Greetings!
In the last Dev Diary I told you that we were working on a patch, and also teased you that we were adding something you’d requested to it… The work on the patch has been going smoothly, and our talented team has been doing a fantastic job! While the Content Designers and Programmers were fixing bugs, our Artist found the time to add these beauties:
Also worth noting is that the Yemeni area of the Arabian Peninsula has had its history extensively updated, most famously the Sulayhids have been added (including Arwa Sulayhid, one of few playable Muslim queens). If you were looking for a place to experience the middle eastern map changes introduced in JD, we heartily recommend this area!
The changelog itself ended up 121 lines long, quite sizable for a patch. The patch will be released tomorrow, Tuesday.
You can read the full changelog here:
We will be taking a break from Dev Diaries over the upcoming holidays. We will be back next year, keep a look out for a new one in January!
In the last Dev Diary I told you that we were working on a patch, and also teased you that we were adding something you’d requested to it… The work on the patch has been going smoothly, and our talented team has been doing a fantastic job! While the Content Designers and Programmers were fixing bugs, our Artist found the time to add these beauties:
Also worth noting is that the Yemeni area of the Arabian Peninsula has had its history extensively updated, most famously the Sulayhids have been added (including Arwa Sulayhid, one of few playable Muslim queens). If you were looking for a place to experience the middle eastern map changes introduced in JD, we heartily recommend this area!
The changelog itself ended up 121 lines long, quite sizable for a patch. The patch will be released tomorrow, Tuesday.
You can read the full changelog here:
###################
# Free Features
###################
- Added Chinese holding icons
###################
# Balance
###################
- The AI is now much less likely to instantly give up when attacked with a Tributary CB
- You now lose the Kowtow trait when the dynasty in china changes
- When accepting to become a tributary of China, as a demand from asking them to re-open the Silk Road, it no longer costs more Grace than turning down their demand completely
- If you personally kill your own Chinese courtiers, the Emperor will no longer be sorry and refund you the grace
###################
# AI Improvements
###################
- Told the AI that provinces with more holdings, slots, and buildings are better, and it should try to keep those for itself when handing out titles
- Fixed the AI loving viceroyalties so much it'd try to give duchies out as viceroyalties even when not allowed to do so due to being a vassal, and then destroying the duchy in a fit of rage when it realized it wasn't allowed to do so
- Told the AI that if it considers a province to be a high priority target, it should probably also consider it to be a possible target, rather than deciding to not go there just because it is slightly too far away
- Told the AI that it isn't a good idea to grant a title to someone you just revoked a title off of, even if it is a duchy where you hold no land yourself, and that it might be a good idea to hold onto the duchy you just revoked for a little while before giving it away
###################
# Interface
###################
- The "arrange marriage" button is now disabled for characters who can't marry (E.G., eunuchs), and they are no longer included in the selection lists for the diplomatic action
- Fixed toggling province embellishments not working
- Fixed ESC not closing the "you need to restart to apply graphical settings changes" window
- The trade route tooltip now tells you how much the value of the route is changed by external factors, if the route is not currently at 100% value
- The "Personal Combat Skill" value in the command modifier tooltip now lists the sources of the combat skill
- Fixed the contact address in the EULA having some mysterious spacing
- Fixed map modes in some cases being wrongly colored after loading a save
- Units raised from provinces rather than the military view now also obey your rally points
- Fixed the "not pacified by liege" tooltip entry when declaring a war on another vassal mentioning an expiry date of 1 Jan 1 when you've never been pacified. Now only shows expiry if you're currently pacified
- Fixed the event countdown for narrative events in MP overlapping the event text
- Fixed the Ruler Designer not being usable in MP due to the designed character getting reset upon hitting "Ready"
- Fixed apostrophes and periods attempting to leave this mortail coil in on-map names
- Fixed the tooltip for the army coat of arms being unselectable and having a flickering tooltip
- Fixed the title tier requirement in the grant title interaction not getting translated to other languages
- You now get a warning message when loading an old save (one in which the first or second numbers differ. E.G., 2.7.0.0 vs. 2.8.0.0)
- Added a cooldown icon for sending a Physician
- Fixed the effect tooltip for becoming a tributary to China sometimes not fitting into its window
- Removed superfluous information from the effect tooltip for sending an artifact to China
- De-cluttered the menu for interacting with China - the interactions will now only display failed conditions
- Fixed a faulty tooltip in an old event where you ask a friend to help you refine your skills in swordsmanship
- Corrected a few cases of highlighting and capitalizing of game terms missing in the China Menu
- Fixed accented characters in non-English languages not showing up at all in the big decorative letter in narrative events. Now they'll show their Latin equivalent instead. E.G., É will be shown as E
- Fixed the in-game Game Rules window ending up behind other GUI elements on low resolutions
- Fixed the Assassin join requirement tooltip showing the sub-conditions of "any playable ruler" failing even when there's a ruler that meets the conditions
- Fixed the Chinese Emperor getting the Combat Modifier icon at times
- Fixed character names based on ancestors using their regnal names rather than birth names. Most notably, this could result in Chinese emperors using a previous emperor's temple name as their birth name
- Fixed the Border Dispute CB in some cases telling you you'd usurp baronies that would not actually get usurped
- Fixed it not being visible to the player that smiths will not marry
- The Taoist religion now has its own piety icon
- Provided a way to deal with excessively hairy family members
- Updated Grace condition tooltips in the China menu to no longer mentions "offmap power", but simply, eg. "the Tang Empire"
- Fixed text overflowing in the tooltip for Becoming a Tributary to China
- Fixed the multiplayer button being enabled after hitting "Continue" in the launcher and resigning, despite this changing the checksum, making it impossible to actually play MP
- Fixed loading a save then hitting a bookmark causing text about achievements to appear overlapping the scenario description. Fixed the achievement text not appearing after loading a save
###################
# User modding
###################
- Fixed "on_demand = no" in sound causing OnDemand to be turned on rather than off
- The character flag "ai_flag_never_transfer" will now stop the AI from transferring the given character to one of its vassals (used in vanilla to ensure that if you achieve independence from your liege, your liege's liege won't just transfer you back)
- Fixed is_ancestor_of/is_descendant_of giving the wrong result in some cases due to skipping the 0th character in each generation except the first
- The "Quick Save" button now works in ironman; it updates your ironman save
- Added "show_only_failed_conditions = yes" parameter for triggers. When set, this will cause only failed triggers within this trigger (recursively) to show up in the tooltip. Especially useful when you have a lot of edge cases you need to handle, but which are only rarely relevant to the player
- Added missing "Requirements:" header for the offmap interaction buttons
- Second entry of a variable in check_variable trigger can now also set the comparing operator ( =, <, >=, <=, ==, != )
- Added gfx_culture_scope, which scopes to a character's ethnicity
- Fixed event targets not working in the "culture" effect
###################
# Database
###################
- Added roughly 100 historical characters to the history of Yemen during the 11th and 12th century. Arwa Sulayhid is now a playable ruler of Yemen.
- Fixed a handful of provinces having more holdings than holding slots in later start dates; increased the holding slots by one when adding the new holding
- Fixed incorrect holder of d_baghdad in 1289
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed the Shatter Realm CB not destroying landless kingdoms and empires
- Fixed it being possible to end up as one's own lover. Could in very rare cases lead to CTD
- Fixed the AI investing more money than they had in purchasing weapons, jewelry and armor
- Updated the Investigate Artifact Rumors chain, which appeared to never end
- Fixed it being possible for your new liege to just transfer you back to your old one if you achieve independence as the vassal of a vassal
- Fixed kinslayer penalties not being properly applied in all cases for grandparents and grandchildren
- The modifiers from being a tributary now get removed within a day of ceasing to be a tributary, rather than taking up to a month
- Fixed the long reign bonus being applied, and at too high a value, in the year between when the short reign penalty ends and when the long reign bonus was supposed to start
- Fixed it being possible to disband shattered units by selecting more than one unit
- Fixed OOS when hovering over the add_random_education_trait effect
- Fixed and updated the decision to Become Saoshyant, in accordance with the updated duchies of Persia in 2.8
- Fixed being able to grant indestructible artifacts to china without them being removed from your inventory
- Added missing death text for the Kowtow Travels trait
- Fixed achievements being possible to unlock with mods enabled
- Players should no longer be lured by foreign preachers, if they are of a religion belonging to DLCs that the player does not own (which would cause a Game Over if they accept to convert to that religion)
- Added some missing rebel loc and rebel flags to the Converter
- If you manage to dedicate a book to your rival, they will now be "Strangely Flattered" (rather than "Flattered")
- Fixed a progress event for the Compose a Book chain, where it would try to mention a Chancellor by name, even when you had no one employed
- Fixed changes to trade route value (for example due to China going Isolationist) not persisting in saves
- Fixed courtiers stealing their wards to their new court if for any reason they move to another court
- The Army of Light is no longer active from the start
- Sardinia and Corsica are now assigned to the correct pentarch
- The Empire of Italy now requires the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica
- Traveling the passages of time and death will no longer allow souls of war offenders to cheat the injustices they caused their enemies. (Historical wars in 867 should now work when traversing history backwards)
- Winning an invasion of China will now set their status to Stable, unless they are in a Golden Age
- Fixed a problem where a character could end up with multiple tributary suzerains at the start of the game.
- The Chinese Emperor will no longer accept that you send severely injured Concubines, Eunuchs, Commanders, or Physicians to serve them
- Fixed so that adopting Chinese Imperialism keeps the laws from your previous title
- Fixed so that the cool-down for employing a smith is removed if the first thing you decide is to change your mind about the whole endeavor
- Fixed one way the game could freeze due to getting stuck in a liege loop
- Fixed the name of China sometimes getting messed up if you switch bookmarks a bit
- A courtier's family now joins the new court when the courtier gains a title through the grant title interaction.
- Claimants for China will now abdicate their old titles before assuming the throne
- Female Muslims Adventurers should now properly disregard certain social convention and actually declare war against their targets
- The Free Captives CB no longer misinforms you of who you'll imprison in turn
- Fixed so that you do not get to adopt Chinese Imperialism after having installed your own dynasty on the dragon throne
- Children can now gain Chinese commander traits when they grow up to get the Brilliant Strategist trait
- Fixed abdication in some cases leading to independence for no apparent reason
- If you murdered your Chinese Prince/Princess you will no longer receive an event where you grief them
- The Western protectorate now also has a claim on Yumen in 769
- Fixed loading saves in some cases causing nomad provinces to cease to be nomad provinces
- Fixed combat tactics changing every single day while flanking
- Fixed high authority realms in some cases ending up with no government when converting to EU4. Most notably, this could happen if a realm adopted Chinese Imperialism
- Characters no longer get angry about being "fired from the council" if the reason they're no longer on the council is that someone other than their liege imprisoned them, or because they moved to a different court
- Characters no longer hold a grudge against their former liege for alleviating them from the council if they become bedridden with illness
- Historical relatives of the Chinese Emperor no longer loiter in the west
- Fixed disabling the marriage AI for close relatives not persisting in saves
- Fixed some duplicate/broken chinese and irish dynasties
- Fixed the Embargo CB not being available if the merchant republic only indirectly holds trade posts in your lands via its patrician vassals, rather than holding them personally
- Fixed regents losing their council position after loading saves
- Fixed an issue in the Hermetic events where you brew a potion for someone else: you now get notified about whether they accepted the potion or not
- Fixed partially reinforced mercenaries getting a sudden boost in troop numbers upon hiring, and upon dismissing
- Fixed overly hairy patricians crashing the game
- Fixed a change in the holder of a vassal title in some cases invalidating wars for that title even though it is still in the same realm
- We no longer cull borders on the map since it makes no sense with the max zoom level we have now.
- Windows and Unix/OSX can now chat with each other.
- Characters no longer talk about the weather as much
- Fixed you instantly getting a game over if you played as a Ruler Designed Nomad vassal
- Fixed holdings in old saves sometimes ending up with a dejure county different from the county they're in. Could in rare cases lead to freezes
- Fixed Desert Cavalry buildings giving Horse Archers instead of Camel Cavalry
- Fixed requirements for Steppe Cavalry buildings incorrectly excluding Iranian from levels 1 and 3
- Fixed siege leaders in flanks other than the center not working after loading a save, but instead only for new battles or if reassigned
- Fixed revolting against your liege while having Gavelkind (or Elective Gavelkind) succession causing you to change succession to Seniority
# Free Features
###################
- Added Chinese holding icons
###################
# Balance
###################
- The AI is now much less likely to instantly give up when attacked with a Tributary CB
- You now lose the Kowtow trait when the dynasty in china changes
- When accepting to become a tributary of China, as a demand from asking them to re-open the Silk Road, it no longer costs more Grace than turning down their demand completely
- If you personally kill your own Chinese courtiers, the Emperor will no longer be sorry and refund you the grace
###################
# AI Improvements
###################
- Told the AI that provinces with more holdings, slots, and buildings are better, and it should try to keep those for itself when handing out titles
- Fixed the AI loving viceroyalties so much it'd try to give duchies out as viceroyalties even when not allowed to do so due to being a vassal, and then destroying the duchy in a fit of rage when it realized it wasn't allowed to do so
- Told the AI that if it considers a province to be a high priority target, it should probably also consider it to be a possible target, rather than deciding to not go there just because it is slightly too far away
- Told the AI that it isn't a good idea to grant a title to someone you just revoked a title off of, even if it is a duchy where you hold no land yourself, and that it might be a good idea to hold onto the duchy you just revoked for a little while before giving it away
###################
# Interface
###################
- The "arrange marriage" button is now disabled for characters who can't marry (E.G., eunuchs), and they are no longer included in the selection lists for the diplomatic action
- Fixed toggling province embellishments not working
- Fixed ESC not closing the "you need to restart to apply graphical settings changes" window
- The trade route tooltip now tells you how much the value of the route is changed by external factors, if the route is not currently at 100% value
- The "Personal Combat Skill" value in the command modifier tooltip now lists the sources of the combat skill
- Fixed the contact address in the EULA having some mysterious spacing
- Fixed map modes in some cases being wrongly colored after loading a save
- Units raised from provinces rather than the military view now also obey your rally points
- Fixed the "not pacified by liege" tooltip entry when declaring a war on another vassal mentioning an expiry date of 1 Jan 1 when you've never been pacified. Now only shows expiry if you're currently pacified
- Fixed the event countdown for narrative events in MP overlapping the event text
- Fixed the Ruler Designer not being usable in MP due to the designed character getting reset upon hitting "Ready"
- Fixed apostrophes and periods attempting to leave this mortail coil in on-map names
- Fixed the tooltip for the army coat of arms being unselectable and having a flickering tooltip
- Fixed the title tier requirement in the grant title interaction not getting translated to other languages
- You now get a warning message when loading an old save (one in which the first or second numbers differ. E.G., 2.7.0.0 vs. 2.8.0.0)
- Added a cooldown icon for sending a Physician
- Fixed the effect tooltip for becoming a tributary to China sometimes not fitting into its window
- Removed superfluous information from the effect tooltip for sending an artifact to China
- De-cluttered the menu for interacting with China - the interactions will now only display failed conditions
- Fixed a faulty tooltip in an old event where you ask a friend to help you refine your skills in swordsmanship
- Corrected a few cases of highlighting and capitalizing of game terms missing in the China Menu
- Fixed accented characters in non-English languages not showing up at all in the big decorative letter in narrative events. Now they'll show their Latin equivalent instead. E.G., É will be shown as E
- Fixed the in-game Game Rules window ending up behind other GUI elements on low resolutions
- Fixed the Assassin join requirement tooltip showing the sub-conditions of "any playable ruler" failing even when there's a ruler that meets the conditions
- Fixed the Chinese Emperor getting the Combat Modifier icon at times
- Fixed character names based on ancestors using their regnal names rather than birth names. Most notably, this could result in Chinese emperors using a previous emperor's temple name as their birth name
- Fixed the Border Dispute CB in some cases telling you you'd usurp baronies that would not actually get usurped
- Fixed it not being visible to the player that smiths will not marry
- The Taoist religion now has its own piety icon
- Provided a way to deal with excessively hairy family members
- Updated Grace condition tooltips in the China menu to no longer mentions "offmap power", but simply, eg. "the Tang Empire"
- Fixed text overflowing in the tooltip for Becoming a Tributary to China
- Fixed the multiplayer button being enabled after hitting "Continue" in the launcher and resigning, despite this changing the checksum, making it impossible to actually play MP
- Fixed loading a save then hitting a bookmark causing text about achievements to appear overlapping the scenario description. Fixed the achievement text not appearing after loading a save
###################
# User modding
###################
- Fixed "on_demand = no" in sound causing OnDemand to be turned on rather than off
- The character flag "ai_flag_never_transfer" will now stop the AI from transferring the given character to one of its vassals (used in vanilla to ensure that if you achieve independence from your liege, your liege's liege won't just transfer you back)
- Fixed is_ancestor_of/is_descendant_of giving the wrong result in some cases due to skipping the 0th character in each generation except the first
- The "Quick Save" button now works in ironman; it updates your ironman save
- Added "show_only_failed_conditions = yes" parameter for triggers. When set, this will cause only failed triggers within this trigger (recursively) to show up in the tooltip. Especially useful when you have a lot of edge cases you need to handle, but which are only rarely relevant to the player
- Added missing "Requirements:" header for the offmap interaction buttons
- Second entry of a variable in check_variable trigger can now also set the comparing operator ( =, <, >=, <=, ==, != )
- Added gfx_culture_scope, which scopes to a character's ethnicity
- Fixed event targets not working in the "culture" effect
###################
# Database
###################
- Added roughly 100 historical characters to the history of Yemen during the 11th and 12th century. Arwa Sulayhid is now a playable ruler of Yemen.
- Fixed a handful of provinces having more holdings than holding slots in later start dates; increased the holding slots by one when adding the new holding
- Fixed incorrect holder of d_baghdad in 1289
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed the Shatter Realm CB not destroying landless kingdoms and empires
- Fixed it being possible to end up as one's own lover. Could in very rare cases lead to CTD
- Fixed the AI investing more money than they had in purchasing weapons, jewelry and armor
- Updated the Investigate Artifact Rumors chain, which appeared to never end
- Fixed it being possible for your new liege to just transfer you back to your old one if you achieve independence as the vassal of a vassal
- Fixed kinslayer penalties not being properly applied in all cases for grandparents and grandchildren
- The modifiers from being a tributary now get removed within a day of ceasing to be a tributary, rather than taking up to a month
- Fixed the long reign bonus being applied, and at too high a value, in the year between when the short reign penalty ends and when the long reign bonus was supposed to start
- Fixed it being possible to disband shattered units by selecting more than one unit
- Fixed OOS when hovering over the add_random_education_trait effect
- Fixed and updated the decision to Become Saoshyant, in accordance with the updated duchies of Persia in 2.8
- Fixed being able to grant indestructible artifacts to china without them being removed from your inventory
- Added missing death text for the Kowtow Travels trait
- Fixed achievements being possible to unlock with mods enabled
- Players should no longer be lured by foreign preachers, if they are of a religion belonging to DLCs that the player does not own (which would cause a Game Over if they accept to convert to that religion)
- Added some missing rebel loc and rebel flags to the Converter
- If you manage to dedicate a book to your rival, they will now be "Strangely Flattered" (rather than "Flattered")
- Fixed a progress event for the Compose a Book chain, where it would try to mention a Chancellor by name, even when you had no one employed
- Fixed changes to trade route value (for example due to China going Isolationist) not persisting in saves
- Fixed courtiers stealing their wards to their new court if for any reason they move to another court
- The Army of Light is no longer active from the start
- Sardinia and Corsica are now assigned to the correct pentarch
- The Empire of Italy now requires the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica
- Traveling the passages of time and death will no longer allow souls of war offenders to cheat the injustices they caused their enemies. (Historical wars in 867 should now work when traversing history backwards)
- Winning an invasion of China will now set their status to Stable, unless they are in a Golden Age
- Fixed a problem where a character could end up with multiple tributary suzerains at the start of the game.
- The Chinese Emperor will no longer accept that you send severely injured Concubines, Eunuchs, Commanders, or Physicians to serve them
- Fixed so that adopting Chinese Imperialism keeps the laws from your previous title
- Fixed so that the cool-down for employing a smith is removed if the first thing you decide is to change your mind about the whole endeavor
- Fixed one way the game could freeze due to getting stuck in a liege loop
- Fixed the name of China sometimes getting messed up if you switch bookmarks a bit
- A courtier's family now joins the new court when the courtier gains a title through the grant title interaction.
- Claimants for China will now abdicate their old titles before assuming the throne
- Female Muslims Adventurers should now properly disregard certain social convention and actually declare war against their targets
- The Free Captives CB no longer misinforms you of who you'll imprison in turn
- Fixed so that you do not get to adopt Chinese Imperialism after having installed your own dynasty on the dragon throne
- Children can now gain Chinese commander traits when they grow up to get the Brilliant Strategist trait
- Fixed abdication in some cases leading to independence for no apparent reason
- If you murdered your Chinese Prince/Princess you will no longer receive an event where you grief them
- The Western protectorate now also has a claim on Yumen in 769
- Fixed loading saves in some cases causing nomad provinces to cease to be nomad provinces
- Fixed combat tactics changing every single day while flanking
- Fixed high authority realms in some cases ending up with no government when converting to EU4. Most notably, this could happen if a realm adopted Chinese Imperialism
- Characters no longer get angry about being "fired from the council" if the reason they're no longer on the council is that someone other than their liege imprisoned them, or because they moved to a different court
- Characters no longer hold a grudge against their former liege for alleviating them from the council if they become bedridden with illness
- Historical relatives of the Chinese Emperor no longer loiter in the west
- Fixed disabling the marriage AI for close relatives not persisting in saves
- Fixed some duplicate/broken chinese and irish dynasties
- Fixed the Embargo CB not being available if the merchant republic only indirectly holds trade posts in your lands via its patrician vassals, rather than holding them personally
- Fixed regents losing their council position after loading saves
- Fixed an issue in the Hermetic events where you brew a potion for someone else: you now get notified about whether they accepted the potion or not
- Fixed partially reinforced mercenaries getting a sudden boost in troop numbers upon hiring, and upon dismissing
- Fixed overly hairy patricians crashing the game
- Fixed a change in the holder of a vassal title in some cases invalidating wars for that title even though it is still in the same realm
- We no longer cull borders on the map since it makes no sense with the max zoom level we have now.
- Windows and Unix/OSX can now chat with each other.
- Characters no longer talk about the weather as much
- Fixed you instantly getting a game over if you played as a Ruler Designed Nomad vassal
- Fixed holdings in old saves sometimes ending up with a dejure county different from the county they're in. Could in rare cases lead to freezes
- Fixed Desert Cavalry buildings giving Horse Archers instead of Camel Cavalry
- Fixed requirements for Steppe Cavalry buildings incorrectly excluding Iranian from levels 1 and 3
- Fixed siege leaders in flanks other than the center not working after loading a save, but instead only for new battles or if reassigned
- Fixed revolting against your liege while having Gavelkind (or Elective Gavelkind) succession causing you to change succession to Seniority
We will be taking a break from Dev Diaries over the upcoming holidays. We will be back next year, keep a look out for a new one in January!
