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Hey all!

So today I felt that I was going to spoil some of the bigger stuff we are working on with the new patch, I thought Birken was a bit too mean keeping you guys on edge for so long. As several of you have noted we now have a Pacts tab in the character screen and I am going to tell you guys what it is all about.

So why it was changed is because we decided that we wanted to rewrite a bit how alliances worked in Crusader Kings making it much more predictable who will be in your war. No, as some of you tried to guess we have not made it no longer required to marry other rulers to forge an alliance, that is still a very big part of the core gameplay in the game. What we have done is that we have divided it up in two steps, Non-Aggression Pacts and Alliances.


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Now now, don’t fetch your pitchforks yet! The idea we have is to make the marriage much more focused on its strategical nature than just finding your “soulmate” with impressive tracts of land.

Now when you first marry off your daughter or son you will be figuratively negotiating an agreement with the other ruler to come to terms over your issues with each other, resulting in a Non-Aggression Pact between your two mighty realms. This can later can be improved into a proper Alliance. This is an action done separately after the marriage as been finalized. You don’t have to wait until your family members have grown up however as betrothals also counts when formalizing these pacts.

This does mean that you do not have a Non-Aggression Pact with your close kins but they can still be made into allies without a marriage. Meaning you no longer get the penalties of attacking close kin unless you choose to make your them your ally.

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Picture has been censored to not reveal undisclosed features

With these changes the AI has also been changed a bit to be more capable in recognizing Realpolitik instead of purely going on opinions. It is not much but the AI is now capable of properly identifying threats and will try to form Non-Aggression pacts with these, or if they refuse, ally someone else with a common interest to contain the threat. The idea is also that the AI no longer wants to aid these threats, but instead only preserve the status quo and keep them off their back. They will refuse to ally these threats most of the time in order to not help them become stronger.

Since we now have a distinct action you can perform to ally someone we have also changed how they relate to wars to make it less of a guessing game.

Allies for both sides will be shown in the Declare War screen showing who will join the war on what side. Also important to know with these changes is that allies are now required to honor their alliance, meaning they can not refuse a call to arms. So now you know exactly who you can count on when the war starts. However if your ally is starting an offensive war against someone you have a Non-Aggression Pact with you have to stand out.

All of this is in the Free Patch that will be coming with the next expansion.
 
So now you know exactly who you can count on when the war starts. However if your ally is starting an offensive war against someone you have a Non-Aggression Pact with you have to stand out.
Reminds me of that old text book example of feudalism, a duke getting land from two kings and getting away with not joining in on any of the wars between them because he have sworn fealty to both. Kinda want that in CK2 now that i remeber it = P

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Complicated dynamic alliances and criss cross liege vassal relations.
 
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You can no longer form alliances with friends directly. Though, friends will always consider marriage offers you send their way, making them easier to form NAPs/Alliances with!
How about Trebizondian Komnenoi princesses diplomacy?
 
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Oh, that was nice!

So, we also have 2 new diplomatic options, but you censored it with hedgehogs and secret bears? :p
...secret bears have been in the game for ages mate.

The CB system won't be remade for Crusader Kings 2
CK3 CONFIRMED!

can we make a non-aggresion pact without marriage, like friend or something.

could be useful for crusader state
Or a pope, provided that you can break non agression pacts without to severe penatlies (and since the Kalrings all will have NAP with each other I'd say yes you can) perhaps everyone should have permanent NAP with theocracies of their own faith?

Yes. Tributaries are made into an Alliance on creation.
I don't understand the logic there. Isnät a tributary someone who's paying you protection money how come they get called into your wars while you donät get called in to protect them? Tributaries should be a NAP.

Wait... So, now, you can't declare war on your wife anymore? :(
I'd say you can but there's some penatly to it.

Yeah, think about it, if your friends, then you're probably past hating each other based on religious views.
Doesn't mean you want to guy to be doing your daughter. Jokes aside will conversion on marriage be a thing? (In reality marrige between separate religions usually meant one converted to the faith of another.
 
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can we make a non-aggresion pact without marriage, like friend or something.

could be useful for crusader state

Could be useful for every liminal area. It would be a very good representation of the actual status quo of Iberian states with the web of alliances and non-agression agreements between muslim and catholic rulers.

I also think the limit on marriages between different religions in CK II is too extreme at this point.
 
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Doesn't mean you want to guy to be doing your daughter. Jokes aside will conversion on marriage be a thing? (In reality marrige between separate religions usually meant one converted to the faith of another.
Trebizond's Komnenoi rulers survived for as long as they historically did by marrying daughters off to the neighboring Beys and I doubt the beys converted. IIRC, it was how the ottomans got their historical claim on Byzantium.
 
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You don’t have to wait until your family members have grown up however as betrothals also counts when formalizing these pacts.
Great addition does this mean that the AI will do bethrothals now?

This does mean that you do not have a Non-Aggression Pact with your close kins but they can still be made into allies without a marriage. Meaning you no longer get the penalties of attacking close kin unless you choose to make your them your ally.
Missed this on the first read through. How about not so close kin?

View attachment 142436
Picture has been censored to not reveal undisclosed features
I wonder what could be censored, the top bar in shown in the first screenshot and doesnt seem diffrent so it'd seem it's something on the map. Or anothe ropen menu but that begs to differ why they'd have that menu open at all then.

With these changes the AI has also been changed a bit to be more capable in recognizing Realpolitik instead of purely going on opinions. It is not much but the AI is now capable of properly identifying threats and will try to form Non-Aggression pacts with these, or if they refuse, ally someone else with a common interest to contain the threat. The idea is also that the AI no longer wants to aid these threats, but instead only preserve the status quo and keep them off their back. They will refuse to ally these threats most of the time in order to not help them become stronger.

Since we now have a distinct action you can perform to ally someone we have also changed how they relate to wars to make it less of a guessing game.

Allies for both sides will be shown in the Declare War screen showing who will join the war on what side. Also important to know with these changes is that allies are now required to honor their alliance, meaning they can not refuse a call to arms. So now you know exactly who you can count on when the war starts. However if your ally is starting an offensive war against someone you have a Non-Aggression Pact with you have to stand out.
I assume we can break the non agression pact at a penatly? Aside from that nice changes.
 
This sounds absolutely awesome but will the AI's ability to get good marriage alliances be tweaked as well. Currently they often marry lowborn courtiers instead of children of rulers (because of the looking for better alliance modifier), Female rulers don't bother to maintain their dynasty using matrilinear marriages. Hopefully you guys can make AI smarter with regards to getting better marriages as well.
 
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Trebizond's Komnenoi rulers survived for as long as they historically did by marrying daughters off to the neighboring Beys and I doubt the beys converted. IIRC, it was how the ottomans got their historical claim on Byzantium.
No I'm fairly certain the daughters did. Usually the one comming to live in the court of the other would convert, and that was almost always the woman.
 
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So, will we have any UI improvements on finding brides/grooms for the purposes of alliance? One of the most unpredictable/tedious things I find is trying to marry off relatives for a good alliance when A) the AI doesn't make matchmaking easy for you, by marrying relatives off in seemingly random, non-tactical marriages, and B) there's no easy way to see if a king/queen/emperor/whatever has any unmarried relatives you can matchmake with. I guess what I'm asking is, can I click on the lord of a realm and quickly see if they have any relatives that will give me a marriage-alliance?
 
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I don't understand the logic there. Isn't a tributary someone who's paying you protection money how come they get called into your wars while you don't get called in to protect them? Tributaries should be a NAP.
Hmm? I get called into my tributaries war all the time and I'm pretty sure that's not going to change.

IMHO AI should also consider realpolitik in deciding how many troops are worth sending to war. HRE commiting tens of thousands of troops (all levies at once) to push some lousy and meaningless claim of Count of Nowhere that happened to be brother-in-law of Kaiser is just wrong.
Well, I think something like that probably won't even happen anymore, thing like no common interest and some such probably going to stop the forming of one sided alliances.
 
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No I'm fairly certain the daughters did. Usually the one comming to live in the court of the other would convert, and that was almost always the woman.
I meant the rulers.
 
I don't like how they/me cannot refuse. What if I'm just a jerk and I want to stab people in the back? How can I not refuse? Is there some Godly force making me sign the document? I just say : "F**k it!" and do whatever I want! I really do hate all these limitations, just as I can't declare wars on people without CB, or when having raised levies, or how I'm pushed to surrender, because the warscore is already a 100%, even though I have an army moving towards the enemy at the moment. The enemy just takes the lands they haven't even occupied, even though I still have will and men to defend it, but some force makes me surrender. It's just silly how I have to obey these rules, which cannot be broken. Dammit I'm the king! Let me do what I want but with enormous penalties. You allow me to break truces, great, but I need a certain amount of this abstract concept called "prestige". What the hell? Heck, let the people hate my guts, let them form coalitions against me, but please Paradox just let me do what I want and then punish me for it, but don't openly forbid it, this is one thing I really despise about your games. It's a foced gamaplay narrative. Just as you have to be a "good" ruler, you cannot make people fear you and rule them with an iron fist. The counts just seduce your wives, openly form factions and try to kill your children and if you imprison them for their activities, then god forbid you cannot punish them for it with an execution, because you'll be branded a tyrant and that will only provoke even more such actions against you. I understand these mechanics are easier to control and it kinda shows newcomers the way they should play the game, but hell, after 700 hours I think I can make my own decisions for myself, thank you.


Some fear factor would be a nice addition.
 
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What rulers? The turkish rulers? Of course they don't convert they'd lose their thrones if they did.
I meant that the rulers usually did not convert to the religion of their in-laws in most of the CK2 period.
 
Yeah, think about it, if your friends, then you're probably past hating each other based on religious views.
Great change IMO!

Question. Are there events that let you befriend prisoners by any chance? It'd be awesome you captured the son of an enemy noble, and then he became your ally when he inherited his father's throne. :)
 
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Hopefully the AI allies are more useful like in EU4 and kinda coordinate with you.

And add the warscore contribution system from EU4/HOI4 too please!

So we have the option of bearing arms now. America DLC confirmed!