• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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.

pasted image 0 (1).png


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

pasted image 0.png


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.

pasted image 0 (2).png


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.

2021_11_08_2.png


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).

pasted image 0 (3).png


pasted image 0 (4).png


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

pasted image 0 (5).png


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.

pasted image 0 (6).png


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.

pasted image 0 (7).png


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

pasted image 0 (8).png


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.

pasted image 0 (9).png


pasted image 0 (10).png


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.

pasted image 0 (11).png


pasted image 0 (12).png


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.

pasted image 0 (13).png


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

pasted image 0 (14).png


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.

pasted image 0 (15).png


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

2021_11_09_1.png


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.

pasted image 0 (16).png


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

swap.gif


End of the Tour​


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

Attachments

  • 2021_11_08_2.png
    2021_11_08_2.png
    2,8 MB · Views: 0
  • 2021_11_08_2.png
    2021_11_08_2.png
    2,8 MB · Views: 0
  • 2021_11_09_1.png
    2021_11_09_1.png
    2,6 MB · Views: 0
  • 127Like
  • 58Love
  • 18
  • 10
  • 7
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
Maybe those pictures are made to show exactly what the post says? "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." You know, if you tried to point what grandeur changes directly with images you would make sure everything else stays the same.

Well, yeah? It says that Grandeur changes UI and furniture, and it shows that there isn't actually much changes. There is nothing more to change there but furniture, which level 0 and level 10 show

In screenshots we had so far there is a greater variety. I know there are 4 types of room but pictures below seem of the same type. We get only sneak peaks into the DLC, and are yet to see it in action, but that system just begs to be modular.

1636634615875.png
1636634698012.png
Where do you see a great variety here? I only see that a rug appeared between level 3 and 5. The floor is different because those are different courts (Denmark and Francia), in the same type of court even that doesn't change


That post you quoted was about changes that happen between Grandeur levels, not between different courts
 
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Well, yeah? It says that Grandeur changes UI and furniture, and it shows that there isn't actually much changes. There is nothing more to change there but furniture, which level 0 and level 10 show


Where do you see a great variety here? I only see that a rug appeared between level 3 and 5. The floor is different because those are different courts (Denmark and Francia), in the same type of court even that doesn't change


That post you quoted was about changes that happen between Grandeur levels, not between different courts

I got the impression that grandeur itself changes little but you must change more stuff to fit grandeur to perceived grandeur, so changes are greater between courts of the same type and different grandeur but you need to pay for them. Perhaps my imagination carried me away, and system isn't connected to the room's visuals but imho it would make sense, no?

From all the visual types (Western, Mediterranean, Middle East, and Indian) I think they are of one. So what influences how a throne room actually looks like? Chance? Culture? I hope not, players love to customize their stuff. Bellow there is an image where you have floor like in Denmark and walls like in East Francia. And I am pretty sure that throne room with plaster walls and mosaic on the floor is of Western style too.

1636651285345.png
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Well, yeah? It says that Grandeur changes UI and furniture, and it shows that there isn't actually much changes. There is nothing more to change there but furniture, which level 0 and level 10 show


Where do you see a great variety here? I only see that a rug appeared between level 3 and 5. The floor is different because those are different courts (Denmark and Francia), in the same type of court even that doesn't change


That post you quoted was about changes that happen between Grandeur levels, not between different courts

Thing is though that we know there are 4 visual styles. (aka western/european, mediterranean, middle-eastern, and indian)
So really Denmark and Francia should theoretically be using the same one right (that one being the western/european one)? So why do they look different?
Is there random variety between all of them? And if so how does it decide which one to pick? What if you end up with the one you didn't want?

Edit: Ah I see REDDQ had the same response idea. He phrased it better though so feel free to ignore this one.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Thing is though that we know there are 4 visual styles. (aka western/european, mediterranean, middle-eastern, and indian)
So really Denmark and Francia should theoretically be using the same one right (that one being the western/european one)? So why do they look different?
Hmm? You misunderstood what the conversation was about probably. The meme that was originally quoted was showing the differences between level 0 and 10 of grandeur in the same court, but some people thought it's about variety between different courts of the same type
 
Maybe people have asked this before but...what is the point of this interface? Is this just all this extra nonsense effort for the purposes of a few events and modifiers? You have spent all this time and effort for a feature I don't think will be very well maintained (a lot of effort) and I don't think people should be spending much time on (the point is the map, why would you look at this rather than click through and keep looking at the map).

It just seems like a lot of effort to go through for not much actual content.
 
  • 10
  • 4
Reactions:
In some cultures, women (Queens or equivalent) do not participate in such events (Court Events precisely), like Arabian, Iranian, African, Turkic cultures, would you keep that in mind for more historic accuracy?
 
  • 6
  • 2Like
Reactions:
the point is the map, why would you look at this rather than click through and keep looking at the map).
um, because i like to use the interface to, um, do things.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Maybe people have asked this before but...what is the point of this interface? Is this just all this extra nonsense effort for the purposes of a few events and modifiers? You have spent all this time and effort for a feature I don't think will be very well maintained (a lot of effort) and I don't think people should be spending much time on (the point is the map, why would you look at this rather than click through and keep looking at the map).

It just seems like a lot of effort to go through for not much actual content.
I think people forget that even if they aren't really interested in the court functions here, the work being done can easily be used in future content as well. When we get the college of cardinals and such, we may have a similar interface there where we have better interactions when choosing the next cardinal. We may get coronations in a similar interface. And so on. It wouldn't be smart to put in this effort and only ever use it here, so the work being done here is likely to be used in various other places as well and some of those places may have more interest for you even if you don't care about holding court. And if not, it still will be of interest to many other players.
 
  • 10
  • 4Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Is court mechanics planned only for king and emperor level characters? Because i think every independent ruler should have some sort of court, restricted maybe by maximum grandeur level with it's modifiers (let's say lvl1 for count, lvl 4 for duke, lvl7 for king and lvl10 for emperor) and other prestige/renown effects etc. And petitioner mechanics is very interesting with events coming with them, so it would be great if it could be implemented to every ruler, regardless of their status. It would bring some life to that aspects of the game.

Historically probably every indpendent ruler had some sort of court around them even if their domain was small. It was simply needed to rule effectively. Even some semidependent states/bigger vassals had courts and sometimes even foreign relations, at least in the later stages of Middle Ages (eg. Poland after year 1138). So maybe even vassal dukes could have court but with less benefits? And every feudal lord was a judge and biggest/sometimes only investor/builder/founder in their domain so they had to have petitioners coming. But it's only suggestion. What do you think?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Is court mechanics planned only for king and emperor level characters? Because i think every independent ruler should have some sort of court, restricted maybe by maximum grandeur level with it's modifiers (let's say lvl1 for count, lvl 4 for duke, lvl7 for king and lvl10 for emperor) and other prestige/renown effects etc. And petitioner mechanics is very interesting with events coming with them, so it would be great if it could be implemented to every ruler, regardless of their status. It would bring some life to that aspects of the game.

Historically probably every indpendent ruler had some sort of court around them even if their domain was small. It was simply needed to rule effectively. Even some semidependent states/bigger vassals had courts and sometimes even foreign relations, at least in the later stages of Middle Ages (eg. Poland after year 1138). So maybe even vassal dukes could have court but with less benefits? And every feudal lord was a judge and biggest/sometimes only investor/builder/founder in their domain so they had to have petitioners coming. But it's only suggestion. What do you think?
Agreed. AFAIK the main reason Paradox said they're limitng courts to only Kings and Emperors is because they're concerned about possible performance issues and slowdowns if they let everyone have a court. So it's possible that if this new feature doesn't cause these issues that we might at least see dukes get courts in a future update.
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
I think people forget that even if they aren't really interested in the court functions here, the work being done can easily be used in future content as well. When we get the college of cardinals and such, we may have a similar interface there where we have better interactions when choosing the next cardinal. We may get coronations in a similar interface. And so on. It wouldn't be smart to put in this effort and only ever use it here, so the work being done here is likely to be used in various other places as well and some of those places may have more interest for you even if you don't care about holding court. And if not, it still will be of interest to many other players.


I think the coolest thing about this, is you could send your heirs to spend time in other lords courts.

Or instead of instant marriage deals.
you send someone to the other persons court to try work out a beneficial marriage.


Crusader kings is adding more Sim like elements and I am all for it.
Hell being about to see our charcters actually go on hunts and stuff would increase our connection to them
 
  • 3Like
  • 3
Reactions:
I think people forget that even if they aren't really interested in the court functions here, the work being done can easily be used in future content as well. When we get the college of cardinals and such, we may have a similar interface there where we have better interactions when choosing the next cardinal. We may get coronations in a similar interface. And so on. It wouldn't be smart to put in this effort and only ever use it here, so the work being done here is likely to be used in various other places as well and some of those places may have more interest for you even if you don't care about holding court. And if not, it still will be of interest to many other players.
At least for me, the objection wouldn't be to the court mechanics, but to the 3D throne rooms, which seem liked a rather wasteful, distracting, and ill-fitting interface in a game of maps and menus. Even if the argument for them is purely aesthetic, personally I think they only look okay at best.
 
  • 6
  • 2
Reactions:
Agreed. AFAIK the main reason Paradox said they're limitng courts to only Kings and Emperors is because they're concerned about possible performance issues and slowdowns if they let everyone have a court. So it's possible that if this new feature doesn't cause these issues that we might at least see dukes get courts in a future update.
I hope so. The Dukes of Burgundy in the latter part of the Middle ages had an absolutely grand court. I would hate to see them not get that in the Game
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I think people forget that even if they aren't really interested in the court functions here, the work being done can easily be used in future content as well. When we get the college of cardinals and such, we may have a similar interface there where we have better interactions when choosing the next cardinal. We may get coronations in a similar interface. And so on. It wouldn't be smart to put in this effort and only ever use it here, so the work being done here is likely to be used in various other places as well and some of those places may have more interest for you even if you don't care about holding court. And if not, it still will be of interest to many other players.

No, I don't think people are forgetting that this could be the groundwork for other 3d menus in the future. I think it's more accurate to say, that 3D menu's should not be a high priority in a game so bare bones and devoid of mechanics and playstyles. Fluff like this is stuff that comes later in a games life cycle. This game is a lifeless husk right now with half baked mechanics riddled throughout. Diplomacy is terrible, AI reacts in unrealistic ways to almost every situation etc. There's a laundry list of issues this game suffers from, that people who only care about playing The Sims probably don't notice or give a rip about. But lots of us actually wanted a robust Strategy Game and we're not getting it.
 
  • 5
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I think people forget that even if they aren't really interested in the court functions here, the work being done can easily be used in future content as well. When we get the college of cardinals and such, we may have a similar interface there where we have better interactions when choosing the next cardinal. We may get coronations in a similar interface. And so on. It wouldn't be smart to put in this effort and only ever use it here, so the work being done here is likely to be used in various other places as well and some of those places may have more interest for you even if you don't care about holding court. And if not, it still will be of interest to many other players.
It can't be used in future content though, because if this is required for other dlcs then it's no longer modular (I am not in favour of the modular system but I know why they do it) and if it is used in other dlcs with it not being the major selling point (because it's just another feature we'll throw in) then they can't use it to justify it being outrageously overpriced.
So either every DLC that uses this feature will be literally 30 USD (an insane price) or it will be cheaper and this DLC will be nakedly overpriced.
 
Last edited:
Either way if they start making every damn DLC 30 USD just because it has a 3-D interface I literally do not care about even in the slightest...I'm done. I'm nearly done anyway as a result of this DLC price jump and feature list (outrageously high and embarassingly low for the price) and in the future I will be even less likely to buy it.
 
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
It can't be used in future content though, because if this is required for other dlcs then it's no longer modular
The 3D interface can absolutely be used in future content without any tie to owning this DLC. Keep in mind that even if you don't own a DLC, you still have the content - it's just locked away. So they can either add in, for example, a papacy element using your Royal Court's screen directly and if you own the Papacy DLC, you can see it even without owning the Royal Court DLC, or they can make an entirely separate 3D scene (perhaps of the Papacy's "court") that doesn't connect at all with the Royal Court content but uses the work done to create the Royal Court to create it, which also doesn't require owning Royal Court.

What you're saying is essentially that because a DLC uses a new UI interface design for a specific element, the same design can't ever be used again because it wouldn't be modular, which simply isn't the case. (The 3D court is just a UI interface that could be handled without 3D to accomplish the same thing).
 
  • 5Like
  • 2
Reactions:
The 3D interface can absolutely be used in future content without any tie to owning this DLC. Keep in mind that even if you don't own a DLC, you still have the content - it's just locked away. So they can either add in, for example, a papacy element using your Royal Court's screen directly and if you own the Papacy DLC, you can see it even without owning the Royal Court DLC, or they can make an entirely separate 3D scene (perhaps of the Papacy's "court") that doesn't connect at all with the Royal Court content but uses the work done to create the Royal Court to create it, which also doesn't require owning Royal Court.

What you're saying is essentially that because a DLC uses a new UI interface design for a specific element, the same design can't ever be used again because it wouldn't be modular, which simply isn't the case. (The 3D court is just a UI interface that could be handled without 3D to accomplish the same thing).
Yes, I understand that they can use the actual effort in new DLCs without tying it to the RC DLC, I'm just saying that more than likely they will either tie it to the DLC (bad and unlikely) make all the DLCs that are heavy on this 3D mechanic insanely overpriced.
 
Yes, I understand that they can use the actual effort in new DLCs without tying it to the RC DLC, I'm just saying that more than likely they will either tie it to the DLC (bad and unlikely) make all the DLCs that are heavy on this 3D mechanic insanely overpriced.
CK2 DLC is $310. if CK3 achieves the same thing with half the amount of DLC, then everyone's happy! :p