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CK3 Dev Diary #81 - A tour of your Royal Court (Interface)

Hello there, and welcome to the eighty-first CK3 Dev Diary!

Today we are going to look at the experience of admiring your Royal Court, one of the paid features of the Expansion with the same name.

Most of the actual mechanics of the expansion should already be familiar to you if you have read previous Dev Diaries. I will refer back to these Dev Diaries where appropriate, so you can see this as a bit of a summary of what it means to preside over your own Royal Court.

That being said, we are going to talk a bit about Court Types, a minor feature for your Royal Court

Visiting your Royal Court​

When you reach the rank of King or Emperor as a Feudal or Clan Ruler, you have laid the foundation for your Royal Court. You can now go to it via a button in the main interface.

This button highlights if there is something interesting to do in your Royal Court at this moment, such as if you have new Court Artifacts.

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You can also view anyone else’s Royal Court via a button next to their Character.

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The Throne Room​

Your Royal Court is split into three segments: Throne Room, Court Grandeur, and Court Artifacts

When you enter your Royal Court, you end up in your Throne Room.

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Here you can see various petitioners or other goings-on in your Court, and you can choose to interact with them. These types of events are described in Dev Diary 75. If any Inspired Characters are present or have projects in progress, they are also shown here, on the left side of the screen.

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If there is not enough going on here, you can also choose to Hold Court, inviting Courtiers and Vassals across the Realm to grovel before you (which was shown in Dev Diary 72).

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If this is your Liege’s Court, you can even approach them to hear your reasonable requests, as seen in Dev Diary 74.

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Grandeur and Amenities​

Moving on to the second part of your Royal Court, which is an overview of your Court Grandeur. How much you have, various factors affecting it, and so on.

Grandeur was explained a while ago, in Dev Diary 61. Basically, it is a measure of how well known your Court is, and each Level gives you further benefits.

Your current Grandeur, Grandeur Baseline, and unlocked Grandeur Levels are shown on the large bar in the center.

In the image below, we can see we are gaining Grandeur every month due to being below our Baseline.

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Our current Level is 4: while we do not have enough Grandeur to maintain this Level, we had unlocked it before, and it will thus stay unlocked for 6 months, regardless how much Grandeur we have.

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We can also see that our expected Grandeur Level is 7, which we are nowhere near fulfilling.

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Grandeur is also reflected in other ways. If you have high Grandeur, the UI looks more luxurious, and new (non-Artifact) furniture appears in your court.

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A large source of Grandeur is which Amenities are available to your Courtiers and visitors to your court. Providing excellent Amenities is sure to make your name well known across the world.

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There are two other factors affecting Grandeur, Court Language and Court Types. Court Language was already explained in Dev Diary 78, so let’s talk about Court Types.

Court Types​

With Court Types, you can choose which kind of Royal Court you want to foster. Perhaps one where martial prowess is admired, or where there is a whisper around every corner and a lover behind every curtain.

You always have the choice between two Court Types, based on the Ethos of your Culture, and changing it costs Prestige. If your Culture changes, you can still keep your old Court Type.

The type of Royal Court affects two things: what you get from your Grandeur Level, and what your Courtiers get from being part of the Court.

While some Grandeur Levels you reach are always the same regardless of your Court Type, some change somewhat. So, in a Diplomatic Court, Grandeur Level 4 may see you gaining less Tyranny, while in a Warlike Court, you may gain more Levies.

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As for Courtiers, each Courtier who stays at an especially Grand Royal Court for a certain period of time (5 years) will gain a special Courtier Trait based on the Court Type

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Each Trait of this type has two different levels. If your Court is at Grandeur Level 5, Courtiers get the first level, while the second level will appear at Grandeur Level 8. The second level comes with extra bonuses and can be especially useful for those you plan to be your Vassals.

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Court Artifacts​

Last but certainly not least, are the Court Artifacts. We showed a few of them off in Dev Diary 69.

In short, Court Artifacts are a special type of Artifacts. These are large furniture and other decorative items you display inside your Royal Court. This makes them distinct from your Inventory Artifacts described in last week's Dev Diary as you are not hauling them around everywhere.

When entering this part of the Royal Court, you can see all spots where you can place Court Artifacts

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Just like Inventory Artifacts, they give you a bonus if they are actively on display in your Royal Court. The primary purpose of Court Artifacts is to increase your Court Grandeur, but some have additional effects.

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For most Court Artifacts, there is more than one slot to place them. Perhaps that tapestry would look better on that other wall?

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End of the Tour​


That is all for this week, thank you for reading!
 

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  • 127Like
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Will the Crusader Kings 3 map eventually expanded to possibly the same/similar size of that of Eurapa Universalis IV? With the right mods, A gaming computer to allow you speedily and smoothly play it is actually quite easy to gobble up a large percentage of the current map.
 
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At least for me, I never look at the existing alerts box, because it's constantly polluted with "did you know you could be fabricating a claim" and "your heir is 4th in line for a title!" and other useless information. So I'm happy they've put this notification in its own place.
Not the suggestions box, the alerts area to the left of the suggestions box where you get notifications of events that don't require an immediate response, such as decisions being available, children without guardians, perks available to be spent, etc.

I agree that the suggestions box is pretty much useless due to all the unnecessary things in it that you can't configure without modding the game.
 
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So...I don't want to be this guy, I really don't. But I gotta ask the question...

What exactly is the point of all these features? How does this make Crusader Kings a better Strategy Game? This isn't The Sims, or Barbie and Ken Dress Up hour. I'm not trying to mock here, but to understand the point of all this. This just seems like a giant DLC of ultimately pointless time padding busy work, just to give the player anything at all to do. How do these features improve my strategic standing with my rivals in a way the vanilla game is not currently capable? How do these features improve my ability to defend my realm, or expand it outside of some extra levies? How is diplomacy improved and made more in depth than vanilla currently does? Because every screenshot I see, is basically the same vanilla events as before, just with a 3D room window dressing instead. How are languages and cultures going to enhance my strategic thought process? Don't misunderstand, I appreciate adding more immersion to the game. I 100% support that idea, but at the end of the day, as I said, this isn't The Sims. How does this actually enhance strategy in this (what I thought was) a strategy game?
From what I see,
This Granduer system will make you balance your income between MoA and court amenities cost.
Normally, I would scale my MoA regimens based on my incomes to avoid being indebt everytime I declare a war. But now there's also Court expense to think about.
You will now have to take time building your economy properly to maintain both ,which consequently slower your realm expanding, Or... realisitically like in history bankrupted by every war you declare.

Ofc. You can choose to ignore Granduer and tank those negative modifiers, RPing as a babaric warmongering king who has no care to look like a civilized well-established king in the eyes of your vassals/independent rulers.
An emperor with 250 counties realm size but the food in his court is no better than that of a Baron's? No respect from me either.

-Vassalization offer acceptance + mean no more multiple small wars just bcoz different culture negative mod.

Sure. Late game with so much income it won't matter and will actually make realm/vassal managing much easier with those vassal opinions stack.

BTW, FIX independence Faction BUG already PDX or else vassal opinion bluff won't matter much!!

I'm also curious about what Factors raise up Court granduer expectation.
 
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Really really happy with this direction - this is great PDX. Nothing immerses more than a bit of 3D content, and personal involvement.

Major, major thumbs up. Please, continue. "This is the way!"
 
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Vassalization offer acceptance + mean no more multiple small wars just bcoz different culture negative mod.
Only if balanced correctly.

Right now the perk in the diplomacy tree that does this is almost useless since acceptance pretty much relies on being de jure while having the same culture and religion or if not de jure, having an overwhelmingly larger army while still having the same religion or culture.

I really hope they're playing around with the math so the choices are strategic rather than always relying on roleplay to overcome the shortcomings in the current state of strategic gameplay in ck3.
 
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Another question, but I think I’m too late: does the cost of court amenities scale with the number of courtiers (and maybe other factors)? This should prevent partially the end-game easiness.
 
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Look that all is cool and stuff, but this is nothing of the sorts I paid for. I paid for quality Menu-based-interface and Menu-based-Gameplay that is very much 2D and Quality stuff with big Q. This is very much out of the scope of game I paid, not something I expected at all, not quality stuff, and not something I feel fits into the rest of the gameplay.
I would be fine with all of this Court thing if you scrap 3D presentation, because that ruins the whole thing very much so.
 
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Look that all is cool and stuff, but this is nothing of the sorts I paid for. I paid for quality Menu-based-interface and Menu-based-Gameplay that is very much 2D and Quality stuff with big Q. This is very much out of the scope of game I paid, not something I expected at all, not quality stuff, and not something I feel fits into the rest of the gameplay.
I would be fine with all of this Court thing if you scrap 3D presentation, because that ruins the whole thing very much so.
you knew, presumably, that there were 3D models before you bought the game, right?
 
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I see a lot of value in all of the mechanics, but I am having a hard time suspending my disbelief with those graphics.

I know they are not final, and shadows are painfully still missing, but there is something fundamentally tough to look at here.

Chiefest among my gripes is the throne room size itself. It feels so small. This will be specially painful if the room size does not change as you increase Grandeur. If I am the HRE, King of France or, specially, the Byzantine Emperor, that room is laughably small!

What I keep seeing, visually (mechanics look great), is something that is far more fitting for Count and Duke courts...
I just hope mods to fix courts will be compatible and tolerable in performance. Unfortunately, I fear small vanilla court size might have made Paradox take shortcuts in optimisation.
Not the suggestions box, the alerts area to the left of the suggestions box where you get notifications of events that don't require an immediate response, such as decisions being available, children without guardians, perks available to be spent, etc.

I agree that the suggestions box is pretty much useless due to all the unnecessary things in it that you can't configure without modding the game.
How are children without guardians not something that requires immediate response? Educaction quality scales to the time spent as ward, any time without guardian is crippling your children. I gave up on this, got a mod that allows me to raise them all myself, and assign them as my wards the moment they are born.
 
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Could their be a part of the system where the later levels of grandeur actually start to make armies less effective? And you might have to weigh up court grandeur expectations negatives with that negative

Showing how when a nation starts to get so big and luxurious/decadent it starts to lose some of the rugged martial ability they started off with that allowed them to form such a kingdom in the first place.

For example, Mongol khanates losing the ability to field such large amounts of skilled horse archers once they began live less hard lives
 
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So...I don't want to be this guy, I really don't. But I gotta ask the question...

What exactly is the point of all these features? How does this make Crusader Kings a better Strategy Game? This isn't The Sims, or Barbie and Ken Dress Up hour. I'm not trying to mock here, but to understand the point of all this. This just seems like a giant DLC of ultimately pointless time padding busy work, just to give the player anything at all to do. How do these features improve my strategic standing with my rivals in a way the vanilla game is not currently capable? How do these features improve my ability to defend my realm, or expand it outside of some extra levies? How is diplomacy improved and made more in depth than vanilla currently does? Because every screenshot I see, is basically the same vanilla events as before, just with a 3D room window dressing instead. How are languages and cultures going to enhance my strategic thought process? Don't misunderstand, I appreciate adding more immersion to the game. I 100% support that idea, but at the end of the day, as I said, this isn't The Sims. How does this actually enhance strategy in this (what I thought was) a strategy game?
It may be disappointing if you missed that information before, but CK was always meant to be "The Sims, but medieval-ish" - it was even directly confirmed by some of the devs. This vision and design goal was reaffirmed even stronger for CK3 - as they try to give each game in their portfolio a more distinct gameplay niche.

Victoria 3 is about economy and society. HoI4 is about warfare and wacky alt-history. CK3 is about rich individuals and their relations.

An in-depth mini-game about writing love letters or a sims-like dreams and aspirations system (or 3D pets!) is a more probable direction of development for CK3 than trade overhaul or complicated realm management.

That does not mean that such game cannot be strategically deep, but...the second goal in the CK3 vision was to make any player fantasy at least partially feasible. So the strategy puzzle cannot be too challenging, as it will destroy the "create your own preferred story" type of fun.

It was all directly stated in the very first development diary.
 
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So what exactly decides the expected court level?
It is based on your Realm Size and if you are an Emperor or a King.

Thanks for this. Would you consider subsequently adding new visual styles with future flavour packs and expansions (e.g. a Moorish court visual style for Andalusian culture rulers included with any Andalusian flavour pack, or a special unique Byzantine imperial court room tied solely to the Byzantine Emperor title included with any Byzantine DLC)?
We spent a fair bit of time on showing Characters in 3D scenes, so I would expect we would try to come up with even more ways in the future. Not sure about adding it to a Byzantine DLC since then you need 2 DLCs to access the feature and I don't know how we want to handle that.

It's a really minor thing, but gathering from the pictures, it seems like you need to confirm you didn't accidentally click the hold court button which seems like unnecessary work to me.
I'm sure most people have good enough aim to klick the button intentionally more often than not - and you could always have an escape option as a cop-out if you wanted. :D
Backing out here actually means you have called everyone to Hold Court, and then choose to ignore all your petitioners because you "don't feel like it" that day.

Another question, but I think I’m too late: does the cost of court amenities scale with the number of courtiers (and maybe other factors)? This should prevent partially the end-game easiness.
It scales with Realm Size and if you are a King or Emperor, and also what Era you have reached.

Will Ai rulers summon players to their royal court?
No, if you want to interact with your Liege you do it yourself via Petition Liege.
 
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We spent a fair bit of time on showing Characters in 3D scenes, so I would expect we would try to come up with even more ways in the future. Not sure about adding it to a Byzantine DLC since then you need 2 DLCs to access the feature and I don't know how we want to handle that.
Wait, so no more new Court types for other cultures ever?
 
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It may be disappointing if you missed that information before, but CK was always meant to be "The Sims, but medieval-ish" - it was even directly confirmed by some of the devs.
Henrik's said publicly that the inspirations for CK2 were The Sims and the ASOIAF novels.
 
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We spent a fair bit of time on showing Characters in 3D scenes, so I would expect we would try to come up with even more ways in the future. Not sure about adding it to a Byzantine DLC since then you need 2 DLCs to access the feature and I don't know how we want to handle that.

I understand that concern for your customers, but I do wonder how many would buy a hypothetical future BYZ flavor pack and not Royal Court.

I would love to see very distinct architectural styles for lots of cultures.

Speaking only for myself, I plan on buying everything PDX puts out for CK3.
 
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