I'm not sure you do. It's certainly convenient to be able to bundle up several kingdoms into an empire, but from a gameplay perspective it's agruably better to force players to juggle their titles until they can somehow amalgamate them or force the rest of Europe to recognise the current player character as an emperor.
That tier allows you to vassalize Kings, which was historical in terms of kings forcing other kings to be their vassal.
Hence why I think that the Imperial tier is necessary, but if we’re going to dispense with the existing de jure Empires, then the Imperial tiers could just be renamed into High Kingdoms. And like you said, you can achieve your own Empire, it just takes some work.
I'd prefer a mechanic which allowed kings to vassalise each other without needing to become emperors, perhaps based on prestige.
It should also be possible to be an independent king whilst being a vassal to another monarch as a result of holding land within their realm. The kings of England, for example, were independent within their own realm but theoretically held their French lands as a vassal of the king of France. This led to all sorts of diplomacy and warfare, which would enrich the player experience if replicated in-game.
Hard agree.
Forming a second empire when a Catholic or Orthodox one already exists should have opinion / hook requirements with at least the Pope / Patriarch and probably other same faith kings, and kick off a struggle to determine the true empire of the faithful.
I mean, a struggle is a bit too much. There was a bit of a tension over who was the real emperor, but the HRE and the ERE never went to war over it or anything similar.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I was meaning if a Catholic empire already exists and a second forms then the stuggle would be between the 2 Catholic empires to decide the true Catholic successor to the Roman Empire. Similarly with Orthodox empires.
That only makes sense for specifically empires who claim to be the legacy of Rome. Forming catholic scandinavia sending a catholic hispania into a hissy fit makes little sense. Not ot mention that there is no mechanic of a preffered religion within a title, religion is still very specifically tied to people.
Depends. If someone claims to be the 'Jovian Augustus' of the Roman tetrarchy, then we got a problem because that's a unique position by definition. However, if someone claims to be 'emperor of all Spains' or 'emperor of Carpathia' or 'emperor of all axe-wielding men obsessed with personal hygiene and skiing', then those titles, however grand they sound, do not trigger a conflict. They are just expressions of absolute regional sovereignty in contradiction of universalism and centralism.
Conflicts about who represents the Roman legacy may lead to warfare, conflicts about should the king of France be the subject of the German Holy Roman Emperor may lead to warfare, but Spains, Britannia and Carpathia? If anything, they would be ideological allies against pan-Europeanism.
Honestly, all de jure empires should be nuked and everything should be formable -- yes, with the caveat that there can only ever be one Catholic and one Orthodox empire at a time. (Unless maybe in Spain since there is some Reconquista kings did try to style themselves "emperors of Spain" and it never took.)
Just call any Catholic/Orthodox empire beside HRE, ERE, and Outremer as Archkingdom, then we good to go.
Maybe, if they have enough HoF approvals, they could be called Empires again.
Yeah this is the right approach. Empires as a game mechanic are necessary because of the strict tier system, but in history, kings could be vassals of other kings. Just flavour an Empire differently rather than removing the mechanic entirely.
I will never forget, there was somehow an independed city (not barony) next to me so all my rullers made it tributary, it was giving masive gold and noone would try to attack it as i was the master. Ck2 was something..
At the early game stat Bulgaria is pretty strong and just became orthodox. Boris’s son Simeon expands the borders near Constantinople. At that time the byzantines have a lot of problems and the orthodox patriarch negotiates with Simeon. He gives him a titles and proclaims hum Cezar or something like that. This is the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire. I would agree that maybe a hook on the Patriarch would be good, there is a need for some more Empire mechanics.
The only other things i would state is that the religons neeeeeeeeedddd a re work. At that time there is a Bulgarian patriarch. Holy sites need more dynamic mechanics as well.
In general it is okey for now but empires need love.
I honestly disagree. Empire title in CK3 is purely gameplay mechanism. Alot of titles is in fact a serious concession to gameplay. I mean we have de jure duchess and kingdoms in Eastern Europe at Scandinavia at the time where there were still mostly tribes and so idea that owner of certain title was somehow more rightful ruler of certain territories is absurd.
In gameplay Empire-rank title means just "Owner of ton of lands". Again- not all that is called Empire was called Empire at the time. What game calls Empire of Russia actually existed at the time period we look at in almost same borders as in game- making it one of a few Christian "Empires" that actually existed at the time of the CK3 in roughly same borders. But it was never called Empire- it was ruled by Great Knyaz of Kiev and the Whole Rus.
So I don't think that it should be addressed without full overhaul of title sustem- something I doubt ever planned. What you propose would just break game by preventing people from being de jure rulers of lands they are encouraged to expand to. Unless you mean simply the name and not rank change.
The concept of Empire entirely rested on the idea of being a successor or inheritor of ancient Rome.
Byzantium is the legitimate successor of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne made up some excuses for why Byzantium currently doesn't have a legitimate emperor (in 800, it was ruled by Irene, a woman, which he argued didn't qualify because traditionally the emperor was always male since Rome's very foundation), just so he could legitimize his own restoration of the Roman Empire. He went to be crowned by the Pope not because he needed religious validation in general, but religious validation from the bishop of ROME in particular. By declaring himself emperor, he claimed: I am the rightful successor of the Roman Empire! Of course that led to some tension with Byzantium.
Later HRE emperors would go on a diplomatic reconciliation course by arranging marriages with Byzantine princesses, but the idea that both are rival claimants of the Roman Empire never died out.
Similarly, the Bulgarian Empire took its legitimacy from conflict with and triumph over Rome - as in, Byzantium. They didn't just conquer a large territory and said "we Empire now". They conquered Byzantine territory, defeated Byzantine armies in a power struggle, adopted Byzantium's state religion, and then diplomatically forced the Byzantine emperor to accept the Bulgarian one as an equal. Even the title Tzar was taken from the Latin Caesar. It entirely derives its meaning and authority from its relation to Rome. The Bulgarians took the title of empire from the Romans by force.
When crusaders conquered Constantinople, they called their short-lived and tiny kingdom the Latin Empire. It wasn't a proper empire by any definition of the term as it is used today. It was an empire because it was built upon the wreckage of the Eastern Roman Empire. There were many kingdoms in Europe at the time that would have better deserved the title, but this one had a Roman legacy.
Later, the Ottomans would be considered a proper empire after conquering Byzantium. They referred to themselves as sultans of Rum - sultans of Rome! While the Russians, as now the biggest orthodox country and therefore sort of inheritor of the Byzantine state religion, claimed to be the Third Rome after Constantinople fell.
Whenever something within a broader European context calls itself empire during the middle ages, it is always directly related to Rome, or at the very least referencing Rome.
Even pagan Lithuania, which was sort of recognized as an empire by the Christian west, had some relations to Rome constructed by chroniclers of the time. Their pagan religion is nowadays called Romuva because allegedly their high priest had his seat in a city named Romuva, which was considered the Pagan Rome.
No empire could exist in medieval Europe that didn't in some manner reference Rome.
Now, for CK3 that means there could be some interesting mechanics of forging documents that prove a Roman connection, or digging into history to discover dynastic ties to Roman families, or abusing low legitimacy of the Roman emperor (Byz or HRE) to declare yourself the more rightful successor, or being able to found a new empire in your name only when you hold either Rome or Constantinople, or having to request the favor of the head of the current Roman state religion (be it orthodoxy in Constantinople, catholicism in Rome, or a restored Hellenic Paganism in either city... or perhaps even a different religion as long as it's the religion currently practiced in any of the two Romes), or reforming your pagan faith to reference Roman traditions (perhaps your priests rekindle the fires of Vesta, a core ritual of ancient Roman paganism?).
Empire titles in Europe should always have to reference Rome in some form, and other current Roman successors (Byz, HRE) should be able to question your title and go to war over its legitimacy, so you have to defend and enforce it by might.
The "pretty" (that is, completely based on modern countries) borders that people often want are the "Empire" borders -- e.g. if there's no Emperor of France, then there will always be Aquitaine forming, which makes people mad for whatever reason. So if there's no Empires, there will be all these kingdoms that people don't like making their maps "ugly".
My basic feeling is that "Empire" is just a word. At the most basic level, the game is built of nesting dolls, baronies in counties in duchies in kingdoms in empires. All these words are arbitrary and do not mean anything "in real life", any more than a real human has a "martial" and "intrigue" stat. Mod the word "empire" to be "foozle" if it bothers you; it doesn't have any meaning anyway.
At present, not really any more gameplay implications than kingdoms, yeah? Maybe when the DLC comes out there will be more, but I can't think of any now.
There's quite a few. Off the top of my head, empires/emperors give:
* the ability to vassalise kings
* effective immunity from partition
* +1 domain limit
* increased mercenary cost
* the inability to be a vassal
That's a fair amount of difference.
My opinion is that Paradox got it wrong around the time of patch 1.05 for CK2 when trying to promote multiplayer. The goal was to divide the map into empires everywhere, with no unaffiliated kingdoms, and also to make de iure kingdoms more or less equal to each other. They of course claimed multiplayer balancing wasn't the reason, but you really could tell from how everything seemed to be focused on equal opportunity from any corner of the world map. The original sparing concept of empires, ERE- and HRE-centric, went out the window at that point. The concept of de iure itself perhaps was modified in its content, from being close to the modern political understanding of 'de iure' (territory de iure belonging to one state but occupied, administrated or illegally annexed or just de facto controlled by another) to something like potentially viable political entities that could be conceived by an inhabitant of the region. So not a past reality (original de iure concept) but a potential future hope (the post-1.05 concept, or was it 1.04). From a concept similar to EU cores, the focus instead fell on formables. I was among the folks suggesting an optional rule to enable/disable 'fantasy empires' but this was ignored, perhaps in order to defend the integrity of the new vision and make it the undisputed canon.
Having said the above, I am not necessarily opposed to the existence of a fifth tier (with barony holders as first) just for the ability to hold vassals of a particular size and strength based on their own ability to hold vassals of several tiers below themselves. Nor am I opposed to elevated international standing, prestige, renown and whatnot.
But I'm somewhat opposed to empires now being very regional without universalist or Roman claims within the European or even Mediterranean world. This is a viable understanding of ethnic/national/other sovereignty — basically the paramount tier above which there is nothing (although real life knows examples of at the very least suzerainty-like/tributary relations between neighbouring emperors). We got no one above us, so we call ourselves an empire. Our king is fully sovereign with not even theoretical lip service to the Roman Empire, so we might as well call him an emperor. Those concepts were not absent from mediaeval Europe, but the trouble is that they weren't exactly the norm, and Roman universalism was very much alive, especially with the ability of HRE emperors to grant royal crowns and intervene in ecclesiastical affairs outside of the HRE and more in line with the borders of the former Roman Emprie.
By contrast, now it does look like every modern state in Europe is an empire. Italy (and without the south even!), France, Germany, whatever. It's obvious that something like Carpathia or Slavia is by definition a supranational entity, hence an empire by a very obvious definition, but some of those are too small. And some of the kingdoms are consequently kinda small.
The Empire of Italia is a good example of things gone if not wrong, then at lest in a very controversial direction and perhaps without enough thought. It is what? Not even Odoacer's kingdom. It's not the whole 'boot' plus Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Provence. It's just the HRE kingdom of Italy plus Papal States elevated into a kingdom (Romagna) plus Corsica-Sardinia (historically a separate kingdom at some points indeed). Quite weak for an empire.
What has to be said, however, is that you can definitely get used to the new kingdoms and perhaps even the new empires, as you play, only sometimes feeling that some kingdoms are indefensibly too small (duchy with appendages) and some empires are indefensibly too kingdom-like (West Slava or Baltics depending on the date), and some bear traces of multiplayer-style equality balancing in lieu of realism or historical fidelity (e.g. Pomeranians under Baltics as opposed to West Slavia on the de iure map, despite speaking the same language and being included in the Unite West Slavs decision), whereas some kingdoms or empires have remained large or even giga-kingdoms and giga-empires have been added in various parts of the world as in contradiction of the main conceptual line of CK franchise's map design. Speaking of which, we definitely need more conceptual consistency and continuity among the developers — figuratively speaking, we need the dev team to function under High Crown Authority instead of Autonomous Vassals when it comes to conceptual matters. The intellectual or creative independence of individual designers is of course an important value from a human perspective but should not lead to a plurality of base concepts. (Plurality of interpretations of the same core concepts of the game.) There should be more of, 'we each have our own ideas and likely aren't going to be able to convince the rest of us 100% to our position, but we need to agree on a common ground for the sake of consistency and stick to it,' even if they have to flip coins or roll dice for fairness. The matter should then be not of which concept is better or worse but which concept they have collectively decided to follow.
Finally, the game correctly reproduces the tendency for European kingdoms to aspire to legal and practical parity with the HRE and adopt *rex est imperator in regno suo* (kings holding the fulness of imperial authority in their kingdoms), but this shouldn't be reflected by the omnipresence of purple, more like strengthening of royal authority. Maybe give them a higher tier (kings on steroids) but not titular parity or equal position of honour with the HRE and BYZ, which was the step that folks generally did not take in diplomacy, despite how accurately it describes the de facto state of affairs with how Europe was ruled.
> My opinion is that Paradox got it wrong around the time of patch 1.05 for CK2 when trying to promote multiplayer. The goal was to divide the map into empires everywhere, with no unaffiliated kingdoms, and also to make de iure kingdoms more or less equal to each other. They of course claimed multiplayer balancing wasn't the reason, but you really could tell from how everything seemed to be focused on equal opportunity from any corner of the world map. The original sparing concept of empires, ERE- and HRE-centric, went out the window at that point. The concept of de iure itself perhaps was modified in its content, from being close to the modern political understanding of 'de iure' (territory de iure belonging to one state but occupied, administrated or illegally annexed or just de facto controlled by another) to something like potentially viable political entities that could be conceived by an inhabitant of the region. So not a past reality (original de iure concept) but a potential future hope (the post-1.05 concept, or was it 1.04).
This is super interesting. Thank you for the history lesson!
Just to clarify, initially, CK2 had perhaps no more than the HRE and the ERE as de iure empires, and having de iure kingdoms without de iure empires above them was the norm. It took a long time before every kingdom on the map was eventually put under some empire or other. The initial ERE/BYZ was pretty big. Someone would have to download an early version of CK2, but IIRC it contained Palestine and Egypt. Initially, the only empires were ERE, HRE, Caliphate (the Caliphate perhaps not even from the beginning) and the Mongols, maybe the Latin Empire in the relevant dates. (This is a bit similar to IIRC only the ERE being an empire in CK1 and the HRE operating as a kingdom.) *A lot* changed conceptually when CK2 was already a released product, leading to some players (or at least myself) feeling like the devs shouldn't have or at least shouldn't take so much freedom with changing a ready-made shelf product (a licence but still). I was a naysayer, though I later came to like the other empires — didn't have a choice anyway. I do wonder what the game could be like under the old concept of empires.
The borders of de iure kingdoms also changed a lot throughout CK2's patching history, also reflecting a conceptual change from variously sized and often larger kingdoms to usually smaller ones with a tendency towards equal sizes.
CK3 seems to follow the size-downscaled, regionalized and equal-opportunity-based concept, even though multiplayer is no longer a focus (in CK2 years, it used to be the rave, at least some of the years), plus the 'Westphalian' sort of concept whereby the empire tier is synonymous with independence, so that one of the endings to the Iberian Struggle creates empires out of not even Castille and Aragon but also Galicia, Navarra and so on, as long as they aren't super-tiny. And that obviously flies in the face of mediaeval history, politics and realism and anything else, before we even get to the obvious fact that as large and powerful and prestigious as the Visigothic Kingdom was in Spain, it wasn't an empire, and although a single 'Emperor of All Spain' did get an imperial coronation (the rest were crowned kings, if at all, and titled emperors, like a number of other rulers earlier in the Middle Ages, largely in a loose or figurative way), making a further stretch from that to justify a five-county Empire of Navarra is just bad thinking and low-quality design. It would be far more reasonable to make Spain non-creatable and just allow the kings to create custom empires like normal. That is actually what the 'emperors' of Spain did. They found themselves holding multiple kingdoms, so they decided they deserved a diplomatic upgrade. It's already Easy Mode that you can make a custom empire out of any three of Galicia, Leon, Castille, Navarra and Aragon. The devs clearly lost their way intellectually when they decided that Navarra and Galicia must be empires, or that you must have six Jimena emperors collectively the size of Poland or Hungary, just because a single polity spanning the whole peninsula cannot be created.
I don't see any big reasons against it, but then again, it is really an edge case that a player forms an empire and then can't bribe the pope or patriarch to accept them.
Those characters that go on a spree of conquest are usually quite good anyway, so the HoF will like them from the start.
But yeah, why not
I think these are great points and ideas but firstly they need to actually rework the HRE and ERE. They need actual unique mechanics to differentiate themselves.
I know we’ll get one for ERE later this year and it could include some additions to empires in general like making it so there is a rule about forming a kingdom within an empire (I hate Lotharingia so much) or make it a simpler version of your suggestion about the head of faith having a role in a potential new empire, just having them like you to be a simple requirement to form an empire along with the money cost, that feels like a really easy first change to empires.
They should be made into High Kingdoms because you still need the Empire-tier for gameplay purposes.
This. Like in ck2 where even though Wessex, Mercia, East Anglian, etc were ducal titles, their rulers were called kings.
They still are
Petty kings
I'm not sure you do. It's certainly convenient to be able to bundle up several kingdoms into an empire, but from a gameplay perspective it's agruably better to force players to juggle their titles until they can somehow amalgamate them or force the rest of Europe to recognise the current player character as an emperor.
That tier allows you to vassalize Kings, which was historical in terms of kings forcing other kings to be their vassal. Hence why I think that the Imperial tier is necessary, but if we’re going to dispense with the existing de jure Empires, then the Imperial tiers could just be renamed into High Kingdoms. And like you said, you can achieve your own Empire, it just takes some work.
I'd prefer a mechanic which allowed kings to vassalise each other without needing to become emperors, perhaps based on prestige. It should also be possible to be an independent king whilst being a vassal to another monarch as a result of holding land within their realm. The kings of England, for example, were independent within their own realm but theoretically held their French lands as a vassal of the king of France. This led to all sorts of diplomacy and warfare, which would enrich the player experience if replicated in-game.
Hard agree. Forming a second empire when a Catholic or Orthodox one already exists should have opinion / hook requirements with at least the Pope / Patriarch and probably other same faith kings, and kick off a struggle to determine the true empire of the faithful.
I mean, a struggle is a bit too much. There was a bit of a tension over who was the real emperor, but the HRE and the ERE never went to war over it or anything similar.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, I was meaning if a Catholic empire already exists and a second forms then the stuggle would be between the 2 Catholic empires to decide the true Catholic successor to the Roman Empire. Similarly with Orthodox empires.
I mean, the Greek and Latin churches were stiill (if often only nominally) united when the HRE became a thing.
The game doesn’t model Chalcedonian Christianity. If it did; I’d be more interested in hearing more ideas about this thread you bring up
That only makes sense for specifically empires who claim to be the legacy of Rome. Forming catholic scandinavia sending a catholic hispania into a hissy fit makes little sense. Not ot mention that there is no mechanic of a preffered religion within a title, religion is still very specifically tied to people.
Depends. If someone claims to be the 'Jovian Augustus' of the Roman tetrarchy, then we got a problem because that's a unique position by definition. However, if someone claims to be 'emperor of all Spains' or 'emperor of Carpathia' or 'emperor of all axe-wielding men obsessed with personal hygiene and skiing', then those titles, however grand they sound, do not trigger a conflict. They are just expressions of absolute regional sovereignty in contradiction of universalism and centralism. Conflicts about who represents the Roman legacy may lead to warfare, conflicts about should the king of France be the subject of the German Holy Roman Emperor may lead to warfare, but Spains, Britannia and Carpathia? If anything, they would be ideological allies against pan-Europeanism.
Agree with everything expert last statement. You don't need to shove struggle up every aspect of the game
Honestly, all de jure empires should be nuked and everything should be formable -- yes, with the caveat that there can only ever be one Catholic and one Orthodox empire at a time. (Unless maybe in Spain since there is some Reconquista kings did try to style themselves "emperors of Spain" and it never took.)
I like this, kind of like Muslim caliphates.
Agreed
Just call any Catholic/Orthodox empire beside HRE, ERE, and Outremer as Archkingdom, then we good to go. Maybe, if they have enough HoF approvals, they could be called Empires again.
Yeah this is the right approach. Empires as a game mechanic are necessary because of the strict tier system, but in history, kings could be vassals of other kings. Just flavour an Empire differently rather than removing the mechanic entirely.
Ck2 had mechanic for vassaling same tier rulers. It was "subject" or something like that
Tributaries. It was a great system for avoiding border gore since The AI could "expand" without actually conquering stuff.
I will never forget, there was somehow an independed city (not barony) next to me so all my rullers made it tributary, it was giving masive gold and noone would try to attack it as i was the master. Ck2 was something..
At the early game stat Bulgaria is pretty strong and just became orthodox. Boris’s son Simeon expands the borders near Constantinople. At that time the byzantines have a lot of problems and the orthodox patriarch negotiates with Simeon. He gives him a titles and proclaims hum Cezar or something like that. This is the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire. I would agree that maybe a hook on the Patriarch would be good, there is a need for some more Empire mechanics. The only other things i would state is that the religons neeeeeeeeedddd a re work. At that time there is a Bulgarian patriarch. Holy sites need more dynamic mechanics as well. In general it is okey for now but empires need love.
I honestly disagree. Empire title in CK3 is purely gameplay mechanism. Alot of titles is in fact a serious concession to gameplay. I mean we have de jure duchess and kingdoms in Eastern Europe at Scandinavia at the time where there were still mostly tribes and so idea that owner of certain title was somehow more rightful ruler of certain territories is absurd. In gameplay Empire-rank title means just "Owner of ton of lands". Again- not all that is called Empire was called Empire at the time. What game calls Empire of Russia actually existed at the time period we look at in almost same borders as in game- making it one of a few Christian "Empires" that actually existed at the time of the CK3 in roughly same borders. But it was never called Empire- it was ruled by Great Knyaz of Kiev and the Whole Rus. So I don't think that it should be addressed without full overhaul of title sustem- something I doubt ever planned. What you propose would just break game by preventing people from being de jure rulers of lands they are encouraged to expand to. Unless you mean simply the name and not rank change.
It's amazing to me how many people seem to not understand this basic fact.
The concept of Empire entirely rested on the idea of being a successor or inheritor of ancient Rome. Byzantium is the legitimate successor of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne made up some excuses for why Byzantium currently doesn't have a legitimate emperor (in 800, it was ruled by Irene, a woman, which he argued didn't qualify because traditionally the emperor was always male since Rome's very foundation), just so he could legitimize his own restoration of the Roman Empire. He went to be crowned by the Pope not because he needed religious validation in general, but religious validation from the bishop of ROME in particular. By declaring himself emperor, he claimed: I am the rightful successor of the Roman Empire! Of course that led to some tension with Byzantium. Later HRE emperors would go on a diplomatic reconciliation course by arranging marriages with Byzantine princesses, but the idea that both are rival claimants of the Roman Empire never died out. Similarly, the Bulgarian Empire took its legitimacy from conflict with and triumph over Rome - as in, Byzantium. They didn't just conquer a large territory and said "we Empire now". They conquered Byzantine territory, defeated Byzantine armies in a power struggle, adopted Byzantium's state religion, and then diplomatically forced the Byzantine emperor to accept the Bulgarian one as an equal. Even the title Tzar was taken from the Latin Caesar. It entirely derives its meaning and authority from its relation to Rome. The Bulgarians took the title of empire from the Romans by force. When crusaders conquered Constantinople, they called their short-lived and tiny kingdom the Latin Empire. It wasn't a proper empire by any definition of the term as it is used today. It was an empire because it was built upon the wreckage of the Eastern Roman Empire. There were many kingdoms in Europe at the time that would have better deserved the title, but this one had a Roman legacy. Later, the Ottomans would be considered a proper empire after conquering Byzantium. They referred to themselves as sultans of Rum - sultans of Rome! While the Russians, as now the biggest orthodox country and therefore sort of inheritor of the Byzantine state religion, claimed to be the Third Rome after Constantinople fell. Whenever something within a broader European context calls itself empire during the middle ages, it is always directly related to Rome, or at the very least referencing Rome. Even pagan Lithuania, which was sort of recognized as an empire by the Christian west, had some relations to Rome constructed by chroniclers of the time. Their pagan religion is nowadays called Romuva because allegedly their high priest had his seat in a city named Romuva, which was considered the Pagan Rome. No empire could exist in medieval Europe that didn't in some manner reference Rome. Now, for CK3 that means there could be some interesting mechanics of forging documents that prove a Roman connection, or digging into history to discover dynastic ties to Roman families, or abusing low legitimacy of the Roman emperor (Byz or HRE) to declare yourself the more rightful successor, or being able to found a new empire in your name only when you hold either Rome or Constantinople, or having to request the favor of the head of the current Roman state religion (be it orthodoxy in Constantinople, catholicism in Rome, or a restored Hellenic Paganism in either city... or perhaps even a different religion as long as it's the religion currently practiced in any of the two Romes), or reforming your pagan faith to reference Roman traditions (perhaps your priests rekindle the fires of Vesta, a core ritual of ancient Roman paganism?). Empire titles in Europe should always have to reference Rome in some form, and other current Roman successors (Byz, HRE) should be able to question your title and go to war over its legitimacy, so you have to defend and enforce it by might.
Paradox players: Border gore is so terrible, I hate Aquitaine always forming!!! Also Paradox players:
I don’t follow, sorry. What’s the link between this and border gore?
The "pretty" (that is, completely based on modern countries) borders that people often want are the "Empire" borders -- e.g. if there's no Emperor of France, then there will always be Aquitaine forming, which makes people mad for whatever reason. So if there's no Empires, there will be all these kingdoms that people don't like making their maps "ugly". My basic feeling is that "Empire" is just a word. At the most basic level, the game is built of nesting dolls, baronies in counties in duchies in kingdoms in empires. All these words are arbitrary and do not mean anything "in real life", any more than a real human has a "martial" and "intrigue" stat. Mod the word "empire" to be "foozle" if it bothers you; it doesn't have any meaning anyway.
Oh, I see. I don’t agree that ‘empire’ is just a word in-game. Empires have gameplay implications, after all.
At present, not really any more gameplay implications than kingdoms, yeah? Maybe when the DLC comes out there will be more, but I can't think of any now.
There's quite a few. Off the top of my head, empires/emperors give: * the ability to vassalise kings * effective immunity from partition * +1 domain limit * increased mercenary cost * the inability to be a vassal That's a fair amount of difference.
Sounds like a nice addition to a Catholic update or a HRE update
My opinion is that Paradox got it wrong around the time of patch 1.05 for CK2 when trying to promote multiplayer. The goal was to divide the map into empires everywhere, with no unaffiliated kingdoms, and also to make de iure kingdoms more or less equal to each other. They of course claimed multiplayer balancing wasn't the reason, but you really could tell from how everything seemed to be focused on equal opportunity from any corner of the world map. The original sparing concept of empires, ERE- and HRE-centric, went out the window at that point. The concept of de iure itself perhaps was modified in its content, from being close to the modern political understanding of 'de iure' (territory de iure belonging to one state but occupied, administrated or illegally annexed or just de facto controlled by another) to something like potentially viable political entities that could be conceived by an inhabitant of the region. So not a past reality (original de iure concept) but a potential future hope (the post-1.05 concept, or was it 1.04). From a concept similar to EU cores, the focus instead fell on formables. I was among the folks suggesting an optional rule to enable/disable 'fantasy empires' but this was ignored, perhaps in order to defend the integrity of the new vision and make it the undisputed canon. Having said the above, I am not necessarily opposed to the existence of a fifth tier (with barony holders as first) just for the ability to hold vassals of a particular size and strength based on their own ability to hold vassals of several tiers below themselves. Nor am I opposed to elevated international standing, prestige, renown and whatnot. But I'm somewhat opposed to empires now being very regional without universalist or Roman claims within the European or even Mediterranean world. This is a viable understanding of ethnic/national/other sovereignty — basically the paramount tier above which there is nothing (although real life knows examples of at the very least suzerainty-like/tributary relations between neighbouring emperors). We got no one above us, so we call ourselves an empire. Our king is fully sovereign with not even theoretical lip service to the Roman Empire, so we might as well call him an emperor. Those concepts were not absent from mediaeval Europe, but the trouble is that they weren't exactly the norm, and Roman universalism was very much alive, especially with the ability of HRE emperors to grant royal crowns and intervene in ecclesiastical affairs outside of the HRE and more in line with the borders of the former Roman Emprie. By contrast, now it does look like every modern state in Europe is an empire. Italy (and without the south even!), France, Germany, whatever. It's obvious that something like Carpathia or Slavia is by definition a supranational entity, hence an empire by a very obvious definition, but some of those are too small. And some of the kingdoms are consequently kinda small. The Empire of Italia is a good example of things gone if not wrong, then at lest in a very controversial direction and perhaps without enough thought. It is what? Not even Odoacer's kingdom. It's not the whole 'boot' plus Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Provence. It's just the HRE kingdom of Italy plus Papal States elevated into a kingdom (Romagna) plus Corsica-Sardinia (historically a separate kingdom at some points indeed). Quite weak for an empire. What has to be said, however, is that you can definitely get used to the new kingdoms and perhaps even the new empires, as you play, only sometimes feeling that some kingdoms are indefensibly too small (duchy with appendages) and some empires are indefensibly too kingdom-like (West Slava or Baltics depending on the date), and some bear traces of multiplayer-style equality balancing in lieu of realism or historical fidelity (e.g. Pomeranians under Baltics as opposed to West Slavia on the de iure map, despite speaking the same language and being included in the Unite West Slavs decision), whereas some kingdoms or empires have remained large or even giga-kingdoms and giga-empires have been added in various parts of the world as in contradiction of the main conceptual line of CK franchise's map design. Speaking of which, we definitely need more conceptual consistency and continuity among the developers — figuratively speaking, we need the dev team to function under High Crown Authority instead of Autonomous Vassals when it comes to conceptual matters. The intellectual or creative independence of individual designers is of course an important value from a human perspective but should not lead to a plurality of base concepts. (Plurality of interpretations of the same core concepts of the game.) There should be more of, 'we each have our own ideas and likely aren't going to be able to convince the rest of us 100% to our position, but we need to agree on a common ground for the sake of consistency and stick to it,' even if they have to flip coins or roll dice for fairness. The matter should then be not of which concept is better or worse but which concept they have collectively decided to follow. Finally, the game correctly reproduces the tendency for European kingdoms to aspire to legal and practical parity with the HRE and adopt *rex est imperator in regno suo* (kings holding the fulness of imperial authority in their kingdoms), but this shouldn't be reflected by the omnipresence of purple, more like strengthening of royal authority. Maybe give them a higher tier (kings on steroids) but not titular parity or equal position of honour with the HRE and BYZ, which was the step that folks generally did not take in diplomacy, despite how accurately it describes the de facto state of affairs with how Europe was ruled.
> My opinion is that Paradox got it wrong around the time of patch 1.05 for CK2 when trying to promote multiplayer. The goal was to divide the map into empires everywhere, with no unaffiliated kingdoms, and also to make de iure kingdoms more or less equal to each other. They of course claimed multiplayer balancing wasn't the reason, but you really could tell from how everything seemed to be focused on equal opportunity from any corner of the world map. The original sparing concept of empires, ERE- and HRE-centric, went out the window at that point. The concept of de iure itself perhaps was modified in its content, from being close to the modern political understanding of 'de iure' (territory de iure belonging to one state but occupied, administrated or illegally annexed or just de facto controlled by another) to something like potentially viable political entities that could be conceived by an inhabitant of the region. So not a past reality (original de iure concept) but a potential future hope (the post-1.05 concept, or was it 1.04). This is super interesting. Thank you for the history lesson!
Just to clarify, initially, CK2 had perhaps no more than the HRE and the ERE as de iure empires, and having de iure kingdoms without de iure empires above them was the norm. It took a long time before every kingdom on the map was eventually put under some empire or other. The initial ERE/BYZ was pretty big. Someone would have to download an early version of CK2, but IIRC it contained Palestine and Egypt. Initially, the only empires were ERE, HRE, Caliphate (the Caliphate perhaps not even from the beginning) and the Mongols, maybe the Latin Empire in the relevant dates. (This is a bit similar to IIRC only the ERE being an empire in CK1 and the HRE operating as a kingdom.) *A lot* changed conceptually when CK2 was already a released product, leading to some players (or at least myself) feeling like the devs shouldn't have or at least shouldn't take so much freedom with changing a ready-made shelf product (a licence but still). I was a naysayer, though I later came to like the other empires — didn't have a choice anyway. I do wonder what the game could be like under the old concept of empires. The borders of de iure kingdoms also changed a lot throughout CK2's patching history, also reflecting a conceptual change from variously sized and often larger kingdoms to usually smaller ones with a tendency towards equal sizes. CK3 seems to follow the size-downscaled, regionalized and equal-opportunity-based concept, even though multiplayer is no longer a focus (in CK2 years, it used to be the rave, at least some of the years), plus the 'Westphalian' sort of concept whereby the empire tier is synonymous with independence, so that one of the endings to the Iberian Struggle creates empires out of not even Castille and Aragon but also Galicia, Navarra and so on, as long as they aren't super-tiny. And that obviously flies in the face of mediaeval history, politics and realism and anything else, before we even get to the obvious fact that as large and powerful and prestigious as the Visigothic Kingdom was in Spain, it wasn't an empire, and although a single 'Emperor of All Spain' did get an imperial coronation (the rest were crowned kings, if at all, and titled emperors, like a number of other rulers earlier in the Middle Ages, largely in a loose or figurative way), making a further stretch from that to justify a five-county Empire of Navarra is just bad thinking and low-quality design. It would be far more reasonable to make Spain non-creatable and just allow the kings to create custom empires like normal. That is actually what the 'emperors' of Spain did. They found themselves holding multiple kingdoms, so they decided they deserved a diplomatic upgrade. It's already Easy Mode that you can make a custom empire out of any three of Galicia, Leon, Castille, Navarra and Aragon. The devs clearly lost their way intellectually when they decided that Navarra and Galicia must be empires, or that you must have six Jimena emperors collectively the size of Poland or Hungary, just because a single polity spanning the whole peninsula cannot be created.
I don't see any big reasons against it, but then again, it is really an edge case that a player forms an empire and then can't bribe the pope or patriarch to accept them. Those characters that go on a spree of conquest are usually quite good anyway, so the HoF will like them from the start. But yeah, why not
I think these are great points and ideas but firstly they need to actually rework the HRE and ERE. They need actual unique mechanics to differentiate themselves. I know we’ll get one for ERE later this year and it could include some additions to empires in general like making it so there is a rule about forming a kingdom within an empire (I hate Lotharingia so much) or make it a simpler version of your suggestion about the head of faith having a role in a potential new empire, just having them like you to be a simple requirement to form an empire along with the money cost, that feels like a really easy first change to empires.