[Mini-Mod] Sensible Crusades

[GeneralPetrov]

Sensible Crusades
Link to the mod

Are you tired of the Pope drunkenly declearing Crusades for Mongolia? Are you sick of the Caliph declearing Jihads for Finland, most likely while under the influence of recreational drugs? Then this mini-mod is (probably) for you!

You see, the way the AI decides where to Crusade or Jihad is through a series of weights, effectively ranking the kingdoms by importance to their particular religion. For example, Italy has a crusade weight of 10000, while Jerusalem has a weight of 500, meaning that if both a held by pesky infidels, the Pope will more often than not declear a crusade for Italy over Jerusalem. Sounds logical right? The problem is that a lot of kingdoms have no weights at all.

Take a look at this picture:

It is a de jure kingdom map where I have, using my mad paint skillz, given each kingdom a rank based on its weight. 1 means most important, 14 means not very important, 0 means no weight or least important. If two kingdoms are held by an infidel, and both kingdoms have the same weight, there is an equal chance of a crusade for either. Notice the amount of kingdoms with no weights- from Africa, to Rus, to Mongolia, to Bengal, and even Denmark strangely. Because all of these kingdoms have the same amount of weight (zero), all have an equal chance of having a crusade called on. That means Denmark has the exact same chance of crusade as say Mongolia, or Bengal. Islam also has a similar issue, with Greece having the exact same chance of a jihad as Finland. I don't think I have to explain to you how absurdly ridiculous that is.

This mini-mod fixes this issue by assigning a realistic weight to every kingdom, as you can see in these pictures:

Now Crusades and Jihads will happen in a much more realistic fashion- after Jerusalem has been taken and held and all other christian areas are safe in the 1066 start for example, the pope will most likely launch crusades for either Northern Europe or North Africa, instead of Turkestan or Mali.


This should be compatible with pretty much any mod that doesn't change the de-jure territories. It also does not require any DLC or expansions.

This is mostly a personal mini-mod, but I don't mind any suggestions, such as if you want me to fix weights for other religions like Germanic or Zoroastrianism.

I hope you find this mini-mod helpful and enjoyable! Have fun crusading and jihading!

 

[Rationalsanity]

You are a saint and a scholar. If the dev fix doesn't work this will be a lifesaver.

Hmm, Crusade weights for pagans and Zoroastrian shouldn't be that hard. For pagans it should be their traditional homelands, then give progressively lower weights to more distant kingdoms.

For Zoroastrians, the Persian heartland should be highest. Then the old empire (most of the ERE and the Middle East and Egypt). Everything else should just work like other faiths, kingdoms closer to the faiths heartland having more weight.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

You are a saint and a scholar. If the dev fix doesn't work this will be a lifesaver.

Hmm, Crusade weights for pagans and Zoroastrian shouldn't be that hard. For pagans it should be their traditional homelands, then give progressively lower weights to more distant kingdoms.

For Zoroastrians, the Persian heartland should be highest. Then the old empire (most of the ERE and the Middle East and Egypt). Everything else should just work like other faiths, kingdoms closer to the faiths heartland having more weight.

Haha, I'm no saint, I just saw a problem that nobody else seemed to have fixed, so I decided to fix it for myself.

I agree, the weights shouldn't be too difficult to come up with, I held off on it for now because I admittedly just got tired of spending in what felt like forever of switching out values after values, and also because it's not often you see AI pagan great holy wars anyway. I will do it soon though if I manage to find some free time.

 

[Fishman786]

Excellent!

If you want help with the workload of setting the weights for Zoroastrians etc I might be able to help with that.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

Excellent!

If you want help with the workload of setting the weights for Zoroastrians etc I might be able to help with that.

Oh don't worry, I'm not too bothered and I think can handle it, but feel free to help if you really want to.

 

[Fishman786]

Oh don't worry, I'm not too bothered and I think can handle it, but feel free to help if you really want to.

Are there any particular rationales you've been following?

 

[GeneralPetrov]

Are there any particular rationales you've been following?

Hard to say since I mostly just acted out of my common sense and general knowledge, but I suppose there were two main rules to follow on how high a kingdom should be- importance to religion, and proximity (ideally don't want any unconnected or too far away kingdoms).

 

[LKA]

Maybe you should not give Jerusalem the same weight as Anatolia, a 5 or something like that would be more realistic, same for Syria (maybe give them a 6). Sicily is also kind of weird, why would the pope care more about (orthodox) Greece than his next door neighbors. Also, why do some countries have 2 numbers (Hungary, Ireland etc.)? Finally, what's up with the zeros in Navarra and Venice, why is Mongolia more likely to be crusaded than them? Otherwise a very good idea, I just hope these few issues can be addressed.

 

[Rationalsanity]

Crusades for minor kingdoms like Venice and the smaller Iberian ones are pointless. Little reason for the Pope to use his once per generation war on glorified duchies. Leave that to local rulers and Holy wars.

Also, if/when you do Zoroastrian weights, can you please put Armenia and Anatolia higher than Greece? Was always annoying to have to conquer Greece before Asia Minor.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

Maybe you should not give Jerusalem the same weight as Anatolia, a 5 or something like that would be more realistic, same for Syria (maybe give them a 6).

I agree on that Jerusalem should be a 5, and I sort of agree with you on Syria, but I don't think it should be that important, might make both it and Egypt an 8.

Sicily is also kind of weird, why would the pope care more about (orthodox) Greece than his next door neighbors.

I agree with you on this, Sicily should probably be a 2, but Greece will also remain a 2 as while it was Orthodox, it was an incredibly important part of Christendom (it was the second Rome after all).

Also, why do some countries have 2 numbers (Hungary, Ireland etc.)?

That just means it in between those 2 numbers, because I changed my mind on their ranking and didn't want to have to change every single other rank too.

Finally, what's up with the zeros in Navarra and Venice, why is Mongolia more likely to be crusaded than them?

What @Rationalsanity said. They're so small it would be a waste of a crusade, when they can be conquered whole in a single holy war.

Otherwise a very good idea, I just hope these few issues can be addressed.

Thank you

Also, if/when you do Zoroastrian weights, can you please put Armenia and Anatolia higher than Greece? Was always annoying to have to conquer Greece before Asia Minor.

Definitely.

 

[CannotresistDLC]

Frankly, for a game called CK2, I wish there was more scripting behind Crusade/Jihads/GHWs. I feel they should've been dynamic - taking into account factors like the percentage of provinces in the possible targets' kingdoms that are of the caller's religion, distance from nearest independent co-religionist (or religious group) realm, realm size, and of course weighting for holy sites and historicity. Probably more stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Oh well.

Thanks for your work! This looks like an improvement on vanilla at least.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

Frankly, for a game called CK2, I wish there was more scripting behind Crusade/Jihads/GHWs. I feel they should've been dynamic - taking into account factors like the percentage of provinces in the possible targets' kingdoms that are of the caller's religion, distance from nearest independent co-religionist (or religious group) realm, realm size, and of course weighting for holy sites and historicity. Probably more stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Oh well.

Thanks for your work! This looks like an improvement on vanilla at least.

I completely agree, there is a massive amount of stuff they could do with the crusades and jihads, its really a shame and almost a surprise they haven't expanded on their mechanics or flavour, especially in a game literally called Crusader Kings.

I won't pretend this mod isn't just a bandage on the issue, but its about the most I can do with my limited modding experience and time.

 

[GeneralPetrov]

I've slightly updated the mod now, changing a few ranks/values like I said in my previous post.

I'm attempting to rank kingdoms for Zoroastrianism now, but I am having trouble deciding. Persia obviously gets a 1 ranking, but I don't know which kingdoms to give a 2 ranking (especially unsure on whether to give Mesopotamia a 2 ranking).

 

[LKA]

I agree on that Jerusalem should be a 5, and I sort of agree with you on Syria, but I don't think it should be that important, might make both it and Egypt an 8.

If you are making Syria (which has Antioch, a historical Crusade target in it) an 8 you should increase Anatolia's value though. There is no reason the pope would be interested in Anatolia more than in Syria or Egypt, plus it would likely result in border gore if it ever gets called

 

[GeneralPetrov]

If you are making Syria (which has Antioch, a historical Crusade target in it) an 8 you should increase Anatolia's value though. There is no reason the pope would be interested in Anatolia more than in Syria or Egypt, plus it would likely result in border gore if it ever gets called

True, I didn't think of that, I'll make sure to change it to a 9.

 

[LKA]

True, I didn't think of that, I'll make sure to change it to a 9.

Thanks looking forward to trying it out when I next find time for videogames