Sicily underpowered

[darviathar]

Can anyone recall a game (started near 1066, or using the new Alexiad scenario) in which the two Sicilian factions were not pretty much extinct in a decade or so? Playing as Byzantium, I frequently find myself moving in to reclaim the territory for myself, but only after it is taken by the North African muslims, who constantly bully (and always successfully) beat on what should have been a fairly powerful state. Historically, Sicily was strong enough to face Byzantine Emperor Alexius and beat his forces so convincingly that he was forced to make deals with the HRE that resulted in the Sicilians abandoning the invasion of modern-day Albania. I was hoping this would be represented in this new Alexiad scenario, but it isn't, and given the wretched state of the two Sicilian factions, for good reason.

 

[Prime624]

Yeah. Southern Italy is way under powered. And the North always kills because of the new coastal conquest CB.

 

[Varvs]

South italy strange right now. In my scandinavian game Genoa took over entire sicily, changed to duchery of calabria for main title and went to become a independent greek orthodox super republic which starts to take over africa.

 

[Prime624]

South italy strange right now. In my scandinavian game Genoa took over entire sicily, changed to duchery of calabria for main title and went to become a independent greek orthodox super republic which starts to take over africa.

Exactly. The republics are way OP just because they can hire mercs.

 

[thesodality]

Has anyone had any luck playing as a Southern Italian state? It seems that the African AIs first action is to invade Southern Italy.

 

[CerealGuns]

In my current game (1066 start), AI Sicily managed to take all of their dejure territory plus pieces of Africa and Syria. I guess they were probably just lucky though.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The Muslims who KO Sicily with their doomstacks are always the Fatimids (when I play vanilla CKII). Fatimids need to be nerfed. With the Fatimids out of the equation, I think the chances of Sicily surviving against Muslim invasions is 50/50.

 

[whosthebestcop]

1066 start doesn't bode well for Catholic Sicily. Later starts it can be a force when it is almost completely formed the Kingdom of Sicily. I actually think 1066 start is the worst start in the game but that is another topic...

For the player Sicily is probably the best duchy in the entire game. 6 coastal counties with around a dozen free holding slots for expansion. Somehow at some point in every game Sicily eventually becomes my personal demesne. Almost no matter where I start. It just can generate so much income. And basically gives your realm enough fleets for the entire game especially if you build cities in all of the empty holding slots, which is what I usually do.

My southern Italy starts are usually closer to 1090 then 1066. If I am an independent 1 count I usually have to swear fealty to the papacy or Venice and Genoa will declare war within the first 20 days of game start. Then I will usually send my chancellor to fabricate a duchy claim on Apulia. Wait until Muslim Sicily is at war with someone or split up into 3 realms take Sicily. Then get the pope to give me and invasion cb on Apulia and once conquered you get all of their land not just de jure APulia. The Duke of Apulia can have 3 or 4 duke titles and all the land will be yours. You will have enough land to create Kingdom of Sicily. Just declare independence from the Pope who will be easy to beat. You will siege his 3 provinces before he sieges all of yours.

I try to unite southern Italy for the Catholic Italians. I hate the Greeks and Orthodox and Muslims trying to hangout there. I must remove them immediately.

 

[Lord Finnish]

In 1.07 I had a Shiite Jihad on day one - every time - declared on Sicily, speaking of Alexiad scenario. With 1.07b there is no Jihad but the Muslims still go for Holy War CBs and most Christian powers - especially the Pope - refuse to join Sicily's struggle and they fall. Then the Byzantines come, though that's usually me though.

 

[Namfuak]

I noticed that the Fatimids tend to take Sicily as well. I checked them at their height, and noticed that probably half of their dukes were of the Fatamid Dynasty (not surprising) and that 2/3 of them were always in jail (a bit more surprising). This means that despite any penalties, the king has no problem staying in power because he simply imprisons a significant number of vassals with no malus. I think the problem lies with the fact that decadence is so easy to avoid by always doing Ramadan/decadance reduction stuff, and that you can simply imprison anyone indefinitely who causes it. I like that Muslims are different in that they can imprison and kill family members, but I think that what should happen is that if they keep landed family members in prison rather than executing them, there ought to be a flat decadence penalty (like .1% a month). That way, it is more difficult for Muslims to simply give away all their long distance titles to family members and then just keep them in prison, but it still keeps the Muslim dynamic.

 

[Melric]

Has anyone had any luck playing as a Southern Italian state? It seems that the African AIs first action is to invade Southern Italy.

I started as a count in southern Italy and quickly became a powerhouse because of all the coastal cities. England somehow inherited all of northern Italy and it took me a while to kick them out, but that was about the only challenge. I now own all of Italy, Africa, Aquitaine, and Hispana. Retinues make the game very easy now. The HRE disappeared early in my game when they went heretical and crusade after crusade were called against them.

 

[unmerged(206584)]

I dunno if its been mentioned yet but muslims walking through european nations. I just had a sultanate mercenary walk through rome and france-spain to get to sicily to destroy it and then rome.

In my next game the seljuk turks took sicily somehow.

 

[Casiru]

I recently had a game where the kingdom of Sicily took all their dejure territory within the first 10 years, then imploded due to a civil war and Libya taking an unhealthy interest in it. Its demise was mostly my fault since I was playing a Catholic Algeria/Tunisia and didn't want to expand outside of the Atlas mountains. Sicily usually never makes it past the early game phase where kingdoms tend to have very low troop counts since they have to fight unification wars, HRE, BYZ, Holy wars from Alg/Trip/Lib/Egy and Republic conquests.
They are pretty powerful for their size as long as they get some player intervention.

 

[Baron Jukaga]

I now own the complete de jure Kingdom of Sicily starting as the county of Naples. Was pretty difficult and had to restart twice due to being Genoa-stomped early on but I had some luck and Imperial protection now I am The Power of the central Med, and having a real fun game. But OP is correct, the AIs here left to their own devices get owned pretty quickly by the African muslims.

 

[Zedwardson]

In my current game I have seen Southern Italy fall to the muslims twice. Now it just The kingdom of Sicily (one of my titles), HRE, and one of the republics.

 

[Sarenarass]

It's nigh-impossible to be Sicilian whether you are Muslim or Christian. I tried being Apulia once, formed Kingdom of Sicily, got Jihad'd and lost. I started out as Emir of Kalbia? Kalabria? I think. Something along those lines. (I made a seperate thread on it) Everything was going well and I was prosporous until the Pope called a crusade on me and no one came to help and I lost, again. Quite difficult being either side.

 

[CelticMutt]

The island of Sicily pretty much always stays muslim, while Continental Sicily used to be over run by them in my games. Now with LoR it's a toss up between the Muslims and Byzantines who ends up taking it all.

 

[Jephery]

I've seen the Christian King of Sicily successfully take all his de jure lands and also conquer of all the Kingdom of Africa in 1.07.

Those places are usually easy pickings being mushed between the HRE/ERE/Fatimids but somehow they managed to stay on top of things.

 

[Talq]

The CK 'model' is not really good for Sicily. But the AI is exposed to Fatamid invasions, and its own overenthusiasm for holy war (so they do a holy war on sicily and get dogpiled by most of north africa). They also don't have the benefit of lots of Norman knights that they had in real life whereas the Byzantines and HRE can throw their entire states at them if they have a mind.

 

[Revshawn]

*snip*

I've been through 5 games or so and honestly....if I'm not too far away I find myself drifting towards Sicily as well! It's like a second home!