I agree that the AI should be taught to use forts to counteract attrition. They just can't handle any wars against tribals, especially if they are large with lots of levies.
Catholicism is too weak in the 769 start
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I t may not be as strong as in later dates but I wouldn't say it is "too weak" Speaking as someone who play almost exclusevly 769 starts, I'd say it has a 50/50 chance of success. But that is the charm of this start date. The world can go in any way. If you want assured catholic dominance just play a later date. I do agree that the abbasid blob is way too unbreakable. I never seen it loose any territory, or break.
Do you even history? The Muslims invaded Sicily cause a Byzantine general invited them and only took Syracuse after 40 years of fighting in 874 because Basil(867 Emperor) called off the relief fleet to haul church marble to Constantinople and even then they didn’t take full control of the island till 960. The Emirate was on the verge of defeat multiple times as the Byzantines and southern Lomnbard states launched invasions on them with the one in 1040 led by Byzantine general Maniakes taking half the island back and only failing in 1042 cause he got called back to Constantinople. If the Normans never invade southern Italy Byzantine reconquest of Sicily is guaranteed.
And The Turks only made into Europe cause of the Fourth Crusade which destabilized the entire region and because of the forced migration west By the Mongol Hordes. Your Muslim wank is unsupportable. Your saying likely alternate history and I’m saying it’s highly unlikely cause you ignore the Whole historical Christian reconquest phase of the late 800s and 900s among other things.
Hmm, I remember some people whinging about how "Catholic MA is too stable" before HF came out.
Well this is the result. Catholic MA was stable and that was a good thing because Catholics at least were a challange back then.
Catholics have germanic pagans, muslims and the occasional aztecs to deal with.
Compared to this, Islam has no rival. They have african pagans to the south whom they easily take over, MIaphysites who never survive for long, and their biggest challange is a constantly civilwar-ridden Bízantine Empire and a weak Christendom, who are infighting due to excommunications being a regular thing.
Maybe pagans shouldn't be so friendly towards each other.
Well this is the result. Catholic MA was stable and that was a good thing because Catholics at least were a challange back then.
Catholics have germanic pagans, muslims and the occasional aztecs to deal with.
Compared to this, Islam has no rival. They have african pagans to the south whom they easily take over, MIaphysites who never survive for long, and their biggest challange is a constantly civilwar-ridden Bízantine Empire and a weak Christendom, who are infighting due to excommunications being a regular thing.
Maybe pagans shouldn't be so friendly towards each other.
I did not notice any major weakness on the other hand it felt too powerful for me. Out of 9 runs(I did not affect it in anyway, except one as Asturia): Charlie formed hre twice, Francia once, in two runs even though he did not form, but he insured victory in Hispania(in one of them I helped(used) him). Two runs were rather short, but there saxony there converted rather early. Mb it was just rng
I know you were being facetious but I just finished a book on this era, The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham and it really reminded me of how much I love the post roman history of europe, so i'll take any reccomendations, the bigger and thicker the better.
With mass conversions of pagans, catholics can balance it easier.
And decadence is still there.
And decadence is still there.
Decadence currently doesn't do much. I am currently reseraching if it got borked by a combination of high infant mortality and over-abunance of (defensive) wars to reduce it. Some (muslim) empire-destabilising mechanisms seem to be "out of whack" and not working properly all the time as intended.
Edit: That is to say: As is visible in the thread the mechanisms can fire, but they fail to do so on a predictable/expectable basis.
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maybe ai charlie could be immune to excommunications somehow. i made him friends with the pope with console shenanigans and the motherfucker still got excommunicated for holding land the pope wanted
and chuck just REFUSES to get crowned, too. forming the hre should probably count as a grand coronation ceremony and give you the crowned by pope trait. in the few games i had where he actually managed to form an empire hed almost always get deposed right away immediately because hes excommunicated, uncrowned, cruel and craven, stacking enormous tyranny, and weak as all get out from depleting all his levies
the aquitainian revolt should probably happen via some events rather than making some of the most powerful dukes in west francia mad for no reason and leaving it all to chance. you could have an event for carloman too where he gets to choose to help out or not, to reflect how the two brothers met up to deal with the threat but carloman threw a big fit and went home mad. actually, aquitaine and gascony should probably start out as tributaries to reflect how just barely part of the realm they were and only become part of the realm proper after chuckie slaps them down. maybe after the warscore gets big enough and enough of aquitaine is occupied, hunoald could flee to gascony and lupo would have an event choice between receiving him and continuing the fight or turning him over and surrendering like he did historically
also, maybe give the brother who outlives the other a modifier that makes his vassals + the pope like him more, whether it ends up being chaz or carloman. tie it to the event notification that the other brother has died or something. also, make the modifier include a small health boost as was mentioned earlier in the thread so they stop dying of dysentery before they can do anything cool
realistically though a better solution than all this would be to make the ai less fucking dumb as bricks but i mean programmings really hard so i dont begrudge our hard working swedish overlords at paradox for not being able to convince the ai to be sensible for five minutes
and chuck just REFUSES to get crowned, too. forming the hre should probably count as a grand coronation ceremony and give you the crowned by pope trait. in the few games i had where he actually managed to form an empire hed almost always get deposed right away immediately because hes excommunicated, uncrowned, cruel and craven, stacking enormous tyranny, and weak as all get out from depleting all his levies
the aquitainian revolt should probably happen via some events rather than making some of the most powerful dukes in west francia mad for no reason and leaving it all to chance. you could have an event for carloman too where he gets to choose to help out or not, to reflect how the two brothers met up to deal with the threat but carloman threw a big fit and went home mad. actually, aquitaine and gascony should probably start out as tributaries to reflect how just barely part of the realm they were and only become part of the realm proper after chuckie slaps them down. maybe after the warscore gets big enough and enough of aquitaine is occupied, hunoald could flee to gascony and lupo would have an event choice between receiving him and continuing the fight or turning him over and surrendering like he did historically
also, maybe give the brother who outlives the other a modifier that makes his vassals + the pope like him more, whether it ends up being chaz or carloman. tie it to the event notification that the other brother has died or something. also, make the modifier include a small health boost as was mentioned earlier in the thread so they stop dying of dysentery before they can do anything cool
realistically though a better solution than all this would be to make the ai less fucking dumb as bricks but i mean programmings really hard so i dont begrudge our hard working swedish overlords at paradox for not being able to convince the ai to be sensible for five minutes
I’m not actually, but I understand why you’d say so. I’m a professor of history and, even though this isn’t my specialty*, I realized after I posted that it wasn’t fair to be critical of someone if I didn’t at least make an effort to help edify to the extent that I can.
Right at the moment I’m with my kids—I was just taking a moment when I looked at the forum here—but do you have anything in particular you’re interested in regarding the early medieval period? For example, I love Khazar history, but it is rife with anti-Semitic tripe. This book is good however:
https://www.amazon.com/Jews-Khazari...ie=UTF8&qid=1546123662&sr=8-6&keywords=Khazar
There is another good one, but I can’t recall the name a thing the moment. If you’re interested I will find it for you. For the most part, the rest of the best stuff on the Khazars is in Russian so far as I am aware.
As for other subjects, let me know and if I don’t know anything good I can always ask a colleague. In the meantime, when I get a little free time I will take a look at my library or notes and see what I can recommend.
Btw, how was the Wickham book? It is one I have considered getting myself. The problem is that my ‘to buy’ list is hundreds of books and I just buy them all, so I’m getting choosier as the years go on.
*- my area of professional focus is modern military history and the formation of identities. However, I have studied more broadly than deeply, unlike most academics, so I have ended up with a lot of secondary interests that are conducive to the study of my primary interests.
The problem isn't that Catholicism being too weak in 769. They are weak, but it makes sense historically. The issue is how weak Charlemagne is.
Charlemagne as a character needs to be buffed to reduce vassal revolts. Maybe give him the Quick and/or Strong traits, with better diplomacy. The event to conquer Saxony should also not happen until after Karloman dies - I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen before, and he definitely doesn't have the troops for it at that point. Historically, he invaded Saxony the year after his brother died.
Charlemagne as a character needs to be buffed to reduce vassal revolts. Maybe give him the Quick and/or Strong traits, with better diplomacy. The event to conquer Saxony should also not happen until after Karloman dies - I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen before, and he definitely doesn't have the troops for it at that point. Historically, he invaded Saxony the year after his brother died.
First of all, yes, “I history” very much—professionally actually. Second, I never said anything about counter factual history being “likely. And no, I am not ignoring anything. For every point you make there is a counter point. For example, the Byzantine empire was in a horrid state after Manzikert. It was the Komnenos dynasty that rebuilt the Byzantines into the ‘shield of christendom’. This was well before the fourth crusade my friend and you ignore it. So if you want to get into things like the Emirate being on the verge of defeat multiple times then you have to do the same for Byzantium. But the Emirate of Sicily wasn’t defeated, nor were the Byzantines. The Muslims were in Sicily longer than the United States has existed and this was done with fairly little effort on the part of the Muslims. It was hardly a major push into Italy, regardless of the ‘how’ or ‘why’ they arrived. And it doesn’t strike you as impressive that the Emirate of Sicily—a fairly small political entity separated from the Muslim world and easy access to help—actually took on those same Byzantines and Lombards you mention and survived!?
Listen, you’re cobbling together some facts while making these mediocre assertions and casting aspersions like “Muslim wank”. I have no dog in this fight dude. I am neither Christian nor Muslim, but I suspect you are wildly invested in this emotionally. This makes you highly biased. If you were a student I would ask why and get you to analyze the history. However, you’re not my student and you don’t strike me as someone who wants to learn. So suffice it to say that you can argue counter factual history (you call it alternate history) endlessly, but doing it with someone like yourself is an exercise in ignorance and frustration. You don’t even seem to understand that we are talking about what could conceivably have happened if events had changed (like in the game on whose forum we are on) and not the actual historical timeline. After all, we know how these things would turn out if events remained the same: it is called the past.
Anyway, if someone else would like to try to help you, then I say mazel tov. As for me, I’ve spent as much time on you as I care to spend.
EDIT: I wanted to add one last thing. The extremely rapid, and world changing, Muslim expansion out of Arabia was aided in large part by the Sassanians and Byzantines having torn each other to shreds immediately prior to the Muslim attack. So there are always contextual circumstances.... always.
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In my current run Catholicism seems to do just fine. Eastern Orthodoxy on the other hand got replaced by Iconoclasm except for in like 3 Muslim provinces.
Btw, thanks for posting this. I was trying to say something similar, but I like the way you did it better.
From my own experience with HF so far, I would have said the opposite actually. The expension into scandinavia/balkans is really slow, but the Umayad always end up being reconquista'ed so hard I have to bail them via console, I've seen catholic north africa a few times, Byzantium standing strong till the mongols and lots of successful crusades. Sure those northern adventurer are annoying and a game without an early HRE get a lot of very close call, but so far I've mostly seen catholics being very strong.
as other pointed, it is a matter of RNG and we can end up with lot of varied results. Ain't that the fun of the game?
as other pointed, it is a matter of RNG and we can end up with lot of varied results. Ain't that the fun of the game?
He rarely seems to live long enough to create the HRE in my games. My last two games he died in battle in the 770s. In the few where he does manage to life for a while, he ALWAYS gets hung up on Saxony and peasant revolts. I think they need to give him a special hidden trait that only he can have that lowers revolt risk and raises vassal opinion to keep the revolts down.
I don’t want deread this thread anymore so I’ll just pm you my response,
But anyway I agree with the view that Catholics are weaker then should be but what is the biggest cause? I’ve seen many a game where Sunni goes in the dump with the Catholic because of the Brokeness of the Nomad hordes and the constant temple looted modifier from the constant raiding. I also think Catholics specifically are doing worse though cause Byzantium is the weakest it’s ever been ingame and doesn’t tank the pagans and Muslims like it use to which is because its historical territory being taken from them and the New imperial government is unstable but that one is fair and relatively historical. And of course the Pagans got some real buffs while the Catholic ones are nominal.
There should be some cap to losing authority from raiding. Why should heresy pop out in France, Italy and Germany just because vikings keep raiding Britain? -20 should be absolute maximum of authority lost from raidng. -70 is plain absurd.
If so, that should be only for the AI.
It's as legit as the Pope siding against a Catholic nation with a huge threat rating when they declare a HWCB.
Khazars are great I was particularly interested in North Africa and the early Slavic identities up to and including the middle ages even. but especially their foundations(I know full well both of these areas are lacking in many source materials and aren't going to be like the inheritance of Rome(a massive book trying to take on not just the post roman west but the whole post roman empire up to 1000) but honestly if you just have some books that stand out to you as -good- I'll just take the recommendation, I do not have as it were a long list of suggested books these days.
As for the Inheritance of Rome I would say it's excellent however he sometimes won't go exactly linearly in his time-line, jumping around different emperors in the byzantine frame of 650-900 would have been jarring if I was not already familiar with the emperors and their respective reigns. Besides that little point it was honestly the best book on the dark ages I've read for years. it ties together the world of 500-1000 in a way few books on the time frame do. I would highly recommend as long as you already have a basic idea of the time-line of events.
So as to not be completely offtopic in this forum though I must say a cap on the amount raiding can hurt the MA of the church might be a great and easy fix if not comprehensive to the whole heresy system as it is anyway. But I think most of us have resigned ourselves to waiting for CK3 for a giant heresy rework.