So that time of the week again and its time for me to make something up to write about. Today I decided to talk about regions and forts, two new concepts in Crusader Kings II.

First, regions isn't something that is going to affect you directly but it works somewhat like how it have done in the Europa Universalis Games. It's an area on the map that denotes a region with a name and it's mostly used to improve on our localization of things, such as hunting for tigers in India or hunting a deer in western Europe. So no longer will you find Tigers in the woods of Poland if you manage to move your capital of your Indian Empire out of the subcontinent. You can see these regions by opening up a province and click on the new region icon to get an outline of the region. It's also possible to search for regions in the old title finder.

Next is a gameplay feature you will actually interact a bit more actively in. It's called forts which is an additional type of holding you can build in provinces next to the normal ones and trade posts. Because of this we had to extend the province view with a window you can open and close which will show "extra holding slots" which will contain the trade post and fort slots. The fort can be built anywhere from your own territory even enemy provinces that you have under your control. Their biggest advantage is that they are fortifications that you can build up really fast and very cheaply. The main point of them being to let you build up a region as your march towards a big neighbor which will let you slow down their advance but at the same time let you set up forward positions in the enemy territory.

They do have some added bonuses though beyond that, for instance in Tribal land where you have the homeland attrition bonus, that bonus will be removed from the province as long as you have a fort there to supply your troops with. There is also a feature for the forts that is too related to the expansion so I can't delve into that any deeper.


And again here's some more random changelogs

Spoiler

- Fixed crash when a war is invalidated because of no defender
- Fixed the "hostile against everyone" bug
- Fixed bug where the AI would keep their units attached to characters they no longer participate in a war with.
- Added alert for having high prio minor titles available to grant.
- Fixed various provinces in India that had no rulers scripted for some start dates.
- Monks and other people living in celibacy will no longer try to arrange stealth marriages if ruled by a patrician.
- Defensive religions now properly also give defensive modifiers for Camel Cavalry and Elephants.

 

[TheDungen]

Isn't Spanish even one of the most Latin languages? After my knowledge the romanisation in Spain was the most successful one. The Spanish were more Roman than the Italians if I remember correct

Sicilian italian spanish in that order. In how similiar they are to classic latin. Retroromantic might be in there somewhere too.

 

[TheDungen]

Ouyay reay givenforay orfay otnay eakingspay igpay atinlay. Eingbay a arbarianbay, Iay erstandunday.

Oh yeah right that's how it works.

 

[omega20056]

Isn't Spanish even one of the most Latin languages? After my knowledge the romanisation in Spain was the most successful one. The Spanish were more Roman than the Italians if I remember correct

Spain had a population of over five million even under the Visigoths. It wasn't devastated as Italy was and the Umayyads continued the classical way of life that Islam adopted from the Greeks.

 

[Talq]

Yeah i think you have a sort of romantizised look at rome

Yes, that pretty much sums up the last two pages.

 

[omega20056]

The roman way of life was for a chosen few. The people who worked the fields didn't get any of that, they were lucky if they were free men.

Any of the Visigothic laws on slavery did not apply to the Ibero-Romans because they lived only under Roman law (As stated by the Visigothic kings). The Visigoths couldn't just take a Roman citizen as a slave (They could I believe as a punishment for certain crimes but this also applied to Visigoths, see the English translation of the Liber Iudiciorum). The vast majority of the Ibero-Romans lived as they did before the Visigoths invaded.

 

[omega20056]

Yes, that pretty much sums up the last two pages.

How is my view romantisised? Look at the history of the Ibero-Romans and the Gallo-Romans and you'll see I'm correct.

 

[TheDungen]

Any of the Visigothic laws on slavery did not apply to the Ibero-Romans because they lived only under Roman law (As stated by the Visigothic kings). The Visigoths couldn't just take a Roman citizen as a slave (They could I believe as a punishment for certain crimes but this also applied to Visigoths, see the English translation of the Liber Iudiciorum). The vast majority of the Ibero-Romans lived as they did before the Visigoths invaded.

Oh but damnit, the working class of any ancient or classic era civilisation were slaves. Slaves were as far as i remember not citizens and thus could keep on as slaves under any barbarian ruler.
Who do you think worked the fields to feed those cities you go on about what do you think the point of the villas were?

 

[Zarathustra_the]

I think there are other things to consider. From excavations in England, it is clear that a high level of Romanization took place, including the living in Villas. English History is however an almost unique experience, because even with the Anglo-Saxon conquest much of the essentially Roman custom was retained in some sense. Culturally speaking what are now the Home Counties could safely have been called largely Romanized, however it would have been next to impossible for Britannia to have gained senatorial representation, it was the end of the world, and the logistics alone would have been a considerable consideration.

 

[theKing1988]

Oh but damnit, the working class of any ancient or classic era civilisation were slaves. Slaves were as far as i remember not citizens and thus could keep on as slaves under any barbarian ruler.

No, the entire working class of ancient civilizations were not slaves. That is quite an over-simplification. Certain civilizations and certain regions relied more heavily on slaves than others.

Even though Romans had no qualms about slavery we do have mentions in sources about certain Romans bemoaning the fact that the class of free peasants were disappearing from the lands of Etruria only to be replaced by big Villas run by slaves. Just to give you an example

 

[omega20056]

Yeah i think you have a sort of romantizised look at rome, very few lived in villas, and even in medieval italy the cities wheren't the same as they had been in the classic era. the vast majority of europes population were farmers.

You're moving the goal posts now and putting words into my mouth. I never said the medieval Italians lived in villas, I never even mentioned them. I actually argued they didn't by stating that Italy was depopulated after the Gothic and Lombard wars.

This is about the Gallo-Romans and the Ibero-Romans, I'm not talking about anything else. I said they should have been added because the Visigothic language and culture was dead and Frankish was nowhere near as extant as CM portrays. I also said that both the Ibero-Romans and Gallo-Romans lived according to the classical way of life until feudalism set in and the Romance languages emerged, which is true.

 

[omega20056]

Oh but damnit, the working class of any ancient or classic era civilisation were slaves. Slaves were as far as i remember not citizens and thus could keep on as slaves under any barbarian ruler.
Who do you think worked the fields to feed those cities you go on about what do you think the point of the villas were?

Slavery declined heavily in the 300s after Caracalla issued an edict that gave all freedmen Roman citizenship. Even at the height of the empire, slaves made up only 15% of the population.

 

[TheDungen]

No, the entire working class of ancient civilizations were not slaves. That is quite an over-simplification. Certain civilizations and certain regions relied more heavily on slaves than others.

Even though Romans had no qualms about slavery we do have mentions in sources about certain Romans bemoaning the fact that the class of free peasants were disappearing from the lands of Etruria only to be replaced by big Villas run by slaves. Just to give you an example

True enough generally speaking slavery exists when natural resources are more available than workforce. ergo it's cheaper to feed the slaves than the work you're certain they'll provide. Which is why slavery diminished as the populations of europe grew.
But certain civilisations did rely heavily on slavery eg. rome and greece.

 

[illathid]

This debate is dumb and has nothing to do with the Dev Diary. Let's get back on track.

I'm still really disappointed that forts will not block unit movement. That would make for so many interesting tactical strategic choices.

 

[omega20056]

This debate is dumb and has nothing to do with the Dev Diary. Let's get back on track.

I'm still really disappointed that forts will not block unit movement. That would make for so many interesting tactical strategic choices.

We don't know that yet, it could be a DLC feature.

 

[TheDungen]

Even at the height of the empire, slaves made up only 15% of the population.

first of source, secondly, and how diffrent were the living conditions of the free working class from the slaves?

thirdly if yu think that any but the wealthiest of the the iberian or gallic romans lived as the patricians of old you are sorely mistaken. Again a civilisation in those days required the vast majority of it's population to be peasents.

 

[Will Steel]

Remember, there were around 900 senators in the Roman Empire, and (even if nominally) they were 'ruling' over a population of around 70-80 million. Even if you count extended families and rich relatives, a vast, vast majority of Roman population was Plebeians. The condition of the middle class (Equites) was only a little better than them.

 

[Tengri]

Please, please, please, please, allow native tribal populations to exist on "extra holdings" slot. Tribal holdings at present aren't very different from the other types.

You should not be able to usurp and own, tribal holdings. But you should be able to be their overlord.

 

[Icedaemon]

Maybe I just missed this, but can tribal pagans build forts as well? It would make sense, historically pagans who did not build permanently settled castles still had forts to hide the women, children, valuables and livestock in when another tribe came a-raiding. For example, we didn't have permanent feudal holdins in Estonia, but it is commonly believed that there were forts on Otepää hill as far as 2000 years ago or longer still.

 

[Karolus Magnus]

Maybe I just missed this, but can tribal pagans build forts as well? It would make sense, historically pagans who did not build permanently settled castles still had forts to hide the women, children, valuables and livestock in when another tribe came a-raiding. For example, we didn't have permanent feudal holdins in Estonia, but it is commonly believed that there were forts on Otepää hill as far as 2000 years ago or longer still.

Yes, tribals can build forts.

 

[TheDungen]

Maybe I just missed this, but can tribal pagans build forts as well? It would make sense, historically pagans who did not build permanently settled castles still had forts to hide the women, children, valuables and livestock in when another tribe came a-raiding. For example, we didn't have permanent feudal holdins in Estonia, but it is commonly believed that there were forts on Otepää hill as far as 2000 years ago or longer still.

Well the ring fort upgrades for the tribes represent these.