Hi everyone!

I know you probably want more info about the upcoming expansion, but we’ll have to keep a lid on it for the time being. Instead I’m going to give you some information about how we work. Our current team consist of me, Doomdark, 4 programmers (and one of those started last Thursday), 3 scripters, 1 designer, 2 artists and 4 QA. On top of this the talented people from Paradox South are working on a content pack and there is also sound and music in production.

The core team is using a subset of the SCRUM methodology and a lot of focus is put on working more closely with QA than before in order to keep quality as high as possible. Our sprints are 3 weeks, and the final week has a focus on fixing bugs (old and new). Nearing the Gold Master (this is the version of the game we will release), we stop developing new features and focus fully on bug fixing and balancing. Since the Gold Master milestone date and the actual release date usually are a couple of weeks apart, we keep working on bugs and minor improvements for the first patch until the release (and beyond). In some cases (like with Horse Lords) the first patch is released the same day as the expansion, but sometimes it’s better to wait for the initial feedback before releasing a patch. As someone in QA noted for Horse Lords: one day after the release the players have tested the game several more hours than the QA team has done during the development of the expansion.

A tidbit of extra info about the expansion: the changes that go into the patch will fundamentally change how a portion of the game is played.

 

[sister of the khan]

Sorry if this has been discussed before and I missed it, but I've been curious about how the de jure empires were decided, and particularly why Italy isn't considered de jure HRE in 1066 even though the Emperors were traditionally crowned as King of Germany, Burgundy/Arles and Italy.

 

[WeissRaben]

Sorry if this has been discussed before and I missed it, but I've been curious about how the de jure empires were decided, and particularly why Italy isn't considered de jure HRE in 1066 even though the Emperors were traditionally crowned as King of Germany, Burgundy/Arles and Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_League

 

[Knotz]

The custommer is always right. Especially when the custommer is saying things along the lines of "I want to buy things"

So what if two customers disagree/want mutually exclusive things?

 

[Sindai]

Is your code written in such a way that all inputs can be predictable, and how do you keep new features from breaking the stream of random numbers? (For example, if you have a recorded scenario in which the code gets 28 numbers from the "random number list", how do you keep new code from messing up the list by grabbing one of the numbers expected by the rest of the code?)

I really doubt they automate testing at that level. As you've pointed out, it would be incredibly fragile and impossible to maintain.

 

[Finnway]

Are there topics that people would like us to have for these dd:s? If it's not related to the expansion/patch, we might consider putting it in.

I'm curious to know more about Paradox' dev cycle. For example; we know from EU4 dev diaries that DLCs are usually designed by Johan + Groogy or Wiz (depending on which game it's for). What happens after that? How long does it usually take to make a feature? (maybe use examples of features you've created in the past).

I'm also curious to know what the design pillars of CK2 are. It's pretty obvious that CK2 is not as meticulously balanced as EU4 and that it doesn't have as much historical railroading. Any particular reason why? (I have my own theories about this, but it'd be nice to hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were.

 

[TheDungen]

So what if two customers disagree/want mutually exclusive things?

"The art of diplomacy is the art of compromises."

 

[Keizer Harm]

Big noob question: what is QA? (please don't kill me)

 

[TheDungen]

Big noob question: what is QA? (please don't kill me)

It's not a noob question, it's good that someone asks it most of us would have gladly continued on using the term never realsing we lost a bunch of people. Never apologize for asking questions.
QA is Quality Assurance. It's the process of making sure that product lives up to the standards you've set for it. For a company that say manufactures steelbeams, QA for them is making sure that the steelbeams can withstand the force they promise their custommers, for a company like paradox it's much more complicated.

 

[WeissRaben]

Big noob question: what is QA? (please don't kill me)

Quality Assurance, if I remember correctly.

 

[Zobertus]

Big noob question: what is QA? (please don't kill me)

Quality Assurance.

 

[Pyske]

I really doubt they automate testing at that level. As you've pointed out, it would be incredibly fragile and impossible to maintain.

On the one hand, I agree that it's not at all trivial.

On the other hand, can you imagine the number of permutations you would have to test by hand? And updating test scripts requires constant effort even when they are not automated. ("What's that? We rebalanced opinion modifiers? You want me to recompute the correct opinion value for all of our scenarios?" *tester's head explodes*)

Part of my interest in the question was to see where the line of compromise between "ideal" and "pragmatic" is drawn at Paradox.

I'd also love to see one of their test scripts posted, as an example.

 

[Keizer Harm]

It's not a noob question, it's good that someone asks it most of us would have gladly continued on using the term never realsing we lost a bunch of people. Never apologize for asking questions.
QA is Quality Assurance. It's the process of making sure that product lives up to the standards you've set for it. For a company that say manufactures steelbeams, QA for them is making sure that the steelbeams can withstand the force they promise their custommers, for a company like paradox it's much more complicated.

Heh, thanks! Though I believe Groogy once said someone from QA had done the HL CoA's. I suppose if you have a small team things can flow over.

 

[WeissRaben]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_League

I really don't understand the disagrees. If you call "de jure" an area that revolts five times in twenty years, with cities raising even after being razed twice (like Milan), that opposes every single attempt to say "the laws of this empire apply here" by fighting tooth and nails, and that historically has no rights of any kind in the empire itself, you must have a very lax definition of "de jure".

 

[Sindai]

On the other hand, can you imagine the number of permutations you would have to test by hand? And updating test scripts requires constant effort even when they are not automated. ("What's that? We rebalanced opinion modifiers? You want me to recompute the correct opinion value for all of our scenarios?" *tester's head explodes*)

Part of my interest in the question was to see where the line of compromise between "ideal" and "pragmatic" is drawn at Paradox.

I'd also love to see one of their test scripts posted, as an example.

Well, you're not wrong. I expect the hard truth is that they don't do detailed human QA scripts either (except to verify bug fixes and make sure no major features are obviously broken before a release) and huge numbers of permutations don't get tested, but with the complexity of the game and their tiny team size it's the best that can be done.

 

[TheDungen]

I really don't understand the disagrees. If you call "de jure" an area that revolts five times in twenty years, with cities raising even after being razed twice (like Milan), that opposes every single attempt to say "the laws of this empire apply here" by fighting tooth and nails, and that historically has no rights of any kind in the empire itself, you must have a very lax definition of "de jure".

The rebel sentiments are already represented by having diffrent culture. Italy is dejure HRE, unless ofcourse you want it to be dejure ERE I could live with that too (or even not having a dejure empire) but e_italia should not have any dejure because it has never existed. If you want an e_italia then there's the create empire function and you can create a empire of taly from the kingdom.

Also the HRE is the western roman empire, the italians can think what they want of it being under german rule but saying that italy is not dejure part of the western roman empire is nonsense.

 

[Keizer Harm]

The rebel sentiments are already represented by having diffrent culture. Italy is dejure HRE, unless ofcourse you want it to be dejure ERE I could live with that too but e_italia should not have any dejure because it never existed. If you want an e_italia then there's the create empire function and you can create a empire of taly from the kingdom.

Another big problem with making Italy de jure HRE is that the Kaiser will start de jure wars on all the merchant republics

 

[TheDungen]

Another big problem with making Italy de jure HRE is that the Kaiser will start de jure wars on all the merchant republics

Well that's a problem with the dejure claim cb. I've modded it so it vassalises people if it's their last county (just like it does with counts who only have one county)

 

[WeissRaben]

The rebel sentiments are already represented by having diffrent culture. Italy is dejure HRE, unless ofcourse you want it to be dejure ERE I could live with that too (or even not having a dejure empire) but e_italia should not have any dejure because it has never existed. If you want an e_italia then there's the create empire function and you can create a empire of taly from the kingdom.

Also the HRE is the western roman empire, the italians can think what they want of it being under german rule but saying that italy is not dejure part of the western roman empire is nonsense.

It wasn't culture. Federico II was born in Italy, lived in Italy, and died in Italy: he still was rebuffed and got the League against him.

 

[TheDungen]

It wasn't culture. Federico II was born in Italy, lived in Italy, and died in Italy: he still was rebuffed and got the League against him.

Well you're still arguing that italy isn't part of the western roman empire. Not to mention that germany+italy is the personal union that is the HRE without italy it's germany and the kingdom of germany existed prior to otto the great forming the hre.

 

[WeissRaben]

Well you're still arguing that italy isn't part of the western roman empire. Not to mention that germany+italy is the personal union that is the HRE without italy it's germany and the kingdom of germany existed prior to otto the great forming the hre.

The HRE wasn't the Western Roman Empire any more than Russia was the Eastern. Italy being a part of the HRE doesn't stem from it being "needed": it stems from Charlemagne catching the occasion when the Pope asked for help against the Lombards: and said Pope had promised him the Imperial crown without any hint as to the needed status of Italy.