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Originally posted by Sonny
The Hanseatic league won't be playable - they are a merchant state/entity.
Perhaps but that doesn´t mean they shouldn´t be in the game. Merchant cities played important roles as creditors to kings.
Just because you wouldn't play the Hansa, wouldn't mean you couldn't be instrumental in creating them
O.
O.
The Hansa was not just a merchant league, it had a large political influence and power in Northern Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic area. Not including them would be a mistake.
I think I will make this a more confrontation thread.
Except for Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Köln, Nürnberg and Augsburg the Freie Reichsstädte were totally unimportant. The six purchased their liberties from the Emperor. Their continued existence until 1806 is in fact one of the many indicators of the strength of the Imperial institutions.
More to the point they only emerged as independent political actors in the 14th Century. Of the 3000 - yes three thousand - cities that claimed immediacy under the Emperor at some point in time only about 40 achieved this status after 1495. Most of them were Swabian market towns you will not find on any ordinary map of Germany (Try locating Weil der Stadt).
Except for Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Köln, Nürnberg and Augsburg the Freie Reichsstädte were totally unimportant. The six purchased their liberties from the Emperor. Their continued existence until 1806 is in fact one of the many indicators of the strength of the Imperial institutions.
More to the point they only emerged as independent political actors in the 14th Century. Of the 3000 - yes three thousand - cities that claimed immediacy under the Emperor at some point in time only about 40 achieved this status after 1495. Most of them were Swabian market towns you will not find on any ordinary map of Germany (Try locating Weil der Stadt).
The Hanseatic League is neither a monarchy nor a principality, rather a confederal entity. Therefore it is not not playable as a "playable country" as any Republic.
Drakken
Drakken
Completely true, and I hadn't expect that. What I wanted to know, is the Hansa goint to be simulated in a special way, so it can have the influence it had in real life.
I read from the blurb that the relationship between the player and the towns, ie the burghers, will be simulated in the game.
How to treat the cities will depend on the map scale. If the cities are territorially defined as "provinces" they can be playable. The cities, however, did not have a relationship to the territooial princes that was different from that of the nobility or the church.
There are three distinct classes of Imperial cities:
- episcopal cities such as Köln where the alliance of Catherdral chapter and City council managed to oust the bishop as immediate city lord;
- imperial palaces, such as Frankfurt, where the City council bought most of the immediate rights of Lordship from the Emperor (in particular during the reign of Charles IV) or where the City council managed to defend the immediate status under the emperor against the local princes, e.g. Goslar or Nordhausen;
- Salian/Stauffer/Swabian Welf 11th Century foundations in Swabia and Alsace that became masterless after the extinction of the Stauffer and remained independent because there were no strong princes in the region,e.g. Ravensburg, Lindau, Nördlingen.
Vey few of these towns were of any political significance.
The importance of the Hanse in Scandinavian politics in the 14th and 15th Century is due to the underdeveloped state of the Scandinavian polities at the time, not the strength of the North German trading cities. And the reason these cities were able to play any independent political role at all is due to the collapse of strong princely power in North Germany after the fall of Henry the Lion in 1180. There is thus no prima facie reason to allow Lübeck or Hamburg any role different from that of London andd Paris.
Given that the territorial structure of Germany was completely transformed bewteen 1066 and 1419 due to internal colonization, founcdng of cities and the emergence of territroial principalities in the 14th Century I await the CK map with some apprehension.
How to treat the cities will depend on the map scale. If the cities are territorially defined as "provinces" they can be playable. The cities, however, did not have a relationship to the territooial princes that was different from that of the nobility or the church.
There are three distinct classes of Imperial cities:
- episcopal cities such as Köln where the alliance of Catherdral chapter and City council managed to oust the bishop as immediate city lord;
- imperial palaces, such as Frankfurt, where the City council bought most of the immediate rights of Lordship from the Emperor (in particular during the reign of Charles IV) or where the City council managed to defend the immediate status under the emperor against the local princes, e.g. Goslar or Nordhausen;
- Salian/Stauffer/Swabian Welf 11th Century foundations in Swabia and Alsace that became masterless after the extinction of the Stauffer and remained independent because there were no strong princes in the region,e.g. Ravensburg, Lindau, Nördlingen.
Vey few of these towns were of any political significance.
The importance of the Hanse in Scandinavian politics in the 14th and 15th Century is due to the underdeveloped state of the Scandinavian polities at the time, not the strength of the North German trading cities. And the reason these cities were able to play any independent political role at all is due to the collapse of strong princely power in North Germany after the fall of Henry the Lion in 1180. There is thus no prima facie reason to allow Lübeck or Hamburg any role different from that of London andd Paris.
Given that the territorial structure of Germany was completely transformed bewteen 1066 and 1419 due to internal colonization, founcdng of cities and the emergence of territroial principalities in the 14th Century I await the CK map with some apprehension.
According to the preview they are in the game but like Venice and Genoa they are not playable. Don't know how they will be implemented but they are not playable.
The Schwäbische Bund and other city leagues were of political importance, not just the Lombardian and Hanseatic Leagues.
The Swabians were trounced by Württemberg at Döffingen in 1388.
The problem for the cities was that they needed a strong emperor interested in retaining a territroial power base outside the phere of his immediatre Hausmacht. When Charles IV after 1358 decided to go for dynastic power instead of imperial power and leave the rest of the Empire to the princes the majority of the cities didn't stand a chance.
But the main point is that the territorial fragmentation of Germany was an effect of the collapse of Stauffer power in 1254, not the cause.
I don't know how Paradox will simulate this.
Maybe, if HRE pick dynasty power rather than Imperial then CK should have event that stimulate the real history but if pick the Imperial power, maybe nothing should be changed. It should depends on the strength of princes and the cities.
perhaps we are asking for too much here, i mean it would be impossible to make things in the game exactly as they were, for the byzantine empire for example there will possibly be themata (provinces with guards=tagmata) but not akrites (common people fighting in the borders of the empire to defend it against invasion, and for that being given land) and sadly i dont even see the byzantine political system (the two political parties, the venetoi=blue and the prasinoi=green) being depicted at all in the game.
Still i wish more can be depicted
Still i wish more can be depicted