I've put most of this stuff in spoilers for everyone's convenience. I dunno if anyone other than panagel will bother to read this all, but feel free to chime in.
Bishops cannot be Marshals: According to my understanding, clergymen were forbidden from partaking in actual fighting during parts of the medieval era in Europe. Sometimes they found loopholes for this, such as one of William the Conqueror’s half brothers, who (if I remember correctly) was a Bishop or something of that sort, and fought with a mace which wouldn’t kill but instead would only knock people unconscious. For this reason I have allowed clergy to become martials only if they meet certain requirements, otherwise they couldn’t lead troops and such.
Holy wars target counties was a balance decision to reduce the amount of quick landgrabs the blobs and stronger realms would attempt particularly during the early and late stages of the game. Crusades and Jihads, however, still target kingdoms, and Muslim invasions target duchies, so Christians and Muslims still have those options available to them.
Yes, Orthodox Christians can only declare holy war on Pagans. Personally I’m a bit iffy on this one - as I have discussed at various points in this thread, Orthodoxy does not have a tradition of holy war like Catholicism does. However, I have read that the Russians did engage in war against the pagan tribes - though more of proto-colonization efforts, I suppose, it can be somewhat represented through holy war on pagans.
Muslims cannot declare holy wars against eastern branches of Christianity was originally a balance move to prevent them from overrunning East Africa and the Byzantine/Georgian realms in a way that is ahistorically and implausibly quick. There frankly really isn’t any other simple way to, for instance, model the Baqt without doing this; if I get to adding flavor and stuff for the East Africans, I might try making something more complicated for them that models the Baqt better. As for the Byzanitnes, in 1.2.0 I’m thinking of giving the Turks (and maybe other Muslims) a special CB they can use to eat away at chunks of the Byzantine Empire, culminating with Constantinople - that way the Muslims will still have a way to attack orthodox rulers, particularly the Byzantines, but in a more restrained and unique manner; and it’d represent how the Byzantines were sort of like an “ultimate boss” for the Muslims in their quest to spread Islam, as you discuss above. Actually your mentioning of Ghazi does give me an idea - I might implement it as a special trait a bit similar to “Augustus” for the Byzantines, given to any Muslim who conquers Constantinople (or a super-important city or something) in contrast to the more common Mujahid in vanilla.
Now as for the traits. I’ll just reiterate my earlier points for those reading this who may not have read them:
1) many of these changes are “balance” in the sense that I wanted each trait to have a malus and bonus, so there was no easy trait choices in events (why should shy be a bad trait, when gregarious isn’t, for instance?), so their reasoning may be a bit farfetched for some. Others may argue that this is a bit too gamey, but I really wanted there to be no easy choices when it came to traits - before this I always made sure my children are gregarious and brave, for instance, but now I’m a bit more hesitant to do so. Ideally this would allow players more flexibility when it comes to roleplay, so they don’t feel forced to accept a certain set of traits.
2) Many of these traits are subject to interpretation as to exactly what they mean, as mentioned in the large majority of my explanations below. Whether anyone agrees to them is another matter. (A number of pages back I had a discussion with another fellow as to what “cynical” meant, for instance, that took a few posts.)
Anyhow, back to the traits (I put this part in spoilers for everyone’s convenience at not having to see a wall of text):
And finally, this.
On Nestorianism: although nestorianism is considered a heresy of Orthodox and Catholicism, remember that by CKII’s timeframe, due to the Great Schism, in a sense Orthodox was considered a heresy of Catholicism and vice versa. However two-way heresies (where both religions see each other mutually as heresies) is impossible with the current code (jordarkelf tried it on Sunni and Shi’a previously, but it didn’t work). As such, because Nestorians were largely removed from the Catholic and even Eastern Orthodox worlds, and were doing their own independent actions with their own hierarchy and organization, I felt it was proper to make them their own branch of Christianity. This is different than the other Christian heresies which for the most part still saw themselves in relation to the mainstream branches of Christianity, whereas Nestorianism was just off there in the east doing their own thing on a relatively large scale (and not just isolated in their own little world), if that makes sense.
On Monophysitism and Miaphysitism: That’s a good point there. Ideally then the situation would be to make Miaphysitism a heresy of Orthodoxy, and then make Monophysitism a heresy of Miaphysitism - but doing so would contradict my reasoning for making the Nestorians an independent branch of Christianity above. Still, ignoring that, I wouldn’t mind making Miaphysitism a heresy of Orthodoxy but keeping Monophysitism its own branch of Christianity - the problem is that, to me, from a design perspective this is a bit undesirable. The eastern branches already have fewer possible heresies in-game than Orthodoxy or Christianity; removing Miaphysitism as a heresy of Monophysitism would mean that Monophysitism only has two possible heresies left. If you can think of a possible new heresy for Miaphysitism to replace Monophysitism, that would be much welcome. I have tried to find more possible heresies for Monophysitism myself, but haven’t found anything adequate, as all the sizeable heresies came from before CKII’s timeframe, and even most if not all of these are more closely associated with Western Europe or the Byzanitne Empire (and thus Catholics and Orthodoxy).
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ALL that said, I would like to thank you for your critique and feedback. Feel free to respond to any or all of my arguments and justifications above, but please don’t feel offended if I don’t end up being convinced by some of them. Although as mentioned in some of the cases above I’ll be changing some of the things for the next version and/or planning other things similar to what you’re suggesting above.
As mentioned earlier, if there’s something you really disagree with, but you still want to play with everything else in VIET, I can point to the parts of the code where you can change things to your liking. Most of the stuff you mentioned above is actually pretty easy to change and fix, in contrast with others’ suggestions which are sometimes a bit more complicated (not that that’s a bad thing - it just means it’s harder to change), so you can change much of this in a matter of a minutes if you so wish. I really want to encourage people to try customizing their mods more, so they can play CKII the way they want. (Though if you’re happy with keeping things as they are, that’s cool too, I’m not saying you have to or are obliged to change things if you disagree, of course.)
Anyhow thanks again for all the feedback, much appreciated!
Bishops cannot be Marshals: According to my understanding, clergymen were forbidden from partaking in actual fighting during parts of the medieval era in Europe. Sometimes they found loopholes for this, such as one of William the Conqueror’s half brothers, who (if I remember correctly) was a Bishop or something of that sort, and fought with a mace which wouldn’t kill but instead would only knock people unconscious. For this reason I have allowed clergy to become martials only if they meet certain requirements, otherwise they couldn’t lead troops and such.
Holy wars target counties was a balance decision to reduce the amount of quick landgrabs the blobs and stronger realms would attempt particularly during the early and late stages of the game. Crusades and Jihads, however, still target kingdoms, and Muslim invasions target duchies, so Christians and Muslims still have those options available to them.
Yes, Orthodox Christians can only declare holy war on Pagans. Personally I’m a bit iffy on this one - as I have discussed at various points in this thread, Orthodoxy does not have a tradition of holy war like Catholicism does. However, I have read that the Russians did engage in war against the pagan tribes - though more of proto-colonization efforts, I suppose, it can be somewhat represented through holy war on pagans.
Muslims cannot declare holy wars against eastern branches of Christianity was originally a balance move to prevent them from overrunning East Africa and the Byzantine/Georgian realms in a way that is ahistorically and implausibly quick. There frankly really isn’t any other simple way to, for instance, model the Baqt without doing this; if I get to adding flavor and stuff for the East Africans, I might try making something more complicated for them that models the Baqt better. As for the Byzanitnes, in 1.2.0 I’m thinking of giving the Turks (and maybe other Muslims) a special CB they can use to eat away at chunks of the Byzantine Empire, culminating with Constantinople - that way the Muslims will still have a way to attack orthodox rulers, particularly the Byzantines, but in a more restrained and unique manner; and it’d represent how the Byzantines were sort of like an “ultimate boss” for the Muslims in their quest to spread Islam, as you discuss above. Actually your mentioning of Ghazi does give me an idea - I might implement it as a special trait a bit similar to “Augustus” for the Byzantines, given to any Muslim who conquers Constantinople (or a super-important city or something) in contrast to the more common Mujahid in vanilla.
Now as for the traits. I’ll just reiterate my earlier points for those reading this who may not have read them:
1) many of these changes are “balance” in the sense that I wanted each trait to have a malus and bonus, so there was no easy trait choices in events (why should shy be a bad trait, when gregarious isn’t, for instance?), so their reasoning may be a bit farfetched for some. Others may argue that this is a bit too gamey, but I really wanted there to be no easy choices when it came to traits - before this I always made sure my children are gregarious and brave, for instance, but now I’m a bit more hesitant to do so. Ideally this would allow players more flexibility when it comes to roleplay, so they don’t feel forced to accept a certain set of traits.
2) Many of these traits are subject to interpretation as to exactly what they mean, as mentioned in the large majority of my explanations below. Whether anyone agrees to them is another matter. (A number of pages back I had a discussion with another fellow as to what “cynical” meant, for instance, that took a few posts.)
Anyhow, back to the traits (I put this part in spoilers for everyone’s convenience at not having to see a wall of text):
- Arbitrary: I interpret arbitrary as a lack of a clear sense of justice, rather than someone who’s just random. It’s hard to figure what a random person wants - an arbitrary person, instead, simply rules according to what they desire in contrast to the rule of law or something. As such this would increase intrigue as they are more willing to engage in dishonorable means. You can think of my intepretation as “just = honorable, arbitrary = dishonorable”.
- Brave: I interpret brave as someone who is not only courageous in battle, but willing to tackle problems straightforwardly (which is not to necessarily the same thing as reckless - just direct). As such they are not as good at handling more backhanded, indirect means. I suppose I interpret an element of honorableness in “brave”, though not as much as “just”.
- Celibate: The celibate trait seems to be associated with religiousness, and religiousness in the game is associated with the learning stat, which I think appears to represent not only actual knowledge per se, but knowledge and experience with spiritual matters.
- Content: Actually, I would think a content liege is more willing to give you more power, rather than be a barrier to your progression. In the vanilla event code, “content” rulers are programmed to be more likely to do things like accept ultimatums, follow their vassals’ demands, etc. As such, a content ruler is more willing to do whatever their vassals want - which makes vassals like them a bit more.
- Craven: I like to think that craven characters, being unable to confront issues through direct means, would try to use diplomacy and/or backhanded tactics to get what they want.
- Duelist: I would think a duelist, while perhaps fine at fighting, would be more susceptible to reckless behavior on the battlefield, such as trying to fight honorable duels against other folks instead of actually focusing on keeping all the troops in line or something. Though you do have a point. Maybe I’ll remove it as there’s no need to balance out the already pretty small +1% damage bonus.
- Drunkard: Originally I was thinking of a drunkard as someone who would recklessly go into the middle of the battle attacking like crazy, but on second thought your point makes sense, so I’ll remove the bonus. After all drunkard isn’t a personality trait so I figured now there’s no need to keep it balanced per se.
- Envious: Something going wrong would concern defense rather than offence in my opinion.
- Gardener: Hmm. Now that you mention it I don’t exactly remember the rationale either... for some reason I was linking gardener with herbs and poison and knowledge of plants and terrain...? But that isn’t that strong an argument. Maybe a diplomacy bonus makes more sense or something.
- Gluttonous: I would point out that this trait is called “gluttonous”, not “overweight”. As such, it represents someone who enjoys eating. Since this is the medieval era, only the wealthy and powerful could afford lots of not only good food, but also a large variety of food - whereas a peasant would only eat, say, some grains and a few vegetables, a noble could have access to a variety of grains, vegetables, fruits, meats, sweets, and spices, among other things. Those who ate more, and a bigger variety of food, were thus healthier than those who didn’t eat as good of meals.
- Hedonist: I interpret hedonist as someone who is willing to do whatever they want to get the pleasure they want, which is an attitude necessary for the kind of backhandedness intrigue represents. Additionally I would think a hedonist is someone who has more connections to the criminal world, where they might be getting some of the pleasurable stuff they want.
- Slothful: I interpret lazy a bit more broadly than you in this case. It might indeed be people who are as lazy as you describe and don’t do anything, but I also think it could represent people who don’t want to do hard work - people who want to enjoy an easy-going life (which is subtly different than a hedonist, who I interpret as liking orgies and wine and that sort of thing). A person who wants an easy-going life would probably find more time to play around with their women - in this case I’m thinking of the Chinese Emperors or Ottoman Sultans who spent their time doing things like calligraphy or hanging around their concubines or whatever instead of attending to state affairs. So basically I interpret slothful as someone who doesn’t want to do the hard work they’re supposed to be doing, not necessarily someone who doesn’t want to do anything at all.
- Temperate: Hmm. Actually now that you mention it I have no idea why I put a tax malus. Maybe I’ll put an intrigue malus to represent how they’re unwilling to go to extreme measures to do things, being moderate and all.
- Trusting: Hmm. I also don’t remember why I have a retreat bonus, but I do remember I had a really good explanation for it. Sorry, I don’t remember this one.
- Ugly: I like to think of the ugliness scaring enemy soldiers or heightening someone’s perceived roughness or brutishness, as I see morale offense as not necessarily only inspiring one soldiers, but also demoralizing the enemy as well.
- Tall and Powerful Voice: While I do agree the sex opinion works more so for males, I think it can work decently for females either. “Tall” here doesn’t necessarily mean someone who is a giant, but also the many who are just a bit taller than average - many famous women, for instance, are described as attractive or stunning because they are a bit taller and appear more regal and imposing. I think such logic is similar to the sex opinion from the strong trait. The powerful voice is also similar - I interpret it as a person who has a vigorous and inspiring manner of speaking, and I think it wouldn’t be implausible to think of a woman who is like this. And of course as you say it’d just be a hassle to have two different traits for men and women, and then have maintainence events to clear up when a boy inherits, say, “tall female” from his mother or something.
And finally, this.
On Nestorianism: although nestorianism is considered a heresy of Orthodox and Catholicism, remember that by CKII’s timeframe, due to the Great Schism, in a sense Orthodox was considered a heresy of Catholicism and vice versa. However two-way heresies (where both religions see each other mutually as heresies) is impossible with the current code (jordarkelf tried it on Sunni and Shi’a previously, but it didn’t work). As such, because Nestorians were largely removed from the Catholic and even Eastern Orthodox worlds, and were doing their own independent actions with their own hierarchy and organization, I felt it was proper to make them their own branch of Christianity. This is different than the other Christian heresies which for the most part still saw themselves in relation to the mainstream branches of Christianity, whereas Nestorianism was just off there in the east doing their own thing on a relatively large scale (and not just isolated in their own little world), if that makes sense.
On Monophysitism and Miaphysitism: That’s a good point there. Ideally then the situation would be to make Miaphysitism a heresy of Orthodoxy, and then make Monophysitism a heresy of Miaphysitism - but doing so would contradict my reasoning for making the Nestorians an independent branch of Christianity above. Still, ignoring that, I wouldn’t mind making Miaphysitism a heresy of Orthodoxy but keeping Monophysitism its own branch of Christianity - the problem is that, to me, from a design perspective this is a bit undesirable. The eastern branches already have fewer possible heresies in-game than Orthodoxy or Christianity; removing Miaphysitism as a heresy of Monophysitism would mean that Monophysitism only has two possible heresies left. If you can think of a possible new heresy for Miaphysitism to replace Monophysitism, that would be much welcome. I have tried to find more possible heresies for Monophysitism myself, but haven’t found anything adequate, as all the sizeable heresies came from before CKII’s timeframe, and even most if not all of these are more closely associated with Western Europe or the Byzanitne Empire (and thus Catholics and Orthodoxy).
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ALL that said, I would like to thank you for your critique and feedback. Feel free to respond to any or all of my arguments and justifications above, but please don’t feel offended if I don’t end up being convinced by some of them. Although as mentioned in some of the cases above I’ll be changing some of the things for the next version and/or planning other things similar to what you’re suggesting above.
As mentioned earlier, if there’s something you really disagree with, but you still want to play with everything else in VIET, I can point to the parts of the code where you can change things to your liking. Most of the stuff you mentioned above is actually pretty easy to change and fix, in contrast with others’ suggestions which are sometimes a bit more complicated (not that that’s a bad thing - it just means it’s harder to change), so you can change much of this in a matter of a minutes if you so wish. I really want to encourage people to try customizing their mods more, so they can play CKII the way they want. (Though if you’re happy with keeping things as they are, that’s cool too, I’m not saying you have to or are obliged to change things if you disagree, of course.)
Anyhow thanks again for all the feedback, much appreciated!
