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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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Blastaz said:
From what they've suggested no. And I would hope so too to protect their IP and get you to put your hand in your pocket!
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..What is that even supposed to mean? Are you calling him a Pirate just because he asked if the features he'll be paying for will be available for use for other religions or locked down for Muslims? Why would you have a problem with mods like Umbra Spherae making use of Polygamy for East Asia etc.? Presumably having those lines enabled would mean you'd need to have the DLC to play those religions as well, even if the AI Huángdì could still have concubines.
 
if theyre defined by seperate =yes's like the playable=yes or has_coa_on_barony_only=yes then you could mod them in for other religions for mods. but theyd only have effect if the DLC which activates the SoIfeatures=yes is running so thered be no piracy concerns. Or separate like polygamy=yes, SoIinterface=yes etc where if the DLC inst activated those lines arent loaded so no circumventing. Like how the game always has mongols coded to use mongol faces but unless the mongol DLC is activated then it doesnt use them, or the CoAs are named and listed in the dynasties txt and in mods so you can use those files without the DLC but it wont load the CoAs linked in them unless the DLC is activated. So theres two examples saying you can have something in the commons that is ignored unless the DLC is activated.
Thats how id work it anyway, but then ive got no programming experience so maybe that wouldnt work but itd seem the obvious way to do it.

The question is does anyone know if its hard-coded to the name of the religion or to a definition in the religions entry?
as one way is limiting and the other has potential and as far as i can see it, neither has piracy concerns.
 
Sylon said:
I had a good reply to this in my head earlier, but it was 2am so I went to sleep. When I woke up, my reply had evaporated, but I'll try to summarise what I can here:

The point of my proposed mechanics was precisely to railroad the player into such a thing. It is one thing to be a king possessing many crowns, it is another to be an Emperor, with the benefits the Imperial title brings (in the game). The power that comes with such a title, such as the ability to vassalize kings and higher stability in your realm, should come at a great cost, lest one risks cheapening it.

In regards to the fact that my proposed Imperial war mechanic would cause the utter fragmentation of the Holy Roman Emperor should the HRE lose the war, the problem can be easily solved by making the Emperor King of Germany, Italy and Burgundy from the start- which, I might add, he historically was.

Nevertheless, your points have merit. While I do find such a mechanic interesting and fun (or else I wouldn't have posted it), it is understandable that others disagree. And on the issue of railroading Emperors and pretender-Emperors on the path of war, it really depends on what conception of the title of Emperor one has. Some, like myself, think that there should only be one legitimate Emperor for each historical half of the Roman empire. Others, like yourself, are fine with the notion that there might be several emperors per half, peacefully coexisting. This, ultimately, comes down to individual opinion.

I thank you for your comments. I posted my ideas, in the form of a proposal, in the hopes that others would comment on it and refine it, and hopefully give the devs an idea or two on how to handle this issue.
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It is good to see someone so nice on the forum, and I almost agree with you completely.
Although rather than forcing the empires into immediate military confrontation, I think it *might* be better to give the current emperors a CB on the new empire, and this CB can be inherited as long as the new empire does not have any de iure vassal. Also, the current emperor should have a negative opinion modifier against the new one. In this way, direct confrontation is quite possible, yet not necessary.
And yes, it would make so much more sense if some of the proposed empires are titular. Yet there could be something on the de iure empire map that indicates a potential empire and serves as a requirement.
 
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Blastaz said:
From what they've suggested no. And I would hope so too to protect their IP and get you to put your hand in your pocket!
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Are you for real? Personally I have the full intention of buying the DLC regardless, but having the option to use some of the features of the DLC in mods would be very helpful. And besides, the best way of protecting your IP is to not give people a reason to harm you.
 
Wallain said:
Are you for real? Personally I have the full intention of buying the DLC regardless, but having the option to use some of the features of the DLC in mods would be very helpful. And besides, the best way of protecting your IP is to not give people a reason to harm you.
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As literally the only thing the DLC does is allows you to play as a Muslim country, as all the rest of the changes are included in the patch, allowing you to mod yourself to play as a Muslim country would kind of remove the need to buy the DLC...
 
Blastaz said:
As literally the only thing the DLC does is allows you to play as a Muslim country, as all the rest of the changes are included in the patch, allowing you to mod yourself to play as a Muslim country would kind of remove the need to buy the DLC...
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you seem to be drawing a differentt conclusion to his post than me, he says nothing about what you are saying
 
Blastaz said:
As literally the only thing the DLC does is allows you to play as a Muslim country, as all the rest of the changes are included in the patch, allowing you to mod yourself to play as a Muslim country would kind of remove the need to buy the DLC...
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Yes, but the Muslims has unique features. That is what we want modifiable. The optimal solution would be to tag mods, I think, that use those features so they require the SoI DLC to work. And besides someone with enough determination will be able to mod people to be able to play Muslims without the DLC and is that really so bad? Maybe they want to portray the Muslims differently. Making silly restrictions to increase sales, such as you propose, is what turns people away from certain publishers.
 
Wallain said:
Yes, but the Muslims has unique features. That is what we want modifiable. The optimal solution would be to tag mods, I think, that use those features so they require the SoI DLC to work. And besides someone with enough determination will be able to mod people to be able to play Muslims without the DLC and is that really so bad? Maybe they want to portray the Muslims differently. Making silly restrictions to increase sales, such as you propose, is what turns people away from certain publishers.
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I personally think that mod tagging would be the best way forwards for the comunity and PI. The only downside is in 3 years time when there are maybe 12 different DLCs to include :) I realise that this apparent tiny step towards "DRM" is a departure for PI normal MO but I am just saying I can see why they might want to do it.

This new system of many small DLC rather than a few incompatible expansions is obviously in early days. It certainly seems to generate much more activity on the dev side, we still need to see how it shakes out though.
 
Leviathan07 said:
You do know, that you can already have titular empires in the game? If you set de-jure drift to 100 years, titular empires for each of the map's regions will have EXACTLY what you propose: Subjugate all kingdoms of the British isles, and the option to create the title "Emperor of Britain" will appear. Click it and you become emperor, and can vassalize kings. Keep all four kingdoms of the British isles under your subjugation for 100 years, and at the end of those 100 years through de-jure drift all your kingdoms will become de-jure vassals of the "Emperor of Britain" title. Your crown laws only become binding for those kingdoms at that point. Thereby making it fully de-jure, and any one disputing it dead or delusional.
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I knew there were "titular" titles, yes, but I didn't know you could gain De Jure status for them with time, no - thanks for the information!

Two complete solutions, then, suggest themselves:

1) A new mapmode (titular titles, including those already de jure, on one map) - maybe in a future patch?

2) A system by which any combination of provinces/fiefs can be combined into one titular claim, with costs and benefits worked out based on things such as the religions (e.g. mixing generally not possible?), cultures (possible, but makes it much harder/costlier?) and so on.

In the mean time, it sounds like modders have all the tools they need to make "fantasy" titles titular for those that want them that way?
 
I'm not going to bother to contribute to the discussion anymore about the new empires, I said my piece, but I will say the following about titular;

A new mapmode showing titular titles is impractical, all you can show is one province lit up, and that being whatever province is tagged in the capital = line. So you'd have vast areas of grey seperating perhaps 4 or 5 provinces on the entire map lit up. It will cause more work for too little gain from a developer's point of view, and from a support point of view it's likely to cause more confusion for the public (say people keep accidentally hitting it and wondering where all the Empires/Kingdoms have gone? It could, and more than likely will, happen :p) and thus more questions (and thus more work for no gain) for them.

(And I already said pages ago that all of the issues can be resolved in 5 minutes with modding, I even volunteered to do it but that didn't see to be favourable to most. Most of the main mods currently being played such as Balansegang and CK2+ will more likely mod the empires out or include alternate methods of creation etc regardless).
 
How about a page in the ledger listing all kingdom and empire titles, with a column saying if they're titular or de jure, and another column saying whether they currently exist in the game? Realms which do currently exist could have additional information to make the page useful, like listing their capital, their current monarch and dynasty, their state religion, their crown law level and their inheritance system. Maybe their number of de facto provinces currently controlled as well.

A tooltip while hovering over a titular kingdom listing could give you the details on how to form that kingdom, if that's feasible.
 
StephenT said:
How about a page in the ledger listing all kingdom and empire titles, with a column saying if they're titular or de jure, and another column saying whether they currently exist in the game? Realms which do currently exist could have additional information to make the page useful, like listing their capital, their current monarch and dynasty, their state religion, their crown law level and their inheritance system. Maybe their number of de facto provinces currently controlled as well.

A tooltip while hovering over a titular kingdom listing could give you the details on how to form that kingdom, if that's feasible.
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This is the best idea for CK II I've heard so far. Definitely awesome -- I think the ledger is a great little tool and is probably underused by the majority of players, so beefing it up with really useful stuff like this is a great idea.
 
Korbah said:
I'm not going to bother to contribute to the discussion anymore about the new empires, I said my piece, but I will say the following about titular;

A new mapmode showing titular titles is impractical, all you can show is one province lit up, and that being whatever province is tagged in the capital = line. So you'd have vast areas of grey seperating perhaps 4 or 5 provinces on the entire map lit up. It will cause more work for too little gain from a developer's point of view, and from a support point of view it's likely to cause more confusion for the public (say people keep accidentally hitting it and wondering where all the Empires/Kingdoms have gone? It could, and more than likely will, happen :p) and thus more questions (and thus more work for no gain) for them.

(And I already said pages ago that all of the issues can be resolved in 5 minutes with modding, I even volunteered to do it but that didn't see to be favourable to most. Most of the main mods currently being played such as Balansegang and CK2+ will more likely mod the empires out or include alternate methods of creation etc regardless).
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You are correct in pointing out that, at present, the way titular titles are implemented could not so easily be "linked" to a proper and meaningful display on the map.

However I think even that could be overcome, rather easily. The conditions for creating a titular title would just have to be added into the file, in a similar way as for example the rebel.txt file in older paradox games, where games such as HoI2, EU2, Vic1 or EU3 have a list of all the titles (=countries) in the game, and conditions for their creation. In those games you could click on maps and see what provinces an uncreated country would get.

So the territorial requirement for the creation of the titular title must be stated in the original definition of the titular title, along with the other conditions. Or alternatively in a separate file, called "title_creation_conditions.txt" or something like that, as part of the scenario definition.

Actually, all king and empire titles, not just the titular ones, would need to have an entry in such a file. Because any title that is de-jure at game start can become titular later, and should then be treated by the same rules as the originally titular titles. That means, f.ex. the kingdom of England, or the Kingdom of France titles, should also have conditions for their recreation after they become titular. Something generic would do, like, "vassalize 80% of the duchies in the original kingdom's area".

StephenT said:
How about a page in the ledger listing all kingdom and empire titles, with a column saying if they're titular or de jure, and another column saying whether they currently exist in the game? Realms which do currently exist could have additional information to make the page useful, like listing their capital, their current monarch and dynasty, their state religion, their crown law level and their inheritance system. Maybe their number of de facto provinces currently controlled as well.

A tooltip while hovering over a titular kingdom listing could give you the details on how to form that kingdom, if that's feasible.
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Sleight of Hand said:
This is the best idea for CK II I've heard so far. Definitely awesome -- I think the ledger is a great little tool and is probably underused by the majority of players, so beefing it up with really useful stuff like this is a great idea.
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Personally, I don't like the ledger. It's good at showing you long lists of pretenders or of province incomes, but for titles I think the information is too complex to be shown in a textual description. The reason people "under-use" it is that it is cumbersome to use, has a nasty tendency to crash the game, and is terrible at visualizing data. I'd rather look at a map of province income, than use the ledger, if I want to find out what the rich provinces in my kingdom are.
 
Tell if I understand all new mechanic and events for Muslim will come with patch, expect now we can not mod the game to play Muslim unless we have this DLC to let play them, so the new muslim mechanics are close off in the patch for player to play with until they get the DLC?

I would prefer the mechanic come with the DLC instead patch, I personal would not want somebody trying mod then out there profit.
 
Joel M Bridge said:
Tell if I understand all new mechanic and events for Muslim will come with patch, expect now we can not mod the game to play Muslim unless we have this DLC to let play them, so the new muslim mechanics are close off in the patch for player to play with until they get the DLC?

I would prefer the mechanic come with the DLC instead patch, I personal would not want somebody trying mod then out there profit.
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would break multiplayer and bug fixing to do that
 
Leviathan07 said:
Personally, I don't like the ledger. It's good at showing you long lists of pretenders or of province incomes, but for titles I think the information is too complex to be shown in a textual description. The reason people "under-use" it is that it is cumbersome to use, has a nasty tendency to crash the game, and is terrible at visualizing data. I'd rather look at a map of province income, than use the ledger, if I want to find out what the rich provinces in my kingdom are.
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I really only ever use the ledger for the religion and independent states tabs. Also, the direct vassals tab is occasionally useful, as sometimes I don't notice a vassal turn heretic until he converts counts under him.
 
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