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Listen to our very own Chris King discuss the Character Database in upcoming Crusader Kings II in more detail. Enjoy!


[video=youtube;T05xZE0AA8g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05xZE0AA8g[/video]​

Read more about the game: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/crusader-kings-ii

Check out the latest Crusader Kings II developments:
Web page: http://www.crusaderkings.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Crusaderkings
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Crusaderkings
Forum: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/

Read the written developer diaries here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?306-crusader-kings-2
 
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Wow. I can't imagine the time dedicated to building such a database. Almost a shame it wasn't being used by teachers and academics. Take that ancestory.com!

King, you sound giddy half the time in these videos, I love it. It reminds me of myself when I find someone willing to talk history. I almost inturupt my own sentences in my haste to say everything possible.

Again, game looks really nice; I just love the 3D portraits. Suffice it to say, you have my preorder.
 
*drools* With every new thing I learn about this game, I want it more and more! It is a good thing Cross Country will be over by the time this comes out. Because between school and CK2, I doubt if I will have much time for anything else! (I suppose I should fit in some time for my belle, too. She deserves at least a little attention, right? :p )
 
Romtos said:
I have two "Crusader Kings 2" T-shirts. :D They're great.
Though the costs were immense, I got crazy import duties since they were sent from the US.
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I think that I need to buy a CK2 mug when I have money. How about family packs: "Liege" and "royal consort" shirts in adult sizes and up to three "heir" t-shirts in kiddie sizes for a reasonable rate :D (wow, they put the Paradox logo on everything, from bibs to boxer shorts to gym bags)

Everything is looking good for this game. Now with detailed family trees. Let the word go out to all corners of the realm. Now, can someone explain to me why "Many were called, few were chosen" is the marketing phrase for CK2? I know it's from the parable of the wedding feast from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22, but I don't really see what it has to do with the game. Though as I recall Johan has a penchant for riddles. ;)
 
I love it when he does videos. He always seems a bit nervous, in a charming way, and so excited about the game that he trips over his own tongue trying to get it all out. It's endearing.

I can't wait!
 
thebigj_a said:
I love it when he does videos. He always seems a bit nervous, in a charming way, and so excited about the game that he trips over his own tongue trying to get it all out. It's endearing.

I can't wait!
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I'd really love to buy King a pint someday. He doesn't say much, but it is just enough to keep us all on the edge of our seats.
 
1) Will names change depending on culture? Like if a king of England became king of France or Castile, would his name turn into French or Spanish?

2) Can family trees be easily modded?

3) Will one be able to have ancient claims on land and thrones based on the family trees and descendants?

4) Is there a cut-off point for family trees?


I believe having this family tree could be crucial to the development of a EU4. Perhaps in the future it could also make porting games much funner if the family tree coding is kept the same.
 
If the family tree goes back to the time of Charlemagne anyway, how difficult would it be to do an earlier game start? Say AD 800?
 
AlexanderPrimus said:
If the family tree goes back to the time of Charlemagne anyway, how difficult would it be to do an earlier game start? Say AD 800?
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youd need completely different kingdoms and everything. so itd take alot of effort but probably the fun type of effort so expect a mod
 
Orinsul said:
youd need completely different kingdoms and everything. so itd take alot of effort but probably the fun type of effort so expect a mod
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Yes, the alternate kingdoms mechanism is what I'm really wondering about. How hard would it be to have kingdoms "evolve" into later counterparts?

The earliest you can really go back and have a semblance of the familiar medieval kingdoms is somewhere in the mid-to-late-900s. You've got key founding dynastic leaders in many places, like Otto I in Germany, Hugh Capet in France and so forth. Still, that doesn't sound nearly as hard as the 800 start.
 
I would like to see a late Carolingian mod, too. Say 900 or 911 (death of Louis the Child, the last East Francian direct Carolingian IIRC). The HRE title would work differently, being bestowed directly by the pope, between various German, Frankish, and Italian monarchs.

@Metz: Likely your character would keep his name, which is one of those little things that bothers me about the naming of titleholders. It kind of screws up your numbering if Louis IX of France is succeeded by his Spanish second cousin Luis (who becomes Luis I of France), then comes their Bavarian cousin Ludwig (as Ludwig I). And then Ludwig's son considers himself French, so he takes the title as Louis X, instead of Louis XIII. You get the idea. There's been a thread or two on the forum on changing names and regnal numbering, so maybe the devs have addressed the issue. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but one of those annoying things that should be changed by the devs or by modders.
 
htilden42 said:
Will 'major' families like the Hapsburgs, Wittlesbachs, Capets, and Plantgenets have their actual coat of arms?

And I assume it will be easy to customise randomly generated CoAs through eg save game editing?
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Yes, and yes.
 
RedRooster81 said:
Very nice developer diary, King. I was once a genealogist, so this really thrills me. Will it be possible to export your character's family data into a genealogy program, like the LDS church's Personal Ancestry File? Just an idea. And probably one with some real technical hurdles.
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There are currently no plans for an exporter to Gedcom or similar.

To echo an earlier post, how will culture-equivalent names like Felipe/Philippe/Philip be affected by the regnal numbering? Just curious, because it's something that Doomdark earlier said would ideally be worked out. In any case, great work and looking forward to seeing the final product.
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No promises, but it is still something we would like to add.
 
The family tree feature will keep me busy for days, not hours :) ! I'd use the exporter tool for CK1 and trim the family tree it exported (removing people that didn't belong such as the ones that had the same character ID).
 
Magnificent! Right now CK II looks to be perfect for a medieval buff like myself.
 
This sounds awesome, I really like the family tree. I just hope that game speed won't suffer too much for it - it looks like a fairly daunting task to run a game with such a huge database.
 
Regarding names, what if a universal catalog of names was kept, and each culture would have a file weighting them, and displaying what the localization of the name is.

So, for example you could have this as a list:

1. Louis
2. Eric
3. Henry
4. William

And each of these names would have a set of modifiers which effect how likely the names are to come up. These modifiers could be culture (so you won't get many French Erics), tag or perhaps dynasty. Some dynasties could particularly like certain names. Each culture file could also contain a set of localizations for each of these names. So a French William would be Guillaume, and a german Louis Ludwig. The question that arises is whether the localization should be based on state culture, or the characters culture. On the one hand, we don't want kings of England being called Guillaume, and on the other it might seem disconcerting to see your character suddenly change name if they suddenly become King of Croatia.
 
Great dev diary - I can only worship your devotion to develop such detailed database of early medieval aristocracy.

I am still disappointed with province borders east of France/Low countries - it is still this ridiculous CK1 place-holder.*

*By ridiciolous I mean - totally random. Younger posters might not remember, but CK1 map was simple divide of provinces from Europa Universalis 1, which in turn took whole design, including provinces, from 1980s table game of the same name. You simply can't expect serious developer to be taken seriously if they plan to be lazy and go on with such artifact, while in contrast - they are giving a lot of effort towards historical correctness of dynasty setup. All in all - be consistent - Paradox. :D
 
Sinbuster said:
Wow. I can't imagine the time dedicated to building such a database. Almost a shame it wasn't being used by teachers and academics. Take that ancestory.com!
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But you can't beet islendingabok.is :)
That website has the family ties of around 740 000 Icelanders or estimated half of every Icelander that has existed in history(but ancestory.com seems to have a larger database though, but does not cover half a nation).

Still, great work paradox. Great work ! I can't wait for this game. But I am also so happy that you are taking your time to make this game. I bought crusader kings 1 a few weeks ago and I love it ! And the family tree looks very nice.

But could consider fixing (if you have not already thought about and even fixed it) the view over the border provinces so you can see every provinces well, I could only see about half of Iceland in the original (though I think you mentioned somewhere that you have already fixed it) and the Icelandic family names.

Example: We have Kolbeinn Flosason (Kolbeinn, son of Flosi) in the beginning as a magistrate of Iceland. He marries and has children and his children are also called "Flosason". But the game took it as a family name so you end up with a very female looking son of Kolbeinn, not to mention a pregnant one :D.

The other Scandinavians had patronymics in the game, along with dynasty names, correct ? So I guess you mistook Flosason for a family name ?
 
olvirki said:
We have Kolbeinn Flosason (Kolbeinn, son of Flosi) in the beginning as a magistrate of Iceland. He marries and has children and his children are also called "Flosason". But the game took it as a family name so you end up with a very female looking son of Kolbeinn, not to mention a pregnant one :D.

The other Scandinavians had patronymics in the game, along with dynasty names, correct ? So I guess you mistook Flosason for a family name ?
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Good question. Thanks for the interesting details on Iceland. Yeah, you should actually be able to see all of your native land on CK2. See this post for what has been said officially about patronymics. It has been confirmed for Scandinavian and Irish cultures, but hopefully it will cover many more as well.
 
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