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CKIII Dev Diary #29 - Even the Smallest Decision...

Come one, come all, and hear the tale of Kalevi of Karelia. We’ll follow him on the perilous road from High Chieftain of a few counties to King and defender of Ukko as a Holy Warrior! We will pay close attention to what choices he makes to further his agenda, for what is life but the decisions you make along the way?

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Surprise surprise, in this dev diary we will take a closer look at Decisions: what they are and how they work. The easy way to describe a Decision is that they are an action a ruler can take, but they end up being so much more than that over the course of a game!

We’ve focused on adding a wide spread of Decisions in the game so that you will have unique experiences playing different characters all over the map.

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[Two examples of what the decision view might look like for different characters]

There are two types of Decisions: Major Decisions and… well, Decisions. Major Decisions are displayed in a prominent position at the top of the interface and can be viewed as something to work towards, if you want; we have designed them to give the player a rewarding goal – a kind of mission. Major Decisions are often life-changing and their effects will be felt throughout the world; you can make decisions that affect your whole dynasty, or a whole religion. Examples of Major Decisions are “Found a New Kingdom”, “Consecrate Bloodline” and, of course, “Mend the Great Schism”.

Regular Decisions, on the other hand, can function as a means to reach those lofty goals and are often more accessible and more immediately relevant to your everyday life as a ruler. Decisions cover a wide range of actions you can take, everything from “Host Feast” to “Flagellate”. This gives you a lot of control over what actions your character takes and how you shape your realm.

So, back to Kalevi of Karelia. Our story begins just as the young High Chieftain Kalevi, only 16 years of age, has stepped into the role of a ruler after his father’s passing. Orthodoxy is spreading upward from the south, Catholicism is a growing concern in the west, and Kalevi wants nothing more than to protect the old ways and the Suomenusko faith he was brought up with. It might seem like a big task for any lone man, but he has a plan! He intends to raise a Hall of Heroes and lay the foundations for Holy Warriors to defend the faith.

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The road ahead might seem long and taxing, but such is the way of life when your goal is as lofty as this.

He does currently stand alone at the rudder, however, and he wishes for a companion – a spouse. As luck would have it he stumbles across a skillful and beautiful peasant woman when he is out hunting!

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Together they start a new family, and the first Decision among many has been made.

One of the requirements to fortify a Holy Site, by taking the Major Decision “Defenders of Ukko”, is to have a Holy Site to fortify. After a quick glance at the Suomenusko Holy Sites, Kalevi’s gaze settles on Raivola in Kakisalmi, currently under the control of his neighbor Chieftain Susi. Susi believes in the right Gods, but Kalevi doubts he would allow other people access to the Holy Site... War it is, then.

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To tip the scales in his favor, Kalevi decides to send out heralds to let it be known that he is searching for Champions to join him. Soon he has bolstered his forces enough to take on his neighbor.

After the war Kalevi is perplexed… He has a Holy Site under his control, and he has the will; why won’t the people help him build the Hall of Heroes? Why won’t they help him defend the true faith? Then it hits him: he doesn’t have enough strong people backing him, and he is not known to be pious enough to inspire the respect needed. This realization sets Kalevi down a path of many years of character-building, in the form of pious endeavors, and realm-building, in the form of conquest and vassalization, until he has founded his own Kingdom.

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As his realm stabilizes he realizes what must follow; he needs to go on a pilgrimage to truly understand the Suomenusko faith.

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However, during his pilgrimage Kalevi is grievously wounded! Word is sent out that the court is looking for a physician, and soon enough his wounds have been tended, but the scars will forever mar him.

Gaining traits, like Wounded, might spur you to make a Decision you otherwise wouldn’t, and Decisions can also become available through traits, events, and a myriad of other changing conditions in the game. If you find a Decision particularly interesting you can mark it as important and you will then get an alert when the conditions are met and you can take the Decision!

For Kalevi a lot of time has passed. Finally, at the tender age of 60 and a life full of decisions small and great behind him, King Kalevi of Karelia finds the support needed to fortify a Holy Site and bolster the defense of Suomenusko.

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Who knows what will follow for Kalevi; maybe he’ll Found a New Empire to stabilize the region further, or perhaps he’ll Adopt Feudal Ways in a bid to – at long last – attempt to develop the region in a new direction. But one thing is for certain: the threat of Christianity has done nothing but grow during all these years…

Thank you for reading and see you next week!
 
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The fortified holy sites thing is quite interesting. It reminds me of the Kaali crater in Saaremaa which was a holy site to Finnics and Scandinavians:


A Bronze Age cult built a large stone wall around the largest of the Kaali craters. The ancient ruins of this immense stone wall are still there today.

Archaeological evidence reveal that Kaali Lake, also known as Holy Lake was a place of offering for many centuries. The nearby forest is still called Pühamets, which means "Sacred Forest." There is no doubt this place was of great spiritual importance to our ancestors.

The stone wall surround the crater is interesting. The length of the wall was about 470 meters, its width around 2.5 meters and its height to two meters.

Stones 1.5 to 1.8 meters in diameter were used in its construction and the wall is stronger than any similar structures in the region. While excavating the site, researchers found evidence of a fortified settlement inhabited from the 5th to 7th century BC, a small hoard of silver jewelry from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, and piles of domestic animal bones, some dating to as late as the 17th century.
 
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That is by design, traits will be more important in determining the personality of a character and what you can do through stress mechanics

Adding on to this - the comments I've seen around are that the personality traits are mostly forged by the time characters reach adulthood, and will usually only change substantially in stress related 'mid-life crisis' type circumstances, or so they say. Which should mean that you know what to expect from a character in the long run unless they really turn over a new leaf, rather than their traits disappearing and appearing over their life. Which I suspect will help with the RP aspect, if the implementation is solid.
 
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2. No system for such festivals are going to be in the game on release, but it would be great if we could add it further down the line
So Muslims don't get Ramadan in ck3? Christians don't have Easter? aww. Well thanks. :)
 
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Great DD ! I have two or three questions about the relevance of decisions : how useful will they be and how easy will it be to understand each decision’s purpose ? One issue I had with decisions in CK2 was that there were a lot of decisions and for a lot of them I had no clue what they were for, so they looked the same and I didn’t even try them to keep my money. And even without taking decisions (except some title-related major decisions, closing the gates and the occasional pilgrimage for my monastic society) I didn’t really feel like I was missing anything. So is there more incentive to take a decision in CK3 ? Do they feel more unique and do they all have a clear purpose ? On the other hand, what are some problems you can’t solve with the right decision ?
 
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So Muslims don't get Ramadan in ck3? Christians don't have Easter? aww. Well thanks. :)
Disappointing, tbh, they don't even have simple decisions-events just like in CK2. I hope they expand it in the future and giving them their own separate mechanics.
 
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So after reading the DD thoroughly I still say, that it is a nice Dev Diary. The Religion, Culture and Art pleased me more, but it is still decent. The decison system is something that worked rather well in CK2 too.

But there is the small gripe, that the religious flavour festivals are gone. Yes they weren‘t exactly the best, but still a pity.

What will be the next topic for next week?
 
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I love it, except for one thing; his stats never changed from when he was 16 to when he was 60. The old trait system meant characters could grow over time.
Now characters at 16 are as wise, as diplomatic, as good at managing a realm in puberty as they are when they are full of years and experience... :(

Please tell me I'm wrong and there's something in the game that changes stats over time, that this was just all done with console commands or something.
 
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I love it, except for one thing; his stats never changed from when he was 16 to when he was 60. The old trait system meant characters could grow over time.
Now characters at 16 are as wise, as diplomatic, as good at managing a realm in puberty as they are when they are full of years and experience... :(

Please tell me I'm wrong and there's something in the game that changes stats over time, that this was just all done with console commands or something.

I am also surprised that he hasn‘t finished a Focus tree yet. Especially with a 4-star education it should be easy and give some boosts.I though it would be possible to easily finish one in your life.
 
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They are named differently based on culture, but they all fulfill the same function in-game.

You can also see the "Invite Shoorveers" decision in the DD, with Shoorveers being the Indian(?) equivalent to knights/champions.


I checked google translate; Shoorveer is Hindi for Knight/Warrior.
 
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My one thought is.

Are women / men who you find in the wilds still going to die rather quickly?

In CK2 they didn't die quickly ALL of the time or even like consistently. But you could definitely sense there was some bit of code in there that caused them to die a bit earlier, simply to balance out the random finding of good spouses in the wild.

That's because they tended to fall afoul of CK2's culling mechanic, which deemed them unimportant and gave them massive health debuffs.
 
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I mean. That's obvious as you said. I'm just wondering what the "reward" is.

Ahh fair enough, yes that is indeed a good question, personally I never really liked when you got to much rewarded, infact it can feel rather unimmersive at times, but since players are different, most likely it will be a good compromise.
 

So many decisions, so many questions!

Consecrate Bloodline?? I thought Bloodlines were replaced by Legacies!
Dynasty of Many Crowns?? What the heck does that do? I'm assuming I need to have my Dynasty control several King-rank titles to take it, but if you've already gotten that far, what benefit could it give?
UNITE AFRICA??????? Like... the whole thing????

Major Decisions are displayed in a prominent position at the top of the interface and can be viewed as something to work towards, if you want; we have designed them to give the player a rewarding goal – a kind of mission.

I really like this. One of my favorite moments in my very first run of CK2 (Duke Vratislav of Bohemia start) was opening the Intrigue tab and seeing "Form the Slavic Union". Even though I never got there, it gave me a concrete goal that helped propel me to learning the systems and intricacies of the game. I think giving players these large goals (especially several of them to choose from) will really help draw people in and get them more invested in a run. It's a lot easier to keep playing after your Brilliant Tactician king dies from RNG bullshit if you have a larger destiny for the dynasty in mind.

Susi believes in the right Gods, but Kalevi doubts he would allow other people access to the Holy Site... War it is, then.

"Gonna need your Holy Site."
"What? Why? We're the same Faith!"
"Blame the devs. I don't make the Decisions"

No system for such festivals are going to be in the game on release, but it would be great if we could add it further down the line

Add me to the list of people who think this would be a great addition.
 
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