This post was largely inspired by me reading this thread while waiting for The Republic to get on steam. While reading it I found a lot of good ideas and debates, but also felt like I had a very good answer to many of the questions asked. I didn't feel like hijacking that thread with what would honestly be a quite different discussion, so here we go.
In all honesty, the structures of the pagan kingdoms of the north - at the very least, the vikings - were in some ways VERY much alike the model presented for the Merchant Republics in that DLC.
Comparison:
#1. In the Republic DLC, we have five Families whose Patricians compete within the republic for power, and extend their trading powers and influence outside their borders.
In a pagan kingdom or tribe, you'd have various influential Clans competing with each other for power, often headed by an elder or whatnot, and they would often extend their military and economic influence well outside their borders through raids and trading routes on the sea and rivers.
#2. In the Republic DLC we have a small minority group of rulers - republics - vying for favor versus a much larger - feudals - group of rulers, in exchange for mutual monetary benefits, while also attempting to gain as much outright power as possible against individual weaker foes. You also have the option of "going feudal" if you wish.
In a pagan kingdom you'd have the king and the clans under him trying to deal with the threat - or opportunity! - of Christianization in various ways. They should in my opinion be able to construct trading posts, and some could possibly pose quite a threat to republics and their sea lanes with to their roving ships attacking the merchants. If a christian king is ruling, he would have to manage the clans carefully; he could tolerate paganism or outlaw it (this was a pretty big deal in many cases) if he felt strong enough, and would then be vulnerable to massive peasant rebellions if he wasn't.
I agree with many of the previous posts here on the topic of the CA system being different, but that's the case in Republican realms as well - do they even have a CA at all? - and as there is obviously the possibility of going from merchant to noble, there should logically be a way to represent the gradual conversion of both clans and people to (or from!) christianity in a balanced way. The most important part in my opinion would be ensuring that you can go both ways - while it does indeed make sense on some level that a single duke would have little interest in becoming only "first among equals" in a republic, and that only for a single generation, there would indeed be incentive for a king or duke to pay heed to his pagan underlings; and even, if the rewards were great enough (and maybe he never really liked the pope anyway) follow into their footsteps.
While it certainly would be a different way of controlling your kingdom, if we model a tribute system to go with the trade zone system and implement both of those for at least the Baltic/Finnish/Nordic pagans, I feel it could be done quite well. In my opinion a pagan kingdom of this kind would have quite big military advantages, at least in numbers; after all, war wasn't just politics - it was religion, too. Gods of War or the like were very often the heads of their pantheon, or otherwise very important. One way to do this would be implementing the Clans as something in between Patrician families and Holy Orders (or mercenaries); while you do get a certain amount of troops from controlling the province, if you can get the loyalty of their Clans (certain opinion modifier levels perhaps?) they would not only pay you tribute, but also offer you the option of raising their warriors to battle.
One could give Clans, much like Patricians, a stronghold/longhouse/whatever, and have there be say one Clan per holding in any given province. Depending on how upgraded your Clan holding is, the amount of warriors that can be raised from it varies, and depending on how much you like your eventual liege and maybe how much prestige he has he can raise a certain number of those warriors as well. Of course, a King who needs to rely on his Clans too much, especially if he doesn't give them credit for their services (tribute exemption, prestige and gold gifts, etc) they won't like him very much - and a King without much Prestige of his own may not be able to raise their warriors to his banner at all - and of course, if you're a zealot christian who spends every minute of his time squashing rebellions and converting, they may well raise their soldiers against you when the time comes - they certainly won't fight for you. On the other hand, if you're a bit on the cynical side and don't really like your fellow christian neighbors all too much, and perhaps you're feeling a bit ambitious as well; then perhaps that Clan chief you appointed as Marshal (heathen or not he damn well knows how to fight, and damn whatever the pope thinks about it) makes you an offer you don't want to refuse... And suddenly, the kingdom turns back to paganism again, and the christians are forced to once again go back to the drawing board.
An idea I have for how the Religion tab should work is that in place of bishops and whatnot, your priests AND PRIESTESSES would work with the clans, possibly by giving a separate religious head for each duchy or even county. Since whatever religion you are yourself would be quite local and culture-dependent, you'd divide religious authority onto a cultural level; each culture group or culture has its own value for the religion in question, maybe, which in turn has a massive effect on conversion rates and the costs for demanding your vassals to convert. Converting Clans would help quite a bit to tip that cultural authority to your favor, but should also be quite difficult - even though the clan chief may accept your demand just because you bribed him, the rest of his folks most certainly won't just for that. And if you're conquering christian (or muslim) lands, you might start your converting by trying to establish new clans in a province, to help you convince their people to your side and eventually convert the province itself.
On religions themselves - priestesses and flavor events and sacrifices and all that - I don't have any good ideas right now. What do you people think? Post your ideas here and discuss them.
In all honesty, the structures of the pagan kingdoms of the north - at the very least, the vikings - were in some ways VERY much alike the model presented for the Merchant Republics in that DLC.
Comparison:
#1. In the Republic DLC, we have five Families whose Patricians compete within the republic for power, and extend their trading powers and influence outside their borders.
In a pagan kingdom or tribe, you'd have various influential Clans competing with each other for power, often headed by an elder or whatnot, and they would often extend their military and economic influence well outside their borders through raids and trading routes on the sea and rivers.
#2. In the Republic DLC we have a small minority group of rulers - republics - vying for favor versus a much larger - feudals - group of rulers, in exchange for mutual monetary benefits, while also attempting to gain as much outright power as possible against individual weaker foes. You also have the option of "going feudal" if you wish.
In a pagan kingdom you'd have the king and the clans under him trying to deal with the threat - or opportunity! - of Christianization in various ways. They should in my opinion be able to construct trading posts, and some could possibly pose quite a threat to republics and their sea lanes with to their roving ships attacking the merchants. If a christian king is ruling, he would have to manage the clans carefully; he could tolerate paganism or outlaw it (this was a pretty big deal in many cases) if he felt strong enough, and would then be vulnerable to massive peasant rebellions if he wasn't.
I agree with many of the previous posts here on the topic of the CA system being different, but that's the case in Republican realms as well - do they even have a CA at all? - and as there is obviously the possibility of going from merchant to noble, there should logically be a way to represent the gradual conversion of both clans and people to (or from!) christianity in a balanced way. The most important part in my opinion would be ensuring that you can go both ways - while it does indeed make sense on some level that a single duke would have little interest in becoming only "first among equals" in a republic, and that only for a single generation, there would indeed be incentive for a king or duke to pay heed to his pagan underlings; and even, if the rewards were great enough (and maybe he never really liked the pope anyway) follow into their footsteps.
While it certainly would be a different way of controlling your kingdom, if we model a tribute system to go with the trade zone system and implement both of those for at least the Baltic/Finnish/Nordic pagans, I feel it could be done quite well. In my opinion a pagan kingdom of this kind would have quite big military advantages, at least in numbers; after all, war wasn't just politics - it was religion, too. Gods of War or the like were very often the heads of their pantheon, or otherwise very important. One way to do this would be implementing the Clans as something in between Patrician families and Holy Orders (or mercenaries); while you do get a certain amount of troops from controlling the province, if you can get the loyalty of their Clans (certain opinion modifier levels perhaps?) they would not only pay you tribute, but also offer you the option of raising their warriors to battle.
One could give Clans, much like Patricians, a stronghold/longhouse/whatever, and have there be say one Clan per holding in any given province. Depending on how upgraded your Clan holding is, the amount of warriors that can be raised from it varies, and depending on how much you like your eventual liege and maybe how much prestige he has he can raise a certain number of those warriors as well. Of course, a King who needs to rely on his Clans too much, especially if he doesn't give them credit for their services (tribute exemption, prestige and gold gifts, etc) they won't like him very much - and a King without much Prestige of his own may not be able to raise their warriors to his banner at all - and of course, if you're a zealot christian who spends every minute of his time squashing rebellions and converting, they may well raise their soldiers against you when the time comes - they certainly won't fight for you. On the other hand, if you're a bit on the cynical side and don't really like your fellow christian neighbors all too much, and perhaps you're feeling a bit ambitious as well; then perhaps that Clan chief you appointed as Marshal (heathen or not he damn well knows how to fight, and damn whatever the pope thinks about it) makes you an offer you don't want to refuse... And suddenly, the kingdom turns back to paganism again, and the christians are forced to once again go back to the drawing board.
An idea I have for how the Religion tab should work is that in place of bishops and whatnot, your priests AND PRIESTESSES would work with the clans, possibly by giving a separate religious head for each duchy or even county. Since whatever religion you are yourself would be quite local and culture-dependent, you'd divide religious authority onto a cultural level; each culture group or culture has its own value for the religion in question, maybe, which in turn has a massive effect on conversion rates and the costs for demanding your vassals to convert. Converting Clans would help quite a bit to tip that cultural authority to your favor, but should also be quite difficult - even though the clan chief may accept your demand just because you bribed him, the rest of his folks most certainly won't just for that. And if you're conquering christian (or muslim) lands, you might start your converting by trying to establish new clans in a province, to help you convince their people to your side and eventually convert the province itself.
On religions themselves - priestesses and flavor events and sacrifices and all that - I don't have any good ideas right now. What do you people think? Post your ideas here and discuss them.
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