Rock, Paper, Shotgun Preview

[RedRooster81]

My son wants to lead armies and get glory. I don't let him. He becomes mad, later rebellious because he thinks I don't like him as much as my other son, who already have led armies in war for five years and have become the hero of the nation.

Yep, that's pretty much it. Each character has on the character list an ambition: this could be "get married," "obtain a barony," "become Duke of Gascony," "become chancellor," or even more precisely, "kill Robert II, Duke of Normandy." If you want to keep your people happy, you should look at their list of ambitions from time to time and grant their wishes if possible. Once one ambition is satisfied, another is given to the character. So it is sort of like personal missions that helps drive the character AI. In Rome, unsatisfied characters joined the "Populist" faction in republics and overall became obnoxious.

I imagine in CK2 that characters with unfulfilled ambitions will be more likely to get dissatisfied and will leave your court, and dissatisfied vassals will be more likely to rebel or plot against you. Satisfied characters will be more likely to support you and watch your back.

 

[Captain Frakas]

Wow! That's really cool!

 

[Assos]

Catchy little thing, sort of like Reggie Jackson in the Naked Gun, "I must kill the queen" So, will this replace the DV missions?

 

[ConstantineXII]

I'm impressed with everything I've seen on this game so far. Dare I say, I'm actually getting excited over this game..... something which hasn't happened in a while. I love that PI is making another character-driven "rpg-ish" type of strat game, as those are sorely lacking. I wonder if this will be my first-ever pre-order?

 

[unmerged(21085)]

Agreed! Would be nice if there is Collector's Edition as well

 

[King]

He mentioned a new engine, but I'm assuming by new engine, he just meant new graphical features. The game still uses Clausewitz, right?

Yes the map engine has been rewritten from the ground up for CK2. Making it look better, performs better and will allow us to add functionality to map easier.

 

[Sinbuster]

Ah, good news, I wasn't sure about that comment in the article. Not that graphics are my primary concern when it comes to Paradox games but I think it's fair to say most of us in the community are cartophiles, so who's to argue with prettier maps. Question: Even though it's early in the games development, the map looks very refined. Will the map be changed much (provinces added, etc) in the coming months?

 

[King]

Ah, good news, I wasn't sure about that comment in the article. Not that graphics are my primary concern when it comes to Paradox games but I think it's fair to say most of us in the community are cartophiles, so who's to argue with prettier maps. Question: Even though it's early in the games development, the map looks very refined. Will the map be changed much (provinces added, etc) in the coming months?

We have a dev diary planned with the programmer resonsible for the map writing it. he is better qualified than me to answer these kinds of questions.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Good preview... even having never played the original, I'm really starting to look forward to this... seems like it'll be very different from PI's other titles.

 

[Sinbuster]

We have a dev diary planned with the programmer resonsible for the map writing it. he is better qualified than me to answer these kinds of questions.

That's SolSara is it not? I'll be looking forward to that. Thanks King.


Hmm, is it conceivable the map engine can utilize multi-core where the Clausewitz can't, or struggles to, or am I writing out my arse?

 

[Drakken]

Yep, that's pretty much it. Each character has on the character list an ambition: this could be "get married," "obtain a barony," "become Duke of Gascony," "become chancellor," or even more precisely, "kill Robert II, Duke of Normandy." If you want to keep your people happy, you should look at their list of ambitions from time to time and grant their wishes if possible. Once one ambition is satisfied, another is given to the character. So it is sort of like personal missions that helps drive the character AI. In Rome, unsatisfied characters joined the "Populist" faction in republics and overall became obnoxious.

I imagine in CK2 that characters with unfulfilled ambitions will be more likely to get dissatisfied and will leave your court, and dissatisfied vassals will be more likely to rebel or plot against you. Satisfied characters will be more likely to support you and watch your back.

As long as there are no more flooding of "Become a Ruler" ambition, I'm fine with it.

 

[RedRooster81]

As long as there are no more flooding of "Become a Ruler" ambition, I'm fine with it.

Hopefully that'll be "have a title" instead. Feeling glum today? Have a barony. A barony always cheers anybody up who's feelin' down. Actually, I could go for a barony right now. Anybody got one lying around? ... :rofl:

 

[Ruwaard]

Hopefully that'll be "have a title" instead. Feeling glum today? Have a barony. A barony always cheers anybody up who's feelin' down. Actually, I could go for a barony right now. Anybody got one lying around? ... :rofl:

Interesting, but there probably will be more courtiers (and their families) wanting the same title. It will be interesting to manage all those ambitions.

 

[RedRooster81]

Interesting, but there probably will be more courtiers (and their families) wanting the same title. It will be interesting to manage all those ambitions.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. If the way this is modeled approaches how things worked historically, the challenge is forming your own constituency, whether this is the minor nobility, the Church, the burghers, or some combination thereof, with which to rule. Like the early HREs, I found it easier in CK1 to hand over much of my kingdom to clergy during periods of expansion and consolidation. But I plan to keep a much smaller realm this time, say Iberia, southern France, and some of North Africa and Italy. But that's like eight kingdom titles. How do I rule such a behemoth from Cordoba? So, choices, choices.

The part that I find intriguing is how much the nobility of each kingdom will be kept separate, as happened more or less historically (like personal unions in EU3). And whether you'll mostly be dealing with courtiers from your primary kingdom or if everyone will pile together in one place (it would be nice to be able to name a council for Portugal, a council for Aragon, a council for Italy, each with an appointed governor or viceroy.... but that would probably get to be too much). There will be separate succession laws. That we know. Then there is the problem of demesne penalty. I'm anxious to see how that one works out.

 

[SolSara]

That's SolSara is it not? I'll be looking forward to that. Thanks King.


Hmm, is it conceivable the map engine can utilize multi-core where the Clausewitz can't, or struggles to, or am I writing out my arse?

I did not program the map, I only made it The map consists of many provinces in different colours, so it's more I painted it, created the province files and tried to make it look good. Tegus then programmed the map to make it look even better and made so it can be zoomed in or out. There's more to it than just the zoom in/out function but I'll let him explain it in the dev diary instead.

 

[Orinsul]

it all sounds amazing, the intrigue and instability stuff especially

 

[Nikolai]

Yep, that's pretty much it. Each character has on the character list an ambition: this could be "get married," "obtain a barony," "become Duke of Gascony," "become chancellor," or even more precisely, "kill Robert II, Duke of Normandy." If you want to keep your people happy, you should look at their list of ambitions from time to time and grant their wishes if possible. Once one ambition is satisfied, another is given to the character. So it is sort of like personal missions that helps drive the character AI. In Rome, unsatisfied characters joined the "Populist" faction in republics and overall became obnoxious.

I imagine in CK2 that characters with unfulfilled ambitions will be more likely to get dissatisfied and will leave your court, and dissatisfied vassals will be more likely to rebel or plot against you. Satisfied characters will be more likely to support you and watch your back.

Unfortunately, this was one of the main reasons for killing the fun in Rome. Getting populists into power = trouble almost impossible to get out of = massive unfun until you quit. I absolutely hated that feature. But it has potential, so I'm not worried just yet.

 

[TempestDK]

Unfortunately, this was one of the main reasons for killing the fun in Rome. Getting populists into power = trouble almost impossible to get out of = massive unfun until you quit. I absolutely hated that feature. But it has potential, so I'm not worried just yet.

Yeah there were some potentially great features in Rome .. most were just not well implemented sadly ... but I am sure that those kinks have been worked out for CK2

 

[unmerged(104889)]

Sounds... Magnificent!

 

[Hamanu]

The part that I find intriguing is how much the nobility of each kingdom will be kept separate, as happened more or less historically (like personal unions in EU3). And whether you'll mostly be dealing with courtiers from your primary kingdom or if everyone will pile together in one place (it would be nice to be able to name a council for Portugal, a council for Aragon, a council for Italy, each with an appointed governor or viceroy.... but that would probably get to be too much). There will be separate succession laws. That we know. Then there is the problem of demesne penalty. I'm anxious to see how that one works out.

In these cases you had estates and assemblies of individual provinces (Habsburg duchies) or kingdoms (Hungary, Slavonia, Croatia) but there was only one council around the ruler. Sure, there were viceroys (or captains) governing these individual lands, but everyone knew where the ultimate authority lay. Frederick III. had the same chancery both for his hereditary demesne and for the Empire as a whole and his advisers of councilors were one same group of people for all issues. That is why local Styrian and Carinthian nobility (Austria was ruled by a cadet branch of Habsburg) gained a lot of prominence during his reign since they were the ones who did most of the advising, even on issues concerning western and northern parts of the Empire that they knew very little about. Count Ulrich Cilli (did my MA on this guy) became Frederick's councilor and he was immediately able to forge alliances throughout the empire, with the dukes of Saxony and Brandenburg, even if he was just a minor prince from the easternmost border of the Empire. He had "the ear of the Emperor" and that was what counted.