[2.2.1.3] Abbassids on <1K current army, 76% dec., still +100 with everybody

[NewbieOne]

Look at this. The caliph is a new one, still not out of Short Reign. Not really stellar traits. Still has +100 opinion with everybody. Revolts are winning for obvious reasons, but he has no problems whatsover with his vassals. The decadence hurts the income and troops from his demesne of 3 counties plus one barony (his predecessor played on 1 county, 1 barony and didn't have any problems, wither). Can you imagine that sort of thing? Not even Mauretania on the other side of the world will go for independence, even though just about any random shake could take the caliph out.

There needs to be an opinion malus for decadence or something else that matters. Demesne penalties don't do anything in this case, because the Abbassids don't need a demesne.

For the record, he started the war with 80K troops.

(ALL DLCs apart from SI, SOI and one song pack. No mods playing.)

 

[NewbieOne]

Technically shouldn't be double-posting, but this is just to say that due to their high level of decadence their vassal limit decreased, and the succesor wasn't able to keep some of the king vassals, perhaps lost some emirs too. For some inexplicable reason the(i.e. I'll need to check) Abbassids still have some emirates throughout Africa under them, but nobody on the king tier other than the rump sultan of Egypt (I took most of k_Nubia, and d_Aswan).

For comparison, I tend to be about 3-4 vassals above the limit but never lose them on succesion. So maybe decadence + vassal limit does hit them worse.

And they got their decadence revolt finally (at below 80%), which they probably won't be able to defeat or it will be close. And that's in addition to a bunch of religious and cultural revolts and a new Shi'ia Rising, which the decadence revolt leader will have to deal with if he wins — in addition to the fact that I'll probably be out of truce before he manages to.

So, in the bigger picture this late-coming but quickly occurring downfall is fine, although it's a little bit weird that it would need a succession or two to trigger, and that it took such a long time for anything to happen.

 

[klopkr]

The reason muslims get such high opinions all the time is because they get a nearly free 50+ boost. Sayyid gives a free +10 and both prestiege and piety give +20. Since prestige and piety are easy to get especially for an emperor the caliph pretty much always has +50. They also get a long reign boost so if a muslim ruler can survive for 20 or so years their relations are cemented at +70. A few good traits here and there and they can easily keep their vassals at 100.

If we want muslims to actually work at all pdox needs to nerf the piety and prestige bonus in half. That way they will be roughly equal to all other religions but will gain the bonus slightly quicker because it's split between prestige and piety.

 

[NewbieOne]

I'd like to continue to see the Sayyid bonus in the game, as it makes perfect sense, and the absence or especially removal (as it is) of it would impoverish the game, so yeah, something else has to give. The schools are a nice concept, including the bonus for fellow members of the same school, but at the same time the limited number of schools make sure that you have a nice bonus with a large pool of vassals (though you do lose opinion with some others).

I think part of the problem may lie in overrepresentation. There are simply many opportunities for a bonus but few for a malus. So it's not like the bonuses are necessarily wrong, but the absence of balancing factors is.

One such balancing factor could be distance, another an innate desire for independence, maybe a cultural -20 nerf or something like that, in order to reflect the instability of the orient. Maybe a harsher Short Reign, or a malus for untested rulers, weak rulers, decadent rulers etc. I really don't like the way the Caliph can do so well practically without a demesne, where he probably wouldn't last a year without faction immunity.

Another problem is the ease of vassalizing people within the de iure Arab Empire or even without, including the Umayyads. I suppose the caliph should have a way to get his political rule accepted by his religious adherents. Maybe my game was an outlier, but it somewhat seems too easy to achieve and maintain, the way things are right now.