Mechanic to allow Muslims to Utilize the people of the Wastelands

[pengoyo]

So having read @elvain post on what went wrong with Islam in Ck2, I've had the question, "how to shore up Islam's core area while preventing it from blobbing out?" kicking around in my head. And while he/she has had some great suggestion, so far nothing has been implemented, and so I figure, a different tact doesn't hurt.

In my most recent game (going for Khan of Khans), I had the realization that most of the core areas of the Muslim world are next to wastelands. And while I do think these wastelands should remain wastelands, they weren't completely devoid of people, especially the Sahara. So I propose a mechanic to represent the ability of Muslim realms to get the semi-nomadic people in and around these wastelands to fight for them. (Note, I'm going to talk about this as an addition to the Iqta government, but it could be instead be implemented as a mechanic for a new government type. For example, a government unique to the Arab culture group.)

The simplest way to add this to the game would be that Iqta governments get a bonus to their levy from provinces that are adjacent to wastelands (with a compensating reduction elsewhere). While this could work, it's not very interesting.

Instead, I think that wasteland adjacent provinces of an Iqta realm controls should increase the pool of semi-nomadic fighters the ruler can call on. This could be implemented using something similar to the retinue/manpower mechanic or having the semi-nomads an ally you can call into your wars. But the size of this force should be proportional to the number of wasteland adjacent provinces the ruler controls and should require money to upkeep. To pay for this army, Iqta realms would receive more tax money from their vassals and to balance it out they would receive less vassal levies. This means that Iqta realms would reach their peak strength when holding a mixture of wasteland adjacent realms and rich provinces (so an Iqta kingdom blobbing into Europe would see minimal military strength increase, unless, it had semi-nomadic capacity it hadn't built up because of financial reasons). Lastly, these armies should be tied to the decadence mechanic, meaning their size or strength decrease as the rulers decadence goes up, and when a decadence revolt happens these armies should supply all or most of the soldier (the revolt size should be based on the max semi-nomadic army size so the player can't disband armies to reduce the revolts size). This would also help with the current feeling that the decadence soldier come out of nowhere.

Now one thing I want to add is that I think province religion and/or culture of these wasteland adjacent provinces should be important. So wasteland adjacent provinces that are of the wrong religion or culture group should not give a bonus (culture groups so that Arabs can receive help from the Berbers). This restriction is for two reasons, one is realism, a Muslim realm that stretches to Siberia shouldn't all of a sudden be getting armies from the Siberian wasteland unless there are Muslim Siberians (represent by neighboring province becoming Muslim). The second is to make conquering places like Nubia not immediately provide much benefit unless, for example, the Egyptians hold the area long enough to Arabize and convert it.

Now what about Iqta realms that don't border wasteland? What do they get? Well, all Iqta realms should have access to slave soldiers. These armies would use something similar to the retinue mechanic, but should be more expensive than the semi-nomadic army (essential a semi-nomadic army should provide more military strength for a given amount of money). This means realms reliant on slave armies won't be as strong as realms with access to semi-nomadic armies. These slave armies should be limited by either realm size or the rank of the highest title (or some combination). Besides costing more these armies also have a downside. If they make up more than half the ruler's military strength and the ruler is decadent, than they will rebel and try to take the realm for themselves (possibly with the help of the semi-nomadic armies). Also there could be events that increase the dynasties decadence if they become to reliant on slave armies.

Lastly, since this would most likely only apply to independent characters that are duke or higher, this could leave other Iqta characters with practically no army which isn't fun. For this reason, I want to point out that only vassal levies are reduced by the Iqta government type, demesne levies will be untouched. This will give these characters some ability to fight.

My idea with this is to keep this mechanic from becoming too complex while still having some depth; I figure this will increase the chance that it'll be integrated into the game (or something inspired by it). I'd rather see something that is a step closer and helps makes playing a Muslims realm feel more unique, than no change to the base game. So with that philosophy in mind, my idea isn't fully fleshed out and I would love to hear what people would recommend to improve it. Also there are some points where I don't know enough about governance and history in the Islamic world to say definitively what the mechanic should look like; for example: should religion, culture, or both be used to determine if wasteland adjacent province provide semi-nomadic fighters. So feel free to give feedback, changes, or even alternative mechanic.

 

[SBolshevik]

One thing that should also be implemented is jizya reducing or absoluely nullifying levies in non-Muslim provinces, seeing as historically those who paid jizya were exempt from military service.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Now one thing I want to add is that I think province religion and/or culture of these wasteland adjacent provinces should be important. So wasteland adjacent provinces that are of the wrong religion or culture group should not give a bonus (culture groups so that Arabs can receive help from the Berbers). This restriction is for two reasons, one is realism, a Muslim realm that stretches to Siberia shouldn't all of a sudden be getting armies from the Siberian wasteland unless there are Muslim Siberians (represent by neighboring province becoming Muslim). The second is to make conquering places like Nubia not immediately provide much benefit unless, for example, the Egyptians hold the area long enough to Arabize and convert it.

Well... These wasteland should be hardcoded the be muslim you mean? They were, historically, yes, but christianizing Africa would leave a giant unconvertable wasteland in Sahara to forever shame the religious mapmode? Could there not be a feature instead calculating what´s the most common Religion and Culture of these neightbouring provinces and give the wasteland the same? There are functionality already to count these provinces in order to pick a color for the wastelands, I think, in all mapmodes so I don't think it´s a biggie. Then the feature could be for everyone? Unless 51% of the provinces are same religion, the Wastleand is split in internal religious conflicts and don't have a religion. Same with Culture. If you share none - you cant recruit. If you share one, you can recruit a minor group of desert warriors. If you have both, you can recruit a bigger group of desertwarriors. Something liek that?

 

[pengoyo]

One thing that should also be implemented is jizya reducing or absoluely nullifying levies in non-Muslim provinces, seeing as historically those who paid jizya were exempt from military service.

I like that idea, makes for even more of a trade off for conquering other religions. But for game play reasons I could maybe see this only applying to vassal levies, with demesne levies taking a current reduction. Just wondering if the counts of the new province have any way to get soldiers otherwise (or maybe they don't need them?).

Well... These wasteland should be hardcoded the be muslim you mean? They were, historically, yes, but christianizing Africa would leave a giant unconvertable wasteland in Sahara to forever shame the religious mapmode? Could there not be a feature instead calculating what´s the most common Religion and Culture of these neightbouring provinces and give the wasteland the same? There are functionality already to count these provinces in order to pick a color for the wastelands, I think, in all mapmodes so I don't think it´s a biggie. Then the feature could be for everyone? Unless 51% of the provinces are same religion, the Wastleand is split in internal religious conflicts and don't have a religion. Same with Culture. If you share none - you cant recruit. If you share one, you can recruit a minor group of desert warriors. If you have both, you can recruit a bigger group of desertwarriors. Something liek that?

So not exactly hard coded Muslim. So as I currently see it the wasteland would still be grayed out on both the cultural and religious view. This is why it uses the province adjacent culture and religion to determine if the realm gets a bonus army. My original thought was that wastelands had culture and religion, but then thought this would create a problem with Muslims steamrolling Nubia and Mali as these neighbour presumably Muslim wastelands. So the only solutions I saw was either to cut up the wastelands which I don’t think would look as well or to use adjacent culture/religion as a proxy for what that part of the wasteland’s people are. The second to me had better granularity which seemed good.

The only part that is hard coded to Muslims is only Iqta can tap into this army. My thought with this is that these are semi-nomadic warriors in and around that wasteland adjacent province aren’t able to be utilized by regular feudal system (I could see maybe tribal getting access to it with the right culture and religion). But the main reason is Iqta would have built in costs to balance out these armies (decadence and reduced levies). Thus some other cost would need to be thought of to balance it out (possibly reduced strength and increased cost? But that doesn’t seem fun). But since I couldn’t think of a good balancing mechanic for non-Muslims, I focused on the group that did historical utilize these people. But I’d love if it could be balanced for all government types since althistory is a fun part of this game. But I don’t want to add a mechanic that would add to Europe’s ability to steamroll North Africa more than it already does. But maybe I’m being to cations or restrictive with this mechanic?

Note: if only religion of wasteland adjacent province is used (for example if Mali did use Berber armies). Then the largest culture surrounding the wasteland would be a good candidate for determining the makeup of these armies and could maybe use the flipping mechanic you suggest to make it more dynamic.

 

[Rags17]

IMHO all wastelands should be converted into playable provinces but with zero allowable holdings and close to zero allowable troop support. You might be able to build a fort there or maybe a trade post (but not a hospital, although why would you bother ?), but nothing else. Wars over the area would be like wars over empty nomadic provinces, ie you control it so long as you have something in it, but with the aforesaid massive attrition this might not be a viable tactic.

FWIW in my total conversion mod The Dawn of Civilization I created two crossing arrows from west Africa to east, troops that cross this area suffer horrific attrition but they can make the crossing - I'd love to see this in the basic game.

The only issue I see here is AI characters having "claims" and going to war over effectively barren wastes, maybe a mechanic that almost automatically turned such areas independent after a few years would stop that.

 

[pengoyo]

I like your idea. Honestly, anything that makes it so blobbing isn't always the correct answer is good in my book. And the mechanic I suggested could work with yours with some tweaking. It'd be great if there was some benefit for controlling wastelands, but for most realms it wouldn't be worth the cost.