Doomdark's Latest Interview

[BonSequitur]

Performance-wise, if you're adding China you might as well add Japan. Unless we're keeping with P-Dox' practice of making non-Western provinces gigantic and unrepresentative of population in those areas, Japan would be about Britain-sized, while China by itself would be pretty much as big as the whole European section of the map...

 

[NewbieOne]

Cross-posting:

Do you plan to further expand this system by adding more options for character customization, like you recently did with the Way of Life DLC?

I would love to do that, so it’s quite possible that we’ll revisit that idea down the road.

But please do depth rather than breadth (unless you really, really know what you're doing, which includes leaving some serious basis for creative imagination), and please just add stuff rather than making it a give-and-take like WoL.

The problem with WoL is that it removed the excellent text-based events relating to the Improve Stat ambitions, which were really well written, really interesting, part of the game's great flavour, and in many ways superior to the generally somewhat bland, not too inspiring and slightly underdelivering WoL events that just didn't keep up the standard previously set by Improve Stat ambitions.

That we will eventually cover other periods in history with our games seems a reasonable bet, but in that case they will differ from our other games in some key ways.

Well, something in between the end of Rome and the start of CK2 would be nice, with the option to export into a (tribal) CK2 realm/ruler/dynasty.

I don't think anybody has done Sumer and Babylon yet (particularly look at the 3rd dynasty of Ur and the post-Sargon configuration with some resurgent Sumerian states and some still-surviving areas of Accadian rule until Elam and the Amorites (from whom Hammurabi's extraction was) put an end to it. Egypt only really has seen a city sim.

You could also do something fantasy-based, in.al. to avoid history vs gameplay issues.

I would love to include the entire Asian continent at least, and I could see that working from a design perspective (the game is not primarily about the Crusades at all and I have never been happy with the name “Crusader Kings”, but it is far too late to rebrand it now.)

I don't wish to cause offence, but please be more mindful in the future. Branding is a promise. The shape of a game at release is a statement. I really dislike the way you took some unexpected U-turns in conceptual terms in CK2 (especially including the de iure setup and its role) and keep going back and forth with the changes, implementing OP features and then nerfing them into the ground (making them UP), which gives an impression that you guys are running alpha/beta-like experiments on a live game. Your PR department seems to love 'early access' comparisons, but honestly I don't.

You need to be more open and forthright about what you're doing and especially you need to know what you're doing. If you're confused as a designer, it shows in the game.

What currently prevents us from adding the Far East is rather RAM and CPU load. I would not rule it out completely though, because these things can probably be solved with some effort.

I'd rather you fixed crusades anyway, TBH. This is even though I've had more than my share of Levantine warfare and keep dreaming about a game in Britannia or Scandinavia that will allow me never to go there. I love to do other things than crusading. I'm not a big fan of crusading. But crusades should be workable — this also means holy wars, and, by extension, the rest of warfare, which is clearly not your forte as far as the AI goes. This means pathfinding (Zirids marching to Sicily through Barcelona, Rome, Provence etc. and Fatimids through Palestine, Constantinople and Croatia after declaring a holy war due to 1-province sea distance), attrition avoidance (no more walking of 20K stacks into an 8K province with already 20K dudes in it, please, unless the commander is an idiot or hothead by his skills and traits), knowledge when and how to use mercs and military orders (including when to let them go and when it is too early to), and a modicum of tactics, especially on the defending side (starting from waiting for reinforcements that are already on their way as opposed to attacking a more numerous enemy, e.g. 10K+10K vs 15K, as opposed to walking two 10K armies into a 15K army in quick succession).

No matter how you feel about adding Asia, the above is something you need to address first. Among other reasons because it clearly puts the game in a sort of alpha-beta-stage quality level the way it's so almost non-existent.

Yes! First up is Hearts of Iron IV, the latest in our successful WW2 series of wargames, which will be released in Q2 or so. We have another game in production and yet another one in pre-production.

Please don't cut resources from CK2 for that. In the future, please put a game in a finished and working state before diverting resources from it.

I love CK2, but there are some lessons you need to learn from it for the future and some things that really should be fixed already in CK2 rather than waiting till CK3.

 

[Kenlin]

The problem with WoL is that it removed the excellent text-based events relating to the Improve Stat ambitions, which were really well written, really interesting, part of the game's great flavour, and in many ways superior to the generally somewhat bland, not too inspiring and slightly underdelivering WoL events that just didn't keep up the standard previously set by Improve Stat ambitions.

I wish people would stop posting this misconception. These events now have triggers such as

OR = {
	AND = {
		has_focus = focus_war
		NOT = { martial = 8 }
	}
	has_ambition = obj_improve_martial
}

and therefore still exist in the game even with Way of Life.

 

[NewbieOne]

I wish people would stop posting this misconception. These events now have triggers such as

OR = {
	AND = {
		has_focus = focus_war
		NOT = { martial = 8 }
	}
	has_ambition = obj_improve_martial
}

and therefore still exist in the game even with Way of Life.

Thank you, I stand corrected and am glad to hear that.

However, in my defence, it was said all the time that WoL foci were replacing Improve Stat ambitions, which were being disabled. There was no word about moving parts of those ambitions to under corresponding foci.

 

[DarkCruor]

I wish people would stop posting this misconception. These events now have triggers such as

OR = {
	AND = {
		has_focus = focus_war
		NOT = { martial = 8 }
	}
	has_ambition = obj_improve_martial
}

and therefore still exist in the game even with Way of Life.

I don't think I've triggered Meldrick once since WoL

 

[Dracko81]

I wish people would stop posting this misconception. These events now have triggers such as

OR = {
	AND = {
		has_focus = focus_war
		NOT = { martial = 8 }
	}
	has_ambition = obj_improve_martial
}

and therefore still exist in the game even with Way of Life.

It is because some people would rather complain about something they read third hand, than actually do the research on the topic or actually play the game.

 

[NewbieOne]

It is because some people would rather complain about something they read third hand, than actually do the research on the topic or actually play the game.

Or is it rather that people like you would jump to conclusions? You have proved numerous times that logical conclusions are not your forte.

I kept playing the game. I just haven't had any rulers select a focus corresponding to a stat so low that it would still be less than 8 even after choosing the corresponding focus. In order to trigger this in game, since War focus grants you +3 martial for choosing, you would need to have 4 permanent martial (4+3=7, the largest integer lower than 8). Accordingly for Stewardship & Rulership focus etc. It would be a very narrow, rare situation, and for you to claim that I haven't played the game on the basis of my not having come across it is totally preposterous. It simply shows your lack of regard for common sense in making your claims, something you have clearly established in a number of discussions I've had with you so far (admittedly not all, but a visible tendency to twist your logic to fit some sort of emotional notion unfortunately does show).

As for 'third hand', I read/watched the communication that was given about WoL, and I recall that it was said the foci would be replacing the Improve Stat ambitions, which would no longer be available. I cannot recall reading or hearing any explicit reservation or explanation that the events from those ambitions would be moved to the foci. (And capable of being triggered if you happen to be focusing on something for which your corresponding stat is 4 or 5 — remember that the foci reflect what your ruler is the most interested in doing, rather than weakness he would like to fight against and covercome.)