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Hey folks, it is dev diary day and time to talk a bit about rebels and adventurers! Let's start off with the rebels; as you know, the old rebels are a nuisance but they are easily defeated and even if they hold a county for a long time, defection is rare. Sure, they sometimes kill a local ruler, but even that is uncommon. This is a shame, especially since we have explored better ways of handling rebels in the In Nomine expansion to Europa Universalis III and in Victoria II. So, for The Old Gods, we are replacing the old simplistic system with proper rebels with a cause (if you don't have the expansion, you will be stuck with the old system.) There are three new types of rebels: peasants, heretics and "liberators". As before, they can appear if the revolt risk is higher than 0 in a county. If the county is of a heretic religion, heretic rebels may appear. If the county is in a kingdom occupied by foreigners, liberators may rise up. If the other two types are not suitable, it's going to be a peasant revolt.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Peasant_Revolt.jpg

The new types of rebels all have a leader with a temporary title. They start at war with the ruler of the realm in which they appear, but they are hostile to everyone. Fighting them is like fighting a normal war; you get war score for crushing their army. If peasant or heretic rebels win, the county will be taken and becomes independent under their leader. Liberators are more dangerous; they tend to rise up with the best and largest forces, and they are after the entire de jure kingdom. However, they typically tend to settle for a few counties and the title to the kingdom itself. The system is fully moddable and it is pretty straightforward to add new rebel types.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Claimant_Adventure.jpg

This brings us to adventurers. The concept is quite similar to the rebels, but adventures are started by existing characters and can target distant lands. There are two main types; claimants with no titles who stand to inherit nothing, and men of major dynasties with no claims but high martial and diplomatic skill. In both cases, the adventurer lets it be known that he is starting an adventure and gathering a host (both his current liege(s) and the target ruler are notified). After a year or two, he is given a temporary duchy title, an army, and a fleet. War is declared, and he goes after the target. Claimants, of course, will try to press their claim, but the other type simply target a juicy duchy somewhere and go off to seize it (like the d'Hautevilles took southern Italy). A savvy player who is targetted may of course assassinate the adventurer before he arrives with his army... Characters of certain cultures are more likely to go off on claimless adventures, e.g. Normans and Norse.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Conquest_Adventure.jpg

Speaking of Norse and Norman, another thing I believe we haven't mentioned yet are the new cultures we've added: Norse, Bolghar, Khazar, Mordvin, Samoyed and Avar. In 867, all Scandinavians are of the Norse culture, but there are events that will initiate a split into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Independent Norse rulers outside Scandinavia will not be affected. Determined players can also choose to stay Norse and attempt to educate children of vassals to stick to this culture. Similarly, there are events for the appearance of Norman culture, which is formed by Norse conquerors in Frankish, Breton or Occitan lands. (Yes, we could have done this for any number of cultures in the game, but it is quite a lot of work. It is, of course, also fully moddable.)

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Cultural_Divergence.jpg

That sums it up for today! Next Wednesday will see the last dev diary for The Old Gods expansion and will feature the new technology system and what other tidbits remain.

Bonus, in case you missed it ;)

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods Video Dev Diary 2 - Rebels
[video=youtube;eo7ttCKInYM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM[/video]

 
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Presumably Paradox want to cut out something - temporary title functionality? adventurers & claimant armies (& formation)? I must admit it was a bit of a surprise.
 
If peasant or heretic rebels win, the county will be taken and becomes independent under their leader.
If this happens will the Duke get an instant de jure CB to that county? And if the Duke of the duchy, where this county is, has a liege will that liege get an instant CB to take that county back to the Duke?
The (possibly) annoying thing about the rebel thing is that you'll have to culture / religion convert a province to end those uprisings once and for all. One more reason to replace all land owners with people having the "right" culture and religion.
Hmm... I usualy try to spread my ruler's culture to conquered territories. But it sounds like my ruler might get trouble with replacing all Counts in conquered counties with characters of his/her culture.
 
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Not to keen on the fact that you don't get the new rebels if you don't get the DLC. Not a very big deal, but it seems like a slippery slope to make it an exclusive to the DLC, especially when the DLC seem to stand great on it's own already. TOG is looking great.

The previous expansions gave such 'important' things free in a patch, am I wrong?
 
Just waiting for the Anarcho-Syndicalist commune to form after the peasant revolt now.
You mean like this?
[video=youtube;rAaWvVFERVA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA[/video]
 
Not to keen on the fact that you don't get the new rebels if you don't get the DLC. Not a very big deal, but it seems like a slippery slope to make it an exclusive to the DLC, especially when the DLC seem to stand great on it's own already. TOG is looking great.

The previous expansions gave such 'important' things free in a patch, am I wrong?

Not really. Retinues are LoR-only.
 
Not to keen on the fact that you don't get the new rebels if you don't get the DLC. Not a very big deal, but it seems like a slippery slope to make it an exclusive to the DLC, especially when the DLC seem to stand great on it's own already. TOG is looking great.

The previous expansions gave such 'important' things free in a patch, am I wrong?

New patch gives us a completely revamped technology system. Greater thing than everything in earlier patches
 
Is there any chance #5 on this list will be included in the game, thanks to the expanded timeframe, hopefully as a set of interactive events?
 
Considering she wasn't yet born in 867, no we probably won't get to play as her.

Shame, really.
There aren't going to be any bookmarks between the new start date and 1066?

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Or the chance to get a similar chain of events, if a relative or spouse on your council dies on a mission, and you have high intrigue. I mean, that is almost literally what kicked off that chain of events with Princess Olga.
 
There aren't going to be any bookmarks between the new start date and 1066?

No there isn't. Not enough sources and a huge amount of work. Maybe someone will mod one or two.
 
I'm also not very fond of huge changes like rebels being DLC exclusive. Once I got LoR and its retinues, the game changed completely. It's not a feature you can do without -- it's absolutely essential to get the full experience and every single player benefits from it. I thought the point of DLC was for it to be optional, but these changes and added mechanics are so comprehensive they're not. You may as well be playing a different game, or an expansion pack in the style of older PDS games.