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Greetings!

In this Dev Diary we’ll show off some of the other things we’ve been working on for the 1.2 patch! While the Ruler Designer is extremely cool, it’s not the only thing you’ll be getting - there’s plenty of exciting new things coming up! What follows below is a showcase of some of the things we’ve done, presented by someone who’s worked on it!

Oh, and because we know you’re wondering - yes, saves made in 1.1 will be compatible in 1.2!


Kill List
A very fun feature from CK2 that we wanted to bring back is the Kill List, you might have noticed the new UI button in some of our Ruler Designer teasers before.
This skull icon will appear on any character who has killed people you know about and when clicked opens a list of everyone they killed and how they met their grisly fate. So you can get a sense of just how much of a true beast some of your strong knights are and how many of your foes they have vanquished on the battlefield in your name.
But of course it only shows the kills you know about, so some people that look innocent to you may in fact be hiding numerous skeletons in their closet…
KillList.png

[Picture of kill list button location]

YourKills.png

[Picture of the open kill list]


Attach to Army
Another helpful utility we wanted to add was being able to attach your armies to follow ally armies to their destinations. This is especially useful during bigger wars like Crusades where you are not the primary participant; you can attach to any friendly unit of an ally in the same province as your unit and of course then detach when you decide to go your own way. If there are multiple armies in a province you can attach to then a pop up window will open for you to decide which one you would like to follow.
Attach.png

[Picture of the attach to army button]


Force Realm Priest Endorsement
Your realm priest will endorse you normally if they have a good opinion of you, and we’ve now extended that so if you have a strong hook on them then they will passively be forced to endorse you regardless of their personal opinion of you.
That way you can still get all of those sweet taxes and levies from their church holdings even if they might personally think you are a blasphemous fool!
HookEndorsement.png

[Picture of realm priest being forced to endorse you via a strong hook]


Tribal Walls / Tribal Holding variants
Tribes in different parts of the world will now look different! From longhouses in the north to yurts in the steppes, there’s now a visual difference between the major tribal regions on the map. We’ve also added one more visual tier of walls, symbolising the very lowest possible fort level a holding can have.
TribalHoldings.png

[Picture of new Tribal Holding variants]


Reworked Dynasty UI
The Dynasty view has gotten some more love! The window now has two dynamic info boxes explaining how dynasty and house head is chosen, especially how Max military strength determines who's dynasty head. Military strength can now also be seen and compared between house heads in the house list. The legacy area has gotten a new look to easier show which legacy tracks you have unlocked, how many steps are unlocked, and which ones you've finished.
NewDynastyView.png

[Picture of updated Dynasty UI]


Improved Battle UI
Battles have also gotten some more love, with the UI having received an overhaul. It now both looks nicer and places important information in a better layout!
NewBattle.png

[Picture of the improved Battle UI]


Player Coat of Arms Graphics
Your Coat Of Arms is now decorated with mantling! It adds a sense of flair and you can also spot other players easier on the map during multiplayer.
Mantling.png

[Picture of Mantling on a player CoA]


Rally Point Improvements
We’ve done some work on the troop system in 1.2. As part of this we hope to have eliminated some bugs like levies failing to reinforce when they should.
More visibly, we’ve made one change to how troops get raised at rally points. Now if you exceed the supply limit the game will automatically split the army up to obey the supply limit, spreading it out over adjacent provinces.
RallyPointRaise.png

[Picture of a rally point where armies are spread out]

Pictured is what now happens when trying to raise a bit over 10k men in an area with supply limits of 2.5k.


Siberian Paganism
Suomenusko has long been in a bit of an awkward spot. It stretches over large territories where the people in reality worshiped many different deities. To improve the situation, we've made two changes. The first is a simple name change, as we've renamed Suomenusko to Ukonusko (after the main deity). It gives the faith a name that isn't specifically Finnish, since we have several other cultures that share the same faith.

NewSetup.png

[Picture of new Faith Setup in the north]

Secondly, we've split it into two separate faiths by adding a new faith for the Siberian region. We felt that adding a new faith would be a significant improvement as to better reflect the varied beliefs of the Ugrian peoples. Named Turumic, after their main patron deity Numi-Turum, it is in some ways similar to Ukonusko in that it's a faith closely linked to nature, but is different by their veneration of hunting. The tenets are the following: Ancestor Worship, Ritual Celebrations, and Sanctity of Nature. It uniquely has the Hunter lifestyle traits as virtues. The other virtues being Brave, Generous, and Temperate. Meanwhile, being Greedy, Craven, or Vengeful, is considered a sin.


Improved Ugliness System
In CK3, the “ugly” trait is a lot more interesting than it was in CK2, having a noticeable effect on portraits, and coming in three levels of severity. However, beyond the first level of the trait we didn’t quite achieve the levels of ugliness we wanted at release. So in 1.2 we’ve improved the system we use to distort the portraits of ugly people to make them uglier while still not feeling too out of place within the art style. Before 1.2 ugliness worked by changing skin texture and making all facial features more extreme. This is still the case, but in 1.2 we also pick a single or a small set of features to make especially extreme. This can result in a character for instance having a particularly messed up nose, a face that’s too small for their head, or the tiniest mouth. Focusing on small feature sets like this helps ensure that ugly people are varied in their ugliness, and more readily identifiable as “ugly”.
Below are a couple examples of how ugly characters will look in 1.2 vs. 1.1.
UglyComparison.png

[Picture of a comparison between the same level of ugliness in 1.1 vs 1.2]

As you can see the difference isn’t massive, but helps make them a bit more interesting. There’s still room for improvement and especially so for the “Hideous” trait, but this was a relatively simple and safe change to make for 1.2.


Matrilineal Game Rules
We’ve added a new game rule that controls the behaviour of the AI when choosing which type of marriage to pursue. There’s plenty of options to choose from, so regardless what your preference is, it should hopefully be represented! All options are achievement compatible.

MatriRules.png

[Picture of Matrilineal Marriages Game Rule settings]

Naming Dynasty Members in Court
You now get to name all Dynasty members that are born in your court, not just your own children. This means that you can make sure that the correct names are passed down as you prefer!


New Event Content
You can now grow old, sick, tired, and depressed more efficiently, with new events that dole out the “Infirm” trait.

For those seeking even swifter departures from this mortal coil, we have expanded the Murder scheme with additional events and deadly outcomes! But take care — the mastermind behind a scheme can now be unmasked, in addition to the existence of the scheme itself. To even things out a bit, a Court Physician you recruit as an agent has a chance to purposely mess up treatments of your target — and they can now also properly treat their own wounds and conditions.

Other schemes and mechanics have gotten numerous content tweaks, additions, and updates.


That’s it for this time! Don't forget to tune in to tomorrows CK3 stream, where we'll show off the 1.2 patch! Who knows, maybe you'll even get to know the release date?
Details:
Link
Live at 16:30 CET, tomorrow!
 
Great stuff, though the Ruler Designer is a welcome feature, will Coat of Arms designer be added in the future? And the ability to change subject's CoA, sometimes the game can randomly generate ugly ones.
 
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So, kill list is back. But now we need tools to populate it. We need an option to lead armies and participate in battles!
But we can... Just lead your troops as a commander. You can die in battle, the logical conclusion is that you can kill in battle too.
 
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It's a good step forward, but ideally Suomenusko needs to be fragmented even further. Having Volga Finns use Finnish god names and Sami religious titles doesn't feel right at all, especially since the native Mari religion is still extant to this day and pretty well attested.

At the very least, two more religions are needed (for the Sami and Volga-Finns respectively, although ideally the latter should be split between distinct Mordvin and Mari faiths), while more could be made to achieve better historical and gameplay accuracy (most notably the distinction between Mari and Mordvin religions, and less importantly but still preferably unique religions for Estonians, Livonians, Udmurts, Komi, and *just maybe* Bjarmians, depending on how the game can handle a single faith having different deity names depending on certain conditions).

While I like some variety in pagan faiths and was a bit disappointed that most of them were basically just the same as CK2, one faith religions. BUT, I also think having unique faith for almost every Finnic culture is overkill. Maybe a third one could be added but beyond that it's too much in my opinion.
 
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Would they need to be represented by having Lithuanian or Prussian culture?
Of course as a separate Dnieper-Oka culture within the Baltic family. It's just a couple of lines of code. A names can be taken in Prussian (it is possible, as an option, to fantasize a little more, but this should be done by a person who is well versed in the history of the Balto-Slavic languages).
I dunno, I find it dubious that the Golyad' would assimilate that fast into the old East Slavic society, especially since Kievan Rus' didn't even manage to achieve the creation of an united Rus' identity while it still existed.
Regarding the Slavic colonization, and in particular the Russian colonization of northeastern Rus', several things must be understood. First - the population of these territories is very sparse. The Russians, when they colonized Zalesye and more distant lands, did not meet any resistance from the local population. The local population either left for other places (a lot of space, enough for everyone), or remained to live side by side without any problems and simply fast dissolved in a new, multi-arriving population. Second - colonization took place mostly not centrally and often independently of statehood. Yes, the ruling elite of Russia founded new cities, but this applies mainly to a later time, the same Zalesye was colonized mainly by the independent Vyatiches and Kriviches. Colonization and assimilation in general proceeded very quickly - if by the 7th century a Slavs inhabited only the outskirts of Kursk and Novgorod (even territories of modern Belarus was not really settled), then by the the 13th century the border already reaches almost the Kama region. Huge territories in a very short time.
Furthermore, wouldn't those areas that you listed be inhabited by Uralic tribes in 867?
Specifically, in these territories, Baltic archeology and toponymy dominate more. The Baltic settlements themselves go far beyond these territories.
blue - archeological data, red - toponymy data
Rasselenie_baltov.png
 
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But we can... Just lead your troops as a commander. You can die in battle, the logical conclusion is that you can kill in battle too.
That may seem logical, but if you read the events files this is not the case. :( As commander you can get injured or die, but you don't participate in the actual battle yourself (other than the bonus to advantage rolls and bonuses from any commander traits). Players are specifically excluded from fighting like knights.
 
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My personal opinion: Commanders should have the option to fight as a knight. I agree that players should be able to participate in battles, not just by commanding the army, but by actually dealing and taking damage with prowess like a knight would.
 
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Great stuff, though the Ruler Designer is a welcome feature, will Coat of Arms designer be added in the future? And the ability to change subject's CoA, sometimes the game can randomly generate ugly ones.
Check what coat of arms you'll get if you create a cadet branch as a member of the dynasty Anjou with capital in the county Anjou :D
 
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Given that the kill list is supposed to show how many people a person has killed, will it also show the number of anonymous troops they kill as knights on the battlefield?
 
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Given that the kill list is supposed to show how many people a person has killed, will it also show the number of anonymous troops they kill as knights on the battlefield?
Already asked
Can we have number of soldiers slain in battles too? Just one line added to the kill list

and answered
Levies killed by knights do not get a mention, but knights killed rightly by other knights will show up in kill lists!
 
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But we can... Just lead your troops as a commander. You can die in battle, the logical conclusion is that you can kill in battle too.

You would assume that, yes. Unfortunately, it only goes one way at the moment. Honestly that's my biggest disappointment in the game at the moment. I just want my character to be able to go fight, and have battle events for them.
 
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Matrilineal Game Rules
We’ve added a new game rule that controls the behaviour of the AI when choosing which type of marriage to pursue. There’s plenty of options to choose from, so regardless what your preference is, it should hopefully be represented! All options are achievement compatible.

View attachment 653501
[Picture of Matrilineal Marriages Game Rule settings]

Fucking finally! I don't know why this wasn't in at the start!

I'm not criticizing. This is just me being very very relieved at this being added in so I don't have to mod the game with Ironman breaking mods anymore.
 
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More visibly, we’ve made one change to how troops get raised at rally points. Now if you exceed the supply limit the game will automatically split the army up to obey the supply limit, spreading it out over adjacent provinces.
Already voiced my thoughts why I consider this a downgrade. Anyway, do we get a supply map mode?
 
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Great stuff, though the Ruler Designer is a welcome feature, will Coat of Arms designer be added in the future? And the ability to change subject's CoA, sometimes the game can randomly generate ugly ones.
We don't have any concrete data or timeline for a Coat of Arms designer, but it is definitely something on our list of things we want - Matt

The complaints about Fervor and Crusades have been epic in the forums. If the team is unaware of them and have made no improvements, I’m frankly flabbergasted.
We've fixed a bunch of things with Crusades for the upcoming patch, such as increasing the cooldown and, most importantly, fixed an issue where they would launch despite having not enough support. You'll be able to peruse the full list of changes we've done when the changelog is posted, which you won't have to wait too long for - Rageair
 
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We don't have any concrete data or timeline for a Coat of Arms designer, but it is definitely something on our list of things we want - Matt

Things I'd like to see -

1) being able to redesign hideous cadet arms that my relatives have, or ones where it's almost impossible to tell the difference between two cadet branches (I was playing in India with a custom hindu religion, and must have had a dozen that differed only in the bottom left corner - but were all similar coloured emblems on a similar coloured background.

2) If the main line of the dynasty goes extinct, an ability for the new dynasty head to reclaim the name and arms of the founding dynasty.

3) An ability, when creating a cadet branch to choose the secondary/tertiary/quarterenary arms, either based on provinces or main titles, or to take maternal/paternal arms as the non-primary quarter.

4) An ability to ditch a quartered shield for a simple non-quartered one if I'm equivalent rank to the dynasty head as a cadet branch head.

5) Quartered territorial arms for more situations, including arbitrary unions (So if I'm England-Castille I can put the dragon or the leopards quartered with the tower of Castille; if I'm France-Jerusalem I can quarter the lillies with the cross).

6) I'd also like to be able to have alternate versions of some of the territorial arms, especially for Empires and Kingdoms that are non-historic, but are based on geography (so an alternate Britain in case the white with a red dragon is inappropriate

7) More options to display either the dynastic arms or the territorial arms, and for more cultures and religions.

8) A nice simple interface, and one that can guide the user to make something pleasant, rather than "mauve on purple and burgundy"

9) Integration with the ruler designer, so you can design your new CoA alongside the new character (even though I'm unlikely to use the ruler designer, it might as well be included for completeness sake).
 
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