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Can't help but be disappointed with the latest patch / DLC, even if my hopes were not high to begin with. :/

Probably going to join some of the earlier posters and tap out of the game for some time. After 170h, there's no more content left, and for so long as mods to allow plausible gay gameplay remain impossible, there's little left keep me engaged.
 
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another patch, another hope shattered of this being fixed :c

EDIT: The new update is actually a stab BACK on this. Now mods cant even make concubines of same sex
 
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Someone poked me that whilst we'd acknowledged this thread in other place and on other socials we'd not actually put a dev comment in it, so I thought I'd do that real quick.

Simple answer is that if it was just a quick change we’d have already done it, but it’d be a bit more involved than that and compared to other needs for the project it’s not been a high priority to look at since modding requests are always low in the prio list.

I know it’s something multiple of the team do want as well, so it will likely get a look at in time. But yeah its not that we don't support having something in the game, we definitely do, it is as always with these things a matter of priority and development time not any of the pretty wild speculations in this thread :)
 
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Someone poked me that whilst we'd acknowledged this thread in other place and on other socials we'd not actually put a dev comment in it, so I thought I'd do that real quick.

Simple answer is that if it was just a quick change we’d have already done it, but it’d be a bit more involved than that and compared to other needs for the project it’s not been a high priority to look at since modding requests are always low in the prio list.

I know it’s something multiple of the team do want as well, so it will likely get a look at in time. But yeah its not that we don't support having something in the game, we definitely do, it is as always with these things a matter of priority and development time not any of the pretty wild speculations in this thread :)
Thanks for the reply.

While I understand that is not high on the priority, someone added new code to specifically block concubine/consort of same gender in 1.3.0. Reverting to before 1.3.0, this code was not present, so I don't know how to feel about this.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

While I understand that is not high on the priority, someone added new code to specifically block concubine/consort of same gender in 1.3.0. Reverting to before 1.3.0, this code was not present, so I don't know how to feel about this.
As with all those errors they exist so we can catch bugs in the base game, same sex concubines likely did not actually work and had bugs and the requirement was just not being explicitly checked in that effect despite being needed in the game. So someone on a bug fixing pass when fixing an issue related to that likely added that requirement in explicitly to aid with fixing our bugs tickets.

I understand that is probably not a satisfactory answer, but that is gonna be the reason. Any de-hardcoding needs to strike the balance of letting modders do what they want but also make sure that what is not used in the base game and is not part of the invariants we maintain needs to be checked and logged somewhere.
 
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Honestly this cavalier attitude to user modding is a huge disappointment. At least allow us to turn off the checks in a config file somewhere.

If even a basic workaround like this can't be implemented, it will seriously shatter my goodwill towards Paradox and I will be far less likely to support this company in the future.
 
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As with all those errors they exist so we can catch bugs in the base game, same sex concubines likely did not actually work and had bugs and the requirement was just not being explicitly checked in that effect despite being needed in the game. So someone on a bug fixing pass when fixing an issue related to that likely added that requirement in explicitly to aid with fixing our bugs tickets.

I understand that is probably not a satisfactory answer, but that is gonna be the reason. Any de-hardcoding needs to strike the balance of letting modders do what they want but also make sure that what is not used in the base game and is not part of the invariants we maintain needs to be checked and logged somewhere.
Thanks for your information. I for one have never said it was easy to change. I believe I understand why the marriage system was hardcoded the way it is. I would likely make the same choice given limited resources. This is perhaps from my experience working in the industry. I would guess there are problems with ai and making sure they propagate right.

That's why everyone will have to wait for a major religion or family dlc like I said a few posts back. I think that some paths to make something may be available through modding but it will take time and skill to do so.

I guess the only thing I'd like to see more from the development team is answering questions for those trying to mod something. However I know that would require time that would be better spent developing so it can't be done.

blackninja9939 I for one appreciate your interaction with us and your candor. Keep up the good work!
 
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Wow. I knew my same sex concubine mod stopped functioning with the 1.3 patch- I didn't know it got hardcoded. I think this is a horrible development that needs some immediate attention in a hot fix. Personally, I think same sex marriages should be allowed along with adopting people as your own child. Gaius Julius Caesar adopted Octavian, who in turn adopted Tiberius, so it isn't out of the question to use similar mechanics 900 years later.

Even if there is issue of same sex concubines/consorts being gifted to people, they can turn them down as in CK2, no? They won't accept same sex if they aren't homo or bisexual or even just not wanting to be labeled as a sodomite.
 
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I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll mention it here as well: this is a step in the entirely wrong direction that didn't need to be made (there were people already making mods with same-sex concubinage -- maybe they didn't work to your standards, but that's no reason to block them). And until it is fixed, and honestly probably the gay marriage ban as well, I won't be buying any more CK3 expansions. (I'm unfortunately locked in to the next couple of releases due to my pre-order, but nothing after that.) Probably not any more Stellaris expansions, either (the only other Paradox game I play semi-regularly). I was willing to put up with the hardcoded ban on gay marriage at launch because I hoped you'd be working on it and eventually open it up, but after this change, I can't have any faith in that any more.

I'm gravely disappointed in Paradox. I thought you were better than this.
 
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The irony of Paradox having gender pronouns on their discord, releasing a Nordic DLC that panders to certain questionable demographic and then doing this to the game. I dont think that having same-sex concubines broke CK3 beyond repair or created problems with the engine.
 
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So you took a feature that was working-ish via modding and completely hard-blocked it?
That's like the exact opposite of what should have been done. I'm almost expecting it to be locked behind the next expansion pack.

But hey, at least know we have brother-consorts and mother-concubines!
Priorities!
 
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As with all those errors they exist so we can catch bugs in the base game, same sex concubines likely did not actually work and had bugs and the requirement was just not being explicitly checked in that effect despite being needed in the game. So someone on a bug fixing pass when fixing an issue related to that likely added that requirement in explicitly to aid with fixing our bugs tickets.

I understand that is probably not a satisfactory answer, but that is gonna be the reason. Any de-hardcoding needs to strike the balance of letting modders do what they want but also make sure that what is not used in the base game and is not part of the invariants we maintain needs to be checked and logged somewhere.
As an author of a mod that utilized same-sex concubines, I'm a bit hesitant about this sort of answer because I frequently checked my logs (and the game) for errors when making sure it all ran correctly, and I certainly never noticed anything directly related to it (I needed to add some additional checks for niche cases due to how I implemented it, but that was it). It was certainly close enough to "working" such that I noticed no problems during a couple of hundred in-game years where both myself and the AI made use of the feature.

I do not by my post mean to ascribe any sort of malicious/nefarious intent to you programmers/bug fixers/etc.. I believe it may have been an honest oversight that was corrected, but I saw no evidence that allowing it was breaking anything.
 
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Just want to add my voice here.

This whole situation has burned up years of goodwill that Paradox had built up with me up until this point in just months, in a way I'd never in my dreams have thought possible.

I work in backend tech at a video game developer in Dundee myself and I've had it playing in the back of my mind for a while now to maybe apply to Paradox and move to Stockholm as a sort of unlikely pipe dream scenario. Especially with how bitter a pill to swallow Brexit has been as an EU citizen living in the UK. I guess the last few years just keep on being filled with disappointment.

I honestly had so much respect and admiration for Paradox going into CK3. I've always raved about how good their games are to anyone who would listen and probably bored several people half to death with in-depth play-by-plays of the various empires and roleplay scenarios I've really gotten carried away with in Stellaris. I read every single Dev Diary each week leading up to CK3 and was honestly so freaking excited, like I can't really remember being that hyped about anything since a few years ago when I got my first car. I'm not even exaggerating.

But this has just left such an ugly taste in my mouth.

Stories are important. Stories are powerful. Stories matter. We imitate them and learn from them and are shaped by them. They're a reflection of the world, and in return, human behaviour often changes to resemble them.

This is why representation is so important for queer people in media. In a world without meaningful LGBT representation the message that you're sending to some poor closeted teen in a small intolerant town is that they're completely alone. That they aren't important. That they don't matter enough to tell stories about.

When someone struggling with their identity gets ahold of a role-playing game it often helps them figure things out. I've honestly seen more posts than I'd have expected from other queer people on social media mentioning how games like the Sims were one of their few outlets to express their sexuality or gender identity when they were still in the closet.

Imagine discovering an honestly awesome game like CK3, with almost endless roleplay possibilities, only to find you can't even marry a same-sex partner. You can set up a cannibal cult and an empire with institutionalized incest, but marrying your character's literal same-sex romantic partner is arbitrarily off-limits. It just feels... terrible. I imagine it would feel even worse if you're unlucky enough to live in a regressive country that doesn't afford you that same right in your own life.

When I realized I couldn't marry a same-sex partner in the base game I immediately started looking into making a mod for it myself, and then I basically just went through several stages of disbelief, frustration, and disapointment when I realized it wasn't possible at all.

And I just feel let down by you now, Paradox. It's probably a little irrational, but it's honestly how I feel. It has literally even soured my enjoyment of Stellaris (my all-time favourite game) by association.

I wish I could just not take it personally, but my life experiences are full of self-righteous bigots hurting me in ways they claimed weren't personal for my intrinsic characteristics. This may have been just an oversight rather than something malicious, but it still stings. Queer people getting the short end of the stick once again in a thousand tiny ways shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, only it actually does hurt this time because I really didn't expect it coming from you.

I wasn't really going anywhere with this. Just venting. I'm going to stop playing CK3 for a while. I'll maybe check back in a year to see if anything's changed. Thank you for at least providing an answer, even if "you're not a high priority" wasn't what I wanted to hear.
 
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Just want to add my voice here.

This whole situation has burned up years of goodwill that Paradox had built up with me up until this point in just months, in a way I'd never in my dreams have thought possible.

I work in backend tech at a video game developer in Dundee myself and I've had it playing in the back of my mind for a while now to maybe apply to Paradox and move to Stockholm as a sort of unlikely pipe dream scenario. Especially with how bitter a pill to swallow Brexit has been as an EU citizen living in the UK. I guess the last few years just keep on being filled with disappointment.

I honestly had so much respect and admiration for Paradox going into CK3. I've always raved about how good their games are to anyone who would listen and probably bored several people half to death with in-depth play-by-plays of the various empires and roleplay scenarios I've really gotten carried away with in Stellaris. I read every single Dev Diary each week leading up to CK3 and was honestly so freaking excited, like I can't really remember being that hyped about anything since a few years ago when I got my first car. I'm not even exaggerating.

But this has just left such an ugly taste in my mouth.

Stories are important. Stories are powerful. Stories matter. We imitate them and learn from them and are shaped by them. They are a reflection of the world, and conversely, human behaviour often changes to resemble them back.

This is why representation is so important for queer people in media. In a world without meaningful LGBT representation the message that you're sending to some poor closeted teen in a small intolerant town is that they're completely alone. That they aren't important. That they don't matter enough to tell stories about.

When someone struggling with their identity gets ahold of a role-playing game it often helps them figure things out. I've honestly seen more posts than I'd have expected from other queer people on social media mentioning how games like the Sims were one of their few outlets to express their sexuality or gender identity when they were still in the closet.

Imagine discovering an honestly awesome game like CK3, with almost endless roleplay possibilities, only to find you can't even marry a same-sex partner. You can set up a cannibal cult and an empire with institutionalized incest, but marrying your character's literal same-sex romantic partner is arbitrarily off-limits. It just feels... terrible. I imagine it would feel even worse if you're unlucky enough to live in a regressive country that doesn't afford you that same right in your own life.

When I realized I couldn't marry a same-sex partner in the base game I immediately started looking into making a mod for it myself, and then I basically just went through several stages of disbelief, frustration, and dissapointment when I realized it wasn't possible at all.

And I just feel let down by you now, Paradox. It's probably a little irrational, but it's honestly how I feel. It has literally even soured my enjoyment of Stellaris (my all-time favourite game) by association.

I wish I could just not take it personally, but my life experiences are full of self-righteous cis straight people hurting me in ways they claimed weren't personal for my intrinsic characteristics. Queer people getting the short end of the stick once again in a thousand tiny ways shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, only it actually does hurt this time because I really didn't expect it coming from you.

I wasn't really going anywhere with this. Just venting. I'm going to stop playing CK3 for a while. I'll maybe check back in a year to see if anything's changed. Thank you for at least providing an answer, even if "you're not a high priority" wasn't what I wanted to hear.

This is going to come off as dickish, but you probably need to hear it.

Paradox is now a publicly traded company. They have a board, and a ceo and all that jazz, and those people have what is called a fiduciary responsibility to make money above anything that isn't explicitly illegal. Democraphically, LGBQT+ people account for what? Maybe 5% of the population? It's in that ball park. This, by definition, makes the allocation of resources towards a very niche group in a for profit product low priority.

This obviously isn't what you want to hear, but that's the reality of capitalism.

Why was this hardcoded? If I had to guess, it was easier for them to block it from happening, than to add the code required to make sure you couldn't destroy the AI by sending them same sex concubines. That's just a guess.

Will it get changed? Probably. When? The jaded version of myself says, in about 4 years when Paradox finally decides to teach the AI how to play the game again after 18 DLCs :) Precedent is Stellaris, and HOI4, and well, basically all their recent games where AI at all levels is left behind by new DLC and it takes dedicated patching to catch the games ability to play itself competently to the DLC.
 
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Democraphically, LGBQT+ people account for what? Maybe 5% of the population?
While i get what you are saying, I feel that 1) you don't need to be LGBTQ+ to care about this issue and 2) that making a change that blocks something that is really important to 5% of your player base for no aparent value (because i haven't seen anyone destroying AI by sending concubines their way) is a good way to chip away at your consumer base.
 
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Just want to add my voice here.

This whole situation has burned up years of goodwill that Paradox had built up with me up until this point in just months, in a way I'd never in my dreams have thought possible.

I work in backend tech at a video game developer in Dundee myself and I've had it playing in the back of my mind for a while now to maybe apply to Paradox and move to Stockholm as a sort of unlikely pipe dream scenario. Especially with how bitter a pill to swallow Brexit has been as an EU citizen living in the UK. I guess the last few years just keep on being filled with disappointment.

I honestly had so much respect and admiration for Paradox going into CK3. I've always raved about how good their games are to anyone who would listen and probably bored several people half to death with in-depth play-by-plays of the various empires and roleplay scenarios I've really gotten carried away with in Stellaris. I read every single Dev Diary each week leading up to CK3 and was honestly so freaking excited, like I can't really remember being that hyped about anything since a few years ago when I got my first car. I'm not even exaggerating.

But this has just left such an ugly taste in my mouth.

Stories are important. Stories are powerful. Stories matter. We imitate them and learn from them and are shaped by them. They are a reflection of the world, and conversely, human behaviour often changes to resemble them back.

This is why representation is so important for queer people in media. In a world without meaningful LGBT representation the message that you're sending to some poor closeted teen in a small intolerant town is that they're completely alone. That they aren't important. That they don't matter enough to tell stories about.

When someone struggling with their identity gets ahold of a role-playing game it often helps them figure things out. I've honestly seen more posts than I'd have expected from other queer people on social media mentioning how games like the Sims were one of their few outlets to express their sexuality or gender identity when they were still in the closet.

Imagine discovering an honestly awesome game like CK3, with almost endless roleplay possibilities, only to find you can't even marry a same-sex partner. You can set up a cannibal cult and an empire with institutionalized incest, but marrying your character's literal same-sex romantic partner is arbitrarily off-limits. It just feels... terrible. I imagine it would feel even worse if you're unlucky enough to live in a regressive country that doesn't afford you that same right in your own life.

When I realized I couldn't marry a same-sex partner in the base game I immediately started looking into making a mod for it myself, and then I basically just went through several stages of disbelief, frustration, and dissapointment when I realized it wasn't possible at all.

And I just feel let down by you now, Paradox. It's probably a little irrational, but it's honestly how I feel. It has literally even soured my enjoyment of Stellaris (my all-time favourite game) by association.

I wish I could just not take it personally, but my life experiences are full of self-righteous cis straight people hurting me in ways they claimed weren't personal for my intrinsic characteristics. Queer people getting the short end of the stick once again in a thousand tiny ways shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, only it actually does hurt this time because I really didn't expect it coming from you.

I wasn't really going anywhere with this. Just venting. I'm going to stop playing CK3 for a while. I'll maybe check back in a year to see if anything's changed. Thank you for at least providing an answer, even if "you're not a high priority" wasn't what I wanted to hear.
You’re twisting my words there quite a bit, nobody is saying that representation isn’t important or that LGBT people aren’t either.

I came into this thread to explain that we understand your frustration that the project needs is our job to do and that has time spent on as a higher focus than mod support.

I could have not responded to this thread given that we’d already answered elsewhere, but I felt we owed it to people to have open communication since that is something we love of our community.

But I also don’t then think it’s unreasonable for me to expect people to not respond to that with hyperbole or thinly veiled implications that I or the rest of the team are anti LGBT, which is especially ludicrous given that our team has LGBT people in it (which is by no means a limit on other people caring about this too) and we’ve worked to improve representation in CK3 since it’s something a lot of us care about.

I know this response will probably also get me more disagrees and angry faces, but I came into this thread in my free time to be open with people so it didn’t seem like we were ignoring you even if I couldn’t come with an answer that would fix the problems for you. So I’d ask that whilst this is an important and sensitive topic to try and not twist our answers here into something they are clearly not.
 
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I could have not responded to this thread given that we’d already answered elsewhere, but I felt we owed it to people to have open communication since that is something we love of our community.
If you really like 'open communication', then why not communicate it before hand?
There is no mention of this change in the patch notes or anywhere else.

Really, it could have been very easily avoided by just being actually open about it.

In general communication around CK3 is a bit lackluster. The game in itself is amazing, the content is of very high quality, and there is obviously a huge amount of love and care that went into it. Which makes the issues in and around the game so glaring.
It feels like you (a general you, not you in particular) aren't very confident in your work?

Like, it's almost midnight here in France, so it must be very late in Sweden, and yet as you've said you're here to discuss about it. So you obviously care. So there is some kind of dissonance in communication that is kind of awkward? I don't know if I make myself very clear, sorry.
 
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You’re twisting my words there quite a bit, nobody is saying that representation isn’t important or that LGBT people aren’t either.

I came into this thread to explain that we understand your frustration that the project needs is our job to do and that has time spent on as a higher focus than mod support.

I could have not responded to this thread given that we’d already answered elsewhere, but I felt we owed it to people to have open communication since that is something we love of our community.

But I also don’t then think it’s unreasonable for me to expect people to not respond to that with hyperbole or thinly veiled implications that I or the rest of the team are anti LGBT, which is especially ludicrous given that our team has LGBT people in it (which is by no means a limit on other people caring about this too) and we’ve worked to improve representation in CK3 since it’s something a lot of us care about.

I know this response will probably also get me more disagrees and angry faces, but I came into this thread in my free time to be open with people so it didn’t seem like we were ignoring you even if I couldn’t come with an answer that would fix the problems for you. So I’d ask that whilst this is an important and sensitive topic to try and not twist our answers here into something they are clearly not.
I respect, appreciate and patron your work; I like the game and like that you are respondind to our concerns. I am only engaging in this post to signal that this is important to me in the hopes that enough people boost it so that this issue gets a bit closer to the top of ck’s priority list.:)
 
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I respect that you're doing your best to reach out, and I don't want to make you feel attacked. Nonetheless, you have to understand why your response wasn't all that satisfying to most of us. As far as I can tell from what you've said, Paradox is removing a feature modders used -- and one that made people feel more included -- in order to get a marginal boost to their internal bug catching process. You have to see why that doesn't feel like a fair trade off to us. That would probably be true of any feature removed for internal ease of use ('Oh, yeah, we know you've been hacking the game to allow more religious doctrines, but blocking you from that makes our bug reports cleaner'), but it's doubly so when it's something so important to people as seeing their very identity represented. It seems to say your convenience as developers is more important than representation or the player experience.

I'm glad you're willing to reach out, and I hope it's a sign that you'll be making things better in future patches. When you do, I'll gladly return to playing and recommending CK3. But until then, I'm sticking with my decision.
 
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If you really like 'open communication', then why not communicate it before hand?
There is no mention of this change in the patch notes or anywhere else.

Really, it could have been very easily avoided by just being actually open about it.

In general communication around CK3 is a bit lackluster. The game in itself is amazing, the content is of very high quality, and there is obviously a huge amount of love and care that went into it. Which makes the issues in and around the game so glaring.
It feels like you (a general you, not you in particular) aren't very confident in your work?

Like, it's almost midnight here in France, so it must be very late in Sweden, and yet as you've said you're here to discuss about it. So you obviously care. So there is some kind of dissonance in communication that is kind of awkward? I don't know if I make myself very clear, sorry.
We don’t write a patch note for every single line of code we change, I’d assume that this change was done and it was not thought anything was using this script like this since base game content certainly was not.

We’re all pretty damn confident and proud of the game so not sure where you get the idea otherwise from.

It’s around midnight in Sweden too right now yeah!
 
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