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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!
 
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Korbah said:
@tommassi; Yes, they have localised translations, but not localised names. For example King = Koenig, which is apt, but they don't have Markgraf for the historical margraves (instead they're lumped in with Count/Graf), which is closer to what your issue is. Thus german cultured emperors of Scandinavia will be Kaiser, and not Emperor.
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From the technical point of view, it's all the same. It doesn't matter if it's a translation or a different title. You're able to attach a different name to a certain tier of titles depending on the culture. We're just saying that we'd like PI to use that ability.
 
StephenT said:
The 'church' for (some) modern persons means the Roman Catholic Church. And yet plenty of other religions also call themselves churches. Catholics might grumble and complain that the other groups are not really THE Church, but they don't have a copyright on the term.
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The Orthodox Church claims to be the Church as well. So there are two credible rival claims. Just like with the Catholic HRE and the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. However, reason dictates that only one can be the One Church Likewise there could be only one empire. Probably very few in the Medieval time recognised both entities to be empires and very few would recognise both the RC and the EO as the Church.

Same for 'empire' in mediaeval times. Plenty of people called themselves emperors without claiming to be the Roman Emperor.
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With its claim recognised by their neighbours?
 
Guys I am all for the successor of Rome, but we could and speculate about new mechanics for the Muslims. For example this will gross simplification the Sunni Muslim Caliph was elected, and all he had to be was good political leader all political power was invested in him. where Shi'ite differ is the Caliph had to be able trances there bloodline back to Ali and Fatima, and not just was the Caliph the political leader but the imam making the infallible religious teacher because of this they use the title Imam for this offices then other title Caliph( which could successor/deputy or successor of the messenger of God), or Amir Al-Mu minin( commander of the faithful)

Other interesting thing there book written in call the Book of Government or rules for kings. Which Sultan/king in middle east would you as legitimize there rule.

Idea is quite simply you get only get right from sovereignty from god, but take the sovereignty from a "corrupt" King that lose his right to rule in eyes of god once take away his sovereignty it is your since stronger one take show bless by god to be this ruler, but if wane in you duty to god another can all ways take it.

I am very curious if they are going emulated that in the game.
 
A question about gameplay compatibility : of course the new de jure empires won't be active in games started under a different patch ?

(I think not, but if that was the case... o joy ! Then my Count of Man --> Duke of the Isles and Munster --> King of Trinacria (sic!) and Ireland game could have a new goal : being "Emperor" (whatever the title name will be) of Britannia !)
 
I don't see why the Empire-name title is such a big issue. Not historically accurate it may be, there was never a Welsh realm called the Duchy of Gwynedd, they were always called Kings or Princes, but it doesn't bother me since 'Duke' is just a rank of title in-game, equivalent to a minor kingdom. Empire is a tier above kingdom, maybe it could have different names because of the Roman Empire connotations, but we all understand what empire means in the context of the game.

More importantly, the name has zero effect on gameplay and is therefore a minor aesthetic issue to me. I don't understand the undue focus on the name over the mechanical implications of these new Empires. Focus should be on gameplay, I think.
 
SlackBladder said:
I don't see why the Empire-name title is such a big issue. Not historically accurate it may be, there was never a Welsh realm called the Duchy of Gwynedd, they were always called Kings or Princes, but it doesn't bother me since 'Duke' is just a rank of title in-game, equivalent to a minor kingdom. Empire is a tier above kingdom, maybe it could have different names because of the Roman Empire connotations, but we all understand what empire means in the context of the game.

More importantly, the name has zero effect on gameplay and is therefore a minor aesthetic issue to me. I don't understand the undue focus on the name over the mechanical implications of these new Empires. Focus should be on gameplay, I think.
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Agreed. :D The changing names was just a suggestion on the part of some of us, but it's minor. What really matters me is what I said in my first post in this thread, and that has gone largely unanswered... so I'll be autoquoting me. :p

tommassi said:
I really liked the idea by Leviathan07 on how to solve the invisibility of the titular titles in the de iure empires map. If doable, which I guess it should be (but maybe with more time devoted to it than PI has), that's the best way around the new empires thing, as I really don't like them being de iure from the get-go. It also solves the problem of the "lost kingdoms" (I mean, those kingdoms fully integrated into another kingdom by the drifting thing, which can easily happen with small ones such as Navarra and Galicia) and titular kingdoms.

I'd also like the following: that those titular empires of new creation are not inheritable. I mean: if you are really prestigious and with a humongous piety, yo get to be crowned emperor, with a titular title attached to it... but you'll need even more prestige and piety to be able to make it inheritable by your successors. If not able to get that prestige and piety, the titular empire title just disipates, and your son will become "just" king of wherever you were king. Just as happened with Alfonso VII of Leon, the famous "Imperator Totius Hispaniae" everyone seems to mention in this thread.

Also, I'd like the emperor title to dissapear if the ruler loses territories so that he no longer controls, let's say, at least 40% of the territories attached to that imperial crown.
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I'd love the new empires to be titular, non-inheritable at the start, and that you have to meet certain criteria to make them inheritable first, then de iure.
 
Joel M Bridge said:
Other interesting thing there book written in call the Book of Government or rules for kings. Which Sultan/king in middle east would you as legitimize there rule.

Idea is quite simply you get only get right from sovereignty from god, but take the sovereignty from a "corrupt" King that lose his right to rule in eyes of god once take away his sovereignty it is your since stronger one take show bless by god to be this ruler, but if wane in you duty to god another can all ways take it.

I am very curious if they are going emulated that in the game.
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You make a good point but as usual, Joel, your English is utterly horrible. So I will make an attempt to translate it for the benefit of others:

"Another interesting thing is, there is a book that is called "Book of Government" that had rules for kings. Sultans/kings in the middle east would use it to legitimize their rule.

The idea is quite simple: You only get your rights and sovereignty from god. But once a "corrupt" king loses his right to rule in the eyes of god, you can take his sovereignty away, and it will be yours. The fact that you are stronger shows that you are blessed by god to be ruler in his stead. But if you, too, wane in your duty to god, another can always take it from you."

What this would mean, in the game, is that there ought to be a CB that all "good muslim rulers" get against "bad muslim" rulers. Such a CB would allows independent Muslim rulers to claim the supreme title (and perhaps also other titles) from other independent rulers with low piety. Perhaps it could also be extended to allow vassals to fight other vassals? If vassals do not have enough to do, that is. Normally you would expect that your Sultan/Caliph overlord would not tolerate it if you seize another vassal's titles.

In any case it would make it so that Muslim rulers would carefully have to watch their piety, and that of strong neighbouring rulers :)
 
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I'm sorry for the caps that will follow, but I do want the message to stand out:

WILL WE GET PROVINCIAL DECISIONS AND/OR HOLDING MODIFIERS IN ANY FUTURE PATCH?

edit: color changed
 
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StephenT said:
On a different note, I wrote the following to show what I imagine would really happen if a king of one of the Spanish kingdoms managed to not only unite the peninsula under his rule, but establish legitimacy, create a permanent hierarchy of power, and claim the Imperial title. The language is, um, modernised a little, but the sentiments and ideas are, I believe, entirely historical.

Let's imagine that King Alfonso XIV defeats all the other kings in Spain and forces them to pay him homage. He sets up a ceremony where twelve archbishops anoint him, then his vassal kings lift him up on a shield, and as he places a laurel wreath on his head the assembled multitudes shout "Ave imperator!". Then he start calling himself Emperor of Spain in all his charters and proclamations.

But this isn't enough; he wants the Pope to recognise his title as well. So he sends an ambassador to Rome.



SCENE: INT: THE APOSTOLIC PALACE IN ROME - DAY
The POPE and the SPANISH EMISSARY enter stage left, in conversation.


POPE: Hmm, I don't know. There's no precedent for this: it's not legal.

EMISSARY: But there is precedent, your Holiness! Here's a charter dated to the year of our Lord 293, signed by Emperor Diocletian himself, appointing my lord's illustrious predecessor Constantius Chlorus as Emperor of Spain!

POPE: Let me see that.

(Emissary snatches the document out of his reach. The ink smudges a little, as if it's still wet.)

EMISSARY: I assure you it's quite genuine, your Holiness. As genuine as the Donation of Constantine itself! We'll, um, see you get a copy of it for the Vatican archives. His Imperial Majesty merely asks you to confirm the honours and titles already granted to his noble ancestors.

POPE: You know, there can only be one Roman Emperor - or is it two of them? He's very insistent on that fact. Well, they both are. But, you know, we tend to ignore that Greek chap; he's a heretic, don't you know. So really, there's only one.

EMISSARY: But my lord is Emperor of Spain, not Emperor of Rome. He's quite willing to acknowledge that the Roman Empire is older and senior to his own, as long as he's treated with respect as a sovereign monarch. Your German guy will still get to sit at the head of the table at banquets.

POPE: The Emperor of the Romans might insist your lord does homage for his title. Would that be a problem?

EMISSARY: Errr... kind of. We have nothing in our records to show that any subsequent Emperor of Spain paid homage to the Emperor of Rome. And so we believe that Emperor Constantius, first of his line, was given full independence at that time.

POPE: The current Emperor might choose to dispute that.

EMISSARY: He's welcome to try. The people of Spain, united behind their rightful Emperor, are a proud, valiant and warlike race! Oh, um, and also very pious and filled with Christian charity. Your Holiness.

POPE: Charity, hmm?

EMISSARY: Ah! Thank you for reminding me. My lord wishes you to accept this small gift, to help your Holiness in the blessed work of saving souls and spreading the word of Christ. (He hands over a huge bag of coins.) And he'd like me to tell you that he'll endow a brand new cathedral, with a college of canons and lots of land, to celebrate his, *ahem*, restoration of the imperial throne after it lay in abeyance for so long.

POPE: Hmmm. (Counts money). Well then. Please tell his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Spain that the Church thanks him humbly for his kind gift, and will put it to good use.

EMISSARY. Thank you, your Holiness. (Bows.)

POPE: (aside, to audience). There will be war from this, I fear. May God defend the right.

Exeunt stage right.

POPE: (conversationally, as they leave) So... do you know anybody who can paint ceilings? My last decorators were real cowboys.
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Absolutely brilliant! And, I believe, quite a plausible description of how it could have happened.
 
I do like Leviathans idea. Having unhistorical dejure empire titles is kinda freaky. Having the possibility though and limiting these as well sound s great. Keeping an empire title should be influenced by more than another person plotting for it. Piety, Pope, percentage of counties and blabla. Leviathan and tommassila said all and better.

I'm seriously looking forward to friday when we get more about the SoI DLC.
Why do i just envision some people sitting in Stockholm laughing their asses off reading this thread ? ;)
 
Korbah said:
Very well.
"Your opinion is that without localised titles, the game wouldn't be as good as you feel it would be, which isn't a reason to change their already completed additional content."

You are using subjective POV opinions, I am using what I believe to be logic. They are implimenting the closest approximation of what they feel is fun, what they want to include in the game and which they feel will enhance the enjoyment of the game for the greater number of their customers. There is a greater number of people either for or of neutral/no opinion on the changes than there is against, yet many of the posts made by the individuals against sound insulting toward the developers who have put time into adding the new content, and come off as dismissive of the larger "neutral/for" group of customers, and if you don't believe that, go and re-read many of the posts against the changes and you'll see what I mean, why do you think the developers have stopped responding?*

I'm not against further changes, but I am against others trying to force changes that aren't necessary onto the majority and for insinuating through their arguments that a person's work is crap and irrelevant simply because it doesn't fit with their world view. There's a word for those people, and my personal opinion is that this whole thing is downright out of order (not you personally Meneth, your posts are amongst the few "neutral-to-against" posts that aren't insulting) and completely pointless.

*Further from this, several times people have suggested compromises and alternatives, no one has accepted unanimously any of them, how do you please everyone? You don't, logically you go with either what you feel is best, or what the majority wants. In this case, and for simplicities reason, Empire works, and in Paradox's case, unlike the majority of all other companies, they give us the ability to change it to what we do want post factum.

And now I'm done, my son is home, I'm off to be a father. Have fun arguing some more over irrelevant points of historical jargon, I've said my piece.

One final word: Great job Paradox on being the diamond in the rough of the gaming market for the past decade I've been buying and modding your games, no matter what changes you make to the games themselves, stay the way you are and i'll keep doing so for the next decade ;)
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A mostly reasonable response, but don't exaggerate about or lump every post arguing about this specific subject in one group. I agree, that Paradox should do, what they think is best, but if some here don't like or think the current direction isn't right, then they should be able to voice that opinion too.
Saying that it is crap is too strong, but saying that you wouldn't have done so IMHO is not.
In my posts about this particular subject I say, that I accept the decision, but that I don't like it. It may very well increase the fun for the majority, but it won't increase mine; certainly no argument for not doing so, unless the majority thinks so too, but the minority is entitled to voice their feelings too. (Just like I did with the 100 yrs limit for flexible de jure borders; I wasn't a fan of that either, well IMHO some extra conditions would have been better, but that's just me;). OTOH I did like the possibility in the history files and events/decisions to set de_jure_liege)

Furthermore this is also how debates and discussions tend to go, people (often a minority) against something, just like in political debates, tend to be more vocal.

OTOH even though we clearly think different about that particular subject, I do agree that other features of the patch and dlc could be discussed more.
Besides fortunately everyone can mod the game (not a reason for not saying that you don't like certain changes) and who knows this change in direction inspire in some (or a) different mods.
 
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Skullheadhq said:
The result of nobody recognising the claim.
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And that's why I'd like the non-inheritable thing to these titles. :p That doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to have them in-game, with hard prerequisites in order to obtain them first, make then inheritable second, and finally make them de-iure.

The more I think about it, the more I like this three-step approach.
 
StephenT said:
It's also ironic to see people here who are so insistent that 'Byzantine Empire' is the wrong name, because its rulers at the time called it the Roman Empire - and at the same time insisting that the rulers of Britain from Aethelstan to Edward the Confessor who signed charters as "King of the English and Emperor of All Britain" should not be regarded as Emperors, because that's not how later history books usually refer to them.
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Did people in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales regard these so-called "rulers of Britain" as their emperor? I doubt even people in England did. All you've proven is that a handful of Anglo-Saxon kings were puffed up and arrogant enough to put the imperial title on a piece of paper. Since having a 5th tier title in CK2 has significant gameplay implications--for example, a British emperor would be able to press de jure claims on all parts of the British Isles, even parts he had never actually ruled before--you're going to need to prove something more substantial to justify its inclusion in game.
 
Presumably I could write the Empire's creation-rules as "If Catholic, the HRE cannot exist. Must have the modifier *Papal Crowning* and hold X many Kingdom-tier titles", with similar requirements for Orthodox, yes? If so, then I could see writing a decision that would request Papal Sanction that would only be available if the Emperor is on bad terms with the Pope and you're on excellent terms with him, then getting a Casus Belli to tear down the legitimacy of the Emperor that would grant you the modifier *Papal Crowning* (though it'd require a perfect victory). Success with that Casus Belli would also trigger an event to demote the German Emperor by deleting his Imperial title in the same instance as creating the Kingdom-tier ones in his region so he maintains his rule. Could potentially complicate things by writing something to allow the seated Emperor to create a free Anti-Pope if this circumstance is active, stopping you dead in your tracks if he manages to replace the Pope as "corrupt" in the eyes of Christendom. If successful in becoming the new true Imperium, which would cost a lot of resources compared to other titles once you have the needed modifiers, then the former Emperor could get a life-long* Casus Belli to try to reclaim it from the impostors and the Pope.

Just thinking aloud. Could easily have the flavour texts on these things talk about being the "True successor of the Empire" etc. and it'd let most of Europe have their go so long as they have the strength and endurance to pull it off.

*(Not entirely sure how to make it longer than the persons life. Are there any National modifiers?)

Calanctus said:
Did people in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales regard these so-called "rulers of Britain" as their emperor? I doubt even people in England did. All you've proven is that a handful of Anglo-Saxon kings were puffed up and arrogant enough to put the imperial title on a piece of paper. Since having a 5th tier title in CK2 has significant gameplay implications--for example, a British emperor would be able to press de jure claims on all parts of the British Isles, even parts he had never actually ruled before--you're going to need to prove something more substantial to justify its inclusion in game.
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Indeed. It's complete nonsense. I see people talking about how we'd be fine with them including them as long as they didn't name them "Empires", but I don't agree with that at all. It has significant gameplay implications irrespective of what they're called, so they'd need to be justified in gameplay terms for why you've achieved that power. Them being called Empires just makes it far more objectionable than it needed to be in the first place. If I own Norway, Denmark and Sweden that wouldn't mean the Finns are suddenly my lawful subjects as well. They didn't have anything to do with my rule in those realms.
 
Calanctus said:
Did people in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales regard these so-called "rulers of Britain" as their emperor? I doubt even people in England did. All you've proven is that a handful of Anglo-Saxon kings were puffed up and arrogant enough to put the imperial title on a piece of paper. Since having a 5th tier title in CK2 has significant gameplay implications--for example, a British emperor would be able to press de jure claims on all parts of the British Isles, even parts he had never actually ruled before--you're going to need to prove something more substantial to justify its inclusion in game.
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Aethelstan did basically conquer/defeat most of the UK, including taking an English Army further into Scotland than anyone else in history. So yeah, a bit.
 
Nuril said:
Presumably I could write the Empire's creation-rules as "If Catholic, the HRE cannot exist. Must have the modifier *Papal Crowning* and hold X many Kingdom-tier titles", with similar requirements for Orthodox, yes?
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That is the best idea in this thread.
 
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