[Andrelvis]

Honestly, the real issue is that there's a Tolerance technology at all. It would be more historical to have an Intolerance tech (though I guess this is partly encompassed by Legalism).

There should be both: an "intolerance" and a "tolerance" tech, to model both the increasing trends towards greater religious piety and persecution as the Middle Ages drove to their end, and the greater intellectual openess fostered by the Renaissance.

This is one of the few things CK1 did better than CK2; CK1 had both "Religious Stringency" and "Religious Flexibility" technologies. For cultural (in)tolerance in a broader sense than just religion, CK2 could have "Cultural Stringency" and "Cultural Flexibility" technologies.

As an aside, another thing CK1 did better than CK2 was having each tech level have a name, instead of them all flavorlessly having the same name, with just the level number distinguishing them.

 

[Dragatus]

Light Infantry and Elephants, being neither skirmish nor melee troops, do not increase Attack damage. Light infantry base values were bumped a bit to compensate for this. This means that Light Infantry and Elephants will have a bigger impact with low technology, losing a bit of their edge as technology advances. But Light Infantry will also be more relevant in difficult terrain (see below).

While you're busy tweaking unit type base values, take a look at camels. They're absurdly powerful. Just line them up against Light Cavalry and you'll see they're clearly far superior. They have the same cost, the same skirmish/melee defense, 25% more morale, and double skirmish/melee attack. They aren't as great in pursuit, but pursuit is by far the least significant of the combat phases.

Another way of looking at Camel Cavalry is that they have twice the skirmish potential of Light Cavalry and are then still a more than even match for Heavy Infantry in melee. I realize they're supposed to be special, but that's excessive.

Another unit type that needs some attention are Archers. For anyone other than English and Welsh they're currently rather lackluster. Especially glaring is that Volley tactic stops working if you have 40% Archers, when Archer numbers are already being kept in check by the special Charge on Undefended Flank tactic. This makes Archers close to worthless for everyone other than English/Welsh who still have their Massive Longbow Volley, which is especially bad for Nubians, Han, and all the Indian cultures.

The combat tactics interplay can give bonus of up to 900% to some troop types, while making others non-attackers. To make terrain, especially difficult terrain like Mountains, more relevant for a battle, the defender bonus was increased for most infantry types, especially for light infantry (see the picture below).

That's all well and good, but the best solution IMO would be to separate the current single bonuses provided into specific tactic, terrain, and technology bonuses that would stack multiplicatively.

So instead of a single archers_offensive there might be archers_offensive_tech, archers_offensive_terrain, and archers_offensive_tactic. Or perhaps you can keep the current general bonus for use in tactics and just introduce two new ones for terrain and technology. You might also want one for buildings, but perhaps either the tech or the tactic bonus could be used for that.

The key thing is to introduce bonuses from technology and terrain that stack multiplicatively with the bonus provided by tactics. So then if you have a tactic that grants a 300% bonus and you're getting a 60% bonus from technology that would be 400% * 160% = 640%, or an effective bonus of 540%. That would keep tech and terrain relevant no matter how crazy the tactical bonuses get.

We hope that these changes will give you players more control over the battle conditions and thus increase the influence your decisions have over the battle outcome. Together with the tech rebalance, we hope these changes will improve the CK2 experience for both new and experienced players.

The terrain bonuses only apply to the defender (unless you're counting rivers too), so while it will be more important than before the effect will still be limited. What would be really cool would be if all terrain types gave bonuses to both attacker and defender with the defender getting a bigger bonus in defensive terrain and both getting an equal bonus in non-defensive terrain.

So for example Light Infantry on both sides might get +100% attack in mountains but the defender would also get +100% defense. Or alternatively the attacker's LI would get 50% bonuses to both while the defender gets 100% bonuses. Meanwhile plains might give a 50% attack bonus to all cavalry unit types of both sides.

And speaking of defensive terrain, one thing that really annoys me is if an enemy breaks into my realm and starts sieging my mountain provinces. What I would like is that if you raise levies in such a province the levies will be treated as the defender in the ensuing battle rather than the attacker.

 

[Narvait]

How about keeping Camels OP but specifically for desert and related terrain types?
And make them on par or slightly worse when fighting on standard plains.

Similarly other culture based units might get bonus for their favorite terrain.

 

[Dragatus]

If camels were OP only in desert terrain that would be fine. In fact it would be really cool.

 

[Lord Decobius]

Thank goodness, Dragatus finally commented. I have no opinion (or even a clue) about army or retinue tactics, composition, anything without Dragatus. Now I know to be mildly concerned the depth of these changes is not quite right.

No sarcasm. @Dragatus I have nothing but respect for your wealth of insight on the combat aspect of this game. I really do rely on you in these matters and really did search through six pages of comments to find out what I should make of all this. Otherwise I'm in the "Biggest Army Wins" camp (and that's still my general fallback ).

 

[Daronaollard]

Is there a possibility that Newgrange could be made into a Great Work for Ireland? I think it is fitting considering some of the other Great Works within the game such as Stonehenge just across the sea.

 

[Dragatus]

Thank goodness, Dragatus finally commented. I have no opinion (or even a clue) about army or retinue tactics, composition, anything without Dragatus. Now I know to be mildly concerned the depth of these changes is not quite right.

No sarcasm. @Dragatus I have nothing but respect for your wealth of insight on the combat aspect of this game. I really do rely on you in these matters and really did search through six pages of comments to find out what I should make of all this. Otherwise I'm in the "Biggest Army Wins" camp (and that's still my general fallback ).

I feel honored anyone would rely so much on my opinion. And for the record "biggest army wins" is actually still a pretty good rule of thumb, especially when you're looking only at feudal levies.

Perhaps I should add the changes are a step in the right direction, just not quite as big a step as I'd like. They'll still improve the game.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Hello! In the next patch we will be doing some small adjustments to Technologies and Terrain Combat Modifiers, and today we will talk a bit about those changes. The main objectives were to make deciding what military technologies to invest in a bit more interesting, and rebalance the value of terrain with regards to the possible (large) modifiers given by tactics. Before we start, there is the caveat that numbers are not yet final, there might be some adjustments needed after we receive testing feedback.


Technologies

This is how the Technologies window looks now. City and Temple infrastructure were joined together, while their tax bonus revenue was slightly lowered. Shipbuilding is now an Economy Tech. The Military technologies were changed so now Infantry and Cavalry tech increase morale (up to 40%) and defense (up to 60%) of Infantry and Cavalry units, respectively. On the other hand, Skirmish and Melee technologies affect the Attack value of troops (up to 60%) and decrease the probability of using generic bad tactics. Finally, Military Organization now gives only a low overall bonus to morale (up to 20%) but keeps its importance for Retinue Size, and we added now also Reorganization speed (morale recovery) of armies.


Light Infantry and Elephants, being neither skirmish nor melee troops, do not increase Attack damage. Light infantry base values were bumped a bit to compensate for this. This means that Light Infantry and Elephants will have a bigger impact with low technology, losing a bit of their edge as technology advances. But Light Infantry will also be more relevant in difficult terrain (see below).


Historical Setup of Tech Levels


We also changed the initial values of technologies a little, to be more historically asymmetrical. In the picture above you can see the Constantinople values at game start. As an advanced society, Constantinople can build more advanced buildings, and has increased Military Organization and Legalism. But the Frankish lands will have some superiority in Melee and Cavalry. The Frank/Norman Knights were a fearsome sight on the Battlefield.


Combat Modifiers


The combat tactics interplay can give bonus of up to 900% to some troop types, while making others non-attackers. To make terrain, especially difficult terrain like Mountains, more relevant for a battle, the defender bonus was increased for most infantry types, especially for light infantry (see the picture below).

Narrow Flank is a feature of a battle where the number of enemy troops that can attack is limited by the number of troops on the flank the gets the bonus. We changed Narrow Flank to both become more probable in difficult terrain and be modified in a more consistent way if you have a leader with the Battlefield Terrain Master trait. The effect of Narrow Flank was also extended to the skirmish phase, to have a larger impact in a battle.

We hope that these changes will give you players more control over the battle conditions and thus increase the influence your decisions have over the battle outcome. Together with the tech rebalance, we hope these changes will improve the CK2 experience for both new and experienced players.


Finally, as stated before, these numbers are not final, and if you feel strongly about something, let us know.

First of all, thank you for attending to this part of the game, it feels like it's time.

I have a few notes, though.

1. On Merging Temple and City tech - it seems to me it would be more logical both from a game-play and realism point of view, as well as more intuitive, to fold Shipbuilding into Trade Practices.

If Shipbuilding just gives you more galleys they it doesn't really belong in the economy branch, but if it's folded into Trade practices this would reflect the reality that maintaining trade and maintaining a naval force go hand in hand, one depends on the other for protection and the same technology goes into building both.

2. On Military Organisation and Retinues - when retinues were originally re-balanced it was because previously they represented an upkeep-free game-winning army for the player, something which surpassed the cheesiest of vassal merc companies. A lot has changes since then. For one thing, Nomads have Hordes now, and Tribals have access to larger retinues whilst Feudals have actually seen their usable retinue numbers decline as the maintenance cost of troops goes up.

There are three things I think need looking at:

A: Revisiting the retinue multiplier provided by Military Organisation and possibly moving it back to 200% per tic, or at least 175% up from 150%.

B: Increasing the speed at which retinues reinforce with Military Organisation - it currently takes three and a half years to muster a unit, no matter the tech level. In reality it takes about two years to train a modern soldier for combat in peacetime and mustering military units in the medieval period and earlier was the same or quicker.

C: Reducing the cost of recruiting and reinforcing (but not necessarily maintaining) retinues - this could be done via the different unit techs instead of Military Organisation.

Another possibility would be a way, though tech or laws, for Feduals to gradually convert potential vassal levies into retinue cap. As things stand the Mongols, Chinese, and other non-Feudal realms have a significant advantage over Feudals who are still using their random grab-bag levies. It's not just a numbers issue, it's also a tactical affinity issue where armies with more homogeneous flanks get more benefits from tactics, and fire better tactics more often.

3. On Tactics - it would be nice if enemy flank composition was weighted in the picking of more tactics. So, for example, if the enemy has a lot of cavalry a commander would be more likely to pick a "Stand Fast" tactic and if they have more pikes he would be more likely to pick an "advance" tactic. The game already does this with "Charge on Undefended" and it would be nice to see the feature expanded. For one thing, it would make it a bit easier to judge whether you were likely to win or lose a battle based on relative army composition.

 

[brandonbbbbb]

Can we revise Alliance systems. Allow for more dynamic Alliances, like Defensive Alliances ( Only allows “Call-to-Arms” in defensive wars), total military alliances (call to arms in all wars). Change the ability to make alliances (removing the requirement for a marriage, tho still allowing) and set terms (like succession for children of marriages, military alliance types, trade of provinces etc.

I also think an option should be created for planned invasions or wars. Allies may plan to go to war with another nation and allow prep to be similar too prep for crusades.

 

[Xoatl]

Slight suggestion, please consider it with the devs. Combine Castle Infrastructure + Cities and Temples into simply "Infrastructure" then add a new economy tech. Whatever makes sense or might be cool, too tired to brainstorm a new tech and it's not the point. Having infrastructure combined into just cities and temples is a weird half measure and forces you to lower tax revenue which appears to be very unfair to merchant republics (even though they make bukku bucks) and theocracies (even though you can't play as one, but still, you want to believe as a player that theocracy NPCs are viable).

That said, I REALLY like the direction of this change. Elephants and Light Infantry being unaffected by tech and so become increasingly useless as time goes on is genius and will shake up the metagamey min/maxing of retinues.

 

[DAOWAce]

I've felt CK2 has needed an improve to its technology and combat systems for years now..

Sadly, this isn't quite the rework a lot of us were hoping for.

It's an improvement to battles (though some counter arguments in the thread, notably about light infantry), but it looks like technology will still be a dismissive thing except for the few areas it's required.

Right now, the only useful technologies have been:

- Military -

• Siege Equipment
• Military Organization*

- Economy -

• Castle Infrastructure
• Improved Keeps
• Construction*

- Culture -

• Majesty (late game only)
• Tolerance
• Legalism*

*#1 importance

Everything else is just meh. The most useless technologies are the "__ customs" ones. An opinion boost; wow, so worth the investment which drastically sets back your entire reign.

Seems like the only thing discussed is mostly military based, leaving about half of the technologies in their poor state. Unfortunate.


Regardless, I am looking forward to the battle changes to hopefully make the game less about whoever has the bigger zerg army, and more towards whoever has the better composition/commanders/terrain, even if there's a ~50% difference in numbers. (this is sparta!)

 

[Kougoes]

I think what we really need is a severe simplification of the combat system. I've logged over 1300 hours into CK2, and I've always found the combat system way too complex. There's too many nooks and cranies that you'll never find out about, which seem to impact combat outcomes at random.

It's no fun to have to spend 15 minutes before each battle, trying to figure out every detail to predict the outcome. Make it more simple, so that we only need to take 1-2 minutes to see the influential factors and be able to make a decent prediction of the battle's outcome. Maybe even dedicate a menu to this, where all influential factors are put together in one place.

Currently combat just feels a little random, because it's not worth putting the time in to predict battle outcomes, 9/10 times it's bigger numbers win anyway. But that strange 1/10 times where unexplainably the strangest outcomes happen (and no proper way or event or anything to understand why) just feels weird.

 

[tribnia]

What will the next update be about? It's not only about technologies, right?

 

[TitanRogue]

@Tuscany any news if the next big patch will be 64bit or that this move will not be done for Crusader Kings II?
and thus unplayable for me in half a year, with the next MacOS

That would be really nice. Maybe a 32bit and a 64bit version so all players can continue enjoying this great game.

 

[Mardols]

We love you CK2 devs. At least you never disappoint us and give the game we want.

 

[Homer2101]

Hello! In the next patch we will be doing some small adjustments to Technologies and Terrain Combat Modifiers, and today we will talk a bit about those changes. The main objectives were to make deciding what military technologies to invest in a bit more interesting, and rebalance the value of terrain with regards to the possible (large) modifiers given by tactics. Before we start, there is the caveat that numbers are not yet final, there might be some adjustments needed after we receive testing feedback.

(emphasis added)

The adjustments look good, but the entire thing is kind of disappointing given the current awfulness of the combat system.

Tactics don't matter once you have more than one or two duchies. This is because at that point your army will consist of five or eight different unit types in equal measure, and a tactic that buffs a unit by 100% will also debuff another unit by an equal 100%, rendering the tactic meaningless. This is also why retinues break the combat system and are overpowered -- they allow the player to reliably trigger a massive buff without a comparable debuff. This has been known for years, and I was kind of hoping you'd address it before dropping support for CK2.

The ideal solution is to rework the combat system so that battles are not just two mobs smashing into each other in a grossly ahistorical manner, and to give players control over army composition so that their armies are not just two mobs careening about the land in search of other mobs to fight. This will give players meaningful choice, instead of the current system where players just pile on as many soldiers as they can and top off each flank with a high-martial general regardless of culture.

I can go into more detail into how a better combat system could work, but given that a combat re-work has not been mentioned as a possibility in over five years, it seems kind of pointless.

Regarding tech, tolerance shouldn't be a tech. It made sense as a tech when the game was limited to 1040-1440 Western Europe. It does not make sense when you're covering a quarter of the world from 640 onward, because the societies covered now start off across a large range of possibilities. Instead, what if tolerance was divided into religious tolerance and gender tolerance; players accumulate tolerance points by actions like assigning female counselors, and lose tolerance points in a similar manner. They then spend tolerance points to increase their tolerance level, and they lose tolerance level if their tolerance points drop too far into the negative.

 

[Serenity84]

Tactics don't matter once you have more than one or two duchies. This is because at that point your army will consist of five or eight different unit types in equal measure, and a tactic that buffs a unit by 100% will also debuff another unit by an equal 100%, rendering the tactic meaningless. This is also why retinues break the combat system and are overpowered -- they allow the player to reliably trigger a massive buff without a comparable debuff.

It's a really weird system given that warfare in antiquity and the middle ages was a lot about combined arms. You had skirmishers starting off things and covering heavier troops, missile troops like archers or slingers. Then infantry and cavalry. Some realms emphasized certain things, but you rarely had just one type of troops. A pure infantry army had to take a lot of care to not be run down by cavalry (except for massed pikes maybe) or they won and couldn't pursue a fleeing army.
That changed a bit when firearms started to dominate, but even there there was different types of riflemen, artillery and cavalry working together.

 

[Justicar McLeod]

Dear Devs,


First and foremost, thank you very much for the love you’re giving to the game! It does show, and we thoroughly appreciate all the hard work and thoughtfulness put into CK2.


While I do not want to hinder your efforts, I have been noticing a trend (in the forums and among my friends) that I feel is worth sharing with you.


Given the depth added to CK2 in Holy Fury (bloodlines, Hellenism, reformed crusades, religious reformation, warrior lodges, artifacts, etc., etc., etc.), many of us are either playing longer games, or several games (to try different things) that we have yet to finish. I for one have been playing a single game since HF came out (clocked 400 hours in it so far, which is admittedly crazy...).


Since this update changes certain mechanics of the game, there’s a decent likelihood that it will break saves since HF. This being so, I’d like to suggest:


1 - that you split the patches from the update (2 separate files, so that we can enjoy the patches and keep the current version of the game until we’re done with out current plays and then switch to the new version of the game);


2 - that you create some “transition” mechanics for current games. That could be averaging City and Temple / Light Infantry and Heavy Infantry techs in old saves; bringing all the new ones (Skirmish and Melee techniques, etc.) to their historical levels at that time; etc. Heck, I’d even take bringing all new techs to 0 rather than lose all the time put into the not-yet-finished games.


I hate whining and am the first to agree that every now and then something will come up that will break our saves. My only points are that we usually see that in DLCs, not patches, and that we’d love to have the patches without breaking our saves - even if we cannot enjoy the updated tech mechanics for now.


tl;dr: We love you, but please do not break our HF saves. So much love and work put into them...

 

[Dragatus]

That said, I REALLY like the direction of this change. Elephants and Light Infantry being unaffected by tech and so become increasingly useless as time goes on is genius and will shake up the metagamey min/maxing of retinues.

I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Currently LI retinues dominate the early game and fall off in usefulness as the game progresses and the Indian retinue with the War Elephants isn't worth using (or is only worth using for the RP value) because it contains too many Archers.

Unless PDX makes additional changes to make Archers more worthwhile the listed combat changes are just going to cement the role of LI as the best early game retinue.

I think what we really need is a severe simplification of the combat system. I've logged over 1300 hours into CK2, and I've always found the combat system way too complex. There's too many nooks and cranies that you'll never find out about, which seem to impact combat outcomes at random.

It's no fun to have to spend 15 minutes before each battle, trying to figure out every detail to predict the outcome. Make it more simple, so that we only need to take 1-2 minutes to see the influential factors and be able to make a decent prediction of the battle's outcome. Maybe even dedicate a menu to this, where all influential factors are put together in one place.

Currently combat just feels a little random, because it's not worth putting the time in to predict battle outcomes, 9/10 times it's bigger numbers win anyway. But that strange 1/10 times where unexplainably the strangest outcomes happen (and no proper way or event or anything to understand why) just feels weird.

I fully agree. That was the idea behind my Elegant Warfare mod.

That 1/10 is likely often due to tactical affinity and the attacker charging into melee, which caused the defenders to adopt Force Back tactic with it's tactical affinity of 4x damage vs enemies using a charge tactic. When that happens you quite often get an instant route on the side of the attackers.

What will the next update be about? It's not only about technologies, right?

I assume there will also be bugfixes.

It's a really weird system given that warfare in antiquity and the middle ages was a lot about combined arms. You had skirmishers starting off things and covering heavier troops, missile troops like archers or slingers. Then infantry and cavalry. Some realms emphasized certain things, but you rarely had just one type of troops. A pure infantry army had to take a lot of care to not be run down by cavalry (except for massed pikes maybe) or they won and couldn't pursue a fleeing army.
That changed a bit when firearms started to dominate, but even there there was different types of riflemen, artillery and cavalry working together.

The game is currently really not made for any sort of combined arms. The key thing here is that first damage is distributed proportionally among all unit types in a flank according to their number and then loses of each unit type are calculated by dividing that damage with that unit type's defense. This means that each unit type essentially fights on it's own and you can't have strong defensive units covering strong offensive units.

Things would change if the game first calculated loses by dividing incoming damage with the average defense of the entire flank and it was the loses that got divided proportionally among all unit types according to their number. What you could do then is have units specialize in each combat stat. For example you could have Heavy Cavalry specialize in melee attack and Pikemen specialize in melee defense. That would then make a mix of the two a powerful combination (in melee) with the Pikemen's defense protecting the Heavy Cavalry so that they can keep dealing damage.

 

[Spaninq]

I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Currently LI retinues dominate the early game and fall off in usefulness as the game progresses

I remember reading a reddit post that said there's an exception to that, where Tibetan retinues (LI/LC) actually manage to keep up due to the cultural building bonuses, especially when paired with Tibetan generals (that give Mountain ambush tactic), and Mountain guardian (keeping your fights up in the mountains of Tibet, ofc). I think it had something to do with basically treating Tibetan retinues as LC retinues.