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Dev Diary #117 - Shave and a Map Mode

Hello everyone!

My name is Jens and this is my first appearance on this forum. I’ve got the opportunity to share some details with you on my probation project for CK3, which is making it all the way into the upcoming release (because that’s where I pushed my changes, lol)!

I’m happy at least one of you caught on to the subtle hint in the previous DD. I was like “Wokeg, did you use my new thing to set up the screenshots?” Well yes, because all of a sudden most assets and characters have become way more accessible. So what is it I’m talking about? At this point, most of you have probably guessed it - but yes, we have upgraded our old friend the Barbershop.

I’ve scrambled through the webs looking for feedback and wishes of what you would like and expect from such a tool. Heck, no mediocre fix would do: I want only the best for you! I distilled the info down, looking for the essence of how you’d want to use the tool, set up the tasks, prioritized them, and spent the last few weeks going through them all. Well, I’ll spare you the fluff. Let’s get into some details.

First off, we have expanded the Barbershop into two tabs. The first is focused on changing the appearance of your character. Additionally, I’ve added a fuzzy search box next to the drop downs, in case you already know the name of what you’re looking for.

barbershop1.png

[Image: Barbershop, tab for changing appearance]


In the second tab, we’ve added drag and drop support for the portraits, so you may click, drag and place them wherever you want. You can also rotate them 360 degrees and we’ve also got 4 different zoom levels for you to play around with. Every character has their own dropdown of poses and animations and we’ve also added a wide variety of backgrounds. The only limit now is your own imagination.

barbershop2.png

[Image: Barbershop, tab for placing characters in the scene]


One of the big reasons we play is to create stories and make memories. I took a deep dive into the forum history and found out some of you want to use the Barbershop to relive past events between characters, dress up a serious ruler in a funny outfit or take family photos. To support this I’ve added presets. The “Custom” preset lets you import characters simply by pinning them. Another preset I really wanted in (based on a comment) was an easy way to view your entire Council, so for that end I present to you:

barbershop3.png

[Image: Barbershop, easily view your council]


Also, note the council preset supports modding if that’s your thing.

barbershop-script.png

[Image: Barbershop script]


With only a few polish tasks left, people have already begun discovering this tool in-house and started trolling and meme-ing each other. I hope you guys will enjoy the new Barbershop as much as we do. Let me know if you have any last minute requests and I will see what I can do. Now @rageair also has something in store for you.




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Greetings! In addition to the above we also want to show some additions to our collection of Map Modes - namely the introduction of the Control and Economy map modes! These two new tools are very useful in managing your realm… and planning your conquests.

map-modes.png

[Image - New Map Mode Buttons]


The Control map mode is very straightforward, showing you exactly what you’d expect. It spans from a dark purple (denoting very low control) to a light yellow (showing just a slight lack of control), and a bright white shows where there’s Absolute Control.

control-map.png

[Image: Control Map mode Example]


The Economy map mode is a little bit less straightforward - but we aspired to make it as useful as possible. The nebulous concept of ‘economy’ is a bit harder to represent, but we decided to include what most of us thought were key factors in making informed decisions.

econ-map-france.png

[Image: Economy Map mode Example, Southern France]


Similar to the Development Map mode, the color spans from dark purple to bright yellow; bright yellow indicates an area is quite rich. The area colors are based on Counties, including income from Cities, Bishoprics, and so on - for an overall approximation of the County’s use to the player (of course, Counties with more Castles might be better in the eyes of some, but we had to make a call and thought that this was the most useful overall). This coloring is relative to the state of the world, meaning that the most brilliant yellow County is the richest one in the world at that moment. This map mode doesn’t care about the current Control Level of the County, which makes it useful for planning conquest targets.

econ-map-india.png

[Image: Economy map mode, showing India]


Something else that you no-doubt notice is that Special Buildings are shown on this map mode! They’ve been hidden away for much too long, and we decided that this was an excellent time to reveal them… and maybe add a handful of new ones. Getting Special Buildings in your domain was always a fun goal for the player to achieve, and now it’s not only possible to see where they are - but also whether you can use them, if they are already built, what they provide, and so on!

As an added bonus, we’ve added an absolute ton of new mines strewn around the map, and we’ve also revised the system for founding Universities - now it’s no longer a decision, but rather the institutions are constructed as normal special buildings (and in many more places than before!), with the same rewards on offer.

This means that there are many, many more great capital locations strewn across the world, and it’s now easier than ever to find them!

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That’s it for this time! But stay tuned… our spymaster sends word that what’s next for Crusader Kings III will soon be announced! Make sure to mark Monday next week, March 6th, in your calendars and visit this link!

 
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As a AAR writer who spent hours (days?) taking screenshots with the Barbershop mod, this update will be a miracle. Thanks you!

PS : it would be so useful to change the colors of the clothes.
 
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Isn't this more a question of an overall "fog of war" mechanism? Not sure a ruler in Britain is supposed to know so much about what is happening in India at the same moment...:)
Considering the amount of negative feedback for just wondering whether a ruler at one end of the map would have instant information about what is happening at the other end of the map, it looks like I have underestimated the quality of medieval internet access ! My bad !!:confused::p

(as said, this has nothing to do with map mode itself since this information is already available anyway)
 
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I am pleased to see these new mapmodes as part of a free update, especially when I am searching for Special Buildings that would make an interesting game start.

I doubt that I will spend much time in the Barbershop, but I think it's a great addition for those players who enjoy the visual side of things.
This is all clearly a part of the free update. I highly doubt they'd sell us quality of life improvements.
PDX very much would. For example, HoI4's minimap is a DLC, as is the EU4 thing that lets you place buildings in multiple provinces at once (I want to call it an Outliner but it's got another name).

A few years ago this was discussed extensively oian HoI4 Dev Diary thread. Firstly, people will pay for QoL updates. Secondly, the priority for the free patches is supposed to be for systems that affect the whole of the game and are important for balance. For example, the Culture changes that accompanied Royal Court. If those are free (and in the early CK2 era they might not have been) then something else has to be in the paid DLC and it might as well be QoL. If one player has a mapmode and another doesn't, the 'simulation' itself is unchanged.
Don't you think that it's not entirely fair that a player can see the internal affairs of another country just like that? It would be possible to send a spymaster on a spying mission to the court of another ruler, and only then the control map of other characters would be available to the player.
I hope so, too!

Imagine, you don't get to know how big the enemy army is, until you actually meet for battle. Now that would be an experience equally exciting and frustrating.
If you want this, you can have it through the ObfusCKate mod. It could do with some more work, but the core features are in place and it's definitely superior to vanilla CK3.
 
Ok, well maybe India is a bit out of the question. Perhaps it should be limited to the rulers within diplomacy range.
While i think an espionage-focussed update would make use of some obfuscation of information and might be fun, i don't think that hiding information specifically outside of diplomacy range is really a relevant game change. It's already out of diplomacy range. You can't start a war for stuff there and you can't run schemes. It has no impact in any way, whatsoever.
Disallowing players to specifically dig for information that is essentially useless to them is not a change that warrants any dev effort put into it.
 
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revised the system for founding Universities - now it’s no longer a decision, but rather the institutions are constructed as normal special buildings (and in many more places than before!), with the same rewards on offer.

This means that there are many, many more great capital locations strewn across the world, and it’s now easier than ever to find them!
Oh hello there lesser predeterminism which is still predeterminism
imo great churches and universities (or great/special buildings in general) should not just be place restricted thing but something any sufficiently powerful realm should be able to build.
It seems rather silly to be forced to change your capital over "I can't build things here because reasons"
But I get that the buildings in capital provinces in general can be in one place only for balancing (talking about the general buildings in capital province of duchy here)
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I personaly would like some mechanic for expanding your existing capital infrastructure, even if it was at the expense of other counties in the duchy and even the possibility to replace arbitrary """de jure capital"""
Kind of like when capitals moved in England or when it comes to upgrading: Charles IV. with Prague when he became HRE emperor and it became one of the top 5 populous cities of the entire Europe with university, cathedral etc. all within one lifetime (before anyone nitpicks I'm talking about Cathedral and archbishopric as institutions, not the finish of building of a cathedral which can take hundreds of years)
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You could still have historical great buildings as a fluff text or even small bonus to bonuses of said great building if it get's built in the area a historical building was built, but not make "only this place can have a cathedral" or "only this place can have advanced defensive walls"
generic great buildings seriously is one of the ck2 things I miss immensely, alongside with the possibility of "upgrading" the county by getting more slots to build (which instead of new baronies like ck2 it could be new slots for buildings in said baronies in ck3)
 
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Nice! I look forward to both the barbershop and the new mapmodes.

Talking about mapmodes any chance we could get a dynasty mapmode? Dynastic relatives usually form houses of their own but I sometimes wanna see my big dynastic blob grow.
 
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Will you be able to add dead characters to the barbershop?

Can you change the age of a character added to barbershop?

Can you add the same character multiple times in the barbershop?


Cool dev diary, thanks.
 
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