Dev Diary #132 – Eccentricity & Adoption

[Meka66]

Eccentric​

Hello hello hello, welcome to another Wards and Wardens dev diary! Today I'm going to be talking you through two new features: adoption and the Eccentric trait! We'll start off with the simpler of the two features: Eccentricity.

Why add a new trait in Wards and Wardens?​

Friends and Foes added the Loyal and Disloyal traits, but unfortunately these came quite late in development and as a consequence they were quite under-utilized, so we decided to have the discussion around new traits quite early this time around and we went over a few different ideas including Superstitious, Silly vs Serious, but we kind of knew all along that what we really wanted was something analogous to the Wild Wasteland trait in Fallout or CK2 Lunatic.

For those unfamiliar, Lunacy in CK2 was usually where we made our more… out there content. There are still echoes of this here and there in CK3, but for the most part, Lunacy isn't really the same as it was.

The decision was made quite early in CK3's development that the lunatic trait would be analogous to real-world mental illness so this kind of content was typically deemed inappropriate. As a result of that decision, we've not really had an easy way to gate the sillier side of things when it comes to the player character. This has been a bit of a divisive subject on the forums, so we felt we needed some way to gate the content without resorting to game rules.

What is Eccentric? Who is Eccentric?​

Eccentric is a personality trait meaning it is an essential part of a character's personality. Eccentrics are erratic and irrational, but there is a method to the madness so they may be able to see things that other characters don't.

Numbers are subject to balancing

Wards and Wardens being all about children and childhood made it the perfect fit for a new Personality trait, and as with all other Personality traits in the game, Eccentric can be acquired during childhood.

People have been known to lose their marbles later in life, so a particularly stressed character may have a mental break which causes them to start seeing things in a more Eccentric way.

As you can see in the below screenshot, a non-Eccentric child would just guess at the options presented to them, but an eccentric may think of something a bit more creative.

There has also been an audit of some existing content to add checks for the Eccentric trait where sensible. The now-infamous Cat-apult event, for example, has now been made into an Eccentric event.

Something I'd like to nip in the bud quite early is that the Eccentric trait is not intended to reflect any real-world disabilities, illnesses, or neurodivergence. I think it's wonderful if you are able to project some of your own experiences onto the trait, but making a direct and conscious effort to make the Lunatic trait analogous to real-world mental illnesses is the reason why we ended up making Eccentric to begin with and we'd rather not have to come up with another trait for our silly content.

Eccentric is a free feature and will be available to everyone, but some unique content related to the trait will be exclusive for DLC-owners.

Adoption​

Now onto the next feature of this diary and one that's quite exciting to me personally is the Adoption interaction! Now many many patches ago we introduced the Same-Sex marriage rule and ever since then it's just kind of been there and we've yet to introduce a way to actually make same-sex play… well, playable.

Who can adopt?​

Under the default game rules, Adoption is available to characters who are in a same-sex marriage, the childless and elderly/infertile, and Compassionate characters. Compassionate has long been a bit of a weak trait to have, so it's nice to give them a powerful way to secure succession and bring talented orphans into the family.

Who can be adopted?​

Children can be adopted as long as: they're not a ruler, they're not in prison or otherwise unavailable, nobody in their family is a ruler, they're not already part of your house, and they're not in the realm of someone of their dynasty. This does mean you're technically allowed to adopt noble children, and children whose parents are still alive, but they are highly reluctant to accept adoption in those circumstances.

Noble Adoption​

If you want to role-play a culture where adoption is commonplace (as it was in some off-map and out-of-period cultures), you can take up the Noble Adoption cultural tradition!

Hold on a minute, isn't this anachronistic?​

Sort of! While adoption amongst nobility was exceptionally rare, it wasn't completely unheard of. As such, we've restricted access to adoption quite a lot as described and the AI is quite reluctant to do it.

Can the restrictions be loosened?​

Absolutely! Adoption comes with three new game rules that can forbid it or make it easier!

​

Just like the Eccentric trait, Adoption is part of the free update releasing with Wards & Wardens on August 22nd. Next week we will talk about the new Court position and share more details on what to expect from this event pack. See you then!

 

[Meka66]

Will it also be possible for childless rulers to adopt adults as a matter of succession formality, as was sometimes done by the Byzantines?
I believe good ol' Emperor Basil in 867 start was actually formally adopted by his predecessor Michael as part of a convoluted series of succession shenanigans.

Currently adoption is only available on children, so adult adoption like this is not available at this time.

Does this mean that enabling same-sex marriages will no longer disable achievements?

This has not actually been touched, but I'll raise it with the rest of the team because it's a good conversation to be had, nice suggestion!

One thing to note is during the period of the 5 good Emperors (this is WAY before the CK3 timeline). Emperors adopted their future designated heirs.

I believe the Byzantine and Latin heritages should at least be given a discount for the new tradition.

I believe I did give Roman culture the tradition but I'm unsure. A discount for having some form of Roman-adjacent heritage is not a bad idea though.

How will adopted children show in family tree?
Let's say a child's parents died and a male ruler adopts them.
Does it then show the male ruler as the new father with no mother depicted with the child's parentage completely replaced, or will it show the deceased mother as still being the mother of the adopted child while "erasing" the original dead father?
imo there should be a way to view original parentage of an adopted child if there is one

When you adopt a child, they become part of your house and you become their father/mother. The game already has a behind-the-scenes "real" father, and a "real" mother has been introduced for adoption. "Real" in CK terms refers to a child's biological lineage and it doesn't show up on the family tree except in the case of bastardry and such.

can i ask what the ai values are for the eccentric trait? i feel like theres already more that tanks the honor and compassion values than raises them so id personally prefer if it doesnt touch those for balance reasons, but blasting rationality certainly makes sense to me

Absolutely, these are the current AI values attached to Eccentric:
ai_rationality = dominant_negative_ai_value
ai_honor = low_negative_ai_value
ai_boldness = very_high_positive_ai_value
ai_sociability = low_negative_ai_value
Eccentrics are not callous, they're just very absorbed in their own way of thinking so they're likely to take actions very impulsively, so massively negative rationality and increased boldness are the main takeaways here. Numbers are still subject to balancing and changing.

 

[Meka66]

is not same sex marriage totally anachronistic?

That's why it's an opt-in game rule Some people enjoy the fantasy, so we enable them to do so with the game rule.

It has been in the game for a very long time now.

 

[Meka66]

I really fail to see the logic in avoiding including "any real-world disabilities, illnesses, or neurodivergence".

We don't avoid these things as a rule, we just don't want Eccentric to be something that is explicitly representing something real. The type of content we want to make for Eccentric just doesn't align with these conditions, but it doesn't mean we're opposed to covering these things in the future.

the easily offended be damned.

I don't know, I think it would be quite reasonable to be offended if we had a trait that was explicitly supposed to be autism and then had those characters do CK2 lunatic shenanigans, it's just not how neurodivergence works and it just wouldn't be good content in my opinion.

 

[Meka66]

Adoption is nice. You could avoid some headaches with it. Will the adopted children get a debuff-trait as countermeasure? Similar to Bastard or Legitimized Bastard?

For Roleplaying it is not bad at all. But I would love to have some extra choice for Eunuchs and Monks to adopt from their own dynasty with a heavy prestige hit and a potential rivalry with the former heir.

Adopting someone can upset your potential heirs since they now have to share their inheritance with this new kid in the family, especially if the adopted child is older than them. Adopting does also come at a prestige and renown cost (piety too if you're adopting a child of a different faith), but this cost is reduced by the Noble Adoption cultural tradition.

There is no Adopted trait since any modifiers attached to such a trait would be highly contextual and cultural, but rulers can choose to adopt the child and disinherit them at the same time, if they so desire.

 

[Meka66]

1. Is it possible to adopt a bastard of my dynasty? As after 16 they will found they own dynasty and get bastard founder anyway?
2.What will happen if I adopt my secret illigitimate child that born from fornicator low-born? Will there be a gossip negative modifier or any extra penalty?
Coz this option mean I can install my illegitimate blood-related heir w/o getting labeled as an adulterer +piety level penalty.

1. No, currently you can't adopt your own children. It was talked about a bit since right now it's a little game-y that if you're playing a female ruler who was once part of a patrilineal marriage, you have to murder your own children to secure succession, but it wasn't quite within the scope of the adoption interaction. In the future though, this may change, but for now, adoption is only for non-relatives.
2. Same basic answer as point 1, you can't adopt your own children, legitimate or otherwise.

 

[Meka66]

I'm sorry but that didn't really answer my question of how will the parentage of said adopted child show
I'll repeat the sceneario with more detail:
imagine you're a male ruler and adopt a child (genders can be switched around but let's go with this perspective)
said child has deceased mother and deceased father
will said deceased mother still show as the child's mother after adoption when you become the new father?
In case you're married, will your partner show as the new mother instead?
In case you're not married, will the mother of the child switch to "no mother" instead?
Because if the original mother stays depicted as mother of the child, in the family tree it would show as if your male character and the child's mother did a pairing at some point even though the child clearly had real true confirmed father before, so in case of adoption, both parents should be completely "erased" which wasn't stated, which is why I am asking

You will become their new father, but not their biological father. I believe their existing mother will still be considered their mother, but I'm not sure. In any case, because we make the distinction in code between biological parents and effective parents, the child won't be considered a product of yourself and their old parent.

Adoption is something you do individually, not as a couple, so your spouse does not become their new mother.

Hope that clarifies

Welcome back and cheers for the update, all interesting stuff.

Just a question on the Familiar Toys event, is it correct that the child has just turned 1 year old, as indicated by the event text? The references to ushering the child into a room, and the child thinking about which of the options presented to them may have belonged to an ancestor, seem to fit a child which is no longer a baby (I’m not sure, in any case, that you could meaningfully describe a baby of 12 months as being ‘eccentric’ compared to any other baby).

The screenshot was achieved with console commands, the actual event under normal conditions requires that the child is older than 4 and younger than 16.

 

[Meka66]

So, how exactly would you describe neurodivergence, especially the rather milder cases, in the game?

If we were to tackle it, we'd do it with some other trait, modifier, or trigger and we'd approach it with far more sensitivity and research. It is also worth mentioning that Eccentric is something someone becomes, while neurodivergence is much more complex.

However, we Aspies tend to hide our neurodivergence pretty effectively, especially when we have the feeling that our social surroundings would not approve of it. In my case, my family didn't suspect a thing for 25 years and it just came out when I initiated the diagnosis myself.

Like you said, high-functioning autism is easy to mask or to go unnoticed by neurotypical people, while the Eccentric trait is much more wacky and out-there. I don't think a person with Aspergers would be likely to introduce the Pants Act or fling a cat from a catapult.

Sorry for the rant. You could have saved yourself from this by just not mentioning the word "neurodivergence" in the DD

Due to the nature of the Eccentric trait, I wanted to make absolutely clear as early as possible that this trait is not intended to represent neurodivergence such as Aspergers.

I wouldn't be opposed to approaching the topic of neurodivergence in a medieval setting in the future, but this particular trait just isn't the vehicle we wanted to use to deliver this kind of content.

 

[Meka66]

is the unrestricted marriage doctrine required for adopted kids to marry there non adopted siblings?

I- huh. I'm not sure, but tentatively I want to say yes.

Would it be appropriate for the Noble Adoption tradition to remove the requirement that "they're not in the realm of someone of their dynasty" when they are being adopted by a member of their dynasty? If it's meant to represent things like the Roman practices and the like, then adopting a member of the dynasty from a different house seems appropriate, but would be blocked by this requirement.

Currently that's in place to prevent you from doing something like adopting an Abbassid child while he's in the realm of the Abbassid Caliph, or stealing the King of France's great-nephew or something like that. It would be quite difficult to balance otherwise.

"Children can be adopted as long as: they're not a ruler, they're not in prison or otherwise unavailable, nobody in their family is a ruler, they're not already part of your house, and they're not in the realm of someone of their dynasty."

Can I adopt children from my cadet branches(Same dynasty, different house)?

Technically possible, but somewhat unlikely. You can't be an ancestor of the child, so you can't adopt great-great-grandchildren or anything like that, but if they're some random cousin's cousin, then yes, you should be able to adopt them.

 

[Meka66]

Do the 'silly' events only happen to eccentric characters or simply require another eccentric character? Or both?

Taking the cat-apult event it's not really your character acting weirdly, it's your rival behaving in a silly manner.

At the same time the impression I'm getting from the dev diary is that the trait seems meant as an option for players to avoid these sort of events (which would only be possible if it only checks your character as educating your heirs is definitely possible while educating everyone in diplomatic range definition isn't).

So I'm left a bit confused. If it checks my character it doesn't really explain why my rival is acting in such a manner while if it checks my rival it could still occur just the same and it's not really comparable to the wild wasteland trait.

It depends entirely on the event. If the event is about someone else acting strange, then it checks their traits. If it's about you acting strange or something strange happening to you, it happens to you. Perhaps wild wasteland was a bad example, it really is most similar to CK2 lunacy.

You're saying that "nobody in their family must be a ruler" for them to be eligible for adoption.

Do you mean close family with this?

In that case, I suggest to change this to "none of their living ancestors must be rulers".

It's not that uncommon for an older character to have great-grandchildren, who are not part of their close family any more. And these great-grandchildren can easily be 3rd in line to inherit, oftentimes even 2nd if the older character outlives their children, or 1st if the older character is me and my son and grandson mysteriously die so I can be succeeded by a young character who can have a long reign.

In these cases it would be hilarious (if you can pull it off) or infuriating (if someone else pulls it iff on you) if someone manages to invite, abduct or otherwise force the great-grandchild into their court and adopt them - something their still very much alive and very much infuriated great-grandparent would vehemently object to, and likely would not acknowledge.

It is close or extended family, so no cousins, grandparents, siblings, etc.

This is mostly as a safety net to prevent players from adopting in a way that disrupts the succession of other realms, basically we don't want any living rulers to be annoyed to find that suddenly their attractive genius grandchild is now part of some dynasty in another realm.

 

[Meka66]

So, you can adopt only children not adult person ?
If so, that not really useful for gameplay

IMO it would be work bettet if for example ruler has only daughters, adopt promising figure and marry them with his daughter ensuring a smooth succession. Historically it was IN FACT done when daughter inherits but her spouse ruled

Adult adoption and adoption by way of marriage is something we may tackle in the future but it was not part of the scope of this interaction. What you're describing would be more akin to a checkbox in the arrange marriage interaction which would require its own caveats and considerations, like trying to make the game not consider the relationship incestuous, not adopting prominent nobles through marriage, etc.

May be done in the future, but not via this particular interaction.

1.I was not actually refering to my own bastard but someone else's in my house/dynasty. When your dynasty is at 200+ there will be a lot of them . But I guess as long as they are your kins you can't adopt them?
2.In RP sense, my secret bastards are not known as my bastards though.
But reading another of your Answer, I assume real father and adopted father have to be different people regardless.

Ah I see, in the case of 1 then, you can adopt them as long as they fall within the conditions of any other potentially adopted child. If they're a bastard of a different house and they're not your grandkids or anything, you can adopt them and they will lose the bastard trait upon adoption.

 

[Meka66]

But the beautiful herculean genius great-grandchild is fair game?
That was my main argument, actually

They must not be within the realm of someone of their dynasty. Technically it could be possible if they have a great grandchild who has ended up in some distant realm, but that is somewhat unlikely. I'll toss the concern over to QA.

 

[Meka66]

Close family or extended family?

Both, yes.

Also, will they maintain any unpressed claims?

Currently, yes, though this is subject to balancing.

 

[Meka66]

Are you open to adding adult adoption in a future update?

Absolutely, it's something I personally would like to explore. It just wasn't what this particular adoption interaction was made for. It would likely be its own interaction with its own set of restrictions and AI considerations. As I've said in some prior comments, I'd really like to have some option to adopt my own non-dynastic children if my spouse dies. We currently have an event for it, but it literally only happens to Daurama Daura and I'd like more of a system for it.

-> Will relationships between adopted and non-adopted (biologically unrelated) children still come with the same chance for the inbred trait as if I was their actual biological parent?

Nope, the game does keep track of blood relation separately from effective relation, so no inbred babies.

-> Who pays the renown cost for adoption if it is done by someone who is not the dynasty head? I imagine it could be really frustrating if AI dynasty members spend the renown of the dynasty in order to adopt children.

The AI is deeply unlikely to adopt. Currently the renown cost is done regardless of if you're the dynastic head or not, but this is subject to balancing of course.

 

[Meka66]

the way I'd want to use it is to adopt my niece or second cousin or whatever after they've turned 16 and I know what traits and stats they'll have

You'd make such a wonderful parent.

 

[Meka66]

But, what happens, if an AI Ruler under Male only succession Law has only Daughters?

Will they then adopt a Child, so they can have at least 1 Heir or will they simply ignore it and let their Brothers or other Dynasty Members inherit or in the extreme case of having no Relatives, let their Dynasty die out.

In order for the AI to even consider adopting, they must have less than 2 children, and either be infertile themselves or have no fertile consorts (same-sex spouses are not considered fertile). So they will adopt if the chance of producing a legitimate heir is very low.

 

[Meka66]

...why?

This is precisely what we, the people on the side of the divide that is kinda fed up with this type of content, are asking for? Just like with Harm events.

Game Rules are the answer.

I don't agree that game rules are the answer for events of a specific tone that some people on our forums don't like. If we did that, we'd end up with game rules for just about all the different types of content we have since each player has their own idea of what kind of content they do and don't want to see. If you don't want to see eccentric content, simply make sure your heir doesn't become eccentric.

There are a lot of issues with the idea of a game rule that have already been discussed to death both on the team and the forums, so I don't want to go into all of them here. The new trait felt like a nice compromise that also offers a lot of flavour and opportunity to make newer better content in the future!

Will character with Enuch trait be able to adopt? Having in mind famous Munis of Acre gameplay

If you are childless and infertile, yes! If you managed to have a kid and then became a eunuch later, then no. Not unless that kid died in that time as well. The trigger is low fertility + no children.

 

[Meka66]

well it's time to adopt some kids with better traits.

 

[Meka66]

If a character in a same-sex marriage adopt a child will both the character and his/her spouse be shown as the parents in the family tab? What about characters who have multiple spouses?

The interaction is personal, between the adopter and the adoptee. So the child only considers the partner that adopted them to be their parent. This made implementation simpler and it also meant that in the rare circumstance where two players have married each other, each can adopt their own child and continue playing as normal upon succession.

 

[Meka66]

But when it comes to modding will it be possible? You mentioned earlier that you've added a "real_mother" trigger so if an event would give a child both the "mother" and "real mother" would they both be shown as parents or would one just overwrite the other?

They are two separate things. "Mother" is the person who you consider to be your familial mother, "real mother" is merely the person who birthed you. Real mother is not typically displayed, nor is real father. In terms of modability, you can mod the interaction to your heart's content, but the game does not support having several mothers and fathers, beyond the distinction between familial and biological if that makes sense.