Greetings! I'm the author of "The Ecumenical Patriarchate: History of its Metropolitanates with Annotated Hierarch Catalogs" (sold at Amazon). I've played the Eastern Roman Empire in Crusader Kings and would like to offer the following comments:
1. In CK1 I tried to name the provinces of Byzantium with their Greek names, but when I switched my keyboard to Greek characters I was typing gibberish in the provinces name fields (ie. western accented characters were displayed instead of the Greek letters). Can you please enable the use of a windows character font, like Times New Roman or (even better) Palatino Linotype (which includes Polytonic Greek Characters) so I am able to name my realms provinces/cities properly?
2. Please make sure you cannot marry your diocese bishop anymore -- or at least call him something like Religion Advisor (and not bishop) if he can be married. Or, if he decides to marry, he should be automatically defrocked and not be a bishop any more!
3. Why you call the Eastern Roman Empire "Byzantine Empire"? That name was never used by the Greek Romans. I think every kingdom uses its formal name except us! Greeks were calling themselves 'Romans' until the creation of the Greek state in 1833.
4. I hope a female ruler when played by the game's AI should be able to marry. In CK1 when I was giving a province to a lady, she always died unmarried.
5. Please make it possible for me to grant provinces from my demense to another King. Sometimes a vassal of mine may inherit, lets say, Essex. This is rather unhistorical and I want to be able to give Essex back to the King of England without having to go into the whole thing of appointing a vassal/pushing him to rebel/give him his independence, in order to get rid of the unhistorical province.
6. An idea would be to have double names coded for some provinces if they are conquered by Muslims. For example, if the Turks get Smyrna, its name could change automatically to Izmir. If the Greek Romans get the province back, its name could again become Smyrna.
7. What about religious minorities? A province cannot become Christian with a snap of your finger. What about a system where if, say, I conquer Aleppo (and the name changes to Beroea
I could have my hands in a situation of 25% Orthodox, 10% Monophysites and 65% Muslim? The longer it stays under my control and the more relevant actions I take, the longer the persentages go towards Orthodox, but strong religious minorities always caused trouble, so I shouldn't get rest in that province until the Orthodox percentage rises high. There could also be a slider on how much armed forces I keep ready in each province in order to have the infidels/heretics/non-nationals in check. If there is heavy army presence, they wouldn't dare to revolt, but my treasury/resources would be diminishing rapidly. As Emperor of Byzantium, if my country becomes large and powerful I could have the resources/armies to keep, let's say, Italy and Egypt under control, but not the whole Europe is can be done in CK1, ie this could be a way to keep in check the unrealistic possibility of conquering the whole world and keeping it under control easily, as can be done in CK1.
[Clarification from later post: I'd also like to say that I mentioned the handling of the other-nationalities/other-religion provinces as a way to keep in check the size of a Kingdom. In CK1 it was possible to conquer the entire map. This shouldn't be possible here. It should be possible to have a very large kingdom/empire, but not all the map. And this should not be accomplished by a limit of the type "you cannot get more than 50 provinces" but the game could use mechanics that make the user feel that it's not worth the effort to keep such a large Kingdom, or at least slow down the time required to do such a thing. Having problems with large areas that are not your own religion is one way of doing that (diff/nationality but same religion and same nationality but diff/religion should give mild problems, but large areas of diff-nationality and diff-religion should require effort to keep in check). Then you'd have to wait for some to convert before you expand too much, or you'd be wasting your time keeping them, making you ask yourself 'is it worth it?']
8. Country awareness factor: My loyal vassal of Thessalonike should not suddenly declare war to Iceland. He shouldn't even be aware that Iceland exists! Also it should be very unlikely for him to declare war to a country in northern Russia or England, or to a country he'll have to cross half the map to attack! There should be some factor of how far a province is from another to be taken into account when the AI declares war. And on that note, I shouldn't be able to propose marriage for my son to some obscure maid in the court of the province of Oppland. In reality I could know there is a Kingdom of Sweden or Norway so I could propose to their Kings courts, but how could I know there's a province of Oppland up there?
9. Constantinople should start as a Huge Castle, because, well, it was the only city in 1066 that had a huge castle (not to mention the largest Cathedral=Hagia Sophia and a working Hippodrome)!
10. A vassal declares independence (because he is a heretic or whatever): In CK1 when I conquer him, I have 2 options: Either I let him be ruler (and since he is rebelious or heretic he'll revolt again) or I add his province to my demense and afterwards I can put someone from my court to rule it. There should be a 3rd option: I should be able to have the courtesy to force him to abdicate in favor of his son/brother/whoever is next in his line of succession, or just pick a person from his existing court and appoint him ruler of the province. This way there is a continuity in the province and its court, and the locals are happy that a fellow-townsman was appointed to rule them!
11. Bari and Lecce in southern Italy were still Byzantine in 1066, I hope you get it right this time! [This proposition is revoked! (see below posts)]
12. Edessa and Aintab were still Byzantine in 1066. The Duke of Edessa in 1066 was called Leon Arvantinos.
13. You could take into account that if the Byzantines conquered Rome, they would appoint an Orthodox 'Patriarch of Rome'.
14. When naming Greeks, you could take into account the Greek custom of giving to the firstborn son the name of his father's father and to the firstborn daughter the name of her father's mother.
15. In CK1 I took Mecca and nothing happened. If a Christian takes Mecca, some Muslim states should declare war on him.
16. If Russia is united when the Mongols appear, they get a province and just sit there. They should attack all neighbouring areas no matter what the army capabilities of the enemy. Even if the state controlling the Russian areas is strong, by the time it has gathered its armies the Mongols could have conquered a large area, and from then on it could be a very difficult and bloody war to drive them back. (Also at one time the randomly created Mongol Sultan was 12 years old, married and with children!)
17. The moment the Byzantine Emperor got married, his wife always converted to Orthodoxy and took a Greek name.
18. If I'm pius enough, I should be able to abdicate in favor of my son and become a monk! (But don't lose track of me when I become a monk! I was a Ruler, it should be known to the Kingdom when I die! -- and perhaps some rival brothers who were kept in check by their respect to their monk-father would have no reason any more not to revolt!).
19. Principality Mobilization: I should be able to ask a Prince to mobilize his army AND the army of his vassals, without having to resort to Grand Mobilization.
20. The Island you label Corfu is really Cephalonia. Perhaps you could add another island so we could have both Corfu and Cephalonia, the 2 most important Ionian Islands? Also, 'Corfu' is the island's Italian name. The Byzantines used the Greek name 'Cercyra'. BTW, a most important island missing in the Aegean Sea is 'Chios'. And 'Naxos' could be called 'Cyclades' and a few more islands added around it to show it is an island group.
21. I don't even want to get started on the problem of armies morale not properly saved in CK1! Perhaps savegames could be zipped so they don't take enormous space? Some of us keep a savegame for every five years of each game we play!
22. I hear there are thoughts of removing the political map view. Please don't. No matter how perfect is the geophysical map, there will always be the need to see the game map in political form, with different colors representing each country.
Here's hoping someone of the developers will read this!
Best Regards,
Dimitris
Addition: I decided to bring the points from later messages in this first message, so that everything appears together:
Re item 11 (Bari+Lecce), user galuska persuaded me that it is a bad idea, so I revoke it!
Re item 7, after the discussion on the matter in above posts, I agree that the game could keep track of only 2 religions per province to keep things simple, yet still more authentic than the current system where provinces convert overnight!
New items:
23. I've noted that the 'Heretic declares independence' event makes him independent but does not give you a claim in his titles. His case should not be different from the other vassals who declare their independence from you.
24. Please mention the name of provinces in their related events. Who became independent or declared war on me? With 'A Heretic declares independence' and 'One of your vassals became independent' we have to move around the political map to find out who he is (and if we only have a geophysical map, with a dot of color somewhere to denote allegiance, our eyes will pop-out before we find who he was). Plus, in the case of 'one of your vassals changed his laws to resemble yours', 'one of your vassals is happy from your wise rule' etc, one has to make a time-consuming search through stat screens if he wants to find out who the vassal is, so we don't search at all. It'd be good to know who he was, from that initial event message.
25. Case: I have a Swede in my court and I value his skills so I put him governor of Thessaly. If he is related to the King of Sweden and high in the succession line, I can suddenly find out that Thessaly, which is in the heart of my Kingdom, now belongs to Sweden! This is not possible. He inherits the throne in his far-away land? He thanks me, takes his gold and goes there, and I appoint another governor in the province. This only could happen if, let's say, he was a Bulgarian, and I appointed him to rule a province next to the Bulgarian Kingdom. And even then, our relations with the Kingdom of Bulgaria should take a bad turn, I should get a claim to that province which belonged to my country until a while ago, and perhaps he should get to make a choice if he would risk angering a powerful King by taking a province that he governed in that Kings realm and annexing it to the newly-inherited realm. He should consider that the other King may declare war to contest this action.
26. Rebellions in vassal provinces. Every now a then a rebellion pops-up which for some reason the ruling vassal hasn't the army strength to put down. You have to notice it and go help him, but shouldn't he ask for help from his liege? If he loses the fight with the rebels there should be an event like "My Lord! the Duke of whatever requests our help to extinguish the rebellion in his realm".
27. Also, the AI should know that in order to take back a single province that declared war on him but has just a 2000-soldier-army, the AI doesn't have to mobilize 30000 men from his 10-province demesne, gather it in his capital and then go back to the guilty province (instantly depleting his treasury for no reason). The AI should raise just enough armies from the closest demesne provinces and go straight to fight the minor enemy (except if the ruler is a fool? Or he could miscalculate and the army he sends the first time is not enough?). But even in a war with a neighboring Kingdom, shouldn't the AI understand that by gathering a single 30000 army he is going to be ruined by attrition? Perhaps it should have the good judgment to make 2 smaller armies, going for 2 or more objectives (ah, the challenge!). And also he should understand that when the attrition goes too far, he should remobilize the army from some provinces (after a year of war, he shouldn't still move around an army composed of 100-men regiments).
28. Now that I think of it, I enjoy playing on the 2D political map of CK1 more than on the 3D political or geophysical map of EU3. The 2D map of CK1 gives an atmospheric old-cartographer feel to the game, at least for me, and certainly would give a processor-speed boost to people using older computers. Why not offer the option of both 3D and 2D view?
29. The present history-keeping system of the game is problematic. A lot of useless items are kept in the History, making it difficult/not practical/time consuming to search for something important, and when you continue the game next day, all past history is lost. A propose to have 2 history records: One like the one we have detailing every obscure detail of the current game session you play, lost after you exit. But the other to be set in stone (ie included in the savegame): this should be the official history kept in your realm by your chroniclers, and should list the dates of significant events for your realm and your own person like those you would read in a history book: when the Kingdom took or lost a province, when the Kingdom fought a major war with another Kingdom and won/lost, when an alliance with another major nation was formed/disolved, dates of major law changes, the dates of your predecessor Kings deaths (or if you are a vassal, your predecessors death dates and your liege Kings death dates/including mention of liege King dynasty changes), your birthday (a public holiday in the Kingdom!!) and the birthdays of your children (and if you die and your son succeeds you, your birthday and his brothers birthdays removed from the official chronicle, and the new King's birthday and his children birthdays added!). The details on birthdays are saved by the game anyways.
30. About the discussion on how a child changes nationality: There could be a hidden percentage!! Both parents French, but born in England? 10% English. Father English, mother French, born in France? 30% French. These percentages to change with your marriage choices and a random factor, and so each successive generation that stays in the same foreign country is going to have more probability to be assimilated into the culture of that country. In real-life-cases of people living in foreign countries we see things like: 1st generation speaks home language, 2nd generation speaks the home language but not well, 3rd generation does not speak the home language but still they identify themselves as descending from their home country -- but from there on things get vague...
31. Regent Dynamics! You die and your child/heir is underage. Who will become regent? He who has the greatest prestige in your court? And is he a relative? Is he treacherous? Could he be the first adult relative in the line of succession, no matter if he is a vassal? Could he try to put aside the legal underage heir(s) and assume the throne? Could he try as regent to place himself higher (or 2nd) in the succession line? Can he stage a coup and massacre/expel all minor heirs? Perhaps the prestige/character-traits of the dead King is a factor on how favorably the court sees the underage successor? The Kingdom's advisors leave room for the Regent to manoeuvre in unethical directions? And if the regent takes the throne and he is a relative (a cousin/uncle etc of the late underage King) the game can continue, but if not...
32. The game ends on Dynasty change. OK. BUT, why shouldn't I have an option to continue with the new dynasty ruler as a new game? "Game Over. Continue with the new Dynasty (Y/N)"! I start the game with Byzantium in 1066 with the Ducas Dynasty. Then in 1075 Romanos Diogenis (2nd in succession line) succeeds. My game with the Ducas is over. Can I continue/start to rule the Byzantium with Diogenis in 1075 -- and treat it like I start a new game, without starting a completely new game!
33. There's elective law and the next in line is not of the ruling King's Dynasty so when the King dies the game ends. BUT, I had during my reign appointed as vassals my 2 sons, my brother and my uncle. So my dynasty remains strong within the Kingdom. Why you don't give me the option to continue as one of them? (Which one? Could be determined by the game or you could let me choose!). I mean, if I'm the Prince of Athens and I overthrow the Emperor, I continue the game as Emperor. If I'm the Emperor and I lose the throne to a non-relative but my son is the Prince of Athens, why shouldn't I continue the game as Prince of Athens?
34. It is 1453, the game ends, the winner is declared, the stats are displayed, but, why not give an option "Continue (Y/N)"? Some of us would like to continue play for some years (or centuries ) after 1453 just for the fun of it! Why not leave us a small window to do it, even informally (via a command in the command console window)?
35. "Salic Consanguinity Law of Succession: The successors are chosen based on their strength, which is calculated amongst heirs of the same relation to the present ruler through tier, prestige, martial ability and number of vassals." Hmm, yes, but in reality how can someone determine which one is the 'strongest'? Real people don't have stats you could check and each man's abilities are interpreted/valued differently by different persons. Shouldn't the ruling King have his say? Couldn't he say "this is my favourite son"? Maybe, as a King, I value 'diplomacy' and want the son who has the highest diplomatic skill to succeed me and not the one who has the highest military skill (and I'm talking about cases were all sons have equal titles or no title at all). Or maybe the 'strongest' son has 5 daughters and I want a weaker son to succeed me because he has 5 sons. Or the 'stronger' son has his mother's nationality and I want my successor to be of my own nationality. In "The Lion in Winter" Henry II of England called all his sons to his castle in order to judge them and determine who is the most worthy to succeed him! The game could allow the King to christen one of his sons as his successor if Salic Consanguinity Law is in effect. This could be addressed directly (by giving us a clear relevant option) or indirectly (for example, if all of my sons are in my court so no-one of them has a title, appointing one of them as my advisor could place him in front of the others in the line of succession, except if there's something seriously wrong with him).
36. World Conquest Case: As the Emperor of Byzantium (with or without DV), I was able to conquer the whole world and keep it unified to the point that I got bored and started a new game. Whenever a Duke rebelled I got his provinces to be my vassals, so if he rebeled again, it was only 1-2 provinces rebelling and by clicking on his neighbors they were conquering him immediately. I was selecting the brides with the highest stats as my wives and my Emperors had always very high stats, to the point that I could ride a realm duress without sweat. In fact, the realm duress was the shakedown event that limited all trigger-happy Dukes (or Princes in my case) to 1 province and was giving me thousands of prestige by knowing how to handle the rebellers' claims in the peace screen. As for badboy points, every time I conquered an infidel I got a claim on an european province before accepting peace with the infidel and leaving him in control of his province (thus the goodboy/badboy points cancelled themselves out). So by the time my borders reached my next target, for example, France, I had claims on all her King's lands and titles, plus on all the Counts in the provinces bordering my Realm plus some seaside ones, and when accepting peace with each Count and allowing him to become my vassal, at the same time I was geting claims in the next row of Counts to the point that I conquered the whole France in a single campain (as by that point my realm had 5 times the army capability of France). By the time I had finished with France, I had claims in all provinces of the British islands, etc. etc. and voila: world conquest in less than 100 years. And I did it in every scenario, even the one that starts in 1337 with Byzantium holding a handful of provinces (and I have the savegames to prove it). Why I was able to do it?
This makes me think that a 'failsafe' event could be put in for the game to get 'revenge' (ho, ho) from any player who goes for WC. Imagine the moment you conquer the last province in the map, five random Kingdoms (whole Kingdoms) declare their independence simultaneously ("My lord, the Kingdoms of France, Russia, Persia, Hungary and Africa just declared their independence! Shock! Horror!"). That would show you who's boss in the game!!!
37. It was very easy for me to lose track of time in fullscreen mode of CQ1. I sat for a session planning to finish at midnight, but the next time I looked at my watch it was 02:00 AM!! If it was possible to include an option to display a real time clock in the menu bar, I'd be much obliged.
Some new items I thought after 'playtesting' CK1 again:
38. I missed not having a 'nationalities map' (functioning in the way the 'religions map' functions). Please add one! By the way, I've seen this political map preview and it looks great! I hope it stays in the game:
39. I've also seen this map in a preview:
Lots of nice details, however I see an effort to use the Greek 'tou' in place of the English "of". This doesn't take into account that Greek city names can be male. female or neutral. So, we have the male city 'Galatas', where 'Kleopas tou Galata' is correct (male Galatas loses the 's' in the genitive). However, we have the female city 'Edessa' and the correct form would be 'Arsenios tis Edessas' (female Edessa gains an 's' in the genitive, and the female form of 'tou' is 'tis'). As it is seen in the pic 'Arsenios tou Edessa' is wrong; better to leave it 'Arsenios of Edessa'.
40. Sometimes when you declare war to a breakaway province, your ally declares war also. You conquer the province, but you select to just make the breakaway province your vassal again. Although after you made peace with him he is now part of your realm, your ally is still at war with him and can conquer him and make him part of his demense! This is wrong; your ally should quit the fight the moment the province becomed yours.
41. When I grant to my brother a kingdom title, thus creating a new Kingdom next to mine, I want to be able to relinquish all claims I have for provinces of his Kingdom. The game doesn't give me this option, and this can lead to wars. Can we have an option to relinquish our claims please?
42. When I grant a title to a fellow who has zero loyalty to me in my court, he begins ruling his new land with zero loyalty to me and I have to send him some gold right away or he may rebel. His loyalty should rise the moment I grant him the title.
Yet some more new additions:
43. I've tried playing 2 kingdoms using the same savegame (by changing from one kingdom to the other every now and then) and saw that the game AI select advisors solely based on who has the higher skill, without checking for advisor loyalty. He could make a check (at least if the ruler has some skills) for loyalty before deciding to appoint his advisors.
44. Instant Character Bios! A nice touch would be to display bios of important characters! A clever script can create a cool bio from the data saved about each character. An example: (I put in [brackets] information not stored in CK1 that could possibly be stored in CK2):
Alexios Ducas, born 1150 in Constantinople, the 3rd son of Emperor of Byzantium Philippos Ducas and Aikaterini Skleros. He had a slight lisp problem since birth. [He spend his youth as fosterling in the county of Abydos] and received a military education, after which he was hailed as a Brilliant Strategist. [In 1167] he married Theodore Gavras, daughter of Prince of Trapezous Arsenios Gavras. [In the same year] he was appointed by his father Count of Thessaloniki and [in 1169] Prince of Thessaloniki. After his father's assassination / death by the plague / death by natural causes / death in battle / etc. in 1175, he succeeded him in the throne as Emperor of Byzantium, bypassing his elder brothers due to the Empire's Salic Consanguinity law. During his reign [if item 29 about official Kingdom history is implemented, here could be listed the noteworthy events that happened during his reign]. After the death of his wife in 1180 from natural causes, he married Anna Palaiologos, daughter of the Duke of Athens. He has 3 children by his first wife: Crown Prince Dimitrios (born 1170, appointed Count of Kaisaria in 1186), Prince Athanasios (born 1172, currently serving as Chancellor of the Empire), Princess Angeliki (born 1174) and 1 child by his 2nd wife, Prince Theophylaktos (born 1182). [He has survived 2 assassination attempts to date.] //The game could change the last part after his death to: He had 3 children by his 1st wife and 2 children by his 2nd wife. [After surviving 3 assassination attempts] he was eventually assassinated in 1190 and was succeeded by his son Dimitrios, Duke of Kaisaria.)
You could rely on saved data to present instant bios on every character in the game, but you could also save some more details for any character who held the title of King/Emperor during his life in order for the lives of fictional Kings to be presented in more detail.
45. Resolving disputes between your Dukes and your Counts: We learn of problems between a Duke and his Count vassal when the Count suddenly declares war on him. However, before that extreme point is reached, and since we are the King of the realm, the Count could approach us which his grievance against his Duke and ask us to mediate. If the problem is unsolvable, we could decide to take the Count from the Duke's vassalage and make him our direct vassal until the death of either the Count or the Duke, after which the province will go back to being the Duke's vassal. (This also happened with grievances between a Bishop and his Metropolitan, with the Patriarch making the Bishop 'Archbishop' for a while, directly answerable to the Patriarch).
46. We must be able to break our Alliance with another nation. If their Ruler receives the Kinslayer or Heretic trait or amasses negative prestige points, would we want to be still allied with such a person? And if he starts a war and we choose not to participate, the alliance could be automatically dissolved. Also, if I get the Kinslayer or Heretic trait or have large infamy or realm duress, my ally could choose to terminate our alliance.
47. Sometimes someone wants to be my vassal and I do not want him to become my vassal, perhaps after he asks me 3 times in a row, and I continue to refuse, I can say to him 'I don't want you to become my vassal' for him to leave me alone?
48. I have perfect relations with the huge Kingdom of Russia. Then suddenly a vassal of mine, because he has some claim, stupidly decides to start a war with Russia. Can I say to the Russian King, don't worry, I'll deal with the troublesome vassal, it's my internal affair, and go punish the fellow and force him to revoke his declaration of war or even force him to let go of his claim?
49. The present event dialog that offers you to make peace with the 'heathens' is largely unusable because if you make peace through the dialog, any of your vassals who were at war with this Heathen remains at war with him. Pls make sure the peace through this dialog is handled like making peace through the normal game options.
50. Any character who dies while fighting Muslim/Pagan armies can receive a 'Martyr' trait and 1000 piety bonus points. If a character has a 'martyr' trait, it could be easier to declare him a 'Saint' afterwards!
51. Can I be able to organize and send a diplomatic mission to a foreign ruler bearing expensive gifts and negotiate a mutual renouncement of our claims against each other (including claims of our vassals?) even exchanging a province or two, to make a significant improvement in our relations and avert a future war? Perhaps I could even choose who will head this diplomatic mission, affecting the chances of success/failure!
52. I have a small state next to me who I outnumber 10 to 1 in army power. I offer him vassalisation and he stubbornly refuses repeatedly. Then I have to declare war to him in order to annex his state. - But can there be another step in-between? Can I DEMAND his vassalisation? This would mean that I'm giving him an ultimatum that I'll use force against him and make him think twice before refusing my 'generous' offer.
53. On that note, can we present ultimatums to other powers? The Sultan of the Seljuks could come to me and say 'surrender some provinces of Asia Minor to me or I'll declare war on you', before actually declares war on me. I could say to the King of Croatia, give me this province or I'll declare war to you, etc.
54. I hear about filters being implemented to help us choose brides. I'd like to request a filter that lets me choose from daughters of Reigning Kings, or Reigning Dukes, or Reigning Counts, or from all 3 of these categories together.
55. Some islands in the new map are divided by a nice curved authentic-looking border (ie Crete). Others are divided by a single random arbitrary-looking straight line (ie Cyprus). Cosmetic correction please!
56. When I play CK1 from 1066 and I reach the 1400s the game-engine bends on its knees by the mass of accumulated data. For example when I visit the Bride-Selection screen or Our-Dynasty screen the delay is noticeable and sometimes the game even crashes! Can there be a safety device where the game after seeing that the accumulated data reached a critical point can choose to 'forget' some less important data? You know, the files of the era were not too trustworthy. A fire in your library and there went all your past records!
57. Anniversaries! My Emperor/King would like an event to celebrate his anniversary of assuming the Throne or Coming of Age, every 10-years or something. And perhaps during realm duress these celebrations are not able to occur? (Who has time for celebrations when fighting for survival!)
58. The game could start earlier than 1066. I know that some say that the earliest possible starting date is 1054, the date of the Orthodox-Catholic schism, because before that some serious game mechanics would need to change, so one could say that starting 12 years earlier (1066=>1054) would not make much of a change. However, contrary to popular belief, the schism only reached a critical point in 1054, because it officially started almost 50 years before: Various alterations in the liturgy which had appeared in Rome during that times (for example, the use of unleavened bread in mass, which started in the 9th century) complicated its relationship with the other 4 patriarchates of the Pentarchy (which after the fall of the other 3 Patriarchates to the 'heathens', had in effect become a Diarchy of Rome and Constantinople). However, when the Patriarch of Rome, Pope Sergius IV (1009-1012), added the 'filioque' clause in the Nicene Creed to the formal papers that announced his election to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Sergius II (1001-1019) deemed this act a direct violation of the Ecumenical Councils and severed communion with Rome (Schism of the two Sergiuses) because to change the Creed without an Ecumenical Council constituted heresy (as decreed the Councils themselves). Rome unilaterally adopted a practice which had spread in the West during these times, despite efforts of earlier Popes to thwart it (for example Pope Leo III (795-816) specifically forbad the addition of the 'filioque', and had the unaltered Nicene Creed engraved in silver tablets displayed over the tomb of Apostle Peter for all to see). So communion was severed in 1009 and thus begun the schism which solidified in 1054 by the exchange of anathemas. The game can start in 1009 without significant changes to its mechanics, offering 450 years of gameplay!
59. I read about the change that a Count of a province located, say, in France, but being under the King of England, would give resources to both the King of England and the King of France. This sounds good and I don't know how it will work in practice, but it should not limit the player. Some thoughts: If the King of France is a bitter enemy of me or I'm at war with him, could I order my vassal in France to sever all relations with the King of France? The vassal could accept, but the order could also backfire on me, with the vassal who may be alone surrounded by French territory deciding he'll became a vassal of France instead! Or perhaps if I inherit a province in France the province could give resources to the King of France, essentially still remaining part of his realm (as it should, see Item 25 above), but if I conquered that province and it is given to me by the peace treaty then it becomes mine and it gives nothing to the French King. I can't imagine a province of Byzantium conquered by the Seljuks to be allowed to still give resources to the Emperor of Byzantium. On the other hand, while the population of the province remained Greek and their religion Orthodox, they could be giving resources to Byzantium, even without the knowledge/approval of the Seljuks - but the moment the province converts to Islam and its culture changes from Greek to Turkish, all resources given to Byzantium should end.
60. I hear new succession laws will be implemented. Please include 'Agnatic Seniority'. According to wikipedia: "Agnatic seniority is a patrilineal principle of inheritance where the order of succession to the throne prefers the monarch's younger brother over the monarch's own sons. A monarch's children (the next generation) succeed only after the males of the elder generation have all been exhausted. Agnatic seniority essentially excludes females of the dynasty and their descendants from the succession. Contrast agnatic primogeniture, where the king's sons stand higher in succession than his brothers." It is still used today in Saudi Arabia and greatly diminishes the posibility of underage heirs. Since we use to marry our Kings when 16-years-old with 16-year-old brides and they breed heirs like rabbits, it would be interesting to see a succession going through the King's many brothers.
1. In CK1 I tried to name the provinces of Byzantium with their Greek names, but when I switched my keyboard to Greek characters I was typing gibberish in the provinces name fields (ie. western accented characters were displayed instead of the Greek letters). Can you please enable the use of a windows character font, like Times New Roman or (even better) Palatino Linotype (which includes Polytonic Greek Characters) so I am able to name my realms provinces/cities properly?
2. Please make sure you cannot marry your diocese bishop anymore -- or at least call him something like Religion Advisor (and not bishop) if he can be married. Or, if he decides to marry, he should be automatically defrocked and not be a bishop any more!
3. Why you call the Eastern Roman Empire "Byzantine Empire"? That name was never used by the Greek Romans. I think every kingdom uses its formal name except us! Greeks were calling themselves 'Romans' until the creation of the Greek state in 1833.
4. I hope a female ruler when played by the game's AI should be able to marry. In CK1 when I was giving a province to a lady, she always died unmarried.
5. Please make it possible for me to grant provinces from my demense to another King. Sometimes a vassal of mine may inherit, lets say, Essex. This is rather unhistorical and I want to be able to give Essex back to the King of England without having to go into the whole thing of appointing a vassal/pushing him to rebel/give him his independence, in order to get rid of the unhistorical province.
6. An idea would be to have double names coded for some provinces if they are conquered by Muslims. For example, if the Turks get Smyrna, its name could change automatically to Izmir. If the Greek Romans get the province back, its name could again become Smyrna.
7. What about religious minorities? A province cannot become Christian with a snap of your finger. What about a system where if, say, I conquer Aleppo (and the name changes to Beroea
I could have my hands in a situation of 25% Orthodox, 10% Monophysites and 65% Muslim? The longer it stays under my control and the more relevant actions I take, the longer the persentages go towards Orthodox, but strong religious minorities always caused trouble, so I shouldn't get rest in that province until the Orthodox percentage rises high. There could also be a slider on how much armed forces I keep ready in each province in order to have the infidels/heretics/non-nationals in check. If there is heavy army presence, they wouldn't dare to revolt, but my treasury/resources would be diminishing rapidly. As Emperor of Byzantium, if my country becomes large and powerful I could have the resources/armies to keep, let's say, Italy and Egypt under control, but not the whole Europe is can be done in CK1, ie this could be a way to keep in check the unrealistic possibility of conquering the whole world and keeping it under control easily, as can be done in CK1.[Clarification from later post: I'd also like to say that I mentioned the handling of the other-nationalities/other-religion provinces as a way to keep in check the size of a Kingdom. In CK1 it was possible to conquer the entire map. This shouldn't be possible here. It should be possible to have a very large kingdom/empire, but not all the map. And this should not be accomplished by a limit of the type "you cannot get more than 50 provinces" but the game could use mechanics that make the user feel that it's not worth the effort to keep such a large Kingdom, or at least slow down the time required to do such a thing. Having problems with large areas that are not your own religion is one way of doing that (diff/nationality but same religion and same nationality but diff/religion should give mild problems, but large areas of diff-nationality and diff-religion should require effort to keep in check). Then you'd have to wait for some to convert before you expand too much, or you'd be wasting your time keeping them, making you ask yourself 'is it worth it?']
8. Country awareness factor: My loyal vassal of Thessalonike should not suddenly declare war to Iceland. He shouldn't even be aware that Iceland exists! Also it should be very unlikely for him to declare war to a country in northern Russia or England, or to a country he'll have to cross half the map to attack! There should be some factor of how far a province is from another to be taken into account when the AI declares war. And on that note, I shouldn't be able to propose marriage for my son to some obscure maid in the court of the province of Oppland. In reality I could know there is a Kingdom of Sweden or Norway so I could propose to their Kings courts, but how could I know there's a province of Oppland up there?
9. Constantinople should start as a Huge Castle, because, well, it was the only city in 1066 that had a huge castle (not to mention the largest Cathedral=Hagia Sophia and a working Hippodrome)!
10. A vassal declares independence (because he is a heretic or whatever): In CK1 when I conquer him, I have 2 options: Either I let him be ruler (and since he is rebelious or heretic he'll revolt again) or I add his province to my demense and afterwards I can put someone from my court to rule it. There should be a 3rd option: I should be able to have the courtesy to force him to abdicate in favor of his son/brother/whoever is next in his line of succession, or just pick a person from his existing court and appoint him ruler of the province. This way there is a continuity in the province and its court, and the locals are happy that a fellow-townsman was appointed to rule them!
11. Bari and Lecce in southern Italy were still Byzantine in 1066, I hope you get it right this time! [This proposition is revoked! (see below posts)]
12. Edessa and Aintab were still Byzantine in 1066. The Duke of Edessa in 1066 was called Leon Arvantinos.
13. You could take into account that if the Byzantines conquered Rome, they would appoint an Orthodox 'Patriarch of Rome'.
14. When naming Greeks, you could take into account the Greek custom of giving to the firstborn son the name of his father's father and to the firstborn daughter the name of her father's mother.
15. In CK1 I took Mecca and nothing happened. If a Christian takes Mecca, some Muslim states should declare war on him.
16. If Russia is united when the Mongols appear, they get a province and just sit there. They should attack all neighbouring areas no matter what the army capabilities of the enemy. Even if the state controlling the Russian areas is strong, by the time it has gathered its armies the Mongols could have conquered a large area, and from then on it could be a very difficult and bloody war to drive them back. (Also at one time the randomly created Mongol Sultan was 12 years old, married and with children!)
17. The moment the Byzantine Emperor got married, his wife always converted to Orthodoxy and took a Greek name.
18. If I'm pius enough, I should be able to abdicate in favor of my son and become a monk! (But don't lose track of me when I become a monk! I was a Ruler, it should be known to the Kingdom when I die! -- and perhaps some rival brothers who were kept in check by their respect to their monk-father would have no reason any more not to revolt!).
19. Principality Mobilization: I should be able to ask a Prince to mobilize his army AND the army of his vassals, without having to resort to Grand Mobilization.
20. The Island you label Corfu is really Cephalonia. Perhaps you could add another island so we could have both Corfu and Cephalonia, the 2 most important Ionian Islands? Also, 'Corfu' is the island's Italian name. The Byzantines used the Greek name 'Cercyra'. BTW, a most important island missing in the Aegean Sea is 'Chios'. And 'Naxos' could be called 'Cyclades' and a few more islands added around it to show it is an island group.
21. I don't even want to get started on the problem of armies morale not properly saved in CK1! Perhaps savegames could be zipped so they don't take enormous space? Some of us keep a savegame for every five years of each game we play!
22. I hear there are thoughts of removing the political map view. Please don't. No matter how perfect is the geophysical map, there will always be the need to see the game map in political form, with different colors representing each country.
Here's hoping someone of the developers will read this!
Best Regards,
Dimitris
Addition: I decided to bring the points from later messages in this first message, so that everything appears together:
Re item 11 (Bari+Lecce), user galuska persuaded me that it is a bad idea, so I revoke it!
Re item 7, after the discussion on the matter in above posts, I agree that the game could keep track of only 2 religions per province to keep things simple, yet still more authentic than the current system where provinces convert overnight!
New items:
23. I've noted that the 'Heretic declares independence' event makes him independent but does not give you a claim in his titles. His case should not be different from the other vassals who declare their independence from you.
24. Please mention the name of provinces in their related events. Who became independent or declared war on me? With 'A Heretic declares independence' and 'One of your vassals became independent' we have to move around the political map to find out who he is (and if we only have a geophysical map, with a dot of color somewhere to denote allegiance, our eyes will pop-out before we find who he was). Plus, in the case of 'one of your vassals changed his laws to resemble yours', 'one of your vassals is happy from your wise rule' etc, one has to make a time-consuming search through stat screens if he wants to find out who the vassal is, so we don't search at all. It'd be good to know who he was, from that initial event message.
25. Case: I have a Swede in my court and I value his skills so I put him governor of Thessaly. If he is related to the King of Sweden and high in the succession line, I can suddenly find out that Thessaly, which is in the heart of my Kingdom, now belongs to Sweden! This is not possible. He inherits the throne in his far-away land? He thanks me, takes his gold and goes there, and I appoint another governor in the province. This only could happen if, let's say, he was a Bulgarian, and I appointed him to rule a province next to the Bulgarian Kingdom. And even then, our relations with the Kingdom of Bulgaria should take a bad turn, I should get a claim to that province which belonged to my country until a while ago, and perhaps he should get to make a choice if he would risk angering a powerful King by taking a province that he governed in that Kings realm and annexing it to the newly-inherited realm. He should consider that the other King may declare war to contest this action.
26. Rebellions in vassal provinces. Every now a then a rebellion pops-up which for some reason the ruling vassal hasn't the army strength to put down. You have to notice it and go help him, but shouldn't he ask for help from his liege? If he loses the fight with the rebels there should be an event like "My Lord! the Duke of whatever requests our help to extinguish the rebellion in his realm".
27. Also, the AI should know that in order to take back a single province that declared war on him but has just a 2000-soldier-army, the AI doesn't have to mobilize 30000 men from his 10-province demesne, gather it in his capital and then go back to the guilty province (instantly depleting his treasury for no reason). The AI should raise just enough armies from the closest demesne provinces and go straight to fight the minor enemy (except if the ruler is a fool? Or he could miscalculate and the army he sends the first time is not enough?). But even in a war with a neighboring Kingdom, shouldn't the AI understand that by gathering a single 30000 army he is going to be ruined by attrition? Perhaps it should have the good judgment to make 2 smaller armies, going for 2 or more objectives (ah, the challenge!). And also he should understand that when the attrition goes too far, he should remobilize the army from some provinces (after a year of war, he shouldn't still move around an army composed of 100-men regiments).
28. Now that I think of it, I enjoy playing on the 2D political map of CK1 more than on the 3D political or geophysical map of EU3. The 2D map of CK1 gives an atmospheric old-cartographer feel to the game, at least for me, and certainly would give a processor-speed boost to people using older computers. Why not offer the option of both 3D and 2D view?
29. The present history-keeping system of the game is problematic. A lot of useless items are kept in the History, making it difficult/not practical/time consuming to search for something important, and when you continue the game next day, all past history is lost. A propose to have 2 history records: One like the one we have detailing every obscure detail of the current game session you play, lost after you exit. But the other to be set in stone (ie included in the savegame): this should be the official history kept in your realm by your chroniclers, and should list the dates of significant events for your realm and your own person like those you would read in a history book: when the Kingdom took or lost a province, when the Kingdom fought a major war with another Kingdom and won/lost, when an alliance with another major nation was formed/disolved, dates of major law changes, the dates of your predecessor Kings deaths (or if you are a vassal, your predecessors death dates and your liege Kings death dates/including mention of liege King dynasty changes), your birthday (a public holiday in the Kingdom!!) and the birthdays of your children (and if you die and your son succeeds you, your birthday and his brothers birthdays removed from the official chronicle, and the new King's birthday and his children birthdays added!). The details on birthdays are saved by the game anyways.
30. About the discussion on how a child changes nationality: There could be a hidden percentage!! Both parents French, but born in England? 10% English. Father English, mother French, born in France? 30% French. These percentages to change with your marriage choices and a random factor, and so each successive generation that stays in the same foreign country is going to have more probability to be assimilated into the culture of that country. In real-life-cases of people living in foreign countries we see things like: 1st generation speaks home language, 2nd generation speaks the home language but not well, 3rd generation does not speak the home language but still they identify themselves as descending from their home country -- but from there on things get vague...
31. Regent Dynamics! You die and your child/heir is underage. Who will become regent? He who has the greatest prestige in your court? And is he a relative? Is he treacherous? Could he be the first adult relative in the line of succession, no matter if he is a vassal? Could he try to put aside the legal underage heir(s) and assume the throne? Could he try as regent to place himself higher (or 2nd) in the succession line? Can he stage a coup and massacre/expel all minor heirs? Perhaps the prestige/character-traits of the dead King is a factor on how favorably the court sees the underage successor? The Kingdom's advisors leave room for the Regent to manoeuvre in unethical directions? And if the regent takes the throne and he is a relative (a cousin/uncle etc of the late underage King) the game can continue, but if not...
32. The game ends on Dynasty change. OK. BUT, why shouldn't I have an option to continue with the new dynasty ruler as a new game? "Game Over. Continue with the new Dynasty (Y/N)"! I start the game with Byzantium in 1066 with the Ducas Dynasty. Then in 1075 Romanos Diogenis (2nd in succession line) succeeds. My game with the Ducas is over. Can I continue/start to rule the Byzantium with Diogenis in 1075 -- and treat it like I start a new game, without starting a completely new game!
33. There's elective law and the next in line is not of the ruling King's Dynasty so when the King dies the game ends. BUT, I had during my reign appointed as vassals my 2 sons, my brother and my uncle. So my dynasty remains strong within the Kingdom. Why you don't give me the option to continue as one of them? (Which one? Could be determined by the game or you could let me choose!). I mean, if I'm the Prince of Athens and I overthrow the Emperor, I continue the game as Emperor. If I'm the Emperor and I lose the throne to a non-relative but my son is the Prince of Athens, why shouldn't I continue the game as Prince of Athens?
34. It is 1453, the game ends, the winner is declared, the stats are displayed, but, why not give an option "Continue (Y/N)"? Some of us would like to continue play for some years (or centuries ) after 1453 just for the fun of it! Why not leave us a small window to do it, even informally (via a command in the command console window)?
35. "Salic Consanguinity Law of Succession: The successors are chosen based on their strength, which is calculated amongst heirs of the same relation to the present ruler through tier, prestige, martial ability and number of vassals." Hmm, yes, but in reality how can someone determine which one is the 'strongest'? Real people don't have stats you could check and each man's abilities are interpreted/valued differently by different persons. Shouldn't the ruling King have his say? Couldn't he say "this is my favourite son"? Maybe, as a King, I value 'diplomacy' and want the son who has the highest diplomatic skill to succeed me and not the one who has the highest military skill (and I'm talking about cases were all sons have equal titles or no title at all). Or maybe the 'strongest' son has 5 daughters and I want a weaker son to succeed me because he has 5 sons. Or the 'stronger' son has his mother's nationality and I want my successor to be of my own nationality. In "The Lion in Winter" Henry II of England called all his sons to his castle in order to judge them and determine who is the most worthy to succeed him! The game could allow the King to christen one of his sons as his successor if Salic Consanguinity Law is in effect. This could be addressed directly (by giving us a clear relevant option) or indirectly (for example, if all of my sons are in my court so no-one of them has a title, appointing one of them as my advisor could place him in front of the others in the line of succession, except if there's something seriously wrong with him).
36. World Conquest Case: As the Emperor of Byzantium (with or without DV), I was able to conquer the whole world and keep it unified to the point that I got bored and started a new game. Whenever a Duke rebelled I got his provinces to be my vassals, so if he rebeled again, it was only 1-2 provinces rebelling and by clicking on his neighbors they were conquering him immediately. I was selecting the brides with the highest stats as my wives and my Emperors had always very high stats, to the point that I could ride a realm duress without sweat. In fact, the realm duress was the shakedown event that limited all trigger-happy Dukes (or Princes in my case) to 1 province and was giving me thousands of prestige by knowing how to handle the rebellers' claims in the peace screen. As for badboy points, every time I conquered an infidel I got a claim on an european province before accepting peace with the infidel and leaving him in control of his province (thus the goodboy/badboy points cancelled themselves out). So by the time my borders reached my next target, for example, France, I had claims on all her King's lands and titles, plus on all the Counts in the provinces bordering my Realm plus some seaside ones, and when accepting peace with each Count and allowing him to become my vassal, at the same time I was geting claims in the next row of Counts to the point that I conquered the whole France in a single campain (as by that point my realm had 5 times the army capability of France). By the time I had finished with France, I had claims in all provinces of the British islands, etc. etc. and voila: world conquest in less than 100 years. And I did it in every scenario, even the one that starts in 1337 with Byzantium holding a handful of provinces (and I have the savegames to prove it). Why I was able to do it?
This makes me think that a 'failsafe' event could be put in for the game to get 'revenge' (ho, ho) from any player who goes for WC. Imagine the moment you conquer the last province in the map, five random Kingdoms (whole Kingdoms) declare their independence simultaneously ("My lord, the Kingdoms of France, Russia, Persia, Hungary and Africa just declared their independence! Shock! Horror!"). That would show you who's boss in the game!!!
37. It was very easy for me to lose track of time in fullscreen mode of CQ1. I sat for a session planning to finish at midnight, but the next time I looked at my watch it was 02:00 AM!! If it was possible to include an option to display a real time clock in the menu bar, I'd be much obliged.
Some new items I thought after 'playtesting' CK1 again:
38. I missed not having a 'nationalities map' (functioning in the way the 'religions map' functions). Please add one! By the way, I've seen this political map preview and it looks great! I hope it stays in the game:
39. I've also seen this map in a preview:
Lots of nice details, however I see an effort to use the Greek 'tou' in place of the English "of". This doesn't take into account that Greek city names can be male. female or neutral. So, we have the male city 'Galatas', where 'Kleopas tou Galata' is correct (male Galatas loses the 's' in the genitive). However, we have the female city 'Edessa' and the correct form would be 'Arsenios tis Edessas' (female Edessa gains an 's' in the genitive, and the female form of 'tou' is 'tis'). As it is seen in the pic 'Arsenios tou Edessa' is wrong; better to leave it 'Arsenios of Edessa'.
40. Sometimes when you declare war to a breakaway province, your ally declares war also. You conquer the province, but you select to just make the breakaway province your vassal again. Although after you made peace with him he is now part of your realm, your ally is still at war with him and can conquer him and make him part of his demense! This is wrong; your ally should quit the fight the moment the province becomed yours.
41. When I grant to my brother a kingdom title, thus creating a new Kingdom next to mine, I want to be able to relinquish all claims I have for provinces of his Kingdom. The game doesn't give me this option, and this can lead to wars. Can we have an option to relinquish our claims please?
42. When I grant a title to a fellow who has zero loyalty to me in my court, he begins ruling his new land with zero loyalty to me and I have to send him some gold right away or he may rebel. His loyalty should rise the moment I grant him the title.
Yet some more new additions:
43. I've tried playing 2 kingdoms using the same savegame (by changing from one kingdom to the other every now and then) and saw that the game AI select advisors solely based on who has the higher skill, without checking for advisor loyalty. He could make a check (at least if the ruler has some skills) for loyalty before deciding to appoint his advisors.
44. Instant Character Bios! A nice touch would be to display bios of important characters! A clever script can create a cool bio from the data saved about each character. An example: (I put in [brackets] information not stored in CK1 that could possibly be stored in CK2):
Alexios Ducas, born 1150 in Constantinople, the 3rd son of Emperor of Byzantium Philippos Ducas and Aikaterini Skleros. He had a slight lisp problem since birth. [He spend his youth as fosterling in the county of Abydos] and received a military education, after which he was hailed as a Brilliant Strategist. [In 1167] he married Theodore Gavras, daughter of Prince of Trapezous Arsenios Gavras. [In the same year] he was appointed by his father Count of Thessaloniki and [in 1169] Prince of Thessaloniki. After his father's assassination / death by the plague / death by natural causes / death in battle / etc. in 1175, he succeeded him in the throne as Emperor of Byzantium, bypassing his elder brothers due to the Empire's Salic Consanguinity law. During his reign [if item 29 about official Kingdom history is implemented, here could be listed the noteworthy events that happened during his reign]. After the death of his wife in 1180 from natural causes, he married Anna Palaiologos, daughter of the Duke of Athens. He has 3 children by his first wife: Crown Prince Dimitrios (born 1170, appointed Count of Kaisaria in 1186), Prince Athanasios (born 1172, currently serving as Chancellor of the Empire), Princess Angeliki (born 1174) and 1 child by his 2nd wife, Prince Theophylaktos (born 1182). [He has survived 2 assassination attempts to date.] //The game could change the last part after his death to: He had 3 children by his 1st wife and 2 children by his 2nd wife. [After surviving 3 assassination attempts] he was eventually assassinated in 1190 and was succeeded by his son Dimitrios, Duke of Kaisaria.)
You could rely on saved data to present instant bios on every character in the game, but you could also save some more details for any character who held the title of King/Emperor during his life in order for the lives of fictional Kings to be presented in more detail.
45. Resolving disputes between your Dukes and your Counts: We learn of problems between a Duke and his Count vassal when the Count suddenly declares war on him. However, before that extreme point is reached, and since we are the King of the realm, the Count could approach us which his grievance against his Duke and ask us to mediate. If the problem is unsolvable, we could decide to take the Count from the Duke's vassalage and make him our direct vassal until the death of either the Count or the Duke, after which the province will go back to being the Duke's vassal. (This also happened with grievances between a Bishop and his Metropolitan, with the Patriarch making the Bishop 'Archbishop' for a while, directly answerable to the Patriarch).
46. We must be able to break our Alliance with another nation. If their Ruler receives the Kinslayer or Heretic trait or amasses negative prestige points, would we want to be still allied with such a person? And if he starts a war and we choose not to participate, the alliance could be automatically dissolved. Also, if I get the Kinslayer or Heretic trait or have large infamy or realm duress, my ally could choose to terminate our alliance.
47. Sometimes someone wants to be my vassal and I do not want him to become my vassal, perhaps after he asks me 3 times in a row, and I continue to refuse, I can say to him 'I don't want you to become my vassal' for him to leave me alone?
48. I have perfect relations with the huge Kingdom of Russia. Then suddenly a vassal of mine, because he has some claim, stupidly decides to start a war with Russia. Can I say to the Russian King, don't worry, I'll deal with the troublesome vassal, it's my internal affair, and go punish the fellow and force him to revoke his declaration of war or even force him to let go of his claim?
49. The present event dialog that offers you to make peace with the 'heathens' is largely unusable because if you make peace through the dialog, any of your vassals who were at war with this Heathen remains at war with him. Pls make sure the peace through this dialog is handled like making peace through the normal game options.
50. Any character who dies while fighting Muslim/Pagan armies can receive a 'Martyr' trait and 1000 piety bonus points. If a character has a 'martyr' trait, it could be easier to declare him a 'Saint' afterwards!
51. Can I be able to organize and send a diplomatic mission to a foreign ruler bearing expensive gifts and negotiate a mutual renouncement of our claims against each other (including claims of our vassals?) even exchanging a province or two, to make a significant improvement in our relations and avert a future war? Perhaps I could even choose who will head this diplomatic mission, affecting the chances of success/failure!
52. I have a small state next to me who I outnumber 10 to 1 in army power. I offer him vassalisation and he stubbornly refuses repeatedly. Then I have to declare war to him in order to annex his state. - But can there be another step in-between? Can I DEMAND his vassalisation? This would mean that I'm giving him an ultimatum that I'll use force against him and make him think twice before refusing my 'generous' offer.
53. On that note, can we present ultimatums to other powers? The Sultan of the Seljuks could come to me and say 'surrender some provinces of Asia Minor to me or I'll declare war on you', before actually declares war on me. I could say to the King of Croatia, give me this province or I'll declare war to you, etc.
54. I hear about filters being implemented to help us choose brides. I'd like to request a filter that lets me choose from daughters of Reigning Kings, or Reigning Dukes, or Reigning Counts, or from all 3 of these categories together.
55. Some islands in the new map are divided by a nice curved authentic-looking border (ie Crete). Others are divided by a single random arbitrary-looking straight line (ie Cyprus). Cosmetic correction please!
56. When I play CK1 from 1066 and I reach the 1400s the game-engine bends on its knees by the mass of accumulated data. For example when I visit the Bride-Selection screen or Our-Dynasty screen the delay is noticeable and sometimes the game even crashes! Can there be a safety device where the game after seeing that the accumulated data reached a critical point can choose to 'forget' some less important data? You know, the files of the era were not too trustworthy. A fire in your library and there went all your past records!
57. Anniversaries! My Emperor/King would like an event to celebrate his anniversary of assuming the Throne or Coming of Age, every 10-years or something. And perhaps during realm duress these celebrations are not able to occur? (Who has time for celebrations when fighting for survival!)
58. The game could start earlier than 1066. I know that some say that the earliest possible starting date is 1054, the date of the Orthodox-Catholic schism, because before that some serious game mechanics would need to change, so one could say that starting 12 years earlier (1066=>1054) would not make much of a change. However, contrary to popular belief, the schism only reached a critical point in 1054, because it officially started almost 50 years before: Various alterations in the liturgy which had appeared in Rome during that times (for example, the use of unleavened bread in mass, which started in the 9th century) complicated its relationship with the other 4 patriarchates of the Pentarchy (which after the fall of the other 3 Patriarchates to the 'heathens', had in effect become a Diarchy of Rome and Constantinople). However, when the Patriarch of Rome, Pope Sergius IV (1009-1012), added the 'filioque' clause in the Nicene Creed to the formal papers that announced his election to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Sergius II (1001-1019) deemed this act a direct violation of the Ecumenical Councils and severed communion with Rome (Schism of the two Sergiuses) because to change the Creed without an Ecumenical Council constituted heresy (as decreed the Councils themselves). Rome unilaterally adopted a practice which had spread in the West during these times, despite efforts of earlier Popes to thwart it (for example Pope Leo III (795-816) specifically forbad the addition of the 'filioque', and had the unaltered Nicene Creed engraved in silver tablets displayed over the tomb of Apostle Peter for all to see). So communion was severed in 1009 and thus begun the schism which solidified in 1054 by the exchange of anathemas. The game can start in 1009 without significant changes to its mechanics, offering 450 years of gameplay!
59. I read about the change that a Count of a province located, say, in France, but being under the King of England, would give resources to both the King of England and the King of France. This sounds good and I don't know how it will work in practice, but it should not limit the player. Some thoughts: If the King of France is a bitter enemy of me or I'm at war with him, could I order my vassal in France to sever all relations with the King of France? The vassal could accept, but the order could also backfire on me, with the vassal who may be alone surrounded by French territory deciding he'll became a vassal of France instead! Or perhaps if I inherit a province in France the province could give resources to the King of France, essentially still remaining part of his realm (as it should, see Item 25 above), but if I conquered that province and it is given to me by the peace treaty then it becomes mine and it gives nothing to the French King. I can't imagine a province of Byzantium conquered by the Seljuks to be allowed to still give resources to the Emperor of Byzantium. On the other hand, while the population of the province remained Greek and their religion Orthodox, they could be giving resources to Byzantium, even without the knowledge/approval of the Seljuks - but the moment the province converts to Islam and its culture changes from Greek to Turkish, all resources given to Byzantium should end.
60. I hear new succession laws will be implemented. Please include 'Agnatic Seniority'. According to wikipedia: "Agnatic seniority is a patrilineal principle of inheritance where the order of succession to the throne prefers the monarch's younger brother over the monarch's own sons. A monarch's children (the next generation) succeed only after the males of the elder generation have all been exhausted. Agnatic seniority essentially excludes females of the dynasty and their descendants from the succession. Contrast agnatic primogeniture, where the king's sons stand higher in succession than his brothers." It is still used today in Saudi Arabia and greatly diminishes the posibility of underage heirs. Since we use to marry our Kings when 16-years-old with 16-year-old brides and they breed heirs like rabbits, it would be interesting to see a succession going through the King's many brothers.
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