Abbasid and Umayyad blobs vs. weak North Africa - What went wrong with CK2 Islam?

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elvain

Africa & MidEast cartographer
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Jan 20, 2004
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Recently there has been number of threads (from the latest this or this but also many more) where people criticize that Cristian princes or Merchant republics way too often and way too soon keep conquering North Africa, hold the region and turn it Catholic... and at the same time that the muslim empires such as Abbasids and Umayyads in the early bookmarks are way too powerfull.

There were few general suggestions how this could be fixed:
- add more sea provinces between North Africa and Europe to prevent the expansion
- add more conditions for overseas Holy wars (such as higher piety cost or technology requirements - military organization or shipbuilding)
- overhaul the map in few aspects 1) make it actually look like somebody gave it some effort, and not just copied that extremely neglected map from CK2, which not only does not describe the actual medieval North Africa, but is awfull to be looked at.. 2) divide those unrealistic and extremely large coastal duchies
3) add more depth to those provinces to increase strength of North African states and give them chance to fight back when an invasion happens (as it historicaly did).
- change the succession laws of muslim states

At the current state of the game and these are probably almost the only and most effective changes possible /since we can't expect any deep change of the inside game mechanics.

However, do we really know what causes muslims to be overpowered and ahistoricaly weak at the same time?
Let's compare what we know about history and how does CK2 represent it, so we can see where is the problem:

1) The map represents the muslim world so poorly that you can hardly imagine it being worse. Majority of the provinces does not reflect real distribution of population and power in Africa, Middle East and Central Asia. Some areas are heavily overpowered while others are terribly underrepresented. And above all the provinces's shapes simply convince you that there was minimal or zero effort into make it look not only historically accurate, but even basic esthetics was neglected (the terrible cubic or rectangular shapes).

And now some data
- The game does not have population, but the general agreement is that the holdings and provinces are there to represent somehow the population and power of the region. So let's compare estimated population in some parts of the map with number of provinces and holdings in those provinces to see which of them and how over- or under-powered they are compared to each other.

Population /historical estimates:
Maghreb - estimated population 5 million in early 11th century, after 1055 steep decline then stagnation with slow rise in some areas, in other slow decline to some 3,8 millions in 1500
Egypt - in 8th century some 3 millions, around 1000AD - some 5 millions and then decline to cca 4 millions
Syria+Palestine - some 3-4 millions+0,5 in Palestine in 8th century*, some 1,5-2,7+0,5 around 1000AD and 4+0,5 in circa the late 12th century

all these may be underestimated, because they count with relatively low city populations, which might add some additional 1/2m to each Egypt and Syria and some 300K to Maghreb

Iberia is said to have circa 7 millions in the 9th century, around 9 millions in 1000AD, some 8 millions in later 11th century and then to decrease to 6 in 1300 and then rise to 8,5 in 1500
For France estimates are cca 7 millions in 850, 9 millions around 1000AD, 16 millions in mid 13th century to 18+ just before the Black death.
Italy had roughly some 3,5-4 millions in 9th century, 5-5,8 millions in 1000AD and peaked around 12.5 millions before the Black death.

Comparison: historical population per holding and/or province:
Then compare it with number of holdings (either maximal potential and in certain bookmarks) :
- France has 276 potential holdings, 178 of them built in 867 - that is some 65K per potential holding in max and 39K in 867. 310/120K per province
- Italy has 236 potential holdings, 167 of them built in 867 - that is some 53K per potential holding, 21K in 867. Per province it's 240/67K.
- Iberia has 260 potential holdings 195 built in 867 - that is 34K per potential holding and 35K in 867. 147/115K per province
- North Africa: 146 potential, 119 in 867. That is 34K per potential and cca 33K in 867. 147/117K per province
- Syria+Palestine*: 177 potential and 127 in 867. That is 28K per potential and 31K in 867. 113/90K per province
- Syria itself: 101 potential and 72 holdings in 867, in 24 provinces. That is 44K per potential and 45K in 867. 187/137K per province.
- Egypt: 77 potential and 58 holdings in 867, in 18 provinces. That is 71K per potential 68K in 867. 305/222K per province.

* let's take these 2 together - despite Syria had about 80% of their shared population, in CK2 Palestine has almost as many holdings as Syria. That is of course because if they were realistic, the Crusader KoJ would have no chance of survival.
In brief: looking at some of CK2 regions in both Europe and Middle East and sorting them from the most overpowered to the least overpowered in terms of manpower, this is what we get for 867:
Palestine (by far the most OP) > Italy > Bohemia > North Iberia > Maghreb > Greece+Bulgaria > France > South Iberia > Iraq > Syria > Egypt > Anatolia

Then how comes that we have the rulers of the least OP regions Anatolia, Syria+Iraq, Egypt and South Iberia being the ones doing the biggest blobbing, while relatively ok Maghreb is being overrun by relatively ok France? (OTOH, this analysis nicely explain why Italy -which is furthemore much larger - can overrun Maghreb so easily)

2) We will get closer to the answer if we look little deeper under the surface and check the structure of Maghreb.
- in CK2 vanilla, every single duchy is coastal, and except one of them all can be accessed from Mediterrean coast, which is crucial for possible Catholic Holy wars.
- then if we look at the coastal provinces, we can see that 38% of Maghrebi provinces have access to Mediterrean sea (if we count also Atlantic coast, we get 52%), but they hold almost half of all holdings in 867 and 2/5 of all potential holdings. That means losing these coastal provinces means very large hit in manpower.
- as said, none of the 7 duchies is inland and they're quite large - losing one duchy then in fact means losing 1/7 of region's provinces and power (in fact it is more since the Moroccan provinces are extremely weak in 867 start).

Does this correspond with medieval reality of Maghreb?
Partialy yes. Many of the big cities were on the coast. But until 1060's, only one of the many local capitals was a coastal city (Fatimid Mahdia), and even later only 2-3 dynasties rezided on the coast. Vast majority of local capitals was inland. Why? Because the political and military power lied there. Even the richest merchant cities of the time were not from Alger, Oran or Tunis, but from Sijilmasa, Marrakech, Fes, Tahert, Tilimsan or Kairouan.

Economic, military and political power of medieval Maghreb was not on the coast, easily accessible to Christian raiders, but inland. Thus, when Christians took a city, which they sometimes did, it was no big harm to the political, and military power of Maghrebi dynasties.
Therefore if the map is refrawn to reflect this and to put the main centers of power into "protected" inland, the chance of Maghrebi dynasties to fight back Catholic invasion would be much higher and more accurate.

There is something similar in Egypt. In general it is among the most underrated regions, but in fact, Egypt is and always was 2 countries in 1 - the Delta and the narrow stripe around the Nile, which was extremely populous and rich, but with not much military power, and the sparsely populated desert outskirts with oases and nomad population, which sometimes provided military power. The same applies to Syria, Iraq and in fact the entire Middle East. The provinces in fertile land should be relatively small and extremely denesely populated with holdings. Around them there should be tribal provinces with only a few, but militarily powerfull holdings, and then the desert. But for instance in Maghreb, the inhabited desert (or semi-desert) area covered with provinces should be much deeper than it is now.

This step, however, would not solve our problem with the Levant, Egypt or Spain as centers of muslim blobbing. For that we need to take a look at the structure of political and military power of Islamic dynasties compared to feudal Catholic Europeans.

3) military power and population in islamic world.

Despite Andalusia was the most populous part of Islamic west, the military power of the region lied elswhere - it was the Berber dynasties from relatively sparsely populated Maghreb, who were the major military force in the region. Why is that?
Because in muslim world, the military power was far less dependent on population and often the less a region was developed and populous, the more it was martialy powerfull. That is why the feudal system used for CK2 muslims fails so badly and paradoxingly the regions which are the most overpowered in their population are the weakest, while the ones which seem to be most disadvantaged are in fact the most powerfull.

To find explanation, we need to understand the nature of military power of various muslim states. The Umayyads of Spain, Abbasids of Iraq and Fatimids of Egypt used their economic power only to get financial revenue. They did never raised their army from local population, but instead used standing armies - slave soldiers, which could be represented either as mercenaries or retinues.
In CK2 some of them do so (to compensate their land being de facto so heavily underrated), and their military power is based on mercenaries (Mamluks of Egypt, Ghilman of Iraq/Persia) That would be ok, if these armies were not supported by quite massive vasal and demesne levies.
OTOH the dynasties like Almoravids, Almohads, early Fatimids, Idrisids, the Hilalian Arabs (in CK2 Riyahdids and Suleimids) were tribal states whose military was based on tribal army and who never really became feudal, and also never used even the muslim fief system (iqta). Their military powerbase were relatively sparsey populated semi-desert or mountainious tribal areas, where large percentage of population was martialy skilled.

So in order to represent muslim military power in CK2, the Iqta government should be reworked so that it:
- does heavily favour vasal taxes over vasal levies (in fact the balanced taxes/levies should be the last possible with no possibility to turn it in favour ov levies).
- the tax income should be generaly reduced for muslims or the mercenaries/slave armies should not be vasalized (and thus very cheap). IMHO a combination of both tax reduction and increased proce of vasalized mercenaries might be the most ballanced option. Note that Byzantine military system was in this respect much closer to muslims than to Western feudalism.

Also tribal government of desert cultures (Bedouin, Berber) should be reworked so that
- it provides remarkably higher military power from relatively small number of tribal settlements
- this kind of military power, however should be limited to TRIBAL settlements and only in some terrains, namely deserts and arid mountains.
- the feudalization of these desert tribes should last longer and should not be as desired as it is now
- this kind of militery power should be available only to some cultures. If the Catholic feudal Europeans rule over the desert, it should be militarily and economicaly worthless.

So in brief, to the initial list of suggested changes, and desperately necessary map overhaul of the region, I would add 2 more suggestions:
- improve tribalism of certain cultures so they would better represent the real military power of muslim tribes
- edit iqta government so it provides less vasal military levies, but instead gives the ruler more money.. and give muslims few more mercenary bands to hire.
 
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I agree. To be fair the game was fairly euro-centric from release but given the amount of changes that have occurred since then I find it baffling that regions such as North Africa and the Near-East haven't had the overhaul they deserve. But like your previous "Qabila" thread the Islamic world along with say the Eastern Romans and certain other unique polities (Old Swiss Confederacy, Taifa of Cordoba circa. 1031AD = "Inland Republics") really need to have some game-mechanic revamps to better reflect their political power-structures. As to how the developers can achieve this without undermining or overpowering the polities in question, I honestly do not know. I feel like some other members of the community however that creating such changes (albeit experimental) is a worthy investment; or at the very least - removing the hard-coding from government types so that the gaming/modding community can engage in their own experimentation.
 
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I've found that just locking holy wars behind the start of the crusade/renewed jihad event and flag works wonder, instead i gave early religions without a previous conquest cb a religious reconquest cb where they may take provinces of their religion group from lords who are not part of the religion group, one province at a time.

That makes the Christians a lot more likely to try a reconquista rather than new conquests (before the pope legitimize the concept of the just war that is). I also combine it with a malus the muslim ability to convert other monotheists (which is in turn balanced by them being good at converting pagans).

Still not a good nerf to analusia though. I tried increasing decadence and then have holy sites have a chance to fire an event which reduce it again seeing how the abbassids have three of those while the ummayyad only have two. But it's still not working.
 
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Excellent analysis with clear potential solutions. I would really love if the devs would try to implement more special types of government for different cultures or areas. Seeing the problems in North Africa your suggestions would go a long way in solving them and making the experience to play in that area more interesting! ( I am very partial since I'm Tunisian )
 
To be fair the game was fairly euro-centric from release
I just don't think this is a negative thing. After all, most players are interested in playing Europe. After all many of us are concerned about crippled islam mainly because it causes crippled behaviour towards Europe. And IMHO, that is okay. (by no means I try to assume that you consider the euro-centrism any way negative or positive, just felt the need to comment on that :))

but given the amount of changes that have occurred since then I find it baffling that regions such as North Africa and the Near-East haven't had the overhaul they deserve. But like your previous "Qabila" thread the Islamic world along with say the Eastern Romans and certain other unique polities (Old Swiss Confederacy, Taifa of Cordoba circa. 1031AD = "Inland Republics") really need to have some game-mechanic revamps to better reflect their political power-structures.
Also with this I indeed agree. The problem is that at the current stage, we can't expect much. Especially since it has been made clear that the ideas outlined in my Qabila suggestions thread won't make it in. Thus our suggestions to make the game better in this aspect must be some small adjustments of already existing mechanics which are already in - something what could be part of a free patch (and thus not a heavy change).

As to how the developers can achieve this without undermining or overpowering the polities in question, I honestly do not know. I feel like some other members of the community however that creating such changes (albeit experimental) is a worthy investment; or at the very least - removing the hard-coding from government types so that the gaming/modding community can engage in their own experimentation.
Yup, I have suggested this, but it seems that for experimenting we can't expect anything. We must try to do what is currently possible in modding. ATM I'm trying to incorporate some of the ideas suggested above into a mod. Hopefully it will work somehow.
Let's hope that if it ends up as something working, it might inspire the CK2 team to incorporate it into their last patches.
 
Good analysis and it would seem to ring true, clearly African areas are not as powerful as they should be. For example, in the 1060s the Zirid in Africa were an important force in stopping quick success of Norman conquests of Sicily and gave the Muslims an important numerical advantage, but in game the Normans could stomp on the Zirid quite easily. There is no power in Africa in this game and it's disappointing.

Another problem though which you didn't touch on is the presence of heretics in Algiers in 867
 
Good analysis and it would seem to ring true, clearly African areas are not as powerful as they should be. For example, in the 1060s the Zirid in Africa were an important force in stopping quick success of Norman conquests of Sicily and gave the Muslims an important numerical advantage, but in game the Normans could stomp on the Zirid quite easily. There is no power in Africa in this game and it's disappointing.

Another problem though which you didn't touch on is the presence of heretics in Algiers in 867
I do agree that the North Africans should be more powerfull.
But the Zirids in 1060's were a shadow of what they were just a decade earlier. In 1060's they withdrawn most of their possessions and their power was limited to few coastal cities, since the Banu Hillal have flooded the mainland Africa and became the dominant power there.
The power able to stop the Normans of Sicily should be Riyahdids, the in game Banu Hillal.
 
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Another problem though which you didn't touch on is the presence of heretics in Algiers in 867


EDIT: by presence of heretics in Algiers you mean exactly what?
 
I do agree that the North Africans should be more powerfull.
But the Zirids in 1060's were a shadow of what they were just a decade earlier. In 1060's they withdrawn most of their possessions and their power was limited to few coastal cities, since the Banu Hillal have flooded the mainland Africa and became the dominant power there.
The power able to stop the Normans of Sicily should be Riyahdids, the in game Banu Hillal.
All I'm mentioning is what happened historically, after the Zirid pulled out of Sicily the Normans were able to storm it easily, they were an important help to the Muslims in Sicily

(An entirely separate issue with Sicily btw is the Kalbid should be gone by 1066 and them being Shia means no Sunni help in the island which is stupid)

Also in Algiers in 867 there are non-Sunni, the only of their kind in the world so no one helps them in holy wars
 
Also in Algiers in 867 there are non-Sunni, the only of their kind in the world so no one helps them in holy wars
But Rustamids were historicaly Kharijites, which is correct. I'm not going to suggest anyone to cripple things they have corrected (kudos to PDS for that).

All I'm mentioning is what happened historically, after the Zirid pulled out of Sicily the Normans were able to storm it easily, they were an important help to the Muslims in Sicily
They were, but in 1060's they were no longer the power they were even a decade earlier. In 1060's the main power were the Hilalian Arab nomads.

I don't think we should change the things like Sunnis not helping Kharijites or Shiites in their defensive holy wars. I don't think we should make Islam stronger in general. I think we should do our best to balance it by taking historically correct choices. That will improve the gameplay for both the Muslims and Christians (and Pagans).
late 11th century Sicily was doomed, not only because Normans were skilled conquerors. The Sicilian muslims also lost their major ally. In early 1050's the Zirids were able to support them, since late 1050's Zirids were unable to defend their own capital and had to withdraw not only from Sicily, but from inland Africa to the coastal cities.

The new major power of the region, Hilalian Arabs did not care for Sicily and local muslim dynasties. If it happens in CK2 it is correct, not an issue.
 
I don't know if doomed is right but the incorrect setup certainly doesn't help in that respect. I don't think AI should survive in most cases though, you're right. It was just an aside about how the Zirids aren't as powerful as I think they should be
 
Yep, agree about Sicily. Doomed is too strong word. They indeed deserve a chance...

It was just an aside about how the Zirids aren't as powerful as I think they should be
How strong do you think should be a state which just recently suffered a series of heavy defeats, lost most of its territory and had to evacuate its own capital?
I mean the Zirids in 1060's after they were defeated by Hilalian Arabs
 
I think one of the things that would nerf the Umayyads in Iberia (or any other big blobs), is giving any province ruled by a top liege who has a different culture/religion than it. a penalty to the levy size that can be raised from that province.
This would also make culture/religion conversion of provinces more signficant rather than just removing the -weak- revolt chance.
 
I believe one way to deal with large muslim blobs is to severily increase decadence gain. You know, when your father/grandfather/uncle/cousin is the top liege of a large realm, you can give in to your grossest debaucheries without thinking of tomorrow - but that will reflect on said liege, as people talk. A leader of a bumfuck nowhere tribal leader will have much more control over his relatives than the Sultan of Persia!

TheDungen said increasing it didn't really work, but what if it was heavily increased? Like, +2.5% a month, at least? Even so, with bigger realms, your family members could have a penalty to accept the 'straighten up', as they don't care much about consequences to the dynasty - all that matters is today!
 
The fundamental issue with CK2 right now is that large empires = more levies = defeats every opponent unless in civil war. Because the AI frankly sucks in alliances (I never ever think, oh no, France is allied with Castile for instance, now my HRE ambitions are gone, because that alliance never exists). This means defeating blobs works only in the case of Crusades or defensive holy wars, and the latter is highly uncertain because one revolt and a ruler won't join.

What means North Africa being seized by Christians, I have a strong suspicion that the last 'huge end dlc' will be focusing on Africa. In any case this is the only real solution, there has to be a hinterland to join when a common threat (read: when a Christian ruler invades North Africa) arises, and for the said ruler, as a deterrent.
 
The problem with tribes is that they have the tendency to feudalise, so any government type relying on them for military power will eventually flop. Would it be possible to modify the iqta government so that a provinces's number of holdings and levy size are inversely proportional?
 
I think one of the things that would nerf the Umayyads in Iberia (or any other big blobs), is giving any province ruled by a top liege who has a different culture/religion than it. a penalty to the levy size that can be raised from that province.
This would also make culture/religion conversion of provinces more signficant rather than just removing the -weak- revolt chance.
This would hurt all major realms, not only muslim ones, which I won't consider a solution to several specificly muslim issues. But on the other hand, the problem with large and too stable large kingdoms also needs some solution.

I believe one way to deal with large muslim blobs is to severily increase decadence gain. You know, when your father/grandfather/uncle/cousin is the top liege of a large realm, you can give in to your grossest debaucheries without thinking of tomorrow - but that will reflect on said liege, as people talk. A leader of a bumfuck nowhere tribal leader will have much more control over his relatives than the Sultan of Persia!

TheDungen said increasing it didn't really work, but what if it was heavily increased? Like, +2.5% a month, at least? Even so, with bigger realms, your family members could have a penalty to accept the 'straighten up', as they don't care much about consequences to the dynasty - all that matters is today!
It does sound like a really good solution. The only problem is that we've already been there. Note that Decadence is there since the first CK2 DLC and it has been tweaked like bazzilion times. It used to be drastically higher, but it only made any AI muslims insanely unstable. They have been tweaking the value of decadence for years, but since decadence is too primitive (with no depth) and with simple gamey solutions for the player, it can never effectively work for the player and the AI at the same time.

The problem with tribes is that they have the tendency to feudalise, so any government type relying on them for military power will eventually flop. Would it be possible to modify the iqta government so that a provinces's number of holdings and levy size are inversely proportional?
Yup, the problem of tribals is that they only aim to feudalize. You can't have a working government whose only goal is to get rid of itself. It needs to have its own goals and tools how it could be improved.
That's why I think the tribes should be overhauled so they could exist and have goals without feudalizing.

As for the Iqta - I am almost sure that for modders this would be impossible. As of the devs, who knows?
 
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