Hey folks, it is dev diary day and time to talk a bit about rebels and adventurers! Let's start off with the rebels; as you know, the old rebels are a nuisance but they are easily defeated and even if they hold a county for a long time, defection is rare. Sure, they sometimes kill a local ruler, but even that is uncommon. This is a shame, especially since we have explored better ways of handling rebels in the In Nomine expansion to Europa Universalis III and in Victoria II. So, for The Old Gods, we are replacing the old simplistic system with proper rebels with a cause (if you don't have the expansion, you will be stuck with the old system.) There are three new types of rebels: peasants, heretics and "liberators". As before, they can appear if the revolt risk is higher than 0 in a county. If the county is of a heretic religion, heretic rebels may appear. If the county is in a kingdom occupied by foreigners, liberators may rise up. If the other two types are not suitable, it's going to be a peasant revolt.



The new types of rebels all have a leader with a temporary title. They start at war with the ruler of the realm in which they appear, but they are hostile to everyone. Fighting them is like fighting a normal war; you get war score for crushing their army. If peasant or heretic rebels win, the county will be taken and becomes independent under their leader. Liberators are more dangerous; they tend to rise up with the best and largest forces, and they are after the entire de jure kingdom. However, they typically tend to settle for a few counties and the title to the kingdom itself. The system is fully moddable and it is pretty straightforward to add new rebel types.



This brings us to adventurers. The concept is quite similar to the rebels, but adventures are started by existing characters and can target distant lands. There are two main types; claimants with no titles who stand to inherit nothing, and men of major dynasties with no claims but high martial and diplomatic skill. In both cases, the adventurer lets it be known that he is starting an adventure and gathering a host (both his current liege(s) and the target ruler are notified). After a year or two, he is given a temporary duchy title, an army, and a fleet. War is declared, and he goes after the target. Claimants, of course, will try to press their claim, but the other type simply target a juicy duchy somewhere and go off to seize it (like the d'Hautevilles took southern Italy). A savvy player who is targetted may of course assassinate the adventurer before he arrives with his army... Characters of certain cultures are more likely to go off on claimless adventures, e.g. Normans and Norse.



Speaking of Norse and Norman, another thing I believe we haven't mentioned yet are the new cultures we've added: Norse, Bolghar, Khazar, Mordvin, Samoyed and Avar. In 867, all Scandinavians are of the Norse culture, but there are events that will initiate a split into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Independent Norse rulers outside Scandinavia will not be affected. Determined players can also choose to stay Norse and attempt to educate children of vassals to stick to this culture. Similarly, there are events for the appearance of Norman culture, which is formed by Norse conquerors in Frankish, Breton or Occitan lands. (Yes, we could have done this for any number of cultures in the game, but it is quite a lot of work. It is, of course, also fully moddable.)



That sums it up for today! Next Wednesday will see the last dev diary for The Old Gods expansion and will feature the new technology system and what other tidbits remain.

Bonus, in case you missed it

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods Video Dev Diary 2 - Rebels
[video=youtube;eo7ttCKInYM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM[/video]

 

[TheDarkMaster]

If the whole of Scandinavia is unified under one banner, will they still split into the same three cultures based on DeJure kingdom lands? If Norway controls half of Sweden when the split happens, will all of Norway's lands turn Norwegian, or only the parts that their own DeJure land?

 

[Ozamu]

Also, I wonder, what about theocracies? Will we not be able to play the Templar Knights? Or play as the pope or as the Teutonic Order? It would seem rather unwise to make a theocracy DLC in another opportunity since there aren't too many optional theocratic governments in the game but still..

I dare to disagree. Theocratic factions in CKII include patriarchs, popes, bishops, priests, holy orders, you name it. The theocracy DLC would be as anticipated as the pagan DLC in my opinion, since at the moment there are no fancy mechanics for theocracies (except investiture). Not to mention heresies!

All in all, the game seems to be shaping up just fine. The Old Gods will surely give me couples of hundreds of hours of new gameplay

 

[Ozamu]

One thing has been bothering me. How will the title ranks be called in The Old Gods?

We already know that petty kings are introduced, and I guess that all independent norse and anglo-saxon duke-tier rulers are called kings. So will the title "jarl" be ditched, or are duke-tier rulers, who have a liege, still going by the same title name as before? Also, should pagan emperors be called "high kings" etc.?

 

[themunck]

One thing has been bothering me. How will the title ranks be called in The Old Gods?

We already know that petty kings are introduced, and I guess that all independent norse and anglo-saxon duke-tier rulers are called kings. So will the title "jarl" be ditched, or are duke-tier rulers, who have a liege, still going by the same title name as before? Also, should pagan emperors be called "high kings" etc.?

Petty kings with a liege will remain Jarls, I think.

 

[Provenance]

I'd like to be able to mod in a special type of rebel: a People's Crusade.

During the first Crusade for Jerusalem, A massive peasant army appears in France/HRE and starts marching towards the Holy Land until it most likely fizzles out in Anatolia. Smaller People's Crusades will appear, but degenerate into looting and rioting.

 

[unmerged(193360)]

If the adventurer system could be tied into the crusades, that would be a huge move towards a more historical representation, allowing crusader states to pop up instead of HRE/France in Jerusalem.

 

[anomanderus]

The Khazar Khagans were Jews. Maybe a load of their population too, but that still is only one or two counties. Furthermore, there's absolutely no need for Jewish courtiers, since everything that they could do can be accomplished with realm events. The Kingdom of Semien is, AFAIK, outside the map. If it were in but Paradox made the Beta-Israel Gentile, then I'd agree that PDS were discriminating.

Yes the Khagans were Jews. Khagans being the rulers of the Khazars. This game being ABOUT the rulers.

 

[OpAphid]

I couldn't help but notice the failed Swedish Christian state and Norway stomping it out.

 

[VoodooEconomist]

Two questions:

1. Will adventurers take part in Crusades?
2. Can unlanded mercenary leaders be treated as adventurers i.e. can the Mamluks take over Egypt?

 

[dmstann]

Do we still get any free feature with the patch?

The new Technology mechanics come to all owners of CKII free whether they have any DLC or all.

 

[rashtrakut]

Unless Paradox can provide me with a way to clone myself, I cannot test two versions of the mod at once.

You can uncheck the new DLC in the launcher and play without it.

 

[superskierpat]

Two things:
1. I agree with Meneth's concerns, the retinue and rebels mechanics being separated between dlc users and non dlc users doubles the work necessary to properly balance the game, for programmers and modders.

2. How moddable will the petty kings mechanic be? Will it be possible to change the naming of any independent ruler? My best example would be with Irish rules, could any independent ruler be called king? Be he baron, count or duke? And furthermore, could an independent irish king be called high king?

 

[Meneth]

You can uncheck the new DLC in the launcher and play without it.

And unless Paradox has a way for me to clone myself, I do not have the time to spend testing two versions of the game. Testing one version already takes a lot of time.
And obviously, this is a problem that will face Paradox as well. Either they'll try to balance both versions, making each of them worse than if it'd been focused. Or they'll try to balance only the DLC, in which case vanilla will suffer for it.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Questions to PDS regarding incentives/basic stuff in DLCs

-How many people do you believe bought LoR for retinues and how many will buy TOG for rebels ?
Seriously, i doubt that many. I assume most will either like to spend the money for a DLC fullprise or on sale or not at all, completely disregarding these 'incentives'.

-Why do you do this apart from hoping it might be working as an incentive to buy the DLCs ?
Both, retinues and rebels, are quite important for the game and do just cause problems.

Sorry for my litle rant. Its supposed to be less of a rant than a solidarity call.
I will buy the DLC based on first reports after a few days and how well done the patch is going to be.
Thanks

...also thanks for Altmark seemingly being to the left of the Elbe again as seen in the pics for the 5th devdiary. Appreciate it. Great.

 

[Meneth]

Sorry for my litle rant. Its supposed to be less of a rant than a solidarity call.
I will buy the DLC based on first reports after a few days and how well done the patch is going to be.

I've even pre-ordered the DLC already, but I think separating the mechanic out into DLC is a major issue, and especially for modders.
I know I want to use it in my mod to improve the experience, and I imagine a lot of other modders want to do that as well. As only part of the user-base will have the DLC though, mods that utilize the feature will essentially be worse for a large part of the userbase, which is a real shame.

 

[Jormarn]

Adventurers focusing on crusade targets, when crusades are called, would be epic

 

[Kyoumen]

I've even pre-ordered the DLC already, but I think separating the mechanic out into DLC is a major issue, and especially for modders.
I know I want to use it in my mod to improve the experience, and I imagine a lot of other modders want to do that as well. As only part of the user-base will have the DLC though, mods that utilize the feature will essentially be worse for a large part of the userbase, which is a real shame.

Paradox tried doing a "you get everything except the ability to use the group in question!" when they made Sword of Islam. Since then, all the major DLCs have had other gameplay features to incentivise buying them even if you don't care about playing the group focused on. There is presumably a good reason for that.

 

[VoodooEconomist]

Paradox tried doing a "you get everything except the ability to use the group in question!" when they made Sword of Islam. Since then, all the major DLCs have had other gameplay features to incentivise buying them even if you don't care about playing the group focused on. There is presumably a good reason for that.

Is there a gameplay feature in the Republic other than the ability to play a patrician?

 

[Meneth]

Paradox tried doing a "you get everything except the ability to use the group in question!" when they made Sword of Islam. Since then, all the major DLCs have had other gameplay features to incentivise buying them even if you don't care about playing the group focused on. There is presumably a good reason for that.

867 start should cover that base plenty though, surely.
And The Republic didn't include any gameplay features.

Is there a gameplay feature in the Republic other than the ability to play a patrician?

Nope.

 

[Kyoumen]

Is there a gameplay feature in the Republic other than the ability to play a patrician?

Ah, was there not? My bad, I thought there was but I didn't have any real interest in that DLC due to its focus on Italy so I must not have paid attention. Comment withdrawn, then - hard to say what the specific thinking is.