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Well, it's Friday and high time to spill the beans on the new expansion for Crusader Kings II; the Sword of Islam. Judging by the forum, playable Muslims is the most requested feature for CKII, and who are we to disagree? We always wanted to do it, provided we could do the Muslim world justice. That time is now (or, well, soon :) ). As with the Ruler Designer DLC, the Sword of Islam will be released together with a major content patch. What you get with the Sword of Islam is simply the ability to play as the Muslim rulers, but all the new mechanics will be there and running for the AI (or other players in multiplayer) even if you don't have the expansion.

I'll be doing three dev diaries on the Sword of Islam, each one dealing with some unique features for the Muslims as well as some free features that everyone will have access to simply by patching to 1.06.

THE SWORD OF ISLAM

One of the major hassles with making Muslims playable was the prevalence of text with obviously Christian or Western terminology. Therefore, we had to go through all text to make it fit the setting if you are playing a Muslim. Often, this required writing whole new events and decisions. For example, Muslims don't hold tournaments, they have the Furusiyya instead, which is an exhibition of martial arts and horsemanship. They don't hold Grand Feasts, they observe the Ramadan, etc. We also added some completely new decisions, like going on the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), which will initiate a cool little event driven story of what happens on the way to and from the holy city. Of course, there is also a whole slew of events dealing with various new gameplay features (more on that in later dev diaries.)

Another issue we needed to solve was the Gothic looking graphical interface of Crusader Kings II, which we felt did not really work when playing as a Muslim ruler. So we did a complete reskin with sand tones and green symbols and patterns instead of the church window graphics of Christian rulers. Yet another problem was that many event pictures looked distinctly Western/Christian, so we've added about 25 new ones to serve as Muslim equivalents. Then there are all the little things, like trait icons with crosses, the Crusade banner, etc. All of that has been changed to provide the right atmosphere. We've even changed the five councillor models for Muslims when they're out in the provinces performing jobs. It's all been a lot of work, but I think it turned out really well.

Muslims get a slightly different set of character traits; they don't get the Kinslayer, Crusader, Celibate and Chaste Traits. Instead, they get the Mujahid, Hajjaj, Faqih (Islamic law expert), Hafiz (has memorized the Koran), Sayyid (agnatic descendent of Fatima or one of Muhammad's uncles) and Mirza (child of a Sayyida mother) traits.

Lastly, Muslims get another set of honorary titles to hand out to their vassals. They all get a few special flavour events - especially the Chief Qadi - a position requiring an ecclesiastical education.

SoI_04.jpg

That's it for the Sword of Islam in this dev diary; next time I will go into the core dynamics of playing as a Muslim ruler.

THE 1.06 PATCH

Now then, here's some of the free stuff we're giving ya'll in the 1.06 patch...

First off, we thought the southwest corner of the map looked a bit dull, so we added a bunch of new provinces down there, representing the flourishing civilizations of the Manden people; Ghana, Mali and Songhay. The area comes with historical rulers (of course) and a new West African culture group. The region is rich but hard to reach.

SoI_05.jpg

For flavour, we have also made it so that duchy tier and above titles held by rulers of Iranian, Arabic and Turkish cultures are named after the ruling dynasty. For example, the Kingdom of Egypt automatically becomes the Fatimid Sultanate while the Fatimids are in power (though the original name is also used where appropriate.) In case the same dynasty holds several high rank titles, only the highest is named after the dynasty. Thus, we can have both a Seljuk Sultanate and a Sultanate of Rum, both ruled by the Seljuk dynasty. Randomly generated characters of these cultures automatically get a dynasty name suitable to name states after (ending with -id or -n, etc).

SoI_01.jpg

Lastly (for this dev diary), there are seven new creatable empires (the Arabian Empire, the Empire of Persia, Britannia, Scandinavia, Francia, Spain and Russia) and a whole slew of new de jure kingdoms, mostly to break up the old kingdom of Khazaria. Now, I know the addition of the new empires is controversial, but the creation conditions are designed to be fairly difficult to achieve, so the AI will very rarely do it. We want players to have the imperial option to strive for if they so desire - the Unions turned out to be a popular feature in Europa Universalis III.

SoI_02.jpg

Oh, and before anyone asks, patch 1.06 will be semi-compatible with old save games: you will be able to keep playing, but we're making no guarantees that the balance will not be completely upset, or that any added new provinces will be active and working.

That's it for now. Next week I'll talk about polygamy, decadence, and strong and weak claims!
 
I didn't pick up the first DLC but this one is a definite buy for me.
 
Wow you guys really went overboard with the Kingdoms in the East !! More Crowns to collect... gotta catch them all :p

But seriously, Kievan Rus is now mostly part of 'Ruthenia' instead of Rus, this is ODD. Kiev was definitely the center of the Rus in this time period, how can it not be part of Rus? Even worse, Rus is now half-centered in lands that were not properly Russified nor Christianized yet in 1066 (!)

Yes, it's a bit odd, but calling the northern part Novgorod just doesn't feel right. The approach we're taking with de jure kingdoms is not actually what was considered de jure in 1066, but is designed to nudge the game along a more historical route.
 
First off, we thought the southwest corner of the map looked a bit dull, so we added a bunch of new provinces down there, representing the flourishing civilizations of the Manden people; Ghana, Mali and Songhay. The area comes with historical rulers (of course) and a new West African culture group. The region is rich but hard to reach.

Since you mention the West African culture group, I was wondering if tuareg culture is included?
 
Can I ask, will you make cultural buildings for more cultures? (And, maybe, not only in the Castles, but in the Cities and Churches as well?)
Good point. One of the developers (Goose somebody?) said more would be added in future patches, as well as more nicknames.
 
Yes, it's a bit odd, but calling the northern part Novgorod just doesn't feel right. The approach we're taking with de jure kingdoms is not actually what was considered de jure in 1066, but is designed to nudge the game along a more historical route.

Oh I'll live. Might rename Ruthenia to "Kiev" in mine at least, though.

Thanks for breaking up the Kingdom of Byzantium in twain, looks good. In post-1st Crusade games, the high 'Crusade weight' on this often meant the Pope would be calling Crusades for Byzantium that actually only targeted a handful of Rum provinces in Anatolia... Will work much better with 'Crusades for Anatolia', not to mention, the Crusade weight on that ought to be lower than it is for Greece.
 
Oh I'll live. Might rename Ruthenia to "Kiev" in mine at least, though.
What about Varangia? It's not perfect but the original Rus' were Varangians and it sort of makes sense for those northern Ugric/Rus'/Nordic territories between Karelia and Novgorod (which I agree doesn't sound right for a kingdom) -- I'm assuming the Russian Empire (Rus) is Ruthenia and Lithuania, so Varangia sounds good in there.

I may add that anyway.
 
Great update,though to be honest I am not really a fan of the new empires. I really like the detail of the Sayyid and Mirza, it will be interesting try to interwine our dynasty with the one from the prophet, which reminds me are there matrilineal marriages in the muslim world?
 
I noticed that the West African culture character in the last shot, with a Mande culture, uses the arab portrait. Any chance this will be open for change? I would certainly pay for a African portrait DLC (after its released, just to be safe; don't wanna get burned again like on the Ruler DLC). Paradox, I don't know what you've got that graphic designer that did the Mongol DLC doing, but pay him money so we can pay you money.

Also, even if you're not expanding upon the Monophysites, are you going to incorporate some protection against Holy Wars for them?

Love the new kingdoms, PS. Particularly those in the Byzantine litoral. But not the new Empires; defeats the legal stance of the word.
 
Oh and Doomdark, please make sure the new de jure kingdoms have unique coats of arms. The kingdoms added in 1.05 still use their ducal arms which can be confusing and doesn't look very good.
 
Why :/ ? Is it not a good thing?

Sure, he just means he'll have to do it again because thats too awesome not to try.

Personally Ive modded in my own Empires a few times. I did a Scandinavian game where I created a custom Empire 'The North', 'in the North'. A GoT reference obviously :D And yes, it was fun, especially slowly integrating my kingdoms to this Titular title and seeing it becoming De Jure much later.
 
Great update,though to be honest I am not really a fan of the new empires. I really like the detail of the Sayyid and Mirza, it will be interesting try to interwine our dynasty with the one from the prophet, which reminds me are there matrilineal marriages in the muslim world?

I'm not sure I like the new empires either, especially Russia. At least I hope it can't co-exist with Byzantium.
 
I'm not sure I like the new empires either, especially Russia. At least I hope it can't co-exist with Byzantium.
Yeah, I think given the time period they should rename the kingdom of Rus to something else and then have Rus as the de jure empire instead of Russia. Personally I don't think it needed to be split, but they've done it now so...
 
My main question is, will the monophysite situation be balanced? At the moment they always disappear within a few years and since I play on very hard I find it nearly impossible to play them.
 
I'm not sure I like the new empires either, especially Russia. At least I hope it can't co-exist with Byzantium.

Yes. I think Spain and Persia are the only realistic empires in this. Russia only if it can't coexist with ERE. I really don't like Scandinavia or Brittania. I will delete them in my game.
 
My main question is, will the monophysite situation be balanced? At the moment they always disappear within a few years and since I play on very hard I find it nearly impossible to play them.
Doomdark said in his reply to my post that the religions/heresies setup hasn't been changed, so Monophysites will still probably get gang-raped by both Muslims and Christians.