Dev Diary #116 - Agrarian Research Techniques

[Duzgun]

We can also maybe expect no more wacky medieval teleportation, and realistic delays in communication, so characters need to be physically connected for a lot of interactions to happen ?

This would be good. Currently breaks the immersion when events involve characters who live miles aways from each other...

 

[MPS_]

The 2nd character is Rasad who is the mother of the ruler of Fatimid in the 1066 start date.

 

[Silens]

For better or worse, here's my take on it:

 

['Ciusi]

OK, so we know all three characters and have a pretty good tip on regencies and heraldry clothing. This is more fun than I expected. Let's move on.

I'll try some tips that may be completely off:

We still don't know who's on the last picture, but are those really birdcages? Couldn't they be cages for prisoners in a dungeon? Although there's probably too much sunlight for that.

I think the title of DD Agrarian research techniques is really one of the hints. Maybe some sort of terrain type modification system?

We know that the theme of the next DLC is supposed to be a closer connection between the character and the map. We're assuming some adventures or something similar, but couldn't it be something with a realm map? I've read some theories here about changing the succession system and distributions of the titles, and that's an interesting theory. All of the new interactions won't be just about regency.

A revamped succession would be a great change. Instead of one type of chosen succession, we could have a system of different rules that determine succession. We could create a personalized and specific systems of succession, such as tanistry. Although I don't think we'll see anything like that anytime soon.

 

[Wokeg]

For better or worse, here's my take on it:

View attachment 949687

Gosh, fair's fair - about three of these are exceedingly good guesses.

 

[SeraphAscending]

One word: wills.

let the player have a hand in how their territory is divided and let us give the primary title to someone other than the eldest son.

Hell yes!
Heirs that feel disadvantaged (or are greedy/ambitious) could build factions to improve their share of the will.
You could offer people something in your will to get an alliance. i.e. you'll get Cyprus, but you'll defend me from any and all attacks for as long as i live - would allow for amazing intrigue gameplay. Make a contract -> scheme against contract partner -> they suddenly happen to not be alive anymore -> you get territory. Would be much better than the current hassle of having to run multiple murder schemes to get your child to inherit someone else's territory.

In general, a contract mechanic in which you negotiate benefits would be nice. Preferably very little focus on resources. I'd much prefer not have it be much of a mercenary negotiation (i pay you, you fight for me), but have it all be about political benefits. Marriage agreements, alliances (defensive and/or offensive), religious conversions, release of prisoners, joining/leaving factions, (joining of schemes?), gaining/abandoning hooks etc.

Currently all of those interactions are independently handled and thus leave very little room for negotiation, sadly.
I would love to offer military alliances for strong hooks or territory i want. Or if i do a single-county intrigue run, just get a guard dog partner that deters anyone from attacking me because of a one-sided defensive pact - so i stop blackmailing them about their fornication and adultery.

 

[Silens]

Gosh, fair's fair - about three of these are exceedingly good guesses.

You wouldn't happen to be willing and share which ones exactly, would you? I'll even throw in a 'please' or two

 

[Finear]

Ok, so my other approach to this riddle.
The first three have something in common but are not directly connected to the fourth guy.
So I think they could be vassals/courtiers. And the list of activities is connected with more interactions on the liege-vassal line or maybe even vassal-vassal line.

 

[anbeck]

You wouldn't happen to be willing and share which ones exactly, would you? I'll even throw in a 'please' or two

If I understand things correctly, it's a list of personal interactions. That would exclude some of your guesses, such as "Set new laws for the realm". That's probably done something on a realm screen and not via character interactions.

The ones among your guesses that are very character-interactiony are "revoke title from ward", "swear allegiance" and "disinherit".

 

[SeraphAscending]

I think you would do yourselves a favour by reducing the amount of dev diaries you make. You rarely have anything interesting to say, so you end up disappointing more people than you please. If the game was in a good place, then sure, make pointless dev diaries - but the game is almost 3 years old and still shallow as a puddle. I'm personally tired of event DLC and event updates. Put some actual meat on these bones.

It's been less than 24 hours, there are 15 pages of comments already and the vast majority are either positive or participating in decrypting the teasers. So i doubt they would book this dev diary as a failure.

I get this type of teaser isn't for everyone and that's fine, but it is certainly not meeting major dissapointment by the community.

While just reading the teaser myself didn't give me much (no time to invest in decrypting), reading the comments and the engagement here did. So i still enjoyed this dev diary, despite its immediate content not being for me.

 

[Saurid]

Jokes aside I would really love to see agriculture be expanded upon like food supplies in general. Something to split development into population and economical output maybe, a big population doesn't equal high economic output all the time but they need food, it would be nice to see it lower in war especially if sacked and farm can produce food for faster growth of population. Though this may be needed in a plague update, I would love to see it.

My guess for the teasers, it's about how you as a counselor can take actions, with some being tied to you as a regent for a ward.

 

[anbeck]

If anyone asks, remember: rural France, agriculture, thirteenth century, yada yada.

At first I thought, the reference to the thirteenth century was linked to agricultural advances. But if we depart from the supposition that this dev diary is not actually about agriculture, but that it is a code or something, then I wonder what the "thirteenth century" reference means.

This dev diary made me look into the game files for historical characters. The file "swedish.txt" includes a line that assigns a nick name to a character, followed by this interesting comment:

# Really earlier than its historical use, but makes him more visible in the 1220 start

Is this just an artifact from the CK3 devs borrowing CK2 code? Or does the comment suggest that at some point during CK3's development a 1220 start date was on the table - a bookmark that was ultimately cut but will make its return with the next expansion?

 

[Wokeg]

Jokes aside I would really love to see agriculture be expanded upon like food supplies in general. Something to split development into population and economical output maybe, a big population doesn't equal high economic output all the time but they need food, it would be nice to see it lower in war especially if sacked and farm can produce food for faster growth of population. Though this may be needed in a plague update, I would love to see it.

Honestly, I'm actually really pleasantly surprised with the small but notable number of people here who've said they'd genuinely really like more agricultural content. It's always good to be able to point to this type of thing when discussing future plans, and though I'm definitely not in the Add Pops to CK3 camp that's occasionally chatted about on the forums, I am pretty interested in the type of thing you're talking about here - mechanical consequences to agrarian societies for lengthy wars, a more flexible representation of prosperity than the development system currently gives us, and economics that are a little more detailed without going full trade-sim.

I've also always felt that, especially for minor land-owners where it would be a more pressing concern, it'd be neat to have more content related to bad or good harvests sweeping the realm, boons from the advance of agricultural techniques, changing global temperatures, and so on. ^^' Though I don't think we'd ever do a DD on agrarian science research, I wouldn't be complaining if I was in a position where I had to write a DD on a handful of new agricultural mechanics and events.

At first I thought, the reference to the thirteenth century was linked to agricultural advances. But if we depart from the supposition that this dev diary is not actually about agriculture, but that it is a code or something, then I wonder what the "thirteenth century" reference means.

Thirteenth century is best century, that's all. Edward I, Ban Kulin, both the Latin Empire and Michael VIII, the list goes on. It's a fascinating era in history and I really wish we had a bookmark in it. Or two, or three.

... sadly I think 1200s bookmarks are far down the bookmark prio list, after our fan favourites in 936 & 1081. I guess there's 1187, which is close but suffers from a chronic case of Richard the Lionheart being alive.

Is this just an artifact from the CK3 devs borrowing CK2 code? Or does the comment suggest that at some point during CK3's development a 1220 start date was on the table - a bookmark that was ultimately cut but will make its return with the next expansion?

Though CK3 generally doesn't include reused script from CK2 (except for some of the loc of the health events, I believe), the major exception to that is our history files. They're not 1:1 the same, as CK2 continued development for a while after CK3 started up (which is partially why late history changes introduced into CK2 sometimes aren't present in CK3, though there's also sometimes a deliberate design choice there too) and CK3's done a decent amount of redevelopment and revamping since, but you'll find a lot of crossover from that shared heritage.

The biggest part of that is CK3 retaining the post-1066 history, even though we don't have a post-1066 bookmark. As far as I'm aware, sadly, there was never a 1200s bookmark on the table, but there were (and still are from some members of the team) hopes to have some specific later bookmarks at some point in the future.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Though CK3 generally doesn't include reused script from CK2 (except for some of the loc of the health events, I believe), the major exception to that is our history files. They're not 1:1 the same, as CK2 continued development for a while after CK3 started up (which is partially why late history changes introduced into CK2 sometimes aren't present in CK3, though there's also sometimes a deliberate design choice there too) and CK3's done a decent amount of redevelopment and revamping since, but you'll find a lot of crossover from that shared heritage.

The biggest part of that is CK3 retaining the post-1066 history, even though we don't have a post-1066 bookmark. As far as I'm aware, sadly, there was never a 1200s bookmark on the table, but there were (and still are from some members of the team) hopes to have some specific later bookmarks at some point in the future.

Those CK2 history guys did a fantastic job, I must say.

 

[sreckom92]

Honestly, I'm actually really pleasantly surprised with the small but notable number of people here who've said they'd genuinely really like more agricultural content. It's always good to be able to point to this type of thing when discussing future plans, and though I'm definitely not in the Add Pops to CK3 camp that's occasionally chatted about on the forums, I am pretty interested in the type of thing you're talking about here - mechanical consequences to agrarian societies for lengthy wars, a more flexible representation of prosperity than the development system currently gives us, and economics that are a little more detailed without going full trade-sim.

I've also always felt that, especially for minor land-owners where it would be a more pressing concern, it'd be neat to have more content related to bad or good harvests sweeping the realm, boons from the advance of agricultural techniques, changing global temperatures, and so on. ^^' Though I don't think we'd ever do a DD on agrarian science research, I wouldn't be complaining if I was in a position where I had to write a DD on a handful of new agricultural mechanics and events.

I would also love to see me some agriculture in this game.
Not in a sense that you manage what ploughs peasants are using, or what fertilizer they use, but more as a system on which several other mechanics rely upon.

-You invest more in agriculture = you have more supplies for armies and siege defenders;
-Famine/disease rages in the region, crippling food production (and causing attrition) everywhere, including your own realm. However, since you invested in agriculture, you suffer less than your neighbors;
-Sieging down and raiding provinces may cause agriculture buildings to collapse;
-Lots of food = happier population = better development;
-Little food = instability = bandit attack = revolts;


Not a huge number of interactions, but an underlying system that connects various other mechanics and rewards player involvement and thinking.
Also, very importantly, it provides a more immersive medieval world.

 

[geogus]

one idea i d like to see, very common in middle ages, is that you have to wait the harvest in order to raise levies, otherwise the realm starves.

This might encourage using men at arms alone more often, and reserve the levies to big wars.

Also great levies casualties could disrupt farming production for a while, lacking people to seed the land and harvest it

 

[johnty5]

one idea i d like to see, very common in middle ages, is that you have to wait the harvest in order to raise levies, otherwise the realm starves.

This might encourage using men at arms alone more often, and reserve the levies to big wars.

Also great levies casualties could disrupt in farming production for a while, lacking people to seed the land and harvest it

I like this. I also like the idea of it pissing off your vassals and that being something that needs to be managed - since whenever you've called up their peasants to go fight your war, you're ultimately making their counties less productive for them and costing them money.

 

[johnty5]

Honestly, I'm actually really pleasantly surprised with the small but notable number of people here who've said they'd genuinely really like more agricultural content. It's always good to be able to point to this type of thing when discussing future plans,

I notice this isn't strictly a denial that part of the upcoming DLC (or the patch that comes with it) will add agricultural content.

Is one of the hidden things in the DD that the title is actually legit - even if the feature itself isn't mentioned in the body of the post?

and though I'm definitely not in the Add Pops to CK3 camp that's occasionally chatted about on the forums, I am pretty interested in the type of thing you're talking about here - mechanical consequences to agrarian societies for lengthy wars, a more flexible representation of prosperity than the development system currently gives us, and economics that are a little more detailed without going full trade-sim.

This makes me happy. I really don't want CK3 to add pop mechanics (I don't think the era really had the demographic/sociological changes to make their inclusion interesting) or to add a huge amount of economic management stuff (I think that'd move CK3 away from it's character-based USP and turn it into something more like EU4 - and we've already got EU4 for that).

 

[grommile]

I don't think the era really had the demographic/sociological changes to make their inclusion interesting

The decline of serfdom in Western Europe is pretty interesting

But I agree that pops are not something CK3 needs.

 

[SeraphAscending]

After all, that's a nice picture of the countryside you've got illustrating this dev diary - someone must have spent time making it and that'd be a lot of work simply for a "joke" dev diary title.

Might just be a loading screen or event background image, though. They add a variety of those with every DLC after all.

This makes me happy. I really don't want CK3 to add pop mechanics (I don't think the era really had the demographic/sociological changes to make their inclusion interesting) or to add a huge amount of economic management stuff (I think that'd move CK3 away from it's character-based USP and turn it into something more like EU4 - and we've already got EU4 for that).

I agree. I would like a lot more economic and sociological impact of decisions you make (i.e. raising levies, significant casualties, etc.), but i don't want CK3 to be a trade-sim.