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It's time again, to fan the flames of speculation, chagrin and wonderment!

This week, I'll speak of buildings. In Crusader Kings, as you probably remember, you could build improvements in your counties; things like a library, a road network or money lenders. These would unlock as technology advanced in the county, and, once built, would improve stuff like taxation, defensibility and levy size. Crusader Kings II, not to be outdone by its predecessor, has a very similar system, except you do not build improvements per county, but per Holding (i.e. the baronies within a county. In Crusader Kings II, your Demesne does not consist of a number of counties, but of Holdings.)

You can click on any Holding in the game to inspect which improvements it has, the size and composition of its levy and garrison, its fortification level and its base tax. If the Holding is part of your own demesne, you can build new improvements there (if any are available and you can afford them.) Castle, City and Church type holdings have different sets of buildings consistent with their role (remember, for example, that Cities are burgher dominated, rich, with sizable ship levies, and so on.) Not only that, but many cultures have their own slightly different sets of buildings. Thus, some Mongol Castle improvements will increase the number of Horse Archers, whereas the corresponding German type would increase the number of Knights.

Another nifty feature of the Holding View is that you can change the name of the Holding if its lord is your subject - this has no effect on the gameplay, of course, but it's still fun (especially in multiplayer.) Naturally, you can also rename counties.

Crusader_Kings_2_DevDiary_111013.png

That's all for now. Until next week!
 
I certainly hope it is dungeon. In the sense that my spymaster can do terrible things to people in said dungeon to unveil plots.

(And so I can smirk at the screen and say "Well at least I didn't use a SPOON")


Hah! You can keep your spoon, real toturers use a comfy chair :p



On a serious note though, I think it would be best all round if PI just stuck to the words people are more familiar with, and which aren't so ambiguous. Sure we'll all find out whether it means keep or dungeon the first time we click it, but it wouldn't exactly cost them anything to just be clear about it from the start ;)
 
Does the AI cheat (ie. not have to worry about money...)?

No, it does not.

When you're at war, do you lay siege on the county or a particular holding? If someone else owns a holding in your county, how can you capture that holding?

You besiege hostile Holdings one at the time. If someone else has a holding in your de jure county, you have a reason to declare war (casus belli.)
 
You besiege hostile Holdings one at the time. If someone else has a holding in your de jure county, you have a reason to declare war (casus belli.)

So just to be sure, you could theoretically not capture a whole county but still end the war with some enemy holdings of this county under your control?
 
So just to be sure, you could theoretically not capture a whole county but still end the war with some enemy holdings of this county under your control?

Yes, but depending on which casus belli you used, you might not be allowed to keep them anyway.
 
No, but we've toyed with the idea. However, you can give money to your vassals.

Is that like in CK1, where if you're really rich you can deal with disloyal vassals by just throwing money at them till they're back up to 100%, or is it like in Sengoku, where you can give a small amount of money, but the relation impact is seemingly one time only, and if you do it twice there is no further impact on relations?
 
(about Constantinople not having insanely defensible walls) No, but I agree it is a unique case.

I hope this is easily modded by, for example, adding a province modifier that adds some defence, EU3-style? Acually, are there holding modifiers? That target individual holdings, modifying conversion chance, tax level, etc. temporarily or permanently?
 
A few more questions regarding holdings:
1. Since unlike castles who are ruled by hereditary barons, cities and monasteries are ruled by mayors and bishops, will their count or the pope(for monasteries and depending on investiture) have a say in who succeeds?
2. Will barons/mayors/bishops have courts of their own? Or will their families be members of their counts' court?
3. Can specific holdings have unique buildings? If they aren't already there, I would like to be able to mod in the Theodosian Walls or the Church of Holy Wisdom for instance.
 
I'm not sure if it has been mentioned. But are "basic value" of the holdings different or does the value of the holding only depend on the development level like in Sengoku? For instance, if Constantinople is a town and Stockholm is also a town, and they have the same amount of buildings, will Stockholm be as valuable as Constantinople?
 
Just looking at the list of buildings - does building, say, a training ground require all other upgrades or can you build any building at any time? (money permitting of course)
 
I'm not sure if it has been mentioned. But are "basic value" of the holdings different or does the value of the holding only depend on the development level like in Sengoku? For instance, if Constantinople is a town and Stockholm is also a town, and they have the same amount of buildings, will Stockholm be as valuable as Constantinople?

I think this is a good question. I think it stands to reason that at the minimum Constantinople would have much more existing infrastructure at the start of the game, but whether things like population or trade routes factor into value I don't quite know.
 
I'm not sure if it has been mentioned. But are "basic value" of the holdings different or does the value of the holding only depend on the development level like in Sengoku? For instance, if Constantinople is a town and Stockholm is also a town, and they have the same amount of buildings, will Stockholm be as valuable as Constantinople?

I think that Stockholm won't be able to build as many holdings as Constantinople and while Stockholm will have a maximum of perhaps 3 holdings Constantinople will have a maximum of 8.