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Dev Diary #139 - The Art of Legacy of Persia

Hello and welcome to the Developer Diary focusing on 3D Art for Crusader Kings III: Legacy of Persia. I’m Lucas Ribeiro, the Art Lead for the project. Before we move on to looking at some of the amazing 3D artwork the team has created for the Flavor Pack, I would like to give an overview of our decision-making process.

When creating art for Legacy of Persia, we were looking for ways to represent the resurgence of the Iranian identity in the Iranian Intermezzo after two centuries of intermingling and struggling with the Arab and Turkic peoples. This meant we needed to give Persian characters their own new look and at the same time reinforce the visual identities of the Turks and Arabs.

We focused on 8th - 11th century references, basing our work on the art produced by Iranians that were inspired by Sassanian and-or Zoroastrian sources while at the same time not looking anachronistic. The clothes we see in Legacy of Persia should be as close as possible to what we might see a 10th century Samanid Amir wear.

To this end we created loads of new artifacts, buildings, military units, beards, hairstyles, clothes and of course HATS aimed mostly at the Iranian culture, while creating a few new key recognizable extra assets for the Turkic and Arab cultures.

Now, onto the art!




Environment Art


Stina Arvidsson Rådestig was our main 3D Environment Artist for the project, and she’ll give us some nice insights into the process of creating Monuments, Holdings and Artifacts for Legacy of Persia

We had the honor of researching the artifacts, ruined structures, natural wonders, and special monuments of ancient Persia and providing a list of candidates to serve as the basis for court artifacts and special buildings for this flavor pack. Given the rich history of this region, and the large body of interesting and beautiful monuments; geographical variety; and the surviving works of art from this time period, it was a very difficult task to narrow the list down to the ones we would want to make it into the game.

Our aim was to achieve variety - both from an aesthetic and game mechanical perspective - in order to create a balanced gameplay experience.


Court Artifacts

Court artifacts are amazing to work on, because they are based on real world historical artifacts - special items, works of art, or trinkets that have survived through the ages, impressing historians and laymen alike either with backstory, craftsmanship, or beauty. (Or, as in the case with the complaint letter to Ea-Nasir - just for being plain silly!). As 3D artists, apart from the technical constraints set by our game engine and triangle count, there are few things limiting our freedom to portray these beautiful and interesting artifacts as accurately as possible. We strive to do these items justice - while still keeping the assets practical and optimized - , so we make sure to gather a large body of verified references, including photographs, illustrations, and descriptive texts. We want the players to feel as if they are looking at the real thing - not just a bleak, filtered interpretation - that’s why our approach is to capture the form, the details, the ornamental patterns as accurately as possible, only omitting tiny details or making changes if necessary for practical reasons.

Typically, we sculpt ornamental detail in Zbrush using either curve brushes, traditional sculpting brushes, or modeling tools. Sometimes taking a node-based approach in Substance Designer, or using image-based techniques. Each method has its own pros and cons - sometimes we even combine multiple methods for one asset.



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[The image on the left shows a photograph of the Oxus Treasure Bracelet artifact. The middle and right images show the finalized 3D asset.]


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[Photograph of the Il-Khanid brass casket artifact]



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[Wireframe and final 3D asset]



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[A few other court artifacts that can be found throughout Persia: A Sassanian Sword, an Incense Burner Cat Sculpture, and an ancient drinking vessel.]



Special Buildings

Making the special buildings present an entirely different challenge compared to court artifacts. Monuments are very small, and they use a premade texture atlas. Each time a new flavor pack is made, the texture atlas is changed to better fit with the building materials, and color scheme of the region. Details are minimalistic - but it works really well in game! This atlas is made using a texture-making software called Substance Designer. The challenge is to create a symbolic representation of the real world counterpart - yet to stay true to historical references! Much like with court artifacts, we look closely at references to find the answer to questions like: What did the entrance gate of this castle really look like? Did this fortress have a moat? What is the plan layout of this temple? And from there, we work to exaggerate the most visually distinct parts, whereas more redundant, less noteable details may be toned down.
Another thing that we like to do is look for signs of old ruins and structures, and try to restore them in our models.

Take a look at the comparisons below, to see the differences between some real-world locations and our monuments:

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[Real-world Soltaniyeh Monument, and our interpretation of it in-game]


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[Current days Ark of Bukhara and our interpretation]

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[Ctesiphon ruins and our interpretation of what it might’ve looked like if restored.]

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[The texture atlas used when texturing all holding models and Special Buildings in Legacy of Persia.]


We like to take a modular approach whenever possible - this saves a lot of time! It means that we will make simple structures like a piece of a wall, a tower, a door, for example and model and texture them to completion, only to duplicate them later. Sometimes, we make use of symmetry and mirroring functions within my 3D software (usually Autodesk Maya), to model only a quarter of a model, and then instantly turn it into a whole model.



Holdings

Holdings are the fortresses, walls, temples, and cities of Crusader Kings III. Their visual design follows a specific formula and is usually based not on any one single existing building, but rather the general architectural style of the era.

Zoroastrian temples are especially unique as they have smoke billowing out of them to represent the holy fires they might’ve had going inside.

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Natural Wonders

We also had the chance to include a few unique natural wonders of the region. Such as the seasonally magenta Maharloo Lake, the breathtaking Rainbow Mountains and the sacred Mount Damavand, steeped in myth and legend.

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Character Art


Let’s look through some of the many new assets that the team has created to make this region even more flavorful, with Elena Zenko as the main character artist on the project

The first step of making character assets is to collect references and gather information of how these assets should look like. And it was an extremely tricky though fun part of the FP3.
Not that many historical depictions of how people dressed have survived until this day. That influenced us to be even more thorough in our attempt to be as accurate as possible. (Sharbush) Hats off to our Principal Character Artist Nils for helping out with research and concept work on these. It was definitely not easy to collect, contextualize and ascertain the validity and quality of our references.

As inspiration we were using different sources like The Book of Fixed Stars, and plenty of surviving murals from different parts of ancient Persia, that nowadays are Iran, Tajikistan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and even China. Sometimes we had just written descriptions from Encyclopaedia Iranica. We used these many sources as evidence to some of the new assets that would otherwise look like they were straight out of high fantasy!

Let’s take a look at the new clothes:

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The images show the process of creating the asset from reference to concept to finished asset in the game. As a main reference we used wall paintings from one of the Ghaznavid palaces at Laškarī Bāzār in central Afghanistan. The men are wearing qabā, a mid calf-length coat that opens up in front with one side of the coat hanging on the chest. On the sleeves you can see ṭirāz in the form of armbands - those are Persian embroidery that are inscribed in the coat. One cool feature of the asset is many belts, and a humble artist cannot resist making them for the game. It brought some pain later on with testing animations, but we sacrifice ourselves for beautiful clothes.

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Another cool asset that is primarily based on kitāb suwar al-kawākib or The Book of Fixed Stars. The illustrations there are quite unique, and we had some moments of concern if these clothes existed in real life and how we recreate something like this in the game. Eventually, the temptation to make unique and sophisticated cloth was higher than common sense and time restriction, so we ended up making this. The asset contains the outer rich styled robe khaftān, that is made from silver or gold brocade or silk. The most interesting part of the asset is elaborately cut sleeves and the skirt decorated with ṭirāz that you may see present on the illustrations from The Book of Fixed Stars.

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This picture represents male and female cloth assets that are based on the real Seljuk robe of the 11-12th century. Another reference was a 10th century bowl with a Figure and Bird. Both of these assets have belts with ornamental discs that we’ve found present on the pictures of painted terracotta sarcophagus cover in the Monastery in Fondukistan.

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These pictures represent a female cloth asset based on stucco relief from the book Negar-e Zan that shows a, presumably, female attendant at the court of Kalhana. We also used a reference of the Seljuq Standing Figure that might depict a sultan or one of his vassals. Interestingly, female attendants at the court were supposed to wear men’s dress, which sometimes makes it hard to tell who is in the picture. As for the belt we returned back to The Book of Fixed Stars and found some interesting rectangular belt fittings that we sure added in our collection of Absolutely Historically Accurate belts.



Headgears

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It’s a small, flattened cap with a diadem and a bow that is based on our favorite Book of Fixed Stars. This time we spent a significant amount of time making concepts and contemplating if the headgear had a cap or if it was some sort of the strap holding the diadem and pushing the hair.

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Another asset that we made was a Seljuk stiff cap edged with fur, with a metal plate over the forehead. Turkic characters of duke rank will be seen wearing this very recognizable asset!

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And here are new Persian crowns that sometimes seem out of fantasy, though they are indeed based on late Sasanian coins and 7-8th century murals. The most common type of royal headgear we found from the period was the winged crown. Additionally, the shape of the wings on the male crown resembles hands that we found fascinating. The depiction of these wings was found on the wall paintings of the Afrasiab murals, a rare example of Sogdian art.

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Here is another set of the new Imperial crowns that were based on our beloved Book of Fixed Stars. You can see another version of the winged crown, though this time the wings are bigger as fits an imperial figure. A well-known fact - with the big power comes big wings (and strong neck).


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We thankfully still have many surviving patterns on fabrics from the time period. Common motifs were mythological Iranian creatures such as the Simurgh or the Huma. Pheasants and ducks were also very popular imagery.

Diving deep into the aesthetics of this twilight period in Iran was incredibly rewarding. We discovered beautiful imagery and pieces of craftsmanship that we were honored to interpret and combine into these 3D assets that gave Persia and its inhabitants their own unique look and feel.
 
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If you bought it as part of the bundle that included T&T then price is ok, but this is a step down from FoI.
Well I didn't because that was also an incredibly disappointing DLC.

It's wild to me because every CK2 DLC was extremely exciting and I bought all of them. I can't think of any CK3 DLC I actually like.

It's a Flavor Pack, like Fate of Iberia, not full-fledged expansion like Royal Court. and the promise specifically implied that full-fledged expansions will be meatier but Flavor Packs are smaller than old DLCs. I fully agree with claim that before, the art alone would get a comparable price.
The fact they can only poop out one expansion and one flavour pack and a joke event pack in a year is depressing.

The expansions are a bit reasonable sized, but one a year? What a joke.
 
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This is a little thing, but just wanted to point out how I'm really liking how the term "Iran" and "Iranian" and the like are used more commonly in reference to Persia.
Oof, I have an axe to grind about the use of endonyms. In short - it's a not-terribly-good principle that is also always applied inconsistently. Just like it's "German" not "Deutsch" or "Greek" not "Ellinic" nor "Hellenic", it's supposed to be "Persian" not "Iranian" whenever you speak of pre-XX century country (rather than Iranic/Iranian language family), even though it did not call itself that. The supposed "decolonization" of using endonyms of once-colonized zones is itself "colonialist" thinking (I am not a fan of the term "colonialist", either...) precisely because this logic is never applied to countries and peoples that feel secure in their identity.
It's wild to me because every CK2 DLC was extremely exciting and I bought all of them.
CK2 had a different model. Also, you are probably just mentally counting the full expansion DLCs. I can't imagine anyone being "extremely excited" by all of the Portrait Packs, Unit Packs, Song Packs, and freaking Shield Packs. ALSO also, Ruler Designer is now part of vanilla-on-launch.

Royal Court was… well, let's say, a weird idea with situational appeal, but it was accompanied with a full rework of cultures I had previously predicted to be impossible (with the core feature of hybridization and divergence DLC-locked - I didn't love this fact, but at least these buttons alone justified the purchase). But same can be said of some older DLCs of CK2 ("Sons of Abraham"? Really? Especially given that Islam playing required to also have "Sword of Islam"?!)
Tours and Tournaments are - well, I haven't played them yet because I've only just finished my 1.8.2 save, but by the descriptions it's huge work and huge features.
 
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I agree with that sentiment. If CK3 stops generating money, development will stop. The problem is some people won’t see it that way. Since the free patch seems to outweigh the DLC in terms of actual content this time, some people may not bother to pick up the DLC. I am not sure I would if I hadn’t already bought the second expansion pass.
I get what you are saying, but I unfortunately think that's unavoidable. With this DLC model, your DLCs become effectively paid for, more balanced (hopefully!) mods. Because I don't think that the DLCs add binaries.
I also picked up the season pass, and whilst I'm not upset because the free patches this year have made the game so much better, I would understand someone coming along in 2025 and deciding that the flavour packs were worthless, because from their perspective they would be (certainly not convinced that this DLC is worth £10.99 when I feel like WaWa was more impactful).

I'll continue buying the DLC for now as I do love the game and want to see the development continue, but IDK how viable the long-term future of the game is when the main thing we are paying for are the free patches.
 
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With this DLC model, your DLCs become effectively paid for, more balanced (hopefully!) mods. Because I don't think that the DLCs add binaries.
DLC's edit binaries though? Or what do you mean? (While there are some references in code that say "you can only do this if you have the DLC", I don't think all the DLC is Jomini-script - in particular, art certainly isn't.)
 
DLC's edit binaries though? Or what do you mean? (While there are some references in code that say "you can only do this if you have the DLC", I don't think all the DLC is Jomini-script - in particular, art certainly isn't.)
My impression of DLC is that the DLC didn't add new scripting variables, and that as such, if you could get your hands on the script, you could mod a pretty good approximation to it without getting the DLC. Art/music assets are obviously harder to do without straight-up pirating, but in principle, given that people do mod in new art assets, I assume that someone relatively capable could do it.

Maybe this is an incredibly naive assumption though.
 
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Oof, I have an axe to grind about the use of endonyms. In short - it's a not-terribly-good principle that is also always applied inconsistently. Just like it's "German" not "Deutsch" or "Greek" not "Ellinic" nor "Hellenic", it's supposed to be "Persian" not "Iranian" whenever you speak of pre-XX century country (rather than Iranic/Iranian language family), even though it did not call itself that. The supposed "decolonization" of using endonyms of once-colonized zones is itself "colonialist" thinking (I am not a fan of the term "colonialist", either...) precisely because this logic is never applied to countries and peoples that feel secure in their identity.

I think the endonym exonym thing should be thought of in terms of language and it's evolution. Historically English did not have the word Iran in common use, and rather Persia was used. Now many people know Iran to refer to the region, probably more people than remember Persia used to refer to that region.

The shift in language can be blamed on nebulous terms like "decolonization" or whatever, but that doesn't change that language has changed, and there is definitely not some arbitrary rule where you pass date xxx you have to call it Persia. It only gets called Persia now if you're reading something in and older form of English written decades ago.

Note, Persia still refers to the region of Fars in English, hence why the game still calls it Persia and not Fars. Paradox is very consistent about choosing English names for places and not using local names for the English version of the game.
 
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CK2 had a different model. Also, you are probably just mentally counting the full expansion DLCs. I can't imagine anyone being "extremely excited" by all of the Portrait Packs, Unit Packs, Song Packs, and freaking Shield Packs. ALSO also, Ruler Designer is now part of vanilla-on-launch.
Yes a different model, that lead to a lot more content. I do own everything except a few music packs. The number of real DLC in a year was just significantly higher, and each patch usually came with real changes across gameplay for the whole map.

Royal Court was… well, let's say, a weird idea with situational appeal, but it was accompanied with a full rework of cultures I had previously predicted to be impossible (with the core feature of hybridization and divergence DLC-locked - I didn't love this fact, but at least these buttons alone justified the purchase). But same can be said of some older DLCs of CK2 ("Sons of Abraham"? Really? Especially given that Islam playing required to also have "Sword of Islam"?!)
Tours and Tournaments are - well, I haven't played them yet because I've only just finished my 1.8.2 save, but by the descriptions it's huge work and huge features.
The culture upgrade is pretty much the only thing I can think of them adding that I was really impressed about.

People knock sons of abraham but that one was pretty good, it came with some big map changes too IIRC. The locking system was not good, but they eventually figured that out after sons of abraham with multiple dlc unlocking the same content.

I've played a bit with the travel mechanics, seeing my guy travel the map is nice, but it's so slow and easily abused. It only took a little while before I was sending my leaders on insane travels because there is no better way to get lifestyle experience and it's not that risky or expensive. Hell I tried to use it to kill a character and it was actually pretty hard. Just another thing I'll have to barely use in order to not abuse the game balance. And it still leads to half the events making 0 sense. Why am I traveling in norway while also personally exploring the desert in arabia to kill the caliph? Just whacky.

But the whacky mechanics aren't really my complain, even though all the DLC have given us whacky half baked mechanics event generator options.

It's the amount of stuff between all three DLC a year. It's just pathetic, probably the most pathetic slow down i've ever seen. While CK3 struggles to implement its visions with each DLC, I experienced the huge reworks Imperator got for free, Stellaris gets at double pace with custodians, and that actually meaningfully change the gameplay and not events for HoI4.

I have owned enough paradox games and have been playing them for long enough that I'm pretty sure I can tell when their DLC are falling apart. Other than Vic3 I've never seen such a struggle outside of CK3.

I use to buy EVERY DLC no question asked, and was almost always satisfied. I haven't bought a CK3 DLC since being incredibly disappointed with what I got for the first batch of DLC preorder. I hang out and read all the DD's. They just don't excite me.

On the other hand I'm still hyped for Stellaris and HoI4 DLC. I still play ck2. I just don't play CK3 that much, problems since day 1 just always get in the way, and there's no content for a person like me.
 
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Yes a different model, that lead to a lot more content. I do own everything except a few music packs. The number of real DLC in a year was just significantly higher, and each patch usually came with real changes across gameplay for the whole map.


The culture upgrade is pretty much the only thing I can think of them adding that I was really impressed about.

People knock sons of abraham but that one was pretty good, it came with some big map changes too IIRC. The locking system was not good, but they eventually figured that out after sons of abraham with multiple dlc unlocking the same content.

I've played a bit with the travel mechanics, seeing my guy travel the map is nice, but it's so slow and easily abused. It only took a little while before I was sending my leaders on insane travels because there is no better way to get lifestyle experience and it's not that risky or expensive. Hell I tried to use it to kill a character and it was actually pretty hard. Just another thing I'll have to barely use in order to not abuse the game balance. And it still leads to half the events making 0 sense. Why am I traveling in norway while also personally exploring the desert in arabia to kill the caliph? Just whacky.

But the whacky mechanics aren't really my complain, even though all the DLC have given us whacky half baked mechanics event generator options.

It's the amount of stuff between all three DLC a year. It's just pathetic, probably the most pathetic slow down i've ever seen. While CK3 struggles to implement its visions with each DLC, I experienced the huge reworks Imperator got for free, Stellaris gets at double pace with custodians, and that actually meaningfully change the gameplay and not events for HoI4.

I have owned enough paradox games and have been playing them for long enough that I'm pretty sure I can tell when their DLC are falling apart. Other than Vic3 I've never seen such a struggle outside of CK3.

I use to buy EVERY DLC no question asked, and was almost always satisfied. I haven't bought a CK3 DLC since being incredibly disappointed with what I got for the first batch of DLC preorder. I hang out and read all the DD's. They just don't excite me.

On the other hand I'm still hyped for Stellaris and HoI4 DLC. I still play ck2. I just don't play CK3 that much, problems since day 1 just always get in the way, and there's no content for a person like me.
Just out of curiosity - how would you feel about the content of this DLC if the clan rework was gated behind it?
 
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Now many people know Iran to refer to the region, probably more people than remember Persia used to refer to that region.
I am speaking of name of country, not name of region (that one is funny: the region was originally called Middle East, only later the term "Middle East" came to include Near East; the older terminology prevails in Russian, if you're interested). And as for the country…
but that doesn't change that language has changed, and there is definitely not some arbitrary rule where you pass date xxx you have to call it Persia.
Yes, there is. Namely, 1935. To take an obvious example - in Western World, Alexander the Macedonian did not conquer Iran, he conquered Persia.


Note, Persia still refers to the region of Fars in English, hence why the game still calls it Persia and not Fars.
That is just not true. Persis aka Fars (d_fars) and Persia (k_persia/e_persia) are not the same, even though the names are obviously related. And English loc for d_fars is… *drumroll* Fars not Persia (line 15328 in titles_l_english.yml as of version 1.8.2).

None of this is to deny that language changes, but the particular changes you list simply have no support.
 
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I am speaking of name of country, not name of region (that one is funny: the region was originally called Middle East, only later the term "Middle East" came to include Near East; the older terminology prevails in Russian, if you're interested). And as for the country…

Yes, there is. Namely, 1935. To take an obvious example - in Western World, Alexander the Macedonian did not conquer Iran, he conquered Persia.



That is just not true. Persis aka Fars (d_fars) and Persia (k_persia/e_persia) are not the same, even though the names are obviously related. And English loc for d_fars is… *drumroll* Fars not Persia (line 15328 in titles_l_english.yml as of version 1.8.2).

None of this is to deny that language changes, but the particular changes you list simply have no support.
You got me on the last one I'll give you that.

But thanks for the 1935 point, that's when languages started to change with a formal request from Iran. Alexander conquered Iran, which was ruled by people form Persis, called Persians. Regarding this point, most sources today opt to call the empires originating from Iran by the names, often like those of the families who ruled them, IE Alexander conquered the Achaemenid Empire, Rome battled the Parthian Empire, CK3 players want to resurrect the Sasanian Empire.

Middle East is the larger region yes. Iran the country is another region and is still home to "Iranian people" who spoke languages closely related to Farsi/Persian (this is one place where Persian has not quite gone away from use) but not all of them spoke Farsi, again the aformented Persis/Fars region within Iran is where this language comes from.
 
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Some of the famous scholars are pre-scripted and have a chance to spawn on relevant events during a time where they would've been alive. Once they're in the game, they don't spawn again and if the event happens in the future, it'll be a randomly generated character.
For ex, there's an event about a poet looking for a new sponsor for his writing masterpiece after having been snubbed by his previous patron. This will likely be Ferdowsi if it happens during his active years historically.
This is actually a really clever and good solution! :)
 
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Just out of curiosity - how would you feel about the content of this DLC if the clan rework was gated behind it?
I'm not impressed with the clan rework, so it would not change my opinion.

honestly it'd be kind of nice not to have to have that feature.
 
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I'm not impressed with the clan rework, so it would not change my opinion.

honestly it'd be kind of nice not to have to have that feature.
So is it the way they've done it, or is it because you don't believe it's meaty enough?

Personally i'm not really totally sold on it my self, so I probably won't be playing muslim characters my self at the get go, BUT I also think it looks alot better implemented and more fun to interact with than Sword of Islams decadence system. So i'll probably get around to it eventually.

In any case - i'm also personally worried about the pacing my self in regards to the dlcs. But i'm just not convinced the dlcs for ck2 were much better than what we're getting now.
 
So is it the way they've done it, or is it because you don't believe it's meaty enough?

Personally i'm not really totally sold on it my self, so I probably won't be playing muslim characters my self at the get go, BUT I also think it looks alot better implemented and more fun to interact with than Sword of Islams decadence system. So i'll probably get around to it eventually.
Ck2 Decadence is a freebie, outright the worst thing they ever added to that game. Nothing in Ck3 has been as egregious as that so far and i'll give them that.

I'm personally very confused by the tax thing. Not only does it now makes me wonder why taxation is so poorly represented in non clan realms, i'm really questioning its implementation. I sort of understand how they tie minor characters to all these designs these days but I'm mostly struggling to understand how this will actually interact well in game or how the AI can possibly take care of it correctly. It also seems to add a lot of minor clicking just to deal with temporary minor characters.

I may be totally wrong on it, but I don't really see it playing well. I do have to get my hands on it to get a final opinion on it. I hope it'll lower the extreme power of Muslims in CK3.

Other than that, the actual DLC stuff is a total joke to me. The Struggle system seems weirdly tailored to only the earliest start date, and feels like it's missing A LOT of the basic regional issues of Iran, especially after 1066.

I'm a HUGE fan of the Zanj rebellion, big time recommender of it. I understand it'll be an event chain. If there is no option to play as them this will be a failure to me, plain and simple. I will be waiting to see how this works out.

Most of all though, these DLC are a paltry joke. The development cycle is incredibly slow, and has very strange priorities. I'm still in shock that I got more interesting development in dead Imperator than I am seeing from CK3. Paradox desperately needs to shuffle in a 'custodian' team to CK3 and actually take the game more seriously as a main flag franchise.
 
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The Struggle system seems weirdly tailored to only the earliest start date, and feels like it's missing A LOT of the basic regional issues of Iran, especially after 1066.
There is nothing weird to have the old Struggle already-resolved in 1066, because that's what happened by 1066.
I'm a HUGE fan of the Zanj rebellion, big time recommend of it. I understand it'll be an event chain. If there is no option to play as them
It will be absolutely correct not to have that option. They don't fit the gameplay loop, EOS.
 
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There is nothing weird to have the old Struggle already-resolved in 1066, because that's what happened by 1066.

It will be absolutely correct not to have that option. They don't fit the gameplay loop, EOS.
The weird part to me is that the struggle is basically THE biggest mechanic in the DLC and it only affects the earlier start date while a lot of important parts of persian history post 1066 are just not in this DLC about persia.
 
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Hm, I "wonder" why. Maybe because as soon as you unpause the game is althistory?
You know 1066 is a start date right? You know this is a DLC about Persia right? You think it's a good idea that the DLC only covers the first start date because... CK3 is a game so anything that didn't happen in the specific years of 1066 or 867 can't be represented through mechanics in the game???
 
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You know 1066 is a start date right? You know this is a DLC about Persia right? You think it's a good idea that the DLC only covers the first start date because... CK3 is a game so anything that didn't happen in the specific years of 1066 or 867 can't be represented through mechanics in the game???
Yes, exactly. The attempts to do so, like with Mongol invasion, are always somewhat clunky. Mongol invasion specifically is too big to ignore, but smaller things...
 
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