Currently Holdings are hard coded to equate to estates, and this had led to a situation where basically every county is the same, there's a castle, a city and a bishopric. All the holdings in a coastal county are considered seaside, and only culture or religion changes holdings. Prior to being built, holdings basically don't exist, but you can spend some cash and they suddenly exist.
I would like to propose an alternative:
All holdings can have up to 3 holding attributes
Seaside: excellent for merchants and seafarers, can build ships, +1 max pop
Overlook: a naturally defensive location overlooking land routes
Mountainous: highly defensive location but with limited arable land, -1 max pop
Island: difficult to attack or besiege, highly accesible by sea
Riverside: excellent arable land and trade links downstream and upstream, +2 max pop
Lakeside/Oasis: excellent arable land like riverside but without the trade advantages, +1 max pop
Desert: terrible arable land but difficult to attack or besiege due to supply, can be a nomad holding (normal pasture), -2 max pop
Plain: good arable land, can be a nomad holding (good pasture), +2 max pop
Forest: normal arable land, cheaper to build improvements, more ships
Steppe: poor arable land, can be a nomad holding (excellent pasture)
Each holding has 10 slots for populace of that holding, which can be damaged from wars, plagues or disasters. Each slot has a culture and a religion, so a county no longer has a culture or religion but holdings have slots for them. Religious and cultural conversion now changes one slot in one holding rather than the whole county at once.
Instead of a holding being a "hardcoded" bishopric, city or castle, all holdings are feudal/tribal. Holdings are granted city charter and become a city with a mayor if you have high enough tech and it's worthwhile to do so. Cities with City Rights become a county level Republic (spawn merchant families, allow trade posts) but because they are not entirely free like Republics are they have penalties (can't build all the Republic improvements, not as many trade posts). City rights once granted are difficult to revoke.
Religious leaders or kings invest a religious leader for each county and this is independent from holdings. These religious heads have no military unless they are granted land by a secular ruler. Any county which has at least one holding slot with that religion gets a religious head, so Egypt for instance even though it is 100% ruled by Muslim Arabs, would have tons of Coptic slots in their holdings and Coptic bishops in every province. In turn, every Duchy has an Archbishop, whether they have any holdings or not. The religious leader in a province can resist conversion of his populace slots by using high levels of learning and diplomacy, which if high enough will even allow them to convert others.
Heresies have a bonus to converting population slots from the main branch of the religion to the heresy.
Rulers can grant lands to the church (give it to the bishop) which become Abbeys. If a king granted a holding to the Bishop, the Bishop can have that in their demesne or can appoint Abbots (Bishops are count level, archbishops are Duke level) but Bishops and Archbishops have separate "home holdings" in each county, the Episcopal See.
The population slots allow better representations of population loss and gain, ethnic and religious minorities and groups that currently exist only as event spawned characters such as Jews. This would make the situation more dynamic and introduce city charters and land grants which were very important to this era. Cities were not an organic component of the middle ages and feudal era but rather a part of the Nobility's estate that was carved off and created for the Burghers.
I would like to propose an alternative:
All holdings can have up to 3 holding attributes
Seaside: excellent for merchants and seafarers, can build ships, +1 max pop
Overlook: a naturally defensive location overlooking land routes
Mountainous: highly defensive location but with limited arable land, -1 max pop
Island: difficult to attack or besiege, highly accesible by sea
Riverside: excellent arable land and trade links downstream and upstream, +2 max pop
Lakeside/Oasis: excellent arable land like riverside but without the trade advantages, +1 max pop
Desert: terrible arable land but difficult to attack or besiege due to supply, can be a nomad holding (normal pasture), -2 max pop
Plain: good arable land, can be a nomad holding (good pasture), +2 max pop
Forest: normal arable land, cheaper to build improvements, more ships
Steppe: poor arable land, can be a nomad holding (excellent pasture)
Each holding has 10 slots for populace of that holding, which can be damaged from wars, plagues or disasters. Each slot has a culture and a religion, so a county no longer has a culture or religion but holdings have slots for them. Religious and cultural conversion now changes one slot in one holding rather than the whole county at once.
Instead of a holding being a "hardcoded" bishopric, city or castle, all holdings are feudal/tribal. Holdings are granted city charter and become a city with a mayor if you have high enough tech and it's worthwhile to do so. Cities with City Rights become a county level Republic (spawn merchant families, allow trade posts) but because they are not entirely free like Republics are they have penalties (can't build all the Republic improvements, not as many trade posts). City rights once granted are difficult to revoke.
Religious leaders or kings invest a religious leader for each county and this is independent from holdings. These religious heads have no military unless they are granted land by a secular ruler. Any county which has at least one holding slot with that religion gets a religious head, so Egypt for instance even though it is 100% ruled by Muslim Arabs, would have tons of Coptic slots in their holdings and Coptic bishops in every province. In turn, every Duchy has an Archbishop, whether they have any holdings or not. The religious leader in a province can resist conversion of his populace slots by using high levels of learning and diplomacy, which if high enough will even allow them to convert others.
Heresies have a bonus to converting population slots from the main branch of the religion to the heresy.
Rulers can grant lands to the church (give it to the bishop) which become Abbeys. If a king granted a holding to the Bishop, the Bishop can have that in their demesne or can appoint Abbots (Bishops are count level, archbishops are Duke level) but Bishops and Archbishops have separate "home holdings" in each county, the Episcopal See.
The population slots allow better representations of population loss and gain, ethnic and religious minorities and groups that currently exist only as event spawned characters such as Jews. This would make the situation more dynamic and introduce city charters and land grants which were very important to this era. Cities were not an organic component of the middle ages and feudal era but rather a part of the Nobility's estate that was carved off and created for the Burghers.
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