CK2 - Dev Diary #123 - Iron Century

[Yarrik]

Someone posted this somewhere, so I'm going to QUOTE:

"936 AD is right in the middle of the Qarmatian period in Bahrain and eastern Arabia. The Qarmaṭī were a breakaway Shia sect incorporating elements of Zoroastrianism who established a sort of republic in Bahrain in 899. The Qarmatians here would be led by Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, who in 930 pillaged Mecca during hajj and looted the Black Stone from the Kaaba, placing it instead in his own mosque in al-Hasa. They controlled the Omani coast, collected tribute from Baghdad and had a significantly wealthy trading empire around the Persian Gulf. There's some absolutely rad possibilities for fun scenarios there."
​

As a Bahraini, and as a Shi'a Muslim in particular, I find this historical factoid both horrifically sacrilegious and super fucking fascinating, and I'm dying to see what I can do with this.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Will there be different requirements to forming the HRE?

If you start in 936, you need to hold the Kingdoms of Germany and Italy to form it.

 

[riadach]

If you start in 936, you need to hold the Kingdoms of Germany and Italy to form it.

Will there be any major mechanical changes in this patch?

 

[HUMAN_MASK]

I JUST SH*T MY PANTS

 

[Demo9000]

Will Cnut the Great play any role in the start date or doesn't he appear at all, because it is too early?

Canute the Great was born in the 990's, by most accounts. If start date is 936, Harald I (Bluetooth) is already born, it should be possible - if you're either controlling them personally or if they're in your court - to name Harald's son Svend/Svenn/Sweyn, and later Sweyn's son Knud/Canute. Think of the RP possibilities! You can control Canute's dynasty but shape a future, more or less customized, Canute for yourself if you have some good courtiers or nobles to train him.

 

[Woifee]

Iron Century combined with Ibiza video made yesterday my favorite day of the year

 

[Al Davoodi]

Iron Century combined with Ibiza video made yesterday my favorite day of the year

+1 so true you know Strache had when he was in Ibiza a TV team with him on the trip, but not on the Villa obviously.

 

[TheudoaldTheBurner]

Thanks for still adding content to this game! This is by far my favorite game. Now where's a new DLC, so I can throw some more money your direction?

 

[NATOaster]

Super excited to see a new start date! I was wondering if you would add any counts to this start date of Cultures not yet playable in earlier starts - like the Coptic count added to 769? In particular I was hoping for an Assyrian count since the earliest playable one I could find is in the 13th century. Since adding the Restoration of Byzantium/ Fourth Crusade event, being a Byzantine Culture is even more important! (and this would make for fun Messalian Rome runs)

 

[Lord Hoosier]

Color me excited to play in a less monolithic HRE!

 

[Ed Mike]

So... any chance of having Munniadomna/Mumadona de Vimaranes (920-968) as the duchess of Portugal and countess of Porto and Coimbra instead of her husband? Or at least have her as his heir some crazy how?
Historically, they co-ruled the lands until his death, but she became the sole ruler after that (943) and the game's historical files don't have any provision of that ever happening.

I ask because Mummadona is a historical figure of importance in those lands. She was the most powerful woman in the Iberian Peninsula at the time.

Her mother, Oneka, daughter of the king of Navarre and the tutor of king Ramiro II of Léon, with whom Mummadomna kept good relations.
Mummadomna was known for being good with gold, which she would employ in the construction of castles, cities and bishopries in the region of Porto, fortifying the existing ones to protect her lands from Viking and Normand incursions. Especially the region, castle, city and bishopry of Guimarães, whose names honor her lineage, Guimarãens being the Old Portuguese spelling of the Visigothic "Vimaranes".
Lastly, under her rule many documents were produced listing the castles and towns of the land, she appears to have being into the more administrative aspects of rulership.

 

[TinWiz]

With a few more free updates I might even buy one of those E-books!

 

[Kaiser Quanah]

i kind of hope a second bookmark is added so folks can play as Basil II the Bulgarslayer, kind of like Alexios Comnene in The Alexiad bookmark. But i get to play as Otto the Great and push back the heathen Magyar horde! Awesome! Thank you guys so much for making this and Great Works for free and continuing to make my favorite video game (and the best Paradox game) even better after all of these years.

 

[corundum]

God I love the ck2 dev team

 

[Goose Green]

Ok, that's sweet, but one thing.
Maybe balance the other dates before going into a whole new territory.

• Norway still wins the Norman conquest 9 times out of 10
• The abbasid sitll blobs too much from being stable (y'know what, lets just change this statement. ALL caliphates, sultanates, and large islamic territories blob too much from being too stable)
  
• Even after the crusades, Iberia still ends up muslim if it's not totally shattered (and even if it is shattered, the kingdoms still tear themselves apart until muslims pick at the remains).
  
• The HRE is too stable and keeps taking hungary
  
• Karl couldn't form the HRE to save his life 99 times out of 100
• Speaking of the HRE, the the mess that is central europe in the old gods start still can't keep itself even remotely stable, and ignores when there's literally any outside force threatening them until france is muslim and Germany looks like the the german states post HRE collapse, just a few centuries early
  
• Ghengis khan can't expand for shit because he keeps doing it one war at a time
  
• Crusader states can't survive because jihads are still half cooked
• I get that there's supposed to be instability in the ERE, but they literally cannot defend themselves for the life of them. If it's a start date where Rum is at its peak, more often than not it ends up steam rolling the ERE
• Slavs in charlemenge... Really, christianity as a whole in charlemenge. It just doesn't survive, ever.
• Also, Orthodoxy can't really spread north in any way. One of the most important parts of rus culture is just kinda out the window on that part
• Speaking of, thanks to Rus never being able to organize itself, the North never really gets conquered.
• ALSO speaking of rus, pretty much 3/4ths of the kingdoms tend to be under some sort of nomadic control, and they never even try to get out.
• And Khazaria... just... just look at some of the damn memes. It's funny the first few times, but seriously, that just shows how half baked nomads' balance is.

These are just a few of the most major problems with all the start dates. I appreciate new content, and I think the vast majority can agree, but there's a point where someone has to look at the state of the game and consider if it's time for throwing more food on the plate or time to clean some of that food off the plate. It's not like more content can't be added while fixing this stuff. I mean, Islam is basically feudalism but more broken, and really shows its age as the first expansion because of it. That's an example of something to overhaul as 'new content'.
At least put some weight into the AI's decisions for outside dangers. Like, if Iberia DOES become muslim, maybe have the Karling kingdoms stop the infighting and look to suit up against the behemoth on their doorstep.
Again, I'm liking the approach into the 10th century, but PLEASE tell me there's a lot more back-end stuff working on all of the ahistorical flaws that are from poor balancing and half-finished mechanics?

Why would Karl form the Holy Roman Empire? He was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the pope, but that did not actually mean anything, it was just a publicity stunt to piss of thhe Byzantines and "reward" Charles for being so pious and good to the Papacy. The first actual Holy Roman Emperor, who created the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I in 962.

 

[GoukaRyuu]

Why would Karl form the Holy Roman Empire? He was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the pope, but that did not actually mean anything, it was just a publicity stunt to piss of thhe Byzantines and "reward" Charles for being so pious and good to the Papacy. The first actual Holy Roman Emperor, who created the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I in 962.

I like how CK2+ does it. Charles forms the Carolingian Empire and, barring player intervention, that is made to fall apart eventually, especially if a non-Karling gets in control of it. After it is formed then it is possible to form the HRE, which does use the ruler list of the previous Carolingian Empire much like the HRE counted those early emperors in reality.

 

[Sanny]

You've kept me playing this game for 7 years, stop it. Honestly though giving the community free content like this feels like rewards for years of loyalty to CK2, marketing might think it not necessary but it is appreciated very greatly by all of us. This is why Paradox is still my favourite games developer.

 

[Thure]

Why would Karl form the Holy Roman Empire? He was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the pope, but that did not actually mean anything, it was just a publicity stunt to piss of thhe Byzantines and "reward" Charles for being so pious and good to the Papacy. The first actual Holy Roman Emperor, who created the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I in 962.

Otto I used the exactly same title as Charlemagne and the Carolingians. King of the Romans/Roman Emperor. And his Realm was called 'Roman Empire' too. The 'Holy' was never added until the 12th century. They added it in the 12th century because of the beef with the pope. For the people like Otto I the Holy Roman Empire was the exactly same state as the one Charlemagne ruled.

 

[Prometheus_1]

Bah.... skips and keeps waiting for Asia expansion!

 

[Fulmen]

I would've preferred more dynamic historical events guiding the game into being a bit more realistic and sane, rather than them adding another scenario that only a fraction of the player base will bother trying more than once or twice.

The game is also still in need of many QoL features, e.g. evidenced by the fact it's the only PDX strategy title to not have hotkeyable units (control-groups).