Happy to hear that and thank you for the kind words showing your appreciation, but don't worry, it will probably not take years for the next update to be released.
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Dev Diary: Government Overhaul
Dev Diary: Government Overhaul
Good afternoon!
We are making continuous progress on the next beta version despite the very small number of active developers, so in order to keep everyone up to date on what we are working I wanted to write another one of these dev diaries to present one of the major features that we have been working upon. As some have already guessed from previous hints and discussions that we have had in this thread, and elsewhere, the time has finally come for the government overhaul to be finalised.
Not everyone may be familiar with this overhaul that has been in the works for a very long time, so I thought I would first give some details on its nature. Ever since the vanilla game added the possibility of modifying government types in mods we have been planning to change them in the mod, both for more accuracy and flavour. This now dates back to 2015, but the long development time is not necessarily a disadvantage since it has allowed us to benefit from further vanilla updates, hindsight and refine what had initially been discussed, to both have something which is feasible to do with regards to the limited number of developers and the limited amount of time we as developers have to dedicate to this project. As those of you having already played the mod will know, a part of the governments suggested in that thread I linked are already in the mod, but we had never gotten around to completely finalising the addition of new governments. Since we always prioritise vanilla compatibility, there has not been continuous development on the governments, even if the overhaul itself that is being presented here has been in the process of being coded for over a year now.
With that background being precised, I would like to go more into detail on what the objective with this government overhaul was. Feudalism has always been a symbolic government type for the base game, since it embodies, for better or worse, the High Middle Ages around which it was originally developed. Yet during the Early Middle Ages or Late Antiquity the same is not valid. There was simply no real justification for the vanilla feudal government dominating the map in 476, it doesn’t correspond to any historical reality and doesn’t give any particular flavour or engaging gameplay for the player. Despite having added the Bureaucratic government, we did not feel satisfied with governments, since that government was strictly limited to the top lieges (we will get back to its access later in this dev diary) and modelled around the imperial administration of the Roman Empire, which didn’t fit for the post-Roman realms in the west. So for us the government overhaul was really the occasion to address this and do justice to all the realms on the map that had been inaccurately attributed the feudal government in the past.
Let me therefore introduce you to the new government setup in Europe in 476, where feudalism is no more a thing:
The new government map
As you can see two new government forms have been added to replace feudalism. Both will be familiar to those who have kept up with our discussions during the four latest years, but I will nonetheless explain their nature as a reminder for some or a first presentation for others.
Firstly we have the new High Tribal government type. As the name implies, it is related to tribes. This government form represents tribal states with a small control in previously Roman lands or in the vicinity of them. As you can see on the map it is present both on the British Isles and in Iberia at start, although as the game progresses it may appear elsewhere, so it has no geographic restriction. It is a form of transition government, since it belongs to the same government category as Feudal or Bureaucratic and loses the disadvantages of being a tribe, but doesn’t get all the benefits of a Feudal ruler. With a small vassal limit and a small demesne any ruler that wants to build a larger empire will want to get rid of this government type.
The description and features of the High Tribal government
How do you reform out of it? Here we have not reinvented the wheel, and the process will be fairly familiar with anyone who has gone from Tribal to Feudal in the base game, or in the mod prior to this version, for that matter. Through laws you can cement your High Tribal authority and progress towards feudalism, although be careful, because your vassals will also have all the available tools to prevent that from happening, with factions, plots and usual conflicts arising.
While the High Tribal ruler will wish to reform out of that government, the Tribal ruler will have the opposite desire. As hinted High Tribal will therefore become the new intermediary step between Tribal and Feudal, meaning any Tribal ruler will keep the existing mechanics, but no longer look forward to become Feudal, but rather first of all High Tribal. While making the transition a lot longer, it will also balance out some of the abuses that were present in the previous versions and allow for a far more progressive transition out of the tribal world. Depending on who you border and/or what culture or religion you are of you may also adopt other government types as a High Tribal ruler, but all tribals will have to go through the High Tribal stage before moving on to a feudal form. You may still reform to a merchant republic as a tribe.
Secondly, as you have already noticed on the pictures, the Sub-Roman government will be making its apparition. This new type of government will work differently from the others as it evolves and feature unique mechanics. Sub-Roman represents the decayed tax-based Roman institutions for the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, such as for example the Visigoths, the Vandals or the Burgundians. It is restricted to the former Roman Empire and immediate borders and can not be acquired on some other edge of the map.
Even though each realm was unique and we will continue to strive to represent their particular intricacies, a general government form made sense to represent the shared traits of these realms in the aftermath of the Roman Empire, as well as for the vassals of the Bureaucratic realms. They may both hold cities and castles, and collect tax, so they have access to less troops as raised levies, characteristics you will notice they share in part with the Bureaucratic government.
The description and features of the Sub-Roman government
So far you may think that there is nothing unique about this, and you would be correct to point it out, although there is more than just that. In addition to always having the ability of becoming Bureaucratic, provided they attain a certain size, the empire-level and are independent (no tributary relationship) the tooltip showcased above hints they can reform into another, familiar form of government. With time they will thus, provided that they are independent, tend to progressively transition from tax-based to land-based as the Romano-Germanic kingdoms go from keeping imperial tax collection to redistributing the land and relying on proto-feudal relations.
The first part of the Roman taxation event chain
This progressive transition will depend on the choices of the player, but also on how the realm itself fares. Over time, the Roman imperial infrastructure to collect tax decays, which will trigger an event chain on maintaining taxation infrastructure or not, which bases itself of actions of the top liege rather than vassals, who will only get limited abilities to impact the transition when it comes to this chain. It will then be the choice of that liege whether or not to keep investing more and more money to retain the system in a smaller realm, at the risk of negative opinions and rebellion risk. Not retaining it will however also come at a cost, since the revenues will shrink, although that might be an acceptable evolution if you rely less on retinue and more on your vassals and the levies. However the vassals might also interfere in the process, and via event demand that the taxation is dropped, a demand the liege will be forced to respond to. If the Roman infrastructure for taxes ends up disappearing completely on the long-term over the centuries, that will be one factor towards becoming feudal.
Nonetheless, that will not be the only factor, since other aspects of society might be evolving without being directly under the control of the player. One of the things we wanted to be sure that we modelled was the degree of crisis, and that is now portrayed through modifiers for particularly war torn provinces that have been sieged and looted multiple times in a row during a short period of time. This will be an incentive to avoiding constant warfare in your heartland, or else your tax revenue could be hit a lot more harshly than previously. In addition to that there are also new events for changing cultural values of the aristocracy, as the society can become more militarised or the nobility turns itself towards the Church to find sources of wealth and prestige. I will not detail all the events and their conditions and effects here, but together they add up and constitute the basis for becoming feudal.
The final event in the chain that leads your realm to become feudal
Thirdly this was also the occasion for us to go back to the Indian subcontinent, which was in need of a different type of government than feudalism, reflecting its unique nature. This government which has not so creatively been named Gupta is not limited to the dynasty but also encompasses most of the subcontinent itself. It was distinct from the Bureaucratic or Eranshahr since many of their vassals had scholar-based administrations, while the central imperial rule was decentralised. I look forward to return to this government in the future to continue improving it and adding diversity to India, which is too often neglected as a peripheral region of the game. For the purpose of the mod it having been added later on does not change its importance.
The description and features of the Gupta government
Finally there were a few other assorted realms that have not been mentioned so far for which we had plans but didn’t get the time to finalise this time around, so they ended up getting a new government too, but only a new one in name, since Pre-Feudal does not include any interesting feature or content for now. It is however subject to heavily evolve in the future and very likely to be entirely removed as these realms get their own share of unique government content, but that will require further development time, which we simply did not have this time around. At least you might get the small satisfaction of no longer reading the word feudal itself, even if pre-feudal still contains it in the name.
If these realms didn’t become Sub-Roman it is because they had no shared history beneath the Roman Empire and did not function in the same way, and High Tribal didn’t fit either without any tribal culture. This government type also serves as a fall-back default, so that in strange edge scenarios you can have this government rather than a completely broken game with no government, which would be unplayable. Although of course once the update hits if you do end up with Pre-Feudal all of a sudden without being informed you should inform us of it.
For those of you who expected this post to contain a date of release for the next beta version my answer is that we are not there yet, so I will have to ask for a bit more of your patience. If you are familiar with modding, the picture above should give you some hints on what is left to do, and also explain why I’m not giving any date.
I hope you enjoyed this development diary and that it wasn’t too long or heavy. Do give us any feedback or questions you have on this, it will be valuable for any eventual further adjustments we do. Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, both at work or for those who have the chance of getting some vacation!
Good afternoon!
We are making continuous progress on the next beta version despite the very small number of active developers, so in order to keep everyone up to date on what we are working I wanted to write another one of these dev diaries to present one of the major features that we have been working upon. As some have already guessed from previous hints and discussions that we have had in this thread, and elsewhere, the time has finally come for the government overhaul to be finalised.
Not everyone may be familiar with this overhaul that has been in the works for a very long time, so I thought I would first give some details on its nature. Ever since the vanilla game added the possibility of modifying government types in mods we have been planning to change them in the mod, both for more accuracy and flavour. This now dates back to 2015, but the long development time is not necessarily a disadvantage since it has allowed us to benefit from further vanilla updates, hindsight and refine what had initially been discussed, to both have something which is feasible to do with regards to the limited number of developers and the limited amount of time we as developers have to dedicate to this project. As those of you having already played the mod will know, a part of the governments suggested in that thread I linked are already in the mod, but we had never gotten around to completely finalising the addition of new governments. Since we always prioritise vanilla compatibility, there has not been continuous development on the governments, even if the overhaul itself that is being presented here has been in the process of being coded for over a year now.
With that background being precised, I would like to go more into detail on what the objective with this government overhaul was. Feudalism has always been a symbolic government type for the base game, since it embodies, for better or worse, the High Middle Ages around which it was originally developed. Yet during the Early Middle Ages or Late Antiquity the same is not valid. There was simply no real justification for the vanilla feudal government dominating the map in 476, it doesn’t correspond to any historical reality and doesn’t give any particular flavour or engaging gameplay for the player. Despite having added the Bureaucratic government, we did not feel satisfied with governments, since that government was strictly limited to the top lieges (we will get back to its access later in this dev diary) and modelled around the imperial administration of the Roman Empire, which didn’t fit for the post-Roman realms in the west. So for us the government overhaul was really the occasion to address this and do justice to all the realms on the map that had been inaccurately attributed the feudal government in the past.
Let me therefore introduce you to the new government setup in Europe in 476, where feudalism is no more a thing:
The new government map
As you can see two new government forms have been added to replace feudalism. Both will be familiar to those who have kept up with our discussions during the four latest years, but I will nonetheless explain their nature as a reminder for some or a first presentation for others.
Firstly we have the new High Tribal government type. As the name implies, it is related to tribes. This government form represents tribal states with a small control in previously Roman lands or in the vicinity of them. As you can see on the map it is present both on the British Isles and in Iberia at start, although as the game progresses it may appear elsewhere, so it has no geographic restriction. It is a form of transition government, since it belongs to the same government category as Feudal or Bureaucratic and loses the disadvantages of being a tribe, but doesn’t get all the benefits of a Feudal ruler. With a small vassal limit and a small demesne any ruler that wants to build a larger empire will want to get rid of this government type.
The description and features of the High Tribal government
How do you reform out of it? Here we have not reinvented the wheel, and the process will be fairly familiar with anyone who has gone from Tribal to Feudal in the base game, or in the mod prior to this version, for that matter. Through laws you can cement your High Tribal authority and progress towards feudalism, although be careful, because your vassals will also have all the available tools to prevent that from happening, with factions, plots and usual conflicts arising.
While the High Tribal ruler will wish to reform out of that government, the Tribal ruler will have the opposite desire. As hinted High Tribal will therefore become the new intermediary step between Tribal and Feudal, meaning any Tribal ruler will keep the existing mechanics, but no longer look forward to become Feudal, but rather first of all High Tribal. While making the transition a lot longer, it will also balance out some of the abuses that were present in the previous versions and allow for a far more progressive transition out of the tribal world. Depending on who you border and/or what culture or religion you are of you may also adopt other government types as a High Tribal ruler, but all tribals will have to go through the High Tribal stage before moving on to a feudal form. You may still reform to a merchant republic as a tribe.
Secondly, as you have already noticed on the pictures, the Sub-Roman government will be making its apparition. This new type of government will work differently from the others as it evolves and feature unique mechanics. Sub-Roman represents the decayed tax-based Roman institutions for the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, such as for example the Visigoths, the Vandals or the Burgundians. It is restricted to the former Roman Empire and immediate borders and can not be acquired on some other edge of the map.
Even though each realm was unique and we will continue to strive to represent their particular intricacies, a general government form made sense to represent the shared traits of these realms in the aftermath of the Roman Empire, as well as for the vassals of the Bureaucratic realms. They may both hold cities and castles, and collect tax, so they have access to less troops as raised levies, characteristics you will notice they share in part with the Bureaucratic government.
The description and features of the Sub-Roman government
So far you may think that there is nothing unique about this, and you would be correct to point it out, although there is more than just that. In addition to always having the ability of becoming Bureaucratic, provided they attain a certain size, the empire-level and are independent (no tributary relationship) the tooltip showcased above hints they can reform into another, familiar form of government. With time they will thus, provided that they are independent, tend to progressively transition from tax-based to land-based as the Romano-Germanic kingdoms go from keeping imperial tax collection to redistributing the land and relying on proto-feudal relations.
The first part of the Roman taxation event chain
This progressive transition will depend on the choices of the player, but also on how the realm itself fares. Over time, the Roman imperial infrastructure to collect tax decays, which will trigger an event chain on maintaining taxation infrastructure or not, which bases itself of actions of the top liege rather than vassals, who will only get limited abilities to impact the transition when it comes to this chain. It will then be the choice of that liege whether or not to keep investing more and more money to retain the system in a smaller realm, at the risk of negative opinions and rebellion risk. Not retaining it will however also come at a cost, since the revenues will shrink, although that might be an acceptable evolution if you rely less on retinue and more on your vassals and the levies. However the vassals might also interfere in the process, and via event demand that the taxation is dropped, a demand the liege will be forced to respond to. If the Roman infrastructure for taxes ends up disappearing completely on the long-term over the centuries, that will be one factor towards becoming feudal.
Nonetheless, that will not be the only factor, since other aspects of society might be evolving without being directly under the control of the player. One of the things we wanted to be sure that we modelled was the degree of crisis, and that is now portrayed through modifiers for particularly war torn provinces that have been sieged and looted multiple times in a row during a short period of time. This will be an incentive to avoiding constant warfare in your heartland, or else your tax revenue could be hit a lot more harshly than previously. In addition to that there are also new events for changing cultural values of the aristocracy, as the society can become more militarised or the nobility turns itself towards the Church to find sources of wealth and prestige. I will not detail all the events and their conditions and effects here, but together they add up and constitute the basis for becoming feudal.
The final event in the chain that leads your realm to become feudal
Thirdly this was also the occasion for us to go back to the Indian subcontinent, which was in need of a different type of government than feudalism, reflecting its unique nature. This government which has not so creatively been named Gupta is not limited to the dynasty but also encompasses most of the subcontinent itself. It was distinct from the Bureaucratic or Eranshahr since many of their vassals had scholar-based administrations, while the central imperial rule was decentralised. I look forward to return to this government in the future to continue improving it and adding diversity to India, which is too often neglected as a peripheral region of the game. For the purpose of the mod it having been added later on does not change its importance.
The description and features of the Gupta government
Finally there were a few other assorted realms that have not been mentioned so far for which we had plans but didn’t get the time to finalise this time around, so they ended up getting a new government too, but only a new one in name, since Pre-Feudal does not include any interesting feature or content for now. It is however subject to heavily evolve in the future and very likely to be entirely removed as these realms get their own share of unique government content, but that will require further development time, which we simply did not have this time around. At least you might get the small satisfaction of no longer reading the word feudal itself, even if pre-feudal still contains it in the name.
If these realms didn’t become Sub-Roman it is because they had no shared history beneath the Roman Empire and did not function in the same way, and High Tribal didn’t fit either without any tribal culture. This government type also serves as a fall-back default, so that in strange edge scenarios you can have this government rather than a completely broken game with no government, which would be unplayable. Although of course once the update hits if you do end up with Pre-Feudal all of a sudden without being informed you should inform us of it.
For those of you who expected this post to contain a date of release for the next beta version my answer is that we are not there yet, so I will have to ask for a bit more of your patience. If you are familiar with modding, the picture above should give you some hints on what is left to do, and also explain why I’m not giving any date.
I hope you enjoyed this development diary and that it wasn’t too long or heavy. Do give us any feedback or questions you have on this, it will be valuable for any eventual further adjustments we do. Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, both at work or for those who have the chance of getting some vacation!
Dev Diary: Government Overhaul
Good afternoon!
We are making continuous progress on the next beta version despite the very small number of active developers, so in order to keep everyone up to date on what we are working I wanted to write another one of these dev diaries to present one of the major features that we have been working upon. As some have already guessed from previous hints and discussions that we have had in this thread, and elsewhere, the time has finally come for the government overhaul to be finalised.
Not everyone may be familiar with this overhaul that has been in the works for a very long time, so I thought I would first give some details on its nature. Ever since the vanilla game added the possibility of modifying government types in mods we have been planning to change them in the mod, both for more accuracy and flavour. This now dates back to 2015, but the long development time is not necessarily a disadvantage since it has allowed us to benefit from further vanilla updates, hindsight and refine what had initially been discussed, to both have something which is feasible to do with regards to the limited number of developers and the limited amount of time we as developers have to dedicate to this project. As those of you having already played the mod will know, a part of the governments suggested in that thread I linked are already in the mod, but we had never gotten around to completely finalising the addition of new governments. Since we always prioritise vanilla compatibility, there has not been continuous development on the governments, even if the overhaul itself that is being presented here has been in the process of being coded for over a year now.
With that background being precised, I would like to go more into detail on what the objective with this government overhaul was. Feudalism has always been a symbolic government type for the base game, since it embodies, for better or worse, the High Middle Ages around which it was originally developed. Yet during the Early Middle Ages or Late Antiquity the same is not valid. There was simply no real justification for the vanilla feudal government dominating the map in 476, it doesn’t correspond to any historical reality and doesn’t give any particular flavour or engaging gameplay for the player. Despite having added the Bureaucratic government, we did not feel satisfied with governments, since that government was strictly limited to the top lieges (we will get back to its access later in this dev diary) and modelled around the imperial administration of the Roman Empire, which didn’t fit for the post-Roman realms in the west. So for us the government overhaul was really the occasion to address this and do justice to all the realms on the map that had been inaccurately attributed the feudal government in the past.
Let me therefore introduce you to the new government setup in Europe in 476, where feudalism is no more a thing:
The new government map
As you can see two new government forms have been added to replace feudalism. Both will be familiar to those who have kept up with our discussions during the four latest years, but I will nonetheless explain their nature as a reminder for some or a first presentation for others.
Firstly we have the new High Tribal government type. As the name implies, it is related to tribes. This government form represents tribal states with a small control in previously Roman lands or in the vicinity of them. As you can see on the map it is present both on the British Isles and in Iberia at start, although as the game progresses it may appear elsewhere, so it has no geographic restriction. It is a form of transition government, since it belongs to the same government category as Feudal or Bureaucratic and loses the disadvantages of being a tribe, but doesn’t get all the benefits of a Feudal ruler. With a small vassal limit and a small demesne any ruler that wants to build a larger empire will want to get rid of this government type.
The description and features of the High Tribal government
How do you reform out of it? Here we have not reinvented the wheel, and the process will be fairly familiar with anyone who has gone from Tribal to Feudal in the base game, or in the mod prior to this version, for that matter. Through laws you can cement your High Tribal authority and progress towards feudalism, although be careful, because your vassals will also have all the available tools to prevent that from happening, with factions, plots and usual conflicts arising.
While the High Tribal ruler will wish to reform out of that government, the Tribal ruler will have the opposite desire. As hinted High Tribal will therefore become the new intermediary step between Tribal and Feudal, meaning any Tribal ruler will keep the existing mechanics, but no longer look forward to become Feudal, but rather first of all High Tribal. While making the transition a lot longer, it will also balance out some of the abuses that were present in the previous versions and allow for a far more progressive transition out of the tribal world. Depending on who you border and/or what culture or religion you are of you may also adopt other government types as a High Tribal ruler, but all tribals will have to go through the High Tribal stage before moving on to a feudal form. You may still reform to a merchant republic as a tribe.
Secondly, as you have already noticed on the pictures, the Sub-Roman government will be making its apparition. This new type of government will work differently from the others as it evolves and feature unique mechanics. Sub-Roman represents the decayed tax-based Roman institutions for the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, such as for example the Visigoths, the Vandals or the Burgundians. It is restricted to the former Roman Empire and immediate borders and can not be acquired on some other edge of the map.
Even though each realm was unique and we will continue to strive to represent their particular intricacies, a general government form made sense to represent the shared traits of these realms in the aftermath of the Roman Empire, as well as for the vassals of the Bureaucratic realms. They may both hold cities and castles, and collect tax, so they have access to less troops as raised levies, characteristics you will notice they share in part with the Bureaucratic government.
The description and features of the Sub-Roman government
So far you may think that there is nothing unique about this, and you would be correct to point it out, although there is more than just that. In addition to always having the ability of becoming Bureaucratic, provided they attain a certain size, the empire-level and are independent (no tributary relationship) the tooltip showcased above hints they can reform into another, familiar form of government. With time they will thus, provided that they are independent, tend to progressively transition from tax-based to land-based as the Romano-Germanic kingdoms go from keeping imperial tax collection to redistributing the land and relying on proto-feudal relations.
The first part of the Roman taxation event chain
This progressive transition will depend on the choices of the player, but also on how the realm itself fares. Over time, the Roman imperial infrastructure to collect tax decays, which will trigger an event chain on maintaining taxation infrastructure or not, which bases itself of actions of the top liege rather than vassals, who will only get limited abilities to impact the transition when it comes to this chain. It will then be the choice of that liege whether or not to keep investing more and more money to retain the system in a smaller realm, at the risk of negative opinions and rebellion risk. Not retaining it will however also come at a cost, since the revenues will shrink, although that might be an acceptable evolution if you rely less on retinue and more on your vassals and the levies. However the vassals might also interfere in the process, and via event demand that the taxation is dropped, a demand the liege will be forced to respond to. If the Roman infrastructure for taxes ends up disappearing completely on the long-term over the centuries, that will be one factor towards becoming feudal.
Nonetheless, that will not be the only factor, since other aspects of society might be evolving without being directly under the control of the player. One of the things we wanted to be sure that we modelled was the degree of crisis, and that is now portrayed through modifiers for particularly war torn provinces that have been sieged and looted multiple times in a row during a short period of time. This will be an incentive to avoiding constant warfare in your heartland, or else your tax revenue could be hit a lot more harshly than previously. In addition to that there are also new events for changing cultural values of the aristocracy, as the society can become more militarised or the nobility turns itself towards the Church to find sources of wealth and prestige. I will not detail all the events and their conditions and effects here, but together they add up and constitute the basis for becoming feudal.
The final event in the chain that leads your realm to become feudal
Thirdly this was also the occasion for us to go back to the Indian subcontinent, which was in need of a different type of government than feudalism, reflecting its unique nature. This government which has not so creatively been named Gupta is not limited to the dynasty but also encompasses most of the subcontinent itself. It was distinct from the Bureaucratic or Eranshahr since many of their vassals had scholar-based administrations, while the central imperial rule was decentralised. I look forward to return to this government in the future to continue improving it and adding diversity to India, which is too often neglected as a peripheral region of the game. For the purpose of the mod it having been added later on does not change its importance.
The description and features of the Gupta government
Finally there were a few other assorted realms that have not been mentioned so far for which we had plans but didn’t get the time to finalise this time around, so they ended up getting a new government too, but only a new one in name, since Pre-Feudal does not include any interesting feature or content for now. It is however subject to heavily evolve in the future and very likely to be entirely removed as these realms get their own share of unique government content, but that will require further development time, which we simply did not have this time around. At least you might get the small satisfaction of no longer reading the word feudal itself, even if pre-feudal still contains it in the name.
If these realms didn’t become Sub-Roman it is because they had no shared history beneath the Roman Empire and did not function in the same way, and High Tribal didn’t fit either without any tribal culture. This government type also serves as a fall-back default, so that in strange edge scenarios you can have this government rather than a completely broken game with no government, which would be unplayable. Although of course once the update hits if you do end up with Pre-Feudal all of a sudden without being informed you should inform us of it.
For those of you who expected this post to contain a date of release for the next beta version my answer is that we are not there yet, so I will have to ask for a bit more of your patience. If you are familiar with modding, the picture above should give you some hints on what is left to do, and also explain why I’m not giving any date.
I hope you enjoyed this development diary and that it wasn’t too long or heavy. Do give us any feedback or questions you have on this, it will be valuable for any eventual further adjustments we do. Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, both at work or for those who have the chance of getting some vacation!
amazing work! will be there anyway to restore old roman government or something like that?
I hope you also have a wonderful summer.
Best regards!
Thank you. In the sense that you can become Bureaucratic, yes, but no unique government type outside that, I'm afraid.
Dev Diary: Government Overhaul
Good afternoon!
We are making continuous progress on the next beta version despite the very small number of active developers, so in order to keep everyone up to date on what we are working I wanted to write another one of these dev diaries to present one of the major features that we have been working upon. As some have already guessed from previous hints and discussions that we have had in this thread, and elsewhere, the time has finally come for the government overhaul to be finalised.
Not everyone may be familiar with this overhaul that has been in the works for a very long time, so I thought I would first give some details on its nature. Ever since the vanilla game added the possibility of modifying government types in mods we have been planning to change them in the mod, both for more accuracy and flavour. This now dates back to 2015, but the long development time is not necessarily a disadvantage since it has allowed us to benefit from further vanilla updates, hindsight and refine what had initially been discussed, to both have something which is feasible to do with regards to the limited number of developers and the limited amount of time we as developers have to dedicate to this project. As those of you having already played the mod will know, a part of the governments suggested in that thread I linked are already in the mod, but we had never gotten around to completely finalising the addition of new governments. Since we always prioritise vanilla compatibility, there has not been continuous development on the governments, even if the overhaul itself that is being presented here has been in the process of being coded for over a year now.
With that background being precised, I would like to go more into detail on what the objective with this government overhaul was. Feudalism has always been a symbolic government type for the base game, since it embodies, for better or worse, the High Middle Ages around which it was originally developed. Yet during the Early Middle Ages or Late Antiquity the same is not valid. There was simply no real justification for the vanilla feudal government dominating the map in 476, it doesn’t correspond to any historical reality and doesn’t give any particular flavour or engaging gameplay for the player. Despite having added the Bureaucratic government, we did not feel satisfied with governments, since that government was strictly limited to the top lieges (we will get back to its access later in this dev diary) and modelled around the imperial administration of the Roman Empire, which didn’t fit for the post-Roman realms in the west. So for us the government overhaul was really the occasion to address this and do justice to all the realms on the map that had been inaccurately attributed the feudal government in the past.
Let me therefore introduce you to the new government setup in Europe in 476, where feudalism is no more a thing:
The new government map
As you can see two new government forms have been added to replace feudalism. Both will be familiar to those who have kept up with our discussions during the four latest years, but I will nonetheless explain their nature as a reminder for some or a first presentation for others.
Firstly we have the new High Tribal government type. As the name implies, it is related to tribes. This government form represents tribal states with a small control in previously Roman lands or in the vicinity of them. As you can see on the map it is present both on the British Isles and in Iberia at start, although as the game progresses it may appear elsewhere, so it has no geographic restriction. It is a form of transition government, since it belongs to the same government category as Feudal or Bureaucratic and loses the disadvantages of being a tribe, but doesn’t get all the benefits of a Feudal ruler. With a small vassal limit and a small demesne any ruler that wants to build a larger empire will want to get rid of this government type.
The description and features of the High Tribal government
How do you reform out of it? Here we have not reinvented the wheel, and the process will be fairly familiar with anyone who has gone from Tribal to Feudal in the base game, or in the mod prior to this version, for that matter. Through laws you can cement your High Tribal authority and progress towards feudalism, although be careful, because your vassals will also have all the available tools to prevent that from happening, with factions, plots and usual conflicts arising.
While the High Tribal ruler will wish to reform out of that government, the Tribal ruler will have the opposite desire. As hinted High Tribal will therefore become the new intermediary step between Tribal and Feudal, meaning any Tribal ruler will keep the existing mechanics, but no longer look forward to become Feudal, but rather first of all High Tribal. While making the transition a lot longer, it will also balance out some of the abuses that were present in the previous versions and allow for a far more progressive transition out of the tribal world. Depending on who you border and/or what culture or religion you are of you may also adopt other government types as a High Tribal ruler, but all tribals will have to go through the High Tribal stage before moving on to a feudal form. You may still reform to a merchant republic as a tribe.
Secondly, as you have already noticed on the pictures, the Sub-Roman government will be making its apparition. This new type of government will work differently from the others as it evolves and feature unique mechanics. Sub-Roman represents the decayed tax-based Roman institutions for the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, such as for example the Visigoths, the Vandals or the Burgundians. It is restricted to the former Roman Empire and immediate borders and can not be acquired on some other edge of the map.
Even though each realm was unique and we will continue to strive to represent their particular intricacies, a general government form made sense to represent the shared traits of these realms in the aftermath of the Roman Empire, as well as for the vassals of the Bureaucratic realms. They may both hold cities and castles, and collect tax, so they have access to less troops as raised levies, characteristics you will notice they share in part with the Bureaucratic government.
The description and features of the Sub-Roman government
So far you may think that there is nothing unique about this, and you would be correct to point it out, although there is more than just that. In addition to always having the ability of becoming Bureaucratic, provided they attain a certain size, the empire-level and are independent (no tributary relationship) the tooltip showcased above hints they can reform into another, familiar form of government. With time they will thus, provided that they are independent, tend to progressively transition from tax-based to land-based as the Romano-Germanic kingdoms go from keeping imperial tax collection to redistributing the land and relying on proto-feudal relations.
The first part of the Roman taxation event chain
This progressive transition will depend on the choices of the player, but also on how the realm itself fares. Over time, the Roman imperial infrastructure to collect tax decays, which will trigger an event chain on maintaining taxation infrastructure or not, which bases itself of actions of the top liege rather than vassals, who will only get limited abilities to impact the transition when it comes to this chain. It will then be the choice of that liege whether or not to keep investing more and more money to retain the system in a smaller realm, at the risk of negative opinions and rebellion risk. Not retaining it will however also come at a cost, since the revenues will shrink, although that might be an acceptable evolution if you rely less on retinue and more on your vassals and the levies. However the vassals might also interfere in the process, and via event demand that the taxation is dropped, a demand the liege will be forced to respond to. If the Roman infrastructure for taxes ends up disappearing completely on the long-term over the centuries, that will be one factor towards becoming feudal.
Nonetheless, that will not be the only factor, since other aspects of society might be evolving without being directly under the control of the player. One of the things we wanted to be sure that we modelled was the degree of crisis, and that is now portrayed through modifiers for particularly war torn provinces that have been sieged and looted multiple times in a row during a short period of time. This will be an incentive to avoiding constant warfare in your heartland, or else your tax revenue could be hit a lot more harshly than previously. In addition to that there are also new events for changing cultural values of the aristocracy, as the society can become more militarised or the nobility turns itself towards the Church to find sources of wealth and prestige. I will not detail all the events and their conditions and effects here, but together they add up and constitute the basis for becoming feudal.
The final event in the chain that leads your realm to become feudal
Thirdly this was also the occasion for us to go back to the Indian subcontinent, which was in need of a different type of government than feudalism, reflecting its unique nature. This government which has not so creatively been named Gupta is not limited to the dynasty but also encompasses most of the subcontinent itself. It was distinct from the Bureaucratic or Eranshahr since many of their vassals had scholar-based administrations, while the central imperial rule was decentralised. I look forward to return to this government in the future to continue improving it and adding diversity to India, which is too often neglected as a peripheral region of the game. For the purpose of the mod it having been added later on does not change its importance.
The description and features of the Gupta government
Finally there were a few other assorted realms that have not been mentioned so far for which we had plans but didn’t get the time to finalise this time around, so they ended up getting a new government too, but only a new one in name, since Pre-Feudal does not include any interesting feature or content for now. It is however subject to heavily evolve in the future and very likely to be entirely removed as these realms get their own share of unique government content, but that will require further development time, which we simply did not have this time around. At least you might get the small satisfaction of no longer reading the word feudal itself, even if pre-feudal still contains it in the name.
If these realms didn’t become Sub-Roman it is because they had no shared history beneath the Roman Empire and did not function in the same way, and High Tribal didn’t fit either without any tribal culture. This government type also serves as a fall-back default, so that in strange edge scenarios you can have this government rather than a completely broken game with no government, which would be unplayable. Although of course once the update hits if you do end up with Pre-Feudal all of a sudden without being informed you should inform us of it.
For those of you who expected this post to contain a date of release for the next beta version my answer is that we are not there yet, so I will have to ask for a bit more of your patience. If you are familiar with modding, the picture above should give you some hints on what is left to do, and also explain why I’m not giving any date.
I hope you enjoyed this development diary and that it wasn’t too long or heavy. Do give us any feedback or questions you have on this, it will be valuable for any eventual further adjustments we do. Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, both at work or for those who have the chance of getting some vacation!
Why would staying with a Sub-Roman government or taxation system mean a greater chance for revolts? Is this at all historical?
Why would size be such a large factor in re-establishing the roman government from sub-roman? Is it an abstraction for 'doing well'?
Great stuff!! I got so excited when i saw this in my notifications! :3
Great stuff!! I got so excited when i saw this in my notifications! :3
This was unexpected.
So, we will have new government types that can evolve over time into other types of government?, thats look complex as hell, but hey, it looks nice at least on paper, and if it that could give more diversity to the game, it will be awesome.
So instead of getting "just" an update to the mod to be compatible with 3.x, we will get a completely new version of the mod, thats nice. Any news about ROI?, or that will be on the freezer until next time?
So, we will have new government types that can evolve over time into other types of government?, thats look complex as hell, but hey, it looks nice at least on paper, and if it that could give more diversity to the game, it will be awesome.
So instead of getting "just" an update to the mod to be compatible with 3.x, we will get a completely new version of the mod, thats nice. Any news about ROI?, or that will be on the freezer until next time?
Yes, the governments are supposed to evolve into others. And also yes, you will get more than just a "making this version of the mod compatible with the new version of the game" although I don´t know what ROI is.
Rise of Islam
Nice, this mod is so awesome, thanks for your hard work (and of course, the team)
Ah right, Rise of Islam. That project is currently frozen, yesRise of Islam
Nice, this mod is so awesome, thanks for your hard work (and of course, the team)
Such wonderful news. I am overjoyed seeing this, thank you for all your hard work. The new governments sound perfect for the time period the mod is emulating, and I'm especially happy seeing some love for the Indian region. I agree, it's too often dismissed. Hopefully the Gupta government type gets some WtWSMS players checking that part of the map out.
Keep in mind that just staying with a Sub-Roman government does not increase revolt risk, it is only the choice you make in the event chain that does it. Concerning your question about whether or not this is historical, I would say it depends a bit on who pays the taxes and the state of the realm. The level of taxation of the Roman Empire was rather high if we compare to others. That high level of taxation went to paying the salaries of the soldiers, bureaucrats and messengers, in addition to feeding the capitals. There were a lot of public buildings, the state was wealthy and trade ships were also under state control. So all of the land tax went somewhere, but in order to collect it there had to be records and control, and collection itself could be violent. After the Western Roman Empire disappeared, what that the high land taxes financed also disappeared with it gradually, since soldiers in the Romano-Germanic did not get paid through taxes, bureaucracy wasn't kept, the capitals weren't as large and etc. Furthermore the new elites and a part of the population that came with them depending on the nature of Germanic settlement did not have the same traditions towards taxpaying as the populations within the Roman Empire itself, meaning there will be a larger reticence towards having a such level of taxation which would be counter-productive. Then there is also the degree of crisis and involution, and depending on other factors the rebellion risk will have more or less of an impact. If it stacks with other modifiers it will be bad, but in a peaceful and stable realm it shouldn't have much of an impact.
Thank you. It is mainly because it makes sense for the administration to evolve in a large realm as opposed to the small-scale realms that are present at start, and because the way the Bureaucratic government form is designed is based upon a large empire, so it doesn't make sense for a small one to adopt it.
Sort of related to what was said in the development diary, time and developer limitations means we can't do everything at once. That applies to both some of the government types we would have liked to add and the Rise of Islam.
Happy to hear that!
Does this mean that Soissons and other Romance-cultured Sub-Romans will have easier times transitioning back to Bureaucracy than the Germanic Subromans? Is ruler and vassal culture going to impact the events we get and the strength of the modifiers?
Really excited to get another dev diary and for the mod update, however unspecified the timing!
Soissons, if it survives, will certainly have an easier time I would say, due to its culture in part given the Roman group culture requirement on the decision to adopt a Bureaucratic government. Culture (or religion for that matter) at the moment does not directly impact the events and the strength of the modifiers, but indirectly it adds up with other factors already present, so these events will not make life easier for a Romano-Germanic realm as the Vandals, the Visigoths or the Burgundians with Romano- vassals or provinces. But at the same time we don't want to give them too heavy additional maluses since that would be neither fun nor accurate.
It is not something we have discussed or settled, so it could depend a bit, but I don't think it will be a priority.
It could be a good option, Iqta is already there; although yes, ROI is not a priority rn.
Ah ok, gameplay reason then.
I wish i could help but i wouldn't know where to start with modding.
You know something i love about this mod? When a heresy takes over, it has its own icon which replaces the previous orthodox.
And on the same line as this, could i ask how you handled pagan reformation? There are some pagans which were considered prereformed, such as (that brown bull one) the one left of egypt in Libya.
Have they becomed reformable?
I wish i could help but i wouldn't know where to start with modding.
You know something i love about this mod? When a heresy takes over, it has its own icon which replaces the previous orthodox.
And on the same line as this, could i ask how you handled pagan reformation? There are some pagans which were considered prereformed, such as (that brown bull one) the one left of egypt in Libya.
Have they becomed reformable?
We can help you out with learning if you are interested.
Yes, we try to have unique icons for all religions.
They will remain prereformed just as they are currently. This applies to Hellenism, Gurzil, Ashurism and Egyptian Pagan amongst others.
Oh good! I always liked being Subroman in the Winter King and now I'll get to be Subroman in WTWSMS