Grand Strategy Crusader Kings III

[Bliblablubb]

I have a question about vikings.

After patching up, I decided to spend another hour on my old game as Germanistan. I decided to snatch some tribal land for a quick romp. Denmark was tempting at only half my army size, but I opted for Lusatia(?) instead, to get more borders with tribals to declare even more holy wars on later.
Turns out that guy was already defending against Denmark, so I ignored them mostly and won by sieging.
But then... I inherited his war, with Poland now being my temp ally, but... Denmarks army was now double the size it was before, no mercs or allies. I narrowly beat them with the help of stronk potatos, who were nice enough to attach themselves to me. Despite the viking commander not having the attrition trait, he did not only not loose troops fleeing through my country, he even got bigger. Then he spawned a magic boat for his now 8k troops, sailed all the way around and continued his attack.
At that point I said "fuck this shit" and white peaced out, even gaining prestige.
And Denmarks army went back to his smol prewar size.

So, did he bug out, or can vikings spawn extra temp armies during war?
I've noticed a lot of weird stuff, like AIs with no income and a treasury of -699 happily hiring several mercs, but this one looked really fishy to me.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Arrrgh, the AI in this game has cost me at least 7 braincells by now.

My king has already the skull sign, meaning he will croak at any moment, what does my vassal do? He declares war war on my heir, who is pretty much already testing the crown for size, over my 20g income mine county.
First I was upset not being able to interfere, but then I realized: not only would he get no income from it for years because of low control, but the moment my heir takes over, he will immidiately get the county back AND make him die in prison, because the war is considered a criminal act. That's not even Bethesda level of AI coding.

But it gets worse. I had set up his sister as a genetic breeding project to create a new (dutch ) masterrace, 3 sons with intelligent+hale or better. Having only 1 county with 125 soldiers, they can't fuck it up, right? RIGHT?

WRONK!

She married her heir to my crusaderkween's daughter, formed an alliance and put all 125 soldiers, her husband and the sons on a boat down there. Two sons dead, husband maimed and about to die...
Only survivor of course is the guy who married his 1st cousin. Staying tuned for the future infertile albino dwarf masterrace...
"And that is how the Netherlands were founded dear kids."


From now on, every male dynasty member will be called "Todd" and the girls "Bethesda Bethanny Esther".

 

[Bliblablubb]

On top of that, the game apparently creates every available title on succession, including the Kingdumb of Bohemistan, which I did NOT create for a reason.
Now my new king's lifegoal is to accumulate enough prestige to disinherit 3 of his 5 sons, since he is a sexist who only spawned boys. The 5th is a dwarf so he gets donated to science the church anyway.

Two of them are also his not his kids, because his wife started romancing his dad at some point and I forgot to expose them. Oh well.

 

[JamesDixon]

On top of that, the game apparently creates every available title on succession, including the Kingdumb of Bohemistan, which I did NOT create for a reason.
Now my new king's lifegoal is to accumulate enough prestige to disinherit 3 of his 5 sons, since he is a sexist who only spawned boys. The 5th is a dwarf so he gets donated to science the church anyway.

Two of them are also his not his kids, because his wife started romancing his dad at some point and I forgot to expose them. Oh well.

That's due to the way they handled succession. If you don't have primo or its variants you get the partition succession where it creates titles. I liked the way CK2 did it.

 

[JamesDixon]

Looking at the teasers for Royal Court DLC it's going to bomb hard. They're regurgitating CK2 Conclave and given their history with Northern Lords flavor pack it will be half baked. NL was just a reissue of CK2 The Old Gods without half of the events. I bet Royal Court will be the same.

 

[Bliblablubb]

If you don't have primo or its variants you get the partition succession where it creates titles.

Succession in an early game when your options are quiet limited is nothing for the faint of heart. Disinheriting costs so much precious dynasty mana it gets too expensive in cases like my sexist heir. I see a lot of heroic suicide charges coming up in the near future... Sad.

given their history with Northern Lords flavor pack it will be half baked

Considering how ridiculous OP viking units and lords with their bonus troops are in an early game, so the p2w crowd buys the DLC, it's probably a given that artifacts are going to be gamebreaking as well.





"Hory Raaaaaaance attaaaaack!"

 

[JamesDixon]

If you don't have primo or its variants you get the partition succession where it creates titles.

Succession in an early game when your options are quiet limited is nothing for the faint of heart. Disinheriting costs so much precious dynasty mana it gets too expensive in cases like my sexist heir. I see a lot of heroic suicide charges coming up in the near future... Sad.

given their history with Northern Lords flavor pack it will be half baked

Considering how ridiculous OP viking units and lords with their bonus troops are in an early game, so "certain" players buy the DLC, it's probably a given that artifacts are going to be gamebreaking as well.


"Hory Raaaaaaance attaaaaack!"

That's why you kill all other children outside of your heir. That's the only way to game the system in the beginning. It's the same strat that you used in CK2 and CK1 to ensure that your realm didn't fracture.

The Viking units really aren't that powerful against feudal armies. They regularly get beaten, except when they have huge numbers like what the player can field. They haven't put in artifacts yet and I doubt they will this early.

I got the Royal Edition of the game, so I got the 2 flavor packs and DLC paid for ahead of time. This will be the only game I preordered as well. What Pdox has put out so far is disappointing. The DLCs they put out for CK2 are leagues better for a reasonable price. For Royal Court DLC at $30 with hardly new content isn't worth the price. You're looking at a cultural system that's just a reskin of the current religion system plus the ability to change your title and cultural colors. That's not worth $30. I've seen modders put out more content for free than what Pdox has done for CK3.

 

[Average Manatee]

CK3 makes blobbing so easy that you can just blob harder and give your extra children all the land they want

 

[Heroic Liberator]

That's why you kill all other children outside of your heir.

You can also get the Restraint perk from the Whole of Body focus tree of the Learning lifestyle.

Get male heir (1) -> Embrace celibacy (2) -> Abandon celibacy if male heir dies -> Repeat 1 & 2.

Ideally, you'd get the perk first before marrying as to not risk getting a second son while waiting to unlock it. But worst case scenario, you just imprison one of them for a bit of tyranny and they'll die soon enough if you move them to the dungeon.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1158310/view/2963917086193374748

Dev Diary #67 - A View to a Map ️​

Greetings!

The team is slowly coming back together after a well deserved summer vacation.

Today, let’s have a look at what we’ve been doing to the culture setup and some small scale map tweaks. Most of the work we’ve 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[pdxint.at]

To see the images, please visit our forums or website.
Enjoy the FAQ Royal Court[forum.paradoxplaza.com] 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, we’ve 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, I’ll 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 today’s dev diary. Until next time!

 

[JamesDixon]

The latest update is part of the general 1.5 patch's improvements. It's not tied to the Royal Court DLC in a major way. That leads me to continue to believe that it's not worth the $30 price tag.

 

[Bliblablubb]

CK3 makes blobbing so easy

Yes and no. I did make it my short term goal to aquire one duchy for every offspring, at least that way my vassals aren't a bunch of whiny soyboys demanding council seats. I found it pretty weird tho how easy I could go through eastern yurop like a hot knife through butter. Share a border with someone new? Free real estate! The whole downside of holy wars against tribals, other leaders joining, is pretty moot if your army is beyond 10k levies plus 600 ponies/swordmen each. And his Popiness gives you constant tax refunds for all the piety you romp up.
The problem are autocreated kingdom titles, I didn't notice Bohemia had one. Well, lession learned. Tis just a minor setback. I'd rather not use suicide charges tho, it's cheesing/cheating and doesn't fit my king's personality anyway.

So I am basically just playing for giggles anyway now, it's only 920 and there are already no threats anymore, unless everyone allies to get MAA superiority. After surviving Chad Haersteinn's early zerg and Danish raiding, AI countries explodes everywhere once the first successions happened and the heirs genocides each other. Half of the old world is now ruled by independent kids, and France by... a dutchman. Sure, being ruled by a NotFrench means they might actually get something done now, but at this rate they will probably desolve within a decade. Shit, even I own 6 only slightly smelly french counties now, because king number 5 got dethroned and died afterwards.

Now I am just waiting for "casus belli" to be researched so I don't have to wait for truces to end after conquering 1 shitty county.

Big thanks to my peasants who decided to embrace "public works" and "planned assemblies" first, thanks to sharing a border with... Africa? And a religion with some arab country. Who are moslems, but whatever. Don't expect peasants to understand those things.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Still don't understand why Paradox thought the quasi randomized research was a good idea. Probably so players flipflop culture to their neighbour's for strategic reasons and genocide until they are that culture's head, just because your own is fascinated by african canoes. Let me at least choose between 2-3 my real neighbours already have, that would even make sense. Wanna play a small state and build more cities? Sorry, wait a few 100 years and pray that RNGesus agrees...
The french started with so much more and better stuff in my game, that, if I were playing in a "min/max2win" way, I would need abandon my people's heritage to become... french. French!

Saying "french" and "win" in the same sentence feels so weird it raises my neckbeard.

 

[Harthwain]

Still don't understand why Paradox thought the quasi randomized research was a good idea. [...] The french started with so much more and better stuff in my game, that, if I were playing in a "min/max2win" way, I would need abandon my people's heritage to become... french. French!

The answer is fairly obvious - variety. Having a fixed tech tree would obviously lead to optimized choices, which in itself means removal of choice. You can change your culture, but then it becomes a goal in itself and your target culture can be different based on playthrough, so the main goal is thus accomplished.

Personally I don't really mind how it is done - you can still decide what innovations to pursue if you are the cultural head (again, yet another goal for the player) and then there is exposure, which depends on what countries you are bordering with (and that can change from game to game with the passage of time, because in this pond everyone is always trying to swallow everyone). On top of that are regional technologies, meaning some stuff you can always have access to, depending on where you are on the map.

 

[Bliblablubb]

and then there is exposure, which depends on what countries you are bordering with

Oh I didn't mean the innovation system in general, but the exposure part. Exposure+Fascination makes such a yuge difference. And If it would work as it should, and maybe even put in account how many of them have it, I would have gotten "mustering grounds" by now, since all my neighbours have it. But I am stuck with "public works" instead, which none of them has, thanks to my exposure to some african land via "sharing a border". Apparently having a coast automatically makes you share a border with everyone else having one?

Oh well, I've seen people talk about hybrid cultures in the next yuge patch, so I maybe that will lead to combining innovations of merged cultures, similar to how the Normans spawn.
The Saxon-Franconian-ManySlavs-Prosper-Hybrid culture might be the future of Yurop yet. No french allowed.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Another weird, yet funny and good for me mechanic is, that declaring war on someone over a shitty county, makes every claimant's army hostile to you.
As I mentioned before, several claimants are roaming Bavaristan for decades now. Since the king has no army anymore, all they can do is occupy counties, which then get occupied by the next, leading to a neverending circlejerk.
Trying to snatch single county as a future staging ground let me mop the floor with all of them and end all of their wars in defeat. Which I think even removed their claim forever.
Interfering with other nations war... oh dear, I've become the medieval 'murica.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Also sad news: Greater Smol Poland was eaten by Silesia. F.

New plan, since forming the HRE will still take many generation (could one even manage to form it at the histotical date of 960ish?):
The next daughter will be named Kryztyna Ola Dorota Ewelyn X Irena Alina. Or short, K.O.D.E.X.I.A.
I'll make it my optional objective to grant her the KKKrown of at least moderately greater Poland, maybe I throw in a few hitmen counties.

But she better swears fealty to me once I become emperor.... or else!

 

[Bliblablubb]

Bonus points of the eternal Bavarian claim was: that the former King of EF was supporting one of the claimant factions, and by that fighting AGAINST a claimant faction that wanted to put HIM on the throne. I doubt anyone down there even knew who/what/why they were fighting for anymore and just were happy I ended it.


Seeing that reminded me again how playing as a Karling would have of been so much easier with all their claims, I instead am forced to build my empire one county at a time. Sad.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://www.crusaderkings.com/en/ne...t=post&utm_campaign=crki3_ck_20210810_cawe_dd

Dev Diary #68 - Inspiration Never Dies ​

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 won’t talk much about the artifacts themselves for now, but I’ll be going over one of the major ways of how you will acquire artifacts.

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 character’s 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 you’ll 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 you’ll increase the overall quality of the artifact they’ll produce.

[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!

 

[HeroMarine]

Not their worst idea.

 

[IDtenT]

Hopefully you don't end up with a hundred artifacts...

 

[Harthwain]

Hopefully you don't end up with a hundred artifacts...

I found them funny. Owning a set of three hands of a particular Saint is absurd, but forgeries did exist.

 

[fantadomat]

Hopefully you don't end up with a hundred artifacts...

I found them funny. Owning a set of three hands of a particular Saint is absurd, but forgeries did exist.

But forgeries didn't gave you magical stat bonus

 

[Bliblablubb]

Codexia went into a fey mood.
Codexia created a plywood Holy Lance. The carving is of the highest quality and depicts the events of 2. November 922, showing Codexia carving a plywood Holy Lance.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://www.crusaderkings.com/en/ne...t=post&utm_campaign=crki3_ck_20210817_cawe_dd

Dev Diary #69: Nice, Throne Room Artifacts!
NEWS / 2021-08-17

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.

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.

A Pratiharan volume about revelry.

A reliquary containing a piece of the crown of thorns, you think.

A fine urn taken from the Abbasid court.

A chest of valuables made in the finest of ivory

Designing artifacts of the middle ages
The artifacts we’ve 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.

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, we’ve instead shifted to area appropriate symbolisms, patterns and art.

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.

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.

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.

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!