• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
* CKII: Charlemagne Developer Diaries will be released weekly on Wednesdays from now on up to release! *

Welcome to the Charlemagne dev diaries - and above all, welcome to the 8th century!

I'm Tobias Bodlund, scripter on the Crusader Kings II team, and in this first installment of the dev diaries for CKII: Charlemagne I will be talking about the new 769 start date and how we've chosen to represent that historical period in the game.

We've added a bunch of new cultures to the game. A few of these could arguably have been present in The Old Gods already, but going back to 769 we felt we really needed to shake up the map to properly represent the changing cultural landscape of the Early Middle Ages.

sw_eur_cult.png

In Spain we have the Visigoths, and they are in the Iberian rather than the Germanic group, since the Gothic migrations are long since over and they have been living in the peninsula since the early 6th century. With time, Visigothic provinces are likely to eventually become Castilian, Catalan or Andalusian depending on location and which other religious and cultural influences they are subjected to. In northwestern Iberia we also still have the Suebi, an old Germanic people. They have their own culture shift events which may see the rise of Portuguese culture.

Looking north, we have the Franks. They are still Germanic but becoming more and more latinized. You will see them slowly turning into something we call "French"...

Other new cultures you will find are Saxons, Lombards, Picts and Somali. Also, there are no Russians yet, but instead various East Slavic peoples such as the Ilmenians, Severians and Volhynians.

We've revisited cultural dynamics in some other places as well. For example, the emergence of Norman culture is now somewhat more likely than before.

Regarding religion, the old Norse religion in the game is now referred to as Germanic. We decided to do this because with the earlier start date this religion exists well beyond Norse lands (specifically, the Saxons), and the old name also sometimes caused players to confuse it with Norse culture.

Moving further south, the Ibadi faith is now its own religion and no longer a Sunni heresy.

We've also added a new pagan religion, available only in the Charlemagne start. They are the followers of the sun-god Zun, which was historically the Zunbil dynasty in Afghanistan. They start out surrounded by Muslims and Buddhists, and this should provide an interesting and possibly quite difficult start, comparable to the Jewish starts.

And where are the Jews in 769, you ask now - you will find them in Semien in Ethiopia (sometimes referred to as Beta Israel).

religion_map_persia.png

Oh, speaking of the Norse, yes... with the new start date the Viking Age hasn't begun yet. This means that the Norse will initially not be able to launch Viking expeditions overseas. This will change the early game for them as they'll need to focus more on local affairs initially. Don't worry, though, a few decades in things will start happening for them and the continent will properly learn to fear the wrath of the Northmen.

Finally, let's look at some of the large empires in the 8th century:

In 769, the Byzantine Empire is embroiled in what historians call the "First Iconoclasm". This basically means that the emperor and patriarch (and most of the elite) follow the Iconoclast faith, where religious icons are condemned as idolatry much like in Islam. There is a choice for the emperor to either stick with Iconoclasm or renounce it (via a special decision).

Meanwhile, the Abbasids are the great blob of the 8th century. During this time, they historically ruled an area from the Indus in the east to the Maghreb in the west. Though "rule" is perhaps a misleading word in some cases. To reflect the fact that in reality they had limited control over many of their nominal vassals, we have made some of these areas independent in the game. But the Caliph still has plenty of de jure CBs and claims on those areas, so beware...

In Spain, Umayyad rule is fairly recently established, so you have an Arab Muslim dynasty ruling over mainly Visigothic Christian subjects.

europe_map.png

Then there is the Frankish Empire. After Pepin died, his sons Charlemagne and Carloman inherited a kind of joint kingship over the Franks, with each of them ruling directly over a portion of the kingdom. In the game, this means the two brothers each have a king title but also a claim on the other's title. With powerful neighbors such as the Lombards, the Umayyads and the pagan Saxons, things may get very interesting here.

As you can see, the world in 769 is quite different from later starts, with many period-defining events still to unfold. Things such as the Holy Roman Empire (yes, you can found it), Vikings, Normans and Russians are still unheard of. There aren't even that many Karlings yet (!).

The 8th century is a strange and wonderful place. We hope that you'll enjoy it.
 
Which is funny, because spanish is one of the closest languages to classic latin :p Italian and french are "later latins" with a heavier german influx, until the rennaissance, when they started using more classic words.
(yet, french and spanish share about 90% of the vocabulary with french and 93% with italian, the problem with the french is the horrendous phonetic system)

Italians would disagree with you. :p

Ah yes the phonetic system. Another thing we inherited of our Germans Masters :p. That's why french pronunciation is closer to german than to any other romance language. :)
 
Italians would disagree with you. :p

Ah yes the phonetic system. Another thing we inherited of our Germans Masters :p. That's why french pronunciation is closer to german than to any other romance language. :)
"Italian" is a made up language :p AFAIK, venetian was really different from latin, for example.
Thanks god I learned both languages, otherwise I would have never been able to speak french :p (although I can read it without problems)
 
You greatly underestimate the sense of Christian unity. Christendom as a medieval concept was even seen as a shared Catholic-Orthodox brotherhood, even in the worst of times. Any petty minor differences that did exist were cast off. You also greatly overestimate the fracturing of heresies.

I don't know, resorting to war to oust heretics seems like a pretty big deal.
Pretty sure the whole Iconoclasm thing even involved a not insignificant amount of violence.
 
Italians would disagree with you. :p

Ah yes the phonetic system. Another thing we inherited of our Germans Masters :p. That's why french pronunciation is closer to german than to any other romance language. :)

Italian isn't that close to latin because the Romans never latinised the other Italic groups. So the other Italic languages influenced Italian very much. Spanish is really the closest language to Latin (at least of the big ones, Sardinian might be closer).
 
(...)

German did not even exist yet :p But yeah, the ancient "dutch" was a "low german" dialect, similar to the bavarian and the austrian. Even scandinavian languages had a big low german influx (and they shared a common germanic ancestor)

ehhh not quite. West continental Germanic, was more a three way split: Ingvaeonic (Old Frisian, Old Saxon and Old English), Istvaeonic (Old Frankish (so Old Dutch and 'German' Frankish dialects)) and Irminonic (Old High German).
Bavarian is a part of High German, whereas Austrian developed out of Bavarian and those dialects are sometimes grouped as Austro-Bavarian.
 
ehhh not quite. West continental Germanic, was more a three way split: Ingvaeonic (Old Frisian, Old Saxon and Old English), Istvaeonic (Old Frankish (so Old Dutch and 'German' Frankish dialects) and Irminonic (Old High German).
Bavarian is a part of High German, whereas Austrian developed out of Bavarian and those dialects are sometimes grouped as Austro-Bavarian.
I studied this a couple of years ago, and I'm sepaking off the top of my head but... Dutch was considered "german" until the XIX century or so.
I mistook low german (spoken in Lower saxony and the Hansa) with the high german from the south (I blame my memory), but the idea is the same. That same dialect made a great impact in danish and swedish during the XI and XII century.
Also, AFAIK, frisian was heavily influenced by danish in Jutland and low germanic (this name sounds better), but I'm no expert, as you can see :p
 
"Italian" is a made up language :p AFAIK, venetian was really different from latin, for example.
Thanks god I learned both languages, otherwise I would have never been able to speak french :p (although I can read it without problems)

Because Classical Latin isn't ? :p

pah you can still speak it with an iberian accent. ;) At worst it would be funny :p ?.

Italian isn't that close to latin because the Romans never latinised the other Italic groups. So the other Italic languages influenced Italian very much. Spanish is really the closest language to Latin (at least of the big ones, Sardinian might be closer).

wut. I was sure Italian was the closer language to latin. (except Sardinian of course) I knew Spanish wasn't that far (Unlike French haha :p). wow.
 
Because Classical Latin isn't ? :p

pah you can still speak it with an iberian accent. ;) At worst it would be funny :p ?.



wut. I was sure Italian was the closer language to latin. (except Sardinian of course) I knew Spanish wasn't that far (Unlike French haha :p). wow.
Well... it was a language reduced to literature, but not made up :p
I have a funny northern french accent because my father worked in Normandy and Britanny and he taught me when I was really young, but I lost it until I retook french a couple of years ago :p Nowdays it can be "iberian" tho.

The problem with italian is
1) The mix of cultures (venetian is really different from the latin from Naples, which had a great greek influx)
2) The constant change of rulers. The north, for example, had a big lombardic influx.
3) It was created around the dialect from Firenze
 
@ pirro: you mean at times it was referred to as Nederduytsch (modern Dutch Nederduits), so Low German, that happened. Furthermore it was and is a dialect continuum, some of the modern linguistic (quite often) developed from a political situation. Who knows what would have happened the 'standard' dialects of German and Dutch were much closer (so basically a Franconian dialect close to Low Frankish).
As for Frisian, which period and area are you talking about? Nowadays Frisian can be found in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. The latter, though certainly still a separate language probably were more influenced by Dutch than Frisian in the other two countries.
 
Well... it was a language reduced to literature, but not made up :p
I have a funny northern french accent because my father worked in Normandy and Britanny and he taught me when I was really young, but I lost it until I retook french a couple of years ago :p Nowdays it can be "iberian" tho.

The problem with italian is
1) The mix of cultures (venetian is really different from the latin from Naples, which had a great greek influx)
2) The constant change of rulers. The north, for example, had a big lombardic influx.
3) It was created around the dialect from Firenze

You're probably better off with the iberian accent. :p

So what you mean is that we made a mistake by taking the decision in the Renaissance to replace gemanic words in french with italian words ?

So we should have taken spanish ? :(
 
You're probably better off with the iberian accent. :p

So what you mean is that we made a mistake by taking the decision in the Renaissance to replace gemanic words in french with italian words ?

So we should have taken spanish ? :(

so you threw (part of) the Frankish heritage out of the window? :p
 
@ pirro: you mean at times it was referred to as Nederduytsch (modern Dutch Nederduits), so Low German, that happened. Furthermore it was and is a dialect continuum, some of the modern linguistic (quite often) developed from a political situation. Who knows what would have happened the 'standard' dialects of German and Dutch were much closer (so basically a Franconian dialect close to Low Frankish).
As for Frisian, which period and area are you talking about? Nowadays Frisian can be found in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. The latter, though certainly still a separate language probably were more influenced by Dutch than Frisian in the other two countries.
I was talking about the frisian in game¡s timeframe.
You're probably better off with the iberian accent. :p

So what you mean is that we made a mistake by taking the decision in the Renaissance to replace gemanic words in french with italian words ?

So we should have taken spanish ? :(
Spanish took "italian" words too :D And you took spanish words too. I remember a paper by a spaniard (obviously) that said that aucun, personne and those words were taken from spanish, but that you changed the meaning (persona in spanish is a person, personne in your abomination means nobody).
We took the gerundive from your languague tho, and a lot of loanwords because of the bourbons.
 
But they made up a culture which didn't exist. The population was hispano-roman, they could have used that name
The decades of unrest had greatly stressed the old cultures of the area. Plus, the Visigoths had long since switched to speaking largely Latin-derived dialects. Three centuries had passed since the first Visigoths came to Hispania in 418.

The invasions and counter invasions of the first half of the 700's really mucked up the situation on the ground. 769 is really a period of sorting of the population, and I think letting the starting culture begin as a latin-speaking Gothic, with a quick differentiation based on who holds what land, is a good enough solution to me.
 
The decades of unrest had greatly stressed the old cultures of the area. Plus, the Visigoths had long since switched to speaking largely Latin-derived dialects. Three centuries had passed since the first Visigoths came to Hispania in 418.

The invasions and counter invasions of the first half of the 700's really mucked up the situation on the ground. 769 is really a period of sorting of the population, and I think letting the starting culture begin as a latin-speaking Gothic, with a quick differentiation based on who holds what land, is a good enough solution to me.
Gothich people were never a majority here, and they started speaking latin rather fast. Using visigothic culture is missleading
 
so you threw (part of) the Frankish heritage out of the window? :p

Hey it always was the frankish wet dream to become proper roman. We only continued the tradition :p .

Spanish took "italian" words too And you took spanish words too. I remember a paper by a spaniard (obviously) that said that aucun, personne and those words were taken from spanish, but that you changed the meaning (persona in spanish is a person, personne in your abomination means nobody).
We took the gerundive from your languague tho, and a lot of loanwords because of the bourbons.

Yeah I know we exchanged a lot of word between us but I am talking about the decision of the academie francaise to "latinize" Old French into what we call know "Classical French" and for what I know it was mostly taking italian words to replace germanic ones and "romanize" what was left ( use c instead of k , v instead of w etc...) .

Personne can also mean Person in French depending on the context. Where do you think the english got the word ? :p
 
Yeah, I knew that personne is "person" too :p But that's the original meaning, reemployed during the XVII century or so (God I should seriously retake my studies on classical latin and its evolution...)
Personne may come from etruscan and vulgar latin "persona-ae" which means "actor, faker"
You should have removed the "au" that you created out of thin air (spanish -les is -aux, -l, like in saltar, is au, sauter).
Some accents (^ and comes in mind) are removed s. Éclater is explotar, fenêtre is fenestra
 
Italian isn't that close to latin because the Romans never latinised the other Italic groups. So the other Italic languages influenced Italian very much.

That's quite an unorthodox view. What sources can you give? The way I've learned it (we have two specialists in Oscan and Umbrian here in Finland), there is very little evidence for active use of Oscan and Umbrian after the last Republican century. Their speakers would certainly have been extensively latinised by the early Empire. With other Italic languages the extinction would probably have been even quicker.

Personne may come from etruscan and vulgar latin "persona-ae" which means "actor, faker"

The Latin term is, indeed, usually taken to derive from the Etruscan *phersu, but that itself has been suggested to be a borrowing on the basis of the Greek πρόσωπον, 'a face, a mask'.
 
Last edited:
The Latin term is, indeed, usually taken to derive from the Etruscan *phersu, but that itself has been suggested to be a borrowing on the basis of the Greek πρόσωπον, 'a face, a mask'.
IIRC, phersu could also be a loan from greek (or it might have been the other way around, being etruscan a language from Asia Minor that influenced ionic greek, I have never liked this theory). Etruscan had several greek loans and their later culture was almost hellenic.
 
Not all Franks shared that dream, why become like your subject? ;) (Well that was an issue when Charlemagne was crowned as a Roman Emperor.)

Come on now. It's started at least when the Franks settled in Gaul and converted to roman christianity. ;)

And what was there not to like ? A rich country, a big capital in the middle of the seine river, a great civilization and a head of religion devoted to the frankish cause. :D

If Anything it's surprising that the West Franks (and we all know West is Best :p) managed to remain German for so long despite their non segregrationist policies towards their roman subject unlike the others germans invaders.
Probably due to still controlling their homeland. But they finally decided to fully embrace civilisation. ;) :p