As I said, it's been a couple of months, but back when I last tried he revoked titles even if I had 50+ relations with him..
Anyways, gonna give it a try again in not too long
My Armenian Miaphysist Kingdom being revoke-spammed by the emperor
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As I said, it's been a couple of months, but back when I last tried he revoked titles even if I had 50+ relations with him..
Anyways, gonna give it a try again in not too long
Best way to stay on good terms with you liege. Even better, put yourself on the throne.
Well, you did say you’re an Armenian Miaphysite. And you could hand off your old realm to someone else, and switch to him if you would rather play a vassal.
The Basilius had castrated me thrice for ploting againts an independent faction leader. Still loyal with him for a chance againts Mongol.
Didn’t have the heart to tell him the second and third time, huh?
About the Mongols: every horde is scripted to have six stacks of 20 200 men each spawn at its arrival; another two stacks of 20 200 men each have a 50% chance of spawning as well. After 10 years the Horde receives a reinforcement of another 20 200-men stack, with a 50% chance of another one. These stacks suffer no attrition, however they do not reinforce. So after some fighting they should be a lot smaller. After that, the Hordes draw on levies like normal countries do.
In my last game in the Middle East, I conquered the Kingdom of Persia and was really afraid of the hordes. Than the Il-Khanate showed up in Khiva (just north of my holdings) and I thought to myself Well now I'm f*cked. But to my amazement they went nort-west, conquering left and right all the way to Kingdom of Rus but not showing interest in me nor the Byzantines. Then the Golden Horde showed up, but their first invasion targeted a kingdom (Perm) that was already being invaded by the Il-Khanate. Il-Khanate won the war quickly and to my amazement (and happiness), Golden Horde disappeared (I assume it's because they "lost" their first war). Now I'm waiting for the Timurids...
In my last game in the Middle East, I conquered the Kingdom of Persia and was really afraid of the hordes. Than the Il-Khanate showed up in Khiva (just north of my holdings) and I thought to myself Well now I'm f*cked. But to my amazement they went nort-west, conquering left and right all the way to Kingdom of Rus but not showing interest in me nor the Byzantines. Then the Golden Horde showed up, but their first invasion targeted a kingdom (Perm) that was already being invaded by the Il-Khanate. Il-Khanate won the war quickly and to my amazement (and happiness), Golden Horde disappeared (I assume it's because they "lost" their first war). Now I'm waiting for the Timurids...
My attempt at making an Orthodox Kingdom of Italy as the Duke of Tuscany ended when the HRE cut off my hand with a small knife then put me in the oubliette. o
o
Ok I reloaded my game before the emperor stripped off my duchies and I played a bit smarter, folloxing your advices, which means focusing primarily on relations with the emperor above anything else.
Regarding the emperor :
- I keep my chancellor on Byzantium to improve relations but it goes slowly as he mostly succeeds in improving relations with eucumenical patriach 2/3rd of the time.
- the emperor proposes me to educate my kids, probably so that they would become orthodox and greeks, so my tactic is to accept (+20 entrusted ward and I cant afford to refuse and bear the - X relations ) and then I select another heir with elective monarchy if my heir is deprived of his great armenianness or miaphycism.
- marry within the imperial family, but only to female characters otherwise that could give the emperor a claim on your titles
- once the relation with the emperor is good enough, it is important to improve relations with the heir, as the emperor can die anytime. Though I have to wait till the heir is landed to do so. Indeed I have noticed that it is mostly on imperial succession that I get my title taken by the emperor, also for some reasons he only takes 2 duchies, never more.
- I found out something who looks like a bug with the intrigue "make a claim on duchy X for example abkhazia", as i succeed the intrigue, I get the duchy, then destroy it or give it to a vassal so that the emperor couldnt take it from me, then I can never get rid of the intrigue, and I cant start another one, it stays blocked.
- the emperor always keeps his chancellor on my capital, which is dangerous because it can convert my family members
- i dont try assassinations because if i get caught it is -50 relations.
To grow I cant fabricate claims because the CA makes them useless so I countinued with Holy Wars around Azeibadjan.
The Golden Horde declared war on the ERE, it had a 60k doomstack + poor levy, the ERE also managed to create a stack of around 60k, with my 20k I made the difference at the right moment so we won the war, I suppose the Golden Horde has no more stack now.
I think Ilkhanate is weaker cause they had to pass through the mighty seuljukids and that probably made their stacks downsize.
On a side note, on succession bishops are always created as orthodox, which is retarded cause as they are in a miaphysist territory, under miaphysist rule, they should be created miaphysist. Therefore it is important to ask them to change religion, some of them accept, otherwise you would have no choice to pick a decent chancellor among the existing miaphysist bishops. I also always as my vassals to change their religion toward mine so that they could convert their counties to miaphysicm, and I educate their heirs myself so that they would become armenians.
With all that I am getting successful, it only sucks that ERE is so big in my games (de jure + sicily + croatia + ukraine + armenia + syria) that when I'll have to fight for the throne it will be a huge pain.
Regarding the emperor :
- I keep my chancellor on Byzantium to improve relations but it goes slowly as he mostly succeeds in improving relations with eucumenical patriach 2/3rd of the time.
- the emperor proposes me to educate my kids, probably so that they would become orthodox and greeks, so my tactic is to accept (+20 entrusted ward and I cant afford to refuse and bear the - X relations ) and then I select another heir with elective monarchy if my heir is deprived of his great armenianness or miaphycism.
- marry within the imperial family, but only to female characters otherwise that could give the emperor a claim on your titles
- once the relation with the emperor is good enough, it is important to improve relations with the heir, as the emperor can die anytime. Though I have to wait till the heir is landed to do so. Indeed I have noticed that it is mostly on imperial succession that I get my title taken by the emperor, also for some reasons he only takes 2 duchies, never more.
- I found out something who looks like a bug with the intrigue "make a claim on duchy X for example abkhazia", as i succeed the intrigue, I get the duchy, then destroy it or give it to a vassal so that the emperor couldnt take it from me, then I can never get rid of the intrigue, and I cant start another one, it stays blocked.
- the emperor always keeps his chancellor on my capital, which is dangerous because it can convert my family members
- i dont try assassinations because if i get caught it is -50 relations.
To grow I cant fabricate claims because the CA makes them useless so I countinued with Holy Wars around Azeibadjan.
The Golden Horde declared war on the ERE, it had a 60k doomstack + poor levy, the ERE also managed to create a stack of around 60k, with my 20k I made the difference at the right moment so we won the war, I suppose the Golden Horde has no more stack now.
I think Ilkhanate is weaker cause they had to pass through the mighty seuljukids and that probably made their stacks downsize.
On a side note, on succession bishops are always created as orthodox, which is retarded cause as they are in a miaphysist territory, under miaphysist rule, they should be created miaphysist. Therefore it is important to ask them to change religion, some of them accept, otherwise you would have no choice to pick a decent chancellor among the existing miaphysist bishops. I also always as my vassals to change their religion toward mine so that they could convert their counties to miaphysicm, and I educate their heirs myself so that they would become armenians.
With all that I am getting successful, it only sucks that ERE is so big in my games (de jure + sicily + croatia + ukraine + armenia + syria) that when I'll have to fight for the throne it will be a huge pain.
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I was about to say that perhaps the emperor did it one testicle at a time, but I don't want to know what he did the third time, if that's the case.
Actually the bigger ERE, the better chance for you to get out of it. Very likely Ukraine and Syria will start independent faction soon after the old ruler die; if Croatia still have a king, he will join too. Grab some alliance with those power houses and wait. The hardest part is not about how to get independence, but how to keep it. With the Mongol sits next to you, I don't see you stand much chance alone by yourself.
Sometimes it can be a lot easier to put someone else on the throne than it is to put yourself there. Whichever's easier... and it also depends on whether the OP's victory conditions he's assigned for himself depend on him becoming king but not becoming emperor or not.
To OP:
Long term solution (already mentioned) - prune the Byzantine royal line via marriage/assassination until an established line of Armenian Miaphysites hold the throne. Religious-cultural aggression stopped.
Short term solutions (because dude is Game Overing you NOW)
a) declare independence/take over the Empire. You said you can possibly muster like 30k? With superior tactics you should be able to beat the Emperor depending on the period (not sure the year and how much he can muster) due to H.I. vs A.I. If he can't muster substantially more troops (30K is a LOT and mercs heal in the field) than you, dumb AI should help you win the day.
b) if you want to be a -servant- of the Empire, work to sabotage Crown Authority down to Autonomous Vassals, where the Emperor can neither call on vassal levies nor revoke your titles even if he wanted to. Since you're primarily economy based, and the largest vassal, if you can get Crown Authority to Autonomous Vassals, you'll probably be the most powerful entity within the Empire, and you should be able to heavily influence the course, policy, stability, and expansion of the empire by applying your support for or against others. OR
c) suck up to the emperor and keep your diplomacy really high.
Also, can't say the establishing of bishoprics inland is a big mistake. At regular tax rates, you get 40% more of each gold generated by a bishopric than a city (35% is 140% of 25%), and a city generates 50% more gold (12 vs 8). 35% of 8 = 2.8. 25% of 12 = 3, .2 gold per year. Even at harsh tax rates (55% vs 45%), you get 22% more of each gold piece in a Bishopric, so you're talking 4.4 base for a bishopric and 5.4 for a city when it's founded, a difference of 1 gold. Per year. And bishoprics provide better levies, higher fort level, etc. A maximum economy-developed inland city (no harbors) yields 35.8 base gold, and 16.11 to you. A maximum economy-developed bishopric yields 21.8 gold, 11.99 (12?) to you, for a difference of 4.12 gold per year. All these numbers assume no low opinion penalties to taxes or lower than max taxes, both of which close the profitability gap. Maxing the city also costs more gold and required City Infrastructure 5 vs Church Infrastructure 4. Plus even though the tech growth buildings are obviously superior in a city (total 80% tech growth vs 30%!), the tech requirements and gold cost (600/800/800 for 20/30/30% vs 120/120 for 10/20%) means that bishoprics are faster and cheaper to squeeze benefits out of early on, leaving more gold in your pocket to, I don't know, build more holdings? Hire mercs and conquer more territories and build more holdings and have more levies/taxes/etc?
All tolled, always cities on the coast. But for an econ-centric player, the advantages of cities over bishoprics inland can take hundreds of years to manifest, and the benefits of bishoprics over cities are immediate and permanent.
As far as I noticed, Your problem wasn't Your culture and religion - but Crown Authority. I guess You allow it to go definitely to high. Medium Authority allow Emperor to revoke title from heretic easily so he was doing it. Another thing, You had only 4.000 soldiers, this is also a reason of Authority cause You are providing bigger amount of Your troops to Emperor. I had this situation as muslim, when I lost a war to GH and my king (sultan) titles disbanded, I still could recreate one of my kingdoms. But, I had only few thousands of troops which I could use. What about others ? Well, I was providing over 40.000 to GH what was really painfull (due to Authority and feudal levies)...
In my actual game before I became Emperor I was incresing my territory nside. Tactic was simply, keep Emperor busy. So I didn't allow his revolting vassal to win a war against him, but I also didn't want them to loose too fast. If they were revolting I was doing everything to force Emperor to decrease CA (often he didn't want to risk another dangerous war), I was plotting (making faction) even when Emperor was facing muslim invasion. My prority was to keep CA at least on low and this was a key moment of the game. In Your game Your life is really harder now, cause as far as I noticed Emperor got huge number of vassal troops - that's why it is also hard for You to expand inside or break free. And You have to wait for Your chance and try to keep Your borders together...
In my actual game before I became Emperor I was incresing my territory nside. Tactic was simply, keep Emperor busy. So I didn't allow his revolting vassal to win a war against him, but I also didn't want them to loose too fast. If they were revolting I was doing everything to force Emperor to decrease CA (often he didn't want to risk another dangerous war), I was plotting (making faction) even when Emperor was facing muslim invasion. My prority was to keep CA at least on low and this was a key moment of the game. In Your game Your life is really harder now, cause as far as I noticed Emperor got huge number of vassal troops - that's why it is also hard for You to expand inside or break free. And You have to wait for Your chance and try to keep Your borders together...
Keeping crown authority low is not always a matter of choice, though. In most of my games the ERE either does good early on: expanding strongly and raising CA relatively fast, or it stagnates: no expansion, frequent civil wars for whatever reason (claimants, CA, etc.) and the CA stays low. Generally, in the 1066 start the latter scenario also means that the Fatimids show up on your doorstep (Greece, Asia Minor) early on as well... In most of the games I've played, there hasn't been much of a middle ground.
You're of course correct in that you can and should intervene in the CA. It's the prudent thing to do. If this happens in the earlier stages of the game, however, it's likely that you're not in a position to do much about it yet: possibly you still have only one or two duchies and have to keep the emperor happy by gifts, marriage/education, relationship bonus from chancellor, etc. Joining plots (such as to lower CA) is a relationship malus, failed assassinations as well (and are likely to result in you getting a dagger in your back yourself sooner or later). Raising troops to do it the hard way (stretching out civil wars) costs money that can otherwise be spent on upgrading your holdings. You might not have all counties within a duchy yet, so that you're also trying to keep your own vassals happy.
Once you're 50 to 100 years into the game you can afford to do this much better. From my experience with the HRE, one of the key factors seems to be the opposition within the Empire. If there are several strong people within the Empire, the emperor will have a difficult time raising CA because they will plot to lower it all the time and will usually be stronger than him. If there's no-one to challenge him, as seems to be the case in Mandreu1983's game, he can raise it quite fast and relatively unopposed.
If the CA is raised to medium, it's possibly going to be relatively early on, when you're still managing several things at once. I agree that intervening is prudent, I'm just saying that it's not always an option - especially if you haven't built up a solid powerbase yet (having two duchies and all counties in those duchies + multiple alliances with strong dukes within the empire).
Daelix has already given you some solid advice regarding your current situation. Don't despair - things can turn around very fast. One minute you're faced with a hyper-competent Emperor with several porphyrogenetic sons, the next thing you know there's an underage Basilissa on the throne and everyone is scrambling for independance. Bide your time, prune the family tree of the reigning Emperors by marriage or otherwise, and close alliances with other strong people within the ERE (also by marriage + gifting).
Should you be at war with the emperor sooner or later, it's not the end of the world if the emperor sends a couple of doomstacks your way. You're in the east of the empire, and if he's sending massive amounts of troops your way it means he's not dealing with the others who are, ideally, also at war with him (usually the case with plots). Fight him on your own terms - avoid his stacks if they're larger than yours, but try to eliminate them if they're split up.
You're of course correct in that you can and should intervene in the CA. It's the prudent thing to do. If this happens in the earlier stages of the game, however, it's likely that you're not in a position to do much about it yet: possibly you still have only one or two duchies and have to keep the emperor happy by gifts, marriage/education, relationship bonus from chancellor, etc. Joining plots (such as to lower CA) is a relationship malus, failed assassinations as well (and are likely to result in you getting a dagger in your back yourself sooner or later). Raising troops to do it the hard way (stretching out civil wars) costs money that can otherwise be spent on upgrading your holdings. You might not have all counties within a duchy yet, so that you're also trying to keep your own vassals happy.
Once you're 50 to 100 years into the game you can afford to do this much better. From my experience with the HRE, one of the key factors seems to be the opposition within the Empire. If there are several strong people within the Empire, the emperor will have a difficult time raising CA because they will plot to lower it all the time and will usually be stronger than him. If there's no-one to challenge him, as seems to be the case in Mandreu1983's game, he can raise it quite fast and relatively unopposed.
If the CA is raised to medium, it's possibly going to be relatively early on, when you're still managing several things at once. I agree that intervening is prudent, I'm just saying that it's not always an option - especially if you haven't built up a solid powerbase yet (having two duchies and all counties in those duchies + multiple alliances with strong dukes within the empire).
Daelix has already given you some solid advice regarding your current situation. Don't despair - things can turn around very fast. One minute you're faced with a hyper-competent Emperor with several porphyrogenetic sons, the next thing you know there's an underage Basilissa on the throne and everyone is scrambling for independance. Bide your time, prune the family tree of the reigning Emperors by marriage or otherwise, and close alliances with other strong people within the ERE (also by marriage + gifting).
Should you be at war with the emperor sooner or later, it's not the end of the world if the emperor sends a couple of doomstacks your way. You're in the east of the empire, and if he's sending massive amounts of troops your way it means he's not dealing with the others who are, ideally, also at war with him (usually the case with plots). Fight him on your own terms - avoid his stacks if they're larger than yours, but try to eliminate them if they're split up.
When you have wrong culture and religion alliances within the empire are BS, as your ally will always "like your ennemy too much". Alliances between miaphysist and orthodox are only good for holy wars.
Regarding pushing one's dynasty into foreign powers to grab a title, if you can marry one non-heir son to the female heir of another duchy for example (I only did it with my heir for now to grab a county so I am only "supposing"), your grandson, heir to another ruler, will probably lose his religion-culture in his education process, and he faces a great risk of getting his titles revocated.
Regarding pushing one's dynasty into foreign powers to grab a title, if you can marry one non-heir son to the female heir of another duchy for example (I only did it with my heir for now to grab a county so I am only "supposing"), your grandson, heir to another ruler, will probably lose his religion-culture in his education process, and he faces a great risk of getting his titles revocated.