is now connected to a new cultural tradition called Performative Honor, which is available for cultures of the North Germanic Heritage.
Persian Culture
Image of the Philosopher Culture tradition
One of the traditions of Persian culture highlights the prevalence of philosophical thought among its members, another gives access to a royal gardener court position. :)
Butr Culture
Image of the Butr Culture and traditions
Cultures with a Berber heritage and a presence in desert or dry lands will have access to the Desert Ribats tradition, which unlocks the Mulathamun Man at arms type among other things.
Catalan Culture
Image of the Catalan Culture and traditions
Maritime Mercantilism is a tradition that makes coastal holdings more useful to a culture, as seen here in the lineup of Catalan Traditions.
Cisalpine Culture
Image of Cisalpine Culture and Traditions
Any culture that has the Roman culture somewhere in its ancestry can adopt the Republican Legacy tradition which is a special version of the more generally available Parochialism cultural tradition. This highlights the special Republican heritage in the italic sphere and will let you create a number of Republican vassals out of your counts who will become overseers, or Podests.
Mongol Culture
Mongol Culture and traditions
The Steppe Tolerance tradition highlights that for some cultures what your subjects believe was not as important as it was for others
And that was all for this short winter teaser. These are some of my personal favorite traditions in the update, I hope you found them as interesting as I do!
[ 2021-12-21 13:35:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK III Royal Court Previews Are In!
[ 2021-12-15 15:29:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today, PC Gamer published an article sharing their impressions on Crusader Kings III: Royal Court. You can read the article here!
If haven't already, add it to your wishlist now!
In the meantime, you can catch up on all the previous points in our Royal Court FAQ!
[ 2021-12-15 15:29:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter Teaser #2 - Dynasty Legacy
[ 2021-12-14 13:32:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
By this point most of the team is on vacation (including me, this is a scheduled post!). However, we still want to tease something that we think youll like!
With the Cultural Rework were making it more viable to rule a large and culturally diverse empire, as you all surely know. To enhance this playstyle weve devised a new Dynasty Legacy that focuses on strengthening multicultural realms! If you own the Royal Court expansion, youll get access to the new Customs Dynasty Legacy!
To fully experience our Teaser on the forums and share your thoughts, you can click the link below.
Read our Winter Teaser #2 - Dynasty Legacy
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
[Image of the Legacy Track Art]
Let's take a look at the Legacies themselves:
[Image of the first legacy]
The first legacy reinforces the link between learning languages and acceptance by adding a Cultural Acceptance bonus on completion for members of your dynasty. Quite a powerful opener, as it gives you a tool for improving acceptance with cultures outside your own realm (albeit a small one, though depending on how spread out your dynasty is it can be more or less powerful!)
[Image of the second legacy]
The second legacy improves the effectiveness of the Council Job, simple but effective. Having an extra slot for Learn Language schemes means that you can always have one running, while keeping your normal personal scheme slot open for Swaying vassals or Seducing siblings.
[Image of third legacy]
When you land a ruler of a culture in the lands of their culture, you already get a Cultural Acceptance bonus. This legacy makes it an even more viable strategy to do this, as you also get a hook that you can use for all kinds of things. This pairs well with the new grant options that youll find at the end of this DD.
[Image of fourth legacy]
The fourth legacy unlocks a special Court Position, the Cultural Emissary. This isnt a cheap position to fill, but it brings great benefit to realms with a diverse cast of vassals as it increases Different Culture opinion by up to 20! It also grants a lot of prestige, as an additional bonus.
[Image of the Cultural Emissary Court Position]
Here are some details on how the position itself looks.
[Image of fifth legacy]
The last legacy focuses less on building acceptance, and more on reaping its benefits! It gives you access to a decision that, while expensive to take, improves the lands of all your realm; presuming the culture has 75%+ acceptance with yours. This can be a truly massive bonus for a large realm. Not pictured here is that it also gives you prestige.
[Image of the main modifier from the Side-by-Side decision]
The main modifier of the above decision, in its current incarnation.
[Image of the new Grant To buttons]
Now, one of the hardest things to do if you want to have self-rule in your lands is actually finding someone of the correct culture. To remedy this problem, weve added two new buttons to the Grant to window. When giving away a County or Barony, you can now choose to grant it to a noble of your culture, or a noble of the local culture (faith, for now, always follows your own). If you choose either of these options, the game will firstly look for an appropriate wanderer, and if it cant find anyone, generate a new character.
If you grant land to a local noble, you will clearly see just how much acceptance youll get for the act.
[ 2021-12-14 13:32:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter Teaser #1 - Photo Mode
[ 2021-12-07 13:48:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Salutations, I am Carlberg, the 3D environment art lead on CK3 and today we have a small teaser for that button you may have spotted down in the right corner on a lot of dev diaries. It is the button that will bring up the Photomode of the court, to make it easier to take memorable pictures of the events and happenings of your court! Along with this preview we also thought wed show off some more artifacts in their natural habitat.
Due to the nature of this diary, many of the images are much too large to have on Steam. To fully experience our Teaser on the forums and share your thoughts, you can click the link below.
Read our Winter Teaser #1 - Photo Mode
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
The camera might not have been invented in the dark ages, but dont we all want clean screenshots?.
Weve been confident for quite some time that our players would want to take some pictures of what happens in their court, the interesting courtiers interacting or from finally seeing your rival and vassal arrive to bend the knee. So for that purpose the Photo mode will give everyone the ability to pick what camera is currently active out of a curated selection. Some of these are camera angles that youve seen depending on different interfaces and some camera angles only available in the photo mode.
In the photo mode you can select cameras from a dropdown, turn off courtiers for decoration focused shots, or the UI to get a clean picture with no interface.
And following, here are a few more court shots taken with the photo mode.
[Please see forum post here]
Trivia:
Did you know that the natural camera, camera obscura, is an optical effect that can occur in a dark room with a small hole for the entry of light. This light causes a projection of the outside to occur within the dark room and has been observed and mentioned in Chinese written texts as early as 400 bce.
We'll be back again next week with another teaser!
[ 2021-12-07 13:48:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #84 - Building a Court
With the new 3D character systems implemented in CK3 we wanted to show the characters of the middle ages in a whole new dynamic way. So as we started laying down the foundations of the Royal Court we also wanted to bring the very courts to life and find continued use for these 3D characters. This new feature was a major step in that direction. The inspiration for the feature was partly scenes that hearken back to throne rooms seen in games of old where we wish they had been livelier, with more interaction and chances for us to impact the people and objects in them. We drew upon these concepts and ideas of our own to weave together a visualization of the courts hosted by the most prominent royal titles.
At the beginning of the court development we knew that we were in for a challenge to stake out a new visual workflow within the engine that previously had not had any instances of contained 3D scenes and shared lighting systems within it. So we decided that to start off we needed a working prototype - laying a foundation and gradually adding more and more graphical features and complexity. Moving forward only when were sure the previous step succeeded. A natural starting point of exploration were the characters. We could already show beautiful animated portraits and the courtroom had to be able to show the same people so players could easily recognize their appearance. Could we reuse the same system that assembles characters - show appropriate body, apply transformation to show age, height, weight, apply the same clothing, hair, set the same animation? First step - success. The people in the courtroom look exactly the same as in portraits. Next step, is it possible to show many people at the same time in the same scene? This is quite different from portraits in the interface and events - those always have 1 person per image, even if the UI tries to combine them nicely together. With some optimization the room could now handle about 20 random characters, and even some objects. So the scene finally resembles a courtroom. Although a bit dark. The scene could now show several people and items in the prototype But what can we do with lights? The ambition for the court scene and requirement for lighting is much higher and more advanced than for regular portraits. We needed more simultaneous light sources. At the same time shadows naturally become much more complicated as well. People and objects can interfere with lights and it needs to be visible. Another issue was making sure characters and objects apply the lighting and shadows in the same way, so its easier for artists to manipulate the scene and develop the assets. After a bit of time and several iterations we had upgraded and made many improvements to the lighting system. Lights and shadows in a shared scene Proof that multiple lights work and blend as intended, if a bit rough still. It was roughly at this time we felt we had confidence that the goal was within reach, and all technology was working as we intended. It was also clear that we could afford the desired complexity of the scene from a performance point of view. After all, players should have an enjoyable experience both on the map and in the court. We had built an understanding of how many people the scene could handle efficiently, how many light sources, and how many shadows we could allow (this is one of the most expensive parts). And so the prototype has been integrated as a proper feature of the game. Scene with better lighting, assets, materials, people positions From this point on work on the court room continued with multiple people from different disciplines working very closely together. More and more features waited to be implemented, so you can now see the beautiful results of all this effort. Concept art and vision Being worked alongside the prototype was the vision we had for the Royal Court-rooms. We began by looking at the four main cultural areas we would be covering in the expansion. The west European, Mediterranean, Middle-eastern and Indian courts. We wanted each of these areas to be distinct, having their own visual style through architecture and lighting so to give their own unique feeling. Concepts of the different walls aesthetics of the courts, Mediterranean, Western, Middle-East/North Africa and India. The west European court draws much of its inspiration from courtly interiors of England, Germany, France and neighboring areas. Darker rooms lit by fiery hearths, candles and chandeliers. In the Mediterranean more inspiration comes from the Byzantine courts and those found in Italy and other heirs of Rome. The rooms hint back at this grander past with larger roofs, domes and columns supporting the walls and arches. In the Middle-eastern courts we have a wider spread geographically, as these courts draw inspiration and cues from the courts all the way from Arabia to the architecture of Andalusia. In India we encountered an interesting split, as influences in architecture were pushing in from the west while there were still distinctly Indian courts. This was one of the reasons behind adding more court variants so that we could cover more of these visual flairs. Style variation exploration, more on those further down in the Dev Diary. Each scene was broken down into components like walls, roofs, floors and key assets like thrones, chandeliers and fireplaces. While these were being designed from a plethora of references gathered from each culture we also created variants in the concepts. This was done both as exploration but also to add variance to the courts so that they don't all look the same all the time. You will most likely have seen some variants of these when weve shared screenshots in past dev-diaries. Different courts, different architectural styles, different lighting setups. But the concept art phase did not end after the initial stages however, because once the scenes were being put together we returned to the concepts to try out the different lighting setups to help in the lighting of the rooms, giving our artists more ideas of where to focus the light and accentuate the scene further. Since the lighting system was being built alongside this in the prototype, the concept art took inspiration from contemporary game engines to help guide the prototyping, and not just the visual development.
When starting the modeling of the actual assets for the throne rooms there were several constraints to keep in mind. We had decided to go with a modular workflow so we could easily swap out wall-types and materials, so the dimensions would have to be consistent and work with the plans and concepts we had decided to pursue. We were also making several visual variants for each culture, which meant that we had to try and keep the details of the walls and materials equally interesting for each different type. Another big limitation was the fact that we had never before made a scene within our engine like this, so that meant that there were a lot of uncertainties when it came to how much we could push the graphics and where the limits were. Since we were also going to have the artifact system we had to make sure we left enough room for the artifacts and banners without having the environment taking too much attention. This became a trial and error phase to find a good baseline for each throne room. Early blocking out of the different artifact and furniture slots to be able to see where in the environments we had to make space. To create variation we made sure to have the materials contrast with each other while still fitting together aesthetically so no culture would have throne rooms that all felt exactly the same. This along with changing some architectonic aspects helped the scenes be more distinct. We also worked on adding variation to the the grandeur levels, here we wanted the difference to show in the cleanliness and brightness of the environment textures, as well as in the richness of detail in the geometry and amount of decorative props. (Visual examples of this are shown in the final chapter) Making sure the different materials work together to create a cohesive feeling for each culture, but still looking different from each other. Example images taken from the MENA culture throne rooms.
A lot of our visual tech usually involves considerations for a top-down map, and since we didnt have much need for full scale 3D room rendering & lighting in the past, we had to do a lot of rethinking to get this to work - we went from previously having 4 lights, moving up to 20 total light sources and expanding the light types available with new ones like area lights - adding sphere & disc area lights. This helps illuminate areas such as room filling bouncing light (seen to great effect in Mediterranean courts) and helps us with light coming in from the windows and other openings. A cozily lit interior. Another technique we used was animated lights. They move a little, flicker in intensity - very useful for making the fireplace feel like its actually on fire and heating up the room a bit. To sell the atmospheric feeling in the room, we added some transparent particles with a little light fade on the sides of the windows and other select places. Even though it isnt adding to the real light of the room, it helps give it that last piece of convincing magic touch. We also used particle systems for effects like the fireplace, candles and torches. The concept art helped us find the vision of what we wanted to do. Starting with just the room geometries, we used the color hues and general light level from the concepts to create a lit space that felt cohesive, which we then could tweak and modify until they felt comfortable to look at.
One of the hurdles throughout the development of the court scene were tools - a means for developers to manipulate the scene contents more efficiently - edit objects, characters, lights, change their positions, add or remove to have a toolset that allows more quick iteration and direct interaction. It took time to develop a solution that made this part of work less tiresome. One of the downsides of not having readily available tools - you have to do those yourself, and sometimes reinvent a wheel multiple times. But were lucky to have an internal tools team that came to rescue us, and it improved the processes immensely. We had plenty of funny bugs over the court of development, resolved by now of course. It's not a cult! Sometimes visual bugs can be quite fun Baby Bighead bug. They say you shouldn't lose your head in court, but this is ridiculous
With a working feature, concepts drawn and all the parts built we got to compositing together the scenes. There were a lot of iterative steps working on the textures, lighting and positioning to get all pieces to look their best. The environment team has made a set of three different variations of each cultural court type that each has their own architectural and/or decorative flair and visuals, the scenes differ more in geometry and configuration or the construction materials used. So there may be more windows and ample light, or a fireplace castings its warm light into your court. The western European inspired courts, with stone and plastered walls. The Mediterranean courts, drawing inspiration from the Roman past as well as the melding of surrounding cultures. The Middle Eastern courts, drawn on from architecture found in Arabia to Al-Andalus. The courts of India, greatly varying interiors. Grandeur variants was a further change we added later in the development cycle, which helps give a little extra flavor to the progress of your court's grandeur. Lower court grandeur has less fancy details and furniture extras in the court than the higher level which sports more of them. The surfaces of the room have also been made to look more worn and less taken care of at a lower grandeur level, compared to the high grandeur which look their grandest. The Pomeranian kings court has seen better days, its painted plastered walls worn and peeling, the floor tiling tired, scraped and just slightly dirty. Little decorations or extra furniture have been afforded the kings halls. After much investment in upping the level of grandeur, the court's floors are fresh and polished, extra candles and seats added to the court, and a long finely woven rug lines the path up to the throne.
And with that weve come the full way from inception all the way to the finished scenes. Weve been continuously tweaking and polishing stuff like camera angles, lighting and textures, and we do hope this is a great foundation for a feature that we can grow over time. So a big thanks from the court and environment team for checking into this Dev Diary, which will be the last one of the year, but fret not! We will still be bringing you weekly teasers all the way through December to the start of next year. These teasers will be smaller in scale and focus on some minor features and things we still want to show off, so keep your eyes out for it next week.
[ 2021-11-30 13:31:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to Dev Diary #84, Im Carlberg , the 3D environment lead artist and today we will be having a closer look at the development of the Royal Court rooms.
This is a feature that weve been working hard on and it represents a great new step in bringing this historical era to life. Big thanks to Alien-47 (code), Stella (3D environment art) and Linus (tech art) who's perspectives they've written down for this Dev diary, drawn from their experiences from both code and art in the making of this feature.
Note that there are way too many images to add them here, so please visit our forums this time to see all the pictures from this Dev Diary.
Read our Dev Diary #84 - Building a Court
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Heads up! - A lot of the pictures in this post will be of old prototypes and iterations intermixed later with more recent images towards the end. So no need to worry about issues you may spot in the older images.
A new visual feature
With the new 3D character systems implemented in CK3 we wanted to show the characters of the middle ages in a whole new dynamic way. So as we started laying down the foundations of the Royal Court we also wanted to bring the very courts to life and find continued use for these 3D characters. This new feature was a major step in that direction. The inspiration for the feature was partly scenes that hearken back to throne rooms seen in games of old where we wish they had been livelier, with more interaction and chances for us to impact the people and objects in them. We drew upon these concepts and ideas of our own to weave together a visualization of the courts hosted by the most prominent royal titles.
The Prototyping
At the beginning of the court development we knew that we were in for a challenge to stake out a new visual workflow within the engine that previously had not had any instances of contained 3D scenes and shared lighting systems within it. So we decided that to start off we needed a working prototype - laying a foundation and gradually adding more and more graphical features and complexity. Moving forward only when were sure the previous step succeeded. A natural starting point of exploration were the characters. We could already show beautiful animated portraits and the courtroom had to be able to show the same people so players could easily recognize their appearance. Could we reuse the same system that assembles characters - show appropriate body, apply transformation to show age, height, weight, apply the same clothing, hair, set the same animation? First step - success. The people in the courtroom look exactly the same as in portraits. Next step, is it possible to show many people at the same time in the same scene? This is quite different from portraits in the interface and events - those always have 1 person per image, even if the UI tries to combine them nicely together. With some optimization the room could now handle about 20 random characters, and even some objects. So the scene finally resembles a courtroom. Although a bit dark. The scene could now show several people and items in the prototype But what can we do with lights? The ambition for the court scene and requirement for lighting is much higher and more advanced than for regular portraits. We needed more simultaneous light sources. At the same time shadows naturally become much more complicated as well. People and objects can interfere with lights and it needs to be visible. Another issue was making sure characters and objects apply the lighting and shadows in the same way, so its easier for artists to manipulate the scene and develop the assets. After a bit of time and several iterations we had upgraded and made many improvements to the lighting system. Lights and shadows in a shared scene Proof that multiple lights work and blend as intended, if a bit rough still. It was roughly at this time we felt we had confidence that the goal was within reach, and all technology was working as we intended. It was also clear that we could afford the desired complexity of the scene from a performance point of view. After all, players should have an enjoyable experience both on the map and in the court. We had built an understanding of how many people the scene could handle efficiently, how many light sources, and how many shadows we could allow (this is one of the most expensive parts). And so the prototype has been integrated as a proper feature of the game. Scene with better lighting, assets, materials, people positions From this point on work on the court room continued with multiple people from different disciplines working very closely together. More and more features waited to be implemented, so you can now see the beautiful results of all this effort. Concept art and vision Being worked alongside the prototype was the vision we had for the Royal Court-rooms. We began by looking at the four main cultural areas we would be covering in the expansion. The west European, Mediterranean, Middle-eastern and Indian courts. We wanted each of these areas to be distinct, having their own visual style through architecture and lighting so to give their own unique feeling. Concepts of the different walls aesthetics of the courts, Mediterranean, Western, Middle-East/North Africa and India. The west European court draws much of its inspiration from courtly interiors of England, Germany, France and neighboring areas. Darker rooms lit by fiery hearths, candles and chandeliers. In the Mediterranean more inspiration comes from the Byzantine courts and those found in Italy and other heirs of Rome. The rooms hint back at this grander past with larger roofs, domes and columns supporting the walls and arches. In the Middle-eastern courts we have a wider spread geographically, as these courts draw inspiration and cues from the courts all the way from Arabia to the architecture of Andalusia. In India we encountered an interesting split, as influences in architecture were pushing in from the west while there were still distinctly Indian courts. This was one of the reasons behind adding more court variants so that we could cover more of these visual flairs. Style variation exploration, more on those further down in the Dev Diary. Each scene was broken down into components like walls, roofs, floors and key assets like thrones, chandeliers and fireplaces. While these were being designed from a plethora of references gathered from each culture we also created variants in the concepts. This was done both as exploration but also to add variance to the courts so that they don't all look the same all the time. You will most likely have seen some variants of these when weve shared screenshots in past dev-diaries. Different courts, different architectural styles, different lighting setups. But the concept art phase did not end after the initial stages however, because once the scenes were being put together we returned to the concepts to try out the different lighting setups to help in the lighting of the rooms, giving our artists more ideas of where to focus the light and accentuate the scene further. Since the lighting system was being built alongside this in the prototype, the concept art took inspiration from contemporary game engines to help guide the prototyping, and not just the visual development.
A room takes shape
When starting the modeling of the actual assets for the throne rooms there were several constraints to keep in mind. We had decided to go with a modular workflow so we could easily swap out wall-types and materials, so the dimensions would have to be consistent and work with the plans and concepts we had decided to pursue. We were also making several visual variants for each culture, which meant that we had to try and keep the details of the walls and materials equally interesting for each different type. Another big limitation was the fact that we had never before made a scene within our engine like this, so that meant that there were a lot of uncertainties when it came to how much we could push the graphics and where the limits were. Since we were also going to have the artifact system we had to make sure we left enough room for the artifacts and banners without having the environment taking too much attention. This became a trial and error phase to find a good baseline for each throne room. Early blocking out of the different artifact and furniture slots to be able to see where in the environments we had to make space. To create variation we made sure to have the materials contrast with each other while still fitting together aesthetically so no culture would have throne rooms that all felt exactly the same. This along with changing some architectonic aspects helped the scenes be more distinct. We also worked on adding variation to the the grandeur levels, here we wanted the difference to show in the cleanliness and brightness of the environment textures, as well as in the richness of detail in the geometry and amount of decorative props. (Visual examples of this are shown in the final chapter) Making sure the different materials work together to create a cohesive feeling for each culture, but still looking different from each other. Example images taken from the MENA culture throne rooms.
Lighting and FX
A lot of our visual tech usually involves considerations for a top-down map, and since we didnt have much need for full scale 3D room rendering & lighting in the past, we had to do a lot of rethinking to get this to work - we went from previously having 4 lights, moving up to 20 total light sources and expanding the light types available with new ones like area lights - adding sphere & disc area lights. This helps illuminate areas such as room filling bouncing light (seen to great effect in Mediterranean courts) and helps us with light coming in from the windows and other openings. A cozily lit interior. Another technique we used was animated lights. They move a little, flicker in intensity - very useful for making the fireplace feel like its actually on fire and heating up the room a bit. To sell the atmospheric feeling in the room, we added some transparent particles with a little light fade on the sides of the windows and other select places. Even though it isnt adding to the real light of the room, it helps give it that last piece of convincing magic touch. We also used particle systems for effects like the fireplace, candles and torches. The concept art helped us find the vision of what we wanted to do. Starting with just the room geometries, we used the color hues and general light level from the concepts to create a lit space that felt cohesive, which we then could tweak and modify until they felt comfortable to look at.
Technical hurdles & Bloopers
One of the hurdles throughout the development of the court scene were tools - a means for developers to manipulate the scene contents more efficiently - edit objects, characters, lights, change their positions, add or remove to have a toolset that allows more quick iteration and direct interaction. It took time to develop a solution that made this part of work less tiresome. One of the downsides of not having readily available tools - you have to do those yourself, and sometimes reinvent a wheel multiple times. But were lucky to have an internal tools team that came to rescue us, and it improved the processes immensely. We had plenty of funny bugs over the court of development, resolved by now of course. It's not a cult! Sometimes visual bugs can be quite fun Baby Bighead bug. They say you shouldn't lose your head in court, but this is ridiculous
Finished courts and courtly variation
With a working feature, concepts drawn and all the parts built we got to compositing together the scenes. There were a lot of iterative steps working on the textures, lighting and positioning to get all pieces to look their best. The environment team has made a set of three different variations of each cultural court type that each has their own architectural and/or decorative flair and visuals, the scenes differ more in geometry and configuration or the construction materials used. So there may be more windows and ample light, or a fireplace castings its warm light into your court. The western European inspired courts, with stone and plastered walls. The Mediterranean courts, drawing inspiration from the Roman past as well as the melding of surrounding cultures. The Middle Eastern courts, drawn on from architecture found in Arabia to Al-Andalus. The courts of India, greatly varying interiors. Grandeur variants was a further change we added later in the development cycle, which helps give a little extra flavor to the progress of your court's grandeur. Lower court grandeur has less fancy details and furniture extras in the court than the higher level which sports more of them. The surfaces of the room have also been made to look more worn and less taken care of at a lower grandeur level, compared to the high grandeur which look their grandest. The Pomeranian kings court has seen better days, its painted plastered walls worn and peeling, the floor tiling tired, scraped and just slightly dirty. Little decorations or extra furniture have been afforded the kings halls. After much investment in upping the level of grandeur, the court's floors are fresh and polished, extra candles and seats added to the court, and a long finely woven rug lines the path up to the throne.
Wrapping up
And with that weve come the full way from inception all the way to the finished scenes. Weve been continuously tweaking and polishing stuff like camera angles, lighting and textures, and we do hope this is a great foundation for a feature that we can grow over time. So a big thanks from the court and environment team for checking into this Dev Diary, which will be the last one of the year, but fret not! We will still be bringing you weekly teasers all the way through December to the start of next year. These teasers will be smaller in scale and focus on some minor features and things we still want to show off, so keep your eyes out for it next week.
[ 2021-11-30 13:31:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Summer Sale is here! Up to -20% on CK3
[ 2021-11-25 18:00:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Autumn Sale is here! Up to -20% on #CK3, your chance to gift your rival a nice mushroom Buy Crusader Kings III https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2021-11-25 18:00:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #83 - Adventurers & Royal Court News
The adventurer is a somewhat unique type of inspiration in that it is much less clear what this person will present to you in the end. Instead this is a character who knows that they want to undertake a journey to explore and look for an interesting thing for you and your court.
[Screenshot of an inspired person being hired by the player] How far away a region that an adventurer will want to target with their expedition is mainly dependent on their skill and generally the adventurer already knows where they want to head when they appear to seek your patronage. A highly skilled adventurer might leave the choice of destination up to you. Regardless of what destination an adventurer will aspire to travel to they will ask you what type of thing they should be looking for. You can let them decide for themselves as their adventure unfolds or you can ask them for a general category of object from the get go (see below). Depending on the adventurer skill you may even be able to ask them to look for something unique, which will make them actively search for one of the unique historical artifacts that exist in the game. Nothing is entirely certain though, and even an adventurer of low skill might run into something interesting if you tell them to keep an eye open for anything interesting, it is just less likely than asking someone with higher skill to do so.
[Screenshot of an inspired person headed for Asia Minor, asking what type of artifact to look out for] The above are the most common choices, animal trophies, artwork or trinkets are all potential court artifacts that the adventurer can go looking for. When given free reins you may also end up with a piece of armor, or a weapon from that region (with a visual appearance and local technique to match). There is also a small chance that an adventurer who is told to trust their own instincts could return with something more rare and unique.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has run into a crocodile in a county along the Nile] As an adventurer sets out on a hunt for an artifact to please his employer he or she will send occasional updates to you. Apart from letting you know what happened in the various places the adventurer visited, these events will let you guide them further, potentially impacting the quality of what they bring you home in the end or the length of their journey.
[Screenshot of an adventurer complaining about an Irish marsh] The adventurer character will move around in the region their expedition has targeted, and events as well as their in-game location will reflect what barony they are currently in.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has gotten lost] Sometimes things dont go as expected. Getting lost is not all bad though, as it might mean reaching a region that was otherwise too far away from where they started.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has run into bandits] Travelling abroad is always a risk, even for a seasoned adventurer.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who is discovered as never having left the home town of his employer, instead wasting the money on food and alcohol] Even the most promising explorers can sometimes turn out to be charlatans (or just be plagued by the stress of the expectations placed upon them).
[Screenshot of a letter from an adventurer in Asia Minor] Some updates are just short letters and the odd trinket.
[Screenshot of an adventurer returning from the Netherlands with the hide of a defeated Bear] Eventually the adventurer will return and present you with their find. Depending on the goal you gave them this might be anything from a trophy made from a rare animal to a unique artifact.
[Screenshot of the ark of the Covenant, resting in an Indian court] Unique artifacts are rarer things that dont correspond to any of the existing non-adventurer inspirations. They can be relics like one of the swords of Mohammed (a court artifact to be displayed rather than something to fight your enemies with), they can also be great diamonds, or a weapon or crown once wielded by a known king of the past. As we mentioned in a previous diary, a unique or historical artifact is not always necessarily what it is claimed to be. As these artifacts are accepted as genuine by your contemporaries they do however make a certain impression on them, reflected in the artifact effects. In terms of rarity a much larger number of these unique artifacts will be rated higher than other artifacts you would run into in the game. Around 50 such artifacts can come to be found in the game, some of which might also exist in a court at start depending on the start date. Should these be lost at any point adventurers will be eligible to discover them again in their travels. What artifact is found during an adventurer depends on their skill as well as their destination, you wont find Quernbiter on a journey in India (and also not unless youve played past a certain year).
[Screenshot of an adventurer returning with an enormous diamond] Since adventurer inspirations are relatively more rare than other inspired characters we have also tried to balance the effects of unique artifacts in a way as to make them worthwhile even if they are meant to clearly not be supernatural.
This year has not been without news of ALL sorts and we do our best to be the first to give you all your Crusader Kings news! This time is no exception and we are glad to announce without any further ado, that Royal Court will be released February 8th, 2022! This means your throne room will be the center of your kingdom - like it should be. Become a master of languages, founder of cultures, collector of relics, and more on your own path to become the greatest ruler of all time! Witness the features you have been expecting and even some you didnt know you wanted. Feel free to check out our trailer [previewyoutube=E9DwUPsIWAg;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2021-11-23 17:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to another development diary for Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court!
Today I am here to talk a bit more about one of the more special inspiration types, the Adventurer.
... and also something you might be interested in, at the bottom of the Dev Diary
Read our Dev Diary #83 - Adventurers & Royal Court News
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
As mentioned in an earlier development diary inspiration will strike characters at various times and will mean that they have an artifact or a type of artifact that they want to make for someone who is willing to fund their work.
Adventurer
The adventurer is a somewhat unique type of inspiration in that it is much less clear what this person will present to you in the end. Instead this is a character who knows that they want to undertake a journey to explore and look for an interesting thing for you and your court.
[Screenshot of an inspired person being hired by the player] How far away a region that an adventurer will want to target with their expedition is mainly dependent on their skill and generally the adventurer already knows where they want to head when they appear to seek your patronage. A highly skilled adventurer might leave the choice of destination up to you. Regardless of what destination an adventurer will aspire to travel to they will ask you what type of thing they should be looking for. You can let them decide for themselves as their adventure unfolds or you can ask them for a general category of object from the get go (see below). Depending on the adventurer skill you may even be able to ask them to look for something unique, which will make them actively search for one of the unique historical artifacts that exist in the game. Nothing is entirely certain though, and even an adventurer of low skill might run into something interesting if you tell them to keep an eye open for anything interesting, it is just less likely than asking someone with higher skill to do so.
[Screenshot of an inspired person headed for Asia Minor, asking what type of artifact to look out for] The above are the most common choices, animal trophies, artwork or trinkets are all potential court artifacts that the adventurer can go looking for. When given free reins you may also end up with a piece of armor, or a weapon from that region (with a visual appearance and local technique to match). There is also a small chance that an adventurer who is told to trust their own instincts could return with something more rare and unique.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has run into a crocodile in a county along the Nile] As an adventurer sets out on a hunt for an artifact to please his employer he or she will send occasional updates to you. Apart from letting you know what happened in the various places the adventurer visited, these events will let you guide them further, potentially impacting the quality of what they bring you home in the end or the length of their journey.
[Screenshot of an adventurer complaining about an Irish marsh] The adventurer character will move around in the region their expedition has targeted, and events as well as their in-game location will reflect what barony they are currently in.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has gotten lost] Sometimes things dont go as expected. Getting lost is not all bad though, as it might mean reaching a region that was otherwise too far away from where they started.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who has run into bandits] Travelling abroad is always a risk, even for a seasoned adventurer.
[Screenshot of an adventurer who is discovered as never having left the home town of his employer, instead wasting the money on food and alcohol] Even the most promising explorers can sometimes turn out to be charlatans (or just be plagued by the stress of the expectations placed upon them).
[Screenshot of a letter from an adventurer in Asia Minor] Some updates are just short letters and the odd trinket.
[Screenshot of an adventurer returning from the Netherlands with the hide of a defeated Bear] Eventually the adventurer will return and present you with their find. Depending on the goal you gave them this might be anything from a trophy made from a rare animal to a unique artifact.
Unique Artifacts
[Screenshot of the ark of the Covenant, resting in an Indian court] Unique artifacts are rarer things that dont correspond to any of the existing non-adventurer inspirations. They can be relics like one of the swords of Mohammed (a court artifact to be displayed rather than something to fight your enemies with), they can also be great diamonds, or a weapon or crown once wielded by a known king of the past. As we mentioned in a previous diary, a unique or historical artifact is not always necessarily what it is claimed to be. As these artifacts are accepted as genuine by your contemporaries they do however make a certain impression on them, reflected in the artifact effects. In terms of rarity a much larger number of these unique artifacts will be rated higher than other artifacts you would run into in the game. Around 50 such artifacts can come to be found in the game, some of which might also exist in a court at start depending on the start date. Should these be lost at any point adventurers will be eligible to discover them again in their travels. What artifact is found during an adventurer depends on their skill as well as their destination, you wont find Quernbiter on a journey in India (and also not unless youve played past a certain year).
[Screenshot of an adventurer returning with an enormous diamond] Since adventurer inspirations are relatively more rare than other inspired characters we have also tried to balance the effects of unique artifacts in a way as to make them worthwhile even if they are meant to clearly not be supernatural.
And Now For Something Completely Different!
This year has not been without news of ALL sorts and we do our best to be the first to give you all your Crusader Kings news! This time is no exception and we are glad to announce without any further ado, that Royal Court will be released February 8th, 2022! This means your throne room will be the center of your kingdom - like it should be. Become a master of languages, founder of cultures, collector of relics, and more on your own path to become the greatest ruler of all time! Witness the features you have been expecting and even some you didnt know you wanted. Feel free to check out our trailer [previewyoutube=E9DwUPsIWAg;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2021-11-23 17:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #82 - Court Type Content
[ 2021-11-16 13:31:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello and welcome to another Dev Diary!
We talked about the Court Types system last week, and continuing on that, this week well showcase the different types of content you might experience depending on your chosen court type!
Read our [urlhttps://pdxint.at/30u2HDs]Dev Diary #82 - Court Type Content
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
This week well showcase the different types of content you might experience depending on your chosen court type.
[image showing a petition court event about an offensive monument; more common in diplomatic or administrative courts]
[image showing a petition court event about funding a cadastre; more common in administrative courts]
If your court is known as a place of learning, then you can expect events concerning scholarly matters to be more common. If its a place famed for its administrative nature, then events related to that will be more frequent.
These court event weighings dont eliminate events from the pool, they just alter their weights. Its not just petition events that are affected either, but the court events too.
[image showing court event about reselling a neighbouring countrys fashion; more common in diplomatic courts]
And if you think that the events are limited to the court room alone, nay nay. Weve added court type weighted events outside of court as well. Nothing is sacred, nowhere is safe.
[image of event where an academic disagreement is happening; more common in scholarly courts]
Likewise, some new content is based off of your grandeur level and even your amenities. For instance, if your lodgings are low enough that youre struggling to house everyone, that does give a _rather_ convenient excuse to evict guests and other scroungers from a cramped castle.
[order mass eviction decision]
[order mass eviction event]
On the inverse side of things, having so many rooms that you dont know what to do with them gives a bit of uhhh space for experimentation.
[exoticise a grand hall decision]
Redecorating in the style of a glamorous court is a bit on the nose, but not a bad way to crank up your own courts grandeur.
[exoticise a grand hall event]
Of course, for the _rustic_ look, you could redecorate after a less-than-fashionable court...
[exoticise a grand hall event, less grand court tooltip]
And, to round off, rulers whose courts lack grandeur that are willing to hold their nose a little can even burn some of their remaining dignity in exchange for skilled staff, rounding out their courts with experience even without pedigree.
[scraping the barrel event]
[ 2021-11-16 13:31:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #81 - A tour of your Royal Court (Interface)
When you reach the rank of King or Emperor as a Feudal or Clan Ruler, you have laid the foundation for your Royal Court. You can now go to it via a button in the main interface. This button highlights if there is something interesting to do in your Royal Court at this moment, such as if you have new Court Artifacts.
Button to open your Royal Court, with a notification You can also view anyone elses Royal Court via a button next to their Character.
Button to open someone else's Royal Court
Your Royal Court is split into three segments: Throne Room, Court Grandeur, and Court Artifacts When you enter your Royal Court, you end up in your Throne Room.
Throne Room view of Royal Court Here you can see various petitioners or other goings-on in your Court, and you can choose to interact with them. These types of events are described in Dev Diary 75. If any Inspired Characters are present or have projects in progress, they are also shown here, on the left side of the screen.
Interacting with a Court Event If there is not enough going on here, you can also choose to Hold Court, inviting Courtiers and Vassals across the Realm to grovel before you (which was shown in Dev Diary 72).
First step of Holding Court
A petitioner approaches while holding Court If this is your Lieges Court, you can even approach them to hear your reasonable requests, as seen in Dev Diary 74.
Button to Petition your Liege in your Liege's Court
Moving on to the second part of your Royal Court, which is an overview of your Court Grandeur. How much you have, various factors affecting it, and so on. Grandeur was explained a while ago, in Dev Diary 61. Basically, it is a measure of how well known your Court is, and each Level gives you further benefits. Your current Grandeur, Grandeur Baseline, and unlocked Grandeur Levels are shown on the large bar in the center. In the image below, we can see we are gaining Grandeur every month due to being below our Baseline.
Our current Level is 4: while we do not have enough Grandeur to maintain this Level, we had unlocked it before, and it will thus stay unlocked for 6 months, regardless how much Grandeur we have.
Grandeur Level staying unlocked for 6 months We can also see that our expected Grandeur Level is 7, which we are nowhere near fulfilling.
Expected Grandeur Level is Level 7 Grandeur is also reflected in other ways. If you have high Grandeur, the UI looks more luxurious, and new (non-Artifact) furniture appears in your court.
Your Royal Court at Level 0
Your Royal Court at Level 10 A large source of Grandeur is which Amenities are available to your Courtiers and visitors to your court. Providing excellent Amenities is sure to make your name well known across the world.
An overview of your Amenities
Popup graphic when you change your Amenities There are two other factors affecting Grandeur, Court Language and Court Types. Court Language was already explained in Dev Diary 78, so lets talk about Court Types.
With Court Types, you can choose which kind of Royal Court you want to foster. Perhaps one where martial prowess is admired, or where there is a whisper around every corner and a lover behind every curtain. You always have the choice between two Court Types, based on the Ethos of your Culture, and changing it costs Prestige. If your Culture changes, you can still keep your old Court Type. The type of Royal Court affects two things: what you get from your Grandeur Level, and what your Courtiers get from being part of the Court. While some Grandeur Levels you reach are always the same regardless of your Court Type, some change somewhat. So, in a Diplomatic Court, Grandeur Level 4 may see you gaining less Tyranny, while in a Warlike Court, you may gain more Levies.
Changing your Court Type As for Courtiers, each Courtier who stays at an especially Grand Royal Court for a certain period of time (5 years) will gain a special Courtier Trait based on the Court Type
Court Trait Icons Each Trait of this type has two different levels. If your Court is at Grandeur Level 5, Courtiers get the first level, while the second level will appear at Grandeur Level 8. The second level comes with extra bonuses and can be especially useful for those you plan to be your Vassals.
Effects of the two levels of the Warlike Courtier Trait
Last but certainly not least, are the Court Artifacts. We showed a few of them off in Dev Diary 69. In short, Court Artifacts are a special type of Artifacts. These are large furniture and other decorative items you display inside your Royal Court. This makes them distinct from your Inventory Artifacts described in last week's Dev Diary as you are not hauling them around everywhere. When entering this part of the Royal Court, you can see all spots where you can place Court Artifacts
A view of all slots for Court Artifacts Just like Inventory Artifacts, they give you a bonus if they are actively on display in your Royal Court. The primary purpose of Court Artifacts is to increase your Court Grandeur, but some have additional effects.
Zygmunt's Goblet in your Royal Court, and its tooltip For most Court Artifacts, there is more than one slot to place them. Perhaps that tapestry would look better on that other wall? Animated gif of considering different placements for your Banner in your Royal Court
That is all for this week, thank you for reading!
[ 2021-11-09 13:32:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there, and welcome to the eighty-first CK3 Dev Diary!
Today we are going to look at the experience of admiring your Royal Court, one of the paid features of the Expansion with the same name.
Most of the actual mechanics of the expansion should already be familiar to you if you have read previous Dev Diaries. I will refer back to these Dev Diaries where appropriate, so you can see this as a bit of a summary of what it means to preside over your own Royal Court.
That being said, we are going to talk a bit about Court Types, a minor feature for your Royal Court.
Read our Dev Diary #81 - A tour of your Royal Court (Interface)
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Visiting your Royal Court
When you reach the rank of King or Emperor as a Feudal or Clan Ruler, you have laid the foundation for your Royal Court. You can now go to it via a button in the main interface. This button highlights if there is something interesting to do in your Royal Court at this moment, such as if you have new Court Artifacts.
Button to open your Royal Court, with a notification You can also view anyone elses Royal Court via a button next to their Character.
Button to open someone else's Royal Court
The Throne Room
Your Royal Court is split into three segments: Throne Room, Court Grandeur, and Court Artifacts When you enter your Royal Court, you end up in your Throne Room.
Throne Room view of Royal Court Here you can see various petitioners or other goings-on in your Court, and you can choose to interact with them. These types of events are described in Dev Diary 75. If any Inspired Characters are present or have projects in progress, they are also shown here, on the left side of the screen.
Interacting with a Court Event If there is not enough going on here, you can also choose to Hold Court, inviting Courtiers and Vassals across the Realm to grovel before you (which was shown in Dev Diary 72).
First step of Holding Court
A petitioner approaches while holding Court If this is your Lieges Court, you can even approach them to hear your reasonable requests, as seen in Dev Diary 74.
Button to Petition your Liege in your Liege's Court
Grandeur and Amenities
Moving on to the second part of your Royal Court, which is an overview of your Court Grandeur. How much you have, various factors affecting it, and so on. Grandeur was explained a while ago, in Dev Diary 61. Basically, it is a measure of how well known your Court is, and each Level gives you further benefits. Your current Grandeur, Grandeur Baseline, and unlocked Grandeur Levels are shown on the large bar in the center. In the image below, we can see we are gaining Grandeur every month due to being below our Baseline.
Our current Level is 4: while we do not have enough Grandeur to maintain this Level, we had unlocked it before, and it will thus stay unlocked for 6 months, regardless how much Grandeur we have.
Grandeur Level staying unlocked for 6 months We can also see that our expected Grandeur Level is 7, which we are nowhere near fulfilling.
Expected Grandeur Level is Level 7 Grandeur is also reflected in other ways. If you have high Grandeur, the UI looks more luxurious, and new (non-Artifact) furniture appears in your court.
Your Royal Court at Level 0
Your Royal Court at Level 10 A large source of Grandeur is which Amenities are available to your Courtiers and visitors to your court. Providing excellent Amenities is sure to make your name well known across the world.
An overview of your Amenities
Popup graphic when you change your Amenities There are two other factors affecting Grandeur, Court Language and Court Types. Court Language was already explained in Dev Diary 78, so lets talk about Court Types.
Court Types
With Court Types, you can choose which kind of Royal Court you want to foster. Perhaps one where martial prowess is admired, or where there is a whisper around every corner and a lover behind every curtain. You always have the choice between two Court Types, based on the Ethos of your Culture, and changing it costs Prestige. If your Culture changes, you can still keep your old Court Type. The type of Royal Court affects two things: what you get from your Grandeur Level, and what your Courtiers get from being part of the Court. While some Grandeur Levels you reach are always the same regardless of your Court Type, some change somewhat. So, in a Diplomatic Court, Grandeur Level 4 may see you gaining less Tyranny, while in a Warlike Court, you may gain more Levies.
Changing your Court Type As for Courtiers, each Courtier who stays at an especially Grand Royal Court for a certain period of time (5 years) will gain a special Courtier Trait based on the Court Type
Court Trait Icons Each Trait of this type has two different levels. If your Court is at Grandeur Level 5, Courtiers get the first level, while the second level will appear at Grandeur Level 8. The second level comes with extra bonuses and can be especially useful for those you plan to be your Vassals.
Effects of the two levels of the Warlike Courtier Trait
Court Artifacts
Last but certainly not least, are the Court Artifacts. We showed a few of them off in Dev Diary 69. In short, Court Artifacts are a special type of Artifacts. These are large furniture and other decorative items you display inside your Royal Court. This makes them distinct from your Inventory Artifacts described in last week's Dev Diary as you are not hauling them around everywhere. When entering this part of the Royal Court, you can see all spots where you can place Court Artifacts
A view of all slots for Court Artifacts Just like Inventory Artifacts, they give you a bonus if they are actively on display in your Royal Court. The primary purpose of Court Artifacts is to increase your Court Grandeur, but some have additional effects.
Zygmunt's Goblet in your Royal Court, and its tooltip For most Court Artifacts, there is more than one slot to place them. Perhaps that tapestry would look better on that other wall? Animated gif of considering different placements for your Banner in your Royal Court
End of the Tour
That is all for this week, thank you for reading!
[ 2021-11-09 13:32:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #82 - Is That a Dagger in Your Pocket?
Feast thine eyes on the inventory screen! Instead of putting all of the goodies into a big pile, weve made an inventory window showing whats currently equipped and how many of each category you can wear.
[image of inventory screen] Equipable artifacts fall into the following categories; crown, regalia, weapon, armor, and lastly, trinkets. Most of these categories speak for themselves but trinkets, so what are they you may ask? The answer is a myriad of things; they can be brooches, dried flowers, even a worm on a string. You can also sort after these categories, making it easy to find what youre looking for when you want to equip, repair, or just browse your inventory.
[image of inventory screen: artifact section] In the Artifact Details, you can read the artifacts history, as well as see what people are claimants. Watch out - some of these people may be looking to steal the artifact away from you
[image showing artifact details: history tab] Of course, it goes both ways! Did your stupid brother inherit the family heirloom? You can duel, declare war, or steal it as long as you have a claim.
[image showing artifact details: claimants tab] Artifacts wear down when on your person versus when they are on display in the court. So keep that in mind as it can be costly in the long run to equip everything for the bonuses if you're not making full use of them. Since the Antiquarian is such a vital figure in maintaining and making full use of your artifacts, theres a shortcut to recruiting or just looking at who has that position in your court.
[image showing the Antiquarian court position info] As shown in the image, the Antiquarian unlocks the ability to Reforge and Repair, as well as Commissioning Artifacts.
[image showing the Reforge Artifact interaction]
Inspirations are fickle like creativity, so if you have the gold and you want something commissioned, you can get in touch with local artisans through the Commission Artifact decision. An additional benefit of commissioning an artifact is that you get to decide whats being made.
[image showing the commission artifact decision; artifact selection] Now you might wonder, why would I ever subject myself to the whims and possible long time for a person to become inspired if I can just go to the local artisans and get what I want? You see, even if inspirations appear as fickle as love during springtime, its that little extra spice a creators passion that permeates through the final product. Its that warm feeling of love for the craft that the beholder can feel just by looking at it, its something thats not always present in a commissioned piece. Ah, my apologies, I appeared to have been carried away there for a brief moment by my muse. What I meant to say is that in gameplay terms, that means that inspired people can create artifacts of higher quality while the commission artisans will do the bare minimum and therefore be of the lowest quality.
[image showing the inspiration progress] Whether a passion project or not, creating something takes time. We ask for your understanding and hope that you continue to enjoy Crusader Kings 3! This Dev Diary was ghostwritten by the mysterious CC.
[ 2021-11-02 13:37:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Lets talk about artifacts and the systems surrounding it.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy some neat new features from the team and we can't wait to hear your thoughts and feedback!
Read our Dev Diary #80 - Is That a Dagger in Your Pocket?
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Artifacts can be divided into two categories, inventory and court, which is also where the items are stored. This dev diary will focus on the former one, so the inventory.
Inventory system
Feast thine eyes on the inventory screen! Instead of putting all of the goodies into a big pile, weve made an inventory window showing whats currently equipped and how many of each category you can wear.
[image of inventory screen] Equipable artifacts fall into the following categories; crown, regalia, weapon, armor, and lastly, trinkets. Most of these categories speak for themselves but trinkets, so what are they you may ask? The answer is a myriad of things; they can be brooches, dried flowers, even a worm on a string. You can also sort after these categories, making it easy to find what youre looking for when you want to equip, repair, or just browse your inventory.
[image of inventory screen: artifact section] In the Artifact Details, you can read the artifacts history, as well as see what people are claimants. Watch out - some of these people may be looking to steal the artifact away from you
[image showing artifact details: history tab] Of course, it goes both ways! Did your stupid brother inherit the family heirloom? You can duel, declare war, or steal it as long as you have a claim.
[image showing artifact details: claimants tab] Artifacts wear down when on your person versus when they are on display in the court. So keep that in mind as it can be costly in the long run to equip everything for the bonuses if you're not making full use of them. Since the Antiquarian is such a vital figure in maintaining and making full use of your artifacts, theres a shortcut to recruiting or just looking at who has that position in your court.
[image showing the Antiquarian court position info] As shown in the image, the Antiquarian unlocks the ability to Reforge and Repair, as well as Commissioning Artifacts.
[image showing the Reforge Artifact interaction]
Commission Artifacts
Inspirations are fickle like creativity, so if you have the gold and you want something commissioned, you can get in touch with local artisans through the Commission Artifact decision. An additional benefit of commissioning an artifact is that you get to decide whats being made.
[image showing the commission artifact decision; artifact selection] Now you might wonder, why would I ever subject myself to the whims and possible long time for a person to become inspired if I can just go to the local artisans and get what I want? You see, even if inspirations appear as fickle as love during springtime, its that little extra spice a creators passion that permeates through the final product. Its that warm feeling of love for the craft that the beholder can feel just by looking at it, its something thats not always present in a commissioned piece. Ah, my apologies, I appeared to have been carried away there for a brief moment by my muse. What I meant to say is that in gameplay terms, that means that inspired people can create artifacts of higher quality while the commission artisans will do the bare minimum and therefore be of the lowest quality.
[image showing the inspiration progress] Whether a passion project or not, creating something takes time. We ask for your understanding and hope that you continue to enjoy Crusader Kings 3! This Dev Diary was ghostwritten by the mysterious CC.
[ 2021-11-02 13:37:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Timing in Regards to Royal Court
[ 2021-10-26 14:32:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone,
This year has been a long and interesting one, to be certain, but we are here all together to make sure that our community gets the product that we have all been waiting for and deserve. Earlier this year, we informed you all that we were working hard to make sure that Royal Court was up to our standards.
Royal Court is not only the first expansion for CK3, but it will also propose a set of features entirely new to the CK series, including cultural evolution and language. It is very much breaking new ground, and as such, we are experimenting at every turn.
With that in mind we are not, at the moment, entirely satisfied with Royal Court's progress, especially regarding its stability. There are a number of bugs we really need to iron out, and are taking more time to make sure it is in line with the standards you would expect from us.
We also understand the frustration that delays cause, but we would like to make sure we are always as forthcoming as possible and that you hear the news directly from us. Its a tricky balance between sentiments like It will release whenever we finish making sure it is ready and things like giving exact timelines only to make necessary but upsetting changes to that timeline when we do actually need time to review and make those changes.
That being said, you can look forward to news about the 2022 release date Soon!
In the meantime, you can catch up on all the previous points in our Royal Court FAQ!
All of our team is working hard to follow their projects through to completion and making sure that all the tasks that they started are fully realized and supported. This means they are going to keep up their great work to make sure that Royal Court is the success that both their efforts and your expectations deserve.
We are super grateful for all the dedication and passion you have shown for Crusader Kings III leading up to this point. Your thoughts and feedback on the systems, features, and integration of Royal Court have led to some interesting changes and alterations that we may or may not have otherwise considered!
So thank you everyone for your time and constructive feedback.
We appreciate your understanding and patience.
Cheers,
[Official Thread on the forums]
[ 2021-10-26 14:32:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #79 - An Update on Cultures
[ 2021-10-26 12:31:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
Weve talked plenty about cultures already at this point, but I wanted to give you a brief update on what weve done since the initial reveal of the culture rework.
Since then, weve taken some time to add additional functionality based on your feedback!
Read our Dev Diary #79 - An Update on Cultures
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Greetings!
Weve talked plenty about cultures already at this point, but I wanted to give you a brief update on what weve done since the initial reveal of the culture rework. Since then, weve taken some time to add additional functionality based on your feedback!
Previously, you could only add new traditions to a culture to fill out any empty tradition slots you may have. If you wanted to change anything regarding your culture, you would have to create a new one. Which begs the question. What if I want to keep the culture I already have? Or why can I not replace that one tradition to make my culture perfect? Fret not. The cultural head has gained the ability to change, or reform if you will, their culture in order to change it without the need to create a new culture. The cultural head cannot replace everything mind you, but may change the ethos, the martial custom, and any tradition. If you want to change any of the remaining pillars youll have to create a new culture, either by diverging or forming a hybrid. Do note that you need to own the Royal Court expansion to reform your culture, similar to creating a culture. Even without the DLC, you can always add new traditions to fill out any empty slots.
Reasoning for what you are able to change this way is twofold. First, changing heritage or language for an existing culture felt a bit off. While a language in reality does evolve over time, that is something we dont really represent in the game, which makes it weird to simply replace a language. And you cant really change your heritage in the same vein as, say, a tradition. Secondly, we wanted to make sure that you still have a valid reason to create a divergent culture. The two approaches are slightly similar in functionality, but it is important that both reforming and diverging a culture serves different purposes and that the distinction between the two is clear.
[Image showing the options to reform or diverge a culture]
The major difference is, as mentioned above, that reforming only allows you to change certain aspects about a culture, while diverging allows for additional possibilities. A second significant difference is the cost. Replacing a pillar will cost you prestige. The ethos in particular includes a rather hefty prestige cost that should make it rather difficult to repeatedly change it over the course of a campaign. You are, however, free to pick any ethos, regardless of circumstances.
[Image of the ethos replacement window]
Traditions will also be more expensive to replace. Instead of just a flat increase, replacing a tradition increases the prestige cost by 50%. The cost penalty will therefore be relative to how well your culture matches any given tradition, making the additional cost more harsh for already expensive (and less compatible) traditions.
[Image showing the prestige cost for the Agrarian tradition when replacing a tradition]
These additional costs will make reforming or diverging your culture easier or more difficult depending on your situation. Attempting to diverge from a large and unified culture, such as Greek when playing as the Byzantine emperor, will be rather expensive and the less viable option. Especially if you only want to change a tradition or two. Reforming your culture will be cheaper, allowing you to more easily tweak your culture over time.
If you are playing as the cultural head of a widely spread culture, such as Andalusian, diverging might instead be your preferred solution. Diverging from a culture that is spread out across multiple realms is significantly cheaper, allowing you to instead spend the prestige on replacing additional traditions or save it for something else entirely. Changing pillars is, for example, free when diverging, since you are forced to change at least one pillar in order to be able to create your new culture.
Finally, you might have noticed the hourglass in the above screenshots. This is the establishment rate. Whenever you add or replace a tradition, or change a pillar, it will take some time before the change is applied. The time required for a change to be fully adopted mainly depends on your cultures size. Larger cultures will logically gravitate towards a slower establishment rate. The duration is also increased whenever you replace an existing tradition. As such, adding a completely new tradition to your culture is not only cheaper, but it will go faster as well. This is important because you may only have one cultural change pending at any given time. If you replace a tradition with something else, you will have to wait until that tradition has been fully adopted before you can change your culture again. Diverging, on the other hand, still allows you to do sweeping changes and they take effect immediately as you create a new culture.
[Image of the establishment rate tooltip]
That about sums up all of the additional changes weve done. In short, the ambition here is to allow you to shape your culture more freely in the way you want, without having to always resort to doing something that might feel a bit heavy handed. On a final note, Id like to thank you for providing us with feedback and voicing your opinions! Giving valid and constructive criticism does, at times, pay off.
[ 2021-10-26 12:31:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #78 - Taking Language to Court
[ 2021-10-19 12:33:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello there, and welcome to the 78th CK3 Dev Diary!
I am Mrop, one of the User Experience Designers on CK3. Last dev diary, we had a look at languages your Character can learn on their own.
Today, we are having a look at how language relates to your Royal Court: Your Court Language.
Read our Dev Diary #78 - Taking Language to Court
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Court Language in History
Historically, it was not always so that nobles spoke the same language as the commoners. Rather, it was seen as more prestigious to speak another countrys language to show that you were cultivated enough to suck up to your superiors.
One of the most well known examples of this is how French was spoken across many courts across Europe around the reign of Louis XIV. This is outside the timeframe of Crusader Kings, but there are earlier examples; Norman nobles who invaded England together with William the Conqueror continued to speak French, influencing the development of the English language as we know it today.
Court Language and Grandeur
Each Ruler with a Royal Court has a language chosen as their Court Language. At the start of the game this is determined by what historically was used. If you get a Royal Court later, its Court Language will simply be your native language. You can, of course, choose to change it!
Each language you can pick as your Court Language changes the Court Grandeur Baseline. You may recall that Grandeur and this Baseline was explained in Dev Diary 61. As a refresher, your Court Grandeur measures how impressive your Royal Court is. Each month, it moves slowly towards the Baseline value. Changing your Court Language will therefore take time to actually have an effect on your courts Grandeur.
So how much Grandeur can you get from a certain Court Language?
The largest share of Court Grandeur comes from the pecking order of all Royal Courts who speak that language.
The Royal Court with the highest Court Grandeur is considered the leader of that language, and gains Court Grandeur based on how many Royal Courts speak that language. So if you are the leader of a language, you want as many Courts as possible to adopt it! Naturally, you only gain this Grandeur if you can actually speak the language!
On the other hand, if you are not the grandest Court of the language, you gain Court Grandeur based on the difference of your Grandeur, and the Grandeur of the leading Court. Speaking the Language is not required for this bonus, so even if your neighbors have a language you cannot speak you can attempt to impress them by following their lead.
In addition to this pecking order, you also gain Grandeur for each County in your Realm that speaks your Court Language, but only if you know the language personally. Finally, if your Court Language is also your native Language, you gain an extra 25% bonus to all the impacts your Court Language has on your Court Grandeur.
Here is an example of a calculation for having your native Language as Court Language (actual values are very much temporary):
Since you gain extra Grandeur for matching your Court Language with your native Language, you may want to create a new Hybrid or Divergent Culture (as described in Dev Diary 65) to adapt to the language your Realm or Court prefers.
All in all, this means that weaker and less grand Royal Courts will tend to choose the Court Language of a local, more grand Royal Court. The AI is also more restricted than players, such as taking the Faith of the speakers of the Court Language into account.
Eventually, once your Royal Court becomes grand enough, it is usually time to choose a language of your own as the Court Language, and start attracting lesser Courts to adopt it.
Finding Court Language in the Game
You can, as shown above, select your Court Language inside your Royal Court, which takes you to a special map mode of all Court Languages in the world.
You can also directly adopt the language of a certain Culture by clicking on the button next to the language in that Cultures own View.
Beware however, not everyone may speak your Court Language that well (including yourself), so the threat of embarrassment is ever present. Just like in real life.
An embarrassing situation occurs when one of your Vassals cannot speak your Court Language
Court Language Spread
Seeing your Court Language spread is one major way to understand how influential your court becomes over the years.
To see Court Languages spread, let us have a look at the game! Here, each Royal Court that speaks the same Court Language is shown on the map.
Here is the map at game start in 867 AD. You can see languages such as Arabic being used in the Habbari Sultanate (roughly in modern day Pakistan), and how the king of Bulgaria has chosen Greek due to the influence of nearby Byzantium.
Court Languages Map in 867
100 years later, Magadhan is slowly becoming more popular in India, and the Kingdom of Italy have adopted French as their Court Language.
Court Languages Map in 967
In 1067, a century later, Greek is spreading to the newly formed Kingdoms in the Empire of Khazaria. Some new languages like Berber also pop up.
Court Languages Map in 1067
Finally, in 1167, we see four languages dominate the courts of the world. Greek has spread through the now shattered Empire of Khazaria, and is also making its way down to Africa. At the same time, there is still room for smaller Court Languages like Shaz Turkic to thrive.
Court Languages Map in 1167
That is all for now; thank you for reading!
[ 2021-10-19 12:33:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #77 - Becoming a Polyglot
[ 2021-10-12 12:44:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
As you all know, one of the new Cultural Pillars each Culture has is their native Language. Now, what effect does language have? At its very core, Languages affect the Baseline acceptance between cultures - if two Cultures share the same Language Pillar, theyll like each other better.
But thats not all, characters can also learn additional languages!
Read our Dev Diary #77 - In the Event of Court Events
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
So, why do you want to learn a language? Knowing a language cuts the (rather hefty) opinion penalties for Different Culture in half, both for Characters and Counties. Planning on conquering a foreign kingdom? Start your conquest by mastering their language, making subsequent control of your new subjects just that much easier! The less accepted your culture is, the more impact learning a language will have.
Now for the more pertinent question, how do you learn another language? You learn new languages through scheming!
[Image showing the Learn Language interaction]
[Image showing the Start Scheme window]
Learn Language is a Learning-based scheme, where progress and chance of success are primarily derived from how scholarly your character is. This scheme is available to everyone, even young children (who have a vastly increased chance of success/progress, by virtue of being young, less tired, and having working brains). It targets someone who natively speaks the language, having you try to emulate them. While the exact target you choose is less important than in other types of schemes, you might still get opportunities to interact with them.
Now, learning languages takes quite some time. Though its possible to significantly speed up the process by employing a Court Tutor!
[Image of a Court Tutor]
You will also find that bonuses for this scheme have been added throughout the existing Lifestyle trees. Some examples:
Adaptive Traditions - Unlocks an additional Learn Language Scheme
Embassies - Increases Scheme Power
Chains of Loyalty - Increases Scheme Power
Pedagogy - Increases Scheme Success Chance
Open-Minded - Increases the Language Limit
Smooth Operator - Increases the Language Limit
If the scheme is invalidated by, for example, the target dying, your progress is retained and you get the opportunity to choose a new target.
[Image of Invalidation Event]
When we first talked about languages, we had some people (rightfully) point out that decreasing the chance of success the more languages you know isnt very logical. We still needed a way to prevent characters from knowing all the languages in the world, and thus we introduced the concept of a Foreign Language Limit. This represents how many languages a character can comfortably remember.
[Image of Language Limit]
If a character exceeds their Foreign Language Limit, they will start getting events about feeling overwhelmed, giving you the choice between forgetting a language or gaining stress. In a sense, this system is very similar to how we handle characters having too many lovers.
Of course, a character can never forget the language that is native to their culture, and that language isnt included in the limit (as you can see in the above screenshot, Telugu isnt included in the limit as it is his native language).
The Foreign Language Limit is affected by many things, but primarily by a characters Learning score, where every 5 attribute points increases the limit by one.
With this change, weve made it so that the more languages you know, the higher your success chance is for learning additional languages. You have the basics down already, after all.
[Image of a success chance breakdown]
Now, the process of learning a language can be quite entertaining. There are many events that can happen along the way; being helped by friends or family, opposed by rivals, and so on. Here are a handful of examples of what can happen during the course of learning a language:
[Image of your Court Tutor helping you]
If you have a particularly good Court Tutor, they can guide your efforts along very speedily.
[Image of a rival ruining your notes]
Beware your rivals, lest they release ink-soaked birds in your study...
[Image of a very amorous misunderstanding]
Sometimes learning a language doesnt result in what youd expect...
[Image of the Byzantine Emperor with a Its just a prank, bro-smile]
Sometimes your target might find your efforts laughable, and try to make fun of you.
[Image of a merchant offering you a book]
Of course, there is an opportunity to gain a trinket-slot item thatll help your efforts along.
[Image of someone offering to help]
As learning a language isnt secret, sometimes youll get offers from other rulers to help you for a price.
When the scheme completes, you have a chance of success and failure. If youre brave, you might even choose to test your new abilities right away by penning a letter to your target!
[Image of a successful scheme]
[Image of a failed scheme]
Of course, you might find that others are emulating you in their efforts to learn your language. This gives you the opportunity to praise their efforts, or perhaps youd rather ridicule them?
[Image of someone learning your language]
Thats it for this week! Now, this isnt the only way languages are used in the game next week we will dive into another use for them, something which ties directly into the mechanics of the Royal Court!
[ 2021-10-12 12:44:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #76 - The Royal Audio
[ 2021-10-05 12:33:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello!
Welcome to another Dev Diary! This time Im back to tell and show you a little behind the scenes of what we have been doing with Audio & Music for Royal Court
Read our Dev Diary #76 - The Royal Audio
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
The room matters!
The introduction of Court View made us really excited in the Audio Dept and also a new challenge! After working so long with games that mainly use paper maps, and finally having a 3D space there was some extra room to play around with Sound Design and also getting a bit creative.
Of course, we want to add sound effects onto certain different objects like fireplaces and chandeliers and also including room ambiences for each type. But we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to give more life to the court rooms by adding something we call walla. Or perhaps known more for the common tongue as a crowd recording.
Since restrictions did start to loosen up more in Stockholm, and also its a fun activity, we thought about recording some of our team members from the CK team (also more colleagues from other projects)
Now you might be wondering how you even do something like this? Of course, it requires a bit of patience and having a couple of microphones!
So this is me and the Sound Designer working on Royal Court, sitting down in one of the Sound Studios and doing pre-work before the big recording session. So were testing out all the equipment, making sure all the cable works as intended and it all sounds great!
After all that we did manage to book the biggest room we have in the office, which is called the Library. Not only was it to ensure that we would be able to have distance between all people while recording all their voices, but also it had the best acoustics to match the size of the Court Rooms.
The next question would be what kind of script we were using for this recording. Its rather difficult to record walla in all languages, so instead, we did use a script made of Latin. Not because that we all are fluent in Latin (would have been cool though!) but from my experience that has been some of the best languages to use when you need some gibberish talk in the background. Especially since we had a big mix of people with different accents.
It was a fun big session we had and everyone was happy to be part of such a big team event again after not seeing each other for such a long time in person!
So we did go a bit extra to make these new fancy rooms in CK3 soundsounding more alive and enhance the experience for you players. :)
How will all this sound in the end? It will change depending on your Court Grandeur level! The higher, the more of the crowd will you hear in the room, and this will also work the other way around, so less Grandeur the fewer people.
Royal Tunes
Hi everyone, its Yannick and Robin from Audinity. After having written music for several Paradox games and expansions, were happy to be on board again for CK3: Royal Court and share some insights into the new music for this expansion!
The soundtrack for this Expansion will consist of some new ambient Mood Tracks, Cue Tracks and even a new Main Theme.
The main direction for these new tracks was trying to make them sound a bit different compared to the existing music from the base game. Medieval music can have many different sounds, but since we are at the Royal Court this time, the keyword for the music for this Expansion was Royal. So you can hear some powerful fanfares, noble strings, and a medieval guitar ensemble that make you feel like standing right in the Kings hall.
While the Mood Tracks will add some noble flavours to the general ambient music, the Cue Tracks will play when you are Holding Court in your Kingdom. And when starting the game, the new Main Theme will welcome you to this Expansion and to the Royal Court!
We did not only record several fantastic solo musicians playing some fancy historical instruments for this soundtrack, we also wanted to go a bit extra on the orchestral side, so we actually went to Prague and recorded the music live with the FILMharmonic Orchestra at Smecky Music Studios!
This was the studio before the recording session...
...and this is what it looked like during the session with over 60 great musicians at work!
Two happy composers :)
We could keep writing about the music, but we think you get the best insight into the soundtrack for CK3: Royal Court when listening to some of the music itself!
So we are happy to share with you the Holding Court Cue Track for Western Europe as a preview!
[previewyoutube=530ZNj8FUb0;full][/previewyoutube]
So back to Metal King, I hope you enjoyed this weeks Dev Diary, understand it might not tell you so much about the features but at least we got to show you a little behind the scenes when we do work with Sound Design & Music.
[ 2021-10-05 12:33:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #75 - In the Event of Court Events
[ 2021-09-28 16:13:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
In todays dev diary, well be going over the new court-type event. New stories & drama to be lived!
Read our Dev Diary #75 - In the Event of Court Events
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
many of you will likely have seen them a bit already in a few preceding dev diaries, but for the rest, allow me to formally introduce court-type events:
This new event type is seen exclusively within the court view, where they replace standard character-type events.
We added these because one of the major design limitations with character-type events is that theyre uhh theyre small. Really, really, really small, and having comparatively little space to work with means they impose a lot of restrictions on their use.
Those of you who mod, or have dabbled at modding, will likely know what Im talking about: generally, a character event can only fit about three paragraphs of copy and 3-4 options before it starts to look a little naff. Less if there are characters or titles involved with very long names, or if you have to do a lot of paragraphing.
There are good reasons for them to be this small - they get in the way less when popping up, it encourages concise delivery of information, and it frames the portrait characters in each event nicely.
For the court scene, these considerations are (generally) moot, so we wanted to play around with a more liberal event format. We dont need to worry about framing characters in the traditional sense since we show them in the scene, the player always opts into a court-type event and thus cant have one pop-up unexpectedly, and though information (and options) still need to be reasonably concise, its nice to have a little room to flex the meaning of concise somewhat.
From a players perspective, youll mostly interact with court-type events through the not-at-all-confusingly-named court events pool. Similar to random yearlies, court events reflect the life of your court just existing, with all the petty drama and courtly intrigue youd expect from a medieval monarchs household. They primarily involve characters consistently within your court (rather than far-flung vassals or guests), and often tie into court grandeur and your different levels of amenities.
Other than their tone, size, and occasional number of options, the biggest differences that players will notice are their usage of different camera shots instead of backgrounds and portraits
and their optional nature. Unlike yearly events, court events are opt-in, meaning that you dont have to take them if you dont want to, in which case their default (neutral-ish) option will be selected after a long-ish time-out period.
To open a court event, you simply click on a button thatll appear floating over one of your courts relevant characters. Whenever youve got court events you could be checking, youll be notified via the Royal Court button in the right-hand panel.
From a scripting perspective, court-type events share a fair amount of DNA with character-type events, but differ mostly in the form of their court_scene block.
Usually, Id go on to explain everything in a bit more depth inside the dev diary itself, but since court-type events can be tricksy to script till you get the hang of em, weve included an example court-type event inside one of the event files that breaks down their make-up:
^^ Hopefully, this should be a solid annotated example, but just in case, heres a few pre-emptive clarifications:
1) Every court-type event must have a button character, even if that character is just your character, so that must always be set up.
2) The group parameter defines which spot in the scene that character stands in. These groups themselves are scriptable (with a bit of work) elsewhere, so you can arrange characters inside the court however you like. The groups shown in the example actually contain multiple different preset positions within the court scene, one of which is selected randomly for each event when it tries to fire.
3) For animations, we can access all the standard ones, plus a slew of new animations created specifically for the court scene.
Finally, just for fun, lets have some more court events:
Oh, right, yes, I titled the dev diary and friend too, didnt I? Welp, the new court-type isnt the only event type were adding with this expansion (just the most exciting). We also have the new duel event type!
Duels were added as part of our first flavour pack, but Im sure youve all noticed that the space for em is pretty limited, and the animations dont work so well for this context. Welp, weve revamped both of those with this new type, giving duels a face-lift:
Naturally, the weapon held by either character does correspond to their signature weapon type, or whatever weapon artefact they have equipped (if theyve got one).
And thats all from me, folks. As ever, Ill be around in the comments for an hour or so to answer questions, but otherwise, see yall next diary!
[ 2021-09-28 16:13:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #74 - Please Kaiser, Can I Have Some More?
[ 2021-09-21 12:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings counts and dukes!
Today we will be looking at The Royal Court from a different perspective: your perspective!
While being a queen or emperor is great and all, sometimes it can be a bit of a drag to manage all those vying subjects. Sometimes, you just want to rule a small corner of a mightier realm, and enjoy the benefits of the Emperors protection in exchange for your service. While a duchess doesnt have their own Royal Court, they can interact with their Lieges via two new decisions.
Read our Dev Diary #74 - Please Kaiser, Can I Have Some More?
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Petition Liege
Player vassals can approach their King-or-above ranked Liege with a Petition at any time through a new decision, providing they have enough Prestige, there is something they can ask for, and they havent done so in the last 5 years.
The possibilities include asking for a position on your Lieges Council, asking for a Title you hold a claim on, or dismantling an unruly Faction in your own realm. There are currently 14 different options, each having some equivalent in the Hold Court events brought to Lieges by AI vassals, ranging from helping you convert your lands to paying off your debts.
This will allow you to ask for things directly without resorting immediately to war, which will remain a last resort when you need to topple a king whose tolerance of border-gore clearly proves their illegitimacy.
It is up to the Liege whether to receive a Petitioner, though outright refusing will damage relations and be seen as slightly tyrannical. The request itself may also be rejected once heard, and the odds of acceptance by the AI will be tipped more in your favor if you make reasonable requests and maintain good relations; after all, your boss doesnt want to be seen as unreasonable.
If they are astute, your Liege may also ask for something in return for granting your Petition, such as a Favor Hook or a bit of Golda counter you can of course reject, leaving you both empty-handed.
If a Liege is not being very forthcoming, you can also attempt to convince or outsmart a trusted advisor as a last resort, at the cost of some Prestige. You will need to pass a skill check in a relevant area, usually against one of your Lieges councillors, or have an ally near to the thronethe Kings wife perhapswhose assent will force your Lieges hand.
If you are a Liege, you will currently only interact with this content if you happen to have another player as your vassal and they make their ownno doubt outrageousrequests.
The second decision is available to both players and the AI.
Pay Homage
Homage represents the formal pledge of loyalty by a feudal lord to their Liege, and provides Opinion, Renown, and Prestige to both parties, providing the occasion goes smoothly.
This decision costs some Prestige to initiate, is only available to Feudal and Clan vassals, and can only be undertaken once per Liege. If the ruler changes or dies, you can make a new pledge of allegiance to their replacement.
As with Petition Liege, this decision can be rejected outright, and is not totally without risk even if they let you through the door. There is a great deal of pressure for such an important event to go well, and not all lords and ladies are made for public speaking.
Things can go awry in a variety of ways, depending on the Petitioners skills and other factors: Have you put in the hours to learn Norman, or merely practised a few key lines the night before on the road to Windsor? Will your Shah empathise with your stammer, or imitate it in front of the entire Persian court? Will you forever more be called the Clumsy by your vindictive Sultan, simply because you lost your balance once?
If something does go wrong, it is up to the Liege to decide if they will let it gogiving your rival the opportunity to publicly mock your clumsiness might not be the best idea. If they do decide to embarrass you, you will lose some Prestige and Opinion with your Liege, instead of gaining them.
Regardless of the outcome, both your Dynasties will gain a small amount of Renown, and the rewards are increased by offering gifts in addition to your pledge, such as a Contract change in favor of your Liege.
That broadly covers these two new decisions, so Ill leave it there for now!
[ 2021-09-21 12:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Paradox Grand Strategy Sale is back on Steam!
[ 2021-09-16 17:51:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Paradox Grand Strategy Sale is here!
Up to 20% discount on Crusader Kings III & Flavour Pack "Northern Lords"!
Bring your friends in CK3, make them your vassals and then in the darkness bind them
Buy for you or a friend here: Crusader Kings III
[ 2021-09-16 17:51:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #73 - Serving On Her Majesty's Court
[ 2021-09-14 12:33:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
In the update that will launch alongside the Royal Court expansion, we will introduce Court Positions - which can be seen as an evolution of CK2s Minor Titles with a number of new improvements.
While the old feature from CK2 had all sorts of various honorary titles, we wanted to focus on the most important positions at your court. Jobs that are relevant directly to you as a ruler, or that of your court.
Read our Dev Diary #73 - Serving On Her Majesty's Court
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Court Positions include a number of different positions, such as a Court Tutor, or Seneschal. Most positions imply that the appointed character has an actual job at your court and provides you with their services. That doesnt mean we havent added any of the classical honorary positions though. Expect to also be able to appoint a Master of the Hunt, Master of the Horse, or (if you are playing as England) a Keeper of the Swans.
Each position will provide you with a set of bonuses, mostly in the form of various modifiers, but certain positions have more interesting benefits as well. For example, a Court Tutor increases the chances for children at your court to receive a better education trait.
Not all characters are equally fit to serve in any given position. Their skills and traits have a significant impact on how good they are at their job. This is reflected in their Aptitude. A position uses one or several skills, such as Learning for a Court Physician, which is the main factor for what Aptitude a character will have. Each position also has a number of traits that may increase (or even decrease!) their Aptitude further. Aptitude is measured on a scale in five steps, ranging from terrible to excellent. The higher the Aptitude is, the greater the benefit. Lets look at the Seneschal as an example. A character with the lowest Aptitude will only grant you a Control Growth bonus of +0.1, while a character with the highest possible Aptitude will give you +0.5.
[Image showing the Aptitude for a court position]
Unlike CK2, hiring a character for a position is actually going to cost you, as each Court Position has an associated salary that you will be paying for out of your own pocket. While the salary for any given position wont be very expensive, they will stack up. Youll have to make a decision on how much gold you are willing to spend on all of your appointed positions, and if the characters you have available are skilled enough to warrant the salary.
As you may remember from Summer Teaser #3, weve gone through several old events to make sure that if you have someone appointed in a relevant position, they can appear to provide extra options or affect an outcome to be more favourable. Additionally, some positions may appear in events related to schemes. Weve also added Cultural Traditions that increase the Aptitude of specific positions for characters of that culture, or even unlock a position you normally wouldnt have access to! The goal is to make sure that Court Positions feel like an integral part of the game, and to have them feel as immersive as possible.
Before we wrap up, lets take a look at a few examples of what some of the different Court Positions can do for you.
The Court Physician has been updated to be a fully fledged Court Position and make use of the new system. As youd expect, the appointed character will take care of the sick people within your court. Court Physicians have a lower salary than most, so you should in practice always be able to afford one. If you have the Royal Court expansion, having a Court Physician also provides you with a small bonus to your grandeur. A skilled physician was often seen as very prestigious after all.
[Image of the Court Physician Court Position]
Next is the Bodyguard. You can hire up to two Bodyguards at the same time. Bodyguards dont provide any passive modifiers like most other positions, but do have two fairly powerful bonuses. They have a chance to prevent assassination attempts on you, and they reduce the risks of participating in battles, as long as both of you partake in the same battle. So make sure that your Bodyguards have been appointed as your knights to make the most use of them. But beware! Bodyguards are very powerful agents should they join a scheme against you. Keep an eye on their opinion to avoid any backstabbing shenanigans!
[Image of the Bodyguard Court Position]
Another interesting position is the Food Taster. Any self-respecting (and perhaps paranoid) ruler should have one. A Food Taster not only gives you some protection against hostile schemes, they may even prevent a poison-related murder attempt against you! By, of course, eating your food and dying in your place Just like a Bodyguard, a Food Taster is also a powerful agent should they join in on a scheme against you.
[Image of the Food Taster Court Position]
Lets take a look at the Court Gardener. This court position is unlocked by a cultural tradition - Garden Architects. Gardeners provide a passive opinion bonus for your courtiers and guests (who doesnt appreciate a well tended garden?), and depending on their skill, a significant bonus to the Development Growth in your realm capital.
[Image of the Court Gardener Court Position]
And for reference, this is what the tradition looks like:
[Image of the Garden Architects tradition]
Finally, we couldnt show off Court Positions without showing the Court Jester, complete with a jesters outfit!
[Image of the Court Jester Court Positions]
[Image of the Court Jester's clothing]
Thats it for today!
[ 2021-09-14 12:33:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #72 - Holding Court
[ 2021-09-07 12:36:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome comrades!
In todays dev diary, well be taking a gander at a neat part of the upcoming expansion: Holding Court.
Per the usual, Ill preface this by saying that the court scene is a work in progress, the UI of the court scene is a work in progress, and the art generally is work in progress; we also have some missing animations and camera perspectives, so take all the images here with a grain of salt.
Read our Dev Diary #72 - Holding Court
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
As with any medieval ruler, monarchs in The Royal Court are vain creatures. Its not enough to control the largest or best-developed realm, you have to have the largest palace, the fanciest food, the most renowned courtiers, and so on: after all, whats the point of taxing the masses if you have to live like a peasant anyway?
Sometimes, though, you cant quite afford the fanciest feast, the latest fashion, or even just the shiniest artefact to spruce up your court.
When times are that hard, and you really need just _immediate_ distraction from the flaws in your life, its important to spend some time indulging those with lives even harder than yours. Like nearly everyone else. For times when you feel like slumming it amongst the weird and wonderful characters of your realm, you can Hold Court.
This repeatable decision lets you hear a number of requests from various characters, listening to petitioners seeking your aid and legal ruling on many subjects. They might be guests, courtiers, neighbouring rulers, vassals, spies, the odd bumbling peasant
At present, youll receive three such petitioners each time, with all events delivered in the new courtly event style (though follow-up may be character events or similar).
Some choices are easy
some choices are hard
and some are just weird.
After youve made your ruling in each case, in addition to the effects of each turn, youll gain some court grandeur to bolster your overall supply. Weve got just shy of a hundred or so of these events alone, so there should be a goodly amount of variety for most playstyles.
This system is something pretty dear to our hearts, as it models a task that wouldve been a pretty big part of the day-to-day for many rulers, and weve put a lot of effort into getting plenty of alternate events to keep it as varied as possible for as long as possible. We hope you find it a fun & proactive way to explore some of the smaller (and uhh, not so small) issues developing in your realm.
Small dev diary, but thats all from me for the mo. As ever, Ill be around in the comments for an hour or so to answer questions, but otherwise, see yall next diary!
Yknow what, lets have a few more events to show off before we finish for the day.
[ 2021-09-07 12:36:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #71 - A Coat of Arms of Your Own
Next up we have the layouts panel, they dictate the overall amount and positioning of the emblems in your coat of arms. This panel is disabled entirely in the adjusted mode. To preempt this question, yes there are only a few layouts in the picture (some even duplicates) and that is because the other preset layouts are currently being worked on so there will be more than this in the released version. Though if you have any ideas for some cool layouts do let us know! Now is the perfect time to give us some ideas whilst the presets layouts are being implemented.
The bulk of time you will spend is likely to be in the final emblems panel, this lets you pick which of the over a thousand emblem textures that you want to use as well as how you colour them. You can select which emblem instance you want to edit or select multiple of them by shift clicking, there is also a button to select all of them or reset your selection too so you can edit in bulk easier.
Since some historical coat of arms can have a lotttt of emblems we show them in a paged setup of 10 at a time for easier editing. I used france a lot in my testing since it has so many to make sure things always worked on a large amount of them which has now ingrained into my brain that our france coat of arms has 33 fleur de lis on it. To try and help the contrast of the emblems we set it so that the previews have a background that is either white/black to help things stand out better. We also have a detailed edit mode which lets you go deeper and modify the exact positions, scale, and rotation of all your emblems as well as modify what layer they are on and even add and remove them to your hearts content! So you can really end up with a custom coat of arms to represent the majesty of your dynasty, or as Im sure some of you will do, try and find a way to make it look phallic as quickly as you possibly can.
All of these edits also support an undo/redo system to make incremental changes easier. Cadet Houses also get an additional option for if they want the quartering of their coat of arms enabled or not, in case you want to show your dad whos boss. That is a lot of words to explain this but let's be honest you all just want to see it in action so here we go: [previewyoutube=ByJNLK73sK4;full][/previewyoutube] Mini-shout out/commiserations to user Lajos Tueur who on Saturday released a mod to try and implement a coat of arms designer and had to fight against doing all of this very manually in the script with a hacky UI only for me to come in a few days later and release this dev diary. Thats all for this week folks, thanks for tuning in and I hope youre excited to make some majestic (or cursed) coat of arms for your rulers in 1.5!
[ 2021-08-31 12:34:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone and welcome to the 71st CK3 Dev Diary!
Im Matthew, one of the Programmers on the CK3 team, and today I am going to talk to you about one of the free features in the upcoming 1.5 patch: the much requested Coat of Arms Designer!
I dont think the idea needs much explanation, this feature lets you edit the coat of arms used for your titles, dynasty, and house in game and from within the ruler designer to create your own stunning medieval crest.
I think it's easiest if I just show you, should go without saying by now but everything here is still under development and the interface is a work in progress and stands to be tweaked, shuffled around the layout and sizes changed by art.
Read our Dev Diary #71 - A Coat of Arms of Your Own
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Right now here is what you will be greeted by now if you enter the customization window for the Holy Roman Empire:
In the center you get the preview screen of the coat of arms as you edit it and to the right some options of what to do.
Ill start with the bottom right options:
- Randomise within the rule sets we use to generate coat of arms normally, great if you want to reenact this pain.
- As with the Ruler Designers DNA we let you copy and paste your coat of arms to share.
- Discard any changes youve made to your work in progress masterpiece.
- If you have previously edited and saved your new coat of arms then the discard button will be joined by a button to reset to the historical coat of arms if available.
Next up we have the layouts panel, they dictate the overall amount and positioning of the emblems in your coat of arms. This panel is disabled entirely in the adjusted mode. To preempt this question, yes there are only a few layouts in the picture (some even duplicates) and that is because the other preset layouts are currently being worked on so there will be more than this in the released version. Though if you have any ideas for some cool layouts do let us know! Now is the perfect time to give us some ideas whilst the presets layouts are being implemented.
The bulk of time you will spend is likely to be in the final emblems panel, this lets you pick which of the over a thousand emblem textures that you want to use as well as how you colour them. You can select which emblem instance you want to edit or select multiple of them by shift clicking, there is also a button to select all of them or reset your selection too so you can edit in bulk easier.
Since some historical coat of arms can have a lotttt of emblems we show them in a paged setup of 10 at a time for easier editing. I used france a lot in my testing since it has so many to make sure things always worked on a large amount of them which has now ingrained into my brain that our france coat of arms has 33 fleur de lis on it. To try and help the contrast of the emblems we set it so that the previews have a background that is either white/black to help things stand out better. We also have a detailed edit mode which lets you go deeper and modify the exact positions, scale, and rotation of all your emblems as well as modify what layer they are on and even add and remove them to your hearts content! So you can really end up with a custom coat of arms to represent the majesty of your dynasty, or as Im sure some of you will do, try and find a way to make it look phallic as quickly as you possibly can.
All of these edits also support an undo/redo system to make incremental changes easier. Cadet Houses also get an additional option for if they want the quartering of their coat of arms enabled or not, in case you want to show your dad whos boss. That is a lot of words to explain this but let's be honest you all just want to see it in action so here we go: [previewyoutube=ByJNLK73sK4;full][/previewyoutube] Mini-shout out/commiserations to user Lajos Tueur who on Saturday released a mod to try and implement a coat of arms designer and had to fight against doing all of this very manually in the script with a hacky UI only for me to come in a few days later and release this dev diary. Thats all for this week folks, thanks for tuning in and I hope youre excited to make some majestic (or cursed) coat of arms for your rulers in 1.5!
[ 2021-08-31 12:34:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #70 - The Facts about Artifacts
[ 2021-08-24 13:13:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
We're back to talk about what is genuinely my favorite feature of The Royal Court Artifact generation!
One of the goals we had for Artifacts in CK3 was to ensure that the artifacts your rulers acquire will feel truly distinct from another. No longer will you have a royal treasury filled with identical swords now you will have a royal treasury filled with an assorted variety of different swords!
Read our Dev Diary #70 - The Facts about Artifacts
To experience the full threads and comments, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Artifact Features
All Artifacts in the game can have a set of Features that determine both how they were created as well as what they were made from. For example, Oak, Ash, and Pine are all features of the Wood type, which is used to make wooden furniture, spear shafts, book covers, etc., while Engraved, Filigreed, and Painted are Decoration-type features which skilled craftspeople can use to decorate artifacts to make them more suitable for royalty.
The main use of Features is to create immersive descriptions for the artifact. Whenever a new artifact is created (such as from an Inspiration), it will gain a set of appropriate Features based on various factors including culture, geography, craftsmanship quality, wealth of the capital city, and event decisions made during the creation process. These Features are then used by the artifacts description to emphasize any distinctive characteristics that it has! Note that that these Features will not be represented in the 2D and 3D art of the Artifact, as we have far more varieties of Feature than we could reasonably produce art for.
A screenshot containing 6 example Artifacts.
NOTE:Under active development. Values and content subject to change.
The thing I love about this system is not just that it will generate and display differences between two different axes your ruler commissions from a blacksmith it is that those differences will be even more pronounced between Artifacts created in the different regions of the world. This means Artifacts that you loot from your defeated foes while on crusade or during overseas raids will be far more distinct from other Artifacts in your treasury, serving as a memento of the great distances you or your ancestors traveled on their journeys.
Of course, we have many types of Artifacts apart from weapons, and some of the material and craftsmanship differences become truly pronounced when you start looking at the type of Artifacts that are created explicitly for rulers to show off with! For example, a crown crafted in Afghanistan might feature pieces of its legendary lapis lazuli, while one made in the Baltic region could instead feature an impressive chunk of amber as a centerpiece. Different varieties of gemstones, cloth, lumber, shells, and animal horns the range of possible combinations is truly vast!
A screenshot containing 6 example Artifacts.
NOTE:Under active development. Values and content subject to change.
Artifact Modifiers
As you probably noticed in the above screenshots, every Artifact has a set of character modifiers which are applied to their owner while they have them equipped. Unlike in CK2, there are no slotless Artifacts, so in order to gain any benefit from owning an Artifact at all you must have it equipped in one of your personal slots (Weapon, Armor, Regalia, Crown, Trinket) or court slots (Lectern, Throne, Wall Hanging, etc.). By ensuring you can only have a set number of artifacts benefiting a character at once, it becomes much easier for us to balance Artifacts and avoid the massive bonuses characters could gain in CK2 by accumulating vast libraries of forgotten lore, new inventions, and piles of statues.
One guiding principle we used while designing these Artifact Modifiers is the no overtly supernatural effects rule that guided us during the base games development. For example, a masterfully-forged weapon granting Prowess is straightforward and sensible, as characters fight better with a good weapon in hand. That same weapon boosting Advantage or Army Gold Maintenance is maybe less obvious, but can still be explained by serving as a symbol of hope and inspiration for the soldiers in an army and boosting their morale. Something like No Penalty For Crossing Rivers is nonsensical for an Artifact weapon though we are not giving rulers access to the equivalent of a fully-functional Staff of Moses! Modders, of course, can add whatever modifiers they wish to an Artifact.
Historical Artifacts and Trinkets
Of course, not all Artifacts will be artisanal masterpieces! The important thing for Artifacts is that they are meaningful to their owner in some way this meaning doesnt need to be purely economic or functional!
Instead, some Artifacts may have great historical value despite a plain appearance, such as Charlemages Throne. Other Artifacts might only hold sentimental value, such as a good-luck charm or a locket given to you by a lover which reduces Stress. Finally, some Artifacts may instead be relics of a rather dubious provenance, yet still useful for those who believe in their power (or at least claim to).
Growing Pains
Work on the Royal Court expansion is progressing, and it's looking better each day that passes. Now, we want to be upfront and say that it's going to take longer than many of us expect for the expansion to be released. There are many reasons for this; the expansion is very technically challenging and we're doing things we've never done before from the ground up. We want a Royal Court that looks as grand as the mechanics that support it.
We've also had the recent organizational changes that affect how we work, as many of you know we've split into three studios - and with change comes a period of adaptation. The team has grown significantly in recent times. A lot of time has been spent onboarding new members to the team, and we've onboarded more people than we ever have before. While it may have a negative short-term impact, it's definitely going to be a solid investment for the future of CK3, not only for the release of Royal Court, but also our future expansions, and beyond. Of course the extended period of working from home makes things take longer than expected. This is something we have touched on before due to how the working conditions have been recently.
Rest assured that we're still working as hard as we can and things are progressing nicely, and are aiming for a release later this year. We will of course have more exciting details to share in upcoming dev diaries.
For now well leave you with this little extra teaser:
[ 2021-08-24 13:13:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev diary #69 - Nice, Throne Room Artifacts
[ 2021-08-17 12:35:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
In this dev diary it is time for us to have a look at some of the artifacts that you may come across, steal or create yourself for your Royal Court. With the introduction of the new throne room scenes we are for the first time in Crusader Kings taking a step into the interiors of our courts. This has given us an opportunity to move artifacts from only being seen as 2D icons in an inventory screen like in CKII, to being visual 3D objects you can show off to increase the grandeur of your court, or give it your own flair.
Also, as always, the pictures in this dev diary are of work in progress.
Read our Dev Diary #69 - Nice, Throne Room Artifacts
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Artifacts presented in your court
Within your court you will be able to show off the artifacts in your possession, from the smaller artifacts on pedestals and reliquaries holding the venerated remains of saints, to fine martial weapons forged or taken, to grand statues or fine furniture. These artifacts can be equipped in a number of slots around your court rooms for viewing of the ruler and his guests. Below is a small selection of the smaller artifacts, usually presented on different pedestals befitting your court.
DD69_tome.jpg (As always, you can see the images on our forums)
A Pratiharan volume about revelry.
DD69_reliquary.jpg
A reliquary containing a piece of the crown of thorns, you think.
DD69_urn.jpg
A fine urn taken from the Abbasid court.
DD69_ivory_box.jpg
A chest of valuables made in the finest of ivory
Designing artifacts of the middle ages
The artifacts weve added to the game cover a variety of different categories, small and large, and even to adorn your walls. The creation of these artifacts have gone through a few stages of development before making it into the Royal Court.
Research
As in all our games we go through a stage of historical reference hunting to find artifacts relevant to the time period and within the cultures we are depicting. This can be both easy at times and complicated at others depending on the amount of material that has survived the decay or been documented since the middle ages.
DD69_ivory_chest_references.jpg
Carved and painted Ivory chests.
During this stage we both look at the aesthetics and historical references we can find and verify. When reference poor areas are worked on, we still try to extrapolate good looking and aesthetically plausible designs. However in some cases like in the Middle East and other areas there is for example close to no and at best sparse levels of statues or paintings of people. Depending on where this can be for religious or cultural reasons and in those cases where other cultures would show human statues, weve instead shifted to area appropriate symbolisms, patterns and art.
DD69_statue.jpg
DD69_birdie.jpg
A marble statue from southern Europe, and an islamic golden falcon.
Creation
While using reference images is an easy task to do, we must also consider the original state of the artifact, since a reference from today could be of a possibly 800 years or more old object. So grime, damage and aging needs to be reconsidered and balanced, while still keeping the object in a used looking state. An artifact could still be owned by a ruling family for long enough to become an antique in its own time.
DD69_cabinet.jpg
An icon clad cabinet, don't tell the iconoclasts!
Dynamic objects
Banners and some other items in the court have shader support to show the ruler's own flair, since they would be made to the ruler's specifications. The banners below for example read in the primary title held by the ruler to show off your heraldry.
DD69_banners_a.jpg
DD69_banners_b.jpg
What is a lord without his banner to display his Coat of Arms?
There are also tapestries, where we use a similar system to the clothing shaders to generate interesting patterns and designs to adorn those stone walls in your great halls.
DD69_tapestry_a.jpg
DD69_tapestry_b.jpg
Bringing some color to the hard stone walls in your halls.
And that brings this dev diary to an end, we will be showing off more of the courts in the future!
[ 2021-08-17 12:35:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #68 - Inspiration Never Dies
[ 2021-08-10 12:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hi everyone!
As you may already know, artifacts are making a triumphant return in Royal Court. The artifacts themselves will be familiar to those of you who have used them in CK2, but how you actually get your hands on them will be slightly different.
As such, I wont talk much about the artifacts themselves for now, but Ill be going over one of the major ways of how you will acquire artifacts.
Read our Dev Diary #68 - Inspiration Never Dies
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Characters throughout the world can gain what we call an inspiration. Inspirations come about as a character is seeking to create something extraordinary, resulting in the character wanting to pursue the means of realizing their inspiration. They may want to write a great tome of knowledge, weave a tapestry, or forge a magnificent crown! There are many different kinds of inspirations, all resulting in various types of artifacts upon completion. An inspiration can be broad, such as someone wanting to merely forge a weapon, or very specific like a character wanting to forge a sword.
[Image of a character with an active inspiration]
Inspirations only occur for landless characters. We want to extend the immersion of guests and courtiers by making them valuable to you even if you have no desire to push their claims, or use their skills as a councillor. Inspired characters will travel the world, from court to court, seeking a wealthy monarch to sponsor them and their creation. Realms with a high grandeur will be able to attract inspired characters more frequently than those with low grandeur. Granting them a higher chance at receiving skilled craftsmen that will be able to forge an artifact to meet your expectations.
Once an inspired character arrives at your court, you can choose to sponsor them by giving them the gold they ask for. A skilled character will demand larger amounts of gold, but will also yield better results in creating an artifact. Most of the time at least. No one is infallible after all. The skill that is relevant depends on the type of artifact they want to make. For example, a weapon and the quality it gets is dependent on the characters Martial and Prowess skill. Writing a book, on the other hand, scales with Learning.
[Image of the Fund Inspiration interaction]
After funding an inspiration, it will take some time for the character to create the artifact. During the creation progress various situations can happen, such as the character asking for better materials to work with. Below youll find such an example, in which my inspired character finds excellent material at the local market. Approve their request and pay for the material, and youll increase the overall quality of the artifact theyll produce.
[Image of an inspiration event: Highest Quality]
An inspiration gains progress similar to that of a scheme. Youll gain progress depending on a chance each month, making the actual time it takes to complete vary. Once the inspiration reaches full progress, the character will approach you to present their creation.
[Image of an inspiration being completed]
Mind you, this is not the only way in which you can get an artifact. Inspirations exist to serve as the most significant means of doing so, since they will generally grant you artifacts of a higher quality. You can still get artifacts by other means, such as getting them in events. I hope you enjoyed this brief look into how an artifact can come about. Stay tuned for more information regarding the Royal Court!
[ 2021-08-10 12:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game: The Script System
[ 2021-08-05 12:54:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game: The Script System
Today we are sharing more details about the Script System and how it works to let our Content Designers & modding community create their wonderful events and mechanics!
Read more on our forums
[ 2021-08-05 12:54:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #67 - A View to a Map
[ 2021-08-03 12:39:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
The team is slowly coming back together after a well deserved summer vacation.
Today, lets have a look at what weve been doing to the culture setup and some small scale map tweaks. Most of the work weve spent on cultures has naturally gone into the cultural overhaul itself, but we have made some general improvements as well, most notably over in India and southern Europe.
Read our Dev Diary #67 - A View to a Map
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Starting with a small culture addition in southern Europe, and that some of you keen eyed readers noticed back in a previous dev diary, weve added back a fan favorite from CK2; Carantanian. The culture is quite extensive on game start and covers most of south-eastern Bavaria. From a historical point of view, the culture is of a west slavic origin, but as they got cut off from their ancestral brethren in the Carpathian Basin, they became gradually closer to the south slavic peoples. We represent this by Carantanian having a West Slavic Heritage, but speaking a South Slavic Language.
[Image of Carantanian culture]
Next, Ill hand it over to our local India expert, @Trin Tragula, to talk about (you guessed it) India!
Indian Culture Changes
The culture rework has been a good opportunity to rework the cultures in India a bit. The current setup here is one we inherited from Crusader Kings 2 and it was in some ways not entirely appropriate for our era. To better reflect the diversity of the subcontinent we have added two new cultures, changed the old ones a bit and also added a great number of potential culture names for when the large starting cultures diverge.
First of all we have gotten rid of Hindustani culture, and two new cultures have been broken away from what it used to cover in the south. The core part of the culture covers the Gangetic plain, and is now known as Kannauji after the Imperial city of Kannauj (Kanyakubja) which was the main prize of the region and often gave its name to it.
Hindustani itself is still around in a way, as a possible name for a cultural hybrid between an Iranian or Turkic culture with one of the north indian cultures.
[Image of the cultures in northern India]
Starting in the central parts of India the newly added Gond culture has been carved out of areas that were previously Hindustani, Marathi or Oriya. In 1066 most Gond counties are under the control of the Cedi kingdom and many of these counties are now also tribal at start. This culture covers a region that was in an odd place in the old setup, at the border of several cultures but not quite belonging to either of them.
[Image of the Gond culture]
Covering the Malwa plateau as well as some of the adjacent regions that were previously considered Hindustani. This new culture shares a language with the Rajasthani and Gujarati cultures, Gurjar Apabhramsa. The existing Rajput culture has been renamed to Rajasthani (since Rajput as a cultural distinction does not really fit our start date) and Assamese is now known as Kamrupi.
[Image of the Malvi culture]
Indian History and Title Improvements
While looking over the subcontinent it was also clear that in some areas the title setup was also better suited for the early modern era, rather than the medieval era around Crusader Kings III start dates. A number of baronies have been renamed and reorganized into new counties, and a number of new vassals have been scripted in, especially for the 1066 start.
The starting presumptions about who controlled what in 1066 have also been revisited to bring things better in line with history and create a more interesting start. There are now more starting characters, both independent and vassals, and most kings will no longer start above their domain limit.
Some things like the crisis of the Chola empire should also be a bit better represented in the initial setup, with strong and somewhat unruly Pandya vassals, a much stronger Lankan revolt and the Chera Raja now independent (with his historical vassals to support him). You can now also play as the future king, Kulottunga.
There are also other, minor changes, such as revisiting the extent of cultures like Kashmiri, and Telugu, and assigning a number of tribal counties in the eastern-central part of the subcontinent.
[Image of the Sinhalese rebellion in 1066]
That concludes todays dev diary. Until next time!
[ 2021-08-03 12:39:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game: Simulation Optimization
[ 2021-07-29 12:33:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game, episode 3! We are sharing more details about some optimisations we have done for 1.5 "Royal Court"
Read more on our forums
[ 2021-07-29 12:33:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Summer Teaser #4
[ 2021-07-27 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Another set of traditions today for the future Royal Court expansion: Charitable, Parochialism, Ting-Meet, Tribal Unity and Warriors of the Dry!
Read more on our forums
[ 2021-07-27 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game: Changing the Gamestate
[ 2021-07-22 14:13:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Commands, States, Synchronization of CK3: our second entry in the Anatomy of a Game series!
Read more on our forums
[ 2021-07-22 14:13:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Summer Teaser #3
[ 2021-07-20 15:33:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the third summer teaser, please have a look at the Events images on our forums!
This time around, we figured we would show you something quite different. As you may know already, minor titles will be returning alongside the upcoming expansion, Royal Court, allowing you to appoint a Court Jester, a Seneschal, and more!
As you might expect, well be adding a number of new events that make use of these appointed characters, but we are no strangers to also updating existing content if need be!
We generally want features to be visible wherever it makes sense, and updating content can be a part of making old events have new and interesting options or additional variety and flavour.
Read Summer Teaser #3
[ 2021-07-20 15:33:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Anatomy of a Game: Startup and Loading
[ 2021-07-15 12:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
What happens when you launch up the game?
What actually goes on in a single day of gameplay?
Our dev team details the Anatomy of Crusader Kings 3!
Read more on our forums
[ 2021-07-15 12:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Summer Teaser #2
[ 2021-07-13 12:30:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone,
Have a look at the following traditions coming with Royal Court: Communal, Courtly, Egalitarian, and Stoic! These add up to the past three we have shared last week: Bellicose, Inventive, and Spiritual.
Read Summer Teaser #2
[ 2021-07-13 12:30:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Summer Teaser #1
[ 2021-07-06 12:31:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone,
As promised, here is the first of what we like to call summer teasers for our upcoming expansion Royal Court.
Today, a few traditions that youll be able to pick up with the upcoming overhaul for cultures!
Read Summer Teaser #1
[ 2021-07-06 12:31:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
# -
[ 2021-06-29 12:54:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone!
1.4.4 was released this morning which deployed several fixes, of which you can read below.
Today's Development Diary looks at customizing your Cultures!
Read our Dev Diary #66 - A Fresh Coat Of Paint
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Greetings!
The sun is out, and weve all been enjoying pristine Azure skies during the Swedish midsummer celebrations. Or, well, a few of us have! Some members of the team got to enjoy a massive downpour of rain (which is customary, to be fair), and others even got to experience a refreshing storm of hail. Speaking of Azure, were releasing another small patch today which addresses a handful of issues (most notably some stability concerns):
==============================
Fixed unpause issues in multiplayer if choosing to continue in single player after network out of sync on 1.4.2
Fixed crash on save and progressive dynasty and title coat of arms disappearing
Fixed UI lists refresh, allowing to access characters for some interactions when they should not be available (i.e.: you could grant vassal to your liege characters from other realms)
Fixed crash happening after starting a fort assault during a crusade on a long playthrough save on 1.4.2
==============================
Beginning next week a majority of the team will be going on summer vacation, which means that itll be mostly deserted for the next five weeks. In practice this means that the next few Dev Diaries wont be as meaty as the ones that came before. You can think of them more as teasers than proper Dev Diaries. When were back well of course resume having more substantial ones!
With that being said, we dont want to leave you empty handed. Summer vacation doesnt start until next week after all. Some of you might have noticed in the previous Dev Diary that we had a small square at the top of the window when creating a hybrid or a divergent culture, showing a colour. This is of course a preview of the colour your new culture will have when its created. Clicking it allows you to change and set the colour of your culture exactly as you want it!
[Image of selecting a colour during culture creation]
But we didnt stop there! We added this new and wonderful tool in a couple of other places as well. As when creating a culture, we've added it for creating a new faith too.
[Image of selecting a colour when creating a faith]
You'll also be able to change the colour when customizing a title. No longer will you have to settle on the colour the game picks for you when creating a custom kingdom or empire! Especially when that colour turns out to be neon pink... You can edit the colour for any title you hold or is held by your vassals, similar to how you are allowed to edit the name & adjective for titles in your realm. Yes, this means that you can make your vassal lands sport a cavalcade of colour if you so desire!
[Image of selecting a colour when customizing a title]
That's it for today, I'm afraid. While this might be a fairly small addition in the grand scheme of things, we do think its a nice and flavourful tool that lets you customize your experience more than before!
[ 2021-06-29 12:54:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Summer Sale is here! Up to -20% on CK3
[ 2021-06-24 14:08:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Summer Sale is here!
Up to 20% discount on Crusader Kings III during the #SteamSummerSale, until July 8th!
Bring your friends in, make them your vassals and then in the darkness bind them
Buy for you or a friend here: Crusader Kings III
[ 2021-06-24 14:08:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.4.2 is now Live!
[ 2021-06-22 09:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Update 1.4.2 is Live now!
Read the Hotfix 1.4.2 here
==========
###################
# Balance
###################
- Ambitious characters will not be stressed if they are defending in a war and they sign a white peace.
- Opinions from gift is now caped to 100 (200 with the perk Thorough) and decays 2.5x faster
- The AI will now be able to properly offer vassalization to Clan and Tribal rulers.
- Fixed a rare case when AI units don't join a fight if player units have been attacked while moving
- Fixed HUD date occasionally jumping in multiplayer
- Mass Ransom is now instant (except if the recipient is a player). This makes it significantly more responsive, and also avoids an issue where it could only send one ransom request to each recipient. Also fixed Mass Ransom in some cases giving 0 gold. Note that if the recipient runs out of money or otherwise no longer wants to accept the ransom, not all characters might get ransomed off
- Fixed the game rules window's "reset to defaults" button being visible when the rules are not possible to change
- Renamed the portrait_modifier files. Scripted_character are assigned to index 50 and events to index 90. Keep in mind that the content contained in the one with the highest index will have the priority over the other.
- Fixed a rare crash when using the every/any_faith_character script list
- Fixed initialisation garrisons for saves from versions before 1.4.0
- Fixed domain limit grace period not getting applied for newly gained titles
- Characters with an opinion above 80 will properly leave factions
- Counties will now leave factions if they don't meet the criteria to join
- Fixed the issue with custom characters not starting the game with Men at Arms
- Alliance with relatives will stop breaking immediately after being enacted
- Allow rulers to fire their chaplain / priest once when they have the doctrine Temporal, for life
- Properly check that there is "no Special Building instead" of "no Special Building slot" for the Defender of Rod decision
- Jester hat will be less fashionable after 1300 and thus, wont used by the majority of the characters anymore
- Fixed the faith character list potentially overflowing and crashing the game due to dead people pretending to be alive
- "Use Hook" is accessible in the Declare War window when you want to push a claim while your liege has a high crown authority
- Allow modifiers from events to change haircuts and beards once again
- Fixed misleading conditions in tooltip of Fabricate Hook interaction
- Sparta will be a valid holy site in existings saves, new games will still use Olympus instead of Sparta
- The "End of Fun" event will not stack up several times in multiplayer even if the player does not choose an option immediately
- The Decision Develop Capital cannot be done by a child anymore
- Added an information on why Fabricate Hook can be unavailable when a you are targeting characters without location
- Dead children should not show up anymore during Meet Peers events
- Restored a missing localisation key when hovering Declare War without selecting any Casus Belli in English
- Fixed a bug when two and more armies involved in a siege and their casualties get applied multiple times
- Fixed a rare crash occurrence at game start
[ 2021-06-22 09:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Open Beta Branch 1.4.2 "Azure" - Now available!
As always, thank you for your patience & understanding. Let us know if you have any additional feedback to 1.4.2. Cheers,
[ 2021-06-17 14:56:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello, We have noticed a few issues that were introduced with our Patch 1.4.0 "Azure", especially the Garrisons that are not reinforcing if you are continuing your 1.3.1 "Corvus" campaign. As we know how much heart you put in your campaign, we have released an Open Beta 1.4.2 on Steam that includes the following changelog. Read more in the official forums. ========== ################### # Balance ###################
- Ambitious characters will not be stressed if they are defending in a war and they sign a white peace.
- Opinions from gift is now caped to 100 (200 with the perk Thorough) and decays 2.5x faster
- The AI will now be able to properly offer vassalization to Clan and Tribal rulers.
- Fixed a rare case when AI units don't join a fight if player units have been attacked while moving
- Fixed HUD date occasionally jumping in multiplayer
- Mass Ransom is now instant (except if the recipient is a player). This makes it significantly more responsive, and also avoids an issue where it could only send one ransom request to each recipient. Also fixed Mass Ransom in some cases giving 0 gold. Note that if the recipient runs out of money or otherwise no longer wants to accept the ransom, not all characters might get ransomed off
- Fixed the game rules window's "reset to defaults" button being visible when the rules are not possible to change
- Renamed the portrait_modifier files. Scripted_character are assigned to index 50 and events to index 90. Keep in mind that the content contained in the one with the highest index will have the priority over the other.
- Fixed a rare crash when using the every/any_faith_character script list
- Fixed initialisation garrisons for saves from versions before 1.4.0
- Fixed domain limit grace period not getting applied for newly gained titles
- Characters with an opinion above 80 will properly leave factions
- Counties will now leave factions if they don't meet the criteria to join
- Fixed the issue with custom characters not starting the game with Men at Arms
- Alliance with relatives will stop breaking immediately after being enacted
- Allow rulers to fire their chaplain / priest once when they have the doctrine Temporal, for life
- Properly check that there is "no Special Building instead" of "no Special Building slot" for the Defender of Rod decision
- Jester hat will be less fashionable after 1300 and thus, wont used by the majority of the characters anymore
- Fixed the faith character list potentially overflowing and crashing the game due to dead people pretending to be alive
- "Use Hook" is accessible in the Declare War window when you want to push a claim while your liege has a high crown authority
- Allow modifiers from events to change haircuts and beards once again
- Fixed misleading conditions in tooltip of Fabricate Hook interaction
- Sparta will be a valid holy site in existings saves, new games will still use Olympus instead of Sparta
- The "End of Fun" event will not stack up several times in multiplayer even if the player does not choose an option immediately
- The Decision Develop Capital cannot be done by a child anymore
- Added an information on why Fabricate Hook can be unavailable when a you are targeting characters without location
- Dead children should not show up anymore during Meet Peers events
- Restored a missing localisation key when hovering Declare War without selecting any Casus Belli in English
- Fixed a bug when two and more armies involved in a siege and their casualties get applied multiple times
- Fixed a rare crash occurrence at game start
As always, thank you for your patience & understanding. Let us know if you have any additional feedback to 1.4.2. Cheers,
[ 2021-06-17 14:56:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #64 - Cultures Are Forever
[ 2021-06-15 12:31:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Salutations!
Before we begin, first things first. We are working on an additional patch to fix some of the issues introduced in 1.4. The patch is still being worked on, but if everything goes as planned, we should be able to get it out sometime next week or so. Well let you know once the patch is ready.
With that out of the way, lets talk about something Im quite excited to share with you all.
As you probably know already, weve talked a bit about how we are revisiting cultures for the next expansion. Unlike faiths, which got a lot of attention prior to release as we made them quite dynamic and customizable, cultures can feel a bit static, and aren't anywhere near as interesting as faiths. That is all about to change!
Read our Dev Diary #64 - Cultures Are Forever
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
We are revising cultures as you know them. Most exciting is perhaps the possibility to create new cultures! Both for simulating historical events and to create plausible and interesting alt-history scenarios. But Im getting ahead of myself. For now, lets start by looking at the foundation of a culture and the different components they are made of. This is what the new culture screen will look like.
[Image of the new and updated culture interface]
Cultural Pillars
A culture has five main Cultural Pillars. These are Ethos, Heritage, Language, Martial Custom, and finally Aesthetics. Of these, the Ethos is perhaps the most significant, but all of them play a particular role in how a culture plays and how cultures view each other.
Ethos
Each ethos is framed around a particular theme that somehow ties into a fairly broad definition of what a culture is. A cultures ethos not only provides effects and bonuses for having it, it also ties into how easy or difficult it is to acquire certain traditions (more on this further down). There are seven in total:
- Bellicose
- Communal
- Courtly
- Egalitarian
- Inventive
- Spiritual
- Stoic
[ 2021-06-15 12:31:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III's Patch 1.4 Azure: available now!
[ 2021-06-08 09:04:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III's Patch 1.4 Azure: available now! Patch Notes, Improvements, Bug Fixing, Multiplayer Open Beta and a smile on your face: everything you need to start your royal morning routine! Childhood Meet Peers & Lifestyles Events AI & Warfare Improvements Raise Men-at-Arms only Saved Game Rules & Characters presets Modding Enhancements Cosmetics and more! Check the Dev Diaries below for a refresher on what has been mentioned about Azure so far:
- CK3 Dev Diary #55 - Modding improvements
- CK3 Dev Diary #57 - An eventful summer
- CK3 Dev Diary #58 - Stre(ss)tching the traits
- CK3 Dev Diary #59 - Fantastic presets and where to save them
- CK3 Dev Diary #60 - The Cost of Warfare
- CK3 Dev Diary #62 - Monarchs journey unleashed
[ 2021-06-08 09:04:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Open Beta Branch: Multiplayer Stability Phase III - Now available!
[ 2021-06-08 08:04:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone, Along with the release of the Azure patch we will update the Multiplayer Open Beta today at 10:00 CEST. This new build has the version 1.4.1 and contains all changes from 1.4.0 Azure as well the MP stability improvements that have been available on the open_beta branch for a while. This way you can enjoy all the improvements from Azure along with the MP stability improvements were currently testing. In addition to that we have made two changes on 1.4.1 to further improve the Multiplayer experience:
- Increased network stability of clients joining MP lobbies with decreased save game transfer speeds
- Increased network stability of client login procedure
[ 2021-06-08 08:04:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #63 - 1.4.0 Azure Patch Notes
Here are some highlights from the Patch Notes 1.4.0 Azure: Faction behavior Whoever said the life of a medieval ruler was only an infinite series of conquests? Maintaining good relations with the key Vassals and the integrity of the realm is an intricate diplomatic dance. Azure introduces changes in the faction behavior to make it more realistic and more impactful on the ruler experience. We look forward to hearing back from you and collecting your feedback on the new behavior! Our intention is to focus the CK3 experience on the complex life of a medieval ruler - full of political dilemmas - beyond painting the map. Bug fixing You have spoken and we are always listening! Much focus was put on fixing issues reported in the forum, so please continue helping us by posting about bugs and reacting to the ones that matter the most to you, it helps us prioritize them for fixing. MP open beta We are planning to roll out an updated multiplayer Open Beta on Steam soon after todays release. The open beta will have the same functionality as Azure but will include network stability improvements that we need your support on testing. You can find more information in the dedicated open beta subforum. We want to thank you all for your continued support and please keep on sending us your very useful feedback. In the coming weeks well continue sharing more details about the Royal Court as it progresses and grows into the graphically rich expansion we are preparing for you. Until then enjoy an Azure summer (or winter if youre in that part of the world)! Cheers! =====
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[ 2021-06-08 07:02:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello crusaders! We are delighted to share with you the final changelog of the Azure patch, and some news on the Multiplayer open beta. Everything went well since the last diary so the patch will drop today as promised. It packs a mix of new features, new events, balance improvements, AI improvements, modding improvements and fixes to bugs reported by our great community. Check the Dev Diaries below for a refresher on what has been mentioned about Azure so far:
- CK3 Dev Diary #55 - Modding improvements
- CK3 Dev Diary #57 - An eventful summer
- CK3 Dev Diary #58 - Stre(ss)tching the traits
- CK3 Dev Diary #59 - Fantastic presets and where to save them
- CK3 Dev Diary #60 - The Cost of Warfare
- CK3 Dev Diary #62 - Monarchs journey unleashed
Here are some highlights from the Patch Notes 1.4.0 Azure: Faction behavior Whoever said the life of a medieval ruler was only an infinite series of conquests? Maintaining good relations with the key Vassals and the integrity of the realm is an intricate diplomatic dance. Azure introduces changes in the faction behavior to make it more realistic and more impactful on the ruler experience. We look forward to hearing back from you and collecting your feedback on the new behavior! Our intention is to focus the CK3 experience on the complex life of a medieval ruler - full of political dilemmas - beyond painting the map. Bug fixing You have spoken and we are always listening! Much focus was put on fixing issues reported in the forum, so please continue helping us by posting about bugs and reacting to the ones that matter the most to you, it helps us prioritize them for fixing. MP open beta We are planning to roll out an updated multiplayer Open Beta on Steam soon after todays release. The open beta will have the same functionality as Azure but will include network stability improvements that we need your support on testing. You can find more information in the dedicated open beta subforum. We want to thank you all for your continued support and please keep on sending us your very useful feedback. In the coming weeks well continue sharing more details about the Royal Court as it progresses and grows into the graphically rich expansion we are preparing for you. Until then enjoy an Azure summer (or winter if youre in that part of the world)! Cheers! =====
1.4.0 Azure Changelog
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# Free Features
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- Game rule presets can be created! You can now easily switch between different configurations depending on your mood. The last configuration is used by default for future games.
- Character finder presets can be created. Finding future spouses, wards, councillors,... will be easier than ever! When creating a new preset, you can save almost everything! Dynamic objects however wont be memorized (custom faiths, specific Dynasties and Houses)
- Men at arms can be raised independently of levies, either to the first existing rally point or from a specific one. It will allow you to crush small rebellions or wage small wars without calling all your levies.
- At game start, rulers now start with a decent amount of men at arms already hired, based on their income. Upon becoming landed, newly landed rulers will also receive men at arms.
- Dynamic garrisons for holdings have been introduced. Garrisons now have a max and min capacity. When a siege is won, the garrison is depleted and set to its min value. Each month, the current garrison reinforces until it reaches its max capacity. The reinforcement rate is improved by upgrading the holding.
- Unlocked the Monarch's Journey cosmetic items for all players (Hennin, Chaperon, Jester's Hat, Wizard's Beard, Miller, Miller Highlights, Jeanne d'Arc, Pageboy, and Mullet)
- Jeanne d'Arc haircut will be used by some Frankish women
- Mullet haircut will be used by some Scottish men
- The Chaperon hat will be used by some Western mayors after 1300
- The Hennin hat will be used by some Noble women after 1300
- Added new Lifestyle events:
- One for Learning: Scholarship
- One for Martial: Strategy
- An Event Chain for Martial: Authority
- Added the Meet Peers activity for children. The activity allows them to forge relationships with other kids and maybe learn from unexpected situations. Explore a dozen new events for a more diverse childhood, allowing you to take control of your destiny.
- Some traits have access to new Interactions and Decisions:
- Arbitrary: can remove a hook by paying prestige and gaining Tyranny
- Deceitful: can take a decision improving the ongoing hostile schemes if they are above the stress level 1
- Diligent: can take a decision that will increase the development of the Capital but increase their stress
- Forgiving: can consume a hook to lose stress and gain opinion
- Impatient: can take a decision to immediately advance all their on going scheme if they are above the stress level 1
- Vengeful: can fabricate hooks on their rival without unlocking the perk.
- Wrathful: can duel criminals to enforce the punishment.
- Irritable: can duel who they want if they are at the stress level 1 or above. It will generate dread and tyranny
# Balance
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- You can now hire mercenaries of your culture from further away. It will allow Iceland to have access to mercenaries.
- The Norman culture now has access to the Regional innovation from the Norse Culture from the start of the game
- Some traits were updated:
- Ambitious: they now gain stress when signing a White Peace
- Arrogant: they now gain stress when signing a White Peace
- Craven: added hostile scheme resistance and intrigue
- Fickle: added +1 intrigue and increased diplomacy from 1 to 2
- Generous: loses stress when organizing activities and gifting money
- Gluttonous: they have a high chance to avoid being murdered if the Poison food method is chosen
- Greedy: they have a weaker monthly income bonus but an increasing monthly income depending on their stress level
- Gregarious: they gain stress if they fail at swaying someone
- Honest: they can lose stress by exposing a secret
- Just: they can lose stress by exposing a secret
- Lazy: they have a stronger stress loss bonus
- Shy: they do not suffer from stress when starting a personal scheme anymore. BUT they have a huge penalty on personal scheme power.
- Overall faction dynamic has been updated:
- The power threshold is more dynamic: it will be decreased by other factions and their state.
- There will be no factions created by AI Vassals in the first years of the game to give enough time to stabilize existing realms.
- 1 year for Dukes
- 5 years for Kings
- 10 years for Emperors
- Faith modifiers are more impactful for Zealous characters and weaker for Cynical
- Intimidated characters will not be afraid of joining a faction above its power threshold
- Terrified vassals have a small chance of joining a faction above its power threshold
- Characters with an opinion of 80+ will never join a faction
- Independence faction modifiers have been updated:
- Characters will join a suitable Populist faction if they exist instead of creating a new Independence faction
- Electors are less likely to join or create a faction
- Vassals that have more than 50% of their territory outside of the De Jure primary title will be more likely to join or create the faction
- The bigger their realm size, the more likely they are
- Counts are less likely to join or create a faction
- Kings are more likely to join or create a faction
- Characters can be more motivated to join if one of their neighbour is in the faction
- Claimant faction modifiers have been updated
- Powerful vassals are more likely to create Claimant factions if they have a negative opinion
- Vassals with a different culture are more likely to join than before
- Vassals are less likely to create a Claimant if they are not a De Jure vassals. They will instead prefer to create an Independence faction
- Characters are more likely to join a faction if the Claimant is their De Jure liege
- Characters are more interested in Claimant faction concerning title above their and in their De Jure hierarchy
- Defeating or dealing with Scandinavian Adventurers now gives a temporary reprieve proportional to size, with smaller realms gaining a larger break whilst larger realms become valid targets again faster
- Embarkation costs can no longer be reduced more than 90%
- Faiths with concubines no longer give Counts a prestige-penalty for not having them, and now only expect dukes to have 1 rather than 2
- Fire and Blood event now adds loot to your raid army, not directly to your treasury, and fires a little less often
- Founding the Capital of the Rus now gives a more mild development level boost, as well as a reasonably hefty boost over time, rather than immediately catapulting you to Constantinople-levels
- Increased the amount of money everyone starts the campaign with by 50%
- Raiders no longer take attrition when raiding next to major rivers
- Scandinavian Adventurers now stagger their attacks through the year instead of ritually attacking on January 1st
- Scandinavian Adventurers will now stop so consistently starving to death at sea before they reach their target
- Scandinavian Adventurers' event MaA are now inheritable
- The cost of mercenary and holy orders now slowly goes up based on the size of your realm
- The cost of mercenary now increases with the tier of the primary title with each Era
- The Tribal government now gives a small amount of prestige each month. This helps avoid situations where new rulers have virtually no prestige gain
- Upped the truce time on for raid-trade events from 5 years to 10
- Stress is now lost when a Rival loses a title
- Updated the stress impact of organizing a Grand Blot
- Greedy and Shy never lose stress and suffer a progressive stress impact depending on who is invited: the merrier, the bigger the stress impact.
- Generous and Gregarious never loses stress and suffers a progressive stress impact depending on who is invited: the lesser, the bigger the stress impact.
# AI
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- Your children and grandchildren can now get married off by their liege if their liege is their parent or grandparent and is allowed to marry on their own
- Added logic for transferring siege weapons from a subunit to the main subunit
- Added small bonus to current location when selecting a target province to avoid units switching places
- All vassals are now able to declare war no matter how deep down in the vassal tree they are
- CB:s can now have a scripted score that is added to the hard-coded one
- Changed CB base score to be title's Tier^3 instead of Tier^2
- Fixed opinion of self overtaking the base score of many CB:s
- Moved CB score multipliers to defines
- Subunit stacks will be more hesitant to split off siege weapons
- The main subunit stack will never split off its best siege weapons
- The score of potential CB:s are no longer scaled with the strength of the target
- Told the AI that it shouldn't be avoiding running into stronger enemies when it is explicitly trying to help out one of its own units dealing with stronger enemies
- Told the AI that just because it cannot fit its entire army in a single province, that doesn't mean it should stop resupplying
- Told the AI that just because its units are in a separate stack, that doesn't mean it shouldn't help out in a combat it is losing 2 provinces away
- Told the AI to keep its stacks a bit smaller so that it has an easier time resupplying
- Tweaked down de jure multipliers for scoring titles when evaluating CB:s
- Units should ignore strait penalties and hostile attrition if helping another unit
- Units should ignore strait penalties if going into an ongoing combat
- Units with siege weapons will now try to relieve or help sieging units without siege weapons
- Will be more hesitant pushing a claimant's CB over its own
- Will focus more on CB:s that target a title of a higher tier than its current primary title
- Will no longer push a claimant's CB if it targets a title the AI has a claim on
- Will now hunt nearby enemy units even in hostile attrition territory if it deems it worthy
- Willingness to attack a stronger target now scale the more wars the target is in
- Willingness to attack a stronger target now scale with attacker's boldness
- Lowered the odds of creating a Cadet Branch for Counts and Ruler serving a liege of the same Dynasty
- Feudal and clan rulers will not declare war to tribal rulers if they have Tribal holding to convert in their realms
- Vassals Holy War will be declared only to direct neighbours to protect smaller realm from the Byzantine empire bigger realms
- Feudal and clan rulers will never start a Vassalization war of a tribal ruler.
- Kings and Emperors are less likely to accept Factions demand if they are not at war already.
# Interface
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- The Declare War window has been restructured to allow for a better comparison between the two side and ease the access to the Objectives attached to a casus belli
- Fixed some historical characters changing hairstyle or beard upon death
- Fixed the mass prisoner actions in some cases acting on far fewer characters than they should
- Fixed the "Only X Faiths" checkbox in the Other Faiths list in the Faith window being inverted
- Faction members do not hide the opinion of other faction members anymore
- Fixed Send Poem sometimes saying it has 0% chance of success when it actually has 1% chance
- If someone is your ally in a war and your enemy at the same time, they now show as your enemy since walking into them will cause combat. This does not solve the underlying issue of conflicting wars being possible in rare cases
- Fixed typing something into the newborn naming box that matches a localization key causing the text in the box to be replaced with that localization. E.G., in German typing "He" would get replaced with "Er"
- Added missing tooltip when taking a concubine for the chance of children
- All former spouses are now shown in the character window, not just those that are former due to death
- Fixed a bug where a vassal player would not be correctly warned when their own vassals' counties had formed a populist faction against their liege
- Fixed an issue that could cause numerous duplicate interaction notifications to appear
- Fixed unlocked innovations in some cases being hidden due to being impossible to get if you didn't already have them. This could for instance happen to Longships when creating Norman culture
- Fixed sidebar clipping with open windows
- Fixed marriages in some cases giving you a notification about the other party's arranger (E.G., their court owner) getting married, rather than about the alliance formed by the marriage
- Fixed the prestige breakdown incorrectly claiming that army cost modifiers apply to army prestige cost. E.G., the breakdown would say "Tribal: -50%" despite the prestige cost of armies being unaffected
# Game Content
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- Defenders of Rod now require a Holy Site without an existing special building
- Game Over loc will now mention any big empire/kingdom you've formed/reformed/unified through the existing big decisions
- Beating a significant amount of landless Scandinavian Adventurers now rewards unique nicknames
- Challenging your Ruler for their title now uses the SCE
- Courtiers who carry a rotting trophy now give off an off-putting smell
- Having a trading ceasefire with a former raid target will now occasionally give both parties access to recruitable notable immigrants
- Poet trait now has a runestone memorialisation
- Raised Voices at the Ting Meet event now has several issues, rather than literally always being the same squabble
- Scandinavian Adventurers may now be paid off or given land preemptively rather than always needing to be fought to the end
- Winter commanders can now auto-win at competitive skiing
- Harsh Winter now has a concept in the encyclopedia
- You can now pay for a runestone your child defaced yourself, though they'll take the lesson to heart
- Dynast can now enforce a divorce or ask a divorce for any member of their Dynasty within their Realm
- Adding new piety icons for Zoroastrianism and Judaism
- Added a follow-up event to a Stewardship: Wealth Lifestyle event which had empty options
- Olympus replaces Sparta as a Holy Site for Hellenism
- Added some extra events around raiders forming a trade relationship with their potential-victims
# User Modding
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# Deprecations
- GetDummyMale and GetDummyFemale are now deprecated. Modifying them in script is no longer possible. Their use-cases have been replaced with GetGlobalVariable and GetGlobalList. They will be removed completely in 1.5 to ensure script and code that is more maintainable in the long-term.
# Changes
- Add CloseGameView data function so mods can close specific in game views.
- Add garrison_reinforcement_factor. The param is used for set how fast current garrison size is increasing
- Add GetTraitFromGroup and GetTraitGroupLevel data functions on Character.
- Add GetTraitGroup( 'tag' ) and Trait.GetGroup data functions to get trait groups.
- Add HasTrait and HasTraitFromGroup data functions to Character.
- Add GetGlobalVariable and GetGlobalList data functions for getting data saved from script.
- Add MakeScopeValue, MakescopeFlag, and MakeScopeBool to create scope objects out of primitive types directly since they are not automatically creatable via the MakeScope member on complex types like Character.MakeScope.
- Add ScriptValue data function to scope objects which will evaluate a script value just with that scope object as root.
- Made the Localize data function allow the key it references to also call other data functions in it like SelectLocalization does.
- Add AddList data function for GuiScope, it is to add_to_list what AddScope is to save_scope_as.
- Added data functions GetTraitsWithFlag and GetTraitsWithoutFlag
- Added datamodel GetTraits on TraitGroup
- Added defines NMercenary::REALM_SIZE_MULT and NHolyOrder::REALM_SIZE_MULT
- Added effect deactivate_holy_site
- Added effect remove_dynasty_perk
- Added effect remove_innovation = innovation_key
- Added effect set_army_location
- Added effects clear_traits and copy_traits
- Added effects set_age and change_age
- Added list builder x_culture_global
- Added modifiers army_siege_value_mult, army_damage_mult, army_toughness_mult, army_pursuit_mult, and army_screen_mult
- Added trigger has_innovation_flag
- Added trigger perks_in_
, to query how many perks exist in a given lifestyle (rather than how many a specific character has) - Building_garrison was renamed to building_max_garrison
- CBs now support the "icon" parameter to have them use a different icon key
- Character interactions now support the "icon" parameter to have them use a different icon key
- Create_betrothal now logs an error rather than silently failing when something's wrong
- Ensured that laws are always stored in database order, so that it is predictable how they will override one another
- Fixed replace_path in mod descriptors having no effect
- Fixed hot-reload for linux
- Make_concubine now supports same-sex concubinage
- Rename garrison param to max_garrison for building configs
- Spawn_army will now only spawn levies if scripted to do so
- The assign_council_task effect now properly errors when the old councillor cannot be fired, rather than just silently doing nothing
# Bugfixes
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- Populist factions can no longer usurp a player's primary title if it is their only title of their tier
- Fixed spiritual head succession not always properly applying, leading to the spiritual head of faith passing on to temporal rulers. In rare cases that could lead to the player game-overing on death as a result of having inherited the head of faith title
- Removed occurrence of game over despite having a heir
- Theocratic rulers will keep their government after converting to a faith with the Theocratic doctrine
- The Return Roma decision now always return it to the Pope
- Elective heir from Primary title sets only for the title and doesn't affect others. Succession is tied to each title individually, so that changing succession in one doesn't affect other titles.
- Fix a bug when temple holdings get disabled randomly
- Fix an issue where on the MS Store/Gamepass version on some systems the launcher would get stuck during startup and never show up
- Fix random crash/freeze when accessing the military view
- Fixed a rare case where the game would completely freeze
- Fixed AI being able to declare war directly on someone else's vassal
- Fixed an issue that causes unavailable culture innovation can be chosen
- Fixed hiring a holy order charging you piety in cases where the interface tells you it will be free
- Fixed the Straight Medium Beard and Straight Pointy Beard missing from the Barbershop
- Forbid a Scandinavian Adventurer to start a war against someone if they have a Truce with one of their Liege
- Potentially fixed a way you could get booted into observe mode upon succession rather than getting to play as your heir
- Scandinavian Adventurers now receive a loan to ensure they don't start out in debt
- Securing the High Kingdom of the North Sea now requires *you* to hold the relevant kingdom titles, not just any randomer
- Spouses of rulers will now once again wear clothes based on their spouse's culture
- The Make Shieldmaiden interaction now correctly checks for Content and Humble traits.
- Updated the localization to better explain why the "different faith" modifier is applied in the context of a Marriage acceptance
- Lingering Resentment event is not triggered anymore if the kid do not have a crush
- Bubonic plague will now only occur after 1346
- Liege-less children can be recruited
- Fixed eye skinning issue in males and females models
- First of the Crusader Kings achievement is now properly tagged as impossible after the first Crusade started
- Removed the list of Crusade and Jihad participants on the left-hand side of the Declare War window
- Fixed a typo in the Danevirke description
- Remove incorrect Courtier Left message when inviting a courtier
- Fixed a case where your concubine would go to another court due to someone in their close family getting landed
- Character selection list filters player is not get correctly
- Concubines can always be dismissed, even when they are out of the diplomatic range
- Corrected color code used by some icons to match the correct level color code
- Varangian Adventurer will stop having new lovers appearing randomly
- Domestic affairs task do not display the loss of crown authority as a potential negative side effect
- Fixed a typo in the Hunters Stable description
- Fixed a typo in Malcolms name in the Fate of England bookmark description
- Partners will now be less likely to cheat when they have high opinion
- The rightful liege condition now is verify the whole hierarchy instead just the n+1 title only
- Added additional checks to make sure all needed scopes exists before generating tooltip about funding holy order
- Arabic High Nobility will now use the Scholar's Turban and Caliphs will use the Caliphal Robes
- Corrected a trigger incongruity that stopped Adventure and Pillage dynasty legacies being unlocked by valid non-Norse characters (e.g., Swedes, Estonians, etc.)
- Corrected your opponent's weapon teleporting into your hand if they concentrated hard enough during a bout
- Event wars are now counted for the purposes of raising runestones
- Exiling a character as a nithing now causes them to hate you, not themselves
- Fix console window being invisible on some startups on Linux and macOS (even in debug mode)
- Fixed hiring new courtiers in a holy order always belong to that holy's order faith
- Fixed map flashing on macOS when zooming between the terrain map and the flat map while advanced shader effects were enabled
- Fixed the End of an Era achievement not unlocking; now unlocks a month before the end date
- Fixing the issue with "Promote Culture finished" task not displaying what county was converted.
- Fixed inconsistent month formatting in Simplified Chinese localization
- Gift-Givers legacy now has a tooltip explaining that it makes you more likely to get trade-raid events
- If an unlanded character is used in a Conversion event, they will wear the proper religious clothes
- Landless Scandinavian Adventurers now correctly usurp duchies & may raise conquest runestones
- The 'Spindly' Trait will not make people's limbs too thin anymore
- The AI is now rewarded for fighting well/cunningly in duels even if the player isn't involved
- The control rebate received when winning a Varangian Adventure now has a tooltip
- Upped the likelihood for the Grandmaster of the Jomsvikings to rip their shirt off and come at you for your impiety & assorted faults
- Upped the likelihood of the Jomsvikings to harass anyone who isn't an unreformed Norse pagan
- The Mellow Spirit now applies opinion to parents instead of the liege
- When revoking a title, the acceptance modifier from the military strength is clamped to +20
- Stopped adding a weak hook on top of a weak hook if the expiration date is the same.
- Vassals under the de facto claimed title holder in a war are transferred even if the holder is not the top liege.
- Children cannot fight the Troll anymore, and thus cannot become Wolf/Moose/Lynx/Bear/Wolverine-Slayers
- Armies wont suffer from the starving penalty when the army is not using supplies
- The Logistician traits now affect supply duration at sea and in friendly territories
- The winter supply modifiers do not subtract bonus from in friendly territory anymore
- Tutorial texts have been updated to reflect the map update
- The I need to know event will not be spammed anymore when a character has a lot of lovers
- The countdown timer for council tasks are now properly updated
- A Life to Remember refers to the right characters relationship with the deceased.
- When trying to join a private server, password are not displayed in clear anymore
- La Cerda cadet branch localisation has been repaired
- Participants of a civil war can now all be punished without incurring Tyranny
- In case of white peace, they can only be imprisoned and their titles revoked
- In case of them being defeated, they can also be banished or executed
- Avoid a notification spam of Alliance Proposal after reloading a save file
- The Temple tooltip now tells Rulers with a Theocratic Doctrine that they will be leased to the Realm Priest after the construction.
[ 2021-06-08 07:02:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #62 - Monarchs Journey unleashed
[ 2021-06-01 12:31:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our Azure 1.4 free Patch is coming next week along with more Cosmetics options for everyone + some notes on AI & Holy Wars!
Read our Dev Diary #62 - Monarchs Journey unleashed
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Hello everyone!
I know you are all eager to learn more about the Royal Court, but as we announced last week, we will go into more details once the Azure patch is released. If everything goes according to plan, and there are no unexpected events, we aim to release Azure next week! But lets focus on today's small dev diary for now!
During the development of Crusader Kings III, we organized a community challenge where you could unlock unique cosmetics for the game, which we dubbed the Monarchs Journey. With the 1.4.0 Azure patch, weve decided to make these cosmetics available for everyone!
It includes:
- Headgear:
- Hennin
- Chaperon
- Jester's Hat
- Haircuts:
- Miller
- Miller Highlights
- Jeanne d'Arc
- Pageboy
- Mullet
- And the Wizard's Beard!
[ 2021-06-01 12:31:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #61 - The Royal Court
[ 2021-05-25 12:30:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's first dive into the namesake feature of the Expansion: the Royal Court itself + a very early sneak peek!
Read our Dev Diary #61 - The Royal Court
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court and read all there is to learn about our upcoming Expansion
Greetings!
Welcome to the first Dev Diary for the Royal Court expansion! As we mentioned in a previous DD, well go back to Azure patch DDs for a few weeks after this one. But do not fear, there will be some more Royal Court DDs before the summer holidays - and when were back from holidays well have many, many Royal Court diaries for you!
Its really hard to pick a topic for where to start, but we decided upon a dive into the namesake feature of the expansion - the Royal Court itself, your seat of royal majesty and power! The Royal Court consists of many features, all collected within a 3D scene that we call the Throne Room.
Heres an early Work in Progress screenshot of the throne room - do note that its a very early version, but we just can't wait to show you what we have been working on!
[Image: An early WIP western-style Throne Room, not indicative of final quality]
Now, there are many things that go into the Royal Court itself. It interacts with numerous new features thatll come with the expansion - we wont go into detail on all of them today, if we did this DD would become much too long!
It's worth noting that this isnt just a graphical feature; while we admit the importance of immersion, we don't want any features to feel tacked-on or superfluous. The Throne Room is there to show whats happening; what artifacts youve collected, which courtiers are having a fight, etc. This allows us to place your character in a scene together with others, showing that youre actually present in the same world! Were trying to bridge the gap between your character and the map, all while representing a side of medieval history weve never previously explored in detail - the importance for a ruler to show their power, their grandeur, to their subjects and peers.
Every Feudal/Clan King and Emperor has a Royal Court. Tribal Rulers do not have one, as this feature primarily models the formality and ceremony surrounding the court, as well as the need for spending Gold, while Tribal rulers use Prestige as their main resource. If a ruler is demoted to a lower rank (through war, election, or just sheer bad luck) their Royal Court and everything therein will either stay dormant until you regain your lost status, or follow the character who now rules in your stead.
Grandeur
The key concept that enables this is called Grandeur - a measurement of your standing in the eyes of your peers. While its measured on a scale from 0-100, its not necessarily a simple system. Increasing your grandeur will lead to direct political benefits, such as increased opinions, marriage acceptance, etc. It will also unlock new Council Jobs, such as being able to peacefully demand De Jure land with the Convince De Jure Territory job, or gain Knight Effectiveness while also decreasing enemy Scheme Success Chance with the Manage Royal Guards job. These effects motivate you to aim for a high level of Grandeur, but naturally comes at a monetary cost. How much are you willing to spend on artifacts, amenities, or on positions within your court? You have to balance your political needs with your temporal ones, such as warfare or development. Sacrificing your grandeur entirely will cause instabilities both internal and external.
Grandeur is not really a resource, and is not actively spent - unlike something like Prestige. It works on a much slower timescale, and is something you must balance and work towards increasing over a longer period of time. Though there are of course choices in events that make Grandeur increase or decrease, with various trade-offs.
Grandeur Effects
As mentioned in the previous section, Grandeur has several different effects and modifiers. It is divided into 10 separate levels with their own effects. For example, the very first level of Grandeur unlocks the ability to Hold Court - which is a crucial component in achieving the higher Grandeur levels. The second level unlocks a Council Task called Bestow Royal Favor, which is a powerful single-target task that increases a vassals opinion of you while granting them, and you, prestige.
One of the most significant effects of Grandeur is its effect on attraction of Inspired characters - the higher your Grandeur is compared to that of your neighbors, the likelier you are to have these creative travelers visit your court first, giving you an opportunity for patronage (more on Inspirations in a future DD).
Some of these levels will give courtiers who stay within it a flavorful trait, which will increase their skills and attributes based on the type of court theyre staying at. A particularly grand court might even see a more powerful trait appear, making such characters excellent for various jobs and Court Positions (more on Court Positions in a later DD).
Several Grandeur levels have effects and modifiers based on your Court Type - a type of flavorful perk for your court. Depending on your cultural Ethos youll get access to a few different types, such as a Diplomatic or Warlike Court. All royal courts have a type, and among other things it affects the type of trait that courtiers get (see previous paragraph). The bonuses granted from these types are varied and aim to enhance a certain style of play. The AI will tend to go for the Court Type most reflective of their Cultural Ethos and situation - for example, Indian Kings will often tend to want a Scholarly Court since many Indian cultures have a spiritual Ethos.
As an example, having a Diplomatic Court Type will grant you bonuses to Vassalization acceptance, tyranny gain, opinion, and potentially even unlock a Personal Scheme slot. A Warlike Court Type might instead see bonuses to MaA counter efficiency, knight efficiency, and the maximum size of MaA regiments. As not all cultures can access all Court Types, this is another reason to pursue Hybridization or Divergence (more on that in a later DD).
How Grandeur is Gained
Grandeur is divided in two; baseline, and direct gain. The baseline decides the trend, with you passively (and slowly) either gaining or losing grandeur over time, until the baseline is met. The baseline is affected by many things; what Court Artifacts you have, what Court Positions you have filled, etc (more on Court Artifacts in a later DD). The rate of grandeur change can be modified by many things, such as Cultural Ethoses or Traditions, but is as a rule of thumb slow. It takes time for word of your glory to spread, after all!
The most simple way to increase your Grandeur baseline is by investing in Amenities. Now, Amenities are simple and straightforward; but theyre still central to the concept of having a grand court! There are four different types; Lodgings, Food, Clothing and Servants. There are four levels to each, with each progressive level costing more gold to maintain, but giving more Grandeur baseline. They all come with a selection of flavor effects, for example; spending on food will slightly increase the disease resistance of your courtiers, but higher levels might also cause them to gain weight! Spending on clothes will increase their prestige, and will even cause them to wear fancier clothes at higher levels of expenditure (commoners will wear low nobility clothes, and so on). If your court is lacking in artifacts, spending on Amenities is the way to go.
Worth noting is that the cost of amenities is relative to your size and income; a small realm wont have to pay as much as a prosperous one - the intent here is to allow smaller kingdoms and empires to punch above their weight diplomatically, making choosing between expansion and consolidation a more relevant matter.
Reaching your baseline might take a long time, unless you decide to take action in order to speed it up - to gain grandeur fast, you need to Hold Court! Performing this decision invites your vassals and subjects to bring their issues, requests, and questions before you. The mere act of Holding Court will give you a one-time boost to your Grandeur, but the opportunities within the activity itself might give you opportunities to increase it further (or you could decide to lose grandeur for some temporal gain that is just too good to pass up!). The issues brought forth when Holding Court are many and varied, with many of them reacting to the state of your realm (more on Hold Court in a later DD).
Grandeur Expectations
Now, Grandeur isnt only about reaching the level that gives the effect you desire, its also about managing expectations!
Depending on a number of factors, such as your tier or the size of your realm, you will have a certain expectation put upon your Royal Court. This expectation is a double-edged sword - if your grandeur is below expectations youll suffer increasing diplomatic penalties as people lose respect, while if its exceeded you might see powerful diplomatic bonuses.
These are scaled based on how powerful you are - a rather small Kingdom that undershoots its expectations wont be hit particularly hard, while a massive empire such as the Holy Roman Empire or Byzantium will be punished much harder if they fail to live up to the expectations put upon them.
The effects of not living up to your expectations are many; reduced prestige, renown, and a hefty hit to opinion with both foreign rulers, courtiers and vassals. A large realm might easily find itself facing significant unrest unless its ruler starts spending on grandeur! On the other hand, a small kingdom that vastly exceeds the expectations put upon it might see significant bonuses to its diplomatic power, as well as renown and other bonuses.
Court Events
Now, the Royal Court isnt all about Grandeur, of course. Another important role it holds is to show that theres life in your court! This is done through Court Events; happenings contained within the court, taking place between those who live therein.
This new type of event uses the throne room as its backdrop, transforming the entire throne room into an event when they happen. Unlike normal events, this type of event is non-interruptive - you get notified that something is happening, whereby you can go into your Royal Court, inspect the scene, find whoever is involved, and trigger the event yourself. Usually these events are some sort of drama happening between your courtiers, which you can choose to simply ignore if you feel like you have more important matters to attend to.
These events come in many different flavors, mostly focusing on how it is to live in the court.
Some examples of court events that are being worked on currently include courtiers causing you embarrassment through their drinking or poor manners, or getting into arguments with your architect. Others involve things like rumors spreading about your predecessor on the throne, or popular and unflattering songs about you spreading within the court itself.
Court events might also be things like foreign ambassadors trying to uncover your secrets or devout courtiers shaming you and your court for your frivolous living.
---
Now, of course theres more that goes into the Royal Court, but well save going into details regarding Court Artifacts, the UI and graphical looks of the Throne Rooms, Court Positions and so on for future DevDiaries! Of course, this expansion isnt all about the Royal Court; before the summer break starts youll get to read about some of the other features coming with the expansion and patch.
Thats all for now!
[ 2021-05-25 12:30:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed - Sunday 23 May
Useful Links
[ 2021-05-23 07:13:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed brings the fun and excitement of Paradox's annual PDXCON event into a digital setting, including fan-favorite features including the PDXCON Announcement Show where a new game from Paradox Development Studio will be revealed for the first time in a 72 hours non-stop Broadcast! [previewyoutube=AhS6a_TajsI;full][/previewyoutube] Highlights:
- Be first in the world to see the New Game from Paradox Development Studio
- Meet our development teams and ask them your burning questions
- Join workshops and meet-ups with fellow Paradox fans
- Participate in challenges and win prizes
- And much more
Useful Links
- Website PDXCON Remixed
- Discord CK3
- Discord PDXCON Remixed
- Twitch ParadoxInteractive
- CK3 The Seven Seals
[ 2021-05-23 07:13:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed - Saturday 22 May
Useful Links
[ 2021-05-22 07:01:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed brings the fun and excitement of Paradox's annual PDXCON event into a digital setting, including fan-favorite features including the PDXCON Announcement Show where a new game from Paradox Development Studio will be revealed for the first time in a 72 hours non-stop Broadcast! [previewyoutube=AhS6a_TajsI;full][/previewyoutube] Highlights:
- Be first in the world to see the New Game from Paradox Development Studio
- Meet our development teams and ask them your burning questions
- Join workshops and meet-ups with fellow Paradox fans
- Participate in challenges and win prizes
- And much more
Useful Links
- Website PDXCON Remixed
- Discord CK3
- Discord PDXCON Remixed
- Twitch ParadoxInteractive
- CK3 The Seven Seals
[ 2021-05-22 07:01:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3: The Royal Court - The Vision
[ 2021-05-21 18:09:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Get ready for our next Expansion, Crusader Kings III: Royal Court! How will you rule when your subjects come to you with their complaints? Building the grandest court in the world may please your vassals and attract interesting people, but it also gives your complaining courtiers a place to find you. Make decisions that will smooth the troubled waters in your kingdom, while impressing visitors with your collection of masterpieces and relics. The Royal Court expansion to Crusader Kings III adds new ways to interact with the characters in your kingdom or empire, as well as major changes to the cultural system of the game, adding greater dynamism and historical fluidity. Features of Crusader Kings III: Royal Court include:
- Throne Room: A visual representation of your royal court will reflect all the accumulated majesty and prestige of your dynasty.
- Hold Court: Interact with vassals and courtiers as they come to you with their problems, seeking a royal judgment.
- Grandeur: Increase the quality of life at your court with fancier trappings and better food, all the better to impress your rivals and attract higher quality guests.
- Inspired People: Talented artists, craftspeople and thinkers can work on new projects, adding treasures and artifacts to your court.
- Hybrid Cultures: Make the most of a multicultural realm, developing a new way of life that is specifically adapted to your population and geography.
- Cultural Divergence: Split from your traditional culture, adapting it into something new that better fits your aspirations.
[ 2021-05-21 18:09:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed - Friday 21 May
Useful Links
[ 2021-05-21 07:04:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
PDXCON Remixed brings the fun and excitement of Paradox's annual PDXCON event into a digital setting, including fan-favorite features including the PDXCON Announcement Show where a new game from Paradox Development Studio will be revealed for the first time in a 72 hours non-stop Broadcast! [previewyoutube=AhS6a_TajsI;full][/previewyoutube] Highlights:
- Be first in the world to see the New Game from Paradox Development Studio
- Meet our development teams and ask them your burning questions
- Join workshops and meet-ups with fellow Paradox fans
- Participate in challenges and win prizes
- And much more
Useful Links
- Website PDXCON Remixed
- Discord CK3
- Discord PDXCON Remixed
- Twitch ParadoxInteractive
- CK3 The Seven Seals
[ 2021-05-21 07:04:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #60 - The cost of Warfare
[ 2021-05-18 12:31:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we are going to cover improvements around Warfare for the 1.4 Azure free patch: Enhanced Declare War window, Dynamic Mercenary Cost & Garrison, Factions Update!
Read our Dev Diary #59 - Fantastic presets and where to save them
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Hello everyone!
Im back with more info about whats coming in the 1.4 Azure patch! Today we are going to cover improvements around Warfare. We prepared a few more things in addition to the starting Men-at-Arms. I hope you will find them interesting!
Declare War Window 1.4
In addition to the Quality of Life improvements we presented last week, we also revisited the war declaration interface.
[Image of the new Declare War window]
[Image of the new Declare War window]
As you can see, the information has been restructured and it should be easier now to:
- Compare your strength with your target
- Estimate if your opponents will have the funds to hire mercenaries
- Select an available objective
- The primary title
- The size of the Realm
- The current Innovation Era
[ 2021-05-18 12:31:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #59 - Fantastic presets and where to save them
[ 2021-05-11 12:30:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Some of the Quality of Life improvements coming with the Azure free patch: Raise only Men-at-Arms, Game Rules Presets, and Character Search Presets!
Read our Dev Diary #59 - Fantastic presets and where to save them
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Hello friends,
Isn't it satisfying when things just work smoothly? If you agree then this Dev Diary will be right down your alley. Im one of the jolly UX designers working on CK3 and today Im very excited to give you a sneak peek of some of the quality of life improvements we have in store for the Azure free patch.
We wanted to focus on some of the requests you've brought up, so weve worked to find organic ways to implement these in the game. While we cant address all at once in a single patch, we still wanted to make some meaningful adjustments that will improve your time spent as medieval rulers, master strategists, and efficient trackers. Keep on reading to understand this last one.
Today Ill be covering Raise Men-at-Arms, Game Rules Presets, and Character Search Presets.
Raise only Men-at-Arms
We had already mentioned that now you will be able to start your games with contingent Men-at-Arms regiments, but these troops have another nifty trick under their sleeves. Now you will be able to raise only Men-at-Arms, allowing you to subdue your enemies without having to bother your levies. Quite a power move, right?
We know its dangerous to go adventuring alone, so raising Men-at-Arms will also raise your knights along with them. This ensures that you have a perfectly capable army to take on different challenges.
This is how it works; you will find a button that allows you to raise only Men at Arms in your Military menu, clearly labeled Raise all Men-at-Arms. This button will also be present when selecting Rally Points. Hopefully, this will give you more freedom when planning the perfect military strategy.
[Image of the Raise all Men-at-Arms action]
Game Rules presets
We all have different playstyles and sometimes its nice to spice things up by changing up the rules a bit. Sometimes we want to ask the Mongols to hold their horses and stay at home by turning off the Mongol Invasions, or maybe you want to see if you can withstand yearly visits from your friendly neighbors, the Norse invaders. To allow you to quickly change the rules, now you can save rules presets.
To create your Game Rules presets, all you need to do is set the specific combination of rules that you want, and then click the save button at the top of the window. Doing this will open up a secondary window that lets you name, and save your presets. Loading the presets is very straightforward, all you need to do is to select the desired preset from the dropdown menu at the top of the window.
[Image of the Game Rules Presets being saved]
Character Search presets
I said that the Azure patch will improve your tracking skills, and this is thanks to the introduction of Character Search Presets. Much like Game Rules Presets, the idea is to allow you to save different combinations of search filters into presets you can easily select.
You can save and load presets by using the 2 new buttons youll find at the top of the search filters window. That means that if you find yourself constantly searching for a specific mix of traits or any other search criteria, then keeping tabs on them will be much easier.
[Image of the new Character Search Preset buttons]
While this feature is very useful to streamline the process of recurrent searches with the same criteria, it still comes with some limitations, we are not able to save the dynamic objects in the filter (Dynasty, House and Custom Faith).
Thats all for today, I sincerely hope these quality of life improvements help you try other gameplay styles and that character search presets will make it easier for you to find that special someone somewhere in this fantastic medieval world.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for future updates on the Azure patch. Until next time!
[ 2021-05-11 12:30:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Open Beta Branch: Multiplayer Stability Phase II - Now available!
[ 2021-05-07 14:31:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Last week we have released an Open Beta branch on Steam, marked as "open_beta - 1.3.2 Multiplayer Improvements".
Many of you participated in the initiative, and we have collected a great amount of insights coupled with your very valuable feedback.
Thanks to these data, we are now exploring an option to improve the Networking.
This change applied only to this open beta branch on Steam will increase Save Game Transfer Speed for all players participating in a multiplayer game.
This improvement is now available. We are eager to read what you think of this change and hear your thoughts.
If you are timed out from the server when trying to join a multiplayer game, please let us know.
Note that we are still working on tweaking the Multiplayer experience for CK3 in this given branch, and so players could encountered a known issue preventing players from seeing any game in the MP lobby or kicking them back to the main menu from the loading screen.
We wanted to thank you for taking the time to raise your report to our teams, and for participating in the open beta! :)
You can access it by right-clicking Crusader Kings III in your Steam library, selecting Properties, entering the 'Betas' tab and selecting "open_beta - 1.3.2 multiplayer improvements" from the list.
We do ask that if you do participate in this Steam branch that you PLEASE RE-REPORT ANY MULTIPLAYER ISSUES YOU MAY BE FACING - provided they reoccur for you on this build, of course - as it will help us determine how the fixes on this particular branch are going in real time. This Beta branch is entirely voluntary and you are under no obligation to participate if you do not wish to do so.
[ 2021-05-07 14:31:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #58 - Stre(ss)tching the traits
[ 2021-05-04 12:32:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we will cover two improvements planned for the upcoming patch: additional content for Traits & AI warfare improvements!
Read our Dev Diary #58 - Stre(ss)tching the traits
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Hello everyone!
Nice to meet you all! I recently joined the Crusader Kings III game design team and am honored to inaugurate my PDX account with this Dev Diary. Today we will cover two improvements planned for the upcoming patch: additional content and AI warfare improvements.
Trait changes
One of the many pleasures of Crusader Kings is to personify a plethora of characters. Every one of them offers a good opportunity to roleplay, thanks to the various combinations of traits they offer. The Azure patch will expand upon existing content by updating and adding some trait-specific interactions and consequences. With this update, we want to connect the stress system even closer to personality traits.
One of the notable changes is for Shy: it will no longer generate Stress when launching a Personal Scheme. Shy characters can still receive Stress via some of the scheme event options however, and they will be less efficient at performing personal schemes (it will take them longer), but they will be able to do it without ending up having a mental breakdown.
We also added a few new interactions and decisions. For instance, Forgiving characters can abandon one of their hooks to lose Stress. You can either decide to be a truly forgiving character, abandoning a hook you obtained unwittingly, or you can actively look for hooks and then choose to be merciful. We have also added new options for Diligent characters; they can dedicate themselves to improving the Development of their Capital, but doing so will generate a lot of Stress. Finally, if Impatient characters are Stressed, they can speed up the progress of their current Personal Scheme, without affecting their current Stress levels.
[Image of the Develop Capital decision available for Diligent characters]
Some traits have also gained access to interactions that are not related to the stress system but still improve upon the expression of their personality. For instance, Arbitrary characters can now dismiss a Hook a vassal holds on them by spending a lot of Prestige and gaining Tyranny.
[Image of the Dismiss Hook interaction available for Arbitrary characters]
We would love to hear your feedback, and also suggestions for improving other traits!
AI and Warfare
There is also a number of AI improvements, mostly about how the AI moves its units while at war. Pathfinding has been revised, and AI armies should now take more optimal routes to reach their targets, whether they be close but surrounded by treacherous terrain, or far away across the sea (which was most visible during Crusades; there will be no more island hopping for Christian armies, and Vikings should also be more swift and direct in their raids). The new pathfinding logic now factors in time, attrition and threat when selecting and routing to a destination.
Getting close to the enemy is only the first step in warfare though, and the AI should behave more sensibly in other areas too; AI armies will more aggressively pursue suitable opponents and try to avoid unfair fights. After winning crucial battles, AI armies should use their full might to more efficiently besiege enemy fortresses - you should see less mangonels and bombards chasing peasants while there is a perfectly good castle waiting to be ruined. We also adjusted the AI behaviors depending on their Casus Bellis, making sure that they not only prioritize territorial conquest but also capturing hostages when relevant.
All of the changes were fine-combed by our dev team, and we feel confident that the AI will bring you a surprise or two in the Azure patch. Lastly, an important organizational change: the version number of the patch will be 1.4 instead of 1.3.X as announced previously. This is to make the scope of the patch a bit clearer. While it is still a relatively small patch, it is also larger than a hotfix or a pure bugfix patch we've released in the past. Some mods will need to be updated. And while we always strive to keep save games compatible, with the nature of the game you might still run into edge cases with your old saves that we did not catch.
And thats it for today! Thanks again for your precious feedback, and please keep providing more! I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next week for more information about the Azure patch!
[ 2021-05-04 12:32:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Open Beta Branch: Multiplayer Stability - Now available!
[ 2021-04-29 10:08:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Queens & Kings!
We are now opening a BETA Branch available to all Steam users, to enhance Multiplayer Stability.
After the success we saw with previous Steam branches, we are hopeful that this one will help us to address issues with our Multiplayer system. This branch will stay open for a few months to help diagnose as many issues as possible.
With that in mind, we ask that if you do participate in this Steam branch that you PLEASE RE-REPORT ANY MULTIPLAYER ISSUES YOU MAY BE FACING as it will help us determine how the fixes on this particular branch are going in real time.
This Beta branch is entirely voluntary and you are under no obligation to participate if you do not wish to do so.
As always, we appreciate & value your input.
A message from ou QA Team:
Our mission is always to deliver the most quality product as possible to the player. QA acts as the player representative within the development team, and works towards providing the team with as much information as they need to create a product that is as fun as possible to play.
We are aware of numerous issues, including the Out-of-Synchs, empty lobbies, incorrect version issues and with this open Steam beta we aim to improve the multiplayer situation.
As always, please report anything you find on the bug report forums and we will check it out as soon as we can. We really appreciate uploading the randomlogs which include multiplayer logs to the bug forum reports as well because this helps us immensely. Logs are available in the folder under C:\Users\
[ 2021-04-29 10:08:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #57 - An Eventful Summer
[ 2021-04-27 13:25:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are expanding two areas in the upcoming Free Patch 'Azure': childhood and lifestyle events!
Read our Dev Diary #57 - An Eventful Summer
To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Hello everyone!
I hope youre enjoying the warmer days, and that you are looking forward to hearing a bit more about the free patch, Azure, that were releasing this summer.
Before we get into the meat of today's Dev Diary I want to clarify something regarding the Azure patch; it's being made by a smaller group of CK3 devs in a Strike Team setup, which means that not everyone on the CK3 Dev team is working on the patch. We hope that we'll still be able to address quite a few of your concerns, but we won't have time to address everything. Still, keep sending us feedback, as it helps us prioritize!
This dev diary will focus on one area of the patch and as a Content Designer I am unsurprisingly here to talk about events and such. More specifically I am here to talk about some new content that were including in Azure, and joining me in this dev diary is one of our new Content Designers: Isabella! As developers we all have areas of the game that we would like to expand upon and flesh out a bit, and two areas are now getting some love: childhood and lifestyle events.
Childhood
Children always want to grow up fast, and no child feels this more actually than the one that just inherited the entire realm at the mature age of six. Oh woe, what can a young king do to pass the long days ahead until he can scheme and murder to his hearts content? Play with other young rulers, of course! Azure includes a new activity for children called Meet Peers that will make childhood more interesting and full of experiences.
gathering.png
[Image of the start event for the Meet Peers activity]
Meet Peers is an activity available for children where they can gather all young rulers and courtiers in the realm to just play and forget about the dreariness of life as a child in medieval times. All participants will lose stress and increase their opinion of the host, and the children attending the playdate can find themselves in fun and educational situations!
brave.png
[Image of an event that can appear when you Meet Peers]
Of course, there may also be any number of less wholesome consequences from bringing that many children together.
playing_rough.png
[Image of an event that can appear when you Meet Peers]
And if socializing just isnt your thing and friends are easiest made (and killed) through schemes weve also reduced the age restrictions for Sway and Murder slightly. All to enable you to live out your scheming rule from as young an age as possible!
Lifestyle events
Or, if your children just cant wait to grow up, you could let them try their fate fighting against grown soldiers in a tournament. In this patch, we have a couple of new lifestyle events coming your way, including the Tantrum Tourney event chain for Martial Authority characters.
tantrumtourneyhighres.PNG
[Image of the starting event from the Tantrum Tourney event chain]
Hym repented that he came there! - 14th Century Romance Richard Coer de Lyon on grown dukes and lords regretting each moment as they get impaled by a lance manned by an adolescent child.
A trope of romances detailing the life of Richard the Lionheart likes to exaggerate the dates of his reign to present him as a King who was a child monarch. This seems to be done almost exclusively so he can be presented as perhaps the greatest demon of a child who ever lived. Child Richard is shown ordering all of his noblemen to fight him in a tournament - on pain of death, and beating everyone who turns up to a pulp.
Will you allow your babys first bloodlust to be unleashed upon your knights, who certainly did not sign up for this?
Keep your eyes peeled while your character is studying their Lifestyle! You might see a few new moments cropping up. Especially if you have war elephants but what are you doing if you dont already have war elephants?
[ 2021-04-27 13:25:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
The journey to PDXCON - Today: the Grand Campaign, Crusader Kings III!
[ 2021-04-21 08:07:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
The journey to PDXCON starts today with the Grand Campaign!
Enjoy the adventure from the Tribal Era to a distant future, across four Paradox Interactive games.
Join the Grand Campaign with Crusader Kings III on Twitch, starting as the Danes: Jarl Halfdan of Jrvk, 867AD!
Crusader Kings III: 21st April 12:00-22:00 CEST, on Twitch
Join the teams of Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV and Stellaris for the largest event this side of PDXCON Remixed. In a tale that takes us from 867A.D to the distant future, you, the Paradox Community, will have a deciding say on events that unfold!
Acting as our Senate, you can influence how each campaign unfolds. Want to see a more military focused nation, or one that values the power of diplomacy or trade? By debating and voting inside the Senate, you can shape the course of our nation through all four grand strategy games.
You can take your seat in the senate by heading over to the discord here: Discord PDXCon
Each leg of the journey will also have a knock on effect on the next, crafting a completely unique gamestate by the time we reach our Stellaris endgame. You have the power to not only shape history, but the universe!
The Event will be broadcast live on the Paradox Interactive Twitch Channel at the times below:
The Dates:
Crusader Kings III: 21st April 12:00-22:00 CEST
Europa Universalis IV: 28th April 12:00-22:00 CEST
Hearts of Iron IV: 7th May 12:00 - 22:00 CEST
Stellaris: 15th-16th May 12:00 - 20:00 CEST
Were looking forward to bringing hours of grand strategy gameplay to you as we forge our own story, together!
[ 2021-04-21 08:07:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #56 - An Azure Summer
[ 2021-04-20 12:43:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week we have a few announcements to make: Azure Free Patch, Multiplayer stability, First Expansion & PDXCon!
Read our Dev Diary #56 - An Azure Summer
Greetings!
This week we have a few announcements to make! Firstly, as you saw in the last diary, we mentioned the number 1.3.X - this is the version number for an upcoming patch that were aiming to release around this summer (of course, the X part will be an actual digit when its released, but for now well just have to wait to see what itll be in the end!).
As you already know, we tend to name our patches using heraldic terms. The Northern Lords release had the name Corvus for example. As were hoping for clear blue skies this summer, weve dubbed this patch Azure!
The Azure patch is a free patch, and there will not be any paid content coming out at the same time. Itll focus on improving the stability of the game, fixing bugs, adding Quality of Life, balancing various systems, and adding some small features requested by the community. Well not go into many details in this diary, instead you can look forward to more info in some of the upcoming Dev Diaries!
Until then, here is a first teaser of some of the improvements that you will find in the patch:
- War Declaration Window: The war declaration UI flow will be revisited in order to better highlight your opponents strength and the different objectives available for a given Casus Belli
- Starting Men at Arms: Rulers will now start with a contingent of Men at Arms, depending on their income and culture. Default Men at Arms will also be generated when a Character is landed for the first time.
[ 2021-04-20 12:43:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #55 - Modding Improvements
[ 2021-04-13 12:32:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week, all about Field recording, Sound design of the Event Images, some 1.3 patch updates, and of course, the music from Andreas Waldetoft!
Read our Dev Diary #54 - A Sound Plan
Good afternoon, all
Im here today with a short dev diary on some upcoming improvements to moddability. Were not quite ready yet to make any announcements about upcoming features and so on, but we thought you might be interested in hearing about some modding improvements we've been working on.
In an upcoming patch which I will from now on call 1.3.X (due to the exact version number being unknown at this time), weve spent a bit of time on making the game more moddable based on requests weve had from the modding community. In particular we would like to thank the Modding Co-op for coming up with a curated list of requested functionality. The curation of this list made it easy for us to get a good overview of what functionality the community would like, and limited to those requests thatd benefit a lot of modders rather than just a handful. As the amount of time we could spend on modding improvements this time around was rather limited, having an already curated list to pick from was great.
From that list we picked some of the simpler requests; things thatd require relatively minimal code and would only affect mods. We will likely implement more from this list in the future, though our list for 1.3.X is unlikely to expand.
In addition to implementing some functionality based on these requests, weve also had some conversations with modders, and looked at some common pain points. We cant address most of them right now, but one we noticed is that a number of mods use the DummyMale and DummyFemale characters for a lot of things they werent meant for. This was a result of lacking functionality, which we have now introduced in 1.3.X.
With the need for this dummy-character removed, we will be deprecating it. That means that itll continue to work 1.3.X which introduces the replacement functionality, but that they will be largely removed in 1.4 to ensure that script and code are more maintainable in the long-term.
Another bit of functionality that we think modders will be interested in is that of same-sex concubinage. Proper support for
it will come alongside other modding improvements in 1.3.X. Before 1.3 the gender restrictions for concubinage were possible to work around (but could cause bugs), which is no longer possible in 1.3. In 1.3.X we support it more fully, eliminating odd edge-case bugs and the like.
Further, we plan to support same-sex marriage for mods in 1.4. Due to larger technical risks surrounding it, it was not feasible to include that in 1.3.X; we need more time to test it to ensure that this support does not introduce bugs in the vanilla game. We're really looking forward to being able to support more diverse experiences with this mod support.
Mods add so much to the experience of our games, and moddability has been something weve considered throughout CK3s development. As a former CK2 modder myself, its great to see all the things the modding community is producing.
Finally, heres all the modding improvements we plan to release in 1.3.X:
- User Modding: Add CloseGameView data function so mods can close specific in game views.
- User Modding: Add GetTraitFromGroup and GetTraitGroupLevel data functions on Character.
- User modding: make_concubine now supports same-sex concubinage
- User Modding: Add GetTraitGroup( 'tag' ) and Trait.GetGroup data functions to get trait groups.
- User Modding: Add HasTrait and HasTraitFromGroup data functions to Character.
- User modding: Added data functions GetTraitsWithFlag and GetTraitsWithoutFlag
- User modding: Added datamodel GetTraits on TraitGroup
- User modding: Added effect deactivate_holy_site
- User modding: Added effect remove_dynasty_perk
- User modding: Added effect remove_innovation = innovation_key
- User modding: Added effect set_army_location
- User modding: Added effects clear_traits and copy_traits
- User modding: Added effects set_age and change_age
- User modding: Added list builder x_culture_global
- User modding: Added trigger has_innovation_flag
- User modding: Added trigger perks_in_
, to query how many perks exist in a given lifestyle (rather than how many a specific character has) - User modding: spawn_army will now only spawn levies if scripted to do so
- User modding: Add GetGlobalVariable and GetGlobalList data functions for getting data saved from script.
- User modding: Add MakeScopeValue, MakescopeFlag, and MakeScopeBool to create scope objects out of primitive types directly since they are not automatically creatable via the MakeScope member on complex types like Character.MakeScope.
- User modding: Add ScriptValue data function to scope objects which will evaluate a script value just with that scope object as root.
- User modding: Made the Localize data function allow the key it references to also call other data functions in it like SelectLocalization does.
- User modding: Add AddList data function for GuiScope, it is to add_to_list what AddScope is to save_scope_as.
[ 2021-04-13 12:32:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
The journey to PDXCON begins: Introducing the Grand Campaign!
[ 2021-04-12 15:01:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
The journey to PDXCON begins: Introducing the Grand Campaign!
4 games, 4 weeks and 5 days of play!
Join the teams of Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV and Stellaris for the largest event this side of PDXCON Remixed. In a tale that takes us from 867A.D to the distant future, you, the Paradox Community, will have a deciding say on events that unfold!
Acting as our Senate, you can influence how each campaign unfolds. Want to see a more military focused nation, or one that values the power of diplomacy or trade? By debating and voting inside the Senate, you can shape the course of our nation through all four grand strategy games.
You can take your seat in the senate by heading over to the discord here: Discord PDXCon
Each leg of the journey will also have a knock on effect on the next, crafting a completely unique gamestate by the time we reach our Stellaris endgame. You have the power to not only shape history, but the universe!
The Event will be broadcast live on the Paradox Interactive Twitch Channel at the times below:
The Dates:
Crusader Kings III: 21st April 12:00-22:00 CEST
Europa Universalis IV: 28th April 12:00-22:00 CEST
Hearts of Iron IV: 7th May 12:00 - 22:00 CEST
Stellaris: 15th-16th May 12:00 - 20:00 CEST
Were looking forward to bringing hours of grand strategy gameplay to you as we forge our own story, together!
[ 2021-04-12 15:01:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #54 - A Sound Plan
[ 2021-03-30 12:36:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week, all about Field recording, Sound design of the Event Images, some 1.3 patch updates, and of course, the music from Andreas Waldetoft!
Read our Dev Diary #54 - A Sound Plan
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/
[ 2021-03-30 12:36:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #53 - Northern Lords Content Rundown
[ 2021-03-23 13:53:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello adventurers!
Today, were going to be taking a look at what new scripted content weve added for CK3: the Northern Lords, and, since its been out and playable for a week, I thought itd be fun to go a little bit into some of the design rationales we had and my personal perspective on some of the feedback so far.
Read our Dev Diary #53 - Northern Lords Content Rundown
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/
[ 2021-03-23 13:53:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.3.1 is now Live!
[ 2021-03-23 10:34:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey everyone,
Update 1.3.1 is Live now!
Read the Hotfix 1.3.1 here
[ 2021-03-23 10:34:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Upcoming Patch 1.3.1 - Open Beta Branch on Steam
[ 2021-03-19 13:19:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Howdy all,
We are experimenting with an early access Open Beta for our upcoming fixes and releases for 1.3.1. While this Beta branch is still available, please note that it is not a final product or indicative of our ultimate goal. We are using this to assess viable options and test features, so please let us know what you think!
This branch is currently available for Steam only during this initial test for the Patch, but we are looking at the possibility of other platforms in the future.
FOR THOSE THAT OPT IN TO THIS BETA BRANCH: We do ask that you make sure that you MAKE A COPY OF YOUR SAVE FILE before you launch this Beta to ensure that there is no issue with saves. While we do not anticipate any issues with your saves, we ask that you make a back-up just in case.
Please note that for Multiplayer games: the server list is not working, but joining via server ID does work.
Read and discuss our 1.3.1 Hotfix Patchnotes
[ 2021-03-19 13:19:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Play Crusader Kings III for free until March 21st!
[ 2021-03-18 17:24:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
To celebrate our newest Flavor Pack, CK3 is Free to Play on Steam until March 21st! Northern Lords is the first Flavor Pack for Crusader Kings III, one of the best reviewed games of 2020. It offers new events and cultural themes related to Norse society. Read our Dev Diary #52 - 1.3 Corvus Patch Notes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/ Join us:
[previewyoutube=1jPOV-xLNPA;full][/previewyoutube][ 2021-03-18 17:24:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Livestream - Flavor Pack: Northern Lords
[ 2021-03-17 15:33:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today, we are focusing the weekly CK3 Livestream on our recent Flavor Pack: Northern Lords
Have a look at the newest features for Crusader Kings III, and chat with the developers!
Join the Livestream
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/
[ 2021-03-17 15:33:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Northern Lords, available now!
[ 2021-03-16 17:03:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III's Flavor Pack "Northern Lords" & Free Update 1.3 Corvus: available now! Norse Adventurers New Cultural Content New Art & Music Stories of the Norse people, and more! Free Update: Balancing, Winter, Poetry, Duels https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/ Best known as fierce raiders from a land of snow and legend, the Norse were a complex society where loyalty was based on more than a noble bloodline. Leaders had to prove themselves as warriors, yes, but also as judges and governors. Northern Lords is the first Flavor Pack for Crusader Kings III, one of the best reviewed games of 2020. It offers new events and cultural themes related to Norse society. [previewyoutube=tQ5_z0hlsd8;full][/previewyoutube] Features of Crusader Kings III: Northern Lords include:
- Norse Adventurer Realms: Norse characters may abandon their own homes and lead hosts into foreign lands to establish their own kingdoms.
- Jomsvikings and Shieldmaidens: Norse holy warriors and stalwart shieldmaidens take up arms on your behalf, while poet characters can compose stinging rebukes or romantic overtures.
- New Cultural Content: Special Norse dynastic legacies, Norse blot sacrifices, trials by combat and cultural innovations, as well as numerous new events for additional color.
- New Art and Music: Original art and musical score to enhance your playing experience.
- And more: Berserkers, missionaries, runestones, Varangian adventurers, new decisions and other highlights from the exciting history of the Norse people.
[ 2021-03-16 17:03:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #52 - 1.3 Corvus Patch Notes
[ 2021-03-16 13:38:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello adventurers!
Today is the release of Northern Lords, and with it the free 1.3 patch that weve dubbed Corvus in honor of Odins ravens!
Weve teased parts of the patch notes in previous Dev Diaries, but this time well post them all - roughly 13 pages of changes and fixes, and this time there wont be any omissions or [REDACTED] text!
Read our Dev Diary #52 - 1.3 Corvus Patch Notes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303183/Crusader_Kings_III_Northern_Lords/
[ 2021-03-16 13:38:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our first Flavour Pack for is coming on March 16th: Northern Lords
[ 2021-03-13 20:18:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are extremely excited to reveal our first Flavour Pack for Crusader Kings III, coming on March 16th: Northern Lords! Raid as a Northern Lord in three days! Have a look at our Feature Breakdown video: [previewyoutube=Y9_rcHmTIzE;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2021-03-13 20:18:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Paradox Insider - March 13th, 8pm CET: 1 hour to go!
[ 2021-03-13 18:06:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Paradox Insider starts in 1h now (8pm CET), get ready!
We are a part of the Game Dev Direct, which you can watch *now* for even more game news: https://www.twitch.tv/mediaindieexchange
[ 2021-03-13 18:06:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #51 - Its Time to Duel
[ 2021-03-09 13:47:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome everyone!
Its not always about being number one.
Its about dueling with bravery, honor, and respect + Patch Notes teaser!
Read our Dev Diary #51 - Its Time to Duel
[ 2021-03-09 13:47:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #50 - Poetry to my Ears
[ 2021-03-02 13:33:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome everyone!
Lets all give an especially warm welcome to the Poet Trait!
This venerable little piece of content is making a triumphant return with reworked stats, a character interaction, and randomised poetry generation for our upcoming 1.3 free Update.
If you're curious enough, have a teaser sneak peek at the 1.3 Patch Notes!
Read our Dev Diary #50 - Poetry to my Ears
[ 2021-03-02 13:33:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #49 - A Cold Embrace
[ 2021-02-23 13:59:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Winter is being introduced to Crusader Kings III along with map updates.
Read the first details about Update 1.3!
Read our Dev Diary #49 - A Cold Embrace
[ 2021-02-23 13:59:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #48 - The Team
[ 2021-02-16 13:54:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy this brief insight into whos working on updates, fixes and exciting new content for Crusader Kings III!
Read our Dev Diary #48 - The Team
[ 2021-02-16 13:54:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Lunar Sale is here!
[ 2021-02-12 19:00:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Save up to 20% on Crusader Kings III with the Steam Lunar Sale!
It is time to invite your friends at your court.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III
[ 2021-02-12 19:00:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Paradox Insider - March 13th, 8pm CET
[ 2021-02-11 16:15:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Kings & Queens: A new Paradox Insider show is on the way!
Make sure to join us for some news, gameplay & more at the Game Dev Direct on March 13th, 8p.m. CET.
Click here for more details.
[ 2021-02-11 16:15:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
CrusaderKings III nominated as Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year - DICEAwards
[ 2021-02-08 16:26:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Behold, Crusader Kings III has been nominated as Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year in the #DICEAwards!
Learn more here
Our next Dev Diary is scheduled for mid-February.
From here, things will ramp up and you will be able to learn more about the future of Crusader Kings III!
We thank you all for your patience while we are working very hard to produce the high quality content you all deserve.
See you soon!
[ 2021-02-08 16:26:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Weekly Livestream CK3: Jan. 27 - 16:30 PM CET
[ 2021-01-27 15:36:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Rally the troops, our weekly CK3 Livestream is back!
Join us now on Twitch!
We also know that you are hungry for new Dev Diaries.
Fret now, we will return with a new DD Mid-February.
Our team is eager to share more about the future of CK3, so hang tight!
[ 2021-01-27 15:36:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hero Title: CK3 is on Sale on Steam!
[ 2020-12-26 20:24:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hero Title: CK3 is on Sale on Steam!!
Get yourself a royal present for this holiday season!
Buy for you or a friend here: Crusader Kings III
[ 2020-12-26 20:24:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Winter Sale is here! Up to -20% on CK3
[ 2020-12-22 18:02:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Winter Sale is here!
Get yourself a royal present for this holiday season: Up to -20%!
Buy for you or a friend here: Crusader Kings III
[ 2020-12-22 18:02:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #47 - Happy Holidays!
[ 2020-12-15 14:27:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
The team says thanks for the support you've given us this year!
Read more on the forums
Howdy all!
What a wild ride this entire year has been so far! We launched the game, brought the Ruler Designer to a new generation of CK fans, created a wholesome and welcoming community, and had a ton of fun.
While there is still a bit of time left in the year, we will be following in the footsteps of the long time-honored Paradox tradition of taking some time off around the holidays to give the teams a chance to recuperate and relax. This will also make sure that we are able to continue bringing you first class content in the new year! That being said, most of the team will be out spending time enjoying their holidays from this week until sometime early January 2021.
Without all of you in the Community, we would not be able to live our dreams of bringing Crusader Kings to life and share with you all. So, from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for the wonderful memories during a truly trying year and may we see you all again in the new year.
There wont be a Dev Diary until Mid-January at the very earliest, so keep an eye out for news on when they will return after the new year.
Happy Holidays to all!
That's all for now! Have a great winter!
[ 2020-12-15 14:27:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.2.2 is now Live!
[ 2020-12-07 14:13:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders,
Update 1.2.2 is Live now!
Read the Hotfix 1.2.2 here
[ 2020-12-07 14:13:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #46 - 1.2.2 Patch Notes
[ 2020-12-04 16:39:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
We thought that you might enjoy a sneak peek at the Patch Notes 1.2.2, coming early next week!
Read more on the forums
Greetings!
Patch 1.2 Argent has been out for a while now, and we hope youre enjoying it! Its so much fun to see what fascinating creations you all create in the Ruler Designer!
To round off the year, were planning to release a small patch early next week. Originally we wanted to release it this week, but some more issues were found that we wanted to address - such is the nature of software development! :)
The patch will address a number of bugs and issues, listed below:
- You can now hold the Control-key when raising armies to not have them be split based on supply when you raise them
- Fixed the Ruler Designer crashing when using the arrow keys to move sliders on machines with limited RAM
- Fixed some characters not having access to Cultural Names when naming children because their Religion didnt have any Religious names defined
- Fixed a crash that could happen when randomizing Dynasty Names for certain cultures in the Ruler Designer
- Fixed the Legacies button being hidden beyond the screen if both Dynasty and House modifiers are present
- Fixed the AI not always supporting the player correctly when handling massive armies
- Fixed not being able to build certain buildings when playing the game in spanish, esto ahora est arreglado
- Fixed siege sounds sometimes persisting after you close the siege window
- Removed the deprecated Nudity game rule, nudity is now toggled on/off in the settings menu, accessible in the same place as you toggle displaying graphical diseases
- The lifestyle/focus button is no longer visible on characters that cannot have a lifestyle set
- Kicking a player that is still inside the Ruler Designer will no longer block a multiplayer game from starting
- When you Ruler Design a character, you will no longer lose all non-De Jure vassals that ruler had
- Fixed not always having access to all hairstyles when Ruler Designing a character that is 18 years old or younger
- You now get less points from being extremely old when Ruler Designing a character
- Fixed the list of Faiths exceeding its limits when playing the game in a non-english language
- Criminal rulers no longer get a free pass on imprisoning without impunity
- Diplomacy perk modifiers are now added and subtracted properly (Sound Foundations and Friendly Counsel)
- Fixed losing Piety when imprisoning generic Criminals, now properly only applies when imprisoning your Head of Faith
- Fixed an issue with floating or sinking infant characters in the main menu, exorcism successful
- Fixed a memory leak in the GUI editor
- Fixed a memory leak for character portraits. This could have a significant effect in the Ruler Designer, and a lesser one during normal play
- Fixed achievements sometimes being shown as unavailable even though they were available
That's all for now! Have a great winter!
[ 2020-12-04 16:39:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Autumn Sale is here!
[ 2020-11-25 19:34:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Steam Autumn Sale is here!
Get yourself a royal early Christmas present, you are worth it.
-20% on the Standard Edition & -10% on the Royal Edition.
Get a Hook on me: Buy Crusader Kings III
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III
[ 2020-11-25 19:34:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 is on Sale on Steam: -20% Standard Edition & -10% Royal Edition!
[ 2020-11-24 18:39:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III is on Sale right now!
-20% on the Standard Edition & -10% on the Royal Edition.
Buy Crusader Kings III
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III
[ 2020-11-24 18:39:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #45 - 1.2 Patch Notes
[ 2020-11-24 09:46:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings!
The 1.2 Argent patch is soon released, but until you get home from work/school we thought that you might enjoy a peek at the Patch Notes!
We hope that youll have lots of fun with the Ruler Designer and all the other new features. Weve also fixed a whole heap of bugs, of course!
These patch notes clock in at a whopping 2.6 Matthew "Blackninja" Clohessy in length! One Blackninja should roughly equal one Groogy, for those who are more familiar with the old gold standard.
Read our Dev Diary #45 - 1.2 Patch Notes
[ 2020-11-24 09:46:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Ruler Designer
[ 2020-11-23 16:14:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing Crusader Kings III! Check out Roll1d2games' video, as he presents the Ruler Designer feature from our newest Free Update 1.2, coming on November 24, 2020, 10am CET. Customize & build your own character, and bring them to life! [previewyoutube=gYpQuj1zYb8;full][/previewyoutube] Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-23 16:14:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #44 - 1.2 Bits & Bobs
[ 2020-11-17 13:38:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Check out our new Dev Diary for Crusader Kings III, 1.2 Bits & Bobs
Ruler Designer, Kill List, Attach to Army, Improved UI & more!
Read our Dev Diary #44 - 1.2 Bits & Bobs
[ 2020-11-17 13:38:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
England's Fate - Part #2: Stacey ACTUALLY Saves England
[ 2020-11-16 18:28:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #2 of our new series of gameplay videos: England's Fate, Stacey ACTUALLY Saves England! [previewyoutube=hlnbPJ2Levo;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-16 18:28:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Livestream "Crusaders' Court": Today at 17:00 PM CST!
[ 2020-11-13 16:00:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
We will be live, Today at 17:00 CET. Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-11-13 16:00:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
England's Fate - Part #1: Matt Saves England
[ 2020-11-12 17:03:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #1 of our new series of gameplay videos: England's Fate, Matt Saves England! [previewyoutube=i1CL_C9Dewo;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans & devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-12 17:03:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Weekly Livestream CK3: Nov. 11 - 16:30 PM CET
[ 2020-11-11 15:38:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Rally the troops, our weekly #CK3 Livestream is about to start! You don't want to miss this one
Join Steacy, Matt & Troy now on Twitch!
[ 2020-11-11 15:38:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Final Part #18
[ 2020-11-10 17:14:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch the Final Part #18 of the Novgorod Nobles series: Finally Russia! [previewyoutube=99WTSuX2OKQ;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-10 17:14:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #43 - A Ruler of Your Own
[ 2020-11-10 13:35:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's dive in the much anticipated Ruler Designer for Crusader Kings III!
The Ruler Designer will be a free feature, so everyone can dive into creating their own wonderful (or monstrous) custom character!
Read our Dev Diary #43 - A Ruler of Your Own
[ 2020-11-10 13:35:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #17
[ 2020-11-07 18:28:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Check out #CK3's new episode with Matt & Steacy! Part #17 of the Novgorod Nobles. [previewyoutube=qTuWwZMPV64;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-07 18:28:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Livestream: We're LIVE with guest Rose!
[ 2020-11-06 15:59:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are Live now! Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community Starring Rose as our guest!
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-11-06 15:59:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #16
[ 2020-11-05 17:02:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Check out #CK3's new episode with Matt & Steacy! Part #16 of the Novgorod Nobles. [previewyoutube=zM0lu2ALu08;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-05 17:02:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Weekly Livestream CK3: Nov. 4 - 16:30 PM CET
[ 2020-11-04 15:25:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Rally the troops, our weekly #CK3 Livestream is about to start! You don't want to miss this one
Join Steacy, Matt & Troy now on Twitch!
[ 2020-11-04 15:25:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #15
[ 2020-11-03 17:31:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
A very spooky #CK3 episode with Matt & Steacy! Watch Part #15 of the Novgorod Nobles now [previewyoutube=zM0lu2ALu08;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-11-03 17:31:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Weekly Livestream CK3: Oct. 28 - 16:30 PM CET
[ 2020-10-28 15:58:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Rally the troops, we are Live with our weekly CK3 Livestream!
Join Steacy, Matt & Troy now on Twitch!
[ 2020-10-28 15:58:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Livestream: Today at 17:00 PM CEST!
[ 2020-10-23 15:18:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
We will be live, Today at 17:00 CEST. Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-23 15:18:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.1.3.1 is now Live!
[ 2020-10-22 10:26:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders,
We fixed an issue causing the clothes from The Garments of the Holy Roman Empire & Fashion of the Abbasid Court to not show up properly in the game.
Read the Hotfix 1.1.3.1 here
[ 2020-10-22 10:26:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #14
[ 2020-10-20 15:35:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #14 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod: Helgi's Legacy! [previewyoutube=jic0thIDRLI;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-20 15:35:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Livestream: We're LIVE with guest One Proud Bavarian!
[ 2020-10-16 15:02:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
We will be live, Live now! Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community Starring One Proud Bavarian as our guest!
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-16 15:02:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Community Livestream: Today at 17:00 PM CEST, Starring One Proud Bavarian!
[ 2020-10-16 12:39:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
We will be live, Today at 17:00 CEST. Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community Starring One Proud Bavarian as a guest today!
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-16 12:39:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #13
[ 2020-10-15 16:01:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #13 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : Tackling the Blob! [previewyoutube=i1SD0ty11EA;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-15 16:01:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Weekly CK3: Oct. 14 - 16:30 PM CEST
[ 2020-10-15 14:25:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are now Live, Wednesday Oct. 14. at 16:30 CEST. Join the Weekly CK3 Livestream!
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-15 14:25:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.1.3 is now Live!
[ 2020-10-15 10:35:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders,
We have been working hard to ensure you have the best gaming experience possible! As such, we now have Patch 1.1.3 available to play.
Read the Hotfix 1.1.3 here
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed some crashes during gameplay that occurred in certain edge-cases
- Fixed a startup crash for CPUs with less than 4 logical cores that was introduced in the 1.1 patch
- Fix some cases when border wouldn't update properly and stay around in a permanent state
- Lowered the thresholds for graphical army quality, more of the spectrum appear now
- Opinion of liege now shows the correct name for the tooltip in the vassals tab in the character window
- Fixed combat predictions getting increasingly inaccurate the more men at arms are involved
- Fixed Fertility acceptance modifiers in marriages/betrothals incorrectly claiming that fertile men were infertile
- Fixed the AI being happy to accept betrothals that would ultimately lead to no children, as the woman would have passed the fertility threshold age before the man comes of age (with a 2 year margin)
- The Carolingian Consolidation achievement should now be available when launching the game from the Paradox Store
- Fixed an issue that could cause one letter realm names to be displayed upside down
[ 2020-10-15 10:35:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #12
[ 2020-10-13 16:01:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #12 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : No War, Raiding! [previewyoutube=6wcaw3ngz9c;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-13 16:01:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #11
[ 2020-10-12 16:00:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #11 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : While Troy's Away [previewyoutube=HYd1EFwlCKw;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-12 16:00:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Crusaders' Court CK3: Oct. 9 - 16:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-10-09 13:55:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are now Live, Friday Oct. 9 at 16:00 CEST. Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-09 13:55:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #10
[ 2020-10-08 16:05:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #10 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : Witch Stacey? [previewyoutube=5k5auTMU9PA;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-08 16:05:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Server Update] Multiplayer Servers Update on Oct. 9, 9am CEST
[ 2020-10-08 11:19:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings, Crusaders!
Tomorrow (Oct 9) we will be working through a Server Restart for the Multiplayer Servers at 09:00AM CEST.
This is to help address issues reported by players about Multiplayer games not working correctly. While we cannot guarantee that this restart will correct all issues you may be experiencing, we are hopeful that it will correct most, if not all, issues currently being experienced.
This update will take less than a half hour, but we advise all players to make sure you have a save point for all Multiplayer games in advance of this restart and that you are not playing while the restart occurs or it may cause issues with your ongoing games. While this should not impact any ongoing solo Campaigns, we also advise caution.
Please plan accordingly and we will see you on the other side!
Read more on the forums
[ 2020-10-08 11:19:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Crusader Kings 3: Oct. 2 - 16:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-10-02 14:12:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are now Live, Friday Oct. 2 at 16:00 CEST. Join the Crusaders' Court!
A livestream about the #CK3 community
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-10-02 14:12:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #9
[ 2020-10-01 16:10:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #9 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : All Hail King Matt! [previewyoutube=ViV9NvbhB-Y;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-10-01 16:10:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hotfix 1.1.2 is now Live!
[ 2020-10-01 14:00:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders,
We have been working hard to ensure you have the best gaming experience possible! As such, we now have Patch 1.1.2 close on the heels of our latest Monster Big Patch complete with Patch Notes to follow.
In addition to this Patch, we have also fixed the issues regarding the Mother of us All achievement on Steam! Make sure you restart your game to take advantage of these fixes!
Read the Hotfix 1.1.2 here
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed male/female dominated doctrine blocking all claims for the other sex, rather than just implicit claims. The behavior should now be identical to how it was previously.
- Fixed various display issues in the Russian localization
- Fixed tyranny being gained from rightful revocations when you had a claim on the title in question
- Independence Faction wars no longer require the defender to occupy the entire domain of the rebelling vassals to stop ticking warscore
- Reinstated Central Germanic and West Slavic name lists that had accidentally been removed
[ 2020-10-01 14:00:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Patch 1.1 is now Live!
[ 2020-09-29 08:37:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Kings & Queens,
You have been dreaming all night about Crusader Kings III?
Say no more, our Patch 1.1 is now Live with 883Mb of Love! Update the game and play 1.1 now, your Liege commands you.
Read the Patch Notes here
[ 2020-09-29 08:37:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #8
[ 2020-09-28 18:06:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Enjoy Part #8 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod : All Hail King Matt! [previewyoutube=tAyv2HWRu10;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-28 18:06:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #42 - 1.1 Patch Notes!
[ 2020-09-28 13:11:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Tomorrow is the day when Patch 1.1 will drop, and were very excited to share it with you!
We've made a variety of UI improvements, fixed a whole bunch of bugs, and addressed many common issues players have run into. Using the standard Paradox unit of measurement, the changelog comes in at 5.3 Groogy in length.
Without further ado, heres the changelog 1.1 in all its glory!
[ 2020-09-28 13:11:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Crusader Kings 3: Sept. 25 - 17:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-09-25 15:07:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are now Live, Friday Sept. 25 at 17:00 CEST. Join the Crusader's Court!
Today we will be talking about Mods & Prince of Darkness
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-09-25 15:07:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #5
[ 2020-09-17 16:07:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Have a look at Part #5 of our #CK3 Livestream in Novgorod! [previewyoutube=NJdgLu-mE9o;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-17 16:07:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Crusader Kings 3: Sept. 18 - 17:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-09-17 14:05:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join our Community Team tomorrow, Friday Sept. 18 at 17:00 CEST for our first Crusader Kings III Community stream!
Twitch Paradox Interactive
[ 2020-09-17 14:05:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
[Server Update] Multiplayer Servers Update on Sept. 22, 10am CEST
[ 2020-09-15 13:59:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Crusaders!
Reports of Multiplayer issues have been received and heard.
As such, there will be a Server update for the Multiplayer Servers at 10:00AM CEST on September 22 and should take less than five minutes.
However, this will affect ongoing Multiplayer games, so please make sure your game is saved and not active during this time period so you do not face issues. Players will be forced to log out of the game and log back in after the restart, so please take this into consideration.
While this should fix most of the issues encountered with Multiplayer issues, it may not solve all issues. If you continue to see issues after this update, please contact us.
Read more on the forums
[ 2020-09-15 13:59:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #4
[ 2020-09-14 16:03:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join Matt, Steacy & Troy for the Part #4 of our Livestream in Novgorod! Just Boris to Death [previewyoutube=RHyflF_9A58;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-14 16:03:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #3
[ 2020-09-10 16:06:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join Matt, Steacy & Troy for the Part #3 of our Livestream in Novgorod! Just Boris to Death [previewyoutube=xcdvIX1Ejec;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-10 16:06:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #41 - A Grand Thank You
[ 2020-09-08 12:42:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Upcoming patch, User Interface upgrades, bug fixes and more to come.
THANK YOU for supporting Crusader Kings III through this journey, it is only the beginning
Read our Dev Diary #41 - A Grand Thank You
[ 2020-09-08 12:42:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #2
[ 2020-09-07 16:54:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
The second half of last week's new Novgorod Nobles stream is now available on YouTube! Join Mat, Steacy & Troy as they try their very best to thrive in Novgorod. [previewyoutube=-7CqQ9a7lHY;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-07 16:54:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III available today for Australian players!
[ 2020-09-07 13:49:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Kings & Queens from Australia!
You will be able to purchase CK3 in a few hours on Steam!
Steam will resume its sales a few hours after this post, in the middle of the night for our Australian readers. You will be able to purchase, install, and enjoy Crusader Kings III very soon.
Go forth and forge your kingdom to tell your own story!
In regards to the Pre-Order bonuses, we have decided to extend the Pre-Order Bonus window only on Steam for all our Australian fans until Monday Sep. 21, 19:00 CEST.
This way you too will get a chance to don the Garments of the Holy Roman Empire!
[ 2020-09-07 13:49:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III Wiki
[ 2020-09-05 17:30:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
This Crusader Kings III Wiki is a repository of Crusader Kings III related knowledge, useful for both new & experienced players and for modders.
Learn more about Crusader Kings III!
[ 2020-09-05 17:30:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Novgorod Nobles - Part #1
[ 2020-09-03 16:03:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Get ready for our new adventures: "Novgorod Nobles"! Join Mat, Steacy & Troy as they try their very best to thrive in Novgorod. [previewyoutube=NS8P5A1uXyI;full][/previewyoutube] Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-03 16:03:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Livestream Crusader Kings 3: Sept. 2 - 16:30 PM CEST
[ 2020-09-02 09:16:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our Crusader Kings III Livestream on Wednesday 2nd of September, 16:30 CEST!
Every Wednesday at 16:30 CEST, we will be livestreaming CK3, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community.
Wednesday 2nd of September 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
[ 2020-09-02 09:16:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Important Information
[ 2020-09-01 16:09:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Having trouble playing Crusader Kings III? We have got you covered young ruler!
Here is a blog post that will help you in your journey.
[ 2020-09-01 16:09:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Long Live the King!
[ 2020-09-01 16:03:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
The realm rejoices as Paradox Interactive announces the launch of Crusader Kings III, the latest entry in the publishers grand strategy role-playing game franchise. Advisors may now jockey for positions of influence and adversaries should save their schemes for another day, because on this day Crusader Kings III can be purchased for a suggested retail price of $49.99/ 41.99/ 49.99 on Steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/ Crusader Kings III is the newest entry in the fabled grand strategy franchise. Guide a royal house through history, governing land, culture, religion, military operations and more in this game of medieval empire and bloodline management. Scheme from the shadows or march your armies openly to expand your borders. Utilize diplomacy and family, leveraging relationships and influence, to protect your lineage. For if a suitable heir you do not produce, your line, and your playthrough, ends. A new trailer, telling the fate of a would-be conqueror, can be viewed here: [previewyoutube=xjn66Cl3pMA;full][/previewyoutube] Crusader Kings III features:
- A Tale of Lords and Lineage: Every character has their own unique history and personality traits which are reflected in their portraits and the decisions they make. Events and options in the game are largely determined by the type of lord you play as, and the personalities of others must be plied in the right ways to achieve your goals.
- Wide and Varied Lands: With a map ranging from Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, you can assume the role of a noble house from nearly any culture. From the Vikings of Scandinavia to the tribes of Africa and the hordes of the Asian Steppe, this is your medieval sandbox.
- A Truly Noble Life: Enjoy a rich tapestry of courtly medieval life - court spouses, hire counselors, and raise armies. Entertain wandering guests, cultivate the ideal heir to cement your line, and send your more troublesome offspring off to foster elsewhere. Set spymasters to scheming and pit neighboring houses against one another.
- Lineage Management: The spawn of your royal union are both the future of your house and a resource for cementing greater power. Use them to forge alliances in far off lands and press claims on sought-after realms, spreading your influence to the corners of the known world.
- Disputes Solved by the Sword: When diplomacy has run its course take what should be yours by rallying your vassals calling your men-at-arms. Crushing rebellions and laying siege to enemy castles can prove a quick path to honor. But remember that true strategy requires cunning...
- Statecraft From The Shadows: Sometimes a scheme, the most subtle of diplomacy, is the most effective - a knife in the dark, a secret to be leveraged, a spouse seduced...
- Saints and Sinners: Set the religious course of your kingdom, whether that be keeping the faith or embracing a heresy to better align with your goals. If all else fails, start your own religion!
- And More Medieval Menagerie: Holy Orders, crusades, peasant revolts, mercenaries for hire, northmen raiders, customizable rule sets and a beautiful new map to wage your campaign upon!
[ 2020-09-01 16:03:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #40 - A New Journey Begins
[ 2020-09-01 12:35:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today is Launch day for Crusader Kings III, Sept. 1, 6pm CEST!
Thank you to our players, our fans, keeping us motivated to get #CK3 on the road.
We really hope you will enjoy the ride
Read our Dev Diary #40 - A New Journey Begins
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-01 12:35:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 OFFICIAL RELEASE STREAM - Join us at 17:30 CEST!
[ 2020-09-01 12:01:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join us today, 1st of September at 17:30 CEST, on Twitch for the Release Stream of Crusader Kings III!
Twitch - Paradox Interactive
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-09-01 12:01:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - Final Episode available!
[ 2020-08-31 16:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our final Livestream on " The Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=NhmCqCUzyY8;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-31 16:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Launch Stream Crusader Kings 3: Sept. 1 - 17:30 PM CEST
[ 2020-08-31 12:39:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our Launch Stream of Crusader Kings III: Tuesday 1st of September, 17:30 CEST!
Join Rodrigue Delrue, Community Developer, and Troy Pruitt, Community Manager!
Tuesday 1st of September 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
Pre-order Crusader Kings III
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
Remember that we're also streaming CK3 every Wednesdays at 16:00 CEST, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community!
[ 2020-08-31 12:39:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Historigraph - The Battle of Ethandun
[ 2020-08-29 14:52:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Check out this video by Historigraph, covering The Battle of Ethandun! Let us know what you think in the comments! [previewyoutube=6JHJgxHEpLQ;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2020-08-29 14:52:39 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Religion
[ 2020-08-28 14:03:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Pixelated Apollo will show you all you need to know about Religion. Creating your own religion will be like a walk in the park once Crusader Kings 3 launches. [previewyoutube=UOo6l6FG1wE;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-28 14:03:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 - August Update
[ 2020-08-28 12:08:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our August Update in which we discuss the development of Crusader Kings 3. In this last Monthly Update before release, we discuss Performance & AI, Modding, Legacies and Achievements! [previewyoutube=QMuM8geOnVQ;full][/previewyoutube] Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs. Want to deep dive in our developer diaries from August? Here are a few links!
- Dev Diary #36: Performance & AI
- Dev Diary #37: Modding
- Dev Diary #38: Legacies
- Dev Diary #39: Achievements
[ 2020-08-28 12:08:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - New Episode Part 5 available!
[ 2020-08-27 16:03:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our recent Livestream Part 5: " The Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=WeJ5DwnVW2w;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-27 16:03:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Battles
[ 2020-08-26 16:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Pixelated Apollo joins us once again to tell us everything about terrain & battles. From terrain to advantage you shan't lose another battle! [previewyoutube=2BxPQYruwgQ;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-26 16:06:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Lifestyles of the Rich and Prestigious - CK3 Playlist
[ 2020-08-25 16:04:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III launches in 7 days!
Enjoy the Lifestyles of the Rich and Prestigious playlist on YouTube, from Lionheartx10, Pravus Gaming, One Proud Bavarian, Many A True Nerd, EnterElysium, The Spiffing Brit, Rimmy, Alextherambler, Drew Durnil and Quill18!
Watch the Playlist on YouTube
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-25 16:04:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #39: Achievements Showcase
[ 2020-08-25 12:32:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to the final pre-release dev diary!
Today, well be doing something nice and light, since we know youre all hyped for the release next month, and couldnt possibly stand the tension otherwise.
So, with that in mind, lets have a look at what Achievements you can get, and the ways of getting them!
Read our Dev Diary #39 - Achievements Showcase
[ 2020-08-25 12:32:57 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - New Episode 4 Available!
[ 2020-08-24 16:02:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch the Part 2 of Episode 3, from our recent Livestream: " The Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=EvJDEFaz_Ks;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-24 16:02:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - War
[ 2020-08-24 14:11:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
In our latest introductory video Pixelated Apollo will cover everything tied to war: how to fight, siege, ransom characters and win Wars! [previewyoutube=VQ-2odgsKpo;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-24 14:11:40 CET ] [ Original post ]
Feature Streams Series Crusader Kings 3: Aug. 26 - 16:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-08-24 12:04:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our fourth feature stream series of Crusader Kings III: Wednesday 26 of August, 16:00 CEST!
Every Wednesday at 16:00 CEST, we will be livestreaming CK3, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community.
Join Alexander Oltner, Game Director, and Rodrigue Delrue, Community Developer!!
Wednesday 26th of August 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
[ 2020-08-24 12:04:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Military
[ 2020-08-21 14:03:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
For the last set of four videos we are joined by Pixelated Apollo. This video will be focused on Military and how to make a strong army! [previewyoutube=w0vvs374wn4;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-21 14:03:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - New Episode 3 Available!
[ 2020-08-20 16:01:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch the Part 1 of Episode 3, from our recent Livestream: " The Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=O-53UbzPhiI;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-20 16:01:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III Documentary - The World in Year 1066
[ 2020-08-20 13:01:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Partnering with Kings and Generals, let's take a look at the second Crusader King's III start date!
Watch the documentary on YouTube, The World in 1066
[previewyoutube=CW91dnqSsAo;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2020-08-20 13:01:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Technology
[ 2020-08-19 16:11:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Havoc's last episode will introduce you to Technology and how you can unlock more of them! [previewyoutube=C-a9U0-EboQ;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-19 16:11:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #38: Legacy Showcase
[ 2020-08-18 12:35:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
What choices will you make for your dynasty? Leave a Legacy in Crusader Kings III!
Read our Dev Diary #38 - Legacy Showcase
[ 2020-08-18 12:35:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - New Episode 2 Available!
[ 2020-08-17 16:06:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch the Part 2 of Episode 2, from our recent Livestream: " The Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=NOXrXoEZLBc;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-17 16:06:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Money
[ 2020-08-17 14:05:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our introductory series continues with Havoc! In this new episode of our introductory series Havoc teaches you how to get more money in CK3! [previewyoutube=9xACCC4RCBQ;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-17 14:05:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Feature Streams Series Crusader Kings 3: Aug. 19 - 16:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-08-17 12:22:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our third feature stream series of Crusader Kings III: Wednesday 19 of August, 16:00 CEST!
Every Wednesday at 16:00 CEST, we will be livestreaming CK3, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community.
Join Alexander Oltner, Game Director, and Rodrigue Delrue, Community Developer!!
Wednesday 19th of August 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
[ 2020-08-17 12:22:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Domains
[ 2020-08-14 14:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our introductory series continues with Havoc! We are back with Havoc once more to learn more about domain management! [previewyoutube=cMKQUVleGRk;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-14 14:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Iberian Intrigue - New Episode Available!
[ 2020-08-13 16:03:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch our second episode of the Livestream "Iberian Intrigue"! Follow us on Twitch Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! [previewyoutube=JhxqsWQgOvE;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-13 16:03:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Vassals
[ 2020-08-12 16:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our introductory series continues with Havoc! This time around you will learn everything about vassals! [previewyoutube=IGpoicZOeTA;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-12 16:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! Aug. 12 - 11:30 AM CEST
[ 2020-08-11 14:01:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing our next Discord Live Q/A with the Crusader Kings 3 devs!
Join us!
Wednesday 12th of August, 11:30am CEST.
Join us on Discord
[ 2020-08-11 14:01:19 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III Documentary - The World in Year 867
[ 2020-08-11 13:00:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are partnering with Kings and Generals to teach you about Crusader Kings III's start dates!
Watch the documentary on YouTube, The World in 867
[previewyoutube=6yWsiN4iQI0;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2020-08-11 13:00:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #37: Making Mods
[ 2020-08-11 12:32:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we are going to talk to you about the Modding in Crusader Kings III!
Read our Dev Diary #37 - Making Mods
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-11 12:32:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Feature Streams Series Crusader Kings 3: Aug. 12 - 16:00 PM CEST
[ 2020-08-10 16:15:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Watch the second feature stream series of Crusader Kings III: Wednesday 12 of August, 16:00 CEST!
Every Wednesday at 16:00 CEST, we will be livestreaming CK3, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community.
Join Alexander Oltner, Game Director, and Rodrigue Delrue, Community Developer for this first Livestream!
Wednesday 12th of August 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
[ 2020-08-10 16:15:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Schemes
[ 2020-08-10 14:05:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our fourth video in our introductory series on Crusader Kings III ! One Proud Bavarian walks us through schemes in Crusader Kings 3. Understanding how to engage in cloak and dagger activities is essential to master the game! [previewyoutube=kst6b4bV1yA;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-10 14:05:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Succession
[ 2020-08-07 14:09:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our third video in our introductory series on Crusader Kings III ! In this third episode, One Proud Bavarian will teach you everything you need to know about Succession to avoid seeing your kingdom torn to pieces when your ruler passes away! [previewyoutube=lyWbFgPKt3o;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-07 14:09:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Dynasty
[ 2020-08-05 09:02:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our second video in our introductory series on Crusader Kings III ! One Proud Bavarian tackles dynasties and how to make them endure throughout centuries! [previewyoutube=B6Do0edTei0;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-05 09:02:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #36: Gotta Go Fast!
[ 2020-08-04 12:37:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's talk Performance & AI in CK3!
Read our Dev Diary #36 - Gotta Go Fast
[ 2020-08-04 12:37:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Feature Stream Series Crusader Kings 3 - Every Wednesday at 16:00 CEST!
[ 2020-08-03 16:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are proud to announce the start of our feature streams series of Crusader Kings III!
Every Wednesday at 16:00 CEST, we will be livestreaming CK3, showing the game and its features while interacting with the community.
Join Alexander Oltner, Game Director, and Rodrigue Delrue, Community Developer for this first Livestream!
Wednesday 5th of August 2020
Join us on Twitch, Paradox Interactive.
[ 2020-08-03 16:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing CK3 - Characters
[ 2020-08-03 14:25:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our introductory series on Crusader Kings III ! In this first video One Proud Bavarian will help us understand the gallery of characters that we will play and what they are made of! [previewyoutube=26vR8IdZmGQ;full][/previewyoutube] Pre-order Crusader Kings III Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-08-03 14:25:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 - July Update
[ 2020-07-31 14:04:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our July Update in which we discuss the development of Crusader Kings 3. This month our team tells you everything about Feudal Contracts, Characters Portraits and User Research! [previewyoutube=vTz2QiO8Pnk;full][/previewyoutube] Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs. Want to deep dive in our developer diaries from July? Here are a few links!
- Dev Diary #33: An Offer You Cant Refuse
- Dev Diary #34: Its all about appearances
- Dev Diary #35: User Testing Before Release
[ 2020-07-31 14:04:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #35: Prelaunch User Research Testing
[ 2020-07-28 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today, Hanna will tell you a little about the job of User Research and also how the team have worked with user testing for Crusader Kings III!
Read our # -
[ 2020-07-28 12:31:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #34: It's All About Appearances
[ 2020-07-21 12:31:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discover the features of Crusader Kings III's Portrait system!
Characters are generated dynamically in the game using a DNA system that defines their looks - everything from mouth shape to body height is stored in this DNA.
Read our # - '
[ 2020-07-21 12:31:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updated CK3 FAQ thread on Developer Diaries Information!
[ 2020-07-09 15:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have updated our CK3 FAQ on developer diaries on our forums!
371 Questions & Answers
We will add the recurrent Questions from the Community, and the Answers from our devs.
Keep your eyes peeled, this thread will be regularly updated with our Dev Diaries Q/A and other communications!
[ 2020-07-09 15:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 Dev Diary #33: An Offer You Cannot Refuse
[ 2020-06-30 12:23:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
It is time to take a look at the overhaul weve done to Feudal Contracts.
Read our # -
[ 2020-06-30 12:23:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! July. 1 - 11:30 AM CEST
[ 2020-06-29 12:05:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing our next Discord Live Q/A with the Crusader Kings 3 devs!
Join us!
Wednesday 1st of July, 11:30am CEST.
Join us on Discord
[ 2020-06-29 12:05:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
CK3 - June Update
[ 2020-06-26 14:13:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our June Update in which we discuss the development of Crusader Kings 3. This month our team tells you everything about decisions, stress, event scripting and audio in the game! [previewyoutube=Cs-Uaj6davU;full][/previewyoutube] Don't forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs: Want to deep dive in our developer diaries from June? Here are a few links!
- Dev Diary #29: Even the Smallest Decision - https://bit.ly/2ZakkTX
- Dev Diary #30: Event Scripting - https://bit.ly/2NxbKct
- Dev Diary #31: A Stressful Situation - https://bit.ly/3fXXA0e
- Dev Diary #32: Going Medieval on Audio - https://bit.ly/2Z4jojO
[ 2020-06-26 14:13:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #32 - Audio
[ 2020-06-23 10:52:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's have a look at the Audio of Crusader Kings III & a few little teasers for you!
Read our Dev Diary #32 - Audio
[ 2020-06-23 10:52:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #31 - Stress
[ 2020-06-16 12:31:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Are you good at staying calm? What if you have to make a decision that goes against your morals? Let's find out the effect that can have with today's Development Diary on Stress!
Read our Dev Diary #31 - Stress
[ 2020-06-16 12:31:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #29 - Decisions
[ 2020-06-02 12:37:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
At Paradox Interactive we make the games, you create the stories. In Crusader Kings III, you take the Decisions!
Let's follow the tale of Kalevi of Karelia, on his the perilous road from High Chieftain of a few counties to King and defender of Ukko as a Holy Warrior!
Read our Dev Diary #29 - Decision
[ 2020-06-02 12:37:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
April and May Update
[ 2020-05-29 14:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Here is the awaited (and massive) monthly update discussing the developer diaries published throughout the months of April & May! All the links our written and in-depth developer diaries are just after the video! [previewyoutube=3_lfUosrMAE;full][/previewyoutube] Dev Diary #20: Religion and Faith Dev Diary #21: Custom Faiths and Pagan Reformation Dev Diary #22: A Medieval Tapestry Dev Diary #23: Holy Orders Dev Diary #24: Heresies and Doctrines Dev Diary #25: Map Features and Map Modes Dev Diary #26: Map Scope Dev Diary #27: Cultures and Cultural Innovations Dev Diary #28: Art Focus Join our Official Discord and come discuss CK3!!!
[ 2020-05-29 14:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updated CK3 FAQ thread on Developer Diaries Information!
[ 2020-05-28 15:10:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have updated our CK3 FAQ on developer diaries on our forums, a collection of 323 questions & answers!
[ 2020-05-28 15:10:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! May. 27 - 11:30 AM CEST
[ 2020-05-26 15:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing our next Discord Live Q/A with the Crusader Kings 3 devs!
Join us!
Wednesday 27th of May, 11:30am CEST.
Join us on Discord
[ 2020-05-26 15:13:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #28 - Art Focus
[ 2020-05-26 12:40:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's talk about the art of Crusader Kings III and the way weve approached creating the graphics for the game!
Read our Dev Diary #28
[ 2020-05-26 12:40:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #27 - Cultures Cultural Innovations
[ 2020-05-19 12:37:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings, dear friends, and welcome to the cultural dev diary!
A meaty Dev Diary with everything you love: details, images & great care from our developers. Have a look and discover our all-new tech system!
Read our Dev Diary #27
[ 2020-05-19 12:37:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III: Guide to Pre-Orders and Post-Launch Content
[ 2020-05-14 16:13:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Question 1: How many editions of Crusader Kings III are available to pre-order?
You can currently pre-order Crusader Kings III at major online retailers including the Paradox Store. On all platforms you will be greeted with by two editions:
The Standard Edition - SRP*of $49.99
- The Base Game
The Royal Edition - SRP of $74.99
- The Base Game
- The Expansion Pass, comprising 3 upcoming DLCs and an Expansion Pass Bonus: Fashion of the Abbasid Court.**
Both editions will contain the Pre-order Bonus: Garments of the Holy Roman Empire.***
Question 2: When will the Expansion Pass be available on its own?
- The Expansion Pass will be available for purchase on September 1st, 2020 - SRP $34.99,
Question 3: What is the benefit of getting the Royal Edition? Its good to be the King!
- Buying the Base Game and the Expansion Pass separately will be at $84.98, you would save $9.99 by getting the Royal Edition.
- Buying the Base Game and each DLC included in the Expansion Pass separately will be at $93.96, against $74.99 for the Royal Edition. You would save $18.97 by getting the Royal Edition.
Question 4: What kind of DLCs does the Expansion Pass include and what is included in the Pre-order Bonus?
Expansion Pass:
- Expansion Pass Bonus: Fashion of the Abbasid Court, a set of additional outfits and cosmetic clothing options for the Middle East and North Africa.
- 1st Flavor Pack: Unannounced.
- 1st Major Expansion: Unannounced.
- 2nd Flavor Pack: Unannounced.
Pre-order Bonus: Garments of the Holy Roman Empire
- Collection of additional outfits and headgears for both commoners, warriors and rulers of Central Europe.
Question 5: When will the Pre-order and Expansion Pass Bonuses be unlocked?
- These two bonuses will be unlocked at the release of Crusader Kings III on September 1, 2020.
- For the time being, these bonuses will only be available by: 1) pre-ordering the Standard or Royal Edition, in the case of the Pre-Order Bonus; 2) by pre-ordering/buying the Royal Edition or by purchasing the Expansion Pass, in the case of the Expansion Pass Bonus.
Question 6: The preorder and expansion pass bonuses are adding clothes? Does that mean all characters will have the same outfits throughout the world if we do not pre-order either the Standard or Royal Edition?
- No. Characters will have different clothes throughout the world in the Base Game. These two bonuses add more variety.
Question 7: What kind of content can we expect post-launch?
Our DLCs will be split between Flavor Packs and Major Expansions.
- Flavor Packs - SRP $6.99: in-game content focused on a theme or a region.
- Major Expansions - SRP $29.99: larger, meatier expansions with content and mechanics to expand and enrich your experience.
- Free Updates: As usual, each Major Expansion will be accompanied by a free update that will provide new features, fixes and changes to improve our players experience.
If you are familiar with Paradox Development Studio games, you surely have realized that we will start with a Major Expansion for CK3 at a slightly higher price point than those of our previous titles. This is due to the fact that we want to spend more time on our CK3 expansions and deliver bigger DLCs with better, more exciting content and well-enhanced mechanics.
In-between the Major Expansions, smaller Flavor Packs will be released to add some spice to themes and specific regions of the world and give everyone something to spend your time with.
Have more questions? Follow this link to join the discussion!
*SRP: Suggested Retail Price.
**Expansion Pass Bonus: Fashion of the Abbasid Court has a SRP of $2.99.
*** Pre-order Bonus: Garments of the Holy Roman Empire has a SRP of $2.99.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
[ 2020-05-14 16:13:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Coronation Day Announced for Crusader Kings III
[ 2020-05-14 16:12:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III will take its throne on September 1, 2020! Now available for pre-order! The herald rides forth to make the announcement all have awaited. Court and commoners hold their breath in anticipation. Jealous rivals, thwarted in their plots, sulk in the shadows, for the glorious day is coming. Crusader Kings III, the heir to the crown of grand strategy gaming, will take its throne on September 1, 2020. Now available for pre-order, Crusader Kings III is a medieval grand strategy role-playing game from Paradox Development Studio. Guide a royal dynasty through the centuries. Claim new lands through diplomacy and marriage, or use your armies to conquer your neighbors or unite a divided realm. When swords and seduction fail, however, spies and poison may still be effective. [previewyoutube=hEJZ4EiXRlM;full][/previewyoutube] Crusader Kings III is the sequel to one of the worlds most beloved strategy games. Rich with new historical content and character options, it has never been easier to wrap yourself in the ermine cloaks of power, writing your own story of castles, knights, crusades, and murder. Features of Crusader Kings III include:
- Character Focused Gameplay: Every character you play or interact with has their own unique personality. Events and options in the game are largely determined by the type of person you are.
- Infinite Possibilities: Play as any noble house from Iceland to India, Finland to Central Africa over five centuries. Interact with wandering guests, stubborn children, devious spymasters and saintly holy men in an elaborate tapestry of medieval life.
- Waging War: Rally your vassals and raise your men-at-arms to besiege enemy castles or put down rebellions. Personal prowess on the battlefield can win you great honor, but strategic planning is the path to victory.
- Royal Marriages: Spread your dynastic DNA throughout the world, stamping your royal seal on the crests of kingdoms and duchies far and wide. Marry for power and raise children to press claims on new lands.
- Saints and Sinners: Keep faith with your religious leaders or perform great crimes in the interest of the state. When the going gets tough, you can always embrace a heresy or craft a new religion more in line with your characters priorities.
- Schemes and Skullduggery: Learn the secrets of your courtiers and vassals so you can blackmail them for their support. Seduce your way into a superiors good books, or plot the untimely demise of an unfortunate relative.
- Events Inspired By History: Experience great holy wars, peasant revolts, cadet branches of dynasties, heretics, superstition, castles, knights and wars over inheritance.
- 3D Character Portraits: Characters age and change appearance as their traits take a toll on their body. The higher the rank, the fancier the clothing.
- And much more: Holy Orders, mercenaries, pagan and Viking raiders, easily customized rule sets and a beautiful new map to play on.
[ 2020-05-14 16:12:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #26 - Map Scope
[ 2020-05-12 12:37:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we are here to talk a bit about the map.
As a continuation from last week, we will be talking about the scope of the map and, perhaps more importantly, showing you how it all actually looks.
Get ready for a very screenshot heavy DD!
Read our Dev Diary #26
[ 2020-05-12 12:37:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #25 - Map Features and Map Modes
[ 2020-05-05 12:33:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we are here to talk a bit about the map.
Building on top of our early map related DD#2, we'll expand that discussion by outlining additional features, new information, and how you interact with the map itself!
Read our Dev Diary #25
[ 2020-05-05 12:33:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updated CK3 FAQ thread on Developer Diaries Information!
[ 2020-04-30 15:54:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have updated our CK3 FAQ on developer diaries on our forums, a collection of 260 questions & answers!
[ 2020-04-30 15:54:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #24 - Fervor, Religious Hostility Doctrine Showcase
[ 2020-04-28 13:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello everyone, and welcome back to our final Dev Diary on Religion in Crusader Kings 3!
Today we will be talking about what the mysterious Fervor is, how that ties into Heresies and Heresy Outbreaks, as well as how Religious Hostility works and some of the ways that Doctrines can impact it.
To wrap things up, we will show off some additional never-before seen Tenets and Doctrines!
Read our Dev Diary #24
[ 2020-04-28 13:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! Apr. 29 - 11:30 AM CEST
[ 2020-04-27 15:07:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing our next Discord Live Q/A with the Crusader Kings 3 devs!
We reached 10k members on Discord, join us!
Wednesday 29th of April, 11:30am CEST.
Join us on Discord
[ 2020-04-27 15:07:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #23 - Holy Orders
[ 2020-04-21 12:26:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's dive in the Holy Orders, independent organizations that fight to defend & expand the influence of their faith!
Read our Dev Diary #23
[ 2020-04-21 12:26:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #22 - A Medieval Tapestry
[ 2020-04-14 12:38:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
In Crusader Kings III every rulers have their own stories, and you are writing them!
Tailor your #CKIII experience as you see fits and make destiny yours!
Read our Dev Diary #22
[ 2020-04-14 12:38:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #21 - Custom Faiths and Pagan Reformation
[ 2020-04-07 12:32:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Interested in becoming a heresiarch? Or maybe you just want to organize your ancestors ancient spiritual traditions into a true reformed Faith? You've come to the right place!
To start us off, we're going to go into how the process of creating a new Faith or reforming a pagan one works. After that, there will be a teaser of some Tenets and Doctrines that you may be interested in picking for your newly-founded Faiths.
Read our Dev Diary #21
[ 2020-04-07 12:32:16 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updated CK3 FAQ thread on Developer Diaries Information!
[ 2020-04-02 15:10:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have updated our CK3 FAQ on developer diaries on our forums!
We will add the recurrent Questions from the Community, and the Answers from our devs.
Keep your eyes peeled, this thread will be regularly updated with our Dev Diaries Q/A and other communications!
[ 2020-04-02 15:10:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #20 - Religion and Faith
[ 2020-03-31 12:35:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
Zealots & cynics, fundamentalists & heretics: It is time for us to finally talk about Religion in Crusader Kings III, and all that it entails!
Read our Dev Diary #20
[ 2020-03-31 12:35:30 CET ] [ Original post ]
March Update
[ 2020-03-27 15:04:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Welcome to our March Update in which we discuss the development of Crusader Kings 3. This month our team tells you everything about a plethora of subjects! On the menu: tutorials and in-game encyclopedia, governments types and raiding, declaring war and hiring mercenaries, and (finally) civil wars and factions! [previewyoutube=RM6fmu5xaVY;full][/previewyoutube] Dont forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! Want to deep dive in our developer diaries from March? Here are a few links!
- Dev Diary #16: Tutorials and Tooltips and Encyclopedias, Oh My!
- Dev Diary #17: Governments, Vassal Management, Laws, and Raiding
- Dev Diary #18: Men at Arms, Mercenaries and Casus Belli
- Dev Diary #19: Factions and Civil Wars
[ 2020-03-27 15:04:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! Apr. 1 - 11:30 AM CEST
[ 2020-03-25 16:43:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join our next Discord Live Q/A with the Crusader Kings 3 devs!
Wednesday 1st of April, 11:30am CEST.
Join us on Discord
[ 2020-03-25 16:43:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #19 - Factions and Civil Wars
[ 2020-03-24 13:31:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are back with another Dev Diary!
Today were going to be talking about Factions and Civil Wars in Crusader Kings III!
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-03-24 13:31:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #18 - Men-at-Arms, Mercenaries and CBs
[ 2020-03-17 13:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week well be talking about a lot of additional details surrounding warfare!
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-03-17 13:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #17 - Governments, Vassal Management, Laws Raiding
[ 2020-03-10 13:35:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Feudal, Tribal and Clan Governements, Feudal Contracts, Vassal Management, Laws & Raiding.
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-03-10 13:35:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #16 - Tutorials, Tooltips and Encyclopedias
[ 2020-03-03 13:38:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
A lot of work has been put in to make the interfaces clearer and display relevant information to you so let's dive right in and explore it in the way that most of you probably will, when you first launch the game!
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-03-03 13:38:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
February Update
[ 2020-02-28 16:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our February Video Update delves deeper into the Lifestyles System of Crusader Kings 3! Discover the 15 Perk Trees and Focuses, as well as some of the unlockable Schemes, Bonuses and Traits that will help you flesh out and guide your ruler! [previewyoutube=AFRbfRmPNYA;full][/previewyoutube] If you want to learn everything there is to know about these lifestyles, have a look at our written developer diaries during the month of February! Dev Diary #12: The Stewardship Lifestyle Dev Diary #13: The Learning Lifestyle Dev Diary #14: The Diplomacy Lifestyle Dev Diary #15: The Martial Lifestyle And if you have missed those of January focusing on Lifestyles here are links! Dev Diary #9: Lifestyles Dev Diary #10: Lifestyle Events Dev Diary #11: Seduction, Torture and the Intrigue Perk Trees Dont forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs!
[ 2020-02-28 16:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #15 - The Martial Lifestyle
[ 2020-02-25 13:34:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's dive into the final installment of our different Lifestyles: the Martial Lifestyle!
Read on our Dev Diary on Martial Lifestyle.
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-02-25 13:34:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! Feb. 27 - 11:30 AM CET
[ 2020-02-20 15:46:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our Discord Live Q/A with developers is back! Let's meet on Thursday Feb. 27 at 11:30am CET.
We can't wait to chat with you!
Click here to join our Discord!
[ 2020-02-20 15:46:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #14 - The Diplomacy Lifestyle
[ 2020-02-18 13:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Weve all been there, trying to befriend our neighbors while sending gifts to our vassals to keep them from being too annoyed. War is the continuation of the Diplomacy Lifestyle by other means.
Read on our Dev Diary on Diplomacy Lifestyle.
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-02-18 13:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #13 - The Learning Lifestyle
[ 2020-02-11 16:58:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Does seeking out information, acquiring knowledge, and reading everything you can get your hands on resonate with you?
Read on our Dev Diary on Learning Lifestyle.
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-02-11 16:58:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #12 - The Stewardship Lifestyle
[ 2020-02-04 13:32:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week we're speaking to all you budding entrepreneurs and fiduciary financiers.
Let's dive into the Stewardship Lifestyle!
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-02-04 13:32:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
January Update
[ 2020-01-31 13:32:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join us for our series of Monthly Updates on Crusader Kings 3! This month we discussed the vastly improved Lifestyle System! Check out the links below if you want more details on the developer diaries published in January! [previewyoutube=BUFw3vqwrJU;full][/previewyoutube]
- Dev Diary #9: Lifestyles
- Dev Diary #10: Lifestyle Events
- Dev Diary #11: Seduction, Torture and the Intrigue Perk Trees
- Join our Official Discord and engage with our community!
[ 2020-01-31 13:32:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updated CK3 FAQ thread on Developer Diaries Information!
[ 2020-01-30 15:34:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have updated our CK3 FAQ on developer diaries on our forums!
We will add the recurrent Questions from the Community, and the Answers from our devs.
Keep your eyes peeled, this thread will be regularly updated with our Dev Diaries Q/A and other communications!
[ 2020-01-30 15:34:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #11 - Seduction, Torture and the Intrigue Perk Trees
[ 2020-01-28 13:35:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
This week we're here to tell you more about Intrigue: it's not just an act, it's a Lifestyle.
As covered in a previous dev diary, each character Skill has a Lifestyle, and each Lifestyle has three associated Focuses and three Perk trees, which is what we'll be diving into today.
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-01-28 13:35:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Discord Live Chat With Devs! Jan. 27 - 11:30 AM CET
[ 2020-01-23 15:31:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our Discord Live Q/A with developers is back! Let's meet on Monday Jan. 27 at 11:30am CET. We can't wait to chat with you!
Click here to join our Discord!
[ 2020-01-23 15:31:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #10 - Lifestyles Events
[ 2020-01-21 13:37:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we are here with the next installment in the Lifestyles series, where we will be talking about Lifestyle Events.
We have already covered a good deal of how Lifestyles work from a systemic point of view, but how do they influence your characters story? What does your Lifestyle mean to your ruler beyond some bonus skill points and a handful of perks?
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-01-21 13:37:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #9 - Lifestyles
[ 2020-01-14 13:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Let's kick off our first Dev Diary of 2020: Lifestyles!
Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2020-01-14 13:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
December Update
[ 2019-12-20 13:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join us for our second monthly update in which we discuss the development of Crusader Kings 3! In this video, Rod sits down with our developers to discuss schemes, councillors, personality traits, courts and much more! This video is coming in a little bit early as we are all about to leave on holidays. The next developer diary will be published on January 14! [previewyoutube=DGL5HHYcGeU;full][/previewyoutube] Dont forget to join our Official Discord to discuss the game with fans and devs! Missed a developer diary during the month of December? Here are links!
- Dev Diary #5: Schemes, Secrets and Hooks
- Dev Diary #6: Council, Powerful Vassals and Spouse Councillor
- Dev Diary #7: Characters and Portraits
- Dev Diary #8 - Courts, Guests, and Wanderers
[ 2019-12-20 13:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #8 - Courts, Guests, and Wanderers
[ 2019-12-17 13:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our last Dev Diary of 2019: Courts, Guests, and Wanderers! In Crusader Kings III, your Courtiers will be more relevant to you than before. Have a look at the Dev Diary here!
[ 2019-12-17 13:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #7 - Characters 3D Portraits
[ 2019-12-10 13:42:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today were taking a look at what makes up a character in CK3. As you already know, the game revolves around characters and all the things they get up to, so to make it interesting we have to make sure that they have as much personality as possible!
Read more in our blog.
[ 2019-12-10 13:42:47 CET ] [ Original post ]
First Live Chat With Devs on Discord! Dec. 4 - 11:30 AM CET
[ 2019-12-03 17:30:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our first live chat with devs is upon us! Join us at 11:30 AM CET for a lunch session with the brilliant minds behind CK3! We will be here for one hour and we will unlock a special channel for the occasion!
Click here to join our Discord!
[ 2019-12-03 17:30:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #6 - Council, Powerful Vassals, Spouse Councillor
[ 2019-12-03 14:31:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our sixth development diary will be focused on the Council, Powerful Vassals, & Spouse Councillor of Crusader Kings III.
Today, we talk about your council, your powerful vassals, and the role of your spouse in the realm!
Read more in our blog.
[ 2019-12-03 14:31:43 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have launched a FAQ thread on Developer Diaries and important information!
[ 2019-12-02 14:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Here, we will add the recurrent Questions from the Community, and the Answers from our devs.
Keep your eyes peeled, this thread will be regularly updated with our Dev Diaries Q/A and other communications!
[ 2019-12-02 14:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
November Update
[ 2019-11-29 11:14:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Join us for our new series of Monthly Updates on Crusader Kings 3! In this new format we discuss the developer diaries published throughout the month and bring you community news! Check out the links below if you want more details on the developer diaries published in November! [previewyoutube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?zLU63GeKdfo;full][/previewyoutube]
- Dev Diary #1: Dynasties and Houses
- Dev Diary #2: The Medieval Map
- Dev Diary #3: War
- Dev Diary #4: Development and Buildings
- Join our Official Discord and engage with our community!
[ 2019-11-29 11:14:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #5 - Schemes, Secrets and Hooks
[ 2019-11-26 13:43:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our fifth development diary will be focused on the Schemes, Secrets and Hooks of Crusader Kings III.
Today, said talking will be about a handful of new features that together cover some of the most important parts of the Crusader Kings experience. So where better to start than with murder?
Read more in our blog.
[ 2019-11-26 13:43:38 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #4: Development and Buildings
[ 2019-11-19 13:31:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our fourth development diary will be focused on the Development and Buildings of Crusader Kings III.
This week's Dev Diary is all about your holdings on the map - Baronies and counties, what they do for you, and what you can do with them! As seen in the map DD, Baronies are now physically present on the map. A group of Baronies makes up a greater unit, called a County. Click here to read more!
[ 2019-11-19 13:31:20 CET ] [ Original post ]
Introducing Monthly Updates: Game Vision Video
[ 2019-11-13 17:00:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have just released an opening video to an upcoming series about the development of Crusader Kings III. In this video, Game Director Henrik Fhraeus lays out his vision for the game, speaking about his history with the franchise and his aspirations for the upcoming grand strategy game. Future installments of this video series will include summaries of information revealed in the previous months Developer Diaries and community updates so you can follow along with the games development! Missed one of our Developer Diaries? Make sure to check our news section on our official website! They come out every Tuesday! [previewyoutube=FsY4eBmI4D8;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2019-11-13 17:00:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #3: War
[ 2019-11-12 13:32:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our third development diary will be focused on the Wars of Crusader Kings III.
You guessed it, the topic of the day is War, and more specifically, how we go about waging war!
Click here to read more!
[ 2019-11-12 13:32:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #2: The Medieval Map
[ 2019-11-06 13:31:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our second development diary will be focused on the map of Crusader Kings III, the vision for it and how it differs from Crusader Kings II. Click here to read more!
[ 2019-11-06 13:31:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #1: Dynasties and Houses
[ 2019-10-31 13:01:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our first development diary showcases Dynasties - an immaterial yet fundamentally important feature that make Crusader Kings what it is! Click here to read more!
[ 2019-10-31 13:01:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dev Diary #0: The Vision
[ 2019-10-24 12:12:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings friends!
Its my pleasure to finally be able to talk about what Ive been working on ever since Stellaris came out (and before) - Crusader Kings III, of course! CK3 draws on the wisdom gained over CK2s seven long years of expansions and patches - all the things we simply could not do in that game - and represents the natural evolution of Crusader Kings. Yes, CK3 is an evolution, not a revolution; its better across the board and does not alter the core CK experience. That said, we did not carry over everything from every expansion and update to CK2. Rather than trying to do full justice to the less appreciated systems, we decided to go deep rather than wide.
The main design goals with Crusader Kings III were:
- Character Focus: Crusader Kings is clearly and unequivocally about individual characters, unlike our other games. This makes CK most suited for memorable emergent stories, and we wanted to bring characters into all important gameplay mechanics (where possible.)
- Player Freedom and Progression: We want to cater to all player fantasies we can reasonably accommodate, allowing players to shape their ruler, heirs, dynasty and even religion to their liking - though there should of course be appropriate challenges to overcome.
- Player Stories:All events and scripted content should feelrelevant,impactfulandimmersivein relation to the underlying simulation. That way, players will perceive and remember stories - their own stories, not the developers stories.
- Approachability: Crusader Kings III should be user friendly without compromising its general level of complexity and historical flavor. Its nice if its easier to get into, but more than that, it should be clear what everything in the game is, what you might want to be doing, and how to go about it.
[ 2019-10-24 12:12:54 CET ] [ Original post ]
An Heir Is Born!
[ 2019-10-19 09:15:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III is the newest generation of Paradox Development Studios beloved medieval role-playing grand strategy game. Expand and improve your realm, whether a mighty kingdom or modest county. Use marriage, diplomacy and war to increase your power and prestige in a meticulously detailed map that stretches from Spain to India, Scandinavia to Central Africa.
[previewyoutube=YlOXhOxEum0;full][/previewyoutube]
But uneasy lies the head that wears a crown! Your cunning is your greatest weapon, and intelligence is the key to all successful strategy. Guard your life and the future of your dynasty, because enemies foreign and domestic envy your status. Engage in espionage, join political factions, punish heretics or use assassins to make sure your throne passes safely to the next generation.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III/
Crusader Kings III is the medieval strategy role-playing experience that you have been waiting for.
- Shape Your Dynasty: Guide unique characters through history, choosing lifestyles best suited to their personalities and your ambitions.
- Rewrite Medieval History: Dynasties will change and adapt to changes in family and politics, swimming in a rich world of religious faith and royal pageantry.
- Build a Mighty Kingdom: Use cold steel or warm words to expand your realm; war backed by cunning, and diplomacy that unites bloodlines.
- Experience High Drama: Stranger than fiction stories leap off the screen, as characters plot against you and events push you to extremes.
- Learn as You Go: Guided advice helps newcomers and veterans navigate a rich medieval world. In-game suggestions tip you off to paths you might not have considered.
- The Usual Crusader Kings Fun: Keep a stubborn council in line, scheme against your overbearing uncle or marry rich duchesses for their land and legacy.
[ 2019-10-19 09:15:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Crusader Kings III
Paradox Developement Studios
Developer
Paradox Interactive
Publisher
2020-09-01
Release
GameBillet:
12.98 €
Game News Posts:
388
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
Very Positive
(76390 reviews)
Public Linux Depots:
- CK3 Linux Binaries [148.87 M]
- CK3 Launcher Linux [99.32 M]
An Heir is Born in Crusader Kings III
Crusader Kings III is the newest generation of Paradox Development Studio’s beloved medieval role-playing grand strategy game. Expand and improve your realm, whether a mighty kingdom or modest county. Use marriage, diplomacy and war to increase your power and prestige in a meticulously detailed map that stretches from Spain to India, Scandinavia to Central Africa.
But uneasy lies the head that wears a crown! Your cunning is your greatest weapon, and intelligence is the key to all successful strategy. Guard your life and the future of your dynasty, because enemies foreign and domestic envy your status. Engage in espionage, join political factions, punish heretics or use assassins to make sure your throne passes safely to the next generation.
Crusader Kings III is the medieval strategy role-playing experience that you have been waiting for.
Crusader Kings III is the newest generation of Paradox Development Studio’s beloved medieval role-playing grand strategy game. Expand and improve your realm, whether a mighty kingdom or modest county. Use marriage, diplomacy and war to increase your power and prestige in a meticulously detailed map that stretches from Spain to India, Scandinavia to Central Africa.
But uneasy lies the head that wears a crown! Your cunning is your greatest weapon, and intelligence is the key to all successful strategy. Guard your life and the future of your dynasty, because enemies foreign and domestic envy your status. Engage in espionage, join political factions, punish heretics or use assassins to make sure your throne passes safely to the next generation.
Crusader Kings III is the medieval strategy role-playing experience that you have been waiting for.
- Shape Your Dynasty: Guide unique characters through history, choosing lifestyles best suited to their personalities and your ambitions.
- Rewrite Medieval History: Dynasties will change and adapt to changes in family and politics, swimming in a rich world of religious faith and royal pageantry.
- Build a Mighty Kingdom: Use cold steel or warm words to expand your realm; war backed by cunning, and diplomacy that unites bloodlines.
- Experience High Drama: Stranger than fiction stories leap off the screen, as characters plot against you and events push you to extremes.
- Learn as You Go: Guided advice helps newcomers and veterans navigate a rich medieval world. In-game suggestions tip you off to paths you might not have considered.
- The Usual Crusader Kings Fun: Keep a stubborn council in line, scheme against your overbearing uncle or marry rich duchesses for their land and legacy.
MINIMAL SETUP
- OS: TBC
- Processor: TBC
- Graphics: TBC
- OS: TBC
- Processor: TBC
- Graphics: TBC
GAMEBILLET
[ 6087 ]
GAMERSGATE
[ 3241 ]
FANATICAL BUNDLES
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7 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes
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HUMBLE BUNDLES
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