What possible ones could there be? It all comes down to the stats: should there be more in addition to Martial, Diplomacy, Intrigue, and Stewardship?
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Definitelly add more offices (court positions), a few have already been listed in at least two other topics. This would add a lot of flavour, be historical, be a means to strengthen the minor nobility against the upper nobility etc.
On homosexuality, why not such a trait, but make it rare as open homosexuality obviously was not common at the time (Edward I probably, Richard I is rumoured to have been homosexual). Alternatively just strengthen the friendship system, where a ruler ends up making gifts to his close friends (male or female), at times leading to jealousies and unrest in their realm. Than only make homosexuality a trait and events derived from that friendship, essentially a trait like heretic leading to a lot of enmity and particularly opposition by the church...
On homosexuality, why not such a trait, but make it rare as open homosexuality obviously was not common at the time (Edward I probably, Richard I is rumoured to have been homosexual). Alternatively just strengthen the friendship system, where a ruler ends up making gifts to his close friends (male or female), at times leading to jealousies and unrest in their realm. Than only make homosexuality a trait and events derived from that friendship, essentially a trait like heretic leading to a lot of enmity and particularly opposition by the church...
I think that if a new court-position is added, it should have a meaningfull effect, just adding those things for 'flavour' will lead IMO to boring micromanagement.
In CK1 we have 5 court-positions, marshal, chancellor, spy-master, steward and diocese bishop/chaplain (I know a DB is not the same as a chaplain, but in events in the game his function is more that of a chaplain then of a diocese bishop. The last one is just a bishop who held no secular power). Of these functions, chancellor and steward were the most important ones. You could play a game without one of the other positions filled and still be very succesfull.
Here is a list of functions that have been mentioned in other threads, I am going to name their most important function in the game (yellow is what it did in CK1)
- Marshal
- Increases the recruitement speed of your regiment.
- Improves the performance (moral) of your troops, give a bonus depending on his martial stats.
- Chancellor
- Increases the montly loyalty-bonus with your vassals
- Unchanged
- Spy-master
- Increases the success of an assasination attempt
- Unchanged
- Steward
- Increases your demesne-income
- Increases your income from tolls
- Diocese Bishop/Chaplain
- Increases the chances of a provincial convertion
- ???
- Increases the loyalty of your courtiers (just like a chancellor does for your vassals)
- Butler
- ???
- Keeper of the seal
- Increases your legitimacy (if that is in the game)
- Constable
- Increases the recruitement speed of your troops
- Treasurer
- Increases your income from census tax
- Seneschal
- Lowers the changes of highway robbers, smugglers and pirates
- Cupbearer
- Prevents assasination attempts (poisoning)
- Huntmaster
- Increases your income from forestries.
All in all I am not in favour of adding that many court-positions, but it is nice to discuss them and maybe someone has a very good idea on what to do with some of them.
The thing is, each court position is tied to one of the stats. Well I guess there's the other stats (attributes? I'm not sure what the term is) of prestige/piety/loyalty as well. But other than for the four stats that defines how capable a person is at court positions, what other possible ones are there? Artistry? Dexterity? Credit score?
Most of the traits of Rome (that aren't covered yet in CK1) could be used
Other possible traits are
- Eunuch
Fertility is zero
Not capable of inheriting (like a bastard)
Increases intrigue + diplomacy
- Mutilated (lost an arm or leg)
Lowers martial + diplomacy + fertility
No longer capable of commanding an army
Other possible traits are
- Eunuch
Fertility is zero
Not capable of inheriting (like a bastard)
Increases intrigue + diplomacy
- Mutilated (lost an arm or leg)
Lowers martial + diplomacy + fertility
No longer capable of commanding an army
Rome has
- Martial
- Charisma (is similar to diplomacy I guess)
- Finesse (is similar to intrigue I guess)
- Popularity
- Prominence
- Corruptness
- Chaplain
I'd do away with the old Diocesan Bishop as hopefully the CK-II map will have more detail and therefore one bishop per county would be unrealistic, instead have separate bishoprics which often have no more than a single city-province, but that's for another topic, the office should simply be Chaplain...
- Butler
either merge him with the cup bearer (they had very similar roles) or give him some economic/prestige improving function (he is the one dealing with the wine cellars, wine growing, wine buying)...
- Keeper of the Seal
adds some prestige and raises loyalty
But in general one should keep in mind that these offices could also be held by player characters (assuming offices can be held by dukes or counts) of their heirs. Therefore in addition to benefits for their lord they'd have benefits for the character himself. Mostly prestige and wealth, but also increased loyalty, increased possibility for friendship with the lord etc...
Of course there could also be hundreds of interesting events tied to these positions (one familiy is used to provide the Chamberlain to their lord for generations, suddenly the office is given to the member of anotehr family, immediate disproportionate loss of prestige and loyalty for the family of the previous Chamberlain, gain of prestige and loyalty for the new Chamberlain and his family (family renown))...
I'd do away with the old Diocesan Bishop as hopefully the CK-II map will have more detail and therefore one bishop per county would be unrealistic, instead have separate bishoprics which often have no more than a single city-province, but that's for another topic, the office should simply be Chaplain...
- Butler
either merge him with the cup bearer (they had very similar roles) or give him some economic/prestige improving function (he is the one dealing with the wine cellars, wine growing, wine buying)...
- Keeper of the Seal
adds some prestige and raises loyalty
But in general one should keep in mind that these offices could also be held by player characters (assuming offices can be held by dukes or counts) of their heirs. Therefore in addition to benefits for their lord they'd have benefits for the character himself. Mostly prestige and wealth, but also increased loyalty, increased possibility for friendship with the lord etc...
Of course there could also be hundreds of interesting events tied to these positions (one familiy is used to provide the Chamberlain to their lord for generations, suddenly the office is given to the member of anotehr family, immediate disproportionate loss of prestige and loyalty for the family of the previous Chamberlain, gain of prestige and loyalty for the new Chamberlain and his family (family renown))...
That is why it would be better IMHO to make these into 'titles' instead of functions.
Titles would be the wrong term though, but I understand what you mean. But these offices should benefit both the liege lord and the officer, as long as we keep that in mind...
'Titles' is how they are named in EU:Rome
The bonus for the liege/lord is increased loyalty, the bonus for the title-holder is prestige. A simple and effective method.
And than add flavour events beyond that. That might do the trick...
Ambassador could be a good one, it could influence your relations with other kingdoms. I think if they do have them they should only have a few, such as 4-6 or so, since these are not hereditary and people die in the game I wouldn't want to keep on assigning it to new people all the time. Examples could be.. the French and Spanish Ambassadors from England, France, and Spain as seen in the Tudors, and the movies Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age for reference.
I could see an ambassador getting the schizo trait and starting a war haha.
I could see an ambassador getting the schizo trait and starting a war haha.
Which was after the CK era.
Permanent ambassadors didn't exist yet in CK-era, except maybe the Papal Legates.
EDIT
But maybe just like in Rome you could have the feature, that you will have to sent real characters to other courts if you want to perform a diplomatic action. That character could then return, get killed, imprisoned or defect.
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I would add to positions :
- preceptor (in charge of court education)
- curator (in charge of the security of young heirs ; likely to gain a lot of influence in case of a regency)
- hand of justice (deliver justice in the name of the ruler when he is not available or don't want to lose his time with this, influence criminal events choices, loyalty of provinces, crime fighting)
- mistress/first favorite (usually makes king happier according to their respective traits, rather likely to child bastards and become rival of the wife ; may be appointed or replaced by events)
- (prime) minister / high councellor (an advisor having a really big influence on all matters, improving all the ruler stats but reducing his prestige if one is appointed, as he is considered having too much influence, these too influent advisors were about always impopular and very likely to be prosecuted or assassinated by jealous courtiers ; they usually ended executed when the ruler changed or was tired of them)
I'd also like to make advisors advisor able to have more than one position (say up to two), with lowered efficiency in each, and make best / most ambitious advisors likely to ask for two positions as they want more influence.
As stats I would add :
- Beauty / comeliness / sex appeal (?) - something to mesure how physically attractive someone is, influencing happiness and fertility of husband/wife/lover and marriage prestige (difformity traits would mostly affect this stat)
- Personnal stability (?) / constance / willpower / wisdom (? don't find a good name) - something to mesure how stable the personnality of someone is. While some characters should be as unstable as in ck1 and have a lot of changes in their personnalities during all the course of their lives, some others have their personnality forged at the end of childhood and shouldn't change much after that ; instead of being purely random with same chances for all characters, chances to gain new traits once adult would be based on this stat (then it would be an interesting strategic choice to favor stable characters you can trust to remain the same, or unstable characters more likely to improve themselves but also to gain bad traits)
- preceptor (in charge of court education)
- curator (in charge of the security of young heirs ; likely to gain a lot of influence in case of a regency)
- hand of justice (deliver justice in the name of the ruler when he is not available or don't want to lose his time with this, influence criminal events choices, loyalty of provinces, crime fighting)
- mistress/first favorite (usually makes king happier according to their respective traits, rather likely to child bastards and become rival of the wife ; may be appointed or replaced by events)
- (prime) minister / high councellor (an advisor having a really big influence on all matters, improving all the ruler stats but reducing his prestige if one is appointed, as he is considered having too much influence, these too influent advisors were about always impopular and very likely to be prosecuted or assassinated by jealous courtiers ; they usually ended executed when the ruler changed or was tired of them)
I'd also like to make advisors advisor able to have more than one position (say up to two), with lowered efficiency in each, and make best / most ambitious advisors likely to ask for two positions as they want more influence.
As stats I would add :
- Beauty / comeliness / sex appeal (?) - something to mesure how physically attractive someone is, influencing happiness and fertility of husband/wife/lover and marriage prestige (difformity traits would mostly affect this stat)
- Personnal stability (?) / constance / willpower / wisdom (? don't find a good name) - something to mesure how stable the personnality of someone is. While some characters should be as unstable as in ck1 and have a lot of changes in their personnalities during all the course of their lives, some others have their personnality forged at the end of childhood and shouldn't change much after that ; instead of being purely random with same chances for all characters, chances to gain new traits once adult would be based on this stat (then it would be an interesting strategic choice to favor stable characters you can trust to remain the same, or unstable characters more likely to improve themselves but also to gain bad traits)
It can have great impact on person to person relations, gaining friends and rivals etc, not to mention the relation to the church and piety differences. Also may be a good resource for intrigue actions, "exposing one's homosexuality" can be a very cheap and easy hit on some one with huge effect. So that trait can make one extremely vulnerable. May have tons of impact, depending on how deep any given trait will get into the gameplay.
Wasn't there a "Stammer" trait? A person who stammers can be married and have children too.
The thing with traits is that you make them impact gameplay. Arbitrary people can still act just, brave people can still act cowardly, wise people can still make dumb decisions, so should they all be removed from the game ?
You do know that there were several medieval rulers who married (multiple times even) but still didn't produce children. Like Baldwin I of Jerusalem f.e. which makes it likely that they were homosexual.
The homosexual trait should lower the fertility and decrease your piety.
With that reasoning, Paradox doesn't have to add anything new to the game. Just make it possible for people to mod it in
Considering the effects of his homosexualty on Edward II's reign, I think it should definitively be in the game, as a trait and some events series which may increase a lot the influence of some male courtiers families in your realm (love affairs events with males, forcing you to give money and titles to their families) and making your wife become an active rival if she has some personnality (of course not all wives would, like Isabelle, leave the realm with their lover and organize a revolt to force you to abdicate, execute your boyfriends and probably assassinate you).