CK2 Dev Diary #39 - As you wish...

[Moah]

Hello everyone, I’m Gwenael Tranvouez, the Tech Lead on CK2, and I’m here to introduce a new feature for this Dev Diary.

Don’t you hate it when you’re start a war against a neighbour, counting on your allies to come and help and they all decide the best idea is to attach to your army so that you’ll take attrition? So do we!

So we’ve taken another leaf from EU4’s big book of tricks and we’ve added Ally Orders. When you lead a war, you can tell other participants what to do:

• Hunt down enemy armies
• Or focus on sieging provinces.
• Attach to a specific army
• Siege a specific province

The first two orders are given through a new tab in the military screen, which also summarizes what orders all your allies have:

The last two are given through a new button on the unit or province screen:

As long as they’re in the war, your allies will try their best to fulfill your wishes, reverting to their default behavior when unable to comply. Unless, of course, they got bigger fish to fry, such as a big revolt in their own territory, or their own war to focus on.

The tooltip for AI units also mention what orders their owners have:

We’ve also improved the AI’s goal selection in wars, and general pathing so they’re more useful to have around in general.

That's it for this week.

 

[Meneth]

That's good news. Still I miss some information about the expansion and societies

What sort of info are you missing?

Does this also apply to tribal vassals?

Not 100% sure, but I think so.

 

[Moah]

Can players do this for other players in multiplayer?

No, this is only for AI allies. It is expected that you actually talk to your human allies

Just to be clear, @Moah, since you didn't say: is this patch content or part of the DLC?

This is part of the DLC.

Then, when the leader is an AI, would it give orders to a player?

No, this is more of a quality of life feature for players with AI allies in wars.

I'd guess it wouldn't... But my question would be: will AI leaders also coordinate their AI allies, making some wars more rational, esp. the Crusades?

AI already have a system to coordinate, where the war leader would decide on goals and assign ally armies to them. This didn't work as well when the player was leading the war (an AI would decide on goals for all other AI) because players do not value the same things as AIs.

 

[Moah]

Does this also apply to tribal vassals?

Yes. It actually applies to anyone joining a war you lead.

 

[Servancour]

is there any chance there might be some clarification to the expanded army interface with regards to subcommanders, and what it is they actually do and how they work? I never really could figure out that mechanic.

These days, being able to appoint a subcommander is a somewhat obsolete mechanic. Since we only have a limited number of commander slots available, you don't want to waste them by having a commander appointed to a subunit.

While I don't remember exactly how it works at the top of my head, the short version would be something like this:
A flank leader will provide his stats and bonuses to the entire flank and all units in that flank. He is also the one that affects the chances of what your next tactic will be.

The leader of a subunit however, only provides his stats and bonuses to that single unit. Allowing you to stack the bonuses for a subunit from two commanders. Back from when you had all of your vassals as your commanders, this would allow you to provide further bonuses to specific subunits. Say if someone is a really good cavalry leader, you might want to appoint him the leader of a very cavalry focused subunit, rather than the entire flank.

Does that make any sense?

And as I mentioned, I don't remember the exact details. Memory is after all, a curious thing.

 

[Meneth]

...and that's at least the patch part i hope.

Of course.

 

[Moah]

...yes, beacuse Princess Bride is the only franchise to ever use the expression "As you wish...". It's not like it's one of the most overused quotes in the history of cinema and gaming.

It was, however, the reference I was going for.

 

[Meneth]

EDIT: Nevermind, I think the goal selection UI is part of the DLC and the under-the-hood AI improvements is part of the patch.

Pretty much.