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Greetings!

A few weeks ago we shared our floor plan for the future, and this week I’d like to give you some tidbits from the studio itself. I will tell you a bit about the history of our studio and what we are about - interlaced with random quotes from the team collected throughout the year (courtesy of Wokeg - I think they paint a pretty accurate picture of the minds in our midst).
So if you are eagerly awaiting updates on what’s coming for the actual game, I’m afraid you will have to wait a little longer.

Firstly though, a brief introduction might be in order since I am very much a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of character (and you will rarely catch me writing diaries):
I was the Lead Producer on Crusader Kings III (until after its release in 2020). Having then spent some time with the space faring folks over in the Stellaris studio, I rejoined the CK3 team at the start of this year to create Studio Black - home of Crusader Kings - as the Studio Manager. And here we are.

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Random quotes, part 1

PDS - A Tale of Studios​


The story of Paradox Development Studio goes back more than a quarter of a century - a pretty incredible feat in itself and a testament to the sheer talent, passion and motivation of the people working here. As we’ve added more games and grown the studio over the years, there came a point where we wanted to get the studio closer to to our games again, and at the end of 2020 PDS was divided into three sub-studios: Green (Stellaris), Gold (Hearts of Iron) and Red (Crusader Kings & Victoria). At this point, our friends at Europa Universalis had already set sail to warmer latitudes and set up Tinto in Spain.

As Victoria III was ramping up their efforts (and a big shout-out and CONGRATULATIONS is in order - the release is happening TODAY :D ), it was time to build a castle of our own, hence studio Black was born on February 14th (I’m sure you can figure out why I chose this date).

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Random quotes, part 2

Court Positions​


Having the right people in the right place is of course paramount to any kind of development - in our case, that means we rely on our Programmers, Designers, Artists, QA Testers and Producers to bring our game to life, with the help of central support from Audio, Engine Team, User Research, Marketing and many other departments.
Building a studio around an existing development team is quite a luxury - most often, you would start from scratch; with limited funding, resources and just a great dream (and hopefully a team) to carry you forward. In our case, it was rather the other way around (great game & team = check!), which means we can focus more on filling skill gaps and making sure we have a good support structure in place.

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Random quotes, part 3

Character DNA​


You might think that with the roots firmly planted in the dynasty of PDS, we all share the same culture DNA? You’d be wrong. Something I discovered back in the day (moving from the EU4 team to the CK2 team at the time), was how some subtle, yet noticeable, parts of the team culture seemed to stem from a very central core. This theory was confirmed as I stepped away to the realm of Stellaris for a while; the essence of the project team culture was as firmly rooted around Jeff and other shared moments as CK ever was around… keeping it in the family.
However quirky and meme-friendly each game teams culture might be, there are also some very noticeable similarities that confirms what Paradox is very much about, when it boils down to it: Helpful, Curious & Nerdy (in that ‘Hey, I’m really into cross-stitching medieval tapestry, want to know more?’ kind of way).

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Random quotes, part 4

Keeping the Legacy​


So where are we headed as a studio, you might ask? Well, we are all here to keep the legacy of Crusader Kings alive and well. We have an amazing game at the earlier stage of its lifespan, and a team of highly creative and skilled people to help realize the incredible potential of CK3. I won’t pretend that 2 years of pandemic haven’t had an impact on our work, but we are truly committed to keep making releases for CK3 that we are proud of - and that we hope you will find hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of enjoyment from, for many years to come!


That’s it for today folks, next time we’ll have some more game specific updates for you all!

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A part of our team, having a royal blast at this year's PDXCON!
 
I would be interested to know, how you got into coding? (wth you meaning the people at the CK development studio)
We have a lot of people with all different backgrounds, not all are coders (most are not). But our programmers generally have very strong coding backgrounds, with a ton of theoretical and practicle experience. Think degrees as well as having shipped various products. Worth noting that, especially in tech, there is a lot of knowledge sharing as well between Paradox Studios, including people moving across projects every now and then.

For myself and our Studio Manager, limited coding is required, though we like to think ourselves clever with use of excel.
 
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Asking more about the production culture of PDS, I know some studios are infamous for their "crunch" period. I have never heard Paradox having these issues (or at least in recent times). So, my question is, how much of overtime the team has to do, if any, when nearing a big release date?
 
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Asking more about the production culture of PDS, I know some studios are infamous for their "crunch" period. I have never heard Paradox having these issues (or at least in recent times). So, my question is, how much of overtime the team has to do, if any, when nearing a big release date?
I can only speak for PDS Black here. But generally speaking it is something we try to avoid when at all feasible. To my knowledge(haven't been around for super long), teams working on Crusader Kings have never had to resort to mandatory overtime work, I would hope we can keep it that way.
 
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Now that you have a dedicated studio, maybe we will get a Holy Fury-quality-tier dlc in the future!
 
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This is more of an essay type question, probably only answerable if random staff have the time and the urge to do a good deed, but:

You mentioned the pandemic having an effect on your work. I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I assume some of the folks who work on CK3 are also nuerodivergent* (in game dev? for a niche genre? shocking, I know!). Combined with the intricacy/interconnected nature of the work, I figure this is as good a place to ask as any.

What are some of the tools or resources that you’ve found helpful for dealing with, well, all this? Has there been any particular tools you’ve found for managing work loads, or information in changing settings (from home to the office and back)? Any lessons learned from structuring tasks?

This may be beyond the scope of the questions you expected for this DD, but the blend of noisy, chaotic, diverse, and creative work with the much more precise, routine and consistent work… well, I figured I might as well see if I could pick brains for absolutely selfish reasons.

*ADHD, we in the hous— okay now we’ve run out of the house— okay now we’ve forgotten where we live but we did find a cool rock
 
Thanks for keeping us informed.
 
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This is more of an essay type question, probably only answerable if random staff have the time and the urge to do a good deed, but:

You mentioned the pandemic having an effect on your work. I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I assume some of the folks who work on CK3 are also nuerodivergent* (in game dev? for a niche genre? shocking, I know!). Combined with the intricacy/interconnected nature of the work, I figure this is as good a place to ask as any.

What are some of the tools or resources that you’ve found helpful for dealing with, well, all this? Has there been any particular tools you’ve found for managing work loads, or information in changing settings (from home to the office and back)? Any lessons learned from structuring tasks?

This may be beyond the scope of the questions you expected for this DD, but the blend of noisy, chaotic, diverse, and creative work with the much more precise, routine and consistent work… well, I figured I might as well see if I could pick brains for absolutely selfish reasons.

*ADHD, we in the hous— okay now we’ve run out of the house— okay now we’ve forgotten where we live but we did find a cool rock
This would be a bit much to go into indeed. Therefore, I must limit it to some general comments for now. One related to myself, and one for the team as a whole. Though forgive me, as none of it is particularly new, surprising or exciting.

Speaking for myself, a clear seperation of work and private time has proven important. Especially during pandemic times there were a bunch of periods where I struggled maintaining a healthy work/life balance, as the two blended together so much. Dividing my time at home in office time and private time, and even adjusting my environment to it a little, helped a lot. Simple examples could be to try and sit in a different location, or if you do have only one PC/desk, to use different user accounts for either. Going for a short walk before/after work also helps a lot, as it gives you a bit of time to transition into a different mode, not unlike a short commute.

In general I think yes, it is hard for the team that is so used to be working together, to then have to find new solutions. We found that a bunch more meetings were needed, and that information that, previously found its way to people in the office organically, needed more structural methods of communication. This is also I think were the answer lies in making it work. By offering some moments of structure in an otherwise very free work environment.
 
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This would be a bit much to go into indeed. Therefore, I must limit it to some general comments for now. One related to myself, and one for the team as a whole. Though forgive me, as none of it is particularly new, surprising or exciting.

Speaking for myself, a clear seperation of work and private time has proven important. Especially during pandemic times there were a bunch of periods where I struggled maintaining a healthy work/life balance, as the two blended together so much. Dividing my time at home in office time and private time, and even adjusting my environment to it a little, helped a lot. Simple examples could be to try and sit in a different location, or if you do have only one PC/desk, to use different user accounts for either. Going for a short walk before/after work also helps a lot, as it gives you a bit of time to transition into a different mode, not unlike a short commute.

In general I think yes, it is hard for the team that is so used to be working together, to then have to find new solutions. We found that a bunch more meetings were needed, and that information that, previously found its way to people in the office organically, needed more structural methods of communication. This is also I think were the answer lies in making it work. By offering some moments of structure in an otherwise very free work environment.
Appreciate it, and like I said, it’s a sort of open, general question that I don’t expect too much work to be used in answering. I consider any and all answers to be a gift.

I’m very grateful for these suggestions (like I said, this is a gift). I’ve considered setting up a separate account for work from home, but I never did it because it seemed like the sort of “filler” advice on a listicle. Hearing that even small separations like that helped you is a good enough reason for me to try it.

I’d never thought about an artificial commute to physically divide my work from the rest of my life. Huh. You may have just solved a long term problem I’ve had with understanding when work begins/ends in my body. Thank you for that.
 
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Umm thanks for letting us take a peak at the team. Really would rather have a proper update about what is the small patch going to be for this year. What is the next expansion pack going to be etc...

Really wish you guys would address the war system in the game and not make statements like the war system is not a focus point of the game. You can focus on both war systems and rpg systems. Actually this time period works perfectly for that if you ask me.

Love the game, keep up the hard work. A little crunch never hurts, would be great if you could produce more content.

Take care!
 
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