Ever since All under Heaven was first announced, there have been a large amount of people requesting Pdx add harems, as obviously they were a huge factor in historical east asian courts. Last I heard they weren't planning on doing this though, but while I understand that the team has an unheard amount on their plate, I wish to show that adding a harem mechanic wouldn't really have to be that complex or resource-consuming, and that a harem mechanic could be a hugely immersive benefit to flavour in the region.
Chinese harem
So first, some digressions. First of all, I am not chinese (nor japanese, NOR korean) and I am certainly no expert historian in these areas, so my knowledge on their historical harem systems mainly comes from admittedly shallow internet research. For this reason, please do feel free to make corrections or suggestions if any of y'all are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to this. Second, no matter what, making a perfect simulation of historical harems probably won't be possible, especially within China. Chinese emperors varied between being monogamous in a single case, to having tens of thousands of concubines, and from one dynasty to the next and even from one emperor to the other, the internal structure and hierarchy of the harem could vary massively. If you wanted to accurately portray all of these nuances, you would probably need to devote an entire game to just the Forbidden City (which like, sign me up lmao). For this reason, the system I'll be presenting will be a heavily simplified amalgamation of various harem structures throughout China's history, but for obvious reasons, I have mainly stuck to the dynasties that existed during the game's timespan.
SO, core workings of the mechanic as I imagine: Much like courtiers, women in a harem would get their own sections, both under the character's relationships as well as in the court menu. The current concubine system is obviously way too small to even come close to a proper harem, but as said, you definitely can't make it too big, unless you want literally your entire court to be made up of just concubines. What I suggest for China then, is a maximum of 15 women in a harem. It's clearly much smaller than the vast majority of historical harems, but so are in-game courts in general, and for a chinese emperor I think 15 is a good number in that it feels substantial enough without, again, filling the whole court up (necessarily). Mirroring historical chinese harems, these 15 women would be internally ranked, something like this:
First tier: Empress (皇后) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 4 (5).
• Imperial consort (宸妃) as far as I can tell, this specific title existed only under emperor Renzong (1022-1063AD), created for his favourite Zhang. It could perhaps be an additional consort title that can only be unlocked via a special building in the capital. Alternatively, maybe a decision would create it, with the requirement being you having a soulmate that isn't the empress.
• Noble consort (貴妃)
• Pure consort (淑妃)
• Virtuous consort (德妃)
• Able consort (賢妃)
Third tier: Madames (夫人) of which there are 3.
• Noble concubine 貴嬪
• Madame 夫人
• Noble lady 貴人
Fourth tier: Concubines (嬪) of which there are 6.
• Lady of beauty 美人
• Lady of talent 才人
• Lady of gentleness 良人
• Learned lady 八子
• Harmonious lady 七子
• Lady of value 鹺人
As for what these consorts and concubines actually would do, to my knowledge, these titles didn't have any special duties as such. My idea for what this would add to gameplay at all is pretty simple: each woman in the harem gives the emperor additional prestige (maybe legitimacy? Idk) IF the woman has good qualities. That is to say, a woman who is highborn, beautiful, educated or otherwise talented grants a prestige bonus, meanwhile a woman who is lowborn, ugly, dumb or generally just not a "good match" gives a malus. The empress and the consorts would probably also have the requirement that they can't be commoners at all, at least not without major opinion debuffs towards the emperor. The emperor would be free to promote or demote any woman aside from the empress, but the tiers wouldn't necessarily be a straightforward ladder, automatically filled from the bottom or top; the emperor could potentially have just one consort, one madame and one concubine. Oh and, goes without saying, but obviously children of the empress would be preferred as heirs.
In addition to this imperial harem, it wasn't uncommon for chinese crown princes to have their own minor harems. This would be pretty similar to the current concubine system in scope, but they still had titles so that system could look more like this:
• Crown princess (太子妃)
• Bride of excellence (良娣)
• Dear lady (孺人)
Japanese harem
Like most of the japanese state apparatus, the japanese imperial harem was modelled pretty closely on the chinese one. The japanese imperial harem's structure was defined in very early legal codes, and thus much less prone to change than the chinese one. Because of that, this is generally much more accurate than my chinese proposal. To represent the obviously smaller size of Japan compared to China, the japanese harem would have a reduced maximum size of 11 women, with the following hierarchy (also notably unlike China, I haven't been able to find any evidence of further subdivisions and titles within each tier):
First tier: Empress (皇后) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Empress consort (中宮) of which there is just 1.
Third tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 2.
Fourth tier: Madames (夫人) of which there are 3.
Fifth tier: Concubines (嬪, in japanese context this character is also translated "beauty") of which there are 4.
Korean harem
The biggest difference with the korean harem of course, is that in terminology it isn't imperial, but royal. The korean royal harem was, like the japanese one, extremely neatly organised, and actually even more extensive as it divided individual ranks into senior and junior levels. Something like that could definitely be incorporated into the game, but it seem a little odd as it would end up making the korean harem even larger than the chinese and japanese ones. I'm especially curious what any korean players would think when it comes to this one. Keeping it at a similar niveau as Japan, there would be a maximum of 11 women, just structured somewhat differently, ranked as follows:
First tier: Queen (王妃) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 4.
Third tier: Concubines (嬪) of which there are 6.
Mongolian harem
Aside from China, harems are of course also hugely associated with the various tribal/nomad empires of history, most notably Mongolia. A big difference between Mongolia and its eastern counterparts though, is that the mongolian harem was much less organised, and often much larger. The biggest difference though, is that (at least in Genghis Khan's case) he had multiple wives which bore the title of empress (khatun). That doesn't necessarily mean they were all equal, however. Genghis' first wife Börte was set apart from the others by being designated 'grand empress'. This could be carried into the game, with only the first wife having the title empress/grand empress, and all subsequent ones being reffered to as empress consort/empress (depending on what the devs feel like). Mechanically, there could be a similar feature of women in the harem giving the emperor additional prestige, but perhaps 'good qualities' could be prowess and martial talent, contrasted with the learning-focused China. Oh and, while I've been focused on Mongolia, this system could definitely extend to any tribal/nomad empire where concubinage is legal, as it is so general. While the mongolian harem obviously wasn't as neatly structured as that of China, it was still of a similar scale, and thus I believe that it should also have a maximum size of 15, with a much looser structure:
First tier: Empress/Grand Empress, of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Empress consorts/Empresses, of which are 6.
Third tier: Concubines, of which there are 8.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, this has been my concept for a harem mechanic, again let me know what y'all think! Any suggestions or corrections, or entirely different ideas of your own. No matter what, I just intently wish for harems to be represented in this DLC somehow.
Chinese harem
So first, some digressions. First of all, I am not chinese (nor japanese, NOR korean) and I am certainly no expert historian in these areas, so my knowledge on their historical harem systems mainly comes from admittedly shallow internet research. For this reason, please do feel free to make corrections or suggestions if any of y'all are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to this. Second, no matter what, making a perfect simulation of historical harems probably won't be possible, especially within China. Chinese emperors varied between being monogamous in a single case, to having tens of thousands of concubines, and from one dynasty to the next and even from one emperor to the other, the internal structure and hierarchy of the harem could vary massively. If you wanted to accurately portray all of these nuances, you would probably need to devote an entire game to just the Forbidden City (which like, sign me up lmao). For this reason, the system I'll be presenting will be a heavily simplified amalgamation of various harem structures throughout China's history, but for obvious reasons, I have mainly stuck to the dynasties that existed during the game's timespan.
SO, core workings of the mechanic as I imagine: Much like courtiers, women in a harem would get their own sections, both under the character's relationships as well as in the court menu. The current concubine system is obviously way too small to even come close to a proper harem, but as said, you definitely can't make it too big, unless you want literally your entire court to be made up of just concubines. What I suggest for China then, is a maximum of 15 women in a harem. It's clearly much smaller than the vast majority of historical harems, but so are in-game courts in general, and for a chinese emperor I think 15 is a good number in that it feels substantial enough without, again, filling the whole court up (necessarily). Mirroring historical chinese harems, these 15 women would be internally ranked, something like this:
First tier: Empress (皇后) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 4 (5).
• Imperial consort (宸妃) as far as I can tell, this specific title existed only under emperor Renzong (1022-1063AD), created for his favourite Zhang. It could perhaps be an additional consort title that can only be unlocked via a special building in the capital. Alternatively, maybe a decision would create it, with the requirement being you having a soulmate that isn't the empress.
• Noble consort (貴妃)
• Pure consort (淑妃)
• Virtuous consort (德妃)
• Able consort (賢妃)
Third tier: Madames (夫人) of which there are 3.
• Noble concubine 貴嬪
• Madame 夫人
• Noble lady 貴人
Fourth tier: Concubines (嬪) of which there are 6.
• Lady of beauty 美人
• Lady of talent 才人
• Lady of gentleness 良人
• Learned lady 八子
• Harmonious lady 七子
• Lady of value 鹺人
As for what these consorts and concubines actually would do, to my knowledge, these titles didn't have any special duties as such. My idea for what this would add to gameplay at all is pretty simple: each woman in the harem gives the emperor additional prestige (maybe legitimacy? Idk) IF the woman has good qualities. That is to say, a woman who is highborn, beautiful, educated or otherwise talented grants a prestige bonus, meanwhile a woman who is lowborn, ugly, dumb or generally just not a "good match" gives a malus. The empress and the consorts would probably also have the requirement that they can't be commoners at all, at least not without major opinion debuffs towards the emperor. The emperor would be free to promote or demote any woman aside from the empress, but the tiers wouldn't necessarily be a straightforward ladder, automatically filled from the bottom or top; the emperor could potentially have just one consort, one madame and one concubine. Oh and, goes without saying, but obviously children of the empress would be preferred as heirs.
In addition to this imperial harem, it wasn't uncommon for chinese crown princes to have their own minor harems. This would be pretty similar to the current concubine system in scope, but they still had titles so that system could look more like this:
• Crown princess (太子妃)
• Bride of excellence (良娣)
• Dear lady (孺人)
Japanese harem
Like most of the japanese state apparatus, the japanese imperial harem was modelled pretty closely on the chinese one. The japanese imperial harem's structure was defined in very early legal codes, and thus much less prone to change than the chinese one. Because of that, this is generally much more accurate than my chinese proposal. To represent the obviously smaller size of Japan compared to China, the japanese harem would have a reduced maximum size of 11 women, with the following hierarchy (also notably unlike China, I haven't been able to find any evidence of further subdivisions and titles within each tier):
First tier: Empress (皇后) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Empress consort (中宮) of which there is just 1.
Third tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 2.
Fourth tier: Madames (夫人) of which there are 3.
Fifth tier: Concubines (嬪, in japanese context this character is also translated "beauty") of which there are 4.
Korean harem
The biggest difference with the korean harem of course, is that in terminology it isn't imperial, but royal. The korean royal harem was, like the japanese one, extremely neatly organised, and actually even more extensive as it divided individual ranks into senior and junior levels. Something like that could definitely be incorporated into the game, but it seem a little odd as it would end up making the korean harem even larger than the chinese and japanese ones. I'm especially curious what any korean players would think when it comes to this one. Keeping it at a similar niveau as Japan, there would be a maximum of 11 women, just structured somewhat differently, ranked as follows:
First tier: Queen (王妃) of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Consorts (妃) of which there are 4.
Third tier: Concubines (嬪) of which there are 6.
Mongolian harem
Aside from China, harems are of course also hugely associated with the various tribal/nomad empires of history, most notably Mongolia. A big difference between Mongolia and its eastern counterparts though, is that the mongolian harem was much less organised, and often much larger. The biggest difference though, is that (at least in Genghis Khan's case) he had multiple wives which bore the title of empress (khatun). That doesn't necessarily mean they were all equal, however. Genghis' first wife Börte was set apart from the others by being designated 'grand empress'. This could be carried into the game, with only the first wife having the title empress/grand empress, and all subsequent ones being reffered to as empress consort/empress (depending on what the devs feel like). Mechanically, there could be a similar feature of women in the harem giving the emperor additional prestige, but perhaps 'good qualities' could be prowess and martial talent, contrasted with the learning-focused China. Oh and, while I've been focused on Mongolia, this system could definitely extend to any tribal/nomad empire where concubinage is legal, as it is so general. While the mongolian harem obviously wasn't as neatly structured as that of China, it was still of a similar scale, and thus I believe that it should also have a maximum size of 15, with a much looser structure:
First tier: Empress/Grand Empress, of which there is just 1.
Second tier: Empress consorts/Empresses, of which are 6.
Third tier: Concubines, of which there are 8.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, this has been my concept for a harem mechanic, again let me know what y'all think! Any suggestions or corrections, or entirely different ideas of your own. No matter what, I just intently wish for harems to be represented in this DLC somehow.
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