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Speaking about decadence: what mecahnisms will Muslims get to ensure that dynasties can rise and fall more easily than in Europe? A simple kludge would be to give the regent, the grand vizier and the 3 biggest vassals or so a strong claim on the liege's title during regencies, and perhaps increase the propensity of Muslim rulers to form factions pressing claims. A more sophisticated system would be to set up specific factions that demand a new ruler from their midst or a fracturing of the realm...

I don't know yet. Let's talk about it, shall we?

General Objective: Make Muslim blobs less stable. Make it more fun to play as a Muslim vassal to, say, the Seljuks. Perhaps, find a mechanic which tends to lead to dynastic churn, possibly realm fracture, and then probably expeditious realm reunification / cleanup of the border gore (could be into smaller kingdoms).

Notes:

All turnover is generally assisted by dynlevy, our short name for the dynamically-scaled-with-realm-size liege levy feature that applies to all rulers (including vassals) and the design of the levy system in EMF generally, which rapidly depletes the liege levy while leaving vassal subrealms full of troops still ready to go. Further, EMF's independence faction is far more rowdy and capable of actually breaking a realm apart (woe, the border gore!).

We do have a system in the works for turning proven, landed military commanders into political threats. Not sure how that would help with these specific goals in the Muslim world, besides more wildcard factor and a pretty good chance of a player marshal in an empire eventually earning a strong claim on the throne.

I am less interested, though, in abusing claims to promote instability generally. It's not terribly plausible. Custom CBs and/or factions are, however, a potential solution. If you had that at your fingertips, what do y'all think would be plausible casus belli mechanics for dynastic turnover and potentially the rise, fall, and expeditious reunification of large Muslim realms?
 
Just wanted to pop in and say that I'm far more interested in this than anything Paradox has done with their post-TOG DLCs. I have been a long-time user of PB and very much look forward to this. Keep up the good work!
 
Thanks about expounding some more on the features introduced by EMF!

That is a very good question indeed :) I feel that Muslim and pagan factions should be much more rebellious than Christian ones. Most Christian realms were steeped in feudalism to some degree - relations between a liege and a vassal were signified by vows that neither could break without incurring considerable dishonour. This relationship was much more fluid in Muslim states. In fact, many Muslim states were not feudal at all - the Fatimid Empire was ruled in a way rather similar to the Byzantine one, whereas the Seljuqs were much more feudal. But I think I digress.

Anyways, these very loose feudal bonds meant that often, a feudal ruler could simply revoke land, and it was not particularly unusual for a vassal to just not recognise his lord any more, drifting out of his sphere. Court intrigue abounded, as well as civil wars. Individual leadership was very important, even more important than in Europe, where at least titles connected to a certain country provided for a measure of stability - in the Islamic world, this was not really known. Empires often rose and fell on the shoulders of individuals. If the ruler was disliked an overthrow was very likely. If the ruler got weakened by civil wars, it did not look good for him. Especially deadly were regencies - if a state was not particularly strong when a regency began, it was almost guaranteed that at some stage the regent or the vizier would try to take over. The sheik of a county might just suddenly decide to blob, and a ruler could either crack down on him or fail to do something, which would be his downfall. And of course there were often large-scale invasions by neighbouring kingdoms.

I, for one, have always harboured the thought of creating a "taifa faction", named after the system that brought the caliphate of Andalusia to its knees. It would be a faction the rulers of which advocate the dissolution of a realm. Vassals would tend to join if they do not like you, when there is a regency going on, and when you start losing wars badly. If they declare war against you, and you lose, you would lose everything apart from your counties - all other titles you own, duchies, kingdoms or empires, would just dissipate into thin air, and your former vassals would be free.

Also, it would be nice if a faction was there that selects a new claimant from its midst and pushes their claim against you.

In fact, I was thinking - this could be combined with the autonomy faction! The autonomy faction could, if your monarch is pants and pisses off the vassals, vote to either install a new monarch from its midst that would from that day on rule over the realm instead of you (not too dissimilar from the antipope mechanism), or, if the realm is horrendously weakened and the vassals think it cannot stand on its own feet any more, vote to present an ultimatum to you whereby you release everybody and your titles get dissolved above the barony level, or else.
 
Will there be positive weather events (bumper crop), and will they be frequent enough to balance out negative weather events (drought, severe hail, late frost/early frost and other causes of famine)?
 
Will there be positive weather events (bumper crop), and will they be frequent enough to balance out negative weather events (drought, severe hail, late frost/early frost and other causes of famine)?

There are both positive and negative modifiers, and some of them are even positive during one season and negative during another. At the moment there are slightly more negative events than positive, but the balance may change in the future.
 
That is a very good question indeed :) I feel that Muslim and pagan factions should be much more rebellious than Christian ones.

This is already the case for pagans, surely. They're much more independence-minded. You think it should be worse, or just similar with Muslims too? I think that I agree with you on making it similar for Muslims. Muslim vassals should just generally be a greater PITA when you're down on your luck.

Anyways, these very loose feudal bonds meant that often, a feudal ruler could simply revoke land, and it was not particularly unusual for a vassal to just not recognise his lord any more, drifting out of his sphere. Court intrigue abounded, as well as civil wars. Individual leadership was very important, even more important than in Europe, where at least titles connected to a certain country provided for a measure of stability - in the Islamic world, this was not really known. Empires often rose and fell on the shoulders of individuals. If the ruler was disliked an overthrow was very likely. If the ruler got weakened by civil wars, it did not look good for him. Especially deadly were regencies - if a state was not particularly strong when a regency began, it was almost guaranteed that at some stage the regent or the vizier would try to take over. The sheik of a county might just suddenly decide to blob, and a ruler could either crack down on him or fail to do something, which would be his downfall. And of course there were often large-scale invasions by neighbouring kingdoms.

See above. Agreement. Regarding regencies, though that is the perfect time for chances at a regent stealing the throne (and fighting over the regency itself), after some discussion we decided it unwise to spend much time on regency-related mechanics with Charlemagne coming sooner than you might expect with its promised regency overhaul. And, of course, there are already large-scale invasions in the Muslim (and Tengri) world, plus rampant county conquest with essentially nothing like a Christian CB.

I, for one, have always harboured the thought of creating a "taifa faction", named after the system that brought the caliphate of Andalusia to its knees. It would be a faction the rulers of which advocate the dissolution of a realm. Vassals would tend to join if they do not like you, when there is a regency going on, and when you start losing wars badly. If they declare war against you, and you lose, you would lose everything apart from your counties - all other titles you own, duchies, kingdoms or empires, would just dissipate into thin air, and your former vassals would be free.

This piqued our interest. We did some further research, and it looks like a mechanic we might add (someday not far in the future). This is how I envision it going down (totally concept):

  • Separate faction, probably called the Dissolution Faction (kinda want to stay away from using a Spanish word for a Muslim mechanic), entirely unique to Muslims (and possibly Pagans).
    • It does not disable the normal independence faction but encourages independence faction members to join the Dissolution Faction instead based upon opinion of the liege.
    • It is much more rowdy during regencies and whenever levies have been raised for long (if allowed for Pagans, levies being raised too long won't affect unreformed religions).
    • It doesn't care about de jure vassal status.
    • If a Caliph is the liege, it's less rowdy, as long as religious authority is high and vassal religions match the Caliph.
    • Distance to liege capital is a very important factor.
    • Total realm size of the liege is an important factor.
    • If a vassal borders a Dissolution Faction member, they are more likely to join it as well.
    • Dynasty members are likely to stick together, for better and worse for the liege.
    • Sheikhs are just as likely to join as Emirs.
    • Whenever the liege wins a war, the Dissolution Faction becomes a bit less popular for a time (a sign of authority).
    • Whenever the liege loses a war, a countervailing effect is added, unless the war was against infidels.
    • It only fires an ultimatum at relatively high faction power, unlike most factions, to ensure almost total cooperation and that the faction isn't annoyingly difficult with which to deal (total dissolution should be rare).
  • An associated faction CB. On success:
    • All non-Caliphate titles higher than duke tier as well as duke titles that aren't de jure liege to the capital of the liege are destroyed, and all direct vassals become independent, whether they were part of the faction are not, probably excluding de jure count vassals of the one duchy left for the liege (unless they were faction participants too).
    • All those who broke away as well as the liege are marked (in a way that is inherited) for a temporary period of "rapid reunification conquest" (25-40 years, depending upon how it looks when tuning).
  • A reunification CB(s):
    • With a short truce length and no cooldown (so long as it's not war between different religions)
    • Any of those characters marked for "rapid conquest" may use it against each other so long as the modifier remains valid [timer doesn't expire] (Quirk: If this happens to neighboring large realms at the same time, it might become one big zone of rapid conquest)
    • Allows at least rampant county conquest with no restrictions but those above (and quite possibly allows de-jure-duchy subjugation, as in you may take all the territory of a qualifying enemy in any bordering de jure duchy, which may net you either a bunch of count vassals or a mixture of that and some genuine spoils, if they were held by rulers with other holdings outside the de jure duchy)
    • May the big fish eat the small fish
Also, it would be nice if a faction was there that selects a new claimant from its midst and pushes their claim against you.

In fact, I was thinking - this could be combined with the autonomy faction! The autonomy faction could, if your monarch is pants and pisses off the vassals, vote to either install a new monarch from its midst that would from that day on rule over the realm instead of you (not too dissimilar from the antipope mechanism), or, if the realm is horrendously weakened and the vassals think it cannot stand on its own feet any more, vote to present an ultimatum to you whereby you release everybody and your titles get dissolved above the barony level, or else.

I think the above pretty much covers this. The autonomy faction is kind of a mess regarding its ability to reason about such complex things in a fair manner to the liege. The claimant faction is certainly already in place and, with the removal of the rule 'claimants will never try to install a decadent ruler' and 'claimants will never seek to overthrow a non-decadent ruler,' I think that should make claimant factions a lot more active in Muslim realms.

Giving random claims to well-liked chancellors, marshals, and stewards during hard times (big opinion differences compared to the liege, regencies) could very well make that more interesting. Not sure about that yet. As I said, we want to stay away from regency mechanics for now, but depending upon when we do this kind of work, we could hack the claimant faction to be able to support regents that they like much better than the liege as if they had a proper claim. [ Giving them an actual claim would mean that it'd persist beyond the end of the regency, which I think is definitely a huge stretch. ]

Thanks for all the feedback! Admittedly, it's not on the top of our to-do list and we are slightly reluctant to encourage serious border gore or mechanics that might be too dangerous for a Muslim player liege (like annoying impossible to deal with), but I do love writing CBs and the taifa reunification / border cleanup creative destruction is one that sounds pretty fun to me (as a player and a modder). Getting the faction properly balanced and such that it fires truly only when the conditions are "just right" (and doesn't just sit there as a looming spectre, taking up a faction slot, all the time too) would be challenging, as this sort of mass devolution shouldn't happen too often. Most of its needs can handled by simply souping-up the independence faction and independence wars generally, which has already happened to some extent (though not been tested well yet), but it is unique in that having a separate faction for it allows for the consequent "period of anarchy" where specially-enabled mass, autonomous war will cleanup some borders and restore some order before stabilizing.
 
Wow, this looks amazing! I think this concept is brilliant, can't wait to try it out :) I suppose that you are right and that this mechanic should not fire too often - however, it would quite nicely represent what happened in Andalusia as well as with the Abbasids at the end of the 10th century really :) I suppose that the pagans might have this faction too; however, they already have other penalities (gavelkind only, opinion penalities), so perhaps this could be balanced out by making the dissolution faction in Muslim startes generally stronger?

Souping up the independence faction for Muslims is a good idea too methinks.

I think that the reunification CB is a great idea to extirpate border gore. Border gore was kinda what happened when an Islamic Empire shattered, but at least the worst excesses can be evened out.

I fully understand you want to wait until we know more about the regency mechanics for Charlemagne. I am looking forward to them too :)
 
The possible above features for the Muslims sound like they could be quite awesome. Will there be anything for Byzantium/Rhomaion that will make it less stable during times of trouble and such or features to make the stronger/biggest vassals a real threat to be watched which would in theory simulate how powerful military leaders often took the throne form weak ones etc ?

Stuff like that.
 
The possible above features for the Muslims sound like they could be quite awesome. Will there be anything for Byzantium/Rhomaion that will make it less stable during times of trouble and such or features to make the stronger/biggest vassals a real threat to be watched which would in theory simulate how powerful military leaders often took the throne form weak ones etc ?

Stuff like that.

There will, in fact. I'm currently working on a system which will allow successful military leaders to develop popularity and, eventually, claims to the kingdoms they serve. While this will be rare in general, it will be made more common in realms where such things happened more frequently, which includes Byzantium.
 
There will, in fact. I'm currently working on a system which will allow successful military leaders to develop popularity and, eventually, claims to the kingdoms they serve. While this will be rare in general, it will be made more common in realms where such things happened more frequently, which includes Byzantium.

Awesomeness

Yeah, this is going to be a great feature. I didn't include it in the initial release preview simply because it won't be fully functional in the initial release, but I'm really excited that we'll be offering it.
 
You won my interest zijistark...
Can't wait for your work to be released...:)
 
I am looking with great interest at this as well.
 
This is rather minor, compared to everything else described, but could I request a unique event (or a set of similar unique events) for when I sacrifice a foreign religious head at a blot? When I sacrifice the Pope, the event shouldn't be exactly the same as when I sacrifice some random Catholic courtier, you know?
 
There will, in fact. I'm currently working on a system which will allow successful military leaders to develop popularity and, eventually, claims to the kingdoms they serve. While this will be rare in general, it will be made more common in realms where such things happened more frequently, which includes Byzantium.

How about being able to play as a leader of a host to conquer a kingdom title? Giving unladed characters a temporary "estate" like the ones in merchant families could work in this case.
 
You won my interest zijistark...
Can't wait for your work to be released...:)

That means a lot. Thanks^^

I am looking with great interest at this as well.

The more support we get, the more we want to code cool stuff for you guys. Thanks^^

This is rather minor, compared to everything else described, but could I request a unique event (or a set of similar unique events) for when I sacrifice a foreign religious head at a blot? When I sacrifice the Pope, the event shouldn't be exactly the same as when I sacrifice some random Catholic courtier, you know?

It's probably a bit low on the priority list right now, but you clearly read our "charter" correctly, because this is the kind of repetitive, semi-incoherent flavor which we'd like to vary and make more coherent. I'll make an Issue on GitHub for it so that we don't forget about it. Here it is:

https://github.com/zijistark/EMF/issues/121

How about being able to play as a leader of a host to conquer a kingdom title? Giving unladed characters a temporary "estate" like the ones in merchant families could work in this case.

The mentioned feature about military commanders is currently aimed at already-landed characters. I don't think it's possible to give feudal characters a "virtual barony" like those of the Patrician families to make them playable, but I may be incorrect.
 
The mentioned feature about military commanders is currently aimed at already-landed characters. I don't think it's possible to give feudal characters a "virtual barony" like those of the Patrician families to make them playable, but I may be incorrect.
You can give them a titular county or above and they're playable. Just try tagswitching to a mercenary commander.
Of course, they're not at all interesting to play though, but it is definitely doable.
 
You can give them a titular county or above and they're playable. Just try tagswitching to a mercenary commander.
Of course, they're not at all interesting to play though, but it is definitely doable.

Point. Giving static titular COUNT+ tier titles to adventurers is a bit of a problem, though (basically needs to only be one such invasion going-on at a time). Wonder if dynamic/temporary titular titles of high enough tier are human-playable already? One could just tag-switch to an existing duchy adventurer if so.