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CK2 Dev Diary #19 The End is Nigh

Hello all, it’s DD time again! As you hopefully know, it’s only a little over a week until Reaper’s Due is released (on the 25th), and you’ve seen pretty much all the new features by this point. As such, I don’t have any big reveals this week, so instead I will just tell you about a few assorted small features and share some of the 2.6 patchnotes with you. So, without further ado:

Reaper’s Due
As well as 2.6 making the Indian Reincarnation events work slightly better, RD includes a rare Reincarnation event which anyone can get, provided they have Fantasy Content turned on.

Parents now have some reaction events to their children being born, especially to their first child, and additional events if it is sickly.

When characters become Ill, it is possible they will suffer from a Mild, Normal, Severe, or Incapacitating version of their Illness. In the latter case they will be bedridden and will require a Regent for the duration of their Illness.

2.6
I mentioned we might do this in an earlier DD, but Nomad’s Pillage decision is now on a separate Alert to avoid accidentally Settling.

You can now zoom the camera out even further, allowing the entire map to be seen at once.

As mentioned in a non-DD thread, AI-called Crusades will be much more likely to target areas adjacent to provinces of their religion-group if they have no targets with Crusade weights set.

I thought those were interesting enough to mention, but here’s the entire “Balance” section of the 2.6 patchnotes:
Code:
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# Balance
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- Alliances and Call To Arms
    - Restored manual call to arms
    - Call to arms from allies can be declined again
    - Added defines to enable/disable auto call to arms and possibility to decline them
    - Added major opinion penalties to alliance breakers
    - Added temporary alliance-breaker modifier (gives -5 diplomacy)
    - Made alliance-breaker and truce-breaker temporary modifiers duration scriptable
    - AI will consider dissolving alliances with alliance breakers
    - AI is unlikely to accept alliances from alliance-breakers
    - Fixed a bug that prevented vassals from joining wars against tyrants. Expect revocation wars to be more risky! (can be disabled through the define VASSALS_UNITE_AGAINST_TYRANNY)
    - Can no longer call ally to war if ally has NAP with defender
    - Alliance breaks with attacker if you accept call to arms from defender

- Flanders is now properly part of France
- Norse, Pictish, Visigothic, and Saxon cultures no longer split if controlled by a powerful ruler, or if their head of religion is of their culture
- CROWDED_THRESHOLD_MODIFIER lowered to 25
- Head injury in battle now has a chance to cause disfigured rather than incapable if your have Reapers
- many "active" minor titles, such as designated regent, cannot be held by incapable characters
- Alania is now Tribal from the Old Gods start point onwards
- k_hungary no longer requires a Magyar province to form
- Increased the troop count of the Shia uprising to make it succeed slightly more often
- AI holders of k_france will no longer create k_aquitaine unless they are close to forming Francia
- Gave Berber culture 'allow_looting = yes' and 'seafarer = yes'
- Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal
- The AI now makes use of Tribal Armies
- AI Nomads can now acquire warhorses
- Increased the Steal Population effect on the Humiliate CB from 10% to 25%
- Increased the impact and deadliness of most Epidemic traits
- Updated the 'Funeral Procession' event with better rewards in the options
- Extort Subjects now available when at war
- Donate to Liege now available when liege is at war
- The 'Groom an Heir' ambition no longer requires you to be married
- Updated final 'Ambitious positive' event to be slightly more interesting
- When declining the papal request to switch to Papal Investiture, the Pope may now excommunicate you
- Rank 2 and 3 education outcomes are now more common
- Become King ambition now only lets chancellors fabricate one kingdom claim
- AI no longer calls all allies into war, but only tries to get more than 1.25 times the opponent's strength
- Changed age to set childhood focus to 6 so you can also choose an educator at the same time
- Pagan nomads no longer suffer from pagan defensive attrition (made it a define called NOMAD_SUFFER_PAGAN_ATTRITION)
- It's now possible to demand religious conversion of landless courtiers even while at war
- Moved the Theology and Hunting focus events to 'on_focus_pulse'
- Seduction Focus: The rebuff opinion modifier no longer lasts forever
- Boosted the opinion effects of giving gifts and of the "Improve Relations" councillor job
- Even with the law that allows revocation and retraction from religious enemies, their religious brethren among your vassals will now still be upset
- You no longer get Pagan homeland attrition if you're allies
- Made Agnatic the normal default gender succession law again, except in Christian realms or when you have equality laws, or the new game rule
- Blocked barons from having Agnatic-Cognatic succession (it's an inheritance mess)
- Rulers of all religions are now allowed to convert to the attacker's religion during holy wars, if their Moral Authority is much lower
- The Family Focus (Way of Life) can now also remove rivalries between close family members
- Exiled characters should no longer join courts of characters in seclusion, or court of the banisher's vassal
- Characters can no longer escape from House Arrest
- Monthly prestige/piety province modifiers are now added to the character
- Most of the minor titles can now be made available for female characters as well, provided the correct laws or game rules are in place
- Frail now has a small health penalty
- When a Tyranny war is lost while the Conclave DLC is enabled, the title revocation law will be revoked
- Intrigue Focus: Spy On: Nerfed the chances of abduction and murder unless you are a Master Schemer
- Added 1 Health to the Theology Focus
- AI Nomads will now Tribalize if they push too far outside the steppe IF they don't hold much territory in the steppe region + not many castles/cities
- When Nomads Tribalise they now culture/religion convert new provinces based on population/manpower
- When a Nomad Tribalizes a custom kingdom will be created if they would end up as duke rank or lower
- Nomads who Tribalize now get a small amount of event troops
- Changed the Eunuch Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats before deciding
- Carousing Focus: You can now invite people to a new party 90 days after the last one (down from 500 days)
- Raised chance of reincarnation events for Indian religion group
- Changed the Jewish Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats
- Lowered the war contribution that all theocracies and holy orders get as attackers in Great Holy Wars
- Powerful vassals will now only be angry that they haven't been given a position on the council if they're eligible for such a position, or they've recently been fired from the council
- Horse Lords: Unlocked the 'Perform Sky Burial' decision for non-Nomadic rulers of the Mazdan religious group
- Tanistry is now available without Late Feudal Administration, both for Feudal and Tribal Celtics
- Fixed firing Advisors applying the "Revoked Honorary Title" opinion modifier on top of the "Fired from Council" opinion modifiers
- Merchant republics can now always move their capital to a city if their current capital is a castle
- Reintroduced the Bankruptcy character modifier, which reduces army morale by 25% when a ruler has negative wealth
- Councilors who have promised council support to someone will now vote their conscience if the person they're supporting is abstaining
- Commanders can now only be relieved via the Relieve Commander interaction and the Minor Titles screen, which unlike the Revoke Honorary Title interaction, do not incur an opinion penalty
- Retreating enemy armies are no longer considered hostile for the purpose of disbanding units
- Adjusted the 'opinion_unfaithful_husband' opinion modifier
- Adjusted the 'acknowledged_bastard' opinion modifier
- Doubled the positive opinion modifiers from granting landed titles to someone
- Vassals are now grateful when you build buildings in their Holdings
- Viceroyalty succession now overrides all succession law opinion modifiers for that title, since succession law has no effect
- If succession law affects both the youngest and oldest child, and someone is both, they now always get the best opinion modifier
- Fixed heirs not getting positive opinion modifiers from succession laws (E.G., oldest_child_opinion in primogeniture)
- Visigothic culture will no longer split when in a powerful Visigoth realm
- Ladies can now gain the viking trait(s)
- Switching religious branch as an Indian religion will now also switch that of your close kin (if non-zealous)
- The Magyars have a significantly larger army in the 867 invasion of Hungary, they will now win more often than not
- Hungarians led by the Árpád dynasty will always want to settle in Hungary if they have the chance
- When the historical Magyars settle in Hungary, more provinces will convert to Hungarian
- Dynamic mercenaries are no longer prevented from marrying
- Even Malcontent voters will now vote for additional council power laws, as it means they'll have more to say 'no' about
- Prisoners from major revolts can now be executed and released
- Significantly increased the chance of vassals joining Grand Tournaments/Furusiyyas
- Reduced the number of unnecessary courtiers generated; should somewhat improve performance
- Redid the Varangian Guard events from MTTH events to yearly pulse events
- Added AI weights to event HL.10531, where a mercenary leader would accept or decline an invitation to a feast, to make it less random
- Moved event SoA.5219 to yearly pulse from MTTH
- Increased the prestige gain from 'Groomed to Perfection'
- Moved the SoA 'wicked priest' events to the bi-yearly pulse from MTTH
- Retreating from battles and sieges now starts the day after you right-click, so that you can cancel it on the same day if you misclick
- Tribals who are Tengri/Altaic will now raise more Light Cavalry and less Heavy Infantry in their summoned Tribal Armies
- William now starts with slightly more Heavy Infantry in "The Stamford Bridge" bookmark, to give him a higher chance of gaining England
- Rulers can now change crown laws every 50 years, rather than once per lifetime (cooldown still removed on death)
- Opinion of predecessor is now also inherited in elective government types if the successor is a close relative of, or in the same dynasty as, the old ruler
- Crusades on titles without a crusade weight are now less likely if said title is not adjacent to territory of the crusader's religion
- Now possible to ask one's liege to press one's claim even if the liege council isn't allowed to vote on war declaration
- Courtiers who have minor titles, friends, lovers, consorts or rivals are now excluded from the court pruning system
- Immortal characters are now immune to pruning
- If subjugation wars are invalidated, the 'once per lifetime' subjugation is now refunded
- If a Muslim Invasion is invalidated, the piety will be refunded

Horse Lords:
- When conquering Nomad land (empty provinces) as a non-Nomadic character, the following will happen:
    - A basic Tribal holding will be constructed
    - The Nomad culture and religion will be preserved in the province
    - A 'Nomad Agitation' province modifier will be added, slightly increasing provincial revolt risk
- On succession, if a character holds provinces with Nomad Agitation they will automatically secede from the realm unless one of the following is true:
    - A Castle or City holding has been constructed in the province
    - (Only if Tribal) At least 2 buildings have been constructed in the province's Tribal Holding
- Provinces that secede because of Nomad Agitation will spawn a new Nomad ruler as per the culture/s of the released province/s
- If a newly seceded Nomad Ruler borders a Nomad of the same culture, they will join them as a Clan Chief
- If a Nomad conquers a province with Nomad Agitation, the modifier will be removed

- Raiding Adventurers can now properly invade & claim land from Nomads
    - If they are the same culture as the target, they will become a Nomadic Clan Chief
    - If they aren't the same culture they will become a Tribal Vassal

- Now when you choose to 'Settle as Tribal' as a Nomadic realm your Clan Chiefs will settle along with you

- The 'Pillage Holding' decision has been remade, it will now pillage the selected holding progressively (once every 6 months) until it's destroyed
    - When a holding is destroyed from pillaging you get an event containing some flavor
    - You can now pillage several holdings in the same province at once
    - You can at any time choose to 'Stop Pillaging' a holding by using a targeted decision
    - The Revolt Risk associated with pillaging is now capped at 30%
    - Claiming a pillaged province as a non-nomad now clears the revolt risk (other penalties still apply)
    - The revolts that spawn from pillaged provinces are now significant (no more 60-man whack-a-mole uprisings)
    - You can no longer choose to pillage enemy holdings manually, instead it's triggered by event (gain gold or prestige)

- When choosing to settle as a Nomad the provinces that flip to your culture will now try to border each other
- The AI logic for when Nomads want to settle has been changed slightly, certain Nomad personalities will take longer to settle
- If a settling Nomad has only one vassal of king-tier, they will now usurp that character's kingdom rather than create a custom empire

- The Silk Road has received the following changes:
    - The Silk Road has been extended by adding a new branch from Lut - passing through Rayy and Tabriz - to Trebizond
    - The southern part of the Silk Road has been updated to also pass through Dhofar, Socotra, Busaso and Taizz on the way to Alexandria
    - Increased the base wealth of the Silk Road to 122 from 100, to account for added provinces

That's all for now, but if you haven't already seen them, be sure to check out the various preview videos which are starting to appear on Youtube. Next week I will post the rest of the changes as well as showing the new Steam Achievements.
RIP promo art.png
Finally, here's some eyecandy to remind you of your impending demise
 
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What? Aren't barons already exempt from prestige penalty, since baron is practically only one rank above unlanded?

Isn't there always a prestige penalty for marrying below your rank, i.e. when a count marries a baron, and thus when a baron marry a commoner?

All I can find in the defines is this:

"MARRIAGE_TIER_DIFF_PRESTIGE_MULT = 100, -- Prestige multiplier from marrying below or above your rank."

Which combined with this line should make more barons than necessary avoid marrying anything but children of other barons, or above, since I suppose they don't care about alliances and such:

"MARRIAGE_AI_PRESTIGE_VALUE = 0.33 -- Multiplier for how highly AI values prestige when arranging marriages and evaluating marriage offers"


- - - - - - -



And when were on this topic, I just want to say that I think there should be a way for a baron to extend his power. Maybe just some plot to claim other holdings in the same or neighbouring province, and then the ability to declare war for a county capital.
 
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As I've said before, I'm just somewhat concerned with the addition of new sources for health, as it reminds me of how positive opinion inflated over time as more modifiers were added, and how the same happened with stats as more traits were added, to the point where the nerfs in the 2.5.X patch were pretty much nessessary. (I'm counting te new education system as a stat nerf, as by taking precise control over traits away, it had that effect.)
The main difference here is that diseases are more deadly now. There might be more sources of health indeed, but there's also more significant debuffs to health.
 
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Looking through the rest of the patch notes I think the following is set too low:
- AI no longer calls all allies into war, but only tries to get more than 1.25 times the opponent's strength
Sure a human would win with that sort of advantage but I'm not sure this is enough for the AI because it's not as efficient at gathering up its forces such as using ships to shuttle around and such.
 
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Regarding the tribalization of nomadic land upon it being conquered by a non-nomad, which of the following happens at the end of the war:

1. If the defender was a nomad, fire the moddable script (which checks the holdings and adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings and the attacker isn't a nomad),
2. If the attacker isn't a nomad and the defender was a nomad, fire the moddable script (which checks the holdings and adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings), or
3. If the attacker isn't a nomad, the defender was a nomad, and the province lacks holdings, fire the moddable script (which adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings)?

Or, to put it another way, can we mod the conditions for tribalization (e.g. "If there is a temple but no other holdings, turn that into a tribe", "If there is a well developed tribal holding, turn it into a castle right away if the attacker is non-tribal", or "If the attacker was a nomad, create a tribe/temple so that the defender's culture sticks around") as well as the actual tribalization?
 
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Isn't there always a prestige penalty for marrying below your rank, i.e. when a count marries a baron, and thus when a baron marry a commoner?
No, the penalty only applies when you marry more than one rank below yours. Emperor's sons can marry king's sons with no penalty.

Isn't that basically just a bug fix ? So no wrong direction, but reactivating something that used to work before.
Not when it comes to province modifiers. It "used to work before" because we don't have tons of character buff modifiers to collect before. Gotta catch-em all.
 
Regarding the tribalization of nomadic land upon it being conquered by a non-nomad, which of the following happens at the end of the war:

1. If the defender was a nomad, fire the moddable script (which checks the holdings and adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings and the attacker isn't a nomad),
2. If the attacker isn't a nomad and the defender was a nomad, fire the moddable script (which checks the holdings and adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings), or
3. If the attacker isn't a nomad, the defender was a nomad, and the province lacks holdings, fire the moddable script (which adds a tribal holding if there are no holdings)?

Or, to put it another way, can we mod the conditions for tribalization (e.g. "If there is a temple but no other holdings, turn that into a tribe", "If there is a well developed tribal holding, turn it into a castle right away if the attacker is non-tribal", or "If the attacker was a nomad, create a tribe/temple so that the defender's culture sticks around") as well as the actual tribalization?
It doesn't check attacker/defender, it's an event triggered on the on_new_holder 'on action' pulse. It checks if the new holder is nomad or not, and if the province is empty (or only has a temple) it adds a tribe. It's fully moddable, you can change any aspect of this behavior easily.
 
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Looking through the rest of the patch notes I think the following is set too low:
- AI no longer calls all allies into war, but only tries to get more than 1.25 times the opponent's strength
Sure a human would win with that sort of advantage but I'm not sure this is enough for the AI because it's not as efficient at gathering up its forces such as using ships to shuttle around and such.
This is a define, though: DESIRED_ALLIANCE_MULTIPLIER_STRENGTH_IN_WARS, so you can set it up at a higher value if you so desire.
And after double checking, it is now at 1.5 in the defines file.
 
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Anything on whether the bug that causes tyranny amongst your vassals for executing random foreigners has been fixed?

That will definitely need to be fixed before Reapers comes out... ;)
 
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This is a define, though: DESIRED_ALLIANCE_MULTIPLIER_STRENGTH_IN_WARS, so you can set it up at a higher value if you so desire.
And after double checking, it is now at 1.5 in the defines file.
That's good it just seems to me that if they AI can call upon greater than a 25% advantage it should do so but not say going for a full 400% advantage a la calling the HRE in for a county conquest.
 
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forgive me for the poor formatting of this post i'm not too familiar with this forum.

as the author of this world conquest http://imgur.com/a/FzHDT i was hoping for a more robust set of balance changes. i suggested a series of balance changes in the thread here on the paradox forums (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/world-conquest.920272/#post-20970124) which received considerably less attention. i stand by each as being necessary, or at the least beneficial.

my suggestions at that time were:

negative piety actions should require at least that much piety. you shouldn't be able to imprison etc. if you do not have sufficient piety.

abdicating should not be a boon to the player. upon abdicating, the former ruler should be left with like one county to live out the rest of their days in disgrace. yes, this opens up a second way to downgrade your title, but i feel like this is still less abusive than being able to choose the moment of succession every generation, as you can now.

religious control mandate should be reworked somehow. i don't have a good idea on how, but it is clearly overpowered and you shouldn't be in a better situation when you as the ruler have the aberrant faith.

pagan invasion should probably be limited beyond just diplomatic range. i suggest requiring a border with the prospective belligerent.


the piety issue i think is the most significant imbalance in the game as it stands right now and i am quite surprised it is not fixed. i'm not sure i see the value in allowing players to exploit piety penalties in the manner they currently can.

now it appears that the balance changes do in some respect address the second and third issues of the list. i see that "When a Tyranny war is lost while the Conclave DLC is enabled, the title revocation law will be revoked" which is a nice change, but can be worked around too easily to actually provide a deterrent to abdicating. the new ruler presumaby will have an available law change, and so instantly bumping it back up from no revocation to religious control mandate really only requires the creation of one top-level title. and non-power gamers need only wait five years.

the religious control mandate change is probably the most thematically sensible fix available and i may be wrong in suggesting it is not the ideal one. "Even with the law that allows revocation and retraction from religious enemies, their religious brethren among your vassals will now still be upset." this makes it much more difficult to constantly get god-vassals via religious control mandate, but doesn't solve the issue of realm-wide purges. however, it is possible solving that problem is not worth the attendant issues
 
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Unless I missed something looks like Arabs are still going to invade Nubia/Abyssinia as fast as they can, and potentially whoever is in southern France is going to shoot for Tlemecen as well quite a few centuries early.
 
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AI will use Tribal Armies - now that could turn into nasty game changer for those of us near tribal AIs.
So far, Tribal Armies was how player blobbed like crazy, now if you are a tribal and your neighbor has this lovely 500 prestige and you don't, good luck :)

It is kinda fair though. Always thought they should use them, especially when about to be exterminated, they should turn the prestige into man power.
 
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Has the bug with de-jure drift in custom titles (listed as a "known issue" here and here) been fixed?
 
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It's really nice to see that the Silk Road has been extended, but I do have to question why the opportunity to add Constantinople wasn't taken. While I recall it being said that Paradox doesn't want to add in every single last route of the silk road - which is understandable - it's not as if Constantinople was a particularly unimportant route during this time.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is because in most cases it would boost the Byzantine emperor who is one character who doesn't really need any additional help.
 
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Some open questions..

1) What requirement whould that be ?

2 )Does the AI know that ?
Meaning while having 25% less morale will they still declare wars against big enemies (which they then have a better chance to lose) ?

3) Both ? Youngest and oldest at the same time ?
I'm sure i'm misunderstanding something here...

4) We got to hear of less muslim women generated (as Islam had more generated women in the first place),
but is there any other random characters affected and if so which ?


5) I hope both actions still have a good chnace to succed, not to make Spy On usless in the end, apart from revealing dirty secrets of that character.

6) Every 90 days ?
That sounds nearly like hedonistic Berlin to me. :eek: :rolleyes:
500 cut to 90. Isn't a bit too extreme ?

7) Which one exactly would that be if i may ask ?

Numbered to address a few of your remarks.

1) The requirement was literally in the statement you quoted. Re-read it.
3) If you're an only child, or an only son, you're clearly both youngest and oldest. Is this what you are misunderstanding?
4) They talked about this some in the previous dev diary. It wasn't all super-specific, but it is a bit more info.
6) I dunno, I thought it was kind of silly that you could only have a small party with your friends every 1.5 years while you were focusing on partying. 90 days for getting the guys together seems pretty reasonable.
7) The one for getting seduction rebuff. There's a opinion modifer for it.
 
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Unless I missed something looks like Arabs are still going to invade Nubia/Abyssinia as fast as they can, and potentially whoever is in southern France is going to shoot for Tlemecen as well quite a few centuries early.
Having just completed an Ethiopian game I was pretty happy that the Sultan of Egypt kept declaring on me whenever I was weak. Not only did this add challenge but it makes sense too in that it is an easy way for the Sultan of Egypt to become more powerful, if I was playing that character I would take all of Abyssinia whilst waiting for my shot at the Caliph.

Essentially I don't think the AI should be geographically locked from expanding in certain directions especially when it is obviously beneficial to do so.
 
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AI will use Tribal Armies - now that could turn into nasty game changer for those of us near tribal AIs..

What do you think of this patch note?

- Tribals who are Tengri/Altaic will now raise more Light Cavalry and less Heavy Infantry in their summoned Tribal Armies

I think it is a nice touch, though it would be nice if tribal realms could get some cultural buildings too which would upgrade to feudal versions later (to give some more variation to various realms)
 
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