How can I NOT get trampled by the fatimids when playing as Axum
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They would have lost anyway. It's not like Spartans were able to do anything besides pike walls (Xenophon laments it in the Anabasis, Epaminondas exploited it at Leuctra, even a bunch of athenian peltasts was enough to route the Spartans at Lechaeum, and it took Persian money and arms for Sparta to gain dominance in Greece).
Also if it wasn't for the free revokes for muslim overlords on christian lords I'd almost say Nubia would make more sense as a fatimid vassal what with the Baqt looking a lot like a feudal arrangement.
Becoming vassals to the Roman Empire is the best way I've found. Then it's just a matter of unifying Abyssinia before the Fatimids can try it and building up your forces until you're powerful enough to snatch Egypt out of their hands and collapse their Sultanate.
or what about 50% chance of +0.25 morale defense, 50% chance they all get dessert afterwards.
TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!
On the Fatimid issue, anyhow:
For some reason the Fatimids have a lot of good bonuses at the beginning of the game that just make them way too powerful without some modding (and even with modding). Basically:
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 provinces 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)).
Among a few other things I don't remember. So basically, the Fatimids are a big happy family rolling in gold, piety, and great units.
I've heard in some places that the only non-player AI that can stop the Mongols and the Aztecs unscathed... is the Fatimids (or their decadence revolt successors).
Personally I've made a mod which introduces some hefty measures to reduce the Fatimids' power, and even with that they still manage to remain relatively strong. I just don't understand it. It's like they're superpowered human-robot-aliens or something.
true story but i ally with the king of abyssinia as his vassal and then usurp the throne from within. but i try to also make sure that i wait till fati starts geting hostile so i can declare an independence war against abyssinia a nd ruin his plans
I can say from personal experience that I know that the AI Fatimids can stop both the Mongols and the Aztecs... both at the same time from two different sides.
this is what I've done...
1- keep good diplomatic relations with the caliph. PAY him.
2- avoid any sort of holy war. forge claims, use ducal claims and such;
3- did i say PAY him a lot of gold already?
4- have friends in high places
1- keep good diplomatic relations with the caliph. PAY him.
2- avoid any sort of holy war. forge claims, use ducal claims and such;
3- did i say PAY him a lot of gold already?
4- have friends in high places
Which is pretty silly, as at the beginning of the game the Fatimid caliphate should be on its last legs and more or less start with a massive rebellion of its turkish mercenaries that lasted from sometime in the 1060s to 1072 (certainly before the beginning date, as it was around a decade). So basically it should start the game broke, with a good mercenary troop, and about to implode. Sadly it seems like SoI was more concerned about a weird representation of the Almohad house of Osman
Similarly, the story files just hand over the syrian governors to the Seljuks in 1077 without actually having a rebellion in the files, when they should be rebelling (and that rebellion partly facilitated the crusades).
Well, the Fatimids are the the most powerful Islamic realm in the game and honestly I think that shouldn't change. The Muslims are weak enough as it is already (at least in my games they usually are. Even if they conquer Spain, then France and the HRE just conquer it back. The Mongols always conquer most of Arabia and Africa, after the ERE has normally already conquered Syria and so on.
Sure at is hard to survive with Axum, but every artificial limit for the Fatimids would suck, too.
Sure at is hard to survive with Axum, but every artificial limit for the Fatimids would suck, too.
If we want a powerful muslim realm, there's Seljuk Iran and to a lesser extent Almoravid Morocco; these were the powerful muslim states in 1066. Gibbons heaped ridiculous amounts of praise on Alp Arslan's son (greatest prince of his age). Egypt was anything but powerful in 1066, it was wracked with rebellions and heresies after a century of misrule and they were just about starting to think about fixing it.
But based on the terrain, the phalanx was basically all they needed to do. Remember, the Persians had a huge number of soldiers. Which means they needed to give water and food to a huge number of men. If the pass had been held for even a few more days, the Persians would probably have needed to retreat just for logistic reasons.
Well, the Seljuk broke down quickly as well, while the "new" Egypt could actually defend itself against the Mongols. It is somewhat hard to emulate the volatile nature of the Orient compared to the more stable and better rooted Christian realms in Europe. The whole "de jure" concept can hardly apply to the Islamic Realms in the first place, I guess.