The main map is where the action takes place, but most of your work
will be done behind the scenes, in the various game interfaces. In this
section, we will look at how the game works through these interfaces
and all the interesting things you can do in them.
The character interface
is accessible from the Character
button on the Main
Map. If you want to view your own
dashing nobleman, you can also
click on his portrait at the top-left
of the Main Map. You can also access
the Character Interface for
any other character in the game by
clicking on their portraits wherever
you encounter them.
Here, you will find information
on your character’s personal relationships,
including their family,
vassals, court, allies, and any members
of the court who are currently
residing abroad, whether taking
their education at a foreign court or a
prisoner of war. You can also see your character’s titles, claims, heirs, and spouses.
You also get general information about the character: their culture group
and religion, their role in the world, and their attributes and traits. Hovering
over any of these items will give you some additional information in a pop-up.
There are three especially fascinating buttons here as well. The Wikipedia
Link will take you to the Wikipedia article for that historical character, if there
is one, so you can learn more about them and the situations they faced in life.
The other two buttons, Dynasty Tree and Family Tree, will take you to
beautiful tables where you can view the whole family and history of your
character, arranged as an interactive family tree. To their right is your dynasty’s
Coat of Arms, which is distinct from any titles they may hold.
Clicking on the pen-and-scroll button just to the bottom-left of the portrait
will take you to the Diplomacy Interface where you can interact with
that character. Right-clicking on the character’s portrait brings up several
shortcut buttons, which allow you to speed through the actions you can take
with that character.
Here, you can see and change the members of your court, and send
them out on various missions.
• the chancellor is your highest official of state. As he is responsible
for negotiating with your vassals and with other powers, Diplomacy is
his most important stat. Your chancellor can be sent to Improve Feudal
Relations with your vassals, Fabricate Claims for you in lands that
you covet, and Sow Dissent
to damage the relations between
foreign rulers and
their vassals.
• the marshal is your highestranking
military official and
the commander of your levies.
Because of this, Martial
is his most important stat.
The Marshal can be sent to
Prepare Arrests of potential
rebels and enemies, Train
Troops to increase the size of
a province’s feudal levy, and
to Research Military Tech
to provide a boost to military
research and increase the
chances of a discovery.
the treasurer handles your vast stores of wealth and is the Steward of
the realm. As such, Stewardship is his most important stat. The Treasurer
can be sent to Collect Taxes in a province, boosting the wealth taken from
that province. He can also be sent to Oversee Construction in a province,
significantly speeding up the building time of a project. Finally, the
Treasurer can Research Economy Tech in a county, providing a boost to
research and increasing the chances for a discovery.
• the spymaster handles all of your intrigue and underhanded needs.
Because of this, Intrigue is the most important stat for this character.
The Spymaster can be sent to Uncover Plots by local Lords against your
ruler, Build a Spy Network in a province, increasing the success rate of
actions against local nobles, and Study Technology in foreign provinces,
increasing the chances of ideas spreading to your capital and providing
opportunities to steal technologies.
• the lord spiritual heads up the religious and learning initiatives of
your realm. The Lord Spiritual’s Learning stat directly affects the rate
of technology growth in your realm. The Lord Spiritual can be sent
to Head a Local Inquisition to root out heretics and convert infidels
in the province to your religion. He can Research Cultural Tech in
a province, increasing the speed of technology growth as well as the
chances for a discovery. The Lord Spiritual can also Improve Religious
Relations by leading delegations to discuss religious matters with the
local clergy of a province.
Here, you can view and change the current Succession Laws. The
possible Succession Laws will be laid out in detail in the Appendix,
but you want to tread lightly here. These laws are difficult to change
because the different laws can have a significant impact on the game’s dynamics.
Be prepared, too: any changes to the Succession Laws are going to
anger a significant group of people in your realm and in your court.
You can also see your current heir as well as any potential pretenders to
the throne. You can also make changes to your domain’s laws here. If you are
a King or Emperor, there are additional laws available as well.
The two laws which can only be set by a King or Emperor, known as
Crown Laws, are:
• crown authority – This toggle determines the power a King or Emperor
is able to exercise over his vassals and the domain as a whole.
• investiture – This toggle decides who will appoint the Bishops in your
kingdom: either the Pope or you.
The rest of these laws can be set by any level of ruler:
• feudal levies – This determines the percentage of your vassals’ levies
that have to be provided to their liege in times of war.
• feudal taxation – This determines the tax rate your feudal vassals must
pay. Traditionally, this is little or none because of the levies they provide,
but other arrangements can, of course, be made.
• city levies – This toggle sets the amount of troops your cities are obligated
to provide in times of war.
• city taxation – The cities are the golden geese of your realm, and here is
where you decide how much gold to squeeze from those geese.
• church levies – This toggle determines the amount of troops that church
vassals are formally obligated to provide.
• church taxation - Church vassals can provide you with a significant
tithe. How large that tithe is can be set here. Of course, if they like the
Pope or Patriarch more, that gold just might flow to their coffers instead.
It is important to remember that whether you are Count, Duke, King, or
Emperor, you are not an absolute monarch. There is a very important check
on your authority to set these laws, as your vassals get to vote. A majority must
approve the proposed change before it can take effect.
In the technology interface, you can set your realm’s focus and see
how far technologies have developed not only within your demesne but
within your entire realm. Technology in the Middle Ages progressed
very, very slowly. The game does an excellent job of simulating this gradual
growth as well as its spread, as advances are discovered and slowly drift, on
their own, across the game world.
The three different trees are Military, Economy, and Culture.
While you cannot directly affect the speed of technological growth, the skills of
your ministers and the technology in each tree you choose to focus on will have an
impact on the speed of development, the chances of making a new discovery, and
the chances of discoveries spreading to your provinces from neighboring lands.
You set the focus for each tree by clicking on the area of research you want
to develop the fastest.
For Military, the critical
minister traits are State
Martial (the total Martial
of your ministers) and
State Learning (the total
Learning of your ministers).
For Economy, State
Stewardship (the total
Stewardship of your ministers)
and State Learning
matter the most. Finally,
your Culture tech is influenced
by State Diplomacy
(the total Diplomacy of
your ministers) and State
Learning, which as you
can guess by now is the
most important trait for
technology development.
Hover your mouse over the
number in the upper-left
of each tech column to see
how these skills have affected your development.
The Military Interface is where you go to manage and raise your
armies, feudal levies, and fleets. At the top, you can use the Armies tab
to raise your demesne soldiers and feudal levies en masse and track
your monthly costs for all soldiers, whether vassals, demesne, or hired. You
can also call your fleets into being and track their monthly costs from the aptly
named Fleets tab.
Below, there are three buttons ready for your use:
• From the Vassals button, you can raise the levy of individual vassals.
There is no upfront fee for this: it is your vassals’ duty to provide these
troops, but you will have to pay their monthly upkeep.
• The Mercenaries button displays
a list of available mercenary
companies, their monthly
costs, composition, and also
their ongoing expenses. Mercenaries
also cost a large upfront
fee to secure their services.
• Finally, the Holy Orders button
displays a list of Warrior
Monk companies available to
help your cause, as well as
their compositions, ongoing
expenses, and cost in Piety,
since you are calling in a favor
from the church (and must be
considered very religious) in
order to secure their services.
You will go to the Intrigue Interface for all of your nefarious, scheming
needs. Though, to be fair, a lot of what goes on in this interface is not
related to nefarious scheming at all.
When you click to choose an Ambition, you will be taken to a drop-down
menu where you can choose what your ruler should focus on. You can also see
the potential rewards for fulfilling this ambition and attempt to recruit other
characters to your cause.
These ambitions can be political in nature, such as Plot: Institute Elective
Monarchy in France, as innocent and pure as Ambition: Become a Paragon of
Virtue, a noble ambition for anyone, or as vile as Plot: Assassinate Your Spouse,
which is somewhat less innocent and pure. The author could make a joke here
about your spouse’s cooking, which would make this ambition somewhat nobler,
but that would be wildly inappropriate. So he won’t.
You also have a choice of several decisions here which include such actions as
Invite a Holy Man to Court, which brings a kindly old man to your court, ready
to advise you on religious matters; Invite a Noble to Court, which brings a much
less kindly and peaceful fellow to your court; and Present Debutante, which
brings a young lady of marriageable
age to your court.
You devil, you.
This is also the field
you will consult to view the
people who are Threats
to your power, Plotters
against your throne, and
of course, your Prisoners.
Clicking on their portrait
will take you to that character’s
Character Interface,
where you can attempt to
force them to give up their
plotting and scheming,
though this does not always
work.
The diplomacy interface is where you will interact with other rulers
and characters, whether they are Emperors, Kings, Dukes, Counts, or just
your lazy cousin that you can’t seem to find a job for. Besides displaying
some basic information about the other character, there are also many actions
you can take from this screen. The most common ones are:
• declare war – If you have a valid casus belli on another Lord, you can go
to war with them by clicking here.
• claim title – If you don’t have a valid casus belli, one quick way to get it
is to lay claim to one of your potential enemy’s titles. You can do that by
clicking here. Claiming a title costs you some Prestige, though the amount
varies depending on the nature of the title.
• send gift – If you would like to be friends rather than enemies, you can click
here to send a little money to the ruler; this will raise their opinion of you.
• assassinate – If you decide that you cannot defeat your enemy in war, if
you are the heir to one of their titles, or if you are just something of an ass
with money to burn, then you can send highly trained killers to dispatch the
poor unfortunate soul.
But be careful: if you are
caught, people will tend
to think ill of you for
some strange reason.
• arrange marriage –
If you want closer ties
with another ruler,
if you or a member
of your court needs a
spouse, or if you just
have some deadbeat
daughter you want to
get out of the house,
this is where you will
arrange that marriage.
• arrange matrilineal
marriage – If your dynasty
is in danger of
dying out for lack of sons, you can arrange a marriage where the children
will inherit their mother’s name, ensuring the continuation of your bloodline…
and your game.
• arrange betrothal – If you want to arrange a marriage but the happy
couple is still being weaned from their mothers, then you can arrange a
betrothal, a promise of marriage involving one or two minor characters.
The marriage won’t take place until they are adults.
• educate child – If you have a youth at your court and need them to leave
home and learn from a guardian, here is where you will choose the guardian
and arrange the education of your child.
• offer vassalization – If you would like to invite a lower-ranking, independent
nobleman into your realm, you can do so here.
• request invasion – If you are particularly pious or have a great relationship
with the Pope, then you can ask him for permission to invade another
ruler’s domain, even if you don’t have a valid claim to his throne.
• request excommunication – Once again, if your character is particularly
pious and holy or has a great relationship with the Pope, then you
can ask the Holy Father to place another ruler’s domain under interdict
and condemn his eternal soul to the fiery pits of Hell.
The religion interface is where you interact with the church and, if
you are Catholic, the Pope. Here you can see the current Pope and view
the Moral Authority of the church at that moment. You can also see what
missions the Pope has called, such as Crusades, and what you need to do to accomplish
the mission.
You also have a quick link to all of your realm’s Bishops and Prince-Bishops.
Here, you can see their title, their opinion of the Pope, and their opinion of you.
This is important, because you can see very quickly who they are going to support
with their tithes.
There are two other things
you can do from this interface:
• appoint a successor – If
your kingdom’s laws permit
it, you can appoint
the successor to the current
Bishop from here.
• appoint an anti-pope –
This button allows you
to appoint a Bishop as
an Anti-Pope, so long as
you are a King. Doing
so allows you to excommunicate
anyone in your
realm while also protecting
your people from
excommunication at the
hands of the actual Pope.
Additionally, any Bishops
who like your Pope more
than the real Pope will pay taxes to you instead. The major drawback,
besides the prohibitive cost to your Piety, is the crippling blow this option
will deal to the Moral Authority of the church.
Of course, if you are the sort who runs around appointing your own Popes at
will, this is probably not going to concern you too much.
When you click on a province
in the game, you will
be taken to the Province
Interface. Here, you are given information
on who owns the land,
to which kingdom they owe fealty,
who has claims upon it (including
to which kingdom and duchy they
traditionally belong to), the Culture
and Religion of the province, and its
Supply Level, which indicates how
many thousands of soldiers can survive
off the land.
You also see the taxes the county
is currently paying relative to the
income the county actually generates,
as well as the potential and actual
levy sizes, and the Technological
Advances which have been discovered
or spread there.
Finally, the levies and fleets of a full
county can be raised from this screen.
Each province is a county-level territory and contains several smaller vassalheld
areas known as Holdings. The County Seat, the Holding which is the capital
of the province, is at the top of the interface. These Holdings can be Baronies,
Bishoprics, or Towns, and one of them will be the county seat, typically owned
by the province owner.
These Holdings are the backbone of the economy and military of your entire
dominion.
If the county is under your direct control, you can also Build New Holdings
to expand your domain. For those Holdings under your direct control, you can
also initiate building projects.
Clicking on the Holding will bring up a dialogue allowing you to select additions
that can be built there to improve defenses, increase the strength of the
feudal levy, and even add to the tax base. From here, you can also see the current
tax base of the Holding, its current defenses, and the size and strength of the levy.