CK2 Dev Diary #62: News from China

[TheDungen]

Greetings!

Last week I talked about how we’re adding China to the world of Crusader Kings II without actually extending the map any farther. When you are playing in the Orient, you would be wise to remember the “Divine Land” to the east. Indeed, from time to time, you will be getting tidings about the situation in China so that you can plan accordingly. China has a Status and a Policy. The latter rarely changes except when a new emperor ascends to the Dragon Throne (or when the Western Governorate either wins or loses a major war.) By far the most common Policy is “Open”, which means it’s business as usual; China is open to trade and the Silk Road is active. Moreover, the emperor is interested in maintaining the tributary system and in conducting diplomacy with the barbarian periphery. However, some Chinese administrations favor a “Closed” Policy. At such times, the Silk Road will be shut down and the emperor will not deal with foreign rulers. Neither will China attempt any form of military adventures beyond its borders. Lastly, and most rarely, China may adopt an “Expansionist” Policy. This is a time of great peril for rulers near the Chinese border, who would be well advised to swallow their pride and kowtow to the emperor, accepting tributary status before the Western Governorate is expanded with extreme force...

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Chinese Policy should be seen as a political stance, but China also has a “Status”, which is beyond the emperor’s control. For example, China can be struck by famine, plague, unrest, Civil Wars and invasions by Mongols and Jurchens, and it can also sometimes experience a “Golden Age”. All of these states have an impact on China’s behavior and on the Silk Road. For example, if China suffers from famine, income from the Silk Road is drastically lowered, and players should watch out for the conclusion to a Chinese Civil War or Altaic invasion; it is not unheard of for a displaced dynasty or losing faction to seek refuge in the West… More on that in a later dev diary. I believe that will do it for today. Next week we’ll go into details about how you interact with China and what’s in it for you!

So is there any way to crush china so completely that they don't come back? I mean since the usual option of just conquering them is of the table, truth be told the fact that we can't nail them down is half my gripe with adding china this way. If they constantly and more or less at random fire expansion phases when they spawn doomstacks... that's not interesting or fun.

 

[Thure]

Some people speculated that brown was the color of a new Bureaucratic government type, but since this ruler is King-rank and still has one, it seems more likely that it's an "Indian" government type, or something else that we haven't guessed at yet.

Bureaucratic government =/= Empire.
Even kingdoms could be bureaucrativ.

 

[moscal]

Brown - ???

Tribes

 

[CatilinamSum]

Bureaucratic government =/= Empire.
Even kingdoms could be bureaucrativ.

That's true, but based on what I know about Tibet post-empire, I don't think that "bureaucracy" would be the right way to describe one of the rump states.

Tribes

My bad for leaving this one out; edited it back into the post. However, the light brown ribbon seen around the Tibetan queen's portrait is still noticeably different.

 

[TheDungen]

This really feels very weird. Like a mechanic from a completely different kind of game. Far more abstract one, more like Civilization than typical Paradox.

There have been several such mechanics added to eu4 recently, none of which are very good.

Would China conquer the whole Mongolia (then, the Mongol Invasion will never happen after that)?

Perhaps in game, in reality conquering the central Asiatic steppe is impossible with their technology. How would you control it? few if any permanent towns, and the distances are so incredibly vast. The reason china never expanded beyond china (until modern times) is very much this. Hence also why they relied on tributaries.

Refugee royal dynasties? Will we be able to assist them in retaking the Dragon Throne? Or will they perhaps come with advanced technologies and money?

Placing a suitably peaceful individual on the dragon throne to get china out of an expansionist phase would be nice.

Finally! No more "when will you make China DLC?" threads!



I can already see this coming: "The Emperor of the Aztecs likes: sacrifices". I would certainly like a rework of sunset invasion like that though.

Except they should finally change the name of the Aztecs to something more fitting.

With the possible exception of the 769 Abbasids (who have been artificially shrunk, as the game has trouble preventing the AI from snowballing) and the Mongols (who were of course Sinicised themselves in their heartland), most Chinese dynasties were far stronger than any individual polity in Eurasia during the game's timeframe. While Byzantium was a powerful empire, its importance often gets inflated; it was one of the most important regional players but was never as expansive or important as it had been before the Islamic conquests.

When? China's power in this era changed a lot. At times they were indeed crazy powerful but every time a new dynasty took over they spent a long time reuniting china first. And none of them held as much as china does today.
Heck after the tang it seems there are multiple dynasties up until the yuan.

Bureaucratic government =/= Empire.
Even kingdoms could be bureaucrativ.

Yeah but Feudalism and bureaucracy are sort of mutually exclusive.

 

[Oorlog]

Status: Black Death? Silk road open = more spread chance?

 

[Thrake]

That wasn't my point. It wasn't polyandry as most think.
It was multiple brothers sharing a wife. Not a woman choose to marry multiple husbands. Most people who want polyandry in CK want that a woman can choose to marry multiple man just like Muslim men can marry multiple women

How was that working? Was that just for high ranking females? Would there be just one wife for all the brothers?

That's true, but based on what I know about Tibet post-empire, I don't think that "bureaucracy" would be the right way to describe one of the rump states.

Would something akin to theocratic would work for the time frame? One might assume that just like we have merchant republic and old plain republics they could split another sort of theocracy with different features.

 

[_Perun_]

A sandy brown government ribbon appears around the Tibetan queen's portrait. Note that it is NOT the same color as a Nomad ribbon; she also can't be a Nomad because she lacks a clan screen.

Some people speculated that brown was the color of a new Bureaucratic government type, but since this ruler is King-rank and still has one, it seems more likely that it's an "Indian" government type, or something else that we haven't guessed at yet.

The Protectorate General also has his own unfamiliar teal ribbon.

Different ribbon colors in-game represent the different government types. We now have two new ones...

Blue - feudal
Green - Iqta
Gold - nomad
Bright red - merchant republic
Pink/pale red - inland/burgher republic
White - theocracy
Dark brown - tribal
Light brown - ???
Teal - ???

Or it can be simply that they have redone the whole ribbon system.

 

[tuor149]

does chinese history follow a historical, a semi-historical or a random path? or can you choose between these three?

i think there was a thread in which a dev said it was not historical...
i hope they make the china behavior subect to the rule system

 

[CatilinamSum]

Or it can be simply that they have redone the whole ribbon system.

Possibly... but we've not seen anything to suggest that, and this expansion is clearly introducing some novel content as opposed to rehashes of old stuff.

 

[Woifee]

Give every player the chance to invade China and put a member of your dynasty and religion on the throne in China.

 

[_Perun_]

Possibly... but we've not seen anything to suggest that, and this expansion is clearly introducing some novel content as opposed to rehashes of old stuff.

True, but we have nothing suggesting new government types neither. We have been only given the info about off-screen China. We do not even know if it is possible playing the western protectorate/governorate.

 

[Federalist girl]

It BETTER be possible to play the Western Protectorate, since that's the only playable China we're getting.

Wishful thinking but it would be cool if you got mission events or something from the Emperor as a player Western Protectorate. "Conquer this" or "build me a retinue and send it over, I need help" that kind of thing. And if the dynasty falls, you decide whether to stay loyal or break off...

 

[PopehatXI]

Still hoping one will be able to invade China, and these mechanics will be used for the Aztecs.

 

[ERS92]

Can we conquer China when playing Genghis Khan or Kublai Khan?

 

[Foreign Alien]

It BETTER be possible to play the Western Protectorate, since that's the only playable China we're getting.

Wishful thinking but it would be cool if you got mission events or something from the Emperor as a player Western Protectorate. "Conquer this" or "build me a retinue and send it over, I need help" that kind of thing. And if the dynasty falls, you decide whether to stay loyal or break off...

It definitely will be possible to play as them, I can't think what the alternative would be. A China DLC that does not have China and does not allow you to play as Chinese characters? That would be the most disappointing and lackluster DLC in CK2's history.

 

[Tufto]

At times they were indeed crazy powerful but every time a new dynasty took over they spent a long time reuniting china first.

Which dynasties? Aside from the 5 Dynasties/10 Kingdoms period, which took 50 years, the transitions were pretty swift.

And none of them held as much as china does today.

Why does that matter? They held the core productive/well-populated regions of the country, which is what matters. An awful lot of what is now Western and Northern China was sparsely populated; moreover, it would not have been considered part of China during this period.

Heck after the tang it seems there are multiple dynasties up until the yuan.

After the Tang there was a 50-year period of disunity, then unity again until the Northern Song were forced south in the 12th century (I mean, there were a few northern regions which the Liao held, but the Song held the vast bulk of the country). Even after that, China was still only split into two or three pieces, each of which would have had a population and productive capacity that dwarfed pretty much every polity west of them.

I suppose that the period immediately following the fall of the Tang would have lacked a particularly strong Chinese polity, though. But aside from that, I can't think of anywhere else that would have the same capacity as any Chinese state.

 

[Captain Frakas]

That wasn't my point. It wasn't polyandry as most think.
It was multiple brothers sharing a wife. Not a woman choose to marry multiple husbands. Most people who want polyandry in CK want that a woman can choose to marry multiple man just like Muslim men can marry multiple women

It was and it is even called fraternal/adelphic polyandry. Poly = multiple; andr = male men, y = regime of having. A woman who have many simultaneous husbands is a case of polyandry, regardless of how she ended to have many husbands. Just like there was monogamy in Rome or in the mediaeval and early modern nobility regardless of the fact that Roman women or mediaeval ladies very rarely had the choice to chose their husbands...

Polyandry (and marriage in general) doesn't mean sexual liberalism...

From what I've read about Tibetan polyandry on Wikipedia, it was mostly something that happened in the tax-payer class. Would this class be significantly represented as characters? I presume that most characters would be noble or monks.

The treba (also tralpa or khral-pa) taxpayers lived in "corporate family units" that hereditarily owned estates leased from their district authority, complete with land titles. In Goldstein's review of the Gyantse district he found that a taxpayer family typically owned from 20 acres (81,000 m2) to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land each. Their primary civil responsibility was to pay taxes (tre-ba and khral-pa means "taxpayer"), and to supply corvée services that included both human and animal labor to their district authority.[9] They had a comfortable standard of living. They also frequently practiced polyandry in marriage and other practices to maintain a single marriage per generation and avoid parceling land holdings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_classes_of_Tibet#Taxpayer_families
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry_in_Tibet

 

[Cameron122]

It BETTER be possible to play the Western Protectorate, since that's the only playable China we're getting.

Wishful thinking but it would be cool if you got mission events or something from the Emperor as a player Western Protectorate. "Conquer this" or "build me a retinue and send it over, I need help" that kind of thing. And if the dynasty falls, you decide whether to stay loyal or break off...

Reminds me of Rome Total War where the senate faction would give you missions!

 

[Foreign Alien]

Will it be possible for China to spawn a female emperor like Wu Zetian?