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This Development Diary, the last one before the release of The Old Gods, will elaborate a bit on the new technology system we are introducing to the game. We are including it for free in a patch, so you'll be able to make use of it even if you don't own TOG.

The original technology system in CK2 was not very rewarding or interactive, and thus the majority of people mostly or completely ignored it.

So since for The Old Gods we would need 200 more years of technological development we figured instead of trying to shoehorn that into the old system we could just as well throw most of it out and build something more interesting from the ground up.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_07_Technology_Spread.jpg

Now all rulers of duke rank and above generate technology points in three categories based on their stats: martial gives military, stewardship gives economic and diplomacy gives cultural technology points. The ruler can then spend these to increase the technologies of their choosing in their capital. In addition to the stats, combat gives military points, universities give economy points and religious schools cultural points.

This means however that technology will only grow in the capitals of dukes and above, and for the rest of the world it will spread as usual.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_07_Steppe_Buildings.jpg

The Old Gods and its accompanying patch has a few new buildings as well. Any holding by the coast can now build shipyards that produce galleys.

The horse lords of the Altaic and Magyar peoples will also have access to two special buildings in any castles they own in a Steppe province. This is a new terrain type that now covers most of the Eastern European plains. The Steppe Warrior Lodge and the Steppe Riding Grounds will take the place of the normal Barracks and Stables buildings in these holdings. They provide more cavalry at the expense of foot soldiers, to better reflect the tradition of mounted warfare the steppe cultures had mastered.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_07_Amalfi.jpg

There are two merchant republics active at the start of the new 867 bookmark. The first is Venice, which should be familiar to most of you, and the second is Amalfi, a growing trading hub on the western shores of Southern Italy ruled by a collection of Greek and Italian Patrician families. As you can see from the screenshot, we have added a new province for this republic. It has an interesting if somewhat challenging starting position, given its close proximity to the Karling realms of Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire which still maintains a tenuous hold on the southern tip of Italy, and the Muslim lords using Sicily as a springboard from which to carry their conquests further into Europe.

That should cover most of it. The rest you will have to see for yourselves when The Old Gods is released on May 28th! :)

Bonus: Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods Video Dev Diary 3 - Technology
[video=youtube;QngSrHke4u8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QngSrHke4u8[/video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QngSrHke4u8
 
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This may be a bit much to ask, but how about you copy paste the new technology.txt in here so that we can see the exact effects of the new tech tiers?

Thanks, and np if its not possible :)
 
emirate of bari, naples, and now amalfi.....Southern Italy has all the fun nations
 
Will we be able to mod it so that only kings and higher get their own tech bonus?

With one duke per 2-3 provinces, that means 1/3 of the world is going to be progressing at approximately the same rate. IMO, it's kind of ridiculous that a minor duke in northern England would be able to draw the kind of foreign trade and influence that would make his capital a center of learning. If he claims all of England, though, then that's a whole other issue.

I kind of agree with this, though I'd prefer if duke-tiers got something like 50% advancement compared to kings. Better yet, make that part mod-able. I guess we'll see how it pans out on release.
 
Will we be able to mod it so that only kings and higher get their own tech bonus?

With one duke per 2-3 provinces, that means 1/3 of the world is going to be progressing at approximately the same rate. IMO, it's kind of ridiculous that a minor duke in northern England would be able to draw the kind of foreign trade and influence that would make his capital a center of learning. If he claims all of England, though, then that's a whole other issue.

I kind of agree with this, though I'd prefer if duke-tiers got something like 50% advancement compared to kings. Better yet, make that part mod-able. I guess we'll see how it pans out on release.

Kings are likely to have higher state x scores by virtue of having more people to draw from for advisors. You are also both wildly overestimating the impact of tech spread - it only affects neighbouring counties, and counties that are equal in tech don't spread, so (under mudcrabmerchants idea) the impact of increase in the capital is going to diminish rapidly outside of it, and most counties will get basicly no tech spread & therefore no advancement. One adds, that in 1066+ scenarios the HRE is going to have one county pushing tech (unless a kingdom forms within it).

Basicly, you're both lining up to stagnate the map.
 
Actually, the limit to dukes and kings makes for an interesting mechanic re tech growth and creating vassals as a king. Previously, since I played with elective... I wanted to have as few dukes as possible. Two-county duchies were my bane because if I gave even one county out they could form the duchy (though with requiring 51%, that's less possible now.) In any case... if I leave pretty much everywhere as loose counties directly vassalized to my ruler rather than counts->duke->king tiers, I'm missing out on the ducal tech growth so my overall tech growth in my realm will stagnate. On the other hand, the more dukes and ducal titles exist, the more people I have to keep happy in elective succession to ensure my heir gets the throne.

In short, far more interesting emergent gameplay there! Though, perhaps I would like some event that generates tech growth in a random county away from my domain (since domain tech spread is faster than neighbor tech spread) to simulate the fact that there were clever people outside of the ruling inner circle. That said, if even spending tech points (and not just generating them) is tied to being a duke or higher ruler, I can't see how it would be implemented short of a full tech level gain. If that's the case, then it would have to be such a high MTTH to avoid happening too often that it probably wouldn't be worth including.

Also, to the previous post (dearmad): Learning increases ALL tech point generation rather than any single one. (=

Thanks,
-Atma
 
Remind me: What is learning for anymore? It was already the weakest unimportant stat. Now?
It boosts all three techs. One of the Devs mentioned it in a later post as an "oops forgot".

edit - as was said... in the last two posts.
 
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Actually, the limit to dukes and kings makes for an interesting mechanic re tech growth and creating vassals as a king. Previously, since I played with elective... I wanted to have as few dukes as possible. Two-county duchies were my bane because if I gave even one county out they could form the duchy (though with requiring 51%, that's less possible now.) In any case... if I leave pretty much everywhere as loose counties directly vassalized to my ruler rather than counts->duke->king tiers, I'm missing out on the ducal tech growth so my overall tech growth in my realm will stagnate. On the other hand, the more dukes and ducal titles exist, the more people I have to keep happy in elective succession to ensure my heir gets the throne.

Yep thats the good side of the coin.

The bad side of the coin is that if you're an Emperor, and used to grant Kingdoms to strong vassals as I did after reaching a certain size, that actually hurts your tech if you try to consolidate alot of the kingdom on the King-level vassal. I preferred to do that for tax purposes, the more the King personally owns, the more tax ends up in Imperial coffers. This change favors a Dukes-everywhere strategy slightly, unless you're just not running Feudal taxes.
 
Alerias:

Actually, I'd say it favors a more full tier at each level. Not by much, but a bit. For example:

Let's say the average kingdom has 6 duchies. The average empire has 5 kingdoms (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland -- ok, so four there. But Scotland, Brittany, Ireland, Wales, England; that's five.) So If you're an emperor and, other than you demesne in a perhaps purposefully reduced kingdom (ie, reduce it to three average three-county duchies by abusing de jure drift, so that none of the other kings are like 'give me my county back!') you hand each of your other kingdoms out to other kings after setting up a full tier of single-county counts, promoting one of those counts in each duchy to a duke, then giving one of those dukes the kingdom), you get around 33 duchies producing tech, plus 4 kings, plus your own character producing tech for a total of 38. Not a BIG difference, but more than 10% so potentially worth it. Though there are so many dukes and kings in that example that would have to be kept happy for elective to work that it could well mean primo/ultimo or, if it's an option, tanistry is the only safe way to rule it. If you can get your demesne outside of the empire somehow, gavelkind could be even more abusive. But if you have a kingdom level title outside of your empire, it will de jure drift into your empire so it would take some careful arrangement... plus likely uprooting yourself from your traditional domain. Well, unless you keep your one county IN the empire: your capital.

Actually, I could see doing this after you formed the empire then sticking it on gavelkind. It'll reduce the concentration of power, help ensure more dukes and kings to generate tech increase in your realm and thus more spread to you... but give you a power base they would have trouble touching outside of the empire to generate income. Not to mention... if your capital gained tech levels by way of neighbor county spread, these would then generate demesne spread into your non-imperial lands...

-Atma
 
Aye, don't let me proddings about pagans take away from that: the new tech system looks like a wonderful change.

Honestly, I'm sad that on June 2nd I'm leaving for six weeks to go dig for fossils out in the boonies of West Texas. No CKII for me for over a month, only a few days after TOG comes out... :-(

But then when you get back, you'll be coming back to most mods having compatibility issues sorted, the initial imbalance and bugs fixed by 1.10.1 (or 1.10a or whatever) and a lot of solid information about how the new mechanics work.
 
Indeed, Wikipedia's date says 1037 is the sack of Amalfi by Pisa, and for some reason uses that as the end of the Duchy (Republic) rather than 1073 which it even cites in the first paragraph.
If you read the article on the Duchy of Amalfi, it says "From 1034, Amalfi came under the control of the Principality of Capua and, in 1039, that of Salerno. In 1073, Robert Guiscard conquered the city."

Prince Pandulf IV of Capua conquered Amalfi in 1034 and installed his nephew Manso as Doge. Four years later Pandulf got on the bad side of the Holy Roman Emperor and fled to Constantinople. Without his support, Manso was also kicked out - by his brother John, who in the best Byzantine style had Manso blinded and exiled in 1038. But less than a year later the people of Amalfi rose in rebellion against John and threw him out as well. They swore fealty to Guaimar IV, Prince of Salerno. Guimar then brought back Manso the Blind and made him doge of Amalfi again, but as his vassal.

Salernan control lasted over a decade until 1052, when John tried to recapture his duchy. A three-year war with Salerno resulted, and ended in John becoming an independent Doge again. When he died in 1069, Salerno promptly declared war again on his son Sergius - who had been appointed heir by his father, implying that Amalfi was no longer a republic at this stage. The war lasted two years until the Pope negotiated a truce. Sergius died only two years later leaving an infant son as the last duke. (Again, more proof that Amalfi was not a republic at this stage.) The people of Amalfi surrendered readily enough to Robert Guiscard when he showed up with his Norman knights.

In other words, after 1034 Amalfi was no longer a proud independent republic, but a political football being passed around between competing South Italian states for 40 years until it finally ended up part of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. It did, however, enjoy a brief period of independence again during this time, and in fact was independent in 1066: so I don't see why it wouldn't be playable. It would, however, be most accurately represented as a feudal duchy by that time IMO.
 
In other words, after 1034 Amalfi was no longer a proud independent republic, but a political football being passed around between competing South Italian states for 40 years until it finally ended up part of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. It did, however, enjoy a brief period of independence again during this time, and in fact was independent in 1066: so I don't see why it wouldn't be playable. It would, however, be most accurately represented as a feudal duchy by that time IMO.

Or even an independent feudal county, considering it's a single province, was a vassal of Salerno for a while and became a vassal of Apulia soon thereafter.
 
So, any chance that Mongol cultural tactics will be tied to the new Steppe terrain type?
 
Or even an independent feudal county, considering it's a single province, was a vassal of Salerno for a while and became a vassal of Apulia soon thereafter.

If trading wasn't restricted to republican duchies I could agree, but Amalfi went on trading for almost a century more. Pisa decided to burn the city in 1137 - why, because it was a nice way to make a bonfire?
 
If trading wasn't restricted to republican duchies I could agree, but Amalfi went on trading for almost a century more. Pisa decided to burn the city in 1137 - why, because it was a nice way to make a bonfire?

After it's a vassal of the duke of Apulia (in later start dates) it can't be a duchy in any case. That's just a limitation of the game.
 
If trading wasn't restricted to republican duchies I could agree, but Amalfi went on trading for almost a century more. Pisa decided to burn the city in 1137 - why, because it was a nice way to make a bonfire?

I would make Amalfi a county republic in 1066... It wouldn't be playable but this would be the best solution. It was the vasall of some dukes, so a county would be the best. But it should be a republic.
 
If trading wasn't restricted to republican duchies I could agree, but Amalfi went on trading for almost a century more. Pisa decided to burn the city in 1137 - why, because it was a nice way to make a bonfire?

So? A lot of towns and cities traded. That isn't a sufficient qualification for being a merchant republic. Fact of the matter, is that as others have said, Amalfi was no longer a significant trading republic come 1066. Make it a merchant republic and you both have a guaranteed ahistorical renaissance, and have yet another headache for the Normans in trying to form the Kingdom of Sicily, who have quite enough impediments as is.
 
I would make Amalfi a county republic in 1066... It wouldn't be playable but this would be the best solution. It was the vasall of some dukes, so a county would be the best. But it should be a republic.
Agreed. It was no longer very important. It was still a republic it seems, and it was still making a fair bit of money on trade, but that is exactly what Grand Mayoral counties are supposed to represent.

And as a Grand Mayoral county it will be a nice powerbooster for the Norman rulers so they don't fall apart at the first signs of trouble, like now.