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CK2 Dev Diary #19 The End is Nigh

Hello all, it’s DD time again! As you hopefully know, it’s only a little over a week until Reaper’s Due is released (on the 25th), and you’ve seen pretty much all the new features by this point. As such, I don’t have any big reveals this week, so instead I will just tell you about a few assorted small features and share some of the 2.6 patchnotes with you. So, without further ado:

Reaper’s Due
As well as 2.6 making the Indian Reincarnation events work slightly better, RD includes a rare Reincarnation event which anyone can get, provided they have Fantasy Content turned on.

Parents now have some reaction events to their children being born, especially to their first child, and additional events if it is sickly.

When characters become Ill, it is possible they will suffer from a Mild, Normal, Severe, or Incapacitating version of their Illness. In the latter case they will be bedridden and will require a Regent for the duration of their Illness.

2.6
I mentioned we might do this in an earlier DD, but Nomad’s Pillage decision is now on a separate Alert to avoid accidentally Settling.

You can now zoom the camera out even further, allowing the entire map to be seen at once.

As mentioned in a non-DD thread, AI-called Crusades will be much more likely to target areas adjacent to provinces of their religion-group if they have no targets with Crusade weights set.

I thought those were interesting enough to mention, but here’s the entire “Balance” section of the 2.6 patchnotes:
Code:
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# Balance
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- Alliances and Call To Arms
    - Restored manual call to arms
    - Call to arms from allies can be declined again
    - Added defines to enable/disable auto call to arms and possibility to decline them
    - Added major opinion penalties to alliance breakers
    - Added temporary alliance-breaker modifier (gives -5 diplomacy)
    - Made alliance-breaker and truce-breaker temporary modifiers duration scriptable
    - AI will consider dissolving alliances with alliance breakers
    - AI is unlikely to accept alliances from alliance-breakers
    - Fixed a bug that prevented vassals from joining wars against tyrants. Expect revocation wars to be more risky! (can be disabled through the define VASSALS_UNITE_AGAINST_TYRANNY)
    - Can no longer call ally to war if ally has NAP with defender
    - Alliance breaks with attacker if you accept call to arms from defender

- Flanders is now properly part of France
- Norse, Pictish, Visigothic, and Saxon cultures no longer split if controlled by a powerful ruler, or if their head of religion is of their culture
- CROWDED_THRESHOLD_MODIFIER lowered to 25
- Head injury in battle now has a chance to cause disfigured rather than incapable if your have Reapers
- many "active" minor titles, such as designated regent, cannot be held by incapable characters
- Alania is now Tribal from the Old Gods start point onwards
- k_hungary no longer requires a Magyar province to form
- Increased the troop count of the Shia uprising to make it succeed slightly more often
- AI holders of k_france will no longer create k_aquitaine unless they are close to forming Francia
- Gave Berber culture 'allow_looting = yes' and 'seafarer = yes'
- Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal
- The AI now makes use of Tribal Armies
- AI Nomads can now acquire warhorses
- Increased the Steal Population effect on the Humiliate CB from 10% to 25%
- Increased the impact and deadliness of most Epidemic traits
- Updated the 'Funeral Procession' event with better rewards in the options
- Extort Subjects now available when at war
- Donate to Liege now available when liege is at war
- The 'Groom an Heir' ambition no longer requires you to be married
- Updated final 'Ambitious positive' event to be slightly more interesting
- When declining the papal request to switch to Papal Investiture, the Pope may now excommunicate you
- Rank 2 and 3 education outcomes are now more common
- Become King ambition now only lets chancellors fabricate one kingdom claim
- AI no longer calls all allies into war, but only tries to get more than 1.25 times the opponent's strength
- Changed age to set childhood focus to 6 so you can also choose an educator at the same time
- Pagan nomads no longer suffer from pagan defensive attrition (made it a define called NOMAD_SUFFER_PAGAN_ATTRITION)
- It's now possible to demand religious conversion of landless courtiers even while at war
- Moved the Theology and Hunting focus events to 'on_focus_pulse'
- Seduction Focus: The rebuff opinion modifier no longer lasts forever
- Boosted the opinion effects of giving gifts and of the "Improve Relations" councillor job
- Even with the law that allows revocation and retraction from religious enemies, their religious brethren among your vassals will now still be upset
- You no longer get Pagan homeland attrition if you're allies
- Made Agnatic the normal default gender succession law again, except in Christian realms or when you have equality laws, or the new game rule
- Blocked barons from having Agnatic-Cognatic succession (it's an inheritance mess)
- Rulers of all religions are now allowed to convert to the attacker's religion during holy wars, if their Moral Authority is much lower
- The Family Focus (Way of Life) can now also remove rivalries between close family members
- Exiled characters should no longer join courts of characters in seclusion, or court of the banisher's vassal
- Characters can no longer escape from House Arrest
- Monthly prestige/piety province modifiers are now added to the character
- Most of the minor titles can now be made available for female characters as well, provided the correct laws or game rules are in place
- Frail now has a small health penalty
- When a Tyranny war is lost while the Conclave DLC is enabled, the title revocation law will be revoked
- Intrigue Focus: Spy On: Nerfed the chances of abduction and murder unless you are a Master Schemer
- Added 1 Health to the Theology Focus
- AI Nomads will now Tribalize if they push too far outside the steppe IF they don't hold much territory in the steppe region + not many castles/cities
- When Nomads Tribalise they now culture/religion convert new provinces based on population/manpower
- When a Nomad Tribalizes a custom kingdom will be created if they would end up as duke rank or lower
- Nomads who Tribalize now get a small amount of event troops
- Changed the Eunuch Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats before deciding
- Carousing Focus: You can now invite people to a new party 90 days after the last one (down from 500 days)
- Raised chance of reincarnation events for Indian religion group
- Changed the Jewish Councilor events so that they are slightly better and show up in the event option so you can click them and check their stats
- Lowered the war contribution that all theocracies and holy orders get as attackers in Great Holy Wars
- Powerful vassals will now only be angry that they haven't been given a position on the council if they're eligible for such a position, or they've recently been fired from the council
- Horse Lords: Unlocked the 'Perform Sky Burial' decision for non-Nomadic rulers of the Mazdan religious group
- Tanistry is now available without Late Feudal Administration, both for Feudal and Tribal Celtics
- Fixed firing Advisors applying the "Revoked Honorary Title" opinion modifier on top of the "Fired from Council" opinion modifiers
- Merchant republics can now always move their capital to a city if their current capital is a castle
- Reintroduced the Bankruptcy character modifier, which reduces army morale by 25% when a ruler has negative wealth
- Councilors who have promised council support to someone will now vote their conscience if the person they're supporting is abstaining
- Commanders can now only be relieved via the Relieve Commander interaction and the Minor Titles screen, which unlike the Revoke Honorary Title interaction, do not incur an opinion penalty
- Retreating enemy armies are no longer considered hostile for the purpose of disbanding units
- Adjusted the 'opinion_unfaithful_husband' opinion modifier
- Adjusted the 'acknowledged_bastard' opinion modifier
- Doubled the positive opinion modifiers from granting landed titles to someone
- Vassals are now grateful when you build buildings in their Holdings
- Viceroyalty succession now overrides all succession law opinion modifiers for that title, since succession law has no effect
- If succession law affects both the youngest and oldest child, and someone is both, they now always get the best opinion modifier
- Fixed heirs not getting positive opinion modifiers from succession laws (E.G., oldest_child_opinion in primogeniture)
- Visigothic culture will no longer split when in a powerful Visigoth realm
- Ladies can now gain the viking trait(s)
- Switching religious branch as an Indian religion will now also switch that of your close kin (if non-zealous)
- The Magyars have a significantly larger army in the 867 invasion of Hungary, they will now win more often than not
- Hungarians led by the Árpád dynasty will always want to settle in Hungary if they have the chance
- When the historical Magyars settle in Hungary, more provinces will convert to Hungarian
- Dynamic mercenaries are no longer prevented from marrying
- Even Malcontent voters will now vote for additional council power laws, as it means they'll have more to say 'no' about
- Prisoners from major revolts can now be executed and released
- Significantly increased the chance of vassals joining Grand Tournaments/Furusiyyas
- Reduced the number of unnecessary courtiers generated; should somewhat improve performance
- Redid the Varangian Guard events from MTTH events to yearly pulse events
- Added AI weights to event HL.10531, where a mercenary leader would accept or decline an invitation to a feast, to make it less random
- Moved event SoA.5219 to yearly pulse from MTTH
- Increased the prestige gain from 'Groomed to Perfection'
- Moved the SoA 'wicked priest' events to the bi-yearly pulse from MTTH
- Retreating from battles and sieges now starts the day after you right-click, so that you can cancel it on the same day if you misclick
- Tribals who are Tengri/Altaic will now raise more Light Cavalry and less Heavy Infantry in their summoned Tribal Armies
- William now starts with slightly more Heavy Infantry in "The Stamford Bridge" bookmark, to give him a higher chance of gaining England
- Rulers can now change crown laws every 50 years, rather than once per lifetime (cooldown still removed on death)
- Opinion of predecessor is now also inherited in elective government types if the successor is a close relative of, or in the same dynasty as, the old ruler
- Crusades on titles without a crusade weight are now less likely if said title is not adjacent to territory of the crusader's religion
- Now possible to ask one's liege to press one's claim even if the liege council isn't allowed to vote on war declaration
- Courtiers who have minor titles, friends, lovers, consorts or rivals are now excluded from the court pruning system
- Immortal characters are now immune to pruning
- If subjugation wars are invalidated, the 'once per lifetime' subjugation is now refunded
- If a Muslim Invasion is invalidated, the piety will be refunded

Horse Lords:
- When conquering Nomad land (empty provinces) as a non-Nomadic character, the following will happen:
    - A basic Tribal holding will be constructed
    - The Nomad culture and religion will be preserved in the province
    - A 'Nomad Agitation' province modifier will be added, slightly increasing provincial revolt risk
- On succession, if a character holds provinces with Nomad Agitation they will automatically secede from the realm unless one of the following is true:
    - A Castle or City holding has been constructed in the province
    - (Only if Tribal) At least 2 buildings have been constructed in the province's Tribal Holding
- Provinces that secede because of Nomad Agitation will spawn a new Nomad ruler as per the culture/s of the released province/s
- If a newly seceded Nomad Ruler borders a Nomad of the same culture, they will join them as a Clan Chief
- If a Nomad conquers a province with Nomad Agitation, the modifier will be removed

- Raiding Adventurers can now properly invade & claim land from Nomads
    - If they are the same culture as the target, they will become a Nomadic Clan Chief
    - If they aren't the same culture they will become a Tribal Vassal

- Now when you choose to 'Settle as Tribal' as a Nomadic realm your Clan Chiefs will settle along with you

- The 'Pillage Holding' decision has been remade, it will now pillage the selected holding progressively (once every 6 months) until it's destroyed
    - When a holding is destroyed from pillaging you get an event containing some flavor
    - You can now pillage several holdings in the same province at once
    - You can at any time choose to 'Stop Pillaging' a holding by using a targeted decision
    - The Revolt Risk associated with pillaging is now capped at 30%
    - Claiming a pillaged province as a non-nomad now clears the revolt risk (other penalties still apply)
    - The revolts that spawn from pillaged provinces are now significant (no more 60-man whack-a-mole uprisings)
    - You can no longer choose to pillage enemy holdings manually, instead it's triggered by event (gain gold or prestige)

- When choosing to settle as a Nomad the provinces that flip to your culture will now try to border each other
- The AI logic for when Nomads want to settle has been changed slightly, certain Nomad personalities will take longer to settle
- If a settling Nomad has only one vassal of king-tier, they will now usurp that character's kingdom rather than create a custom empire

- The Silk Road has received the following changes:
    - The Silk Road has been extended by adding a new branch from Lut - passing through Rayy and Tabriz - to Trebizond
    - The southern part of the Silk Road has been updated to also pass through Dhofar, Socotra, Busaso and Taizz on the way to Alexandria
    - Increased the base wealth of the Silk Road to 122 from 100, to account for added provinces

That's all for now, but if you haven't already seen them, be sure to check out the various preview videos which are starting to appear on Youtube. Next week I will post the rest of the changes as well as showing the new Steam Achievements.
RIP promo art.png
Finally, here's some eyecandy to remind you of your impending demise
 
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Essentially I don't think the AI should be geographically locked from expanding in certain directions especially when it is obviously beneficial to do so
The thing is: it would not have been a beneficial thing for them to do in real life, due to factors not represented in the game.
 
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Numbered to address a few of your remarks.

1) The requirement was literally in the statement you quoted. Re-read it.

I quoted no statement, i quoted lines of the patch log.
So what do you refer to ?

I didn't see anything on this. Neither in the opening post nor in the other post by Darkrenown that included the patch log.

3) If you're an only child, or an only son, you're clearly both youngest and oldest. Is this what you are misunderstanding?

..and there was an error with an only child and didn't work correctly ?
That would make sense and was what i suspected. Thanks

4) They talked about this some in the previous dev diary. It wasn't all super-specific, but it is a bit more info.

I read that diary and don't recall more info, than the mention of generated muslim women, that's why i asked.
New courts already only get about the number of generated courtiers, plus-minus one or two, of what you need to fill the council.
There was some sentence about new courts, but i couldn't make sense of it in the light of the current state when a new court is created.

6) I dunno, I thought it was kind of silly that you could only have a small party with your friends every 1.5 years while you were focusing on partying. 90 days for getting the guys together seems pretty reasonable.

It's a feast, that's expensive. Every 90 days is reasonable in medieval times ? For an emperor maybe.
Hmm...how about 180 ?
Well i don't know.
Will probbaly mod that for myself anyway.

Just thought 90 to sound relatively modern and excessive.
Well, i don't realy care, but what about the AI doing it excessively,....we will see i suppose.

7) The one for getting seduction rebuff. There's a opinion modifer for it.

You funny. I got what it does, but i didn't and currently don't know the name of the modifier.
I searched the opinion modifiers, but couldn't get my head around of which it is. I asked to not mix it up with another modifier.
 
What do you think of this patch note?

- Tribals who are Tengri/Altaic will now raise more Light Cavalry and less Heavy Infantry in their summoned Tribal Armies

I think it is a nice touch, though it would be nice if tribal realms could get some cultural buildings too which would upgrade to feudal versions later (to give some more variation to various realms)
Absolutely agree. Cultural buildings is always a nice touch. They dont even need to be powerful or anything.
 
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Both ? Youngest and oldest at the same time ?
I'm sure i'm misunderstanding something here...

Only children (or only sons, for agnatic succession) are youngest and oldest simultaneously.
 
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The thing is: it would not have been a beneficial thing for them to do in real life, due to factors not represented in the game.
But this is a game and if it was trying to simulate real life then it's doing a very poor job irregardless of whether the Abbasids go into Nubia or the Ummyads into northern France. I don't have any problem with trying to make certain parts of the map more resistant but gimping the AI in areas such as expansion when the player doesn't face similar limitations is just wrong.
 
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Berber pirates, yes!
 
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But this is a game and if it was trying to simulate real life then it's doing a very poor job irregardless of whether the Abbasids go into Nubia or the Ummyads into northern France. I don't have any problem with trying to make certain parts of the map more resistant but gimping the AI in areas such as expansion when the player doesn't face similar limitations is just wrong.
It is trying to simulate real life. Areas where it does not do that are considered flaws. And any effort to make invading Nubia less appealing to the ruler of Egypt should work equally well if the player is Egypt or not.
 
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It is trying to simulate real life. Areas where it does not do that are considered flaws. And any effort to make invading Nubia less appealing to the ruler of Egypt should work equally well if the player is Egypt or not.

Exactly. Setting up France's North African empire a few centuries early should far more difficult for both players and the AI. And isolated areas like Asturias, Ethiopia, Mali, and the Steppes should have the AI be deterred enough that the blobs don't eat them every damn game.
 
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I quoted no statement, i quoted lines of the patch log.
So what do you refer to ?

I didn't see anything on this. Neither in the opening post nor in the other post by Darkrenown that included the patch log.

I'm confused now. Here's what you quoted: "Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal"

"REQUIREMENT FOR LVL 4 HILLFORT/MARKET CITY" That's the requirement. It's right there. And it is a statement (it stated something), though it was indeed in a patch log.



It's a feast, that's expensive. Every 90 days is reasonable in medieval times ? For an emperor maybe.
Hmm...how about 180 ?
Well i don't know.
Will probbaly mod that for myself anyway.

Just thought 90 to sound relatively modern and excessive.
Well, i don't realy care, but what about the AI doing it excessively,....we will see i suppose.
Carousing? Based on all related events and flavor, carousing seems to be represented as getting drunk and playing games with your friends. You only invite a few people and you do so manually. A small feast, maybe, but not some epic gathering of the realm. This is not the same thing as the "Feast" decision.


You funny. I got what it does, but i didn't and currently don't know the name of the modifier.
I searched the opinion modifiers, but couldn't get my head around of which it is. I asked to not mix it up with another modifier.

If you're talking about modding name in the code, I don't know. But there's a opinion modifer described as "rebuffed advances" in game that appears when they tell you to go away.
 
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I also wonder what additional requirement was added.

A law? A tech? A certain prosperity level perhaps? Dare I say if it's a tech requirement that would be quite drastic.

What? Why are you all reading this this way? Read simply, the note is just saying all of them have to have the level 4 building. If they mean something else, then it's written wrong, but how it's written is "A feudal needs to upgrade the fort before he can upgrade the holding" or alternatively "A merch republic needs to upgrade the town before he can upgrade the holding."
 
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@Darkrenown, you said a while back that you were looking into reintroducing Crown Authority into Conclave as well as more laws to allow something like The King's Peace that banned vassal-wars between vassals as well as even unilateral wars outside the realm without permission.

Has this been introduced, or is the system still the same with vassals under Conclave, with no way to centralize realms like Byzantium and the HRE, so as to strengthen the crown and the state?

Also, a while ago I asked about the moddability of the game being improved by adding into the Law files the free_revoke_barony/county/kingdom modifiers to the already existing free_revoke_duchy modifier, to allow modders to implement more realistic Imperial realms with Laws and Law triggers.

Has this been implemented or can it be added easily?
 
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What? Why are you all reading this this way? Read simply, the note is just saying all of them have to have the level 4 building. If they mean something else, then it's written wrong, but how it's written is "A feudal needs to upgrade the fort before he can upgrade the holding" or alternatively "A merch republic needs to upgrade the town before he can upgrade the holding."

You're right, because the words "as a non-tribal" are easily missed.
 
It is trying to simulate real life. Areas where it does not do that are considered flaws. And any effort to make invading Nubia less appealing to the ruler of Egypt should work equally well if the player is Egypt or not.
This is what I said, what I was objecting to was the notion that the AI should be told not to conquer a certain region
 
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I'm confused now. Here's what you quoted: "Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal"

"REQUIREMENT FOR LVL 4 HILLFORT/MARKET CITY" That's the requirement. It's right there. And it is a statement (it stated something), though it was indeed in a patch log.

You mean that is meant to say that a market city is the requrement for the LVL 4 hillfort ?
Well if so, yeah that makes sense. That way it was written i was under the impression there is a requirement for both level 4 buildings... or such.

Well then, thanks for clearing that up for me. :)

edit:
...the note is just saying all of them have to have the level 4 building.."

...
- Added requirement for lvl 4 hillfort/market city when upgrading Tribal holdings as a non-tribal
No it doesn't. Thanks for your interpretation though.
If its meant to mean that, then it is sure easy to misunderstand.

edit2:
Now that i read it about the tenth time a simple "Added the requirement.." would probably make it more obvious...
Anyway..

edit3:
In parts i blame the bloddy instant soup i had and its thickening agent, sickening indeed.
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Carousing? Based on all related events and flavor, carousing seems to be represented as getting drunk and playing games with your friends. You only invite a few people and you do so manually. A small feast, maybe, but not some epic gathering of the realm. This is not the same thing as the "Feast" decision.
It's not literally a feast, true, but you can make friends and stuff and i recall it being described as a bigger party, rather than just hanging out with your buddies so to speak,
but i don't remember it exactly as i didn't use carousing much myself.

If it's supposed to be more like a close circle party, then yeah, agree.
I concede that i makes sense then. Now where is the wine ?

If you're talking about modding name in the code, I don't know. But there's a opinion modifer described as "rebuffed advances" in game that appears when they tell you to go away.

Hmm..yeah i thought it might be an opinion modifer, but it's probably something else, now that i read the event again.
Not that important to me, but would have been nice to know.
 
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If you play on a start date with mega powerful people, those people will be... mega powerful.

I don't really get the mentality. You want a start date without super powerful Muslims conquering in to France? Don't play Charlemagne. It was really important historical battles that stopped the Muslims from entering France, and Asturias surviving was also something of a fluke. So why should a rare and extraordinary event happen in every game?

It's long bothered me that Byzantium being OP is accepted and totally OK, but Umayyads being OP is terrible.

1066 is the most balanced start date and includes the most "content" for the game. Old Gods includes less content (because you'll quit before you reach it.) Charlemagne includes the last content in the game since you'll quit before the crusades even fire very likely.

As the changelog for this incoming patch shows, Paradox is increasing the weight for historical outcomes (William of Normandy conquering England, and the increased chance of success of the Magyar invasion of the Carpathian Basin). Whether you like it or not, Asturias survived the Ummayyads historically, without suffering a serious, lasting territorial setback following the Battle of Covadonga in 722. It's strange and distressing that in the vast majority of games they're swallowed within the first 100 years, not standing any chance against the Ummayyads even with help from Charlemagne in 769, let alone by themselves!

Paradox has some powerful and notorious Byzantophiles, and I've never heard of Ummayyadophiles there ;) Byzantium's long-term survival is always up to the game's variables. Yes, they failed, but that is certainly not inevitable when starting in 769. As Asturias is almost always the first DoW that the Ummayads make in 769, they're almost always strangled at the outset.

Therefore, I suggest that Asturias receives special event starting forces in 769 to increase their survivability against the Ummayyads at the outset, if nothing more than to increase their weight for historically accurate outcomes.
 
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