• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Hello again folks!

It's a new month and high time for another development diary. This time, let's talk about barons. In the original Crusader Kings, characters could only hold titles of three ranks; count, duke and king (though these could be called different things in different cultures). Barons existed indirectly in the form of provincial nobility, which, together with the clergy, peasants and burghers, had different power, loyalty and tax values. The player could fiddle around with the power values of the four classes, which would affect the tax rate and the composition of the provincial levy. As it turned out, this was one of the least successful features in the game, because the micromanagement was tedious and did not have enough impact to make it worthwhile. Therefore, in Crusader Kings II, the whole thing has been cut. Instead, each province will have between one and eight named settlements. A settlement is either a castle, city or church, and characters can hold the title to a settlement just like they can to counties and duchies.

Castles are regular feudal holdings, whose barons are normally in fief to the provincial count. Cities are commercial hubs governed by a mayor. Finally, church settlements are run by a Bishop (or Mufti, or similiar.) Like the four classes of Crusader Kings, the three types of settlement provide different types of troop levies and have different tax rates depending on laws. Unlike the class power of Crusader Kings, the rights of churches and cities - and the investiture of their leaders - should be interesting to play around with. (More on this in a later dev diary.)

Barony tier characters are not playable, mainly for performance reasons. (We do not want barons to have courts of their own, with the explosion of characters this would require.) They have a more rudimentary form of AI than playable characters, but will respond to diplomacy and might raise their army in revolt. Another measure to keep the character count down in Crusader Kings II is that you can have your vassals double as councillors (so there is less need for minor nobles to be created by the game).

What about the level of micromanagement - won't all these baronies require more player attention? Well, the whole point of the feudal system is delegation, so the short answer is that for dukes and above; not much. Granted, the dynamic around cities and churches will require more attention, but of the right kind and infrequently. The existence of baronies will also make playing counts a lot more interesting.

I don't have any baronial graphics in particular to show you, but here's a little something that Aerie is working on...

CK2_Diary002_01.png


That's all for now. Don't miss the next dev diary on December 2!


Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
 
Settlements can be improved with various buildings, provinces cannot. Your demesne size is counted by Settlement, not province, etc.


Oh! Very nice indeed.

Very curious to see how you will display this, both on the map and in the GUI. It will make for a radically different province screen (if such a thing still exists)...
 
It would be nice to have separate abbeys/monasteries and churches, because that was actually an important internecine power struggle in the Catholic church of the era, but it's pretty nitpicky. I imagine that castles and churches also pretty much include the rural settlements that formed around them. And that a 'church' settlement necessarily means an independent diocese or archdiocese, not just a smaller church with a priest as would be found in virtually all cities and towns.
 
What about the level of micromanagement - won't all these baronies require more player attention? Well, the whole point of the feudal system is delegation, so the short answer is that for dukes and above; not much. Granted, the dynamic around cities and churches will require more attention, but of the right kind and infrequently. The existence of baronies will also make playing counts a lot more interesting.

What about kings with a considerable demesne (thinking about CK1 mechanics where a king could sometimes have a big demesne)? What kind of micro will those kings have to do?
 
What about kings with a considerable demesne (thinking about CK1 mechanics where a king could sometimes have a big demesne)? What kind of micro will those kings have to do?

Pretty much the same as in CK. If a king could have, say, 16 provinces in CK, that would be 16 settlements in CKII.
 
The revelation that vassals can now hold court positions is also a pretty big deal.

If I understand correctly, this means I can make a Duke or a Count my Marshal then? Or perhaps a Bishop from one of those church settlements could be my chancellor? If so, that's way cool! Of course the negative aspect might be that if you have a rebellious or corrupt vassal in your council, he might embezzle from your treasury, commit fraud against you, etc. But that would also be cool. :)

Thanks very much for the Dev Diary!
 
Your demesne size is counted by Settlement, not province, etc.

So what exactly does this mean?

1) Characters who hold higher than baron level titles can also hold baron level titles. The demense limit restricts the amount of baron level titles that can be directly controlled. Eg. a king could hold extremely large demense geographically by choosing to hold only one baronal title per province.

2) Only barons directly control baronies and they must always be granted to them. The demense limit restricts the amount of barons you can have directly under you, without having to grant the province and associated baronies to count or duke. Eg. a king can with demense limit of 20 can hold 10 provinces with 2 baronies each or 4 provinces with 5 baronies each, but none of the baronies can be held by him personally.
 
So what exactly does this mean?

1) Characters who hold higher than baron level titles can also hold baron level titles. The demense limit restricts the amount of baron level titles that can be directly controlled. Eg. a king could hold extremely large demense geographically by choosing to hold only one baronal title per province.

2) Only barons directly control baronies and they must always be granted to them. The demense limit restricts the amount of barons you can have directly under you, without having to grant the province and associated baronies to count or duke. Eg. a king can with demense limit of 20 can hold 10 provinces with 2 baronies each or 4 provinces with 5 baronies each, but none of the baronies can be held by him personally.

No... All counts are also the baron of the province capital settlement. There is nothing preventing a character from holding several barony level titles himself: this is his demesne.
 
So what exactly does this mean?

1) Characters who hold higher than baron level titles can also hold baron level titles. The demense limit restricts the amount of baron level titles that can be directly controlled. Eg. a king could hold extremely large demense geographically by choosing to hold only one baronal title per province.

2) Only barons directly control baronies and they must always be granted to them. The demense limit restricts the amount of barons you can have directly under you, without having to grant the province and associated baronies to count or duke. Eg. a king can with demense limit of 20 can hold 10 provinces with 2 baronies each or 4 provinces with 5 baronies each, but none of the baronies can be held by him personally.

I would guess the second option. So if your royal province (that you are count of) holds 6 baronies, then you have 6 barons under your direct control in that province. Thus the king doesn't control the 6 baronies himself.

I hope that means that demesne limits will be a bit higher than previously :) ... would suck to be count of a province with 6 baronies, and only have a demesne limit of 1 *lol*

Edit: got Doom'ed :) .. and seems I was all wrong :)
 
Will there be either a hardcoded or softcoded maximum number of settlements per province? Of course I'm assuming that founding new ones will be sufficently expensive that in most situations it won't matter. Perhaps in the style of EU3 manufacturies getting more expensive per how many you have?
 
Well, if you appoint some Baron to also be your Chancellor, he will be a member of your court. Otherwise, he will stay at his castle and mind his own business.

Will this work on levels above Count? For example, as a Duke, would I be able to appoint a Count as my Chancellor, as well as Baron (from my demesne) my Marshal?
 
Will there be either a hardcoded or softcoded maximum number of settlements per province? Of course I'm assuming that founding new ones will be sufficently expensive that in most situations it won't matter. Perhaps in the style of EU3 manufacturies getting more expensive per how many you have?

Yes, many province will have a scripted upper limit below eight.
 
No... All counts are also the baron of the province capital settlement. There is nothing preventing a character from holding several barony level titles himself: this is his demesne.

Does this, in turn, mean that a ruler could hold a single baronial title in far off province? Eg. High King of Eire is also Baron of Pavia, but does not hold the count title of the same province, nor any other title in the province or even in whole Italy.

To give a non-Christian period analogue, the Genghisid rulers had appanages all over the Mongol realm. Jochid princes in modern Ukraine also had fiefs in China (often just single cities).
 
Last edited:
Could modders add new kind of settlements into CK2 or is it hard-coded ?

The current list of settlements in CK2 is :
* "castle" mean villages or cities ruled by a secular prince.
* "church" mean cities ruled by a prince-bishop.
* "cities" mean free cities, ruled by a burgomaster.

In my opinion, this list lack just one last kind of settlement :
* abbey, (or monasteries) ruled by an abbot.

It would allow to represent the opposition between secular and regular religious orders in the medieval Christianity. While it would add a lot of flavour (and flavour is more important in CK than in any other paradox game) isn't that important, so I can understand if this distinction is not made into the vanilla game, but I think that modders community and players that like mods would appreciate if it can be modified into the game.
 
Last edited: