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Hi all! I am Karolus Magnus, programmer at Crusader Kings II. Now is finally the time for my first dev diary! Today I will be talking about the Silk Road and Raiding Adventurers.

With Horse Lords we are adding in an addition to the trade system which is the major trade route of the Silk Road that stretched all the way from Cathay to the Italian States. It does not require you to be a Patrician or Republic however to utilize this system. As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are. You can upgrade these trade posts to make the Silk Road worth even more.

dd_trade_post.jpg

However the Silk Road is much more dangerous to deal with than normal coastal trade posts as it relies on safe passage through land. If a war breaks out and a part of the trade route is caught in the conflict, the trade will be cut from that province and onwards for that branch. The trade will instead go through any other branch and result in them receiving more of the trade than they normally would. The Silk route can be viewed from the Economic mapmode but also in more detail from the Trade zone mapmode.

dd_trade_route.jpg

Next feature is Raiding Adventurers. This system was made to better represent the Normans in Northern France and Sicily in how they settled in foreign land. It is also used for nomads who lose their home. The Germanic raiding adventurers spawn with ships, but even nomads who do not get ships can travel far, as these raiders unlike others can raid in any province (except the provinces of the one who conquered your home lands).

Raiding adventurers will use the money they gain from raiding to recruit more troops, and when they have grown to a certain level, they will try to become landed. A ruler can offer to settle these raiding adventurers, giving them coastal or border provinces. They might however refuse to be settled if they do not like the lands that you are offering. Ambitious raiding adventurers will usually not be settled unless they are given a duchy. If no such offer is made however, they will eventually start a war on one of the rulers they have raided, targeting a duchy.

dd_settle.jpg


The same Settle Adventurer interaction can be used to settle the dynamic mercenaries we already covered, if you have managed to make them your friend. Settled raiding adventurers will become Feudal or Iqta depending on their religion, and also be disinherited from the nomad realm from which they came from.

One of the benefits of settling a raiding adventurer is that the provinces that are given away will be blocked from raided again in the near future.

dd_settled.jpg

Raiding adventurers that do not spawn from being conquered as well as dynamic mercenaries will get the Adventurer trait that makes the character much more ambitious and military capable. So even if they give you several benefits to settle, they can become dangerous for your future generations.

dd_adventurer.jpg


That's all for this week! Next week we are going to go through map and culture revisions and new events!
 
I think it's this Anxi. Restore Tang hegemony over central Asia!

Also, I have a feeling that the Raiding Adventurers mechanic will be very useful for the Migration Era...

And please tell me that a single Silk Road holding isn't going to give 500 gold per year...
 
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The problem is that happens in every game that starts before 1066. The Norse convert far too slowly, if ever, and remain a nuisance unless the player converts them. And if you want to do that before the 13th century you will probably have to conquer northern Europe yourself.

Of course the biggest issue is that raids always target major holdings, like every expedition was the Great Heathen Army. Usually it was just a few dozen raiders who hit isolated monasteries and villages. And that exterminating an entire warband has no long term impact, a chief should be broken if he botches such a raid but he will be back in two years. And other chiefs will not factor in the fact that the last 1500 guys who attacked you ended up dead and will come over regardless.

I wish there was an open Beta I get the feeling in game its going to get worse, because of raiding adventurers, there is going to be even more raiders spawning plus the christian kingdoms are going to get even more unstable since they are going to have tons of wrong culture norse vassals along their northern borders....
 
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If you don't want to play raiding whack a mole, put strong vassal on the border or coast, that way the A.I. will whack mole for you..

Which significantly gimps your income from cities, and leaves you with no boats. The problem with raiding isn't that it happens, but that it happens nonstop even if no raider has ever left your shores alive for decades with 0 repercussions to the AI. Mighty prestigious is the norse ruler who keeps sending hundreds of men to die on the shores of Britain without having any survivors return with loot.
 
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The same way we had Persia and the steppes before RoI. It definitely hurts anyone playing on that edge, but we'll live with it. For now...
The frontier is in the Great Wall of China, its fine to me. Perhaps they could add Tibet.
 
The problem that I have with China is permomance, Paradoz said that they would improve perfomance, but China in CK2 would have the same province density that Europe. And I think that the improvent in perfomance wouldnt be able to maintain China without lag. It this is solved I wouldnt have any problem with China (Unles the Tang blob conquer France by the 900s.)
 
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They probably go tribal if the province is tribal.

But didn't one of the last diaries mentioned about the new government system that it will not work like that anymore? of where you as a feudal, grants an unlanded courtier a tribal holding, will not be a tribal government anymore? but will be of the same government type as yours instead?

I was thinking though as an exceptional rule for settling a nomadic tribe, is that I thought they would go tribal first, before upgrading to feudal or Iqta within your realm.
 
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Yes, they do. Doomdark said he would like to add China.

Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if China doesn't make it onto CK2, but there's always CK3 half a decade down the road. I might even still be alive by then.

I am, like many other people I think, perfectly fine with China in CK2 but I've two conditions:
- I think that everyone agree with that, the game needs a fantastic optimization or upgrade before that to happen.
- India is already poorly done, with badly modeled governement forms, religions and even borders (not that they don't have the correct borders - but many lands were just not feudal, and some of the "counties" in CK2 India had simply no rulers, and some didn't even have people ! They were jungles !). And many people asking for China probably don't even play in India... So if we are to get China, we need proper mechanisms for laws, governments and religions. And even combat. And a full set of new events (again, the indian-specific events are ridiculously few).

I would prefer an overhaul of what is already in game. A proper trait system (and not pick-only-the-good-ones), more culture-specific events, a proper law/doctrines system (currently even the relations with the Pope are roughly done through one or two laws and a few events... Many of us probably know that the papal influence was more than that) with parliaments and councils, things like that. Something that really brings life to CK2.
 
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