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CK2 Dev Diary #17: Crusader Cats

Hello everyone! I’m Virvatuli, one of the Content Designers on The Reaper’s Due, which also happens to be my very first project here at Paradox. It’s been so much fun working on this DLC and I hope you’ll have even more fun playing it! In this week’s DD (another first for me), I will reveal one of Reaper’s most important features. Oh, okay, it might not be that important, but at least it’s my personal favourite and pet project. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you cats.

For the longest time, there’s been a issue regarding the representation of pets in Crusader Kings 2. In the realm of companion animals, there has been a worrisome lack of diversity. Most of you who play Way of Life have probably had a loyal hunting dog, there have been some events regarding birds of prey, and a lucky few Conclave players might have encountered a tiny rodent friend. Sadly, that has been pretty much it on the pet front. To rectify this serious problem we’ve added some additional furry and feathered friends in The Reaper’s Due. As we did, of course we couldn’t leave out the best animal of them all: our Feline Overlords, Befurred Ninjas, Gods of the Internet.

In the new DLC you can befriend a cat in a number of ways. However, as any Dwarf Fortress player or real-life cat lover knows, you do not adopt a cat. A cat adopts you. Once your feline friend has decided that you’re the one and only slave for it, you will receive a fancy “Pet Cat” character modifier (unless you scare it away, you horrible person). It will give your character +1 health, as the cat brings you so much happiness, and +1 intrigue, because we all know that cat owners are a bit more clever than everyone else (hey, it’s science!).

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However, most things can become troublesome in excess, even your love for felines. In every cat owner’s life there comes a time when you ask yourself if you shouldn’t get just one more. At some point, the answer is probably no, at least if you don’t want to scare off all of your friends and repulse the courtiers.

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Unless you want to become even sneakier, that is. Then go ahead and become a Crazy Cat Lady, or a Crazy Cat Lord, if that’s how you identify.

At first thought, one might think that cats would be a very insignificant aspect of a medieval ruler’s life, however, when the Plague comes around to visit this changes drastically. Most of you probably know that the Black Death was likely spread by fleas on rats. Sadly this fact is unknown to ye olde peasant, and when people start to die, some of them might point fingers to our furry protectors. Believe it or not, there are some people who do not like cats. It’s crazy, I know, but trust me on this. How will you deal with their growing fears? Do remember, if you don’t have cats, you’ll have plenty of rats…

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This sneak peak of cats is all you’ll get for now. Don’t worry though, The Reaper’s Due is out on the 25th of August and then you can experience cats for yourself in all their whiskered glory. Next week Darkrenown will talk about more assorted features. Now I need to get back to scripting, there’re still some cat-related subjects which need further exploration… Adieu!
 
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Do cats even stack at all? I dont think cat quantity rivals vaccines in disease prevention
 
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[/QUOTE]
They do. Sadly. I always start marrying into Irish or Norse families to escape the horror that is misaligned facial hair.[/QUOTE]

Hehe. When I play in England I play for the Welsh for the same reason :)
 
Looks like a small but a nice feature. I like. Now what I really want is some more portrait packs... I kinda think the English (anglo-saxons) and french can use a facelift.. pun intended :) honestly, compared to some other new faces like finns or Italians they look horrific. Would also love faces on some east Europe - polish or bohemian. Just my 2 cents that kinda bugged me for a while now ;)

The English/French/Germans will probably keep the vanilla portraits, them being the "vanilla" cultures and central medieval powers and all. (Though I was also appreciate a facelift of some sort). The Western Slavs (Bohemians and Poles) as well as the Southern ones (Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians) could use a shared portrait pack though, I agree. East Africans are also in dire need of one.

Berbers having a unique portrait pack could also be nice, but I doubt they'd ever get one, as they don't need one as badly as the the ones I mentioned early. Same deal with Hungarians/Magyars.
 
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Cats are very clean animals. It's not like having a dog walking on a table. Unless the cat is sick it'll keep itself clean.
A dog isn't going to walk on your table though, whereas a cat will do that whenever the owner isn't looking. And as a cat owner I don't think they're especially clean, just good at looking tidy. They still drop hairs and fleas wherever they go.

If dogs give +1 health then I see no reason why cats shouldn't too.
Dogs need a lot of exercise and they're good hunting companions, so the health is justified for them I think.

I'd give dogs a bonus to prestige and a health increase, possibly with a piety penalty for Muslims. Cats would have an intrigue boost and a piety boost for Muslims, but a piety penalty for Christians.
 
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A dog isn't going to walk on your table though, whereas a cat will do that whenever the owner isn't looking. And as a cat owner I don't think they're especially clean, just good at looking tidy. They still drop hairs and fleas wherever they go.
I've never had a cat who have gotten fleas, nor should you cat be losing hair to anything but their own cleaning, maybe you just don't treat your cats very well.


The English/French/Germans will probably keep the vanilla portraits, them being the "vanilla" cultures and central medieval powers and all. (Though I was also appreciate a facelift of some sort). The Western Slavs (Bohemians and Poles) as well as the Southern ones (Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians) could use a shared portrait pack though, I agree. East Africans are also in dire need of one.

Berbers having a unique portrait pack could also be nice, but I doubt they'd ever get one, as they don't need one as badly as the the ones I mentioned early. Same deal with Hungarians/Magyars.
The arabs could really use updated faces in general, they look like the terrorists from team america. Especially when you compare them to the persian or andalusian faces they look like a caricature.
 
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This game is turning into The Sims.
The Sims was one of the inspirations for crusader kings, I remember doomdark said so once. I don't mind, I prefer the sims aspects to the world conquest, I think they could learn a fair deal by looking at the sims medieval.
This isn't EU, they should focus more on character (yes sims aspects), holdings (again sims aspects) and internal realm politics.
 
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I've never had a cat who have gotten fleas, nor should you cat be losing hair to anything but their own cleaning, maybe you just don't treat your cats very well.
Meh, cats normally shed old hairs where they sleep, just like any other animals. Look in a cat's bed and there will be lots of loose hairs lying about from when they've cleaned themselves. And cat fleas are an extremely common problem, if yours haven't gotten any then you're quite lucky. Fortunately for modern cats we have flea treatments which can help, but nothing could be done about that in the middle ages.
 
What is this?

Is this a joke?

Is this real?
 
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Meh, cats normally shed old hairs where they sleep, just like any other animals. Look in a cat's bed and there will be lots of loose hairs lying about from when they've cleaned themselves. And cat fleas are an extremely common problem, if yours haven't gotten any then you're quite lucky. Fortunately for modern cats we have flea treatments which can help, but nothing could be done about that in the middle ages.
Cats weren't indoor pets the same way in the middle ages though.
 
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Tigers are cats too.

Would make for some nice flavour for indian rulers :).
I need to play as a Raja, and i want a zoo of a palace, with personal elephants, pet tigers, rat-hunting cats and snakes, a bird of prey, and dogs.
 
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By the way:
No, cats were invented in 1902 by Satan, but we included them for gameplay reasons.
Best troll post by Paradox so far. 10/10
 
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The arabs could really use updated faces in general, they look like the terrorists from team america. Especially when you compare them to the persian or andalusian faces they look like a caricature.

Agreed. If the Western Europeans get a facelift, so should the Arabs. (At least they're not orange anymore)

To be completely fair though, none of them are as bad as the old Mediterranean portraits.
 
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