Legacy of Rome will be released next week, so this dev diary will be the last of this cycle. Doomdark is busy hammering away at the game, so this week the honor of writing it falls to me. As he said last time, we'll finish off with some of the unique decisions, events and mechanics we've added to the Byzantine Empire in the DLC. Note that the following stuff is for the DLC, not the free 1.07 patch.

Succession in Byzantium works the same as in the rest of Europe, except for one thing. Children born to an emperor during his reign will get the ”Born in the Purple” trait, which gives them a stronger succession claim than any older siblings born before their parents ascended the throne. If you, as emperor, still want your gifted firstborn son as your heir instead of his snotnosed younger brother who had the good fortune of being born during your reign, infanticide is not your only option. Granting the Despot honorary title to your firstborn will rank him the same as if he had the Purple trait, and given his seniority in age, he will become your heir again.

View attachment LoR_02_ERE_Events.jpg

Ambitious emperors will no doubt try to reclaim some of Rome's former glory by restoring the Empire's lost territory. If they or their imperial vassals hold certain provinces, they will have the opportunity to restore the Roman Empire. This decision essentially signifies that the West has no choice but to accept the Byzantines as the true heirs of Rome's legacy. You will get a new title (complete with a new flag, of course), and the rulers of a restored Rome always get the ”Augustus” trait, which gives a slight boost to vassal relations. If you wish it, there is a decision to move your capital to Rome, though the city scarcely compares to Constantinople in this era so you will likely have to invest a lot of gold and time to rebuild it.

Another major decision, of course, is to mend the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. You will need to reunite the Pentarchy (Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome) under Byzantine and Orthodox rule and accumulate a great deal of piety. When this decision is taken, Catholicism will become a heresy and Catholic rulers across Europe will have to decide whether to convert or not. A few will refuse, and Europe will likely be plagued by religious unrest for some time, but the first step has now been taken to unite Christendom under a single church.

View attachment LoR_01_ERE_Events.jpg

As you have probably seen, Byzantine rulers can elect to blind or castrate their prisoners. This can be an efficient way of permanently crippling your rivals without executing them outright. Have an obnoxious brother that covets your throne? If he is blinded or castrated, he will be removed from the imperial succession, and you will have one less pretender to worry about. Just don't expect him to like you much afterwards.

Castrated rivals aside, eunuchs played an important role at the Byzantine imperial court, and from time to time one of them will distinguish himself enough to be brought to your attention. This eunuch will be very loyal to your ruler and quite skilled in his chosen field. When other lords turn their backs on you, you will usually still be able to depend on his service, whether it's as a skilled general or a gifted spymaster.

Other events you can expect to see are triumphs being held when you emerge victorious from decisive wars, unruly Varangians in the capital, Hippodrome races and much more.

View attachment LoR_03_ERE_Events.jpg

Finally, let me stress that this does not mean that we have created a supercharged Byzantine Empire that will always go on to dominate Europe as the Romans did before them. Skilled and dedicated players will be able to stage a miraculous recovery and recreate the borders of the Roman Empire and maybe even hold it all together afterwards, but we have naturally taken care not to upset the balance of the game. Just wanted to put that out there.

 

[Alerias]

Restored Roman Empire is associated with Italian culture in the landed titles file. Really? Such nonsense.

Thats a bit odd yes. But I believe that has no practical impact? What matters is the culture of the lords that rule over it.

 

[Sarog]

Easily fixed.

Happily so. It still shouldn't need fixing though.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Thats a bit odd yes. But I believe that has no practical impact? What matters is the culture of the lords that rule over it.

Doesn't it mean that Italian culture will spread, though?

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Well, to be honest, I expected it to be limited to Justinian reconquests (up to k_Italy and k_Africa, give or take), with the rest perhaps being 'Unlocked' if you Restore Rome through the DLC decision. But this works too, its not like the player has any incentive NOT to start with Tunisia/Sicily/Latinum.

I expected it to work like you mentioned regarding the early days of the ERE including italy, but all of former rome territory before having restored rome is a bit...silly. I already see weird outcomes from this.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

I expected it to work like you mentioned regarding the early days of the ERE including italy, but all of former rome territory before having restored rome is a bit...silly. I already see weird outcomes from this.

Wait, what?

Are you seriously suggesting that some random Greek who re-conquered Rome from the Fatimids wouldn't have a legitimate claim on England? :happy:

 

[Alerias]

Wait, what?

Are you seriously suggesting that some random Greek who re-conquered Rome from the Fatimids wouldn't have a legitimate claim on England? :happy:

England? What is England? Rome Rex Totius Britanniae !!!

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Wait, what?

Are you seriously suggesting that some random Greek who re-conquered Rome from the Fatimids wouldn't have a legitimate claim on England? :happy:

Well having those claims after reviving rome is weird enough, but tolerable. Having those before though, ahem..... :blink:
I don't see the HRE, France or England seeing the ERE having legitimate claims on their areas before the ERE becoming a new rome itself.:wacko:

...too many smilies...


Question: Is that (the claims) only in the DLC i wonder ? Havent dl'ed it yet. If so, i'm fine, though thats still far from perfect. Silly complaining me.

 

[Ruwaard]

Can the area on which the Byzantine Empire gets a claim after it changes to the Roman Empire be adjusted a bit? Claims north of the Rhine and Danube (except Dacia) seem a bit odd, like a mentioned claim on Bavaria, however duchies don't always correspond neatly with the old provinces.

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

Just to wrap up the entire discussion on the culture of the Roman Empire, whether Italians deserve an Empire, and so on: the devs have chosen Italian as the culture of the restored Roman Empire.

 

[Brisss]

Will greek orthodox other ruler will be able to restore the roman empire or only the byzantine ruler will be able to?

 

[Sarog]

Just to wrap up the entire discussion on the culture of the Roman Empire, whether Italians deserve an Empire, and so on: the devs have chosen Italian as the culture of the restored Roman Empire.

Which you surely know perfectly well makes absolutely no sense. Medieval Italians are about as Roman as the Plantagenets. And the only way to do the restored empire event is through the greek roman perspective. So the Byzantine Empire, after centuries of being denied legitimacy by the west, finally forces the world to recognize the legitimacy of Byzantium, the greek rite, and the greek vision of what it means to be Roman... and as soon as they do, the culture that starts to spread is that of the mongrel-latin speaking descendents of the Lombards who had absolutely nothing to do with the state that restored Rome?

As much as you've been wanting an Italian empire, surely you can appreciate how stupid this is. A western restoration of Rome should be its own decision, not achieved through some backwards Greeks-Championing-Italians horse's arsery.

 

[Federalist girl]

Can the area on which the Byzantine Empire gets a claim after it changes to the Roman Empire be adjusted a bit? Claims north of the Rhine and Danube (except Dacia) seem a bit odd, like a mentioned claim on Bavaria, however duchies don't always correspond neatly with the old provinces.

It's because the cb_types file lists the claims as applying to certain kingdoms, even though you can only use it on a duchy basis. So a good way to clean it up would be to remove certain kingdoms that are on the borders from the cb file, and list individual duchies that fit in the old Roman borders and leave out the duchies that don't.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Which you surely know perfectly well makes absolutely no sense. Medieval Italians are about as Roman as the Plantagenets. And the only way to do the restored empire event is through the greek roman perspective. So the Byzantine Empire, after centuries of being denied legitimacy by the west, finally forces the world to recognize the legitimacy of Byzantium, the greek rite, and the greek vision of what it means to be Roman... and as soon as they do, the culture that starts to spread is that of the mongrel-latin speaking descendents of the Lombards who had absolutely nothing to do with the state that restored Rome?

As much as you've been wanting an Italian empire, surely you can appreciate how stupid this is. A western restoration of Rome should be its own decision, not achieved through some backwards Greeks-Championing-Italians horse's arsery.

:rofl:

I agree, of course, but I appreciate your wording.

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

Which you surely know perfectly well makes absolutely no sense. Medieval Italians are about as Roman as the Plantagenets. And the only way to do the restored empire event is through the greek roman perspective. So the Byzantine Empire, after centuries of being denied legitimacy by the west, finally forces the world to recognize the legitimacy of Byzantium, the greek rite, and the greek vision of what it means to be Roman... and as soon as they do, the culture that starts to spread is that of the mongrel-latin speaking descendents of the Lombards who had absolutely nothing to do with the state that restored Rome?

As much as you've been wanting an Italian empire, surely you can appreciate how stupid this is. A western restoration of Rome should be its own decision, not achieved through some backwards Greeks-Championing-Italians horse's arsery.

I agree on the substance but I do not appreciate the wording and I would not call the devs 'stupid' (albeit indirectly). I wanted a western restoration option that would result into an Italian Western Empire, but this is for sure something else. I will probably mod things propely by myself if I can.

Please take note that at present, this would only affect the settlers' event for cultural spread.

I agree that the Italians are not the Romans, but not that they are as Roman as the Plantagenets are. Culture as a whole is one thing, but genetically and linguistically Italians are the closest descendants of the Romans (I would also say 'gastronomically' - please don't laugh, this is a fundamental thing in order to define culture).


P.S. Italians are NOT descendents of the Lombards, I don't know where all these funny theories on all-Europeans-are-descendants-of-the-barbarians come from. It's a matter of debate in England, for sure it cannot be true for Italy. Estimates show that the Lombard invasion impacted on at most 4% of the current genetic pool of the Italian peninsula. Clearly, if that sums up with all the exogenous genetical contribution (Gothic, Frankish, pre-dark ages barbaro-Germanic, Norman, and so on) it can be more, but you should chunk in your throat your insulting words about mongrels.

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Italy.

 

[Sarog]

Being a touch sensitive there.

I say mongrel latin to represent that the Italian language is hardly a pure evolution of latin, but a bastardized offshoot no better or worse than Occitan or French. I'm not talking about genetics. Genetics are meaningless in terms of culture. The medieval italians were culturally descended from the lombards and ostrogoths that conquered Italy, and represent the evolution of how those cultures developed while trying to ape roman civilization. I'm not bashing Italians, but associating them with Roman culture is about as accurate as taking a modern Frenchman for the cultural descendent of Vercingetorix.

 

[STGeorge]

I'm not talking about genetics. Genetics are meaningless in terms of culture. The medieval italians were culturally descended from the lombards and ostrogoths that conquered Italy, and represent the evolution of how those cultures developed while trying to ape roman civilization. I'm not bashing Italians, but associating them with Roman culture is about as accurate as taking a modern Frenchman for the cultural descendent of Vercingetorix.

*slow clap*

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

Being a touch sensitive there.

I say mongrel latin to represent that the Italian language is hardly a pure evolution of latin, but a bastardized offshoot no better or worse than Occitan or French. I'm not talking about genetics. Genetics are meaningless in terms of culture. The medieval italians were culturally descended from the lombards and ostrogoths that conquered Italy, and represent the evolution of how those cultures developed while trying to ape roman civilization. I'm not bashing Italians, but associating them with Roman culture is about as accurate as taking a modern Frenchman for the cultural descendent of Vercingetorix.

That the Italian language, grammar-wise, is no closer to Latin than Occitan or Frankish is true. However, either phonetically or in terms of vocabulary there is a huge difference with the other Romance languages, as they either depart much more phonetically (Occitan, French) or in the vocabulary (Spanish) or in both (Portuguese, Romanian). In addition, it cannot be really argued that these languages are bastardizations, for they are the natural evolution of different varieties of Vulgar Latin, which already during the Empire - characterized by a strong diglossia - was much different from the classical language and was gradually adopting all the grammatical features of the eventual Romance Languages. The very differences among current Italian dialects can be traced back to varieties of Vulgar Latin, often depending on previous peoples' substrata (like the Gauls in the north).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin

The impact of the Germanic tribes' advent on the evolution of Italian culture - the language of the popular masses - was nil (the CK2 nobles' culture is another matter). To me, that I have a certain knowledge of the matter, the best proof of this is represented by the fact that for all the main recipes of Italian cuisine that don't require New World ingredients, in particular varieties of bread, soups and vegetables' dishes, roots can be traced back into the Empire's age. Arguably not the same can be said for the rest of Europe, with the exception of Spain and Greece.

The modern Italian culture evolved with its distinctive features thanks primarily to of the impact that Christianism and the Catholic Church had on ordinary people's life. Such changes also trace their roots in the late Roman period, when especially after Diocletian's reforms and Constantine's and Theodosius' choices about Christianism the culture of Roman citizens underwent dramatic changes. The issue is that most people think about Rome in terms of the lorica segmentata, the toga and the gladiators, while the fascinating late period is obscured, which is nothing but plain stupid.

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

Let me say this: it's not that if a small group of axe-weilding bad-smelling warriors coming from the shores of Germany, taking advantage of the fact that there was a huge island empty of warriors because the huge empire that controlled it was in crisis (and hence its inhabitants were defenseless) was able to settle that island, massacre or push away a large part of its native population (itself also semi-barbaric), imposing their language and culture on those who remained calling them in an insulting way "Romanized Celts", thereby establishing their own culture as dominant for centuries - and eventually thanks to lucky circumstances spreading it to the whole world, despite the efforts that some knights coming from France put into civilizing that people we are talking about - then the same pattern must hold true for the rest of the former Western Roman Empire. Luckily, things went the opposite way elsewhere.

 

[Theddude]

Just to wrap up the entire discussion on the culture of the Roman Empire, whether Italians deserve an Empire, and so on: the devs have chosen Italian as the culture of the restored Roman Empire.

That may very well be the worst of both worlds, the thought of it crossed my mind, but of course, I found that a bit strange to say the least.

Being a touch sensitive there.

I say mongrel latin to represent that the Italian language is hardly a pure evolution of latin, but a bastardized offshoot no better or worse than Occitan or French. I'm not talking about genetics. Genetics are meaningless in terms of culture. The medieval italians were culturally descended from the lombards and ostrogoths that conquered Italy, and represent the evolution of how those cultures developed while trying to ape roman civilization. I'm not bashing Italians, but associating them with Roman culture is about as accurate as taking a modern Frenchman for the cultural descendent of Vercingetorix.

That's like saying the modern English have no more to do with Alfred the Great or Anglo-Saxon culture than the Spanish! If anything's a bastard language it's English, by your standard the Norman Invasion made all of England Frenchmen!

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

That's like saying the modern English have no more to do with Alfred the Great or Anglo-Saxon culture than the Spanish! If anything's a bastard language it's English, by your standard the Norman Invasion made all of England Frenchmen!

What I tried to say in a "slightly" different way!