Crusader Kings III: Chapter IV

[ItThatAltersSanity]

Will a landless adventurer theoretically be able to come in and conquer China? I'm assuming this will be balanced to be practically impossible but will it be possible in theory to usurp?

 

[ray243]

All Under Heaven is incredibly hype! My only concern is that it's too much, that China won't get the attention it deserves due to split focus with Japan, and vice versa. It'll be fun to have a progressive meritocratic empire and do stuff like reform the exam system and build large scale infrastructure, though. I hope there's a playable heir to the state of Chu (and therefore the Yellow Emperor) even if it starts landless, that would be a fun playthrough

I want ministers and councillors to have more meaningful power and tasks.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Question- will the expansion of the map come with a change to how Great Holy Wars are targeted, so that we avoid the Pope deciding that the next Crusade requires marco-poloing straight through the middle east on its way to Japan?

In the current great holy war system, kingdoms have differing weights based on if they are in a core / heartland or other such region, but all countries *can* be targeted. It may be a 1-in-[great big number] chance, but it's there, which is why we currently get Great Holy Wars called for random Kingdoms in the Steppe or Tibet or so on that pop up on reddit.

With the total transformation of the Steppe from Tribal into nomadic grassland country, might it be time to bound the holy war targets a bit more tightly? Possibly by requiring valid targets outside the core lists to at least be bordered by a friendly-religion ruler to provide a staging ground?

 

[Gertax]

I suggest redrawing the image of the general on the far left of the visual, because this is a kind of clothing that only appeared after the 17th century.
View attachment 1264721
In the time period of CKIII, the clothing of Chinese generals usually looked like this
View attachment 1264720

That character is not meant to represent a Song or Tang general.

The characters in the Chapter image usually represent elements from the different DLCs. In the case of the one on the left, he is wearing more of a late Mongol armor.

 

[Cruxador]

I want ministers and councillors to have more meaningful power and tasks.

1.15 already gives them tools to do that better, maybe expanding the system further is part of why it came up for rework

 

[ray243]

1.15 already gives them tools to do that better, maybe expanding the system further is part of why it came up for rework

Centralised treasury should hopefully means our governors and general receive a centralised salary from the court.

Also, are we getting any sort of Mountain Gate Passes in the game? Those are fundamental to a lot of Chinese military fortification and ensure mountain passes are blocked against incoming attackers.

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

Hard pass. I have no interest at all in Asia i CRUSADER KINGS or in the Nomads.

I guess i should be glad. Saves me a tone of money and I dont need to check the forums again fro a whole year until Chapter V, which of course will be another disappointment that doesnt address any of the core issues of the game but just piles more stuff and power creep on top of it.

 

[Tschobo]

I am slighlty optimistic about it.

While you could have a lot of criticism about the addition (and I personally have some gripes too) it is actually not the worst time to add the rest of Asia and Indonesia too.

Foremost for it two things should fixed with Asia. And that is Dynasty/House Survival of AI realms and Diplomatic Play.

The dynasty/House survival is currently a catastrophy in long-term campaigns. What should you do if one of the biggest vassals decides to marry his unlanded grandson matrilinially because he is not a direct heir and kills of the reign of the dynasty. Or If one of Cadet-Houses snipe themselves in the foot because they don't care about being a Cadet-House. This hurts both on a technical and role-playing level for the entire map.

The second thing is diplomatic play. With that I mean diplomatic relations aside of war like House Feuds, Rivalries and Friendships. They should be more visible UI-wise and deeper anchored in the game. Also a more dynamic court for China would be nice as the Imperial Court there is something else.

 

[Jaevelklein]

Hard pass. I have no interest at all in Asia i CRUSADER KINGS or in the Nomads.

I guess i should be glad. Saves me a tone of money and I dont need to check the forums again fro a whole year until Chapter V, which of course will be another disappointment that doesnt address any of the core issues of the game but just piles more crap and power creep on top

They will be adding coronations, might want to keep an eye open for that one

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

They will be adding coronations, might want to keep an eye open for that one

Its just an activity. Im not paying for that. I am sure a modder will add a better version themselves.

It will probably just be a lor of powercreep and modifiers stacked like all other activities as well ad never ending event spam

 

[Ttrgw]

That's a huge expansion.
Is the CK3 map now complete?

 

[Mangi Qahan]

That character is not meant to represent a Song or Tang general.

The characters in the Chapter image usually represent elements from the different DLCs. In the case of the one on the left, he is wearing more of a late Mongol armor.

As far as I know, the late Mongolia (if you mean the Yuan Khanate in the 14th century) did not have this type of armor, especially the row of buttons on the chest is obviously a design from the late 16th century.

 

[klopkr]

Most important question right now:

Which indonesian Island is the furthest south and which is the furthest east on the map (playable or not). Or alternatively what longitude is the southern most point of the map/did you go for a banana projection again?

I think most people want to know and it seems like you guys must have decided this already. I think a lot of modders would be happy to understand the actual new scale of the map.

You guys keep mentioning the Indonesian archipelago which gives us good hopes but sort of isn't clear.

My second important question: Will the Mongol Empire be a Hegemony too? I expect this Hegemony system will play into how the Mongols split into the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate, etc. I think we all expect that the Mongols will get the chinese Hegemony in normal gameplay, but I think we want to know if they might have two Hegemonies, or a special outcome for having the Chinese hegemony that'll lead to the break up of the empire like it happened under Kublai Khan?

Final most important question of all: Will we get an achievement for doing a Ryuku world conquest? And if not why? Why??1!/?1

 

[DukeoftheWorld]

Even though the coronations are simply an event pack and this sets some lower expectations, I really wish you’ll use the 3D court room for the events themselves. Since you’re already using court rooms for events in the Royal Court, seems like this is possible without too much hassle.

Considering that they've made the courtrooms themselves freely accessible without DLC, I think this is the intention.

 

[camocat9]

How can this be the largest and most ambitious chapter to date? Besides adding Asia as a whole (which is huge). It barely adds anything to the existing world, beside for coronation which seems rather small. Chapter 3 brought us plague system and wanderers, which played a role for everyone for every playstyle.
This chapter focuses on purely Asia, which feels very one sided on the whole customer base.

They didn't say it added the most map-wide gameplay features, they said it was their most ambitious expansion. You say "besides adding Asia" as if that isn't the entire reason it's considered the biggest expansion. Whether or not you would personally enjoy playing in this region, you can't deny that it is one of the biggest expansions from the scope they are promising. Roads to Power added one new government type and a universal gameplay system. This will be adding a massive map expansion, and 3 (4, maybe) new government types. I would assume that Hegemonies, the step above Empires, are a universal gameplay system that you could choose to form anywhere on the map, too.

I don't think you need to be from Asia to enjoy an Asia expansion as you are implying, either. Would I have liked if the existing map was fleshed out a bit more before expanding the map to Asia? Yes. Am I going to complain about them adding Asia because of this? No. Whatever happens, it's probably going to be an enjoyable experience that adds new options for gameplay.

 

[Sighfer]

Please tell me there will be an option to "zoom in" and play on a specific region, I don't want to start digging my processor's grave just yet.

 

[WilliamWolffgang]

Just gonna copy paste my question from yesterday:
Some questions about the updates to court positions (and councillors):

• If you set the game to give you an event with candidates after a position is vacated, will the options only include choosing a candidate, or will you also just have an option akin to "I need to consider all options" or something like that? Just as a way to clearly alert the player that a position has been vacated but not forcing you to pick the replacement.
• Would it be possible to add some kind of title history to court positions and councillors? Could be fun to be able to see who's had the jobs historically.
• Sorta in extension of that, how about having a "court position/councillor inheritance" rule, where the role is passed onto any eligible children after the character's death/retirement? Historically noble titles weren't the only heritable positions, so I think this could add some cool roleplay! (even if it kinda sucks gameplay wise) This wouldn't have to be a universal rule at all, it could depend on factors like religion, culture, individual positions or even just the player's own wishes.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As for a new question: I realise it's probably way too early, but once All under Heaven releases, is there any chance old saves will still be playable? I desperately hope so but at the same time I realise it might be straight up impossible if the game suddenly had to create an entire half continent with no historical jumping-off point...

 

[Agamidae]

you've a typo

relationships between us and our layers

 

[PDX-Trinexx]

you've a typo

Thanks; it's been a hectic day.

 

[Zopyrionis]

The upcoming chapter looks great and very promising. I hope that nomads will significantly change power balance in Eastern Europe, Persia, Tibet and upcoming China. The whole CK III game design can be described as “unplanned chaos of events”, where some Indian character may end ruling France, and nomads can make this chaos even better. I especially want to thank you for adding Indochina – that region could end as one the most interesting, diverse and chaotic due to Chinese, Indian and Muslim influence on local cultures. I hope that we will see some events related to white elephants!

As for the questions, I would like to ask some.

1. Recently you added a special game rule that stabilizes realm for AI only. That change is extremely appreciated, because it is quite obvious that AI can’t handle governing realm with human efficiency. But the main advantage of human players is knowing how modifiers stacking works. I think that the new game rule is a great step to make AI stronger against humans and I want to ask if there are any plans for adding more such rules.

I once proposed the concept of modifiers stacking limit game rule 0n this forum, where player can limit gaining modifiers bonuses through special game rule. In short, player can enable modifiers limit (for example, player will never get more than 30 prowess, no matter how many artifacts he has) or made an exception for temporal modifiers (Character can get more than 30 prowess, but only with temporal modifiers). I think that if this game rule will be enabled only for player, game could become much more challenging, especially in late game.

As for the question itself, I would like to ask how the developers team see the solution of the modifiers stacking problem. Are they planning to add more rules like the latest one? Or do they have another vision?

2. My second question is related to the general vision of the game. I always thought that the biggest advantage of CK III is chaotic gameplay that depends on accidents, rather than scripts. This concept is entirely different from EU IV, for example. In Europa Universalis gameplay is much more predictable and based on scripts of historical events. Ottomans will always conquer Balkans, Europeans always establish colonies and Ming will always fail apart. At some point this dedication to planned gameplay literally ruined EU IV for me.

CK III is much more chaotic, doesn’t have mission trees and offers truly unpredictable gameplay. However, this changed after introducing Iberian Struggle. I actually liked struggle – it made Iberia much more chaotic due to different CB, inter-religion marriages and mercenaries contracts, but I never liked “ending of struggle” concept. I think that Iranian struggle solves this with one simple solution – it ends by itself, if no one ends it manually.

With this in mind, I would like to ask about current vision of “planned” gameplay through historical events, “struggles” et cetera. Does current vision combine chaotic and planned gameplay or made a shift to planned gameplay? Will China be a unique region where nonsense things could happen (expelled Byzantium pretender that converts to Asatru, created an army of adventures, conquer China and establish a long rule) or big changes in region will be restricted due to planned limitations (like Iberian Struggle).

3. Will Tibet get some flavor? Its empire was destroyed not long before first start date, but before that Tibet was a giant empire that even plundered Chinese capital, fought with Arabic caliphate in Central Asia and controlled kingdoms in India. I hope we get some special decisions and unique interactions with China for local rulers.

4. Also, the falling of the Tibet empire leads to another question. Chinese army commanded by Zhang family conquered Guiyi Circuit and later they become a literal feudals, over lands of which emperor have no power. Ambitious and powerful warlords that establish their personal rule on Chinese frontier was a common phenomenon in Chinese history and I wonder if we will be able to see something like this in the game.

5. Are there any plans of adding 3D models of cats and dogs in game since we have sheeps?

6. I appreciated the special 0,5 % chance for conquerors and I would like to see one more change toward them. I think, that “scourge of gods” modifier gives conquerors too much siege weapon effectiveness. From my observations this is their biggest strength, that leaves AI zero chances to win. Conquerors may occupy land before AI gather troops together. Everything else in that modifier can be countered, but not this.

7. Can we have that sponsored invasions of nomads from Iranian Intermezzo for rulers outside of Iranian Struggle or at least for Byzantium?