Someone stop the Seljuks

[unmerged(47151)]

Every single one of my games sees the Seljuks eliminate the Byzantine empire completely by the 12th century, can someone do something about the yellow menace! Alp Arslan was historicly more interesting in suppressing rather than conqering Byzantium so he could smash the Fatimids, rather than conquering Byzantium itself.

The solution in my humble opinion would be to make the Fatimids also at war with the Seljuks along with maybe the Turkoman states of the north which I think were causing Alp some trouble aswell. This would mean the Seljuks have to divide their forces more, reducing their ability to conquer Byzantium. Maybe the Muslim AI should be more willing to make peace aswell with non-muslims.

 

[Lurken]

If the seljuks were at war with the turkoman states and fatamids then BYZ would move in and gobble up the Seljuks. But what I would like to see is a better Peace AI for all, and a better chance for peace between religous enemies.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

If the seljuks were at war with the turkoman states and fatamids then BYZ would move in and gobble up the Seljuks. But what I would like to see is a better Peace AI for all, and a better chance for peace between religous enemies.

No, the Byzantine AI can't seem to put up much of a fight against the Seljuks, expecially when they start suffering from vassal defections and civil wars, under Michael Dukas and spend most of the time at war with eachother. The Fatimids aren't much different, they are liable to break up too. The Turkoman states (assuming they were at war with Seljuks too, I only have a hazy memory of a certain passage from a history book), are small and weak. The Seljuks are powerful Lurken, they need to be encouraged to focus on the Fatimids a bit more so they don't gobble Byzantium up completely. They should be given claims on the Holy Land as well so they can take Jerusalem as they did historicly.

But I do agree that the AI should be quicker to make peace, expecially when it's been in the red for a long time, so only extremely wealthy states will wage war for years on end.

 

[qvcatullus]

Could the problem here have something to do with the fact that the AI can't have negative money? AI states can't be crippled by long wars because they never have a treasury less than 0.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

Could the problem here have something to do with the fact that the AI can't have negative money? AI states can't be crippled by long wars because they never have a treasury less than 0.

But there should be some kind of clock that ticks when the AI has been in negative income and has been in the red for a while which causes it to make peace.

But I do think the AI should be able to go into debt just like the player, and should stockpile money like the player has to, if it wants to go to war.

 

[qvcatullus]

Yes, but that would demand a far superior AI than I really think is within the capability of both the programmers' time and our computing capacity. Otherwise, the AI would just spiral out of control into unstoppable debt, or they'd have to give the AI more opportunity to get out of debts and we'd be back at square 1.

 

[unmerged(27106)]

Every single one of my games sees the Seljuks eliminate the Byzantine empire completely by the 12th century, can someone do something about the yellow menace! Alp Arslan was historicly more interesting in suppressing rather than conqering Byzantium so he could smash the Fatimids, rather than conquering Byzantium itself.

The solution in my humble opinion would be to make the Fatimids also at war with the Seljuks along with maybe the Turkoman states of the north which I think were causing Alp some trouble aswell. This would mean the Seljuks have to divide their forces more, reducing their ability to conquer Byzantium. Maybe the Muslim AI should be more willing to make peace aswell with non-muslims.

Huh. I don't experience that. Usually for me, Byzantium and the Seljuks usually implode after a short while, and then they forget about each other and fight their rebelling vassals. In my last game, the Kingdom of Georgia wound up putting the hurt on both of them and was ruling Baghdad and Constantinople simoutaneously.

 

[Lurken]

...They should be given claims on the Holy Land as well so they can take Jerusalem as they did historicly.
...

If I remember correctly the Seljuk has claims to the Holy Land. But they rarely uses them. I agree with you that maybe we could "encourage" the Seljuks to DoW Fatamids a bit more, but I fail to see exactly how it would happen.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

The Seljuks crush Byzantium almost every time in my game. It has to do I think , less with Byzantium's lack of power, and more the fact that Constantine X drops dead too soon and Michael Dukas, the loser takes power, and then Byzantium spends most of it's time fighting itself, as the Seljuks take more and more land, until they have Constantinople itself, at which point the games up.

Maybe we could simply give Romanos a bit more prestiege, so he, rather than Michael inherits the throne, perhaps that would help them to fight the Seljuks rather than eachother.

I just don't want to see the Muslims overunning the entire of Asia Minor, Greece and Thrace itself in a few decades.

The Seljuks under Alp Arslan are strong, the Byzantines under Michael are weak. Maybe if we could make Romanos more prestigious, so he would inherit, they could be made similar in power, and hence a decisive Seljuk victory would be less likely.

 

[Gebhard Blucher]

Just as bad, imo, is that the Komnenus hardly ever inherit the empire (usually wiped out in an ill-timed rebellion by Dukas). Seems a shame that the two most influential players in starting the crusades (Urban and Alexios) are never (or hardly ever) in power in a game called Crusader Kings.

I can understand Urban, with the way the game is set up and the mess the Papacy was dealing with at the time. But three different Komnenus emperors (starting with Alexios) ruled for, iirc, 50-80 years or something like that. That dynasty presided over what was probably the last semi-decent period of the eastern empire.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

But the scenario starts well before the battle of Manzikert.

Isaac I Comnenus was in power from 1057 to 1059, so before the start of the scenario

Alexius I Comnenus, Isaac's nephew came to power in 1081 so a long time after the start of the first scenario.

So the way the game is designed doesn't allow to make it 100% certain that Alexius comes to power.With him the Comnenus dynastie really started, it lasted untill 1185 when Isaac Angelus came to power.

Even if the scenario would have started after the battle of Manzikert in 1071 that would still not make Alexius emperor/basileus.

 

[unmerged(44072)]

Komnenus didn't even succeed the Dukas family--Nicephorus Botianiates came to power before him. I doubt anyone in 1066 would have expected him Alexius I to become Emperor.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

Komnenus didn't even succeed the Dukas family--Nicephorus Botianiates came to power before him. I doubt anyone in 1066 would have expected him Alexius I to become Emperor.

I'm actually doing a school project on this.

Emporer (K?)Constantine Dukas dies and his empress Eudokia rules as regent on behalf of their sons. The sons are Michael (the eldest), Alexios, (K?) and Constantinus. They are technically joint rulers of Byzantium.

Then Eudoxia falls in love (well at least this is what the Byzantine chronicles tell us) with a top Byzantine militery aristocrat, called Romanos Diogenes and marries him. Apparantly he was arrested for treason again her sons, but Eudoxia pardons him, before marrying him.

Romanos effectively usurps both Eudokia and her sons and rules until the battle of Manzikert, when Andronicus Dukas, betrays Romanos (he is commanding the rear-guard). The battle of Manzikert is perhaps the most pathetic defeat in Byzantine history and Michael takes power in Constantinople and has himself crowned sole Emporer. Despite the fact the Byzantines didn't take actually that heavy losses from Manzikert, the resulting civil war, allows the Turks to take over large swathes of Asia Minor. Romanos is captured, blinded and dies soon after of the resulting infection.

Michael Dukas proves to be massively incompetant and is overthrown by Nicephorus, who is then overun by Alexius.

 

[Gebhard Blucher]

I'm actually doing a school project on this.

Great info! I actually hadn't read up on this stuff since doing a research paper for my ancient & medieval history class on the crusades in high school.

 

[qvcatullus]

This is why I would LOVE it if someone who had some idea what they were doing (meaning not me, sadly) would start a 1071 scenario project. I really think that it would be much more interesting from the point of view of most of the gamers here on the forum for gameplay value, even if more British schoolkids know the date 1066.

 

[unmerged(46403)]

In my current game, the Byzantines arn't in trouble, and what did happen to them is about as interesting as the real-life events. Of course, i'm using various mods (and helped an empress get the 'dynastic considerations' event), so it hardly matters for the beta. I'd agree that the odds of Michael Dukas inheriting should be turned down, really.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

In my current game, the Byzantines arn't in trouble, and what did happen to them is about as interesting as the real-life events. Of course, i'm using various mods (and helped an empress get the 'dynastic considerations' event), so it hardly matters for the beta. I'd agree that the odds of Michael Dukas inheriting should be turned down, really.

I feel it should be done by giving Romanos some more prestiege, tribute to his long marshall career in the Balklands, to help him to compete against Michael for the throne.

 

[unmerged(46403)]

We could just reduce the land under Michael's direct and indrect rule so he's almost certain not to inherit (since cutting the empire up into vassals is already aberrant, there's nothing ahistorical in redrawing the vassal's borders, and Michael's reign was brief and contested) and then boosting Diogenes, Comnenus and Botaneiates--the better RL candidates to the throne--to positions where they are the three front-runners in the Emperor's starting lineup of heirs. It is unfortunate that CK cannot really model Byzantium, or indded anything but France and most of the HRE, so we have no chance of getting something realistic.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

We could just reduce the land under Michael's direct and indrect rule so he's almost certain not to inherit (since cutting the empire up into vassals is already aberrant, there's nothing ahistorical in redrawing the vassal's borders, and Michael's reign was brief and contested) and then boosting Diogenes, Comnenus and Botaneiates--the better RL candidates to the throne--to positions where they are the three front-runners in the Emperor's starting lineup of heirs. It is unfortunate that CK cannot really model Byzantium, or indded anything but France and most of the HRE, so we have no chance of getting something realistic.

Well Michael ruled for almost 7 years which isn't that brief when you look at the other emperors (there were 13 emperors in that period and only Constantine IX ruled longer then Michael namely 13 years) that ruled between Basilieus II (died 1025) and Alexius I.

Also Alexius Commenus was married to a Irene Dukas so he was considered part of the Dukas 'clan' so to speak. And the topmen of the Dukas 'clan' were Andronicus and Michael.

Romanus Diogenus should be the first in line to inherit in my opinion.

 

[unmerged(47151)]

We could just reduce the land under Michael's direct and indrect rule so he's almost certain not to inherit (since cutting the empire up into vassals is already aberrant, there's nothing ahistorical in redrawing the vassal's borders, and Michael's reign was brief and contested) and then boosting Diogenes, Comnenus and Botaneiates--the better RL candidates to the throne--to positions where they are the three front-runners in the Emperor's starting lineup of heirs. It is unfortunate that CK cannot really model Byzantium, or indded anything but France and most of the HRE, so we have no chance of getting something realistic.

Actually, the situation in 12th century Byzantium was verging toward CKish much more than in earlier centuries, Byzantium was becoming more de-centralised, dynistic and "fuedal" at the time of Manzikert. The power of quasi-independant local aristocrats was higher than in the earlier centuries.

The only real problem is the tendancy to keep scrutage at 0 percent. The Byzantines should probably (in the long run) be coded to charge a high level of scrutage, but one which does not effect militery might and possibly also enabled to give money away to relatively undeveloped vassal, to represent investment from the centre. But the equivilant of CK vassals did have quite a big role in Byzantine society, indeed in all societies in this period though.