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Crusader Kings 3 Dev Diary #75 - In the Event of Court Events

Welcome comrades! In today’s (not at all late shutup SHUTUP) dev diary, we’ll be going over the new court-type event; many of you will likely have seen them a bit already in a few preceding dev diaries, but for the rest, allow me to formally introduce court-type events:
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This new event type is seen exclusively within the court view, where they replace standard character-type events.

We added these because one of the major design limitations with character-type events is that they’re uhh… they’re small. Really, really, really small, and having comparatively little space to work with means they impose a lot of restrictions on their use.

Those of you who mod, or have dabbled at modding, will likely know what I’m talking about: generally, a character event can only fit about three paragraphs of copy and 3-4 options before it starts to look a little naff. Less if there are characters or titles involved with very long names, or if you have to do a lot of paragraphing.

There are good reasons for them to be this small - they get in the way less when popping up, it encourages concise delivery of information, and it frames the portrait characters in each event nicely.

For the court scene, these considerations are (generally) moot, so we wanted to play around with a more liberal event format. We don’t need to worry about framing characters in the traditional sense since we show them in the scene, the player always opts into a court-type event and thus can’t have one pop-up unexpectedly, and though information (and options) still need to be reasonably concise, it’s nice to have a little room to flex the meaning of “concise” somewhat.

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From a player’s perspective, you’ll mostly interact with court-type events through the not-at-all-confusingly-named court events pool. Similar to random yearlies, court events reflect the life of your court just existing, with all the petty drama and courtly intrigue you’d expect from a medieval monarch’s household. They primarily involve characters consistently within your court (rather than far-flung vassals or guests), and often tie into court grandeur and your different levels of amenities.

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Other than their tone, size, and occasional number of options, the biggest differences that players will notice are their usage of different camera shots instead of backgrounds and portraits…

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… and their optional nature. Unlike yearly events, court events are opt-in, meaning that you don’t have to take them if you don’t want to, in which case their default (neutral-ish) option will be selected after a long-ish time-out period.

To open a court event, you simply click on a button that’ll appear floating over one of your court’s relevant characters. Whenever you’ve got court events you could be checking, you’ll be notified via the Royal Court button in the right-hand panel.

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From a scripting perspective, court-type events share a fair amount of DNA with character-type events, but differ mostly in the form of their court_scene block.

Usually, I’d go on to explain everything in a bit more depth inside the dev diary itself, but since court-type events can be tricksy to script till you get the hang of ‘em, we’ve included an example court-type event inside one of the event files that breaks down their make-up:
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^^ Hopefully, this should be a solid annotated example, but just in case, here’s a few pre-emptive clarifications:
1) Every court-type event must have a button character, even if that character is just your character, so that must always be set up.
2) The group parameter defines which spot in the scene that character stands in. These groups themselves are scriptable (with a bit of work) elsewhere, so you can arrange characters inside the court however you like. The groups shown in the example actually contain multiple different preset positions within the court scene, one of which is selected randomly for each event when it tries to fire.
3) For animations, we can access all the standard ones, plus a slew of new animations created specifically for the court scene.

Finally, just for fun, let’s have some more court events:
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Oh, right, yes, I titled the dev diary “and friend” too, didn’t I? Welp, the new court-type isn’t the only event type we’re adding with this expansion (just the most exciting). We also have the new duel event type!

Duels were added as part of our first flavour pack, but I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the space for ‘em is pretty limited, and the animations don’t work so well for this context. Welp, we’ve revamped both of those with this new type, giving duels a face-lift:
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… Naturally, the weapon held by either character does correspond to their signature weapon type, or whatever weapon artefact they have equipped (if they’ve got one).

And that’s all from me, folks. As ever, I’ll be around in the comments for an hour or so to answer questions, but otherwise, see y’all next diary!
 
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You could explore rooms, search for mysterious objects in libraries/armories (home and abroad), choose who to talk to, arrange dinner guests to honor or humiliate them, set standards of dress and protocol (affecting budgets and cultural opinions), gain access (or lose access) to rooms and spaces where plots and swaying and seduction can occur :cool:, and... though it may not be your top priority... DECORATE... in ways that honor certain cultures/values so as to signal your beliefs and stances as a ruler.
This might be possible in CK4 but the devs have stated that they are trying to make Royal Court playable on the lower end of recommended specs for the game and add more visuals to the game is going to limit who can by the DLC because CK3 isn't a graphics intense game so there are people who can play CK3 fine right now but adding too many graphical elements to the game and they won't be able to play so now you are limiting your potential sales.

Also, this is just way too much of a deviation of the standard gameplay that the game has established that I can't see the devs going in this direction.
 
This might be possible in CK4 but the devs have stated that they are trying to make Royal Court playable on the lower end of recommended specs for the game and add more visuals to the game is going to limit who can by the DLC because CK3 isn't a graphics intense game so there are people who can play CK3 fine right now but adding too many graphical elements to the game and they won't be able to play so now you are limiting your potential sales.
explore rooms:
The graphics limits are understandable. But I don't mean walking around and zooming in and picking things up (maybe CK4, lol). I mean simply looking at a room from multiple camera angles. And the dev's are already providing this, just for one room (for now). Adding a few more rooms shouldn't kill the graphics... you leave one room and then the game loads the next.

search for mysterious objects in libraries/armories (home and abroad):
My description's kinda misleading. You won't be examining nooks and crannies like Luigi's Mansion. I mean your character could request access to a library/study of a foreign ruler. They could "Take out books" or possibly "Search for documents". Such items could help them with lifestyle experience, discovering secrets, uncovering secret societies, or even fabricating claims. The longer you search, the more likely you are to be discovered. Again, the graphics don't have to be complicated. One could "Open Books".

By the way... if you think I'm crazy, look what this modder has already done:

ECAA23E8AB037941CE34D6B24CB82D6417572B25


With books and libraries and KEYS to SHELVES and DRAWERS, one could make something quite elaborate. Have you ever read The Name of the Rose? Me neither. But there was an entire course on it at my college (which I conveniently skipped). Murder mystery. Medieval. LIBRARY!

choose who to talk to:
What's wrong with this? The game's AWFULLY control-ly about who we talk to, and when ......doesn't sound healthy :p

arrange dinner guests to honor or humiliate them
new way to juggle the feelings of your petty, mean-girl dukes and duchesses. simple. visual. fun!

set standards of dress and protocol (affecting budgets and cultural opinions)
Come on! This is so simple and so fun who wouldn't want it? Based on what styles/dress/decorations you allow... you can choose which cultures to promote/tolerate/persecute in court. With the cultural changes coming up, this would give depth and integrate seamlessly.

gain access (or lose access) to rooms and spaces where plots and swaying and seduction can occur :cool:
As I said about libraries, there's lots of possibilities when ACCESS vs NO ENTRY come into play. It could add depth to schemes and seduction. Instead of just working your way into someone's percentage-heart-circle....... you could work your way into various rooms and alone times.

As in life, going deeper into a person's home is metaphorically going deeper into a person's heart. And in each room, the conversations, events and options increase. Meanwhile, the more time you spend in the wrong chambers or with the wrong people, the more suspicious others will become. Beware the gossip!


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I'm not saying the devs need to do these things NOW. I'm just saying:

a) theoretically possible
b) not graphics-intensive
c) can be worked into the flow of the game
 
I'm very exited for this feature! But I feel like it's very sad that you won't have these small-scale personal events as a count/duke or as a tribal leader. These feel like they would fit pretty neatly in a lowly and small court with a more personal feel. I really think it should be reconsidered wether or not you want to keep players in the early game from having these events. Maybe these could be disabled for AI but enabled for players of all ranks and gouvernment types...
 
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