Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.10.1 for Crusader Kings III. This update focuses primarily on resolving issues reported since the release of Wards & Wardens and the associated 1.10.0 "Quill" Update, but also targets some older outstanding issues. We hope this makes your experience playing CKIII smoother and more enjoyable!



As always, if you run into issues after this update, please let us know on our bug report board on the official Paradox Plaza forums, or on our Community Support board here on Steam!

• Fixed some problems with translated localization entries for Spanish and Korean
  
• Fixed problems with some English text being unintentionally displayed under some circumstances for localized text strings

• There is now a playable Saura-faith vassal ruler in 867, Sussala of Multan
  
• Vaticano now starts with a Grand Cathedral already built, representing the Old St. Peter's Basilica

• Added letter event when your request to Recall a Hostage is declined.
  
• Added missing description text for receiving a recall hostage request.
  
• Added missing description text for the notification message when the parent fails to influence a child’s personality.
  
• Added notification feedback of the outcomes of skill changes for the child in the event "A Ruler’s Path"
  
• Adopted children will no longer immediately send a congratulatory letter to themselves.
  
• Adopting a hostage will no longer immediately result in them leaving your court.
  
• Character Memories are now created when a character becomes an acclaimed knight.
  
• The Childhood event "A Blow, Returned" now properly notifies involved parties of the outcome.
  
• The Childhood event "A Potential Crush" will now properly use an adverb and not a definite article when referring to your love interest.
  
• Events for being neglected in prison will now properly look for if there is actual neglect going on.
  
• Petra, the Iron Pillar of Dhar, and the Doge's Palace should now properly count as Points of Interest during travel.
  
• Fixed problem in the prisoner relation text, where it erroneously tried to make claims about a prisoner's origin.
  
• Fixed the "Daring Scout" modifier having no icon.
  
• Fixed the Activity Pulse Action for Sight-Seeing (used in Pilgrimages as well as University Visits) having broken text.
  
• Fixed the Eccentric trait improperly subtracting customization points in the Ruler Designer.
  
• Fixed the Garuda court position having a lower modifier at highest aptitude than it did at the level below.
  
• Fixed the Rock story cycle not properly referring to the named rock in some cases.
  
• Fixed the text in the Wards & Wardens event "An Encouraging Friend" calling your bully by your name instead of bully's own name
  
• Fixed unnecessarily large effect lists in wars using the Invasion Casus Belli.
  
• Fixed various issues with the travel plans of wards and hostages.
  
• Grand tour orgy event "A Chance Meeting" will now display the right participants in the event window.
  
• Guardians will now once again be able to influence the religion and culture of their Wards.
  
• Horse Archer attribute for Accolades will now properly affect Horse Archers instead of Light Cavalry.
  
• Hostage event "Who Am I?" now properly refers to the name of the host's culture
  
• Hostage execution events will now display better information when you have multiple possible hostages to execute at the same time.
  
• Hostage transfers should now be available as an option in most peace resolutions.
  
• Hostages can no longer acquire the Marshal council position.
  
• If a regent has a promise for a Grand Wedding, they are now allowed to leave the court to attend their wedding in order to avoid diplomatic consequences.
  
• Infertile wedded couples are now properly described as such in game when shown in effect tooltips during Grand Weddings.
  
• It is no longer possible to kidnap your hostages.
  
• Landed rulers can now once again be Guardians for landed Wards.
  
• Resolved an out-of-sync error in Multiplayer that could occur if the player canceled travel to Pay Homage or Petition Liege.
  
• Reduced effect of reinforcement rate for same faith from artifacts since these were 10 times too high
  
• Reforging an artifact now properly depends on remaining relative durability instead of absolute durability
  
• Refusing to return a hostage upon them reaching the age of majority now damages their home court's opinion of you.
  
• The acceptance entry for hostage-related interactions is now properly colored in the interface.
  
• Children will now correctly gain the ill-trait as an outcome of the "A Sick Leave" event.
  
• The Childhood event "Lasting Heartbreak" now properly displays its negative modifier as red instead of green.
  
• The event "A Sick Leave" and its follow-up events now properly describe the court chaplain’s relation to you.
  
• The guard in the Throne room of African Royal Courts will no longer stab the character next to the throne when no-one is looking.
  
• Level 5 educations will now correctly state their bonus percentages in the Lifestyle screen.
  
• Level 5 Learning education now significantly improves Physician aptitude.
  
• Level 5 Intrigue education now gives all of its bonuses.
  
• Vassalization acceptance from the Level 5 Diplomacy education is now applied correctly.
  
• Tooltips for University locations when planning a University Visit should now be more consistent with other activities.
  
• Upon being adopted, the adoptee will now make their way to their new parents' court.
  
• When imprisoning a hostage, they will no longer take a hike back home.
  
• You no longer get two identical penalties when trying to murder a Head of Faith.
  
• Fixed a crash related to army movements.
  
• Fixed a rare situation where the event "A Murder Delayed" could end up in a loop and soft-lock the game from progressing.
  
• Fixed a text issue with the "First Words" event.
  
• Fixed an issue related to Varangians which could result in female eunuchs.
  
• Fixed an issue where children born by a hostage could, under certain circumstances, escape the court.
  
• Fixed an option that could be empty in the Child/Regent event "A Tool for the Wielding" when the regent demands access to a child ruler.
  
• Fixed bad reference to the Gregarious trait in the Influence Ward's Personality interaction.
  
• Fixed broken tooltip in "The Apple Falls" event.
  
• Fixed Cave Hermits not looking suitably destitute.
  
• Fixed confusing text in the "A Dream of Glass" trait event.
  
• Fixed Hapless Knight not being kicked out of tournament contests.
  
• Fixed issues with the decision to Unite the Spanish throne, including not including the kingdom of Toledo.
  
• Fixed Legendary hunts and Falconry having inverted difficulty modifiers.
  
• Fixed multiple issues with scopes and animations in cultural festival events.
  
• Fixed minor visual issues with the Rites of Passage event chain.
  
• Fixed miscommunicated education trait rewards at end of University Visit activity (the traits were given out correctly, but the tooltip would sometimes lie).
  
• Fixed missing icon for "Thuggish Recruiting" modifier.
  
• Fixed more issues with hostages failing to return home.
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to dying while your heir was a hostage in a foreign court.
  
• Fixed multiple misleading relationship reason tooltips.
  
• Fixed multiple presentation issues with Wet Nurse events.
  
• Fixed multiple problems with AI logic for recalling hostages.
  
• Fixed multiple text issues in the "Bully For You?" travel event.
  
• Fixed multiple text issues with the "Killer Charm" travel danger event.
  
• Fixed petition liege sometimes calling the wrong court position when trying to ascertain a suitable one.

Hello everyone! We're releasing a hotfix today to address some of the issues with yesterday's 1.10.0 update. While we have fixes for other reported/known issues coming up shortly, we felt the ones listed below were severe enough to warrant an immediate update.

• Fixed an issue where AI rulers do not marry as much as intended.
  
• Fixed an issue that removed the two buttons under the Wards tab in the character interface.
  
• Fixed an issue resulting in crashes for resumed games from older versions.

As always, if you encounter any problems not listed in our known issues thread, then please let us know about it either in the Community Support board here on our Steam hub or through the bug report board on our official forums.

We hope this hotfix makes for a more stable and enjoyable experience playing Wards & Wardens and the 1.10.0 'Quill' Update.

---

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541

Today marks the release of Wards & Wardens, and we hope you'll have plenty of fun wrangling unruly young rulers-to-be, managing your royal hostages, and visiting scholarly universities in the pursuit of knowledge!

As always, we want to keep updating and improving the game alongside each release - this time we've especially honed in on multiplayer stability, something that was unfortunately lacking after the last update. We've spent a lot of time hunting down annoying out-of-syncs, and we've managed to squash all of them that we could find - bar one that'll be fixed in an upcoming update (but it's fortunately avoidable; don't select Pay Homage/Petition Liege and cancel it before setting out on travel!)

Another change of note is that the AI will now purchase and manage Men-at-Arms more dynamically, especially later in the game - instead of all AIs wanting the exact same ratio of income-to-MaA. Warmonger Archetypes, powerful rulers, and strong mid-to-late-game economies will want to spend significantly more on having a powerful army, while Builder Archetypes make for excellent targets for conquests as they tend to favor buildings!

Without further ado, here is the full changelog:

• Over one hundred new events and event chains expanding upon childhood, guardianship, education, and more - both for young lords, parents, and knowledge-hungry rulers! Many game systems, both new and old, now have unique events and content to really strike home how it actually was to grow up during the middle ages!
  
  • Enjoy a more lively Childhood with a host of new events for both young rulers and parents, and see the choices made early in life echo far into adulthood!
    
  • New events for Courtly Education let you both educate and be educated in new and interesting ways, where young rulers can be led down a path of eccentricity!
    
  • Hostages at court will mingle with your own children, be homesick, get into trouble, or even give you opportunities for both lasting friendships and gaining a new type of Perpetual Hook!
    
  • Employing a Wet Nurse will aid the development of your heirs and increase the well-being of children at court, alongside a healthy dose of courtly drama!
    
  • slew of new events for Childhood Regencies sees a benevolent regent aid you as a young ruler by teaching you skills, giving you gifts, or stabilizing your realm - just beware less-than-scrupulous regents!
    
  • New events for the Meet Peers activity; play ball with your fellow children, hone your skills, or get up to hijinx!
    
  • Experience several rare story cycles which can see your young ruler aspire to become one of the greatest builders of all time, pursue a nebulous but enticing destiny, meet new friends of esoteric provenance, reform your realm in the image of former wardens, and more!
• New interactions and decisions allow you to take a more hands-on approach to the task of child-rearing!
  
  • Attempt to directly influence the Personality Traits of your Wards via a new interaction
    
  • Have your children pass through Coming of Age-trials in Tribal realms.
• As a ruler with a less-than-ideal education you will now want to visit Universities! This new Activity sees you travel to any holding with a University or Cathedral in search of higher studies.
  
  • Spend gold on books, mingle with students and teachers, and either study hard or live like a Goliard!
    
  • Being studious will reward you with lifestyle perk points and the potential for upgrading your education - and if you’ve studied REALLY hard you could even reach the new fifth-tier education!
• New mood music to enhance your game regardless of where you play.

• A new system for rulers giving or trading Hostages brings a new side of historical medieval politics to life - Hostages are powerful tools for ensuring peace, as they can be executed during wars to make your enemy suffer a great blow to their morale and stability. Hostages can be identified by a new portrait icon.
  
  • They can be demanded, exchanged, or even used to bargain beneficial peace deals during wars!
    
  • Having Hostages of notable status will reward you with both prestige and renown.
    
  • While hostages are most often children, there’s no guarantee that their warden will send them back as they come of age… after all, they are great bargaining chips!
• The new Perpetual Hook type lies in-between Weak and Strong Hooks, acting like a Weak hook that can be re-used every few years.
  
• A new Adoption interaction allows certain rulers to bring in new members to their family and dynasty. Characters with the Compassionate trait or of a culture. with certain Traditions can Adopt, but the restrictions can also be tightened or removed via a new Game Rule!
  
• A new Eccentric personality trait allows characters with it to develop their Lifestyles with ease at the cost of public perception, as their methods might be seen as erratic and odd! Several new event options have been added for the trait, and some of the more ‘out there’ events have been updated to require this trait to fire.
  
• Added 6 new events to the Pet Cat story Cycle.

• Builder AI's are now less concerned with buying MaA than before, and are slower to purchase up to their ideal amount
  
• Cautious AI's want to spend slightly more on MaA and are very inclined to purchase up to their comfortable minimum level
  
• Genghis Khan now starts as an Exalted Warlord rather than a Brilliant Strategist
  
• Spouse-Regents can now do both jobs at the same time
  
• The later into the game, and the more gold the AI earns, the more they will want to spend on MaA (previously AI's would always aim for spending 40% of their income on MaA maintenance, they can now go as high as 90% with the correct circumstances fulfilled)
  
• Warlike AI's will now want to spend more on MaA in general, and are much more inclined to purchase MaA over buildings than other archetypes
  
• You can now get more than three events per Meet Peers, especially if you are the Host (up to 6)
  
• playdate.3008, the event where another child drowns in Meet Peers, is now only available to the players/the host, and is now on a 3-year cooldown rather than 3 months.
  
• The hook gained in the playdate.3008 event is now also a strong 'saved my life'-hook.
  
• All Abrahamic faiths are now able to restore Rome, not just Christians.
  
• Either Italia, HRE, or Byzantium will become the "real" Rome depending on which one is your primary title upon reforming Rome.
  
• The Sultanate of Rum can now be formed by either Muslims or Turkic heritage characters, but not Christians.

• Events unlocked by Friends & Foes and Wards & Wardens are now decorated with special visuals that show from which Event Pack they originate; this feature can be disabled in the settings.

• Several new Animations have been added:
  
  • Happy Teacher
    
  • Stressed Teacher
    
  • Eccentric
    
  • Manic
    
  • Go to your room!
    
  • Playing Peekaboo
    
  • Crying (children only)
    
  • Clutching Ball
    
  • Clutching Doll
    
  • Stick Horse
    
  • 6x Weapon Animation Variants with Wooden Swords
• Added several new Event Background Illustrations:
  
  • Nursery
    
  • Western University
    
  • Arabic University
    
  • Western ‘Inner Courtyard’
    
  • An Indian Garden Variant
    
  • An Indian Study Variant
    
  • An Arabic Tavern Variant
• Added possible longsword artifact icon and model variation to swords of Late Medieval Western cultures.
  
• Added Toy sword, Training sword, Toy Doll, Stick Horse.
  
• Added Carolingian commoner clothes variants to the barbershop.
  
• Cloaks in general are now a bit more common for Western and Northern European characters.
  
• Cloaks will now sometimes be used together with armor.
  
• Elegance of the Empire cloaks will now be used roughly as much as the regular western royalty cloak.
  
• Fixed a bug where some consorts would use clothing far below their status, for example the Byzantine Basilissa in the 867 start date.
  
• For players with Northern Lords, Norse cloaks will now be used by more culture groups than just the Norse.
  
• Made it so that western royalty always wear cloaks.
  
• Northern Lords crowns are now also used by other Northern cultures.
  
• Improved skinning and blendshapes on male wrestling pants.

• Wards and Guardians will now use the Travel system to go to their respective courts to receive tutelage.
  
• Most Meet Peers events have been rebalanced and updated to use new backgrounds and animations.
  
• Activity log entries have been added to the Meet Peers activity.
  
• Memories have been added for Accolades.
  
• Added the Saura faith, a sun-worshipping branch of Hinduism, and added the faith to some characters and counties in both start dates.
  
• Added new outcomes to the Sun Trial event chain, in order to facilitate its deaths if you manage to end up worshipping the sun in an area without… much sun.
  
• Developing a Crush in childhood now creates a memory.

• Weak hooks can now be perpetual and used multiple times
  
• Add can_embrace_tradition trigger
  
• Add data binding macro CalculateScriptValue to calculate the named script value with designated character as root scope.
  
• Add data binding macro GetScriptValueBreakdown to break down the named script value with designated character as root scope.
  
• Add x_lifestyle_xp_gain_mult modifier that stacks with monthly xp modifiers.
  
• Adds new trigger for checking if a culture has more discovered innovations than another culture in a specified era.
  
• All trait triggers and effects can now use a trait scope as well as a database key.
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_CHANCE_EXPENSE_BELOW_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_chance_expense_below_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_CHANCE_EXPENSE_BELOW_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_chance_expense_below_min
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_MAX with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_max
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_EXPENSE_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_gold_min
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_IDEAL with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_ideal
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_MAX with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_max
  
• Replaced define MEN_AT_ARMS_PRESTIGE_EXPENSE_MIN with script value ai_men_at_arms_expense_prestige_min
  
• Add any/random/every_tradition scripted list for cultures.
  
• Add has_tradition_category trigger that works on culture traditions.
  
• Has_cultural_tradition trigger, add_culture_tradition, and remove_culture_tradition effects now can take tradition as scope.
  
• Add free_tradition_slot trigger to test if culture can have more traditions.
  
• Casus belli now has an option to allow or forbid hostage exchange.
  
• The chance to assign specific personality, education or childhood traits for generated characters can now be set by random_creation percent value.

• Fixed an Out of Sync caused by expiring Memories
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync caused by players setting Decisions to ‘notify me’
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync relating to Accolade History
  
• Fixed an Out-of-Sync relating to Diarchs being updated out of order
  
• Fixed several rare Out-of-Syncs
  
• Fixed crash on succession with a landed character without any titles
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen when opening the war overview in certain large-scale wars
  
• Fixed the Character Search not remembering the selected ‘Sort by’ filter between being closed/opened
  
• Fixed Accolade History being lost when loading the save
  
• Fixed Tournament event Hapless Knight option not removing jouster from contest
  
• Fixed animals captured on hunts not being saved properly
  
• Fixed crime for escaping from prison not being an imprisonable crime
  
• Fixed feuding house AI members being not aggressive enough
  
• Fixed issue with desc of war won memory
  
• Fixed issues with relation loc for fellow attendees of activities
  
• Fixed missing localization for memories of peasant and populist revolts
  
• Fixed missing scope loc in "lay with" effects for other characters
  
• Fixed relation loc for deceased spouses
  
• Improved presentation of Restore Carolingian Borders decision's effects
  
• Fix a rare case when childhood focus is invalidated
  
• Fix a rare case when childhood focus is invalidated and wrong education trait is given when coming of age
  
• Fixed "A vassal between friends" not accounting for the two involved friends being at war
  
• Fixed childhood personality events being largely blocked for traveling children, which resulted in some childhood personality events being way too common
  
• Fixed garrisons not refilling correctly after sieges
  
• Fixed many instances of Regents traveling with their lieges, especially during Hunts and Tournaments
  
• Improved tooltip why sometimes you cannot change intent during activities
  
• Increased maximum allowed years in activity passive phase (travel time) from 3 years to 10
  
• May now plan activities regardless of insufficient funds to start them
  
• Memory descriptions expect character memory as root scope
  
• Show correct regent when designated regent has been deposed by a scheme
  
• Characters are no longer intimidated by 0 dread
  
• Mercenaries and holy orders can now use MaA from culture traditions
  
• Swinging the scales of power will now tell you in which direction & towards whom they've swung
  
• Fixed unnecessarily large effect lists in Invasion casus belli wars
  
• Fixed bastards being born in faiths which had none
  
• The HRE title holder no longer needs to exist to establish the Carolingian Empire
  
• Champion the Faith of Country Basques decision now includes the new provinces added for Fate of Iberia
  
• Can now use "Grant to..." action in county view even if there's a leased out barony

Additionally, please check the Known Issues thread on our official forums for a list of prominent issues in the 1.10.0 update; we're aware of the issues listed here and have fixes for them in the pipeline already.

We hope you enjoy Wards & Wardens and the accompanying free "Quill" Update!

---

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541

As the release date of Wards & Wardens draws near, we're taking a moment to reflect on the artistic endeavors that have brought it to life. This time our focus is on animations and some of the 2D icons and illustrations.

► Discuss Dev Diary #134 on our forums!



Hey there! I'm Nicolas, 2D artist working on this royal game CK3.

I'm pretty sure many of you checking out this dev diary must get pretty stoked about game designers writing about numbers going up and down, but as cool as it is to dive into the game's new meta, my piece of this dev diary is all about the art! Let me tell you a bit about creating game icons - in particular, how I went about creating the new icon for the eccentric personality trait!

Alright, let's break it down in a kinda rough step-by-step. First things first, the game designers sent me a short brief describing what they needed, as well as ideas of what the icon might look like. Luckily for me, I was given the idea that the icon could depict a bag of marbles of various colors. I think it’s a pretty fitting metaphor for an eccentric individual, embodying their propensity for collecting unconventional ideas and perspectives, much like the colorful assortment of marbles within the bag.

A guideline we try to adhere to when creating icons is to not necessarily create an image that literally depicts what the function/meaning of the icon will be. Instead, we want to be more figurative in our approach. For example, the icon for craven doesn't show a person being cowardly, but instead shows a frantic chicken, a symbol of cowardice.


Starting off, I create a handful of initial sketches outlining the basic composition and values. These sketches don't require fine detailing; their purpose is solely for experimentation and estimating the best read of the image.


When I have decided (When my art director decides which one he likes the most), I move on to making a more refined value render of the image. Paying close attention to the values and how they aid in the composition. For example, how the image goes from brighter in the focal point in the middle of the icon out to a much darker value on the edges, forming a vignette of sorts.



Quite a straightforward step, adding colors to the image. Going over color theory is beyond my paygrade, so let's just say that these colors of warm red/yellow and cool blue look good together!


Now it is time for my favorite part of the process - the refining stage! Now, I fine-tune the image, adding those last touches of light, textures, intricate details, and any minor adjustments to give the icon that final polished look. Make it feel like “candy”, like an old art director of mine used to say.


And there you have it: resize it to the appropriate size and slap a border on it and we have anew, fresh personality icon! Hopefully the trait is good according to the meta, so people will actually see and appreciate it sometimes!

Here are also a few interesting images of game concepts that depict the same thing, but in various styles - depending on the context in the UI.





Naturally, we are also adding some new scene illustrations. With the option to pursue education as an adult, we've incorporated a University setting tailored for your scholarly characters. Additionally, we've added a Nursery and several scenes that enrich the cultural diversity of some existing locations.


[University]


[Courtyard]


[Nursery]


[Tavern - MENA variation]


[Study - Indian variation]

For this Event Pack we have added child-related animations, such as playing with toys. Among our new props we have a ball, a doll, stickhorses, and wooden swords, which all get used in the animations.




Nothing more comforting when running a kingdom than your favorite toy!

That’s it for this time. Stay tuned for next week's update as we gear up for the release of "Wards & Wardens" on August 22nd!

---

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/

Hello everyone! This is my first time writing a dev diary and I want to share with you almost everything I worked on for Wards and Wardens. Let’s set the stage first: you are a ruler and your seed is stronger than ever, flourishing with your many offspring. Children play and run around all over your court, but you have more pressing matters to attend to! Perhaps the mother of your children has become incapable, unable to provide milk for your infants. Who are you gonna call? Wet nurses, of course!

► Discuss Dev Diary #133 on our forums!



Historically, a Wet Nurse was a woman of the court charged with the care of infants in need of breastfeeding, for whatever reason there might be. However, the position evolved over time and, in some circles, the wet nurse became an integral part of the family. She might care for older children and become an influential advisor, or even a second mother. Strong bonds were created not only between wet nurse and child, but also between children that were nurtured by the same nurse. Such children were called suckling siblings and were treated on the same level as blood siblings.

[Decision to search for a suitable candidate for Wet Nurse Court Position]

In the game, the Wet Nurse is represented as a Court Position. A child ruler, a ruler with children or one holding children hostage can hire a suitable woman as a Wet Nurse. In return, she provides illness resistance to children of the court and will inform her employer about significant milestones in childhood development, like a wee one’s first spoken words or first fallen teeth.

[Example of childhood development event: first fallen teeth]

Who can become a Wet Nurse, you may ask? Any able woman that has no particular noble roots. In history, these were commoners from the court: widowed mothers or just those in need of another source of income.

[Wet Nurse Court Position tooltip]

[Wet Nurse aptitude tooltip]

As part of our focus on children in this Event Pack, we pay some attention to the moment they become adults. Changing your societal status in such a way is a big deal even today, as seen in school graduations, specific birthdays and religious thresholds. Usually, this transition is signified by a ceremony or a ritual. I decided to look into tribal rites of passage and ended up with a decision, an amalgamation of different rituals from all over the world, with the most common or interesting rituals selected to represent the practice.

[Rites of Passage decision window]

Possible rites:

• Duel: using the existing duel combat system, the child has to fight against an adult from the same culture
  
• Scarification: a facial ravaging that may result in the Scarred trait
  
• Seclusion: using the travel system, the child ventures into the wild on their own and comes back wiser and more worldly
  
• Hair-shaving: similar to the halq in Islam, the child sacrifices their fair hair for adulthood
  
• Elemental Cleansing: a baptism by either water or fire

[Rites of Passage: fire cleansing ritual]

This decision is available for any landed tribal teenager or any landed tribal parent/warden of a teenager. So it is possible to welcome your feudal hostages into your tribe and make them go through the rites. Three of the rite types will be available, the selection determined by the ruler’s cultural ethos. Each has a different effect on a child's personality, their skills, and more.

[Rites of Passage setup event: choosing a ritual]

Have you ever felt that being a guardian offers little impact on the personality traits of your ward? Well, not anymore! The guardian now has access to an interaction which allows them to choose one of their own personality traits and try to push it onto the ward. The interaction is available for the player as well as an AI guardian, so choose them wisely! Otherwise, your sadistic, shy or paranoid guardian might just pass on their vile traits to your precious genius heir. This interaction is even available for wardens, letting them influence their child-age hostages.

[Example of a successful Influence Ward’s Personality interaction for the shy trait]

[Example of a failed Influence Ward’s Personality interaction for the callous trait]

The outcome is decided by the child, so the bulk of it is left to whatever RNG gods you believe in. However, the more alike the ward is to the guardian, the more likely the brainwashing is to succeed.

[Influence Ward’s Personality interaction window and acceptance tooltip]

All features mentioned above are part of the Event Pack “Wards & Wardens”. Next week will be the last DD before the release! In it, we will cover our new, beautiful art and animations.

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/

Hello everyone! Summer break is now wrapping up in Sweden and everyone's coming back into the office, so now's the time to start diving into our dev diaries for our upcoming event pack, Wards & Wardens! Today's DD comes from one of our Game Designers working on Crusader Kings III, and covers what you can expect to see with the new Eccentric trait and Adoption systems coming to the game with W&W later this August.

► Discuss Dev Diary #132 on our forums!



Hello hello hello, welcome to another Wards and Wardens dev diary! Today I'm going to be talking you through two new features: adoption and the Eccentric trait! We'll start off with the simpler of the two features: Eccentricity.

Friends and Foes added the Loyal and Disloyal traits, but unfortunately these came quite late in development and as a consequence they were quite under-utilized, so we decided to have the discussion around new traits quite early this time around and we went over a few different ideas including Superstitious, Silly vs Serious, but we kind of knew all along that what we really wanted was something analogous to the Wild Wasteland trait in Fallout or CK2 Lunatic.

For those unfamiliar, Lunacy in CK2 was usually where we made our more… out there content. There are still echoes of this here and there in CK3, but for the most part, Lunacy isn't really the same as it was.


The decision was made quite early in CK3's development that the lunatic trait would be analogous to real-world mental illness so this kind of content was typically deemed inappropriate. As a result of that decision, we've not really had an easy way to gate the sillier side of things when it comes to the player character. This has been a bit of a divisive subject on the forums, so we felt we needed some way to gate the content without resorting to game rules.

Eccentric is a personality trait meaning it is an essential part of a character's personality. Eccentrics are erratic and irrational, but there is a method to the madness so they may be able to see things that other characters don’t.

Numbers are subject to balancing

Wards and Wardens being all about children and childhood made it the perfect fit for a new Personality trait, and as with all other Personality traits in the game, Eccentric can be acquired during childhood.




People have been known to lose their marbles later in life, so a particularly stressed character may have a mental break which causes them to start seeing things in a more Eccentric way.


As you can see in the below screenshot, a non-Eccentric child would just guess at the options presented to them, but an eccentric may think of something a bit more creative.



There has also been an audit of some existing content to add checks for the Eccentric trait where sensible. The now-infamous Cat-apult event, for example, has now been made into an Eccentric event.

Something I'd like to nip in the bud quite early is that the Eccentric trait is not intended to reflect any real-world disabilities, illnesses, or neurodivergence. I think it's wonderful if you are able to project some of your own experiences onto the trait, but making a direct and conscious effort to make the Lunatic trait analogous to real-world mental illnesses is the reason why we ended up making Eccentric to begin with and we'd rather not have to come up with another trait for our silly content.

Eccentric is a free feature and will be available to everyone, but some unique content related to the trait will be exclusive for DLC-owners.

Now onto the next feature of this diary and one that's quite exciting to me personally is the Adoption interaction! Now many many patches ago we introduced the Same-Sex marriage rule and ever since then it's just kind of been there and we've yet to introduce a way to actually make same-sex play… well, playable.

Under the default game rules, Adoption is available to characters who are in a same-sex marriage, the childless and elderly/infertile, and Compassionate characters. Compassionate has long been a bit of a weak trait to have, so it's nice to give them a powerful way to secure succession and bring talented orphans into the family.


Children can be adopted as long as: they're not a ruler, they're not in prison or otherwise unavailable, nobody in their family is a ruler, they're not already part of your house, and they're not in the realm of someone of their dynasty. This does mean you're technically allowed to adopt noble children, and children whose parents are still alive, but they are highly reluctant to accept adoption in those circumstances.


If you want to role-play a culture where adoption is commonplace (as it was in some off-map and out-of-period cultures), you can take up the Noble Adoption cultural tradition!


Sort of! While adoption amongst nobility was exceptionally rare, it wasn't completely unheard of. As such, we've restricted access to adoption quite a lot as described and the AI is quite reluctant to do it.

Absolutely! Adoption comes with three new game rules that can forbid it or make it easier!




Just like the Eccentric trait, Adoption is part of the free update releasing with Wards & Wardens on August 22nd. Next week we will talk about the new Court position and share more details on what to expect from this event pack. See you then!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/

Hello everyone! We hope you're all enjoying Tours & Tournaments and the accompanying 1.9 feature update.

Today we're releasing a small hotfix to address an issue that could prevent characters from hosting more than one Grand Wedding. Thank you to everyone for submitting your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports!

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• Fixed an issue that prevented characters from hosting more than one Grand Wedding.

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Good afternoon, and welcome to your first class of the semester! My name is Dr. Areysak, and I’ll be your “CKIII University 101” lecturer.

I already see some raised hands. You, in the first row, ask away.

“Why a University Activity? What does it have to do with Wards and Wardens?”

► Discuss Dev Diary #131 on our forums!



This is a very interesting question. During the early development of Wards and Wardens, talks of hostages’ education led us to a realization: everything that could influence a character’s education trait happens during childhood. Once a character reaches 16 years of age, they are locked out of any further improvement! And if the player character isn’t directly responsible for the education of their heir, a player can find themselves inheriting an already adult heir character with an education trait they have had no way to influence.

The University Visit activity is the solution we have chosen to open up new possibilities to the player to influence their character’s personal growth. Therefore, as a first aim, it fulfills a gameplay need; secondly, it allows us to expand upon one of the Middle Ages’ many successful inventions, Universities; thirdly, we got to add a new activity!

When we talk of Medieval Universities, we are immediately led to think of the famous names of Western Europe, such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Bologna. The name “University”, in fact, comes from Latin and was born to describe specifically the communities (= universitates) of Latin-speaking teachers and students that congregated in these European cities. However, similar institutions existed all over the Old World. Particularly famous are the Indian “universities”, such as Takshashila and Nalanda; the House of Wisdom in Baghdad was one of the most renowned centers of studies of its age, and Madrasas schools were widespread throughout the Islamic world. In this period, it’s also often difficult to separate, as we would do today, between lay and religious centers of studies, since Christian cathedrals, Muslim mosques and, in particular, Buddhist temples were themselves libraries, scriptoria (i.e., where manuscripts were copied), and educational institutions, or had these institutions develop in their immediate vicinity.


Let’s now have a look at the activity itself, though!

The University Visit is a minor activity that adult landed rulers can always initiate, as long as they have the gold! To keep it in line with the pre-existing decision to Go to University, it is quite expensive. To keep the challenge balanced, the final cost is dynamic (like with all activities) and changes with your tier and era.


(Activity selection interface showing the University Visit)

The activity takes 6 months, and can only be started once every 20 years, and only once per location.

In order to Visit a University, you have to select a valid location in your diplomatic range and travel there.


(Activity destination selection interface)

You might have noticed, however, that not all valid locations are University seats. As discussed above, large religious centers were often centers of study too, and have been included as potential destinations.


(The tooltip of a large religious center)

Being a minor activity, the choice of intents and options is limited but flavorful.
There are only two intents available, but they represent two contrasting approaches to your university experience, and will significantly change both your approach to your studies and the results you can achieve. In fact, every activity event will have at least one special option unlocked by each intent!
“Study Hard” is quite self-explanatory: you went there to study, and study hard you will, no matter the stress cost you’ll have to pay! You try to make the most of your time at University, in order to maximize your chances of success at the end of the activity and increase your rewards.
In fact, the results (and rewards) you obtain at the end of your studies are measured by a value called “Studiousness”, which is a “success” chance similar, e.g., to a Pilgrimage’s Piousness. The activity can’t fail per se, but the entity of your rewards will depend on this value.

“Goliardic Lifestyle” is a completely different approach, inspired by the European Goliards, wandering students and clerics famous for their satirical poetry (for instance the Carmina Burana) exalting the art of drinking and carnal pleasures. With this intent, your aim is to gain as much first-hand experience of life, both inside and outside the walls of the University, indulging in so-called “Goliardic Shenanigans”. I’ll leave you the pleasure of discovering exactly what your character can get up to; the general idea of the intent, however, is to gain less success chance (and therefore less rewards at the conclusion of the activity), but more immediate bonuses such as lifestyle traits, lifestyle xp, and skill points.


(Intents view)

On the other hand, we only have one option with 3 levels, which represent how much money you plan to invest in study materials. The option chosen will influence your success chance and final rewards, including an Illustrious artifact! (cost values are still wip)


(Options view)


(Arrival event)

As you can see, your level of Studiousness is easily traceable from the activity view. To make the interactions more impactful, we have limited the number of guests, which are only a handful of students and teachers, which will be among the wisest minds on the map!


(Activity view and teacher’s character view)


(Event with Study Hard option)


(Event with Goliardic Lifestyle options)

Be ready to gain a whole bunch of stress! Nobody said that getting a degree was easy…

I did mention that your teachers will be among the most brilliant minds around, and I’d like to stress it again because if you manage to make a very good impression on them…


(Conclusion event)

You will be able to invite one of them to move back to your court with you!

But hold on, there is something weird with this teacher… What is that?!


(Teacher’s character view with education trait tooltip)

Is that… A fifth level of the Education Trait?!

YES!

Concurrently with the University Visit activity, we have added a new level to all education traits. This final level will be super rare, and mostly reserved for University teachers and University graduates who already started with the fourth-tier trait.


As you might have guessed from what has been discussed so far, the main reward for the activity is increasing your education trait one level up. However, there is only a chance to succeed in this endeavor! This chance is higher the lower you current level is (i.e., it’s easier to get from tier 1 to 2 than it is from 2 to 3) and the higher your Studiousness level is.


(Tooltip of Tier 4 of Studiousness with the rewards)

However, even if you were to fail at improving your education, you are ensured to gain a number of Perk points that increases with your achieved Studiousness, an assortment of xp and skill points depending on your event choices, and even an Illustrious book if you chose the most expensive option during the activity setup (and therefore went splurging on rare manuscripts)!


(A randomly generated Illustrious book)

This concludes today’s lecture. I hear some buzzing from the end rows, are there any questions?

“But that’s not how Universities worked! No ruler would go to University like a commoner!!”

You are, of course, correct. We are perfectly aware of it. However, we believe that the combined bonuses offered by new gameplay possibilities (i.e., improving your character’s education and skills) and the historical flavor of showing a slice of the life at Medieval Universities more than warranted the exception!

I hope you are excited to Visit a University soon!

This is the last Dev Diary before the July break, so it seems fitting to just say:

School’s out! Have a nice summer! And see you all back in August!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313541/Crusader_Kings_III_Wards__Wardens/

Hello all!

It's been a few weeks since we spoke but it feels like longer, what with all of you having been busy traveling, touring, tournamenting and the rest! It is time for us, nonetheless, to leave behind that world for now and take a look ahead at what we have coming up next.



Our first Event Pack, Friends & Foes, gave us something of a chance to experiment. Since then, we’ve had the chance to take a look at exactly what direction we want to start moving in with these packs, and build on what worked.

One area that we hit upon was diversity of content and how the player experienced the game. Events are the ink that we daub on to the fabric of the narrative, but it’s how, what and why these events happen that govern their efficacy. Introducing new avenues for that content to reach the player is a great thing, provided it’s done in an unobtrusive way.

With that in mind, we’re going to outline a few of the new features that you’ll find in Wards & Wardens (the event-pack that you voted for last January) and its accompanying patch - both available on August 22nd. Some of them we’ll talk about more in the future, so don’t expect anything too exhaustive here, but let’s start off with…



Hostages aren’t quite what you’d think of when you hear the term. Rather than forced holding of a person to ransom, hostageship in the Middle Ages was a political and legal status that was absolutely widespread.

Put simply, hostages were generally given, not taken. They were, essentially, transactional guarantees. In this case, we’ve zeroed in on the most common reason for hostages to be exchanged: as a means to guarantee a peace treaty.

In Wards & Wardens, hostages are a new type of relation somewhere between a prisoner and a foreign court guest. They reside at your court as a guest would, but cannot leave of their own accord, nor can they become knights. They are generally - though not always - children, and have found themselves in such a predicament due to their liege exchanging them away as a guarantee of non-hostility following a war, or exchanged via interaction during peacetime. Such an arrangement not only eases the mediation process, but also gives both sides some peace of mind.



Hostages are essentially living non-aggression pacts. Harming a hostage is a significant diplomatic incident, but it’s also a way to deter your former enemies from getting any more bright ideas about exactly to whom that border county belongs. Any ruler that you have a hostage from will suffer significant debuffs and penalties should they try and attack you - and any wardens attacking home courts also suffer similar debuffs - so hostages present one of the strongest forms of deterrent possible.

The hostages themselves are kept in line via something else new and shiny:



We have two types of Hook extant in the game already: Strong and Weak. The latter are the type of hooks you’d get if you were to, for example, manipulate a person in some way. They are single-use, and can be refused at cost. Strong hooks, on the other hand, can be used multiple times and in a range of scenarios, but are also much rarer.

Perpetual Hooks are a new sort of hook, which wardens can get on hostages who they treat well, and represent something of a middle ground. They are refuseable like Weak hooks, but also permanent like a Strong hook. At the moment hostages (and those that have previously been hostages) are the only characters you’d expect to see with a Perpetual hook, but just as Memories were built with expansion in mind for Friends & Foes, so too should you not be surprised if in the future you find more and wider examples of Perpetual hook usage.



One of the spots that we’ve been somewhat hamstrung by in CKIII is in mediating the existence of characters that don’t quite… fit the mould, as it were.



In CKII, you’d have insane and possessed characters who did all kinds of wacky things - immortal horse chancellors and such; you know how it goes. CKIII’s takes a more grounded approach to how traits are represented: Lunatic, for example, was used increasingly loosely in CKII, ending up as an umbrella for anything ranging from slightly kooky to genuine mental illness, but CKIII sticks much more rigidly to the latter.

This is where the Eccentric trait comes in, as a trait dedicated to the slightly odd. This allows us to group some of the more unusual situations you’d find under this new personality trait, giving them both more reason to happen for a certain character but, critically, also barring those characters who wouldn’t engage in such strange distractions from doing so. We’ll talk about this more in the coming weeks!



As you might expect given how hostageship skews very much towards the young, a fair percentage of what we’ve been working on has been filling out the experience of non-adult existence in Crusader Kings III. We’ve come some way in this regard since release, with Friends & Foes adding a swathe of new events and a revamp of childhood personality traits, as well as of course the Regency mechanic giving a whole new layer of intrigue to a child navigating the dangerous Medieval world.

In Wards & Wardens, we’ve added to this with another fresh layer of childhood content - in no small part focused on hostages and their experiences - but also the addition of a Wet Nurse court position. Wet nurses held an interesting status amongst the medieval court, and adding this court position adds another layer of intricacy to the trials and tribulations of raising a child.




We have been delighted to read just how much you all have been enjoying all the new - and the old! - activities in CKIII since the release of Tours & Tournaments. With this in mind, we’ve attempted to utilize it to approach something that’s previously been static in Crusader Kings: education as an adult.



Previously, once you had come of age, an education type and rank was assigned to you and that was that. You, aged 16, were as educated as you’d ever become! Now, whilst properly reflecting the rate at which humans grow as people as they age is something of an impossible task for a game, the current system felt a little too rigid for our liking. As such, the Adult Education activity now gives players a chance to tickle their brains at a center of learning, in hope that they can actually upgrade their education trait to a higher level!

But what of those of us who enter adulthood with the finest education life has to offer? What steps can those people take to better themselves in adulthood?

Worry not. We have a plan for that, too, but it will have to wait!



Thankfully, however, you won’t have to wait all too long. Whilst we’re saying bye for now, next week we'll cover the Adult Education Activity in CKIII from top to bottom. Hope to see you all then!

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Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.9.2 for Crusader Kings III. This update primarily resolves a number of issues reported by the community, as well as adjusting the Accolades interface based on player feedback. A full list of changes in this update can be found below.

We hope you're all enjoying Tours & Tournaments and the 1.9 'Lance' Update!

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• Reduced aggressiveness of House Feud AI family members starting schemes against rival house

• Accolade Attribute tooltip now shows first & last rank for better insight
  
• Accolade Rank progress bar now splits out modifiers by attribute name
  
• Accolade attributes now shows which Men-at-Arms type it will (eventually) unlock
  
• Accolade creation now shows which un-knighted court members, or visiting guests are available, and allows you to hire them on the spot
  
• Added Accolade Attribute list when hiring for an accolade
  
• Characters with long names will no longer push the Accolade 'Reinstate' or 'Destroy' buttons away. No Jimmy Drop Tables-ing.
  
• Activity Intent selection now offers a standard selection of search / sorting filters
  
• Fixed a bug where the current situation button would disappear after closing the barbershop
  
• The interface now jumps to the newly created Accolade after creation
  
• Warning added for using Men-At-Arms Accolade attribute as a secondary attribute
  
• You can now swap Accolade attributes in-place when creating an accolade
  
• Added tournament backgrounds to character view of characters attending tournaments

• You can now choose to ignore interaction recipient cooldowns for players.

• AI marriage suggestions no longer block players from matchmaking between their own courtiers.
  
• Changed Coat of Arms will now properly get their new texture applied
  
• Characters will no longer inherit the cooldown for designating diarchs
  
• Display achievement availability correctly in the ruler designer.
  
• Empire sub-kingdom capital point of interest tooltip now shows the appropriate kingdom name in the tooltip
  
• Fix OOS where macOS (and possibly Linux) clients AI were missing the white peace interaction.
  
• Fix crash that sometimes occurs when viewing activity intent success GUI
  
• Fixed Harm event target rules not applying as expected
  
• Fixed Hunt event A Beautiful Specimen not creating a hare artifact if you don't have the Royal Court DLC
  
• Fixed a crash that can happen when expanding the dynasty tree
  
• Fixed an issue that could break certain interfaces after the player dies
  
• Fixed being blocked from starting activities forever if you joined a war while meditating
  
• Fixed crash when characters with no current valid location try to travel out of their locational limbo.
  
• Fixed droves of occult botanists using Playdates as recruitment centers for witches
  
• Fixed event pools for Swell Armies and Promote Authority regent mandates being swapped
  
• Fixed events which added Contest score even if you weren't competing, and removed general health requirements for Contests in favor of explicit trait checks based on type
  
• Fixed hunt murder event firing when you don't have the murder intent
  
• Fixed loc and portrait issues in Premature Death hunt invalidation event
  
• Fixed option for withdrawing from contests in For Family event not actually withdrawing you from the contests
  
• Fixed options for not competing allowing you to still compete in tournaments
  
• Fixed rare crash when loading into title screen if a particularly large coat of arms exists in one or more save games
  
• Fixed the name of the PLAYER_ACTIVITY_INVITE_GRACE_TIME define so that the game properly utilizes it
  
• Fixed your gamekeepers refusing to let you set out to hunt the Legendary animals you have heard rumours of
  
• Imprisoned, landed characters who get their last title revoked will no longer change their location away from their place of imprisonment
  
• Made Accolade bonuses from Marshal council tasks much less rare
  
• Mass ransom button will no longer generously not demand Hooks if prisoners have no money
  
• Physicians brought forward by the Search decision should now generally have more Aptitude
  
• You can no longer assign any guest as a special guest when going through the Other Guests button when planning an activitiy
  
• Fixed "Tent Camp: Stealing a Moment" event that could not trigger during a tournament
  
• Fixed African Swords being used for african sword in the court but not in duels
  
• Fixed Court Physician not being able to help you in "Travel Danger: Under the weather" even though they were travelling with you
  
• Fixed cannibal feast being possible without any cannibal guests
  
• Fixed missing descriptions of effects in activity log entries for French, German, Korean, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish versions of the game
  
• The Body Guard court position selection will no longer display safety and speed since it affects neither
  
• The activity pulse action for donating gold at a pilgrimage site will no longer give you more gold instead of taking it away
  
• Travel Danger event "Flawed Fare" will now correctly account for if you have good traits for surviving in the terrain you are trying to forage food from. These checks existed but did not modify the actual outcome prior
  
• Tweaked Travel Danger event "Flawed Fare" to have a lower risk for a catastrophic outcome and to use the highest learning character in the entourage for the learning challenge. The overall danger in this event is now also more dependent on what terrain you are in
  
• Befriending people during a hunt event makes them friends not lovers
  
• Fixed opinion gains in A Foreign Treat
  
• Fixed broken loc in A Memorable Performance
  
• The Feral Child won't be hanging around instead of going back to nature anymore
  
• Fixed the bug that prevented custom faiths from getting a Head of Faith
  
• Fixed a pilgrimage event potentially giving adult wards
  
• Only Muslims can now make use of the Mosque of Imam Ali
  
• Catharism can now be reformed to keep Reincarnation
  
• Characters who joined your travel through Travel Options now leave your court when the travel is done
  
• Fully localized Sorcerous Metallurgy
  
• Coastal Warriors are finally safer in Coastal Sea travel
  
• Suspicion Opinion now stacks
  
• No more double dread for A Chance to Start Over
  
• Fixed certain millennials refusing to wear anything but filthy rags

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