Crusader Kings III

Crusader Kings III

Witchcraft
ryciebani666  [developer] 13 Jun, 2023 @ 10:49am
About Update 1.4
Dev Diary :O
Or at least a small overview of the new content.

For Witches
Initially this update was supposed to focus only on regular witches. Witches still need a bit more interesting gameplay, especially when they don’t want or can’t develop the sorcery tree. In my opinion the biggest potential is in the Coven. Currently in vanilla coven is just a house modifier and an occasion to dance around the fire a bit. I dream of reworking the coven, it would be a secret organization exerting significant influence on your realm, in a political and even religious way. Currently it is not within my reach, although I suspect that in the future Paradox will give us DLC expanding the mechanics of the organization (like in ckII). But recently we got T&T with activity mechanics, so I decided to improve Grand Rite a bit. It didn’t turn out as spectacularly as I thought, but I added new events, traits and intents:
- Worship the Horned God intent remains almost unchanged, new witch specialization ("Priest") gain additional events here
- Seek True Power intent gives you the opportunity to boost your skills a bit, gain perk points; you can also occasionally restore power saturation, meet a demon or learn something about magical artifacts.
- Nominate Yourself as Grand Master - you can gain Grand Master of the Coven trait. This path will allow you to consolidate your House, has its own interactions and levels (uses new xp trait mechanics). It has more of a scheming vibe, not necessarily magical one.
XP is mainly collecteded by organizing Grand Rites, interacting with witches, and possibly summoning demons. Theoretically, there can only be one Grand Master per coven. It may happen that a particularly ambitious member of your House will claim this title and challenge you to a fight (although this rarely happens). You may also lose this trait if you do not attend a Grand Rite hosted by other members of your House.

On a different note, witches also get the Using Scrying decision (as part of the Precognition perk). It allows you to learn secrets and occasionally gives information about magical artifacts. So it can be used as a poor version of Magic Triangulation.

For Witch Hunters
Initially, the witch hunter trait was reserved only for AI and was supposed to be an opponent for players. But under community pressure (^^), I made this trait available to players as well. However, this created a significant balance problem. Currently I decided to implement an XP trait system that allows you to gain strength over time. Specifically, you gain XP every time you send a witch to hell. Witch Hunters have also received a new interaction: Stop The Witch. This allows them to take a more comprehensive approach to fighting witches.

For Mages
Mages have also received a rework trait, again based on the new XP system. This time, however, I applied a slightly more flexible approach. The 'Secret Knowledge' track can give you more power, but it grows very slowly - many mages probably won’t live to see the finish line. And for those who can handle it, there is the status of legendary mage and godlike health boost, which in practice means longevity (or so called immortality).
The second track is the level of power saturation. Magicians receive a spellcasting system based on mana. Each spell costs 10 power saturation points (or one Power Saturated status if you don’t have the Mage trait yet). Power is gained according to old rules, mainly by sacrificing your health or lives of your relatives (currently Darkblade is also a convenient way to gain Power Saturation).

Other Things
  • We have a new game rule to start with witch secret. Guaranteed magic items no longer guarantee a secret.
  • Both magic trees got some minor changes, some perks also give XP to Wise Man or Grand Master of the Coven if you have these traits.
  • Magical Research has slighly reduced cooldown, and now it's good way to gain more Secret Knowledge, especially when writing a Magic Elaborate.
  • I modified the algorithm for building the Mage Tower. A special slot appears in your capital if there was no special slot before. Otherwise, algorithm draws your province with no special slot and locate there special slot with the tower. If you currently do not have a suitable province without a special slot, the draw will be repeated every 5 years. This is not an ideal solution, but it should eliminate any bugs and compatibility issues with other mods that also change buildings.
  • The old version of the Legendary Mage trait still exists in the game, but only for the purpose of compatibility with older saves, it can no longer be obtained. It will be completely removed in future updates.
  • There is also a new way to obtain magical artifacts. If you have the first dynasty perk of the Arcana legacy, you can intercept the artifact if you imprison its owner. I don’t know if this is an optimal solution, but you will admit that some alternative method had to be introduced here.
  • The rest you have to discover on your own :>

Future Plans
  • Only bug fixing, localizations and balance updates.

Let me know if you find any bugs or balance issue. Or other weird things. Probably the update hasn't been tested as much as it should be.
That's all from me, have fun ;)
< >
Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
Sarpedon 20 May @ 6:28am 
Mage tower gets build in other cities but not in my capital for some reason. Do you know of any fix?
ryciebani666  [developer] 20 May @ 11:30am 
@Sarpedon
Currently, the mage tower is built during the event, and you choose where it will be built. The usual choices are the capital and two other random provinces, but places that already have special buildings are excluded (because you can't have more than one special slot in one place).
< >
Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
Per page: 1530 50