Why did they create the Kingdom of Sápmi?

[Ternega]

The fundamental problem is simply being an empire gives you a ton of bonuses. The real Byzantium after 1261 was a wreck barely able to defend itself, but in-game it's an Empire with a ton of de jure territory and inherent stability and Varangian Guards and and

Meanwhile the empires of Trebizond, Bulgaria and Serbia, the last two of which regularly beat up on the faltering Byzantines....

To be honest, that was due to incompetence of Byz throne, not some fundamental decline of the empire, or something. I also think you are exaggerating the benefits of being Empire, Varangian guard is, well, not that strong, just a good discount merc company. De'jure claims are justified, altho I'd apply some shrinkage to their size, but as has been said already - no mechanics for that due to PDX firm believe into "Everything should be De'Jure part of something".

 

[SBolshevik]

Please don't write de jure as de'jure, there is no elision going on, it's just Latin "de jure".

 

[Ternega]

Please don't write de jure as de'jure, there is no elision going on, it's just Latin "de jure".

It's a bad habit, I don't have any idea why I do that. I am well aware of the proper spelling, but just like when I type "Carthago delenda est" I inevitably type Carthage. It's a quirk.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

To be honest, that was due to incompetence of Byz throne, not some fundamental decline of the empire, or something.

Empires have no inherent strength beyond the competence of their throne.

 

[TheDungen]

I have found that not allowing emperors to wage war over their de jure claims (from the emperor title) reigns in the power of empires a lot. Empires are great at holding on to land by extending your vassal limit and giving you more de jure vassals, but in my version at least it doesn't give you CB to conquer massive areas one county at a time. Then again I locked holy wars behind the crusade/jihad event too, and replaced it with a christian reconquista CB (take one county if it holder is non christian and the province is christian). It has led to much less early snowballing and a game that is blobby near the end.

Empires have no inherent strength beyond the competence of their throne.

Well they can have institutions too, but yes this touches on an important issue. We as players don't make mistakes the way that rulers back in the days did, we're always competent and thus we always grow in power. The AI must thus also do that or be left behind.
Not allowing us 100% accurate information in real time might be a good step.

 

[Ternega]

Empires have no inherent strength beyond the competence of their throne.

Except, you know, administrative system, technological advantage stemming from stability, prestige, De Jure claims, established military traditions, etc, etc.

I have found that not allowing emperors to wage war over their de jure claims (from the emperor title) reigns in the power of empires a lot. Empires are great at holding on to land by extending your vassal limit and giving you more de jure vassals, but in my version at least it doesn't give you CB to conquer massive areas one county at a time. Then again I locked holy wars behind the crusade/jihad event too, and replaced it with a christian reconquista CB (take one county if it holder is non christian and the province is christian). It has led to much less early snowballing and a game that is blobby near the end.

That seems pointless. I mean it's your game to do with as you will but it's not hard to expand one kingdom as a player at a time no matter religion, culture or administrative forms. Sure it's easier for some than others, but at the end the only kingdom titles requiring a special case CB are merchant republic ones, and there really is only one kingdom sized MR, and its size is 1 county. And locking HW behind A crusade wall seems pointless, and I suspect will just slow down AI expansion w/o actually meaningfully affecting anything. AI never makes use of anything but De Jure county CB's anyway, so why bother with it, I don't understand.

 

[TheDungen]

Except, you know, administrative system, technological advantage stemming from stability, prestige, De Jure claims, established military traditions, etc, etc.

I think he meant IRL empires.

 

[Ternega]

I think he meant IRL empires.

Eh, I did too. it's delusional to think that a dutchy has the same tools to protect itself as a remnant of an empire of the same size. If the remnant is corrupt, than it may be weaker, but they don't have the same tools, in any sane world.

Edit: Phrasing. Unintentionally implied that it would hold the same lands, rather than same size of holdings as I intended.

 

[FraterPsychonaut]

I was one of those who stumped for something like this and detailed the issue (and related ones) back in the comprehensive community issues thread. Yes, a de jure kingdom title in the area is ahistorical but needed for the gameplay mechanics to work correctly. The AI uses the de jure map for target weights/priorities and such. This is also why the hypothetical/fictional empires are needed. The AI, especially pagans (with the become king ambition), cannot function properly without it (unless you make a major overhaul of the scripting).

In my personal mod I play around with the de jure borders a bit (mostly shifting kingdoms from the ERE or Arabia to their appropriate regional neighbors to encourage rational expansion) and return the inflated catholic Iberian realms to what they really were: petty kingdoms (independent duke tier -game mechanics wise), and the "Empire of Hispania" was likewise a self inflated kingdom (-merge it with Francia with localizations for Spanish/Andalusian/etc cultures). I then make the fictional titles uncreateable for the AI (ai = no) so they get the encouragement to move in a direction but not the mechanical boost of the inflated title unless they really earn it with a custom title. I'm experimenting with making most be tribal titles also (tribal = yes) so they self delete if equal or higher titles are acquired. (I'm unsure if this last will work correctly since I haven't noticed it used for several patches and DLC updates... but option is still showing as existing -with the rebels at least- so I'm trying it. It'd be nice to have this work for a lot of the Baltic/Slavic/Russian/steppe duchies also. This is my solution to the France creates Aquitaine/Burgundy/etc issue.) I also try to consolidate the 1-2 county de jure duchies into 3+ county ducal regions, and sometimes dividing a 3 county duchy and distributing it to it's neighbors (making the smaller title titular instead if it should exist at all, only keeping it de jure if there is a damn good reason for it -eg: Venice).

The goal being to encourage titular custom kingdoms and empires instead (who can still assimilate through drift) and to cut back on the glut of (permanent/persistent) kingdoms/etc auto-created by EG succession. If I were a better modder I would a simply remove the Sampi provinces entirely (and Iceland to boot) and make them like Siberia/Sahara to fix Scandinavia (people live there but politically it's empty/useless until well outside the time-frame). I like CKII+ and HIP but some of the design choices are counter to what I'd hope for (I don't like removing player agency and some of the map changes, but having big titles be event created only is great) and they're often well behind the patches (because how long it takes to update such massive mods).

 

[Ternega]

I was one of those who stumped for something like this and detailed the issue (and related ones) back in the comprehensive community issues thread. Yes, a de jure kingdom title in the area is ahistorical but needed for the gameplay mechanics to work correctly. The AI uses the de jure map for target weights/priorities and such. This is also why the hypothetical/fictional empires are needed. The AI, especially pagans (with the become king ambition), cannot function properly without it (unless you make a major overhaul of the scripting).

De jure kingdoms are needed for a game to function, true. That is why I don't mind the silliness that is Sapmi. De jure empires are not. W/o going on a rant, I'll just say that you can have that fantasy map for the AI, and never ever show it to the player with next to no loss of performance.

 

[Dr Gonzo]

I like your style FraterPyschonaut. Sounds similar to some of the things I've been doing.

 

[TheDungen]

I was one of those who stumped for something like this and detailed the issue (and related ones) back in the comprehensive community issues thread. Yes, a de jure kingdom title in the area is ahistorical but needed for the gameplay mechanics to work correctly. The AI uses the de jure map for target weights/priorities and such. This is also why the hypothetical/fictional empires are needed. The AI, especially pagans (with the become king ambition), cannot function properly without it (unless you make a major overhaul of the scripting).

In my personal mod I play around with the de jure borders a bit (mostly shifting kingdoms from the ERE or Arabia to their appropriate regional neighbors to encourage rational expansion) and return the inflated catholic Iberian realms to what they really were: petty kingdoms (independent duke tier -game mechanics wise), and the "Empire of Hispania" was likewise a self inflated kingdom (-merge it with Francia with localizations for Spanish/Andalusian/etc cultures). I then make the fictional titles uncreateable for the AI (ai = no) so they get the encouragement to move in a direction but not the mechanical boost of the inflated title unless they really earn it with a custom title. I'm experimenting with making most be tribal titles also (tribal = yes) so they self delete if equal or higher titles are acquired. (I'm unsure if this last will work correctly since I haven't noticed it used for several patches and DLC updates... but option is still showing as existing -with the rebels at least- so I'm trying it. It'd be nice to have this work for a lot of the Baltic/Slavic/Russian/steppe duchies also. This is my solution to the France creates Aquitaine/Burgundy/etc issue.) I also try to consolidate the 1-2 county de jure duchies into 3+ county ducal regions, and sometimes dividing a 3 county duchy and distributing it to it's neighbors (making the smaller title titular instead if it should exist at all, only keeping it de jure if there is a damn good reason for it -eg: Venice).

The goal being to encourage titular custom kingdoms and empires instead (who can still assimilate through drift) and to cut back on the glut of (permanent/persistent) kingdoms/etc auto-created by EG succession. If I were a better modder I would a simply remove the Sampi provinces entirely (and Iceland to boot) and make them like Siberia/Sahara to fix Scandinavia (people live there but politically it's empty/useless until well outside the time-frame). I like CKII+ and HIP but some of the design choices are counter to what I'd hope for (I don't like removing player agency and some of the map changes, but having big titles be event created only is great) and they're often well behind the patches (because how long it takes to update such massive mods).

I'm not so sure it is ahistorical as I mentioned earlier the kings of Hålogaland ruled over the area. Also we have other tribal "kingdoms" in the game such as saxony and frisia. Who are more of people's who bind toghether behind a "king" when attacked. It's not impossible to think the sami may do the same.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

Except, you know, administrative system, technological advantage stemming from stability, prestige, De Jure claims, established military traditions, etc, etc.

None of which the post-1261 Byzantines had.