Getting the Byzantines more right: some suggestions.
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Did an Emperor ever successfully remove a strategos from office during the CK2 period?
I mean, particularly for the medieval Roman Empire, there was often a rather significant gap between what the Emperor theoretically had a right to do, and what he could accomplish in practice.
It he could easly recall them unless they were quite far. right now I waiting on my book history of society and State of Byzantine. So I will tell you a bit. another interesting fact person can be declare emperor but they still need to get crown.
I know this never happened in reality (for more than a few months at least), but is it possible to create a way for the churches to "Combine" or heal their scars and the emperor to become pope?
-something like invading Italy and taking the chair of Saint Peter for your self. Becoming Emperor of East & West getting claims on "Holy" "Roman" Empire?
-something like invading Italy and taking the chair of Saint Peter for your self. Becoming Emperor of East & West getting claims on "Holy" "Roman" Empire?
Why not split up the system of de jure empires in 2 or more parts ?
an christian part , where the kingdoms should be aproved by the pope, and an muslim part where there should be no approval from anyone ?
this might be hard to put in , but would change the whole mechanic in a good way, de jure the entire old byzantine land would become byzantine again.
While the muslims could have there own de jure system, influencing there way of expantion.
these two systems should exist independently from eachother,
but would need 1 more adaptation : if you don't own any land of the title you own the title should graduatly dissapear, like after 3 or 2 generations or so
an christian part , where the kingdoms should be aproved by the pope, and an muslim part where there should be no approval from anyone ?
this might be hard to put in , but would change the whole mechanic in a good way, de jure the entire old byzantine land would become byzantine again.
While the muslims could have there own de jure system, influencing there way of expantion.
these two systems should exist independently from eachother,
but would need 1 more adaptation : if you don't own any land of the title you own the title should graduatly dissapear, like after 3 or 2 generations or so
I missed this, earlier. Sorry about that! Its a good question.
The answer depends on which particular historical interpretation of the 11th-12th century Byzantine system we want to model it on. Some of the models I know of suggest that everything should be more centralized, and that the doux titles should be effectively temporary appointments reverting back to the emperor on the death or retirement of a Dynast. Other models suggest a more effective and lasting landed set of dynasts, so the basic CK system works fine for those models. Its an open question, as far as I know, though I am a little out of date on the discussion of this particular issue.
For practical making CK II work right purposes, I would suggest going with the permanent dynasts model, but maybe cutting the penalties for removal of offices a bit for the Byzantines. The best fix I can think of would be to remove (or at least lessen) the negative penalties for exiling traitors when crown authority is high. I wouldn't want to do that with the current system, but if a working coup system was in place then you would need something in place to punish failed coups.
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I don't think generals being elected is really the right way to go. There is already a working system for giving people command of sections of an army. That system could use some elaboration, but the basics are already there. Two things that could be added would be 1. to make battles spawn "do you want to quit the field early" events if you have a low opinion of the Emperor.(this is part of what happened at Manzikert) and 2. to have some way in which a general could have a chance of keeping the troops under him at the moment he decides to raise his flag in rebellion. That said, I am not sure how hard it would be to do either and I am not sure that the change to gameplay would be worth much effort.
I was under impression that Byzantine nobles were mere appointed officials when they governed different lands of the empire. They could have no hereditary claims on anything and could be easily replaced by emperor after their term expired. I guess that was closer to classical Roman system than to European feudal system. In this case CK II model doesn't reflect Byzantine system at all. But I'm no expert and can be very wrong about it.
It's also possible it was true in another time frame, not XI century...
It's also possible it was true in another time frame, not XI century...
You right my friend but nobility did own huge amount land it was private proprieties in we would see it today. Dux or strageos he did not own land himself the soldier did because give them retirement package, but solider promise to take pay cut and there children will take up there profession. So allowed them settle new conquer land easier, they bare conscript from population, and the army alot cheaper to maintain.
The latter is really the key. This gets at a basic debate in Byzantine studies: How much does the Byzantine Empire change? And what does the rise of important families in the 10th and 11th centuries who serve as generals for generations mean?The schools of thought range from highlighting a never changing Byzantine Empire that has the same systems for centuries and would look a good deal more like Rome, while the other side sees the 11th century as a takeover of the empire by a fundamentally new system of military aristos. My understanding is that both of these extremes have been discredited, but that the general balance of the argument is in favor of models that allow the Byzantines to change their systems with the times.
What is certain is that there is an increase of the importance of military families, and that these military families seem to be holding land at least on a temporary basis. Take the literary sources, if I remember correctly, the epic Digenes Akrites talks about the great general of the Doukas family having a castle that Digenes steals his wife from. Kekaumenos talks about how a noble should retreat to his strong-points when civil war breaks out and secure his family so they cannot be used as hostages. The 11th-15th centuries are politically dominated by a relatively small cadre of surnames military aristocrats. You can find almost every last name of note for the rest of the Byzantine Empire in the pages of the Alexiad. This all suggests that the CK model is close enough to provide a decent simulation.
Now, the ownership of land was certainly not as hereditary as it was in the west, hence my support for the suggestion that the penalties for taking land back be lessened for the Byzantine Emperor as opposed to the German one. (Edit: this would be a big change, but one fix would be to have a law set concerning the nature of land ownership ranging from the crown is loaning the land to a general to absolute land ownership by nobles. This would allow aristocrats to push for less and less imperial authority over their land and emperors to push for more centralized land ownership.)
Anyhow, the main point to take from my ramble here is that Byzantium did change, and that if you find a model of how it worked in a book or anywhere else you need to be careful to see what primary sources it's argument is based on before you trust it. There is no such thing as an acceptable survey of the entirety of the Byzantine Empire, (something to do with a thousand years being difficult to write in one book) so if the text you are reading is talking about Byzantium as if it is a single unchanging entity, then that is a pretty big warning sign.
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Why not having fewer feudals vassals, but standing armies that could be raised like the varangian guard? You would have to be careful as to not have their generals rebel just like mercenaries can do, and these generals could attempt to usurp the empire if the emperor is in a weak position. Those generals would have to belong to powerful families such as the doukas, the komnenos,etc...I think the best system would be having these general chosen by the emperor from a restricted pool of characters (He could not just choose some random commoner, or otherwise face huge negative modifiers).
It should be possible to select new Governors by using the Investiture mechanics already ingame. and force the Byzantine vassals to use "catholic_bishopric" as succession, that would enable you to choose the next governor of that region.
Sadly that would only work if you're Orthodox or Catholic unless you're going to edit all religions to allow investiture.
You could also add a law that has "set_allow_free_revokation = yes" in order to revoke titles without penalty though I would prefere not to use "set_allow_free_revokation" since I think it could be interesting if the other governors were unhappy and naturally worried about you revoking titles.
And of course use Eranam's idea of using mercenaries as the main army, perhaps make the armies permanently raised as a standing armies. (maybe decrease and increase the amount of armies available as the nation changes in size.)
Sadly that would only work if you're Orthodox or Catholic unless you're going to edit all religions to allow investiture.
You could also add a law that has "set_allow_free_revokation = yes" in order to revoke titles without penalty though I would prefere not to use "set_allow_free_revokation" since I think it could be interesting if the other governors were unhappy and naturally worried about you revoking titles.
And of course use Eranam's idea of using mercenaries as the main army, perhaps make the armies permanently raised as a standing armies. (maybe decrease and increase the amount of armies available as the nation changes in size.)
The Emperor should also have options other than "banish" or "execute." The Byzantines were more civilized than that, and what typically happened was was "blinding" or "monastary," which didn't cause as much backlash from vassles. Then there could be the "plot to release from monastary," which would create scenerios similar to the 4th Crusade.
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier, im in a bit of a hurry here.
I think the civil war event/plots should start when/if the Byzantines lose lands.
I think the civil war event/plots should start when/if the Byzantines lose lands.
I am not sure blinding is more civilized, really. But your suggestion is accurate.
Getting the fourth crusade to have a chance of happening is another matter. I think it would require a redo of the entire crusade mechanic for it to come out right. It would also require a completely revamped Venice and probably a revamped naval model. It might also require a banking system.
The NYT had an interesting (albiet polemical regarding modern issues) editorial on the banking aspect of the fourth crusade just last week: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/bankers-at-the-gates.html?_r=2&hp