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CK2 Dev Diary #103 - Long live the King!

Greetings.

Today we will put Pagans aside, go back to good old Catholics, and explore one of the new features coming for them with Holy Fury: Coronation Ceremonies.

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With this expansion, succeeding to the throne of a Catholic Kingdom or Empire will not be a simple matter of gaining the title itself. The new ruler will need to organize a Coronation Ceremony (via new intrigue decision) and be recognized as legitimate by a notable member of the Catholic Church.
If a Catholic ruler fails to be officially crowned, he will see his popularity slowly fade away each year, as his vassals grow more and more restless under what they perceive as an illegitimate King.

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Coronation is divided into two phases: preparation and ceremony.
During the preparation, the ruler will decide whom he wishes to be crowned by, he will meet the Church’s demands, and invest money to organize the ceremony. In the second phase, the ruler will host the ceremony itself, interacting with guests and ultimately receiving his crown.

When organizing a ceremony, a Catholic King can choose between three possible options when it comes to officiant priests: he can be crowned by a low-status theocratic vassal within his realm, by a powerful theocratic vassal within his realm (such as a Cardinal, Antipope or Prince-Bishop), or by the Pope himself. Catholic Emperors who fail to enact the Free Investiture succession on the other hand will be limited in their selection only to the Pope.
While being crowned by a local Bishop is a lot less prestigious, it is also much cheaper, as higher-ranking members of the Church will be prone to make outlandish requests, especially if they dislike the ruler requesting them to officiate his coronation.

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Requests may vary a lot, especially when it comes to the Pope: the Holy Father might ask you to change your realm’s Investiture laws, wage war against an Excommunicated ruler on behalf of the Papacy, or to restore some of the Central Italian provinces to the Holy See.
Be sure to be in good relations with the Pope before asking for a coronation if you wish to receive a more tolerable offer.

Once the demands of your chosen priest have been met, you will be able to select a budget for your ceremony which will determine the kind of coronation you will receive, the kind of flavor events tied to it and the number of guests participating in it.
An extravagant coronation is a prestigious event to which all your vassals, courtiers and even neighboring Christian rulers are invited, a secluded coronation is a private feast to which only your Council will have access to.

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Once the ceremony has been concluded, your character will receive a specific trait tied to the priest that crowned him, as well as retain any additional perks granted by the flavor events experienced during the feast leading up to the coronation.

You might have noticed from the screenshots that this new mechanic affects character portraits as well: Catholic Kings and Emperors that have not been crowned will no longer wear the high-tier headgear in Holy Fury, defaulting to the Ducal band instead until their rank has been officially recognized by the Church (naturally, if you do not own Holy Fury, Catholic Kings and Emperors will wear the appropriate gear by default as before).

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This is not the only portrait-related addition though: Holy Fury will bring to the game a series of special crown artifacts that will be visible on portraits whenever the characters are wearing them. Most of these artifacts can only be used when the character meets certain requirements and they are often tied to a specific title rather than a character’s dynasty.

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And this should be about it for this week.
 
One thing I wanna know though, is there going to be any work on letting me choose who gets to join my court? Sort of tired of having lustful peasant rebellion leaders arriving en masse non stop, ending up giving me bastard grandchildren, or just plotting against me as if it was going out of style. Not to mention, whenever an entire family joins and I send the parents away, the kids remain.
 
No, it is just one coronation per ruler.
I see, thanks!
Also, do you have a list (maybe not complete, at least to give us some ideas about what the Pope can ask for) of the Papacy's possible requests?
 
Yes, there is a cooldown on the decision to prepare a coronation, but any request can be denied, then you can pick the decision again. You can either ask the Pope a second time (though, unless he died or really changed his opinion of you in the meantime, there is a high chance that he will remember his last request and ask it again), or go for a lower level priest.

Will the Pope also be able to request to expel Muslims/Pagans if they started encroaching into "Catholic Europe"? Or beating up heretical realms?
 
Love it, hopefully some kind of variant, feast or ceremony can be added to other religions in the future. Can the usurper nickname be removed if you have a legitimate coronation? in the past I have had rulers usurping a realm at twenty and accomplishing great things but then die at 80 still known as "the usurper".
No need for multiple coronations for all titles but I feel going from a king to emperor should have the possibility for another coronation.

This addition makes me want more ceremony and events for when a notable and memorable ruler of mine dies, the current succession screen is nice but notable achievements aren't noted and often a great ruler is only remembered and even damned for enjoying too much food and drink.

"Charles the IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, had a long and successful reign..."
 
Those French portraits look damn amazing, great job on the artist's part.

Also does turning off supernatural/fantasy stuff disable the appearance of supernatural special crowns like the ones shown in the image (cursed/whispering crown)?
 
Also does turning off supernatural/fantasy stuff disable the appearance of supernatural special crowns like the ones shown in the image (cursed/whispering crown)?
Are they supernatural? Or is it just that everyone thinks that the wearers of the cursed crown are unlucky, and as such are slightly less likely to follow them, they themselves have a little less self-confidence.... While for the whispering crown, everyone thinks the wearers are blessed - what wearer would ever mention not hearing the voices... (And the lunatics probably does)...
 
The Crown of Lombardy is indeed one such artifact.
The Crown artifacts that are tied to titles can be lost on succession. If your heir is not elected next HREmperor (for example), you will continue the game with your Duke heir and the new Emperor will take the crown (provided that the old Emperor had the crown of course. If some Viking stole it from him, it is not going to magically reappear in the treasury of the new Emperor).

This should also apply to some artifacts and relics (eg the Ark of the Covenant).
I also love to get the decision to reclaim lost special artifacts if hold certain titles (Iron Crown if Italy, Arc of Covenant if Aksum etc.). They should be options to reclaim it if any other independent ruler don't have these artifacts in treasury.
 
Personally, I think Paradox should provide some sort of compensation to modders which good ideas were taken. Nothing huge, free copies of Holy Fury perhaps and/or direct acknowledgement for their contribution to CK2. We all know that mods make or break a game's longevity, Skyrim survived for much longer because it has so many good mods that people always recommend

I disagree. Paradox should not do this, it would be a bad idea.
they do not have to, and I do not wish for this. Modding is free, and the whole point of modding is (imo) to expand on areas that the vanilla game is lacking in, so that at best these presumably lacking features get added to the vanilla game.
So basically, I am not bashing against Holy Fury, even though it might sound like this if you don't read closely. I am actually gonna buy it (like I have bought all other CK2 DLCs), and I recommend people to do so!
All I would wish for is some sort of vague acknowledgment. Like "yeah, maybe some mods inspired this feature, but we did it it our way". Would be enough imo.



I agree. However, they do have actively denied it, which is the irritating part (for me).
I realize not everyone might be in a similar position and I probably am biased, and I might be missing something. But all that I have seen to this point are outright denials.
If anyone can disprove me, I would gladly correct myself.
Just FYI, one of the original devs for CK2+ now works for Paradox. You might know them as "Wiz". The head dev from the AGOT mod, "BlackNinja" also works for Paradox as well.

As has already been made clear, many features are not really based on those in mods, as they are all drawing from the common inspiration of history.

However, even without that, are you really going to bother Paradox over this when the head devs for some of these mods now work for them, and likely played a deliberate role in shaping the creative process of CK2's development? Are you going to accuse these mod authors of stealing from themselves, or attack Paradox for not giving them credit despite employing them as a result, and more?
 
Hey Silfae, could you kindly show us the requirements for the coronation ceremony? I am wondering if you need to be at peace and if only adults can be crowned
 
What about kingdom title creation and not succession to the title. Are there flavor events tied to title creation and coronation?

One would think it would be easier and cheaper as you’ve already spent piety and money for the title. If not, your legitamacy is automatically doubted upon title creation.

Also, any special flavor for the first creation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Special coronation, like refusing the crown and entering the city barefoot??
 
@Silfae will you have to be re-coronated when you go up in rank to emperor? Also is there any events tied to the pope giving you a ‘suprise’ coronation to become the first Holy Roman Emperor?

About the Byzantines. If you got the time i’d just make a flavour event for the new Emperor to be crowned by the Patriarch upon sucession. It might not have to be as detailed.
 
Alright, nevermind all the other religions, but shouldn't Orthodox characters also have Coronations?

The coronation mechanism represents the strong and independent clergy in catholic countries which could refuse to crown kings and emperors. That's not something that happened in the Byzantine Empire.
 
Will the Pope also be able to request to expel Muslims/Pagans if they started encroaching into "Catholic Europe"? Or beating up heretical realms?

"Oh you want me to hand you a snazzy crown? Hmm. You know the Umayaads? Go kill 'em and we'll talk about your crown."
<immediate anti-pope>