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]

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

That is exactly what I mean.



As far as all this talk about playable theocracies with non-blood-related heirs goes. Please stop. If you allow a player to play a non-blood-related dynasty you are basically giving him the most overpowered feature ever seen in CK II.

First and foremost this game is about creative procreation. If you dont pop out enough babies its game over. If you dont raise them right its a hard game. What on earth is the challenge of adopting someone?

The papacy in reality functioned more like a Merchant republic intertwined with the EU IV Papacy system. YES the popes had kids and those like the Borgias attempted some dynasty building. Lets not dream up far flung overpowered systems to accomplish this. Besides, Paradox has put a release date on the DLC so I think its fairly clear that playable theocracies are not part of the plan for the time being.

The challenge? People can be swayed away from your school of thought. Your school of thought might be inherited by a moron for lack of any competent heirs.
I envisage the "school of thought" to be a similar level of power as seniority or tanistry - available to essentially everybody - provided you remember to keep marrying people for heirs. When was the last time you had a seniority or tanistry dynasty die out?

You also run the risk potentially of having your school of thought condemned by your religious head if enough of you offend him, and of course you have difficulties with conversion, since your school of thought should be tied to the specific branch of religion you are in.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

It totally depends on the character you start with. The size of your dynasty entirely determines the difficulty of this aspect. Now, if you have a playable papacy not only do you have all of europe grovelling at your feet for forgiveness and the power to make or break empires, but you can also just bypass the necessity of cultivating a strong family? I would like to see you argue for that not being overpowered.



Without getting into a inquiry about how my preference of blood related dynastic gameplay is closed minded, I'll say that I highly doubt Paradox will move away from the current dynastic system, and I for one am glad about it. You shared your opinion, and I shared mine.

And as far as your personal attack at my creativity and open mindedness, please read the last four sentences of my post.

The thing is, even if you were to play the pope, you would still have to worry about getting your "spiritual heir" elected, rather than a representative of another order or school of thought. You have to cultivate a strong, widely spread school, as if you run low on members of your order then you have less chance of being backed up in church matters, and elections to the papacy.

Again, we didn't think they'd be able to fit the Republic in without breaking the dynastic model since potentially families would have to be "off map" part of the time, but they found a fix to that. Something could be done to resolve it for theocracies, although not necessarily immediately.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

I have a question about the college of cardinals and other ways of appointing the head of religion, ie what ever method the othodox get. What I am wondering if pagan religions upon reforming can pick different methods? For instance if I reform the slavic faith I could set up a college of priests who pick the new head of the religion or i could have it use what ever the orthodox do?

Would that be possible or at least be moddable?

I don't know where else to ask this, but this place seems the best.
I can't remember where, but I believe someone mentioned that if a Heresy outgrows the main branch of the religion then it becomes the main branch and the main branch becomes the heresy. Does this apply to Mazdaki and Manichean in regards to Zoroastrianism as well or just to the Abrahamic faiths?

No specific info yet. Wait for the next devdiary. That should give us details...i hope.

 

[theKing1988]

Will we see a new DD this Tuesday? or perhaps later still?

 

[DarkReborn]

Will we see a new DD this Tuesday? or perhaps later still?

They usually come out on Wednesdays.

 

[Titan79]

Will we see a new DD this Tuesday? or perhaps later still?

They usually come out on Wednesdays.

Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham - Dev Diary 1 - The College of Cardinals
Started by Doomdark‎, 22-10-2013 18:57 (Tuesday)

..and, generally speaking, all of the DDs I can remember of have been published on Tuesday, so the answer to the original question is: yes.

 

[DarkReborn]

Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham - Dev Diary 1 - The College of Cardinals
Started by Doomdark‎, 22-10-2013 18:57 (Tuesday)

Usually is the key word. Most Old Gods DDs came out on Wednesdays (I suspect this was a pun by Paradox devs, Wednesday is Wodan's day after all).

 

[Titan79]

Usually is the key word. Most Old Gods DD came out on Wednesdays (I suspect this was a pun by Paradox devs, Wednesday is Wotan's day after all).

Hm, then I might confuse them with the day of release for DLCs (Tuesday). Anyway, having the first part been published on Tuesday I don't see why the second one shouldn't be on the same day.

 

[Chevaresqye]

It totally depends on the character you start with. The size of your dynasty entirely determines the difficulty of this aspect. Now, if you have a playable papacy not only do you have all of europe grovelling at your feet for forgiveness and the power to make or break empires, but you can also just bypass the necessity of cultivating a strong family? I would like to see you argue for that not being overpowered.



Without getting into a inquiry about how my preference of blood related dynastic gameplay is closed minded, I'll say that I highly doubt Paradox will move away from the current dynastic system, and I for one am glad about it. You shared your opinion, and I shared mine.

And as far as your personal attack at my creativity and open mindedness, please read the last four sentences of my post.

If you don't want people judge your ability to think out of the box, then don't unthoughtful statement like the bold one.

1/ You admit that there are overpowered dynasties, yet you use the same standard to judge a non-blood-related dynasty.

2/ You need a lot of effort to cultivate the members of your non-blood-related dynasty, and I still face a game-over in case all members left your dynasty. Read my earlier post.

3/ You really has a illusion about power of Pope. He is a powerful ruler and has a strong influence on lords of Europe. But if he decide to do stupid things, secular rulers will make him paid. Please get the fact straight, Pope never had power to make or destroy Empires. The lack of military power leave the Pope to the mercy of feudal lord. To be successful Pope, you must spend a lot of effort to balance between spiritual power and secular power. Fail to achieve that task, you'll face either a religious reformation of secular revolution. Not being overpowered at all.

 

[classicist]

But if he decide to do stupid things, secular rulers will make him paid. Please get the fact straight, Pope never had power to make or destroy Empires. The lack of military power leave the Pope to the mercy of feudal lord.

This. In many periods within the game timeline, the popes had immense difficulties in even maintaining their authority within the city of Rome - frequently getting ousted, ignored, or threatened. Cola di Rienzo and his comune in Rome is just among the better-known examples of this.

 

[fanoI]

It depends, I'd say it had a sort of "Moral Suasion" (?), yes you sack Rome but he shall excommunicate you!
Yes you have imprisoned the Pope, now you return in Aachen and to discover you are no Emperor anymore... so much Emperor needed to return to Rome asking pardon of the Pope on your knees...

It is complex to model, in the game he excommunicates you? You simply creates an Anti Pope and then press his claim and the guy that excommunicated you? Died and long forgotten...

 

[Titan79]

This. In many periods within the game timeline, the popes had immense difficulties in even maintaining their authority within the city of Rome - frequently getting ousted, ignored, or threatened. Cola di Rienzo and his comune in Rome is just among the better-known examples of this.

Yeah. Or - although it is a bit beyond the current timeframe - Pope Leo III who might well have been deposed by his enemies hadn't he received help from Charlemagne. There are plenty of other similar examples in the course of the Middle Ages, though.

 

[Thorv]

What this means is that running a theocracy would involve a fundamental opposition between the standard CK2 goals of the individual (power for my family) and the goals of the institution. [...]
This could be bypassed by simply cutting out all the family-oriented stuff for theocracies, forcing the players to perceive the spiritual goals as top priority instead of looking for ways to strengthen their dynasty. It would be an unnaturally schizophrenic situation

I like the way you have expressed your ideas, but I don’t see them as objections at all. Quite the opposite, I’d see what you are saying as all the more reason to play theocracies & have fun with them.

First of all, you are presenting a false dilemma. You claim that there’d be two ways of making theocracies playable: either the dynastic way that forces us to play as corrupt nepotists, or else the spiritual way that forces us to act against our dynastic interests. But why should the game “force” the player either one way or the other? Rather, we’d have two conflicting play-stiles; essentially, dynastic prestige/wealth Vs. piety/moral authority, each with its own pro and cons. It would be entirely up to the player to set up their own goals and decide which strategy to pursue (including, perhaps, even a compromise between two approaches).

What you are calling ‘schizophrenic situation’ is actually the beauty of playable theocracies. You’d have to take a stand in the investiture controversy. As a corrupt theocrat, you’d marry/have lovers (concubinage), you’d be a scheming vassal, you’d sell religious tiles (simony), sponsor your relatives (nepotism), and try to have a dynastic heir. As a pious theocrat, you’d rather have a spiritual heir (namely, someone you have mentored and whom belongs to your theological school/monastic order), and you’d try to become independent, as you’d want to answer only to the Pope/Head of your Church.

It is therefore a shame that this DLC does not introduce playable bishoprics and/or monastic orders – but, who knows, perhaps a future DLC will.

 

[TankRush]

The thing is, even if you were to play the pope, you would still have to worry about getting your "spiritual heir" elected, rather than a representative of another order or school of thought. You have to cultivate a strong, widely spread school, as if you run low on members of your order then you have less chance of being backed up in church matters, and elections to the papacy.

Again, we didn't think they'd be able to fit the Republic in without breaking the dynastic model since potentially families would have to be "off map" part of the time, but they found a fix to that. Something could be done to resolve it for theocracies, although not necessarily immediately.

I'm glad it seems there's plenty of ideas for the modders to get to work on, even before the DLC drops, regarding making theocracies playable.

 

[zephrelial]

When I found out about the dlc I was greatly excited because like some people I was also expecting a dlc about theocracies for a very long time.However this dlc is absolutely pointless and a major disappointment because theocracies will still be UNPLAYABLE from what I understand.Paradox's take on theocracies is completely wrong,dlc's primary goal should have been to first work on making ALL theocracies playable(holy orders,pope,ecumenial patriarchs,various prince bishoprics and archbishoprics) mainly all except for theocracy based rulers on barony tier(bishoprics).Islam doesn't have problem like(thank God) since you can even play as Caliph or become Caliph given the right circumstances,and as an islamic ruler can hold temple type buildings(mosques) without getting wrong government type penalty.

Making various theocracies playable should have been the foremost and first focus on this dlc,regardless of the method devs would use making theocracies playable first.And then build all ingame mechanics,events,decisions,systems revolved around on instances which players control those theocracies.This is a game afterall and now that all other types of government and religions such as republics and pagans are playable and are implemented as such,which only left theocracies as non-playable.And now the dlc is announced yet still Paradox stubbornly refuses to bother with a working system to make them playable and instead presents hundreds of new events which I presume,you will only see a handful of them due to absurdly long firing time and complex necessary conditions,and needless percentage chance of occuring of those events to fire(much like rest of all event scripts included within the game).And now with this dlc I can have a chance for my dynasty member to become pope now? No thanks been there,done that.I don't care doing that again with new mechanics.And I am not interested in features like (few decisions regarding sending your son to holy orders,backing a bishop for cardinal elections)messing with papal elections and politics,nor interacting with Holy orders since I won't be able to PLAY with any of them.

Good luck with your next dlc.Oh and please add to the features section this line : Theocracies will still be unplayable.so people won't be misdirected and get the wrong idea that this dlc will also make theocracies actually playable.Thanks.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The biggest problem with a Theocracy isn't the non-dynastic aspect (it's an issue, certainly, and while I am not entirely convinced on the methods others have explained to circumvent that at the least I think it provides a good basis for further consideration), it's that much of the game revolves around conquest or defending against it. Even roleplayers who don't try world conquests will have to account for this, and most people end up doing world conquest to some level anyways (even if it's just trying to get a kingdom or empire). Thing is, Theocracies aren't trying to grab gobs of provinces in game, provinces which form one of the core foundations of how the games work. Certainly, that doesn't stop us from having playable Theocracies - but either you'd have a really boring system where you're stuck in one place and can't expand or adequately defend yourself (other than perhaps hire holy orders, but that means you have limited (i.e. boring) options), or you can have Theocracies ahistorically expanding territory like crazy. With Republics, for instance, even though the main focus is on trade, there is still a great element of expansion and conquest with seizing trade posts, and the ability to conquer territory to support your trade empire. With Theocracies controlling massive amounts of territory (and I mean massive) through conquest and fabrication of claims doesn't really... make sense.

I do not say that this means we shouldn't have Theocracies. While I don't like the idea of having playable THeocracies, I won't complain if we get it - what I am merely suggesting is something the devs will have to, and probably already are, considering very seriously because there's little point in adding a system that turns out to be very un-fun and dull in the long run.

 

[Thingy Person]

I'm glad it seems there's plenty of ideas for the modders to get to work on, even before the DLC drops, regarding making theocracies playable.

Problem is, it's unmoddable. You can, however, play as the Pope but in doing so you need to remove all catholic theocracies. There was a mod project about it but it didn't go anywhere...

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

The biggest problem with a Theocracy isn't the non-dynastic aspect (it's an issue, certainly, and while I am not entirely convinced on the methods others have explained to circumvent that at the least I think it provides a good basis for further consideration), it's that much of the game revolves around conquest or defending against it. Even roleplayers who don't try world conquests will have to account for this, and most people end up doing world conquest to some level anyways (even if it's just trying to get a kingdom or empire). Thing is, Theocracies aren't trying to grab gobs of provinces in game, provinces which form one of the core foundations of how the games work. Certainly, that doesn't stop us from having playable Theocracies - but either you'd have a really boring system where you're stuck in one place and can't expand or adequately defend yourself (other than perhaps hire holy orders, but that means you have limited (i.e. boring) options), or you can have Theocracies ahistorically expanding territory like crazy. With Republics, for instance, even though the main focus is on trade, there is still a great element of expansion and conquest with seizing trade posts, and the ability to conquer territory to support your trade empire. With Theocracies controlling massive amounts of territory (and I mean massive) through conquest and fabrication of claims doesn't really... make sense.

I do not say that this means we shouldn't have Theocracies. While I don't like the idea of having playable THeocracies, I won't complain if we get it - what I am merely suggesting is something the devs will have to, and probably already are, considering very seriously because there's little point in adding a system that turns out to be very un-fun and dull in the long run.

I'd like to point out that the Teutonic Order (and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword) were theocratic, being a military holy order. They expanded quite well.
Perhaps theocracies should be limited to using Crusade and Holy War mechanics (and /perhaps/ inheritance and direct grant) to expand, but with the caveat that they can Holy War heretics and keep the land.
Perhaps they should just be prevented from fabricating claims.

 

[grisamentum]

The biggest problem with a Theocracy isn't the non-dynastic aspect (it's an issue, certainly, and while I am not entirely convinced on the methods others have explained to circumvent that at the least I think it provides a good basis for further consideration), it's that much of the game revolves around conquest or defending against it. Even roleplayers who don't try world conquests will have to account for this, and most people end up doing world conquest to some level anyways (even if it's just trying to get a kingdom or empire). Thing is, Theocracies aren't trying to grab gobs of provinces in game, provinces which form one of the core foundations of how the games work. Certainly, that doesn't stop us from having playable Theocracies - but either you'd have a really boring system where you're stuck in one place and can't expand or adequately defend yourself (other than perhaps hire holy orders, but that means you have limited (i.e. boring) options), or you can have Theocracies ahistorically expanding territory like crazy. With Republics, for instance, even though the main focus is on trade, there is still a great element of expansion and conquest with seizing trade posts, and the ability to conquer territory to support your trade empire. With Theocracies controlling massive amounts of territory (and I mean massive) through conquest and fabrication of claims doesn't really... make sense.

I do not say that this means we shouldn't have Theocracies. While I don't like the idea of having playable THeocracies, I won't complain if we get it - what I am merely suggesting is something the devs will have to, and probably already are, considering very seriously because there's little point in adding a system that turns out to be very un-fun and dull in the long run.

lol, try playing EU4 some time, particularly in the Baltic.

And arguably a Holy Order like the Knights Templar could/should play more like a Merchant Republic, building posts in existing cities and engaging in "finance" (or however the game wants to represent it), as they did in real life.

 

[cybrxkhan]

lol, try playing EU4 some time, particularly in the Baltic.

And arguably a Holy Order like the Knights Templar could/should play more like a Merchant Republic, building posts in existing cities and engaging in "finance" (or however the game wants to represent it), as they did in real life.

Sorry I didn't make it clear that I was talking about Bishoprics and non-military religious orders, which is what the discussion seems to be focusing on.

I do agree that miliary holy orders has some promise, and if the devs do add playable theocracies it will probably be those, because those do have the control or conquest-minded gameplay that forms much of CKII focus. And I think they do hold a lot of potential. Non-military holy orders... Not so much.