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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!
 
Well the sea reade is sure better than the current, Pre hl, inland trade. Taking into acount that doesn't exist. But that's said the sea one isn't exactly spectacular either. Aside from mechant republics is there even one?
 
So the biggest thing that's got me worried is that there's no indication that cities will exist in nomadic lands. This is hilariously immersion-breaking in the current tribal setup, so it seemed an obvious priority to be fixed in this expansion.
Keeps like Sarkel could perhaps be taken care of by the fort system, but for major cities of the time like Itil, Bolghar, Kashgar and so many others to just not exist is absurd.
All major nomadic confederations built cities to house merchants and artisans and consolidate their power, and I don't feel the unique capital mechanics will be an equivalent.
A dev comment on this would do a great deal for my peace of mind, or my expectations.
Greatly looking forward to this expansion either way.

Look at this screen:
http://i.imgur.com/p0jAaAI.png

The county has a nomadic capital. But there are still cities and castles in the province. So Itil, Bolghar, Kashgar etc are no problem because we can have cities in nomadic countries.
 
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Look at this screen:
http://i.imgur.com/p0jAaAI.png

The county has a nomadic capital. But there are still cities and castles in the province. So Itil, Bolghar, Kashgar etc are no problem because we can have cities in nomadic countries.

questrion is - can you found new cities/etc as nomad or you are locked to allready existing ones ? well, i can take that as nomad/tribal option to build castles/church will be limited since they did have limited use for nomads, but i think founding of new cities should be universeal.
 
Why would nomads found cities that restrict their grazing lands?
 
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hmmmm, for nomands founding of cities...can be more complicated but for tribals i think it is totaly justifable.
 
Why would nomads found cities that restrict their grazing lands?

It seems that in several Eurasian contexts nomadic societies have found it very useful to have sedentary communities within their sphere of influence, for very obvious reasons. Sedentary towns and emporia would have provided opportunities for the exchange of goods - especially manufactured ones but also raw materials that were work-intensive to cultivate (or excavate) - which otherwise would have been inaccessible to them. Already the Scythians seem to have encouraged Greek settlements, and the Kushans and Hephthalites certainly did the same in Central Asia.

Arguably, to 'encourage founding of cities' is perhaps different from 'founding cities', but it should nonetheless be borne in mind that most nomad societies would have seen the point of having sedentary neighbours or subjects.
 
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It does not seem to me like they can found any cities. In CK2 cities are useful though, they agre a great source of money.
 
It seems that in several Eurasian contexts nomadic societies have found it very useful to have sedentary communities within their sphere of influence, for very obvious reasons. Sedentary towns and emporia would have provided opportunities for the exchange of goods - especially manufactured ones but also raw materials that were work-intensive to cultivate (or excavate) - which otherwise would have been inaccessible to them. Already the Scythians seem to have encouraged Greek settlements, and the Kushans and Hephthalites certainly did the same in Central Asia.

Arguably, to 'encourage founding of cities' is perhaps different from 'founding cities', but it should nonetheless be borne in mind that most nomad societies would have seen the point of having sedentary neighbours or subjects.

The last part of your comment is the key part I'd say. Nomads can perfectly find utility in having vassal cities - just as any kind of vassal. But rather than letting nomads build new holding, this would be best reprsented as non-nomad vassals doing so (like the greek -not the scythians- did in your first example. So, what remains to be seen, is what is more benefical for a nomad bameplay-wise: wether preserve settled vassals, or burn their holdings for grazing lands. I really hope it's the former, for plausibility's sake, much as the latter seems fun to accomplish.
 
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A request to Paradox: is there any chance you could share the contents of 00_government_types.txt (or whatever it's called) now, so that modders can start working on our own versions in advance? It might help smooth the compatibility patching process a bit.

And also on that subject, please make sure that government types being character-based rather than title-based doesn't cause even more merchant republic-related crashes. COTC has been having issues where the game CTDs if a feudal lord with merchant republic vassals becomes a merchant republic himself.
 
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Dear Paradox Devs, please make the following an achievement for the The Horse Lords:

True Trader King: Control the entire Silk Road as Venice.

Thanks.
 
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