Hello all, and welcome back to another DevDiary! Last week, we released Battle for the Bosporus (some of you may remember it). Given that we took the number 1 top-seller spot on steam within an hour of launch, and without pre-orders, I daresay that the idea of a country pack has been a success.
Now, let’s look at some Telemetry we got from the first couple of days after release!
For starters, we are seeing a big increase in people playing the new countries that is not at all surprising. After release, Germany still leads the list of most-played countries, but it’s overall margin has shrunk quite a bit over the years. After the game’s initial release, some 40% of games were played as Germany, now it is less than 20%. In second place is, unsurprisingly, Turkey with 16%, followed by Greece at just under 10% and the Soviet Union at 7.4 %. Bulgaria comes in a hair below it at 7% of total games played.
Next, let’s look at the focuses everyone has been picking!
About a third of players in Turkey opted to bring back the Sultan, compared to 48% who decided to remain a republic and engage with the big three factions. 12% opted to form their own faction and integrate the Balkans. Of the players who opted to join the world war, most chose to join the Axis, while only a small handful managed to get the old Central Powers back together. Only about 11% managed to bring back Camelry, showing that perhaps the age of the Camel in warfare has passed.
In Greece, it appears that monarchy is in crisis, with 73% opting to bring back the exiled republicans, although more than two thirds then decided to compromise with the monarchists in what can only be described as a disgusting lack of principles. Unfulfilled with merely supporting a simple king, a total of 43% then continued to revive the double-headed eagle in an attempt to restore the Byzantine Emperor.
May we remind people that we have recently released an entire game where you can play as the Byzantine Emperor from the start?
Just putting that out there.
In Bulgaria, it appears that Monarchy is decidedly back in fashion as about two thirds decided to give power to the Tsar. A similar number then allowed the Tsar to form the government, before later having to choose between strengthening the royal dictatorship or arranging for an unfortunate accident for Tsar Boris. The vast majority decided to plot against the Tsar, showing that once again HoI players have the right mindset to play CKIII.
The vast majority then decided to back the old Tsar Ferdinand I - perhaps unsurprisingly, considering that the alternative is a literal child.
On the other side of the divide, there is a clear preference for the Balkan Federation of Socialist Republics, which was picked about 7 times as often as the alternative. Perhaps people just don’t like Stalin? For more than 10% of games, this ends with the Balkans fully unified.
We did also get a lot of feedback from you guys about bugs and other issues that we are going to address in the coming weeks. Like we did before, we will be having an open beta coming soon with a number of bug fixes and some changes to address some of the more widespread concerns raised, such as the time you spend addressing political issues in the Turkish focus tree. We expect that patch to become available for the main branch at a later date. More info on what is in the open beta and how to access it will come when the beta becomes available.
DevDiaries will be taking a small break as we continue work on the next DLC and Patch “Barbarossa”. More info on those will come when we resume. We don’t expect this break to be nearly as long as the one between La Resistance and Battle for the Bosporus, but 2020 has been a year full of unexpected events, so we can’t give you a firm promise on when they will return.