CK2's petty kingdoms- confusing for new English language players

[Bulan]

Recent dev diaries have shown that the devs are willing to change how some things are named (i.e. gavelkind) to give a more humane user experience for new players.

One hurdle that I think many new English language players encountered in CK2 was understanding the difference between "petty kingdoms" - independent duke tier characters of certain cultures- and actual kingdoms. This was exacerbated by these titles being common in the recommended newbie starting area and polular staring areas for English language players. UI hints like portrait frames did not really seem to help much, we still to this day see these questions - why can't I give out duchies, why did my vassal go independent when I pressed his claim to a duchy, etc. etc. These are players who understand the hierarchies of the game but are getting stung by a weird edge case. After all, there is "Kingdom" right in the name! The problem is that the prevalent historical naming scheme for these entities violates how a core gameplay concept is structured. There is a difference between having unique cultural titles and titles that are an obstacle to gameplay. It's especially jarring because arguably-comparable entities in Spain are implemented as titular kingdoms.

I think that it's incumbent on the developers not to lay stumbling blocks for users and using the Petty King title for duke tier characters is a huge stumbling block as implemented in CK2. Can CK3 do better?

 

[Katana500]

Please no. Having all the Irish petty king's called dukes would be so strange and odd.

I think 95% of people should be able to work out that a petty kingdom is a tier down from an actual kingdom.

 

[Bulan]

Im not saying they should be called "Duke". Call irish independent dukes Ri with their territories called tuaths or duchies and irish independent kings Ard-Ri with their territories called kingdoms or whatever. But multiple interface elements need to spell out in actual written words that these are Duke and King tier titles respectively and that their territories are duchy / kingdom tier. Written words are important because users can't easily google a portrait frame

Many players are not conditioned to rely on in-game help systems, even tooltips, because so many games have poor, broken, or nonexistent in game help.

A new player does not usually start playing with established trust in a game's help system. Interface elements like tooltips and frames usually have more implicit trust and in game elements like object names have the most trust. Here, one of the game's in game elements, titles, are "wrong" from a gameplay perspective, there is a core system that disagrees with a title. That is the worst thing you can do from a design perspective in my opinion because it puts the less trustworthy game systems like help and tooltips even further into doubt. "Kingdom/Duchy/County" hierarchy is a central gameplay system in Crusader Kings. The "Petty King" title for dukes is a violation of that system in the way that something like "Emir" is not. Fundamentally, a petty king is not a CK2 king and a petty kingdom is not a CK2 kingdom. These titles should not have the english word "King" in them for compelling user experience reasons.

Yes, people can eventually work it out. But why should they have to? If one of the first experiences players have is getting super confused about how the game works - not because the names are intrinsically complicated, or becuase the game is a nuanced model of real complexity, but rather because you picked a model and a naming convention that are fundamentally at odds - that's terrible design.

 

[Lord Frost]

The term petty kingdom is used by historians to describe miniscule independent political entities within close geographic proximity prior to said area coalescing into a proper kingdom.

Take Anglo-Saxon England, pre-Christian Sweden, Gaelic Ireland, and even the Iberian peninsula as examples of areas with multitudinous sovereign "kings".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_kingdom

 

[DavidYung]

I think these kind of proposals have very good intentions (thinking of ''Youngest Child Inherits'' here), but oversimplify history for the sake of alleviating minor confusion. Honestly, I think these things become rather obvious pretty quickly, and that these terms are important to know for people interested in the period. CK3 can have some educational value in introducing these terms to a general public. Taking them out just to appease… well, what really? Someone who bought the game is already going to be interested in the period. Why not give them some things to learn?

I understand the purpose of the proposal, but I think it really is unnecessary and cheapens the authenticity of what CK3 is aimed to do as a simulator style game.

I get that you might think this issue is particularly unhelpful for Ireland which is, of course, ''tutorial island''. I think that a tooltip can solve the whole matter rather quickly. If all one needs to know is ''petty kings function like dukes'', I think that's a better solution through explaining the term, rather than trying to avoid the term entirely and losing some of the nuances in history that CK can show through the usage of these terms.

''The past is a foreign country''

 

[Bulan]

Nobody ever called themselves a "Petty King" and I doubt that many if any of their contemporaries used these terms either. The terms Petty Kingdom and Petty King are not the definitive descriptors for these titles. Given that there's a choice about how to describe them, why not opt for a less-confusing option?

 

[Bulan]

The term petty kingdom is used by historians to describe miniscule independent political entities within close geographic proximity prior to said area coalescing into a proper kingdom.

Take Anglo-Saxon England, pre-Christian Sweden, Gaelic Ireland, and even the Iberian peninsula as examples of areas with multitudinous sovereign "kings".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_kingdom

Ok, but CK2 models Iberian monarchs as proper kings with small de jure territories or titular titles. I'm aware that "Petty Kingdom" is a scholarly term. But from a gameplay perspective it's a pernicious and confusing trap, because the game models a "Kingdom" as a specific thing but calls a small number of entities that are not "Kingdom"s from a gameplay perspective (Petty) Kingdoms. These Petty Kingdoms are the entities named "Kingdom" that many English language players will encounter first, which muddles players' ability to understand a core game system.

From my perspective there is no compelling reason to use the actual english word "King" as part of the in game styling these characters. The word "King" itself is barely attested before the 12th century, after the last start date in CK3.

 

[Lord Frost]

Take the time and read into the actual scholarly origin of the term. These polities existed as kingdoms in their own right, yet were too small to accurately reflect their political situation by placing them on par with regular kingdoms in game. We don't need to dumb down something that is already accurate and easy to understand.

Besides, if this is so confusing of a concept then why isn't the CK2 forum swamped with questions from all of these confused users? I fail to see why this is such an issue when a few hours of gameplay, which we both know is barely scratching the surface of any Paradox game, is enough to figure out the mechanics of hierarchy.

 

[Bulan]

Sure these entities existed. But they did not call themselves literally petty kingdoms, their contemporaries did not call them literally "Petty Kingdoms", arguably the word King was not in the language with that spelling at the time. Some scholarly literature calls them petty kings, other use the term King, subregulus, regulus, ri, brenin, etc. It doesn't matter that most of these terms are cognates or synonym for "king" or "petty king" as long as one is selected that does not literally include the modern English language word "king" which has a very specific and significant intentional in game meaning that does not reflect how these "Kings" are actually implemented in the game! Because King is a design keyword it would be a hostile design decision to call these entities "Kingdoms" in CK3 when a) the designers do have multiple defensible choices about nomenclature and b) there is a nomenclature choice available that does not conflict with how they have chosen to model feudal hierarchy.

Only a tiny fraction of the most heavily invested English language players will ever go to forums. Even so there are many examples of people being confused by this, here is a superficial sample:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/9gzeqq/can_i_as_a_petty_king_control_a_duchy/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/weird-duchy-behavior.1270417/#post-25965492

https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/1fvo5s/ck2_what_is_a_petty_kingdom/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/claims-on-a-petty-kingdom.1051088/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...entle-to-the-newbie-creating-a-duchy.1115541/

 

[DavidYung]

Sure these entities existed. But they did not call themselves literally petty kingdoms, their contemporaries did not call them literally "Petty Kingdoms", arguably the word King was not in the language with that spelling at the time. Some scholarly literature calls them petty kings, other use the term King, subregulus, regulus, ri, brenin, etc. It doesn't matter that most of these terms are cognates or synonym for "king" or "petty king" as long as one is selected that does not literally include the modern English language word "king" which has a very specific and significant intentional in game meaning that does not reflect how these "Kings" are actually implemented in the game! Because King is a design keyword it would be a hostile design decision to call these entities "Kingdoms" in CK3 when a) the designers do have multiple defensible choices about nomenclature and b) there is a nomenclature choice available that does not conflict with how they have chosen to model feudal hierarchy.

Okay, I think that is quite reasonable. Maybe there's a compromise between the positions here that preserves accuracy and avoids confusion. Seeing as most these titles refer to kingship in some way, perhaps it would just be best to use cultural titles where the term king can be avoided.

In other words, have most if not all titles be ''localized'' according to culture - each and every culture. Just like in many localization mods out there for CK2. Not keen on using Latin for this particular problem. Isn't brenin a Welsh term? And if they use brenin (king), what would a 'real' king be called?

If there are cases of Irish dukes (which would not fall under the term ''petty king''), perhaps it would be possible to have the title for specific duchies refer to their rulers as the ''petty king''-replacement. As an alternative, maybe the law system can have a role in deciding the title. This would be similar to the solution proposed in the marquesses and Margraves discussion (
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...le-solution-suggestion.1367796/#post-26419164).

 

[Lord Frost]

Localization is an option, although the sheer number of terms used is astounding. Naturally, these rulers did not see themselves as subkings, petty kings, or minor kings. Titles developed, changed, and were subsumed over time and through conquest. We can only come to an approximate translation to better understand them from our historical perspective.

Norse: Konungr (king), jarl (sometimes localized, also used to denote kingship)
Welsh: Brenhin Pennaf (high king), Brenhin (king), Pendeuic (prince/duke/head duke, also used to denote kingship)
Anglo-Saxon: Cynig/cyning, Eoldorman (evolved from independent petty kings to supporters of larger kings), Frea (lord/king), Helm (protector/lord), Theoden (prince/lord/ruler/chief, not just the LotR character), Fengel (lord/prince/king)
Irish: Ri tuaithe (local petty king), Ruari (overking/regional king), Ri ruirech/ Ri coicid (king of overkings/provincial king)
Scottish: too many titles depending on whether you're looking at Anglo-Saxon, Brittonic, Pictish, Gaelic, Norse, or other influences

May edit as I find more.

 

[Bulan]

This is a great list and also super flavorful.

 

[EU3NOOB]

Call irish independent dukes Ri with their territories called tuaths or duchies and irish independent kings Ard-Ri with their territories called kingdoms or whatever.

If your goal is to avoid player confusion, then this would literally be worse. Most people who wouldn't know what a Petty Kingdom/King likely wouldn't know what a Ri or a Tuath is either.

 

[Vokasak]

I understand that everyone is very insistent that "petty kings" were a real thing, and they are. But I feel like what posts like this one miss:

The term petty kingdom is used by historians to describe miniscule independent political entities within close geographic proximity prior to said area coalescing into a proper kingdom.

Take Anglo-Saxon England, pre-Christian Sweden, Gaelic Ireland, and even the Iberian peninsula as examples of areas with multitudinous sovereign "kings".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_kingdom

Is that the question is not whether or not the thing existed or whether or not "petty kingdom" is a valid scholarly term. Its that, in this game, a game term is confusing. You can't debate that with historical facts! You can't say

I think 95% of people should be able to work out that a petty kingdom is a tier down from an actual kingdom.

and pretend that leaving behind 5% of the playerbase is okay, even if I grant your baseless assumption on the numbers. That's bad game design, and whether you like it or not CK2 is a game, not a history simulator or scholarly source.

It's the same with the people who complain that such and such game system ("mana", perk trees, whatever) is "too gamey". It's gamey because this is a game you've been gaming on, made by some game designers working for a game publisher. Game is what the target is.

 

[DeinonychusTaco]

I understand both sides of this argument: Nobody likes the fact that there were these rulers in the northwest of europe who, historically, called themselves "King of Blahblah" when in fact they barely controlled enough territory to build a castle on. It was dumb and somebody should have smacked them and told them they were just a Duke at best. But nobody did, and now we're here in this awkward situation.

The fact of the matter is that PDX has to reconcile two things here -- One is the five-tier system they have for their rulers, which arguably really does work fairly well most of the time, even if it struggles a bit representing certain types of feudal relationships (hopefully after some patching/development the new feudal contracts will address that better than CK2 was able to). The other is the actual historic european reality. But, it's important to remember that the five-tier system is a game mechanic contrivance, and the latter is the fundamental basis of all the historic content that is/can be put into a game like this. Without the King of Kent, there's no material for that chunk of great britain in that time, it might as well be wiped off the map.

So, we have to call that title the Kingdom of Kent, there's really no choice. Everyone would be happier if it was just called the Duchy of Kent, but it literally wasn't a duchy. Maybe PDX could do like Iberia and make them all kingdom-tier titles, but that would make the unification of England a lot more complicated; Iberia doesn't have to deal with that within CK2's timeframe. However, many of the heptarchy kingdoms are effectively coterminous with later english duchies, so it really does make sense that they still be duchy-tier titles from a gameplay perspective. In a way, "duchy-tier" refers to a size of realm and depth of feudal heirarchy, and "petty kingdom" just means "this dude had a huge ego and called himself something he really wasn't".

If it helps, think of it like this: Title tiers exist. They have names. In 2, you can tell them apart by a ruler's portrait border. But, historically, a ruler was free to call himself whatever he wanted; the Byzantine Empire was at some points not much larger than a duchy either, but its ruler still called itself the (actually roman) Emperor. You've got to take a ruler's title with something of a grain of salt, and recognize it's just what he's calling himself. Rely on other game elements, which DO reflect the five-tier system the game uses, like the ruler's portrait border, to determine what the real tier of the character is. It's not the case that PDX is exhibiting bad game design by naming something historically (and indeed they don't really have a choice), you're just relying on the wrong cues and then getting mad at the devs for trying to represent history rather than make things align to how you think they should be.

 

[Bulan]

We absolutely do not need to call him King of Kent. He did not call himself King of Kent. We can take a page from the insufferable EREphiles who think Byzantium should be Hrromeakon or something outlandish like that and use some actual historic word like Cyning or Rex rather than historian's translations of historic terms that conflicts with a significant in game keyword that has mechanical implications. Having Cyning be the anglo saxon or whatever term for an independent duke is far less confusing than calling him something something King. King is a word linked to a game mechanic and we should not use the actual literal word King for rulers that do not have in game King status because it is confusing and hostile to players.

 

[treb]

We absolutely do not need to call him King of Kent. He did not call himself King of Kent. We can take a page from the insufferable EREphiles who think Byzantium should be Hrromeakon or something outlandish like that and use some actual historic word like Cyning or Rex rather than historian's translations of historic terms that conflicts with a significant in game keyword that has mechanical implications. Having Cyning be the anglo saxon or whatever term for an independent duke is far less confusing than calling him something something King. King is a word linked to a game mechanic and we should not use the actual literal word King for rulers that do not have in game King status because it is confusing and hostile to players.

So you want to overcomplicate things by giving petty kings localized titles that most people wont know the meaning of to stop people getting king and petty king mixed up?

real 300 IQ take there...

 

[Bulan]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. The term "petty king" is what is overcomplicated. CK2 calls Iranian dukes/duchies "satraps"/"satrapies", vague and potentially unfamiliar terms that many players will not know, but might be prompted to look up. Not so with <something> King/Kingdom. Why would you look ot up- it's a kingdom, right? An exotic term like "satrap" does not conflict with an in game mechanic keyword for another tier and therefore it does not lead players to mistaken conclusions about its meaning. I want the devs to call British region independent dukes literally anything that does not include the word "baron", "count", "king" or "emperor". These are keywords, inextricably linked to a key game mechanic. They can call them "leprechauns" and it would be less obnoxious (for the purposes of this specific complaint). This is a game design issue.

 

[treb]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. We call Iranian dukes "satraps", a vague and potentially unfamiliar term that does not conflict with an in game mechanic keyword for any other tier. I want the devs to call British region independent dukes literally anything that does not include the word "baron", "count", "king" or "emperor". These are keywords, inextricably linked to a key game mechanic. They can call them "leprechauns" and it would be less obnoxious (for the purposes of this specific complaint). This is a game design issue.

There is a difference between a bit of cultural flavor and giving every culture that had petty kings alternate title names and ruler names just to eliminate the concept of petty kings from the game...

 

[Bulan]

No culture ever called anyone the English language term "petty king" within their lifetime as a style or title. Nobody in history ever said "I am a <switching to English> Petty King".