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Daelix

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I got into a discussion of whether you can a) create a Republic of wherever you want off the bat or b) willfully turn your government into a Republic via inheritance. You cannot do either via the game systems, but I'm posting the mini-guide I created for how to set up your own coastal republic at whatever start date you desire (+1 day) just via in-game decisions and the console. Depending on which of the methods you use, it takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes and doesn't require any knowledge of modding. The methods to create a Republic anywhere you want require just a few console commands I included explanations of how to use.

For completely console free, cheat free methods, scroll down to the second post in this thread. The method B in that post is most limited in terms of potential starting locations, BUT it's also by far the fastest and easiest method and requires zero console usage.

For a primer on the basics of how to operate the console, Click This Link. Note that a number of console commands are listed that are locked by the developers, but we have access to all the ones we need.

Finally, while doing setup that requires character IDs, open the console and type: charinfo 1
After doing so, hovering over a character's portrait will pull up extra debug info, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, their character ID that's critical to manipulating them for our Republics. When you're done with the extra info, console command charinfo 0 turns it off.

GIANT HAT TIP TO PODE for this tip, and honorable mention to Bad-Timing, who mentioned it later but made his first forum post (and may have registered :D) just to inform me about charinfo 1. Thanks to you, my life is now complete.

Now, to create your Republic. Here are the steps.

0) Choose the date, the provinces, and the character you want to be your new Duchy and Grand Mayor. You can choose anywhere and anyone, really. A courtier, a hero designer count. An existing Duke. A random mayor. Whoever.

For a method that relies exclusively on the console and finding character IDs in the save game file, but that's VERY fast and doesn't screw with any poor liege's opinions or prestige, use my new Method A. This supplants the other methods for pretty much all scenarios, and with a little practice you can literally do whatever you want with it. However, I left the older two methods in for now, because, well, nostalgia. And the hours I spent figuring them out. So unless you want to use those archaic methods, click the Spoiler button below Method A and follow the steps.

(OBSOLETE) If you want to turn an existing -Duchy- into a Republic and use its existing/Hero Designer Duke for the Grand Mayor, click the Spoiler button below Method B, otherwise, click the Spoiler button below Method C. (/OBSOLETE)


METHOD A - THE DEFINITIVE METHOD
Hat tip to grancheater for this one.

OK, this method centers around a single console command: give_title . The proper format for executing the give_title command is as follows:

give_title y_z x

y = single character designation of the title level as follows: 'b' for baronies (including the capital) 'c' for counties, 'd' for duchies, 'k' for kingdoms, 'e' for empires.

z = replace the z's with the name of the title. Note: not all titles are the same as their name. Paradox renamed Lübeck to Liubice in 1.09, but the title name is still c_lubeck, not c_liubice. And the city of Lauenborg in Holsten's title name is b_lauenbUrg not b_lauenbOrg. If you're sure you're typing the code correctly but it's not working, this is probably your issue. Here's how to find it in Notepad:
1) Open your save game file (My Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/save games/YourSaveGameName.ck2) with Notepad++. Don't use Windows Notepad unless you want to wait 5 minutes for Notepad to load the file.

2) Whether it's a county or a barony where the name isn't working right, search for the name name like this: name="whatever". i.e., I can't give the Holsten title, and I know I'm typing it correctly, so I open my savefile and search for name="holsten". This is because holdings where their holding tag and name are different have an entry in their files that says so. So Connacht, whose tag is c_connacht, doesn't have name="connacht" because presumably the game knows to pull the name Connacht from c_connacht, but Holsten, whose tag is c_holstein (note the I), has the line of code 'name="holsten"', presumably to tell the game to use the name Holsten instead of Holstein. Anyway, I digress, but this is handy, because when you search for name="holsten", look a few lines above the text that pops up. It'll either have a line like this: 263= , or it'll have a line like this: c_holstein= . So if the Search finds the number version first (that's the province ID number), search name="whatever" one more time and it'll pull up the other instance, which will have the holding tag. This also works for searching for Baronies, and they will only have the name="whatever" entry in 1 place, with their name tag a few lines above it. So if you search for name="lauenborg", it'll immediately show the tag b_lauenburg 4 lines above it.

x = the character ID of the character receiving the title. Thanks to console command charinfo 1 you can see this whenever you hover over a character's portrait. Now for the steps:

1) Start the game as someone who isn't your future Grand Mayor. If you use the Hero Designer, you obviously have to start as that character, so if so, save, resign, and load the game as anyone else. Open the console and type "charinfo 1", no quotation marks, to enable additional character info.

2) Now that you can see the character IDs, you can strip your future Grand Mayor of unwanted titles (this is essential if you want to use the Hero Designer to make your Grand Mayor as he will always start as a feudal lord, and therefore must be unlanded before he can be made a mayor). I'll use Prince Harald of Denmark (101517) for my example here. For minimal chaos, just give the titles to his liege, King Svend (101515). Harald directly holds 3 titles, the Duchy of Slesvig, the County of Slesvig, and the County of Holsten. So I load the game as anyone who isn't Harald (unlanded player = game over) and do the following console commands, using the formula give_title y_z x

give_title d_slesvig 101515 > "Duchy of Slesvig given to King Svend II of Denmark!"
give_title c_slesvig 101515 > "County of Slesvig given to King Svend II of Denmark!"
give_title c_holsten 101515 > nothing.

In the hypothetical world where I didn't already know that the correct code is c_holstein, I search for name="holsten" in my files until the nearby c_holstein illuminates my problem, then I type in the correct command, and now Prince Harald is an titleless bum who now looks like he's wearing a burlap sack he cut a hole out of. How quickly the mighty fall.

2) OK, I'm going to use the ID of my guy for the rest of my example because he's the one I used - this is Toirrdelbach, the chancellor of Munster, character ID 906 and unlanded. Now, I've decided I want Toirrdelbach to become the Grand Mayor of the Republic of Connacht. Well, the City of Galway is the only city in Connacht. So with our formula of give_title y_z x, x = 906 (Toirrdelbach's character ID), y = b, for barony (every actual city, castle, and bishopric is a barony even if it's the capital), and z = Galway (we hope). So we open the console and type: give_title b_galway 906

and...the console informs us thusly: "City of Galway has been given to Mayor Toirrdelbach of Galway!" Lo and behold, checking Galway, he's now the mayor of Galway. His character card states he's still at court in Thomond. Accelerate time 1 day, and he's now ruling in Galway. Good man!

3) OK, now the guy we want is a mayor. Now time to see if the county of Connacht's title is spelled right, and disenfranchise poor Duke Aed. (I didn't feel too bad - he's REALLY old. Death was probably going to disenfranchise him any minute). We type: give_title c_connacht 906

"Grand City of Connacht given to Lord Mayor Toirrdelbach of Connacht!"

4) OK. Time to close the deal: give_title d_connacht 906

"Republic of Connacht given to Grand Mayor Toirrdelbach of Connacht!" Boom. That was easy. Checking him, he now has 4 vassal heads of the Great Houses. Yay!

An important note on give_title as it pertains to this step: the title DOESN'T NEED TO BE CREATED IN-GAME for you to give it. You can give_title a duchy even if it hasn't been created in game and it'll be instantly created. So if I used Holstein, for example, of which Liubice is a county, and I made a Lord Mayor of Liubice to replace the Count, the moment I used give_title to give him d_holstein the Duchy title would be created immediately (along with the republic).

5) Now, if you want to give him any extra holdings (for example, you want him to hold all of the duchy of Connacht which includes Breifne, you can either give_title c_breifne 906 (this will leave the castle in Breifne as the capital under his control and leave the incumbent mayor and bishop as his vassals) or if you want the city of Cavan to be the capital, give_title b_cavan 906 before or after giving the city - either way, the Grand Mayor will change the capital automatically to the city once he personally controls it and controls the county. Once you're done, save and resign, load up as your new lord, and save.

6) Essentially, you're done. But you should probably generate some vassals (you won't have any besides the handful of Great House vassals) so you can give titles/jobs etc. In the couple of games I played, I just give myself enough gold to generate 10 random courtiers (cash x in the console) and make 8 or 9 men and 1 or 2 women and call it a day. You could also choose to not do so. Alternatively, you could search through the character lists and give yourself a handful of capable courtiers by using the command: move x (x = their character ID). Regardless, check the top right. If you turned a courtier into your Grand Mayor, you probably have no gold, no prestige, and no piety, or very little if you used a Mayor/Bishop/Baron. Console commands cash x , prestige x , and piety x will give you some - 65 gold, 50 prestige, and 25 piety is fairly standard for a minor starting character. This is optional too, but no prestige, no piety, and no gold can be no fun as it takes a while before you can do anything that costs anything. If you want to have relatively even footing with other Republics, you may want to console yourself enough extra gold to immediately build a trade post in your own province. It's entirely up to you. And when you're all done, use console command charinfo 0 to turn off all the extra character data you don't need.

And there you have it! Once you get the grip of finding holding name tags, this is the cleanest and least intrusive method that won't involve screwing up a liege by revoking titles, declaring wars, or any other nonsense, that allows you to set up your Republic anywhere and in any way.

Also, here's a quick primer if you want to turn any old county or duchy of a coastal province into a Republic with minimal fuss and leaving their liege in place as the new Grand Mayor:

1) Create the game as anyone except your future player (I'll use Duke Aed, since I DO feel a little bit bad for him - he's extremely old). I started the game as some random Byzantine lord. Save the game. Turn on charinfo 1. Get your Grand Mayor's ID and the mayor of the city that will become the capital. Aed's ID is 910, his mayor's 500082 (in my game. Non-historical characters like random mayors don't have static char IDs).

2) Now give_title to the mayor, giving him the county (give_title c_connacht 500082). If your guy's a duke, give_title the mayor the Duchy. If not, you can just wait a sec.

4) give_title your now titleless leader the mayor's city (give_title b_galway 910).

5) give_title the county, then a Duchy, to your guy to create the Republic. (give_title c_connacht 910, give_title d_connacht 910). As I noted before, the Ducal title doesn't need to already exist (so you could make one of the Counts in Ulster into the Grand Mayor of the Republic of Ulster, despite them only holding 1 of 4 provinces). Nor does it actually need to be the De Jure duchy of his county(s) - you could make his Ducal title one that's on the other side of the world map, and he would be the de jure liege of those counties, but they wouldn't be part of his demesne, or make Aed of Connacht the Grand Mayor of the Republic of Ulster. You can really do whatever you want. This isn't exactly recommended, as your title could be usurped and I'm fairly sure that would lead to Game Over as you would become an unplayable Count-level republic. But if you want to give yourself some default de jure claims, you can. The point is, you can do whatever you want.

6) The Republic is created. Enjoy, Employ, and Destroy! (...that's SO copyrighted)


METHOD B
1) Start the game as your intended future Grand Mayor unless he's an unplayable character. Write down his prestige, piety, and gold if you want to fix them later.

2) This step replaces step 3-5, is a little faster, and doesn't screw up the opinion of the King you use with his vassals. However, you need to do a simple text editor change of your save file when you're done (I added it as Step 9), and it scatters your former vassals and courtiers, so make sure to write down the char IDs of any important ones so you don't have to go all over looking for them. Finally, this is only efficient if all the holdings for your future Republic are in 1 De Jure duchy. If you meet these criteria, click the Spoiler button, otherwise skip to step 3.
Save and resign, go to load the game but instead of loading in as yourself, choose a duke-level guy of the -opposing religion- who can declare Holy War on you (Islam if you're Christian or vica versa). Islamic Dukes are called Emirs, their duchies are Emirates. Declare war on yourself. Save, resign, load up as yourself. Surrender. Save, resign, load up as the liege. Accept the surrender, which will give that liege ALL of the titles in your territory. NOW, SKIP TO STEP 6.

3) Swear fealty to any king or emperor. In 1066, the King of Aragon is perfect as he owns 1 province, so the vassal opinion hit he's about to suffer won't significantly alter the game. For the sake of minimizing the damage to your temporary liege's reputation, I immediately Declare War of Independence against him, then immediately Surrender to him. Do NOT let time pass and wait for him to accept your surrender! Save and resign.

4) Now go to load your savegame, but -before you load-, select the guy who's your new liege and play as him/her. Accept your character's surrender! Now he's imprisoned, presumably for being a lunatic for swearing fealty then declaring independence the next day, then surrendering immediately. What a weirdo! Anyway, go to your imprisoned character's Diplomacy screen and Banish yourself. This strips all your titles and gold and sends you off to parts unknown.

5) Revoke a City in your character's former capital county before he was banished.

6) You now need to be able to land yourself! This is a problem since you banished yourself to another court. But type this into the console: move x (and replace x with your character's ID) and you will be teleported back to the court of the guy who's holding your titles!

7) Grant yourself the C I T Y you want to be the capital. NOT THE COUNTY. The city in that county. Once you do that, grant yourself the Duchy and check the Include Lower Titles box. BOOM! You've now become the boss of a shiny new Republic! Popups will inform you of the Republic's creation. Yay! Save and resign.

8)Load up your new Grand Mayor. Note that if you're vassal to a King, we didn't have him Grant Independence. That is because the shiny new Grant Independence button vanishes once a vassal becomes a Grand Mayor. As odd as it is that you can't grant a Republic independence, you can still grant a Republic independence! (if you used a Ducal-level guy via the Holy War method in step 2, this isn't needed as you're automatically independent). Declare a war of independence on your liege. Save and resign. Load up the liege. Surrender. Save and resign. Load up yourself. Accept surrender. BOOM right back at ya.

9) USE THIS STEP IF YOU USED THE HOLY WAR METHOD FROM STEP 3.
Because your territories now have all of the Recently Conquered penalties, you need to remove those. Here's the fast way. Save the game and resign. Open your save file in text editor. Search for each County in your realm by searching for: name="yourcounty"

Murchad of Munster's counties are Thomond and Ormond. so I search for: name="Ormond" . BOOM. I'm at Ormond. A few lines above it should have the county's ID#, so it should say like 263= or 9= or 43= , then start with the various data. If instead of a number you see c_countyname= (c_ormond=, for example), click the Find Next button again and it will take you to the section with the ID#, which is the section we need. Now. The first few lines are the general province stats, but then I see this: b_nenagh= . This is the (now capital) city of Nenagh, one of the holdings in the county. Following is all the data for Nenagh, then the barony of Waterford (b_waterford=) and bishopric of Cashel (b_cashel=). Now under each holding which will be obviously named for the holdings in your counties, you'll see this peculiar article:

modifier=
{
modifier="occupied_different_culturegroup"
date="1086.6.7"
inherit=no
hidden=no
}

but with indentations. There will be 3 of them in order; a modifier each for "occupied_different_culturegroup", "occupied_different_religiongroup", and one that's just "occupied". Well we don't want those. Each of the 3 text blobs that looks like the thing I pasted above, from modifier= to the } that's 1 line below hidden=no, select them and delete them. This removes the penalties. If you're scared of messing up the save file, instead check the date (go to the beginning of the savefile; it's the second line formatted like date="1066.9.15" (September 15, 1066). Now go back to the baronies and those nasty modifiers. Change the date="xxxx.xx.xx" in each modifier to the next day (for my example if your current game date is 1066.9.15, change each one to date="1066.9.16". This is the end date, and now it's tomorrow. Once you either delete or alter the modifier dates, save the changes to the file. Load your game, and now the penalties are either gone, or they will poof tomorrow depending on what you did. The only other minor hiccup is you have to wait for your levies to refill. Not a huge deal.

11) Some final console bits. Use the following commands: 'cash x', 'prestige x', and 'piety x', to fix these values back to what you recorded them as (or leave them or whatever. It's up to you). Use the 'move x' command with the character IDs to move any vassals, relatives, etc, back to your court where they were before, if you want. Save your hard work. Grant the various baronies/counties in your duchy to people who deserve them or their former lords, or keep them for yourself at the outset. Now you are the Grand Mayor of your own converted Duchy!

METHOD C

1) You'll need to play as someone who can give your future character a Duchy - any Duke, King, or Emperor. Your future Grand Mayor must be a vassal of that Duke/King/Emperor or could be a landholder of one of the lesser baronies in the target province you're taking over, or could be a random Courtier, who you can easily move to your province with move x (x = their character ID). The Duke/King/Emperor's proximity to the desired province(s) for your Republic is irrelevant. Their size compared to the holder of the desired province(s) is also irrelevant. The person you want to make Grand Mayor can really be anyone, a courtier, an heir, a count, whatever. Do note that you must be able to create a Duchy in the target province(s), so wherever you want to create your Republic, if you want to make it 1 province, you must choose a 2-province De Jure Duchy, since you need 50% or more of the territories to create/usurp a Duchy, or you must be willing to take extra provinces from their rulers, then grant their counts independence (or leave them vassals of their new leader).

You can Ruler Design a character for a custom dynasty if you so choose, and the only game effect will be a small vassal opinion hit for the liege you use to create the Republic (you will want to make him a Count under a Duke for maximum simplicity, or a Count under a King/Emperor if you want to be the vassal of that liege). For the sake of example, I will use Duke Murchad of Munster in 1066 as the liege, and the Mayor of Connacht as the character I'm going to make Grand Mayor. Open the console and use charinfo 1 so you can see character IDs by hovering over their portrait. If you created someone, or started the game to browse characters to choose from in the game, get their char ID, save, and resign.

2) Play as the liege you're going to use to set up the Republic. (again, I'm using Murchad of Munster). Send your Chancellor (Toirrdelbach) to Fabricate Claims on the county you want to start your Republic in. Now open the console and type: event 913 x, replacing x with your chancellor's ID. I typed: event 913 906 since Toirrdelbach's char ID is 906.

3) A popup tells you you fabricated a claim, which normally pops up for the Chancellor. Disregard it, and accelerate time 1 day forward. Now the normal pop up asking you to use or ignore the fabricated claim pops up. Use it. If you want your new Republic to have multiple starting provinces or if it's located in a De Jure duchy with 3+ provinces, you need to fiddle around a bit. Replace your chancellor with someone else, then replace that person with the original Chancellor. Now you can assign him a job again. Assign him to the next province, trigger the event, cycle time 1 day. Rinse and repeat til you have claims on all the provinces.

4) Declare war on all the relevant lords whose territories you're taking. Save your game and resign. Load up as each relevant lord and Surrender. Then reload as the liege and accept all the surrenders, making sure to save each time before you change characters again, and you now have the province or provinces required.

5) Create the Duchy. A Duchy is required to generate a new Great House to make a PLAYABLE Republic. Use the console command 'cash x' (replace x with an amount of gold) so you have enough dough to create the Duchy. If there are provinces you took just to be able to create the duchy, grant them to a courtier or courtiers (including Lower Titles) then Grant Independence. You still have the Duchy.

6) If you don't have direct control of the City your character is going to use for his capital, revoke it. I personally just used the mayor of that city. The mayor is very unlikely to revolt. If you don't care about the liege's opinion with his vassals and do care about wasting in-game days, Save the game, imprison the mayor (reload if he revolts) then revoke the city. Once you control the city, grant it to your future Grand Mayor. IF the future Grand Mayor is a Count (because that's who you wanted to play, or so you could use the Hero Designer) save and load as that character. Declare independence, causing a war, then immediately Surrender. Save, and load as the liege. Accept the surrender. Now he's in your dungeon. Revoke the county (nothing he can do and he's a traitor so it doesn't screw up opinions any worse). This will leave him as the Mayor of his future capital city.

7) Now grant him the County his city is in, making him Lord Mayor, and before giving him the Duchy, grant him all the relevant titles in that Duchy (or if it won't create weirdness, grant the duchy and select the Include Lower Titles box, which gives him ALL titles you have in that Duchy). Assuming you used a Duke for this magic trick, he will automatically become independent.

8) You have created a brand new Great House and your desired character is now Grand Mayor! Save the game and load up as him. You can also use 'prestige x', 'piety x' and 'cash x' in the console to fix the prestige, piety, and gold values on the guy you used to create the titles and/or the new Grand Mayor. A pretty standard start for a fledgling realm is 70 gold, 50 prestige, 25 piety. If you want to fix the guy you used to create the Republic, make sure you do so before you save and leave him. Once you're on your new Grand Mayor and you've fixed his values, save the game and you are good to go. If there are any unlanded characters you want as your vassals, find their character IDs then use the console command: move x (replacing x with char ID) to move them to your court.


An example Republic, after I made the Mayor of Connacht into the Grand Mayor of Connacht using Method C before I learned the more elegant Method A:

IrishRepublic.jpg

Now that's one sexy hat!

And there you have it. Enjoy playing as the Republic of Finland ... or whatever. :D

Also, please let me know of any tips/tricks/issues/better/more effective methods or console commands requiring less savegame Ctrl+F wizardry! And post your screen shots of your new awesome ahistorical Republics!

HELPFUL INFO (New!)​

I'm starting a section for the accretion of useful info and lists, divided handily by MOAR SPOILER TAG. If you have any useful tips tricks or lists of helpful info please make a post in this thread. I'll try to find the correct place for any good info submitted as I continue to work on this guide up until the date that Paradox caves to the Commentariat and just lets us make Republics via character generation.

;)

List of ALL Titular Duchies and Kingdoms, by DM_CRAFT

While titular titles have no de jure territory, there are specific de facto places they're used in the game. If you want to use titulars that are geographically accurate to a greater or lesser degree, DM_Craft has included parenthetical notes on where every title was historically and denoted coastal titles with a 'C' after the note. Is this guy awesome or what?

Titular Duchies

d_abbasid (caliphate)
d_arabia_felix (South Arabia)
d_balearic (Baleric Islands off of Spain) C
d_belgrade (Capital of Serbia)
d_bergen (Norway (Bergenshus)) C
d_bordeaux (Bordeaux France) C
d_braganza (Portuga/Leonl) C
d_butrinto (Epieros, Albania) C
d_campania (Napels,Salerno) C
d_catalonia (Barcelona) C
d_chaldea (Chaldea, North East Turkey) C
d_cumberland (Cumberland in Northumberland North England) C
d_don (Don River Exits to Black Sea in Tana(Don Portage)) C
d_dorostotum (Dorostotum Bulgaria)
d_el_rif (El Rif North Morroco) C
d_el-arish (Sinai/el-arish(only 1 Castle) C
d_erzerum (East Turkey)
d_galatia (Central Turkey)
d_georgia (Kingdom of Georgia) C
d_gilan (Gilan Iran, Caspian Sea)
d_hellas (hellas Greece) C
d_ikonion (Central Turkey)
d_kappadokia (Central Turkey)
d_karnten (Karnten, Bohemia, Carinthia)
d_kirkuk (Kirkuk Iraq)
d_krakow (Poland)
d_laodikeia (Laodikeia West Turkey)
d_luristan (Western Iran)
d_lut (Lut Iran)
d_lykia (Lykia South West Tukey) C
d_mar (Scottland) C
d_milano (Lombardy)
d_minsk (Minsk Ruthenia)
d_nikomedia (Nikomedeia North West Turkey) C
d_pressburg (Hungry)
d_pronsk (Ruthenia)
d_qom (Qom Iran)
d_romagna (Bolonga,Ravenna,Ferrara,Modena)
d_the_isles (Isle of Man) C
d_salamanca (salamanca leon)
d_sandomiersk (sandomiersk poland)
d_shiraz (Shiraz Iran)
d_sinope (sinope North Turkey) C
d_sistan (Sistan Iran)
d_slovakia (Hungry)
d_swiss (Savoy)
d_ural (Urals)
d_varna (Bulgeria) C
d_wielkopolska (Greater Poland)
d_vlachs (Romania) C
d_volga (Volga River Capsian Sea)
d_zara (Zadar Croatia) C

Titular Kingdoms

k_almohad (Morroco) C
k_Aydin (South West Turkey) C
k_cyprus C
k_beni_helal (Beni Yanni Algeria) C
k_candar (Turkey) C
k_khazaria (Sugrov Cumanaia)
k_eretnid (East Turkey)
k_germiyan (West Turkey)
k_hammadid (Algeria) C
k_naples (Naples) C
k_bosnia (Bosnia) C
k_tekke (Attaleia South Turkey) C
k_trebizond (North Turkey, Amisos, Chaldea) C
k_trinacria (Titular Sicily) C
k_zenata (Algeria, Tunisia and Morroco) C
k_zirid (Tunisia) C
k_ziyanids (Algeria) C
 
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Alternate Mini-Guide (no console)

The completely cheat-free, one character switch ways to set up a Republic:

METHOD A
This method is for when the place you want to set up shop doesn't have a ready-made method to create a Republic, and works for anywhere without console use. It's actually kind of obvious but I'm listing the steps. Steps 1-5:

1) Start the game as Somebody. If you want to use a Hero Designer character, create them under a liege then start the game as the liege.

2) Acquire the target Duchy through normal in-game means.

3) Grant whoever you want a City in that Duchy, then make them Lord Mayor/Grand Mayor. Giving it to one of your kids makes a nice dynasty tie-in reason to switch to them.

4) Save and play as them.

5) If you used a King or Emperor, you can no longer Grant Independence, so either a) play as a vassal, b) get powerful enough to war with your former character and win independence, or c) declare independence, save and switch to the former boss, surrender, save and switch back. For these reasons, if you're looking for minimum cheat/explotiness but want to be independent, I recommend starting no higher than a Duke and acquiring another Duchy, as granting the second Duchy to the future Grand Mayor will instantly make him independent.

METHOD B
If you don't care particularly about where or who you start as, this method can both be done on the start date you choose, and without any tampering beyond the character switch. Hat tip to KroganElite for coming up with this simple method. Steps 1-5:

1) You'll need any Duke, King, or Emperor that holds a Ducal title (for a Duke, that holds a second Ducal title after their primary) and at least two counties (and one or more coastal counties) in their demesne. I'm starting a list of eligible Dukes. As you find more, add them in a reply so I can add them to the main list. Click the Spoiler button if you want to just pick a location from the list to create your Republic (note: you're not actually playing as this guy).

Eligible Dukes​
Format: Year - Duke __ of __. Holds (extra duchy(s) besides titular one). Vassal of __/Independent. Easy, Medium, Hard ranking of geographic competition with -other Republics-.

1066 - Doux Michael I of Adrianopolis. Holds Vidin. Vassal of ERE. Easy.
1066 - Duke Guilhem VIII of Aquitane. Holds Poitou. Vassal of France. Easy.
1066 - Duke Eadwin I of Mercia. Holds Lancaster. Vassal of England. Easy.
1066 - Duke Morcar I of Northumberland. Holds York. Vassal of England. Easy.
1066 - Emir Yahya I of Dhunnunid. Holds Toledo. Independent. Medium.
1066 - Emir Abbad I of Abbadid. Hold Algrave. Independent. Easy/Medium.
1066 - Duke Robert I of Apulia. Holds Calabria. Independent. HARD.
1066 - Matilda. Apparently you're just supposed to know, so I'll let you figure it out. HARD.

The way I sorted out the difficulties: Easy = no other Republics within a few water tiles. Medium = 1 Republic within a few water tiles. Hard = Multiple Republics within a few water tiles. HARD = sitting smack dab in the middle of the water territories already saturated by Genoa, Venice, and Pisa.

Bonus: With a Little Cheatin'​

-This section requires using the console 'cash' command (followed by how much gold you want to give - in this case, type: cash 200) to give a guy enough gold to create a second Duchy that he can by default create but lacks the gold for. This doesn't affect the game more than the first method, since the gold gets used up and the Duchy given away.

-Note that you can also use these guys, console free, via Method A (play the game until they have enough gold to create the Duchy, create it, then use it to create your Republic).

-I'm also including Pagans, which can be unlocked by modifying a file. I put an explanation at the bottom of this section.

-Don't worry about the Prestige buff the duke gets from creating the title. You're stealing some of his land. Call it even.

1066 - Duke Ordulf I of Saxony. Can create Brunswick and Holstein. Vassal of HRE. Easy.
1066 - Emir an-Nasir I of Hammadid. Can create Alger. Independent. Medium.

Pagans
1066 - Chief Kabuksin I of Pechenegs. Can create Wallachia and Moldau. Independent. Easy.
1066 - Jarl Erik I of Uppland. Can create Bergslagen. Vassal of Sweden. Medium.
1066 - Chief Sabe I of Curonians. Can create Samotigia and Courland. Independent. Medium.
1066 - Chief Sarunas I of Yatvigs. Can create Samotigia. Independent. Medium.
1066 - Chief Siemomysl I of Pomerania. Can create Pomeralia. Independent. Medium.
1066 - Chief Milzas I of Pruthenians. Can create Prussia. Independent. Medium.

Primer on Enabling Pagans:

The easiest way to find the file you need is to use your Windows search and search for: 00_religions . This also has the bonus of showing you the install path. Right click and Open File Location. Now, copy the file and paste a copy of it somewhere safe, like the desktop. That's your backup. Note that if you don't want to affect your ability to play Multiplayer without switching those files, you'll need to learn to make a mini mod, which I won't go into here. But as long as you keep an unmodified copy of the file, you can always use that file in the future.

OK. Now that you have a backup copy, open 00_religions.txt in any text editor. The first line of the file is christian = { . Following are the definitions for the Christian faith, then all its subgroups (Catholic, Orthodox, etc). The fourth line of those definitions reads like this: playable = yes . Now, either Search inside the document for the text: pagan_group = OR scroll down, it's near the bottom. Anyway, you'll now see: pagan_group = { , then all their definitions. Oddly, there's no line that says "playable = yes". This is a problem. Go right ahead and add a new line below graphical_culture=westerngfx, and on that line, type, yep, you guessed it: playable = yes

Save the file. Start Crusader Kings 2. Go to start a new game. The Play button is no longer greyed out on Pagans!

Note: Pagans are difficult. They do have a potent bonus (the Warrior Cult building for castles) but keep in mind that your primary holdings will be, well, cities. But even if you hold some castles and set up some traditional counts, it's like playing a Christian surrounded by Muslims or vica versa, except worse - all of your religion group is divided into 4 major beliefs instead of 2, making it harder to Call to Arms. And all the lands are splintered and divided into petty fiefdoms and duchies. Oh, and you're surrounded on every side not just by Christians, but by large, powerful, hungry Christian nations. You will probably lose several times before you get the grip of how to effectively establish and defend yourself. You have been warned.

Also, playing them as a Republic gives them extra Casus Belli for expansion, which removes a crippling weakness. And playing Pagan is dangerously fun.

2) If you don't just pick someone from the lists above, start a game as anyone at your chosen start date and click around until you find a starting location you like with an eligible holder for our method. Resign and re-start as that holder.

3) If the holder's primary title is the duchy in which your future chosen capital resides (i.e., you want Bordeaux, but the owner Guilhem's primary title is Aquitane, in which Bordeaux resides), just switch his primary title to the other duchy. Or don't. If you don't, you will become the de jure liege of his capital and vica versa, which can create some good drama. For our example, let's say you want Bordeaux and don't want to be all hostile with Guilhem. Before creating the republic in Bordeaux (duchy of Aquitane), switch Guilhem's primary title to Poitou.

4) Anyway, once you figure all that out, go to the mayor of the city that's going to be your capital. Make sure it's coastal and in a county held by the holder you're using. Grant him the landed title of the county his city is in, with the Include Lower Titles box checked. Then grant him the duchy. Note: if you check 'Include Lower titles' when granting the Duchy, he will take -ALL- the de facto owned holdings and vassals inside that de jure duchy. If you want to play as a single county, don't check the box this time. Otherwise go for it if you want to start as a duchy with a little territory.

5) Once you grant him the duchy, if you're a Duke he splits off and becomes independent if you were or a fellow ducal vassal of your liege. If you're using a king/emperor, he becomes your vassal after a bunch of popups. You can now save the game, resign, and select your new Grand Mayor from the load screen to play as him.

5a) (optional) If your new republic is vassalized to a king or emperor and you wanted to start as an independent republic, just declare war on your liege for independence, save and resign, load up the liege, surrender, save and resign, then switch back and accept surrender.

6) Make loads of money!
 
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Heads up for a quick Rebublic in south-west France without using console commands or any file tampering:

Play as Duke Guilhem VIII of Aquitane. Pick either a capital at Bordeaux or Saintonge(Bordeaux has more castle/city slots). Make your primary title NOT the Dutchy you are trying to make a republic. Ex. If you want Poitou, makes sure your primary Title is not Poitou. To do this, just click one of your duke titles and click "Make primary".

Select the mayor of desired capital and give him the respective Count title of that province. Lastly, give him the respective Ducal title, save the game and reload as your new republic.

This area is great because it is well out of reach of the other republics and gives you room to grow.

Here is my current game:
9Yrlg.jpg
 

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It would be nice if the just modified the ruler designer in a way that you could choose your goverment type :p . That would make things easier at least.
 
Awesome!

Thanks a lot for finding this Daelix.
I gotta say I was surprised that this wasn't possible by default with the DLC (maybe in combination with ruler designer). I mean come on thats exactly what everybody wanted to do, right?

Your method is comfortable enough for me not to make a fuss about it though.
 
Heads up for a quick Rebublic in south-west France without using console commands or any file tampering:

Play as Duke Guilhem VIII of Aquitane. Pick either a capital at Bordeaux or Saintonge(Bordeaux has more castle/city slots). Make your primary title NOT the Dutchy you are trying to make a republic. Ex. If you want Poitou, makes sure your primary Title is not Poitou. To do this, just click one of your duke titles and click "Make primary".

Select the mayor of desired capital and give him the respective Count title of that province. Lastly, give him the respective Ducal title, save the game and reload as your new republic.

This area is great because it is well out of reach of the other republics and gives you room to grow.

Here is my current game:
9Yrlg.jpg

Great point by KroganElite that I totally forgot to mention. Going to add it to my second post about minimally exploity ways to accomplish this. Thanks Krogan!

Awesome!

Thanks a lot for finding this Daelix.
I gotta say I was surprised that this wasn't possible by default with the DLC (maybe in combination with ruler designer). I mean come on thats exactly what everybody wanted to do, right?

Your method is comfortable enough for me not to make a fuss about it though.

You're welcome! And keep in mind that the regular game version, the goal of the game is both to be as fun and as historically authentic as possible, and the various Great Republics in the game are not just republics, they're Patrician Great Houses, and embroiled in all of the Italian-centric politics that go with that. And there lies the rub, which may be why they chose to exclude the Icelandic Commonwealth, for example, and leave it modeled after a traditional CK2 feudalism, instead of a Republic, because Iceland didn't involve itself in the Patrician politics of the time. And on the flip side, being able to create a Republic not beholden to those politics might not serve the game very well, in that you'd have all of the advantages, but none of the weaknesses (Blade republic!) that go with it like having to compete with other families politically to gain and keep power.

And I think that's why we'll discover that, like female generals and various other historical rarities or contradictions, custom republics are very moddable, but not designed to be in the base game.
 
Gameplay-wise custom republics have no advantage over the stock ones though, right??
 
Gameplay-wise custom republics have no advantage over the stock ones though, right??

Correct, much like gameplay wise, a female general has no advantage over a male general. It seems like they chose not to implement E-Z Bake Custom Republics because of the historical plausibility of a Patrician Great House led by Grand Mayor Erik the Heathen of Uppland. :D

The gameplay balance issue I was referring to was if they tried to make historically plausible custom republics by making them not beholden to the politics of the Patrician Great Houses. They'd need another system of checks and balances, otherwise it would be very advantageous for a player.

Also, updated my second post with a step by step for the method KroganElite described along with a few lists for various Dukes in 1066 who either have two duchies, or can create a second duchy if you pick them and just cheat to give them 200 gold they'll immediately use to create the duchy before giving it away. I didn't include a list of king/emperor rulers because it would be almost every single king/emperor.
 
Correct, much like gameplay wise, a female general has no advantage over a male general. It seems like they chose not to implement E-Z Bake Custom Republics because of the historical plausibility of a Patrician Great House led by Grand Mayor Erik the Heathen of Uppland. :D

The gameplay balance issue I was referring to was if they tried to make historically plausible custom republics by making them not beholden to the politics of the Patrician Great Houses. They'd need another system of checks and balances, otherwise it would be very advantageous for a player.

Also, updated my second post with a step by step for the method KroganElite described along with a few lists for various Dukes in 1066 who either have two duchies, or can create a second duchy if you pick them and just cheat to give them 200 gold they'll immediately use to create the duchy before giving it away. I didn't include a list of king/emperor rulers because it would be almost every single king/emperor.

"Grand Mayor Erik the Heathen of Uppland" I'm taking bets as to when the first AAR of this will come out :D
But I get the point, though I'm pretty guilty of going nuts with this game.

The gameplay balance issue I still don't get "making them not beholden to the politics of the Patrician Great Houses"
I mean every merchant republic has by default 5 great houses. You're probably getting tired of it but could you - for the sake of my thick head - make one more attempt to clarify?

About your update: Since I already gave you props in this thread you just became the namesake of the heir to the merchant republic of holstein.
 
Using Method A has saddled me with a Recently Conquered (Different Culture group) penalty on all the holdings in Munster. Which... kinda stinks. Seeing as the Emirate of Mauretania held the territory for 0 days...
 
"Grand Mayor Erik the Heathen of Uppland" I'm taking bets as to when the first AAR of this will come out :D
But I get the point, though I'm pretty guilty of going nuts with this game.

The gameplay balance issue I still don't get "making them not beholden to the politics of the Patrician Great Houses"
I mean every merchant republic has by default 5 great houses. You're probably getting tired of it but could you - for the sake of my thick head - make one more attempt to clarify?

The point is that while other republics may have existed, they may not have followed the Patrician model of great houses vying for power. The Icelandic commonwealth, for example, didn't have a Doge-type leader; it had the Althing, which was a parliamentary assembly, and the eldest parliamentary system that still exists today. Letting you make your own Republic would require them to either allow the historical inaccuracy of, say, Islamic Great House style republics popping up in Spain or Palestine, or come up with more a separate set of rules for 'non-Patrician' republics and how they are governed.

Or there may have been other coding or implementation hurdles. Dunno.

About your update: Since I already gave you props in this thread you just became the namesake of the heir to the merchant republic of holstein.

Excellent! But is he a level 13 lawful Evil Githyanki assassin? if he's just a human son of a Grand Mayor, that's totally cool too.
 
Using Method A has saddled me with a Recently Conquered (Different Culture group) penalty on all the holdings in Munster. Which... kinda stinks. Seeing as the Emirate of Mauretania held the territory for 0 days...

Oops! I totally forgot to write that down, because I did notice that. Good catch.

Edit: OK, I hid step 3 with a warning. You -can- create the Republic of Munster via step 4-6, it just takes a little more work and at least 1 more revocation, screwing up the used King's opinion with his people.

Edit Edit: Added instructions for how to remove Recently Conquered penalties. I had to go figure out how to remove Recently Conquered penalties. It's actually really easy.
 
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The point is that while other republics may have existed, they may not have followed the Patrician model of great houses vying for power.

[...]

Excellent! But is he a level 13 lawful Evil Githyanki assassin? if he's just a human son of a Grand Mayor, that's totally cool too.

Now its obvious. Don't know why I didn't get it the first time :blink:

About the heir-modification....sorry I don't have that DLC yet. But with Sunset Invasion already released who knows what else Paradox will throw at us :D
 
About the heir-modification....sorry I don't have that DLC yet. But with Sunset Invasion already released who knows what else Paradox will throw at us :D

....Roflpyramid.

:rofl:
:rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Played gotland siezed dublin then immediately attacked again and took the county directly after transfered the lord mayor county of dublin to my son saved it and tried to load him attempting to get a fresh republic i realised after i shoulda used somebody not from my family but i suspect the bug i got would mean that it wont matter.

In the republic expansion which allows me to play republics i couldnt select my son because 'i am not allowed to play republics'

That stings

I just wanted to break off and rule ireland or iceland as a republic without all the tedious rival families and the endless plots that goes with them lol but at the same time i wanted to war other all the other republics including gotland would be fun
 
Played gotland siezed dublin then immediately attacked again and took the county directly after transfered the lord mayor county of dublin to my son saved it and tried to load him attempting to get a fresh republic i realised after i shoulda used somebody not from my family but i suspect the bug i got would mean that it wont matter.

In the republic expansion which allows me to play republics i couldnt select my son because 'i am not allowed to play republics'

That stings

I just wanted to break off and rule ireland or iceland as a republic without all the tedious rival families and the endless plots that goes with them lol but at the same time i wanted to war other all the other republics including gotland would be fun

You have to make him a ducal-level republic. If you try to switch off and play any Lord Mayor (count-level republic) you can't. Create a duchy (it doesn't even have to be the de jure duchy where he's at) and grant him the ducal-level title and he becomes playable.

Man, I just abused the console and give_title to create my republic of Holstein. Nice guide though, Daelix.

I was dissuaded before due to not understanding a lot of the systems and all the console commands that were dev-locked, but now that I understand how the baronies work, I'm getting this to work. I'll write an additional section to the guide.
 
Gameplay-wise custom republics have no advantage over the stock ones though, right??
This is true, however I have noticed something weird with homemade republics (I don't have the dlc. this is about making republics out of cadet branches to get some money in the family). Fresh start republics seem to have a hard time getting trade posts. In particular, the first family to build one usually ends up being the only one to build one. I made the republic of Pomeralia (danzig?) with a branch of the Piasts as poland, and yet 100 or so years in only one family has build a tradepost (they have 3). All the other families, especially mine, have money, and there are spots still open, even though gotland + that one family have taken control of most of the sea zones.