CK2 Dev Diary #103 - Long live the King!

[Silfae]

Greetings.

Today we will put Pagans aside, go back to good old Catholics, and explore one of the new features coming for them with Holy Fury: Coronation Ceremonies.

With this expansion, succeeding to the throne of a Catholic Kingdom or Empire will not be a simple matter of gaining the title itself. The new ruler will need to organize a Coronation Ceremony (via new intrigue decision) and be recognized as legitimate by a notable member of the Catholic Church.
If a Catholic ruler fails to be officially crowned, he will see his popularity slowly fade away each year, as his vassals grow more and more restless under what they perceive as an illegitimate King.

Coronation is divided into two phases: preparation and ceremony.
During the preparation, the ruler will decide whom he wishes to be crowned by, he will meet the Church’s demands, and invest money to organize the ceremony. In the second phase, the ruler will host the ceremony itself, interacting with guests and ultimately receiving his crown.

When organizing a ceremony, a Catholic King can choose between three possible options when it comes to officiant priests: he can be crowned by a low-status theocratic vassal within his realm, by a powerful theocratic vassal within his realm (such as a Cardinal, Antipope or Prince-Bishop), or by the Pope himself. Catholic Emperors who fail to enact the Free Investiture succession on the other hand will be limited in their selection only to the Pope.
While being crowned by a local Bishop is a lot less prestigious, it is also much cheaper, as higher-ranking members of the Church will be prone to make outlandish requests, especially if they dislike the ruler requesting them to officiate his coronation.

Requests may vary a lot, especially when it comes to the Pope: the Holy Father might ask you to change your realm’s Investiture laws, wage war against an Excommunicated ruler on behalf of the Papacy, or to restore some of the Central Italian provinces to the Holy See.
Be sure to be in good relations with the Pope before asking for a coronation if you wish to receive a more tolerable offer.

Once the demands of your chosen priest have been met, you will be able to select a budget for your ceremony which will determine the kind of coronation you will receive, the kind of flavor events tied to it and the number of guests participating in it.
An extravagant coronation is a prestigious event to which all your vassals, courtiers and even neighboring Christian rulers are invited, a secluded coronation is a private feast to which only your Council will have access to.

Once the ceremony has been concluded, your character will receive a specific trait tied to the priest that crowned him, as well as retain any additional perks granted by the flavor events experienced during the feast leading up to the coronation.

You might have noticed from the screenshots that this new mechanic affects character portraits as well: Catholic Kings and Emperors that have not been crowned will no longer wear the high-tier headgear in Holy Fury, defaulting to the Ducal band instead until their rank has been officially recognized by the Church (naturally, if you do not own Holy Fury, Catholic Kings and Emperors will wear the appropriate gear by default as before).

This is not the only portrait-related addition though: Holy Fury will bring to the game a series of special crown artifacts that will be visible on portraits whenever the characters are wearing them. Most of these artifacts can only be used when the character meets certain requirements and they are often tied to a specific title rather than a character’s dynasty.

And this should be about it for this week.

 

[Silfae]

Do Byzantine Emperor has a coronation event chain?

Only if he is a Catholic.

 

[Silfae]

do we lose all crowns if our ruler dies or we can keep them. Would be realy nice to keep all crowns, and even if we dont wear them to have some small prestige bonus.

If you are referring to the crown artifacts, they are inherited. A ruler being crowned does not gain a crown artifact, they are special items.

Three questions:

Do Viceroyal Kings undergo the same Coronations or are they exempt as their power is derived from the Emperor?
Is it exclusively Catholic or do other Christians get the same events? (Nvm answered)
Is their a Doctrine that includes Coronations as a Pagan mechanic?

No, only regular rulers.
Yes, exclusive to Catholics.
No, all the flavor events are tied specifically to Catholics, adapting it to Pagans would have required a lot more work (especially considering how customizable Pagan religions are).

Do the different 'Crowned by X' traits give different bonuses?

Yes.

 

[Silfae]

I imagine non-Catholics will forge or acquire unique crown artifacts.

Yes.

So even if you have an Antipope you can ask the Pope to crown you and he can accept?

No, if you have an Antipope, he is the highest kind of priest you can ask a coronation from. What I meant is that an Antipope counts as being crowned by a "powerful theocrat" as far as the boni go, rather than by an official Pope.

Is the local priest with the highest opinion automatically selected? Or doesn't opinion matter if you choose a local priest? I can imagine that when every priest hates you, this must in some way effect your coronation...

Yes, the event will try to scope for one which has a high opinion of you.

 

[Silfae]

What if the Pope is a vassal of the emperor? Will he also ask outlandish requests or be more of a yes-man?

He might still ask outlandish requests, it mainly depends on his opinion of you.
He might ask you to relinquish the vassalage in exchange for the coronation.

 

[Silfae]

Bit strange considering catholic coronations are a direct decedent of the byzantine coronation rituals of the 8th century...

The mechanic itself is meant to handle the often antagonistic relations between secular rulers and the clergy, and the influence that the Church had when it came to legitimizing rulers, that is why it focuses on Catholics.

 

[Silfae]

Can you have an option to be able to be crowned by a relative if that relative is a bishop? This could ensure less demands than those of strangers.

It is not a specific option, but the player can definitely make it happen by appointing relatives as his bishops or pushing them as Cardinals/Popes. When it comes to the powerful theocrat option, the event will prioritize by rank first and by opinion second; when it comes to common priests, it will prioritize only by opinion.

 

[Silfae]

This sounds amazing! Can you tell how many unique crowns there will be in the game? And will they all be historical, or is there a chance of any random generated crowns being brought into a game by an event?

Some of them are historical, some are unlocked by special circumstances. No randomized ones though.

Portraits are really beautiful . Could we have a picture of a crowned King of France ? Does the laurel crown of roman emperors enter in this mechanic of linked-to-title crowns like the persian one ?

The laurels are a bit of a special case as they are tied to the Augustus trait.

Nice addition! So what happens during a regency? When you are at war, can you be crowned? If someone gains a king title with a weak claim will they still be seen as that even after they have been coronated and/or is this different for each vassal.

Wartime coronations can become an option in desperate circumstances, yes.
Coronations are tied to the ruler himself, so gaining a new title does not require another ceremony. While this is not exactly historical, having different ceremonies, traits, etc. for every King or Emperor tier title that a ruler has (or gains after his first coronation) might get very frustrating for a player.

 

[Silfae]

Here is the King post-Coronation.

Spoiler

That makes sense but that is not what i meant. Say you are a duke and gain a king title with a weak claim, do you get a lesser modifier after coronation opposed to coronation with a strong cliam? or is it you are coronated no questions asked?

Ah, yes, now I understand. No, the way in which the title is gained does not affect the Coronation. Even if you usurped a title with a weak claim from its rightful owner, if you get crowned by the Pope in an extravagant coronation, you will get the all the perks of such an illustrious coronation.

 

[Silfae]

i noticed the two stars in the new trait，does it mean it will have three stars if crowned by Pope？

Yes.

is the hre crown an artifact like the persian one? Can we see it?

Yes; it looks like the German Emperor-tier crown (since that is what the HRE crown is), except that, when worn, it is the same regardless of the ruler's culture.

 

[Silfae]

Do Catholic tribals, like Scotts and Irishmen will be able to be coronated or it’s leaved to feudals?

Feudals only.

Will the Iron Crown of Lombardy be visible on character portraits, and can crown artifacts be lost on succession?

The Crown of Lombardy is indeed one such artifact.
The Crown artifacts that are tied to titles can be lost on succession. If your heir is not elected next HREmperor (for example), you will continue the game with your Duke heir and the new Emperor will take the crown (provided that the old Emperor had the crown of course. If some Viking stole it from him, it is not going to magically reappear in the treasury of the new Emperor).

 

[Silfae]

So if the ruler isn't an adult，will it have the opinion debuff for not been crowned？

No, children do not get a debuff for being uncrowned, but if a child ruler manages to organize a coronation despite being underage, there is some positive flavor attached to it.

Other than an increasing vassal opinion malus, are there any other downsides to being uncrowned?

There are some negative events tied to it.

Also, will any of the existing crown artwork be given a rework? Like say a certain ugly as sin red monstrosity that celtic emperors are saddled with?

Cultural crowns remain as they are, the special crowns are, as the name implies, special cases. Most Kings being crowned are not going to have an artifact.

If the pope is obedient (say possessed or a satanist when you are the high priest), then will there be no requests?

The Pope will always make a request, but, the more he likes you, the cheaper it will be.

Can we have an optional game rule to enable multiple required coronations?

Unfortunately that is not something easily done, it would require a considerable rework of the mechanic.

If some Viking did steal the crown associated to your title, will there be any events/actions allowing you to pursue its recovery (via money, diplomacy, or more violent means)?

Not specifically, it can be recovered as any other artifact.

Related to this: could said viking then wear the crown himself and have it seen on his portrait?

It depends on the crown, though most have specific requirements to be worn as they give a specific bonus that would not make sense for every owner to have.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Sylfae, maybe it’s a little bit offtopic, but in the pictures you showed I can’t see any map changes to Iberia, France or the British Isles as it’s claimed in the free features of the patch:


“Free features

• Map and setup improvements (including the Steppes, Russia, Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltics, Poland, the Alps, Italy, Greece, France, the British Isles, Iberia, Germany, the Steppes, the Balkans, Anatolia, and Africa).”

A) Is it too soon for showing this?


B) Is western Europe only receiving “setup” improvements?


C) Has it been discarded?

The picture is old, prior to some updates.

 

[Silfae]

I did all my Dev Diaries long ago, so features that were added after them (such as the map changes) do not appear in their screenshots.

 

[Silfae]

The first picture just shows a flat -4 opinion. So does this mean you lose some opinion each year and then this modifier disappears on coronation?

It is a stacking ticking modifier of -2 per each year of rule while being uncrowned, for a total of 60 (it stops after 30 years).

 

[Silfae]

Another quick question, when someone like the Pope asks you to "wage war against X" in exchange for being coronated, will the tool tips when you hover your options clearly tell you if the war will give the land to the pope or simply put a catholic back on the throne?

The Pope's request text should make it clear who you are attacking and what would be the end result of the war in case of victory.

 

[Silfae]

Does that mean that, unlike other PDX games, these DDs are not subject to the normal disclaimer of non-final numbers/art is not final?

They are, that is the point.

 

[Meneth]

And this is the single point that gets me irritated over Holy Fury: They kinda deny that they are doing this.
Which, as you say, they obviously don't, as otherwise they would not be bringing this exclusive set of most-wished-for mod ideas to vanilla. They would maybe just have added some random features that no one (or very few people) wanted (like it happened a few times with past DLCs) - which would have been stupid and ludicrous.
They even not long ago unveiled how they were tracking mod popularity, which clearly shows that they are doing what you assume. Heck, they even changed their user agreements not long ago to allow for ingame statistics to be collected, such as which event options you click etc. Plus they explicitly reserve the right to take any mod ideas for their vanilla game in the modding rules, to make sure that everything would be 100% legal and no silly judicial fight could ensue.
Now why would they just now, at the point of their potentially best DLC to date deny that they are doing what they have presumably been preparing to do for a long time now, which is monitoring player demand and mod usage to identify the best ideas to implement. That puzzles me

We do not base our features on mods.

By "based on a mod" I mean basing itself on actual design choices made in the mod.
For the specific coronation feature itself, it is based on actual history, not on what mods have decided to do. We are of course aware that several mods implement coronations in some manner, but that is not relevant to our feature. "Let's represent coronations in some fashion" is not a significant design decision.

CK2 features are designed and implemented in their own right, not based on mods. People have spent significant time designing, implementing, and testing these features. "Based on mods" diminishes that work, much like taking mod content without credit would diminish modders' work.

 

[Silfae]

Does that mean we can have multiple coronations, if they are of increasing status (like first a low bishop, then a strong cardinal, and then finally the Pope himself)?
Also, will that text be changed if you're an Emperor?

No, it is just one coronation per ruler.

If the pope wants us to declare war for something and we've been riding at 90+% threat for the last hundred years because we're both powerful and opportunists, will that trigger all the defensive pacts and get the pope at war with us too? because i'd rather be uncrowned than have the entire world at war with me.

Yes, that is a choice that you'll need to make, if the Pope's price is too steep, you might prefer to be crowned by a more affordable clergyman.

 

[Silfae]

So let's say you ask the Pope to be crowned and he asks something you don't like. Can you then ask a local bishop instead?

Yes, there is a cooldown on the decision to prepare a coronation, but any request can be denied, then you can pick the decision again. You can either ask the Pope a second time (though, unless he died or really changed his opinion of you in the meantime, there is a high chance that he will remember his last request and ask it again), or go for a lower level priest.