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CK2 Dev Diary #32: Intriguing quality of life changes

Good afternoon. I’m Magne Skjæran, and you might remember me from my modding and optimization dev diary at the end of summer. My last day at Paradox was a few days after that, but since I had a great time working there this summer, I returned to the CK2 team about a month ago to work on the game part-time.
Today I will be covering a topic that’s been briefly mentioned earlier in the Easing Executions dev diary: quality of life changes in regards to the intrigue screen and plotting.

While the image shown in that dev diary was a mockup, the planned changes have now been implemented. However, the actual art isn’t done yet, so most images in this dev diary are touched up based on mockups rather than showing my programmer art. There is after all a reason I work as a programmer rather than an artist.

So let’s go through all the changes we’ve made to the Intrigue screen in detail:
upload_2016-11-28_14-56-40.png

I’ve numbered the changed aspects.

First, at #1, we’ve got the new decisions menu. It now shows 6 decisions at once rather than the old 4, making it easier to find what you’re looking for.

At #2, you can see that each decision now has a button allowing you to mark it as important or not important, thus allowing you to control which decisions you get alerts for. Marking a decision as important will change the background to gold, enable alerts, and move it to the top of the list. The last bit only happens once you exit and return to the decisions screen, since decisions jumping around when you click on them would be rather annoying.

#3 is a button allowing you to reset the priority settings to default.
What decisions are important is saved across campaigns, so you won’t have to mark decisions as important or not important every single game.

Further, at #4, we have a new tab: My Plots. This mostly just moves the plot functionality out of the way to give more space to the decisions list, but it does have one new addition: you can now clearly see who the target of each backed plot is, shown at #5.

Next, let’s go to the Prisoners screen:
upload_2016-11-28_14-59-28.png

At #1, 2, and 3 you can see the new prisoner mass actions. These allow you to release, ransom, or execute all prisoners currently shown on the screen, except those that have been marked as locked using the button you see at #4.

Further, prisoners can now be filtered by the eight different criteria you see at and below #6. This can then of course be reset back to being unfiltered using the button at #5.
A minor change is that this tab now fits 6 prisoners at once rather than 5.

When using the mass actions you’ll be asked to confirm and told about the ramifications of your actions:
upload_2016-11-28_14-57-29.png

This ensures you’re never caught unawares by tyranny or similar.

Next up, Known Plots:
upload_2016-11-28_14-58-2.png

Here there’s two new additions. At #1, we’ve got a new button that lets you ask the plotter to end their plot, saving you a few clicks.

At #2 we’ve got a new feature: if you know about a plot and you’re in the group of people that’s possible to invite, you can ask to join. The AI will always accept this, while if you’re playing multiplayer the other player can refuse if they want to.

The “auto stop plots” button has also been moved to only show up within this tab.
As to the Threats tab there’s nothing new there except for six threats being shown at once rather than five.

That’s it for the Intrigue screen, but we still have a couple of tidbits related to plotting left.
upload_2016-11-28_14-58-36.png

When invited to a plot you’ll now be able to see who the target is, saving you from having to use the character or title finder in order to figure it out.

Finally, when a plotter tries and fails to kill your spymaster due to them discovering their plot, you now have the option to keep the plot a secret, which is ideal for cases where you would rather join the plot than expose it.

That sums up all the changes we’ve made to make the intrigue aspects of the game simpler to interact with, and providing you the information you need to make decisions. Hopefully you’ve found this dev diary as intriguing to read as it was to write!
 
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Cool ;)
 
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Awesome, mass decisions are a primary quality-of-life issue for me and thanks for adding a ton.
 
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Here there’s two new additions. At #1, we’ve got a new button that lets you ask the plotter to end their plot, saving you a few clicks.
Is it just me or does the placement of this button and the button for asking to join the plot mean there will be a lot of misclicks?
 
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I must admit when I heard there were improvements I was expecting something nice but not this awesome. Basically all issues were addressed and the usual suggestions were included.
Would it be possible to have an extra option in the mass action filter for including/excluding members of your dynasty, so you won't accidentally get yourself the kinslayer trait?
Considering the character finder I imagine Great House has something in that regard.
 
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Wow, that's a very impressive interface rehaul. If the new DLC mades with intrigue and plots what Reaper's Due has done with epydemics and so... it'll be very, very welcomed.
 
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Excelent changes, I've especially always wanted the individual plot joining buttons.

But how will the mass prisoner options handle prisoners from the same liege?

That's something I've been wondering, has the game been updated to enable the AI to handle multiple diplomatic requests at the same time?

Or are these UI level improvements that are going to hiccup when attempting to perform multiple actions all with one liege?

Also will the decisions importance button actually disable / enable the decisions from being used?
 
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But how will the mass prisoner options handle prisoners from the same liege?
That's something I've been wondering, has the game been updated to enable the AI to handle multiple diplomatic requests at the same time?
Or are these UI level improvements that are going to hiccup when attempting to perform multiple actions all with one liege?
Also will the decisions importance button actually disable / enable the decisions from being used?

It'll probably form a queue.
 
Any chance for some filters for known plots? Especially as a large realm, it can be agonizing to find plots against members of your dynasty, for example, among 100+ plots.

Great stuff, as usual.
 
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At #2, you can see that each decision now has a button allowing you to mark it as important or not important, thus allowing you to control which decisions you get alerts for. Marking a decision as important will change the background to gold, enable alerts, and move it to the top of the list.

Finally! This is one of those little improvements you didn't know you, as such, needed but once you try them out (in EUIV) you just can't play without.
 
So you're telling me now I can not only jail my political opponents, disarm them through marriage, provoke them into revolt and strip their titles, intrigue focus kill/kidnap them and plot their death but also volunteer to back plots of THEIR enemies against them?

Medieval secret police state, say hello to your absolutist god emperor!
 
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Glad to see those quality of life improvements, anything to make the game run more elegantly.

No sign of the new portraits this DD, will keep an eye out for them next week. Duke of Bohemia seems to be using the standard portraits, which make it seem likely that we won't be getting a Western Slavic pack. (Or at least, that it's not ready yet)
 
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I see some interesting icon after religion tab. Gut, gut.
 
Is it just me or does the placement of this button and the button for asking to join the plot mean there will be a lot of misclicks?
It'll bring you to the diplomacy page, so it is rather unlikely you'll end up doing something you don't want to.
Also note that the art and layout isn't final.
Would it be possible to have an extra option in the mass action filter for including/excluding members of your dynasty, so you won't accidentally get yourself the kinslayer trait?
Great House lets you select your dynasty, though not currently the inverse. I'll note it down as something that would be a good idea to do.
No promises that it'll get done though.
But how will the mass prisoner options handle prisoners from the same liege?
For execution and releasing, it doesn't matter, since those interactions don't care who the character's liege is.
For ransom, it'll ransom the first eligible character on the list for each liege.
Also will the decisions importance button actually disable / enable the decisions from being used?
They simply affect the alerts and the decision list sorting. You can still use a decision you've marked as "not important".
 
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