Why Islam needs a CB specific in gridning down the Byzantines

[YellowPress]

personally i reckon anatolia should be a struggle region. not, you know, an exact copy of the iberian peninsula, different factors involved there, but i think it would help simulate the back-and-forth and fairly unique politicking a bit better than not at all

the struggle system gives me a lot of hope for more mechanical flexibility in the future of ck3 development - ive long been pretty frustrated with the bad contracts under one big title approach to the hre and id love to see that revised. really hope to see paradox mess around with the concept of struggles a bit more, once theyre done fixing all the stuff that doesnt work (i do not want to see them mess around with jack anything until they fix all the stuff that doesnt work)

Struggle is per dlc, we need overral changes to bring what we need.
Having revolts form their own titular titles like in ck2 would help make Muslims chip away at lands during revolts (ie one reason turks dominated anatolia after manzikert), with a ruler then being able to take back their de jure land if strong, rather than just sitting on unchanged land the whole time
The border raid should be part of every culture in game, and the condoterri feature too, as then vassals have more money for mercs for small wars of conquest

 

[grommile]

The border raid should be part of every culture in game

The challenge in designing harassment mechanics (border raids, piracy, covert sabotage, etc.), always and forever, is coming up with a way to make being on the receiving end Fun.

 

[YellowPress]

The challenge in designing harassment mechanics (border raids, piracy, covert sabotage, etc.), always and forever, is coming up with a way to make being on the receiving end Fun.

Border raid cb only uses 1 province at a time, so isn't like being spammed by vikings in ck2. If they rejigged ai vassals to join their wars you could also have local lords join war if the target and not busy, like how local Lords dispatch tribal/viking raiders if strong enough

 

[Byzantium2000]

Most of these problems are Empire and not Byzantine specific, I do still find it very wack thou that the Byzantines are the only ones with primogeniture when numerous other realms should have it. Maybe Bulgaria would be more relevant if it wasn't a historically splitting in 2 every game.

Also cough reminder the Byzantines did first go 340 years straight without losing any territory to the Muslims in Asia from 720 to 1060.

Both sides raided the heck out each other but I don't know the overall balancing effect of giving raiding to both sides.

 

[Delterius]

The region, as with most of the world, is just lacking in specialized content.

1. Both the Byzantines and the Caliphate should have some sort of imperial elective succession system with different sorts of factions vying for control. The caliph would struggle against estabilished regional power centers and the ulema for centralized control. The emperor would similarly struggle with the magnates over succession and wether his dynasty continues to be in power.
2. Both the Byzantines and the muslim realms of the near east should have an influx of turkic soldiers - both mercenaries and slaves. They'd be heavy cavalry archers. The Caliphate would rely on them for political support against the ulema and the aristocracy, possibly a lead to the overthrow of the arab world as it happened in iraq, egypt and northern india.
3. The Byzantines could stand to be a lot less stable as well, with the emperor being particularly weary of wielding the central army for fear of repercussions at home. It's not like they lost everything at manzikert, they also faced constant civil conflict afterwards.
4. Speaking of which, turkic invaders should be more of a thing in the early start dates. That initial 1080 war with the Seljuks could stand to lead to loss of territory in armenia and parts of anatolia.
5. There could also be a different type of border conflict that doesn't require declaring on the central authority, that way you can have local lords in armenia/anatolia/syria raiding each other and the sort of general mayhem that can't happen as long as there's strong central lords on either side of the border.

I don't think it a Byzantine decline should be guaranteed. CK tends towards the status quo of whichever startdate you've chosen. That's not a bad thing. Having one later startdate for the real decline experience would also be very helpful.