Baronies, one step forward and two steps back?

[Rubidium]

Don't really get Paradox, barons are the major political players in many feudal kingdoms (*Cough* England *cough* No dukes till the end of the period *cough*). The whole 'aaah barons are irelevent you can now remove their titles with no fuss' Erm..... Ok, so I immagined all those historical rebelliosn where kings were toppled or nearly toppled beacuse they pissed off their barons a bit?

I'd argue that English barons/earls were more comparable to CK counts/dukes respectively.

But one big aspect no one has mentioned with making barons more complicated, which I am sure had an impact: performance. Adding more fully characters doing things (plotting, interacting, etc.) is a hit on performance. Making barons have full-fledged courts and interactions would essentially triple the number of courts to be simulated, for little gain. There's a reason that many of the performance improvements in CK2 essentially required cutting baron courts, history, interactions, etc. to the bare minimum.

 

[Dragatus]

Don't really get Paradox, barons are the major political players in many feudal kingdoms (*Cough* England *cough* No dukes till the end of the period *cough*).

The barons of England weren't all baron tier character in CK2 nomenclature. Originally it meant any direct vassal of the king and would also include character of count and even duke tier, though later the meaning evolved to more specifically refer to nobles who weren't quite fancy enough to be earls. And though there were no dukes by name the more powerful earls at least fulfilled the same function as dukes do in CK2. CK2 also features several other cases where a historical county is represented as a duchy. The examples that come to mind of the top of my head are Tolouse and Edessa.

I guess my main point here is that though Crusader Kings draws from history to inspire it's terminology there is no exact match between the two. Someone who was titled baron historically may or may not actually be a baron tier character in the game. And vice versa. Someone who is baron tier in the game may or may not have been titled a baron historically.

 

[Serenity84]

Yeah, don't make the mistake to directly compare titles in different realms. English barons were a lot more powerful than elsewhere. Before the Norman conquest they were called earls or other names and thus more like counts.
In most other realms baron was a title for lower nobility. Often the lowest like knights or people who owned just an estate or two. Not people with extensive territory.

Sure, it would be nice to add some flavor and call English counts barons and the dukes earls, but that would also be confusing to many people.

 

[The Shacks]

Damn you all and all your logic

 

[Leyrann]

Damn you all and all your logic

I love it. I'm here mainly for the gameplay, but history is interesting enough that I'll read all the discussions on how things worked historically.

 

[The Shacks]

Aye, it's a good discussion. I do agree mainly with the points raised against me, though I'd still argue early Normano barons were mostly just that, small landholders. They'd own a keep and a few villages and maybe end up slowly accumulating good lands all over the place till, yes, some of them became earls/counts or dukes in defacto power. But the majority were still smallfry, there was just lots of them.

 

[Testeria]

More and deeper gameplay, greater immersion and a "believable world." If barons are not playable in CK3 because they are too boring, that just means it's boring, not that it's impossible to make fun. Isn't there supposed to be an expansion of the RPG aspect?

After what I saw in Imperator I really hope them put all their worktime now on interesting, deep and innovative main game loop - with just christian dukes and kings like in vanilla CK2 - then add playable barons, knights, Muslims and tribes as an DLC when I get bored with vanilla game.

What I'm afraid most is that game would be so similar to actual state of CK2 that I would instantly got experienced and find no challenge at all... I can live for a while without playable baronies, but I can't with boring playable dukes and kings.

 

[Testeria]

I'm a little worried about all that "improving the land" things that gave me a lot of fun in the late CK2 with possiblility to add barony slots, upgrade them, etc.

Now it seems that that this part of the game may suffer a lot esp. if You won't be able to settle villages or cities or cut the wilderness for the new fields...

 

[Delta5ff]

IDK Everything I've seen about CK3 so far has been worse than CK2 before it. It seems like Paradox is on a roll of half-baked and poorly-thought out games (HOI4, Stellaris, Imperator etc.) as well, which lowers my hopes even more.

CK3 was never going to be able to compete with the 7 YEARS worth of DLC that CK2 hot. EVER!

All I want is for CK3 to have a good base that can have the aspects not able to he brought in at launch built upon and made even better than in the previous game

 

[StormKoala]

I for one am not opposed to Paradox not putting an emphasis on developing gameplay for barons. Their reasons for doing so seem sound to me.

But I feel like it would be a really smart play to code it so that modders are able to enable Baron play without too much difficulty, because clearly there is a lot of interest in it. Plus, should Paradox chose to implement baron play down the line, the won’t have to fight their code and hack it in the way they’ve had to for some of the changes they’ve put into CK2.

 

[Ezumiyr]

the game would only benefit from granting them a greater degree of involvement in the game's events, rather than minimizing it.

Are you sure it is the case, though?
From the article I get the sentiment that barons are less politically relevant (so they can't be independant for instance), however they are also a "refrigirator for interesting characters".
To me that means that barons do play a role in events and are more relevant to the game's events than in CK2. It's just not as important to spam baronies to have more troops, and you can get rid of a baron more easily.

 

[Killerham]

This is my greatest concern for CKIII right now. I think most people won't miss not being able to play as a baron. But the world will feel much emptier if the interactions with barons is reduced.

 

[Leyrann]

This is my greatest concern for CKIII right now. I think most people won't miss not being able to play as a baron. But the world will feel much emptier if the interactions with barons is reduced.

Honestly? in CK2, even if I'm a singly county count, I don't even take the preferences of my barons into account, I just do what I feel like. I doubt less interaction than that is possible. Vassals under count level are just never a threat, no matter how small you are.

 

[Pied-Noir]

This is my greatest concern for CKIII right now. I think most people won't miss not being able to play as a baron. But the world will feel much emptier if the interactions with barons is reduced.

Agreed!

 

[Torngasuk]

Are you sure it is the case, though?
From the article I get the sentiment that barons are less politically relevant (so they can't be independant for instance), however they are also a "refrigirator for interesting characters".
To me that means that barons do play a role in events and are more relevant to the game's events than in CK2. It's just not as important to spam baronies to have more troops, and you can get rid of a baron more easily.

I understand "refrigerator for interesting characters" to mean essentially that - a place for you to store landless characters you have some interest in so they simply don't disappear from the game. They've said that they tried to reduce their import and that you can revoke their titles without consequences, which I have trouble finding any other interpretation for than that barons are utterly inconsequential and impermanent by design. Political irrelevance was what they already had - the only rung below their previous status is complete insignificance.

 

[Delta5ff]

Honestly? in CK2, even if I'm a singly county count, I don't even take the preferences of my barons into account, I just do what I feel like. I doubt less interaction than that is possible. Vassals under count level are just never a threat, no matter how small you are.

Yeah I don't remember ever noticing a baron behind having a red fist because he wants on the council while I'm a count and have no other vessels. Not that he would ever rebel anyway, (I don't think their even aloud too). So they have been none entities to me for years anyway.

I am looking forward to how the new archbishop mechanics work, if done well it could be really interesting. Definitely one of the rev diaries I'm really looking forward to

 

[Will Steel]

It seems like Henrik is trying to dumb things down. In the dev diary he said they chose to go deep rather than wide, but then they made barons have less of an impact?

The fact that they streamlined the claim fabrication into a time-guaranteed bar-meter EU4 style system also has me worried about this prospect. They say they are making characters more deep and immersive, yet things like these seem to be taking away the complexity from actual rulership part of the game.

However I'm not going to judge the game right now. I'll hold my breath and wait until dev diaries, however. It might turn out awesome.

 

[Serenity84]

The fact that they streamlined the claim fabrication into a time-guaranteed bar-meter EU4 style system also has me worried about this prospect

It's not a guarantee. You are garantueed that an attempt is made. That can still fail. The idea is to prevent the common scenario that your chancellor has been on the mission for 20 years, but you don't know what's going on

 

[Delta5ff]

It's not a guarantee. You are garantueed that an attempt is made. That can still fail. The idea is to prevent the common scenario that your chancellor has been on the mission for 20 years, but you don't know what's going on

You just beat me too it. I think if the claim doesn't go through you will get an event that effects the process. Although there is no information beyond this currently

 

[StormKoala]

And an absence of knowledge on how the claim fabrication is progressing hardly improves the complexity and rulership of the game.

Better information about fabricating claims is something I’m very much looking forward to.