Hey all!

So today I felt that I was going to spoil some of the bigger stuff we are working on with the new patch, I thought Birken was a bit too mean keeping you guys on edge for so long. As several of you have noted we now have a Pacts tab in the character screen and I am going to tell you guys what it is all about.

So why it was changed is because we decided that we wanted to rewrite a bit how alliances worked in Crusader Kings making it much more predictable who will be in your war. No, as some of you tried to guess we have not made it no longer required to marry other rulers to forge an alliance, that is still a very big part of the core gameplay in the game. What we have done is that we have divided it up in two steps, Non-Aggression Pacts and Alliances.

Now now, don’t fetch your pitchforks yet! The idea we have is to make the marriage much more focused on its strategical nature than just finding your “soulmate” with impressive tracts of land.

Now when you first marry off your daughter or son you will be figuratively negotiating an agreement with the other ruler to come to terms over your issues with each other, resulting in a Non-Aggression Pact between your two mighty realms. This can later can be improved into a proper Alliance. This is an action done separately after the marriage as been finalized. You don’t have to wait until your family members have grown up however as betrothals also counts when formalizing these pacts.

This does mean that you do not have a Non-Aggression Pact with your close kins but they can still be made into allies without a marriage. Meaning you no longer get the penalties of attacking close kin unless you choose to make your them your ally.

Picture has been censored to not reveal undisclosed features​

With these changes the AI has also been changed a bit to be more capable in recognizing Realpolitik instead of purely going on opinions. It is not much but the AI is now capable of properly identifying threats and will try to form Non-Aggression pacts with these, or if they refuse, ally someone else with a common interest to contain the threat. The idea is also that the AI no longer wants to aid these threats, but instead only preserve the status quo and keep them off their back. They will refuse to ally these threats most of the time in order to not help them become stronger.

Since we now have a distinct action you can perform to ally someone we have also changed how they relate to wars to make it less of a guessing game.

Allies for both sides will be shown in the Declare War screen showing who will join the war on what side. Also important to know with these changes is that allies are now required to honor their alliance, meaning they can not refuse a call to arms. So now you know exactly who you can count on when the war starts. However if your ally is starting an offensive war against someone you have a Non-Aggression Pact with you have to stand out.

All of this is in the Free Patch that will be coming with the next expansion.

 

[Austrah]

I always wanted to buy hedgehogs in CK2! Thank you, Paradox!

 

[rageair]

BTW, I still have a problem with the ability to wage aggressive wars and having most- if not all - the killing and dying done by one or more potent allies, who in the end hand over to you to fruits of their endeavour without getting anything in return but the satisfaction of complying to their alliances term.

It is not uncommon to be able to call an ally to some big warlike enterprise while not even bothering to raise your own levies, and then just be given the crown at the end of the bloodbath. Whatever strong the ties, I doubt that rulers would engage in long and costly wars (in gold and blood) started by some ally that could even not show up on the battlefield, without any perspective of gain whatsoever.

I have managed to carve kingdoms through this - unsatisfyingly easy - method

There'll be events that make sure allies participate, else they'll suffer consequences.

Good question. I'd like to know how alliances with friends fit into this. Are they treated like relatives?

You can no longer form alliances with friends directly. Though, friends will always consider marriage offers you send their way, making them easier to form NAPs/Alliances with!

 

[Kenlin]

Are these at all moddable?

For instance, could we change the Form Alliance targeted decision to not be limited to relatives?

 

[Bernard95]

So, there won't be anymore Karling NATO and allies have to do something or face penalties? That I could definitely get behind, though I am curious if the Karlings are smart enough to recreate their famous alliance.

 

[Tapio]

friends will always consider marriage offers you send their way

Always? Even infidels?

 

[Parsidius]

I don't know how many times I have been drawn into a war to support a family I only married into for prestige, and completely ignored it despite my nominal acceptance of a call to arms. This seems like a nice way to avoid that sort of situation.

Getting rid of automatic alliances with kin is also a nice touch, as is being able to negotiate an alliance without marriage.

It probably isn't necessary, but is there anything to actually contribute to war score, instead of sitting on the sidelines?

 

[sreckom92]

There'll be events that make sure allies participate, else they'll suffer consequences.

This is great!

 

[Thrake]

Wait... So, now, you can't declare war on your wife anymore?

 

[Birken]

Always? Even infidels?

Yeah, think about it, if your friends, then you're probably past hating each other based on religious views.

 

[crowdemon]

Can't wait to see more.

 

[Emren]

The CB system won't be remade for Crusader Kings 2

Great, so you're essentially confirming that you will remake it for CK3. Awesome news!

 

[Gebs]

Great, so you're essentially confirming that you will remake it for CK3. Awesome news!

Wait what is CK3 announced

Like the changes by te way especially the war screen. Now i need to check the allias tab of the target and need to find out who will join his war mayby

 

[Asiak]

But how dependent on each other will these two actions be? If I ask for an alliance and he says yes does it bring up the marriage finder, what happens if I ask and then don't provide a marriage. And how will just getting married worked then like when I don't want an alliance. I won't mind if it comes with an automatic non agression pact but I would still like to be able to declare war even if we have marriage ties.

And I didn't really think there was anything wrong with the way the AI came to war. If you had an alliance and he liked you enough he would say yes, or he would say no and there would be consequences. Now admittedly those consequences were minuscule but it was still realistic and not an un-enjoyable mechanic for the player.

You want to improve how the AI gets called to war and that's admirable. But why is it being done by simply removing the freedom of everyone to say no, a freedom that was realistic and players liked, even when the AI does it to us. Isn't it a bit drastic over say, just re-evaluating / re-doing how the AI decides to answer?

And it's going to be arbitrary to force us to say yes if there isn't something in the background that goes did he actually engage in any battles or occupy anything. Forcing me to say yes still doesn't force me to actually get up and help.

 

[Sforzesco]

Speaking of allicances, please make it so that alliance CONTRIBUTION counts. So that you cannot always accept call-to-war from you allies and still do nothing for them. AI always fights hard for you when it has
no other wars to fight. There should be penalty/reward based on actual war contribution!
(edit: did not read all the replies, seems that others wanted this too...)

 

[Daffius]

I don't know how many times I have been drawn into a war to support a family I only married into for prestige, and completely ignored it despite my nominal acceptance of a call to arms. This seems like a nice way to avoid that sort of situation.

You can still ignore it. If I understood correctly, you only get NAP with marriage not alliance.

 

[Lordriq]

I like this, this is gonna be good!

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I don't like how they/me cannot refuse. What if I'm just a jerk and I want to stab people in the back? How can I not refuse?

It looks like you simply sign a non-aggression pact with the target before you get called in. Poof, you don't have to join your ally.

Is there some Godly force making me sign the document?

Absolutely... well honor the document you previously signed anyway. Get yourself excommunicated or otherwise declared an outlaw from your faith, you might just lose your head. Remember, you are a king by authority of a higher power in most cultures of the game. Either you are elevated to godhood, or you are a servant/mouthpiece of Allah/Jehovah/God/Shiva/etc.

Remember your ability to take the crown depends on your army, but your authority to rule comes from on-high. Never forget this and you will thrive.

 

[Toast_thief]

Any changes to inter-religious marriages? Constantine V of Byzantine had a Tengri wife to secure himself an alliance the Umayyad's but things like this don't really happen naturally in game.

 

[VoodooEconomist]

Do we have to buy hedgehogs? Or will we also be able to go on voyages to far away lands, to catch exotic ones? I will travel across the land, searching far and wide, each hedgehog to understand the power that's inside?

Train your hedgehog with culture-specific buildings? Organise grand hedgehog tournaments? Set up hedgehogs as anti-antipopes?

 

[Elm0__]

IMHO AI should also consider realpolitik in deciding how many troops are worth sending to war. HRE commiting tens of thousands of troops (all levies at once) to push some lousy and meaningless claim of Count of Nowhere that happened to be brother-in-law of Kaiser is just wrong.