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Hi.

I'm Johan, the Manager of the Internal Studio here at Paradox. I'm here to give you a little bonus development diary on a monday afternoon.

We've added in a few new betas in the last weeks, and I thought I'd share some of their posts here with you, and giving you a little screenshot.

There is a thread in the beta forum, called "Nice Little Details", and here are some of the comments from it..

  • In the battle results, it also shows which land holders lost their lives in the battle.
  • Love how game labels characters in relation to you. Like 'son-in-law' or 'rival'.
  • Escheat is also pretty cool, and is an essential part of feudalism.
  • When your gold runs out while you have mercenaries, they will/might switch over to the enemy side
  • When you receive diplomatic offers or correspondence/messages, the wax seal at the bottom is stamped with the COA of whomever sent it.
  • I love how historical the game feels, the atmosphere, the dynamics... Love it.
  • I love everything so far, though I do love the ability to name children.
  • The 'detail' I'm most excited about is the fact that this game is practically in release-shape already and is going to be by a million miles the most polished release PI has ever done. I don't want to sound condescending but Paradox really learnt their lesson from HoI3.


We also asked the betas to give us some feedback from their playthoughs, and here are a few...

Kingdom of England
"Was rather interesting getting Harold Godwinson to survive - he lived to a very ripe old age and passed England along to his son and then to his great-great-grandson (Godwin I and Godwin II respectively). William the Bastard died in a French prison, although his descendants did hold onto the county of Rouen. Didn't play very aggressively, mostly just tried to manage my dynasty and watch plots. This made the game kind of peaceful although there were a few moments of excitement. I had to throw a couple of nobles into prison for plotting against the throne, and in one case that led to a short war between England and the Duke of Lancaster, who at that time was the most powerful vassal in the realm. Another noble agreed to refrain from assassinating my heir once I asked her politely. "

Duchy of Apulia
"Right after the start my wife tried to poison me - from the three options i choose to kill her and married the Duchess of Toscana (Matilda). I offered Capua to become my vassal and they accepted, short after that i declared war on Messina and Syracuse and won. I created the Kingdom of Sicily and fought back several Muslim attacks.

My first ruler died and through elective law the only son with his second wife (Matilda) become the new King and also the heir of Duchy of Toscana. After that I felt strong enough i claimed the County of Palermo and attacked the Sheikh, and I got his whole Sheikhdom including Salerno, Napoli, Palermo and Trapani as vassals. This was a very bad move, because all the cities and so were still reigned by muslim which hated me of course...

I tried to revoke their titles and fought some wars with them to get the titles and through that my other vassals began to hate me too.

To cap it all, Matilda died and i got the very huge land of her, including Firenze, Spoleto, Brescia, Sardinia, Corsica, Rome, and several other counties...

Matilda was a vassal of the HRE and the Emperor was very upset about the loss, in 1115 he declared war on me and in 1118 several of my vassals declared their independence.

I fought very hard but could not win against them all... "




Here is a screenshot from a game King is currently playing..

oops.PNG
 
Thanks Johan!

I was gutted when I missed out on the beta (to be fair I have no beta experience, but it is something of a catch-22 scenario..), but just those little snippets from campaigns really stoked my interest.

Any other little snippets would be (very) gratefully received.

Yay on naming children.
 
You can name children. Nice ! I can't wait playing an viking dynasty and naming a character after my self :D, or just some other cool name. I remember reading the threat where people begged for child naming option. Somehow I got the feeling this would not be in the game. But now I am really happy !
Once again, great work you have done with the crusader kings games !
It's good to see you are happy, but you should still proofread.

And here is the proof Paradox actually makes changes if enough users wish them. This is user-friendliness! Thank you Paradox!
 
I like that we can name our children, but say I'm playing as some random Croat. It wouldn't be fitting to name my son something in English, is it? Could there be some kind of option of "Let his/her mother/father name the child." as well?
 
I like that we can name our children, but say I'm playing as some random Croat. It wouldn't be fitting to name my son something in English, is it? Could there be some kind of option of "Let his/her mother/father name the child." as well?

Looks like based on the screenshot it will suggest a name which you have the option of changing. So it looks like you're safe! :)
 
The game looks really good.

Will PI be using the complexity of this game as a guideline for future games?


Also, the Portuguese adopt the female surname as their first last name when they marry and have children. Will this be simulated in CK2?
 
This is so awsome that I feel like ordering 200 copies just so I can fill my bathtub with it and bath in all of its glory!


BTW!? How will/does it work naming children and ruler number, for example: if my(me) ruler is named Harald and he getts a son and his name sugested is Erik then I whant to change his name to Harald as whell. Now will he have the II after his name when he inherits the throne when you change the name manualy?

Now I wold have guesed you thught about it already, just something I gott worried about when seeing the game as perfect. It wold bum me out if you missed sutch a tiny detail :p
 
Naming kids is in? That's great! I'd really started to expect that it'd be back to the old 'random name off a list' technique, so this comes as very welcome news.

Not really a bonus DD though, as we haven't had our usual DD for this month, or have I gone blind?

This is wonderful. I am really looking forward to playing this game already! :)


Not soon enough :p
 
It looks and sounds great! I'm really happy the naming option is present, although I wish they gave you 2-3 options in addition to a 'name it yourself' one. Since I'm not familiar with the common medieval names in most of the cultures in CK, each time this came up I'd probably be frantically searching through my court for names if I didn't like the first suggestion. It would get tedious fast.
 
Really? We do that? :eek:
I've seen that a few (very few, really) times in the current times, but I had no idea it was a usual thing before.

Maybe they do that more in Brazil than Portugal. Its more of using the females last name as your first last name and your original last name goes as your second last name and that style passes down to your children.
 
Well if you write a good Sengoku AAR, you can still be a CK beta:http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?560889-Crusader-Kings-II-beta-keys-anyone

Good luck

Nice PR move there to make people play the newest released paradox game ;).. Although I do find it funny on how it mentions that there's only "5" beta keys to give out, where in reality you can give out as much you want, but you're only choosing to give 5 beta keys out, for the moment, as that's the amount of testers it seems you want for this phase of the game it seems, lol ;) Anyhow, to those do that do plan on doing it, I wish you luck, and hope you guys get in if their good, as you'll be in for a treat playing a near finished game from what this Dev Diary states the current beta is in :).

I am curious though if the game is really this well polished will the release be pushed up for it come out earlier? (I doubt it, as I figure as a publisher you have QTR reports to meet, but still wishful thinking nevertheless, lol).

MP
 
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Are there Albanians in the game? :p

Other than that yes, glorious news, yay on naming children, etc.
 
Quite a lot of nice features there which I missed from CK1, I can't wait to play it.
 
Do characters in CK2 have their own history file, like rulers in EU3 do?
So many events take place in CK that this would be invaluable for reminding myself of why I'm supposed to hate this guy, or who was that person that sent an assassin after me?

e: and I hope we will have the option of acknowledging a bastard when he's born, but waiting until he's older to decide whether or not to legitimise him.
 
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