CK2 - Dev Diary #123 - Iron Century

[Serenity84]

We nee new Bookmarks for sure - in EARLIER periods to give us longer games.....

No we don't. I never finished anything close to a 700 year game. Building a huge empire and accomplishing most of your goals can be done in 200-300 years. By that time it becomes boring because nothing can oppose you and there aren't any mechanics to destabilize very large realms (now that would be a cool DLC).

The 10th century is good because it offers a nice map setup with many interesting characters and political situations

Extending the feudal mechanics to even earlier times is also historically questionable in many locations

 

[Arozes]

Its Free!

 

[aiyahjackie]

In this start date, will the Roman Emperor be Romanos Lakapenos or Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos?

 

[Byzantium2000]

In this start date, will the Roman Emperor be Romanos Lakapenos or Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos?

The Ambitious Armenian Romanos Lekapenos

 

[riadach]

I know there will be a temptation to give this character:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Guthfrithson

the counties of Dublin and Meath as he has in the database. He was king of Dublin and later king of Northumbria.

But can I humbly suggest that the county of Meath be given to this character:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congalach_Cnogba

He's an Uí Néill, and was an outside shot for the Irish Highkingship given his dynasty had been marginalised for the previous two centuries. Did not stop him though.

 

[bregolan]

Maybe asking for too much but... 936 was the year Abd-Al Rahman III started the construction of Medina Azahara... one of the biggest palaces in Europe, that could easily find its way to a Great Work...

Apart from that... It's FREEEE.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

And finally we get the opportunity to play as a major reigning Anglo-Saxon King from the start!.

Yes, I know you can play as Alfred, but he doesn't start as King.

 

[Hawkslime]

Cool What's with all the free stuff? Not that I'm complaining, but it is a bit odd.

That´s the most Paradox community thing I have ever seen

 

[Hiigara1356]

Devs: Thanks so much for your continued hard work and support for this wonderful title. You should all be very proud of what you've put together!

 

[olvirki]

YES! A new dark age start! I was at first cautious when I saw the announcement, but the 10th century hyped me up.

Its a problem that the average CK2 player rarely plays anything else than 769, 867 and 1066 even with all this scrollable history, and I feel a little guilty about being a part of that problem. But am just a dark age man, and now I can diversify my starts a bit .

 

[Cysiek]

Who on earth is clicking the disagree button on this? It's an entirely correct post, the Islamic world is portrayed in a very underdone and stereotypical fashion that's hardly been altered since Sword of Islam's initial release. It really, really needs some love, far more so than the pagans who Paradox seems to delight in lavishing attention on.

I agree that Muslisms needs a rework, but some love for non-scandinavian pagans was requested for a looong time from community and Holy Fury rework made them super enjoyable.

New bookmark is great. CK2 is the only game where I pick diffeent starting dates than earliest one, so definitely I will try it.

Also, are there any expansions coming? After holy fury and recent free content I have complete trust in your skills

 

[IndigoRage]

England is one year away from chasing the dane and rising as a true kingdom,

And by that you mean 82 years away from getting taken by the Dane and turned into a REAL kingdom.

 

[darkemperor]

You guys give the best gifts

 

[somerandomduke]

Ok, that's sweet, but one thing.
Maybe balance the other dates before going into a whole new territory.

• Norway still wins the Norman conquest 9 times out of 10
• The abbasid sitll blobs too much from being stable (y'know what, lets just change this statement. ALL caliphates, sultanates, and large islamic territories blob too much from being too stable)
  
• Even after the crusades, Iberia still ends up muslim if it's not totally shattered (and even if it is shattered, the kingdoms still tear themselves apart until muslims pick at the remains).
  
• The HRE is too stable and keeps taking hungary
  
• Karl couldn't form the HRE to save his life 99 times out of 100
• Speaking of the HRE, the the mess that is central europe in the old gods start still can't keep itself even remotely stable, and ignores when there's literally any outside force threatening them until france is muslim and Germany looks like the the german states post HRE collapse, just a few centuries early
  
• Ghengis khan can't expand for shit because he keeps doing it one war at a time
  
• Crusader states can't survive because jihads are still half cooked
• I get that there's supposed to be instability in the ERE, but they literally cannot defend themselves for the life of them. If it's a start date where Rum is at its peak, more often than not it ends up steam rolling the ERE
• Slavs in charlemenge... Really, christianity as a whole in charlemenge. It just doesn't survive, ever.
• Also, Orthodoxy can't really spread north in any way. One of the most important parts of rus culture is just kinda out the window on that part
• Speaking of, thanks to Rus never being able to organize itself, the North never really gets conquered.
• ALSO speaking of rus, pretty much 3/4ths of the kingdoms tend to be under some sort of nomadic control, and they never even try to get out.
• And Khazaria... just... just look at some of the damn memes. It's funny the first few times, but seriously, that just shows how half baked nomads' balance is.

These are just a few of the most major problems with all the start dates. I appreciate new content, and I think the vast majority can agree, but there's a point where someone has to look at the state of the game and consider if it's time for throwing more food on the plate or time to clean some of that food off the plate. It's not like more content can't be added while fixing this stuff. I mean, Islam is basically feudalism but more broken, and really shows its age as the first expansion because of it. That's an example of something to overhaul as 'new content'.
At least put some weight into the AI's decisions for outside dangers. Like, if Iberia DOES become muslim, maybe have the Karling kingdoms stop the infighting and look to suit up against the behemoth on their doorstep.
Again, I'm liking the approach into the 10th century, but PLEASE tell me there's a lot more back-end stuff working on all of the ahistorical flaws that are from poor balancing and half-finished mechanics?

 

[Saxton_Fail]

Please add Egil the skald

 

[Jaevelklein]

In each and every dev diary I can feel the love the devs have for this game. As a player it's just fantastic being part of such a great community.

 

[vandevere]

Ok, that's sweet, but one thing.
Maybe balance the other dates before going into a whole new territory.

• Norway still wins the Norman conquest 9 times out of 10
• The abbasid sitll blobs too much from being stable (y'know what, lets just change this statement. ALL caliphates, sultanates, and large islamic territories blob too much from being too stable)
  
• Even after the crusades, Iberia still ends up muslim if it's not totally shattered (and even if it is shattered, the kingdoms still tear themselves apart until muslims pick at the remains).
  
• The HRE is too stable and keeps taking hungary
  
• Karl couldn't form the HRE to save his life 99 times out of 100
• Speaking of the HRE, the the mess that is central europe in the old gods start still can't keep itself even remotely stable, and ignores when there's literally any outside force threatening them until france is muslim and Germany looks like the the german states post HRE collapse, just a few centuries early
  
• Ghengis khan can't expand for shit because he keeps doing it one war at a time
  
• Crusader states can't survive because jihads are still half cooked
• I get that there's supposed to be instability in the ERE, but they literally cannot defend themselves for the life of them. If it's a start date where Rum is at its peak, more often than not it ends up steam rolling the ERE
• Slavs in charlemenge... Really, christianity as a whole in charlemenge. It just doesn't survive, ever.
• Also, Orthodoxy can't really spread north in any way. One of the most important parts of rus culture is just kinda out the window on that part
• Speaking of, thanks to Rus never being able to organize itself, the North never really gets conquered.
• ALSO speaking of rus, pretty much 3/4ths of the kingdoms tend to be under some sort of nomadic control, and they never even try to get out.
• And Khazaria... just... just look at some of the damn memes. It's funny the first few times, but seriously, that just shows how half baked nomads' balance is.

These are just a few of the most major problems with all the start dates. I appreciate new content, and I think the vast majority can agree, but there's a point where someone has to look at the state of the game and consider if it's time for throwing more food on the plate or time to clean some of that food off the plate. It's not like more content can't be added while fixing this stuff. I mean, Islam is basically feudalism but more broken, and really shows its age as the first expansion because of it. That's an example of something to overhaul as 'new content'.
At least put some weight into the AI's decisions for outside dangers. Like, if Iberia DOES become muslim, maybe have the Karling kingdoms stop the infighting and look to suit up against the behemoth on their doorstep.
Again, I'm liking the approach into the 10th century, but PLEASE tell me there's a lot more back-end stuff working on all of the ahistorical flaws that are from poor balancing and half-finished mechanics?

Karl needs to start out already crowned KIng of West Francia. Also, there are two or three Dukes in West Francia that need to lose their Hate of Karl. Those two things, the Ducal Hate, and the never-ending Uncrowned Malus need to go the way of the Dinosaur...

 

[DerGrößteRitter]

Brilliant. I honestly love you guys (no homo).

 

[defoffuture]

Been craving a 10th century start date for a while now, didn't expect to be getting one officially. Thanks, CA!

 

[nath208]

A 10th century start and one just before or during the 630's muslim invasions are the two start I hopped for the most. Now the 10th century start is comming for free!! Hell yeah!

It would be really great for the strategies and unit types to be updated too, heavy cavalry doesn't sinergise well with anything and all its retinues are bad and it feels really weird playing the Bavandids or Karen (basically a Sassanid revival) and having horse archers as cultural units, they were known for heavy cavalry ffs.

Muslims also require an update as do most govenement types, I think that could be expanded upon fairly easily and would improve our experience a lot as having the same system as an Eastern European nation as France is super weird and a bit immersion breaking, so is turk muslim governement beeing the same as arab muslim governement and all nomad beeing the same.

I looks to me like all those update are setting us up for one hell of a dlc next, in fact I would guess, that those were required in order for idea of the dlc to be possible.

Also thank for the freebies, it proves that the CK2 dev team is the best at PDX.