Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Crusader Kings II 69948 Bug Reports 19720 User Modifications 10606 Suggestions 5969 Tech Support 6376 After Action Reports
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

CK2 Dev Diary #46: Surveying the Survey

Greetings!

In today’s Dev Diary we would like to present some of the information we gathered from the CK2 survey we did some time ago. The survey is based on a sample size of between 4000-5000 answers per data point. Note that we have not measured what you thought of any free features that came in the major patches, but rather this survey focused on the paid features of our various DLC’s. I won’t present all of it in this DD, but I will bring up some interesting points that might amuse you!


Amount of survey takers that both Owns and Plays a given DLC:

Sword of Islam - 90.8%

Legacy of Rome - 92,36%

Sunset Invasion - 71,54%

The Republic - 89.32%

The Old Gods - 96,17%

Sons of Abraham - 91,92%

Rajas of India - 82,29%

Charlemagne - 91,66%

Way of Life - 92,97%

Horse Lords - 82,91%

Conclave - 81,57%

Reaper’s Due - 79,29%


The DLC’s that built the most hype before they were released:

The Old Gods
  • A total of 92,05% of the ones taking the test were excited for the DLC - and most impressively a whopping 64,01% were extremely interested!
The Reaper’s Due
  • A total of 80,87% of the ones taking the test were excited for the DLC - and of those 47,27% were extremely interested. While The Old Gods tops the charts for pre-release hype, The Reaper’s Due also significantly peaked the interests!
Way of Life
  • A total of 77,83% of the ones taking the test were excited for the DLC - and of those 42,38% were extremely interested.
While many DLC’s built a lot of interest before they were released, these three stand out from the crowd.


The DLC’s that built the least hype:

Sunset Invasion
  • A total of 34,3% of the ones taking the test were not interested in this DLC, with 33,10% being indifferent.
This leaves the Sunset Invasion as the only DLC that did not manage to build much interest.

The DLC’s that exceeded your expectations the most:

The Reaper’s Due
  • A total of 76,73% of the ones taking the test thought that it was better than expected - where 42,52% thought it exceeded their expectations by a landslide!
The Old Gods
  • A total of 82,53% of the ones taking the test thought that it was better than expected - where 41,91% thought it exceeded their expectations by a landslide!
This means that while The Old Gods is the overall winner, The Reaper’s Due had the most people being completely blown away.

And the other side of the coin, the DLC’s that did not live up to your expectations:

Sunset Invasion
  • A total of 26,97% of the ones taking the test thought that this DLC didn’t live up to their initial impressions, with a respectable 49,17% thinking it was just as expected.
This leaves the Sunset Invasion as the only DLC where for a lot of players it did not live up to the initial impression.

The DLC’s that has content you use the most often:

Way of Life
  • With a whopping total of 96,83% of the ones taking the test using content from this DLC in just about every game they play, Way of Life takes the unchallenged top spot. Of these, 85,57% use Way of Life content in every game they play.
The Reaper’s Due
  • A total of 89,69% of the ones taking the test uses content from this DLC in just about every game they play. Of these, 69,80% use The Reaper’s Due content in every game they play.
The Old Gods
  • A total of 89,95% of the ones taking the test uses content from this DLC in just about every game they play. Of these, 56,23% use The old Gods content in every game they play.

The DLC’s that has content you use the least often:

Sunset Invasion
  • A total of 61,97% rarely use any content from this DLC. Among them 26,69% never use any content.
Rajas of India
  • A total of 49,52% rarely use any content from this DLC. Among them 13,64% never use any content.
Sword of Islam
  • A total of 33,17% rarely use any content from this DLC. Though only 3,91% never use any content.

The most AND least well received feature, per DLC:

Sword of Islam
  • Most: Polygamy
  • Least: Decadence

Legacy of Rome
  • Most: Retinues
  • Least: Ability to Restore Rome
(Note that there were only 2 data points for this DLC, Restoring Rome actually scored quite high, but retinues has it beat by a landslide)


Sunset Invasion
  • Most: Aztec Culture & Religion
  • Least: Aztec Invasion Event

The Republic
  • Most: Family Palaces
  • Least: Republic CB’s and war restrictions

The Old Gods
  • Most: Playable Pagans and Zoroastrians (This was the most well received feature of all features, with a massive majority of 92,55% rating this feature as great)
  • Least: Adventurers

Sons of Abraham
  • Most: Pilgrimages
  • Least: Restoring the Kingdom of Israel

Rajas of India
  • Most: New Playable Religions
  • Least: Jungle Terrain

Charlemagne
  • Most: Custom Kingdoms and Empires
  • Least: Zun Religion (This is the feature that interested the least players overall, with 46,22% rating this feature as uninteresting, narrowly beating Jungle Terrain by ~4%)

Way of Life
  • Most: Lifestyle Traits
  • Least: Character Focus
(Note that once again there were only 2 data points for this DLC)


Horse Lords
  • Most: Silk Road Features
  • Least: Clan Politics

Conclave
  • Most: Reworked Laws
  • Least: Favors

Reaper’s Due
  • Most: New Maimed Traits
  • Least: Seclusion


The additions that you rate the highest in a new DLC:

  1. New Events - With an overwhelming majority of 73,16% appreciating this type of addition very much.

  2. New Starting Dates - With 51,53% appreciating this type of addition very much.

  3. Reworked Previously Existing Features - With 44,25% appreciating this type of addition very much.

  4. Expanded Map - With 38,94% appreciating this type of addition very much.

  5. New Succession Laws - With 29,16% appreciating this type of addition very much.

  6. Interface Skins - With 25,24% appreciating this type of addition very much.

We hope that this was interesting to you, even though it’s in a heavily condensed format - hopefully we’ll be able to present even more survey results in the future!
 
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
New start dates don't have to be huge additions like Charlemagne or The Gold Gods were. Most people are asking for minor bookmarks like the Alexiad, the Fourth Crusade or the Hundred Years War.
 
Last edited:
So people like pagans and new start dates?

Fall of Rome gib.
 
rageair said:
Charlemagne
  • Most: Custom Kingdoms and Empires
  • Least: Zun Religion (This is the feature that interested the least players overall, with 46,22% rating this feature as uninteresting, narrowly beating Jungle Terrain by ~4%)
Click to expand...

It's things like these where I'm glad PDX values fan communication but also has enough creative vision to experiment and do things that might be unpopular or unnoticed.

I enjoyed playing the Zunbils more than than anything else in CK2. Charlemagne was my only purchased DLC then and I bought all the other released ones due to its least acknowledged feature.
 
DàbiànLājīdàrén said:
Why do people keep saying India doesn't interact with other regions? I've even seen Russia turn Hindu before and one time Jerusalem was owned by Hindus. If anything India needs to have less influence and not convert all of central Asia and the nomads to Hinduism. More often than not Hinduism destroys Buddhism and Jainism leading it to become the largest religion in the game. In game mechanic terms, this is overpowered as hell, and leads to insanely ahistorically overpowered Indian kingdoms that bitchslap Muslims left and right.
Click to expand...

Is that Indians conquering all the way to Russia and Jerusalem, or local rulers converting to Hinduism due to events or Nomadic adventurers? I've recently seen more border adjustments near the Indus than I used to but a strong Muslim realm subduing India or a Indian realm moving successfully into Persia and beyond is still very, very rare in my campaigns. I'm hoping the adjustments to Holy Orders in the next patch will create some more dynamism between the Muslims and Indians.
 
Serenity84 said:
New start dates don't have to be huge additions like Charlemagne or The Gold Gods were. Most people are asking for minor bookmarks like the Alexiad, the Fourth Crusade or the Hundreds Years War.
Click to expand...

For me, I would like both 1000 AD and 1100 AD as start Dates. Especially the 1100 Start Date as that was when Henry I of England started his reigh, and it would be a wonderful way to see and Alternate History develop out of that.

In OTL England, his only legitimate son drowned on the White Ship. Out of that totally accidental death, England got both a Succession War, and the Plantagenets. What might have happened if neither happened?
 
DàbiànLājīdàrén said:
Why do people keep saying India doesn't interact with other regions? I've even seen Russia turn Hindu before and one time Jerusalem was owned by Hindus. If anything India needs to have less influence and not convert all of central Asia and the nomads to Hinduism. More often than not Hinduism destroys Buddhism and Jainism leading it to become the largest religion in the game. In game mechanic terms, this is overpowered as hell, and leads to insanely ahistorically overpowered Indian kingdoms that bitchslap Muslims left and right.
Click to expand...

I don't think this has as much to do with India as with a random event that could flip provinces between Buddhism/Hinduism/Jainism. The event used to fire outside of India and cause Hinduism to randomly appear from Buddhism in central Asia but it has since been fixed. With diplo-range I don't think Indians can normally convert the steppes.

In my experience the interaction with India usually comes down to some Hindu realm conquering Baluchistan, which is a bit meh. I'd like to see Islam get into India instead, but even the event-spawned Ghaznavids don't seem to be able to have any kind of lasting influence.
 
I'm a pretty dumb guy, you know. I just recently bought Sunset Invasion on impulse because I wanted to own all the DLC for the game, and I now own every single thing you can buy from Paradox for CKII. But I will never play it. Not once. The premise is just too stupid.

Yes, that's right devs. I bought a product I will never play, not once, just because I like y'all's work.
 
SI was a side project not taking resources from main CK development. Five years and people still trying to claim otherwise, dont know to laugh or cry.

MM hade most content on hermetics not the satanists. Cant find the quote right now. Just more people making things up to justify their anger at things they dont like...
 
pquinn232 said:
I'm a pretty dumb guy, you know. I just recently bought Sunset Invasion on impulse because I wanted to own all the DLC for the game, and I now own every single thing you can buy from Paradox for CKII. But I will never play it. Not once. The premise is just too stupid.

Yes, that's right devs. I bought a product I will never play, not once, just because I like y'all's work.
Click to expand...


At least you gave them money to do other stuff :D
 
Frederic III said:
Yes, we all know Sunset Invasion is the worst of them all. It would have been more interesting to set aside this minor expansion to focus on the major ones.
Click to expand...
Right I feel like if the least like DLC is the fantasy one than PDX does a good job on portraying history :D. I know whenever I get an obscure event or come across some historic title i didn't know existed I go look up the real life equivalent, which always ends up in hours off reading :D.
 
Caspoi said:
I don't play catholics all that much which is probably why I don't use it a lot, but with jews I would imagine quite a few have at least played them once or twice and then the quest to form Israel would be central in most playthroughs.
Click to expand...
It is the promised land for god's chosen people after all :D
 
I, for one, like Sunset Invasion.

-The historicity of it doesn't bother me, since this is a game where I have Mongols restore the Roman Empire.
-Mechanically it's nice to give Iberia and Britannia something to worry about in the lategame, rather than just watching different hordes trade control of Persia for 300 years from the safety of Ireland.
-Even in games where I'm nowhere near the Atlantic, I still get a kick out of seeing the pre-invasion events pop up. They make the world feel more alive (Even if the world wasn't actually that interconnected back then -- See MongolRomans)
-Adding more cultures/religions is almost never a bad thing. I have no doubt that if your next DLC included chinese/korean/japanese culture, even if it was just for the ruler designer / console, even without an accompanying horde or map extension, you'd make a lot of people very happy.

Just the AARs we got out of Sunset Invasion already justify its existence. Please please please don't let this survey (or the bitter people who are still complaining about this DLC years later in this thread) keep you from making more small cool offbeat DLCs like SI.
 
It's too bad the surveys had SI in them; I'd like to see one set of survey results with SI filtered out as it's a rather obvious outlier that would naturally garner attention.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back