Black Forge Jam

[PDX-Trinexx]

Hello everyone!
Back in December of 2023, halls of Studio Black buzzed with an exciting flurry of activity for the team’s inaugural Black Forge Jam: a three-day extravaganza of creativity and innovation, with just a dash of chaos. This wasn't your average development sprint. We threw the rulebook out the window (figuratively speaking, of course) to dive into the realms of "What if?" and "Why not?" for Crusader Kings III.

A Dive into Uncharted Waters
Imagine a space where time, budget, and the usual game plan constraints are sidelined, allowing for pure, unadulterated creativity. That's what the Black Forge Jam was all about. With 11 different projects on the table, different groups from the CK3 Dev team embarked on a journey to explore the unexplored and build the unbuilt, all fueled by a passion for innovation and perhaps a copious amount of caffeine.

Take a look behind the scenes of the Black Forge Jam:

What If…?
While the team experimented with 11 different projects during the event, these 5 ideas stood out after the work was done.

• Medieval Menagerie: Envision a court where your royal advisors are joined by loyal pets, each bringing a unique flair and emotional depth to your reign. This project focused on incorporating pets into the game, understanding the emotional impact they have on players, and exploring how to enhance that aspect of gameplay.

• Immersive Barks: Picture interacting with your subjects and hearing their whispered allegiances and concerns, enriching the tapestry of your kingdom's story without a single voice actor. Inspired by real-time strategy games, this project aimed to add small textual feedback from characters when players interact with them, enhancing the immersion and interaction.

• Death and Succession Dynamics: Delve into the complexities of royal lineage where death and succession are more than mere formalities but pivotal moments that can shape the destiny of your dynasty. This project aimed at making the death and succession process more interesting and giving players more choice in who they continue as, addressing scenarios where a player’s favorite character is not their heir.

• Karnöffel: Discover the joy and strategy of integrating Europe’s oldest known trick-taking card game, offering a new layer of historical immersion and leisure within your court.

• Intrigue Warfare: Imagine a realm where the dark art of intrigue directly influences the battlefield, allowing for more nuanced and strategic warfare decisions. This project aimed to better integrate the Intrigue system with warfare by creating new ways to use hooks on opposing commanders or knights and to interact with mercenaries.

The above projects represent the broad spectrum of creativity and innovation that our team poured their hearts into. But it didn’t stop there; ideas flowed, code was written, and the foundations for potential future expansions to Crusader Kings III were laid, so we’re just as excited as you to see what the future brings!


The Spirit of the Forge
What truly stood out wasn't just the projects themselves but the incredible energy and dedication of the CK3 team. There was laughter, challenges, and yes, the occasional cry of despair over a stubborn piece of code. But above all, there was an undeniable sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. The jam wasn't about delivering polished, finished products but about embracing the beauty of imperfection and the thrill of exploration.

Now It’s Your Turn
This jam was a testament to our commitment not just to Crusader Kings III but to you, our amazing community. Your enthusiasm, feedback, and support fuel our creative fires and guide our ventures into new territories. So, we're turning the spotlight over to you now. We've shared a glimpse into our world of creation and innovation—now tell us, what captured your imagination? Which of these projects would you love to see come to life in the game? Your insights, dreams, and wishes are what help shape the future of Crusader Kings III, so drop your thoughts on the projects worked on during the Black Forge Jam below!

 

[Pelthis]

Ok. I won't be objective, but anything which allows me to pet good bois is a big win in my book.

 

[oreopirate]

All. But if I had to choose...
1. Death and succession.
2. Intrigue warfare
3. medeval Menagerie
4. Immerseive Barks
5. Kernoffel

2,3 and 4 are basically tied for me. Like decimal points separating them. All 5 still sound good.
Cultural minorities would definitely be 2 if it were on that original list, making 2,3,4 and 5 separated by decimal points. With all six being desired.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Death and Succession Dynamics

Please, please, please for the love of god make succession something other than having to conquer an entire continent to satisfy partition requirements. Its boring and tedious and limits less aggressive play styles and makes the game less interesting overall. I was doing a couple of test games before LoD to see if I could find some interesting starts/locations and I actually became interested in providing an inheritance for me all my heirs when I only had two or three. That's because I can actually raise and educate all of them and then they become more that just code and pixels to me. That is the problem with the player having so many children, they just become pointless AI characters because you don't have any substantive interactions with them. If the game wants me to care about all of my heirs then there needs to be fewer of them and I need substantive interactions with them beyond naming them, assigning an educator, and marrying them off.

Intrigue Warfare

I pretty much never use the intrigue lifestyle so this is massive no for me. Using hooks to effect the outcome of battles sounds awful. Also, this feels way more appropriate for HoI4 rather than CK3. I'm curious if there is a historical inspiration for this beyond someone occasionally sneaking into a castle during a siege or something similar.

Immersive Barks

As long it doesn't make the characters look worse because I feel like every major update since Royal Court has had the excellent and wonderful character models from when the game launched look slightly worse and now they feel more like action figures than living characters and these changes are usually in tandem with some new kind of character interaction or focus (courts, activities).

Karnöffel

I would prefer to not have a card mini-game in CK3, especially since board games are literally just rock paper scissors.

Medieval Menagerie

Sure, why not.

 

[Flockingbird]

Like oreopirate, Death and Succession Dynamics & Intrigue Warfare are my top two from the Black Forge Jam list above.

One of the things I want as much or more than that is an expansion of the Council mechanics, so that as one of my liege’s councilors, I can take actions on their behalf—or to their detriment. As spymaster, give me my little sparrows and let me spy; give me the tools to try to destroy an enemy’s reputation. Let me coordinate with my fellow councilors to achieve our ends—or fight with them for supremacy within the council and influence with our liege. And as liege, I’ll have to use the tools you give me to get my councilors to do what I want, while some of them fight me tooth and nail.

P.S. Regarding Medieval Menagerie: back around December or so, we had a new poster who asked for exactly what you’ve described (and got laughed at)—did y’all see that post? It wasn’t one of you devs trolling the forum, was it? (I’ll try to find that post when I have time to search.)

 

[WeeLittleSpoon]

All sound cool, more use for hooks would always be appreciated and more control over succession would be wonderful, but holy crap, immersive barks? What an idea with potential. Also, based on that video, I think Jason might have died for it, so you basically have to put them in.

 

[oreopirate]

I pretty much never use the intrigue lifestyle so this is massive no for me. Using hooks to effect the outcome of battles sounds awful. Also, this feels way more appropriate for HoI4 rather than CK3. I'm curious if there is a historical inspiration for this beyond someone occasionally sneaking into a castle during a siege or something similar.

I think the inspo for this are the multiple cases where vassals and army commander turned on their leige mid war, or withheld their forces from battle, or leaked battle plans to the enemy.

 

[PDS_Noodle]

P.S. Regarding Medieval Menagerie: back around December or so, we had a new poster who asked for exactly what you’ve described (and got laughed at)—did y’all see that post? It wasn’t one of you devs trolling the forum, was it? (I’ll try to find that post when I have time to search.)

Haha, not quite. I think I briefly mentioned in the video that whilst the Menagerie in this format was put forward by me, the idea behind expanding the role of pets has been rife since before release really.

Most community comments have been stuff like "pls let me put them in the court room!" which is of course a great idea, but the Menagerie project deliberately aimed a lot higher than that. We always set out to make them actually matter to the player rather than just represent them visually, cool though the latter is on its own. Suffice to say we did a little bit more with it than we've fully shown with the video.

 

[riadach]

Haha, not quite. I think I briefly mentioned in the video that whilst the Menagerie in this format was put forward by me, the idea behind expanding the role of pets has been rife since before release really. Most community comments have been stuff like "pls let me put them in the court room!" which is of course a great idea, but the Menagerie project deliberately aimed a lot higher than that. We always set out to make them actually matter to the player rather than just represent them visually, cool though the latter is on its own.

Don't forget the horsies. I always get annoyed when I'm told I have a warhorse yet cannot see him/her. Especially now that we use horses to travel on tours etc.

 

[X_FloW]

Immersive Barks + Death and Succession Dynamics are something I'd love to see in the game.

Intrigue Warfare comes second.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I think the inspo for this are the multiple cases where vassals and army commander turned on their leige mid war, or withheld their forces from battle, or leaked battle plans to the enemy.

That usually doesn't have anything to do with intrigue though usually because of some kind of conflict between liege and vassals. Its a little outside of the game's time period but Charles of Bourbon sided with the HRE in one of the Italian Wars against his liege, Francis I of France, because Francis denied him some of his inheritance, not because the Emperor bribed him or something.

 

[PDS_Noodle]

Don't forget the horsies. I always get annoyed when I'm told I have a warhorse yet cannot see him/her. Especially now that we use horses to travel on tours etc.

That was actually one of our stated goals, to make any system we have at least somewhat expandable. For all those non-modders out there, the current process of adding new pets - insofar as the idea of a new pet really exists in CK3 as it stands, given they're essentially just story cycles with unique modifiers - is finicky and pretty high-effort, and contained entirely within script. Some of the behind the scenes coding gubbins we did in those three days essentially converted the system over to code which inherently makes it a lot more scaleable.

So yeah, can't promise horses by any means, but the work we've done means that ideally should we ever want to go down the road of implementing this system, adding other animals like horses would be a lot easier than it currently is.

 

[PDXOxycoon]

I want to continue on the Minorities project. Make sure to let @PDX-Trinexx know how much you all want it, so @Wokeg and I can get the resources to see it realised!

 

[PDS_Noodle]

I want to continue on the Minorities project. Make sure to let Trinexx know how much you all want it, so @Wokeg and I can get the resources to see it realised!

Also do this for Menagerie but accompany it with pictures of your pets so they're more attention-grabbing and thus will be seen more often by everyone, thus naturally biasing him towards vouching for it.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I want to continue on the Minorities project.

What is it? Its not in the post.

 

[Wokeg]

It's in the video.

 

[MajorBandgeek]

Lovely video you all put together! Glad to see the team get to be really creative.

As per the top 5 contenders I'll rank them and give my thoughts!

1. Death and Succession Dynamics
Yes please! Mods like Inherichance and Succession Expanded are so pivotal to my enjoyment of the game. Being able to carve up the realm, deciding which child get what and how they will react to the fallout is so much of what the "fantasy" of a medieval simulation game is to me. In the gamejam video you showed a screen where you could play as your cousin, your uncle and others so not necessarily direct heirs which is huge, landing family would matter so much more, houses could be actual rivals in the players' hand etc. etc. I also love the touch you had of showing the relative difficulty of each start. If landless gameplay in Roads to Power ends up being a core feature, I'd love to even "drop" the present ruler and become one of their children, vying for inheritance, scheming, plotting, trying to prove my worth to be deserving of land even if I'm the third child. Succession crises over legitimacy are so much of what this time period is, if you had to choose one, let it be this.

2. Intrigue Warfare
This one is interesting in the sense that I don't necessarily think I want it as-is and a standalone addition. While the concept is cool, and would make war more engaging, I think it should be incorporated into a larger warfare overhaul that makes campaigning more important. I'd love not just "intrigue warfare" but all traits to have their own way they can "hook" into warfare. Let generals debate over strategy, intrigue characters might try to lure people into ambushes, and poach opposing soldiers but an architect character might know better weak points in a castle, or a learning focused character will be able to study more maps/be able to restrategize after losing. Make warfare far more of a push/pull of personalities rather than sending troops over and around to xyz province to battle with the opposing side. If this was properly expanded I think it'd be a breath of fresh air in the game and make warfare truly something innovative.

3. Immersive Barks
This one needs a name change, it sounds like a subset of the medieval menagerie idea where you added barking sound effects when your character has a dog. No voices I agree would be paramount to the success of this feature, but after I actually heard the explanation in the video I actually like the idea. I'm not presently in love with the generative content we have in ck3, I find legends to be sadly really stilted, but there's a certain amount of charm to this concept. It feels like a lightweight addition that would make me remember characters more which I do appreciate. I'm neutral trending towards good on this one, and is the most improved from initial pitch to thinking about what it'd actually add.

4. Medieval Menagerie
This one is something that is cute and would be nice, but feels like it would be an addition with little actual benefit when there's so many other important changes that could be made. Sure, I'd love to be able to pet the dog, but the present system works perfectly find being theatre of the mind and I don't know what this would add that would be better than what I can imagine my character doing. There's something to be said of adding events like gifting a king an elephant or something, but I already don't love the way 3d characters look, and while the team will certainly make cute artwork, I'd rather you add another disease or plague frankly.

5. Karnöffel
I want to reward this one for being truly unique and out of the box, and I absolutely love the art we saw of it. My issue however is that I think I'd much rather have an expansion whose aesthetics came from the cards and artwork rather than being able to physically play the game. Board games presently are a fine-ish addition, but the act of playing the game I can't see in any way would really enhance my enjoyment or immersion. This feels like we should instead have a graphic of our courtiers playing the game in the Royal Court rather than an actual thing I do. I'd much rather make politicking in my court a more active form of gameplay than a cordoned off game. While I'm glad we got to see such creativity, this is the lowest priority for me personally.

Honorable Mention: Cultural Minorities
OMG PLEASE. WHATEVER WOKEG WANTS GIVE HIM TRIPLE. I may be biased, but so much of ck3 would benefit from really letting the vast majority of people of the period, the peasants, actually be represented and have impact on the game.

All in all I'm really glad that the team got to push boundaries and this exercise seems really good for dusting off cobwebs that may be lurking in the development process. I love CK3 and am glad the team does too! All of the ideas are exciting, though I think I've shown where my preferences lie.

 

[oreopirate]

That usually doesn't have anything to do with intrigue though usually because of some kind of conflict between liege and vassals. Its a little outside of the game's time period but Charles of Bourbon sided with the HRE in one of the Italian Wars against his liege, Francis I of France, because Francis denied him some of his inheritance, not because the Emperor bribed him or something.

Thorkell the Tall was a commander for Sweyn Forkbeard who defected to the Anglo-Saxons and fought against his former king at London Bridge.

 

[UberEpicZach]

I would really wish for an update that can combine a few of this mini-pitches, combining 3 of them, I think a 'Paws, Plots and Peoples' Update could be super fun to have in the game, Taking the Medieval Menagerie ideas, the Intrigue Warfare Idea and the Cultural Minority idea by Wokeg and Oxy, I'd say it'd be a generally "fun" update.
+ Give Nick, Oxy and Wokeg whatever they want generally pls, thank you

 

[47pik]

Death and Succession Dynamics: Delve into the complexities of royal lineage where death and succession are more than mere formalities but pivotal moments that can shape the destiny of your dynasty. This project aimed at making the death and succession process more interesting and giving players more choice in who they continue as, addressing scenarios where a player’s favorite character is not their heir.

This. This. This. We need this.

Succession crises. Playing as the non-primary heir. All that. I don’t want more control over who the heir is, but I do want inheritance to be more dynamic and chaotic.