• 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.

CKIII Dev Diary #28 - Art Focus

Hello my name is Joacim, Art Lead on Crusader Kings 3, I am positing here a developer diary written by Pontus, Art Director on Crusader Kings 3, currently on paternity leave. Our artists will reply to your questions in the comments!

Art Focus
Hey! Let’s talk about the art of Crusader Kings III!

My name is Pontus, Art Director on CK3. I’ve written this dev diary together with the art team, and if you promise to tell everyone this is the best dev diary so far, there will be some sweet wallpapers at the end of it. Cool?

Certainly, you’ve seen a lot of the art already, in various states of completion, with all our diaries and previews. Let’s start by talking about the way we’ve approached creating the graphics for the game!

The starting point for the art direction is, as it should be, the game design. If you recall Dev Diary #0, Henrik Fåhreus’ vision of the game has a big focus on characters and storytelling, as well as approachability and player freedom. Reinforcing that through the art has been the main goal.

To keep ourselves on-track, three key pillars guide the art department on CK3:

A ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE - This pillar is represented by our goal to give life to the characters and their unfolding stories. An example of this would be the characters’ portraits, we did not want them small and static, they are now front and center, and show off their standing or lack thereof through clothing, as well as show how they feel about what is happening to them through body language.

DD28_king_01.jpg
DD28_king_02.jpg


A MEDIEVAL GAME - We made a great effort to keep a good level of historical accuracy in our designs. Our illustrations and icons are made to reflect the time period, just like the 3D art that populate the map. Of course, sometimes we had to try and find good compromises in the designs that would work for the entire timespan of the game.

Where possible, we based clothes on reconstructed sewing patterns from extant medieval clothing. For example, we recreated the "coronation tunic" of Roger II of Sicily, a well preserved garment from the 1130s (though it was actually made some time after the coronation).

DD28_tunic_comp.jpg


Another example would be a loading screen with some really well-painted sunflowers, but these did not exist in europe until the 16th century, which was spotted in time thanks to our Beta testers: so we sent it back to get the flowers repainted…

A ROUGH WORLD - Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.

Now, let’s talk about the different types of art you’ll have fun with in CK3:

CHARACTERS
I’m very excited about our new character portraits, and what we can do with them visually. They are varied and have lots of, well, character. Every day there’s a screenshot shared in the dev chat featuring someone they’ve encountered in-game, and we usually agree, yes, that person wears that hat better than most, or indeed, he looks just like the poster boy for the Deviant trait.

For me, the real test for the characters is if they make you feel, and It IS satisfying to throw especially smug-looking Rivals into your Dungeon, and you might feel a bit sorry for some harmless looking characters before you plot to have someone deliver poisonous snakes upon them.

I really want to stress the fantastic work our Lead Character Artist Nils Wadensten and the character team have done in bringing this new generation of portraits to our games, alongside our Engine team.

In fact, he’ll go into the character portraits a bit more in a future diary, hopefully he won’t show the first iterations of the wounds and diseases, some were a bit too much for a lot of people.. :)

For now, I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of Concept art and the final piece of Clothing as how it appears in the game.

DD28_steppe.jpg
DD28_african_pagan.jpg


ANIMATION
Making the characters move was quite a challenge since the movements need to be very discreet, and not call too much attention to themselves as that could become a distraction from the gameplay.

The posing and idle animations are there to help the immersion and storytelling. Keeping the Rough World pillar in mind, they should not be silly and slapstick - while CK has some wonderful dark humor, we play it straight. I do think the look on a character's face when he realises they are locked up together with a Cannibal is appropriately shocked though.

Generally the characters have a pose that reflects their personality or the situation they’re in.


EVENTS
Here is where the role-playing really kicks in. When an event pops up, we showcase the characters involved and how they feel about the current proceedings, set against a backdrop that really helps sell the setting. This means if you encounter the same event in another play-through, the visuals might be quite different due to the characters involved.

The backdrops have a detailed but hand-painted style that complements our stylized characters’ well. In fact, we have some for you as wallpapers without text, icons and characters obscuring them, enjoy.

When we create a new event background, we also do a hand-crafted lighting setup, which relights the portraits to fit the current scene:

DD28_events_01.jpg
DD28_events_02.jpg
DD28_events_03.jpg
DD28_events_04.jpg


ILLUSTRATIONS
Besides the events, there’s plenty of illustrations in CK3!

For the loading screens, we wanted someone who can do images full of mood and storytelling, in a rough, painterly style. We went straight for the top and asked Craig Mullins. Fortunately, he was up for it, and has provided some really exciting imagery.

They all are of course showcasing aspects of the Crusader Kings experience- from Templars in battle to babies in peril!

Besides the loading screens and event backgrounds, we have cool paintings for Decision categories, terrain types, holdings, army movements, legacies… heck, our Personality trait icons and Tenets are small illustrations - there is a lot to discover and keep you entertained and immersed!

DD28_hunt_text.jpg


The Holding Illustrations make for great wallpapers as well, so we included that in our art drop!

UNITS
Our units are really cool! We were very enthusiastic about these, and really added quite a bit of detail. Let us know if you spot the nails that stick the shield handle into the shield at the back.

The units’ appearance is based on culture - We have Western European, Byzantine, Middle-east / North Africa, Pagans, Indian and Turko-Mongol.

A unit has three visual tiers, becoming more armor-clad and sophisticated as it progresses. So it was important for us to make sure a Tier 2 Byzantine looks equally as tough as a Tier 2 Turko-Mongol for instance.

They have a lot of spark to them as we added a lot of different animations, they cheer when they win, bang their shields during sieges and we make use of red liquid particles when they land some nice hits.

Culture, Tiers and Coat-of-arms colors and emblems make the Units look appropriate and unique. Here’s some examples:

DD28_units.png



HOLDINGS
The Holdings were quite a challenge, they needed to be a certain size based on maximum zoom level and minimum Barony size. Since they are small they need to have strong, readable shapes without looking like toys.

Their appearances are influenced by the region they are found in, in this case Western European, Mediterranean, India and Middle-east.

Similar to Units, they have visual tiers, tied to the Holding’s Upgrade level. Temples and Cities have two tiers, whereas Castles and Walls have four tiers.

Of course, we have primitive huts as well, and a big bunch of unique buildings, some easier to recreate (Pyramids) than others (Charlemagne's Palace).

DD28_western_castles.png
DD28_mena_castles.png

DD28_special_01.png
DD28_special_02.png



MAP
There’s a rumor going around that some of you CK2 players rarely look at the terrain map. We didn’t want that for CK3, so we made our map to not only be moody and pretty to look at, but also more useful, so you’d have more reasons to go there.

CK is information heavy, so we try to make sure that everything in the terrain map serves a function, and is easy to see. Thus a cleaner look, to make sure the icons, borders, text and 3D models that sit on top of the land read well. At a glance, you should be able to see what terrain type a Barony has without consulting another map mode.

DD28_map_02.png
DD28_map_03.png
DD28_map_01.png


If you are into Political Map modes though, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. You’ll notice it feels familiar.

It seems our Paper map has been received well, we’re glad you like lobsters too! Getting the right amount of sea-monsters without making it look cluttered wasn’t easy, but I think we managed in the end.

DD28_papermap.png


UI
A PDS game has a lot of UI. It is something made in close collaboration with UX and Game Design departments. It is constantly iterated upon and is one of the most challenging aspects of our games.
Visually we took inspiration from game design’s character focus pillar and pulled in visual influences from Roleplaying games. To make it approachable we tried to keep it clean, and give everything some breathing room.

DD28_Character_Screen.png
DD28_MAA.jpg


DD28_letter.jpg


We use a lot of illustrations in our UI’s to help immersion and flavor, and we have a cool system where some of the image types are context sensitive, so for instance your Sultan will not stand in front of a western European throne room if he is hanging out in the Middle-east, and if you are dealing with Catholicism in Religion View, well you’ll see churches and similar imagery.


Coats of Arms
Heraldry is essential to the medieval immersion of Crusader Kings, and so heralds will be excited to hear that we have totally overhauled the Coat of Arms system.

We started from scratch, poring over history books and contemporary armorials to ensure every detail is authentic. We designed accurate CoA for over a thousand titles and dynasties to complement a new scriptable random system that weights hundreds of unique elements based on culture, religion, and everything in between. We modeled minute differences across regions, so frequencies of designs and tinctures are different in Germany, France, and Spain. The amount of possible combinations? Millions.

We achieved our primary goal of making our feudal European heraldry as accurate as possible, but we didn't stop there—we wanted to go into extra depth for all regions. For example, the eastern hordes decorate the Great Steppe with their special tamgha emblems, while the Islamic world is fleshed out with immersive Saracenic heraldry (no more endless stars and crescents). Emergent cadet houses differentiate their new arms by quartering, and yes, England's coat of arms will change if William wins the Norman Invasion.

Here’s some examples of the heraldry system in action - firstly how England’s arms can react to gameplay, and secondly a selection of randomly-generated COA from around the world.

DD28_COA_1.png
DD28_COA_2.png


In summary:

The art team has worked very hard and it is a delight every day to see whatever new stuff is coming in. Making games is a group effort though, so we get invaluable help and feedback from the rest of the team: code, design, QA, sound, production all contribute as well.

Of course, seeing pictures in a dev diary is one thing, we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the full experience! As always, your feedback will help guide us as we continue to make content and improvements for CK3!

And for being good sports and reaching the end of the dev diary, here's links to some sweet wallpapers!
 

Attachments

  • DD28_council.mp4
    8,9 MB
  • DD28_event.mp4
    9,5 MB
  • DD28_combat_vid_1.mp4
    18,7 MB
  • DD28_combat_vid_2.mp4
    19,2 MB
  • DD28_western_castles.png
    DD28_western_castles.png
    1 MB · Views: 0
Last edited:
  • 175Love
  • 141Like
  • 20
  • 9
  • 3
Reactions:
Iberian Caballeros
I take a slight issue with the "Caballero" unit.
For starters, there were actually 3 types of Caballeros:
-caballeros Villanos (Low-born Cavalry)
-caballeros Hidalgos (High-born Cavalry)
-Caballeros (Royal Knight)


There is virtually no difference between the Caballero Villano and the Caballero Hidalgo from the just regular light cavalry and knights, its literally just that but written in Castillian.
There is however a unique trait to the Caballero that differentiates it from the regular European Knight, and that is the fact that the Caballeros were a force under absolute control of the king and had no feudal ties, unlike in the rest of Europe where Knights were usually part of the nobility, and thus had some degree of autonomy.

However if this unit is what the Caballero is trying to represent, then i fail to understand why it should be considered light cavalry, since these were the best equiped knights in the peninsula, they equipped in typical Gothic fashion, with Mail Hauberks, nasal helmets (later great helmets), Kite shields, longswords made for horseback combat, (see: "Montante", literally Rider's sword), occasionally some throwing weapons such as javelins and Visigothic Throwing Axes.

It seems to me that this "Caballero" unit is not supposed to represent the actual Caballeros but instead a lighter, "skirmisher" cavalry type of unit, like for example the Jinetes, used more often in the earlier reconquista especially by Aragon (I believe they called them Genetes?).
If that is the case i would suggest renaming it to Jinete instead, although it would not be as representative of all of Iberia.
Since the Jinete came up, i believe it would also be worth mentioning the Almogavares, also a light skirmishing unit but this time an infantry unit used to fight in the mountainous, rugged and forested terrains of North Iberia where cavalry tactics proved less efficient. It would also probably be a more interesting unit for gameplay purposes, expecially since the Andalucians will most likely also have some light cavalry culture-specific unit, giving the northern catholics infantry instead would increase the diversity in Iberian warfare as well as making the Moors more effective in the plain south and the catholics in the rugged North, which would be good for balance,


Ideally, instead of all Iberians using the same special units, there could be some more specific divisions to add some diversity, the Aragonese were usually more keen on using hit and run tactics and light units, the two aformentioned units (Jinetes and Almogavares) would fit them very well. Castille was mostly keen on using heavy Cavalry, they were the ones first adapting the Caballeiro system and capitalizing on its effectiveness, so maybe the Caballero fits Castile (albeit a Heavy Cavalry unit).
For western Iberia i find it more tricky to find unique units that fit them, in theory, all of the aformentioned units were also used in the West, just not as commonly.
Analysing the type of warfare between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Castille in the 13th and 14th centuries we can find remarkable similarites between the combats of England vs France, with Castile usually fielding a much larger amount of Heavy Cavalry and Portugal relying mostly on spearmen formations, crossbowmen and capitalizing on defending favourable terrain and using field traps. In fact i can find a unit that would fit Portugal, that being the Besteiros do Conto (Conto Crossbowmen), a type of crossbowmen that answered only to the king (in a similar fashion to the Castillian Caballero) and each municipality was ordered to keep a small, elite contigent (the number depended on the the number of families living in the municipality) of crossbowmen, fully equiped and trainned for combat at all times, although this only traces back to the 14th century, so it only really applies in the late game).

Oh, there is also the issue that Caballero (and all 3 Caballero variation) are written in the castilian language, and they have different names in Catalan, Aragonese, Galician/Portuguese and Basque...

Just food for thought.
 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
A ROUGH WORLD - Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.

Ah, so that's why everyone in the screenshots kind of looks like a drowned rat. Not to offend, but personally I'm of the conviction that the game might benefit from occasional pops of brightness and color, to maybe try and reflect the prestige that our characters are supposed to be seeking.
 
  • 11
  • 2Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
I really like this Dev Diary. Well I already said this about most Dev Diaries after the War and Law one. The portraits are much better now. I remember the first look at the one Welsh Petty King and thought: Eeh this will be difficult to get into. But a bit more light would bring in some life, or is a moody atmosphere your goal?


The CoA are a bit off, but this is my only gripe.


But I really wonder how they pull off injuries and illnesses.
 
LOVE IT ALL!

Just one question and one request!

Question: Will the paper map be modable by making a lets say a photoshop lineart piece? (Not that the original is bad, it is awesome)

Request: Constantinople, looking nice, but please, please add the Theodosian Walls, it would be awesome and truly make the city a jewel t behold with the Hagia Sophia within it.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
Ah, so that's why everyone in the screenshots kind of looks like a drowned rat. Not to offend, but personally I'm of the conviction that the game might benefit from occasional pops of brightness and color, to maybe try and reflect the prestige that our characters are supposed to be seeking.

In general the only thing I would change slightly would be have the clothing be more colorful. Simply because medieval clothing was a lot more bombastic and colorful than most people think and it would be nice for that to be reflected here. But I am also very grateful that they are taking a care to make the clothing historically accurate in form.
 
  • 7
Reactions:
A ROUGH WORLD - Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.
It's good to have the color palette set the appropriate mood, but it's a questionable decision to trade legibility for mood. See the following thread comparing CK2 and CK3 and rklrj's suggestions in both threads

Since this dev diary is about art I might as well post about this again. I mentioned this in an earlier thread, but the graphics and UI seem very dark, almost like everything were in shadow. I made another quick edit to show what I mean, after you adjust brightness and contrast the darkness of the original is especially clear and gets almost jarring.

View attachment 581810
 
  • 2Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
In general the only thing I would change slightly would be have the clothing be more colorful. Simply because medieval clothing was a lot more bombastic and colorful than most people think and it would be nice for that to be reflected here. But I am also very grateful that they are taking a care to make the clothing historically accurate in form.
That, and I really think the characters would be more relatable if they weren't constantly obscured by that shadowy filter.

What I would love would be a small increase in brightness, perhaps coupled with a change in light source so that the models would be lit more from the side, thus fully bringing out their 3D features. As it is now, they look kind of flat to me.

And then maybe a bit of glimmer of the jewelry, perhaps a striking purple robe on someone who climbed to an impressive status, maybe a flash of a smile from somebody who's happy, or gregarious and popular, or in love? I dislike how all of the characters look grim and somehow the same.

Honestly, CK2 portraits, although flat and not moving, sometimes did a better job of displaying the diversity of the characters. I could even fall for a couple of my guys! They at times happened to have a nicely defined jawline or a particularly sharp brow which made them stand out a litte. While CK3 models, so far, seem kind of cookie-cutter -- something that I hope can be addressed in development further on.
 
  • 5
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions:
Absolutely lovely, great work, congratulations.
Although, i still think the map grafics is still lacking compared to I:R...
 
Art Focus
Hey! Let’s talk about the art of Crusader Kings III!

My name is Pontus, Art Director on CK3. I’ve written this dev diary together with the art team, and if you promise to tell everyone this is the best dev diary so far, there will be some sweet wallpapers at the end of it. Cool?

Certainly, you’ve seen a lot of the art already, in various states of completion, with all our diaries and previews. Let’s start by talking about the way we’ve approached creating the graphics for the game!

The starting point for the art direction is, as it should be, the game design. If you recall Dev Diary #0, Henrik Fåhreus’ vision of the game has a big focus on characters and storytelling, as well as approachability and player freedom. Reinforcing that through the art has been the main goal.

To keep ourselves on-track, three key pillars guide the art department on CK3:

A ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE - This pillar is represented by our goal to give life to the characters and their unfolding stories. An example of this would be the characters’ portraits, we did not want them small and static, they are now front and center, and show off their standing or lack thereof through clothing, as well as show how they feel about what is happening to them through body language.

View attachment 581758View attachment 581759

A MEDIEVAL GAME - We made a great effort to keep a good level of historical accuracy in our designs. Our illustrations and icons are made to reflect the time period, just like the 3D art that populate the map. Of course, sometimes we had to try and find good compromises in the designs that would work for the entire timespan of the game.

Where possible, we based clothes on reconstructed sewing patterns from extant medieval clothing. For example, we recreated the "coronation tunic" of Roger II of Sicily, a well preserved garment from the 1130s (though it was actually made some time after the coronation).

View attachment 581760

Another example would be a loading screen with some really well-painted sunflowers, but these did not exist in europe until the 16th century, which was spotted in time thanks to our Beta testers: so we sent it back to get the flowers repainted…

A ROUGH WORLD - Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.

Now, let’s talk about the different types of art you’ll have fun with in CK3:

CHARACTERS
I’m very excited about our new character portraits, and what we can do with them visually. They are varied and have lots of, well, character. Every day there’s a screenshot shared in the dev chat featuring someone they’ve encountered in-game, and we usually agree, yes, that person wears that hat better than most, or indeed, he looks just like the poster boy for the Deviant trait.

For me, the real test for the characters is if they make you feel, and It IS satisfying to throw especially smug-looking Rivals into your Dungeon, and you might feel a bit sorry for some harmless looking characters before you plot to have someone deliver poisonous snakes upon them.

I really want to stress the fantastic work our Lead Character Artist Nils Wadensten and the character team have done in bringing this new generation of portraits to our games, alongside our Engine team.

In fact, he’ll go into the character portraits a bit more in a future diary, hopefully he won’t show the first iterations of the wounds and diseases, some were a bit too much for a lot of people.. :)

For now, I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of Concept art and the final piece of Clothing as how it appears in the game.

View attachment 581763View attachment 581764

ANIMATION
Making the characters move was quite a challenge since the movements need to be very discreet, and not call too much attention to themselves as that could become a distraction from the gameplay.

The posing and idle animations are there to help the immersion and storytelling. Keeping the Rough World pillar in mind, they should not be silly and slapstick - while CK has some wonderful dark humor, we play it straight. I do think the look on a character's face when he realises they are locked up together with a Cannibal is appropriately shocked though.

Generally the characters have a pose that reflects their personality or the situation they’re in.


EVENTS
Here is where the role-playing really kicks in. When an event pops up, we showcase the characters involved and how they feel about the current proceedings, set against a backdrop that really helps sell the setting. This means if you encounter the same event in another play-through, the visuals might be quite different due to the characters involved.

The backdrops have a detailed but hand-painted style that complements our stylized characters’ well. In fact, we have some for you as wallpapers without text, icons and characters obscuring them, enjoy.

When we create a new event background, we also do a hand-crafted lighting setup, which relights the portraits to fit the current scene:

View attachment 581767View attachment 581768View attachment 581769View attachment 581770

ILLUSTRATIONS
Besides the events, there’s plenty of illustrations in CK3!

For the loading screens, we wanted someone who can do images full of mood and storytelling, in a rough, painterly style. We went straight for the top and asked Craig Mullins. Fortunately, he was up for it, and has provided some really exciting imagery.

They all are of course showcasing aspects of the Crusader Kings experience- from Templars in battle to babies in peril!

Besides the loading screens and event backgrounds, we have cool paintings for Decision categories, terrain types, holdings, army movements, legacies… heck, our Personality trait icons and Tenets are small illustrations - there is a lot to discover and keep you entertained and immersed!

View attachment 581785

The Holding Illustrations make for great wallpapers as well, so we included that in our art drop!

UNITS
Our units are really cool! We were very enthusiastic about these, and really added quite a bit of detail. Let us know if you spot the nails that stick the shield handle into the shield at the back.

The units’ appearance is based on culture - We have Western European, Byzantine, Middle-east / North Africa, Pagans, Indian and Turko-Mongol.

A unit has three visual tiers, becoming more armor-clad and sophisticated as it progresses. So it was important for us to make sure a Tier 2 Byzantine looks equally as tough as a Tier 2 Turko-Mongol for instance.

They have a lot of spark to them as we added a lot of different animations, they cheer when they win, bang their shields during sieges and we make use of red liquid particles when they land some nice hits.

Culture, Tiers and Coat-of-arms colors and emblems make the Units look appropriate and unique. Here’s some examples:

View attachment 581771


HOLDINGS
The Holdings were quite a challenge, they needed to be a certain size based on maximum zoom level and minimum Barony size. Since they are small they need to have strong, readable shapes without looking like toys.

Their appearances are influenced by the region they are found in, in this case Western European, Mediterranean, India and Middle-east.

Similar to Units, they have visual tiers, tied to the Holding’s Upgrade level. Temples and Cities have two tiers, whereas Castles and Walls have four tiers.

Of course, we have primitive huts as well, and a big bunch of unique buildings, some easier to recreate (Pyramids) than others (Charlemagne's Palace).

View attachment 581775View attachment 581776
View attachment 581779View attachment 581780


MAP
There’s a rumor going around that some of you CK2 players rarely look at the terrain map. We didn’t want that for CK3, so we made our map to not only be moody and pretty to look at, but also more useful, so you’d have more reasons to go there.

CK is information heavy, so we try to make sure that everything in the terrain map serves a function, and is easy to see. Thus a cleaner look, to make sure the icons, borders, text and 3D models that sit on top of the land read well. At a glance, you should be able to see what terrain type a Barony has without consulting another map mode.

View attachment 581782View attachment 581783View attachment 581784

If you are into Political Map modes though, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. You’ll notice it feels familiar.

It seems our Paper map has been received well, we’re glad you like lobsters too! Getting the right amount of sea-monsters without making it look cluttered wasn’t easy, but I think we managed in the end.

View attachment 581781

UI
A PDS game has a lot of UI. It is something made in close collaboration with UX and Game Design departments. It is constantly iterated upon and is one of the most challenging aspects of our games.
Visually we took inspiration from game design’s character focus pillar and pulled in visual influences from Roleplaying games. To make it approachable we tried to keep it clean, and give everything some breathing room.

View attachment 581786View attachment 581787

View attachment 581789

We use a lot of illustrations in our UI’s to help immersion and flavor, and we have a cool system where some of the image types are context sensitive, so for instance your Sultan will not stand in front of a western European throne room if he is hanging out in the Middle-east, and if you are dealing with Catholicism in Religion View, well you’ll see churches and similar imagery.


Coats of Arms
Heraldry is essential to the medieval immersion of Crusader Kings, and so heralds will be excited to hear that we have totally overhauled the Coat of Arms system.

We started from scratch, poring over history books and contemporary armorials to ensure every detail is authentic. We designed accurate CoA for over a thousand titles and dynasties to complement a new scriptable random system that weights hundreds of unique elements based on culture, religion, and everything in between. We modeled minute differences across regions, so frequencies of designs and tinctures are different in Germany, France, and Spain. The amount of possible combinations? Millions.

We achieved our primary goal of making our feudal European heraldry as accurate as possible, but we didn't stop there—we wanted to go into extra depth for all regions. For example, the eastern hordes decorate the Great Steppe with their special tamgha emblems, while the Islamic world is fleshed out with immersive Saracenic heraldry (no more endless stars and crescents). Emergent cadet houses differentiate their new arms by quartering, and yes, England's coat of arms will change if William wins the Norman Invasion.

Here’s some examples of the heraldry system in action - firstly how England’s arms can react to gameplay, and secondly a selection of randomly-generated COA from around the world.

View attachment 581790View attachment 581791

In summary:

The art team has worked very hard and it is a delight every day to see whatever new stuff is coming in. Making games is a group effort though, so we get invaluable help and feedback from the rest of the team: code, design, QA, sound, production all contribute as well.

Of course, seeing pictures in a dev diary is one thing, we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the full experience! As always, your feedback will help guide us as we continue to make content and improvements for CK3!

And for being good sports and reaching the end of the dev diary, here's links to some sweet wallpapers!
Ill try again, because I am not sure if it will be visible without actually replying.

Request: Theodosian Walls, would make Constantnople really stand out like a jewel.

Question: Is it possible, as an artist, to photoshop and line art my own paper map? (The original is awesome btw).

General comment: LOVE IT ALL, awesome work!
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Question: Is it possible, as an artist, to photoshop and line art my own paper map? (The original is awesome btw).

My guess is yes, as I imagine the paper map is just an image file that they have overlayed the colours of the political map on (with maybe a special blending mode).

Edit: Some of the wallpapers are subsection the paper map without the political borders and colours on it. Pretty sure they are just croppings of the image that is the basis of the paper map mode.
 
Last edited:
Question: With regards to CoA - will a revolt's CoA be more prevalent to the region it is formed?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Like everyone else, I really liked this Dev Diary!

It's a nice insight in what's been going on and where improvements have been made which you can actually see! Very nice.

But as a lot of others have pointed out the cities, castles etc. seem a bit barren.

I've made 2 mockups to show how much of a difference it can make when there are just some more buildings around the cities.
Keep in mind I have poor Photoshop skills and I just copied some stuff over from Imperator: Rome. But I think if you'd include some of these mini buildings around these major cities etc. in their proper style it would make a huge difference. Especially if they would grow like in I:R!

It would make it feel even more "impactful" if you build out your city etc. and watch them "grow"


Before
DD28_special_01.png


After
Something like that1.png



Before
DD28_special_02.png


After
something2.png
 
  • 11Like
  • 9
  • 9
  • 2
Reactions:
Heraldry and heraldry-like designs from the medieval Islamic world were reasonably common. We used a bunch of different sources, but this one is a pretty good start and has some interesting pictures in the first pages (requires a sign-up). New Considerations on Mamluk Heraldry - Paul Balog

Here's another image I found that has some good examples.

View attachment 581925

THAT SWEET HERALDRY.

Thanks, Paradox. I just want to say that, with this last diary, a new standard for art quality and historical rigour seems to be close.

Like everyone else, I really liked this Dev Diary!

It's a nice insight in what's been going on and where improvements have been made which you can actually see! Very nice.

But as a lot of others have pointed out the cities, castles etc. seem a bit barren.

I've made 2 mockups to show how much of a difference it can make when there are just some more buildings around the cities.
Keep in mind I have poor Photoshop skills and I just copied some stuff over from Imperator: Rome. But I think if you'd include some of these mini buildings around these major cities etc. in their proper style it would make a huge difference. Especially if they would grow like in I:R!

It would make it feel even more "impactful" if you build out your city etc. and watch them "grow"


Before
View attachment 581962

After
View attachment 581963


Before
View attachment 581964

After
View attachment 581965

YES PLEASE.

Paradox, you know how to do this, you've done it in Imperator. Just... do it again.
 
  • 3
  • 2
Reactions:
Ah, so that's why everyone in the screenshots kind of looks like a drowned rat. Not to offend, but personally I'm of the conviction that the game might benefit from occasional pops of brightness and color, to maybe try and reflect the prestige that our characters are supposed to be seeking.
We don't want to make Glitterhoof sad, now, do we?
 
  • 2Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
overlaid each other looks really ugly
Real talk, a lot of stuff in medieval times that was normal can be considered either super ugly or silly.

The obsession with codpieces is certainly not something that is very fashionable or not laugh worthy these days for example. And CoA seemed to have a bigger concern with dynasty representation than apperances. I can sort of see why

"So you're saying the CoA looks ugly."
"Yes."
"And... you're saying that because of my families CoA beind added in? Is this what you are trying to imply?"
"Uhhh..... well uhm..."
 
  • 8
  • 2Haha
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I've made 2 mockups to show how much of a difference it can make when there are just some more buildings around the cities.
Keep in mind I have poor Photoshop skills and I just copied some stuff over from Imperator: Rome. But I think if you'd include some of these mini buildings around these major cities etc. in their proper style it would make a huge difference. Especially if they would grow like in I:R!

Now imagine barony after barony looking like that and the map becomes ridiculously crowded.
 
  • 14
  • 2
Reactions:
Now imagine barony after barony looking like that and the map becomes ridiculously crowded.

Veeery easy soltion: make the extra houses be dependant on population (or building level, or prosperity, or whatnot) in an exponential way. Low population, no houses. Mid population, very few houses. Large population, many houses.

Or, make the houses depend on a barony being capital of a kingdom or empire, but I don't favour the second one.
 
  • 10
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Now imagine barony after barony looking like that and the map becomes ridiculously crowded.

I agree, maybe there is a way to combat this if you only do it for cities that reach a certain size or "level".
I bet there is something to avoid making the map feeling overcrowded with little buildings everywhere, I hope so at least. :)

Maybe the devs can think of something. I mean it doesn't have to be the highest priority, so maybe they can push this in a later update.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Are the three circled coat of arms here having the same upper left corner inset just a result of whatever method you used to get a few random ones for the post or should we be concerned over repeating coat of arms?View attachment 581908

(I also personally think that style with coat of arms just awkwardly overlaid each other looks really ugly but if that's how it was historically like that one dev response said then I just have to deal with it I guess)
The use of a canton ermine specifically - the white square with black tails on it - could be used to show royal associations, or an affinity to the Duchy of Brittany, which bore one of the rare one word blazons: ermine. I'm confident that we'll see a proper range of cantons in the finished product.

nd
 
  • 3
Reactions: