Suggestion on the iberian problem

[PB-DK]

the problem of having the moslem horde running all over spain and southern france in the early campaigns is a tough cookie to crack...

i would suggest that the central spanish moslem provinces/rulers/area's gets christian populations so to curb their power... this would be semi-historically since there where lot of christian populations left in the moslim area's

 

[Third Angel]

this would be semi-historically since there where lot of christian populations left in the moslim area's

Actually there were some but not a lot. The most part of the population of al-Andalus was made of converts or descendants of converts (muwalladun). Arab and berber Muslims were always a minority except for very specific areas or cities, and spanish Christians soon became one too.
So I think the southern provinces should definitely stay muslim. Of course we can always claim that there was a specific culture here but as it has been stated a number of times that new cultures won't be introduced (at least not in the next official patch), we cannot have much hope about that.

 

[unmerged(30936)]

but maybe changing the culture of some of territories of the taifas to castillan (and keep the religion as muslim).

 

[Lucius Sulla]

I fail to see the point of this... how would changing the culture help in the reconquista? So far, the effect of having a different cultured province is not that bad by far, it's the religion what really usually bothers thing, triggering revolts and the like.

 

[Secret Master]

I'm not really seeing an "Iberian Problem" anymore. About half the time, Castile wipes out the Muslims and completes the Reconquista before the Mongols show up. The other half of the time leads to the oppposite, where all the Iberian Christians are wiped out, resulting an infighting among the Muslims until the Burgos or Lisboa crusade is called. Of course, these Crusades result in a patchwork of French, German, and player-controlled duchies loyal to non-Iberian kingdoms, but I don't see this as objectionable. And if the Iberian Muslims are not wiped out completely, they often stage a comeback against these non-Iberian kingdoms when they fall into inevitable civil war.

It is interesting to note that if I liberate Lisboa and grant Portugal to some non-related duke, the resulting independent crusader state never seems to survive, resulting in a new crusade within a generation.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

I'm not really seeing an "Iberian Problem" anymore. About half the time, Castile wipes out the Muslims and completes the Reconquista before the Mongols show up. The other half of the time leads to the oppposite, where all the Iberian Christians are wiped out, resulting an infighting among the Muslims until the Burgos or Lisboa crusade is called. Of course, these Crusades result in a patchwork of French, German, and player-controlled duchies loyal to non-Iberian kingdoms, but I don't see this as objectionable. And if the Iberian Muslims are not wiped out completely, they often stage a comeback against these non-Iberian kingdoms when they fall into inevitable civil war.

It is interesting to note that if I liberate Lisboa and grant Portugal to some non-related duke, the resulting independent crusader state never seems to survive, resulting in a new crusade within a generation.

I mostly see the former, ie muslim crushed even before 1125 except for a few holdout provinces, mostly from Castile or occasionally Leon.

I think it might help if Castile were a bit more unstable or if peace command actually caused a truce.

 

[unmerged(33590)]

Well, it seems to me that the "Iberian Problem" has not been solved per se; the fact that half (or more?) result in a Christian romp by 1125 (rather than 100% a Muslim romp in the same time period) tells us that no matter how much we beef up the Iberian Christians, we STILL have a problem.

And that problem is that there is no way to allow for a historically SLOWWW Reconquista which would drag on until 1492. To put this situation another way, the Iberian Problem has been misdiagnosed all along.

The real problem is the nature of warfare between Christians and Muslim/Pagans in this game. When you have "free claims" on religious enemies and the ability to snatch a province intantly without resort to a peace agreement...you get this zero-sum situation whereby such wars are logically played out, by player and AI alike, as an instant deathmatch where the final decision is reached too spectacularly, in mere years rather than the more historically desirable decades and centuries.

So balance was never the real problem in Iberia, it was more one of game mechanics IMO.

A while back I reported here on an mod experiment I did, where I changed all Muslims and Pagans to Orthodox religion. This had the desired effect: wars vs. them needed claims, claims where needed to sieze provinces, and peace had to be negociated for them to change hands. The rate of conquest between religious enemies was successfully slowed to more historic rates. I've stopped fiddling around with this mod idea to work on the beta...but I'm curious does anyone else here agree with me that this is a design concept worth looking into more?

 

[unmerged(21937)]

There was an Iberian problem in the days 1.04a and earlier betas. It was the fact that Moslems overran AI christians in Iberia close to 100% of the times. This problem has been solved, since now both sides win some of the time, which is the intended result.

And it's true that it's practically impossible to achieve historical results in some situations, like Iberia or Lithuania, with CK engine. Maybe CK2.

 

[unmerged(30936)]

Maybe changing the way to attack muslim and pagan.
With claim etc.... a lot of claim already given for the christian and orthodox kingdoms/duchy/counties against their muslim/pagan neighbour (yes why Iberian people will attack lithuania, even if they are pagan, it have no sense) and claim for the muslim kingdoms/duchy/counties against their christian neighbour.

And for the crusades, maken an event that give claims to the holy land.

Don't know if all of that is possible, but I've seen on that forum a mod making pagan and muslim playable, making mariage with people under 16 years possible, female marshall etc..... so why not....

 

[unmerged(2456)]

And it's true that it's practically impossible to achieve historical results in some situations, like Iberia or Lithuania, with CK engine. Maybe CK2.

It might not be so hard if the peace command gave a truce as well.

 

[Spruce]

I'm not really seeing an "Iberian Problem" anymore.

I'm ok to accept that PI won't solve exhaustive religious wars (religious enemies don't need claims to take land + revolting captured lands remain in your feudal tier (in casu = locals have different faith and after succesfull rebellion can't found indepedent county or sheikdom)) - but saying the Iberian problem is gone - that's bogus.

Most often I see either a total victory by Castillia - and this most often is due to one long exhaustive religious war. Or the other way around - Muslims race trough Iberia and then the crusade bring solution to this issue. Also Muslim tier break up fixes this somewhat.

Still exhaustive religious wars remain a problem and are they root of the problem - the problem is still there and when it kicks in - it's a total walkover.

In my last game - king of Aragon got walked over by a small emirate - the same went for the bigger emirate of Sevilla - it got walked over by Castillia - all happened in the time span of 5 years.

Problem is not solved imho - but the game is playable + this is huge exploit for human player I once did a walkover on emir of Grenada which was bigger then me - but simply had just fougth another war - sorry for that guy but I walked him over and finally when the last Muslim province fell - 75% of Muslims had rebelled (due to insane taxing - army upkeep) - taken the county keep and where still very happy to remain in my kingdom of Leon.

Anyone saying there's no problem anymore is not telling the whole story - walkovers are still pretty easy - but they cranked Christians up and the crusade system is now working.

 

[Secret Master]

If memory serves, the origingal Iberian problem was that the Iberian Muslims had an ICBM-like tech edge over the Iberian Christians, resulting in the complete annihilation of all Christian states in Iberia even before the first Crusade was called. It was so bad that even a human playing Castile on very difficult got wiped out 90% of the time, and only conquest of Muslim provinces, and thus Muslim wealth and tech, made the situation winnable for a human. What made it worse was the lack of Crusade targets under 1.04, resulting in lack of Crusade incentive to liberate the Christians in Iberia for the AI. (Humans had every reason to liberate Iberia for all of the free provinces once they narrowed the tech gap.)

The situation in Iberia has been improved by several orders of magnitude. Now, it is a crap shoot who will dominate in Iberia. Most of the time, it's Castile. Sometimes, Sevilla wipes everyone out and holds out against Crusades. Other times, Germany and France partition it when the Muslims win. Aragon now actually survives some of the time and becomes a real kingdom. It is even tenable to play Navarra.

All of the things you mentioned as problems are not Iberian Problems. They are just CK quirks. The Baltic pagans, even with their helpful troop events and the pagan revolt events, are just as easy to wipe out as the Iberian Muslims. If you don't believe me, take Denmark for a spin and conquer the Baltic pagans before the Crusades fire. With all of the problems the Fatamids have, you can easily carve out a Kingdom of Jerusalem by yourself once you have about 15,000 troops that you can afford to ship to Acre. And the enterprising Russian Prince has plenty of targets which allow him to grab the provinces needed to become King of Rus or Bolgar (now that Rus has fewer provinces), resulting in sudden swearings of allegiance. The fact that the AI unifies Rus itself about 33% of the time in my 1066 games indicates that Iberia is by no means the only place where religious war can result in insane gains in real estate.

The Iberia Problem is gone. As for the rest of these issues, that is a different debate.

 

[Grell74]

Divine Shadow has released and excellent mod which requires claims before religious enemies provinces can be taken. This results in a much more "historically plausible" game. Goto:
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4224658#post4224658

 

[unmerged(33590)]

Divine Shadow has released and excellent mod which requires claims before religious enemies provinces can be taken. This results in a much more "historically plausible" game. Goto:
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4224658#post4224658

Oooh now this looks cool, this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. THX!

 

[Spruce]

If memory serves, the origingal Iberian problem was that the Iberian Muslims had an ICBM-like tech edge over the Iberian Christians, resulting in the complete annihilation of all Christian states in Iberia even before the first Crusade was called. It was so bad that even a human playing Castile on very difficult got wiped out 90% of the time, and only conquest of Muslim provinces, and thus Muslim wealth and tech, made the situation winnable for a human. What made it worse was the lack of Crusade targets under 1.04, resulting in lack of Crusade incentive to liberate the Christians in Iberia for the AI. (Humans had every reason to liberate Iberia for all of the free provinces once they narrowed the tech gap.)

The situation in Iberia has been improved by several orders of magnitude. Now, it is a crap shoot who will dominate in Iberia. Most of the time, it's Castile. Sometimes, Sevilla wipes everyone out and holds out against Crusades. Other times, Germany and France partition it when the Muslims win. Aragon now actually survives some of the time and becomes a real kingdom. It is even tenable to play Navarra.

All of the things you mentioned as problems are not Iberian Problems. They are just CK quirks. The Baltic pagans, even with their helpful troop events and the pagan revolt events, are just as easy to wipe out as the Iberian Muslims. If you don't believe me, take Denmark for a spin and conquer the Baltic pagans before the Crusades fire. With all of the problems the Fatamids have, you can easily carve out a Kingdom of Jerusalem by yourself once you have about 15,000 troops that you can afford to ship to Acre. And the enterprising Russian Prince has plenty of targets which allow him to grab the provinces needed to become King of Rus or Bolgar (now that Rus has fewer provinces), resulting in sudden swearings of allegiance. The fact that the AI unifies Rus itself about 33% of the time in my 1066 games indicates that Iberia is by no means the only place where religious war can result in insane gains in real estate.

The Iberia Problem is gone. As for the rest of these issues, that is a different debate.

I guess your answer is sort of a political one and not really adressing the point I was trying to make. My point was that exhaustive religious wars are still possible and can still be quite an exploit - if the timing is ok - they still happen in Iberia as they could ravage the whole map. Another thing is that some rebalancing in tech setup and working crusade engine dampens out the problem.

But the lack of claims and due to basic flaw of revolters from a different faith, defeating local army should proclaim independence.

In your eyes the Iberian problem is tech tweaking - in my eyes it's the exhaustive religious wars problem - that means walkover under certain conditions - and this has nothing to do with tech tweaks.

To give some insight in the problem I played KOJ during the last months - I played on hard and every single time I got a walkover from Abbasids, Ayyubids, even emirs did walkovers on me. Then at a certain moment in time, I got my timing and I did a total walkover on Abbasids - 3 years later on Ayyubids - and all Muslim king tiers where evaporised ...

exhaustive religious wars are too drastical and too decisive ... resulting in a walkover,

 

[unmerged(21937)]

If you want to discuss problems with religious war systems in general, please start a new thread, since it's not at all Iberia-specific and like many people have pointed out here, nor is it the Iberian Problem of old either.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Actually i do have some comments that should go here.

1. There isn't much conquest from NA into southern iberia when there should be.

2. Castile should be toned down a wee bit. Because of its proximity to relgious eneimes and the crusade system which makes it better at crusading it has more potential to grow into a powerhouse because unlike places like Sweden, there are nasty muslim events to deal with (similar to pagans) and if they succeed (which is far more likely now) those southern provinces are very wealthy.

Since is 90% castile who is the powerhoise if muslims are pushed, its obviously something with Castile that is the reason. I'd say the same for Sevilla on the other extreme, but i think some historical North African invasions might help that.

 

[unmerged(44651)]

But Leon often takes over Castile and then become a great power...( without extra mod of course)
and now with DevineShadows Mod there are more often wars between muslims from NA too Iberia also, i believe you mean North Africa for NA?

 

[unmerged(2456)]

But Leon often takes over Castile and then become a great power...( without extra mod of course)
and now with DevineShadows Mod there are more often wars between muslims from NA too Iberia also, i believe you mean North Africa for NA?

Not really. On occasion i've seen it happen, but not often enough. Just like i've seen Toledo become the powerhouse of Iberian muslims.

 

[Secret Master]

1. There isn't much conquest from NA into southern iberia when there should be.

There is some truth to this. Sometimes, the Al Muratibids come across and whip up on the Iberian Christians, but most of the time, the North African Muslims don't bother other people. At least, until a Crusade is called against Tunis (that seems to get them riled all along the African coast for some reason).

However, I'm not sure if there is a way to encourage this at all. You could, theoretically, use events to spawn in the Muslim dynasties from the later scenarios at their appropriate times and have them attack in the direction of Iberia, kinda like the mongols do out east. But this is probably more trouble than its worth.