It's finally time to announce the next expansion for Crusader Kings II! You might already know the name: "Sons of Abraham". Some of you were very close in your guesses on what it might be. No, it's not a Zombie DLC! Sons of Abraham focuses on the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The idea was to go back to the roots after all the attention given to the heathens, and to flesh out the religious side of the game for the monotheists; Christians in particular.

First and foremost, we wanted to do more with the Pope; how he gets elected, what powers he has and how you can gain his favor. Thus, we added the Cardinal title and the College of Cardinals. For simplicity's sake, there are only nine cardinals, and the Pope is always elected from among their number. Cardinals, however, are not elected; they are picked by the Pope from among his courtiers and the bishops of Europe. The selection is based on many factors; age, piety, opinion, culture (the Pope really likes Italians!), etc.



So, how exactly do you get your man onto the chair of Saint Peter? Well, the Holy See is not a democracy, so this is not a direct process. First, you need at least one of your bishops to get appointed Cardinal by the Holy Father. Fortunately, you do not have to rely entirely on the character of the bishop himself, you can grease the machinery with a bit of lucre by putting money in the campaign fund (similar to how Doges are elected in Merchant Republics). Of course, it is also possible to carefully groom a candidate for a career in the Catholic church before you even make him a bishop.

When the Pope dies, the cardinals in turn elect his successor. This process cannot be directly influenced by the player, but the cardinals will reason much like the Pope does when he picks new cardinals, so it's better to have old, pious men made cardinals than incompetent wastrels whose election you paid for.



Ok, so let us say one of your bishops is eventually made Pope. How does that serve you? Well, Popes that come from your realm will like you - a lot. Of course, that means they will be likely to grant your requests. Want to get divorced? No problem. Want to invade someone? Ok. To make this even more useful, we've given the Pope some new powers as well: he can give you money, plain and simple. He can also approve your candidate for a bishopric under Papal Investiture, or even declare a Crusade on the infidel of your choice. However, each time he does you a favor, he will like you less, so your influence will not last forever. Incidentally, having your antipope installed in Rome will have a similar effect. Oh, and if the Pope should happen to be of your very own dynasty, that will give you a lot of monthly Piety and Prestige.



There are some direct benefits to controlling cardinals as well. You cannot ask to have someone excommunicated or invaded if they control more cardinals than you do.

That's that about the College of Cardinals. Next week I'll talk about holy orders, heresies, and other things...

ps.

Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham (official product page)
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/crusader-kings-ii-sons-of-abraham

Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham announced (News article at PC gamer)
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/10/22/crusader-kings-ii-the-something-something-announced/[URL="http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/10/22/crusader-kings-ii-the-something-something-announced/"][/URL]

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

*picture*

I like this one. Now it's quite clearly a Christian march, and I'm fairly convinced that's the walk to Canossa.

Thats what i thought first as well, but it's quite probably just a pilgrimage shot.
Lack of soldiers for the Walk to Canossa, though i'm not sure how big his retinue was and how much military was in it.

 

[Ruwaard]

I believe base mechanics will favour whatever culture holds the Holy See. If the Pope appoints his courtiers Cardinals, those courtiers will be the culture of the Pope, or the previous Pope because your new courtiers are always your culture. I think the 'he really likes italians' thing is simply because the Papal courtiers will mostly be Italians.

IMHO that shouldn't be entirely true. I can see the Pope being able to name one (favourite) priest from his nation a Cardinal, but probably only rarely he can name an entire College of Cardinals during his Papacy.

 

[Ols]

Thats what i thought first as well, but it's quite probably just a pilgrimage shot.
Lack of soldiers for the Walk to Canossa, though i'm not sure how big his retinue was and how much military was in it.

The thing is, wasn't Henry wearing a jacket made of brown reeds designed to humble him by virtue of being very uncomfortable? I can't remember what it's called, but it looks sorta like he might be wearing it under his cloak.

EDIT: A hair shirt or cilice, the traditional clothes of monks at the time. It's credible.

 

[n00bypl4y3r]

So wait, what about Holy Orders? Will we be able to play as them?

 

[Ols]

So wait, what about Holy Orders? Will we be able to play as them?

It's not been stated. Have a look at the livestream and the rest of the released material, or you otherwise might have to wait a week or two to see. My guess would be no, you can't. Paradox seems somewhat hostile to the idea of completely non-dynastic play. I could be pleasantly surprised though.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

The thing is, wasn't Henry wearing a jacket made of brown reeds designed to humble him by virtue of being very uncomfortable? I can't remember what it's called, but it looks sorta like he might be wearing it under his cloak.

Ding ! That's where i quit. Toooooo long ago that i knew such details.



Ruwaard ! Help !
You know that, don't you ?!

 

[anomanderus]

oy vey

what a day

 

[Ols]

Ding ! That's where i quit. Toooooo long ago that i knew such details.



Ruwaard ! Help !
You know that, don't you ?!

To be fair, it is written quite clearly in the wikipedia article on the Walk to Canossa, which I must have read some months back.

 

[darthfanta]

How will that affect vassalising the pope?

 

[unmerged(670837)]

Nope, I don't think it can ever be due to the pope being important when modding/events and its required we have atleast one person who can't be controlled by AI.

Actually there is a mod that lets you play as the pope, though it is pretty much just a quick workaround it still is stable

 

[n00bypl4y3r]

It's not been stated. Have a look at the livestream and the rest of the released material, or you otherwise might have to wait a week or two to see. My guess would be no, you can't. Paradox seems somewhat hostile to the idea of completely non-dynastic play. I could be pleasantly surprised though.

I think that playing without the dynasties makes the game too easy or something like that. Part of the challenge at the start of the game is to build up your dynasty so you don't die out, and in the end is managing all the people with claims on your stuff.

 

[pesco77]

Borgia! Borgia! Borgia!

(Yes, I know, they had their rise in the EU timeframe, but CK2's emphasis on people makes it feel like they fit in this game more.)

 

[vladstronsy]

*Starts a conga line, music 'jumping Jews of Jerusalem' plays in the backround* The train gets off at the holy land lads!
Otherwise I'm delighted the title 'Crusader Kings' is no longer becoming an antique title.
But oh boy the holy land is going to be soaked in blood after they release this.

 

[gamer42_au]

I'm wondering the same thing. If for example, a French cardinal becomes Pope, will he then favour other French or stick with the Italian preference?

Historically, the Papacy in Avignon (in game arguably an anti-Pope) did favour French cardinals quite significantly. But I think that French (or Spanish) Popes based in Rome, still tended to appoint more Italians than their own nationality, presumably because the bureaucracy structurally favoured it.

 

[Sokar Rostau]

Guys I'm sorry if I'm late to the party and this has already been answered, but does anyone know how the burning Rome picture relates to this DLC? I get the Jewish diaspora in the migration image, but the burning of Rome puzzles me :\

As many of us have been saying since the day the first image was released - it has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews (or migrations), it is a picture of people on a pilgrimage.

I just realised something. We might find that the date does get pushed back a little and we probably will get new bookmarks.

If you push the date back by 30 years you end up at the point in history where the Khazars converted to Judaism (the known actual date, rather than the legendary date from a century earlier). Just think about a new game where only a handful of courtiers and a couple of nobles are Jews and everyone else is Tengrii (technically there should be Orthodox and Muslim as well since there was a lot of proselytizing). This would make for a difficult start, to say the least. Of course, you don't need to push the time back for the same effect, but it's not impossible. Actually, the more I think about it the less likely pushing the date to 837 seems necessary. Nice for historical accuracy and a difficult start, though.

The Khazars converted to Judaism in the 9th century (perhaps earlier) and then converted to Islam in the 10th century, in order for them to have allies against the Rus. A bookmark a few years before the switch to Islam would make for another very interesting game. I think this was some time in the 960s, so given we have 867 and 1066 as bookmarks adding a 96x bookmark would make a world of sense.

I would also suggest that, depending on the level of overhaul they get, we will probably also get a heretic and/or crusade bookmark. The Albigensian Crusade was the most well known of the crusades against heretics, so around 1210(?) would make for a good bookmark, but we already have a bunch of bookmarks in the 13thC. I dare say a bookmark for the Wendish Crusade (1147) would make anyone ever roflstomped by pagans really happy, but 1147 also happens to be when the first of the Iberian Crusades was called so it would make for a great bookmark.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

To be fair, it is written quite clearly in the wikipedia article on the Walk to Canossa, which I must have read some months back.

Ah right. It's not mentioned in the german Wikipedia, as i believe that has been allegedly propaganda (might be, might not).
That he wore simple clothes at the castle of Canossa still stands.
Well....might be possible.

I'm looking forward to the final conclusion on this. :happy: (*suspense*)

 

[Autokrator48]

I think that playing without the dynasties makes the game too easy or something like that. Part of the challenge at the start of the game is to build up your dynasty so you don't die out, and in the end is managing all the people with claims on your stuff.

Also, if you play without dynasties it creates many problems : you can rarely lose since as you presumably would always have an heir as most of the possible non-dynastic gameplay would revolve around non-inheritable titles (like Bishop), you could inherit random claims from your heir without working for it, you wouldn't lose anything from marrying lowborn people (I assume you would also be lowborn, otherwise you could hop from one dynasty to another and unite everyone's land quite easily), or you couldn't even marry people, etc.

 

[n00bypl4y3r]

As many of us have been saying since the day the first image was released - it has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews (or migrations), it is a picture of people on a pilgrimage.

I just realised something. We might find that the date does get pushed back a little and we probably will get new bookmarks.

If you push the date back by 30 years you end up at the point in history where the Khazars converted to Judaism (the known actual date, rather than the legendary date from a century earlier). Just think about a new game where only a handful of courtiers and a couple of nobles are Jews and everyone else is Tengrii (technically there should be Orthodox and Muslim as well since there was a lot of proselytizing). This would make for a difficult start, to say the least. Of course, you don't need to push the time back for the same effect, but it's not impossible. Actually, the more I think about it the less likely pushing the date to 837 seems necessary. Nice for historical accuracy and a difficult start, though.

The Khazars converted to Judaism in the 9th century (perhaps earlier) and then converted to Islam in the 10th century, in order for them to have allies against the Rus. A bookmark a few years before the switch to Islam would make for another very interesting game. I think this was some time in the 960s, so given we have 867 and 1066 as bookmarks adding a 96x bookmark would make a world of sense.

I would also suggest that, depending on the level of overhaul they get, we will probably also get a heretic and/or crusade bookmark. The Albigensian Crusade was the most well known of the crusades against heretics, so around 1210(?) would make for a good bookmark, but we already have a bunch of bookmarks in the 13thC. I dare say a bookmark for the Wendish Crusade (1147) would make anyone ever roflstomped by pagans really happy, but 1147 also happens to be when the first of the Iberian Crusades was called so it would make for a great bookmark.

I don't recall reading about a re-conversion back to Islam, and I am doing quite a bit of research for my Khazar mod. From written records from Arabic merchants and the Kiev Letter (the only written record of Khazar written language, though most of the letter is in Hebrew), it sounds like the Khazars (in Itil and Kiev, at least) stayed Jewish until pretty late, possibly even until the Mongol Conquests. Now, there were areas of Khazars who were Islamic. For example, the city of Khazaran near Itil was mainly Islamic for a LONG time, even before the Khazars converted to Judaism.

 

[unmerged(150945)]

Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham.

Abrahamic Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Each Abrahamic religion has One True God.

1 + 1 + 1 = 3.

3 characters in HL3.

Three words in Half-Life 3.

One character in the number 3.

Crusader Kings Z confirmed.

 

[Tufto]

Question is: will the Church Reforms be at all represented? They were pretty important. Like marriage prohibition and the beginning of Papal investiture.

Still already looking like the best DLC yet, though .