DevDiary 25 - Royal Family

[THQN Brad]

Hello friends and welcome to the 25^th DevDiary for “Knights of Honor II: Sovereign”! So far, we have talked about the role of the royal family members here and there, the king’s class-related bonuses, diplomacy effects of royal marriages, etc. But we’ve never had a more detailed look into the royal family itself, so it is high time to do it.

Since the beginning of the development process, we knew that we want the royal family members to play important roles in the kingdom, but not to such extent that will make them the center of the game, as we didn’t want KoH2:S to be a dynasty simulation, but rather than that to be focused on the kingdom government and grand-strategy. We wanted the related features to be quick to manage, but still – to add depth to the game, to call for strategic decisions and interesting choices to emerge.

There are three main groups in royal families – the king and the queen; princes and princesses; and important relatives, which are in fact ex-princes and potentially – future kings. All male characters can become a part of the royal court and all besides the important relatives can be married – for diplomatic benefits and, naturally, for having successors.

The King’s abilities, combined with the Queen’s ones if the king is married, affect the entire kingdom. There are 5 abilities (each one with a value between 0 and 5), similar to the 5 knightly classes. But they do not necessarily correspond to the king’s class – he might be a great merchant himself, but at the same time to contribute too little to the dealings of the rest of the merchants and the overall economy of his kingdom and instead to be very influential over his soldiers. The abilities and their primary bonuses are as follows:

• Warfare – Boosts the morale of all armies.
• Economy – Boosts trade income and reduces the costs for Buildings and Upgrades.
• Diplomacy – Increases the kingdom's diplomatic influence and chances of success for a few grand-scale actions.
•  Religion – Increases the kingdom's cultural power and chances of success of for a few grand-scale religious actions.
• Espionage – Increases espionage defense and the chance to reveal enemy spies.

Beside the kingdom-wide effect of their abilities, kings have significant benefits in their activities, depending on their class, as well as governing bonuses.

When a king dies, one of his heirs inherits the throne, if they are old enough to bear the crown. The eldest prince is by default the one who succeeds his father, but players may choose otherwise and change the successor (prior to the king’s death, not upon it). However, this has its cost and risk – such decisions reduce the crown authority and the eldest prince might decide to rebel if he sees such a change of succession as unjust.



When a prince succeeds the crown, all of his brothers become “important relatives”. Each of them brings a bonus to the kingdom passively, regardless whether they are in the royal court or not. Furthermore, if a king dies and there is no prince to succeed him, one of the important relatives is chosen as a successor and the dynasty is preserved, as they do have royal blood.

The worst case is when there is no one from the dynasty eligible to succeed the crown – then a knight from the royal court, or just a newly generated character, becomes the king and this changes the dynasty. That can be very dangerous, as it leads to serious crown authority loss and if there is tension in the kingdom already, it can even lead to one of the most severe events in the game – splitting of a kingdom. Losing the control of important provinces and entering wars with the newly formed separatist kingdoms, that defy the new king and his right to rule, is never pretty. However, such dire consequences are only probable in very large kingdoms, with serious governing problems.


 

To avoid a dynasty change, it might be a good idea for players to protect their kings and princes, as well as to make sure they are married soon enough. If no diplomatic marriage with another kingdom is arranged, the king might and probably will marry to a local noble lady sooner or later. This happens outside the player’s control and brings no diplomatic benefits. You can read more on that topic in “DevDiary 13 – Diplomacy Part 2 – Diplomat and Pacts”.

Princes and princesses, on the other hand, never marry automatically. As princes might inherit the crown rather late in their life, it is risky to leave them unmarried, as their remaining time might not be sufficient for raising an heir. Therefore, it is a good strategy to marry your princes soon enough. Though their children are not part of the game before a prince becomes king, if they are married prior to succession of the crown, there is a chance that they will already have one or more children upon becoming kings.

 

It will be great to hear your thoughts on the royal family features – do you find these an interesting part of the whole experience, would you prefer not to bother with the royal family at all, or on the contrary – would you like to have more gameplay mechanics from that sort and maybe more complex dynasty trees?

We’ll talk more about Royal Family in our DevStream on Thursday, February 17^th, @ 4:00 PM GMT / 11:00 AM EST. Become part of our royal family and join in our conversation. The Twitch stream will be hosted on the THQ Nordic channel: http://twitch.tv/thqnordic and we’ll be grabbing responses from this post as well as answering questions live during the stream.

Next time we plan to talk about the production of goods and their usage (ok, we admit that we copied this section from the previous diary, but we are honest this time).

Until then, we bid thee farewell. Go forth and conquer!

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[Ivory Knight]

Thanks guys for the new diary!!

You mentioned that all the brothers of a prince/king are "important relatives", and can succeed the thrown. What about princesses? Do they also act as potential inheritors of the throne? 

And could you clarify that this indeed means inheritance never goes up parental lineage ( AKA through cousins.) , but only ever sideways via brothers.

[Zerg]

I know the feature well from the first game, so there is not much new for me. Still, I've noticed some things and have some questions and suggestions. 

How many children can a king have? (Sorry if this was already asked/answered in a previous diary) 

Are there mechanics to increase a princes abilities? Maybe every university in the realm increases the chance for a "The prince learned something"-event or something like that? Also, are there events/mechanics, which would decrease abilities? 

Also some suggestions:

Maybe change the text from Empire of Latin Empire to just Latin Empire? 

Changing the text when a prince is born so that 'class' is not mentioned would increase immersion. Somethin like "What profession should he be tutored in?" 

Greetings

[BC Knight]

Hello guys, I haven't posted in a while. I hope you are all doing well. My question here is related to the Royal court and the Royal family but from a different prospective. 

Is the monarchy the ONLY type of government in KOH2 and if not How does this affect the royal court.

Cheers

[William Blake]

16 hours ago, THQN Brad said:

The King’s abilities, combined with the Queen’s ones if the king is married, affect the entire kingdom...

Each of them brings a bonus to the kingdom passively, regardless whether they are in the royal court or not.

This is pointless complexity. I don't understand why would you do that. As a player do I have any effect on this? No. Can I "invest" or "improve" or "cut costs" on that? No. So basically some random modifiers. Moreover, these are variable with "princes and princesses; and important relatives" and are reset with a king death and a new coronation. Such that, over time, these are just going to average themselves to a some baseline. 

The only situation this is even remotely relevant to a player is when oldest son is a complete imbecile and younger son is total genius so you have to switch the heir. However because

16 hours ago, THQN Brad said:

such decisions reduce the crown authority and the eldest prince might decide to rebel if he sees such a change of succession as unjust.

it means that it will be justified in about like 1% of the time or so ) Most of the time a player will have no reason to even understand what these stars mean and what to do about it.

Moreover, precisely because these are given and not affected by a player, you cannot make these bonuses significant. If they are significant bonuses this becomes a casino - "pull a good king family out of random and win". But if these bonuses are weak they are even less relevant = pointless complexity.

 

PS

17 hours ago, THQN Brad said:

All male characters can become a part of the royal court and all besides the important relatives can be married – for diplomatic benefits and, naturally, for having successors.

Considering how many kingdoms there are and how big the families are... Well, you built a marriage simulator. It will probably take more compute on who is marrying who and  keep track of children and add up slight tiny family bonuses all around, rather than military gameplay altogether.

 

 

 

 

[William Blake]

34 minutes ago, Ivory Knight said:

What about princesses? Do they also act as potential inheritors of the throne? 

True, there were good number of Queens leading countries. Should probably be viable in all of Christian and Pagan kingdoms. But I doubt they would change it at this point in time.

[El_Torrente]

I have only one question for the devs. Why they don't care about community? Have they ever answered or even read a post on steam ? They give us each month some ridiculous update of diary. Little Improved feature from KoH I .. and this "Next time we plan to talk about the production of goods and their usage (ok, we admit that we copied this section from the previous diary, but we are honest this time)." This is an insult of one of best games ever. It would be much easier to say to us no game or we release it after GTA VI.... You are insulting memory of one of best games ever. GIVE US SOMETHING MEANINGFUL!!! ENOUGH WITH POINTLESS UPDATES

[frujin]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/736820/discussions/0/3187989286455629440/

[Calliope]

Interesting dev diary! Thanks for these infos! Although, like William Blake, I'm wondering about the real sense of this complexity, if it's really useful the way it is now, not in its deepness but in it's behaviour. But maybe it's very complementary and everything runs well so that it gives real flavour to the game. 🙂

May I ask this: How much do relatives matter? I mean, for instance, two brothers, or an uncle and his nephew, are historically ruling two different entities (with a separate administration). In this kind of cases (which are historical), would they still be considered relatives, though not being in the same court?

[Sh0ppo from 9ers_Gaming]

Thanks for the diary!

 

Could you explain during the stream what exactly we see in the last screenshot with the angry Thessalonicans? What is the relationship behind this that makes them so angry about our marriage?

[redsimon]

6 hours ago, Sh0ppo from 9ers_Gaming said:

Thanks for the diary!

 

Could you explain during the stream what exactly we see in the last screenshot with the angry Thessalonicans? What is the relationship behind this that makes them so angry about our marriage?

I would assume the Thessalonicans are Orthodox just like the player realm (Eastern Rome) and are angry about a marriage with a Catholic realm.

Edited February 17, 2022 by redsimon

[CroatianKnight]

Interesting dev diary... However I wonder what if the only son is just a baby? I think there should be some sort of regency for a while. 

[William Blake]

6 hours ago, CroatianKnight said:

Interesting dev diary... However I wonder what if the only son is just a baby? I think there should be some sort of regency for a while. 

I think he will instantly mature and converted to a grown up full king )

[bilbobaggins764]

Thanks for the updates. 

[USArmyMan1982]

Thank you much for the update!

[FurkanTopal]

I loved the way how you kept protected the notification paper like in the old game. Ahahaha. Waiting impatiently! This game will rock the whole strategy game world.

[El Guapo]

The Royal family was probably the most important element in the first game for me. Sometimes I had to abandon playthoughs if the king ended up childless or had only princesses. I always aimed for only blood relatives in the court and this really prolonged my games but also gave me satisfaction. The king and the successor were always marshals and every second and third son would become a cleric / merchant / another marshal. Once the king died, all but the successor practically lived forever if not killed, so seeing this "important relatives" component I guess this would not be possible now. I hate hiring outsiders into the court but I guess I'll have to adapt.