Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)

[Kome]

When you are the only one who does what needs to be done and revolts to save the Queen of Jerusalem from the influence of the Jewish bankers after the Jews sold out Jerusalem to EEgyp's Jihad, and win, but the damage to the country has already been done and you've killed like 3/4ths of tbe kingdom's entire military manpower because of the civil war and now it doesn't even matter because the Abbisids have declared an invasion (not a Jihad but the full "we coming to fuck you up" invasion) and the only parts of the army which aren't currently in manpower crisis are off in North Africa for some dumb reason cause the AI doesn't know how to use retinues.

 

[Lord Insane]

I decided to check what kind of character qualifies for the most active artifacts. I haven't the exact numbers with me at the moment, but it turns out to be a Christian (plurality of religion-unique artifacts+more of the 'Jewish' artifacts than Muslims) Iranian (gets some otherwise Zoroastrian artifacts) Hermetic (the Hermetic inventions are Hermetics-only).

 

[Kome]

Oh and you can try to seduce Glitterhoof apparently.

 

[Death's Little Helper]

So in my current game I'm playing as the Zoroastrian Persian Badvanid dynasty and I'm currently the Shah of Persia and Shah of Khiva, having recently beaten a join Jihad by both the Shia and Sunni Caliphates (they declared war at the same time), I am shocked and horrified to receive a message about the rise of the Mongols.

With the mongols having about five times my numbers I decided to do the smart thing and instead of fighting them I swore fealty to the Mongol horde.

 

[frustrated progressive]

Under the new rules, how many images can we post per post?

Since no one's answered I'm assuming there aren't limits as long as it's topical and within reason.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Since no one's answered I'm assuming there aren't limits as long as it's topical and within reason.

Either that or just no one's posting in the thread. Or no one knows the answer. Or both.


Just PM Calbear.

He should know.

 

[Commissar From Kiev]

I've started playing Crusader Kings II. I've progressed twenty ingame years leading the Holy Roman Empire - so far, I've fought a number of wars, seized territory from Genoa and Poland, and formed an alliance with the English that led me into even more wars.

 

[Death's Little Helper]

So in my current game I'm playing as the Zoroastrian Persian Badvanid dynasty and I'm currently the Shah of Persia and Shah of Khiva, having recently beaten a join Jihad by both the Shia and Sunni Caliphates (they declared war at the same time), I am shocked and horrified to receive a message about the rise of the Mongols.

With the mongols having about five times my numbers I decided to do the smart thing and instead of fighting them I swore fealty to the Mongol horde.

This just in the Greatest and Mightiest of Khans has named me the Steward of the Mongol Empire. Genghis is currently engaged in an invasion of Mesopotamia. For now my hope is too gradually expand my holdings under Mongol protection while waiting for an opportune moment to declare independence.

 

[asnys]

I've been thinking about trying to make an economics mod that would make trade a bit more interesting for merchant republics. Something intended to integrate well with the existing systems, not be a complete rebuild. My very vague thought is something like:

1) Some provinces produce trade goods, like furs, amber, glass, etc. These would all be high-value, luxury items, not stuff like grain.

2) The demand for a particular trade good in a particular province is determined by how rare that trade good is in that part of the world, and by quality modifiers for the province. So if there are lots of glass-producing provinces in north Germany, the demand for any one of those provinces is very low unless they have a very high quality modifier.

3) Producing a trade good increases the tax revenue for the province. The amount of the increase is determined by the demand.

4) If a province produces a trade good, that increases the value of the trade post there, by an amount determined by the demand, and also increases the value of any trade posts connected to that trade post via a trade zone in provinces that don't also produce that good..

5) Fighting a war through a province poses a risk of temporarily suppressing or even ending trade good production due to infrastructure damage, though this only applies to some kinds of goods (glass), not others (furs).

6) Various events would be added to interact with this system, such as:

a) Bribe a master craftsman to come work for you, increasing your province's quality.
b) Sabotage a province's craft guild, causing it to temporarily cease production.
c) Spend a huge amount of money to set up a new craft guild, producing a new good.

7) An option, as leader of a merchant republic family, or possibly with the business focus, to send merchant expeditions to foreign parts, triggering an event chain that poses significant risks but earns you money, with the amounts of money earned determined by demand for the different trade goods. You can do that now, sort of, but it's a random event and pretty repetitive.

The objective would be to build a system that a player only has to interact with if they want to, but could otherwise be ignored. And if you do want to interact with it, it adds significantly more depth to the currently very shallow economic system. I'm not sure such a mod could actually be written - I've modded Stellaris before, which I understand has a similar scripting system, but I've not yet tried modding CK2 - but I want to set out my goals before determining if they're actually feasible.

Thoughts?

 

[Kome]

That Henry VIII feel when you disinherit your heir with your first wife and send him to the Templars because he's a homosexual, then legitimize the bastard son you had with your twin sister to be your new heir, and withhold medical treatment from the son of your second wife to prevent Gavelkind from ruining the duchy and cause you're a lunatic crusader who's missing like half his face but its fine cause your second wife is also insane (actually I should probably exile her -100 opinion ass from court before I get plotted, but that divorce game too expensive) and get the succession arranged all neatly. But then your son catches consumption in his very first battle because you ordered him into a plague zone to stop the Bey of Aleppo from getting holy wared because you've kept him as a hostage under house arrest since he was like 7 and brainwashed him to be catholic and French, and now your heir has consumption.

So you Pragmatic Sanction that shit and make all of your surplus daughters nuns to remove them from the succession (cause Gavelkind) except for the one with the best stats and betroth her to your nephew (who I think is the son of my other sister and my bastard half-brother) to nip that claim war in the bud. But it turns out the Duchess of Antioch is also available for betrothal so maybe you should have your nephew marry her instead for the NAP and personal union because we really need that alliance if we're going to ever retake Jerusalem.

So you Act of Succession that shit and ram through the succession law to be absolutly salic so that when you die you switch to your nephew getting his personal union on with the Norman duchies instead of your daughter, and then as the nephew have a Seduction Focus buffet with all your nun cousins.

Just CK2 things.

 

[LNSS]

I feel like doing a Hohenstaufen playthrough but there's no HIP yet hmmm

 

[Tyler96]

I feel like doing a Hohenstaufen playthrough but there's no HIP yet hmmm

Which Hohenstaufen? I was always partial to Conradin playthroughs (though I think I had to use cheats to give him a claim to Sicily, and obviously the game has abstracted the Outremer situation such that he's not King of Jerusalem either).

 

[LNSS]

Which Hohenstaufen? I was always partial to Conradin playthroughs (though I think I had to use cheats to give him a claim to Sicily, and obviously the game has abstracted the Outremer situation such that he's not King of Jerusalem either).

The very first Hohenstaufen who starts as a Count under the Duchy of Swabia in 1066, Frederick I think.

 

[Shiva]

Trying to decide if I want the Plantagenet's to become French again or stay English since I've managed to seize France through a combo of inheritance, conquest, and dumb blind luck, along with enough of the Kingdom of Burgundy (the HRE is REALLY falling to pieces in this game) to form the Empire of Francia...

I can't decide what to do, especially since the Lionheart's grandson, Emperor Richard II (Richard III of England) is 10 and could really go either way... Especially when I moved the capital to Paris.

 

[Death's Little Helper]

The Mongol Empire has disintegrated. It has been reduced to a few duchies in Syria and some stretches of empty steppe. This came about due to the triple shock of,

1. The failed Mongol invasion of the Pratihara Empire who fought the Mongols hordes to a standstill for over a decade.
2. A joint Sunni-Shia jihad for Mesopotamia.
3. A massive independence war by the various Zoroastrian and Muslim vassals led by yours truly.

In the aftermath of the war the Persian Empire was reformed by the Badvanid dynasty and the new Shahanshah Naveed the Holy, restored the Zoroastrian High Priesthood to power.

In other news the Catholic Crusade for Jerusalem failed miserably. This makes five times they've tried and failed.

 

[asnys]

I have successfully implemented basic supply and demand. Right now provinces won't trade with any province that isn't adjacent to it, but going deeper shouldn't be a major problem, just an extension of the existing code. The next step is to figure out how much gold this should actually earn you. I'm thinking of implementing it as a combined flat increase in tax (your taxes on the trade itself) and a percentage bonus (taxes on activity generated by the trade).

 

[asnys]

Okay, so now I could use your help. With the basic supply & demand model implemented, most of the rest of the coding is just copy&pasting in the appropriate places. That leaves the writing, and I could use some assistance, especially from people who know more about medieval times than I do.

Here's how the player will experience the system: a few of your provinces will be trade good producers (not many). Each such producer will have a quality rating from one to four, representing the relative attractiveness of the goods. The holding within the province that produces the good will earn bonuses to tax revenue based on the quality of the goods, your trade practices tech, and the demand. Lots of rich provinces linked together by merchant republic trade networks means a large demand, competition from other producers means a smaller one. Merchant republics will also get bonuses to their trade income based on the trade goods flowing through their network. If you don't want to pay attention to all this, all it will mean is that a few provinces are relatively more valuable than others.

First, I need to decide on the list of goods, and where they're produced at the start of the game. I'm thinking 8-12 is a good number, with some specialization by region - so Europe produces stained glass, India produces spices, etc.

Second, I need to decide how big the bonuses should be. Merchant republics are already overflowing with gold, so I may need to mod them to reduce their base income to compensate.

Third, I need to figure out the distribution of the good producers at the start of the game.

And fourth - the big one - I need events to create new good producers and, temporarily or permanently, improve the quality of existing good producers.

Together, this amounts to a bare minimum, zeroeth-generation trade system. Once the zero-gen system works, I start with features for the first-generation:

• Events to destroy good producers and/or reduce their quality, temporarily or permanently.
• Actually own the producing guild as a merchant patrician, instead of merely taxing it.
  
• Intrigue to sabotage your commercial rivals - or collude with them to fix prices. Possibly a secret society?
  
• Long-range merchant expeditions.
• Integrate all this into the Business focus and other existing game elements.

Brainstorming, criticism, and any other forms of help greatly appreciated.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Okay, so now I could use your help. With the basic supply & demand model implemented, most of the rest of the coding is just copy&pasting in the appropriate places. That leaves the writing, and I could use some assistance, especially from people who know more about medieval times than I do.

Here's how the player will experience the system: a few of your provinces will be trade good producers (not many). Each such producer will have a quality rating from one to four, representing the relative attractiveness of the goods. The holding within the province that produces the good will earn bonuses to tax revenue based on the quality of the goods, your trade practices tech, and the demand. Lots of rich provinces linked together by merchant republic trade networks means a large demand, competition from other producers means a smaller one. Merchant republics will also get bonuses to their trade income based on the trade goods flowing through their network. If you don't want to pay attention to all this, all it will mean is that a few provinces are relatively more valuable than others.

First, I need to decide on the list of goods, and where they're produced at the start of the game. I'm thinking 8-12 is a good number, with some specialization by region - so Europe produces stained glass, India produces spices, etc.

Second, I need to decide how big the bonuses should be. Merchant republics are already overflowing with gold, so I may need to mod them to reduce their base income to compensate.

Third, I need to figure out the distribution of the good producers at the start of the game.

And fourth - the big one - I need events to create new good producers and, temporarily or permanently, improve the quality of existing good producers.

Together, this amounts to a bare minimum, zeroeth-generation trade system. Once the zero-gen system works, I start with features for the first-generation:

• Events to destroy good producers and/or reduce their quality, temporarily or permanently.
• Actually own the producing guild as a merchant patrician, instead of merely taxing it.
  
• Intrigue to sabotage your commercial rivals - or collude with them to fix prices. Possibly a secret society?
  
• Long-range merchant expeditions.
• Integrate all this into the Business focus and other existing game elements.

Brainstorming, criticism, and any other forms of help greatly appreciated.

Honestly if you want more help I'd go to the Paradox forums.

You'll get more traffic there.

 

[Shiva]

You know I wonder how RL would have turned out if there really HAD been a Satanic cult called 'Lucifer's Own' that apparently existed in covens across three continents in the middle ages, and includes members from the lowest peasants to the highest kings and emperors.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

The more I play the more I think Conclave is one of the worst DLCs to come out, not just for all the aggravating new mechanics but for how much of a missed opportunity it all was.

The Council exists literally only to stymie the king. There's no real reasoning behind it; doesn't matter if they love you, if they owe you their position, their lands, doesn't matter if the man you want to imprison is literally plotting to kill them or you. The AI's logic is way too simplistic and there's no nuance or immersion, I always just wind up treating the council as something I need to spend 20+ years and hundreds of ducats bribing into obsolescence or just going hamfisted tyrant and tanking the stupid -40 opinion on everything because it's easier that way than trying to be conciliatory or play by the "rules" set up. Ditto with the new childhood mechanics- the old system was much more interactive and fun than the "click button for bonus" thing which infests Paradox games like a virus.

There should really be a Crime and Punishment/Legislation DLC, with imprisonment/punishment completely revamped to be something more detailed than it is now. Ideally the actual council should also be split from the Conclave mechanics- make the vassals vote on everything as part of some proto-Parliament thing, with actual election mechanics to let you negotiate/bribe/intrigue your way to power.