Part 3 - Usurpations and other fun activities of bureaucratic families
I'm sorry for not being clear enough in the first snapshot. It really was just a basic description with some basic points.
Usurpations can happen at different levels of government and as such they will also be watched and
awarded. Usurpations of baronies by d_tier viceroys should be relaively common as they were historicaly (at least in the Islamic world) and not always penalized by the central government. At least not immediately. The point is that unles the emperor has high stewardship skill, he shouldn't care much about this kind of usurpations. Who could notice them would be the first minister (chancellor or steward). But we should keep in mind that in bureaucratic empire we can play at various levels of bureaucracy and this kind of usurpations of baronies is one of activities, which can create nice dynamism.
- If such usurpation happens, the ruler may notice it and use it later as some kind of favour or anti-favour for his own needs
- Also at position of first minister or other high-ranking official (k_viceroy), you can put your character in a position where you fight against usurpations, which would gain you
Imperial merit, as suggested by
@Slime99 . This kind of actions will, however cause negative relations of those who usurped the title, but also those, who have usurped other titles or tend to usurp lands, as well as the whole family which was caught. But this should be one of positive ways how the bureaucrats should be able to build positive relations with the emperor without spending money.
I see a couple of problems with this:
- The player
will notice if they lose a title they personally hold, and I don't think that many people would appreciate having their titles stolen by their vassals (
I certainly wouldn't). I would personally not mind an event like "Vassal A's tax collectors have been visiting province B, claiming that it falls within his jurisdiction. Do you want to a) Make it clear that it is your land (-X opinion with the vassal in question), b) Remain silent (-Y % tax income from that province), c) Give the title to the vassal in exchange for a Favour/Influence/etc. (gives the other party an event where they can accept/refuse that deal), or, d) Give them the title without demanding recompensation?" and more of the existing "Hey! I want this title you hold!" events, but outright getting an event saying "Province B now belongs to character A, and there's nothing you (legally) can do about it!" wouldn't be very fun.
- If the player is a fellow vassal, they probably wouldn't like it either (I don't normally play as a vassal, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like
my land (or the land I'm governing) being stolen) and should ideally be given the option to issue an ultimatum and declare war over the title (if vassal wars are allowed; if not, other options would have to be used, but usurpation would probably have to be harder too), but depending on the title, the de jure structure, the laws of the empire, etc. a vassal might have to ask their liege (or above) or their liege's first minister to intercede (which ideally could be refused, could involve various kinds of bargaining, etc.). Again, a flat "This happens, and you can't do anything to stop it!" wouldn't be very fun.
- If a vassal steals land from another vassal and the player is the (top) liege, the player still might not like it. I personally tend to do basically everything I can (though generally stopping short of tyrannical revokations unless all other options have been exhausted) to ensure that my internal borders are tidy, so while I wouldn't begrudge a vassal for taking a title that is part of their de jure (if I agree with them having that de jure, of course) from another vassal I would not sit idle if they went beyond that. Of course, how much the player cares differs a lot, and depending on how healthly the bureaucracy is and what the laws are the situation could differ a bit; I could see more liberal vassal-on-vassal usurpations be possible if the imperial bureacracy is in shambles, the emperor's power is laughable at best, and the like, but if the laws are ruler-friendly, the emperor is reasonably competent and militarily powerful, and the bureaucracy itself is functioning (however that would be measured) I would think that a vassal shouldn't expect to get away with something like that.
Generaly usurpations can be more or less legal or totaly unjust, depending on circumstances.
1) They can be done via Usurpation CB, which would be one of the unjust CBs - these would be especially used in case of baronies. It would create a massive hit on family's Imperial merit (to be explained later) and also would be awarded by large hit on relations towards the emperor, the chancellor and the steward.
2) or they can be done via appointment CB, which would be a special CB for which a character can ask a member of central government (emperor, his chancellor or steward). This would happen when a the central government decides to take back the office, but its formal ruler denies the request. Then the central power has 2 choices, either to launch a punitive expedition, or to grant Appointment CB to another character and who ever wins the war becomes a feudal vasal of the emperor, holding the province hereditary. The central power (AI) would use it only in cases if it is busy by number of other wars. This CB would increase Imperial merit and Influence, but might cause serious hit in relations towards other bureaucratic families, if the attacked family is their friend.
3) if a landed office is held by one character for more than 15 years and the character holds certain number of lesser titles inside the de jure territory (at least 1/3 of titles under that de jure title), he can usurp it via decision. This is obviously a case of county and higher titles and would naturaly cause a serious hit in Imperial merit, but will give large amount of influence.
4) if a landed office is helf by one character for more than 15 years, he can usurp some of titles below this rank. In case of baronies it would provide only a minor hit in Imperial merit and imperial relations (with emperor, chancellor or steward)
For the Usurpation and Appointment CBs, the character can use mercenary or other armies he could raise inside the empire.
- I partially addressed the first point above, but I would personally want that CB to be fairly restrictive, particularly if the empire is doing well (and, of course, to be fully disabled if vassal wars aren't allowed). I also think that going after
baronies is a rather bad idea, as vassal bordergore at the baron level is a mess to untangle in the future (because you might need to retract a duke to retract a count to retract a baron to revoke a title from). That
can of course be good for simulating that the empire is getting inefficient/that the bureaucracy is breaking down, but also can mess up things for the AI, particularly if one vassal's lands somehow are inherited by a foreign realm and there are baronies held by the wrong realm in some provinces (the AI has gotten
better at dealing with that, but it can get rather silly if you get huge wars over baronial bordergore). Furthermore, I think that instead of just having a Usurpation CB it might be better to have something akin to claim fabrication so that instead of the AI randomly targeting titles and upsetting their liege they could plot (or use their chancellor, I suppose, though pagans and Muslims don't fabricate regular claims and thus might not end up able to get these pseudo-claims) to have the imperial records altered to show that e.g. Venezia totally was part of the land that the Strategos of Aquilea was given to govern rather than the Strategos of Verona's land, which (unless discovered to be the work of the attacker; I suppose there could be random events about bureaucrats messing up things on their own, records going missing, and the like to ensure that we don't know if the aggressor was a dirty plotter or not and to occasionally give vassals an opportunity to try to take titles without having to personally do the plotting) wouldn't be
quite as blatant a violation of the emperor's will as declaring those wars with zero justification.
- I like the idea of government-sponsored (somehow; depending on the laws/etc. it might require direct imperial blessing, a council vote, a specific official's approval, or something else) wars between vassals, particularly as it would allow for a lot of intrigue between vassals and the emperor (or whatever) regarding title redistribution without clearly showing that they too the initiative (e.g. the emperor can claim that some bureaucrat must have misinterpreted his order, the attacker might claim that the emperor personally gave his approval without him asking for the right to the title, some bureaucrat might say that the vassal went to them/the emperor, etc.), though I am not sold on the idea of the title becoming a regular feudal province if the attacker wins. However, I don't agree with the emperor going "Never mind; I'll send a vassal in my place" if the revokation is refused; it should be treated as a regular revokation and thus have the AI declare war (the option to send a vassal instead would be an alternative approach), but make the title feudal if the ruler backs down or loses the war.
- I don't particularly like the idea of usurpation being possible after a certain amount of time (with the possible exception of if the ruler is in a regency or if the council laws are very much in favour of the council (and perhaps also if the bureaucracy has stopped working well)), as that would just make the player get in the habit of redistributing all titles a couple of years before the deadline (and anyone that refuses obviously being jailed and stripped of as much land as you can get away with (which, if they don't own the land in the first place, likely would be everything)). However, I
definitely think that there should be ways to try to make titles hereditary that the emperor might find it hard to refuse (due to e.g. hurtin all vassal opinion). Some ideas would be through paying X times the province's yearly income, through calling in (or offering) a Favour, through plotting to get a pseudo-claim ("The document in the imperial archives says that it was a permanent thing, and while I
certainly will hand it back if you ask we both know that
others might be concerned about you perhaps remembering differently when it comes to
their titles in the future, so wouldn't it be best for the empire if I actually got the title permanently?"), and the like. Conversely, the liege (and perhaps other vassals) might get the option to try to fabricate pseudo-claims stating the opposite, as well as the option to e.g. call in Favours to retake a title from someone, so that both sides will keep contesting the matter.
Mercenaries, Advanturers inside the Imperial bureaucratic system
Creating and using these military units should be one of the very commonly used methods to gain money,
Influence or
Imperial merit. Just like tribal characters can create a mercenary band, so could do minors of bureaucratic families, who don't own any office.
These adventurers or mercenary bands will then appear within the empire and could be hired by anoyone inside the empire - be it various middle or high rank officials, bureaucratic family leaders or the emperor himself. Being hired by the emperor or his ministers means the character gains office and provides
Imperial merit each month and also by every positive action in this function.
However, these mercenaries or adventurers could do also other things. Some of them would be favourable by the empire, others not that much. The leaders of these armies can do and/or be used for:
a) small wars and land usurpations (as mentioned above under
Usurpation CB) if hired by their own family - the army leader gains prestige, the family only pays small cost for the army.
b) marauding bands which plunder estates of family rivals, the empire, or even neighbouring kingdoms. Each plundered holding provides gold, and depending on the target also influence and imperial merit bonus or malus. - leading such a band costs some money, but much less than mercenaries or even levies and plundering and pillaging should provide gold and therefore could be used as faimly income.
c) fight as mercenaries hired by whoever hires the band. In this case the one who hires the company/army pays the upkeep and the leader and his family has income from that money.
d) holy wars or plundering infidel lands - this is typical for the Ghazi bands in Anatolia and central Asia which were plundering the lands of infidels (from muslim point of view). The upkeep for these armies would be relatively small, their leaders would gain piety and prestige. The profit in Imperial merit and influence should be very small.
e) resources generating raids - this should be possible only if slavery as suggested in the Qabila thread is introduced.
This kind of military bands will sometimes consume, but mostly generate financial income for the families. They usualy won't give you much Imperial merit and only sometimes some Influence, but the money they provide would be at disposal of the entire family (the family leader) and as such could be used for buying offices (tax farming), building up family palace, or building up the province or imperial estates in offices already held by the family, as mentioned by
@SeekTruthFromFx
- I like the ideas of semi-vassalized mercenaries, and for them it could definitely make sense to have officers from bureaucratic families (I assumed that you meant something like the nomadic/Conclave mercs that everyone can hire when I read your previous post); though leading a merc band might restrict certain options (e.g. you might not be able to hold feasts (or whatever you might be up to if you are a palace-based bureaucrat) if you are out leading an army). However, while it certainly
should be possible for officials to hire mercs if vassals can declare war, hiring a large number of mercs should likely worry the emperor,
particularly if you are based at the capital due to not having any actual landed titles.
- Using your own mercs inside the empire certainly should be possible, and
far cheaper than hiring someone else's mercs, and hiring someone else's mercs should be an option, though ideally they shouldn't be possible to turn against their owner's allies (e.g. vassal A can't hire B's mercs and go attack vassal C if C is allied with/has an NAP with B). Using the mercs to expand outside the current borders of the realm (provided the vassal war law allows it) and then ruling that land as a feudal vassal of the emperor should probably be possible, though it should be somewhat restricted to prevent silly wars (e.g. no attacking someone in Hispania as a vassal/bureaucrat in the ERE if the ERE barely has a foothold in Sicily).
- I'm somewhat opposed to more armies like the already existing raiding adventurers as they function rather poorly at times, e.g. can ride from the steppes to Rome unopposed because they don't get tagged as hostile due to not stopping to loot (I
think I have figured out a way to prevent that, but I haven't had the chance to test it yet), and even if they worked perfectly I think that the emperor might have a thing or two to say about raiding in his empire (and, if the bureaucracy is doing well, etc., he
should be in a position to deter that before it even happens (and to punish anyone that tries)). Raiding foreign land might work,
but we again run into the whole "Run across half the realm before becoming hostile" issue.
- If some kind of slavery mechanic is introduced (it has been some time since I read your Qabila suggestion, so I don't quite remember how your suggestion worked and unfortunately don't have the time to check it right now), raiding for slaves should probably be an option, though again there is the issue with non-hostile hosts running about.
Building up imperial property would of course bring one a LOT of Imperial merit and, as pefectly mentioned in quoted post, the Imperial merit would be a crucial gate to get high-ranking imperial offices (but about this I will talk later in detail).
The general rule here should be that if a family gains influence and Imperial merit, it will obviously be both profitable and dangerous. But we should keep in mind that in larger empires there will always be some 10+ families struggling for power with the imperial family being one of them and using the same methods and except few privilegues limited only to the emperor, also the same tools. Just like the families want their power to increase, the emperor wants to both exploit and limit their power. The emperor can hire mercenaries from those families, having a powerfull ally against another powerfull family is a need, so being powerfull AND having good relations with the emperor is often a better way to more power than standing against the emperor. All you need is to wait until the imperial family gets into a crisis (which you can ignite via intrigues)
This wasn't really directed at me, and you mentioned that you'd talk more about it later, but having there be both good and bad aspects to powerful (and weak, for that matter) families for both the family and the emperor would be good.
Btw, I have thought more about the Palace mechanic and I think the Palace view should be somehow edited.
First of all you can see that there are no longer copycats using names of other families
but more importantly, at the very top there would be 2 possible views, just as I have edited the
Qabila view in my other suggestions thread....
You could either view the bureaucratic families of the empire or your own family.
The
screenshot of the family view is not done yet, but it will display the offices your family holds and will be the place from which you could turn your offices into family holdings or estates as described above. When I am at
estates, I must admit I was inspired about how
@Ferrero suggested the family estates to somehow stay aside from what we actually have in game. On the other hand, I must agree with
@SeekTruthFromFx at the point that it would require total rework of the fame's mechanics to introduce these family holdings to all other governments (it would totally change the conditions for game over for feudal and iqta governments). I think these family estates would better be limited to the imperial government and the limited number of bureaucratic families who struggle for influence within the empire.
I think it would be easier if these
family estates would only be represented as bureaucratic palaces in the capital. On the other hand, as suggested above, they would be able to usurp baronies and other holdings, even counties inside the empire. I think that creating just another special holding for every province or most of them would go little too far for CK2 engine.
I doubt that we will get another basic holding type, so only having palaces in the capital and only for the bureaucratic government type would probably be
far more reasonable, and even that might be a bit of a problem unless the devs figure out a way to make the MR stuff possible to use elsewhere (which is something that people have been asking for since The Republic came out). Of course, there's always CK3...
You understood me well in my original post. Only when trying to make things clearer I did the oposite.
The other
Palaces should depend on
de jure titles within the range of the empire. But if some of the titles gets conquered (i.e. the emperor conquers gains a kingdom title before holding the entire de jure kingdom), it could be used as viceroy. I hope that now I made things clearer rather than confusing you
I see. That makes sense.
PS: Sorry to be slow at adressing your amazing replies, I'm really struggling hard how to present the concept I had in my head with the ideas or questions presented here. I hope I will be able to anwer or clear them soon enough.
No worries; at least not on my behalf. Speaking for myself, while there are some things that I'm not entirely sold on at the moment (though that might change, at least for some of them, depending on the things you haven't elaborated on yet), and some things that potentially could be problematic due to how the game works, the overall idea seems rather solid, and (in the hypothetical case that we get something much like what you have suggested implemented into the game) if the final version ends up relatively easy to mod (unlike nomads and MRs) I wouldn't mind having to tweak a few things here and there to get it to work to my liking (because that's what I tend to do with a whole lot of things anyway).