What happens if an empire-tier country is made into a republic? Does the title become "Federation" or something of the sort?
Republican Empires
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And the reason that Rome ceased to be a republic (in everything but name) was precisely because it became empire sized.
In those times a republic worked just fine for a city state, but became completely unworkable for anything larger. See Rome
In CK1, there were three forms of government: Feudal, Republican and Ecclesiastical. Those forms of government weren't limited by tier; in CK1 we had countries of the "republican" form of government in all the three tiers that the game had - kingdom, duchy and county. Since CK2 has added the empire tier, and forms of government likely continue to not be restricted by tier, I'm curious as to what the name of the title of empire-tier republics will be.
And the reason that Rome ceased to be a republic (in everything but name) was precisely because it became empire sized.
In those times a republic worked just fine for a city state, but became completely unworkable for anything larger. See Rome
This is entirely wrong. The big reason the Republic broke down was the estrangement between social classes (being an oligarchy instead of a democracy and having insane differences in wealth), the severing of the military from local levies with a vested interest in protecting their own lands without pursuing a career in the military - turning it into a professional mercenary army living purely from military campaigns that have their loyalty shift from the Senate & People of Rome to "The Commander that is good at pillaging enough gold to make us wealthy" and the fact that there needed to be dire reforms to the corrupt nature the empire was governed that were swiftly enacted through Autocracy but was too entangled with self-interest with the current senate (one of the more pragmatic reasons Caesar expanded the senate for provincials, so he could out-vote the old guard. Besides having the foresight to understand the need for Multiculturalism in an Empire already the prime example of it). They simply didn't have the necessary checks and balances to get rid of the things blocking the way to reforming the Republic into a workable entity. Killing Caesar was foolish no matter what his true intentions were. After all, the Old Order cannot be restored untill Order itself is restored.
The size of the political border was on it's own not a big deal. The Romans ruled with a light hand anyway and the wealth brought in by conquering the east would have gone a long way to preserving the Republic, even in an age where the truth had been laid bare for all to see following the Gracchi Brothers, Marius and Sulla, the Triumvirates and then Caesar.. That the laws were not, in fact, Sacrosanct and that they mean little to the men with swords at their sides. It was a massive shock for a society that had simply taken the divine validity of the laws passed by the senate as facts rather than pieces of papyrus that only mean anything if you have the authority to back them up.
(A sign that the Republic was not long for this particular world: Pompei Magnus, this great defender of Democracy, had not long before been the man who said unto them "Who are you to quote laws at us, who have swords by our sides!" and strong-armed his way through the process.)
And the reason that Rome ceased to be a republic (in everything but name) was precisely because it became empire sized.
In those times a republic worked just fine for a city state, but became completely unworkable for anything larger. See Rome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Venice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delian_League
And even Rome stayed a republic for centuries after acquiring an empire. What all those examples have in common, of course, is that they're not republics in the sense we would think of them, but the empires of republican city-states. But they were still called republics and had republican governments, even if the voting population was limited to the capital.
What I find entertaining is that the posters here begged Paradox to make another game about feudal Europe for years, and when they got it, they started speculating about how to turn it into a game that is about republics, empires, Islamic realms, Jews...pretty much everything but Christian feudal kingdoms.
I think Paradox should not go that way. I think the devs should concentrate on things most people think of when they hear the words "Crusader kings" (i.e. lord-vassal relations, conflicts among vassals, scheming of the Catholic (and Orthodox) church, the Crusades, arranged marriages...) and only on them to get them right. Then, after the game is released and everything works, new features (playable republics and Muslims, Jewish advisers, inner structure of the Byzantine Empire) can be added in patches, ad-ons, mods. Otherwise, I fear, we will be struck with yet another Paradox game that doesn't generate plausible historical situations but ridiculous nonsense like Europe being struck in an endless bloody conflict between the Oligarchic republic of Sweden and the emirate of Prague.
I think Paradox should not go that way. I think the devs should concentrate on things most people think of when they hear the words "Crusader kings" (i.e. lord-vassal relations, conflicts among vassals, scheming of the Catholic (and Orthodox) church, the Crusades, arranged marriages...) and only on them to get them right. Then, after the game is released and everything works, new features (playable republics and Muslims, Jewish advisers, inner structure of the Byzantine Empire) can be added in patches, ad-ons, mods. Otherwise, I fear, we will be struck with yet another Paradox game that doesn't generate plausible historical situations but ridiculous nonsense like Europe being struck in an endless bloody conflict between the Oligarchic republic of Sweden and the emirate of Prague.
Aye. What posters WERE begging for was a remake of CK1, only expanded. Ideally, we wanted to be able to play as Republics, as other religions, because those are all part of the time period. Now, Paradox has made the decision that those fall outside of the scope of the game, and I respect them for that, even if I disagree with their decision.
Yes, but I meant no one asked how to "make it into a game of republics and etc.".
You just proved his point. The Delian League is a) out-of-period, and b) smaller then many city-states. Venice was a city-state, albeit a large one. If you wanted to contradict him you'd have to go to something that wasn't a city-state during the Medieval period, ideally a Western European country because the Devs have made it clear they don't have the budget to simulate anyone else very well.
Which means the best you can do is Switzerland, which didn't appear until the late 13th century and was arguably not bigger then a city-state.
As for the main topic, the title for an Empire-tier Republic is probably not gonna exist because there are only supposed to be two Empires and neither is a Republic. The files will probably use the King-tier title, which was Consul in CK1. Duke-tier Republics were led by Governors, and Count-tier by Magistrates. All three were simply Republics in CK1.
There's no new info on what they'll be called at various tiers in CK2, probably because it's mostly of interest to people who will mod the hell out of the game anyway: those want to play a radically different game then CK2 is designed to be.
Nick
Exactly. Does anyone seriously think people only care about what the title says? People buy Victoria to play 1836->WW1 not the United Kingdom, EU3 for 1399->Napoleon, EU:Rome for antiquity and Crusader Kings for the middle ages (and the most appropriate mechanics for the mentioned titles). Completely disabling Pagans (hardcoded. Not just a "playable=no" line in religions) is really a dealbreaker for me, since I enjoy the period, but not being forced to play the guys I'd much rather be stopping. What fun is it to play the "over"-dog! Playing a republic is certainly an underdog in an age of kings.
If that naming is the case then it's good, since Emperor is "King of Kings". There's not really such a concept with a big republic, since they'd just be governors. It would be nice if you could take a small republic and gradually work your way to the top in Byzantium and reinstitute the incredibly irrelevant senate as a meaningful part of the state, though, without making "Byzantium/ERE" disappear.
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Saying "hur dur, republics cannot into CK because its about feudalism" does not work. Why not? Key word: CK. CK1 was a game that could possibly play out like normal, but often did not. You would get the Emirate of Leinster, or the republic of Germany. Big deal, it could've happened. P'dox should make everything playable, because everything was there.
You can't have game about Christian feudal kingdoms on a continental level without republics, empires, Islamic realms, Jews. Merchant republics had the wealth to bring empires to its knees (Fourth crusade), empires are the legacy on which the feudal kingdoms were built and would like to emulate (Charlemagne and Byz), Islamic states were their main antagonists (Crusades, Reconqista and Ottoman expansion), Jews were important part of the emerging banking system of Europe. BTW all those thing were also in CKI, except the Jews, I think, though they were in the more prominent mods.
Would you like to argue with an actual person instead of a straw man?
I don't even see what the problem is with this position that you've described. Let's face it, Christian feudal kingdoms are a well-tilled setting as far as video games go. A game about medieval Islam or medieval Jews would be really novel.
But even a game that's primarily about Christian feudal kingdoms needs to represent those other things. Christians didn't exist in a vacuum, representing their neighbors and rivals is important for giving them depth. One of the things that makes colonization so boring in EU3 is that it's given a very shallow representation that treats it as a one-way process. There are almost no Native Americans represented in the game, aside from a few empires and faceless "natives" who randomly attack your colonies and will be peacefully and instantly absorbed into your empire once your colony reaches a population of 1000. Imagine if colonization were a more active process where you could negotiate with local Indians for land or alliances, where colonists engage in small-scale warfare that has to be settled by you. Imagine if colonists sometimes founded colonies on their own. Imagine if they sometimes acted against the interests of the player instead of being an extension of his will. Instead you click the "send" button a few billion times, and maybe you send a conquistador to wipe out all the natives. That's my concern about Muslims, Jews, republics, etc. in CK2, that they'll be boring and shallow and by extension make playing the Christian feudal realms more boring.
Exactly. Does anyone seriously think people only care about what the title says? People buy Victoria to play 1836->WW1 not the United Kingdom, EU3 for 1399->Napoleon, EU:Rome for antiquity and Crusader Kings for the middle ages (and the most appropriate mechanics for the mentioned titles). Completely disabling Pagans (hardcoded. Not just a "playable=no" line in religions) is really a dealbreaker for me, since I enjoy the period, but not being forced to play the guys I'd much rather be stopping. What fun is it to play the "over"-dog! Playing a republic is certainly an underdog in an age of kings.
I don't play CK because it's set in the middle ages. I, like many people who were calling for CKII, was playing CK for the roleplaying and dynastic aspects. While I realise nobody in this thread was advocating to take anything away from the feudal focus on CK, I think this particular point you just made veers dangerously close to this.
Firstly, EU3 is an extremely generic game that's streamlined so that all nations can be played in a balanced fashion - this means, at least in my opinion, nothing is represented even close to anything historical. Infact, EU3 represents any period before the 17th century so poorly that I sincerely believe CK's period should be extended in place of EU3's, but I digress.
If you made CKII nothing but EU3 set during the middle ages, It'd be an absolutely awful game. CK needs to have its unique flavour of dynasty first, roleplaying second (or the other way around), nation third, if you can even call it a nation. This is mostly historical and I applaud Paradox for being dedicated towards keeping the Christians as historical and plausible as possible, even if it means keeping the Muslims, Pagans and Republics generic and uninteresting. This in my mind is a step forward from portraying everything generically just for the sake of features
I hope in an expansion we see those concepts expanded, so long as the dynasty and roleplaying stays the focus - not a generic period simulator like EU3.
The Great