CK2 Dev Diary #100 – Come Fight Me

[IsakMiller]

Would it be possible to increase my opinion, if I protect my liege or earn prestige in a duel for my liege? There should be events, if you are the commander of your liege and are assigned in the same battle. Especially, if your son got wounded and you try to protect him. There are many possibilities with this new mechanic.

Your liege (and others) can be impressed with your actions on the battlefield, yes. Aside from that, characters will in general look favorably upon (have increased opinion of) experienced duelers.

Does this mean all current portraits will receive improvements?

Any character who gets a scar or a black eye will have the appropriate layers added to their portrait. As for the tattoos and warpaint, they are tied to Warrior Lodges. Then there are the other general improvements, like Harelip, or the Fat and Malnourished traits, which have been presented in earlier dev diaries.

 

[Silfae]

Is that a Hungarian with a Finno-Ugric face that I see? Interesting!

Not exactly... A couple of cultures that were previously using westerngfx have been replaced with mixed assets from past portrait packs.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Damn as cool as all this all is, I was hoping for more reformation doctrines.

Come on toss us an unrevealed reformation doctrine.

You know you want to it's Friday.

Keep the reformation stuff to the thread about it, please. Let us keep this DD on topic.

 

[Silfae]

Will the full extent of the new portraits be revealed in a later DD, or could you tell us more about this now?
I would love to see what freckles look like in the game.

They come in 5 tiers (from sparser to thicker patterns).

More info about the portraits is best left for later.

 

[IsakMiller]

Cats are good, but what about dogs? I want to take my dog to battle and have it rip out my enemies throats
Is age a factor? or will 70 year old rulers take on 18 year olds in battle with equal odds?

I used the cat event as an example as we have a lot of cat lovers here at the office, but for dog owners, there is of course a chance your dog will be present instead.
As for age, we have added static modifiers at age 50 (-15 Personal Combat Rating) and 70 (-35 Personal Combat Rating), with the idea that time generally takes its toll on even the hardiest of warriors. If skilled Duelists they might still put up a fight, mind you.

How common will Duels be? While this new system looks great, I'm concerned that they won't feel special if they occur in every other battle.

They are more frequent, that's for sure, but they are also quite varied. It is something we are keeping an eye on, and I think we have a pretty good balance of it so far. You can always choose to turn a duel down, and AI characters will not actively seek to duel players as much as I expect a player would.

What does battlefield experience mean?
Is it just a combat modifier?

It's a stacking character modifier that keeps track of how much battle your characters sees.

Fighting with th strength of a giant snail is the best compliment ever.

Isn't it just? It can slot in a number of mythological beasts though, so this is a pretty rare one, if I remember correctly.

How will it interact with Jainism and reformed pagans who have picked "peaceful" nature, and therefore would look down on excessive violence? No bonus? Lesser bonus? No acknowledgement of pacifist values: "I know that our religion forbids violence, but it was actually impressive how he cleaved that guy in half" ?

There is a scripted effect to tackle this issue, in that pacifists will lose piety when committing acts of violence.

 

[IsakMiller]

To what end?

The modifier (Battlefield Experience) has stacking beneficial effects, and it can eventually lead to the Strategist trait.

Are there any "battle romance" events where your character can fall for an enemy?

Well, dueling can lead to romance. And now there are duels on the battlefield. So yes.

 

[IsakMiller]

1. Is the Duelist trait somewhat easier to get now.

2. Will personal combat rating determine how likely it is to lose a limb, or will be up to RNG and/or choices made in the duel?

1. Yes.
2. There is always some randomization going on, but it'll basically be heavily weighted by your Personal Combat Rating, or to be specific, by the duel result variable (which is an evaluation run against your target each duel).

You might have missed the mark a bit. I thing you owe us a few mure duel pictures with minor injuries.

.... The fights I showed might be some of the more brutal ones. Rest assured that you can end up with other minor injuries. We have added the risk of a black eye, of swollen wrist or ankle, concussion, cracked ribs, badly bruised, and sore muscles. You can also get Severely Injured, without actually losing a limb.

 

[IsakMiller]

The question I haven't seen an answer to, but is quite important. Will battle duels have an impact on the overall outcome of the battle or "only" to the character (gaining/losing traits and reputation, etc)?

Will it have an overall moral effect if say I slay the enemy commander? Or is the grand battle still going to play out as it would have anyway?

We have added so that any ruler leading troops personally gives a boost to army moral. That said, these events are character focused, just as they were before. Other than a few character modifiers that award temporary command bonuses, the bigger picture is not really affected.

One of the design issues with battle events which would affect the outcome is that the events do not pause the game in multiplayer, which really encourages us to make this about your ruler, rather than having it impact the battle, as the battle may very well be over by the time you have decided which option to pick.

 

[IsakMiller]

Somewhat interesting. Then what if I am using a Hermetic handgun? Will the enemy be "shot"?

Yes.

Very cool. Out of curiosity, with duel experience being a thing now is there any thought to events focused on more friendly sparring in order to practice for duels? Or perhaps events for children with the martial focus, for example, focused on raising their future duel experience?

Yes, but mainly for Warrior Lodge members.

 

[Snow Crystal]

I'm just going to make a friendly reminder to keep the thread on topic, and without all the hostilities. Otherwise we will... You know, fix it with a more hands on approach