[MOD] The Lion and the Lilies: A 1215 & 1337 Bookmark Mod for Crusader Kings III (1.5.0 compatibility patch now live!)

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Torngasuk

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Four things greater than all things are:
Women and Horses and Power and War

– Rudyard Kipling

The Lion and the Lilies: A Hundred Years’ War Mod for Crusader Kings III

Seven years ago, the boy-king Edward of England overthrew the tyrannical regime of his mother, princess Isabella of France, and her ambitious lover, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. But now, the young lion finds himself facing an even greater nemesis: Philip of Valois, the Most Christian King of France. The son of a second son, the untimely deaths of his three cousins in short succession have brought Philip a kingdom in turmoil.

Long have the Plantagenets ruled in Aquitaine, but Edward has broken with tradition and refused to acknowledge the French king as his feudal superior. Seeking to bring his wayward vassal to heel, Philip has declared the English possessions forfeit.

In retaliation, Edward has named Philip an usurper and declared himself the true heir to the throne of his grandfather, Philip IV of France, the Iron King. There can be no negotiations: the victor will be determined on the battlefield.

It is an age of chivalry and blood: be swift and strong in war, noble and wise in peace, and above all else, show no mercy to your enemies.

Design Philosophy

First and foremost, The Lion and the Lilies is a historical mod. Its primary mission is to create a historically-accurate, playable, and (of course) enjoyable simulation of 14th century Europe, Africa, and Asia. Despite the name, the focus of the setting is not limited to western Europe: as much attention will be given to India or Egypt or Poland as to England and France.

For the time being, alterations to the base game will primarily consist of the new bookmark and characters required to populate it, as well as balance adjustments to promote historically-plausible AI behavior and gameplay and to minimize immersion-breaking occurrences.

This mod is still very much in its early stages, and is for the moment the product of a very small team (and originally a team of one): there remains a great deal to be done, and undoubtedly issues will arise. Nothing that you see is final, or even necessarily in its ideal state. Fixes, updates, and improvements will be forthcoming, but we ask for your patience and understanding.

Disclaimers aside, we hope that you enjoy the mod, and we look forward to tales of your adventures.

Features

* Explore the world of the 14th century through an entirely new start date, May 24th 1337. Invade France as the Young Lion of England, reestablish Angevin primacy over the Aegean as the Solomonic Robert of Naples, or restore Denmark to glory as Valdemar the Dawnbringer.

* Hundreds of new counties to conquer, cultivate, or bestow upon your relatives and favorites as you please.

* Development levels and buildings representative of historical population levels: control over great cities and ports now offers immense riches to those bold or clever enough to take them, and enemy legions will break their strength against the walls of your mighty fortresses.

* Primogeniture-based succession and more stringent consanguinity doctrines, representative of the standards of the era, allow for more inheritance-based marital strategies: obtaining a rich heiress will be a truly great prize indeed.

Recruitment

The mod is currently playable with a 1337 start date: our immediate need is for developers to help with filling in the blanks, replacing placeholders, growing family trees and expanding on existing dynasties, populating courts with historical figures, making title and province history changes where necessary, and crafting appropriate coats of arms. Balance testing, bug-hunting, and adjustments are, of course, always necessary. As future expansions and patches are released, more involved work will be required to take full advantage of their features and improvements.

Ultimately, we intend to go beyond the traditional last start date into the late 14th century and 15th centuries, extending the Crusader Kings gameplay experience into entirely new territory, such as the conquests of Tamerlane, the last days of Byzantium, the Medici of Florence and Sforza of Milan, and the War of the Roses.

If all of this has piqued your interest and you'd be interested in lending a helping hand, feel free to send me a message!

Download

Steam Workshop

Discord

The Team
Torngasuk
Oznerol
Ostheim
Pied-Noir
GeorgeHammond

Special Thanks
Keizer Harm (Sunset Invasion): invaluable technical assistance
Paradox Interactive: original concept
YTnuBF: Black Borders
 
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I’m amazed at the quality of this mod. Well done!
Thank you very much! It's still absolutely the early days, and there's a great deal more that I hope to do with it. I've updated the initial post with some of what the future holds, as we fully intend to progress beyond 1337 once we're satisfied that it's complete. For anyone else checking in, I'll also note that, being an undertaking as large as it is, we are currently recruiting: the details have also been added above.
 
Very ambitious - I like it!

I keep pondering a 936 scenario but it seems like a ton of work and I don't know how many people would be willing to help.

Best of luck with this, 1337 is a fun start date with loads of interesting historical people around. You should make John the Blind an interesting character. :)
 
Best of luck with this, 1337 is a fun start date with loads of interesting historical people around. You should make John the Blind an interesting character. :)
It's funny that you should mention John the Blind: he's actually one of the central historical figures that inspired this mod, and my personal favorite bookmark character. Be assured that the red lion of Luxembourg will receive his due.
 
Hey, just two things I noticed while playing the Byzantines.
1. You should add friendship between 465500 (Andronikos Palaiologos III) and 465530 (John Kantakuzenos), as they were historically good friends
2. Maybe the Turks could receive a modifier to prevent an immediate Orthodox Greek revolt from taking control? It's basically impossible to play as the ottomans as a revolt 2x your size spawns in a month. I really don't know how to mod this, otherwise I woudl help. :/
 
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Hey, just two things I noticed while playing the Byzantines.
1. You should add friendship between 465500 (Andronikos Palaiologos III) and 465530 (John Kantakuzenos), as they were historically good friends
2. Maybe the Turks could receive a modifier to prevent an immediate Orthodox Greek revolt from taking control? It's basically impossible to play as the ottomans as a revolt 2x your size spawns in a month. I really don't know how to mod this, otherwise I woudl help. :/
I appreciate the input! Any and all suggestions and feedback are entirely welcome and much appreciated.

1. The Byzantines are in definite need of an overhaul: I've been looking into sources to more accurately represent the general situation before the civil war, and things should look more realistic when the next update releases.
2. Peasant revolts have been bothering me, as well - in general, I feel that they're far too common, even in the base game. As soon as I figure out the precise controls for them and balance-test the outcome, this will be addressed, because the instability in Anatolia and the Golden Horde is a major issue right now.
 
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Choose king Edward .
have 4500 soldiers.
crush by 19000 strong french in one minute after start.
I even don't have longbow tech.
While I haven't encountered quite this level of power imbalance, this should be less of an issue after today's update: Edward now starts out with a slight numerical advantage over the French. And he has longbows. :)

And, on another note, we now have some very attractive and bold new borders, courtesy of YTnuBF's Black Borders mod. They're much appreciated!

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Well, as much as I normally dislike following up one of my own posts with another, this one seemed worth making. The latest update is out, bringing with it the long-awaited incorporation of the Capetian branch families into the broader dynasty. Other improvements include substantially expanded family trees for the Percies in England and FitzGeralds in Ireland, the Teutonic Knights and Hospitallers have been converted to theocracies for the time being (the holy order government type has an unfortunate tendency to convert itself away almost immediately - turning into inconvenient feudal dynastic states), Edward has some new allies in his war against the French to counter the Capetian juggernaut, and a few worthy new faces to behold (many thanks to lindest for these!). As always, there's plenty more to come, including breaking the Angevins down further into their squabbling branches, more expanded family trees, and presumably persuading the AI to put down whatever strange new chew toys it comes up with (really, Hungary, do you have to invade Naples every time?).

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Nipticking a little, the three lilies came from Charles V, I personnally prefere the lilies all over, over three ones to praise Holy Trinity that he picked, but I understand Its supposed to reflect 1337-1453 as a whole.

A good and historical sentence that could replace random generic CKIII motto for France:
-it comes from late Antiquity and was revived through Laudae regia(carolingian times) and was reproduced on golden coins from St-Louis(circa 1245).

On coins it appears as "XPC VINCIT, XPC REGNAT, XPC IMPERAT"

The Christ wins, the Christ rules, the Christ commands
 
How is progress going?
Progress has been steady! I have a profound ingrained dislike of double-posting, so I thank you for the opportunity for the status update. :D

New vassals are in the process of being added to Portugal, Naples, France, and Hungary; I've just finished integrating the entire extended house of Rohan into the game (all 172 of them!); other dynasties are being cooperatively developed with the aid of Crusader Universalis; the next update should finally quash annoying peasant uprisings and revolts once and for all; Constantinople finally has an appropriate development score; universities are being inserted in their historical cities across Europe; plans are being made to ultimately shift the map over to using Europa Magnifica as a base to take advantage of its vastly superior province density.

Nipticking a little, the three lilies came from Charles V, I personnally prefere the lilies all over, over three ones to praise Holy Trinity that he picked, but I understand Its supposed to reflect 1337-1453 as a whole.

A good and historical sentence that could replace random generic CKIII motto for France:
-it comes from late Antiquity and was revived through Laudae regia(carolingian times) and was reproduced on golden coins from St-Louis(circa 1245).

On coins it appears as "XPC VINCIT, XPC REGNAT, XPC IMPERAT"

The Christ wins, the Christ rules, the Christ commands
I actually agree with you on the lilies: I also much prefer the full field to the three, which is a much poorer look overall. However, I do feel the need to visually distinguish the house of Valois, and as future updates will add bookmarks later in the timeline, and as you say, it does reflect the timeline as a whole. I do very much like your idea for the motto, however. Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands, I'd say. I'll go with it!
 
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Great mod. Lots of research has been made. tho i wish there could be more cities in some heavy urbanized areas like Flanders or the single settlement counties around Paris. I dunno if not being able to control a county with only one city in it can ever be fixed. I think one of the game's main flaw has ever been the 3 types of settlements division, tho i understand the oratores/bellatores/laboratores order of things. But i believe there should be only 2 types: single castle and burgh (could come as a building in the chain), and cites, small or big. Big cities should have the option allowing to build a castle and/or large cathedral in it. As an example, Rouen was a large city, siege of an archbishop and contained a massive castle within its walls. The metropolis submods fixes parts of these issues. Nevertheless, thank you guys for offering us a mod making the game playable and enjoyable to those loving History.
 
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Hi! What are your plans for mod right now? Anything special you are working on? This really is one of my favorite CK3 Mods it by the way, so I’m pretty anxious for a new update. Thanks!

PS: sorry if I’m being annoying
 
Hi! What are your plans for mod right now? Anything special you are working on? This really is one of my favorite CK3 Mods it by the way, so I’m pretty anxious for a new update. Thanks!

PS: sorry if I’m being annoying
Not annoying at all! I plan to do another preview shortly, there are just a few more things I need to work out. I'm presently converting more existing dynasties into cadet branches, particularly bastard descendants of Iberian royal houses. The ruling house of Trinacria/Sicily is, quite honestly, a jumbled mess in many ways, and I'm working on untangling it and making them back into Catalans instead of Italians. I've recently located sources for many more vassals for Serbia (which presently has none) and the Venetian coastal holdings, so those are all getting added into the game. I've noticed a large number of homeless, freefloating Portuguese that I'm going to find homes for. Archbishops are in the process of getting map presence and actual holdings to hold to increase the theocratic map and vassal presence. I located a whole slew of potential vassal families for the Habsburgs in Austria I'm working on adding. I just finished adding the entire extended Gonzaga-Corradi family tree into the game (all 311 members!). Once I have most of that down, I'll post some preview screenshots.
 
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Work-in-progress preview time:

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Iberia is definitely a big theme with this overhaul. The orders of Calatrava, Alcantara, and Santiago hold most of the land in the south, which necessitated a new imitation holy order government form: they're fully functional as vassals, however, and share the holy order succession laws, so they should behave reasonably appropriately. In the future, I hope to figure out a way to give them an internal electoral succession law with their liege as an elector, to represent royal influence and selection of new masters - if I can get them to form alliances, as well, then putting one of your relatives in the mastership could be a significant asset, as they command significantly more land and troops than almost any other individual magnate.

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On the whole, I'm not a terribly huge fan of Iberian coats of arms - I find the French and German emblems and styles much more aesthetically pleasing, personally. That having been said, the ruling house definitely has a nice look going for them. I set up a rivalry between Alfonso's wife and his mistress, Eleanor de Guzmán, in the assumption that the former would murder the latter, since I gave the queen some nice intrigue skills. Instead, she just killed her husband. Not quite what I had in mind, but it works.

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A persistent difficulty I've run into is that there often simply isn't enough space in certain realms to accommodate everyone I'd like to - at least, as the map stands now. Cyprus is one of my favorite places, and perhaps most emblematic of this difficulty. As a temporary solution in limited spaces, I've started implementing landless vassal titles - strictly speaking, these counties are essentially titular - they're anchored to an invisible piece of land that doesn't actually exist on the map, held together by the thin thread of vassalage to their de jure liege, the king of Cyprus (in this case). As long as they don't go independent and the title itself isn't destroyed (in which case they pack their bags and fly off the coast of western Africa), they go wherever the title goes, even if it's taken and regranted. Interestingly, these landless counties can also be inherited or revoked and regranted, which I hadn't quite planned to happen, but can see a use for.

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Ecclesiastical representation thus far has, I admit, been lacking. As such, I'm in the process of landing every historical archbishop c. 1337. Regular bishops unfortunately overlap too much with feudal landholdings as things stand, but I ran the numbers and I do have the room to fit in basically every Catholic archbishop in Europe. They'll be localized (or flavorized, rather?) to archbishops instead of prince-bishops, as well, so Pierre Roger here will be appropriately titled the Archbishop of Rouen. This is another area in which I'd really quite like a new succession law, in which case lieges and nearby fellow vassals can nominate unlanded, unmarried relatives without children to be the designated successor to the archbishop. But that's going to be quite a bit of work to puzzle out, so not likely to happen in the near future.

On a related note, however, the game should now nominate slightly more appropriate candidates to theocratic titles, as I've tweaked the candidate selection rules slightly so that it should be a bit more common to see these archbishops ruled by culturally-appropriate dynastic kinsmen. Another adjustment that I'm very happy with is that the AI should now preserve the immediacy of its vassals according to the starting scenario, so kings and emperors will no longer immediately attempt to shuffle the deck and hand out all its vassal counts to a handful of vassals dukes - counts and dukes should be able to coexist persistently as equal vassals beneath their liege, and kings' councils consist equally of counts and dukes and archbishops alike.

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Every now and then, I do a deep dive into part of the map and upgrade this or that minor character to the point where I feel that they're as valid a player choice as any bookmark character. Martino Zaccaria is the benefactor of one of these expeditions: the Genoese former lord of Chios, Martino is the lord of Chalandritsa in Achaia and Phocaea on the Anatolian coast, but also the subject of a grant of the slightly dubious title of "King and Despot of Asia Minor," awarded for his support for the ambitions of the house of Anjou-Taranto. Questionable claims aside, however, Martino was renowned in his time as an experienced strategist and captain, and "industrious, valiant, and faithful man," the bulwark of Christendom against the Anatolian Turks. The Zaccaria held the profitable alum mines of Phocaea, and an interesting byproduct of granting them this settlement is that Naples is now far more attentive to its interests in the Aegean.
 
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Well, as things have progressed I've been getting progressively more and more involved in experimenting with and adjusting a much broader range of files to better balance the game and cultivate more natural AI behavior and outcomes. Before things get more complicated, I've tied off the loose ends for the time being and released the latest update. Castile and Portugal are the primary beneficiaries of the historical side of this update. There's still work to be done: Aragon is largely unchanged for the time being (the density of their feudal domains is impressive to behold, but a challenge to represent on the map with the layout of the holdings as it is now), but will certainly be addressed in the future.

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Sardinia has been significantly expanded in terms of number of counties: the island itself has been upgraded to four duchies: I'm eying Arborea as a potential future bookmark character, or at least the subject of a deep dive to bring it up to the immersion level of one. Mariano d'Arborea is more than worthy of the attention, and I'd very much like to make Corsica and Sardinia the battleground of a three- or four-way war between Arborea, Aragon, Genoa, and Pisa. Maybe even Trinacria and/or Naples, too. If we get playable republics back in the future, these two islands should be prime targets for patrician families to establish permanent feudal landholdings for themselves in.

There are a slew of new landed archbishops to be found as vassals, although they're not quite all flavorized as such just yet: flavorization has occasionally yielded a few unexpected outcomes that I'd like to investigate further before I finish handing out those titles. As princes of the church, and to ensure their persistence in-game, their feudal contracts do not currently allow for their titles to be revoked, although they can still be seized in a claim war. It should also be slightly more common for childless, unmarried male dynastic characters to be selected by the game to fill these titles, as well.

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In my continued exploration of the infinite possibilities of landless rulers, I've taken the first steps toward restoring patrician families to republics. For now, these are essentially placeholders, but in the future I intend to both add further families and expand their dynastic trees to properly represent the patrician families of Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Ragusa, etc. This is another instance in which I'd like to create a new elective republican government type with such families as electors and candidates, so that we need no longer suffer an endless parade of lowborn or insignificant Venetian doges.

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I neglected to mention earlier, that on the family tree front the Colonna dynasty should now be fully and properly represented. The construction of family trees is one of the more time-consuming, yet rewarding aspects of this mod, I find. Italian family trees are largely based on Pompeo Litta's dispense della prima serie delle Famiglie celebri italiane, and contain vastly more members than are found in vanilla. I typically prefer to represent the entire tree in every possible branch, as in the future I'd like to land even the lesser branches of these families, assuming that I can find the room. As a happy byproduct of this, I do find the AI generally makes better marriage decisions when it has more options available to it, so every new enlarged family tree brings with it more historically-plausible marital and dynastic outcomes.

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And, finally, a sneak preview of a subject that I'm very enthusiastic about - the Timurids! Despite the name of the mod, I'm actually equally fascinated by the situation in the east with regard to the Chagatai khans, the Delhi Sultanate under Muhammad b. Tughluq, and the looming collapse of the Ilkhanate and the ensuing rise of TAMERLANE, CONQUEROR OF THE EARTH.

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Seriously, Harold Lamb is great. Literary recommendations aside, however, I fully intend to make Timur's meteoric rise to power a playable bookmark, as opposed to the off-map invasions of Genghis Khan and the Timurids in CK2. As such, I'm endeavoring to properly represent him as a satellite member of the broader Barlas clan, one of the leading vassals of the Chagatai khanate consisting of the numerous descendants of Qarachar Noyan, general in the army of Genghis Khan. Timuridische Emire nach dem Muʿizz al-ansāb : Untersuchung zur Stammesaristokratie Zentralasiens im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert has proven an invaluable resource in reconstructing the genealogy of the Barlas and the Timurid emirs, and will enable to gift them with a family tree more than equal to any of their western counterparts.
 
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It is with pleasure that I can announce that the compatibility update for version 1.4.0 is now live!

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One of the most significant additions you'll notice in this update is the complete overhaul and teardown of the de jure English setup as of the game's start. What were once baronies are now counties, and what were once counties are now entire duchies. For the time being, English counts are localized as barons, and English dukes localized as earls: in the long run, I'd like to set up the promotion from earl to duke as a change in localization (similar to the Austrian duke/archduke) conducted by event or decision.

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Less immediately noticeable is that a significant retooling of development is underway: more and more provinces are having development assigned to them in line with historical estimates: I recently came across a treasure trove of population estimates for nearly 500 European settlements as of 1300, which I'm in the process of implementing. I've also scaled up the tax and levy bonuses from development, so more populous settlements should again be even more significant when compare to their smaller neighbors: once fully complete, major cities should be extremely lucrative sources of income.

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I had a few more plans in progress, but for the time being I've cut them short for this update, as I had (quite mistakenly!) assumed the 1.4.0 update wouldn't be for a while longer yet - no complaints on that front, however! Next on the horizon are cleaning up some loose ends: I particularly want to tidy things up in Scotland, Dalmatia, and Serbia, and I want to set up the starting republics to take full advantage of compatibility with the most excellent Res Publica mod by prescripting patrician families for Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence: I had hoped to have that in place with this update, but a few other issues ended up taking priority, and I wanted to push this one out as soon as possible.

Beyond that, I'm always open to suggestions on what regions or rulers people might like to see get more love yet - and as with any new patch, balance may be a little different, so feedback is welcome!
 
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