CK2 Dev Diary #16: Man's inhumanity to man

[Aardvark Bellay]

It most certainly is realistic to have (to the present day human) unimaginably cruel torture devices in game, since those were used historically and aren't just something out of fantasy.
...

That is quite often not true and based on old assumptions.
A lot of old torture instruments found in castles were often not from medieval times and were a hobby of later nobles, part of imaging the old days.
So basically like a torture Disney world in the 18th and 19th century.
A lot of the idea of terrible torture 'back in the days' is based on propaganda of the time and later and misconceptions.

In short, POP culture.
Not in all cases of course, but more often than one usually presumes.
Tourist attractions also like to encourage misconceptions for their business.

Just saying.

 

[sreckom92]

Well, since the Devs are now officially out of useful ideas for CK2, maybe we can focus on something new now. Vicky 3 would be a good idea. As un-sandboxy as Vicky 2, but with more fleshed out features.

Maybe we should remain focusing on CK2, while you go and focus on whatever you like?

 

[RX2000]

So whats the latest guesstimate on TRD release date?

 

[sreckom92]

I found examples of Bad Poetry in West African culture group. Beware! Reading those may lead to uncontollable attack of laughter.

"Me who? Please boo. Landin' in that G2 same color as beef stew, pure blue, hebrew"

"Young, black, and famous, with money hangin out the anus."

"big house, long hallways, got 10 bathrooms I can shit all day"

"Boy I'm sitting on green like piss in the grass"

"Her head is crazy so she's insane."

"I keep it 300, like Romans
300 b*****s, where’s the Trojans?"

"My picture should be in the dictionary
Next to the definition of definition"

Can I choose crucifixion instead, pretty please?

 

[Silversweeeper]

So whats the latest guesstimate on TRD release date?

I believe a late August release was mentioned in one of the past dev diaries.

 

[Llyw olaf]

I would like to see some good come out of putting someone under house arrest. For instance, the captive may grow sympathetic to your cause (Stockholm Syndrome), or possibly even engage in court intrigue. A little seduction focus could go a long way as a house-arrested prisoner (or as his/her captor), plus joining in on plots in the court, etc.

I like to put interesting characters under house arrest in the hopes that some interesting event (other than escape) will pop up as a result.

Absolutely, more needs to be done with house arrest. Breaking a prisoner's bones and spirit is fine, but some of my characters would like to use other methods to bring a captive audience to their side. We need events for house arrest too! use it with the recruiting prisoners action that was mentioned in the previous DD, make it more of a process to befriend and recruit someone, and let us use carousing and seduction on them.
Let us have the choice to use the honey or vinegar approach to turn a prisoner.

I also think that someone with very high intrigue, and/or the intrigue focus, should still have a small chance to escape by their own initiative, it could have some interesting event chains.

 

[zharliette]

So whats the latest guesstimate on TRD release date?

25th August, probably.

The gamebook will unlock a new soundtrack and a few new event chains in the main CK2
desktop game, on August 25 th , 2016. The user will have to be logged in with the PDX account
and download the latest patch that will be released on August 25 th , 2016.

 

[GoldenShotgun]

Anyone else gonna spam the "Bad Poetry" option as soon as they happen to get a lot of prisoners? I know I will.
(Ten bucks says there's a rare event where the prisoner genuinely LIKES it, too. OR, they lie about it...and if you have high Intrigue or the Decietful trait, you can call their lie, and immediately execute them.)

 

[Urzhail64]

Perhaps this dl c needs to be nicknamed the Ramsey Bolton simulator.

Actually I think it should be renamed "How to be a Bastard" simulator, because Joffrey and Ramsey were bastards in every single sense of the word.

I mean, even Jon Snow had his own "bastard" moment by hanging Olly and depriving the poor boy of his "Olly, Olly Oxen Free" moment.

 

[Kapitalisti]

I mean, even Jon Snow had his own "bastard" moment by hanging Olly and depriving the poor boy of his "Olly, Olly Oxen Free" moment.

Nah, Olly was a foul traitor of the worst sort. Fit only to become Lucifer's roommate in Dante's theology.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

I don't know if someone's made this point already but I'd suggest perhaps "tarred and feathered" go under "torture" as it's really quite horrible, your skin can blister and the feathers act as insulation on top of the tar so you sort of bake if left too long in the tar.

Although apparently it varies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarring_and_feathering

I'm not sure how I feel about people not being able to escape from House Arrest - the old sheets down the balcony will be sorely missed.

 

[dmercer]

Actually a lot of the torture devices from the middle ages are later creations, also many accounts of torture at least in Europe is also later fabrications, the problem is it's kind of hard to tell which ones are and which ones aren't but this is again a case of the renaissance trying to seem more enlightened by making the medieval times seem less so.

True. There wasn't much writing during the Dark Ages, and most writing was not to detail torture. The only contemporary account I know of detailing torture methods (I'm sure there are more, I just happen to not be a medieval scholar) is the Peterborough Chronicle. It's entry for the year 1137 would make any CK2 player proud:

When the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both by night and by day, labouring men and women, and threw them into prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures; for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke; and some by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted strings about their heads, and twisted them till the pain went to the brains. They put them into dungeons, wherein were adders, and snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them. Some they placed in a crucethus; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep; wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called "Sachenteges", of which two or three men had enough to bear one. It was thus made: that is, fastened to a beam; and they placed a sharp iron collar about the man's throat and neck, so that he could in no direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many thousands they wore out with hunger. I neither can, nor may I tell all the wounds and all the pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this land. They plundered and burned all the towns. They spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein, and then burned the church and all together. Neither did they spare a bishop's land, or an abbot's, or a priest's, but plundered both monks and clerks; and every man robbed another who could. If two men, or three, came riding to a town, all the township fled for them, concluding them to be robbers. The bishops and learned men cursed them continually, but the effect thereof was nothing to them; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned. The land was all laid waste by such deeds; and they said openly, that Christ slept, and his saints.

 

[dmercer]

…crucethus…

By the way, that is the only known use of the word crucethus (crucet-house) in the English language (Middle English). Were it not for this chronicler, that particular torture method would have been lost forever.

 

[LordDamien]

I believe a late August release was mentioned in one of the past dev diaries.

What is considered Late August though..Its it around August 15.. Or the last Monday/ Tuesday of August is what is meant ?

 

[Wagonlitz]

Actually a lot of the torture devices from the middle ages are later creations, also many accounts of torture at least in Europe is also later fabrications, the problem is it's kind of hard to tell which ones are and which ones aren't but this is again a case of the renaissance trying to seem more enlightened by making the medieval times seem less so.

True. But not all of them. Of the ones I mentioned (pear, chair, thumb screws/head screws, and wooden horse) then I am pretty sure that at least the inquisition used the chair (which granted is post medieval times, but shows it existed). Don't know about the pear. The thumb screws/head screws I am completely sure of having been used historically though don't know if they date back to the medieval times.

The wooden horse is the one I am the most certain of and that was used historically on a large scale (at least in Denmark) though I don't know if it already was used in the medieval times. It was widely used to punish peasants until around 1800 when its use was banned on the basis of it being a really cruel method of punishment (and that while torture still was common...) Though at least until the late 1600s (and most likely all the way to the ban of the wooden horse) commoners living in cities could get it too.

By the way here is a painting of what it looked like when you got the wooden horse.

Well for both executions and torture a good rule of thumb is that if something seems like far to cumbersome (not the word I was really looking for but it'll do) to be real then it probably isn't.

True. Though there are some examples which actually are true---e.g. the wooden horse. It does seem rather cumbersome, but it is well documented in the court protocols that it was used. Though as mentioned I don't know if its use stretches all the way back to the middle ages.

 

[Cruxador]

• Humiliate. The prisoner is degraded in some fashion; such as being tarred and feathered, or forced to do a “walk of shame”. This also causes them to lose prestige and be generally looked down on.

A potentially lethal and invariably terribly scarring punishment counts as mere "humiliation"? What? And does "walk of shame" have some other meaning with which I'm unfamiliar that puts it on par with this?

 

[LordDamien]

A potentially lethal and invariably terribly scarring punishment counts as mere "humiliation"? What? And does "walk of shame" have some other meaning with which I'm unfamiliar that puts it on par with this?

The one thing that comes to mind with Walk of Shame is what Cersei did. Which according to some digging on the internet.. Is based on a Actually punishment for Adultery. And to site a historical example. Edward had fallen and Richard III—against whose rise she had conspired—took the throne that year. Though Richard’s reasons for hating her were largely political, her punishments were tied to her harlotry. So, as would have been a common punishment for adultery, she was made to walk through the city in her undergarments, with bare feet. ( They are talking about Jane Shore a Mistress of Edward of IV

So yeah i would say it counts as a Humiliation..It does not kill the person they just embarrassed in front of everyone.

 

[Wagonlitz]

The one thing that comes to mind with Walk of Shame is what Cersei did. Which according to some digging on the internet.. Is based on a Actually punishment for Adultery. And to site a historical example. Edward had fallen and Richard III—against whose rise she had conspired—took the throne that year. Though Richard’s reasons for hating her were largely political, her punishments were tied to her harlotry. So, as would have been a common punishment for adultery, she was made to walk through the city in her undergarments, with bare feet. ( They are talking about Jane Shore a Mistress of Edward of IV

So yeah i would say it counts as a Humiliation..It does not kill the person they just embarrassed in front of everyone.

And here I thought you had to walk naked.

 

[thekaje]

LOL I love these

 

[EnvyDemon]

And here I thought you had to walk naked.

That's only if you commit incest.