Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Crusader Kings II 69946 Bug Reports 19719 User Modifications 10606 Suggestions 5969 Tech Support 6376 After Action Reports
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

Hey! So today we will talk about some mechanics we’ve added to make other rulers react to what happens in the world. We want to slow down the snowball and prolong the time it takes to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t be as easy to do. Snowballs are pretty evil, just like medieval rulers.

Just as with the shattered retreat mechanic we took inspiration from Europa Universalis 4 in our decision to add Coalitions. Our coalitions however are based on an Infamy value instead of Aggressive Expansion. You might recognize the name Infamy from our old games, but even though it shares the name it will work quite differently.

Infamy is limited to be within the range of 0 to 100% and will slowly decay over time based on how strong your max military potential is. When you hit 25% infamy, coalitions will be unlocked and AIs will start joining them based on how threatened they feel.Your infamy will serve as a hint on how aggressive and dangerous other rulers think your realm is. You gain infamy primarily by conquering land through war or by inheriting a fair maidens huge tracts of land.

The amount of Infamy you gain is based on the action you do, how much land you take and how large your realm already is. So for instance the Kaiser of the HRE declaring a war for Flanders and taking it is going to make the neighbours more worried than if Pomerania manages to take Mecklenburg.
capture(56).png


Coalitions themselves are mostly defensive in Crusader Kings, if any member gets attacked by the target of the coalition they will automatically be called into the war. If a member starts a war against the target they only get a normal call to arms which they can choose to decline.

For an AI to join a coalition they will consider the relative strength between the target and themselves, how threatened they think they are and how much infamy the target has accrued. You can view the current coalition someone has against them by the diplomacy field on the character screen.

capture(54).png


But it might not be the easiest way to view it so we also added a mapmode to more easily visualize Coalitions. A nation which turns up white is the nation you have currently selected, blue will be targetable for coalitions, yellow means they have a coalition against them and Red means they are members of the coalition against the currently selected one.

capture(55).jpg
 
  • 310
  • 230
  • 40
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
I understand the idea behind stopping the snowball, I just think that this was not the way to go about it. Maybe make infamy DLC only feature, so it can remain somewhat sandboxy (I don't think this is the word I'm looking for but whatever). I do understand that it was historical and I agree that coalitions should probably be in the game though perhaps a polyrexian defensive alliance(or something else, I'm no expert) rather than a coalition - it sounds too Napoleonic to fit into CK2.

In essence: Nice idea, but try to think of something that wouldn't ruin a good 30% of the casual ways to play the game.

Edit: Especially since the large empires in the beginning would be less affected by this (see: Abbasids)
 
  • 2
  • 2
Reactions:
Dracko81 said:
You're the one who engaged me in a conversation, where I was responding to someone who declared.

If you want to support his arguments by disagreeing or trying to take something I said out of context you go right ahead. So yes you did by supporting him and disagreeing with what I said.

Don't want to get involved in the conversation? Don't quote a part of it.
Click to expand...

So, essentially, "Shut up or respect my authority".

Well, no. I will disagree with you when you say something wrong, and using your "3000" hours experience as an argument to say that the game is too easy is wrong.
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Last edited:
  • 5
Reactions:
Sabotage13 said:
You know, you don't have to buy the DLC if you don't want to.
Click to expand...

But sadly, I have to suffer it in my games anyway. India takes a frikking lot of resources, I never play there, I don't know for other people but there are nearly 0 interactions between India and the rest of the world in my games, but I can't get rid of it...
 
  • 7
Reactions:
Cherox said:
I understand the idea behind stopping the snowball, I just think that this was not the way to go about it. Maybe make infamy DLC only feature, so it can remain somewhat sandboxy (I don't think this is the word I'm looking for but whatever). I do understand that it was historical and I agree that coalitions should probably be in the game though perhaps a polyrexian defensive alliance(or something else, I'm no expert) rather than a coalition - it sounds too Napoleonic to fit into CK2.

In essence: Nice idea, but try to think of something that wouldn't ruin a good 30% of the casual ways to play the game.

Edit: Especially since the large empires in the beginning would be less affected by this (see: Abbasids)
Click to expand...
Im sure you noticed this in the DD but the bigger your army potential the slower your infamy drains so a one county count will drain a lot faster than the Abbasids
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Thure said:
Because a single feature...?
Click to expand...
Well, not literally.

But the feature is literally retarded and half-assed. It has no historical basis, no gameplay value just increased tediousness, not thought out all.
Instead of figuring out and adding real features that would make it actually hard to snowball and make sense, why not just after reaching certain size make all your troops lose 80% morale, because reasons for it are as valid as for infamy.

All expansions/dlcs since India are complete shit, focusing on new "content" which is implemented in most basic form possible, instead of fleshing out very much needed old mechanics. There is no depth and variance in feudal systems, vassal management, alliances are simplistic af, which improved could make more sense than these "coalitions" that form because the guy next door acquired some arbitrary points, crusaders/jihads are still broken, war mechanics themselves should be improved simulating hardships of actually raising and feeding army, it wasn't like "hey vassals, all you who like me give me troops, it's blob time". As a game which focus characters and their interactions, there is little interactions between those characters, apart sending gifts and feasting, oh and incest.
 
  • 14
  • 8
Reactions:
brobman22 said:
Im sure you noticed this in the DD but the bigger your army potential the slower your infamy drains so a one county count will drain a lot faster than the Abbasids
Click to expand...

A one-county count shouldn't be getting any infamy, should he?
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Honestly didn't think there would be a worse announcement after the Shattered Retreat one. Turns out I was wrong! Picking the worst and least appropriate features from other Paradox games and porting them to CK2 is surely the way to make people happy, right? Oh, but if they're controversial then naturally they go in the "free" patch that you can't barely avoid and not in the DLC that you can just not buy if you don't like it.
 
  • 17
  • 3
Reactions:
vandevere said:
A one-county count shouldn't be getting any infamy, should he?
Click to expand...
Im pretty sure the DD implies that your rank effects how much infamy you gain so an emperor gains more than a count and you would need to blob out of control rapidly as a count to piss enough people off
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Cherox said:
In essence: Nice idea, but try to think of something that wouldn't ruin a good 30% of the casual ways to play the game.
Click to expand...

It seems that the focus is on limiting the hardcore players who sank thousands of hours into this.

That's something by the way:

lol.png


I don't think I've ever seen a DD (or a dev's post for that matter) gathered so much respectful disagrees.
 
  • 8
Reactions:
Konair0s said:
I don't think I've ever seen a DD (or a dev's post for that matter) gathered so much respectful disagrees.
Click to expand...
The Victory Cards diary for EU4 was far more impopular (probably one of thew most disagreed posts on the whole forums, and all posts defending it had tons of disagrees). Around that feature the disapproval was nearly unanime (a post saying "can I mod this out?" or "I dislike this" received nearly more agree than the OP had disagrees), and people still complain about having to pay for it. Also, we don't know much, and it isn't a popularity contest nor a good indication of the whole fanbase.
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Audoucet said:
But sadly, I have to suffer it in my games anyway. India takes a frikking lot of resources, I never play there, I don't know for other people but there are nearly 0 interactions between India and the rest of the world in my games, but I can't get rid of it...
Click to expand...
As people have explained numerous times, you can in fact play pre-RoI Crusader Kings with little more hassle than right-clicking on the "Crusader Kings" entry in your Steam Library.
 
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
loup99 said:
Also, we don't know much
Click to expand...

I am quite sceptical about their development process by this point. After things like EU4 rebels which are "tested and fine, use harsh treatment" and Way of Life containing a critical bug released before holidays. And the banging focus.

So basically:

heliostellar said:
How long have you been playing Paradox games? Once this patch gets released, you'll be seeing coalitions of the Pope, the Caliph, and pagan Russia against Charlemagne. Everyone will complain and they'll move on to adding more "features" no one asked for.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I think EU4 with CK2 are good, interesting games, but some things just can't be unseen and some design decisions just can't be left unquestioned. How it adds more entertainment to their product? Is it some interesting mechanic which makes it more interesting, or just a pain in the ass which makes you spend more time waiting for the infamy to cool down? Is it surely not a cybersport discipline yet? Because from some changes it looks like it is.
 
Last edited:
  • 6
Reactions:
Ritmas said:
Well, not literally.

But the feature is literally retarded and half-assed. It has no historical basis, no gameplay value just increased tediousness, not thought out all.
Click to expand...


i can understand people critizing the value of this feature from a game-design point of view, but its really annoying when people claim it has no historical basis without even knowing what they are talking about...

what makes you think that there is no historical basis, while one glance at wikipedia will show you atleast a dozen historical alliances that work pretty much the same way that the DD described coalitions will work. The infamy part might be a bit crude, but its not like gaining large pieces of land, either trough war or marriage wouldnt alert your neighbours about what you might potentially do with all that new gained power.
 
  • 7
  • 5
Reactions:
TheStrangerOrg said:
i can understand people critizing the value of this feature from a game-design point of view, but its really annoying when people claim it has no historical basis without even knowing what they are talking about...

what makes you think that there is no historical basis, while one glance at wikipedia will show you atleast a dozen historical alliances that work pretty much the same way that the DD described coalitions will work. The infamy part might be a bit crude, but its not like gaining large pieces of land, either trough war or marriage wouldnt alert your neighbours about what you might potentially do with all that new gained power.
Click to expand...

I could not agree more. To be honest I think the terminology is throwing people off. The idea of coalitions is as old as the concept of realms.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
Sabotage13 said:
As people have explained numerous times, you can in fact play pre-RoI Crusader Kings with little more hassle than right-clicking on the "Crusader Kings" entry in your Steam Library.
Click to expand...

Great, I didn't know, and now you will explain me how I can do that while using Charlemagne, WoL & HL, thank you very much.
 
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back