From an earlier answer and in honor of the soundtrack to which I wrote large swathes of my dissertation:

• In CK2, rulers sign truces with each other—and those truces or treaties expire when one leader dies. It really is Crusader KINGS (and queens!), not Crusader States. Did truces really just break when someone died?

My favorite analogy for medieval geopolitics is a bowl of spaghetti: individuals might owe allegiance based on land tenure to three other nobles and two kings, some of whom were probably at war with each other. In England, even peasant tenants might have a tract of land whose legal ownership was split among multiple manors. And that's to say nothing of the eternal "But what do you mean by Burgundy question.

I open with this because if medieval geopolitics is a bowl of spaghetti, medieval European international law of war in light of geopolitics is a bowl of spaghetti on fire.

Theological wrangling over jus in bello aside, Western scholars didn't really get around to attempting to systematize laws of war until the 14th century or so. With respect to truces, things wouldn't really shake out formally until the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century. As Randall Lesafer has pointed out, as late as 1630, the Treaty of Madrid had to specify it was binding on heirs and successors!

But before you click away thinking "okay, the game got it right," let's take a closer look.

I opened with the sovereignty analogy because truces are intimately connected with two ideas of sovereignty: the central authority's sovereignty over their territory in the international system, and the central authority's sovereignty within their own territory. Both of these played major roles in the effectiveness and survival of truces in the Middle Ages.

The balance of internal and external sovereignty is visible in treaties from around 1500. The older practice of individual nobles, free cities, and powerful ecclesiastical lords co-ratifying or approving international treaties was starting to fade: kings were consolidating internal sovereignty on a legal level. The idea of sovereignty resting in office rather than person was in play as well. In 1492, England and France signed the Peace of Etaples (not really part of an actual war), which was to last one year past whichever king died second. So at least the hope and expectation was that successors would also be bound by the earlier decision, and perhaps renew the armistice.

This wasn't a new idea, either. The 1389 Treaty of Leulingham (Hundred Years' War) was originally planned to last 3 years; it was renegotiated to 27. No one could know what the state of kingship could be at that time. As it happened, Richard II used the period of relative peace to make a lot of people very angry and get himself deposed. When Henry IV took the throne, he affirmed the truce. This shows two things: first, the idea that treaties could/should apply to successors was floating around. Second, this was an idea, not a given (a law, if you will.)

The aftermath of Leulingham, however, shows the ways that the instability of internal sovereignty could destabilize truces. Especially in English-held northern France, there was a lot of martial action by individual lords and mercenaries. Did this constitute breaking the truce? How much did a lord represent his king? What about mercenaries who switched sides by day and by pay? And hey, what about wars against Muslims, especially since Muslim scholars and lawyers had been working out law of war for centuries before the Europeans? We're talking about Crusader Kings, after all, do let's talk about some, you know, crusader kings.

And more to the point, let's talk about one crusader lord, Renaud of Chatillon, who was a one-man pox on any sweeping, streamlined idea of "sovereignty."

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was a pretty slick military commander in his youth, but his youth was all he had; he was gradually being incapacitated by leprosy. In 1177, he appointed a mercenary/lord named Renaud of Chatillon to be his acting regent for the periods he could not adequately rule; nevertheless, Baldwin was well enough to sign a truce with Saladin in 1179.

But only just. In 1182, still designated regent, Renaud personally launched a series of raids by sea on Islamic territory. He claimed the truce still stood; he was not bound by it as sometimes-acting regent.

Saladin did not agree. Hostilities flared, and Baldwin found it fitting to appoint a more permanent regent, his brother-in-law. Then he changed his mind and backed the rival faction, choosing Raymond of Tripoli as regent for his designated heir, his nephew Baldwin V.

As regent for Baldwin V, Raymond managed to pull things together and negotiate a new truce with Saladin in 1185. The interesting thing is that medieval chronicles record rumors of a secret deal between Raymond and Saladin to help Raymond acquire the Jerusalem crown. True or not, the rumors offer key insight into current ideas of sovereignty. That is, even though not the ruler, Raymond was considered a legitimate party to be treated with. But also, to be treated with as an individual, not just as a synecdoche for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Baldwin V died almost right away, and the best laid plans of mice and medieval nobles from two continents went to naught as Jerusalem exploded into an internal succession crisis. The disgraced former regent and brother-in-law to Baldwin, Guy of Lusignan, ended up on the throne by right of his wife, Baldwin's crafty sister Sybilla.

Guy didn't really have a chance to keep or break the truce. Our good friend Renaud of Chatillon, happy to break the peace while regent, was just as happy now. He started raiding Muslim caravans. Saladin, again, considered this a legal breach of the peace, a broken truce. He thought Renaud was acting as a representative of Jerusalem under a treaty signed by a previous ruler. For Saladin, this was reason to go to war not against Renaud, but against Jerusalem.

It was no accident that medieval treaties specified their duration and were often very short term. The spaghetti bowl of sovereignty and loyalties, the weakening and strengthening of central authority, and the clashes between legal cultures at different degrees of systematization and codification made each truce its own specific case to study. The idea of treaties lasting past the death or deposition of a ruler was absolutely in play. But throughout the Middle Ages, it seems to have been more of an option than a guarantee. And the other path was certainly traveled from time to time with great vigor and fireworks.

I was tremendously excited with the Rajas of India expansion that they would add Tibet to the game and I could roleplay a Tibetan Empire that never fell! Alas, it was not to be. The devs got cold feet and when Rajas was released, there was just a big black hole where Tibet was. They did add Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, and I’ll discuss those below, but when I checked the update log, they said they didn’t include Tibet and “Dalai Lama style succession” because it was too complicated to include in the game.

I acquired the “Cruel” and “Arbitrary” traits and everyone within ear shot had to listen to me explain why the devs were wrong, how the tulku system didn’t exist in the CK2 timeframe (more on that shortly), and how the Tibetan Empire, which was far more similar to the Mongol and nomadic empires which are a big focus of CK2 (specifically with The Horse Lords), had a somewhat complicated primogeniture succession. (If I remember correctly, it was on one of these rants on r/crusaderkings that I grabbed the attention of some devs here and they encouraged me to apply for flair).

Well, then Jade Dragon came along and while I was (am) sincerely happy that now I can play in Tibet, and am honestly impressed with the amount of research non-specialists did in making a more-or-less accurate Tibet simulation. That said, on with CK2's representation of Tibet, Bon, and Dharmic Religions (and how they could/should be improved without too much change to the game systems).

Nitpicks

• Bön: the umlaut isn’t necessary. Yes that is how it’s pronounced, but there’s no other religion or context in the game in which we will confuse it with anything else. There’s no accent above Cátholic.

• The names are… weird. They use “Tibet” for the empire, which is a pretty modern development, but has historical precedents in Turkish and Indian languages. I was impressed by their use of “Maryul” in what would usually be called “Ladakh.” “Maryul” literally means “Red Country,” a common epithet of Ladakh. But then they use Ü-Tsang, which is a combination of two areas in Tibet, Ü and Tsang. Not totally weird, but it is more than anachronous. But the one that gets me is the use of “Bhutan” as far back as 769. “Bhutan” as a term wasn’t mutually exclusive with “Tibet” until 1776 when George Bogle decided to designate the “northern realm of the Teshoo Lama” as “Tibet” and the “southern realm of the Deb Raja” as “Bhutan.” The most accurate names to apply to the country in the time period are “Mon” (the land of darkness, i.e. the land without Buddhism), “Lhomonkhazhi” (the southern dark land of four approaches), Menjong (the land of medicine, a reference to the area’s flora), or just “Lho” or “Lhomon” which would be my choices. Both refer to “south,” and “Lho” is the very simple name by which the country’s founder, Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal” referred to it. The one the devs would probably like, though, would be Drukyul, Country of the Dragons, both for its name, it’s bridge between ancient and modern, and the fact that it’s not so obscure. Then again… Maryul.

• I can’t tell why the devs use that weird Bhutan flag. They’re clearly aware of the more detailed and accurate white dragon that current sits on Bhutan’s flag. They use the proper dragon for the Fascist, Communist, and Republic alternate history versions in the Victoria series. But for some reason, the modern and proper flag uses a weird green dragon instead. Other than the obvious (the flag is a modern creation dating from the 1930s), I feel like there’s a regulation regarding the use of the proper Bhutan flag that I can’t find and the devs are respecting (for whatever reason). That said, I can’t find it. If I had to choose a historical symbol more accurate to Lhomon’s creation as a separate entity, I’d choose the Ngachudruma (the Sixteen I’s). Yes, it’s just as anachronous as the Flag of Bhutan, but it’s closer to the CK2 time period, and it’s the oldest symbol of the region’s separate identity.

• If one reforms Bon and becomes the secular-and-religious head of the religion, your new title is “Dalai Lama.” This would be like referring to the head of your Reformed Asatru as the Ecumenical Patriarch. The term “Dalai Lama” isn’t remotely associated with Bon religious tradition. Hell it’s not even a purely Tibetan term. “Dalai” comes from the Mongol word for ocean, a literal translation of the “rgya mtsho” in Sonam Gyatso’s name when he met Altan Khaan in the 1500s. If I had to offer an alternative, I’d suggest Menri Trizin (lit. Throne Holder of the Mountain of Medicine), which is the name of the current head of the Bon religion (which has been reformed, at least by the game’s standard).

• Tibetan culture characters have the option of constructing “Gonpa Monasteries.” I loath redundancies. “mgon pa” literally means “monastery.” As far as I’m aware, “Monasteries” aren’t a building option for any other cultures, and certainly no one has access to a “Gonpa.” The term I usually prefer would be “Dzong,” which Bhutan usually translates to “Fortress Monastery” which nicely combines both the religious and defensive functions of the structure.

Bon

• The Bon scriptures used for events is listed as the Mdo ‘dus. “mDo ‘dus” as it should academically be written, would be pronounced Do’dü, not ‘m-du-duss. It also betrays a deep misunderstanding of the Bon religion which I find rather bizarre considering that all of the other unreformed Paganisms the scriptures are listed as “the Legends” (or in the Germanic case “the Sagas”). This points to the more ritual, oral, and decentralized (i.e. unreformed) nature of Pagan faiths as opposed to the literate and bibliographic faiths that would come to almost entirely replace them. Weirdly, the devs decided to give the unreformed Bon a scripture, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what scripture they were referring to or found. “mDo ‘dus” literally translated to the “assembled Sutras” which sounds much more like a Buddhist scripture than a Bon one. However, by the time Bon stuff was actually set down to writing (beginning in the 1300s) so much crossover had occurred that the terma movement was as much a Bon development as it was a Buddhist one. The Bon even adopted monasteries, chortens (stupas), monasticism, even the imagery of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as their own. So a Reformed Bon could definitely have a scriptural assembly, but secret Bonpos hiding out from the reigning Buddhists would not be secretly reading to their heirs to be proper Bonpos. And they most certainly would not be reading from scriptures titled “assembled Sutras.”

• I have to say, Bon is oddly weak in the game. When the Tibetan Empire fell in 841, Buddhism collapsed fairly spectacularly and Bon (as the traditional telling goes, though more accurately we should say “Tibetan indigenous religion”) reasserted itself forcefully. This will almost never happen in AI Tibet. This isn’t surprising seeing how small Bon is and how many provinces nearby the Buddhists already start out with.

Hello! I'm a longtime CK2 and Paradox player, albeit without true academic qualifications (yet, give it a year). Other people already have and will continue to comment on particular aspects of the game's approach towards history in particular geographic and/or temporal frameworks, but I wanted to comment on something else, specifically how CK2, and nearly all Grand Strategy Games handle information. See, in a GSG, the player is privy to a near omniscient degree of information about both their own realm and other realms. This is completely ahistorical (though completely understandable from a gameplay standpoint) and in my view can warp how people who play GSGs view history, particularly historical decision-making processes.

Looking at CK2, the player has access to all of the following information on their screen, with which to make decisions that are historically impossible:

1. The opinion of every NPC towards the player's character; as well as to other NPCs. Furthermore, the player knows WHY a character likes them or doesn't like them, based on trait combinations, player or NPC actions, religion, events, etc.

This allows the player to, essentially, play The Sims with the NPCs they can interact with; the player can manipulate NPCs in ways that would make a Netflix sociopath blush. While a real ruler might have a decent idea of whether a particular vassal is kind or generous, they would have nowhere near the information necessary to know, for example, whether a gift of gold would actually sway a vassal, or perhaps instead make the vassal view his liege as weak. Nor would a real ruler, even an astute and competent one, know precisely whether his advisors actually like him, and for what reasons. On the flip side, a human player trying to plot against another character knows exactly who will be amenable to joining the plot; there's no risk in asking NPCs to join a faction or plot (unless they're a drunkard :D).

2. The borders, economic and military conditions, and diplomatic status of all other polities on the map.

This is a huge one. I, as the Byzantine Emperor, am always aware of how many men the Abbasids have, how much money they have, and how well their war against Egypt is going. Based on this perfect information, I can declare war when the moment is exactly right, and in combination with (1.), know that my vassals are content and happy and will not try and stab me in the back during the course of the war. This is a luxury no Byzantine Emperor, or any ruler, Medieval or otherwise, would have had.

Even outside of gameplay, from a purely observational perspective, a player has perfect information about the religious, political, and cultural boundaries stretching from Iceland to Bengal. Medieval people were not ignorant, but this type of information was simply unavailable at the time. Even the best maps out of Abbasid Baghdad were making educated guesses as to the geographic borders of Britain and Scandinavia, never mind the human geography of those regions.

3. The location and status of your armed forces during war

Another big one. I, as the King of France chilling in Paris, know exactly where my crusading army in the Levant is at all times, and know the composition and morale of, and geography around, both my own forces and those of my enemy. And if my armies lose a battle, I know how many men I have lost immediately. All of these factors are standard in almost every GSG, and all are very ahistorical. One thing CK2 (and EU4) could improve on in this respect is in how they treat mercenaries. It ought to be possible to buy off your opponent's mercenaries (and vice versa). But that's getting off topic. The point here is that, provided a player's army is not insanely outnumbered, they will be able to outplay the AI due to their unrealistically comprehensive access to information. Moreover, the player's access to this information does not vary depending on the martial skill and/or competence of the player's character; having a high martial skill helps with troops numbers and generalship, but it doesn't provide any informational advantages. Along similar lines, being skilled at stewardship increases income but not the statistical accuracy of one's finances, high diplomacy makes other characters like you, but doesn't give you more information on your neighbor's internal politics, high intrigue makes you better at plotting but doesn't provide better information as to which people can be trusted to join said plots. Higher wisdom, however, does directly increase your technological advancement, so that's a plus.

There's a lot more that could be said about specific mechanics, but I hope the above has been illustrative of the overall point that the player has access to far, far more information than any ruler has ever had about their associates, neighbors, and enemies. While CK2 and other GSGs have inspired millions of people to take up an interest in history (including me), this particular aspect of the games has some negative effects.

Fundamentally, learning about history via GSGs has the effect of severely diminishing one's understanding and appreciation of the role of uncertainty in historical decisions and decision-making processes. From the perspective of an ameteur historian, history is littered with lost opportunities in which the Byzantine Empire could have made a comeback, or the Russians could have beat off the Mongols, or the Crusaders could have retaken Jerusalem. What they often miss is that the people in the position to make decisions, both at these crucial turning points and in day-to-day affairs, were privy to very limited information. They had uncertaintly over the strength and trustworthiness of their own allies, and uncertainty over the intentions and strength of those polities and people around them. It is very easy to armchair-general the Third Crusade with 20/20 hindsight or a computer simulation, but in reality, rulers and other decision-makers had to make choices based on what they knew to be imperfect and incomplete information. When we lose sight of the gritty reality of historical decision-making, we lose a great deal of nuance when it comes to discussing history as a whole as well as particular decisions with significant historical impact. In particular, ignoring the role of information tends to lead to idealization of successful historical figures who succeeded in part because they made the right educated guess given limited information (Emperor Alexios gambling that the Anatolian Turks wouldn't/couldn't unite against his campaigns) and vilification of historical figures who made understandable, yet incorrect decisions based on limited and/or imperfect information (see: Chamberlain, Neville).

All that being said, it's worth noting that CK2 is actually on the better side of strategy games when it comes to information and uncertainty. CK2's plotting and faction systems are complex and difficult to manipulate entirely to the player's advantage, and the game also makes it difficult to make all your vassals and family happy at the same time. CK2 also obscures a lot of information regarding personal relationships and procreation; a character's fertility is not shown, nor is their true parentage; sometimes your character will be a cuckold without even knowing. The game has also added the ability to lie about your religion, which is an improvement. And while the game gives you the tools to act like a clinically obsessed sociopath only interested in expanding the realm's borders, CK2 is, in my view, unique among GSGs in that it allows and promotes "non-ideal" play in the form of personal rivalries and friendships, family dynamics, secret societies, and lots of character-trait driven event chains and decisions. Contrast this with the fairly bloodless map-painting of EU4, the byzantine economics of Victoria 2, and the almost complete lack of internal politiking in HOI3/4

(The monarchy bit will be in a completely separate answer, sorry)

Oh boy! I have some choice words when it comes to CK2’s representation of religion and politics.

Before I begin let me just say the CK2 is one of my favorite games ever (coughover3000hourscough) and is a fantastic way to learn geography, both political and physical, and the game itself is an acceptable representation of medieval politics as long as you don’t care about all the fiddly things like how they actually worked, or what Christianity’s relationship to monarchy is, or what Islam is, or.. a lot of things.

So, what I’m going to ramble about today are the two core mechanics of Crusader Kings, Crusades and Kings, or more specifically the European idea behind casus belli (reason for war) and the relationship between religion and monarchy. I get the feeling that a lot of people are going to talk about feudalism, or lack thereof, if you like my writing enough you can hear my opinions about feudalism here.

So, for those of you who don’t know, CK2 has 3 primary casus belli (henceforth abbreviated as CB). Claims, which come in two flavors. The first is represented as a bunch of forged pieces of paper that show you have some reasonable claim, this is a forged claim. The second style of claim can be likened to reconquest, you have a historical claim to the land (these are only given out at game start), the territory is part of your lawful realm, or a character in your court has hereditary claim (their family rules the land, so they have a claim on it.) Claims can either be strong or weak, I’ll get to what that means later. The second type of CB is Holy War. This is very “Deus Vult!” the reason for war being “They aren’t us, gettem!” This style is…problematic to say the least, I suspect I’m going to spend most of my time talking about this. And the third type is, “Just because” the player spends some currency and goes to war for a single province (I, personally, almost never use this CB). Now, as game mechanics go these are all well and good, nice and balanced, and they promote the “Crusade” part of CK2 quite well. However, as a historical representation of medieval justifications for warfare they leave a lot to be desired.

I’m going to drop another little disclaimer here real fast. It is impossible to accurately represent any form of government over the course of ~800 years, and in that respect CK2 also fails miserably. With that in mind we as historians can’t approach CK2 on its own terms and broadly discuss the period if we want to get specific about things. As such, when I talk about European political structures and theology, I will be referring to the late Dark Ages and the Early Middle Ages (800-1056) within the bounds of the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire, because I feel that they can best represent what was going on in Europe and the major thoughts of the time, and I have done extensive reading on these three entities.

With all that said we’re going to have to take a quick dive back to ancient Greece to really get this murder ball rolling. Specifically, the philosophic tradition of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These guys are a chain of teacher and student who would dictate practically everything the learned men of Europe were thinking, and they had some pretty key ideas about things that I’m going to zoom in on real quick. Namely, Justice, and more specifically Just War. Aristotle forms the basis of a lot of Christian theology, which means he forms the basis of a lot of medieval political philosophy, which means that his thoughts on things are key to understanding where medieval thinkers were starting from. And, to cut a long lecture very very short, Aristotle believed that the ultimate purpose for human beings was to be happy. This idea combined with the Abrahamic idea of Thou Shalt Not Kill lets you begin to see why the Crusades themselves took a lot of rationalization.

I’m going to talk mostly about the Crusades because they were what really got western Europeans thinking about reasons for war. Before the First Crusade warfare was on a very ad hoc basis. Charlemagne fought the people who fought him, protected the Pope, and died. His descendants fought the people who fought them, and each other in attempts to unite their ancestors Empire. (I’m certain there’s a dense historical tradition here, but I’m skimming over it because time.) I’ve talked at length about the interactions between the two Roman Empires. These fought each other alternately for recognition and prestige (In the case of the Ottonian Roman Empire) or in wars of reconquest (In the case of the Byzantine Empire) and as such I’ll direct you there and really dive into the Crusades.

So. Crusades and Holy War. Indeed, the concept of Holy War was not unique to the West, but within the confines of Christianity it was unique to Catholicism. The Orthodox never really accepted the idea of Holy War, or killing in the name of God in general, so I’m mostly going to leave the Byzantines out of this part of my discussions. I will also be leaving out the Western Monarchies, right now the Papacy is going to take center stage.

Actually, before the Pope takes the stage in all his pointy hatted glory, I do need to tell you about the other pointy hats running around. Wipo, the biographer of Conrad II, in his works lays out a very neat explanation as to what kings were supposed to be doing re; War. Peace. Kings were supposed to ensure peace. And to that end they were only to wage war to ensure peace or more specifically to ensure the peace of their own people and Christendom. Keep that in mind as we roll forward

The nucleus of the First Crusade was a war of reconquest. The Byzantines had been pushed to the absolute brink, and really needed a hand. Alexios Komnenos, the Byzantine Emperor, appealed to the Pope for help, and the Pope saw an opportunity. Christian thought, or more specifically a fellow named Burchard, c.1023 was that anyone who took a life in battle must perform penance. Killing in war was sinful killing and sinful killing was bad. Burchard’s work influenced Gratian’s Canon of Concord from Discord, and it is no lie to say that the Papacy’s official stance on killing was that it was never good. War was okay but killing was not okay. I can’t overstress this enough, because in under a century this entire chain of thought would be turned on its head.

edit-I named Gratian as a Pope, he was not. He was just an extremely important jurist in the 1150's. My bad.

I was a big player of Paradox games in the past, but now I'm older and grumpier and the only videogame I sometimes play is a game called Football Manager, where I choose to be an old and grumpy manager of a Football team such that I may impose my age and grumpiness on virtual football players.

I have a few thoughts to add to the very interesting posts that are already here. Paradox Games like Crusader Kings II are fun, but we need to keep in mind that they are, at the end of the day, games that exist for entertainment. They have a set system of rules, they have a clear correlation between cause-and-effect, and even when elements of randomness are introduced the outcomes are limited and strictly predefined. In a game with clear cut rules, items, boxes, what have you, it is impossible to capture overlapping power strictures, and the ebb and flow of rule of law and political action in nascent pre-modern state structures cannot be adequately represented. This, of course, did not stop me from spending hours attempting to create a Kingdom of Italy as the Obertenghi of Lombardy through war, murder, and subterfuge. What goes without saying is that if I really was the hive mind of the Obertentghi of Lombardy, I probably would not have gone about creating a Kingdom of Italy the way I did in the video game CKII.

There are also historic errors and misinterpretations that sometimes go hand-in-hand with the issues mentioned above. The Obertenghi themselves are an example, whose misrepresentation is symptomatic of a misunderstanding of dynastic system present in Italy at the game's start date. Indeed, at the "Base Game's" start date (that is to say, without expansions) the Obertenghi do not exist, or rather, spawn as courtiers and distant relatives in the court of the Dukes of Lombardy. The dynasty that appears as Dukes of Lombardy, on the other hand, are called "Este." Confusingly, a third dynasty called "d'Este" also appear as vassals of the "Este" and counts of the eponymous castle.

The confusion probably arises from the attempt to fit the neat "feudal" framework in Emperor Otto's Italy. Historically, the Obertenghi and the Este are the same dynasty, however upon Otto's descent into Italy the old Carolingian margraves were disempowered and retrenched into their personal possessions. The game's land-based feudal-subdivision mechanics can not replicate the itinerant administration of the Ottonian Emperors, there is no allowance for the clerical-administrative structure created by the Ottonians, and the relationship-system is only slightly better at replicating any personal affinities that might have existed between the Ottonian emperors and the Italians, and is somewhat indifferent to the role of Ottonian empresses in contributing to the continued existence of such an empire.

So what could be done to make for a more immersive and historically accurate experience, at least regarding Italy? A simple tweak and reinterpretation would go a long way, although it would probably break a fun game element envisioned as a rock-paper-scissors dynamic: end the assumption that Clerical, Urban/Communal, and Seigniorial power structures cannot occupy the same space.

Anyone who has played the game will recall that within smallest level of game "tiles," there are slots for developments that can be governed as clerical, urban, or feudal. Each is supposed to represent a community within the game's neat little feudal subdivisions.

The city of Milan, for example, is a town which as per the game mechanics should be governed by a mayor. However, at the game's start date its in-game governor is the Duke of Lombardy, creating in-game penalties and a fun issue to try to resolve (does the player keep the penalties, or assign a mayor and give up control of an important possession?). Of course, in reality at the game's start date the city of Milan would instead be governed by its bishop and senatorial council. How could we get closer to representing that?

An idea could be breaking up the "Slots:" one for the Basilica of St. Ambrose (representing the Bishop) and one for the Council of Milan. A similar approach would add nuance to the "Venice" tile, with urban slots for Pellestrina, Torcello, and Rialto, and a clerical slot for the Bishop of Castello. Places where clerical power was weaker, like Bologna, might not have a "Clergy" slot, while places where clerical power was very strong, like Grado or Trento, might not have a "town" slot. A second, more complex evolution could also be the addition of lateral interactions between these political players. But I wouldn't know how to implement that without the game becoming "Medieval Politics Simulator."

As a brief reminder, this post is for experts to post about how Crusader Kings II represents history (or doesn't). As such, any comments that ask questions on this post will be removed. Next week, there will be an AMA thread on the topic, where we'll be throwing the floor open to questions.