CK2 Dev Diary #55: Nurture vs Nuisance

[Enriador]

the old education system was overpowered and imbalanced.

Yeah, nowadays we just use Thrift focus all the way to the stars (unless you like to risk Cruel/Craven/Slothful/Dull/Arbitrary etc for a bit of emotion).

It only cared about one thing and that was the guardian's education trait and then it gave a weighted random for the ward to get theirs in the same attribute. It didn't take into account the ward's or guardians stats, traits or anything else.

The simplicity of the old system was, in my opinion, its great advantage over the current one. Even so, it wasn't that simple: while the only thing you had to do was to choose a guardian (instead of a guardian AND a Childhood Focus AND a Education Focus) the education passed through several factors. The guardian stats/traits actually were taken into account: a guardian with high Learning but who is Cruel will teach their ward good Learning but will probably make bad choices during childhood events. The wiki has more details; it worked pretty well for four years. (http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Education).

Children got the exact same personality traits as adults which also made no sense, you had no control in how your ward's education was focused it was just the trait of the guardian and no real development over time.
I never really got why people hated Conclave's system, the big gripe I always saw was people disliking the spam of events for all your court's kids but this upcoming patch is fixing that.

What doesn't make sense on they having the same traits as adults? I am a teacher myself, and I can identify greed, kindness, envy and diligence in kids - volatile traits for sure, subject to lots of changes throughout one's infancy - but so what? Conclave does not model such flexible state of mind either.

We didn't have big control over the ward's education, for sure - only the guardian's education trait and a certain combination of personality traits matter. But what about those of us who don't want a big deal of micromanagement? Damn it, I just wish to assign guardians and let the events roll.

You see, I don't want to send the new system into oblivion - I respect its potential and I am sure lots of people love it. I just want choice.

 

[Masternachos]

Second, consider making it so that secret cults / members of those cults are more likely to be discovered or revealed the larger the society is? That adds danger as the cult gets bigger and gives the player a good reason to be careful about who they spend their time recruiting and timing when to actually reveal themselves.

It would make sense if certain traits (craven comes to mind) make a member more likely to reveal information on a secret society when threatened, etc.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

The button may be the ingame representation of China. As in China is not physically present in the game, but when you click on the button you see the country screen for China or something similar. I can't think what else it could be and that seems like it'd be the most logical since the devs said we'd have to wait and see how China is represented.

 

[Duruial]

How do the rule set and the honorary teacher title work together? For example, I could foresee wanting to monitor the education and events for my children and siblings (as we all know, the primary heir doesn't always... make it) but have a teacher monitor the other brats who are running around my court. If I assign a teacher does that overrule the rule as it relates to when the game notifies me about child events?

 

[blackninja9939]

The simplicity of the old system was, in my opinion, its great advantage over the current one. Even so, it wasn't that simple: while the only thing you had to do was to choose a guardian (instead of a guardian AND a Childhood Focus AND a Education Focus) the education passed through several factors. The guardian stats/traits actually were taken into account: a guardian with high Learning but who is Cruel will teach their ward good Learning but will probably make bad choices during childhood events. The wiki has more details; it worked pretty well for four years. (http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Education)..

I think you are mistaken here, as the page you linked to specifically states "guardian skills, personality traits or opinion have no influence" on the education trait of the ward. It specifically says that. They gain attribute points but their actual education trait is not effected by any of that nor does the wards end attributes change their final education trait.
Choosing a focus allows you to choose a guardian you want your child to take after personality wise but still allow control over their education trait. In the old system if you wanted your child to get a martial education you would have to assign them to a martial trait character even if they had awful stats and personality traits and would raise your child to be awful.

What doesn't make sense on they having the same traits as adults? I am a teacher myself, and I can identify greed, kindness, envy and diligence in kids - volatile traits for sure, subject to lots of changes throughout one's infancy - but so what? Conclave does not model such flexible state of mind either.

Because a 6 year old does not have the same thought processes or acts on say lust etc? You can identify where they might be going yeah sure but they most certainly are not the exact same acts and definitely not for the CK2 clear cut trait system. Conclave models it better by having those traits actually develop into adult ones and have them make an actual impact on their final education.

We didn't have big control over the ward's education, for sure - only the guardian's education trait and a certain combination of personality traits matter. But what about those of us who don't want a big deal of micromanagement? Damn it, I just wish to assign guardians and let the events roll.

Well then you have nothing to complain about with the upcoming patch if that is your main gripe as the teacher handles all of it? Nothing to complain about with regards to the possible spam event and notification to choose the focus spam that is.

You see, I don't want to send the new system into oblivion - I respect its potential and I am sure lots of people love it. I just want choice.

I agree, choice is always good! I just cannot see the arguments in favour of the old system. It was far more random and with less player choice and the education trait only took one thing into account whereas the Conclave system takes into account far more and has the ability to specifically choose outcomes and influence their growth.
I respect your opinion! I do see the benefits of it being more simple but to be fair the Conclave system really is not the complicated, you choose a guardian (if you want otherwise it defaults to educator allowing you to influence their trait outcomes) and then choose a childhood education to influence their adult traits and their final choice about what you want their final education trait to be.

 

[Metz]

In the MA, "instructor" was strictly military, tutor and teacher didn't existed til the end of CK2 timeline (trainer is even more recent) ; a mentor is more an adviser, and both Tutor and Mentor are preceptors (they take care of 1 child at a time).


I don't think tutor is a very good choice, since it doesn't even describe very well the role - a tutor is more of a preceptor, though he is supposed to take care of ALL children.
I remain convinced that magister/master or "scholar" are better choices, magister being the most correct choice - a magister was usually a cleric or a monk who took care of the education of multiple children that precisely didn't have preceptors, and scholar is wide enough to cover all aspects of the function.
I may be wrong, but I feel that people like "tutor" more only because the word feels more medieval (which is false), so it would be a good thing to provide arguments. "Magister" has the advantage of being historically somewhat accurate, and it's exactly what "teacher" means.

How about having these in a separate tab?

Diplomacy - Court Counselor
Martial - Court Instructor
Steward - Court Master
Intrigue - Court Mentor
Learning - Court Magister


Also, the game seems to be missing guilds and all those craftsmanship cartels.

 

[Daser von Wulf]

Yeah improved childhood woooo

 

[klopkr]

@Doomdark Can you change the teacher title to something more fitting?

Court Educator or Court Tutor sounds a lot more like a real medieval position.

Also the dragon button is pretty obviously the button to interact with off map china. It's placed in a similar way as the HRE and MoH buttons in Eu4 and one of the DD's recently mentioned some special interactions with china.

 

[Enriador]

I think you are mistaken here, as the page you linked to specifically states "guardian skills, personality traits or opinion have no influence" on the education trait of the ward. It specifically says that. They gain attribute points but their actual education trait is not effected by any of that nor does the wards end attributes change their final education trait.
Choosing a focus allows you to choose a guardian you want your child to take after personality wise but still allow control over their education trait. In the old system if you wanted your child to get a martial education you would have to assign them to a martial trait character even if they had awful stats and personality traits and would raise your child to be awful.

I am not mistaken at all: the wiki contradicts itself. Here is the real deal though (I suggest you read the whole article):

"Personality traits are also gained during tutoring and help define the character.

The tutor makes decisions on the education events, and tend to pick decisions resulting in traits similar to their own. What events show up are primarily based upon the current traits of the child; good traits make further good traits rarer, while bad traits make further bad traits rarer. What the guardian chooses (if the guardian is not the player itself) depends heavily upon what traits he has. Some options will be locked or unlocked based upon his traits, while others are merely made more or less likely."

As you see, the guardian's traits and skills DO matter.

And really, the focus system is still very random, and strongly unbalanced; Thrift and Duty are well above the rest in the vast majority of cases.

Because a 6 year old does not have the same thought processes or acts on say lust etc? You can identify where they might be going yeah sure but they most certainly are not the exact same acts and definitely not for the CK2 clear cut trait system. Conclave models it better by having those traits actually develop into adult ones and have them make an actual impact on their final education.

Conclave models it slightly better - it gives a single, shallow layer of representation of what a kid really thinks or aspires while the old one doesn't even attempt to do so - but I don't wish to trade a streamlined, well-established system for a spam-heavy (solved if one accepts leaving everyone else without education), multi-staged one just to accurately represent childhood evolution. Again, it's a matter of choice and playstyle - some love complex simulations, others prefer things as simple and direct as possible.

Well then you have nothing to complain about with the upcoming patch if that is your main gripe as the teacher handles all of it? Nothing to complain about with regards to the possible spam event and notification to choose the focus spam that is.

It's not just the spam events itself: I actually like to educate everyone in my court! I just don't wish to 1) assign a guardian 2) assign a focus 3) assign another focus for everyone. I enjoyed doing the first step (and back then the only step) on every young soul around, but the other couple of steps are annoying for me most of the time.

All in all, I have the choice of either not educating everyone, ignoring less critical children, or micromanaging something that can get really bothersome the larger a court or dynasty gets. Not nice at all.

I agree, choice is always good! I just cannot see the arguments in favour of the old system. It was far more random and with less player choice and the education trait only took one thing into account whereas the Conclave system takes into account far more and has the ability to specifically choose outcomes and influence their growth.
I respect your opinion! I do see the benefits of it being more simple but to be fair the Conclave system really is not the complicated, you choose a guardian (if you want otherwise it defaults to educator allowing you to influence their trait outcomes) and then choose a childhood education to influence their adult traits and their final choice about what you want their final education trait to be.

It is not too complicated, but it IS complicated whereas the old system never was. Again, it's a regard of whether someone wishes to have more control versus less things to worry about. You like simple things? Fine, but don't complain when your heir's education gets messed up as a Dutiful Cleric. You like more control over stuff? Great, but don't complain about spamming kids who don't get any education because you couldn't bother to follow all the steps to sucessfully educate someone.

I just want to choose a guardian and be done with it, like I have been doing since release. If people want two, three, or even four chances to choose a different focus depending on the kid's age it's fine for me - as long it is not imposed on others.

TLDR: I like the old system's simplicity and lack of greater control just because it makes me click less buttons.

 

[blackninja9939]

I am not mistaken at all: the wiki contradicts itself. Here is the real deal though (I suggest you read the whole article):

"Personality traits are also gained during tutoring and help define the character.

The tutor makes decisions on the education events, and tend to pick decisions resulting in traits similar to their own. What events show up are primarily based upon the current traits of the child; good traits make further good traits rarer, while bad traits make further bad traits rarer. What the guardian chooses (if the guardian is not the player itself) depends heavily upon what traits he has. Some options will be locked or unlocked based upon his traits, while others are merely made more or less likely."

As you see, the guardian's traits and skills DO matter.

I am pretty sure the wiki is not contradicting itself, what it is saying is that the guardians personality traits matter when deciding what personality traits the kids get via event. The guardians traits other than their education trait does not matter when giving the ward their education trait.
Guardian personality = Important for kid personality
Guardian education = Important for kid education
Guardian personality =/= Important for kid education

And really, the focus system is still very random, and strongly unbalanced; Thrift and Duty are well above the rest in the vast majority of cases.

It is still less random than the old system though surely? As the childhood traits DO matter when the education trait is given which allows you to reduce the randomness there. Balancing is a totally different thing than it not being random

Conclave models it slightly better - it gives a single, shallow layer of representation of what a kid really thinks or aspires while the old one doesn't even attempt to do so - but I don't wish to trade a streamlined, well-established system for a spam-heavy (solved if one accepts leaving everyone else without education), multi-staged one just to accurately represent childhood evolution. Again, it's a matter of choice and playstyle - some love complex simulations, others prefer things as simple and direct as possible.

I get your point, there is no pleasing everyone as I think the forums learned from the Defensive Pacts lol

It's not just the spam events itself: I actually like to educate everyone in my court! I just don't wish to 1) assign a guardian 2) assign a focus 3) assign another focus for everyone. I enjoyed doing the first step (and back then the only step) on every young soul around, but the other couple of steps are annoying for me most of the time.

All in all, I have the choice of either not educating everyone, ignoring less critical children, or micromanaging something that can get really bothersome the larger a court or dynasty gets. Not nice at all.

I see your point there, it does take more time but that time totals to about 3 seconds for a button click but still you are right it does take more time

It is not too complicated, but it IS complicated whereas the old system never was. Again, it's a regard of whether someone wishes to have more control versus less things to worry about. You like simple things? Fine, but don't complain when your heir's education gets messed up as a Dutiful Cleric. You like more control over stuff? Great, but don't complain about spamming kids who don't get any education because you couldn't bother to follow all the steps to sucessfully educate someone.

To be fair anything is more complicated than the old system

I just want to choose a guardian and be done with it, like I have been doing since release. If people want two, three, or even four chances to choose a different focus depending on the kid's age it's fine for me - as long it is not imposed on others.

TLDR: I like the old system's simplicity and lack of greater control just because it makes me click less buttons.

You can still just choose a guardian and be done with it if you want but I do understand where you are coming from, just assigning the guardian and then being done with it can be good too!

TLDR: Yeah it takes more time, but not that much time and reduces the randomness. I still agree there should be a rule though!

 

[Tavior]

Well I had a few ironman breaking apart because my main character turned into a Feudal title before I even meet the requirement to actually reform the religious.

So I will be looking forward to this fix the most.

 

[Mike Louis]

I suspect that clicking the dragon button on the mini map will take the player to a new East Asia map (with India possibly visible on both the Current and East Asian maps). I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a new game rule that would allow the player to play either the current map only, the East Asia map only, or both (default) with the dragon button being then activated.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Hello everyone!

Yes folks, it’s time to answer that age old question: can human behavior be nurtured, or is it too much of a nuisance? Educating children in CK2 is a powerful tool to sculpt your future character and supporting cast, but it can also become a bit of nuisance, at least if you have Conclave. This issue has been on my radar for awhile, but we finally got around to addressing it with a three pronged assault. First, since children don’t actually need an assigned Guardian or a set Childhood or Education Focus, we added a Game Rule controlling when you get Education Alerts; for all children, your close relatives, or just your own character and your primary heir. Secondly, there really isn’t any reason why you should not be able to assign a Guardian for children below the age of 6 - it’s just annoying to have to wait for a specific birthday. So... now you can. Lastly, and probably most significantly, being the default “Educator” for all children at court means you can get spammed with a lot of upbringing events concerning kids you don’t care about. Thus, we added a new “Honorary Title” called Teacher. The Court Teacher becomes the default Educator for all kids at court that don’t have a specific Guardian (so you can still make yourself the Guardian for two kids you care about and get their upbringing events, for example.) Together, these changes make upbringing far less of a hassle.

View attachment 278047

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But enough about that; time to say a few words about the next patch! We’ve been keeping a close eye on your feedback and have decided to release an Open Beta patch (probably next week) which should fix the worst outstanding issues and tide you over the summer. The patch should hopefully address most of your concerns. We will not go into full detail for all points now (we’ll save that for when it comes out), but we’re hoping to have solutions for the following issues:

• Infinite Epidemics
• Tribal Inheritance Issues (Tribal rulers turning Feudal on succession)
• AI Pathfinding during Crusades
• Soul Corruption events appearing for non-Satanists
• Secret Cult Frequency - For this one we did a lot of testing & balancing, hopefully with the following changes they shouldn’t appear too frequently:
  • When a Secret Religious Cult reveals itself, all members will join in the conversion instead of just the ones in the same realm
  • The AI is now more often unsuccessful in recruiting new members to Secret Religious Cults
  • Priests, Zealous characters and Paranoid characters are now much less likely to join a secret cult
  • Characters accused of Apostasy (with the modifier) can no longer Induce Sympathy, Induct or Invite characters to Secret Cults
  • The cooldown between inviting/inducting characters into Secret Cults increased to 10 years from 5
  • The AI is now less likely to recruit/induct characters into cults if they are in a realm without a player
  • Lowered the maximum amount of members the AI can recruit into Secret Religious Cults to a more modest number (from 370 to 91)
  • Characters in Secret Religious Cults can now only use Prepare Grounds in counties they or their vassals own
  • The AI is now much less inclined to create a secret religious cult just because their liege is a player

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for next week’s dev diary, and be sure to check out the livestream today, starting at 17:00 CET (not 16 this time.)

Secret Cults are new Retinue.

People think they know what they want but it will make Secret Cults too weak IMO.

People are just demanding half of India convert to Islam then acting suprised when all of their vasals are secretly Hindu.

The only real issue is that secret cults can spread to other nations.

 

[kebzero]

Will Steam achievements be achievable with the beta patch?

 

[sreckom92]

I suspect that clicking the dragon button on the mini map will take the player to a new East Asia map (with India possibly visible on both the Current and East Asian maps). I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a new game rule that would allow the player to play either the current map only, the East Asia map only, or both (default) with the dragon button being then activated.

That sounds like a really awkward place to put such an important button.
Also, if they'd go for a dragon symbol to represent East Asia, don't you think they would put up a bit nicer artwork, rather than a screaming dragon skull?

 

[spendabuck]

I don't understand why everyone's assuming the dragon will have something to do with China. After all, there's a place that has much more to do with dragons than China does...


On a more serious note, I think that it would be interesting to have East Asia as a separate map, though I think it would be better for it to just be part of the same contiguous map (if the button is even about China).

 

[TheDungen]

Looks good, but I'd suggest court scholar or something other than teacher.

Nah teacher is fine, the title of a teacher in medieval europe was doctor, which literally translates to teacher, they could go with that but since doctor means a physician today it migth be better to translate it to english, thus teacher. Not that I personally wouldn't rather see doctor.

Seperate map with ingame switch would be strange...

Empire total war did it. Granted that was because it didn't show the entire area.

Personally I'm not a big fan of doing AI adjustments based on the the fact if they are acting against the player. The above suggests that the player is less likely to see any Religious Cults, while the cults in AI realms will grow slower - correct?

I got to disagree, the AI can act in diffrent ways towards AI than towards players because players can do all sort of annoying exploits. Having the AI treat other Ais like players is hamstringing it.

Weren't medieval "teachers" called "magistri" (sing. magister) or "master"? Scholar is fine I think, tutor why not, but pedagogue seems dubious (not very medieval).

Pretty sure a teacher was a doctor, it literally means teacher, it's the title used in rome, and latin was the language of the scholars in this age.
Even today magister is a other word for having a master in a subject, while being doctor is a much more prestigious title.

But it doesn't make any sense as a second map seperate from the main one. The world was connected. How would you conquere Tibet as China if the maps are seperated? And why should they be seperated at all? The game doesn't go faster because they still need to make all the calculations on the second map.

It doesn't make sense as an ingame switch.

Maybee it's just the minimap that switches?

Instead of having teacher why not have an "honorary title" for a teacher in each education field?

Diplomacy - Mentor
Martial - Trainer
Steward - Teacher
Intrigue - Tutor
Learning - Instructor

Then you may as well merge them with the council posts.

And you are probably not going to get it because the old education system was overpowered and imbalanced.

Well they could get it back in a will disable achievements sort of way I guess.

How about having these in a separate tab?

Diplomacy - Court Counselor
Martial - Court Instructor
Steward - Court Master
Intrigue - Court Mentor
Learning - Court Magister


Also, the game seems to be missing guilds and all those craftsmanship cartels.

Then you may as well merge them with the council.

 

[ArjhanAkmenos]

While we are on the subject of secret cults, could you make it so that the different people you can summon with the Recrut Commander, Present Debutante and other such buttons have the secret religion of the presser? It would make things much easier.

 

[Boojum Snark]

Really happy about a lot of things mentioned here.

One question: will the court chaplain chasing heretics have any effects on the difficulty to induct/invite into Secret Cults ? Will the decision of the liege following an heretic being identified make a difference ? (OK, that's two questions.) One would assume that being hunted and seeing cult members burn at the stake would have a rather dissuasive effect. On the opposite of course, the liege doing nothing when an heretic is caught should probably make inviting easier. Right now, the "hunting heretics" job is pretty lackluster: burning a random cult member now and then does not do much to stop it from spreading.

 

[Foreign Alien]

I don't think it's China tbh. That's a horrible icon for China. Like what is that thing, it's a dragon skull with swords behind it.