CK2 is a fantastic game that I still play a lot. However, it annoys me deeply more than most other games in my library do, simply because of the sacrifices it makes for playability - accuracy often goes out the window. With that in mind, I'm going to make a (fairly long post sadly) about what we know of the medieval world and forward several ideas about how these thoughts could possibly make their way into CK3. You are warned, this is a LONG post.
I'd like to make three things clear from the outset. Firstly, I'm an academically trained medieval historian out of grad school - I do know what I'm talking about most of the time. Secondly, this post is not intended as either a critique of CK2, PDX or anything like that. I love CK2 and will keep playing it. Finally, I do not have any expectations of the CK3 development to implement any of these ideas. I am sure they will do a fantastic job and make a brilliant game. I'm making this post because I want to, and because I find the period fascinating.
1. Titulature: This is a big one. CK2 used a 'tier' system for titles which rewarded progression but is not accurate. To condense what would otherwise be an essay, the title which one uses is meaningless without the context. A man can call himself king but lacking legitimacy and recognition makes his claims pointless and hollow. CK3 should have some sort of legitimacy mechanic, which is dependent on things like dynastic lineage, church support and in some cases the support of the people as a result of their actions. Legitimacy should fluctuate through a reign and rulers with low legitimacy run the risk of rebellions, usurpations and vassals becoming independent. Furthermore, claiming a title should be more of a big deal than it currently is, especially since CK2 started with lands already 'de jure' which was often an oversimplification at best and inaccurate at worst - duchies weren't introduced in English titulature until 1337. Therefore, I propose a mechanic which makes titles more flexible and much more realistic - overlordship. Basically, the tier system is reworked to allow 'lords' to exert authority over other lords of the same 'rank' if said lords recognise the authority of the former - through war, dynastic seniority, economic strength and the like. Tributary states is a step in the right direction but is an oversimplification of how feudal lords interacted; it is a mistake to assume that there was a fixed hierarchy in the medieval world.
2. Population: The second big one. Right now, CK2 reduces population down to a common culture and religion per unit of land. I read the recent DD about how baronies are now separate packets of land - do they get their own ethnoreligious identity? What I'm getting at is diversity in population was a key factor in power dynamics, as well as simple numerical demographics. Wars and raids cause depopulation, depopulation reduces the available manpower of the territory and this metric decided the course of whole states. Byzantium's military strength was severely curtailed by the Arab conquests and the near-annual raids from the caliphates that came in the years that followed. As a result, Byzantium was highly cautious, mostly attempting to remain at peace with its neighbours through excellent diplomacy and only daring to fight battles it knew it could win. Losing men in large numbers was a disaster for Byzantium for two reasons: it could not afford to replace them and military loss was hugely damaging for the legitimacy of ruling emperors, who would often suffer unrest, rebellion and coups in the wake of a military defeat. When repopulating its eastern themata, Byzantium often had to rely on non-Roman populations such as Armenians, Georgians, Bulgarians and even Arabs (mostly converted of course). The difficulties in managing such populations was a significant factor in the inability of Byzantium to counter the Turkish invaders of the High Middle Ages. To use a western example, the Albigensian Crusade had little to do with enforcing orthodox faith on 'heretics'; it was more about reclaiming parts of 'France' from non-French peoples.
To use another example, the crusader states and crusading in general was not 'Christians vs. Muslims'. There was no clash of civilisation narrative, but more on that later. Recent scholarship has found that actually, Muslims fought on the side of the crusader states and Christians fought for the emirates throughout the entire Outremer period. This was not just in the form of mercenary troops, but rather the diversity of populations present in Syria and the Levant, which resulted in extreme difficulties in maintaining large enough numbers of troops for both the Fatimids and the Crusader states. In brief, sedentary societies (even in the medieval period) struggle to mobilise more than a few percent of its population, whereas nomadic societies maintain large percentages of their population under arms. In summary, there should be some sort of mechanic about population, influenced by governmental/social type directly affecting the number of available soldiers, and ways in which the player can increase the population of a region. Furthermore, the ethnoreligious diversity of peoples should be recognised in CK3 and have a real impact on the game. One more quick note, population should also have an effect on the wealth generation of sedentary societies. For example, more than 90% of wealth generation was from agrarian activity in Byzantium.
3. Byzantium/Romania: As a Byzantinist, this one consistently gets on my nerves. Pre-1204, Byzantium was absolutely not feudal in any way, shape or form. The bureaucratic government ran the apparatus of state through a series of offices and positions held by individuals who received salaries for doing so. Politically, all power was focused on the personage of the emperor and in a way, the state was highly dynamic. The strategoi of the themata did not 'own' the land they managed, and neither did the katepans or the doukes. They were often replaced or moved around to different commands. The argument that is often posited for 'feudalism' in the Byzantine Empire is the actions of the great dynatoi (powerful families) in acquiring lands. Whilst it is true that the accumulation of lands into the hands of a few families was a concern for emperors, it is not landholding that gave the dynatoi their power - in fact at the height of the theme system, lands were often organised into kouratoreia (imperial estates) and managed by imperial officials. Furthermore, lands that were reserved for the maintenance and provision of soldiers, the strateia, were inviolate by imperial decree and did not fall under the purview of landholding families. What the dynatoi were competing for, what gave them their power, were army commands such as that of the domestikos ton scholon (Domestic of the Schools, commanded the elite tagmata and often acted as commander-in-chief of the armed forces) and the droungarios tou ploimou (essentiallly Admiral of the Fleet). All the coups of the tenth century, successful and unsuccessful, originated from military officers; Romanos I Lekapenos was droungarios tou ploimou, and Nikephoros II Phokas, Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas all held the position of domestikos ton scholon when they launched their coup attempts. Ioannes I Tzimiskes also held successive army commands before his reign and was a well-respected career military officer when he murdered Nikephoros II Phokas. Essentially, this is a personal plea to the CK3 dev team - please do not make Byzantium a 'feudal' state when it absolutely wasn't. There are many ways to make Byzantium both realistic and interesting to play without making them entirely inaccurate; like I have alluded to, emperors faced their own challenges and power in Byzantium was much more fluid than in other medieval states. Feudal states did not have to contend with the possibility that lowborn men posed a direct threat to the ruling dynasty, yet within sixty years in Byzantium, the ruling dynasty changed from Amorian to Macedonian to Lekapenos; both Basileios I and Romanos I were born to peasant families. Oh, and we should all stop referring to it as the Byzantine Empire when it was called Romania by its people, but even the field of Byzantine Studies recognises that some things are too ingrained and will probably be happy to make this concession for the sake of convenience once we've stopped arguing about it.
4. Trade: Trade was a key source for revenue for many, not just merchant republics. It was also much more developed in the medieval period than conventional views of the era might assume. Wars were fought over trade revenues, cities sprung up around the wealth of trade routes and faded when trade moved elsewhere. A good example of this is Antioch. A valuable city to Christianity in Late Antiquity for both its trade revenues and its spiritual significance, it was less relevant to the caliphates which used Aleppo and Damascus as trading hubs instead. When the Mongols pressed into the Levant, trading routes were pushed so far away that Antioch, further reduced by the collapse of Crusader power, faded to obscurity and was never repopulated. (Whilst I'm talking about Antioch, it was made further irrelevant to the caliphates because governing a majority-Christian city close to the Byzantine frontier was too much effort, linking back to number #2). Secondly, major trade routes did not just 'stop' in the East either - the Silk Road was more a concept than a physical land route too, since significant proportions of the Silk Road trade came up via ships and only travelled a small proportion of their overall distance from their 'source' on land. In fact, major established trade routes criss-crossed the medieval world and exploiting their wealth/controlling their revenues was a priority for many medieval rulers. The majority of glass in the British Isles pre-early eleventh century (when Anglo-Scandinavian craftsmen began to manufacture indigenous glass, although admittedly a lot of it was remelted Roman glass with extra lead) originated from the great glass workshops of Syria, Egypt and the Levant. There is evidence of Byzantine trade activity from Ireland to Mali to the Swahili coast to Sri Lanka and China. The medieval world was much more interconnected and global than we ever thought and we are finding more evidence of this all the time - trade should be much more important across the entire CK3 map than it currently is in CK2. In retrospect, I should have put this point much higher up in this list.
5. Crusading and Holy Wars: Just a few notes on the historical accuracy of these terms and their associated concepts. Modern scholarship now understands the Crusades very differently. As previously mentioned, there is no 'clash of civilisations' narrative - any argument for one simply does not hold water. Christians fought other Christians as well as Muslims and vice versa. In reference to the First Crusade and therefore the invention of crusading, it came about as part of a seriously complex and unique set of political and religious circumstances in both the East and the West - Alexios I Komnenos appealed to (the politically weakest) one of the two Popes for military aid, knowing that a religious leader stood a better chance at uniting the squabbling feudal lords than any of the aforementioned lords did. It was Alexios I's choice to wrap his plea in religious rhetoric. It was the Pope Urban II's decision to amplify this rhetoric as a casus belli and make spiritual promises for participants. Without these events taking place in the order that they did we would probably have never seen a single 'Crusade' occur. If the Romans had been able to defeat the Turks themselves, we may not have even seen Alexios Komnenos on the Byzantine throne to ask for help in the first place. These events invented Crusading as we know it. Up until then, my own research and that of other scholars indicates quite strongly that a Christian concept of 'holy war' to match that of the fully-fledged scriptural duty of Islamic jihad never developed beyond that of rhetoric and propaganda - war was simply too risky to undertake for anything other than a political, pragmatic reason. Holy wars in general are defined by the proof that the religious difference of any given enemy was the primary cause for justifying and resorting to war against an enemy irrespective of either social or political pressures and imperatives - to my knowledge, we have not found any evidence of genuine holy war in Christian societies prior to 1095, and we still struggle to find trustworthy evidence of this after the First Crusade too. I am well aware I'm attacking the entire pretext of the game series Crusader Kings by mentioning this, but it is pretty much academic consensus that despite the very welcome efforts of Holy Fury, Crusades in CK2 lack sufficient depth and complexity. And whilst I'm talking about religion - could you please inform the court chaplains of your vassals that they absolutely would not dare burning a porphyrogenita alive for being a 'heretic'? The consequences of doing so would be fairly dire, which leads me neatly into...
6. War and Diplomacy: In this regard, CK2 has often made very good steps during its development at adding additional CB's that have basis in historical fact, but this is another area lacking depth and accuracy in CK2. Without giving you chapter and verse of my thesis (which was written on Byzantine diplomacy), I would like to point out that diplomacy was way more complex than war, peace, NAP or Alliance, as were the methods of securing diplomatic outcomes. Firstly, the 'clash of civilisations' Christian vs. Muslim nonsense needs to be thrown out again. There was plenty of scope for truces and advanced diplomacy between polities of conflicting faith - we have accounts of dozens of treaties between Byzantium and the caliphates. To use another example, the Emirate of Aleppo was turned into a Byzantine tributary state in 969, but often switched allegiances between Byzantium and the Fatimids and Buyids, depending on which polity could best serve its interests. We also have examples of Christian and Muslim states making arrangements to fight together. Pacts of various kinds should not be limited to marriage or familial relations. And on that note, interfaith marriages were absolutely not prohibited, although I do admit they often occurred in extreme political circumstances. There were a myriad of other actions which medieval states could do if they could afford it - paying one neighbour to attack another was fairly common, yet cannot happen in CK2. Other diplomatic actions include peaceful annexations of territory in exchange for money and titles for the former rulers of the territory (this was a Byzantine party-trick mostly), and interactions with religious institutions and leaders (not just the Pope either, other Churches possessed significant resources too). Linking back to point #2, one method of replenishing diminished populations was to encourage migration from another polity into your own lands and we have evidence of this taking place all across the Near East (it was one of the reasons why the area became so diverse in the first place). CK3 needs a better and more in depth diplomatic system than marry, pact, alliance.
7. Industry and general economy: Industry certainly played a part in the medieval world. Without access to metalworkers and craftsmen, you aren't going to be conquering anyone anytime soon. Furthermore, you won't be taking part in lucrative trade and the surprisingly well developed financial system of Byzantium and the caliphates without the ability to mint your own coins. I've already mentioned the glass working and it goes without saying that areas of industrial activity were of the first importance to medieval rulers, as was their growth and protection. I placed this one last because even though I wrote a paper on it (and a bloody good interdisciplinary paper at that, even though I do say so myself) its one I've put the least thought into. The basic gist is this: raw materials and the means to process their output should not be an afterthought. Certain regions in CK2 would be much more desirable if the riches of their earth were properly considered and a feature of the game, plus I feel that such 'strategic' considerations would actually make the game more fun and aid in progression. On the economy side of things, all I can offer for reasoning to make changes to the CK economic system is that the medieval pilgrimage of Musa I and the catastrophic effect it had on the local economies of the regions he passed through could never be replicated in CK2, despite the entire series of events underlining how wrong traditional viewpoints of the simplicity of the medieval fiscal system are.
That's it for now. I've got loads more to say but I don't want to drive off the last of the stalwarts who actually read this post top to bottom. I'd like to strongly reiterate that this post was not made to antagonise anyone, nor to chastise the hardworking and passionate CK3 game dev team. I still have plenty of fun in CK2 (1125 hours does not lie) and will continue to do so despite my professional and academic disagreements with the abstraction of the medieval world as represented in CK2. I'd also like to state that despite modding experience under my belt, I am not a game designer, and I recognise that for the sake of enjoyment, sacrifices have to be made. I wish the CK3 team the best of luck.
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