Crusader Kings II

[Monk]

The next DLC pack was officially announced and is something that's, surprisingly, both interesting and nonesential. It's a built in character editor. Want to redesign your dynasty coat of arms? Want to find out what would happen if William of Normandy was actually a woman? Well it's totally possible, as well as completely redesigning the portrait and age of your starting character.

Announcement link: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...-you-requested!

This is something that you guys here requested last autumn, so we have now made it for you.

Basically, its a ruler designer, where you can edit your character, dynasty, traits, stats and much more at the start of the game..

Who do you want to be today? When you start a new game of Crusader Kings 2 it is the question that every player faces, still finding that perfect character to play is always the challenge. You may have found the perfect place but well the man who has it just isn't quite right. A stat is a little too low, that trait is a little annoying, he could really do with a son and heir, the less said about the nose the better, and why does he have such a stupid name? Well now with the new CK2 ruler designer all these are in your hands. Customise your character your way. Tweak and change any aspect of the character or even create an all new character and dynasty to play with. Create your portrait, change the name and dynasty and even customise your coat of arms. Change traits and stats at will and decide the size of the immediate family. The game that lets you choose your goals now will let you
choose your character.

I love this idea. This is a really cool adition to the game but strikes me as something that is wholly optional. It's not a new faction or de jure empire that I would kick myself if I didn't buy, it's just a fun little character editor. Historical purists will likely want to take a pass on this one

The DLC is set to be released on April 17th.

EDIT:

Also, the free content patch that's coming with the DLC introduces a lot of stuff that folks have been begging for. Crusades that have contribution scores (no more crusading all on your own!).

Crusades now target entire de jure kingdoms (changed from duchies), with the King contributing the highest score overall seizing the kingdom if the crusade is a success. The contribution table, combined with now targeting de jure kingdoms means that crusades are about to become a hell of a lot more powerful...

Read up on the 1.05 mini dev diary here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...arch-30th-2012

[rickinator9]

Not really interested in that dlc. It just seems to be such a small part in a huge game. I think I would also miss the feeling of having a very well educated ruler, because you can just make a good one anyway.

As for the patch, I'm curious what it will include. I sure hope something to nerf the HRE, because they usually have the entirety of Italy except the kingdom of sicily.

[Fisherking]

I don’t know where I stand on the “Next Patch” thing.

Last time the Nerfed the ERE but it doesn’t seem to have mattered a lot.

They Buffed the Muslims which for me and a lot of others has made Iberia unplayable.

They changed the AI priorities on marriage and alliances, which results in Harold Blood Ax always winning in England by calling his HRE new allies.

They always sound good on paper…or digital, but never quite work out as planned.

As for what is revealed about the 1.05 patch: The crusades thing doesn’t even sound that good on paper. As it stands now the HRE is going to win every crusade and wind up being the only show in town.

[Monk]

I don’t know where I stand on the “Next Patch” thing.

Last time the Nerfed the ERE but it doesn’t seem to have mattered a lot.

They Buffed the Muslims which for me and a lot of others has made Iberia unplayable.

I'm not really sure what you mean by any of that. The only buffs to the muslim factions that I'm aware of went to the Caliphates (the Islamic empires) and the Seljuks, both of which are nowhere near Iberia and never interfere in it in my games. The three games i've played past 1230 have had varied results in Iberia.

I agree on the ERE bit though. The empire seems a little more unstable but still requires an act of divine influence to fragment. I'm amazed it it did so in my very first game, looking back.

They changed the AI priorities on marriage and alliances, which results in Harold Blood Ax always winning in England by calling his HRE new allies.

I've never seen that, every game still ends with William taking over England for me. The only oddity i've seen from the marriage change is that now Poland or Hungary (one or both) like to meddle in Rus politics.

As for what is revealed about the 1.05 patch: The crusades thing doesn’t even sound that good on paper. As it stands now the HRE is going to win every crusade and wind up being the only show in town.

The only thing I really don't like about it is crusades now targeting de jure kingdoms instead of duchies. I feel that could be really overpowered, unless something is done about the balance of Europe vs Middle East. Other than that, contribution scores is something that is really needed if they want to make the system feel at all fun and rewarding. The crusade implementation as it currently stands is kinda silly.

[Arjos]

The only oddity i've seen from the marriage change is that now Poland or Hungary (one or both) like to meddle in Rus politics.

Both kings have a Rurikovich mother or grandmother, who is dead, so they have claims on all the Rus' duchies...
One Rurikovich in Turov has a claim on the kingdom of Poland aswell...

[frogbeastegg]

The next DLC pack was officially announced and is something that's, surprisingly, both interesting and nonesential. It's a built in character editor. Want to redesign your dynasty coat of arms? Want to find out what would happen if William of Normandy was actually a woman? Well it's totally possible, as well as completely redesigning the portrait and age of your starting character.

I thought this was an April Fool's joke until I followed the link and saw that the announcement is too old for that.

Not sure what I think about this one. In CK1 this was possible via some relatively simple modding.

[rickinator9]

I hope 1.05 will feature more assasinations and plots. As it stands right now, I haven't ever had an assassination attempt on my character. And well, about plots, I mostly just get the 'Kill the crazy woman at your side' plot.

I haven't really noticed the buff on the caliphates. Shia took everything around egypt and it didn't go much further than that. Still the same now. Sunni caliphate is still a minor nation, totally relying at the mercy of the Seljuks.

The only thing which would buff the AI a whole lot would be the ability to make betrothals. They don't do that now. Although then you would get the problem of sometimes getting england in Rus or something.

[Beskar]

Betrothals were a player device, because in CK1, you would have to wait till they come of age, then suddenly, they ended up married off randomly without a chance for you to send marriage proposals. It isn't something for the AI, because then everyone will become betrothed to everyone making it impossible for the player who doesn't have the advantages of the computer.

As for the DLC, it is completely optional and it is something players (including myself) have wanted and always had to resort to modding to create. It doesn't harm anyone and if you don't want it, don't buy it! That is what makes this DLC great in my opinion, the fact it is "so on the side", no one has to feel forced into it and can happily go without.

[Fisherking]

The DLC is fine. The patch 1.05 has some other large changes they have not told us about yet.

The Crusade change is needed to make it more useful but I do worry that the HRE is going to dominate them, as they seem to do now.

They will release more about the changes each Friday until the patch comes out on the 17th of Apr.

The DLC we can take or leave, as has been pointed out. The patch, we are stuck with via Steam.

[frogbeastegg]

I'm disappointed because I was hoping for something more, something players can't easily do for themselves. The CK2 equivalent to a new mission pack, rather than a graphical UI for notepad editing. Or, if that wasn't possible, something grander in scale, something which won't be mostly obsolete as soon as the first generation passes.

Since my review copy was free, I was intending to buy the DLC to return something to Paradox. I'm not going to buy stuff just for the sake of it though; in this case I'll be passing. Maybe they will put the two music pack DLCs up at the same time. That's 'useless' DLC I can talk myself into buying - love the music.

The patch, we are stuck with via Steam.

This is my main steam nightmare these days. There's at least one game I'd rather play at a lower version than the one steam enforces, there have been some where I'd like to disable DLC and can't, and I'm very worried about the forthcoming Civ 5 expansion. If I don't like the new mechanics the entire game will become worthless as it fully integrates with the original.

There was talk about steam hosting beta patch tests for CK2. If that goes ahead it will be possible to download a separate beta version of CK2 ... if I understood some old posts correctly. That means it will be possible to trial the changes, then lock steam into offline mode to prevent the full game from patching if the changes are undesirable.

[rickinator9]

I would actually like to adjust something on the crusades. The guys who contributed most get an entire dejure kingdom now. Why shouldn't a independent kingdom be created there, instead of letting a european state expand there(they usually don't really care about the land they have in the holy lands). I would like to see the kingdom of jerusalem in my games, instead of the HRE which is dominating Muslim lands.

I, like you guys, are concerned about the save-game compatibility. I have an AAR running right now(have it on this forum) and I suspect I can say goodbye to it the day the patch comes out.