Hi everyone!
Today is a special occasion, because today is not just Valentine’s Day - it’s also the five-year anniversary of
Crusader Kings II; which means that I’ve been working on it for seven years. This feels almost unbelievable to me, but time is ephemeral... You'd expect developers to get sick of a game they've worked on for so long, but I still play the game for fun in my spare time almost every week. The last five years have seen Paradox go from a small niche company to a fairly major player in the industry, and CK2 has played a significant part in that growth. In this anniversary dev diary, my old compadre and co-designer of CK2
Chris King and I will treat you to a short “post mortem” of sorts; what went well and what didn’t, regrets and points of pride...
The Base GameI was absolutely thrilled when I got the chance to head up the project back in 2010. There was so much untapped potential in the first game, and I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish. However, when I look at the original design document today I can only shake my head - nowhere does it explicitly state the importance of emergent gameplay from the complex interactions of many simple systems, but I remember hoping that stories would emerge from the interactions of all the characters in the game based solely on a few key mechanics:
The Story Engine- Character Personalities
- Character Opinions
- The Lust for Land (Claims, Pretenders, etc.) The limited resources everyone fights over.
- Different gameplay systems allowing characters to act in accordance with their personality (murder, warfare, marriage planning, etc.)[/b]
Chris and I also felt that a clear focus on rulers rather than nations did not warrant a bunch of holdovers from Europa Universalis that were present in the original CK. Things like Stability and Infamy were discarded or baked into the simple Opinion system, deemphasizing Realpolitik and popular causes. This all turned out very well I think - playing the game did give rise to all kinds of amusing and interesting little stories and anecdotes. In addition, the game certainly looked far better than anything we had released up to that point. Lastly, Crusader Kings II was also remarkably polished and bug free on release. (Paradox had a bit of a nasty reputation for releasing buggy products - which we absolutely wanted to wash away.) The game slowly turned into a massive hit for the studio (initial sales were mediocre, but it just kept on going as awareness of the game spread.)
While the game was great on release, it does show its age when you look at it today. The production values are way below, for example, Stellaris, and it also very intimidating in an oldschool Paradox way (another area where Stellaris leads the way.) You could also say that it’s not as well balanced as, say, Europa Universalis IV, nor as well paced in multiplayer - and you’d be right. In hindsight, we should have done a bit more to improve the balance and the MP experience. However, the game was never intended to be used for eSports, and a perfectly fair and well balanced game is probably not as conducive to the kind of surprising and dramatic twists and turns that gives Crusader Kings II its unique charm.
Post Release DevelopmentThe opportunity to keep working on the game long after release has allowed us to correct an enormous amount of flaws, as well as to both broaden and deepen many aspects of the game. Muslims, Pagans, Zoroastrians, Jews and Merchant Republics all became playable, and of course the whole of India, with its three major religions, was also added. When developing the (soon) 13 expansions to the game, we, as designers, have not really made much of a distinction between the free features and the paid ones, but simply tried to improve the game in almost every conceivable way. We sure have learned a lot of lessons along the way... Here are some highlights:
Favorite Features- Vikings! (The Old Gods): Playing as an aggressive raider in the new 867 bookmark created a whole new playstyle and greatly increased the replayability of the game. The other pagans were also fun, but the Norse did receive the coolest mechanics.
- Zoroastrians (The Old Gods): The Zoroastrians were made playable almost as an afterthought, but the “Zoroastrian Restoration” has become one of my personal favorite campaigns.
- Adventurers (The Old Gods): This is another feature from “The Old Gods” that I am really pleased with (that expansion was really good!) Successful adventurers often give rise to the most interesting little stories in the wider world (they are not as fun when they mess up your own plans though!)
- Lifestyle Focuses (Way of Life): The main point of this feature was to give players some agency over the personality and skills of their character past childhood. It was also intended to deepen the role-playing aspects of the game. I think it succeeded on both counts, although our rushed schedule did not permit us to fully flesh out and properly balance the focuses (things we have since corrected.)
- Game Rules (The Reaper’s Due): This many expansions in, it was about time to add some rule customization to the game (that don’t require modding.) The outrage about certain features introduced in the Conclave patch tipped the scale.
- Diseases and Portrait Effects (The Reaper’s Due): I love the more specific ailments, maimings (and death sounds!) we added with this expansion. We might have overdone the “event spam” from Seclusion and the Court Physician a bit, but in general these things added much flavor.
- Devil Worshippers (Monks and Mystics): Ok, so this Society is largely in fantasy land, but I really enjoy the powers and perks, such as Abduction...
Problematic Features- The EU4 Converter: Enough people seem to appreciate this tool to make it almost worthwhile, but it’s a nightmare to maintain. Personally I also question how fun it actually is to use after 700 years of blobbing in CK2...
- The Chronicle (Charlemagne): The Chronicle looked like a nice feature on paper, but as it turns out, barely anyone uses it.
- Nomads (Horse Lords): While Nomads are now fun to play - after much patching - the feature was not worth all the effort we put into it. The Holdings and the Feudal hierarchy were so ingrained in the game mechanics that we simply bit off more than we could chew. (I should have realized this, because Merchant Republics had already posed a similar, if less severe, problem.)
- Defensive Pacts (Conclave): Probably the most hated feature we ever added. It was well intentioned (making the late game more challenging), but apart from being somewhat ahistorical, it also messes with a fundamental truth: blobbing is fun. These days, I find myself turning this off in the Game Rules. That said, some people do enjoy the extra limitation.
With these reflections, I’ll hand the pen over to
Chris:
I thought I would take a look back at some of those early design ideas that we felt held a lot of promise but as we expanded the game we decided to downgrade. Those ideas that in an alternative history of CK2 development would have become the centerpieces of expansions.
Roads not TraveledWhen we built CK2 we had high ambitions of the game, and developed features that were going to help capture the joys and challenges of being a medieval ruler. Some of those features didn’t go the distance and have really fallen by the wayside. So I thought I would spend some time talking about this ideas and quietly contemplating their tragic demise.
The De Jure & De Facto SystemOr as we like to call it the Normandy problem. The problem of having two lieges, or being both independent and having a liege. In CK2 you only ever have one liege and you are either independent or you are not. This very binary solution makes a lot of sense as we are making a computer game and the one thing computers do very well is binary. Still it does not capture the whole grand sweep of feudal life. We had high ambitions of this idea that you may be independent but legally you have provinces that are part of someone else realm, or if you are Duke of Flanders part of your realm is in France and other parts are in the HRE. Sadly the whole levy system meant it never really delivered and changes were made that basically killed it. SAD! At some point I would love to revisit this problem and come up with a solution that will survive changes to the levy system. Still take a moment to mourn the sad loss of the levies.
Investiture and a Pope of your ownOne of the great feudal battles of the period was who got the men and the money from church land. We hoped to create a system where your relationship with the Pope and the church would be important and full of interesting choices. Again it was a feature that never really panned out the way we wanted it. It was one of those things that was filled with subtle nuances that made it difficult to truly capture in a nice clean game mechanics. It was with hindsight it should of been all or nothing, either a big feature or we should have left it.
...and back to me...
We look forward to reading your thoughts and comments on this dev diary! Also stay tuned for a CK2 dev diary in a couple of weeks, when I plan to present the results of the survey we did a while back where you got to rate the various features we’ve added over the years…
Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!
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Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released. (Read 2125732 times)