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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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Well damn, welcome back dev diaries.

First off Jens I want to know if you have to wear an ankle tag while on probation and/or if this is part of a day release scheme from the local dungeons of your college/university?

Secondly I have to say the BS update you did looks really great and have to curse you in advance for eating up all of the time I am obviously going to spend playing dress up for no other reason than because I can. Seems like I am now going to understand why my sister played with dolls when we were kids while I was out kicking balls around the street o_O Honestly your new BS looks both mature and fun, great QoL update :cool: And thanks for thinking of us modders because we do like to tinker.

The map mode update also looks like a very good QoL improvement, hopefully when I get a better ingame look at it I might be able to drop the map mode compatibility patch I use with another map mod when the author finally updates their map mod.

So both look great QoL additions, but the prize has to go to Jens for their BS.

And yes I do like the connotation saying BS invokes ;)

EDIT: Forgot to say thanks for the new mines, etc, the map has been a tad sparse wrt to special buildings, yet another great much needed addition to the game.
 
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I guess Fullscreen Barbershop just got Sherlocked
Depends if it is capable of picking up the additional tags that mods like EPE and CFP add, like Headgear 2 for example, otherwise FB will probably just adapt to the new BS, but one thing for certain FSB will probably be out of date for a while after the update lands because I doubt it will be a quick fix.
 
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Wait a minute. The control map is already in the game. When we select a marshal task to increase control, a county control map appears.
But that requires you to open the marshal's map view which pauses the game and does not show control across the map for other realms which this new mode appears to do, and the new mode is seamless with the rest of the UI unlike the clunky marshals map view.
 
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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.
If this was CK2 I would agree but unfortunately that kind of fun mission aspect to spymaster, i.e. send them to another realm to steal tech, went out of the window in the move to ck3 :(
There's already too much information freely available in ck3 so I doubt this will make much negative impact in that regard.
 
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Map modes: please add a mode that shows the pure map without overlays - the environment as it is without any map colors. It would be great to be able to see the beautiful scenery when you want to, at any zoom level.
 
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pdx_ck3_mcdon.png


King Ronald confirmed?


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PDX-McDonalds collaboration we've all dreamed of?



Seriously though, anyone know what it is that those arches are supposed to be?

Edit: Sad to see that the devs have disproved my intrigue-rework theory.
 
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Amazing changes, the barbershop looks awesome and it's great to see the special buildings on the map!

Will it be possible to change the color of the clothes in the barbershop? This is probably the most requested feature. I don't think it's possible to choose a specific color because there are probably a couple of predefined options, but at least some button allowing to randomly generate a new color option would be cool. Now our ruler has to spend his entire life with the color generated at his birth..

Sadly I don't think this is particularly likely. Clothing color isn't even stored in the savegame directly but is instead generated from something called the InstanceIndex (link goes to explanation).
As I understand it (and I am no coder, so grain of salt) that's hardcoded and technical enough that changing it would be a lot of work and effort.
I suspect we'd be told directly should the color selection method ever be changed such that it'd be possible to let us choose the color. I also think that, sadly, it is unlikely to happen in the near future, it's be a lot of work for what is comparatively little gain (despite how much as I'd like it).

And before anyone inevitably reads too much into the up there: we, the developers, insist on calling event packs "View attachment 951997ontent packs" because of how we labeled F&F internally the first time: bp1. For reference: you can see this structure if you look at the game files themselves in the internal naming convention: bp for View attachment 951997ontent packs (and no one can tell us otherwise ) like Friends and Foes; fp for flavour packs like Fate of Iberia; and ep for expansion packs like Royal Court. Now go forth! Spread to all the corners of the world: View attachment 951997ontent packs! We will reclaim our rightful name!
I did wonder what "bp" stood for in those game folders. I don't think I'd have ever guessed "View attachment 951997ontent pack" but it is nice to know.
 
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I did wonder what "bp" stood for in those game folders. I don't think I'd have ever guessed "View attachment 951997ontent pack" but it is nice to know.
... silly forum not doing my embeds like I want it! I tried to do it with regular emojis, but was forced into using embeds! Curse thee forum for spoiling it for me!

\`•̀益•́´/
 
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I did wonder what "bp" stood for in those game folders. I don't think I'd have ever guessed "View attachment 951997ontent pack" but it is nice to know.
... silly forum not doing my embeds like I want it! I tried to do it with regular emojis, but was forced into using embeds! Curse thee forum for spoiling it for me!

\`•̀益•́´/
Huh, that was not what that section looked like when I quoted your post, there it was a little white B in a red square, so if that was your intention you can take comfort in that.

I wonder why that didn't survive being quoted ans changed to a link instead.
 
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Sigh .... How can clothes still be TODO , when you have mods out there with a full screen barbershop , that even has modded clothes .

But still this is a step in the right direction eliminating the Full screen barbershop mod , that people put in the wrong order.. on the mod list and then mess up other Body Weight and Pose altering mod .

Atleast this is definetly a step in the right direction , to make the game more stable , something like that should have been included in the game at release.
Not 2 years down the road.

Next up fix the Royal Court modding issues with Grandeur and scene cultures .. so people can start modding Prisons and other stuff .
And make Royal court manual placement easier since you went 3D for CK3 and want to make it more sim like .
 
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Nice new additions, and I hope you'll continue to pay attention to customisation. In particular, the hardcoded randomisation of colour palettes and textures for clothes and banners is just a nuisance. Even if it was just opened up for modders to add tools for changing this would go a long way.
 
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Nice new additions, and I hope you'll continue to pay attention to customisation. In particular, the hardcoded randomisation of colour palettes and textures for clothes and banners is just a nuisance. Even if it was just opened up for modders to add tools for changing this would go a long way.
Yes, that is something that I still want. I had a female albino ruler for France and I really wanted a dark colour for her like violet, the dark red or a dark green. And in the end it was the yello/beige style. Which was horrible aesthetically. At least let us have the choice between the presets. That would be nice.
 
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While I love riddles, teasing and so on, this is not it.

Nothing has been decided in regards to when or if we will do espionage and information obfuscation. We already have lots of other things on the floor and I personally think expanding espionage and information obfuscation is too big for a
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ontent Pack, and I'm not sure if even a flavour pack would be sufficient considering the adjacencies espionage has with diplomacy. Right now though the focus is on the upcoming release.
I meant espionage as a synonym for intrigue as it exists now (it gets kind of repetitive using the same word over and over again) not specifically the information obfuscation part or having to send a spymaster to find out information like in the Civilization series. Or did you mean that there will not be anything new as far as how schemes/the spymaster works?

I understand if you're prevented from saying anything. I just wanted to clarify about what I meant by the phrase espionage.
 
I meant espionage as a synonym for intrigue as it exists now (it gets kind of repetitive using the same word over and over again) not specifically the information obfuscation part or having to send a spymaster to find out information like in the Civilization series. Or did you mean that there will not be anything new as far as how schemes/the spymaster works?

I understand if you're prevented from saying anything. I just wanted to clarify about what I meant by the phrase espionage.
while i would like an expansion focusing on espionage at the very least some non murderous/overtly villainous schemes would placate that need. Hope it doesnt take too long. At least it was acknowledged, while here I am wanting the ability to organize the outliner so its not just one big list
 
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I think it could be interesting to use some of these presets to view past characters. For example, if you're looking at the timeline of a kingdom's rulers, maybe you could click a button to see each one's family portrait, showing what they looked like as king. Or show a line-up of the most recent rulers standing side-by-side. The view of your family when you load up a save game does a great job of building some attachment to your characters, and so it'd be nice to see these be more integrated into the game.
 
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