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Hey folks, it is dev diary day and time to talk a bit about rebels and adventurers! Let's start off with the rebels; as you know, the old rebels are a nuisance but they are easily defeated and even if they hold a county for a long time, defection is rare. Sure, they sometimes kill a local ruler, but even that is uncommon. This is a shame, especially since we have explored better ways of handling rebels in the In Nomine expansion to Europa Universalis III and in Victoria II. So, for The Old Gods, we are replacing the old simplistic system with proper rebels with a cause (if you don't have the expansion, you will be stuck with the old system.) There are three new types of rebels: peasants, heretics and "liberators". As before, they can appear if the revolt risk is higher than 0 in a county. If the county is of a heretic religion, heretic rebels may appear. If the county is in a kingdom occupied by foreigners, liberators may rise up. If the other two types are not suitable, it's going to be a peasant revolt.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Peasant_Revolt.jpg

The new types of rebels all have a leader with a temporary title. They start at war with the ruler of the realm in which they appear, but they are hostile to everyone. Fighting them is like fighting a normal war; you get war score for crushing their army. If peasant or heretic rebels win, the county will be taken and becomes independent under their leader. Liberators are more dangerous; they tend to rise up with the best and largest forces, and they are after the entire de jure kingdom. However, they typically tend to settle for a few counties and the title to the kingdom itself. The system is fully moddable and it is pretty straightforward to add new rebel types.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Claimant_Adventure.jpg

This brings us to adventurers. The concept is quite similar to the rebels, but adventures are started by existing characters and can target distant lands. There are two main types; claimants with no titles who stand to inherit nothing, and men of major dynasties with no claims but high martial and diplomatic skill. In both cases, the adventurer lets it be known that he is starting an adventure and gathering a host (both his current liege(s) and the target ruler are notified). After a year or two, he is given a temporary duchy title, an army, and a fleet. War is declared, and he goes after the target. Claimants, of course, will try to press their claim, but the other type simply target a juicy duchy somewhere and go off to seize it (like the d'Hautevilles took southern Italy). A savvy player who is targetted may of course assassinate the adventurer before he arrives with his army... Characters of certain cultures are more likely to go off on claimless adventures, e.g. Normans and Norse.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Conquest_Adventure.jpg

Speaking of Norse and Norman, another thing I believe we haven't mentioned yet are the new cultures we've added: Norse, Bolghar, Khazar, Mordvin, Samoyed and Avar. In 867, all Scandinavians are of the Norse culture, but there are events that will initiate a split into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Independent Norse rulers outside Scandinavia will not be affected. Determined players can also choose to stay Norse and attempt to educate children of vassals to stick to this culture. Similarly, there are events for the appearance of Norman culture, which is formed by Norse conquerors in Frankish, Breton or Occitan lands. (Yes, we could have done this for any number of cultures in the game, but it is quite a lot of work. It is, of course, also fully moddable.)

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Cultural_Divergence.jpg

That sums it up for today! Next Wednesday will see the last dev diary for The Old Gods expansion and will feature the new technology system and what other tidbits remain.

Bonus, in case you missed it ;)

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods Video Dev Diary 2 - Rebels
[video=youtube;eo7ttCKInYM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM[/video]

 
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I would love to have Icelandic culture split from Norse.. or new clothes for peasants! Imagine the modding possibilities!
 
Until they said the new rebellion feature was DLC-only I very much doubted that to be the case.
So you never know.

But it's different: maintaining the old type of rebels will not cost them much effort, while two tech systems would. Both would need to be updated with any tech changes done in later updates.
 
But it's different: maintaining the old type of rebels will not cost them much effort, while two tech systems would. Both would need to be updated with any tech changes done in later updates.
I believe they've done what, one change to tech so far? Two if you count one minor bug fix they did once.
So maintenance doesn't seem to be an issue ;)
 
As a heterosexual male (happily married for almost seven years), I'd just like to say that I have a man crush on Henrik. He is the most beautiful man I've ever seen.

He must get a lot of tail.
 
The nice thing to see is that each Pagan faith DOES seem to have its own icon on the character sheets. On the Tengri rebellion page, you can see a Tengri religious symbol instead of the old default pagan symbol.

I remember there being questions about that on the last dev diary :p
 
One or two counties?? Maybe by 1066, yeah! In 867 and probably until the 960s, the Khazar Khaganate was a relatively large power between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And besides, Beta Israel is within the map.

Since the Khazar Khaganate is going to be Tengri in game, even when it should be Jewish, you agree that "PDS is discriminating", right? Since that's exactly the same logic you just applied to Beta Israel.

I mean, honestly, I don't think "discriminating" is the right word. I'd say sloppy, wrong, and possibly cowardly (depending on to what extent they are doing this because they're afraid of offending Jews.) Discrimination is really unlikely - what, they're going to write Jews out of medieval history because they don't like them? It doesn't make sense. Laziness doesn't make sense either, since it would be so incredibly trivial to just add a Judaism that has no special features (just like Islam was until SoI, Orthodox until LoR, and every paganism and Zoroastrianism until ToG). The only explanation that makes sense to me a weird fear on the part of PDS.

I agree. Unfortunately some sort of fear does seem to be the most likely motivation here.
 
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So with the adventurer mechanic, Edgar Atheling can start his own war for the Kingdom of England, but how will this affect the existing factions that spring up supporting the last scion of Wessex's claim?

After he starts his war as a landless claimant, will faction members automatically join his war against their liege?
 
Did anyone notice that the rebel started with 500 gold? Will he be able to hire mercanaries? Cause if so, smaller realms are basically screwed.

Oh and did anyone else flinch at Gaucher of Gauchers band in Gaucher's conquest of Nikea? (or something like that)

Still, not having to deal with peasants who do nothing but revolt will be nice.
 
This is going to make the game so, so much more enjoyable. I'm very excited to see what Paradox do with CK2 DLC next!

Also, the enhanced moddability will be invaluable.
 
Can't say I'm a fan of the adventuring system, it seems silly for adventurers to rise up and conquer for no reason at all. Limiting it to different religions would make more sense, such as a Swedish adventurer trying to invade a Russian principality. Although I am very excited for the new rebel system, it is something I have wanted since game launch and am optimistic to see how it plays out.
 
Can't say I'm a fan of the adventuring system, it seems silly for adventurers to rise up and conquer for no reason at all. Limiting it to different religions would make more sense, such as a Swedish adventurer trying to invade a Russian principality. Although I am very excited for the new rebel system, it is something I have wanted since game launch and am optimistic to see how it plays out.

They want land. Is that not reason enough? And its partly looking at the (catholic) Normans conquering (mixed catholic/orthodox) Sicily so not a religious split

One does hope they become less of a possibility over time though (partly as getting enough warriors together to do this gets tougher as crown authority increases, and as defenses/development increases).