Centralisation

[unmerged(33345)]

If you look at the expansion of royal power during the middle ages it was mostly a matter of taking back earlier usurped royal rights (for example the right to judge or the right to tax etc...). The only thing the first French Capet kings did was race from one place in their demesme to another to ensure that these righths where used.
On the other hand prestigeous dukes and counts should have the opportunity to rid themselves of still existing rights in their territories and thus have less feudal obligations towards their liege lords.

Would it be possible to simulate this in crusader kings 2?

 

[SAS]

I don't see why not, but how? Any Ideas?

 

[unmerged(33345)]

Implementation of some sort of gradual assimilation system should make it possible for the player to own full domanial rights (trade, military, tax, law) of one province while only having lets say trade rights for the other.

Their should also be added some bonusses to the several 'rights'.
law = prestige
tax = gold

In this way a small but very centralised duchy or kingdom can field larger armies and have more prestige.

But since I'm not a developer I don't know how to do it .

 

[RedRooster81]

Great ideas, Janneman! I would think there should should a lot of give and take between the duke or king and different kinds of factions within his realm. Townsmen can get special trading privileges in exchange for supplying mercenaries or trained militia. In terms of the nobility, this was the roots of feudalism: in exchange for this barony, you will provide me with 100 knights, 500 archers, and a thousand light infantry when I call upon you. I would think about it less in terms of eventual centralization than constant negotiation, especially when a new ruler inherits or during wartime, famine, or other crisis.

 

[unmerged(33345)]

Great point of view! This way players will have more to do and have more descisions to make than in the earlier CK.(which was lets face it sometimes a long wait)
Another idea of mine was to link courtlife with your vassals. For example using the fosterling option in CK1 to blackmail some vassals into obedience (otherwise of the heads of their firstborns). And giving influential/important vassals honorary titels in your court (cup-bearer, stable master, etc...).

Other ideas are of course welcome

 

[Boblof]

Another idea of mine was to link courtlife with your vassals. For example using the fosterling option in CK1 to blackmail some vassals into obedience (otherwise of the heads of their firstborns). And giving influential/important vassals honorary titels in your court (cup-bearer, stable master, etc...).

A hostage system would indeed be a nice addition to CK.

 

[RedRooster81]

A hostage system would indeed be a nice addition to CK.

As a condition of peace (and keeping it). The Pope kept an Ottoman prince in Rome during the fifteenth century (Read Mario Puzzo, _The Family_ on the Borgias), but I was always confused why in EU games you lost royal marriages when you went to war. "We don't like your father, and we're sending you back to Brandenburg ahead of the army so get your things ready"?

 

[Boblof]

As a condition of peace (and keeping it). The Pope kept an Ottoman prince in Rome during the fifteenth century (Read Mario Puzzo, _The Family_ on the Borgias),

Back then I also believe that mutual exchange of hostages was sometimes done as part of peace negotiations and such, or just used as a way to keep your vassals in place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage#Historical_hostage_practices

but I was always confused why in EU games you lost royal marriages when you went to war. "We don't like your father, and we're sending you back to Brandenburg ahead of the army so get your things ready"?

Wasn't that mostly because in EU the marriage only represente an abstracted dynastic mechanic. The marriage made you get slightly better relations and in EUIII you had a chance to inherit the crown if there was an regency. If you however went to war both theese perks would have evaporated and since the marriage was just an abstraction of thoose perks so would the representation of the marriage. Doesn't mean the marrige was anulled, just ment that the nobles would be sufficently pissed off at you that you couldn't inherit.

 

[nattai]

Hostages were also commonly exchanged in order to acquire permission to travel through another Kingdoms land. The crusaders frequently exchanged hostages when travelling through Byzantium.

In regards to centralisation, would there be any possibility of including in game the effects of itinerant kingship as a means of establishing the ongoing loyalty of your vassals? Have no idea how that one would work...

 

[jordarkelf]

Centralization could be quite well represented by how much power the king has over his dukes.
Such as king has or lacks the right to appoint or revoke titles, can directly control vassal armies, can interfere in inter-realm wars, etc..
It should also be almost impossible for a king to change the law's inheritance law unless he already has a lot of power. This can be modelled a bit like the HRE reforms in EU3HTTT, where you need to build up power before you can do anything. But of course not a carbon copy of that system, and e.g. salic France should not play like Byzantium or Kiev.

 

[SaberHRE]

Well the way I see it, land is power. The bigger, wealthier, more populous the royal demense the bigger the possibility of a more centralised state exists.

It would be cool to see a system that resembles Medieval Total War 1's influence(what a game it was ). For Ck purposes it could resemble HttT's HRE system. The more "influence" the king has the more loyal the vassals are, and the smaller the chances of them rebelling. More influence also should give you a bigger chance of passing laws, that would increase your power.

 

[wobbit]

There are a number of good ideas floating about here, but there are a few issues with what's being suggested.

Firstly, there seems to be an assumption that centralisation is a "good thing" (and therefore an implied assumption that decentralisation is a "bad thing"). This is a hangover of a lot of history books until about the 60s (and beyond in some places) which saw the western centralised states as the obviously supreme method of rule. Truth be told, centralisation wasn't always a good thing, and in the middle ages it wasn't even feasible in anything other than the smallest kingdoms. With kingdoms that could take weeks or months to cross (or may have areas inaccessible for parts of the year) some local delegation was a necessity. In these situations having powerful and autonomous nobles could be essential, not least for purposes of defense. Another point to think about is that it was much more impressive to have a number of powerful dukes swearing fealty to you than a group of weak counts.

The problem with the king taking greater rights over his vassals is that in many cases this could undermine his own rights. If, for example, the king declares he can remove nobles at will then this also undermines his assumed right to rule without question. On the other hand, if the king upholds his vassals rights to their titles, then his own legitimacy is strengthened. By "centralising" his realm a king could easily undermine his own power.

It should also be noted that royal-vassal authority was a two way street: while a king did claim authority by visiting his nobles, this also endowed the noble with authority through the heightening of his connection with the king. This was one of the reasons why nobles would travel to they court of their lord: they wanted to be associated with the king, the main source of authority in the kingdom.

Nattai mentions itinerant kingship, which was the dominant form of rule for most of Western Europe in this period, not just for kings but for dukes, counts, bishops and even the pope. I'd love to see this implemented as a king moving around his personal demense and other parts of the kingdom. It would quickly get complicated however as almost all noble courts did the same thing, travelling around their own territory and to that of their lords. Even a lowly count with a one province demense would travel to his lord's court occasionally.

While centralisation should be possible after a fashion, through installing and agrandising the public positions (those of royal officials) there should be a lot of problems associated with an attempt to do this.

 

[unmerged(141839)]

I was never really sure on the pros and cons of centralization when I played CK. My natural inclination was one of centralizing control of my realm, but that seemed to cause a lot of rebellions against me.

 

[.Spartan]

Some nice ideas in this thread to be sure. I think it would be neat to identify all the possible variables and develop a system to see how to model things properly.