Do the spanish kingdoms survive in the new patches?

I'm playing as the Mali Empire in CK2+ and saw a super-Castille and Navarra rise from the start of the game till around 1150, then Mauretania started pushing them back, me backstabbing my muslim brethren made it a more even war though.
It's now 1220, England has inherited super-Castille consisting of all of Galicia, Leon and Castille, I own Portugal and most of the east coast of Spain where Navarra used to be, and am allied with an Iberian muslim minor who was able to crown himself Sultan of a titular title which is pretty kick-ass, what I love about CK2 is how open-ended the game is and Iberia is the perfect showcase of that, for me personally it differs every game who the main powerbrokers in the area are.

Edit: of course, your mileage may vary

My current game is ~1240 now and Leon and Castille have been kicking ass. Barcelona and Aragon both got overrun by the taifas, and the mega-sultanates formed (i.e. Al-Andalus and Mauretania) and were pushing hard, while Galacia, Leon, Castille and Navarra were all bitching with one another. But at some point they just started working together, slowly picking away at the muslims in Iberia, helping each other gain land. Eventually Galacia and Leon united through inheritance, and Castille with Navarra, and other than Aragon (which the French and HRE promptly swallowed up), Castille and Leon effectively pushed the muslims out of Iberia pretty much by themselves and made a plunge into Morocco.

I know it's rare for the Christians to win in Spain, but it should be, it really does reflect the inferior position the Spanish kingdoms were in at this time in history. I admit that it sounds like perhaps the game is a little too imbalanced towards the Moors, but I think they should still be winning more than 50% of the time. If anything the problem is that France and/or the HRE eventually come in and overrun the victorious muslim states.

In my game they have not only been chased out of Spain, but have been pushed all the way back to Arabia. European powers now control basically everything of the old Roman empire, and my influence in it all has been pretty minor on the balance of things, so I hardly think any of the muslim powers need any nerfing. If anything I think the muslims need some beefing up, while making them more likely to war with one another to balance that out. I would say the major problem with the muslims is that, because they need claims to fight each other, they just opt to holy war against Christians and then call in all their friends. If they didn't play by the rules of feudal Europe, you could effectively make them stronger without actually increasing the threat level all that much, as they could busy themselves with conquering each other rather than the pesky Christians hiding in the mountains.

you dont get the point, do you? the cristian kingdoms, that historically reconquered spain, now fall 99 of 100 times. the muslims barely fight between eachother. the only moment they lose is when france or the HRE joins in. combined with the tech advantage and the ganging up when the cristian kingdoms attack in a holy war its about impossible for them to survive, nless they get lucky. they do NEED a buff.

The Ai Jinemas make the mistake of picking Holy war initially for thier attacks when they should be pressing De-Jure Kingdom claims first. Aragon if it just pressed its De-Jure territory instead of holywaring everything in sight would actually stand a chance to expand and not get dogpiled by every muslim south of barcelona. The same with the other Jinemas but to a lesser extent since they usually kill eachother and die horrible deaths before it makes a diffrence.

grumphie said:

you dont get the point, do you? the cristian kingdoms, that historically reconquered spain, now fall 99 of 100 times. the muslims barely fight between eachother. the only moment they lose is when france or the HRE joins in. combined with the tech advantage and the ganging up when the cristian kingdoms attack in a holy war its about impossible for them to survive, nless they get lucky. they do NEED a buff.

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You didn't read the thread, did you? Every time you play, you're rolling the dice of history on what outcomes occur. As quite a few people have pointed out, if you want to play the 1066 scenario, then the christians in Spain are ALWAYS going to start from an inferior position compared to the muslims. By starting in 1066 that is the constraint you are placing on the game probabilities, and as you have seen, stronger beats weaker 99% of the time (although I'd hazard this is only really happening about 80-90% of the time). If you want the christians to win more often, either play from a timepoint at which they are much stronger and more organised, or go edit your 1066 scenarios to an ahistorical situation that makes the christians superior.

this is just one of the many threads about the weak cristian spain AI. it should be balanced, jsut as every other front should be balanced. buff the early jimena's by giving them a spanish holy order, nerf the muslims, i dont car, jsut make sure there is at least SOME kind of balance.

Like I mentioned before, that's a brute force solution to the issue which is really not a good idea.

The only issue here is the AI not understanding the danger of infidels allying against them in Holy Wars; it only counts the strength of the nation it declares on and so gets into wars it cannot win. Everything else is balanced just fine- if anything, the balance is against the Muslims in the game, as you can easily tell if you play a Christian Iberian yourself and trash the Muslims with ease. Throwing random advantages at particular factions will hurt the game more than help it. If the AI can be taught to be more wary of Holy Wars, then that will solve it. And even when that is done, the Christians should be losing by default. Quite aside from any historical imperative behind that, it gives the player the 'Can I save Spain?' objective. If the AI has a good chance of saving Spain anyway, I'd feel that would diminish one of the fun scenarios to play in CKII.

I still think the bigger issue is how easily the Muslims lose once the Holy Orders show. You can have an interesting struggle developing in the Peninsula, and then suddenly the whole thing is over as they have no answer to 15000 heavily armed Christian fanatics.

i was just giving an example. no matter if you like it or not, something has to be done to balance it. and i personally think that a few k free troops that arent too strong only for holders of the king titles in spain that dont fight cristians are perfect for that.

'Balance' is a dangerous word, especially in a game where, by default, different factions start with different strengths. It's not really a balance issue- the Spanish can win with the men they have; it's just about using them correctly. It can be a dodgy road to go down to start giving particular unique advantages to certain factions when that's not what the problem is, because that opens the door to all sorts of messing with the game.

What if you give the Spanish this extra armed force (of which there is no guarantee that the AI would use correctly anyway, because the fundamental issue would remain) and then later the AI/Holy Wars thing gets solved? Then you'd have the Iberian kingdoms trashing the Muslims every game, and then we have to go through this whole process in reverse.

It's better to solve the problem that exists rather than to start messing around with the game setup by default.

In CK2+ I saw Spanish kingdoms happily survived on their own and even pushing back Iberian muslims...

My latest game, navarra inherited brittany and is taking it back with the help of france. quite interesting to watch

I've only played one complete game, at first the muslims dominated and started into Aquitaine, but then they were slowly but surely annihilated, and by 1453 only held Algeciras. France started it all, then Scotland finally held the whole of 'Portugal' and much of Northwestern Spain, Valencia, Aragon, Castille and Leon had all respawned. Toledo too (a vassal of my Wales).

In the East the Seljuks and Mongols got hosed. They never got anywhere near Turkey or Eastern Europe. Rus and the Byzantines reigned supreme.

So I'd say strengthen the Muslims and the Mongols, if anything :unsure:

shaldon said:

I've only played one complete game, at first the muslims dominated and started into Aquitaine, but then they were slowly but surely annihilated, and by 1453 only held Algeciras. France started it all, then Scotland finally held the whole of 'Portugal' and much of Northwestern Spain, Valencia, Aragon, Castille and Leon had all respawned. Toledo too (a vassal of my Wales).

In the East the Seljuks and Mongols got hosed. They never got anywhere near Turkey or Eastern Europe. Rus and the Byzantines reigned supreme.

So I'd say strengthen the Muslims and the Mongols, if anything :unsure:

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Well that's just one game. Out of the many I've played from a 1066 start, there is only a christian Spain starting around 1130 or so, and only if the Pope calls for a crusade and you get a nice pope stack going in with some holy rollers fighting for one of the big western kingdoms. Usually one of those kingdoms; France, HRE or England, will reconquista Iberia by the 1400s. Rarely do I see an Aragon or Castille ruling in Iberia by end game. If there was a tweak that made same-culture rulers join holy wars, it might offset the same-religion defense of a holy war.

The biggest problem I see is the AI using alliances all the time for petty wars, but almost never do they use them in holy wars where you've got a 4 county Barcellona fighting a single county with the backing of 2/3 of muslin Iberia and North Africa. Also, as mentioned, the Muslims in Iberia don't seem to be infighting very much. Most of the territory swaps I see are due to inheritance.

I probably wouldn't think there needs to be tweaks if I didn't see a lot of semi-historical stuff going on through most of Europe and the Levant. 50% of the time there is a crusader state by the mid 1100s, which is usually demolished by the mid-1200s due to internal strife. Hungary and/or Croatia will form a strong kingdom with Poland and other minor states to stave off fights with its larger neighbors and invasions from Mongolia. The HRE shifts around, but is almost always still a force to be reckoned with. Sometimes England has huge swaths of France, sometimes Scotland is the powerhouse... but my point is this sort of 'cultural' history usually prevails just with different players and different kingdoms in the end. Well, except in Iberia.

Another hint this may need tweaking is that I personally find it challenging to play in central Europe without using gamey tactics, but can win in an Iberia play easily by simply timing my holy wars which the AI doesn't understand. For example, by just pressing de Jure claims and building up my own kingdom while taking a few small Muslim states that pop up and are defeated before reinforcements arrive, I'll usually have a large enough kingdom by 1200 to sweep through Iberia. I don't find this too gamey, such as waiting for a christian state to declare holy war in Ibera and for the Muslim states to jump to the defense, then declare my own holy war and not worry about any Muslim allies fighting for my opponent.

Funny related story in my current game.

In my game I start out as the Dutchy of Flanders. I enter into the Iberian peninsula by waking out Aragon's Muslim controlled (yet Catholic Religion) counties. I then conquer Aragon (it's a one county kingdom looking to be taken over, sorry. Then my liege grabs Valencia, While I grab the other lone Muslim counties, leaving 3 Muslim Eremites Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada. Then I conquer Navarra most of Barcelona and usurp the dutchy, leaving 2 independent counties to get a power base for when I revolt...

OK, so I revolt from my liege figuring, hey, "these other powers and my liege may trying to take these sweet and juicy Muslim counties with advanced tech." Well after a 4 year war of independence, Galacia is totally absorbed by Cordoba and Sevilla... Noticing that a brother of my former liege is married maternally to to one of my sisters (purely by accident, his intrigue score is 30 and I invited him to court for that), I use my sweet 30 intrigue spymaster to assassinate all his brother's children the while I am guardian to his son.... making him a mongol (that king editor is fun as hell!). Anyways he kills off the kids, I foment a plot to assassinate my former liege, then assassinate the new King and a mongol is on the throne of France.

It would have been OK at that, but the HRE declares war on France and a ton of vassals rebel, so I figure "Dam, I am third for Emperor might as well plot against the emperor and assassinate his heir in one day to help my nephew." Long story short, I am the emperor and have France and it's stacks as a dynastic ally. While all this is going , half of Leon eaten up by Muslim powers.

Well now that I am HRE, I go hard into the Central Iberian, reaching the Atlantic, and still Castilla and Leon are gone, swallowed up by Sevilla and what used to be Cordoba but is now the eremite of Castilla...


They definitely can't survive without direct outside help trough joining their wars of defense (And don't give me crap about Barcelona, Navarra, and Aragon. Those 3 are the first to get swallow by the moors most games).

grumphie said:

you dont get the point, do you? the cristian kingdoms, that historically reconquered spain, now fall 99 of 100 times. the muslims barely fight between eachother. the only moment they lose is when france or the HRE joins in. combined with the tech advantage and the ganging up when the cristian kingdoms attack in a holy war its about impossible for them to survive, nless they get lucky. they do NEED a buff.

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No, they don't. If Sancho, who's king in 1066, never gets assassinated by Urraca and Alfonso, then the kingdoms might never have united in real life.

Our IRL history turned out the way it did because of a murder plot. Sorry, but it's complete waste of time to argue that X should happen in-game because of what happened in real life. Real life is just as full of a million crazy plots and events as the game is - more in real life, of course.

shaldon said:

I've only played one complete game, at first the muslims dominated and started into Aquitaine, but then they were slowly but surely annihilated, and by 1453 only held Algeciras. France started it all, then Scotland finally held the whole of 'Portugal' and much of Northwestern Spain, Valencia, Aragon, Castille and Leon had all respawned. Toledo too (a vassal of my Wales).

In the East the Seljuks and Mongols got hosed. They never got anywhere near Turkey or Eastern Europe. Rus and the Byzantines reigned supreme.

So I'd say strengthen the Muslims and the Mongols, if anything :unsure:

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Yeah, Rus is the real juggernaut now. Depending on how early Rus forms it will typically dominate the game. The Mongols typically get bogged down after the capture their first large realm (Seljuks or Emirate of Khawarzim or whatever it is when they show up).

In my current game, the Muslims completely destroyed the Christian kingdoms in Iberia, and then France squashed the Muslims. Aragon is currently De Jure part of France, heh. I think the problem is the war score system. The war score system has an intense bias against smaller kingdoms. With a small kingdom like Leon, the Muslims just have to conquer a few settlements, putting them at 100% score, and allowing them to force a surrender of an entire duchy. Likewise, the reason why the Byzantines are invincible is because getting to 100 warscore is such a major chore for a giant country like Byzantium. The alliances are also not quite balanced. The Iberian Christians all banding together to defend themselves is nothing compared to the support the Muslims get from allies like the Kingdom of Mauritania which can often field 20K+ troops. The only Christians kingdom that consistently stands up to the Iberian Muslims is France and they don't seem to become interested until the Muslims are on their borders after conquering Aragon.

knppel said:

Leon survived till 1200 in my last game and grew. Guess what, Every King in line has Kingslayer trait

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Unless there's a Jaime Jimena, I think you mean kinslayer

Playing CK2+ I just crawled up to kingdom of France from Count of Macon and by the time I did, a Leon (with Castillian Capets haha) owned half of Spain. Then my first King went on a crusade for Mauretania and won, now my brother is the King of Mauretania and Spanish Muslims left in the wake are getting gobbled up by me and Leon.

Muslims have an early advantage with tech (1-2 to Christian 0s) in CK2+ too. I don't think anything is broken here, can't put history on rails without just starting later.

In my current game they managed to survive, mainly as the super Galacia-Leon-Castille-Aquitane. However all the moors have been kicked out thanks to the Pope's crusades being successful (which really is mostly me - my dynasty controls the whole North African coast).