This is just a small idea I came up with after reading about the coastal lords of Sweden. It turns out that pretty much all lords made big business in privateering during the unruly times after the black death. Sweden hired pirates against Denmark, Denmark against Sweden, the Hansa or the Teutonic Order. Individual lords then offered these pirates a safe haven in exchange for parts of the loot. There were even individual lords who themselves became pirate kings over the Baltic. One of these lords was the deposed Eric of Pomerania; he retained the island of Gotland and there he became the patron to most of the pirates in the Baltic.
It got me thinking of how to implement something like this in CK2, a game without naval combat. My answer is quite simply to make it so that the number of ships in the lords own castle gives a small boast to the tax income generated in that province's towns. The reason for using the castle's fleet and the town's economy lies in composition of war ships in the middle ages; they were simply merchant vessels converted to carry soldiers. The castle ships would then represent privateers working for the lord, taking tolls or ships.
That would give ships a real use, besides boat-bombing exploits.
It got me thinking of how to implement something like this in CK2, a game without naval combat. My answer is quite simply to make it so that the number of ships in the lords own castle gives a small boast to the tax income generated in that province's towns. The reason for using the castle's fleet and the town's economy lies in composition of war ships in the middle ages; they were simply merchant vessels converted to carry soldiers. The castle ships would then represent privateers working for the lord, taking tolls or ships.
That would give ships a real use, besides boat-bombing exploits.
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