The Sword of Islam - Dev Diary 1

[Keioel]

That's how I look at it, glad to see I'm not the only one.

I wanted to give a profuse capital "THANK YOU" to Doomdark for taking time to post these details about the upcoming DLC/expansion "The Sword of Islam". I would also like to extend some moral support to off-set the withering assault you endured by the "enthusiastic" pro-history faction that has such strong feelings about the direction of your product. Look at it this way, though, if they didn't love it they wouldn't feel so compelled to come after you like that. Still, I hope you haven't been discouraged from giving additional dev diaries.. there are plenty of us ignorant types who are VERY happy about the choices you've made.

I view your title, CK2, as a historical-flavored 'what-if' board game. You have given me the pieces and I can influence and/or watch the way it plays out. From the moment I un-pause the game, any historical similarity flies out the window. So, if I'm extremely successful and take over a large area it would be cool if I could become something more than a King... and now you're going to let me. Sweet!

I like history, but I don't want to replay history. There could be a game that was a series of pop-up windows that would just outline major historical events and engagements over a time period and you just keep clicking OK until the game is over.. because that is what history is.. it is static. That's not a game and it is not fun. CK2 is fun.. letting me grow my non-historical kingdom into a map-hogging monster empire could be fun.. I think it is. Playing marriages and alliances to your advantage is fun. Fighting wars that never really happened is fun. CK2 is fun.

Apologies if anyone's toes were trod upon.. it is not my intent to insult.

Very much looking forward to The Sword of Islam and patch 1.06 and another dev diary. Thanks again to the devs and all you do!

[Keioel]

Nobody said this. Try arguing things people actually wrote instead of arguing what you assume to be their opinion on other things.

You've got us. We actually hate playing games, and we also hate CK2. That's why we continue to post in this thread, it's just to harass the devs and turn CK2 into a history Powerpoint. That's our position exactly. Yes.

[RedRooster81]

That's how I look at it, glad to see I'm not the only one.

Man, I just started singing John Lennon's "Imagine" when I read that. Doomdark and his crew are taking this game into interesting directions while maintaining game balance and stability (I have really never had a crash in vanilla CK2).

[Rakenshi1243]

It's really a darn shame that Paradox is so.. Underground *puts on hipster glasses*.

With how disappointing my favorite developers have been lately, I must say I'm very happy to see that you guys are still on top and releasing great quality games.

[Garak]

Nobody said this. Try arguing things people actually wrote instead of arguing what you assume to be their opinion on other things.

He was using hyperbole to make a point about the post he was quoting.

[Sylon]

If I may contribute to this discussion, here are my 2 cents on this issue:

New Imperial titles should be creatable, but not be De Iure

I argue for this point not because I am concerned about historicity. Rather, I argue for this point because, while having an 'Empire of Brittania' and 'Empire of Scandinavia' can be useful if you focus your conquests in these regions, there are many situations wherein it would not make sense.

For example: Suppose you, the player, were to start a game as Harald Hadrada, King of Norway, and proceed to win the war against Harold Godwinson, thus pressing your claim on his throne, you would become King of Norway and England. Following that, you proceed to invade and conquer the regions of Wales and Scotland, and crown yourself Kings of these two lands as well. At this point, you would be able to crown yourself Emperor- but crowning yourself 'Emperor of Britain' makes no sense. You, Harald Hadrada (or possibly a descendant at this point) are a Norwegian. Your power base is in Norway. Why would you crown yourself 'Emperor of Britain'? It makes no sense.

Instead, I propose the following mechanic. The title of 'Emperor' can be claimed if you possess the following: At least 3 kingdom titles, At least 5000 prestige, a large amount of gold and piety, and the Pope must have a better opinion of you than he has of the current reigning Emperor. Doing so will grant you a title based on your primary kingdom title, such as 'Emperor of Norway'; possibly with unique decisions for 'Emperor of Spain' or any other region you wish to specify.

The '3 kingdom titles' requirement ensures that the player has a sufficiently large power base to make a proper claim to the title. The '5000 prestige' requirement ensures that these kingdom titles are not some piddly little backwater lands with few regions. The gold and piety requirements should be self explanatory, as these are used every time a duchy or kingdom is created. Finally, the Pope's favour is needed in order to get Papal backing for your claim, which sets your claim apart from other 'wannabe emperors' and gives it legitimacy.

This decision should be visible from the start, under the decisions tab, so that players can see it from the beginning. This will allow you to overcome the problem of new players not having anything to aim for, which, I believe, was the reason behind making the titles De Iure in the first place.

Upon Claiming the Title

So, suppose you have the requisite number of crowns for your decision. Your character is sufficiently prestigious, you have the gold and piety to spend, and you even secured the Pope's backing. Great! You are now an Emperor. Unfortunately, the other Emperor, who was there first, is not going to take your claim lying down.

Upon claiming the title of 'Emperor' and being elevated to Imperial status, the region would be plunged into an 'Imperial crisis'. Both Emperors get the 'Imperial Crisis' casus belli on each other. The terms of the casus belli are as follows:

-The empire of the losing party will be dismantled. The Imperial title, however, will still keep whatever De Iure lands it has, so as to allow the HRE to make a comeback if it gets dismantled.
-The losing party will pay a large indemnity to the victor.
-The losing party will lose a large amount of prestige, while the winning party will gain a large amount.
-The losing character may not make a bid for Emperor again as long as he lives. (His descendants, however, can.)

While the Imperial crisis is in effect (Not the war, just the state of two empires of the same religion existing simultaneously), both Emperors will receive a harsh modifier (Imperial Pretender) reducing their prestige. The newly crowned Emperor, for being a newcomer to the Imperial stage, and not defeating the old Emperor, and for the old Emperor, for not putting down this pretender to their crown. The Imperial Pretender modifier will not be removed until one Empire defeats the other. This is to encourage both the player and the AI to settle their dispute once and for all.

After Winning the War

Congratulations! You are now sole Emperor of your religious group. However, you still have a long way to go ahead of you. Unless you happen to be the Holy Roman Emperor, none of your lands will be in your Empire title's De Iure borders. This, in turn, makes it harder to manage your Empire until your many crowns assimilate to it- as it should be, for creating a new Empire should not be taken lightly.

Neither should you relax your guard. From time to time, other claimants and other pretenders may appear, proclaiming themselves to be the true successor of Rome (in particular, the descendants of the Emperor you deposed). You will have to defend your crown against them, or fall and suffer the same fate you once inflicted to the previous Empire.

------------

And thus are my thoughts. I, myself, am closer to the 'historical' crowd, and I think that many of my peers will agree with me when I say that it is not the idea of having ahistorical empires itself that we protest; but that if such an empire is created, there must be a 'realistic' reaction to it (for lack of a better term). Two states claiming to be the successor of the same half of the Roman Empire should not be able to live in peace, and such a situation should lead to strife and warring, until one or the other is destroyed.

With such a framework, I believe us historical gamers will be satisfied (though I do not claim to speak for all), as would those who prefer a looser interpretation of history. And more than anything, the inclusion of proper mechanics to simulate the circumstances that would accompany the claiming of a second Imperial crown would greatly enrich and improve the experience of playing this game.

[Blitzzer]

Before that Portugal could be titular though (everyone can mod that the way they like ).

Finland is trickier, but every region needs a de jure liege, so maybe add the condition that only a Finnish ruler could create this title.

As of 1.05 only a ruler of fenno-ugric culture can form the kingdom of finland. Which means, if you need the actual title of kingdom of finland to be able to create the empire of scandinavia, the AI will never do it. At least I've never seen swede, norwegian or dane AI rulers "convert" to finns, or any other fenno-ugric culture.

[Sleight of Hand]

Nice ideas, Sylon. At the very least I'd certainly like to try them out.

Blitzzer, North Germanic (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) rulers can also form Finland:

	# Creation/usurpation trigger
	allow = {
		OR = {
			culture_group = north_germanic
			culture_group = finno_ugric
		}
	}

[Ruskhan]

Just name empires something other then "empire",

?problem solved?

or make that empires can be created by specific cultural groups. Like Empire of Scandinavia could only be created by North Germanic culture.

[Blind_Guardian]

Kingdom should be something important. What was a point in splitting Bulgaria into Bulgaria and Wallachia ?? Or adding few more such small kingdoms similar to Georgia next to it ? I understand that some kingdoms were too big, but now there are many too small. Bulgaria for example wasn't bigger than Norway or Sweden, so why it was changed ?
About Emperor title I guess AI won't do this often - so this is rather something for a player, what is a good idea. But from the other side we've got a strange situation - we may have Scandinavian Empire which didn't ever exist, but we won't have Mali or Bulgarian...

[Sian]

Sylon, cute and on the basis good idea but i have a very simple way of breaking it ... head of HRE/ERE changing religion, say a Catholic leader of ERE ...

[BitRez]

He was using hyperbole to make a point about the post he was quoting.

It's not hyperbole (exaggeration) if you change things. It read like sarcasm (taunting) which is why I never responded in the first place. This thread has a lot of emotion in it. Personally, I gain nothing from arguing with entities from the ether, besides everyone (every entity? ) is entitled to their opinion. I won't try to convert you to mine, please reciprocate in kind with me.

All of this aside, I forgot to thank Doomdark for the most important thing (aside from starting this thread that has little to do with the anything in particular anymore): The fact that he even came in here and fielded our questions. I bet he will think twice about doing that. I think once people realized you were reading what they were saying, they felt they had you as a "captive" audience. We know what happened next.

Anyway, thanks for wading in with us and going above and beyond. Hopefully you won't be discouraged from answering and interacting with us next time.

Edited for punctuation/grammar/spelling/anti-buffoonery measures.

[Ruwaard]

Well Doomdark did perdict/expect that one feature was controversial. Many have voiced their opinion on that subject and I won't repeat mine (since it hasn't changed).

More importantly there were more items, which could have been discussed more. I like the fact that expansion further fleshes out playing as Muslims; and I assume that the graphic will be adjusted whether you play as Christian or a Muslim ruler. I hope to read more about that in the next dev diary.

Adding those provinces in the Southwest corner, so basically in West Africa, is nice to see those civilizations added, but I wonder how they ensure that it will be hard too reach.

Like mentioned in an earlier post here I really like the feature that the (primary dynastic) duchy or above title of Iranian, Turkic and Arabic cultured ruler will be named after the dynasty. Again one small question will this apply regardless of religion?

This point has been discussed quite extensively already (see above).

Finally it is always great to hear that a patch will be (even if only semi) save game compatible.

[Meneth]

Kingdom should be something important. What was a point in splitting Bulgaria into Bulgaria and Wallachia ?? Or adding few more such small kingdoms similar to Georgia next to it ? I understand that some kingdoms were too big, but now there are many too small. Bulgaria for example wasn't bigger than Norway or Sweden, so why it was changed ?

Alania at least (north of Georgia) is a historical kingdom that lasted until the Mongols invaded.

[Sujit]

if i may contribute to this discussion, here are my 2 cents on this issue:

new imperial titles should be creatable, but not be de iure

i argue for this point not because i am concerned about historicity. Rather, i argue for this point because, while having an 'empire of brittania' and 'empire of scandinavia' can be useful if you focus your conquests in these regions, there are many situations wherein it would not make sense.

For example: Suppose you, the player, were to start a game as harald hadrada, king of norway, and proceed to win the war against harold godwinson, thus pressing your claim on his throne, you would become king of norway and england. Following that, you proceed to invade and conquer the regions of wales and scotland, and crown yourself kings of these two lands as well. At this point, you would be able to crown yourself emperor- but crowning yourself 'emperor of britain' makes no sense. You, harald hadrada (or possibly a descendant at this point) are a norwegian. Your power base is in norway. Why would you crown yourself 'emperor of britain'? It makes no sense.

Instead, i propose the following mechanic. The title of 'emperor' can be claimed if you possess the following: At least 3 kingdom titles, at least 5000 prestige, a large amount of gold and piety, and the pope must have a better opinion of you than he has of the current reigning emperor. Doing so will grant you a title based on your primary kingdom title, such as 'emperor of norway'; possibly with unique decisions for 'emperor of spain' or any other region you wish to specify.

The '3 kingdom titles' requirement ensures that the player has a sufficiently large power base to make a proper claim to the title. The '5000 prestige' requirement ensures that these kingdom titles are not some piddly little backwater lands with few regions. The gold and piety requirements should be self explanatory, as these are used every time a duchy or kingdom is created. Finally, the pope's favour is needed in order to get papal backing for your claim, which sets your claim apart from other 'wannabe emperors' and gives it legitimacy.

This decision should be visible from the start, under the decisions tab, so that players can see it from the beginning. This will allow you to overcome the problem of new players not having anything to aim for, which, i believe, was the reason behind making the titles de iure in the first place.

upon claiming the title

so, suppose you have the requisite number of crowns for your decision. Your character is sufficiently prestigious, you have the gold and piety to spend, and you even secured the pope's backing. Great! You are now an emperor. Unfortunately, the other emperor, who was there first, is not going to take your claim lying down.

Upon claiming the title of 'emperor' and being elevated to imperial status, the region would be plunged into an 'imperial crisis'. Both emperors get the 'imperial crisis' casus belli on each other. The terms of the casus belli are as follows:

-the empire of the losing party will be dismantled. The imperial title, however, will still keep whatever de iure lands it has, so as to allow the hre to make a comeback if it gets dismantled.
-the losing party will pay a large indemnity to the victor.
-the losing party will lose a large amount of prestige, while the winning party will gain a large amount.
-the losing character may not make a bid for emperor again as long as he lives. (his descendants, however, can.)

while the imperial crisis is in effect (not the war, just the state of two empires of the same religion existing simultaneously), both emperors will receive a harsh modifier (imperial pretender) reducing their prestige. The newly crowned emperor, for being a newcomer to the imperial stage, and not defeating the old emperor, and for the old emperor, for not putting down this pretender to their crown. The imperial pretender modifier will not be removed until one empire defeats the other. This is to encourage both the player and the ai to settle their dispute once and for all.

after winning the war

congratulations! You are now sole emperor of your religious group. However, you still have a long way to go ahead of you. Unless you happen to be the holy roman emperor, none of your lands will be in your empire title's de iure borders. This, in turn, makes it harder to manage your empire until your many crowns assimilate to it- as it should be, for creating a new empire should not be taken lightly.

Neither should you relax your guard. From time to time, other claimants and other pretenders may appear, proclaiming themselves to be the true successor of rome (in particular, the descendants of the emperor you deposed). You will have to defend your crown against them, or fall and suffer the same fate you once inflicted to the previous empire.

------------

and thus are my thoughts. I, myself, am closer to the 'historical' crowd, and i think that many of my peers will agree with me when i say that it is not the idea of having ahistorical empires itself that we protest; but that if such an empire is created, there must be a 'realistic' reaction to it (for lack of a better term). Two states claiming to be the successor of the same half of the roman empire should not be able to live in peace, and such a situation should lead to strife and warring, until one or the other is destroyed.

With such a framework, i believe us historical gamers will be satisfied (though i do not claim to speak for all), as would those who prefer a looser interpretation of history. And more than anything, the inclusion of proper mechanics to simulate the circumstances that would accompany the claiming of a second imperial crown would greatly enrich and improve the experience of playing this game.

i love this frigging idea!!

[Leviathan07]

If I may contribute to this discussion, here are my 2 cents on this issue:

New Imperial titles should be creatable, but not be De Iure

I argue for this point not because I am concerned about historicity. Rather, I argue for this point because, while having an 'Empire of Brittania' and 'Empire of Scandinavia' can be useful if you focus your conquests in these regions, there are many situations wherein it would not make sense.

For example: Suppose you, the player, were to start a game as Harald Hadrada, King of Norway, and proceed to win the war against Harold Godwinson, thus pressing your claim on his throne, you would become King of Norway and England. Following that, you proceed to invade and conquer the regions of Wales and Scotland, and crown yourself Kings of these two lands as well. At this point, you would be able to crown yourself Emperor- but crowning yourself 'Emperor of Britain' makes no sense. You, Harald Hadrada (or possibly a descendant at this point) are a Norwegian. Your power base is in Norway. Why would you crown yourself 'Emperor of Britain'? It makes no sense.

Instead, I propose the following mechanic. The title of 'Emperor' can be claimed if you possess the following: At least 3 kingdom titles, At least 5000 prestige, a large amount of gold and piety, and the Pope must have a better opinion of you than he has of the current reigning Emperor. Doing so will grant you a title based on your primary kingdom title, such as 'Emperor of Norway'; possibly with unique decisions for 'Emperor of Spain' or any other region you wish to specify.

The '3 kingdom titles' requirement ensures that the player has a sufficiently large power base to make a proper claim to the title. The '5000 prestige' requirement ensures that these kingdom titles are not some piddly little backwater lands with few regions. The gold and piety requirements should be self explanatory, as these are used every time a duchy or kingdom is created. Finally, the Pope's favour is needed in order to get Papal backing for your claim, which sets your claim apart from other 'wannabe emperors' and gives it legitimacy.

This decision should be visible from the start, under the decisions tab, so that players can see it from the beginning. This will allow you to overcome the problem of new players not having anything to aim for, which, I believe, was the reason behind making the titles De Iure in the first place.

Upon Claiming the Title

So, suppose you have the requisite number of crowns for your decision. Your character is sufficiently prestigious, you have the gold and piety to spend, and you even secured the Pope's backing. Great! You are now an Emperor. Unfortunately, the other Emperor, who was there first, is not going to take your claim lying down.

Upon claiming the title of 'Emperor' and being elevated to Imperial status, the region would be plunged into an 'Imperial crisis'. Both Emperors get the 'Imperial Crisis' casus belli on each other. The terms of the casus belli are as follows:

-The empire of the losing party will be dismantled. The Imperial title, however, will still keep whatever De Iure lands it has, so as to allow the HRE to make a comeback if it gets dismantled.
-The losing party will pay a large indemnity to the victor.
-The losing party will lose a large amount of prestige, while the winning party will gain a large amount.
-The losing character may not make a bid for Emperor again as long as he lives. (His descendants, however, can.)

While the Imperial crisis is in effect (Not the war, just the state of two empires of the same religion existing simultaneously), both Emperors will receive a harsh modifier (Imperial Pretender) reducing their prestige. The newly crowned Emperor, for being a newcomer to the Imperial stage, and not defeating the old Emperor, and for the old Emperor, for not putting down this pretender to their crown. The Imperial Pretender modifier will not be removed until one Empire defeats the other. This is to encourage both the player and the AI to settle their dispute once and for all.

After Winning the War

Congratulations! You are now sole Emperor of your religious group. However, you still have a long way to go ahead of you. Unless you happen to be the Holy Roman Emperor, none of your lands will be in your Empire title's De Iure borders. This, in turn, makes it harder to manage your Empire until your many crowns assimilate to it- as it should be, for creating a new Empire should not be taken lightly.

Neither should you relax your guard. From time to time, other claimants and other pretenders may appear, proclaiming themselves to be the true successor of Rome (in particular, the descendants of the Emperor you deposed). You will have to defend your crown against them, or fall and suffer the same fate you once inflicted to the previous Empire.

------------

And thus are my thoughts. I, myself, am closer to the 'historical' crowd, and I think that many of my peers will agree with me when I say that it is not the idea of having ahistorical empires itself that we protest; but that if such an empire is created, there must be a 'realistic' reaction to it (for lack of a better term). Two states claiming to be the successor of the same half of the Roman Empire should not be able to live in peace, and such a situation should lead to strife and warring, until one or the other is destroyed.

With such a framework, I believe us historical gamers will be satisfied (though I do not claim to speak for all), as would those who prefer a looser interpretation of history. And more than anything, the inclusion of proper mechanics to simulate the circumstances that would accompany the claiming of a second Imperial crown would greatly enrich and improve the experience of playing this game.

Your proposal has merit but I fear the "Emperor vs Emperor" aspect would not be much fun in the game. Things like the prestige penalties and the casus belli are IMO too forced: You basically railroad any wannabe regional overlord (a.k.a. emperor) into a confrontation with either the HRE or the ERE. This would not be fun if all you want is to be accepted as overlord-emperor of Spain, or Britain. There's the logistical problem (being forced to fight a war over very long distances, against a powerful foe) and then there is the problem, that you may not actually WANT to be enemy of the emperor, that you might be content with letting him be the #1 emperor in the world, but you still want the rewarding title of a regional overlord and the ability to vassalize the kings of your region. You might not at all want to be railroaded into a confrontation.

Also it would be problematic if you think about this from a history perspective: Why should the "emperor" titles be so exclusive? Sure, the real HRE and ERE emperors claimed supreme authority over Christendom, but even then there's the very basic fact that this did not stop them from recognizing each other despite this conflicting claim. Never in the 600 years of coexistence did a HRE Emperor fight the ERE emperor just to settle who really had the right to rule over Christendom. Why should any of the "regional emperor-titles" be loaded with such confrontation, when the real emperors got along just well? Why would the coronation of a British emperor be a challenge to the HRE emperor? Britain never gave a crap about the HRE empire either way. A French or Sicilian king crowning himself emperor might have provoked a war because there's the whole Charlemagne legacy, which did touch France and Sicily, but for Spain, Britain, Scandinavia, Poland etc this would not be an issue. Charlemagne had himself crowned emperor and that was not a crisis moment at all for the Byzantine empire at the time. They just scoffed, said something like "look at this upstart barbarian, how dare he" and went on with business as usual. I cannot see how this should be different if a new empire is created in Persia, Spain or Britain.

Lastly, even if you want to fight the HRE emperor, and you want to be the #1 empire, why would a military victory over the HRE dissolve his empire? Since the consituent kingdoms of the HRE and ERE (Germany, Italy, Greece, etc) cannot be created by the sitting emperor himself, losing the confrontation with the challenger wannabe Emperor of Britain or Spain would insta-implode all his power. Without the imperial title, he is no longer liege of the dukes, and unless (low chance) he somehow created the kingdom crowns before losing this war, he loses all his rule and reverts to a simple duke or count. This is drastic, waaaaaay too drastic in my opinion. It also makes no sense from an alternate history point of view: So the emperor of Britain has sailed over to Germany, has defeated the HRE emperor in battle, forces from him a concession that the Emperor of Britain is now the supreme monarch of Latin Christendom. Why would this dissolve the HRE ??? The British Emperor sets sail and goes home to Britain, but the German emperor is still the lord of Germany. The dukes still owe fealty to him. Why should this be dissolved.

I generally don't think you should railroad newly created empires into confrontations with HRE or ERE. I would agree that, to *CREATE* some of those empires, such as the proposed "Francia" empire or a hypothetical Orthodox empire of Egypt and the Levant, you would (should) need to confront the sitting HRE or ERE emperors, but that's just because proximity makes it that their claims would actually be a threat to the existing emperors. For other empires, such as Britain, Scandinavia, Rus-Lithuania, Spain, Persia) this is unneccesary, constricting and potentially very un-fun.

[Balesir]

The problems seem to be (and I have only skimmed this thread because it's ridiculously long and convoluted) that "De Jure" entities in the game have a game-mechanical (as well as natural language historical) meaning, and the title is taken to "mean something" in the medieval world.

The second "reason" I'm totally sceptical about; folks assigned that connotation because no other Empires were forged, not because there was any real "natural" impediment to it. Medieval pontificators spoke a very large quantity of BS on this sort of topic until Niccolo Machiavelli punctured their baloon, IMO...

The first issue is a bit more thorny; if a particular De Jure entity is ever going to enter the game, it has to be there from the start because the game cannot "self-manufacture" De Jure entities (whereas the real world self evidently can - build an Empire and hold it for a century and anyone who says it doesn't exist is either dead or delusionary). If you don't have the De Jure entity in the game, the mechanical elements of a De Jure entity (law links and so forth) can't be used. So, any entity that we want to be potentially formed in the game has to have a De Jure entity entry set up for it or it can't gain the effects of a De Jure entity, ever...

Maybe the answer is in the process needed for claiming and creation of these "un-historical" entities? Would it work if:

1) It was necessary to claim (a heritable claim that lapses if an inheritor does not have the minimum requirements for the claim) such a title for, say, 50 years in order for it to become "fully confirmed" (i.e. to gain the actual, De Jure title).

2) There was a toggle or option, somewhere, to not show, on the De Jure map mode, those De Jure entities that had not been "formed" (i.e. a flag for each entity, set to "yes" either in the game set-up file or when the full, De Jure title was acquired as in (1), above?

[Leviathan07]

...
The first issue is a bit more thorny; if a particular De Jure entity is ever going to enter the game, it has to be there from the start because the game cannot "self-manufacture" De Jure entities (whereas the real world self evidently can - build an Empire and hold it for a century and anyone who says it doesn't exist is either dead or delusionary). If you don't have the De Jure entity in the game, the mechanical elements of a De Jure entity (law links and so forth) can't be used. So, any entity that we want to be potentially formed in the game has to have a De Jure entity entry set up for it or it can't gain the effects of a De Jure entity, ever ...
...

You do know, that you can already have titular empires in the game? If you set de-jure drift to 100 years, titular empires for each of the map's regions will have EXACTLY what you propose: Subjugate all kingdoms of the British isles, and the option to create the title "Emperor of Britain" will appear. Click it and you become emperor, and can vassalize kings. Keep all four kingdoms of the British isles under your subjugation for 100 years, and at the end of those 100 years through de-jure drift all your kingdoms will become de-jure vassals of the "Emperor of Britain" title. Your crown laws only become binding for those kingdoms at that point. Thereby making it fully de-jure, and any one disputing it dead or delusional.


Isn't that exactly what you argued for?

The only reason this current state of affairs is deemed unsatisfactory is that the de-jure mapmodes do not inform you about titular titles that you might want to strive for. So you have to "know" it's there, be peeking into game files, reading the forums or discovering it by accident.

The Paradox devs apparently want to remedy this unsatisfactory aspect by making all potential titular empires de-jure. Others, such as me, argued that it would add lots of un-fun aspects to the game, and that it could be remedied much better by simply enabling the de-jure mapmodes to show you all titular titles. One such way to show them on the de-jure mapmodes, proposed earlier in this thread, would be to have them show, through thick borders around certain groups of kingdoms, or duchies, and a Coat of Arms centered on the area highlighted that way, where a potential titular kingdom or empire can be created. The complete list of requirements (beyond just territory/titles) could be visible through a popup that shows when you hover your mouse over the CoA of the titular kingdom or empire.

I would not mind the proposed inclusion of a ton of fantasy de-jure kingdoms and empires so much, myself, because I know I could simply revert to the pre-patch game files to get the old system back. But I think it would be better FOR THE GAME (and for others) if, additionally, they could implement the map mode fix described above.

From a technical point of view I do not see why such a fix would be all that difficult to code. The game already has ways of showing all sorts of thick borders around, f.ex., provinces, duchies, kingdoms, or rivers. You just have to enable the game to read the creation conditions for titular titles, extract the territorial requirements from those conditions, and turn them into graphical info on the de-jure maps. The tooltip to be shown on hovering your mouse on the CoA would be the same tooltip as you can already see when you hover the mouse over, for example, any event condition icon, where it shows you a list of IF and NOT conditions with green and red markers telling you what conditions you need to trigger a decision or event, and which of those conditions you already fulfill.

[Rozmarzony]

But devs said, why they dont like titular.

[tommassi]

But devs said, why they dont like titular.

Devs said they don't like titular because that makes them mostly invisible. We're trying to come up with ideas to make them visible without necessarily having to make them de iure.

If possible, then great. If not possible... well, at least they have some ideas maybe for future DLCs and patches.