Hello and welcome to another Development Diary for Crusader Kings 3. Today I will talk a bit about the free 1.7 “Bastion” update and what new things it will bring to the game. Today we will not be talking about [REDACTED] which will be released together with the update.

The changes to Factions and AI have previously been covered in posts by @Servancour and @rageair and I will therefore not mention them again, but I recommend checking out their diaries if you missed them before: https://pdxint.at/3PJSwhA and Let's Talk Populist Factions

► Read our Dev Diary #105: 1.7 "Bastion" Update



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While the characters often get up to quite memorable things in our games there has up to now not been a way to keep track of exactly what, when and with whom each character has had a particular experience. What we have done in the new update in order to show more clearly how alive the game world is, is to introduce memories to characters. Characters will remember things that happened to them, from important things like the births of their children, important battles, deaths of close ones, and succession, to more mundane things like the event interactions with other characters during their childhood.



At any time you can view the memories of your character as well as non-private memories of other characters. This lets you quickly get an idea of not only what a character is like, but also how they got there. One can think of it as a feature somewhat similar to the character history that we had in EU:Rome many years ago.

One important difference to a character history though is that over time some memories will fade away, while others will remain. For player characters and characters likely to become player characters we err on the side of keeping memories longer, mostly because you are more likely to have a need of them as the game progresses.

Memories can be viewed at any time by opening the Memory Viewer from the character window, via a button in the same place as the Kill List, Inventory, and Lifestyle.



Memories are not only there as a log for the player to enjoy, however. The new system allows us to make use of memories that a character has both to trigger content and to make use of in events. This means that you may now find memories used in content that previously had to be vague, an assassin might now actually cite a specific slight you committed against their employer, for instance.

What this also means is that we are now able to create new content that is based entirely on your character having a certain type of memory or sharing a memory with another character.
Last of all I should mention that it is possible to export the memories of a character to clipboard in order to share it outside of the game for those that want others to know of their character’s exploits.



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Another addition coming with this update to further open up how things are connected in the game’s world is that we have wanted to make it clearer which characters are your friends, enemies, nemeses, etc, as well as clearer why a character has a special relationship with that particular character. This is accomplished by a new set of icons in the interface to highlight relationships.

Additionally whenever a relationship is formed the game notification will now not only say that it happened but also why it happened. The reasons for relationships will then always be visible in its tooltip: clearly telling you how they became friends, lovers, best friends, nemeses, etc. In cases where a more advanced relation (such as best friend or nemesis) exists we will show the reason for both the basic relationship and the more advanced one, so a best friend will keep track of both how you originally became friends and when you actually became best friends.

Together with character memories this should now make it more clear what has led you to the current point in your game, a small change that brings a surprising amount of context, highlighting parts of the interpersonal simulation that can right now be a bit hidden away.



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Another thing that we wanted to revisit in order to improve on how we deal with characters in the game world is the revamping of all existing childhood personality events as well as the addition of 12 new ones. This will significantly alter what personality trait combinations are likely to appear and will open up some combinations that were previously impossible simply due to how the old events for growing up worked.

The ambition apart from adding more content to the childhood period is to have the choices you make as a guardian be more interesting, avoiding any easy best choices in any single childhood event.

The new trait combinations that will be pitted against each other are:

• diligent, gregarious, temperate
  
• zealous, ambitious, sadistic
  
• shy, paranoid, craven
  
• lazy, gluttonous, compassionate
  
• lustful, chaste
  
• just, greedy, callous
  
• humble, cynical, content
  
• vengeful, deceitful, calm
  
• generous, fickle, arrogant
  
• forgiving, trusting, patient
  
• honest, arbitrary, impatient
  
• brave, stubborn, wrathful

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Last but not least for today is the addition of two new traits with the upcoming update. Through their actions (or indeed as they are subjected to the actions of others) characters can now gain traits for having loyal or disloyal personalities, which among other things will impact how likely they are to cheat on their spouse, join factions or plot against their liege. The traits are also integrated as sins/virtues and can be more valued or common depending on cultural traditions.

That was all for today. The new update will also bring new bug fixes, event pictures, and things that I have not brought up today but this was a sneak peak of what is to come.
Next week @PDS_Noodle will be talking some more about what the future will bring.

Greetings!

One of the trickiest bits about GSGs is making a good AI. You want it to pose a challenge and play well, but you don’t want it to ruin the player’s fun by acting out of character. We’ve read a lot of discussions and threads in various places across the community, and we understand that there is room for improvement. Over the summer we’ve been working on a few aspects of the AI, specifically the economy (and a little bit of diplomacy). We’ve not focused on warfare, except for one thing which we’ll get to later.

All changes outlined in this Dev Diary will be released in a future update.

► Read our Dev Diary #104: AI AI AI!



For the player to feel motivated to do well, the AI must show that it can do well alongside you. It doesn’t have to be fantastic or play optimally (in fact, that’s usually immersion-breaking), but it must be capable of progress. We want the AI in CK3 to be able to provide a good challenge and do well enough to motivate you to do even better. Also, we want it to do this without cheating.

Before delving deeper into what we’ve done, I’d like to explain some of the challenges we set out to solve for the Economy:

• Economically, all AIs currently play the same. We want their personality to affect how an AI decides to spend their hard-earned gold, and on what. You should be able to look at an AIs personality traits and, roughly, be able to tell what they’re up to.
  
• A player understands that there are certain ways of using gold that are optimal and appropriate regardless of their situation; that there are certain risks worth taking. We want the AI to understand this, employing decisions that make them prosper and are suitable to the stage the game is in.
  
• We want the AI to build more buildings, so that the world becomes more and more developed over time. Right now, only players realize the value that buildings bring in the long run, while AIs spend most of their gold on wars.
  
• The power of a ruler lies within their domain. The AI, much like the player, should strive to build a base of power and cultivate it over time.

…and here are some of the challenges we set out to solve for Diplomacy:

• AI realms tend to fall apart, and never reform. Vast seas of counts and dukes, unwilling to accept the overlordship of neighboring kings. We want the AI to be able to diplomatically expand, much like the player is able to. New realms with great monarchs should rise out of the ashes of former empires.
  
• A stable realm is a prosperous realm, and there are many tools for achieving this. The AI should not hold back when using available methods of stabilization, be they diplomatic schemes or underhanded council actions.
  
• The AI should understand that Tyranny is sometimes appropriate. It’s for the greater good of the realm. Within reason, of course - personality and relationships must play a large role here. As it stands, the AI will never willingly take on Tyranny, under any circumstance.

…and for Warfare:

• In real life, the Mongols were an existential threat. Currently, in CK, they are not. We want them to be. There is one pivotal change that enables this: the ability to gather armies closer to their target.

The key to success in CK3 is a strong and stable economy, and such a thing is driven by buildings (and, partly, MaA). We’ve set out to change how the AI uses its gold so that it builds up its realm more. We’ve taken considerations to make sure that the AI does this in a way so that it, for example, doesn’t become too easy to defeat for the player. The backbone of this work rests upon a framework of Economic Archetypes.

There are four economic archetypes that AI rulers can fall into, of which three are significant: Warlike, Cautious, and Builder. If a character falls into none of these archetypes, they will be Unpredictable and use aspects of other archetypes in a semi-random fashion.

Warlike

The Warlike archetype wants to be ready to declare war, always. This is the archetype that is most similar to how the AI behaves in the game right now. They will put their gold into a war chest before considering other options. If a Warlike archetype is at peace for an extended period of time, they will use the gold in their war chest to develop the realm - but they will first and foremost prepare for war, even in the early game.

Bold and greedy AI’s tend to be Warlike. Common traits include Wrathful, Impatient, Sadistic, Ambitious, Vengeful, Irritable, and Zealous. Tribal rulers and cultures with the Bellicose Ethos are also drawn to this archetype, as well as any character in the Iberian struggle that wants to escalate towards the hostility phase.

Cautious

Not to be confused with cowardly, the Cautious archetype wants to be prepared for having war be declared upon them. They are somewhat averse to declaring offensive wars, instead preferring a slow buildup. This archetype will save up a minimum buffer of gold, depending on their tier. When choosing to invest gold into buildings or MaA, they will evaluate the state of their military, how long they’ve been at peace, how many allies they have, and their level of dread - depending on these factors, they will feel ‘safe’ and invest more gold than they would otherwise, while keeping the aforementioned minimum buffer.

Non-bold AIs tend to be Cautious. Common traits include Patient, Calm, Craven, Paranoid, and Content. Rulers with the Fickle or Lunatic trait will never be cautious. Rulers with the Stoic Ethos or the Stalwart Defenders Cultural Tradition are also drawn to this archetype.

Builder

The Builder archetype wants to invest all of its gold into the realm. They will empty their treasury in order to build buildings and MaA as quickly as they can, and will also tend to construct more economical buildings and new holdings than other archetypes. They are bold and a bit reckless, only saving up a war chest if they are under a direct threat (such as a strong faction). This is the rarest of all archetypes.

Bold AIs with a propensity for building and no particular inclination for war fall into this archetype. Common traits include Calm, Patient, Diligent, Generous, Stubborn, Profligate, and Improvident. Where Warlike AI’s want to expand their realm, the Builder wants to build up their domain. Rulers with the Domain Focus also tend to fall into this category.

Unpredictable

The Unpredictable archetype doesn’t have a propensity towards anything in particular, and might decide upon any strategy. They can decide to boom their economy much like the Builder archetype, but they do so randomly (weighed up by traits such as Diligent or Architect), and the amount will be modified by how bold they are. Otherwise, they will want to build up their realms to a minimum degree (higher than a Warlike archetype), keep a decent buffer (lower than a Cautious archetype), and go to war at a normal pace.

AIs who do not qualify for any of the above categories will fall into this archetype.

The AI divides its economic game into three stages; Capital Development, Domain Development, and Late Development. The first two of these are ‘early’ stages that should be all but over roughly 100 years into the game.

Each of these stages modifies how the AI spends its gold, which is then again modified by the economic personalities above.

Early Capital Development
The most important holding to develop is your capital, I’m sure you all agree. The AI will strive quite hard to fill all of the empty slots in its capital before doing many other things, as first-level buildings have a significantly higher return of investment than upgrades do. At this stage, the archetypes matter less, but this phase is also over somewhat quickly.

This has a quite significant effect on the AI overall. By being able to kickstart their economy earlier than before, you will see them doing much better in the mid-late game. In the current version, you see a lot of provinces with open building slots well into the late game: even places of prominence, such as Paris, can sometimes be devoid of buildings - after these changes, this will be exceedingly rare.

Early Domain Development​
In the second stage, the AI wants to develop its secondary counties by constructing first-level buildings there too. Truth be told, many AI’s elect to buy MaA or keep developing their capital during this phase as the choice of what to do/construct is semi-random and weighted - but this really just results in more powerful rulers overall.

At this stage, the archetypes are manifesting, with Warlike AI’s saving war chests (albeit for shorter periods than in the Later stage!), Cautious AI’s saving up buffers, etc.

When first-level buildings are present in an AI’s entire domain, they move on to the Later Economic Behavior.

Later Economic Behavior​
During this stage, the archetypes will manifest fully. Builder AI’s will constantly build up their realm. Cautious AI’s will want a buffer, allies, and a powerful military, Warlike AI’s will only invest their gold if they’ve been at peace for many, many years - and so on.

Interestingly enough, despite the AI being disincentivized from declaring frequent wars (previously all AIs were constantly gearing up for war), there are no fewer wars in the world. The wars that are declared are, however, more intense and exciting, as the AIs are generally more built up and have a stronger economic backbone.

While the Economy part of this update isn’t the only thing contributing to what you’re about to see, here’s a comparison of the Live version of the game compared to the upcoming update. The sample size is 200 years, and there are no major deviations except for the Mongol Empire not having collapsed yet in the Live comparison.

Counts+ in this context means Counts, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors.

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One of the AI’s faults is that it underuses the tools given to it, choosing to use them only sporadically and without much direction. The AI acting out its personality is all well and good, but in many instances, personality didn’t even matter at all, for example when choosing to revoke a title. We’ve done many small things that together add up to a vastly improved experience.

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The AI is now going to strive towards having a strong capital and domain, prioritizing first and foremost the consolidation of lands within their De Jure Capital Duchy. For example, the king of France will want to hold Isle-de-France and all counties within the duchy of Valois.

In order to do this, they are now willing to take on a modicum of Tyranny via revoking or retracting, modified by their personality. For reference, the AI has never before willingly taken on Tyranny and has always waited for a revocation reason. All AIs will want their capital county and at least a small domain (3 or so), regardless of personality, but Just and Generous AIs will stop after that point. Depending on the AI’s rationality, they will be willing to take on more or less Tyranny. Wise and rational rulers will want to let their Tyranny decay completely before taking a tyrannical action again, while more irrational rulers are willing to keep their Tyranny high in order to consolidate their domain.

In order to consider revocation, the AI looks to its reserves of gold and military strength, making sure to not get into Tyranny wars it doesn’t think it can win (of course, it still happens that a ruler is overthrown via Tyranny, but it’s rarer!).

Of course, relationships are accounted for, so you won’t see the AI revoking from their friends, lovers, children, etc.

In practice, this means that the average AI ruler is much more powerful, and you won’t see things such as the king of France being content with having one single domain county in Brittany, just because they don’t have a revoke reason on the current ruler of Isle-de-France. In combination with the previously mentioned economic changes, this results in economically powerful AI rulers.


The AI has also been taught to revoke secondary baronies in the counties it owns, which is especially useful for Clan rulers, as they can hold temples. This makes it so that much of the Clan sphere has a stronger economy, especially early on, and is able to match European and Indian feudal realms which generally have more favorable terrain.

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One of the things that we’ve changed a lot is how vassalization works and how the AI uses it. This isn’t a pure AI change, as we’ve also rebalanced all the modifiers that affect whether a character wishes to accept your overlordship or not. But, yes, simultaneously we’ve taught the AI to consider these facts and try to make their neighbors into vassals.

A sub-goal here was to make vassalization into a viable alternative to military conquest, while also dialing back the most powerful sources of vassal acceptance and adding more interactive modifiers. While I won’t go into all of the detail here, I’ll say that the modifiers from Diplomatic Court and True Ruler have been lowered, while modifiers such as Average Powerful Vassal Opinion (-20/+20) have been added to promote alternatives to only being militarily powerful. We’ve also tweaked the opinion modifiers for Clan rulers so that Feudal rulers don’t have a fundamental advantage when it comes to vassalization (by offering low Contracts).

The AI will now much more frequently check if neighbors would accept vassalization, and they will actively seek to sway or befriend neighbors if the AI considers them targets for diplomatic expansion. This means that the player does not have a monopoly on vassalizations any longer; if you take too long, AI rulers will sweep in and offer overlordship to your small independent neighbors.

In practice, this means that areas stay shattered and stagnant for less time, while also creating more interesting realms where different cultures (and even faiths) are represented in the vassal strata. As an example, you might see a great unifying Sultan appear somewhere in Persia and diplomatically sweep up the remains of a shattered Seljuk Empire.


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As it turns out, rulers of the same faith as the defender in a Holy War would never join in their defense, despite the game claiming they would. This is our bad: a set of triggers were looking at the wrong character, and thus no one would consider joining. This is now changed, and we’ve put some effort into ensuring that the rulers who join up against you feel right.

Protecting the boundaries of your faith is important, and the AI is now aware of this. Depending on personality and economic readiness, they will now assist their brothers-in-faith against encroaching heathens. Zealous and bold AI’s are the first to join, while you can be certain that cynical and cowardly rulers will not. Vassals of your target won’t join in, though vassals of neighboring rulers might - generally, you need only look within the immediate area as you declare wars. Extremely zealous rulers, though, might decide to join in from further away.

In practice, you have to prepare well before declaring a holy war, but taking stock of your neighbors will help you here - personalities are telling, so you shouldn’t be overly surprised when someone aids your target.

From a game perspective, this makes it much less likely for the Middle East to be completely overtaken by either Catholics or Orthodox Christians (which seemed to happen in at least 90% of all observer games that ran until the end date). Major religious upsets are now rarer, but when they happen they are all that much more likely to stick, as they’ve probably been launched by strong rulers during an opportune time.

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AI rulers should now be somewhat more aware of the state of their realm, and proactively try to improve its stability. There are many flavors of stability, some more underhanded than others…

Firstly, the AI is now much more likely to sway, and when they choose who to sway they are much more likely to pick important characters. For example, they will sway their realm priest, spymaster, and angry powerful vassals much more often, and also keep swaying them for a longer time. This also goes for the befriend scheme, should it be available. In the comparison screenshot at the end of the economy section, you’ll note that there are significantly more AIs with bishops/realm priests who endorse them.

AI rulers with a more… unsavory disposition will use the Find Secrets council task, which the AI previously didn’t use. They’ll tend to target their vassals or rivals, if the chance of being found out isn’t too great. They’ll then blackmail and use the ensuing hooks to improve vassal contracts. Rulers who have unlocked the Fabricate Hook scheme will also much more often use it on vassals whose contracts can be modified. Over the generations, this means that the contracts AI rulers have with their vassals tend to be much better than they used to.



In general, we’ve taken a pass on when AIs will use certain Council Tasks. They will avoid certain things completely (using bestow royal favor on vassals-of-vassals), and more proactively switch to tasks that support them in the short term (support schemes when any hostile scheme is active, Organize Army when gold is running very low, etc).

There’s a whole lot more that we’ve taught the AI to do, most of them small - but small things add up. They will send non-primary children to be educated by vassals they want to appease (it’s 15 opinion per child after all!), make their children learn the languages of their subjects to prepare them for a smooth succession, hire seneschals if they have more than one county with very low control, etc, etc. It really does add up.

All of these changes lead to AI realms being more stable and better at recovering from bad wars or messy successions. Of course, there’s still a lot of the hallmark CK3 chaos that we all know and love - it’s just not all there is, now!

Let's compare two areas, one from the Live version, and one from the upcoming update. They are 200 years from game start (in fact, these are the same saves used for comparison stats earlier in the DD).

Do note that these changes do not mean you’ll see the same realms in every game. It’s still as it’s always been, where you might have a powerful Burgundy in the south or a Wales controlling the British Isles; it’s just that, now, the emerging Burgundian and Welsh realms will be much stronger and able to thrive! Additionally, given the AI is now consolidating a larger, more centralized domain, partition splits are nicer and border gore is reduced.

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No matter what changes we’ve made to the Mongols in the past, they always fall on one single point: when they grow large enough, it takes them too long to march their troops to their target, and thus lose too many troops to attrition and too much warscore to time.

We’ve taught the AI to raise their troops closer to the target of their wars. They will seek to raise in a safe county within their realm that is close, but not bordering, to the wargoal. While this is the most impactful for the Mongols, all Duke or above rulers will now do this. What this means for the Mongols: they will no longer march all the way from far eastern Mongolia after every conquest. This change alone magnifies their potential for conquest tenfold (at least). They now fulfill their purpose; they shake up the world and reshape the lands they conquer. More than ever, you must now seriously consider if you wish to submit to the Great Khan…

In addition to the new raising behavior, we have improved the way the Mongols pick their targets (making them less likely to gallop into the mountains of Tibet or immediately crash against a massively strong Byzantine empire), and we’ve changed how successor khanates work. The Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, Chagatai, etc, were never long for this world after they spawned. There were many reasons for this: they didn’t get a proper domain, no de jure lands, no gold, etc. While they still dissolve with some regularity (as they should) they now sometimes persist, and even thrive, as we’ve improved their starting positions by assigning them some starting resources, domain, and De Jure land depending on what they’ve managed to conquer.

While it isn’t overly common that the Mongols exceed their historical conquests, here’s an example of how far they can spread under somewhat-ideal circumstances (long-lived Khans).


Initial state of the world.


Some years in: note that Tibet was taken because Ü had land in Mongolia.


The newly-shattered Persia gets absorbed.


Strategically avoiding a Byzantium that is almost their strength, the Mongols go towards Eastern Europe.


After taking all of eastern Europe, they turn to Arabia and the Fatimids.


Eventually, Hungary falls after an intense war.


The Khan dies and successor khanates spawn in. Who knows how long they’ll last?


That’s it for now. The full update notes with all the details will come soon, so stay tuned!

PDXCON2022 returns to Stockholm this September! Join us on the road to PDXCON2022 with another Grand Campaign!

Watch our developers as they play through a customized game of Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Stellaris and follow laws passed by our Community-led Senate. Following the great tradition laid down last year for PDXCON, there may be familiar faces, returning arch-rivals, and maybe some new friends!



The story of a Grand Campaign is written in the senate, where Community-formed and led parties propose and vote on laws, that our developers have to follow on stream. This Grand Campaign spans the timeframe of four of our games, spanning several thousand years of alt-human history. Starting in the Crusader Kings era, all the way to Stellaris. In between games, we will transfer elements of one era to the next, so that the entire game is played in the same universe. This year, we've teamed up with some of your favorite modders, to make it that much more entertaining!

Join the Senate on discord! Parties on discord are still accepting newcomers, and while the bills have been passed for Crusader Kings, there are still around a thousand years of history, and ~40 hours of streams that your laws can directly affect! There will also be quick votes held on discord for in-game events deemed appropriate to pass to the senate by our Game Masters.

Join us on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive, starting at 10:00 AM CEST (08:00 UTC)!

PDXCON2022 is an opportunity to meet some of your favorite developers, live in person at our annual Paradox Convention! Join a massive board game session, attend Paradox games’ orchestra & play our games (potentially including some cool new unreleased content)! Get the tickets while supplies last!



See you there!

Hello everyone!

We released Update 1.6.1.2 for PC today at 3 PM CEST. This is a quick update intended to address some issues reported in 1.6.1x before our development team takes a rest for the summer and shouldn't break compatibility with existing saves.

Read more about this update on our official forums.



Some of the fixes included in this update:

• Fixed icon overlap in the character view, preventing players from accessing their tooltips
  
• Properly applied the Priesthood Slaughtered modifiers on the different counties for the Toledan Nights event
  
• The Guanches culture properly unlocks their Men-at-Arms, the Vaulter Infantry
  
• The notification event for forming the Canaries should no longer have missing localization
  
• Properly displayed the liege title requirement for the "Consolidate the Canaries" decision
  
• Iberia should now have much fewer provinces becoming Sephardi

If you are still experiencing problems with the game after today's update, please disable any mods to see if the issue persists.

If mods are not causing issues you encounter, please pop over to the bug reporting section of our forum and post a report of what you experienced in detail so we can investigate and fix any issues as soon as possible!

Greetings!

Summer is upon us, and with Fate of Iberia and the 1.6.1 update(s) (note: another small fix update will be released this week), we feel confident that the game is in a good place where it can be enjoyed over the break! (As always, keep those reports up if you find an issue) Soon we’ll all be out enjoying the beautiful Swedish summer, taking some well-deserved rest, and recharging for the time ahead!

► Read our Dev Diary #103: Summer Break



As mentioned in Dev Diary 100, we have big and small plans, some of which will be revealed later this year. We’re very excited to see what you think, but we can’t say anything yet!

From this point onwards we will not have any regularly scheduled Dev Diaries until we’re all back! There may be a small dev diary here and there, but no promises. We’ll be back before the end of August.

If you want to keep discussing the game over the break, head over to our Discord. Also, note that we’ll have videos every Wednesday and Friday throughout the summer, mostly of the DevClash that wrapped up recently.

Before we leave you for the summer, did you know that we added several historical figures that can appear under the right circumstances? Here’s an overview written by Ola, known as Vaniljkaka on our forums!

• Abbas ibn Firnas (~810-887), known in Latin as Armen Firman, was an Andalusian polymath. Sources claim that he made an attempt at flight by jumping from a tower in Córdoba clad in a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. For this, he got immortalized, and now has a statue outside Baghdad’s airport. Though Ibn Firnas would be alive in our 867 bookmark, you’ll only encounter him if the right event fires.
  
• al-Zahrawi (936–1013), known as Albucasis in Latin, was one of the greatest surgeons of the Middle Ages, and court physician to the caliph in Córdoba. If you manage to encounter him in the game (you’ll need some luck for this, and an event about medicine…), he’ll even tell you an anecdote from his career.
  
• Ibn al-Wafid (997 – 1074), known as Abenguefith in Latin, was a pharmacist and agronomist in Toledo in the middle of the 11th century. Historical sources claim that he was a pupil of al-Zahrawi, but this seems improbable, as al-Zahrawi died before 1013. Ibn al-Wafid is a great court physician if you play emir Yahya in the Rags to Riches bookmark.
  
• Al-Zarkali (1029-1100), known in Latin as Arzachel, was a craftsman and astronomer based in Toledo. He fled the city when Castille conquered it in 1085. His work formed part of the basis for the Toledan Tables, a set of astronomical tables that were later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. He is in the court of Toledo in the 1066 start.
  
• Joseph ibn Nagrela (1035-1066), also known as Joseph ha-Nagid, was vizier to the incompetent, alcoholic emir Badis of Granada. Ibn Nagrela belonged to a prominent lineage of Sephardic Jews; his father Samuel was a famous scholar, warrior, and poet. Ibn Nagrela was the chief victim of the Granada Massacre in December 1066, crucified by an angry mob for supposedly trying to usurp the throne. However, our game begins in January 1066, so perhaps he will fare better in this history…
  
• Ibn Zuhr (1094-1162), known in Latin as Avenzoar, was a physician and poet, who seems to have had a dramatic fallout with one of his employers, the Almoravid ruler. This fallout was very much the inspiration for one of the events in Struggle for Iberia…
  
• Ibn Tufail (1105 – 1185), known in Latin as Abubacer Aben Tofail, was a physician, novelist, and astronomer, among other things. He was quite keen on autopsies, as you’ll notice if you encounter him, which will require the right event at the right time.
  
• Gerard of Cremona (~1114-1187) was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin, active in the kingdom of Castille. After the fall of Toledo, his work was instrumental in making Arabic knowledge available to the Western European intellectual sphere, ushering in the “Renaissance of the Twelfth Century”. Gerard can be encountered if you get an appropriate event during the years when he was active - make sure that conciliation is the prevailing mood in Iberia!
  
• Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), known in Latin as Averroes, was a polymath and jurist and one of the most influential intellectuals of the Middle Ages, with a whole school of thought, averroism, that bears his name. In his youth, he seems to have been a pupil of both Ibn Zuhr and Ibn Tufail. There seem to be claims that he experimented with flight, just like ibn Firnas. Though he is very famous, he lived after our game’s current bookmark dates, and you’ll only encounter him with a bit of luck through an event in the right time period…
  
• Qasmuna (11th-12th century) was a female Sephardi poet. Some of her poems are preserved, but little is known of her life. However, there is a theory that she was the sister of Joseph ibn Nagrela. I chose to go with this, since it made their family tree more interesting and allowed us to include her in the game. You’ll likely find her with her brother in the court of Granada.

We are excited to come back refreshed and relaxed after vacation, and resume working on the game that we all know and love! Until August, goodbye!

Create your own stories in Crusader Kings III ✨
Check out the Steam Summer Sale from June 23 to July 7.
🤯 Crusader Kings III: -20%
😲 Northern Lords: -20%
😎 Crusader Kings III - Royal Edition: -10%

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Crusader_Kings_III

Hello everyone,

Today we're releasing a minor 1.6.1.1 update to improve stability. Existing saves and mods compatible with 1.6.1 should continue to work with this version. Update notes can be found below.



Changes in 1.6.1.1:

• Corrected an issue causing a crash when court events timed out.
  
• Corrected an issue with AI Clan characters using Conquest CB.

Additionally: An issue affecting our Jewish community has been found and deemed necessary to fix, therefore a second minor update will be released next week to address this.

As always, please let us know if you have any feedback or issues regarding this update!

Hey everyone,

► Read the Update 1.6.1, live now.



###################
# Expansion Features
###################

• Additional events about Conversos, Sephardic Jews, and other religious themes for owners of Fate of Iberia

###################
# Free Features
###################

• West African pagans now have an alternative path to feudalism, allowing them to obtain it by building successful kingdoms rather than requiring faith reformations
  
• New content related to the Canary Islands
  
  • The Guanche Culture has been added
    
  • Found the Kingdom of Canarias Decision
    
  • A new Megalith Tenet
    
  • A new Pagan Faith: Achamanism
• New game rule to control the fall of the Umayyads. You can choose between:
  
  • From game start
    
  • Only after the death of the initial Caliph
    
  • Only after 1020
• Added more Andalusian Arabic names to the database

###################
# Game Balance
###################

• Hostility ending conditions were modified. You can now either own 2 kingdoms or unite the Spanish Thrones. Moreover, uniting the spanish thrones lower the conversion of counties to 75% instead of 100%
  
• Added Prestige to the King of Asturia in 867 to avoid starting with -600 prestige
  
• Adjusted the weight gain from Feasts
  
• Lowered the cooldown between 2 games of chess from 5 to 1 year
  
• Readjusted education tier threshold to make the level 4 more likely to happen while still being rare
  
• Improved the balancing of the Dissolution faction
  
• Blocked the demands from Claimant if the Realm is managing Civil Wars which could lead to a loss of territory
  
• Târgoviste is now the de-jure capital of Wallachia
  
• Galician now uses Monastic Communities instead of Agrarian
  
• The Struggle Clash CB now has a cost after the Struggle ended
  
• Adjusted the reward for Secure the Mediterranean
  
• Adjusted the chance for the poetry to be lauded / mocked in order to improve with your Diplomacy instead of worsening
  
• The Sephardi culture is now Involved in the Struggle
  
• Refined the odds and cooldown for the new events

###################
# AI
###################

• They will wage holy wars again
  
• Added a blocker for the AI to not give away their relics

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

• Fixed crash when hovering unavailable court amenity upgrades in Tribal Court
  
• Restored the missing assets from Northern Lords in the Barbershop
  
• Reduced crippling empathy in characters receiving stress when their dying rival/nemesis has ANY ritual best friend anywhere
  
• Fixed a bug when University (and all special buildings) doesn't apply county holder character modifiers (county_holder_character_modifier)
  
• Reviving Adoptionism now grants you the heresiarch trait
  
• Fixed some map names being displaced
  
• Adjusted the culture of the two Visigothic characters that snuck back in after Visigothic was removed
  
• Regnal numbers will no longer appear after the first *word* in a first name, instead appearing after the entire first name
  
• Conquest CB now provides more feedback about it's requirements during the struggle
  
• Added de jure kingdom splitting logic for edge case where there are kings which don't hold their capital duchy
  
• Fixed Map Mode in struggle interface not being localized
  
• There is a proper feedback if you don't have enough money to wage in a board game
  
• Rite tenet now actually reduces hostility with same-HoF faiths to Astray, instead of leaving you hopelessly enamored of a Head of Faith who still says you're a heretic
  
• Fixed Portugal going to Hispania when created after Compromise
  
• Fixed edge cases where empires were created for competing kings, due to order of kingdom creation
  
• Improved script logic of Status Quo de jure transfers and title creation
  
• Elvira Jimena is definitely unlanded now
  
• Removed the remains of debug option in the “By Another Man” event
  
• You can now choose to banish El Cid even if he becomes your vassal. Doing so will make you a tyrant and may lead to becoming rivals or worse with El Cid.
  
• The Secret to Freedom is now more likely to trigger. Prisoners may earn stress if they are the kind that does not usually reveal secrets.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused tall characters to float over MENA and Indian thrones
  
• You can now challenge someone to chess, even if they have an active event they need to answer to.
  
• The break truce catalyst now works against Count as well
  
• Demanding payment works against any involved Ruler (or any other use of a hook)
  
• Titles which will be destroyed by the Dissolution Faction are properly displayed
  
• We now keep the chosen education traits for custom children rulers
  
• An indecent event has been blocked against children
  
• All non-muslim iberian culture uses the Mediterranean Court Room now instead of fallbacking on the Indian Court Room
  
• Added a cooldown to "invite to activity" to avoid spamming and weird edge cases
  
• Removed redundant option in fp2_struggle.2050 if el cid is your vassal
  
• Displays the activity cost in the interaction window for "Invite to Activity"
  
• Properly displays the icon and related description for the Share Secret interaction
  
• Split the Involvement and Phase conditions for the Ending Decision into two to avoid being involved as an implicit condition
  
• Only trigger the development gain for city holdings for the Prestigious Development Perk
  
• Lubb Musa is now properly described as having a clan government in the bookmark screen
  
• Holy order are properly ignored for Struggle Ending Decisions
  
• Iberian Foothold is available when owning the land for 15 years or more, not only for 15 years only
  
• Fixed issue where betting land causes the county to get permanently set as "in wager"
  
• Enforce Truce can properly be enforced post-Struggle
  
• Bells of Santiago is now active for Iberian cultures once the Struggle ends
  
• The new Dynasty track stays available after ending the struggle for Dynast living in Iberia or with an Iberian Heritage culture.
  
• Fixed some clipping issues
  
• Fixed a localization error in the tooltip of the hybridization cost
  
• Fixed an error in an option’s tooltip for the Meet Peers event “Playing House”
  
• Fixe Out of Syncs due to players having different languages
  
• The Iberian sword will be held properly and without its stand during duels
  
• History’s best friends is now only triggered when seducing / romancing your best friend
  
• Children cannot become Thief-Slayers anymore: they are forbidden from dueling
  
• Adjusted the margin in the character window to allow hovering over and lock tooltips
  
• Fixed connectivity issues between counties
  
• The missing name "Ató" (for occitan0066) is now in the list of names
  
• Lots of localization fixes in the different languages

Hello there,

We are wrapping up our work on Fate of Iberia as the summer break is on the horizon. We are releasing Update 1.6.1 today.

► Read our Dev Diary #102: Stabilizing the Iberian Peninsula



Hello there,

We are wrapping up our work on Fate of Iberia as the summer break is on the horizon. We are releasing Update 1.6.1 today, which will notably contain:

● The content we revealed two weeks ago
● Tweaks to the Dissolution faction and a new set of game rules to tweak it for the Al-Andalus. You can now decide to either:
● Activate it from the start
● Block it until the death of the starting Caliph
● Block it until 1020




The full update notes are available at the end of this post. You can scroll through if you are impatient.

I wanted to seize the opportunity to thank you for your feedback on Fate of Iberia. We learned a lot through reading your threads and comments on our forum, as well as the discussions had on other platforms. We also enjoyed the funny anecdotes and were (happily) surprised by your love for cheese and the other stories you shared.

Most of all, your comments and feedback regarding the Struggle itself have been invaluable and will continue to help us in the future. If you have any grievances, or wishes regarding the system, please discuss them on our forum! While we are not always able to respond directly, we do keep a keen eye on what is being discussed!

Cheers,

P.S.: A crash was identified recently, which we were unfortunately not able to resolve in this update. We are however working on a resolution for this issue, which we will release as soon as possible.

The crash occurs if you let a Court Event sit in your Royal Court unanswered, meaning the game will crash when the event would time out.
This can be worked-around by answering your Court Events before they time out.

###################
# Expansion Features
###################

• Additional events about Conversos, Sephardic Jews, and other religious themes for owners of Fate of Iberia

###################
# Free Features
###################

• West African pagans now have an alternative path to feudalism, allowing them to obtain it by building successful kingdoms rather than requiring faith reformations
  
• New content related to the Canary Islands
  
  • The Guanche Culture has been added
    
  • Found the Kingdom of Canarias Decision
    
  • A new Megalith Tenet
    
  • A new Pagan Faith: Achamanism
• New game rule to control the fall of the Umayyads. You can choose between:
  
  • From game start
    
  • Only after the death of the initial Caliph
    
  • Only after 1020
• Added more Andalusian Arabic names to the database

###################
# Game Balance
###################

• Hostility ending conditions were modified. You can now either own 2 kingdoms or unite the Spanish Thrones. Moreover, uniting the spanish thrones lower the conversion of counties to 75% instead of 100%
  
• Added Prestige to the King of Asturia in 867 to avoid starting with -600 prestige
  
• Adjusted the weight gain from Feasts
  
• Lowered the cooldown between 2 games of chess from 5 to 1 year
  
• Readjusted education tier threshold to make the level 4 more likely to happen while still being rare
  
• Improved the balancing of the Dissolution faction
  
• Blocked the demands from Claimant if the Realm is managing Civil Wars which could lead to a loss of territory
  
• Târgoviste is now the de-jure capital of Wallachia
  
• Galician now uses Monastic Communities instead of Agrarian
  
• The Struggle Clash CB now has a cost after the Struggle ended
  
• Adjusted the reward for Secure the Mediterranean
  
• Adjusted the chance for the poetry to be lauded / mocked in order to improve with your Diplomacy instead of worsening
  
• The Sephardi culture is now Involved in the Struggle
  
• Refined the odds and cooldown for the new events

###################
# AI
###################

• They will wage holy wars again
  
• Added a blocker for the AI to not give away their relics

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

• Fixed crash when hovering unavailable court amenity upgrades in Tribal Court
  
• Restored the missing assets from Northern Lords in the Barbershop
  
• Reduced crippling empathy in characters receiving stress when their dying rival/nemesis has ANY ritual best friend anywhere
  
• Fixed a bug when University (and all special buildings) doesn't apply county holder character modifiers (county_holder_character_modifier)
  
• Reviving Adoptionism now grants you the heresiarch trait
  
• Fixed some map names being displaced
  
• Adjusted the culture of the two Visigothic characters that snuck back in after Visigothic was removed
  
• Regnal numbers will no longer appear after the first *word* in a first name, instead appearing after the entire first name
  
• Conquest CB now provides more feedback about it's requirements during the struggle
  
• Added de jure kingdom splitting logic for edge case where there are kings which don't hold their capital duchy
  
• Fixed Map Mode in struggle interface not being localized
  
• There is a proper feedback if you don't have enough money to wage in a board game
  
• Rite tenet now actually reduces hostility with same-HoF faiths to Astray, instead of leaving you hopelessly enamored of a Head of Faith who still says you're a heretic
  
• Fixed Portugal going to Hispania when created after Compromise
  
• Fixed edge cases where empires were created for competing kings, due to order of kingdom creation
  
• Improved script logic of Status Quo de jure transfers and title creation
  
• Elvira Jimena is definitely unlanded now
  
• Removed the remains of debug option in the “By Another Man” event
  
• You can now choose to banish El Cid even if he becomes your vassal. Doing so will make you a tyrant and may lead to becoming rivals or worse with El Cid.
  
• The Secret to Freedom is now more likely to trigger. Prisoners may earn stress if they are the kind that does not usually reveal secrets.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused tall characters to float over MENA and Indian thrones
  
• You can now challenge someone to chess, even if they have an active event they need to answer to.
  
• The break truce catalyst now works against Count as well
  
• Demanding payment works against any involved Ruler (or any other use of a hook)
  
• Titles which will be destroyed by the Dissolution Faction are properly displayed
  
• We now keep the chosen education traits for custom children rulers
  
• An indecent event has been blocked against children
  
• All non-muslim iberian culture uses the Mediterranean Court Room now instead of fallbacking on the Indian Court Room
  
• Added a cooldown to "invite to activity" to avoid spamming and weird edge cases
  
• Removed redundant option in fp2_struggle.2050 if el cid is your vassal
  
• Displays the activity cost in the interaction window for "Invite to Activity"
  
• Properly displays the icon and related description for the Share Secret interaction
  
• Split the Involvement and Phase conditions for the Ending Decision into two to avoid being involved as an implicit condition
  
• Only trigger the development gain for city holdings for the Prestigious Development Perk
  
• Lubb Musa is now properly described as having a clan government in the bookmark screen
  
• Holy order are properly ignored for Struggle Ending Decisions
  
• Iberian Foothold is available when owning the land for 15 years or more, not only for 15 years only
  
• Fixed issue where betting land causes the county to get permanently set as "in wager"
  
• Enforce Truce can properly be enforced post-Struggle
  
• Bells of Santiago is now active for Iberian cultures once the Struggle ends
  
• The new Dynasty track stays available after ending the struggle for Dynast living in Iberia or with an Iberian Heritage culture.
  
• Fixed some clipping issues
  
• Fixed a localization error in the tooltip of the hybridization cost
  
• Fixed an error in an option’s tooltip for the Meet Peers event “Playing House”
  
• Fixe Out of Syncs due to players having different languages
  
• The Iberian sword will be held properly and without its stand during duels
  
• History’s best friends is now only triggered when seducing / romancing your best friend
  
• Children cannot become Thief-Slayers anymore: they are forbidden from dueling
  
• Adjusted the margin in the character window to allow hovering over and lock tooltips
  
• Fixed connectivity issues between counties
  
• The missing name "Ató" (for occitan0066) is now in the list of names
  
• Lots of localization fixes in the different languages

Howdy all,

The number #101 really set the expectations to be both the start of something new, as well as a continuation of a long standing tradition, right?
So that is exactly what this entry will be about - the renewal of the Crusader Kings III Beta program.

► Read our Dev Diary #101: The CK3 Beta Program

Our Beta program has been around since before the launch of the game. We have had people joining us in different periods over the years, and there are still people with us that have been around from the very start! Their feedback is not only super insightful and valuable, but has also helped shape the landscape of the game. These things can sometimes seem trivial, but can also sometimes be the difference between a successful piece of content and something that might otherwise have been well received in a different block of content. Their efforts truly are the backbone of the testing process as well as the voice of the people!

As part of the continuous development of the program, we have now decided it’s time again to open up for new applicants!


As a Beta tester you get access to content currently in development. The role is to play early versions, give feedback on experience playing with the new features and if you encounter any issues whilst playing. Since Crusader Kings is a Paradox game at its core, we have another layer in our beta program that is the Historical aspects of the game. Since we try to a large extent to be historically accurate, there is usually a lot of discussions and feedback on those areas of the game as well.

From the Devs side, we are a group of people that interact with the program continuously. Reading through feedback and thoughts, similarly how we monitor the forum and social channels, but with content not yet available to the public. We value the interaction and feedback from you guys a lot, and the Beta program is an important part of the Player / Developer interaction.

So, if you enjoy playing CK3 as much as we do, and perhaps have a niche knowledge that would benefit the group, such as a burning interest in the Kingdom of Ireland in 1101 or an extended knowledge of Medieval fashion choices in Iberia? Either way, if you think it sounds exciting to help us in the development process of upcoming content and love the Medieval period, we encourage you to send in your application to the program.

Please fill out the form HERE, and we will get back to you shortly!

Until then..

Tess & Troy