Just Another Casus Belli Rant

[StarSword]

The Visigoths at least were taking by force something the Romans had promised them by treaty but never delivered on. That's a legit casus belli, albeit not one present in game files (it's closest to the ability of mercs to declare war on their employers if not paid, since the Goths were fighting as auxiliaries for the WRE when Alaric led his revolt). The Vandals are closest to holy war: they were Arian Christians fighting Catholic Rome.

 

[Shebaloso]

I can not stress how much I absolute hate this part of the games mechanic, most wars in the medieval period and modern period were and are totally nonsensical and use very loose means to justify conquering vast swaths of land. NO ONE CARED back then what right you had to the land and still the same goes for today! It's the biggest baddest fish on the block that gets to eat the smaller fish at the end of the day.

Say for example I take over Britain and now I want to take over the Shetland/Orkney islands I have to send my 'Chancellor' to fabricate a claim against the current lord or lady of those islands? What if I declare a holy war? Most of the time they'll just convert. Speaking about that Holy War.

I finally got my turn as playing as Zoroastrian Nords trying to take over Scandinavia. Well you remember that part where 'nearby' rulers of the same faith 'may' join the war? If you cancel that part of 'nearby' and 'all' of them you got what I got. Holy Wars are bogus. Not mentioning that these rulers some of which came from pathetically small countries came to me usually with about 2000 soldiers, and there was about 15 of them. To top it off the attrition rate in the Scandinavian region for armies especially in winter absolutely desolates YOUR FORCES.

Now there are some proponents out there who will say. But if you could just declare war all the time the game would be to easy! and I have to say to you NO! NO IT WOULD NOT! Perhaps you've forgotten about the Defensive Pacts? I certainly haven't, because while I was taken over the British Isles I had about 30 nations ally themselves against me in another way that MAKES NO SENSE. I'm playing 'when the world stopped making sense mod' and so far the only thing that doesn't make sense are the games mechanics. Why the hell would people... oh wait never mind answered my own question for that I forgot that I conquered the kingdom of Gotland Inadvertently when I took over Scotland, which was controlled by Gotland. Strange how that worked out.

But anyways YES Defensive PACTS that is the way how most war-mongers get kicked to the curb both historically speaking and even today. Russia would have steamrolled into... well Russia did steam roll into Europe in the 1940's despite the multiple alliances Germany had made with the Eastern European countries to bring down the powerhouse, didn't matter, because the rest of the superpowers were against Germany. The mere thought of them having to share their power with some plebeian scum just dismayed them so... stupid Oligarchies. But there was also that time when the Ottoman Empire was taking over Eastern Europe and the western European nations aligned themselves to fight them off. Which probably also influenced greatly the decision to send a bunch of explorers west across the Atlantic to try and find a new trade route to india that would subvert the Ottoman Empire. And you can bet your willy nilly that the money gained from the conquests by Cortez and that guy who took over the Incas went specifically to combating the Ottomans.

And let's not forget about the Roman Empire, you remember that time when the Romans were in Germany? Yeah the Romans remembered it too. Teutoburg happened because of an alliance of Germanic Tribes.

And that's just DEFENSIVE PACTS we aren't EVEN talking about Alliances. If I remember right Scotland had for centuries been allied to the French.

My point I'm making is that Casus Belli was an excuse, a poorly drawn up illegitimate excuse made to look legitimate.

So I attack Gotland normally through a fabricated Casus Belli, nobody bats an eye, I declare a holy war against Gotland for a region in Northern Scandinavia? Everyone of the Germanic Pagans loses their shit.

Game Mechanic Flawed, in Total War you don't need Casus Belli because Total War understands politics better than Paradox. I mean by golly if everyone went by the rules of legitimacy why on earth would there ever be a need for an alliance?

I'm raging, raging very hard right now. Raging at how absurd this part of the game is.

Dude, please, just stop. Your knowledge of historical and political affairs is COMPLETELY null. The concept of casus belli is as ancient as war itself. Saying stuf such as "NO ONE CARED back then what right you had to the land", and exactly about the one age in history when rights to the land are LITERALLY ALL THAT MATTERS, is unconceivable. You are just angry that you cannot paint the map as easily as you want.

If you want to be able to declare war and conquer at your will, then i think this game (and any paradox game for that matter...) is not for you. You might want to stick to Total War, after all...

 

[Lord Celestine]

The Visigoths at least were taking by force something the Romans had promised them by treaty but never delivered on. That's a legit casus belli, albeit not one present in game files (it's closest to the ability of mercs to declare war on their employers if not paid, since the Goths were fighting as auxiliaries for the WRE when Alaric led his revolt). The Vandals are closest to holy war: they were Arian Christians fighting Catholic Rome.

Holy hell the Romans not delivering up on their promises!? Everyone stop the train! This is a shocking revelation!

Dude, please, just stop. Your knowledge of historical and political affairs is COMPLETELY null. The concept of casus belli is as ancient as war itself. Saying stuf such as "NO ONE CARED back then what right you had to the land", and exactly about the one age in history when rights to the land are LITERALLY ALL THAT MATTERS, is unconceivable. You are just angry that you cannot paint the map as easily as you want.

If you want to be able to declare war and conquer at your will, then i think this game (and any paradox game for that matter...) is not for you. You might want to stick to Total War, after all...

So what was Ghengis Khan's Casus Belli?

Might makes right in the world, and in the world of CK2 I'm just not seeing that. D- for historical authenticity.

 

[Iron Chariots]

So what was Ghengis Khan's Casus Belli?

Aside from the fact that there are CBs in game that you'd automatically get playing as Ghengis Khan/other equivalent nomadic rulers, he often did have a reason to invade the people he did, such as when the Khwarezmian Shah had Mongol ambassadors murdered.

Seriously, have you read any real history sources at all or are you just basing your beliefs off of a basic high-school level historical education?

 

[Quaade]

So what was Ghengis Khan's Casus Belli?

Is portrayed in the game, but stating that Nordic Zorostiran should play equally to mongol horde is... Abstract to phrase it politely And as stated above, there usually were a reason for the war... Just because christians didn´t recoignize it, didn´t mean that there wasn´t a just cause... Besides, even inter-tribal wars needed justification since it would destabilize the horde if all were rampaging among themselves... you know, there would be a blood feud or something that had dishonored a clan, much like you saw everywhere else in Europe aswell... Look at it more like the crusades... They fought "heathens" and thus their claim over them was less relevant since they were different... Where did I hear that argument before? Oh yes... Crusades and Jihad... So not so much different and something all nations can do in the game

 

[Lord Celestine]

I don't know too much about the other stuff, but you are very wrong about the Romans. The Romans never went to war unless they claimed some kind of just war. Hell, the Romans didn't even start thinking about "Manifest Destiny" until the 1st century BCE, after most of their conquests were done. When Rome fought Carthage first they fought over claims in Spain, then they fought because Carthage and Hannibal tried to retake their land, and finally they fought to take Carthage. Contrary to popular belief the Romans always used a "just war" because the senators wanted the people to love them. There are even remains of Greek city states sending delegates to Rome to try and convince them to help them in wars, promising them land.

That last part is called forming an... alliance... which is something you really don't see the AI doing much of.

The Roman Establishment of the Senate was based on how unjust and how much of a tyrant the last Roman King was. Historically Oligarchies (which is what all democracies are) have never gotten along well with Dictatorships, because dictatorships draw power away from the rich and ignobile families what the Roman Senate put on was just a front, same way as the Senate in modern day governments

Aside from the fact that there are CBs in game that you'd automatically get playing as Ghengis Khan/other equivalent nomadic rulers, he often did have a reason to invade the people he did, such as when the Khwarezmian Shah had Mongol ambassadors murdered.

Seriously, have you read any real history sources at all or are you just basing your beliefs off of a basic high-school level historical education?

REAL History, yeah i'm gonna stop you there, see when you say real and history you best not be meaning the history that's in textbooks. There is an old saying that history is written by the victors, and well I think that's where a lot of you are getting this 'Casus Belli' mattered dough much! You remember that time when the United States invaded Cuba because one of their ships blew up in a Cuban Port? I remember those times.

You remember how it was portrayed that this act and been done by Cuban spies? And was used as the United States 'Casus Belli' to go to war with Cuba? You remember how later they're now saying it was more than likely just an accident? A oh so very convenient accident that allowed the United States to conquer an entire nation? Let me give you a hint it was probably not an accident.

So yeah when you talk about real history, I don't think we're on the same page because 'real' history is buried in the deepest and darkest crevices of the earth, and if you want to go find real history, you better bring a shovel so you can shovel out all the shit that's piled up on top of it.

 

[Iron Chariots]

REAL History, yeah i'm gonna stop you there, see when you say real and history you best not be meaning the history that's in textbooks. There is an old saying that history is written by the victors, and well I think that's where a lot of you are getting this 'Casus Belli' mattered dough much! You remember that time when the United States invaded Cuba because one of their ships blew up in a Cuban Port? I remember those times.

You remember how it was portrayed that this act and been done by Cuban spies? And was used as the United States 'Casus Belli' to go to war with Cuba? You remember how later they're now saying it was more than likely just an accident? A oh so very convenient accident that allowed the United States to conquer an entire nation? Let me give you a hint it was probably not an accident.

So yeah when you talk about real history, I don't think we're on the same page because 'real' history is buried in the deepest and darkest crevices of the earth, and if you want to go find real history, you better bring a shovel so you can shovel out all the shit that's piled up on top of it.

So... they wanted to invade Cuba and they needed to come up with a bullshit reason to make it seem legitimate?

Sounds like a casus belli to me.

One thing you're doing repeatedly in this thread is saying "well that was a bullshit reason." Yeah, casus bellis often are bullshit. That's hardly the point. A lot of the CBs in CK2 are bullshit too (I mean, you can literally send your chancellor to forge documents claiming you have a right to some land!). But you need to at least need to come up with some bullshit to justify your war. Under your argument, the US would have just said "we're invading Cuba because we want it and we're strong so fuck anybody who complains."

 

[Lord Celestine]

So... they wanted to invade Cuba and they needed to come up with a bullshit reason to make it seem legitimate?

Sounds like a casus belli to me.

One thing you're doing repeatedly in this thread is saying "well that was a bullshit reason." Yeah, casus bellis often are bullshit. That's hardly the point. A lot of the CBs in CK2 are bullshit too (I mean, you can literally send your chancellor to forge documents claiming you have a right to some land!). But you need to at least need to come up with some bullshit to justify your war.

In CK2 it's to difficult to create bullshit! And if we're in the process of making male cow excrement why don't we go the extra mile?! Instead of just doing it for one province why say not an entire kingdom? All we do is Fabricate a claim and it takes many a years to do that? Why can't we kill an envoy of a foreign power? Why can't we claim to be descendants from a Merovingian lineage? Why can't we claim that they were the first ones to attack us in some made up village or blame another nation for the work of brigands? History has shown me that there are JUST SO MANY WAYS that you can 'justify' a war and note that a lot of people have ' ' justified wars in this thread.

When the Romans went to war with Carthage and CONQUERED Carthage it was because Carthage was a threat to their establishment and they who were more powerful ended up subjugating the Carthaginians on this very premise. So why can my neighbors the Gots not be seen as a political threat to my power? Why is it that I need to fabricate a claim that will take years to manifest, or declare an absurd holy war as a member of the Zoroastrian faith? A holy war mind you that will bring down the armies of all tribes in central Europe!

 

[Iron Chariots]

In CK2 it's to difficult to create bullshit! And if we're in the process of making male cow excrement why don't we go the extra mile?! Instead of just doing it for one province why say not an entire kingdom? All we do is Fabricate a claim and it takes many a years to do that? Why can't we kill an envoy of a foreign power? Why can't we claim to be descendants from a Merovingian lineage? Why can't we claim that they were the first ones to attack us in some made up village or blame another nation for the work of brigands? History has shown me that there are JUST SO MANY WAYS that you can 'justify' a war and note that a lot of people have ' ' justified wars in this thread.

When the Romans went to war with Carthage and CONQUERED Carthage it was because Carthage was a threat to their establishment and they who were more powerful ended up subjugating the Carthaginians on this very premise. So why can my neighbors the Gots not be seen as a political threat to my power? Why is it that I need to fabricate a claim that will take years to manifest, or declare an absurd holy war as a member of the Zoroastrian faith? A holy war mind you that will bring down the armies of all tribes in central Europe!

Now you're shifting the goalposts. Originally it was there should be no CBs at all and you should be able to declare war on anybody for no reason, and nobody cared about CBs. Now you're saying there should be more interesting ways to generate them... and maybe there should be! But that's a different discussion.

As to some of your problems, a lot of them seem to indicate a lack of knowledge about the game. If you're taking so long to generate claims, get a decent chancellor... and wait until you've gotten a few of them before declaring your war, using the "press all claims" CB. Want to fabricate a claim on a kingdom? Well, there's the fabricate claim on liege title plot. Want a claim on a foreign kingdom? If you're catholic, ask for an invasion.

Why wouldn't other members of the faith you're declaring a holy war on band together against you. If you're declaring your intent to conquer lands of a certain faith to purge them of their old beliefs, why wouldn't others of that faith assume that they're next? But if you want to avoid it, wait until other members of the religion are distracted. Or, if you're going to have to fight them all anyway, just declare holy war on several targets at once, so you fight them in separate wars and can get a duchy off of each of them.

Above all, remember that this is a game. It's already too easy to just paint the entire map your color in a couple hundred years. Getting rid of CBs would make it trivial to conquer the whole map in decades.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

In CK2 it's to difficult to create bullshit! And if we're in the process of making male cow excrement why don't we go the extra mile?! Instead of just doing it for one province why say not an entire kingdom? All we do is Fabricate a claim and it takes many a years to do that? Why can't we kill an envoy of a foreign power? Why can't we claim to be descendants from a Merovingian lineage? Why can't we claim that they were the first ones to attack us in some made up village or blame another nation for the work of brigands? History has shown me that there are JUST SO MANY WAYS that you can 'justify' a war and note that a lot of people have ' ' justified wars in this thread.

When the Romans went to war with Carthage and CONQUERED Carthage it was because Carthage was a threat to their establishment and they who were more powerful ended up subjugating the Carthaginians on this very premise. So why can my neighbors the Gots not be seen as a political threat to my power? Why is it that I need to fabricate a claim that will take years to manifest, or declare an absurd holy war as a member of the Zoroastrian faith? A holy war mind you that will bring down the armies of all tribes in central Europe!

Or you can just learn a bit about the Punic wars in a fun way (and about a lot of other stuff), and see the reasons behind these wars:

And also: instead of trolling us, just play the mongols. You'll have all the casus belli you want: county conquest, fabricated claims, de jure claim, subjugation, subordination, realm invasion, making tributaries... hell, you even have a humiliate casus belli and you can even declare a feud against another clan from your realm for absolutely no reason. I'm not sure about that but I guess they also can Holy war depending on their religion.
Instead, the norses have almost as much available CB than that...

 

[Quaade]

Historically Oligarchies (which is what all democracies are)

Really shows how narrow your view are, when stating all democracies are oligarchies...

In CK2 it's to difficult to create bullshit! And if we're in the process of making male cow excrement why don't we go the extra mile?! Instead of just doing it for one province why say not an entire kingdom? All we do is Fabricate a claim and it takes many a years to do that? Why can't we kill an envoy of a foreign power? Why can't we claim to be descendants from a Merovingian lineage? Why can't we claim that they were the first ones to attack us in some made up village or blame another nation for the work of brigands?

You can make claims on duchies and you can get claims on entire kingdoms like it happened in the time, by marriage... For the other "questions", it doesn´t take years to fabricate, sometimes it takes a few months... We can kill envoys, both actively and behold, there´s an event that makes you able to do so aswell. But doing so would have been an act of war, which is why foreign ambassadors wasn´t assaulted even though they lived at a foreign court... Because you don´t descend from Merovingian and since that time had a very good knowledge of lineage it was quite hard to state something like that with no shred of evidence and would have been called out from other nations... Because stating villages being attacked all the time would still make you sound like the aggressor, when you "defended" against the 10 nation who attacked your villages, those 10 will know it´s false and others will also start to asks questions. However this did happen from time to time, as a casus belli.

When the Romans went to war with Carthage and CONQUERED Carthage it was because Carthage was a threat to their establishment and they who were more powerful ended up subjugating the Carthaginians on this very premise. So why can my neighbors the Gots not be seen as a political threat to my power?

Because they were already at war, they were rivals and reparations of war through seizure of land was the common thing back then... But all that you could learn from some of the books about the era and politics of time time

 

[Lord Celestine]

Now you're shifting the goalposts. Originally it was there should be no CBs at all and you should be able to declare war on anybody for no reason, and nobody cared about CBs. Now you're saying there should be more interesting ways to generate them... and maybe there should be! But that's a different discussion.

As to some of your problems, a lot of them seem to indicate a lack of knowledge about the game. If you're taking so long to generate claims, get a decent chancellor... and wait until you've gotten a few of them before declaring your war, using the "press all claims" CB. Want to fabricate a claim on a kingdom? Well, there's the fabricate claim on liege title plot. Want a claim on a foreign kingdom? If you're catholic, ask for an invasion.

Why wouldn't other members of the faith you're declaring a holy war on band together against you. If you're declaring your intent to conquer lands of a certain faith to purge them of their old beliefs, why wouldn't others of that faith assume that they're next? But if you want to avoid it, wait until other members of the religion are distracted. Or, if you're going to have to fight them all anyway, just declare holy war on several targets at once, so you fight them in separate wars and can get a duchy off of each of them.

Above all, remember that this is a game. It's already too easy to just paint the entire map your color in a couple hundred years. Getting rid of CBs would make it trivial to conquer the whole map in decades.

Hey! Total War games DO have Casus Belli it's the simplest Casus Belli and the reason behind ALL Casus Belli. That reason is! You have land I want.

Also playing as the Zoroastrians at least, I can not declare holy war on people who are not my direct neighbors.

Or you can just learn a bit about the Punic wars in a fun way (and about a lot of other stuff), and see the reasons behind these wars:

And also: instead of trolling us, just play the mongols. You'll have all the casus belli you want (county conquest, fabricated claims, de jure claim, subjugation, subordination, realm invasion, making tributaries... hell, you even have a humiliate casus belli and you can even declare a feud against another clan from your realm for absolutely no reason).
Instead, the norses have almost as much available CB than that...

As much as I like the Mongols they just don't have the long flowing hair and the great long beards that the Nords do, and as much as I like the Nords, their religion would totally be awesome if it were Zoroastrianism.

The Mongols CB sounds like the CBS all nations should have. Give me options.

 

[StarSword]

Holy hell the Romans not delivering up on their promises!? Everyone stop the train! This is a shocking revelation!

Hardly shocking. The Romans were in many ways the original racial supremacists; what Emperor Valens and his successors did to the Visigoths is peanuts compared to what Nero's troops did to the Iceni to set off Boudica's uprising. Nobody's claiming they were nice people, but they did pick out a clear reason for going to war beyond "I want your shit", even if it was as flimsy a pretext as could possibly exist.

My point, however, was that the wars by the Visigoths and Vandals that you brought up weren't for as clear-cut reasons as "I want your shit". With the Goths, Emperor Valens had signed a treaty with the Goth chief Fritigern offering them a land grant and safe passage through Roman lands (to escape the Huns) in exchange for military service, but Valens' officers instead basically forced them into a refugee camp and let them rot. Essentially it's the international equivalent of breach of contract; Fritigern eventually gets fed up and declares war on the Empire, kills Valens in battle, and settles his people in the Balkans.

The Romans tried to pull a similar stunt with Fritigern's successor Alaric, who got pissed off at his people being used for cannon fodder in exchange for promise of a homeland and revolted. After he sacked Rome he forced them to actually fulfill their end of the bargain as a condition of peace; they were settled in what is now southwestern France and granted independence.

So what was Ghengis Khan's Casus Belli?

Might makes right in the world, and in the world of CK2 I'm just not seeing that. D- for historical authenticity.

Play as a pagan or Muslim then. They can pretty much do whatever the hell they want CB-wise. In Christian lands the basic justification is that everyone's afraid of what the Pope might do if you just declare war on somebody for no good reason. He played the same role back then that the United Nations does now (or at least tries to).

In CK2 it's to difficult to create bullshit! And if we're in the process of making male cow excrement why don't we go the extra mile?! Instead of just doing it for one province why say not an entire kingdom? All we do is Fabricate a claim and it takes many a years to do that? Why can't we kill an envoy of a foreign power? Why can't we claim to be descendants from a Merovingian lineage? Why can't we claim that they were the first ones to attack us in some made up village or blame another nation for the work of brigands? History has shown me that there are JUST SO MANY WAYS that you can 'justify' a war and note that a lot of people have ' ' justified wars in this thread.

If you read the flavor text for the "Fabricate Claims" mission, your chancellor has been spending his time bribing and cajoling people to fabricate the claim. He's not just making a fancy-looking piece of paper, he's also making sure there are people in the realm willing to lie for you and say the claim is legitimate. That is why it's more difficult to get a faked claim on a duchy or kingdom than on a single county: it's (in theory) harder to get a convincing number of people to back you up because not so many people care about some random county, but a lot of people care about a kingdom.

When the Romans went to war with Carthage and CONQUERED Carthage it was because Carthage was a threat to their establishment and they who were more powerful ended up subjugating the Carthaginians on this very premise. So why can my neighbors the Gots not be seen as a political threat to my power? Why is it that I need to fabricate a claim that will take years to manifest, or declare an absurd holy war as a member of the Zoroastrian faith? A holy war mind you that will bring down the armies of all tribes in central Europe!

That's just the defensive pact mechanic being stupid, which is something we've all been complaining about for months now.

 

[Lord Celestine]

That's just the defensive pact mechanic being stupid, which is something we've all been complaining about for months now.

VINDICATED AT LAST!

 

[Iron Chariots]

That's just the defensive pact mechanic being stupid, which is something we've all been complaining about for months now.

Nah, that's just the long-standing mechanic where targets of holy wars will be defended by fellow members of their religion.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

As much as I like the Mongols they just don't have the long flowing hair and the great long beards that the Nords do, and as much as I like the Nords, their religion would totally be awesome if it were Zoroastrianism.

Ruler designer => take any nomad ruler => change his culture to norse. First step: Done !!!
Second step: take zoroastrism in the ruler designer or convert in game or just choose a zoroastrian/manichean nomad and be a zoroastrian nomad norse...

in the ruler designer, if you specify norse as graphical ethnicity but keep the mongol culture, does your children keep the norse graphical ethnicity? If yes, you can be a zoroastrian mongol with long flowing hair like the norse and long beards... how awesome!!!! If no, you can still be a zoroastrian norse with long flowing hair and long beards... how awesome!!!!

 

[King Wanderer]

Yeah, on literally one point.

As someone who spent an entire year at college studying medieval history (this means reading plenty of primary sources), I can say very definitely that you simply did not go about swinging the mace and saying "I like what you have-gimme!" From what I noticed, large-scale wars came down to one of two reasons.

1) Religious: This one is pretty straight-forward. Crusades, Jihads, and the like. However, lumped into this are Papal requests for military force, which was a pretty major factor during the Carolingian period. Also in the mix is fights against the Papacy, which was kind-of a thing during the time of the Holy Roman Empire.

2) Familial/Dynastic: I am not exaggerating when I say that dynastic ties mean almost everything in medieval politics. Don't believe me? The reason why Duke William 'the Bastard' of Normandy had his Casus Belli was because of an overly, overly complicated series of marriages, backstabs, and wars that the children of King Alfred 'the Great' of Wessex/the Anglo-Saxons got mixed up in. This chaos is also the reason why Norge, and its ruler, Harald Hardrada, had their own claim on the throne of England (as did the Danes!). Same thing goes for the Hundred Years War, round one and round two. Claims over English holdings in France, whether or not the King of England was thus somewhat subservient to the King of France or not, etc...

In sum: CBs exist because they totally existed during the period, and they were everything. Fighting a war without one was not only rare, but it was quickly and harshly acted upon. If you wanted to get Excommunicated quickly, try to just invade your neighbor for no apparent reason. This is why the "Peace of God" movement was such a big deal. Just prior to, and following, the turn of the millennium, people began to worry about the return of Christ, and there were widespread church reforms (just how much people were concerned is still a topic of debate, but the point stands). The "Peace of God" movement was one of the first anti-war pushes in history, and was surprisingly effective. You needed reason for war, you couldn't fight on Sundays or holidays, etc.

So, yeah. I'm sorry, but if you want to go around killing things, you're going to need to wait for your Chancellor to get that CB. That system, flawed as it may be, is right on the money with how medieval politics and warfare worked.

 

[Quaade]

VINDICATED AT LAST!

You quote me for something I didn´t say??? Don´t get it...

 

[Quaade]

Yeah, on literally one point.

As someone who spent an entire year at college studying medieval history (this means reading plenty of primary sources), I can say very definitely that you simply did not go about swinging the mace and saying "I like what you have-gimme!" From what I noticed, large-scale wars came down to one of two reasons.

1) Religious: This one is pretty straight-forward. Crusades, Jihads, and the like. However, lumped into this are Papal requests for military force, which was a pretty major factor during the Carolingian period. Also in the mix is fights against the Papacy, which was kind-of a thing during the time of the Holy Roman Empire.

2) Familial/Dynastic: I am not exaggerating when I say that dynastic ties mean almost everything in medieval politics. Don't believe me? The reason why Duke William 'the Bastard' of Normandy had his Casus Belli was because of an overly, overly complicated series of marriages, backstabs, and wars that the children of King Alfred 'the Great' of Wessex/the Anglo-Saxons got mixed up in. This chaos is also the reason why Norge, and its ruler, Harald Hardrada, had their own claim on the throne of England (as did the Danes!). Same thing goes for the Hundred Years War, round one and round two. Claims over English holdings in France, whether or not the King of England was thus somewhat subservient to the King of France or not, etc...

In sum: CBs exist because they totally existed during the period, and they were everything. Fighting a war without one was not only rare, but it was quickly and harshly acted upon. If you wanted to get Excommunicated quickly, try to just invade your neighbor for no apparent reason. This is why the "Peace of God" movement was such a big deal. Just prior to, and following, the turn of the millennium, people began to worry about the return of Christ, and there were widespread church reforms (just how much people were concerned is still a topic of debate, but the point stands). The "Peace of God" movement was one of the first anti-war pushes in history, and was surprisingly effective. You needed reason for war, you couldn't fight on Sundays or holidays, etc.

So, yeah. I'm sorry, but if you want to go around killing things, you're going to need to wait for your Chancellor to get that CB. That system, flawed as it may be, is right on the money with how medieval politics and warfare worked.

Great, not just me who read that... Though your sources might be better than mine due to being primary ;-)

 

[Shebaloso]

Do you know what is funny? With a single exception, you keep using examples that have nothing to do whatsoever with the times depicted in the game, and the exception itself is already portrayed in the game (mongols have a myriad of cbs which translate exactly into what you want).

Even if i granted that the romans had no use for casus belli (and i do not, because this is completely absurd, given historical sources), so what? Is CK2 about ancient diplomacy or medieval diplomacy?

Talking about expansion in modern times? Really? I mean, really? Even Hitler needed his CB to attack Poland, and you actually think people don't care about CBs? And even if they didn't (which is obviously not true), so what? Is CK2 about modern diplomacy or medieval diplomacy?

If you want to discuss a game about medieval times, then stay on topic. Provide us with a SINGLE reliable source indicating a conflict in the middle ages fought over no apparent reason, and we will gladly concede the point.

Or you can stop this nonsense altogether and actually read a book for a change...