Hello everyone! I’m Jacob, the Community Manager with Paradox Studio Black.
My role within the studio is to strengthen communication between us and you, the players, to ensure that we understand what you want from the game and that you understand what our intentions are for the future. While I’m just one part of the broader Community Team for Crusader Kings, I’m ultimately responsible for nearly every piece of public-facing communication we publish as a studio: dev diaries, feature breakdowns, chapter premiere videos, social media posts, etc. I’m also responsible for the reverse; every piece of feedback that ends up on a designer’s desk goes through me at some point in the process.
Today, I’m going to talk about the release of Khans of the Steppe and the feedback we’ve received from players, as well as how we’re addressing it. After that I’ll give a brief overview of how our development cycles work, what the hell Post-Release Support even is, and then cap it off with a quick look at what our next steps are as a studio.
I am a map gamer, so fair warning: There will graphs and charts in this dev diary.
State of Launch
As you may or may not be aware, Khans of the Steppe and the 1.16 “Chamfron” Update were released on April 28th, and the initial response was fairly positive both from a technical perspective and a player sentiment one. However, we quickly noticed a spike in crash reports and commentary from players confirming this. Setting our lovely QA team to work, we quickly identified two major contributors to instability in 1.16 and pushed hotfixes to tackle both of them.
These fixes have led to a significant reduction in crash rates, but we’re still seeing elevated levels, so we’re still working to identify and resolve the causes of these crashes.
[Crash rate analytics since the release of Khans of the Steppe. The 1.16.0.2 hotfix (circled in red) made a big difference, but there’s still work to be done.]
While there was an immediate spike in negative reviews due to stability issues, the response at large to Khans of the Steppe was quite positive right out of the gate. When you spend months working on a specific project, it’s always an immense relief to see that it went well and players were having fun with the new content, so everyone at the studio was elated at the response!
Then the review score started dropping.
[Steam reviews for Khans of the Steppe. You can see the ratio of positive to negative reviews shrinking over time; In the “biz”, this is considered a Bad Thing. While the amount of people who leave reviews are a sliver of a fraction of the greater playerbase, this is still a valuable source of information for us.]
With all of our releases, we do a series of internal reports on the state of things at predefined intervals. There’s a Day 0 report, Day 1, Day 7, etc. While the Day 0 and Day 1 reports were initially positive, by the end of the week it became clear that there were outstanding problems that took some time to reach a breaking point for players.
So, what were those problems? In order to figure that out, we have to do some basic analysis of the reviews themselves. To begin, I took every negative review on Steam and put them into a spreadsheet where they’re arranged, translated (we try to assess feedback from as many languages as we possibly can), and categorized based on what their main complaint is. (This isn’t the only way we analyze feedback, but reviews are fairly easy to explain so they make ideal content for demonstrating the point in this dev diary.)
Once everything has been neatly categorized (a task I find immensely soothing, for the record), I can generate a quick chart showing which complaints are dominating the conversation. The main cause of stability complaints in the reviews were already addressed or being investigated, so we can skip that category and take a look at the next one in the list: Balancing.
[Outside of stability issues, balancing concerns make up the majority of complaints about Khans of the Steppe.]
With my chart prepared, I can go to the design team and our Game Director to tell them “Players think the balancing is wonky, and here’s data to prove it.” From there, we can actually go through feedback to identify specific pain points and begin to address them in our first post-release support update (more on what that specific term means later).
If you’re only interested in what’s next for Khans of the Steppe, then I’ll summarize here and save you some time: We know that players have concerns with the DLC and we’re working to address as many of these concerns as we can within the time we have allotted for post-release support before anything else is pushed off to Realm Maintenance.
If you want to know more about how our communication pipeline from player to developer works, and how we act on what we hear from you, then read on! I intend to ramble for a bit longer.
Player Feedback
In order to properly explain how we turn comments on the internet into changelog entries, I first need to talk about how we collect and parse feedback from all of our supported platforms.
Pre-Release Feedback
Our handling of player feedback for Khans of the Steppe started quite a while back, before the announcement of Chapter 4 in fact. Our preview dev diary back in February was published so far ahead of the normal schedule specifically so that we could gather information about player desires and expectations regarding a Nomad-focused DLC. The feedback we received from that DD is directly responsible for a variety of changes that made it into the release version of Khans of the Steppe, such as expanding the new Nomadic government type to certain non-steppe regions.
Additionally, we run a persistent closed beta program of roughly 100 people from our community. This includes members of various high-profile mod teams, historians, members of the community with a history of sending detailed and actionable feedback, and a small pile of content creators. The point of this program is to get direct player feedback on upcoming content as early into the development process of an update as we can (For Khans of the Steppe, this began roughly a year ago). As development progresses, more of the design is solidified and becomes more difficult to change in response to feedback, so this program is considered vital to us.
Once the development version has progressed far enough that we’re able to announce it publicly, we begin a fresh dev diary cycle. These serve to inform the playerbase of what we’re working on while giving us a chance to get broader opinions and suggestions about the upcoming content. Our companion videos that are released on our YouTube channel are also helpful here, since viewer retention stats can inform us which sections within a given dev diary are of particular interest to viewers.
[Retention graph for Dev Diary 166; the bump at the 11 minute mark shows that viewers were particularly interested in the “Blessings of the Blue Sky” segment]
Finally, in the last month or so before releasing Khans of the Steppe, we ran a separate preview group to get a final round of feedback. This is essentially a time-limited version of our persistent beta, and has a similar selection criteria for participation. During this stage, we essentially throw the flood gates open and pull in as many people as we think we can manage while maintaining some semblance of operational security. Mod team representation increases dramatically during this stage in order to give them a head start on compatibility patching their mods, and any content creator too slow to outrun our Influencer Relations Manager is also pulled into this time-limited program. Before you ask: Yes, that youtuber you’re thinking of is in this program. Yes, that one is too. Yes, them as well.
[A snippet from the aforementioned preview group. Yes, we run this through Discord.]
The goal here is to make sure that the content we’re working on matches the expectations of our players as closely as possible ahead of release; the persistent beta program allows us to do this in broader strokes while the DLC is still taking shape, and the preview program allows us to catch more issues that would have slipped through the net (as well as giving us a head start on our first post-release support update).
Post-Release Feedback
That’s all well and good, but what do we do about feedback after something is released?
After a major release, gathering immediate feedback from players is crucial to ensure that any critical issues that made it through testing phases are swiftly handled, and that our post-release support cycle is focused on addressing player pain points with the new content. We actively collect this feedback from a wide variety of places; our own forums, Facebook, Steam, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, QQ Guild, Bilibili, Tieba, among others. Essentially, if it’s posted on a publicly visible platform, odds are that we’re going to see it one way or another.
[The pc-feedback channel on our official Discord server is one of several “primary” feedback channels we use. Voting systems make it easier to tell at a glance which posts are more important to the community there. Sadly, Reddit votes aren’t as useful for this purpose.]
To facilitate the collection of this amount of information, we have a set of Community Ambassadors (or “CAs”) who act as additional support for the bridge between our players and the development team.
One of the main responsibilities of our CAs revolves around collecting player sentiment and feedback, monitoring discussions, and identifying pressing issues that players report post-release. You’ve said it? They’ve probably read it. They help cast the net as far as possible to ensure no significant feedback slips through. After a major release drops, they immediately begin scouring for reactions then compile them into a detailed Day 1 post-release report for the studio.
[A snippet from the Day 1 report for Khans of the Steppe. These initial reports are crucial for identifying standout issues that need to be handled as soon as possible]
They condense hundreds of discussion threads, suggestions, and reports into a more digestible format to quickly identify what the community finds most pressing. As you can see above, crashing was the most prevalent issue highlighted in the Day 1 report, while balance issues weren’t widely reported until after the Day 1 report period.
Feedback gathered this way is used to determine what the priorities of the development team should be during the post-release cycle, which finally brings us to the namesake of this dev diary…
Post-Release Support
Our studio is structured into various internal teams, with each one focusing on specific updates or expansions. We have a team for Khans of the Steppe, All Under Heaven, Coronations, and others we can’t discuss quite yet. Post-Release Support (PRS) is the final stage of development for a Major Update before the team assigned to that update is dissolved and its members moved to other teams within the studio.
The main objective of the PRS stage is to address any outstanding issue that may have slipped through the pre-development cycle. This includes fixing bugs, tweaking gameplay balances, and implementing various improvements or alterations to systems based on player feedback. The goal is to essentially “finalize” the DLC, but this doesn’t mean we cease work on the DLC outright. Any further updates or fixes that aren’t able to be implemented during the PRS stage go towards Realm Maintenance to be integrated into future updates rather than having their own dedicated release.
During a PRS stage, we step up our Quality Assurance (QA) efforts by bringing in additional specialists to assist with PRS. These specialists work closely with the development team to review bug reports and ensure that as many reported issues as possible are investigated, identified, and assigned to a member of the development team to be addressed. If you’re reporting bugs on our official forums during a PRS stage, these are the people replying to and tagging your posts.
[As an aside, the tags are there to signal to other members of the team that a post has been looked at; this reduces the chances of us wasting time by going over threads that are already being handled.]
Another important aspect of the PRS stage is taking care of issues that were “locked out” of the initial release for one reason or another. Two of the main reasons this could happen are feature freeze and loc freeze. During feature freeze, no new mechanics can be added to a DLC; anything that needs to be tacked on after feature freeze must target a future update. Similarly, a loc freeze means that no new player-facing text can be added, as localization into all of our supported languages takes a significant amount of time; any content that requires new or updated text after localization freeze must be scheduled for a future update. While these freezes mean that our response to feedback can sometimes be delayed, they ultimately help ensure that updates actually release when they’re intended to.
In most cases, the aforementioned future update will be one of the “point releases” during PRS. Each PRS stage typically has time allocated for two or three of these updates, with the expectation that we’ll need them to tackle issues that cropped up after feature/loc freeze or issues reported by the community. Additionally, we allocate time for hotfixes as necessary to allow emergency updates.
[It’s a bit messy to look at, but you can see here how certain commits by the development team are sent to different branches depending on their contents. We have a lot of internal development branches.]
Post-Release Support is an essential part of the development cycle in that it allows us to address player feedback as it’s submitted to us, but also to set the stage for future development by giving us a stronger idea of what players expect and want from the game.
Next Steps
So, what has the feedback we’ve gotten since Khans of the Steppe been about, and what do players want from the game?
Mainly, that the balancing is wonky and that our more dedicated players want the game to be harder. We’ve released Update 1.16.1 and 1.16.2 already to tackle the former, and I’ve been working directly with our Game Director to implement something to help us address the latter; this will take the form of Hard and Very Hard difficulty modes releasing alongside Update 1.16.2.1 sometime later this week.
[Highly experimental! Mostly untested! Probably imbalanced! Try it out later this week and tell us what you think.]
As we’ve said in the past, we want difficulty and challenge to be something that arise organically from how our mechanics interact, and think that giving flat buffs to the AI or penalties to the player for arbitrary reasons isn’t an ideal solution. That said, our community has made it clear that we’re not meeting our objective, and doing something is better than doing nothing. So while we intend to continue pursuing our goal of emergent challenge in the long term, we’re introducing these new difficulties for players who want the game to be harder right now.
[A small collection of some of the bonuses AI characters will receive in Hard/Very Hard difficulties.]
We’ve also heard quite a few people asking for a passive herd decay mechanic. To go ahead and rip the bandaid off: We’re not planning on implementing this. Put simply, the system wasn’t designed with this in mind and is instead built around discrete reductions. Too much of the game goes off the rails when it tries to deduct what doesn’t exist, and herd decay ultimately impacts AI rulers far more than it impacts players (compounding balance/difficulty concerns). With the PRS stage for Khans of the Steppe coming to an end, we don’t have the time or resources available to rework a core aspect of the DLC to this degree. Additional adjustments to this system are still possible in Realm Maintenance updates, but these are unlikely to fundamentally rework the system itself.
Aside from that, we’ve heard we still have bugs to squash! AI asking you for paizas should be significantly reduced in the next update, the steppe region map mode should be properly colored in again, etc etc etc. We’ll have a full changelog of what’s been fixed releasing alongside the update itself later this week.
After that, we’ll have a period of relative stability where mod authors can update their mods and players can finish a longer campaign without worrying about another update dropping and causing them grief. We’ll still be working on bugs and other issues that get reported (or already have been), but they’ll be packaged up alongside the release of our next piece of Chapter IV.
While this is far from a comprehensive overview of development cycles, post-release support, or even feedback loops, I hope this gives you a stronger understanding of how these systems work at a glance. I’m always happy to talk at length about damn near anything involving Studio Black (as anyone subjected to one of my rants on our Discord can attest), so if you have any specifics you’d like to know more about then feel free to drop a comment and I’ll answer them as best I can!
That’s all we have for this week, but be sure to come back next Tuesday; we’ll be talking about the design vision for a small piece of content we’re working on called All Under Heaven.
Update 1.16.2
Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.16.2, which brings a broad range of feature tweaks, improvements, balance adjustments, and bug fixes.
Check the changelog below for more information!
1.16.2 Changelog
Features
Added Golden Lineage trait for the Greatest of Khans and their descendants, replacing the GoK house modifier
Added Ask to Join Confederation interaction, so players can hop into existing confederation on their own initiative
Added a Confederation Member guest pool to activities, so the members of your Confederation will be invited to activities
Added an important action to join your Tributaries’ wars
Dominating a Title now bypasses existing truces
Tribal era innovations now provide some Nomad specific bonuses
Added a Reindeer internal yurt building that provides county fertility bonuses in Forest and Taiga terrain
External yurt levels now have unique names
Gives Mogyer Confederation the Confederation Elective succession law, and gives Almos Arpad the First King of the Confederation modifier
Adds horse animations to the Warhorse story cycle, and diversifies background art
Steppe-culture castle and city holdings will now use art associated with their geographical region, and the steppe will use MENA holding art
Audits character window and event backgrounds for some general improvements, as well as specific steppe and tribal updates
Steppe-culture non-nomads (feudal, clan etc.) use backgrounds appropriate to their geographical region, ex. Western backgrounds in France, Indian backgrounds in India
Steppe-culture non-nomads use MENA backgrounds everywhere in the steppe if their location’s religion is Muslim, and otherwise: MENA backgrounds everywhere but the western steppe or Siberia (where they use Western backgrounds)
Steppe-culture tribals and landless adventurers use nomadic backgrounds in most cases
Tribals will use appropriate tribal-looking fallback backgrounds in more cases, rather than generic western feudal fallbacks
Improves Mongol invasion events with some updated loc, music, animations, backgrounds
Bugfixes
Government type and vassal stance filters no longer resets whenever a subject contract gets modified
Fixed an issue where no courtiers were generated for landed characters because of a faulty check on filled council positions
You can no longer mug herders
Cumania will no longer be named Khazaria in 1066 and 1178 start dates
Lowered the frequency of AIs asking for Paizas
Recently Sacked modifier now has a mixed martial icon
Added a 10-year cooldown to A Servant of WitchGodName event
Greatest of Khans Domicile will no longer bypass locked domicile slots
Iron Cavalry and Wolves of the Deep Steppe are not shown as potential to every culture in the game anymore
Bring Under Tribute CB has correct info about which Tributary Contracts will be established
Fixed tooltip for Herders County Fertility effects from the Seasons
Adopt Feudal Ways decision - the check for Tribes of the North culture is no longer visible for everyone
Organize Court task for Yeke Jarquchi Court Position now correctly increases Aptitude of other Court Positions
The Skull Collection internal upgrade for the Court Yurt now properly affects the agent joining chance for Schemes.
Schemes are no longer sometimes incorrectly invalidated when loading a save
The Impose Obedience intent is no longer visible if you don't own Tours & Tournaments
The Byzantine throne room will no longer appear in unrelated Steppe cultures
Both Heavy Horse Archers and Horse Archers now count towards the Horse Breeders cultural tradition discount
The Tribes of the North cultural tradition only requires the Khans of the Steppe DLC now
The Steppe by Steppe achievement now takes into account the expanded areas of the Steppe through the Expand the Steppe decision
The Peace of the Great Khan decision no longer turns your government into a Republic
Opinion now properly affects the migration acceptance
The Vassals Cannot Migrate current situation tooltip is now more clear
Reactive advice for razing holdings as a nomad now takes the cooldown into consideration
Added a new trigger for checking if a holding could be razed by a nomad to improve the reactive advice for razing holdings
The Pleasure Dome building is always enabled after building it, even if your culture no longer has the Turkic or Mongolic heritage
The tooltip for the stargazer now correctly states you need to not be a kurultai member, rather than just "is not a councilor"
Added new defines for determining how many commanders are generated for mercenary and holy order titles
Landless rulers no longer have a max dread of zero
Fixed values displayed for contributed herd from herder tributaries in the realm subjects window
Fixed a bug where co-monarchs' would show up as "co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-[title]" when they were becoming an independent ruler
Fixed information about culture heads determined by herd in the culture window
Fixed a softlock when the travel planning window was open
Fixed nomads being charged gold for reducing maa size and receiving double herd back in some cases
Made the game rule for nomadic situations unique so they are findable by type
Fixed crash when trying to update a null province's domicile location cache
Fixed white screen soft lock when canceling from iron man save interface
Claims now use the base name of a title
Added cost icon to men-at-arms that are creatable because of a tributary contract
Vassals being targeted by the migration interaction now defer to their liege as the interaction recipient
Prevented men_at_arms_limit modifier to drop the max size of men-at-arms regiments below 0
Improved levy contribution tooltip when inspecting vassal and tributary levy contributions in the realm window
Vassals of tributaries now contribute levies to the tributary's suzerain
Made levies income row visible for nomads since they can get levies from feudal tributaries and vassals
Fixed calculation for adjusted county fertility decline
Fixed noble family rating growing from house members outside realm
Fixed many court positions randomly invalidating for nomads during migration or when the holders got wounded/ill/old
Fixed a bug causing parts of some subject contracts to be reset when loading a save
Fixed bookmark characters not always wearing what their bookmark showed them wearing
Fixed the Cuman war mask not being selectable in the barbershop
Made the confederation_member script list work properly
Made visit settlement for adventurers work as it should in herder and nomad holdings
Explicitly cancels a character's tributary contract once they become a vassal
Cancels truces both ways when a tributary contract is cancelled
A suzerain and a tributary are no longer referred to as 'liege' and 'vassal' in the subject contract window
Improved the tooltips for the court position tasks 'blend cultures' and 'accommodate tributaries', so they describe in detail how much they will increase cultural acceptance
Fixed issue in army window where there was a lot of lag opening the screen when you had a lot of special troops
Suzerains who join defensive wars should not be listed as allies when starting offensive wars. Also properly excluded defensive-only allies when calculating military strength with clear attacker-defender relation
Reduces incidents of peasant characters wearing rags while married to noble characters
AI will now use Herd to ransom themselves
Prevents priest characters in nomad flavor events from being deleted or moved to the pool after being hired
Balance
Limits Blood Brotherhood to same-gender characters, unless both are rulers or gender law is Equal
Rebalanced Temujin’s conqueror event to give smaller immediate rewards, but recurring bonuses over the next few years
Temujin’s conqueror event won’t give the Mongol Empire title, but clears the cooldown for Dominate Title
Made it likely Temujin’s conqueror event will happen earlier, while he is ~30-40 years old
Adds Herd effects to random conqueror events and their modifiers, making them more suitable for nomads
Balanced MaA ai quality so that nomads will hire more diverse MaA types, and be less obsessed with Steppe Raiders
Reduced the number of Confederations being formed and reduced the acceptance chance once they have 3 members.
Low Prowess and Low Dominance decreases marriage acceptance for Nomads
Player characters starting in regions that have Extra Nomads game rule turned on will always have Nomadic government (unless playing as a historically tribal culture in their area, such as Ethiopian in the Horn of Africa region)
Readjusted the inspection tree for nomadic rulers, removing some settled elements and giving them access to more elements from the Adventurer variant of the tree instead
Made levels 1 and 2 of the Herd Barter internal upgrade allow you to sell 10% of herd for a 10:1 exchange ratio, Levels 3 and 4 15% for 8:1, Levels 5 and 6 20% for 6:1
Removed the option to sell more and earn more from the event you get after taking the Summoning Wealthy Visitors: Local Offers decision
Non-nomadic characters targeted by the migration interaction are now much less willing to peaceably give up their lands
Reduced herder fertility growth bonus from pastoralists and the communal ethos from 2 to 0.35 (roughly the same as one single province with steppe terrain)
Reduced sources of knight effectiveness % from nomad yurt buildings
Reduced duration of First King of the Confederation modifier and added title creation cost malus
Potential GoK’s tributaries (and rulers below them) are prevented from joining the Great War of Defiance, reducing difficulty for the potential GoK in most circumstances
AI are more likely to take the Become GoK decision when they are valid for it
Adds vassal herd modifier to Disciplinarian Accolade
Art
Added domicile building icon for reindeer yurt
Added Golden Lineage trait icon
Interface
Added a fix to the traits possibly pushing buttons out of the list widget
Made trait overspill hide under button or bottom right box in character lists
Fixes for culture names pushing interface
Toast messages fired during succession are now properly animated and no longer half transparent
Improved the Migration window when playing nomadic situations other than The Great Steppe such as the Sápmi
Fixed issue causing subject opinion changes not to show in tooltips when modifying subject contracts for tributaries
Separated barony and character modifiers in the UI for domicile buildings
Updated the Dominance level indicators on the Nomad widget
Localization
Added information about the change of Obedience acceptance in Legitimacy tooltips
Improved display of edge case fail conditions for Negotiate Obedience interaction
Lowered Eyelid options are now properly localized
Updated the Domicile game concept to reflect their current succession behavior
Improved the description of Sovereignty CB
Fixed the localization for the disband_confederation effect
Changed mention of vassal in tax tooltips to subject
Fixed loc of Situation game concept
Databases
Renamed black horde to red horde which would be more suitable with cardinal direction color assignment
User Modding
Added a new neighboring_top_overlords_connected_by_land ai_recipients list that targets overlords of neighbors that are connected to them by land (including through tributaries)
Added define to control the maximum size of horde riders independent of maa modifiers that a character might have
As always, if you encounter any issues after today's update, please disable any mods and post a thread in the Bug Report board of our official forums. if the issue persists. We hope today's update improves your in-game experience!
Update 1.16.1
Hello everyone! Today we're releasing Update 1.16.1 to address some outstanding issues with Khans of the Steppe and the associated free "Chamfron" Update. Notably, this includes a variety of balance tweaks to Nomadic characters, as well as fixes for various issues reported by the community since the release of 1.16 last week.
Check the changelog below for more information!
1.16.1 Changelog
Bugfixes
Fixed Veils not being removable in the Barbershop
Fixed the Stand and Fight tradition giving too much Heavy Cavalry toughness %
Made sure that players always start with a minimum of 7 Courtiers (unless they're adventurers)
Made it possible to launch the special Hungarian migration via Decision even if you're nomadic
Fixed most instances of getting Chaotic Succession kurultai events because someone else in your family died
Fixed a crash that could happen if a domicile is spawned without a valid location
Fixed a crash that could happen if you manage to switch to an unplayable character
Fixed the conditions for the MENA throne room to appear, that caused some Steppe cultures to use the Byzantine throne room instead
Fixed the effects of the Peace of the Great Khan decision that caused some steppe counties to be turned into republics
Balance
Lowered efficiency of reinforcing MaA with Herd from 0.75 to 0.4 (1 MaA is now 2,5 Herd, up from 1,3)
Lowered efficiency of reinforcing MaA with Gold for Nomads from 4 to 1.5 (1 MaA is now 0.66 Gold, up from 0.25)
If suffering from a Chaotic Succession, it's now a 3/4 chance of receiving the Major consequences if you qualify for them (up from 1/4), and a 2/3 chance to suffer from medium consequences if you qualify for them
Made the 'Realm Split' outcomes of Chaotic Succession more common
Made non-nomads care about fewer positive Tributization modifiers, and made them less likely to want to willingly submit to nomads in general (tribals are slightly more likely than feudals)
Added a -25 County Control penalty to Counties gained via the Demand Pastureland interaction
Added Growth penalties to Herders and Settled Rulers during a Severe Drought (-0.5), White Zud (-2) and Cold Zud (-1) to make it harder to keep high fertility by releasing/demanding pasture land
Increased the Fertility Decline from White Zud (40% to 80%) and Cold Zud (30% to 40%) for Nomadic rulers
Reduced the Fertility Growth percentage during a White Zud (-40% to -80%) for Herders and Settled Rulers
Added an immediate Fertility reduction for Herders when a bad season starts (-50 during a White Zud, -25 during a Cold Zud, -10 during a Severe Drought)
Added County Control reduction when a bad season takes over for Nomadic rulers in all held counties: -25 for a White Zud and Havsarsan Zud, -10 for Cold Zud
Added Herd loss during a White Zud for Nomadic rulers: 10% of their current herd during a White Zud, 20% during a Havsarsan Zud
Increased the Herd Gain penalty for Nomadic rulers during a Severe Drought (-5% to -10%), White Zud (-10% to -40%) and Havsarsan Zud (-30% to -80%)
Added Prestige loss to the failure outcome of the Steal Herd scheme
Reduced the initial max success chance of the Steal Herd scheme (from 40 to 30)
Reduced base acceptance for the Negotiate Obedience character interaction (from -50 to -95) and added a medium Prestige cost scaling with Dominance level
Removed White Zud from the possible initial seasons on game starts, and rebalanced the chances for the others (40% Abundant Grazing, 20% Severe Drought, 20% Cold Zud, 20% Everlasting Summer)
Reduced the base Prestige gain from a Great Nerge from 300 to 250
Reduced the base Prestige gain from an Excellent Nerge from 400 to 350, and the Gold from 350 to 250
Halved the values of all Herd gained through the Raid Intents and fixed the tooltips to reflect this: from 400% to 200% for Pillage, from 200% to 100% for Capture, from 600% to 300% for Plunder and from 400% to 200% for Adventure
Reduced the base reluctance of the recipient for the Pledge Tribute character interaction (from -100 to -50)
Added new Cultural Traditions to the Hunnic culture: Pastoralists, Horse Breeders and Recognition of Talent
Lowered the exchange ratio obtained through the Summon Wealthy Visitors decision if the Herd Barter domicile building is constructed: from 6:1 to 10:1 in levels 1 and 2, from 4:1 to 8:1 for levels 3 and 4 and from 2:1 to 6:1 for levels 5 and 6
As always, if you encounter any issues after today's update, please disable any mods and post a thread in the Bug Report board of our official forums. if the issue persists. We hope today's update improves your experience in the Great Steppe and beyond!
Update 1.16.0.2
Hello everyone! We have another hotfix tackling some stability issues ahead of our more-substantial 1.16.1 Update (which will contain a variety of bugfixes and balance adjustments). Check the changelog below for specifics.
Update 1.16.0.2 Changelog
Memory optimizations to fix certain freezes and crashes
Hello everyone! We're releasing a quick update today to address some issues reported to us since the release of 1.16.0 yesterday. We are currently working on a more substantial update to address more outstanding issues, but we believe it is important to push fixes for these particular issues as soon as possible.
Update 1.16.0.1 Changelog
Fixes crashes which could occur when saves from older versions were present in the save game folder
Fixes player getting pulled into AI nerge event causing them to get maimed
Fixes stutters on paused lategame saves with large realms
Khans of the Steppe & Free 1.16.0 "Chamfron" Update - Available Now
Hello everyone! Today we're releasing our second Core Expansion and first piece of major content in Chapter IV: Khans of the Steppe. We're also releasing Update 1.16.0 "Chamfron" alongside this core expansion.
Check out the release trailer below, and then the changelog under that.
Update 1.16.0 "Chamfron" Changelog
Expansion Features (Paid)
Added the new Nomadic Government Type, heavily inspired by the nomads of the Eurasian Steppe, introducing a new playstyle around Herd and Migration.
Migration allows nomadic rulers to move around the Great Steppe in search of better pasture lands. Negotiate with the locals or subjugate them by force.
Herd is a new currency only available for Nomads that can be converted into Horde Riders and upgraded into better Men-at-Arms.
Nomadic Vassal Contracts: focused on Herd instead of Levies.
The Nomadic Capital Domicile – It represents the collection of yurts nomads have during migration. They include 8 new domicile buildings with 80+ new internal upgrades and a Domicile Culture/Faith mechanic with unique Decisions and Character Interactions.
5 Dominance levels for Nomads that govern their Domain and Vassal limit, which Decisions they can take and what titles they can target during migration.
Nomads have a new Dread cap: 150.
Nomadic Subjects and Courtiers have Obedience towards their overlord, measuring how likely they are to form factions, perform hostile plots and respect their decision of heir during succession.
Gain someone's Obedience by demanding it, negotiating it or just impressing them through new Character Interactions and Activity Intents.
Added new Schemes for Nomads, such as Steal Herd.
Added 4 Vassal Directives just for nomadic vassals.
New Council Positions for Nomads – the Kurultai Members.
Kurultai Members may perform some familiar tasks like Increase County Control and Domestic Affairs, but they will also have 6 new tasks focused on Herd gain, Fertility management, Piety, Raiding, Culture Hybridization and Reformation and even Exploiting their own lands to gain some extra income but reduce the Fertility.
A new Succession Type for nomads: the Kurultai Succession with different outcomes based on how Stable or Chaotic it is. Chaotic successions have effects such as herd loss, realm splits, or even realm dissolution (depending on realm size and number of disobedient kurultai members)
Settlement Issues: new contracts available for nomadic rulers after migration, focusing on increasing the county control of their new area.
The Way of the Nomad trait ensures that the nomadic lifestyle stays with their children for one generation after leaving the steppe, focusing on Cultural and Religious tolerance and opening up the possibility of becoming an adventurer.
Added the Great Steppe Situation: a new regional mechanic for the Eurasian Steppe, divided in three geographical regions.
Every county within the Great Steppe has County Fertility, regulating the Herd gained by the nomads holding them. With appropriate alerts for when the fertility is low, or when its time to migrate.
The Steppe Seasons affect the County Fertility of their region, as well as the behavior of the nomadic rulers within, including Vassalization and Tributarization acceptance, bonuses to raiding and even free CBs. The seasons are visualized on the map.
Gather the largest Herd of the steppe and become the Gurkhan, a formidable warrior marked for greatness, en route to become the Greatest of Khans.
Added another new, unplayable government Type: Herders, which inhabit the Steppe and replenish Fertility, but lack any military strength.
A new 1178 bookmark for Nomads: The Endless Sky.
A new 1066 bookmark for Nomads: At the Gates.
New game rules to make other areas Nomadic: Sápmi and Karelia, Arabia, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
Changed the map table to be adjusted based on situation, e.g. the Byzantine map table is only for Byzantines, and the plague one only happens during significant plagues
Added a ‘Bring under Tribute’ CB for non-nomads to force an independent ruler into becoming your tributary
Added a "become tributary" interaction, that lets you pledge yourself as tributary to an independent ruler of a government type that can have tributaries
Added a "demand tributary" interaction, that lets nomad rulers demand tribute from independent neighbors
Added two new non-nomadic tributary types and their obligation levels
New Nomadic Court Positions: Stargazer, General, Chief Law Overseer, Siege Engineer, Quartermaster, Keeper of Horses and Chief Bodyguard, with new tasks that heavily interact with the Nomadic government and the Great Steppe.
Added new Men-at-Arms for Nomads and Nomadic cultures
Steppe Raiders
Nomad Lancers
Heavy Horse-Archers
Torch-Bearers
Mangudai
Cataphract Archers
Maturkan Warriors
Added new Cultural Traditions to Cultures in the Great Steppe
Iron Cavalry
Wolves of the Deep Steppe
Tribes of the North
Devoted Horsemanship
Added Siberian Permafrost county modifier to lands on the northeastern border of the map that highly synergizes with the Tribes of the North Cultural Tradition
Added a new Blood Brother relationship type, hooked in as a variant of the friend relation
Only available through the Swear Blood Brotherhood interaction
Provides positive modifiers for useful blood brothers, and alliances between ruler blood brothers
Added the new Tsaagaan Tsar Feast type, only available in the winter months, to celebrate the coming of a new year and obtain gifts from your guests.
Added the new Nerge Hunt type – an activity focused on obtaining Martial and Prowess skillpoints, Commander Traits and trait experience.
Added more than 70 new flavour events for nomads, including events related to the seasons, blood brotherhood and migration.
Added severed head content to the execution interaction, allowing you to keep the heads of those you behead, or send the head to their successor
Adds flavor events for Temujin and Jamukha, as well as a conqueror event to propel player Temujin to becoming Greatest of Khans
Created a Greatest of Khans storyline, beginning with the Become Greatest of Khans decision
A Great War of Defiance CB that neighbors launch to prevent the Gurkhan from becoming Greatest of Khans
Revamped effects for the Greatest of Khans trait, and other bonuses
The Offer Submission or Ruin interaction for the Greatest of Khans, and the related GoK Onslaught CB
New Turkic, Mongolic and Iranian cultural nicknames for the Greatest of Khans
Reform the Great Khaganate Decision, a capstone to the GoK’s success, allowing them to establish a huge de jure empire and choose a government type of their choice (gaining significant bonuses towards that form of rule)
Added 25 new special Decisions for Nomads, including
Decisions to switch government types
Decisions to expand your realm
Expand the Steppe region
Introduce your heir to potential friends and blood brothers
Manage fertility in your domain
Hire courtiers and candidates for new court positions
Added new Casus Bellis for nomad rulers, including Overrun Kingdom, Expand Dominance, Sovereignty, Humiliation, Retaliation, and Nomadic County/Duchy Quarrels
Added a Paiza system with unique decisions and character interactions:
Establish Paiza System
Summon Wealthy Visitors: Paiza
Abuse Gurkhan’s Authority
Leverage Khan’s Authority
Added a new Nomadic Dynasty Legacy focusing on Herd management, Fertility, Raiding and military might
Revamped the old Mongol Invasion event chain, integrating new features and elements of the Greatest of Khans story
Added the Burkhan Khaldun special building in Khentii.
Added new ambience sounds and music tracks for nomads.
Game Content
Added 5 new Raid Intents, available for Nomadic and Tribal armies
Pillage
Terrorize
Capture
Plunder
Adventure
Added Confederations: an agreement between tribal or nomadic rulers that commits them to joining one another's defensive wars
Decision to Call for a Confederation
The Offer Confederation interaction, which adds rulers to the confederation
An Abandon Confederation decision for leaving your confederation
A decision which allows you to turn your confederation into a kingdom-tier realm, with you as its monarch, and Confederation Elective succession for the created title
Added new icon for Confederations
Added a "Bring Under Tribute" CB for non-nomadic rulers
Added potential friends, potential lovers, tributaries, and suzerains to the default activity guest invite rules
Made it possible for domicile buildings to trigger specific map graphics for holdings
Added character interaction for guardians to teach a commander trait to a ward
Added memory for all participants of a successful hunt
Added mercenary_hire_time_mult modifier affecting how long mercenary contracts last
Added capital_fort_level and capital_additional_fort_level modifiers
Updated councilor related events to include kurultai if they fit the context
Subject contracts can now have prestige transfers as obligations
Added new interaction category "tribute"
Added a new Vassal Stance, Belligerent
Databases
Renamed the kingdom of Mongolia to the kingdom of Ötuken
Rearranged the starting Cultural Traditions for cultures in the Steppe
St Wenceslaus Cathedral changes: the building now has 3 upgradable levels, renamed to Archcollegiate Church of St. Mary and St. Alexius, and moved to Łęczyca barony. The University special building has been returned to Kraków.
Bugfixes
Removed duplicate raid icon in diplomatic_icons texture
Fix to subject directive icons not being aligned properly
The ai will actually check if they can feudalize holdings now–they’ve never done so.
Fix to maximum amount of horizontal slots for terrain effects
Fix to men at arms illustrations being stretched and cut too much at the top
Fixed crash when calculating tax collector aptitude due to recursive call of script value
Fixed sometimes misleading tooltips for rewards and wounds in hunts
Fixed message when liege grants you a pardon
Fixed reversed reason when rival gained from losing realm
Fixed erroneous liege converting county notifications
Fixed fellow vassal faction join event referring to you as the liege
Fixed visuals for the soldier of the cross crusader trait event
Fixed dangerous beast slain modifier sometimes being applied after hunting non-dangerous animals
Characters will now use more correct cultural weapons in animations
Improved readability of messages from tutor educate child task
Non-Christian characters will no longer use the crucifix scepter prop in admin realms
Made effect tooltip for pleasure dome more generic in case you don't have a barony selected
Fixed missing councilor tooltip erroneously referencing councilor instead of kurultai member when playing as a nomad
Revealed the actual gold cost behind Pay Homage
Changed court position tooltip concept to be player contextual, and display officer instead, or in addition to, court position when appropriate
Removed old holder of court position being oddly grateful that you replaced them
Added missing capitalization to county titles
Fixed appearance of monk in the necromancer event
Players will now only be informed of faith creation when nearby or otherwise relevant to them
Made it impossible to relocate your capital to a province with a disabled holding
Fixed ai adventurers sometimes getting a hook on you because they completed a contract for your councilor
Fixed bloody weddings and grand wedding events having incorrect scopes when disbursing rewards
Fixed peasant faction war being not inherited on death of the primary defender
When your charioteer loses, the corresponding team color illustration will show up
The event treacherous slopes will now tell you of the outcome of the stewardship options
The adventurer landed message will now only be shown for rulers within the same realm
The event night attack will no longer wound the same poor follower multiple times
Event “Nursing a Suspicion” can no longer make spouses suspicious about themselves
1178 start date: Sancho of Teruel, Tello Pedrez of Calatrava, Pedro II Manriquez of Molina, Fernando Rodrigez of Merida, now have feudal government
Fixed a faulty trigger for managing courtiers
Fixed a crash when removing a character from a great holy war
Fixed the inverted descriptions of mozarabic_break_with_rome_decision of righteous and fundamentalist
Fixed a few instances of incorrect usage of title tier as honorific
Fixed a typo having an additional comma in the description of grand wedding in the wedding ceremony
Fixed a bug where empire-tier title holders did not get the offer fealty malus for king-tier (or higher) titles
Blocked armless people from doing actions which require using two hands
Fixed an issue where newly landed Muslim rulers would get Male Preference instead of Male Only succession
Balance
Dissolution factions now also destroy any kingdoms an emperor might hold, avoiding border gore/impotent dissolution faction outcomes where everyone's still in one realm
Increased and standardized speed of adventurer contracts
Added a decaying opinion malus for your former suzerain if you break the tributary relationship by pledging fealty to someone else
Flat MaA bonuses from cultural traditions have been converted to percentage bonuses.
Art
Turkic cultures of the west steppes now use The Legacy of Persia clothing assets as they are a better fit historically
Added nomadic UI skin, inspired by Mongolian patterns, architecture and relief art. You can see elements from their yurts like the interior, fabrics with different patterns and symbols like the falcon.
New Interfaces
Migration
Great Steppe Situation
Added new event themes with associated icons
Raid
Migration
Settlement
Added Coat-of-Arms Shapes and Headers
Confederation Header
Nomad and Herder CoA Shapes
Added situation modifier icons
Some improvements to the bp3 portrait environments
Added icons and illustrations for new nomadic Men-At-Arms unit types
Mangudai
Nomad Lancers
Steppe Raiders
Torch-Bearers
Maturkan
Keshig
Heavy Cavalry Archers
Cataphract Archers
Added new icons for Levies and Nomadic Riders which are the nomadic counterparts of feudal levies.
Succession
Added new icons for Peaceful and Chaotic succession, both in a rendered and flat style.
Added new headers and patterns for Peaceful & Chaotic Succession shown in the Succession tab in the Realm view
New icons added for nomadic dominance levels with a frame for the active level and a special frame for the highest level, both active and inactive.
Added new Kurultai task icons and adjusted frame shape to fit the nomadic theme better
Support Herders
Domestic Affairs
Manage Fertility
Exploit Lands
Increase Control
Organize Raiders
Aid Stargazer
Explore Cultures
Added siberian permafrost modifier icon
Added new court position icons
Yurtchi
Yeke Jarguchi
Foreign Emissary
Boyan
Cherbi
Court Astrologer
Added a new icon for the Gurkhan
Added Ovoo as temple mesh and illustration for settled Tengri rulers
Added new Casus Belli icons
Make Tributary
Migration
Retaliation
Humiliations
Added new icons for the new Tributary interactions
Become Tributary
Release Tributary
Demand Tributary
Cease Paying Tributary
Fixed levitating cross-legged characters mena and indian thrones
Added “Confederation” decision image.
Adjusted decision illustrations so that they do not stretch when made into a button or when non-decision images are used as decisions
Added northern tribes, wolves of the deep steppe and iron cavalry cultural tradition images
Added new assets to the Event window:
Added new orange Event Window header background for nomadic related events
Added new Event type icons for nomadic and migration related events
Burkhan Khaldun mesh and icon positioned in the map with the necessary terrain adjustments
Added steppe royal court in 3 grandeur variants
Added steppe royal court props : table, chests, panels, tugs, fireplaces, carpets, tapestry, banners, lectern, pedestals, main throne, spouse throne
Added Nomadic Lifestyle trait icon.
Added a new icon for the the Situations Map Mode
New nomadic and herder settlement building icon added
Added 6 steppe season illustrations
Added Activity Type Illustrations
Nerge
Tsagaan Sar
Added Holding Type Illustrations
Herder Camp
Nomad Camp
Added Story Event Illustrations
Great Khan
The Great Steppe
New loading screen
Added new Raid Loot icon
Added a new Artifact Icon for nomadic Paizas
Added a new icon for Paiza Character Interactions
Added mongol level 1 to 5 holding models
Added herder holding model
Added level 1 to 4 mongol wall models
New illustration for nomadic horde added
Added new ethnicities for the Steppe: Tibetan, Turkic, West Turkic and Mongol
Nomadic Domicile
Added new icons in both a rendered and flat style for the Nomadic Domicile depicting a yurt to better fit the nomadic theme.
Added new Domicile map pin background texture that fits better with the nomadic theme
Added new Domicile window assets
Frame
Header
Paper texture
Added new Domicile background that fits the steppe and nomadic Domicile layout
Added new Nomadic Domicile buildings
Main Yurt tier 1, 2 & 3
Millet Storage
Khan’s Champions Yurt
Square of the Tumen
Court Yurt
Family Yurt
Ovoo
Barter Stalls
Empty slots
Added new smaller versions of the Nomadic Authority level icons to better fit in texts and use cases outside the Realm tab or nomadic HuD widget.
Added nomad Legacy Track illustration and icon
Added new icons for the Nomadic and Herder Government Types
Added 10 clothes for steppe cultures
Male commoner - Nomad's Deel
Male low nobility - Cross-Over Coat with Fur Lining
Male high nobility - Fine Cross-Over Coat with Fur Lining
Male royalty - Khan's Embroidered Robe
Male imperial - Khagan's Deel with Fur Coat
Female commoner - Steppe Woman's Deel
Female low nobility - Nomad Woman's Robe
Female high nobility - Nomad Woman's Fine Robe
Female royalty - Khanum's Coat with Embroidery
Female imperial - Khatun's Splendid Robes
Added 8 Headgear for steppe cultures
Male/Female commoner - Fur-Brimmed Shepherd Hat
Male nobility - Feathered Hat of the Steppe
Male royalty - Golden Flower Crown
Male imperial - Decorated Jonon Hat
Female nobility 01 - Nomadic Pearl Headband
Female nobility 02 - Khalkha Headdress with Pearl Bands
Female royalty - Khanum's Embellished Gugu Hat
Added 6 Hairstyles for steppe cultures
Male hair 01 - Khitan Warrior Style
Male hair 02 - Behind the Ear Braids
Male hair 03 - Steppe Rider's Fine Braids
Female hair 01 - Turkic Kirk Belik Braids
Female hair 02 - Steppe Style with Cloth Covers
Female hair 03 - Center-Parted with Decorated Covers
Added 6 Beards for steppe cultures
Mongol Style Mustache and Soul Patch
Nomadic Warrior's Beard
Nomad's Goatee
Mongol Style Mustache
Nomadic Warrior's Mustache
Nomad's Mustache
New event background illustrations
Steppe Temple
Steppe Evening
Steppe Hunt
Steppe City (Karakorum)
Nomad Throne Room (and main menu version)
Steppe camp day
Steppe camp night
Steppe Tent Interior
Asian Rural Village
Asian Rural Village Raid
Added military horse units for nomads
Added traveling horse units for nomads
Added grazing sheep to the map
Added horses to the map
New character animations
Standing next to horse
Shepherd (with sheep!)
Galloping with sword and shield
Conversing while mounted
Exhausted on horse animation
Surveying while mounted
Aggressive horse archer
Idle horse archer
New props
6 bows that can be drawn, both with and without arrows
Characters will now drink from culturally relevant cups
Sheep with variants representing ewes and rams, single color and spotted breeds
User modding
Vassal contracts lists on governments have been replaced with separate “subject contract groups” that can be reused between governments and used to start tributaries.
Most things “vassal contract” has been renamed “subject contract”.
Triggers related to vassals now often have tributary counterparts.
Triggers related to lieges now often have suzerain counterparts. Also overlord counterparts exist which acts on either liege or suzerain, depending on what the scoped character has.
Add debug info in portrait tooltip for played animation
Created a new raze_county script effect
Added new graphical 'defeated' unit state for units that have just lost a combat
Add holder_council_members and holder_tributaries as new elective succession candidate set types
Added deny_powerful_vassal government rule, which disallows a ruler from becoming a powerful vassal if they have a government with this rule (no uppity Herders allowed)
set_definitive_form now sets a default definite article for a title if the title does not already have a definite article set
Added support for setting the definite article of a dynamically generated title
Added on_actions for when a mercenary company is hired and dismissed
Added an on_action for when a character changes government type
Neighboring/_and_across_water_top_liege_realm/_owner script list variants now have suzerain variants as well
Adds modifiers character_opinion_from_high_prowess_add and character_opinion_from_low_prowess_add, altering the character's opinion based on their prowess delta from define average_prowess_value
Military_power compare trigger changes the ai_military_threat_modifier to use military_power instead of current/max_military_strength
Adds land_neighboring_realm_with_tributaries and land_neighboring_realm_with_tributaries_owner script lists
Added is_tributary_of_suzerain_or_above character trigger
Added an ai.interaction_values console command to determine an ai character's willingness to take an interaction on available targets
Localization used in the GUI for passing realm laws can now be customized per law
Added new character interaction target list, neighboring_rulers_including_tributary_borders
Added an ai_military_threat_modifier to be used in interactions that relate to the military threat value between two characters
Added a parameter for government types to allow tributaries
Added a parameter for government types for setting a scripted character template to be used when automatically generating characters for that type
Amended the vassal_contract_set_obligation_level effect with a version for tributaries called tributary_contract_set_obligation_level
Added a "hidden" animation in the default A-pose for testing purposes called bind_pose. It can be accessed in the portrait editor and is useful for checking clothing and body changes.
Domiciles are now owned by special landless titles instead of characters. The Domicile owner will be the special title holder.
Made it possible to set a scripted camera per triggered animation everywhere animations are used. This makes it possible to have horse and non-horse related triggered animations for one character position in the same event, for example.
The hard-coded limit of the amount of Legitimacy types that can exist has been removed
Each Legitimacy type can now have their own icon instead of sharing one
Added 'on_combat_start' and 'on_combat_unit_join_side' on actions
Added new script effects which allow more control over combat outcomes: ‘set_winner’, ‘force_win’, ‘set_disallowed_retreat’, ‘set_allow_early_retreat’, ‘set_skip_pursuit’
New ‘Situation’ system added to which can be used to create dynamic region-based gameplay systems. (see Modding dev diary #168 for more details)
Interface
Reworked the Realm window interface. Being one of our oldest panels, it was getting harder to work with and append new functionality to. While rewriting the code we also took the opportunity to improve its presentation coming on par with other modern windows while balancing the information load in each tab.
Added an expanded interface of the Kurultai tasks since all members have access to eight tasks each, which caused the portraits to be covered by icons.
Made paper styled UI skinnable, for example on contracts or letters. For now, mongolic cultures will have a more Eastern styled look to their paper interfaces.
Court position type tooltip now show requirements instead of showing a courtier's fulfillment of the requirements
Added contextual map icons for when raiders are raised and selected. Will show province loot within a range of selected raider armies owned by the player.
Added new ‘Diplomatic Relations’ map mode which shows what current diplomatic relations the selected ruler has
Exposed ‘File Transfer Speed’ setting to also be configurable in the multiplayer lobby settings
Multiplayer
Improved default transfer speed for MP save games, which should reduce time to start MP games significantly. The default (High) is now about four times faster than before. New file transfer setting options ‘Very high’ and ‘Ultra’ added, for very fast connections. The previous default transfer speed configuration is still available as the ‘Medium’ setting.
We're excited to finally release Khans of the Steppe, and we hope you have fun playing it! If you encounter any issues after today’s update, please disable all mods and ensure you’re playing on a fresh save file. If the issue persists, then please submit a bug report either via our Community Support board here on Steam or via the Bug Report board on our official forums.
Dev Diary #170 - Changelog & Achievements
Hello everyone! Everyone at Studio Black is busy putting the finishing touches on Khans of the Steppe ahead of its release next week, so this week’s dev diary is going to be a relatively short one. Without any further chatter, here are the achievements coming with Khans of the Steppe, and the changelog for the associated 1.16 “Chamfron” Update.
Achievements
Very Easy
Easy
Medium
Hard
Very Hard
Update 1.16.0 "Chamfron" Changelog
Reminder: This update is not live yet!
Expansion Features (Paid)
Added the new Nomadic Government Type, heavily inspired by the nomads of the Eurasian Steppe, introducing a new playstyle around Herd and Migration.
Migration allows nomadic rulers to move around the Great Steppe in search of better pasture lands. Negotiate with the locals or subjugate them by force.
Herd is a new currency only available for Nomads that can be converted into Horde Riders and upgraded into better Men-at-Arms.
Nomadic Vassal Contracts: focused on Herd instead of Levies.
The Nomadic Capital Domicile – It represents the collection of yurts nomads have during migration. They include 8 new domicile buildings with 80+ new internal upgrades and a Domicile Culture/Faith mechanic with unique Decisions and Character Interactions.
5 Dominance levels for Nomads that govern their Domain and Vassal limit, which Decisions they can take and what titles they can target during migration.
Nomads have a new Dread cap: 150.
Nomadic Subjects and Courtiers have Obedience towards their overlord, measuring how likely they are to form factions, perform hostile plots and respect their decision of heir during succession.
Gain someone's Obedience by demanding it, negotiating it or just impressing them through new Character Interactions and Activity Intents.
Added new Schemes for Nomads, such as Steal Herd.
Added 4 Vassal Directives just for nomadic vassals.
New Council Positions for Nomads – the Kurultai Members.
Kurultai Members may perform some familiar tasks like Increase County Control and Domestic Affairs, but they will also have 6 new tasks focused on Herd gain, Fertility management, Piety, Raiding, Culture Hybridization and Reformation and even Exploiting their own lands to gain some extra income but reduce the Fertility.
A new Succession Type for nomads: the Kurultai Succession with different outcomes based on how Stable or Chaotic it is. Chaotic successions have effects such as herd loss, realm splits, or even realm dissolution (depending on realm size and number of disobedient kurultai members)
Settlement Issues: new contracts available for nomadic rulers after migration, focusing on increasing the county control of their new area.
The Way of the Nomad trait ensures that the nomadic lifestyle stays with their children for one generation after leaving the steppe, focusing on Cultural and Religious tolerance and opening up the possibility of becoming an adventurer.
Added the Great Steppe Situation: a new regional mechanic for the Eurasian Steppe, divided in three geographical regions.
Every county within the Great Steppe has County Fertility, regulating the Herd gained by the nomads holding them. With appropriate alerts for when the fertility is low, or when its time to migrate.
The Steppe Seasons affect the County Fertility of their region, as well as the behavior of the nomadic rulers within, including Vassalization and Tributarization acceptance, bonuses to raiding and even free CBs. The seasons are visualized on the map.
Gather the largest Herd of the steppe and become the Gurkhan, a formidable warrior marked for greatness, en route to become the Greatest of Khans.
Added another new, unplayable government Type: Herders, which inhabit the Steppe and replenish Fertility, but lack any military strength.
A new 1178 bookmark for Nomads: The Endless Sky.
A new 1066 bookmark for Nomads: At the Gates.
New game rules to make other areas Nomadic: Sápmi and Karelia, Arabia, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
Changed the map table to be adjusted based on situation, e.g. the Byzantine map table is only for Byzantines, and the plague one only happens during significant plagues
Added a ‘Bring under Tribute’ CB for non-nomads to force an independent ruler into becoming your tributary
Added a "become tributary" interaction, that lets you pledge yourself as tributary to an independent ruler of a government type that can have tributaries
Added a "demand tributary" interaction, that lets nomad rulers demand tribute from independent neighbors
Added two new non-nomadic tributary types and their obligation levels
New Nomadic Court Positions: Stargazer, General, Chief Law Overseer, Siege Engineer, Quartermaster, Keeper of Horses and Chief Bodyguard, with new tasks that heavily interact with the Nomadic government and the Great Steppe.
Added new Men-at-Arms for Nomads and Nomadic cultures
Steppe Raiders
Nomad Lancers
Heavy Horse-Archers
Torch-Bearers
Mangudai
Cataphract Archers
Maturkan Warriors
Added new Cultural Traditions to Cultures in the Great Steppe
Iron Cavalry
Wolves of the Deep Steppe
Tribes of the North
Devoted Horsemanship
Added Siberian Permafrost county modifier to lands on the northeastern border of the map that highly synergizes with the Tribes of the North Cultural Tradition
Added a new Blood Brother relationship type, hooked in as a variant of the friend relation
Only available through the Swear Blood Brotherhood interaction
Provides positive modifiers for useful blood brothers, and alliances between ruler blood brothers
Added the new Tsaagaan Tsar Feast type, only available in the winter months, to celebrate the coming of a new year and obtain gifts from your guests.
Added the new Nerge Hunt type – an activity focused on obtaining Martial and Prowess skillpoints, Commander Traits and trait experience.
Added more than 70 new flavour events for nomads, including events related to the seasons, blood brotherhood and migration.
Added severed head content to the execution interaction, allowing you to keep the heads of those you behead, or send the head to their successor
Adds flavor events for Temujin and Jamukha, as well as a conqueror event to propel player Temujin to becoming Greatest of Khans
Created a Greatest of Khans storyline, beginning with the Become Greatest of Khans decision
A Great War of Defiance CB that neighbors launch to prevent the Gurkhan from becoming Greatest of Khans
Revamped effects for the Greatest of Khans trait, and other bonuses
The Offer Submission or Ruin interaction for the Greatest of Khans, and the related GoK Onslaught CB
New Turkic, Mongolic and Iranian cultural nicknames for the Greatest of Khans
Reform the Great Khaganate Decision, a capstone to the GoK’s success, allowing them to establish a huge de jure empire and choose a government type of their choice (gaining significant bonuses towards that form of rule)
Added 25 new special Decisions for Nomads, including
Decisions to switch government types
Decisions to expand your realm
Expand the Steppe region
Introduce your heir to potential friends and blood brothers
Manage fertility in your domain
Hire courtiers and candidates for new court positions
Added new Casus Bellis for nomad rulers, including Overrun Kingdom, Expand Dominance, Sovereignty, Humiliation, Retaliation, and Nomadic County/Duchy Quarrels
Added a Paiza system with unique decisions and character interactions:
Establish Paiza System
Summon Wealthy Visitors: Paiza
Abuse Gurkhan’s Authority
Leverage Khan’s Authority
Added a new Nomadic Dynasty Legacy focusing on Herd management, Fertility, Raiding and military might
Revamped the old Mongol Invasion event chain, integrating new features and elements of the Greatest of Khans story
Added the Burkhan Khaldun special building in Khentii.
Added new ambience sounds and music tracks for nomads.
Game Content
Added 5 new Raid Intents, available for Nomadic and Tribal armies
Pillage
Terrorize
Capture
Plunder
Adventure
Added Confederations: an agreement between tribal or nomadic rulers that commits them to joining one another's defensive wars
Decision to Call for a Confederation
The Offer Confederation interaction, which adds rulers to the confederation
An Abandon Confederation decision for leaving your confederation
A decision which allows you to turn your confederation into a kingdom-tier realm, with you as its monarch, and Confederation Elective succession for the created title
Added new icon for Confederations
Added a "Bring Under Tribute" CB for non-nomadic rulers
Added potential friends, potential lovers, tributaries, and suzerains to the default activity guest invite rules
Made it possible for domicile buildings to trigger specific map graphics for holdings
Added character interaction for guardians to teach a commander trait to a ward
Added memory for all participants of a successful hunt
Added mercenary_hire_time_mult modifier affecting how long mercenary contracts last
Added capital_fort_level and capital_additional_fort_level modifiers
Updated councilor related events to include kurultai if they fit the context
Subject contracts can now have prestige transfers as obligations
Added new interaction category "tribute"
Added a new Vassal Stance, Belligerent
Databases
Renamed the kingdom of Mongolia to the kingdom of Ötuken
Rearranged the starting Cultural Traditions for cultures in the Steppe
St Wenceslaus Cathedral changes: the building now has 3 upgradable levels, renamed to Archcollegiate Church of St. Mary and St. Alexius, and moved to Łęczyca barony. The University special building has been returned to Kraków.
Bugfixes
Removed duplicate raid icon in diplomatic_icons texture
Fix to subject directive icons not being aligned properly
The ai will actually check if they can feudalize holdings now–they’ve never done so.
Fix to maximum amount of horizontal slots for terrain effects
Fix to men at arms illustrations being stretched and cut too much at the top
Fixed crash when calculating tax collector aptitude due to recursive call of script value
Fixed sometimes misleading tooltips for rewards and wounds in hunts
Fixed message when liege grants you a pardon
Fixed reversed reason when rival gained from losing realm
Fixed erroneous liege converting county notifications
Fixed fellow vassal faction join event referring to you as the liege
Fixed visuals for the soldier of the cross crusader trait event
Fixed dangerous beast slain modifier sometimes being applied after hunting non-dangerous animals
Characters will now use more correct cultural weapons in animations
Improved readability of messages from tutor educate child task
Non-Christian characters will no longer use the crucifix scepter prop in admin realms
Made effect tooltip for pleasure dome more generic in case you don't have a barony selected
Fixed missing councilor tooltip erroneously referencing councilor instead of kurultai member when playing as a nomad
Revealed the actual gold cost behind Pay Homage
Changed court position tooltip concept to be player contextual, and display officer instead, or in addition to, court position when appropriate
Removed old holder of court position being oddly grateful that you replaced them
Added missing capitalization to county titles
Fixed appearance of monk in the necromancer event
Players will now only be informed of faith creation when nearby or otherwise relevant to them
Made it impossible to relocate your capital to a province with a disabled holding
Fixed ai adventurers sometimes getting a hook on you because they completed a contract for your councilor
Fixed bloody weddings and grand wedding events having incorrect scopes when disbursing rewards
Fixed peasant faction war being not inherited on death of the primary defender
When your charioteer loses, the corresponding team color illustration will show up
The event treacherous slopes will now tell you of the outcome of the stewardship options
The adventurer landed message will now only be shown for rulers within the same realm
The event night attack will no longer wound the same poor follower multiple times
Event “Nursing a Suspicion” can no longer make spouses suspicious about themselves
1178 start date: Sancho of Teruel, Tello Pedrez of Calatrava, Pedro II Manriquez of Molina, Fernando Rodrigez of Merida, now have feudal government
Fixed a faulty trigger for managing courtiers
Fixed a crash when removing a character from a great holy war
Fixed the inverted descriptions of mozarabic_break_with_rome_decision of righteous and fundamentalist
Fixed a few instances of incorrect usage of title tier as honorific
Fixed a typo having an additional comma in the description of grand wedding in the wedding ceremony
Fixed a bug where empire-tier title holders did not get the offer fealty malus for king-tier (or higher) titles
Blocked armless people from doing actions which require using two hands
Fixed an issue where newly landed Muslim rulers would get Male Preference instead of Male Only succession
Balance
Dissolution factions now also destroy any kingdoms an emperor might hold, avoiding border gore/impotent dissolution faction outcomes where everyone's still in one realm
Increased and standardized speed of adventurer contracts
Added a decaying opinion malus for your former suzerain if you break the tributary relationship by pledging fealty to someone else
Flat MaA bonuses from cultural traditions have been converted to percentage bonuses.
Art
Turkic cultures of the west steppes now use The Legacy of Persia clothing assets as they are a better fit historically
Added nomadic UI skin, inspired by Mongolian patterns, architecture and relief art. You can see elements from their yurts like the interior, fabrics with different patterns and symbols like the falcon.
New Interfaces
Migration
Great Steppe Situation
Added new event themes with associated icons
Raid
Migration
Settlement
Added Coat-of-Arms Shapes and Headers
Confederation Header
Nomad and Herder CoA Shapes
Added situation modifier icons
Some improvements to the bp3 portrait environments
Added icons and illustrations for new nomadic Men-At-Arms unit types
Mangudai
Nomad Lancers
Steppe Raiders
Torch-Bearers
Maturkan
Keshig
Heavy Cavalry Archers
Cataphract Archers
Added new icons for Levies and Nomadic Riders which are the nomadic counterparts of feudal levies.
Succession
Added new icons for Peaceful and Chaotic succession, both in a rendered and flat style.
Added new headers and patterns for Peaceful & Chaotic Succession shown in the Succession tab in the Realm view
New icons added for nomadic dominance levels with a frame for the active level and a special frame for the highest level, both active and inactive.
Added new Kurultai task icons and adjusted frame shape to fit the nomadic theme better
Support Herders
Domestic Affairs
Manage Fertility
Exploit Lands
Increase Control
Organize Raiders
Aid Stargazer
Explore Cultures
Added siberian permafrost modifier icon
Added new court position icons
Yurtchi
Yeke Jarguchi
Foreign Emissary
Boyan
Cherbi
Court Astrologer
Added a new icon for the Gurkhan
Added Ovoo as temple mesh and illustration for settled Tengri rulers
Added new Casus Belli icons
Make Tributary
Migration
Retaliation
Humiliations
Added new icons for the new Tributary interactions
Become Tributary
Release Tributary
Demand Tributary
Cease Paying Tributary
Fixed levitating cross-legged characters mena and indian thrones
Added “Confederation” decision image.
Adjusted decision illustrations so that they do not stretch when made into a button or when non-decision images are used as decisions
Added northern tribes, wolves of the deep steppe and iron cavalry cultural tradition images
Added new assets to the Event window:
Added new orange Event Window header background for nomadic related events
Added new Event type icons for nomadic and migration related events
Burkhan Khaldun mesh and icon positioned in the map with the necessary terrain adjustments
Added steppe royal court in 3 grandeur variants
Added steppe royal court props : table, chests, panels, tugs, fireplaces, carpets, tapestry, banners, lectern, pedestals, main throne, spouse throne
Added Nomadic Lifestyle trait icon.
Added a new icon for the the Situations Map Mode
New nomadic and herder settlement building icon added
Added 6 steppe season illustrations
Added Activity Type Illustrations
Nerge
Tsagaan Sar
Added Holding Type Illustrations
Herder Camp
Nomad Camp
Added Story Event Illustrations
Great Khan
The Great Steppe
New loading screen
Added new Raid Loot icon
Added a new Artifact Icon for nomadic Paizas
Added a new icon for Paiza Character Interactions
Added mongol level 1 to 5 holding models
Added herder holding model
Added level 1 to 4 mongol wall models
New illustration for nomadic horde added
Added new ethnicities for the Steppe: Tibetan, Turkic, West Turkic and Mongol
Nomadic Domicile
Added new icons in both a rendered and flat style for the Nomadic Domicile depicting a yurt to better fit the nomadic theme.
Added new Domicile map pin background texture that fits better with the nomadic theme
Added new Domicile window assets
Frame
Header
Paper texture
Added new Domicile background that fits the steppe and nomadic Domicile layout
Added new Nomadic Domicile buildings
Main Yurt tier 1, 2 & 3
Millet Storage
Khan’s Champions Yurt
Square of the Tumen
Court Yurt
Family Yurt
Ovoo
Barter Stalls
Empty slots
Added new smaller versions of the Nomadic Authority level icons to better fit in texts and use cases outside the Realm tab or nomadic HuD widget.
Added nomad Legacy Track illustration and icon
Added new icons for the Nomadic and Herder Government Types
Added 10 clothes for steppe cultures
Male commoner - Nomad's Deel
Male low nobility - Cross-Over Coat with Fur Lining
Male high nobility - Fine Cross-Over Coat with Fur Lining
Male royalty - Khan's Embroidered Robe
Male imperial - Khagan's Deel with Fur Coat
Female commoner - Steppe Woman's Deel
Female low nobility - Nomad Woman's Robe
Female high nobility - Nomad Woman's Fine Robe
Female royalty - Khanum's Coat with Embroidery
Female imperial - Khatun's Splendid Robes
Added 8 Headgear for steppe cultures
Male/Female commoner - Fur-Brimmed Shepherd Hat
Male nobility - Feathered Hat of the Steppe
Male royalty - Golden Flower Crown
Male imperial - Decorated Jonon Hat
Female nobility 01 - Nomadic Pearl Headband
Female nobility 02 - Khalkha Headdress with Pearl Bands
Female royalty - Khanum's Embellished Gugu Hat
Added 6 Hairstyles for steppe cultures
Male hair 01 - Khitan Warrior Style
Male hair 02 - Behind the Ear Braids
Male hair 03 - Steppe Rider's Fine Braids
Female hair 01 - Turkic Kirk Belik Braids
Female hair 02 - Steppe Style with Cloth Covers
Female hair 03 - Center-Parted with Decorated Covers
Added 6 Beards for steppe cultures
Mongol Style Mustache and Soul Patch
Nomadic Warrior's Beard
Nomad's Goatee
Mongol Style Mustache
Nomadic Warrior's Mustache
Nomad's Mustache
New event background illustrations
Steppe Temple
Steppe Evening
Steppe Hunt
Steppe City (Karakorum)
Nomad Throne Room (and main menu version)
Steppe camp day
Steppe camp night
Steppe Tent Interior
Asian Rural Village
Asian Rural Village Raid
Added military horse units for nomads
Added traveling horse units for nomads
Added grazing sheep to the map
Added horses to the map
New character animations
Standing next to horse
Shepherd (with sheep!)
Galloping with sword and shield
Conversing while mounted
Exhausted on horse animation
Surveying while mounted
Aggressive horse archer
Idle horse archer
New props
6 bows that can be drawn, both with and without arrows
Characters will now drink from culturally relevant cups
Sheep with variants representing ewes and rams, single color and spotted breeds
User modding
Vassal contracts lists on governments have been replaced with separate “subject contract groups” that can be reused between governments and used to start tributaries.
Most things “vassal contract” has been renamed “subject contract”.
Triggers related to vassals now often have tributary counterparts.
Triggers related to lieges now often have suzerain counterparts. Also overlord counterparts exist which acts on either liege or suzerain, depending on what the scoped character has.
Add debug info in portrait tooltip for played animation
Created a new raze_county script effect
Added new graphical 'defeated' unit state for units that have just lost a combat
Add holder_council_members and holder_tributaries as new elective succession candidate set types
Added deny_powerful_vassal government rule, which disallows a ruler from becoming a powerful vassal if they have a government with this rule (no uppity Herders allowed)
set_definitive_form now sets a default definite article for a title if the title does not already have a definite article set
Added support for setting the definite article of a dynamically generated title
Added on_actions for when a mercenary company is hired and dismissed
Added an on_action for when a character changes government type
Neighboring/_and_across_water_top_liege_realm/_owner script list variants now have suzerain variants as well
Adds modifiers character_opinion_from_high_prowess_add and character_opinion_from_low_prowess_add, altering the character's opinion based on their prowess delta from define average_prowess_value
Military_power compare trigger changes the ai_military_threat_modifier to use military_power instead of current/max_military_strength
Adds land_neighboring_realm_with_tributaries and land_neighboring_realm_with_tributaries_owner script lists
Added is_tributary_of_suzerain_or_above character trigger
Added an ai.interaction_values console command to determine an ai character's willingness to take an interaction on available targets
Localization used in the GUI for passing realm laws can now be customized per law
Added new character interaction target list, neighboring_rulers_including_tributary_borders
Added an ai_military_threat_modifier to be used in interactions that relate to the military threat value between two characters
Added a parameter for government types to allow tributaries
Added a parameter for government types for setting a scripted character template to be used when automatically generating characters for that type
Amended the vassal_contract_set_obligation_level effect with a version for tributaries called tributary_contract_set_obligation_level
Added a "hidden" animation in the default A-pose for testing purposes called bind_pose. It can be accessed in the portrait editor and is useful for checking clothing and body changes.
Domiciles are now owned by special landless titles instead of characters. The Domicile owner will be the special title holder.
Made it possible to set a scripted camera per triggered animation everywhere animations are used. This makes it possible to have horse and non-horse related triggered animations for one character position in the same event, for example.
The hard-coded limit of the amount of Legitimacy types that can exist has been removed
Each Legitimacy type can now have their own icon instead of sharing one
Added 'on_combat_start' and 'on_combat_unit_join_side' on actions
Added new script effects which allow more control over combat outcomes: ‘set_winner’, ‘force_win’, ‘set_disallowed_retreat’, ‘set_allow_early_retreat’, ‘set_skip_pursuit’
New ‘Situation’ system added to which can be used to create dynamic region-based gameplay systems. (see Modding dev diary #168 for more details)
Interface
Reworked the Realm window interface. Being one of our oldest panels, it was getting harder to work with and append new functionality to. While rewriting the code we also took the opportunity to improve its presentation coming on par with other modern windows while balancing the information load in each tab.
Added an expanded interface of the Kurultai tasks since all members have access to eight tasks each, which caused the portraits to be covered by icons.
Made paper styled UI skinnable, for example on contracts or letters. For now, mongolic cultures will have a more Eastern styled look to their paper interfaces.
Court position type tooltip now show requirements instead of showing a courtier's fulfillment of the requirements
Added contextual map icons for when raiders are raised and selected. Will show province loot within a range of selected raider armies owned by the player.
Added new ‘Diplomatic Relations’ map mode which shows what current diplomatic relations the selected ruler has
Exposed ‘File Transfer Speed’ setting to also be configurable in the multiplayer lobby settings
Multiplayer
Improved default transfer speed for MP save games, which should reduce time to start MP games significantly. The default (High) is now about four times faster than before. New file transfer setting options ‘Very high’ and ‘Ultra’ added, for very fast connections. The previous default transfer speed configuration is still available as the ‘Medium’ setting.
And that’s all we have for today! There will be a short break in our dev diary schedule as we focus on the release and aftermath of Khans of the Steppe, but we’ll be back in a couple weeks to discuss how the release went, the feedback we’ve received from it, and how we’re responding to said feedback.
We hope you're as excited for Khans of the Steppe as we are!
Dev Diary #169 - Echoes of the Steppe
Hello everyone! Today's dev diary is written by two separate authors, and covers the art and music of Khans of the Steppe. There's a good bit to cover, so let's dive right into it.
Art & References
Salve,
Lucas Ribeiro here, 2D Art Lead at CKIII. I’m here to share with you our efforts to bring to life the beautiful open splendor of the steppes and the blood-stained battlefields of the east through our humble artwork.
Loading Screen
To start off, let’s talk about our new loading screen. We began by sketching out some ideas and running them through the team to get impressions. There was not much debate on what the theme was here, mostly how to represent it.
From these 4, we picked the one with the charging band of warriors against the stormy sky. We felt that this composition had a lot of dynamism and looked unique compared to the other loading screens we’ve created so far. The juxtaposition of the riding band of warriors against the stormy skies suggests the strong connection between nature and the lifestyle of the steppe nomads.
As a second step, we created a few different color sketches. We opted for the one where we could see a stormy sky against a calmer golden haze. This served two purposes: To correlate the riders with the encroaching tempest and to show the gameplay feature of the changing seasons.
For our nomad dynastic legacy we thought we could use the opportunity of a horizontal layout to display a big migrating wave, stretching towards the horizon.
Event Backgrounds
While we had a few steppe themed event backgrounds, we made sure to cover every sort of event theme with new and appropriate steppe backgrounds. Amongst these are Oovos, A camp at night and day, the inside of a nomadic tent, Karakorum, Hunt, Throne Room, An eastern village (and their burning version), different versions of a steppe background and many more.
We also have new holding illustrations for nomadic and herder governments:
Activity Types
We have added 2 unique activity types for Mongols. A new type of feast, the Tsagaan Sar. And a new type of hunt, the Nerge.
For the Tsagaan Sar, we wanted to show the participants wearing white, as is customary. The plentifulness of food is represented by the bowls and baskets of treats. And the tradition of bringing the Khan gifts is also present in the image.
In the Nerge hunt, riders would work together to round up animals from all across the region for their ultimate slaughter once surrounded by a veritable army of hunters. We tried to represent this encirclement by how the characters occupy the composition. The animals are seen in desperate flight, while the men are positioned on both sides of them.
Men-at-Arms
The nomad experience is closely associated with warfare, as such, we knew we had to give them a significant variety of men-at-arms. We also have many different steppe cultures and the men-at-arms gave us the opportunity to make them a bit more unique.
Character Art
While we fortunately had some Mongol culture clothes and headgear in the game, the variety was quite small. With Khans of the Steppe we had the chance to greatly expand this repertoire.
As with every expansion, we dedicated a significant amount of time to collect references, preferably accounts or representations closer to our time period. When references are a bit fuzzy on the details or a bit too abstract, we take to the drawing board and come up with some concepts that help solidify these ideas. Here are a few examples:
[Mongol imperial Clothes]
[Steppe Feathered Hat]
[Yuan Style Mongol Armor]
Animation
Our original animations for travelling characters and marching armies felt quite insufficient when depicting peoples that spent so much of their time on the saddle. To remedy this we have given nomadic travelling characters and military units a horse and animations to go with it. Your armies will now siege enemy holdings while still astride their steeds.
[Chasing enemies]
[Celebrating victory]
[Rearing up]
[Galloping]
We also have a unique model for when you migrate your nomadic camp. Your people are represented by a wheeled yurt being pulled by oxen.
The Map
As might’ve been touched on in previous development diaries, the steppe regions include seasons, a mechanic with significant gameplay implications. We felt that it was necessary to clearly reflect these changes on the map, so that the player could tell something has changed. So, whenever a White Zud hits, you will see the landscape covered in thick white snow. When a season has an Everlasting Summer, vivid green patches will creep even amongst formerly dry terrain.
Steppe nomads now have their own holding graphics. Yurts with colorful roofs surround the magnificent tent of the Khan. On Tengri temple holdings, ovoos are decorated with colorful flags. We came to a dilemma, though, regarding holding walls. While it would make sense to not display any walls, specially beyond the level of palisades, on most nomad holdings, this would conflict with the necessity to show the player that they still need to siege a nomad holding (even though, they’re normally easier to siege than a fortified castle). To try and thread this ludonarrative dissonance, we have opted to have yurts both inside and outside the protective walls, this way, it shows the player that a siege must happen, but the nomadic holding doesn’t have a appear as constrained as other holdings types.
On the easternmost part of the map, we have added the Burkhan Khaldun, a magnificent mountain group that carries much significance to the local steppe people.
Throne Room
The grandiose yurt of a leader of the steppe people is also present in Khans of the Steppe. With the diligent and precise work of El Tyranos, we have constructed a throne room worthy of Genghis Khan. The throne has different versions depending on your grandeur level. Uniquely, your Coat-of-Arms is present as a huge banner draped over yourself and behind your throne.
Hud Skin
When you play the game as a nomadic character, your HUD will adopt a style inspired by Mongol patterns, carvings and art. Nomadic government characters also have a unique widget that concentrates all the most important functions that their unique playstyle requires.
We have also, for the first time, created a skinned version of the paper-like interfaces in the game (for example, contracts or letters). The wax seal is substituted for an ink stamp, and instead of the western ornament on the edges of the letter, a delicate eastern style of plant arrangement decorates the character portrait. We are hoping to introduce more and more thematic UI elements as we move towards All Under Heaven.
As it is done for other government types, nomad and herder governments also get a unique coat-of-arms banner shape. We found a striking design amongst those that the steppe people have flown, with a triangular layout and organic dents along the edges.
We have created a new pattern variation for COA’s that work better with this new layout, giving the dented edges a different color from the rest of the COA.
As for the Herders, their COA shape is somewhat inspired by the Nomad one, as it is triangular as well. But, it is a bit smaller, frayed, and doesn’t have the dented design or the secondary color on the edge.
Bookmarks
For our new bookmarks, we have decided to utilize a new paper map style, the eastern Asian one. This already reflects the new map theme you can switch between that will be arriving with the All Under Heaven expansion.
Domicile Screen
Much like the adventurer camps and administrative estates in Roads to Power, nomads have their own domiciles. With the prospect of All Under Heaven coming up, we decided that it’d be better to take this opportunity and make this domicile art in a somewhat new style. Instead of using western artwork as inspiration, we went for an asian inspired style, with more fluid and loose ink strokes.
I will now hand the Dev Diary over to Ernesto Lopez, our Audio Director to tell us more on the audio work for Khans of the Steppe.
Audio & Music
In Khans of the Steppe, our goal was to authentically capture the vastness and spirit of the Mongol Empire through sound. To achieve this, we collaborated with esteemed composer Philip Wareborn, known for his work on Stellaris and Crusader Kings III, and the talented Tuvergen Band, a Chicago-based folk-fusion trio specializing in Mongolian and Tuvan musical traditions.
Central to Tuvergen Band’s unique sound is Tamir Hargana, an award-winning throat singer from Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia. Tamir brings mastery of the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle) and traditional throat singing techniques, enriching the game’s musical landscape.
This collaboration has resulted in six evocative tracks that immerse players in the Mongolian steppes. Compositions such as Call of Gobi, Nomad’s Journey, and The Khan’s Glory not only accompany your conquests but also embody the essence of Mongol culture and landscapes.
[TAG-130]
Beyond music, we’ve enhanced the game’s ambient audio to reflect life on the steppe. Mongol-themed events now feature unique atmospheric sounds, and units are accompanied by realistic horse animations and animal noises, bringing the environment to life. Whether it’s the distant call of an eagle or the rhythmic gallop of hooves, these details ensure that the Mongol experience is both seen and heard.
Through these auditory enhancements, Khans of the Steppe offers a deeply immersive journey into the heart of the Mongol Empire.
That's all we have for this week! Join us next Tuesday for the final dev diary for Khans of the Steppe: The changelog itself.
Dev Diary #168 - Code of Khans
Hi! This expansion is adding quite a few new systems, and today we’re here to talk about the modability and underlying tech of some of them.
Tributaries
One of the more impactful features we’re adding is tributaries. So we’re on the same page when it comes to terminology: a suzerain is to a tributary what a liege is to a vassal.
Previously, a vassal had a collection of individual contracts defined on their government type which made up their complete “vassal contract”. This included things such as “feudal_government_taxes” added on the “feudal_government”, which determined how much a vassal with the feudal government would pay to their liege.
However, with the addition of tributaries this has changed slightly. Firstly, pretty much everything related to “vassal contracts” have been renamed to “subject contracts”. To enable re-use of these contract lists and usage outside of governments, we’ve added a new database called “subject contract groups” which includes the typical list of individual contracts, but can also include extra parameters such as how they should be inherited on succession and how they should appear on the map. These are documented in the info file for subject contracts groups.
[An example of a subject contract group for a type of tributary]
Tributaries basically work the same way as vassals, with the same system for contracts. But instead of being applied automatically based on your government when you become someone’s vassal, tributaries need to be started manually through script.
[Starting new tributary contracts is easy!]
This effect will only work if both the tributary and the suzerain are independent rulers, and that the resulting tributary relation won’t result in a circular loop of people being tributaries to each other. This can easily be checked with the “can_be_tributary_of” trigger. They can also be broken with “scope:some_tributary_character = { end_tributary = yes }”
Tributary contract groups are also marked with “is_tributary = yes” so that we can differentiate them from regular vassal relationships, as characters with tributary contracts are still considered “independent rulers”.
To get a character’s suzerain you can use the new “character.suzerain” link, or “character.overlord” which will get either the liege if the character’s a vassal, or the suzerain if they’re a tributary. “top_suzerain” and “top_overlord” also exist. The latter will first find your top liege and then keep going to your top liege’s top suzerain, if they have one.
The AI has a chance to break free from their suzerain each year based on the “ai_will_do” in the “cease_paying_tribute_interaction”, which is what’s displayed here:
Obedience
Any character who has a government type that uses the “obedience” government rule, or has a liege/suzerain/employer who does, will use obedience. The threshold needed to become obedient and the obedience value are both calculated in script:
Put simply, if the calculated Obedience value is greater than the threshold, that character will be Obedient. The Obedience target is set in Code with the following priority:
De Facto Liege
Suzerain
Employer
De Jure Liege
None
Obedience is checked in many places using the “is_obedient” and “is_obedient_to” triggers.
Confederations
Confederations are a group of smaller independent rulers coming together, acting as allies in defense against greater threats. Creating one is simple using the “create_confederation” effect.
Confederations invalidate on a daily tick if they have fewer than two members, so after a confederation has been created another member must be added using “add_confederation_member”
Members of the confederation will skew their map color towards the color of the confederation creator based on the define “CONFEDERATION_REALM_COLOR_FACTOR”.
Situations
We have implemented a new general system for supporting dynamic region-based gameplay, which we call the Situation system. Its purpose is to provide a fundamental building block for various types of systems, from Struggle-like socio-political systems, to environment systems like the Great Steppe, or smaller temporary effects like a Natural Disaster. (All Under Heaven mentioned!)
In this sense you can consider Situations to be an evolution of the Struggle system, where we took the learnings of that system, and made it more dynamic and flexible. Extendable in our C++ code base (example: Migrations), but also flexible in our GUI system, and more moddable.
To note: we have not converted existing Struggles to be Situations, because Struggles contain specific functionality and bespoke interfaces that we do not have in exactly the same way as in the new Situation system.
As you can see from the documentation file above, we’re using this system in both Khans of the Steppe, as well as All Under Heaven. It is part of the base game, and thus available for all modders regardless of DLC ownership.
Now how is this system structured? I will try to explain in a succinct manner. The terms might be a bit dry, but that is because it is a core system - each implementation can rename things in the interface as they like!
Sub-regions - A Situation type consists of one or more geographical sub-regions. These subregions are fixed in number, but each can grow and contract their geographical area while the game is running. Example: the three sub-regions of the Great Steppe - west, central, and east.
Phases - Each Situation type has a set of phases which can transition from one to another via various mechanics. We grabbed some functionality from the Struggle system and extended it.
An active phase can transition to another phase in these ways:
Max Duration Reached - If a maximum phase duration is defined, and it is reached, a new phase is picked from the possible future phases, according to a rule, either a weighted pick of the future phases based on the points they have accumulated, or entirely random.
Example: The Great Steppe seasons progress in this manner.
Points Takeover - One of the future phases has accumulated enough points to reach its “takeover” target. Similar to Struggles, you can use catalysts to add points to specific future phases. It will stop the current phase, and put itself as the active phase.
Example: Some of the special seasons of The Great Steppe work this way
Duration Takeover - One of the future phases has reached a specific duration. It will stop the current phase, and put itself as the active phase. This can be used to provide a more predictable version of the points takeover phase.
Changed via Script - Our script system is powerful - and we can switch phases directly, skipping the automatic systems. It can also change to a phase that isn’t an official ‘future phase’ of the active phase.
Each sub-region has its own active phase, and its own phase progression, but the possible phases are defined on a situation level. Nothing would prevent us (or a modder) from implementing multiple phase ‘cycles’ within a situation though!
Of course a situation phase definition also contains modifiers and parameters that will apply to the region (county_modifiers), or the characters participating in the situation (character_modifiers), filtered by their Participant Group, which segues nicely into…
Participant Groups - Who is impacted by the situation? Well we can define a set of participant groups within the situation. Similarly to sub-regions, the groups themselves are pre-defined in the situation type, but are dynamic while the game is running - characters can join and leave groups.
Each sub-region has their own set of these pre-defines participant groups, and within each sub-region a character can only belong to one participant group (or none).
So what determines which group you would belong to? This is determined by potential candidates, and settings on the groups. By default the candidates are all the rulers within the geographical area of the relevant sub-region. But you can also add and remove candidates manually via script. (for example you could add the Pope to the Great Steppe even though they are nowhere near)
For each sub-region, we go through all the candidates, and the first group that is valid for them is where they are added. It is possible to not be valid for any group! Then they’re not part of the Situation.
Dynamic Sub-region Creation - When you have defined a situation type, it can be added to the world via a history definition, or via a script effect. But you can also define a new set of sub-regions while starting a situation! This allows us to instantiate the same situation type in multiple locations.
Ending - A Situation ends automatically when a phase (in any sub-region) ends without a new phase starting. Additionally, they can be ended in script via an ‘end_situation’ effect.
Graphical Features - Bundled with the Situation system we also have some additional graphical features. Simple ones include the ability to define the map-color of specific sub-regions or participant groups. But more notably we have also added Map Province Effects - a way to apply an effect on the map based on the current Situation phase of a sub-region.
These effects can be applied with a specific effect type and intensity (0.0 - 1.0), we bundle some effects out of the box in Khans of the Steppe: Drought, Summer, Snow - but mods could add more of course!
[Regular terrain north of the Aral sea]
[Summer province effect at full intensity]
[Snow province effect at full intensity - this effect is hooked into our existing winter shader, so it will fade in/out neatly]
[Drought province at full intensity]
All-in-all the Situation system is a building block which allows a game-play feature to use what they need, and tweak what they want, often without requiring new C++ code.
Migration
Nomadic migration is an extension of the situations system - situation type can set that it supports migrations. This will enable additional mechanics for the player and the AI in the map area covered by the specific situation. Migration process and AI decision-making in regards to migration is a complex task, largely controlled by code. We do that every time when there’s high overall complexity and performance risks. Here are the customization points that can be used to tweak how and what happens during migration.
Migration always happens within some situations. A game rule allows you to enable additional situations in different parts of the world, and migrations will happen independently inside those areas. When you mod your own situations that support migration, please do note that such situations shouldn’t overlap.
Both player and AI start migration via special interaction called “migration_interaction” in script. Initiation of migration travel or war is handled in code, but the rest can be adjusted. For example, actual transfer of land after migration is up to script. The property of the interaction “ai_accept” controls if the recipient allows you to migrate into their lands peacefully, or will it lead to war. “ai_will_do” on the other hand is used to score the best migration target when AI makes its decision where to migrate. Unlike other interactions, this one gets lots of additional data provided by code to script, so scoring can be more nuanced. Additional scopes are migration target, all potential enemies in case of hostile migration, target land fertility, total military power of all defenders and their allies - all this allows you to prioritise for different targets, balancing risks and benefits.
When migration is hostile, it uses a special casus belli - “migration_cb”.
Migration range is limited by migration distance (MAX_MIGRATION_SQUARED_DISTANCE), and there are modifiers (max_migration_distance_mult) that extend or shrink it. It allows you to control different AI behaviors, setting some rulers to be more free-roaming, and putting harsher restrictions on others.
Domiciles
It is our second expansion that uses domiciles, and it introduces a new domicile type - nomadic camp. With more hand-on experience with this system some previous technical decisions proved to be error-prone and hard to work with. So we decided to change how domiciles are connected to playable landless rulers. Domiciles are now owned not by a person, but by a special landless title. Adventurers always have their camp title, landless noble families have noble family title, and nomads have a nomadic camp title. This solves several problems at once - domicile inheritance is now completely controlled by inheritance of special titles. No more cases when code has to decide for a ruler which of the 2 domiciles they should keep - their own or the one they inherited from someone else. Title can have no holder for some time, and when it gets a new holder at some point, domicile is returned back into the game - no risk of accidentally destroying a rich and build-up domicile due to an unfortunate succession. Nothing changes in script or UI - there’s still a direct connection between a ruler and active domicile they have. When a ruler holds several special titles with domiciles, only one of those domiciles will be active - the one that matches the ruler's government type. This shouldn’t normally happen in the base game though.
Fertility
Fertility is a value calculated at the County level. Every County that is in Situation with Migration or whose Holder has a Government Type with the Government Rule uses_county_fertility has County Fertility calculated and shown in the UI.
[Government Rules for Nomadic Government]
If you want to mod in a Situation that uses Fertility without Migration, just add migration = yes to the Situation setup, but disable the migration interaction (migration_interaction) and make sure you add the uses_county_fertility government rule where necessary.
Herders are a bit special in that they also replenish County Fertility, which is another Government Rule called replensishes_county_fertility. They contribute a base monthly Fertility gain per county, governed by the define BASE_HERDER_GAIN_PER_COUNTY.
Monthly Fertility change is a bit more complex than our usual systems. We adjust both Growth and Decline to better simulate how nomadic herds would reduce local pastureland, with the overall change often settling at some lower number (though this depends on your domain size and some other factors).
County Fertility Growth is changed according to this function:
[County Fertility Growth Equation and Graph]
County Fertility Decline is changed according to this function:
[County Fertility Decline Equation and Graph]
Where these two curves intersect is theoretically the Equilibrium point of a given County in the game. A County’s Fertility will always trend toward the Equilibrium point. There is, however, a “pusher” which determines how sensitive Equilibrium is to the difference between Growth and Decline.
[County Fertility Pusher Equation]
Given the complexity of these equations, we opted for a simpler way to calculate the Equilibrium point to display in the UI, using the small angle approximation sin(x) ≈ x :
Put together with Character, Holding, and County modifiers, these functions contribute what you see in the game as Monthly County Fertility Change.
It is important to note that the math behind all this is largely contained in what we’ve called “Current County Fertility Modifier” in the monthly change breakdown. This number is the result of these calculations and what directs the Fertility in a County to trend toward its Equilibrium point.
[Example of a Fertility Monthly Change breakdown]
For anyone that hasn’t taken a math class recently, this may all seem like gobbledygook, so here’s the main takeaway for modders: The central way to affect how County Fertility grows and declines, and where it will hit Equilibrium, is by adjusting the following defines which hook into the functions above:
[Defines for affecting how County Fertility Change behaves]
Herd
Herd is a new currency stored by a Character’s Domicile.
[Yurt Domicile script showing the herd parameter]
Every Domicile has Current Herd and Max Herd values, accessible by the following triggers:
[herd and max_herd triggers available for domiciles]
A Domicile’s Herd Limit (Max Herd) is determined by their tier plus any relevant modifiers. There is a new define listing base Herd Limit values by tier
[Defines affecting Herd Capacity, Herd Conversion, and Monthly Gold Income from Herd]
Along with that comes a Base Herd Conversion rate, which determines how many of your Herd get turned into Horde Riders when you raise your armies. And additionally a define to control how much Gold income a Character gets based on their Herd.
Every month, your Herd will increase based on the Herd Gain from your domain as well as contributions from Vassals and Tributaries. The Herd you gain from your Domain is equal to the current County Fertility of that County multiplied by the define HERD_GAIN_FROM_COUNTY_MULTIPLIER
[Herd Gain from County Fertility Multiplier Define]
Raid Intents
With raid intents we’re adding some customizability to raiding. It can change what you receive when you return with loot, and modify the raiding army in some way.
Here we see the raze intent which will add prestige and dread when your raiding army returns with loot, but gives a -60% modifier to raiding speed.
We also use the “on_raid_action_completion” on-action to have different effects happen after each successful raid on a holding depending on the active raid intent of the raiding army. You can check a scoped army’s raid intent using “raid_intent = NAME_OF_INTENT” trigger.
Generated Character Templates
It is now possible to specify a scripted character template per Government Type. This template will be used when a new character is automatically generated for that government type in code, for example, when granting a title to an automatically generated character.
[Script syntax for specifying a generated character template]
[Scripted character template for a Herder]
We use this pretty frequently in the Steppe when you start Migration and leave behind your lands to Herders. So whenever you begin migrating, the Herders that appear to oversee your previous Domain are generated according to the template above.
The aim here is to give script and modders more control over the characters that are created for titles that already have government types specified.
Skeleton Update
With this release comes an updated skeleton for the characters. We’ve added new sleeve, skirt, and cloak joints, to help increase the animation fidelity for clothing. The adding of joints to the male_body.mesh and female_body.mesh also means that any item modders may have created that uses these skeletons will have to have those joints added, or the item will look very weird (sort of “exploding”), as the joint count array now places joints in a different order and has a larger amount of them. To help modders out, we’ve decided to publish our skeleton files, both our own Maya files as well as in the more universal FBX format. You can find these files over here.
To expedite fixing old clothes, cloaks, and legwear, modders can use these files to copy over the skinning from the various types of clothes in the files to their own items. Some manual reskinning is generally necessary, but hopefully this should make it much faster than doing it all manually. In general, legwear (pants) get the skinweights copied from the regular body (skinned to the legs), cloaks have a specific cloak item in the files to copy from (skinned to the cloak joints as well as the upper arms/neck/upper back), and regular clothes can copy from a “body and skirt” item (skinning the upper body to the body's joints, and the lower body to the skirt joints). Pick whatever item seems to suit the one needing reskinning.
Our previously made clothing should look and act pretty much the same as before, while new animations and clothes will be able to have more movement independent of the body. This will allow us to simulate better movement based on weird poses or fast movement.
Combat
For the combat-loving modders out there, we have added some commonly requested on-actions you can use to apply effects when combat starts, or when an army joins a combat.
Additionally we have added some new script effects which will allow more control over combat outcomes:
set_winner = yes - effect you can apply to a combat side to force a winner in combat without reducing soldiers to 0. (on the next tick, more clean)
force_win = yes - effect you can apply to a combat side to force a winner in combat without reducing soldiers to 0. (instantly)
set_disallowed_retreat = yes - effect to disallow retreat on a combat side (they will wipe on defeat)
set_allow_early_retreat = yes - effect to allow retreat when battle just started (prevents wipes)
set_skip_pursuit = yes - effect to skip the pursuit phase after a combat win (so soft casualties are not converted to hard casualties)
We have also added a new ‘defeated’ map military unit animation state, which is set when a unit is defeated after combat, allowing for some cool extra animations.
That's all for now! We'll be back next week to talk about some of the art and music coming in Khans of the Steppe, so be sure to check that out next Tuesday.
Update 1.15.0.2
We've now resolved the issue with yesterday's 1.15.0.1 update, so we're deploying Update 1.15.0.2 as planned. The changelog is effectively the same as 1.15.0.1, so you'll be familiar with the changes if you read yesterday's changelog.
Update 1.15.0.2 Changelog
Game Balance
Reduced the frequency of the 'Instill Virtue' Court Position task.
The ‘Instill Virtue’ Court Position task can only affect children 6 years or older now.
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue that caused congenital traits to not show up in the character list of the Arrange Marriage window
Fixed an issue with a toast message saying "DESCRIPTION" instead of the actual description.
Fixed an issue with the ‘Instill Virtue’ Court Position task where it would affect the Wet Nurse herself, if her employer was a child ruler, rather than the child in question.
Fixed an issue where the Wet Nurse was using the children’s aptitude as a Wet Nurse rather than her own for the ‘Instill Virtue’ task. Creative, if nothing else.
Fixed an issue where you could try to make a county the capital of a Duchy/Kingdom/Empire without it being a part of the De Jure of said title.
Fixed an issue where an excessive amount of traits could push interface elements out of their respective windows.
Interface
Added quick interact buttons for Ransom, Execute and Release in the Prison View
Added descriptions for how to gain experience in Commander Traits
Changed wording of the message when warscore gets capped
