Empowering the Nobility, Weakening of the Royalty

[LordofSaxony]

I originally created a thread along similar lines, but it was more specific to England's Magna Carta and Charter of Liberties, which I think threw people off to what I was getting at. But, the idea as a generic mechanism in CK2 does sound quite appealing that could very well apply to all kingdoms in Europe.

In short, the noble vassals under you don't want you to have supreme and absolute power over them, so they make you sign a charter, which would also alter the way you play the game, at least in terms of what you can no longer do - which represents the loss of absolute power. On the bright side, your vassals may be more accepting of you if you do sign it (relations boost). This could also be the cause of some revolts under you as well.

You are playing as the King of Yourlands, and your nobles really dislike you because you keep interfering with their business. So they press you to sign a charter (ie, Charter of Liberties). In gameplay terms, you may lose the ability to organize marriages, aside from your own kin (ie, you can no longer arrange marriages for your court members - only blood kin). You may lose tax revenue because they make you agree to a tax cap. The list can go on, but I think you get the idea. These shouldn't be gamebreaking, but they should hamper the king's power a bit.

 

[RedRooster81]

I liked the original idea as you first proposed it. I favor a slow back and forth between all the different estates of your kingdom (i.e., monarch, church, burghers, peasants, great nobles, lesser nobles...), although things may get bad enough where you are delivered a magna carta in order to avoid civil war as John I Lackland experienced firsthand. As a general principle, each monarch needs to favor one or more groups within his kingdom in order to maintain the status quo. A small realm like Navarra, where the nobles are rather weak and few in number, might require different concessions than the Holy Roman Empire or France, where in 1066 each duchy was almost a kingdom unto itself. A wise king would respect this autonomy, but kings with the reckless or arbitrary traits would do quite the opposite.

On each coronation, it would be nice if the new king was asked to make certain concessions and/or promise to uphold the privileges of each important faction. Usurpers or kings with weak claims should be pressed to make more concessions, as should kings ruling through a regent, though not always. In the latter case, once the king ends his minority, then there should be a shake-up. In any event, I think that there should be a delegation of nobles who would try to "talk sense" to the king before a rebellion breaks out, if they think, by their own and the king's traits, that such negotiation might have a chance of working.

Just some thoughts, Lord of Saxony. I encourage you to keep working on this sort of feature, which should be central to maintaining the integrity of the kingdom over the long term.

 

[RhoDaZZ]

I originally created a thread along similar lines, but it was more specific to England's Magna Carta and Charter of Liberties, which I think threw people off to what I was getting at. But, the idea as a generic mechanism in CK2 does sound quite appealing that could very well apply to all kingdoms in Europe.

In short, the noble vassals under you don't want you to have supreme and absolute power over them, so they make you sign a charter, which would also alter the way you play the game, at least in terms of what you can no longer do - which represents the loss of absolute power. On the bright side, your vassals may be more accepting of you if you do sign it (relations boost). This could also be the cause of some revolts under you as well.

You are playing as the King of Yourlands, and your nobles really dislike you because you keep interfering with their business. So they press you to sign a charter (ie, Charter of Liberties). In gameplay terms, you may lose the ability to organize marriages, aside from your own kin (ie, you can no longer arrange marriages for your court members - only blood kin). You may lose tax revenue because they make you agree to a tax cap. The list can go on, but I think you get the idea. These shouldn't be gamebreaking, but they should hamper the king's power a bit.

I like your idea of restricting a king's control according to the nobles' wishes (and possibly others' if they grow too powerful), but it requires that we will be able to have a direct influence on taxes and royal marriages in the first place, which is yet to be seen (however some degree of control is expectable). Nevertheless, some form of abstractions will be necessary for all the game dynamics to work together. In detail it would probably have to be a law (charter) that would need several requirements to be revoked and likewise have some nasty effects afterwards. This should be codable with the current laws system, if possibly combined with some trigger events.

I liked the original idea as you first proposed it. I favor a slow back and forth between all the different estates of your kingdom (i.e., monarch, church, burghers, peasants, great nobles, lesser nobles...), although things may get bad enough where you are delivered a magna carta in order to avoid civil war as John I Lackland experienced firsthand. As a general principle, each monarch needs to favor one or more groups within his kingdom in order to maintain the status quo. A small realm like Navarra, where the nobles are rather weak and few in number, might require different concessions than the Holy Roman Empire or France, where in 1066 each duchy was almost a kingdom unto itself. A wise king would respect this autonomy, but kings with the reckless or arbitrary traits would do quite the opposite.

On each coronation, it would be nice if the new king was asked to make certain concessions and/or promise to uphold the privileges of each important faction. Usurpers or kings with weak claims should be pressed to make more concessions, as should kings ruling through a regent, though not always. In the latter case, once the king ends his minority, then there should be a shake-up. In any event, I think that there should be a delegation of nobles who would try to "talk sense" to the king before a rebellion breaks out, if they think, by their own and the king's traits, that such negotiation might have a chance of working.

Just some thoughts, Lord of Saxony. I encourage you to keep working on this sort of feature, which should be central to maintaining the integrity of the kingdom over the long term.

Exactly (though the outcome might not have been in his favour). What worries me is that currently (#) we only have an unrest modifier in each province (and a single religion) and therefore it might be that the stratification of the population in relation to the ruling body is only represented through events (that are possibly linked to settlements). Personally I don't want a POP system and nor did I think the CKI system was great, but I hope for something more dynamic and at the same time more representative of the diverse populations present in the medieval era.

Take the Magna Mundi mod for EUIII, there's provincial modifiers and decisions everywhere just to represent some form of diversity and interaction between the population groups. However because it isn't abstracted within the core of the game (something the MM game aims to do), and therefore results in an unnecessary amount of micromanagement, it becomes a huge strain on the player.

 

[Caranorn]

I wouldn't quite wish a pop system. But the more I think about it, the more I agree that there should be some way to represent the different population groups and their rights and privileges. Essentially you should have sets of law for each category (I agree with RedRooster81's subdivision into monarch-upper nobility-lesser nobility and knighthood-clergy-burghers-and peasants (note clergy might warrant splitting up into noble and non noble as these two groups tended to be separate)) at the county level. In no case should every city/town have the same set of laws as charters greatly varied from place to place, nor every barony the same rights for peasants, or every bishopric/abbey. Law settings on the county level should affect what rights and priviledges its settlements will have. This in turn will determine how they contribute to taxation, military level, loyalty etc. Finally, players should definitelly have to rule with the support of at least one or two of the above population groups, in Germany for instance the King/Emperor tended to rely on the clergy and burghers (abstraction of Imperial Cities, of course those populations were again subdivided into patricians, citizens and other burghers, where individual riches played a great role) against the upper and lower nobility, peasants hardly played a role other than producing raw material (money)...

I'm not sure this necessarily need be charters like the Magna Carta, though that extreme case should definitelly be possible. Other than town charters (which belongs to the county level) I'm not familiar enough with these aspects...

 

[Jia Xu]

I hope that the game has a constant struggle between liege and vassals over centralization. The sovereign wants to centralize power under the crown, while the nobles seek autonomy. It should be a subtle tug of war between the two sides until one side goes to far somehow and starts a civil war. As a feudalism themed game, I think CK2 would be far more interesting if a mechanic existed to begin the end of feudalism by creating a centralized state regardless of how ahistorical that may be. It would be a very high up, challenging, and worthy goal to pursue.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

The game shouldn't be overly complex. The character dynamics alone made CK1 fun and engaging to play, there doesn't need to be a whole social simulation on top of that to make CK2 fun.

Also, the game is already being coded now, you're not going to see the devs say "Oh I'm going to rewrite the design documents because I read about this or that totally new and totally awesome feature on the forum".

Rather than coming up with in-game representations for "The nobles wish to restrict you in some unspecified way" - which ends up with you guys proposing totally new mechanisms or ways how to annoy the player for the sake of some abstract historic concepts - how about this: You look at the game elements that CK1 had, as well as those announced for CK2, and THEN ask yourself, "Should a player always have total control over this or that game element?".

You could make a list of possible player actions in the game:

• character actions (education, marriage, birth, traits-based events, etc)
• diplomatic actions (war, peace, alliances, claim, usurp, assassinate...)
• feudal actions (handing out titles, changing laws, handing out baronies, election of the new king, ...)
• province decisions (shifting the balance bwteeen burghers/peasants/etc, building stuff, ...)
• military actions (levying forces, marching them around the map, having them do battle for you)

And for any element, if you think the player's ability to do what he desires should be restricted under some particular feudal conditions, make a proposal. That would result in a sensible list of stuff that the devs will MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE look at!

But please, vague proposals like "A Magna Charta should be in the game in some way, maybe as a tax cap, or something else", are not going anywhere, you're not the game designers and P'dox is not going to implement totally new features at this point - they're in the alpha stage that means their design document has already been written, and they're now into the coding stage. If stuff you propose is feasible to implement without totally rewriting the design documents, it MIGHT be implemented, so it can't be a totally new mechanism.

 

[RedRooster81]

I hope that the game has a constant struggle between liege and vassals over centralization. The sovereign wants to centralize power under the crown, while the nobles seek autonomy. It should be a subtle tug of war between the two sides until one side goes to far somehow and starts a civil war. As a feudalism themed game, I think CK2 would be far more interesting if a mechanic existed to begin the end of feudalism by creating a centralized state regardless of how ahistorical that may be. It would be a very high up, challenging, and worthy goal to pursue.

I like your idea about centralization. Feudalism as we usually think about it was not implemented everywhere in Christian Europe (e.g., Saxon England), so in some cases you would have to choose to implement it in the first place, in stages. I rather think about it as a continuum, from de facto autonomy to a very centralized state, maybe say France on one end and Byzantium on the other.

@Leviathan07: You make a valid point. The devs are unlikely to make abrupt changes. Right now, they are focusing on ironing out the details and slowly revealing what they want us to know. But I think many of us here are thinking about modding at this point, what we would want for us to make of the final product, which of course we have yet to see. So to some degree an exercise in futility, I agree, but also a good exercise in forming a strong modding community.

 

[RhoDaZZ]

I hope that the game has a constant struggle between liege and vassals over centralization. The sovereign wants to centralize power under the crown, while the nobles seek autonomy. It should be a subtle tug of war between the two sides until one side goes to far somehow and starts a civil war. As a feudalism themed game, I think CK2 would be far more interesting if a mechanic existed to begin the end of feudalism by creating a centralized state regardless of how ahistorical that may be. It would be a very high up, challenging, and worthy goal to pursue.

Yes indeed, but how? With the Pope's power (according to what we know) swinging back and forth, a permanent centralization would be hard to establish, even in the long run. Of course there is possibility of making laws with certain prerequisites (certain lategame cultural or governmental technology for example), but this still does not grant the ruler a form of centralized control over his settlements and vassals.

Again, it could go in the other direction as well of course, with further "ancient" rights (such as Magna Carta or Danehof) being given to the nobles and more taken from the king. Making it a regular type law wouldn't work (who would be stupid enough?), but functioning as a form of force conversion (as in EUIII) due to a coup or rebellion could possibly work.

The game shouldn't be overly complex. The character dynamics alone made CK1 fun and engaging to play, there doesn't need to be a whole social simulation on top of that to make CK2 fun.

Also, the game is already being coded now, you're not going to see the devs say "Oh I'm going to rewrite the design documents because I read about this or that totally new and totally awesome feature on the forum".

Rather than coming up with in-game representations for "The nobles wish to restrict you in some unspecified way" - which ends up with you guys proposing totally new mechanisms or ways how to annoy the player for the sake of some abstract historic concepts - how about this: You look at the game elements that CK1 had, as well as those announced for CK2, and THEN ask yourself, "Should a player always have total control over this or that game element?".

You could make a list of possible player actions in the game:

• character actions (education, marriage, birth, traits-based events, etc)
• diplomatic actions (war, peace, alliances, claim, usurp, assassinate...)
• feudal actions (handing out titles, changing laws, handing out baronies, election of the new king, ...)
• province decisions (shifting the balance bwteeen burghers/peasants/etc, building stuff, ...)
• military actions (levying forces, marching them around the map, having them do battle for you)

And for any element, if you think the player's ability to do what he desires should be restricted under some particular feudal conditions, make a proposal. That would result in a sensible list of stuff that the devs will MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE look at!

But please, vague proposals like "A Magna Charta should be in the game in some way, maybe as a tax cap, or something else", are not going anywhere, you're not the game designers and P'dox is not going to implement totally new features at this point - they're in the alpha stage that means their design document has already been written, and they're now into the coding stage. If stuff you propose is feasible to implement without totally rewriting the design documents, it MIGHT be implemented, so it can't be a totally new mechanism.

So your suggestion is to not discuss desirable features before the game is out?

Also the thing you mention "shifting the balance between burghers/peasants/etc" is not present in CKII, as of what we know so far. Please also consider the possibilities of expansions, and as you say yourself, using the systems already in place to represent other (and new) things. I've been reading most (if not all) of the CKII info this far and that has been considered in my replies, along with the fact that the game's development process will mostly concern polishing from now on. This does not rule out theoretical discussions about the different directions the game could take (you yourself think it should be a simple game, isn't that a suggestion in itself?), and possibly will take once the vanilla version of the game is finished. There's clear difference between that and having a naive and arrogant view that all of your own ideas are not only going to be considered but also implemented, and immediately. I don't think anyone on this board shares that line of thought.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

So your suggestion is to not discuss desirable features before the game is out?

Well the feature list is complete, so if you think "where can I make an impact as a forumite" then it makes sense to provide feedback about things that are not set in stone yet. The map f.ex. which currently looks really bad in the early alpha screenshots. I think the devs read a lot that is posted on the forum (well at least Kallocain does, I suppose she talks to the devs about it) and the best way to improve the game is to push the devs where they can still yield to customer wishes.

Also the thing you mention "shifting the balance between burghers/peasants/etc" is not present in CKII, as of what we know so far. Please also consider the possibilities of expansions, and as you say yourself, using the systems already in place to represent other (and new) things. I've been reading most (if not all) of the CKII info this far and that has been considered in my replies, along with the fact that the game's development process will mostly concern polishing from now on. This does not rule out theoretical discussions about the different directions the game could take (you yourself think it should be a simple game, isn't that a suggestion in itself?), and possibly will take once the vanilla version of the game is finished. There's clear difference between that and having a naive and arrogant view that all of your own ideas are not only going to be considered but also implemented, and immediately. I don't think anyone on this board shares that line of thought.

Yes, the "keep it simple" thing was a suggestion. Vic2 had severe feature overload, and I'm not playing it any more because it's unbalanced and the erratic economics aren no fun for me. There are two ways to get complexity in a game - (A) by having many factions, all fighting each other, and having a good & balanced system for interaction between them, (B) by having "deep" simulation systems such as pops, weather, or economics running below the surface, driven by player and AI actions through obscure and intransparent mechanisms, and (C) by having complicated rules determining what a player may do, and what he may not do, and to determine the outcome of a player action.

According to this theory of mine, examples for (A) are CK1, example for (B) is Victoria 1+2, and example for (C) is role playing games (pen-and-paper ones). Mixing complexity from different categories is bad. Victoria 2 is an example, it has a hundred or so countries as well as a "simulation" engine that attempts to run an economy and a POP system. But the simulation system is horrible, you notice this after you finish your first or second successful campaign. It is totally intransparent, and the parts that modders have deciphered, make no sense at all. The fact that there are 50+ AI countries makes it impossible to really understand what goes on under the hood. CK1 on the other hand was a fun game, despite glaring flaws in the implementation of many features.

Adding restrictions on what the player can or can't do in a CK game would mix complexity from (A) and (C) categories. And my particular theory says that this is not a good idea, it will end up being like Vic2

 

[LordofSaxony]

But please, vague proposals like "A Magna Charta should be in the game in some way, maybe as a tax cap, or something else", are not going anywhere, you're not the game designers and P'dox is not going to implement totally new features at this point - they're in the alpha stage that means their design document has already been written, and they're now into the coding stage. If stuff you propose is feasible to implement without totally rewriting the design documents, it MIGHT be implemented, so it can't be a totally new mechanism.

I think it's perfectly feasible, and depending on if Paradox even wants this in their game for release, or possibly for an expansion down the road, then great. The idea of it is pretty cool, and something I would like to see implemented at some point. I'm not going to remain silent with ideas just because the game is in alpha, or beta, or even post release. If I think of something that could contribute to the game, and it tickles my fancy, I'm going to post it.

 

[Jia Xu]

Yes indeed, but how? With the Pope's power (according to what we know) swinging back and forth, a permanent centralization would be hard to establish, even in the long run. Of course there is possibility of making laws with certain prerequisites (certain lategame cultural or governmental technology for example), but this still does not grant the ruler a form of centralized control over his settlements and vassals.

Again, it could go in the other direction as well of course, with further "ancient" rights (such as Magna Carta or Danehof) being given to the nobles and more taken from the king. Making it a regular type law wouldn't work (who would be stupid enough?), but functioning as a form of force conversion (as in EUIII) due to a coup or rebellion could possibly work.

How you do it is left up to the imagination, I guess. I visioned it as being a tug of war involving rights of the King's vassals. A step toward centralizing would be like "alright, instead of sending me knights as tribute, you'll now be sending me gold instead. Obey." And vassals would respond with outrage, quiet displeasure, or simple obedience based on their personality traits and their relationship with the liege. When you start to get really centralized, the nobles start to become more like courtiers. And perhaps at maximum centralization, the noble system becomes symbolic only or abolished and provinces are managed by governors appointed by the crown. On the other side, decentralization limits what the king should be able to do. Maybe he would need the permission of vassals before going to war, or maybe the Dukes would be considered almost equals to the king, the difference being that the king has extra responsibilities. I'm just throwing out ideas here.

Using laws and peace negotiations should you be able to set up a wide variety of freedoms and restrictions for kings and vassals.

 

[RedRooster81]

I think it's perfectly feasible, and depending on if Paradox even wants this in their game for release, or possibly for an expansion down the road, then great. The idea of it is pretty cool, and something I would like to see implemented at some point. I'm not going to remain silent with ideas just because the game is in alpha, or beta, or even post release. If I think of something that could contribute to the game, and it tickles my fancy, I'm going to post it.

I would encourage you to keep sharing your ideas, LordofSaxony, along with everyone else. I think that we all realize that the devs have set down what you want to do with CK2 already. But the attraction of Paradox games is that once the game is released, we can all become developers ourselves through modding. I think that the vanilla release should have core features that have been thoroughly worked out, which is what the devs should be doing with the time left before Crusader Kings 2 1.0 hits the shelves.

But there are things that I and other people here would like to see that may not be for everyone, that would not fit what maybe even the majority of CK2 players would want. I like a fair amount of micromanagement (so does my brain work; I'm very detail-oriented); a well worked out social, political, and economic system; and a lot of events and decisions that would simulate what running a moderate-sized feudal kingdom would have been like.

Leviathan, you bring a whole different set of concerns to the discussion, concerns that both devs and players should take seriously. You think of this forum as a way of advising the devs on what features you would like (which I agree it is to some degree) and want to avoid the kind of gameplay in Vicky2 that you say is restrictive or that comes up short (I have only played the demo of that game, but I was impressed) end up in CK2. Maybe we should start prefacing the names of new threads with [Idea] or [Mod idea] or something similar so that discussion follows how the OP could implement such a feature, should it not appear in CK2. Those of us who play EU3 have seen the impressive ways that modders have stretched that game's engine. Magna Mundi, MEIOU, The Dark Years, SRI, among others have taken EU3 in places that the developers did not imagine, I am sure. I like to see the developers as factory engineers, carefully designing and constructing a quality product, and us crazy modders as muscle car guys who spend their time customizing their cars and pushing the limits of what they can do.

 

[RedRooster81]

How you do it is left up to the imagination, I guess. I visioned it as being a tug of war involving rights of the King's vassals. A step toward centralizing would be like "alright, instead of sending me knights as tribute, you'll now be sending me gold instead. Obey." And vassals would respond with outrage, quiet displeasure, or simple obedience based on their personality traits and their relationship with the liege. When you start to get really centralized, the nobles start to become more like courtiers. And perhaps at maximum centralization, the noble system becomes symbolic only or abolished and provinces are managed by governors appointed by the crown. On the other side, decentralization limits what the king should be able to do. Maybe he would need the permission of vassals before going to war, or maybe the Dukes would be considered almost equals to the king, the difference being that the king has extra responsibilities. I'm just throwing out ideas here.

Using laws and peace negotiations should you be able to set up a wide variety of freedoms and restrictions for kings and vassals.

That seems feasible, Jia Xu. I would add a couple of things: (1) you would need to start rather early, before nobles' privileges get too deeply rooted. Otherwise, there will be much bloodletting. And (2) you could do a lot of things with the Papacy. Some Holy Roman Emperors made excommunication an alternative lifestyle, and were able to bear ill relations with the Pope so long as their vassals did not find reason to go to war against them. The other option (which historically came rather late), was the concordat, an agreement that grants you the secular ruler certain rights in exchange for respecting certain rights belonging to the church. The most famous example is the French church, called Gallicism, but the Spanish and Portuguese also had extensive rights of patronage (and jurisdiction) over the church in their domains called Patronato Real. Finally, you could do what HRE Henry IV tried to do in the late XI century and force the pope into vassalage, which had been the relationship more or less since Charlemagne (though the history is a bit fuzzy at points). I have said some things about this on the "Papacy and College of Cardinals" thread, and not everyone agreed that it was plausible, but my big point is that since medieval politics rested so much on "ancient rights and customs" you might want to get started as early as you can in the 1066 scenario.

 

[yourworstnightm]

I think the struggle between the crown and the nobility (dukes, counts and barons) could be represented by the Realm Laws. Switching to a Realm Law that benefit the crown, but is bad for the vassals should create shit storms.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Leviathan, you bring a whole different set of concerns to the discussion, concerns that both devs and players should take seriously. You think of this forum as a way of advising the devs on what features you would like (which I agree it is to some degree) and want to avoid the kind of gameplay in Vicky2 that you say is restrictive or that comes up short (I have only played the demo of that game, but I was impressed) end up in CK2. Maybe we should start prefacing the names of new threads with [Idea] or [Mod idea] or something similar so that discussion follows how the OP could implement such a feature, should it not appear in CK2. Those of us who play EU3 have seen the impressive ways that modders have stretched that game's engine. Magna Mundi, MEIOU, The Dark Years, SRI, among others have taken EU3 in places that the developers did not imagine, I am sure. I like to see the developers as factory engineers, carefully designing and constructing a quality product, and us crazy modders as muscle car guys who spend their time customizing their cars and pushing the limits of what they can do.

No prob, I'm not going to keep re-posting what I insist on

I just thought there was some merit in trying to steer the discussion towards brainstorming on readily implementable features.