I hope the new mercenaries include some based in Flanders. Flemish mercenaries were highly prized by English, French and German Kings of the period.
Crusader Kings II: The Republic - Developer Diary 2: War and Trade
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Which is pretty much historical. The sultanate of Rum was run by a cadet branch of the Seljuks
Also I must second overland trade routes. Worst case they could have a number of provinces preset with them to represent the Silk and Amber roads and the land route between the Hanseatic league the Lombard league/Italy/Venice, which also existed and involved fairly large fairs around Champagne, Lorraine and Swabia (the rhenish cities of the Hanseatic League existed for a reason)
I can tell we're going to get into a Manzikert debate now, lol.
It might help if we buff the Seljuks with the Silk Road, but turn them also against the Fatamids by making Shia a Sunni heresy. Now, this is slightly historical; Sunni and Shia did not view each other like Orthodox and Catholic. They usually considered themselves to both be Christian until the Fourth Crusade debacle and the Massacre of the Latins and such. However, the Sunni and Shia hated each other as heretics.
By making Shia a heresy, making the majority of Egyptian territories either Miaphysite or Sunni, linking Egypt with Nubia and Assyria via trade, nerfing holdings in Alexandria and Cairo, and introduce the Silk Road, we will have a number of things:
1. The Fatimids will be as historical. They will never attack Nubia or Assyria as they will be their only trade partners and allies. They will be systematically torn apart by the Sunni states in North Africa and the Seljuks. They will face constant rebellions by Sunni or Miaphysite rulers and peasants. They will never catch a break.
2. The Seljuks will progress as historical into Anatolia, possibly forming the Sultanate of Rum.
3. Byzantines may survive as historical. Or not, depending on the actions of the Seljuks. Considering the truces involved and the opportunities, I think Byzantium will progress roughly as historic without having to worry about the Fatamids Invasion of Greece.
4. Nubian and Assyrian survival and perhaps economic dominance. Imagine it; the once doomed nation of Assyria, now a merchant-kingdom, ruling the Red Sea and the Ethiopian trade routes!
It might help if we buff the Seljuks with the Silk Road, but turn them also against the Fatamids by making Shia a Sunni heresy. Now, this is slightly historical; Sunni and Shia did not view each other like Orthodox and Catholic. They usually considered themselves to both be Christian until the Fourth Crusade debacle and the Massacre of the Latins and such. However, the Sunni and Shia hated each other as heretics.
By making Shia a heresy, making the majority of Egyptian territories either Miaphysite or Sunni, linking Egypt with Nubia and Assyria via trade, nerfing holdings in Alexandria and Cairo, and introduce the Silk Road, we will have a number of things:
1. The Fatimids will be as historical. They will never attack Nubia or Assyria as they will be their only trade partners and allies. They will be systematically torn apart by the Sunni states in North Africa and the Seljuks. They will face constant rebellions by Sunni or Miaphysite rulers and peasants. They will never catch a break.
2. The Seljuks will progress as historical into Anatolia, possibly forming the Sultanate of Rum.
3. Byzantines may survive as historical. Or not, depending on the actions of the Seljuks. Considering the truces involved and the opportunities, I think Byzantium will progress roughly as historic without having to worry about the Fatamids Invasion of Greece.
4. Nubian and Assyrian survival and perhaps economic dominance. Imagine it; the once doomed nation of Assyria, now a merchant-kingdom, ruling the Red Sea and the Ethiopian trade routes!
Historical sure, but is it realistic that it happens that often? This is a game of plausibility, not "Hey let us sit back and watch history happen". I don't think I have ever seen the Seljuks collapse more than a couple of times without my own express intervention. Regardless, I think it is important that we identify the real culprit instead of buffing the Seljuks to even more unrealistic heights simply because the Fatimids are that crazy powerful right now.Which is pretty much historical. The sultanate of Rum was run by a cadet branch of the Seljuks
Also I must second overland trade routes. Worst case they could have a number of provinces preset with them to represent the Silk and Amber roads and the land route between the Hanseatic league the Lombard league/Italy/Venice, which also existed and involved fairly large fairs around Champagne, Lorraine and Swabia (the rhenish cities of the Hanseatic League existed for a reason)
The Seljuks always collapse in my games, and have regular civil wars. Often immediately after the conquest of Armenia. Even if they don't they get easily swallowed by the Ilkhanate.
For me they are always a giant stable blob that just gobble up more and more land.
Right now I must admit the Alexiad (I haven't been involved in the Middle East besides opportunistically seizing a rebellious Cyprus and marrying turkish women to my sons ever since) is the start that gives me the most historical results combined with CK2plus; no mega dukes deposing the direct capetians on day 2, the english succession went almost as historical (there's been a hiccup in that the succession war to get rid of Robert Curthose made Normandy independent). The first crusade was victorious, Rum is holding its own (I've only seen Rum form once from a Jihad at a 1066 start; always with Ck2plus) and the Fatimids look really sad with their tiny kingdom of Egypt. Everyone else is mostly doing inconclusive border wars (which is pretty much historical
)Anyway, thinking about Seljuks, what about allowing the Caliphs of all people to set up these trade routes? This buffs the Abbasids, but the Seljuk Sultans aren't that likely to be collecting much of that money unless I'm wrong to assume the Caliph falls under feudal taxes.
And regarding Shia as a sunni heresy, this causes the issue that shia itself also had heresies.
My proposal would be to rewrite the holy war casus belli so that it allows muslim sects to holy war against each other, and that it is disallowed against copts for both mainline muslim sects and vice versa.
Alternately, an extremely gamey way to do it could be to have republics in Masqat and maybe Kerman which could handle indian ocean trade? Oman should become a sultanate around 1150, so it would be a logical vassal along with the imamate inland.
Which is pretty much historical. The sultanate of Rum was run by a cadet branch of the Seljuks
Also I must second overland trade routes. Worst case they could have a number of provinces preset with them to represent the Silk and Amber roads and the land route between the Hanseatic league the Lombard league/Italy/Venice, which also existed and involved fairly large fairs around Champagne, Lorraine and Swabia (the rhenish cities of the Hanseatic League existed for a reason)
Makes sense. As much as you should have to build a port in a province for trade, you could build roads in your province for trade too. All neighbouring provinces would have to have roads to trade with you (or build to trades posts in your provinces). Ports or trade roads in your provinces could be contracted out to foreign powers too. There could be an option to go to war to disrupt a trade route by destroying roads in those provinces, effecting all provinces benefitting from the trade route and maybe motivating princes to secure such routes.
Well. I am not sure if the holy war between Sunni and Shia is possible in vanilla, I cannot remember. I know I activated it in my own mod and it helps a great deal. Fatimids and Seljuk weaken each other and give the Byzantines breathing room. I think maybe the Seljuk's should risk being thrown out by the Persians once in a while too, as right now they just Turkify everything. Personally I am not very concerned with historic results, but rather having a realistic situation down there.Right now I must admit the Alexiad (I haven't been involved in the Middle East besides opportunistically seizing a rebellious Cyprus and marrying turkish women to my sons ever since) is the start that gives me the most historical results combined with CK2plus; no mega dukes deposing the direct capetians on day 2, the english succession went almost as historical (there's been a hiccup in that the succession war to get rid of Robert Curthose made Normandy independent). The first crusade was victorious, Rum is holding its own (I've only seen Rum form once from a Jihad at a 1066 start; always with Ck2plus) and the Fatimids look really sad with their tiny kingdom of Egypt. Everyone else is mostly doing inconclusive border wars (which is pretty much historical
Anyway, thinking about Seljuks, what about allowing the Caliphs of all people to set up these trade routes? This buffs the Abbasids, but the Seljuk Sultans aren't that likely to be collecting much of that money unless I'm wrong to assume the Caliph falls under feudal taxes.
And regarding Shia as a sunni heresy, this causes the issue that shia itself also had heresies.
My proposal would be to rewrite the holy war casus belli so that it allows muslim sects to holy war against each other, and that it is disallowed against copts for both mainline muslim sects and vice versa.
Alternately, an extremely gamey way to do it could be to have republics in Masqat and maybe Kerman which could handle indian ocean trade? Oman should become a sultanate around 1150, so it would be a logical vassal along with the imamate inland.
Trading posts on land: I want that, or at least the ability to mod it in.
On the Seljuk thing, the Silk Road would be an interesting way to give the Seljuks a fighting chance (they always collapse in my games - I don't want to railroad history either, but I want it to proceed plausibly; in 1066 the Seljuks were big, bad, and powerful, and it makes no sense that they'd collapse in 10 years - 30, perhaps, but not 10 - while the Fatimids, who were in 1066 on the verge of collapse, end up blobbing pretty bad), and also a decent way to introduce trade to non-merchant republics.
Anyhow at the least I want trading posts to be moddable on land, so modders (like me!) can add in the Silk Road, and other land trade routes like the Saharan trade routes.
Speaking of the Sahara, in the lower left corner of this screenshot, is that a new province in Africa, or am I just hallucinating from lack of sleep?
Anyhow at the least I want trading posts to be moddable on land, so modders (like me!
) can add in the Silk Road, and other land trade routes like the Saharan trade routes.Speaking of the Sahara, in the lower left corner of this screenshot, is that a new province in Africa, or am I just hallucinating from lack of sleep?
The modellization of historically accurate situations has been widely discussed. From my experiences in the game, I'd suggest the following changes:
- I've never seen OP Fatimids. In all my games they conquered Nubia and Abyssinia, but lost power then. Egypt was often conquered by Christians from Europa in my games, which was much more unhistorical than strong Fatimids, - although not totally unhistorical (remember the Crusade in Damiette). The Seljuks dont seem to take Anatolia often. But also many players say, Seljuks were already strong enough. Therefore, I'd suggest as changes in the middle East:
- Represent the Baqt by allowing Holy War in eastern Africa targetting only counties and not duchies.
- Create a faction in the Byzantine Empire at game start, which would perhaps lead to a civil war, allowing the Seljuks take over Anatolia in more times.
Regarding Spain, I'd see the same problem of OP Holy Wars Casus Bellis. In history, Christian and muslim countries werent that hostile against each other as you would guess from the game. For example the kingdom of Pamplona married into the Ummayyad family of Cordoba. Therefore, I'd prefer to have Holy Wars targetting only countries in in Spain before 1200. To prevent HRE and France from blobbing into North Africa you could use a similar model for this region. This would also represent the great geographical distance between HRE/France and North Africa as well as the difficulty to maintain control about these lands because of Nomadic tribes, who arent represented in the game yet, which in one reason for the HRE or France easily taking North Africa in nearly every game. Although I think, the HRE could be also prevented from blobbing by using a distance relationship penalty, especially for Italy (or something else to represent the opposition of both the North and Italian city states and the cflict between the Emperor and the Pope).
- I've never seen OP Fatimids. In all my games they conquered Nubia and Abyssinia, but lost power then. Egypt was often conquered by Christians from Europa in my games, which was much more unhistorical than strong Fatimids, - although not totally unhistorical (remember the Crusade in Damiette). The Seljuks dont seem to take Anatolia often. But also many players say, Seljuks were already strong enough. Therefore, I'd suggest as changes in the middle East:
- Represent the Baqt by allowing Holy War in eastern Africa targetting only counties and not duchies.
- Create a faction in the Byzantine Empire at game start, which would perhaps lead to a civil war, allowing the Seljuks take over Anatolia in more times.
Regarding Spain, I'd see the same problem of OP Holy Wars Casus Bellis. In history, Christian and muslim countries werent that hostile against each other as you would guess from the game. For example the kingdom of Pamplona married into the Ummayyad family of Cordoba. Therefore, I'd prefer to have Holy Wars targetting only countries in in Spain before 1200. To prevent HRE and France from blobbing into North Africa you could use a similar model for this region. This would also represent the great geographical distance between HRE/France and North Africa as well as the difficulty to maintain control about these lands because of Nomadic tribes, who arent represented in the game yet, which in one reason for the HRE or France easily taking North Africa in nearly every game. Although I think, the HRE could be also prevented from blobbing by using a distance relationship penalty, especially for Italy (or something else to represent the opposition of both the North and Italian city states and the cflict between the Emperor and the Pope).
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That doesn't solve the problem where half of Nubia is de jure claims of the emir of Aswan. And Nubia is otherwise just one duchy (there are six or seven duchies in the territory covered by Nubia and Ethiopia)
The trade post system seems promising.
Yeah, what is up with this? Why is Ragusa in the wrong location and with the wrong name? The city was not called Dubrovnik in 1066. In a medieval game the only correct name of the city is Ragusa.
Yeah, what is up with this? Why is Ragusa in the wrong location and with the wrong name? The city was not called Dubrovnik in 1066. In a medieval game the only correct name of the city is Ragusa.
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On the Fatimids, while I was making my mod I implemented a simialr solution to the Fatimids, by limiting Muslims' abilities to holy war on east Africa. Even that didn't solve the issue, as Nubia is part of the de jure Kingdom of Egypt, and the Muslims end up going on county conquests anyways. I had to do multiple, multiple changes to fix the Fatimids, because frankly the Fatimids have several bonuses at the 1066 start, bonuses of which, if taken advantaged of, ensure they can stay powerful through much of the game (btw this was taken from another thread):
1. The Fatimid Caliph owns a large number of counties at the beginning of the game, and he can also easily make a few duchies, too. He ends up giving the counties and duchies to his vassals and courtiers...
2. Vassals and courtiers of which already like him, because of his decent traits and stats. So now they love him more and never bother to rebel or launch faction wars (unlike with the Seljuks).
3. They control the Mamluks. They basically get a free uber-powerful holy order-mercenary group that's several thousand in number at minimum.
4. They can quickly holy war Nubia and Ethiopia, as well as their non-Shia neighbors, earning more piety - not that they weren't gaining a lot of piety in the first place, anyways. And then they use this piety to holy war more people and go on invasions and Jihads.
5. They own some of the wealthiest cities in CKII's world, including Alexandria and Cairo. So they roll in cash. Which they use to build more soldier-producing buildings.
6. With increased piety and cash at hand, they can also easily lower decadence, reducing the chance of dissatisfaction by vassals (not that it would have mattered much, given (1) and (2)).
Frankly though, holy war and conquests is unbalanced on both sides, both Christian and Muslim - just not at once, which would be ideal.
