Undoing 1.06's Buffs to Muslims

[JScott991]

1.06 has made the Muslim empires and nations stronger. Some may like this change and I don't really want to argue about whether Paradox should tone it down in a 1.07 or whatever, I just would like to figure out exactly what happened and how much I can do to roll back these changes.

Some are very obvious, like the Seljuks being given a great deal more territory in 1066. That is easy enough to undo.

Others are more subtle, I think. Some Christian nations have been weakened (like the ERE), but that is harder to see.

Does anyone have any hints on how I could undo 1.06's improvements to Muslims? What has been done that can be easily changed in the defines, provinces, or titles files that can be rolled back to be more in line with 1.05g's balance?

On a side note, I heavily regret buying this game over Steam. I should have known there was one more mega-patch in the works that would radically change the game and Steam forces you to update to play.

[s1234567890m]

Wel then let this epidlsode be a lesson have a back up of your instal. or if you do not care for how many hours you have played turn steams auto start up off turn it into offline mode and rune the game via a shortcut to the exe

[TheChronoMaster]

You know you can turn off steam updating, right?

And also the fact that you can copy the directory, and the game's still fully playable.


The changes to Muslims are far too numerous and complicated for you to think them necessary to undo -- Decadence, new casus bellis, altered succession mechanics, altered Marriage mechanics, removal of Kinslayer for Muslims...

It's not fair to assume Muslims have been buffed -- in fact, succession crises tend to be MUCH more harsh now, completely demolishing large empires.

[von Guderian]

In my game with France, muslims destroyed the ERE in 70 years (Seltukids conquered Greece and Constantinople), the Almoravids obliterated the Christian Spanish Kingdoms (well, it benefits to me at the end :P) and Fatimids ate Sicily and are in front of the gates of Rome (which they failed to conquer, thanks to a coalition between HRE and me). Each of these families have 75%+ Decadence and NONE OF THEM are suffering of revolts or secessions. So yes, i think muslims are a bit overpowerd in ealy game.

[TheChronoMaster]

For comparison, in my game, the Seljuks have been crushed by the ERE, the HRE holds the levant, and Iberia is split about half and half between petty warring counts and kings in name only.

[note I am playing as Mali)

[CommanderZeta]

In many cases, I suppose it's not so easy to see the changes, but I'm running it with the "Broken Kingdoms" mod which removes all titles above duchies from play (though they can be formed later), and in my game the Fatimids have more or less united Egypt and Jerusalem, conquered Sicily, and are attempting to claim the Kingdom of Italy.

But even though I'm using a mod, I digress. It's not even 1100, I think.

EDIT: The Caliph is smart; he has gotten his decadence down to like 14%.

[JScott991]

The changes to Muslims are far too numerous and complicated for you to think them necessary to undo -- Decadence, new casus bellis, altered succession mechanics, altered Marriage mechanics, removal of Kinslayer for Muslims...

It's not fair to assume Muslims have been buffed -- in fact, succession crises tend to be MUCH more harsh now, completely demolishing large empires.

The Muslims have been buffed. I don't think decadence, kinslayer or marriage mechanics have helped them out, but other things have been changed.

I strongly suspect their domains have been strengthened, but I have no proof of it because I don't have access to old files showing their army strengths and economies in 1.05g. Those are the kind of things I'd like to completely undo.

[Sleight of Hand]

I suppose it must be possible to spread Mandé culture up towards Tangiers, so I may try that.

[Rilder]

You know you can turn off steam updating, right?

Err you know that option does absolutely nothing, right? Games with "Do not automatically update this game" still automatically update.

[qbln]

in my SoI game (i'm playing muslim) muslims have failed 4-5 jihads. sunnis nor shias aren't able to break ERE. ERE just pwns them.

[Myrten]

I think it might be actually easier to play as Christians now since they downgraded Caliph to a duchy level title. Now it's enough to take 3 duchies in Egypt and usurp kingdom title to bring down what used to be mighty Shia Caliphate in my previous games

[kingsword]

What? As usual, Muslim kingdoms are constantly in civil war after merely 25 years. I really can't believe anybody's having a tough time against them.

[Alerias]

You can download the 1.06 files here: http://www.paradoxplaza.com/in-game/...1_06_patch.exe This can be useful to a Steam user to extract to a different directory and then make a list of what files were changed and when (through sorting by date).

Personally what Id do is extract the 1.06 patch to a different directory (not the game's) and look in history/provinces, sort the files by date. Alternatively, I guess just sorting your existing province directory by dates work, but it feels more intimidating and its always easier to work with a smaller sample of files.

All the files that have been modified since May 24 are 1.06 changes, and all the files modified since march are 1.04 and up. The most recent changes of course include all the new Sub-saharan provinces. But also all the buffs to the Muslim holdings. Slightly older changes (to orthodox provinces) are mostly Byz holding nerfs.

Ultimately, having a list of the changed provinces does little without the old files, though. Youll need to reinstall the game in a different directory - NOT let it patch - and then extract the provinces you've determined were unduly changed from THAT install, and use them to overwrite the province files in your 1.06 install. Quite a bit of work, but youre really intent on rolling back everything, thats pretty much the way to do it. And yes, its much less a hassle when you use a GG version.

As pointed out, its worth noting that the AI's ineptitude at dealing with its decadence makes this largely an unnecessary exercise. If you try it out, you'll notice they seem to start strong but become quite weaker by the timeframe of the historical crusades. Personally I've ultimately decided to leave most Muslim buffs intact in my install, though I did revert the Byzantine nerfs.

[classical]

Oh you change hating old crones. CKII vanilla in effect nerfs the Muslims as it represents less of their territory, and does not fully represent the extent to which they posess wealthier, more urbanised civilisations. The Muslims are endlessly getting steamrolled in vanilla, and SOI is a great change. CKI crusades were far tougher, and I must say that a stronger foe for my christian crusader king is good news for me. Why would you want to roll back that kind of awesome. 1066 ERE was way overpowered, and was not as much of a chalenge as CK1. The whole point of playing the ERE is to overcome the Byzantine strategic nightmare and lead the Romanoi to glory.

[Alerias]

Oh you change hating old crones. CKII vanilla in effect nerfs the Muslims as it represents less of their territory, and does not fully represent the extent to which they posess wealthier, more urbanised civilisations. The Muslims are endlessly getting steamrolled in vanilla, and SOI is a great change. CKI crusades were far tougher, and I must say that a stronger foe for my christian crusader king is good news for me. Why would you want to roll back that kind of awesome. 1066 ERE was way overpowered, and was not as much of a chalenge as CK1. The whole point of playing the ERE is to overcome the Byzantine strategic nightmare and lead the Romanoi to glory.

This kind of post is at best rather useless, at worst rather insulting. Its a moddable game, and if youre happy with vanilla, great for you. Many people like to have more control over the changes in their games and support Paradox titles solely BECAUSE they grant us that flexibility. It doesnt affect your game, and what you like doesn't have to be what the OP likes at all.

[ChristesII]

The Muslims are endlessly getting steamrolled in vanilla, and SOI is a great change.

This was not the case in Iberia.

[Shadowkire]

The Muslims have been buffed. I don't think decadence, kinslayer or marriage mechanics have helped them out, but other things have been changed.

I strongly suspect their domains have been strengthened, but I have no proof of it because I don't have access to old files showing their army strengths and economies in 1.05g. Those are the kind of things I'd like to completely undo.

Just from experience with southern Iberia-Mauretania:
The counties of Algreciras, Cadiz, Cordoba, and Malaga have an extra castle at the start and Sevilla and Granada have an extra city. The entire duchy of Tangiers is beefier, the duchy of Fes is nearly filled out, and the northern 3 counties of Marrakech have 4 extra holdings between them.

[Alerias]

Just from experience with southern Iberia-Mauretania:
The counties of Algreciras, Cadiz, Cordoba, and Malaga have an extra castle at the start and Sevilla and Granada have an extra city. The entire duchy of Tangiers is beefier, the duchy of Fes is nearly filled out, and the northern 3 counties of Marrakech have 4 extra holdings between them.

Also Tunis and parts of Lybia have extra holdings. Basically they did for everything west of Cyreanica what the previous patch had done for everything east of it.

[Shootandrun]

Muslims have been strongly buffed in external wars, but fall more easily to internal wars now, in my opinion. For example, in my current game the Seljuks took Armenia from the byzantines, but ten years later they fell in a nasty succession crisis with bonus independence wars. They lost nearly a third of their territories to independence and the ERE took back some of its lost lands. Fifty years after that, the Seljuk and the Fatimids both fell to rebelling tribes, due to high decadence. During these wars, their armies were severely weakened, and they both lost some of their territories.

The fact that you have to land dynasty members really comes into play here, I think. It simply makes a succession crisis ten times more dangerous.

[Al-Razzah]

I've been playing for a good while now as Volga Bulgaria, and I'm fairly certain the assumption that Muslims are OP is presumptuous. In Spain, the Pope called a Crusade for Al-Andalus and they are owning, while the Jihad for Anatolia is failing miserably due to the Seljuks getting to 100% decadency and falling into an endless civil war. The Shi'ites are doing fine, but I'd say that's just because they have been opportunistic. The fact that muslims get 4 wives is a horrible curse due to all the offspring driving up decadence. I'm having a hell of a time keeping it down myself. I've been trying to balance the prestige loss for having less than 4 wives in order to have less freakin sons. This patch seems to be remarkably balanced to me. I don't think the Seljuks will ever recover, many Emirates have already peaced out with independence. Don't underestimate the decadence system, I think it is both historical and balanced, and I also believe Paradox has outdone themselves in SoI.