Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

No non-feudal mechanics?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • 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.
Crusader Kings II 69868 Bug Reports 19707 User Modifications 10588 Suggestions 5969 Tech Support 6361 After Action Reports
darthfanta

darthfanta

Basileus Basileōn
67 Badges
Apr 22, 2012
3.773
177
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Stellaris
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Crusader Kings II: Jade Dragon
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor
  • Cities: Skylines - Green Cities
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Colonel
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Stellaris Sign-up
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Pillars of Eternity
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • 500k Club
  • Victoria 2
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife
I haven't watched the premier, but from what I've heard from others regarding the new dlc from other people, there's no way you can transform your country into a bureaucratic one?

Right now, I'm boiling with anger.
 
I find this belief that feudalism was somehow unique to this period and unique to Europe quite silly. Every large state had feudalism of some kind: i.e. it had to delegate power to subservient local lords because ti was pretty much necessary in a world prior to instant communication, firearms and so on. And when these local lords can build castles, train soldiers and exercise their own patronage, some of them will inevitably become rival to the central government and their liege. Byzantine empire wasn't terribly different, either. They just didn't have all the ceremony and formal stuff around these relations.
 
Don't know who the heck is saying that, since in the stream they pretty clearly said that once you upgrade a tribal holding's primary building to max, you can chose to change the holding into either a castle, making you a feudal lord, or a city if you are on a coast, making you into a merchant republic.
 
victimizer said:
I find this belief that feudalism was somehow unique to this period and unique to Europe quite silly. Every large state had feudalism of some kind: i.e. it had to delegate power to subservient local lords because ti was pretty much necessary in a world prior to instant communication, firearms and so on. And when these local lords can build castles, train soldiers and exercise their own patronage, some of them will inevitably become rival to the central government and their liege. Byzantine empire wasn't terribly different, either. They just didn't have all the ceremony and formal stuff around these relations.
Click to expand...
Except in the ERE, that wasn't hereditary towards the end.
Leon_The_Killer said:
Don't know who the heck is saying that, since in the stream they pretty clearly said that once you upgrade a tribal holding's primary building to max, you can chose to change the holding into either a castle, making you a feudal lord, or a city if you are on a coast, making you into a merchant republic.
Click to expand...
That is NOT non-feudal mechanic. Non-feudal mechanic is making it so that you basically appoint all your vassals.Their land returns to the crown after they are dead without passing the land to their children.
 
darthfanta said:
That is NOT non-feudal mechanic. Non-feudal mechanic is making it so that you basically appoint all your vassals.Their land returns to the crown after they are dead without passing the land to their children.
Click to expand...
... No idea what you're talking about. I heard absolutely nothing about a "bureaucratic" system of managing your realm at all during the stream, let alone the ability to switch to such a system.
 
Except in the ERE, that wasn't hereditary towards the end.
Click to expand...

Feudalism doesn't require hereditary rule. A liege can be powerful enough to ensure that his vassals cannot elect their sons as successors, but its still feudalism.

For example, in the earlier Muslim caliphate, the lieges were strong enough to prevent the governors from appointing their sons to succeed them, but inevitably the central regime weakened at some point and lost that power. But it doens't mean that the governors were not autonomous entities even before that: they had to be because of the limitations of geography and distance if nothing else. They could exercise their own patronage, spend their own money for dissenting political purposes, hire men and train armies etc.
 
Leon_The_Killer said:
... No idea what you're talking about. I heard absolutely nothing about a "bureaucratic" system of managing your realm at all during the stream, let alone the ability to switch to such a system.
Click to expand...
Which is why I'm pissed.

victimizer said:
Feudalism doesn't require hereditary rule. A liege can be powerful enough to ensure that his vassals cannot elect their sons as successors, but its still feudalism.

For example, in the earlier Muslim caliphate, the lieges were strong enough to prevent the governors from appointing their sons to succeed them, but inevitably the central regime weakened at some point and lost that power. But it doens't mean that the governors were not autonomous entities even before that: they had to be because of the limitations of geography and distance if nothing else. They could exercise their own patronage, spend their own money for dissenting political purposes, hire men and train armies etc.
Click to expand...
And they could be dismissed at any point from their office by their ruler.
 
Actually they kind of have made a way for that to happen. In the stream they explained that legalism now unlocks new centralization laws. The higher your centralization the more bureaucratic your lands will be because you trade the amount of vassals you can hold for the amount of demesne you can personally have. By the end of the game you should in theory be able to have an extremely centralized realm that's for the most part under your direct control. It actually meshes very well with EU4 since by then realms had become extremely centralized.

I assume they will tweak this so that historically centralized and bureaucratic realms like the byzantine empire will start with it.
 
klopkr said:
Actually they kind of have made a way for that to happen. In the stream they explained that legalism now unlocks new centralization laws. The higher your centralization the more bureaucratic your lands will be because you trade the amount of vassals you can hold for the amount of demesne you can personally have. By the end of the game you should in theory be able to have an extremely centralized realm that's for the most part under your direct control. It actually meshes very well with EU4 since by then realms had become extremely centralized.

I assume they will tweak this so that historically centralized and bureaucratic realms like the byzantine empire will start with it.
Click to expand...
Seeing paradox as it is, I highly doubt the demesne you can hold at centralization can form a large part of say, the reformed Roman Empire.
 
victimizer said:
Centralization is a silly concept. It really depends on how strong the liege is and how subservient his vassals are.
Click to expand...
And that strength of the liege is dependent upon how much control he has over his officials/vassals.You really can't argue that France under Louis XIV was actually a feudal state. There are clear distinctions between a feudal state and a centralized state.
 
darthfanta said:
And that strength of the liege is dependent upon how much control he has over his officials/vassals.You really can't argue that France under Louis XIV was actually a feudal state. There are clear distinctions between a feudal state and a centralized state.
Click to expand...

Louis XIV ruled in a completely different period when new military technology had created created powerful central governments that simply did not exist during the middle ages. Firearm and cannon technology created a new type of government, which could impose its policies far more effectively than any prior regime, which had to basically assign and trust fortifications to vassals, and along with them entire autonomous armed groups. No rival lord could rebel against Louis XIV effectively because they had no strong power base where to co-ordinate effective resistance and raise forces to fight it, since no wall could keep the king's army at bay.
 
Last edited:
victimizer said:
Louis XIV ruled in a completely different period when new military technology had created created powerful central governments that simply did not exist during the middle ages. Firearm and cannon technology created a new type of government, which could impose its policies far more effectively than prior regimes.
Click to expand...
A regular army is the key,firearm and cannon technology was only part of the equation. There's plenty of powerful centralized governments around the world during the so-called Middle Ages, such as the ERE, the Carolingian empire,the Song Dynasty, a good number of Islamic states.By the 1200s, the Kings of France have control over more than 50% of the kingdom with these areas under governors appointed at the King's pleasure.In Poland, the King pretty much owned all the land. The largest of nobles owned what would be baronies only in game terms. I can't see how you can make a case that centralization doesn't exist in the Middle Ages.

Centralization of France started way earlier than the invention of firearms. The kings were already attacking vassals, seizing their lands and appointing trusted governors over them by the 1200s as I've mentioned.
 
Last edited:
klopkr said:
Actually they kind of have made a way for that to happen. In the stream they explained that legalism now unlocks new centralization laws. The higher your centralization the more bureaucratic your lands will be because you trade the amount of vassals you can hold for the amount of demesne you can personally have. By the end of the game you should in theory be able to have an extremely centralized realm that's for the most part under your direct control. It actually meshes very well with EU4 since by then realms had become extremely centralized.

I assume they will tweak this so that historically centralized and bureaucratic realms like the byzantine empire will start with it.
Click to expand...
I suppose that's one way to look at it, that any non-capital personal demesne a character hold is actually held by a faceless, non-existent bureaucrat... but I'd rather have that displayed in-game, since CK2 is a character-oriented dwarf fortress sandbox.

I'd really like to see landless major houses mechanics introduced by the Republics to be put into use in bureaucracy so that counties/duchies in a highly centralized government can be non-hereditary and freely revokable (not just for ERE) while still being playable. Once a realm loses its centralization (or maybe CA as well), then these counties/duchies will automatically become hereditary to simulate the disintegration of central power and rise of regional powers.

Another way of simulating it would be implementing a "pseudo-regency" for all non-capital personal demesne. So those lands/levies/taxes/baron-vassals are still under your direct control, but someone else is assigned to administrate those counties for you.
 
One way to portray bureacratic feudalism is if some decision or law allows infinite numbers of vassal lord mayors, and then make sure that all your vassals are controlling cities as county capitals. Then none of your vassals are heriditary.
 
darthfanta said:
A regular army is the key,firearm and cannon technology was only part of the equation.
Click to expand...

Firearms were absolutely vital, unless there was some huge geographic advantage that empowered the central government to enforce its policy across a large area effectively with limited delegation of fortifications and armed groups to vassals.

There's plenty of powerful centralized governments around the world during the so-called Middle Ages,
Click to expand...

"more centralized" perhaps, but still feudal. They still had to trust fortifications and autonomous armed groups to vassals. The apparently stronger regimes usually had geographic advantages that are not very well represented in CK2.

such as the ERE,
Click to expand...

But it wasn't really that centralized. The Roman empire trusted armies, fortifications and governorships to subservient lords just like any other regime did at the time. It had differences to European feudalism, but nothing critical in this sense. Constantinople's power waxed and waned depending on the emperor and the geopolitical situation, which is just as I was saying: a fixed centralization value unrelated to the king's person and the situation of the empire doesn't represent the period very well.

the Carolingian empire,
Click to expand...

Which is a perfect example of the impossibility of so-called bureaucratic empires at the time, if they have no geographic features which allow the government to rapidly deploy strong force to constrain powerful vassals (like China).

a good number of Islamic states.
Click to expand...

Or more broadly, middle eastern you should say. Governing traditions in the middle east were the same for all religions really. It's true that middle eastern central governments were more powerful, but this is because of differences in geography: Most notable middle eastern states were established by nomadic soldiers that commanded powerful mobile armies that could traverse the deserts, arids and steppes fast and quickly crush resistance by sedentary populations. So the power was in the hands of nomadic warriors that weren't dependent on fortifications (which were far less prevalent in the middle east). So while the regime was still feudal, a middle eastern king would have to win the trust of smaller group of people, his powerful tribal warriors, in order to govern, while sedentary lords couldn't hope revolt against such warriors, so their trust wasn't needed as much. Of course, there were times when the Middle east was fragmented and this wasn't true: but usually new nomadic realms would step in, either from the steppes or the deserts and reunite the middle east or large parts of it.

By the 1200s, the Kings of France have control over more than 50% of the kingdom with these areas under governors appointed at the King's pleasure.
Click to expand...

Again, in theory.

Any one of those governors could hope to become an established lord if things got bad for the king at some point.
 
Last edited:
Darktrip said:
One way to portray bureacratic feudalism is if some decision or law allows infinite numbers of vassal lord mayors, and then make sure that all your vassals are controlling cities as county capitals. Then none of your vassals are heriditary.
Click to expand...
They aren't appointed by you though and they have that -30 opinion.

@Victimizer

I'm not going to respond to your quote point to point because I'm using my ipad right now.

There's a strong difference between feudal and centralized. A country isn't feudal just because the ruler is delegating his authority to an individual. What distinguishes feudal or non-feudal is if the local subordinate has a term limit to his position and vitally, if his position is hereditary or not. By your definition, the Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas (which historians acknowledged Spain has a centralized control over)would have been entirely feudal because the King of Spain delegated vast powers to the Viceroys to act in his interest, despite the fact that there's a term limit to the post and that the Viceroy has to defer much matters to the Council of the Indies and the King.

None of the governorships in the ERE was hereditary until post-1204.None of the governors rebelled against taxes or the emperor meddling in his province. They rebelled because they were gunning for his throne. By no means were provinces viewed as private personal properties unlike the ones in Western Europe.

Carolingian empire didn't show the impossibility of bureaucratic regimes.It just showed that gavelkind succession is bad. Central authority declined due to wars between different claimants.There's also no regular army to enforce their rule. The ERE did.

The governors under Kings of France weren't feudal lord hopefuls. Many of them had fixed terms and weren't even noble. .They don't have the full power of a lord.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back