Iberian (mostly) easy suggestions and fixes

[Lider_Picaro]

I've got a few suggestions about Iberia for what seems to be the final HIP release before CK3. It's stuff I worked on last year on a submod I left half made because of lack of time, so I know they are not hard things to implement. The suggestions are mostly meant to improve the organic development of the Iberian christian kingdoms.

• First, Asturias is currently not included in the Reconquista events. The AI will take a lot of time to convert Asturias into Leon (or it simply won't), and if they reconquer any muslim land it won't fire the de jure switch events. This is more a bug report than a suggestion.

• Expand Reconquista events to allow every Iberian kingdom to reconquer all of Iberia. Right now the events are limited to their historical final borders plus some rare exceptions. This is just a matter of copy-pasting code lines from event to event

• The AI rarely ever takes the decision to convert Asturias into Leon. I suggest reducing a lot the AI_check_interval and adding some gameplay requirements such as prestige, income or whatever. Right now it's just a free decision that would make no sense to take aside from cosmetic reasons and for the Reconquista events that Asturias doesn't get.

• If the king of Leon holds the duchy of Castile it won't be able to take the decision to form Castile until 15 years have passed since the formation of Leon. This requirement is not on the decision to form Portugal. I don't understand the assimetry and I think it should be equalized.

• Add a complementary decision to form Castile or Portugal as king of Asturias if he is either castilian or portuguese in the same way Leon is formed destroying Asturias.
  • I would be in favor of also doing the same with Galicia, which of course implies removing it's de jure status in 867.

Those are the bare minimum things I would do if I had the time to polish the mod in Iberia. However I also have some more in depth suggestions you may consider to end the mod with a bang:

• Fusion of kingdoms into Crowns: create decisions to merge Castile and Leon into the single de jure kingdom of Castile and Leon (with hard prestige and/or skill requirements of course)
  • Might also include Leon and Galicia, Galicia and Portugal, Castile and Aragon, Aragon and Valencia (Crown of Aragon)
  • Might also include decisions to integrate other Iberian kingdoms into an already "merged kingdom". For example, integrate Galicia into Castile and Leon
  • If done so remember to update Reconquista events

• Imperator totius Hispaniae (Emperor of all Spain): this has nothing to do with the Empire of Spain (e_spain). Several kings of Leon proclaimed themselves emperors of Spain, meaning they had a prime position over the rest of the christian kings. This title recieved ocasional recognition from the Pope. My suggestion is a decision for christian kings to, with enough prestige, gold and/or papal opinion, turn every other christian ruler in Iberia into a tributary until his death.

• Partial vanilla Reconquista features: while most of the Reconquista mechanics are op I like the fact that you can't create e_spain until the Reconquista is finished. Add the events of the end of the reconquista from vanilla and make it a requirement to form the e_spain title.

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

One elegant solution I've fround for the AI not taking the create Leon decision is to just set up the kingdom creations through on actions similarly to k_england, so you just create the titular kingdom (which the AI seems much more inclined to do) and it turns dejure automatically. I've tried the same thing for Portugal, Castille, Aragon, Valencia etc and it works quite well on my end. If you add some size/religion/culture requirments it feels more organic and coherent.
As for merging different kingdoms I feel like it doesn't quite fit into the fractitious nature of the peninsula, and as a matter of fact it would be interesting to extend the aforementioned system to Al-Andalus so that it fractures into its component taifas from time to time as well (I myself would include Badajoz, Zaragoza, Toledo, Seville, Granada and Valencia, however I've yet to tinker with the reconquista events in full)

 

[Lider_Picaro]

One elegant solution I've fround for the AI not taking the create Leon decision is to just set up the kingdom creations through on actions similarly to k_england, so you just create the titular kingdom (which the AI seems much more inclined to do) and it turns dejure automatically. I've tried the same thing for Portugal, Castille, Aragon, Valencia etc and it works quite well on my end. If you add some size/religion/culture requirments it feels more organic and coherent.
As for merging different kingdoms I feel like it doesn't quite fit into the fractitious nature of the peninsula, and as a matter of fact it would be interesting to extend the aforementioned system to Al-Andalus so that it fractures into its component taifas from time to time as well (I myself would include Badajoz, Zaragoza, Toledo, Seville, Granada and Valencia, however I've yet to tinker with the reconquista events in full)

The problem with Al-Andalus is that the game doesn't have any mechanic for kingdoms to collapse. The closest result is if an independence faction enforces it's demands, but that won't afect de jure vassals and the kingdom title will still exist. There is no way for the top tier title to dissappear making every vassal independent which is what happened several times historically to Iberian islamic realms. Closest thing would be something like Imperial decay but I haven't ever tried to mess with that and I guess is much more complicated than my other proposals.
Also, I'll admit it, I have zero interest in polishing the muslim side of the Reconquista. I just don't find it fun to play muslim so I haven't given them any thought at all.

About the merging of kingdoms not fitting the fractitious nature of the peninsula I don't see the problem if the requirements are high. It should certainly not be as easy as just having both titles. I don't know if it's possible but maybe one the conditions could be that both titles have not been separated for a long period of time.

As for your suggestion on the kingdom creations I think it's cooler to get the kick of dopamine when pressing a decision button . I would just switch ai_check_interval to 1 and let the requirements balance it

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

The problem with Al-Andalus is that the game doesn't have any mechanic for kingdoms to collapse. The closest result is if an independence faction enforces it's demands, but that won't afect de jure vassals and the kingdom title will still exist. There is no way for the top tier title to dissappear making every vassal independent which is what happened several times historically to Iberian islamic realms. Closest thing would be something like Imperial decay but I haven't ever tried to mess with that and I guess is much more complicated than my other proposals.
Also, I'll admit it, I have zero interest in polishing the muslim side of the Reconquista. I just don't find it fun to play muslim so I haven't given them any thought at all.

It's a real shame that muslims aren't really that interesting to play in CK2 even with the improvements brought by HIP. I've tinkered with Al-Andalus for a while because I too wanted to see it crumble; The only two feasibly working solutions I've tried are to give the Umayyads a titular kingdom and make k_andalusia unformable, but it feels janky and usually gets dejure'd into the maghreb; The other solution is to give them a titular empire, which does give them imperial decay and allows them to collapse.

About the merging of kingdoms not fitting the fractitious nature of the peninsula I don't see the problem if the requirements are high. It should certainly not be as easy as just having both titles. I don't know if it's possible but maybe one the conditions could be that both titles have not been separated for a long period of time.

As long as the cost is steep and the AI doesn't achieve it too often I'm fine with it. As for checking if they haven't been separated for a long time it's a bit tricky, one approximation I can imagine is just to check the previous holders of both titles, try to check if they are consecutive (i.e. the titles haven't split) and check if they've reigned for at least x years each.

As for your suggestion on the kingdom creations I think it's cooler to get the kick of dopamine when pressing a decision button . I would just switch ai_check_interval to 1 and let the requirements balance it

That works too, but be wary that low ai check intervals can cause a performance drop. It's probably fine for a few decisions, but it does add up.