Crusader Kings III News

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Hello everyone! I'm the Community Manager with Paradox Studio Black, and today we're excited to present to you the next stage in Crusader Kings III's development: Chapter IV. Today, we'll go over the themes of each piece of content that make up the Chapter, as well as give a brief peek at their features. Without further ado, let's get into it.


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The first release in Chapter IV, Khans of the Steppe, focuses on the brand-new Nomadic Government and the systems we've created to support it. Inspired by the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe, these mechanics will challenge you to adapt to a lifestyle dominated by the ebb and flow of the land's vitality, maintain your herds, and establish your dominance over the region by any means necessary.

[h2]Key Features[/h2]
[h3]Nomadic Government[/h3]
Nomads don't live in a single static location; historically they travelled across the steppe as climate and fertility demanded, and we've strived to recreate that experience in Khans of the Steppe. You'll guide your people and herds across the region, tapping into the fertility of the land for as long as it lasts. Once resources run dry, you must migrate anew. Chieftains can roam peacefully by negotiating with neighboring shepherds, or seize new pastures by force.

[h3]Herd[/h3]
Representing your horses, cattle, and overall strength within the steppe, the new Herd system becomes a cornerstone of diplomatic, martial, and economic actions. Use it to fuel your warbands, or as currency in your negotiations.

[h3]Dominance[/h3]
Prove your might on the steppe through Dominance, increasing it alongside your power and territory. At its highest level, you might even claim the mantle of Genghis Khan; the Universal Ruler.

[h3]Seasons & Survival[/h3]
Life in the steppe is harsh, affected by the changing climate and weather patterns. A White Zud could blanket the land in snow, decimating fertility and putting pressure on you to find greener pastures. Meanwhile, milder conditions can bring bountiful growth to your herds, ushering in a period of prosperity.

Khans of the Steppe releases on April 28, with dev diaries scheduled for every Tuesday until then. Be sure to mark your calendars if you're eager to try your hand at this new style of governance and rulership.


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Beyond the steppe of Eurasia, Chapter IV introduces a new event pack simply titled: Coronations. In the medieval world, a coronation was more than just a gathering, it represented the moment where earthly and divine legitimacy converged.

[h2]Coronation Activity[/h2]
Coronations function as a new activity type, letting you experience the event first hand. Coordinate with religious authorities and conduct the perfect ceremony to establish your right to rule in the eyes of your vassals and subjects. Plan it wisely, because the consequences of this activity can echo throughout your entire reign and beyond.

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Chapter IV's flagship Major Expansion, All Under Heaven, is set to be the largest and most ambitious expansion in Crusader Kings history. We're completing our map of the medieval world by extending its scope across all of Asia. This massive expansion brings new gameplay, unique governments, and entirely different perspectives on life in the medieval era.

[h2]Key Features[/h2]
[h3]From Ireland to Cathay[/h3]
From the celestial might of Imperial China and the unique governments of Japan and Korea, to the god-kings of the Indonesian archipelago, each new area in All Under Heaven features new cultures, faiths, and flavor.

[h3]Hegemony[/h3]
To properly represent the power and influence of China in this period, we're introducing a new tier of title above an empire: the Hegemony. This new title tier allows for further granular representation of the division of power within large-scale realms.

[h3]Dynastic Cycle[/h3]
The fate of the imperial dynasties follows a cyclical pattern, reflecting historical eras of stability and eras of chaos. Players will struggle to maintain the Mandate of Heaven and prove that they are the right choice to navigate the empire through treacherous waters.

[h3]Imperial Treasury[/h3]
A new centralized treasury system for the Chinese Emperor represents the flow of wealth upward and into the empire's coffers, letting you decide how to spend (or squander) resources that could make or break the stability of the realm.

While no release date is being announced at this time, you can expect our normal in-depth developer diaries to start for this expansion shortly after the release of Khans of the Steppe, with our first dev diary tentatively scheduled for May.

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To properly prepare for our upcoming content in Chapter IV, we're releasing a broad set of changes to the game's existing content with our 1.15 "Crown" Update, available to all owners of Crusader Kings III right now, free of charge. This update overhauls multiple systems and fixes numerous issues to ensure your experience in the medieval world is more enjoyable.

The full changelog is too large to share here, but you can find it on our official forums at the bottom of this dev diary.

[h2]Update Highlights[/h2]
[h3]Court Position Overhaul[/h3]
A more intuitive interface for appointing and managing your court's less essential roles. New court positions are introduced, while existing ones are given tasks that their holders can be directed to perform for various benefits. Additionally, you can now choose to replace vacancies manually, or set specific positions to be refilled automatically.

[h3]Army Automation and AI Improvements[/h3]
Focus on what's important to you while you let the AI handle martial affairs. There's also new interface elements to clarify what allied armies (or your own, if automation is enabled) are actually doing, making it easier than ever to coordinate your war efforts.

[h3]Improvements to Crusade AI[/h3]
The AI will now gather its armies before striking at its enemies as a properly coordinated force. Expect more unified Great Holy War offensives, and fiercer opposition as a defender.

From quality-of-life changes to bug squashing, the 1.15 "Crown" update refines the overall experience of the game. It's also available right now, so give it a try and let us know what you think!

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For those eager to dive into Chapter IV content as soon as possible, anyone who purchases the Chapter IV pass will immediately receive the Crowns of the World cosmetic pack, unlocking various culture-specific crowns and turbans. Whether you play in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa, you're sure to find new stylish ways to represent your royal persona.

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We want to ensure that the content in Chapter IV is the best it can be, and a huge part of that is building strong communications and relationships between us and our layers. Your feedback on existing content as well as upcoming features is vital to this effort. To facilitate this, we're collecting questions from all of you until March 19, and will publish a video responding to as many of these as we can on March 26th. Submit your questions below in the comments, or on any of our social media channels.

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Chapter IV is the most ambitious content cycle in Crusader Kings history, offering everything from the struggles of maintaining your herd as a nomadic ruler in Khans of the Steppe, to the weight of ceremony and duty in Coronations, culminating in the completion of our map of the medieval world in All Under Heaven. Whether you choose to play in the new areas being introduced to the game or your existing favorites, Chapter IV will redefine the stories you make in Crusader Kings III.

The 1.15 "Crown" Update and the Chapter IV pass are both available right now. The Crown update is available for free to all owners of Crusader Kings III, while those who purchase the Chapter IV pass will immediately receive Crowns of the World as well as all the content mentioned above as soon as it is released.

Greetings!

This Dev Diary is about the upcoming free update, which we’ve dubbed 1.15.0 ‘Crown’! Similarly to free updates of the past, the Crown update will be pretty big - it has reworked systems, new features, and a myriad of bugfixes and balance changes.

All of the changes that I’ll go over stem from the fact that we spend a lot of time updating, tweaking, and bugfixing existing systems and features as part of our parallel development track setup - depending on the status of an individual track, people from that track are assigned to what we call ‘Realm Maintenance’, where we focus on improving areas of the game that we either feel aren’t good enough, or that you in the community are asking for us to change. Usually a lot of Realm Maintenance time happens at the start of a new development track, as there are few bugs in newly developed content during, for example, the concepting or pre-production phases. During Realm Maintenance we have Improvement Days where we add as many smaller improvements and quality of life changes as we can, and some time is also used to polish promising projects from the Black Forge Jam (an internal sort-of game jam where we experiment with new CK3 features). The Crown update contains over 4 months worth of Realm Maintenance, including 200+ bugfixes.

I won’t have time to go over everything in detail, so I’ll focus on a few highlights!

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Last year we teased a Court Position rework, and since then we’ve refined it and added even more improvements. In short; the rework aims to make Court Positions more interesting and engaging, adding tools, adjusting costs, improving quality-of-life, and making the UI less of a hassle to use. The intent is for Court Positions to be more widely used by giving them new effects and tasks that allow you to deal with many different situations.

[Image - The new layout]

The new layout allows you to see more positions at once, and presents them in a more immersive way. All of the information is still there, of course: most of what you don’t need to see at all times has just moved into the tooltip. What you need to know at a glance is still visible.

[Image - Unavailable Court Positions]

At the bottom of the list we’ve added a new foldable category that reveals all positions that you could potentially have. It’ll exclude anything you cannot possibly get, such as Adventurer Officers for landed characters and vice-versa. The tooltips will tell you what you can do in order to get them.

[Image - Court Position automation]

Now when it’s more important than ever to keep certain positions filled, we’ve added the option of choosing to fill the position automatically. This comes in three flavors, depending on your preference: an event giving you the option to choose between a few good candidates in your court, auto-assign the highest aptitude courtier, or auto-assign with an event notifying you if there are no candidates. This can be toggled per Court Position, and different positions can have different settings.

[Image - Seneschal Tooltip]

A lot of court positions were never used because it was hard to justify spending gold on their salaries, so we decided to transfer part of the costs into prestige, and we also lowered salaries across the board (the salary pictured in the screenshot is from the late medieval era, roughly 150 years in from 1066). Prestige is a resource most players are more willing to part with, but as there up until now has existed very few ‘prestige income sinks’ you need to be careful so you don’t spend it all…

All of the new tasks have costs; some of them prestige, some gold, and some even cost piety. It's these tasks where the brunt of the cost will come from, but they are naturally opt-in, and you can use them to handle tricky situations, toggling them on/off as you see fit.

Most positions now also come with an interesting effect for the holder of the position, such as the 20% stewardship experience pictured above. This also means that we’ve opened up a lot more positions to be held by vassals, which is interesting because:

[Image - Request Court Position]

You can now request Court Positions from your liege, allowing you to reap some of the benefits that they convey, such as Royal Architect now reducing your build time/build cost, or the Court Poet now reducing your stress gain, general opinion, and diplomacy lifestyle xp.

[Image - Grant Court Position]

You can also grant court positions directly via a character interaction now, making it easier to, for example, appease angry vassals with ceremonial positions.

[Image - A handful of the new tasks]

There are way too many new Court Position Tasks for me to go through them in detail, but above is a small sample of what you’re going to see. Most Court Positions now have three tasks to choose from, with a few having one or two - these tasks cover a wide variety of things you might want, from Wet Nurses instilling virtues into your children, to your Antiquarian searching for rumors about locations of rare Artifacts, to your High Almoner promoting the opinion of Zealous Vassals, among many, many more things.

Many of the things you can now do didn't have any tools before; such as reducing the stress of characters other than yourself (which can be achieved via the Entertain Courtiers task for the Jester). You can also use various positions and tasks to slowly increase your Legitimacy; the Seneschal gives a small passive trickle, the Court Poet can give you Legitimacy % Gain Modifiers as part of the Write Poetry Task, and the Court Musicians Bolster Legitimacy Task (the Court Musician is now available to Duke-tier characters and no longer requires Royal Court to have!). It’s worth noting that all tasks that increase stat points, such as ‘Exercise with Ruler’, are balanced in such a way that you cannot gain skills unless the holder of the position is better at the skill than you are.

We’ve also taken this opportunity to move the entire Hunt Sighting system into these tasks. If you want hunt sightings to improve the success chance of your hunts, you now choose what your Master of the Hunt should focus on finding - this makes the system less random and gives you more agency.

There’s more that I’ve not talked about, to see the full extent of changes I refer to the full changelog here on our official forums!


Another feature we teased last year was the addition of Automated Armies, an opt-in feature where the AI takes control of your armies and fights wars for you. The intent behind this feature is to allow you to focus on other things while engaged in trivial wars, and to allow players unfamiliar or uninterested in warfare to enjoy the game more. If you are an experienced player we still recommend that you control your armies yourself, but give it a spin if you’re just cleaning up those three counts bordering your empire!

[Image - Automated Armies Settings]

Now, there are two crucial parts to this feature working well: seeing what the AI is thinking, and for the AI to play well. There’s nothing that differentiates Automated Armies from how the AI normally plays, so improving one improves the other. Both of these areas will be covered in the two sections below:


Sometimes you have an ally in a war that you have no idea what they are thinking - perhaps they’re just standing there, moving erratically, or being generally unhelpful. Quite often this is because of something that you’re not aware of; perhaps they are resupplying their armies, perhaps they are guarding a siege, etc. To make it more transparent what an army is doing, we’ve added icons with descriptions that explicitly tell you what the AI is up to.

[Image - Exposed Ally Thinking]

This is also applied to your own armies if they’re automated, giving you an overview of what they’re doing.

[Image - Exposed automation thinking]

In the above screenshot, the right army is actively besieging while the left one is guarding the siege while standing in a province with enough supply limit to support it.

There are a multitude of different states for the AI to show; moving, attacking, moving to siege, supporting the player, etc. Hopefully this’ll clear up most uncertainties regarding why they’re doing things that might otherwise appear inexplicable.


We’ve been working a lot with warfare AI in an effort to make it better. We’re not promising miracles, but we have spent over two months of programmer time in an effort to nail down bugs, improve sub-par behavior, and change behavior that, while intended, didn’t feel ‘right’.

This includes a lot of cases where the AI would be indecisive, passive, or ‘dance’ between provinces, which was often caused by various competing systems trying to avoid attrition, match supply limits to stack sizes, and edge-case bugs. These fixes in combination with the exposed AI ally logic above results in much more clear warfare where it’s easier to understand what the AI is up to.

We’ve also taught the AI about War Score, making them pursue what would give them score, rather than arbitrarily choosing actions based on a set of circumstances that were always fixed. For example; when you’re fighting a war as a player, you’re less likely to pursue battles if you know that the siege you’re currently about to finish would win you the war, and you’re also less likely to pursue battles if you’re already capped on battle warscore (usually war score for battles is capped at +50% for most CB’s). They’re now also much more likely to siege using stacks with Siege Weapons, and will try to shuffle their siege stacks around in such a way that their ongoing sieges aren’t broken.

Now, there are going to be edge cases where unwanted behavior still happens, and we’ll keep fixing bugs as we find them. Hopefully you won't notice as much strange AI behavior any more.

An area of the game where the ‘normal’ war AI does not perform as well is during Crusades, so we decided to take a suggestion from the community and give these Great Holy Wars some special treatment. The ‘one size fits all’ philosophy out the window, the AI now has a set of special procedures they follow during these grand-scale wars in particular.

Firstly there’s a set of smaller tweaks; the AI cares less about attrition and supply until they’ve made some headway, and they will try to ‘boat hop’ less often (take short sea paths). When you’re going from well-supplied Europe by boat disembarking into low-supply drylands with an army of potentially hundreds of thousands of men there’s no way you can find enough supply for all of them - the AI now knows this, and when they start assaulting the war target they will temporarily ignore attrition until they’ve gotten enough of a beachhead that they can support the size of their units, this makes the initial phase of a crusade more likely to succeed as the attacking AI won’t desperately shuffle their troops around to find supply. By ‘boat hopping’ less they will prefer land routes to their targets, avoiding the -30 advantage penalty.

Now for the meat of the changes; the attacker in a GHW will first find a ‘Gathering Area’, and then move their armies to a ‘Staging Area’.

[Image - AI armies gathering in Roma before sailing to Jerusalem]

For the first stage of a Great Holy War the attacking AI will find a good-supply area where they can gather their forces. As stacks of units are raised across a large part of the world they need some time to gather, and should do so in a safe place. In this example we have a crusade against Jerusalem, so Roma with its surrounding counties is deemed both safe and close enough to the target to be designated the Gathering Area. You will see an icon on allied AI units with a text that says where they intend to gather, so that you can follow them there. They will gather for several months before setting off to the next step of the journey: the Staging Area.

[Image - AI armies staging in Issus after having gathered in Roma]

The Staging Area is the closest friendly or neutral area to the war target, in this example it’s in Byzantium. The attacking forces will make their way there before starting their assault, which means that they will arrive as a much more unified force. This also means that they won’t immediately attack from the water, avoiding disembarkment penalties and ensuring that their stacks have an acceptable degree of supply. Instead they will most likely march in via land, taking a modicum of attrition along the way, but ultimately mustering a more successful assault.

Now, the testing that we’ve done reveals that the attackers are usually more successful, but can still lose. Though now when they lose it’s less because they frustratingly trickle in across several years with disembarkment penalties and no supply, and more because the defenders have a homeland advantage - as it should be.


The character interaction menu has received a facelift, with the intent of cleaning it up and making interactions more intuitive.

[Image - Cleaned-up interaction menu]

Several categories have been removed and merged into other categories to keep the overall number down. We’ve added colors to these categories so it’s easier to glance at the one you need.

You can now easily see if a scheme is personal, hostile, or political - with the predicted scheme difficulty shown next to it, making it easier to see what you could be pursuing without having to delve into each interaction.

[Image - Favorite button]

As we’ve moved several interactions to no longer be common and only shown in sub-menus, we’ve added a way for you to select ‘favorite’ interactions. Favorite interactions will be shown in their own category at the top of the interaction menu, allowing you to see what you think is important first.

[Image - Favorites in action]

Wherever it makes sense we’ve now added a quick-interaction button that contains a collection of relevant interactions for that context. These buttons have been added in various places, such as for your head of faith, on your Administrative liege, or on administrative governors in the theme view. If you’re a modder you can easily make more custom contexts.

[Image - Head of Faith custom interaction category]

[Image - UI for raising armies anywhere]

You can now right-click to raise your armies in a specific area, so you no longer have to move a rally point there first. This simplifies the act of raising armies and prevents the mistake where you can accidentally raise your armies on the wrong side of your empire just because you moved your rally point there during your last war… It’s not impossible that we’ll remove and replace the rally point system entirely in the future.

[image - Tooltip for Raise Armies]

[Image - Eparch]

Going hand-in-hand with the Court Position rework, a new Court Position has been added for independent rulers of Administrative realms: the Eparch. The Eparch focuses on improving your capital in various ways; the tasks are expensive, but the effects are significant! Being the Eparch is also very attractive for vassals, as they get a significant influence boost…

[Image - Eparch Tasks]

Going hand-in-hand with the Eparch is the new Capital Magistracy building, which improves the aptitude of the Eparch among other things. It can only be built in the capital of an Administrative realm.

[Image - A tier 1 Capital Magistracy building]

Not everything will be easier for Administrative realms - we also thought that it was way too easy for them to hold on to their lands, even when engaged in civil wars or otherwise weakened. We’ve added a new CB that can only be used on Administrative realms, ‘Seize Peripheral Duchy’, that allows you to take any duchy that is outside of the empire's De Jure for a very low prestige cost. This CB has 3x the Siege and battle warscore for the attacker, and a significantly faster ticking warscore, making it the perfect way to reclaim lands from an otherwise preoccupied empire.

[Image - The Seize Peripheral Duchy CB]

Alongside this we’ve also reworked the "Order Mass Arrests" decision to be a character interaction. You can now use this on all noble families, and not just powerful families, as long as their estate is located in the capital. We’ve also tweaked the options for when you restore the Roman Empire, such as offering a path to become Hellenic without activating Roman Hard More, as well as making said mode more enjoyable by tweaking event frequencies and removing parts of it that made little sense (such as increased diseases).


The Clan government is one that is both fairly underplayed (according to telemetry) and that the AI struggles in playing well (often underperforming significantly). This prompted us to look into doing something to make them more interesting and less frustrating to play - when managing Tax Jurisdictions it’s a constant battle to find competent Tax Collectors. All you have at your disposal are your unlanded courtiers and a decision with a fairly long cooldown, which leads to a frustrating time as you often end up in a combination of not having anyone to assign, and if you do have someone, they’re more often than not terrible. The various tax decrees also felt underwhelming with the vast majority of players simply opting for the Zakat (luxury tax) one as it increased your gold income.

All of this has prompted a host of changes to the feature.

[Image - Updated Tax Jurisdiction UI]

Alongside a general facelift of the UI, we’ve opened up the possibility for Vassals to be Tax Collectors - this makes it significantly easier to find tax collectors, and to find good ones. Similarly to how we handle Court Positions, landed tax collectors get a penalty to their aptitude, but on average it’s much easier to find good tax collectors because of this change.

Clan rulers now also don’t have to worry about being allied to ALL their vassals, as only powerful vassals will expect to be allied to their liege. This makes you able to focus on pleasing a select few characters in the realm without having to suffer a permanent -20 opinion with every vassal. You also no longer gain a legitimacy penalty for marrying lowborn characters as secondary wives (and to pre-empt exploits we’ve also made it so that switching to a lowborn spouse as your primary spouse triggers the lowborn marriage penalties). This means that as long as your main spouse is highborn, the remaining ones can be lowborn. The AI has been updated to always try to set the spouse with the best stats as their primary one, as long as that doesn’t trigger the lowborn spouse marriage penalties.

[Image - Updated tax decrees]

All Tax Decrees have been updated to have more interesting and modern effects, including systems that have been added since Tax Decrees were added, like Legitimacy, Danger, and Plague Resistance, and enabling systems that are logically connected to the decree, like raiding for Ghazi.

These changes match the Clan realm's more volatile nature, providing bonuses that are more relevant and interesting to choose between. They should now more closely be able to match the power that Feudal realms can muster with their Vassal Contracts.


All commander traits are now tiered traits that are leveled up by taking actions related to the trait.

[Image - A levelled Logistician trait]

Commander traits now start out less impactful, with effects weaker than they currently are. Through war, battles, and siege, you can now level them up - potentially reaching heights that were not previously possible. A fully levelled Military Engineer reduces siege phase times by 40%, a fully levelled Flexible Leader reduces enemy defensive bonuses by 80%, and so on.

To level the traits you need to do whatever makes sense: to level up Aggressive Attacker you win offensive battles, to level up Military Engineer you complete sieges, and so on. The higher the commander's Martial skill, the faster they will level up their traits. This also means that a commander with a high-level commander trait can be extremely valuable, as replacing their accumulated knowledge of warfare is not a trivial task.


The Barbershop has been updated with several new categories, and items have been re-shuffled to allow for a greater degree of customization. Many items previously not accessible has been added, such as some Byzantine and Jain clothing, and you are now allowed to freely change eye items, face items, crests, veils, and special crowns.

[Image - New barbershop categories]

We’ve made extra care to address pain points such as not being able to remove glasses or veils, while simultaneously allowing you to create combinations you weren’t able to before. More customization is better customization!

[Image - New Crests, Veils, & Special Crowns category]

Use responsibly!

[Image - a distinctly cursed barbershop creation]


[h2]AI Promote Culture Tweaks[/h2]
Late-game culture maps are often quite boring, with the culture map gradually becoming more and more populated by small divergences. This is fine in the case where these divergences lead to interesting new cultures expanding their presence on the map, but often it is not so. We’ve tweaked the AI to be more inclined to promote their cultures under certain circumstances.

Central Germanic heritage cultures within the HRE will now want to promote culture in Sorbian-culture counties, very small cultures will want to grow (if they are below 10 counties), 'Imperious' cultures (cultures with a powerful culture head, realm of 30+ counties and King+ tier) will want to grow to a decent size (35 counties, about the size of French at 1066 start), smaller (
[Image - Saxon slowly being promoted in Polabian lands]

[h2]Game Rule Updates[/h2]
We’ve added several new options to the Realm Stability Game Rule, based on community feedback - and a few extra for good measure! You can now set stability to only affect AI’s, and there’s an additional setting that avoids changing the frequency of peasant and populist factions as those could become too frequent or infrequent depending on your setting.

[Image - New Realm Stability settings]

For those that enjoy the occasional Scourge of the Gods Conqueror but think that 5% is too much we’ve added an additional rule; Low Random, with a 0.5% chance of it happening.

[Image - Conqueror Low Random setting]

[h2]New Message Setting Options[/h2]
The message settings window now has a history log of all feed messages, so you can browse through them at a later time.

[Image - Message Settings log]

We’ve also added two community-requested message settings: scheme advantages and non-dynastic courtiers coming of age.

[Image - Scheme Advantage message setting]

[Image - Non-dynastic courtier coming of age]

[h2]Guardian Status in Courtiers UI[/h2]
There are now new indicator texts and filter options for finding children without guardians in your court. This is present both in the right-hand-side Court window and in the character view.


[Image - Guardian indicators]

[h2]New Major Decisions[/h2]
Two new major decisions have also made their way into this update, both focusing on forming new empires - Beth Narain for rulers of Syriac heritage, and the Empire of Hindustan.

[Image - Beth Narain creation decision]

When adding new decisions for creating new empire titles in Crusader Kings there are two different things we look for. One could be an interesting alternative history empire for a historical group or region, like Beth Nahrain, another is to look for what great empires existed during the historical timeline but which currently cannot be formed in the game.

[Image - Hindustan creation decision]

The Islamic Conquest of India is not something that happens in every game, but when it happens we rarely ever get something like the actual Delhi Sultanate. The new decision lets a muslim ruler who controls a fair chunk of the north, move his capital to Delhi or Lahore, while creating a new empire title that incorporates any held line in the 3 Indian Empires. If you have Roads to Power it will also give you the Administrative government, though one with a hereditary succession instead of acclamation.

[h2]Commanded by Ruler Banner[/h2]
[Image - ‘Commander by Ruler’ banner]

You can now see if the enemy war leader is in an army, as they’ll be marked with a crown banner stating ‘Commanded by Ruler’.

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That’s it for this Dev Diary! The 1.15.0 ‘Crown’ update will soon be in your hands, and we hope that it’ll be to your liking! You can find the full changelog here on our official forums!

Hello everyone! Today we're releasing our two newest Content Creator Packs, Medieval Monuments & Arctic Attire.

Please find the changelog and release trailers below.

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• Added support for Medieval Monuments and Arctic Attire Content Creator Packs
  
• Added new DLC icons and descriptions for the Content Creator Packs
  

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Discover the great architectural achievements of the Middle Ages with the Content Creator Pack Medieval Monuments.

Created in collaboration with the established Crusader Kings III modder PiGu, Medieval Monuments brings new varied and culturally significant monuments to the game.

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• Added 20 new special buildings to the map
  
  • Drassanes in Barcelona*
    
  • Great Kyz Kala in Merv
    
  • Cluny Abbey in Cluny
    
    • Has 2 different levels, one for the Monastery and one for the Grand Cathedral. Highest level is available in the 1178 start date.
      
  • Duomo of Florence in Florence
    
    • Has 4 different levels. In the 1178 start date, it is at the second level.
      
  • Walls of York in York
    
  • Great Mosque of Damascus in Damascus
    
  • Jokhang Temple in Lhasa
    
  • Wartburg in Schmalkalden
    
  • St. George of Lalibela (Beta Giyorgis) in Lalibela*
    
  • Holy Wisdom of God in Novgorod
    
  • St Wenceslaus Cathedral in Krakow
    
  • Visegrad Citadel in Visegrad*
    
  • University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fes
    
  • Kairouan Basins in Kairouan
    
  • Ghana Palace in Al-Ghaba
    
  • Kano Earthworks in Kano*
    
  • Golden Fort in Jaisalmer
    
  • Konarak Sun Temple in Konarak*
    
  • Somapura University in Somapur
    
  • Vatapi Caves in Vatapi
    

* These monuments are not pre-built in any of the available start dates.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315540/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_Medieval_Monuments/

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Brave the chill of far northern lands in style with the Arctic Attire Content Creator Pack, made in collaboration with the established Crusader Kings III modder Aj. Arctic Attires adds cosmetics inspired by Sami and Khanty aesthetics.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• New clothing and headgear inspired by Sami and Khanty cultures to the northern regions of the map
  
  • Clothing
    
    • 3 variants of male Khanty Commoner Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of female Khanty Commoner Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of male Khanty Low Nobility Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of female Khanty Low Nobility Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of male Khanty High Nobility Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of female Khanty High Nobility Clothing
      
    • 1 variant of male and female Sami Fur Coat
      
    • 2 variants of male Sami Commoner Clothing
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami Commoner Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of male Sami Low Nobility Clothing
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami Low Nobility Clothing
      
    • 2 variants of male Sami High Nobility Clothing
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami High Nobility Clothing
      
  • Headwear
    
    • 1 variant of male and female Sami Cap
      
    • 3 variants of male Fur Four-Winds Hat
      
    • 3 variants of male Four-Winds Hat
      
    • 1 variant of male Khanty Raised Fur Hood
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami Hat
      
    • 1 variant of female Fine Sami Hat
      
    • 3 variants of female Khanty Common Headscarf
      
    • 3 variants of female Khanty Low Noble Headscarf
      
    • 3 variants of female Khanty High Noble Headscarf
      
    • 3 variants of male and female Arctic Lamellar Helm
      
    • 1 variant of male and female Khanty Shaman’s Hat
      
  • Cloaks
    
    • 2 variants of male Commoner Lukha
      
    • 2 variants of male Lukha
      
    • 2 variants of male Fancy Lukha
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami Shawl
      
    • 1 variant of female Sami Noble Shawl
      
    • 1 variant of female Fancy Sami Noble Shawl
      
  • Legwear
    
    • 1 variants of male and female Sami Legwear
      
    • 1 variants of male and female Khanty Legwear
      
  • Armor
    
    • 3 variants of male and female Arctic Lamellar Armor
      
    • New music track: Longing for the Land
      
      • Added support for the new music track in the game’s Music Player
        

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315550/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_Arctic_Attire/

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You can also save 20% off both Content Creator Packs by purchasing them as a bundle!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/49929/

Hello everyone! We have an unusual dev diary today, in that it’s two dev diaries in one! PiGu, developer of Medieval Monuments, and Aj, developer of Arctic Attire both will give us a brief overview of the content they’re bringing to Crusader Kings III as well as the work that went into creating it.



Let’s dive right into it with Medieval Monuments.

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Hello everyone!

I’m Pietro “PiGu” Cavalli, creator of the Medieval Arts mod, and today I have been granted the privilege to welcome you to this developer diary introducing the new Crusader Kings III Content Creator Pack: Medieval Monuments!

I’ve been playing Paradox games for years, but Medieval Arts was my first modding experience.

Developed in 2021 to represent the artistic and architectural achievements of the Middle Ages, it has grown and changed many times but it has always kept to its original mission. I have grown with it, learning several skills from scratch with help from the modding community, and falling particularly in love with 3D modeling, which has now become the core of the mod. Today Medieval Arts is an expanding collection of dozens of new monuments, all with their own unique art and flavor, backed by a wonderful and supportive community.

[h2]The Content Creator Pack[/h2]
Before delving into details, I would like to take a moment to explain the vision behind Content Creator Packs. They are meant as a nice way to support modders financially and enhance their skills, while at the same time providing the game with a product of higher quality than a modder would realistically be able to produce on their own free time, that is able to blend seamlessly into the game, and that is maintained in the future directly by Paradox.

I was first approached this summer to pitch ideas and discuss the different shapes that an “architectural” cosmetic pack might take. While initially proposing a more regional focus, we ended up opting for a broader geographical scope, encompassing the whole map. I then spent a few weeks researching and thinning out options until reaching the final version of Medieval Monuments.

To be clear about expectations then, this Content Creator Pack includes 20 brand new special buildings, each with their own 3D model, art, flavorful descriptions and modifiers.

I feel so grateful to the people at Paradox Interactive for offering me this opportunity. I greatly enjoyed working with them, and I learned so much throughout the whole process. We had an honest and clear collaboration where my creative input was greatly respected, and guided when necessary to ensure a proper delivery to a community that has always been kind and supportive of my work.

I can’t wait to read what you think!

[h2]The Monuments[/h2]
So, let’s have a look at some of the special buildings included in the pack! As previously mentioned there’s 20 of them, but I won’t spoil them all for you here, I’d like you to search the map and find where they are yourselves ; )

One of the most difficult steps of the creative process was deciding just which monuments to actually portray. The overall “size” of the pack had already been determined previously, so I had to pick 20 out of the entire architectural production of the Middle Ages, a task easier said than done. To help make the best choice, I decided to keep a few priorities in mind:

First of all I wanted the pack to represent the whole map, to make sure that wherever you may choose to play your next game, you’d always have at least one monument relatively close by. I’ve also tried to favor regions that are lacking unique map objects in the base game. This has granted me the opportunity to be very diverse in the styles, colors and shapes of the monuments, changing with the cultures and environments.

These range from the frigid lands of the ‘Rus, where you’ll be able to construct the Holy Wisdom of Novgorod, the oldest church in Russia proper and a magnificent example of its unique art, to the humid heat of the Bengal delta, where the great university of Somapura were piously carved.

[The important church of the Holy Wisdom of Novgorod, one of the oldest in all of the Rus’ lands and inspired by the marvels of Constantinople, covered in winter snow]

[Somapura has long been an important center of learning for India, attracting scholars to the fertile delta from afar]

Furthermore, another important distinction is temporal in nature. The Middle Ages lasted a thousand years, and even Crusader Kings’ more restricted time span still offers enormous variety in styles and functions and materials. Many monuments greatly changed throughout time, some were expanded, others torn down. I have tried to strike a balance between the centuries, favoring those buildings that belonged to the game’s era so that you may have a chance to build them yourself, but also adding some already constructed at the start, and whenever a monument changed form or function throughout time, I tried to represent a synthesis of its history, even if not always entirely faithful.

You’ll therefore find buildings varying greatly in period, such as the ancient Umayyad mosque of Damascus, one of the holiest sites for the Abrahamic faiths whose millenarian story has very few equals, or the more “late game” castle and royal residence of Visegrad, which holds a very special place in the history of Central Europe.

[The Great Mosque of Damascus already has an incredibly fascinating history by CK3’s time]

[With its strategic position yet unclaimed, constructing the fortress-palace of Visegrad is sure to give even the lowest of lords a great advantage]

In two select cases, because the architectural evolution was so profound, I chose to represent them as multiple tiers. The constructions of these buildings lasted decades, if not centuries, and you’ll be able to follow them with generations of your characters!

The complex of the Duomo of Florence begins as the modest basilica of Santa Reparata, but with proper time and investment can evolve, over four different tiers, to include the baptistery, the cathedral and finally the masterpiece of the Cupola, the famous dome that heralded the Renaissance and is still triumphant over Florence’s skyline.

[The complex of the Duomo of Florence has gone from the small early Christian basilica of Santa Reparata to the colossal cathedral we see today, topped by a dome that has become symbol of the Renaissance]

Similarly, on the opposite side of the Alps, the lords and monks of Cluny will be able to expand their already considerable power base into the largest of the medieval churches, which unfortunately did not survive to our day.

[The monastery of Cluny was a powerful instrument in the reform of the Church, and the construction of its new Romanesque abbey was a testament to their great wealth and prestige]

Finally, I also wanted the monuments to vary in their function and aspect. The study of medieval architecture, especially in the West, has long been focused on cathedrals due to their scale and disproportionate rate of survival, but the world of Crusader Kings III had far more and many great works.

For example, in Tunisia you will be able to see the basins of Kairouan, a monumental complex to guarantee water to the city no matter the climate, and in Barcelona you will be able to construct the Drassanes, industrial-scale shipyards that allowed the city’s rulers to expand their influence all over the Mediterranean.

[The basins of Kairouan are an impressive feat of engineering that provided fresh water to the growing city]


[The shipyards of Drassanes were fortified to keep out intruders and protect the secrets that allowed the kings of Barcelona to rule the Western Mediterranean]

[h2]Research and Realism[/h2]

To conclude I would like to spend a few words on creative freedom and historical accuracy. Although of course no comprehensive academic survey of all these diverse monuments exists, I took the time to research each of them individually to the best of my abilities to follow the standards upheld by Paradox and the developers of Crusader Kings and guarantee proper realism in all the models included in the pack.

Sometimes I was lucky. When designing the Great Kyz Kala, an ancient fortified palatial complex in the oasis of Merv, Central Asia, I was able to draw from ancient representations and modern reconstructions, as well as of course from the ruins we see today, which allowed me to depict it with a fair degree of accuracy.

[The Great Kyz Kala is today an impressive ruin, but it used to be a magnificent palace blending Arab and Persian architectural traditions]

[The ruins of ancient Merv have long been excavated and studied, yielding important information that allowed me to reproduce the Kyz Kala in-game. Furthermore, this silver gilt dish from the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, shows a raid to a palace that likely resembled greatly the original appearance of the palace.]

Other times I was less lucky, and I had to use my own judgement to fit the monument into the game. I understand this is by no means a perfect choice, but to properly represent cultures and regions with scattered records some compromises had to be struck, and I want to assure you they were all properly thought out. Such was the case for the Jokhang temple - the holiest site in Tibet - or some of the monuments in West Africa.

[h2]Appreciations[/h2]
I would like to properly thank the kind people at Paradox Interactive for trusting me with this project. It was a wonderful experience that helped me improve my work considerably, and I have learned so much from it.

Finally, I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for the amazing support you have shown me and Medieval Arts through the years, and I’m so excited to share this chapter with you!

--Pietro

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315540/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_Medieval_Monuments

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Hey hey!

I’m Aj, the 3D artist behind the Shogunate mod - and now the official Arctic Attire DLC! After months of telling my mod dev teams that “I’m busy” and that “I can’t help with compatch”, I can finally reveal what I’ve been working on (and be able to go back to work on the already compatibility patched mods completely guilt-free).

Arctic Attire takes inspiration from the previous Content Creator Packs by El Tyrannos, but instead of adding just one aesthetic, it adds two aesthetics of slightly smaller scope.

The Sámi are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia and Kola. The Sámi garments depicted in Arctic Attire are primarily inspired by clothing of the Kautokeino region as depicted in photographs from the late 1800s, but some pieces take inspiration from other regions and are informed by research of Sámi in the middle ages.
The Khanty are an indigenous people of Western Siberia living in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra. Their traditional clothing is the primary inspiration for the Ugro-Permian set used across west Siberia.
Both peoples traditionally live a nomadic lifestyle, herding reindeer and hunting, and have historically been involved in fur trade.

I will now give a quick tour of the CCP and what is contained inside, with some commentary here and there.

[h2]The Khanty[/h2]
The main male Khanty winter garment is the Malitsa - here are variants for men including belt accessories. These take advantage of the pattern system to vary between reindeer antler, silver, and gold. There is also a version without a belt, not shown here.

[Khanty men's clothing - commoner and nobility. Also shows dynamic lowered hood gfx when hood headgear isn't worn.]

[Khanty men’s clothing - commoner clothing, showcasing knife and belt details, and reference images - Estonian National Museum (Wikimedia Commons), German wood-engraving from 1895, Khanty belt from the British Museum]

[Arctic armor posed with reference image from American Museum of Natural History]

Ugro-Permian armor is inspired by various Siberian armors, but primarily by Chukchi armor, since it seems to be quite representative of Siberian armor in general, and there wasn’t a lot of good period-appropriate reference material from Western Siberia. Plus, it’s a really cool design. Fun fact - the oldest lamellar in the world was found in Siberia, and it was made of bone. The practice of making bone armor in Siberia continued for a very long time after that, and bone armor will show up on Ugro-Permian commoners. The back shield design is also very old - Scythian armor employed this design as well.

[Armor work-in-progress images.]

[Khanty women's clothing]

The main female Khanty winter garment is the Panitsa, or Sakh. The winter Sakh is quite elaborate and is outfitted with a lot of internal and external straps and ties to allow for a more precise fit. I chose to model winter clothing over summer clothing because it's very visually distinct from surrounding clothing styles, and I thought it would fit great with the new adventurer playstyle.

[Khanty women's clothing variant and headgear.]

[Khanty women's clothing work-in-progress images.]


[h2]The Sámi[/h2]
Most of the assets for Arctic Attire were made with cloth simulation in Marvelous Designer, then touched up in Blender, but hard-surface details like the knives or much of the armor were modelled entirely in Blender.

[Sámi women's clothing and cloaks with reference images - hand-colored photograph from the Nordic Museum, and photo from Heimbeck c.1900]

[Sámi men's clothing, work-in-progress sculpt and reference photograph by Marcus Selmer.]

[Sámi clothing selection, showcasing the lukha, a work-in-progress sculpt next to finished clothing.]

Sámi commoners have a lot of color variety - they have a lot of undyed or only slightly dyed clothing, or clothing made from leather or fishskins - fish hide clothing was actually very widespread in the arctic for a long time, and was produced by a variety of cultures. In Sámi culture, it seems to have been an option for the lower classes, while reindeer fur was reserved for the rich. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make a bespoke fish skin pattern, so I represented it with a grey-colored leather pattern instead.

[Sámi commoner clothing and fish-skin clothes reference - from Norsk Folkemuseum, by G. Roche]


[Posed Sámi travel coat with reference image.]


Sámi travel clothing - a big fur coat, based on some south and east Sámi beaskas.

[Posed Sámi council portrait, showing a selection of different garments.]

It’s been a great time working on this Content Creator Pack with Paradox, and I hope everyone enjoys the new accessories.

That’s all from me for now. Back to modding, I guess!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315550/Crusader_Kings_III_Content_Creator_Pack_Arctic_Attire

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That’s all we have for today! A huge thank you goes out to PiGu and Aj both for their work on putting this dev diary together.

Medieval Monuments and Arctic Attire both release on February 25th

We’re pleased to announce that two new Content Creator Packs are coming to Crusader Kings III on February 25th! These packs introduce historically significant monuments and new clothing inspired by the Sámi and Khanty peoples of the far north, offering players even more ways to immerse themselves in the Medieval world.

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Discover the great architectural achievements of the Middle Ages with the Content Creator Pack Medieval Monuments made by the modder "PiGu", bringing 20 new varied and culturally significant monuments to the game.

This Content Creator Pack includes the following monuments:
- Drassanes
- Great Kyz Kala
- Cluny Abbey
- Maior Ecclesia
- Walls of York
- Great Mosque of Damascus
- Jokhang Temple
- Wartburg
- Beta Giyorgis
- Holy Wisdom of Novgorod
- St Wenceslaus Cathedral
- Visegrad Citadel
- University of al-Qarawiyyin
- Kairouan Basins
- Ghana Palace
- Kano Earthworks
- Golden Fort of Jaisalmer
- Konarak Sun Temple
- Somapura University
- Vatapi Caves

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315540/

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Brave the chill of far northern lands in style with the Arctic Attire Content Creator Pack made by the modder "Aj", adding cosmetics inspired by Sámi and Khanty aesthetics.

This Content Creator Pack includes the following cosmetics:
- 8 clothing styles
- 2 legwear models
- 3 cloaks
- 8 headgear
- 1 armor set (headgear & armor)
- 1 soundtrack; “Longing for the Land” (a joik – a traditional form of Sámi song)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315550/

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These Content Creator packs are part of our ongoing collaboration with the modding community, bringing their expertise and passion for the Medieval world into official content for Crusader Kings III.

Join us on Tuesday, February 18th for a dev diary exploring the content of both of these packs in further detail!