Dev Diary #153 - Byzantine Flavor

Χαῖρε! I’m Chad, a game designer here on the CK3 team. Today, I’ll be walking you through some highlights of what we’ve added in terms of Byzantine flavor in Roads to Power.

Some cursory but important notes to begin our discussion:

• These images may be works in progress. We are still working away at polishing Roads to Power to provide the best experience possible.

• Yes, I will refer to Byzantium as Byzantium in this dev diary. I know that the endonym is more properly the Roman Empire, but it’s our policy to not use endonyms in the game. Those of you who have strong opinions about this get a special game rule to rename Byzantium with several options.

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

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Flagship for Administrative Government

Byzantium has been our main point of inspiration and the impetus for Administrative Government. We outlined this in the two previous dev diaries on Admin, but I wanted to discuss this in a bit more detail.

Essentially, all the content we’ve made for Administrative Government has been designed with an eye towards Byzantium as the model. This doesn’t mean that this content can’t appear if playing as a different admin realm. Far from it.

What it does mean is that all the content you encounter while playing as Byzantium should feel tailored and appropriate to the context. There is alternative text for other admin realms. So fret not, we haven’t siloed all the content to a single empire. Playing admin should generally feel different and exciting, but playing as Byzantium should feel special.

Improved Cultural Traditions

We’ve revamped Greek Cultural Traditions and added special integrations with Admin Government and the other unique aspects of the DLC. In the descriptions below, you’ll undoubtedly find references to features and concepts that we haven’t yet discussed, but will be discussed either later in this or a future dev diary.

[Palace Politics & Cultural Traditions]

In addition to this gorgeous new art, we’ve added loads of integrations with new content exclusive to Roads to Power. Palace Politics is a great example. Not only does it unlock the new Varangian Guards Men-at-Arms type and the Akolouthos Court Position, but also incorporates several unique bonuses to demonstrate the Greek affinity for Administrative Government.

Maiming and disfiguring characters was a primary way to take your political opponents out of the running in the Byzantine political milieu, and we’ve reflected that here with reduced monthly Influence.

We’ve added unique bonuses to Greek characters for scheming. Not only do they get special bonuses to a new type of Scheme Countermeasure, but they can also execute Political Schemes faster.

Political Schemes are a new category of Schemes that we’ve added as a central aspect to the Administrative Government experience. I’ll go into more detail about this, but suffice it to say that you can’t play in Byzantium without engaging with these new Schemes.

And of course, your Chief Eunuch will be a major player. We’ve added a new trait, called Beardless Eunuch, to differentiate characters castrated as children from characters who were castrated as adults.

[Beardless Eunuch Trait & Eunuch Scheme Agent Type]

As you can see, these characters also affect Influence. They are generally disliked by other vassals in the realm because they make for excellent Scheme Agents in Political Schemes.

Roman Ceremonies contains a slew of new features for Byzantium, including access to the Hold a Triumph Decision, the Chariot Race Activity and its associated Court Positions, and a new