CK2 Dev Diary #71 - AI and Optimization

[Keizer Harm]

What wouldn't I do ?

Play as the leader of a Holy Order or dynamic mercenary company, play as as baron and work my way up from nothing,

=/= landless

create some wicked modded events and decisions

Modding

and play as a true landless character running a Guild, an Adventurer's company or a religious or cultural revolt. Travel the entire world, tagging each capital I visited and then compiling a magnum opus on my travels throughout the known world,

Actual suggestions for landless characters.

create my own religion or society,

Pipe dream.

visit all the Universities and centers of high Learning on the map and then write down all my knowledge in a grand treatise,

Actual suggestions, though not for landless characters specifically.

conquer an unclaimed province in sub-saharan Africa and become Prester John.

You know, the usual.

As you said, you can already do that as a landed character.

So all the real suggestions you have are about travelling, revolts and guilds. People barely travelled in that time, and I strongly doubt you want to fill a significant portion of your campaign with starting revolts in random places. That leaves you as guildmaster or head of the mercenary band... neither of which are dynastic! So you would be spending the majority of your time trying to acquire either of said title.

I'm not trying to attack you personally. But playing landless would be boring as hell. Every single element of the game is meant to be played from the perspective of a landed character, with every goal intended for titles. You wage wars for titles. You get money to spend on building holdings. You would have to ditch 80% of the events if you want to play landless, because they do not apply to you.

There is no real goal to reach, because everything will end when you're dead, and you get to start over again with a new character, except with some artefacts I guess. Are you going to suggest dynastic feuds? Just add them to the base game and spend the development time on working out the kinks in that, rather than retrofitting everything the game has ever stood for to a group it was never intended for.

 

[Rags17]

@Keizer_Harm

1) In the landed_titles.txt file all holy orders and mercenary companies have the tag "landless = true". This tag means that the title is not fixed to any particular area of the map, it currently also means that if this is the last title that the character has then it is game over.

2) At the moment modding is not possible as switching to a landless character simply yields game over. This was not always the case though, up until early last year so long as your last title was Count or above switching to that character would allow you to play on, even if the title was landless. This yielded all sorts of strange effects, but it was still playable. Again, at the moment this is not even possible, there appears to be no effective workaround.

3) FWIW a few years back I got quite deep into creating a custom Landless mod. I made five custom landless titles with five custom landless mercenary types (Rebel Mob, Adventurer's Company, Merchant's Caravan, Rogues Band and Travelers Party), edited all the Councilor decisions to be relevant to landless characters (eg Join Court, Befriend Locals, Set up Trade Stall etc), and was working on events and decisions when they introduced Horse Lords and stuffed up 90% of my work. The idea was that the player would move to an area, set up their custom Holding then try to set up ties and relationships with the local area to start yielding money, Prestige or Piety. Depending on the landless title type there would also be options to join the local magnates wars with a view to getting an honorary or even a landed title, gaining more followers or whatever.

4) This wasn't even on my radar when I was working on my original mod, but with the new mechanics for societies and artifacts etc it would be dead easy to mod in a generic new religion or society and make decisions and events for the player to "create" them.

5) One decision set I was working on would have added a custom decision for a Traveler character to "Visit Court" at various points on the map in order to give the player a "visited_xanadu" flag or whatever,. Eventually they would be given the option to write it all down in return for much prestige, Piety or even tech points, under the new artifacts rules it would even be possible to create a book artifact detailing your travels. Another decision I had in mind would have allowed the Merchant player to Trade with the Locals, this would have eventually led to a decision to set up a Trade Post or even build a new City.

6) A player CAN become Prester John, but they have to be landed first. Another mod that I was working on was much more limited in scope and would simply have allowed any Anglo-Saxon ruler under Norman rule to pack it all in in return for a fistful of cash and a new (landless) mercenary company, if you then traveled to Constantinople you got the new decision to carve out a realm somewhere on the Black Sea and become a vassal of the ERE. This apparently DID actually happen (see here), it wouldn't work as a landed character and the diplo range rules make sure that it can NEVER happen without mods.

7) Since you've obviously never played a landless character you don't know how much fun they can be. You never lose the game for losing your last title and you always jump in as the next ruler when your old character dies. There are also no pesky claimants to worry about, nor is there any reason to worry about heirs or dynastic marriage. Mercenary leaders also can't (technically) marry), although you can take lovers, have concubines (if your religion/government allows it) and Seduce women, or even marry off one of your courtiers, which meant that sometimes you would inherit the title already married. All part and parcel of being a commoner I suppose.

My favorite campaign of all time was playing as the Grand,master of a custom Holy Order, you can read all about it here. This mob gained and lost a landed realm two times, once in Jerusalem and once in Afghanistan of all places (check out the AAR,, it all makes perfect sense) before finally fabricating a claim and conquering Malta. They eventually became masters of the western Mediterranean before another patch came along and invalidated the savegame.

Finally and yet again, I know that playing as a landless character would not be for everyone, but the same is true of playing as a Tribal Chief, a Nomadic Khagan, a Merchant Doge or even as a petty Count in the middle of a stable realm such as the HRE. No one is forcing anyone to play this way, I just want the option to do so.

Ideally this would be by way of a landless centered DLC, but I'm not holding my breath. The best I am hoping for is that PDX simply returns the functionality that was lost after that patch two years ago, we modders can take it from there.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Well... I should say I am impressed. But it seems that the goal of any landless character seems to be to become landed. You spoke of taking over Malta and the Mediterranean, which effectively turns you landed. Could you have fun playing landless for four generations or more?

One might argue that the same is true for the Tribal government, but I will contest that that represents a flaw in the tribal government, rather than a feature.

But you have me convinced, for the sake of people admittedly not all liking to play the same way, that they should open up the possibility if it is reasonably possible (won't result in Ironman bugs that will allow a player to become unlanded and survive).