Dev Diary: Legitimate House Mechanic
Hello all! Long-time-no-post!
It's me Sililex - after taking a bit of a break post-dragons, I'm happy to be back and bringing you my latest contribution to our favourite modding project - the Legitimate House Mechanic! Threading the line of deep mechanic and RP-fest, I hope it adds another layer to your playthroughs in the next update!
Concept
The way that rulership in Westeros is modelled by CK3 has never quite sat right with me. While extremely similar to feudal Europe, the upper echelons of nobility in Westeros trace their lineage back to ancient times far more literally and directly than the kings and queens of old - while many did claim decent from an ancient bloodline, none literally called themselves "William Caesar" (except for when it meant king but shhh you get me). By contrast, Westerosi nobility is both direct and old, like very, very, very old. The longest "house", in Westerosi terms (that is, where the ruler is using the same name and claiming direct decent), to rule IRL is the imperial line of Japan, and that traces back ~1,500 years. In Europe there isn't an example that's half that. By contrast, most Lords Paramount trace their ancestry back to at least the Age of Heros, about 8,000 years ago. Their legitimacy in large part derives from this blood claim. This is not very well modelled in CK3 where you either control it, have a claim, or have nothing - this is my attempt to bring some of that Westerosi flavour into our favourite fanfiction sim.
Enough history - what about my video game?
Fair enough! In short, each Kingdom and Empire title with it's de jure capital in Westeros (ex. the Wall) will now have access to a new feature - the Legitimate House.
As that game concept outlines, the legitimate house will find their rule easier, and one that is not will find it harder. This is not intended to make it either impossible for an illegitimate house, or trivial for a legitimate one, but the intent is to make it a worthwhile goal. Both the current and legitimate house can be found neatly in the title history window.
As that image suggests, the legitimate house is not a static value! It can change over time due to a variety of factors. For a counter example, below is the Iron Throne in the Crowned Stag bookmark.
I'll go into how Robert might try to make progress towards that in a second, but first let's look at the benefits of legitimacy - and the costs of aspiring to it.
Benefits and costs
Being the Legitimate House means that your claim is acknowledged by all the realm. From the peasants to the palace, none can dispute that yours is, if not a just rule, a rule that is just. Rulers holding their legitimate house title will get:
- A minor boost to their starting legitimacy.
- A bonus to any election candidates of your house (if the title is elective).
- A decrease in AI's willingness to join factions to become independent, dissolve the realm, or put a member of a different house on the throne (of this title).
While this is helpful, it is not a cheque to rule carte blanche. For a sense of scale, this willingness is reduced by the equivalent of ~+40 opinion. Of course, you still face the same risk of opportunistic siblings and cousins, and a knife fits between your ribs as well as it does anyone else's. No, the real benefit to being the legitimate house is simply avoiding the costs of being seen as illegitimate.
An illegitimate house, by contrast, will find it harder to hold their realm together. They will suffer:
- A malus to their starting legitimacy (on inheritance / conquest of the title).
- AI will be more willing to join factions to become independent or dissolve the realm.
- AI will be very slightly more willing to join murder plots against you.
- AI will become more likely to back factions to install a member of the legitimate house if a candidate is available.
- The house head of the legitimate house will get a strong claim on the title, its de jure capital, and its duchy. All the head's immediate relatives of the same house will get weak claims on the same.
That sounds bad! How do I become legitimate?
I'm glad you asked! As the screenshots above suggest, you can make progress towards becoming the legitimate house each year. The amount is affected by a variety of factors:
- Having a one or both parents of the legitimate house.
- Having a grandparent of the legitimate house.
- Having a spouse of the legitimate house.
- Being popular or unpopular with the vassals of the title.
- Being popular or unpopular with the smallfolk of the title.
- Being a member of the same dynasty as the legitimate house (e.g. If House Blackfyre is on the Iron Throne).
- If the legitimate house is extinct.
- The amount of land outside of your control from that title.
The net result of all of this can be seen in the tooltip of the fancy bar that Troof helped me build.
These factors were chosen to model the various things that rulers have done to either make themselves seem part of, associated with, or seem the obvious continuation to, the legitimate house. The AI has also been adjusted to try to scheme and marry its way to these goals. Finally, being part of something larger than yourself can help you here, as the endorsement of your liege supports your claim as the legitimate rulers. A new "Support House Claim" option has been added to the Petition Liege interaction, which can be selected if your liege is themselves a member of the legitimate of their title.
A word of warning - if at any point, for any length of time, an illegitimate house loses control of the title, all progress towards becoming the new legitimate house will revert to 0!
Supplanting centuries of tradition is not supposed to be easy. It has been balanced at ~100 years to do it successfully on average, and progress can backslide fairly quickly in the event of a civil war, plague, or deeply unpopular ruler. At its fastest - say, a successful first Blackfyre rebellion - it should take ~50 years. At its slowest, say with generations of nothing but rule-through-fear tactics with clear legitimate claimants out there, it will never be completed. But, for those families who manage to hold onto the title long enough to supplant those centuries, it will be them that the history books say have the true claim!
Sounds cool! What else should I know?
For both lore and gameplay reasons, both the empire-tier and kingdom-tier of several titles are linked in their legitimate houses - an independent North will not suddenly revive interest in the legitimate Starks if House Bolton has held the realm together for the past 300 years before declaring independence. Also, if a custom title is created with it's de jure capital in Westeros, the creator of the custom realm's house will be the legitimate house.
Finally, shattered world has been slightly awkward with this feature, as the balance between the "clean slate that's balanced" vs the "same as lore but not" viewpoints needed to be considered. In the end, we decided that shattered kingdoms should just treat their current holder's house as legitimate so as to maintain the relative strength of each realm. Hopefully this is in line with people's desires and expectations.
In conclusion
The intent of this feature is to nudge the worldstate to be a little to be a bit more in line with the stories we see in ASOIAF without making it static, make Westeros feel a bit more distinct from Essos, and give a bit more of a mid-game goals for players to achieve. You can replace the world order with new legitimate houses across the board as King, or simply supplanting an existing one and legitimising their hold. While not as much of an 'in-your-face' mechanic as other's we've added, hopefully this presents both some nice RP moments with the right mix of mechanical impact. This will also form a useful lynchpin for future features based around the legitimate house of a region, so stay tuned (*cough* way in the future) for that!
That's all from me today! If you're interested in joining the team or just want to hang out with the community, please join our Discord if you haven't already! https://discord.gg/ckagot