Please Make Ck3 Titles Historically Accurate

[pcuser1584789]

CK2 did this... (pseudo example code is c#)

class Character
{
public Character Liege { get; set; }
public Title[] Titles { get; set; }
}

This is not historically accurate. In 1066 the Duke of Normandy became the King of England... all his holdings in Normandy were still part of the French realm and he still had feudal obligations to his King.

He would have had to declare war to break away. CK3 needs to get away from this idea that realms are modern day nations. You need to modify the character and title classes to accommodate this!

this is how it should be in CK3...

class Character
{
public Title[] Titles { get; set; }
}

//in reality the liege is whoever holds the title of king of France...
//liege should actually point to another title, and whoever holds the title is the liege

class Title
{
public Title Liege { get; set; }
public Character Owner { get; set; }
}

Make sense? That way... then the Duke of Normandy can go claim his English throne AND still remain a vassal of the French king... like he was in history. A character should not have a liege. A character holds titles and those titles then have their feudal obligations that must be fulfilled to hold the title. If you want to break away you would have to be so powerful the king just capitulates without a fight or you better believe you will face war.

Medieval realms are not modern day nations with militaries, they have to honor their feudal obligations. Vassals pay tax, food and provide levies to their liege. It doesn't matter if he is the emperor of Timbuktu... if he has a feudal obligation to another he has to fulfill it or that is the same as rebellion. Which is perfectly fine, make CK3 do this! Thanks.​

 

[halbort]

You are correct.It is the titles that have lieges. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be getting changed. It is the same as CK2.

 

[Secuter]

Another thing that CK2 butchered was how de jure worked - especially with Duchies. The game sort of assumes that there's perfectly agreed upon lines where a duchy would start and end. However, that's maybe one of the most conflict creating things during medieval times - that nobody knew where the border was.

 

[Karlmann]

Absolutely. Some of my ideas lead me to the fantasy that all de jure division of the map is removed and there is only a "titel de jure capital/province/holding" and you "paint" the map over time de jure by expanding your duchy/demesne by yourself.

 

[Chlodio]

This amongst the naval combat and dynamic titles should be the reason why CK3 is being made, but alas it looks like none of those will happen. And those changes so big that, it's very unlikely they will be added after the release.

 

[Karlmann]

But why? I read somewhere one of the guidelines of the developement of CK3 is MORE historical accuracy. But it doesn't seem the guideline is true? Did one of the devs give a statement on this?

 

[Andrelvis]

You are correct.It is the titles that have lieges. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be getting changed. It is the same as CK2.

Not always. Sometimes vassaldom was personal rather than title-based.

But why? I read somewhere one of the guidelines of the developement of CK3 is MORE historical accuracy. But it doesn't seem the guideline is true? Did one of the devs give a statement on this?

I imagine the reason is because it would add a lot of complexity to the game without really benefiting it in any way. Historical accuracy is only good if it doesn't harm gameplay.

Consider, for instance, having to track your liege for each of the 20 titles you own (counties, duchies, etc.). It would be a nuisance.

 

[Nyrael]

Historicity will always be sacrificed for the good of gameplay. That is the official policy for PDS, and with a good reason.

Much of what is suggested here would make the game more complicated and much harder to learn, while not really giving enough to make up for it other than "It is more historically accurate". What is worse, it's hard to even draw the line where a de-jure region should be the case of "King was vassal to another King there" and where it should be "This region is under occupation of a foreign King". Medieval politics were very complex and diverse, and that's very hard to simulate for a game.

This amongst the naval combat and dynamic titles should be the reason why CK3 is being made, but alas it looks like none of those will happen. And those changes so big that, it's very unlikely they will be added after the release.

Naval combat never needed CK3, they could have easily been implemented in CK2.
There is no Naval Combat because PDS is actively against adding Naval Combat to CK.

 

[Andrelvis]

Naval combat never needed CK3, they could have easily been implemented in CK2.
There is no Naval Combat because PDS is actively against adding Naval Combat to CK.

Aye. People have been treating CK3 as the messiah for a long time now, as if it would implement any and all of their personally desired features, so of course reality is going to disappoint.

 

[Rinan]

Is it me or does this look like some quality French propaganda? Grandes Chroniques de France... Source criticism is important here!

Seriously though, I don't understand why people keep asking for this feature. The Norman duchy was de jure a vassal of France, but de facto the king of England acted independently. The de jure/de facto system models that well enough.

 

[Chlodio]

Naval combat never needed CK3, they could have easily been implemented in CK2.
There is no Naval Combat because PDS is actively against adding Naval Combat to CK.

Well, I have experience in programming and I reckon implementation of naval combat wouldn't be "easy". Especially by a smaller team that develops the DLCs.
If you pay attention to features added to CK2 since the release, you'd notice most of these features aren't huge. In fact, many of those additions could have been implemented by the modding community e.g. bloodline-feature was predated by a popular bloodline mod.
Some of the major changes include the merchant republics and nomads, and Paradox has said they regret the latter because it exhausted too many resources, and considering that the former is still ridden with bugs, they might some regrets about it as well.
So, no, I don't think naval combat was never on the table for CK2 since the release.

Paradox's claim that "naval battles during this period were rare and insignificant" is an obvious excuse for not wanting to avert resources from other features which they deem more marketable, which is fairly understandable stance. Interestingly, Creative Assembly has also done away with naval combat with similar excuses.

 

[aono]

Not always. Sometimes vassaldom was personal rather than title-based.

Actually, vassalage always was personal. The very idea of vassalage is a personal relation between land owner (for example, king of France) and land steward (for example, duke of Normandy), where first one lending his lands to another, on the terms of service, with some or another quirks. So, when, for some reason, a person stopped own some lands, the relationship of vassalage between him and land steward for said lands ended. As an example you can look into Aquitaine, which was the personal domain of dukes of Aquitaine (not fief), so, when in 1153 Henry, who was married on Eleanor of Aquitaine, became a king of England, Aquitaine merged with Kingdom of England.
So character, in ideal implementation, should always have lieges, for each piece of land isn't owned by him by his own right.

Still, for people who declare "feudalism worked other way as implemented in CK2, look at Normandy/England clause!" I always ask to present two more examples like this in European history. My own impression always was that this clause was actually unique and mind-boggling for contemporary observers exactly because feudalism normally didn't work that way.

 

[Ezumiyr]

The game sort of assumes that there's perfectly agreed upon lines where a duchy would start and end. However, that's maybe one of the most conflict creating things during medieval times - that nobody knew where the border was.

You're right and many people don't know how to read maps of the antiquity and the middle ages for that very reason. Neat borders weren't a thing, so the map is coloured to indicate vaguely to whom each territory belonged.

While we've been making maps without neat borders for the antiquity (which is great), it's still rare for the medieval era. And it's a lot harder to make in a map-based game. On a curated map, you can always use diffuse colouring and that kind of thing, but in a game?

The Norman duchy was de jure a vassal of France, but de facto the king of England acted independently.

Yeah when I searched for informations about how the duchy of Normandy worked after Guillaume became king of England, I didn't find a lot of things that indicate that the Duchy was still under the french crown. Maybe it was officially, but technically I didn't find taxes or anything like that. Maybe the duchy of Normandy was officially under the kingdom of France for some time, but then why would the kings of France keep trying to conquer it back? It's obvious that they saw english Normandy as a threat to their power. They were clearly not ok with Normandy being controlled by the king of England.
So the situation is a bit complex, because it still doesn't mean that Normandy was part of the crown of England - but it's definitly closer to the duchy being controlled by the king of England, and not being part of the kingdom of France anymore.

Paradox's claim that "naval battles during this period were rare and insignificant"

That's not the main reason, though.
In CK2 they experimented with naval combat, but mechanically it wasn't good. Many wars across the Mediterranea tended to be fought on sea, embarked armies being destroyed before they could even land.
Some naval battles were important, and that's the problem. In a game, it's hard to make naval battles only relevant sometimes. For example, adding naval battles in CK3 is a risk to make England able to repel all invaders with their navy, which would be anachronistic. Overall, naval battles isn't undoable, but it's a difficult feature to add in a balanced way, and is it really worth the effort?

 

[Fierabras]

Is it me or does this look like some quality French propaganda? Grandes Chroniques de France... Source criticism is important here!

Eh, it's pretty much an accepted fact that the Kings of England paid hommage to the King of France for their continental possessions, and even Edward III did so in 1329, although reluctantly and certainly not as traditional as depicted here. Why this was given emphasis in a French chronicle during the Hundred Years' War remains anyones guess, though.

 

[Rubidium]

The main impact of it being technically a French vassal was that it gave the French crown an excuse to meddle. Most notably, when King John of England stole the fiancee of one of his vassals in Poitou (to marry her himself), said vassal appealed to King Philip of France, who summoned King John to court in John's capacity as Count of Poitou (and thus a vassal of France). John said no, and Philip announced that as punishment he was revoking John's titles in France, and launched an invasion of Normandy on this pretext (which was presumably the main reason he chose to intervene in the case in the first place).

But far more common was for the dual vassalages to matter for lower nobles. There were a lot of nobles with lands in both England and France, for instance, who theoretically owed troops/taxes to both kings for their respective holdings. This became problematic when the French and English monarchies fell out, and by the 1200s tended to result in nobles picking a side and either losing their holdings in the other or dividing their family into two branches, one English and one French. And of course, on a subnational level you might have barons with holdings in different counties, or the like.

Aquitaine was actually the unusual case, as the English argued that it (unlike Normandy, etc., which everyone agreed was de jure France) had never really owed homage to the French king, and thus the dispute over whether or not English kings owed homage for it was a major concern (again, unlike Normandy, which the English recognized French rights over, even if they were less than happy to actually pay them more than lip service).

None of which means it needs to be represented in CK2, however (although I am very interested in seeing how the new feudal contracts system they keep mentioning will actually work).

 

[aono]

This became problematic when the French and English monarchies fell out, and by the 1200s tended to result in nobles picking a side and either losing their holdings in the other or dividing their family into two branches, one English and one French.

As far as I can say, that happened quite more frequent then being vassal of both kings at once; even when they were theoretically (or, let's say, de jure - and, again, the only example I can present from the head is Normandy/England situation), on practice it was usually split or giving away as soon as issue was arisen.

 

[Pied-Noir]

This amongst the naval combat and dynamic titles should be the reason why CK3 is being made, but alas it looks like none of those will happen. And those changes so big that, it's very unlikely they will be added after the release.

I agree with this in principle, although I disagree about naval combat - it's a novelty with very little basis in reality during 90% of this period. It's a complete distraction and a waste of development time.

A multi-tiered liege system is however something that probably should have been a focus of this game. It does look like a case of evolution rather than revolution (perhaps people want that?) and more spit and polish than fundamentally redesigned or improved systems. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out with customers.

 

[Chlodio]

I agree with this in principle, although I disagree about naval combat - it's a novelty with very little basis in reality during 90% of this period. It's a complete distraction and a waste of development time.

Just a few cases I'm aware of:

• Edward the Confessor constructed a navy to put end to raids
  
  
• The French defeat in the Battle of Sandwich denied Prince Louis the badly needed reinforcements and decided the outcome of the First Barons' War
  
  
• The Genoese destroyed Pisan fleet in the Battle of Meloria, ending Pisa's tenure as mercantile power
  
  
• Roman Empire's dependency on Venice's ships was a prelude to the Fourth Crusade
  
  
• The English a pre-emptive attack on Sluys ended what they thought was a planned invasion of England

All of those were very important, and there are ever so many

 

[Rubidium]

As far as I can say, that happened quite more frequent then being vassal of both kings at once; even when they were theoretically (or, let's say, de jure - and, again, the only example I can present from the head is Normandy/England situation), on practice it was usually split or giving away as soon as issue was arisen.

Charles of Anjou is another example that immediately comes to mind; he was vassal to his brother the King of France as Count of Anjou and Maine, but King of Sicily (or at least Naples, after the Sicilian Vespers) in his own right through conquest, and also Count of Provence through his wife (technically an Imperial vassal, although without an Emperor in his lifetime). That lasted for a couple generations, as the titles were divided up among his grandsons after his son died. But like William the Conqueror, that was a somewhat unusual case.

 

[aono]

That lasted for a couple generations, as the titles were divided up among his grandsons after his son died. But like William the Conqueror, that was a somewhat unusual case.

Actually, he was King of Sicily not by his own right, but as a Pope vassal; and I thought (even if I can't prove or disprove it now) that he was quite a vocal to be treated as equal to his cousin, not a vassal. Same for his other Imperial possessions: as a vassal of the Pope, he never swore fealty to the Emperor, and, again, it was the very point (as Pope started all this to weaken Emperor's hold on Italy).