Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[Valmy]

Anyone interested in a more realistic Byz game should probably start aa bit after Alexiad, with the partial Turkification of Anatolia and the firm establishment of Cilician Armenia.

All that looks like it already exists in the Alexiad.  if you get much further past the Alexiad you get into the Crusades so what time in the ten years or so we are talking about do you find superior?

[Queequeg]

Byzantium has a foothold in Anatolia, and a lot of Anatolia is culturally Turkish or Kurdish. Both powers are better established, and relations with Outremer are interesting.

[Razgovory]

Decided to dick around and cheat a bit to see what happens.  Edited the main character so that he has insane base stats.  I wanted to see if they are inherited.  They are not.  I also cheated to give myself money, piety and prestige.  Mercenary armies are really powerful in the beginning of the game.   I'm curious to see how long my character will live with really hopped up health.

[ulmont]

Raz,

Isn't there an "immortal" trait you can add instead of boosting health?

[OttoVonBismarck]

On the 867 start date, most of Europe had become pretty feudal by then, no? I know in Charles Martel's day "dukes" were still typically appointed governor type positions in the European kingdoms of the time (Francia/etc), but I thought by the time of Charlemagne's grandchildren/great-grandchildren in the 860s the practice of hereditary feudalism had taken large hold, Martel is usually given credit (if you'll call it that) for the structural changes in governance that lead to feudalism proper.

I do think if you go back to 867 to accurately model things you'd need to change some of the rules, and I doubt pdox is doing that because their primary focus appears to be on the vikings. For me personally with an 867 start date, vikings are not even in the top 3-4 most interesting scenarios in that period and I think pdox is overlooking that.

Some of the changes I think you'd need:

1. The existing law / feudal system is fine for some countries, but I think there needs to be a hard cap on things like crown authority change. I'd probably add in that you can't go beyond "autonomous vassals" in a feudal kingdom until after x date.

2. In 867 states like Byzantium were still highly centralized, and not typified by regional potentates and such as happened later on (and even later on the feudal system has never been a perfect approximation of Byzantine government, but it's at least not so offensively off base in 1066 as it would be 200 years earlier.) I think you'd need to give the Byzantine Emperor basically the power to revoke ducal titles at will with no consequences, and then add a special type of inheritance that applies to vassals of the Byzantine Emperor that basically makes the Byzantine Emperor the heir to all of his dukes, so when they die he gets to appoint new ones. Not sure (I haven't dug into the files enough to say) if that's easily moddable, and it will probably make the Byzantines OP and easy mode to play. For flavor you'd probably make Duchy titles in the Byzantine Empire be something different, whatever Greek word they were using for regional level military/civil administrators at the time. You might also want to have something akin to the Republic's Patrician system of families that vie for the Imperial seat as well.

3. The internal governance of pagans was mostly irrelevant before, but that will need to be fine tuned. I'd think some sort of inheritance scheme by which by default the most "powerful" (maybe a combination of military score and prestige) vassal is default heir, but sons of the previous chief get strong claims and can start succession crises.

4. Some form of tributary state relationship would need to be added to show a more accurate portrayal of the relationship between some of the Christian Kingdoms and some of the tributary states they had. I'm not sure what form this relationship would take. It wouldn't be a vassalage type thing, so no ability to revoke titles or etc. But maybe just new interface screen for tributary states where you can try to raise the percent tribute they pay.

[garbon]

No even if you said that Charlemagne territories were feudal, you still have most of Europe that wouldn't be. Hell most of it wasn't even Christian.

The Emperor can already auto-revoke ducal titles. Only consequence is that the office holder isn't happy to be removed.

[Razgovory]

Raz,

Isn't there an "immortal" trait you can add instead of boosting health?

That's not the point.  I want to see how long someone will live with boosted health.

[Razgovory]

They Byzantines and Muslims have always strange with feudalism, since that's not how their governments worked.  Feudalism works for Christian Europe in 867 for the most part, since it was late Roman invention.  No idea about how the pagans ran things.  Since they were predominantly tribal and heavily factionalized it's hard to see how running them would work.

[Queequeg]

I think the current model is reasonably accurate for the Turkish timar system, though revoking titles and executions should probably be easier. 

No idea how to do the Themes.  Doing them as Republics would be the only way I could think of. 

[Razgovory]

Hey Psellus, Could you advise a book on how Byzantine government functioned?  Raz is curious.  Something fairly introductory.

[Razgovory]

Question about the Aztecs.  Can you install the sunset thingy and run it on an ongoing game?  I thought it might be fun to throw Aztecs on my test game.

[Queequeg]

Hey Psellus, Could you advise a book on how Byzantine government functioned?  Raz is curious.  Something fairly introductory.

Depends on the period.  General?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've read extensively on Justinian, at which time it was still very imperial in nature, but Justinian is so early in the history of the Eastern Empire after the West fell that his Empire really was dramatically different from the Empire in the 11th century. Before the great schism for example it's unlikely you'd have seen Constantinople being sacked by Crusaders representing Papal-aligned Christians.

[Razgovory]

Hey Psellus, Could you advise a book on how Byzantine government functioned?  Raz is curious.  Something fairly introductory.

Depends on the period.  General?

Yeah, a general overview.  Maybe just a history.

[Razgovory]

Well boosting my character's stats meant that I lived to be over 100.  I got bored, and put it on observe for a while after I injured myself fasting and became infirm.  Then he became incapable somehow and finally thrown in jail.  Still it was a fun exercise.  I may try again to see if I can conquer the world as one guy with super-stats and then see what happens when he finally dies and the world is thrown into chaos.  I may install the Aztecs just to see more chaos.