How do we choose which nations' monarchs have which title?

[Mad King James]

Guys; this isn’t CK2. The actual title is just easily editable flavor, It makes no contribution to the game. It doesn’t really matter whether the ruler of Brandenburg is called a Margrave, Count, Duke, Elector etc…

You missed my point, each of those titles would have different advantages and disadvantages, and it DOES matter what your title is.

A Margraviate for instance will tend to be a lot more militarily powerful and fortified against invasion than a county, while a county will be more prosperous. A voivode is the govenor equivalent of a margrave.

An archduke is if you want to make a vassal that is still in your kingdom technically, but is a king basically. The viceroy is the govenor version of this.

The tribal titles earn free loyalty from their co-cultured provinces, and sanctified rulers from their co-religious provinces, but have negatives against those not of their religion or culture.

Palatine counts get the prestige of a kingdom while effectively being a county.

Govenors have a lot less power and influence than a count, etc.

 

[Mad King James]

Weren't they duchies as well, or principalities? I think Brandenburg was a duchy at some point then it merged with east prussia into Kingdom of Prussia... but for the rest I can't tell.

And it DOES matter because prestige will be important to the game and a bigger title or more titles would increase it heavily.

No, they were Margraviates. The Margrave of Brandenburg also had the title Elector-Prince, but that was a right to elect his monarch more than a title.

 

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What I’m saying is that I don’t think that that will be implemented, because it has a couple of problems. For example; in Baden the rulers were called Margraves not because of their military position but because when they inherited the position of “Count of Baden” they decided to keep their old title (margrave). Also, there were a bunch of dual titles etc. at this time. All the Electors had at least two titles, and Brandenburg went from Margrave to Duke to Elector all the way to king.

 

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I think that for flavor, it would be helpful to have a text file for each active tag, with the following information: Country name, adjective for country name, title of male ruler, title of female ruler, and possibly other information

For example
Tag: ENG
National flag: (filename of flag or coat of arms)
Country name: England
Adjective name: English
Plural: English
Female ruler permitted?: Yes
Male ruler: King [Duke, Archduke, Count, President, Stadtholder, Pope, Sultan, Emperor, Bey, Rajah, whatever]
Female ruler: Queen
Minister title: Minister [other choices might include vizier]
Regent title: Regent
Accession: rose to the throne [other choices might include "was elected to office", etc.]
Successor apparent: heir [other choices might include successor]

Each of these titles could be changed by game mechanics or by event. For example, an event could change the cause the national flag of ENG to be changed to a different flag, the country name to "Commonwealth of England", the "male ruler" title to "Lord Protector", and so on. Other events could switch them back, etc.

Having a file include information for "England" could also enable event texts to be less awkwardly written: "We have been defeated by the English army in [province]" is more elegant style than "We have been defeated by hostile armies of England in [province]".

Including information about the plural of a country would permit constructions such as "We have declared war on the Americans" or "We have entered into a treaty with the Aztecs".

 

[Tunch Khan]

You have a good understanding on these issues, thanks for the info.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

A voivode is the govenor equivalent of a margrave.

Big booboo! "Voievod" or "voivode" in english means army commander. The title was "Mare voievod şi domn" or "grand/great voivode and (approx.)lord" which means the commander-in-chief of the army and the ruler of the country.

Ex.: "Io Mircea, Mare Voievod şi Domn..." would translate like this into English: "We Mircea, Great Voivode and Lord..." where the slavonic "Io" is the approximative equivalent of the seniorial plural ("we") which gradually replaced it btw.

Voievod is more like the polish-cossack Hatman, although the voivodes in Poland were subservient to the Hatman and, IIRC, held administrative responsabilities as well.

 

[Mad King James]

I would advise you to look up what the responsibilities of a Voivode were in Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Wallachia, Bulgaria and Moldavia, before you start flinging semantic debates at me.

I'm not sure if you're actually arguing with me, or being a pedant for the sake of being a pedant. If it's the latter, please stop, not just in this thread but in life.

 

[Captain Frakas]

Female ruler permitted?: Yes

Isn't a female ruler just au ruler with a female name ?

 

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Isn't a female ruler just au ruler with a female name ?

Depends how it is modeled. You're probably right - but perhaps Salic Law will play a part in EUIII?

If so, then a nation which has Salic Law wouldn't have female monarchs.

I concur, however:
There was more than one kind of feudal state, and each was different more than just a title.

Frontier Vassal: A state set up as an effective buffer zone between the mother country, the center of civilization, or whatever. Effectively a military frontier. The various marches (Scottish, Welsh marches, Brandenburg, Marche, etc) were all set up to be more effective military machines than ordinary counties, and the ruler was granted special powers in order to defend the frontier that other counties were barred from possessing (the king kept that authority for himself).
Has almost the same level of state control as a king, but not the prestige. Ruler titles: Christians: Marquis, Moslems: Ghazi.

Vassal: A state set up to govern a territory on behalf of a king, with various limitations on the power and authority of the Count. The Count of a County has very little power, and the cities, towns and local aristocrats can easily deflect his will. Christians: Count (in England: Earl, in Germany: Baron), Moslems: Sheikh

Tribal Vassal: A vassal created by a king, but ordered along ancient ethnic or regional lines for its authority. These tend to be more powerful within this ethnoregional area than an ordinary vassal state. Christian: Duke, Moslem: Bey.

Palatine Vassal: A county set up with special added prestige in order to offset other powerful vassals of the king. Christians: Count-Palatine, Moslems: Sharif

Royal Vassal: This Tribal Vassal is set above other dukes so that its authority is more akin to a king than a duke. Christians: Archduke, Moslems: Khedive

Viceroyal Vassal: This Administrative vassal is set above other govenors so that it's authority is more akin to a king than a govenor. Christians: Viceroy, Moslems: Pasha.

Administrative Vassal: This official is appointed by the king to his post, and is entirely dependant upon him for his authority. Christians: Govenor, Moslems: Wali.

Military Vassal: This vassal is an appointed military commander who rules his territory as a govenor. This is highly advantageous in terms of military strength but has long-term problems. Various names: Moslem: Sanjak-bey, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Serbian & Romanian: Viovode, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian & Hungarian: Ban.

Despotic Monarchy: An independent state based on absolute power of the ruler and force of arms. Orthadox: Despot, others: Prince, Moslems: Emir

Sanctified Monarchy: The religious authorities have declared this ruler Gods Representative for secular matters (or even an actual god). Christian: Caesar, Moslems: Caliph, others: Divine Emperor

Tribal Monarchy: The monarch is the leader of a people (as in "The French" or "The Germans"), and his authority is derived therein. Most of the time this is a King, except Turkic peoples who are ruled by a Khan.

Absolute Monarchy: This monarch IS the state, the supreme and sole source of all authority. Christians, others: Emperor, Moslems: Sultan.

Some interesting examples. I think a lot of these, however, are unnecessary and simply a result of the concept we know as feudalism. For example, the idea of having a seperate tag to represent the Welsh Marches, or the County Palatinate of Chester, and so on, is a little "extreme" in game terms.

Though, in terms of an informative post, you get a little gold star

Having a Viceroyalty would indeed be interesting. This would be useful for European colonial empires, particularly in places such as India and the Americas, where a Viceroy could provide effective rule and offer a decent military contribution.

Of course, the joys of such a system (unlike in EUII, in that sense) would be that a Viceroy could go renegade and break from your rule, perhaps then delcaring himself a Duke or even a King

I hope this happens, for I for one would love to see it!

There should perhaps be something along the lines of "Liberal Empire" (ala Napoléon III, albeit out of this timeframe) or "Despotic Empire" which would of course give you different government stats and the title "Emperor" - which I do not think should be a title for an Absolute Monarchy.

 

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Isn't a female ruler just au ruler with a female name ?

Yes (as far as I know). Most of my proposal does not relate to game mechanics but only to flavor.
It's my understanding that each tag (or most of them, anyway) will have a list of random ruler names associated with them. My suggestion is that each tag's list of random ruler names consist of a list of male ruler names and female ruler names, and that the game engine be able to distinguish between the male names and the female names. Then, when selecting a name of a new ruler, the game engine would check whether the "Female ruler permitted?" flag for that tag at that time was "Yes" or "No". If that tag is not permitted to have a female ruler at that time, then for the purpose of selecting the random ruler name the list of female names would be disregarded and only a random male name would be used.

The purpose of distinguishing between female and male rulers is so that in-game messages that refer to the ruler of a given country can, for example, use the word "King" or "Queen" as appropriate. (For example, it would be possible for the game engine to generate and display a log entry reading: "Queen Ladyname II of Absurdistan has died. Her successor to the throne is King Fellowname IV.")

The distinction between my suggestion and MKJ's suggestion (if I understand him) is that I am proposing that the ruler titles (and other information) be stored at the level of the tag, while I understand his suggestion to be that this information to be stored at the culture level or religius level). In other words, I understand MKJ's proposal to be, for example, that any tag with primary culture = anglosaxon have the male ruler title be "King" (unless changed within the game). My suggestion would be to have individual lists of titles for each valid tag.

 

[Mad King James]

more government types:

Pirate Republic (Tortuga, north Madagascar, Jamaica, Tsushima, Gotland)
Special benefits: Pirates don't attack your ships, and your ships act like pirates, and earn you income for hanging around provinces and stealing their incomes (except your overlord and countries you are allied with, they are immune). You also get double looting incomes, and can loot provinces without a declaration of war.
Pentalties: countries always have a causus belli against you (except your allies or overlord) and you cannot collect tax income.
Ruler Title: Captain
State Title: Free Port
Created via: Pirate colonization or invasion

Crusader Order (Teutonic Knights, Knights of Rhodes and Malta)
Special benefits: Your ships act like pirates to states of enemy religions, and you have a causus belli against states of enemy religions. Co-religionists get a relations boost with your successes. You can loot and conquer enemy religion provinces without a declaration of war.
Penalties: countries of enemy religions also have a causus belli against you, and can attack and conquer you without a declaration of war either.
Ruler Title: Grandmaster
State Title: Order

Piratical Monarchy (Indonesia, Barbary Coast, Malaysia)
Special benefits: Your ships act like pirates to states you have relations below 0 with.
Penalties: That state has a causus belli against you while you are raiding their commerce.
Ruler Title: Sultan (moslem) or King
State Title: Sultanate (moslem) or Kingdom

 

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I love the idea of a Crusader Order as a unique kind of government.

Presumably the leader title would be Grand Master?

Going by this screenshot...

...what benefits do you think a Crusader Order would have?

I think it's certainly a great idea, as it would be a sort of quasi-democratic theocracy. I'm sure you know more about the workings of such government types, though.

Suggestions, MKJ?

 

[Mad King James]

Crusader orders should have bonuses to support limits and land forces for every province that exists that has their primary culture and religion (1% for each), in addition to the special benefits I listed above. They should however be barred from taking territory in war from co-religionists, or ever having a valid causus belli against co-religionists.

 

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Oooh, some more good ideas

I hope it's rather difficult to switch between government types. Although it should of course be possible (I don't like great historical restrictions), I don't particularly want to see France becoming a merchant republic very often, or England devolving to a duchy just because it might favour the short-term economic benefits of being one.

It should be similar to changing state religion; a good drop in stability and whatever else P'dox has in store for us

 

[joriandrake]

If you look in the log of this screenshot you'll see a king coming to power in Brabant (a Duchy). This one has a king in Banten (a sultanate). So either the game will not differentiate between titles. Or (and this i hope) that part of the game has/had not been coded yet.

Then they shouldn't be 'King'-s, they shoud be 'Ruler'-s

 

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Then they shouldn't be 'King'-s, they shoud be 'Ruler'-s

Noooo... not rulers. Too generic. We want specific ruler titles for each government type

 

[Mad King James]

I concur, a Margrave should be stronger on land and a merchant republic stronger at sea, a count should be a limited ruler while a king should be a more absolute one.

 

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Noooo... not rulers. Too generic. We want specific ruler titles for each government type

Each government type? Too generic. I want specific ruler titles for each _tag_.

 

[Mad King James]

Each government type? Too generic. I want specific ruler titles for each _tag_.

So you'd rather they spent months recoding the game engine so that it's less flexible and titles were entirely cosmetic? What is that supposed to accomplish?

I'm trying to work within the scope of the game and expand on something they already have (government types), which is actually productive. Flinging out pie in the sky crap at this point in development is counterproductive.

 

[Tunch Khan]

So you'd rather they spent months recoding the game engine so that it's less flexible and titles were entirely cosmetic? What is that supposed to accomplish?

I'm trying to work within the scope of the game and expand on something they already have (government types), which is actually productive. Flinging out pie in the sky crap at this point in development is counterproductive.

What do you know about various government and vassalage types then? Is there something you are keeping from us? Speak now, or remain silent for the rest of your life.