• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

CK3 Dev Diary #1 - Dynasties & Houses

Greetings, and welcome to the first CK3 Feature Dev Diary!

As this is the first DD we want it to be extra juicy, and showcase something that we’re excited about - namely what we’re doing with Dynasties! Dynasties are immaterial yet fundamentally important things that make Crusader Kings what it is - your line must follow an unbroken line of members from your Dynasty; if your Dynasty ends, so does your game.

Now, the representation of Dynasties in CK2 was limited. A character belonged to a Dynasty, and that was that - you got a minor opinion boost with characters that were of the same one, and nothing more. In CK3, we really want to emphasize the power that Dynasties held, and their impact on the medieval world! We want you as the player to feel a bond with your Dynasty, and care for it. To achieve this, we’ve done a multitude of things!

DD2.png


Firstly something that we know will especially please CK2 players, we’ve redefined what a Dynasty actually is - not a monolithic entity, but a collection of Houses. No longer will Dynasties have just one name, one Coat of Arms, and one identity - instead several Houses (aka Cadet Branches!) will be collected under the umbrella that is the Dynasty, working together (theoretically…) towards bringing renown upon the Dynasty!

So, what is a House?
Each Dynasty will have a Founding House (usually of the same name as the Dynasty), which is the first House of that Dynasty. As the game progresses, ruling Dynasty members that are distant by blood to the current House Head (more on this below) may choose to create a Cadet Branch - effectively creating a new House under the Dynasty. Creating a Cadet Branch makes the character creating it House Head (with the most powerful House Head becoming Dynast), and by extension free from the direct influence of their old House Head.

Making your own Cadet Branch requires quite a bit of prestige, that you do not stand to inherit your House Head’s titles, and that all of your Dynastic ancestors are dead (your father can’t be alive, for example). Cadet Branches/Houses come with a lot of flavor: their own names, Coat of Arms and Mottos, usually inspired by the location in which they are founded, and the founding character. For example, if a ruler of the Jimena Dynasty would create a Cadet Branch in southern France, they might be called the Toulouse-Jimenas, and so on.

DD1.png


Now, what is a House Head or a Dynast?
Within a House there is always a leader, a House Head, that wields power over the rest of the members. A House Head has the power to legitimize bastards, call House members to war, and demand that they adhere to their Faith (refusal to convert will result in them creating a new Cadet Branch). The House Head also has inherent leverage on all House members born after they were made head, by virtue of getting a Hook on them (more on Hooks in another DD). They also gain passive prestige based upon the number of members in their House. House leadership follows the succession of the House Head, so that if you’re the leader of your House you will most likely keep that title on succession.

The Dynast, on the other hand, wields significantly more power than a House Head - with their power encompassing the members of all Houses of the entire Dynasty! The Dynast is always the most powerful House Head of a Dynasty, with leadership being updated on the death of the old Dynast. In addition to everything the House Head can do, the Dynast can also Disinherit/Restore Inheritance, Denounce/Forgive members of the Dynasty (which affects opinion in a major way), personally Claim titles held by Dynasty members, and make Dynasty members end wars they have against each other. All of these powers work against every member of the Dynasty, not just the House they’re a part of. The Dynast also gains prestige for every living member of the Dynasty. Being the Dynast is very powerful indeed, but you have to carefully weigh the powers against other benefits, as they cost Renown.

So what is Renown?
Renown is a resource accumulated by a Dynasty, and is used for several things. Firstly, all renown earned by a Dynasty counts towards its Level of Splendor. The Level of Splendor is the outward perception of the Dynasty, how well it is perceived in the eyes of the world, and affects the prestige you get on birth, the prestige when marrying into it, and the maximum long reign opinion you can get. Having a high level also makes it much easier to arrange marriages, especially with Dynasties below your level. Regardless of if Renown is spent or not, the Level of Splendor won’t decrease. The higher your Dynasty’s Level of Splendor, the more impressive its Coat of Arms frame will look. Peasant Dynasties will start at a negative Splendor level, which means that you’ll actually lose prestige for marrying them.

Renown itself is a spendable currency, representing the clout your Dynasty holds over itself. Its use is twofold; firstly it can be used for the most powerful Dynast interactions (getting claims, disinheriting, etc.) and secondly for unlocking Dynasty Legacies (more on this below).

The way you get Renown encourages you to mimic a ‘playstyle’ that was common in reality, but that wasn’t very practical in CK2 - spreading your Dynasty far and wide! You will gain renown for every ruler of your Dynasty that isn’t a subject under another member of your Dynasty. This is based on tier, which means that a King will give more Renown than a Duke, and so on. Marrying in such a way that your Dynasty ends up on the throne of a foreign realm is therefore useful for other reasons than to just murder them until you inherit their lands. Having your Dynasty spread out will give you more Renown, and thus a more powerful Dynasty overall. For example, if you’re playing as the King of England you will NOT gain renown from your landed vassal brother, but you WILL gain renown from your Dynastic cousin ruling a Duchy in the Holy Roman Empire. You will also gain renown from marrying away your dynasty to be spouses of powerful rulers, symbolizing your newfound influence in their realms. This gives you a reason to carefully plan the marriages of your kinsmen, even if you are not in need of an alliance!

So, what are Dynasty Legacies?
We all know that the playing field in Crusader Kings is a very volatile one, you might be Emperor of the World as one character, while being reduced to Count of Norfolk as the next. Dynasty Legacies offer some permanence in this otherwise very wild world, in the form of modifiers and unlocks that affect every member of your Dynasty. Essentially, by using Renown you get to shape what your Dynasty is known for. There’s a myriad of Legacies to choose from, all divided into tracks with an appropriately thematic name, such as ‘Kin’, ‘Guile’ or ‘Blood’. These aim to represent notions the world had (or has) about certain dynasties, i.e., that the Seljuks are warriors, the Abbasids lawmakers, the Habsburgs diplomats (and, ahem, prone to marrying their own kin), etc. Each Legacy track contains five unlocks, each costing a progressively higher amount of Renown to unlock.

DD3.png


In this Dev Diary we will go into details on one of these tracks, “Blood” (which also happens to be my favorite). This track is designed for those of you who enjoy breeding traits into your family line, with the first few unlocks all focusing on increasing the chance of inheritance, emergence, and reinforcement of genetic traits (more on genetic traits in another DD). The last few unlocks will reduce the chance of negative traits appearing (essentially allowing for more.. ‘risky’ marriages), give you the chance to choose a genetic trait to be more common among your kin (i.e. beautiful, intelligent and strong… but also giant or dwarf. No matter how much I pleaded with art I couldn’t get a ‘Habsburg chin’ trait, though!), and finally rounding off with an increase to your Dynasty members Life Expectancy (which increases both their average age, and average fertility - this even means that women of your dynasty remain able to bear children for longer!).

Legacies take a long time to unlock, and you will have to work hard toward unlocking even one full track - though their power more than makes up for the wait. Legacies are chosen and unlocked by the Dynast, so make sure that you’re in control of your Dynasty.

That’s all for this time! We won’t spoil any more of the Legacy tracks for now, but rest assured that they all offer very interesting opportunities for you to shape your dynasty as you would like it! Next up we have a sneak preview of the map, stay tuned for the next DD.
 
  • 11Like
  • 7Love
  • 2
Reactions:
In this Dev Diary we will go into details on one of these tracks, “Blood” (which also happens to be my favorite). This track is designed for those of you who enjoy breeding traits into your family line, with the first few unlocks all focusing on increasing the chance of inheritance, emergence, and reinforcement of genetic traits (more on genetic traits in another DD). The last few unlocks will reduce the chance of negative traits appearing (essentially allowing for more.. ‘risky’ marriages), give you the chance to choose a genetic trait to be more common among your kin (i.e. beautiful, intelligent and strong… but also giant or dwarf

Perhaps instead of affecting genetic traits, dynasty members without the genetic traits would get a chance to get an equivalent trait, e.g. brawny instead of strong, groomed instead of attractive, shrew instead of quick/genius. The idea being that the reputation of the dynasty doesn't affect the actual DNA of members, but rather inspires them to try and live up to the dynasty's reputation.

And also to keep the propagation mechanic, the chance could be increased during childhood if the parent(if child isn't in a different court than their dynastic parent) or guardian of the same dynasty has the genetic or equivalent trait.
 
Just
an idea:

How about also linking renown gain to property development?

See Count Y earns X renown for his possessions.

Duke A, Count Y's hierarchical superior, gains a% of Count Y + a's possessions.

So successively with kings and emperors, it also makes sense since the more developed the better-known place is, making counts of France or England better known than tribal lords of saxison.

Só uma ideia:

Que tal tambem ligar o ganho de renome ao desenvolvimento das propriedades?

Veja um conde Y ganha X renome devido a suas posses.

O Duque A, superior hierarquico do conde Y, ganha uma % referente as posses do conde Y + a de suas posses.

Assim sucessivamente com reis e imperadores, faz sentido também já que quanto mais desenvolvido o local mais conhecido é, fazendo com que condes da França ou Inglaterra sejam mais conhecidos que senhores tribais da saxisonia.
 
So, to you, gold is a mana system? Cause you can use gold to purchase and upgrade your holdings for the rest of the game? Same with technology points?
gold? not really. the thing about gold is that yeah, you can buy things, but you cant just click on something you wish to upgrade and then have it happen instantly. you use cash to begin building something, and then over time, the upgrades are added.

one of the things that many paradox fans hate about mana systems, is that theyre an arbitrary resource that you use to instantly upgrade stuff with little logic or merit to it. for example, in eu4 you need to use military points to force march. why? what is military points? why does force marching cost it? the explanation is right there in the name. Points. mana systems are essentially arbitrary points used to establish a system with little logic to it, and they instantly offer bonuses when used, thus reducing the game play down to nothing more than numbers.

as a reddit user named Nosferati put it:
"Mana is often a lazy solution in games because it decreases strategic choice, reduces decisions to simply "How much mana does this give/cost?" and is immersion breaking. Because it over simplifies things and reduces the game to simply collecting points."

the way gold differs in regards to this, is that its essentially the opposite of that. gold is strategic. to use an example how mana was poorly used in CK2 at one point. for a long time, tribals could sacrifice 500 prestige or so to instatly summon a pretty large amount of event spawned troops. and they could do that pretty much forever depending on how much prestige they have. as long as the war goes on, these guys will not despawn and you can add more and more forever. its as Gamey a Mana system as it comes.

in comparison, if you want to win a war, but you need to hire mercs to do it, you need to factor in how much gold you have. do you have enough to hire the best merc company? and if so for how long? sometimes you have to settle for second best, or just hire a pretty bad company for the simple reason that you dont have enough cash to hire and/or keep them in service. sometimes you gamble the mercs on one single decisive battle because the moment that battle ends, your cash runs out and you have to disband the mercs or they turn on you. theres a lot of factors here, which means that money isnt just an instant win buttom. it also helps that pretty much the entire game is based around it, and thus there isnt anything Arbitrary about it. you need to hire mercs? use money. bribe someone? use money. need better armor? use money. want to upgrade youre castle or cities/churches? use money. and so on an so on.

as for tech points? yeah thats a mana system. the tech is locked off completely until youve gotten x number of arbitrary points to spend on an upgrade that might be just away from completion on its own, or not begun at all, all instant with the push of a button.
 
Okay, fine Paradox. I'll pre-order.

Also a question that may have already come up: If I'm the last member of my House and I die, do I play as a member of a different House in the same Dynasty?
I'd like to know the answer to that as well...
 
Perhaps instead of affecting genetic traits, dynasty members without the genetic traits would get a chance to get an equivalent trait, e.g. brawny instead of strong, groomed instead of attractive, shrew instead of quick/genius. The idea being that the reputation of the dynasty doesn't affect the actual DNA of members, but rather inspires them to try and live up to the dynasty's reputation.

And also to keep the propagation mechanic, the chance could be increased during childhood if the parent(if child isn't in a different court than their dynastic parent) or guardian of the same dynasty has the genetic or equivalent trait.

That's indeed better. CK3 should, at least while there are no supernatural things involved (yet) stay clear from "magical" mechanics. So far, it's the only one I saw which doesn't make sense as a realistic simulation mechanic. I hope they will reconsider. I doubt many people would be upset if they were revised before release, whereas if there are too much uncredible mechanics, they risk alienating their historical simulationist fans.

I waited one year before buying EUIV because of national ideas. I don't want to do the same thing with CK3.
 
If you are the Dynast, and a Cadet House wants to leave your dynasty and form their own dynasty.. Are there ways to stop them?
Characters can't form a new dynasty, members of a house in a dynasty can form a new house in that same dynasty. The head of a house might want to keep other house members from getting too powerful and branching off, but there's no incentive for a Dynast to limit the power of his fellow dynasty members except for ensuring his heir inherits the Dynast position.
 
I like that there's more incentive to expand your dynasty rather than simply paint the map your respective color. Especially if you can use your position as Dynast to influence other kingdoms to do what you want them to, it could be more beneficial to have 3 or 4 large kingdoms in your dynasty than have one big empire you have to control and manage yourself.

I hope to see some game mechanics that make managing an ever-increasing empire more difficult, maybe something similar to Stellaris' Empire Sprawl mechanic.
 
I'm so glad this is the first DD! Dynasties are the best thing about CK2 and I wish more games had this concept. I also enjoy playing a "wide" play style with my Dynasty and try and spread it throughout the world, but it's true that CK2 didn't really give you much benefit minus "if something goes bad for your main family, you always have a backup" but I love that now I can get really good rewards for improving my Dynasty! I also love that I need to be careful of the other House leaders to make sure they don't usurp me in leadership for the Dynasty. I also like the legacies as I feel like it gives me goals to work towards and will encourage me to keep playing a run longer. I wonder if there will be any interactions between Dynasties (like fueds). Not necessary but it would be cool. Still super excited about the new system! Can't wait for the game already!
 
Well, now I'll finally get to see what the fuss about "Cadet branches" was all about with other CK players over the years.

BTW; if I had to be frank, when I see Renown in this DD, I think "Oh, they mana-fied the CK2 gamescore"
 
Last edited:
@PDX-Nicou

A few questions:

1.Will Pagans have access to better Coat of Arms? The CoA available to Pagans in CK2 was extremely limited; and it seemed like every 10th randomly clicked on Pagan had the same CoA..
2. Does the Dynasty have it's own succession law? Can these laws be changed by the Dynast?
3. When the Head of a House forms a new Dynasty, will the new Dynasty get to keep any traits accumulated by the Dynasty it used to belong to, or do those traits reset to zero?
4. If I start out as the head of a Cadet, can I break away to form my own dynasty?
If so, do I get a new CoA on Dynasty formation?
5. Can a Cadet house spawn a Cadet House?
If so, is the new house considered a sub Cadet? or is it considered a co-equal House under the Dynasty
6. Can the Dynast disinherit any member of the Dynasty? including Landed ones?
a. For example, if someone is already a Duke, can he/she be disinherited causing his/her children to be no longer heirs?
b. Even if a disinherited family member is not already landed, if they have children are the children also disinherited by default or are/can they still be heirs?
c. Can a disinherited member of the Dynasty form their own Dynasty in response?
d. Do disinherited family get/retain claims?
If so, can those claims be inherited?
7. Can a recognized (but not legitimized) bastard form their own Cadet?
8. Will Ruler Designer be in the base game at launch?
If so, can we designate a ruler as a cadet of an existing house; or will it have to be a new House?
If a new House is created by the Ruler Designer will it automatically be a Dynasty as well?

Even if you can't answer all of these questions, any answers you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all the hard work you and your co-workers have put into one of the best games of any era and any genre.
 
I can envision one frustrating thing that could happen with Dynasty Legacies. Spending years saving up enough renown to purchase that one trait you’ve been wanting to get, and then having AI become the Dynast on your death spending it on something that’s less than ideal.

The feature looks really fun and promising though. Great DD
I guess AI will most likely continue in investing the ongoing Legacy.
 
Now, what is a House Head or a Dynast?
Within a House there is always a leader, a House Head, that wields power over the rest of the members. A House Head has the power to legitimize bastards, call House members to war, and demand that they adhere to their Faith (refusal to convert will result in them creating a new Cadet Branch). The House Head also has inherent leverage on all House members born after they were made head, by virtue of getting a Hook on them (more on Hooks in another DD). They also gain passive prestige based upon the number of members in their House. House leadership follows the succession of the House Head, so that if you’re the leader of your House you will most likely keep that title on succession.

Will it be possible for non-house heads to petition the house head to legitimize one of their offspring (potentially for a price in gold, prestige or favours)?
 
Last edited:
I really like what cadet houses are going to do for multi-player, I'm currently on a CK2 play-through were myself and a friend are both Karlings and a dynastic system like this would be a great addition to the game, instead of each of us having separate bloodlines inherited from our previous characters we would have a shared dynastic heritage along with a house heritage unique to us, really cool stuff.

I have some reservations about the Dynast's power over the rest of the Dynasty and the Cadet houses (Disinheriting members and so on) but if implemented well with multiplayer in mind, for example the ability to decline the Dynast's demands for a penalty or the option to revolt over unjust demands, it could make for a more of a challenge and something to try to avoid than an inevitable beating that can't be stopped.

Also interested in whether or not heads of a Cadet will be able to "break off" from the Dynasty through any means.
 
Last edited: