It's time for the weekly dev diary and this time it's a biggie, as we proudly announce Horse Lords, the new Crusader Kings II expansion! So what makes the proud rulers of the endless steppes unique? Well, in short, their relative lack of permanent settlements. This expansion gives the nomadic peoples of the steppes a unique type of gameplay which is not centered around Castles, Temples and Cities at all. Playing as a Nomad, you are allowed to conquer and even own normal Holdings, but they are worth little to you except as vassal cash cows. What you really care about is more grazing land for your sheep and horses. Thus, nomad hordes simply have a total population, which grows relative to how many empty Holding slots exist in your provinces (steppe provinces are best, but some other terrain types are also acceptable).

A large fraction of your total Population counts as your Manpower, which is used to raise your regiments (much like the Retinue system.) Of course, if all your fighting men are dead, it will be a while before your Manpower replenishes! War on the steppes is fast and fluid; you only occupy an empty province for as long as one of your armies is standing there, or if you build a fort there to lock it down... and even then, you do not get much war score from the open wastes.

This brings us to the one Holding that actually means a lot to the hordes; their capital. Each nomad clan can only one of this special holding type, but there are more upgrades for it than any of the regular types, and these improvements have more unique effects too... To really defeat a nomad horde, you need to occupy their capital (or decisively beat them in battle, of course.) However, Nomads are allowed to move their capital around often; and that means they actually pull up stakes, 'buildings' and all, and move the whole thing to another location!

Another special twist to the nomadic hordes is that even in defeat, they are still dangerous. Should a horde lose its last province, the tribe will still exist, and may use its remaining armies to conquer another land in which to settle. Naturally, nomads can choose to settle on a more permanent basis, by completely switching over to a Feudal, Tribal or Republican lifestyle. This is done by special decision, reminiscent of how Tribes work.

Now, as the astute among you might have wondered, Crusader Kings is largely about managing your turbulent vassals, so what replaces that important gameplay aspect for the Nomads? The answer to that, my friends, is the Clans, and that will be the subject of next week's dev diary! Until then...

 

[JosephConrad]

This is the bestest thing.

I'm on a horse.

 

[Darokrithia]

Will there be some way of play as the scythians? SCYTHIANS

me like scythians

 

[NecroGangster]

My main concern about expanding the game is bad history. Information on Central Asia and China isn't exactly abundant, and the wiki pages for those areas are so awful they might as well be non-existent.

I believe that there might be better information about the steppes than about Europe when it comes for the earlier start dates. The chinese kept good records about their steppe neighbours while in Europe we were living the Dark Ages and most recounts were written decades or even centuries after the events.

Will there be some way of play as the scythians? SCYTHIANS

me like scythians

Unfortunatly I don't think there will be any scythians. While they were steppe nomades they were actually iranian and by the time of CK2 they had been completly incorporated and/or replaced by the turkic nomads that came from the East during the Gokturk Khaganate. After the fall of the Gokturk confederacy all that was left in the steppes were the tribes you see there already.

 

[Emren]

This sounds downright awesome!

 

[Rags17]

Well it did represent the first game fairly well didn't it? The game has just evolved. They could ofcourse change it over time. if they call the next game CK3: [Other title that fits better]. and then by "ck4" they can drop the ck moniker entirly and just go with the other title. Of course that is probably 10-20 years into the future.

It's a classic move, loads of game series have done it.

ARMA series, COD, Battlefield, just to name a few.

Well the thing is that the feudal system isn't that different from a tribute system in itself. The feudal lords supplied levies more than taxes but the difference isn't all that big. It certainly wasn't as organised as it seems in game.

I really hope that they differentiate between "a" tribute and tributaries. As in - "Here's 500 gold, now will you go away and please stop raiding me?" and "It's September again, here's your 500 gold again, so we're good for another year I trust ?"

Someone's probably asked this, but what's the horse tab?

A diet soft drink for equines.

I said major defeats and held up the loss of the holy land as an example of the scale I meant and you mention battles? On the scale of the loss of the holy land you have nothing else. Only blobbing. Blobbing in Iberia blobbing in central Europe. But in the game the crusades never succeed in the first place . . .

We all know that the early starts are imbalanced (769 especially), IMO but that's just an implementation issue, not a mechanic one. Fix the underlying cultures,claims and religions and you will see the gameplay improve drastically.

I . . . in the early starts, Iberia falls to the Muslims (90% in CM and 50% in ToG), instead of Germany conquering Pomerania we see Pomerania conquering Germany. And even in later starts the Teutonic order gets eaten by Lithuania.

Isn't the ideal outcome of any historical based game a 50% chance of following history ? There is an alternative universe where the ERE never fell, there is also one where Charlemagne didn't unify Francia. Having a 50% chance of Iberia falling to the Muslims sounds about right to me.

 

[DingoWalley]

I just had an idea for an achievement for this Expansion:

Abram's Ashes: As the Mongol Horde, Il-Khanate, Golden Horde or Chagatai Khanate, sack Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina with one Khan. Must be Tengrist or Reformed Tengrist to complete.

 

[Pethom]

To really defeat a nomad horde, you need to occupy their capital (or decisively beat them in battle, of course.) However, Nomads are allowed to move their capital around often; and that means they actually pull up stakes, 'buildings' and all, and move the whole thing to another location... Another special twist to the nomadic hordes is that even in defeat, they are still dangerous. Should a horde lose its last province, the tribe will still exist, and may use its remaining armies to conquer another land in which to settle

This could be used for those moders who'd like to have people moving in from the east, or the north, in their mods about the Roman Empire. Or maybe for the Dothraki, I think they're called, in the AGOT mod.

It could maybe even be used for a mod where the player starts off as a small tribe with the mission to find it's ideal land where to settle down and become a nation. On the way from, let's say Crimea, they can loot and gather people all the way through Europe down to modern day Morocco.

Sounds like an interesting feature.

 

[DominusNovus]

For anyone who thinks the game needed more fleshing out, consider that nomads were some of the most poorly implemented features of the game, and they were already important in the game. Once you flesh out nomads (and the other features needed, like the trade along the silk road), it doesn't take much more work to add more map.

 

[cybrxkhan]

So I'm wondering, will the Sogdians in 769 be Zoroastrian nomads?

Any playable Sogdians would be ruling over urbanized, settled regions along the Silk Road. They virtually monopolized Silk Road trade after all. So no, they wouldn't be nomads. Ideally they'd be some sort of inland republics of we had something like that.

There were Sogdians who lived among the nomads, but they wouldn't be playable rulers.

Edit: Also in terms of religion while many were Zoroastrian there were also Nestorians, Buddhists, Manicheans, and even Muslims. So basically the who,e Solk Road spiel.

 

[Asakhra]

Are all of these horde features part of a horde government type, and if so, can they be given to other government types via modding? I'm especially interested in sacking and manpower here

 

[JacobMunro]

I thought the lag was going to be improved with this expansion.

 

[Voy]

I thought the lag was going to be improved with this expansion.

What makes you think it wont? Larger map? Please, it will probably just be a few more provinces not India all over again.

 

[kdonovan]

Doomdark: Is the new DLC going have improved mechanics or AI for being a vassal of the hordes? Living under the mongol yoke was a time period of considerable significance for much of Eastern Europe, but not a time that eradicated the culture and religion of the subject nations. Are we going to try to model this in the new DLC?

Hopefully we will see nomadic conquerors adopt the culture and religion of their subjects (over time).

 

[Jorlem]

So, who thinks the Silk Road part of the expansion might allow for playable inland republics, or something along those lines? (Or at least provide a stronger base for a later expansion that allows for that?)

 

[Cliges]

Am I the only one who's puzzled as to how they can do a Mongol themed expansion without opening the Chinese area for campaigning?

Actually, one of the reasons I'll give this a chance is that it doesn't include China.

 

[kdonovan]

Will tributaries be a thing for everyone or just the steppe hordes? Like, If I'm HRE, could I potentially have, say, Italy as a tributary? Not sure how historical that is, but it seems a preferable alternative to having a single strong Italian vassal-king, or bunch of Italian dukes who hate me. Especially as it would let me limit electorates.

I would hope so - Tributary kings, etc. seems sort of common in this era - creates an alliance, the tributary state pays money, troops and/or princesses, etc. but retains internal sovereignty (i.e., can't be thrown in jail, have laws changed, titles revoked or deposed without a war) - also might not require the tributary power to be of lower rank and probably wouldn't count again vassal limits. Also very likely to declare independence upon death of the tribute receiver and has to be reimposed every generation. It might do very well at covering places like Spain where tributary rulers of a another religion were a somewhat common arrangement - but vassalage was not.

 

[kdonovan]

So, who thinks the Silk Road part of the expansion might allow for playable inland republics, or something along those lines? (Or at least provide a stronger base for a later expansion that allows for that?)

Or maybe allow for merchants cities even if not republics.

 

[Coldfire4134]

Do we need the Old Gods dlc to play as a nomad?

 

[Coldfire4134]

Can I choose government in a custom character?

 

[Forty-Bot]

First! (Because I had to unlock the achievement, damnit!)

There's an achievement?