Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[Tamas]

 

[Tamas]

ACTUALLY, that's a pretty good point:

The game, in practice, due to it's limitations, handles the HRE like a proper regular (only huge as fuck) kingdom, which happens to start out with elective law.

But it INTENDS to handle it in a special way, hence the emperor title, and the unnatural strength and stability which comes with that.

[Martinus]

I'd rather think that the problem might be solved by taking the imperial and caliph titles and remove them as de jure jurisdictions.

But that would make the HRE fall apart too fast I think. I guess to compensate, you could at least give the HRE at the start the royal crown of Germany as well, so that he has at least *some* de jure vassals. (Although remember that in the patch Germany is going to be significantly reduced, as there are going to be new creatable kingdoms of Pomerania, Flanders, Lotharingia and Bavaria).

Give the HRE in 1066 the crowns of Burgundy, Italy and Germany and the HRE title. That leaves it robust, until it falls apart.

I would just give it Germany and Italy, since Burgundy did not exist as a Kingdom in 1066.

[Martinus]

As a further modification, make HRE a non-inheritable title (I don't know if it is possible) and instead have an event fire off for any Kingdom of Germany holder (depending on the relationship with the Pope and whatnot) which would crown him as the Holy Roman Emperor. The Kingdom of Germany would be the elective one.

[Solmyr]

I'd rather think that the problem might be solved by taking the imperial and caliph titles and remove them as de jure jurisdictions.

But that would make the HRE fall apart too fast I think. I guess to compensate, you could at least give the HRE at the start the royal crown of Germany as well, so that he has at least *some* de jure vassals. (Although remember that in the patch Germany is going to be significantly reduced, as there are going to be new creatable kingdoms of Pomerania, Flanders, Lotharingia and Bavaria).

Give the HRE in 1066 the crowns of Burgundy, Italy and Germany and the HRE title. That leaves it robust, until it falls apart.

I would just give it Germany and Italy, since Burgundy did not exist as a Kingdom in 1066.

It existed as much as Italy did. In fact, Italy was probably less controlled than Burgundy.

[Valmy]

I would just give it Germany and Italy, since Burgundy did not exist as a Kingdom in 1066.

I thought it was a big deal when the Kingdom was done away with in the 14th Century.  I think it had something to do with its last major territory, Provence, being inherited by the Anjou family but I do not remember exactly.

[Martinus]

Ok you are right. I misread something.

[The Minsky Moment]

Also, they're obsessed with the idea that any muslim area is totally islamic, when in reality most of the population in Iberia was Christian (all provinces should be catholic, that was one of the great problems of Muslim rulers in the area, they had unreliable populations and few troops they could actually trust against the Christian Kingdoms).

IIRC the Mozarabs were a minority by the time period of the game.  Somewhere in the 20% range.

[Martim Silva]

IIRC the Mozarabs were a minority by the time period of the game.  Somewhere in the 20% range.

I think you have your numbers switched. 20% is actually about the highest percentage of Muslim inhabitants... in the larger cities, like Cordoba or Toledo. In the countryside, Christians made around 95% of the population (most Muslims there were landowners, normally mid-sized ones, which owed service to their lord, usually as light cavalry).

Why do you think the Christian Kingdoms assimilated the conquered areas so quickly? Or, for that matter, why were the Muslim armies so weak against them? Not only could they not rely on most of the troops they could levy [as Christians were understandably worried about their souls, what with fighting brothers of the Faith for the benefit of an Infidel], but also they did not dare set taxes too high, for fear of a massive Christian rebellion.

One should bear in mind that there was never a colonization movement from the rest of the Islamic world to Iberia [especially because the area became politically separated from the rest of Islam when the Abbasids came to power, as we were for centuries the last remains of the Umayyad Caliphate], nor a particularly appealing motive for the average Muslim civilian to move there - and that converting people from an organized monotheistic religion with an established theology to another is very hard indeed [as the Jews can attest].

For example, in 1064 Sisnando conquered Coimbra (You will notice that the province is wholly Christian and Portuguese in CK2). There weren't even any Muslims there. But by the end of 1066 the city was in revolt against him: he had set the taxes to the normal rates in the Christian Kingdoms, which were far higher than what the people there were used to pay.

Sisnando himself was a Mozarabe, btw.

That is another reason why the North African armies were so dangerous: they were made of people recruited in North Africa, a good chunk of them of a particularly fanatical sect, and thus they actually stayed in the field.

In 1147, when the port city of Lisbon (pop. 6000+) surrendered to Portugal, the whole Muslim population was confined to a single neighbourhood (the 'mouraria', or 'moorish area'). It held a grand total of 700 Muslims at the time.

In the early XIVth century, 50 years after the end of the Portuguese Reconquista of all Muslim lands we'd get in Iberia, the King Alfonso IV ordered a tally of the Muslims living here (he wanted to levy a special tax). The end result was a grand total of 3.150 Muslims, out of a population of almost 900.000 - about 0,4% of the population.

The % of Muslims would be only higher in Granada in the XVth century (due to the arrival of North African Jihadists), but even then, it was never a majority.

[jimmy olsen]

IDK.

Do we want Christians in North Africa very early? No. Does that happen anyway via HRE and France? Yes.

The real question is: do we want Iberian Christians in Iberia, or a fucked up division of the peninsula between HRE, France, and remnant Muslims?

The NA muslims should get the tribal "insta-recruit" bonus the pagans have, and the Iberian musselmen should be weakened. I'd much rather see a Christian Iberia too early, than the HRE extending there.

Which brings me back to an earlier point of mine: the Emperor's authority should nevereverever extend beyond de jure borders.

Then he wouldn't have authority in Italy or Burgundy at the beginning of the game. Does de jure territory increase for Empires as well as Kingdoms?

[Queequeg]

Played a bit as the Komneni starting in 1100.  Betrothed John to Elizabeth Arpad, which will eventually lead to the union of Hungary and Byzantium, not to mention the two greatest houses in the East, and giving me lands equal to the Seljuks, but under unified authority.  However, something rather shocking happened.

Eventually, John grew up, and Alexios I Megas died on campaign in Armenia Minor, attempting to restore the tittle of Doux to his grandson Khorsrov Roubenid.  John grew up to be the inferior of his bother Isaac in almost every respect-Isaac's intrigue stat was in the mid-20s.  But, sadly, Elizabeth and John were betrothed I didn't want to fuck with that.  I gave John a good chunk of Western-Central Anatolia, including some prime troop recruitment ground, and the title of Despot, in an attempt to win him over to my side without having to fall in to civil war-which happened anyway, when my brother, the Doux of Candia, declared himself. 

Things were going well.  Our relationship was at 100. However, something strange started happening-my first born daughter, Antipater, died.  Then came my second daughter, Eudoxia.  Then, finally, my beloved son Kyrillos at the age of 4.

At first I thought this was some member of the Hungarian nobility, but I doubted that the AI-or even a real man-would murder an infant because he *might* become a King of Hungary and Croatia in 40 years.  I made Isaac put up shop in Constantinople. 

Then, when reviewing my own character, I realized that Isaac was my heir.  He had murdered all of my children.  It was, frankly, rather shocking.  It felt as though I was reading a Poe novel more than that several totally identical children faces had gone dark.  Isaac was ready to murder all of my children and abrogate Komnenian succession in Hungary for his own power.  I threw him in prison, and he died two years later. 

[Valmy]

Something similar happened to my Komneni dynasty.  I started the day after Alexius became Emperor and I was rolling along and, a generation or two later, was carefully scheming to get claims to the Kingdom of Croatia when my heir went nuts and murdered all the children of that part of the family (specifically the kids of his younger brother), not only destroying my chances to expand West but putting the dynasty in jeopardy.  I do not understand it as those boys were not even a threat to him at all and now the dynasty is starting to run out of boys.

[Tamas]

Silence, I don't want to play until 1.05 comes out!

[Martinus]

Silence, I don't want to play until 1.05 comes out!

Yeah me too.

[Martinus]

Something similar happened to my Komneni dynasty.  I started the day after Alexius became Emperor and I was rolling along and, a generation or two later, was carefully scheming to get claims to the Kingdom of Croatia when my heir went nuts and murdered all the children of that part of the family (specifically the kids of his younger brother), not only destroying my chances to expand West but putting the dynasty in jeopardy.  I do not understand it as those boys were not even a threat to him at all and now the dynasty is starting to run out of boys.

I don't know if the Byzantines get a special bonus but yeah, in my Byzantine game, people in my family were falling like flies.