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CK3 Dev Diary #73 - Serving On Her Majesty's Court

Greetings!

In the update that will launch alongside the Royal Court expansion, we will introduce Court Positions - which can be seen as an evolution of CK2’s Minor Titles with a number of new improvements. While the old feature from CK2 had all sorts of various honorary titles, we wanted to focus on the most important positions at your court. Jobs that are relevant directly to you as a ruler, or that of your court.

Court Positions include a number of different positions, such as a Court Tutor, or Seneschal. Most positions imply that the appointed character has an actual job at your court and provides you with their services. That doesn’t mean we haven’t added any of the classical honorary positions though. Expect to also be able to appoint a Master of the Hunt, Master of the Horse, or (if you are playing as England) a Keeper of the Swans.

Each position will provide you with a set of bonuses, mostly in the form of various modifiers, but certain positions have more interesting benefits as well. For example, a Court Tutor increases the chances for children at your court to receive a better education trait.

Not all characters are equally fit to serve in any given position. Their skills and traits have a significant impact on how good they are at their job. This is reflected in their Aptitude. A position uses one or several skills, such as Learning for a Court Physician, which is the main factor for what Aptitude a character will have. Each position also has a number of traits that may increase (or even decrease!) their Aptitude further. Aptitude is measured on a scale in five steps, ranging from ‘terrible’ to ‘excellent’. The higher the Aptitude is, the greater the benefit. Let’s look at the Seneschal as an example. A character with the lowest Aptitude will only grant you a Control Growth bonus of +0.1, while a character with the highest possible Aptitude will give you +0.5.

01_aptitude.jpg

[Image showing the Aptitude for a court position]

Unlike CK2, hiring a character for a position is actually going to cost you, as each Court Position has an associated salary that you will be paying for out of your own pocket. While the salary for any given position won’t be very expensive, they will stack up. You’ll have to make a decision on how much gold you are willing to spend on all of your appointed positions, and if the characters you have available are skilled enough to warrant the salary.

As you may remember from Summer Teaser #3, we’ve gone through several old events to make sure that if you have someone appointed in a relevant position, they can appear to provide extra options or affect an outcome to be more favourable. Additionally, some positions may appear in events related to schemes. We’ve also added Cultural Traditions that increase the Aptitude of specific positions for characters of that culture, or even unlock a position you normally wouldn’t have access to! The goal is to make sure that Court Positions feel like an integral part of the game, and to have them feel as immersive as possible.

Before we wrap up, let’s take a look at a few examples of what some of the different Court Positions can do for you.

The Court Physician has been updated to be a fully fledged Court Position and make use of the new system. As you’d expect, the appointed character will take care of the sick people within your court. Court Physicians have a lower salary than most, so you should in practice always be able to afford one. If you have the Royal Court expansion, having a Court Physician also provides you with a small bonus to your grandeur. A skilled physician was often seen as very prestigious after all.

02_court_physician.jpg

[Image of the Court Physician Court Position]​

Next is the Bodyguard. You can hire up to two Bodyguards at the same time. Bodyguards don’t provide any passive modifiers like most other positions, but do have two fairly powerful bonuses. They have a chance to prevent assassination attempts on you, and they reduce the risks of participating in battles, as long as both of you partake in the same battle. So make sure that your Bodyguards have been appointed as your knights to make the most use of them. But beware! Bodyguards are very powerful agents should they join a scheme against you. Keep an eye on their opinion to avoid any backstabbing shenanigans!

03_bodyguard.jpg

[Image of the Bodyguard Court Position]

Another interesting position is the Food Taster. Any self-respecting (and perhaps paranoid) ruler should have one. A Food Taster not only gives you some protection against hostile schemes, they may even prevent a poison-related murder attempt against you! By, of course, eating your food and dying in your place… Just like a Bodyguard, a Food Taster is also a powerful agent should they join in on a scheme against you.

04_food_taster.jpg

[Image of the Food Taster Court Position]

Let’s take a look at the Court Gardener. This court position is unlocked by a cultural tradition - Garden Architects. Gardeners provide a passive opinion bonus for your courtiers and guests (who doesn’t appreciate a well tended garden?), and depending on their skill, a significant bonus to the Development Growth in your realm capital.

05_court_gardener.jpg

[Image of the Court Gardener Court Position]

And for reference, this is what the tradition looks like:

06_garden_architects.jpg

[Image of the Garden Architects tradition]

Finally, we couldn’t show off Court Positions without showing the Court Jester, complete with a jester’s outfit!

07_court_jester.jpg

[Image of the Court Jester Court Positions]

08_jester_clothing.png

[Image of the Court Jester's clothing]

That’s it for today!
 
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Please drop this DLC already I can't play Ck3 anymore. It just makes me sad that these features aren't in the game now and puts me off playing.
And then you wait for the next DLC, and the next, and the next, and by the time you actually sit down to play, they've just released Leviathan and the game is ruined. Such fun!
 
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Some ideas on these positions. The gardener for example should also give a bonus to plot knowledge. Where does most plotting happen? In the garden, so it can be a good place to gather information. These positions should also help some of your counselors this would help offset when you have to appoint a bad council member due to high rank. Then the council member positions can be more figurehead if supported by underlings.
 
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All this interesting additions make me wish still the possibility of playing a landless character. So many interesting stories in history have been politicking by non-landed aristocracy that used what positions they could earn to better their position, causing the falls of great dynasties/families in the process. Or better yet, a deposed lord now without station reclaiming their rightful lot. Which we see in npcs but it'd be hell of a roleplay to do it as a player too.

I wonder why you had 5 downvotes on this. Landless character would be awesome. There are many careers long term that might be fun with a landless character. You could be an assassin, a spy, diplomat, merchant, mercenary captain etc... I for one, would love for them to really expand the RPG aspect of this game to create landless character starts and career paths.
 
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Awesome dev diary :). As much as I am looking forward to hearing about a release date, I trust paradox that they’ll release it when ready. As an aside, I really hope to see some updates within the modern-day Russia region and Eastern Europe. I also hope to see the possibility of some “Fabergé” influenced artifacts, even though CK3 doesn’t take place in that era it would be cool to have some similar stylized artifacts as I am a big admirer of them. Maybe a modder will take care of that. :) all and all looking great and looking forward to playing the Royal Court expansion. (Add flavour to Russia/Eastern Europe please :))
 
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I assume that landed vassals can't hold court positions? And in result also a player can't hold such position?
I believe in one of the earlier dev replies they said that it is position dependent. Some positions can be held by landed vassals, while some are un-landed specific. They also said that if a player is appointed to the court position that the player will receive the salary and benefits that come with it.
 
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Well, they add some protection, but also new "ways in" for would-be assasins. But if they are as easily managable as spymasters...... they ain't gonna have many opportunities to save me.

Only time I remember being assasinated was when I actively tried to have a lover save me (for the achievo).
I feel like I’m one of the only ones who’s actually been assassinated multiple times T-T lol
 
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Now with added flying lessons for boy-Kings, courtesy of their bodyguards!
I’m hoping my bodyguards will be loyal ones, but I’m sure they won’t all be.

It just occurred to me that with the addition of these new court positions, it would be awfully helpful if we could discover that NPCs had hooks on other NPCs.

I probably wouldn’t want to appoint an excellent bodyguard who otherwise appears loyal and loves me if my conniving uncle has a strong hook on him.

Not sure how this could be implemented in-game without it getting very complicated with the UI.
 
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So excited for the Royal Court!! If I can make a suggestion, in my current playthrough I'm playing a compassionate forgiving ruler and wish to be able to kill someone without having a huge breakdown. Heathens, infidels, peasant rulers, traitorous vassals, you know, the usual.

Therefore I would like to suggest the following court position for all cultures (happy for it to be changed as seen fit) -

Executioner
0.70 salary/ month
Will be responsible for public killings in your court
+10 natural dread
-2 diplomacy
Increased chance to get lunatic, possessed and blademaster traits
 
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Given the increased number of powerful agents in possible hostile schemes, does that mean agent join chance is being rebalanced? Currently, it’s a little too easy to murder kings and emperors because everyone in their realm joins
They just need to git gud. It is pretty hilarious, though, when their own spymaster hates them so much that they agree to join the plot.
 
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how do you make it fun for the player when their ruler is a 6 year old is unable to do much. just turning on speed 5 till you are an adult isn't that fun.
That's where the regency could step in.. Regents were powerful figures and sometimes dangerous one. he coul provid a challenge for the future ruler according to his personality and traits
 
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So excited for the Royal Court!! If I can make a suggestion, in my current playthrough I'm playing a compassionate forgiving ruler and wish to be able to kill someone without having a huge breakdown. Heathens, infidels, peasant rulers, traitorous vassals, you know, the usual.

Therefore I would like to suggest the following court position for all cultures (happy for it to be changed as seen fit) -

Executioner
0.70 salary/ month
Will be responsible for public killings in your court
+10 natural dread
-2 diplomacy
Increased chance to get lunatic, possessed and blademaster traits
Might as well throw in a court jailer/torturer as well.
 
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There are effects you can use to appoint court positions, so if you have specific characters in mind to have as liege and employee, this is possible to do.

Is there any chance we could get a hold of new effects and triggers used for the new mechanics introduced with 1.5 ?

I would expect those to be locked down by now. And knowing what they are and their syntax wouldn't spoil much, and would enable us to make plans for mod updates ahead of release.
 
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Might as well throw in a court jailer/torturer as well.
Sure, but I don't know if it would be worthwhile to make a separate court jailer or torturer position. You could make an executioner reduce the chances of prison escapes, and make them able to handle torturing prisoners for you as well, I guess as an overall jailer (gaoler?) position. However, these other features aren't as important to me.

I don't want to simply enable cruelty for an empathetic character. It's more to do with all rulers being able to administer justice equally and the flavour such a position could bring. I mean, you should be able to appoint someone as an executioner, lose in a revolt war and get imprisoned, and then face an event where your old executioner beheads you - How cool would that be, right!? Executions and tortures should probably still give empathetic characters a little stress even when you have an executioner.

Edit: Oh and while I'm here - another suggestion - I realise PDX is not touching Byzantium probably because of future DLC, but as well as an English Keeper of the Swans, it would be awesome imo to get a Byzantine Caesar position like the following -

Caesar
+1.00 salary/month
+10% monthly lifestyle exp
-10 fellow vassal opinion
-10% hostile scheme resistance
Increased chance of making rivalries
Immediately gives a pressed claim on the Byzantine (or Roman) empire
 
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