Hi again!
Last week I asked about what you wanted to see in future Dev Diaries and I’ll answer one of the questions you asked in this week’s DD. What would I like to add/change in CK2?
I’ll start off telling you what I like with CK2.
What sets CK2 apart from me are the numerous stories it produces. When I play it at work (yeah, that’s something I try to do when I’m not too stressed out), I often feel the urge to tell people on the team what happened to my characters. Like when I’ve sent out my first born son to join the Varangian guard and he comes back a homosexual and suddenly I’m playing a Norse Viking, the King of Sweden who has a lover bodyguard. There are very few computer games that allow for that gaming experience.
The other component that I think makes most PDS games fantastic is multiplayer. Sure it’s not the smoothest multiplayer experience you can have, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Just the scope of battling through hours and hours of gameplay, forming and breaking alliances, planning, plotting, make it fantastic, be it in Sengoku, March of the Eagles, Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. CK2 adds the personal touch and story building upon that. In our current office multiplayer, we had one player seducing two popes (pope and antipope), giving them and another player the lover’s pox while another player became emperor of the HRE (we were all playing inside it). The new emperor was unfit to rule and soon we had revolts eating us up from the inside and France wanting a piece of the cake from the outside. A faction to remove our emperor formed and soon Magnus ‘the cruel’ was no longer the emperor and I got the opportunity (read punishment) of trying to bring order to the realm. I struggled for a couple of months, trying to patch together something resembling an army of what was left and slowly beating back some of our enemies. Magnus ‘the cruel’ had other plans though and managed to ambush and capture me during my travels. I was immediately beheaded and a new emperor rose to the throne. Several years later we managed to catch and kill Magnus and restore order to the empire. About the same time Dirk ‘the devil’, a former rebel of the empire, became our new emperor.
To me this is great entertainment. It’s more than just the game.
What I really want more of in CK is stuff that make our characters more important and more alive. I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government, I just want more interesting characters and more ways to interact with them and for them to interact with you. As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.

A little teaser info that will be discussed more in future DDs.

 

[Brannart]

There is nothing wrong with k_aquitaine, it only makes sense a Kingdom can't fight off an Empire. If you don't want to be absorbed into the HRE then form Francia, it's not that hard if you sail up and take k_wales. Intermarry into the leading dynasty of the HRE so they will leave you alone, or marry into Aquintaine for a claim or alliance. It's very much doable.

Let me clarify: I'm not talking about the Kingdom of France in the hands of a player, I'm talking about the Kingdom of France in the hands of the AI.

 

[Birken]

Not gonna hold my breath for this one.

I'm not making promises of any kind. Ck2 is a game with a long tail and I'm running projects on a tight schedule. It's all about priorities.
But in a perfect world in which I could do anything I wanted with the game, I'd probably put a couple of weeks into optimizing it and fix a few bugs rather than add more stuff.

 

[Nameless_Ensign]

Let's be honest here.

What players really want is sombreros instead of crowns.

 

[Choombi]

1. Flesh out the late game
   
   
   I want some late game mechanics, I want interesting events that trigger via date, i want to start a 867 campaign and have other reasons to not quit besides getting the achievment for it.
   
2. Anti Blobbing mechanics.
   
   
   Ever notice how the big players, like HRE, Byzantines, Abassids etc. are more successful than they were in RL in 99% of cases? and it seems that bigger you are right now, the bigger you'll get later, and being near one of those big states is a death sentence, as far as i know, when a big player like france or hre sought to expand on expence of a small state, Milan, for example, the other big players would rush to help that little state, like guarantee in eu4, we need something like that.

​

 

[Cactus_Punch]

Some things are missing like when you are vassal and your liege is a cruel, arbitrary, murdering douche and everyone hates him but loves you and you declare war against him but they still give him levies, they should offer to join your war not help the person they hate fight against someone they like.
Also stuff like when your daughter gets kidnapped and made a concubine nothing really changes, or someone murders a family member of yours, there needs to be a lot of fleshing out on cacus belis, I'd happily go to war to avenge or punish someone, main annoying one is when your spymaster just randomly imprisons you just because they took the intrigue focus and when you ransom yourself you will still be called a tyrant for imprisoning the idiot
But most importantly I'd like optimization.

 

[blackchoas]

1. Flesh out the late game
   
   
   I want some late game mechanics, I want interesting events that trigger via date, i want to start a 867 campaign and have other reasons to not quit besides getting the achievment for it.
   
2. Anti Blobbing mechanics.
   
   
   Ever notice how the big players, like HRE, Byzantines, Abassids etc. are more successful than they were in RL in 99% of cases? and in contrast, it seems that bigger you are right now, the bigger you'll get later, and being near one of those big states is a death sentence, as far as i know, when a big player like france or hre sought to expand on expence of a small state, Milan, for example, the other big players would rush to help that little state, like guarantee in eu4, we need something like that.

​

Couldn't agree more, the game doesn't feel like it changes enough from 800 to 1000 to 1300, the game is 7 centuries but all 7 centuries feel the same

I'm not exactly sure what the anti blob mechanic should be but there need to be more and stronger ones, I have suggested factions to destroy the top title of a realm but im not really sure what is a good solution, still its silly that an eras like EU4 and Vicky 2 which were the age of imperialism makes it harder to take, hold and use land around the world than this game

 

[tkamin]

As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.

EU4 is now using model when major content + DLC patch is followed by the another major bugix patch (1.12 and 1.13 for Common Sense). This makes the game playable, as major rework of mechanic is not postponed to the next patch, that introduces new features (and bugs) that get pioritized. Could same mode be applied for CK2.

Also in EU4, they are fixing and improving older features, like Random New World or Nation Designer, but for CK2 old features seems to neglected, for example Custimzation Pack and Custom Kingdom/Empires does not work together (changing the shield), focuses in Way of Live, or EU4 converter being broken for months (major bugs like wrongly mapped provinces cultures, see thread in my signature). Do you have any plans to change/improve situation, or CK2 development will still be treated as make (get money) and forget.

 

[Korashy]

EU4 is now using model when major content + DLC patch is followed by the another major bugix patch (1.12 and 1.13 for Common Sense). This makes the game playable, as major rework of mechanic is not postponed to the next patch, that introduces new features (and bugs) that get pioritized. Could same mode be applied for CK2.

Also in EU4, they are fixing and improving older features, like Random New World or Nation Designer, but for CK2 old features seems to neglected, for example Custimzation Pack and Custom Kingdom/Empires does not work together (changing the shield), focuses in Way of Live, or EU4 converter being broken for months (major bugs like wrongly mapped provinces cultures, see thread in my signature). Do you have any plans to change/improve situation, or CK2 development will still be treated as make (get money) and forget.

EU IV is also their current flagship product.

 

[Jorlem]

Some things are missing like when you are vassal and your liege is a cruel, arbitrary, murdering douche and everyone hates him but loves you and you declare war against him but they still give him levies, they should offer to join your war not help the person they hate fight against someone they like.

This used to be in the game, in the form of being able to call other vassals to war if they liked you enough, but was removed when the current revolt mechanic (where everyone is under the faction leader as a vassal, vastly reducing the amount of troops he gets) was implemented.

 

[lpdpig139]

I realize I'm a noob, but what I would love to see is the variety of character traits and actions that you find in the Game of Thrones mod.

 

[Nameless_Ensign]

EU IV is also their current flagship product.

Maybe for Grand Strategy fans, but to the common person CK2 is far more popular than EUIV.

 

[Choombi]

Let's not start that argument again, shall we?
we have already discussed that and reached the conclusion that an argument between two people unwilling to change their opinion leads to flame war.

I'm not exactly sure what the anti blob mechanic should be but there need to be more and stronger ones, I have suggested factions to destroy the top title of a realm but im not really sure what is a good solution, still its silly that an eras like EU4 and Vicky 2 which were the age of imperialism makes it harder to take, hold and use land around the world than this game

Well, for one i think that kingdom and empire de jure titles should occasionally get destroyed on succession if they control too little of their dejure area( hello opm kingdom of scotland...seriously, i saw it twice), but that doesn't help much with the dreaded three.

Hey, it's paradox's job to come up with ideas, what are we paying you for?

 

[Skullever]

Crusader Kings 2: Make War not Seduction DLC

 

[SehnVretor]

Some things are missing like when you are vassal and your liege is a cruel, arbitrary, murdering douche and everyone hates him but loves you and you declare war against him but they still give him levies, they should offer to join your war not help the person they hate fight against someone they like.

In the war overviews, there are buttons to change sides in a war; however, I believe they are (almost) always greyed out (except when there is a crusade and you haven't joined it yet). I think you should be able to change sides in a war, so hopefully the devs will change this eventually.

 

[tkamin]

EU IV is also their current flagship product.

Maybe for Grand Strategy fans, but to the common person CK2 is far more popular than EUIV.

From the posts, it looks like the EU4 team is same size as CK2 team. Also do you think that when HOI4 or Stellaris will be released, Wiz will change approach to EU4 DLCs? I think not, and preceive this as a matter of lead decision or/and internal resource distribution.

 

[Will Steel]

Maybe this is the time they fix the family tree window bug?

 

[Dagda]

if that is shattered retreat, that is interesting, I don't think many people liked shattered retreat in EU4 at least not until they added the new fort system which really helped that system, it is certainly better than the old CK2 ping pong but personally I'm hoping you came up with something more than just shattered retreat

CK2 has a fort system.

....why are people acting like this is a good change? Do you guys seriously have trouble walking to the provinces they are retreating to with a small force of Calvary? It doesn't have to be big, after a huge battle the enemies' morale will be shot to hell.

Because Ping Pong combat is the absolute worst. Shatter is a massive improvement in that regard,

 

[KhaineFH]

Well fort system just add an extra level of fortification but doesn't block foreign armies movement (nor major rivers but that's an other story), and I don't get where is the "massive improvement" with shattered retreat in CK2 : as long as AI does not disband its armies after a defeat and wait until they are fully resplenished, it will be stuck with weak armies which have suffered heavy casualties a few weeks/months ago.

 

[Olav III]

It looks like a war focused DLC, this is very good. But will we ever see a late-era focused dlc for CKII? (I'm not talking about Exploration or Americas or such things, I know these are EUIV's, but something like new start date for Timur, some unique mechanics for 1337-1453)

 

[tywinzo]

Birken quote "I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government"...

I thought the feudalism was the main idea behind the original game, but maybe I'm mistaken. So remind me again what Crusader Kings was? A strategy game set on a world map? The kind with hundreds of similiar games already? As much as I like the individualism/dynasty stuff in the game, if that's the only major aspect that sets the game apart, it's not much. You basically end up with a generic strategy war game with some minor roleplaying flavour. If you are not entirely hardcore about the roleplaying, then there are better options..