Couldn't the de jure realm of Rus be named Novgorod?

[DLFebin]

Maybe, though I can see some issues with trying to tie the name of the third-tier title to whichever duke created it. Would you base it on where the capital holding was? Because then you would see the Kingdom of Novgorod change to, say, Kingdom of Muscovy just because you moved capital, which might be odd. Still preferable to seeing Ruthenia every game, though.

Well, I think it should be like this:
1) Some of the Russian Dukes creates Rus -> it is named after his primary Duchy.
2) Heir is Russian and has another Duchy as Primary -> "Rus" is renamed upon succession. (I.e. if heir is not Russian, has the same primary duchy as the name of kingdom, or has no lands -> name stays as it is.)

On the side note: Kingdom is 4th tier, Empire is 5th tier, because Barony is 1st tier.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

For instance, the Empire of Hispania would simply be called Kingdom of Spain instead, and even the Empire of Francia a Kingdom of France that's more powerful than the actual Kingdom of France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_all_Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_Empire

To my mind, that's basically what these represent.

 

[cybrxkhan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_all_Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_Empire

To my mind, that's basically what these represent.

Pretty much. That's probably why they came to mind better than the others - but even the others have some merit; Scandinavia represents the Kalmar Union, a kingdom ruled by a king, certainly, but one potentially more potent than an individual Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Scotland-somehow-conquering-half-of-Scandinavia; and Britannia represents (in my opinion) the united Kingdom of England and Scotland (though it's a couple of centuries off) as well as, perhaps, indirectly, the Arthurian mythos.

Although anyhow the Emperor of Spain (according to Wikipedia) was only occasionally used during them medieval period - but then again a "Kingdom of Spain" didn't really form until a little after CKII's present timeframe, anyways (although personally I find that better simply because it did come into being a decade or two right after CKII's timeframe and stayed for god, unlike the title of Emperor of Spain which popped up here and there but wasn't really as permanent).

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Pretty much. That's probably why they came to mind better than the others - but even the others have some merit; Scandinavia represents the Kalmar Union, a kingdom ruled by a king, certainly, but one potentially more potent than an individual Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Scotland-somehow-conquering-half-of-Scandinavia; and Britannia represents (in my opinion) the united Kingdom of England and Scotland (though it's a couple of centuries off) as well as, perhaps, indirectly, the Arthurian mythos.

Although anyhow the Emperor of Spain (according to Wikipedia) was only occasionally used during them medieval period - but then again a "Kingdom of Spain" didn't really form until a little after CKII's present timeframe, anyways (although personally I find that better simply because it did come into being a decade or two right after CKII's timeframe and stayed for god, unlike the title of Emperor of Spain which popped up here and there but wasn't really as permanent).

Both the Kalmar Union and Spain were personal unions; the first collapsed due to the union being severed in Sweden, and Spain wasn't technically a single realm until 1712 (?) -- prior to that it was just a convenient collective term for the crown lands of Castile, Aragon, Naples, etc.

Britannia is... more complicated. We had a debate about this a few months ago (perhaps longer) but I'm not sure which thread it was in. I imagine it was just after the de jure empires had been added in a patch.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Both the Kalmar Union and Spain were personal unions; the first collapsed due to the union being severed in Sweden, and Spain wasn't technically a single realm until 1712 (?) -- prior to that it was just a convenient collective term for the crown lands of Castile, Aragon, Naples, etc.

Britannia is... more complicated. We had a debate about this a few months ago (perhaps longer) but I'm not sure which thread it was in. I imagine it was just after the de jure empires had been added in a patch.

True, true. I think the problem is on one hand PI doesn't want to be too restrictive on what qualifies as an Empire, yet on the other hand it doesn't want to have Empires fill up everywhere. Figuring out what a possible de jure empire could be in-game, one based loosely on history, is certainly a difficult task due to the vagueness of how many of these could be interpreted (similar to the situation with cultures where the definition of cultures in-game is kind of vague and problematic once you think about it too hard).

Anyhow, a question a slightly more on-topic - you mentioned earlier about adding an Empire of Khazaria (or something like that) to your own personal mod - are there any specific reasons why, in terms of balance, flavor, and/or history?

 

[Divi]

I think the ideas of Empires would be more acceptable to some if they were considered to be super-powerful kingdoms, rather than actual Empires. For instance, the Empire of Hispania would simply be called Kingdom of Spain instead, and even the Empire of Francia a Kingdom of France that's more powerful than the actual Kingdom of France. It might make more sense, anyways - basically to represent Kingdoms that had gotten so powerful they commanded the same level of prestige and power on the level of the actual empires, but through some silly legal voodoo could never actually become an empire per se.

There's no kingdom of Spain in the CK2 time period. There is, however, a spanish emperor, and the kings of Leon obviously didn't give a damn about translatio imperii, which was wholly a concept cooked up by the frankish kings in the 10th and 11th century to justify their claim of being Holy Roman Emperors.

Edward I considered his dominion over Scotland, Ireland and Wales to be imperial in scope, the king of France was recognized as "emperor in his kingdom" as the standard legal point of view in the 13th or 14th century (by which the dukes of Brittany countered that they were kings in their duchy; unlike Portugal, they didn't suck up to Rome enough to make it stick although Francis II tried), and the notion of imperium as sovereign power still lingered a long time.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Both the Kalmar Union and Spain were personal unions; the first collapsed due to the union being severed in Sweden, and Spain wasn't technically a single realm until 1712 (?) -- prior to that it was just a convenient collective term for the crown lands of Castile, Aragon, Naples, etc.

Britannia is... more complicated. We had a debate about this a few months ago (perhaps longer) but I'm not sure which thread it was in. I imagine it was just after the de jure empires had been added in a patch.

There was ideological basis for British Empire and nominal English overlordship of the British Isles. Anglosaxon kings played with imperial symbolism, but didn't have any actual power over other kingdoms of the British Isles. And while Normans and Angevins actually came closer to fulfilling that ambition they were happy with the title King of England. Late professor Rees Davies has written some interesting books and articles about the English and British identities, which I recommend if you're interested about this topic.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

There was ideological basis for British Empire and nominal English overlordship of the British Isles. Anglosaxon kings played with imperial symbolism, but didn't have any actual power over other kingdoms of the British Isles. And while Normans and Angevins actually came closer to fulfilling that ambition they were happy with the title King of England. Late professor Rees Davies has written some interesting books and articles about the English and British identities, which I recommend if you're interested about this topic.

Yes, those were the points I touched on in the debate we had on this subject some time ago; particularly certain Anglo-Saxon kings using imperial terminology and titles (such as on their coinage) and the fact that a number of later English kings had suzerainty (often nominal, occasionally actual) over Scotland, and a greater number still over Wales and parts of Ireland.

I'd say Britannia is by far the most plausible and realistic of the European non-Roman empires.

 

[macphineas]

Yes, those were the points I touched on in the debate we had on this subject some time ago; particularly certain Anglo-Saxon kings using imperial terminology and titles (such as on their coinage) and the fact that a number of later English kings had suzerainty (often nominal, occasionally actual) over Scotland, and a greater number still over Wales and parts of Ireland.

I'd say Britannia is by far the most plausible and realistic of the European non-Roman empires.

I have to say the Spanish Empire is the most plausible, if the entire Iberian peninsula had been united under a single monarch, but it's all speculative anyway.
I personally don't mind the empires, as most if not all have some basis in fact, but I don't understand why they aren't titular at the start, rather than de jure? (I'm excepting the Arabian and especially the Persian Empire) Make them harder to form and titular, as well as restoring the Kingdom of Rus and maybe making the other king titles titles, like Ruthenia and Wallachia, titular, and the game would look better. Empire of Russia shouldn't be creatable unless the Byzantine Empire falls, but could exist as a de jure entity.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Empire of Russia shouldn't be creatable unless the Byzantine Empire falls, but could exist as a de jure entity.

+47297184.99999 recurring

 

[Eldorian]

The real problem with Russia is that all the dukes start with far, far, FAR more counties than their demesne limit. This makes playing a Russian duke a pain in the butt.

 

[Melange_Thief]

I'd rather just have no kingdoms in the Russian area since if you start at the Stamford Bridge start, (like most people) the grand principality of Rostov always seems to form Rus since it has just enough provinces to form a kingdom. This one feature ruins playing as the Russians. Maybe have a very large kingdom of Rus that encompasses all of kievan Rus, so that it actually requires some skill other than saving up a lot of money and piety to form Rus.

I know we've moved past this point, but I took a look at this duchy when testing out the new DLC, and discovered that they have 16/29 provinces of the Kingdom of Rus', 55% of its territory. If you were to add 4 or more provinces to the Kingdom of Rus', though, they would no longer have enough to form the Kingdom of Rus' immediately. Now, the devs probably don't want to add 4 new provinces in the area, so this requires moving four provinces from another kingdom into Rus'. I've looked at 4 possibilities:

Possibility 1: Move the Duchy of Ryazan' (4 provinces) out of Ruthenia and into Rus'. This move has the advantage of making the most sense from a historical standpoint, but unfortunately, removing 4 provinces from Ruthenia means that the Grand Principality of Galich has enough territory to form the Kingdom of Ruthenia at the beginning (11/21 instead of 11/25). Essentially, it just moves the problem further south.

Possibility 2: Move the Duchy of Hlynov (5 provinces) out of Perm' and into Rus'. This move makes the borders of Rus' and Perm' look a little bit better. Sadly, this one also moves the problem. In this case, the Duchy of Perm' has enough provinces to immediately form the Kingdom of Perm' (5/10 instead of 5/15). This might actually be a good thing by upping the prestige of one of the pagan kingdoms, but I regard it as once again moving the problem instead of fixing it.

Possibility 3: Remove the province of Zyriane from the Duchy of Hlynov to the Duchy of Perm', then move the reduced size Duchy of Hlynov from the Kingdom of Perm' to Rus'. This solution eliminates the problem completely, as it means neither the High Chief of Perm' nor the Grand Prince of Rostov can immediately declare themselves kings and strut around Russia. This does shift things in the pagan areas, though, which may be problematic. Another downside here is that the Duchy of Hlynov ends up being a long chain of provinces, which looks weird, but Franconia is already like that and if it's good enough for one of the core duchies of the HRE, it's good enough for the very edge of the map.

Possibility 4: Move the Duchy of Karelia (5 provinces) from the Kingdom of Finland to Rus'. This would solve the balance problem in Rus', and parts of Karelia were taken by Novgorod in the time period, but still, at the beginning of the time period, any Finnish kingdom would almost certainly include or wish to include Karelia.

So what do people think about these ideas?

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Possibility 5: Merge Ruthenia back into Rus.

 

[Melange_Thief]

I assumed the devs wouldn't want to roll back that change either.

 

[Divi]

What about

- split Rus into Muscovia, Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal and make it into the Empire title
- Muscovia gets Tver, Moskva and one of Ryazan or edit - Smolensk; Ryazan has the problem of reducing Kiev by 4 provinces, while Smolensk has no such issue, except it makes Kiev's starting borders look even uglier
- Vladimir-Suzdal gets Rostov, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and maybe Hlynov (both Yaroslavl and Vladimir are, as best as I can tell, dismemberments of Rostov)
- Novgorod might, maybe, gets Estonia
- Cheating and moving Volhynia to Poland reduces Galich's share of Ruthenia to 8/18 with Ryazan to Muscovy, and 7/20 with Smolensk to Muscovy.

Either way there is really no elegant way to handle Russia that I can tell short of maybe letting galich getting away with the Kievan crown.

 

[TheLionHeart]

The real problem with Russia is that all the dukes start with far, far, FAR more counties than their demesne limit. This makes playing a Russian duke a pain in the butt.

I think that's supposed to be historical in how the Rurikovich's of Kievan Rus didn't have feudalism in the same way, but is completely pointless since the AI just replaces them fast. Then the Kingdom of Rus is formed in about 50 years with no skill.

 

[onodera]

What about

- split Rus into Muscovia, Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal and make it into the Empire title
- Muscovia gets Tver, Moskva and one of Ryazan or Rostov; Ryazan has the problem of reducing Kiev by 4 provinces, while Smolensk has no such issue, except it makes Kiev's starting borders look even uglier
- Vladimir-Suzdal gets Rostov, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and maybe Hlynov (both Yaroslavl and Vladimir are, as best as I can tell, dismemberments of Rostov)
- Novgorod might, maybe, gets Estonia
- Cheating and moving Volhynia to Poland reduces Galich's share of Ruthenia to 8/18 with Ryazan to Muscovy, and 7/20 with Smolensk to Muscovy.

Either way there is really no elegant way to handle Russia that I can tell short of maybe letting galich getting away with the Kievan crown.

I've split Russia into Russian kingdoms of Kiev, Novgorod, Chernigov, Vladimir, Russian/Komi kingdom of Perm, kingdom of Bulgaria and Russian duchies of Polotsk, Smolensk (might merge these two into a kingdom) and Pereyaslavl. I have also added extra provinces to avoid huge stupid blobs like Bryansk. In 1066 every Rurikovich except Polotsk starts as a vassal of Kiev, but Vladimir and Chernigov can form their kingdoms as soon as they have the money, representing the aftermath of the council of Lyubech.
I still have to write the history files and add CoA for the new provinces and fix the positions file, though.