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Hi again!
Last week I asked about what you wanted to see in future Dev Diaries and I’ll answer one of the questions you asked in this week’s DD. What would I like to add/change in CK2?
I’ll start off telling you what I like with CK2.
What sets CK2 apart from me are the numerous stories it produces. When I play it at work (yeah, that’s something I try to do when I’m not too stressed out), I often feel the urge to tell people on the team what happened to my characters. Like when I’ve sent out my first born son to join the Varangian guard and he comes back a homosexual and suddenly I’m playing a Norse Viking, the King of Sweden who has a lover bodyguard. There are very few computer games that allow for that gaming experience.
The other component that I think makes most PDS games fantastic is multiplayer. Sure it’s not the smoothest multiplayer experience you can have, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Just the scope of battling through hours and hours of gameplay, forming and breaking alliances, planning, plotting, make it fantastic, be it in Sengoku, March of the Eagles, Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. CK2 adds the personal touch and story building upon that. In our current office multiplayer, we had one player seducing two popes (pope and antipope), giving them and another player the lover’s pox while another player became emperor of the HRE (we were all playing inside it). The new emperor was unfit to rule and soon we had revolts eating us up from the inside and France wanting a piece of the cake from the outside. A faction to remove our emperor formed and soon Magnus ‘the cruel’ was no longer the emperor and I got the opportunity (read punishment) of trying to bring order to the realm. I struggled for a couple of months, trying to patch together something resembling an army of what was left and slowly beating back some of our enemies. Magnus ‘the cruel’ had other plans though and managed to ambush and capture me during my travels. I was immediately beheaded and a new emperor rose to the throne. Several years later we managed to catch and kill Magnus and restore order to the empire. About the same time Dirk ‘the devil’, a former rebel of the empire, became our new emperor.
To me this is great entertainment. It’s more than just the game.
What I really want more of in CK is stuff that make our characters more important and more alive. I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government, I just want more interesting characters and more ways to interact with them and for them to interact with you. As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.

A little teaser info that will be discussed more in future DDs.

dd3.jpg
 
I was hoping for more information about Pacts.
 
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Hmmm there is a white flag wonder what that means? Shattered?
 
Well, these white flags reminded me of that system in eu4, when they retreat to some province and you cant beat them until then.
That + pacts bring me to a thought of a war overhaul.
 
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Maybe something similar to the retreat system from EUIV? I don't care that much what exactly it is, but they seem to change combat somehow. That sounds great! :D

And I also like the direction how Birken wants to develop the game into. Individual interesting stories are the biggest strenght of CK2 and should totally be more focused on.
 
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if that is shattered retreat, that is interesting, I don't think many people liked shattered retreat in EU4 at least not until they added the new fort system which really helped that system, it is certainly better than the old CK2 ping pong but personally I'm hoping you came up with something more than just shattered retreat
 
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Hi again!
Last week I asked about what you wanted to see in future Dev Diaries and I’ll answer one of the questions you asked in this week’s DD. What would I like to add/change in CK2?
I’ll start off telling you what I like with CK2.
What sets CK2 apart from me are the numerous stories it produces. When I play it at work (yeah, that’s something I try to do when I’m not too stressed out), I often feel the urge to tell people on the team what happened to my characters. Like when I’ve sent out my first born son to join the Varangian guard and he comes back a homosexual and suddenly I’m playing a Norse Viking, the King of Sweden who has a lover bodyguard. There are very few computer games that allow for that gaming experience.
The other component that I think makes most PDS games fantastic is multiplayer. Sure it’s not the smoothest multiplayer experience you can have, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Just the scope of battling through hours and hours of gameplay, forming and breaking alliances, planning, plotting, make it fantastic, be it in Sengoku, March of the Eagles, Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. CK2 adds the personal touch and story building upon that. In our current office multiplayer, we had one player seducing two popes (pope and antipope), giving them and another player the lover’s pox while another player became emperor of the HRE (we were all playing inside it). The new emperor was unfit to rule and soon we had revolts eating us up from the inside and France wanting a piece of the cake from the outside. A faction to remove our emperor formed and soon Magnus ‘the cruel’ was no longer the emperor and I got the opportunity (read punishment) of trying to bring order to the realm. I struggled for a couple of months, trying to patch together something resembling an army of what was left and slowly beating back some of our enemies. Magnus ‘the cruel’ had other plans though and managed to ambush and capture me during my travels. I was immediately beheaded and a new emperor rose to the throne. Several years later we managed to catch and kill Magnus and restore order to the empire. About the same time Dirk ‘the devil’, a former rebel of the empire, became our new emperor.
To me this is great entertainment. It’s more than just the game.
What I really want more of in CK is stuff that make our characters more important and more alive. I don’t feel strongly for any particular part of the map, religion or government, I just want more interesting characters and more ways to interact with them and for them to interact with you. As a project lead I also have a burning desire to focus on quality making sure we deliver bug free product with great performance. Those are difficult goals for a game that was ambitious to start with and then has been extended for over 2½ years.

A little teaser info that will be discussed more in future DDs.

View attachment 139924

I love the small stories too but I think a lot of people want to hear about macro level stuff, particularly map and government level balances (Flanders, Nomad/Iqta Stability, Charlie never forming the HRE)

Because I would love to play as a Robert the strong and get the most out of the flavor events but the fact that as of right now things go sideways unless you play as Charlie or in 1200 start dates really at least for me narrows the ammount of interesting start dates/pace of play.
 
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if that is shattered retreat, that is interesting, I don't think many people liked shattered retreat in EU4 at least not until they added the new fort system which really helped that system, it is certainly better than the old CK2 ping pong but personally I'm hoping you came up with something more than just shattered retreat

If it makes chasing down rebels less tedious its a good quality of life improvement.
 
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I was hoping for more information about Pacts.

They have stated that they would not go into new patch or DLC features in the first few dev diaries, so I don't want to sound disrespectful, but your 'hope' seems to have been unwarranted to begin with.

If it makes chasing down rebels less tedious its a good quality of life improvement.

I did not know the retreat mechanic of EUIV was known as 'shattered retreat' (yet I do know the mechanic, as I do play EUIV) before I read it here (if I understand it correctly), but I wonder: how would such a mechanic make chasing down rebels less tedious?
 
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They have stated that they would not go into new patch or DLC features in the first few dev diaries, so I don't want to sound disrespectful, but your 'hope' seems to have been unwarranted to begin with.



I did not know the retreat mechanic of EUIV was known as 'shattered retreat' (yet I do know the mechanic, as I do play EUIV) before I read it here (if I understand it correctly), but I wonder: how would such a mechanic make chasing down rebels less tedious?

Hopefully they will stop running away with inhuman percision after you have broken their morale.
 
They have stated that they would not go into new patch or DLC features in the first few dev diaries, so I don't want to sound disrespectful, but your 'hope' seems to have been unwarranted to begin with.



I did not know the retreat mechanic of EUIV was known as 'shattered retreat' (yet I do know the mechanic, as I do play EUIV) before I read it here (if I understand it correctly), but I wonder: how would such a mechanic make chasing down rebels less tedious?

In EUIV the vast majority of rebels are wiped in one battle.
 
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