Muslim-controlled lands drifting out of Christian kingdoms

[Kimberly]

In my current game, all lands have de jure drifted out of the Kingdom of Jerusalem--two crusades were called for Jerusalem, and one failed spectacularly while the other was abruptly ended inconclusively (the owner of the lands had an invasion happen to them), so they've been in Muslim position for a while. This seems unrealistic to me, because it makes Muslim ownership seems as legitimate as Christian ownership of the same lands, which most medieval Christians certainly wouldn't agree with.

I propose that there be separate de jure systems for Muslims and Christians. Jerusalem may drift in and out of this or that sultanate, which has effects on Muslim politics, while it should remain a part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for Christians unless it de jure drifts into a different Christian kingdom. Prolonged Christian ownership of Jerusalem could be seen as legitimate, whereas prolonged Muslim ownership of Jerusalem would still be thought of simply as "Muslim occupation of the Holy Land".

On a side note...how can territory drift out of a kingdom that has never existed yet, anyway?

 

[Thorv]

Your suggestion of separate de jure systems (one for each major religion group) sounds good in theory, but what difference would it make in practical game terms? When fighting Muslims, Christians don't need a de jure casus belli - they already have holy wars and crusades. The fact that Christians regarded the Holy Land as being illegitimately occupied is already modeled by the crusades mechanics.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

What happens when you call a crusade for a titular kingdom?

 

[Kimberly]

Your suggestion of separate de jure systems (one for each major religion group) sounds good in theory, but what difference would it make in practical game terms? When fighting Muslims, Christians don't need a de jure casus belli - they already have holy wars and crusades. The fact that Christians regarded the Holy Land as being illegitimately occupied is already modeled by the crusades mechanics.

Well, say take a duchy in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and form it, and so does another Christian country--except their duchy has drifted into the Whatever Sultanate. You are not the dejure liege of that duke, which is kind of weird. Or, if a few crusades fail, when one finally succeeds you don't get as much as you would normally, for no particular reason.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

There should probably be three levels - Traditional, which functions as De Jure now, just minus the drift. It's what people consider to be the "traditional" ruler of the land - IE England over Kent. Then there should be De Jure - who people are used to being ruled by, IE England over Normandy circa 1200 or so. Then, of course, De Facto, which is what we have now when you're not De Jure ruler of that land. That way, we could have Crusades and Jihads declared for "Traditional" land, rather than De Jure land. On the 1066 start, then, KoJ would be Traditional KoJ, but De Jure Egypt (maybe, I'm not sure when the Fatamids took power). If a crusade is successful, then it would be Traditional KoJ, De Jure Egypt (drifting into KoJ) and De Facto KoJ. You could get a Claim CB for both De Jure and Traditional land for your titles as well.

If we make De Jure drift shorter as well, it would help prevent silliness like Denmark being eaten/vassalized by the HRE, then going on a rampage attacking other vassals inside the HRE with the Emperor being able to do nothing about it.

 

[Kimberly]

There should probably be three levels - Traditional, which functions as De Jure now, just minus the drift. It's what people consider to be the "traditional" ruler of the land - IE England over Kent. Then there should be De Jure - who people are used to being ruled by, IE England over Normandy circa 1200 or so. Then, of course, De Facto, which is what we have now when you're not De Jure ruler of that land. That way, we could have Crusades and Jihads declared for "Traditional" land, rather than De Jure land. On the 1066 start, then, KoJ would be Traditional KoJ, but De Jure Egypt (maybe, I'm not sure when the Fatamids took power). If a crusade is successful, then it would be Traditional KoJ, De Jure Egypt (drifting into KoJ) and De Facto KoJ. You could get a Claim CB for both De Jure and Traditional land for your titles as well.

If we make De Jure drift shorter as well, it would help prevent silliness like Denmark being eaten/vassalized by the HRE, then going on a rampage attacking other vassals inside the HRE with the Emperor being able to do nothing about it.

The three-tiered system makes a lot of sense, I think. The inflexible, non-drifting layer serves as a sanity check.

 

[spongelike]

+1 to this thread

I like both those ideas. I've been thinking for a while that Muslims and Christians should have separate de jure systems but the three tier system sounds really good too. In fact, I think having both would be pretty great. I really like the de jure drift system, but it would be nice for it to have a bit of an anchor which the tradition de jure idea would do really well.

 

[Ols]

I'd prefer to separate de jure kingdoms by religion, and maybe give Pagans limited or no de jure areas. Jerusalem de jure drifting into a Muslim title makes zero sense especially if it hadn't been formed previously. It'd also present an opportunity for Muslims to form conqueror sultanates like Rum if they can push further into Europe. Maybe make all the de jure stuff now Christian, and have a faster and more dynamic de jure system for the Muslims so the Fatimids and Seljuks don't constantly mess up the de jure map.

 

[Mackus]

Or just make muslim mostly ignore de jure - for muslim law was more personal/tribal than territorial. Make crown laws of primary title always take precedence for muslim realms, and in return, titles owned by muslim won't drift. So if K-Jerusalem exists, but Saladin owns Outrejordain, Egyptian crown laws take precedence in Outrejordain. This way there will be no drifting of Jeruralem into Egypt, while muslim would have no problem with crown laws.

 

[Lorehead]

Could potentially handle this by making Crusades target clusters of duchies, similar to the "Press all Claims" casus belli. A successful Crusade might then reset the de jure affiliation of all the conquered duchies. Invasions probably still work as is.

 

[Kimberly]

Could potentially handle this by making Crusades target clusters of duchies, similar to the "Press all Claims" casus belli. A successful Crusade might then reset the de jure affiliation of all the conquered duchies. Invasions probably still work as is.

That would be simpler to add than revising the de jure system, true. However, it only fixes the problem in regard to crusades--if the Kingdom of Sicily has drifted into a sultanate, and I get it back through regular holy warring instead of crusades, I should still be able to form the Kingdom with its proper, Christian borders.

 

[Ols]

Removing all de jure drift for Muslims does sound good. If some Christian titles are Muslim for long enough however they would lose legitimacy, so maybe if the year is after 1300 or so Christian titles out in Muslim lands should start to reshuffle into Turkish/Arabic titles via events.

 

[barny]

If at all you should only stop the drifting for the Holy Land, everything else would either make no sense or would be far to complicated.

 

[anonymouswolfm]

Your suggestion of separate de jure systems (one for each major religion group) sounds good in theory, but what difference would it make in practical game terms? When fighting Muslims, Christians don't need a de jure casus belli - they already have holy wars and crusades. The fact that Christians regarded the Holy Land as being illegitimately occupied is already modeled by the crusades mechanics.

This happened in my game - the Duchy of Jerusalem drifted into a Muslim Sultanate. When the crusade for Jerusalem finally succeeded, the KoJ became only a strip along the coast. Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[Thorv]

I see, so the OP's problem is with de jure drift affecting religious conquest, among other things. Then the best solution would probably be a three-tiered system such as that suggested by Jack_Folstam:

• Permanently de jure or de lege lata
• Drifting de jure or de lege ferenda
• De facto

 

[Saulot]

The three-tiered system makes a lot of sense, I think. The inflexible, non-drifting layer serves as a sanity check.

I agree - for that reason I thought that the de jure hierarchy in the original CK2 was a great improvement over CK1 for just that reason. Personally, I don't like de jure drift at all, but I would probably like it better with such a three tiered system.