Dev Diary #116 - Agrarian Research Techniques

[johnty5]

While I agree with your interesting suggestions about the coronation and that it would be interesting to have more reasons to go to war, I don't think more reasons to go to war is exactly what the game needs. On the contrary, the game needs some interesting activities for times of peace, for rulers who are dedicated to the prosperity of their realm instead of conquest. Something to make the game not just about conquest and intrigue, but to offer some activities and benefits for playing as a peaceful ruler.

Agree that more peacetime stuff is needed too. Personally, I think adding Council laws and the politics around managing Councillors would be the single best thing that could happen to CK3.

 

[johnty5]

If you have a Steam account, you may want to venture over there to the Steam announcement of this Dev Diary to see the compounding negative commentary. It's over 90% Negative, especially since it's not Paradox controlled as a message board. While some comments are mean-spirited, there are useful comments that Paradox leadership should pay more attention to.

It’ll be a cold day in hell when I give one iota of a care to the upvotes/downvotes of self-selecting randos who frequent the swamp that is the Steam forums.

That lot review-bombed the Witcher 3 Steam game page because they didn’t like season 2 of the Witcher Netflix series.

I sincerely hope Paradox aren’t wasting any time concerning themselves with them.

 

[Silens]

I did wonder if maybe this is a list of assorted actions players will be able to take as members of their liege’s council (including as Regent)? Stealing from the treasury is something the steward might do...but that doesn’t seem to fit the other hints we’ve received, so I’m very doubtful. That said, I am eager to someday be able to actually do something when I’m on my liege’s council, and I will be very happy when this feature is added, even if it’s not in the next release.

Might as well be the regent. I mean, who would give the entire nation's income to a 4-year-old, instead of the regent, who actually has to cover all national expenses in his ward's name? It's not his income, so it's not his to keep, but he has the power over it, as he has to work with it every day. That's where the stealing comes in handy. You just take it, because why not? Who'll stop you? The 4-year-old? The wet nurse? lol

The regent is in a very special position, he is the ruler in all but name, he uses his ward's name/right to rule to run the entire court and kingdom. Although it's just borrowed and time-limited power, doesn't mean the regent can't try and grab it permanently. Again, who'll stop him? The 4-year-old? Vassals loyal to the throne and dynasty might try, but that depends on how much they like the child-king over the regent.

When I look at that list of personal actions, I try to see interactions with the court and the ward, for and against them (basically being a good or bad regent), and then some to make a shameless grab for wealth and power.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

Those CK2 history guys did a fantastic job, I must say.

yeah, pity that the last of their history updates didn't carry over to CK3.

 

[MathyM]

Just a small observation, not sure it it has been mentioned already:

You can spell “Regencies” with the letters of this Dev Diary’s title.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

I'm kind of hoping that the "connection between map and character" stuff that's been trailed will be characters moving around the map to attend coronations, baptisms, marriage proposals etc.

Kind of like holding court - but in a specific place on the map to make specific choices around a marriage, a coronation or whatever.

That'd fit with the "expansion will lean towards roleplay" and the "character's connection with map" stuff as well as fitting with the trailed regency mechanics.

it would also be particularly immersive to have character locations actually mean something with regard to events and the like. say, people who live in the same court as you or in the next county over should be significantly more likely to appear in events than that vassal from the other side of the realm.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

I think one of the ~three is Steal from Treasury. Not sure about the others (too many candidates!), though I ‘d note that ‘Release Prisoners’ fits better than ‘Return Hostages.’

Edit: Wokeg ‘hearted’ this, so perhaps Steal from Treasury is indeed correct! Kudos to @Silens for figuring it out!

Also, thank you, @Wokeg, for the emoji-hints!

perhaps "restrict ward"? as in, limit their ability to move, take actions, interact with others (especially with those who may want to undermine your regency). essentially assert yourself as the boss.

 

[Silens]

it would also be particularly immersive to have character locations actually mean something with regard to events and the like. say, people who live in the same court as you or in the next county over should be significantly more likely to appear in events than that vassal from the other side of the realm.

Some events should absolutely check a character's location. One day, as king of Italy, I was fishing. Then my Nemesis came along, all the way from Persia, and spoiled my day. Or when my Nemesis finally died, back home in Persia, I somehow witnessed the funeral procession from my capital Rome.

On a more serious note, I can see regencies being a thing when the ruler is not in the capital, i.e. when leading an army or going on a pilgrimage for a year or two. It's not just about wards having a regent, but also someone running the show when the ruler is gone for a longer period of time.

Would not only be immersive, but also make you think twice when and for how long to leave the capital.

 

[fodazd]

I would also be very interested in deeper mechanics for agriculture (and the economy in general).

 

[Chickenroost]

I wonder if you are able to play as these technically landless regents, does that open the door to things like Norman adventurers?

 

[Ewenz]

I see heraldic clothing and a new prison bacground with gibbets, or dangly cages. Are we getting more ways to horribly mutilate and dismember and punish those who did us wrong? I care for nothing else, please give us the oubliette and the art of gibbeting the morrons who start a one sided feud with our house for unknown reasons killing of half our house before the game lets us reciprocate. Also if you let us feed their remains to pigs we can use the pig dung as fertilizer and in that case this dev diary really was about agriculture!

 

[Diskianterezh]

I'd like to see it made much more difficult to hold an empire together over the long term - maybe almost impossible in the early game (you could use mid-to-late-game tech to make it a bit easier towards the end). When you get so big that external threats drop off, it'd be nice if the game started throwing other problems at you. Maybe partition not protecting empire tier titles - and always leading to empires fracture into kingdoms on succession?

Obvs there'd need to be something that allowed the empires that exist on startup to survive - France, the Abassids etc - but I'm sure some kind of cultural mechanic could work to do that.

That's quite interesting because at this era, even if multiple kingdoms (and big duchies) existed as the personal domains of powerful princes, when you were talking about "empire" it meant "the" empire, as : the entity that claimed the crown of successor of the WRE (at least in the western europe). Such an entity was complex to maintain, and often either short in time (because assembled by the will of one charismatic and providential man/warrior/conqueror/king), or survived by evolving in its form with heavy concessions to powerful vassals (sons of Charlemagne slowly draining the essence of the imperial union by taking liberties) until for instance there is only a very complicated and decentralized empire, such as the HRE as EU4 knows it the years following.

About maintaining "historical empires" i don't really see any, France is remembered because it was a powerful Kingdom of that era (the Capetian one), powerful in influence and size but nothing comparable with the Carolingian empire who was quickly dismantled by successions and did not really survive. Same with most of the Muslim empires who face multiple leadership challenges.

I like the vision of empires that, a bit like the Mongol invasion, or the CK2 great conqueror "chosen one" feature, involve an exceptionnal character, and conjugation of events that lead to an empire forming out of exceptionnal times and shaping the world around them, before fading into history. Empires standing proud and long for years mean more a consolidation of country and society that is more emphasized in EU4, hence i'm lobbying for a constant shattering of empires in Crusader Kings.

However, as a game, you cannot just constantly destroy what a player has built. I personally love gavelkind/partition succession because it is an interesting and close example of how an empire/huge kingdom is getting shattered by time, but its obviously not the prefered choice of players. Thus keeping an empire large and powerful should be possible, but at increasing difficulty.

 

[johnty5]

That's quite interesting because at this era, even if multiple kingdoms (and big duchies) existed as the personal domains of powerful princes, when you were talking about "empire" it meant "the" empire, as : the entity that claimed the crown of successor of the WRE (at least in the western europe). Such an entity was complex to maintain, and often either short in time (because assembled by the will of one charismatic and providential man/warrior/conqueror/king), or survived by evolving in its form with heavy concessions to powerful vassals (sons of Charlemagne slowly draining the essence of the imperial union by taking liberties) until for instance there is only a very complicated and decentralized empire, such as the HRE as EU4 knows it the years following.

Sure. But I'm talking about the Empire mechanic of Crusader Kings 3 - not the, as you say, completely different concept of Empire that existed during the time period (or the one that exists now).

About maintaining "historical empires" i don't really see any, France is remembered because it was a powerful Kingdom of that era (the Capetian one), powerful in influence and size but nothing comparable with the Carolingian empire who was quickly dismantled by successions and did not really survive. Same with most of the Muslim empires who face multiple leadership challenges.

As I said, I'm talking about the Empire mechanic of Crusader Kings 3 - where France is an empire, the Abbasids are an empire etc.

I'm saying that any changes to the empire mechanic geared towards making it harder for the player to maintain an empire in the early game would need to address the fact that there are certain in-game Empires (France, the Abbasids etc) that, for immersion reasons, shouldn't immediately collapse at the start of the game.

I like the vision of empires that, a bit like the Mongol invasion, or the CK2 great conqueror "chosen one" feature, involve an exceptionnal character, and conjugation of events that lead to an empire forming out of exceptionnal times and shaping the world around them, before fading into history. Empires standing proud and long for years mean more a consolidation of country and society that is more emphasized in EU4, hence i'm lobbying for a constant shattering of empires in Crusader Kings.

I agree.

However, as a game, you cannot just constantly destroy what a player has built.

Watch me

I personally love gavelkind/partition succession because it is an interesting and close example of how an empire/huge kingdom is getting shattered by time, but its obviously not the prefered choice of players. Thus keeping an empire large and powerful should be possible, but at increasing difficulty.

Happy for it to be a game rule. That way we can please everyone. Or Paradox could completely re-do the whole feudal tiers system - but I suspect that amount of work that'd entail wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Steam community anything is a well known cesspool and as such it would be unwise to weigh responses there heavily. It is pretty much just used for meme posts and venting negative opinions on anything and everything.

It's still Customer feedback, and ignoring 100% of it is the textbook definition of the phrase "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" -- the reaction to other Dev Diaries has typically been different. It's the "tenor and tone" to see here, and pay attention to. Bean Counters and Marketing at Paradox would certainly get something from it.

And again - I didn't say all comments were worth reading, but when the trend is 90%+ Negative, there's something there, there (like it or not, it's a significant trend that Paradox can ignore but probably shouldn't ignore).

 

[johnty5]

It's still Customer feedback, and ignoring 100% of it is the textbook definition of the phrase "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" -- the reaction to other Dev Diaries has typically been different. It's the "tenor and tone" to see here, and pay attention to. Bean Counters and Marketing at Paradox would certainly get something from it.

And again - I didn't say all comments were worth reading, but when the trend is 90%+ Negative, there's something there, there (like it or not, it's a significant trend that Paradox can ignore but probably shouldn't ignore).

Tens of thousands of people play CK3. A few dozen people crapping their pants and smearing it all over the walls of the Steam forums isn't customer feedback in any meaningful sense - and listening to it simply takes time away from listening to the mainstream majority of the playerbase.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Tens of thousands of people play CK3. A few dozen people crapping their pants and smearing it all over the walls of the Steam forums isn't customer feedback in any meaningful sense - and listening to it simply takes time away from listening to the mainstream majority of the playerbase.

If we were to use your logic for the usefulness of replies, then one could say that posts here in Paradox's own forums would have the same (Nil) value but for opposite perspectives/reasons. Discounting 100% of all commentary on a platform sounds both contradictory and also calls into question the biases present in these forums for the opposite reasons.

The Us vs. Them approach doesn't sound nor appear healthy for the game (nor for Paradox long term).

 

[johnty5]

If we were to use your logic for the usefulness of replies, then one could say that posts here in Paradox's own forums would have the same (Nil) value but for opposite perspectives/reasons. Discounting 100% of all commentary on a platform sounds both contradictory and also calls into question the biases present in these forums for the opposite reasons.

The Us vs. Them approach doesn't sound nor appear healthy for the game (nor for Paradox long term).

Individual posts or threads around here can have qualitative value - but, in the aggregate, I don't think the forum responses have particularly more quantitative value than the Steam forums do - because both groups are self-selecting and therefore unrepresentative of the wider playerbase.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Individual posts or threads around here can have qualitative value - but, in the aggregate, I don't think the forum responses have particularly more quantitative value than the Steam forums do - because both groups are self-selecting and therefore unrepresentative of the wider playerbase.

Well if that isn't simply a huge Assumption in regards to the level of Quality for commentary here vs Steam (again - it's that Us vs Them thing). And, based on the last half of your statement, Paradox leaders/Dev's should not pay attention to any post here in the Forum -- If neither forum/platform are representative of the wider playerbase.

 

[Diskianterezh]

Sure. But I'm talking about the Empire mechanic of Crusader Kings 3 - not the, as you say, completely different concept of Empire that existed during the time period (or the one that exists now).

Indeed, but that empire mechanic is a direct reference to this precise - and not so completely different - concept of empire.
Feudal rulers were fiercely attached to their independance and personal power, influence and domain. Titles had meaning, and this meaning is transcripted in the game. For instance, kings have a lot of independance faction weight modifiers because they are kings and thus they are proud of their prestige.
The Empire mechanic of Crusader Kings 3 means that an empire is an entity able to have kings subjugated under its suzerainty. Whether the power claiming this dominance calls himself "Khan of Khans", "Celestial Emperor", "Caesar" or else, there is a precise reason such a political entity has the legitimacy to have Kings as vassals, hence the very original concept of "Empire".

As I said, I'm talking about the Empire mechanic of Crusader Kings 3 - where France is an empire, the Abbasids are an empire etc.

Well i dont know for the Abbasids, but France wasnt an empire, but one of the numerous powerful kingdoms that existed at this era - France was named "France" only in the XIth century. Or you wanted to see the Carolingian empire (which is what i think is supposed to mean the "France" de-jure empire), but that already started to shatter before the starting date - a brilliant example of an empire that shined a short time before fading into history. France then collapsing in the start of the game is pretty immersive as historically everything got out of hand and the inability of the last Carolingians to handle the stuff was the main reason the Robertians got pushed in power.
France in EU4 is a central actor, while in CK3, it wouldn't shock me to see it shattered, consolidated again, dissolved, only to reappear several time in the wave of events. This would be pretty historical.

 

[johnty5]

Well if that isn't simply a huge Assumption in regards to the level of Quality for commentary here vs Steam (again - it's that Us vs Them thing). And, based on the last half of your statement, Paradox leaders/Dev's should not pay attention to any post here in the Forum -- If neither forum/platform are representative of the wider playerbase.

You're mixing up two things I'm saying. Neither the Steam forum or this forum can be assumed to be representative of the wider CK3 player base - as they're both self-selecting groups.

Making quantitative judgments based on self-selecting samples is a terrible idea. The Literary Digest famously discovered that to their embarrassment in 1936. That's why "90% of this self-selecting group don't like this" isn't useful feedback - and that'd be true whether that 90% negative (or positive) feedback happened on the Steam forums or on these forums.

However, that doesn't mean that individual, well-thought-out qualitative feedback from self-selecting individuals can't be useful - and, from Paradox dev's engagement with the forums, I assume they do find it useful.