Stupid vassals....

[Sarenarass]

So, I was the Byzantine Emperor.. wanted to try it out after getting LoR. Everything was going just fine.. sort of. Had to fight off two Jihads at once and lost Armenia to the Fatamids, while winning the other. Then later I lost Anatolia to the Seljuks. I would retake much of that (but not all of it) through holy wars. So now I am larger than 1066 Byzantine Empire just in different places. (Don't worry, I'm getting to my point) so I noticed one of my vassals had too much duchies (three) and this was a problem. So knowing the Byzantine Emperor could revoke titles without much of a penalty I decided to attempt to revoke her largest duchy. Just my luck, the 5% chance that it said she would revolt happened. So I was lazily raising my troops in to what would surely seem an easy war. WHAT'S THIS? The Fatamids have called an invasion for Greece! Hooray! So I try to sign a white peace with her but she says "The war is indecisive" (Even though I have 18%+ score). While me and the Fatamids fight back and forth to maintain the integrity of not only the Byzantine Empire but all of her duchies since most were in the region of conflict.

So she is constantly working against me, which I found very annoying. I would retake Constantinople and run off, she would take it for herself... I would raise some levies to reinforce my armies, she'd hunt them down before they got to me. I'M TRYING TO PREVENT US FROM BEING RULED BY THESE EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS, can you at least try not to hinder me? No. Apparently she didn't care that it was her own good at stake aswell. Eventually I lost Greece which I surely would've been able to hold onto if it wasn't for her 12,000 troops constantly harassing me. I think this may be.. just a bit unrealstic... I mean if you are revolting against your liege for some petty reason and something arrives that we have a common enemy.. shouldn't we band together? I think there should be some option like that, no?

 

[Matthaios]

lol it's stupid...

But Byzantine nobles were about as stupid in reality during 1070s after the Battle of Manzikert. Instead of staying united and trying to retake parts of Anatolia lost to Seljuks they started to backstab each other, fighting and plotting for the throne, using Turks as mercenaries, garrisoning towns with Turkish mercenaries who then easily captured the towns for themselves and as result managed to lose almost whole Anatolia to Turks and large parts of it were never recovered. For example Nikephoros Botaneiates garrisoned his Bithynian towns with Turkish mercenaries and after he marched to take over the throne in Constantinople those mercenaries revolted and Byzantines didn't got those towns back before late 1090s.

 

[Dracko81]

Firstly, a superduke solo revolt takes 1 month to siege to death, having it last longer is your own choice. Secondly you can always surrender to you duchess so you can have her troops in your defence against the attacking Fatamids, rather then fighting on 2 fronts.

If you lose the war to the Fatamids she loses nothing, why should she stop revolting?

 

[grumphie]

y'know, 18% IS indecisive. if you cant beat a vassel decisivly, dont go to war, but hurt in other ways. make gavelkind split the lands. heck, jsut kill the ruler to face smaller armies. DONT go to war when the big green blob of death doesnt have a few years truce left if you cant handle them. finish the war so you dont fight a war on 2 fronts.

basicly, use common sense. you chose the worst possible options. you went on reorganising the realm without being save from strong neighbours. you didnt finish the war, or even left minor siege stacks there while you beat back the infidels. you didnt. taking one or two provinces would have been enough for a whtie peace. NEVER EVER initiate wars you cant win. if you DO need to fight them, choose your battles and fight defensive, reinforcements sshouldnt be called if they wont make it to the main army alive(fleets help wonders here), finish the easy war without being steamrolled on the other side. if you cant win a war with brute force, pause and think. assualting weaker provinces while fatamids break on your attrition might even be a valuable tactic.

 

[Sarenarass]

Ok, you all seem to be implying that:
1. I really wanted to attack my own vassal?
2. I knew that the 5% chance she would revolt would happen.

Firstly, if I surrendered I would be imprisoned and it would make her the new ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Yes, that's a genius idea. I'll surrender to her! Derp.
Secondly, I was trying to end the war as quickly as possible but gathering levies from an Empire stretching from northern Croatia and Sicily to Azov isn't easy. Only less than a week after I attempted to revoke her title did the Fatamids declare their invasion. I didn't even have a single army up yet to defend myself against either. The Fatamids were sieging Constantinople and after beating my army captured all the holdings instantly accumulating 60% warscore for them. I couldn't go focus on my super-duchess now, there was no time. If I were to turn and fight her I would've had no chance at stopping the Fatamids in time.

SO, my options at that point:
1. Ignore Fatamids, take out Duchess.
PROS: Won't be imprisoned and lose throne; can get her levies.
CONS: I lose ALL of Greece.
2. Ignore Duchess, take out Fatamids:
PROS: Don't lose Greece.
CONS: Let Duchess gather a small amount of warscore.
The second option sounds better, but after the Fatamids beat my first army I had to hire many mercenaries just to equal them and they beat me again. (I don't know how, I had better generals, 16,000 to 11,000, no river crossing)

So, what was I supposed to do again?

 

[Vishaing]

Not needlessly antagonize your powerful vassals when you have a large and hostile neighbor who is ready, willing, and able to kill you?

 

[Cojack]

The panic button as a byzantine emperor is revoking all duchies at once and give them to one landless courtier (who doesn't have envious nor ambitious, married to 45 women, and obviously without relatives) and who's coastal. You can summon all your realm levy twice, as long as you dismiss the levy-s holding your granted to him.

 

[grumphie]

well, if you had actually GIVEN us the situation like this to us we could ofcourse reply regarding to that one. how your post looked was revolt of duchess>armies raised and attacking her>fatamids attack>you abandon duchess and expect her to just do nothing

that still has a few flaws for you:
1. you apperantly gave the fatamids the chance to form an army while you did the same. did you consider joining them in local rally points, then shipping them into a central one? surely with a alrge empir ethe fatamids would need a large amount of time as well, considering its powerbase lies in greece
2. you went on causing instability in your own realm with the big green blob right next to you, without alllies or superiour armies to at least chace them off
3. if she raised 12.000 men and you 16.000 you are either a terrible ruler, in which case you brought this onto yourself, a succession just happened, in which case its your own fault for causing insatbility, or had a ubervassel owning half the realm, which is your own fault as well considering the size of the empire.

what you were supposed to do was making sure you didnt come into this situation AT ALL. ALWAYS expect the worst in a strategy game. if there's a 5% chance of someone revolting, dont revoke unless you can handle it. if you face a monstrous blob you cant beat on your own, get some allies. even hungary annoying it with 3000 stacks sieging is a help. if you have a duchess capable of raising a army 50%+ of your armies, weaken her power indirectly by means of assasination, promoting supercounts under her to duke and similar things. sometimes, defeat is inevtable. you werent SUPPOSED to beat the fatamids in this situation, while luck certainly could have won you the war, they had the initiative and supremacy. dont whine about thigns like that.

as for you losing that battle, tactics and the right traits matter A LOT now. a 5 martial brave patient general can often be better than a 10 martial without any relevant traits. similarry, you can have the best traits ever, but when tactics dont correspnd, your screwed as well(i.e. a full defensive general getting only offensive tactics). also, the mamluks add a annoying amount of horse archers and heavy cav tot he army, which are capable of beating much more amounts of opposing units, combined with correspnding tactics can be devasting(heck the strenght of catapract retinue's)

 

[Sarenarass]

well, if you had actually GIVEN us the situation like this to us we could ofcourse reply regarding to that one. how your post looked was revolt of duchess>armies raised and attacking her>fatamids attack>you abandon duchess and expect her to just do nothing

that still has a few flaws for you:
1. you apperantly gave the fatamids the chance to form an army while you did the same. did you consider joining them in local rally points, then shipping them into a central one? surely with a alrge empir ethe fatamids would need a large amount of time as well, considering its powerbase lies in greece
2. you went on causing instability in your own realm with the big green blob right next to you, without alllies or superiour armies to at least chace them off
3. if she raised 12.000 men and you 16.000 you are either a terrible ruler, in which case you brought this onto yourself, a succession just happened, in which case its your own fault for causing insatbility, or had a ubervassel owning half the realm, which is your own fault as well considering the size of the empire.

what you were supposed to do was making sure you didnt come into this situation AT ALL. ALWAYS expect the worst in a strategy game. if there's a 5% chance of someone revolting, dont revoke unless you can handle it. if you face a monstrous blob you cant beat on your own, get some allies. even hungary annoying it with 3000 stacks sieging is a help. if you have a duchess capable of raising a army 50%+ of your armies, weaken her power indirectly by means of assasination, promoting supercounts under her to duke and similar things. sometimes, defeat is inevtable. you werent SUPPOSED to beat the fatamids in this situation, while luck certainly could have won you the war, they had the initiative and supremacy. dont whine about thigns like that.

as for you losing that battle, tactics and the right traits matter A LOT now. a 5 martial brave patient general can often be better than a 10 martial without any relevant traits. similarry, you can have the best traits ever, but when tactics dont correspnd, your screwed as well(i.e. a full defensive general getting only offensive tactics). also, the mamluks add a annoying amount of horse archers and heavy cav tot he army, which are capable of beating much more amounts of opposing units, combined with correspnding tactics can be devasting(heck the strenght of catapract retinue's)

I had more than 16,000 troops in our first battle. Pretty sure I had 21,000 and I lost. I saw the Fatamids were going to pursue my army until there was nothing left so at those situations I disband them to regroup. This is where the Duchess really started being a pain. Attacking my smaller divisions as I tried to send them to one point to unify them into one stronger army. Also, I had two allies. The Holy Roman Empire and Ruthenia (who owned pretty much all of Russia). But the Holy Roman Emperor died (along with my alliance) about half a year or more before I decided to weaken my vassal and Ruthenia was having an extremely large revolution it seemed they would lose. So they were of no use to me.

Also, about those points..
The Fatamid blob wasn't necessarily next to me, unless the sea boundary to Egypt counts. The closest provinces they had by land were near Antioch and Iraq.
I also made the grievous error of only raising the amount of troops I thought I would need to deal with the Duchess. I clicked raise all levies and disbanded the ones that would take too long to reach me. My vassals already lost some rep. with me because I used their levies on a spree of holy and de jure wars, so I didn't want to worsen it. (Also, do "Wars against Tyranny" still rack up those levy negative opinion modifiers if you are defending?)
So while my current armies were massed, it was about 11-16,000 before I pulled in levies from Georgia, Crimea, Sicily, and Anatolia. Didn't expect I would need them.

The main point I was trying to get at here with this whole post is that if the Duchess would've just set aside her petty squabble with me just for a little bit then we could've easily together fended off the Fatamids. I remember now that she didn't lose her land after I lost Greece but wouldn't she be desipised among others (if this were to really happen) for de-stabilizing the Empire at such a crucial point? You could call it my fault for demanding she hand over a title, but it is within the Empire's jurisdiction to demand titles.

 

[Comradebot]

Well, whats more important: Greece or the big chair? Keep in mind, you can get both back. But Id say the throne is easier to regain and less likely to be lost.

Focus on the Fatimids, let the Duchess waste troops on sieges. If you know the Fatimids are crushed enough to no longer be an imminent threat, wipe the Duchess levies and start slowly sieging her while killing Egyptians as they land. If you can, gather the defense force in boats and just dock the full stack on Muslim heads, then re-embark before attrition kicks in.

And until the Fatimids are dealt with, just keep using the minimum force needed to crush the Duchess. White Peace if you need to, you can always deal with her later.


EDIT: But in the future, be more careful. Causing internal strife is never a good plan when your external enemies are at or close to full strength and waiting for an opening.

 

[Vishaing]

Why would she "Set Aside her petty squabble"? You picked a Fight with Her. She didn't destabilize the Empire, You Did. You demonstrated that You didn't like her being as strong as she was and so chose to try to seize land that rightfully belonged to Her.

From what I can tell of your story, You picked a Fight with her, She Rebelled, and because you chose the worst possible time to go about doing this she kept all of her land. Continuing the Fight was pure Intelligence on her part and it worked out beautifully.

 

[Sarenarass]

Why would she "Set Aside her petty squabble"? You picked a Fight with Her. She didn't destabilize the Empire, You Did. You demonstrated that You didn't like her being as strong as she was and so chose to try to seize land that rightfully belonged to Her.

From what I can tell of your story, You picked a Fight with her, She Rebelled, and because you chose the worst possible time to go about doing this she kept all of her land. Continuing the Fight was pure Intelligence on her part and it worked out beautifully.

I suppose it is my fault, but.. muslims.. taking Constantinople.. and everything else. D: I thought these Greeks were proud to consider themselves Roman! Or at least the successors to its Empire. I guess I just assumed she loved Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire so much that she would save it even if she didn't like it's current ruler. But who knows, maybe she hated the Byzantine Empire and thought of it as oppressive or something.

 

[Vishaing]

Or maybe she's planning on waiting for the Fatamids to collapse (possibly with some helpful Knives to speed the process) and then take the city for herself. It's what I would do.

 

[Comradebot]

I suppose it is my fault, but.. muslims.. taking Constantinople.. and everything else. D: I thought these Greeks were proud to consider themselves Roman! Or at least the successors to its Empire. I guess I just assumed she loved Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire so much that she would save it even if she didn't like it's current ruler. But who knows, maybe she hated the Byzantine Empire and thought of it as oppressive or something.

Well, you did try to oppress her. Very few individuals are actually as idealistic and selfless as you seem to think these Byzantine vassals should be. And let's be honest, if she did decide to end her war and help you with the Fatimids, one of the very first things you'll do after the Empire is once again secure is to go back to trying to revoke her titles and throw her in prison.

 

[Sarenarass]

Well, you did try to oppress her. Very few individuals are actually as idealistic and selfless as you seem to think these Byzantine vassals should be. And let's be honest, if she did decide to end her war and help you with the Fatimids, one of the very first things you'll do after the Empire is once again secure is to go back to trying to revoke her titles and throw her in prison.

Nooooo. >.> <.<

Actually, yeah. Lol. I was quite angered at her for disrupting my war so I planned that when I beat the Fatamids (which I didn't) I would imprison her and then blind her.