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Dev Diary #92 - Orders of Magnitude

Hello there!

We are already more than halfway through July, and we are already at the third of the five rogue Dev Diaries we will have. For this week’s Dev Diary, we are going to talk about Holy Orders, and the small changes being made to them.

I am going to start off with clarifying that Holy Orders are NOT going to be made playable. The changes are made so you can interact with them in new ways, not for you to play as them. The game is still focused on dynasties, and that has not changed with Holy Fury. Another thing I want to note, is that all these changes to Holy Order are part of the patch to Holy Fury, and not part of the expansion. In other words, you will not have to pay for them.

And as always, certain things might change before the release of Holy Fury.

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With their own government form rather than being Feudal, it is easier for us to treat them as their own entities, and not having the player awkwardly inherit one of them, with all their own quirks and special focuses. They should be easier to distinguish from a normal Feudal character as well, now that they have their own frames rather than the Feudal blue.

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Some of the other Christian Holy Orders have received decisions for forming and vassalizing them as well, in addition to the old decisions for the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar. In the example above, you can see the decision to vassalize the Knights of Calatrava, and we have added similar ones for the Knights of Santiago, the Teutonic Order and the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre.

A new limitation we have added, is that you can only vassalize 1 Holy Order at a time with these decisions. This was to make sure we didn’t have one player changing religions and trying to capture all of them. This is Crusader Kings 2, after all, not Pokémon.

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If you have vassalized a Holy Order and they don’t find you fit to rule anymore, they will leave your service. They will return any land they hold that you are the De Jure Lord of, so with that in mind you usually shouldn’t lose large swathes of land if a Holy Order leaves your service. Though I would recommend staying on friendly terms with them.

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For the Knights Hospitaller, they can now ask a ruler conquering an island in the mediterranean to donate it to the order. We have added a similar event for the Teutonics in the north, replacing the old event where they asked for a single county.

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... So that is all for today!

Hopefully the Holy Orders will be a tad more interesting with some of these changes. Next week we will take a look at… Let me take a look at my notes here… “Shepherds, zealous kids and Venetians burning down Byzantium”? Surely that’ll be exciting news!
 
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Snow Crystal said:
I am going to start off with clarifying that Holy Orders are NOT going to be made playable. The changes are made so you can interact with them in new ways, not for you to play as them. The game is still focused on dynasties, and that has not changed with Holy Fury.
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Hi, I understand and, of course, accept the above decision.

However, I am not clear as to why the decision was made. Is there an explanation some where that we can read?
 
Im excited about this expansion , since i always like playing pagan, cause i hate Catholic as Churchs take my golds and sent them to their popes and Muslim having Open succession annoys me cause im ending up with a shattered territory as you usually have the strongest in your dynasty to be your heir(which sometimes having county far from where you have)..


and if you read throughout this comment
i still wish the game lets you run as adventurer rather than hit game over once your liege revoke all your titles ;)
or play as baron that can ask for land expansion :D
 
Look just show me the Bon holy order and we can call it a day. Its the only thing missing from a holy order centric post!
 
Snow Crystal said:
A new limitation we have added, is that you can only vassalize 1 Holy Order at a time with these decisions. This was to make sure we didn’t have one player changing religions and trying to capture all of them. This is Crusader Kings 2, after all, not Pokémon.
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Do Holy Orders still respond to traditional methods of vassalization, or is the new decision the only way to vassalize them? In one of my games the Teutonic Knights ended up ruled by an Italian right under my nose, so I offered them vassalization as Emperor of Italia. Will that still work (assuming they have a positive opinion of the decision)?

Also, thank you for fixing Holy Orders and King level titles. It was so annoying to grant my Holy Order a kingdom, only for him to drop being Hochmeister and suddenly have a vassal holy order. On the other hand, what are the triggering conditions for this (apparently) king level Hochemeister of the Teutonic State?
 
Rockphed said:
Do Holy Orders still respond to traditional methods of vassalization, or is the new decision the only way to vassalize them? In one of my games the Teutonic Knights ended up ruled by an Italian right under my nose, so I offered them vassalization as Emperor of Italia. Will that still work (assuming they have a positive opinion of the decision)?
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I'd like to know this as well.
Also perhaps, if we could indirectly vassalize all of them, in that say we are the Catholic Roman Emperor after having conquered Byzantium, and have our little Kings in Andalusia, Jerusalem, etc. Could those Kings vassalize the holy orders? Would their AI even bother to try?

I mean call me Vanilla, but I enjoy trying for Roman Catholic Unification, and seeing how the attempt slowly crumbles, and wrestling with the resistance from both within and without. Every time however if I manage to progress to such a point, the most immersion breaking element is how I need to kick the Knights of Santiago and Calatrava out of my realm or accept their constant disdain for my rule, because in spite of literally being the liege of all Catholics with the Pope serving as my right hand man and regent, coming from a dynasty that has served to vanquish all past enemies of the True Faith, and for all intents and purposes embodies God's sovereignty upon creation itself, they take exception to the fact that I don't belong to the culture they auto-convert to upon becoming Grandmaster, a culture which I might add is often dead after a while excepting their order.

I mean fine, I get that maintaining some semblance of balance is the goal here. But when you consider that in order to "Catch Them All", the player's realm would need to span from Jerusalem to Santiago, and in the case of the Teutonic Order, probably all the way up to Finland, outgrowing Rome at its peak quite considerably, I don't think that's a valid argument. To manage such a feat, the player would already have to have achieved nigh peerless power, easily rivalling if not surpassing a Golden Age China.
The Holy Orders giving their lands and loyalty to them, as opposed to "just" being a readily available and extremely cheap mercenary force for the use in Holy Wars isn't going to be what tips the scales of power. All it will do at that point is further solidify within the ongoing story of the campaign the player's Empire as the one true enforcer of God's Will upon Earth.

If anything, I'd actually be happy if the Holy Orders got more demanding. If they want to leave my service because I'm no longer worthy of my throne, that's fine. By god, let them form a special faction, that seeks to ascend a different, more pious dynasty on my throne, one which zealous vassals against an impious, sinful liege would be eager to join, along with Holy Orders.
That would create a consequence to vassalizing them, without breaking the immersion of the game.

In the end, it just feels very disjointed in vision, when the first statement harkens back to CK2's mission statement of playing a Dynasty, a unique way of Roleplaying a story, and then putting in rules that go directly against immersion.
I can't see why a Kingdom/Empire being enough of a pillar of the Catholic world to earn the loyalty of one Holy Order would somehow convince all the other Holy Orders that they shouldn't be served.
 
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Very interesting.
 
PM Hamilton said:
Hi, I understand and, of course, accept the above decision.

However, I am not clear as to why the decision was made. Is there an explanation some where that we can read?
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It's right there in the text. Read it again. CK2 is about dynasties. Holy Orders are not dynastic.

siavashnik said:
Why not?this dlc is about crusades and religions so why they arent playable?the only excitement i had for this dlc was that i thought that holy orders will be made playable
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Why do you even thought this if it wasn't on the Steam description? That would have been a HUGE selling point.
 
scorch2 said:
I think they're trying to fix the issue of the Holy Orders being totally unusable and pointless when they're vassalised, for example you're playing as Italy and you are under constant threat from Muslims and you heavily rely on the Orders, you give them numerous donations and holdings etc.

But then a Crusade is Launched for Jerusalem and France wins, and they then vassalise both the Templars & Hospitallars, now you cannot use both of those orders for the rest of the game, even when the Muslims threaten to take Italy & Rome, it makes no sense.
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Okay then make it harder to vassalize them. Make it only possible to vassalize one of them per decision. Or none. I think the decision is too easy, just one button click and that's all. Normally you would have to be their culture and their de jure liege and have high opinion with them, these are significant restrictions already.
 
J.B. said:
If possible, have in the game rules a box where you could set it to be like the way it used to be, or this new function for the Holy Orders. In this way, both parties could be satisfied.
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I completely agree. But it should not disable Achievements. After all we can disable defensive pacts and still get Achievements which makes some of them significantly easier, so this one should also be just a completely optional thing. I wouldn't mind if they make it the default setting to restrict them, but i want a setting that allows me to keep several at once.
 
Orinsul said:
If I have spare sons I dont want can I send to them holy orders?
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I'm pretty sure you can already do that, as long as they are not heirs. Just use the "Order to take the Vows" decision on them, and in almost all cases, they'll leave to join a Holy Order upon becoming a monk.
I say "almost all cases" because of course if there are no Holy Orders yet, they stay in your court. Also I think rarely they may stay in your court even if there are applicable Holy Orders, but I'm not sure.
EDIT: Of course this is only if you have the "Order to take the Vows" decision in your religion, but I don't know if it would make sense to include a "Send to Holy Order" decision for religions that don't allow you to force people into monastic life.
 
Ictivion said:
I'm pretty sure you can already do that, as long as they are not heirs. Just use the "Order to take the Vows" decision on them, and in almost all cases, they'll leave to join a Holy Order upon becoming a monk.
I say "almost all cases" because of course if there are no Holy Orders yet, they stay in your court. Also I think rarely they may stay in your court even if there are applicable Holy Orders, but I'm not sure.
EDIT: Of course this is only if you have the "Order to take the Vows" decision in your religion, but I don't know if it would make sense to include a "Send to Holy Order" decision for religions that don't allow you to force people into monastic life.
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Yeah, "Order to Take Vows" is the only option right now, and only visible if you have Sons of Abraham DLC. From what I remember, only characters with high Martial are guaranteed to join a Holy Order. I've never seen stewards, scholars and intrigue-centric characters (i.e. their Martial is not even remotely close to their Dip, Int or Learning, below 6 or so) become anything but ordinary monks.

Given that Holy Orders did have administrative ranks, I don't see why you can't save your son -- provided that he's both an able steward and a devout theologian -- a seat in the Order.
 
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qinq_net said:
So what will happen with the Pokémons I have already captured? I have already transferred lots of counts to my vassal Teutonic Order and Knights Hospitalllars.
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Maybe it'd be wise to finish your current campaign before the update, then? :)
 
Thure said:
It's right there in the text. Read it again. CK2 is about dynasties. Holy Orders are not dynastic.
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Thank you.

However, my question is not if CKII is limited to family-based dynasties, but rather why is that the case.

For example, why not allow players to create a religious dynasty, like the Benedictine Order, seeking to rule the church, rather than a count seeking to rule the HRE. Is the reason political, game design, fear of giving offense, something else, ...?
 
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