Nooo Fatimid AI Jihad on Aragon makes no sense!!!
- Thread starter Ciccillo Rre
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The problem as i see it is that navies are to abstracted. Most nations has virtually zero ability to move large forces by sea and when they did they risked storms sinking their ships.
The Muslim nations in particular never built up the kind of naval strength that the Christian states did.
Second problem is that armies regenerate about twice as fast as they should.
The Muslim nations in particular never built up the kind of naval strength that the Christian states did.
Second problem is that armies regenerate about twice as fast as they should.
Most states, no religious qualifier needed, didn't have as much in the way of naval power as CK2 gives them. I'm not suggesting going back to CK1, but there's a happy medium in there somewhere that hasn't been found yet. But if you do have to fight off a Fatimid invasion/Jihad, the problem isn't the Fatimid levies, overpowered though they are compared to everyone (Egyptians weren't renowned as soldiers after all). The real problem is the Mamluks, who provide more heavy cavalry than Xtian kingdoms can hope to in the C11th. Numbers *and* quality, so beating the Fatimids is a very tall order for anyone except the ERE and the Seljuks and that's plainly wrong. Done right, 1.07's retinues and combat tweaking could go some way to fixing the problem. We shall see.
And while symmetry is nice and all that, since the Orthodox pretend-Pope can't launch Crusades, why should the Shi'a pretend-Caliph be able call for Jihad? But my biggest can't get my head round this problem with the Jihad stuff has already been touched on. Why does the AI launch a Jihad for Galicia when Xtians control parts of Andalucia or Africa? Why does the Pope launch yet-another-doomed-Crusade-for-Jerusalem when Aquitaine is ruled by Muslims? Decision logic needs fixing there.
it might be possible if Paradox adds a dynamic weighting mechanic, such that while kingdom weighting like
Jerusalem = ai factor 5
Aquitaine = ai factor 1
can be instead like
Jerusalem = ai factor 5 , muslim control factor 1, geopolitical control factor 3
Aqutaine = ai factor 1 , muslim control factor 6 , geopolitical control factor 9
or something like that, wherein the AI prioritizes kingdoms closer to neighbouring christian realms
I fixed the army problem, but it still does not work to stop the Muslims. We need naval combat to fix this. I don't care how primitive it might be.
Lot of things in this game are ahistorical or don't make any sens. Play 5 years of game time and here you are, fantasy land. And it's normal, that's part of the fun.
Ireland conquering most of Europe, does that make any sens to you ? Well, i have seen it. And even crazier stuff. Maybe Ireland is overpowered and should be nerfed in the next patch.
People should stop complaining about how OP a nation is when they get owned but simply try to understand why it happened and think about what they can do to do better next time.
I think Catholics are OP, actually. They start with the majority of Europe AND their holy city is easily held; maybe we should be nerfing them instead.
That is completely glossing over the fact that the Fatimid (who were a declining dynasty at the time) could not by any stretch of the imagination rule over an empire as vast as including Greece, Aragon and Aquitaine without having those areas break off in complete revolt with the support of the Catholic Church. And yet they do with relative ease.
The thing that makes no sense is the ships. Fine, if Fatmids want let them declare Jihad but in that time, as far as I know, most if not all Kingdoms/Dukedoms (etc) lacked any reasonable marine force EXCEPT the italian republics.
If the Fatmids lack the ability to move their forces to Aragon, the Jihad will be over before they arrive, and even if they manage to arrive, the attrition should have killed them long ago.
In general I think you should get ships only from your Doges and only 1 ship per county ...
If the Fatmids lack the ability to move their forces to Aragon, the Jihad will be over before they arrive, and even if they manage to arrive, the attrition should have killed them long ago.
In general I think you should get ships only from your Doges and only 1 ship per county ...
Let's see if we can break this down:
Fatimids in particular are massively overpowered. At a time when they were waning in power and the Seljuks rising in power, they instead consistently dominate not only the region but parts of Europe that would have been well outside of the Fatimid's reach even if they hadn't declined in real life.
This has a few causes.
Fatimids can declare a Religious War for any title not held by a fellow Shia.
This alone is not actually a problem, but it becomes one because the Fatimids have a truly massive army and access to a huge navy. This allows the Fatimids to dominate even lands thousands of miles away, when in real life such an expedition would have been doomed to failure and not even contemplated by any even barely competent ruler.
Because troops and ships are automatically provided by provinces the Fatimids have a much larger army and navy than they ever would have had available for such an expedition. Even if they could build up the ships and troops necessary, such the attrition from such a trip would have killed most of the invading army before they even made landfall (and once they did they would be without supply routes from the homeland).
It has been suggested that Religious War CBs should be limited by distance, but that doesn't limit Fatimid power as much as it redirects it. The Fatimids would be forced to build an empire closer to home before expanding outward and would never fall to Seljuk dominance with any regularity.
The better solution here is to drastically alter how ships and troops are handled. Currently the Fatimids have access to too many of both. In real life they would never have had a fleet capable of transporting so many troops, nor would they even have had an army that is large and well-trained enough, or even willing to undertake an expedition they're more likely than not to starve on.
This is a much broader issue and probably outside of the scope of this topic; though we can consider a few of these issues.
Ship production needs to nerfed. Few countries in this time period had navies that would be large enough or even well-built enough to undertake the expeditions the Fatimids so often take. In addition, armies at sea should suffer attrition. Remember, this is a time period where most expeditions at sea were generally a week at most and only carried out across small channels. Forget attrition, the Fatimid's troops would have mutinied before reaching their targets.
Troop production also needs to be changed. This is a time where "troop" means "conscripted laborer". Currently there's no reason to reason to not conscript a massive army on send them off to war for years other than the maintenance costs. I do have a few ideas.
1. Tying troop levels to the war they'll be fighting in. A few factors would come into play, and these could be offset somehow by your marshal. Then your troop levels will be decreased by an amount based on these factors. For example, the population should be less willing to wage war on the other side of the world, or more willing to defend their home compared to invading a neighbor.
2. A proper war exhaustion mechanic. This could increase as war drags on, and increase even faster as the war score drops. You could tie vassal opinions for raised levies to it, as well as increasing attrition to depict desertions. You could even tie maintenance costs to it, to depict having to pay more to prevent desertion; mercenaries should be even more influenced by war exhaustion.
3. Making war more logistically difficult. Raising troops is too simple currently; click a button and your troops are armed and ready to go when in reality war preparations could drag on for years. Weapons have to be made, repaired, or improved, troops have to be conscripted, supplies have to be stockpiled and logistics have to worked out. Then there's there's cost of war; as men are conscripted production grinds to a halt, your provinces are burned and looted, populations are killed wantonly. Then there's the cost after the war; production is slow to resume, some soldiers conscripted at a young age will turn to banditry instead of honest work, supplies and equipment are stolen. All of this should be modeled in the game somehow and be far more significant than it already is.
There's also a second problem; Christendom does not rush to defend its lands nearly fast enough. Even when Muslims are within spitting distance of the Pope the Catholics don't seem motivated to repel the invaders. My solution would be a mechanic that calculates the amount of land ruled by realms of the same religion at the start of a game, and as this number decreases rulers become more and more anxious, with certain traits increasing this effect. Even better, all counties could be given a value that's calculated into the overall percentage and is lost when the county is lost to the religion but not regained. This way provinces lost in Iberia would be minor annoyances for Christians while Muslims at the heart of Europe would be major warnings, and since the percentage can't be regained Christians will always be wary of their enemy religions even when they recapture old lands. Basically what I imagine is a modifier that compels AI to act with greater urgency as they lose more and more of their lands to other religions with certain lands being "worth" more in this regard.
These are just my ideas on how the situation can be improved. I'm not a developer and I have no idea how implementable these ideas are. I welcome and constructive criticism and discussion on them.
Fatimids in particular are massively overpowered. At a time when they were waning in power and the Seljuks rising in power, they instead consistently dominate not only the region but parts of Europe that would have been well outside of the Fatimid's reach even if they hadn't declined in real life.
This has a few causes.
Fatimids can declare a Religious War for any title not held by a fellow Shia.
This alone is not actually a problem, but it becomes one because the Fatimids have a truly massive army and access to a huge navy. This allows the Fatimids to dominate even lands thousands of miles away, when in real life such an expedition would have been doomed to failure and not even contemplated by any even barely competent ruler.
Because troops and ships are automatically provided by provinces the Fatimids have a much larger army and navy than they ever would have had available for such an expedition. Even if they could build up the ships and troops necessary, such the attrition from such a trip would have killed most of the invading army before they even made landfall (and once they did they would be without supply routes from the homeland).
It has been suggested that Religious War CBs should be limited by distance, but that doesn't limit Fatimid power as much as it redirects it. The Fatimids would be forced to build an empire closer to home before expanding outward and would never fall to Seljuk dominance with any regularity.
The better solution here is to drastically alter how ships and troops are handled. Currently the Fatimids have access to too many of both. In real life they would never have had a fleet capable of transporting so many troops, nor would they even have had an army that is large and well-trained enough, or even willing to undertake an expedition they're more likely than not to starve on.
This is a much broader issue and probably outside of the scope of this topic; though we can consider a few of these issues.
Ship production needs to nerfed. Few countries in this time period had navies that would be large enough or even well-built enough to undertake the expeditions the Fatimids so often take. In addition, armies at sea should suffer attrition. Remember, this is a time period where most expeditions at sea were generally a week at most and only carried out across small channels. Forget attrition, the Fatimid's troops would have mutinied before reaching their targets.
Troop production also needs to be changed. This is a time where "troop" means "conscripted laborer". Currently there's no reason to reason to not conscript a massive army on send them off to war for years other than the maintenance costs. I do have a few ideas.
1. Tying troop levels to the war they'll be fighting in. A few factors would come into play, and these could be offset somehow by your marshal. Then your troop levels will be decreased by an amount based on these factors. For example, the population should be less willing to wage war on the other side of the world, or more willing to defend their home compared to invading a neighbor.
2. A proper war exhaustion mechanic. This could increase as war drags on, and increase even faster as the war score drops. You could tie vassal opinions for raised levies to it, as well as increasing attrition to depict desertions. You could even tie maintenance costs to it, to depict having to pay more to prevent desertion; mercenaries should be even more influenced by war exhaustion.
3. Making war more logistically difficult. Raising troops is too simple currently; click a button and your troops are armed and ready to go when in reality war preparations could drag on for years. Weapons have to be made, repaired, or improved, troops have to be conscripted, supplies have to be stockpiled and logistics have to worked out. Then there's there's cost of war; as men are conscripted production grinds to a halt, your provinces are burned and looted, populations are killed wantonly. Then there's the cost after the war; production is slow to resume, some soldiers conscripted at a young age will turn to banditry instead of honest work, supplies and equipment are stolen. All of this should be modeled in the game somehow and be far more significant than it already is.
There's also a second problem; Christendom does not rush to defend its lands nearly fast enough. Even when Muslims are within spitting distance of the Pope the Catholics don't seem motivated to repel the invaders. My solution would be a mechanic that calculates the amount of land ruled by realms of the same religion at the start of a game, and as this number decreases rulers become more and more anxious, with certain traits increasing this effect. Even better, all counties could be given a value that's calculated into the overall percentage and is lost when the county is lost to the religion but not regained. This way provinces lost in Iberia would be minor annoyances for Christians while Muslims at the heart of Europe would be major warnings, and since the percentage can't be regained Christians will always be wary of their enemy religions even when they recapture old lands. Basically what I imagine is a modifier that compels AI to act with greater urgency as they lose more and more of their lands to other religions with certain lands being "worth" more in this regard.
These are just my ideas on how the situation can be improved. I'm not a developer and I have no idea how implementable these ideas are. I welcome and constructive criticism and discussion on them.
Are you certain that it was Jihads all of them? I think there is a cooldown of 30 years between each Jihad called by the Caliph. However some of them might have been invasions instead, which the Muslims can do if they have 500 piety and their target holds at least 6 provinces of the de jure kingdom.
That invasion CB is a bit overpowered I must admit. It needs to at least cost 1000 piety with the current malus, that or same-religion people need to rally to the defense of the invaded. Perhaps both would be best.
Invasions need rethought, end of story. Even increasing the piety requirement is unlikely to help as collecting 500 or even 1000 piety isn't hard as a Muslim king, given that there are lots of cheap piety-generating options available.
A question for those who like to play as Catholic kings and emperors (usually I don't): do the "Dear Liege, why are you not Crusading?" events actually work because I've never had them fire for me?
I didn't read the whole thread, just the first and last page, so I hope I am not mentioning something that has already been mentioned.
what I noticed in my games, (haven't played anything in spain yet, only ireland/britannia, sweden/scandinavia and georgia) is that if you use your navy to pick off enemy units before they assemble to stack of dooms the game gets (too) easy pretty quick. with georgia - sandwiched between cumania and seljuks and allied with byzantine empire - I was permanently at war with muslims. I kept the peace with cumanians by improving relations with their leader with my chancellor, however some of his dukes still declared war on me from time to time but I could deal with them. and with this tactic I could turn the tides in favor of the byzantine empire and also the 1st catholic crusade with just about 3-4k soldiers:
1. put your troops on a fleet and patrol the enemy coast asap. pick off every easy target that comes along. often the ai will abort its sieges if you siege its territory (or territory it has occupied) for just a few days and move in your direction (even when it's a few provinces away). that way you can ping-pong enemy stacks and keep them in stasis.
2. if a threatening stack comes close to your troops just go back to your ships. boarding ships is _much_ faster than crossing borders on land. no enemy stack will _ever_ be able to reach your units, unless it is shipped in or if you are already in a fight. so if you pick your targets carefully your troops will last longer while killing more enemies. watch the sea for nearby enemy fleets and if some tiles are unscouted next to an easy target split your army and send your weakest unit first, wait a day or two and then send the rest. the first unit will scout all adjacent tiles and you can still abort the landfall of your main force. if the scouting unit is destroyed, it's not even a big disadvantage because it allows you to reraise replenished troops from the barony/city/church it belonged to.
3. if a fight goes wrong, you can order your troops to retreat to the ships (instead of a random adjacent province). you will still lose a large chunk of your army but the enemy cannot chase and completely destroy it.
4. depending on the power/distance of the enemy you won't be able to prevent all stacks of doom that way, especially the first wave (you will need some manpower somewhere to destroy these directly), but you can significantly delay/weaken their resupply.
I always use my navy as much as possible. it takes a lot of tedious microing every time you go to war (especially when assembling your army) but makes warfare more efficient, because the ai is unfortunately too weak to deal with that atm. it also makes wars much shorter in ingame time. on coasts I always move my troops by ship, even if I move them to adjacent provinces. that often saves weeks if not months of time. Maybe you have already tried it (I have seen lots of lets plays where people use their navy improperly or not at all though) and it isn't enough, but if you haven't you should try it. it is imo the most effective way to manage troops in this game.
edit: after reading most of the thread I must say: please do not nerf anything. the game offers soo many possibilities and if you fully use them it is easy to outsmart and dominate the ai. if you want to be safe from muslims, do not pick a house that's likely to be targeted by them. there are hundreds of other houses you can play. if anything make the game harder, the ai smarter. e.g.: it doesn't make sense that the ai gives you free lands if a duchess is marrying you. why would she not seek a matrilineal marriage? sure it's cool to have more possibilities to gain power but it shouldn't be THAT easy, like virtually free (e.g. dampen it by increasing likelihood of plots against you/her/your heir by her family members)... also it's too easy to get a huge realm fast and control it if you only have counts as vasalls (something you get extremely easy by conquering the pagans in the north and raising crown authority so that they will never be able to form duchies).
what I noticed in my games, (haven't played anything in spain yet, only ireland/britannia, sweden/scandinavia and georgia) is that if you use your navy to pick off enemy units before they assemble to stack of dooms the game gets (too) easy pretty quick. with georgia - sandwiched between cumania and seljuks and allied with byzantine empire - I was permanently at war with muslims. I kept the peace with cumanians by improving relations with their leader with my chancellor, however some of his dukes still declared war on me from time to time but I could deal with them. and with this tactic I could turn the tides in favor of the byzantine empire and also the 1st catholic crusade with just about 3-4k soldiers:
1. put your troops on a fleet and patrol the enemy coast asap. pick off every easy target that comes along. often the ai will abort its sieges if you siege its territory (or territory it has occupied) for just a few days and move in your direction (even when it's a few provinces away). that way you can ping-pong enemy stacks and keep them in stasis.
2. if a threatening stack comes close to your troops just go back to your ships. boarding ships is _much_ faster than crossing borders on land. no enemy stack will _ever_ be able to reach your units, unless it is shipped in or if you are already in a fight. so if you pick your targets carefully your troops will last longer while killing more enemies. watch the sea for nearby enemy fleets and if some tiles are unscouted next to an easy target split your army and send your weakest unit first, wait a day or two and then send the rest. the first unit will scout all adjacent tiles and you can still abort the landfall of your main force. if the scouting unit is destroyed, it's not even a big disadvantage because it allows you to reraise replenished troops from the barony/city/church it belonged to.
3. if a fight goes wrong, you can order your troops to retreat to the ships (instead of a random adjacent province). you will still lose a large chunk of your army but the enemy cannot chase and completely destroy it.
4. depending on the power/distance of the enemy you won't be able to prevent all stacks of doom that way, especially the first wave (you will need some manpower somewhere to destroy these directly), but you can significantly delay/weaken their resupply.
I always use my navy as much as possible. it takes a lot of tedious microing every time you go to war (especially when assembling your army) but makes warfare more efficient, because the ai is unfortunately too weak to deal with that atm. it also makes wars much shorter in ingame time. on coasts I always move my troops by ship, even if I move them to adjacent provinces. that often saves weeks if not months of time. Maybe you have already tried it (I have seen lots of lets plays where people use their navy improperly or not at all though) and it isn't enough, but if you haven't you should try it. it is imo the most effective way to manage troops in this game.
edit: after reading most of the thread I must say: please do not nerf anything. the game offers soo many possibilities and if you fully use them it is easy to outsmart and dominate the ai. if you want to be safe from muslims, do not pick a house that's likely to be targeted by them. there are hundreds of other houses you can play. if anything make the game harder, the ai smarter. e.g.: it doesn't make sense that the ai gives you free lands if a duchess is marrying you. why would she not seek a matrilineal marriage? sure it's cool to have more possibilities to gain power but it shouldn't be THAT easy, like virtually free (e.g. dampen it by increasing likelihood of plots against you/her/your heir by her family members)... also it's too easy to get a huge realm fast and control it if you only have counts as vasalls (something you get extremely easy by conquering the pagans in the north and raising crown authority so that they will never be able to form duchies).
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Perhaps a negative 'Illegitimate War' relationship modifier with everyone who is not within your realm? And no I have no had those events either.