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Well folks, Yuletide is almost upon us and the expansion Sons of Abraham has now been out for a few weeks. It is, in other words, a good time for some general - and possibly disorganized - "post mortem" thoughts.

Sons of Abraham is a special expansion because it's the first of the "phase 2" cycle of expansions for Crusader Kings II, and it was also mostly made by a new team who approached the game with new eyes and fresh ideas (the old team having moved on to another project.) The irrepressible Groogy (Henrik Hansson) championed the College of Cardinals and made it great, and Tobias "The Witch-King" Bodlund wrote most of the new events and the pilgrimages. Martin "Wiz" Anward took a crack at the AI and Alexander Ivannikov fixed bugs and started improving the network code. I couldn't quite keep my hands off though, so I snuck some crazy stuff in myself (something about evil babies...)

Interestingly, while this expansion really focuses on Christian gameplay, it appeared to receive the most attention for the playable Jews (in hindsight, the name Sons of Abraham was probably a tad misleading) and the fact that you can borrow money from the Jewish community only to then expel them from the realm. As you know, if you expel the Jews, you lose the benefits of having skilled Jewish councillors, and your dynasty loses the ability to borrow money, which will hurt you in the long run. Even so, this mechanic was something we knew would be controversial. However, I maintain that it was the right thing to do because the feature brings attention to a sordid chapter in European history while at the same time highlighting the learning, productivity and enterprising spirit of the Jewish communities.

To be perfectly honest, when designing Sons of Abraham, it was quite hard to determine which features should (and could!) go into the expansion and which features should be put into the free patch. This is always tough, and it reminded me a lot of Legacy of Rome, which, like SoA (not counting Jews) did not unlock a new type of playable entity. There were some things we really wanted to address and improve upon, but core gameplay changes are not suitable for an expansion; we want such things to be available for all players! The College of Cardinals, though, was perfect expansion material; it's not something you have to bother with at all, but it can definitely give you an edge and provide you with some interesting new options. In contrast, for example, terrain bottlenecks affect the game at a fundamental level and had to go into the patch.

In the end, we added a lot of rather unobtrusive features to the expansion, like pilgrimages and religious events. This is a bit of a catch-22, since non-essential features - regardless of how many there are or how much work they require - are not as sexy and eye-catching, but if we made them more central we could not put them in the expansion. What we've taken away from this conundrum is that future expansions will either have to unlock new areas of the game or feature more noticeable (graphically or through sheer weight of content) stuff.

Another lesson learned was the rocky launch of patch 2.0. As Paradox Development Studio grows, with several games and expansions in development at the same time, our quality assurance process is getting overloaded, and it is sometimes unbelievable what you folks discover in 10 minutes that our beta testers and QA team have not found in weeks. (That's why I love open beta patches and would like to rely on them more.) Anyway, we have hired more people for the QA team and will also increase the size of the beta test group; we don't release buggy games and have no intention of releasing buggy expansions either.

This brings me to the upcoming patch 2.0.2, which is currently available as an open beta patch to Steam users (which has already helped us identify a few more issues.) The main focus of this patch is to fix old bugs and annoyances, address some fundamental issues with antipopes and to flesh out the Jews a bit more. Here are the highlights (the full change log is in the beta patch post):
  • Added a "Depose Antipope" Casus Belli
  • Added an "Antiking" faction. The leader usurps the liege's primary title, deposes the antipope and passes papal investiture. The Pope can be called into the resulting war.
  • Jewish councillors now have special tech spread events
  • Now possible to play in Ironman mode with the ruler designer and mods (but you won't get achievements)
  • Significantly reduced the amount of event-spawned troops across the board to better reflect the rebalanced levies
  • Added trait "Battlefield Terrain Master"
  • Added special Jewish buildings
  • Added special Jewish retinue
To round this little dev diary off, as you probably know, we are dropping all support for the GamersGate version of the game after this patch. The GG version is too much trouble to maintain and is holding us back from having decent multiplayer, achievements for everyone, etc. GamersGate users need not despair however; we are hard at work getting Steam keys ready for you (including, of course, all DLC), and hope to have that done before year's end!

That's it for now, you can read all the devdiaries for CK2:SoA here! The next expansion will be announced in late January and the accompanying patch 2.1 will feature Steam Workshop and MP matchmaking, among many other things. Until next time, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (And a special thanks to our beta testers and everyone who keeps Crusader Kings II development alive by buying the expansions!)
 
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GamersGate users need not despair however; we are hard at work getting Steam keys ready for you (including, of course, all DLC), and hope to have that done before year's end!
See this is why paradox is such a kickass brand, They care about letting consumers who have paid for their products continue to use their products. Though this does highlight the issue i have with cloud services for Computer games putting that very argument that those very services can have their rights to the content the consumer purchased amended or near revoked HOWEVER in this case i feel as though paradox is doing both the right business move and the ethically right thing so my faith in humanity remains strong
 
Another lesson learned was the rocky launch of patch 2.0. As Paradox Development Studio grows, with several games and expansions in development at the same time, our quality assurance process is getting overloaded, and it is sometimes unbelievable what you folks discover in 10 minutes that our beta testers and QA team have not found in weeks. (That's why I love open beta patches and would like to rely on them more.)

Point taken. I'll try to participate in beta patches when situation at work loosens up a little.

Anyway, we have hired more people for the QA team and will also increase the size of the beta test group; we don't release buggy games and have no intention of releasing buggy expansions either.

Hats off to ya and sorry for bitching so much about it the last days.

Interestingly, while this expansion really focuses on Christian gameplay, it appeared to receive the most attention for the playable Jews (in hindsight, the name Sons of Abraham was probably a tad misleading) and the fact that you can borrow money from the Jewish community only to then expel them from the realm. As you know, if you expel the Jews, you lose the benefits of having skilled Jewish councillors, and your dynasty loses the ability to borrow money, which will hurt you in the long run. Even so, this mechanic was something we knew would be controversial. However, I maintain that it was the right thing to do because the feature brings attention to a sordid chapter in European history while at the same time highlighting the learning, productivity and enterprising spirit of the Jewish communities.

You handled it the right way. There is a button to be nasty to the Jews, just like there's a button to see the Templars off, with none of burning-at-a-stake kind of thing – which is how both the Jews and highest-up Templars of France died under the same king. There's no option for any specific direct genocidal violence. Nothing to complain about.

Added an "Antiking" faction. The leader usurps the liege's primary title, deposes the antipope and passes papal investiture. The Pope can be called into the resulting war.

Wow! I mean, come on. Few people these days even know the word exist. Antikings is precisely what the HRE needs.

Jewish councillors now have special tech spread events.

Great. That's gonna be another favourite of mine.

Added trait "Battlefield Terrain Master"

I was thinking about something like that when I had rulers who earned, say, two of the terrain traits (which is quite possible for, say, a hardened European warrior who goes crusading in the deserts; I don't think I've ever seen 3 terrain traits on anybody, but it's probably been done). But I never got past the thought of just wanting to collect them all.

I love terrain traits because while their scope is limited they come without trade-offs.

They also offer great roleplaying opportunities. For example when you have some sort of dude with Unyielding + whatever terrain his small country is composed of. And then he sits on a river or in the mountains barring entry. And then bottlenecks come into play. This should lead to rather spectacular and rewarding invasion defeats for the attentive players.

Added special Jewish buildings
Added special Jewish retinue

Any chance to have them outside Khazaria? As in if you're friendly to the Jews they eventually ask you to give them a slot to build a synagogue? That would also be some sort of symbolic sign that you're rather close with them, in rock-paper-scissors terms, where the player's imagination would fill in the details and put flesh on the bones.

To round this little dev diary off, as you probably know, we are dropping all support for the GamersGate version of the game after this patch. The GG version is too much trouble to maintain and is holding us back from having decent multiplayer, achievements for everyone, etc. GamersGate users need not despair however; we are hard at work getting Steam keys ready for you (including, of course, all DLC), and hope to have that done before year's end!

Class act!

Wow, the new patch is like a free DLC.
 
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Thanks for the diary and the continuing patches and DLCs!

What we've taken away from this conundrum is that future expansions will either have to unlock new areas of the game or feature more noticeable (graphically or through sheer weight of content) stuff.

I hope you won't go overboard with it, if you decide to make something "important" DLC only. Retinues and rebels already significantly affect the balance of the game (republics are much more powerful when you play with LoR than without), which isn't necessarily a problem, but does lead to a more complex testing matrix for both you and mod developers.

Something like unlocking a date/scenario, OTOH, means the game works identically for all when starting from normal dates.
 
I was thinking about something like that when I had rulers who earned, say, two of the terrain traits (which is quite possible for, say, a hardened European warrior who goes crusading in the deserts; I don't think I've ever seen 3 terrain traits on anybody, but it's probably been done). But I never got past the thought of just wanting to collect them all.

I love terrain traits because while their scope is limited they come without trade-offs.

The terrain master trait actually has nothing to do with terrain types, directly. It affects the probability you'll see a bottleneck.

--

As an aside, it's not a big deal, but neither the new trait nor siege master can be gained in the game. Only randomly through education or spawned courtiers...
 
Paradox either has super PR people or are just doing great ;) The self critisism about the quality of the 2.0 is wonderful. Cant wait for mid januari for that announcement, enjoying SoA (the game) more and more while I play.
 
"To round this little dev diary off, as you probably know, we are dropping all support for the GamersGate version of the game after this patch. The GG version is too much trouble to maintain and is holding us back from having decent multiplayer, achievements for everyone, etc. GamersGate users need not despair however; we are hard at work getting Steam keys ready for you (including, of course, all DLC), and hope to have that done before year's end!"

Prepare for some major lammentations from the Steam-hater GG-lovers on this forum who will instantly come up with all sorts of reasons why this shows that Paradox is currently going through some sort of spawn of Satan event.
 
Extremely interesting :) I really loved patch 2.0 and the following beta patch.

Also, thrilled to hear that the new DLC will be announced in 40ish days.

As a final note, kudos to you for giving us GG customers keys for Steam.
 
Prepare for some major lammentations from the Steam-hater GG-lovers on this forum who will instantly come up with all sorts of reasons why this shows that Paradox is currently going through some sort of spawn of Satan event.

Could you please leave these kind of condescending comments to yourself. Thanks.
GG variant users are currently in a phase to console themselves and adapt to the situation, well i do.
 
As a final note, kudos to you for giving us GG customers keys for Steam.

To be fair, this is actually a smart business move on their part since the keys don't cost them all that much and you guys will probably buy some more DLC after you make the switch, more than making up for added costs even without considering the savings from not having to support GG anymore.

It's a Win-Win. Had they been assholes and simply ended support for the GG version you guys probably wouldn't have bothered buying a Steam copy, or maybe anything else by Paradox again, right?
 
anything on exporting the new levy modifiers(non de jure vassels giving less elvies, levies reduced by each tier it goes through) to the defines so we can mod it? while im an fan of making blobbing harder and making vassels more powerfull(as that certainly makes them more fun to play) halfing levies is imo an bit too harsh and by exporting it i could make an mod to make feel more natural.
 
anything on exporting the new levy modifiers(non de jure vassels giving less elvies, levies reduced by each tier it goes through) to the defines so we can mod it? while im an fan of making blobbing harder and making vassels more powerfull(as that certainly makes them more fun to play) halfing levies is imo an bit too harsh and by exporting it i could make an mod to make feel more natural.

They are in the defines.
 
The main focus of this patch is to fix old bugs and annoyances, address some fundamental issues with antipopes and to flesh out the Jews a bit more.
Is there any chance this includes expanding the Passover event chain? At the moment, it is rather boring, as it is always the exact same three events, with no variations or meaningful choices (such as the trait altering choices that occur during hunts or feasts, for example.)

Also, will the patch make it so the restored Kohen Gadol is actually a Kohen? (I have been having some computer issues, so I haven't been able to download the most recent version of the beta patch to check if this has been addressed, and it didn't occur to me to check the 2.0.2.2 version before my issues started.)
 
I just have to ask this Doomdark, because since the launch of Crusader Kings 2 these have been the biggest and most serious griefs I ever had with this game. This horrible, terrible game, that has systematically made me uninstall all other games on my PC, because it so joyfully provides all the relaxing entertainment I need when I wanna forget about the world.

1. What are the chances of us seeing a Map DLC in the future, a DLC that reshapes the map to a more... realistic version? And I do have to refer to the Victoria 2 map here for reference.

2. What are the chances of us seeing a Faction DLC in the future, a DLC that makes factions really fun and engaging, deep and immersive, and not just a fancier form of Rebels R Us?

Other then that, please keep up the good work guys, I am glad I jumped on the CK2 band wagon since launch, because it really gave me the experience of seeing the game really change with each new DLC and patch. CK2 today is certainly not the same game it was on Launch.
 
A sincere thanks to you, Doomdark and team, for a product that has provided hundreds of hours of entertainment for many of us. It's good to see your labour of love go from strength to strength due in no small part to reaching out to your customer base by virtue of accessibility and transparency.

<snip>curmudgeonly whine about perceived Catholic bias even after the fifth expansion to CK2<snip>

Again, more power to your elbow and happy holidays to you and your team.
 
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I just have to ask this Doomdark, because since the launch of Crusader Kings 2 these have been the biggest and most serious griefs I ever had with this game. This horrible, terrible game, that has systematically made me uninstall all other games on my PC, because it so joyfully provides all the relaxing entertainment I need when I wanna forget about the world.

Thanks, we try. :)

1. What are the chances of us seeing a Map DLC in the future, a DLC that reshapes the map to a more... realistic version? And I do have to refer to the Victoria 2 map here for reference.

Very slim. The map projection is indeed weird, but we will not be changing it. If we ever do CKIII however, I would definitely push for a better projection.

2. What are the chances of us seeing a Faction DLC in the future, a DLC that makes factions really fun and engaging, deep and immersive, and not just a fancier form of Rebels R Us?

The factions are not expansion material. It is possible we will improve on the system in a patch though.
 
To round this little dev diary off, as you probably know, we are dropping all support for the GamersGate version of the game after this patch. The GG version is too much trouble to maintain and is holding us back from having decent multiplayer, achievements for everyone, etc. GamersGate users need not despair however; we are hard at work getting Steam keys ready for you (including, of course, all DLC), and hope to have that done before year's end!

It's wonderful to hear a timeline for the handing out of steam keys to GG users. I have just switched to Linux and realised that the Linux version of CK2 is not supported by GG :( When I heard speculations that this won't happen until well into 2014, I was planning to bite the bullet and repurchasing everything at the first steam sale.

P.S. According to the information on steam, the Linux version of CK2 requires 1GB graphic memory versus the 512MB required for the MAC and Windows version. It's not a problem for my new rig but what has made the difference? Do Linux versions of games in general require more hardware resources than their MAC/Windows counterparts? Thanks