The Great Green Blob that just won't die

[Crosswire]

Recently, after a long time away from the game, I returned to playing CK2 to do the monarch's challenges and chase achievements I don't have. After a little play in Africa, I've moved to India, specifically to do the White Hun challenge that starts in 769.

I used to play at that start time a lot but I don't ever remember the Great Green Blob being anywhere near as resilient as it seems to be since I started playing again. I didn't want to cheese the achievement so stayed Hindu, slowly building up my power base, but to my horror I watched as the Abassids grew and grew and grew and now most of the land I need to take is now owned by them.

I've played up to 940 so far and the Abassids have over 100K troops already, pushing up to near 120K in some cases depending on rulers. And in all that time their decadence hasn't gone above 12%. They have taken all of Arabia, all of the Caucasuses, all of North Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar, all of Central Africa, all of Eastern Africa but for their Nubian vassal, half of Anatolia and the Duchy of Thrace (so they hold Constantinople), Crete, they have a foothold in southern Italy, all of Persia and the non-nomadic parts of Central Asia and they have pushed deep into India so that my lands (half de jure Kingdom of Rajputana, plus Gujurat and Malwa) are now surrounded on three sides.

There hasn't been a hint of internal problems all game with them and their decadence barely moves. The only crusade that looked their way got crushed.

There is still a long time to get the land I need, but it doesn't seem likely unless the Caliphate somehow splinters, and there is no sign of that happening any time soon. I'm just surprised they haven't looked my way yet. If they do, if all of the other Indian factions decided to help me, combined we'd still only have half their troop numbers.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

You can probably take them on with the subcontinent under your control.

But where are their tributaries? Usually they have something like 5-10 tributaries that are constantly on fire, sapping their manpower with constant wars.

 

[Crosswire]

They ate all their tributaries except for the Nubians somehow.

 

[MK1980]

i think one reason why the 769 abbasids often struggle is because their egytpian vassal is pretty powerful from the start and can easily conquer the lands in eastern africa and essentially become more powerful than his liege. so the caliph struggles when the sultan of egypt decides to not like him and send only minimal troops.

maybe the realm developed differently in your campaign

 

[junassa]

Recently, after a long time away from the game, I returned to playing CK2 to do the monarch's challenges and chase achievements I don't have. After a little play in Africa, I've moved to India, specifically to do the White Hun challenge that starts in 769.

I used to play at that start time a lot but I don't ever remember the Great Green Blob being anywhere near as resilient as it seems to be since I started playing again. I didn't want to cheese the achievement so stayed Hindu, slowly building up my power base, but to my horror I watched as the Abassids grew and grew and grew and now most of the land I need to take is now owned by them.

I've played up to 940 so far and the Abassids have over 100K troops already, pushing up to near 120K in some cases depending on rulers. And in all that time their decadence hasn't gone above 12%. They have taken all of Arabia, all of the Caucasuses, all of North Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar, all of Central Africa, all of Eastern Africa but for their Nubian vassal, half of Anatolia and the Duchy of Thrace (so they hold Constantinople), Crete, they have a foothold in southern Italy, all of Persia and the non-nomadic parts of Central Asia and they have pushed deep into India so that my lands (half de jure Kingdom of Rajputana, plus Gujurat and Malwa) are now surrounded on three sides.

There hasn't been a hint of internal problems all game with them and their decadence barely moves. The only crusade that looked their way got crushed.

There is still a long time to get the land I need, but it doesn't seem likely unless the Caliphate somehow splinters, and there is no sign of that happening any time soon. I'm just surprised they haven't looked my way yet. If they do, if all of the other Indian factions decided to help me, combined we'd still only have half their troop numbers.

Can you upload your save? For research purposes.

 

[EllisDee]

Empires seem way more stable than i remember. Not just Abbasids, but HRE and Byzantium. Abb and Byz seem to have near-constant rebellions -- usually a plot to kill the liege ending in a new ruler and a rebellion -- but they're always tiny in size and get crushed quickly.

In my current game i joined the Assassins and killed leader after leader until they finally shattered. Took like 4 generations of characters constant plotting to kill to get there.

On the plus side, 940 isn't too far off crusades. Once they show up, with the buffs from Holy Fury, it's a total clusterflupp for Jerusalem, and all their military might will be destroyed.

 

[Dadoverde]

Call China.

 

[lilmik552]

It's always interesting how every game is different. I've had some hideous border gore in some of mine where they even swallow most of France...Even took Rome and the Pope was in England lol. And then other times they crumble rather quickly. I notice it only takes a few loses for them to start breaking apart...If you can manage to cause those.

 

[Kumicho]

What? Pull yourself together, man, you're HINDU!!!! Go teach those Muslims some manners!

1) You're Hindu, so you can raid your neighbors for loot. Raid, raid, raid, raid and build up a decent stockpile of gold so that you can hire mercenaries when the inevitable clash with the great green blob starts. (Also, assuming you have the China DLC, personally owning a ton of trade posts along the Indian Ocean will get you a TON of cash. Probably more than raiding)
2) Once you've got the cash, start raiding HIM. Move your spymaster one county over so you can get advance warning when he's coming, and have all of your troops just continuously raiding the border you have with him. When he shows up with his doomstacks, retreat across the border so you don't get clobbered, and then when he's gone just go back to raiding. This will cause him to continuously raise his troops, draining his coffers and pissing off his vassals. It might even cause him to lose a war or two, and then just wait for the inevitable implosion/civil war/etc.
3) If he's so pissed off he declares war, that's what your gigantic stockpile of gold is for. Use mercenaries (and holy order) and kick his ass! Or at the very least assault a bunch of holdings at the beginning, and if it looks like you're going to lose then just White Peace out of it. It's probably not going to be that bad, since he has to march his troops all the way across his entire Empire just to get at you.
4) Or, as another poster noted, just call China. Spend the next however many years throwing concubines, eunuchs, commanders, artifacts, etc at China until you get to 5,000, and then it's *literally* game over for the big green blob. They'll be shattered in to a million pieces and you can gobble them up to your heart's content. Just a word of warning, though, this is usually when I get bored and start a new game. Without a large and dangerous enemy the game sort of gets boring.

 

[jonjowett]

4) Or, as another poster noted, just call China. Spend the next however many years throwing concubines, eunuchs, commanders, artifacts, etc at China until you get to 5,000, and then it's *literally* game over for the big green blob. They'll be shattered in to a million pieces and you can gobble them up to your heart's content. Just a word of warning, though, this is usually when I get bored and start a new game. Without a large and dangerous enemy the game sort of gets boring.

This. Precisely this. Kill them with China, get bored, quit, never get the achievement. Been there twice now lol.

 

[TurtleShroom]

Do what I did. Suck up to China until you have enough Grace Points to ask them to invade and dismantle the empire. The Abbasids were the bane of my White Hun run as well. Sadly, I while I united India and Tibet, and reformed the Bon Pagan religion (which was the religion I wanted to play the whole time), either CK2 got updated or my saved game got corrupted. I cannot recall which one.

 

[forfor]

You can also increase the chances of breaking their blob with diplomacy and intrigue. Use sow dissent with a high-skill chancellor. (I'm pretty sure barbarians can use sow dissent, but correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while.) Sow dissent is very hit and miss but it helps. Meanwhile, park your spymaster in their capital and start picking off any vassals that especially like their liege via assassination. The more unhappy the vassals are, the less likely they are to contribute to the liege levy. At the same time, the levys being raised (including in response to your raiding) will have more impact on the realms political stability since the unhappiness being generated will have more impact on vassals that are already unhappy. Be patient, and keep at it. Eventually a large scale rebellion will break out. Let them duke it out for a year or so. If the crown is significantly winning or has won after a year, then the rebellion was likely not big enough to suit your needs anyway, so sitting out cost you nothing. If the crown is losing, or the war is a stalemate, declare war on the crown. Never declare war on the rebels it tends to be a waste of time, resources, and a golden opportunity. Defeated rebels tend to surrender to the crown, which nullifies your war declaration, whereas nine times out of ten the king/emperor retains their power if they lose a rebellion, so you at least have the opportunity to fight the now-weakened crown.

As a side note, make sure you raid the loyalists land during the year of waiting. Either they send troops to stop you, which wastes their time when you simply run away, or they're too busy to stop you and you siphon their resources.

 

[jonjowett]

Never declare war on the rebels it tends to be a waste of time, resources, and a golden opportunity. Defeated rebels tend to surrender to the crown, which nullifies your war declaration

Most of your advice is solid, but I disagree with this.

Rebels cannot surrender if even one of their baronies is occupied by outside forces. (You can see this for yourself in your own civil wars - you have to clear the rebels' lands before you can enforce demands.)

This means that rebellions in nearby states are actually a golden opportunity to expand your lands - especially if you only have access to county conquest or holy war. The only slight caveat is that you should ensure that the rebels own the entire county/duchy before declaring war, otherwise you haven't saved any time (you'll need to go to war with the crown again, for the same territory, after the rebellion ends).

 

[DPS]

Most of your advice is solid, but I disagree with this.

Rebels cannot surrender if even one of their baronies is occupied by outside forces. (You can see this for yourself in your own civil wars - you have to clear the rebels' lands before you can enforce demands.)

This means that rebellions in nearby states are actually a golden opportunity to expand your lands - especially if you only have access to county conquest or holy war. The only slight caveat is that you should ensure that the rebels own the entire county/duchy before declaring war, otherwise you haven't saved any time (you'll need to go to war with the crown again, for the same territory, after the rebellion ends).

I agree that it can be useful to declare war on the rebels, but it has to be a large enough rebellion that you can take what you want from the rebels without weakening them to the point that they surrender to the crown before you can force them to surrender to you. A small rebellion just won't cut it. Ideally, you take some territory from the rebels, and then attack the crown while they are still weakened by the rebellion.

Also, keep in mind that whether you declare war on the rebels or the crown, both will be hostile to you.

 

[jonjowett]

I agree that it can be useful to declare war on the rebels, but it has to be a large enough rebellion that you can take what you want from the rebels without weakening them to the point that they surrender to the crown before you can force them to surrender to you.

Again, this particular point is simply not true. As long as you occupy one rebel barony, the rebellion cannot surrender to the crown.

Caveats/Limitations:

• If you ever go down to zero occupied rebel baronies then the rebellion may immediately surrender.
  • Eg. If massive crown armies arrive and assault all of the holdings that you occupy over a period of 1-2 weeks.
• This is only true for the vast majority of rebellions - ie. those that get temporary titles with the red-and-black coat of arms.
  • There are a few ways to get other types of rebels, and some of these might be able to surrender while partially occupied.
• It is possible for the rebellion to end early for some other reason - eg. death of claimant for claim faction. But this is a white peace, not a surrender.

There's no doubt that blitzkrieg tactics make this kind of war easier, but they are not at all necessary. In the early/mid game, you can often find yourself in a position where you have no nearby mercs/retinues and you have to use whatever local levies are available - and this is entirely practical. The only absolutely necessary tactic is to ensure that you occupy at least one rebel barony at all times.

 

[forfor]

This really hasn't been my experience. I've definitely had rebels surrender to the crown before when I occupied their land

 

[DPS]

This really hasn't been my experience. I've definitely had rebels surrender to the crown before when I occupied their land

Partly it depends on what type of revolt it is. Some revolts will end without an actual surrender if either the leader of the revolt or the ruler they are revolting from dies.

 

[forfor]

Maybe that's what it was then