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CK2 - Dev Diary #128 - The Iron Century Finale

Good evening, or morning, or potentially afternoon. First off, I am happy to announce that if everything goes as planned we will release Patch 3.2 with the Iron Century bookmark on Tuesday. Yes, this Tuesday. The 28th of May. So for today's DD we will take a look at some of the remaining things we've added, starting with 5 new decisions.

Brother’s Legacy: For those who want to take up the legacy of Mardavij, we have added a special decision for his brother Vushmgir. This will give you a claim on Mardavij’s old regions as well as convert Vushmgir and any of his family to Zoroastrianism. In addition, you will receive Mardavij’s new bloodline, if you choose to pick up Zoroastrianism.

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Local Traditions of Rus: For the Norse Germanic rulers of Kievan Rus, it might be a good idea to turn to the local traditions (see Russian culture and Slavic faith) if you want better relations with your vassals. If Yngvar isn't played by a player, the AI will choose to use this decision at game start.

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Bulgarian Empire: This is not actually for the 936 bookmark itself, as… Well… There already is a Bulgarian Empire there, but rather for the fans of Bulgaria who want to recreate history in the earlier bookmarks.

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Establish Cairo: As you might know, Cairo wasn’t actually an important city at the start of our bookmark. Or the two earlier bookmark start dates (see 769 and 867) either. It was not until the Fatimids invaded the Ikhshidids and took control of the region that they established Cairo as the capital of their Caliphate, and quickly built it up over a couple of years. Similarly, if you play as the Fatimids and invade Egypt, you get to make Cairo a special city as well! Congratulations! Woo!

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Establish Castle Habsburg: For those of you who are particularly interested in weirdly shaped jawlines, we have added a decision to form Castle Habsburg. If you play as anyone of the Etichonen dynasty and hold the province of Basel, you will have the decision to establish the Habsburg castle. All close (living) relatives of the founder in question will become a part of the new von Habsburg dynasty.

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Now then, onward to the new bloodlines we are adding. One of the goals when adding these was to try and keep them pretty insular for the 936 Bookmark, so you'd rarely see them outside of it. We've added 6 new ones, and we'll start with the three pretty generic ones:
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Now onwards to the two special Muslim ones. Both the Shia and Qarmatian Leadership makes it easier to create the religious head titles, skipping several requirements for the holder.
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And finally, the Otto the Great bloodline. Princely Elective Boon makes any holder of the bloodline more likely to be picked by vassals as the new Emperor in a Princely Elective system. You receive this bloodline if you manage to form the HRE as Otto.
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And finally, the changelog for the new patch:

Code:
###################
# Free Features
###################
- New Bookmark
    - 'The Iron Century', set in 936
- New Cultures
    - Sardinian
    - Slovieni
- New Shiite Heresy
    - Qarmatian
- Map Reworks
    - Portugal and south-western Spain
        - 2 New Navigable rivers
        - 1 New Duchy
        - 3 New Provinces
    - Egypt
        - The Nile has been made navigable
        - 7 New Provinces
        - 3 New Duchies
- Added 3D models for Hagia Sophia.

###################
# Interface
###################
- Changed the previous Great Work shortcut in the great Works view to B from P in order to be more consistent with other views.
- Fixed the Great Works ledger page being present even if the Game Rules were set to not include Great Works.

###################
# User modding
###################
- Added NUDGE_WONDER_MODEL_LAND and NUDGE_WONDER_MODEL_COAST Lua defines.
- Added destroy_wonder effect.
- Added set_wonder_model effect.
- Fixed the wonder view modifier text lacking a newline when used in single column mode.
- Resuming wonder no longer checks is_active triggers.

###################
# Database
###################
- Corrected the position of the docks in Ceredigion so that it is now connected to a body of water.

###################
# Bug Fixes
###################
- Non bastard children now correctly uses their biological father's base attributes, instead of the default value, when calculating their yearly chance to increase their base attributes when growing up.
- Corrected the positioning of the Notre Dame Great Work model.
- Adjusted the brightness of the Cathedral Great Work texture.
- Reduced the size of the Cathedral Great Work model by 20%.
- Fixed clicking on the minimap to move the camera not working properly with GUI scaling.
- Fixed assassination plot event description incorrectly using the word poisonous instead of venomous.
- Fixed the highway robber band event not targeting Great Works in the character's demesne before Great Works in neighboring provinces.
- Fixed a faulty trigger in the decision for converting to tribal holdings to castles.
- Fixed an issue with the event to convert Hagia Sophia, which would cause the Great Work to not be active for Muslim rulers.
- Fixed an issue that stopped the Golden Crown Feature from showing up in the list of available Features for a stage 4 Statue Great Work.
- Fixed building the Moat Pit Feature on a Great Fortress enabling the other moat Features to be built on any Great Fortress.
- Fixed building the Bells Feature on a Great Cathedral enabling the Golden Bells Feature to be built on any Great Cathedral.
- Fixed Great Works Features that require a stored relic to be active, being active just from any relic being stored in any Feature owned by the same owner.
- Fixed moat Features for the Great Fortress not being visible in the available Features tab until the Pit Moat Feature was built.
- Fixed a crash caused by corrupted Great Works in save games.
- Fixed court size modifiers on buildings in the capital province not being applied.
- Fixed tooltips on buildings outside of the capital province claiming that they should provice a court size modifier.
- Fixed the Hagia Sophia conversion event triggering even though its culture already matches your religion.
- Rename messages should no longer be listed in the message settings.
- Retinue size is now also calculated from character modifiers.
- Moved retinue size modifier in Palace Great Work to owner scope.
- Slightly reworked order of operations for calculating max retinue cap.
- Homosexual female lovers are no longer referred to as male.
- Made sure event about mystic dying has the right border decoration.
- Newly built Great Work features no longer always get statue descriptions.

I am excited to see what people will say about the new bookmark on Tuesday. Have fun!

And a great thanks to WJS for helping me out by writing an AAR about Thankmar. Here's a link to the final chapter: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...century-mini-aar.1179523/page-3#post-25488768
 
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Seriously though, I'm looking forward to trying this one out. The big question is, what's in store for the future of CK2? We now have two free patches that could have easily be released as a small DLC, but still no words about any possible future DLC. Which puts us in a strange position where we can enjoy new content but still have to worry somewhat that the development of the game can cease at any moment.

I would not be too worried about the future of CK2. Holy Fury sold well from what i understand and their whole business strategy is more DLC sales = more DLC.

If you want more reassurance look at their language in the Iron Century announcement post last week, here is an interesting line used by Tuscany 'and our first in the 10th century'. Firstly i don't think this means they are planing another 10th Century start any time soon but the open language does not sound like the language of a game planning to stop development any time soon.
 
This doesn't look like a bugfix, but a new feature.
Please, don’t put the changelogs in the CODE tag. It might look nice with the paragraph indents and all, but it’s absolutely inconvenient to scroll left-right and back again over and over.

EDIT: I love you, @MonzUn.
We should probably do both.
If we don't put it in a code tag, any formatting we use in it will break.
 
Currently no plans to add any other decisions.

Considering you guys with this update has created a precedent for special decisions like this and the Cairo one, it could potentially be expanded to a series of other, similar historical occurences. Important dynasties were certainly established, like the various Capetian cadets or the Ottomans.

The Cairo decision could be adapted to make Palermo the capital of Norman Sicily, London the capital of Norman England as they gradually leave Normandy behind, eventually make Oslo the Norwegian capital, etcetera (of course, supposing that the de jure capital of a kingdom would change, so that the AI won't just default it back to Bergenhus). As it is, the de jure capital system can be rather unflexible. It is for example not a given that a newly esablished Italy would want Pavia as its capital.

Cultural decisions, similar to the new Russian one, could be used for the Bolghars when settling in Bulgaria or other historical conquerors who settled. It is of course a lot to ask for, I'm just saying that you've clearly proven capable of adding such historical events, which would in many cases be really well welcomed by the fanbase.
 
Considering you guys with this update has created a precedent for special decisions like this and the Cairo one, it could potentially be expanded to a series of other, similar historical occurences. Important dynasties were certainly established, like the various Capetian cadets or the Ottomans.

The Cairo decision could be adapted to make Palermo the capital of Norman Sicily, London the capital of Norman England as they gradually leave Normandy behind, eventually make Oslo the Norwegian capital, etcetera (of course, supposing that the de jure capital of a kingdom would change, so that the AI won't just default it back to Bergenhus).

Cultural decisions, similar to the new Russian one, could be used for the Bolghars when settling in Bulgaria or other historical conquerors who settled. It is of course a lot to ask for, I'm just saying that you've clearly proven capable of adding such historical events, which would in many cases be really well welcomed by the fanbase.

I am not saying you are wrong, I just don't want to get people's hopes up and then end up disappointing them if it never happens.
 
I am not saying you are wrong, I just don't want to get people's hopes up and then end up disappointing them if it never happens.

Yeah, fully understand that. I was perhaps thinking out loud of the possibilites with this rather than requesting anything. Regardless, you've all done a heck of a job with this. Thanks for all your hard work!
 
Really great-looking update! Between these last three updates, you guys are on a roll really enriching the game. I don't know a huge amount about this period of history beyond what was going on in and around England, but it looks like there's a lot of interesting starts around.

Considering you guys with this update has created a precedent for special decisions like this and the Cairo one, it could potentially be expanded to a series of other, similar historical occurences. Important dynasties were certainly established, like the various Capetian cadets or the Ottomans.

The Cairo decision could be adapted to make Palermo the capital of Norman Sicily, London the capital of Norman England as they gradually leave Normandy behind, eventually make Oslo the Norwegian capital, etcetera (of course, supposing that the de jure capital of a kingdom would change, so that the AI won't just default it back to Bergenhus). As it is, the de jure capital system can be rather unflexible. It is for example not a given that a newly esablished Italy would want Pavia as its capital.

Cultural decisions, similar to the new Russian one, could be used for the Bolghars when settling in Bulgaria or other historical conquerors who settled. It is of course a lot to ask for, I'm just saying that you've clearly proven capable of adding such historical events, which would in many cases be really well welcomed by the fanbase.

Maybe a solution could be to add a 'generic' system/decision that a realm meeting certain requirements can take when moving their capital or changing primary title or something, 'establishing a new centre of power'. That way it would still allow for things like following history by establishing Norman London, but wouldn't railroad you towards actual historical decisions in case the direction of things in your game ended up vastly different, letting you make similar but parallel decisions elsewhere. Plus it wouldn't show accidental favouritism towards whichever specific ones happened to get implemented because this or that person has heard of them.

...though I realise this might be a lot more work than just adding a few specific decisions for added flavour to a few realms. I don't really know how the workload breaks down in this regard. I'm not going to demand anything hot on the heels of such a major free update, in any case.
 
Pretty please with sugar on top. We need bloodlines for Umayyads and Abbasids. And a special negative relations modifier between the bloodlines to represent the dynastic vendetta.
 
Go on Haji -> get piety -> Use piety to become Zoroastrian.
Yes, I love that plan.

Personally when playtesting I first holy warred Sallarids and put out some kids for NAPs/alliances with various surrounding powers. Then I became zoro, holy warred Gilan/Azerbaijan and swapped to better succession law before creating Daylam.

After that I took Jibal/Fars and let my allies do the heavy lifting :)
 
Maybe a solution could be to add a 'generic' system/decision that a realm meeting certain requirements can take when moving their capital or changing primary title or something, 'establishing a new centre of power'.

Yeah, that sounds like it could work. Like you I have no idea whether this would be hard to do or not though. But such a decision could perhaps be tied to founding a kingdom or changing your primary one. Say you are the duke of Kent in 867 and found England - in that case the decision could allow you to either make Kent a proper capital (allowing a special building?) or move to Middlesex, which is England's de jure capital. Either option would increase the chosen capital's prosperity level and give a minor temporary county modifier. Similarly, as William in 1066 you could choose to move seat to Middlesex or stay in Rouen. The AI could be weighted towards changing capitals.

We're straying off topic now though, so sorry for that. I just got a little excited at the thought.
 
Sadly, not for the Iron Century update. I don't know if there's anything planned for later.
Not even a "Play a game all the way through from 936 to 1453"?

Personally when playtesting I first holy warred Sallarids and put out some kids for NAPs/alliances with various surrounding powers. Then I became zoro, holy warred Gilan/Azerbaijan and swapped to better succession law before creating Daylam.

After that I took Jibal/Fars and let my allies do the heavy lifting :)
That sounds like a good plan, I sometime like to bruteforce things however.
 
Glad to see the addition of this new bookmark, could be my new favourite. Any chance of adding the possibility to continue your campaign after the 1453 end date? it could make the common excuse that playing only the earliest start dates is a must to prevent short campaigns irrelevant, even though many players already end their campaigns after playing for only 200 or 300 years.
 
It has been five years since we last played a new bookmark. Can't wait for it!

There already is a Bulgarian Empire there, but rather for the fans of Bulgaria who want to recreate history in the earlier bookmarks.

In the earlier bookmarks? Won't that decision be active after 1066? There was a Second Bulgarian Empire after all!

And I second the request to make Serbia part of De Jure Bulgarian Empire. By 936 both regions were strongly intertwined in culture, faith and trade, far more than either were with the ERE.

And most importantly, Serbia in the De Jure Byzantine Empire will most likely have atrocious borders.
 
This is looking pretty great and the release date is even earlier than I expected. I'm looking forward to using Bloodaxe to get the Legacy of the Indo-Norse achievement.

One suggestion, perhaps you can make it so that the decision to form the new Bulgarian empire would also include Serbia, but only if you hold it when you take the decision. Basically use the same system that includes Pomerania in the Slavic Union if you hold it when you take the decision.

And speaking of landed titles, one thing that's been bugging me for a while now is that k_hungary can only be created by Hungarians and Avars, even when it's called Panonia. Meanwhile players of any culture can create k_magyar. My suggestion is that you add ai = no as a third possible condition that allows creating k_hungary.
 
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