Dev Diary #121 – An Active Life

[PDXOxycoon]

With all those event preparations and the new route system, I wonder how often the multiplayer games will halt because of numerous events and forced pauses.

MP doesn't force pause, if I recall.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Also mainly regarding pilgrimage, but also Hunt on a lesser scale - will "travel back home" also take some time and you could see an event there or would it be just "teleportation back home"?

Travelling back home is not instant and still uses the travel system. You can still trigger travel events and danger events on the way home as well.
But you would not be getting activity related events on your way home.

 

[PDXOxycoon]

Also mainly regarding pilgrimage, but also Hunt on a lesser scale - will "travel back home" also take some time and you could see an event there or would it be just "teleportation back home"?

If you travel there, you travel back again.

 

[PDXOxycoon]

Is it only me, or travel times look too long?
Like 50 days for a hunting in nearby Danish county looks too long. I understand that the world back then wasn't so fast, as today, but that's 119% speed.

Due to the nature of the game there will always be a certain time dilation for how certain things occur: battles in wars, activity duration, things of that nature. For example: a Grand Tournament will take several months from start to finish depending on REDACTED FOR NOW, COME BACK FOR THE DEV DIARY ON IT LATER. This is due to pacing and things like that.

 

[blackninja9939]

Why wasn't holding court reworked to be an activity too? Flavorfully its clearly a type of activity not much different than these.

Primarily because narratively it is is already quite specific in ways that don't mesh with the activity system, it is about people coming and airing their grievances to you in your throne room, so it doesn't really meet any of the features of an activity:

• Inviting people: The narrative already has that as your court and vassals already (primarily)
• Picking a location: It is always your throne room
• Different/multiple phases: It is one phase with different events within it
• Options when hosting: The court amenities more fill this place in the court grandeur system than per hold court actions

So I'd argue it isn't really an activity in the sense that the new system has, it is something your ruler does yes but not within the system. It has received some changes to it, it is considered a "pseudo activity" and will block you from hosting others because you are occupied with something already. Things like meditation or travelling to something else also falls in there as a temporary blocker.

This DD is great. Anything for feasts too, or is that something that will be covered in a future DD? Also I feel this is a given but I assume this means that by default activities will take a bit longer to get started, for feasts for example(making use of the "waiting" activity phase I assume).

Feasts will be covered in a future dev diary yes! How each activity decides to progress is down to them, some make more use of this passive waiting phase and in fact have key usage of it, others like Hunts will move onto the active phase as soon as possible.

I hope that someday all traits will be reworked so that they get more dynamic. Basically if my character is greedy and I repeatedly do non-greedy things like sending gifts then there should be some kind of progression system where I can eventually lose the greedy trait and become generous. One of my biggest issues with the game is how static the characters are and there is zero character development. Currently, a character that used to drink a lot in his teens and gets the drunkard trait will have that trait for the rest of his life.

I see where you are coming from, its a bit of a push and pull there. As on the one hand having events be more reactive and changing your traits is fun, but equally it plays counter to the stress mechanic entirely. Stress is there to encourage roelplaying by playing with your personality traits, if playing against them eventually led to changing them then it becomes a lot less about roleplaying and more about meta gaming as the player themselves.

That is why personality traits tend to be quite fixed, but other traits like lifestyles and fame traits come and go a bit more. I think there is probably more room for traits to be removed especially non personality ones like Drunkard and other stress coping traits, but I think that'd need to come with another look at the stress mechanic entirely as those traits are your way of managing stress and providing different modifiers for having had a stress break.

Do you guys ever feel that maybe something like CK4 may benefit from the multi-day ticks like vicky3?

I think, especially if the game can run fast enough per tick, this may be the future way for all paradox gsg games. Or maybe more subticks within a day.

Personally I'd not be massively in favour of it, it would drag out the game quite a lot more in my opinion and the game is already 100s of years and many players do not fully play through that.
It works well in Vicky which is a shorter time frame but still wants to give you a good amount of play time. Same reason that Hearts of Iron has hourly ticks instead of daily.

I do get that it presents a bit of a narrative disconnect, the time dilation can feel a bit odd sometimes, things that would take days in real life are spread over weeks or months in game so we don't spam you. But I think given the time span you play over in total that this is pretty fine as it stands.

Speaking of logs, have you considered inputting log data into ChatGPT to generate a summary-style short article?

 

[PDX_Chop]

When I try to get someone killed, or some NPC is trying to murder me, are bodyguards and other anti hostile scheme preventing modifiers still protecting me, or is the target of a murderous intent much more vulnerable during the activity?

I would definitely recommend bringing your bodyguard.

Does this account for the Warriors by Merit tradition and the Shieldmaiden trait? As in, is someone who is of a non-martial sex, but is personally qualified to be a Knight, permitted to participate in the violent parts of Hunts? That seems most reasonable, in my opinion.

It does. Anyone who can be a knight can hunt.

For Hunt activities where a Sighting has occurred, does success affect the local popular opinion in the affected county?

Exterminating a dangerous animal will be appreciated by the locals.