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New month, new dev diary! This time, let's talk about events. Does anyone remember the first Crusader Kings? Raise your hands, kiddies. Now, think back to the events in that game. There were loads and loads (and loads) of them, though they were not exactly verbose. CK was, in fact, very much an event driven game, and this remains true in Crusader Kings II; characters still gain and lose traits through events, random stuff happens to them, and so on. These are the basic, bread and butter type events, and they are still very succinct and to the point in CKII. They are written in first person and represent various occurrences in the life of the character. They are, however, not particularly immersive, and so, we have added two other classes of events; letter events and narrative events.

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Letter events are a form of custom interaction between characters, and are, as the name suggests, presented in letter form. Functionally, there is no real difference between these and normal events, but they have a different look and feel to them. They are fairly common, though rarer than regular events, normally used whenever a character's choice in an event should trigger an event for another character in a different location.

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Narrative events are very rare, occurring on average only once or twice per game, and are used to tell a kind of interactive story where the player choices can have unforeseen effects down the road. They have fairly lengthy texts, and, like letter events, a distinctive appearance. When one of these event chains kicks off, the player should be surprised, and should rarely get the same narrative again (and never in the same game.) Narrative events typically vary with character culture, and can have a bit of a mythical element to them (subjectively speaking, of course.)

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All three event types will have many unique pictures and borders. We feel that the new events are more immersive without being more intrusive, and will bring characters to life in a way that was not possible in Crusader Kings. Until next time!


Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
 
Fascinating stuff! I love the idea of having events in letter form.

As someone who spends a lot of time reading medieval letters for research, may I humbly request that the form of the letters bear some resemblance to actual sources? Or at least that this be the case for the first letter of each type that you receive in the game (they can be abridged thereafter).

For example, here is a letter from Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester to the Bishop of Durham from 8 August 1420:

"Le duc de Gloucestre Gardein Dengleterre

Reuerend pere en dieu nostre trescher et tresentierement bien ame Nous volons a linstance et priere du tresreuerend pere en dieu lerscheuesque Deuerwike que a son Cousin Henri Bowet Archediakne de Richemond qui desire grandement dexercer son estudie a lunieuersitee de Boloigne pour son greidnre honour et meilleur apris. veullez faire auoir vn brief de passage soubz le grant seal en due forme par force du quel brief il purra seurement passer ouec sept hommes a cheual en sa compaignie hors du Roialme pardeuers la dicte vniuersitee sans destourbance ou empeschement

Donne soubz nostre signet a Euerwik le viii iour daoust
"

(My translation):

"The duke of Gloucester, Guardian of England.

Reverend father in God, our very dear and fully well beloved, we will after the request and prayer of the very reverend father in God the archbishop of York that to his cousin Henry Bowet, archdeacon of Richmond, who greatly desires to study at the University of Bologna for his greater honour and learning, [you] be willing to provide a letter of passage under the Great Seal in due form, by force of which letter he will be able to pass securely with seven mounted men in his company out of the realm to the said university without disturbance or obstacle.

Given under our signet at York the 8th day of August.
"

To balance this rather personal letter from the very end of the period, here is the heading of an official letter from Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury to Pope Alexander II, dated October 1071:

"Vniuersae Christi ecclesiae summo rectori Alexandro indignus Anglorum episcopus Lanfrancus bonum inferre bonum principio."

The letter ends:

"Omnipotens dominus det nobis semper audire de uobis quod audire coepimus et audire desideramus, diligende, colende, reuerende pater."

(My translations):

"To Alexander, very highest leader of the universal church of Christ; Lanfranc, unworthy bishop of the English, to [with?] the principle to bring forth good."


"May the almighty Lord grant us always to listen concerning you, because we begin to listen and we desire to listen, father who is to be esteemed, protected, and revered."

If these kind of letter protocols could be used, it would make the experience that bit more immersive.


A great book if you want some examples of different types of medieval letters and letter protocols is Pierre Chaplais, English diplomatic practice in the Middle Ages (2003) (despite the title, it also covers continental sources).
 
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Awesome ! The pics of the caracters are far better than in previous diairies, very nice. :cool:

I especially like the third option of the Merry Men of Nassau event
:rofl:
 
I like it
 
Are narrative events the only events where the player is presented with a choice? I hope not, if you say you only get one or two during a game.

I would think not, hopefully.

Character pics looking very good, Doomdark. I'm looking forward to seeing how the ladies will turn out. I like how the bishop and king's portraits look distinctive, and am I detecting facial expressions between screenshots 2 & 3? If so, well done!

The map items are coming along well. I can see a nicely done friar (doing missionary work, perhaps?) and a castle in image 2. And the event has what looks like an HRE seal attached. Details, details, glorious details!
 
I cant stop marveling at the art on the event screen, so nice. Again I must congratulate your artwork team as everything looks awesome in that aspect!

Also new event forms. So good!
 
Nice set up for the events, I don't think implementing too much period language/style will be a good idea. The players at times will want to skim over them quickly.

Good work on the character portraits, they work really nicely with the clothes.