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CK2 Dev Diary - The Rules of the Game

Well people, what do you know? I needed a break from the Stellaris crunch, so here’s an unscheduled dev diary! All the hubbub about Defensive Pacts and Shattered Retreats got me thinking about an old ambition I’ve had to improve the game set-up screens in order to allow players to customize their experience without having to resort to modding. The idea is inspired by games like Civilization and the Second Wave DLC for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which allow players to change various advanced options and settings for a different experience in the game. I really like such options and typically make good use of them myself.

Now, of course there is such a thing as “the way the game was meant to be played”. That is, how the designers made the game and like to play it themselves. However, variety is the spice of life, and after 11 Crusader Kings II expansions things are not as clear-cut anymore. It’s actually pretty funny that I’ve been using a small personal mod for CK2 for awhile myself. There are some downsides to modding and using mods though:
  • It requires awareness that it’s possible, and where to find existing mods. The modding scene is a jungle.
  • It takes a modicum of extra effort and skill.
  • It might not feel quite legitimate (it can feel a bit like cheating) and you might not get any Achievements.
  • Mods typically do not have the same level of support as the base game. Many become fossilized or are otherwise problematic.
For these reasons especially, I think that adding a bunch of Paradox-approved, fully supported in-game rule variations is a good idea. Thus, when you start a new game, you are now presented with several interesting options. Most of them are simple flavor variations, but some are more fundamental and will disable Achievements in Ironman mode. Here’s the list of options we are currently showing in the new screen (still a work in progress though):
  • Sandbox vs Ironman
  • Shattered Retreats: On/Off
  • Defensive Pacts: On/Off
  • Gender Equality: Default/Historical/All/Players
  • Sunset Invasion: 13th Century/Random/Off
  • Mongol Invasion: Historical/Random/Off
  • Raiding: Historical/Unrestricted/None
  • Epidemics: Dynamic/Historical/Deadly
  • “Supernatural” Events: On/Off
  • Adventurers: Normal/Rare/None
  • Provincial Revolts: Normal/Rare/None
  • Regencies: On/Off
  • De Jure Drift: Default/Restricted/Off
  • Dynamic Kingdoms and Empires: On/Off
  • Diplomatic Range: On/Off
Red options disable Achievements.

Crusader Kings II - Rules 01.jpg


Our new rule system is itself fully moddable, so that modders can use the same system with pretty much any options they might want!

Crusader Kings II - Rules 02.jpg


I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Are there any rule variations you think we’ve missed, or that you would really like to see?
 
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Oh, I almost forgot. I don't know how the community feels about this, but I would very much like to see the option "Count Baronies as Vassals On/Off" and, for better balance with this option, an option for using pre-Conclave Vassal Limit or at least something with regards to "Vassal Limit".

I currently always use a personal mod with these two options for they make centralization laws much more meaningful. As both are already available in the defines.lua, they wouldn't be that difficult to add.
 
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huyderman said:
Please don't, that sounds like an awful idea. It would just spam up the achievement list without adding anything of value. And I would have to get all my achievements again in the missing color...
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that if you get gold, you get silver (but getting silver doesn't automatically give gold).
 
KingKone said:
Excellent :)
Would this make the game difficulty settings redundant? like very easy mode to very hard mode.
Click to expand...

Difficulty settings are completely different from this.
Of course they could add it as a whole or each factor that it changes/used to change somehow.
Fitting idea though now that i think about it.
 
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This may have been asked before. But how will multiplayer games work? Will the creator of the game just enable/disable the correct things and the other players don't have to do it themselves?
 
es333 said:
This may have been asked before. But how will multiplayer games work? Will the creator of the game just enable/disable the correct things and the other players don't have to do it themselves?
Click to expand...

A very important question. In fact, another suggestion:

FIX THE MULTIPLAYER, PLEASE!!!! :p
 
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A few more ideas:
Claims on independence: Strong/Weak/None
Vassal limit: Severe/Normal/None
Vassal religion head: Loyal/Normal (not forced to act according to the liege's wishes)
Autocephaly/Pentarchy: Strict (current)/Liege (the top liege's rel. head is the head of the entire realm)/Open (you can ask other real heads for excommunications and stuff)
Vassal kings: Normal/Opinion malus
Max duchy penalty: Always (excludes rel. head titles but not other titular duchies)/Non-titular/Only if other non-baron landholder in duchy
 
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How about an option slider for navigating rivers? I always found it disappointing that there are major rivers in parts of the world where viking raiders will never make it without player intervention (India) just sitting there unused.
 
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Please, make auto saves for Ironman mode only happen once per year, or even once every two years (which isn't very long over the course of an entire game).

They get very annoyingly long later in the game (yes, even with a good SSD). Like, so annoying that I find myself wanting to just start another game so I can go back to smoother gameplay.

You can already just copy your save file every now and then to enable a "revert" of any bad things that happened to you, so there isn't much point to saving this often.
 
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Awesome! Tell me, will we be able to toggle scripted historical events too? It'd be nice to toggle things like the Norman Conquest so that people who want a sand-box mode and disable these events (and event troops), and people who want a more historical experience can leave them turned on (or possibly even add more via mods).

edit:

Another suggestion, can you add an option to Dynamic Kingdoms/Empires that makes the AI more likely to form them? So like.... "Disabled, Allowed, Extreme."

While you're at it, maybe you could add an option for retinues too. "Retinue Maintenance: Normal, Cheese Mode."
 
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*squeel*
 
First you responded to community's criticism about CK2 turning into EU4 clone (lack of RPG content) and vaguely promised to fix the issue in a Dev Diary #3.
Now you've managed to solve so many problems with such an elegant solution. Not just game balance, but also endless debacles on historicity and plausibility of certain events or how certain things should be represented.
Certainly like this new approach. Well done!
 
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Careful, P'dox. You've opened this up as a chance for everyone to suggest their pet feature they want to see in the game.
 
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@Doomdark Would you consider making it so if you turn off a feature which disables achievements that only the achievements that came with the implementation of that feature would be disabled? So for example if you turn off coalitions, only the achievements that were added in with the Conclave patch and any added after its release would be disabled, but all the achievements that had been around before the Conclave patch would still be enabled.
 
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To add to my earlier suggestion, here are a couple historical events that could be added (by modding teams, or the devs).

Norman Events:
  • Conquest of Normandy: Disabled, Railroaded.
  • Conquest of Sicily: Disabled, Railroaded.
If set to "railroaded" then an adventurer with event troops and a claim on the targeted region will spawn at the date of the historical conquest.

Viking Events:
  • Sailing Technology: Railroaded, Dynamic.
  • Conquest of Russia: Disabled, Railroaded.
Great Holy Wars
  • Great Holy Wars: Dynamic, Historical, Both.
If set to "Historical" than Great Holy Wars only spawn during their historical time frames. Assuming the offensive religion isn't already in ownership of the targeted kingdom.

Muslim Events
  • Turkish Conversion: Disabled, Railroaded.
  • Turkish Conquests: Disabled, Railroaded.
 
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ramius3443 said:
How about an option slider for navigating rivers? I always found it disappointing that there are major rivers in parts of the world where viking raiders will never make it without player intervention (India) just sitting there unused.
Click to expand...

Good point. I tried HIP once and the Estonian vikings could navigate rivers to some extent, going into Russia etc. Which makes sense as the Estonians of Saaremaa quite often sailed at least into Pskov through smaller Estonian rivers and lake Peipsi. + they knew Denmark, Southern-Sweden and Northern-Germany very well.

So this is a field that could be improved. It's funny because there's Saaremaa, the county who's coat of arms is literally a Viking ship and they don't have any ships at all to go anywhere before 1066, which is utterly wrong.
 
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