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.



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.



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.



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.



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!

 

[Doomdark]

Have you increased piety gain for muslims? 50 piety for 1 province seems quite steep, not to mention that fighting a war for one province is so slow, would be better for duchy claims.


Also how are Jihads determined?

Yes, Muslims gain Piety for having Mosques in their demesne. The Court Imam has a special job "Perform Charity" that gives Piety.

Jihads are called against titles with a high scripted "holiness" value for Muslims.

 

[Rozmarzony]

They have fewer Holdings. Mainly the Seljuks are more powerful, though, and the Caliphs are likely to call Jihad on the ERE. However, the ERE is still too powerful and we are looking into additional ways of nerfing them.

Just delete them holy wars cb? I mean, emperor still can declare war by de jure for his empire lands. He still will never have enough, but their conquests are not will be so large.

 

[Gedierond]

It seems piety will be very important for Muslim rulers. The feature of getting a piety bonus for owning a temple in your demesne is clever. I assume you won´t get a "Wrong holding type" penalty, right?

 

[Doomdark]

It seems piety will be very important for Muslim rulers. The feature of getting a piety bonus for owning a temple in your demesne is clever. I assume you won´t get a "Wrong holding type" penalty, right?

Indeed not

 

[Lord Tywin]

Seeing how Sultanates or maybe it was Empire are named after the dynasty, if I use the ruler designer and make a character with the last name of Swing will my sultanate be called The Swing Sultanate and will my rulers be known as the Sultans of Swing?

 

[Doomdark]

Seeing how Sultanates or maybe it was Empire are named after the dynasty, if I use the ruler designer and make a character with the last name of Swing will my sultanate be called The Swing Sultanate and will my rulers be known as the Sultans of Swing?

LOL, yes, they will.

 

[Gedierond]

Indeed not

Yeah, that´s what I thought, but it´s nice to get a confirmation. Thanks! Looking forward to this DLC!

 

[xyzt44]

If you are Caliph, do you get to call jihads?

 

[Gedierond]

Seeing how Sultanates or maybe it was Empire are named after the dynasty, if I use the ruler designer and make a character with the last name of Swing will my sultanate be called The Swing Sultanate and will my rulers be known as the Sultans of Swing?

This would be an excellent AAR!!

 

[Doomdark]

If you are Caliph, do you get to call jihads?

Yes, of course. They are just a special kind of CB.

 

[Blastaz]

The "exploit" with destroying duchies will be to destroy secondary duchies of a character who has just inherited a second one. Then imediatly recreating it and giving it to a former vassal. That will allow you to really stop any lord growing any bigger than a single duchy.

 

[Tapscott]

Seeing how Sultanates or maybe it was Empire are named after the dynasty, if I use the ruler designer and make a character with the last name of Swing will my sultanate be called The Swing Sultanate and will my rulers be known as the Sultans of Swing?

LOL. I beg for an AAR with this title.

 

[Blastaz]

LOL. I beg for an AAR with this title.

You'll probably get 4!

 

[DLFebin]

I forgot to ask, will there be cultural buildings for Cities and Bishopics?

 

[.Hobbes]

Incidentally, the Byzantine Empire is now allowed to do the same thing, though it does not have the Decadence mechanics.

That's more like it

 

[Goosecreature]

~ Can you give us a couple of examples of new cultural buildings?

As requested, a few examples...

The Byzantines will get access to Cataphract training grounds which grants them some heavy cavalry and a small amount of horse archers, the Hungarians and Poles get Hussar training grounds which provides light cavalry with a slight defensive bonus.

Scandinavians can build Housecarl training grounds which grants heavy infantry with an offensive bonus, but a slight defensive penalty. The Irish can build Gallowglass buildings which also gives heavy infantry, but with a defensive bonus.

Arabic cultures will have access to Camel riding grounds, providing extra light cavalry.

Also, without going into further detail, additional new buildings have been added for the West Africans, East Africans, the Dutch and the South Slavs.

We have tried to make certain that every culture has access to one of the unique buildings, so we have also given the Welsh access to the longbow ranges (something they probably should have had from the start) and the Bretons access to the squire lists just to name two examples.

 

[DLFebin]

The "exploit" with destroying duchies will be to destroy secondary duchies of a character who has just inherited a second one. Then imediatly recreating it and giving it to a former vassal. That will allow you to really stop any lord growing any bigger than a single duchy.

You should hold the title to destroy it then.

 

[Lord Tywin]

LOL, yes, they will.

That is just marvelous, now it is a confirmed buy for me so I can rule the world with the Sultans of Swing.

 

[grumphie]

1) Well, most of them at least.
2) The Muslim AI does not convert counties actively.
3) No, though that would be logical
4) Yes, it lasts for 10 years.

1. GREAT!
2. that COULD be a little problematic if you go wild and coquer italy as africa and similar cases and revolts keep popping up. but i assume it isnt unbalanced
3. ill try to mod in in then
4. great! otherwise it would be close to impossible to continue ruling withotu massive revolts if you dont own the whole duchy

this does raise other questions though: are there other(quick) ways to gain piety as a muslim? with all the piety costs and the fact that i'd like to maximise my millitary potential i hope its possible to NOT use mosques. also, what are the penalties/problems if you are waging a war and run out of piety(or run out of piety in general)? war gets stopped, excommunicated(or somethign similar)?
if you become caliph, can you declare jihads?

 

[Savokage]

Are Muslim rulers as likely to join Jihads as Christians would be to join Crusades?

Might just be me but from my own experience only very few Muslim rulers would join in when Jihads were called whilst everyone would jump right in and join the Crusade.