• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Hello again folks! Stay a while, and listen. The highlights of today's third and last Sword of Islam developer diary are Muslim Casus Bellis, revised combat mechanics and cultural buildings. You know the drill by now; I'll talk about both some unique Sword of Islam features and some free stuff that comes with patch 1.06.

THE SWORD OF ISLAM

Our direction with the Sword of Islam expansion is that Muslims should have an easier time expanding, but have an additional layer of internal strife in the form of the Open Succession Law and the Decadence system.

Muslim Casus Bellis

Muslim rulers have three new options for conquest:
  • They can declare Holy Wars on anyone not of their own exact brand of Islam
  • They can use a form of the Invasion CB for the cost of 500 Piety
  • They can conquer any province bordering one of their own for 50 Piety (vassalizing the current count if possible)

Pious Muslim rulers can thus easily expand, although they lose 2 Piety per month while attacking a brother of the faith (same exact religion.) The councillor job to fabricate a claim is thus less useful for Muslims, but can still be handy versus islands or juicy coastal counties.

SoI_InvasionCB.jpg

Revokation of Duchies

Duchies (emirates) are not considered to be intrinsically hereditary, so Muslims are allowed to revoke duchy titles at no opinion penalty from other vassals. This is also a good way of properly landing your sons to avoid gaining Decadence. (Incidentally, the Byzantine Empire is now allowed to do the same thing, though it does not have the Decadence mechanics.)

Dynastic Imprisonment and Execution

Another Muslim exception to the normal rules is that they are allowed to freely imprison and execute men of their own dynasty, except for their own sons. Brothers and uncles are the usual targets for these Decadence reducing purges...

Temple Holdings

In the Muslim world, there is no proper equivalent to Bishoprics, so Temple Holdings are treated exactly like Castles, except for their different set of buildings. You gain Piety for having a Temple Holding in your demesne, but they are slightly poorer and provide smaller levies than their Catholic equivalents (in order to balance them against the investiture mechanics.)

Passing Laws

Muslims do not need to bother with a voting process when passing laws; they just spend an amount of Piety. However, there is still a cooldown and Crown Laws can only be changed once per ruler. The vassals will also still get upset in the same way as Christians.

Jizya Tax

To represent the Jizya tax (a special tax that should, according to Sharia law, be levied on infidels), Muslims gain a 25% tax bonus from infidel counties and a 10% tax penalty in Muslim counties. This creates an interesting dynamic where it's not always obvious that you would want to convert an infidel province to Islam. However, there is a special event where this happens anyway, even if you don't send in your Court Imam to convert the populace.

SoI_Jizya.jpg

That's pretty much it for the Sword of Islam expansion, although I'm sure to have forgotten about many minor little changes and tweaks.

THE 1.06 PATCH

Alright, so here are a few more freebies coming your way soon with the 1.06 patch...

Expanded Combat Tactics

We have added a bunch of more (and more decisive) combat tactics, to make combat less predictable and to tie in with the new Commander traits...

Commander Traits

We have added a special type of trait called Commander traits. These are only available to characters with a Martial education, and give more specific bonuses to the character's ability to lead various troop types, and the choice of combat tactics. Characters gain one or two Commander traits when they finish their education. The effects of the Commander traits directly scale with the Martial skill of the character.

SoI_Commander.jpg

More Culture Specific Buildings

One thing that many people have requested is a broader range of culture specific buildings, and who are we to argue? We have added loads of these to give more variety and flavor.

Destruction of Titles

You are now allowed to destroy ducal tier titles and above, at a hefty Prestige cost. This will greatly upset (-50 opinion) all vassals who are de jure part of the destroyed title. You cannot destroy your current primary title.

SoI_TitleDestruction.jpg

AI Improvements

Apart from some minor improvements, the AI is now better at jumping on rulers who are already embroiled in dangerous wars (though it's still not excessively aggressive about this.) I've also spent a bit of time on attrition avoidance for AI armies, and the AI will now assault besieged holdings when appropriate.

That's it for dev diaries for now. Next week, we'll post a short AAR by a member of the dev team!
 
For "accurate", you'd need to justify that you can still effectively train that kind of people. If the whole enterprise rests on the unique skills of your top guy and his cronies ("I'm Irish, so I'll show you Italians here how to fight as galloglasses"), then you're out of lack when they fade out of power. :p IMHO accuracy could be achieved by making it work on a by province instead of by ruler basis. This would be ideal. :p

Well, yes I was agreeing to that. Perhaps I didn't delete enough of your comment to specify.

As for what to do when the culture shifts, I'd say knock it down to level one of the new culture's building. Assuming the province had a cultural building. Going from top level Longbow fields to top level Squire Lists is asinine. This would reflect that you're starting over but not completely wipe out your old advances.
 
Well, yes I was agreeing to that. Perhaps I didn't delete enough of your comment to specify.

Sorry about that one.

As for what to do when the culture shifts, I'd say knock it down to level one of the new culture's building. Assuming the province had a cultural building. Going from top level Longbow fields to top level Squire Lists is asinine. This would reflect that you're starting over but not completely wipe out your old advances.

Now that you mention, I guess it'd be kinda silly for some pairs of buildings/upgrades to be mutually convertible.
 
Last edited:
It doesn't. In Patch 1.06, the Russian Empire will enter as a de iure empire in 1066 (not owned by anybody, presumably). At that point Byzantium was doing well. On the other hand, the "third Rome" thing originated after 1469, which is the date when Grand Prince Ivan III married Zoe Palaiologina, daughter of Thomas (himself titled emperor of Constantinople), brother of the last ruling emperor, Constantine XI (the latter having died in 1453 which is when CK2 stops, to state the obvious). The Grand Princes initially claimed (and with varying success) the title of "tzar", generally being believed to be equivalent to the western title of king. The use of the imperial title really began in 1721 under Peter the Great and recognition was limited. That was something between the "third Rome" pretence and more modern ideas. Muuuch different from a 1066 de iure empire of Russia (at which point, obviously, there is no third Rome or anything).

The de jure status doesn't really matter because I mentioned using it while modding and I can make it titular. *shrug*

The historical time frame doesn't matter either. I said I'd make it creatable if Byzantium is gone, so that means Byzantium would have to be destroyed before 1453, making the scenario ahistorical anyway.
 
The de jure status doesn't really matter because I mentioned using it while modding and I can make it titular. *shrug*

The historical time frame doesn't matter either. I said I'd make it creatable if Byzantium is gone, so that means Byzantium would have to be destroyed before 1453, making the scenario ahistorical anyway.

Well, what if, in your game, Rus is Catholic and France is Orthodox and married to the last Byzantine claimant? ;) I think empires other than the existing HRE and ERE should be based on conditions and events rather than specific geographical locations. Those conditions could be fun to meet, making the player exercise his intrigue and diplomacy skills to reap the reward, kinda similar to getting elected in Elective succession law. And I like the EU series HRE.
 
I like the commander traits addition, that could potential add a LOT of depth to the combat system. Although, maybe something similar could be added for other educations? As in, for a religious education maybe a character could have a trait like "inquisitor" that would give a bonus to conversion as court chaplain.
 
Can't wait to play as Sheikh yer Monaymaykah
 
Really? What I find laughable is the cognative dissonance of you guys passionately arguing against the developers decision to include more Empires in their game. I am prepared to be open minded about it. Why do you, Nuril and Co. stoop so low as belittling other posters intelligence, spelling or use of wikipedia just because they dont agree with your narrow 2 Empires only stance?

This from the guy who refers to other posters' comments as "inane". :rolleyes:


You do not have to use the feature unless you want to. Wich of course means that you are in fact trying to dictate to people who want this featured added to the game how they sshould play their game, not the other way around.


Also im really thankful that paradox listens to their customers and add things to their games that are in high demand.
And lastly if you read what i wrote before, i never asked for this feature and im probably not going to use it because it does not fit my playstyle. But i still think its totally ok that this feature is added to the game because:
IT DOES NOT AFFECT MY GAMEPLAY BECAUSE I CAN CHOOSE NOT TO USE IT

Actually, I do have to use it and it does affect my game. The de jure map is going to be covered in this stuff, and all these provinces are going to have these names in them. That is distracting and immersion breaking. Is it game breaking? Of course not, and I'll play anyway, but it's not nothing, either, so don't pretend that nothing in my experience is changing.
 
Actually, I do have to use it and it does affect my game. The de jure map is going to be covered in this stuff, and all these provinces are going to have these names in them. That is distracting and immersion breaking. Is it game breaking? Of course not, and I'll play anyway, but it's not nothing, either, so don't pretend that nothing in my experience is changing.

Oh come on now. Counties only list the de jure duchy and kingdom, not the empire. The only time you'll ever see these is if you look at the de jure empires map mode, and surely you don't spend enough time there to warrant all this moaning.
 
Oh come on now. Counties only list the de jure duchy and kingdom, not the empire. The only time you'll ever see these is if you look at the de jure empires map mode, and surely you don't spend enough time there to warrant all this moaning.

Huh... looking back, you're right. I was sure I'd seen it there before. I was actually about to argue the point when my natural self-doubt made me double check. Weird. Well, scratch that bit of my response, then.
 
Well, it does have another (IMO undesirable) effect on the game: a newly-created empire will have CBs on all of its de jure lands, even lands that it never actually controlled. For recreated historical empires like the HRE or Byzantines that might be acceptable, if a little implausible; but it really stretches credulity for ahistorical fantasy empires like Britannia.
 
Well, it does have another (IMO undesirable) effect on the game: a newly-created empire will have CBs on all of its de jure lands, even lands that it never actually controlled. For recreated historical empires like the HRE or Byzantines that might be acceptable, if a little implausible; but it really stretches credulity for ahistorical fantasy empires like Britannia.

I have to wonder, can creation requirements be separate from de jure territory? For example could Britannia require 2 of the 4 British Kingdoms, but not actually have any de jure territory attached to it? I figured these titles were likely going to be Titular, especially since Francia is mentioned and half to a third of it is de jure or de facto HRE.
 
So, to the big question, will there be a dev diary on midsommarafton or will all the developers be busy drinking snaps and dancing around the pole tomorrow?

*pictures Doomdark doing Små Grodorna*

[video=youtube;on9PLzlY0Ww]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9PLzlY0Ww[/video]
 
I have to wonder, can creation requirements be separate from de jure territory? For example could Britannia require 2 of the 4 British Kingdoms, but not actually have any de jure territory attached to it? I figured these titles were likely going to be Titular, especially since Francia is mentioned and half to a third of it is de jure or de facto HRE.

Yes, you can simply make it so that the person wishing to create the title must also have other titles - which is exactly what I'm going to change for pretty much all of the emperor titles, as it happens. If I can be bothered, I'll probably change it to 'High Kingdoms' (or something similar) instead of 'Empires', as well.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, you could change Britannia so it looked something like this:

Code:
	e_britannia = {
		color = { 200 25 25 }
		capital = 32 # Middlesex
		allow = {
			OR = {
				culture_group = west_germanic
				culture_group = celtic
			}
		religion = catholic
		}
		gain_effect = {
			prestige = 2500
			piety = 1000
		}
	}
 
Yeah, you could change Britannia so it looked something like this:

Code:
	e_britannia = {
		color = { 200 25 25 }
		capital = 32 # Middlesex
		allow = {
			OR = {
				culture_group = west_germanic
				culture_group = celtic
			}
		religion = catholic
		}
		gain_effect = {
			prestige = 2500
			piety = 1000
		}
	}

I'd drop the piety gain. Also, wouldn't it need a landless=yes tag? If not, my mistake, I'm new to modding.
 
I couldn't follow this closely so I have to ask if there is already a set release date