Hello everyone!

I know you are all eager to learn more about the Royal Court, but as we announced last week, we will go into more details once the Azure patch is released. If everything goes according to plan, and there are no unexpected events, we aim to release Azure next week! But let’s focus on today's small dev diary for now!

During the development of Crusader Kings III, we organized a community challenge where you could unlock unique cosmetics for the game, which we dubbed the Monarch’s Journey. With the 1.4.0 Azure patch, we’ve decided to make these cosmetics available for everyone!

It includes:

• Headgear:
  • Hennin
  • Chaperon
  • Jester's Hat
• Haircuts:
  • Miller
  • Miller Highlights
  • Jeanne d'Arc
  • Pageboy
  • Mullet
• And the Wizard's Beard!

In order to celebrate this, we’ve also hooked some of these assets in to be used by random characters. For instance, Scots will be able to randomly use the Mullet haircut, while Frankish women will be able to use the Jeanne d’Arc haircut.

[A classy French woman with a Jeanne d’Arc haircut]

[A charming Scot with a Mullet]​

And because fashion changed over time, the Chaperon and Hennin will be available in the western world only after 1300.

[A wonderful Chaperon]

[A magnificent Hennin]​

In addition to that, we fixed several visual bugs highlighted by you:

• Spouses of rulers will now once again wear clothes based on their spouse's culture
• Arabic High Nobility will now use the Scholar's Turban and Caliphs will use the Caliphal Robes
• The 'Spindly' Trait will not make people's limbs too thin anymore

On the AI side, we reworked how vassals handle holy war and added constraints on Feudal and Clans rulers to limit their aggression of Tribal rulers. These modifications still allow the Byzantine empire to expand but in a more elegant way. Let’s have a look at a few results from Observe mode!

​

And this is it for today! As mentioned at the beginning of this dev diary, we should be back next week with the changelog for the patch if everything goes well!

Until then, I wish you the best and, hopefully, have fun!

 

[EmeraldThanatos]

These modifications still allow the Byzantine empire to expand but in a more elegant way.

Proceeds to show bordergore

 

[johnty5]

Disgusting. I worked hard to get those Monarch Journey points. And now the lazy casuals get them too? Feel betrayed. Never buying a Paradox game again etc.

Only joking : D

Excited for Azure!

 

[Mindel]

Glad to see my apathy with doing Monarch's Journey finally pay off.

 

[Pdx_Meedoc]

This dev diary title was awful. It made it sound like Monarch's Journey was coming back...

Sorry for that, it was not my intent at all. I'll be more careful next time to set up wrong expectations!

Am I the only one who can't see the images? I refreshed a few times and it doesn't do anything.

Sorry, I fixed the images in the dev diary... I'm really cursed with the images in this forum... Hopefully it will work for everyone now! Let me know if it's not the case!

Does anyone know if the Azure update is the update that brings the changes to the culture system? Or is that coming with "The Royal Court"?
Thanks

It will be coming along the Royal Court expansion. You will have to be more patient before playing with it

Can you expand on this ? What sort of constraints did you add ?

Will this result in feudal/clan vassals being less likely to expand into the steppes ?

Now the AI will not target Tribal realm if they have Tribal holding within their realm. They will have to first upgrade their holding before conquering more tribal holdings. So they will be less likely to expand into the steppes indeed.
Regarding the restriction on Vassals starting holy war, we limited them to target only neighboring lands.

Will saves from 1.3.1 be compatible with 1.4?

We always try to make saves from the pervious version work reasonably well on the new update. However with a game as complex as Crusader Kings, we can never test all the edge cases. If you want to be sure your save doesn't break, make a backup. On Steam you can also roll back to the previous version to complete your campaign.

Please tell something about new achivments in 1,4 ?

There won't be any new achievements in 1.4

debug for devs

Indeed!

Cheers,

 

[johnty5]

Sorry for that, it was not my intent at all. I'll be more careful next time to set up wrong expectations!

Next week's dev diary title:

"We're adding China"

+dev diary is about tea cups+

 

[Razmorg]

Thank god the monarch cosmetics are actually used in the game now. I had fun with unlocking them but felt cheap when they wouldn't appear naturally in-game. Looking forward to the patch. Hopefully the faction tweaks makes the midgame and lategame more challenging!

 

[Cymsdale]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You should have did them because it was fun. If you ever find yourself playing games for not-fun reasons, than stop immediately because you are using games wrong.

 

[Aztlantix]

Interesting...

not as interesting as notification settings manager from CK2 thought,
but interesting nonetheless.

 

[johnty5]

Just went back through the old Dev Diaries to remind myself of what we're getting in Azure:

• Modding Improvements
  
  
• War Declaration Window changes and Starting Men at Arms
  
  
• Childhood "gatherings" and more childhood/lifestyle events
  
  
• Changes to traits/stress interaction and events. Improvements to AI in warfare.
  
  
• Ability to raise only Men-at-Arms. Ability to save game rules/character search presets
  
  
• War Declaration Window changes. Dynamic Mercenary Costs. Dynamic Garrison. Factions update.
  
  
• Monarch Journey items released for everyone. Changes to how vassals handle holy war and constraints on Feudal and Clans rulers to limit their aggression of Tribal rulers.

 

[Agamidae]

any chance for new Monarch's Journey challenges for CK3?
I don't even need any rewards, just more goals and leaderboards.

 

[johnty5]

we aim to release Azure next week!

 

[G S Palmer]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You got access to the content for a whole nine months before the people who didn't have time/didn't own CK2. You didn't have to pay money for it; you only had to play a game you (I hope) enjoyed (as @Cymsdale pointed out).

Plus, why would you want to bar other people from getting something which you got for free?

 

[Ares Enyalios]

The AI-Expansion adjustment is really nice. Thanks for reacting to our complaints about that!

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Amazing. I worked collecting points, completing sophisticated tasks in order to receive the promised rewards, and in the end they are distributed to everyone just like that. That is, I bought crusader kings 2 on the release itself, bought all the add-ons for the game at full price when they just came out without discounts. Completed tasks to get awards in ck3, which I also bought and is this attitude towards me? Why? Why are they pouring mud and dislikes on me for buying games at full price, earning unique hats so that everything is just given away. Let's give everything away for free. I bought ck3 but i suggest setting the price of ck3 to zero.

My heart bleeds for you.

Did you enjoy having the access you worked so hard for, and having it pretty much exclusively for 9 months?

No one is pouring mud on you for buying the games at full price and earning "unique" hats and costume elements.

I can see why people might be pouring dislikes on you though for wanting to keep these things to yourself - especially since it was made clear early on that these would *eventually* be made available to everyone.


You're also comparing something you got *for free*, for playing the game being given away months later to giving away the whole game for free? Can you not see how these do not really have a real comparison?

 

[FonzoRomano]

Check @Belonogy 's activity - he has gone into all my comments on posts and marked them as "respectfully disagree". Not only here but on other threads, several months old.

Not only mine but also other people's who disagreed with his benevolent views on why he thinks giving everyone a hanfdul of cosmetics that he unlocked almost a year ago is a terrible idea. Even though he has a ratio of 1 to 25 likes and dislikes, doesn't take a clue on people genuinly not agreeing with him, hates the feeling and blindly dislikes every post of who doesn't agree with him.

This attitude is sad, but common online. And only shows how a few toxic people can ruin the experience of a otherwise positive community.

 

[Voy]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You got it early, that's your reward. Take it or leave it.

 

[johnty5]

When I made that initial joke about the Monarch’s Journey cosmetics at the start of the thread, I never imagined anyone would be all like “This. But unironically”. People are weird.

I for one enjoyed the Monarch’s journey, enjoyed giving all my female rulers the exclusive Joan of Arc haircut for the last nine months and now am glad everyone else gets to enjoy them.

 

[FonzoRomano]

When I made that initial joke about the Monarch’s Journey cosmetics at the start of the thread, I never imagined anyone would be all like “This. But unironically”. People are weird.

Some Petty Kings want to be the only ones to wear a crown

 

[Sofyan Rghiwi]

We reworked how vassals handle holy war and added constraints on Feudal and Clans rulers to limit their aggression of Tribal rulers.

Can you expand on this ? What sort of constraints did you add ?

Will this result in feudal/clan vassals being less likely to expand into the steppes ?