Paradox Games

New CK 2 Dev Diary: Focusing on the Boons you can get from the Chinese Emperor as a favored Tributary. Options include getting truces, troops in defensive wars, advisors, imperial marriages, and invasions to break up another realm. You win Favor by doing stuff like sending money, assistance when China is in trouble, or courtiers/dynasts as concubines/eunuchs.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/ck2-dev-diary-63-in-the-emperors-good-graces.1040523/

No word on if you can force some of these things out of the Dragon if China is weak and/or you are a large Eastern blob or dangerous horde.

The mechanics for kicking China's ass will make or break this expansion.

Random idea: Threatening the Emperor forces China to attack you, and forcing China to surrender in a war gets you loot/Grace/opening the Silk Road/control of the Governorate/a new Imperial dynasty?

edited 21st Aug '17 8:39:59 PM by Ramidel

I think my first CK 2 game after this expansion will be an exiled Chinese dynasty that's Gone Native. I wonder if we can force paganism on China proper.

Also, in Stellaris, I have amassed so much fleet power that I got an integer overflow and then kept going until I was back in the positive.

My first game with the China DLC will likely be forming the Tibetan Empire.

I can't really get a game going in Stellaris though, there's always empires that are stronger than me.

Did you try turning Advanced Empires off?

I never play with them on. For some reason everyone else is just able to always have more ships than me.

If you're building tall, I suggest either federating quickly or finding a pactbro to give your defenses some heft in the early game.

That's because the AI runs it's economy really hard to keep its fleet large. The cost of this is that the AI will have slower expansion (at least via colonization), fewer buildings, fewer mining/science stations, and lower level buildings. By playing the economy game instead, you stand to benefit more down the road.

Also, ironically, the fact that the AI is dumb and bad at science helps it here because starting corvettes are really, really cost effective, so anyone can easily afford a lot of them.

Though that's changing in 1.8, corvettes cost will be bumped. Which will be interesting, we'll see how it effects balance.

Will be interesting to see if Taoism has any particular mechanics of its own or if it's just "that religion for Chinese people."

EDIT: Nope. 'tis dull as dishwater.

edited 26th Aug '17 12:20:01 AM by Ramidel

Can you, or are there any good mods that allow you to play as japan in CKII

Also, what about performance concerns makes China imposible to make playable in it? EU and HOI have the whole world.

There is a Japan mod but I don't know if it works. I never could get it to work on my computer.

CK 2 already struggles with India. China is bigger. There's no way it doesn't tank performance. I think it's the level of details held for each county that does it. You have the same land development concerns as EUIV, but you also have to account for each settlement's military contribution. Things aren't as centralized as they are in the later games, because they weren't centralized in the Feudal era anyway.

One word: Characters. EU4 is a province-based game, while CK2 is character-based. Every province you add means an increase in the overall number of characters (discounting for multiple provinces owned by the same character).

Adding all of China would mean a LOT of additional characters - not to mention that Paradox already talked in length about how their engine is shit at portraying non-feudal government types.

So adding China would be too much trouble for not enough actual benefit - worst case, you have one massive blob conquering half the world and then exploding into border gore.

Not that anyone actually listens to Paradox, mind.

edited 26th Aug '17 7:32:21 AM by DrunkenNordmann

Crusader Kings II has much smaller provinces than EU IV and HOI IV with more independent and subject actors. HOI IV has probably ~80 nations making decisions at any given time and several of these tend to get nommed. EU IV has probably ~400 actors making decisions, but the numbet tends to rapidly decline as OPMs get annexed and usually stay annexed. Crusader Kings II has somewhere around number of counties/2 or 3 independent or semi-independent actors (ignoring barons because they don't really do anything) for something like 900 to 1400 character that actually do things and annexing minors doesn't reduce the number of actors because you have to have vassals, and everyone and their vassals holds on to several characters that don't really do much but have things done with them (courtiers).

The last time CKII got vigorously optimized, a large portion of it was simply erasing a huge portion of courtiers both through normal game processes (disease) and more hidden culling of unneeded characters.

Also, if you want Japan in your CK II, try this: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/nova-monumenta-iaponiae-historica.656239/

edited 26th Aug '17 1:23:44 PM by Balmung

Okay, I think my fleet might be just a little overpowered. I jumped into the system the Wraith warped to and arrived at about the same time. The Wraith was gone as soon as it arrived. The voiceover didn't even have time to finish the combat initiated line.

What kind of wraith and system was it? Because it's incredibly weak if it's in a system with the right type of sun.

edited 27th Aug '17 11:39:12 AM by DrunkenNordmann

I wasn't paying attention - I brought ~6.6M fleet power (overflow to -2M, back to positive, overflow again, then hit ~-1.4M) against a foe rated at less than 200k. I could probably take on the LEX mod uberleviathans at this point.

In other news, armor is apparently being converted to another health bar like hull and shields.

edited 27th Aug '17 12:50:41 PM by Balmung

Good, better that than just damage mitigation.

No really new information on Jade Dragon beyond "expansionist Golden Age means there's gonna be trouble" and "western Chinese empires are a thing."

I'm more interested in the patch features that will come with Jade Dragon. And to be honest, I fail to see how it could be worse than Monks & Mystics was.

Eh, so long as they don't drop another Charlemagne on us. But then, Charlemagne was bad because its core concept was bad, while Jade Dragon isn't built on a fundamentally terrible idea like shoving the timeline back another 100 years.

Humorously, the best DLC ever (TOG) did exactly the same thing.

Of course, TOG had a good reason for going back and rebalancing the entire game, because let's face it, pagans and Zoroastrians are cool (even if the Norse are OP), and even the Karlings seem to be moving from The Scrappy to Love to Hate after Conclave if The Merch is any indication. (Abbablob still needs to die.) Charlemagne has...Charlemagne. Whoopdedoo, who has even played as that guy?

Franchise Original Sin at its finest.

And I finally managed to finish another game in CK2.

Started as Svend Estridsen and deliberately limited my means of expansion - I fabricated exactly one claim (the Isle of Man) and used inherited claims (England and Sweden) or holy wars (Finland and Pommerania) otherwise. Norway fell into my lap by manipulating their elective succession and electing my heir as their king.

That's Outside Bet and Survivor done. I did Persistent Survivor a few years ago - now I just need to attempt Seven Centuries at some point.

Monks and Mystics had a good concept, but all the religious societies were left half done while the devs wasted time inserting Chaos Cults into the game. Bright spot is that societies and relics are good for modders.