England 1519, in the Court of Henry the VIII - Tudor Intrigue - Ready to begin testing?

Can we have affairs while married?

Actually I’ve been wondering this too. Is it possible for a female character to marry someone and then become the king’s mistress? or for a male character to marry but have and affair with George Boleyn?

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Generally no. Romance was complicated to write. Having affairs would make it much moreso.

Exception 1: There are a few streams where you will be involved with more than one partner. If you have a A) gay partner or B) choose to have a romantic with a poor poet, who is beneath your station, you have a choice to marry another noble while remaining romantically involved with gay-lover or poet.

I enjoyed writing that story-stream. However, I’m unsure if many people will chose to engage in a sham-marriage.

Exception 2: I imply that Anne needed help to conceive a son if you take the “help out Anne Boleyn when she is in crisis” choice. I might build on that. It is a soft implication.

Exception 3 I am contemplating a Catherine Howard scandal but I think it will involve your younger brother as the main POV is a good deal older than Catherine.

Exception 4 A Technicality. On the premise that all marriages of Henry must be recognized by the Papacy, any marriage not blessed by the church is an affair.

So is Henry.

I don’t think the majority of users would object to a chance to intrigue with Catherine (and possibly kick off an early climax over her affections, if they’re strong enough to oust the king).

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I noticed a bug. When you’re queen and have a son, the succession crises starts out with you supporting him for the throne but after the scene ending with Henry’s children standing by him waiting to hear his will, your allegiance suddenly switches to Mary. I know that part is still just a preview but I thought I’d point it out.:relaxed:

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Just out of curiosity, if we help found New Rutland, where exactly is it?

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hmm…maybe Virginia? or New England? but Virginia is more likely

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North Carolina is a possibility as well. They had a failed colony during the Elizabethan era.

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why i can’t support Prince Edward in the War of Succession?

Because that entire chapter is incomplete and not ready for prime time.

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@jry a suggestion for the Trial of the Duke and the Diplomatic mission trade off.

If you choose the Duke of Buckingham Trial, can you make it so that we can still go to the diplomatic mission after the trial, but we suffer penalties (like needing higher charm or relationship) because we are late, and higher chance of failure. If we choose the Diplomatic mission first, then we can’t go to the Trial, but the required factors are much lower, and will have more larger impact compared to the first one.

(I know that this will bend the game story further away from OTL in such early times, and yes i know that @jry is very busy right now, but this is merely a SUGGESTION, so save your replies about “unrealistic” and “it’s already complex enough”. Freedom of Speech)

Anyway, Thank you

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That’s a great idea. It will take me a week or so to get to it as I’m currently figuring out the revolts of 1538.

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About how far writing and coding is the story the history buff in me is eagerly but, impatiently waiting your story. I’ve bought and read almost every choice/hosted off of google play and have over 70 installed finished Choice of Rebels before Release day was through.

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I like the premise and theme of the game quite a lot, though I haven’t had that much time to run through it and can’t give that much feedback yet. Looking forward to further development certainly.

Just one thing to point out though, wasn’t John Wycliffe dead by this time? I thought the guy who translated the Bible into English was William Tyndale?

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blast…I think I got those two confused! I think on the Beta testing I’ll need a historical-Fact-Checker.
That section on Tyndale was hastily written. I’d like to change that up a bit.

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Managed to get some more time to run through a few alternate playthroughs and look at the source material, it’s quite something. However, it is quite ambitious what with so many potential divergent routes. I like the choice system, but perhaps some things like arranging marriage be obligatory past one date (e.g. due to social pressures and ever-wary of your increasing age, society behoves you to marry…). One point to make is that Wales and most, if not all of Ireland, was under English rule at the time.

So, some suggestions and ideas (not that I claim to be well-studied in the era):

So far I haven’t seen any major divergences between being pro-Habsburg and pro-French (perhaps it’s just me being unable to get the results to show), but it would be nice to see the Pope grant the King an annulment outside of the player’s influence if Habsburg power is insufficiently poor together with a random test to represent whether the Sack of Rome goes ahead. I know that if you majorly beat the Habsburgs England expands its influence in the Low Countries, but the war against France is a bit vague in terms of results. Perhaps a cession of Aquitaine back to English control with a major English victory (it’s also squashed between Spain and France, but Charles might approve it because of it drawing English attention away from the Low Countries. The area did also become a hotbed for Huguenot activity too)?

I’m not sure if it’s accounted for, but perhaps having Anne Boleyn as queen earlier should end up with a more protestant England? She was a major pro-protestant force before and after her coronation.

Also, while it would be a lot of work, a “severity of English Reformation/Counter-Reformation” metric might be appropriate to represent the amount of infighting and potential devastation of the era. This metric would affect unrest and conversion chance. If the player aligns successfully against Cromwell, the Dissolution of the Monasteries might be tempered, resulting in a ‘softer’ Reformation; an England closely associated with continental protestant powers may end up more Lutheran in outlook, while an England isolated on the continent ends up developing closer to Anglicanism. Similarly for the Catholic side, it can be pro-reform (through Wolsey’s extended influence) or more hardline (through More?). I know the current options for Lord Chancellor after Wolsey’s death are the Earl of Rutland or Thomas Audley, but for a moderate Catholic route perhaps also Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of Durham (historically he was a quiet Catholic who managed to struggle his way to Elizabeth I’s reign, and was at Worms and was one of Wolsey’s confidants)? I don’t know of a “moderate” Protestant of suitable rank who’d parallel Tunstall, however (Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset shows up a bit late).

This would also be affected by the attitude of the court: whether to burn books and fight a “media war” with pamphlets and sermons of their own (Henry VIII was quite religious and wrote quite a few himself in response to Luther) or an outright militant suppression campaign, or anywhere between.

It would also be nice to get a few more titles; perhaps a male player who is in the King’s favour (or has distinguished himself in some way) should get a lift up to a marquessate or a dukedom? Alternatively some sinecures/semi-important posts, like Lord Deputy of Calais.

While it wouldn’t amount to much and would probably result in more work for little gain, perhaps splitting off the English power/religion stuff to a separate page on England’s national profile, with it changing as developments go. For example:

THE KINGOM OF ENGLAND
In Personal Union with the Kingdom of Ireland

Status: Major Power
England’s power has grown…

Sphere: Scotland (non-aggression treaty)

Major gains: Aquitaine
Major losses:

England is the only colonial power in North America with its
colony, Virginia.

Official Religion: Anglican
England has made a significant break with Rome, but not as
extreme as some of the continental states…

Diplomacy: Marriage alliance with the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, and close ties to the Schmalkaldic League.

I’ve glanced at the earlier discussion on the Rutlands being descended from Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and made a mock-up of how they might have managed to survive the War of the Roses despite their lineage, would you be interested in that?

Keep up the good work.

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Thanks for your suggestions!

  1. Pro-Hapsburg vs. Pro-French; There are some consequences of that. I loosened up that a little. So I have it written out in the earlier missions but then I found it was a little harsh on the reader trying to have the King married or get an annulment. In theory if the Hapsburgs are weaker from an English re-orientation in foreign policy-> the Hapsburgs do worse in Italy-> No sack of Rome in 1520s -> the Pope becomes less under Hapsburg influence. The result, I conjecture, ins England remains more officially Catholic, or at a Latinized-Anglicanism is established.

  2. Foreign Policy in general - I did kind of drop it off a little because it got very complicated. I’ve decided to keep it simple: England will do Well, or Poorly on the continent, pretty much being able to expand in Calais or lose Calais; and start a colonial empire or not.
    But I’ll try to incorporate an option at the end where a large continental presence is established for England in France. This would almost certainly have to be with Hapsburg support one would assume as something disastrous would have to happen in France, worse than the French Religious wars, for the French to permit England to regain a foothold?

  3. Religious conflict - I have made a metric for tracking England’s religion, but I haven’t used it much yet. Right now, I have England almost inevitably shift Protestant unless a divorce is granted by the Pope. But I 'd like to get a few more divergent routes. At the climax, religious conflict will be important as Catholics and protestants will side with one of the two rival candidates. To a lesser extent, the absolutism tracker is also under-used but shifts toward Protestantism and absolutism should close and open up options for England. Right now though, the same options exist regardless.

  4. Titles and a Stats Summary of England’s position Those have been on the back-burner. I think I need to spend a few hours once the whole timeline from 1519-1550 is written straight through.

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Thanks for the response.

The idea about continental concessions was mainly to have something different between being pro-Habsburg or pro-French. Going consistently pro-Habsburg might make it more likely to get concessions from France. An annullment would be more likely with a pro-French attitude, but there would be fewer concessions since the Spanish Netherlands are also desired by France. It is probably too late for a major expansion of English holdings on the continent, but I don’t think a retaking of Aquitaine would be too unlikely (since the English tried several times over the course of Henry VIII’s reign, largely incompetently) with a really martial-focused MC and naturally Habsburg support. Of course that comes with a trade-off in reduced opportunities elsewhere.

The Habsburgs and France weren’t exactly equal in power, so perhaps that should also be reflected somehow? Say if a player has high sense or valour they get a few additional lines to the effect of “You know well enough that France’s efforts against the Habsburgs have hardly been the most successful. Yet Charles is also the Holy Roman Emperor: could the brewing religious strife in Germany be enough to distract him?”

Thanks for clarifying the stuff on religion. The idea for the “severity of Reformation” metric was mainly because in the public version the state-led English Reformation hasn’t really started yet and thus the player’s potential routes when that comes up. The “severity” idea was to represent the degree of internal opposition to Government policy and thus how much of a religious civil war it ends up in the climax instead of a mere dynastic struggle (and would affect the epilogue).

Edit: Quick guess at a family tree?

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York m. Lady Cecily Neville

  • Anne Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter
  • Edward IV Plantagenet, King of England m. Lady Elizabeth Woodville
  • Edmund Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Aumale and 1st Earl of Rutland (1443-1471 KIA at Barnet) [Traditional Yorkist]
    m. Lady Alice de Vere of Oxford
    • John Plantagenet, 2nd Earl of Rutland (1463-1504) [Edwardian Yorkist/Tudorite]
      m. Lady Catherine Berkeley of Berkeley
      • Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Rutland (Male MC)
      • Lady Joan Plantagenet (Female MC)
      • Lord Edward Plantagenet (MC’s brother)
  • Elizabeth Plantagenet, Duchess of Suffolk
  • Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Burgundy
  • George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence m. Lady Isabel Neville
  • Richard III Plantagenet, King of England m. Lady Anne Neville
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@Thfphen110
I want to hear how Edmund, Earl of Rutland lineage might have managed to survive the War of the Roses despite their lineage!
It would make interesting family history and it might affect how other people interact with MC and his/her family. The history could come up during conversation and whatnot.

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Another abandoned idea was to have the main character slowly uncover family secrets establishing a claim to the throne (there is still the shell of that idea in the text). But writing a compelling mystery-choice-adventure on top of the historical choices takes a different style, in and some respects, more raw talent as a writer.
It is on the back-back-back-burner. I might substitute with an expanded explanation in the Stats addendum

  • that is well thought out and I may take it whole-sale. Somewhere on my desktop i added up the dates and generations so that the ages would line up of the MCs for peak dramatic involvement during Henry’s reign. I’ll dig it up.
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