Late-game outcomes. Examples and discussion

[Meneth]

I'll be using this thread to post results from hands-off tests I run, sharing my findings, and opening the floor for discussion based on those tests.
Anyone can feel free to run and post their own tests as well. To keep things focused though, both Project Balance and SWMH should be enabled for any results posted here.

My personal combination of modules:

• Project Balance
• SWMH
• VIET Events
• NBRT+ (only minor gameplay effects due to changing terrain)
• ARKOpack armoiries (no gameplay effect)

My findings will be based mostly on the year 1490 with a start date in 1066, but any results at least a century after a start between 867 and 1081 are appreciated.

Opinions on any outcomes that should be encouraged or discouraged are appreciated. Inquiries about specific outcomes in a complete test are also appreciated; I plan on keeping the finished save for all tests I run.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Good to hear. I'm afraid that I rarely play a game for more than 50 years these days, so I can't be of too much help.

 

[Meneth]

My first test game was run with the following changing in PB from the HIP release on the 17th of February:

• Reduced the size of Robert of Apulia's starting forces somewhat
• (No Ahistorical Empires) Fixed Adal and Maghreb being part of dejure empires in SWMH (Note: NAE was not active in this test)
• Battlefield duels now work properly again: reverted the integrated New Duel Engine to its previous version (pre-3.4.1 PB). Kept the new-style combat trait icons originally from AnaxXiphos
• Until the code can be analysed in-depth and cleared for take-off, "Hold a Grand Tournament" is now disabled (related to NDE revert) due primarily to potentially critical side effects with the do_not_disturb character flag

Independent realms:

For the most parts, borders were reasonable. France was an absolute mess, with English, Croatian, HRE, Lombardian, and Irish exclaves, and several independent French duchies.
This mess seems to've happened as a result of numerous marriages between French nobles and external realms. It is also worth noting that the Principality of Salerno is Pecheneg and Orthodox.
There were a few strange exclaves beyond that. The Lombardians have a small one on the Scottish coast, and the Italian duchy of Taranto has one in the middle of the Bulgarian Empire. The Fatimids also have some holdings on the Greek coast which I'm not entirely sure how they obtained. Part of this exclave split off as a Shia duchy of Epirus.
Russia is a bit of a mess as always, but beyond that most borders make quite a bit of sense.

Culture:

Culture spread was very reasonable for the most part.
English culture spread to part of Brittany and south-western France, but this makes sense as they held the areas for centuries.
A tiny bit of Lombard culture spread to Scotland, but the real issue there isn't culture spread, but that they got that territory to begin with.
In the HRE native cultures in the Low Lands, Bohemia, and Northern Italy got hurt badly. As a result I slowed down culture spread within the HRE 1/6th further after this test; they should not be able to displace cultures so easily.
They didn't manage to push out Wendish culture, but this was a result of a strong Wendland; they held the Wendish cultured area for much of the game, and still hold most of it in 1490. Note that Wendish culture is excepted from the general slowdown of spread of German culture in the HRE, so if conquered it should be mostly gone by the end of the game.

Religion:

The strangest part here is perhaps the Orthodoxy between the HRE and France. This seems to have been a result of marriages with Orthodox rulers leading to those rulers taking over.
Beyond that nothing truly outlandish. A few catholic heresies here and there, most notably Denmark and Sweden going completely Cathar.
The Baltic Pagans remained strong. Might have to do something in the future to discourage that.
The Slavic Pagans mostly died out; I believe Wendland converted to Catholicism peacefully in the last century or two of the campaign.
Poland also went entirely Orthodox. Not entirely sure how it happened, but it is entirely plausible so not really an issue.
Some pockets of Judaism here and there in the Middle East. Not quite sure how those happened. Isolated enough that it might've just been random chance though, so not necessarily an issue.

I did another test after this. I'll most likely post an analysis of that later today.

 

[cybrxkhan]

If you don't mind but I know you'd prefer to have these SWMH centric, but I usually run my non-SWMH VIET and PB+VIET test games without SWMH, so I'll post those once I'm on the PC more regularly and can post test games.

 

[Meneth]

If you don't mind but I know you'd prefer to have these SWMH centric, but I usually run my non-SWMH VIET and PB+VIET test games without SWMH, so I'll post those once I'm on the PC more regularly and can post test games.

I think it'd be better to have a separate thread for that; it'd cause a bit of chaos trying to discuss two such different setups at once.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I think it'd be better to have a separate thread for that; it'd cause a bit of chaos trying to discuss two such different setups at once.

Sure, makes sense.

 

[al3xytp]

How do you have such nice maps with provinces borders ? Anyway, I might be able to launch an observer game this night.

 

[Meneth]

How do you have such nice maps with provinces borders ? Anyway, I might be able to launch an observer game this night.

See this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?629840-Resource-Crusader-Kings-II-Maps

 

[Meneth]

Right, the post for my second test game won't be too day; too tired to write it.
Here's a screen from my third test game though. I think we can declare that the Mongol invasions are indeed working correctly:

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Right, the post for my second test game won't be too day; too tired to write it.
Here's a screen from my third test game though. I think we can declare that the Mongol invasions are indeed working correctly:

Those Mongols look good to me.
Hungary ruling Serbia and Poland isn't implausible.
How did the Byzantines retake Anatolia?

 

[Meneth]

How did the Byzantines retake Anatolia?

They never lost it to begin with. For whatever reason the full invasion never kicked off.

 

[al3xytp]

France and Aquitaine split off again ? This happens in too many of my games, and often a occitan dynasty end up ruling in France.
Also, I don't know if this big Genoa in Piedmont is a republic or a feudal realm. Though, if it's a republic, it expanded too much, and if it's a feudal realm that means that Genoa disappeared from the map in 1270, which is no good either.
Lithuania formed and quite strong is very fine.
Mongols looks fine to me, as long as they don't invade the whole Rus.

 

[Meneth]

France and Aquitaine split off again ? This happens in too many of my games, and often a occitan dynasty end up ruling in France.
Also, I don't know if this big Genoa in Piedmont is a republic or a feudal realm. Though, if it's a republic, it expanded too much, and if it's a feudal realm that means that Genoa disappeared from the map in 1270, which is no good either.
Lithuania formed and quite strong is very fine.
Mongols looks fine to me, as long as they don't invade the whole Rus.

It is a republic.
I don't see any real issue with it making a sizable foothold in 200 years. Venice made a similar foothold historically in a similar timeframe.

There's a couple of bits here and there to discourage Aquitaine splitting off, but it does happen still relatively often. Not really all that implausible though.

 

[Cardinal Sin]

I really think Aquitaine should be made titular and France be made to cover both France and Aquitaine. This should make France more stable and truly a great power to fear (as it was during the Middle Ages) rather than a kicking ball for various Balkan nations.

 

[al3xytp]

There's a couple of bits here and there to discourage Aquitaine splitting off, but it does happen still relatively often. Not really all that implausible though.

Is France elective ? Because this often happens because of this.

 

[Meneth]

Is France elective ? Because this often happens because of this.

No idea; don't have that campaign any more.

 

[BasileusIX]

This is actually the first 'normal' big invasion I have seen so far. In my latest Rhomania game the Seljuks invaded Russia and had a one-province-one-province corridor from Persia to the White Sea. They never even touched the Levant and instead I needed to help the King of Polotsk against Persian Sunni revolters...

 

[Kaiser Andreas]

I too believe Aquitaine should be made a titular kingdom. In all of my campaigns with this mod has Aquitaine broken off into a separate kingdom, making France weak.

 

[MFCamillus]

ok - lets see if I can mess up posting graphics

I don't have what it takes for province borders on the images on this computer yet. Working on that - so they are not as pretty as Meneth's

Some results from my short game 1066 (Stamford Bridge) - 1400

Using the last HIP release SWMH, ARKO, NBRT, VIET Events, PB updated to yesterdays beta (e62422055e)

The map of Blobs and Independent Realms


Highlights: The schism was mended in 1177 thus causing Orthodoxy to become a heresy and so when the Teutonic Order formed it decided to gobble up all the nice rich provinces of Anatolia rather than participating in the meat grinder of Spain or dealing with those remaining Baltic Pagans.

The Seljuks took Persia+Iraq and a bit more, but the attempt to form Rum failed.

The HRE managed to inherit(?) Tolosa and Artois in the early 1200’s then slowly ate France until it was 50% of size in the early 1300s and then a HRE grand duke got his claim pressed for the French throne and VOILA France was a happy member of the HRE.

The Duke of Rethel inherited Kent and most of the South English coastline to help the HRE spread.

The Golden Horde stretched from Siberia to Hungary (their borders on this map) and all of Persia/Iraq. Then they converted and fell into pieces over the next 2 centuries. Then a large portion of the pieces were swept up by the Timurids.

Religion


Did I mention that the Golden Horde converted to Judaism? Certainly was interesting seeing Jewish Heresy’s getting to make their appearance on the map.

Catholicism swept through the Russian Slavs in place of Orthodoxy – probably as the schism had been mended.

And as Meneth noted, those Balts are apparently very stubborn.

I probably have enough information available to research some questions if anyone has them.

Adding Culture - As you can see the tweaks did not do too bad. Dutch culture has survived a bit better in this run

 

[MFCamillus]

Mid Term results on a long game

Since Meneth was open to earlier starts also I let one go for a bit of yesterday afternoon and most of the night.
Same settings as the other game - just starting in 867

The current realm map


Highlights: Yes, the Seljuks are missing….I had to spend a bit of time trying to ferret out what was going on there when I opened the map this morning for what it did overnight and did not see them. They arrived – and then 20 years later he died. Without an heir. So either he lost the army without taking a single province (since he did not have any other titles) – unlikely. Or he lost an early battle, was captured and spent the rest of his life there while his army melted away.
Not sure exactly what happened but it is odd. I play most of my games from 867 and normally the Seljuks dominate the SE corner of the map.

The IlKhanate has arrived and has ripped across the steppes. They also hold Iraq and Persia but currently have a massive independence revolt in that area.

The HRE did not form, but honestly I only see it form maybe 30% of the time. Usually from what I can see when I look at points that I would have expected it to form it is because of Lombardia – very rarely(after the first 50 years or so) do I see someone hold Lombardia and the other titles needed. They hold all of France, or all of Germany but don’t get Lombardia along with it. Then they die and the titles disperse due to Gavelkind or Elective and it is another century before anyone is remotely close to being able to form it.

Speaking of succession laws – at the 200year mark there were 10 kingdoms in existence from the Carolingian holdings 5 with elective, 3 Gavelkind and 2 Primogeniture. After almost 400years there are only 8 kingdoms now – 4 elective, 2 Gavelkind, 2 Primogeniture. Although to go with the comments above about Aquitaine – I am not certain that it needs to be titular. BUT - Aquitaine, France, and the Lotharingia’s seem to be the most likely to change to elective. France and Aquitane almost always do (one time I did see Aquitaine go 300 years without it but France has not). The Lotharingia’s are usually probably 60/40 for Elective wheras the German kingdoms seem to go only 40%ish for elective. All numbers are subjective, I think if I can get some time in the next week I’ll see if I can get some empirical tests. I think this tends to make France weaker in combination with Aquitaine. If one or both of them would stay away from elective they seem to hold up better.

However they seem to be holding their own in this game even as elective monarchies.

Spain…. Well, the Catholic Kingdoms have been wiped out – Portugal exists but is Sunni. There have been a couple of revolts that reestablished Castille or Leon but both were swamped under after a couple of decades of independence. Navarra was absorbed by the French.

Mercia founded England and have remained relatively strong – also taking in a bit of Scotland.

One thing that I found interesting were the Norse choices. At one point France and Aquitaine were united, Tolosa/Barcelona/Normandy/Flanders gained their independence. Then the Danes attacked and took the Duchy of Tolosa. Totally bypassing Flanders and Normandy. And a Geatish prepared invasion tried to take the portions of the Patrimony Sanctum Patriae held by an Italian duke on the Tyrrhenian. I found it interesting that Normandy was available and poised in the mid-900s to be that spawning ground of the Normans and the Norse ignored it.

Religion

Oh. The ERE converted to Catholicism and Orthodoxy is almost extinct. The Astani and Slavianska Vera groups are shrinking rapidly.

The IlKhanate has not yet converted. We will wait to see what happens with them or the Golden Horde.

I’ll be letting this run to see how it finishes out in the next day or so.