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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!

DD_silk.jpg


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.

DD_mercenary.jpg


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.

DD_horse.jpg


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.
 
Tribal subjugation was designed for the 867 start and works quite well at accomplishing what it's meant to do for that start. Where it breaks down completely and results in utterly absurd results is the 769 start which never should have been done anyway.
While I agree it works better in 867 you still usually see sweden formed and norrland conquered before the year 1000, that's 100 yeara early for forming the kingdom and several centuries early for conquering norrland (finnland is actually conquered before norrland). Subjugation force kingdom conquests to happen in accordance to kingdoms and borders that are anachronistic.
 
I'd argue that's more of a problem with the map and de jure situation in Sweden than with the cb itself. It works well enough for all of the other pagan kingdoms.
Well finnland unites in almost every game resulting in that sweden never takes the country. And lithuania unites early very often too. Proving an almost unbreakable obstacle for the teutonic order when poland eventually gives them land. But granted none of these are sweden sized problems.

The point is that the ones where it works is where it's not really needed. Denmark, bohemia and Norway have few enough counties that they can unite anyway. In russia/ruthenia the high chiefs/grand princes are still in charge in the last start date. Poland is problably the only one where it's both useful and realistic (and i'm not even sure about that, i know little polish history).
You end up with a load of ahistorical kings because of a cb that really only represent a realistic thing for poland and the steppes (who will have other cbs in horselords). Sure there were some kings like Knut the great who subjugated lots of land but that was actually closer to the tribute CB.
Thus I renew my request, subjugation should really only be a cb used by one nomad on another nomad (preferably making their hordes clans in the conquering horde). And poland can like get a set of events that give them claims to duchies in de jure poland instead.
 
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This.is.grrrreat.
Thank you all.
And in the video did you guys see how fast the game was zooming? Guys, I can finally finish the game before I retire!!! :D
 
At least it's inspired fantasy and looks cool. That event artwork just looks plain wrong. Why is the "Horse Lord" inside a castle? Why does the Chinese guy dress like a Manchu? Nothing makes sense. I think I would prefer the European version tbh.

Don't get me wrong, it bugs me too. I don't know how much of that type of 2d artwork they outsource or not, but gives an impression of lack of research.

Person getting the event is a feudal duke. (That leaves aside that nomad capitals could have stone buildings - very few, but the ruler's palace was invariably one of them. )
 
Person getting the event is a feudal duke. (That leaves aside that nomad capitals could have stone buildings - very few, but the ruler's palace was invariably one of them. )
Huh... did not notice that. Well that sort of makes sense then I guess.
 
One of the dev diaries said, that the patch will break ironman saves.
Can I downgrade back to 2.3.6 and continue my current achievement hunt or will it be done for good?
 
One of the dev diaries said, that the patch will break ironman saves.
Can I downgrade back to 2.3.6 and continue my current achievement hunt or will it be done for good?
Yes you can
 
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Gone through the dev diary again. The artwork for the events is gorgeous. Especially the horse pic.
 
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Oh! And I might actually have heard legends about certain altaic families behaving in odd ways lately… with hideous faces and beast-like behavior.

So they develop big white fur, settle on Jan Mayen and then keep a low profile until the Victorian period? Now I get it!
 
>Byzzies Feudal
RRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
They're not adding a goverment type for one country is probably the reason, but from I understand there are similiarities between the chineese and the byzantine empire in structure (basically classic/ancient empires who survived into this period) and as such they may both ge given a goverment type to represent this when they add china.
 
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This is probably not terribly in line with the spirit of this DLC but could we be a peaceful traveling tribe spreading merriment and whimsy across the world?
 
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This is probably not terribly in line with the spirit of this DLC but could we be a peaceful traveling tribe spreading merriment and whimsy across the world?

No
 
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Out of curiosity Groogy, are the Chinese trade governors abstract in any sense or do the characters appear in your court. If its the latter, were you guys forced to create a random cultured character showing up in your court or did you set up a Chinese culture in the files?