Pagans destoryed too early

[King]

We also program the AI to play to the game mechanics. I have sons who need to be landed and no land. My vassals object to me taking their land to give to my sons. No one (who really matters) objects if I take Pagan land.

Although when I played in the Play with the Devs MP game as the Duke of Saxony I kept on failing to take land of the Pagans due to poor planning. So although they are attacked much earlier and agresively than historicaly they are not a total pushover either.

 

[King]

Pagans well knew they were under a long-term assault. The Lithuanians survived and even thrived for a while, and they argue its conversion was largely nominal in many places. Maybe a defensive holy war mechanic for pagans is appropriate, both in terms of spontaneous levies within a county if invaded, and in stronger rebellions after conquest.

There is a defensive holy war mechanic which was the thing that really killed me.

 

[Tegus]

The pagans do survive quite a bit longer in the current build, we fixed a bug with the defensive holy war CB

 

[Captain Gars]

Most of the review videos were made before I boosted the pagan-only buildings, so they are definitely stronger now, and as Tegus said we fixed a bug with a religious defense CB, so if you attack one pagan now there's a large chance that their neighbors help out.

 

[Captain Gars]

It's constant thing isn't it? Tweaking and balancing it

Definitely, and a tricky balance. Tweak it a little too much in one direction and suddenly you have a pagan Scandinavia & Poland...

 

[Captain Gars]

Yeah I've seen the tough challenges of Castille, Leon and Galicia on Pdox's streams in the muslims effort of creating Al-Andalusia. In that version the AI seems rather aggressive

Yes, Iberia has probably been the toughest region to balance. But I think we've finally gotten a situation that works, where both Muslims and Christians can end up on top, and where a Christian victory doesn't depend too much on intervention of France and the HRE. To get claims, starting buildings, number of settlements, vassal setups, CBs, AI rules & aggressiveness etc. to all come together is easier said than done. Especially if you want to avoid a lot of artificial AI restrictions (I really prefer if the Player and AI play by the same rules).

 

[Captain Gars]

Doesn't this mean it will be a walk in the park if they do intervene?

Perhaps. But in reality, if both France and the HRE had decided it was their top priority to kick the Muslims out of Iberia, than the reconquista would probably have gone a lot faster.

 

[Darkrenown]

shouldn't it be? Wouldn't it have been vastly different had either of those powers intervened? Aren't the reasons they didn't do so historically, I.E. they have their own problems to deal with, properly represented in the game to make it only happen rarely, if at all?

Certainly FRA starts with a minor for a King and some very powerful vassals, so they have their hands full at the start. The HRE is both further off and has a lot more vassals to keep in line.