Coronations DLC - What do we want to see?

[WestuHal]

With the Coronations DLC the next to be released, I wanted to canvass people’s opinions as to what they want to see as part of the update. Clearly the scope will be limited by the fact that this will be an event pack but, bearing that in mind, here’s my wishlist:

- Balance. Coronations were very much expected for Medieval kings in order to establish their legitimacy; as such, I don’t want them to give excessive bonuses that contribute to power creep. In fact I’d much prefer that failure to have a coronation penalises a ruler, with legitimacy/vassal opinion decreasing the longer that a ruler goes without - unfortunately the fact that the coronation activity will be paid content leads me to suspect that this won’t be the case as otherwise players that don’t buy the DLC will be disadvantaged.

- Ability to choose regalia/crown. It would be great for roleplay reasons if we could tie coronations in with the artefact system, including choosing which regalia and crown we would like the ceremony to be performed with. Perhaps there could be different (small) bonuses to legitimacy depending on which artefacts are chosen?

- Meaningful interactions with religious authorities. A proper role should be given to the religious authorities responsible for coordinating the coronation. Presumably there should be a choice between realm priest and, for emperors, pope in terms of which figure officiates (presumably rulers will need to travel to Rome in the case of the latter, as was the case with the HRE emperors).

- Finally, a personal bugbear of mine - I’m hoping that we won’t see the use in the event text of the incorrect terms ‘coronate’ (instead of ‘crown’) and ‘coronated’ (instead of ‘crowned’)!!

 

[Eltar1]

I hope the activity will be involved and robust enough that it will be equivalent to the three activities that were added with the Wandering Nobles DLC.

That said, I'm kinda surprised by this. I expected them to be a part of some Major or Core expansion, an activity similar to a Funeral from Legends of the Dead. Or part of a free update, like Regents. It kind of feels like to me like they made Coronations their own Event Pack for Chapter 4 just to finally end those complaints about CK3 not having Coronations yet.

Having said that, since Coronations are their own DLC, they can really do them justice, so hopefully it will be a success.

One thing I'd like for them to add to this DLC would be a scheme/intent to Sabotage a Coronation.

 

[Snow Crystal]

Well, we will have some dev diaries about Coronations starting in August, but I can talk a little bit about them.

- Balance. Coronations were very much expected for Medieval kings in order to establish their legitimacy; as such, I don’t want them to give excessive bonuses that contribute to power creep. In fact I’d much prefer that failure to have a coronation penalises a ruler, with legitimacy/vassal opinion decreasing the longer that a ruler goes without - unfortunately the fact that the coronation activity will be paid content leads me to suspect that this won’t be the case as otherwise players that don’t buy the DLC will be disadvantaged.

So, there will be a penalty for not being crowned, but that will only apply to people with the DLC. There will be a ticking legitimacy malus as long as you remain uncrowned.

- Ability to choose regalia/crown. It would be great for roleplay reasons if we could tie coronations in with the artefact system, including choosing which regalia and crown we would like the ceremony to be performed with. Perhaps there could be different (small) bonuses to legitimacy depending on which artefacts are chosen?

We want to do something with regalia/crown, but we have yet to decide exactly what. Most likely, artifacts will play some role in the Coronation, though.

- Meaningful interactions with religious authorities. A proper role should be given to the religious authorities responsible for coordinating the coronation. Presumably there should be a choice between realm priest and, for emperors, pope in terms of which figure officiates (presumably rulers will need to travel to Rome in the case of the latter, as was the case with the HRE emperors).

There will be interactions with someone handling the Coronation, yes.

- Finally, a personal bugbear of mine - I’m hoping that we won’t see the use in the event text of the incorrect terms ‘coronate’ (instead of ‘crown’) and ‘coronated’ (instead of ‘crowned’)!!

We have used the term "crowned", but I can search and replace all of them with "coronated" just for your sake.

I hope the activity will be involved and robust enough that it will be equivalent to the three activities that were added with the Wandering Nobles DLC.

It will be larger than the Wandering Nobles activities. They were pretty small, all things considered. All the WN activities had about 15-20 events, with some fluff, and a minor mechanic attached to two of them. I added those primarily as an extra to spruce up the lifestyle tree, rather than them being the focus of the DLC. This time, the activity is the focus.

 

[WestuHal]

Thanks for taking the time to drop by with some juicy tidbits Snow Crystal, I’m particularly happy about the ticking legitimacy malus! Looking forward to seeing what the team is cooking up.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Well, we will have some dev diaries about Coronations starting in August, but I can talk a little bit about them.


So, there will be a penalty for not being crowned, but that will only apply to people with the DLC. There will be a ticking legitimacy malus as long as you remain uncrowned.


We want to do something with regalia/crown, but we have yet to decide exactly what. Most likely, artifacts will play some role in the Coronation, though.


There will be interactions with someone handling the Coronation, yes.


We have used the term "crowned", but I can search and replace all of them with "coronated" just for your sake.


It will be larger than the Wandering Nobles activities. They were pretty small, all things considered. All the WN activities had about 15-20 events, with some fluff, and a minor mechanic attached to two of them. I added those primarily as an extra to spruce up the lifestyle tree, rather than them being the focus of the DLC. This time, the activity is the focus.

I realize it's probably outside of the DLC scope / too late to try for / etc., but I'd just like to register a wish for a future 'moot' activity for elective realm coronations, where the winner of the moot is the one who gets to be coronated. An activity that can serve as a collective 'lock in everyone's votes for 10 years' mechanism, rather than trying to cash in hooks on everyone.

Part of the problem of the current elective setup encourages people to go the whole-of-life tree so they know when to cash in their hooks / favors / last-minute manipulations for elective. But this drives players into the lifestyle tree for longevity, compounding other benefits. This helps create a 'every character plays the same' where you devote X years for that future payoff / risk mitigation to the point there are far fewer surprises. It also contributes to the 'every player character lives so long and stays so powerful,' which is a consequence of the realm management priority, which having a 'cash in' point to call-in favors.

A moot activity in elective realms would mitigate that by providing all lifestyles a chance to setup a dominant support base, without committing years to a specific lifestyle in advance. This can support characters investing lifetime / activations into building and spending hooks / favors / etc. more frequently, as opposed to building a lifetime of blackmail to sit on a shelf until the 1-year death notice comes in. It could also offer an excuse to slip in some buffs into some generally under-played lifestyle trees, offering moot/elective buffs under otherwise weak perks. (For example- Meritocracy skill being not just for coups, but increasing the value of stat advantages (and disadvantages) in Moot/elective-related checks.)

The activity can allow a few rounds of being able to approach different powerful vassals (say using the Adventurer town-interaction trees), trade support in the forms of not just hooks but guaranteed Council appointments, claim-push wars, and so on- and you create an activity to hob-nob who gets onto the throne. Of course, with subterfuge like rivals trying to spoil the desires of rivals, the creation or exploitation of blackmail material, and so on. And with a once-a-decade cycle, the death of old rulers / rise of uncommitted lords creates new uncertainty, creating a balance of hosting the activity to reset, or letting it cycle so old promises die away.

Or such is my rambling wishing.

 

[Kvesir]

I realize it's probably outside of the DLC scope / too late to try for / etc., but I'd just like to register a wish for a future 'moot' activity for elective realm coronations, where the winner of the moot is the one who gets to win the election, and thus hold the coronation. An activity that can serve as a collective 'lock in everyone's votes for 10 years' mechanism, rather than trying to cash in hooks on everyone.

Part of the problem of the current elective setup encourages people to go the whole-of-life tree so they know when to cash in their hooks / favors / last-minute manipulations for elective. But this drives players into the lifestyle tree for longevity, compounding other benefits. This helps create a 'every character plays the same' where you devote X years for that future payoff / risk mitigation to the point there are far fewer surprises. It also contributes to the 'every player character lives so long and stays so powerful,' which is a consequence of the realm management priority, which having a 'cash in' point to call-in favors.

A moot activity in elective realms would mitigate that by providing all lifestyles a chance to setup a dominant support base, without committing years to a specific lifestyle in advance. This can support characters investing lifetime / activations into building and spending hooks / favors / etc. more frequently, as opposed to building a lifetime of blackmail to sit on a shelf until the 1-year death notice comes in. It could also offer an excuse to slip in some buffs into some generally under-played lifestyle trees, offering moot/elective buffs under otherwise weak perks. (For example- Meritocracy skill being not just for coups, but increasing the value of stat advantages (and disadvantages) in Moot/elective-related checks.)

The activity can allow a few rounds of being able to approach different powerful vassals (say using the Adventurer town-interaction trees), trade support in the forms of not just hooks but guaranteed Council appointments, claim-push wars, and so on- and you create an activity to hob-nob who gets onto the throne. Of course, with subterfuge like rivals trying to spoil the desires of rivals, the creation or exploitation of blackmail material, and so on. And with a once-a-decade cycle, the death of old rulers / rise of uncommitted lords creates new uncertainty, creating a balance of hosting the activity to reset, or letting it cycle so old promises die away.

Or such is my rambling wishing.

Agreed, a coronation activity for elective realms where the actual election takes hold with opportunities to earn people's votes in new ways would be really interesting.

 

[ray243]

I like to see different kinds of coronations for different cultures. Your Byzantine styled coronation is different from your catholic fedual Europe coronation and likewise your middle-eastern and central Asian coronations. Same happens when you expand to east Asia for AUH.

I like to see Byzantines coronation be based on the tradition of soldiers lifting the emperor up on a shield and he proclaimed Imperator.

You can also have things like your legitimacy being built but whether you follow old ceremonial template or you make adjustments and innovation to the ceremony. Maybe you as English monarch adopted more Byzantine ceremonial aspect because you want to be seen as an proper emperor as well rather than a king. Or you want to emphasised on your 'romanness'

Or you adopt more Celtic influence in the ceremony to show you're building a Celtic empire.

 

[ray243]

How you fashion your coronation can shape how different vassals perceived you, including different cultural vassals.

 

[vyshan]

What I want to see in addition to what the OP included are different religious / regional flavor. in ck2 they were just for christian rulers, but I would like to see things for other various lords that follow their own regional or religious versions around the world.

 

[Rex Hiemis]

I wonder if the DLC will introduce the sword-girding ceremony for Muslims. The sword-girding ceremony was the equivalent of coronation in Turkish and some Islamic cultures.

 

[EricMN93]

I think the Coronations DLC would be perfect for revising the Excommunicated, Assassin, and Dynastic Assassin traits. Ultimately, the connection between the various European Christian monarchs and the Pope is clear. Someday I'd like to see an antipope system, improvements to religion, etc., but I understand that this is a small DLC and there won't be any major changes. However, I think small improvements would connect very well with this DLC.

Would the Pope accept the crowning of a murderer?

Shouldn't excommunication mean the king's breach of the feudal pact?

Should the various vassals accept that someone who kills their brothers wears the crown?

 

[Ikatosh]

I agree. Coronations should have thematic differences between governments types and different religions.
It would be awesome if along with coronations we could see knighthood cerimonies too.

 

[vandevere]

We want to do something with regalia/crown, but we have yet to decide exactly what. Most likely, artifacts will play some role in the Coronation, though.

Maybe a Saint Edward's Crown for English Kings, and a special Crown for French Kings? I'm sure other realms had specific Coronation Crowns too, but those are the ones I know...

There will be interactions with someone handling the Coronation, yes.

Two things here. Please don't take the requirements to get crowned to ridiculous heights as was done in CK2. No Papal demands for the ruler to embrace celibacy and wreck the succession, and please, no demands to go to war on the Pope's behalf, thereby draining the ruler's budget to hell and beyond.

In fact, the only Rulers the Pope, or his Orthodox counterpart need to crown would be the Rulers of the HRE and the ERE. France had the Archbishop of St. Denis, and England had the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As for demanding outrageous sums of money, that was apparently a thing. You can still see a holdover of that if you watch the Coronation of King Charles III on Youtube. There's a bit where he gives a golden purse...

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

no demands to go to war on the Pope's behalf, thereby draining the ruler's budget to hell and beyond.

I mean it certainly makes sense to demand a restore Papal lands from a Holy German Emperor, but during one of my playthroughs as King of England the pope demanded I attack an excom-ed King of Italy.
It's not it was impossible, but if the Papacy was playable I could have ended this war before the English even landed in Italy, lol.
And to add insult to injury the Pope gave me a battlefield coronation. Like dude what the hell?

 

[CrazyRat]

One random thing that I can think of is that I hope that ‘Elevate Co-Monarch’ interaction (the one that changes your primary heir and gives you a diarchy) would be converted into a subtype of the Coronation activity. It would feel more right to actually crown them (complete with the agitated protests of erstwhile heirs) rather than just use an interaction.

 

[WestuHal]

One random thing that I can think of is that I hope that ‘Elevate Co-Monarch’ interaction (the one that changes your primary heir and gives you a diarchy) would be converted into a subtype of the Coronation activity. It would feel more right to actually crown them (complete with the agitated protests of erstwhile heirs) rather than just use an interaction.

Agreed - and the ruler’s spouse (if they are already married) should also be crowned at the same time as the ruler. I suppose you’d just need to include some text to reflect this (as well as feature the spouse in the 3D scene).

 

[vyshan]

Agreed - and the ruler’s spouse (if they are already married) should also be crowned at the same time as the ruler. I suppose you’d just need to include some text to reflect this (as well as feature the spouse in the 3D scene).

Wouldn't the spouse being crowned depend on the culture and traditions? Some places rarely did women's coronations, or they happened after her husband.

 

[WestuHal]

Wouldn't the spouse being crowned depend on the culture and traditions? Some places rarely did women's coronations, or they happened after her husband.

Fair point! I was thinking of English coronations in particular but you’re absolutely right.

 

[tribnia]

Anointing for Jews and white felt for nomads. White felt ceremony was even used by khojas in Tarim Basin in 18th century.

 

[Metz]

Not sure if it’s in the base game or in a mod but the French monarch before he is official crowned is referred to as the Dauphin. Will this be the case with the dlc? Coronations also tend to be done in specific locations for each realm. Will this be taken into account or will locations be dynamic?

There could be a ceremonial homage at the end of the coronation ceremony, so you know who will be loyal and who will be difficult.

It would be nice if every 2 years or so you could convene your council and get a bonus of some sort. Doesn’t have to be big but it would be nice to do things with your council members as a whole. There should also be a tenure counter for council positions. Maybe after x amount of years, skills go up?