• 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.

CK2 Dev Diary #83 - God Wills It!

Greetings!

PDXCon is soon upon us, and we hope to see you there! During the event we will reveal the name and theme of the Expansion we’re working on, and after PDXCon is over we’ll have plenty of Dev Diaries that will delve deep into the new expansion features. For now though we’d like to present the main feature of the free patch that’ll accompany the Expansion!

It is time to don your armor and ready your steed, as the Vicar of Christ himself has declared that all who join in expelling the infidel from the Holy Land will have their sins absolved!

The Crusades are a very iconic part of the game, though one that has barely seen any change since the game was released 6 years ago. A lot of fantastic and interesting systems have been added to the game over the years, and we wanted this very central feature to feel as deep and interesting as any one of them.

The Catholic faith will no longer use the old Great Holy War system - instead they will use a new and improved system specifically tailored to both increase immersion and enhance the gameplay surrounding the crusades. This system is massive, and it might be hard for us to fit all of the information into this single DD, but we’ll give it our best shot!

We have specifically aimed to fix the issue where, unless you intend to win the crusade, there was no real reason for you as a player to participate except to get the ‘Crusader’ trait.

To accomplish this we’ve made Catholic crusades work in two phases; first there is a Preparation Phase, followed by the actual war. To communicate this properly we needed a new dedicated interface. Enter, the Crusade View:

CrusadeDD_PrepPhase.png

Holy shield, on the wall, which is the holiest city of them all?

When the pope decides that it's time for a new Crusade, he will send a call to the Catholic world for support. When he does you can access the Crusade View by clicking the Crusade Banner underneath your portrait.

In the Crusade View you will have access to a plethora of useful information, and you’ll be able to take actions to help the crusade or to alter its course. You will be able to see the Pope’s proposed recipient (if any) in the top left corner, and the target character and title in the top right. There will be a timer counting down to the date where the war will start. During this time, the following can be done:
  • Catholic rulers can pledge their military support to the crusade. When they do, they appear in the list of Pledged Participants. For every crusader that pledges, prestige, piety and artifacts are added to the War Chest. The religion being targeted by the crusade can ‘counter pledge’, and it’s the relative strength of these two sides that is shown as ‘Total Strength’ underneath their portraits. Pledged rulers will automatically be called into the war as it starts.
  • All Catholic rulers get the option of donating money to the War Chest in exchange for piety and opinion with the Pope. This money is then added to the War Chest, more on that later.
  • Crusaders who have pledged military support can add a beneficiary to the crusade. This character must be a dynasty member, and depending on your participation in the crusade they might be granted a title in the Crusader Kingdom should the crusade be successful. More on this later.
  • Players can pay piety to change the target character and/or title. This cost starts fairly low, but doubles each time to avoid spamming. This means that if you’d rather have a crusade target a scary infidel realm on your immediate border, you can make it happen if you’re pious enough!
  • Players can choose their ‘Stance’ on what they want to happen should they be the most participating crusader. More on this later.

If a Catholic ruler chooses to neither pledge to the crusade or donate money to the War Chest, the Pope might get very upset with them. Depending on the rulers tier and influence, this can range from a simple piety hit to an outright excommunication. Revoking your pledge also carries a similar penalty.

Regarding the War Chest - when the preparation phase is over, 20% of the money in the War Chest will be divided between the pledged Crusaders, in order to provide for their levies and fleets as they go to war. The rest is saved until the end of the Crusade, where it is used as rewards for the participants and to set up the Crusader Kingdom. The Crusader Kingdom will receive 10% of the War Chest in order to steel them against imminent counterattacks. The rest (including prestige, piety and artifacts) is given out to the Crusaders who participated in the crusade, in order to motivate you as the player to participate as much as you can - even if you don’t expect to win. To ensure that the top contributors don't take all of the War Chest rewards, any one participant can receive at most 20% of it. As the Catholic world tends to be rather… generous with their donations, this often translates into a lot of wealth! Beware though, if the crusade is lost the majority of the contents of the War Chest will be lost, and Christendom will be weaker for it...

When the Preparation Phase is over, the war begins and the Crusade View changes:
CrusadeDD_WarPhase.png

Note that the numbers are still WIP.

The Countdown Timer is replaced by the warscore and the name of the Crusade is updated, otherwise the functionality remains the same (except for being able to change the target, of course, at this point it’s too late for that).

If the Crusade is successful, what will happen depends on the top contributor’s stance. There are three stances; ‘Selfish’, ‘For my Beneficiary’ and ‘Comply with Papal Demands’. The AI will always choose to go with Papal Demands.
  • The ‘Selfish’ stance will see the top contributor take the lands for themselves. Doing this completely disqualifies them from the War Chest though, and is seen as impious by the Pope.
  • The ‘For my Beneficiary’ stance will see your beneficiary become King/Queen of the lands. While still not approved by the Pope, it’s not seen as impious, and you still qualify for (parts) of the War Chest. If the pope has chosen no recipient for the title, this is the default behaviour and carries no penalties.
  • The ‘Comply with Papal Demands’ stance simply sees whoever the Pope wishes to rule the lands become the King or Queen. If he has no opinion, it will go to the top contributor’s beneficiary.

In the old system, the title and all under it went to the winner of the crusade. You often saw France or the HRE own for example Jerusalem, which in all honesty was very boring, and more often than not only resulted in an inheritance mess. While a player can still choose to use the old system by choosing the ‘Selfish’ stance, the new default behaviour is completely different. Unless the Pope wishes to restore an existing King or Claimant (where the normal, old, behaviour will be used) a Crusader Kingdom will be set up:

CrusadeDD_JerusalemAllSetUp.png


A Crusader Kingdom is a multicultural kingdom made up of the beneficiaries of all participants. The top contributing participants will have their beneficiaries get higher titles in the target kingdom. To avoid the player gaming the system using inheritance, the Kingdom is always set up to disallow external inheritance - and the AI tends to choose beneficiaries that do not stand to inherit or are married to someone who might inherit.

If your beneficiary receives land in a Crusader Kingdom, your entire Dynasty will receive a monthly boon to piety until their death. In a future Dev Diary we will go into more detail regarding the importance of Piety in the Catholic sphere, but rest assured that it’s going to be more important to be seen as pious than it’s ever been before - making the boon from your beneficiary rather significant.

The new ruler of the Crusader State, in order to properly rule such a challenging realm, gets a trait appropriately named ‘Crusader King/Queen’ which confers a massive same religion opinion along with some other goodies.

And, for the finale, if your beneficiary is selected to be the King or Queen of the Kingdom - you have the option of switching over to them, taking control of the newly established Crusader Kingdom and leaving your old character behind (which is also part of the reason why you can only choose members of your own dynasty as beneficiaries). We believe that doing a thing such as this will provide the quintessential CK2 experience, where you have to both manage unruly vassals and defend against vengeful religious foes!

Stay tuned for future Dev Diaries, where we might go into detail on a few… special crusades.
 
Mega...awesome. Scrumpticiously AWESOME!! Finally you can pick a favorite dynasty character and play him/her in Outremer! And it'd add intrigue in a much more diverse Christian held Outremer like it historically was. It'll actually be turbulent within the Christian realm in Outremer like it should have been.

Now if only Pdox could expand on the whole "land and play your favorite dynastic family member" they'd be golden and not limit it to just the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
 
Last edited:
I was preparing to start a game as a christian duke.

NOW I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THIS MECHANIC GETS LIVE.

Damnit!, :D
 
Yeah, it is actually really fun. Though I would recommend some caution before switching over, as it can be .. Somewhat dangerous being the only Catholic ruler in Arabia for example.

If it wasn't dangerous, it'd be boring.
 
I'm very happy to see the improvements so far, though I wish there was going to be at least a slightly stripped down version for other great holy wars. A special UI for Jihads and another for other great holy wars would be great, as well as a preparation phase. Turning all great holy wars into a variation of a prepared invasion would be a fantastic improvement to the whole system.

Also random thought, but is it possible for a crusade to be cancelled before it even starts if the attackers are sufficiently weaker than the defenders? Say either because the attacking religion cannot muster a large enough force to attack the target or because the defenders commit too large a force against them?

Another thought, could the strength of holy orders be tied to war chest contributions? Even if this is just limited to the actual crusade where the holy orders participate as the pope's military force. This could replace the normal holy order founding system, where sufficiently large war chests allow the Pope to spend some of it on creating or maintaining holy orders.
 
I found the most difficult part of keeping Crusader Kingdom intact was usually the Jihad that got called immediately/just a few years later, especially since all holdings will have the 'recently conquered' modifier. I only managed it by mass-hiring mercenaries. Has anything been changed to help on that front?

In the diary they said that the new king/queen of Jerusalem gets 20% of the war-chest. That should help significantly.

Upon victory, only the Crusader Kingdom will be formed. However, there is a new event that can pop up throughout the war, where Crusader States can be made, before the war has reached completion.

This would have helped in my last crusade for Egypt where Egypt somehow got granted to an related muslim and only a couple counties ended up being granted to the winner.

The reworked Crusade is not paid content. Special Crusades are. The rest you are paying for (if you buy the expansion, that is) will be revealed later, so stay tuned :D

And the new DLC is wishlisted.

Refilled holdings and penalties removed if a beneficiary becomes the new Crusader King/Queen.

So if I take it for myself, I have to use my old holdings, but if I let my nephew or brother take it, he gets all the holdings refilled? That is a pretty nice mechanic. It will make crusader states a bit more stable.
 
If a Catholic ruler chooses to neither pledge to the crusade or donate money to the War Chest, the Pope might get very upset with them. Depending on the rulers tier and influence, this can range from a simple piety hit to an outright excommunication. Revoking your pledge also carries a similar penalty.
This can't apply to the Spanish rulers, we have evidence and references that many Popes actually denied their participation (they were very much invested to go crusading) and were told to focus on the Reconquista, will you do an exception to the Iberian peninsula regarding this penalty???
 
This can't apply to the Spanish rulers, we have evidence and references that many Popes actually denied their participation (they were very much invested to go crusading) and were told to focus on the Reconquista, will you do an exception to the Iberian peninsula regarding this penalty???

If they don't make an exception, the Catholics in Iberia will be utterly screwed...
 
And it is this continued development of a game that is six years old that proves you guys are awesome :)

One issue I've found with existing Crusades is that you don't necessarily have to travel to the target in order to be the ultimate beneficiary.

As an example, when I was Hispania, a Crusade was called for Jerusalem, controlled at the time by the Fatimids of Egypt. At the time, the Fatimids were fighting the Almoravids to my south, so I figured that I'd enter the Crusade and cause them a bit of havoc closer to home, rather than sailing for the Holy Land. I won a reasonable sized battle against them but this was no sustained campaign.

However, this did not prevent me from being the biggest contributor to the successful Crusade, and I found myself suddenly owning the Kingdom of Jerusalem despite going nowhere near the place!!

So, is there any element of the new mechanic that ensures you have to go to the destination in order to to be the ultimate recipient? Granted I made a significant contribution, and of course decisive battles can take place away from the target area, but it doesn't feel right that I received the Holy Land without, at very least, sieging anything down.



On the flip side of the coin, can you elaborate on "Crusaders who doesn't Crusade properly"? Using the above example, I would fall under that category if just measured by who travels to the Holy Land, but I clearly made a contribution, so as much as I feel I shouldn't have been the recipient, I shouldn't be on the naughty step either ;)
Your example, I assume, wouldn't be a regular case, but it touches few things... so let's be wondering...

For instance Frederick Barbarossa died on his way to the Holy Land witout reaching it, but he should IMHO be considered a good crusader, but what to think about his vasals, who joined him, but lost their leader? Surely their true leader should be (from Pope's perspective) Jesus and the liberation of Holy Land, but...
I believe that taking part or leading a battle which is part of Crusade's war should count as contribution and should give you claim for reward, but without entering the target land the contributor should not get the land in question. Just my understanding how things would make sense.. any better ideas?
 
Yes, yes, YES!! :D Overhauled crusade mechanics have been at the top of my wishlist for the longest time, and this Dev Diary is like a dream come true. Do the same to make the monastic societies more relevant and "on-map" as well, and I'll love you all forever.
 
Looks like CK2 is getting an upgrade for it's name sake, literally. Good. Best to remind the other paradox games and all other strategy games for that matter who reigns supreme.

Side note: I'm hoping the strength score goes into effect for all other wars at this point and is factored into the war score. This way empires don't have to siege everything to let a loan duke or count know that they're defeated after the first battle. Granted, the AI could be gamed by mercenary quick hire/fires this way; I'm sure there is a way around that (Hired troops not factored in if you're near broke, or not factored in at all).

All in all, really impressed by this, especially its being a free patch with the DLC still unannounced. Good on you Paradox. This is why I got 900+ hours in this game.
 
Kingdom of Heaven is extremely ahistorical and an awful interpretation of the events. Even the historian who advised them hated it.

I agree with you on the expansion.... but, Kingdom of Heaven is quite much hollywood and quite little history! I personally can't stand the way Renaud de Châtillon is portrayed - he is nothing like I imagine him. Plus a hundred other little irks :/

Anyway, I'm no better.. I like the Swedish movies of the Arn trilogy (The Road to Jerusalem, The Knight Templar and The Kingdom at the End of the Road) and it's riddled with bad history (when, oh when, will someone make a believable crusader movie?!), so that's quite cheesy too. But for some reason I like the atmosphere in that one.

Yes, very true... but that's not the point. I like it cause it looks good, has great costumes and awesome action scenes... it gets me in the mood for some Holy War. History got nothing to do with it :)
 
Cheers for the DD Rageair, and the extra info Snow Crystal, Divine, Meneth and Arthur* :D. This is very, very cool - I doubt my reaction will be the least bit original, but this is awesome :D. Crusades in game had become a bit 'past it' relative to other features, and this'll put them right back on the map. Lots of great gameplay opportunities here, love your work :cool:.

* And the joke Groogy :).
 
If they don't make an exception, the Catholics in Iberia will be utterly screwed...
Nobody expects the Papal excommunications
 
Will there be special events pertinent to the First Crusade? I'm thinking the People's Crusade and the fact that it was mostly lesser nobility and second sons etc? Also, Byzantine help at Nicaea.
 
Last edited:
Yes, we felt that some refinements on the feature were a bit overdue. The old system never managed to properly capture the political landscape we wanted for our simulation of the Crusader States. We hope that this rework will make it more engaging and fun to play with for everyone involved.

Can the Pope pick non-Catholic characters to hold titles, like how the First Crusade was meant to hand land over to the Byzantines?
 
This sounds amazing. CK2: Crusader Kings!

I notice that this brings some reasonable reasons for excommunication, does that mean I'm less likely to be excommunicated for no particular reason other than the Pope having a slightly negative opinion of me? Also, will chain-excommunication stop being a thing? Paying up 600 wealth to have it lifted only for the troll-Pope to excommunicate me again a month later is no fun. I should at least get a CB on him for that BS.