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Hello everyone and welcome to the second dev diary for Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne!

I'm Tobias Bodlund, Scripter on the CK2 team. Today we'll discuss two new game features that we are really excited about. One has to do with titles and the other has to do with stories. Oh, and we've also changed something that has to do with murders.

In Crusader Kings 2: Charlemagne, rulers will no longer be restricted to the predefined de jure kingdoms and empires on the map when they wish to take a step up in rank. Any duke that has a large enough realm and enough prestige can now declare himself a king. The new kingdom will initially have no de jure lands, but it will gain them with time (if it survives). In the same way, a powerful king can declare a new empire. The new title will inherit its name and coat of arms from the primary duchy or kingdom title that the ruler had before.

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This new feature should open up new ways for players to shape the world, and you'll see new titles arising according to the unique sequence of events that unfolds in your specific campaign.

Along with this comes new support for modders to dynamically change the coat of arms for any title through events or decisions or via the history files.

Another new feature is something we've wanted to add to Crusader Kings II for a long time. As you play through a long campaign, you are effectively creating the epic story of your dynasty, and we've always felt that it would be nice to create some kind of record of this, something that enables you to look back on your history and that you can also keep as a record after the game. This is why we've now added the Dynasty Chronicle.

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The Chronicle will register any important events that happen to the characters you play, such as births, marriages, wars, deaths, important decisions etc. It will also mention major world events such as the arrival of the Mongols, the Crusades and the start of the Viking Age. You will be able to review your family chronicle at any time through the in-game interface, and you will also be able to export it to a text file so that you can keep it and share it with your friends. Maybe you'll even want to format it in a fancy font, print it in color and show it off properly.

Finally, for todays dev diary, let's talk about assassinations. There are two major changes being done here - and this part is free content, meaning it will be in the patch for everyone whether you have the Charlemagne DLC or not.

The first change is that the assassination diplomacy action has been removed. Since we introduced plots in Crusader Kings II, we've really had two different and wholly separated systems for assassinations. No longer. The click-to-assassinate mechanic was, to be honest, somewhat obsolete considering how the game has evolved over the past few years. From now you'll have to run a proper plot in order to kill someone, which also makes for much more interesting gameplay.

The second change to assassinations is that we've added a way for you to defend yourself from those who would plot your untimely death. There is now a new decision called "Go Into Hiding", which allows you to remove yourself from the public eye for as long as you desire and thus greatly decrease the chance of any murder plots against you succeeding. The decision is available at any time that there is a known or suspected murder plot against you (you might be wrong of course, but being paranoid doesn't mean that they're not actually out to get you). This new mechanic will have a number of new events associated with it.

You will also be able to send your spouse or any of your children into hiding in the same way - provided they are not rulers themselves, they are in your court, and that there is a credible threat against them.

You may come out of hiding, or take your dependants out of hiding, at any time you wish.

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Hiding away in the inner rooms of your castle for prolonged periods of time does have its price, however. Your inability to hold court means that you will suffer a reduction to your diplomacy attribute while in hiding, and your vassals with be less loyal due to your absence. You will also be unable to hold feasts and tournaments, travel, lead armies and all those other things that would require you to leave your hiding place and step out into that evil and dangerous outside world.

There are of course also other risks associated with hiding. People living in relative isolation during extended periods have at times been known to... how to put it... suffer certain effects to their personality. But I'm sure you'll be fine!
 
The new titular titles feature leavs me concerned that the map will take on worse shapes than it already does.
Now every duke with 3-4 counties can fancy himself a king? The map will be covered with 100's of this little Kings. For the sake of a decent map I hope that the former liege of the wannabee king immediately gets claims on his titles so he can slap him around good.

This is another step away from historical plausability and into the realm of fantasy. And i still dont get why Paradox keeps taking this approach.

Why does this keeps coming up again and again? Have you never played as a vassal? You cannot create a title that is of equal or higher rank to the title of your liege and the devs have not said this was going to change.
 
I don't know if this was asked and given answer already, but can we decide what the title of the new kingdoms/empires are? So that if I form one in Scandinavia I can use High Queen/High King instead of Empress/Emperor and the likes?
 
Why does this keeps coming up again and again? Have you never played as a vassal? You cannot create a title that is of equal or higher rank to the title of your liege and the devs have not said this was going to change.

you'll probably need a donkey load of prestige, cash and piety too which the AI is generally rubbish at saving up.
 
It still does not matter, you simply cannot gain independence by creating a title, be it a titular or dejure one?

But the concern about the map ending up in lots of little kingdoms would be valid if it is cheap.
As independent duchies and independence faction revolts are a thing.
 
It still does not matter, you simply cannot gain independence by creating a title, be it a titular or dejure one?

You can never gain independence this way. You can, however, break free from your liege if he is liege of someone else. So if you are a count and manage to form a duchy for yourself, you become vassal of the king. I assume same goes if you are duke under king who is vassal to emperor. You become a new kingdom under empire.
 
I am probably too late to ask but, can the game allow counties and duchies to existed that have no De jure Kingdom or empire?
So for the sake of example, there be no De jure England, Wales or Scotland nor Britannia and just have what forms form?
 
But the concern about the map ending up in lots of little kingdoms would be valid if it is cheap.
As independent duchies and independence faction revolts are a thing.

And the problem of that is? What is the difference between having independent dukes and titular kings? After all, the name will be the same and the colour aswell. I simply do not see the problem.
 
You can never gain independence this way. You can, however, break free from your liege if he is liege of someone else. So if you are a count and manage to form a duchy for yourself, you become vassal of the king. I assume same goes if you are duke under king who is vassal to emperor. You become a new kingdom under empire.

Yes you can, is that a problem?
 
With the assassination button being removed, did they say anything about improving the current plot system for assassinating characters? Its current setup is complete sh*t for assassinating characters (imo). :ninja: :ninja:
 
Basically, if an adventurer event pops you are now screwed and forced to fight him. Because seriously how often do we kill an adventurer with the plot? In my plays, I counted once. Once over more 20ish games.
 
I am probably too late to ask but, can the game allow counties and duchies to existed that have no De jure Kingdom or empire?
So for the sake of example, there be no De jure England, Wales or Scotland nor Britannia and just have what forms form?
It was possible in earlier versions of the game, now it leads to crash. I would certainly love to have this feature back.
 
In the early versions of CK2, there were 2(two) empires: HRE and ERE. That's it. You wanted an Empire? You needed to usurp or be elected for one of the two. And the De-Jure Empires map did have a lot of blanks, as is proper.

Then some started complaining that this was too limiting. Which it was, since this is a game about alternative history after all, not an history video.
There were proposals for exactly the kind of system that CM is doing now, which is IMHO a perfect compromise between history and gameplay. But, Paradox eventually decided it was easier to just slap a bunch of fantasy de-jure empires on the map, and let people create those. Plus for some mad reason they hard-coded it so that no blanks can exist in De-Jure maps, which is just sad and blocks modders from correcting the silliness :angry:

A real pity, and I'm glad they've finally reconsidered. I do really hope this also means the removal of the fantasy de-jure stuff, but I honestly doubt it.
 
In the early versions of CK2, there were 2(two) empires: HRE and ERE. That's it. You wanted an Empire? You needed to usurp or be elected for one of the two. And the De-Jure Empires map did have a lot of blanks, as is proper.

Then some started complaining that this was too limiting. Which it was, since this is a game about alternative history after all, not an history video.
There were proposals for exactly the kind of system that CM is doing now, which is IMHO a perfect compromise between history and gameplay. But, Paradox eventually decided it was easier to just slap a bunch of fantasy de-jure empires on the map, and let people create those. Plus for some mad reason they hard-coded it so that no blanks can exist in De-Jure maps, which is just sad and blocks modders from correcting the silliness :angry:

A real pity, and I'm glad they've finally reconsidered. I do really hope this also means the removal of the fantasy de-jure stuff, but I honestly doubt it.

I think you may have misunderstood something. Modders can totally remove the de-jure Empires already. It's the Kingdoms that are untouchable. Every province have to be part of a Kingdom.
 
I don't see why people hate on all those empires that aren't the ERE or HRE because if you had a guy from Mali who managed to conquer all of Western Africa and North Africa, if he started calling himself the emperor of Mali, who's going to say otherwise? No one is the ultimate authority on who's an emperor and who's not.
 
Why does this keeps coming up again and again? Have you never played as a vassal? You cannot create a title that is of equal or higher rank to the title of your liege and the devs have not said this was going to change.

I'm more concerned about de jure ducal vassals of de jure empires. Being allowed to create a de jure kingdom is one thing, though some of the core kingdoms of certain empires (ERE & HRE) are problematic too; but a custom titular kingdom, as a vassal, IMHO should be something different.
Certainly de jure vassals, those IMHO should need the permission of their liege (de jure & de facto).

I'm totally fine with independent dukes, once powerful enough seek a royal crown. It's only vassalized dukes I'm concerned about.
 
I don't see why people hate on all those empires that aren't the ERE or HRE because if you had a guy from Mali who managed to conquer all of Western Africa and North Africa, if he started calling himself the emperor of Mali, who's going to say otherwise? No one is the ultimate authority on who's an emperor and who's not.

The problem is not th ahistorical empires. It is the de jure ahistorical empires. Sure, no one would stop a sufficiently powerful guy to declaring himself emperor. But no one would particularly respect and automatically recognize the authority either.

For a more obvious example, imagine if an English king menage to conquer Scotland, Wales and declares himself emperor of Britannia. That make sense, right? Nothing wrong with that. But why should the Irish lords automatically recognize his authority over Ireland? Why should the be able to vote in British law and why should they be more willing to bend the knee to him? With the new system this issue becomes even more evident. You can form your own empires now but the de jure empires still have advantage, even though most of them are just as arbitrary and ahistorical.
 
The AI can do it too, but is much more restricted in doing it so it should be a rare occurrence when it happens.

That makes me very happy, don't want it happening too much, but just want it to be a possibility. Maybe you'd have to be ambitious and proud? I think it will be very interesting to find out these conditions