• 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.

CK2 Dev Diary #16: Man's inhumanity to man

Hello and welcome back to another DD about The Reaper's Due! Ha! I can finally use the name! If all is going to plan you should be reading this while I am on my third, and sadly final, week of vacation, so I may or may not show up to answer questions. For this DD we are getting back to the core values of The Reaper's Due: Death and Suffering!

Being a prisoner is never a fun experience, and frankly, with The Reaper's Due it only gets worse. We have added several fairly unpleasant ways to interact with your captives:

  • Humiliate. The prisoner is degraded in some fashion; such as being tarred and feathered, or forced to do a “walk of shame”. This also causes them to lose prestige and be generally looked down on.
  • Torture. The prisoner is caused a certain amount of pain; such as being whipped, or stretched on the rack. May cause them to become Stressed or even Depressed, and can cause you to lose the Kind trait.
  • Mutilate. Only available to rulers with certain traits, such as Cruel or Impaler, this causes the permanent loss of a body part. May lead to you becoming Cruel if you are not already, and can cause them to gain Stressed or even Lunatic.
  • Bad poetry. Rulers with the Poet trait may deploy their very worst poems against a prisoner. While a comparatively mild punishment, it nonetheless has a slight chance to drive them mad.
  • Consume. Rulers who are either Possessed or Lunatic and also have the Cannibal modifier may simply eat their prisoners. If you haven’t disabled fantasy content, this may lead to you “gaining the power” of your victim.

All of these options, besides Consume, release the victim afterwards as they are considered to be their punishment, and while you choose the category you do not choose the exact method. Needless to say, your former prisoner will not think kindly of you after any of these punishments, and in the more extreme cases their close family may also be outraged.

Of course, sometimes a mere punishment is not enough and you simply have to Execute your prisoner. Well, we have added content for this eventuality too! You still simply press the Execute button, as before, but the actual execution method employed is chosen from a list based on your location/culture/religion/traits as well as the imprison reason you have on your prisoner, their religion/gender/traits, and things. Different execution methods come with different death reasons, and as you may have heard in an earlier DD, different death sounds. We have 31 execution methods, including Hanging, Crushing, Sawing, and Bear. It’s all in an easily moddable file too, just in case modders think we have been insufficiently creative.
deaths.jpg


I should also mention that with the 2.6 patch it is no longer possible to escape from House arrest unless someone with the Intrigue focus breaks you out, so if for some reason you want to be nice to your prisoners they are no longer virtually guaranteed to escape.

Since Death is a big theme for The Reaper's Due, we have also added several reactions events to the death of your lovers, friends, and rivals. For the first two, these can result in things like you turning to drink, finding a new friend, taking comfort in the arms of another, or finding a keepsake of them. For the latter, you may miss having a rival and start a new feud, resolve to become a better person, or if you are a particular type of person you might sneak out and desecrate their corpse. We don’t judge!
loss.jpg

skullsfortheskullthrone.jpg

skull2.jpg


That’s all for now. Next week I’ll be back at work and writing these “live” again, so I’ll decide the topic closer to the time. It's quite possible the subject will be cats though.
 
Last edited:
  • 151
  • 24
  • 2
Reactions:
What if she isn't actually as bad looking as you thought; can the prisoner do a "stride of pride" instead?

I dunno, Cersei was still pretty good looking and that walk still came strong on the "shame" end of the spectrum...
 
  • 5
Reactions:
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles,
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
I dunno, Cersei was still pretty good looking and that walk still came strong on the "shame" end of the spectrum...

"Walk of shame" - modern British slang for when you get spotted walking home in the same clothes you went clubbing in the night before, after pulling an absolute horror but you were so drunk at the time your standards were askew. Also, you look a complete mess.

"Stride of pride" on the other hand, is when you can walk home hearing nothing but the BeeGee's 'Staying Alive' and giving a cheesy thumbs-up to every rando you see because you know you bagged a champion beauty.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Can getting the executioner drunk the night before the execution be an option? The hungover executioner from 'The Tudors' was such a great touch of horror for that TV series, surely it could sneak into this game. :)
 
  • 2
Reactions:
>It’s all in an easily moddable file too, just in case modders think we have been insufficiently creative.

ARE YOU GRINDING MY JIMMIES? you STOLE this idea from modders. They have done this way before you announced this DLC. Doubt? check it ou then:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=635776529&searchtext=execution
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=503399786&searchtext=execution

You should leave content like this to modders, you should improve game mechanics and such. Why haven't you made a combat overhaul yet? naval combat, no? no of course not. UNBELIEVABLE Paradox, wanting to extract as much money as possible. If mods like HIP or AGOT dont use content added in this DLC, i'm pretty sure most wont buy your bulldefecation. You should be INNOVATING not COPYING.
 
  • 62
  • 2
Reactions:
@m n : See https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/rules-for-user-made-mods-edits.779854/

Rule 4: "The User Mod may not claim ANY kind of license or copyright of any kind (You can still have Credits)."

Translation: You did something in a mod that the devs want to use in a patch or DLC? They are free to do so. And no; Rule 5 explicitly says that User Mods need to ask first, not the devs themselves.

Besides, if they never did anything that a mod had done before then we would be lacking lots and lots of features that we currently have (e.g. playable pagans).
 
  • 19
Reactions:
Lovely. All of this is absolutely lovely.

1. Do those elegant, new ways to treat ladies and gentlemens comes as separate buttons next to release, banish/ransom, execute or as right click diplomatic menu options?
2. Are there chances for a way to deal with multiple prisoners in the same way (mass ransom, etc.)?
3. Are there any game mechanics profits from e.g. humiliating/mutilating people other than shortening their lifespan?
4. Do you guys consider making a system for dreadful characters who being totally asymphatetic have a lot of respect because of fear?
 
  • 2
Reactions:
You should leave content like this to modders

I don't play with mods. You're opinion has 0 effect on me and a huge portion of the playerbase like me. If anything priority should be on improving the base game first and foremost. Mods are completely optional content and I don't consider a features availability as a mod to be a good enough reason why it shouldn't be in the base game. If it is a popular mod it is because many people wish to see it in the base game. So, logic dictates stuff and things, blah blah, figure it out.
 
  • 16
Reactions:
Will it be possible to fashion a drinking cup out of my enemies' skulls, for use at feasts?
 
  • 11
  • 1
Reactions:
  • Humiliate. The prisoner is degraded in some fashion; such as being tarred and feathered, or forced to do a “walk of shame”. This also causes them to lose prestige and be generally looked down on.
  • Torture. The prisoner is caused a certain amount of pain; such as being whipped, or stretched on the rack. May cause them to become Stressed or even Depressed, and can cause you to lose the Kind trait.
  • Mutilate. Only available to rulers with certain traits, such as Cruel or Impaler, this causes the permanent loss of a body part. May lead to you becoming Cruel if you are not already, and can cause them to gain Stressed or even Lunatic.
  • Bad poetry. Rulers with the Poet trait may deploy their very worst poems against a prisoner. While a comparatively mild punishment, it nonetheless has a slight chance to drive them mad.
  • Consume. Rulers who are either Possessed or Lunatic and also have the Cannibal modifier may simply eat their prisoners. If you haven’t disabled fantasy content, this may lead to you “gaining the power” of your victim.

Oh my.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Nope, they are all fatal. Could have been funny to have them beat the bear and then get shot, I suppose, but we need the death reasons to be reasonably short.
Couldn't you have the death reason shortened and only shown in full when clicked then? Because I would really like it being possible to beat the bear and then get executed in some other way. Or perhaps you then have to deal with two bears at the same time.
3. Are there any game mechanics profits from e.g. humiliating/mutilating people other than shortening their lifespan?
How would humiliation shorten lifespan?
 
Couldn't you have the death reason shortened and only shown in full when clicked then? Because I would really like it being possible to beat the bear and then get executed in some other way. Or perhaps you then have to deal with two bears at the same time.
How would humiliation shorten lifespan?

Stressed and/or Depressed?
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Since house arrest was brought up, I have a question. Can a prisoner under house arrest produce children? I've sometimes had to imprison a family member but still want them to produce heirs.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
I would like to see some good come out of putting someone under house arrest. For instance, the captive may grow sympathetic to your cause (Stockholm Syndrome), or possibly even engage in court intrigue. A little seduction focus could go a long way as a house-arrested prisoner (or as his/her captor), plus joining in on plots in the court, etc.

I like to put interesting characters under house arrest in the hopes that some interesting event (other than escape) will pop up as a result.
 
  • 11
  • 1
Reactions: