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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.

CKII_SoA_DD_01_Religion_View.jpg

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.

CKII_SoA_DD_01_College_of_Cardinals.jpg

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.

CKII_SoA_DD_01_Papal_Powers.jpg

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]
 
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DreadLindwyrm said:
Ideally the cardinals would surrender their bishoprics upon being appointed cardinal (since you're not meant to bishop of more than one see).
But it is definitely necessary for the new Pope to abandon their non-papal state titles upon being appointed, otherwise gradually most of the bishop run counties and duchies will become part of the Papal State.
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Cardinal isn't a type of bishop, its just a title. For example, in present life, Sean O'mally became Bishop of Fall River in 1992, and then Archbishop of Boston in 2003, leaving Fall River. Then, he became a Cardinal in 2006, though he remains Archbishop of Boston. This is entirely normal.

Conversely, when Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he ceased to be Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
 
DominusNovus said:
Cardinal isn't a type of bishop, its just a title. For example, in present life, Sean O'mally became Bishop of Fall River in 1992, and then Archbishop of Boston in 2003, leaving Fall River. Then, he became a Cardinal in 2006, though he remains Archbishop of Boston. This is entirely normal.

Conversely, when Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he ceased to be Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
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Not in the game timeline... Mostly the Cardinals are the Bishops of the suburbicarian bishoprics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbicarian_diocese

But for simplification... Yes. For Bishops and Cardinals it would be okay. But not for the pope.
 
I have a question to the dews. Would it be possible to pre-order the game?
 
DominusNovus said:
Cardinal isn't a type of bishop, its just a title. For example, in present life, Sean O'mally became Bishop of Fall River in 1992, and then Archbishop of Boston in 2003, leaving Fall River. Then, he became a Cardinal in 2006, though he remains Archbishop of Boston. This is entirely normal.

Conversely, when Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he ceased to be Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
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True. However, since the "Cardinal" panel focuses on the most important 9, they're going to be mostly the cardinal-bishops, and thus bishops in Rome.
They might go with making the Cardinal thing merely a titular dignity though, in which case it's not a problem, although it would be an excuse to give them the baron-level bishoprics in Rome and surrounding provinces held by the Papacy.
 
Thure said:
Not in the game timeline... Mostly the Cardinals are the Bishops of the suburbicarian bishoprics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbicarian_diocese

But for simplification... Yes. For Bishops and Cardinals it would be okay. But not for the pope.
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Well in the fifth century Rome had 25 titular churches and by the 12th century that number had risen to 28. (Note that a titular church is assigned to a Cardinal priest).
Then there also are the Cardinal Deacons, which developed out of 7 deacons in the Papal household (now there are IIRC 30 Cardinal Deacons).

This could result in a maximum 38 or 41 cardinals in game, if that number would have been moddable. Is that number moddable anyway? Increasing it a bit might work, but then probably the members of the Papal Council and bishops in the vicinity of Rome and under Papal vassalage, should be earmarked as Cardinals (to represent the Cardinal Bishops and Cardinal Deacons), which would leave the rest free.
 
An easy way to represent this (although its a little complicated in game terms) could be this:

1) Institute a College of Cardinals of 25 members
2)Make all Baronies in Rome Bishoprics and rename them after the 6 suburbicarian dioceses... These will be the Cardinal-Bishops
3) The rest of 19 Cardinals would be Cardinal-Priests and Cardinal Deacons scattered throughout European sees (lets say 12 Cardinal-Priests and 7 Cardinal-Deacons all Bishops)
4) Each time a Cardinal-Bishop dies one of the rest Cardinals takes his place in Rome leaving his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.
5) Papal election goes as per "Sons of Abraham" DLC
6) Cardinal elected Pope leaves his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.

I dont know if its possible in game code terms or if someone can mod it like this... So dont jump on me...
 
Don_giorgio said:
An easy way to represent this (although its a little complicated in game terms) could be this:

1) Institute a College of Cardinals of 25 members
2)Make all Baronies in Rome Bishoprics and rename them after the 6 suburbicarian dioceses... These will be the Cardinal-Bishops
3) The rest of 19 Cardinals would be Cardinal-Priests and Cardinal Deacons scattered throughout European sees (lets say 12 Cardinal-Priests and 7 Cardinal-Deacons all Bishops)
4) Each time a Cardinal-Bishop dies one of the rest Cardinals takes his place in Rome leaving his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.
5) Papal election goes as per "Sons of Abraham" DLC
6) Cardinal elected Pope leaves his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.

I dont know if its possible in game code terms or if someone can mod it like this... So dont jump on me...
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To elaborate a bit more on this, a Cardinal Bishop holds a Suburbicarian See, a Cardinal Priest has a titular church and a Cardinal Deacon has a cardinalatial deaconry. In other words there could be even more Cardinals.

However the College of Cardinals between the 13th and 15th century didn't exceed 30, though in the 14th century the number of 20 was formalized, at a later point there was an attempt to bring it back to 16, then 24. Beyond the scope of the game it was later further increased.
Though 25, being between 20 and 30, might be a good idea. Maybe something like 6 Cardinal Bishops, 5 Cardinal Deacons (the Papal chancellor, marshall etc.) and 9 Cardinal priests (as a minimum), that would bring the number to 20 Cardinals. If there should be 25, then there can be 14 Cardinal Priests.
 
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One this has been bugging me: all the cardinals that we've seen so far have been supported by a kingdom or an empire. Is it merely a coincidence or are independent dukes and counts incapable of gaining cardinals, and do cardinals always support the highest ranking liege?
 
Don_giorgio said:
An easy way to represent this (although its a little complicated in game terms) could be this:

1) Institute a College of Cardinals of 25 members
2)Make all Baronies in Rome Bishoprics and rename them after the 6 suburbicarian dioceses... These will be the Cardinal-Bishops
3) The rest of 19 Cardinals would be Cardinal-Priests and Cardinal Deacons scattered throughout European sees (lets say 12 Cardinal-Priests and 7 Cardinal-Deacons all Bishops)
4) Each time a Cardinal-Bishop dies one of the rest Cardinals takes his place in Rome leaving his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.
5) Papal election goes as per "Sons of Abraham" DLC
6) Cardinal elected Pope leaves his Bishopric vacant which returns to the ruler.

I dont know if its possible in game code terms or if someone can mod it like this... So dont jump on me...
Click to expand...

The Holy See is not physically tied to Rome and it's bishoprics though.
 
Say, is Paradox into science-fiction games now? Neither historically, nor today, nor ever in the future, will the Popes *ever* grant divorce to anyone. They have no such power. All they can do is grant a marriage annulment - which is not at all the same thing.

A divorce is the termination of a recognised and existing marriage. A marriage annulment means declaring that the marriage had never in fact taken place - either because of too close a familial relationship (which required a dispensation in the first place, and this in turn made annulment an outright impossibility - see Henry VIII), because one party had misled the other, or because of non-consummation, et cetera. This is an important difference, not just in wording, but also in gameplay terms - for pagans, Muslims, Jews, or Christian heretics, divorce is an option and an easy one to obtain, while for Catholic rulers, divorce is outright impossible while annulment is almost impossible.

Historically, papal marriage annulments were very, very rare, because while occasionally a corrupt pope could indeed make such a proclamation based on false premises (and a boatload of money), common sense limited such antics. You couldn't very well claim non-consummation when you had children, marriage under false premises was usually easy to disprove, and so on. It was so difficult, in fact, that Henry VIII decided it'll be easier to divorce the Church than keep trying to "divorce" his wife. It was actually more frequent for kings to commit bigamy by shoving their lawful wife off to some secluded keep and forcing a priest to officiate a new marriage, than for kings to get a marriage annulment. This is not to say that such marriage annulments didn't take place - but come on, if you're just going to have a "get a divorce" option that works simply based on how much the pope likes you, you completely destroy what makes the Catholic Church distinct in this regard from other religious groups in the game.
 
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