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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!
 
there should be only ONE UNIVOCAL & UNAMBIGUOUS name for all the states - the geographic one.
just suppose my Croatia turns to be under some muslem Arab Trpimirovic.

Should it be a 'Trpimirovicid sultanate' now for you?

It would make sense actually, although either solution would be good. With Muslims, it's a bit of a mix really. Sometimes it's a dynastic name (which especially makes sense with a Caliphate because the Caliph was supposed to be one and it was not a territorial title), sometimes territorial. IMHO emirates should have territorial names, caliphates dynastic and sultanates... perhaps on an individual basis. Which is mostly like it's actually done. Please note that Doomdark said that:

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).

This basically means that the name 'Croatia' would still appear in some places, perhaps where you check History, Claimants etc. but I'm just guessing. Also, only the highest title is named after the dynasty. This is basically equivalent to the rule that: 'The highest titles owned by Arabs, Persians and Turks are renamed after their dynasty for normal purposes.' It also means there is no mess like renaming counties and baronies etc. I personally like this addition. Please note, as well, that the original territorial unit is in no way said to disappear, it still exists. It's just one step further than 'Capetian France' or 'Bourbonian France' or 'Carolingian France', mostly what we choose to call them, not what they were called at the time. We all know it's still France. As for Muslim realms, it's just commonly accepted in history to call them the dynastic name. Sorry if I sound a bit chaotic.

I simply don't agree with that. I think most people with even a passing knowledge of classic or linguistic history would know that Emperor derives from Imperator, as do pretty much all of the equivalent imperial titles throughout European history.

Yup. And 'Kaiser' (German) or 'cesarz' (Polish) or 'tzar/car' (various Slavic) are based on the kaisar ('caesar' in Greek but also consistent with the pronunciation of 'Caesar' when Julius Caesar was alive, very different from the later ecclesiastic pronunciation).

Do note that pretty much everyone having an issue with them being called "empires" are talking about Christian empires. What the Ming dynasty was called is irrelevant.

With exotic dynasties, we generally have to use functional equivalents or go back in history and see if there old bilingual sources that mention the relevant ruler's titles in a language more familiar to us. If we don't have authoritative, clear, acceptable bilingual sources, we go by the level of sovereignty and the extent of territorial power, perhaps taking account of previous holding more land with the same title etc. But this is just a convention.

With European rulers, we do have the problem of insufficient legitimacy to assert any empire, officially so named, that isn't in some way a purported successor state to the Roman empire. Or doesn't go back to some nomadic peoples (i.e. an exotic imperial title that remains in use after conversion to Christianity, without demotion to king), such as if a European ruler had inherited a khaganate or something else exotic. He would IMHO indeed have been able to get away with holding himself out to be equal to the HRE. De iure, there's basically only one Roman empire, with room for multiple emperors, perhaps even equal or rank to each other or actually fully independent from each other. National empires would be way harder and mostly achievable only outside ancient Roman borders or like I said, with some Nomadic peoples that settled in Europe.

Also, there is a difference between calling a political entity an empire and calling the ruler emperor. You could have a republican empire or a theocracy referred to as an empire. The USA could be referred to as an empire, I guess. With exotic rulers we make no fuss about calling them emperors in such cases, as long as they can be cast as monarchs. This, again, is different in European history. We can speak about an 'Angevin Empire' (the d'Anjou folks controlled a lot of land) or the 'Jagiellonian Empire' (Kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, out of which Poland and Lithuania included traditional Russian principalities, some of them very prestigious), but there was no single emperor there. In fact, while this is not normally known, the Jagiellonians wasted a lot of potential by infighting (aiding the rise of the Habsburgs in Bohemia and Hungary, which might have been impossible).

Speaking of the 'Habsburg Empire' (since someone mentioned it), there was actually an emperor there (although his title was of the HRE, which only partially overlapped with the Habsburg lands).

The Kingdom of Portugal does not and has never existed at game start in 1066, but it exists on the de jure map mode and I haven't seen anyone complaining about that fact. Is this implying that the Kingdom legally existed a hundred years before the local count even thought of independance? Or is it implying that this is an area where, given the correct circumstances a properly recognised and legal realm of such a tier can be formed, though is not currently existant, and be seen with more legitimacy than might otherwise be the case?

I think the latter.

There may be a couple of reasons, including simplification, as well as the fact that the de iure kingdoms were supposed to take some account of post-1066 development (they served all historical starts up to 1337, which forced such things as de iure Portugal or Jerusalem in 1066), and also the fact that Portugal did really form. Eventually. In the case of an 'Empire of Francia', it never formed, we can only speculate of how it would go. Same with an 'Empire of Scandinavia'. And Spain, I don't know, but aren't we just projecting the 16th century Spanish Empire backwards to accommodate the less historically knowledgeable players who like popular anchors more than accuracy? Or maybe we're indeed looking back at the claims of the occasional rulers of the original (oldest) kingdoms that had some claims on the rest of them.

This will also complicate matters for those emperors when importing the save into EU3, where there is a mechanic for the HRE, which is, in that game, a universal European thing, even though its immediate territorial extent is limited. In fact, EU3 allows you tocall yourself emperor (with some perks) when you have enough land, but there's still only one HRE (in my one and only game of EU3 I was an emperor already when joining the HRE). It was even more universal in mediaeval Europe, especially considering that in early 16th century the HRE adopted the additional qualification 'of the German nation', probably to silence France and others. Before, the emperor was basically all-European, the Emperor, regardless how much influence you allowed him to wield in your kingdom.

...What would religion have to do with it? Imperator is a title originating in pagan Rome, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.

The Emperor of Rome became the protector of Christianity and played an important role. He was basically the other sword in the two swords principle, the secular equivalent of the Pope. It wasn't outside Christian imagination to recognise separate and equal imperial dignity of a hypothetical converted Khagan but there were limits. Many of which, admittedly, could have been worked around by admitting nominal subordination to the 'original' Roman Emperor (being the HRE for most Westerners past a certain stage), although if a Byzantine Emperor had really wanted to make e.g. the king of Hungary a fellow Basileus, nobody would've been able to do anything about it (except maybe some protestation from the HRE as Hungary was somewhere on the border between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires).

But anyway, how we get to become an emperor is one thing. I think we can all agree that if there is a sufficient margin for imagination, we can live with it. As in we can imagine that some Roman legitimacy was found or that the Pope granted a new empire outside Rome. Or we can imagine that the AI is a fake emperor and needs to be put down for the audacity to claim the title (especially if we play a 'real' emperor)... A fictional de iure Empire on the map is a different thing.

So "empire" labels should be used restrictively within the Christian world but not necessarily for muslims and pagans?

Yes, unless and until a Muslim or pagan claims to be the Roman Emperor (and the Ottoman Sultan did just that).

Plausibility of anti-popes naming "anti-emperors" or victorious heresies declaring their own empires?

Of course. Real popes sometimes absolved the vassals of the HRE from their oaths of allegiance, which led to the so called anti-kings in Germany.

I believe in-game, this is reflected by asking the Pope for an Invasion CB against the HRE. Alternatively, you could petition the Pope for a 'translatio imperii' and the Pope, for a grave cause, would grant you the title. Or, if the Pope didn't have enough power, he would succeed only in making you a claimant (basically grant you a claim, like when you grant a claim on the perpetrator's titles when one of your vassals tries to have another assassinated).

Excommunication is very similar to the mediaeval papal deposition of a ruler (not necessarily the emperor). Everybody can DoW him and his liege can haul him to jail and revoke, banish, execute, whatever he wants. Normally, in the case of the HRE in CK2, this would result in a vassal or family member of the previous emperor succeeding to the crown. But in real life, the Pope could have been able, say, to nominate the King of France or England as a replacement. Also, opening the HRE's elective law to include any Catholic ruler on the map could be a solution, I guess. If you didn't want to cause a war for it but still wanted to become the emperor, you'd simply compete in the next election. Et voila, Spain is the emperor. ;) Or Norway. Or True Christian Knight Duke of Someforgottenplace (much to the dismay of his ex liege ;)).

All titular crowns are tied to some region, right? Like, to create Trinacria, you must hold provinces XYZ. To create the empire of Scandinavia, you must have the crowns of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland.

Why not simply integrate that into the de-jure map, so that all can see what titles can be created, and what their requirements are?

Putting the empire creation in your available Plots/Ambitions/Decisions wouldn't be bad either. Everybody plots, holds feats or goes hunting or hosts tournaments or invites nobles when out of courtiers.

Also, while at it, I think defined titular kingdoms (Nubia, Cyprus, Trinacria, Naples, some more) should be replaced by a mechanism to create a new kingdom title with the same territorial designation as a selected duchy (or perhaps even also county). This should have very strict requirements, preferably spanning several generations back, like: independence (preferably long-time and uninterrupted), high dynastic prestige, some kings or emperors in the genealogical tree should help matters. Perhaps if you hold the capital of a de iure kingdom but not enough land to create it (and it doesn't exist right now), you could get a titular title (meaning that de iure vassals of that kingdom wouldn't become your de iure vassals, you wouldn't have de iure claims etc. for a long time). Just speculating on the basis of the fact that such kingdoms generally originated from highly unusual events and situations, such that similar ones could happen in someone's game in a different location than they did in real history.
 
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An empire in the Medieval Christian world is a successor to Rome. A non-Christian empire obviously isn't.

I wouldn't say that, after all the Ottomans were certainly convinced they were the successors of Rome.
 
There may be a couple of reasons, including simplification, as well as the fact that the de iure kingdoms were supposed to take some account of post-1066 development (they served all historical starts up to 1337, which forced such things as de iure Portugal or Jerusalem in 1066), and also the fact that Portugal did really form.

Ergo, you already accept the de jure map mode can represent things other than the actual de jure realms that had existed or did exist at the time. So if you are to be consistant, adding new titles shouldn't be a problem.

I agree that calling the holders of some of the new titles Emperors might be pretty tricky to justify for medieval christian europe, but that is seperate point to using the map mode to represent potential titles of that tier.
 
I wouldn't say that, after all the Ottomans were certainly convinced they were the successors of Rome.
I don't think they genuinely believed that -- it's just they'd conquered Constantinople and so who could oppose their outlandish claims? The sultanate of Rum is so-called simply because the geographical area it comprised (Anatolia) was known as the land of the Romans because it been inhabited by people who called themselves as such.
 
I don't think they genuinely believed that -- it's just they'd conquered Constantinople and so who could oppose their outlandish claims? The sultanate of Rum is so-called simply because the geographical area it comprised (Anatolia) was known as the land of the Romans because it been inhabited by people who called themselves as such.

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)#Ottoman_Empire

One of the titles was: Caesar of the Roman Empire (Kayser-i-Rûm)


That have nothing to do with the Sultanate of Rum.
 
I don't think they genuinely believed that -- it's just they'd conquered Constantinople and so who could oppose their outlandish claims? The sultanate of Rum is so-called simply because the geographical area it comprised (Anatolia) was known as the land of the Romans because it been inhabited by people who called themselves as such.
That claim was used for justification of Ottoman plans for an invasion of Italy, however...
 
If the devs are so intent on giving us a boatload of emperor titles, they should also include a way to have such titles become vacant again. Like when you claim to be emperor of Scandinavia, but lose two of the four kingdoms, it would be nice if the crown could also be vaporized into nothingness.

The event would say: "People laugh at your imperial claims. The Empire of Scandinavia is no more." and *poof* there goes your imperial crown. To be recreated if you ever again manage to hold that many kingdoms.

With some of the self-created "imperial titles" in history, that is how it actually went. Some spanish king briefly held all the spanish crowns and called himself "Imperator" in the 10th century, but that did not continue when some of the crowns were lost again. Aethelstan and Alfred were briefly overlords of all of Britain and Aethelstan even called himself that way, but there too the title died when parts of their claimed empires slipped away.

Self-created imperial titles should really be different from the HRE and ERE titles. Those have a strong legitimacy at game start, and even when those empires temporarily fell to pieces, the titles remained accepted (if disputed) by all. However "High King of Britain" or "Imperator of Spain" are nothing like that, if their empires fall to pieces they should disappear too.

Maybe a generation counter or decade counter could be implemented, that lets you see how long a self-created imperial title is already in use, and how long it has to go until it becomes legitimate? That could be fun for multiplayer, too. Creating an imperial title would not be an instant win-button, instead it would be just the first step to make your rule strong and legitimate. Other players (and the AI) would seek to wrestle your kingdoms away to show the world what a vainglorious upstart you really are ... until the years have proven that your lineage is indeed worthy of an imperial crown, and it becomes as legitimate as the HRE or ERE crowns. 50 years for example would be a good period of time. The "legitimacy countdown" could be shown on the de-jure map, for all to see.

Wouldn't that add fun?
I think it would be fun. It would be nice to have some sort of distinction between the true Empires and the new ones, and while titular would work nicely (since they would need to assimilate into a de jure nature), I guess some other plan, like yours above, would have to do. And actually, it sounds even cooler, in a way :)
 
I'm in favor of the New Empires being De Jure on the map and completely disagree with those who are opposed. I understand their arguments I just don't agree with them. The game currently has no way for individuals to know what titular titles are available for creation unless you stumble on them by accident. Creating the ability for players to see what titular titles are available would involve resources they want to spend on other areas. Please do NOT make them titular as I don't want to have to dive into the game files when I decide to play in a different region to discover what's available for creation. I also I don't agree with calling them High Kings and certainly not King of Kings. If we can make anti-popes there is no reason to believe that you couldn't have had a legitimate challenger arise and declare themselves Emperor. I also can't wrap my mind around the people complaining about them changing the muslims as playable since the game does not offer playable muslims atm. In other words Paradox I completely support you in the upcoming changes and additions.
 
That claim was used for justification of Ottoman plans for an invasion of Italy, however...

God is on the side of the army with the most cannon, or its equivalent. ;) Mehmed II did have some claim to being emperor of the Romans. There is that line in the Quran directing that the faith is to be brought to the Romans. And now that we have 'weak claims' as the DD said, Sultan Orhan I married a daughter of Ioannes VI (who bore him Murad I) in 1346. Mehmed II was determined to make it to Rome, and he did, in one of my EU3 games. :D

The Iberian imperial title was always contested. According to a sixteenth-century telling (maybe just a wee bit truthful), Emperor Heinrich III did challenge it before the pope at the Council of Florence. It may have helped that Fernando I of Leon was paying a thousand gold dinar annually from the tribute that he received from the Moors to Cluny. Spain was allowed to go her own way, but the title did disappear after Alfonso VII and the partitioning of Leon and Castile between his sons. Idk, but it was something of old usage, a claim of sovereignty separate from the Holy Roman Empire, over land never reconquered by Charlemagne. It went as far back as the X century, but it took on new meaning as the ruler to whom all other rulers in Iberia and in Alfonso VII's case a bit beyond looked to as their overlord. I suspect that it was less a case of translato imperii from Rome than from Cordoba, which was itself a claim to empire that was on less than solid ground. The Caliphs of Cordoba had exacted tribute from the Christian northerners, and in the 1030s, the tables turned. Ah, well, it is an interesting idea and rather fun to play around with.

In all fairness, Leon had a better claim to being the center of a revived Roman Empire than say Frankfurt. I guess it had become by 1066 a habit of thought for a German to have the title, safely across the Alps and a couple of wide rivers from Rome.
 
"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"

This feature is great! :wub:

However, when I see the screenshots, they show names like: "Hammadid" - "Aftasid". So will we have the name "Fatimid" in the same logic? :( These names are irrelevant. It should be either:
- Culture + Title: Fatimid Sultanate (As the Dev Diary says above!)
- Culture + s: Fatimids (if we want to make it shorter)

So would you please tell me how it will be when this DLC is released?

I would suggest adopting the "Culture+s" system in the duchy/kingdom tiers and the "culture+title" in the empire/caliphate tiers.

That could go weird, if a non-moslem origin dynasty came into a caliphate adding the s on the end wouldnt necessary look right. I'd say leave well enough alone, im sure Paradox know what theyre doing so how it is in the screenshots is probably how its been worked out would be best.
 
I'm in favor of the New Empires being De Jure on the map and completely disagree with those who are opposed. I understand their arguments I just don't agree with them. The game currently has no way for individuals to know what titular titles are available for creation unless you stumble on them by accident. Creating the ability for players to see what titular titles are available would involve resources they want to spend on other areas. Please do NOT make them titular as I don't want to have to dive into the game files when I decide to play in a different region to discover what's available for creation. I also I don't agree with calling them High Kings and certainly not King of Kings. If we can make anti-popes there is no reason to believe that you couldn't have had a legitimate challenger arise and declare themselves Emperor. I also can't wrap my mind around the people complaining about them changing the muslims as playable since the game does not offer playable muslims atm. In other words Paradox I completely support you in the upcoming changes and additions.

You're missing the point that de iure countries on the map are 'countries', landed political organisms, believed to exist by law or custom. This is not the same as the personal merit or legitimacy of a challenger or unifier. Who might as well pick his imperial scheme in the Plots section, the same as a count who wants his king to grant him a duchy, or someone who plots to acquire a title from his liege.

Ergo, you already accept the de jure map mode can represent things other than the actual de jure realms that had existed or did exist at the time. So if you are to be consistant, adding new titles shouldn't be a problem.

The size of the problem matters. I can get over real life titles being trimmed down to size or increase to reflect reality (e.g. Count of Flanders > Duke, Piast Rurikovich single-county duke > count in the game; tiny French count > baron in the game), where you adjust the titles for mechanics. Or when you gloss over like 30 years of difference when drawing de iure kingdoms or other units on the map. But tinkering with duchies is a bigger problem than tinkering with counties and certainly adding entire fictional empires is a whole different problem than a de iure Kingdom of Jerusalem prior to the First Crusade or a county belonging to the wrong de iure duchy for the wrong period. These are all small imperfections, whereas such empires are large chunks of fiction.

I agree that calling the holders of some of the new titles Emperors might be pretty tricky to justify for medieval christian europe, but that is seperate point to using the map mode to represent potential titles of that tier.

I'd be entirely in agreement with titular creatable empires or even with culturally justified de iure high kingdoms (Norse and Celtic cultures) that conferred benefits halfway between king and emperor, without full equality to an empire unless specifically confirmed by an acceptable emperor or the Pope (again, not if the Pope's moral authority falls to 60% due to heresies, for example). This with the reservation that I don't think the ruler of a unified Spain or France should be anything more than a king.

In fact, I'd be okay (and blissfully happy, actually) with a diplomacy option to ask the HRE or ERE or the Pope to grant you the imperial rank if you fulfil certain hard (can't do without) or soft (possible but difficult without) conditions like having several royal titles, the emperor liking you, you being married to a close relative, especially descended from an imperial woman, or you having a claim on any existing imperial title. This would make for much more fun for the players than just having a fictional empire on the map. I'd probably look like a blissfully happy young monkey with a new toy if you gave me the diplomatic options to marry into the Salians or Doukas, play nice and get confirmed as an additional emperor. Or get it from the pope. Or charm the electors (becoming emperor in EU2-3 was so much fun... or gifting/imperial-gracing/marrying 40 people to almost 200 to make them agree to your reforms). Or, I guess, just declaring yourself emperor on your own if you happen to have a strong claim on the title (especially stronger than the current holder). It would also feel more rewarding than forming a fictional de iure empire that you know exists only for (multiplayer) balance/learning curve/mass market appeal.

And once again, just to be sure there's a difference between calling yourself the Emperor of the North and getting away with it (this is plausible, as the Norse were outside the Old Rome, so the largest obstacle doesn't apply, and they could have good reasons to unite, having so much in common, and they could have the power and moral authority to defend the title eventually on the diplomatic arena of mediaeval Europe, I believe), and a de iure Norse Empire existing on the map. Equally, IMHO a king of France or a lucky Karling by definition has a good standing to compete for the imperial dignity associated with the HRE (or even concurrent with the German HRE) but again, this doesn't make it right to put a de iure Empire of France on the map.

I wouldn't say that, after all the Ottomans were certainly convinced they were the successors of Rome.

Yeah, in the Sultan's mind, he was the continuator of the titles he had conquered, not just the new territorial ruler with the same territorial designation.

Will empires be able to expand their de jure territory?

Empires as of now expand when their constituent kingdoms expand. In other words, an empire's de iure borders are defined by the de iure borders of its kingdoms. And a kingdom's de iure borders are defined on duchy level. Can't absorb individual counties.

***

Question for Paradox: Can you confirm that the (planned) de iure Russian empire includes only Russian lands, as in no ethnic Lithuania or Poland, for example?
 
In all fairness, Leon had a better claim to being the center of a revived Roman Empire than say Frankfurt. I guess it had become by 1066 a habit of thought for a German to have the title, safely across the Alps and a couple of wide rivers from Rome.

I totally agree but the problem is that the HRE wasn't territorial (the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation started only in early 16th century), it was basically the continuation of the Western Roman Empire or even just Roman Empire to the Westerners, and it was unique (sort of a one empire policy). The Emperor's papal coronation probably mattered more than his German territorial base. Again, this is a good reason to try and take the HRE title away from Germany, especially if you're France or Italy or Karling dynasty (in which cases it could be very personal), although the German territorial base of the HRE could also go to the outside king elected/made emperor (by the Pope or the electors or by winning a claim war, whatever). The typical challenger would not only want to become an emperor himself but also to make the King of Germany (as he would see him) stop being able to use the imperial title, but each challenger would have a different modus operandi depending on where he came from. Still, no non-Roman de iure empires. Any pre-existing de iure empire would need to have been the Roman Empire (regardless of the nature of the claimant's claim to rule (part of) it) or a new empire (only just being form, not present on the map before the day it was formed and the first emperor was crowned). And in the case of the Roman Empire, it wouldn't really matter which part of it you were ruling, it would only matter if you were able to get away with assuming the title. The point being that the name and the tradition of that empire would basically be the Rome Empire, not French or Spanish or whatever.
 
I'm in favor of the New Empires being De Jure on the map and completely disagree with those who are opposed. I understand their arguments I just don't agree with them. The game currently has no way for individuals to know what titular titles are available for creation unless you stumble on them by accident. Creating the ability for players to see what titular titles are available would involve resources they want to spend on other areas. Please do NOT make them titular as I don't want to have to dive into the game files when I decide to play in a different region to discover what's available for creation. I also I don't agree with calling them High Kings and certainly not King of Kings. If we can make anti-popes there is no reason to believe that you couldn't have had a legitimate challenger arise and declare themselves Emperor. I also can't wrap my mind around the people complaining about them changing the muslims as playable since the game does not offer playable muslims atm. In other words Paradox I completely support you in the upcoming changes and additions.

Let me get this straight: You (and paradox, and others) would be happy with fantasy empires remaining titular titles, *IF* they were clearly visible on the de-jure map or some other, easily accessible part of the game interface?

The only reason why this rather drastic change in game play is introduced, is that the interface change would be "too much work"??

But it would only require border outlines and CoA placement on the de-jure map! Every single map ALREADY has borders around countries.

This can't POSSIBLY be for serious!! They already did major overhauls of the interface in past games. For much lesser reasons!! In HoI3 they introduced names on the map in an expansion. (Or was it a patch??) It wasn't in the stock game. And apart from looking nice, it didn't really "do" much.

In EU3, one of the expansions (DW) actually TOTALLY changed the way the map looked - they ported the entire Victoria 2 graphics code over to EU3.

I can't believe it would be THAT hard to enable those tiny few changes to the de-jure map mode. Just think of all the man-hours lost to devs answering whining fans on the forums. And the countless man-hours that *WILL* be lost to patching a half-baked game feature, following all that fan whining.

I can predict to you, with 100% certainty, that there will be a lot less whining about the new expansion if they fix the interface instead of turning all the fantasy empires and kingdoms de-jure. People *LOVED* it when they introduced titular titles and duchy drift in the patch, no one wants that to be changed!! All people want is to have it be clearer to the player.

I beg Paradox that they reconsider their decision about de-jure/titular. No matter if it causes a month, or two, or three in delays, it would DEFINITELY be worth it. Don't slap half-baked features into the game just because you can't be assed to work on the map engine!! Anyone still remember how many patches it took to get the Chinese factions halfway into shape? Those factions were the prime example of a half-baked feature. These de-jure empires will just be an other half-baked feature that will take another five patches to get right.
 
First I want to begin by saying this:

NewbieOne... You. Are. My. GOD! Your posts are not only long and filled with (mostly) relevant content, but they're also well written, diplomatically expressed, and both non-aggressive and non-confrontational. I do salute you for your work, and hereby grant you one Cookie! I agree with most of what you've written, and can't currently be bothered to find the one or possibly two points I don't share in those awesome posts of yours.

But now, onto the main topics at hand:

The word "Empire" has no connotations with Rome in the modern English language. We call the monarchs of China "Emperors", and they certainly had nothing to do with Rome. It just denotes a feudal title higher than a kingdom.

This whole argument is completely moot, especially considering that Paradox is ardent in their calling the ERE "Byzantium" when that term didn't even exist in the middle ages.

Though I do believe this has been addressed before, I'd still like to add my 5 cents to the issue:

As you may or may not know, the only reason we do call the Chinese and Japanese monarchs "Emperors" is due to the lack of a better translation, and has nothing to actually do with what the title Emperor really means, and hence is a moot comparison. And while true that both Empire and Emperor has lost their true meaning in a modern context, why should that necessarily mean that the medieval game Crusader Kings II, which uses a mostly medieval vocabulary and incorporates the medieval system of hierarchy known as Feudalism, shouldn't be using the not only medieval but also actual meaning of the two terms?

Also I'd like to guess that the main reason as to why they went with Byzantium rather than East Rome (or just Rome for that matter) is because that's the name modern users are familiar with and can relate facts to. Whilst true that they are still the Eastern Roman Empire they're not commonly known as such, and would thus only lead to confusion were they to be named thus. And before you bring up the fact that my two statements seem to contradict each other, which they at first glance do, there's two very big differences: Name VS. Title, or more specifically "What they call you" VS. "What you actually are".

It doesn't matter if we call them Byzantium, East Rome, Rome, or even the Divine Shogunate of Elvis Presley (though I'd probably slap anyone doing so with a large trout, repeatedly), they'd still be the successors of the Imperator of Eastern Rome, and hence they go with the title most people will recognize and relate to. Whilst should we claim that anyone else is an actual Emperor, and hence inheritor of the title Imperator of Rome and on par with the Kaiser and the Basileus, those caring about historic facts of what was going on during that time period will go berserk (as we have already seen in this thread, repeatedly). Currently I can only think of 5 Roman Emperor titles, of which only 1 actually tried to claim the title from a still living opponent: Imperator Romanum Charlamange of the Roman Empire (more commonly known as the Frankish Empire); the Kaisers of the Holy Roman Empire (who inherited from Charlamange about 100 years after the fall of the Empire of Franks); The Basileuses(?) of Byzantium; The Tsars of Russia (who claimed the title from the fallen Byzantine Basileuses about 100 years after the conquest of Constantinople); and finally a certain Corsican Frenchman, Napoleon Bonaparte, who actually defeated the Holy Roman Empire, dissolved the Kaiser's title, and claimed the Western Imperial Crown for himself.

So, my point is: While there certainly are several Empires, and also a couple of Emperors, there have in history only been 5 (or 6 counting Austria-Hungary) Imperators, or Medieval Emperors, following the Siege on Rome in 476.

***

And now, onto topic number next, referring to the Original Post: The several things being incorporated into the game coming the next patch and the next DLC.

Let me first begin on a good note: I love the fact that the ability to play as Islamic rulers is being incorporated officially into the game, not because I want to do it myself as much as for the fact that this means you listen to your customers and fans in a way very few companies have done so far. We feel like our opinions and requests matter, and that makes us feel more at ease with you both as a company and as game designers. Thank you!

Onto what I think about the Empires, while I have stated my opinion before, it has slightly changed since, and at the moment I'm not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, I think this destroys immersion into the game, for the reasons stated in my rant above (while there are today many Empires, in the timespan of the game there were only two Imperators). I don't want any new Empires in the game unless they can be reflected as new empires would've been handled should this happen during this time (conflict with the former empires, possibly with the Pope/Patriarch as well, Casus Belli to destroy the other Imperial claim, being crowned by the Religious Head, and so forth), an opinion I stand by even though I'm controversial in having actually become emperor myself in one game after the fall of the Kaiser.

But on the other hand, I can see how this can make the game more fun for some people, seeing as how this allows them to ignore the things in game they find dull (the administration of 35+ Vassals and 3+ Kingdoms) and jump right back onto smashing more puny mortals into the smithereens they really are. And while they are controversial in their very nature, the Developers themselves have stated that the modability of the game still allows us to block the new Empires either completely or just to add the "No Catholic Empire" requirement to every other Empire, so I don't really find it as big of an issue as I'd like to. Besides which, I only find it logical for the King of Sweden, Denmark and Norway to after a generation or three to stop seeing himself as the mere King of Swedes, Danes and Norwegians (and possibly Finns) and start seeing himself as the real King of Scandinavia (read High-King of Scandinavia, seeing as this would otherwise be just another Titular Title). This could be completed with the addition of High-Dukes under his rule for administrative issues, but I digress.

Also, after having gone through all 32 pages in one evening (took 4 hours!) I can find two major points in the No-New-Empires faction (of which I find myself a member, even though not 100% opposed to the idea): The use of the title Emperor and the fact that these will be Tier-5 titles and thus putting them on par with the Kaiser and the Basileus. The first one can be solved by simply naming them High Kings or some such, whilst the second one is certainly more tricky to solve. And while many ideas have risen, most of them aren't simple enough to get into the 1.06 patch considering the current time-span. A future patch mayhaps, but I'll leave that for the Devs themselves to handle. Now, the ideas themselves:

1. Imperator Trait; Simply adding a unique trait which shows which of the many emperors is considered the legit heir by His Holiness the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople to be the two inheritors of the Imperator titles. And while this may work, I think this can cause many bugs in which the trait is not inherited between heirs and thus falls into obscurity. Having something connected to the Title itself might be more fitting, which brings me to my second point:
2. Tier-6; While this takes some SERIOUS revamp of the system of the game, I'd still like to call this one possible (though maybe not plausible). Now, I may not now much (read "Nothing") about the way the coding works behind the pixels, but having two Legitimate Emperors being risen to the titles of Roman Emperors (and hence Tier-6) over mere Kings of Kings (of Scandinavia, for example) couldn't be that impossible. Hard, probably, but not impossible. Like I said earlier, this could too be completed with adding tier 3.5 High-Dukes, but blah!
3. Imperial Authority; This one is possibly the idea which gives me the most goose-bumps. Similar to the above idea, this could be added to the Canon Titles (HRE and Byzantium), and then lowered by Civil Wars, Rebellious Vassals and Imperial Wars against other Empires (or High-Kingdoms) and raised by... well, I dunno... something? Events? Winning against other Emperors in Imperial Wars? Defeating Rebellious Vassals? I dunno, but I still love this idea!

Whilst 1 and 2 are good I do still think 3 is the more practical one, since this merely adds a new mechanic to the game without mixing with the two already established systems. But now I've spent a good hour writing this post, so I think I'll end it here. If someone refers to it I'll be back, but as it stands I've put forth my 5 cents (or possibly Öre, considering where I'm from). 'Til next time: Shoobedoo, shoo-shoobedoo!
 
Let me get this straight: You (and paradox, and others) would be happy with fantasy empires remaining titular titles, *IF* they were clearly visible on the de-jure map or some other, easily accessible part of the game interface?

Since I'm one of the 'others': yes. If they were titular titles which were hard to achieve or hold (or both) or especially if they required cooperation from the Pope and/or existing emperors, then I would actually support them and I'd be defending them from criticism right in this thread. As for the ability to be convincingly (= difficulty + relevance of requirements + convincing dialogue) raised to the imperial dignity by the pope or by an existing emperor or elected by the electors without being a fellow vassal, I'd be ecstatic about the possibility.

The only reason why this rather drastic change in game play is introduced, is that the interface change would be "too much work"??

But it would only require border outlines and CoA placement on the de-jure map! Every single map ALREADY has borders around countries.

This can't POSSIBLY be for serious!! They already did major overhauls of the interface in past games. For much lesser reasons!! In HoI3 they introduced names on the map in an expansion. (Or was it a patch??) It wasn't in the stock game. And apart from looking nice, it didn't really "do" much.

In EU3, one of the expansions (DW) actually TOTALLY changed the way the map looked - they ported the entire Victoria 2 graphics code over to EU3.

I can't believe it would be THAT hard to enable those tiny few changes to the de-jure map mode. Just think of all the man-hours lost to devs answering whining fans on the forums. And the countless man-hours that *WILL* be lost to patching a half-baked game feature, following all that fan whining.

I can predict to you, with 100% certainty, that there will be a lot less whining about the new expansion if they fix the interface instead of turning all the fantasy empires and kingdoms de-jure. People *LOVED* it when they introduced titular titles and duchy drift in the patch, no one wants that to be changed!! All people want is to have it be clearer to the player.

I beg Paradox that they reconsider their decision about de-jure/titular. No matter if it causes a month, or two, or three in delays, it would DEFINITELY be worth it. Don't slap half-baked features into the game just because you can't be assed to work on the map engine!! Anyone still remember how many patches it took to get the Chinese factions halfway into shape? Those factions were the prime example of a half-baked feature. These de-jure empires will just be an other half-baked feature that will take another five patches to get right.

To be honest, before we heard the interface explanation, I thought the reason was balance (e.g. in multiplayer, when you have human players in 4 corners of Europe) or that someone simply made the decision to take CK2 in a new, more fantasy direction, beginning with the Kingdom of Pomerania but now also the fictional empires. This was supported by the somewhat emotional replies by Paradox people, who appeared to care strongly.

In fact, as much as I believe one just needs to take people at their word in such situations, I'm finding it really hard to believe that the above is not the case. I'm finding myself in need of making a conscious effort to give so much credit to the interface explanation. The temptation to think that someone simply decided to take the historical starts in a more fantasy direction (e.g. to improve sales to not very historically knowledgeable people who are into multiplayer and appreciate equal opportunities in their respective corners of the world, or simply because of someone's creative vision) is hard to resist.

Speaking of which, couldn't we receive a more fantasy (multiplayer/balance/opportunity/fun-optimised) map alongside the more historical maps consistent with the previous line of thought? This would give official status to the map that doesn't contain the fantasy empires. The map with the fantasy empires could even be default. Any more fantasy kingdoms or empires or map changes for gameplay reasons would not be applied to the more historical map.

Or, since the de iure empires seem to be very simple to mod out (or mod in, if you already have the data written down), could you (i.e. Paradox) please turn them into a menu option, like some of the options in EU3, where you could choose among various approaches? This could also be a tick box on the historical starts/saved games panel, saying, 'Include Empires and Kingdoms which are not fully historical but are intended to make the game more balanced and enjoyable by enhancing opportunities available to players in various parts of the game world (Recommended).'

Just don't push CK2 into alternative history already before the game starts. Please. I really don't care if a Castillian-cultured Nestorian Emperor-Bishop of Scandinavia aged 16 comes into power after the game starts because Nestorian chief from Mongolia became Khagan, conquered the Empire of Scandinavia that had just been formed by a local ambitious strongman that got away with taking the title, a rebellious close relative took away this second imperial title, subsequently got usurped in a war by an Archbishop (or the archbishop was the one who took away the second title, whatever), who then died and got succeeded by a young guy who had had a Spanish tutor and changed his culture.

Right now my game features an excommunicated King-Bishop of Denmark, aged 22 or something, whose only 2 duke-tier vassals are former queens of the country (ruling queens, not kings' wives), one of whom is Fratticelli and the other is Possessed. This without my meddling in their affairs (other than a marriage but I never got any call to arms from them, even as my niece was being deposed) and less than 60 years from game start. This is because their king went Fratticelli, left a daughter who got deposed by an uncle, the usurper's daughter (my niece) got deposed by the Archbishop of Skane, who then died and his two or three successors died in a very short order and finally some youngling was chosen but his bad character traits or wrong choices got him excommunicated. This is extreme but it happened after the game started and for traceable, convincing reasons. People accept heresies, uncles rebel against their nieces being queens, ambitious bishops sometimes get ideas, people sometimes die shortly after one another, young people were appointed bishops if they came from powerful families. Nothing implausible if you analyse the situation and trace the chain of events back in time (as much as I'm sure some people would complain that this is unrealistic AI behaviour or whatever). But a de iure Empire of Francia or Scandinavia or Spain in 1066 can't be traced to actual events from before 1066 (supposing that we start in 1066). This is the difference here. It has nothing to do with any implied implausibility that someone would step up in the North or Brittannia or Spain and unite the lands (although the fact that in actual history nobody managed to do so, except a short-lived Spanish example in relatively early middle ages, is telling).

PS. I also loved creatable titular titles (although I think Nubia should be a de iure kingdom, even though it would only have three counties and be the smallest de iure kingdom ever). I generally think titular titles should be perks for small but prestigious independents or people whose origins are too big for the small title that would normally be associated with their land (e.g. families where everybody inherited the ducal title).

EDIT: Random thought but the last sentence I wrote made me think about something. There is going to be a trait for Muslims (or basically anybody) to denote descent from Muhammad. Could we have a Blood Royal/Imperial to mark male-line descendants of kings in perpetuity (even and especially barons and courtiers) and sons of Princesses in 1-2 generations? It could also be fun for kings to be able to try and marry imperial princesses in several consecutive generations to gain Blood Imperial more permanently (maybe not to the point of being able to marry low and keep it but enough to survive a generation or two of non-imperial marriage without losing the trait) in order to make themselves more like to end up marrying the long-awaited female imperial heir. ;)
 
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Personally I don't see the issue of inclusion of new Empires into the game, there's nothing to stop a powerful King from declaring their "Empire" to be the true descendent of Rome. Perhaps include some kind of "Imperial Authority", like you have for Religion, if your authority is too low, your empire dissolves or something.

Everyone ignore this idea? :p

Perhaps "Imperial Legitimacy" makes more sense.
 
Everyone ignore this idea? :p

Perhaps "Imperial Legitimacy" makes more sense.

If Imperial Legitimacy is countered by Imperial Lunacy, Imperial Authority could indeed begin to be an important index. :p