Hi folks!

It's been a while, and I bet you're all wondering what we've been up to... Now, I can't reveal anything about the upcoming expansion quite yet, but, to tide you over, I thought I'd talk a bit about our other efforts. As you know, with every expansion comes a slew of free improvements and fixes. This time the focus has been on the latter; clearing up old bugs and issues (the change log is currently 620 lines long). Sometimes, that has required us to do some fairly major code rewrites. For example, we got rid of the rule that your 'government type' was determined by the type of your Capital Holding. (You know how it was game over when you got a Temple Holding as a capital, even for a tiny period? Well, now that kind of thing cannot happen anymore.) The government form is now something more persistent, and can have various rules that override those of your religion (whether you can raid, take concubines, etc.) To go along with this change, we also reworked the portrait frames to clearly distinguish between the various government forms.

In a similar vein, almost since release we've been plagued by bugs with characters leading multiple regiments and/or flanks, which could even cause crashes. Part of the problem was that the whole system was rather strange, so we decided to consolidate it in the following way: only the ruler, the Marshal and characters you have appointed Commander (a new title) can lead flanks or your own demesne and retinue regiments. Vassal levy regiments can still be led by your loyal vassals, but a character can never both lead a flank and a regiment. Mercenaries become more useful because they come with their own, good, leaders. Flank leaders apply their martial bonus to all regiments in the flank. Oh, and the combat system has been updated under the hood to correct various quirks that few people ever noticed, but which could sometimes cause never-ending battles and such.

In the process of implementing the new Commander title, we decided we might as well throw in a more convenient Honorary Title view. This is a perfect example of how what starts as a simple bug fix can turn into a whole new little quality-of-life feature. In this whole house cleaning process, we've also made some serious optimizations to the speed and memory usage of the game.

To finish off, here are some random snippets from the change log:

Spoiler

- Revised the pagan Subjugation CB so that it completely subjugates the target but no Holdings ever change hands
- Added "Stop Seduction" and "Stop Spying" decisions
- Failing to imprison vassals of vassals now correctly forces them to abdicate and flee the realm
- AI will not join wars against spouse
- When your heir has an equal tier title to yours, _your_ laws are now copied to his primary title on succession
- Character Finder: The 'Married' filter now excludes concubines too
- Character Finder: Councillors now correctly show up too!
- Fixed a problem with allies of vassals staying in the war when the vassals's liege joins the other side
- Fixed some cases of ANY_ALL in location tooltips
- Duels now potentially give the Kinslayer trait
- The Yazidi Sheikh and Hurufi Caliph now have access to the Muslim subjugation CB and the Jihad CB
- The Paulician faith can now properly mend the schism
- The Hashshashins can now resurface after being scattered
- Fixed some issues with 'excommunication' for Yazidis
- Sons with traits blocking them from inheritance no longer count as "unlanded sons", causing prestige loss
- AI: Toned down seduction by characters with many children
- AI: Toned down impregnation chances for seduction affairs with characters with many children
- Handsome and lustful men now also populate the cabins in the wild for the pleasures of people who find them attractive

That's all for now, but from now on, we plan to post a dev diary every Tuesday, even if it's a short one!

 

[Orctavius]

Do regiment leaders have any effect on the outcome of battle, now or once the patch has been implemented?

 

[aitaituo]

what

It's referring to a specific event chain introduced with WoL. You meet a beautiful freewoman in a cabin in the woods and can go on to marry her or make babies with her. Lesbian babies if you are a woman. Now you will apparently meet a man instead if that's how you swing.

 

[Slavicist]

Gods, could this be the fabled tribal holding filter everyone has been asking for? Truly, if they want to make the quality of life better, then it must be so!

Isn't there more use for a supply filter?

 

[Aleexx77]

Looking good, just one request with armies, Can you make it so your ruler isn't automatically put in your armies' sub-commanders. It is just a pain to constantly check and the few times I forget to check usually lead to his death. I mean seriously every time I forget to check and hes in the army without my knowledge he dies or gets maimed more than 80% of the time.

 

[matbyz]

Looking good, just one request with armies, Can you make it so your ruler isn't automatically put in your armies' sub-commanders. It is just a pain to constantly check and the few times I forget to check usually lead to his death. I mean seriously every time I forget to check and hes in the army without my knowledge he dies or gets maimed more than 80% of the time.

You can ban yourself from leading your own armies but not liege's armies.

 

[Daronaollard]

NEVER ever???

I really hope some of these changes depend on the person in questions, traits.

 

[MishaTX]

Ransom.

But of course! Thanks!

 

[Silfae]

Another small aesthetic thing, but.. I would like to know if it will be possible to add new ribbon types alongside custom new government types. Or are they going to automatically be assigned the one of their group (tribal/feudal/republic/theocracy)? If more and more government types are modded in, it could be useful to be able to distinguish them by adding new types of strings around the portraits' rings.

 

[DevilSauron]

Another small aesthetic thing, but.. I would like to know if it will be possible to add new ribbon types alongside custom new government types. Or are they going to automatically be assigned the one of their group (tribal/feudal/republic/theocracy)? If more and more government types are modded in, it could be useful to be able to distinguish them by adding new types of strings around the portraits' rings.

Since Iqta have green ribbon and christian feudal have blue ribbon and they are in same group, I think that you can specify different ribbons for every new government, too.

 

[illathid]

Maybe the ribbon color is defined by the government type color?

 

[MendoraXII]

all of this look fantastic!

but all this talk about commander make me think of those event that generate some random warrior trait character in your court .... which in my 700hrs+ of plays time -- turn out to be some rubbish peasant EVERYTIME.

now if you could tweak those event up a bit... to generate some slightly exceptional warrior instead of some dude who will be forgotten instantly after the event popup... that could really bring more flavor
(and let's us be able to review his stat before deciding whether or not to accept him in to the court could also be very great)

and with this new commander mechanic, if we can have more event that can generate potential commander will also be very interesting.


p.s. this may or may not got anythings to do with this topic... but did leading the regiment (not flanks) ever had any effect on the battle... beside offer a chance to get those character killed?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Maybe the ribbon color is defined by the government type color?

That's what I thought. There is only one ribbon art, it just gets coloured based on the government colour.

 

[ngppgn]

all of this look fantastic!

but all this talk about commander make me think of those event that generate some random warrior trait character in your court .... which in my 700hrs+ of plays time -- turn out to be some rubbish peasant EVERYTIME.

now if you could tweak those event up a bit... to generate some slightly exceptional warrior instead of some dude who will be forgotten instantly after the event popup... that could really bring more flavor
(and let's us be able to review his stat before deciding whether or not to accept him in to the court could also be very great)

and with this new commander mechanic, if we can have more event that can generate potential commander will also be very interesting.


p.s. this may or may not got anythings to do with this topic... but did leading the regiment (flanks) ever had any effect on the battle... beside offer a chance to get those character killed?

Besides heavily influencing the choosing of tactics you mean?

 

[vyshan]

all of this look fantastic!

but all this talk about commander make me think of those event that generate some random warrior trait character in your court .... which in my 700hrs+ of plays time -- turn out to be some rubbish peasant EVERYTIME.

now if you could tweak those event up a bit... to generate some slightly exceptional warrior instead of some dude who will be forgotten instantly after the event popup... that could really bring more flavor
(and let's us be able to review his stat before deciding whether or not to accept him in to the court could also be very great)

and with this new commander mechanic, if we can have more event that can generate potential commander will also be very interesting.

p.s. this may or may not got anythings to do with this topic... but did leading the regiment (flanks) ever had any effect on the battle... beside offer a chance to get those character killed?

If there was a glory faction or a something to that matter, it would be interesting if you had to balance out skilled generals with influential generals. Ie some generals who are not that great but want command and have influence due to family ties and allies.

 

[ngppgn]

If there was a glory faction or a something to that matter, it would be interesting if you had to balance out skilled generals with influential generals. Ie some generals who are not that great but want command and have influence due to family ties and allies.

A "become comander" which gives the character who had it for a long time a relation penalty against theruler would be simpler than a faction perhaps?

 

[Silfae]

That's what I thought. There is only one ribbon art, it just gets coloured based on the government colour.

If I remember correctly, currently both the ribbons and rings are all separate files. I suppose it's true this new set up could have been changed so that it reacts to color like the eyes and hair layers...
That'd be sad though, I would have liked to draw more taliored kinds of borders for custom governments.

 

[MishaTX]

all of this look fantastic!

but all this talk about commander make me think of those event that generate some random warrior trait character in your court .... which in my 700hrs+ of plays time -- turn out to be some rubbish peasant EVERYTIME.

now if you could tweak those event up a bit... to generate some slightly exceptional warrior instead of some dude who will be forgotten instantly after the event popup... that could really bring more flavor

I second that. All that event does for me currently is burden me with another nobody that I need to somehow find a way to get rid of so he doesn't bloat my court. I've yet to see a single one of those "notable warriors" being somebody I'd put in charge of the army latrines.

 

[Dakilla TM]

This looks great, especially when you talked about optimization. Yay for less lag in late game!

 

[Blacksmurf]

In this whole house cleaning process, we've also made some serious optimizations to the speed and memory usage of the game.

I cried

 

[Great Dane]

Why stick with the "Yazidis are a subsection of islam"-thing, though? They're not. And both muslims and yazidis will tell you this.