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[umiman]

(long story)

Vassalize your friend, form the empire, and leave it as elective so your buddy has the potential to regain authority. That latter action will encourage him to agree to vassaldom, and will also help keep things cordial. The two together will allow him to regain his dignity after losing most of Britannia. And it makes you a good bloc to work together against the other players and pursue your logical next steps: Consolidate the isles, then fuck France.

He was already vassalized. What I did was leave the game, let him choose someone else, and I played as a duke in France instead. I didn't want to play as a big empire heh.

[Cruxador]

(long story)

Vassalize your friend, form the empire, and leave it as elective so your buddy has the potential to regain authority. That latter action will encourage him to agree to vassaldom, and will also help keep things cordial. The two together will allow him to regain his dignity after losing most of Britannia. And it makes you a good bloc to work together against the other players and pursue your logical next steps: Consolidate the isles, then fuck France.

He was already vassalized. What I did was leave the game, let him choose someone else, and I played as a duke in France instead. I didn't want to play as a big empire heh.

Well that's a boring end to that story.

[pisskop]

FemKs grandson, emperor kurlemuse, had seen his crown authority at zero.  He raised it to low, and got to work, dowing sweden and letting them take the free swedish romuvans who refused to vassalize back in.

He began a campaign against bohemia and the teutonic order of hungary, taking select states and making sure to not declare (holy) wars he wouldnt gain much out of.  Its open season on the last few remaning vikings of the game, but the christains ...?

  Well, The pope is currently in a bit of a jam.  That whole antipope thing coupled with a few lost holy wars and crusades saw zero percent catholic authority.  Thus, heresies sprang up, most prominently the lollards.  The lollards took over the byzantine empire, and west francia was united into byzantine somewhen down the line.  Bavaria, burgundy, and middle francia have all been almost wiped out by my own carefully planned dows and the more erradic dowing of the Ratnest of Romuva as they all ganged up on the holy orders.  The only properly christain states I know of are the spainish ones, who continuously, albiet slowly, take back spain, and the aquitaine nation.

At age, 61, Im ready for him to die, his 31 year old heir is named pisskop, is weaker than he is, and is bethrothed to a now 14 year old genius.  So while christianity seems weakened and lost, the byzantines have added a new problem by being alive and in my way.  I also have to check, but sooner or later noncatholic holy orders should happen, and I dont know about the varangian guard.

The far east has fallen apart, so to speak, into a quarreling mass.  I think I lost some romvuan supporters over there, but I see one or two solid pink colors out there.

Africa and egypt are of the same dynasty.  Budhists have expanded out of india for some reason, idk why but  noticed it.



Other than that, Im getting somewhat concerned about the power of the choosen warband, who took over Rus and will happily vassal off to me if I asked, and the Archpriest.  The archpriest has been a huge aggrovating factor to the christains, dowing away from his holding in southern germany.  He hands me off an astounding 90gp a year now, and makes almost 10 net, after factoring in his retinue costs.  Thats dangerously powerful.  He wields anywhere from 3.5k to 6.5k troops depending on the martial of the holder, and provides me with 2.5k levies, at minimal church levies.

[Vendayn]

Anyone playing the Warhammer: Geheimnisnacht mod? Its pretty early stages (only version 0.13). But a lot of the factions have their own unique mechanics. Still work to do on others, but its pretty involved for not even a "release" version.

I found out about it after I bought Warhammer Total War. I was looking for a game that was Warhammer fantasy, but did more with diplomacy/espionage...so I was pretty much looking for a crusader kings 2 or even europa universalis style warhammer game, and not so much a warhammer game that is 100% war all the time. Which warhammer total war is a ton of fun, but I like to do other stuff besides war as well

Turns out, CK2 has a warhammer mod already that I never knew about lol until my friend told me. And I already have all the Ck2 dlcs too.

Some unique mechanics like there is Queen neferata over by Sylvania (kinda hidden away in the mountains) who can send out vampires to turn others into vampires. So you can have a whole huge family tree of vampires. And you can set up "cults" (forgot exact wording) in other nations, and they give that province it is setup negative and you get bi-annual income from it. Can even seduce other vampires and humans to give you troops (that cost no upkeep) or money.

Another one I like really well that I tried is the High Elves. They don't actually expand, but what they can do is attack provinces and setup colonies that become their own nation. They also have to deal with tons of annoying raiders. And, civil war(s) if you choose to help the world.

My favorite though is Morathi, over in the Dark Elf place, mother of the Witch King. Its kinda a hard start, but she starts off with the immortal trait and a bunch of magic. So she can be pretty powerful later. Dark elves have to deal with TONS of factions though, and they are always in civil unrest. Actually have to play pretty diplomatic-like and make sure everyone is always happy. Probably most diplomatic focused one of the bunch (at least of ones I tried), where as Queen neferata is the most espionage focused one.

Really enjoying the warhammer mod though

[pisskop]

  Emperor PKVII (only bloody VII ...) completed the land of ruthenia and took the last holy site for his own.  Russia has cut off communications with us, and in fact would plow their 14k troops into us if given a chance.  Im thinking I should have vassalized the choosen warband and russia when I had the chance...

Kurlemuse II, a name of my choosing (just like his 16 year senior sister is named after femkop) is a wee lad of 1 year old, but either lucked or skilled into a really, really decent spot.  No revokations of crown authority here, although the game prepped for it by booting my mother, who wouldn't grant it to the `98% faction.  Or so I assume, since now an italian high chief duke is reagent.  Not that kurlemuse knows that.

  Without enough piety to declare a holy war I cant take advantage of italys special predicament.  Lets see...  about 40 years ago a catolic crusade was called on lombardy.  The lollardly lombardy got zero support from byzantine since they were fighting a rebellion in west francia and fighting off a caliph from th other side of the world.  They lost, a sweet young maiden named  Judith 'the gentle' with a  ballin' statline was put into control, only to lose it soon after because she kept all 23 title for herself and thus couldn't raise an army when the lollards lolled back in.  But nonethe less, she converted and made a high chiefdom dukedom and passed them off so she could revolt now.  The king of italy, since he is now italian, has a whooping 1k soldiers to defend himself againts his vassal, who fields 11k.  lollards.

  Anywho, no holy war for me, and Im sure shitting putting diplomacy at the forefront of my byzantine relationship.
Theres a 3-way war going on for Europe, between the lollards of byzantia, Austeria, and the catholics.


You know, I almost want crown authority to drop so the vassals can dow one another and straighten out the tangle they tend to get into by crossbreeding.  Or you know, the guy with the biggest gun takes everything.

  Anywho, we are closing in on 1200, and the khans.  I really, really, desperately hope that they arent gimped like the emperor ai tends to be. 


The cali of the shia, from spain declared his intentions to jihad across the faces of some plebs ... from egypt.  Lolwat?

[pisskop]

Oh heys, I do conclude they fixed his aggression problems.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[pisskop]

  Well, I mean 'fixed' in the most immediate and loose of terms.  Its fixed in that he's much morew aggressive and the zealous makes him hate a lot of people, but after the death of the first khan the ilkhanate sat around until he decided that Sunni Muslimism was for him and hasnt done a thing but get dowed by the still tengrian golden horde for land.

  Perm and russia are still romuvan and still exist, and are my headcannon examples of how the coast and northern sections of the Asian continent are converting, even if muslim thought is spreading down the southern half.

  I beat that golden horde, because 53k troop sitting on a hill over a river will be 56k horsemen crossing said river to climb said hill.
The aztecs landed in spain and england.  They took a county in wales and are content to rub their balls over the welsh, but other than thaty and half of the larger muslim nation of Spain they arent doing all that much.

  English pastimes aside, I am dissappoint.

The golden horde just dowed me right after I finished a war with the byzantines.  Its such a fucking grind to take land from the byzantines.  And one duchy at a time is crap.  Same goes for the catholics post-crusade, because those damn holy orders entrench themselves so deeply.


Right now Im sitting with my child emperor, and this is by far the closest fight Ive seen so far:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

oh man, those reinforcements will make all the difference.  If I can get a third column back before the middle one runs Ill win this massive 60k v 55k troop fight.  We are 1-1 for Victories in battle involving more than 40k troops so far; they fucked my 20k retinue up.



pedit:  I looked at the picture, and it looks like it already happened.   Well, without their magicpony event stack they wont be winning this war.

[pisskop]

Though Im sure you all lament it, this will be the last of my little ironman updates

  the year is 1368


  Empress Drade or Darde or whomever, is the last in the line of Pisskops.  She is a middle aged empress, who inherited after her father -suprise- got himself stabbed in the eye.  A lot of these children seem to inherit that way.

  Anywho, as she grew up in the care of her uncle, a charming homosexual archpriest with way too much diplomacy for his own good, she gained quite a reputation for herself, actually getting really positive reviws for personal diplomacy (+60 repore as a kid is fantastic to me).  She did a bit of magicing to get herself out of a tight spot or two, such as sending her moron regeants to the very last slavic holding of the game, ironically right outside my borders.  The game seemed fond of trying to appoint literal morons as regeants, so I was fond of sending them to the last pagan holdout, such as the last seuomosican one in perm, a romuvan nation.  the last norseman is in ireland too

so as an adult shes catherime the great, seducing her way into the hearts of men

  Mali is romuvan, but Ive seen no choosen warband settlements down there.  The Khans converted to muslim, and so did the aztecs.  The ztecs were the most peaceful people of the game, even having an emperor with sympathy to pagans, catholics, and jews at the same time!

  My empire is vast, and practically all of Europe, excepting Greece.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are a few byzantine holdouts, but I control and hold the titles for the empires of scandanavia, wendia, germania, and frace, and I own Britain and the wales kingdom sans the aztec bukaki county.


Im almost as strong as they are, mustering a full 160k troops to their event spawned, and still alive, 170.  ridiculous how peaceful they are.


My heir was a slow guy with no skills, but he died so its all good and now the king of wales, my cruel but skilled son, will.



I do own EU, but I have considerably less time spent on it and almost no DLC.  So I dont know if I want to export this.  It would be interesting to play as several people, but not the Emperor of reomuva.  Also Im kind of bored now, having sat through 1400 or so autosaves.


  People to look for:
-The byzantine empire is a Lollard nation of 60k troops againt the musie-blob and holding territory the austerians will want.
-The last pagans of the game all hold single counties.  And only 1 pagan per religion.
-The Last catholics of the game, in scotland/ireland and spain.


idk.  Mali?  One of my vassals?  Im interested in seeing the empire fall apart, tbh.

  The Karlings are the emperors of byzantia, and I have 700 living relatives.
the golden horde has 25k event troops left, and the pope lost rome

[Zangi]

When you start a new game to make sure mods you acquired are jiving smoothly and to your liking... before going to bed.  This won't take long at all.  Then oh shit what time is it!?

[Azkanan]

Fun short AAR

Started out as Moon Temple in the Elder Kings mod. Started with a slightly Martial-based Nord fellow with 19 Martial.

Got into a bunch of early inquisition wars with the Reach scum fellows, took their lands, went Warlord and ravaged Skyrim. I now hold pretty much everything west and north of Whiterun, with exception to a heavy hold-out of land to the north along the coast and a good chunk of the Falkreath area (the latter by Colovian Scum).

At this point, my nord had gone from 19 martial to 47 in about 30 years. The Colovian confederacy had a mass revolt right in the middle of their lands, so I took the opportunity to push them out of Skyrim... unfortunately, their revolt ended early and i'd only grapped a couple of their territories at approx 47% warscore. If you check out the map, theres a single pass between Skyrim and the Imperial lands, split along the border of Pale Pass and Moregate (sic).

1100 of their men showed up in Pale Pass, so i sent half of my army numbering 1500, with my leader leadering, to KO them before the rest of them showed up and became a problem. Just about to land in Pale Pass when 1100 suddenly becomes 3500. I poo a little, halt my forces to Moregate and call my minor armies from sieging to reinforce. The 3500 marches on me, my minors haven't got a chance.

By the time they arrive, the 3500 is sent running with around 1500 dead (2k army running into the fog of war), with as I imagine, my Thonnir Windaxe standing triumphantly and very bloody. I'll have to get a screenshot some time - it crashed right around this time, so I might even get a replay (and win again, if Mara allows).

Morale of the story -- Martial is important.

Edit:

Nope, looks like I've played a bit into the game, since.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit Edit:

Also "Legendary" in combat.

[Man of Paper]

Playing vanilla as the Ferraran count. Did nothing for a couple years but make a couple friends and start hoarding gold, and was rewarded with the title of Duke of Ferrara. I allied with my uncle, the duke of Tuscany, forged some documents proclaiming my right to control Modena, and conquered them.

So far it's been a very good game for writing a narrative, but I will say what just happened paints such a great picture.

My second gen Duke is a partying man, not overly skilled at anything but socially adept nonetheless. He decides to throw a feast, and a few of his vassals show up. While most of the party-goers pass out or go home, my bishop and steward decides he will stay up and chat. We become quick friends. In the middle of our conversation one of my servants bumps into him, spilling wine on his clothing. And so the bishop, a cruel and wicked priest, slashes his throat without hesitation.

So right now I'm stuck on deciding whether my current ruler would imprison a new friend or not after displaying such a disregard for life.

[Teneb]

Don't know if you have been keeping up with them, but there have been dev diaries for the next DLC and due to today's, I decided to copy them here because I have time. I'm skipping the ones that don't talk about the DLC

Spoiler: March 22nd (click to show/hide)

Hello all. I decided that my thoughts on phones last week didn’t really count as a DD, so we are still on #2.This week I’m going to talk about a new set of features we’ve made for the upcoming but as of yet unannounced DLC: Symptoms, diseases, and doctors.

Firstly, doctors, or more accurately, Court Physicians. Court Physician is a new minor title which you can give out to a well-learned person which makes them responsible for diagnosing and treating illnesses in your court.

Now, symptoms! No longer will you simply become “Ill” through an event, instead you will receive one of a variety of symptoms and over time you could become sicker, either you will gain more symptoms or they will evolve into a full blown disease, or perhaps you simply just had a cough and it will pass in time. When you first get a symptom if you have a Court Physician they will first attempt to diagnose what the cause is, and then administer a treatment - if their diagnosis was correct it’s more likely the treatment will be successful.

Here we can see the unfortunate Doge Orso becoming unwell:



The full list of symptoms is: Cough, Fever, Diarrhea, Vomiting, Headache, Chest Pain, Rash, Cramps, Abdominal pain, Fatigue, Malaise.

Depending on a number of factors your symptoms may well manifest into a disease. We’ve added some more diseases too: Flu, Dysentery, Gout, Food Poisoning (not a disease exactly), Rabies, and Cancer.


As we can see, Cassio was right, Orso did have Food Poisoning! I skipped over a few more symptoms appearing, and here they are removed and replaced with the Food Poisoning trait.

At this point your Court Physician will call on you again to offer further treatment. This part is a bit more involved, and depending on the skill and traits of your Court Physician they can offer you up to 4 choices of treatment method: Experimental, Mystic, Proven, or Cautious:

    Experimental treatments tend to involve radical methods and/or surgery and very much depend on the skill of your Court Physician. Results will likely be very good or very bad depending on how it goes.

    Mystical treatments are offered by Court Physicians with the Mystic trait and often involves an appeal to a higher power. Because of the capricious nature of spirits, or possibly due to the mind-altering substances used to contact them, Mystical treatments may result in strange outcomes, and can even result in a change of personality in the patient. The power of faith is strong though, and when Mystical treatment goes well it can go very well indeed.

    Proven treatments represent the tried and true methods which are well-known to work (at least for a given value of “work”). They rarely go too badly wrong, but equally they do not have a huge effect when they go right.

    Cautious treatments are very safe, but often do little more than make you more comfortable. They will almost always be successful, but have a fairly minor effect.


Here Orso has the choice of Experimental or Proven treatments, or of doing nothing. Since Food Poisoning isn't terribly serious, it would make sense to take the Proven treatment rather than risk the Experimental method, but Cassio is a pretty good Court Physician, so he might well succeed. So, which should I pick? If anyone would like to vote on the matter, start your post with "Experimental", or "Proven" and in a short while I will count the votes and post what happens.
Well Experimental has won by a landslide, let's see how it goes:

Oh dear. Cassio's experimental surgery seems to have been a total success, but the anesthesia didn't fully take hold...

And that’s basically it, we hope that people with <secret DLC> will enjoy the process of getting sick and horribly dying. Next week Doomdark will talk about some interesting details of the 2.6 patch.

Spoiler: May 24th (click to show/hide)

Hello and welcome to another Developer Diary about getting sick and dying! Previously I talked about this in the personal sense, but today I will tell you what we have done to Epidemics.

In our upcoming but still unannounced DLC, we have added many more scriptable values to Epidemic diseases which allows us to do many more interesting things with them. I’ll skip the technical details here, but Epidemics can now spread along the Silk road when present, and are more likely to spread to rich and coastal provinces while being less likely to spread to poorer inland areas. Different Epidemics can have different speeds and likelihoods of spreading, as well as different maximum provinces they can spread to and durations to last for.

Epidemics also have another effect now, they can cause Depopulation in a province. Depopulation is a modifier on the province which reduces tax incomes, levy/garrison sizes, and supply limits. Different diseases have different chances of causing Depopulation, and the effects can remain long after the diseases have died out.

Of course, I can’t talk about Epidemics without mentioning The Black Death, since it was a somewhat notable event in the CK2 period. In the past, the Plague hasn’t been too impressive, but now… well now we have made some changes:

while it's possible for the Plague to come from central asia and bypass India, in this instance it arrived in the North-east of the subcontinent and spread throughout it and outwards. Meanwhile, England has Smallpox.

As well as making The Black Death larger and more deadly, we felt it was a shame you’d have to play until 1300 to experience it. So, in our generosity we made The Black Death more dynamic and there is now a chance for a major outbreak to occur 200 years into any game, regardless of startpoint (and the 1300 outbreak of course remains possible too). After a major outbreak has happened the disease becomes endemic and may break out again, but likely on a smaller scale. I should note that the dynamic Plague is a Game Rule, so if you want to restrict the first outbreak to 1300+ it’s still possible.

Is it all doom and gloom in this DLC? Well no, not entirely. As I mentioned previously, Court Physicians will try to treat your illnesses, and you will also be able to build Hospitals, and/or go into Seclusion to attempt to avoid infection - but those are topics for a future DD. Until then, contemplate your mortality.

Spoiler: May 31st (click to show/hide)

Hello again. Last week I told you about the horrors of the Plague and your inevitable death, but so you don’t fall into total despair I’ll tell you some steps you can take to delay giving the Reaper his due.

The first and most immediate defense against Epidemics is to go into Seclusion. This is somewhat similar to going into Hiding, but in this case you Seclude your entire court in your castle (or capital holding of your choice). Seclusion is a very effective way to stop disease getting into your castle… provided, of course, that you don’t bring in anyone who is already infected. While in Seclusion there are unique events which deal with such things as; interpersonal conflict or bonding, angry people outside who want in, food shortages, murder, and maybe even a little cannibalism. Only a little! Happy DD, happy DD…


Another, longer term defense is to build Hospitals. Hospitals are a new holding type, built in the same way as Trade posts or Forts. Their primary effect is to make the chance of an Epidemic breaking out or spreading to the province less likely. Hospitals can have several buildings built within them, which mostly serve to increase the Disease Defense level, but Leper Colonies can also lower revolt risk.


Also, due to a few people asking last week, we’ve made wallpaper version of the Danse Macabre event picture:

Spoiler: June 7th (click to show/hide)

Hello again, it’s time for another DD! Today I want to show off a change we’ve made for the 2.6 patch (no secret DLC required), the revised succession screen:


While you may rightly think this is not a groundbreaking change, we do feel it gives a better sendoff to your departed character and a brief introduction to your new one, whom you may or may not have been paying attention to before this point. Plus it looks nice, which cannot hurt.

Speaking of things looking nice, we have a fair bit of new art for the unannounced DLC we keep teasing you with, mostly from our new 2d artist, Bjarne Hallberg. It can be difficult to capture the essence of what a trait or icon is meant to represent in the very small space, but I think he has done a rather good job of it. Can you identify what these icons are for?



Some of them I won’t confirm until the relevant DD of their features, but you may have the eventual satisfaction of being right

We also have a some excellent new event pictures from Frida Eriksson in Paradox Arctic. You’ve already seen Danse Macabre, but here are a couple more:



Next week I'll tell you about the new Prosperity system.

Spoiler: June 14th (click to show/hide)

Hello all, it’s time for another DD! Today I’m going to tell you about the Prosperity system, which is a <secret DLC> feature. Prosperity is rather like the opposite of Depopulation, which I have mentioned in previous DDs. In essence, provinces which have not been sieged, raided, or ravaged by disease for a long time will begin to Prosper, and gain certain bonuses- such as extra tax income and faster replenishment of levies.


To go into a bit more detail, provinces will have a hidden value which increases every year based on things like random chance, the terrain of the province, the ruler’s stewardship, if the realm is at war, and if the province is the ruler’s Crown Focus. “Crown Focus? What’s that?” you ask? Well hold on, I’ll get to that soon. When this value hits certain thresholds the province receives a modifier and the owner is informed that the province is Prospering. If things continue to go well, there are up to 3 levels of Prosperity to be gained. On the other hand, if the province is sieged, sacked by raiders, or infected by an epidemic, the Prosperity level will be reduced. If a province is Depopulated, all Prosperity is wiped out.

Various other factors can also affect the Prosperity value of a province, many decisions and events which involve building things, deals with merchants, holding feasts and tournaments, and that kind of thing now also have a Prosperity increasing effect, typically in your capital if another province isn’t involved. For the Norse, there’s also an event which can trigger when a fleet returns with loot which gives the capital a small bonus.

And finally, there’s your Crown Focus. Independent rulers who are Dukes or higher, and of sufficient size can set one of their Demesne provinces to be their Crown Focus - somewhere the ruler is devoting more of their attention to, which causes an additional yearly increase in Prosperity. Further, if your Crown Focus province has achieved the maximum level of Prosperity there are some new beneficial events which can fire there. The Crown Focus is also the cause of the crowns seen on the map in some earlier screenshots, although we’re thinking of showing only your own Crown Focus icon to avoid map clutter.


That's all for now, but next week I'll mention the new Narrative events <secret DLC> will add.

Spoiler: June 21st (click to show/hide)

Hello all, once again I am here to tell you about the horrors wonders of <Secret DLC>! Today the subject is our new narrative events. We have added two new chains of events, the first being the titular End of Days chain(s).

The concept behind the EoD events are that your people have become scared and uncertain in the wake of Plagues and this has given rise to various doomsayers and general unrest. Possible results of this include:

    The rise of a Prophet of Doom, who is convinced the world will end if they do not overthrow your rule.

    A general belief that the dead have returned to walk the earth and attack the living.

    Panic based on a solar eclipse, which is surely the herald of the End Times.

These events are somewhat rare, and each possible doom has several ways to resolve it, for better or for worse, so we hope you will find them rather interesting should they appear.



The other chain we have added is The quest for Eternal Life. Much as I encouraged you to do in an earlier DD, characters in CK may find themselves contemplating their mortality, and as rulers of realms they have rather more resources available to them than you or I. The quest for Eternal Life is long, dangerous, and prone to failure, but when the possible reward is the ability to defy Death… well, you can see why people may undertake it anyway.


That’s all for now, next week I will go into detail about our new Maimed traits.

Spoiler: June 28th (click to show/hide)

Hello all, it’s time for another DD about ZombieInvasion <Secret DLC*>! Today we’ll take a look at what we’ve done to the Maimed trait. Well, we’ve removed it! People without <Secret DLC> can still be Maimed, of course, but the lucky owners of <Secret DLC> will instead receive more specific injuries, such as: One-handed, One-legged, One-Eyed, Disfigured, or Mangled (this represents severe trauma to the torso, mostly). As well as allowing more specific wounds and flavor, this has allowed us to remove the Health penalty from most of these traits (Mangled still has one though). Instead, when you receive a maiming-type injury you will also receive the Severely Injured trait, which has some health and stat penalties, but will be lost after some time has passed. Afterall, while losing a hand is certainly not an enjoyable process, you do eventually heal up and can be perfectly healthy besides the missing appendage. Also, if anyone is feeling creative, please suggest interesting effects for these new traits - we do of course have some penalties on them, but I worry they are a little dull, so fire away and I may shamelessly steal your ideas.

Since both One-eyed and Disfigured affect the faces of characters, we have added a lot of new portrait props to reflect this. Here is a small sample of what you might see ingame:


We have also added several events relating to life with missing body parts:

a disfigured ruler holds a masquerade ball


the loss of a hand is a severe blow to a famous warrior

That’s all for now, next week I am not certain which DD we will show, either I will talk about some extra Pagan features we’ve added, or Doomdark will give you some of his thoughts about CK2. It will be a surprize!

*= DLC contains no zombies

Spoiler: July 5th (click to show/hide)

Hello and welcome back to another dev diary about <Secret DLC>! One day we will actually announce this DLC and I’ll be able to use the proper name, but that day is not today! Anyway, right now I am here to tell you about some extra stuff we have made for Pagans, which will be part of the free 2.6 patch (of course, you still need The Old Gods to play as a pagan), and our new Female Advisor events. So, uh, actually this DD is really about 2.6 content and not <Secret DLC>, really, but anyway, onwards!

First of all, Defensive Pagans now have the ability to summon bands of Devout Warriors if they are the primary defender against an enemy of a different religion at the cost of 200 piety. Overall this is rather like the Raise Tribal Army decision and gives Defensive Pagans some extra punch when attacked.

Next, Defensive Pagans also have a new decision which can be used while at peace, and not more often than every 10 years: Ancestor Worship. This allows you to ask your ancestors for help or advise with some part of your life, perhaps you want triumph on the battlefield, maybe you want your realm to Prosper, or perhaps you are just lonely? In any case, once you have decided what it is you want, you must decide what you will offer up to get your request heard, and can range from offering up your eye or a human sacrifice to a more modest feast or carving a simple idol. With the sacrifice made, hopefully you see some kind of result in the not so distant future. Although, skeptics might point out that there’s no evidence the ancestors actually did anything and you may simply be giving them credit for a happy coincidence, that isn’t the kind of thought a pious man ought to have.

here we wish for affection and offer up a feast

With Defensive Pagans covered, let’s move into their more Offensive cousins, the Norse. The first change here is relatively simple, and some of you guessed it from the Trait icons I showed in an earlier DD, but there are now two improved versions of the Viking trait: Ravager and Sea King. These are gained from continuing to sack holdings while raiding after the Viking trait has been gained and come with larger bonuses.


A couple of minor yet neat changes:

    The Norse may now also gain a trait similar to Crusader when taking part in Great Holy Wars, called Valhalla-bound.

    Norse Culture will no longer split into into Swedish/Danish etc when it’s part of a powerful Norse realm (which I seem to remember was said to be the case long ago but doesn’t seem to have been implemented) where the ruler either has 2 kingdom tiles or an empire title, or if the faith has been reformed and the Fylkir is Norse. On a related note, Pictish, Old Saxon, and Visigothic cultures will also no longer split/change when part of a powerful realm or their head of religion is of their culture.

Finally, Norse religion rulers now have a decision to appoint female characters in their realm with good Martial skill and appropriate traits as Shieldmaidens. These warrior women can act as bodyguards and/or can be set as commanders for your armies regardless of your gender laws. Shieldmaidens have a number of events relating to both their actions in battle and their training for said battles, and if a player happens to end up as a landed lady they can experience the Shieldmaiden content from the other side.


Now leaving Pagans behind, but staying with cool women, we’ve added a couple of ways to get more female advisors. Firstly, close relatives of a ruler with high stats may ask to be given a job. Secondly, a talented woman may show up in your court and offer her services to you. In either case if you accept they will take up a council position, but you will get an opinion penalty with your vassals - if you have Conclave the size of the penalty is reduced if you have increased your Gender Equality laws. These events do not fire if your gamerules/gender laws/religion/culture allow women to be appointed normally, since in that case you could simply hire them if you want to.


That’s all for this week, next week Doomdark will talk about the future of CK2 beyond <Secret DLC>.

Spoiler: July 12th - Today (click to show/hide)

Summer is here and work in Sweden is grinding to a halt. Everyone has shed their winter skin and developed a peculiar form of photosynthesis, and are now idly vegetating in parks and lawns around the country. The season really is tragically short here… I myself am likely doing the same today, trying to develop some sorely needed vitamin D. That’s why I wrote this dev diary last week; it’s all about planning ahead, which brings me to the topic of the week - the future of Crusader Kings II.

Is it time to let go after 11 (soon to be 12) expansions? Not a chance! There are still some areas left to explore, and when we finally decide the time has come, I want the game to be in the best shape possible. We’ll soon be announcing the upcoming expansion, which is slated for release in late August. It’s not a huge one this time around, but there is plenty of good stuff in there as you've probably gleaned from Darkrenown's diaries. After that, we have two more expansions teed up. The first will be somewhat similar to Way of Life in scope and theme, and the second one will likely be huge. After that, it might really be time to let go, but it’s also possible we’ll wind down with another small expansion (nr 15).

We learned some valuable lessons with Horse Lords and Conclave, both when it comes to design and implementation. Crusader Kings II is an old dog now, and it’s getting harder to teach it new tricks. It is unlikely that we’ll mess around with the core gameplay mechanics like we did in Conclave. Instead, we’ll optimize the game and improve the AI (sorely needed, though I've done some work on it for the upcoming patch) and moddability in the free updates, and focus on roleplaying features and quality of life stuff in the expansions. That said, there are still some blanks in the Old World; rulers you cannot play and regions not yet covered…

I'm afraid that will be all this week. Back to my sun lounger... where's my Gin and Tonic? Oh, and let the speculation commence!

Anyway, if you don't want to read through all that, the DLC is about disease and how there will only be two or maybe three DLCs after this one. Then CK2 is pretty much over.

[umiman]

Thanks for the great post!

[RedKing]

Had a good run so far with my latest game. Started as the Cerdicings, Petty Kings of Wessex. Managed to create the kingdom of England very early, and then went crazy with expansion, including taking advantage of an untimely Marking demise and weak infant heirs to claim the thrones of France and Middle Francia. It's not yet 1000, and I've already secured Brittania, and need only Italy/Lombardy to found the HRE.

The Norse staged a very early invasion of Crisis, which allowed them to reform Germanic super early, which has been a double-edged sword. Somewhat less potent, but far more stable. Sweden conquered Pictland, Crisis, and defended Saxony. Meanwhile the Ummayads hold all of Hispania, and until recently, Aquitaine and Brittany as well.
The Shia Caliphate arose in Persia early as well and is still holding strong.

[scriver]

Crisis?