CK2 Dev Diary #25: Man vs Machine

[ThrownIntoSol]

My only real personal "complaint" about the CK2 UI is that there isn't a popup when you are able to change laws, or, even the rules of succession.
It would be awesome if there was a message when you can change them, as I find myself missing such occasions.

 

[CplKatie]

I would love to raise levies via the shields of my vassals on the map instead of opening up a window. Have a rebellion in the lands of the Duke of york? Right click his shield on map and raise his troops to meet your retinue to clear it up. I hate having to search through 30 vassals in a list format.

 

[hironolind]

...so the next major free update will feature AI and GUI improvements, which brings me to today’s topic; usability.

Now, we are aiming to tweak several interfaces and while I cannot go into much detail yet, I can say that I’d especially like to address the following main areas:

• Plotting (quality of life)
• Prisoner management

Is it true!? Can I finally remove the nagging from my sig for an improved intrigue UI?!

 

[Czern]

As far user interface improvements goes, we really need an option to change colors of our realms during the game (including CM's custom realms).

It can even be a part of a new DLC, as I suggested in this thread.

 

[GregoryK64]

I would also suggest finding a way to spread out the tiny character portraits of participants in wars and plots. Sometimes those get so stacked (especially during crusades when you have many participants) it's nearly impossible to see who is involved. This is especially frustrating during crusades when I'm trying to find my character portrait and find out my warscore participation percentage.

 

[REJS7]

A couple of things spring to mind:

1) Handing out titles to the correct vassals, especially when they are angry at you for holding onto the title, could do with an overhaul - potentially have a button which allows to you to grant titles/give vassals at each rank (baron/count/duke/king), as a lot of my time is spent title managing when playing nomads.

2) Add more opportunities to convert to a given religion, as I find it impossible to properly convert without feeling gamey (such as concubines and vassals etc). Personally I would like an option to invite a character with a high religiosity (possibly fanatic) to Court in order to proselytize, which would be good for Jews/Zun/small religions.

3) Streamline grant vassals, especially baron tier ranks, which can accumulate very quickly when playing nomads

4) Give more options for defusing rebellions before they breakout, as at the moment you have to spend gold, grant titles, or assassinate to stop a rebellion/faction that is brewing

5) Give rulers an ability to parlay to rebels once they breakout that diffuses the war without needing either a white peace or 100%

6) An option to retract a title you accidently hand out without fear of a penalty, as I have accidently handed out empire/king level titles by mistake, then had to declare war to recover them

7) More options to get prestige - at present there is a limited ability to gain prestige, and it would be useful if there was a career path that enabled you to gather prestige at the cost of say piety, gold, or other stats

 

[DarkstarMatryx]

When you remove a corrupt counsel member because of an event and it opens a seat that you now need to fill. I often make the mistake of filling it with the same person I had just removed. I think when an event answer removes the counsel member for corruption they should be marked "Removed for corruption" Maybe a Temporary Trait Nice and upfront so we cant miss it like a chair with a circle and a line through it for a period of time so you do reseat them back in the place you just took from them. With so many names and similar pictures it can sometimes be hard to remember who it was you just removed when going to re-fill the newly empty seat. I admit I have a bad memory when it comes to names so this would help me greatly.

 

[raphael61000]

I don't know if it has been said before, but one thing i'd really like to see change in terms of interface is how we choose our coat of arm in the ruler customizer. Right now it is really hard and long to get to the one you want, you have to click next relentlessly. I would like to be able to open a menu with all the available coat of arms and pick from there.

I don't know if it's possible but that's what I would like the most

 

[Kougoes]

Thanks for the chance to voice our thoughts!

Personally, I find the menu in which we select characters to be very clunky, e.g. appointing a councillor or title, selecting someone for marriage. When I want to look at the character window of a specific character in the list, I have to select them for the option, then put them on favorite and finally select their character window through the favorite people pane. Also, appointing characters is a bit clunky. Sometimes it's left click, sometimes right click...

Furthermore the amount of options when right clicking a character has increased lately. Sometimes I overlook the option I want to use. Sometimes the option I want to use isn't even there and I'm not entirely sure why.

These are my thoughts from the top of my head.

 

[FaultyAI]

It's a really minor annoyance, but if I'm viewing another character, e.g. my heir, I wish that the large button to open the character screen would return me to my character, not close the screen. The number of times I've clicked it to return to my character from foreign characters, and then closed the screen is insane. It's only a 1 click save, but you can close the window with the X if that is what you desire to do.

 

[Wezqu]

It would be nice to be able to use the character finder so that the displaying relation numbers would be how your characters opinion of the other character. Currently that information is only be able to be viewed there if you hover over each individual character. Roleplaying purpose this would be good to have as I often like to give the titles to people who my character likes and currently its very time consuming to hover over every character individually to get the information and then write the name down so you remember it if you need more than one.

 

[ASTRODAM]

I'd would like that a decision, a special event, or chain of events would exist to favorise feodalisation of vassals when you are tribal. Like much cheaper fort or city upgrade for vassals, less construction time, boost for vassals in castle/city tech when liege is feudal. The cost for that would be prestige, gold and even opinion of vassals forced to be feudal.

Anyway, looking forward for new expansion, as always.

 

[Barón Rojo]

Settlement decisions are kinda hidden. It would be displayed with a proper button.

 

[Vegtamskvitha]

As many already have written, managing and giving out titles can be a nightmare. For me it is the reason why I almost always abandon a nomad game after a couple of decades.
Even being a King with a huge demesne makes title management terrible (playing a game as a jainist emperor in full control of everything...trying to not give away one of my 14 counties...).
So what I would love to see would be a way to mark titles (empire, kingdom, duchy, county, barony) as "personal, important demesne" which would remove them from the "Grant title" interface entirely. So I no longer have to scroll through my 30-40 counties as a nomad before I reach the titles I actually want to give away, and I will not by accident give away one of my highly upgraded counties to some random dude who should have gotten this nameless mud pitt of a county somewhere in the steppes. Hell, I even managed to give away entire Kingdoms because they had the same name as the duchy I wanted to give away...

The button for this could be placed in several places. At the "View title screen"; right-clicking on the shield on your character page, opening a little menu; from the "Build buildings menu"; at the holding window.

Please, please at least consider it, it would make title management much easier.

 

[b_raven]

I would like achievements button, like in Europa Universalis IV

 

[_Perun_]

Can we have an option to make claimants swear fealty without giving them a title first?Giving every claimant a city seems quite gamey. But that is not an interface issue, so sorry in advance.

 

[Mummolus]

A Crusade/Great Holy War timer in the religion screen, and especially the 'Request Crusade' button should always be visible, often greyed out in the Diplo menu, where hovering over it will give you the usual sort of tooltip telling you why it's not an option. Currently it just disappears which is incredibly inconvenient.

A 'within diplomatic range' option in the character finder.

The ability, as any unreformed faith, to invite missionaries from a reformed one whowill then try to convert you and your subjects.

 

[Stupid1039]

I would really like more filters on the people finder, things like:
Highest title
Inheritance
Has x trait
Does not have y trait
Skills x, y, and z above certain limit
Member of xxx dynasty

 

[y1kdcb5au9rqw]

I would think that the people who play "turn-based" would like the many "pop-up and pause" option that doesn't work fixed in message setting as well as having some pause options added to the many alerts that have a time limit (especially with the new penalty for breaking alliances).

 

[Kainser]

Oh and a "reroll" button when naming your child would be great. If you don't like the suggested name, you have to open the culture file to get other suggestions. People have asked for this for years.

Yeah, this would be great. I have to resort to using the character browser sorted by my culture to check so that I won't mess up regnal numbers and stuff with my name. And even that doesn't work for certain names that have non-standard letters. (I'm looking at you Þ ! )