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CK3 Dev Diary #33 - An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Hello everyone and welcome to the 33rd CK3 Dev Diary!

I’m Matthew, one of the Programmers on the CK3 team, and today I am going to talk to you about the overhaul we’ve done to Feudal Contracts since Dev Diary 17.

A quick refresher on what Contracts are: every vassal above baron tier has an individual contract between them and their liege which affects how much the vassal gives to the liege in terms of tax and levies in exchange for the liege’s protection. In the case of Feudal vassals, this contract can be renegotiated.

We were not fully content with the initial implementation of this setup as it did not help facilitate the drama and storytelling of the deals made between a vassal and their liege and the disagreements that could arise from that. This was a view shared among the community as well which reinforced our desire to give this feature another look, so a couple of our designers and I gave it an overhaul.

The Contract
You may have seen screenshots or videos of this system in some of the media released from our press events but I’m gonna take you through the new system step by step, so without further ado here is the new interface you’ll see when you interact with a vassal’s feudal contract.

ContractView.png

[Feudal contract negotiation screen]

As you can see there are a lot more options now to tailor the contract.

Going from top to bottom you can see that we have split the base tax and levy obligations into two separate tracks each now with five options. These are the core base of how much taxes and levies are given to the liege, the lower they are the more your vassal will like you, of course, and the higher they are the less content they will be.
When negotiating a new deal you can only move to adjacent levels of the tax and levy obligations.

Below that we have what we call the “Fine Print” options. These fine options are unlocked via various innovations and provide various modifications to the contract.
The first row being the Special Contract options of Scutage, March, and Palatinate which are available for vassals that are Dukes or Kings.

Scutage.png

[Effects of scutage]

March.png

[Effects of march]

Palatinate.png

[Effects of palatinate]

At the bottom we have the rest of the Fine Print options available, these are things like guaranteeing your vassal a spot on the council or granting them coinage rights. Some options are only shown if the vassal meets specific conditions, for example if the vassal is of a different faith to the liege. In such a case the “Religious Protection” gives them special rights to practice their faith without risk of the liege demanding their conversion or converting the faith of their provinces.

The Negotiation
When negotiating the contract a max of three changes may be made. We experimented with different values and this felt like it wasn’t too limiting whilst also letting you too wildly change your contract in one go.

With the new obligations that can be changed and enacted this allows you to negotiate a more interesting deal. For example, you as the liege may want to increase the amount of taxes your vassal gives you, but just doing that alone will be viewed as unfair by the vassal and increase your tyranny.

NegotiationTyranny.png

[a contract proposal giving tyranny]

So if you don’t want to take that tyranny hit then you need to look at what changes you can propose that the vassal will want, so in exchange for these increased taxes you could guarantee your vassal a spot on the council meaning you can now enact this deal without being viewed as a tyrant.

NegotiationFair.png

[a contract proposal with a fair trade]

Alternatively, if you have a hook on your vassal then you can use that hook to count as one free change in favour of the vassal, so you can use your hook and get those higher taxes without having to give any other concessions and not be viewed as a tyrant. Blackmailing people is surprisingly effective.

NegotiationHook.png

[a contract proposal using a hook to avoid tyranny]

It is worth mentioning that even if you propose a “fair” trade that does not give you tyranny this does not mean that the vassal will be perfectly content. There is an opinion change tied to each obligation and what status it is in, vassals will tend to dislike paying more and like paying less, and this opinion modifier will be present in the vassal’s view of their liege.

The vassal themselves can of course also negotiate the contract, they have the added restriction that they must offer their liege an even trade. So they cannot ask to pay lower taxes without using either a hook or agreeing to give the liege something they would want, be that giving more levies, agreeing to stay with only partition succession, or giving up a benefit they have previously been given such as that guaranteed council spot.

Some vassals start with contracts different to the default, in the Holy Roman Empire all vassals start with low taxes and levies to represent the internal state and the lower amount of control the Emperor was exerting over their vassals at the time.

We really wanted the interface to make this feel like an actual paper contract being signed between the liege and the vassal, thankfully we had this beautiful parchment background and wax seal shader lying around that helped spice it up.

Modding Contracts
All of these different obligations, their effects, how the AI uses them, and how they are shown in the UI is controlled in the script files so you can mod in or change existing obligations to your heart’s content.

Code:
religious_rights = {
    display_mode = checkbox

    is_shown = {

        NOT = {

            scope:vassal.faith = scope:liege.faith

        }

    }

    obligation_levels = {

        religious_rights_none = {

            default = yes

            

            ai_liege_desire = @ai_standard_liege_desire

            ai_vassal_desire = 0

        }

        religious_rights_protected = {

            is_valid = {

                NOT = {

                    scope:vassal.faith = scope:liege.faith

                }

            }

            parent = religious_rights_none

            

            vassal_opinion = 5

            

            vassal_modifier = {

                county_opinion_add = 5

            }

            

            flag = religiously_protected

            

            ai_liege_desire = 0

            ai_vassal_desire = 10

        }

    }
}
Here we have the script database entry for the religious protection obligation type, it demonstrates the various options and should be fairly self explanatory in its naming of the options.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this dev diary and are excited for the new Feudal Contracts and the more options and interactions they can provide between vassals and lieges!

We look forward to seeing you next week, in the meanwhile if you want to chat more then I highly recommend joining our CK Discord Server as well!

Pets of the Dev Team
On the Crusader Kings 3 team we are of course very big fans of animals and pets of all kinds. So I thought to cap off this dev diary, and give you all some much needed cuteness overload during these difficult times in the world, I'd collect a bunch of pictures of all our wonderful pets, fluffy or otherwise!

Pet17.JPG

Pet1.png
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Pet3.png
Pet4.png
Pet5.png
Pet6.png
Pet7.png
Pet8.png
Pet9.png
Pet10.png
Pet11.png
Pet12.png
Pet13.png
Pet14.png
Pet15.png

Pet16.JPG
 
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Sorry if this has been answered and I missed it, but is the swear fealty option still in the game, and how does this work with these contracts?

For example, say I the player am a duke bordering a relatively small kingdom, and am worried that my armies aren't enough to defend against nearby threats, so decide to willingly become a vassal of the neighboring king, could I negotiate a better contract for me from the beginning seeing as the king is getting me as a vassal effectively for free? Or would I be forced to accept the default contract and then slowly modify it?

Just thought it would make more sense to start with a unique contract when swearing fealty, for example if the new vassal was of a different religion they would only agree to vassalage on the condition their religious rights are guaranteed as a part of their contract.
 
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These contracts look interesting and all, but here is the big question:

Will the King of England have one of these contracts with the King of France?
 
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I really like this system, but it also raises all sorts of edge case questions.

One that I haven't seen brought up yet in the thread: let's say I have a vassal with Religious Protection in his contract, and I want to get rid of him. Can I just impose a "fair" modification that gets rid of the Religious Protection in exchange for lower taxes, and then immediately afterwards revoke his title for being the wrong religion? I'm a bit worried that, if this is possible, Religious Protection will be sort of an empty promise.
 
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Wouldn't it make more sense to have feudal contracts tied to titles rather than people? This would offer much greater technical flexibility, simply because people can occupy many titles, but titles are never held by more than one person at a time.

For instance, then the King of England could have a contract with the King of France as Duke of Aquitaine without having to jury-rig some special mechanics to make this happen.
 
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are vassal levies actually taken from the vassal pool ? or are created from the void like CK2 ?

meaning you can lower the power of a vassal by increasing the levies vassal contract.
 
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Some vassals start with contracts different to the default, in the Holy Roman Empire all vassals start with low taxes and levies to represent the internal state and the lower amount of control the Emperor was exerting over their vassals at the time.

I hope this is not only for the Holy Roman Empire but for all post-Carolingian lands. Matter in fact, in 1066 the French king had less influence in his realm than the emperor in his. HRE in 1066 is not the same as the HRE in 1600
 
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As special naming for vassals of special contracts types does not exist, can modders add them (so a vassal with Palatinate-type contract will be called a Palatine or Pfalzgraf/Palsgrave, etc.) in a way or an other?
So I guess you can't make mods for that?
I can imagine that, judging from CK2 where localisation had some limitations, but would still be neat
 
Wouldn't it make more sense to have feudal contracts tied to titles rather than people? This would offer much greater technical flexibility, simply because people can occupy many titles, but titles are never held by more than one person at a time.
[whisper]Prince of Andorra, City of Maastricht (1204-1795)[/whisper]
But I completely agree with you, you should tie them to titles
 
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Kudos to listening to community feedback, and redesigning the Feudal Contract system to actually be more nuanced. Much appreciated, and I'm looking forward to see how it will further develope over time / mods, now that it is this modular.
 
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Below that we have what we call the “Fine Print” options. These fine options are unlocked via various innovations and provide various modifications to the contract.
The first row being the Special Contract options of Scutage, March, and Palatinate which are available for vassals that are Dukes or Kings.

View attachment 595181
[Effects of scutage]
I foresee vassals under scutage being given relatively high tax obligations and zero levy obligations.

And conversely marches being given zero tax obligation and high levy obligations.

At the bottom we have the rest of the Fine Print options available, these are things like guaranteeing your vassal a spot on the council or granting them coinage rights. Some options are only shown if the vassal meets specific conditions, for example if the vassal is of a different faith to the liege. In such a case the “Religious Protection” gives them special rights to practice their faith without risk of the liege demanding their conversion or converting the faith of their provinces.
And various Insular nobles being given religious protection by Catholic overlords (or vice versa) for a free "positive" to their contract. Similarly for any other mutual "righteous" faiths such as the gnostic ones.
 
I really like this system, but it also raises all sorts of edge case questions.

One that I haven't seen brought up yet in the thread: let's say I have a vassal with Religious Protection in his contract, and I want to get rid of him. Can I just impose a "fair" modification that gets rid of the Religious Protection in exchange for lower taxes, and then immediately afterwards revoke his title for being the wrong religion? I'm a bit worried that, if this is possible, Religious Protection will be sort of an empty promise.

I would imagine that the removal of his religious protection would either be classed as a tyrannical act regardless of what you offered or would be heavily weighted so that just by lowering their tax obligations wouldn't outweigh it. Such that you would have to offer more in concessions to remove it 'fairly'. To stop gaming the system you could add a clause that re-negotiated contracts cannot be revoked within a set period. New characters shouldn't suffer that cooldown so if your liege character dies there should be nothing to stop his heir, your new character, from re-negotiating or revoking. Maybe however an heir re-negotiating a feudal contract of someone who has just had a re-negotiation could incur tyranny or more of an opinion hit.
 
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Surely that is why in the pets photos its a plant. Some one used a hook on you to force you to post that photo. I mean it's the only way since plants are neither animals nor pets :p
ANYTHING can be a pet if you love it enough.
 
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Very interesting, but the #1 thing I want to know is this:

When you offer to diplo-annex someone, do you send a contract with your offer? For example, is it possible I could convince someone of a different faith but same culture + dejure liege to accept peaceful annexation if their feudal contract will guarantee them religious protection?
 
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Am I the only one thinking that Vic2 like system for peace deals would be perfect for CK3? I can see here like you start some less taxes rebellion and after some time it transforms into overthrow ruler, because it goes nicely. In ck2 it was really strange that you have everything or nothing, or nothing but different
 
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I used that same parchment background that you guys are using to write letters to my boss and coworkers about important tasks. Big ol cursive writing font. Written like a letter from the front lines of early 1800's warfare complete with references about squirrel oil and possum scrum. They loved it. But then when I used the same parchment to resign from my job because I got a better one, all of the sudden I received a complaint from one of the higher ups I never met before that it was somehow 'unprofessional' and that they'd be noting it in my 'official record.' XD!

Love the hard work Paradox. Keep it up!
 
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How do hooks work on players in MP though? Does it auto-accept the deal for them?

It doesn't autoaccept, but if you do not do what the hook tells you to do that you will receive a general negative opinion from everyone that is relative to the strength of the hook they have upon you. A fabricated lie is of course going to be a lot less harmful than the revelation that you have been pounding your sister and the heir to the Kingdom everyone thought was from your wife is actually the inbred spawn of Satan.
 
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