Militery Non-Access Requested

[unmerged(31117)]

One of the things that I dislike most about CK is the fact that you have unfettered militery access through the entire world (except Muslims and Pagans that still seem to be able to pass through Christian lands with inpunity). Militery Access should be defaultly unavailable unless the following applies.

1. The country through which you are passing is part of your ream.
2. You are on Crusade and at war with the (Non Christian) holder of the Crusade target and the country that you are passing through is Christian.
3. You have a treaty of militery access with that county

If you negotiate a treaty of militery access, you should automaticly gain access rights through all vassals of that country. Alliances should only be negotiable with countries that you can get to (by land or sea) and not with far away countries on the other side of the world.

I think the Militery Access in this would be the best way of stopping countries from setting up illogical holdings half way accross the world and ending up in rather strange situations (Like Bohemia bieng in Spain for instance).

 

[Octavian]

Yeah it's a real game killer to see sheikdoms in the middle of europe completely surrounded be christian lords...

 

[unmerged(16323)]

Some time ago I read somewhere around here a proposal like this:

Christians can only go through lands of muslims they are at war with and vice versa.

This would be easy to implement (I suppose) and would solve alot of problems (like sheikdom of Praha or county of Baghdad surrounded by muslims) It would also be logically accurate I suppose.

Also I noticed some sort of an error in the AI fighting logic. When there is a crusade for Jerusalem and all the christians dow the poor little sheikdom of Jersualem, the Fatamids (sp?) jump in. And all fo the crusaders land in Alexandria instead of the Holy Land. This may be caused by logic of this kind: "go for the nearest province of the enemy". In "map sector milage" Alexandria is usually closer for the crusaders (for example for the ones from France etc). I don't know how to address this issue, just wanted to point it out.

 

[Jools]

it would also be good if a sea journey could only go by 3-4 naval provinces without stopping for supplies. then island like sicily and crete would gain the importance they really had in history.

 

[LordLeto]

As I've said in other threads pertaining to this topic little inpentrable forcefeilds of red lines isn't any better then being able to walk thru Northern Germany unimpuned as the Sultan of the Suljuk Empire.

How ever I do support a Military Access idea. But not the little forcefeild type. You CAN march where ever you like, but there should be consquences for you actions. Namely very high attrition. And in the case of walking thru a christian lords land uninvited a string of events that can give you a claim against him.

 

[unmerged(23721)]

As I've said in other threads pertaining to this topic little inpentrable forcefeilds of red lines isn't any better then being able to walk thru Northern Germany unimpuned as the Sultan of the Suljuk Empire.

How ever I do support a Military Access idea. But not the little forcefeild type. You CAN march where ever you like, but there should be consquences for you actions. Namely very high attrition. And in the case of walking thru a christian lords land uninvited a string of events that can give you a claim against him.

Little forcefield sounds easier to implement

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Actually, I'd think that attrition malus would probably be easier than forcefields -- or at very least it would be equally as easy. Either way, the AI will not be able to "plan" for it without coding a huge AI overhaul that is beyond the scope of the project.

We are looking at a variety of possible solutions - or partial solutions - that we think may help the situation though. Will probably not be this week but maybe next...

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Rather than attrition, or maybe in combination. i think costs could go up for passing through neutral territory, ie paying off some of the local lords to look the other way and not raise troops.

 

[LordLeto]

Would cost really matter for the AI which won't go below 0 in any matter?

 

[unmerged(1923)]

One of the thing I have noticed playing in Byzantium: Georgia usually falls quickly. This often involves a war with Derbent which includes Al Jezira as an ally. Al Jezira sends large armies back and forth across Byzantine territory - certainly an odd thing for the Emperor to ignore.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Would cost really matter for the AI which won't go below 0 in any matter?

Well consider that the AI has never, in any paradox game, been able to handle attrition well and add to that the seperate pathfinding algorithm isn't perfect and this really will have massive impacts to the AI only if only attrition is used.

 

[unmerged(43314)]

Also I noticed some sort of an error in the AI fighting logic. When there is a crusade for Jerusalem and all the christians dow the poor little sheikdom of Jersualem, the Fatamids (sp?) jump in. And all fo the crusaders land in Alexandria instead of the Holy Land. This may be caused by logic of this kind: "go for the nearest province of the enemy". In "map sector milage" Alexandria is usually closer for the crusaders (for example for the ones from France etc). I don't know how to address this issue, just wanted to point it out.

Oddly enough historically thats 100% accurate.

After the failure of the second and third crusades the european powers kindof notised that economically Alexandria should be their target if they want to keep from losing the holy land right after they get it. So this sortof behaivor isnt at all odd.

 

[LordLeto]

Yea, I belive Egypt was referred to as "the key to the holy land" by someone. Sparking a number of expiditions to take it.

Well consider that the AI has never, in any paradox game, been able to handle attrition well and add to that the seperate pathfinding algorithm isn't perfect and this really will have massive impacts to the AI only if only attrition is used.

Well the increased attrition would reduce the ability of Bob the Skiek of taking Praha, if by only reducing to speed at which their seige can advance.

 

[unmerged(16323)]

Oddly enough historically thats 100% accurate.

After the failure of the second and third crusades the european powers kindof notised that economically Alexandria should be their target if they want to keep from losing the holy land right after they get it. So this sortof behaivor isnt at all odd.

Yea, maybe you're right about Alexandria but I don't think that they thought that Nubia was also a key to the Holy Land And when they take Alexandria they go for the whole Egypt.

And I like the idea of 3 sea region sailing. To further reduce the problem of armies sailing around everywhere, giving the sea regions a MUCH bigger weight in the pathfinding algorithm's graph would help alot.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Well the increased attrition would reduce the ability of Bob the Skiek of taking Praha, if by only reducing to speed at which their seige can advance.

This will not just hurt muslims though. It will hurt every AI and make an already easy to EC (European Conquest) game even easier because the AI does not really understand the effects of attrition.

If your worried about muslim seiges, their are other ways to handle them.

 

[unmerged(23888)]

Well the increased attrition would reduce the ability of Bob the Skiek of taking Praha, if by only reducing to speed at which their seige can advance.

Wouldn't it also slow down the speed of a siege for crusader AI if they have to march through enemy territory. It looks like it is a two-edged sword.

 

[Third Angel]

Well the increased attrition would reduce the ability of Bob the Skiek of taking Praha, if by only reducing to speed at which their seige can advance.

Sure but he would still try it even with twelve knights and even if Praha has a medium castle. At the same time his holdings would be taken easily by christian lords and that would be it. I think muslim AI should be made to defend itself upon its land so that there would be a real match for crusaders. Increased attrition would make things even easier for human player since he can handle it much better than AI does.
So IMO we do need a true military access system. If this is too long to to code, just do it so that muslims cannot cross christian lands they're not at war with (or with their liege's holder) and that would be enough, with the same applied to christians/pagans, muslims/pagans.
It is already so when they're at peace after all, so why the hell would the fact of being at war grant one military access over the land of his enemy's religious fellows? Now if the seljuk Turk wants to get to Berlin or Praha he will just have to conquer Byzantium and Croatia, and if the german King wants some land in Persia let him conquer the Holy Land first.
Added to the restriction of sea movement (for everyone: crusading armies did walk most of the time), this should avoid most cases of Fatimid Scotland or Zirid Poland which are the last big game-breakers. Muslim Low Countries or Bohemia should not be rendered impossible but there should be muslim Spain, France, Turkey and Balkans before that can happen.

 

[LordLeto]

The problem as I see it, making the Moslim AI camp at home would need a major AI reworking, something I belive MrT has said is quite out of the scope of the Betas.

Attrition isn't perfect solution, but its probably as good as we're going to get for the time being.

Prohibition of access to either land or sea is unrealistic and imho not any better then the current system.

While true most Crusading armies marched over land for the most part in the first and second crusades, it is not true for the third, fourth and fifth. And as this game covers the period of all the crusades a restriction on sea movement wouldn't work in the historical context.

How ever, tieing restrictions to naval travel(if at all possible) to naval tech might be an idea.

 

[Grell74]

I agree with Lord Leto, increased attrition will just make it easier for the player and harder for the AI. I beleive capping naval movement at a certain amount of sea/coast zones is the way to go (with tech / building modifiers). The gameplay benefits of this are obvious and historically no nation ever sailed armies of any substantial size from the middle east to Scandinavia e.g. The Danish crusader Erik I "the good" went over land through russia. However later Crusades (such as the Third Crusade, notably Richard Lionheart) were able to. This can be reflected by techs and wharf upgrades which can be setup in historical areas such as Venice, London (Essex), Siciliy, Aragon, etc, but not out of reach of other smaller provinces which can travel greater numbers of sea zones and techs are discovered later in the game.

I am not really a big fan of the "invisible force field" solution to military access. Why not give a 20% chance or something (or make up some similar events based on piety, traits,etc) for a lord to declare war when a religious enemy passes through their province. As they dont need claims to take ownership this makes a bit more sense. For example with the Fatamids going for GHRE's demnse/capital, other german provinces arent just going to sit there watching a Muslim army march across their lands, but also the Muslims will end up with strategically more important areas closer to their own lands. As an example think of the Ottomans they didnt march staight for Bavaria, they attacked Austria etc first. There would be no way for Muslims to effectively maintian control of a province in the middle of Germany when they are surrounded by Christian realms (its not like they had radios, etc).

 

[Justinian_A]

I've never been a big fan of invisible force fields, but I do think that an army should get permission to cross the territory of a religious enemy. If they don't get permission, then the armies stationed in the provinces crossed should wake up and attack the crossing army. Yes, it would make long distance attacks harder, but this one issue is a real game spoiler. As much as I love CK, it irritates me to no end to see Christians marching unimpeded to Baghdad, or the Sultanate of Praha when nowhere around it has been conquered. It's just ridiculous. Plus, it would actually require the use of diplomatic options to convince the states one needs to cross...giving gifts could actually be useful!