Rank & File

Update – 04/28/2025: Rank & File has now been updated for 1.16!

Glad you asked! Rank & File is a personal project I started back in the CK2 days and have now brought to CK3. Its goal is to create a more flavorful, historically grounded, and customizable experience. Most features are modular and supported by extensive game rules for fine-tuning.

New Titles System: The entire title system has been reworked. Rulers now have correctly-formatted titles (e.g., John, Earl of Bedford instead of Earl John of Bedford), and close and extended family members—plus their spouses—receive unique titles based on rank, relationship, and legitimacy. All of this can be customized via game rules.

New kinds of titles include:

• Dowager Titles: Once a queen, always a queen. Consorts of rulers will keep their titles even being widowed.
• Crown Princes: Certain monarchies may assign special titles to their heirs if certain conditions are met; i.e. "Prince of Wales", "Dauphin of France", etc. Other heirs – depending on their culture – may instead be called "Crown Prince".
• Popular Monarchies: Certain monarchs will be titled "King of <People>" instead of "King of <Realm". Ex: King of Scotland -> King of Scots, Holy Roman Emperor -> Emperor of the Romans.
• Prince-Electors: Electors of the Holy Roman Empire are now titled as such ("Elector" or "Prince-Elector). Their heirs may be "Electoral Prince" as well.
• Subsidiary Titles: In certain cultures, heirs will use one of their parent’s subsidiary titles. (i.e. the Duke of Cornwall’s heir might be called "Earl of Devon")
• Scion Titles: Children, Siblings, Niblings, and Grandchildren of rulers will all receive special titles according to their rank. The vanilla title of "Prince" is still present, but now other honorifics (i.e. Lord, Lady) will be used for grandchildren of Kings, as well as children of Dukes and Counts. In certain cultures, children will share in the titles of their parents. (i.e. the daughter of Otto II, Duke of Bavaria, is titled Duchess Ida of Bavaria). Wives of scions now share in their husbands’ rank.
• Royal Dukes: Royal Dukes now have a special title format, combining both their princely & landed titles. (i.e. Prince John, Duke of York, instead of Prince John of England)

Dressing According to Rank: Rank & File assigns the correct clothing/headgear to all characters based on their rank.

Sick Traits Removed on Death: One of the worst things about dying of the bubonic plague is that your character’s portrait will be permanently covered in boils and dressed in a nightgown for all eternity. Well, Rank & File fixes that. Upon death, characters will use the same portrait they would’ve used when they were healthy in life.

Rank & File currently has 9 different game rules that you can change to customize the experience to your liking. With the "Gamerule Gadget" mod enabled, these can even be changed in the middle of a game. They are are follows:

• Dowager Title Usage – Whether widows should retain their titles for life, or until remarriage
• Dowager Title Formatting – Whether widows should have the word "Dowager" in their titles.
• Royal Dukes – Whether to enable the Royal Dukes feature.
• HRE/ERE Localization – "Emperor of the Romans", or "Kaiser"/"Basileus".
• Titles of HRE Children – Customize the title of HRE Emperor’s children. (i.e. Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, or Prince of <Lower Title>)
• Junior Ruler Titles for Scions – Scions of certain cultures share in their parents titles. This can be disabled.
• Rank & File Titles – Whether to enable (default) or disable Rank & File titles (for troubleshooting purposes).

Though Rank & File may look light, if you look under the hood, you’ll see that the game modifications are quite extensive. As such, there will be compatibility challenges with many other mods. I do plan to add compatibility patches with certain other mods, if needed.

Compatible Mods:

• Gamerule Gadget – Strongly Recommended; allows you to change R&F settings mid-game.
• Unified UI – Load after R&F.
• RUI: Character Unofficial – Load after R&F.

Be aware of the following caveats:

• If you run any mods that add clothes or headgear (such as CFP, EPE), the R&F titles will still work, but characters won’t dress according to their R&F rank (i.e. you’ll see spouses of princes dress like commoners again)
• Any GUI elements or events added/changed in other mods won’t show the new R&F titles. They will only show the vanilla titles.

Rank & File is a living, breathing mod. I value the feedback of all my players. Please feel welcome to join my discord community to share your thoughts, ask questions, and report any bugs. Beta versions will occasionally be posted for the playerbase to try.

Link: https://discord.gg/wMBzQ3Bmx3

Just me for now. Special thanks to the CK3 mod co-op and all the advice they have provided.