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The means of power for most of roman history (until around 867) simply isn't represented at all in CKII mechanics. In the republican period power derived from hereditary ownership of farming estates which gave you the money to pay for elections, public spending and personal armies. Factional politics within the Senate could help you put your money to good use but if you weren't quite wealthy you wouldn't be able to be a major player and you couldn't even be a senator without a million sestertes worth of farmland. This lasts into the early imperial era where imperial patronage becomes more and more important but land is still essential. Dynasties and dynastic prestige are important and the practice of adoption for heirless dynasties means that a dynasty isn't going to die out baring unusual circumstances, though it might diminish in importance. The gap in wealth and importance between the most important and lesser dynsties continues to widen throughout this period.

Once the empire starts to devolve into constant civil wars in the 3rd century and onward it devolves into a game of money and popularity with the army. Landed estates are still a source of money but they aren't so good as the population decline and taxation changes means they aren't as good as moneymakers and the exploitation of the proto-serfs and later serfs hardly makes one popular. The lack of Pax Romana means that it's far easier for a dynasties fortunes to widely swing between dynasties.

Into the fifth century things take two different courses in the east and west. The west is collapsing so power derives from your ability to get a gathering of loyal soldiers, probably from outside the empire and probably through dynastic ties to a powerful barbarian kingdom. The east is however still going strong so power derives from working your way up the ranks of the army because the army controls the wealth of the various parts of the empire as well as the troops necessary to win either a foreign engagement or a civil war. Barbarian alliances can help in the east but they aren't absolutely essential like in the west.

The west of course stops having politics after the fall of the west. However it can be noted that military leadership and land ownership were both useful for a roman dynasty that survived the fall and went on to marry into the new barbarian nobility the set up new kingdoms in Gaul and Hispania. The east survives as we all know and power starts to be regulated to the provinces where success in a good appointment is the route to political importance. Hereditary land holdings continue to be an important route to wealth and the decline in trade from the height of the empire means that land is back to it's place of primacy as a source of wealth. This lasts into the timeframe of CKII where imperial appointment (sometimes hereditary) and land wealth continue to be important but support from the church, the public and barbarian mercenaries all prove to be useful in staging coups or solidifying a regime.

So most of this is outside the scope of the game:
-Farm estate income (not in)
-Senate factions (not in)
-Barbarian alliances during the 4th century (sort of possible I guess if things were tweaked)
-Imperial patronage (not in because the player or AI favors whoever they please)
-Cushy army appointments (not in, no thematic armies to lead although you could maybe squint at the duke appointments and say that's what these are)
-Late Eastern non-hereditary rule (not in)
-Late Eastern hereditary rule (everything is shown this way)
-Support of the populace, church and mercenaries (no in)

Now I'm sure that some other more educated commentator is going to come along and say I know nothing about the political economy of Rome XD
 
Them the Rum Sultanate is also roman? :huh:
They would be if they had been integrated into the Roman state, like the Greeks were in antiquity. In time the Turks would have become Romans that just speak Turkish.

But the way the transition from Byzantium to Rum happened, it renders their claim invalid.
The real Roman Empire was still there when Rum came up, as an independent state established only by the merit of having conquered land from the real Romans. That just makes the Turks usurpers of Roman authority, and the Romans never ever gave them the same legitimacy as the Latins gave to the Greeks after the conquest of Greece. The Turks just beat up some guy on the street and stole his wallet. They can now claim to be that person but they were never going to be truly Roman.

Also, as an earlier user mentioned, the common Turk did not consider himself Roman. The whole Kayser-i-Rum thing was conjured by the Ottoman sultans as the pre-modern equivalent of the Hummer. But ask any Greek of medieval era and he will report himself as Roman. Ask any Turk in 18th century and he will say he is Turkish.
 
Now I'm sure that some other more educated commentator is going to come along and say I know nothing about the political economy of Rome XD

Don't be too modest, you pretty well summoned the situation. One thing I missed though: aw inspiring monuments. The emperors had the habit to roll out the empire by impressive buildings and statues. Which could be modded in I guess.
 
You're right that no county is inherently Roman in culture. But then again, later bookmarks don't have Norse counties either (though with Old Gods, they at least model that with Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish).

Cultures aren't monolithic. They change. Byzantine Roman culture certainly changed from Roman culture but they could still be legitimately considered Roman. Just like how Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish culture certainly changed from Norse culture but each of them could still legitimately consider themselves Norse.
There aren't the same case. The Norwegian, Swedish and Danish cultures are branches of the Nordic culture. Greek culture no. The ERE eventually change their culture, traditions, language, administration and military for other. So I consider Byzantium ceased to be "Roman" and ended up becoming a Greek empire, during the reign of Heraclius or so.

Under this point of view, you could say that Western Europeans were more romans than the greeks to be influenced by latin culture and trace their origins in this.
 
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Legitimacy's ultimately in the eye of the beholder. We can't objectively say "the medieval ERE was the legitimate descendant of the ancient Roman Empire" because for a lot of Latin Christians, it wasn't, and the HRE was.
 
Legitimacy's ultimately in the eye of the beholder. We can't objectively say "the medieval ERE was the legitimate descendant of the ancient Roman Empire" because for a lot of Latin Christians, it wasn't, and the HRE was.

Some western leaders might have regarded the HRE as legitimate successors as the HRE but none of them thought that they were the actual Romans, rather they claimed to be a new Roman Empire. They saw them as picking up the Roman mantle of leading Christendom. However everybody, Greek, Western, Muslim or other saw the Empire of the Greeks as the Roman empire. It was called the Roman Empire by everybody. It's Greek inhabitants were called "Romans" by everybody. When a Turkish sultanate tried to take it over he called himself a sultan of Rome.
 
Maria Theresa was Queen Consort. She was never ruling Empress of the HRE. Her husband was the Emperor.

Yes, she even made a point by not participating in her husband's Coronation, she might have played a more active role; however she wanted to downplay her role, because her powerbase was more important than his.
 
It would probably look like my republic. There hasn't been a doge from a different family in 290 years. And it's usually de facto followed strict agnatic primo with 18 years old doges who were sons of previous doges. There's even a king-tier vassal.
 
Wow, I came to check this thread and expected 2 or 3 answers.

Now, talking about Rome. Is there any way to create that "appointed succesion" through mods or console commands? Also, after christianity was the emperor still Pontifices Maximus?

Another question, was the Empire like "North Korea mode"? or was more like the vassal system?
 
Wow, I came to check this thread and expected 2 or 3 answers.

Now, talking about Rome. Is there any way to create that "appointed succesion" through mods or console commands? Also, after christianity was the emperor still Pontifices Maximus?

Another question, was the Empire like "North Korea mode"? or was more like the vassal system?

The empire was more like a vassal system then north korea mode. The thing would be that it would be a vassal system where the vassal holdings were temporary (for less then life) and the vassals had large non title dependent incomes regardless of whether the emperor gave them titles or not. See my post above.

You could do something to simulate it with appointment succession, prestige requirements for titles, event driven term limits and stuff and then have shifting rules as the nature of the empire slowly changed over the centuries. But it would be a helluva lotta work. And any historical simulation is going to have it be fiendishly difficult for a dynasty to stay on the throne or even stay important for more then a hundred years or so at a time. Republican era rome had powerful dynasties last from the start to the end of the republic due to the social convention for adoption by the heirless and that you had to be a wealthy senator (a million sestertes of land legal requirement) for most important government positions. Early and mid era imperial rome had powerful men arise in a single generation from fairly obscure dynasties and had mighty dynasties disappear just as quickly.
 
Wow, I came to check this thread and expected 2 or 3 answers.

Now, talking about Rome. Is there any way to create that "appointed succesion" through mods or console commands? Also, after christianity was the emperor still Pontifices Maximus?

Another question, was the Empire like "North Korea mode"? or was more like the vassal system?

Much more like a vassal system. There was simply no way for a province to be governed directly by an Emperor (or even by the Senate).

I'm working on making an appointment mod, its near the top in the mod forum.
 
Legitimacy's ultimately in the eye of the beholder. We can't objectively say "the medieval ERE was the legitimate descendant of the ancient Roman Empire" because for a lot of Latin Christians, it wasn't, and the HRE was.
Does that mean that if nobody else suddenly in the world recognize the United States of America as as THE United States, it is then no longer the United States?



Fact remained that the Latins refuse to recognize the ERE as THE Roman Empire because to do so would imply the ERE has suzerainty or sovereignty over all of them.Woman on the throne or not, it is just a silly excuse to claim that they are no longer the Roman Empire.Even if Irene of Athens was really an usurper(she was), then all that meant is that that was an interregnum. The Pope had no authority to bestow the imperial throne on anyone, I don't think any Western Roman Emperor of the antiquity had to ask the pope to consent to his succession, that was the Senate's role.Besides that, even if ecclesiastical authority were to be involved, the ERE was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Since the western Roman senate was ended by the Popes in the 600s, then the only organization that can legitimately do so was the one in the East.The Pope's actions was as silly as, say for example, throne of the United Kingdom falling vacant for some reason and then he decided that he has the authority to appoint a random joe to the said throne without the consent of the Parliament of the UK as well as ignoring the fact that the country in question doesn't acknowledge his ecclesiastical authority since they are Anglican.
 
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It doesn't really matter what modern people think about who was Roman or not. Western Europeans broadly viewed the HRE as legitimately Roman, Greeks only grudgingly accepted it when it helped them diplomatically. And of course, the east could claim Roman legitimacy by virtue of unbroken political continuity going as far back as recorded history, though some in the west probably didn't care much for their "New Rome that speaks Greek" schtick.

Now, getting on topic...

Roman provinces seem to line up better with CK2 kingdoms rather than duchies, though this varies by location. Certainly, k_africa closely matches Africa Proconsularis, though the duchy of Cyrenaica should be independent of it. Just look at Roman province maps, and divide up the realm that way. However, keeping super-dukes instead of kings may be preferable, as you can revoke their titles for free - which is as close as we can get in game to appointing governors.

Myself, I've never gotten to a renovatio imperii game, but I think it would be more interesting to try and model it on what might actually work for a remotely stable Medieval Roman Empire. I figure it would have to be a mostly titular affair, with large autonomous sub-realms that exist in a state of formal recognition of the primacy of the Emperor. So, in CKII terms, autonomous vassals, but with primogeniture rather than elective, as borders will get very messy very quickly if the imperial title keeps moving from one kingdom to another.
 
Also, after christianity was the emperor still Pontifices Maximus?

He was. In fact, we hosted just last week a really nice conference here in Helsinki which was very much devoted to this subject - and boasted no less an authority on this than Alan Cameron as the guest speaker. Quite illuminating, I must say. If further interested, you might want to check his The Last Pagans of Rome, which contains much relevant information. The thing is, though Gratian is usually considered the emperor who dispensed with the "overly pagan" title of pontifex maximus in the wake of the whole scandal involving the Altar of Victory, Cameron argues that there was nothing particularly "pagan" in the title: it really was quite neutral in tone, and was not incompatible with the Christian religion on account of its association (largely technical in any case) with the pontifices themselves. Rather, it seems that the part tha chafed the bishops was the maximus part, and predictably enough we see a curious replacement title of pontifex inclitus emerging in the wake of Gratian's rather belated and symbolic change. Besides, this happened only well into his rule, and there are some epigraphic examples of "Dominus Noster Gratianus Augustus Pontifex Maximus" or some variation thereof. Indeed, if the title of pontifex maximus would really have disturbed the Christians because of its pagan associations, one would have expected them to have dispensed with it much sooner after the fall of Julian, not over half a century afterwards.
 
Roman provinces seem to line up better with CK2 kingdoms rather than duchies, though this varies by location. Certainly, k_africa closely matches Africa Proconsularis, though the duchy of Cyrenaica should be independent of it. Just look at Roman province maps, and divide up the realm that way. However, keeping super-dukes instead of kings may be preferable, as you can revoke their titles for free - which is as close as we can get in game to appointing governors.

Yes, use superdukes and make sure to reappoint them every now and then so they don't intermarry with other superduchies. The problem is that sooner or later some count will gain enough land to create his own duchy. The diffrent duchies will also most likely wage war with eachother, or intermarry between the duchies. So this strategy will demand some managing but could work. After all with most of the map in your empire that's whats left to do right? :)

It's tricky to simulate the governor system and what drove people to become govenors. Most of the time the goal was to make as much money possible in the given time. Waring with other govenors never happned unless the two was on opposing sides of some imperial powerstruggle.
 
Yes, use superdukes and make sure to reappoint them every now and then so they don't intermarry with other superduchies. The problem is that sooner or later some count will gain enough land to create his own duchy. The diffrent duchies will also most likely wage war with eachother, or intermarry between the duchies. So this strategy will demand some managing but could work. After all with most of the map in your empire that's whats left to do right? :)

It's tricky to simulate the governor system and what drove people to become govenors. Most of the time the goal was to make as much money possible in the given time. Waring with other govenors never happned unless the two was on opposing sides of some imperial powerstruggle.

I'm playing with HIP so I think I can use the King's peace to solve that, and probably the gold won on the conquest will be enough to bribe all my vassals.

Another question, I tried playing as Roman culture in the Ruler Designer, how would I convert my provinces to Roman?
 
There aren't the same case. The Norwegian, Swedish and Danish cultures are branches of the Nordic culture. Greek culture no. The ERE eventually change their culture, traditions, language, administration and military for other. So I consider Byzantium ceased to be "Roman" and ended up becoming a Greek empire, during the reign of Heraclius or so.

Under this point of view, you could say that Western Europeans were more romans than the greeks to be influenced by latin culture and trace their origins in this.

And yet they weren't the same Greeks of the Peloponnesian Wars or Thermopylae, nor of Alexander and Pyrrhus. Their culture was essentially the fusion of the Greek culture that had been there before and the Romans who came into power in that region. The Romans themselves were very into Greece, Julius Caesar's last words were in Greek, does that make him not Roman?

And more besides, the only Latinness about the Westerners was the fact that they had adopted Latin artificially for their administration, it was adopted by them like the Seljuk Turks took on Persian culture, yet the Seljuks are always considered a Turkish dynasty.

Moreover it was rather convenient for the Pope that once Roman/Byzantine power had receded far enough away from him that he could curry favor with the new powers in the region by declaring their most powerful leader "Roman" Emperor when he had no authority to do so (the Senate had that power, or a reigning Emperor). It was nothing more than a convenient charade where the Pope could elevate himself above the Ruler of the World™ and the Franks could pretend they had the legitimacy and authority of Rome. Both got the benefit of getting an upgrade, and the Pope in particular has then been able to claim he is above every secular ruler in the world ever since (because he said so in 800, that's the basis of his authority).

Strictly on topic there's no way the Roman Empire as it was in the classical era could be represented in this game very accurately, or very much fun at all either. I think the same reasons are why we reasonably shouldn't expect to see China. One playable character at the head of the country, get deposed and game over, basically.