CK3 Dev Diary #67 - A View to a Map​

Greetings!

The team is slowly coming back together after a well deserved summer vacation. Today, let’s have a look at what we’ve been doing to the culture setup and some small scale map tweaks. Most of the work we’ve spent on cultures has naturally gone into the cultural overhaul itself, but we have made some general improvements as well, most notably over in India.

Starting with a small culture addition in southern Europe, and that some of you keen eyed readers noticed back in a previous dev diary, we’ve added back a fan favorite from CK2; Carantanian. The culture is quite extensive on game start and covers most of south-eastern Bavaria. From a historical point of view, the culture is of a west slavic origin, but as they got cut off from their ancestral brethren in the Carpathian Basin, they became gradually closer to the south slavic peoples. We represent this by Carantanian having a West Slavic Heritage, but speaking a South Slavic Language.

[Image of Carantanian culture]​

Next, I’ll hand it over to our local India expert, @Trin Tragula, to talk about (you guessed it) India!

Indian Culture Changes
The culture rework has been a good opportunity to rework the cultures in India a bit. The current setup here is one we inherited from Crusader Kings 2 and it was in some ways not entirely appropriate for our era. To better reflect the diversity of the subcontinent we have added two new cultures, changed the old ones a bit and also added a great number of potential culture names for when the large starting cultures diverge.

First of all we have gotten rid of Hindustani culture, and two new cultures have been broken away from what it used to cover in the south. The core part of the culture covers the Gangetic plain, and is now known as Kannauji after the Imperial city of Kannauj (Kanyakubja) which was the main prize of the region and often gave its name to it.

Hindustani itself is still around in a way, as a possible name for a cultural hybrid between an Iranian or Turkic culture with one of the north indian cultures.

[Image of the cultures in northern India]​

Starting in the central parts of India the newly added Gond culture has been carved out of areas that were previously Hindustani, Marathi or Oriya. In 1066 most Gond counties are under the control of the Cedi kingdom and many of these counties are now also tribal at start. This culture covers a region that was in an odd place in the old setup, at the border of several cultures but not quite belonging to either of them.

[Image of the Gond culture]​

Covering the Malwa plateau as well as some of the adjacent regions that were previously considered Hindustani. This new culture shares a language with the Rajasthani and Gujarati cultures, Gurjar Apabhramsa. The existing Rajput culture has been renamed to Rajasthani (since Rajput as a cultural distinction does not really fit our start date) and Assamese is now known as Kamrupi.

[Image of the Malvi culture]​

Indian History and Title Improvements
While looking over the subcontinent it was also clear that in some areas the title setup was also better suited for the early modern era, rather than the medieval era around Crusader Kings III start dates. A number of baronies have been renamed and reorganized into new counties, and a number of new vassals have been scripted in, especially for the 1066 start.
The starting presumptions about who controlled what in 1066 have also been revisited to bring things better in line with history and create a more interesting start. There are now more starting characters, both independent and vassals, and most kings will no longer start above their domain limit.

Some things like the crisis of the Chola empire should also be a bit better represented in the initial setup, with strong and somewhat unruly Pandya vassals, a much stronger Lankan revolt and the Chera Raja now independent (with his historical vassals to support him). You can now also play as the future king, Kulottunga.
There are also other, minor changes, such as revisiting the extent of cultures like Kashmiri, and Telugu, and assigning a number of tribal counties in the eastern-central part of the subcontinent.

[Image of the Sinhalese rebellion in 1066]​

That concludes today’s dev diary. Until next time!

 

[MirrorMonkey2]

I really like the changes! I‘m glad Caranthanian is back!
But one question: I see South Slavic and West Slavic are two different (not mutually intelligable) languages in game. Yet the Vlachs speak a genericn“Latin“. Which other languages will be included in this „Latin“ category? Isn‘t Romanian/Aromanian much more distant from any other romance languages than the slavic languages are from one another?
I have to suppose that you have since changed Aromanian to be a seperate language which is not mutually intelligable with any other language. This is the only way I can make sense of South and West Slavic being two different languages.

If its possible I would really love to get a quick comment from a dev regarding this comparison: How come south slavic and west slavic are two different languages while the vlachs speak a generic "latin" language?

 

[Koyraboro]

@Servancour Will we get a DD dedicated to the Language Pillar and your reasoning for the language setup of cultures? So many questions are burning my lips!

 

[Trin Tragula]

Hey, I've been a bit disheartened by some responses to my reply here. I understand and at least appreciate your point, but it felt a bit condescending. I like to read longer form stuff. Books are really fun for me to read and stuff like reading on Wikipedia is just a bit too short form, and often too dry.

Just remember it's another person on the end who's a bit sad about how some people take umbridge with his joy of books.

As someone who also likes books I can sympathize Approaching Indian history can certainly be a bit daunting, and much of what one finds online can be contradictory, wrong or outdated. It also doesn’t help that many of the dynasties (like the Cedi/Kalachuri/Haihaia/more names dynasty which is in the game) go by multiple names, which aren’t easily guessed to be referring to the same thing.

I have been told the book mentioned earlier in this thread by Romila Thapar is a good introduction though I have not read it myself.
A long time ago when I was first approaching the subject of Indian history in general I found “A history of India” by Herman Kulke and Deiter Rothermund useful - but it’s very much an overview and does not dwell very long on any given period. Thapars book might be more what you are after.

Coming from having read a fair number of books on early modern Indian history before I got a fair bit of mileage out of “Rethinking Early Medieval India: A reader” by Upinder Singh et al when I first approached the “CK” era, but if you are after an overview of the political history then you want another type of book - it helps more with understanding what one finds elsewhere

The most recent thing Ive read is “Politics kingship and poetry in medieval south India” by Whitney Cox and it was certainly something that inspired me to want a better Chola setup in India but I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to the era (or even to the Cholas).

Last of all I want to say that geography itself can be confusing, the schwartzberg atlas of South Indian history is available online and is by far the best historical atlas for India (possibly one of the best historical atlases in general). It’s detailed, it has tons of information, and it was made by a larger number of experts working together for 14 years whichever book you get I recommend referring to the atlas to get your bearings.

 

[LordofLight]

Just because something was in CK2 doesn't mean it's copy/paste into CK3.

There's a game series that is really great at quite literal copy paste.
Its football related.
This alone should make a good case for people not wanting a game to be copy/paste of the previous title.

Yet for some reason there's a decent chunk of the community that seems to expect the next CK game to just... have all the features that took years upon years of development time in the base game. Alongside the game not being code spaghet and released this decade. Plus new features, being somewhat modern and running well. It's not like I don't get why people expect these things but it is a very unreasonable demand that comes from people with little to no knowledge about how this all works.

I'm sure the devs wished they could have quite literally everything in the base game. But they also have deadlines and a budget.

But all things considered CK3 is on par with CK2 at the moment. At the very least better quality of content wise rather than quantity. There's obviously still a lot that is missing like Republics, Nomads, proper Imperial Governments (though funnily enough Royal Court feels like a foundation for court intrigue you'd see in Byzantine. Though that government was a lot more focused on internal threats than external threats.)

Feels more appropriate to compare CK3 to CK2 at the same time "age" it was back then. And we've already got a ton more. We'll see what the future holds.

 

[EU3NOOB]

There's a game series that is really great at quite literal copy paste.
Its football related.
This alone should make a good case for people not wanting a game to be copy/paste of the previous title.

Yet for some reason there's a decent chunk of the community that seems to expect the next CK game to just... have all the features that took years upon years of development time in the base game. Alongside the game not being code spaghet and released this decade. Plus new features, being somewhat modern and running well. It's not like I don't get why people expect these things but it is a very unreasonable demand that comes from people with little to no knowledge about how this all works.

I'm sure the devs wished they could have quite literally everything in the base game. But they also have deadlines and a budget.

But all things considered CK3 is on par with CK2 at the moment. At the very least better quality of content wise rather than quantity. There's obviously still a lot that is missing like Republics, Nomads, proper Imperial Governments (though funnily enough Royal Court feels like a foundation for court intrigue you'd see in Byzantine. Though that government was a lot more focused on internal threats than external threats.)

Feels more appropriate to compare CK3 to CK2 at the same time "age" it was back then. And we've already got a ton more. We'll see what the future holds.

I so absolutely agree with this! There are also people who think that the DLC that will be released for CKIII will just be a rehash of CKII's DLC. While to a degree this might be the case (obviously we'll be getting nomads, Republics, and Imperial Governments back in some form) this up and coming DLC clearly proves them wrong, to a degree at least, where we're getting dynamic cultural melting pots, something people have been clamoring for years for.

There's a game series that is really great at quite literal copy paste.
Its football related.

Ah yes, Madden xx, Fifa xx, and NBA 2kxx.

 

[Harfus]

As someone who also likes books I can sympathize Approaching Indian history can certainly be a bit daunting, and much of what one finds online can be contradictory, wrong or outdated. It also doesn’t help that many of the dynasties (like the Cedi/Kalachuri/Haihaia/more names dynasty which is in the game) go by multiple names, which aren’t easily guessed to be referring to the same thing.

I have been told the book mentioned earlier in this thread by Romila Thapar is a good introduction though I have not read it myself.
A long time ago when I was first approaching the subject of Indian history in general I found “A history of India” by Herman Kulke and Deiter Rothermund useful - but it’s very much an overview and does not dwell very long on any given period. Thapars book might be more what you are after.

Coming from having read a fair number of books on early modern Indian history before I got a fair bit of mileage out of “Rethinking Early Medieval India: A reader” by Upinder Singh et al when I first approached the “CK” era, but if you are after an overview of the political history then you want another type of book - it helps more with understanding what one finds elsewhere

The most recent thing Ive read is “Politics kingship and poetry in medieval south India” by Whitney Cox and it was certainly something that inspired me to want a better Chola setup in India but I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to the era (or even to the Cholas).

Last of all I want to say that geography itself can be confusing, the schwartzberg atlas of South Indian history is available online and is by far the best historical atlas for India (possibly one of the best historical atlases in general). It’s detailed, it has tons of information, and it was made by a larger number of experts working together for 14 years whichever book you get I recommend referring to the atlas to get your bearings.

Thank you!

 

[Greenfish]

I've noticed you mentioned pre-stated names for certain assimilations, like Russians becoming Red Ruthenian. Would a Polish split in the same region be White Ruthenians?

 

[x4077]

1) You don't seem to understand the difference between tech and content.

You don't seem to understand that reimplementing tech OR content is significantly easier, less time consuming, and less expensive than developing it the first time. You don't have to figure out the logic a second time, you can often reuse the music or graphical elements, all the research for historical elements is already done. Thus the reason why people expect it in the sequel.

Worse yet, key QoL/UI features from CK2 were left out of the CK3 release and several of them still haven't been implemented. No excuse for that IMO. How would you like it if every time a new car design came out that they waited 2-3 years to add on power steering or other QoL features?

2)It got better. Much better than one could reasonably hope. They basically included the entirety of Old Gods and bigger part of Conclave content-wise.

I respect your opinion, though I don't agree with it. With several features such as disease and crusades being done in such a half assed manner, I feel that the game was released way before it should have been.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

Anybody have recommendations for a book to learn more about the history of the region at this time period? I've always been hesitant to play in India because I know very little of its history, and I'd love to change that.

Richard m eaton, india in the persinate age, its ghaznavids on

 

[Trin Tragula]

Richard m eaton, india in the persinate age, its ghaznavids on

Have not read this yet (it's in my bookshelf though) but I want to add that just about anything by Eaton is generally a good and very informative read

 

[The Norman Yoke]

Have not read this yet (it's in my bookshelf though) but I want to add that just about anything by Eaton is generally a good and very informative read

Yes its a great read, and from how many references are to his own works, you can tell he's a real scholar of the field

 

[Riamus]

You don't seem to understand that reimplementing tech OR content is significantly easier, less time consuming, and less expensive than developing it the first time. You don't have to figure out the logic a second time, you can often reuse the music or graphical elements, all the research for historical elements is already done. Thus the reason why people expect it in the sequel.

Worse yet, key QoL/UI features from CK2 were left out of the CK3 release and several of them still haven't been implemented. No excuse for that IMO. How would you like it if every time a new car design came out that they waited 2-3 years to add on power steering or other QoL features?

Music was basically entirely redone, so not reused except with minimal exceptions. Graphics were mostly redone. So these might as well be the first time. Some things in the game are reimplemented in a way that requires less work, such as the research on titles and such. And other than changes they made, most of that is implemented as it was in CK2, so it is in the sequel. As far as logic on things, yes, mechanics that remained the same (many changed at least somewhat) can be reimplemented more easily. But missing mechanics are often ones they want to change, so that means that it requires more effort and potentially a complete rework before being added.

And that car example that I've seen here before is really a poor comparison. Car parts are often directly interchangeable between years and often models so you just take your leftover parts from the previous year and add them to the new year. This isn't always the case, but it's usually true for a large span of years, especially for something like power steering that has had few changes to how it functions until recently when they started adding the ability for it to automatically adjust speed if someone slow is in front of you. Besides, the work involved to design a car part versus program a game mechanic is generally far easier. Even with computers in cars and the programming needed for that, it's generally far more straightforward with far fewer edge cases to deal with, not to mention that you don't have to account for a bunch of potential user interactions that will affect it. Power steering - user interaction is on or off and what speed and speed up or slow down. Compare that to basically anything in the game and the game's user will have far more control and can affect things in far greater ways, making the programming significantly more challenging.

Of course, I'm not suggesting QoL stuff shouldn't be added and that it really should have been done by now. I'm just saying that it isn't such a simple thing to make a game sequel if you're not doing a sequel that is essentially the same game (like the aforementioned Madden games). CK3 may be the same basic gameplay, but a lot has changed.

 

[spymaneuropa]

How about this?
View attachment 745823





Agree that they included most of TOG, but not Conclave. The council mechanics from Conclave are missing, and only a fraction of the law system it introduced has been preserved (mainly in the form of feudal contracts, which are unavailable to clan and other governments).

oh my god yes lol horse power

 

[x4077]

And that car example that I've seen here before is really a poor comparison.

The car example is not comparing the technologies or the manufacturing, it's about the expectations of the customer. The customer doesn't care how difficult it is to put power steering in the car, they just expect it to be there because the previous model of the car had it.

Same with going from CK2 to CK3. Each CK2 customer had expectations of what things would be in CK3, and obviously for many of those customers those expectations weren't met, otherwise there wouldn't be as many posts about it as there are on the forums. My personal expectations were that the game would at least be as playable as CK2, and I was met with no character finder presets, no diplomacy map mode, insufficient information notifications and no control over the few that are there.

Of course, I'm not suggesting QoL stuff shouldn't be added and that it really should have been done by now. I'm just saying that it isn't such a simple thing to make a game sequel if you're not doing a sequel that is essentially the same game (like the aforementioned Madden games). CK3 may be the same basic gameplay, but a lot has changed.

Which is why I stated that I felt the game was released before it should have been.

 

[Viridianus]

@x4077 While UI could certainly use some work and I would also like to see features such as the ones you list added, I do not believe it is as simple as "rushed to produce, so left features out". They quite deliberately changed a lot of UI, and, while not all of these changes were for the best, their goal UI-wise was different from the beginning. In particular, the system of notifications they created, while being an utter abomination, was a deliberate attempt at streamlining, not just failure to include CK2-level customizability.

 

[grommile]

Which is why I stated that I felt the game was released before it should have been.

Once updating games post-release got easy thanks to digital distribution platforms, it became inevitable that most high-profile games (and, honestly, most "consumer" applications in general) will end up getting released before they "should".

Proprietary games get released before they "should" because the revenue to pay for building maintenance, salaries, utilities, etc. comes from sales.

Open source games get released before they "should" because that's the best way to start finding out what works and what doesn't (and also the best way to start finding and fixing the bugs that you aren't smart or motivated enough to find and fix yourself).

 

[sbcmola]

Same with going from CK2 to CK3. Each CK2 customer had expectations of what things would be in CK3, and obviously for many of those customers those expectations weren't met, otherwise there wouldn't be as many posts about it as there are on the forums. My personal expectations were that the game would at least be as playable as CK2, and I was met with no character finder presets, no diplomacy map mode, insufficient information notifications and no control over the few that are there.

What should we compare to be fair? Vanilla CK2 vs Vanilla CK3, right?

All the "marvelous DLC" that CK2 had were... well... extra content. You can play CK2 without all that extra content that was added after the release. So if we compare what was sold the "release dates" CK3 is much deeper and rich than CK2 was.

Once CK3 will stop adding content and CK3 become a "final product" we will be able to compare them fairly.

 

[TempestM]

Only if CK3 was released in 2012 as well

 

[Unknown Sage]

What should we compare to be fair? Vanilla CK2 vs Vanilla CK3, right?

All the "marvelous DLC" that CK2 had were... well... extra content. You can play CK2 without all that extra content that was added after the release. So if we compare what was sold the "release dates" CK3 is much deeper and rich than CK2 was.

Once CK3 will stop adding content and CK3 become a "final product" we will be able to compare them fairly.

I think you can still compare ck3 as it is now with ck2 as it is now. However the factor that most people don't take into account when doing so is to also compare the prices. Yes sure sales exist. But ck3 will have those too in the future. As such base price should be used for comparison. Ck2 base game is free now so not sure what to do woth that.

But the main point is that yes ck2 with all dlc has more stuff than ck3. But it is also vastly more expensive to get all those dlc when there is not a sale.

 

[x4077]

What should we compare to be fair? Vanilla CK2 vs Vanilla CK3, right?

You should compare between the options that the customer has at any one time. So compare CK3 as of August 2021 to CK2 as of August 2021. Because those are the options the customer has to choose between.

All the "marvelous DLC" that CK2 had were... well... extra content. You can play CK2 without all that extra content that was added after the release. So if we compare what was sold the "release dates" CK3 is much deeper and rich than CK2 was.

No, compare CK2 as of now without all the DLC or with the DLC disabled to CK3. Even that is somewhat 'unfair' though, since the prices for both base products isn't the same right now. Maybe compare CK3 vs CK2 with select DLC bringing its price up to what CK3 currently is selling for. Because from a customer perspective, those are the options.

Once CK3 will stop adding content and CK3 become a "final product" we will be able to compare them fairly.

You can compare them right now. Fair has nothing to do with it, as any comparison between the two will always be unfair due to the fact that CK3 development got to take advantage of lessons learned from the CK2 lifecycle. It also gets to take advantage of better hardware, more advanced compilers, etc, etc. Just as perception of CK3 is tainted by all the content that was available in CK2 that isn't in CK3.