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CK3 Dev Diary #58 - Stre(ss)tching the traits

Hello everyone!

Nice to meet you all! I recently joined the Crusader Kings III game design team and am honored to inaugurate my PDX account with this Dev Diary. Today we will cover two improvements planned for the upcoming patch: additional content and AI warfare improvements.


Trait changes

One of the many pleasures of Crusader Kings is to personify a plethora of characters. Every one of them offers a good opportunity to roleplay, thanks to the various combinations of traits they offer. The Azure patch will expand upon existing content by updating and adding some trait-specific interactions and consequences. With this update, we want to connect the stress system even closer to personality traits.

One of the notable changes is for Shy: it will no longer generate Stress when launching a Personal Scheme. Shy characters can still receive Stress via some of the scheme event options however, and they will be less efficient at performing personal schemes (it will take them longer), but they will be able to do it without ending up having a mental breakdown.

We also added a few new interactions and decisions. For instance, Forgiving characters can abandon one of their hooks to lose Stress. You can either decide to be a truly forgiving character, abandoning a hook you obtained unwittingly, or you can actively look for hooks and then choose to be merciful. We have also added new options for Diligent characters; they can dedicate themselves to improving the Development of their Capital, but doing so will generate a lot of Stress. Finally, if Impatient characters are Stressed, they can speed up the progress of their current Personal Scheme, without affecting their current Stress levels.


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[Image of the Develop Capital decision available for Diligent characters]


Some traits have also gained access to interactions that are not related to the stress system but still improve upon the expression of their personality. For instance, Arbitrary characters can now dismiss a Hook a vassal holds on them by spending a lot of Prestige and gaining Tyranny.


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[Image of the Dismiss Hook interaction available for Arbitrary characters]

We would love to hear your feedback, and also suggestions for improving other traits!


AI and Warfare

There is also a number of AI improvements, mostly about how the AI moves its units while at war. Pathfinding has been revised, and AI armies should now take more optimal routes to reach their targets, whether they be close but surrounded by treacherous terrain, or far away across the sea (which was most visible during Crusades; there will be no more island hopping for Christian armies, and Vikings should also be more swift and direct in their raids). The new pathfinding logic now factors in time, attrition and threat when selecting and routing to a destination.

Getting close to the enemy is only the first step in warfare though, and the AI should behave more sensibly in other areas too. After winning crucial battles, AI armies should use their full might to more efficiently besiege enemy fortresses - you should see less mangonels and bombards chasing peasants while there is a perfectly good castle waiting to be ruined. We also adjusted the AI behaviors depending on their Casus Bellis, making sure that they not only prioritize territorial conquest but also capturing hostages when relevant. While there’s likely to be some odd behaviors in the military AI still, we believe this will be a noticeable change in the right direction.


Lastly, an important organizational change: the version number of the patch will be 1.4 instead of 1.3.X as announced previously. This is to make the scope of the patch a bit clearer. While it is still a relatively small patch, it is also larger than a hotfix or a pure bugfix patch we've released in the past. Some mods will need to be updated. And while we always strive to keep save games compatible, with the nature of the game you might still run into edge cases with your old saves that we did not catch.

And that’s it for today! Thanks again for your precious feedback, and please keep providing more! I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next week for more information about the Azure patch!
 
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This is about the decision to develop your land;

I think a modifier that multiplies any additional stress gained, limits your ability to do certain other things(like lead armies), and adds stress to decisions that otherwise would not have any at all (like dealing with almost ANY family stuff while trying to focus on your work) would do better to show your commitment to developing your land full time, as opposed to it being based on a single stress dump, likely instantly, which will just mean it is best taken during calculated stress relief periods, which can effectively void its downside and remove the role-play feeling of this limited decision.

I will try to think of some suggestions for more trait based decisions while I play today.

Long PS: One thing that I loved in CK2 was the decision surrounding closing out the peasants during a pandemic. It had a clear upside, but a prolonged and intensifying downside. So often I would hear of the horrors that people would be suffering in our isolation, but I had to do stay locked in, by choice, because the other option was worse. Without touching on the current state of disease outbreaks; that strategy of making me feel engaged with the game and responsible for the conditions of my realm; by having me actively manage a feature that had a real benefit but also a real cost for its usage, was key. Had there been a simple modifier of temporary bad health I doubt it would have meant much, but the feeling that I was choosing the lesser of two bad options, but that it was my choice to make in the end, was a great feeling.

Those are the type of decisions that would be best left to traits I think, your personality's methods of doing things; with prolonged and balanced effects.


Edit: Great tease for the update. This is a welcomed step towards making the game feel as "full" as ck2 did at the end.
 
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The decision to expend stress to gain development doesnt make much sense, unless you have the steward focus "Domain" or the learning focus "Scholarship".

What I am saying is that the diligent bonus should be linked for your focus. If you are focusing in your military, your bonus should be reletated to a bigger army.
 
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The greedy or ambitious trait needs to stop pushing your character to breakdowns when you give away excess titles after a huge conquest, rebellion etc. It really should not give stress when well already over the domain limit (or over it by a certain margin). This is very bad at the moment. The character is penalised for keeping excess titles but giving them way can kill them.
 
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The greedy or ambitious trait needs to stop pushing your character to breakdowns when you give away excess titles after a huge conquest, rebellion etc. It really should not give stress when well already over the domain limit (or over it by a certain margin). This is very bad at the moment. The character is penalised for keeping excess titles but giving them way can kill them.
That's not how that works. You don't get stress from giving away titles when you are over your domain limit, only when you are are at or below it so you might be experiencing a bug. You can give away enough titles to end up below your domain limit so long as you are above when you give out the titles. For example, your domain limit is currently ten and you have eight counties. You go to war and end up with twelve total counties. If you want to go back down to eight you have to give away four counties to one person or one county to one person and then three counties to another in order not to get stress.
 
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I really like the idea of tying traits to lifestyle, and I would like it as well if they were tied to relationships with Rivals.

I think it would be interesting if Brave characters got a super negative opinion of dreadful rulers and decide to start conflicts with them, while craven characters become friends with dreadful rulers, or "Lackey's."
 
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Hey! Thank you all for your warm welcome and the numerous feedback! I now have a 3-pages document of suggestions and improvements! I won't go over to all of them here but I want to let you know that they will all be reviewed and potentially implemented in the future if they are approved internally.

@Pdx_Meedoc Welcome! I recognise the name … aren’t you an Amplitude Studios alumnus? Hopping from my one favourite game series to my other favourite; I can only approve. I’d love to work on an Auriga/Endless CK3 mod, maybe I can find the time someday.
Indeed, I used to work on the Endless games and Humankind before joining the Crusader Kings team. I'm glad you like them!

Cheers,
 
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I really like the idea of tying traits to lifestyle, and I would like it as well if they were tied to relationships with Rivals.

I think it would be interesting if Brave characters got a super negative opinion of dreadful rulers and decide to start conflicts with them, while craven characters become friends with dreadful rulers, or "Lackey's."
This is the next step to having characters differ. Much like how certain traits get extra options in pop-ups, some traits should actually get less options or drastically different ones than others so that some decisions become much harder or out and out impossible to just use the "best" option every time and eat the trivial stress hit
 
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This is the next step to having characters differ. Much like how certain traits get extra options in pop-ups, some traits should actually get less options or drastically different ones than others so that some decisions become much harder or out and out impossible to just use the "best" option every time and eat the trivial stress hit
Sometimes the stress hit is not trivial. I like to play arbitrary rulers so that is rarely. But paranoia, diligence or ambition get in the way at times.
 
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Sometimes the stress hit is not trivial. I like to play arbitrary rulers so that is rarely. But paranoia, diligence or ambition get in the way at times.
I say trivial in the sense that lowering stress is very very easy in this game even an 80 stress hit from a particularly bad choice can be mitigated quite easily back to 0. This also makes some of the bonus when stressed perks somewhat hard to utilize effectively without locking out certain parts of the game for that character.
 
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I assume its more like your ruler saying: so what if I did it? Hence the tyranny malus. Your ruler does not cáre people know it.
I only care when there is a favour hook and a vassal has wormed his way into the stewards position with 3 points, now thats not stewardship and now I have to murder them... Who cares if the world finds out your sodomite secret as long as you are getting decent stewardship.