Hello again folks!
It's a new month and high time for another development diary. This time, let's talk about barons. In the original Crusader Kings, characters could only hold titles of three ranks; count, duke and king (though these could be called different things in different cultures). Barons existed indirectly in the form of provincial nobility, which, together with the clergy, peasants and burghers, had different power, loyalty and tax values. The player could fiddle around with the power values of the four classes, which would affect the tax rate and the composition of the provincial levy. As it turned out, this was one of the least successful features in the game, because the micromanagement was tedious and did not have enough impact to make it worthwhile. Therefore, in Crusader Kings II, the whole thing has been cut. Instead, each province will have between one and eight named settlements. A settlement is either a castle, city or church, and characters can hold the title to a settlement just like they can to counties and duchies.
Castles are regular feudal holdings, whose barons are normally in fief to the provincial count. Cities are commercial hubs governed by a mayor. Finally, church settlements are run by a Bishop (or Mufti, or similiar.) Like the four classes of Crusader Kings, the three types of settlement provide different types of troop levies and have different tax rates depending on laws. Unlike the class power of Crusader Kings, the rights of churches and cities - and the investiture of their leaders - should be interesting to play around with. (More on this in a later dev diary.)
Barony tier characters are not playable, mainly for performance reasons. (We do not want barons to have courts of their own, with the explosion of characters this would require.) They have a more rudimentary form of AI than playable characters, but will respond to diplomacy and might raise their army in revolt. Another measure to keep the character count down in Crusader Kings II is that you can have your vassals double as councillors (so there is less need for minor nobles to be created by the game).
What about the level of micromanagement - won't all these baronies require more player attention? Well, the whole point of the feudal system is delegation, so the short answer is that for dukes and above; not much. Granted, the dynamic around cities and churches will require more attention, but of the right kind and infrequently. The existence of baronies will also make playing counts a lot more interesting.
I don't have any baronial graphics in particular to show you, but here's a little something that Aerie is working on...
That's all for now. Don't miss the next dev diary on December 2!
Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
It's a new month and high time for another development diary. This time, let's talk about barons. In the original Crusader Kings, characters could only hold titles of three ranks; count, duke and king (though these could be called different things in different cultures). Barons existed indirectly in the form of provincial nobility, which, together with the clergy, peasants and burghers, had different power, loyalty and tax values. The player could fiddle around with the power values of the four classes, which would affect the tax rate and the composition of the provincial levy. As it turned out, this was one of the least successful features in the game, because the micromanagement was tedious and did not have enough impact to make it worthwhile. Therefore, in Crusader Kings II, the whole thing has been cut. Instead, each province will have between one and eight named settlements. A settlement is either a castle, city or church, and characters can hold the title to a settlement just like they can to counties and duchies.
Castles are regular feudal holdings, whose barons are normally in fief to the provincial count. Cities are commercial hubs governed by a mayor. Finally, church settlements are run by a Bishop (or Mufti, or similiar.) Like the four classes of Crusader Kings, the three types of settlement provide different types of troop levies and have different tax rates depending on laws. Unlike the class power of Crusader Kings, the rights of churches and cities - and the investiture of their leaders - should be interesting to play around with. (More on this in a later dev diary.)
Barony tier characters are not playable, mainly for performance reasons. (We do not want barons to have courts of their own, with the explosion of characters this would require.) They have a more rudimentary form of AI than playable characters, but will respond to diplomacy and might raise their army in revolt. Another measure to keep the character count down in Crusader Kings II is that you can have your vassals double as councillors (so there is less need for minor nobles to be created by the game).
What about the level of micromanagement - won't all these baronies require more player attention? Well, the whole point of the feudal system is delegation, so the short answer is that for dukes and above; not much. Granted, the dynamic around cities and churches will require more attention, but of the right kind and infrequently. The existence of baronies will also make playing counts a lot more interesting.
I don't have any baronial graphics in particular to show you, but here's a little something that Aerie is working on...
That's all for now. Don't miss the next dev diary on December 2!
Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
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