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Hey folks, it is dev diary day and time to talk a bit about rebels and adventurers! Let's start off with the rebels; as you know, the old rebels are a nuisance but they are easily defeated and even if they hold a county for a long time, defection is rare. Sure, they sometimes kill a local ruler, but even that is uncommon. This is a shame, especially since we have explored better ways of handling rebels in the In Nomine expansion to Europa Universalis III and in Victoria II. So, for The Old Gods, we are replacing the old simplistic system with proper rebels with a cause (if you don't have the expansion, you will be stuck with the old system.) There are three new types of rebels: peasants, heretics and "liberators". As before, they can appear if the revolt risk is higher than 0 in a county. If the county is of a heretic religion, heretic rebels may appear. If the county is in a kingdom occupied by foreigners, liberators may rise up. If the other two types are not suitable, it's going to be a peasant revolt.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Peasant_Revolt.jpg

The new types of rebels all have a leader with a temporary title. They start at war with the ruler of the realm in which they appear, but they are hostile to everyone. Fighting them is like fighting a normal war; you get war score for crushing their army. If peasant or heretic rebels win, the county will be taken and becomes independent under their leader. Liberators are more dangerous; they tend to rise up with the best and largest forces, and they are after the entire de jure kingdom. However, they typically tend to settle for a few counties and the title to the kingdom itself. The system is fully moddable and it is pretty straightforward to add new rebel types.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Claimant_Adventure.jpg

This brings us to adventurers. The concept is quite similar to the rebels, but adventures are started by existing characters and can target distant lands. There are two main types; claimants with no titles who stand to inherit nothing, and men of major dynasties with no claims but high martial and diplomatic skill. In both cases, the adventurer lets it be known that he is starting an adventure and gathering a host (both his current liege(s) and the target ruler are notified). After a year or two, he is given a temporary duchy title, an army, and a fleet. War is declared, and he goes after the target. Claimants, of course, will try to press their claim, but the other type simply target a juicy duchy somewhere and go off to seize it (like the d'Hautevilles took southern Italy). A savvy player who is targetted may of course assassinate the adventurer before he arrives with his army... Characters of certain cultures are more likely to go off on claimless adventures, e.g. Normans and Norse.

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Conquest_Adventure.jpg

Speaking of Norse and Norman, another thing I believe we haven't mentioned yet are the new cultures we've added: Norse, Bolghar, Khazar, Mordvin, Samoyed and Avar. In 867, all Scandinavians are of the Norse culture, but there are events that will initiate a split into Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Independent Norse rulers outside Scandinavia will not be affected. Determined players can also choose to stay Norse and attempt to educate children of vassals to stick to this culture. Similarly, there are events for the appearance of Norman culture, which is formed by Norse conquerors in Frankish, Breton or Occitan lands. (Yes, we could have done this for any number of cultures in the game, but it is quite a lot of work. It is, of course, also fully moddable.)

CKII_ToG_DD_06_Cultural_Divergence.jpg

That sums it up for today! Next Wednesday will see the last dev diary for The Old Gods expansion and will feature the new technology system and what other tidbits remain.

Bonus, in case you missed it ;)

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods Video Dev Diary 2 - Rebels
[video=youtube;eo7ttCKInYM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM[/video]

 
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I like this system for creating temporary titles. Is there a possibility to adapt part of the code to make Muslim/Pagan CoAs of primary title match CoA of the dynasty?
 
Will there be a similar cultural split for the West Slavs? In 867 and later they were pretty much uniform and later cultural divergence was fairly consistent with post 10-th century political divisions.
 
Pretty sure it's already been confirmed they won't. They are landless after all.

Does the new rebel system affect decadence revolts? It looks pretty easy to tie them in with it.

They do receive a temporary duchy-tier title. If one would use the console to switch to a still unlanded Mongol leader (Only holding e_golden_horde, but not having conquered anything yet.), one would not get the game over screen. So I thought it could be possible.
 
Norræn siður mun aldrei deyja, aldrei!
(The norse culture will never die, never!)
 
They do receive a temporary duchy-tier title. If one would use the console to switch to a still unlanded Mongol leader (Only holding e_golden_horde, but not having conquered anything yet.), one would not get the game over screen. So I thought it could be possible.

Yes, most likely it still will be possible to play as unlanded characters with titular title (not only Mongols atm, but mercs too). But only in SP. ;(
 
Pretty sure it's already been confirmed they won't. They are landless after all.

They do have a title, like mercs, so console switching to the character may work if they haven't explicitly disabled it. Probably unsupported, but could be cool.

Does the new rebel system affect decadence revolts? It looks pretty easy to tie them in with it.

Yeah, with the exception that the rebel usurps a county (instead of a temporary title) that's already pretty much how they work, so getting rid of that should be a no-brainer.
 
Are heretics only literal heretic religions or any religion under a different religion leader? Also will say a cathar province under a muslim ruler spawn heretics?

Am I correct in assuming you can avoid liberator rebels by not forming the kingdom title?

What affects whether a claimant tries his luck, just random?

Are those armies bigger than we are used to?
 
They do receive a temporary duchy-tier title. If one would use the console to switch to a still unlanded Mongol leader (Only holding e_golden_horde, but not having conquered anything yet.), one would not get the game over screen. So I thought it could be possible.

Think King said that the engine doesn't support it on the livestream
 
That sums it up for today! Next Wednesday will see the last dev diary for The Old Gods expansion and will feature the new technology system and what other tidbits remain.[/URL]
The new rebels are great, I really appreciate it HOWEVER does that mean that there will be no more flavor events for Pagans (I'm not counting the forum contest)?
Because I think that some groups - Romuva, Slav, Suomenusko - can use some more distinctive features other than one feast, especially in comparison to the Norse it looks mediocre.
 
So, who's eligible target for liberators? E.g. If I were king of Norway and England, will English liberators be possible? What if I were kaiser and king of Italy, would Italian liberator be eligible? What if king of Italy were my vassal? And: what about e.g. Lotharingians, etc.?

Next thing: if liberators win, they become independent, right? Not vassals of some emperor?
 
Also: did you nerf assimilation? Starting in 1066 I still have to see Dutch, Italian (in Northern Italy) and all the Balkan Slavs survive 'til 1453. Come endgame, all up to the Danube is Greek.