First attempt at CKII: Total disaster as Byzantium

[Yenzen]

The ont declaring is always the leader of the faction, no matter is some random count calls in a huge empire to assist them, you will have to deal with that count for peace.

This can sometimes be exploited when a weak faction declares war on you and call in their big brother allies - just blitz the faction declaring and reach about 50% warscore despite losses - at which point they will most likely accept a white peace.

 

[yezhanquan]

Hmm, interesting, the only ally that they were able to call into the conflict was the island of Malta, could it be that when they called in that ally, they became the "leader of the alliance" because they were stronger? That is what sometimes happens in EU Rome. But the other peace options (white peace and surrender) were not greyed out.

Have you seen a breakup of your warscore, i.e. how did the 100% come about? If not a bug, my guess is that you got the 100% from doing everything except fully occupying the counties contested in the war. My general rule of thumb for war is to always get the warscore ticker in your favour. If the enemy wants a prolonged war, he'll lose.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

Have you seen a breakup of your warscore, i.e. how did the 100% come about? If not a bug, my guess is that you got the 100% from doing everything except fully occupying the counties contested in the war. My general rule of time for war is to always get the warscore ticker in your favour. If the enemy wants a prolonged war, he'll lose.

I went to war for Cyreniaca, which consists of 4 provinces I think. I got about 95% by capturing all cities in those provinces (all 4 provinces had the straight diagonal line instead of the dotted diagonal line). Then, when they still would not surrender I started besieging their provinces in Tripolitania (I got 100% war score immediately by taking one more province) they still would not surrender, so then I marched forward and took all of their provinces but one in the far west near Tunisia).

Once they had only 1 province left and I held 7 of theirs, they finally surrendered and gave me the 4 provinces of Cyrenaica, but that was a long time after I had the 100% war score. I went this far as a test to see how long they would resist before surrendering, but this was a long time after I had already lost most of my Empire to the Fatimids.

Ironically, the Fatimids were able to force me to give up all of Greece, Constantinople and the coast of Turkey (about 15 provinces) just by capturing about 3 of mine.

 

[yezhanquan]

Sounds to me that you didn't get the ticker ticking in your favour. Mind letting us know what your CB is ?

 

[Jeltz]

Sounds to me that you didn't get the ticker ticking in your favour. Mind letting us know what your CB is ?

100% is 100% and then the target of the war should be forced to give in to any demand. I have never had any enemy refusing surrender at 100% which is why i wondering if this is not a bug.

 

[yezhanquan]

100% is 100% and then the target of the war should be forced to give in to any demand. I have never had any enemy refusing surrender at 100% which is why i wondering if this is not a bug.

I guess we do need to see that screenshot.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

I am not in front of it right now, i will post the screenshot in about 2 hours.

 

[Ayetach]

It could be because they had a fairly sizable army somewhere laying siege to one of your provinces. I had that same circumstance in my game, I moved against them and defeated them in battle, that changed the war leaders response soon thereafter.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

I did not have a save game at the point where I first got the 100% war score, so I could not get a quick screenshot.

But here is what I think probably happened. For ages I had an 95% war score against the Suleimids, this is because at the point where I had almost totally annihilated them, I noticed that the Fatimids were laying siege to Constantinople, so I had to pull out. I kept trying to sue for peace but I kept seeing that "enforce demands" was greyed out and the answer was "No".

Then when i finally lost to the Fatimids I moved my troops back to Cyrenaica to see how many more territories I needed to capture before they would accept the surrender. It was not that "enforce demands" was greyed out, it is always shaded grey because it is the first option on the list, if you click on the second option "white peace", that becomes greyed out and the "enforce demands" becomes blue. But becasue I am new I thought that the grey color meant that it was unselectable, because it was unselectable earlier when I had a war score of 95%.

Anyway that is what I guess was the problem, i had associated the grey color with unselectable, because it had been unselectable and grey for most of the war.

 

[ASPGolan]

Well, I'm just assuming. Never had any issues myself of that sort (or better said, whenever I thought something was wrong, I found out something new about the game and it made it a little more interesting).

 

[theKing1988]

I personally enjoy recommending the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099. Lots of heathen lands to conquer, little vassals to manage, and you also have two Holy Orders (really, cheap super-powered mercs) to aid you in your quest! And did I mention lots, and lots of heathen lands to conquer, ;P.

But on a serious note, yes, Byzantine Empire as the Doukas is not recommend. If you really wish to play the Romans, I recommend the Alexiad date of 1081, where although you are smaller, are much more stable.

I can recommend that, not that i'm inexperienced or anything, but the past two games i started with the ERE was from that point and the fatimids left me alone for the better part of 30 years and at that point i had already taken all of Western Anatolia all up to Coloneia from Rum and was fully able to repel their attacks. (When you have the Rum at the ropes just break peace with them as quickly as you can sign it .