CK2 Developer Diary #11: The End of Days

[Darkrenown]

Hello all, once again I am here to tell you about the horrors wonders of <Secret DLC>! Today the subject is our new narrative events. We have added two new chains of events, the first being the titular End of Days chain(s).

The concept behind the EoD events are that your people have become scared and uncertain in the wake of Plagues and this has given rise to various doomsayers and general unrest. Possible results of this include:

• The rise of a Prophet of Doom, who is convinced the world will end if they do not overthrow your rule.
  
  
• A general belief that the dead have returned to walk the earth and attack the living.
  
  
• Panic based on a solar eclipse, which is surely the herald of the End Times.

These events are somewhat rare, and each possible doom has several ways to resolve it, for better or for worse, so we hope you will find them rather interesting should they appear.

The other chain we have added is The quest for Eternal Life. Much as I encouraged you to do in an earlier DD, characters in CK may find themselves contemplating their mortality, and as rulers of realms they have rather more resources available to them than you or I. The quest for Eternal Life is long, dangerous, and prone to failure, but when the possible reward is the ability to defy Death… well, you can see why people may undertake it anyway.

That’s all for now, next week I will go into detail about our new Maimed traits.

 

[Darkrenown]

...I remember that one of the earlier DDs- the one with the options- had the ability to turn off certain events. I imagine the fantasy resolutions of these chains would be among them?

Eternal life chain is disabled if fantasy events are off.

What a boring dd

Beats your post anyway

 

[Darkrenown]

OK

 

[Darkrenown]

I do like the 'peasants getting swayed by rumours and superstition and taking drastic action' - kind of like a medieval version of electing Donald Trump?

Come now, we're making a fairly dark DLC, but it's not that bad!

 

[Darkrenown]

Now we know what that lemniscate trait was for at least.

Please don't make the quest for immortality a weiner bearer only endeavor. I'm asking cuz the resurrection chain is so I'm really hoping this isn't. Also does this only trigger when you're kinda old already? Eternally beautiful witch empress of the world anyone?

Eternal life don't care about what's in your pants. As an aside, we were fairly inclusive with stuff in general for this patch, partly because why not and partly because you can set the equality game rule.

Somehow I feel that this DD took it too far - I know that some people seek a historical and accurate play, I do myself, and some love playing fantasy mods and Aztec or Alien Invasion. So I hope this doesn't combine the two too much. I really don't want someone to be "eternal", I remember the eternity-symbol in the last DD, so I fear this becomes a mix of realism and fantasy!

Do remember the new game rules and the ability to turn off fantasy events in them. Although even if you leave them on, it's a rare event and you have the option to just chill with your Savary-equivalent instead.

 

[Darkrenown]

0/10, no mention of comets.

We have comets already in CK, they are good though!

So, any chance monsters and other fantasy creatures get to be in the DLC?

Nope.

 

[Darkrenown]

Will you also make a pass on old events with this new feature in mind? On top of considering it right away for new ones.

Yes. Various laws, titles etc got a look too. Of course there's a lot of places so I doubt we got them all, but work has certainly begun.

Okay, hold up
I'm here to ask the million dollar question
If you become immortal, and convert your save to EU4, do you stay immortal?

Not at the moment, I will poke DDRjake about it though

 

[SolSara]

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think there was such thing as zombie beliefs in medieval times.. this is fairly modern concept. :/

There has been lots of myths regarding walking dead, which is not necessarily zombies. Take draugr for example, which the vikings believed to be drowned dead, or revenants, about which stories arose from Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

 

[Darkrenown]

One thing I'd like to ask:

With this focus on the death mechanics in the upcoming DLC, will there also be different burial rites? Something like burning of the black death victims to prevent them rising from their graves (or at least to pacify the rumors)?

Btw, I really like the new mythical events - I think they really add lots of flavour and show how superstitious and dark the medieval life was.

Not as a general system, but things like mass graves vs burning the dead are referenced in places.

 

[SolSara]

- will you fix bastard acknowledgment for women rulers? It is a bit of annoying when you play as a female ruler and people with whom you sired a bastard suddenly start to acknowledge/dismiss their liege progeny. I m freaking queen of known universe why would i care if some peasant with whom i slept will acknowledge my son or not.
- medieval vampire and bible stories are not the same as modern post Romero zombie tropes.

Darkrenown did not say that it was zombies, he wrote this:

A general belief that the dead have returned to walk the earth and attack the living.

 

[Darkrenown]

I find it great the the devs put effort into a weakly DD but I am personally more interested in DD about the upcoming patch.
Are there news about the Alliance system? Will there be any changes do threat/DP other than switch it off? I like the most mechanic but I am curious if there is some effort to better balance those new features that 2.5 brought us?

Patch talk will come closer to the time, but there's not much else happening with Threat etc. as far as I recall.

 

[Darkrenown]

Yes.

 

[DDRJake]

@DDRJake goes: Sure, we will add immortal monarchs. No problem, CK2 team! Naturally, they will get 0 0 0 in monarch stats since they are undead and all.

Forum clairvoyance really shocks me sometimes.

 

[Darkrenown]

I am looking forward to it.

That's sad to hear. Some new features could use some polish and tweaking.

Certainly. I keep an eye on the community issues OP, for example. If you have specific thread balance ideas, make a thread and I can look at it.

I played with immortal characters before and the long reign opinion modifier makes the game easier on the long run. Is there going to be some counter to that?

Yes.

I disagree that they're out of ideas and I like the illness enhancements.... but I do agree that there seems to be a deliberate effort to add enhancements that support the Game of Thrones mod - not a critique, just an observation.

I have never played the GoT mod. It looks amazing, but I just don't have time to try it, so anything that is helping them is a happy accident.

Do the prophets of doom emerge randomly or do they appear as a result of in game occurences such as events (famines, plagues), significant dates (1000AD) or actions of the king?

I know in Ireland it was generallu believed that famine or pestilence meant the king was unfavoured. But it was also deemed to be the case if the king was maimed or blinded. Such an unfavoured king or góflath could be rightfully deposed.

Will the prophet depose you in favour of himself or of another more qualified candidate?

A prophet may emerge after a plague outbreak, and he/she may put their self in your place but there are a couple of outcomes.

Of course, many rulers did in fact pursue eternal life. The player would never do so if they thought it would always end in failure.

Exactly. There are some good ways to fail the quest too though.

All this DD has shown me is that people are so eager to jump on the negative train that they'll ignore the words on the page and interpret their own meaning. Looks grand, its coming together well. It baffles me how people can complain that totally optional content is not to their taste.

Indeed, some knees have been jerking pretty hard here.

- satan whispering in your ears only when you are "possessed" aka schizophrenic. So like alot of other "supernatural" events it could be reasonably explained as people misinterpreting things they otherwise dont understand. As for now here are only two events that have only supernatural explanation - Old Gods seraphim ( that have zero influence on a gameplay and serves as a comedic relief/reference to Indiana Jones ) and SoA antichrist ( which is terrible ).
Do not misconstrue what people mean.

It's weird that you can process that far but then just assume "OMG REAL ZOMBIES!" when I specifically wrote that the event was about a belief the dead were rising and the event text refers to rumors. I further pointed point that the "living dead" event is not disabled by the fantasy toggle, which might have been it hint that it does not contain fantasy content. Apparently we can't have nice things though, so I'll spell out that the events are actually about people being afraid of and panicking about the sick people fleeing the plague and deal with you as the ruler either pandering to the fears of the mob and driving them off, or taking them in and caring for them.

This reminds me: If we can't have a bear DLC...

... Can we atleast have a bear-hug DLC?

Great post/username combo! I still hope to add my bears at some point...

no he can still die off assasinations plots events and other stuff. just no longer from age.
Same stuff as immortal trait/edits he just doesn´t age anymore. neither in portrait or suffer health decrease.

But doesn´t mean in battle he is immortal

This is true.

At the very least they should fix crusade targeting.

You mean the weights on the titles? Why do you assume we haven't?

So I was right! One of those new symbols was for an immortal!

10 points to Karthos!

Can you get this reward if you contracted leprosy? Or if you are a horse?

I don't see why not!

Will the AI have access to the Immortality events?

No.

I don't get the idea behind not announcing the DLC title. This is the eleventh DD. Hype has turned to annoyance at this point.

Believe me, I know!

My hype died the second they put 'Get sick and die' as a legitimate dev diary title. At this point, I'd be happy if they fixed the horse archer bug.

That was a rather popular DD, but sorry you didn't like it.

I'm wondering why people assume that you can ACTUALLY become immortal? Sure, get some health benefits from ingesting potions made from mystical herbs and molds which would be defying death, but immortal... And at no point did they actually say there are real zombies in the game, only that the peasants are getting riled up and starting that whole torches and pitchforks thing. I'm also fairly certain that the eclipse-event doesn't end the world.

Spoilier, none of the End of Days events actually end the world You CAN actually become immortal if everything works out though, but that's why it can be disabled with the fantasy toggle.

The picture also doesn't look particularly zombie like, diseased and sleepy sure. Undead? Noooot so much.

Yeah, it's one of our plague pictures.

 

[Darkrenown]

In what way is this Sunset invasion themed? Perhaps people disagree with you for making factually incorrect statements, or just because they have a different opinion, and not because they are "fanboys"?

 

[Darkrenown]

It is tempting now you mention it...

 

[Darkrenown]

- its even more weird when developer takes your post out of context and tries to insult their customer. Can you show me, please, where i am stated that those are real zombies? I am suggesting you to read what user to whom i responded wrote first, reading is good you know.

It is, and you replied to someone who said "Why is X ok but Y not ok" with "But X could have a reasonable explanation", which implies you think Y does not have a reasonable explanation. Perhaps that is not what you meant, but that is what you wrote.

 

[Darkrenown]

Pretty sure this DLC will be called "Death and Taxes" with all the death and the prosperity stuff.

As far as Zombies go - no - just please for the love of all the Gods, no.

Zombies, as in Romaro Zombies, were not a thing before Night of the Living Dead and really - the modern "Zombie" only came in with Dawn of the Dead, the massed shambling horde of decaying corpses - this was not a medieval fear.

That's not to say the undead were not something medieval people feared but they feared the Wild Hunt, the Lich, the Vampire - not flesh eating zombies. These Zombies are, in any case, not actually all that dangerous - the zombie apocalypse is a contrived event, the unlikeliness of which is spoofed handily by Shawn of the Dead which ends with everything more or less returning to normal.

So - if you're throwing hordes of undead at me I want them led by a Lich, or Death Himself and they'd better know how to use siege weapons!

So, Devs, if you're wondering why people will take Elder Gods but not Romaro Zombies, that's why.

*cries*

 

[Darkrenown]

- than you should learn to write better. Placing screen that mentions living dead that attack people together with quest for eternal life in one DD is rather confusing for people. It was a your mistake in the first place.

No, people are jumping to conclusions and not reading the actual information in the DD. And since you have brought it up, you write in a confusing manner yourself and seem to be incapable of acknowledging it. You are not some kind of written communications expert that needs to chime in on what other people mean.

 

[Darkrenown]

- english is not my first language, but i appreciate this ad hominem attempt of your, second attempt. At least i am, unlike you did not took comments out of context in order to ridicule person for things that was never implied in the first place.

You are literally telling me I need to learn to write better, why is that ok for you to say but an ad hom when I tell you the same? I'm telling you you have written things which made myself and others think you meant something you later claimed not to have meant, and I am asking you to stop jumping in to explain the posts of others when you are not an expert yourself. Neither of these are "attacks". Please put the victim complex aside and either post constructively or not at all.