Dev Diary #137 - Machinations of a Clan

Salutations!

It’s been a while since I last wrote a DD, so a quick (re)introduction might be in order. I’m Emil, aka “Servancour”, one of your resident CK3 game designers. I’ve been on the project since way before release, and tend to mostly focus a lot on game mechanics and systemic features. Which, in fact, brings me to why I’m here today. When we settled on Persia as the focus for our upcoming Flavor Pack, we soon came to realize that this would be an excellent opportunity to revisit the Clan Government and give it a much-needed update.

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Clans, as you currently know them, are very similar to Feudal. There are only two real points of difference between them. Opinion is a major factor in their obligations, meaning that a vassal’s opinion of their liege affects how much taxes and levies they will give to their liege. Secondly, they have access to and utilize vassal contracts, albeit in a slightly stripped-down version, with less available options than their Feudal counterparts.

This begs the question; How can we make Clan Government stand out? We’ve already identified one aspect above, so our first action and problem to solve is this - How do (or should) Clans manage their vassals? Secondly, and perhaps much more important, is what does a Clan actually represent? What does the name mean for gameplay?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the first question, shall we? And have a look at Clan obligations.

Tax Jurisdictions and Tax Collectors

While we knew we wanted to add something new to Clan obligations, we had to ask ourselves how we wanted to make it different. As with all things Crusader Kings, adding a new element that makes use of characters felt like a natural fit, to give obligations some personality if you will. Meet the Tax Collector.

You’ll have access to a limited number of Tax Jurisdictions. To which you assign your Clan vassals as Taxpayers, allowing you to gain both taxes and levies from your subjects. A Jurisdiction requires a Tax Collector to function, however. So, before you can collect any taxes, you need to appoint one of your courtiers as a Tax Collector for each Jurisdiction.

With Tax Collectors, you won’t manage the obligations of your vassals directly. Instead, you manage them through your Tax Collector. Similar to a Court Position, a Tax Collector uses their aptitude to set the obligations of the vassals assigned to them. Higher levels of aptitude means that you’ll get more taxes and levies. Aptitude is primarily based on their skills, with Learning being the more important one, but their opinion of you also plays a significant part. To maximize the use of your Tax Collectors, you’ll want to find and appoint a skilled character, and then put the sway scheme to good use in order to squeeze as much gold from your subjects as possible.

While your Tax Collectors act as your intermediaries, you are still able to exact a certain degree of control of how they should manage your vassals. This is where Tax Decrees come into play. A Tax Decree is essentially how you want your vassals to be taxed, changing the obligations and providing an assortment of additional benefits.

With the introduction of Tax Decrees, it made perfect sense to move over some aspects of vassal contracts to this new system instead. For example, this is where you’ll find Iqta, Ghazi,