Arbitology: Dei Gratia Rex News

If you've been following the Twitter, you might have seen mention of going to a convention. Yesterday I attended a local convention, ETSU Con, along with some other people from the Tri-Cities Game Developers. If I met you at the con, thanks for checking out the Steam page! If you're looking for the group link, let me know and I can get it for you. Attending this con is a big part of why this post is appearing now rather than yesterday.

Pictures of our table exist, I'm told, but because of my absolute lack of media savvy, I don't have any of them. They will be posted on Twitter if I ever do get them.

Development-wise, I didn't quite get the full demo I wanted done in time to show. However driving toward it did result in a lot of things getting built that I had been putting off. There's now a user-friendly splash screen that hides the flash of weird content on loading. Though the music has been finished for some time, it's now fully integrated via playlists that are dynamically tweaked based on the current event being displayed, optionally with aggressive fading upon list changes. Speaking of options, there are now much more convenient options like remembering game window position between sessions (the previous method I was using was weird and bad, as most things are that developers build for themselves). Age progression properly updates the portrait now. I squashed some old bugs that somehow escaped notice for years. I replaced much placeholder text with the words that aught to be there. Most foolishly of all, I updated my dependencies from their circa '17 versions to the newest. All-in-all it's looking a lot more like a game and less like a random development project now.

Very little of this shows well in screenshots, but here's the splash screen. It's based on the key art which is slowly but surely becoming standard for Dei Gratia Rex across all my social media. Speaking of which, did you happen to notice the new buttons and such here on Steam, as well as the new screenshots?






The more deeply I tested the entire courtship module, the more bugs surfaced. I actually spent the first part of the month fixing things which I thought were working. So it goes in software sometimes. It can be annoying, but I'd much rather find the bugs now than find them in a bug report later.




My present goal is to "close the loop." I think enough systems are in place now such that satisfying stories can emerge. That's not to say that there isn't more that must be added, especially regarding the player's family. However development at the moment is focused on making the game playable from beginning to end so that I can get this into the hands of testers sooner rather than later.

First on the list is vastly expanding the number of "main phase" random events. These are things you see when you're not at war, touring the realm, holding tournaments, during the introduction in Normandy, and so forth. The bad news is that many of these are needed. The good news however is that the vast majority of them are rather a lot simpler than the "phase-bound" random events. I actually tried to have just enough done for the con, but it was always a bit hubristic to think I could do weeks of work in 4 days, regardless of how much I crunched.



More next time!

Once again, the time for a monthly update has arrived. Technically said time arrived yesterday, but spotty internet convinced me to just postpone it. My apologies. Without any further ado, let's get to the update.




I wrote about this some in the last post. The counterproposals ended up being a bit thornier than anticipated. The good news however is that they, and all the other bits touching wedding negotiations, are finished.








Royal weddings were important events. Rather than a minor footnote which might perhaps occasion collecting a feudal aid, these were times for feasting, processions, and much else.



And, yes, also raising a tax if you desire it.



The 12th century predates the Church's formal understanding of marriage as a sacrament. More on the historical aspect to follow. Despite this, it would have been shocking to not have any religious involvement in the marriage of a king. Bishops are, and were, a bigger deal than they are portrayed in many medieval games. There were only about a dozen in all of England and certainly far fewer than that in the fractured state of our timeline. Given their stature, it is fitting that a member of the episcopate performs the service.

Amusingly I managed to track down an edge case in which crashed the wedding (in several senses of the term) if no bishops were to be found in the kingdom. This required, as I mentioned on Twitter, some workarounds:



Regardless of what else happens, the wedding ends in the familiar feast hall. This is, for the more “standard” choices, perhaps the first opportunity to really get to know your wife.






Many things about medieval wedding ceremonies are preserved in modern ceremonies. However there are many notable differences as well. As mentioned, there was not yet a requirement that the Church be involved for a wedding to be valid. Indeed, all that was required in those days was present consent of both parties and a witness. A priest makes a great witness, and naturally most people desired blessings for their new union, so a liturgy developed from a fairly early point to solemnize weddings, even if it was not strictly required to form them. Luckily for us, this was put down in the Use of Sarum, which would have been largely finished and coming into widespread use during the early parts of the game.

According to this, the service was performed in front of the church rather than inside it. Some of the wording is a bit different than a modern ceremony — “I will” rather than “I do” for example — but most things are at least analogous. A nuptial mass followed, where further prayers and benedictions followed for the couple.

Interestingly, Western Rite Orthodoxy still to this day follows the Use of Sarum. There are a few differences between this and a medieval wedding, for instance two rings are used in this service rather than just one for the bride as in medieval weddings, but this is as close as one can get to a medieval English wedding in the present era:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If any part of a wedding in DGR feels unusual, consulting this video might help!




A few more matters, mostly behind the scenes to bring some of the terms of the wedding into effect. There is also some text left to write, as there are a great many traits that might prompt comment in the feast section.

More next time!

It's yet again time for a monthly update. There are some interesting — if a bit historically crunchy — details this time. Let's jump right in.




One of the goals of Dei Gratia Rex's design is "hard historical fiction," in a similar sense as hard sci-fi. The game presents a fictitious scenario and will privilege gameplay over simulation. However where possible, things are kept as closely in line with the actual history as I can. With that in mind, the time had come to revisit marriage.

Medieval marriage was a complicated process. It wasn't as easy as, say, searching a database of every woman in the world, filtering it, scrolling until you found the one you wanted, and being married under a week later. Indeed, even knowing who you could marry wasn't straightforward. Sometimes you might meet a prospective spouse naturally, but that's not necessarily the best plan for a royal marriage. Luckily we have a chancellor.



Moreover, the marriage always required terms.



In particular, dowry — known also as marriage portion or in the primary sources maritagium — was extremely widespread in 12th century Anglo-Norman England. A century later, the practice was indeed nearly universal from the highest ranks of society to the humblest. To be very brief, this was property (more often lands or rents rather than chattels) given by the bride's family to her on her wedding, in the care of her husband. More on that last bit later.

For a royal wedding, matters of oaths, alliances, and monetary payments must also be sorted. Beyond that, there's also the matter of providing for the lady should she become a widow. Her dowry would be part of this most assuredly, but provision of a dower was also part of the marriage contract. These are lands held by the groom that are promised to the bride at the time of the groom's death. Dower lands were only held for a life term before reverting to the normal chain of inheritance.

Isn't medieval land tenure wonderful?






Here we see the maritagium in action. The title is clearly the lady's. However the befit of these lands belongs to her husband, who has not yet gained lands of his own. Her father, whose gift these lands were, owes the military service attached to those lands until such a time as his daughter's husband can provide it. This is a new feature that I wrote specifically to handle these lands given as dowries. However that's not the only place I'm using it.



A particularly thorny issue in the 12th century was the Investiture Controversy. Kings, as they had done for some time, thought they should choose who aught to be enthroned bishop within their kingdoms. The Pope on the other hand thought that he (or his delegates anyway) aught to be the one to choose. This matter was inflamed further by the practice of leaving sees vacant so that their wealthy estates could pay into the Exchequer. Using the new system, a king can enjoy these episcopal lands without holding the title.

Another historical case of this was wardships. If one of your direct vassals is a child, the same sort of thing applies. They will continue to hold their titles, but you, their lord, will enjoy the revenues until they reach the age of majority. On the other hand, they will not owe you knight service during that time. This is not fully implemented, so no screenshot just yet!




I've consulted a number of sources for this. However I would particularly like to highlight The Contract of Marriage: the Maritagium from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century by Claire de Trafford. If you find this sort of thing interesting, you'll find some fascinating material there.




Finishing the marriage negotiations. Some work remains on that front. When that's finished, plugging in the wardships so that they use the new system. When that is done, some provisions for, shall we say, less than regular marriages.

More next time!

The time for another update post is upon us. Actually that time was yesterday; I'll hope you forgive me for being a day late. Christmas was cancelled for us (COVID; I'm fine now but others somewhat less so), and I'm just now getting on top of things.



Many exciting things happened this year. Perhaps most recognizable was the creation of some new art. The line-fillers and bas-de-page illustrations now give life to what were otherwise blank voids on the pages. Between the text, illuminations, marginalia, and glosses, medieval manuscripts rarely had much empty space, and I wanted to capture that. Here's a before and after for the same event:




The soundtrack was also completed this year. I've linked it before, but in case you've missed it:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


I finished quite a lot of content as well. Events for tournaments, feasts, hunts, various other ways of interacting with your subjects, and more were written. All that totaled hundreds of events: I noticed some time ago that there were more events in some of DGR's subsystems than exist in other narrative games. This isn't a small game.

What I didn't do was launch. I tried to meet an external deadline in May. Missing that hurt financially, but too much was getting cut. I'm happy about not forcing it out the door then, but I am cognizant of the fact that this is taking far too long. My goal in the first part of the year is to "close the loop" so that whole-game testing can begin. All of the events are thoroughly debugged, but sometimes defects won't show up without the sort of interactions full gameplay provides.




To that end, the biggest thing missing that is required to play a full game is marriage and family. Since we start with a quite young king, courtship is necessary as well. Love marriages among the nobility were incredibly rare, especially among high nobility. Love was of course an outcome that was pleasant and desirable, but it was not at all a precondition for matrimony. Thus when I say courtship, I largely mean the identification of good prospects, negotiations regarding the terms of the marriage, and so forth. Alliances, dowry, and other factors all must be taken into consideration. It also might also be prudent to ascertain the personality of the woman in question. She will play a large role in your life going forward, after all. Queens don't cease to exist when you get married — quite the opposite in fact — but more on that at a later date.

This has required a rather lot of work under the hood. Unfortunately this sort of work doesn't show off well in screenshots. A non-exhaustive list of things I've done to support this: added Ireland and more of Scotland to the simulation, ensured that land can be held outside of the realm without breaking things, vastly expanded the character templates used for women, and created family trees of particular special
historical family should you wish to pursue a certain high-risk, high-reward marriage. Hopefully more details on this, with pictures, next time.




While I'm here, I want to thank everyone for following along. I really do appreciate the support shown thus far.

I genuinely expected this to launch in late 2020 or early 2021, but here we are. I know how frustrating it can be to follow something for this long. I'm very focused on finishing the game at present. It still needs a few things before then, but I'm very motivated to get this launched.

A bit of a smaller update this time. As expected, things are unfortunately going a bit slowly right now. What I'm presently building also doesn't translate well into update posts just yet; hopefully more on that next time.




In a few previous posts I wrote about vassal interactions. There is an entire system for meeting with others in your kingdom. One major goal I have is to ensure that the other characters in the realm aren't just amorphous, interchangeable entities. To that end I actually expanded the taking counsel part of the feast I wrote about last time. Those at the high table can give you advice: some of it is generic based on their traits, some of it is specific based on things that are going on in the realm.



I reworked some of the random events at feasts to show vassal personalities as well.



And, as always, there are some continuation events. This one is rather rare and based on some literature written in the same time period as the game. Kudos to those that recognize it!






I recently read some online discussion about the topic of "too much information" in strategy games. Specifically the idea was put forth that having exact numbers and percentages turns a lot of things into spreadsheet management. I'm not sure I'd quite go that far, but deciding to obscure information to some degree was a decision I took very early in the development of the game.

I've written previously about era-appropriate fog of war. Additionally, I don't say exactly what happens when you make a choice before you make it, but, as seen in most of these update posts, risky choices tend to get marked with redder letters. As yet another example, under the hood all traits and skills are integers. All relationship values are numbers too, though not necessarily integers. However you can only gain a general sense of these when looking at someone's "character sheet."



Moreover outside of your kingdom and its immediate English neighbors, only very high level information is available about other realms. If you've noticed, there aren't even hard internal border lines drawn within Wales, as the exact political conditions there weren't especially clear to the Anglo-Normans.



I certainly understand why some games do provide very clear information about everything. However I'm trying to take a somewhat different tack here. For a game like DGR I think it will work well, even if it might not in other strategy games.




I'm not ready to set a date, but I am very motivated to see this finished. One of the major blockers is courtship and family events. I put these off for some time so that I could have more entry points to their sections, especially for courtship. In the same vein as the above section, I don't want marriages to happen by pressing a button and searching a database of women. At this point I think I have enough of those entry points in place.

If health holds, I expect to have some things to write about on that topic next month.