Hello everyone!

Today is Tuesday and that means it’s time for another fascinating Developer Diary. My name is Divine and I’ve been part of the Crusader Kings team since last autumn as a scripter and now I’m going to tell you about some of the events that we’ve been working on for the soon-to-be-released expansion, Horse Lords!

If you control a part of the Silk Road you can now build trade posts to make sure to get some of the riches that is traveling along the route. However, there might be more people who want a share of the wealth, so you’ll probably have to guard your treasure chests. There’s also a possibility to gain the help of a trade governor who might attract more traders and riches to your land... or his mishaps might prove to be more of a headache for you to cope with.

As mentioned in a previous dev diary, rulers on the Steppe can send out their sons and brothers to take up arms and become mercenaries. The life of a mercenary, though, is a harsh one and a lot of things can happen when you’re out adventuring in a foreign court; so we’ve added some events about various things that can occur for the captain of such a created mercenary band.

For instance, the Mercenary Captain, being on the field fighting for a living, has a chance to improve his military education trait to one of the stronger ones. These mercenaries also get a few events to interact with their employer or the ruler of the province they are hanging out in. One of these events is for instance eloping with a person of the employer’s court. It can be a daughter, son or a skilled courtier.

Since the Mercenary Captain is earning his keep from being hired he also gets some choices on what to spend it on. For example, improving his Band of Mercenaries or spend it all on women and vice.

A ruler of the Steppe was not much of a ruler unless his clan had a thriving herd of livestock to support them. Thus, it is only natural that we needed to have some events about horses! If you’re living on the Steppes as a nomad, you can now adopt a favorite war horse. There are some events associated with having a horse and what you do together with it - both ordinary and unusual happenings.

So that’s a little sneak peek of the things that can happen on the wide Steppes and everything I had to say for today. I hope you are all hyped for the upcoming expansion that is now just a week away!

Oh! And I might actually have heard legends about certain altaic families behaving in odd ways lately… with hideous faces and beast-like behavior.

 

[MartinSWE]

Why? denmark is three duchies, norway three (five if we count the islands), götaland would be three too (småland, västergötland and östergötland) and svealand two (bergslagen and uppland). Hardly any big gap in power. Quite frankly if norway does not eat denmark in every game there is no reason that it would eat götaland. Especially if like I said it lost some counties to a kingdom of Sapmi.

Also I did want to do this in addition to making the blobby subjugation CB either, go away, be replaced with something more fitting or be more restricted. Honestly I think that the make tributary CB represents how things worked in scandinavia well enough at the time. Perhaps a thing where you only need to have to have 51% of a kingdom held or as tributary to create the kingdom title (meaning that the comming generations then can use the dejure claim to unite the kingdom proper).

Danish counties, especially Skåne, are almost fully developed in 1066 and thus they can muster an Army which is bigger then the Swedish Army. If we divide Sweden into two parts the difference becomes even greater.

 

[Dirt McStain]

That works for the steppes but not for places like Nubia or Asturias that could have easily been conquered by the Muslims but never were because they were deemed not worth the effort to do so (which, of course, turned out badly for the Andalusians).

There needs to be some sort of diminishing returns model so that owning a province that is relatively poor compared to your other provinces should actually costs you money until it is built up properly. Wrong culture/religion uprisings that are actually dangerous would help take care of the Asturias problem.

 

[TheDungen]

Danish counties, especially Skåne, are almost fully developed in 1066 and thus they can muster an Army which is bigger then the Swedish Army. If we divide Sweden into two parts the difference becomes even greater.

In 1066 the two kingdoms were already united, it's only in the two early starts sweden should be broken up in svealand and götaland.

 

[Knotz]

Found a gif for this expansion:

 

[Will Steel]

Found a gif for this expansion:

Mongol Nyan with a Japanese Katana?

Also that is no gif.

 

[Knotz]

Mongol Nyan with a Japanese Katana?

And rainbow! Though I suppose that's a subset of Nyancat.

Also that is no gif.

It moves for me? But that might just be the psychosis.

 

[HREmperor]

In 1066 the two kingdoms were already united, it's only in the two early starts sweden should be broken up in svealand and götaland.

There probably should be a decision to unite Svealand and Götaland into Sweden. And in 1066 and beyond have Sweden de jure with the other two titular or whatever.

 

[Will Steel]

And rainbow! Though I suppose that's a subset of Nyancat.

Yep, the rainbow is a fundamental (and hilarious) feature of the Nyan Cat.

It moves for me? But that might just be the psychosis.

Yeah, it moves for me now too. Probably the fact that I was downloading a large mod for Medieval II Total War and my internet was extremely slow. I apologize.

 

[Kenlin]

Not a bad idea, but honestly I'd like to see it limited even further perhaps only rulers with a martial score over a certain level could use it. It'd be realsitic, in reality hundreds of years passed without any change then usually some guy in one generation united the entire kingdom. We just have to delay that conquest spree a little.

Or at least a trait like Ambitious, perhaps?

 

[TheDungen]

Or at least a trait like Ambitious, perhaps?

I was thinking about ambituious at first but ambitious is a little bit too common, and also I think Sigurd Ring is ambitious (and the SoB was ambitious IRL too) which kind of means that it does not strike against the main offender of the subjugation blobbing.

Hoestly I think that the best idea is that you are allowed to create titles if you have 51% of the de jure title as tributaries not only as vassals. That means that you can become king with a tributary war spree but if you want to take land more permanently you need to use the dejure claim cb later. It's nice because then you have the option of either taking their land slowly but permanently with the dejure claim or making all of their lands serve you as a tributary but only for a generation.
With this I really don't think tribals need the subjgation cb any more (tributary wars basically replace it).

 

[ERS92]

What happens with mercenary army when your son inherits your titles after your death? Is that happens also adventurers when they settle?

 

[Kapitalisti]

And rainbow! Though I suppose that's a subset of Nyancat.

A Nyan-Khan, if you will.

 

[zonkie]

Talented people over at Paradox, this expansion surely looks interesting.

 

[Will Steel]

A Nyan-Khan, if you will.

High ranking Mongol officers and lords all held the title of 'Noyan', which is similar to Nyan. Ironic, isn't it?

 

[Karlingid]

So...I know people don't seem to be as interested, but...


Will there be anything unique for the Tocharians?

 

[toroltao]

So...I know people don't seem to be as interested, but...


Will there be anything unique for the Tocharians?

no

 

[Karlingid]

no

I hadn't assumed there would be much. Just thought I'd put it out there in case the devs are secretly hiding Tocharian stuff....

but, then again, they're just a side thought to this expansion, so...

Hmm...I wonder what face/units they'll use...

 

[Z-Z-Z]

High ranking Mongol officers and lords all held the title of 'Noyan', which is similar to Nyan. Ironic, isn't it?

Noyan Khan!

 

[Karlingid]

Noyan Khan!

In Mongolian, it's "Noyon" roughly

 

[Kapitalisti]

High ranking Mongol officers and lords all held the title of 'Noyan', which is similar to Nyan. Ironic, isn't it?

That was kinda 50% of the joke.