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CK2 - Dev Diary #121 - Court Improvements

Hello! In this dev diary we will present some changes we have made to the court system. Court Management is an important part of the CK2 experience, and currently there are several code pruning mechanisms that curtail court size, making characters die more frequently when the court grows too big. Now court management has been made more interesting by, for example, lowering the aggressive pruning for player courts, creating expenses/benefits associated with a Large Court, court flavored events using the characters of the court, etc. The intention of these changes is to make the system more interactive and interesting.


ck2_15.png

The court limit as shown in the interface.


Your court will now have a size limit depending on your tier, presented in the interface (see picture above). It’s possible to influence this limit by, for example, investing in majesty tech. We have also removed prisoners from the court-tab to make the shown courtiers more relevant.


ck2_18.png

Example of expenses for a big court (can be turned off through a game rule).


To bring life to the courts, we have added some maintenance events that will give your courtiers more of a life behind the scenes, making them more interesting and fun characters by giving them nicknames, modifiers, and skills.

ck2_16.png

Give a courtier a nickname.


We’ve also made sure that any courtier “randomly” picked for generic content is more likely to be someone with good (or at least interesting) skills, a cool minor title, an interesting relationship, etc. This is done by using a scripted score value that takes into account traits, opinions, and modifiers.


We hope that you’ll have fun with this small new feature, and thank you for reading!
 
Is there any chance you could implement a feature that allows you to auto-dismiss characters that are heresiarchs, non-familial branded apostates (so you don't dismiss your sister that was just found cavorting as a devil worshipper), and peasant leaders? I could see it working somewhat similarly to auto-stop plots.
 
Nice. I'm not sure if I understand the last point correctly. I assume that it means that:
if an event calls for a random courtier the event is more likely to pick a courtier thaat has some unique feature (that it already had before, not one that the event itself gives).
So for example, events are more likely to target a Crusader-commander-court physician in my court than a complete nobody.
Am I correct?
 
Thanks god - no longer 70+ courtiers that prevent me from bloodline and dynasty breeding because I raided the English coast... and Paris... and the Pope... Venice... Byzantine Empire... Man, I love raiding

Question:
Will this also have an effect on the fertility and health of courtiers?
 
Wouldn't it be better to separate prisoners from other courtiers, and have different capacity limits (and expenses) for prison and for courts?

It doesn't sense for your "court" to be packed if you bring home a pile of captives from a war, for instance.
 
Now that court expenses have been implemented, could we please have a game rule that completely removes the health and fertility penalties for large courts?
 
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Example of expenses for a big court (can be turned off through a game rule).


To bring life to the courts, we have added some maintenance events that will give your courtiers more of a life behind the scenes, making them more interesting and fun characters by giving them nicknames, modifiers, and skills.

If there is to be an additional charge for court members, can we PLEASE remove any fertility malus that courtier might have in a large or over crowded court.

If I recall correctly a court of 30 or 40 people incurs a penalty on the fertility of certain characters in the court, perhaps if they are lowborn?

I question what makes this malus needed or compelling, especially in light of added expenses now.
 
Wouldn't it be better to separate prisoners from other courtiers, and have different capacity limits (and expenses) for prison and for courts?

I'm not sure it makes much sense for your "court" to be stuffed if you bring home a pile of captives from a war, for instance.

We have also removed prisoners from the court-tab to make the shown courtiers more relevant.

Wait - can you clarify please: Does that mean prisoner are only no longer shown in the court tab or does it also mean their no longer count towards the limit? (= prisoners are no longer courtiers)
 
Sounds good, too often I end up having no idea who the majority of my court is, so these improvements will spice things up. I hope though, with the new limits, there will be some improvements to managing your court, easier pruning unwanted/uninteresting minor courtiers.
 
Wouldn't it be better to separate prisoners from other courtiers, and have different capacity limits (and expenses) for prison and for courts?

I'm not sure it makes much sense for your "court" to be stuffed if you bring home a pile of captives from a war, for instance.


. We have also removed prisoners from the court-tab to make the shown courtiers more relevant.
 
Did you take into account that some people in your court might have wives and children? It makes sense that these people cost money to house and feed, but the families can really clutter up the courtier list

Also one thing I noticed in my two recent playthrough is that I sometimes have a large number of Muslim children in my court and I can't kick them out until they're adults. No idea where they came from since I don't have Muslim courtiers. But I guess somehow their parents left them behind
 
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Building improvements in your capital - such as a better keep - should create extra capacity for your court.

Also a wonder in your capital province such as a grand palace should do the same thing.
 
Also I really like the fact that refugees randomly come to court, I know some people don't but if we could just leave that as is that would be great.

I do think it shouldn't cost 5 prestige to ask people to leave, but that's not really that big a deal.

I think one thing that still needs to be addressed is parents leaving court but leaving their children behind.
 
Children should not count towards the court limit as a full person, because there is no simple way to ask them to leave court. Also they don't cost as much to maintain.

Maybe making children count as a fraction of a courtier (say 1/4), or having a separate extra capacity for children, would make sense without lifting limits on children entirely.