CK2 Dev Diary - The Rules of the Game

[Lhutien]

Ck2 GO sounds like a bad idea, because we're most likely going to murder everyone we meet to inherit their lands

 

[Thure]

In before Paradox announces "CK2 Go"

Kill your neighbors and claim their garden?

 

[Dracko81]

I'm not trespassing, this is my land!

 

[SigurdStormhand]

It is where all the Pokemon are.

That's a lie!

There are Pokemon in my kitchen.

 

[klopkr]

For future reference:

• Major Epidemic: Dynamic/Delayed Dynamic/Historical/Deadly
• Minor Epidemics: Default/More/Deadly
• Mongol Invasion: Historical/Random/Off
• Sunset Invasion: 13th Century/Random/Off
• Shattered Retreats: On/Off
• Defensive Pacts: On/Off
• Gender Equality: Default/Historical/All
• “Supernatural” Events: On/Off
• De Jure Drift: Default/Restricted/Off
• De Jure Assimilation Duration: Default/Longer/Shortest/Shorter
• Culture Conversion: Default/Restricted/Faster Melting Pots/Slower Conversion/Combination
• Religious Conversion Speed: Default/Slower
• Raiding: Historical/Unrestricted/None
• Adventurers: Normal/Rare/None
• Interfaith Marriages: Restricted/Open
• Matrilineal Marriage: On/Off
• Custom Realms: On/Off
• Story Events: On/Off
• Vassal Republics: Restricted/Unrestricted
• Vassal Theocracies: Restricted/Unrestricted
• Invitation to Court: Default/Open
• Diplomatic Range: On/Restricted/Off
• Regencies: On/Off
• Provincial Revolts: Normal/Rare/None
• Defensive Attrition: On/Tribal Only/Off
• Pagan Reformation: Allowed/Disallowed/Player Only
• Assassination: Plots Only/Direct Action
• AI Seduction: On/Off
• AI Intrigue: On/Off

Thanks to Moah

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

What would be the point?
The mere fact that they put shattered retreat and defensive pacts as game rules which does not disable achievements, shows that they acknowledge that these features divide the community. This is sufficient to address these major concerns (even if the next step would be to improve defensive pacts but this is another story).

The point would be that they manned up and said they did wrong. As a customer, its nice to hear a company admit their bad. Yes its nice that they added the features, but it'd also be nice if we got to hear them directly comment on the features and just outright say yes we understand what we did.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

The point would be that they manned up and said they did wrong. As a customer, its nice to hear a company admit their bad. Yes its nice that they added the features, but it'd also be nice if we got to hear them directly comment on the features and just outright say yes we understand what we did.

The point is that not everyone considers them (especially defensive pacts) to have been a bad idea. I mean, the concept that you can be beaten in a battle, retreat a province, and then *before* your unit responds to your commands to move again be back in combat and auto-lose is fairly bad as well. Defensive pacts struck me as a fairly decent concept - your conquests actually worry those around you, and if you go all out, then they'll be tempted to do something about it; at least initially the pacts are religion based, but with the likelyhood of joining one being based on distance. Those people who are getting the steppes hordes forming a pact against them when they're based in Portugal might just be conquering a little too quickly for everyone else's peace of mind...

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Well, first of all, Doomdark is on record saying the automatic CtA was a bad idea and while the mechanic remains in the engine it has been completely removed from the vanilla game. So let's be clear that when they honestly believe they have screwed up Pdx devs come out and say so.

Having said that, the fact that neither Shattered Retreat nor Defensive Pacts will influence achievements if deactivated amounts to a tacit admission that these features have neither been well received nor have they had the desired affect on game play. It may well be true that not everybody hates these mechanics but I have yet to see anyone mount a really strong defence of them. More often than not people will say things like, "I think it's a good idea but..."

So I think you're both partially right - and I think Paradox has done the right thing by giving people a free choice on whether or not they use these features. I don't need a public apology because I can just turn off Pacts and forget they ever existed.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Well, first of all, Doomdark is on record saying the automatic CtA was a bad idea and while the mechanic remains in the engine it has been completely removed from the vanilla game. So let's be clear that when they honestly believe they have screwed up Pdx devs come out and say so.

Having said that, the fact that neither Shattered Retreat nor Defensive Pacts will influence achievements if deactivated amounts to a tacit admission that these features have neither been well received nor have they had the desired affect on game play. It may well be true that not everybody hates these mechanics but I have yet to see anyone mount a really strong defence of them. More often than not people will say things like, "I think it's a good idea but..."

So I think you're both partially right - and I think Paradox has done the right thing by giving people a free choice on whether or not they use these features. I don't need a public apology because I can just turn off Pacts and forget they ever existed.

The thing is? Dare to say you like a change that Paradox have made, and you're instantly labelled as a shill or a "fanboi". It's also really difficult to present a strong defense when what you're arguing against is "Paradox are the devil! They made this change that I hate and want reverted! If you don't agree that the change should be reverted you're wrong or a sockpuppet!". (I'm exaggerating slightly, but that's the direction some of the threads went).

It's really difficult to present a rabid defense of a nice change, since what can you really say? "I really like the change that was made and it's improved my game"? Even then you've still got the possibility of that coming with a caveat, since it's virtually impossible for any one person to be completely satisfied by the changes. Personally I'd want the defensive pacts to be harsher in some ways - it's still too easy to essentially destroy one of the smaller religions or cultures in two generations.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

The thing is? Dare to say you like a change that Paradox have made, and you're instantly labelled as a shill or a "fanboi". It's also really difficult to present a strong defense when what you're arguing against is "Paradox are the devil! They made this change that I hate and want reverted! If you don't agree that the change should be reverted you're wrong or a sockpuppet!". (I'm exaggerating slightly, but that's the direction some of the threads went).

It's really difficult to present a rabid defense of a nice change, since what can you really say? "I really like the change that was made and it's improved my game"? Even then you've still got the possibility of that coming with a caveat, since it's virtually impossible for any one person to be completely satisfied by the changes. Personally I'd want the defensive pacts to be harsher in some ways - it's still too easy to essentially destroy one of the smaller religions or cultures in two generations.

I think you're a bit off base here. I almost feel like you're responding to someone else's post.

I never said, "The thing is..." so I don't know where that's come from.

Paradoxplaza is not a very civilised place, it's about middling between the really nice forums out there and the real cesspits. Some people here can be really nasty, I wasn't disputing that. However, there have been a number of very reasoned criticisms of Defensive Pacts in particular. I wrote one just the other week when I used Basil the Macedonian to demonstrate that it's possible to hand the Muslims an almost day-one kicking and take five Duchies before they even imagine forming a Pact, and the result is you trip over 75% Threat and the Christians band with the Muslims to oppose you in your righteous holy war to drive the Muslims out of Christian lands.

Nobody was able to present a defence of the scenario - a few people tried to say "well, all that expansion will make the Christians nervous" but that was quickly countered by pointing out that just because a big scary Empire got bigger and scarier, it's not going to make Christian go to war to protect Muslims.

I would say you're also off base in thinking Pacts are more popular than Shattered Retreat. I would say it's exactly the opposite. Most of the criticisms over Shattered Retreat are based around armies marching from one Kingdom to the other, which I'm pretty sure is a bug. I'd say Shattered Retreat is probably close to 50/50 in terms of support. On the other hand I would say that a clear majority of players want, at the least, the ability to turn Defensive Pacts off even if they might turn them back on when - say - playing the Mongols.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

The point is that not everyone considers them (especially defensive pacts) to have been a bad idea. I mean, the concept that you can be beaten in a battle, retreat a province, and then *before* your unit responds to your commands to move again be back in combat and auto-lose is fairly bad as well. Defensive pacts struck me as a fairly decent concept - your conquests actually worry those around you, and if you go all out, then they'll be tempted to do something about it; at least initially the pacts are religion based, but with the likelyhood of joining one being based on distance. Those people who are getting the steppes hordes forming a pact against them when they're based in Portugal might just be conquering a little too quickly for everyone else's peace of mind...

I don't know about you, but I play CK2 for the historical aspect. Defensive pacts completely destroyed any sense of historical accuracy in the game. Especially when I was the Byzantine Empire, who is Orthodox 300 years early, and the Pope & lots of Christians all joined in a Defensive Pact against me for conquering the Muslims and Pagans. I'm pretty sure they'd be singing my praises for bringing Christ to so many people. The idea of a Defensive Pact never occurred on a large scale during this time period. Its not possible, communication wasn't good enough and most people wanted nothing to do with their neighbors. No one even formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols when they were terrorizing the whole bloody known world. The Muslims didn't say, "Hey Christians, I know we have our religious differences but lets put that behind us and attack the Mongols together!" Nope, never happened. So if that never happened what makes anyone think that they'd have the capability of collectively combating any other type of major threat.

Not to mention that waiting for threat to tick down and battling coalitions is probably the most boring experience I've ever had the displeasure of participating in a video game. Coalitions are very much beatable, its just so boring. You have to sit there and slog through lots of troops and its like whack a mole. There's 10k troops to your left; smash. There's 15k troops to the North; smash. Etc, etc. Its just dull and in the end after a horribly boring experience you finally win. How fun.

 

[Thure]

I don't know about you, but I play CK2 for the historical aspect. Defensive pacts completely destroyed any sense of historical accuracy in the game. Especially when I was the Byzantine Empire, who is Orthodox 300 years early, and the Pope & lots of Christians all joined in a Defensive Pact against me for conquering the Muslims and Pagans. I'm pretty sure they'd be singing my praises for bringing Christ to so many people. The idea of a Defensive Pact never occurred on a large scale during this time period. Its not possible, communication wasn't good enough and most people wanted nothing to do with their neighbors. No one even formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols when they were terrorizing the whole bloody known world. The Muslims didn't say, "Hey Christians, I know we have our religious differences but lets put that behind us and attack the Mongols together!" Nope, never happened. So if that never happened what makes anyone think that they'd have the capability of collectively combating any other type of major threat.

So... you don't knowing much about the middle ages is the reason. No one formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols? The Russian principialities did ally to each other to face the Russians. The Fatimides tried (and did shortly) to ally with the Crusader States against the Seljuqs.
Hell... even the France king tried to make a pact with the Mongols against the Muslims.
In Iberia and Anatolia you have a lot of exemples of Christians and Muslims allying to each other against threats. As Leon expanded to much the ruler of Castille allied with the Muslim taifas against the Leonese king.
Things like this did happen. The pacts were not as large as ingame... but they DID happen. Religiouse differences weren't that big of a problem.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

So... you don't knowing much about the middle ages is the reason. No one formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols? The Russian principialities did ally to each other to face the Russians. The Fatimides tried (and did shortly) to ally with the Crusader States against the Seljuqs.
Hell... even the France king tried to make a pact with the Mongols against the Muslims.
In Iberia and Anatolia you have a lot of exemples of Christians and Muslims allying to each other against threats. As Leon expanded to much the ruler of Castille allied with the Muslim taifas against the Leonese king.
Things like this did happen. The pacts were not as large as ingame... but they DID happen. Religiouse differences weren't that big of a problem.

Nobody's saying Inter-Faith Alliances never happened, we're saying that huge defensive pacts didn't spring up instantly, and they certainly didn't last for decades. Such alliances in the Early Middle Ages are much remarked upon because they were rare, unlikely, and often the fruit of the efforts of extraordinary men of great vision and ability. In the later Middle Ages religion gradually became less important than immediate political concerns, but that was later.

If Pacts were complex alliances with their own management and even chains, similar to plot and/or Factions I'd be all for them. They aren't that, though.

 

[raistlin_wizard]

So... you don't knowing much about the middle ages is the reason. No one formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols? The Russian principialities did ally to each other to face the Russians. The Fatimides tried (and did shortly) to ally with the Crusader States against the Seljuqs.
Hell... even the France king tried to make a pact with the Mongols against the Muslims.
In Iberia and Anatolia you have a lot of exemples of Christians and Muslims allying to each other against threats. As Leon expanded to much the ruler of Castille allied with the Muslim taifas against the Leonese king.
Things like this did happen. The pacts were not as large as ingame... but they DID happen. Religiouse differences weren't that big of a problem.

Most of your examples are pacts between two nations of different religion aganist a common threat. This is historical and should happen more often than it does. (Maybe due to the interfaith marriage thing. I know it's possible now, but it's still very restricted). But it's precisely the scale coalitions get what makes them not right.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Having said that, the fact that neither Shattered Retreat nor Defensive Pacts will influence achievements if deactivated amounts to a tacit admission that these features have neither been well received nor have they had the desired affect on game play. It may well be true that not everybody hates these mechanics but I have yet to see anyone mount a really strong defence of them. More often than not people will say things like, "I think it's a good idea but..."

You can understand this fact in a more neutral way. Setting these features with game rules (not forbidding achievements) can be understood as PDX acknowledging that players were divided by these features* (and want to give ways for every players to set their own preferences). Understanding this as "PDX tacitly admits that these features weren't well accepted nor efficient" seem kind of a big leap to me (some kind of confirmatory bias).

* the fact that we are going again debating about them, despite the number of previous over-length threads, proves this point.

Personally, I prefer shattered retreat over not having them. Defensive pacts annoy me sometimes (do not really add difficulty but lengthen the wars) but I'd rather play with them active. I'm really waiting for some tweaking (especially around religion and defensive pact leader) which would make them a bit better, since I like the idea. I'm just glad I get the choice to activate/deactivate them; more choice is almost always better in this game.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

You can understand this fact in a more neutral way. Setting these features with game rules (not forbidding achievements) can be understood as PDX acknowledging that players were divided by these features* (and want to give ways for every players to set their own preferences). Understanding this as "PDX tacitly admits that these features weren't well accepted nor efficient" seem kind of a big leap to me (some kind of confirmatory bias).

* the fact that we are going again debating about them, despite the number of previous over-length threads, proves this point.

Personally, I prefer shattered retreat over not having them. Defensive pacts annoy me sometimes (do not really add difficulty but lengthen the wars) but I'd rather play with them active. I'm really waiting for some (especially around religion and defensive pact leader) which would make them a bit better, since I like the idea. I'm just glad I get the choice to activate/deactivate them; more choice is almost always better in this game.

I think I was fairly even handed. You cannot describe these features as "well received" when at least half the players don't like them. To describe them as well received you would need a clear majority in favour. This is why the "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 60%, not 50%. The DLC is currently rated 43% on Steam, and it hasn't risen above 46% in at least four months. Most of that is down to opinions on the patch, though, rather than the DLC.

As far as performing their intended function, it's arguable that Shattered Retreat more-or-less prevents stack wipes, but at the same time it can do strange and annoying things. In reality the AI tends to "yo-yo" back into battle, so the end result is the same. Only the player is smart enough to flee back home when beaten. Defensive Pacts flat out don't prevent blobbing or really slow it down.

Assassination is another popular feature - but turning it on will disable achievements. Turning off Shattering and Pacts won't. That speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned.

 

[raistlin_wizard]

I think I was fairly even handed. You cannot describe these features as "well received" when at least half the players don't like them. To describe them as well received you would need a clear majority in favour. This is why the "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 60%, not 50%. The DLC is currently rated 43% on Steam, and it hasn't risen above 46% in at least four months. Most of that is down to opinions on the patch, though, rather than the DLC.

As far as performing their intended function, it's arguable that Shattered Retreat more-or-less prevents stack wipes, but at the same time it can do strange and annoying things. In reality the AI tends to "yo-yo" back into battle, so the end result is the same. Only the player is smart enough to flee back home when beaten. Defensive Pacts flat out don't prevent blobbing or really slow it down.

Assassination is another popular feature - but turning it on will disable achievements. Turning off Shattering and Pacts won't. That speaks volumes as far as I'm concerned.

And that adds to the nerf on opinion boosts with Conclave. Now is even harder to get an assassination going.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

And that adds to the nerf on opinion boosts with Conclave. Now is even harder to get an assassination going.

I have a thought on that, but I'm going to wait until Reaper's Due drops, there has been some balancing done, so we need to see how that pans out.

 

[klopkr]

I really like the new game rules coming out but I think there are still some more than can be added before release:

Nomads: On/Off
Tribal: On/Off
Provincial Revolts: Normal/Rare/None/Powerful
De Jure CB: Default/Global/Off
Tribal Becomes Republic: Never/Occasionally/Often
River Navigation: Historical/Global
Multiplayer Assassinations: Default/AI targets only
Grant Independence: Default/Unrestricted (I don't even understand why it's restricted in the first place)
Global Wealth: Default/Low/High
Global Levy: Default/Low/High
Vassal limit: Default/Half/None

I tried to pick game rules that shouldn't take too much dev time to throw in.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

So... you don't knowing much about the middle ages is the reason. No one formed a Defensive Pact against the Mongols? The Russian principialities did ally to each other to face the Russians. The Fatimides tried (and did shortly) to ally with the Crusader States against the Seljuqs.
Hell... even the France king tried to make a pact with the Mongols against the Muslims.
In Iberia and Anatolia you have a lot of exemples of Christians and Muslims allying to each other against threats. As Leon expanded to much the ruler of Castille allied with the Muslim taifas against the Leonese king.
Things like this did happen. The pacts were not as large as ingame... but they DID happen. Religiouse differences weren't that big of a problem.

None of those is a single example of a Defensive Pact. You literally just listed a bunch of alliances between around two people. I know quite a bit about the Medieval period and what is displayed in game is inaccurate. No one made anything other than small alliances during the Medieval period, there was no such thing as Defensive Pacts. Considering how the majority of the reviews on the patch are negative and mention Defensive Pacts and shattered retreat it seems the majority of the community shares my opinion.

Also this is like the third time I've responded to someone who threw out this exact same argument about alliances being defensive pacts...

Well, first of all, Doomdark is on record saying the automatic CtA was a bad idea and while the mechanic remains in the engine it has been completely removed from the vanilla game. So let's be clear that when they honestly believe they have screwed up Pdx devs come out and say so.

Having said that, the fact that neither Shattered Retreat nor Defensive Pacts will influence achievements if deactivated amounts to a tacit admission that these features have neither been well received nor have they had the desired affect on game play. It may well be true that not everybody hates these mechanics but I have yet to see anyone mount a really strong defence of them. More often than not people will say things like, "I think it's a good idea but..."

So I think you're both partially right - and I think Paradox has done the right thing by giving people a free choice on whether or not they use these features. I don't need a public apology because I can just turn off Pacts and forget they ever existed.

I want a public apology because of the crap they tried to pull in the very beginning. How they blatantly told their customers that they were wrong about not liking the features. They also basically said that their customers were lying about the patch and tried to show us magic ways to enjoy the patch that the majority did not like.