Merchant Republic DLC

I would like if you can still play a dynasty. And a senat or council is a must have! The best is if you play a dynasty of the council and you try to become Doge/Mayor. Or you try to stay on the 'throne'.

I think it could definitely be doable. Try and spread your dynasty across a bunch of mayoral/grand-mayoral/doge (don't remember if there is a king and emperor level equivalent titles) and rake in the money? Should you lose the Doge title by election (or, more likely, internecine conflict/plot) then you'd have plenty of landed relatives to fall back on.

I would prefer a dynastic merchant family. Everything is elective (except for baronies possibly). Your job is to forge a political dynasty. You want to get your family voted in every new term. There are still claims, but they must stay elective. You can also grant these titles to people, but it's more like "appointing" them to such offices. Also, if they do release this DLC (which I am not terrible extremely excited for), PI should also instal Naval Battles.

I can see both sides of this. I think it would be great to have a playable republic but I see it being hard to do in terms of game play if they want to stay true to the dynasty approach. Certainly Venice and Genoa were dominated by a few strong families that keep showing up in the list of doges but at the same time no family always had power. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to spend years out of power trying to get back in charge only to look on in horror as the AI doge makes horrible decisions. Actually that might be kind of fun challenge, still I can see people getting upset that they can't control the decisions all the time.

kal56 said:

I can see both sides of this. I think it would be great to have a playable republic but I see it being hard to do in terms of game play if they want to stay true to the dynasty approach. Certainly Venice and Genoa were dominated by a few strong families that keep showing up in the list of doges but at the same time no family always had power. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to spend years out of power trying to get back in charge only to look on in horror as the AI doge makes horrible decisions. Actually that might be kind of fun challenge, still I can see people getting upset that they can't control the decisions all the time.

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The DLC should probably expand upon dynastic relations as well as political intrigue for settings like this. Of course, they might as well just make another game, maybe.

I don't really see a need for dynasties: you could easily have the republic substitute for the dynasty and gain prestige on its own, and use similar elective systems as EU: Rome. The challenge would then change from ensuring your dynasty has influence to ensuring your next ruler to be elected isn't a total buffoon.

Also I like the idea of being able to capture individual baronies: it would nicely go hand in hand with how, for instance, Genoa owns Galata at Constantinople in 1337.

I would be super excited for a republic DLC. It's the one I've waited for the most (more than even a Byzantine DLC, since republics aren't even *playable* yet).

Federalist girl said:

I don't really see a need for dynasties: you could easily have the republic substitute for the dynasty and gain prestige on its own, and use similar elective systems as EU: Rome. The challenge would then change from ensuring your dynasty has influence to ensuring your next ruler to be elected isn't a total buffoon.

Also I like the idea of being able to capture individual baronies: it would nicely go hand in hand with how, for instance, Genoa owns Galata at Constantinople in 1337.

I would be super excited for a republic DLC. It's the one I've waited for the most (more than even a Byzantine DLC, since republics aren't even *playable* yet).

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They could certainly go that route but it seems counter to the whole idea of the game, you aren't really playing a nation you're playing a family. Personally I think it would be kind of interesting to play a strong family say the Morosini in Venice and try to keep your family and it's backers in positions of power then be able to make decisions based on who you have in government. I could also see this being very hard to do well though.

Do you remember the Jihad Emirs comments about people dismissing the idea of playable Muslims because it went against the idea of the game?

DLC expands the game. That's the point. The dynastic electoral system people are advocating would be really boring when you were out of power because you wouldn't.do.anything. You'd just be pressing fast forward all the time, and that happens often enough playing single counties.

Focusing too much on dynasty misses the point that mercantile republics were different: playing them just feel different, just as playing Muslims does. What's wrong with variety?

Federalist girl said:

Do you remember the Jihad Emirs comments about people dismissing the idea of playable Muslims because it went against the idea of the game?

DLC expands the game. That's the point. The dynastic electoral system people are advocating would be really boring when you were out of power because you wouldn't.do.anything. You'd just be pressing fast forward all the time, and that happens often enough playing single counties.

Focusing too much on dynasty misses the point that mercantile republics were different: playing them just feel different, just as playing Muslims does. What's wrong with variety?

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To be fair playing as a Muslim isn't all that different then playing as a Christian, they have a few game mechanic changes but by and large the game-play is very similar, you still play as a family. No matter how they decide to do republics they are going to take a lot more work.

I recognize that my idea of playing as a family in the republic would be hard to do right without a lot of work but I think it could be interesting especially if you always had some goal. For example suppose you aren't currently the doge but you could still try to get family members appointed to different positions like fleet admiral or the council of ten and then you would be able to make different decisions based on what you controlled. Hard to do well and I know a lot of people wouldn't like the lack of complete control but it could still be fun and challenging.

However I wasn't trying to shoot down the idea of giving you control over the republic regardless of who is in power, if that's how paradox decides to go I'll still buy and play it. I was just pointing out that in the game's time frame family was still very important in a republic, most of the citizens couldn't vote and politics was dominated by a few families and their allies.

I have to agree with Kal. I really like the idea of playing as a merchant republic and taking part in the politics there (I loved The Guild series for this reason), but I don't think that CK2 is really well suited to it. The Crusader Kings games have never been about religion or even holy wars, interestingly enough. But they have always been about dynasties. Expanding from Christian to Muslim is actually reasonable since that really isn't changing.

Before HttT, EU3 wasn't really suited for dynastic politics--people said that was a CK thing. Before VV, Rome didn't really have much nuance between the government types. Yes, CK1 may have been about Christian dynasties--and now it looks like CK2 is about medieval dynasties, but why stop there? Before, half the map was unplayable--now there's only one major chunk left, and that's republics. They're a little bit different though: still Christian, but they're non-dynastic instead.

Republics are already non-dynastic, you just can't play them. It's not going to make the game implode if you can, and the basis of play is just a little bit differnet.

Federalist girl said:

Republics are already non-dynastic, you just can't play them. It's not going to make the game implode if you can, and the basis of play is just a little bit differnet.

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Now there are non-dynastic. But in real? Look at Venice! Genoa! Also German Cities of this time have big families (Patrician, Hanseaten ) If I play CKII I will play a dynasty! Also in a Republic. I would love to play a big family of Venice or a family of Hamburg and try to became the power in the city and make my family to the most powerful family in the republic. I don't want to play as many differnt characters from different families. So I first play Leonardo and then play his biggest enemy Francesco, because he is the new doge?

While at it, make navies in this game more useful? Make them work how EU III Navy work? This way these merchant states can block massive invasions by fighting invading navies of the Fatimids and so on without the need for DoomStacks

some of u seem to be asking for EU3:medieval edition, maybe medieval republics for another game? CK2 is a dynastic based game.

Playing the republic itself or playing one family are two extremes - how about a faction system instead? All members of a mercantile republic would attach themselves to a prominent character and their faction. Families would be more likely to stick together of course, but alleigance would not be solely determined by bloodline.

Upon ruler death you would play the nominated second-in-command of your faction, which wouldn't necessarily be a blood relative. You would accrue points for all faction members, not just your family. Of course you would still be in trouble if a rival faction got elected.

There are only 2 merchant republics in the game, I'd rather they focus their time on other parts of the game.

marat271 said:

There are only 2 merchant republics in the game, I'd rather they focus their time on other parts of the game.

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Without the Venetian navy, the crusades probably wouldn't have succeeded, plain and simple. They were also an economic might and rivalled the HRE and Byzantium in political influence. Finally, if done right, they could be really interesting to play.

In discussing how republics could be implemented, I have lifted this from wikipedia: "In the early years of the republic, the Doge ruled Venice in an autocratic fashion, but later his powers were limited by the promissione, a pledge he had to take when elected. As a result, powers were shared with the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council, composed of 480 members taken from patrician families, so that "He could do nothing without the Major Council and the Major Council could do nothing without him".[17]
In the 12th century, the aristocratic families of Rialto further diminished the Doge's powers by establishing the Minor Council (1175), composed of six advisers of the Doge, and the Quarantia (1179) as a supreme tribunal. In 1223, these institutions were combined into the Signoria, which consisted of the Doge, the Minor Council and the three leaders of the Quarantia. The Signoria was the central body of government, representing the continuity of the republic as shown in the expression: "si è morto il Doge, no la Signoria" ("The Doge is dead, but the Signoria is not").
Also created were the sapientes, two (later six) bodies that combined with other groups to form a collegio, which formed an executive branch. In 1229, the Consiglio dei Pregadi, a senate, was formed, being 60 members elected by the Major Council.[18] These developments left the Doge with little personal power and saw actual authority in the hands of the Major Council.
Whilst Venice claimed to be a "Republic", in reality it followed a mixed government model, combining monarchy in the Doge, aristocracy in the senate, and a "democracy" of Rialto families in the Major Council.[19] Machiavelli also refers to Venice as a republic, considering it "excellent among modern republics" (unlike his native Florence).[20][21]
In 1310, a Council of Ten was established, becoming the central political body whose members operated in secret. Around 1600, its dominance over the Major Council was considered a threat and efforts were made in the Council and elsewhere to reduce its powers, with limited success."

It is evident the Doge had little power over gov't during the time period the game is set in. Perhaps the playable dynasties would each hold a seat on the greater council, and laws, general appointments, etc. would be passed and approved by them. republics would also be able to take territories by "voting" to go to war, though this should be structured so that overall republics expand less than other nations. The minor council could be functionally the same as the advisers for other realms (chaplain, marshall, etc) but perhaps the Doge wouldn't be able to appoint them as freely.

marat271 said:

There are only 2 merchant republics in the game, I'd rather they focus their time on other parts of the game.

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Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ancona, San Marino, Ragusa...

They're also kind of massively important both for the time period and subsequent history, but I suppose they could always focus on more pretend fantasy empires instead or something.