May 10, 2022

Dev Diary #96 - Fate of Iberia 3D Art Showcase 🎨

Crusader Kings III - Nicou12313

Hey folks!

Lucia, Nils, and Joacim from the CK3 Art Team are very excited to walk you through some of the new 3D art that you will soon be seeing all over the Iberian Peninsula!
This will be a long one, so grab a hot beverage of your choice and enjoy the ride!

► Read our Dev Diary #96 - Fate of Iberia 3D Art Showcase

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/

Goals

With the Struggle being the main focus of Fate of Iberia, we decided early on that we would put equal attention into the portrayal of both the Muslims and the Christians there. The character art team has brought forth new headgear, clothes and hairstyles for both parties — which you might have seen floating around in the wilds of the web or in the trailer.

Meanwhile, on the environment art side the focus has been on bringing life to the Iberian map. You might remember a few of the monuments featured in last week's Dev Diary, but this time we will give you a sneak peek into the creation process. Those of you who are looking to add some Iberian flavor to your courtrooms – fear not, we got you covered with several new court artifacts!

Character Assets

Nils: When designing new clothes, headgear and hairstyles, the first step - unsurprisingly - is to decide how they should look. In stark contrast to most historical movies and TV shows, we actually at least try to base them on historical examples. With Fate of Iberia, we were fortunate that there are quite a few good sources available of how people dressed and looked in the Iberian peninsula during this time. So we start by collecting all the reference material we can find, put it in an enormous pile and begin forming an idea of what kind of assets we want to add. In addition to historical accuracy, we also look for things like interesting and unique appearance, how well it would translate to a 3D model (i.e. how much pain it’s going to cause us when making it), and if it fits in with other styles already in the game.

As a bonus, a lot of nerd points can be earned during this process. I mean, who isn’t going to be impressed when you start casually throwing around Spanish or Arabic words for obscure medieval clothing items?

Let’s look at some examples:

Showing reference image, concept art and the finished asset of one of the new Christian outfits. We designed these clothes primarily based on a 12th century manuscript illumination depicting Alfonso II of Aragon. The outfit consists of an undergarment with narrow sleeves called a Brial and a looser outer garment known as a Piel. The latter has decorative trims on sleeves, collar and at the hem of the skirt. Both Brial and Piel were often split in the front and back to better allow for riding.

One of the new Muslim outfits. This one was based mainly on an illustration in the 13th century “Codex Rico”, a part of the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" - A famous collection of four codices containing medieval poems with musical notation and many detailed illustrations. The image depicts the Almohad caliph Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada wearing a loose robe known as a Jubba. On the upper sleeves are sewn on “Tiraz” bands, a very popular fashion throughout the medieval Islamic world. The sleeves and neck opening are also decorated with embroidered or brocade trims.

This is based on several sources depicting very similar styles of garments. The examples shown here are from an Andalusian manuscript telling the story called "Hadith Bayad wa Riyad" - An Arabic love story and the "Libro de los Juegos" (Book of games) - A 13th century book commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile containing rules for a large number of medieval board games as well as 150 miniature illustrations. As you can see the clothes are quite similar to the male garment above. Female and male fashions at this time generally had more similarities than differences, and sometimes it is even hard to tell whether an illustration portrays a man or a woman.

This Christian Armor is based on 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca by James I of Aragon, presently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. The sword, with leaf shaped pommel and guard decorations, is based on a sword still in existence, allegedly from the 13th century, at the Royal Armory in Madrid. The armor consists of chainmail Hauberk with mittens, chausses (leggings), a surcoat and something called a “Perpunt” - a light gambeson worn on top of the rest of the armor for additional protection. For head protection a chainmail coif and a “Cervellera” helmet is worn. NGL, this must have been a sweaty experience in the Spanish summer!

This… interesting looking headdress is based on numerous examples from both illustrations and sculptures and must have been considered extremely fashionable at the time. It was probably constructed from strips of ruffled linen or silk wrapped around a light wood base, decorated with embroidered or woven bands and held in place by a “Barbette” (chinstrap). As with most things, the taller the better is the rule here!

The very badass helmet above might look like some impractical fantasy creation but is in fact based on numerous depictions in the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" illustrations. The conical shaped helmet is decorated with a large gilded metal leaf. A day when the Rule of Cool perfectly aligns with primary sources is a good day, in my book.

If we’re really lucky, there might be a suitable extant item that survives to this day, as is the case with this “Capiello” of Fernando de la Cerda, the heir of Alfonso X of Castile (Who seems to - Fernando that is - have had a very CK life and tragically died a father of two at the age of 19). This distinctive cylindrical headgear was hugely popular in 13th century Spain. An extant example like the one shown above is, of course, the ideal type of reference, but unfortunately very few medieval garments have survived in as good condition as this.

Character Art Process

So, we’ve decided what to do, that’s all nice and well, but what are the steps involved in actually creating one of these assets? Follow along in this exclusive behind the scenes look at the Character Art workflow! Exciting, right!

Once we have the finished concept art, we start off in a program called Marvelous Designer to create a 3D version of the garment. This is similar to designing clothes in real life as you work with sewing patterns that are simulated to create a natural fall. Again, whenever possible, we try to base the patterns on surviving examples.

The pattern, created using Marvelous designer, for one of the new female Christian outfits. This dress, called a Brial, is constructed based on historical patterns from similar garments that have survived to our time.

We then add any additional details by 3D modeling in a program like Maya or Zbrush. In this case, the belt and brooch at the neck were added at this stage.

The final “High poly” model.

This model consists of several million polygons, which is too much to render in the game (if you appreciate frame rates above 0.1 anyway). Therefore, the next step is to create the “low poly” - meaning the model that will actually be exported to the game. We do this by matching the shape of the “high poly” model as closely as possible but with - you guessed it - a much smaller number of polygons (in this case around 4400, which is around 1000 times less than the high poly model!).

Showing the “low poly” model being created with the “high poly” model as a guide.

The details are then transferred from the high to the low resolution mesh using a normal map. We do this in a software called Marmoset Toolbag.

The models – both low and high –- imported into Marmoset Toolbag for the “baking” step. Coloring is temp.

The resulting textures that we get out of Marmoset allow us to display all the fine details from the high poly mesh. From top left they are called Normal map, Curvature map, Ambient Occlusion map and Color ID map. This will all be on the test so you better pay attention.

We create textures in a program called Substance Painter. But because we use dynamic colors and materials in CK3 the textures at this stage are mostly a neutral white – in the game those white areas will make use of dynamic materials.

Before exporting to the game we need to create something called “blend shapes” - which we use to deform the asset to fit different body types. We also do something called “skin bind” at this stage - which means attaching the clothes to the skeleton that animates the body.

Showing blend shapes before export. From left to right: Average, Overweight, Underweight, Muscular, Old.

Showing the clothes skinned (attached) to the rig (animation skeleton). The pose is anachronistic.

Finally, we are ready to export the asset and look at it in the game. This involves a considerable amount of scripting work to make sure the game knows how to find the asset and when it should show up, what it should be called, who should wear it and so on.

Above you can see the final result with dynamic materials applied. We created new sets of patterns and color combinations for the Iberian assets (of which you can see more examples in the screenshots below).

After all that is done and looking good we can move on to working through the never-ending list of clipping bugs that arise when combining these assets with each other…

And that’s all there is to it! As you can see, very quick and easy.

Iberian Army Units

With Fate of Iberia, we’re adding two new sets of army units representing the Christian and Muslim styles, to be used by Iberian heritage culture. Of course, each model represents a specific tier of army quality so we need to keep this in mind when designing their appearance. Generally, the first tier is supposed to represent something like a drafted peasant, the second tier a professional soldier, and the third tier a knight or equivalent.

Below you can see the concept art and 3D models for all 3 Tiers of the Christian Unit. The Tier 1 model was mainly based on manuscript illustrations depicting commoners and peasants. As you can see, he is not wearing any armor at all. The simple armor of Tier 2 consists of a gameson and a steel helmet. Lastly, we have the Tier 3 unit model — its design is similar to the one used for the new Christian armor that characters can equip, and was based on the 13th century mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca of James I of Aragon, currently found in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Much like its Christian counterpart, the design of the Tier 1 Muslim unit represents an unarmored soldier wearing the same kind of clothes as a civllian. Tier 2 is also dressed similarly to the Christian Tier 2, with a gambeson and a helmet. Finally, the design for Tier 3 represents a more heavily armored warrior, with a hooded chainmail hauberk and helmet with noseguard.

How different is the process of creating units from other character assets? Well, let’s delve a bit into that. To create a unit, we go through the same steps outlined above. We start off by creating the pattern in Marvelous Designer and simulating the cloth there.

Belts and similar elements are simulated alongside the cloth to get the fabric to fall correctly, but details are added in the next “high poly” stage in Zbrush. Below you can also see the shield and sword that the unit will use in battle.

The next step is creating the “low poly” version of this unit. Of course, the unit appears quite small on the map so the polygon budget is smaller than for other character assets.

Finally, texturing is done in Substance Painter. Units have a fair amount of wear and tear added in the texturing stage (things can get muddy when you’re fighting wars). Similarly to other character assets, the white parts of the texture will receive a dynamic material in-game.

And that's how units are made! Now, over to my eminent colleague Joacim for a look at the environment art side of things.

Holdings

For the Iberian peninsula we looked at creating a style of holding that represented the region and makes it stand apart from the Mediterranean, Western and MENA styles. Since Iberia was such a mix of cultures and architectural styles mingled between the cultures and religious influences, we’ve created a style that works for the area as a whole. Below you can see screenshots of the two Iberian cities together with four new castle models.

Here we have the new church and mosque temple holdings.

Lastly, the models for new walls can be seen in the screenshot below:

Monuments

All over the landscape you’ll now find multiple different kinds of monuments. Some magnificent works that have stood since the age of Rome, others that have been erected since, and some that are yet to be initiated by your architects.

Roman Walls of Lugo

These walls in Galicia were built sometime around 263 and 276 A.D. to protect Lugo, or Lucus Augusti as it was known to the Romans.

Just like with units, we try to hold off from investing too much of our polygon budget into the 3D models for holdings and monuments. Below you can see a screenshot of the low poly model for the Roman Walls of Lugo. Positioning map assets correctly in Maya is an essential step, to prevent them looking out of place once they are actually in the game.

Mosque of Cordoba

The great mosque of Cordoba is claimed to have been built on the site of a Visigothic basilica, and is one of the oldest structures still standing from the Muslim era of Al-Andalus.

The Alhambra

One of the distinct monuments of Iberia from the base game that has now gotten some visuals. A fortress palace whose construction began in 1238 historically. Will you begin the construction early to show off your splendor?

Santiago de Compostela

The Cathedral (construction historically began in 1075) was built in the Romanesque style. While the modern day cathedral has seen its facade rebuilt and modernized over the centuries, we’ve recreated this original look of the cathedral for this era.

Artifacts

If you have the Royal Court expansion, you will also be finding some of these new artifacts having unique visuals when presented in your court. But worry not, artifacts are also available as trinkets if you don't have the Royal Court to display them in.

Aquamanile

Don't let the animal shape of this bronze craft fool you! It’s actually an ewer for dispensing water which was generally used for washing your hands.

Armillary Sphere

To determine the path, journey and position of celestial objects, scholars would have these spheres created to better understand the skies and stars above them.

After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a basemesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale.

After reference gathering (sometimes accompanied by concept art, sometimes not), a low poly blockout is created for artifacts. Below you can see the blockout model for the Armillary Sphere, with a base mesh of a CK3 character next to it, for scale. It’s important to make sure that the silhouette and the shapes appear distinct and are readable from a distance, since Artifacts are seen from a certain distance by the player in the courtroom.

High poly details are added in Zbrush, after which a game-ready low poly model is created in Maya or Blender:

Votive Crown

A votive crown is one not meant for wearing, instead it is a religious offering, made for display and to be suspended at altars or shrines. Just like a regular crown they consist of fine craftsmanship, precious metals and stones. Most of the surviving examples of these today come from 7th century Visigothic Iberia.

Tizona

One of the two swords of the famous El Cid, the other being the sword known as Colada. Its design is based on the museum displayed sword claimed to be the famous blade.

Chessboard

In Iberia, games of skill and tactics were highly praised, and multiple types of chess can be acquired to show your strategically inclined mind.

Bell of Santiago

This grand bell (which you might remember being featured in a previous Dev Diary), if recaptured and recast, can be put in your court to display that feat.

Closing Comments and Upcoming Livestream

We hope that this sneak peek has got you excited for Fate of Iberia and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the full experience on May 31st!

For those of you who are interested in seeing more of the behind the scenes process of creating 2D and 3D assets for CK3, we have some good news. On May 18th, 14:30 - 16:00 we will host an art livestream with several artists from the team. We will walk you through the pipeline without holding back on the technical details, so if that’s something for you, be sure not to miss it! The livestream will air on the ParadoxInteractive Twitch channel, at twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive.

As always, we look forward to your thoughts and we will stick around in the thread for a few hours to answer any questions.

May 3, 2022

Dev Diary #95 - Flavor of Iberia

Crusader Kings III - Nicou12313

Hello and welcome to Dev Diary #95, about the flavor that makes the flavor pack!

I am Hugo (@Hugo Cortell), and today my fellow content designer Ola (@Vaniljkaka) will walk you through some of our design for culture, faith, and everything else before I introduce you to our events & decisions.

► Read our Dev Diary #95 - Flavor of Iberia

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/

In a region as dynamic and well-documented as Iberia, we were truly spoiled with possible content, and had to make some hard choices as to what would work best in the context of Crusader Kings III. Yet we have filled the Fate of Iberia with flavor content high and low, from fairytales whispered by a fireplace to grand designs of priests and kings. In the Fate of Iberia, you might encounter the Estadea, the wandering dead of Galician myth, the legendary Garduña thieves, great smiths of Toledo, cheese-making Vikings, and Andalusian polymaths dreaming of flight.

For Fate of Iberia we’ve roped in talented content designers from all over our organization to help us pack Iberia full of historical flavor. There is hardly any subject that does not get some love.

Culture and Faith

Iberia’s cultures were in a pretty good place already, thanks to the culture rework in the Royal Court. But, we’ve done a pass on their traditions to make sure they’re fitting and interesting. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, you’ll be able to make some compelling hybrid cultures here - why not Sephardi-Norse, or Berber-Castilian? It can also be a good way to get involved in the Struggle from the outside. Among other additions, you’ll find that Castilians are now Tabletop Warriors, able to challenge others to a grand game of chess!

The Kingdom of Castles, indeed!

Concerning faith, our new shared Head of Faith mechanic will add dynamism to Iberia’s fractured religious landscape. More info regarding this will come in a future Development Diary!

There are events for Muslims, Christians, and pagans, but the big addition is the Mozarabic Faith. They’ll encourage historical “what if” playthroughs and some dramatic decisions, exploring the deep Visigothic roots of Iberian faith. Try to take control of Toledo if you play a Mozarabic Christian - it can allow you to convene a new great church council, echoing the one in 711. But take heed - such a council might also affect the struggle… How will your realm be affected by the vicious debates to follow? There are also other new decisions available to Mozarabs - including the ultimate prize, the restoration of the Kingdom of Toledo!

The Mozarabs have a long history of adapting to changing circumstances.

Toledo plays a central role for the Mozarabic faith.

Basque Paganism, the other new faith, is a syncretistic belief with Christian and pagan elements, the most prominent vestige of pagan faith in Western Europe, ensconced in the Pyrenees. Among rulers, it is a dead religion at game start, but its traditions persist among the common folk, and an opportunistic ruler might find reason to Champion the Faith of the Country Basques, and bring it back to prominence.

Remnants of pagan belief have endured in the redoubt of the Pyrenees.

Special buildings, Dynasty tracks and Artifacts

For monuments and special buildings, there are some you might expect - the great mosque of Córdoba, the basilica of Santiago, the walls of Toledo - and some you might not. We’ve begun exploring having natural wonders as province features, so you’ll find the Rock of Gibraltar here, too. While Iberia certainly has a rich history, it’s not as overcrowded in ruins of past splendor as say, Mesopotamia or Rome, so while there are some Visigothic and Roman monuments here, we focused on things built over the course of the Middle Ages. There’s accordingly also a few you can build yourself, after the game has started.

The Great Mosque of Cordoba in all its glory! Art has done a tremendous job in bringing the monuments to life.

The Tower of Hercules, as it is also called, still stands today, the oldest extant lighthouse in the world.

We’re adding new artifacts as well of course, among them the famed Bells of Santiago - or in 1066, their melted-down and reforged state as aquamaniles in the Muslim Court of Toledo. Historically, of course, they were turned into mosque lamps, but that would have been hard to represent well in our 3D courts, so we went with aquamaniles instead. You’ll also be able to find armillary spheres, scallop shells from the pilgrim road to Santiago, chess boards, Visigothic votive crowns, and much more. If you have the Royal Court Expansion, of course some will be impressive items that our art team devoted lots of attention to, to be proudly displayed in your court.

Once the pride of Galicia, they now decorate the Toledo court.

The two new dynasty legacies are Metropolitan and Coterie, expressing the themes of flourishing cities and interwoven, intrigue-riddled dynasties that seemed fitting for medieval Iberia. In the Coterie legacy, you can gain various benefits related to your dynasty and its members, useful for diplomacy and intrigue. The Reliable House perk, will give you 10% of your councillors’ primary skills, while the ultimate perk in this legacy, Pragmatic Roots, makes the Disinherit interaction available for all dynasty members. The Metropolitan Legacy will aid you with development, construction and prestige, unlock a unique Expand Cities decision, and give you some added motivation to build new city holdings in your realm. The Republican Education perk introduces the Town Maven trait, that dynasty members might receive if they are educated in a county with hig development. Metropolitan is a great track if you prefer playing tall, building an economically strong realm.

Coterie members can share secrets with each other.

I’ll now leave it to Hugo, to talk more about our decisions and events.

Events & Decisions

Fate of Iberia contains a multitude of events and decisions ranging from struggle-specific events which shake-up plans, to flavor events designed to enrich the experience with classic paradox comical occurrences and references to regional curiosities.

Struggle Events

As mentioned above, struggle events help add a bit of chaos to the overall equation, presenting many opportunities themed around the current phase for cunning strategists to turn one’s disaster into another’s advantage during the greater conflict. Struggle events are exclusive to characters partaking in the struggle.

Such as this event, in which the player is able to give their word in exchange for a claim on a county. Failing to keep your word will certainly have consequences…

Some events will have you deal with unexpected losses, though you can still gain something from the situation if you play your cards right.

Protecting someone's secrets is a great way to make new friends.
Always trust someone in a sombrero, they clearly know what they are doing.
Other events can grant you advantages when you least expect it, but tread carefully as success is not guaranteed and things can always take a turn for the worse.

Struggle events —though all related, are quite different in the opportunities, benefits, and challenges that they present, encouraging players to adjust their strategy as circumstances call. I would certainly start conquering my neighbors if I got ahold of some good steel, especially since it’d help me get those catalysts I’ve been after for a while…

Flavor Events

We have also included a variety of smaller, flavor-focused events that help bring the Iberian peninsula to life and create a greater breadth of content for players in the region to experience. Many of these events are inspired by recorded happenings in the region, while others are simply classic Crusader Kings’ events in a Mediterranean flavor. From a story about frightening “thunder stones”, to the myth of legendary Christian mobsters to a peaceful siesta event, you can be sure you will be getting a full Iberian roster of fascinating, action-packed, and ridiculous events.

Would you eat a whale? Would Allah approve? It probably tastes like chicken anyway.

For anyone who has had horchata, this story should sound familiar. Well, with the exception of the whole “now you must only ever make horchata” option.

People from far away come to Iberia in search for a better life, can you provide that?
The Content Design team recommends you read books, they are good for you!

There'll be no shortage of opportunities to improve your realm.

Decisions

Besides new events, Fate of Iberia also features unique decisions which can be taken throughout the duration of the struggle at specific phases. Let’s take a quick look at two of them now.

We’ve seen a lot of comments and requests in the previous dev diaries not to ignore the Jewish achievements of the period. In Fate of Iberia, one of its decisions allows you to make the most out of these achievements by enabling you to sponsor a golden age of science.

Sponsoring sciences is a noble but expensive endeavor.

As the sponsor, you will receive various positive modifiers, though everyone else in the struggle will receive a weaker version of them too. This decision is not exclusive and anyone can “steal” the golden age from you, doing so will strip you of the modifier and replace it with its weaker counterpart. I fully expect this to be the correct kind of chaotic during multiplayer matches.

Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies.

Though not listed in the tooltips, sponsoring a golden age also gives you bragging rights in multiplayer lobbies.

Of course, this decision isn’t just a couple of modifiers strapped to a button. Sponsoring a golden age will lead to one of three random events that provide you with the opportunity to easily recruit highly talented scholars and members of the scientific community.

Making the doctor wait will add them to your court, while performing the operation may help you improve relations with your elderly vassal. Of course, under the... "right mindset", this can also become a learning opportunity for your young child, pre-industrial cataract surgery was a lot more successful with a young assistant present.

Now, for a more standard decision example: In classic Crusader Kings 3 fashion, we also have plenty of decisions to form titles and gain control over land, such as the “Iberian Foothold” decision, which encourages large foreign powers to make a dash for their piece of the metaphorical Iberian cake by letting them end the struggle from the outside. Though the military investment will certainly be large and the many disunified states in Iberia won’t take their conquest laying down…

There are plenty of opportunities to rewrite history in Crusader Kings, will you unite Iberia under the French banner or will a post-unification Iberia conquer Europe?

Closing Comments

We hope the content displayed in this dev diary has gotten you excited about our upcoming Flavor Pack, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the discussion comments below.

Apr 26, 2022

PC Dev Diary #94 - Anatomy of a Struggle ⚖️

Crusader Kings III - Nicou12313

Welcome to a dev diary I’ve been champing at the bit to write for months!
Coming with our next Flavor Pack "Fate of Iberia" is a new mechanic called the Struggle which will propose new challenges for the rulers within the Iberian peninsula.

► Read our Dev Diary #94 - Anatomy of a Struggle

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1303184/Crusader_Kings_III_Fate_of_Iberia/

The Basic Pitch

A struggle is a long-form conflict (generally not just a war, though they likely include them) covering a particular chunk of the map. They have different phases, each of which have different variant gameplay rules (e.g., “holy wars are disabled”, “characters of different religions may marry without”, or “Jerusalem can’t declare or be declared war on”).

Phases progress between each other by way of catalysts, specific gameplay actions (“declare war on an involved character”, “two involved characters become soulmates”, etc.) that accrue points towards a future phase. When enough points are accrued, the phase changes to the new one.

Struggles can be resolved, permanently affecting their area in some way, through dramatic and difficult ending decisions.

They are assumed to last at least a couple of centuries: a conqueror carving out a new realm from the ruins of an old giant wouldn’t be a struggle by itself, but if it includes dramatic aftershocks that last for generations, then it just might be.

Philosophy

So why are we introducing this mechanic attached to a flavour pack? Well, simply put, we didn’t think we could do the historical realities of Iberia justice without something like this.

The changing moods and temperaments of the peninsula over different decades, the way particular activities fluctuated between oddly permissive (by the standards of much of the rest of the world) and intensely strict, the role of notable characters and their policies in shaping the shifting tides of public opinion whether intentionally or not…

Medieval Iberia is just such a fascinating smorgasbord of mercurial special rules that we had to create a system that would allow us to model them, one that guided roleplay whilst giving it consequences, and provided default end goals for players other than just conquering all of Hispania.

Though Iberia badly needed such a thing, it would have been a waste to create a system tailored for only Iberia. Complex and shifting local circumstances and long-form conflicts that don’t always take the form of actively-prosecuted warfare are things seen in many parts of the world, and a setting-agnostic system that catered to the peninsula but could be easily repurposed elsewhere seemed like a very worthwhile project to spend time on.

So let’s get into how it works!

Involvement

Struggles are, first and foremost, local things. Local to large areas (Iberia, for instance, is a decently sized little peninsula), but still local. The most basic thing that defines them, then, is the struggle region - a predefined group of titles that the rules of the struggle apply within.

For FoI’s struggle, we’ve used the ol’ reliable world_europe_west_iberia region that’s been in the title since launch, but any region or combination of regions can be defined in the appropriate parameter. At the moment, these are static and only take regions, but we’re considering other options (e.g., titles, regions selected as part of the starting effect, etc.) for the future.

Cultures and faiths are regarded as either involved or not. This defines whether a specific culture or faith is seen as being a part of the “in-group” for the region, even when members of that in-group may occasionally (or frequently) be very hostile to each other. For the Iberian Struggle, for instance, a Castilian and an Andalusian both understand the changing nature of the peninsula instinctively in a way that an Anglo-Saxon would struggle to acclimate to.

Cultures become involved either on first starting a struggle, manually via script, or automatically when a certain percentage of their total counties are within the struggle region (the number is set per struggle, currently at 80% for the Iberian Struggle).

Hybrids and divergent cultures automatically become involved if they convert at least one county within the region on creation.

Neither cultures nor faiths lose their involvement automatically. Once they’re in, they’re in permanently, unless manually removed via script. For Fate of Iberia, this is necessary to keep the ruling class of al-Andalus, predominantly culturally insular families of Arabs or Berbers, involved, but it’s generally there to prevent wonky behaviour with struggles incorporating cultures and faiths from beyond their region who don’t actually have county within it.

A simpler example would be a hypothetical Anglo-Norman struggle for after the Conquest. We’d probably want to set Norman up as an involved culture, and wouldn’t want them to immediately become uninvolved because there are no Norman counties in the British Isles.

But Characters Tho?

Within the region, characters are defined by their personal involvement: the degree to which they’re considered part of the ongoing medley of social and cultural fluctuations that define an active struggle, and so how other characters (and counties) treat them. There are three levels to involvement:

Involved
Interloper
Uninvolved

Involved characters are those who are wholeheartedly engaged in the unique power dynamics of the struggle, and seen as insiders within the region. They may differ wildly from other involved characters, but involved characters are generally considered to appreciate the minutiae that make a struggle play differently from the rest of the world. Both their culture and faith must be flagged as being involved in the struggle, and either their capital is located within the struggle region or, if they’re unlanded, they’re physically there.

Interlopers are active within a struggle’s region but don’t quite grasp exactly how or why people from the region act the way they do. They generally don’t benefit from variant struggle rules as much as involved characters, but also aren’t as heavily restricted by them. Either their culture, their faith, or both are not flagged as being involved in the struggle, but their capital (or physical location if landless) is located within the region.

Uninvolved characters are outsiders and outlanders. Their concerns are remote to the struggle region, and even if they’re originally from that region, their isolation from it makes them lose touch with its subtleties and current events. Regardless of culture or faith, if their capital is located outside of the struggle region (or if they’re landless and physically not there), a character is considered uninvolved in that struggle. Uninvolved characters are generally expected to take penalties for holding counties within a struggle region, encouraging them to either delegate to vassals with a better level of involvement, or else getting more involved themselves.

Phases

Alright, so we know how a struggle covers an area, and how people are divided up into categories within that area. What do these categories and this area actually do?

For that, we need to look to phases.

Each phase reflects a sort of mood or temperament within a struggle region specific to that struggle, the outcome of many prior actions leading to a shifting tide of general opinion about what is and isn’t acceptable. Maybe some things that were taboo become mainstream for a time, and things otherwise considered acceptable are baulked at by even very conservative characters.

Though we’ll talk about how exactly you transition between phases a bit more in a moment, it’s worth noting that each phase has at least one (and usually more) future phase predefined for it, a phase that actions take in the course of play will gradually move the region’s “mood” towards.

Within the Iberian Struggle, phases are on a loosely even cycle: though there’s some lateral movement and backtracking possible, they mostly move evenly in a circle. This is purely a design choice, and more esoteric flows are entirely scriptable.

Manifesting the Mood

The actual effects of each phase can be split into three broad categories - parameters, character modifiers, and county modifiers. These are then further split by the involvement of different characters.

Parameters work similarly to doctrine parameters in faiths, or tradition parameters for cultures. They’re special rules, entirely defined within script (and so fully moddable) that can be referred to elsewhere in script to unlock unique content, provide special exemptions, or block off specific actions.

For example: in one phase, involved characters might be able to intermarry between faiths, in another, interlopers might receive cheaper holy wars whilst involved characters have them blocked entirely, and in both uninvolved characters may be blocked from culture converting involved cultures.

As with other breeds of parameter, struggle parameters are identified purely by their exact spelling and can thus be reused simply by duplicating them, either within a struggle or in other struggles, making them very versatile rules.

Character modifiers can be applied directly to involved or interloper characters. This generally chiefly affects involved characters, making some things easier and others harder, but we also use it to let interlopers occasionally have an easier time of bending or breaking local rules. Though these are our current guidelines, since these are all entirely scriptable, they can be changed according to the tonal needs of any given struggle.

Uninvolved characters do not have a character modifier slot - we don’t want characters in India getting negative modifiers for not being involved or interlopers in a struggle in Iberia!

Finally, we have county modifiers. These are applied to any county in the struggle region according to the direct holder of each county and their involvement; they generally have situational variables depending on phase for involved characters, mild to moderate debuffs for interlopers, and moderate to heavy debuffs for uninvolved characters.

Catalysts

Transitioning from a phase to any of its future phases requires the activation of catalysts: notable events, gameplay actions, and consequences to existing mechanics that drive the current phase towards a specific future phase.

Catalysts themselves can be anything. A war being declared, a type of character being seduced, a certain type of scheme failing, and so on. They’re set inside a phase’s future phase block, and, as with other elements of struggles, are entirely scriptable. Virtually any effect block in the entire title can be made into a catalyst with a bit of thought.

Whenever a catalyst is activated, meaning that the thing that sets them happens, the current phase gains points towards the future phase that that catalyst was tied to (for instance, a notable interfaith marriage might help an uncertainty-focused phase gain points towards a tolerance-focused phase). Catalysts themselves are repeatable and the points they give vary with the difficulty of the catalyst in question - two notable characters becoming soulmates might well be worth more points than a notable character being executed, for instance.

Points for put into simple tallies: when one tally for a future phase is met, that future phase becomes the new current phase, though there’s a grace period of a month before the actual switch.

On the off chance that all of the dozens or hundreds of characters involved in a struggle are being incomprehensibly boring, we should note the existence of one special catalyst: the passage of time. Every phase has a default future phase, and receives a single point per year towards that phase’s tally, representing the natural trend of public discourse towards particular conclusions. This can (and essentially always will) be overridden or exacerbated by more dramatic catalysts being activated, but even in very calm struggle, change is always coming.

Ending Decisions

A core part of the identity of struggles is that they’re not things that can be solved just by painting the map - after all, if they were, then the Iberian Struggle would’ve ended in its first decade when Musa ibn Nusayr had essentially subjugated the entire peninsula.

We wanted to provide more difficult and interesting goals for ending a struggle than just conquering the whole struggle region. After all, it really doesn’t matter if you’ve conquered everyone if that hasn’t dealt with the underlying societal causes besetting a struggle locale.

Ending decisions are our solution to this, being major, demanding decisions with consequences for the entire struggle region when taken and usually pretty intricate requirements.

In order for a struggle to be endable through the usual flow, at least one phase must have an ending decision defined, though they can be ended manually through script also. The Iberian Struggle has three ending decisions, each tied (both mechanically and thematically) to a different phase).

The Iberian Struggle

To finish up, let’s take a look at the new Iberian Struggle’s design (though I’ll put an obligatory reminder that this stuff isn’t final and that we generally continue to adjust things as we balance and playtest).

The Iberian Struggle’s phases are Opportunity, Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation. Opportunity can lead to either Hostility or Conciliation, depending on how the peninsula’s leaders treat each other, whilst both Hostility and Conciliation respectively build or degrade towards Compromise, which in turn decays into Opportunity, starting the cycle again.

In Opportunity, Iberia is approaching a stage of uncertainty after notable spikes (hostile or friendly) in prior relations between faiths and cultures have abated. Struggle modifiers and parameters make war easier and cheaper, changing cultures and faiths easier and cheaper, but also unlock interfaith marriages and block off holy wars. Friendly interrelations between disparate characters activate catalysts guiding it towards Conciliation, whilst violent ones do the same for Hostility.

For Hostility, aggressive actors have brought tensions to a simmering fever pitch, and even the slightest differences may be cause for aggressive persecution. The phase’s effects make wars cheaper and more brutal for all involved, reduce economic and technological progress, and increase the capacity of many characters for hostile schemes. Violence can’t persist forever though, and either efforts at building bridges or simple exhaustion will eventually bring even the most violent Hostility phase towards Compromise.

Standing opposite Hostility is Conciliation, where pragmatic politicking builds bridges between even very disparate realms. Characters in this phase aren’t really tolerant by the modern meaning of the word, but many of the harsher biases of their time are temporarily dropped or ignored in the name of expediency. Wars become more expensive and truces longer, but there’s opportunity to unite against outsiders intervening in Iberian matters, and ruling over more multicultural and multifaith realms becomes easier and more beneficial.

Periods of interreliance like this don’t generally last. Granted privileges decay, ignored biases relapse, and power-hungry nobles tear down bridges for short-term gain. Even the most wholeheartedly supported Conciliation phase decays towards Compromise eventually.

Finally, Compromise. In this phase, Iberia has reached a point of equilibrium. Wars are less likely and most costly, but economic investment and other forms of passive stability are easier and better, whilst interfaith marriages flourish. The exhausted pragmatism of Compromise isn’t permanent, and will someday give rise to the cynical dynamism of Opportunity. The cycle begins anew.

Naturally we’ve peppered all of this with phase-specific events, decisions, interactions, the odd CB, and so on. Most phases also add variant unlocking criteria to existing pieces of content, adjusting the circumstances under which things like the Claim Throne scheme or Found Holy Order decision can be used - most commonly temporarily extending them to characters who’d usually not have access.

Say you don’t want to move on from a phase, though. Maybe you think Hostility’s the place for you, or you’d prefer a more permanent Conciliation, and want to break the endless cycle of social transmutation - well, unless you wanted permanent Opportunity, you’re in luck, because we’ve got ending decisions for Hostility, Compromise, and Conciliation.

Hostility’s ending decision is Dominance, reflecting the final ascension of one of Iberia’s warring states to a position of not just military dominance, but social and spiritual hegemony.

This gives your house an incredibly powerful modifier, making county and faith conversion within Iberia markedly faster, improving relations with those who share your faith or culture but markedly worsening them with other involved cultures or faiths, and making Holy Wars and Conquests cheaper and easier to access. It requires holding several important duchies, having a monocultural, monofaith primary kingdom, and being the only major player independent ruler in Iberia.

Conciliation’s ending decision is Détente, making temporary accommodations into more permanent ones.

Involved cultures gain a huge amount of cultural acceptance with each other, a house modifier that improves the opinion of different faiths and cultures, and several signature mechanics of the Conciliation phase become permanent for involved culture characters within Iberia: namely, interfaith marriage and disabled holy wars. Additionally, Iberian characters may join defensive wars for targets within Iberia against any aggressor from outside of Iberia.

It requires a certain level of fame, being allied to every other independent involved Iberian ruler, and completely controlling an Iberian kingdom without controlling more than a certain fraction of Iberian territory.

Compromise’s ending decision is Status Quo. Where Dominance is enforcing will and Détente finding accommodation, Status Quo is accepting that times have changed, that attempts to unite the peninsula are futile, and that its peoples and realms should go their separate ways and leave their neighbours be.

Status Quo balkanises Iberia, transferring duchies to connected kingdoms if appropriate and making every kingdom within Iberia its own de jure empire whilst permanently destroying Hispania. Ruling houses across the former struggle region gain a modifier for two centuries making them better at fighting in lands of their own cultural heritage, whilst the capital counties of all independent rulers become strongholds for the next century. Some CBs within Iberia become more expensive.

The requirements for Status Quo are a bit byzantine, essentially because it functions as the opt out decision if Dominance or Détente prove too difficult to work towards. If Iberia can’t be subjugated or coerced into cooperation then, in extremis, it can always be destroyed.

Future Use

The Iberian Struggle is our first go at a struggle system, and it’s one we’re fairly pleased with. That said, we’ve certainly taken note of how the feature seems to have caught the popular imagination over the last week or so, and we’re very interested to hear your thoughts now that there’s a bit more information available.

First up, though, let’s get a little disambiguation out of the way. The basic mechanic here, the struggle system, is free. It will be merged into the base game with 1.6 and available for use in mods (and potentially future DLCs) immediately.

The Iberian Struggle itself, however, is paid content attached to the Fate of Iberia DLC. Though anyone can add their own struggles without needing to depend on this flavour pack, this particular struggle and its content are part and parcel of the DLC.

With that out of the way, are there parts of the system you’d like to see refined and made more flexible? What are the struggles you’d like to see made in future? What’s your jankiest idea for hope for how to use the struggle system?

As ever, I’ll be around in the thread for the next hour or so to answer your queries.

Apr 5, 2022

Dev Diary #92: From Report to Resolution 🔧

Crusader Kings III - Nicou12313

Let's talk about the process a bug goes through from being reported to being resolved and put into an update for CK3!

► Read our Dev Diary #92: From Report to Resolution

💡 This week, please visit our forums to see the images & memes prepared for you ːcrusader_helmetː

Whenever you launch the game, get yourself a your favorite gamer juice and steel your resolve for a few good hours of managing a medieval kingdom, there is a lot of stuff that happened behind the scenes to make it a memorable experience, free from issues. For a game as complex as Crusader Kings 3, this is even more important, and as the features get added to the game, it becomes more and more complicated, like a careful balancing act between economy, AI, warfare, interactions - all to ensure the experience you receive in the newest update is something worth waiting for!

We are but a few humble people, whose job is to find out what works and what doesn’t and report any and all issues to the team before the game hits your platform of choice. But what happens when sometimes issues do remain hidden away and they will take spitting behind your shoulder 3 times on a 3rd fortnight of a 5th month on a leap year, during a full moon while dancing hokey-pokey to uncover?

This is where you can come in and help! We can get rid of serious, big issues, find them ahead of time before you even realize they existed in the first place, and try and deliver a polished product. For anything else - well, it’s the economy of scale. With the variety of systems, languages, experiences, playstyles - YOU are the biggest help of all, in how a game can be shaped. And for that we have a special platform, called Bug Report Forum, where you can air out your grievances, provide feedback, reproduction steps and situations that irk you on the constant, so that our QA team can go through them much more efficiently and supply the team with a steady stream of new bugs to iron out for the next bug fix patch or release.

[Comic on logging]

Once you take your valuable time to report the issue that ruins your mojo when playing Crusader Kings, it lands on our Forum as a thread. We then take turns, employing QA power to go through the forums and reproduce them locally on our machines to ensure if the issue is serious, or perhaps we can offer support by providing advice on how to avoid it.

Once the ticket is verified internally, using your reproduction steps, your description, screenshots, crash logs and saves, we then take the time to translate it into a language that our internal team can understand - Jira.

There’s an art to this. Jira is an extremely helpful and smart tool to use, and QA by nature becomes naturally adept at using it skillfully. It’s usually the QA who does project-wide database evaluations, scrubbing it from obsolete tickets and updating any and all lingering ones to make sure the project team can focus on what’s important - making more fun stuff!

Wait… Obsolete? You mean you just CLOSE old tickets?

We do… sometimes. For example, if we had an issue lingering around in some hidden away system for a long time (and sometimes not even you, our community, are able to find it for years on end) - the issue becomes obsolete - either we just make the bug into a feature, or because we change a system entirely - it becomes changed so it’s not even a problem anymore. Happens on occasion, and even we are quite surprised that some bugs that linger for long never get picked up by the players, but hey - bugs are features too! Right?

Riiiiiiiiiight…?

[Excerpt from “How to JIRA” guide]

Now that might look like a lot, but trust me - there’s a way to learn this. First of all, it’s pretty straight forward; complex, but not complicated. We have been campaigning for the team to use Jira tickets efficiently. For example, if we get a ticket that says “Fix the thing we talked about yesterday” and there is nothing else in it, how can we remember what we have done, what needs to be done and how do we go back to it to retest? And again - fast-forward time to a month later and believe me - nobody will remember what in the world such a ticket meant.

As a result, making sure all the fields are appropriately filled out is paramount to an efficient use of the database, and to make our team’s lives just a little bit easier when having to deal with a big pile of bugs that come from you or from our internal reporting.

If everything is sorted, and everyone is on the same page, it makes it a lot easier for the producers to schedule when and how to report. And the upvoting on the forum? That’s an incredibly powerful tool to let us know which tickets need to be prioritized and fixed, no matter what. That’s how we can influence what is important to be fixed first.

[QA chasing the Programmers]

The (un)lucky Programmer/Designer
Once the bug has been verified, put into Jira, assigned a version and prioritized, a Developer can pick the bug up for fixing. This is typically either a Designer or a Programmer, depending on where the bug originates. In some cases the bug is reassigned to another role if the bug is found to be caused in another part of the game. Now that we know what the issue is and how it’s experienced, we need to investigate the how and why it happens.

As an example of this, let us look at the recently fixed issue where the Holy Orders would raise themselves and immediately disband if they were called into a war. This issue was a side effect of letting Holy Orders raise themselves for Great Holy Wars: whenever a Holy Order is at war as an ally (which they qualify as during the Great Holy Wars), they would raise their armies.

We start by looking at why the Order is disbanding the armies. If they’re raised, they must have something to fight against, right?

Through developer magic known as debug mode and source code, we can step through each individual function call to see what’s going on. Stepping through this function leads us to finding that the war they are fighting in is not relevant to them, causing them to disband. Looking at the enemies in the war they’re in, none of them are of a hostile Faith. We also see that they are hired by the Grandmaster of the Order, so the Order itself decided to raise their armies, not another character hiring them. Holy Orders will not fight in wars where the opposing side does not have any participants of hostile Faith. Because we found the Holy Order disbanding due to being raised against an irrelevant enemy, we must look at the logic which controls how they are raised. I will spare you the initial dig down the AI code, but the short of it is: if a Holy Order can be raised, raise it. So we need to see why the Holy Order can be raised when it clearly should not be able to. We arrive at the following function.

This logic checks if the Order can be hired by a character. This goes for any character looking to use the Order in question, even the Grandmaster of the Order. The Grandmaster of the Order is part of the war, so let us see where it leads us. Starting from the top, we check if the character can use the Order. Let us take a look at how that goes.

This is the code that checks if a character can use a Holy Order. When the Holy Order joins a war on its own, pCharacter is the Grandmaster, which is the Owner of the Holy Order. Makes perfect sense that the Grandmaster can make use of his own Holy Order. But, make notice further down: there is a check there, verifying if the character is in a relevant war. This is the same function that caused the army to disband earlier. Returning back to the function which checks if a Holy Order can be hired by our Grandmaster.

To simplify things, I have collapsed all the irrelevant parts; contained within each “if” section is something which will cause the function to fail, and not allow the Grandmaster to hire their own Order. Let’s go through these relevant parts. We don’t run afoul with the hire limit, as we don’t hire any other Holy Orders as the Grandmaster of one. We are not already hired by someone else, so we skip that part. We own this order, so we don’t touch the third “if” statement. Finally, we can afford to hire our own Order. Look at that, this means we can hire the Holy Order! But returning back to the finding that the Holy Order would immediately disband because we’re not in a relevant war. This is where we find our solution: if we own our own Holy Order, we can always use it, but because of this we will not look if the war we are in is relevant at all. So we have a very simple solution to the problem. [Solution to preventing the Holy Order from being raised] We know that the check for relevant wars is only skipped if we are the Grandmaster of the Order, we don’t need to check the faith of our own Grandmaster, so this is what we’re left with: if the one who wants to hire the Holy Order is the Owner of the Order, check if they are in a relevant war or not. The merge request process - everyone judges you When the fix has been created, it is put into what is called the merge request; this is the step before the fix is put into the upcoming build. Before it gets merged, there are a bunch of steps. It starts with one or more members of the team of appropriate discipline reviewing the changes being applied. This is the first step to spotting any unintended side effects that may occur with any given fix. The scrutiny of these reviews increase drastically with several more steps if the fix will go into an upcoming release. [Merge request overview for Preventing Holy Orders from raising themselves in irrelevant wars] Merge requests have a template that must be filled in when filed. This process gives both the fixer and reviewer the chance to review the implications of a fix and whether or not to actually commit it to a particular version. We make a serious consideration on how risky a fix is, can the fix have unintended knockon effects and the like, and how it impacts the overall performance of the game, does the fix contain a lot of computationally heavy code or script that will degrade performance. The golden rules of managing a merge request are: Reviewer is right until proven wrong. Discipline leads are always right. Adding a fix to a build generally requires approval from the discipline lead, tech lead and another reviewer, and only the tech lead can actually merge the fix into the build when we’re getting close to release. [The commit fixing the issue] The reviewer(s) give feedback on the merge request, and these must be addressed in one way or another. In the overview, you can see that the fix ended up being five commits in total, where just one of them was the fix itself. The rest were either addressing comments made in the review process or issues raised by the automated build and testing system, which we call pipelines. Speaking of pipelines. [Pipeline for merge request] Pipelines verify the integrity and quality of the code, build the game and test the game while the review process is going. All of these must pass for the merge request to be allowed to merge, unless explicit permission is given from the programmers, and in the case of an upcoming release the pipelines must be green. No exceptions. Once the fix has been merged, we hand it back over to the sadistic wonderful QA team. [Happy tears from QA after a 2 year old issue was resolved] Once a ticket gets processed, churned through the complicated development machine, the issue is removed from the game, the correct code, script or asset gets merged into the game, the ticket is then marked as resolved. This is when we get our hands on it one more time to verify if the fix has not only resolved the issue listed therein, but also that it has no other knock-on effects. Think of big fixes like a domino - you push one piece and the others will fall. Sometimes a different set of dominos, that we set up a long time ago, gets randomly pushed and some older issues reappear out of nowhere. It happens when you deal with a complex codebase, in which case you sometimes do see returning fan favorites. But all we have to do is revisit the older system, fix it (again), and away we go! Unless yet another bug is retriggered, in which case… Well, we have to revisit yet another system. Videogames are hard, m’kay? This is why we sometimes need to go through the same ticket again, and again, and again, until we are very sure it fixes more things than it breaks. Sometimes bugs linger in our database for a long time. Trust us - we know that issues you mentioned on release still persist and we want to fix everything, but with every release we get a new batch of tickets we have to go through… So. Many. Times. However, once the fix is confirmed, and the build is locked in - we are ready to press the large green button and release it for your scrutiny and repeat aforementioned hokey-pokey jig again! The Update - Are we done yet? Not really. On our end we close the bug as resolved, but there is one last thing that comes into play on resolving a bug. This is all of you, the community. The QA team catches most of the problems before a release is made, but sometimes for an issue to reoccur, you need the stars to align on a laptop manufactured on 29th of February 2020 while the player is doing the Macarena. Paraphrasing, of course, but there are cases where an issue can reemerge later. This can happen due to a myriad of factors that are hard to account for. Some issues can be related to hardware and specific circumstances we don’t have the capacity to test for. This is when we rely on you all to be vigilant and report issues back to us. The more detailed and specified, the better. Once this is done we go back from the top of this expose and do the dance one more time. If no one in the community experiences the issue again, then it stays resolved. I hope you all have enjoyed this little expose into the life of a game developer! Thank you for your time, and we wish you a very pleasant day. Until next time!