Dev Diary #155 - The Shattered Empire

[Gordonthinker]

Just wanted to throw out another interesting historical character that would be cool to play: Robert of St. Albans. He was an English Knight Templar who converted to Islam, fought for Saladin, and married one of his nieces. So he would be a really cool character for the 1178 start date.

This would be a good story arc. With all of these people being added to the game they should have story arcs, and even random people that we might meet in a city or on the road should have some arc also. Even if we don't play as those people we can still see their story arcs play out, an arc that can change depending on what happens in their life.

 

[Dr BAMF]

I like most of this, it's looking like a very good update, and I'm excited for it. One thing I don't get, however, is Hellenism for the revived Roman empire.

Before I go any further, I'd like to state that I'm glad this option exists, just so that no one knee-jerk downvotes me because they think I'm attacking the concept of alt-history options here. I'm not, it just doesn't make any sense for it to be built into the only version of the most interesting option.

As the Diary states, the concept of re-uniting ancient Rome (or any ancient kingdom, really), really wasn't very common in this time. It did, however, exist, and when it did, the primary context was usually more religious than secular. "Healing" the schism by dissolving the Byzantine empire and bringing the eastern church to papal submission if you were a catholic westerner, or restoring Byzantine Italy -- the exarchate of Ravenna was done by 876, but the catepanate of southern italy was established during this time period -- and reducing the Vicar of Rome into "just another Patriarch"

Hellenism was dead by this point. Yes, yes, not completely dead, but dead enough that it wasn't coming back like this. The Byzantines were not only thoroughly Orthodox, the Orthodox church provided some major benefits directly to the Basileus that he wasn't likely to give up.

I love the increased difficulty options. I want the buffed Mongols, peasant rebellions, increased outside aggression, and the Pax Romana Cassus Belli, I just don't want to have to force everyone to convert to a dead Pagan religion to do it. Let me state again, I like that this ridiculous option exists, I just think that there needs to be a third option that addresses converting everyone to Orthodox instead, or simply doesn't include any religion in it at all.

I know that it would be fairly easy to make a mod that does this. If Paradox doesn't make more options, I or someone else will likely create one immediately. I simply see no reason why it should ship like this. There needs to be more options.

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

Great stuff all around, but I very much dislike the option to turn the entire empire all at once hellenic. This... just doesn't feel right. The "hard mode" is also disconnected from the decision, both in terms of consequential plausibility and of gameplay mechanics. Why would plagues increase in frequency as a consequence?

Personally, I would: 1. as one of the two options of the Justinian's dream decision, allow the restoration of Roman culture, which would re-spawn around the city of Rome, with an option for the player to keep spreading it, without any special disadvantage attached; 2. for those who are really into Hellenic restoration and stuff, enable an additional decision, which can be taken only under very special circumstances (eccentric characters and so on, for example) that would let the Roman Emperor convert to Hellenism (and the state religion would follow suit), but then it would be the Emperor's job to convert counties and vassals (if he/she fails, then things revert to normal).

In a way, the CK2 system for fantasy Roman restorations sounded better.

 

[Bergest]

Sometimes I don't understand the Devs. For years they opposed introducing a reasonable return to hellenism path and now they add it in the weirdest way with all of the realm converting at once and weird magical consequences completely unrelated to the decision.

 

[DreadGrunt]

Sometimes I don't understand the Devs. For years they opposed introducing a reasonable return to hellenism path and now they add it in the weirdest way with all of the realm converting at once and weird magical consequences completely unrelated to the decision.

I hope the team is open to actually listening to a lot of this feedback.

It's especially strange to have a Hellenic revivalism option added in this weird super gamey way given they literally have Pletho in the historical characters list; a man who is most famous for delving into the classics and coming to the conclusion that they made better theological arguments for polytheism than Augustine or anyone else did for Christian monotheism and converting to Hellenism of his own accord. If you wanted a Hellenism revival option, that's the way it should have been done, and it shouldn't convert anyone except you and maybe your family and you should have to actually work to spread and reform it.

 

[EU3NOOB]

@PDX-Trinexx Question: Let's say, as a loyal vassal of Constantinople, I reconquer the Empire for them...

If the Eastern Emperor decides to split the Empire, is it possible to have him give me the title of Western Emperor? Is it possible that I could ask for it?

 

[misopogon]

I wrote a dissertation on the chronicles of the fourth crusade and another on the lives of medieval thinkers, so this DD was like a christmas+birthday gift for me!

My very favourite was an Irishman called John Scottus Eriugena, who was a neoplatonic philosopher and court poet of Charles the Bald.

Would it be possible to add him to the game?

 

[merulaalba]

I can only half-agree. The solution presented in this dev diary seems indeed ridiculous, press a button to convert whole empire but get some completely random problems (wtf plague and mongols???).

On the other hand, one mad emperor could attempt to bring back hellenism, like in fact Justinian did. But the problem wouldn't be faster horses for mongols, but rather that he would have been the only one to convert, suffering heavy opinion penalties with everyone, causing almost immediate rebelion. Similarily the long dead faith would start with minimal fervor, making conversions very difficult and raising peasant revolts.

I believe you could do this alt-hist scenario pretty well with already existing mechanics, and I'm not really able to understand why whould the devs go for such weird work-arounds. Just allow anybody to convert to dead faiths as usuall, with heavy piety price (and possibly additional malus to automatic vassal conversions), and things should work as expected.

Justinian never tried to bring back paganism. He was a deeply pious emperor

You had mistaken him for Julian. Who ruled in the fourth century, when the swap was still possible

 

[merulaalba]

The addition of historical characters is very cool, and the dedicated 4th Crusade content is also great.

However, I am rather critical of how restoring the Roman Empire is being implemented here, to say the least. The DD writes that the "Roman Empire" that is being restored here is not the same as the Empire of antiquity (which is best represented in Imperator: Rome), and it is implementing a vision based on "how the Byzantines may have thought about such a thing, primarily through the lens of Justinian" (which is, imo, precisely the right approach to the making of such content) however the actual in-game implementation seems to be the precise opposite of this stated approach. By "restoring the Roman Empire" you are allowed to immediately convert yourself, all of your vassals, and plenty of your counties to the long-dead Hellenic religion - this is something that had no relationship to how the Byzantines or their neighbors would have understood Rome, goes absolutely contrary to the lens of Justinian (who was a Christian ruler who closed down the Platonic Academy, and had no desire to ever restore the cult of Ivpiter Invictvs), and honestly seems like it's trying to bring back the religion from Imperator: Rome back to CK3 out of nowhere.

While the Rome of antiquity was long gone by 867, every major power in Europe at that time had an idea of what Rome represented to them - the Byzantines, the Papacy, and the Carolingians and their sucessor dynasties all drew their legitimacy from echoing the memory of Rome and claiming to be the legitimate successor of old Roman authority. To them, Rome represented the Universal Monarchy, or, it represented the time the near-entirety of the known Christian world was unified under a powerful and prestigious government that was uncontested hegemon in the region. This particular government had set up the Church organization that ruled in both the East and the West, laid down the core theology that was dominant for centuries, laid down very widespread and influential legal codes, and its language was still widely used in the West for ritual, legal, scholarly, administrative and diplomatic purposes.

So, if you are playing as a Christian character, "restoring the Roman Empire in the middle ages" (whether you are doing it as a Byzantines, as the HRE or as the Italian Empire) should be about restoring the power and prestige of Rome to yourself by becoming the regional hegemon, becoming the undisputed leader of Christianity and making yourself the only State that can uncontestably claim to be the sucessor of the Roman Empire of old. The decision to restore Rome while playing as a Christian ruler should be interwoven with mending the Great Schism, maybe gaining vassalization acceptance from all Christian rulers, making the HoF subject to you (Caesaropapism), etc - and not have anything to do with carrying out a mass conversion of all your vassals and millions of peasant subjects to a religion that has been gone for 200 years. You are not literally restoring the old Roman Empire, rather, you are establishing a universally-acknowledged claim to be the one true sucessor of that State and enjoying all the prestige and authority that comes along with it- and that, by itself, should not have anything to do with bringing back Hellenism.

As for Hellenic restoration content in general: While having a way of bringing back long-gone religions is inevitably ahistorical and game-y, I understand that it is a very fun goal to seek and am not completely opposed to it being in the game provided that it is implemented in a somewhat plausible-ish way. For instance, for Fate of Iberia, the developers dedicated themselves a lot to coming up with an immersive way for the old Spanish Adoptionist heresy to return - by creating a wandering monk character who is old enough to plausibly represent the last living disciple of the Adoptionist preacher Felix of Urgel, who then appears to you in an Event chain that allows you to conver to Adoptionism. This is immersive, and I am somewhat bewildered that nothing of the sort was done for Hellenism in this DLC.

Two examples of how a "a legitimate way to convert to Hellenism in-game" could be added in a plausibly immersive way:

• Adding a non-historical landless adventurer who is a secret Hellenist (with the hypothetical notion that he is the last person to still keep the old rites in some way);
• Adding an Event where people in your realm find an ancient, hidden cache of Greek writings discussing the old mythology and rites and the philosophy of the Platonic Academy, or maybe even finding the writings of Emperor Julian the Apostate, and you have the choice to either burn them (granting you Piety) or keep it and study them (allowing you to convert to Hellenism normally at a very reduced Piety cost - still hard to convert but viable).

A character that is openly Hellenist would have to fight against the hostile rest of the world to survive, become an independent ruler, convert other characters and counties to the restored Faith and eventually reform the Faith through the normal gameplay means. It should be an uphill battle - basically similar to playing as Rostam in the Iranian Intermezzo and doing a Zoroastrian restoration run, except much harder. The way currently presented, besides being arbitrary, feels somewhat unfulfilling from a gameplay perspective too: You're not fighting to bring back an ancient faith like Rostam does for Zoroastrianism, you just become powerful enough, take a decision, and voilá, Zeus worship is back.

If you successfully convert to Hellenism and take over the Byzantine Empire and meet the conditions to Restore the Roman Empire, this decision should be interwoven with Dismantling the Papacy and Dismantling the German Pretenders. You are not really "restoring the Roman Empire in the middle ages" in a game-y sense, rather you are instituting a reformed version of the old rites and myths, forming a State that is powerful enough to claim the prestige of the Rome of antiquity, and defeating all challengers to your legitimacy.

In short: I strongly suggest that you remove the ability to convert to Hellenism from the "Justinian's Dream Realized" decision. If you really want to have some Hellenist restoration content since it is a popular request, at least add it in the ways I suggested, taking inspiration from the way Fate of Iberia added Adoptionism. The current way of doing this seems to be the worst of both worlds - it has all the gamey-ness of "restoring the Roman Empire in the middle ages" turned to the maximum, but also without really providing an interesting and immersive way to do a Hellenist playthrough.

I do not want to come accross as harsh, I really enjoyed every single DD so far and consider the work you've done in this expansion to be top notch even when I had a few pet peeves here and there, but this is the first DD for this DLC that had one major aspect that seems to clash strongly with the broad development philosophy you have for this game and even with your own stated goals for introducing it. There is a disagreement between people who want Hellenist restoration content (because it's fun) and people who absolutely do not want it (because it's ahistorical), and I think this particular way of introducing it will please neither side.

Thank you to anyone who reads this all the way through.

I think they made a typo, at least I hope so

It should be Julian legacy (for Hellenism), as Justinian in fact eradicated last traces of paganism in the Empire, closing neoplatonic Academy in Athens, and dealing with Pagan communities of Anatolia

 

[merulaalba]

I assume this wasn't within scope for this DLC. Even if they had time for it, I'd imagine they wouldn't want to create many new mechanics for a system that will probably get an overhaul in a dedicated expansion. A religion expansion may also add more depth to the Hellenism situation, which seems pretty tacked on in RtP.

That s strange, as we cannot talk about medieval Roman Empire without mentioning religion. From Hagia Sophia to emperor role of god s vice gerent on earth, the religion was an inseparable part of Byzantine identity, society and culture

 

[Tomray94]

Small suggestion that I hope will fit with the new characters. If they are famous for writing books/important literary works and they are recruited by someone, they should get book inspirations which should either have a chance to have titles and descriptions of their real works or they should just write the works they are known for outright, if it fits the topic selected for the book. I would really like it if when I hire Chretien de Troyes and he is given the opportunity to write a book for me, he writes about the adventures of Lancelot, like what he is known for historically!

Alternatively, you could make it so the characters always write books with the titles and descriptions of their actual works, if certain conditions like book topic are met, but also make it so any random courtier with an inspiration could write these same books if the character hasn't appeared yet/didn't get to write that particular book while alive in-game.

One of my favorite immersion-related things in EU4 has always been those advisor events which read like: "Our Diplomatic Advisor, X, wrote a great book on economics called the 'wealth of nations'! ". I hope this becomes possible here too!

 

[Flaming cat of death]

The entire empire converting to Hellenism is silly and removes the massive crisis that should follow such a drastic change in religion. A significant portion of the administrative apparatus would convert but not all of it or any of the provinces save maybe the capital. That way you can have massive political fights at the same time as mass revolts!

 

[Gordonthinker]

Small suggestion that I hope will fit with the new characters. If they are famous for writing books/important literary works and they are recruited by someone, they should get book inspirations which should either have a chance to have titles and descriptions of their real works or they should just write the works they are known for outright, if it fits the topic selected for the book. I would really like it if when I hire Chretien de Troyes and he is given the opportunity to write a book for me, he writes about the adventures of Lancelot, like what he is known for historically!

Alternatively, you could make it so the characters always write books with the titles and descriptions of their actual works, if certain conditions like book topic are met, but also make it so any random courtier with an inspiration could write these same books if the character hasn't appeared yet/didn't get to write that particular book while alive in-game.

One of my favorite immersion-related things in EU4 has always been those advisor events which read like: "Our Diplomatic Advisor, X, wrote a great book on economics called the 'wealth of nations'! ". I hope this becomes possible here too!

I think they should add story arc events in the game and something like this should be built up to as an ongoing arc of his life. If they added a higher tier for artifacts, a historical person like this could produce a book if they reach that level of fame. People in this game need some depth, historical characters especially.
Even if you're not playing as Chretien De Troyes, you could still meet him and take part in his story arc, and maybe he'll write that book for you.
To me that's much more rewarding for the character and the book I'll get.

 

[GreyJack]

Is the Restore Roman Province casus belli still going to exist? Or is it being replaced by this Pax Romana casus belli? If it isn't being replaced, will empires that pick 'no half measures' have access to both?

 

[Gurkhal]

I had no idea that Gemistos Plethon existed before reading this thread but he sounds like a very interesting figure. Thank you!

And when adding something to the discussion about Hellenism conversion one option could also be that you flip randomly across the empire depending on attributes of the ruler (or regent). High martial and prowess converts knights and warrior-type characters while learning flips clergy and learned characters and so on. but that's just a minor suggestion to add something to the discussion.

 

[FaustFelix]

if we rename the byzantine empire the eastern roman empire (or something else) in game rules, or adopt a latin culture, will we be able to get roman and not greek titles for positions, etc without recreating the roman empire?

also, if we do revive the roman empire, is there a special building we’d gain? losing the hagia sophia‘s sweet intrigue bonus is a massive headwind against living out my roman emperor fantasy!

 

[Bergest]

Will Gemistos Pletho, arguably the first neopagan in history, have hellenism as secret faith or an event to convert to hellenism?

 

[PabloSugo1991]

Can you guys add Cecco Angiolieri? He was the author of the "Se fossi foco" poem and it would be fun to have this hedonist poet start mayhem across medieval europe

 

[Megacaesar]

Loving it! Since you seem interested in adding other characters from history: what about Hadewijch van Antwerpen (not a noble name, but a moniker)?

She was a poet and mystic who lived in Brabant and was probably a wandering beguine house-head (definitely befitting the wanderer-theme).

She was estimated to be active between 1230-1240.

Also related is another mystic, Jan van Ruusbroec, who she influenced. After Anne Frank he is probably the most translated Dutch-language author. He was eventually beatified.

 

[Schwarzer Ritter]

During this time that the game it was completely impossible for Byzantium to restore the full Roman Empire, unless they discovered gunpowder and made machine guns or whatever.
A biggest issue for me is how easy this game is. I can get my dynasty in every major throne in a span of 20 years and conquer the Levant and Egypt with a Palaiologean rump Byzantine empire in a few years. Then hold it easily from any muslim or other local revolts. This would be possible for a game like EU4, but this game works differently and you can do all that and hold your possessions easily. I even use cheats to give my enemies Primogeniture and Dread, so that they keep their realm together and pose some challenge to me.

And again, i want to reiterate, what a pity it is that Byzantine Expansion doesnt offer you the chance to play as Alexios who starts as a general and ends up saving the empire, or Basil the II and his rival Samuel of Bulgaria, or Leon the V, or Mauritius, or Heraclius.