CK3 Dev Diary #06 - Council, Powerful Vassals, & Spouse Councillor

[Alfray Stryke]

What's the expected "normal" range of attribute scores in CKIII?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

If I have a Hook on my liege, can I use that to force them to give a me a seat on the council?

Inversely, if I have a Hook on a powerful vassal, can I use it to prevent them from demanding a seat on the council?

 

[Wokeg]

So, if my interpretation is correct, are bishops exclusively councilors now, rather than landed holders of temples? In the sense that a count would have a single bishop for his temples, and duke for his, and the king for his?

Yes and no. That is the system for your religious councillor, but ecclesiastic characters can absolutely hold land in their own right too. So you can have, say, an archbishop who is refusing the give you taxes, while the Prince-Bishop of York (who directly holds the Duchy of York and its vassals) is factioning against you. Or the Church may be your biggest supporter. Depends on you, really.

Great, now I won't either.

Welcome to my private pain.

I really like the new hats!

oh, right, I guess I should read the actual post too...

No, no, I agree. The hats are great. More hats and better hats is how you get best-hats.

I just hope the council isn't as easily controlled as in CK2. Between powerful vassals not being able to join factions and buying favors realm management is far too easy and rebellions too rare. Keeping your vassals in line should take far more effort. On the other hand, the AI already has issues with it...

And I'm still not sure about having just one bishop in your realm. That may make sense for game mechanics, but it just doesn't feel right. And in line with the above, it could make the church too easy to control.

Well, it's more like a series of bishops, and they are not fussy about letting you know when you're not meeting their standards. Say, during a vital war. Where you were trying to beat the King of France. And then your archbishop just starts moralising about how you need to stop executing everyone all the time and who will rid me of this turbulent pri-oh. I did it again.

Suffice to say, they're more troublesome than you might think.

One thing I can't help but notice - The Chancellor and the Steward are both Dukes. In the next screenshot, the spouse is a Duchess/Petty Queen.

Does that mean tiers in the old sense are gone?

Not at all! The screenshots just aren't all taken from the same council.

I'm really digging the new Archbishop system. In CK2, there was never a major reason to care about any of your theocratic vassals. As long as the pope was happy, everyone else could be safely ignored. The new system looks fantastic.

Glad you like it! The Pope is also able to be independently mad at you, and excommunication becomes a lot scarier when it'll mostly annoy your bishop enough that they cut off your gold supply. Unless you happen to be very friendly with said-bishop, for which we have an array of schemes to suit all tastes.

Interesting DD here, just a little question. With powerfull vassals now being the only ones you need to change succession laws, how do you plan to offset that major power loss for "normal" vassals? Or should we care (even) less about them now? (Execpt for their obvious (and mostly only) use, in providing those single feudal heirs, preferabbly beautifull strong genius ones, aged *insert apropriate minimal CK3 marriage age here*)

That's a little bit more tied into some sub-systems that I don't believe I'm allowed to take about right now, but essentially there's a combination of factors that make you more likely to have fewer, more powerful vassals, as well as somewhat buffing the potential threat of factions (since multiple characters means more potential knights and men-at-arms).

 

[Wokeg]

Good to hear from you, @Wokeg! Great dev diary.

The icons and artwork look very beautiful, and I really love the background artwork behind the councillors. The 3D portraits are starting to look better too. Also, nice touch in making the councillors do something related to their position, like holding a letter or a dagger or a sword. I wonder if they could be animated to say something when you click on them? Such as "The peasants are quite happy with the taxes, my lord!" or "One of your powerful vassals is plotting to rebel against you." Something like how it's done in Caesar IV.

Given the size of the interface, I'm guessing that the council page will take up the entire screen? Can you please show a screenshot of what the council page looks like as a whole?

Glad you liked it! The art team are working like crazy, and the game is looking increasingly-gorgeous.

I'm afraid I can't give you a screenshot of the whole council page at the moment, as some bits of it are still a little WIP, and we don't want to show those off just yet. It's not as big as all that, though, these images are just rather high-res.

So arch priest is theological head and controls all religion in realm. Does this also apply with pagans and herecys.


If half of realm is in one religion and half is in other religion does each of thouse religions have they own political head. Or just 1 for realm. If there is one for realm does it collect revanues from priest from other religions or its püinion based but still they are under control of main religion head.

Well, your bishop, if you have one, is the theological councillor for your realm. They collect taxes from any bishops under them who have the same religion (e.g., a Catholic bishop wouldn't collect from an Orthodox one), and from the temple holdings in your personal domain, regardless of the religion in the counties of those temple holdings. They're in charge of the land, even if they don't own it, and common-folk still pay rent to a lease-holder even if that lease-holder is of a different religion and very preachy about it.

Exactly how you get a bishop, rather than a court chaplain, won't be talked about any more until we do a dev diary on religions. Accordingly, whether this applies to pagans and heretics is secret for now, I'm afraid .

Will biracial characters be more accurately represented with this character system? Or will they just appear strictly as one of the parents did as is the case in ck2?

Characters dev diary is up next week, m'friend! If your question isn't answered in that, I'd suggest re-asking in that thread.

Does that whip icon belove councilors mean thy are controlled by secret or hook, couse it would be rather irrationl to put al -54 opinion spymaster in seat if you dont control him somehow

Classified.

... Though, for unclassified things: you are entirely correct that any character who dislikes you that much is a terrible choice to have as your spymaster, and that the ruler who chose them probably isn't long for this world.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

No wonder that Marshall has only a measly 6 skill, he is gripping his sword by the blade, the fool!

Holding a longsword by the blade is a perfectly valid method of using one, though he’d want to be wearing a gauntlet or glove.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-sword

 

[Wokeg]

Also, with the now (maybe) empowered spouses, do they have their own agenda now?
In CK2, even when your wife(s) hated you like the devil himself, they only might choose to help a plot against you, or kill some of those children, which seemed to be popping up everywhere and they curiosly weren't born by said spouse.

If we now choose to empower those said spouses, and the, let's say like their dynasty way more than you, can they activly choose to sabotage you, e.g. sowing dissent between your vassals if you use her to aid your diplomacy?

This is definitely something we'd like to do more and more of going forth! The basis is there, but I can't say quite how much we've got down on it just yet.

Wonderful news on the succession change mechanics! Do all vassals still need to be at peace? Cause that was a really frustrating limitation in CK2...

At present, no. Subject to change and all that, I'm afraid.

Assistants? Sounds interesting... are these actual characters or do they represent a generic "team" of bureaucrats that help the Councillor?

<snip>

Finally my spouse will be more than a simple baby-making machine! I hope we will also get more events about the inter-personal relationships between married characters and their sons and relatives (besides the already very much present adultery events in CK2 )

Currently, they're a generic team of bureaucrats rather than specific characters. While that's not to rule out events about an interesting bureaucrat here and there, we do prefer that our characters be impactful, and modelling, say, the third under-cleric to the exchequer isn't the best use of your processing power. Unless they're embezzling from you. Or spying for the King of France. Or both.

On interpersonal relationship event: definitely things we want to have more and more of!

Also, I notice there are no advisers on the council, I assume the position is gone for good?

On another note you say in the DD that a powerful vassal now demands a specific spot on the council, what if 2 vassals demand the same seat? Or will their demands never conflict with each other?

At present, we don't have advisers in the game. Afraid your vassals have stopped falling for that old con.

To clarify, that was intended to be an example. Duke Geoff of Greater Oppressionia doesn't care whether you make him a marshal, a spymaster, a steward, a chancellor, or (if your religion allows it) your court chaplain, he just wants to be there. The only exception to this is the spouse position, since landed spouses do not gain the council spouse position (they have their own lands to look after, and so forth), so you can't marry Duke Geoff to get him off your back about giving him a council spot.

Will a councillor be able to lead armies too? Theyre not relegated to one job, presumably. Especially if they're a knight?

Yes! They've got assistants, so their job is taken care of provided they can be reached for communication. If they're leading an army, it's not ideal but letters exist, but if they're imprisoned (say, because they were leading an army and got captured in battle), they can no longer be a councillor and their tasks will autopause till you put someone else in the job.

I am really hoping this doesn't mean de jure land will be used as a basis for a kind of core provinces system. A flat 100 years is fine in CK2 and I really don't like the idea of anything resembling the rapidly chaning core provinces of EU4. It works for that game, but stuff like "core land" or de jure should be mostly static (or very slow to change) no matter who owns it.

This is a really valid concern and one I share myself. EUIV's system is great for EU, but isn't how CK should run. We're very much aware of this, and flipping de jure land is something that's intended to be slow and take time, so we've got our eyes on it. The councillor task is more there to let you focus on speeding it up a little in specific areas.

On the other hand, outside of the early game, assuming personal demesne limit is anything close to what it is in CK2, I foresee every wife being on either the Assist Ruler or Manage Domain tasks. More personal demesne=more money and more power, after all.

Depends on what your spouse is good at and what you need. A spouse with a terrible stewardship score doesn't really contribute much to your economic game, but might be ludicrously adept at intrigue or martial matters. Personally, I prefer a spouse who helps me murder people over one that helps counting my taxes.

Can you please explain how bishops differ in CK III? I've heard mixed things on this and am slightly confused. It is my understanding that all bishops are now vassals of a bishop rather than the counts they normally would be in CK II, but does that mean you now only get one bishop per realm? And how do they differ from an archbishop? And if a bishop holds a duchy title then he's still a prince-bishop, presumably?

I think it would be a shame if all bishops were kind of sidelined and the only relevant/important cleric is the main archbishop of your kingdom =/

So, if we ignore bishops who hold land in their own right ("I am Bishop Mark, and I directly own the County of Tolouse, so I am Bishop of Tolouse"), a bishop is a variant of the court chaplain position which some religions have, and some do not. If you have a bishop, they get all of the taxes and levies from every temple holding in your direct domain, as well as a portion of taxes from your vassals' same-religion bishops (if they have 'em). You will, mainly, be dealing with that bishop, and they're intended to be more troublesome, fractious individuals than single bishops in CK2 were.

The "archbishop" title in the dev diary is flavour text; the exact type of bishop you get depends on your religion and tier. A count might only have a bishop, whilst a duke has an archbishop, and so on. Since it's flavour, that's all pretty subject to change, and we're still getting our unlanded bishop ranks sorted.

 

[Wokeg]

How does the mathematics work on the Find secrets task the spymaster can do?
Is it a flat chance to find someone's secret and then it randomly chooses one of the people at that court who has a secret and the player gets that persons secret.
Or is the chance to Find someone's secret directly related to the number of people which have secrets within that court.
Basically what I would like to know is if its more likely a spymaster can find out my secret if I am in a court where I am the only one with a secret compared to a court where I am only of many people with a secret

While I can't go into exact maths, a spymaster is, I believe, more likely to find your secret if you're the only one in court with a secret, yes. Relative intrigue matters, and smaller secrets are easier to find than larger ones. If you're especially worried, you can always surrounded yourself with questionable individuals and let their mess of secrets and lies disguise your own indiscretions.

Thank you for the clarification, much appreciated! I will echo the curiosity of some others, though, if you're able to go into this much detail: aside from the question of who they answer to, do individual bishops still exist in the same manner as barons and mayors? Let's say, in the case that you are a single-county ruler and have a county with two or three temples in it, do they have separate holders to answer to a common archbishop, or all share the same holder? That's one point I'm still somewhat unclear on.

Not quite, I'm afraid. Your bishop controls all the temple baronies in your domain, and receives taxes from the bishops of any vassals you have that share your religion. So a count, a duke, and a king all have bishops, the duke would just receive taxes from the count's bishop, and the king from the duke's (assuming they're all vassalised sensibly to each other). In your example, the single-county ruler would have one bishop who was leasing all three temple holdings from them (making them, worryingly, up to three times as powerful as the lord in question), but who also paid some of the taxes from those holding to the bishop of the count's liege.

Nice changes, i just have few questions.

1. Is title bishop/archbishop different if you are different tier of nobility (eg. counts have bishop, dukes have archbishops on council)
2. Is there difference in power betwern bishop and archbishop rank?
3. Can you assign bishop to a job like other councilors or must he like you?
4. Can we appoint bishop as a councilor or is he appointed by pope when older one dies? Can pope replace bishops if they become to loyal to secular liege?

1) Yes! Exactly that, m'friend.
2) Technically? Nope. In practice? Like you wouldn't believe. Levies and taxes add up, and a powerful king with a lot of land will likely have a very powerful archbishop, even though that bishop is, notionally, a humble spiritual adviser.
3) You can still assign them to different tasks, even if they're being obstinate about paying taxes.
4) Afraid both parts of this question are classified. You'll have to wait for the religion dev diary.

One of the most disappointing things in CK2 is how the friends/rivals system is almost always wasted, because being friends or rivals with anyone other than a powerful vassal is fairly meaningless overall, and because everyone is a potential friend/rival it feels like 90% of the time you've got meaningless barons or cousins as friends/rivals where neither the benefits nor the drawbacks matter much at all to you.

Snipped your quote slightly; this is something we've put a lot of time and effort into making better! Friends and rivals should always be impactful, and we're trying to involve these relationships much more heavily in CK3.

<snipped> thirdly, an actual question: will spouses also get events and interactions based on the attribute/area of focus they’ve been empowered to help with? Things like people complaining about meddling, the spouse having a mind of their own (maybe different from yours), and just ordinary type events that your councilors might get while helping you govern?

Not something we have a huge amount of at the moment I'm afraid, but that's purely a prioritisation issue. Definitely something that we're very keen on having more and more content for in the future!

No wonder that Marshall has only a measly 6 skill, he is gripping his sword by the blade, the fool!

Shhhhh, don't tell him, he's got his best concentrating-face on. Powerful vassals, mate. They think they're all that, but they're not always as competent as they'd have you believe.

I like that there is more incentive now to have good relations with the church, but I'm not a fan of how all of this hinges on a single character. I get the impression that all you need to do now is bribe or placate single a person in your realm to have all of the church's resources at your disposal. It feels way too simplistic. Well, unless you also have church vassals who are powerful landholders on their own right, but that only very rarely happens. <snip>

Well, yes and no. A greedy bishop with similar traits to you isn't a huge obstacle, typically. You get along well with the Church, the Church gets along well with you. On the other hand, say that bishop isn't greedy. Bribes aren't so good then. Say you have a few opposing characters traits (especially if some of those are sins for your religion), now you've actually got a bit of trouble on your hands. Say this happens mid-war or just after a succession, rather than when everything is at peace. You need that sway scheme to get agents for your murder plot, but now you're having to suck up to the Church just to get your economy under control, and then the Pope drops an excommunication in your lap because you keep openly attempting to murder people, and...

Generally, I feel gameplay elements work best when they play into cascading failure. No one system should require you to focus entirely on that system to keep it working. Things should, generally, be fixable, it's just a case of where you allocate your time & resources, and if this or that problem is a priority for you right now. Even if pleasing your bishop jumps your personal priority queue most of the time, it's still causing interesting problems elsewhere just by existing.

<snip> man..... i mean, i get that its intentional that an incompetant buffoon would still demand to be given a position, and thats fine. managing that should be part of your gameplay experience and its interesting enough, and reflects reality probably. kinda always hated how everyone would almost invariably turn out completely worthless though, which immediately transforms this mechanic into one of the most irritating parts of the game for me

you couldnt intentionally groom the heir of a powerful vassal into a great marshal, for instance, unless you somehow managed to get him into your court before the ai could slam him into a learning education for no reason. the ai being smarter about this would be all well and good but like also generally allowing the player some degree of control is overall just a less frustrating experience. it should be an honor for the king to personally school your son and heir, right? what duke wouldnt want to boast hed been schoolchums with the crown prince? unless your vassal hates your guts, of course, then hed hardly want his son held hostage (but maybe you could still arrange for something like that as a punishment or in exchange for some concessions, so your vassal will think twice before getting uppity) <snip>

Ah, I'm afraid YMMV on that one, though we do still support swapping council positions without firing people, so you'd need every councillor to be utterly useless at all stats to get completely screwed over.

Oh, it is an honour. It's also a form of centralisation, power-curbing, and hostage taking that conveniently doubles as an honour. As a ruler, I fully support this benign charity I extend to my subjects. As a vassal, I totally oppose this indoctrination and hostage-taking of my dynasty's greatest treasures. Even if you like the king, giving your kids to the royal court does rule out a lot of extreme options in the feudal toolkit which, for most of our timeframe, are still pretty important. Especially in the earlier start dates, the king should just be the first amongst equals, and has no right to raise your kids if you don't expressly want them to.

Wait, I'm confused about the bishop. He doesn't *own* the temple holdings, right? I expect the holdings may have different baron-tier priests which in turn have different lieges, and all the priests send their monies and levies to your bishop. Is that correct?

Not quite. Bishops use a mechanic called leasing: if I'm a one-county count, and my single county has a single temple holding, I automatically lease that holding to my bishop. I still own it, it's always considered an inalienable part of my counties, but the taxes and levies go straight to the bishop. In other words, rather than have a dozen minor bishops per sizeable sub-realm all sending taxes to your bishop, your bishop simply receives all the income directly. If I then had a liege with a bishop of the same religion, my bishop would also pay a portion of this income on to my liege's bishop.