The devs say they will not be focusing on making multiple start dates any more
- Thread starter TyroniusRex
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Since they have stated that their stats show that players rarely use the later starting dates, I don't think we'll see more than one or two in the future. It's just not worth the investment.
However, should they release a EU Rome game, and many people demand it, they could let that game run until the late 700s. Maybe no more Charly in CK3.
However, should they release a EU Rome game, and many people demand it, they could let that game run until the late 700s. Maybe no more Charly in CK3.
Maybe... but the EU4 team has definitely said something similar and I wouldn't be surprised if the CK2 devs did too. Maybe he got them confused.
The later EU4 starts have gone completely out of whack and are basically unsupported, but I think the CK2 starts have held up fine. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that CK2 is character-driven and EU4 is more tied to the timeline.
I'd be surprised if they got rid of later starts completely in CK3, they seem popular enough, but I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the ability to choose any date. Of course no one has yet to provide the actual quotes from the devs...
I don't think it would be a good idea from the developers to ditch one of the main attractions of both CK and EU franchise - the possibility of picking up a historical starting date with the accuracy of a single day. It is an utterly unparalleled concept in any historical game (to my knowledge, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong), and I cannot imagine the dev team is ignorant of its appeal. Sure, a lot of work - but most of the raw data (ruler lists, dynasties, tags etc) for a huge amount of provinces is already in existence, and can be used as a basis for any further installment of the games.
While I have probably started a great majority of my playthroughs from one of the bookmarked dates, some of my absolute favourite games have begun from obscure starting dates, with a truly unique aspect of 'what-if-ness' - with rulers who only were in power for a few weeks, aftermaths of important battles (or preludes to them), and just interesting little quirks of power balance between states. The Cilician kingdom of Armenia is a fine example, but there are countless others.
While I have probably started a great majority of my playthroughs from one of the bookmarked dates, some of my absolute favourite games have begun from obscure starting dates, with a truly unique aspect of 'what-if-ness' - with rulers who only were in power for a few weeks, aftermaths of important battles (or preludes to them), and just interesting little quirks of power balance between states. The Cilician kingdom of Armenia is a fine example, but there are countless others.
Nah its just i couldnt post my question without making an account. I mean, if i was trolling I would've just made a statement that makes people mad, it's incredibly easy and a huge waste of time for everyone involved.
All I've done here is ask a genuine question that has fostered at least some decent discussion into the future of Crusader Kings, and certainly for me at least this thread has cleared some things up for me, so thankyou to all those with genuine answers, and to those of you who seem to spend your days looking for trolls behind every curtain I say to ye: Shouldn't you be retaking the Holy Land instead of worrying about me?? Food for thought
How did you learn about the dates thing without already having a Paradox account then?
I wouldn't mind losing the ability to go "day by day" if we got more start dates in exchange, but if we were limited to only a three starts as some people are speculating, I probably wouldn't even bother to buy CK3.
Okay you got me I'm actually a troll can we get back to the discussion now?
So one thing people have mentioned a lot that im kinda facepalming about that I didnt see it myself is the fact that it would seem like a huge waste to not at least use what research actually has been done.
With that said, was the research ever the toughest part? I imagine as others have said the amount of tedious data entry that must have gone into all the history files and shit must be huge and i wonder how well it really weighs against the fact that most people only use the 3 first starts
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- Jan 22, 2018
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Didn't think I'd have to respond to this thread twice, but ach well
Was research ever the toughest part? Probably not. Was it the thing that took the most time by far? Oh god yes.
I'll quickly run you through the process of creating a new province in the game.
First of, you need to find out what province you need to create, why and where. What is the goal for creating a new province? Gameplay balance? Historical accuracy? Some other byzantine (get it? Because it is also an adjective? HAH) reason?
Then you need to find out what is the most fitting borders you can create for the province. This is difficult, as the game spans from 769 to 1450, and the borders of pretty much every area in the world changes over a 700 year period.
So you have adjusted the borders, you have jotted down the information needed to create a new province, and you make a new Coat of Arms for it. This probably took you 30-60 minutes after you have done the original research. The implementation is quick and easy enough. Only the two most time research heavy things remain. To find fitting baronies, and to find out who owns the land at every instance over several hundreds of years in a history-light period.
Every province need to have 7 baronies at the very least, so you need to find 7 fitting names to your province, which can be pretty hard to decide. Some times you come across maps that names every single tiny area with the same text and importance, other times the best you can do is to find maps that shows province names and that is it. How do you decide? Well.. As some people have pointed out, not every province in the game is correct when it comes to these things, to put it lightly.
You got the baronies jotted down, the province is carved out and everything is completed. The only thing to do is to fix the placeholder history you got for it. So you need to find out who is the DeFacto (and if not, a likely placeholder for the) holder of the title in 769, 867 and the whole period between 1066 - 1337. Some areas are simple enough, and in other cases it is obscure and extremely difficult to find the right ones.
The database is huge, and adjusted pretty much every week, yes. But by continuing the "every single day possible" that we have now, instead of set bookmarks, there is a lot of extra time that go into research, that could have been used for expanding the games in other ways, for a very tiny percentage of the player base. If I recall correctly (I might be wildly incorrect here, this is just going by memory), 10-15% of the users play something else than the 3 first bookmarks. With that in mind, you could pretty easily make an argument that your resources is better used to improve the game in other ways, rather than having every single date between 1066 and 1337 playable.
Personally I would just make set bookmarks instead, to simplify the process somewhat.
But that is entirely my own opinion, and I am pretty sure we have never stated any plans to change the system.
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It’s funny because I completely get the logic behind sticking to set start dates or bookmarks, esp if that’s what the majority of people will play. I almost always play the 3 main start dates.
On the other hand, I also play January 1, 1084 a lot instead of the Alexiad bookmark because I want to play Komnenos games with Anna Komnene already born but anyway...
On the other hand, I also play January 1, 1084 a lot instead of the Alexiad bookmark because I want to play Komnenos games with Anna Komnene already born but anyway...
If not enough people play the "in-between" dates (although 10-15% is a lot higher than I expected...) the real waste is continuing to sink the time into the research and maintenance of the database. See: Sunk cost fallacy or Escalation of commitment.
To anticipate any arguments, note, however, that in the case of future CK2/CK3 development, there's a bit of an asymmetry in the logic. The fact that the database exists, is a "pro" for continuing the in-between dates, as they have a bunch of research already, but the fact that they've already spent a bunch of time working on it is not a "con" for discontinuing it in a potential future CK3. In other words, you shouldn't consider the past costs of the work in your decision-making but if that work was productive (the database/knowledge/etc.), the product can have value for future consideration.
You didn't have to, but all of us appreciate the fact that you did. Thanks for describing some of the process and all your work on the game!Didn't think I'd have to respond to this thread twice, but ach well
[emphasis added]
Curiouser and curiouser... By "change the system" do you mean for CK2 or a potential future CK3? No actual dev quotes have been dug up in this thread, so this is the most official response so far. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm wondering if OP got it mixed up with the EU4 devs who have expressed some opinions on the matter (not sure if there was a decision though...) and for which the intermediate dates and later bookmarks seem to be pretty broken with the additional mechanics over the years.
- Jan 22, 2018
- 1.326
- 4.785
Most of the work is not done by me, I am relatively new to the team. I have been working on some map revisions that hasn't been shown yet, but yeah. I am not going to take the honor of all the map work others have done, though it is an impressive amount of work for sure.
I was speaking specifically about CK2. A future project like a potential CK3 isn't something I would know anything about, or have much of a say in, I'm afraid.
10~15% is also a lot higher than I thought.
We know similar statistics for EU IV (high 90% play 1444, only a few play USA Start or Seven Year War) and HoI IV (High 90% play '36 start, only a few '39 Start). I though it was said that 769+867+1066 was also in the high 90%. And the only reason why all three startdates were played, because they are DLC locked, and always earlier than the standard 1066 start, without beeing clearly superior.
So I would think in the future one to maybe three bookmark starts should be fine. HoI IVs problem is that the '39 start is stupid. Barbarossa and D-Day start would be fun to play, because of the challange, but nobody wants to just miss the buildup phase till the war.
EU IV could be better, if only one or two additional Booksmarks would be there, which are fleshed out, and not every single day between 1444 and 1821, with often broken design.
We know similar statistics for EU IV (high 90% play 1444, only a few play USA Start or Seven Year War) and HoI IV (High 90% play '36 start, only a few '39 Start). I though it was said that 769+867+1066 was also in the high 90%. And the only reason why all three startdates were played, because they are DLC locked, and always earlier than the standard 1066 start, without beeing clearly superior.
So I would think in the future one to maybe three bookmark starts should be fine. HoI IVs problem is that the '39 start is stupid. Barbarossa and D-Day start would be fun to play, because of the challange, but nobody wants to just miss the buildup phase till the war.
EU IV could be better, if only one or two additional Booksmarks would be there, which are fleshed out, and not every single day between 1444 and 1821, with often broken design.
In EU4, all but the first start dates are completely broken. They are unplayable, so even for someone who would be interested by one of them, they are not worth it.
In CK2, the situation is different. I think the players often want to start early because they fear they won't be able to finish whatever they're trying to do before the endgame ; even if they very rarely will go later than 1400. But the bookmarks works, and that's a huge plus when you want to do something different. I once reconquered Constantinople with Byzantium in the Latin Empire bookmark ; I played a few times the Alexiad bookmark ; and it was a good experience.
In CK2, the situation is different. I think the players often want to start early because they fear they won't be able to finish whatever they're trying to do before the endgame ; even if they very rarely will go later than 1400. But the bookmarks works, and that's a huge plus when you want to do something different. I once reconquered Constantinople with Byzantium in the Latin Empire bookmark ; I played a few times the Alexiad bookmark ; and it was a good experience.
Didn't think I'd have to respond to this thread twice, but ach well
Was research ever the toughest part? Probably not. Was it the thing that took the most time by far? Oh god yes.
I'll quickly run you through the process of creating a new province in the game.
First of, you need to find out what province you need to create, why and where. What is the goal for creating a new province? Gameplay balance? Historical accuracy? Some other byzantine (get it? Because it is also an adjective? HAH) reason?
Then you need to find out what is the most fitting borders you can create for the province. This is difficult, as the game spans from 769 to 1450, and the borders of pretty much every area in the world changes over a 700 year period.
So you have adjusted the borders, you have jotted down the information needed to create a new province, and you make a new Coat of Arms for it. This probably took you 30-60 minutes after you have done the original research. The implementation is quick and easy enough. Only the two most time research heavy things remain. To find fitting baronies, and to find out who owns the land at every instance over several hundreds of years in a history-light period.
Every province need to have 7 baronies at the very least, so you need to find 7 fitting names to your province, which can be pretty hard to decide. Some times you come across maps that names every single tiny area with the same text and importance, other times the best you can do is to find maps that shows province names and that is it. How do you decide? Well.. As some people have pointed out, not every province in the game is correct when it comes to these things, to put it lightly.
You got the baronies jotted down, the province is carved out and everything is completed. The only thing to do is to fix the placeholder history you got for it. So you need to find out who is the DeFacto (and if not, a likely placeholder for the) holder of the title in 769, 867 and the whole period between 1066 - 1337. Some areas are simple enough, and in other cases it is obscure and extremely difficult to find the right ones.
How can we (The community) help? The last dev diary produced a number of suggestions for map and de-jure changes (Including my own very reasonable suggestions for Bulgaria). Part of these suggestions come from a place of understanding that the current CK2 team can't be expected to be experts on the entire medieval world, and leverage the community's knowledge and passion for history. Research is well and good, but it can only happen if there's an impetus to do the research in the first place. Not to mention that the map is rather large now, and dev hours are finite
I guess the question I'm asking is, when the community makes suggestions for this kind of thing, how much would be helpful to include? Just an outline of the suggestion and reasons for its inclusion, like in the post I linked? Would it help to have suggestions for baronies, ruler history, and CoA included? How can we make your jobs easier, so we can all improve this game we enjoy so much?
Understandable. I would be bummed out if there was only one "supported" start date like in EU4, since I think a big part of the appeal of CK2 is the replayability offered by different bookmarks, but "every single day possible" is a heavy burden to support for not that much gain.
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Didn't think I'd have to respond to this thread twice, but ach well
Was research ever the toughest part? Probably not. Was it the thing that took the most time by far? Oh god yes.
I'll quickly run you through the process of creating a new province in the game.
First of, you need to find out what province you need to create, why and where. What is the goal for creating a new province? Gameplay balance? Historical accuracy? Some other byzantine (get it? Because it is also an adjective? HAH) reason?
Then you need to find out what is the most fitting borders you can create for the province. This is difficult, as the game spans from 769 to 1450, and the borders of pretty much every area in the world changes over a 700 year period.
So you have adjusted the borders, you have jotted down the information needed to create a new province, and you make a new Coat of Arms for it. This probably took you 30-60 minutes after you have done the original research. The implementation is quick and easy enough. Only the two most time research heavy things remain. To find fitting baronies, and to find out who owns the land at every instance over several hundreds of years in a history-light period.
Every province need to have 7 baronies at the very least, so you need to find 7 fitting names to your province, which can be pretty hard to decide. Some times you come across maps that names every single tiny area with the same text and importance, other times the best you can do is to find maps that shows province names and that is it. How do you decide? Well.. As some people have pointed out, not every province in the game is correct when it comes to these things, to put it lightly.
You got the baronies jotted down, the province is carved out and everything is completed. The only thing to do is to fix the placeholder history you got for it. So you need to find out who is the DeFacto (and if not, a likely placeholder for the) holder of the title in 769, 867 and the whole period between 1066 - 1337. Some areas are simple enough, and in other cases it is obscure and extremely difficult to find the right ones.
The database is huge, and adjusted pretty much every week, yes. But by continuing the "every single day possible" that we have now, instead of set bookmarks, there is a lot of extra time that go into research, that could have been used for expanding the games in other ways, for a very tiny percentage of the player base. If I recall correctly (I might be wildly incorrect here, this is just going by memory), 10-15% of the users play something else than the 3 first bookmarks. With that in mind, you could pretty easily make an argument that your resources is better used to improve the game in other ways, rather than having every single date between 1066 and 1337 playable.
Personally I would just make set bookmarks instead, to simplify the process somewhat.
But that is entirely my own opinion, and I am pretty sure we have never stated any plans to change the system.
The issue with set bookmarks is that certain characters that a lot of people would want to play aren't available.
For example - using the "by day" system you can play El Cid because El Cid is after 1066, but you can't play the Empress Irene because she's before 1066 and not accessible - neither are Charlemagne's sons.
The 10-15% who play other start dates are probably the majority of your Streamers and people uploading "Let's Play" vids, so there's possibly added value there in terms of raising the CKII profile.
Finally, given that every title has a history stretching back to 1AD I'm not sure how much time you're actually going to save with a less granular system.
Well, if CK2 taught me anything is that this is the exact moment you are starting to spread vile rumors, poison the weekly doughnuts, pet your boss' cat & seduce his wife and/or daughter. Next thing you know you're the project lead for CK3