Crusader Kings III News

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.


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:




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 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”.


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.


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.


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 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 :

[County Fertility Equilibrium Approximation Equation]

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 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]


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.


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.


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.


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.

[hr][/hr]

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.

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.

[hr][/hr]


[h2]Game Balance[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• 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
  

Hello everyone. Earlier today we released Update 1.15.0.1, which introduced a user interface issue that wasn't caught during certification and approval of the update. Considering the severity of this issue, we have decided to rollback the public version of Crusader Kings III to 1.15.0 until this issue is resolved.

[h2]What are the next steps for us?[/h2]

• Immediate Rollback. Effective immediately, we are reverting to the previous version of the game to maintain playability for as many players as possible
  
• Ongoing Investigation and Resolution. Our Release and QA teams are actively working to resolve this issue, and working on an express pipeline to ensure an update is ready as soon as humanly possible.
  
• Deployment of 1.15.0.2. Once we have certified a new update, we will deploy it immediately to Steam.
  
• Preventative Measures. Afterward, we'll be looking into our testing procedures to prevent issues like this from occurring in the future.
  

We understand this is frustrating and inconvenient to many of you, and we sincerely apologize for the trouble. Your feedback and support help us continually improve as a developer, and we will do our best to keep the community updated throughout this process.

Thank you for your patience, and for your continued support.

Hello everyone! We're releasing a small update today to address some issues reported to us since the release of the 1.15 "Crown" Update. Please check the changelog below for more information!

[hr][/hr]


[h2]Game Balance​[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Bugfixes​[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Interface​[/h2]

• 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
  

Өглөөний мэнд!

Today we will be covering most of the nomadic flavor that we've introduced with this update, so without further ado…



Great are the plump princes in their southern fortresses, great are the chieftains of the grass sea… but great-EST? Only one is greatest. CHINGGIS KHAAN, Universal Ruler, Khan of Khans, biggest and baddest boi… well, actually, Genghis is only the greatest and the baddest baddie sometimes. In some other playthroughs, the Greatest of Khans will arise organically. Heck, the Greatest one could even be you.

[It’s quite the trait.]

The key point is that there is only one GREATEST. Once someone has become Greatest of Khans, no ruler ever can again. It’s the highest point of nomadic achievement, and an absolute game-changer! So yeah, should you or an AI ruler achieve this highest of titles in time… the Mongol Invasion won’t happen. That perilous time of nomadic conquest under a single, mighty ruler has basically just come early. Conversely, if Temujin becomes Genghis in your game session… it’s over for other aspiring GoKs. He is the Greatest of Khans, and there will be no other. So be mindful of your Mongol Invasion game rule.

Now, it seems prudent to outline the path to becoming Greatest of Khans, as well as the opportunity you’re afforded to prevent others beating you to the finish line.

All nomads can view the Become the Greatest of All Khans decision, but you must be Dominance level 5 - and therefore, must also be the Gurkhan (owner of the biggest herd on the steppe) - to take it.

[The triggers you must fulfil to begin the path to world conquest.]

Above, you can see some additional requirements. Not only must you be the first to achieve Greatest Khanship in your playthrough, but you need an empire of substantial size and to command the Obedience of a range of powerful nomads.

Be warned! Taking this big step will immediately provoke quite a war against all those who’d like to stop you. There is much to be gained by winning the Great War of Defiance against those arrayed against you… and much to be lost by failure.

[The decision’s warning and victory effects]

[The decision’s failure effects]

When you’re ready to face an uncertain number of foes in order to achieve your grand destiny… click the button. The Great War of Defiance begins, and every nearby ruler in the steppe joins against you. At least one powerful non-nomad will join as well, since - like historical Byzantium and China - they certainly have no interest in a great steppe conqueror arising.

[The Attackers’ true strength is always at least double what’s immediately shown here.]

Though your Obedient vassals will join on your side, this should be a stiff fight! The coalition of rulers attack from all sides. If you’re a player trying to stop an AI Gurkhan who’s taken this decision: you’ll be given the chance to join the cause, and keep the Greatest of Khans available for yourself.

It can end poorly for the Greatest of Khans…



Or… in absolute triumph.



And there it is. You - or your fearsome foe - get the Greatest of Khans trait, a slew of big ol’ nomadic armies, and the mission to conquer a big chunk of the world and establish your lasting reign within 75 years. This is done through the Reform the Great Khanate decision.

But, first, what tools do you have as GoK for expanding your empire? One is the Offer Submission or Ruin interaction, quite similar to Offer Vassalization but with some more intense effects.

[The Greatest of Khans can demand armies of special troops, if they’re not feeling particularly lenient]

If your offer of Submission is rudely refused, a particularly devastating war is instantly declared on the recipient. This war slaughters courtiers, destroys buildings, reduces development, and even erases holdings. And, helpfully, makes other rulers more willing to simply submit to you peacefully.

[It is soooo on.]

The casus belli used by Offer Submission or Ruin is also available to the Great Khan independent of the interaction, to be freely used for seizing whole realms. However, it only has its devastating refusal effects when incurred as a result of, well, being refused.

The Greatest of Khans will lose these special capacities if they do not take the Reform the Great in time. It’s a possible end goal for them, and is it ever an endgame one, my dudes. It will afford you with new de jure lands and a major choice: establish an admin/feudal/clan empire OR RAZE CIVILIZATION TO THE GROUND AND LET NOMADISM REIGN.

I’ll leave the specifics of that madness to your imagination, but it really shouldn’t disappoint.




The Nomadic Domicile lands somewhere between the Landless Adventurer’s Camp and the Administrative Estate in many aspects. While mobile like the Camp (as you can gather from the wheels attached to the central yurt), it serves as the focal point for the whole realm, rather than just a small group of adventurers. We tried to reflect that with the domicile buildings, referred to hitherto as yurts. We hope they give Nomads numerous ways to deal with the harshness of the steppe.

As always, please be mindful that the numbers are not final and are prone to change.

[Example of the fully upgraded yurts]

Each of the yurts provides various bonuses centered around particular aspects of Nomadic life. There is one more yurt not visible in the screenshot above, the Barter Stalls, upgradable into Grand Bazaar. It can be constructed if your realm borders the settled people outside the Steppe and connects to Summon Wealthy Visitors and Establish Paiza System decisions shown in the previous dev diary.

Let us take a closer look at the central yurt first.

[First level yurt that county-level Nomads start with]

As you can see, it is a start but not much. Resources, cunning, and higher Dominance will be needed to expand your Domicile.

[Third-level yurt upgrade preview]

Without higher dominance levels, you cannot upgrade your central yurt. And without higher levels of the central yurt, you cannot construct and upgrade additional yurts. And without yurts… no yurts. Thus your Nomadic Capital grows with your power and hopefully serves as a record of the road that got you there.

As you can see, each yurt has internal slots for upgrades that allow for further customization of your domicile. I will be referring to them as yurts as well. It’s all yurts now.

[Example of main yurt upgrade. Those seats are very comfy, we swear!]

Yurts cost gold, prestige, and herd. While the costs are fairly low at the start, they get much higher with each upgrade. The steepest difference is in the gold cost. As gold income for the Nomads is much smaller than for the settled people, fully upgraded yurts require a lot of gold redistribution via raiding. So what can you get for your hard-earned wealth?

[Fully upgraded Square of the Tumen yurt]

This yurt focuses heavily on warfare and raiding. If you're curious about the Heavy Horse Archers men at arms, please keep on reading or quickly scroll down to the Men-at-Arms section at the bottom.

[Square of the Tumen internal yurt example]

If you wish to rely on sellswords, this yurt has you covered. The modifier gives you martial, prowess, and stewardship skills and is available only on the 6th level of this yurt.

[Another Square of the Tumen internal yurt example]

If your tributaries provided you with archers and skirmishers, this yurt will allow you to squeeze extra value from them.

[Fully upgraded Court Yurt]

As one of the most trusted Temujin advisors allegedly once said, conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard. For when your glorious horde has swept the steppe, the Court Yurt will provide you with more tools to deal with your trusted subordinates and newfound subjects.

[Example of Court yurt upgrade]

If ruling the steppe is a family business for you, since only blood guarantees loyalty, this yurt will allow you to reap additional bonuses from having your step-aunts and step-brothers in your Kurultai. If your curious about Kurultai, please continue reading, more about them below.

[Millet Storage yurt upgrade]

This is an upgrade to the fertility and herd-centered Millet Storage yurt. For others, the deserts are inhospitable and provide little fertility and herd, with a little bit of investment your Nomads can thrive where others perish. There are similar yurts that cover other types of terrain as well. To further specialize, some cultural traditions have received Nomadic bonuses as well, once again, more about it down below.


We have already talked about Obedience in our first Nomadic Dev Diary, but as a refresher Obedience is a binary state for subjects and courtiers of Nomadic rulers.

Obedience increases the chances of a peaceful migration and vassalization, and it reduces the chance of a tributary breaking free or joining their allies in a war against their suzerain, as well as reducing the chances of a character using a Murder scheme against their overlord, or joining a faction against them. Most importantly, Obedience is the only way to guarantee a peaceful succession, explained in our previous Dev Diary.

Several factors impact Obedience, like opinion, having a good relationship, being a Kurultai member or being employed in a Court Position. Your spouse and family also have higher spouses, but only your preferred heir will – all other children of martial gender will look at your favourite with disdain, and their obedience may not be guaranteed.

Traits also impact how likely a character is to be obedient, and underage characters and herders will always be obedient.

However, there are some tools that you can use to convince someone to become obedient to you:

Negotiate Obedience is a character interaction that can be used to bribe someone with Herd or Gold.



Demand Obedience costs prestige, but only those with 45 Dread or more will be able to intimidate their targets.



Impose Obedience is a new intent available for all types of Hunts. With it, events are more likely to give out obedience as a reward, especially if the hunt is successful.




Besides the Stargazer, already covered in the previous Dev Diary, we needed to add some other Court Positions to make the Nomads feel unique from the Feudal rulers. In some cases, we have simply renamed the positions, whereas for others we have chosen to replace one position with another.



The first is the chief law overseer, who, in many ways, takes the role of the Seneschal for a Feudal ruler. They ensure capital control, legitimacy, and obedience. They have access to the Seneschal tasks, ‘Organize Court’ (Aptitude) and ‘Manage Domain’ (Control), but also have access to a new task called ‘Blend Cultures,’ which will increase culture acceptance with cultures in the realm.



The second is the Boyan, one of your leading generals. It improves your military and gives you access to two new tasks: 'Cow Vassals’ (Increased Vassal Contribution) and ‘Prepare Raids’ (Increased Raid Speed and Movement).



The third is the Yurtchi, a position similar to a quartermaster that oversees both your camp and your troops. It has access to two tasks, either decreasing everyone’s opinion of you and costing a lot of prestige but gaining more gold, or spending gold to increase everyone’s opinions of you and popular opinion.



The Keeper of the Horses ensures your steeds are well-equipped for war and travel. They also have access to the two tasks that Master of the Horses usually have access to.



The siege engineer is instrumental if you want to start sieging areas outside the Steppes. It has access to the task to increase fort level in your lands, but also a new task that gives a chance to get access to Siege Weapon MAAs (which is usually harder for Nomads to get access to). This position can only be held by someone with the Military Engineer trait, so you will likely have to look outside the Steppes to find a fitting candidate.



As the chief of the bodyguards, the Cherbi will improve other bodyguards, give access to more knights, and increase some of your Men-at-Arms. They can access the regular bodyguard task and a new task that improves your scheme defenses.



Finally, we have a position for those with many tributaries. It has access to the task ‘Entertain Courtiers’ from the Court Jester and a new task to increase culture acceptance and gain opinion with your tributary cultures.


Nomadic rulers no longer have access to the regular Council but instead have a unique Kurultai setup for its council. They keep the Spymaster, but the rest of the positions have been replaced with a new Kurultai position.



Each of the four Kurultai members has access to the same eight tasks:

• Two for Diplomacy
  
• Two for Stewardship
  
• Two for Martial
  
• Two for Learning
  

To start, two tasks have been moved from regular councillors to the Kurultai:

• Increase Control (from the Marshal)
  
• Domestic Affairs (from the Chancellor)
  

As for their other tasks, let us start with their new default task.



It is a simple Diplomacy task that they can always fall back on to improve Herd Gain and Capacity for their liege.



For the Nomads who are growing larger and more settled down, they should consider utilizing the Manage Fertility task to ensure that their lands are as well taken care of as possible.



Whereas for a smaller Nomad planning to migrate more often, maybe you just want to squeeze the land before moving on. Then, it might be good to see if you can get as much out of it as possible before moving on.



If you are interested in… being a tourist in foreign lands, let’s say, this will enable you to maximize the number of souvenirs you can bring home again.



If you want to maximize the potential of your Stargazer and their predictions, having a well-taught Kurultai member who can help them out will be key to improving their Aptitude.



If you are more interested in hybridizing your culture or changing something around, you should look to the final new task for the Kurultai. This will mesh well with the two new Court Position Tasks we have added to improve cultural acceptance in your or tributary lands.

Three of these tasks can only be done by one Kurultai Member at once:

• Organize Raiders
  
• Aid Stargazer
  
• Explore Cultures
  

Because otherwise, they would most likely be too effective or work funkily (Explore Cultures).

Two tasks cannot be done in the same province at once:

• Manage Fertility
  
• Exploit Lands
  

Because they are pretty much doing the opposite of one another. Exploit Lands can only be done inside your Domain instead of in the Realm at large. We found it was way too good if you could simply squeeze your vassals dry by exploiting their land.

As you might have noticed in the first picture, we have a small UI change to how their tasks look.



Since it was pretty noisy to have eight tasks shown for all 4 Kurultai members at all times, we added a new little window you can open and close to choose the tasks you want.


Nomads on the Steppe hunted all the time - it was a way of life for them. To represent this we couldn’t leave hunts exactly as they were, costing gold which is a resource that nomads generally do not have. Instead they cost herd, and have a host of additional benefits for nomads in particular. Nomads pay a nominal amount of Herd to start their Hunt Activities, and upon finishing a hunt they gain a Stocked Meat modifier which reduces the cost of their next Feast - a perfect way to get the gold required for hosting Tsagaan Sars!

[Nomad-specific host Hunt effects]

Nomads tend to find a lot more Animal Sightings through their flavor content, which boosts success chances for any Hunts hosted in those provinces.

[Two simple hunt sighting events]


[Some seasons have special hunt events, like Everlasting Summer]

They’ll get sightings for regular game, birds, and dangerous beasts - the latter of which has additional benefits to hunt: taking down dangerous beasts, such as wolves, will give you both dread (a currency very useful for nomads) and prowess, both for you and all of your hunters.

[Dread and Prowess gain from hunting a wolf]

Expect to be invited to many hunts on the steppe, as AI Nomads are always on the hunt for more Prestige, and will now, in addition to who they previously invited, invite their tributaries, suzerains, and potential friends/lovers to their hunts.



Moving onto a more flavorful (literally) topic, the nomad feast – the Tsagaan Sar! Observed in the coldest months of the year (December to March), the Tsagaan Sar ensured the new year started with a bout of revelry, and many would exchange gifts.

[Choosing a preferred gift for the Feast]

As the host, you can choose which gift you’d prefer to receive, and as a guest, send a gift to the host.

The Tsagaan Sar brings encounters not seen in a regular feast. Race against your peers, gamble against your local yurt’s drunkard, or even demand gifts from your guests. And of course, you cannot forget a staple of steppe culture – throat singing! During your feast you can learn a throat singing style, which can benefit you in tournaments!

[A Throatsinger at the Tsagaan Sar]

For followers of Tengri, the feast concludes with a declaration honoring the animal according to the lunar calendar. There are 12 different animals associated with the lunisolar calendar, each offering a different boon!


[Receiving a boon for the Year of the Pig]



Building on the Hunt changes mentioned before, Nomads have access to a new hunt type - the Nerge. Known as the Great Hunt, dozens of hunters would gather in the steppe to slay hundreds of animals. Along with being an opportunity to gain prestige, this new hunt type offers a unique Intent - Dreadful. The Nerge was not only an opportunity to slaughter beasts for the next feast, but is a great way to flex on your tributaries and vassals.

[Showcasing the Dreadful Intent]

Contrary to a traditional hunt, the Nerge was used to practice military tactics that led to Mongol victories.

[You’ll get to decide the best tactic as the Nerge host.]

If your Nerge is successful, along with gaining prestige, gold, and legitimacy, you’ll bring the strategies used into battle - via commander traits and experience.

[Nerge outcome event]

[Devise Pleasure Dome Decision]

What better way to immortalize your legacy as a mighty Khan than to construct a leisure palace fit for a conqueror? This decision becomes available to you once you have a Kingdom title. Based on a vision in a dream, the Kubla Khan poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A favorite here among the development staff.

[Pleasure Dome Special Building]

This decision allows you to construct the ‘Pleasure Dome’ building, offering a substantial bonus to your Feasts, Taxes, Prestige, Schemes, and Court Grandeur. It is said that different kinds of wine flowed from its silver tree fountain! Sign me up please.

[Summon Fair Courtiers Decision]

On top of that, you can now invite Courtiers with congenial beauty traits. It is time to secure your dynasty’s lineage!



The Burkhan Khaldun is one of the Khentii Mountains in northeastern Mongolia. This mountain had a special religious significance to the peoples of the steppe, as it was the mythical birthplace of the historical Genghis Khan.

To reflect that, we've added a special building to the map, giving out Piety and Renown rewards, as well as some military advantages to having control over such an imposing natural feature.




"Oh bother!" you might say in your most emphatic Winnie the Khan voice, "The steppes are too small, and my realm has overflowed into a neighboring region full of icky settled peoples and not enough pasturage for my herds!" Worry not, O Horse Lord of the Thousand-Acre Steppe! You can Expand the Steppe if your grip on these new lands is firm enough.



Completely control, through vassals or tributaries, specific regions that neighbor the existing Steppes, and with enough prestige and pizzazz you can add your conquered region to the Steppe, giving these lands some much-needed fertility and making it much easier to migrate around in as a good nomadic leader. Even more regions can be added as the Steppe grows — the only limit is the endurance of your horde, and how far they're willing to ride.


If your character is an adventurer there's a chance that the nomadic life will appeal to them. For this, we have added a special Decision to Adopt the Nomadic Ways.



If you move your camp to a county held by a Herder you'll be able to take over their lands and hybridize with the local culture, becoming a proper Nomad. A Percentage of your Provisions will be transformed into Herd, and you will join the Great Steppe situation.

However, if that Herd was a Tributary or Vassal to a previous nomadic ruler you will be asked to become a tributary yourself or make an awful first impression.




Besides the Migration, Invasion, Tributarization and Nomadic Quarrels we have added two extra new types of Casus Belli, only available to Nomads.

The Humiliation CB is available to target a ruler of higher Dominance than you, or the Gurkhan (the character with the highest Herd in all the Great Steppe). This is a great tool to try and stop someone on their way to become the Greatest of Khans.

If you win a Humiliation war, the loser is forced to go down one Dominance level (putting the regular 5 year cooldown on them to prevent them from changing it back immediately), and to pay part of their Herd and Prestige to you, as well as some of their obedient vassals deciding that they should not obey a defeated liege.



The Retaliation CB becomes available when a character migrates into one of your tributaries' lands and decides to not pay tribute to you.



If you win a Retaliation War you will force the character to become your Tributary regardless, and make them pay some Herd and Prestige to you in addition to that.


Now, you’re the leader of a nomadic people - it feels wrong to not have skilled hunters and other characters ready at your will. Because of this we’ve added a ‘Recruit from nomadic Capital’ decision where you can choose to spend a nominal amount of herd (symbolizing that the ones you recruit can no longer manage their flocks) in exchange for three courtiers of the desired type.

[Recruitment decision]

These characters will be of the Culture and Faith of your people - and will generally be quite skilled. Not all types are available from the start though, some require you to construct specific Yurt Buildings. A perfect way to get skilled hunters for your Hunt Activities (where the Hunting skill of the guests affects success chance!). You can also get good knights, commanders, shepherds (good as vassals!), brides, and husbands.


With Herd being the bread and butter of a nomadic ruler, and the main currency, there must be multiple ways to obtain it at will. Landed rulers can increase their taxes, ask their head of faith for gold, and others can trade hooks for gold. But as a ruler of the steppe, you have no such options. So how will you obtain herd outside of normal means? Well, since you cannot embezzle or launder large flocks of animals, the next best thing is to steal!

[Steal herd scheme window]

You’ll be able to choose how much herd to steal, and bigger amounts make the task more difficult. The scheme uses agents, ensuring your thievery is a success.

[Steal herd scheme sidebar]

If you manage to succeed in stealing another ruler’s Herd, there is a small chance of gaining additional outcomes. You can go for more herd, some of the ruler’s gold, his wife, or even a headstart at a murder plot against them! (evil character playthroughs only)

[Steal herd scheme giga outcome]



Before we started working on this expansion, the cultural tradition selection for Nomads was a bit bland. The big three of Horse Lords, Malleable Invaders, and Steppe Tolerance were present for almost all the cultures, meaning there was little difference between Kimeks and Mongols. And since all three were required to have access to Nomad-like flavor and mechanics, further customization was heavily limited. Now, with all the shiny bright new features and content this DLC brings to you, this is no longer the case. The starting cultural traditions have been rearranged, some existing traditions have received new effects and modifiers. And we have new ones as well!

[Wolves of the Deep Steppe cultural tradition]

The strength of the inner steppe. The Mongols start with this tradition, and while all Nomads cultures can get it as well, it is much more expensive for cultures with heritage other than Mongolic. For details on Mangudai men at arms, please keep reading!

[Iron Cavalry cultural tradition]

Where the Steppe warriors meet the ironworking wonders of the settled people. Turkmen and Oghuz cultures have this tradition at the game start.

[Tribes of the North cultural tradition]

This one is a bit different. It is present for the cultures that border the northern end of the ck3 map, the Buryats, Kirghiz, Ostyaks, Oirats, and Permians. Some of those have the Nomadic government like the Buryats, while Ostyaks and Permians are still tribal. Those tribes had a history of defiance while faced with adversaries: heirs of Temujin, ruling over the vast lands, still needed to endeavor a punitive expedition every decade or so to bring the northerners to heel, if only for prestige's sake.

This tradition can be obtained via hybridization; it is heavily connected to the Siberian Permafrost county modifier. This modifier is placed on the game start to counties up north, and it offers some powerful bonuses while preventing development growth and the creation of a feudal state with stone castles.

[Siberian Permafrost modifier breakdown. Its effects change if the owner does not have the Tribes of the North modifier]

Additionally, we have added new Nomadic effects to some of the existing cultural traditions, to make them a more viable and interesting choice when riding across the Great Steppe. Below you have just a couple of examples.

[Stalwart Defenders Cultural Tradition unlocks a special Yurt and gives a Toughness bonus to your Nomadic Horde]

[Pastoralist Cultural Tradition provides a fertility boost in certain terrains and increases the fertility growth of Herders]




Do you ever pop open CK to play as your favorite steppe people (the Kimeks, obviously), flip open your Army tab, and… see that you have pikemen, siege weapons, and some other units that don’t exactly represent the riders of your tribe?!? It was clear what had to be done for nomads’ MaA in this expansion: they needed to be limited from units that are much more emblematic of sedentary armies, and they needed some cool new units of their own.

So, there you go. If you’re playing a nomad (with no unique MaA through Traditions), your main way to get heavy/light infantry, pikemen, archers and proper siege weapons is through your non-nomadic Tributaries. How exactly this works was outlined in Dev Diary #165.

But forget about those dorks plodding around in the dust in their soft lil civilized shoes. You don’t need their MaA. As a mighty nomad, you need only - and are supremely skilled as - CAVALRY.

[The MaA units available to the Khan of Great Liao in 1066.]

The main mass of nomadic armies aren’t levies: these are replaced by the less-pathetic Horde Riders, which are converted over from Herd size when armies are raised. Even though they’re, of course, themed after horse archers, they don’t have the Archer Cavalry type, in order to limit the effects of bonuses and counters. Otherwise, these could really get out of hand, given Horde Riders will make up the vast majority of every nomadic army.



All nomads have access to classic, basic Horse Archers. They’re largely unchanged.



Steppe Raiders are nomadic light cavalry which are better-suited to dry and rough terrain than other nomadic cavalry units, receiving only mild penalties in hills, mountains and wetlands. They’re also available to all nomads.



Nomadic rulers won’t have direct access to real, substantially effective siege weapons. Until they can get a sweet tributary connection to hook them up, they make do with Torch-Bearers. Even worse than onagers, at least this standard nomad siege unit gets a siege bonus against nomadic holdings.



Only unlocked by building the Square of the Tumen domicile building, Heavy Horse Archers are a more costly alternative with more fighting punch, and a very handy counter against light cavalry (also, elephants). To counterbalance this, they suffer more penalties in harsh terrains.



The second level of Dominance allows Nomad Lancers to be recruited. What this means is nomadic rulers of means have access to heavy cavalry, even right at the 867 game start.



The Mongol tradition ‘Wolves of the Deep Steppe’ gives them access to the Mangudai. These vainglorious warriors have very high attack and pursuit, but low defence, meaning that they devastate defeated armies and leave few survivors. Their reckless attack and repeated retreats excel at breaking up formations, allowing armies with Mangudai to counter heavy infantry and spearmen.



Inspired by the Tangut Iron Harriers and the Mamelukes, this unit is available to a spread of cultures that were known for their employment of heavily armored horse archers. Note, however, that the unit's type is Heavy Cavalry and not Archer Cavalry: this allows Cataphract Archers to counter Archer Cavalry, and be one of the best ways to fight back against steppe conquerors.



That’s not a panini press on his chest. That’s armor. The Maturkan Warriors represent foot archers from all along the northern Siberian frontier, drawing particular inspiration from the noble Khanty warriors which lent the unit its name.



The glorious guard of Genghis himself can be yours, should you make it far enough down the new nomadic Dynasty Legacy. You’re limited to hiring just one regiment of this special unlock, but increase that regiment in size and you’ll see it packs quite the punch.



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And with that we reach almost the end of our Development Diaries dedicated to Khans of the Steppe! We will go over the modding support, art and music in the future, but this is our last feature spotlight. Thank you for reading – go forth, and conquer!