CK2 Dev Diary #46: Surveying the Survey

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Rageair, some interesting statistics there . Poor old Sunset Invasion - no surprise it got what it got in the survey, but doesn't mean I can't have sympathy for it. Similar surprise factor with Old Gods being so popular . Biggest surprise for me was to see favours so out of favour (I know Conclave was divisive, but personally thought favours were a good mechanic, both from a gameplay and plausibility* perspective).

* noting their highly abstracted implementation, but there's a lot of high level abstractions in CK2, so it's not like they stand out here.

 

[Woifee]

I hope you aren't seeing these results as a request for more start dates...

I would love to see one or two mire start dates. Just not earlier ones. One would be nice starting wenn Otto formed the HRE. or some time before with him having Claims on all needed titles.

 

[Woifee]

They could just troll us even further by giving us another Sunset Invasion, but instead of the Aztecs invading Europe, the Chinese will invade India. How about that?

Hell Invasion: Demons raising and attacking on different places on the map. Members of satanic cults can ally them.

 

[Faerillis]

I'm a little surprised The Republic was not one of the three least-used DLCs. Republics are fun, but I reckoned the paucity of starts compared to say, the Sword of Islam, would have seen it drop. Maybe we're all still hunting those elusive 80 trade posts?



I wouldn't want to see the timeline going back any further, but filling in some of the gaps between the earlier start dates? Count me in! Would love the histories between 869 and 1066 to be populated so we could do battle with folk like Cnut the Great, ruler of Denmark, England and Norway.

Consider all the people who form Norse Merchant Republics

 

[TheDungen]

"You can't dislike what I liiiiike! Waaaah!"

Get off it.

More like "You can't not dislike what I dislike! Waaaah!"

 

[Fishman786]

More like "You can't not dislike what I dislike! Waaaah!"

We live in a strange time where being offended is offensive in itself. It's impossible to have any kind of critical opinion without somebody crying about you being 'butthurt' or making baby noises.

 

[Lord DM]

I got to say I'm in agreement with the anti sunset league. Bought it but never activated it,
By the way. This is my first note on the forums all though I've been playing the games for the last 5-6 years.
So in the spirit of beginners luck. Please for the love of all that is holy add a new starting date.
*cough* King Arthur late 5c* cough*

 

[Daser von Wulf]

Sunset Invasion will have its day, I swear it

 

[Manic Eskimo]

New start dates or a map expansion are all that matters to me. After playing almost every starting position from 769 to 1066 the only thing that will add a new challenge is an entirely new start. I don't care if it's filling in between 769 -1066 or an earlier start date. The gameplay factor would add much more enjoyment than any historical inaccuracies.

To those that vehemently hate the idea of a start date pre 769 for inaccuracy reasons. Are you as upset by M&M adding a bunch of fantasy stuff to the game?

Also I'd recommend trying out 'When the World Stopped Making Sense' mod. It's great.

 

[plussocram]

• New Events - With an overwhelming majority of 73,16% appreciating this type of addition very much.

• New Starting Dates - With 51,53% appreciating this type of addition very much.

• Reworked Previously Existing Features - With 44,25% appreciating this type of addition very much.

• Expanded Map - With 38,94% appreciating this type of addition very much.

• New Succession Laws - With 29,16% appreciating this type of addition very much.

• Interface Skins - With 25,24% appreciating this type of addition very much.

I honestly would like like new events or a rework of previous features like being able to set 1 rival 1 friend and 1 lover (maybe it could be expanded dependent on your life style choice). I could live with new start dates between the current save dates but I myself am not as intrested as others. I don't know if you guys ment Expand Map as more locations or that the map itself will get more love (I would like a HIP like map). Succession laws could be a hit or miss dependent on where and how since most people just go for primogeniture or elective if their dynasty is large. I am actually a big fan of new skins since I hate the defoult ones and like the variability and uniqueness it adds. So for me at least I want to see reworking previous features the most.

 

[TheDungen]

We live in a strange time where being offended is offensive in itself. It's impossible to have any kind of critical opinion without somebody crying about you being 'butthurt' or making baby noises.

Well I only really do it to people who do it themselves. And I know that eye for an eye is not really a good idea but sometimes I can't help myself.

 

[Werther]

I see that in the comments, everybody seems to love SI and disagree with people who don't like it. Sorry, but i hate it, it's the only CK2 (or of any Paradox Game) DLC that i don't have. I can understand it's "fun" for some people, but i just don't want Paradox to waste time on silly stuff. I say nothing about the growing number of fantasy stuff in the DLC that i never use, but SI was too much and broke my "suspension of disbelief". I am maybe a minority here, but i discovered Para games and love them for the historical context and plausibility. As a person who studied medieval history in university, i am still amazed by a game which want to recreate the medieval period, that's why i still love CK2. But I hate fantasy stuff, because we come back to some movies and video games clichés about the period, because i can find 2 billions other games with demons in Middle Age, because there are so maaaany historical features/mechanics that can still be added to the game, and choosing to spend their time on crazy stuff is sad.

 

[Serenity84]

I see that in the comments, everybody seems to love SI and disagree with people who don't like it.

No. People just don't get the outsized hatred for something that can so easily be ignored and turned off.

but i just don't want Paradox to waste time on silly stuff

It didn't waste time because it was mostly developed during people's spare time. It was a side project that didn't take development time from the main DLC.

The satanist stuff in M&M is different as focusing so much on that actually detracted from other content.

 

[Ashlantean]

For me, I would like both 1000 AD and 1100 AD as start Dates. Especially the 1100 Start Date as that was when Henry I of England started his reign, and it would be a wonderful way to see and Alternate History develop out of that.

Did you know that 1100 is already available as a start date? You can pick any date between 15 Sep 1066 and 1 Jan 1337 to play using custom game setup. Forgive me if I've misunderstood and you simply meant you wanted 1100 included as an explicit bookmark.

Spoiler: Henry I, 1100

I'm going to speculate a little now. I'd love the timeline between 867-1066 to be filled out. From the OP it seems a lot of folk really like playing pagans and there's a lot of feisty stuff going on in Scandinavia and the British Isles during that time for sure. Where it all falls down though is that the timeline has to be filled in everywhere, for everyone, to a high standard and timeline expansion is probably one of the most labour intensive things Paradox could do for the game at this stage.

For a larger timeline you have to populate the history files for thousands of counties, duchies, kingdoms and empires with data for when people have held them. You have to create those people that hold them. You may want to sprinkle some of those people with unique stats or abilities. Then add in spouses, children, dynastic relations. Make sure they're all connected to the right people/families. Put them with the right cultures. Make sure the thousands of provinces are all owned by the right duchies/kingdoms etc. at the right time. Then make that work not just for a single start date, but for 365 possible dates in dozens, scores, hundreds of years. There's a lot of work involved, lots of things that need to go right and lots of things that can go wrong.

One of the biggest timeline expansions Paradox did was boldly adding in ~270 playable years for the Indian subcontinent all at once. It was ambitious and it held up well in the early bookmarks. But if you tried a later bookmark or chose a random later year, you'd find provinces without lords, provinces with lords that had been alive 500 years. Emperors with 200 personal holdings when you clicked start. It was a a real mess.

India revealed what a big job it is to try and widen the timeline at scale (albeit, there were more than just histories added for that expansion). They avoided a repeat with Charlemagne by making only 769 playable. Which still involves intensive, laborious work in the history files, but it's only for a single perfect date in 769.

None of this is to say Paradox couldn't attempt a timeline expansion, or add more one-off start dates. But in the case of the former, I think the dev team would have to get bigger/the DLC would have to get pricier. In the case of the latter, we already have the best pre-1066 dates we could get and anything post-1337 there's too little time before the 1452 cut-off.

This is all not to mention that we all play the 769/867/1066 starts near exclusively, near nothing afterwards and rarely ever reach 1452. Chances are most of us wouldn't even make use of any extra timeline we had to play with. As such, future expansions will probably be all about features and enriching the start dates we already have. (And no doubt now I've said this, next DLC will be Agincourt: Finish the Fight!)

 

[Fishman786]

I see that in the comments, everybody seems to love SI and disagree with people who don't like it. Sorry, but i hate it, it's the only CK2 (or of any Paradox Game) DLC that i don't have. I can understand it's "fun" for some people, but i just don't want Paradox to waste time on silly stuff. I say nothing about the growing number of fantasy stuff in the DLC that i never use, but SI was too much and broke my "suspension of disbelief". I am maybe a minority here, but i discovered Para games and love them for the historical context and plausibility. As a person who studied medieval history in university, i am still amazed by a game which want to recreate the medieval period, that's why i still love CK2. But I hate fantasy stuff, because we come back to some movies and video games clichés about the period, because i can find 2 billions other games with demons in Middle Age, because there are so maaaany historical features/mechanics that can still be added to the game, and choosing to spend their time on crazy stuff is sad.

I'm probably in the same boat, as I don't have a massive problem with Sunset Invasion, but I don't really use it either. Mainly because these days I want to do megacampaigns where colonisation happens in the EUIV period, but also sometimes I'd rather things remain within the bounds of plausibility.

I've got more of an issue with the overtly-supernatural events in MnM because unlike Sunset Invasion they're not part of some optional silly openly-ahistorical expansion pack, but instead they're a big chunk of a 'proper' dlc. It's a kind of direction change that I don't like. I've got no problem with ambiguously-supernatural content at all, in fact I think it's great as they vastly improve immersion. People in the middle ages actually believed in magic and miracles, they were a perfectly normal and accepted part of the world. Having that ambiguity about whether you've been chosen by Jesus or possessed by the devil or maybe just suffer from some affliction is probably a unique experience in the gaming world. But I am a lot less fond of having any unambigious magic system in the game, and it's not a direction I want to see Crusader Kings travelling in the future.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Then make that work not just for a single start date, but for 365 possible dates in dozens, scores, hundreds of years. There's a lot of work involved, lots of things that need to go right and lots of things that can go wrong.

I fully agree that adding new bookmarks is a Herculean job---especially between 769 and 1066 where sources are much scarcer than between 1337 and 1453.
When adding whole years they aren't actually making 365 individual start dates for each individual year. What happens is that the history files state whenever somebody took control of a specific county, when various titles were made/destroyed, etc. And then all these start dates are done "dynamically"; in that the history files are read and things are loaded into the game if they're "current". Similarly for characters alive.

Though again it's a Herculean task to add, since you need to have the history files filled out without holes for the eras where you want every day to be slectable. And as seen with India in the later start dates it's easy to miss including full ruler histories for some counties.

 

[Fishman786]

Did you know that 1100 is already available as a start date? You can pick any date between 15 Sep 1066 and 1 Jan 1337 to play using custom game setup. Forgive me if I've misunderstood and you simply meant you wanted 1100 included as an explicit bookmark.

Spoiler: Henry I, 1100

View attachment 248618

I'm going to speculate a little now. I'd love the timeline between 867-1066 to be filled out. From the OP it seems a lot of folk really like playing pagans and there's a lot of feisty stuff going on in Scandinavia and the British Isles during that time for sure. Where it all falls down though is that the timeline has to be filled in everywhere, for everyone, to a high standard and timeline expansion is probably one of the most labour intensive things Paradox could do for the game at this stage.

For a larger timeline you have to populate the history files for thousands of counties, duchies, kingdoms and empires with data for when people have held them. You have to create those people that hold them. You may want to sprinkle some of those people with unique stats or abilities. Then add in spouses, children, dynastic relations. Make sure they're all connected to the right people/families. Put them with the right cultures. Make sure the thousands of provinces are all owned by the right duchies/kingdoms etc. at the right time. Then make that work not just for a single start date, but for 365 possible dates in dozens, scores, hundreds of years. There's a lot of work involved, lots of things that need to go right and lots of things that can go wrong.

One of the biggest timeline expansions Paradox did was boldly adding in ~270 playable years for the Indian subcontinent all at once. It was ambitious and it held up well in the early bookmarks. But if you tried a later bookmark or chose a random later year, you'd find provinces without lords, provinces with lords that had been alive 500 years. Emperors with 200 personal holdings when you clicked start. It was a a real mess.

India revealed what a big job it is to try and widen the timeline at scale (albeit, there were more than just histories added for that expansion). They avoided a repeat with Charlemagne by making only 769 playable. Which still involves intensive, laborious work in the history files, but it's only for a single perfect date in 769.

None of this is to say Paradox couldn't attempt a timeline expansion, or add more one-off start dates. But in the case of the former, I think the dev team would have to get bigger/the DLC would have to get pricier. In the case of the latter, we already have the best pre-1066 dates we could get and anything post-1337 there's too little time before the 1452 cut-off.

This is all not to mention that we all play the 769/867/1066 starts near exclusively, near nothing afterwards and rarely ever reach 1452. Chances are most of us wouldn't even make use of any extra timeline we had to play with. As such, future expansions will probably be all about features and enriching the start dates we already have. (And no doubt now I've said this, next DLC will be Agincourt: Finish the Fight!)

I think in the future they will, at the very least, get rid of the ability to choose a custom date. That would be rather sad since it's something unique to Paradox games, but it would also probably be for the best. It would save a massive amount of labour and greatly improve their ability to support other start dates. It would also allow them to release new starts as DLC, this time carefully-designed and fully-balanced rather than what we have now.

 

[Wagonlitz]

I've got more of an issue with the overtly-supernatural events in MnM because unlike Sunset Invasion they're not part of some optional silly openly-ahistorical expansion pack, but instead they're a big chunk of a 'proper' dlc. It's a kind of direction change that I don't like. I've got no problem with ambiguously-supernatural content at all, in fact I think it's great as they vastly improve immersion. People in the middle ages actually believed in magic and miracles, they were a perfectly normal and accepted part of the world. Having that ambiguity about whether you've been chosen by Jesus or possessed by the devil or maybe just suffer from some affliction is probably a unique experience in the gaming world. But I am a lot less fond of having any unambigious magic system in the game, and it's not a direction I want to see Crusader Kings travelling in the future.

Couldn't agree more with this. I too am quite worried about the direction CKII has taken lately---especially given that many of the unambiguously supernatural things easily could have been included in an ambiguous way.

 

[Wagonlitz]

I think in the future they will, at the very least, get rid of the ability to choose a custom date. That would be rather sad since it's something unique to Paradox games, but it would also probably be for the best. It would save a massive amount of labour and greatly improve their ability to support other start dates. It would also allow them to release new starts as DLC, this time carefully-designed and fully-balanced rather than what we have now.

After having seen the EU4 telemetry data showing that most people started with the Grand Campaign Johan stated that EU5 would not have dynamic dates--given that CKII too has a huge lopside towards the early dates I'd expect things to be similar there. And I agree that it's a really really sad thing, since being able to pick any date you like always has been unique indeed, and it can also be really fun. Find some obscure war and then start on the day it started and play it out to either recreate it or try to change the outcome.

My guess is that most people simply aren't aware that you can choose dates outside the bookmarks---which would correspond with how I've often seen people ask for startdates which already are playable through the custom dates, but aren't bookmarks. Strange how they can miss the arrows for choosing custom dates, but when people can miss signs hanging on doors they just passed through I guess they can miss anything.

 

[Fishman786]

Couldn't agree more with this. I too am quite worried about the direction CKII has taken lately---especially given that many of the unambiguously supernatural things easily could have been included in an ambiguous way.

If we had the Satanic stuff give you the option to dabble in the dark arts and perform various rituals, gain influence through a secret underground cabal and scheme to do diabolical things like start wars, that would be great IMO. Not quite historical of course, but then with secret societies at least you have ambiguity. The problem I have with it comes from the fact that there is dark magic that's guaranteed to work and basically inexplicable: having Satanic elders teach you how to make supposedly 'enchanted' poison or having you stand in a circle every year and mutter curses against someone until they happen to die by coincidence would be fine. Actually being able to impregnate people or regrow missing limbs opens the veil of ambiguity up a bit too much for my liking.