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King

Part Time Game Designer
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Dec 7, 2001
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  • Crusader Kings II
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  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
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With a title like Crusader Kings II we could not have not included the crusades, and, in what must class as a piece of unintentional irony by Doomdark, I have been delegated to write it.

First off, for those of you who really are getting immersed into the world of Crusader Kings II and simply cannot wait for the Pope to call a crusade there is nothing stopping you going off on a solo tour. You always have a CB against religious enemies, so if you have the will we have given you the means. The CB targets a De Jure Duchy of a religious enemy, and on success you acquire all the holdings inside the Duchy, leaving you to just decide who will be the new bishops and mayors.

The Crusades themselves are in fact not just crusades; any independent religious head may call for a holy war against religious enemies. The religious heads also have certain preferred targets, just as the Pope would love you to get Rome back (if lost), the Muslim Caliphs want the faithful to recover Mecca and Medina (so expect an interesting stay if you do decide to visit). Success in conquering the Crusade target grants the conqueror bonuses and prestige and piety.

crusade_called.png

As a little aside, since I know it is probably going to be one of the first questions you are going to ask, this is all very moddable. A holy war is scripted as an EU3 style mission that is open to all characters of that religion. The logic that decides when it is called and what province is the target is stored inside this script allows those of you who are of the modding persuasion to play around with it to your hearts content.

We also have events tied into the crusades. These include events that supply a bonus to characters who arrive at the crusade target and participate in its capture. Vassals may even be disappointed if you do not participate in the Crusade and the Pope will also badger you to take part in it. He may even offer to lift an excommunication to persuade you to go along.

We also have holy orders (again in a nice script file for those of you who want to add more), these act as very powerful mercenary regiments. However, they have two twists: they will not fight people of the same religion and they cost piety instead of cash to hire. Bringing these guys along on a crusade can be very helpful. In addition, they are classed as Dukes for game purposes. So they can be granted titles, create vassals and be vassalised. In our set-up files the Hospitalers and the Templars are scripted as Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (which means they are no longer for hire) and they form a powerful shock force of the Kingdom. The famous Krak de Chevaliers is a separate castle holding held by the Hospitalers.

holy_order.png

Once Holy Orders gain land they also gain an AI and diplomacy options, meaning that if you were to, say, grant the Teutonic Knights a few holdings in Prussia they might just get it into themselves to expand even more. There are events where the Holy Orders will ask for castles, and as these formations are militarily powerful, granting them castles will form a powerful bulwark against those who would seek to deny you your rightful holdings.

All in all Crusades have been given a nice little make over in CK2 that makes them much more interesting and dynamic.

Chris King
Grand Master of the Holy Game Design Order.
 
Crusades finally ! How will a crusade play out if two different Kings (say the King of France and the King of England) decides to invade the crusade target province at the same time ? Will they cooperate with fighting and sigeing ?

Esben

They will cooperate but first one there will get the province.
 
Is there no mechanic here to represent multiple independent rulers embarking on the same crusade together as a single army? I was looking to the Crusader armies having factions, politics and infighting.

None at all.
 
What do you mean that you can declare a holy war on a de jure Duchy ?
What if the Duchy (meaning, the Emirate) doesn't currently exist, or is held by different rulers ?
For exemple, Sicily at the starting date is divided between four independent Muslim states (Trapani, Palermo, Syracuse and Malta), neither of them part of a Kingdom (at least, that's how in CKI was), and even a Christian county (Messina). Who do we declare war to ?

Another question : does declaring an Holy war against a de jure Duchy mean that we will be at war with his liege as well ? And his others correligionaries ?

And a last question : during a Holy War, the principle for which casus belli can't be exceeded stays ? Like, if we go on an holy war for Sicily an we happen to occupy Tunis as well, can we annex it ? And, on the contrary, if during our holy war for Sicily the heathens happen to occupy Messina (de jure county), can they annex it ? And if they occupy Reggio (not a de jure county) ?

Unless you happen to be fightening inside your realm you always declare war on and make peace with the top liege. If you succeed the top liege will hand over all holdings inside the De Jure duchy they happen to have. It doesn't matter if the title exists and who holds it as the the underlying counties that belong to a duchy are fixed so the game knows who these are. If the duchy is split over several serperate entities then you need to fight several seperate entities to gain all the holdings.

Yes even with holy wars you cannot extend your CB, the duchy you went for is the one you get in peace regardless of what you actually hold.
 
How are characters on crusade tracked re: their location? Are there any special events that fire to show them being away from court, for example?

The game knows where a character is at all times. It even tells you in the charcter interface. If the character is commanding a contingent of an army that arrives at the crusade target then we can fire the events as described in the developer diary.
 
How do I go about giving titles to the heads of the Holy Orders? Do I have to wait for them to ask for it themselves?

Handing out titles is a diplmatic action and you reach the heads of the holy orders through the holy order tab inside the military screen.
 
Can a religious order gain independence from a kingdom?

Also after they land themselves ,will we continue to pay their piety "fee"? Or is that just when they are mercenaries

They can if they wish the only thing about being a vassal of a kingdom is only the King can hire them. If they go solo anyone can call upon thier services, ythey just need to pay the piety.
 
Nice DD. And like always it raises so many questions :D

Let's say I'm playing with an Iberian king and without the pope even asking for a crusade I decide to bash the southern muslims. Are there any religious orders that can help me in 1066? And if so, granting land to them makes them independent?

Can we for example mod in some religious orders which are vassal to other kingdoms? For example religious order "LeonTemplars" which is vassal to Leon.

Does Jerusalem get any penalties for having religious orders vassals? They shouldn't get the same income as if they were normal vassals. Right?

We have no scripted religious orders available in 1066, the appear later by event (as per dev diary screenshot). As these are defined in game a duchy tier title without either de jure liege or vassals, you are free to add your own if you wish. We added only the ones we felt were more important to the game, the Templars, the Teutonic Order, The Hospitalers and the Hashshashins. By default Holy Orders have no liege and if you grant them titles then you have given them away. If they do accept your invitation to be a vassal of yours then they are just another feudal vassal, the only thing is the order's troops are now reserved for your use. Titles do not gain bonuses or penalties for having orders as vassals.
 
And will that give you a claim on the Ducal title ?

I'm thinking about a scenario of this type : both Duchy of Apulia and Duchy of Sardegna sart an holy war to gain the control of Sicily. Let's say that Apulia DoW Palermo and Malta (and wins) and Sardegna DoW Trapani and Siracusa (and wins as well). Virtually Apulia has now the right to create a ducal title, controlling 4 counties (Palermo, Agrigento, Messina and Malta) on 6. But, since Sardegna fought a war for Sicily as well, will it get a claim on the newly-created Ducal title ?

Or course not. They did not fight a war for the ducal title of Sicily, they fought a war for the holdings of the religious enemies inside Sicily. Thus victory in those wars confers no rights to the ducal title of Sicily.
 
And btw, can we marry, or invite to court, regular mercenaires ?

Just now I tested this. I used a cheat code to convince the Captian of a mercanry company to become my vassal (he would of said no) and then I gave him land. You cannot invite to court or marry mercanry captains by default.
 
Awesome DD.

By the way, can we send courtiers to join mercenaries or Holy Orders? For example, can I send my troublesome second son off to join some mercenary company to get rid of him?

As things stand no. As you all know we have a plan for expansions and Holy Orders are on our list of things to be expanded. So who knows in the future. At the moment our prime focus is getting the current systems (as described in the Developer Diary) working well.
 
If I decide to hire mercenary regiments from one of the holy orders where will the regiment show up?

Let us say that I play as the king of Danmark. I am on a crusade and one of my regiments has alredy made it half the way towards the crusade's goal and I think I might need a few more men. So I hire mercenaries from the Hospitalers who happen to own Cyprus.

Will the mercenary regiment show up at my capital, at Cyprus or at the current positon of my crusade army?

Since game engine makes no value judgement on what you happen to want to use the mercs for they always appear in your capital.
 
Have you considered other options for this? Even without making a value judgement about what you want to use the mercenaries for it would seem like they could also appear where your king or your marshal is (assuming that you control the territory). This would give the player a lot more flexibility in using mercenaries.

In CK1 I personally never used mercenaries because - playing as Denmark - they would arrive on Sjaelland, which not only meant that they were far from Crusading destinations but also that they were on an island so I had to pay extra transport fees to get them anywhere.

No we haven't to be honest. We give you a button to hire mercanaries and they will appear in the province with your shield on it. It is very clear to everyone. We have added an option to move your capital and we have added straights between Sjaelland and the rest of the world so things aren't as bad as you make out.
 
These mechanics look very good for the human player who is interested in conquering lands of another religion for himself. But what about the AI and if you aren't doing it for personal titles (but for piety, RP, good relations with the Pope and so on)? Is there any mechanic at all that makes these de jure duchies (which, I guess might eventually become Jerusalem or Syria) more likely to become independent? If you look at the historical Crusades the states in the Levant usually consisted of: 1) Nobles who were far from succession and wanted an independent grant of land 2) Nobles who gave up their land in Europe to their kin to become leaders of the Crusader states.

I would be sad to see Jerusalem being owned by Castille, France, England etc. most of the time, at least.

How will you stimulate the creation of the kingdom of Jerusalem?

If for instance, France, the HRE and England go on a crusade and each one of them conquers land in the Holy Lands, is there any way for the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be created with lands from each one of them?

To answer your question we have no forcing mechanics to get people to give up titles held in the holy land and let them go thier own way. What we do have is two things one the default succession law for newly created Kingdoms is Gavilkind meaning that multiple kingdoms can end up being divided amoungst the sons. Secondly vassals will plot to acuire titles. In the game I was playing that those screenshots were taken from I watched the Seljuk Kingdom fall apart as vassal after vassal launched wars to acquire the Kingdom titles that the Great Seljuk held.
 
Thanks for the diary, King.

I'm curious, is something like the 4th Crusade possible? In your second screenshot, it explicitly states that you cannot attack Christians. But the 4th Crusade ultimately did nothing but that!

Holy orders will not help you attack people of the same religious group. You are free to attack anyone you have a valid CB on.
 
Speaking of CBs, is there a some sort of Subjugation CB that allows you to vassalize people?

Not subjugation per say. What you need to have a claimant to a title in your court and then advance thier claim. If you succeed they will be so grateful for your help that they will become your vassal.
 
How will the game reflect the fact that most of the crusaders (first crusade) were bastards, younger sons and so on, with no land in Europe? The mechanism applied in CK1 befor Deus Vult, where the county went to the character that besieged it, was a bit unrealistic, but had a realistic outcome, in the sense that the counties went to a bunch of fortune seekers who were lucky enough to lead an army at the right time.

Will it be possible to mod in som adjustment to which holdings the mercs can appear in? Like, if they are knights on crusade, they will appear in one of your provinces in the Holy Land? But still, as you can change the capital as you please, this shouldn't be a huge problem. But if it's possible to make them appear in any county you have, by changing your capital, wouldn't it then be simpler, if you can choose any of your counties as the arrival point of the mercs?

Your question is stupid because it completely ignores the reality of the crusade. Not one of the major crusade leaders was a landless second son. The leaders of the first crusade were as follows:

Duke of Lower Lorriane - King of Jersualem
Count of Tarranto - Prince of Antoch
Count of Toulouse - Count of Tripoli
Duke of Normandy - Got nothing for some reason.

Only the County of Edessa was founded by a second son, but hell he was with his brother the Duke of Lower Lorriane. I wish people would do some basic research on this matter before demanding we add features to the game in the name 'historical reality'. Godfrey essentially destroys the Duchy of Lower Lorriane by his policy of mortgaging so many of the lands to pay for his contingent to the crusade. It is not difficult to see why the first crusade signaled the effective end of the Duchy of Lower Lorraine when you put it in that context. However, people continue to ignore these really obvious facts in favour of peddling myths.