Hi all! Tuesday has crept up on us again and it's time for another Horse Lords dev diary. The topics of the week are the map extension, new modding features and probably some other tidbits that I think of as I go along... First off, we did not increase the size of the base map again as we did for Rajas of India, since the most interesting regions were already on the map due to our funky twisted map projection. In fact, even the Orkhon valley and the old khaganate capitals of Karabalgasun and Karakorum are on the existing map. So we simply added some more counties where there was previously only wasteland; 27 to be exact, spread over 8 de jure duchies and two new kingdoms. The addition of these areas required some new cultures as well: Uyghur, Khitan, Sogdian and Tocharian (and of course a lot of new characters in the database to cover the historical periods.)

It is a dynamic region where the hegemony of one nomadic tribe was soon overthrown by another, but it is actually possible to play as proper Mongols (Khalkha) even in 769, in the region of Ötüken (though they start out paying tribute to their Uyghur overlords.) In the 769 start, we represent the region as predominantly Manichean and Buddhist (though the reality was more complex.) The Tarim Basin is perhaps of special interest since the Silk Road passes through it. That's it for the map; on to modding!

Here are some items of particular interest:

• All scripts under the common folder now use a proper folder structure for easier modding (i.e. more than one file can contain data)
• You can now script your own triggers and effects (using existing ones) for easy reuse
• Consistent handling of modded classes; changes are now always added to the modded entity (e.g. a culture or an on_action field), rather than replacing it.
• The new government system allows you to override or add to the special gameplay rules of religions and cultures

The complete modding change log is a bit... obtuse, but I'm including it here anyway.

Spoiler

- Added geographical regions that can be checked in triggers if a title or province is contained in a region defined in map/geographical_region.txt. These regions are static throughout the game and are more reliable than using de-jure triggers for events that you want to affect specific places.
- Bookmarks now uses folder structure
- Combat tactics now uses folder structure
- Disease now uses folder structure
- Job actions now uses folder structure
- Job titles now uses folder structure
- Triggered modifiers now uses folder structure
- Added scripted triggers
- Added scripted effects
- Added create_tradepost effect
- Added folder structure to defines
- Added folder structure to modifier_definitions
- Added MAX_WARDS_PER_GUARDIAN to defines
- Added missing commandline argument "debug" to show debug logs
- Possible to append to cultures from several files
- Possible to append to on_actions from several files
- Added trigger technology_can_spread, checking whether technology can spread in the province.
- Added effects set_special_character_title, remove_special_character_title.
- Can now specify a CB to not be displayed in the diplomatic mapmode
- Culture can now decide if you are allowed to raid or not
- Added external province type in map definitions, will not generate a border or text and can be 1 pixel big
- Added global movement speed modifier
- Now can force contract on specific governments which will bypass the opinion limitations using new government system
- Now possible to disable courtiers from receiving MTTH events in defines
- Added effect set_government_type.
- Governments can be modded in the decisions folder.
- Geographical regions can be modded in the map folder.
- County-, duchy- and sub-region tags can now be used to define island- and geographical regions.
- Added region trigger.
- Added flags reinforcing [yes/no] and reinforce_rate_multiplier to the spawn unit effect.
- Added flag maintenance [yes/no] to the spawn unit effect.
- Added flag looting [yes/no] and can_toggle_looting [yes/no] to the spawn unit effect.
- Added trigger is_allowed_to_loot.
- Added on_action on_became_imprisoned_any_reason, that triggers whenever a character becomes imprisoned for any reason.
- Added flag adventurer [yes/no]. Adventure titles work just as temporary titles but do not get destroyed automatically when the holder is in peace. Instead, they are destroyed whenever the holder gains another title or when the holder dies.
- Added effect set_looting and set_can_toggle_looting for units.
- Added character text GetHusbandWifeOpp.
- Added triggers realm_levy_diff, reverse_realm_levy_diff, max_realm_levy_diff and reverse_max_realm_levy_diff.
- Renamed the realm_manpower trigger to realm_levies.
- The break effect now also properly affect tooltips.
- Added effects any_unit, any_army, any_fleet, random_unit, random_army and random_fleet.
- Added trigger any_unit, any_army and any_fleet.
- Added flag seafarer in culture and religion files, helping the AI to determine if coastal provinces is preferred when raiding.
- Added trigger is_seafarer, checking if either the culture or religion have the seafarer flag set.
- Added trigger is_island, checking if the province exists in island_region.txt.
- Added event target most_participating_crusader, used to get the most participating non-theocracy attacker in a war.
- Added on_action on_divorce, which fires whenever a character gets divorced regardless of the reason.
- Quick triggers are now properly checked when you fire an event from another event.
- Added triggers is_[law/government/decision/targetted_decision/title_decision/settlement_decision]_[valid/potential] with parameters key, character, title and settlement.
- Added effects and triggers any_dejure_liege and any_defacto_liege.
- Added event target defacto_liege_title.
- Added effect destroy_settlement.
- Added effect make_primary_settlement.
- Added match_settlement to the spawn unit effect.
- Added event trigger 'log'.
- Earmarked units can now also use the $CULTURE$ parameter.
- Added trigger completely_controls_region.
- Added any_title effect.
- Added effects make_capital_holding and revoke_capital_holding.
- Added trigger is_nomadic.
- Added government trigger.
- The Spawn Unit effect can now take saved event targets as parameters.
- Added nomad flag to the create_title effect.
- Added effect convert_to_nomad and convert_to_fort.
- Added flags ai_fabricate_claims to religion groups.
- Added flags attacking_same_religion_piety_loss and uses_decadence to religions. Decadence will be used if the religion AND government of a character is scripted to use decadece.
- Added flags hire_cost and maintenance_multiplier to retinue subunits.
- Added event scopes [strongest/weakest]_clan_vassal, [strongest/weakest]_clan, [strongest/weakest]_clan_vassal_except_me and [strongest/weakest]_clan_except_me, determined by the number of empty holdings they hold.
- Added event scopes [most/least]_prestigious_clan_vassal, [most/least]_prestigious_clan, [most/least]_prestigious_clan_vassal_except_me and [most/least]_prestigious_clan_except_me.
- Added event scopes [most/least]_populous_clan_vassal, [most/least]_populous_clan, [most/least]_populous_clan_vassal_except_me and [most/least]_populous_clan_except_me.
- Added triggers clan_satisfaction, total_manpower, unused_manpower, raised_manpower, max_manpower, manpower_growth, population, max_population, population_growth, population_and_manpower, max_population_and_manpower and population_and_manpower_growth.
- Added effects manpower and population.
- Added trigger uses_decadence.
- Added nand-trigger.
- Not-triggers will now do a script assert if it contains more than one trigger (where the use of nand- and nor-triggers are recommended to be used instead), but will work as previously.
- Added trade_post_has_building and trade_post_has_any_building triggers.
- Added trigger is_settlement_type_allowed.
- Added effects create_fort, destroy_fort, seize_fort, random_fort and any_fort.
- Added triggers any_fort, num_of_forts, num_of_forts_diff, has_fort, fort_has_building and fort_has_any_building.
- Added event scope trade_post_owner.
- Added trigger has_castle, has_temple, has_city and has_tribal.
- Added trigger has_settlement_construction.
- Added triggers is_[law/government/decision/targetted_decision/title_decision/settlement_decision/trade_post_decision/fort_decision]_[allowed/potential].
- Added triggers num_of_[subrealm/demesne]_[castles/cities/temples/tribes/empty_provinces].
- Added trigger holding_diff.
- Added effects set_title_landless, set_title_adventurer and set_title_nomad.
- Added forbidden_raid_target opinion modifier, which disallows looting against that character.
- Job action script can now properly use the various job title event scopes.
- Added triggers has_feud_with and any_feud_rival_clan.
- Added triggers clan_opinion, reverse_clan_opinion, their_clan_opinion, clan_opinion_diff and reverse_clan_opinion_diff.
- Added is_high_prio flag to minor titles, determining whether an alert should be shown or not if that title is available to grant.
- Added triggers num_of_king_titles_in_realm, num_of_duke_titles_in_realm, num_of_count_titles_in_realm, num_of_baron_titles_in_realm, num_of_titles_in_realm.
- Added effect unsafe_give_minor_title.
- Added modifiers clan_sentiment, max_manpower, max_manpower_mult, max_population, max_population_mult, manpower_growth and population_growth, currently applicable on characters and the capital.
- Added modifiers retinue_maintenence_cost and horde_maintenence_cost, currently applicable on characters, family palaces and the capital.
- Added is_active_trigger to buildings. Any modifier from buildings that are not considered active will not apply until the is_active_trigger is properly validated.
- Added modifier global_winter_supply, currently applicable on the capital.
- commander_limit can now be scripted in buildings for capital settlements, increasing the number of commanders a ruler can have.
- moved_capital_months_mult can now be scripted for capital buildings and modifies the delay for how often one can change capital, if their government allows for more frequent switching than once per lifetime.
- The set_defacto_liege effect now works on titles as well.
- Added on_actions on_battle_won_owner and on_battle_lost_owner.
- Added modifiers global_trade_route_wealth, global_trade_route_value, global_tradevalue and global_tradevalue_mult, applicable on the capital of holders of a trade post.
- Trade post buildings will now also have an effect in the capital settlement, not only the family palace.
- Fixed bug where the targetted decision filters realm and sub_realm did not properly check the court of the top liege or the current character.
- Added trigger religion_allows_female_temple_holders.
- The spawn_unit effect will now spawn units on any other unit if there is no other valid location (instead of not spawning the units at all).

So, modders delight! What else have I got for you? Well, here's a selection off the top of my head...

• You can now, at any time, move prisoners between the Oubliette, House Arrest and the Dungeon.
• Banishment of landed characters has been changed so that they are only forced to abdicate to their current heir. You no longer get to seize all of their titles.
• Tribal counties are now more viable targets for raiding (there is more loot there)
• The names of opinion modifiers are shown in effect tooltips (instead of just "Opinion Changes by -10", etc)

That is it for now... More to come next week!

 

[in heaven]

Even worse than that. I'll see if I can find the picture someone did on it.

You can see lake balkal in this picture which means my image is pretty accurate.

 

[HREmperor]

You can see lake balkal in this picture which means my image is pretty accurate.

Look at the bottom of your rectangle. You have some parts that aren't on the CK2 map. It is very accurate, I'm not denting that. I'm just saying that CK2 is even more distorted.

 

[in heaven]

Look at the bottom of your rectangle. You have some parts that aren't on the CK2 map. It is very accurate, I'm not denting that. I'm just saying that CK2 is even more distorted.

I probably made a mistake at south, in southeast asia, but northern parts which are playable are pretty close to game, which is what i was mostly focusing when i drew that line.

 

[riadach]

Its probably something like this:

I wish they expanded map just abit to cover at least whole mongol homeland.

Even if it pushed to that mountain range to the east. Seems like a nice natural boundary.

 

[Jorlem]

TO: Paradox
RE: Me

I am now a tributary of Paradox Interactive's Crusader Kings Team.

*Jingles a bag o' gold*

Take you you beautiful sons and daughters of Vikings, take it. You still know how to raid my heart and pillage my soul.

Sorry, you can only become a tributary if they declare war on you. No volunteering.

(Also, if they don't use the right CB, you are out of luck there as well. There's likely no becoming a tributary when a different CB is used to end the war, like when pagans can do when they are holy warred.)

 

[gorillacakes]

Well I agree that it should be upgraded. I'm merely theorizing on possible reasons for why they didn't do it.

Oh I know, I get you. I'm just not seeing the logic of leaving it out of a steppe expansion.

Where did you find out that Turfan was predominantly Manichean?

In quite a few places. S. Liu is a good starting point.

 

[Lord Finnish]

So is there any reason to banish anyone anymore? Is it not the same as execution except you'll leave the guy alive so he can be a potential adventurer.. If you don't even get his lands anymore, what's the point?

I can not see one good reason to banish lords. I guess in the next expansion we won't be able to revoke titles any more.

Welp there goes that exploit

Exploit? So again honest normal players are punished because some fools can't resist using exploits?

 

[Nyrael]

So is there any reason to banish anyone anymore? Is it not the same as execution except you'll leave the guy alive so he can be a potential adventurer.. If you don't even get his lands anymore, what's the point?

Depends on other changes PI did. One way to make it useful would be to increase the Tyranny penalty for executions and decrease the tyranny penalty for exile.
And if nothing else, it would save you from kinslaying.

I guess in the next expansion we won't be able to revoke titles any more.

"I don't like this change, next time they will make another change I don't like!"
Revocations are required, but exiling automatically giving you titles, and it being the only way to get all the titles, makes no sense. Full Revocation should be its own option, not something related to exiling.

 

[M.Meyer]

So is there any reason to banish anyone anymore? Is it not the same as execution except you'll leave the guy alive so he can be a potential adventurer.. If you don't even get his lands anymore, what's the point?

I can not see one good reason to banish lords. I guess in the next expansion we won't be able to revoke titles any more.

Exploit? So again honest normal players are punished because some fools can't resist using exploits?

I really don't understand what you here. Previously when you banished someone you revoked all titles getting a tyranny modifier that was the same as if you revoked them one by one then kiced them out of your realm, now you just kick them out. if you want to do a"old" banishment you just need to revoke all tittles before banishing.

 

[M.Meyer]

Oh I know, I get you. I'm just not seeing the logic of leaving it out of a steppe expansion.

I believe the official reply when asked in a DD some pages inn was , "we didn't think about it..."

 

[jim198913]

- Culture can now decide if you are allowed to raid or not

When playing as the king of England, I'm guessing that the Scottish and the irish could be raiding cultures then no matter what religion or government they are? fair enough.

- Added flags attacking_same_religion_piety_loss and uses_decadence to religions. Decadence will be used if the religion AND government of a character is scripted to use decadece.

Does this mean when playing as a catholic ruler I will be losing piety every month for attacking a fellow catholic ruler like how the way muslims do? it's about time.

- Added flag adventurer [yes/no]. Adventure titles work just as temporary titles but do not get destroyed automatically when the holder is in peace. Instead, they are destroyed whenever the holder gains another title or when the holder dies.

This sounds like as soon as I make the adventurer surrender, he will not end up in my court anymore and then banish him for usually around 500 gold anymore? I always needed that extra gold as I feel I earned it when I defeated his army. I don't like the sound of this change at all.

Tribal counties are now more viable targets for raiding (there is more loot there)

This makes a lot a sense, but since they're will be more gold to loot at tribal holdings, does this mean there could be even more gold to loot at feudal holdings now?

 

[Lord Finnish]

Depends on other changes PI did. One way to make it useful would be to increase the Tyranny penalty for executions and decrease the tyranny penalty for exile.
And if nothing else, it would save you from kinslaying.

That may be so but I speak based on what I know thus far, maybe there will be a reason to banish after this but so far I've yet to see one.

"I don't like this change, next time they will make another change I don't like!"
Revocations are required, but exiling automatically giving you titles, and it being the only way to get all the titles, makes no sense. Full Revocation should be its own option, not something related to exiling.

The logic has worked fine for me so far I'll have you know. Didn't like it when they took away assassin button and replaced it with something that is even more OP internally and worthless externally (Spy On which is DLC-locked to begin with). Then they took banishment gold, then I think I wondered if we'll even be able to banish for titles at some point. And lo and behold what happened.

As for your latter remark, I feel I have a string of truth in saying that banishing lords was one of the primary ways of getting land for a feudal ruler. It makes even less sense that banishing a traitor lets his son take over, who probably has loyalties to his father. I do wonder if the succeeding lord gets an opinion penalty for exiling his parent, and it wouldn't make sense if he didn't.

When I banish a lord it's because he was disloyal to me. When I banish a disloyal lord I don't do it just to have his probably just as dubious son take over. It's ridiculous.

I really don't understand what you here. Previously when you banished someone you revoked all titles getting a tyranny modifier that was the same as if you revoked them one by one then kiced them out of your realm, now you just kick them out. if you want to do a"old" banishment you just need to revoke all tittles before banishing.

If I recall correctly there are limitations to revoking titles when you have a truce (aka the target lord lost a rebellion). Thanks to performance issues it's been months since I played but that's how I remember it.

However, if what you say is true, then 1) what's the point in banishing if revoking does the same thing 2) why did banishing need to be castrated.

 

[ThePlayX3]

• The new government system allows you to override or add to the special gameplay rules of religions and cultures

Does that mean you can add divine_blood = yes to a certain government ?

I can see a "Targaryen Monarchy" mod coming !

 

[gorillacakes]

I believe the official reply when asked in a DD some pages inn was , "we didn't think about it..."

But they should have. I mean seriously, if Zunism was introduced in a DLC entitled Charlemagne, then I can't see the reason for excluding Manichaeism in a steppe orientated DLC. Hell there was more of them than there were Jewish Khazars!

 

[siamsee people]

New achivement Chirstian of the stepps:conquest and make all central asia province become chirstian.

 

[Carkasjak]

New achivement Chirstian of the stepps:conquest and make all central asia province become chirstian.

Please, no. I'm so sick of big blobby achievements. Give us more fun stuff like Holy Smoke, Dwarf Fortress or Empressive. Conquering (big chunks of) the world in CK2 is not difficult, but it's extremely grindy and tedious. The inland counties with low supply limits and long travel times are especially annoying to deal with.

 

[Nyrael]

Please, no. I'm so sick of big blobby achievements. Give us more fun stuff like Holy Smoke, Dwarf Fortress or Empressive. Conquering (big chunks of) the world in CK2 is not difficult, but it's extremely grindy and tedious. The inland counties with low supply limits and long travel times are especially annoying to deal with.

You speak like they couldn't give both or like you are forced to get all of the achievements...

 

[Fishman786]

A Tarim Basin expansion without the Tibetan Empire is not going to be realistic in the slightest, it's like having the Holy Roman Empire or Persia as wasteland. In the later start dates of CK2 (867 and 1066) it makes perfect sense to leave Tibet off the map even if you include the steppes, but in the late 8th century Tibet was one of the primary superpowers competing for control over the region. The four-way rivalry between Tibet, the Arabs, the Tang and the Uighurs (and earlier the Turkic Kaganate) was one of the most important international conflicts of the early middle ages, one which shaped the future of central Asia for centuries to come.

 

[Nyrael]

A Tarim Basin expansion without the Tibetan Empire is not going to be realistic in the slightest, it's like having the Holy Roman Empire or Persia as wasteland. In the later start dates of CK2 (867 and 1066) it makes perfect sense to leave Tibet off the map even if you include the steppes, but in the late 8th century Tibet was one of the primary superpowers competing for control over the region. The four-way rivalry between Tibet, the Arabs, the Tang and the Uighurs (and earlier the Turkic Kaganate) was one of the most important international conflicts of the early middle ages, one which shaped the future of central Asia for centuries to come.

Unless Tibet is supposed to play just like one of already existing factions, then adding it, and the necessary flavor, would make the expansion too expensive so it will have to wait.

 

[klopkr]

A Tarim Basin expansion without the Tibetan Empire is not going to be realistic in the slightest, it's like having the Holy Roman Empire or Persia as wasteland. In the later start dates of CK2 (867 and 1066) it makes perfect sense to leave Tibet off the map even if you include the steppes, but in the late 8th century Tibet was one of the primary superpowers competing for control over the region. The four-way rivalry between Tibet, the Arabs, the Tang and the Uighurs (and earlier the Turkic Kaganate) was one of the most important international conflicts of the early middle ages, one which shaped the future of central Asia for centuries to come.

I think it's just even more reason they're going to make a china DLC. That and the fact that Mongolia is cut in half and that the mongols can't head south.