Hi again folks! It's a big day today with the release of the Common Sense expansion for EUIV! Naturally, we are releasing a patch for CKII in tandem, in order to keep the save game converter up-to-date.

Patch Notes here:

Spoiler

- Updated government calculation to be up to date with EU4 1.12
- Fixed the localisation issues on Mac and Linux with country names
- Ibadi is now its own main religion like it should be

NOTE: We are aware of an issue on Mac and Linux caused by EU4's recent engine upgrade, which broke EU4's ability to find the exported games from CK2. For now, you have to manually copy the exported save from eu4_export/mod to EU4's mod folder but this will be fixed ASAP by the EU4 team.

Now then, this time I thought I'd talk about the internal dynamics of the nomadic hordes. As I mentioned last time, Nomads use population and manpower rather than relying on levies and taxes from Holdings, so they tend to have a lot fewer normal vassals than other realms. To compensate for this, Nomad hordes rely on a variable number of member Clans instead. The Clans are similar to regular vassals in some respects, except that they also employ Manpower and Population (oh, and you are allowed to play as a vassal Clan too, of course), and each Clan has a special opinion called Clan Sentiment of the other Clans, separate from that of its chief. As a horde grows, it will be encouraged to increase the number of member Clans. Likewise, you can have too many Clans for the amount of available land.

Effective management of the Clans takes some effort due to their infighting and Sentiments. We have added a new screen to give you a proper overview of the situation. Red lines between the Clans indicate an ongoing "Blood Feud" and green lines a "Blood Oath". A Clan can only have one "blood brother" Clan, but many feuds. Feuds are started either by simple declaration, or by raiding one of the other Clans in the realm... Yes, even though you might all be serving same Khan, nothing stops you from raiding a fellow Clan's land! Blood Oaths are similar to marriage alliances; they last as long as both of the Clan Chiefs are alive, but they are only type of alliance that allows you to call another Clan to war in internal wars (and that includes the Khan!) Blood Feuds are much more persistent and can only be settled with a payment of blood money... or by the other Clan's extinction.

Another twist to the Oath and Feud status is that actions taken against one Clan will affect the Sentiment of its enemy or blood brother, as appropriate. For example, an oath-bound Clan will also become hostile to whomever is raiding you, and will dislike any clans you are in Feud with for as long as the Oath lasts. Feuding parties are allowed to freely declare outright wars against each other, fighting over the grazing lands in a single county.

Clans can be a bit tricky to manage, not just because of their own infighting but also because they don't follow any system of laws like the Feudal realms do; they are more about frankly expecting and demanding things from their Khan. If they view the Khan as weak and pathetic they are quite prone to attempt to have him replaced with another Clan chief (usually through membership in a special Faction.)

Apart from proposing Blood Oaths and declaring Feuds, the Khan also has access to a number of special actions against the other Clans. He can demand that they split in order to maintain balance within the tribe, or even absorb them; unless they refuse, of course! Clans are also free to adopt the religion of another Clan, should they like it better for some reason (steppe nomads are fairly open-minded about religious matters.)

I am sure there is more I should mention about Clan management, but since I really need to get back to work, I'll leave you with this. Next time; Tributaries, Nomad succession and dynamic mercenaries!

 

[Sdaeriji]

Uyghur culture....

 

[Groogy]

Will there be anything to simulate the vassal hordes that many of the larger hordes had? Will you be able to make other hordes tributary and force them to fight with you?

Yes

 

[Groogy]

I wonder when Groogy said he migrated to India, is he talking about an actual migration mechanism, or the migrating people do to get from Scandinavia to India.

Nomads have a province decision to abandon a province if they want to.

 

[nhytgbvfeco2]

I like how people point out uighur culture.. but not the uyghur khaganate sitting right there in the first picture. Or the added parts of the tarim basin. Or that this locations is only roughly in the center of the minimap meaning we probably have all of mongolia.

 

[Groogy]

Well, regarding the second image, it seems that hordes can now be of king tier.

Clans under a Khan are King tier

And how is it that the khan in that image have a handful of county titles, but only 1/1 demesne limit?

Because he is holding only the province/land/county title and no actual holdings.

 

[gorillacakes]

Someone on the team played King of Dragon Pass.

Amazing game!

 

[Ashlantean]

Lovely diary there. The clan system sounds very interesting. It really is starting to sound like steppe hordes will have a completely different feel to a regular feudal realm. I look forward to getting stuck in when the Horse Lords appears in the near/middle future!

 

[Groogy]

Groogy I've got a question regarding the DLC - what will happen immediately upon update but before the DLC purchase? Will the features simply be not there and there would be no change, or will all the nomads simply be locked from playing without the Horse Lords?

It's very technical and hard to explain in the layman terms. Easiest way I guess would be to say nomads are not generated unless you have the expansion

 

[Groogy]

That's very weird. What about people that only own horse lords and the basegame. Will they be unable to play any of the nomads without the apppropriate dlc to unlock their religion? Are there even any christian hords?

No if they own the expansion they will be able to play as nomads no matter what. The government is locked, not the religion.

 

[Karolus Magnus]

So until I purchase the expansion, I'll still be able to play the Mongols or whichever and they'll be unreformed tribes just like e.g. the Norse?

Nothing Nomadic-related's coming along with the free patch?

Exactly. The steppe will be tribal without Horse Lords. The new steppe provinces will still be there however.

Interesting. So just to be clear this means someone with horselords can try out the mechanics of the varius dlc locked religions without buying their respective dlc by playing as a nomad?

You can play as any existing religion if you are a Nomad and have Horse Lords. However, you will not be able to become feudal if you are of a religion that is locked by a DLC you do not own. And some of the flavor events for the religion you are playing might also be DLC locked.

Are the nomad mechanics sufficiently mod friendly that someone could make a mod that applies them to desert nomads like beduins and berbers?

Yes, you can easily mod who should be nomad.

 

[Groogy]

Is that an elephant crossing a waterway?

No its an elephant debarking from a boat in the Persian gulf

 

[Thure]

I recall some posts from the devs talking about wanting to make vassal management challenging again, so here's hoping.

There was an interview (or maybe a post, I can't recall) around the time of the last PdxCon, where it was mentioned that they had metrics showing that around 90-something percent of players only use the earliest bookmark in both CK2 and EU4, so they were only planning on making a grand campaign bookmark in future games, as the time spent on making those later bookmarks could instead be spent on things that most of the player base would actually use. Based on that, I rather doubt that we will see more late game bookmarks added to existing games as well. But who knows?

I think it's different with CK2 than with other paradox games were you only play states. In CK2 you player chracters and the later start dates have some very interesting chracaters. In other Paradox games you just play Prussia for exemple and the ruler is unimportant. But CK2 lives alot from different start dates with famous characters.

 

[Keisok]

Gonna be another person to chuck in that if you're going to update the hordes, you should probably refine Manachaeism like you did the Ibadi faith in earlier DLCs and the like. It was a popular choice in the east for nomads, and it was different enough from its contemporaries to where it should be its own Mazdan faith. Heck, ask the person who made Heretic_Pride on the workshop to use some of his assets for it if you guys want to be quick; he did make the Leader of the Manichaean Church (as the head of the Manachaeism was known as in the title, although if you want to make it sound better, it's term in Parthian was Yamag) as well as the Bema feast they were known for. Then the only other thing you'd need is to code a new Mazdan branch and sprite out a new symbol based on the Gnostic circle/cross. It'd be something that you guys'd be pretty familiar with and it would add some extra interest to the DLC. Besides, you guys created the Cult of Zun, a regional one off for Charlemagne, I don't think adding in a revised Manichaeism is asking too much.

 

[Daronaollard]

I waited all day for this!

 

[Grand Historian]

Dynamic mercenaries, you say?

 

[Mackus]

"They are without honour!"
Yes! This wouldn't be Paradox expansion without funny event option names.

There is no changelog (for expansion patch) again. Does it mean it they won't be posted anymore?

 

[Es57]

Liking the sound of this. I assume the clans will be less likely to tolerate the situation we currently often get where the Mongol Khagan dies and is succeeded by a 2 year old.

I guess the 2 year-old will now be trampled under the hooves of the Khans' horses...

 

[Groogy]

Huh so all hordes are empire-tier, or did I misunderstand your earlier post Groogy?

No that is correct, all hordes are empire tier because several game mechanics require it (can't be vassals of others, etc. etc.)

 

[ngppgn]

@Groogy: Somewhat technical question here:

Currently, if a character holds a landless title but owns no provinces and try to raise any retinue/mercenries/holy orders, one of this hapoens:

-if your title has a capital Province defined in landed_titles, the troops will spawn there.
-otherwise, the troops will spawn in ANY/ALL, that is, nowhere in the map.

With hordes that loose all the land becoming landless, has this issue been dealt with?
(please, be yes, since right now this behavior precludes the playability of landless characters, either in vanilla or in mods.

Edit: as an added question, will despossessed/landless hordes be able to loot? Under the current rules they wouldn'y because a) they would need a friendly province to toggle looting on and b) gold from looting only gets to your treasurery if you are looting a province which is neighbour to your land.

Arguably, these two issues should be adresses if you want these landless hordes be an actual threat or aa playable possibility, rather than an annoyance or a delayed but no less certain game over

 

[Groogy]

Why is it so? All the DLC released so far made it so that religions/governments that were DLC-locked were still being used by the AI.

As a side note: are the Kara-Khitai in?

Because we couldn't do it any other way and yes of course they are in. They are a potential random name for a clan. (not scripter so dont remember if they are in history database)