The problem with cities (and how to fix it)

[Preuße]

I never liked the city holding type either.
What are castles and temples supposed to be? Just a lonely castle, a lonely temple and no city, town or village attached or rather around them? Usually there are settlements very close by bc a castle provides protection, a temple provides a place of worship etc. But then we have the city holding type and it provides what? Living space? There's no population system in ck2 or 3, sadly, which could give meaning to city holdings e.g. to boost your overall population and thus increasing your overall levy size.
Point tho is that settlements (cities, towns etc.) should already be present in every holding type bc people are going to live there no matter what. The city holding type should be replaced by something else and I would agree that a market holding type would make sense since it would be a holding type that provides an economy.
Sure, a city can do that too but how did that city came into existence in the first place? There had to be something that would draw people to the place, more and more over time, and the place grew eventually into a city.
That is something that bothers me in ck2 too btw. There's no development of the holding types, they are just static and never change, neither grow or decline, and somehow in almost all counties you have "cities". You don't have a simple settlement, a village, a town or so, no, you have cities everywhere. Nothing grows, nothing declines tho and it's boring, not immersive and sucks from a roleplay point of view, well at least for me.
Same thing with castles and temples btw. There are no forts, keeps, fortresses etc. or chapels, cathedrals and so on. When you build a new holding, you create a holding in a state that would have taken a long time to develop into that state usually. Ofc it wouldn't make sense to wait that long in the game for a holding to grow, the growing would need to be sped up.

Anyway, it would be really nice if holdings, holding types would get a revamp. I'm not asking for a highly complex new system, it should still be a simple one but it would be amazing if growth and decline would be visible and noticable. The prosperity system in ck2 isn't good enough to represent that kind of growth and decline. I would also love to see more holding types like farms, mines, trade posts, camps, guard towers etc., small things, you know? And no, they don't have to be playable. I mean they wouldn't be anyway since they should be at most barony level imo but could still develop into something bigger if certain criterias would be met that help development of the place.

The current holding type system isn't very diverse and is very static. It's not interesting, not engaging, not challenging, not immersive etc. =(

I wish they would make holdings/holding types way more modable in ck3, like making it possible to add new holding types for example but I doubt that will ever happen. We get fancy and really amazing new character "portraits" & other cool stuff but are left with the same holdings system, with 3 static holding types. FeelsBadMan

 

[Silas1775]

I never liked the city holding type either.
What are castles and temples supposed to be? Just a lonely castle, a lonely temple and no city, town or village attached or rather around them? Usually there are settlements very close by bc a castle provides protection, a temple provides a place of worship etc.

There are options(Castle Town, etc.) to expand the communities directly surrounding a castle or church in CK2 already.

 

[Preuße]

There are options(Castle Town, etc.) to expand the communities directly surrounding a castle or church in CK2 already.

Those are nothing but modifiers. I'm talking about something else

 

[Princess Stabbity]

I really do love the idea of cities being something that the holdings in a county province form together, rather than being this weirdly isolated entity that... doesn't even look that good on the map.

I imagine having markets take cities' place on the barony level, and instead representing proper cities county-wide would also make it easier to bring visible urban sprawl back! As it is, from the screenshots we've seen so far, huge cities like Constantinople are depicted by a... tiny walled structure reminiscent of Civilization V barbarian camps, with Hagia Sophia just sitting outside as if someone just decided to build an architectural masterpiece in a desolate middle of nowhere... >.>

BUT If city sprawl could make a return in a way that transcended barony borders, it would not only dodge all of the issues of increased granularity but also serve as a clear indication of how well developed a given county is! One could take one look at Baghdad or Constantinople and instantly see where their holder realm's wealth and population are concentrated.

And as an added bonus, it might also make the increased granulation of Tibet a lot less weird! Under the current system, it will be possible to fill that barely inhabited to this day land with a density of urban infrastructure comparable to modern mainland China. However, if "cities" were markets instead, it would seem slightly more plausible. And with urbanisation being the consequence of development (rather than its cause), those low-population areas would stay sparsely urbanised unless an enterprising ruler were to heavily invest into their colonisation.

So... Yes! I admit I was a bit indifferent to this idea at first, nomenclature in regards to gamey game mechanics is such a petty issue, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with the OP. Ultimately I feel replacing cities with commercial outposts and instead elevating cities to a representation of development would fix more issues than it could potentially create, both mechanically and in the making-sense department.

 

[Pbhuh]

My problem wirh holdings is just that they are made to be held by one government type.

Nobles, Burghers and Clergy.
Castles, Cities and Temples

But it feels weird. I would like it if it was just cities.

The idea that a leader of a prince bishopric wouldn't live in a city, but a random church with some houses around it instead of a city is just silly.

Castles were at times seperate, but many cities also grew around important Castles.

If they do wanna differentiate they should do it based on actual types of things.

Fortified towns, higher defense, less income
Merchant towns, higher income, less defense
Monasteries, unique religious holding.
Maybe Castles, living places of some rulers, maybe some defensive structure.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

A "market" could be granted to any settlement - whether a significant village, the settlement surrounding a castle, or to a monastery.

 

[Lordy's]

I also never really understood the strict separation of holding types. The holding type should rather be determinted by its ruler. So a settlement with a mayor is a city, the same one ruled by a bishop is a bishopric. If the city is ruled by a feudal ruler, emphasis is put on its fortification and its a castle with a settlement.
Some time ago I sketched how one could merge all holding types into a single one:

Interestingly, I recently had a similar idea.But instead of diversifying the holdings into many different types, I imagined them having one primary holding type, while still having "subholdings" of other types. These subholdings are not held by characters, but merely represent f.e. the town next to the castle and are controlled by the holder of the holding. Then, each holding has the same building options (regardless of type), but depending on your holding type, you get a malus to holdings of other types (encouraging you to use castle buildings for a castle). Furthermore, each subholding category has a "tier" (depending on amount of buildings of this type), and having a subholding which is not of your holding type have a higher tier than your primary subholding will decrease its efficiency. That means that when you have a castle but only build city buildings, it will be very inefficient and you should rather give it to a mayor. The idea behind this is that if, say the barony of london has a very powerful city but only a small castle, the citizens of the city will not take the feudal ruler seriously and do as they please, with the feudal holder having little actual control and gaining less taxes. So the feudal ruler could build an impressive castle to make the burghers realize who's in charge.

You can of course switch the holding type at any point (just empowering the burghers for example) but then wrong holding type penalty will apply and you need to give it to another character of that appropriate type.

I even have a little visualization of the holding overview.

I still like that approach although I think I'd add another set of buildings that represent the rural development. With that system you can dynamically create all these holding types and all sorts of holding types between them:

• Castle: Feudal + Rural
• Castle Town: Feudal + City
• Monastery: Temple + Rural
• Town: City
• Settlements: Rural
• Bishopric: City + Temple
• Metropolis (like Constantinople): Kind of all of them

Also, the history of a holding could matter a lot with this setup. If the holding is ruled by bishops for a century, they'll build a lot of church infrastructure, maybe a large church and also build up the town (although they focus on church buildings). When the patricians of the city then decide to throw out the bishop or the liege enforces secularization and the city elects a mayor, they of course won't tear down the cathedral but keep it. However they will now spend more money on large market halls and a bigger port.
I really like that this could give holdings some kind of personality over the course of the game. You too?

 

[SMiki Lorebringer]

I still like that approach although I think I'd add another set of buildings that represent the rural development.

Generally your idea is great, but "rural development" is rather redundant; practically every single important castle, monastery, or city had settlements around it.

 

[Lordy's]

Generally your idea is great, but "rural development" is rather redundant; practically every single important castle, monastery, or city had settlements around it.

True, that could also be represented by the development level, since it's unlikely that the ruler is going to invest into farms and mills...

 

[Chlodio]

I thought it was odd that cities and bishoprics were always subject to the county. If I'm not mistaken, the whole point of a city charter was to give a settlement the freedom to elect their own leaders, but also to give it immediacy so it would exist outside of baronies and only answer to the monarch, not to a lord who owned all manors around it.
Meanwhile, bishops were subject to archbishops, who were subject to the pope. It's also ridiculous bishops are considered equivalent to barons, when they should have been comital.

 

[SMiki Lorebringer]

I thought it was odd that cities and bishoprics were always subject to the county. If I'm not mistaken, the whole point of a city charter was to give a settlement the freedom to elect their own leaders, but also to give it immediacy so it would exist outside of baronies and only answer to the monarch, not to a lord who owned all manors around it.
Meanwhile, bishops were subject to archbishops, who were subject to the pope. It's also ridiculous bishops are considered equivalent to barons, when they should have been comital.

Yeah, CK3's design of having all holdings in the county responding only to the county owner isn't very realistic. Maybe they'll remove this restriction in future DLC/patch.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I thought it was odd that cities and bishoprics were always subject to the county. If I'm not mistaken, the whole point of a city charter was to give a settlement the freedom to elect their own leaders, but also to give it immediacy so it would exist outside of baronies and only answer to the monarch, not to a lord who owned all manors around it.
Meanwhile, bishops were subject to archbishops, who were subject to the pope. It's also ridiculous bishops are considered equivalent to barons, when they should have been comital.

Not always.
Some city charters were issued by the local lords, to recognise that the cities were free, not feudal, or to grant/recognise specific freedoms.

A given bishop *might* have temporal influence similar to a "baron" (although this is a title that is misused in and of itself), or they might have influence at almost regal level (Prince-Bishop of Durham, who had more legal authority in his lands than the king himself, and was more temporally powerful than his ecclesiastic superiors the Archbishops of York and of Canterbury).
A comital level bishop could be represented in CK2 by a bishop who holds a county, although I understand this will work differently in CK3.

 

[Chlodio]

Some city charters were issued by the local lords, to recognise that the cities were free, not feudal, or to grant/recognise specific freedoms.

In Scotland, there were royal burghs and burghs of the barony. Burgs of barony were subject to tenant-in-chief, but they were still given the charter by the monarch, but not by local lord themselves. I don't see any evidence for towns given freedom by local lords. Also, burghs of the barony only appeared in 1450s.

A comital level bishop could be represented in CK2 by a bishop who holds a county, although I understand this will work differently in CK3.

If anything, there should be a temporal system that would go exist with the secular governor. Each county should have a secular governor and a temporal governor; the temporal governor wouldn't be able to raise armies, but would still collect taxes. When the temporal governor is also given the secular governor, they become prince-bishops. So, even if there would be no prince-bishops, the bishops would still be fairly powerful considering they collect a tithe from every parishioner.

 

[Hroppa]

Returning to the core suggestion, I like it. 'Markets' could be tied into a future trade system - I understand that monarchs did quite deliberately site markets in places which let them better control (and tax) the flow of trade.

Is it still appropriate to call baron-level-rulers of markets 'mayors'? Is there a politically relevant category of trading burghers, or market officials, that could be included here? Maybe guildmasters?

(CK's design focus on noble families does tend to make representing other powerful groups - church, merchants, imperial officials - tricky, in general.)

 

[klopkr]

I want to see markets as an economic block and I want to see them gain purpose instead of useless weird baronies.

If markets replaced cities they could form trade links to other local cities and link up to greater networks like the silk road. Cities that have a lot of trade going between them might increase movement speed and supply for armies traveling between those two cities.