Hello everyone!

Today is Tuesday and that means it’s time for another fascinating Developer Diary. My name is Divine and I’ve been part of the Crusader Kings team since last autumn as a scripter and now I’m going to tell you about some of the events that we’ve been working on for the soon-to-be-released expansion, Horse Lords!

If you control a part of the Silk Road you can now build trade posts to make sure to get some of the riches that is traveling along the route. However, there might be more people who want a share of the wealth, so you’ll probably have to guard your treasure chests. There’s also a possibility to gain the help of a trade governor who might attract more traders and riches to your land... or his mishaps might prove to be more of a headache for you to cope with.

As mentioned in a previous dev diary, rulers on the Steppe can send out their sons and brothers to take up arms and become mercenaries. The life of a mercenary, though, is a harsh one and a lot of things can happen when you’re out adventuring in a foreign court; so we’ve added some events about various things that can occur for the captain of such a created mercenary band.

For instance, the Mercenary Captain, being on the field fighting for a living, has a chance to improve his military education trait to one of the stronger ones. These mercenaries also get a few events to interact with their employer or the ruler of the province they are hanging out in. One of these events is for instance eloping with a person of the employer’s court. It can be a daughter, son or a skilled courtier.

Since the Mercenary Captain is earning his keep from being hired he also gets some choices on what to spend it on. For example, improving his Band of Mercenaries or spend it all on women and vice.

A ruler of the Steppe was not much of a ruler unless his clan had a thriving herd of livestock to support them. Thus, it is only natural that we needed to have some events about horses! If you’re living on the Steppes as a nomad, you can now adopt a favorite war horse. There are some events associated with having a horse and what you do together with it - both ordinary and unusual happenings.

So that’s a little sneak peek of the things that can happen on the wide Steppes and everything I had to say for today. I hope you are all hyped for the upcoming expansion that is now just a week away!

Oh! And I might actually have heard legends about certain altaic families behaving in odd ways lately… with hideous faces and beast-like behavior.

 

[Will Steel]

i really hope they open up the tibetan plateau. wanna play as the chinese

Tibet was an independent nation and culture until Chinese communists invaded in 1950 and started ethnic cleansing and genocides there. It was only that first the Mongols first conquered them for a short time, and then the Qing Dynasty of China had vassalized them, but it still remained independent all the time.

So, there won't be any major Chinese presence in Tibet. At least not until they make the game go on until 1950.

 

[gorillacakes]

@gorillacakes My fat fingers apparently misclicked on my phone. Now that I'm on a keyboard I can correct that. Thanks for pointing it out.

pfff no need to apologise as far as I'm concerned even if someone did disagree. It's all about dialogue, expressing opinions and chatting about how to improve the game, that's why we have a forum

 

[TheDungen]

One thing that could be done to fix it is split Sweden's de jure. If Norrland isn't de jure Sweden, they won't be as eager to take it.

I could see a three way split Svealand Götaland and Norrland, with an decision to merge götaland and svealand to sweden if you hold both.

I'm still not convinced the subjugation CB is a good idea but sure of the AI is made less trigger happy it might work.

 

[TheDungen]

Ooh, if we're making Norrland de jure Finland, can we make Finnmark part of the duchy of Kola?
I'm frustrated by the lack of any way for Finland to have de jure Finnmark without also taking a chunk of Norway.

I'd more make a kingdom of sapmi. Duchy of norrland, duchy of kola, and a new duchy containing the county of finnmarken. If finnmarken becomes part of the dejure duchy of kola then it won't be able to drift to norway later.

 

[HREmperor]

I could see a three way split Svealand Götaland and Norrland, with an decision to merge götaland and svealand to sweden if you hold both.

I'm still not convinced the subjugation CB is a good idea but sure of the AI is made less trigger happy it might work.

Without the subjugation CB, pagans would only be able to take one county at a time from each other. That'd be incredibly slow and boring.

 

[Zsrai]

Without the subjugation CB, pagans would only be able to take one county at a time from each other. That'd be incredibly slow and boring.

That's about what Muslims have against each other, and still markedly faster than Christians. All religions can get claims and press them, with Pagans probably having the easiest time, because of raiding for Princess concubines.

 

[A_Dane]

Without the subjugation CB, pagans would only be able to take one county at a time from each other. That'd be incredibly slow and boring.

In an ideal world pagans would only really be able to use the subjugation casus belli within the de jure country they've picked "become king of" amibition for. (i.e. if Sigurd Ring chooses the ambition to become king of Sweden, he can't use the subjugation casus belli outside of Sweden - if he dosn't he can use it once as he normally would).
Would restrict the whacky conquests I see a lot of

 

[TheDungen]

Without the subjugation CB, pagans would only be able to take one county at a time from each other. That'd be incredibly slow and boring.

Why? Everyone else makes due with claims for taking territory, why should the pagans who didn't belive in taking and holding territory be better at it than anyone else? Face it claim fabrication is already overpowered in how easy it makes expanding. The game needs more to do when at peace not even easier blobbing.

 

[TheDungen]

In an ideal world pagans would only really be able to use the subjugation casus belli within the de jure country they've picked "become king of" amibition for. (i.e. if Sigurd Ring chooses the ambition to become king of Sweden, he can't use the subjugation casus belli outside of Sweden - if he dosn't he can use it once as he normally would).
Would restrict the whacky conquests I see a lot of

Not a bad idea, but honestly I'd like to see it limited even further perhaps only rulers with a martial score over a certain level could use it. It'd be realsitic, in reality hundreds of years passed without any change then usually some guy in one generation united the entire kingdom. We just have to delay that conquest spree a little.

 

[MartinSWE]

I could see a three way split Svealand Götaland and Norrland, with an decision to merge götaland and svealand to sweden if you hold both.

This would be closer to history then the current set up but in effect it would never happen and Svealand/Götaland would just get eaten by Denmark or Norway every single game.

 

[TheDungen]

This would be closer to history then the current set up but in effect it would never happen and Svealand/Götaland would just get eaten by Denmark or Norway every single game.

Why? denmark is three duchies, norway three (five if we count the islands), götaland would be three too (småland, västergötland and östergötland) and svealand two (bergslagen and uppland). Hardly any big gap in power. Quite frankly if norway does not eat denmark in every game there is no reason that it would eat götaland. Especially if like I said it lost some counties to a kingdom of Sapmi.

Also I did want to do this in addition to making the blobby subjugation CB either, go away, be replaced with something more fitting or be more restricted. Honestly I think that the make tributary CB represents how things worked in scandinavia well enough at the time. Perhaps a thing where you only need to have to have 51% of a kingdom held or as tributary to create the kingdom title (meaning that the comming generations then can use the dejure claim to unite the kingdom proper).

 

[blackchoas]

Tibet was an independent nation and culture until Chinese communists invaded in 1950 and started ethnic cleansing and genocides there. It was only that first the Mongols first conquered them for a short time, and then the Qing Dynasty of China had vassalized them, but it still remained independent all the time.

So, there won't be any major Chinese presence in Tibet. At least not until they make the game go on until 1950.

I think that might have been a joke?

He wants to play the Chinese by which he means invade Tibet and ethnically cleanse the area of Tibetan culture, I mean its kinda racist, but I do find wiping entire cultures from the map kinda funny sometimes

 

[toroltao]

I think that might have been a joke?

He wants to play the Chinese by which he means invade Tibet and ethnically cleanse the area of Tibetan culture, I mean its kinda racist, but I do find wiping entire cultures from the map kinda funny sometimes

There should be a mechanic where converted provinces will sometimes randomly revert to a previous one or something to that effect.

 

[blackchoas]

There should be a mechanic where converted provinces will sometimes randomly revert to a previous one or something to that effect.

meh, the question is what it always has been, what exactly is culture conversion?

Is it the people living there changing or is it new people migrating in and pushing the old people off the land?

 

[HREmperor]

meh, the question is what it always has been, what exactly is culture conversion?

Is it the people living there changing or is it new people migrating in and pushing the old people off the land?

Both. The majority of people living there now speak your language. It doesn't matter what caused it. There are events for both the people living their changing culture and new people coming in.

 

[TheDungen]

In time I'd like to see continous pop and culture rather than these discrete values that we have today.

 

[Heatth]

Or just make it so AI is way less likely to go after poor lands.

The problem is not that the AI is too eager to go after poor lands. The problem is that taking and holding poor lands is too easy and desirable. Even if the land is poor, there is basically no reason to not take it. It won't hurt you so even if you gain little from it, it is still profit.

 

[Z-Z-Z]

Chili dogs work better, I understand.

draw a blue spiky ball with arms and legs and it will love chili dogs.
draw attila the hun and he will like conquering

 

[blackchoas]

The problem is not that the AI is too eager to go after poor lands. The problem is that taking and holding poor lands is too easy and desirable. Even if the land is poor, there is basically no reason to not take it. It won't hurt you so even if you gain little from it, it is still profit.

is that still true when there is literally nothing in the lands now? Like the entire steppe doesn't have holdings. what is there even to conquer it would take centuries of building before we could get to a point where in a few centuries we would turn a profit on it

 

[DC123456789]

That works for the steppes but not for places like Nubia or Asturias that could have easily been conquered by the Muslims but never were because they were deemed not worth the effort to do so (which, of course, turned out badly for the Andalusians).