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CK2 Dev Diary #19 The End is Nigh

Hello all, it’s DD time again! As you hopefully know, it’s only a little over a week until Reaper’s Due is released (on the 25th), and you’ve seen pretty much all the new features by this point. As such, I don’t have any big reveals this week, so instead I will just tell you about a few assorted small features and share some of the 2.6 patchnotes with you. So, without further ado:

Reaper’s Due
As well as 2.6 making the Indian Reincarnation events work slightly better, RD includes a rare Reincarnation event which anyone can get, provided they have Fantasy Content turned on.

Parents now have some reaction events to their children being born, especially to their first child, and additional events if it is sickly.

When characters become Ill, it is possible they will suffer from a Mild, Normal, Severe, or Incapacitating version of their Illness. In the latter case they will be bedridden and will require a Regent for the duration of their Illness.

2.6
I mentioned we might do this in an earlier DD, but Nomad’s Pillage decision is now on a separate Alert to avoid accidentally Settling.

You can now zoom the camera out even further, allowing the entire map to be seen at once.

As mentioned in a non-DD thread, AI-called Crusades will be much more likely to target areas adjacent to provinces of their religion-group if they have no targets with Crusade weights set.

I thought those were interesting enough to mention, but here’s the entire “Balance” section of the 2.6 patchnotes:
Code:
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# Balance
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- Alliances and Call To Arms
    - Restored manual call to arms
    - Call to arms from allies can be declined again
    - Added defines to enable/disable auto call to arms and possibility to decline them
    - Added major opinion penalties to alliance breakers
    - Added temporary alliance-breaker modifier (gives -5 diplomacy)
    - Made alliance-breaker and truce-breaker temporary modifiers duration scriptable
    - AI will consider dissolving alliances with alliance breakers
    - AI is unlikely to accept alliances from alliance-breakers
    - Fixed a bug that prevented vassals from joining wars against tyrants. Expect revocation wars to be more risky! (can be disabled through the define VASSALS_UNITE_AGAINST_TYRANNY)
    - Can no longer call ally to war if ally has NAP with defender
    - Alliance breaks with attacker if you accept call to arms from defender

- Flanders is now properly part of France
- Norse, Pictish, Visigothic, and Saxon cultures no longer split if controlled by a powerful ruler, or if their head of religion is of their culture
- CROWDED_THRESHOLD_MODIFIER lowered to 25
- Head injury in battle now has a chance to cause disfigured rather than incapable if your have Reapers
- many "active" minor titles, such as designated regent, cannot be held by incapable characters
- Alania is now Tribal from the Old Gods start point onwards
- k_hungary no longer requires a Magyar province to form
- Increased the troop count of the Shia uprising to make it succeed slightly more often
- AI holders of k_france will no longer create k_aquitaine unless they are close to forming Francia
- Gave Berber culture 'allow_looting = yes' and 'seafarer = yes'
- Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal
- The AI now makes use of Tribal Armies
- AI Nomads can now acquire warhorses
- Increased the Steal Population effect on the Humiliate CB from 10% to 25%
- Increased the impact and deadliness of most Epidemic traits
- Updated the 'Funeral Procession' event with better rewards in the options
- Extort Subjects now available when at war
- Donate to Liege now available when liege is at war
- The 'Groom an Heir' ambition no longer requires you to be married
- Updated final 'Ambitious positive' event to be slightly more interesting
- When declining the papal request to switch to Papal Investiture, the Pope may now excommunicate you
- Rank 2 and 3 education outcomes are now more common
- Become King ambition now only lets chancellors fabricate one kingdom claim
- AI no longer calls all allies into war, but only tries to get more than 1.25 times the opponent's strength
- Changed age to set childhood focus to 6 so you can also choose an educator at the same time
- Pagan nomads no longer suffer from pagan defensive attrition (made it a define called NOMAD_SUFFER_PAGAN_ATTRITION)
- It's now possible to demand religious conversion of landless courtiers even while at war
- Moved the Theology and Hunting focus events to 'on_focus_pulse'
- Seduction Focus: The rebuff opinion modifier no longer lasts forever
- Boosted the opinion effects of giving gifts and of the "Improve Relations" councillor job
- Even with the law that allows revocation and retraction from religious enemies, their religious brethren among your vassals will now still be upset
- You no longer get Pagan homeland attrition if you're allies
- Made Agnatic the normal default gender succession law again, except in Christian realms or when you have equality laws, or the new game rule
- Blocked barons from having Agnatic-Cognatic succession (it's an inheritance mess)
- Rulers of all religions are now allowed to convert to the attacker's religion during holy wars, if their Moral Authority is much lower
- The Family Focus (Way of Life) can now also remove rivalries between close family members
- Exiled characters should no longer join courts of characters in seclusion, or court of the banisher's vassal
- Characters can no longer escape from House Arrest
- Monthly prestige/piety province modifiers are now added to the character
- Most of the minor titles can now be made available for female characters as well, provided the correct laws or game rules are in place
- Frail now has a small health penalty
- When a Tyranny war is lost while the Conclave DLC is enabled, the title revocation law will be revoked
- Intrigue Focus: Spy On: Nerfed the chances of abduction and murder unless you are a Master Schemer
- Added 1 Health to the Theology Focus
- AI Nomads will now Tribalize if they push too far outside the steppe IF they don't hold much territory in the steppe region + not many castles/cities
- When Nomads Tribalise they now culture/religion convert new provinces based on population/manpower
- When a Nomad Tribalizes a custom kingdom will be created if they would end up as duke rank or lower
- Nomads who Tribalize now get a small amount of event troops
- Changed the Eunuch Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats before deciding
- Carousing Focus: You can now invite people to a new party 90 days after the last one (down from 500 days)
- Raised chance of reincarnation events for Indian religion group
- Changed the Jewish Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats
- Lowered the war contribution that all theocracies and holy orders get as attackers in Great Holy Wars
- Powerful vassals will now only be angry that they haven't been given a position on the council if they're eligible for such a position, or they've recently been fired from the council
- Horse Lords: Unlocked the 'Perform Sky Burial' decision for non-Nomadic rulers of the Mazdan religious group
- Tanistry is now available without Late Feudal Administration, both for Feudal and Tribal Celtics
- Fixed firing Advisors applying the "Revoked Honorary Title" opinion modifier on top of the "Fired from Council" opinion modifiers
- Merchant republics can now always move their capital to a city if their current capital is a castle
- Reintroduced the Bankruptcy character modifier, which reduces army morale by 25% when a ruler has negative wealth
- Councilors who have promised council support to someone will now vote their conscience if the person they're supporting is abstaining
- Commanders can now only be relieved via the Relieve Commander interaction and the Minor Titles screen, which unlike the Revoke Honorary Title interaction, do not incur an opinion penalty
- Retreating enemy armies are no longer considered hostile for the purpose of disbanding units
- Adjusted the 'opinion_unfaithful_husband' opinion modifier
- Adjusted the 'acknowledged_bastard' opinion modifier
- Doubled the positive opinion modifiers from granting landed titles to someone
- Vassals are now grateful when you build buildings in their Holdings
- Viceroyalty succession now overrides all succession law opinion modifiers for that title, since succession law has no effect
- If succession law affects both the youngest and oldest child, and someone is both, they now always get the best opinion modifier
- Fixed heirs not getting positive opinion modifiers from succession laws (E.G., oldest_child_opinion in primogeniture)
- Visigothic culture will no longer split when in a powerful Visigoth realm
- Ladies can now gain the viking trait(s)
- Switching religious branch as an Indian religion will now also switch that of your close kin (if non-zealous)
- The Magyars have a significantly larger army in the 867 invasion of Hungary, they will now win more often than not
- Hungarians led by the Árpád dynasty will always want to settle in Hungary if they have the chance
- When the historical Magyars settle in Hungary, more provinces will convert to Hungarian
- Dynamic mercenaries are no longer prevented from marrying
- Even Malcontent voters will now vote for additional council power laws, as it means they'll have more to say 'no' about
- Prisoners from major revolts can now be executed and released
- Significantly increased the chance of vassals joining Grand Tournaments/Furusiyyas
- Reduced the number of unnecessary courtiers generated; should somewhat improve performance
- Redid the Varangian Guard events from MTTH events to yearly pulse events
- Added AI weights to event HL.10531, where a mercenary leader would accept or decline an invitation to a feast, to make it less random
- Moved event SoA.5219 to yearly pulse from MTTH
- Increased the prestige gain from 'Groomed to Perfection'
- Moved the SoA 'wicked priest' events to the bi-yearly pulse from MTTH
- Retreating from battles and sieges now starts the day after you right-click, so that you can cancel it on the same day if you misclick
- Tribals who are Tengri/Altaic will now raise more Light Cavalry and less Heavy Infantry in their summoned Tribal Armies
- William now starts with slightly more Heavy Infantry in "The Stamford Bridge" bookmark, to give him a higher chance of gaining England
- Rulers can now change crown laws every 50 years, rather than once per lifetime (cooldown still removed on death)
- Opinion of predecessor is now also inherited in elective government types if the successor is a close relative of, or in the same dynasty as, the old ruler
- Crusades on titles without a crusade weight are now less likely if said title is not adjacent to territory of the crusader's religion
- Now possible to ask one's liege to press one's claim even if the liege council isn't allowed to vote on war declaration
- Courtiers who have minor titles, friends, lovers, consorts or rivals are now excluded from the court pruning system
- Immortal characters are now immune to pruning
- If subjugation wars are invalidated, the 'once per lifetime' subjugation is now refunded
- If a Muslim Invasion is invalidated, the piety will be refunded

Horse Lords:
- When conquering Nomad land (empty provinces) as a non-Nomadic character, the following will happen:
    - A basic Tribal holding will be constructed
    - The Nomad culture and religion will be preserved in the province
    - A 'Nomad Agitation' province modifier will be added, slightly increasing provincial revolt risk
- On succession, if a character holds provinces with Nomad Agitation they will automatically secede from the realm unless one of the following is true:
    - A Castle or City holding has been constructed in the province
    - (Only if Tribal) At least 2 buildings have been constructed in the province's Tribal Holding
- Provinces that secede because of Nomad Agitation will spawn a new Nomad ruler as per the culture/s of the released province/s
- If a newly seceded Nomad Ruler borders a Nomad of the same culture, they will join them as a Clan Chief
- If a Nomad conquers a province with Nomad Agitation, the modifier will be removed

- Raiding Adventurers can now properly invade & claim land from Nomads
    - If they are the same culture as the target, they will become a Nomadic Clan Chief
    - If they aren't the same culture they will become a Tribal Vassal

- Now when you choose to 'Settle as Tribal' as a Nomadic realm your Clan Chiefs will settle along with you

- The 'Pillage Holding' decision has been remade, it will now pillage the selected holding progressively (once every 6 months) until it's destroyed
    - When a holding is destroyed from pillaging you get an event containing some flavor
    - You can now pillage several holdings in the same province at once
    - You can at any time choose to 'Stop Pillaging' a holding by using a targeted decision
    - The Revolt Risk associated with pillaging is now capped at 30%
    - Claiming a pillaged province as a non-nomad now clears the revolt risk (other penalties still apply)
    - The revolts that spawn from pillaged provinces are now significant (no more 60-man whack-a-mole uprisings)
    - You can no longer choose to pillage enemy holdings manually, instead it's triggered by event (gain gold or prestige)

- When choosing to settle as a Nomad the provinces that flip to your culture will now try to border each other
- The AI logic for when Nomads want to settle has been changed slightly, certain Nomad personalities will take longer to settle
- If a settling Nomad has only one vassal of king-tier, they will now usurp that character's kingdom rather than create a custom empire

- The Silk Road has received the following changes:
    - The Silk Road has been extended by adding a new branch from Lut - passing through Rayy and Tabriz - to Trebizond
    - The southern part of the Silk Road has been updated to also pass through Dhofar, Socotra, Busaso and Taizz on the way to Alexandria
    - Increased the base wealth of the Silk Road to 122 from 100, to account for added provinces

That's all for now, but if you haven't already seen them, be sure to check out the various preview videos which are starting to appear on Youtube. Next week I will post the rest of the changes as well as showing the new Steam Achievements.
RIP promo art.png
Finally, here's some eyecandy to remind you of your impending demise
 
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Some good stuff there, especially pleased to see gift-giving and the Councillor job getting a bit of a boost as raising opinions in Conclave can be rather painful, also glad to see vassals can join the "overthrow" wars now.
 
Wow. You have no idea what I was talking about.
I was not talking about bringing back Crown Authority as it exists without Conclave.

I proposed Crown Authority be reintroduced as an overarching Law that enables the various other Laws to be passed.

This was purely to represent how in order to Centralize and Imperialize around the ruler, the Crown would have to be stronger.

You have to Strengthen the Crown in order for the King to Centralize the State, ban wars, regain various power from the Council, etc.

You're not the only one who feels this way.

Once upon a time "Crown Authority" was known as "Centralisation_Law" internally for a reason.
 
So, if Mazdans can always use Sky Burial, and Nomad Dharmans can use Sky Burial, shouldn't Zunists be able to use Sky Burial, at least if they're nomads? Zunism, being a remnant of Iranian Paganism lying awkwardly between the philosophy of Zoroastrianism and the gods of Hinduism, and holding aspects of both religions, it should get a feature that both religions possess, no?

Zuns do have Festival of the Sun and some other perks to make them one of the most fleshed out religions while poor Manicheans are lucky to have this...
 
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Zuns do have Festival of the Sun and some other perks to make them one of the most fleshed out religions while poor Manicheans are lucky to have this...

But this isn't a battle of who can be more fleshed out- logically, if the Indians and Mazdans can do it, shouldn't the Zunists, who possess features of both, be able to as well?

Of course, I could tie this all back to how the Alans are misrepresented as basically Tengri Russians (albeit, with a unique namelist) instead of Iranian nomads with a pagan religion that shared features and beliefs of Zoroastrianism while retaining distinctness, close enough that some of their people were described as Zoroastrians without being such. Zunism is a pretty good stand-in for this religion, although the Iranian cultural practice may well have bled into Afghanistan as well.

As far as we can tell, preislamic Afghans and Scytho-Sarmatians (like the Alans) had burial customs pretty similar to what the Turkic peoples would eventually do. While the Scythians and Afghans are known for kurgans, that is to say burial mounds, the Turks likewise deployed these, as did the Persians, all in a similar fashion. Indeed, the Yaz culture from which Zoroastrianism originates is said to reflect the earliest stage of East Iranian, the branch to which Alans/Ossetians and Afghans belong, culture, and are the originators of Sky Burial among Indo-European peoples and religions.
 
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In that case it would be more of a cultural practice than religious perhaps? So it would just need additional trigger basically saying:

Culture = Afghan/Alan
Religion = Mazdan/Pagan religious group
= Do Sky Burial.
 
In that case it would be more of a cultural practice than religious perhaps? So it would just need additional trigger basically saying:

Culture = Afghan/Alan
Religion = Mazdan/Pagan religious group
= Do Sky Burial.

Well, Mazdan or Tengri, really. Slavs, Vikings, etc. used kurgans, ship burials, or cremation mostly. Point being I want to have muh accurate Alans plz.

Though, since the conversion to Orthodoxy and Islam, neither group particularly does either sky burials nor kurgans anymore. It's pretty strongly linked to Iranian paganism, Zoroastrianism in particular among the Mazdans, and Steppe cultures.
 
In the new patch will the current problem, with AI's not making an initiative to convert those NAP's to alliances, be fixed.

Because, at the moment, that is a severe balancing issue and makes the game ridiculously easy for human controlled characters who have around 4 or 5 allies, while the enemy AI rarely has more than 1 or 2 allies, despite having about 5 NAP's with foreign rulers
 
Gonna miss baronesses
Why was it removed by the way? Only to prevent inheriting random baronies through your wife?
It lead to people inheriting little baronies all over the place via their wives.
So if you say are a count who also holds a barony in your county and get a female heir she will inherit the county, but not the barony which might end up going to the liege due to no other available heirs?
 
So if you say are a count who also holds a barony in your county and get a female heir she will inherit the county, but not the barony which might end up going to the liege due to no other available heirs?
Every title below a kingdom will always follow the succession law of your primary title.
 
That's more than a thousand years before our start date, though.

Having said that, the Alani were Sarmations, not Turks.

That's my point. The Alans have nothing making them different from the Turks except face pack, which makes them Russian. The Iranian unit pack even has horse archers that are perfect for what Sarmatian horse archers looked like. They'd logically be Zunist, not Tengri, as they were Iranian pagans.

As for that being 1000+ years before the start date, the Alans are in 769 very much still Sarmatians. If it DID happen back then, it certainly COULD happen in the pagan Alan chiefdom we are given. The Scytho-Sarmatians were famed for their active females, who participated in everything from military to governance, and by 769 this is still very much applicable. The Alans don't really stop being these people until they abandon their pagan faith for Orthodoxy, Islam, and a settled life.
 
Every title below a kingdom will always follow the succession law of your primary title.
That is how it has worked until now yes. I might have misread the change, but the way I understood it women no matter what can never inherit a barony now. @Darkrenown.
Though hopefully I am wrong.
 
That's my point. The Alans have nothing making them different from the Turks except face pack, which makes them Russian. The Iranian unit pack even has horse archers that are perfect for what Sarmatian horse archers looked like. They'd logically be Zunist, not Tengri, as they were Iranian pagans.

As for that being 1000+ years before the start date, the Alans are in 769 very much still Sarmatians. If it DID happen back then, it certainly COULD happen in the pagan Alan chiefdom we are given. The Scytho-Sarmatians were famed for their active females, who participated in everything from military to governance, and by 769 this is still very much applicable. The Alans don't really stop being these people until they abandon their pagan faith for Orthodoxy, Islam, and a settled life.

I think you are confusing the syncretic Hephtalite origins of Zunism with the old native iranian religion. And there has been several threads in the past discussing the Sarmatian origins of the Alans, most of them concluding that the Alans mostly need a graphical workover. But I agree that the religion needs to differ from Turkish Tengriism but then we go into the realm of what is plausible, I mean do you make it a mazdan religion that works for all Iranian nomads with traces back to the scythian peoples, or do you make it pagan and reformable?
 
But I agree that the religion needs to differ from Turkish Tengriism but then we go into the realm of what is plausible, I mean do you make it a mazdan religion that works for all Iranian nomads with traces back to the scythian peoples, or do you make it pagan and reformable?

Not to mention Sogdians had their own form of faith of Mazdanism which mixed elements of Zoroastrianism, various pagan religions (they even had one old Mesopotamian deity as lesser god) and Dharmic religions but the areas of this religion are currently Manichean as are the rulers who followed it (Afhsin dynasty).
 
I think you are confusing the syncretic Hephtalite origins of Zunism with the old native iranian religion. And there has been several threads in the past discussing the Sarmatian origins of the Alans, most of them concluding that the Alans mostly need a graphical workover. But I agree that the religion needs to differ from Turkish Tengriism but then we go into the realm of what is plausible, I mean do you make it a mazdan religion that works for all Iranian nomads with traces back to the scythian peoples, or do you make it pagan and reformable?

I say Zunism because it's the closest thing currently present in the game. I'd also hardly describe the religion as "Syncretic", as it most certainly does display features of Indo-Iranian religion. Modern polytheistic groups in the area, for instance, follow a religion very similar to Rigvedic Hinduism, although Zunism seems to be much more Iranian in practice due to the sheer focus on the all-prevailing light, the holy fire, which symbolizes justice and good: quite similar to Zoroastrian rhetoric in the same regard. While the proper religion for the Alans would be some form of Aetsaeg, Zunism is the closest possible religion to be used if no new religion is to be added. Admittedly, there are notable differences, but nothing else truly fits either.

I would, honestly, say that the Alans need a decent fix. They should have female succession enabled, use more Iranian things (I can correct the portraits without modding by just intermarrying with Zunbils, but the units can't change), and most definitely they need a religious workover to either convert them to Zunism (Iranian pagan stand-in) or a new religion. This new religion I would classify as pagan, but it would, like Zunism, be able to intermarry with Mazdan religions. This is because Mazdan religions insofar as the game portrays them represent the religions which are founded upon Zoroastrian ideology and thought, with Manicheanism indeed originating with such a thing and taking great liberties and new philosophy afterwards.

If we're to be fully honest, there's always hope for new minor pagans. Berbers deserve their own group, really, and the Barghawata should be part of it rather than being Shi'ite. There's a source or two I can find for Arabian pagans in Yemen dominating the border region, and it's pretty well established that Harran had a plentiful Assyrian pagan populace during the Charlemagne start date. There's also the Maniotes, although there is no holding in the earliest starts that actually represents the Mani region, all of the holdings being in the rest of the province instead.

Not to mention Sogdians had their own form of faith of Mazdanism which mixed elements of Zoroastrianism, various pagan religions (they even had one old Mesopotamian deity as lesser god) and Dharmic religions but the areas of this religion are currently Manichean as are the rulers who followed it (Afhsin dynasty).

I have not studied Sogdians extensively, but they seem to be mostly Zoroastrian with some Buddhist influences. The Mesopotamian deity you are referring to could be the Iranian goddess Anahita, who also had a rather large cult in Persia to the chagrin of the Sassanids, who wanted a purist form of Zoroastrianism.