Why does Islam always collapse (768)?

[PlatoPlayDoh]

I don't know if this is just me, does anyone else see the Abbasid Empire have a ridiculous number of independence revolts and Zoroastrian uprisings as soon as Al-Mansur dies and Al Mahdi takes over in the 768 start? Every single ckii+ game I've played at that start date sees the Abbasids fractured and all of the empire's tributaries leaving them and becoming the local religion instead of Sunni by the time the IRL Abbasids reached their greatest extent (around 850). Am I just getting stunningly lucky/unlucky, or does everybody experience this? Granted, IRL they did start fracturing shortly after this (though not quite by the 867 start date, though I can understand why the decision to have them fractured then was made.) What's up with this?

The same can be said of the Umayyad, too, though a little bit less so. They always seem to fall faster than they really did, and most of the time most of northern Africa even ends up being Catholic by the end of the game.

Maybe it's just a problem with CKII in general. It doesn't really do gradual shifts all that well. Once a dynasty starts going down, the floodgates are open because the nation is weakened. There's no just barely holding on and at that point it just dominoes like crazy. It's why the Umayyad are almost always dominant in vanilla, and it's why they're over-corrected in CKII+, for example. Honestly, the only thing that really bothers me, though, rather than just being a curious and slightly odd little kink of the game, is that I consistently see a very strong Mazdaki Persia (Mazdaki always ends up winning out over zoro for some reason), when in our timeline Zoroastranism was declining, and I never see it actually decline in game unless the Hindus manage to conquer Persia (which does often happen for me).

Anyone else have this experience?

For reference, I really enjoy going into observe mode and watching what the AI does, which is why I have been able to see more than one instance of this happening over a longer game span.

 

[LordPeter]

Well in my experience, it has been ups and downs.
In my latest game (playing far away, not influencing), I have seen Zunbil take off surprisingly - until the Abbasids recovered and Jihaded them down.
The Ummayads I have seen failing quite often, too, though not so hard (they mostly lose half of the peninsula but then linger on) - I'm not sure if a balance problem exists there, maybe.

Oh btw the Abbasids get a special trait at some point, representing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_at_Samarra
It was when they recovered from this that they took out the Zunbils (in that game).

Anyway, I don't think it is "wrong" that a dynasty failes when it struggles. After all, if it would not, we would have seen a Karling king flee from the French Revolution
It's what I as a player try to do, too: Attacking neighbour that are weakened, because I expect to win. So in a certain way, you could also see it as the AI acting smart. (Maybe you are right about the pace though, yeah that might be a game-engine problem.)
Now the only point when this argumentation is failing is when the game starts going full-ahistorical, meaning most of the world strays far away from their expected path.
Again, in that example game, I have seen Karl the Great fail at becoming great (he was named "the Ox"), and his realm shatter (which of course is what happened later historically, too for his later successors were weak, and the Karling dynasty drowned). You might argue that this wasn't the expected behaviour, but then the rest of the world behaved normally: The Abbasids had a moment of weakness, then regained much lost territory (the entirety of Persia - no Zoros or Mazdakis there ^^). And the Ummayads faired OK, keeping in power and limiting the Christian realms to the north.
And yeah I screwed up Scandinavia, but that doesn't count.

Hmm I tend to talk a bit much. Overall, I haven't had that bad of an experience. Maybe you are a bit unlucky after all ^^


Edit: and last but not least: Welcome to the forums ^^

 

[pottypie]

I tend to agree on a lot of points, but to a lesser extent.
Most of my games starting in 769 have:
Umayyads win at first, lose ground to the Karlings, slow fizzle (about 100-150 years) during which various vassals will take independance, most of them get reintegrated, some get conquered by Leon/Austrias.
North Africa doesn't seem to go fully Christian for me, but many counts and sometimes dukes will end up catholic, but remain in the minority
Abbasids do tend to find their greatest reach at the start of the game. Best I've seen is them holding on to most of their land for about 100 years. They never hold Egypt for more than 2 generations though.
I have noticed Mazdaki do somehow do far better than Zoro too. My personal favourite is when a Mazdaki rebellion led to essentially the Seljuk conquests, except over 100 years earlier and by Mazdaki rulers.

 

[peterhobo1]

I tend to agree on a lot of points, but to a lesser extent.
Most of my games starting in 769 have:
Umayyads win at first, lose ground to the Karlings, slow fizzle (about 100-150 years) during which various vassals will take independance, most of them get reintegrated, some get conquered by Leon/Austrias.
North Africa doesn't seem to go fully Christian for me, but many counts and sometimes dukes will end up catholic, but remain in the minority
Abbasids do tend to find their greatest reach at the start of the game. Best I've seen is them holding on to most of their land for about 100 years. They never hold Egypt for more than 2 generations though.
I have noticed Mazdaki do somehow do far better than Zoro too. My personal favourite is when a Mazdaki rebellion led to essentially the Seljuk conquests, except over 100 years earlier and by Mazdaki rulers.

I feel like this is all OK though since it really does mirror reality. I feel like CK2 could do a little better when it comes to that. I'm not a huge fan of how things work out usually in Eu4 since it feel very railroaded as to who will be powerful with the exception of the player. However, it is snice to me anyway that the Abbasids tend to collapse, the Ummyads fizzle, the Byzantines stagnate until a horde runs them through. The game still let's weird things happen, and CK2+ helps massively I find anyway. In my current game from Charlemagne start the HRE formed as normal, but Pepin pushed his claim to East Francia and won, still as a vassal of the HRE. However he later fought an independance war, and won, along with most of Aquitaine. None of this is totally absurd but it keeps the game interesting you know? Although after that Pannonia invaded East Francia, so now it's full of Huns. Interesting, but not insane

 

[Azhcristokos]

In my games, the Abbasids often either disintegrate or are overthrown. If the empire collapses completely, former tributary states and newly independent warlords duke it out for dominance, with some inevitably falling to local religion/culture revolts...it always becomes a true mess actually, with Assyrian Nestorians battling Mazdaki or Zoroastrian Persians and Sunni Bedouins for control of Iraq. If that goes on for long enough, low MA causes Sunni provinces to start flipping to Yazidi and the chaos intensifies. In my current game as Persia, this has allowed me to gradually overrun Mesopotamia...thank Ahura Mazda too, because the political and religious diversity - errr, bordergore, needed to end.

If they are overthrown, the new dynasty, in my experience, tends to be fairly powerful and will usually sit on their heels and just hold the empire together. They always lose Egypt though.

 

[RedTemplar]

I also see a seemingly huge number of games where nomads overrun most of Europe right up to the Karling border, on top of Islam never faring well.

 

[ulix]

I started a game (867) a couple of weeks ago, and without interfering myself North Africa is now (~1000) completely catholic (some Berbers seem to have turned chalcedonian at some point early in the game), the Reconquista of Spain is done, and Ethiopian Christians as well as Zoroastrians are also going quite strong. So yeah, apart from the still existing Abassids still going strong, Islam is basically over.

...after less than 150 years, and without me doing anything to facilitate it.

What I have also noticed in my last 2 games: around 100 years or so after the game starts India will have turned completely Hindu, 100%. That seems kind of quick and unrealistic.

 

[vukica]

I have a 300 year test ongoing, and islam is still there...

However, India issue seems to be vanilla.

 

[InDeoSperamus]

When I play as a Swedish Chalcedonian Christian reigning in northern Europe, Byzantine Empire just take Jerusalem and Antioch. Abbasid Caliphate has collapsed. And if Charlemagne successfully establish his great empire, he would immediately holy war the Umayyads, eliminating all Sunni influence in eastern Iberia. But I didn't notice any sign of North Africa converting to Christianity. It just struggles between Sunni, Shia and Ibadi. If I don't turn random Turkish conqueror on, Armenia, Syria would quickly convert to Chalcedonian Christianity

 

[InDeoSperamus]

And I found that the Isaurians would stay in the imperial palace as long as they like......

 

[vukica]

The first one is religion, the second is realms.
That's about 450 years in. Two islamic blobs are Carthaginian empire and .... Abbasid Caliphate.

India going Hindu is an obvious bug.

 

[QuakeRiley]

The issue is that a few big islamic kingdoms start with strong threats. Armenia is mostly Christian with Christian vassals, in Iberia there is the looming threat of the Karling's and the Caliph tends to die within a few years of starting which can create a domino effect of civil wars and bad heirs.

 

[karmaepsilon]

It looks like vanilla M&M has fixed some of these issues as I have had Al-Mansur live a LONG time in recent games (never dying without an heir that is at least 14) and it seems like societies (as long as they don't go satanist) have given the AI an avenue to get better traits onto themselves
But the Ummas still definitely get reconquested pretty easily unless Karling breaks down hard.
Even with an East, West, and Italy split as long as 1 or 2 of those leaders are ok I've seen them form anti-Umma coalitions.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

I've found that in my games, the Zoroastrians almost always have a resurgence. Considering some of what I've read about Zoroastrianism, I think it would be fair to have modifiers to make them much less rebellious/much easier to convert, and that would also lead to them dying it out more frequently. As is, I suspect the AI just gets overwhelmed from having to deal with a whole kingdom of heathens.

 

[Theophite]

I've found that in my games, the Zoroastrians almost always have a resurgence. Considering some of what I've read about Zoroastrianism, I think it would be fair to have modifiers to make them much less rebellious/much easier to convert, and that would also lead to them dying it out more frequently. As is, I suspect the AI just gets overwhelmed from having to deal with a whole kingdom of heathens.

Historical Zoroastrianism and modern Zoroastrianism are very different things. As practiced in most of eastern Persia, especially among the common people, it was much more like Hinduism than the Greek-influenced dualism preferred by a lot of the Persian elites.

No one has mentioned this, but Mazdaki revolts were totally a thing. If the Khurramite revolts in Persia had succeeded, lightly Islamicized Mazdakism would likely be the majority religion in Persia today.