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Hi all! I am Karolus Magnus, programmer at Crusader Kings II. Now is finally the time for my first dev diary! Today I will be talking about the Silk Road and Raiding Adventurers.

With Horse Lords we are adding in an addition to the trade system which is the major trade route of the Silk Road that stretched all the way from Cathay to the Italian States. It does not require you to be a Patrician or Republic however to utilize this system. As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are. You can upgrade these trade posts to make the Silk Road worth even more.

dd_trade_post.jpg

However the Silk Road is much more dangerous to deal with than normal coastal trade posts as it relies on safe passage through land. If a war breaks out and a part of the trade route is caught in the conflict, the trade will be cut from that province and onwards for that branch. The trade will instead go through any other branch and result in them receiving more of the trade than they normally would. The Silk route can be viewed from the Economic mapmode but also in more detail from the Trade zone mapmode.

dd_trade_route.jpg

Next feature is Raiding Adventurers. This system was made to better represent the Normans in Northern France and Sicily in how they settled in foreign land. It is also used for nomads who lose their home. The Germanic raiding adventurers spawn with ships, but even nomads who do not get ships can travel far, as these raiders unlike others can raid in any province (except the provinces of the one who conquered your home lands).

Raiding adventurers will use the money they gain from raiding to recruit more troops, and when they have grown to a certain level, they will try to become landed. A ruler can offer to settle these raiding adventurers, giving them coastal or border provinces. They might however refuse to be settled if they do not like the lands that you are offering. Ambitious raiding adventurers will usually not be settled unless they are given a duchy. If no such offer is made however, they will eventually start a war on one of the rulers they have raided, targeting a duchy.

dd_settle.jpg


The same Settle Adventurer interaction can be used to settle the dynamic mercenaries we already covered, if you have managed to make them your friend. Settled raiding adventurers will become Feudal or Iqta depending on their religion, and also be disinherited from the nomad realm from which they came from.

One of the benefits of settling a raiding adventurer is that the provinces that are given away will be blocked from raided again in the near future.

dd_settled.jpg

Raiding adventurers that do not spawn from being conquered as well as dynamic mercenaries will get the Adventurer trait that makes the character much more ambitious and military capable. So even if they give you several benefits to settle, they can become dangerous for your future generations.

dd_adventurer.jpg


That's all for this week! Next week we are going to go through map and culture revisions and new events!
 
These mechanics could be used for a dynamically spawned Ottoman tribe :eek:

An Ottoman tribe wouldn't make much sense anywhere else than in Central or Western Anatolia though. It took a complex series of events to see them establish themselves as a separate entity. If you just want the dynasty name in an earlier startdate (769, 867 or 1066) why don't you script an Ottoman spawn event yourself?
 
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Aw yissss Silk Road

I am glad it's not just a bunch of events.
 
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First, Inland trade! I'm so hyped.

Second, could a dev exactly how do adventurers and dynamic mercs gain troops over time? Do they use the manpower mechanic? Is it based on spawn units? Is it hardcoded, event-driven, or how?

Third?, who can build the trade post in a silk road province? You say one does not need be a republic, but do one need to own the county? Or can actually any lord with the money build there?

How are inland routes defined? Could we make all of Europe a single giant route?
 
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Third?, who can build the trade post in a silk road province? You say one does not need be a republic, but do one need to own the county? Or can actually any lord with the money build there?

It's on first message:

As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are.
 
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First, Inland trade! I'm so hyped.

Second, could a dev exactly how do adventurers and dynamic mercs gain troops over time? Do they use the manpower mechanic? Is it based on spawn units? Is it hardcoded, event-driven, or how?

Third?, who can build the trade post in a silk road province? You say one does not need be a republic, but do one need to own the county? Or can actually any lord with the money build there?

How are inland routes defined? Could we make all of Europe a single giant route?
Karolus Magnus said:
As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are.
So yes, you need to own the county.

I imagine the trade routes are defined in some file in map/ so moddable.
 
Love it, keep up the good work
 
upon further reading, am I correctly understanding that you can build an inland trade post when you either are a patrician OR the owner of the province? So now patricans can have trade post both in an ocean and inland... Can they aldo have trade posts in both oceans?

Also what happened to "we'll be giving changelog tidbits with every DD"? I miss the changelog lines!
 
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Do they even mention if upgrading the Silk Road will carry value further downstream, like the trade notes do in EU4. Otherwise i can't see how it's introduction is a buff to any of the powers in the Middle East or Europe. Then it's just gonna be a buff to the local powers in Central Asia
 
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Do they even mention if upgrading the Silk Road will carry value further downstream, like the trade notes do in EU4. Otherwise i can't see how it's introduction is a buff to any of the powers in the Middle East or Europe. Then it's just gonna be a buff to the local powers in Central Asia
It's not like the Abbasids and Byzantines and other such blobs actually need to be more powerful. :p
 
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Honestly, with these mechanics, I see almost no reason why they wouldn't be able to do a Dark Ages expansion covering the barbarian breakup of the Roman Empire.
 
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upon further reading, am I correctly understanding that you can build an inland trade post when you either are a patrician OR the owner of the province? So now patricans can have trade post both in an ocean and inland... Can they aldo have trade posts in both oceans?

Also what happened to "we'll be giving changelog tidbits with every DD"? I miss the changelog lines!

My interpretation is that patricians can build a trade post on the coast, county ownership not needed (as previously), and anyone who ones a county on a trade route (patrician or not) can build a trade post in that county. Nothing about patricians being able to build inland trade posts that are either (1) not on the trade route or (2) not in a county owned by that patrician.

I think the changelog tidbits were just for the pre-announcement teaser dev diaries.

But, presumably the liege can build up the trade post for their vassals.
For their direct vassals, lords have never been able to improve things in their vassals' vassals lands.
 
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