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I think the best solution would be to replace the emperor title with sort of a "high king" title. It'll be the same rank as emperor but it'll be more historical.
 
It would have made sense to add the ability to create a titular empire when you have four kingdom titles. Then after 100 years of de jure drift you would have a real empire, entirely justifiable by your alternate history.
I like the Idea. Empires are cool; but not the gazillion dejure claims it gives.
 
most people fail to see that 'de jure' is a game element, if you want to question 'de jure' empires and remove them, then from a historical perspective you would have to remove 'de jure' kingdoms as well. 'de jure' is there to make it easier for the player to form kingdoms or empires, based on established historical entities.
having the freedom to form a kingdom out of let's say 4 duchies and an empire out of 3 kingdoms would give full dynamics and reflect how 'ream building' occured in history. some mods added this. either you make the game that open - and have a lot of people crying about authenticity - or you have 'de jure' realms prepared to help the player and the AI develop a close to real history - and again have a lot of people crying about authenticity.
 
Rome was multicultural and had a pretty much de iure position in the middle ages. So much so that the Emperor's claims to be able to meddle with the laws of European kings were not actually considered totally baseless. Sometimes things worked that way. The emperor could also create royal crowns within Europe. He was mentioned in some religious services, basically being the secular head of Christendom, at least in certain periods.

Basically, IMHO almost all of Western Europe could be depicted as de iure Roman Empire, and even the ERE would fall within the same de iure Roman Empire. Emperors would arise to rule parts of it as emperors if they managed to tap themselves into the Roman legacy and find recognition.

Heh, I wonder if the HRE should in fact be a titular title without ability to assimilate anything, transferable by inheritance but also through intrigue, wars, some actions with the pope.

The problem is while the HREmperor was the depositor of the dignity of the Roman Emperor, the Imperium (the power of the emperor) rest in the Pope. I never heard anytime that the HREmperor was the head of Christendom. The Emperor could not meddle with Kings law, those where sealed by the pope during the investiture and by the assembly of the peers or of the "representation" of the society. What I'm saying is that "emperor" is a title that is unique to Europe and no other could have in reality been legally created while the HRE was in place. King title in contrary like their equivalent in ancient Rome a dignity awarded no matter what the land beneath it could be created in the early middle age (see the Kingdom of Hungary), but once it was created it could not be "meddle with" unless the Pope or the previously mentionned assembly modify the rules.
 
most people fail to see that 'de jure' is a game element, if you want to question 'de jure' empires and remove them, then from a historical perspective you would have to remove 'de jure' kingdoms as well. 'de jure' is there to make it easier for the player to form kingdoms or empires, based on established historical entities.
having the freedom to form a kingdom out of let's say 4 duchies and an empire out of 3 kingdoms would give full dynamics and reflect how 'ream building' occured in history. some mods added this. either you make the game that open - and have a lot of people crying about authenticity - or you have 'de jure' realms prepared to help the player and the AI develop a close to real history - and again have a lot of people crying about authenticity.

This is a valid point, for example there were no de jure kingdoms of Finland or Aquitaine during this game period. Historicallly Aquitaine should be part of Kingdom of France, while Finland shouldn't be part of any de jure kingdom or divided between Sweden (Duchy of Finland) and Kievan Rus (Karelia). While I haven't had time to play much with the latest patch, I doubt that the new de jure empires make game any less historical than those de jure kingdoms. I think that biggest issue some people have with these new emperors (or call them high kings if it makes you more happier) is the Christian view about the Roman Empire. But historically becoming king of kings isn't impossible as there are several occasions during the middle ages when king was overlord of other kings, but from gameplay perspective there must be empire-tier to make that possible.
 
I can't imagine any European Christian ruler would have dared label himself 'king of kings' -- purely because that title is often associated with Christ.

That is what ancient Persian rulers called themselves, though that was obviously pre-Christianity.
 
I can't imagine any European Christian ruler would have dared label himself 'king of kings' -- purely because that title is often associated with Christ.

That is what ancient Persian rulers called themselves, though that was obviously pre-Christianity.

Luckily threre's also Ethiopia in the game where Solomonic rulers of Kingdom of Axum used that title during the middle ages. Also king George III of Georgia added title Shahanshah (king of kings) to his list of titles and some of his successors also used this title. Personally I just used it to describe king who is overlord of other kings, because the term high king refers more to a king who is nominal overlord of petty kings. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be proper term for such medieval kings who ruled over other kings, because while they used title king they often used imperial terminology and symbols in their rhetorics without actually proclaiming the empire.
 
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No. The idea of a state based on shared culture is not part of the politics of the time period.

Depends where, and with stress on culture as being different from the DNA sort of ethnicity. Tribal identity was alive in many parts of Europe and was in important factor, no matter if Westphalian-style states were not around yet.

For example, the Russians united against the Tartars, the Lithuanians against the Teutonic Knights, the quarrelling Poles united against Germanic and other invaders (or competing settlers). There were also the Sicilian Vespers and at least two other similar events of slaying everybody who could not pronounce a certain set of words (generally the beginning of 14th century, I can think of Cracow in Poland and of Flemish uprisings as an example).

So even though national states didn't really exist, national sentiments did. And tribal sentiments certainly had not died. It was only certain parts of Europe where they eroded more than elsewhere.

The problem is while the HREmperor was the depositor of the dignity of the Roman Emperor, the Imperium (the power of the emperor) rest in the Pope.

As of Canossa and as of Dictatus Papae, maybe. But oftentimes the Emperor had the upper hand and popes sometimes died in exile. Caesaropapism was dominant in the Byzantine Empire.

I never heard anytime that the HREmperor was the head of Christendom.

At least in an honorary sense he was the secular head of the entire post-Roman Christian civilisation. This was particularly strong in the Byzantine Empire but not exclusively so.

The Emperor could not meddle with Kings law, those where sealed by the pope during the investiture and by the assembly of the peers or of the "representation" of the society. What I'm saying is that "emperor" is a title that is unique to Europe and no other could have in reality been legally created while the HRE was in place. King title in contrary like their equivalent in ancient Rome a dignity awarded no matter what the land beneath it could be created in the early middle age (see the Kingdom of Hungary), but once it was created it could not be "meddle with" unless the Pope or the previously mentionned assembly modify the rules.

That's the popular view but the balance of power was not always in the pope's favour. At any rate, the Pope would obviously be the person to talk with about a new translatio imperii (e.g. the King of France trying to attach the HRE to the Kingdom of France and away from the Kingdom of Germany).

This is a valid point, for example there were no de jure kingdoms of Finland or Aquitaine during this game period. Historicallly Aquitaine should be part of Kingdom of France, while Finland shouldn't be part of any de jure kingdom or divided between Sweden (Duchy of Finland) and Kievan Rus (Karelia).

I'm no fan of Aquitaine in a sense that would exaggerate the role of Kings of France as foreigners, invaders, usurpers and such like, even though I think the Kingdom of Aquitaine is not entirely out of the question, along with Frisia. Probably better than Bavaria.

While I haven't had time to play much with the latest patch, I doubt that the new de jure empires make game any less historical than those de jure kingdoms.

Fantasy empires by definition make the game less historical than exaggerated/stretched tribal kingdoms from the post-Roman era. The degree of ahistoricity is higher and also the territorial extent is, meaning the impact is greater on at least two important levels.

I think that biggest issue some people have with these new emperors (or call them high kings if it makes you more happier) is the Christian view about the Roman Empire.

Not only. I think it's more important that those empires never existed. Something that has never existed before cannot be considered a de iure empire. De iure is something that has been in existence so long before that tradition holds it as a viable concept even despite a temporary collapse (e.g. 50 years without a king). For example imagine that France collapses in a rebellion. Claimants flee to Hungary (the favourite place for claimants, I guess the climate is good and they say they make good wine there). Somebody puts 50% of the lands back together, the kingdom comes back to being after an interruption. This is that sort of thing. Or the clearly delineated Lotharingia, the once imperial kingdom, that stopped being ruled as a separate ruler at some point. Or Burgundy, which was functional in early 11th century. Or Bohemia, which basically had royal aspirations as a (semi-)independent tribal state under powerful rulers.

Now, there was never at any point an Empire of Scandinavia. Or France. Or Brittannia. Russian Empire required the collapse of the Byzantine empire, the religious (Orthodoxy) and dynastic (marriage to a Byzantine heiress) links to even put the whole "third Rome" business in motion. It still took decades to rise above the princely title (recognition being a different problem) and only in 1721 did the imperial title materialise.

Spain is a little bit of a different matter but the "imperial" title was probably primarily a device to assert superiority over the many other small-timers with royal crowns, based on seniority of the royal title and house, more than anything more serious than that. And it was very short-lived and certainly can't have been said to be a de iure thing. It was an exemplary titular creation (just like the Kingdom of Cyprus etc.).

It's basically pure fantasy to claim that such empires existed as de iure realms.

But historically becoming king of kings isn't impossible as there are several occasions during the middle ages when king was overlord of other kings, but from gameplay perspective there must be empire-tier to make that possible.

I'm not so sure of that and one could always move emperors one tier up and put "high kings" in between. I think especially dukes should have the ability to have other dukes as vassals (1-2, not 5 as a rule).

I can't imagine any European Christian ruler would have dared label himself 'king of kings' -- purely because that title is often associated with Christ.

The Byzantine emperor maybe but only that one.

(Somebody mentioned Persia: that obviously was not a European Christian ruler.)

The typical device in history is to refer to one of the equally titled ruler as the "high king", "high duke" etc. Not so much to elevate him above kings from the outside as to denote his superiority over the smaller kings within a certain broader group of tribes or a once united kingdom. So a High King of All Britain (shouldn't include Ireland) if it had ever materialised, wouldn't have been much more exalted than the king of a united Hungary or France.

Having crowned kings as your vassals elevates your station but there's a limit to how (re)unification can put you above the ruler of a kingdom that had never been fragmented into smaller ones (or never for too long).

I think the best solution would be to replace the emperor title with sort of a "high king" title. It'll be the same rank as emperor but it'll be more historical.

Plus a different border around the portrait? I'm talking about the purple garlands.

I never claimed that it did, I just presented my theory why Finland is part of Scandinavia and not part of Uralic, Russian or some other de jure empire. It's the same thing as in EUIII, where Scandinavia gets cores to Finland when you create it. Generally these new empires belong to same category with unhistorical kingdoms, in CKII, EUIII and other Paradox titles, which player can form if he plays well enough. I wouldn't mind strictly historical setting, but these kingdoms and empires are popular among the players.

I'd be in favour of being able to create a unified Scandinavia, even as an empire and even as a de iure empire with de iure provinces from the day of formation. But it shouldn't pre-exist on the de iure map, pretending to have existed before. Just as the the Kalmar Union remained 3 kingdoms (unless you count every kingdom that appeared in the kings' titulatures, including the Goths ;)), I think becoming an emperor there should require at least a token decision from the player to create something new. Not implementing an old de iure thing.

What I find strange is that they still left kingdoms out. Where is the love for the Central European kindoms? You could just make up a "Carpathian Empire" of whatever and inculde them in one.

Carpathian Empire would be especially awful.

And yes, there are kingdoms in the centre of Europe that are outside any empire. I'd uninstall CK2 and never looked back if Poland were included in either the HRE or the Russian Empire. But this does leave Poland, Lithuania and Hungary outside any creatable territorial empire.

Also, I believe the Kingdom of Italy should probably go back under the HRE. This would be politically incorrect but historically accurate. "De iure" doesn't mean "fair".

I love this idea.

So do I. Well, basically, just a titular empire with a name of your choosing (dynasty name, primary royal title, all royal titles, culture group name, whatever). Incidentally, that's how it was done in the East, where the emperor (and autocrat) of the Romans was followed by Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks and so on.
 
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Separate post because I'd like to make a different argument, gameplay related:

Players shouldn't get a free out of jail card when they overextend themselves.

If you have a large realm, you need to learn to manage it, avoid the rebellions, crush them, prevent vassals from becoming too powerful to handle.

If you have plenty of people who desire your second kingdom, you can destroy the title and live through the opinion penalty period until it dies.

Or you may decide that it's better to give it away, preferably to someone from your dynasty.

And if you want to expand through assassination spam and matrilineal marriages of invited claims who are your courtiers and can't refuse etc., then you might as well plot your way into one or other imperial throne (people have even engineered the inheritance of Golden Horde by a European monarch). All of this requires creativity, diligence, responsiveness, care, attention to details, ability to multitask, keep track of things and process mentally all the possible results. In short: Stewardship and Intrigue. ;) (And perhaps some Martial to play the wars and some Diplomacy to get the good alliances and avoid the bad ones.)

With a fictional de iure empire, you can just stick with serial claim fabrication and collect the counties and duchies until you get enough land to create that fictional empire which was put on the map precisely so that you could become an emperor without overexerting yourself.

This is why I believe fictional empires are a bad thing from a gameplay POV too. They'll promote laziness (and positional MP games with a map of Europe divided between 5 emperors: 1 in each corner and 1 in the centre or so) instead of diligence and cleverness.
 
I'm no fan of Aquitaine in a sense that would exaggerate the role of Kings of France as foreigners, invaders, usurpers and such like, even though I think the Kingdom of Aquitaine is not entirely out of the question, along with Frisia. Probably better than Bavaria.

Fantasy empires by definition make the game less historical than exaggerated/stretched tribal kingdoms from the post-Roman era. The degree of ahistoricity is higher and also the territorial extent is, meaning the impact is greater on at least two important levels.

Actually I'm less troubled with these new empires, because AI will almost never create those. But kingdoms of Aquitaine and those small kingdoms in HRE are created regularly. While I don't mind having ahistorical creatable kingdoms in areas where there was no historical kingdoms, I think that inserting fantasy kingdoms into areas which had well defined historical kingdoms is a bigger sin. There were no other kingdoms in France in this era and HRE had only 4 kingdoms Germany, Italy, Burgundy and Bohemia.

I'm not so sure of that and one could always move emperors one tier up and put "high kings" in between. I think especially dukes should have the ability to have other dukes as vassals (1-2, not 5 as a rule).

We have occasionally asked from Paradox if it's possible to have same tier vassals since CKI, but answer has always been that it's impossible to be vassal of same tier ruler. I don't know how willing they are to add grand prince and high king -tiers and if it's even possible without major overhaul of the entire game.
 
So even though national states didn't really exist, national sentiments did. And tribal sentiments certainly had not died. It was only certain parts of Europe where they eroded more than elsewhere.

I really, really have to strongly disagree with this. The scholarly consensus is that nationalism as an ethos is a product of the era of print. Read Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" if you don't believe me, he makes a better case than I ever could.

Although it's true that sometimes the people who would later come to be seen as national communities fought on the same side, they were not motivated to do so by a belief in their shared national identity, regardless of what later national historians might claim in an attempt to establish their nation's supposed roots in the mists of time. All of your examples fall under that category.
 
How come every time PI adds something to this game, everyone just seems to complain and complain. Enjoy what you get or just stop playing. No one is forcing you to play this game.
 
Regarding the original question, those empires are that by definition, but a reason why they were added, was because the majority wanted it.
In quite some previous posts in other threads, I already made it clear that I'm not a fan of this feature; and I'll leave it with that.

Regarding the present discussion here the HRE was at least the nominal secular head of the Catholic world. A few were reasonably successful, whereas others merely had the dignity. However the Pope and the emperor were the only ones, who could create kingdoms. Nonetheless the Pope wasn't all powerful either, and the position of most of the Christian (Catholic) realms also depended on the qualities of the current ruler.

@Mitchmon: We voice our opinion, because we care; haven't you ever heard about feedback? IMHO everyone should be able to tell whether they like things or not, in fact that might even be healthy for PI. Sure we'll respect the final decision, most likely we'll eventually mod it, but why should you keep quiet, if you feel the current direction doesn't feel right for you.
 
Something that has never existed before cannot be considered a de iure empire. De iure is something that has been in existence so long before that tradition holds it as a viable concept even despite a temporary collapse (e.g. 50 years without a king).

The problem is that in CKII "De Jure" does not mean that. De jure territory in CKII is an abstraction that gives the title holder a valid CB against the de facto ruler (plus crown law stuff, but that's a relatively minor function). As I see it the best reason for having these empires exist de jure is that it immediately gives you valid CB's for the rest of the provinces. If I start calling myself "Imperator totius Hispaniae" and a Spanish ruler doesn't submit to my suzerainty, you better believe I'd have a valid reason to declare war on him.

To put it this in a much more confusing way, while "De Jure" may mean "de iure" de jure, in CKII "De Jure" does not mean "de iure" de facto. :p
 
Oh pahleeeze must we always have these "not historically accurate" threads? CK2 isn't about being historically accurate or an historical simulation. I don't know why these historians think it is or even buy these types of games. It's nothing more than a risklike game in a medieval time period with somewhat plausible settings and units and nothing more than a dynasty building game through the ages with a teeny weeny bit of strategy involved. Hell my 8 year old nephew can play this game and he doesn't care anything about historical. lol
 
Oh pahleeeze must we always have these "not historically accurate" threads? CK2 isn't about being historically accurate or an historical simulation. I don't know why these historians think it is or even buy these types of games. It's nothing more than a risklike game in a medieval time period with somewhat plausible settings and units and nothing more than a dynasty building game through the ages with a teeny weeny bit of strategy involved. Hell my 8 year old nephew can play this game and he doesn't care anything about historical. lol

Crusader Kings II had much more historical set up when it was released, now with each patch there is more fantasy kingdoms. This is a change from previous policy, which Paradox followed since CKI was published in 2004. I miss more historical set up without kingdoms of Bavaria, Lotharingia etc. which were introduced in a recent patch. I think I have every right to complain, because those kingdoms make playing as French or German duke or count less fun. Earlier usurping France or creating/usurping Germany was much more challenging i. e. more fun. These mini-kingdoms are unhistorical and too easy to create. Also creating fantasy empire should have 5000 piety demand or something like that to make it very rare, then it would be a proper challenge.
 
@ MasterofMagic: IMHO Olaus Petrus does have a valid point that Crusader kings II started with a much more historical set up. For them and to some extent also me (don't get me wrong less 'controversial' changes are great), these patches make changes to things that they actually liked very much.

Another reason is the potential challenge, but many first buyers knew CK1 and were a bit of 'experienced', which new buyers may not be, so that may not be too appropriate.

However I think I'm right to conclude from all these discussions, that CK2 has a varied audience; and yes some like more 'historicity' (not the same as pure historical) and others like more fantasy or more fantastical outcomes.

Furthermore I'm much more tired about people with a different opinion, complaining about someone else with another opinion. BTW yes I disagree with your description about the game, but perhaps we just seek a different challenge. :)
 
Calling it a lack of accuracy is odd. Can empires not be formed out of nothing? Did the Roman Empire conquer and usurp some other empire I'm not aware of before it could be called an empire? And how did one empire split into two empires, if the only way to become an empire is to take over one that already existed?

Because that's how medieval legitimacy worked. You didn't just get to make up titles. Empire meant Roman.