Crusader Kings II

[Monk]

Its time for the final dev diary before we get our hands on the new update, and here it is (in case you forgot) http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...pril-13th-2012

Highlights:

*Over 300 completely new events. The examples given include a friendship and rivalry event line(s) as well as event series tied directly into negative traits. There was also a regency event series mentioned.

*A new plot for independent rulers to strip vassals of titles.

*improvements to the Kill plot to make it target characters more logically.

*Improvements to the plotting system that let you discern much more information at a glance, as well increased functionality in the UI

*Causes of death (finally!)


Not a whole lot of surprising stuff here, to be honest most of the final part of the dev diary sounds like stuff that is focused on improving functionality which i wholeheartedly approve. I've been dying to have cause of death included since the first time i played.

I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey. While i certainly welcome its addition it sounds easy to abuse, won't know for sure til I try i guess.

[frogbeastegg]

Those are all very welcome changes.

[xploring]

I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey. While i certainly welcome its addition it sounds easy to abuse, won't know for sure til I try i guess.

That's strange, unless my memory is going funny, I remembered reading there are going to be 2 new plots. One for the liege and one for vassals. Can't remember exactly what the vassal's one do but it was to counter the other one. But the post doesn't seem to be edited so maybe I was imagining it.

Someone mentioned in another thread you can use your chancellor to fabricate claim against your own vassal, so this new plot for the ruler doesn't look too bad to me. Makes managing your realm a bit easier I guess, if the player wants to use it.

[Monk]

Someone mentioned in another thread you can use your chancellor to fabricate claim against your own vassal, so this new plot for the ruler doesn't look too bad to me. Makes managing your realm a bit easier I guess, if the player wants to use it.

Is that right? Wow i never even considered doing that and yet its a very obvious thing. Interesting. In that case I guess this is the next logical (and much more sensible) step in claim/title management.

[rickinator9]

I want them to give the chancellor the ability to speed up culture change. I hate you have a 1% revoltchance you can't do anything about. The Rumites changed some greeks to turks in like 25 years, I have to wait 75 years to make them change culture.

[xploring]

Is that right? Wow i never even considered doing that and yet its a very obvious thing. Interesting. In that case I guess this is the next logical (and much more sensible) step in claim/title management.

I never thought of it until I read it in this thread either, which has some very useful gameplay tips. Some more features/tips here, they are probably obvious for experienced players. The double right-click one is really important though.

[Arjos]

I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey.

I concur, but there are occasions (traitors or newly conquered counties), where imo it's silly that your vassals feel threatened or disrespected if you strip defeated enemies of their titles, most of all to appoint your kin! Instead you get mass dissatisfaction XD

I want them to give the chancellor the ability to speed up culture change.

I thought it was related to state diplomacy, also religious conversion of the province might help, in my Hauteville games takes me very little to have at least 2 or 3 settlements "normanized"...

[Fisherking]

For what ever reason NPCs are much better at this than the Player. I know in a couple of games my vassals convert them years a head of me.

It would be great if they made a Justicair or Prime Minister for your counsel. Someone who could add their values to the whole range and work on converting the population to your culture.

In Spain it seems one may change after 50 to 100 years. That may be like one county in 20 or 30 changes culture. It must be the slowest place to convert.

[Ishmael]

Well, I just got comprehensively swindled by the AI.

I started as Connacht, and after finally uniting all of Ireland under my rule I set my sights on England. I'd somehow acquired a claim to the English throne (I have no idea how), and when the combined Anglo-Scottish Kingdom imploded, with several of its duchies simultaneously rebelling, I seized my opportunity and staked my claim. Beset as they were by myself, the French, and their own dukes, I didn't think it too suspicious when I was offered the throne of England at a mere 55% warscore. Unfortunately this turned out to be a bit of a white elephant. The English managed to keep all their territory by declaring it to be part of the Kingdom of Scotland (damned legal loopholes, should have read the fine print); furthermore, to add injury to insult all of their internal strife passed to me and so I found myself at war with 3 different duchies. On the plus side, I now have the legal means to bring the entire United Kingdom behind my banner (the Welsh, who have sizeable holdings in Spain, are closely linked to my dynasty). Should be fun .

[Monk]

Well, I just got comprehensively swindled by the AI.

I started as Connacht, and after finally uniting all of Ireland under my rule I set my sights on England. I'd somehow acquired a claim to the English throne (I have no idea how), and when the combined Anglo-Scottish Kingdom imploded, with several of its duchies simultaneously rebelling, I seized my opportunity and staked my claim. Beset as they were by myself, the French, and their own dukes, I didn't think it too suspicious when I was offered the throne of England at a mere 55% warscore. Unfortunately this turned out to be a bit of a white elephant. The English managed to keep all their territory by declaring it to be part of the Kingdom of Scotland (damned legal loopholes, should have read the fine print); furthermore, to add injury to insult all of their internal strife passed to me and so I found myself at war with 3 different duchies. On the plus side, I now have the legal means to bring the entire United Kingdom behind my banner (the Welsh, who have sizeable holdings in Spain, are closely linked to my dynasty). Should be fun .

Love it! Sounds like the AI got crafty on you but you've got the ability to still come out ahead. Good luck in the unification of the Isles!

As for where your claim came from it's quite possible it was handed down through an obscure cousin by way of marriage. If you've been marrying inside the isles then it's not a big surprise that either your character, or one of his family members, ends up with a distant claim on the throne. In my first Irish game I had the fun of fighting a war for the throne of England and ended up installing my brother as the monarch there. We ruled side by side, Ireland and England, for a good twenty years - until he stabbed me in the back.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here's a shot of my current game -



1152 and the Rus dynasty is united. I started as the Duke of Rostov, which seems to be the way to go if you want to unite the Rus duchies quickl and effeciently. Not only are you the strongest of the northern duchies, but your brother in Ryazan will back essentially any war you want him to. Combined you two are the stongest force within the Rurikovich dynasty.

Poland has emerged as a serious contender but that won't last. I've invited a number of claimaints to their titles to my court and plan to press their claims one by one. The child monarch of Poland is in such a bad state, fighting both me and Hungary, that I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up fracturing after I beat his armies into dust.

The Cumans are my equal in both land and martial strength, I've been wanting to take them on for years now but I don't think either one of us would come out looking good, and the longer I delay a war against the Cumans the more I feel like it would be a waste of time. The mongols are coming in around 70 years and I'm simply not sure I can stop them. I have a feeling i'll not only be responsible for my dynasty's rapid rise to power, but also its fall from grace.

[Monk]

Double post to remind you guys that tomorrow is the content patch. 1.04 had a smooth transition save-game wise, but with all the new events and features coming our way 1.05 might not be so lucky.

If you have a particularly fun game going (and are on steam) then do yourself a favor and switch steam to offline mode tonight, in all likelihood you won't get the chance to tomorrow before you are forcibly updated with the new version. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to finishing up your saves.

[Monk]

Complete 1.05 changes have been posted. Patch notes are at the following link, as well as reposted for your convenience: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/....05-Change-Log

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MAJOR:
- You can now ask to join many types of wars
- Participants in wars now get a contribution score which determines how much prestige and piety they get when the war ends
- Crusades now target entire de jure kingdoms. The Pope declares the war and other rulers can then join the attacking alliance. The one who contributes the most gains the targeted kingdom.
- Streamlined marriage interface allowing matrilineal betrothals
- Loads of new events for regencies, friendships and rivalries
- Plot to revoke the title of a vassal
- The Kill Plot is now more available and targets a wider selection of logical characters
- Portrait clothes are now uncoupled from ethnicity
- Added Causes of Death
- Added some purely naval mercenary units
- Improved military AI
- Armies can now be "attached" to each other, which means they will just follow the lead army
- Duchies can now be assimilated into another de jure kingdom (takes 100 years)
- Now possible to create titular titles at double cost if you hold the scripted capital
- Empires are now allowed to create kingdoms
- You can now only create kingdoms if you are already a king or emperor, or hold more than one duchy titles
- Added the kingdoms of Frisia, Lotharingia, Bavaria, Pomerania, Aquitaine and Brittany
- The kingdoms of Galicia and Navarre are now de jure kingdoms
- The kingdom of Al-Andalus is now called Andalusia and can be created by anyone in the Arabic culture group
- Changed "Ducal Claim" wars to "De Jure Claim". De Jure kings and emperors can now take counties in their de jure realm
- Assassinations are now more expensive depending on the rank of the target
- All factions in civil wars are now hostile to outside attackers
- Cannot end civil wars until the temporarily independent vassal has no holdings occupied by outsiders
- Tribal Invasion CB: Now destroys all duchies and kingdoms in the conquered realm
- Children now always get the same education type as their guardian
- The Holy Order troop size now scales with the moral authority of the church
- Republics now get a special CB to seize coastal provinces
- Republics (count or above tier) now get a tax bonus from all cities in their realm
- Republics (count or above tier) now get an extra tax bonus from all coastal cities in their realm
- Republics (duke or above tier) now get an extra tax bonus from their capital city
- Women and illegitimate bastards no longer get pressed (inheritable) claims on their parents' titles
- You can now press the claims of female courtiers and vassals in wars if the target title does not have Agnatic succession
- AI: Vassals should now try to defeat peasant rebels on their own
- AI: Will no longer raise forces in besieged counties
- AI: Nearby religious brethren will now tend to join defenders in Holy Wars
- AI: Lowered general vassal revolt risk and DoW aggressiveness
- Cut the Religious Assistance CB
- There is now a "Plot" button in the character view, offering a more flexible way of picking plots against characters
- Fixed an issue with weird (often infinite) build times that could occur after reload
- Vassals will no longer hate you for newly acquired Holdings that take you above the demesne limit. You have two months to get rid of them.
- Heavily revised vassal revolt risk calculations
- Made the revolters in independence wars start gaining ticking war score, and do so immediately
- Fixed a crash when switching between tabs in the Plot View

MINOR:
- Embarked armies no longer suffer attrition
- Withdrawing a small enough army from combat no longer leads to a general retreat
- Rebalanced combat a bit - more morale damage, less kills
- Fixed a bug preventing claimants to the Caliphates from ever revolting
- Fixed an issue with succession CB holders not using it because they are currently the heir presumptive
- The opinion effect of gifts now depend on the State Diplomacy of the giver and the greed of the recipient
- Gift recipients who are not your vassals (or below) will appreciate gifts more
- Landless characters now also get an AI personality from traits
- Added more and greater opinion modifiers from characters having the same traits
- The console command "debug fow" is now just "fow" and works in Release builds too
- The invite to plot selection list of characters now excludes those who would never ever join
- Better tooltip for the "not willing to join plot" icon when inviting people to plots
- Glowing borders on selected titles in the Title View
- More likely to see different unit type models on the map
- Added console command "charinfo" to toggle debug information in character portrait tooltip
- AI: Honorable and dishonorable (personality from traits) characters should now respond more plausibly to invitations to murder plots
- AI: Improved councillor appointment
- AI: More careful about trying to pass de jure law changes during wars
- AI: Smarter about revolting during the lieges offensive wars
- AI: A bit more reluctant to accept ending a plot
- AI: Will now want to raise or hire a more overwhelming force
- AI: Smarter about creating and usurping titles
- AI: Smarter about handing out titles
- AI: Will now actually look at the defines MAX_ELECTOR_TITLES_LEGALLY_HELD and MAX_DUCHIES_LEGALLY_HELD when handing out titles
- AI: Checks if mercs are an option when evaluating DoW
- AI: Fixed an issue with piecemeal raising of ships
- AI: Fixed several issues with Mongol Horde DoW logic
- AI: Landed spouses will no longer revolt
- AI: Fixed some bugs with bishop nomination
- AI: Fixed a bug where the AI could ignore some rules when granting titles (could grant contested titles, etc)
- Children born to parents in a matrilineal marriage should now end up in the mother's court
- Fixed a bug with abdication from war in elective monarchies that could result in premature Game Over
- Crown authority in titular kingdoms and empires can now also be lowered by lost civil wars
- Fixed a crash when just about to revoke the title of someone, and that person dies
- Added some more loading tips
- Fixed a bug with the "prisoner" event effect when releasing characters from someone other than their liege
- Unit owners now get a fraction of the prestige and piety gained from battles (and not just commanders)
- Increased the piety and prestige gained from battles a lot
- Characters can now only pick the Amass Wealth ambition once
- Fathers will now like their children a lot
- Fixed a bug with the inheritance of Claims
- Fixed some errors with the tooltips in event 301 ("A Bastard is Born")
- Tweaked the succession situation between Flandres and Hainaut in 1066 to avoid Flandres becoming part of the HRE
- The members of the House of Vermandois are now members of House Karling
- Vassals now only like succession laws in secondary kingdoms if they are de facto below it
- Gavelkind law in secondary kingdoms has no opinion effects unless the ruler has more than one holding there
- Added early kings of England to the history files
- Temple type holders will no longer desire their liege's titles for de jure reasons
- Temple type holders will no longer be upset with their liege for having the wrong government type
- Fixed a bug with protected inheritance not working correctly between two realms, both with protected inheritance
- Nerfed the Pagan warrior cult building by 33%
- The text for the assassination action now mentions the cost
- Can now only repeat the same plot type, not ambitions
- Improved DoW warning texts
- Changed the initial succession laws of the Spanish kingdoms to Gavelkind
- Gave the Victual Brothers their ships back
- Bohemund of Taranto is no longer a bastard
- Fixed a bug where a dead husband of a newly pregnant wife would not count as a husband
- The conduct diplomacy button is now hidden for dead characters
- Fixed some issues with the "elector titles held" penalty in empires
- The Hordes lose the Tribal invasion CB if they go Christian
- Fixed a bug with the 'is_mercenary' trigger
- Gave Pisa some starting buildings in 1066
- Tweaked the Holy Order levy composition
- Adjusted the map so that the Duchy of Tyrol is no longer split in two
- The Kingdom of Byzantium can no longer be created
- Vassal mercs now cost half maintenance
- The Kill Spouse plot decisions are now less likely to actually succeed
- Open succession law (the Muslim default) now makes succession crisis revolts much more likely
- You are now allowed to usurp titles from other vassals within the same realm if you have a claim on the title
- Fixed a bug with the tooltip for the 'has_objective' trigger
- Fixed some issues with some male hair styles being invalidated when they should not be
- Mercenary captains should now wear helmets again
- You no longer get Piety from handing out the same title to the Church multiple times
- You no longer get Piety from handing out duchies and above to clergy
- The Piety from giving a county to the Church is now 50 (down from 100)
- Boosted the arrival strength of the Timurids
- Uncles and aunts are now also valid successors in elective monarchies
- Removed the warning text and special AI acceptance rulers when marrying a member of the _same_ dynasty matrilineally
- Fixed a bug with Fertility set from modifiers
- Holdings under construction should now also correctly benefit from councillor jobs
- Fixed an issue with historical settlements not being cleared entirely correctly on save game load
- Fixed a bug with certain event target trigger tooltips
- Added a tooltip to the "character" trigger
- Corrected some title adjectives
- Fixed a bug with the 'claimed_by' trigger tooltip
- Fixed a mismatch between potential revolters in the alert and in the Intrigue View
- Mercs of the same culture group as you can now always be hired, no matter the distance to your capital
- Lieges of dead characters are now saved and shown
- The decision to repent (getting your excommunication lifted) now gives the correct opinion modifier, making the character immune to a new excommunication for 10 years
- Fixed a bug where successors could be temporarily disinherited when Temple holdings were assigned a new holder
- Fixed multiple issues with the law change plots

FOR MODDERS:
- The line "nudge_allowed=yes" in "settings.txt" will turn on the in-game map positioning editor (there is a button called "Nudge" in the starting screen.)
- The de jure liege of titles can now be changed through events and scripted history ("de_jure_liege")
- You now see all plots in "observe" mode
- Exported MAX_GENERATED_TRAITS_FOR_HISTORICAL to defines (controls the maximum number of random traits that are generated for historical scripted characters)
- Added a 'destroy_landed_title' event effect
- Added a 'give_minor_title' effect
- Added trigger 'holding_type'
- Exported some merc and holy order hire cost factors to defines
- Mercenary companies can now be scripted with a "strength_growth_per_century" value (in landed_titles.txt)
- The Legalism effects on demesne size is exported to "defines.lua"
- Added plot type 'realm_titles'
- Added trigger 'held_title_rating = [num/target]'
- Event modifiers are now read from multiple files
- Cut the non-functional trigger 'num_of_ports'
- The trigger 'monthly_income' now actually works
- Timed opinion modifiers with value 0 are now added, but not listed in tooltips (useful as a kind of flag in events.)
- Added 'creation_effect' to character objectives
- Exported DOW_AGGRESSION_FACTOR and REVOLT_AGGRESSION_FACTOR to defines
- Added event trigger and effect; 'custom_tooltip'