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[Neonivek]

Also funny thing the cosmetic DLC? it is nickel and dimed content from other expansions

Want to play India AND have them look Indian? Buy out DLC! (I have no idea if they actually pulled it with that expansion mind you)

[Tawa]

Also funny thing the cosmetic DLC? it is nickel and dimed content from other expansions

Want to play India AND have them look Indian? Buy out DLC! (I have no idea if they actually pulled it with that expansion mind you)

That's complete bullshit. The Indian faces come with Rajas of India and South Indian Portraits comes free when you register your game on the forum.

[Teneb]

I know I skipped transcribing a few dev diaries as was tradition, but hey how about a new one?

Spoiler: DD#51: The Roof of the World (click to show/hide)

Hi folks!

PDXCON 2017 is over and it was fantastic to meet so many of you! I got a lot of interesting suggestions and feedback on our games, including, of course, CK2. So, a special thank you goes out to those of you who were there!

Now then, let’s talk a bit about those ugly gray areas on the map; the wastelands. Aesthetically, I’ve never liked the gray color of wasteland provinces in the non-Terrain map modes, so I took some time to change it so that wasteland is now always shown as Terrain, regardless of map mode (we might add options for this in the settings. Let me know what you think!)

Northern Siberia and the Sahara deserve to be wasteland; it’s difficult to do anything more about that (we’ve already twisted and manipulated the map projection, etc.) However, the Himalayas and the vast Tibetan plateau are a different story… Though mountainous, the region contains many important population centers and religious sites and has a rich history of interaction with China, India and Central Asia. In essence, the only reason it’s a “wasteland” in CK2 is that we haven’t prioritized doing it justice.


Tibet, 1066. Note that any green Coat of Arms are placeholders.

I’ve never been happy with the way the eastern edge of the map feels like the edge of the world when, in fact, it should be a dynamic hub connecting at least four major civilizations (China, India, the Steppe Nomads and the Islamic world.) Well, the time to do something about that is now! In our working build, we have added the necessary provinces, new cultures (Bodpa, Tangut and Nepalese), new religions (Bön and Khurmazta), and title history for the entire region.


The Himalayan mountains, 867.

The Bön religion is a pagan faith which functionally has many similarities with the Romuvan and Buddhist religions: It is very hard to convert, has access to Gavelkind, and unlike other pagan faiths it can not be reformed (though this might change in the future.) Instead, it starts off with the ability to designate heirs, just like Buddhists. It has also got a Patron Deity system like that of the Hindus and the “defensive” Pagans.


Purang, one of the Bön religion's Holy Sites.

In addition, we are looking over the great Muslim conquerors (Sabuktigin, Seljuq and Timur) to make sure they usually rise, toning down the Indian Holy Orders and making them creatable (rather than existing from the start.) We also plan to add or expand on adventurers for more generic conquests into and out of the subcontinent especially.

There is more, but that would be revealing too much too soon. Stay tuned for the next dev diary!

[Glloyd]

Lot of talk of China in that DD. Could they be ramping up to China as the final DLC?

[hector13]

They've said repeatedly they won't to be touch China.

[Tawa]

China would be too much for too little.

First and foremost, China would be incredibly taxing on the CPU. Yes, the performance improved with recent updates, but remember the lag that popped up when India was added? This would be literally doubling the size of the gameworld--significantly worse than adding a subcontinent.

Adding onto that, there would be a ton of what amounts to "missing content". Yeah, you could play as the Emperor--but all of your vassals would be republics, because China had a meritocracy (admittedly one based on the gentry,) not a feudal system. You'd be adding a ton of territory and for much of it be able to play as exactly one guy. To be fair, you could hypothetically have a ton of special merchant republics, but that creates even more issues--namely, even more extra lag and the fact that this would have to involve viceroys somewhere down the line (the vaguely similar government of Byzantium is approximated the same way.) To be fair, there would be the steppe nomads, Siberian peoples, Southeast Asian warlords, and Japan, but China still takes up a huge amount of the space in East Asia.

CKII's start dates miss most of the "interesting" periods of Chinese history. The relatively stable Tang dynasty is in power during both the Charlemagne and Old Gods bookmarks. Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms is wedged into the start-date-free 900s, Three Kingdoms ended 500 years before the game starts, and Warring States was over almost a millennium before the game begins. There would be potential for interesting conflict due to the competition between several dynasties and the Yuan invasion in 1066 onward, but let's be frank, nobody thinks of that when they think about Chinese political situations that make good strategy games.

Perhaps most importantly, AFAIK China was basically totally in its own world compared to Europe, outside of Temujin's conquests. Historically, there was basically no interaction between the two in ways that aren't already modeled fine in-game (the Silk Road is one of the focuses of Horse Lords, travelers to and from China are available from random events and court physician searches in the Middle East and India, and Marco Polo has his own event chain.) And even then, medieval Europeans would be too scared of the Japanese and their katanas of doom

Generally, China is integral as a part of Paradox's global strategy games like Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Victoria. But Crusader Kings is not set in a global time--so it doesn't need a global map.

That said, I think that an East Asia total conversion would make a really good mod. Not to mention that that way, the game wouldn't be constrained by things like time limits or making the world too big--with no Europe, there's no problem with lag or accidental European interference in the Far East, and if it's not the official game, then fewer people would care about being able to play all the way to the end date, and so the famous periods like Warring States, Three Kingdoms, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, could all be fit into one timeline (heck, you could probably throw Sengoku Japan in there as well.) But as an official part of Crusader Kings? No.

also minininja from hector but my points about why China would be a bad idea still stand
So, on another note, are there any ironman-compatible portrait mods that make Indo-Aryan women look less awful? My nineteen-year-old daughter looks like she's thirty.

[umiman]

Yeah, I don't think China would work at all unless they rolled back the start date 500 years or so. Even then it'd be best as its own game. Which I'd be totally down for. But not as a DLC for CK2 expanding the map.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

If they were to expand the map, the way I would like to see it is to expand a bit west and a bit south, so we could get the entire western coast of Africa, as well as give both the Abyssinians and the Mali a few more people to conquer to better be able to deal with the Caliphates.  Shouldn't be too intensive, since most of what would be added is ocean.

[Wolfhunter107]

It's a pretty small change in the grand scheme of things, but I'm glad that they decided to replace the grey wasteland color with the natural terrain instead. Makes things look a lot nicer.

[Fewah]

Anyone else kind of just start a game up, play for a few hours and then never go back?
Rinse and repeat everytime?

I swear I cannot for the life of me get invested enough to continue a game long term ever.

[cider]

Anyone else kind of just start a game up, play for a few hours and then never go back?
Rinse and repeat everytime?

I swear I cannot for the life of me get invested enough to continue a game long term ever.

I tend to do the same thing, but I'm like that with pretty much every game. Football Manager is probably the only sandboxoriented game where I do get invested in runs.

[misko27]

I need goals to enjoy CK2. Whatever they are, they have to be extant. It also helps me get right back into the action, where otherwise I wouldn't really be interested in continuing. That's how my old Rome game got to where it was: there was always something to do. It's a lot more motivating when I can come back and think "Ok, let's start that long-delayed war against the Fatimids to secure our holdings in Jerusalem", or if I don't want to do that, continue my campaigns in Iberia to destabilize the Andalusians, or maybe see what my vassals are doing in the frontier regions of the empire in the Caucuses and Africa (the answer is almost always infighting of some sort, with the occasional suicidal attack on someone much bigger than they are).

Otherwise, it's just me on Speed 5, facepalming every time I have to handle the education and marital status of some third cousin twice removed in the distant Frisian branch of the family. And hell that happens anyway sometimes! But that's usually a sign that its time for a little break.

[Sheb]

My current campaign goal was to create a Merchant republic in what is now Belgium and play it without expanding. I started as the count of Liège, then expanded until I own the Duchy of Luxemburg, Flanders and Brabant. At that point I took the decision to grab the Australasia title rather than go indie and create a new Kingdom title, which I now regreat a bit. Gavelking later, my three duchies are split. That and some very moderate placing of relatives on various titles mean my family own, one way or another, most of the Netherland and northern France.

When I go back, I start playing as the Patrician of House of Belgium of the Republic of Flanders and see how I manage. I will need to grow strong fast, because the Aztecs have landed in Morrocco and are making their steady way up Spain. Once they cross Spain, no European ruler can hope to even slow them down at this point, given that Charlemagne died so early leaving a mess of warring kingdoms.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

My current campaign goal was to create a Merchant republic in what is now Belgium and play it without expanding. I started as the count of Liège, then expanded until I own the Duchy of Luxemburg, Flanders and Brabant. At that point I took the decision to grab the Australasia title rather than go indie and create a new Kingdom title, which I now regreat a bit.

Wait, why Australasia?  Isn't there a Frisia title that covers Flanders and Brabant?

[Tawa]

No, Flanders and Brabant are parts of France IIRC. Frisia just covers the modern-day Netherlands.