• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Hello again folks! Stay a while, and listen. The highlights of today's third and last Sword of Islam developer diary are Muslim Casus Bellis, revised combat mechanics and cultural buildings. You know the drill by now; I'll talk about both some unique Sword of Islam features and some free stuff that comes with patch 1.06.

THE SWORD OF ISLAM

Our direction with the Sword of Islam expansion is that Muslims should have an easier time expanding, but have an additional layer of internal strife in the form of the Open Succession Law and the Decadence system.

Muslim Casus Bellis

Muslim rulers have three new options for conquest:
  • They can declare Holy Wars on anyone not of their own exact brand of Islam
  • They can use a form of the Invasion CB for the cost of 500 Piety
  • They can conquer any province bordering one of their own for 50 Piety (vassalizing the current count if possible)

Pious Muslim rulers can thus easily expand, although they lose 2 Piety per month while attacking a brother of the faith (same exact religion.) The councillor job to fabricate a claim is thus less useful for Muslims, but can still be handy versus islands or juicy coastal counties.

SoI_InvasionCB.jpg

Revokation of Duchies

Duchies (emirates) are not considered to be intrinsically hereditary, so Muslims are allowed to revoke duchy titles at no opinion penalty from other vassals. This is also a good way of properly landing your sons to avoid gaining Decadence. (Incidentally, the Byzantine Empire is now allowed to do the same thing, though it does not have the Decadence mechanics.)

Dynastic Imprisonment and Execution

Another Muslim exception to the normal rules is that they are allowed to freely imprison and execute men of their own dynasty, except for their own sons. Brothers and uncles are the usual targets for these Decadence reducing purges...

Temple Holdings

In the Muslim world, there is no proper equivalent to Bishoprics, so Temple Holdings are treated exactly like Castles, except for their different set of buildings. You gain Piety for having a Temple Holding in your demesne, but they are slightly poorer and provide smaller levies than their Catholic equivalents (in order to balance them against the investiture mechanics.)

Passing Laws

Muslims do not need to bother with a voting process when passing laws; they just spend an amount of Piety. However, there is still a cooldown and Crown Laws can only be changed once per ruler. The vassals will also still get upset in the same way as Christians.

Jizya Tax

To represent the Jizya tax (a special tax that should, according to Sharia law, be levied on infidels), Muslims gain a 25% tax bonus from infidel counties and a 10% tax penalty in Muslim counties. This creates an interesting dynamic where it's not always obvious that you would want to convert an infidel province to Islam. However, there is a special event where this happens anyway, even if you don't send in your Court Imam to convert the populace.

SoI_Jizya.jpg

That's pretty much it for the Sword of Islam expansion, although I'm sure to have forgotten about many minor little changes and tweaks.

THE 1.06 PATCH

Alright, so here are a few more freebies coming your way soon with the 1.06 patch...

Expanded Combat Tactics

We have added a bunch of more (and more decisive) combat tactics, to make combat less predictable and to tie in with the new Commander traits...

Commander Traits

We have added a special type of trait called Commander traits. These are only available to characters with a Martial education, and give more specific bonuses to the character's ability to lead various troop types, and the choice of combat tactics. Characters gain one or two Commander traits when they finish their education. The effects of the Commander traits directly scale with the Martial skill of the character.

SoI_Commander.jpg

More Culture Specific Buildings

One thing that many people have requested is a broader range of culture specific buildings, and who are we to argue? We have added loads of these to give more variety and flavor.

Destruction of Titles

You are now allowed to destroy ducal tier titles and above, at a hefty Prestige cost. This will greatly upset (-50 opinion) all vassals who are de jure part of the destroyed title. You cannot destroy your current primary title.

SoI_TitleDestruction.jpg

AI Improvements

Apart from some minor improvements, the AI is now better at jumping on rulers who are already embroiled in dangerous wars (though it's still not excessively aggressive about this.) I've also spent a bit of time on attrition avoidance for AI armies, and the AI will now assault besieged holdings when appropriate.

That's it for dev diaries for now. Next week, we'll post a short AAR by a member of the dev team!
 
While I'm not totally again decadance, I'd rather have seen it worked into some sort of Mamluk system than the ruler's family. Nothing I have read about the medieval Near East suggests that a ruler was socially expected to have 4 wives but the slave soldiers, whether the Sudanese of the Fatimids and Zirids or the Turkish/Circassian Mamluk fighters were pretty vital to Middle Eastern politics at this point. I'm not quite sure how I'd work it and I probably won't bother since it has no chance of going in at this point, but I'd rather like some nod to their role, even if it is just some 'mercenary' companies you can call up.


Still sounds like fun though. :D
 
wouldn't be to surprised if Ethiopians got Camel Riders, although i'm not sure if they actually used Camels ... its that or going oddball and giving them the the longbow range that Saxony have (with a rename) due to the Makuria (in Nubia ... close enough, since they ingame is Ethiopians as well) being famous for their archers, which was one of the primary reasons Islam didn't spead south OTL and the Caliphs accepted the Baqt argeement (which aren't working ingame)
 
wouldn't be to surprised if Ethiopians got Camel Riders, although i'm not sure if they actually used Camels ... its that or going oddball and giving them the the longbow range that Saxony have (with a rename) due to the Makuria (in Nubia ... close enough, since they ingame is Ethiopians as well) being famous for their archers, which was one of the primary reasons Islam didn't spead south OTL and the Caliphs accepted the Baqt argeement (which aren't working ingame)
okay, so no official word. guess we'll just have to wait and see. and if nothing changed in that region bring this up again and hope some dev considers a change. :S
 
I feel like there needs to be substantial modifiers put on the empires, because previous posters are right. If someone declares independence, the rest of the realm just squashes them; the HRE, ERE, and (in my opinion) France are just too stable. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, France was a fractured state which had a tough time acting as one body to the English and in its own affairs; just look at the beginning of the EU3 map. At least, that's how I always learned it. And bringing the full force of the HRE on its own upstarts practically never happened. Crown authority helps actualize these things, but in the end, a kagillion soldiers still appear from the far corners of the empire to crush upstarts... which isn't very realistic. As for the ERE, I honestly don't know how free revocation will affect gameplay. However, I do know that it was a very powerful state in the Middle Ages and as I've played ... I've seen the state decline in the face of Muslims quite fairly. Never played it myself though....
 
I feel like there needs to be substantial modifiers put on the empires, because previous posters are right. If someone declares independence, the rest of the realm just squashes them; the HRE, ERE, and (in my opinion) France are just too stable. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, France was a fractured state which had a tough time acting as one body to the English and in its own affairs; just look at the beginning of the EU3 map. At least, that's how I always learned it. And bringing the full force of the HRE on its own upstarts practically never happened. Crown authority helps actualize these things, but in the end, a kagillion soldiers still appear from the far corners of the empire to crush upstarts... which isn't very realistic. As for the ERE, I honestly don't know how free revocation will affect gameplay. However, I do know that it was a very powerful state in the Middle Ages and as I've played ... I've seen the state decline in the face of Muslims quite fairly. Never played it myself though....

I would disagree with the France comment, I've seen it fracture frequently. Between William stealing Normandy, the van Vlaanderens revolting frequently, Robert the Old and his sons launching wars for the throne, and often Aquitaine and Toulouse getting uppity, I rarely see it unified. When England manages to stay strong and start quarreling with them, they're pretty much doomed.