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Hello again folks!

It's a new month and high time for another development diary. This time, let's talk about barons. In the original Crusader Kings, characters could only hold titles of three ranks; count, duke and king (though these could be called different things in different cultures). Barons existed indirectly in the form of provincial nobility, which, together with the clergy, peasants and burghers, had different power, loyalty and tax values. The player could fiddle around with the power values of the four classes, which would affect the tax rate and the composition of the provincial levy. As it turned out, this was one of the least successful features in the game, because the micromanagement was tedious and did not have enough impact to make it worthwhile. Therefore, in Crusader Kings II, the whole thing has been cut. Instead, each province will have between one and eight named settlements. A settlement is either a castle, city or church, and characters can hold the title to a settlement just like they can to counties and duchies.

Castles are regular feudal holdings, whose barons are normally in fief to the provincial count. Cities are commercial hubs governed by a mayor. Finally, church settlements are run by a Bishop (or Mufti, or similiar.) Like the four classes of Crusader Kings, the three types of settlement provide different types of troop levies and have different tax rates depending on laws. Unlike the class power of Crusader Kings, the rights of churches and cities - and the investiture of their leaders - should be interesting to play around with. (More on this in a later dev diary.)

Barony tier characters are not playable, mainly for performance reasons. (We do not want barons to have courts of their own, with the explosion of characters this would require.) They have a more rudimentary form of AI than playable characters, but will respond to diplomacy and might raise their army in revolt. Another measure to keep the character count down in Crusader Kings II is that you can have your vassals double as councillors (so there is less need for minor nobles to be created by the game).

What about the level of micromanagement - won't all these baronies require more player attention? Well, the whole point of the feudal system is delegation, so the short answer is that for dukes and above; not much. Granted, the dynamic around cities and churches will require more attention, but of the right kind and infrequently. The existence of baronies will also make playing counts a lot more interesting.

I don't have any baronial graphics in particular to show you, but here's a little something that Aerie is working on...

CK2_Diary002_01.png


That's all for now. Don't miss the next dev diary on December 2!


Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
 
That's all for now. Don't miss the next dev diary on December 2!

Thats my birthday, what a wonderful present I'll be getting. Love the baron-feature.
 
This sounds like a great improvement to the original game, where province-management was indeed tedious and not that interesting.
 
Awesome! Another CK2 DD... Feels like Christmas every time. :)

And I'm liking what I hear each time.

So, does the player have the chance to manipulate the type (and maybe number) of settlements a province has? Can cities for example be converted to churches and vica versa? Can settlements be destroyed through war/event or added (if the province grows)?
Is one type an upgrade of the other then (church < city < castle) or do the type of settlements reflect the balance of power in the region (clergy/burgers/nobles/peasants)?
 
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So with no farming settlement peasants power is effectively gone?

While I agree on that move where will the peasant revolts come from? We can't have a medieval game without peasant revolts. :D

[video=youtube;rAaWvVFERVA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA[/video]
 
I thought Dev Diary 2 was going to be about why A hates B?
 
Sute]{h;11791667 said:
So with no farming settlement peasants power is effectively gone?

While I agree on that move where will the peasant revolts come from? We can't have a medieval game without peasant revolts. :D

Peasant "power" is gone, but there will still be peasant revolts. In fact, they are the only "rebel" type, as such. All other rebellions will be led by characters, for specific reasons.
 
I really like this system.

Will the number of settlements change during the game?
Can settlements change to another type?

The number of settlements can change; players can build new ones and potentially existing ones can be razed (except for the county capital).

The type cannot change however.
 
This sounds very interesting, possibly inspired by the newer Total Wars? (Which is not a bad thing IMO) This isn't making the wait any easier. Maybe this is a stupid question, but will these Baron level holdings be represented on the map? Or simply in the province overlay? It seems like it would require another magnitude of zoom to have icons on the main map.
 
Sute: There will be an angry peasant bar for each province, when it is filled, the peasants go bereserk, break in to the baron's manor and drink all his ale.

Why does this remind me of a certain group of dwarven settlers depicted in a certain other game?

But, erm, on-topic: Nice, I see that a lot more thought and experience are being put into this game. Also, the feature of vassals being eligible for council posts clearly displays common design sense, that thing that is lacking in so many ambitious projects. These DDs make me more excited than many actual game releases, so I guess that is a very good sign :D
 
Peasant "power" is gone, but there will still be peasant revolts. In fact, they are the only "rebel" type, as such. All other rebellions will be led by characters, for specific reasons.
Nice. I hope the character led ones will be more frequent than whack-a-mole peasants. As far as I know most significant rebellions was backed by nobles, church or burghers.
 
Why does this remind me of a certain group of dwarven settlers depicted in a certain other game?

But, erm, on-topic: Nice, I see that a lot more thought and experience are being put into this game. Also, the feature of vassals being eligible for council posts clearly displays common design sense, that thing that is lacking in so many ambitious projects. These DDs make me more excited than many actual game releases, so I guess that is a very good sign :D
Looks Nice, will every western soldier have their CoA in theit Coat, and change dynamically, it would be very nice ;)