Hello folks, and welcome to the first entry in the development diary for Crusader Kings II!

I am Henrik Fåhraeus, project lead on this sequel to the original Crusader Kings (on which I worked as co-designer.) Crusader Kings was a game quite different from our other franchises, in that the focus was on the powerful people of the era rather than on countries. You played a ruler, got married, had kids and watched them grow up to stab you in the back. As such, Crusader Kings was a bit of a role-playing game, while still retaining the strategy game elements of our other titles. Personally, I loved the combination, and, judging by the clamor for a sequel, it appears many others did as well. We are still proud of Crusader Kings, but time waits for no man, and the game is getting on in years...

As it happens, Crusader Kings II is coming along nicely, and, starting with this one, you should be seeing monthly CKII development diaries coming your way (on the first Thursday of the month). With Crusader Kings II, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. Rather, we want to build on the strengths of the original game and fully realize its potential. That is not to say that Crusader Kings II will be the same game with new graphics, but it should feel instantly familiar to CK players.

What makes CK unique among our games is its character system and its RPG-like elements. The role of the player is clear since there is a ruler, a character, to identify with. The player is the king, and it's good to be the king! In Crusader Kings II, we aim to really hone in on the importance of characters - their personalities, interests and interactions - and to tone down the relevance of "countries". The sum total of the Prestige your successive rulers have gathered throughout the game determines your final score; not the size of your realm at game end. Of course, a major source of Prestige is the power of your family, your Dynasty. In fact, die without an heir from your dynasty and it's time to INSERT COIN.

The core gameplay, then, revolves around increasing the power of your dynasty and ensuring that you always have a legal heir with strong enough support. The death of your current ruler is the moment of truth: who will support the legal heir? Have you even managed to ensure one? Will anyone contest the succession? Unlike Crusader Kings, where your vassals would declare war on you simply because they disliked you (regardless, even, of their chance of success), in Crusader Kings II they are much more likely to bide their time and cause trouble during a succession crisis. The key is to choose the best Succession Law... For example, Gavelkind is almost guaranteed to be safe from succession crises. On the other hand, Gavelkind will divide your titles equally among your sons, splintering the realm and potentially decreasing your power.

I mentioned toning down the concept of countries. Here are some highlights: there is no Infamy/Badboy. Neither do characters have "loyalty", and neither is there a persistent relations value between countries. CKII is all about the characters, their opinions of each other, and their clash of interests. Therefore, we have merged the aforementioned concepts into a single opinion value between -100 and 100. I.e. what one character feels about another character... and why. The value is a sum of modifiers, like "Friend of Father's: +5", "Granted a Duchy: +30", "Betrayed Alliance: -20", etc.

Of course, characters will have traits, genetics and neat portraits like in Crusader Kings and EU:Rome. If you want to breed a dynasty of redheaded Harkonnen look-alikes, go ahead (with my blessing). Oh, and characters will age visibly; I shall leave you with a screenshot demonstrating the effect!

Next month: Barons - why Vladimir hated Leto

 

[finyou2]

I mentioned toning down the concept of countries. Here are some highlights: there is no Infamy/Badboy. Neither do characters have "loyalty", and neither is there a persistent relations value between countries. CKII is all about the characters, their opinions of each other, and their clash of interests. Therefore, we have merged the aforementioned concepts into a single opinion value between -100 and 100. I.e. what one character feels about another character... and why. The value is a sum of modifiers, like "Friend of Father's: +5", "Granted a Duchy: +30", "Betrayed Alliance: -20", etc.

I have been this waiting for years

 

[Tommy4ever]

Looking good so far.

My one concern is your mention that there will be no badboy points. How will the game stop the player going on a rampage of conquest? Will do this decrease the opinion that the vassals have of their liege or will the palyer be free to stomp over everything betwixt the Euphrates and the Pillars of Hercules?

 

[LordofSaxony]

Looking good so far.

My one concern is your mention that there will be no badboy points. How will the game stop the player going on a rampage of conquest? Will do this decrease the opinion that the vassals have of their liege or will the palyer be free to stomp over everything betwixt the Euphrates and the Pillars of Hercules?

My guess is that perhaps waging a war without purpose (no actual purpose, as in no casus belli, or whatever), that he'll get a blanket penalty to his opinion score that affects all incoming views of him. If he does have a logical reason to wage war (again, if they use casus belli or whatever) then he'll not receive a penalty. In a fashion, at least if they do it this way, the BB is still incorporated into the game, but it's based on the character more than anything.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

My guess is that perhaps waging a war without purpose (no actual purpose, as in no casus belli, or whatever), that he'll get a blanket penalty to his opinion score that affects all incoming views of him. If he does have a logical reason to wage war (again, if they use casus belli or whatever) then he'll not receive a penalty. In a fashion, at least if they do it this way, the BB is still incorporated into the game, but it's based on the character more than anything.

That, and hopefully it will be nigh-impossible to keep the Mediterranean your private lake for long. Vassals in far away places should get funny ideas about breaking away, efficiency should plummet, it should be hard to respond to far apart threats on your borders... It should be very hard to rule Jerusalem whle ruling from say, France.

 

[Easy1]

I Like those bright blue eyes

 

[zorkman]

I presume that the portraits for children will be blanked out as with CK1 until they come of age, which is a shame as a sweet looking little girl tyrant would be fun. particulalry if she/he had plotted their way to the throne. That is presuming that children can come to the throne, & not having a regent pulling all the strings.

 

[Arko]

I Like those bright blue eyes

it is what i dislike the most - just surrealist

 

[podcat]

If you want to breed a dynasty of redheaded Harkonnen look-alikes, go ahead (with my blessing).

So I take it that characters will look like a combination of their parents, grand-parents?

If so may I point that I was the first one to mention that idea

yes, the look of a character is of course based off his parents, and it can also be based off a child if it has been scripted in the history files (eg it will search upwards in the family tree when a historical scripted look is found and make sure the way parents & grand parents etc make sense).

I hope you will like the new portrait system. its a lot more flexible and moddable than in it was in Rome.

 

[LordofSaxony]

That, and hopefully it will be nigh-impossible to keep the Mediterranean your private lake for long. Vassals in far away places should get funny ideas about breaking away, efficiency should plummet, it should be hard to respond to far apart threats on your borders... It should be very hard to rule Jerusalem whle ruling from say, France.

Perhaps they could have a distance/penalty ratio. The further the distance from your King's capital, the more of a penalty he'll receive. So, it would be more difficult to have huge kingdoms/empires since you'll be dealing with uprisings on your distant borders. It could look like something like..

Distance x Penalty (-0.01)

So, if your border is 2,000 miles away from your capital, your character will receive a penalty of 2000 x -.01= -20 in terms of how distant border nobles regard you (ie, you're so far away that they might rebel because they believe they can). So, 1,000 miles away would have a penalty of -10. I would say anything under 1,000 miles and you don't have a penalty. I don't think it should be a huge penalty, but I do think a penalty should be there on some scale, and that penalty might tip the balance in terms of whether or not one of your distant lords rebels.

Perhaps there can be some sort of tech that diminishes this a bit, such as some sort of correspondence system tech advancement, the better the system is, the less of a penalty due to covering large areas of land in less time. So if you want a large empire, you need to build the infrastructure to support it. There was a reason why Rome built roads and had a somewhat reliable messenger system.

yes, the look of a character is of course based off his parents, and it can also be based off a child if it has been scripted in the history files (eg it will search upwards in the family tree when a historical scripted look is found and make sure the way parents & grand parents etc make sense).

I hope you will like the new portrait system. its a lot more flexible and moddable than in it was in Rome.

I like it a lot actually! Of course, I was an advocate of the front face portrait to begin with. I remember mentioning a while back the idea of using a transparent png/gif overlay to show aging (ie, shades of gray for hair, etc), is that what you guys did?

 

[unmerged(84239)]

it is what i dislike the most - just surrealist

I thought that it's just a Dune joke or something...

 

[podcat]

I like it a lot actually! Of course, I was an advocate of the front face portrait to begin with. I remember mentioning a while back the idea of using a transparent png/gif overlay to show aging (ie, shades of gray for hair, etc), is that what you guys did?

nah it replaces a few face layers completely. this lets you have better control over which hair color/eye color variations are available

 

[Captain Frakas]

It could be a nice attention to details if layers are scripted regarding some coherency between genders so that hairs and others face part of a character will lead to fathers or brothers that more or less look like their daughters/sisters and vice versa.
In CK1 it wasn't the case and, for example, the 01 DNA for hairs could be blond for males and black for females, thus a blond father would mostly have black hair daughters.

 

[LordofSaxony]

nah it replaces a few face layers completely. this lets you have better control over which hair color/eye color variations are available

Makes sense!

 

[Rysz]

Could Doomdark or Podcat (or any of the other Dev's) give us an answer as to the great question whether succession laws are tied to titles or persons? It would be very much appreciated for the further discussion amongst us forumites if we would know that.

Also, if it is not decided yet in the development, I would like to start a new thread to try and convince Paradox to make the succession laws tied to the titles

 

[Nikolai]

Title or persons? How can a succession law be tied to a person and not a kingdom/duchy/county?

 

[Rysz]

Title or persons? How can a succession law be tied to a person and not a kingdom/duchy/county?

Because currently in CK1, a succession law is applied to all the titles a character has (in essence: tied to the person, and not per title). So the King of France will have salic primogeniture, and so will all the counties and duchies he hold as well. If however the succesion law is bound to titles, the King of France might indeed be succeeded by different heirs in different kingdoms, duchies or counties

 

[LordofSaxony]

nah it replaces a few face layers completely. this lets you have better control over which hair color/eye color variations are available

Are the pictures based on culture? As in, perhaps one culture's picture selection may be different than another culture's picture selection? Like, the English may look different than the Byzantines?

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Could Doomdark or Podcat (or any of the other Dev's) give us an answer as to the great question whether succession laws are tied to titles or persons? It would be very much appreciated for the further discussion amongst us forumites if we would know that.

I assume they'll want to wait and adress that in another development diary.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Perhaps they could have a distance/penalty ratio. The further the distance from your King's capital, the more of a penalty he'll receive. So, it would be more difficult to have huge kingdoms/empires since you'll be dealing with uprisings on your distant borders. It could look like something like..

Distance x Penalty (-0.01)

So, if your border is 2,000 miles away from your capital, your character will receive a penalty of 2000 x -.01= -20 in terms of how distant border nobles regard you (ie, you're so far away that they might rebel because they believe they can). So, 1,000 miles away would have a penalty of -10. I would say anything under 1,000 miles and you don't have a penalty. I don't think it should be a huge penalty, but I do think a penalty should be there on some scale, and that penalty might tip the balance in terms of whether or not one of your distant lords rebels.

Perhaps there can be some sort of tech that diminishes this a bit, such as some sort of correspondence system tech advancement, the better the system is, the less of a penalty due to covering large areas of land in less time. So if you want a large empire, you need to build the infrastructure to support it. There was a reason why Rome built roads and had a somewhat reliable messenger system.

That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. I'd also either have the same penalty apply to things such as any payments collected from the distant holdings, or have taxes etc modified by your relationship with the vassal. If they don't like you, or think they can get away with it, they pass on less.

I'd also like to know if succession laws are tied to titles or characters. To titles would be good, although I'm not sure how you'd designate which inheritor the player takes over if there are several from your dynasty. Maybe you could let the player choose via event on character death? Something like:

King _ the _ of _ has died at the age of _. He will be best remembered for his explots in the _, where _. Of his personal holdings, _ and _ will be inherited by members of his dynasty, while _ will be inherited by _ of the _ dynasty.

Option A: Take over as _, inheriting the title "King of _ and Duke of _"
Option B: Take over as _, inheriting the title "Duke of _"

That way if multiple dynasty members are up for inheriting different bits of land, you could choose which one was more interesting to play, maybe take over as the scheming younger brither who wants to steal the throne from his dearest older sibling.

 

[Ruwaard]

That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. I'd also either have the same penalty apply to things such as any payments collected from the distant holdings, or have taxes etc modified by your relationship with the vassal. If they don't like you, or think they can get away with it, they pass on less.

I'd also like to know if succession laws are tied to titles or characters. To titles would be good, although I'm not sure how you'd designate which inheritor the player takes over if there are several from your dynasty. Maybe you could let the player choose via event on character death? Something like:



That way if multiple dynasty members are up for inheriting different bits of land, you could choose which one was more interesting to play, maybe take over as the scheming younger brither who wants to steal the throne from his dearest older sibling.

Interesting, but usually there wasn't an option to choose from. In most cases titles had a certain tradition to deal with inheritance; salic primogeniture, semi-salic primogeniture, proximity of the blood etc. However especially when they had to search the family tree for the next heir, things could become more complicated. For instance the way how Phillip of Rouvres, duke of Burgundy, was succeeded by king John II of France (however Burgundy did not became a part of the Royal Domain) according to proximity of the blood; and not Charles II of Navarra, who would have inherited under primogeniture.
So these inheritance issues could be used to claim a title and/or start a war of succession.