CK2 Dev Diary #25: Man vs Machine

[Sotek]

When you move an army onto a ship, it shows the date they will board. But when you move an army off of a ship, it doesn't show the day they will move onto land. It's caused quite a few headaches in some of my viking games.

Similarly, when you see an enemy debarking troops from boats, you get to learn almost nothing - you can't actually (as far as I can tell) see when they'll get off, how many troops there are, or where they're going ... but the AI still seems to react to your debarkations like they do to normal troop movements.

As a separate suggestion: when selecting a child's education I have to remind myself which icon modifies which education, and some kind of UI indicator for if they've got modifiers or penalties for the various educations would be very useful so as to make the process of making that decision a lot quicker and easier.

 

[Manic Eskimo]

Must pause to siege a province on higher speeds.

A select all troops/ships button for large empires - when you're empire is so large you have to zoom out and draw several boxes to select all your troops

I've always found the economy tabs in the ledgers confusing and inaccurate. If the amounts had a GPM(onth) or GPY(ear) next to them it would be easier to judge what you were getting from where. An exact expenditure breakdown would be cool as well.

The signs at the top of the screen disappear behind the box with the date when playing as a muslim. This can be particularly bad when it's the decadence sign or leave children without a mentor.

Make proposals (i.e. alliance, marriage) last longer or ideally pop up and pause option

 

[Jia Xu]

More than anything else, I'd like to have a ransom all prisoners toggle, that will automatically ransom everyone who can be ransomed, with the exception of your own vassals and anyone who is worth warscore in an ongoing war.

 

[tywinzo]

Hover mouse over succession law => show would-be line of heirs.

It is somewhat tedious to calculate this yourself sometimes, and you don't know what the result will be if you change law.

Or potentially that you can do "test" the result of changing both gender law and succession law.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and roleplaying notepad please. Just somewhere to put my own "story".

 

[giblet_head]

When setting a campaign fund for doge elections and cardinal selection, you have to increment by ten, which can lead to hundreds of mouse clicks just to set one number. So it would be great in these cases (and elsewhere where you have to set a number, if they exist) to be able to just type in a number, or at least to increment each digit separately.

 

[Pear]

A filter to exclude characters outside of diplomatic range from the character search list.

I'm not quite sure how you'd do the interface for this, but the ability to search the character list for characters with a specific trait would be nice (i.e., a quick way to see if there are any genius brides available...).

 

[Sotek]

I'm not quite sure how you'd do the interface for this, but the ability to search the character list for characters with a specific trait would be nice (i.e., a quick way to see if there are any genius brides available...).

If you type the name of the trait into the search box it can already do that!

 

[Narr666]

Hey I posted a while ago a CK2 Wishlist, there were a bit about the UI and the communication. So, since you asked, I would like to reproduce it here:

1) Succession Screen: You can hover over your crest to see the order of your heirs. But that´s very few information. My pals were surprised by Gavelkind time and time again while I am teaching it. That´s unnecessary and maybe the major hurdle for new players. You have to know how the succession rules work and calculate for yourself, which heir will get what. A simple solution would be to make a succession screen that you can choose from any character. There you see the titles as always as clickable crest and arrows pointing to the clickable heirs. When you are in a working mood, out sliders for all succession laws on the top, so you can browse through it and see how the succession would change if another law is implemented. Great overview for intricate plans and schemes. I foretell you thousand new players just with this option. It would not lower the complexity, but would give new (and old) players the empowerment to plan their plans without bad surprises, that her character would have known.

2) Always show all options: CK2 is a google crusade when you learn it. There are so much information that rely on wikis and forums and even veteran players have to search stuff to understand. But the tooltips are so much helpful. Why not use them all the time? An example: I tried to found an independence faction in my approximately 490th game hour. Bad luck, wasn´t there. So I googled and googled. Till I found a forum post where someone digged the requirement out of the data. You cannot establish an independence faction when your capital borders your liege´s capital. So Im moved my capital and there it was.
Nowhere in the game I know of you can learn this. I still try to figure out why ‘I can´t take the “Free from captivity” option on my son. The solution is simple: Always give all options, grey the ones out that cannot be taken and with the obligatory tooltip. That could take more than half of the googeling out and you can learn from the game in the game.

3) Press claim warning: Okay, I got it, but one thing that gets player confused is the press the claim option. That he has to be your vassal for you to keep it, that you loose him if he gets a title from the same rank as yours. Give the player an explicit warning: No “it can be that...”, write: “Eryk is not your vassal and would become independent.” Or “Eryk´s new title is of the same rank or higher than yours and he would become independent.” When you give out a title, write simply “Eryk would become independent.” Veterans don´t care anymore, but I do not want to know how many players rage quitted of course of that rather confusing rule and never turned on the game again.


The rest of my wishlist is here, if you are interested: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sader-kings-ii-wishlist.964994/#post-21795069

 

[Birri]

Just gonna copy from a suggestion post I made earlier:

Now that declining a call to arms features a very hefty opinion modifer (-25 general opinion for 10 years) could it be made more noticeable please?

For example make it more like in EU4 where a call to arms is a very in your face pop-up instead of the CK2 CTA which is more like, "Um wanna help me, maybe? Notice me senpai! No it's not a marriage! I mean, it's no big deal... OMFG U DECLINED FUK U BITCH I HATE U FOREVAH!!"

 

[Ranamga]

I'd like to be able to spend techpoints in provinces other than my capital; if I'm using a province other than my top title's de jure capital, I can't even switch over just long enough to dump some levels down. To say nothing of vassals' territory.

Having a "Create new vassal" option for counties in addition to the one we have for baronies would be nice, too. Sometimes I just don't have a courtier on hand I want to land.

Being able to ask a vassal to trade their lands for other titles would be nice. Even if I would have to include a bribe, like an additional title or gold. "Give me the county of In-My-Capital-Duchy-ia, and I'll make you the Count of Recently-Revoked-land and Border-County-ia". I can already do that by revoking the title I want and giving the character the new ones, but they'll hate my guts for it. There should be a diplomatic way of shuffling your vassals around, even if consent costs me. Of course, voting rights for succession and such should be considered. Perhaps non-de-jure vassals could be granted those rights, in exchange for speeding up de jure drift? An Elector honorary title, perhaps.

 

[chrnno]

When setting a campaign fund for doge elections and cardinal selection, you have to increment by ten, which can lead to hundreds of mouse clicks just to set one number. So it would be great in these cases (and elsewhere where you have to set a number, if they exist) to be able to just type in a number, or at least to increment each digit separately.

Hold shift or ctrl as you click and you increase it by 50 or 100 respectively.

 

[Polyester]

How about the AI making certain exceptions to rules if it would mean that they would continue their dynasty.

For example, a AI holding a king title (Especially a small one) would probably realistically swear fealty to a Emperor of the same religion if they are either in a very vulnerable or dangerous state (Neighboring infidels that they would otherwise be unable to fight and win.), or the enemy outnumbers them so much that fighting and winning the war would be impossible. For these sort of things I think the AI should swear fealty to the emperor so that they can continue to have some sort of power rather than lose all of it to infidels. Of course, the vassal would be trying to get independence the second the situation is over.

Overall, I think AI should be playing to stay in power, even if it means swearing fealty to someone that's not they're De-jure liege, not their culture, but is of their religion and would be able to protect them.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

I'd love to see titles sorted alphabetically. When you have a ton of titles to give out its just about the worst experience ever to have to scroll through all of these and find which title you're trying to give someone.

 

[Mefirenz]

@Darkrenown Thanks for asking! Having played Nomads, maybe facilitate the giving of titles (maybe by clicking them on the map directly)? It takes a long time to give out 20 titles after a successful invasion or a clan absorption (and having to look for title after title in a list that resets every time gets... tedious). Can be a problem in MP if you don't want to pause too long as the Minor Clan uprisings will fire if you have to hand out a lot of titles...

 

[PsysmicSound]

Every time I start up a game, I have to set the gamespeed to the one I prefer, and sort various menus the way I like them (mercenaries ascending by price, courtiers and vassals ascending by opinion, maybe others I've forgotten), which takes maybe half a minute of clicking. Not the end of the world, sure, but it all adds up. I'd like the game to remember these things and set them for me - the former would have to be on a per-game basis, as preferable gamespeed is probably different when playing multiplayer, but the latter can be used for all games played on a given installation.

 

[Rolaric]

It would be nice to be able to set criteria for the random ruler selector for starting a new game. I can never decide where I want to start, but I know full well what government types I'm willing to play.

 

[Dearmad]

Here are my only two UI issues I have- and ONE of them I have had since CK 1!

The tooltip is instant all the time. I would LOVE for there to be a DELAY built into it that maybe we can even adjust- I don't need tooltips so quickly and would rather see the screen's contents. PLEASE?!?!

Make it so that clicking the shield in the upper left always bring sup whoever I am playing. It normally does, but on some characters it clsoes the window and I have to click it again to open who I am. It would be nice if it acted like a home button for my character.

 

[Atlantians]

What’s this, a dev diary on a Monday?! Yes, it’s true, we’ve moved them to Mondays so they’ll coincide with CK2 streams. The Reaper’s Due has been out for a while now, and I am very pleased with how both it and the free update were received (I wasn’t sure the focus on Death would be so universally appreciated!) As Game Director, I rarely have time to do much coding and scripting anymore, but I did help out with the optimizations and several of the Game Rules. The game is in safe hands though; the current CK2-team has done an amazing job so far!

Work has now commenced on the next expansion and I can already reveal it’s going to be something a bit similar to Way of Life, which I believe I actually mentioned in my previous dev diary. I also promised optimizations, AI improvements and quality of life stuff. Well, the optimizations are done for now, so the next major free update will feature AI and GUI improvements, which brings me to today’s topic; usability.

Now, we are aiming to tweak several interfaces and while I cannot go into much detail yet, I can say that I’d especially like to address the following main areas:

• Plotting (quality of life)
• Prisoner management
• Guardian vs Educator (clarity)
• More space for Traits and Character Modifiers

There are other things in the works too, but when you’ve worked on a game for so many years you tend to get blind to many usability issues and simply accept them as they are. That is why I’d like to hear from you, our faithful fans, what you find most annoying and clunky about the CK2 interfaces. Are there any actions you find hard to do, or useful information you cannot easily find (or not at all)? All feedback is welcome!

That is all for now; the floor is yours...

Don't miss today's livestream - Medieval Monday with Emil and Doomdark - 16:00CEST on https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

@Doomdark and @Darkrenown, will you be taking a look at improving the way the Imperial system is handled in game?

For Iqta and especially for the Eastern Romans, renouncing counties and baronies should be the cheapest and easiest way to restructure your society.

The way Viceroys and Landholding works right now for the Romans does not represent this very well at all.

Right now it is the opposite, you can revoke Viceroyal Duchies up and down the Empire all game long. But revoking one barony causes all your viceroys and vassals to dislike you by a large amount.

More importantly, removing crown authority and the King's Peace greatly weakened the way the Imperial Administration was previously represented; allowing Viceroys to war with each other, with little recourse, and all sorts of other messes.

We need a Bureaucratic Government system that can devolve into Feudalism. That is what historically happened to the Eastern Romans, with all the land grants from the Empire eventually devolving into a 'prima facie' Feudal system as the Empire weakened.

Will you guys be looking into this at all in the upcoming expansions and patches?

It really shouldn't require all that much work.

 

[Arx'invictus]

I think a reset button in the "find characters" would be useful.

 

[Burned Coffee]

I'd appreciate a tweak on the plotting screen where the missing requirements of unavailable but possible plot are shown.