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Winter is here and the ice-fear is very cold (now there's an obscure reference for you). For today's diary, I thought that we might immerse ourselves in medieval jurisprudence. In practice, the laws function in much the same way as in Rome: Vae Victis, but in Crusader Kings II there are two different types of law; one that applies to a character's actual demesne (de facto, or demesne laws) and one that applies to everyone within an ancient traditional kingdom (de jure, or kingdom laws.) Demesne laws cover things like succession, tax levels and how the council operates. Any playable character can fiddle around with his own demesne laws. Kingdom laws cover the freedoms, rights and obligations of burghers, nobles, clergy and peasants. Only the holder of a Kingdom title is allowed to change these laws, and they will affect the whole geographical kingdom, regardless of whether a province is actually under its de facto control. (Like in Crusader Kings, de jure duchies and kingdoms are static, geographical entities that never change.)

Therefore, a player who is, for example, king of Norway and Denmark must change de jure laws separately per kingdom. To make things even more interesting, succession at the kingdom level (and only at the kingdom level) is also handled per kingdom, so Norway might be an elective monarchy while Denmark has primogeniture. Thus, the Norwegian dukes might elect another successor to the throne of Norway than the oldest son of the current king, which would split the kingdoms apart...
Speaking of succession laws, they are slightly different from the ones in Crusader Kings. In Crusader Kings II, most succession laws can be either cognatic or agnatic (that choice is a separate law.) These are the succession laws of CKII:

  • Seniority (oldest man in the dynasty succeeds)
  • Primogeniture (oldest son succeeds)
  • Elective (the current king and the dukes each nominate a successor)
  • Gavelkind (all titles are divided among the sons of the ruler)
  • Turkish (a succession crisis is almost guaranteed, but the vassals are content)
  • Republican (a random vassal or courtier succeeds; used for republics, etc)
  • Catholic Bishopric (the liege lord can override the Pope's choice by nominating his own successor)

That's all for now. The game is still a very long way from being finished, but I can at least offer you this screenshot of the current Law interface (though bear in mind that it is still very much subject to change.) In the screenshot, the king stands to inherit the duchy, because the young duke has no legal heir. "Pretenders" are the second and third characters in the line of succession.


Diary003_01.jpg


Until next time, I bid you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Henrik Fåhraeus, Associate Producer and CKII Project Lead
 
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Alas, I don't think so for the abbots, but there will be territorial bishop. That was said in the baron DD.
 
Well, no... I think the risk makes it more interesting. It's not necessarily game over, however; you will still keep your other titles. (I.e, your other titles will default to Primogeniture if another dynasty wins the election.)

There is always the system applied in medieval Denmark. That was an elective monarchy, but you had to be related to the ruling family to be eligible. That's how we've kept the same ruling lineage (sort of) during all these years.
 
I would envision the following options.

The offspring would be of the same dynasty of the father in case of both parents sharing the same title tier.
The child would get the dynasty name of the royal parent with more prestige.

If it means game over can we get an option for the game to autosave before kicking us out as losers? It would be interesting to be able to continue the game from that point by loading the save.

Interesting idea, however I'd like to see this as an option. For instance if you manage to arrange a marriage for your ruler's son to a royal heiress or queen, you'd like to keep the name of the dynasty of your ruler and not the name of the queen (or in case of a count a duchess or queen).
 
Couldn't a abbot represent some kind of religious baron (or lord ;-)), since a bishop is a count (or earl ;-)) tier title.

Classically abbots and bishops were about on the same tier as far as religious authority went. As far as temporal authority went, it would probably depend on the amount of land you have. To confuse matters more, some abbots were considered bishops - generally on an individual basis though.
 
You mean currently in vanilla or in a mod/the evolution of development ?
Currently (in the 2nd DD), the ruler of an ecclesiastical barony is named "bishop".
And I don't think that abbot should be "under" bishops. Prince-Abbots are just ecclesiastical lords in a regular order while Prince-Bishop are ecclesiastical lords in a secular order.
Ideally we should have more settlements, and those settlements could be able to change of type :
free city (burgers), lay principality (lay princes), prince-bishopric (secular prince of the church), prince-abbey (regular prince of the church), commandry (regular warrior monk prince)

Currently, we could have all titles represented for the territorial bishops :
Franks and Occitans titles : baron = bishop-count, count = bishop-duke, duke = archbishop-duke
in the Empire, the titles could be : baron & count = prince-bishop, duke = prince-archbishop
North Italian titles could take care of the patriarchate for Aquilea.
 
For Britain I'd suggest Prince-Bishop as we used that for Durham. IIRC he'd be a Count though. (Earl-Palatine having been his title), although with more land he'd probably have been a Duke-Palatine, and thuis Prince-Archbishop

Out of interest what would one suggest for a King-archbishop - is that a reasonable title to assume could occur if they held enough land?
 
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"Prince-Bishop" isn't appropriate for England. "Bishop" is fine. England would have one territorial bishop, Durham. There's an argument for Worcester too in the early Norman period, but Durham is core.

There are some territorial abbacies of significant power in 1066. Monte Cassino (southern Italy), Bury St Edmunds (controls western Suffolk), Dunkeld, ones in the HRE, and so on ... I guess territorial abbacies are pointless if few to none of such provinces are included.

EDIT: They would be fun though! Cluny? Launch a crusade as that nutter Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux ... ? Haha ... :eek:
 
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But he was known as Prince-Bishop of Durham. So it would make sense to use that title, especially if he started to expand his influence militarily (it could happen), or if he was awarded more land.
 
Out of interest what would one suggest for a King-archbishop - is that a reasonable title to assume could occur if they held enough land?

The Pope.
 
The Pope.

Could you then have 4 popes each arising from different regions. A Pope based in Cordoba, a Pope based in Rome, a Pope based in London and last but not least, a Pope based in Jerusalem.

Now that would be epic.
 
Could you then have 4 popes each arising from different regions. A Pope based in Cordoba, a Pope based in Rome, a Pope based in London and last but not least, a Pope based in Jerusalem.

Now that would be epic.

That's not wholly without precedent. 1276 was the "Year of Four Popes" after all. :p As for rival Popes duking it out... it has happened, though they usually have patrons in the nobility acting as their goons rather than doing all the fighting themselves, although that has also happened.
 
Could you then have 4 popes each arising from different regions. A Pope based in Cordoba, a Pope based in Rome, a Pope based in London and last but not least, a Pope based in Jerusalem.

Now that would be epic.

There are five classical patriarchs, at Rome (the Pope), Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
 
There are five classical patriarchs, at Rome (the Pope), Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.

That's not wholly without precedent. 1276 was the "Year of Four Popes" after all. :p As for rival Popes duking it out... it has happened, though they usually have patrons in the nobility acting as their goons rather than doing all the fighting themselves, although that has also happened.

I love history.

So now the question: Will this be possible in CKII?
 
"Prince-Bishop" isn't appropriate for England. "Bishop" is fine. England would have one territorial bishop, Durham. There's an argument for Worcester too in the early Norman period, but Durham is core.

There are some territorial abbacies of significant power in 1066. Monte Cassino (southern Italy), Bury St Edmunds (controls western Suffolk), Dunkeld, ones in the HRE, and so on ... I guess territorial abbacies are pointless if few to none of such provinces are included.

EDIT: They would be fun though! Cluny? Launch a crusade as that nutter Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux ... ? Haha ... :eek:

The real monastic territorial powers were the results of Irish missions in the seventh to tenth centuries: Fleury, St Gall, Disibodenberg, etc. These owned lands equivalent to at least a province on the CKII map (unless provinces end up being truly massive).
 
That's not wholly without precedent. 1276 was the "Year of Four Popes" after all. :p As for rival Popes duking it out... it has happened, though they usually have patrons in the nobility acting as their goons rather than doing all the fighting themselves, although that has also happened.

Yes! I've discussed the possibilities for antipopes in more depth in this thread.
 
I like the idea of a King-Archbishop being able to claim to be Pope, or at least a Patriarch. Of course, the existing ones would probably object.

But seriously, you could get a powerful bishop take over enough land to claim a "King" title, and I just can't think of a better title than King-Archbishop or possibly King-Cardinal.

In fact, thinking about it, the Count/Duke/King section of the title could be independent from the Bishop/Archbishop/Cardinal section if the first was awarded based on land claims, and the second based on a grant from the Pope/Patriarch, or if either/both were gone, if you had enough balls to claim the title.