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!

 

[pengoyo]

While adressing Byzantine issues is nice, I think it's not adressing the core of the problem. Even though they won't attack tribes until upgrading all tribes, you can still see they keep expanding into Crimea and other Kharazia-de jure lands instead of fighting for something actually good

Yeah maybe the AI should give more priority to conquering land with higher development or whose holdings already match their type.

 

[Tiax]

While adressing Byzantine issues is nice, I think it's not adressing the core of the problem. Even though they won't attack tribes until upgrading all tribes, you can still see they keep expanding into Crimea and other Kharazia-de jure lands instead of fighting for something actually good

My guess is these are Byzantine vassals in Crimea picking up more land, not the emperor himself. It seems like there is some sort of problem where large empires never declare ambitious wars for themselves - the Byzantines might pick off an OPM or two in Sicily, but you won't see a campaign for Syria against the Seljuks, or the Seljuks invading Anatolia. I'm not sure if there's some sort of speed bump coded into the AI to make big empires just give up on expanding, or if there's an issue where an empire thinks its war chest has to be really big before it can declare a war, and can never manage to save up enough.

It really feels like this is a big issue with the way the AI works that the devs don't seem to talk about much (I mean in dev diaries/forum replies - who knows what's on their radar internally). AI empires can't be an effective rival for human players because they are extremely passive, and they also have no ebb and flow. It's nice to see some work being done on Byzantine vassal behavior, but I think you're absolutely correct that the bigger issue is that the Byzantines don't pursue big goals at all. Even if they do great - no losses through 1300, there's no attempt at expansion, just sitting idly while vassals pick up stray counties.

I'd love to see a future dev diary about how the AI plans its objectives, and what the intended behavior of the Byzantines and Seljuks is. It's disappointing to just watch the two powers sit peacefully for a hundred years until the Seljuks are overrun by populists. Even the Cumans - a huge tribal kingdom at game start, never seem to do anything and just wait to be partitioned into oblivion.

 

[klopkr]

Wait the monarch journey headwear never showed up in the base game even when you unlock it?

Well damn i'm glad it's in now. Some of my favourite hair is in there.

@Pdx_Meedoc can you make the wizard beard show up on old physicians?

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Wait the monarch journey headwear never showed up in the base game even when you unlock it?

Well damn i'm glad it's in now. Some of my favourite hair is in there.

@Pdx_Meedoc can you make the wizard beard show up on old physicians?

It showed up if you'd unlocked it.

I've got a couple of them at the moment.

But it's nice to see the full range landing, and I *do* have a nasty tendency to edit wizard beards in on far, far too many kings.

 

[DarkStar44]

I hope the patch will also contain a bunch of bugfixes. Kinda waiting to be able to revoke hostile holy order land again.

 

[Weyird]

I tried to do a few monarch journies but they tired me out. They weren't my style. I was just trying to get the cosmetics but gave up and figured they weren't worth the stress.

I'm happy I'm getting it anyway.

 

[Princess Stabbity]

Yess! I'm so happy we get to finally see those things used. I got them all during Monarch's Journey but ended up not... really... using anything except the princess cone most of the time. This will bring some much-needed variety to character outfits.

Oh! Speaking of, do you have any plans to enable more customisation in the Barbershop in the near future? I've noticed that things like legwear and colour of worn clothing cannot be changed so characters are always stuck with their default boots and whatever colour scheme the game bestowed upon them on birth.

 

[Popdartan]

Please also fix the weird short hair were the kids heads clip through

 

[Trey353]

Jeanne d'Arc haircut? She was attested to have had her hair cut short like a boy's. I don't think her goal was to make a fashion statement.

 

[Voy]

Cool. Which types of Characters will automatically use Chaperons and Hennins? I hope they are not restricted to unlanded Characters and the High Nobility (Princes and Pricesses, Dukes) of Western Europe wear them.

From the looks of it, the textures have been made for the commoner clothing sets which means it's only courtiers and guests that will wear them probably. You can tell based on the colour scheme it follows and the texture pattern always matches the ones on commoner clothing. No late gear for your highborn, I'm afraid.

 

[Sir Godwin]

Can we also finally get a COA designer for custom rulers, the random Dynasty COA while its something, is incredibly impractical, I will spend an hour looking through random ones to find one I like only to accidently click off of it with no way to go backwards. we need a real desinger so we can actually design our own, or at bare minimum give us the option to go back to previous rolled.

 

[Aybara978NE]

I am glad everyone is getting the Monarch's Journey cosmetics. The Monarch's Journey was one of the coolest bits of CK3 marketing for me. I hadn't played CK2 before the announcement of CK3, but I spent 70 hours (and $5 on Sword of Islam) just to get those cosmetics, and I have enjoyed having them in the game. I really do hope they bring back the Monarch's Journey to CK2 and implement it into CK3, if only for the extra challenges to complete.

Now, if only they could do something similar for Victory 3... Anyone up for some Queen's Challenges?

 

[Belonogy]

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.

You should buy DLC for me, its fun. Why should I give my dlc to you? I earned them

 

[Belonogy]

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?

i got access to the ck3 nine months after, i work for it, you work for free, i believe in it.

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

are you talking about free game giveaways, contests, free lotteries? Let's give everyone all the games, apartments, houses. Are you a communist? Then start giving me games and apartments, please, and do not deprive me of the right to live like you. I live in a Russian dump with a dictator, and you live in luxury

 

[Orphalesion]

Ah thanks for unlocking the Monarch's Journey stuff for everyone.

I really didn't want to play CK2 mod-less just to get them tbh.

 

[Belonogy]

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.

 

[VVicked]

Is there any news about the Coat of Arms maker? I read that the devs were planning to add it to a later update.

 

[Orphalesion]

Is there any news about the Coat of Arms maker? I read that the devs were planning to add it to a later update.

It would also be nice if we could dress our characters in their house colours tbh. Like on GoT

 

[Cassilda]

It really good news that now the Byzantine Empire will go less in central Asia, where it never expanded historically.

 

[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?