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The arduous duty great privilege of writing this week's Dev Diary has fallen to me, and in a desperate but vain attempt to fill Doomdark's shoes, I am here to talk a bit about the various options that are open to pagans when waging war.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_Prepared_Invasion.jpg

Prepared Invasions
Norse Pagans, or Vikings as they are known to the common man, have the unique ability to launch Prepared Invasions against non-pagans. This undertaking can only be done by small to middling Viking realms, and the target of your invasion can't be too small or too big (it needs to have between 9 and 40 holdings).

The way this works is that you declare your intention to invade a particular realm. This will cost you a lot of prestige (which can be gained through looting, as explained in the previous Dev Diary), and you'll have two years to prepare before going to war. During this time warriors from across the Norse lands will flock to your banner, hungry for loot and plunder. Needless to say, if you fail to declare war before these two years are up, you will lose face.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_King_Ambition.jpg

Subjugation
Pagans won't shy away from fighting each other, and all pagan rulers may make use of the new Subjugation casus belli. This lets them attack other pagans within a specified target kingdom, but it can only be used every ten years unless your ruler has the new ”Become King” ambition. If you are the victor of a Subjugation war, you will vassalize all lords within the target kingdom.

Pagan Conquest
Pagans can always declare war for control over a single neighboring county, and in addition to this, Norse Pagans may also go to war for any coastal county.

Tribal Invasion
This casus belli can only be used by independent Altaic (Turkish and Mongol) and Magyar pagan rulers, and it targets entire kingdoms in what amounts to massive horde invasions. You may have been on the receiving end of these before, but now you'll finally get a chance to unleash them yourself as you ride in from the steppes to carve out an empire.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_Peace_Too_Long.jpg


And finally, a few more items that have a significant impact on pagans and how they wage war:

Non-pagans suffer from a significantly smaller supply limit when in pagan territory, which limits their ability to march massive armies towards the heathen homelands at the start of the game. This penalty will eventually be removed as you progress through the Military Organization technologies.

As was touched upon in the last Dev Diary, Norse and Tengri pagans lose prestige if they have been at peace for too long. The Suomenusko, Romuva and Slavic pagans are less focused on offensive warfare and do not have this penalty. In addition, their warriors enjoy several defensive bonuses, especially when fighting in provinces with their own religion.

That's all for now!
 
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Rurik has previously unseen trait on that pic: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78614&d=1366198033
Any thoughts, what is that?

No new traits. The traits are as followed Skilled Tactician, Attractive, Gregarious, Ambitious, Just and Deceitful.

Edit: The more i looked at it it doesnt look like a diamond in the "attractive" trait but more like a lightbulb. Possibly a new trait named "bright"? I apologize for my terrible glance at the picture and assumption of "attractive".
 
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I'm going to take a guess that the new trait is something along the lines of "Visionary"; similar to Ambitious but less focused on personal achievement. An ambitious person will conquer this land for his own glory, a visionary leader will conquer it for the good of his people, or something like that.

Two ambitious characters will dislike each other for being ambitious (and thus threatening their goals), but visionary characters won't and it will grant a relations bonus for vassals of the same culture.

That's my two cents at least.
 
I'm going to take a guess that the new trait is something along the lines of "Visionary"; similar to Ambitious but less focused on personal achievement. An ambitious person will conquer this land for his own glory, a visionary leader will conquer it for the good of his people, or something like that.

Wouldn't really make sense as a genetic trait, though, would it?
 
yep ... thats more of a lightbulb and not ... whatever it now is that Attactive is (can't rembember and can't kick up the game to look ATM)

that said, i'm looking forward to it ... raid ohoy
 
Okay, so I definitely see Aethelred in there. Will his sons be in the game as well? And if so, how will the succession be able to pass to Alfred while they're still alive? Will you actually be giving Wessex elective succession, as is historically accurate?

I'm not going to let this drop until I can get an answer, damnit.

From a modding standpoint - how closely tied are these new options to religions? Would it be possible for modders to add the ability for a pagan to prepare an invasion of another pagan?
 
Okay, so I definitely see Aethelred in there. Will his sons be in the game as well? And if so, how will the succession be able to pass to Alfred while they're still alive?

I'm not going to let this drop until I can get an answer, damnit.
Seniority, maybe? Seems to me to be the law closest to how history played out.
 
Seniority, maybe? Seems to me to be the law closest to how history played out.

Sorry, I ended up editing my post to be more specific. The succession law of the Heptarchy kingdoms (and Anglo-Saxon England itself) would really be most accurately modeled as elective law. Usually the oldest son inherited, but notable exceptions include Alfred the Great (the king's brother) and Harold Godwinson (a powerful duke, belonging to a different dynasty altogether).
 
Sorry, I ended up editing my post to be more specific. The succession law of the Heptarchy kingdoms (and Anglo-Saxon England itself) would really be most accurately modeled as elective law. Usually the oldest son inherited, but notable exceptions include Alfred the Great (the king's brother) and Harold Godwinson (a powerful duke, belonging to a different dynasty altogether).

An interesting point from wikipedia: "After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold, as the senior ætheling, had a strong claim to succeed him. In the only surviving charter which has Æthelwold's signature, he is listed above Alfred's eldest son, Edward, implying that he ranked above him. However, Alfred naturally favoured his own son and left the bulk of his property to Edward in his will, as well as giving him opportunities for command in battle once he was old enough"
 
Finally I will be able to play Pomerania ;)
 
Please allow us a chance to restore the Old Faith of the British Isles. It would be fun to try and carve out a Druid kingdom, or republic, from of the Christian Provinces weakened by their war against the invading Norsemen.

:happy:
 
The Suomenusko, Romuva and Slavic pagans are less focused on offensive warfare and do not have this penalty. In addition, their warriors cnjoy several defensive bonuses, especially when fighting in provinces with their own religion.

Wait, does this mean that Slavic paganism and Romuva are separate religions now?