KoJ & outremer culture

[unmerged(25696)]

I've seen the Kingdom of Jerusalem has greek & arabic cultures. I find these cultures weird to give them : arabic provinces are in their great majority muslim, while we can hardly say the crusaders were well-liked by the Byzantines (orthodox greeks). That choice of cultures is, as I understand it, dictated by the provinces they own at start. But I also see the syrian culture in 3-4 provinces, held by catholics (Syria).

So, what I propose is to change the name of the syrian culture to 'outremer' (the name I proposed in AGCEEP, tough it's a bit too fantastic for there), and give outremer culture to all KoJ- & Syria-owned provinces. Reasoning is that the Crusaders are in place since more than three centuries : IMHO, that's enough time to change the culture of the land : after all, historically, the iberians swarmed in Toledo in less time than that, if we refer to vanilla setup.

This change would allow to give only outremer culture to both Crusaders states, making their job of converting muslims much harder (as it should be IMO), and their rule of arabic provinces less stable (as it should be IMO).


This could be completed by a set of events changing the culture of some provinces :
- if outremer provinces fall under a muslim country, and that country finally convert those provinces to the Faith of the Prophet, then province-specific events (with some triggers to make it harder, like stab +3, at peace, or others) would change the culture to arabic (maybe with some bad effects, like decrease in population/tax/MP, or a small revolt)
- if neighbouring arabic provinces are conquered by catholics and converted to the Most Holy Catholic Faith, then events would change the culture to outremer (same triggers & effects as previous events)

The second case, arabic->outremer conversions, could be conditional, subject to a flag set up by the Next Crusade event : if JER chooses to go after the Kaliphate, setflag = CruKal, if after Mameluks, setflag = CruMam. The cores given by that event could be used to determine which provinces could be targeted by these events. In any case, the startdate of those events shouldn't be before 1650, to hope that they are being owned for enough time before the change is implemented (hence the stab & peace triggers I suggest).


What do you think of this ?

 

[TheLoneTaco]

*applause*

-Matt

 

[Disturbman]

I like it but KoJ must survive (if this is possible)...

 

[tombom]

This sounds could and could be implemented as a configuration option - working on it now...

 

[unmerged(31994)]

I like it but I dont like Koj by the way

 

[unmerged(25696)]

I like it but I dont like Koj by the way

That's part of the fun, having someone to oppose.

 

[unmerged(34301)]

lawkeeper said go to the thread and give ideas, so I'm assuming this is the thread he meant....

I think that the Jihad event for the Kaliphate is quite overpowered given their already huge mp. Though it may hypothetically be realistic. They need their sliders moved around I think. I'm quite unsure how their sliders start, and I don't have time to look them up, so I'll suggest these settings:

8-9 aristocracy
4-6 centralization
1-2 innovativeness
whatever trade settings
5 offensive
3 quality
10 land
10 serfdom


The KoJ should get response events too. They shouldn't just be like....oh here comes the muslim hordes, let's not ask for help! The Papal States, Byzantium, and a few other strong Catholic nations should be given the option to help. KoJ should stand some chance of victory. It would also be helpful if after the "End of the Jihad" event, the "We have lost the Kingdom" event were disabled. Also, the KoJ should get some more leaders, that file is pretty sparce...they should also perhaps be able to hire aditional leaders by event as time goes on, great mercenary captains and the like.

Proposed slider settings for the KoJ too :

aristocracy 10 (the area was largely noble founded after all)
centralization 7-8
innovativeness 3-4
mercantilism 2-4
offensive 8
quality 7-8 (once again, largely aristocrats)
land 5-6 (would be very reliant on the sea)
serfdom 8-9 (silly nobles)

 

[unmerged(25696)]

The KoJ should get response events too. They shouldn't just be like....oh here comes the muslim hordes, let's not ask for help! The Papal States, Byzantium, and a few other strong Catholic nations should be given the option to help. KoJ should stand some chance of victory. It would also be helpful if after the "End of the Jihad" event, the "We have lost the Kingdom" event were disabled.

Events aren't always enough, but for once we could improve the help from the church events, to increase the money & troops given, and/or give BTV and manpower boosts.

Another possibility is to make all provinces catholic (after all, they've had enough time to convert all locals), and increase the starting BT and MP values (representing more population that came from other countries, merchants from Genoa, etc). When/if the Caliphate or the Mameluks conquer outremer provinces back, they'd get the change of culture event (after the conversion of the province) and that event would decrease tax & MP (representing the flee of catholics).
OTOH, I would give the KoJ a tax & manpower boost through those same conversion events. After all, I don't think the crusaders drove so much of the population away when they came (and this serves a question of balancing).

Also, the KoJ should get some more leaders, that file is pretty sparce...they should also perhaps be able to hire aditional leaders by event as time goes on, great mercenary captains and the like.

Heartily agreed. What about taking some formerly spanish, french, austrian, venetian leaders who didn't get reassigned to aberrated countries ?

Proposed slider settings for the KoJ too :

aristocracy 10 (the area was largely noble founded after all)
centralization 7-8
innovativeness 3-4
mercantilism 2-4
offensive 8
quality 7-8 (once again, largely aristocrats)
land 5-6 (would be very reliant on the sea)
serfdom 8-9 (silly nobles)

I can't check the files now (not the appropriate computer), but I think they've already a high quality/offensive, and they should have a lower serfdom (I think there were less chores laid on the shoulders of the peasants in outremer than in the rest of Europe). A low mercantilism seems appropriate (since there've been many italian traders there : that was part of the deal for shipping the armies).
For aristocracy, I'd tune it down a bit. There were many nobles, right, but crusaders put few considerations to one's lineage, and the crusading orders had more influence than many nobles (who kept battling at each other, hence a much lower Centralization is needed too IMHO).
For innovative, the nobles didn't hesitate much to ally to local muslim lords in order to get help in their internal squabbles, but OTOH, it's a Crusade, so i don't know what to do.

 

[unmerged(33565)]

lawkeeper said go to the thread and give ideas, so I'm assuming this is the thread he meant....

I think that the Jihad event for the Kaliphate is quite overpowered given their already huge mp. Though it may hypothetically be realistic. They need their sliders moved around I think. I'm quite unsure how their sliders start, and I don't have time to look them up, so I'll suggest these settings:

8-9 aristocracy
4-6 centralization
1-2 innovativeness
whatever trade settings
5 offensive
3 quality
10 land
10 serfdom


The KoJ should get response events too. They shouldn't just be like....oh here comes the muslim hordes, let's not ask for help! The Papal States, Byzantium, and a few other strong Catholic nations should be given the option to help. KoJ should stand some chance of victory. It would also be helpful if after the "End of the Jihad" event, the "We have lost the Kingdom" event were disabled. Also, the KoJ should get some more leaders, that file is pretty sparce...they should also perhaps be able to hire aditional leaders by event as time goes on, great mercenary captains and the like.

Proposed slider settings for the KoJ too :

aristocracy 10 (the area was largely noble founded after all)
centralization 7-8
innovativeness 3-4
mercantilism 2-4
offensive 8
quality 7-8 (once again, largely aristocrats)
land 5-6 (would be very reliant on the sea)
serfdom 8-9 (silly nobles)

Current settings
Kal:

Aristocracy - 8 - good for me
Centralization - 3 - this was a very centralized state so maybe a point or 2 higher
Innovation - 3 - Not so good, although it drops fast
Merc- 9 - I don't know, sounds ok
offensive - 5 - sounds ok, although might want to make it higher
Land - 10 - LOWER IT, will help with manpower a little, maybe 8 or 7
Quality - 4 - No problem with this, maybe a 3 if we want to
Serf - 7 - Sounds ok

KOJ:

Aristocracy - 8 - should be 9 or 10
Centralization - 6 - sounds ok, although with all these nobles around...
Innovation - 4 - umm, if these are crusaders are they really going to be all that accepting of new ideas, lower I would say
Merc - 9 - NP
Offensive - 7 - maybe higher, but have no problem
land - 7 - I don't see them all that naval and not all land so I have no problem with this
Quality - 8 - maybe up to a 9, big maybe
Serf - 6 - Higher, at least an 8

 

[SethEng]

While I'm usually a lurker on the board, I've come to enjoy Aberration greatly and I was puzzling over the KoJ today as I walked between classes. It was more about the cultures it should have. I think an outremer culture would be a good idea, although perhaps called Levantine, it just sounds better to me. And perhaps Syrian should replace Greek as a state culture, unless one wants to say that the Cypriots converted to Catholicism, in which case it might just be better to make Cyprus the outremer culture.

I was also thinking that perhaps Armenian culture could be added if certain provinces were taken and that those provinces could be converted to Armenian culture at a loss of manpower and tax income perhaps? Cilicia or Armenia Minor was considered something of a Crusader Kingdom and it would fit better as a convertable culture for the Kurdish province.

Just some thoughts, but I figured I'd share.

EDIT: There are "spare" cultures that don't really see any use. The canaries culture, for example, is on an island where the culture will change to the culture of the nation that colonizes it. Changing that is pretty much harmless. I don't know if the Syrian Christian culture vanished in four hundred years, and under a Christian Kingdom there probably wouldn't be much pressure to change it. By the same token, the Crusaders wouldn't have changed enough to be assimilated by Syrian, Arab, or Greek culture, but would have developed into something else and after hundreds of years in the area they would probably begin to feel very distinct from the other European nations.

If there are provential culture conversion events, they should either be tied to religious conversion or have long periods of times between when the game checks for the event, or both.

 

[SethEng]

KOJ:

Innovation - 4 - umm, if these are crusaders are they really going to be all that accepting of new ideas, lower I would say.

Actually, I'd have thought the Crusaders might have become more accepting as they would likely have access to Classical documents and the means to translate them. I don't think most of the leadership was particularly narrowminded and being as far away from the center of the Roman Catholic Church, surrounded by hostile states, having to deal with local Christian populations and their differing beliefs, and likely having some influence from Constantinople could at least justify a less narrowminded attitude.

I could see the KoJ potentially going Protestant more in the sense of the Church of England and in an attempt to create a state church that would appeal to all the Christian sects that would be within the Kingdom. Perhaps some ecumenical council events? Especially with the Church Abandonment events. Many of the local variations of Christianity in that region have survived to this day and considering that the Crusaders in Outremer were influenced by the natives a possible break with Rome over being angry with Rome leaving the Kingdom hanging could be a possiblity.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Didn't the crusaders that stayed historically become quite like the natives between first and third crusade?

 

[SethEng]

Didn't the crusaders that stayed historically become quite like the natives between first and third crusade?

If memory serves they did adopt quite a bit of the native culture, but I don't think it would be enough to label them either Arab or Syrian as they certainly wouldn't have changed their language. There would have at least been people coming from Europe and probably enough to keep the Crusaders from "going native," but their culture should be, by this time, different from the cultures they came from.

I'd use Levantine since it refers to the people of a geographic region as opposed to one single, stable ethnic group. You potentially have settlers and nobilty coming from all over Europe as well as the nobility from the local Christian population and previous Crusaders and such. And it keeps the Kingdom from converting the Arab population too easily. Any cultural conversion events should fire after a religious conversion of the population, but I think they should take time in order to simulate a gradual process of assimilation.

I think it would probably be easiest to think of the KoJ's potential culture as something like American culture a few hundred years early. I'd also say that the farthest east it should go is maybe Iraq and Kirkuk, with maybe Jordan and Arabia, as that's probably pushing the Levantine area to its limits and I don't think you'd be able to change the culture of the Arabian Peninsula. Iraq and Kirkuk, with their larger populations should also be scripted to take quite a bit of time to change, if you go that far. I'd also look at Egypt to change as well, perhaps to Cyrenaica, perhaps stretching the boundries of Levantine again, but possible. And again, the high population areas should take time to change, so the event should have the chance of firing every few decades.

I also think, if you're going with the Crusader image, that you might be able to justify some kind of Armenian revival, but only in the area of Cilicia, which is one or two provinces, and perhaps further conversions in provinces that are historically Armenian, perhaps only if the country of Armenia doesn't exist. Armenian events would create a chance at conflicts between the KoJ, Byzantium, and potentially Persia if they exist, so that could create some interesting possiblities.

I think that Greek culture should go though, and Cyprus should either have the potential to change to the potential KoJ culture or already have changed. This would give the Kingdom one culture to start, it's own new one, a second with Syrian, either they start with it or they gain it after absorbing the Syrian provinces, and potentially Armenian if they take certain provinces.

 

[unmerged(31994)]

This is silly, I think once they capture a province, a massive revolt, a very bad revolt should happen.Taking Iraq for example, wouldnt that trigger a massive anger from the populace?I do think so.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Armenian was combined with georgian to form Caucasian.

I don't think that there should be massive revolt popping up whenever KoJ would take over a sunni prov. I doubt that peasantry would even mind that their ruler is catholic instead of sunni as long as they don't interfere with peasants ability to practice their own faith in peace. Which is represented by religious tolerance slider.

 

[unmerged(31994)]

the crusaders were deeply hated in the middle east, I know that.There has to be a massive revolt.

 

[tombom]

the crusaders were deeply hated in the middle east, I know that.There has to be a massive revolt.

And damage the KoJ even further? Umm, no. If we did do this, there would have to be something good about it. If you think about it, most people would hate being invaded by a local force which hated them. But this isn't represented by events and it shouldn't be. You have tolerance sliders and wrong culture + religion penalties for that.

And even after all this, I don't see why it has to be "massive". The Crusades didn't face massive revolts that harmed them in real life - why in Aberration?

 

[SethEng]

Armenian was combined with georgian to form Caucasian.

I don't think that there should be massive revolt popping up whenever KoJ would take over a sunni prov. I doubt that peasantry would even mind that their ruler is catholic instead of sunni as long as they don't interfere with peasants ability to practice their own faith in peace. Which is represented by religious tolerance slider.

I noticed, but Armenian is just unused, as opposed to replaced, and I'm not entirely sure that I understand the decision to combine them as I'd see the Armenians as quite distinct. Unless Caucasian is supposed to represent other cultures in the region as well. That said, Armenian Culture isn't being reused for anything, so it could still be used in at least the Cilicia area. Although if you did have an event for the Reformation of Cilicia as a part of the KoJ or something like that it should cause relation penalties with Byzantium as it's in what would be their national terrority. If there was a cultural shift in that area, from Turkish to Armenian, there would probably have to be a population, manpower, and tax hit with an increased revolt risk form any remaining Turkish population. I'm not sure what Armenian population looked like in their more traditional areas.

Just brainstorming ideas here, but it makes some kind of sense that since Cilicia was considered a sort of Crusader state a resurgent KoJ might be interested in retaking it if the situation permits.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

There is very few cultural conversions in Aberration in general, because Archie wanted it that way. Especially when it concerns large provinces / populations and some very different cultures. Turning whole provinces from turkish to armenian would require those armenians coming from somewhere, as I have hard time imagining turks turning to armenians. With the proposed outremer culture representing a fusion of european crusaders and arabs, turning Cilicia into outremer culture after KoJ has occupied it for a while isn't so far fetched. If there is evidence that armenians still lived there during 15th century as a significant minority, then it wouldn't be that far fetched to turn them armenians.

Merging armenian with georgian was one of those design choices to make game smoother with removing various 1 or 2 prov cultures that weren't so very different from a neighbouring culture. This has happened with albanian, romanian and few others as well.

 

[Medicine Man]

Replacing syrian culture with an expanded outremer culture is not a bad idea in my opinion. However, I think we should allow the regional powers to gain the levant cultures by event rather than simply 'paving' the entire area one -- already bloated -- culture upon conquest.

Currently, there are two crusader states and two regional powers who can get syrian culture. We did it this way so that the powers that be will always have a pretty good reason for coveting the area. If the cultures get changed, the matter will end up being closed, sooner or later.

Up to you all. For my part, while I agree with removing some of the micro-cultures, I also do not like making additions to the game's sprawling mobs. Besides, think of how many MP games have incorporated house-rules for gaining cultures during play. If Abe is going to support a similar, dynamic style of play we should have some medium cultures for the taking.