Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Crusader Kings III 21058 Console 365 Suggestions 6371 Bug Report 5031 Tech Support 2664 User Mods 1983 Multiplayer 171 AARs (After Action Reports) MP Open Beta Feedback 27
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Dev Diary #132 – Eccentricity & Adoption

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.
image-1.png

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.
image-2.png

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.
image-3.png

image-4.png


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.
image-5.png


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.
image-6.png

image-7.png


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.
image-8.png


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.

image-9.png

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!

image-10.png

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!
image-11.png

image-12.png

image-13.png

​

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!
 
  • 131Like
  • 39Love
  • 15
  • 10
  • 8
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
WestuHal said:
being I think the smallest corvid
Click to expand...
The Western jackdaw is the smallest crow in Europe, but definitely not the smallest corvid in the world :)

(Jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers are corvids, but not crows, and the dwarf jay is about two-thirds the linear size of a Western jackdaw.)
 
  • 4
Reactions:
grommile said:
The Western jackdaw is the smallest crow in Europe, but definitely not the smallest corvid in the world :)

(Jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers are corvids, but not crows, and the dwarf jay is about two-thirds the linear size of a Western jackdaw.)
Click to expand...
Aha, that’s helpful to know! Do you have a view on what particular bird might fit the bill (pun very much intended) for this event? Clues we have to go on: it’s found in the ‘Old World’, it’s small, it’s black and it caws!
 
  • 2
Reactions:
MahoganySpitfire said:
I think... It will not.

It is a shame, I think. In my view some people are assuming that Medieval times were humorless, and everyone was a stuck-up prude... Whereas, no. Not really. People told jokes, enjoyed comedic performances, and laughed about farts and poo.

Though I guess, to be fair, there were grim humorless people back then also. Those people probably had similar arguments with people who enjoyed the japes of the jesters and troubadours of the age, to what we are having now.
Click to expand...
I don't know, I can't speak for other people, but it's the tone, not the content, that's been at odds with my experience in the past. An eccentricity trait could be a great way to handle that, setting an expectation for what kind of character you're dealing with rather than being surprised by a Wrathful and Ambitious Sadist's sudden turn to Saturday morning cartoon-esque shenanigans. The absurdity of launching a cat via catapult is very funny to me, but you have to reconcile that with the other potential experiences in the game. It would be tonally very jarring, for example, to go from the abhorrence of murdering a nemesis's child to witnessing them initiate the cat space program with zero setup or warning, but a trait that telegraphs to the player that they should expect that kind of wackiness is, I think, a really clever solution, and I'm excited to see how it works.
 
  • 4Like
  • 1
Reactions:
WeeLittleSpoon said:
I don't know, I can't speak for other people, but it's the tone, not the content, that's been at odds with my experience in the past. An eccentricity trait could be a great way to handle that, setting an expectation for what kind of character you're dealing with rather than being surprised by a Wrathful and Ambitious Sadist's sudden turn to Saturday morning cartoon-esque shenanigans. The absurdity of launching a cat via catapult is very funny to me, but you have to reconcile that with the other potential experiences in the game. It would be tonally very jarring, for example, to go from the abhorrence of murdering a nemesis's child to witnessing them initiate the cat space program with zero setup or warning, but a trait that telegraphs to the player that they should expect that kind of wackiness is, I think, a really clever solution, and I'm excited to see how it works.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, I think the feeling you're referring to is more from how they're a collection of loads of different pre-written events that can occur to (m)any character in an effectively infinite number of orders... So comedic events will often follow deadly serious ones... Very hard to avoid.

Again, I also think we really could do without the gratuitous animal abuse events.
 
  • 2Like
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
Reactions:
MahoganySpitfire said:
I think... It will not.

It is a shame, I think. In my view some people are assuming that Medieval times were humorless, and everyone was a stuck-up prude... Whereas, no. Not really. People told jokes, enjoyed comedic performances, and laughed about farts and poo.

Though I guess, to be fair, there were grim humorless people back then also. Those people probably had similar arguments with people who enjoyed the japes of the jesters and troubadours of the age, to what we are having now.
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone having problem with humors, just with humors being presented as realistic events.
Farting at the king can be a joke. Actually farting at the king? Not a good joke anymore.
 
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Correct me if I am wrong, but this eliminates the last way to go game over in this game too, right?

I don't see a rational reason to NOT adopt a child if you are unable to produce an heir. There should be some drawback imo like paying 500 dynasty points or something like that, to balance it

Maybe even make adopted child's worse rulers in terms of doubled "short reign" penalty time or something like that. Adoption shouldnt be an easy way out to dodge the game over, especially in ironman
 
  • 5
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Toleora said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but this eliminates the last way to go game over in this game too, right?
Click to expand...
Did they make it unconditionally impossible for the AI to conquer your last county while I wasn't looking?
 
  • 6Haha
  • 2Like
Reactions:
grommile said:
Did they make it unconditionally impossible for the AI to conquer your last county while I wasn't looking?
Click to expand...
Well, you are absolutely right. I just forgot you can die by losing all your land. But this just never happens to me due to the passive AI in warfare lol.

My only game overs were full dynasty deaths
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Toleora said:
I don't see a rational reason to NOT adopt a child if you are unable to produce an heir.
Click to expand...
The way I understood it, you have to be an adult in order to adopt a child. So if you end up as a child ruler, and everyone is out to murder you, there is no way you can adopt an heir in order to secure your succession.
 
  • 3
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Toleora said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but this eliminates the last way to go game over in this game too, right?
Click to expand...
You still need to fulfil the criteria necessary to adopt. It is quite possible to die before you become infertile, and it's quite possible to struggle to even find a child willing to be adopted by your shambling skeleton ruler. Plus as has already been mentioned, losing all your land is another possibility.
 
  • 7Like
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
Meka66 said:
You still need to fulfil the criteria necessary to adopt. It is quite possible to die before you become infertile, and it's quite possible to struggle to even find a child willing to be adopted by your shambling skeleton ruler. Plus as has already been mentioned, losing all your land is another possibility.
Click to expand...
...Or designating a player heir that actually stands to inherit nothing...
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Meka66 said:
We have the data on how often that event fires, it is extremely rare and really not worth the pages and pages of discussion it's triggered on the forums. Move on.
Click to expand...

Being rare doesn't mean it doesnt have issues, and it isn't even the only event people complain of (and you guys know it, as you created Eccentric), just the one used as a poster child. In example, the graverobbing Royal Court event is also silly for different reasons (and a lot more common) but it doesn't really fit Eccentric, and I very much doubt you'd add a new trait just for it. The catapult event was overdiscussed but the overall issue with the tone of events is still present and with all due respect, I know you are tired of players complaining but telling me to "move on" makes me feel the issue will just be ignored in favor of throwing the worse events in Eccentric. If you do plan to improve the tone of newer (and older) events than it's all good, of course, I can live with one rare event still being too silly.
 
  • 6Like
  • 3
  • 3
Reactions:
FleetingRain said:
In example, the graverobbing Royal Court event is also silly for different reasons
Click to expand...
I'd quite like to revisit RoCo events in general to be honest. It would be nice to bring them in line with our current expectations for CK events, but alas, we don't really get the time to revisit old content often.
FleetingRain said:
but it doesn't really fit Eccentric, and I very much doubt you'd add a new trait just for it
Click to expand...
Correct, Eccentric is not meant to catch all events that people on the forums dislike or complain about. It is more to provide an RP-friendly way to have characters behave a bit cooky, something that was lost between CK2 and CK3 due to the changes with the Lunatic trait.
 
  • 14Like
  • 4
Reactions:
Meka66 said:
I'd quite like to revisit RoCo events in general to be honest. It would be nice to bring them in line with our current expectations for CK events, but alas, we don't really get the time to revisit old content often.

Correct, Eccentric is not meant to catch all events that people on the forums dislike or complain about. It is more to provide an RP-friendly way to have characters behave a bit cooky, something that was lost between CK2 and CK3 due to the changes with the Lunatic trait.
Click to expand...

Fair then, I can live out the catapult still being around in this case.
 
  • 5Like
Reactions:
Nicthurne said:
Tbf if you're a childless uncle with a title, that title will in most case go to the nephew anyway without the adaption mechanic
Click to expand...
Say you have a sister who for one reason or another is married normally and childless (or same-sex married and childless). Perhaps she married by event, perhaps she grew up in the other parent's court and was married off by the AI. Either way she's your only sibling, and holds no titles, also being married to a non-inheriting courtier.

Her children would be non-dynastic, and thus a game over, but if you could adopt her son (your nephew), you might be able to salvage the succession.
 
  • 2Like
  • 2
Reactions:
I had a thought about the Catapult event. If we're actually going to have these happen, an Eccentric character should also have the Sadistic Trait, if he/she is going to do that to any kind of living creature. Or even a dead corpse.

But, also, there should be the opportunity, if non-sadistic, to lob all sorts of stuff over a castle wall. Cake, pie, and any thing one could think of.
 
  • 7
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Meka66 said:
I'd quite like to revisit RoCo events in general to be honest. It would be nice to bring them in line with our current expectations for CK events, but alas, we don't really get the time to revisit old content often.
Click to expand...
They really need a revisit, IMO. I don't bother holding court for the most part because the events generally fall under the categories of "don't want" or "don't care" (mostly the latter). I don't know what the solution to that might look like, but that's why people like you exist ;) .
 
  • 5
  • 2Like
Reactions:
vandevere said:
I had a thought about the Catapult event. If we're actually going to have these happen, an Eccentric character should also have the Sadistic Trait, if he/she is going to do that to any kind of living creature. Or even a dead corpse.

But, also, there should be the opportunity, if non-sadistic, to lob all sorts of stuff over a castle wall. Cake, pie, and any thing one could think of.
Click to expand...
In sieges, lobbing diseased corpses into cities and castles was a tactic used somewhat often... There's an event where you can choose to fling a smallpox victim into a rival's castle, isn't there...?

How about an event where an eccentric lunatic believes they can fly, loads themselves into a siege engine, and has themselves fired into a body of water...? Perhaps as a premonition/early possible death combination for eccentric characters. "Looking at my armies practicing with their catapults... I can't help but wonder, what is it like to be one of those rocks? Alas, I suppose I will never know..."
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
WestuHal said:
Aha, that’s helpful to know! Do you have a view on what particular bird might fit the bill (pun very much intended) for this event? Clues we have to go on: it’s found in the ‘Old World’, it’s small, it’s black and it caws!
Click to expand...
The event pictured does not identify the bird as a corvid. I am not familiar with the calls of European or Eurasian birds; could it be a blackbird or starling? Especially the latter.

edited to add missing word
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Flockingbird said:
The event pictured does not identify the bird as a corvid. I am not familiar with the calls of European or Eurasian birds; could it be a blackbird or starling? Especially the latter.
Click to expand...
The English-language term "caw" specifically means the distinctive, relatively low-pitched and "harsh" for a passerine bird, call of a crow, rook, or raven; it would never be used to describe the sound of small, mellifluous passerines such as the Eurasian blackbird or the European starling.
 
  • 3
  • 2Like
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back