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elvain

Africa & MidEast cartographer
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Jan 20, 2004
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This a submod for my mapmod Ibn Battuta's Legacy, but will do a deeper changes in history, culture and other aspects of game in order to keep Ibn Battuta's Legacy more compatible for those who only want the map changed.


Download: Steam workshop link
The main goals of this (sub)mod are:
1) Weaken super-strong Egypt (especially the Fatimids) and prevent its ever-happening and virtually unstoppable expansion southwards into Nubia and Ethiopia/Abyssinia as well as into Arabian mainland.
2) Prevent successfull holy wars of catholic powers like France and Aquitaine into North Africa, mainly by improving these regions' inland provinces, technologies and perhaps also other tools.
3) offer little more historical setup also to other regions (in first phase especially Middle East and Africa as well as Central Europe, later and to lesser extent also other)

Features:
- added sunni vasals to Fatimids
- Egyptian Western desert is made Bedouin/Berber (depending on start date). Its rulers are tribal tributaries of Cairo-based monarchies, so the resources of Fatimids/Tulunids are more limited
- improved wealth and technology of North African (Maghrebi) inland provinces/duchies in order to make those more prone to Catholic holy wars, especially before 867
- Christian provinces in the Maghreb replaced by Muslim provinces in 867 to A) reflect historical reality better, B) give local rulers better chance to raise stronger armies against Christian holy wars.
- Added some more cultures mainly to North Africa to propperly represent the various Berber tribes
- Edited military capacities of muslim states, mainly in order to increase the power of desert tribes and weaken sedentary dynasties, especially in Egypt

The goals of this mod are NOT:
1) making perfectly accurate historical setup. The main goal is to improve gameplay experience, especially in the regions primarily targeted in Ibn Battuta's legacy mapmod (Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Central Europe). This mod will NOT add all historical characters or cultures, neither it is here to fix all vanilla little inaccuracies (that certain character should have a trait which he doesn't have, or should die/born 3 months earlier/later than he does).
If there are some major inaccuracies which should be fixed with regards to more historicaly plausible results in game, don't hesitate to post your suggestions. But please keep in mind, if the request would be done in a demanding way and will smell of a historicall-accuracy-nazism, I will not take it into account.

IMPORTANT:
As it is submod of Ibn Battuta's legacy map mod (steam) it is necessary to edit the IBWA.mod.mod file so its crucial lines are like this:
Code:
name="Improved Islam-Ibn Battutah's World"
archive="mod/ibwa.zip"
dependencies={"Ibn Battuta's Legacy(+) map improvement for CK"}
The dependencies line has to be edited manualy.
 
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here are some screenshots:

Egypt improvements:
Banu 'Awf in Western desert as Fatimid tributaries, instead of this land being directly under Fatimid prince ruling from Alexandria
Jiy6Wbt.png


Ildekuzid Nubian-slaves ruling in the Upper Egypt
kVoIvSw.png


Western Oases turned into tribal lands
PnZMkCV.png


Here is 867 setup - direct vasals in Egypt and surrounding countries:
v8s9Mtb.png


I also made West Africa little more intersting than having duchy of Ghana covering most of region's provinces and the rest having as vasals.
Some minors are Ghana's vasals, some are tributaries, some are now independent.
And instead of Idrisid blob in the north and in the desert, there are now Berber tribes who predecessed the creation of Almoravid confederation.

DK8vokZ.png
 
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To weaken the Fatimids you should also look into nerfing the Mamluks, they're insanely strong imo. Also maybe add events for them to rebel and seize power.
 
To weaken the Fatimids you should also look into nerfing the Mamluks, they're insanely strong imo. Also maybe add events for them to rebel and seize power.
I'll take a look at this too, but first I want to check how much are the Mamluks used in those wars. From my current tests many of the initial wars were done by way too powerfull Fatimid vasals.
Doing those events would be a good way, actually, this is something I'd love to see in the game itself (see my suggestion). The other possibility is to set the crown laws in Egypt to a way that the Mamluks will be as powerfull as they are, but Egypt will have much weaker levies (that would in fact be more historical to make muslim rulers more dependent on mercenary bands rather than feudal levies.

Funny part about this suggestion is that it was almost simultaneously posted in both this mod and the base mod :D
 
I can't remember which mod it was, but there at least used to be one which gave the 1066 fatimids 75% decadence to sort of weaken them a bit. I can't honestly tell you if it worked or not but it might be worth experimenting with.
 
I can't remember which mod it was, but there at least used to be one which gave the 1066 fatimids 75% decadence to sort of weaken them a bit. I can't honestly tell you if it worked or not but it might be worth experimenting with.
That is indeed a part of solution.
 
so I have tried how the Mamluks influence the Egypt-Nubia situation and ended up doing an actual play playthrough (instead of usual observe games) and it looks interesting. One of a very few games where the Christians not only managed to hold back the Muslims in East Africa, but also strike back. Here is my Nubia just after the reconquista of Aydhab duchy from Fatimids (a massive crusade for Jerusalem and Fatimid-Seljuk war did help me indeed). Now I wonder how long will I be able to hold back against them. Thankfully the ally in Abyssinia has managed to push muslims out of de jure Adal.
AFiCihJ.png


Anyway playing here as Nubia only makes me more convinced about the need for corridor into the Chad Lake area in Central Africa.

Anyway, one more lesson learned. Something really has to be done about the tribal Arabs in Nejd. They stand no chance :(
 
Are those Christian Seljuks?
yes, during the game the sultan has converted

-----------------------------------------

okay, it seems now that the Maghreb has been done. Despita day1 Holy Wars from Aquitaine and later Italian Holy wars, it seems that the Maghrebi monarchies are able to defend themselves and if some land is conquered, swiftly strike back.

The problem with Egypt remains, however. It seems like the Maluks will have to be somehow weakened either way, there seems to be no other chance.

-----------------------------------

So, now Banu Hilal was added as yet another tribal tributaries of Tulunids in 867 and after some improvements of Nubian castles, the Nubians now stand little more chance against egyptian expansion...at least for the first 20 years.
Still something more needs to be done, most probably it will be about Mamluks.

With more news I will come later.
 
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after running several tests here are some of them uploaded.
I must admit that the goal is still far from being achieved.
The East African Christians still fail to keep a fighting chance against Fatimids (but sometimes also the Somali or Arabian muslims). They are able to survive first few holy wars, both against the Tulunids and Fatimids. But once the AI gets over the initial restrictions/limitations of its power during the first 50 years, it then gradually eats East Africa.
As for the Fatimids, there is only one thing I can think about to slowing them down:
Most of their vasals were set to be sunni, but they still tend to convert to shia quite to fastly. Perhaps I could try to prevent this somehow (which would be historicaly ok) or I thought about making Hashimids in Hijaz Fatimid tributaries instead of vasals. That would, if nothing else, prevent Fatimid holy wars against sunni tribal Bedouins in mainland Arabia and effectively make Egypt 8 provinces weaker (4 provinces in Hijaz + 4 in Nejd, which they usualy take rather briefly), which is substantial difference.

The second biggest problem is that despite adding more holdings to Maghreb, the local muslims still fail to regain their land if Christians take it. They do the holy wars, but fail to win them. Perhaps because they don't cooperate.
 
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Any plans to merge with HIP?
There might be a possibility of the map (of which this is a submod) could replace vanilla map in non-SWMH version of HIP, but only after it is finnished, not before.
Such a possibility about this submod hasn't been discussed yet. Once it is finnished we could talk about it, but for now there is no such plan.
 
There's a "bug" in the game where flags are mixed up. If you look at the Duchy of Socotora flag for example (in-game). the flag of Switzerland shows up.
This is most likely due to there missing a curly bracket or two.
That being said, the Duchy of Luxembourg also shows up twice in the landed titles file.

Hope it helps! :D

Edit: This is IBLA+ I'm talking about btw
 
Man, at least some sort of ghulam mechanic for HIP would be awesome. Are you still going on with this?
 
There's a "bug" in the game where flags are mixed up. If you look at the Duchy of Socotora flag for example (in-game). the flag of Switzerland shows up.
This is most likely due to there missing a curly bracket or two.
That being said, the Duchy of Luxembourg also shows up twice in the landed titles file.

Hope it helps! :D

Edit: This is IBLA+ I'm talking about btw
thanks.
I believe that this belongs to the map mod thread Ibn Battuta's Legacy, right? I'm sorry, the names might be little confusing :/
anyway, your post is answered there.

Man, at least some sort of ghulam mechanic for HIP would be awesome. Are you still going on with this?
Well, it would be nice if something more in that regard could be done.
Frankly I currently don't have much time for modding (changed priorities), so if anyone skilled could work on that it would be nice. As for HIP you need to ask the HIP team. I can't incluence that. I talked about that with Ziji some time ago, but he was quite busy with other stuff he considered much more urgent. No idea how it is now :(
 
Man, at least some sort of ghulam mechanic for HIP would be awesome. Are you still going on with this?
I am working on update of this mod to the current game version.
Still it hasn't reached a level where I would effectively stop 2 major problems:
1) Fatimids and Tulunids almost always inevitably conquer or convert whole East Africa to islam. It has however slowed down, so now it takes them 100-200 years instead of previous 50-100 years.
2) The Umayyads still pretty much always conquer whole Hispania and never break down /they are sometimes replaced by decadence revolt, but they almost never break up. In fact I had more testgames when East Africans managed to survive (like 10-20%), but I can hardly recall any from 867 start with Asturia or other Christians survived 150 or more years into the game.

I have however managed to strenghten the Maghreb so now North African muslims are often able to push back Catholic invasions of their land (The Christians do invade and they do conquer some, often even quite large parts of Maghreb, but most or all of that us often taken back).
One unwanted side effect is that West Africa is little too powerfull. West African pagans often manage to reform and then expand northwards and conquer Maghreb or Libya. Perhaps I should make them more vulnerable, make more trade routes in Maghreb (thus making it little richer and stronger), or strenghten the Maghreb even a little bit. After all it should be Maghreb who expands northwards to Andalusia, not vice versa.
 
I am working on update of this mod to the current game version.
Still it hasn't reached a level where I would effectively stop 2 major problems:
1) Fatimids and Tulunids almost always inevitably conquer or convert whole East Africa to islam. It has however slowed down, so now it takes them 100-200 years instead of previous 50-100 years.

Would it be the case to give Miaphysites denfensive bonuses? Or split the religion and give the bonus to the Copts.
 
Would it be the case to give Miaphysites denfensive bonuses? Or split the religion and give the bonus to the Copts.
Hey! That's an idea :)
small defensive bonus causing attrition - if possible in hilly/mountainous terrain, if not then everywhere. Might also help Armenians to survive.
 
I have released the current version of the mod on Steam Workshop.

I am also considering crucial changes to tribal system of some bedouin cultures.

- Since the tribal cultures still aim to convert to feudal, I am considering one crucial switch which would discourage AI Bedouins and tribal Berbers from converting to feudalism:
I will slichtly change conditions for the final improvements which are necessary tof convertion to feudalism for cultures which normally should remain tribal (-Berbers, Bedouins, Beja).
The last improvement of Hillfort and/or Market town will - in their particular case - require 2 contradictory conditions: Low or Minimal tribal organization (because, frankly, if the tribe is highly organized it won't want to become feudal, since it would make weaken it), and at the same time Highest level of Bedoin tribe building, which, OTOH, requires max Tribal organization.

This way the Berber or Bedouin tribes will only hardly turn into feudalism and would prefer to stay tribal. This kind of states will stay strong as long as they exist in the desert and on its fringes. But once they invade more prosperous lands and move their capital there, they will wither be forced to change their culture, become sedentary and have easier conditions for feudalization, or be doomed because their military force comes only from their desert tribal holdings (which are initially extremely strong, but the more they are developed, the weaker they are compared to other feudal/iqta governments)