Crusader Kings II - Dev Diary 4 - Regnal Numbers

[EvilCartyen]

Awesome! But why do all woman look the same?

because there's a year of development left. It's a pre-alpha

[Ruwaard]

In general: it looks great! But a small remark abot this post.

Why aren't you happy about regnal numbers? It'll make it a lot easier to distinguish between various kings/dukes of the same area.
I also don't get what you mean by "per person or per title" - the numbers will follow down the line of the duchy so that you'll get "Dave I" followed by perhaps "Fred V", and then your next Dave would be "Dave II".
What I'd be interested in with this one is if the duchy goes extinct, do the numbers restart? What if it is conquered and a new duchy formed by the conqueror?


I'd say they largely look like they've roughly grabbed the EU III borders and they're using them as placeholders whilst they build the game.


As was said these are placeholders. I'm guessing that what has happened is that they haven't added the historical arms, so the game has found a dynasty that doesn't have arms, so it has generated some.

As an (amateur) who has studied heraldry, I feel I should point out that the field might actually be the difference mark - not necessarily a cadency mark, as they could be assumed so as to have similar, but different arms from an overlord. However, yes the random programme could do with a limiter to stop a charge using either colour from a divided field. Of course random arms would only be likely to be used where a new family came into being, (bastards mostly) or a non-noble family was raised to noble status (if the game has a way to do this). As for the colour combinations and regional arms, this could be programmed into the random generator as well. Possibly by having a list of elements for different regions - classically important HRE areas might tend towards Eagles (although that would be an imperial claim, so care might need to be taken...), but would avoid Lions; only royal bastards of France, or French royal cadets would use Lillies; Royal bastards of England might use the Lions with various marks or borders. I don't really know enough to go beyond that. Scandinavian royal bastards could use colour shifted or debruised versions of the royal arms (mostly lions as well IIRC) as well.

My final point for this post is that we appear to be getting both personal arms (In this case "Bendy or and azure, three towers placed 2 and 1 of the second") and national/title arms ("Gules, three leopards passant guardant or placed in pale") Technically they should be armed and langued azure (blue claws and tongue) but I can let that off.

I agree with you the regnal numbers, but not with your comment on lions in the Holy Roman Empire. Have you ever seen coat of arms from the Low Countries region, a lot of them show a Lion Rampant, like Brabant, Holland, Limburg, Gelre etc. examples from other parts of the Holy Roman Empire are the Palatinate and Bohemia.

[Davisx3m]

Btw Norse religion! Awesome! Will the mongols be buddhist? xD

[Ruwaard]

It's cultural, man. But I don't think that the developers have weighed in yet on whether it will depend on the culture of the realm or of the officeholder. For example, King William I of England would be king of England, duc de Normandie, earl of Essex, comte de Rouen, etc... In the DD today, we see that all of Edward III's vassals visible on the screenshot are earls in England or Dukes in Ireland (and Cornwall).

Isn't Cornwall a duchy*(*= well there also is the duchy of Lancaster, but other English dukes have a dukedom) in the English peerage?

I like the de jure vassal bit though, but will this also apply for provinces which stay in the royal demesne?.

[Wulfram]

Isn't Cornwall a duchy*(*= other English dukes have a dukedom) in the English peerage?

The Duke of Cornwall there would presumably be Edward the Black Prince, who was in fact the first English Duke

[Woody Man]

Awesome! But why do all woman look the same?

Because it's Alpha

[the_hdk]

nice good to see regal numers....one question doh....

let's say you have a King William III with Norman culture but his son is named Wilhelm and has german culture....
what will be his name when he becomes King? William IV? Wilhelm I or Wilhelm IV?

just wanted to ask again

[Ruwaard]

just wanted to ask again

Obviously it is Wilhelm/ William IV, maybe (ideally) it will be king William IV of England, but for instance the same character is duke Wilhelm VII of Brunswick-Luneburg (Braunschweig-Lüneburg).

[th3freakie]

That is the (currently randomly generated) Dynasty CoA. Important dynasties like the Plantagenets will get proper pre-scripted ones eventually.

I...

I...

Will you marry me?

[Leviathan07]

It would be nice if the names lists in CK2 contained not only the "local" variant, to be displayed in the game, but also a standardized translation of the name so that you can have foreigners rise to a throne without messing up the regnal numbers.

Like this:

english;
Alfred, Alfred;
William, William;
John, John;
Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald;

anglosaxon;
Aelfred, Alfred; 
Aethelraed, Ethelred; #ethelred may not be in the English name list but still ... 
Wulfraem, Wulfraem; #no real english equivalent but some in German

german;
Wilhelm, William;
Johann, John;
Peter, Peter;
Heinrich, Henry; 
Wolfram, Wulfraem;  # defined to be a variant of the anglo-saxon wulfraem

arabic;
Ali, Ali;
Abdul, Abdul;
Daud, David; #
...

and so on. The first entry is the local name, the second entry is a name that is not displayed anywhere, but serves as a link to other variants of the name. You could write it like this

english;
Alfred, 0001;
William, 0002;
John, 0003;
Fitzgerald, 0004;

german;
Wilhelm, 0002; #same as english "William"
Johann, 0003; #same as english "John"
Peter, 0005;
Heinrich, 0006; 
Wolfram, 0007;

which would work as well, but obviously that would lack the clarity of the method where you use some "standard" variant as a cross-reference.

With this sort of system you could have King Pierre II of Anjou of England following King Peter I of Lancaster... Pierre could keep his French name but the regnal numbers would be, you know, correct, since the game knows (from the second row in the names file) which names are variants of each other.

It's all a very minor issue, but since the devs considered regnal numbers worthy of a DD, I thought I'd add my 2 cents proposal

[RedRooster81]

It would be nice if the names lists in CK2 contained not only the "local" variant, to be displayed in the game, but also a standardized translation of the name so that you can have foreigners rise to a throne without messing up the regnal numbers.

Like this:

english;
Alfred, Alfred;
William, William;
John, John;
Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald;

anglosaxon;
Aelfred, Alfred; 
Aethelraed, Ethelred; #ethelred may not be in the English name list but still ... 
Wulfraem, Wulfraem; #no real english equivalent but some in German

german;
Wilhelm, William;
Johann, John;
Peter, Peter;
Heinrich, Henry; 
Wolfram, Wulfraem;  # defined to be a variant of the anglo-saxon wulfraem

arabic;
Ali, Ali;
Abdul, Abdul;
Daud, David; #
...

and so on. The first entry is the local name, the second entry is a name that is not displayed anywhere, but serves as a link to other variants of the name. You could write it like this

english;
Alfred, 0001;
William, 0002;
John, 0003;
Fitzgerald, 0004;

german;
Wilhelm, 0002; #same as english "William"
Johann, 0003; #same as english "John"
Peter, 0005;
Heinrich, 0006; 
Wolfram, 0007;

which would work as well, but obviously that would lack the clarity of the method where you use some "standard" variant as a cross-reference.

With this sort of system you could have King Pierre II of Anjou of England following King Peter I of Lancaster... Pierre could keep his French name but the regnal numbers would be, you know, correct, since the game knows (from the second row in the names file) which names are variants of each other.

It's all a very minor issue, but since the devs considered regnal numbers worthy of a DD, I thought I'd add my 2 cents proposal

That's a well thought out suggestion. I'm sure that Doomdark has a response to the issue. One thing that that concerns me is save game bloating caused by all this information being stored; I recall the 1GB or larger save files from EU3. The short answer would be to just keep everyone's name in Latin, Greek, or Arabic (depending on the realm), but I don't think that one is going to fly. ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_(name) has the equivalency lists for Peter in almost every major world language.

[gianlucad]

Is hte black sky going to be replaced by a blue one?

[Tambourmajor]

That is the (currently randomly generated) Dynasty CoA. Important dynasties like the Plantagenets will get proper pre-scripted ones eventually.

Awesome!

[Amallric]

Btw Norse religion! Awesome! Will the mongols be buddhist? xD

They weren't bouddhist but 60% animist/40% christian at that point.

[Biges]

Edward III the Hairless

[Salt]

Im really excited for this game. The character system in Rome is so epic, I cant wait to see an even better version.

[Helvetesguten]

I'd also like to see epithets, though I could foresee it taking a lot of work to avoid odd combinations. Still, it wouldn't be Paradox without Incompetent Competents.

Well, it could be based on the most defining/important persistent trait, like "Hector Kinslayer" or "Hector the Blind", "the Clubfoot". Epithets like "the Wise" or "the Stubborn" would only make sense post mortem, since they can change with events.
Another set of possible epiteths is related to upbringing ("the Bastard", "the Fosterling") or education ("the Scholar", "the Historian").
Being the ward of a vastly more prestigous ruler could merit a epithet (like "Pope's ward" or something equivalent). Battles could give epithets via events; gain +1 martial and the nickname "Turksmiter", "the Lion", "Skullsplitter" etc.

Ofc epithets (outside simple describtors like "the Elder", "from Bremen" etc) wasn't that all that usual, but at the very least liberating the target of a crusade should give a nickname since it's such a mayor event.

[yourworstnightm]

They weren't bouddhist but 60% animist/40% christian at that point.

Shouldn't they be Tengriists?

[Helvetesguten]

Btw Norse religion! Awesome! Will the mongols be buddhist? xD

Norse religion? In the year leet?
Surely they were catholics by then (unless ofc the Northern counties have risen and taken over the rest of Sweden).
Or we should just ignore details like that when seeing screens of pre-alpha builds

[yourworstnightm]

Norse religion? In the year leet?
Surely they were catholics by then (unless ofc the Northern counties have risen and taken over the rest of Sweden).
Or we should just ignore details like that when seeing screens of pre-alpha builds

Actually, the old religion still were alive in the more distant parts of Sweden. The Swedes were quite backwater back then.