Legacy of Rome will be released next week, so this dev diary will be the last of this cycle. Doomdark is busy hammering away at the game, so this week the honor of writing it falls to me. As he said last time, we'll finish off with some of the unique decisions, events and mechanics we've added to the Byzantine Empire in the DLC. Note that the following stuff is for the DLC, not the free 1.07 patch.

Succession in Byzantium works the same as in the rest of Europe, except for one thing. Children born to an emperor during his reign will get the ”Born in the Purple” trait, which gives them a stronger succession claim than any older siblings born before their parents ascended the throne. If you, as emperor, still want your gifted firstborn son as your heir instead of his snotnosed younger brother who had the good fortune of being born during your reign, infanticide is not your only option. Granting the Despot honorary title to your firstborn will rank him the same as if he had the Purple trait, and given his seniority in age, he will become your heir again.

View attachment LoR_02_ERE_Events.jpg

Ambitious emperors will no doubt try to reclaim some of Rome's former glory by restoring the Empire's lost territory. If they or their imperial vassals hold certain provinces, they will have the opportunity to restore the Roman Empire. This decision essentially signifies that the West has no choice but to accept the Byzantines as the true heirs of Rome's legacy. You will get a new title (complete with a new flag, of course), and the rulers of a restored Rome always get the ”Augustus” trait, which gives a slight boost to vassal relations. If you wish it, there is a decision to move your capital to Rome, though the city scarcely compares to Constantinople in this era so you will likely have to invest a lot of gold and time to rebuild it.

Another major decision, of course, is to mend the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. You will need to reunite the Pentarchy (Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome) under Byzantine and Orthodox rule and accumulate a great deal of piety. When this decision is taken, Catholicism will become a heresy and Catholic rulers across Europe will have to decide whether to convert or not. A few will refuse, and Europe will likely be plagued by religious unrest for some time, but the first step has now been taken to unite Christendom under a single church.

View attachment LoR_01_ERE_Events.jpg

As you have probably seen, Byzantine rulers can elect to blind or castrate their prisoners. This can be an efficient way of permanently crippling your rivals without executing them outright. Have an obnoxious brother that covets your throne? If he is blinded or castrated, he will be removed from the imperial succession, and you will have one less pretender to worry about. Just don't expect him to like you much afterwards.

Castrated rivals aside, eunuchs played an important role at the Byzantine imperial court, and from time to time one of them will distinguish himself enough to be brought to your attention. This eunuch will be very loyal to your ruler and quite skilled in his chosen field. When other lords turn their backs on you, you will usually still be able to depend on his service, whether it's as a skilled general or a gifted spymaster.

Other events you can expect to see are triumphs being held when you emerge victorious from decisive wars, unruly Varangians in the capital, Hippodrome races and much more.

View attachment LoR_03_ERE_Events.jpg

Finally, let me stress that this does not mean that we have created a supercharged Byzantine Empire that will always go on to dominate Europe as the Romans did before them. Skilled and dedicated players will be able to stage a miraculous recovery and recreate the borders of the Roman Empire and maybe even hold it all together afterwards, but we have naturally taken care not to upset the balance of the game. Just wanted to put that out there.

 

[DarthJF]

After the legacy of Rome is released and I play multiplayer with my friend who doesnt have it can I still use those features in game?

IIRC host is going to determine the active dlc's during mp so if you're hosting LoR should be active for you both.

 

[Theddude]

- 'Strong Restoration': some already existing Empire claims to be the actual 'sole' Roman Empire. This is what we will see implemented in the Legacy of Rome for the sole Byzantine Empire. Now, what we want (I guess) is the possibility to have this for other Western/Catholic Empires as well. However, this must be extremely difficult, for in order to do this you must destroy or somewhat subjugate the actual legitimate heir of the Roman Empire that is based in the East. This points to the idea that the Latin Empire, whose creation requirements need the Byzantine Empire not to exist, would have something to do with all this. So the idea is that you either can restore Rome from/in the West when Byzantium has ceased to exist, or as an extra requirement you must hold the Latin Empire title.

Culturally-wise, such a possibility should be open to a reasonably open set of western cultures. Would we deny the options to the Italians, the culturally, linguistically and genetically closest descendents of the Romans? Of course not. The Latin Empire would be only a means for this. However, this leaves open the problem of the culture one assigns to the Latin Empire or to the westernly restored Roman Empire (what we were discussing before in terms of what is being implemented in the Legacy of Rome). At the moment, that line in the landed_titles.txt files serves one sole purpose: determine the settlers' event for cultural conversion. So either the latter mechanics is changed, or we give up to the settlers' event for the westernly restored Roman Empire, or we choose a culture. Which culture?

I claim on historical grounds that unless one wants to reintroduce 'dead' cultures in our fictional histories (which I claim before would be somewhat implausible) then the best candidates are Italian for the Western Restoration and Greek for Eastern Restoration. Hence, this might imply (depending on how the mechanics are implemented) that the Latin Empire is written as 'Italian' in the landed_titles.txt file, but not that its creation would be closed to other cultures, as it would be, for the first thing, quite ahistorical.

If you go to the 'Post your Empire' thread you'll see that some people have already worked out Italian imperial restorations using the Latin Empire, hence it would not be that unpopular. In one nice screenshot, one can also see the Latin Empire in the western area of the historical WRE, and a Byzantine Empire expanded in the Levant, Egypt and Mesopotamia, both ruled by the Palaiologos dynasty (not sure about the culture of the rulers though).

Personally, in order to attempt the same thing and expand the Italian culture into Africa, I modded the Latin Empire as being italian (but creatable by anyone in the latin cultural group!) but I would not suggest it as something to be introduced in vanilla; I'd rather ask for some 'Western Imperial Restoration' option.

Kind of what I was thinking. I wish I could have weighed in on this earlier but I had classes. So addressing some of the previous arguments (paraphrased, sorry):

1. "Italy shouldn't get an Empire, it's not important enough"
-It was very important, and in game terms Italy is as much a political-geographical entity as Francia, Hispania or Britannia. Comparing it to the Netherlands is apples to oranges. Frisia is to the HRE what Wales is to Britannia, a smaller constituent kingdom of an Empire. Italia is not this, there's more to it than just the part in the HRE (forgotten the Papal State and Sicily?) Italy invented the concept of Empire, but yet they are supposed to just content themselves with a Super-Kingdom? Something seems off there.

2."The Latin Empire would derive its legitimacy from the East, not the West, this is bad"
-It's actually better, because through the East they can trace legitimacy back to Augustus. Can the HRE really claim that? The answer is, of course, no. Their title traces back to Charlemagne, a powerful Frankish King, nowhere does it go to Rome. Translatio imperii, you say? The concept only came about in the Middle Ages, mostly as a way to give some semblance of legitimacy to the HRE and pretend that they were somehow Rome. France and England claimed translatio imperii, too, you know. Kings of Spain apparently thought so too. So it is clearly better for a hypothetical Latin Emperor to derive his right to rule from the line of the East, because it is an unbroken line back to Caesar.

3. "The Latin Empire wasn't Italian"
-In terms of its figurehead Emperors, no. But Italians were directly responsible for its creation, and thereafter for its maintenance. The Empire would have crumbled without the Italian support they had, Byzantium would have crushed them. The Italians were the single most important group in the Empire's creation, and in the Empire itself. The other groups were a melange of Western Crusaders and adventurers with little other than their faith to tie them together. Italian leadership was not just decisive, it was the single most important factor in the Empire.

I think it would be great if there was some way of having a Western Restoration. I know some people will say that the HRE is the WRE and this is just so not true. Their claims were based on the fact that a Pope who wanted to claim authority over the Roman Empire (by extension in their eyes the world) used the fact of a female empress and a strong barbarian king to crown that king Emperor of Rome, and thus set him under the Pope. This is pretty huge, considering that in the Age of Feudalism legal contract was everything. Besides that, they invented the vague concept of translatio imperii, that somehow because Rome had fallen to them they were it's rightful continuance. Of course, they conveniently abandoned this line of though when the Turks conquered Byzantium later, but not that they considered Byzantium Rome anyways. The HRE was, for all intents and purposes the glorified continuation of the Frankish Kingdom. The Franks had the benefit of a strong leader who managed to conquer a great amount of land, but this didn't make them Rome.

Perhaps Empires should have some kind of cb on each other to make them give up their claims to Empire, and make them destroy the title, but we already have completely fictional Empires in the game. Restoring the Empire East/West would definitely be something in line with the general feel of this expansion. I honestly would just be happy if the Latin Empire could actually be created at all. As of now, you have to destroy Byzantium to get it, but why would you do that? Byzantium allows you free revokation of Duke titles, it's objectively better than the LE title, and thus there's no reason to create the Latin Empire when you are probably already in the position to just usurp Byzantium in the first place.

 

[Sarog]

If this is a response to me, why would that be so bad. If I may ask?

The Latin "Roman" culture that you're asking for hasn't existed for hundreds of years by the time of the game. The Eastern Roman Empire abandoned Latin as its language of administration and religious rites, and the provinces in what used to be the Western Roman Empire were so overrun with barbarians that their language and their culture changed completely. Going back to ancient Roman naming conventions and Latin language would make no sense, and there's no way that the Byzantine Greeks - who saw themselves and their Greek language as the pinnacle of Roman culture - would naturally undergo such a cultural devolution.

As modern folks, when we think "Roman Empire" we automatically think of Classical Rome, with its Latin language, gladiatorial combat, and the like. But to the Byzantine Romans, that vision of Rome is as much ancient history as Saxon England was to Henry VIII. No way would that culture rise from the dead just because the Empire managed to regain its territories.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

There was no italian empire anyhow in or around the time period nor one possible. The existing ones have some historical background. Get over it. No italian empire, no mussolini, no pasta for everyone.
The more i read about it , the more i'd like to eradicate the whole italian culture from the game.

Cheers.

(sorry, i couldnt resist after all this...)



edit:...but keep going if you like.

 

[Theddude]

There was no italian empire anyhow in or around the time period nor one possible. The existing ones have some historical background. Get over it. No italian empire, no mussolini, no pasta for everyone.
The more i read about it , the more i'd like to eradicate the whole italian culture from the game.

Cheers.

(sorry, i couldnt resist after all this...)



edit:...but keep going if you like.

Britannia and Scandinavia have no historical basis, none whatsoever. Francia only if you consider West Francia as an Empire (which it never was). Canute's empire was not a capital E Empire at any point, and there was never an entity that even slightly resembled an "Empire of Britannia".

This argument isn't about an "Italian Empire" the way you put it, nobody here's arguing that. If you read the thread I made about it you'd see that I argued against an "Empire of Italia" on the same grounds that it's out of the time period. But what we're talking about is a restoration of Rome (in the West or otherwise) from Italy, in the very place that Rome originates, with people who speak the direct continuation of Vulgar Latin in Italy (they still used Classical Latin in administration).

Don't attack strawmen, it's not very persuasive.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Britannia and Scandinavia have no historical basis, none whatsoever. Francia only if you consider West Francia as an Empire (which it never was). Canute's empire was not a capital E Empire at any point, and there was never an entity that even slightly resembled an "Empire of Britannia".................

The empires have historical basis in a way that they can be represented as such (i opposed the inclusion, but i accept that there is some reason for them) but i wont waste my time, there are a million empire threads already.
Btw, who said i attacked you ? I rather commented in Cicirilloorwhateverhisnameis direction, but your posts dont support your comment that the argument isnt about a somewhat italian empire.
Call it latin with italain culture, its still the italian empire you're looking for and totally ahistorical. No realistic chance for a west-roman restoration. The game is not totaly sandbox, its based on history.
Cheers.

Keep arguing, as i said i couldnt resist to comment.

 

[Jacabon]

At the end of dev diary 2 it was mentioned that in dev diary 3, additional cultural buildings would be covered. I can't seem to find any info on these additional cultural buildings.

 

[DarthJF]

Britannia and Scandinavia have no historical basis, none whatsoever. Francia only if you consider West Francia as an Empire (which it never was). Canute's empire was not a capital E Empire at any point, and there was never an entity that even slightly resembled an "Empire of Britannia".

Well, some English kings certainly made attempts to get an imperial title from the Pope, so British Emperor isn't entirely unrealistic what if- possibility.

 

[Gunnarr]

it is a little weird that the flag is the SPQR

If anything, after Constantine the symbol was no longer that of SPQR but of the chi rho

 

[S. Bailly Smith]

Snip

You're right that the name change thing was a bad idea. But the Byzantines called themselves "Romans", yes they spoke Greek and lived in Greece but to call someone a Hellene in the Middle Ages was to associate them with the ancient pagans, and for a good pious Christian that was a big no. Only after the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople did the idea of Greek-ness start to resurface. My thought was that they would just re brand themselves as "Romans" after the rectification of the Empire and force others to speak their "superior" language and use their "superior" customs. But if it has a big purple "GREEK" or a big purple "ROMAN" over the map, it really means little in the end. The Empire still rules all!

But its not a big deal, I just wanted to avoid all of those damned rebellions!

 

[Keioel]

There should most definitely be a means for the Italians to restore the Roman Empire as well. Hopefully though that'll be included in a future Republics, aka Italy, DLC. However, I like the idea of having the LE be Italian Culture and be capable of restoring the Empire. After all isn't restoring the Empire the driving force behind most of us who play Italy.

 

[NapoleonI]

Great. This was exactly what I was hoping for. I love a historically realistic games with the possibility to create alternate history. And there can never be enough traits, events and decisions to give the game more depth, replayability and flavor (these things are by the way the opposite of peasant rebels, which equals micromanagement and repetitive gameplay).

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

The existing ones have some historical background. Get over it. No italian empire, no mussolini, no pasta for everyone.
The more i read about it , the more i'd like to eradicate the whole italian culture from the game.

I rather commented in Cicirilloorwhateverhisnameis direction[...]

Ahaaaaaaaaaahhahahaha ah ah ah!!!

The usual mixture of German inferiority complex (for beauty, good life, good food, good weather) and envy towards the country they gravitate around and they tend to since 2000 years whithout ever having been able to "reach" it fully.

By the way I love Germany, but I always find you guys very funny. This reminds me the attitude before every football match between the two teams. That psychological attitude makes you lose all the time.

I'm curious to read your 'edits' though.

Nice points Theddude though

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Britannia and Scandinavia have no historical basis, none whatsoever. Francia only if you consider West Francia as an Empire (which it never was). Canute's empire was not a capital E Empire at any point, and there was never an entity that even slightly resembled an "Empire of Britannia".

You're a nice guy and I genuinely dislike having to disagree with you so vehemently, but that's total garbage. Several Anglo-Saxon kings labelled themselves emperors of Britannia (numerous Latin and/or Greek variations of that title) and managed to get Welsh and Scots rulers to swear allegiance to them on that very basis. William the Conqueror did the same thing, as did his son William Rufus after he'd conquered Cumberland and annexed it into England on the promise that the king of Scots would accept him as his liege lord and legal overlord of Britain.

Obviously I'm not suggesting there's any sort of genuine Roman connection here (pragmatism will always overrule any sort of real legitimacy) but to say that Britannia as an imperial concept has 'no historical basis, none whatsoever' is simply incorrect. You may find it dubious (many did and still do) but nonetheless the idea is a perfectly historical one, and it certainly didn't end with the Normans.

As for Scandinavia, I'm far more inclined to agree with you there on the basis that I'm unaware of any genuine imperial attempts/ambitions, and that region has no connection with regards to being a region of the old Roman Empire as Francia, Hispania and Britannia were.

 

[Federalist girl]

Yeah but calling yourself emperor is different from getting it recognized by others--and I think the "tier" system has to reflect recognition in some aspect or another.

 

[Theddude]

The empires have historical basis in a way that they can be represented as such (i opposed the inclusion, but i accept that there is some reason for them) but i wont waste my time, there are a million empire threads already.
Btw, who said i attacked you ? I rather commented in Cicirilloorwhateverhisnameis direction, but your posts dont support your comment that the argument isnt about a somewhat italian empire.
Call it latin with italain culture, its still the italian empire you're looking for and totally ahistorical. No realistic chance for a west-roman restoration. The game is not totaly sandbox, its based on history.
Cheers.

Keep arguing, as i said i couldnt resist to comment.

I didn't say you attacked me, I said you attacked a strawman. I never argued for an "Empire of Italia" is what I said, but if you mean an empire based out of Italy, then yes. But I may have been mistaken and we probably agree on the inclusion of ahistorical empires. Now that they're in though, I think they may as well be distributed fairly. If you don't care, don't make passive-aggessive posts at an idea you disagree with. If you have reason to disagree, state it, I'm all ears.

You're a nice guy and I genuinely dislike having to disagree with you so vehemently, but that's total garbage. Several Anglo-Saxon kings labelled themselves emperors of Britannia (numerous Latin and/or Greek variations of that title) and managed to get Welsh and Scots rulers to swear allegiance to them on that very basis. William the Conqueror did the same thing, as did his son William Rufus after he'd conquered Cumberland and annexed it into England on the promise that the king of Scots would accept him as his liege lord and legal overlord of Britain.

Obviously I'm not suggesting there's any sort of genuine Roman connection here (pragmatism will always overrule any sort of real legitimacy) but to say that Britannia as an imperial concept has 'no historical basis, none whatsoever' is simply incorrect. You may find it dubious (many did and still do) but nonetheless the idea is a perfectly historical one, and it certainly didn't end with the Normans.

As for Scandinavia, I'm far more inclined to agree with you there on the basis that I'm unaware of any genuine imperial attempts/ambitions, and that region has no connection with regards to being a region of the old Roman Empire as Francia, Hispania and Britannia were.

You may be right about Britain, but there is definitely no basis for a Scandinavian Empire. And even accepting that British and Spanish kings claimed that, it's no more ridiculous for an Italian King powerful or ambitious enough to proclaim himself Emperor or to aspire to such a title, just as they did in Hispania or Britannia, no? That's the rationale for a Scandinavian Empire, it's the same idea. I don't see why a king in Britain, Spain, Scandinavia or wherever can proclaim himself Emperor (however dubious) and yet an Italian is somehow specifically not supposed to be able to make such a claim. If Scandinavia is permissable as an Empire, so is Italy. This is even allowing the fact that taking every wild claim of imperium at face value somehow translates into a de jure empire over a specific region.

I've said I disagree with all the ahistoric empires, but they're there, and I doubt Paradox will change their minds given the popular demand for them. Now that we've ventured into that territory, I see no reason not to expand on the alternate history theme and allow Italy to make a resurgence as a new WRE. As Keioel said, that's a big reason why people like to play Italy (it seems to me, at least besides Republics), to restore Rome from Rome. Arguing that the Italians are somehow a completely separate people from the Romans is like arguing that the Greeks of Byzantium had no connection to Socrates or Plato, or that English people after 1066 are completely detached from Alfred the Great (people often still call the English Anglo-Saxons). Linguistic and cultural evolution does not make them an entirely separate people, merely a later evolution of the same culture. Making an Empire out of Italy is something that some people want, which is far more in keeping with the time period than a Catherine the Great-style Russian Empire from the Baltic to the Crimea.

If we're not going on determinism (to any significant degree) in a universe where Byzantium is master of the steppes , I don't think an Italian King trying to bring back Rome is so wild and crazy as to be completely unthinkable.

 

[ZhugeKongming]

You're a nice guy and I genuinely dislike having to disagree with you so vehemently, but that's total garbage. Several Anglo-Saxon kings labelled themselves emperors of Britannia (numerous Latin and/or Greek variations of that title)

So a few haughty Germanic kings said they were emperors on a piece of paper. Big deal.

and managed to get Welsh and Scots rulers to swear allegiance to them on that very basis.

This is misleading. You make it sound like they were administered from Winchester like any English shire. The fact of the matter is that they agreed to take the King of the English--yes, not the "Emperor of Britannia"--as their overlord, while retaining nearly complete autonomy. And every time this happened, I might note, it ended up being a very temporary arrangement. Nor was any of this out of the norm for the Early Middle Ages. Nobody actually believed in the political fiction of two kings sharing equal status solely because they were both kings. This was not the era of Westphalian sovereignty. Differences in power and prestige were recognized. So no, they did not "swear allegiance" to the King of the English on the basis of his being Emperor of Britannia, an empty title which was discarded almost as soon as it was claimed; they recognized in a transitory and nonbinding way the power of the English kingdom relative to their own. Since this power was in a state of flux, they often felt within their rights to reject or amend the terms of this relationship, which is why we don't model Wales and Scotland as English vassals in 1066.

 

[Ares Enyalios]

Anyway. Is there a possibility to destroy an empire without replacing it with another? Sometimes i would just like to do that. I did not like the Crown of Emperors but when i play a King in the HRE i become for long Emperor if i like or not.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

I think ultimately it depends on how you define an empire. If you're talking about a powerful monarch who holds sway over other lesser rulers (kings, dukes, etc.) then Britannia is actually a pretty good example in the sense that the king of England did, at one stage or another, have the rulers of Scotland, Wales and even some in Ireland as his vassals -- even if in name only, though the kings of Scotland were sometimes held 'hostage' (in the medieval sense) in the English court.

If you're talking about empires claiming legitimacy from Rome (HRE/ERE) then that's another argument, and certainly one that probably holds the most validity during this period.

The first definition is much older, though, and lets you include otherwise totally legitimate empires such as Persia and, to a lesser extent, Arabia.

Scandinavia is something of a leap of faith, but then again you're talking about an area with extremely close linguistic and cultural ties, a shared historical narrative/set of legends, and in many cases shared monarchs -- thus, to suggest that a powerful, centralized dynasty could have united those realms into a single empire is not that far-fetched, though I do actually think it should exclude Finland.

Anyway, those are my thoughts... and besides, Paradox included them mainly for a) gameplay (more for the player to do) and b) ergonomics (they're far easier to see/form than titular empires, even if some players would find titular empires less offensive as a concept).

 

[Sleight of Hand]

This is misleading. You make it sound like they were administered from Winchester like any English shire. The fact of the matter is that they agreed to take the King of the English--yes, not the "Emperor of Britannia"--as their overlord, while retaining nearly complete autonomy.

As an example, Æthelstan issued coins titling himself Rex totius Britanniae, King of (all of) Britain. Edwy the Fair styled himself Rex nutu Dei Angulsæxna et Northanhumbrorum imperator paganorum gubernator Breotonumque propugnator, King by the will of God, Emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and Northumbrians, governor of the pagans, commander of the British.