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The normal muslims (apart from hordes) are too weak most of the time. In my game the seljuk turks are the most powerful state, but instead of conquering asia minor or something, they only keep the Ilkhanate at bay.

The Golden Horde has taken large parts of Russia and has subdued Norway of all states, giving them large parts of Scandinavia and parts of Scotland.
 
In my opinion, countries are well balanced, but the unique problem of CK2 are:

Succesion laws restrictions to change it
The stability of empires HREG n ERE never fall aprt in civil wars: ERE fall down caus of that... HRE could'nt be so above their vassal's, and elector's often chose the weaken member to succeed to promote their own power... But this is a human think, maybe a computer couldn't think like that, but some program lines could solve that, ambitious trait: RR+100% etc...
 
Yeah, the two empires definitely need a nerf. They are far to powerful in the game. Probably the best way (for the HRE at least) would be, to restrict crown authority to medium with an elective succession. That way the HRE would never rise above medium. It would fix the game balance and also would historically accurate reflect the fact, that the emperors (or any ruler with elective succession) always had to make concessions to get their sons elected.
 
Hei OP...Gambatee, try again, harder this time.

A simple solution is in the plot system and tweaking of revolts So when they totally conquer something they try to turn back to their original culture and religion, or create a new banner.

The blobs survive as they do because the AI does not (is not able probably) to coordenate bigger revolt plots.
The only ones that are able to add flavour to revolts are ourselves.
But if you don t master wedding to inherit lands (like me ) its very slow.
Another fact that goes to big blob are the non existance of plots to lower the crown autorithy.
When vassal can t punch themselves in the nose they turn out to foreign lands (hence crusades).
 
Please don't nerf the Muslims. In fact, I would say the devs should buff them (a little, not much :p), especially the north Africa Muslim sultans.

More often than not, the Muslims of north Africa (and sometime Spain) would sooner or later get wipe-out by either the France or the HRE by around 1200AD. In my current game, the HRE conquers the whole Tunisia (Africa sultan) and the current emperor even relocated his capital to a province in Tunisia!

Playing as Duchy of Aquila (and later Kingdom of Sicily), I (and the AI) was able to start conquering the north Africa in around 100 years game time. The only Muslim powers left that are able to put up strong enough resistance to prevent me (and the AI) from steam rolling over them are the Muslim sultans in Spain, Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia as well as Iran (you know, the Muslim's big blobs).
 
I agree that in independence wars the onus to occupy should be on the liege as it's essentially a challenge to the de facto power relationship of the Kingdom.
 
Hmmm the Kingdom of Africa is under Iberian rule in my game as Iberia. As is the Dutchy of Alexandria. The Caliphate got crushed by the Ilkhanate who is a beast though. France is under Iberian rule, and the HRE is constantly fighting itself. Blobs dont always break up, but they don't expand a lot either in most of my games. Although the HRE did own England for a bit of time at one point...
 
Another fact that goes to big blob are the non existance of plots to lower the crown autorithy.

There are plots to lower crown authority, problem is that if you beat the plot initiator very bad and you offer him a white peace, the war ends and all the conspirators are back to being friends with the King.
These kinds of treasonous plots should have only 2 outcomes, no white peace allowed, enforce demands or surrender, in which either the kings accepts authority taken from him or if he wins all conspirators are good for the gallows.
 
The Muslims pushed into France in my Brythain game. To make it worse Al-Andalus and Badajoz are the dominant powers of the Region, and it doesn't help France Imploded beyond repair.
 
Zorlond: At this moment War of Independence is defensive war for liege, meaning that revolter must attack his liege to gain independence.

Aye, that's one of the few big problems I've had with the game. It's completely unrealistic, and it leads to further blobbing. The pressure should be on the liege to keep the rebels under control, and the rebels one and only goal should be to keep their former liege out of their land. I can't think of a real life example of an independence war where the group seeking independence were primarily on the offensive for the majority of the war. George Washington didn't lead a bunch of minutemen across the Atlantic to lay siege to London.
 
As an aside to this discussion: not sure if it was introduced in the last beta patch (1.04c) as I hadn't noticed this before, but I've had a large increase of rebelling counts/dukes swearing fealty to another kingdom if I don't get troops in there quickly enough. For example, in my previous game as the Count of Arborea, I managed to form Sardinia, then took advantage of a succession crisis in Sicily to form the kingdom of Sicily. After my 20 Diplo score ruler died, on succession, I had nearly every county rebel that I didn't personally hold and lost 2 to the Byzantines and 2 to the HRE, in addition, one count who rebelled in Africa was immediately DoW'd by the Shias and I lost that too. I couldn't muster enough troops from my own holdings to cover every county that rebelled and had to do them 2 at a time, I didn't have cash for more than 1500 mercs.

More topically, the one thing I have seen consistently is that the Shias always take over most of the middle-east, the Abbyssinains and Nubians get destroyed within 18 months of game start, and the Spanish Kingdoms never expand beyond their initial holdings (although may take over each other), and some, particularly Barcelona, get eaten up by the Moors 9 games out of 10.

My final observation is that the AI does poorly against the Muslims, but as a player it is not overly difficult to do well as long as you don't expand too quickly with a small reliable dynasty/court.
 
Aye, that's one of the few big problems I've had with the game. It's completely unrealistic, and it leads to further blobbing. The pressure should be on the liege to keep the rebels under control, and the rebels one and only goal should be to keep their former liege out of their land. I can't think of a real life example of an independence war where the group seeking independence were primarily on the offensive for the majority of the war. George Washington didn't lead a bunch of minutemen across the Atlantic to lay siege to London.

No, it's extremely realistic. A vassal revolt was always a break of feudal contract by the vassal, and he could only get independence if: a) the liege relinquished his claims on the land, and b) the Pope recognized him as such.

That is why mighty Dukes such as the Burgundians (which ruled from Holland to Switzerland and often did not obey the King of France) were never considered a separate Kingdom and why Kingdoms like Portugal were not accepted as independent until accepted by the Pope.

The American War of Independence happened in the XVIIIth century, a time when international diplomacy worked in a very different way.

That said, there ARE real problems with the Muslims. They are too strong in the West (because of the fact that they start with XIVth century economic technology in ALL their provinces, including the agrarian ones, and also because all of their land is already of their culture and religion) and are too weak to face the Byzantines in the East. Or, in this case, because it is difficult to replicate the exact Byzantine weaknesses in a western feudal model as the one used in CK2.

The strength of Iberia (which gives a boost to Mauretania when it gets the land) leads to a France that has to wage war constantly in the Iberian Peninsula, which in turn allows the HRE free reign to do whatever it wants in central Europe. All this has a cascading factor.

One solution is to reduce the economic level of Iberian provinces. That would allow the Christian Kingdoms there to actually exist and do what they did, while avoiding Mauretania/Africa from becoming far too powerful should they get the area.

As for the ERE, the problem is trickier, as it is hard to model the conditions that led to their true problems (like everything in life: Joan of Arc is also impossible to recreate). Maybe the addition of special plots to them, that lead to more fighting to change Emperor and eventual alliances with outside powers would help.
 
No, it's extremely realistic. A vassal revolt was always a break of feudal contract by the vassal, and he could only get independence if: a) the liege relinquished his claims on the land, and b) the Pope recognized him as such.

That is why mighty Dukes such as the Burgundians (which ruled from Holland to Switzerland and often did not obey the King of France) were never considered a separate Kingdom and why Kingdoms like Portugal were not accepted as independent until accepted by the Pope.

Except that's the problem. Dukes can't disobey their King in this game. King orders troops levied? Boom, it's done, Duke has no say whatsoever, and has no control over those units. Taxes, laws, same deal.

Whether or not the Pope recognizes a territory as a separate country in reality, the only way for civil disobedience to be implemented in the game as it stands is through a War for Independance. Either that or make it so any levey of Vassal troops (or application of laws and taxes, not just the voting) has to be agreed upon by the Vassals. Every disobediant act should come at a loyalty cost, of course, and there should also be an option to be more generous with such requests for a bonus.
 
Except that's the problem. Dukes can't disobey their King in this game. King orders troops levied? Boom, it's done, Duke has no say whatsoever, and has no control over those units. Taxes, laws, same deal.

Note that, when the Dukes of Burgundy did disobey the Kings of France, they were at war with them (the Burgundian attacks in the East is in large part what truly allowed the English to take the upper hand in 1415-1429, moreso than Agincourt).

When they were in better relations with the Crown, they were back into the French fold (with the HRE looking VERY closely, as many of their counties were De Jure part of the Empire).

And I suspect that what you want in the HRE and ERE is less Crown Authority (you could start a plot to lower them if in that Kingdom). When I'm King I always have it at minimal and don't charge taxes, and the result is that my Dukes just give me a few thousand troops when I call them, but raise 4 or 5 times that when THEY want to go to war, and act quite independently - the King of Scotland is now of my dynasty because one of my strong Dukes [which is part of my Dynasty and would be considered a cadet branch if the game could model it] decided to put him on the Scottish throne. And he did it all by himself, too, with so many troops that I was wondering "where are all those guys when *I* need them?"

But I agree Crown Authority does tend to go up fast in the game. True, I also saw it being lost easily by weak Kings, who cannot stand to their Dukes.
 
You have of course filed a bug report, OP? I am not sure how fully the devs read these threads.

I agree with some of the posters that Crown Authority is a problem that should be addressed. You could also try tweaking CBs and the laws themselves, first to change who can declare war and under what conditions and on the second to limit levies or add conditions for changing the laws.

I also agree that we need more internal politics going on. For both peasant and aristocrat, violence is the only means of voicing your disagreement with where your realm is going. Many kingdoms had assemblies of one kind or another, the distant forerunners of national parliaments.

All in all, I agree as do others here, that the HRE is too strong and there should be some changes to limit the power of the emperors. We are seeing in the new patch papal interference in the investiture issue for example, so maybe that will go somewhere with more vanilla content. As for the HRE in space, well that would be an interesting overhaul mod.
 
'HEY YOU GUYS LETS NERF THE MUSLIMS AND MONGOLS CUZ I CANT BEAT EM LOL :D'
Really? Are you actually serious? You must have missed the part where the Mongols conquered pretty much everything and got themselves the biggest empire ever (the british empire was a lil biggest but it was colonial). This isn't fiction, it's a game that starts historically and ends any way you want it to (if you're good enough to achieve that, which you seemingly aren't). The Mongols weren't pushovers and if you don't like that, then I suggest that you make a time machine and go back in time to change that.
Also, the muslims aren't even that strong. OK, the AI in Iberia sometimes gets stomped by the muslims, but, personally, I have no problem annihilating them completely. As for the Shiites, yeah, they can be hard to beat because of naval attrition. However, if you manage to get yourself a piece of land there then you shouldn't have a problem beating them - unless you're a count or a lowly duke of some sort.
 
In my games the little Christian kingdoms of Spain are wiped out, then France conquers half of Spain, becoming a monster. In the rest of Europe, the HRE becomes totally hegemonic, conquering left and right (well, perhaps it is just due to marriages). Basically, we get irrealistic big blobs, on that the OP is right, IMHO. The thing is that the HRE should not be as strong as it becomes. It was a political entity (if it might be called like that) interested in itself only. There was no expansion of it. Only the emperors looked beyond its broders, and only when political situation in the HRE allowed it, which was not very often. About France, it should not start with so many territories, Occitan culture ones (at least Toulouse and the mediterranean french coast), were totally independent of Paris in this time frame. The King of France only had a purely nominal title in those lands. This should be reflected in the game making at least Toulouse and Provence duchies independent (in fact, it would not be until the albigensian crusade, early in the XIII century, when these lands would be controlled by France).

I agree totally about the HRE; I've never had a game where they didn't start absorbing everything in sight. They sometimes control all of Italy other than the Papal States. They frequently control the Tunis area. More than once they have controlled all of southern France, reaching into Spain. France itself, on the other hand, never tends to do very well in my games, always getting squeezed by both England and the HRE.
 
No, it's extremely realistic. A vassal revolt was always a break of feudal contract by the vassal, and he could only get independence if: a) the liege relinquished his claims on the land, and b) the Pope recognized him as such.

That is why mighty Dukes such as the Burgundians (which ruled from Holland to Switzerland and often did not obey the King of France) were never considered a separate Kingdom and why Kingdoms like Portugal were not accepted as independent until accepted by the Pope.

The American War of Independence happened in the XVIIIth century, a time when international diplomacy worked in a very different way.

That said, there ARE real problems with the Muslims. They are too strong in the West (because of the fact that they start with XIVth century economic technology in ALL their provinces, including the agrarian ones, and also because all of their land is already of their culture and religion) and are too weak to face the Byzantines in the East. Or, in this case, because it is difficult to replicate the exact Byzantine weaknesses in a western feudal model as the one used in CK2.

The strength of Iberia (which gives a boost to Mauretania when it gets the land) leads to a France that has to wage war constantly in the Iberian Peninsula, which in turn allows the HRE free reign to do whatever it wants in central Europe. All this has a cascading factor.

One solution is to reduce the economic level of Iberian provinces. That would allow the Christian Kingdoms there to actually exist and do what they did, while avoiding Mauretania/Africa from becoming far too powerful should they get the area.

As for the ERE, the problem is trickier, as it is hard to model the conditions that led to their true problems (like everything in life: Joan of Arc is also impossible to recreate). Maybe the addition of special plots to them, that lead to more fighting to change Emperor and eventual alliances with outside powers would help.

No, it's NOT realistic. Okay, fine, my ONE example I gave was from a different time period... so I'll give you one from this time period: the Vlach-Bulgarian Rebellion, where the Second Bulgarian Empire was formed independent of the ERE primarily by forcing the Byzantines out of Bulgarian land. They did have some offensives, but nothing on the scale that's frequently demanded of you in-game. But they pushed the Byzantines out, and when they couldn't regain any kind of foothold into Bulgarian lands they were forced to accept their independence.

The fact is, even in this time period very few (if any) states were forced to gain their independence from a liege by basically conquering their liege. The burden is on the lieges to enforce their power. If they cannot control their vassals' lands, then they cannot control their vassals' lands. Losing a vassal to an independence war still gives a claim to the ruler in CKII on the lost lands, and that should be enough should they lose that first war. Again, no one seeking independence should be asked to absolutely conquer their ex-liege to gain independence, because at no point in history has that ever been asked of anyone.

If a power can't actively exert their authority over another, then they've effectively lost control of it. Again I humbly point you towards Bulgaria.