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Time again for my monthly (well, roughly) pastime of developer diary writing! Last month, I might have mentioned plots and intrigue, but I think I'll hold off on that a bit more... Instead, let's talk about units and the combat system.

Like in the first Crusader Kings, military units are of variable size and composition. Each can contain any number of each of the seven troop types (light and heavy infantry, pike men, light cavalry, knights, archers and horse archers.) Most units are raised from a corresponding settlement (castle, church or city), their size and composition dependent on the improvements constructed there. Others belong to a mercenary group or holy order, etc. Units are discrete and cannot be merged or split into smaller parts, though of course they can be grouped together in armies. The basic system should be familiar to anyone who has played the original Crusader Kings.

Crusader Kings II Alpha - Harold vs Harald.jpg

Combat, however, is different from our other games. As soon as they are grouped together in a larger army, units are are assigned to one of three positions; left flank, center, or right flank. This is done automatically, but can be altered manually by players so inclined. On the battlefield, each position fights separately - normally against the corresponding part of the enemy army. Combat between positions is divided into three phases; skirmish, melee and pursue/flee. My left flank can be skirmishing against the enemy's right flank while my center is locked in melee, etc. The seven unit types have different strengths and weaknesses, so that for example archers excel at skirmish and knights at melee. The leader of each flank (a character), will pick combat tactics, which determines if his position should strive to close for melee, or avoid melee, etc. When an enemy position breaks, it will flee, and the pursue phase ensues. The longer the phase lasts, the more losses that contingent will sustain, but on the other hand, the pursuing force will not be assisting against the remaining enemy positions - also a tactical decision by the flank commander. Combat tactics are similar to the combat events of Rome, but more developed. (Btw, combat tactics are fully moddable.)

Crusader Kings II Alpha - Siege of York.jpg

Apart from combat tactics, there are also more traditional combat events, for example when commanders get wounded, killed or imprisoned, or when they improve on their martial skills. Sieges work in a similar fashion, but emphasizing morale loss, and with a different set of combat tactics. A commander with a high Intrigue skill might even manage to bribe some defenders into opening the gates. What about fleets? Unlike CK, ships do exist in Crusader Kings II, similar to the galleys in Rome. They are raised like normal troop levies in coastal provinces, but can only be used to transport troops - not to fight or block straits (large scale naval battles in the period were rare to say the least.)

Crusader Kings II Alpha - Battle of York.jpg

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that if an army is victorious, all commanders will bask in the glory and gain prestige. Conversely, the shame of defeat results in prestige loss. So, choosing to lead the army yourself can be profitable in terms of prestige, but of course, war is a dangerous business...

Enjoy the screenies and stay tuned for the next dev diary - sometime in August. :)



Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
 
Is there any kind of penalty for having too much cavalry and not enough infantry like the combined arms bonus in EU3? Or can you just have big stacks that are mostly heavy cavalry and terrorize the enemy without consequence? :D
 
Thanks for the DD.
Looking forward to the game much appreciate.

Very happy about the combat details so far.


One question regarding the aftermath of a battle:
Still suffering the bad experience from your later games in this part...
How to handle this aftermath?
You think it is possible to balance the game out so we will have some realistic 2-3 decisive battles in some minor conflicts -> No WW1 in York vs Norfolk f.e. ;-)

And of course will there be some kind of attack/move delay to prevent pingpong? (only would work with decisive loss of men, too)
I hate these battles of two zero morale armies last for two weeks and suffer nearly zero losses...
 
Is there any kind of penalty for having too much cavalry and not enough infantry like the combined arms bonus in EU3? Or can you just have big stacks that are mostly heavy cavalry and terrorize the enemy without consequence? :D

Not per se, but we have a tactic right now that boosts certain unit types, and lowers the stats of others. Since each tactic has a trigger, one could add certain "bad" tactics which gives severe penalties to certain types.

Thanks for the DD.
Looking forward to the game much appreciate.

Very happy about the combat details so far.


One question regarding the aftermath of a battle:
Still suffering the bad experience from your later games in this part...
How to handle this aftermath?
You think it is possible to balance the game out so we will have some realistic 2-3 decisive battles in some minor conflicts -> No WW1 in York vs Norfolk f.e. ;-)

And of course will there be some kind of attack/move delay to prevent pingpong? (only would work with decisive loss of men, too)
I hate these battles of two zero morale armies last for two weeks and suffer nearly zero losses...

We aim for big decisive battles in CK2.

Hopefully ping-ponging will be less of an issue in CK2, since when you win a combat, the losing flanks are still retreating for a couple of days, which gives the winner a couple of free hits. We've also removed the retreat delay when entering combats(so you can retreat day one), but since you will retreat a couple of days(thus giving enemies free hits on your troops), this is really something you want to avoid.
 
So how does reinforcing work? If I'm English and lose troops while fighting in Turkey, do I need to raise more troops manually in England and ship them to my armies in Asia, or will my armies slowly recover automatically like in EU3?
 
So how does reinforcing work? If I'm English and lose troops while fighting in Turkey, do I need to raise more troops manually in England and ship them to my armies in Asia, or will my armies slowly recover automatically like in EU3?

Reinforcement is currently reserved for mercenaries and holy orders :)
 
So how does reinforcing work? If I'm English and lose troops while fighting in Turkey, do I need to raise more troops manually in England and ship them to my armies in Asia, or will my armies slowly recover automatically like in EU3?

I think it has been mentioned in the Mercenary DD that levies do not replenish automatically, but that merc troops do. Which seems reasonable. If you wanted to replenish your troops on a crusade you would most likely have to hire local (mercs) or send more boats full of homegrown men.

edit: got Tegus'ed ;)
 
Reinforcement is currently reserved for mercenaries and holy orders :)

I see, I see. That's pretty neat. Although because battles are more decisive now, does that mean one bad loss in a far away land will pretty much mean the end of your campaign for a while? If you lose, I imagine you retreat and then the enemy can persue you and clean up what's left. Is that correct?
 
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I see, I see. That's pretty neat. Although because battles are more decisive now, does that mean one bad loss in a far away land will pretty much mean the end of your campaign for a while? If you lose, I imagine you retreat and then the enemy can persue you can clean up what's left. Is that correct?

This is still something that needs to be balanced, but as of now fleeing units move a bit faster, so they should have a chance to regroup.
 
As for sieges: In CK1, if you hadn't already levied the troops in a province then you could do so during a siege to have them try to fight it off - as they should - and I presume that's still there in CK2? You mentioned being able to bribe a besieged castle into breaking, are there other things an attacker can do besides waiting it out (attempting to Assault castles or is that handled randomly? Other diplomatic/spy options?)? Any counter options for the defender except potentially raising the local levy? :)
 
While we haven't finalized the combat tactics yet, this is a behavior we desire. Since the tactics are scriptable one could easy script that if the majority of the flank is archer types, you will prefer tactics that does not change to the melee phase. This is doable today, but I think we'll also need to add an effect that compare the martial skills of the flank leaders, so the one with higher stats have higher chance of controlling the phase.

This would mean that a character with good martial skill could force the combat to stay in skirmish for a very long time, which I think is a cool feature :)

Good to know, but I already assumed that to be true. My question was more whether army composition would help one army (in addition to martial skill) keep in its preferred phase.

An example:
Two flanks A (full of archers) and B (full of horse archers) are fighting C (full of infantry).
Obviously, both A and B want to stay in the skirmish phase, while C wants to force melee.
My question is: will it more easy for B to force skirmish than A, due to the extra mobility of horse archers compared to foot archers?
 
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Will the natural resources of the port province have anything to say regarding ship build time or port capacity?
I.e. will a province with great forests be faster at raising ships than a desert one, making a ruler of North-Africa more dependent on mercenary fleets than a North-European one?

+1! I would like to know more about that too, however I imagine that province characteristics (like resources, income (wealth) etc.) will have an effect on port capacity; and other improvements like in CK 1 were some improvements required a certain province income. Including natural resources for some improvements (and other improvements to maximize the use of the resources) apart from province income IMHO would make sense.