Iberia in 1066 with latest patch

[unmerged(45754)]

Alright, as we all know, the Muslims of southern Iberia were much too powerful in the last patch. They almost always steam rolled right over the Christians in Iberia. However in this new game I'm playing, the exact opposite happened... which is fairly correct to what actually did happen. Only in my opinion the reconquista happened entirely too fast. All of Iberia had fallen to Christians before 1100 or so. Is there anyway to balance out the two patches and make it so that southern Iberia can generally stay Muslim for at least generally a bit longer?

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Unfortunately due to the nature of religious wars, the conflict in Iberia is usually swiftly resolved to either Muslim or Christian victory.

EDIT: And there isn't much that can be done about that. So balancing efforts in Iberia concentrate on having the results vary from game to game, in which we have been quite successful.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

EDIT: And there isn't much that can be done about that. So balancing efforts in Iberia concentrate on having the results vary from game to game, in which we have been quite successful.

What about in 1.06?

 

[unmerged(21937)]

What about in 1.06?

Revamping religious wars sounds more like CK2 than 1.06, but we'll see.

 

[unmerged(30793)]

Varying results is a lot better than having the muslims win everytime. If you can't make a balance (and i presume that it is very hard to do) then this situation is fine.

 

[unmerged(29883)]

Yes, the Iberian situation has taken a surprising new twist since Aug 15th...

Whilst I agree with the logic of giving Castile and Leon claims on each other, and Navarre and Aragon likewise, it does mean that half of the Christian kingdoms are condemned to death within the first 20 years. In fact, I've yet to see a game where all four survive longer than 10 years - not from muslim invasion, but from conquering each other.

The muslim infighting seems to have got a little more rampant in the latest beta as well, or maybe that's just the games that I've seen, but generally what seems to happen is that Iberia is now structured to create three or four interim powers (generally Leon-Castile, Navarre-Aragon, Cordoba-Granada, Badajoz-Sevilla) which then go on to narrow themselves down to, normally, two Iberian superpowers.

Short of dramatic foreign intervention, normally one religious group overwhelms the other due to alliances being called in - and all this normally happens in a very short space of time.

I'm trying to think of anything which could be done as a specific set of Iberia events, but nothing leaps to mind. The wars between ALL the nations there are generally so quick and so decisive that there's not much that you can do. Punishing the victor afterwards by having evil events trigger for non-matching ruler-province religion or culture would help stop superpowers forming, but since the victor would hold both kingdom / realm titles then its unlikely that vassal breakaways would lead to, say, Leon fighting off their Castilian conquerors and putting a new king on the throne. In fact, they'd fight off their Castilian conquerers and then lovingly repledge loyalty to them, which rather defeats the point.

Plus, the muslims wouldn't be as badly affected since they all share the same culture. Grr.

 

[Calantyr]

It's 1090 and there are still Christian nations in Iberia! This is my first game that they have lasted so long.

However there is an Emirate of Cordoba (or similar) that is twice the size of the largest Christian competitor... eep. Better send him some gifts.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

If Johan ever made the peace command force a truce it might help things.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

If Johan ever made the peace command force a truce it might help things.

So we force AI to stay at peace in Iberia? Isn't that kinda deterministic and we definetly can't be forcing players to stay at peace.

 

[Azkor]

Actually In my 3 test games I have run to 1150 or so at this point the results have been as follows:

Game 1: Castile and Aragon go on a conquering spree and by 1090 have most of Iberia, then the crusades get called in 1087 to jerusalam, both Castile and Aragon abandon their Iberian holdings and invade the holy land. By 1110 Castile holds the area around Alexandria and Aragon holds the Sinai, but they dont have anything left in Iberia.

Game 2: Castille falls by 1080, but Aragon takes most of the former Castille lands and holds on to about 50% of Ibera, until I quit in 1140 or so, looked like a stalemate.

Game 3: Castille and Aragon both hold most of the northern half of Iberia by 1100 but the south is held by various other christian nations including a huge swath owned by Genoa, I wasnt paying attention so no idea what happened.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

So we force AI to stay at peace in Iberia? Isn't that kinda deterministic and we definetly can't be forcing players to stay at peace.

Its no more deterministic than starting off with Byzantium at war with Turks or making sure Galacia and Leon both get abosrbed most of the by Castile (if not that only one of the 3 survives).

Its also historic. Often peace would be settled for an exchange of cash instead of land changing hands. Since the inter-religious warfare makes this unlikely now as the AI doesn't like settling peace even with other AIs, let alone humans, this is only a reasonable request.

Of course we can't force players to stay at peace, no more than we can force them to stay at peace when they have a truce in EU2. But they'll pay higher consiquences if they do.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Actually In my 3 test games I have run to 1150 or so at this point the results have been as follows:

Game 1: Castile and Aragon go on a conquering spree and by 1090 have most of Iberia, then the crusades get called in 1087 to jerusalam, both Castile and Aragon abandon their Iberian holdings and invade the holy land. By 1110 Castile holds the area around Alexandria and Aragon holds the Sinai, but they dont have anything left in Iberia.

Game 2: Castille falls by 1080, but Aragon takes most of the former Castille lands and holds on to about 50% of Ibera, until I quit in 1140 or so, looked like a stalemate.

Game 3: Castille and Aragon both hold most of the northern half of Iberia by 1100 but the south is held by various other christian nations including a huge swath owned by Genoa, I wasnt paying attention so no idea what happened.

Excactly my point which people seem to disreguard here. There is no diversity really in what happens with Iberia except who takes its and when. It always falls to catholics and always before the end of the 12th century. Not one game in June 3rd or aug 15th that i've played has this not happened. Sure sometiems they beat back the original iberians, but then someone else comes in and they trample the iberias leaving absolutely nothing in their wake. Not even the histrocially few provinces that should survive. Nor does North Africa get involved as it should, but you can bet Germany, France and England get involved when they shouldn't.

Thus the bottom line is:

By 1200 there is no muslim iberia, no muslim Northwest Africa, little muslim africa, no muslim egypt, pockets of muslims in jeruselum and syria, not only in who owns them, but also the religion, alhough the religious concersions have been tempered down soemwhat, it seems to make no effect on say Catholic Egypt.

 

[Trystorp]

In my latest game as the King of Castille I noted that both the Duke of Galicia and the King of Leon had the misfortune to have me as their successor. The Duke of Galicia met with an unfortunate accident and an assassin, who under torture claimed to have been sent by me, struck the King of Leon. A nice quick way to consolidate much of Northern Iberia at the cost of a Kinslayer attribute. Sancho eventually spent much of the rest of his life excommunicated and continued to send daggers in the night to disloyal vassals!

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Its no more deterministic than starting off with Byzantium at war with Turks or making sure Galacia and Leon both get abosrbed most of the by Castile (if not that only one of the 3 survives).

Historically accurate scenario and events straightjacketing game to history are quite different things. Former is good and most of the time desirable. Latter should be avoided as much as possible.

 

[unmerged(45754)]

Hrm, to some extent I retract my original statement.

My game is currently in about 1140 or so, and Iberia seems very balanced between Muslims and Christians. Originally, the Christians kicked the Muslims completely out of Iberia, very easily. After that though, there was apparently a Muslim reconquista, and a large portion of the penisula is Muslim, and a large portion Christian too. So imo, at least in my game, it's working pretty well.

I haven't seen the Crusaders utterly dominate the middle east, and Byzantium is still alive, and at times actually holds Constantinople!

Genoa seemed to lead a huge Crusade to north Africa and holds probably the most "Muslim" territory in the game. Of course in some ways, I was involved with that as they originally made war on me, the Duchy of Sardinia, and I was allied with the Genoese. I beat back their armies, and then the Genoese mopped up.

 

[Enravota]

Historically accurate scenario and events straightjacketing game to history are quite different things. Former is good and most of the time desirable. Latter should be avoided as much as possible.

the problem is not specificly Iberian, we can see it in the crusades in Middle East and Baltics, we see it in the Mongol invasion - it's the religious wars ("all or nothing" kind not "peace for 0 gold" kind). i think religious wars are the most major prob in CK left.

 

[unmerged(46403)]

the problem is not specificly Iberian, we can see it in the crusades in Middle East and Baltics, we see it in the Mongol invasion - it's the religious wars ("all or nothing" kind not "peace for 0 gold" kind). i think religious wars are the most major prob in CK left.

Well, in the baltic, the crusaders managed a complete genocide in Prussia and forced-converted basically everyone but the Lithuanians in fifty years, so although the drang nach osten does start more than a century early it takes up the correct half-century, roughly. What annoys me is that the Lithuanians get gobbled up earlier than many other tribes, when historically they forged an empire stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea...i think they should be given extra techs, just to represent the fact that they had developed a highly efficient 'art' of war.

 

[unmerged(44072)]

I've only played one game with the latest patch and I'm at 1115 and Iberia is almost entirely Muslim. The Kingdom of Aragon is hanging on in northeast Spain.

Ideally, Christian and Muslim Spain should be fairly balanced at this point. Historically, Castille made some gains in the late 11th century, but Spain remained half-Muslim until the 13th century when the Reconquista began in earnest.

My game is showing a number of behaviors I've never seen before. The Kingdom of the Bolgars has formed and steamrolled over almost all of Russia. The Seljuks swept the Byzantines almost completely out of Anatolia and control quite a bit of Greece as well. Crusades to Jerusalem and Tunis succeeded, but Antiochea is Seljuk and the Crusaders have been unsuccessful thus far.

 

[Damocles]

Uh, guys?

The only reason that the Spanish were able to historically conquer back to Toledo by 1080, was because before 1077, Galicia, Leon and Castille had been united into a single kingdom by death and conquest! I believe if Aragon was brought under the same ruler but can't quite remember.

Later, it broke apart again under the guy's sons who each took a kingdom again. And then the situation remained stagnant until the 13th century. Then the Muslims were pushed back to Granada.

The problem, is CK makes taking provinces incredibly easy. In RL, taking a single province from the Muslims would be an entire, incredibly successful campaign.

The one real amazing incident of such huge tracts of land being conquered was arguably, the First Crusade. And though Bohemund, Raymond and Bouillion did well, (The Prince of Antioch, Count of Toulouse and Duke of Lower Lorraine respectively) a vast number of other armies were annihilated. Such as the flower of chivalry from the Acquitaine and Normandy.

 

[unmerged(29883)]

I don't have an issue with the balance between christians and muslims, its the balance of power between the various Iberian powers that I have an issue with. The infighting invariably leads to consolidation of power and it is often a very swift and easy consolidation. In the more recent patches, the infighting between christians and muslims is far more pronounced, but all that seems to do is slow down the inevitable one-sided victory.

My current game is a classic example of the syndrome I described earlier. Leon conquered Castile, Navarre conquered Aragon. The south is mostly owned by Sevilla, with a few remaining scattered provinces. The Kingdom of Zirid invaded and destroyed Navarre, then Leon kicked them out almost immediately.

If you compare to the original setup, you have Leon-Castile-Navarre-Aragon, plus the currently independent Duchy of Catalonia, which will probably pledge. On the bottom, you have Sevilla-Cordoba-Badajoz and some of the surroundings. Exactly which bits around the edge don't belong I can't recall, and the only barrier between the two is a strip of land owned by Toledo, shortly to fall to Sevilla. With only two powers, who are religious enemies, there can only really be one outcome - a united Iberia under one religion or the other by 1100.