Hello everyone!

I know you are all eager to learn more about the Royal Court, but as we announced last week, we will go into more details once the Azure patch is released. If everything goes according to plan, and there are no unexpected events, we aim to release Azure next week! But let’s focus on today's small dev diary for now!

During the development of Crusader Kings III, we organized a community challenge where you could unlock unique cosmetics for the game, which we dubbed the Monarch’s Journey. With the 1.4.0 Azure patch, we’ve decided to make these cosmetics available for everyone!

It includes:

• Headgear:
  • Hennin
  • Chaperon
  • Jester's Hat
• Haircuts:
  • Miller
  • Miller Highlights
  • Jeanne d'Arc
  • Pageboy
  • Mullet
• And the Wizard's Beard!

In order to celebrate this, we’ve also hooked some of these assets in to be used by random characters. For instance, Scots will be able to randomly use the Mullet haircut, while Frankish women will be able to use the Jeanne d’Arc haircut.

[A classy French woman with a Jeanne d’Arc haircut]

[A charming Scot with a Mullet]​

And because fashion changed over time, the Chaperon and Hennin will be available in the western world only after 1300.

[A wonderful Chaperon]

[A magnificent Hennin]​

In addition to that, we fixed several visual bugs highlighted by you:

• Spouses of rulers will now once again wear clothes based on their spouse's culture
• Arabic High Nobility will now use the Scholar's Turban and Caliphs will use the Caliphal Robes
• The 'Spindly' Trait will not make people's limbs too thin anymore

On the AI side, we reworked how vassals handle holy war and added constraints on Feudal and Clans rulers to limit their aggression of Tribal rulers. These modifications still allow the Byzantine empire to expand but in a more elegant way. Let’s have a look at a few results from Observe mode!

​

And this is it for today! As mentioned at the beginning of this dev diary, we should be back next week with the changelog for the patch if everything goes well!

Until then, I wish you the best and, hopefully, have fun!

 

[Riamus]

Happy to see the MJ rewards used by the AI, but not happy to see that only some will be used by AI. Why is it that all of them aren't available to the AI?

The constraint for feudal realms invading Tribal realms seems a bit strange to me. I suppose it'll probably help fix the problem it's there to fix, but not allowing them to go to war until after their previously acquired county is converted to feudalism seems off to me. It may solve some or all of the problems with attacking tribals, but the way it does it just really makes no sense to me.

 

[Cymsdale]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You should have did them because it was fun. If you ever find yourself playing games for not-fun reasons, than stop immediately because you are using games wrong.

 

[IndigoRage]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

The event was randomly cancelled with no announcement and can no longer be done. As it is I think it would have been extremely unfair to keep them as rewards for only people who had unlocked them.

 

[Voy]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You got it early, that's your reward. Take it or leave it.

 

[G S Palmer]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

You got access to the content for a whole nine months before the people who didn't have time/didn't own CK2. You didn't have to pay money for it; you only had to play a game you (I hope) enjoyed (as @Cymsdale pointed out).

Plus, why would you want to bar other people from getting something which you got for free?

 

[thebadmiral]

Thanks Devs! Looking forward to the patch, and excited it's coming out a little earlier than I expected.

 

[Dayvit78]

Any chance to improve the UI in the barbershop?
A very long drop-down list where you can only see a few items at a time is hard to find. For example, having filters or search parameters?

 

[BrokenSky]

View attachment 726628
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Is that a successful AI crusade for Jerusalem I see?!

 

[Sofyan Rghiwi]

Why are those who did not participate in the challenge given our unique awards? So I was wasting my time getting the maximum points? Leave or make at least one hat for those who participated in good faith pls

How to say you're American without saying you're American.

 

[Thaumics]

And the Wizard's Beard!

Will the wizards beard randomly show up on some individuals in and around england for example?

 

[ptrudelljr]

Glad to see my apathy with doing Monarch's Journey finally pay off.

never heard of the Monarch's Journey until now...

 

[n0cturn4l]

Finally we're getting a patch and I can play again if all the major bugs are fixed. Exciting addictions anyway!

 

[johnty5]

never heard of the Monarch's Journey until now...

It was pretty fun - but, ultimately, just a load of achievements.

 

[Fulbert]

any chance for new Monarch's Journey challenges for CK3?
I don't even need any rewards, just more goals and leaderboards.

I agree! We need more challenges, and as rewards I want Chaperons and Hennins for my pops in Vicky 3!

 

[Sir Godwin]

honestly there need to be more counts added to the game, I like to play from the bottom and work my dynasty up to the top, and the fact that there is only a single count in wessex in 867, or counts in germany that are actually just the size of duchies, there are barely any counts to play as, and there should be more

 

[wolfm33]

Any limitations on the crazy expansion of the Byzantines are certainly welcome.

 

[GeorgieBest]

Now the AI will not target Tribal realm if they have Tribal holding within their realm. They will have to first upgrade their holding before conquering more tribal holdings. So they will be less likely to expand into the steppes indeed.
Regarding the restriction on Vassals starting holy war, we limited them to target only neighboring lands.

Thanks for clarifying - was worried you meant more general restrictions that would affect the player too.

Fantastic news that you're planning to release next week - I wasn't expecting this early into summer.

 

[lozikk]

While adressing Byzantine issues is nice, I think it's not adressing the core of the problem. Even though they won't attack tribes until upgrading all tribes, you can still see they keep expanding into Crimea and other Kharazia-de jure lands instead of fighting for something actually good

 

[pengoyo]

While adressing Byzantine issues is nice, I think it's not adressing the core of the problem. Even though they won't attack tribes until upgrading all tribes, you can still see they keep expanding into Crimea and other Kharazia-de jure lands instead of fighting for something actually good

Yeah maybe the AI should give more priority to conquering land with higher development or whose holdings already match their type.

 

[Tiax]

While adressing Byzantine issues is nice, I think it's not adressing the core of the problem. Even though they won't attack tribes until upgrading all tribes, you can still see they keep expanding into Crimea and other Kharazia-de jure lands instead of fighting for something actually good

My guess is these are Byzantine vassals in Crimea picking up more land, not the emperor himself. It seems like there is some sort of problem where large empires never declare ambitious wars for themselves - the Byzantines might pick off an OPM or two in Sicily, but you won't see a campaign for Syria against the Seljuks, or the Seljuks invading Anatolia. I'm not sure if there's some sort of speed bump coded into the AI to make big empires just give up on expanding, or if there's an issue where an empire thinks its war chest has to be really big before it can declare a war, and can never manage to save up enough.

It really feels like this is a big issue with the way the AI works that the devs don't seem to talk about much (I mean in dev diaries/forum replies - who knows what's on their radar internally). AI empires can't be an effective rival for human players because they are extremely passive, and they also have no ebb and flow. It's nice to see some work being done on Byzantine vassal behavior, but I think you're absolutely correct that the bigger issue is that the Byzantines don't pursue big goals at all. Even if they do great - no losses through 1300, there's no attempt at expansion, just sitting idly while vassals pick up stray counties.

I'd love to see a future dev diary about how the AI plans its objectives, and what the intended behavior of the Byzantines and Seljuks is. It's disappointing to just watch the two powers sit peacefully for a hundred years until the Seljuks are overrun by populists. Even the Cumans - a huge tribal kingdom at game start, never seem to do anything and just wait to be partitioned into oblivion.