Hello everyone! So finally we address the Elephant in the room, specifically the War Elephant in the upcoming Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India expansion.

When making an expansion based on India we simply couldn't ignore the elephantry that they fielded. These giants will help your Indian rulers to conquer and stampede over any opposition you face, being the heaviest cavalry you can field in Crusader Kings 2. These beasts of war will be mostly available from retinues but there will also be cultural buildings that will produce them for you. They will only exist in very limited numbers compared to other troop types but will have a devastating effect on the battlefield during the melee phase. The Indian general that makes sure to use his unique set of tactics available for these units will without a doubt be victorious.

We also fixed so that the Arabic cultures can field their own camel warriors to face the heathens with.

View attachment ck2_2.png
Showing off their mighty War Elephant Retinues

The old troop type system was very limiting, not allowing for a lot of creativity, and we had nowhere to place the new war elephants in the user interface, it was already over-crowded with the other troop types. So what we did was remake the Horse Archer with a fully script-able troop type known as Special Troops. These now represent Horse Archers, Camel Warriors and the mighty War Elephants. It will be even possible to field Camel Warriors and War Elephants in the same army in your grand pan Arabic-Indian Empire if you so desire. The most important thing is that now modders can utilize this to make their mods even more diverse and interesting, allowing them to add troop types ranging from Wizards to gunpowder troops.

View attachment ck2_3.png
The breakdown of special troops, everything is quite similar to
before except for the numbering of the horse archers.

What is the actual difference for the modders from the previous system then? Well Korbah made an excellent diagram he posted on the beta forum which I am going to borrow from him.

View attachment hkjhkjh.jpg

Previously the troop types were hard-coded in place which gave very little option with what you could actually do with them. Each regiment always had six entries: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Archers, Pikemen, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry and Horse Archers. This meant an army would always consist of a composition of these troop types. The new system removes the Horse Archers and replaces it with the special troop type, meaning it can be anything and every regiment can have a different composition of troop types and still function as a unified army. The only limit on this is that a regiment can only have one special troop type, so one holding can not produce several different special troop types and mercenaries and retinues can only have one special troop type assigned to them.


With the India expansion the world grows immensely giving us a good opportunity to add some common tactical problems that commanders of the time faced. First we gave the Indian subcontinent the jungle terrain type which will harshly increase your attrition and defense bonuses. But the other problem is supplies, it won't be a simple task to just walk across all of Europe with every single soldier you started with alive. You will now have to combat starvation as you march far away from your home. This means that Norse Vikings armies will have starved to death before even reaching India.

How it works is that while you are nearby your realm or your top-liege's realm your soldiers will fill up on supplies to keep themselves fed. These supplies will always last for 31 days. When they step too far away into neutral territory they will start to starve for supplies and have a ticking attrition that goes up slowly for each day. A good martial leader can of course counter-act it to a certain point. When you do finally reach the enemy territory, the troops will start foraging from their surrounding area to keep themselves supplied. The foraging builds on the pillaging from the loot bar except it goes a lot slower. When the soldiers can't take more from the loot bar they will start to starve again in 31 days. This will balance the rulers of Europe to invade their neighbors instead of happily jump over the Egypt and start carving their piece of India. Instead they will have to put a bit effort into it if they want to actually reach India.

So yes we will see a Norse India eventually, but it will be quite an achievement.


There has been some big issues with what people have dubbed "North Korea Mode", making the game way too easy to play and removing the entire feudal point of the game. So we have made playing this way a lot less rewarding by reducing the amount of levies and income they actually get from doing this. It is of course still completely possible to play like this if you still want to, but you will be a bankrupt France with only 400 troops while the strong HRE will be raising a lot more troops than that. Small counts and dukes who go over their demense limit just a little bit will be a bit penalized but not to the same degree.

Bonus: Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India Interview with Project Lead Henrik Fahraeus
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Excl...ith-Project-Lead-Henrik-Fahraeus-429067.shtml

 

[Cymsdale]

How has feudalism been buffed? Penalties have been increased for being over your desmense limit.

I really don't understand the controversy about all this.

Feudalism hasn't been buffed. I'm responding to those who think that exploits should not be fixed, but non-exploits should be "buffed" to counteract them.

 

[Kumicho]

"Buffing" feudalism is simply a wholesale decrease on the difficulty of the game. That's an absurd way to balance around an exploit.

Hey guys, don't fix the exploit, just make the entire game easier top to bottom so you have no incentive to use the exploit anymore!

Buffing feudalism is needed because they've nerfed it to the point that there's no reason for it anymore. Prior to 2.0 you wanted strong, happy vassals because they gave you more troops to fight your wars. Post-2.0 any strong vassal is a vastly more dangerous threat than it ever would be an asset. From a risk-reward standpoint there's no reason to have any vassal stronger than a single county Count. NKM took this to the extreme and went *no* vassals, and so what people are asking for isn't the "stick" to force people to have vassals, but rather make it somehow rewarding so that we WANT to have them. It's not about increasing or decreasing the difficulty since all entities on the map will have the new mechanics, including your enemies. To be honest this is why I went back to mostly using the pre-2.0 levies, because it made me WANT to have strong, powerful vassals. I want them to be strong and happy because they'll give me more troops to fight my wars. I want kings underneath me, kings who are rich and powerful and continuously improving their realm because I'll get thousands more troops from them. That's what's missing in the post-2.0 levies.

Why would you build a holding when you're at your desmense limit, unless you intend to give it away? Further, marriages cannot lower your desmense limit, only increase it to greater or lesser proportions. Its not the end of the world if you're over it by a bit for awhile, after all, and its actually fairly reasonable to see things go somewhat awry under a regency (admittedly, I think a voluntary regency, such as when you go on pilgrimage, should allow for you to pick your regent in your absence).

Why? Because I might be 65 years old and I'm looking at the Stewardship of my heir and knowing that I should start building it before I die? And yes, marriages can't lower your limit, but a LACK OF ONE CAN. So can regencies, incapable, etc. There are plenty of reasons to be over your demesne limit by a couple holdings, and yet we're all going to get punished because of a heavy-handed action by PDX trying to go after one style of play. As I've been saying, it's not about "stopping NKM", it's about the heavy-handed nature of their "fixes" that usually ends up impacting far more people than ever used whatever tactic it was they were trying to prevent.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Regarding the NKM nerf:

... So we have made playing this way a lot less rewarding by reducing the amount of levies and income they actually get from doing this. It is of course still completely possible to play like this if you still want to, but you will be a bankrupt France with only 400 troops while the strong HRE will be raising a lot more troops than that.........

Thus all you need to still play the old NKM way is modifying the defines.lua (with notepad++; the important lines are right at start) or cheats like these... :

(Press § or Alt + 2 1 or ` to open the console and then type the command.)

cash
= 5000 gold or 'cash number' = gives you specific amount of gold

armies
Event 60006 Mongol Army appears

norse events (work for anybody)

event 62320 - Troops flock to your banner (Troops + Fleets)
event 62321 - A hero and his retinue appear in your court (Troops + Fleets + Hero)
event 62322 - A smaller force arrives for the invasion (Troops + Fleets)



optional to increase demesne limit:

charinfo = charid appears in debug info when hovering your mouse over a portrait
add_stewardship charid +/- number = add stewardship attribute points
techpoints = adds 1000 techpoints; use these to increase legalism; also usefull to increase your retinue size with military organisation

optional to increase opinion:

piety = 5000 piety, add a number after to get a specific amount
prestige = 5000 prestige, add a number after to get a specific amount
add_diplomacy charid +/- number = Add or subtract a character's diplomacy


Done.

Or use a cheat mod from the Cheats thread...or this (though it doesnt add armies).

Just posted for information purposes.
Disclaimer: Of course i don't know if all these will work in 2.1.


Of course PDS could work on and release a Cheat-Sandbox-Customisation DLC and even try to earn money through it...


@PDS

I'm looking forward to mentioned changes in the OP.
They look very promising...even though there's quite some potential for balance issues.
Thanks

 

[Kljunas]

Buffing feudalism is needed because they've nerfed it to the point that there's no reason for it anymore. Prior to 2.0 you wanted strong, happy vassals because they gave you more troops to fight your wars. Post-2.0 any strong vassal is a vastly more dangerous threat than it ever would be an asset. From a risk-reward standpoint there's no reason to have any vassal stronger than a single county Count. NKM took this to the extreme and went *no* vassals, and so what people are asking for isn't the "stick" to force people to have vassals, but rather make it somehow rewarding so that we WANT to have them.

So instead of giving less levies to NK realms they should give more to normal ones? That would accomplish the exact same thing except you'd get more unrealistically large armies everywhere (you can argue that troops numbers are abstract but still...). NK mode working so well was just a consequence of demesne penalties being too small, to the point where the benefits of going over your demesne far outweighed these penalties. They're just fixing it so feudalism is the best option, as it always should have been

Your argument makes it sound like going one castle over your limit will bankrupt your realm but the DD doesn't say this at all.

 

[Kumicho]

So instead of giving less levies to NK realms they should give more to normal ones? That would accomplish the exact same thing except you'd get more unrealistically large armies everywhere (you can argue that troops numbers are abstract but still...). NK mode working so well was just a consequence of demesne penalties being too small, to the point where the benefits of going over your demesne far outweighed these penalties. They're just fixing it so feudalism is the best option, as it always should have been

Your argument makes it sound like going one castle over your limit will bankrupt your realm but the DD doesn't say this at all.

Actually, I do think that they should figure out a way to positively push people to feudalism instead of punishing anyone who doesn't use it. Carrot vs stick.

Previous to the 2.0 levy nerf nobody even cared about NKM because it was more of a pain than it was worth. Same with Counts-only. With NKM you got a decent size increase in troops at the cost of zero gold coming in, hugely expensive wars and nobody upgrading any of your holdings, meaning over time your realm was poorer and poorer compared to everyone elses. The only workaround was constantly creating vassals, letting them make money, and then imprisoning/banishing them, another long and annoying process. It was far better to have strong, powerful vassals underneath you to provide troops to fight your wars for you.

However with the 2.0 levy nerf there was never a reason to have vassals at all. Any you had were more trouble than they were worth, and especially for large or powerful vassals. The game shifted and instead of it being optimal to have large powerful vassals underneath you to fight your wars, it was best to keep them impoverished and worthless, or in NKM just not exist at all. Vassals became a disincentive.

So now they're trying to use a nerf to *force* you to use vassals, instead of increasing the value of vassals to make you *want* to use them. Maybe they should allow vassals to join your wars if they like you enough? That would in effect double (or triple, or whatever) your armies if you play with vassals and keep them happy, and actually make it worthwhile to have them. Then the optimal way of playing would be to have strong and happy vassals again. I know this would throw off the balance of the game again, and probably require far more work than just implementing a harsher penalty for going over your demesne limit, but to many people it would be a better option.

And it's been stated that even going over your demesne limit by a couple will have a significant impact. Of course we'll have to wait and see what the final outcome is, but I have to say I'm more used to PDX overreaching than underreaching...

 

[Thure]

Actually, I do think that they should figure out a way to positively push people to feudalism instead of punishing anyone who doesn't use it. Carrot vs stick.

But it's logical how they do it know. If you controll to much you don't have the power to manage all this lands alone. This is represented with the penalties. Or do you think Obama could rule the whole USA without governours or local actors? I don't think so. And if this is a problem today, it would be more a problem in the Middle Ages.

 

[GC13]

What North Korea Mode apologists sound like to me: Why force us to switch rulers just because they get old? Why not let us choose when we want our ruler to die, instead of constricting our choice like that? If you really want us to let our characters' children take over, you need to give us a carrot by making the short reign modifier a bonus rather than a penalty, instead of forcing us to do it or accept a game over because we have no heirs.

 

[petrip]

Seeing the M1, Gryphons and Unicorns examples as special units makes me afraid you are not taking flaming pigs serious enough. If India gets elephants everyone else gets flaming pigs which instantly turns elephants on their own (Elephants were useless in Europe because they can be defeated by pigs).

Actually, if there are elephants, then those flaming pigs are needed for balance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig

Flaming pigs really were used to decimate elephants.

 

[Kljunas]

Actually, I do think that they should figure out a way to positively push people to feudalism instead of punishing anyone who doesn't use it. Carrot vs stick.

Previous to the 2.0 levy nerf nobody even cared about NKM because it was more of a pain than it was worth. Same with Counts-only. With NKM you got a decent size increase in troops at the cost of zero gold coming in, hugely expensive wars and nobody upgrading any of your holdings, meaning over time your realm was poorer and poorer compared to everyone elses. The only workaround was constantly creating vassals, letting them make money, and then imprisoning/banishing them, another long and annoying process. It was far better to have strong, powerful vassals underneath you to provide troops to fight your wars for you.

However with the 2.0 levy nerf there was never a reason to have vassals at all. Any you had were more trouble than they were worth, and especially for large or powerful vassals. The game shifted and instead of it being optimal to have large powerful vassals underneath you to fight your wars, it was best to keep them impoverished and worthless, or in NKM just not exist at all. Vassals became a disincentive.

So now they're trying to use a nerf to *force* you to use vassals, instead of increasing the value of vassals to make you *want* to use them. Maybe they should allow vassals to join your wars if they like you enough? That would in effect double (or triple, or whatever) your armies if you play with vassals and keep them happy, and actually make it worthwhile to have them. Then the optimal way of playing would be to have strong and happy vassals again. I know this would throw off the balance of the game again, and probably require far more work than just implementing a harsher penalty for going over your demesne limit, but to many people it would be a better option.

And it's been stated that even going over your demesne limit by a couple will have a significant impact. Of course we'll have to wait and see what the final outcome is, but I have to say I'm more used to PDX overreaching than underreaching...

I'm still not sure what the difference between making feudalism more beneficial and making NK mode less beneficial is. If you give bonuses to feudal realms (i.e. every realm on the map) you're making NK players weak in comparison and you effectively force them to play the regular way if they want to survive. It's the exact same thing as what you describe as "punishment".

 

[awzc26]

I'm still not sure what the difference between making feudalism more beneficial and making NK mode less beneficial is. If you give bonuses to feudal realms (i.e. every realm on the map) you're making NK players weak in comparison and you effectively force them to play the regular way if they want to survive. It's the exact same thing as what you describe as "punishment".

Exactly this. I get the feeling that a lot of people complaining that NK mode is getting nerfed probably usually play the game without vassals!

 

[Kljunas]

Also your "carrot vs stick" analogy doesn't really work. It's a game; getting punished when you do things wrong is part of what makes it challenging and fun.

You wouldn't play a shooter where bonuses encourage you to take cover in some way, while not doing so and taking bullets never actually kills you. You're supposed to die to bullets, like you're supposed to be unable to properly handle an empire without delegating any power, because that's what the game is all about. As a dev, you first have to make sure this is the case in your game (dying to bullets), and then you can throw in some "carrots" if you think they're needed.

Really I wouldn't care if it was just an exploit, but NK mode being viable is a symptom of demesne penalties not being harsh enough, which is what is getting fixed in RoI.

 

[JonStryker]

About time that there's a Dev Diary written by Groogy

 

[Prince Michael]

I really don't understand people who are obsessed with troop numbers like they were pre-2.0 (before the so-called "levy-nerf"). Troop numbers and levies are now ok (as it is with vassals - the normal way of playing), it is the NKM which had ridiculous troop numbers in addition to it being just dumb and uninteresting. Feudalism doesn't need a "buff" it's fine as it is. If you want more troops, adjust your laws, make yourself and your vassals military men, make them happy, improve your holdings, increase your demesne limit. It shouldn't be hard.

The balance in 2.0 and after has been the best since the game release, IMO.


On the other hand, I am slightly worried that this nerf campaign succeeded because another one has already started, namely limitations to imprisonment and banishment. Occasionally I have a Cruel, Paranoid ruler. Of course he imprisons his vassals. I act like he would, and my ruler takes the consequences (tyranny). That's how paranoid tyrants acted like in the Middle Ages. And occasionally when I have a fat mayor sitting on a pile of 2000 gold. Why my Cruel and Greedy ruler cannot imprison and banish him in dire need? You know that there were some greedy bastard as kings sometimes in the Middle Ages. It doesn't bother me the slightest that some players "farm" them and exploit it.


All I am asking that the exploit nerfs make sense and doesn't limit roleplaying. The hard cap for republics and theocracies was already a bit too much because in most cases I can't even give the other half of 2-county duchy to my vassal republic. That's just stupid.


But no, there is absolutely no reason to fix the NKM, I can't imagine someone would defend it because of roleplaying or flavour or fun. Although I hope that the devs didn't use too much time for that. (Why the "evil events" were removed in the first place? Them being in place would have resolved many problems.)

 

[BritNavFan]

Feudalism doesn't need a "buff" it's fine as it is. If you want more troops, adjust your laws, make yourself and your vassals military men, make them happy, improve your holdings, increase your demesne limit. It shouldn't be hard.

The problem with the nerf to feudalism isn't primarily that I, as the player, am weak. It's that the AI is gutted. So how am I supposed to adjust the AI's laws and make its vassals happy? And even if you do, vassal levies are still worthless compared to the God-abilities, retinues, "holy orders", and mercenaries, the only things (besides Vikings) that mattered militarily in the Middle Ages.

The balance in 2.0 and after has been the best since the game release, IMO.

The "balance" since 2.0 has been complete garbage unless you think that Europe should be dominated by fictional "holy orders" and equally fictional "empires" and "reformed pagan" religions. But it's easier for the player than it was, and that's what's important, eh?

All I am asking that the exploit nerfs make sense and doesn't limit roleplaying. The hard cap for republics and theocracies was already a bit too much because in most cases I can't even give the other half of 2-county duchy to my vassal republic. That's just stupid.

What's stupid is that you can create an instant Venice - 200,000 people where moments ago there were just little towns - by rearranging the titles in a duchy. Which, of course, the player can do but the AI can't. Because of "roleplaying".

Give me a break.

 

[Jayavarman]

As you wish...

View attachment 102514

You can get more in google.

Excellent. Thank you.

 

[SovereignGrave]

The "balance" since 2.0 has been complete garbage unless you think that Europe should be dominated by fictional "holy orders" and equally fictional "empires" and "reformed pagan" religions. But it's easier for the player than it was, and that's what's important, eh?

I only rarely see the Holy Orders actually taking chunks of land, which did happen historically. And I never see any ahistorical empires or reformed religions unless I'm doing it myself. Heck, it's been forever since I've seen tengri reform. It happens on occasion, but that's part of the fun of the game; things that didn't happen in history occurring.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Isn't the issue with NKM just that there is no levy penalty for going over your demesne limit? It would be a pretty simple solution to just add a levy penalty in addition to the income one for being over demesne limit and be done with it. If it's something like 5% per holding over, it won't hurt you that much for being one or two over, but having twenty over the limit will mean that each holding only gives like 5% of its levies total. Obviously at that point having vassals is far better.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

so do we get to use the arquebus armed special units?
also did decadence change somehow?

 

[Prince Michael]

The problem with the nerf to feudalism isn't primarily that I, as the player, am weak. It's that the AI is gutted. So how am I supposed to adjust the AI's laws and make its vassals happy? And even if you do, vassal levies are still worthless compared to the God-abilities, retinues, "holy orders", and mercenaries, the only things (besides Vikings) that mattered militarily in the Middle Ages.

I'm not sure I follow. Care to elaborate?

The "balance" since 2.0 has been complete garbage unless you think that Europe should be dominated by fictional "holy orders" and equally fictional "empires" and "reformed pagan" religions. But it's easier for the player than it was, and that's what's important, eh?

I have not seen Europe dominated by fictional holy orders or "holy orders". What do you mean by them? The Immortals, the Sons of Kaleva? The same applies to fictional empires or "empires". Yes, I've seen Carpathia from time to time but those ahistorical empires have been in place since 2012, right? Similarly, the only AI-reformed pagans I've seen is Reformed Tengri and I fully support making Tengrism harder to reform. The issue has been there since TOG, so it is nothing 2.0 specific.

What player is able to do doesn't concern me, just the overall balance. An (experienced) player can always make the world conquest, as far he is subject to the same rules as the AI (one could make a point about "vultures" and event troops but they largely fine - just because the player is always more clever than the AI so it's good that he has even some challenge).

What's stupid is that you can create an instant Venice - 200,000 people where moments ago there were just little towns - by rearranging the titles in a duchy. Which, of course, the player can do but the AI can't. Because of "roleplaying".

Give me a break.

You want republics removed? Give me a break.

e. Where did you see me saying the game is perfect now? The best since the release =/= flawless or perfect

 

[Prince Michael]

Isn't the issue with NKM just that there is no levy penalty for going over your demesne limit? It would be a pretty simple solution to just add a levy penalty in addition to the income one for being over demesne limit and be done with it. If it's something like 5% per holding over, it won't hurt you that much for being one or two over, but having twenty over the limit will mean that each holding only gives like 5% of its levies total. Obviously at that point having vassals is far better.

If the evil events are not enough, I think the same penalty as with demesne tax (-25% for 1 over demesne, -50% for 2 over demesne), which applies all your demesne (but not your vassal levies or taxes) would be ok. Harsh but fair.

so do we get to use the arquebus armed special units?
also did decadence change somehow?

The modders will likely make Arquebus, unicorn, M1, wizards etc. special troops. It was just an example.

And the decadence rework will be patch material, and likely be covered in the last DD (if it is in). On the other hand, even this DD covered some patch material...