Paradox don't believe in the Reconquista

[LegatusI]

Why are the kigdom of Asturias so powerless against the muslims? i started 20 games with a count inside that kingdom and they always get rolled over. This is not historical paradox should fix this somehow, at least a 50/50 change of that happening.

 

[killerbee256]

The issue is in real life Asturias was poor and there was no real reason to take it back after it rebelled. But the in game AI doesn't work the same way as a real human. It sees a weak nation that it has de jure claims on.

 

[Silversweeeper]

The AI sees a weak target of a different religion with land in the same de jure empire and goes after it, which makes perfect sense. Even if Asturias was made harder to attack at the start (by e.g. disallowing all Muslim CBs except one-county conquests against them), at what point should this magical protection vanish? After a certain number of years? After the Umayyads get their second kingdom title? After the Umayyads form Hispania? After they overrun Aquitaine? Only if Asturias grows to a point where they have as many counties as the Umayyads? Once the Umayyads gain a certain percentage of decadence?

Just granting them a bunch of event troops also doesn't seem like a viable solution, as the AI would gleefully throw them away in their allies' wars, by attacking peasant revolters, or by launching offensive wars and getting worn down, and such event troops would also stop factions and foreign Christian realms, giving Asturias avantages in other areas as well, which doesn't seem fair to the rest of the world.

Even if there is possible to figure out a way to make Asturias invasion-proof because they survived in history it doesn't make a lot of sense, as the rest of the world (barring Charlie and, to a lesser extent, Seljuk, Sabuktigin, the Mongols, and Timur) is allowed to evolve naturally. Should it also be certain that the Karling lands in 769 stay together even if Charlie gets killed by a peasant revolt and Karloman becomes incapable? Should the Magyars be protected from other nomads until they can take over Hungary, while not being allowed to blob into the steppes because that would be ahistorical? Given how easy it is for history to go off the rails, having certain realms helped or hindered because of history would create a lot of other issues and would get to a point where it makes no sense that these realms have an advantage over the rest of the map.

 

[LegatusI]

Given how easy it is for history to go off the rails. Are you kidding me, you can run 100 games and Asturias ALWAYS get Steam rolled, they don't stand a chance and that just plain stupid, since they won in reality.

 

[Rags17]

:
Even if there is possible to figure out a way to make Asturias invasion-proof because they survived in history it doesn't make a lot of sense, as the rest of the world (barring Charlie and, to a lesser extent, Seljuk, Sabuktigin, the Mongols, and Timur) is allowed to evolve naturally. Should it also be certain that the Karling lands in 769 stay together even if Charlie gets killed by a peasant revolt and Karloman becomes incapable? Should the Magyars be protected from other nomads until they can take over Hungary, while not being allowed to blob into the steppes because that would be ahistorical? Given how easy it is for history to go off the rails, having certain realms helped or hindered because of history would create a lot of other issues and would get to a point where it makes no sense that these realms have an advantage over the rest of the map.

No, game play doesn't necessarily have to be railroaded but it should unfold as it did historically, at least for the first 20 years or so. That's why they added all those Charlemagne specific events, otherwise the chance of getting the Carolingian Empire are exactly zero. I don't consider this a bad thing at all, in fact I think that it is ESSENTIAL for history to unfold as it did, at least until the natural chaos of the game and history takes over.

The simplest mechanisms that I can think of would be for the Umads to start with a ten year truce against the Asturias (thus allowing them time to build alliances and reserves), plus perhaps a claim on their title by the Abbasids, don't forget that the 769 start begins just 15 years or so after the Abbasids slaughtered nearly every single living Ummayad so there should be no love lost between them.

Starting the Umads in a lot more precarious position and with an enforced truce against their Christian targets should see them have all sorts of (historical) grief at the beginning of the game.

 

[AchedTeacher]

The issue is in real life Asturias was poor and there was no real reason to take it back after it rebelled. But the in game AI doesn't work the same way as a real human. It sees a weak nation that it has de jure claims on.

Was it also not relatively defendable with the terrain? Not like Constantinople defendable, but in terms of the reward, the cost may be too high, similar to many African lands.

 

[Garranger]

If there were improved diplomacy it could survive, I guess, but even if they improved diplomacy there's no guarantee the AI will use it right I suppose. I'd say holy war is the big meanie though, as I expressed in my thread a few pages back.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

It'll all be papering over the cracks as long as CK's military model remains such a poor approximation of the reality of medieval warfare.

 

[Rostan]

Which is why I never use pre-1066 starts unless playing the Vikings or Byzantines: the world in 1066 had pretty much set the basis for the next 300 or so years. The one in the 860´´s was the final stage of the Early Middle Ages and had completely different polities as opposed to later times. The Christian kingdoms in the 1000s also get clobbered at times, but it is not nearly as frequent as the Asturias.

 

[FWalrus]

Asturias is always doomed, maybe paradox could make an exclusive temporary non-agression pact or a truce with the Ummayads

 

[Hector of Troy]

Given how easy it is for history to go off the rails. Are you kidding me, you can run 100 games and Asturias ALWAYS get Steam rolled, they don't stand a chance and that just plain stupid, since they won in reality.

What about the almighty ERE and HRE?

If you play 1000 games, both empires will reach the the sixteenth century as super powerful mega blobs. Why do people only ask for historical fidelity when it comes to Muslim territory?

 

[Rostan]

What about the almighty ERE and HRE?

If you play 1000 games, both empires will reach the the sixteenth century as super powerful mega blobs. Why do people only ask for historical fidelity when it comes to Muslim territory?

Most players come from Western countries, and the absence of those small irrelevant countries that basically discovered the New World and made the EU4 historical environment possible is probably bothersome to many.

 

[Finnway]

The simplest mechanisms that I can think of would be for the Umads to start with a ten year truce against the Asturias (thus allowing them time to build alliances and reserves).

This actually makes a lot of sense. Might not solve the problem completely, but it'll slow down Asturias's annihilation and give them a fighting chance. Why isn't this in the game already?

 

[tfjs]

i. If you start with the early Charlie start anything approaching how things did actually turn out historically is off, certainly in what we now call western Europe
ii. Try a 1066 start and see if you need to ask the question again, in fact there shouldn't be much problem with doing this at a TOG start either.
iii. The Reconquista occurred over 100s of years with rather short phases of expansion and long phases of stalemate

 

[mjohnson85]

I've said this in other threads, but the issue at heart is the lack of the AI's ability to choose good targets with the CBs. There are AI logic brackets for CBs which you can use to help the AI not be stupid in target prioritization but it is virtually ignored by paradox (unfortunately). Ironically, the user mod coordinators have even fixed scoping issues (thank you!) within the AI logic brackets which makes it even easier to do.

This is one of those simple yet time consuming things that would have sweeping positive impacts across the entire game.

 

[Ilyasviel]

What about the almighty ERE and HRE?

If you play 1000 games, both empires will reach the the sixteenth century as super powerful mega blobs. Why do people only ask for historical fidelity when it comes to Muslim territory?

People have been complaining about the HRE and ERE for years. Especially about how the HRE blobs into the French low countries and never collapses. That really has been an issue forever. People complain less about the ERE, but they definitely do as well.

Anyway, it's mostly the Muslim countries that are a problem right now. You don't see anybody in the Christian world blobbing like the Ummayad or Abbasid do. In fact, a lot of Christian countries, especially France, tend to quickly collapse ahistorically instead.

 

[CaptainSteve]

I'm a bit fuzzy on the early Reconquista, but did the Asturian kings ever ally with the Franks? Maybe one of the problems is that the AI is a bad matchmaker and gets bad allies.
Another problem is the event that Charlemagne gets that allies him with a rebelling Emir and gets to vassalize him afterwards. I've never seen this succeed. If it did, this could lead to a weaker Umayyad and this a stronger Asturias.
Or perhaps a greater chance for Christian uprisings to happen in the Sultanate, though this would probably create an incredibly fragile Umayyad.

But either way, the results will not happen historically. One side usually ends up steamrolling the other within a century rather than over a long period if time.

 

[Hector of Troy]

Anyway, it's mostly the Muslim countries that are a problem right now. You don't see anybody in the Christian world blobbing like the Ummayad or Abbasid do. In fact, a lot of Christian countries, especially France, tend to quickly collapse ahistorically instead.

I disagree with you here. From my experience, given some time and the Abbasid will eventually fall apart, due to Decadence, which is something I have never really seen happening to the ERE or HRE.

 

[Rognvaldr19]

Ever thought about marrying one of yours to the Karlings? If Charlemagne ends up in control of West Francia, he ends up with nearly ten thousand troops.

 

[killerbee256]

Was it also not relatively defendable with the terrain? Not like Constantinople defendable, but in terms of the reward, the cost may be too high, similar to many African lands.

Yeah, I've been there it's quite mountainous.