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CK2 Dev Diary #25: Man vs Machine

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
 
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As a CK2 newbie, I sorely need a "Quick Restart" button.

If I'm Holy War'd a couple of months into my reign, and I want to try again with the same ruler, I need to click "Resign" -> "Ok" -> "Quick to Menu" -> ... wait for the pretty animation to finish... -> "Single Player" -> "Custom Game" -> select bookmark -> select ruler -> "Play" -> "Start Game" -> "Start Ironman" -> "Ok" -> "Next" -> "Close". I'd much rather just have one button to do this.
 
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cmihai said:
As a CK2 newbie, I sorely need a "Quick Restart" button.

If I'm Holy War'd a couple of months into my reign, and I want to try again with the same ruler, I need to click "Resign" -> "Ok" -> "Quick to Menu" -> ... wait for the pretty animation to finish... -> "Single Player" -> "Custom Game" -> select bookmark -> select ruler -> "Play" -> "Start Game" -> "Start Ironman" -> "Ok" -> "Next" -> "Close". I'd much rather just have one button to do this.
Click to expand...
Maybe you should not be playing ironman :)
 
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Keizer Harm said:
Maybe you should not be playing ironman :)
Click to expand...
Tried Ironman to see what the big fuss was.
"Lolol if you're going to save scum, you might as well just edit your saves, nub!"
Semien, 867.
Cue 2 hours of quit, start anew, quit, start anew, quit, start anew.

I guess that insta-failure 500 times is just so much more hardcore :p
 
I'm sorry if I sounded wrong, but I was serious. I was a newbie once, and got myself killed quite a few times. Cheats helped me get over the game's ridiculous learning curve, and in my best campaigns I sometimes use commands to make the world around me more interesting. Without the console, I would have ditched the game within a week.
 
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I have a suggestion . I just recently got a new monitor and on the 3840x2160 and the interface is much too small . Is it scalable ?( Maybe it already is and I just haven't worked it out , please let me know ) .

And on the person search can we get an "In Diplomatic Range" button in our search settings ? Please ....
 
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Only Courtiers on Court tap, Plz.
I don't want to see all my prisoners whenever I try to manage my court. It is a big hassle.
And there is the Prisoners tap for them already.
 
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From what I can tell, purple ribbons for the Basileus/Kaiser were removed when color-coded government types were added; perhaps add an "Imperial" government type with the benefits of the law, and have the Imperial Administration law change the holder's government type to Imperial while the title is held? That way empire-tier feudal rulers would have blue ribbons, while the Byzantines and any other realm which manages to pass Imperial Administration get purple.
 
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Sometimes, when I amass my troops in one stack, some commanders are auto-assigned to those small bars inside a flank. For some reason, when I want to assign one of them as flank commander, the game doesn't show him - I have to manually find him inside the bar (and there are a lot of those when you have a 50k army), resign him and only them he shows up as a flank commander option.

Please remove this limitation and add a symbol (akin to the imprisioned one) telling us that he is already leading a stack inside a flank.
 
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Heiliges Thüringens Reich said:
Sometimes, when I amass my troops in one stack, some commanders are auto-assigned to those small bars inside a flank. For some reason, when I want to assign one of them as flank commander, the game doesn't show him - I have to manually find him inside the bar (and there are a lot of those when you have a 50k army), resign him and only them he shows up as a flank commander option.

Please remove this limitation and add a symbol (akin to the imprisioned one) telling us that he is already leading a stack inside a flank.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, the not-showing-up happens when they're currently assigned to an army which is currently sieging or in battle. Perhaps they could be shown when an army is sieging (not in battle) but have an icon showing they're leading a unit or subunit in a siege? That way you could reassign them without manually finding them in the army they're assigned to, but also know that they're not idle.

Another thought: When using the "Stop Backing Plot" interaction from the plots window, could the plot you right clicked the character from be auto-selected? Currently you select "Stop Backing Plot" and the game opens a window asking you which plot, with no plot selected by default.
For example, if X and Y are plotting, and Z is backing both plots, right clicking Z's portrait next to X's plot and selecting "Stop Backing Plot" opens a window asking which plot to ask Z to stop backing; it should have X selected on opening, rather than none.
 
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Have to agree with cmhai - sometimes you want to play ironman but your lord quite literally dies of dysentry the moment you unpause. Or you just get a start that might be playable but it's more effort than you want to make at that point in time. The whole resign process is annoyingly lengthy when all you really want to do is step away from your embarrassing failure as a ruler and start again.
 
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cmihai said:
As a CK2 newbie, I sorely need a "Quick Restart" button.

If I'm Holy War'd a couple of months into my reign, and I want to try again with the same ruler, I need to click "Resign" -> "Ok" -> "Quick to Menu" -> ... wait for the pretty animation to finish... -> "Single Player" -> "Custom Game" -> select bookmark -> select ruler -> "Play" -> "Start Game" -> "Start Ironman" -> "Ok" -> "Next" -> "Close". I'd much rather just have one button to do this.
Click to expand...
Kyberia said:
Have to agree with cmhai - sometimes you want to play ironman but your lord quite literally dies of dysentry the moment you unpause. Or you just get a start that might be playable but it's more effort than you want to make at that point in time. The whole resign process is annoyingly lengthy when all you really want to do is step away from your embarrassing failure as a ruler and start again.
Click to expand...
Wasn't the reason it was removed because that didn't allow gamestate to reset properly and thus bugs were guaranteed?

Though I suppose they could add a button much like continue that does all that on it's own and saves you from the bother.
 
Please make court size scale before pruning begins. 50(or less than that) isnt enough for a good breeding program. People are dying way too quick, though that increased drastically after RD.

Also glad to hear you are working on managing usability. Given how death has gotten outta control recently Ive taken to marking so many people in my court as characters of interests (the game doesnt seem to tell me when they die, even at times when I have the settings set to All Dynasty member notifications, it glitches out and I get no notice. After Quitting the game and going back after an extended play session seems to fix that bug) so now I have about 30 people marked as important. If I could organize them into lists that would be great aid. For example a list for imprisoned characters of interests (dont want them kings to die before I ransom them) children who are about to come of age and need a mentor set, and I also like to keep an eye on people with good congenital traits who I can kidnap into my court.
 
GinjaNinja32 said:
As far as I can tell, the not-showing-up happens when they're currently assigned to an army which is currently sieging or in battle. Perhaps they could be shown when an army is sieging (not in battle) but have an icon showing they're leading a unit or subunit in a siege? That way you could reassign them without manually finding them in the army they're assigned to, but also know that they're not idle.
Click to expand...

Possible, but I'm talking about armies that are doing neither - or after those actions. Prior to a battle (2 days from it), I want to organize my commanders and some of them don't show up until I rescue them from the small substacks
 
In the people search function, please add the ability to search for traits. Given the education system its a huge pain to search through everyone in your realm to see who has the right mix of offsetting traits for the person you're trying to educate
 
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Diazizit said:
In the people search function, please add the ability to search for traits. Given the education system its a huge pain to search through everyone in your realm to see who has the right mix of offsetting traits for the person you're trying to educate
Click to expand...
That's already there. Just type in (the first letters of) the name of the trait.
 
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I regularly run in observer to see how the world works out. This probably isn't an interface improvement, but since I usually use the console, could you possibly have a proper observer mode that can be used in single player where you can play god add and substract traits as you please.
 
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