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CK2 - Dev Diary #121 - Court Improvements

Hello! In this dev diary we will present some changes we have made to the court system. Court Management is an important part of the CK2 experience, and currently there are several code pruning mechanisms that curtail court size, making characters die more frequently when the court grows too big. Now court management has been made more interesting by, for example, lowering the aggressive pruning for player courts, creating expenses/benefits associated with a Large Court, court flavored events using the characters of the court, etc. The intention of these changes is to make the system more interactive and interesting.


ck2_15.png

The court limit as shown in the interface.


Your court will now have a size limit depending on your tier, presented in the interface (see picture above). It’s possible to influence this limit by, for example, investing in majesty tech. We have also removed prisoners from the court-tab to make the shown courtiers more relevant.


ck2_18.png

Example of expenses for a big court (can be turned off through a game rule).


To bring life to the courts, we have added some maintenance events that will give your courtiers more of a life behind the scenes, making them more interesting and fun characters by giving them nicknames, modifiers, and skills.

ck2_16.png

Give a courtier a nickname.


We’ve also made sure that any courtier “randomly” picked for generic content is more likely to be someone with good (or at least interesting) skills, a cool minor title, an interesting relationship, etc. This is done by using a scripted score value that takes into account traits, opinions, and modifiers.


We hope that you’ll have fun with this small new feature, and thank you for reading!
 
Will nobles in exile ask to come to your court now? Or do they still welcome themselves in, regardless of if you even want them? I'd be content if you suffered a penalty for rejecting same culture characters, and another one for rejecting same religion, but I would at least like the final say. (Also maybe introduce some kind of dynamic where an enemy can chase down the pretender into another court? That was a thing historically.)

Also can you maybe touch up which court they pick to flee too. I don't feel it's a smart decision for Norse Germanics to flee to a Zealous Christian's court they had raided the year before, ect.
 
Could we have flavor events where courtiers of high or unusual ability could do things (such as produce works of art or scholarship) that would enhance (or decrease) the prestige of the court?

Honestly, it would great to have a DLC which transforms the court from a simple list of characters to a more elaborate setting with actual politics and interaction. A court full of high-intrigue power-hungry killers should feel quite different (and trigger different events) from a court full of contented bookish scholars.
 
Also can you maybe touch up which court they pick to flee too. I don't feel it's a smart decision for Norse Germanics to flee to a Zealous Christian's court they had raided the year before, ect.
I second this.

The decision where courtiers flee or move (if asked to) should be based on tier, neighbours, relations, family and other relatives if not within the same realm (or the same realm depending on the reason to flee or if asked to move).

Scandinavian princes often fled to the neighbouring Scandinavian kingdoms (or the Rus in the earlier days), for instance, to take up court in other royal courts when ousted from their own country, as was the case for many many many exiled royals and nobles in European history.
 
Could we have flavor events where courtiers of high or unusual ability could do things (such as produce works of art or scholarship) that would enhance (or decrease) the prestige of the court?

Honestly, it would great to have a DLC which transforms the court from a simple list of characters to a more elaborate setting with actual politics and interaction. A court full of high-intrigue power-hungry killers should feel quite different (and trigger different events) from a court full of contented bookish scholars.
Omg, yes! Give us the troubadours, trouvére and minnesinger knights. They don't necessarily need to move around, just a court noble who is so poetic that it would be criminal not to be their patron.
 
Could you maybe introduce a mechanic that prevents all members of my own dynasty to be pruned from foreign courts? I love creating a dynasty and letting it spread across the world and currently, I have to mark many as special interests to prevent pruning.
 
Is anyone here knowledgeable about historical courts and how big they were? I just always thought royal courts are so fascinating and such nest of intrigue and politics but I don't actually know how accurate are games/movies at portraying them.
 
Making better court events and tying them to increased majesty might actually give people incentive to invest tech points into it. For example, if high majesty attracts courtiers of high skill or high-value claimants.

Personally, I never remember what majesty even does in the game as it is now.
 
Hello! In this dev diary we will present some changes we have made to the court system. Court Management is an important part of the CK2 experience, and currently there are several code pruning mechanisms that curtail court size, making characters die more frequently when the court grows too big. Now court management has been made more interesting by, for example, lowering the aggressive pruning for player courts, creating expenses/benefits associated with a Large Court, court flavored events using the characters of the court, etc. The intention of these changes is to make the system more interactive and interesting.


View attachment 477202
The court limit as shown in the interface.


Your court will now have a size limit depending on your tier, presented in the interface (see picture above). It’s possible to influence this limit by, for example, investing in majesty tech. We have also removed prisoners from the court-tab to make the shown courtiers more relevant.


View attachment 477203
Example of expenses for a big court (can be turned off through a game rule).


To bring life to the courts, we have added some maintenance events that will give your courtiers more of a life behind the scenes, making them more interesting and fun characters by giving them nicknames, modifiers, and skills.

View attachment 477201
Give a courtier a nickname.


We’ve also made sure that any courtier “randomly” picked for generic content is more likely to be someone with good (or at least interesting) skills, a cool minor title, an interesting relationship, etc. This is done by using a scripted score value that takes into account traits, opinions, and modifiers.


We hope that you’ll have fun with this small new feature, and thank you for reading!
If we're doing court improvements, can we PLEASE have the ability to flag ANY court title as an "important" title that we should be warned about when it's empty (like Court Tutor) similar to how Court Physician and Commanders warn us?
 
I hope the events are a little more than just flavorful, with chains and some tough decisions. One thing CK2 still suffers from is an abundance of no-decision decisions to make. That's mostly fine because of the wonderful flavor text and contextual value that exists in this procedural universe ... but with courtiers that really really don't seem to matter much it'd get annoying quick.

They've got to take on roles or have meaningful relationships with your family, friends, allies, etc. Or they're as always ... mostly dead weight or breeders with a small portion of them potential recipients of land or positions.
 
I'm very much against a softcap of courtiers. 5 advisors, all married with kids, 4 commanders married with kids, each honorable title filled... Imagine if I'm muslim and each of my son has 2 wives. This softcap is insanely low. The events are a welcome addition however
 
Is anyone here knowledgeable about historical courts and how big they were? I just always thought royal courts are so fascinating and such nest of intrigue and politics but I don't actually know how accurate are games/movies at portraying them.

Royal households are huge, and include all kinds of mundane jobs like laundry workers, cooks, maids, etc. CK2 vastly simplifies things by not including all of these extra people, even though plenty of in-game courtiers are not any more high-born than a random maid or stable boy. A lord would often have multiple cupbearers, for instance, and they would serve in shifts. Replicating a medieval court faithfully would probably justify its own game, like a medieval version of the Sims.

Some examples:

A witness wrote of Charles the Bold of Burgundy (after a long passage outlining all of the major positions in his court): And although the duke of Burgundy is prince and lord of the most beautiful cities of the world, his household is so large that few towns can be found to lodge all its members, and often other towns and villages must be used too. (Burgundy is an extreme case here, but obviously courts had a lot more than 30 people)

The 1354 ordinances of William V of Holland record an issuance of liveries of cloth to 6 nobles, 12 knights, 11 clerks, 38 squires, 23 garcons, 16 valets, 2 ladies, and 4 damoiselles. That's 112 people important enough for the lord to justify buying them uniforms. It doesn't include other random people and workers around the court.
 
Royal households are huge, and include all kinds of mundane jobs like laundry workers, cooks, maids, etc. CK2 vastly simplifies things by not including all of these extra people, even though plenty of in-game courtiers are not any more high-born than a random maid or stable boy. A lord would often have multiple cupbearers, for instance, and they would serve in shifts. Replicating a medieval court faithfully would probably justify its own game, like a medieval version of the Sims.

Some examples:

A witness wrote of Charles the Bold of Burgundy: And although the duke of Burgundy is prince and lord of the most beautiful cities of the world, his household is so large that few towns can be found to lodge all its members, and often other towns and villages must be used too. (Burgundy is an extreme case here, but obviously courts had a lot more than 30 people)

The 1354 ordinances of William V of Holland record an issuance of liveries of cloth to 6 nobles, 12 knights, 11 clerks, 38 squires, 23 garcons, 16 valets, 2 ladies, and 4 damoiselles. That's 112 people important enough for the lord to justify buying them uniforms. It doesn't include other random people and workers around the court.


The game has enough trouble handling all the characters as is ... and as an abstraction, I think it'd dillute the character-centric focus of the experience for me.
 
The game has enough trouble handling all the characters as is ... and as an abstraction, I think it'd dillute the character-centric focus of the experience for me.

No one is talking about actually replicating this in the game. That would be crazy. Someone was just asking what royal courts looked like in real life.
 
I for one would appreciate a message setting where I'm informed of anyone joining my court for whatever reason; mostly because the only time I find out a young maiden has been randomly generated for my court is when I get the message that she's died.

(If there is a message setting for that already and I'm just missing it, just having someone tell me would be very helpful.)