Dev Diary #114 - And the Winner is…

[DragoniteLifts]

Could we add a modifier for it to be more likely to get a foreign ward if you're allied? i.e Right now, if I betroth my heir to someone's daughter, and I wanna be the guardian of said daughter, there's way too many negative modifiers and not enough positives. I'd like to make that possible.

 

[sandwich8]

Btw, I'd love university events. Going to university could have all sorts of silly school events. Think of all the possible tropes!

 

[Kimlin1004]

In the Medieval mentality, most parents would see your son being bullied as a chance for him to build character and be strong.

Parenting today is nothing like Medieval parenting, especially for the nobility, where there's a lot of evidence for blatant parenting negligence in the early years. It's shown time and time again that parents leave the 1 to 6 years old parenting to wet nurses, maids and tutors, and that they only take an interest when the children start to be useful. In the case of the poor, they start to help around the house. In the case of the nobles, they help diplomatically, by becoming political pawns or investments in the future of the dynasty.

The Life of William Marshal shows one out of place example of fatherly love, something that may make us go "aaaaw" today, towards their son, and it's used as a bad character trait: King Stephen (whose memory Henry I wanted damned) is shown being very tender towards his son Eustace. Effeminate and unbecoming of a knight and a king.

King James of Aragon tells (himself) in his autobiography of all the times he cried because a knight or friend of his died, and he is distressed when his son and heir dies...but he says almost nothing of his children before they become squires and later knights in his household. It's like they didn't exist from the time they're born until they become polticial agents. Moreso with the daughters. They are born, and then they get married when they're around 18-20 (usually not before, a high noble doesn't marry his daughters right away, he looks for good matches).

Parents seem to have been mostly indifferent towards kids until they developed, and then it was all about how useful they were. Of course, we'll never know if they had real feelings but they suppressed them because it was socially unacceptable.

Interesting and true.

 

[Vaizzard]

Greetings!

The polls are closed, and the winner is…

Wards and Wardens

Which I’m very excited about! Not only because it was the theme I personally liked the best, but because there’s a lot of interesting history to explore! We’ll definitely aim to make both rearing and playing as children more historically immersive, while also adding timeless content such as the (sometimes tenuous, sometimes wholesome) relations between parent and child.

As mentioned in the previous Dev Diary, this event pack will be worked on later this year, after the next expansion is finished. For now, we will slowly start drawing out plans of content we’d like to make, and areas that’d be fun to explore - and here you can help!

If you have a specific topic you’d like to see made into an event, or a situation you’d like to see expanded upon, please reply in this thread!

For example, a specific topic might be ‘I’d like to see an event about one of my foreign wards missing their home’ or ‘I’d like an event where I as a child can become best friends with a vassal child’.

Examples of situations you’d like to see improved could be ‘I’d like to have the ability to impose a specific personality trait on a ward’, or ‘I’d like if educating another ruler’s child would have more diplomatic benefits/complications’.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with another small teaser for the expansion. Last time some of you came extremely close to the truth, to the point where we had the artist of the image giggling with excitement… we’re hoping this one will throw you off a bit.

View attachment 941734
[Image - Teaser2]

I was thinking is a event for rowdy, bossy and curious child, that can be like a expansion of the event os the tournament, if the child prove themselves u have like option to make them already knights or shieldmaidens, but if denied, for the children be rowdy, bossy or curious they flee from home, and have dome chances like be an adventurers, be killed or even and up been a leader of a mercenary group, they can come back home like a prodigal son with riches or a lot of bills (lol). Thats my idea, tell me what u guys think about it.

 

[CloudF11]

Very cool. I hope the others get added eventually too. All three themes are things that definitely need some fleshing out.

 

[Voy]

I think the Court Tutor court position should be more involved in events surrounding children and wards. It's an underused court position with bugs (doesn't affect the education of children at court only the ruler himself). This is a golden opportunity to make something nice with it.

 

[ccheekii]

well for starters, I'd like a memory to be made in both the ward and wardens memories about who their guardian(s) and ward(s) were so we can see why they turned out the way they did (and maybe punish the guardian for screwing up a child? :3)

 

[Flockingbird]

I would like events about a child actualy being the squire at the court of the liege. It would give more prestige as an education at your own court and would give the opportunity for livelong conections in the realm.

This, as well as historically appropriate events for children who were not allowed to train for knighthood on account of their gender.*

Some activities were not limited by gender and could make fun/interesting events: learning to ride, to sing, dance, or play an instrument. Teach a ward to play chess, perhaps?

*I am not a historian, bu what I have read left me with the impression that the needlework of medieval noblewomen had significant economic value for their families. If true, some events around learning to spin/weave/sew/embroider would be interesting.

Edited to add:

@CrazyRat said:

I would prefer if the ward/warden contract.... should come, however, with outlined expectations (‘they should have education of passable tier’, ‘you should devote time to them yourself’, ‘they should not be sinful’, etc.) set during the 'Offer Guardianship' / 'Ward' negotiation.

I love the idea of having a guardianship contract! (Is it historical? If ahistorical, would it be un-immersive?)

@Asterios_III said:

Jan 17, 2023
Children should be free.
They need the freedom to turn ancestral court artifacts into materials for secret bases.

Something like that would make a funny event! We have an event with children getting into the supplies, so perhaps children playing with court artifacts? (Sitting on the throne, trying on a displayed ancestral crown, tearing a fragile tapestry, or chipping a jeweled goblet, etc.?)

 

[MathyM]

I would like to be able to influence who the child I'm educating will befriend/rival at an early age, so if I'm educating my heir, I know they will already be friends with powerful vassals, or at least with the heir to those powerful vassals.

I'd also like the AI to ask me to rear their children more often, and maybe even to pay me for the service, if someone in my court happens to have really great stats.

Finally, I'd like to be able to try to improve a congenital trait of the child. For instance, if they are already Hale, I would like an event to try to improve this trait to Robust. Maybe force them to train more, at the expense of a chance for them to end up wounded or something?

 

[Germanicus_Caesar]

Awesome, WW is what I wanted. A few suggestions:

Hopeful but possibly out of scope:
Regencies

Hopeful:
A ward/hostage situation. For example, I take the king of France’s son hostage after a war and win. I keep him as my ward, this does not grant an alliance but instead a truce for as long as I have his son as my ward. Alternatively, if I do not keep him as my ward but instead keep him in prison, the king of France gets a “free prisoner” war claim on me.

Events cementing the long term ward/warden relationship. Basically, after the child reaches adulthood, some sort of lasting trait or modifier should be present, whether that be “we’ve become friends” or “we’ve become rivals” or “they taught me for years and I’ll never forget them” (leads to a minor former warden positive modifier)

Your friendships, rivalries, and crushes should have an impact beyond childhood. So perhaps event checks in adulthood will check for characters you’ve had relationships with as a child. Thus, for each generation the names change but become familiar for that character. Does that make sense? Now I know why I care about random count as an emperor because we bonded at a playdate 20 years ago. Similarly, random lady is trying to seduce me because we had a crush on each other 30 years ago.

Unlikely, probably out of the scope of the game:
Someone else said this on the thread, but would love a random succession upon death to accompany partition. There is a mod for it, but it would greatly incentivize caring about all children’s inheritance to an extend. If this could be a game rule, that’d be awesome.

 

[klopkr]

I'd like special events for finding out/being found out that the child or parent is homosexual, or adulterous, or that someone is illegitimate or a kinslayer.

These are massive family issues for the time and it would be interesting to have several ways to deal with them. Do you out them? Protect them? Defend them? Accept them? Shun them? Blackmail them?

Also I'd love some wet nurse content. Wet nurses were a common thing in history and would be a powerful agent in a baby murder scheme. You could seek one out and generate a woman with a similar aged child or two and her husband.

 

[CollectorOfBolts]

Btw, I'd love university events. Going to university could have all sorts of silly school events. Think of all the possible tropes!

Tropes that I, for one, would likely never see because universities are limited in location, cost as much or more than the construction of 3 castles per student, have a tendency to result in heirs being drunkards, and don't provide a noticeably better education. If the event pack is to include university content, I hope they also rework universities so that they are actually worth considering.

 

[Parzeus]

One thing i would definitely enjoy to see is events regarding rites of passage into adulthood, like bar and bat mitzvahs, debutante balls and quinceñeras, that would allow for interesting roleplay choices.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

To bo honest what is really missing from the experience of being a child ruler is regencies, but we're not going to get that here. But your tutor getting somexwhat involved ? Encouraging you to take some decisions ? If they're of a different culture maybe making you meet people of his culture etc ?

This would be an ideal opportunity to introduce regencies, and make them playable from both sides.

___

*If* regencies were introduced I would like to see a sliding scale of responsibilities from a newborn King having essentially no control over anything, to a 15 year old King essentially having almost full control over his kingdom - unless the regent can scheme to keep power somehow.
It would also be interesting to see the distinction between the Regent (who rules on behalf of the ward) and the Guardian (who has personal care of the ward in question). They may be the same person, but they might not - for example, the new King's uncle might be regent making decisions for the realm, but the Queen Mother might be the guardian, making personal decisions on behalf of the King; the power balance might be different in each relationship, so that an almost grown ward might have full personal powers, but be restricted in realm matters, or vice versa.
With a regency it should be possible to end it early, either with the agreement of your regent or with a successful scheme - and equally a wily regent might be able to extend a regency.



"Wards and Wardens" should probably also cover declaring an incapable/infirm/insane ruler to be in need of a regent or guardian if regencies are involved.



Potentially you have the question of if the guardian is one person, or a group - and if this group is the same as the people holding Court positions.

Event wise, the chance to gain friends and rivalries with people at your guardian's court would make sense - and not just amongst the children. Befriending the officers of your guardian's court could be valuable.
Expand the crushes and chances for the wards to mess up romance. But try not to go Romeo and Juliet with anyone's heirs, since that's going to be annoying after the first time it ends a playthrough.
It *might* be interesting to see guardians pass coping mechanisms on to their ward with a greater or lesser degree of success, especially the more benign ones such as journaller or athlete.

The rank of the chosen guardian should probably be considered - a King or his sons should be fostered by either family or a Duke, or one of the Court Positions, not a random untitled nobody in the court. A count's son probably shouldn't be fostered by a King or Emperor, at least not without causing friction at court, and suspicion that there's something going on behind the scenes (is he fostering his secret bastard??) - again, exceptions for close family, so that King Dave can bring his nephew to court if he wants to.

Expanded interactions between wards at a given guardian's court, and between wards and children of the court (and indeed between just children at court) would be valuable, provided they can manage not to be reliably lethal or dangerous.

Reworking the guardian events so that it's not so easy to inflict traits on to your wards that can mess them up (particularly the one when you can essentially make a child celebate because you caught them having trouble with a crush), but still being able to guide and shape a personality would be good. Maybe make it so that the interactions make the child more or less likely to get the trait, but don't set it in stone.

Possibly a regent (or guardian) should be able to hold court on behalf of their ward (at least whilst they're very young) and make decisions as if they were actually holding that title - but some results of holding court would have to come from the ward's money, whilst other results would come from the guardian's own pocket. Unless the guardian gets the income (or the majority of the income) from the ward's land until the ward is old enough to hold court on their own and make decisions.

Guardians using wards in their schemes could be a thing. Either as spies, or as leverage.

 

[RubyClaw]

First of all I’m happy to hear Wards and Wardens won! Even though the other two also have lots of potential, perhaps we can see them return in the future? Still finding myself recently playing as a child ruler more than once I felt this part of the game has a lot of content missing.

Things I’d like to see added/changed:

* A 4 years old should have different events and option than a 14 years old. How about dividing childhood into segments: 0-6 (or 0-3,4-6), 7-12 and 13-16?

* Take your child with you on activities. A hunt, a feast, a diplomatic mission, a pilgrimage, even a pillage.

* Celebrating a child’s right of passage. Could be really cool if this was different for different culture/religions.

* Speaking of which, add unique traditions that have an affect on the sort of upbringing available for different cultures. Unique roles that children can fill in different cultures.

* An ability to sway or petition a child ruler, or as a child. This shouldn’t work exactly like it does with adults, but I should be able to try and charm my ruler or get his favor, right? Or at least their regent... though that’s another topic.

* Religious tutoring - being able to send your child from a young age to be tutored by the clergy is quite common in many religions.

* Professional tutoring - was mentioned here a lot. A kid starting as a Squire to become a Knight. Sending your kids to become an apprentice (especially your secondary kids).

* Add more interesting interactions with illegitimate children/bastards. They had a special and interesting role in different medieval cultures, and often those of the royalty were still treated to a good life and stayed relevant.

* This is a big one but I still think it can still fit a smaller DLC like this - one of the things people tend to carry on from childhood are specific events that set their minds into certain behaviors - mostly fears or strong opinions about certain things. How about adding such a mini-mechanism where your character can attain things like “Fear from Animals”, “Fear from the Sea”, or even characteristics like “Hate towards X religion”, Disliking authority figures” and such that they can carry for the rest of their lives. It can also be positive quirks as well like “Affinity for X religion/culture”, etc. Each of these should of course come with an event that would explain how you got then, and some of them perhaps can even give you a choice, a bit like personality trait work.

And speaking of that, there are generally three main mechanism that are related to kids that I think need and overall change to them, though perhaps these will be too much for such a DLC, I’m not sure - 1) The way personality traits are given to kids (the events are nice, but the simple 3 options feel very artificial and the Lifestyle focus is extremely simplified), 2) marriage (it is way too easy and boring to pick a suiting spouse, where in reality it was much more complicated and has tons of potential for cool events), and as almost everyone here mentioned Regency which is really needed. I’d love to see you improve either one of them, or all of them, but again I’m not sure if this is too much for a DLC.

Looking forward to see this DLC as well as the coming expansion!

 

[Axehndle]

Bridge. Cave. Obviously, there are going to be trolls.

Kidding aside, I'm sticking with my "more engaging/interactive travel" theory.

 

[SalivatingPanda]

Can we get an option to switch to play as one of your current ruler's heirs if you land them. Regardless of age?

For example, I land my second born son at the age of 7 because he has amazing stats. Or my grandson or great grandson. I grant him a warden, which might myself. Then I have an option to switch as my landed son.

This could provide a lot of content to both the wards and the wardens. I can guide my son as a warden. Buy if I play as my son, I can take advantage and experience all the events and game play related to being a ward.

This would be fantastic. Would help in the event where you have games where you have ruler's who get very old and already have great grandchildren.

P. S.

I hope this wil include BAPTISMS and INTRODUCE HEIR TO THE REALM choices events. Amongst others.

 

[as89z]

Greetings!

The polls are closed, and the winner is…

Wards and Wardens

Which I’m very excited about! Not only because it was the theme I personally liked the best, but because there’s a lot of interesting history to explore! We’ll definitely aim to make both rearing and playing as children more historically immersive, while also adding timeless content such as the (sometimes tenuous, sometimes wholesome) relations between parent and child.

As mentioned in the previous Dev Diary, this event pack will be worked on later this year, after the next expansion is finished. For now, we will slowly start drawing out plans of content we’d like to make, and areas that’d be fun to explore - and here you can help!

If you have a specific topic you’d like to see made into an event, or a situation you’d like to see expanded upon, please reply in this thread!

For example, a specific topic might be ‘I’d like to see an event about one of my foreign wards missing their home’ or ‘I’d like an event where I as a child can become best friends with a vassal child’.

Examples of situations you’d like to see improved could be ‘I’d like to have the ability to impose a specific personality trait on a ward’, or ‘I’d like if educating another ruler’s child would have more diplomatic benefits/complications’.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with another small teaser for the expansion. Last time some of you came extremely close to the truth, to the point where we had the artist of the image giggling with excitement… we’re hoping this one will throw you off a bit.

View attachment 941734
[Image - Teaser2]

Hello,

I have a suggestion for a topic...
You or AI takes subjects or some other ruler kids for wards/prisioners as tribute or to keep them loyal, and when they grow up one becomes a rebel against you and second becomes your subject and then you push his claims... And then the first one becomes ,,Drakula,,


Inspired be series ,,Rise of Empires: Ottoman, season 2, Mehmed vs Vlad,,

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

To speculate on the expansion, I HOPE it's related to buildings, agriculture and infrastructure. I definitely know this isn't Vicky and I appreciate the role-playing qualities of the game but part of being a medieval ruler is... well, being a ruler. So I hope what "connection between character and map" means is that characters will have more influence on the map.

 

[Anonim97]

If I can suggest something - an option to start playing as kid character and let the AI take over your current one. This way, one could finally play as a kid, cause right now it almost never happens.