Idea: increase role/influence of Byzantium in Crusades

[valmont]

Hi all,

I have finished my first playthrough on CK3 as the Outremer empire on PS5, and due to the large role Crusades play in this playthrough, it struck me that Byzantium was but an idle bystander as Westerner conquer all its southern border all the way to Persia. Historically Byzantium played a big role in triggering the Crusades, and even supported the first one with Alexios providing supplies and doing everything he could to sway the Western leaders. I think an expansion could include mechanisms to reflect this more accurately at two different levels, and please provide your thoughts about that!

Role of Byzantium in triggering the crusades:

Currently if Byzantium falls early, this will unlock the crusades for Catholics. This is pretty much it in terms of influence of Byzantium on triggering the Crusades and they have no influence on the actual course of the crusades. I think:

• If Byzantium lost most of Anatolia/Greece, the Emporor should have a decision to request the pope for a crusade, with different level of buffers for acceptance based on what the Emperor is ready to concede:
  • Minimal concession: The Emperor will expect Crusaders and Beneficiaries gaining land De Jure part of Byzantium to become their vassals upon conquest. The beneficiary migh refuse, but the Emperor will then gain a discounted claim on them, and other debuffs with Byzantium and Orthodox rulers. (The Pope is slightly more likely to accept)
  • Medium concession: The Emperor will allow western Knights to keep De Jure Byzantium land without expecting them to swear fealty to them, and will spend X amount of gold to supply Crusader Armies travelling trough Bywantium land while the Crusade is active, increasing the supply limit accross Bywantium at a cost. (The Pope is Moderatly more likely to accept).
  • Major Concession: The Emperor will offer to embrace Catholicism, provide supplies, and abandon land conquered to Crusaders and will forfeit any claim on them. (The Pope is Much more likely to accept)
• If Byzantium is targeted by a Jihad and loses, they should have the option to request Papal aid with similar concession as above.

Reaction of Byzantium about Crusades they did not trigger:

• When a Crusade starts Byzantium and targets the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Byzantium can choose a stance towards crusaders:
  • Support Crusaders by paying X amount of gold increasing supplies of Crusader Armies moving accross Byzantium.
  • Byzantium can adopt a neutral stance, and not get involved whatsoever (current behaviour)
  • Byzantium can oppose the use of Byzantium as a launchpad for crusades, Crusader armies will suffer more attrition when moving through Byzantium and be hostile towards Byzantium armies. (This is to allow situations similar to the Third Crusade sack of Constantinople).
• The stance chosen will incur bonus or malus on Crusaders and Pope's opinion of the Emperor
• The Emperor might offer Vassilisation to beneficiaries being granted land in De Jure Byzantium if they have a good opinion of them through decision.
• A special request can be issued to the Pope to get Orthodox holy site reconquered by Crusaders.

"Mend the schism decision" change

The above could be tied to a change of the schism mechanism. Currently the schism is a "frozen" matter of fact, that is either active or mended. I suggest we transform this into a scale that would materialise the rift between the churches:

• Actions that are unfriendly towards the other church will move scale towards increasing the schism, incurring more opinion penalties between orthodox and catholic rulers and influencing the AI into supporting or not the crusades. Different tiers might be implement with incremental buffs and debuffs going from "Mutual excommunication", "recognition of sacrament", "common synods", "Union"
• If the scale moves towards more cooperation between the churches and meets a certain number of territorial requirements, the schism can be fixed "diplomatically" and the orthodox and catholic religions may be replaced by a Unified Church with different tenets at this point merging the two faithes. A decision could be made available to a ruler with the right level of devotion to "convoke a synod between the pope and the patriarch" where they would be given an opportunity to define the neaw faith tenet.
• Crusade outcome will influence the scale depending on individual beneficiaries decisions to remain or not under bywantine rule.

Ideas again to better represent relationships between the Western and Eastern Churches, happy to hear the commuity's opinion .

 

[Secuter]

I like your ideas a lot.

I especially like the part where Byzantium can pick a stance, and the idea about the mending the schism, which works in a scale.

I think it is pretty cool for Byzantium to request a crusade. I don't think the emperor should be able to offer conversion to Catholicism though. I mean, I understand that he may have done so historically, but it would create complete chaos in this game if he actually did convert. The AI would perhaps be inclined to take that measure though, and then Byzantium would fall apart. There should be something else on the "major concessions" than that.

Here's my suggestion:
Like in CK2 with the conclave and council rights, so should the Pope gain rights over the Eastern Church.
It could work through any number of steps. Each step would increase the Papal authority over the Eastern church. At maximum, the Eastern Church would be all but completely dominated by the papacy, which perhaps even would allow the pope to install a puppet-like-partriach.

In this way, we get around the hassle of the emperor converting, cycle rebellions, popular uprising etc. At the same time, it becomes a tug of war between the Emperor and the papacy on moral authority.

The only part I don't really like about the schism-scale is that unifying the church again kinda ignores the real politics. Would the Pope gain complete control? I'm not sure the emperor, or the eastern patriach would be happy about that. Would the pope have to give up most of his power and some other type of authority be installed? The pope, of course, would not like that.

I think the scale shouldn't allow for a mending of the schism, but it should detail the relations between the two religions which could either create more or less cooperation between them. I don't know how exactly that should function though.


Edit: remember to post your idea in the "suggestions" tap.

 

[klopkr]

Yeah and throw an event for the ethiopians and nubians to attack egypt simultaneously with the crusade if any crusaders are in diplo range.

Historically they contributed a small amount and were open to the crusades.

 

[valmont]

Hi Secuter and Klopr,

Thanks both for your inputs, they make a lot of sense, I agree that we could expand the mechanism to other Christian faiths, this is certainly an area we could dig into, and would make formidable base for an extension packed with new content.

On the point you make about unifying @Secuter, what I had in mind is that depending which faith moves toward the decision, then you could end up with an "orthodox" driven union or a "catholic" driven Union, the key difference as you said being in the papal primacy (or not!). In CK2 you could only mend the schism in an orthodox fashion putting the pope back at its place as bishop of Roma. Leveraging the faith tenets of CK3, a unified faith could end up leaning more towards catholic or orthodoxes, or be more balanced. Up to the player to decide.

Regarding Emperor conversion, it is indeed a risk for the stability of Byzantium, and that should probably never be chosen by AI if implemented at all. On the one hand it is historically accurate, on the other hand, it could definitely be a game breaker if not done properly. In the end it all comes down to what the good guys at Paradox would able to code to make it both historically accurate and balanced...

My feeling is that CK3 has the base to make something we could not have seen in CK2 to bring a more relationship between Christian faiths.

Edit: I just saw the suggestion subtab apolgies for missing it.

 

[Byzantium2000]

Overall I really like the concept of this and the execution sounds good, I just have a few comments and thoughts thou.

•The 1st Crusades initial target was not Jerusalem but to just restore Eastern Christian Byzantine lands from Muslim Control. This changed at Antioch.

•The Byzantines directly assisted the Crusaders in the 1st Crusade with their army, supplies and navy until things fell apart at Antioch. The Crusaders beforehand had fulfilled their oath of returning territory to the Empire. Afterwards, Some historians argue Baldwin actually took control of Edessa with Byzantine approval and recognized their suzerainty.

•The Crusaders swore oaths to return Byzantine lands in both the 1st and 2nd Crusade. They only had Byzantine military assistance in the 1st and it was the lack of this assistance at Antioch that led the Crusaders to change history and establish the First independent Crusader State.

The 2nd had no military assistance due to an attack on the Empire by the Normans and was promptly defeated in Anatolia. The Byzantine Fleet then directly transported the remainder of the French and German armies under King Louis directly to Antioch. The Empire taking no part in the next stage of the Crusade nor had it received any lands for the Crusaders had taken none.

•The First option should require the Byzantines to Directly fight alongside the Crusades and should still have a fair chance to be accepted by the Pope, espocally if it’s the First Crusade as that historically was the option of the First Crusade.

Your 2nd option is basically the 2nd Crusade but wether the Byzantines would have still gotten lands back if it was actually successful Is uncertain but still likely imo.

The 3rd option doesn’t really have an equivalent. The Crusaders and Byzantines were flatout hostile to each other in the 3rd Crusade. Alexios Angelos in the 4th Crusade Agreed to mend the schism and recognize the pope as head while suppling the Crusaders in exchange for being put on the Throne. Never got far to address land.

The Palaiologos did agree to become Catholics near the end In exchange for Catholic military support but were gonna receive their lands back if Varna had Succeded.

•Now A gameplay problem is that historically Antioch and Edessa were both major sources of friction between the Crusaders and Byzantium for 70 years, for the Byzantines considered both Dejure there’s. Both having only been lost in 1084 and 1087 respectively. But neither are Dejure Byzantine ingame so this would still not be represented.

Alexios, John And Manuel Komnenos all tried to Subjugate Antioch diplomatically and militarily. The Byzantines were eventually able to Make Antioch a Vassal under Manuel Komnenos and the other Crusader states recognized it as they recognized the Byzantine Dejure right to it. Such Dejure status does not exist right now rip.

•John And Manuel Komnenos both militarily aided the Crusader States, With John leading a coalition of Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa against Aleppo while Manuel allied with Jerusalem in a joint campaign against Fatimid Egypt.

Both also had to fight Antioch due it to constantly betraying and attacking the Empire, until as I said before Manuel finally forced it into submission and paraded the Prince of Antioch in a sack with a rope around his Neck inside Antioch itself.

The Empire should be inclined to almost always aid the non Dejure Crusader states(if it’s strong and wealthy enough) but also inclined to annex through force or diplomacy the Dejure ones.

Contextual maps

Blue in the first map is what the Byzantines considered Dejure there’s.

•Finally, I think the vanilla schism setup is wack. I don’t get why Paradox doesn’t just have them see each other as righteous in 867 and Astray in 1066.

I do agree with the dynamic relations meter between the two that’s often suggested but truly merging the faiths into one should be impossible. I think making your head the head of both faiths but keeping them separate and righteous is the best merging you can get through a forceful mend the schism.

Sorry for the long rambling, this is the kind of thread I’ve been waiting for so I wanted to get some thoughts off my chest lol.

 

[Baramov]

I wouldn't mind seeing Byzantium (more) involved in the Crusades. The Emperor offering to convert to Catholicism... that I do have a problem with..

 

[helveticadomes]

i don't know, Byzantium is already a very powerful empire. with that changes they may be stronger.
the help or absence of help would lead to an imbalance on one of the sides (and if it is with or against, not just neutral, effect is doubled)
5k-25k unit stack with or against you could (depend on year) be a big difference

I fear that as player you can abuse this suggestion multiple ways, and AI is to stupid to use it in a good way

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a few other "facts" about the CKIII crusades
the pope is allowed to call crusades against me (as Orthodox Byzantium / Roman Empire ruler) if i do "Mend the Great Schism" Decisions
even if he is a vassal of me (landless or not does not matter), and have 50+ opinion, does not help to prevent that.
and as Orthodox there is no way to dismantle the catholic pope.

the funniest thing is that moslem "could" help you to defend against the Catholic crusade for Jerusalem (as an Orthodox ruler!)
and allies help the pope active with a crusade against you