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It's Wednesday, and time to answer some questions about the upcoming DLC for Crusader Kings II; Legacy of Rome. The focus of this mini-expansion is going to be the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox church. First off, in order to clear up any confusion from the original announcement, it's a bit smaller in scope than the Sword of Islam so the price is set at $5.99. While I say it's smaller in scope, if you include all the stuff we're adding for free in the accompanying patch (v1.07) it's probably about the same size as SoI and v1.06.

So, let's take a look at what's in the DLC and what's in patch 1.07...

LEGACY OF ROME DLC

  • Retinue system. If you don't have the DLC, you won't see the new interface and you cannot hire retinues (and neither will the AI.) The technology that controls the max size of your retinue and relative decrease of normal levy sizes simply does not have this effect without the DLC.
  • Orthodox Councillor models
  • Major Decisions for the Byzantine Empire
  • Byzantine Events

Oh, and we're taking another tack with the DLC this around - if you don't own the DLC, the AI won't be using the new mechanics or events either. Also, from now on in multiplayer mode, the host will control which DLCs are active.

PATCH 1.07


  • Faction system. Replaces many existing plots and normal revolt mechanics with factions.
  • Personal Improvement Ambitions
  • Orthodox Patriarch system
  • Have both a Plot and an Ambition at the same time
  • Revised levy raising. (You raise a single, large levy from each direct vassal. The opinions of vassals of vassals are irrelevant.)
  • Leader Focus on Combat
  • More Cultural Buildings
  • Improved AI
  • Bug fixes (of course)

I will talk about all these features in detail in upcoming dev diaries, but for now, that's all!
 
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Revshawn said:
Johan for US President 2012.
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no way, Johan will settle for nothing less than Holy Roman Emperor!! (but I suspect if somone offered him the Papacy he might be tempted with that offer).
 
Could you please add this decision for the Byzantines?

-If the capital of the Empire isn't Constantinople, revoke that county if necessary and move the capital to there. (with an extremely likely chance for the ai to do this).

This way you don't get silly capitals for the Byzantines ;)
 
I can't understand what anyone is complaining about. Yes, the DLC is small. The features look to add more flavor to a game we all seem to like well enough that we will post in the forum about it. The price is extremely low at $5.99. What the devs are doing is great in giving up so much of the content for free. I think a lot of people have become spoiled. Any other major game company would charge twice as much or more for the same level of content.

The game is still evolving. Its only been out for 7 months and has already had one major expansion and a few patches.

The devs are listening to us. I say we give them time to put in the things everyone is asking for.

The biggest problems in vanilla were, in my opinion.

-Not enough plots/ambitions (we are now getting more of both and a way to do one of each at the same time)
-Lack of character development ie. leaders didn't really learn by doing. (we are now getting a list of personal development ambitions
-Not enough formable titles especially empires. (I'm sure this is forthcoming)
-Orthodoxy is a rather blah group (One of the major features of the expac is to jazz them up)

Also, as for retinues. Standing armies in the form of personal guards or similar type groups had been around since the time of Hammurabbi. Some retinues actually became potent political forces within their kingdoms, like the Imperial guard in Rome. This is not to say that retinues represent professional armies. That evolution was a long time in coming.

I anxiously await release.
 
there havent been development diaries yet(well, not true ones), so we cant tell for sure and are for a large part speculating. it is basicly a standing army you need to pay(which i hope will be simply subtracted from income, as otherwise fabricating claims woudl become near worthless). just as a mercenary corps it will replendish, and you can choose which retinues to hire/build(i.e. you get 3 heavy infantry retinues, a cav and a archer) and functions as a standing army, which is of course optimal to win small wars with or quell some peasant rebellions, but without suffient funds out of your reach.
 
Gqarz said:
Also, as for retinues. Standing armies in the form of personal guards or similar type groups had been around since the time of Hammurabbi. Some retinues actually became potent political forces within their kingdoms, like the Imperial guard in Rome. This is not to say that retinues represent professional armies. That evolution was a long time in coming.
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I think that's what most people aren't getting. There was almost always some sort of "personal guard" or something available to Kings and many case smaller. They might call it a "standing army" offhand, but I hope that's not what they do. I personally would love to see these retinue be treated as entirely seperate versions of their normal army counterparts, but with the same stats. Why?

So people can go in and mod to make them Spartans or Elite or the Companions, etc. I'm thinking Matter of Britain offhand, but I can see a lot of different versions that could use it. It'd also help with the battles in the Crusades when a smaller army of Christians beat much larger armies of Muslims.
 
Will there be any more bug-fix patches prior to the release of 1.07?
 
Tux the Penguin said:
I think that's what most people aren't getting. There was almost always some sort of "personal guard" or something available to Kings and many case smaller.
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Comparisons with other times dont help. What i found is that at around gamestart 1066 it was usually only several 100 men usually including adviors and staff not only battle squads.
While of course there were the Varangians in Rus/Ruthenia and Byzantium and the Huskarl in Saxon England till the defeat at Hastings. Though not after afaik.
Later on, for instance in th 13th century it could be up to 5000 strong in Novgorod.
Its complicated to differentiate between a true retinue and mercenaries though. As Byzantium has better tech than europe in the beginning it can work that way and as the retinue were professional standing mercenaries making them better quality than levies.
I havent found info on that for the HRE though, nor for France and i'm not sure if its plausible for every culture and country, while it definitely does for orthodox and muslim countries.
 
I like that. Even if the DLC is not so heavy, I will buy it to support you. CK2 is an awesome game. If you could only add purple interface, it would worth the 6$ you are asking for, in my opinion.

I just hope retinues doesn't replace levies but are really difficult to maintain until the end of the game and that you will have some peace time. I like the separation between ambitions and plots, as I found it strange that I had to wait years if I canceled a plot to get a new reason to live.
 
Aardvark Bellay said:
True, though it doesnt say that the Pentarchy is a game mechanic like in EU3, only that its possible to install an orthodox bishop there. Well, there would actually be a Pentarchy, but that doesnt mean the papacy to dissolve, yet. But probably soon.

Isnt the Pentarchy universal and by thus only possible if the papacy dissolves ? If so , you may understand what i was up to. Just because there are the necessary 5 orthodox bishops, as long a the papacy exists, its still not the Pentarchy.
Anyway, i'm not that far off your coast. ;)
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The Pentarchy is a game mechanic totally unlike EU3, where is a mere decision. The religion tab for Orthodox Christians keeps track of the various Patriarchs and Pentarchs. I have to assume that there's something more to it than just cosmetic "look, these particular provinces happen to have orthodox bishops!"

Anyway, the problem with the universality of the Pentarchy is that, in theory, for a long time, both branches claimed to have patriarchs for the various see's. For example, at the moment, there are 5 Patriarchs of Antioch (and have been for quite some time); 1 Orthodox, 3 Catholic (there was a 4th Catholic Patriarch until the 1950s), and 1 Syriac.

Now, I'd love for both Orthodox and Catholic churches to have competing Pentarchs; it could be a very fun game to try and get one person or another regarded as the legitimate Patriarch of Antioch/Alexandria/Jerusalem, particularly if the mechanics allowed for titular patriarchs while the land was in non-Christian hands. But, since thats unlikely, I'll be content with just Orthodox Patriarchs, particularly if there's some mechanics for unification of the churches.
 
It occurs to me that retinues would be a great boon for all those people working on Roman scenarios, trying to model professional armies.
 
I am super-excited to see this. Updates look interesting, and a surprising amount of it seems to be in the free "patch" which is really a free expansion. It's so cool that the game is still being developed and new features added.

candelarius said:
I don't see a mention of fixing the Mac Intel HD3000 issue (most Macbook users cannot start the game, unless they turn off terrain rendering).....will that not be in the 1.07 patch? For most Mac users, the game is currently utterly unplayable....
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PC version plays awesome on my macbook pro. Use bootcamp. Even if they fixed that problem, I don't know of any game worth playing on the Mac when there's an original PC version. Unfortunately.
 
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