Choosing Siege/Raid targets & (Besieging churches?)

[Brent_P]

This has been mentioned once before. I like this idea and have an addition to it that makes more sense to me.

When besieging holdings, why not be allowed to choose which holding you are sieging?

In addition, and this is my main request: Why not be allowed to choose the holding being looted. After all, it is unlikely that my Viking raiders would prefer to loot the poor and well protected barony when the bishopric is rich and not so well defended?

Also, how historically accurate is it for bishoprics to be involved in wars between two nations of the same faith. If the faiths are different than it might be understandable. If both attacker and defender are catholic than the church probably would not be involved?

Depending on the religions involved in the war, the bishoprics should still contribute their levies, but should act more like religious mercenaries and refuse to fight those of the same faith. And, bishoprics should not be available targets for siege warfare if the religions are the same or perhaps even the same religion group.

Of course, it might be more realistic if all catholic bishoprics had the pope as their liege and were not able to be owned by a secular liege. The problem is that this was more or less true depending where you look in Europe and would drastically alter the system for church taxes; also, this changed throughout history. So, it might be better for the game if control of the vassal of the bishopric holding went to whoever owned the main holding.

1. Consider allowing the player to choose the holding to siege
2. Allowing the player to choose the holding to loot (perhaps more plausible)
3. Treat church levies like religious mercenaries in that they will not fight enemies of the same religion
3. Change the siege rules of bishoprics:
A. Cannot lay siege to bishoprics of same faith.
B. Bishoprics liege is determined by whoever controls the main holding (if main holder is not of same faith, than the liege becomes the head of religion.

 

[DeathBurst]

Why not continue the old thread you mentioned and create a new one? Anyway...

Regarding 4.B (you made a typo, btw), I disagree. In the current system, unless something strange happened, the direct liege of the bishopric is already the owner of the main holding, so your first half-rule changes nothing. And the second half is downright unfair. For instance, I am a small independent duke-tier Muslim in south of Spain. Now, if I use a De Jure Cassus Belli to vassalize a neighboring county, the Pope automatically win a free baron-tier vassal? And if I want to really control the holdings in the lands that constitute my realm, I have to declare war to the Pope itself? Why should I? And for that matter, why the Pope should bother with a small barony a few thousand kilometers away from Rome?

4.A, why not, I have no strong feelings on the matter.

1 and 2 were already suggested in the old thread. 3 is interesting and deserves to be discussed. Personally, I think it's a bit complicated for a rather small benefit, so I don't think the change is worth the trouble. Basically, it just means that your levies in the new system are ~70% of your levies in the current system (if you are against a same-religion opponent), but it's true for the other side of the war, too. So it's just the old situation scaled down, but it doesn't really change the dynamics. Mercenary will become slightly stronger, but that's all.

 

[Brent_P]

Why not continue the old thread you mentioned and create a new one? Anyway...

Regarding 4.B (you made a typo, btw), I disagree. In the current system, unless something strange happened, the direct liege of the bishopric is already the owner of the main holding, so your first half-rule changes nothing. And the second half is downright unfair. For instance, I am a small independent duke-tier Muslim in south of Spain. Now, if I use a De Jure Cassus Belli to vassalize a neighboring county, the Pope automatically win a free baron-tier vassal? And if I want to really control the holdings in the lands that constitute my realm, I have to declare war to the Pope itself? Why should I? And for that matter, why the Pope should bother with a small barony a few thousand kilometers away from Rome?

4.A, why not, I have no strong feelings on the matter.

1 and 2 were already suggested in the old thread. 3 is interesting and deserves to be discussed. Personally, I think it's a bit complicated for a rather small benefit, so I don't think the change is worth the trouble. Basically, it just means that your levies in the new system are ~70% of your levies in the current system (if you are against a same-religion opponent), but it's true for the other side of the war, too. So it's just the old situation scaled down, but it doesn't really change the dynamics. Mercenary will become slightly stronger, but that's all.

I probably should have took the time to find the old thread and continue it. But, I would have made a new thread with some of the other suggestions.

It was not a typo. A and B are the two possible suggestions to as a part of 3.

The scenario you created for a Muslim country having problems taking a barony is quite true. It is not possible in the current game to make this work.

What would have happened is that the catholic bishop would convert, run for his life or be physically replaced by the Muslim ruler. I revise my suggestion based on this. I think it would be better if the different-religion-group bishop would be replaced automatically by one of your own religion. This way you can take the holding, not have the ahistorical problem of an enemy-faith bishop keeping his post, and everybody wins.

3 would be interesting if the game had a good way to separate levies from the bishopric. It would make interfaith wars smaller in size while keeping the holy war armies larger and the mercenaries would matter more in interfaith wars. I think this is more realistic and would change the importance of church laws. If a player was going for holy wars than high church levy laws would be important (the negative opinion penalty would need to be removed). I think that in place of the opinion penalty there would a balance of taxes. Higher church levy laws would increase levy sizes and give a slight tax penalty.