Dying in battle is something that happens far too often in this patch.
Catholicism is too weak in the 769 start
- Thread starter MrFish291
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Dying in battle is something that happens far too often in this patch.
Charlie doesn't always die in battle, though. Before he has a chance to form the HRE, sometimes he just gets sick and dies, sometimes he gets straight-up murdered, sometimes he ends up getting imprisoned and dies in the dungeon, sometimes he finds new and irritating ways to fail. And none of this is just something that happens with the new patch; this sort of thing has gone on every since the release of Charlemagne.
Three things need to be done.
1) Those Dukes need to lose their Hate of Charlie
2) Charly and Karloman both need to start already crowned, even if by a lowly bishop.
3) Pope needs to be way less excommunication-happy.
Most games that I've played, the Catholics in 769 usually end up in a bad place, but it doesn't always happen that way. In my current game, I'm restoring the Persian Empire and it's about 65 years into the game. Catholicism has been upper-80s/low-90s moral authority for most of the game. Karl failed miserably and the Karlings aren't the major family in Western Europe. Ragnar Lodbrok converted and most of Sweden, Finland, and about half of Norway converted as well, along with Saxony. Germanic is down to Denmark and southern Norway. The Umayyads are fairly strong, but Asturias has managed to hold out and even make some gains. The ERE actually held off the Bulgarians and consolidated control of Greece. The Abbasids are broken, and there promises to be a long struggle between the Christians and the restored Persia. The wildcard is, of course, the Khazars who are absolutely enormous, even with harsh enclave rules.
I haven't played as a Catholic in a long time, but I haven't often seen a complete collapse of AI Catholic powers in my early start games.
It's true that Catholics are way less powerful and often don't succeed in expanding eastwards as much as they did in RL, but I don't see that as much of a problem. Having a degree of unpredictibility and deviating timelines is part of the fun of CK2.
It's true that Catholics are way less powerful and often don't succeed in expanding eastwards as much as they did in RL, but I don't see that as much of a problem. Having a degree of unpredictibility and deviating timelines is part of the fun of CK2.
iRL Charlie did his best to unify the western realm. And when it comes to Ck2 chances are high that Charlie dies too early or the player intentionally torns his realm apart so that he could become a king. I think it's acceptable. Divided kingdoms in 769 barely survives many herecy uprisings and muslim invasions. The player must do better than Charlie if he wants to protect and unify his realm.
The problem isn't about players playing Charlie. When I play Charlie, France is always fine. It's when I play other Rulers that Charlie tanks, and tanks hard. It's AI Charlie who needs the help.
Catholism is definitely fine, more or less.
I see most problems in Muslim Empires. They can conquer a lot, they actually profit from the conquered before they convert and unless they are defeated quite a few times they will be as stable and hard as before.
Decadance doesn't really hit them, moral authority is usually high (as it was normally), rebellions are quite rare... they are just stable and expansive. They can conquer France and never get an urge to break down, which is simply absurd given a number of their kids with polygamy...
Catholicism behaves well. It can win, it can lose, it is rarely stable. But when Umayyads grow, they fall under very rare circumstances. Just like Africa and Arabian Empire.
In my game Tengri Mongols got Arabian Empire. And well, nothing changed. Mecca burnt, but Sunni get 100 authority, no Shia, no effects on other 2 empires. They don't even focus on Tengri but attack Anatolia instead.
The case with Muslims simply being way more stable and more capable at offense as a result makes Catholics look weaker... even though they are arguably good.
I see most problems in Muslim Empires. They can conquer a lot, they actually profit from the conquered before they convert and unless they are defeated quite a few times they will be as stable and hard as before.
Decadance doesn't really hit them, moral authority is usually high (as it was normally), rebellions are quite rare... they are just stable and expansive. They can conquer France and never get an urge to break down, which is simply absurd given a number of their kids with polygamy...
Catholicism behaves well. It can win, it can lose, it is rarely stable. But when Umayyads grow, they fall under very rare circumstances. Just like Africa and Arabian Empire.
In my game Tengri Mongols got Arabian Empire. And well, nothing changed. Mecca burnt, but Sunni get 100 authority, no Shia, no effects on other 2 empires. They don't even focus on Tengri but attack Anatolia instead.
The case with Muslims simply being way more stable and more capable at offense as a result makes Catholics look weaker... even though they are arguably good.
Gavelkind mixed with Charlemagne not forming the Empire of Francia is a major problem that the Catholic world faces. In the our real world; Ummuyad Spain collapsed with internal struggles that allowed Asturias/(Leon), to fight back a divided empire. Something that happens in most all of my games though, is that Hispania is formed, but Francia doesn't. The only time I've actually seen Christians beat the Muslims in Europe, is when my player is personally fighting the invasions.
The Umayyads collapsed in the 11th century though, a little less than 300 years after the charlemagne start date. you shouldn't solve the perceived ahistorical weakness of francia by destabilizing what was historically the longest ruling muslim dynasty of the middle ages. And it wasn't a slow decline where the Spanish Kingdoms finally beat the Cordoban Caliphs. They collapsed over a period of 30 years and simply disintegrated for a variety of very complex reasons that can't be easily replayed in this game, Slavic slave armies and Berber/Arab armies competing for influence in court and politically, and blah, my point is The Umayyads survived more than a century longer than the Carolingian empire, it's not ahistorical that there is a strong power in Iberia, the reasons they didn't expand just aren't reflected in game reasons. Muslims have great CB's and no reason not to conquer Europe in game, so they simply do.
Which means they are too stable.
Or rather, the fact that they get all of France only makes them stronger and does not create unrest/instability potential. Same goes for others.
I think you've touched on a bigger problem than the current topic, where size doesn't inherently create more instability in these feudal age realms, and certainly, the bigger an empire got the more unwieldy it was. As different as the Muslim world was from the Feudal European world size of the empire did plat a major role in the disintegration of the great Caliphates.
The game doesn't reflect that bigger should be less stable, at least not very well. but I don't think this is in scope of the thread. My point is really that a stable muslim empire in the south shouldn't be to blame for the poor performance of Karl. There should be a very likely possibility that Spain stays strong and stable under Muslim Stewardship. If fixes are to be made, I don't think the region should be made weaker or less stable as historically it just wasn't the case for another couple centuries.
The Ummuyads are very likely to take over a weak Christian kingdom in France; over a superpower like the HRE of the Empire of Francia; (I switched to my French liege, as an experiment, killing Caroloman I, and made him form the Empire of Francia), now even with Gavelkind; the empire won't collapse as soon as someone dies. The Ummuyads were huge in their prime; however, they lost to Pelagius when he founded Asturias. (Actually if you compare the height of the Ummuyad Caliphate in the real world to the 769, it's quite embarrassing that they lost so much land).
The most that happens when you expand an empire too rapidly is the number of defensive pacts that form against you, but even that gets circumvented with powerful vassals (primarily with the HWCB) and before you know it, half of Europe is under one banner.
I'd float the idea that stability could be tied to de jure territory, though there are moments where you have a county or duchy staying under one empire while the rest of the kingdom sits under another.
Like I said, the Umayyads have very powerful muslim CB's and no reason not to use them, that is a problem, but making them unstable is just answering a perceived ahistorical problem with an ahistorical solution, The Umayyads were very stable for centuries. Pelagius did strike an important victory for himself but the Muslims never completely conquered the extreme north in the first place and after his victory at Covadonga he only secured his independence in the poorest region never really governed by Al-Andalus, it had only been a decade since they landed in the peninsula. In the Muslim world, taxable population, cities, and trade dues made money. And if you mean compare to the height of the caliphate you might be interested in how the umayyads came to Spain, the whole dynasty was actually overthrown, in almost every other context of world history they should have ended right there and then, but one man Abd al-Rahman was quick and clever enough to get to Spain before Abbasid emissaries and was able to install himself as Emir even while the rest of his family was hunted down and killed. It's a remarkable survival success story really.
I don't even play with defensive pacts because none of the real world empires of this time had to deal with anything like it, there was never in any form a pact to contain the mongols on both sides of the empire, there was never a pact to hold back the crusaders or seljuks or ghaznavids or vikings even, kingdoms fell one by one and only personal bonds of alliance were ever fulfilled, sometimes neighbors would ask their imeediate neighbors to join together but it was almost always lacklustre and half-baked. So, the one solution Paradox has taken to try and slow the game down seems to me not just an ahistorical one but anti-historical even.
I agree that de jure/de facto lands should have some impact on stability but it's not an easy solution Pdx could just implement, that's asking for a whole expansion, which would be great, but I think you'd need more specifics if you wanted to inspire Pdx in the suggestions forum
Unstable can be different.
For instance, Muslims convert way too good the conquered territories. Even though it is not the real case, during centuries of their rule Christianity wasn't a minority in most places. Another thing is that Christian nobles convert quite soon as well. I can see mostly Sunni France in 200 years in a game, with most vassals being Sunni along with lands.
The problem here is that they can convert well. It should not really be the case as "infidel tax" was exactly a trade off for it and in many places, including Middle East, conventions took a long time.
This drives us to another thing - Muslims were powerful and dynasties were stable, but ruling over big chunks of infidel land made them weaker and imposed limits at which Empire could not sustain itself well - in exchange for wealth and stability.
This kind of instability should be exactly a limiting factor for Umayyads and Africa, both historical and quite realistic. Arabs are less affected by it, but Shia events and Mongols are there and kinda work, maybe if should be tweaked a bit.in case of Arabs we do expect them to be a powerful force within our historic estimations.
A well- discussed topic, both before and after HF.
It´s a delicate problem. Even more so now, after HF. I have still seen Catholicism collapasing into oblivion before year 780. I have also seen Umayyad in the same situation, where Iberia is carpet of independent Catholic counts and dukes, all of them provincial revolts of different types.
The middleway, a Status que or slow Catholic reconqueista, seems very rare.
so.. What can be done?
Well. A list of small things to pick from
1. Improve Charlies diploskill slightly or maybe give a friendly vassal with a high diploskill to give him the ability to handle his vassals.
2. rescript to Charlemagne historical events to not take the decision to invade Saxony when having high threat.
3. Make Charlies main focus after uniting Karling realms be defence and creation of HRE/ Francia.
4. Let the game start with a countymodifier to provinces bordering Catholic and Umayyad(both sides) that lowers enemy supply. And give these provinces the first level of fortifications instead of a free stable.
5. Let Karloman´s primary title be a titular kingdom, that is also deleted when Karloman is murdered in the event. Inheriting this title does not only make Charles far over demesme - limit but also makes the de-jure vassals of the secondary kingdom(s) hate him.
6. Talking about demesne level... Let´s have some more ducal vassaltitles clreated at start..? I find myself spening all my gold on creating vassaltitles to keep under demesne- limit.
7. A cheap merc that´s available exclusively to Charlie during his wars? "Carolinguan Guard"? He wont be able to steamroll the map anyway because of peaces and/or threat%.
....
It´s a delicate problem. Even more so now, after HF. I have still seen Catholicism collapasing into oblivion before year 780. I have also seen Umayyad in the same situation, where Iberia is carpet of independent Catholic counts and dukes, all of them provincial revolts of different types.
The middleway, a Status que or slow Catholic reconqueista, seems very rare.
so.. What can be done?
Well. A list of small things to pick from
1. Improve Charlies diploskill slightly or maybe give a friendly vassal with a high diploskill to give him the ability to handle his vassals.
2. rescript to Charlemagne historical events to not take the decision to invade Saxony when having high threat.
3. Make Charlies main focus after uniting Karling realms be defence and creation of HRE/ Francia.
4. Let the game start with a countymodifier to provinces bordering Catholic and Umayyad(both sides) that lowers enemy supply. And give these provinces the first level of fortifications instead of a free stable.
5. Let Karloman´s primary title be a titular kingdom, that is also deleted when Karloman is murdered in the event. Inheriting this title does not only make Charles far over demesme - limit but also makes the de-jure vassals of the secondary kingdom(s) hate him.
6. Talking about demesne level... Let´s have some more ducal vassaltitles clreated at start..? I find myself spening all my gold on creating vassaltitles to keep under demesne- limit.
7. A cheap merc that´s available exclusively to Charlie during his wars? "Carolinguan Guard"? He wont be able to steamroll the map anyway because of peaces and/or threat%.
....
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A well- discussed topic, both before and after HF.
It´s a delicate problem. Even more so now, after HF. I have still seen Catholicism collapasing into oblivion before year 780. I have also seen Umayyad in the same situation, where Iberia is carpet of independent Catholic counts and dukes, all of them provincial revolts of different types.
The middleway, a Status que or slow Catholic reconqueista, seems very rare.
so.. What can be done?
Well. A list of small things to pick from
1. Improve Charlies diploskill slightly or maybe give a friendly vassal with a high diploskill to give him the ability to handle his vassals.
2. rescript to Charlemagne historical events to not take the decision to invade Saxony when having high threat.
3. Make Charlies main focus after uniting Karling realms be defence and creation of HRE/ Francia.
4. Let the game start with a countymodifier to provinces bordering Catholic and Umayyad(both sides) that lowers enemy supply. And give these provinces the first level of fortifications instead of a free stable.
5. Let Karloman´s primary title be a titular kingdom, that is also deleted when Karloman is murdered in the event. Inheriting this title does not only make Charles far over demesme - limit but also makes the de-jure vassals of the secondary kingdom(s) hate him.
6. Talking about demesne level... Let´s have some more ducal vassaltitles clreated at start..? I find myself spening all my gold on creating vassaltitles to keep under demesne- limit.
7. A cheap merc that´s available exclusively to Charlie during his wars? "Carolinguan Guard"? He wont be able to steamroll the map anyway because of peaces and/or threat%.
....
If this mercenary group were to be implemented it would have to have at max 1000 soldiers.
First let me state that I agree Charlie deserves some personal character buffing in future patches and maybe some events attached to conditions in game that do that for him or his family...
Having said that, I think the majority of the complaints otherwise in this thread are strictly personal preferences rooted in bias of what a player *wants* (hopes) occurs based on characters/cultures they prefer playing with and a ton of hindsight being 20/20 vision in a historical sense.
Personally, I feel Catholicism is rather overpowered in historical terms especially at the 769 start date but I totally agree with it being so based on the limitations of the game until a CK3 is ever produced which I also hope is a long way off and the developers keep making this an even better game with DLC and patches for a long time to come. Catholicism holds more than 300 counties in 769 start! Without barons having more world influence in the game I don't think you could properly model the precarious position the church was in at that time either really. Anyone need only look at the same prominent families who were instrumental in the Holy Land crusades also taking it on the chin in many ways during the Albigensian Crusades for an example of this dynamic.
I've run a ton of play throughs and spectator sims from 769 and Catholicism is all over the proverbial map in what occurs with it from that point on and I think that's the way it should be. Sometimes it gets obliterated due to external, or internal, and sometimes both, reasons. Sometimes it obliterates everyone else. And sometimes it even bounces up and down the moral authority meter like my daughters juggling a soccer ball on the trampoline.
CK2 in its essence is a game of "what ifs" and I think the 769 start date encapsulates that as well as anyone could ever hope based on the game dynamics as they are and better than any of the other available start dates... but I also recognize my feelings are possibly based on my own personal biases in playing preference as well.
Having said that, I think the majority of the complaints otherwise in this thread are strictly personal preferences rooted in bias of what a player *wants* (hopes) occurs based on characters/cultures they prefer playing with and a ton of hindsight being 20/20 vision in a historical sense.
Personally, I feel Catholicism is rather overpowered in historical terms especially at the 769 start date but I totally agree with it being so based on the limitations of the game until a CK3 is ever produced which I also hope is a long way off and the developers keep making this an even better game with DLC and patches for a long time to come. Catholicism holds more than 300 counties in 769 start! Without barons having more world influence in the game I don't think you could properly model the precarious position the church was in at that time either really. Anyone need only look at the same prominent families who were instrumental in the Holy Land crusades also taking it on the chin in many ways during the Albigensian Crusades for an example of this dynamic.
I've run a ton of play throughs and spectator sims from 769 and Catholicism is all over the proverbial map in what occurs with it from that point on and I think that's the way it should be. Sometimes it gets obliterated due to external, or internal, and sometimes both, reasons. Sometimes it obliterates everyone else. And sometimes it even bounces up and down the moral authority meter like my daughters juggling a soccer ball on the trampoline.
CK2 in its essence is a game of "what ifs" and I think the 769 start date encapsulates that as well as anyone could ever hope based on the game dynamics as they are and better than any of the other available start dates... but I also recognize my feelings are possibly based on my own personal biases in playing preference as well.
Moral Authority needs a serious rework in general. It causes collapses far, far too easily.