Hello crusaders! I’m Hugo Cortell, game designer and horchata drinking aficionado at Paradox Thalassic, and today I am here to present everything new and exciting with the upcoming 1.8.0 “Robe” free update.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that this update is a wonderful blend of bug fixes, refinements, and brand-new features. Since this is a “Feature Highlight”, I’ll be keeping it short and sweet and focusing on the latter two, but worry not, there will still be highlights with commentary for notable changelog entries.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

► Read more about Dev Diary #111 on our forums!



The biggest thing you’ll notice when starting a new game with 1.8.0 will certainly be the new and shiny bookmark screen, which has been redesigned to more cleanly fit new scenarios.





Everyone loves a good image collage, right?

The new bookmark screen not only looks better but it is also more streamlined: for example, the scenario information box and the character information tab become a single togglable tab once you select a bookmark character, avoiding unnecessary clutter on the screen.



To top it off, alongside the new bookmark screen we have also updated the main menu to conveniently display all the downloadable content you own and easily access any that you may be missing out on. You’ll be able to find it on the bottom left corner of the main menu screen.




To complement the new bookmark screen, we’ve also added the ability to save and load custom characters! At long last, you can finally use for multiple playthroughs that one character that you’ve spent so much time detailing to perfection.

Saving and loading is done through buttons that you’ll find at the bottom left of the ruler designer.
Selecting load will bring up a list of all saved characters and allow you to conveniently preview your selected creation before loading them into the designer itself.




Additionally, saved rulers are stored as individual files in meaning that you will be able to easily share your magnificent creations & abominations with the rest of the CK3 community. I look forward to seeing a mix of gorgeous and cursed creatures in the forums once this release comes to be.

Yes, you heard right. Get ready for art galore because our artists have been hard at work making new illustrations for every single tenet in the game that was previously missing one.



We don’t want to spoil all of them here, so look forward to seeing them in-game for yourself when the update releases. The art team did a great job making these, especially considering how tenets can have very abstract concepts, which I am sure must have taken a lot of back-and-forths to get just right.

We’ve worked very hard to fix as many bugs as possible for this release. I hope our commitment to making a high-quality product will be made apparent when you see the size of the final changelog in an upcoming dev diary. As mentioned at the start of the post, I’ll be sharing some highlights with commentary on some of the more interesting entries.
Please note that the current titles may not match their name on the final changelog.

If you have a strong hook on the pope, you can now use it to skip the requirements for binding with Rome. Though the pope will not like that.


It goes without saying that if you fulfill all requirements, but also have a hook, it will pick the regular outcome before the coercion one.

Pledging submission to a caliph will send out an actual in-game letter rather than instantly consulting the AI upon selecting the option. If you enjoy playing as a Caliph in multiplayer mode, look forward to deciding the fate of the Zandaqa players for yourself.





Alright, that is everything I’ve got to show for now. I hope that we’ve managed to excite you for what’s coming in the immediate future for Crusader Kings. Let us know your thoughts below!

Greetings!

A few weeks ago we shared our floor plan for the future, and this week I’d like to give you some tidbits from the studio itself. I will tell you a bit about the history of our studio and what we are about - interlaced with random quotes from the team collected throughout the year (courtesy of Wokeg - I think they paint a pretty accurate picture of the minds in our midst).
So if you are eagerly awaiting updates on what’s coming for the actual game, I’m afraid you will have to wait a little longer.

► Read more about Dev Diary #110 on our forums!



Firstly though, a brief introduction might be in order since I am very much a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of character (and you will rarely catch me writing diaries):
I was the Lead Producer on Crusader Kings III (until after its release in 2020). Having then spent some time with the space faring folks over in the Stellaris studio, I rejoined the CK3 team at the start of this year to create Studio Black - home of Crusader Kings - as the Studio Manager. And here we are.


Random quotes, part 1


The story of Paradox Development Studio goes back more than a quarter of a century - a pretty incredible feat in itself and a testament to the sheer talent, passion and motivation of the people working here. As we’ve added more games and grown the studio over the years, there came a point where we wanted to get the studio closer to to our games again, and at the end of 2020 PDS was divided into three sub-studios: Green (Stellaris), Gold (Hearts of Iron) and Red (Crusader Kings & Victoria). At this point, our friends at Europa Universalis had already set sail to warmer latitudes and set up Tinto in Spain.

As Victoria III was ramping up their efforts (and a big shout-out and CONGRATULATIONS is in order - the release is happening TODAY ːsteamhappyː), it was time to build a castle of our own, hence studio Black was born on February 14th (I’m sure you can figure out why I chose this date).


Random quotes, part 2


Having the right people in the right place is of course paramount to any kind of development - in our case, that means we rely on our Programmers, Designers, Artists, QA Testers and Producers to bring our game to life, with the help of central support from Audio, Engine Team, User Research, Marketing and many other departments.
Building a studio around an existing development team is quite a luxury - most often, you would start from scratch; with limited funding, resources and just a great dream (and hopefully a team) to carry you forward. In our case, it was rather the other way around (great game & team = check!), which means we can focus more on filling skill gaps and making sure we have a good support structure in place.


Random quotes, part 3


You might think that with the roots firmly planted in the dynasty of PDS, we all share the same culture DNA? You’d be wrong. Something I discovered back in the day (moving from the EU4 team to the CK2 team at the time), was how some subtle, yet noticeable, parts of the team culture seemed to stem from a very central core. This theory was confirmed as I stepped away to the realm of Stellaris for a while; the essence of the project team culture was as firmly rooted around Jeff and other shared moments as CK ever was around… keeping it in the family.
However quirky and meme-friendly each game teams culture might be, there are also some very noticeable similarities that confirms what Paradox is very much about, when it boils down to it: Helpful, Curious & Nerdy (in that ‘Hey, I’m really into cross-stitching medieval tapestry, want to know more?’ kind of way).


Random quotes, part 4


So where are we headed as a studio, you might ask? Well, we are all here to keep the legacy of Crusader Kings alive and well. We have an amazing game at the earlier stage of its lifespan, and a team of highly creative and skilled people to help realize the incredible potential of CK3. I won’t pretend that 2 years of pandemic haven’t had an impact on our work, but we are truly committed to keep making releases for CK3 that we are proud of - and that we hope you will find hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of enjoyment from, for many years to come!


That’s it for today folks, next time we’ll have some more game specific updates for you all!


A part of our team, having a royal blast at this year's PDXCON!

Greetings!

A long time in the making, this diary is dedicated to plans, and what we have in store for CK3. From more present matters to musings and thoughts ranging into the far future. Crusader Kings is a unique game series, and one that has been close to my heart for a long time - the focus on characters as the driving force, emergent narratives, and player freedom make it truly stand out.

► Read our Dev Diary #109 - Floor Plan for the Future!



Ever since I took the reins of the project I’ve continued to follow the original vision, which some of you might remember from the very first Dev Diary: Character Focus, Player Freedom and Progression, Player Stories, and Approachability. As you can see, the points correspond fairly well with my initial sentiment, and I do not intend to deviate too far from these points - that said there are always things we can do better or differently within them, and I think that we could do even more to, for example, improve the cohesion of player stories or the sense of progression. I am a firm believer in that everything in the game should help you in making stories (while not necessarily being explicitly connected).

Internally we’ve always worked with the premise “Live the life of a Medieval Ruler”, which means that we want the game to be uniquely true to how life was during the period. We want to attribute more than just ‘death, suffering, and war’ to the era we portray. Highlighting things that you might not see elsewhere, such as family, or the challenges of rulership, is important to us. Going forward this will remain a priority, though it is important to note that we do exaggerate and romanticize a lot - it is a game after all!



As a project, we aspire to have a cadence of roughly four releases per year, not including post-release support in the form of patches or hotfixes. During this year we’ve released Royal Court, Fate of Iberia, Friends & Foes, and as mentioned previously we’re aiming to have a free update out before the year is over. We want to have a steady stream of new content, while also maintaining the game by acting on feedback. For next year, our ambition is to have somewhere around four updates (barring unforeseen circumstances).

Going even further (long-term) we have the ambition to shorten our cycles, so we can get more content and updates out. The project is (by Paradox Development Studio standards) still young, and has a long future ahead of it. There’s so much to do, and so many ideas still to explore. Though as I mentioned this is an ambition and not a promise - it might be complicated to get everything in place, but rest assured that we’re always evaluating what we can do to achieve this.

Of course, we’re also watching initiatives that other studios are driving, such as the Stellaris Custodian Initiative, with interest. While we’re not organized in a way where we could adopt a similar structure today, it’s something that’s worth investigating - again, this is a long-term thing, and it’s very possible that we would find another setup that works better for Crusader Kings.

For next year we want to do something similar to Royal Edition again, an Expansion Pass with a bundle of intriguing content. One drawback of the Royal Edition was the fact that the main beat, the Major Expansion, came later in the cycle. For the next one, we want to either start off the cycle with the Major Expansion, or make it obvious what the theme is going to be from the start. This should make it much clearer what you’re actually getting in the package as a whole. We’re also exploring what formats and formulas of expansions could make up a future Expansion Pass, as the ‘1 Expansion, 2 Flavor Pack’ formula is not set in stone.

In addition to this, we also aim to do experiments now and then. For this year, the experiment was Friends & Foes; a smaller content format that was born out of the minds of the team. We’re looking into a few different experiments for the future, which I can unfortunately not share right now. Though something we can share is that we’re looking into more community involvement.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s too early to reveal the theme. However, the next Expansion is leaning towards the roleplaying side of the game. Without revealing too much we’re focusing in large parts on reinforcing the connection between map and character. The theme is not one that has been the subject of an expansion in previous iterations of CK - to make things extra clear; we’re not doing trade, imperial/byzantine mechanics, nomads, or similar this time.

That said, I know that many of you are also hungry for more systemic expansions, and that’s understandable! Of course, the next Expansion isn’t devoid of systemic changes or mechanics just because it’s leaning heavily towards roleplaying. CK, like all GSGs, requires systemic content to remain true to what they are. There will be plenty of systems, both as part of the Expansion and the free update that comes along with it. For Flavor Packs we’re also going to aim to have systemic content as part of the formula - Fate of Iberia proved that a combination of flavor (events, clothes, illustrations, etc.) and a central systemic feature (the struggle) served to elevate the experience as a whole.

As of now, we have a team of designers that is unlike anything we’ve had before - it’s not only a large team, but they’re also highly skilled and competent. This, in part, is why we’ve chosen to do an Expansion focusing on the roleplaying side of things, and it’s also the reason why we had the capacity to do the Friends & Foes experiment.

My aspiration is to shift focus towards more systems-heavy expansions after the next one, and we’re gearing up the team to be able to do just that. I’m of the opinion that there must be balance, and as we’ll have had two roleplay-focused expansions in a row, by then it’ll be time for the scales to shift towards the systemic side. We’ve expanded our team of programmers significantly, so the future looks bright for those of you that crave new and exciting systemic content…

Now, there are a lot of areas that I want to explore in the future! Please note that anything I write or list here is not in any way chronological, and they’re not explicit promises. Great ideas come along at any moment, from any direction, and we want to stay flexible with our plans.

The current formats of Major Expansions, Flavor Packs, and Event Packs I believe let us cover every style of content we want to do, and we intend to keep these formats (while maybe tweaking the formulas a little bit here and there!).

Starting off with Flavor Packs; the regional focus is great and allows us to deep-dive into the history of a particular area - but as fun as it is to hit the books on a specific region, it’s possible that we’ll also be looking into non-regional Flavor Pack variants. Anything can be possible as long as there’s a central system where flavor can be woven in. That said, at least the next Flavor pack is likely to remain regional in nature.

A long-term goal is to revitalize and create diverse and varied gameplay throughout the map. Something we want to do is to explore regions outside of Europe, as both of our Flavor Packs so far have been within the region. We want to show how much fascinating history and intriguing gameplay can be found around the world. Examples with a lot of surprisingly deep history include regions such as Tibet, Persia, the Caucasus, and North Africa, to name only a few.

Of course, in due time we also want to explore regions within Europe that are very popular for players, some examples including Britain, France, and the West/East Slavic lands. It’s likely that we’ll alternate a bit, especially if someone on the team is extra passionate about a theme. Also one final thing; a lot of you are asking for a Byzantine Flavor Pack, but I know for a fact that the scope of a Flavor Pack wouldn’t sate your ravenous hunger for East Roman content… when we eventually get to them, it’d more than likely be as the part of a Major Expansion!

As for non-regional, there are some ideas floating around; further exploring governments such as the Tribal Government, or building flavorful systems around for example Epidemics (which is a system that would, foundationally, be free if/when we make it), etc. A benefit that this format would have is that we’d be able to make systems that don’t fit the larger theme of a Major Expansion, but that we still feel would be great for the game.

Just to reiterate; don’t take anything I say here as a statement that we’re doing one of these themes right now!

There are already years worth of ideas for what we could do for Expansions. I’ll go through a handful of the areas I’d like to explore in the future, focusing on some of the topics commonly seen around the community. Note that these are not necessarily standalone Expansion themes, some might be combined, others divided. While there are some themes that I think are more important than others, there’s really no saying what we’ll look at first or in what order.



Trade & Merchant Republics is something I hear a lot about - and it’s something that I really want to get to in time. However, I found the CK2 implementation in The Republic to be incredibly lackluster; in a game with thousands of interesting starts, it added only a handful more, and it didn’t actually have that much to do with trade. For CK3 my vision would be different - medieval rulers didn’t trade, per se, and noble rulers didn’t regularly barter resources with each other, so while that’s not a thing I’d want, there are a lot of interactions that could be added around trade and the people who did the trading. A system for CK3 would be character-driven, and there’s definitely an opportunity for new playstyles that aren’t as limited as the ones in CK2…

Imperial Mechanics, especially in relation to the Byzantine Empire, is another common topic. Empires are generally not very exciting, essentially having the same mechanics as a king does. I believe that there’s an opportunity not only for emperors, but to be part of an empire. In many cases, such as in Byzantium, the Abbasids, or even the HRE, being a part of the empire should be as interesting as ruling it. There are many ways of going about this, but ideally, I’d want to get a lot of differences in there - no two empires were ever really the same, after all.

Laws were another system that was lackluster at best in CK2. While they allowed a degree of customization and mechanical impact, the implementation was static and fairly uninspired. Conceptually laws were a huge part of being a ruler and being part of a realm, and while we do have vassal contracts (which I’d like to revise at some point, too) there’s room for more. For CK3, a law system would be deeply driven by characters, rather than confined to a static setup. Dynamism and evolution would be two keywords for the vision here.

Religion in CK3 took a great step up from previous iterations, but there’s always more we can do. There are a plethora of ideas floating around, and as religion was such a common part of everyone’s lives by this point in history, it’s hardly surprising. It’s hard to nail down exactly what I’d like to do here as there’s just so much, but CK3 is uniquely suited to simulate all the drama that happened between everyone involved within the sphere of faith, be they Pope, Grandmaster, or simply an influential ruler. There’s also a lot of potential around crusades, and all the happenings before, during, and after them. I’d also really like to get faith to play a larger part in the everyday lives of rulers, as it’s much too easy to ignore as it stands.

Nomads are just one part of the whole; the Steppe. This region is unique, and we’ve never done it real justice. In CK2 every ruler on the Steppe was a Genghis-in-the-making, with little focus beyond war. In reality, the Steppe was like an ocean - and the nomads were the only ones who had mastered it. I’d like to make the Steppe as a region stand out with mechanics of its own, and I’d like a large part of nomadic life to be about moving, focusing on the dynamism of the place and the people within.

The Late Game is another area that I’m very interested in expanding, as the game currently plays very similar across the entire timeline. Sure, there are some differences, primarily in how easy it is to rule, and how much you’re able to claim in wars, but the differences could be more fundamental. This is one of those topics where there are a million things we could do, but an ambition I have is that the game should stay interesting for longer than is currently the average play session (around 200 years or so). Looking at Eras and their effects on the game is one venue, so is taking a look at holdings, economy, and other fundamental components of the game.

I think it’s quite obvious that I eventually want to Expand the Map, to include the rest of the Old World. If we’d do it all at once or in segments is still up in the air, but regardless of what approach we take, it’s imperative that the area feels different to play in from the western half. While it’s obvious that the area would require a lot of unique art, I’d also want it to work differently from a mechanical standpoint - governments, faiths, etc. It’s an ambitious goal, but one I wish to tackle eventually.


An incredibly rough floor plan for the future.

Of course, there are also areas of the game that I want to revisit, rework, rebalance, or expand in general - it’s not all about expansions or flavor, existing systems, and core loops must be revisited now and then to keep the game in a good state. Of course, this would be done in free updates, either free-standing or as part of a bigger release. Here are some of the things that I’d like to get to within a reasonable timeline, some more important than others. This is not an exhaustive list.

Alliances are too binary as they stand, while it’s true that it’s easy to understand how they work, it also results in a lot of unwanted busywork when you have to fight in wars you’ve no interest in (or you have to take a big prestige hit…) - at the same time, it’s much too easy to get a lot of allies that, at a moments notice, are ready to drop everything in order to help in your wars. I’d like to see a pact-based system where you have to negotiate more, without making it annoying to find and get the alliances you need. You should, for example, never be fooled into a marriage hoping to get an offensive alliance, where it turns out you simply can’t. Exactly how/what we’d do is still in the works, but it’s high up on my list.

Clans do not feel unique enough, while they have some mechanics that simulate the sphere’s tendency for spectacular rises & falls, there’s more we can do to show the differences from Feudal. I’d like to explore what made Clan realms so different historically and draw upon that for a more flavorful set of differing mechanics. I definitely also want to make the Clan, as in the group of people, matter more in the government bearing its namesake.

Warfare is not and never will be a primary focus for CK3, that said it’s not as character-driven as it could be, outside of commander advantage and the occasional great knight. There’s also a real problem with delivering content (usually in the form of events) during times of war, as the player more often than not gets interrupted by something appearing in the middle of the screen while maneuvering units. I’d eventually like for us to be able to deliver content in a way that doesn’t interrupt warfare, and use that system to highlight characters and heroic acts (Battle of Agincourt, anyone?). I’d also like to rework the major annoyances of warfare, such as supply.

Modifier Stacking is becoming an issue in some places, especially for Men-at-Arms modifiers (primarily from buildings) and Building Cost Reduction modifiers. While some issues can be solved by tweaking numbers (we’ve for example reduced prestige sources in the past) others require a redesign/revisit of the underlying problem. For example, I’d like to take a long, hard look at MaA modifiers, seeing as the player can very easily destroy AI armies with little work. I’d like to not only rebalance the sources of MaA boons but potentially also create new options for fun management.

AI is an enigmatic beast, with aspects that are incredibly diverse. One of them is warfare AI, where Crusades stand out as an area in need of improvement - on one hand, historical crusades were incredibly disorganized, but on the other, we don’t want the player to feel like they’re hopeless endeavors. No matter what we decide to do, we’ll have to strike a balance - if the AI played perfectly optimally, crusades would steamroll everything, and I don’t want that. There are of course other aspects of the AI where I want to see improvements, such as the marriage AI, but we’ve at least made some good strides with the economical AI over the last few updates, so that’s not a priority. We eventually want personalities to shine through every aspect of the AI, and we have some plans for that, which will likely come in steps.

As I touched upon earlier, we’d like to invite you in the community to take part in some of the things we’re doing in the not-too-distant future - my guess would be within Q1 of next year (though still TBD). Without spoiling too much it’d have something to do with the content we’ll be making…

While not directly related to the game, an (at least if you ask me) incredibly cool initiative that we’ll be driving is to have more collaborations with historical media - this goes hand-in-hand with what I mentioned early on in this diary, regarding us wanting to show how medieval life actually was! This means that you’ll be seeing even more podcasts, videos, etc., about themes close to the game. Who knows, we might even get historians or professors to be guests or consult for our upcoming content.

For those of you playing on console there will be a post later this week, answering some of the questions you have.

That’s it for now! I invite you all to discuss what you see here - share your thoughts about the themes, ideas for what you’d like to see, suggestions on how things could be done, and so on!

Howdy all!

Today we are releasing a Minor Update to the game to help with stability and performance. While this is not a major Update and should not affect saved games, we always recommend that you make sure you have a fresh game ready to go with a new version.

► Discuss this update on our forums!



As stated, this is a relatively small Update, but also full of highly impactful changes reported by you in the Community! Here is the Changelog:

• Fix offer vassalization being slow if you had too many neighbors and vassals due to evaluating opinion too many times too slowly.
  
• Fix Out-Of-Sync issue
  
• Fix AI feud seduction targeting wrong spouse

As always, keep those reports coming and if you see anything unusual, please let us know HERE!

-SP

Greetings!

It’s been (almost) two weeks since the release of Friends & Foes, and the sheer amount of reactions and feedback to it and the accompanying Bastion Update has been fantastic to see! From the many emergent stories that have been posted around the Internet (one about a peasant crush ascending to the position of councilor and subsequently being murdered by a noble out of spite comes to mind) to the impressive screenshots of vast Mongol Empires and powerful AI realms - it’s great to see how many of you returned to the game and think that it got a breath of new life. In fact, despite the smaller size of this update, more of you came back to the game and ran a longer campaign than ever before!

► Read more about Dev Diary #108 on our forums!



Of course, if you’re experiencing any issues, pop over to the Bug Forums and report them: Link
As of the newly released 1.7.1, we’ve concluded the planned updates for this release, though if something significant appears, we’ll look into fixing it before the next update.

As for the future, we’re hard at work on upcoming content, and we’ve been for quite some time. Previously we’ve explained that we run our projects in parallel - what we’re working on in the Stockholm studio has been in the works since before Friends & Foes (but it’s bound to take some time yet, do not expect anything too soon). Our sister studio in Thalassic is also hard at work heading up the work on upcoming content and updates, this too in parallel with work in Stockholm. While we can say that Friends & Foes was the last paid content of the year, we’re hoping to have another smaller free update out before the year is over (no ETA for now). Additional clues about what we’re working on might appear over the next few months…

A change we want to make going forward is to be more transparent with our Dev Diary schedule. We don’t want to post so-called ‘filler’ Dev Diaries, and with the cycles being longer between updates we instead want to use this time for other kinds of activities with the community. For the sake of full transparency, for smaller updates (such as free patches or event packs) we’ll have at most two Dev Diaries. For larger updates (such as Flavor Packs) we’ll have around four, while Expansions will have roughly 2-4 months' worth of Dev Diaries.

So what will we do instead? A variety of things - we might have Discord AMA’s, hangout streams with Devs, or sometimes we might post a Dev Diary about something not related to an update - for example, about how we work or plans we have for the future.


Discord: Chat with your fellow Community members, staff members, Modders, and other Content Creators. Also a perfect place if you want tips or a game to join!

Twitch: We stream weekly and go through all the latest and greatest content that we have. This is also a great place to chat with others and ask questions of our team.

YouTube: If you haven’t happened to catch our Streams or just want to see a collection of all our videos, this is your one stop shop for all Crusader Kings III official videos.

Twitter: Our latest and greatest spot for news and interaction with our Community. We are always online, as they always say. Feel free to follow us and see what we have going on from day to day.

Facebook: Just a nice relaxed place to hang out and socialize with our Community and see what everyone is up to.

Reddit: If Facebook isn’t your speed, we also have a great resource in Reddit for conversations and more detailed threads regarding the game and any questions you might possibly have.

Steam Workshop: While we do not control the content of Steam Workshop, it does contain a great number of highly interesting and resourceful Mods from our Community and has a ton of troubleshooting and technical information.

Today we have released Update 1.7.1 which includes a lot of changes to issues that you have been reporting and a few that we found on our own!

► Discuss this update on our forums!

• AI can no longer hire and fire court position in the same decision cycle, this should fix the issue where AIs could end up in massive prestige deficits

• Slightly relaxed requirements for Reviving Taltoism to make it not entirely impossible in 1066
  
• Crusade Targeting - Fixed so that Crusades check for current military strength when excluding target kingdoms instead of max military strength
  
• Crusade Targeting - Completely rebalanced Crusade Kingdom Selection; while Jerusalem will still be the most attractive target (for Christians), there will now be much more variation in targets and a faith will tend to defend what is assigned to be their Heartlands to a much greater degree
  
• Crusade Targeting - Distance is now a much greater factor when determining a crusade target
  
• Crusade Targeting - Catholic Crusades are now much less likely to select a kingdom in the African interior, and slightly less likely to pick a north African kingdom (if the Holy Land is taken, we want the crusades to focus on going deeper into the middle east rather than to die from attrition in the Sahara)

• Crusade Targeting - Fixed so that Crusades cannot target an area below 5 counties in size
  
• AI House members in Feuds will now be much more likely to start schemes against their enemies
  
• Characters will now be more reluctant to allow Feud enemies to raise their children
  
• Characters will now be more likely to join schemes against Feud house members
  
• Added explanation of score tooltip when ending a Feud
  
• Feuds can now only be started against Houses with at least 5 adult members and with Heads within one title tier of your own
  
• Added 25 year cooldown between Feuds
  
• Reduced frequency of Feud start events
  
• Added explanation of Feud reward modifiers to encyclopedia entry
  
• Fixed Feuds starting from murders where the murderer is still a secret
  
• Fixed an issue where Unpredictable Economical AI's didn't build enough new holdings
  
• Handle dead/alive for memories more consistently
  
• Fixed an issue where Cautious Economical AI's weren't cautious enough in the early stages of the game
  
• Fixed yearly.9110 missing an equals sign, also adjusted down dynasty prestige
  
• Fixed a missing equals sign in the Loyalty trait definition
  
• Fixed bp1_yearly.5704 missing an is_adult check
  
• Fixed pilgrimage.6007 so it does not fire for blind characters
  
• Fixed issue where Feud scale tip tooltips would be repeated
  
• Added additional missing checks for the A Man in Our Bed event
  
• Fixed missing adult and other checks in the A Man in Our Bed event
  
• Fixed Guanche Vaulter Infantry leaping across the world as mercenaries
  
• Fixed rivals not being less likely to accept alliance proposals
  
• Fixed Vengeance event firing alongside At My Mercy for Norse characters who captured a rival in battle
  
• Fixed incorrectly displayed/repeating Coat of Arms during longer sessions

• Fixed MAX_RECURSIVE_DEPTH error in Chinese localization
  
• Fixed grammar of Ibn Marwan of Badajoz's bookmark character

With that out of the way, keep up the reports, keep checking out our socials for further info, and we will keep working hard on our next updates and news for the future!

We have released a minor update addressing an issue affecting certain processors after the 1.7 "Bastion" Update. This fix was considered high priority, so it is being released ahead of a broader update we will be releasing in the near future.

• CK3 - Stability - Game doesn't launch when starting the game on an older CPU (non-AVX)

► Read more on our forums.

Beware, ruler - tread carefully with those you call friend or enemy; they are two sides of the same coin. Your relationships matter more than ever, and with Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes, witness those closest to you come alive in the most intimate detail.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2114760/Crusader_Kings_III_Friends__Foes/

Over one hundred unique new experiences of medieval larger-than-life drama wait to be discovered in the new event pack. From rival noble houses holding lifelong grudges to childhood bullies, summer crushes, and spoiling spouses with lavish gifts. Your ruler’s everyday existence has never been more fraught - or more exciting - than with Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes.


Family, friends, and those out for your blood are fully brought to life in this rich and stirring event pack.

• Your ruler’s day-to-day is filled with a myriad of new events. Experience over one hundred player-driven stories involving childhood, memories, nemeses, wrangling unruly sons, or wooing your significant other with sumptuous attention.
  
• With a little help from your friends, uncover novel ways to become pals with those you hold dear or even achieve the coveted best friend status.
  
• Be prepared for ever more dangerous rivals, sharpening their vengeful knives to get back at you. Or pre-empt your nemesis with devious new options… if you dare.

Know thy past to understand the present.

• Your characters will reminisce about their personal history with those closest to them, be it a romantic getaway or the painful humiliation that is the seed of a well-nurtured murder plot.
  
• Childhood is a place where happy memories rest… or not. Experience a character’s youth in full, from brutish bullies to wistful teenage love.
  
• Past deeds will not be forgotten. Be watchful of the wrath of rival noble houses, plotting to right a perceived wrong, even after many generations.

The Crusader Kings III: Friends & Foes event pack sets the mood with several new music pieces to accompany your ruler’s conspiring and scheming. New soundtracks are general, Western European, and Arabian-themed tunes.

And remember, your majesty: keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

Heya everyone!

This is your friendly neighborhood Tech Lead Zack. Someone made the rather unwise decision to allow me to write this dev diary for the "Bastion" update (I think everyone else was sick) and I intend to milk it as much as I can. "Bastion" goes live later today with Friends & Foes and I'm so happy to finally be able to share it with you. I'm the Tech Lead "in charge" of Friends & Foes which means that I work with the team to determine what tech ( see: code ) we can actually add to the update, that it works as it should and that we at the end of the day have a functioning build to deliver to you ( among other things, I also sit in a lot of meetings where I usually have a lot of wise and important things to say ;) ). This is the first Event Pack that we have done for CK3 so me and the team have been treading a lot of new ground, which has been very exciting, and I also think that it's the best one so far!

► Read the full update on our forums!

Hello everyone!

Nice to meet all of you! A little background on me: I am Noodle, a Game Designer on CK3. I’ve been on this project since before the release of the game, but for most of its life I’ve been some delicious flavour of QA. Anyway, enough about me, I know you’re all here for more on our Event Pack!

► Read our DD #106: A Fistful Of Friends & Foes



Last time out Trin took you through some of the more mechanical changes, such as the memory system and viewer, the loyalty traits and some of our childhood event changes. Today I’ll walk you all through some of the flavour-driven content you can expect to find in the Event Pack, though we’ll also look at a neat little system we’ve mentioned in passing before towards the end.

We’ve been hard at work creating over 100 new standalone events for this pack, and at this point it probably behooves me to explain that when we say ‘over 100’ we mean something a little different than just counting out each individual event we’ve made. To avoid any grey areas, we count both big event chains and small, one-off events exactly the same. No matter if you’re counting a singular event or a behemoth 14-event long chain: as Gimli would put it, it still only counts as one. As such, whilst we’ve bandied around a figure of 100, you’ll all be getting quite a bit more than that!

All of the new events pertain to the relationships between characters in some fashion, meaning that all relationships - from lieges to vassals, from friends to spouses, from lovers to foes to… lover-foes - have new events tied to them, to greater or lesser degrees. I’m going to take you through some of the joyful and jocular, the serious and the sad, and of course the weird and the wacky of this pack.

Let’s begin by addressing an event or two that could bring your character happier times, shall we?

​

You should always be able to rely on your friends to support you not only in good times, but also in bad. Moreover, a true friend is one who will have difficult talks with you because they truly care about your wellbeing. Perhaps even an intervention, should the actions you take to deal with stress so completely consume your life:



Despite the name, it’s not just friends who come into the spotlight in this pack. Your family are an active part of your life at court. Your parents offer sage advice, your children chances to bond, and your siblings are solid confidants - when they’re not trying to take your throne for themselves, of course. Even your beloved darling spouse also has the opportunity to raise you up, praise you, and, er, ask if you’d maybe consider sponsoring his mum to make you a lovely set of jewellery:



Still, trusting your mother-in-law could have its upsides. It might turn out the old girl is quite the metalsmith!



Even when you’re looking after your family and all is seemingly well, intrigue is never too far away. The demands of a multiple-spouse marriage becomes a little more unique in Friends & Foes, as now you might be getting a few eyebrow-raising requests:



Every mother wants to see her son get ahead in life, so it’s no wonder Tamrust here is so eager to please. In my case, however, I’m more interested in getting a-head in a rather different way: seeing my rival Sholah get their comeuppance would be a mighty fine way to do a deal.



Ah, Tamrust, you shouldn’t have!

​

In the game’s time period, as it is today, the death of a loved one can leave the bereaved with so many conflicting feelings. Regret over lost time together, sadness at the knowledge that the departed will no longer be around, perhaps even relief at their suffering finally ending.

In one of our new events, a visit from one person to their friend’s deathbed can go a few different ways. Perhaps you are the one bedridden, simply waiting for death. What would you desire from your friend? Or maybe you are the one visiting them, your lifelong friend, with whom you have forged so many memories and shared so much of your life with. What would you do when faced with this scene?



The possibilities here are rather wide. That third option you see is somewhat randomised and based on the bedridden person’s personality. Sometimes you won’t have a third option at all. Sometimes, as you can see above, you may even have to do your beloved friend the ultimate favour. Sometimes, as seen below, you’ll come into possession of a small gift.





Whilst seeing your friend breathe their last is desperately sad, there’s also something to be said for the brutal moments when a sibling rivalry gets way out of hand. Ambition and envy drives the closest of brothers and sisters to do the most heinous of things.



This rare event may fire if your sibling doesn’t like you, and happens to have a trait that might cause them to view you as dispensable in the pursuit of their wider ambitions. Of course, you’re not going down without a fight; the throne is yours and as the saying goes, might does indeed make right:



The young king survives this particular attempt from their sibling, but their relationship is irreparably damaged. Suffice to say, however, much nastier outcomes could well have arisen. Luck and wits will save many a monarch, but sooner or later your wits fade and your luck runs thin…


Like the glorious sprinkles on this Medieval doughnut (which were actually a thing: there’s references in The Forme of Cury to honeyed fried dough ‘Cryspels’ which were essentially the precursors to modern doughnuts!) we of course have some of the slightly more unusual events that you can stumble across during your rule.

The subject of this DLC made for fertile grounds for such events. Interpersonal relationships are at the heart of CK3, and how you interact with others depends often on whether they’re your foe or your friend. In order for you to have a friend, of course, you must first have a person to be friends with. I know, I know, it sounds obvious, but they do say the real miracle Jesus performed was having 12 close friends in his thirties. Well, that, and also the following:



If you take your religious leader’s excitement and fervour at face value, you’ll not just acquire a friend, but also a Delicious Face of Jesus artifact:



Of course, if you dare to doubt their obviously-correct opinion on divinely-shaped confectionery, you’re dead certain to make a rival of them. Or, as you can see in the third option, there’s an even more dramatic decision to be made. What price do you put on friendship versus the chance to literally eat Jesus’ face?

Mind you, there’s some things you can find that shouldn’t be eaten. Bog bodies are known worldwide, but are particularly prevalent in Northwestern Europe. Such findings continue to intrigue archeologists, but I suspect finding one would be rather more of an unpleasant surprise for your average Medieval child:



This event ties nicely in with the new memory system; sometimes if someone in your realm dies in that particular county, they have a chance of turning up here! Now I won’t spoil any particular outcomes to this small event chain, but naturally all is always exactly as it seems.

You just found a body in a bog. These things do happen. It’s perfectly normal.

​

Petty rivalries are an inextricable part of any Crusader Kings game. I’ve been a CK player for years, and I know exactly what I - and all of you - get up to when someone wrongs you. After all, who amongst us has not exterminated an entire dynasty for the vicious crime of their grandfather once having accidentally tripped over your dog?



Thankfully, you now have the opportunity to codify your hatred for those hated dog-trippers! House Feuds are a new system that can be triggered by a wide range of sources. It could be as simple as your House Head sharing a mutual dislike of each other with another House Head and those embers sputtering into the flames of true conflict. It could be as serious as a family member of your House being killed by a member of the other House, or as complicated as the two having competing Claims.

These Feuds can be inherited between generations, ebbing and flowing, each party exacting a toll from the other. These squabbles can escalate to horrific ends if all parties continue to seek revenge upon the other, and only the actions of calm heads can end it; but even then, often only once the debt has been repaid or one family has suffered so horribly under the other that they will surely never recover.

I was going to give you a runthrough of some of the 31 events (remember: for us, it still only counts as one!) that comprise House Feuds, but when I was playing around with Friends and Foes this last Sunday on a post-PDXCon rest day, I happened to hit upon a perfect mini-AAR to show you to illustrate exactly how these can generate organically. You join me on the steppes of modern-day Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where I am waging a war against a neighbour to expand my territory.

(A small note: I am playing with some custom gamerules including equal genders and majority-bisexual, hence why things might seem a little unusual with who is leading armies and the like. Or, if you’re one of those super cool and wonderfully attractive people who also play with those rules, high five, consider your ruleset officially dev-approved)



As battle concludes, it is with no small amount of grief that I receive the news that my knight, daughter and heir Princess Sarantay has fallen in battle at the hands of the vile and base Chieftain Malyy. And we know him to be vile and base, for who else but a true monster would snatch away my daughter’s life from the world so cruelly?

I try to put it out of my head - as much as any parent can do so with the death of their beloved child - but the flames of hatred still lick balefully at my heart. During the day it is all I can think about, and at night dreams of vengeance and retaliation poison my mind. Try as I might, I can’t bring myself to move on and let Allah enact retribution: I must pursue this myself.







Now, I won’t go too in-depth on what exactly transpired in the years this feud went on for. One such action involved seducing the enemy head of house’s wife - a fairly impressive feat, despite how sprightly I am at 68 years old - and revealing him for the cuckold he was. This disrespect was met with bared knives, and a minor member of my dynasty was struck down from the shadows.

It was an escalation I would not - could not! - ignore. House Kurgani were all too ready to unsheathe blades, but they soon found themselves on the wrong end of them. Three murders, one after the other, left them without the flower of their youth. The feud was clearly in our favour, the rival house a shadow of what they once were, and it even left me considering whether it was worth continuing. After all, Malyy was a mere chieftain, and I a mighty Khan. Surely it was time to let bygones be bygones?



Yet every time I considered it, all I could think of in my mind’s eye was my precious daughter. The feud would continue until the damnable Malyy was dead. I called my trustiest cutthroat and sent him on one final mission…

It is strange how fate works. The hired knife was drawing closer and closer still to Malyy, aided by no less than his own wife - who it seemed had grown rather fond of me, not that that’s surprising - but it appeared someone else had got there first. Perhaps he had many enemies. Perhaps, even, a member of my own house had enacted their own revenge. Either way, he now lies in the cold ground.



(Another note: This event isn’t actually part of the House Feud ones, but instead is part of a reworked couple of events when Best Friends or Nemeses die and can happen to anyone lucky enough to have their worst antagonist die on them. Suffice to say, that Vengeful option there does some fun stuff…)

The blood has been spilt, the eye has been taken for the eye. There is no longer any reason to prolong this blood feud. House Dulo has conclusively proven the dominance of our bloodline and emerges triumphant from the crucible of intra-house conflict.



I’ll leave you to discover most of the rest of the peaks and troughs of the cycle of ceaseless vengeance that signify House Feuds, but I do want to leave on one particularly interesting note. Malyy’s son, Tyueykezhut, was grateful that the bloodshed had ended, even if House Kurgani were crushed underneath our boot heel. He didn’t let go of the past, though, and the fire that once consumed my heart no doubt now consumes his; a grim reminder of how he spent his childhood raised to hate anyone who bears the name Dulo. And so the flames of open conflict die away to smouldering embers, all too ready for the right person to come along and nurse them back into a roaring crescendo once more…



That will be all from me for today! Thank you very much for reading this, my very first dev diary! Friends & Foes releases this week on the 8th of September, and I hope you enjoy your time with it.