u/Chlodio

So, during HYW, Edward III convinced the Flemish nobility to make him overlord of Flanders; in exchange, Edward would pay the nobility 300,000 pounds of silver in subsidies.

The only issue was that England did not have the money. His annual income was only 30,000 pounds. So, he took some loans and gave the parliament two years to raise money. But even then, he was only able to put together half of the promised sum.

But Edward still rushed to besiege the City of Tournai and called his Flemish underlings arms. He promised them the rest of the money would come during the siege. Edward's goal during the siege was to force the French King, Philip to fight him.

So, two months passed, and Edward ran out of money, because the parliament wasn't able to raise the money. The Flemish army told him that they wouldn't fight until they were paid, which is deeply ironic, because Philip was about to engage Edward in Tournai and give him the battle he longed for. Instead, Edward was forced to make truce with Philip and leave Tournai as a pauper.

So, I keep coming across this term in many Wikipedia articles, for example, Guillaume de Nogaret was a seigneur of Marsillargues, Calvisson, Aujargues and Congénies.

I presumed this was just a lord of the manor, a title below counts, but how come it is not translated as lord? Is there actually difference between seigneur and a lord?

So, historically, women hold a lot of power even when they weren't formally rulers/regents. They issued decrees, assembled armies, and swayed opinion.

If anything, you'd have such experience with alternative landless gameplay and rework of marriage mechanics.

What I'm thinking is something like:

• consorts have their own income

• they expect to be given a percentage of ruler's income, but ruler decides how much

• they can use their income to build special holdings, or raise event-spawned factions

• they can join faction and travel independently

So, if you mistreat your wife, she might move out of your court and start sponsoring your enemy faction.

There seems to be this perception that tribal people are primitive, rawhide-wearing hunter-gatherers who live in caves.

I feel such a depiction is kinda disservice to the tribal people. Historic tribal people are very diverse in every possible way. If anything, the only common thing about them is the tribal structure.

The tribal structure is clan-based ownership. So, a kingroup would collectively own land and cattle, rather than it being owned by an individual person.

Regarding technology, an interesting thing about it is that different tribal people excelled in very narrow fields of technology. So, if anything, tribes were utilitarian.

So, my point is, when adding tribal societies into your story, you should not consider backwater barbarians, but an alternative civilization. Maybe they cattle-depend ended civilization doesn't allow for large settlements, but they can have advanced bureaucracy and formidable strongholds.

On one hand, it is very flexible, and it is neat that different goods give different bonuses.

On the one hand, it is a bit too abstract than it needs to be for me. Like these trade relations are so abstract that even if your entire country is occupied, you will still continue getting income from trade.

The game has three settlement types:

• Settlement, representation of rural settlement

• City, represention of urban settlement

• Metropolis, representing megacities

I don't know about anyone else, but I often end up in situations where many provinces don't have a single city, only settlements, which feels kinda limiting. Like I want to build 2 forts on the territory, but can't unless build city there.

So, actually think the jump from settlement to city is a bit too steep. And there would be room for tiers between them, towns, to represent semi-urban settlements.

In Crusader Kings if you conquer a region, you can become a king.

But in real history, it is much more complex than that, and I'm not sure if I understood it, but I still share my theories.

So, what is a king? In its simplest form, a king is just a leader. Titles of kings existed in tribal societies before becoming associated with monarchism. In the early medieval period, a king could mean anything from a chieftain of a tribe to the ruler of a city. And I don't think there was really anything stopping rulers from calling themselves king.

I think the situation actually changed in the 9th/10th century. Due to the rapid fragmentation, west and central Europe were full of powerful counts who, de facto independent, in theory, could have proclaimed themselves kings, but didn't. Reason for this (I believe) was that there were benefits to being nominally a vassal of a powerful entity, because it provided legitimacy and protection. All at the cost of meager prestige.

Another reason is that with the increasing power of the Catholic Church, the Church began to gatekeep the title of kings. They had a formal list of recognized kingdoms, and would grant kingdom charters to rulers who recognized papal investiture (pope's right to appoint bishops). Over time, the papal recognition became more and more standard. By the 12th century, if the Pope didn't recognize you, you might not even bother calling yourself.