The absurdity of who benefits from GHW

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Playing as Romuva Emperor-First Vaidila.

1. First GHW against Sweden: I win, the Romuvan ex-vassal of the Swedish becomes the next King of Sweden. Ok, fair enough. His Norse vassls rebel against him. I conquer them. Get my threat to 97%. The Sweden stays independent. For now.
2. The other kingdom in Scandinavia is, of all the places, Nenetsia who are Suomenesko. Planning to conquer them and eventually found the Empire of Scandinavia. What do you know - a few decades later they convert to Romuvan. Ok, my RA is so great and I'm so threatening, fair enough.
3. Second GHW against Saxony: I win, the next King of Saxony is the little brother of the previous king. That little brother happened to convert to Romuva. His heir is the previous Catholic king who is also the King of England. I force vassalize the shit out of the little brat and take away all his titles at the expense of great diplomatic penalty.
4. Third GHW against Novgorod. I win, everything goes smoothly, I get all the land to myself, then distribute the titles to my kin. However in the middle of the Kingdom of Novgorod: there's one county that belongs to the Petty King of Wessex. I declare war of conquest on him. The Pope declares Crusade for Saxony against me. I win the conquest. I win the Crusade.
5. Planning the Fourth GHW for Ruthenia that is ruled by the previous King of Novgorod. And what do you know - his heir is his Romuvan daughter who is matrilinealy married to a Waldensian. She is the only Romuvan of her dynasty. I invite the daughter to my court and plan to assassinate her. Will see how this goes.

But the point is: this conversion is a non-sense and reeks of a cheating AI.

 

[Damo269]

...so your question is..Why the heir converted i take it?
Its pretty historical for a ruler to convert in order to avoid Crusaxes (GHW in your case).
Besides the AI ain't smart enough to do that unless your already at war with them

 

[Blackwhitecavias]

Both the AI and the player get the option to convert to the attacker's religion in case of a holy war (or great holy war) if that's what you're complaining about I see no reason to accuse the AI of cheating as you can do the same.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

...so your question is..Why the heir converted i take it?
Its pretty historical for a ruler to convert in order to avoid Crusaxes (GHW in your case).
Besides the AI ain't smart enough to do that unless your already at war with them

I just think it's cheap. And it just doesn't makes sense to me that only one member of the dynasty and only one person in the realm would convert. I think threat generator is already a good mechanism that prevents expanding too fast. This tricky conversion just creates mess. It doesn't improve the experience, it just slows down what is inevitable. I really don't like it. Just another thing that promotes border gore.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

As to the historical aspect of such conversion, I think it's pretty clear that the historical Crusades were not as much about religion, as they were about dominance and plunder. For example, Byzantines were Christians, it didn't prevent the Crusaders from sacking Constantinopole and supporting a claimant that was the very opposite of an exemplary Christian.

But in this game, the rules are just sooo pure. Some baby is the only follower of my faith, now the target kingdom gets to be independent. Hogwash!

 

[WJS]

Sorry your plans of world domination are stymied by savvy courtiers.

 

[Patriarch of Bub]

As to the historical aspect of such conversion, I think it's pretty clear that the historical Crusades were not as much about religion, as they were about dominance and plunder.

Where did you hear something like this? I usually hear it as the "common knowledge" on the crusades, i even heard it in church during a sermon from a particularly convinced orthodox priest.

There's a really good book by Rodney starks, that actually covers the subject really well, and it's a really good read.

"God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades"

For academics, it might not hold too much new content or ideas, but it's really good at the job it set out to do. Debunk the popular myths about crusades.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Sorry your plans of world domination are stymied by savvy courtiers.

All I'm asking for is some logical consistency.

 

[junassa]

The only thing I don't like about GHW is that as you start to declare war and you want to see who the beneficiary will be it doesn't always say if it's going to be someone besides yourself (unless of course some courtier is changing after declaration, which I guess is possible but I don't think that's what happened).

 

[mrstevehazzard]

Isn't the point of holy wars to spread the faith? If you're getting other nations to convert it sounds like you're doing a job well done.

 

[Vokasak]

Seems fine to me, no cheating in sight.