The arduous duty great privilege of writing this week's Dev Diary has fallen to me, and in a desperate but vain attempt to fill Doomdark's shoes, I am here to talk a bit about the various options that are open to pagans when waging war.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_Prepared_Invasion.jpg

Prepared Invasions
Norse Pagans, or Vikings as they are known to the common man, have the unique ability to launch Prepared Invasions against non-pagans. This undertaking can only be done by small to middling Viking realms, and the target of your invasion can't be too small or too big (it needs to have between 9 and 40 holdings).

The way this works is that you declare your intention to invade a particular realm. This will cost you a lot of prestige (which can be gained through looting, as explained in the previous Dev Diary), and you'll have two years to prepare before going to war. During this time warriors from across the Norse lands will flock to your banner, hungry for loot and plunder. Needless to say, if you fail to declare war before these two years are up, you will lose face.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_King_Ambition.jpg

Subjugation
Pagans won't shy away from fighting each other, and all pagan rulers may make use of the new Subjugation casus belli. This lets them attack other pagans within a specified target kingdom, but it can only be used every ten years unless your ruler has the new ”Become King” ambition. If you are the victor of a Subjugation war, you will vassalize all lords within the target kingdom.

Pagan Conquest
Pagans can always declare war for control over a single neighboring county, and in addition to this, Norse Pagans may also go to war for any coastal county.

Tribal Invasion
This casus belli can only be used by independent Altaic (Turkish and Mongol) and Magyar pagan rulers, and it targets entire kingdoms in what amounts to massive horde invasions. You may have been on the receiving end of these before, but now you'll finally get a chance to unleash them yourself as you ride in from the steppes to carve out an empire.

View attachment CKII_ToG_DD_03_Peace_Too_Long.jpg


And finally, a few more items that have a significant impact on pagans and how they wage war:
Non-pagans suffer from a significantly smaller supply limit when in pagan territory, which limits their ability to march massive armies towards the heathen homelands at the start of the game. This penalty will eventually be removed as you progress through the Military Organization technologies.

As was touched upon in the last Dev Diary, Norse and Tengri pagans lose prestige if they have been at peace for too long. The Suomenusko, Romuva and Slavic pagans are less focused on offensive warfare and do not have this penalty. In addition, their warriors enjoy several defensive bonuses, especially when fighting in provinces with their own religion.

That's all for now!

 

[Guilu]

I would hardly consider this argument a "leftist" attempt to rewrite history however, more of a demonstration of how we as people tend to project our modern cynicism towards organized religion and the power of faith on the rest history.

Regardless of leftist anti-imperialist rewrites, you do see a lot of unknown people from well-known families in the crusades. Leading. True, there were a lot of just peasants who were promised absolution, but who cares about those guys ?!

 

[TheLionHeart]

Anglo-Saxon culture!? Could this be that the German culture is actually broken down? Also East and West Francia are nice too I'm guessing there will be an event that changes it to France and Germany.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

What religion would that be for Rurik? Slavic paganism?

Facepalm. Somehow I thought Rurik was the first Christian in the house of Rurikovich.

 

[Rubidium]

Regardless of leftist anti-imperialist rewrites, you do see a lot of unknown people from well-known families in the crusades. Leading. True, there were a lot of just peasants who were promised absolution, but who cares about those guys ?!

Not sure I'd describe either the Duke of Toulouse or the Duke of Lower Lorraine that way (to say nothing of the later Crusades, which were frequently led by kings).

Generally if you wanted to gain land, there were easier ways that didn't involve traveling halfway across the known world and trying not to die of plague.

 

[Talq]

To be fair I've heard that the crusades being about landless nobles wanting land is mostly a leftist rewrite of history as early European imperialism. A large part of the crusading force were simple peasants and townpeople who took the individual choice to join, and many kings contributed greatly.

I do agree about the marching thing though, moving across the world is far too easy. As most armies of those days were maintained by "foraging", aka pillaging, rulers would most likely strongly object to anyone simply marching trough their territory.

To be blunt, the story of the crusades is quite interesting history, and so worth finding reputable sources rather than the rantings of some weirdo website. The first crusade contained a number of titled nobles (the Duke of Toulouse, Duke of Lower Lorraine & the Duke of Normandy come to mind) and sons (of which Bohemond, later Prince of Antioch was the most famous). All the substantial lands went to nobles, but for practical reasons if they had lands elsewhere and they stayed in Outremer, those lands elsewhere would be inherited by other parts of the family. Furthermore, in this era neither horses, armour nor weapons grew on trees, and weapons training was not trivial. The heavy cavalry would have been entirely noble, and the rest of the soldiery fitted out by noble houses. There were literal peasant's crusades - including one contingent (under Peter the Hermit). They had a habit of getting beaten by the first hostile forces and either running away or joining the more professional groups.

The crusades were not motivated entirely by land lust (although Bohemond and Jocelyn of Edessa ...probably were) - most of the actual leaders were hardly going to benefit from land half of europe away from their estates, and there was a substantial religious/pilgrimage element to it. But 'mostly simple peasants' my behind.

 

[Cruxador]

I hope the faces in the screenshots aren't final. The faces of scandinavians in the old days shouldn't be based on the faces of modern city people who live indoors all the time. Instead they should, at least in the case of the men, look like people who spend some time in the wind and the cold. I know there are people like that even today in scandinavia - or at least Norway and Denmark, I haven't spent much time in Sweden.

 

[nalivayko]

I hope the faces in the screenshots aren't final. The faces of scandinavians in the old days shouldn't be based on the faces of modern city people who live indoors all the time. Instead they should, at least in the case of the men, look like people who spend some time in the wind and the cold. I know there are people like that even today in scandinavia - or at least Norway and Denmark, I haven't spent much time in Sweden.

I do like to spend my time outside. Mainly, above 14,000 ft. Your face does get to look different, wind and cold being the guilty parties. Yet, to the city I return, and my face changes again. Look, these are rulers that we are seeing. They did their share of looting and pillaging. Now, they are resting and getting soft. Nothing's wrong with that.

 

[Alerias]

Out of curiosity, what are the main effects of extended exposure to outside cold and wind upon one's face?

(I'm Canadian, but I hibernate in winter.)

 

[nalivayko]

Out of curiosity, what are the main effects of extended exposure to outside cold and wind upon one's face?

(I'm Canadian, but I hibernate in winter.)

My skin gets red, facial features grow in size (inflammation?). My nose looks as if I was drinking non-stop for a month or two. Attaching a file.

 

[besaccia]

Gosh, they took unlimited coastal conquest from republics and gave it to Vikings. Expecting to see fugly Spain and North Africa full of Norse grabs.

Remember that now rebels are intelligent and have goals, so conquering christian lands far from home would prove useless to the norsemen, peasants would take arms just the next second the army leaves.

 

[Cruxador]

Out of curiosity, what are the main effects of extended exposure to outside cold and wind upon one's face?

(I'm Canadian, but I hibernate in winter.)

Instead of pink and soft, people get a "weathered" look. Tougher drier skin, more "ruddy" in color. Wrinkles a lot faster too.

 

[unmerged(281782)]

Honestly, it could be a trait showing that the character has converted from Paganism to his current religion.

The icon is in a heart, so that's a genetic trait most likely.

Remember that now rebels are intelligent and have goals, so conquering christian lands far from home would prove useless to the norsemen, peasants would take arms just the next second the army leaves.

Good point. But perhaps republics could get rid of distance requirements than as well?

 

[Velg]

Not sure I'd describe either the Duke of Toulouse or the Duke of Lower Lorraine that way (to say nothing of the later Crusades, which were frequently led by kings).

But Bohemund, Baldwin, Tancred, etc., all of which were prominent participants of the First Crusade, are best described as adventurers. And taking the look at Runciman's „History of the Crusades” - I wouldn't call Duke of Lower Lorraine prominent nobleman. Henry IV didn't give Godfrey this duchy as heritage feudum, so well...

About the latter crusader, I kinda agree they were organized by monarchs – but I also assert you that the lot of participants could consider staying in Holy Land after the deed is done. Because – hey! - why not? Kingdom of Outremer was wealthy, had permanent knights' shortancy, and they were generally more land to give to vassals than vassals. Though it's not the kind of thing that could be modelled by the adventurers. But I still dream that we will have some mechanics representing the settlement of the invading armies after conquest...

Now that I think... Do viking adventurer who conquers some county in e.g. France start with „Recently conquered” penalty? Meaning: having no army? Cause that would be terribly stupid – his band would settle there and be available for any futher war. Same question goes for hordes.

And second question: I wonder if it's possible to easily reconvert to paganism from Christianity. Mindaugas from Lithuania comes to my mind as the historical example.

 

[BallsOfSteel]

There's only one problem that I can think of regarding these adventurers joining the crusades: Several times I have seen over a dozen nations go on crusade on one target. If you have fourteen nations declaring war, and each of them get free armies, then how would that be fair for the target of the crusade? Because one could say the same should apply to the jihad, meaning that the targets of these invasions would have next to no chance of surviving the holy war, be they Christian or otherwise. If nothing else, should adventurers not be added to holy invasions, I would assume it's due to balancing issues.

 

[lemonsquid]

What if you are surrounded by larger realms, how are you supposed to go to war without already knowing you will lose. I dont see why anyone would commit suicide like that

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

There's only one problem that I can think of regarding these adventurers joining the crusades: Several times I have seen over a dozen nations go on crusade on one target. If you have fourteen nations declaring war, and each of them get free armies, then how would that be fair for the target of the crusade? Because one could say the same should apply to the jihad, meaning that the targets of these invasions would have next to no chance of surviving the holy war, be they Christian or otherwise. If nothing else, should adventurers not be added to holy invasions, I would assume it's due to balancing issues.

If it's actually a crusade, then the adventurers become another army, nominally working for the Pope, but acquiring score as a separate entity.

 

[SRM]

View attachment 78612

>Take Concubine action

Tell me more of this. /sith warrior voice

 

[Glatux]

>Take Concubine action

Tell me more of this. /sith warrior voice

I think it's like secondary wive for Muslim ruler.

 

[DominusNovus]

Gee, I can't think of anything controversial that happened with Jews in the middle ages except, you know, pogroms? And the odd crusade kicking off by burning down the local Jewish residences (conveniently located in the nearby ghetto)? Basically the whole thing is a can of worms of a size that Paradox (rightly) is quite cautious about opening.

Good thing the Crusaders never committed any atrocities against any other people, so that the rest of the Crusades could be kept in...

And I just want to remind everyone that supports putting the Khazars in the game as Tengri pagans, that you'll have a bunch of pagan rulers with names such as...

Obadiah
Hezekiah
Chanukkah
Isaac
Aaron
Benjamin

...
oy vey.

 

[Talq]

I do think that the prepared invasion mechanic sounds like something that could be developed into a good mechanic for (at least the first) crusade. That said, you would want to add an option for actual landless non-heir (or even duke or count) characters to get involved (judging from King's playthrough the adventurers were randomly generated). That then would hoover up all the mini-armies that make the crusades as they stand so annoying (kings, of course can do their own thing). You could even add crusade events like the on hajj sequence for muslims (which may make up for not controling your own army). One advantage is that the kingdom can then be independent rather than an appanage to another, so no HRE blobbing in the middle east.

There is also the issue of throwing anything like this anywhere other than the KoJ, is probably doom for the unfortunate recipients, so the numbers would need to be tweaked a lot.

Its well outside the scope of TOG, but may be worth considering in the future.