Broken Dev regrets

[apollo1989vieten]

I mean, legitimately, what else could the devs add for the Steppe that doesn’t have the ultimate end result of either conquest or grazing/migrating? Like, I can’t think of anything else there would be to do as a nomad that would be engaging for the player.

I admit, without trade mechanics, I can’t think of anything. But I am not a game designer, and my complaint is mainly based on the dev dairy’s reflection of ck2 nomads. One thing that maybe could be done is adding when nomads are being forced off the steppe and into settled lands.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I admit, without trade mechanics, I can’t think of anything. But I am not a game designer, and my complaint is mainly based on the dev dairy’s reflection of ck2 nomads. One thing that maybe could be done is adding when nomads are being forced off the steppe and into settled lands.

Literally the only other thing they talked about with nomads is migrating, which is in the game and seems to be a core part of the loop. The steppe is warfare/raiding, trading, hunting, migrating, and feasting. That's it. The only thing missing is trade right now and, again, becoming master of the steppes is the logical end point for the DLC.

 

[apollo1989vieten]

Literally the only other thing they talked about with nomads is migrating, which is in the game and seems to be a core part of the loop. The steppe is warfare/raiding, trading, hunting, migrating, and feasting. That's it. The only thing missing is trade right now and, again, becoming master of the steppes is the logical end point for the DLC.

Becoming the GOAT Khan should be hard, even for a player. There is a reason why no one between the GoTürks and the Mongols controlled the whole steppe. And during the first Mongol expedition to the western steppe, they were outmatched, so they decided to divide their foes with bribery then mop out the scattered pieces.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Becoming the GOAT Khan should be hard, even for a player. There is a reason why no one between the GoTürks and the Mongols controlled the whole steppe. And during the first Mongol expedition to the western steppe, they were outmatched, so they decided to divide their foes with bribery then mop out the scattered pieces.

I mean, we'll see though I image players won't have that hard of a time becoming Great Khan, that's just the way the game. The AI though, I'd suspect there will be a lot of game with no Great Khan at all. If they only way for the Mongol Empire to form is for an existing AI ruler to do it, then I think it will be an extremely rare event because, even if the AI meets the requirements, I'm guessing a lot of attempts will end in failure since the AI can't win the subsequent war.

 

[Benismann]

I mean, legitimately, what else could the devs add for the Steppe that doesn’t have the ultimate end result of either conquest or grazing/migrating? Like, I can’t think of anything else there would be to do as a nomad that would be engaging for the player.

Idk, but that seems like their job. So they better do that.

 

[Benismann]

I mean, we'll see though I image players won't have that hard of a time becoming Great Khan, that's just the way the game. The AI though, I'd suspect there will be a lot of game with no Great Khan at all. If they only way for the Mongol Empire to form is for an existing AI ruler to do it, then I think it will be an extremely rare event because, even if the AI meets the requirements, I'm guessing a lot of attempts will end in failure since the AI can't win the subsequent war.

What i really hate is that they are keeping the current mongol invasion events too, which just spawn genghis khan in. Imo that's really cheap for a game that is supposed to be in any way immersive. Why can't they just bestow that title onto someone existing at the gamestate? It's not like spawned genghis khan is winning due to his immense skill and not due to the trait giving big buffs and story cycle spawning bazillion troops....

 

[klopkr]

What i really hate is that they are keeping the current mongol invasion events too, which just spawn genghis khan in. Imo that's really cheap for a game that is supposed to be in any way immersive. Why can't they just bestow that title onto someone existing at the gamestate? It's not like spawned genghis khan is winning due to his immense skill and not due to the trait giving big buffs and story cycle spawning bazillion troops....

It does seem like that. That it'll work like currently where Ghenghis will either spawn out of nowhere or if he exists will instantly gain the greatest of khans rank and all the event troops.

They didn't say it but I suspect they'll spawn his troops and then make him to the massive khan subjugation war that you need to do to become the GOAK since it's a special mega war that subjugates a massive region very quickly and is probably pretty fundamental to getting the mongol expansion events going without burning out too fast.

I think it would be cool if he spawns as an adventurer really young and with those insane conqueror bonuses. He could get some events to give him a leg up in getting landed and then a special mongol unification CB that helps him get Mongolia pretty fast. Then once it's been appropriately long of a time he would get events to shoot his dominance up if he hasn't achieved it already and be scripted to become the GOAK with maybe even some special extra event troops at that time just for him just to make it reliable. Then once he becomes Ghenghis Khan I would also just keep giving him all the bonuses necessary to make sure he is pretty successful.

If he dies early then the event should search for an heir and keep doing so until someone becomes GOAK anyways. The dynasty of this GOAK should have the specialized AI and all the bonuses for a certain amount of years instead of generations too so that even if they all die of the plague several times, so long as it's still around the right time period, someone is pushing a mega nomadic empire into forming.

 

[Ksiendzu]

CK3 players be like:
Converting to manicheism as king of Poland in XII century? Norse Empire eradicating christianity in Europe? No problem here. No one talks about player being able to do that.
Hellenism in restored Roman Empire? Silly!

Edit: Player do not even need meet know any manicheans to convert to their religion

 

[apollo1989vieten]

CK3 players be like:
Converting to manicheism as king of Poland in XII century? Norse Empire eradicating christianity in Europe? No problem here. No one talks about player being able to do that.
Hellenism in restored Roman Empire? Silly!

Hellenism was dead, that is what makes it silly.

If the Vikings were more concerned about imposing their faith, they could have tried to eradicate Christianity.

Even if Manichaeism as a Polish king might be out there, other heresies could fill a similar role. Some of those had similarities to Manichaeism and do not have the same level of unrealistic as a Hellenism revival, especially one that just requires complete restoration of Rome.

 

[InsidiousMage]

CK3 players be like:
Converting to manicheism as king of Poland in XII century? Norse Empire eradicating christianity in Europe? No problem here. No one talks about player being able to do that.
Hellenism in restored Roman Empire? Silly!

Players doing something silly by manipulating game mechanics is different than the game encouraging them to do something silly. Its one thing for a player, pre-RtP, to stack modifiers and save up piety to convert to Hellenism but its another thing entirely to have to the game just let them do for free because they conquered some territory.

 

[Slaughter]

If the problem was everyone on the steppe viewed themselves as an emperor, then it seems that problem is fixed. If the ai has occasional or more attempts at becoming the GOAT Khan, that is a big problem. In fact, having GOAT Khan attempt should be pretty rare for the AI. Of course, it still leads to the whole gameplay loop being a race to make a GOAT Khan attempt, something the floor plan dev diary suggested that steppe dlc should be much more then. But maybe getting the steppe beyond just becoming GOAT Khan requires the China map expansion.

Yeah, becoming the GOAT Khan shouldn't be common, especially early on.
Plus, considering the mega war to become GOAT Khan, I think it's more likely that your average AI Goat Khan Wannabe just get slapped down.

I don’t think any steppe polity made an attempt to conquer the entire steppe between the fall of the GoTürks and the rise of the Mongols. So, becoming GOAT Khan is still too much of a focus of the DLC.

AFAIK, large tribal confederacies dominating the Steppes are fairly common, no? Xiongnu, Rouran, the Huns, Gokturks... the Gokturks were just the ones that did best until Genghis showed up and conquered the entire Steppe.

I have an impression that becoming GOAT Khan is pretty situational, as in, you have to be not just strong in the Steppe but able to withstand the bad weather for years, because the system is meant to push steppe nomads into other parts of the steppe or out of the steppe entirely. I suspect the idea is that most of the time, you eventually get pushed out of the steppe and transition to a settled government - or go full Adventurer.

Someone in the thread said something about how the Medieval Warm Period likely caused the emergence of the Mongols as a world-conquering avalanche, because there were more nomads, and I think that would be a good way to make this work. It makes sense that extended good climate would power the Mongols or another similar nomadic deathball and turbo-charge the invasion of Eurasia.

 

[TripleAgent]

After years of development, with Khans of the Steppe getting announced I think I've finally come to the realization that the reason why I haven't been particularly impressed by the gameplay is because my philosophy of what a CK game should be might just be different from the CK3 dev team's.

I want depth of mechanics; give me a mechanic that I can play with, exploit, let it backfire on me, whatever, but the more dynamic and the more you can do with it (both positively and negatively), the better.

But it seems as though the devs are more focused on the breadth of mechanics; keep adding on more to make the game world more diverse and interesting and giving more options to the players, especially after finding out that we're adding the rest of Asia before we get proper papacy mechanics fleshed out.

To be clear, breadth is not a bad thing! But breadth at the expense of depth leads to a situation where we are now; new mechanics are being added, but they feel shallow to engage with and ultimately don't feel like they change the core gameplay loop enough. Some examples:

• Northern Lords added the duel mechanic. In my experience that duel mechanics has never been expanded on and we still don't have player knights/combat; it's prowess-influenced rolls to the death, and to be honest the quality/diversity of the writing/combat text is lacking.
• Royal Court added an inventory system (which has the potential to be more robustly through different item types but it feels like there haven't been many improvements to item variety, I see a ton of repeats, and most of the time it's just a "which number is higher" question which isn't really engaging. It also added the court system which, to be frank, feels like a fancy extra event window you need an extra click to get to. Amenity levels, court language, and grandeur help to flesh it out a bit but it still feels like a barebone, disconnected system that doesn't really do anything to impact the gameplay loop whether or not you ignore it.
• Fate of Iberia added struggles, which I really like as a mechanic, but the rigid design of the system seems to make it a bit of a pain to deal with if you have a certain goal like conquest but have to meet some of the more finicky and illogical requirements of the system to progress.
• Friends and Foe added some events and the feud system; frankly the feud system seems so minor (I can't recall the last time a feud fired organically) and illogical/crazy with some of the events/writing that I don't feel it adds much mechanically.
• Tours and Tournaments added.. Tours and Tournaments. Tours are great! They're a fantastic mechanical addition that give a wide range of benefits and detriments, it makes logical sense, and it's implemented wells. Tournaments feel like a duel system was slapped onto a new "push to get a new event ever 15 days" window, and again after engaging with tournaments a few times I often stop, even if my character is martial/prowess, just because they way they're portrayed is a slog of mindless clicking.
• Legacy of Persia added clan government rework, I don't play clan government often but it seems like a good revision of older mechanics; I think this is something that should be prioritized over new ones at this point.
• Legends of the Dead added legends, legitimacy, and plagues. Legends were rightly criticized as a bit pointless and neutered, along with being pretty uninteresting in the first place. The fact that we can't even edit the text of legends we're writing is wild to me. Legitimacy is a good mechanic but again I think implemented so minimally that it doesn't ultimately mean much. Plagues are probably one of the best additions so far because it actually made survival more of a challenge and does a great job culling populations, which leads to more interesting and unpredictable outcomes.
• Roads to Power added landless adventuring and admin goverment, both fantastic, crunchy new mechanical additions

I'm very happy with Roads to Power going back to basic, more in-depth mechanics in gameplay loops, but it feels like with Khans of the Steppe we're talking one step forward and three steps backwards; if it was going to be difficult performance-wise to add or rework meaningful, in-depth systems before adding the entire Asian region, I'm concerned that the content and features added on top of what we already have might make that task impossible.

And please, please, it's been almost 5 years. Where is the College of Cardinals? Why is Catholicism, in Crusader Kings, so minimal and meaningless?

 

[Benismann]

It also added the court system which, to be frank, feels like a fancy extra event window you need an extra click to get to. Amenity levels, court language, and grandeur help to flesh it out a bit but it still feels like a barebone, disconnected system that doesn't really do anything to impact the gameplay loop whether or not you ignore it.

Bonuses from above expected level are insane for small realms, and considering the only thing that affects the cost is REALM SIZE...... Yea, it's very funky. Obviously this system has a lot of potential, just make expected grandeur scale with total development or smth and make it way. way more expensive to maintain.

Legitimacy is a good mechanic but again I think implemented so minimally that it doesn't ultimately mean much.

This is also very true. It's a good concept - legitimacy gets tanked by doing game-y things and gets boosted by hosting activities and winning wars, sounds very medieval to me! Too bad it has no decay or anything and the effects are never felt.

 

[heliostellar]

Meh, whatever. EU4 had this problem with the Rome tag for YEARS... people kept asking and asking to be able to form the Roman Empire. We were consistently told that the way to do that was either play as BYZ or unite the HRE, which were the only logical successors (or Russia if you have Third Rome).

Well, we can see how that argument went:

Roman Empire - Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

eu4.paradoxwikis.com

 

[ShepherdOfCats]

Restoring Rome was much harder in CK2. I remember one of the (few) ways to convert to hellenism was to be at a hellenic holy site and get a completely random event *if you were a lunatic* to convert to hellenism.

I just hope if they make the nomads "too easy" that they don't come back a few updates later with a killjoy solution like 'endless plagues and rebellions' which is what they did for the Romans, and it ruined it.

 

[apollo1989vieten]

Restoring Rome was much harder in CK2. I remember one of the (few) ways to convert to hellenism was to be at a hellenic holy site and get a completely random event *if you were a lunatic* to convert to hellenism.

I just hope if they make the nomads "too easy" that they don't come back a few updates later with a killjoy solution like 'endless plagues and rebellions' which is what they did for the Romans, and it ruined it.

Before legends and RtP, reforming Rome could be a challenge. But now, it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

The way to get Adoptionism is cool. It is just a shame the conditions to unlock it are super strict, time limited, and region locked. Seeing as reviving Hellenism is a major player fantasy, reviving in a way similar to but less strict than Adoptionism could be a good way to unlock. At least, better than the option added in RtP.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Before legends and RtP, reforming Rome could be a challenge. But now, it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Restoring Rome or reviving Hellenism? The decision to restore Rome hasn't changed from game launch and has always been pretty easy.

The way to get Adoptionism is cool. It is just a shame the conditions to unlock it are super strict, time limited, and region locked. Seeing as reviving Hellenism is a major player fantasy, reviving in a way similar to but less strict than Adoptionism could be a good way to unlock. At least, better than the option added in RtP.

I feel like this is a core problem with CK3 - good ideas are not widely adopted as they should be. All conversion to heresy events should use the Adoptionism system but its probably never ever going to used more widely. This event chain works both for reviving dead faiths and establishing new heresies. You need to control and holy site and with the certain trait a prophet can show up and try and convert the ruler of the holy site. If you have RtP, if the prophet fails, they can wonder around to try their luck or maybe even form a militant movement that tries and set up their own realm. Lots of potential here but who knows if it will ever be used.

 

[ShepherdOfCats]

Before legends and RtP, reforming Rome could be a challenge. But now, it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

The way to get Adoptionism is cool. It is just a shame the conditions to unlock it are super strict, time limited, and region locked. Seeing as reviving Hellenism is a major player fantasy, reviving in a way similar to but less strict than Adoptionism could be a good way to unlock. At least, better than the option added in RtP.

I might have made it too easy because I created an adventurer (Roman, Hellenic, I thought he would be hated, plopped him down right in Rome to start) but he was a brilliant diplomat by the time I got all the buffs that come with being an adventurer. When you have 40+ diplomacy, even the most devout Catholic zealots start hosting feasts in your honor.

But I play with the harshest realm stability settings so once those rebellions started, it became more tedious than 'challenging' and I abandoned the playthrough. I had barely started to conquer formerly Greek lands. I probably restored the Roman Empire to about a third of its original boundaries. IMO the devs shouldn't have made it trigger until you reach that point.

If I ever try it again, I think I might try to do some proselytizing while I'm still an adventurer. Try to get that decision that lets you convert counties to your religion and lay some better foundations for it.

 

[apollo1989vieten]

Restoring Rome or reviving Hellenism? The decision to restore Rome hasn't changed from game launch and has always been pretty easy.

Maybe it was different for you, but reviving Rome as Byzantium for me pre RtP, starting in 867, took me till around 1000 AD.

Reviving Hellenism pre RtP was very gamey, but could be a fun goal if you could pull it.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Maybe it was different for you, but reviving Rome as Byzantium for me pre RtP, starting in 867, took me till around 1000 AD.

Honestly, I've always found the major barrier to be how hard I want to push to get it. The biggest thing holding you back in 867 is the fact that Greek culture doesn't have access the de jure CB but, conversely, getting access to the de jure CB an era earlier means makes it faster to conquer the territory you need as well. Pretty sure being able to press all your claims in a war got moved up an era earlier as well, which is another thing that speeds up how fast you are able to get the territory you need.