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Well, it's Friday and high time to spill the beans on the new expansion for Crusader Kings II; the Sword of Islam. Judging by the forum, playable Muslims is the most requested feature for CKII, and who are we to disagree? We always wanted to do it, provided we could do the Muslim world justice. That time is now (or, well, soon :) ). As with the Ruler Designer DLC, the Sword of Islam will be released together with a major content patch. What you get with the Sword of Islam is simply the ability to play as the Muslim rulers, but all the new mechanics will be there and running for the AI (or other players in multiplayer) even if you don't have the expansion.

I'll be doing three dev diaries on the Sword of Islam, each one dealing with some unique features for the Muslims as well as some free features that everyone will have access to simply by patching to 1.06.

THE SWORD OF ISLAM

One of the major hassles with making Muslims playable was the prevalence of text with obviously Christian or Western terminology. Therefore, we had to go through all text to make it fit the setting if you are playing a Muslim. Often, this required writing whole new events and decisions. For example, Muslims don't hold tournaments, they have the Furusiyya instead, which is an exhibition of martial arts and horsemanship. They don't hold Grand Feasts, they observe the Ramadan, etc. We also added some completely new decisions, like going on the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), which will initiate a cool little event driven story of what happens on the way to and from the holy city. Of course, there is also a whole slew of events dealing with various new gameplay features (more on that in later dev diaries.)

Another issue we needed to solve was the Gothic looking graphical interface of Crusader Kings II, which we felt did not really work when playing as a Muslim ruler. So we did a complete reskin with sand tones and green symbols and patterns instead of the church window graphics of Christian rulers. Yet another problem was that many event pictures looked distinctly Western/Christian, so we've added about 25 new ones to serve as Muslim equivalents. Then there are all the little things, like trait icons with crosses, the Crusade banner, etc. All of that has been changed to provide the right atmosphere. We've even changed the five councillor models for Muslims when they're out in the provinces performing jobs. It's all been a lot of work, but I think it turned out really well.

Muslims get a slightly different set of character traits; they don't get the Kinslayer, Crusader, Celibate and Chaste Traits. Instead, they get the Mujahid, Hajjaj, Faqih (Islamic law expert), Hafiz (has memorized the Koran), Sayyid (agnatic descendent of Fatima or one of Muhammad's uncles) and Mirza (child of a Sayyida mother) traits.

Lastly, Muslims get another set of honorary titles to hand out to their vassals. They all get a few special flavour events - especially the Chief Qadi - a position requiring an ecclesiastical education.

SoI_04.jpg

That's it for the Sword of Islam in this dev diary; next time I will go into the core dynamics of playing as a Muslim ruler.

THE 1.06 PATCH

Now then, here's some of the free stuff we're giving ya'll in the 1.06 patch...

First off, we thought the southwest corner of the map looked a bit dull, so we added a bunch of new provinces down there, representing the flourishing civilizations of the Manden people; Ghana, Mali and Songhay. The area comes with historical rulers (of course) and a new West African culture group. The region is rich but hard to reach.

SoI_05.jpg

For flavour, we have also made it so that duchy tier and above titles held by rulers of Iranian, Arabic and Turkish cultures are named after the ruling dynasty. For example, the Kingdom of Egypt automatically becomes the Fatimid Sultanate while the Fatimids are in power (though the original name is also used where appropriate.) In case the same dynasty holds several high rank titles, only the highest is named after the dynasty. Thus, we can have both a Seljuk Sultanate and a Sultanate of Rum, both ruled by the Seljuk dynasty. Randomly generated characters of these cultures automatically get a dynasty name suitable to name states after (ending with -id or -n, etc).

SoI_01.jpg

Lastly (for this dev diary), there are seven new creatable empires (the Arabian Empire, the Empire of Persia, Britannia, Scandinavia, Francia, Spain and Russia) and a whole slew of new de jure kingdoms, mostly to break up the old kingdom of Khazaria. Now, I know the addition of the new empires is controversial, but the creation conditions are designed to be fairly difficult to achieve, so the AI will very rarely do it. We want players to have the imperial option to strive for if they so desire - the Unions turned out to be a popular feature in Europa Universalis III.

SoI_02.jpg

Oh, and before anyone asks, patch 1.06 will be semi-compatible with old save games: you will be able to keep playing, but we're making no guarantees that the balance will not be completely upset, or that any added new provinces will be active and working.

That's it for now. Next week I'll talk about polygamy, decadence, and strong and weak claims!
 
Would you propose that paradox called them "Level 1-2-3-4" instead? Empires is a convenient catchall for suprakingdom titles and doesn't necessarily have to be mean the historically legal term from the medieval period applying to the HRE and Byzantium (and it's successor empires, Trebizond, Nikaea, Russia later on, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Ottoman Empire), but rather the sense in which it is used in the modern era, applying to large crown unions (North Sea, Spain and Polish-Lithuania are potential examples), large dynasties (the Crowns of Argon/Argonese Empire, Angevin Empire etc), to the transliteral use for non-European suprakingdoms (Mali for example, and China which is outside the scope of this game), there is no other appropriate term in the english language for these large territorial dominions which would sound or seem more appropriate in CK2's medieval setting, that doesn't mean that all other empires should be excluded with the exception of the HRE and ERE.

Speaking of "... there is no other appropriate term in the English language ...", it would be nice if Paradox would include different names for "Empire as in Roman Empire" and "empire the generic title" (in the localisation files), since other languages do make a distinction ("Kaisertum"/"Kaiserreich" vs. "Imperium" in German, "cesarstwo" vs. "imperium" in Polish and so on).
 
Would you propose that paradox called them "Level 1-2-3-4" instead? Empires is a convenient catchall for suprakingdom titles and doesn't necessarily have to be mean the historically legal term from the medieval period applying to the HRE and Byzantium (and it's successor empires, Trebizond, Nikaea, Russia later on, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Ottoman Empire), but rather the sense in which it is used in the modern era, applying to large crown unions (North Sea, Spain and Polish-Lithuania are potential examples), large dynasties (the Crowns of Argon/Argonese Empire, Angevin Empire etc), to the transliteral use for non-European suprakingdoms (Mali for example, and China which is outside the scope of this game), there is no other appropriate term in the english language for these large territorial dominions which would sound or seem more appropriate in CK2's medieval setting, that doesn't mean that all other empires should be excluded with the exception of the HRE and ERE.

As you have said yourself, it is all easily modded post-release, and thus as I previously said, it really *is* a non-issue.
High Kingdom. Grand Kingdom/Princedom/Duchy. Simply Kingdom even works.
 
And would result in confusion. High Kingdom is about as historical as Empire, and doesn't quite sound as good in most instances, Grand Kingdom as far as I know never existed, a Princedom was equal to or lesser than a Kingdom, a Duchy/Archduchy/Grand Duchy was lesser than a Kingdom, although in some cases their temporal power was equal to or greater than, but hardly imperial.

AND it's something that can be done via a mod post-release, and doesn't need to be done using up more of Paradox's time that could be spent somewhere else (it's a few minutes, sure, but it's still time).

On High King, correct me if I'm wrong, but the only instance I know of it being used as an actual contemporary (in a transliteral way) term was Ireland, and that hardly was an Empire.
 
High Kingdom. Grand Kingdom/Princedom/Duchy. Simply Kingdom even works.
But there were emperors...

That sentence is perfect.
It's true that none of the 'lesser' empires were around long enough to establish true political legitimacy and get into the popular history books
 
And would result in confusion. High Kingdom is about as historical as Empire, and doesn't quite sound as good in most instances, Grand Kingdom as far as I know never existed, a Princedom was equal to or lesser than a Kingdom, a Duchy/Archduchy/Grand Duchy was lesser than a Kingdom, although in some cases their temporal power was equal to or greater than, but hardly imperial.

AND it's something that can be done via a mod post-release, and doesn't need to be done using up more of Paradox's time that could be spent somewhere else (it's a few minutes, sure, but it's still time).

Can't see the problem. A count already has a different name in-game depending on its culture, as in count/earl/sheikh and such.
 
Can't see the problem. A count already has a different name in-game depending on its culture, as in count/earl/sheikh and such.
I agree. I'd say High Kingdom is considerably less confusing than Caliphate, and especially Beylerbeylik.
 
The 'empire' for medieval persons meant the Roman Empire. There could, in the eyes of medieval people, be no other empire than that of Rome. The Emperor was THE protector of Christianity. There could be only one.

The West, after 800AD. wouldn't have tolerated anyone else but the successors of Charlemagne and the East wouldn't have tolerated anyone but the successor of Constantine. If you want to be the emperor, usurp one or both.

Empire =/= huge kingdom
Empire = Roman Empire.

Also, Constantine Chlorus never was 'Emperor of Spain'. There were 4 people at that time sharing in the title of Emperor of Rome. And the meaning of the word has also shifted since antiquity as I earlier said.
 
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Can't see the problem. A count already has a different name in-game depending on its culture, as in count/earl/sheikh and such.

Riiight, so you have a problem with ahistorical "Emperors" but not ahistorical "High Kings" and such?
That isn't logical at all.

And for the third or fourth time, it's something that can be done via modding post-release.
 
Riiight, so you have a problem with ahistorical "Emperors" but not ahistorical "High Kings" and such? That isn't logical at all.

I have a problem (not that big of a problem, actually) with tier5 rulers getting de iure titles from the get-go. I have no problem whatsoever in having each of those tier5 rulers a different name for their titles depending on what's more suitable for their culture.

For example, in Spain, I'd just leave it as king. nothing more added to it.
 
Riiight, so you have a problem with ahistorical "Emperors" but not ahistorical "High Kings" and such?
That isn't logical at all.

And for the third or fourth time, it's something that can be done via modding post-release.
"King" would make historical sense for most of the empires. Much more so than "emperor" at least.
 
I have a problem (not that big of a problem, actually) with tier5 rulers getting de iure titles from the get-go. I have no problem whatsoever in having each of those tier5 rulers a different name for their titles depending on what's more suitable for their culture.

For example, in Spain, I'd just leave it as king. nothing more added to it.

I'm not against "localised" names, but it's not something Paradox themselves need to trouble themselves with, it's something for modders. Using Emperor as a catchall allows faster implimentation, and is easier for avoiding confusion with players not otherwise realising it's an Empire-level title.


Also; it can all be done post-release, via modding. This whole thing really is a pointless exercise in pedantism. I've already volunteered to make the mod, even.
 
Also; it can all be done post-release, via modding. This whole thing really is a pointless exercise in pedantism. I've already volunteered to make the mod, even.
That's not a very good argument. Vanilla should always be made as good as possible, regardless of moddability.
 
Reposted in response to above. It's not all about you, it's an ahistorical simulator, if you don't like the changes they make, remove the Empires yourself in a mod. You purchased a license for the product, not the right to dictate how everyone else should enjoy it.

Yes I'm going to continue requoting myself until an admin/moderator says otherwise, since everyone else is rehashing the "ME ME ME" argument for not including additional content in patches/dlc that they don't want.

Actually your doing the same, you and others like the changes some others don't. Isn't a forum a place for discussion? Both sides actually give good input in this discussion, in fact some of those against this feature give good explanations for their opinion.
So (a bit exaggerated) you say that everyone who disagrees or isn't satisfied about something should just shut up and is only allowed to praise changes even if they think these aren't for the better? Again maybe I formulated that a bit too strong, but I think a debate about this subject is better.
It's absolutely brilliant that everyone can mod Paradox games, but that doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to voice your opinion, both in favor or against, about changes they're making, in fact I'd call that feedback. If no one would give her/his opinion things wouldn't be good either, it are opinions and it obviously is Paradox which will make the final decisions, but it does give them in insight on how (some) of their customers think about certain changes.
In fact it only focuses on the more controversial changes/features, the majority isn't a problem.

Furthermore it isn't an ahistorical nor a historical simulator, but it is a game in a medieval setting. Given some of the debates on this (sub) forum, there even isn't a real consensus here, what that medieval setting should be (like the discussion here about extra empires :)).
 
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I'm not against "localised" names, but it's not something Paradox themselves need to trouble themselves with, it's something for modders. Using Emperor as a catchall allows faster implimentation, and is easier for avoiding confusion with players not otherwise realising it's an Empire-level title.

It's something Paradox has already troubled itself to do, as you will see by entering the vanilla game and checking what the names given to the same title in different cultures are. :p

It takes all of five minutes for PI to do it pre-release, if they find it worthwhile to do it, and they are usually happy to listen to suggestions by us fans, so I can't see a problem with us asking for it. ;)

If it doesn't make it into the game, well... no probs. I won't be upset, or start a rant in the forums, or anything. I'll just modd it, or use a modd thay implements it, and that's it. But I really can't find a reason for you to fight so vehemently against other forumites educated, non-aggresive suggestions.
 
That's not a very good argument. Vanilla should always be made as good as possible, regardless of moddability.

Right, and your argument is that not including new content unless it has localised names is a good argument?

@tommassi; Yes, they have localised translations, but not localised names. For example King = Koenig, which is apt, but they don't have Markgraf for the historical margraves (instead they're lumped in with Count/Graf), which is closer to what your issue is. Thus german cultured emperors of Scandinavia will be Kaiser, and not Emperor.
 
The 'empire' for medieval persons meant the Roman Empire.
The 'church' for (some) modern persons means the Roman Catholic Church. And yet plenty of other religions also call themselves churches. Catholics might grumble and complain that the other groups are not really THE Church, but they don't have a copyright on the term.

Same for 'empire' in mediaeval times. Plenty of people called themselves emperors without claiming to be the Roman Emperor.


Also, Constantine Chlorus never was 'Emperor of Spain'.
I know that. You know that. But mediaeval people were capable of coming up with even more tenuous justifications for political purposes.

If history didn't quite match what they wanted it to say, they decided that the history books must be wrong and should be altered. See: Donation of Constantine in the Papacy, Salic Law in France, Privilegium Maius in Austria. Mediaeval history is full of ancient and hallowed laws and traditions that turn out, on closer examination, to have been invented out of thin air to suit the political purposes of powerful rulers.
 
When have I ever argued that?

Very well.
"Your opinion is that without localised titles, the game wouldn't be as good as you feel it would be, which isn't a reason to change their already completed additional content."

You are using subjective POV opinions, I am using what I believe to be logic. They are implimenting the closest approximation of what they feel is fun, what they want to include in the game and which they feel will enhance the enjoyment of the game for the greater number of their customers. There is a greater number of people either for or of neutral/no opinion on the changes than there is against, yet many of the posts made by the individuals against sound insulting toward the developers who have put time into adding the new content, and come off as dismissive of the larger "neutral/for" group of customers, and if you don't believe that, go and re-read many of the posts against the changes and you'll see what I mean, why do you think the developers have stopped responding?*

I'm not against further changes, but I am against others trying to force changes that aren't necessary onto the majority and for insinuating through their arguments that a person's work is crap and irrelevant simply because it doesn't fit with their world view. There's a word for those people, and my personal opinion is that this whole thing is downright out of order (not you personally Meneth, your posts are amongst the few "neutral-to-against" posts that aren't insulting) and completely pointless.

*Further from this, several times people have suggested compromises and alternatives, no one has accepted unanimously any of them, how do you please everyone? You don't, logically you go with either what you feel is best, or what the majority wants. In this case, and for simplicities reason, Empire works, and in Paradox's case, unlike the majority of all other companies, they give us the ability to change it to what we do want post factum.

And now I'm done, my son is home, I'm off to be a father. Have fun arguing some more over irrelevant points of historical jargon, I've said my piece.

One final word: Great job Paradox on being the diamond in the rough of the gaming market for the past decade I've been buying and modding your games, no matter what changes you make to the games themselves, stay the way you are and i'll keep doing so for the next decade ;)
 
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Very well.
"Your opinion is that without localised titles, the game wouldn't be as good as you feel it would be, which isn't a reason to change their already completed additional content."

You are using subjective POV opinions, I am using what I believe to be logic.
My opinion is that wherever it does not hinder gameplay, the game should be as historical as reasonably possible.
Not calling tier5 titles (except HRE, ERE, Latin Empire, and non-Christian empires) empires seems "reasonably possible" to me.