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.



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.



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).



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.



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!

 

[Korbah]

If Imperial Legitimacy is countered by Imperial Lunacy, Imperial Authority could indeed begin to be an important index.

What?

I am thinking about it. Would not be that hard to make the proper variable, from a modding perspective.

Well, if Paradox don't use the idea, and you do, I'd incorporate it into any future mod I make (including the elder scrolls mod).

 

[Garak]

there should be only ONE UNIVOCAL & UNAMBIGUOUS name for all the states - the geographic one.
just suppose my Croatia turns to be under some muslem Arab Trpimirovic.

Should it be a 'Trpimirovicid sultanate' now for you?

It's done this way because that's how the Mulsims did things. It's more accurate than using a generic "Shia Caliphate" name. I don't see the problem.

but the Devs have allready stated that they for several reasons (including visibility) are weery of making them Titular ...

And those so against it still haven't commented on the fact that there's a De Jure Portugal in 1066, way before anyone thought of one ... same could be said about Kingdom of Finland ... while there might have been some recorded ironage kings controling whole of Finland, the first time the title Kingdom of Finland was used was in 1607, but most of the time never more than a Duchy (Grand Duchy after 1581)

Just because no one complained about it before doesn't mean everyone's happy with it. I've thought of that before, just didn't feel the need to make noise about it.

 

[Alerias]

Everyone ignore this idea?

Perhaps "Imperial Legitimacy" makes more sense.

I proudly ignore it because it's both nonsense and the semi-relevant parts of it are redundant with existent mechanics.

Unlike in the Renaissance, there was strictly nothing in this era that ought to make ruling over the HRE more difficult than ruling over say, France.

The HRE and Byzantium should not be artifically handicapped. That would be like people 1000 years from now talking about a year-2000 strategy game demanding artificial handicaps be placed on pre-9/11 USA because it's OP.

 

[Marcion]

As you may or may not know, the only reason we do call the Chinese and Japanese monarchs "Emperors" is due to the lack of a better translation, and has nothing to actually do with what the title Emperor really means, and hence is a moot comparison. And while true that both Empire and Emperor has lost their true meaning in a modern context, why should that necessarily mean that the medieval game Crusader Kings II, which uses a mostly medieval vocabulary and incorporates the medieval system of hierarchy known as Feudalism, shouldn't be using the not only medieval but also actual meaning of the two terms?

Also I'd like to guess that the main reason as to why they went with Byzantium rather than East Rome (or just Rome for that matter) is because that's the name modern users are familiar with and can relate facts to. Whilst true that they are still the Eastern Roman Empire they're not commonly known as such, and would thus only lead to confusion were they to be named thus. And before you bring up the fact that my two statements seem to contradict each other, which they at first glance do, there's two very big differences: Name VS. Title, or more specifically "What they call you" VS. "What you actually are".

You're still just ignoring the fact that the game is in the modern vernacular, not this "medieval vocabulary", whatever that's supposed to be. I don't think things like "duke" and "king" count as any kind of legitimate designation for any of these people, especially in eastern Europe where most of the native titles had no origin in Latin, and the "equivalents" in other languages are used. Everything is given, for the convenience of the player, in modern terminology, not the historical ones.

Of course, feel free to continue your pedantic rambling (since you really seem to enjoy it ), but I don't think anyone at Paradox is going to care. Just mod the titles to what suits you.

 

[ZhugeKongming]

You're still just ignoring the fact that the game is in the modern vernacular, not this "medieval vocabulary", whatever that's supposed to be. I don't think things like "duke" and "king" count as any kind of legitimate designation for any of these people, especially in eastern Europe where most of the native titles had no origin in Latin, and the "equivalents" in other languages are used. Everything is given, for the convenience of the player, in modern terminology, not the historical ones.

This doesn't have anything to do with the game being in modern vernacular or whatever, it has to do with the sloppy and Western Europe-centric viewpoint that the game adopts for every region on the map. Every polity that existed in 1066 is made to fit into the same Anglo-French feudal model, whether they were actually "feudal" or not. Obviously this is a necessary simplification to save Paradox mountains of work, but let's not pretend it's an accurate way to represent the world outside of Western Europe.

BTW, 'duke' (or the local equivalent) was actually used all over the East due to Byzantine influence, and Slavic 'knyaz' is a cognate of English 'king,' so what you said isn't really accurate.

 

[Luhood]

You're still just ignoring the fact that the game is in the modern vernacular, not this "medieval vocabulary", whatever that's supposed to be. I don't think things like "duke" and "king" count as any kind of legitimate designation for any of these people, especially in eastern Europe where most of the native titles had no origin in Latin, and the "equivalents" in other languages are used. Everything is given, for the convenience of the player, in modern terminology, not the historical ones.

Just like you stated, they're called Dukes, Kings, Counts, etc. in game because of simplicity and game mechanics, even though they didn't fit into the medieval Feudal system. I buy and accept that, perhaps mostly because I had no idea they had another system 'till I entered these forums, but also because that's part of the game. It's a game which emulates the feudal system of Catholic Europe during the medieval times, so to expect it to do anything but that out of the box is just silly. That said, I could claim you to still ignore the fact that the medieval catholic feudalism only recognized two successors of the Imperator title, which is what Emperor (or Kaiser, or Basileus, or Tsar, or whatever you want to call the frikkin' thing) meant during those times. Granted, I could begrudgingly accept the use of both Emperor and Empire should they not put them on par with neither Kaiser nor Basileus, which more or less NONE have done in the history of ever. Like I said in my long post one the last page, the only ones in history to have actually claimed to be Emperors and thus actually ruling Empires on par with HRE and ERE are Napoleon of the French Empire after he stomped the HRE, and Ivan of the Russian Tsardom some 100-ish years after the fall of Constantinople and thus of Byzantium. And I do believe this is the actual thing most of us non-Imperialist have an issue with: Not really the title Emperor in itself, but the fact that the system as it stands don't separate neither a High-King nor an Emperor from the Kaiser and the Basileus.

Of course, feel free to continue your pedantic rambling (since you really seem to enjoy it ), but I don't think anyone at Paradox is going to care. Just mod the titles to what suits you.

Well, considering the amount of people complaining about the name, I'd say it is a very good point to care about. I also don't really enjoy your seeming "tl;dr"-viewpoint on my entire post. Granted, it was very rambly, but still filled with my thoughts and ideas for the DLC and the Patch. So I do find it rather... not offensive, but rude.

 

[Ruwaard]

Since I'm one of the 'others': yes. If they were titular titles which were hard to achieve or hold (or both) or especially if they required cooperation from the Pope and/or existing emperors, then I would actually support them and I'd be defending them from criticism right in this thread. As for the ability to be convincingly (= difficulty + relevance of requirements + convincing dialogue) raised to the imperial dignity by the pope or by an existing emperor or elected by the electors without being a fellow vassal, I'd be ecstatic about the possibility.



To be honest, before we heard the interface explanation, I thought the reason was balance (e.g. in multiplayer, when you have human players in 4 corners of Europe) or that someone simply made the decision to take CK2 in a new, more fantasy direction, beginning with the Kingdom of Pomerania but now also the fictional empires. This was supported by the somewhat emotional replies by Paradox people, who appeared to care strongly.

In fact, as much as I believe one just needs to take people at their word in such situations, I'm finding it really hard to believe that the above is not the case. I'm finding myself in need of making a conscious effort to give so much credit to the interface explanation. The temptation to think that someone simply decided to take the historical starts in a more fantasy direction (e.g. to improve sales to not very historically knowledgeable people who are into multiplayer and appreciate equal opportunities in their respective corners of the world, or simply because of someone's creative vision) is hard to resist.

Speaking of which, couldn't we receive a more fantasy (multiplayer/balance/opportunity/fun-optimised) map alongside the more historical maps consistent with the previous line of thought? This would give official status to the map that doesn't contain the fantasy empires. The map with the fantasy empires could even be default. Any more fantasy kingdoms or empires or map changes for gameplay reasons would not be applied to the more historical map.

Or, since the de iure empires seem to be very simple to mod out (or mod in, if you already have the data written down), could you (i.e. Paradox) please turn them into a menu option, like some of the options in EU3, where you could choose among various approaches? This could also be a tick box on the historical starts/saved games panel, saying, 'Include Empires and Kingdoms which are not fully historical but are intended to make the game more balanced and enjoyable by enhancing opportunities available to players in various parts of the game world (Recommended).'

Just don't push CK2 into alternative history already before the game starts. Please. I really don't care if a Castillian-cultured Nestorian Emperor-Bishop of Scandinavia aged 16 comes into power after the game starts because Nestorian chief from Mongolia became Khagan, conquered the Empire of Scandinavia that had just been formed by a local ambitious strongman that got away with taking the title, a rebellious close relative took away this second imperial title, subsequently got usurped in a war by an Archbishop (or the archbishop was the one who took away the second title, whatever), who then died and got succeeded by a young guy who had had a Spanish tutor and changed his culture.

(...)

But a de iure Empire of Francia or Scandinavia or Spain in 1066 can't be traced to actual events from before 1066 (supposing that we start in 1066). This is the difference here. It has nothing to do with any implied implausibility that someone would step up in the North or Brittannia or Spain and unite the lands (although the fact that in actual history nobody managed to do so, except a short-lived Spanish example in relatively early middle ages, is telling).

PS. I also loved creatable titular titles (although I think Nubia should be a de iure kingdom, even though it would only have three counties and be the smallest de iure kingdom ever). I generally think titular titles should be perks for small but prestigious independents or people whose origins are too big for the small title that would normally be associated with their land (e.g. families where everybody inherited the ducal title).

A great post and I agree that CK 2 shouldn't already start as alternate history, each game will develop its own. Like said previously in this thread the game seems to shift more towards fictional (I'll admit that this is a better term than fantasy); something which I truth be told aren't too happy about, but they have every right to do so. OTOH apart from these controversial changes in the set up, most new features seem to be an improvement.
Your suggestion of a tick box IMHO would be a great solution, which can appeal to those in favor or against some of the more controversial changes.

PS I love (the possibility of) creatable titular titles too (I usually add extra requirements though), but it would be better if you can see the requirements before you can create such a title.

 

[StephenT]

Those of us who want the game to reflect history would like to be able to replicate the status of the entirely-historical Emperors of Britain, Emperors of Spain, Emperors of Serbia, Emperors of Bulgaria, etc -and maybe add some more territorial empires if gameplay goes that way.

Meanwhile, the people who prefer a more fantasy-style game where only the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Romania get to call themselves 'imperator' or 'basileus' due to their claim to a Roman imperial heritage should be free to mod the other empires out of their game.


(In reality, the Emperor of Rome should certainly have more status than a mere Emperor of Spain, just like the King of France had more status than the King of Scotland even if they were nominally equals. But the idea that the title 'Emperor' could only be used by the legitimate successor of Rome and no others was merely a politically-biased claim even in the Middle Ages, let alone now. When the ruler of Constantinople claimed he was the Roman Emperor people would nod and smile to his face, then go straight back to calling him Emperor of the Greeks when his back was turned.)

 

[GreatSlayer]

Next week I'll talk about [...] decadence

I'm really looking forward to this feature.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

(In reality, the Emperor of Rome should certainly have more status than a mere Emperor of Spain, just like the King of France had more status than the King of Scotland even if they were nominally equals. But the idea that the title 'Emperor' could only be used by the legitimate successor of Rome and no others was merely a politically-biased claim even in the Middle Ages, let alone now. When the ruler of Constantinople claimed he was the Roman Emperor people would nod and smile to his face, then go straight back to calling him Emperor of the Greeks when his back was turned.)

Isn't there already a mechanic in the game that reflects the difference in status between the various kingdoms? I admit I have no idea whether it actually does anything

 

[unmerged(101730)]

In reality, the Emperor of Rome should certainly have more status than a mere Emperor of Spain, just like the King of France had more status than the King of Scotland even if they were nominally equals. But the idea that the title 'Emperor' could only be used by the legitimate successor of Rome and no others was merely a politically-biased claim even in the Middle Ages, let alone now. When the ruler of Constantinople claimed he was the Roman Emperor people would nod and smile to his face, then go straight back to calling him Emperor of the Greeks when his back was turned.

The biggest problem as of now is that, while people have no problems with ambiguous titles and claims, computers do. There's some balance to be made.

It would be "nice to have" if CK2 would recognise the different Emperor titles (Imperator, Caesar and Augustus) derived from the Roman Empire and treat them differently (and allow for meaning shift!) than a generic "king of kings", and if it allowed for a king to have another king as vassal (as well as different forms of vassalage), but we're not getting that (yet?), so we'll have to deal with what we have.

In this context, I'd wish the game wouldn't throw around terms like "Emperor" and "De Iure" quite so inflationary around. And really, there should only ever be at most one officially recognised "De Iure Empire" (and it should be Christian too), though it doesn't mean there shouldn't ever be pretenders to that title ...

 

[Korbah]

I proudly ignore it because it's both nonsense and the semi-relevant parts of it are redundant with existent mechanics.

Unlike in the Renaissance, there was strictly nothing in this era that ought to make ruling over the HRE more difficult than ruling over say, France.

The HRE and Byzantium should not be artifically handicapped. That would be like people 1000 years from now talking about a year-2000 strategy game demanding artificial handicaps be placed on pre-9/11 USA because it's OP.

Fair enough, I bolded two parts of your response that is ridiculous in itself. The authority of the Emperor of the HRE waxed and waned constantly throughout history, from one Emperor to the next, even before the Renaissance, and the second one, that hardly needs a response, that's like "a child throwing his arms together and stamping on the ground because his dad said he won't by him an ice cream".

The Imperial Legitimacy mechanic wouldn't be ridiculous at all, and you give no reasons as to why it would be so, it isn't a way of making your fantastical HRE any weaker than it already is, it is simply a measure of how successful an Emperor is, and if they are so unsuccessful so as to have effectively no control over their vassals, are unable to project their "claim" of descent from Rome in an effective manner (whatever that may be), why should they continue to utilise be able to be an Empire, and why couldn't other Empires declare themselves in the case of them having more Imperial Legitimacy?
(And on top of that, it was just a suggestion to try and placate the people moaning about legitimacy, since that seems to be the strongest argument against new empires, I don't care if paradox just include the new empires as is with no legitimacy mechanic )

"Because *I* don't like the idea!" is not a valid answer, this game wasn't created specifically for you, you *don't* have to install the patch or buy the DLC, you *don't* even have to come to this forum, you *can* mod out most of the changes (and most definitely all of the new Empires) if you don't like them, and you *can't* and *shouldn't* try to force a company to change the game to how *you* want it to be, when there are an equal or more people here with differing views and opinions, and a LARGE number of which embrace the changes paradox are making, because it is still *THEIR* game, it's fun to see what they come up with, and I'd rather they continue to work on the game, adding more content (that is easily moddable) than let it sit and stagnate. Am I in the minority? No, it just happens there are a handful of people in this thread making extremely long winded posts to the opposite, and are thus more vocal, it isn't a demographic, it's a tennis match between 5 or 6 people (go back through all the pages and count the number of unique "take my money" posts and compare to the number of people voicing out against the changes, you'll see which side has the most unique identities).

An analogy for you, you go to the cinema, you watch a director's cut of a film, you think it's great but there are 3 people in the cinema that think the original was better. The original is still available, they can still go and get it quite easily, but it's not the NEWEST version, they feel like they're being left behind and they think that isn't fair, so they write angry letters to the production company, they hold long discussions in public (at which only they are allowed to speak, and anyone who speaks out to the contrary is called ridiculous), they b---h and moan. Ultimately the company does the opposite of what I hope paradox will do, and they reverse the changes in the director's cut, and re-release the original version with some touchups to the CGI and sound, and include one deleted scene of a battle that the moaners didn't have an issue with. The 3 moaners sit in the cinema all proud of themselves, while the rest of the cinema goers sit there (including you) and wonder what happened to the other 40 minutes of the film, and why the hell they're watching basically the same version they bought a year ago that's sat in their DVD cabinet at home.
Does that seem fair to you?
I can already guess your answers.

 

[Wallain]

While I do agree that the HRE should be no more difficult to govern than France, then I do so because I do not want artificial boundaries on the empires that are only in place to restrict them from going in a historically plausible route. The difficulty of governing any realm should be dependent on domestic politics - the amount of vassals should make the HRE difficult to control, not just because it has the HRE tag.

That said, I do find an imperial legitimacy rating to be interesting and it would be able to facilitate a lot of interesting events. For example an emperor with very low legitimacy might face revolts, the pope denouncing him, a pretender and so on.

 

[Rozmarzony]

These anty-emperors guys are mad. They speak of historicity, in a game where u can create a Khanate of England. Creating emperor title by falsing claim along with the support of the Pope is certainly not less possible...

 

[RedRooster81]

While I do agree that the HRE should be no more difficult to govern than France, then I do so because I do not want artificial boundaries on the empires that are only in place to restrict them from going in a historically plausible route. The difficulty of governing any realm should be dependent on domestic politics - the amount of vassals should make the HRE difficult to control, not just because it has the HRE tag.

That said, I do find an imperial legitimacy rating to be interesting and it would be able to facilitate a lot of interesting events. For example an emperor with very low legitimacy might face revolts, the pope denouncing him, a pretender and so on.

that's a good response. I think that it should be rather easy to rule either realm, provided that you do not try to increase your own power. Both realms in 1066 have very strong, independently minded dukes without whom their lieges can do nothing on their own. The basic problem is the royal (or imperial) demesne, including fiefs given to members of your dynasty. The HRE starts with three provinces; the King of France with two. Both are young monarchs, whose early reigns are defined by their regencies. These are not very good positions compared to other independent rulers or even their own dukes. You are right bringing in domestic policy--the best thing that either monarch could do is go on crusade and leave their vassals' holdings alone. An early imperial crusade for the Baltic or a French crusade for say Sicily or Tunis should distract from royal weakness at home and help build up the royal domain. Avoid civil war at all costs and don't irritate the Pope.

 

[Luhood]

These anty-emperors guys are mad. They speak of historicity, in a game where u can create a Khanate of England. Creating emperor title by falsing claim along with the support of the Pope is certainly not less possible...

The difference here being that a Khanate of England, while both silly and improbable, is actually possible. That he would be forced to stand down and rename it a Kingdom is another thing entirely. A new empire on the other hand ain't just improbable, but impractical. It wouldn't just be "Falsifying a claim and get Papal support", since the Pope not only knows that the Kaiser is the Imperial Inheritor but was actually crowned as such by one of the Pope's predecessors. It would be to do it the Napoleonitic way: Crush the Kaiser, Dissolve his Empire, and then claim Right by Conquest and be crowned Emperor by the Pope. The best claim you could falsify would be the title of Kaiser, and then you wouldn't need to have new empires to begin with.

 

[s1234567890m]

The difference here being that a Khanate of England, while both silly and improbable, is actually possible. That he would be forced to stand down and rename it a Kingdom is another thing entirely. A new empire on the other hand ain't just improbable, but impractical. It wouldn't just be "Falsifying a claim and get Papal support", since the Pope not only knows that the Kaiser is the Imperial Inheritor but was actually crowned as such by one of the Pope's predecessors. It would be to do it the Napoleonitic way: Crush the Kaiser, Dissolve his Empire, and then claim Right by Conquest and be crowned Emperor by the Pope. The best claim you could falsify would be the title of Kaiser, and then you wouldn't need to have new empires to begin with.

Im sure the pope could be persuaded, if not he is desposable. IIRC papal declarations are straight from god?

 

[Rozmarzony]

The difference here being that a Khanate of England, while both silly and improbable, is actually possible. That he would be forced to stand down and rename it a Kingdom is another thing entirely. A new empire on the other hand ain't just improbable, but impractical. It wouldn't just be "Falsifying a claim and get Papal support", since the Pope not only knows that the Kaiser is the Imperial Inheritor but was actually crowned as such by one of the Pope's predecessors. It would be to do it the Napoleonitic way: Crush the Kaiser, Dissolve his Empire, and then claim Right by Conquest and be crowned Emperor by the Pope. The best claim you could falsify would be the title of Kaiser, and then you wouldn't need to have new empires to begin with.

U can create anti-pope, make him real pope, he will no care about some Kaiser etc. and immediately call you successor of Rome.
Even dev said that, to create the title of emperor u will need a huge amount of piety and that piety = Pope happiness enough to give you the title.

And its obvious that the medieval pope 100 times less concerned about the legitimacy of power, than by the authority and power, which can give him/catholic world a self-styled emperor.

 

[Luhood]

U can create anti-pope, make him real pope, he will no care about some Kaiser etc. and immediately call you successor of Rome.
Even dev said that, to create the title of emperor u will need a huge amount of piety and that piety = Pope happiness enough to give you the title.

I am sure that the medieval pope 100 times less concerned about the legitimacy of power, than by the authority and power, which can give him/catholic world a self-styled emperor.

... Granted, that is an issue I didn't consider (I'm not sure how big Anti-Popes were during these times, or the Declaring of War against the Papacy to install a new Pope, but I digress). Though I'd still say the Kaiser should at least have the ability to fight for his claim, and that the winner should remain the Imperial Inheritor.

 

[RedRooster81]

I'd support making the title of HRE much less anchored to Germany. it would take some restructuring of the current holder's vassals, but it could go to whoever was the most prestigious Catholic ruler. All other Catholic emperors should be considered anti-emperors of a sort, because of the implicit claim to being equal to the HRE and the true defender of the faith.