Maybe that's how you would react? I find this "I feel cheated if I don't get this and that feature in a free patch" attitude fairly repulsive. At what point did they entitle you to regular content patches for free? If there is Byzantine content then you can be fairly certain that it is stuff that was developed in the past months, since game release, so it cannot conceivably have been part of the base game release. Maybe the concept was already there (the postmortem DD indicated that when they implemented the base game, there were a lot of concepts that had to be left out) but concept and implementation are different things, it takes time and effort to put something into usable and tested code.
The real question is what the DLC part unlocksI would LOVE that!!!
Great explanation.
And what we all have to keep in mind, is how we would react to a Byzantine DLC rather than just a patch. Many players would be outraged at how cheap that would be (taking away something that should have already been there and selling it). And how would they keep the base game compatible with it unless they disabled Orthodox characters to anybody without the DLC.
Putting a Byzantine/Orthodox overhaul on a patch would be great. An HRE/ERE overhaul would also be great, but in a patch. This DLC has to introduce something not present in the base game.
I suppose the different game aspects require some sort of balance, but you could easily have it so that the DLC brings a lot of new features which both the AI and the player can only use when the DLC is bought. If you don't have the DLC, the interface button just isn't there. That could even work for naval combat - when you don't have the DLC, there are no pirates in the game, fleets don't fight each other and can't be assigned commanders. You could also not build any of the new naval unit types that a DLC might implement. So there would still be a game but just not with some of the features. It would feel "vanilla" but you could still play all of the factions. Balance might be a little iffy if the "locked" features were part of game balance, but if the feature was something that all factions can use, then removing it might not upset balance too much.The real question is what the DLC part unlocks
For example, it might unlock playing as the Patriarch himself, as he's not currently playable. Unlikely, but possible.
Alternatively, it might just be graphics and music.
I find it unlikely that they would make Orthodox characters unplayable without the DLC at least. After all, they doubtlessly saw the moderate backlash with Sword of Islam when Muslims weren't even playable in vanilla, so I doubt they'd give people a good reason to be outraged.
That would split the multiplayer community, which Paradox have said they will not do with Crusader Kings II.
Well there were crusades against pagans...
No it wouldn't - a DLC-owner could play with a non-DLC-owner and the game would give both the same set of game features (that available to non-DLC owners).
I always assume that people with the "TAKE MY MONEY!!!11" opinion are those who get mummy or daddy to buy their games for them. One of the reasons I value Paradox as a business and makes them stand out as game developers is their commitment to fixing problems within their games through patches. The first game i bought was Vicky 2 when it was first released. Every patch felt like a new game they fixed a magnitude of problems and introduced many new features. It's concerning that they now seem to want to squeeze the customer for every last penny by releasing features which should have been in the game or included with major DLC. Mongol faces for example.
