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Greetings!

In this Dev Diary we’ll show off some of the other things we’ve been working on for the 1.2 patch! While the Ruler Designer is extremely cool, it’s not the only thing you’ll be getting - there’s plenty of exciting new things coming up! What follows below is a showcase of some of the things we’ve done, presented by someone who’s worked on it!

Oh, and because we know you’re wondering - yes, saves made in 1.1 will be compatible in 1.2!


Kill List
A very fun feature from CK2 that we wanted to bring back is the Kill List, you might have noticed the new UI button in some of our Ruler Designer teasers before.
This skull icon will appear on any character who has killed people you know about and when clicked opens a list of everyone they killed and how they met their grisly fate. So you can get a sense of just how much of a true beast some of your strong knights are and how many of your foes they have vanquished on the battlefield in your name.
But of course it only shows the kills you know about, so some people that look innocent to you may in fact be hiding numerous skeletons in their closet…
KillList.png

[Picture of kill list button location]

YourKills.png

[Picture of the open kill list]


Attach to Army
Another helpful utility we wanted to add was being able to attach your armies to follow ally armies to their destinations. This is especially useful during bigger wars like Crusades where you are not the primary participant; you can attach to any friendly unit of an ally in the same province as your unit and of course then detach when you decide to go your own way. If there are multiple armies in a province you can attach to then a pop up window will open for you to decide which one you would like to follow.
Attach.png

[Picture of the attach to army button]


Force Realm Priest Endorsement
Your realm priest will endorse you normally if they have a good opinion of you, and we’ve now extended that so if you have a strong hook on them then they will passively be forced to endorse you regardless of their personal opinion of you.
That way you can still get all of those sweet taxes and levies from their church holdings even if they might personally think you are a blasphemous fool!
HookEndorsement.png

[Picture of realm priest being forced to endorse you via a strong hook]


Tribal Walls / Tribal Holding variants
Tribes in different parts of the world will now look different! From longhouses in the north to yurts in the steppes, there’s now a visual difference between the major tribal regions on the map. We’ve also added one more visual tier of walls, symbolising the very lowest possible fort level a holding can have.
TribalHoldings.png

[Picture of new Tribal Holding variants]


Reworked Dynasty UI
The Dynasty view has gotten some more love! The window now has two dynamic info boxes explaining how dynasty and house head is chosen, especially how Max military strength determines who's dynasty head. Military strength can now also be seen and compared between house heads in the house list. The legacy area has gotten a new look to easier show which legacy tracks you have unlocked, how many steps are unlocked, and which ones you've finished.
NewDynastyView.png

[Picture of updated Dynasty UI]


Improved Battle UI
Battles have also gotten some more love, with the UI having received an overhaul. It now both looks nicer and places important information in a better layout!
NewBattle.png

[Picture of the improved Battle UI]


Player Coat of Arms Graphics
Your Coat Of Arms is now decorated with mantling! It adds a sense of flair and you can also spot other players easier on the map during multiplayer.
Mantling.png

[Picture of Mantling on a player CoA]


Rally Point Improvements
We’ve done some work on the troop system in 1.2. As part of this we hope to have eliminated some bugs like levies failing to reinforce when they should.
More visibly, we’ve made one change to how troops get raised at rally points. Now if you exceed the supply limit the game will automatically split the army up to obey the supply limit, spreading it out over adjacent provinces.
RallyPointRaise.png

[Picture of a rally point where armies are spread out]

Pictured is what now happens when trying to raise a bit over 10k men in an area with supply limits of 2.5k.


Siberian Paganism
Suomenusko has long been in a bit of an awkward spot. It stretches over large territories where the people in reality worshiped many different deities. To improve the situation, we've made two changes. The first is a simple name change, as we've renamed Suomenusko to Ukonusko (after the main deity). It gives the faith a name that isn't specifically Finnish, since we have several other cultures that share the same faith.

NewSetup.png

[Picture of new Faith Setup in the north]

Secondly, we've split it into two separate faiths by adding a new faith for the Siberian region. We felt that adding a new faith would be a significant improvement as to better reflect the varied beliefs of the Ugrian peoples. Named Turumic, after their main patron deity Numi-Turum, it is in some ways similar to Ukonusko in that it's a faith closely linked to nature, but is different by their veneration of hunting. The tenets are the following: Ancestor Worship, Ritual Celebrations, and Sanctity of Nature. It uniquely has the Hunter lifestyle traits as virtues. The other virtues being Brave, Generous, and Temperate. Meanwhile, being Greedy, Craven, or Vengeful, is considered a sin.


Improved Ugliness System
In CK3, the “ugly” trait is a lot more interesting than it was in CK2, having a noticeable effect on portraits, and coming in three levels of severity. However, beyond the first level of the trait we didn’t quite achieve the levels of ugliness we wanted at release. So in 1.2 we’ve improved the system we use to distort the portraits of ugly people to make them uglier while still not feeling too out of place within the art style. Before 1.2 ugliness worked by changing skin texture and making all facial features more extreme. This is still the case, but in 1.2 we also pick a single or a small set of features to make especially extreme. This can result in a character for instance having a particularly messed up nose, a face that’s too small for their head, or the tiniest mouth. Focusing on small feature sets like this helps ensure that ugly people are varied in their ugliness, and more readily identifiable as “ugly”.
Below are a couple examples of how ugly characters will look in 1.2 vs. 1.1.
UglyComparison.png

[Picture of a comparison between the same level of ugliness in 1.1 vs 1.2]

As you can see the difference isn’t massive, but helps make them a bit more interesting. There’s still room for improvement and especially so for the “Hideous” trait, but this was a relatively simple and safe change to make for 1.2.


Matrilineal Game Rules
We’ve added a new game rule that controls the behaviour of the AI when choosing which type of marriage to pursue. There’s plenty of options to choose from, so regardless what your preference is, it should hopefully be represented! All options are achievement compatible.

MatriRules.png

[Picture of Matrilineal Marriages Game Rule settings]

Naming Dynasty Members in Court
You now get to name all Dynasty members that are born in your court, not just your own children. This means that you can make sure that the correct names are passed down as you prefer!


New Event Content
You can now grow old, sick, tired, and depressed more efficiently, with new events that dole out the “Infirm” trait.

For those seeking even swifter departures from this mortal coil, we have expanded the Murder scheme with additional events and deadly outcomes! But take care — the mastermind behind a scheme can now be unmasked, in addition to the existence of the scheme itself. To even things out a bit, a Court Physician you recruit as an agent has a chance to purposely mess up treatments of your target — and they can now also properly treat their own wounds and conditions.

Other schemes and mechanics have gotten numerous content tweaks, additions, and updates.


That’s it for this time! Don't forget to tune in to tomorrows CK3 stream, where we'll show off the 1.2 patch! Who knows, maybe you'll even get to know the release date?
Details:
Link
Live at 16:30 CET, tomorrow!
 
Love all the changes, especially the naming dynasty members and matri marriage changes for the AI. I've made plenty of complaints about both of those things haha

One small thing that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things though. Could we get the option to pick our rally point color instead of having to create multiple ones to get our favored color? Purple is my favorite color and I always just make a ton of Rally Points to get to purple then delete the others, it's something I must do for the aesthetics
 
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You can actually just fold other branches of the tree that are not interesting to only inspect your direct line. Currently there is no separate version of Dynasty tree in plans.

You misunderstood me here. I know you can fold certain lines of the dynasty in the dynasty tree. But your direct line in the dynasty tree shows only your dynastic ancestors and their spouses, because well, it's the dynastic tree. Meanwhile in CKII we had a family tree for each character alongside the dynastic tree. Let's call it a character's genealogical tree for a clearer separation. And this genealogical tree showed direct line of ancestors no matter what dynasty they were from. So you could directly see the character's grandparents from their mother's side that were obviously (unless you had some divine marriages going on) from different dynasty. Those aren't shown in a dynastic tree. I'm attaching a picture for reference:
maxresdefault.jpg




For any suggestions or bugs, please do visit our Bug Report forum! We try our best to stay on top of most pressing matters and, of course, the better you word it and provide samples, the higher the chance of our QA department having it investigated, so keep that feedback coming so it's not lost in the depths of the internet!

I've made a suggestion for the first three of my points already so this question was more to check if those suggestions were already on the developers' radar of things to consider.


I believe it to be as moddable as anything else in the game.

That's good to hear, thanks for the answer.
 
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Naming Dynasty Members in Court
You now get to name all Dynasty members that are born in your court, not just your own children. This means that you can make sure that the correct names are passed down as you prefer!

Woo! I'm really glad you added the ability to name all dynasts born in your court! This is when the fun begins. All the other stuff is nice, but I'm over the moon, just with that re-added feature.

No, I think not good enough yet. If it has to be people in your court, that means you can't land your son until after he's had some grandkids. By not landing your son, you are missing out on gaining alot of experience/prestige/etc for your heir.

You should be able to rename all direct descendants, regardless of where they are.
 
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Rest assured we are aware of this and the team is investigating!

This is honestly one of the features I most want to see added (even if only just to open it for mods).

2. That's the benefit of having Men at Arms, they are effectively a strike force in your realm that you pay extra in addition to the peasant levies provided by holdings. That said, we are always looking at ways to balance the game out in a way that feels right to us and the players!

Not quite teleportation related, but I'd also like to see these two changes to the men-at-arms rallying system.

I think them being a strike force is just one more advantage large realms have over small realms, when small realms should really be the more nimble ones. I'd like there to be a delay for them raising based on distance to capital of the rally point. Though this penalty should be less than the one for levies, as they are after all professional soldiers.

Also, I'd like it that, if I make multiple rally points and decide to raise from all of them, for the men-at-arms to be divided between them as evenly as possible rather than having to always split them myself.


Thanks for the new feature. The game is looking good.
 
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2. That's the benefit of having Men at Arms, they are effectively a strike force in your realm that you pay extra in addition to the peasant levies provided by holdings. That said, we are always looking at ways to balance the game out in a way that feels right to us and the players!

You guys seriously need to do something about them teleporting at will, however. And maybe also add an "increase over time" modifier for its maintenance cost, as right now it doesn't scale with your realm and it's essentially the only monthly expense we have in the game.
 
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This is honestly one of the features I most want to see added (even if only just to open it for mods).



Not quite teleportation related, but I'd also like to see these two changes to the men-at-arms rallying system.

I think them being a strike force is just one more advantage large realms have over small realms, when small realms should really be the more nimble ones. I'd like there to be a delay for them raising based on distance to capital of the rally point. Though this penalty should be less than the one for levies, as they are after all professional soldiers.

Also, I'd like it that, if I make multiple rally points and decide to raise from all of them, for the men-at-arms to be divided between them as evenly as possible rather than having to always split them myself.


Thanks for the new feature. The game is looking good.

Full agreement here. MAA are definitively not a “strike force”. They’re your centralized elite troops. Because they’re centralized, they need to be considered as stationed in your capital.

Let them use rally points, but time to spawn relative to distance from capital. Let them disband anywhere, but they are not available to re-spawn relative to distance from capital.

This Models difficulty of guarding distant borders with a centralized force. Also difficulty of fighting off multiple foes from different ends of your realm.

Then if we can just get to where building MAA bonuses don’t stack per realm and to where levies grow stronger each age via tech, then we’re set!
 
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2. That's the benefit of having Men at Arms, they are effectively a strike force in your realm that you pay extra in addition to the peasant levies provided by holdings. That said, we are always looking at ways to balance the game out in a way that feels right to us and the players!
I get that you want MAA to be an effective strike force, but I really hope that you realize that they are currently well beyond OP. Firstly, there's the unholy amount of stat stacking, secondly there's the teleportation: Enemy runs into your mountain province, gets movement locked, you raise a doomstack, won. Either you implement a "home base" for MAA so that you can only raise them from one specific province or you must make them take at least some fixed amount of time to gather.

Btw. Levy gathering speed is a bit too fast too but that's another story. There've also been quite a lot of good suggestions on making gathering points regional, such that you cannot raise your troops from scandinavia in sicily in a matter of weeks.

Seriously, MAA and the abduance of gold are some of the most serious balancing issues that the game has atm.

But the QoL changes are really nice. :)
 
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Attach to Army botton is very nice idea, esecially for some "easy wars" you need to support you brother in law agatinst some rebel count, easy task, but time consuming, send army with random commander, attach and forget - perfect

btw I don't understand honestly complaining about allies behaviour, in general(from my experience) allied armies join my stuck and(couple days delay during march is fine - historical and reality sens) and usually left only if someone attack them which is completely fine, logical and seen in "real life"
 
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Which part if difficult for you to understand? They all seem pretty clear to me, so perhaps I can help explain. :)
I think it's the verb "arrange" that's throwing me. Does that mean AI characters will both propose (actively seek) and accept Matrilineal marriages? Also, is this purely for the characters themselves, or does it include others they may be arranging marriages for — their children or grandchildren or members of their court? The "they" in the wording feels like an ambiguous pronoun to me.

I guess I mainly just want to know which one to select for a tough experience that isn't wildly ahistorical. Which one will make my game hardest without making it weird?
 
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Improved Battle UI
Battles have also gotten some more love, with the UI having received an overhaul. It now both looks nicer and places important information in a better layout!
NewBattle.png

[Picture of the improved Battle UI]
Does this fix the battle UI overlapping event windows, by any chance? I've had event options get hidden by the battle UI, when the event fires while I'm watching a battle, and it is rather annoying.
 
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For the love of god why do we have to do this all over again.

Why can't we have a button that tells allies to attach to our armies?
Becasue you will have to buy a dlc to have it :D (I bought one dlc to CK2 only to have that God damn button ^^).
 
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Finally, the Suomenusko split that I have waited for. Not the complete one (where I would have split if off into more faiths). But its a start in the right direction. I really like this dev.

The Dynasty UI is still a bit wonky. But the rest I really like.
 
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I don't want to rehash the entire discussion about teleporting armies, but here is my personal opinion on it: While I agree that the teleport ability of MaA is currently much, *much* too strong, a system where they have to walk all the way from your capital your rallying point *every time* you want to raise them would be even worse. MaA should have a location where they are stationed and raised from just the way levies have.

In my ideal world, their commanders would also be able to join factions and plots while they are stationed away from the capital, but that would probably require a deeper rework of the army system.
 
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2. That's the benefit of having Men at Arms, they are effectively a strike force in your realm that you pay extra in addition to the peasant levies provided by holdings. That said, we are always looking at ways to balance the game out in a way that feels right to us and the players!
Men at arms are in this weird space where, if you just play naively, they're fine and convenient. But if you think a little bit about how to best use the system, it quickly becomes degenerate and broken. Being able to raise your trained troops to deal with a revolt in the hinterlands without having to manually march them across your kingdom feels like a nice quality of life convenience. But is being able to instantly spawn thousands of soldiers in the distant mountain pass your enemy just started walking towards a reasonable and fair system? Is being able to fight a war on two fronts by teleporting your army back and forth an interesting strategic experience?

The problem is that when you have a system that admits these sort of exploits, the player is left with an awkward choice. One option is to play the game to the best of their ability, and make full use of the mechanics offered to them. But this quickly leads to an unsatisfying experience as the game loses all challenge. The alternative is to artificially limit their use of the system to whatever "feels" fair. But then any victory or defeat feels hollow - did I win because I played well, or because I didn't impose strict enough self-limitations? Did I lose because I was outmatched, or because I didn't make proper use of the intended game mechanics?

Saying that being able to teleport is "the benefit of having Men at Arms" strikes me as very tone-deaf. If that's the intended benefit, why doesn't the AI teleport its entire MAA stack onto my invading troops? Obviously that would be a terrible player experience - teleporting is just a game-breaking loophole for the player, not a well-designed bonus for men at arms over levies.
 
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Kinda sounding like a broken record, but what do you have in mind, specifically? If you find something that is similar to your issues on Bug Report, feel free to comment it to bump with new information or make a new post so we can investigate.
The complaints about Fervor and Crusades have been epic in the forums. If the team is unaware of them and have made no improvements, I’m frankly flabbergasted.


Fervor seems designed to cause the Catholic Church to burn to the ground and be replaced by heresies within a few decades of an 867 start. The asymmetry of Fervor loss caused by holy wars (given that Norse and Muslim nations have non-Holy War CBs readily available) seems to be the primary cause. Secondarily, it appears that sinful bishop frequency scales up with religion size, where virtuous bishop does not. Lastly, no Fervor changes scale with religion size except the upward tick, so there are constant massive swings in Fervor on top of the tendency to decline toward zero for large religions.


Crusades are hideously unfun as both attacker and defender (particularly due to Papal merc doomstacks and the constant whack-a-mole of dealing with tiny armies everywhere). They also tend to start before 900 AD once the Norse take some random Christian land that triggers it. They also tend to trigger extremely often.
 
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