So that time of the week again and its time for me to make something up to write about. Today I decided to talk about regions and forts, two new concepts in Crusader Kings II.

First, regions isn't something that is going to affect you directly but it works somewhat like how it have done in the Europa Universalis Games. It's an area on the map that denotes a region with a name and it's mostly used to improve on our localization of things, such as hunting for tigers in India or hunting a deer in western Europe. So no longer will you find Tigers in the woods of Poland if you manage to move your capital of your Indian Empire out of the subcontinent. You can see these regions by opening up a province and click on the new region icon to get an outline of the region. It's also possible to search for regions in the old title finder.

Next is a gameplay feature you will actually interact a bit more actively in. It's called forts which is an additional type of holding you can build in provinces next to the normal ones and trade posts. Because of this we had to extend the province view with a window you can open and close which will show "extra holding slots" which will contain the trade post and fort slots. The fort can be built anywhere from your own territory even enemy provinces that you have under your control. Their biggest advantage is that they are fortifications that you can build up really fast and very cheaply. The main point of them being to let you build up a region as your march towards a big neighbor which will let you slow down their advance but at the same time let you set up forward positions in the enemy territory.

They do have some added bonuses though beyond that, for instance in Tribal land where you have the homeland attrition bonus, that bonus will be removed from the province as long as you have a fort there to supply your troops with. There is also a feature for the forts that is too related to the expansion so I can't delve into that any deeper.


And again here's some more random changelogs

Spoiler

- Fixed crash when a war is invalidated because of no defender
- Fixed the "hostile against everyone" bug
- Fixed bug where the AI would keep their units attached to characters they no longer participate in a war with.
- Added alert for having high prio minor titles available to grant.
- Fixed various provinces in India that had no rulers scripted for some start dates.
- Monks and other people living in celibacy will no longer try to arrange stealth marriages if ruled by a patrician.
- Defensive religions now properly also give defensive modifiers for Camel Cavalry and Elephants.

 

[Pyrrha]

Also, now that we know that Groogy thinks this will be their best DLC, does anyone remember where he stands on the matter of any potential China DLC? That'll give us a nice data point regarding whether or not its possibly this DLC (I think he's opposed to the idea overall, so its unlikely he'd consider a China DLC to be their best work yet). Of course, until announcement, every DLC is a China DLC.

Edit : I'd rather see any character become playable (theocracies, inland republics, barons) than a focus on China (since mods can do that).

 

[TheDungen]

That's my point, tying the Hordes invasion tracks to regions that can never dejure drift/bordergore would make the Hordes behave more consistently even at the earlier start dates.

They attack the steppes because they are weak and don't have magic pagan attrition defenses like most pagans.

Honestly the pagan attrition for tengri should be worse. It's kind of odd to see the kingdom of germany never expanding into the pegan east europe because of it.

 

[Thure]

Am I the only one around here who'd rather see any character become playable (theocracies, inland republics, barons) than a focus on China (since mods can do that)?

With the new patch mods can also add inland republics

And actually a real China would need features mods can't make.

 

[TheDungen]

Am I the only one around here who'd rather see any character become playable (theocracies, inland republics, barons) than a focus on China (since mods can do that)?

Not at all, better finish what they started than add more stuff.

 

[chrnno]

Am I the only one around here who'd rather see any character become playable (theocracies, inland republics, barons) than a focus on China (since mods can do that)?

Because really it is rather pathetic seeing people do it especially for topics it is abundantly clear there are plenty who agree with them.

That said it should all be done and the only thing order matters is bugfixes, AI improvements and things like that. New content is new content regardless of where.

 

[Pyrrha]

With the new patch mods can also add inland republics

And actually a real China would need features mods can't make.

Indeed, the new government feature might allow it, but is there any confirmation? I haven't read anything about being able to set your capital inland yet with the ability to hold city holdings as primary holding. I'd love it to be so, of course.

And please, don't take it the wrong way, adding China would be marvellous (although I prefer Japanese history, personally), but right now, I'd love to see playable theocracies with dedicated mechanics first.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Honestly the pagan attrition for tengri should be worse. It's kind of odd to see the kingdom of germany never expanding into the pegan east europe because of it.

Hopefully the new forts will help, Im just leery about the AI actually using them effectively and honestly they should be scrapped because they seem to be a remnant from pre-CM days when pagans were feudal.

I guess since its still there Paradox is happy with the state of things, so once I get the achievements Ill go back to the same darn 1200 start.

 

[Pyrrha]

Because really it is rather pathetic seeing people do it especially for topics it is abundantly clear there are plenty who agree with them.

That said it should all be done and the only thing order matters is bugfixes, AI improvements and things like that. New content is new content regardless of where.

My intentionwas not to cry for attention, sorry if you read it that way. What I meant to do was to point out that I am surely far from being the only one awaiting these features. I'm just sorry to see so many resources put into adding a continent (which could wait a tiny bit longer) when half of the characters in game are still not playable (given making them playable would certainly not require amazing effort).

 

[chrnno]

My attention was not to cry for attention, sorry if you read it that way. What I meant was to point out that I am surely far from being the only one awaiting these features. I'm just sorry to see so many resources put into adding a continent (which could wait a tiny bit longer) when half of the characters in game are still not playable.

In that sorry here too. It is just that doing it to get a bunch of likes, upvotes or other equivalent is a standard tactic in every place those exist and ever since the forum transition I am seeing it far more often so a lot of people are doing it with that goal.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

In my opinion, this is the best thing we will release, and I loved Rajas Of India and The Old Gods a lot.

Oh you tease.

 

[Markusw7]

I hope this doesn't become something you'll be able to build in every province. Inevitably it will just be something the Muslims have in every province due to their higher income making them even more difficult to handle.

 

[Thure]

Indeed, the new government feature might allow it, but is there any confirmation? I haven't read anything about being able to set your capital inland yet with the ability to hold city holdings as primary holding. I'd love it to be so, of course.

And please, don't take it the wrong way, adding China would be marvellous (although I prefer Japanese history, personally), but right now, I'd love to see playable theocracies with dedicated mechanics first.

I'm sure it was confirmed in the first DD. You can add new playable government types and change condtions.

 

[Pyrrha]

I'm sure it was confirmed in the first DD. You can add new playable government types and change condtions.

I recall reading that new government forms would be possible to mod in, but I also remember reading that having the wrong holding type as a capital would still give you the malus. The question then is: to what extent will the governments be moddable? If we could change the primary holding type for custom governments (and if we could actually create new holding types, yet that is another debate), then I'd be more than satisfied.

 

[aitaituo]

I recall reading that new government forms would be possible to mod in, but I also remember reading that having the wrong holding type as a capital would still give you the malus. The question then is: to what extent will the governments be moddable? If we could change the primary holding type for custom governments (and if we could actually create new holding types, yet that is another debate), then I'd be more than satisfied.

See this thread or just look at the dev posts in Dev Diary #1

 

[TheDungen]

It's been stated that we'll able to set allowed holdings for the goverments.

I'm more intrested in viceroyalities and taxes. I'm guessing that the taxes will refer to the goverment type groups (feudal, republic and theocracy). And will any custom goverment be allowed to have viceroyalities or is it still just the fuedal group?

 

[Pyrrha]

See this thread or just look at the dev posts in Dev Diary #1

It's been stated that we'll able to set allowed holdings for the goverments.

Thank you good sirs! I suppose I missed parts of the discussion. Well in this case, my remaining requests are definitely the playability of the actual ingame theocracies (not custom ones, and with specific mechanics) and baronies (I don't need them to have specific mechanics in vanilla, but allowing us to play them makes for awesome modding possibilities. Barons could become much more influencial with proper CBs, events, decisions, etc).

 

[Groogy]

Sorry Rogue can't

Awesome.
I have three questions, I would be pleased if you could only answer one of them right now, but I would be oh so overjoyed if you could answer all three.

1. Can a hostile nation walk past a territory that has an enemy fort built in it.
2. How does one hold a hedgehog while not getting pricked?
3. Are there different levels of forts?

No, you hold it tenderly and closely and no

 

[riadach]

Sorry Rogue can't

No, you hold it tenderly and closely and no

Will tribal homelands have attrition penalties regardless of religion?

 

[Markusw7]

Sorry Rogue can't

No, you hold it tenderly and closely and no

This is some really good news, especially good news for smaller nations or anyone trying to defend against a blob. It should be much easier to force battles on the defence now.

 

[blackchoas]

Sorry Rogue can't

No, you hold it tenderly and closely and no

Seriously? Internal tests most really like the way the new forts were working out in EU4 if were already adding them to CK2 as well