Confusion Around the De Jure Empire of Persia in 867

[Marinakis]

Hello,

I am curious as to the justification of De Jure Empire of Persia in 867 being so massive. The borders of De Jure Persia appears to align to the post-Heraclius Sasanian Empire / pre-Battle of al-Qadisiyyah Sasanian Empire.

While I actually agree with the notion that the international De Jure mindset of the Persians in the 630's may not have changed all that much from 636 - 867, why then have the Byzantines De Jure lands contracted so massively.

1. The Byzantines and Persians lost their holdings to the Arabs at about the same time.
2. The Byzantines/Romans held and ruled over the eastern Mediterranean more constantly and stably than the Persians controlled/ruled Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan and Transoxiana.
3. The Byzantines actually survived Muslim conquests until the 1400's, so the Byzantine's and international understanding of former Roman lands would have persisted. The Persians were completely conquered almost immediately following the Arab conquests.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter and I'm not complaining, I just don't understand the logic behind the massive De Jure Empire of Persia (Basically the 632 Sasanian Empire) as compared to the severely contracted De Jure Byzantine Empire - the logic seems upside-down.

 

[theKing1988]

It's mostly based on the Seljuq Empire actually, it's not based on the Sassanid Empire at all (They are not within the game's timeframe, so it wouldn't make sense to base anything on them ). It just wasn't changed at all for 867. We could consider changing it of course.

 

[Marinakis]

Ah, that makes sense from a coding standpoint.

But yeah, being that the Turkic peoples haven't really started overthrowing their Arab and Persian overlords yet in the 867 bookmark. e_persia should probably be contracted to something akin to modern Iran.

 

[theKing1988]

Ah, that makes sense from a coding standpoint.

But yeah, being that the Turkic peoples haven't really started overthrowing their Arab and Persian overlords yet in the 867 bookmark. e_persia should probably be contracted to something akin to modern Iran.

Well limiting it to Modern Iran is probably not the greatest idea. There is gameplay considerations to consider as well. Contracting e_persia to Modern Iran would make the title way too easy to create and cause it to be regularly created in game after game. And it really shouldn't be.

But less than 20 provinces could probably be cut

 

[Ottoman Master]

Maybe in the 867 bookmark it could be more in line with the Post-Heraclius Sassanian Empire borders (not exactly, but perhaps Persia proper, Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan, and the nearest bits of Central Asia? Most of these areas seemed to be consistently part of a Persian state ever since the Seleucids.), while 1043 and on would continue to use the Seljuq borders?

 

[Admiral Fischer]

Related issue, shouldn't the Caliphate's de jure capital be Baghdad?

 

[Toa Kraka]

It's mostly based on the Seljuq Empire actually, it's not based on the Sassanid Empire at all (They are not within the game's timeframe, so it wouldn't make sense to base anything on them ).

Is the presence of the kingdoms of Antioch and Jerusalem based on a similar railroaded forward-looking rationale?

If we allowed the Kingdom of Syria (representing both the ERE's Diocese of the East and the Caliphate's Province of the North) to absorb those titles de jure, crusades would be ruined. Even if we reworked the crusade CB (for the umpteenth time) to take something smaller than a kingdom (e.g., a targeted coastal duchy and each duchy adjacent to the target), creating the Kingdom of Jerusalem under those circumstances would require us to roll back our abolition of the creation of titular kingdoms, which we aren't willing to do. (Your own supposed lack of problems with using titular kingdoms in your "tweaks" has not convinced us.)

(shrugs) Well, it was just a suggestion. Changing the crusade CB also would fix the problem of crusades for the gigantic Kingdom of Andalusia, though...

 

[Gwyn ap Nud]

Related issue, shouldn't the Caliphate's de jure capital be Baghdad?

tbh, during the in-game period, the capital was more often Samarra than Baghdad.

 

[theKing1988]

tbh, during the in-game period, the capital was more often Samarra than Baghdad.

Speaking of which, we might just look at dictating capital changes for the Caliphate capital in the title history file. The Caliph is only scripted to hold Baghdad in late game starts for this very reason, so the Capital often ends up in Anbar instead of Samarra

 

[Gwyn ap Nud]

I'd agree with that, it's somewhere down my list of eventual changes to make myself.