Dev Diary #114 - And the Winner is…

[FerdX]

It would be nice to have a way to turn your wards against their family, or wards you give to other turned against you.
It's not exactly the same, but kinda how Philippe II of France (and maybe Eleonore of Aquitaine if we trust the rumors) helped Henri II of England's sons turn against their fathers.
Maybe some kind of plot to go that way.

It would be cool also to have some kind of interaction with your ward if he is your heirs on how to rule the Kingdom. Like Mentoring at the cost of stress ?

I also hope someday you'll add Tournaments and Troubadours/Songs/Epics/Legends mechanics !

 

[CrazyRat]

I'm not too thrilled Wards&Wardens won. However, on the matter of what I would want:

1. agency with regards to who my ward is associating with; namely: I don’t appreciate them mingling with the random scope characters. It would be nice if I could designate a few children as their desired playmates / crushes etc. and favour these relationship by e.g. fostering the situations the childrens could spend more time together.

2. it would also be nice to be able to help with childhood crushes etc. with stuff like a fostered elope scheme. I mean, if I spent my time nurturing the crush my child had for a king’s daughter (and vice versa) it would be nice to be able to push them towards eloping together to fulfill you’re ambition.

3. I would want a hierarchization of relationships. The current material is done on the assumption that children are more or less equal: and they are just as likely to have a bully as a child king as if they were children of a count. However, that is obviously neither a case with real world nor even more hierarchical Middle Ages.

It would be nice if these sort of events took into account the relative social standing of a child. e.g. no unlanded child should be able to bully a child emperor unless the emperor in question is totally unassertive (i.e. craven, lazy, paranoid)…

… and even then: there should also be at least variants of the childhood events for the interactions with the child that are of lesser status, of same status, and of higher status to take into account the existing power dynamics between you.

4. I would also like the ability to weight in on the topics like the victim / bully relationship. It is really harmful to impression that an assertive, higher-tier ruler with proper traits (i.e. Wrathful / Sadistic / Impatient) couldn’t weight on such sort of relationships.

 

[Kimlin1004]

what about a more intimate decision for parents with wards? My vassals son bullied my son and I am vengeful and intrigue focused, so I imprison and torture my vassal.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I'd like to see the player be able to 'see'/affect the childhood events for their wards that are currently viewed by children only. Currently, the events that may cause children stress/special traits/crushes are generally hidden, and if you're playing you will rarely actually be inherited by a child young enough to receive them.

I'd also like the ability to influence relationships between wards, such that raising two people together can likely create bonds (or, if careless, rivalries).

 

[monkey1998]

I would really like for you guys to add events and maybe even ceremonies around coming-of-age. In particular but not exclusively to knighthood since I and probably most other players mainly play in Europe because it has the most flavor. I know you guys want to keep it close to history instead of going the GoT route like most modern people now think of when they think of knights but you could definitely add more flavor and historical accuracy than what you have now. For example, there should be a squire and knight traits even if they're locked behind innovation and give only maybe a small prestige and/or piety boost. Even if knighthood didn't become what we think of until the high middle ages there are examples of people being knighted in the 10th century and a little earlier such as Richard I of Normandy forming a strong, cohesive duchy in part by knighting his soldiers and leading them in the French fashion instead of the old Norse way. Also knights (how they're currently used ) should be renamed to notable knights instead of just knights. It's very weird to me when I see a king lead an army of 20,000 soldiers that only contain 20 knight and it's even weirder how if I add a character with high prowess to my court someone who was once a knight suddenly isn't anymore. Knighthood was a much more permanent thing and I would like for that to be represented. Okay this started veering away from my original point but yeah this is what I would like added.

 

[Dimo87]

I'd love to see events involving your heir asking you to step down if they think you're too old and feeble. I'd also love to see a brother/sister of the heir insist that you should make them your heir instead. Honestly, anything involving the politics of what your children receive after you die or wanting things before then. I'm also hoping that your own children don't just automatically like you and you have to work for them actually having affection for you, that would make events with them more impactful.

 

[monkey1998]

I would really like for you guys to add events and maybe even ceremonies around coming-of-age. In particular but not exclusively to knighthood since I and probably most other players mainly play in Europe because it has the most flavor. I know you guys want to keep it close to history instead of going the GoT route like most modern people now think of when they think of knights but you could definitely add more flavor and historical accuracy than what you have now. For example, there should be a squire and knight traits even if they're locked behind innovation and give only maybe a small prestige and/or piety boost. Even if knighthood didn't become what we think of until the high middle ages there are examples of people being knighted in the 10th century and a little earlier such as Richard I of Normandy forming a strong, cohesive duchy in part by knighting his soldiers and leading them in the French fashion instead of the old Norse way. Also knights (how they're currently used ) should be renamed to notable knights instead of just knights. It's very weird to me when I see a king lead an army of 20,000 soldiers that only contain 20 knight and it's even weirder how if I add a character with high prowess to my court someone who was once a knight suddenly isn't anymore. Knighthood was a much more permanent thing and I would like for that to be represented. Okay this started veering away from my original point but yeah this is what I would like added.

Oh and please rework how children gain and release stress. If a child fails a language scheme they automatically gain 100 stress with little to no way to get rid of it and they start to snowball into getting terrible coping traits.

 

[Aurvandil333]

I assume its not all wholesome and flowery events and content?

Would be nice if one would have to deal with sinister guardians like if their opinion of the child is bad they try to set up "accidents" or be overly harsh which could traumatize and affect personality to be more cowardly or sadistic for example

Or unmarried guardian/rulers attempting to groom the ward to be their future spouse and then trying to convince the liege (player) to approve. With success depending on wards personality/how passive they are to manipulation etc.

For parent/guardian child events lots of wholesome should be a given but also some realistic if for example parent has bad traits like alcoholic/reclusive/melancholic. Should also add court visit interactions for relatives from other courts.

 

[druez]

Look, Villains & Vagabonds may not have won as it should have, but it did beat Love & Lust and I think that's something we can all appreciate. Literally all of us. Not a single person who doesn't.

Please Ms. Noodle, please find a way to save the Villians and Virtue pack. (Hope it would allow us to have both sides of rulership.)

 

[CrazyRat]

I would also be happy if the ward system was changed. Currently, having someone as your wards feels futile unless you are going to culture convert them. It doesn’t give you any agency over your ward: you cannot e.g. change child’s education, change their warden to someone else at court (without parent’s consent), etc.

I would prefer if the ward/warden contract would be to just to educate child at your court that would make the ward your courtier. so that i.e. you can delegate or make other decisions about their upbringing. It 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. These expecations would then influence what the parent / warden think of each other afterwards. (Up to possibility of it being a crime if warden decides to religion & culture convert and change education of his ward on his own.)

 

[funkyfreshrat]

Hoping to see more unique death events for characters in childhood as well as more unique ways for wards to kill their guardians and vice versa. Events providing chances for guardians/wards to be able to manipulate and sabotage each other would be nice to see, tricking each other out of claims, setting the other up as a criminal, ruining their respective relationships, revealing each others secrets to others at the court, that sort of thing.

Slightly out of the timescale of the game but an event chain setting up a situation in the same vein to the Princes in the Tower might be interesting.

A flavor pack with a major focus on child characters also seems like a good opportunity to start finding a way to implement the Children's Crusade content in-game that is currently missing.

EDIT: I would also be very interested in the content of the flavor pack possibly expanding on the Witch trait events relating to guardianship that currently fires at 15. Would also be really nice to get more than what currently exists for the Reincarnation trait for those who currently gain it at 9.

 

[Reerhy]

Concerning wards and wardens, I’d be interested in a possibility to host more wards rather than a strict two child rule…with a drawback of the more you take on, the higher the likelihood of their educations running away from you (lack of care, different/worse traits, poor relationships etc…)

Maybe that could spill into the court? Too many kids running round and courtiers getting annoyed. That could influence a pop up when hosting a feast, maybe the kids try to get involved? Or they sneak onto a hunt?

But it doesn’t have to be all negative, maybe they develop more gregarious traits?

Lots to choose from! Can’t wait to see what you come up with.

 

[sandwich8]

1. I'd like there to be a compelling reason to play a child. Currently, they are a strictly inferior version of an adult. They don't have access to any schemes, they don't have lifestyle exp or perks, and their options are immensely limited. True to life, but in a game (and as the focus of a new dlc) perhaps the rules can be bent a little to make it more (strategically) interesting.

2. Achievements: they seem dumb, but they go a long way to point out new content and goals, as well as bring back old players. Like Friends and Foes seemed fairly un-impactful because all the new events were mixed in with the old.

 

[Tiax]

I'd like it if there was more weight to the decision of who to appoint as guardians for your children, especially for children who aren't going to be your heir. This has two facets - how much do the skills and stats of the guardian affect your child (as I understand it, the answer is currently that you can get a better education trait if your guardian has the same one and is good at it, and guardians tend to pick their own traits in personality events), and how much power/influence being a guardian gives the person. On the first front, it seems like fun gameplay to find and recruit a really good tutor for your court and have that translate to more competent heirs. The two roadblocks are the nature of the character finder as medieval LinkedIn (if the player can just find some 70-year-old genius peasant, where's the gameplay?) and the already problematic levels of stat inflation. This feels like a tough nut to crack given the very shaky foundations the current game offers. On the second front, it would be interesting if there were some risk or consequence to giving a guardian so much power and stature within the court. Will I end up inviting some Rasputin-esque madman into my inner circle? Again, though, it feels like the foundations of the game would struggle to support this. To the extent that "court intrigue" exists at all, unlanded courtiers are very uninfluential. If your evil tutor learns some dark family secret, what can they even do with it?

Things I really don't want to see:

-Events that hand out preposterous amounts of prestige, piety, stats, gold, etc. for mundane activities like having a snowball fight with your child. "You tuck your child into bed for the night, you now have enough piety to reconquer Jerusalem!" My suspicion is that this will be the bulk of the new content, though.
-Childhood artifacts that are just regular toys or objects. I don't want to see kingdoms going to war with each other over "grandfather's painted wooden hobby-horse".

 

[Trunting]

My idea woul be, that events you get for children could be based upon previous events in the child's memory list. For example, the child has lost its father at the age of 7, now, age 14, it is seeking a new father figure in a chancellor oe knight. Conversely, the gaining of traits could be linked to such experiences, instead of occuring semi-random.

 

[grommile]

I think it's a great idea to ask for the community for events, but it's with the wrong timing.

The sizzle and the steak both matter, and there's at least one DLC (and associated free update) scheduled to come out before this event pack.

As far as looking towards CK2, well, one of the factors there is that the devs weren't always satisfied with how things were done in CK2 (example: Merchant Republics), and another is that lots of other things have changed, making the way things were done in CK2 not necessarily a sensible choice for how they should be done in CK3.

 

[Wayofwisdom]

I want an event where betrothed children can meet and interact. At the moment the only event involving betrothal I can think of is asking for you to break it. I think it would be nice if a betrothal made you interact with the other family more for better or worse.

 

[vandevere]

I am amazed Love & Lust didn't win.

I'm not. Seduction and affairs were already off the wall insane as it is...

 

[Emperor 1997]

I would like an Event, who the AI can use and change their wards personality trait to their own traits, like it was CK2.

 

[ToraktheNord]

Gonna throw out an extremely wild guess, maybe a holy cave. There's Selja’s holy rockshelter which is a burial/martyrdom place of christians in norway, the Seljumenn.

Edit:
Apparently was a major pilgrimage site on the west coast of Norway, about St. Sunniva of Selje, an Irish Princess who died there with her entourage in the cave.

Source:
Locality and Myth: The Resacralization of Selja and the Cult of St. Sunniva

Other than that, caves have big burial significance, were used as ritual sites or meditation, all of which can tie in to new activites. I'm excited to see what the expansion is gonna be about nonetheless if it's not about what I think it is

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