Doesn't CK go up to 1453? So fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century republican features will also need to be included at that end of the timeframe.
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Well, if they're non-playable nations/government types they can be somewhat abstracted. Call it a new name, modify a few AI factors but it'd still be the same as one from the beginning of the game. I think thats why they're not making them playable right off. Making them react a bit more realistically as times change is easier than making them fun to play for a human.
It would be nice to play as republics and especially bishoprics. But, they would require a whole new set of events and flavor. And, the big issue as states, they are not dynastic. You would have to be able to play as the state and not a dynasty. Which, considering dynasties are essential to CK2, it is probably impossible.
Bishoprics, Republics and Military Orders don't have to be playable, but it must be possible to exert influence on them. In CK1, it could only happen by accident that a member of your dynasty was elected bishop, grandmaster or even pope. In CK2, there should be mechanisms to influence such elections, be it by force, bribery, or custom. Of course, you should also get something out of it, e.g. military help from a order your dynasty controls, or a prestige bonus for important ecclesiastical offices in the hands of your dynasty members.
I agree with this. You should definitely be able to exert influence on republics/bishoprics/military orders. And place dynasty members as their heads.
Irrespective of the enjoyment of playing these units, the game will probably be better designed if from the start territorial bishoprics and republics, as well as non-Christian groups, are made playable.
That aside, I would like every unit to be playable just for the sake of it. Probably like most users, I appreciate the dynastic system and so on but would still like to play an EU type game in the high medieval period. In what other paradox game could the player lead the Fatimids to dominance of the Mediterranean, build a Jewish Empire on the Caspian, take over the Byzantine Empire as the Venetians, establish an episcopal theocracy in the Holy Land?! This game of course. It would be a shame to waste it.
That aside, I would like every unit to be playable just for the sake of it. Probably like most users, I appreciate the dynastic system and so on but would still like to play an EU type game in the high medieval period. In what other paradox game could the player lead the Fatimids to dominance of the Mediterranean, build a Jewish Empire on the Caspian, take over the Byzantine Empire as the Venetians, establish an episcopal theocracy in the Holy Land?! This game of course. It would be a shame to waste it.
CK's scope is too large for communal republics, imo. You could control a dynasty within a republic, but you'd likely have no land*, limited "income" - if any - and little influence unless your family rise to one of the city's offices, which wouldn't be in your hands. And on those occasions your dynasty does hold power it'd be a short lived thing in game terms. Were you to focus the map on Italy, say, with every diocese, township, estate, castle, and manor holdable you might be able to replicate (to a degree) that kind of localised politics properly. Being able to dominate a see, on the other hand, seems reasonable.
* It's occured to me that the baronies might be used to represent the local holdings of families, though unless I'm mistaken barons aren't playable.
* It's occured to me that the baronies might be used to represent the local holdings of families, though unless I'm mistaken barons aren't playable.
I'd actually be really interested to see them dedicate an expansion(or two) toward fleshing out fun and interesting systems to play as Republics and Orders and Muslim dynasties and so forth. Because they'd have the time and resources to dedicate toward making these different nations fun and unique to play, it'd be like getting a new game within an already great game, instead of just more of the same. Playing a Republic could(and should) be a very different experience than playing a dynastic family, which is why it ought to be done in an expansion.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have a metric ton of fully fleshed out features on launch, same as anyone would like to win the lottery. But I suspect that if Paradox spends too much time making the other kinds of nations playable for the first release, it'll mean 'equalizing' them to decrease the workload. You try to implement too many features and what you tend to end up getting is a bit watered down. So I'd rather they focused on making dynasties perfect, then worry about the other stuff in expansions when they don't have a huge list of stuff to do already.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have a metric ton of fully fleshed out features on launch, same as anyone would like to win the lottery. But I suspect that if Paradox spends too much time making the other kinds of nations playable for the first release, it'll mean 'equalizing' them to decrease the workload. You try to implement too many features and what you tend to end up getting is a bit watered down. So I'd rather they focused on making dynasties perfect, then worry about the other stuff in expansions when they don't have a huge list of stuff to do already.
Well, after a discussion in the chat room, an idea has arisen.
Life term republics could be modelled with no problems (it could even be hidden,) with a republic succession law that is identical in the back end of the game to whatever Elective Monarchy law is instituted. You could still nominate your "heir" and the good barons/counts/dukes of your nation could back their candidates. In order to stick around in game all you would need is to be able to grant your heir a county. If you don't have an heir to nominate, well you'd have lost anyway...
I don't know how you could handle shorter term elections though, unless you have the ability to revert from "Lord Protector" to merely the "Elector Count". - Just don't give away your last county...
For bishoprics, you'd need to be able to nominate cousins, brothers, and bastards, but it could be done, with you arranging to marry your brothers, cousins and nephews who live in your court to breed more. A bishopric isn't a guaranteed failure to survive to the next generation. Admittedly you'll need to get to have a spare county which is treated an ecclesiastical province to give to your chosen bishop-nephew.
Life term republics could be modelled with no problems (it could even be hidden,) with a republic succession law that is identical in the back end of the game to whatever Elective Monarchy law is instituted. You could still nominate your "heir" and the good barons/counts/dukes of your nation could back their candidates. In order to stick around in game all you would need is to be able to grant your heir a county. If you don't have an heir to nominate, well you'd have lost anyway...
I don't know how you could handle shorter term elections though, unless you have the ability to revert from "Lord Protector" to merely the "Elector Count". - Just don't give away your last county...
For bishoprics, you'd need to be able to nominate cousins, brothers, and bastards, but it could be done, with you arranging to marry your brothers, cousins and nephews who live in your court to breed more. A bishopric isn't a guaranteed failure to survive to the next generation. Admittedly you'll need to get to have a spare county which is treated an ecclesiastical province to give to your chosen bishop-nephew.
Honestly, I think the "select a courtier at random" models the election process during this period in Venice at least pretty well. There should probably be a bias toward older courtiers though, and perhaps a slight bias in favor of competent ones. I'm not as informed about the other Italian republics.
I'd very much like to see republics playable in the base game. Being a king just doesn't appeal to me as much.
I've given it some thought, and yeah, you could play a count who is a vassal to a republic, and try to get elected from time to time. Francesco Sforza did this for a short time (he was allowed to style himself Count of Pavia) with Milan before seizing power and declaring himself Duke of Milan in 1450. Later, the Medicis were never officially dukes of Florence, but they had their own holdings and controlled the city government, mostly from behind the scenes, so I guess it would be possible if you wanted to do it that way. In other words, you would have county-level feudal lords who would compete for the elective-law republic title (which would be of the duke-level, as in CK1). Once you tenure in office is over, you go back to being the Count of Pavia, or whatever the case might be (unless you seize power like ol' Sforza).
Alternatively, if you really want to get to it, you could create a map just of northern Italy, and alter the tier structure of titles from king-duke-count-baron to duke-count-baron-lordship (and their republican and ecclesiastical equivalents). Weird idea perhaps, but a custom map would be the way to portray local politics effectively. Major events could be handled from off-map, that is, the Empire and Sicily (and France, etc.) could send in troops that would be generated from off-map (if that is possible on the new game engine), so the Papal States, Milan, Venice, Florence, and the minor northern Italian states could be portrayed in detail.
Alternatively, if you really want to get to it, you could create a map just of northern Italy, and alter the tier structure of titles from king-duke-count-baron to duke-count-baron-lordship (and their republican and ecclesiastical equivalents). Weird idea perhaps, but a custom map would be the way to portray local politics effectively. Major events could be handled from off-map, that is, the Empire and Sicily (and France, etc.) could send in troops that would be generated from off-map (if that is possible on the new game engine), so the Papal States, Milan, Venice, Florence, and the minor northern Italian states could be portrayed in detail.
If titles are given their own succession rules, then playing a Republic wouldn't be hard to implement. Your dynasty would hold hereditary rights to your count title, but then you could be elected as head of a Republic with the Republic having elective law still. So if your current character loses an election, it isn't game over, he just returns to being a count.
However, if titles are given their own succession rules, how would annexation of new territory be determined? Does new territory remain with the elective Republic or will it be passed on to family members and be considered part of the count holdings when the character dies?
I guess you would basically be one character playing two different states. If you wanted to hold the territory for your dynasty you would have to declare war with your county and only be able to levy soldiers from the county holdings.
However, if titles are given their own succession rules, how would annexation of new territory be determined? Does new territory remain with the elective Republic or will it be passed on to family members and be considered part of the count holdings when the character dies?
I guess you would basically be one character playing two different states. If you wanted to hold the territory for your dynasty you would have to declare war with your county and only be able to levy soldiers from the county holdings.
Well, if you are doge (or consul, or whatever), you would control who gets the new territory (though I imagine too much favoritism could lead to unpopularity), so in my example, let's imagine that Sforza is consul of Milan, and count of Pavia and Brescia in his own right. Milan's armies conquer Parma, and the consul decides who should rule it in the name of the republic. He could keep it himself or hand it off to a member of his dynasty. This is how I am thinking it could happen. Doomdark or another dev team member may be able to say if this would be feasible. The long and short of it is that titles remain separate, though it might get tricky (as it was in practice) when you mix feudal holdings with republican or ecclesiastical titles. But to my thinking, it should work similar to the HRE elections. Once your dynasty loses an election, you should go back to administering your own holdings like a good citizen.
The same situation prevailed in Florence and in the Papal States under the Borgias (Mario Puzzo's last novel _The Family_ is a fictionalized account of Pope Alexander and his family; good read, plenty of murder, lust, and war in XV century Italy).
I am hoping, too, that there is a functional estates-general for most kingdoms, senate (especially for the Byzantine Empire), Reichstag (for the HRE), etc., which was one of the best parts of playing republics in EU Rome. Sure, we'll all be playing monarchies, but all of them had some sort of meeting of the notables of the realm in addition to the monarch's council, where demands could be made, taxes negotiated, war plans discussed, etc., where you would have to deal with the vassals of each kingdom or ducal title that you hold. But maybe that deserves its own thread.
Regular, institutionalised meetings of estates general really only began in the thirteenth/fourteenth centuries. Of course, less 'formal'/'public' (if those are even useful concepts for the middle ages) channels of deliberation existed within courts and retinues before this time, but institutions like the English parliament were a product of the later middle ages, as Gerald Harriss's masterpiece King, Parliament, and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford, 1975) has shown. The French Estates General, incidentally, only met twice in the fifteenth century, so by no means all polities had regular mechanisms of dialogue.
I am interested in what Fernand Braudel has described (in reference to the early modern era) as the "realm of the possible." I appreciate the examples that you cite from France and England, but what interests me in this regard is how the constitutional history of your realm can be modeled. There are many lines of evolution that each realm could take, of course. In 1066, this might mean obtaining the consensus of the spiritual and temporal lords in your kingdom before taking some important step like changing the laws of succession, stripping a rebellious noble of his titles, or going to war (particularly the latter, when you can be assured that all your vassals will indeed mobilize when ordered to do so). Such meetings have their earliest appearance as a privy council, in time expanding if and when necessary from your own personal advisors to include a larger swath of the realm's elite. Given that you will be able to appoint your direct vassals to your council, in 1066 France, the rulers of Anjou, Normandy, Flanders, Aquitaine, Burgundy, and Toulouse could all be appointed as councilors, each with ceremonial and real functions in the government of your realm. Events simulating the meeting of your council would add some flavor to the game, where you would gain the advice of its members before you act, with corresponding effects if you take their advice or not. This topic is worth discussing more, and I hope that there is a future developer diary on the subject. I'm sure there will be.