Dev Diary #140 - Legacy of Persia & 1.11 'Peacock' Free Update

[davidproxy]

I, too, will be missing the harm events. I agree with Wokeg that they weren't perfect but I think they were helping mitigate the tendency of characters to live overly long lives. I think the problem was that the events tended to be overly punishing rather than have a variety of outcomes. For instance:

In this Harm event, the player has the option two roll the dice and end up an invalid in two of the choices (and take stress) or evade the risk and simply increase a stress level. It might be more interesting if there was a chance to be wounded / maimed / mauled, a lesser chance to die, and a very low chance to become incapable (I think incapable would be least likely since most people that fall from great heights are hurt and then recover or they die). Because this event is for a child, the injury could cause their body not to heal and lead to 'an old injury' modifier that has a slight (or major depending on the extent of the wound) health and prowess debuff.

Anyway, I'll hope to see a reworked harm event system in the future.

To the rest of the PDX team, congrats on release Legacy of Persia! I'm looking forward to playing it!

 

[tsr-aph]

I think I misunderstood DD #137, this patch has massively buffed clans. Their most divisive form of succession is just partition —which applies to the bottom two unity phases— and after that, it's various forms of high partition (25%, 33%, 66% respectively). I don't think that the AI will massively abuse this, but the player absolutely will.

 

[A_Dane]

So, having booted up the game, there's something I've noticed with Daylamite culture:

Why in the world do Pragmatic creed give bonuses to light infantry, when the unlocked unit (zupin spearmen), are pikemen? Dosn't really seem thematic to me?

 

[ASlyMagpie]

Interface​

• Character modifiers can be now clicked and display an expanded view of all existing modifiers. Players can now see all modifiers on the character, and not only the first 10 items.

This is great but the same thing is also needed for traits where only 18 of them are shown or at least changed so that all the ones using exp (Hastiluder, Hunter, Eager Reveler, etc) are directly after the education trait as they're important to be able to see to check how far along you are in the trait. My current ruler has both his Hastiluder and Traveler traits hidden.

 

[Tschobo]

Is the Royal Flush Achievement broken? I tried to get it three times with one custom and two normal characters and killed a Lowborn, a King and an Emperor three times and it never fired.

 

[pengoyo]

Little sad Yazidi didn't make the cut for improvements in the "Peacock" patch (though always the future). Guess I'll just have to console myself with all the great content you added

Inline values in comparison triggers using = only are now not valid, this is to prevent syntax ambiguity between a scope comparison and a scope change. You must use == for an inline comparison to be explicit.

Definitely understand why this change was made, but not looking forward to seeing how many times I've done this in my mods

Pretty sure I fixed that one... *looks up my list of commits on this patch* Yep, I did.

Thanks! Glad to have that bug resolved (especially as I had faith you'd fix it, so I never re-weighted my events to correct for it).

 

[cavveman]

Just discovered that Munis of Acre was removed.

 

[tytnico]

Harm events should stay unchanged ngl. I liked the randomnes

then turn it on? it's just an option now

 

[Voy]

Just discovered that Munis of Acre was removed.

He was just unlanded and not properly put in the Abbasid courts. I would guess.

 

[JerryCanIII]

Everyone admire Pope John XXI, who died because the roof of his house collapsed!

Lets not forget the Erfurt Latrin Disaster. Wikipedia - "26 July (1184), the combined weight of the assembled nobles caused the wooden second story floor of the building to collapse and most of them fell through into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor, where about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement"

 

[catzcatzlol]

• The AI should now have a much easier time forming the HRE from an 867 start.

Can you share more specifics about this? Will the Karlings go to war for each other's titles now, does the AI get event troops, etc.?

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

Is anyone else bothered by that you can't create a faith that has Communal Possessions? Like you can't select the tenent and if you try to reform Khurramism or Mazdakism the game won't allow you to keep it.

I am saddened for this because I wanted to create a ""socialist""" Persia with which to play but I didn't like how Khurrazism and Mazdakism were both pluralists.

Legacy of Persia is awesome btw, I love the rework of the Zoroastrian faiths, I am just struck aback by this choice.

 

[raven63]

Congrats to the CK3 team on the release!!! Fantastic work as usual!! A little piece of art!!

I was just getting into the game after a long pause, and frankly I liked the harm events…now they’re gone before I got a chance to complain about them.

I’ve definitely found myself bored of how long my characters lived and how powerful they got.

It’s fun for RP to have an iconic long-lived character every now and then, but 5 in a row make it boring!

Fatal diseases should develop more frequently when characters are passed 40 I think, regardless of any health modifiers.

 

[irohma86]

Awesome. Had an observer game real quick to see the Seljuk spawning and it was very good, although a bit insane.

Atrak Seljuk spawned as a Kimek for some weird reason, but he is packed and quickly conquered a good deal of Daylam and Persia (I've noticed he aimed at counties with special buildings after spawning in Nishapur). However, after he got the kingdom of Armenia from some Asha'ri, he decided it was time to face the big bad Byzantine Empire and... he won. By 1025 he was already emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Is that... expected? From him being Kimek and not Oghuz and for him to aim for the Byzantine Empire so quickly.

 

[MirrorMonkey2]

To me, the default game rule say:
* This is what the game is balanced around.
* This is the experience the developers intend.

So it bothers me that the default, developer-intended, balanced experience is one in which the player is sent out into the game world dressed in bubble wrap. I'm not against game rules as a concept, but I think the defaults should be a strong playing experience, not tutorial mode.

Couldn‘t agree more, I find it very sad that they did this. The harm events are imo the #1 feature they ever added that made the game more challenging and enjoyable. It‘s sad that they backpaddle like this, even if you can change it. Also the likelyhood nerfa appear to be independant of game rule, which is really a big shame.
Instead of tuning this feature down, the game should have ten similarly punishing features added imo

 

[guiskj]

I'm so incredibly happy to see so many of the features being part of the base game! If I read correctly, these include:

• ALL of the new buildings
• Seljuk invasion
• Clan rework (expected, sure, but still note worthy)
• Vast majority fo the Art assets

I love this aproach of enriching areas of the world as part of vanilla, but then adding some unique gameplay aspect (like the struggle and new legacy) as part of the DLC.

 

[ScribleScrable]

Thanks for the update. Let me add my voice to the multitude that is saddened by the Harm event changes. I’ve really enjoyed them and they captured a bit of the randomness that a medieval ruler could be expected to face. They weren’t perfect, but perhaps instead of removing and/or neutering them, there could’ve been more options to survive if you have certain attributes or court positions filled.

It is frustrating to lose a leader after investing in them, but you do get forewarning and those deaths lead to some of my most enjoyable games. Surely this is something that just needed tweaked.

 

[guiskj]

HUGE thanks to the Devs for rebalancing prestige gain... Even my "bad" characters can almost always max their Fame and Devotion.

But one of the root causes of this, at least in my experience, is the heavy bloat of artificats. Is there any intention to greatly reduce the overall number of artifacts in the game?

What I wish from Artificts is that they are a part of my character's identity and help tell the story of who that character is. What they actually feel like is equipment and loot. And because of this abundance, Artificat wars feel ridiculous.

 

[Sou713]

I really hoped that with the focus on Clan governments, perhaps you finally fixed the bug where Muslim characters marrying members of their dynasties always result in children having a matronymic instead of a patronymic. It's quite disappointing especially that it's been reported so long ago.

 

[Blodhevn]

I would like to add my voice to the chorus of people who liked harm events. I stopped playing CK3 seriously not long after launch mainly because of the longevity issue, but I kept tabs on its development in the hope that it would eventually be fixed, so I am crushed to see that what I thought to be a step in the right direction is now being reversed.

I cannot claim to speak for everyone, but I thought that what I, and many people like me, are saying when we say that the game is too easy is not that there is no challenge to be found in the game, because obviously that's not quite true, but rather that there is often little sense of danger, and I think that a big part of this is the lack of unpredictability. The player is often in complete control of what happens, and this then becomes boring. I don't think that what I really want is for the game to become more difficult, but rather, I would like it to be more unpredictable, to throw wrenches into my plans once in a while. More importantly, it's important to have the feeling that there is the risk of something bad happening. It does not have to always happen, but it's important to have this feeling, because this can push people to make different choices. Right now, it all feels too safe, and once you realize that you never were in any danger, it becomes a bit boring. You get the feeling that nothing interesting happens unless you force it to, and that you can always avoid all difficulty if you so choose.

I don't know if harm events were the right tool to introduce much needed unpredictability, but I think that something should be done about it to retain the interest of players in the long run. Otherwise, every game is on the same predictable upwards trajectory, with the player becoming increasingly powerful without any serious obstacle, after the first few decades. I think that nobody really likes to have a random game over, and I don't think that's what people want. Again, I cannot speak for others, but truly, what I miss is this feeling of risk, which keeps me on the edge of my seat and keeps me thinking about the game even when I'm not at my computer.

I really hope that you find a solution for this that pleases everyone. I think that a lot of people enjoy CK3 as a roleplaying game, and I think that's great, but I also think that roleplaying would be greatly enhanced with more unpredictability. Right now, I feel more like the DM than its player. I have all the control over the story I want to tell, but that's not why I'm playing the game. I'm playing to produce an interesting story, not to act out one I invented in my head.

Personally when i say i find ck3 too easy, I do indeed mean there is no challenge unless you handicap yourself by Rp restrictions(such as not changing faith just to stave off invasion/danger early for then to just swap back & other heavier restrictions) The map feels small despite its large size because conquest and ruling large realms is so easy, i feel small unless i am a king of 4 duchies or higher(not weak, just small) but it is incredibly easy to get there & it unlocks a lot of flavour to be king so its become a "rush" to get imo after T&T, but then it snowballs incredibly hard and it quickly ends up in empire(double-3 kingdoms size) and then the game is just kinda over imo. Every time i sit down to plan a big campaign such as a outremer/unite india (basically any larger empire size) & im looking forward to reaching "late-game" buildings/innovations etc i instantly just lose all interest in the campaign once i hit the empire size because there is 0 opposition & no trouble in ruling. personally i hope AI would be better at decisions, i think i read somewhere that they check every 10 years, hope for stronger AI opposition besides "forced" invasions such as mongol, but also much more internal problems ruling large realms. I do think its nice with some unpredictability like the harm events tho.