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Doomdark

Chief Creative Officer
Paradox Staff
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Apr 3, 2000
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Well folks, we're coming up on Christmas and, according to some, the end of the world.

But in the event that the world is still around on January 14,
I might as well start writing this dev diary on the next expansion for Crusader Kings II; a little thing we call The Republic.

The expansion will make the great Merchant Republics playable; Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Gotland and the Hansa. What about Novgorod, Florence and Cordoba you ask? Bruges and the "Vier Leden"? The lesser Italian republics? The short answer is that they did not quite qualify. Some of them were not really mercantile in nature, some were more or less ruled by a princely family, others were landlocked, and the rest were too minor. Instead, we chose to focus on the big five (though new ones can appear during the game.)

Now, we did not want to mess with the Dynasty based gameplay that makes Crusader Kings II unique, so rather than playing a succession of Doges from various different merchant families (like in Europa Universalis III), you will be the head of one such family - a Patrician. For simplicity's sake, the Merchant Republics (much like New York) are run by five families who take turns at being Godfather - I mean Doge. This is rather similar to how Elective Monarchies work in the game; if you lose an election, you can still keep playing though you no longer control the entire republic.

The_Republic_01_Five_Families.jpg

Patricians have a special land holding called the Family Palace, which does not exist on the map but grants them a decent levy and tax income even without being proper rulers. In fact, players should not expect to hold the Doge position for several consecutive terms (more on that in a later dev diary.) The Family Palace can be upgraded like any normal Holding (castles, cities and temples), but it should not be understood as just a single physical building; rather, it represents a range of assets controlled by the family. Thus, it cannot be occupied or otherwise interfered with by your enemies.

While Patricians have a bourgeois background and are not proper members of the nobility, they are still important players in European medieval politics. Thus, they can secure alliances through marriage just like feudal lords. However, they cannot marry matrilineally and any marriage proposals made to the nobility must be accompanied by an appropriate bride price, which can be pretty steep. Moreover, children born to such couples can not inherit both the Patrician holdings and a feudal domain. What tends to happen is that one child becomes a lord and another takes over as Patrician (although Patricians are limited to Agnatic Seniority succession, so it's more likely an older relative becomes the next Patrician.)

The_Republic_02_Bride_Price.jpg

So what makes playing a Patrician really different from playing a feudal lord? That's a subject for next time! Until then, I wish you all a really

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And here is a Crusader Kings II: The Republic Video Devdiary for you ;)
[video=youtube;Ohjqt0q7m3s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohjqt0q7m3s[/video]

Web page: http://www.crusaderkings.com
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Agnatic Seniority. Oh dear, I've been there and had bad experiences with that.

However if thats what republics involve then I'm up for going through the pain of that again. The rest of the republican experience will make it all worthwhile :D. It should be less savage if your dud leaders are the ones who don't become doge.

Republics are elective, but your player successor is chosen by Seniority.
 
Will you be adding info on the new patch as well (like in the DD from previous DLCs)? Would be much appreciated.

Possibly. :)

Oh, one other question...
Are the Mediterranean portraits in the screenshot still WIP? 'Cause they still look quite different in quality compared to the original portraits (and you've probably noticed how much flak the latest portrait DLC got here in the forum)...

AFAIK, they are now ready to go at any time. It's up to our sales department.
 
Thanks for the Dev diary Doomdark very interesting. I think I read before that you will be unable to become a noble like a count or a duke, but is that the same for kingdoms and empires? Say you can gain enough territory to usurp the Holy Roman Empire would you become emperor or would it be the republic of the holy roman empire? or something similar.

Well, there are ways for Patricians to become nobles. For example, if their capital is a castle and they declare independence from the republic. However, the ruling Doge cannot declare himself Duke or King, etc.
 
Woot, finally, but i was just wondering what you mean by the "big five" paragraph? does it mean that only they will be playable? if so then im sort of bumbed out now, i guess ill have to give Amalfi, Ancona and Ragusa titular kingdoms...

It's easy enough to mod.
 
Hm, so there are only 5 possible places to start?
Not possible to make someone Patrician with Ruler Designer or something?

It depends on the start date (the Hansa does not exist in 1066, etc). You can currently not use the Ruler Designer to create a Patrician, but it's something we are looking into.

And you can start only as current doge/serene doge?

No, you can choose to start as any of the five families within the republic.
 
Oh, so that wasn't just a limitation of the interface, rather than coding? Like how there's an additional member of the Council in Game of Thrones, was it?

It's currently a hard limit. (Easy to export to a define, but it would require major interface modding in any case.)

What happens when you raise up a new Republic in-game, though? Does the five families get generated based on Dynasties of that culture, or?

Yes, it generates five Patricians.
 
Thanks for the DD, and merry christmas to u too doomdark!
Just one small thing I wanna ask. Would the child of a previous doge get a claim on the republic when that family got elected out of office? I wonder whether it will be some sort of civil war within republics due to this

No, because there are legit ways of getting back into power. More on that later. :)
 
Great dd. One question, are any trading posts present at game start or do we always have to build them from scratch?

There are pre-scripted ones too, but Trade Posts are next week's subject.
 
I notice that one of the guys in the screenshot is also mayor of a city. How does that work? How can a patrician be elected mayor? Is that another election you need to be involved in?

Patricians can hold both cities and castles without penalty.
 
• And what about that? Why is there no event for courtiers with money to seek to buy a barony, or a count with money to offer to buy an uncreated dukedom or a title held by the king? Happened all the time.

Counts with money CAN create Duchies, and there's a decision for when you desire a duchy held by your liege.