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So folks, we are releasing the fifth expansion to Crusader Kings II, on Monday next week; Sons of Abraham. In the previous dev diaries, I have gone through the various features we've added in the expansion, so today I'll speak of the 2.0 patch. Usually when we release expansions for Crusader Kings II, we add a lot of free stuff in the patch as well, and this time is no exception. It's almost funny how many features we plan for the expansions that we end up putting in the patch instead, simply because they alter the core gameplay too much. Now, where to begin?

Perhaps the biggest - yet quite subtle - change we did was to reduce the amount of levies you get, particularly from your vassals. There are several changes to the rules; first off, levies from outside your de jure capital region get progressively smaller in stages (county, duchy, kingdom, empire, outside). Secondly, vassals will not give you any levies if they don't have a positive opinion of you (previously the threshold was -25). On the other hand, you now always enjoy a big opinion boost if you are being attacked by foreigners, particularly by infidels. This means that you can usually raise something approaching your theoretical max while being attacked, but not when you are doing the attacking. (Incidentally, this also means that factions tend to be less dangerous while the whole realm is under threat.) Lastly, the ruler's martial skill has a direct and significant effect on the size of the levies that can be raised from his or her demesne.

CKII_SoA_DD_04_Levies.jpg

We have also added whole new feature to improve the military side of the game; terrain bottlenecks. This is a system where the defending side in a battle has sometimes found suitable terrain before combat commences. The chance of this depends on the main province terrain and leader skill (there is even a new commander trait for this.) Each flank may have a narrow approach, preventing the attackers from attacking in numbers greater than the number of flank defenders (their number at the start) during the melee phase. The main reason we added this feature is that being outflanked is now much, much more devastating than it used to be, particularly if you are being outflanked from two directions, or through your (fallen) center. We have also updated all mercenaries and holy orders so they actually have three regiments instead of one (and can thus fill a battle line on their own.) Mongols and Aztecs also arrive with more but smaller regiments, etc. What else? Oh yes, we unleashed Wiz (Martin Anward, who improved the EUIV AI) on the military AI to see if he could kick it up a notch...

CKII_SoA_DD_04_Bottleneck.jpg

CKII_SoA_DD_04_Mercenaries.jpg

Another really nice thing with the 2.0 patch is of course the addition of Ironman mode, like in Europa Universalis IV. To complement this, we added 50 Steam achievements that you can only get in Ironman mode. The multiplayer metaserver, however, will be discontinued. RIP.

Now, as you know, playing Crusader Kings II is a pretty cheerful and lighthearted experience, so we thought it was high time to bring in some much needed tragedy. Thus, there is now a chance that women might die in childbirth, either at once or after a period of illness. Infants can also be born "Sickly" (new trait), which means it is unlikely they will live past their third year. Surprisingly, we are not simply doing this out of pure malice; there are interesting gameplay effects where marriage alliances can suddenly be reset and you don't know if your sickly heir will actually survive to adulthood.

When characters convert religion, there is now a chance they will be tolerant of their old faith. These are new traits which affect the opinions of both the character and of other characters. For example, a former pagan king might get no opinion penalty versus pagans, nor will they of him.

CKII_SoA_DD_04_Tolerance.jpg

I know I'm forgetting stuff here, but you can all read the change log for yourselves when I post it. Needless to say, it's full of bug fixes and modding improvements as well.
And in case anyone missed it, Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham will release the 18th of November.
That's all for now, but there will be a live stream with yours truly on Tuesday, the day after release!
 
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The changes to raised levies should be especially nice.
If im reading it right it should work against large kingdom/empires trying to blob, by reducing levies from outside their de jure. Im all for any changes that make it harder for ai/player to blob.
 
Supposedly there were still Sádakíah [follows of the other prophets] and arab pagans in Arabia the 17th century, so presumably arab moslems were less keen on going after apostasy in the middle ages than it was more recently.
Or else they were just rubbish at it.

maybe just allow zealous characters who are also cruel to imprison anyone of a different religion without penalty?
 
So I'm a bit confused. What will we be able to use without SoA? I assume jews are unplayable without it and you can't bribe the cardinals but what about the additional muslim stuff? will that be locked? how will that effect Muslim gameplay if it is? Also will heresies become the orthodox religion without SoA?

The list of included features is very comprehensive: steam achievements, ironman mode, all these new military updates, new traits, new pregnancy deaths, 100+ events, etc. etc. but Jews aren't included, and the college of cardinals is absent, and so are the new muslim traits.
 
I assume its dejure distance.
Concentric wouldn't make sense.
So county, next dejure duchy, next dejure kingdom etc. Though do these need to actually exist or be just dejure ?
Maybe i just ask myself to many questions. :confused:

It doesn't sound like its dejure distence, it is all about what is considered rightfully part of your realm.
 
Well the cardinals themselves are in the patch and the muslim traits aren't very clear either. does one need to pick one or the other? IF other muslims can choose the trait but you can't wont that make playing a muslim much harder without SoA? and i'm still not clear on heresies. Also next time try and post everything together instead of triple posting :)
 
What about AI blobbing? Will we still see 50% of the map yellow? Hello? Paradox? Anyone awake?
 
What about AI blobbing? Will we still see 50% of the map yellow? Hello? Paradox? Anyone awake?

I think the AI get less levies too. And defensers get more levies. That should make it harder for the AI too blob too.

Well the cardinals themselves are in the patch and the muslim traits aren't very clear either. does one need to pick one or the other? IF other muslims can choose the trait but you can't wont that make playing a muslim much harder without SoA? and i'm still not clear on heresies. Also next time try and post everything together instead of triple posting :)

I think the Muslim AI only get the traits if you own ToG too. AI Byzant also can't form Rome without LoR.
 
But:



Bolding is mine. If it means de jure capital region (the word 'region' included in the word), I don't know it means. But I know what de jure capital means, and I don't like the implied effect on the gameplay.





I HOPE it is this way, because the de jure capital counties of the duchies and kingdoms would irrelevant to the feature and it wouldn't force us into de jure capitals any more than the game forces already. "Forcing" of course means that doing otherwise will somewhat penalise the player who is willing to optimise his stuff.
How I understand it, by de iure capital region it means the de iure region of your capital.
 
This news is wonderful. The improvements are really nice!
 
"Needless to say, it's full of bug fixes and modding improvements as well. "

Have you finally fixed the Møre-Trøndelag-Naumadal issue, which has bugged your maps since the original game...?
 
"Needless to say, it's full of bug fixes and modding improvements as well. "

Have you finally fixed the Møre-Trøndelag-Naumadal issue, which has bugged your maps since the original game...?
Might I ask what the Møre-Trøndelag-Naumadal issue is?
 
Everything about this DLC and the patch sounds good... except one thing: the sickly trait. It kinda dicks Christians with the lowered fertility rate. As a Pagan or Muslim you can have as many as 5 partners, (1 Wife, 3 Concubines/other Wives, 1 mistress) whereas a Christian can only have 2, 1 if he is a good Christian. I thought lowering the fertility rate was supposed to reflect infant mortality anyways.
 
Might I ask what the Møre-Trøndelag-Naumadal issue is?

The province of Trøndelag is placed where the province of Møre - which is not included in the game - should be. The province of Naumadal is placed where Trøndelag should be. Interestingly, the city of Trondheim is not situated on Trondheimsfjorden, which is the major fjord in the province called Naumadal on the map. As far as I can remember, Trondheim (or possibly Nidaros, which is the same place) and Lade, which is currently part of the city of Trondheim, and a mere half hour walk from the city centre, lie in different provinces...
 
There was the Rome DLC, but beyond that there is only Russian or Georgian princes.
- and what "Rome DLC" have to do with poor orthodoxy representation in the game?
 
Somehow those nerfs sounds like CK2's implementation of EU4's 1.2 nerfathon.
The one which made it nearly unplayable (I don't know what state it is in now, I don't trust the patches after the 1.2 experience).
Thankfully I had a backup of 1.1.3, and I've made a backup of CK2 pre-2.0 too, just in case.
 
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The province of Trøndelag is placed where the province of Møre - which is not included in the game - should be. The province of Naumadal is placed where Trøndelag should be. Interestingly, the city of Trondheim is not situated on Trondheimsfjorden, which is the major fjord in the province called Naumadal on the map. As far as I can remember, Trondheim (or possibly Nidaros, which is the same place) and Lade, which is currently part of the city of Trondheim, and a mere half hour walk from the city centre, lie in different provinces...
Wow, quite weird. The only thing weirder that I've seen is the game's large rivers and the (Western, anyways) Balkans.