Developer Diary 19 – Crusades

[Grell74]

You are clutching at straws again

How about instead of insulting the intelligence of your customers, actually make a comment on the crusade mechanics?

You have won the argument with yourself (because I dont see anyone else arguing it) about CK2 only being about the crusades. Perhaps you could return to original topic and tell us in what way crusades have been made “more interesting and dynamic”. Besides events similar to CK1, how are the crusades in CK2 any different from any other CK2 individual holy war?

Clearly you have problems understanding my posts. I will be as simple as possible:

I have not commented on crusade mechanics, most comments were covered earlier in the thread.

I have commented on the flawed argument of "name = focus" and poor logic in general.

No one has said crusades won't be part of the game. Crusades are in there and work fine. Some people have said, after reading this DD, that they don't think our crusade mechanics are "good enough" and have specifically pointed at the title of the game as a reason they must be "better".

Finally, you are taking a quote out of context just as earlier posters did, and again if we take it literally we should only allow you to play as King level characters, which is clearly not the case. You cannot use part of a quote as a literal absolute rule while ignoring the rest in a reasonable debate, which was the entire point of my last post. But nevermind, being reasonable is hard, let's just declare everyone's argument a strawman and be done with it.

A moments thought should tell you promotional trailers would come out of the marketing budget and not affect developers at all.

 

[Madgan]

I'm still optimistic about the game as it looks great, but I must admit I'm incredibly disappointed in the responses by the paradox team to criticism, whether they view it as legitimate or not. I can't understand the need to insult people who said nothing worthy of such venom.

 

[Grell74]

I'm still optimistic about the game as it looks great, but I must admit I'm incredibly disappointed in the responses by the paradox team to criticism, whether they view it as legitimate or not. I can't understand the need to insult people who said nothing worthy of such venom.

Im a bit shocked by it too, its coming from several different Devs as well, so its not an isolated one-off. Makes me wonder how do they deal with any criticisms raised by the BETA testers, or maybe their selection process weeds out any pesky dissenters.

 

[Darkrenown]

Indeed. Instead, you've decided to attack people based on an argument few or none of them have actually made.
Nobody said interpret everything literally and to extremes. That's the strawman.

No, I quoted people exactly saying that. Originally it was an offhand comment. Then someone else jumped in to quote PR comments at me, so I replied to that, now others are jumping in to complain I am am not talking about crusade mechanics and am "attacking" people for not agreeing with their faulty arguments. Each wave further twists my orginal post, ignores the original context etc. Fun stuff.

You are clutching at straws again

How about instead of insulting the intelligence of your customers, actually make a comment on the crusade mechanics?

Surprising as this may seem, I do not actually have to answer every question you post. I can in fact choose which I reply to. Having said that, no one seems to be asking about crusade mechanics anymore, just claiming they are bad. People asked actual questions earlier in the thread and those were answered, perhaps a similar thing would happen again if you asked about the game instead of picking at my posts?

So, as I understand it, we're STILL gonna see a rainbow of colors in the Holy Land after a successful Crusade?

No, you shouldn't do. Crusades "targets a De Jure Duchy of a religious enemy, and on success you acquire all the holdings inside the Duchy, leaving you to just decide who will be the new bishops and mayors. " You are crusading for a specific area, so after a crusade there will only be one new colour in the holy land.

 

[Noldofinwe]

I haven't read everything in this topic, but scanning it through I found this:

I was kind of hoping for an event driven system that forces counts to band together to form the Kingdom of Jerusalem (or whatever kingdom) after a successful Crusade, forcing you to either give up your holdings in Jerusalem or Europe. You could have even thrown in a Byzantine Vassalage request (Kingdom) if you want to be fancy.

And this brought up a question for me, how are Byzantine/crusader relations managed? Are there special events? Cause the first and foremost reason the first crusade actually happend was because the Byzantine emperor asked for help fighting the turks. Secondly the Byzantines still saw it as their territory and expected that the crusaders would hand over their captured lands back to the Byzantines

 

[A_Dane]

@Darkrenown, it will not be possible to conqueror/create the entirety of Jerusalem in one go? I see the "De jure duchys", so just asking to be totally clear

 

[Darkrenown]

Not in a single war/crusade, no.

 

[A_Dane]

Damn :/ How far does a truce last then?

 

[Lord Strange]

Well thinking about the First crusade, they hardly conquered the whole of the de jure duchy of Jerusalem anyway in the first place: they only held Jerusalem, and I think it was Ascalon. Antioch would in this case be a different war goal, while Edessa is sort of hard to illustrate within the game mechanics we have seen. The conquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was done after the "end" of the Crusade.

 

[Filip de Norre]

How does the holy war mechanic work precisely. In CK1+Deus Vult you could just attack anyone with another religion and you got a core on every county you succesfully managed to occupy. By offering peace you could enforce or recognize any/all claims characters on either side had on each other. You mentioned that at any time a faction could declare war on any faction with another religion. Have you added a "war goal" system like in Victoria? If I'm France and want something in the Holy Land, how does it work then? Do I just declare war on the Fatimids or should I when I declare war, choose which de jure duchy I'd like?

 

[Wezqu]

How does the holy war mechanic work precisely. In CK1+Deus Vult you could just attack anyone with another religion and you got a core on every county you succesfully managed to occupy. By offering peace you could enforce or recognize any/all claims characters on either side had on each other. You mentioned that at any time a faction could declare war on any faction with another religion. Have you added a "war goal" system like in Victoria? If I'm France and want something in the Holy Land, how does it work then? Do I just declare war on the Fatimids or should I when I declare war, choose which de jure duchy I'd like?

Well you always have CB's against pagans and muslims (Holy War CB). You can't declare war against any christian religions without CB. Crusades work by Pope calling a crusade and deciding what duchy he targets that is owned by muslims/pagans. Then any christian can go after that tittle and when they manage to get to the target duchy area your character gets crusader trait that will give him bonuses. You only get that trait if you go to the crusade area and not because you declared war so no sitting in your home castle and being a Crusader. You have to start the war by targeting the duchy when you declare war, but you are only crusading if you chose the one that was chosen by pope. In peace treaty you can only demand that duchy area that you chose nothing else. Even if you would have legal claims on some other areas.

 

[Darkrenown]

OT deleted. Posts about the DD only please, if you really want to pick at my posting you can PM me.

 

[Ephafn]

Since multiple Crusaders are going to declare wars with the exact same objective (conquer a specific duchy), I have a few questions about how these wars interact with each others:

1- If each of the target duchy provinces (or worse, holdings) are occupied by a different crusader, will any of them eventually get enough war score to annex (without much battle/occupation outside of the target)?
2- Once a crusader annex the target, what happens to the other wars? Do they all get white peaces without any penalty?
3- If two crusader armies are in the same province, but are not allied to each other, and a Muslim army that is at war with both of them attack, do they fight together? Same question for sieges.

 

[Arizal]

I had made a longer post, but a technical problem destroyed it, so...

Will there be any chance that you make a DLC about the 4th crusade (and crusades between catholics and "heretics") at some point? (Because I would really buy it if it is well done. The fourth crusade infuriated me when I was younger...)

Is there anything to model this crusade, since the game is based on a "you can start at any time" principle?

While we are here, it is not directly related, but how is modelled the Latin empire and, with the current system, does that mean that Constantinople Patriarch become independant (and like a pope) in 1204?

 

[Elusivehonor]

No, you shouldn't do. Crusades "targets a De Jure Duchy of a religious enemy, and on success you acquire all the holdings inside the Duchy, leaving you to just decide who will be the new bishops and mayors. " You are crusading for a specific area, so after a crusade there will only be one new colour in the holy land.

Okay, lemme see if I understand...

There is only one Crusade target, let's say the Sheikdom (or whatever the Muslim Duchy equivalent is) of Jerusalem, and after a successful Crusade their lands now belong to the one who conquers it, lets say the Count of Reims, who still is a vassal of the King of France.

Now, there were a ton of other Dukes and Counts on Crusade who occupied other Counties and Duchies in the Holy Land, but the Crusade target, the Sheikdom of Jerusalem, was the only target, and therefore after a successful Crusade the Counties and Duchies are given back to the Muslims.

Is this correct?

If so, I can't help but point out that it still is an inadequate system. I mean, the Crusaders took everything, and anything they could in the Holy Land. Also, from a historical point of view, they did not give castles and lands back to religious enemies.

An event driven system, where Crusaders are allowed to conquer anything they want in the holy land, are forced to give up all European territory (reverts to family member, or monarch) after a successful Crusade, and are given huge incentives to join the nearest Crusader Kingdom (Or the strongest Duchy) would be far superior.

I realize it won't be changed for release, just throwing the idea out there, again. Ah well.

Hopefully, it'll be moddable, but I was looking forward to this aspect of Crusader Kings II. Now, not so much. :sad:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! To those who do not celebrate, Happy Thursday!

 

[eliphas8]

Okay, lemme see if I understand...

There is only one Crusade target, let's say the Sheikdom (or whatever the Muslim Duchy equivalent is) of Jerusalem, and after a successful Crusade their lands now belong to the one who conquers it, lets say the Count of Reims, who still is a vassal of the King of France.

Now, there were a ton of other Dukes and Counts on Crusade who occupied other Counties and Duchies in the Holy Land, but the Crusade target, the Sheikdom of Jerusalem, was the only target, and therefore after a successful Crusade the Counties and Duchies are given back to the Muslims.

Is this correct?

If so, I can't help but point out that it still is an inadequate system. I mean, the Crusaders took everything, and anything they could in the Holy Land. Also, from a historical point of view, they did not give castles and lands back to religious enemies.

An event driven system, where Crusaders are allowed to conquer anything they want in the holy land, are forced to give up all European territory (reverts to family member, or monarch) after a successful Crusade, and are given huge incentives to join the nearest Crusader Kingdom (Or the strongest Duchy) would be far superior.

I realize it won't be changed for release, just throwing the idea out there, again. Ah well.

Hopefully, it'll be moddable, but I was looking forward to this aspect of Crusader Kings II. Now, not so much. :sad:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! To those who do not celebrate, Happy Thursday!

The Muslim equivalent to a duchy is an emirate, also we havent seen how it actually will work yet, its entirely possible that the Emirate of Jerusalem is enough land to form the Kingdom of Jerusalem immediately which would cause you to break away from the kingdom of France. I would also like to point out that those things the Crusaders took was mostly power grabs (people declaring their own wars aganinst for example allepo) and the actual crusade was just to attack the target everything else was just what they got along the way. Forcing lands in Europe to be given away is also probably unnecesary unless both the player had a massively high intrigue, it would be impossible to run lands so far apart from each other.

Plots to declare independence would also presumebly be much easier if your liege and his vassals are far off and unable to attack easily.

 

[Orinsul]

isnt the issue with the crusades more that the game cant track how roused europe is in support of it. I mean they failed because after the first and before the fourth they lost popular support, so didnt get the numbers to permanently hold it and the big wave after the defeat at um, H name, came too late making the [4th?] crusade a valiant defense of something already lost. The game only represents upper nobility, having enough gallic peasents and etc who care about the crusades to migrate there permanently to give the numbers to hold it.
And also what happens if you win? A little bit of land is gained? The purpose was to cut the wealth of the turk and india to the east off from the wealth of africa and spain in the west, To Sunder islam in two and bleed it to death. IF you win, theres a kingdom of jerusleam, but there are no trade lines or anything to cause that separation of the two halves of islam to have any effect.

Really the system is perfect, it represents all its meant to represent. Anything in the game could be picked out as somewhere where its not as complicated as reality is. The game is about the Crusades, but the crusades arent just in the holy land, it was the infusion of spirit into Christendom as a whole, if your a minor count in france who never sets foot out of his county, youll still experiencing the crusades. As the dark age ended and the siege on christian civilisation was lifted and the enthusiasm and unity of the crusades brought about an age of progression and high civilisation. The game represents the crusades, even if it didnt the actual war in the levant part of it. but it does, the pope calls Dieux le Volt or however you spell that and the great united christian civilisation was roused into action against the Turk and the conquer of the greek, africian and levant and raised resistance against them saving europe and civilisation from destruction and subjugation.

Does it do the co-ordination perfectly, no, does it do it well enough to be completely awesome? yes, yes it does. so no worries. You play a Crusader King, whether or actually crusade or not is up to your, but youre still a crusader king. unless youre a duke or something, then your a crusade duke. which sounds silly.

 

[Grell74]

Orinsul I usually agree with what you have to say, but was this a drunken rant? You don't make much sense... the purpose of the crusades was to split the wealth of Islam from India... really? where the hell did you pull that from? Did a French count even know what India was? I think religious fervour played a rather large role in the enterprise, and if it wasnt Catholic faith and the concern for one's soul as the main motivation it was the lust for new lands and riches. Intergral to the preaching of a crusade target was a mass pilgrimage/invasion often crossing cultural boundaries, a crusade was not a lone count mounting an individual war against an individual sheik in the far off Levant and arriving independently of other crusaders.

 

[Andrzej I]

A crusade was not a lone count mounting an individual war against an individual sheik in the far off Levant and arriving independently of other crusaders.

This is where I hope patches might fix it. I'd love to see the Crusaders arriving in large waves, rather than making individual attacks upon the proclaimed target. Ideally, when a crusade is proclaimed, not only a target is announced, but a place and date to gather, allowing for the crusading armies to join together in their march across Asia Minor, or such. While armies might break off to do their own independent attacks, hopefully by large the army would continue on toward the target, conquering the counties along the way.

Also as noted, it would be preferable if the casus belli was not limited to just the de jure duchy of the target, as it seems strange that the crusaders might conquer Antioch, move south to conquer Acre, then conquer Jerusalem and... in the end only keep the latter. Since casus belli cannot be added to a war, there's no way to really simulate Bohemund's seizing of Antioch, or Baldwin's with Edessa. Instead we will (if I am understanding this right) see a "Kingdom of Jerusalem" that only has the handful of counties associated with the Duchy of Jerusalem title, which will likely not exceed more than a handful of counties, if CK1's duchy sizes are anything to go by.

Lastly, it would be nice if the newly conquered counties and states had some sort of independence from the European kingdoms, similar to how William of Normandy gains his from France if he conquers England. After all, whatever ties the Crusader states had to their European holdings were soon cut after the First Crusade. Godfrey was soon divested of his duchy of Lower Lorraine when he went off to crusade, and Raymond of Toulouse had his European and Levant titles split between different family members after his death.

Anyways, that's what I'd like changed in the crusading system. I guess time will tell if the current system works =/

 

[the_hdk]

I agree with Andrzej. sounds a but utopic. but nice just one thing. In vicky 2 its possible to add war goals. I assume it would be possible in ck2 aswell?

what I wonder is that if 3 countries go on a crusade. win etc. They conquer a target duchy. but who gets it? the one to sign teh peace first?
also what about the other 2? they just go home? they dont get any counties or baronies for participating?