PDOX Games VIII: Communism Will Win

[Bralia]

Discovered another way that the Byzantine Empire gets deleted. The fucking Kaiser using the Fourth Crusade mechanic, like a complete dick. I have a feeling that the massive Orthodox surge that this game has been experiencing, is going to see a significant downturn now.

[Sefy the Great]

Gonna bring back the Kaiser in Waking the Tiger, you guys think I should accept my place and kill some commies or demand Our Place In The Sun and start Great War 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Go down the Trench Warfare Doctrine for
E X T R A
I M M E R S I O N

[The Imperial Reach]

Discovered another way that the Byzantine Empire gets deleted. The fucking Kaiser using the Fourth Crusade mechanic, like a complete dick. I have a feeling that the massive Orthodox surge that this game has been experiencing, is going to see a significant downturn now.

Considering what Paradox did to the Byzantine succession system I consider this a mercy killing.

Still better than watching it be Jihaded out of existence by the OP Caliphate.

[Purpelia]

I don't know what you are talking about. In my last game it became so trivial to staff everything with my family members that the succession turned out to be fantastic fun. And I took over the caliphate. And that was after restoring the western empire. After starting with a custom designed ruler of Epyrus (not even technically Byzantine at the start) that was a Hellenic pagan for extra difficulty.

Like, the system is just so easy to cheat that it's silly.

[The Imperial Reach]

I don't know what you are talking about. In my last game it became so trivial to staff everything with my family members that the succession turned out to be fantastic fun. And I took over the caliphate. And that was after restoring the western empire. After starting with a custom designed ruler of Epyrus (not even technically Byzantine at the start) that was a Hellenic pagan for extra difficulty.

Like, the system is just so easy to cheat that it's silly.

Elective is a garbage system and I utterly despise it. But when it's enforced and the only option? Especially on a state that historically never used or implemented such a system? That's just downright sacrilege. Elective is trash and belongs with the Merchant Republics, Celts, Pagans, and the Holy Roman Empire. Autocratic Byzantium is the true Byzantium.

[The Imperial Reach]

I don't know what you are talking about. In my last game it became so trivial to staff everything with my family members that the succession turned out to be fantastic fun. And I took over the caliphate. And that was after restoring the western empire. After starting with a custom designed ruler of Epyrus (not even technically Byzantine at the start) that was a Hellenic pagan for extra difficulty.

Like, the system is just so easy to cheat that it's silly.

Elective is a garbage system and I utterly despise it. But when it's enforced and the only option? Especially on a state that historically never used or implemented such a system? That's just downright sacrilege. Elective is trash and belongs with the Merchant Republics, Celts, Pagans, and the Holy Roman Empire. Autocratic Byzantium is the true Byzantium.

Okay, slight correction. They did initially use such a system but it had fallen out of use in Byzantium by at least the 8th century if not earlier, after which it became a de facto hereditary system. Thus, while it makes sense for Rome to utilize such a system (which it did), at the earliest period in which CKII takes place it had fallen out of usage in Byzantium and is thus ahistorical.

But really, it's just a dumb system that forces you to give everything to your dynasty members in order to keep your dynasty in power. It doesn't help to make all your dynasty members commanders and give them all Council positions if they have poor stats, either.

[Purpelia]

...

I do believe that the system in place now is supposed to imitate the volatile succession system which actually existed in Byzantine and late Roman politics where emperors were often picked by their legions or by anyone popular enough to usurp and murder the last guy. Even a cursory look at Byzantine politics will show that you basically had a cycle of "capable guy becomes emperor" -> "incapable son gets usurped" -> "repeat" going on for much of their history. And honestly I feel it does so reasonably well. Of course if it were not for the fact that it's trivially easy to cheese.

But really, it's just a dumb system that forces you to give everything to your dynasty members in order to keep your dynasty in power. It doesn't help to make all your dynasty members commanders and give them all Council positions if they have poor stats, either.

I do that anyway. Like, my first order of business in any situation is to make sure all the duchies (Kingdoms if I am an emperor) are ruled by my relatives. It's what you do as a medieval monarch.

[The Imperial Reach]

I do believe that the system in place now is supposed to imitate the volatile succession system which actually existed in Byzantine and late Roman politics where emperors were often picked by their legions or by anyone popular enough to usurp and murder the last guy. Even a cursory look at Byzantine politics will show that you basically had a cycle of "capable guy becomes emperor" -> "incapable son gets usurped" -> "repeat" going on for much of their history. And honestly I feel it does so reasonably well. Of course if it were not for the fact that it's trivially easy to cheese.

Right, but as I said the practice of the army choosing emperors had ended in Byzantium by the time CKII takes place so it's totally out-of-place for the Byzantines to still have such a system. As far as I'm aware, most Byzantine Emperors who didn't inherit the throne came to power via civil war or coup d'etat - both of which are possible with Factions, making the elective system redundant.

It makes more sense for a revived Rome to continue such a practice because as far as I'm aware it never ended in the West, though I might be mistaken, but for Byzantium it's out-of-place as the system had switched from a stratocracy to a (admittedly highly unstable) autocracy by the time of the 8th century and the earliest start date of 769.

I do that anyway. Like, my first order of business in any situation is to make sure all the duchies (Kingdoms if I am an emperor) are ruled by my relatives. It's what you do as a medieval monarch.

I try to avoid doing that for a few reasons:

1. Expansion will have to be slower than normal in order to ensure you have enough viable candidates for holding titles as you have to wait on new relatives to be born and then mature and, depending on your succession laws, religion, culture, government type, and Status of Women law, you can only give away titles to dynasty members of a certain sex.

2. The risk of inbreeding is higher as kin from one duchy marries kin from another, and in my experience incestuous relationships don't yield as many children as non-incestuous ones plus the risk of defects and illness is higher for newborns.

3. Catholicism is the only religion that can remove the kinslayer trait and even then it only happens if the Pope is feeling generous enough to send you that random issue that absolves you of it. This means you can't execute them even if they've been excommunicated, decadent, or are heretics/heathens without incurring a penalty, the severity of which varies depending on how close of a relative they are. This also applies to dueling (and killing) any rivals/rebels that might also be your relatives, and any exposed assassination plots against your relatives. Relatives also won't like you humiliating, torturing, mutilating, abducting, castrating, or blinding relatives either.

Don't get me wrong, I try to satisfy my relatives' ambitions by giving them stuff every now and then - especially when using Primogeniture (which I always go for, because it's the best) - but I'd rather not make all my vassals kinsmen. It's too messy.

[Pasong Tirad]

So I bought Conclave and oh man I can't run my old game with it. Dang. Back to conquering Ireland and Britain again. Maybe I'll do it as Wales this time.

[Anime North America]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

[Abserdia]

So I bought Conclave and oh man I can't run my old game with it. Dang. Back to conquering Ireland and Britain again. Maybe I'll do it as Wales this time.

Huh, I literally just started a side game as the descendant of Caradog in 867 who starts as a tributary to Powys.

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

So I bought Conclave and oh man I can't run my old game with it. Dang. Back to conquering Ireland and Britain again. Maybe I'll do it as Wales this time.

Don't be so silly. Wales is barely even a real place.

[Pasong Tirad]

So I bought Conclave and oh man I can't run my old game with it. Dang. Back to conquering Ireland and Britain again. Maybe I'll do it as Wales this time.

Don't be so silly. Wales is barely even a real place.

I'm debating what to do, tbh. I kinda wanna try the merchant republic mechanic as Venice, but I also wanna try being a pagan what with all the reformation business, and then I also wanna try being a Muslim or an African/Ethiopian ruler. Decisions, decisions.

[Ostroeuropa]

Is there any reason not to camp Austria as North german fed in Victoria two and just wait for them to lose great power status, then sphere them, before forming Germany?

Other than Realism I guess?

[Impaled Nazarene]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

Holy wars are like 1/5th of the wars worth fighting.

[Vlach]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

13K troops doesn't actually sound like that many troops and if you're upgrading your levies you should be able to fight them off. I mostly train my heirs to be martial focused with a secondary in stewardship to maximize demense troop bonuses. If you focus on first building up money (Castle Towns) and then focus troops (Militia Training Ground > Barracks > Stables).

A good beginner character for this strategy is the Bagrationi Duke of Armenia in the Charlemagne start. Focus on building up money at first, don't bother upgrading anything. On day one you'll want to pass the law that allows you to revoke counties as your vassals will rise up in rebellion over council powers, most likely. Use mercs and crush them, revoking any counties you can without incurring tyranny. Now you just build up your money and begin upgrading counties until soon enough you'll have a demense of like 10 counties with 10K troops, this will usually be enough to match the Abbasids but you won't have to spend months grouping your troops like they will and you can pick off their armies.

[The Imperial Reach]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

It's not Jihads that are OP, it's Islam in general.

Muslim states in CKII are the strongest, most stable realms in the entire game. Especially in the early start dates. There are various reasons for this:

1. They have a special "Conquest" casus belli they can use to take counties from their fellow Muslims, and that paltry little -0.2 piety per month they get for being at war with other Muslims doesn't deter them from using it every chance they get.

2. The Decadence system is broken as hell in part due to how weak the whole thing is, and how easy it is to correct any relative whose gone off course.

3. The Iqta government type allows them to hold Temple holdings in addition to Baronies. Since Temple holdings don't count toward your total holding limit, this means they can theoretically hold an infinite amount.

4. Not only do they have the ability to take four wives, but they actually lose prestige if they don't - giving the AI excuse to max out their wives and thus increase their chances of having children x4. This makes their dynasties not only bigger, but harder to extinguish because thanks to the Decadence system they're inclined to land all their sons before they die, and of course their sons will always provide their father with the maximum amount of levies they can unless they hate him for some reason (which they shouldn't).

5. The Caliphate is often in possession of a King or Emperor tier character with many strong vassals; which just improves the loyalty of said vassals.

6. Most Muslim states start off with more counties and holdings than their non-Muslim neighbors, which makes them larger on average than most others.

7. Every Muslim state in the game has at least one (though usually more) Silk Road trade post or room to build one, giving them more money to hire mercenaries and maintain large armies as well as the added benefit of quicker tech research; advantages Europe lacks due to the absence of the Silk Road or any similar trade routes like the Trans-Saharan (which is dumb, because it makes Europe the only section of the map without a trade route present and thus puts it at a massive disadvantage).

8. For some reason pagans are more inclined to convert to Islam than any other religion. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but it's probably a bug of some kind.

9. The Charlemagne and Old Gods start dates are when the Muslims are strongest and have an obvious, definite advantage over everybody else. I have literally watched them take over the entire world with little issue before the year 1000.

10. And lastly, for whatever reason, Muslim realms are insanely stable. They rarely ever enter civil war even with several, recently-conquered vassals of different culture groups and religions who should hate their conqueror's guts if only for the fact he robbed them of independence which should just add onto the fact he's of a foreign culture and practices a heathen religion. And of course even when they do enter into civil war, 9 times out of 10, the rebels lose. I also watch Muslims put down Liberation revolts like it's an Olympic Sport; usually with deathstacks twice the size of the revolters (if not more).

Suffice to so Islam is incredibly strong, stable, and horribly unbalanced in CKII and I take great pleasure in trying to destroy it whenever I can because of this. Muslim AIs will literally pull armies out of thin air to win wars they were otherwise getting creamed in. It's fucking absurd and frustrating to the extreme.

[Abserdia]

Hey, my first saint.

[Ithalian Empire]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

It's not Jihads that are OP, it's Islam in general.

Muslim states in CKII are the strongest, most stable realms in the entire game. Especially in the early start dates. There are various reasons for this:

1. They have a special "Conquest" casus belli they can use to take counties from their fellow Muslims, and that paltry little -0.2 piety per month they get for being at war with other Muslims doesn't deter them from using it every chance they get.

2. The Decadence system is broken as hell in part due to how weak the whole thing is, and how easy it is to correct any relative whose gone off course.

3. The Iqta government type allows them to hold Temple holdings in addition to Baronies. Since Temple holdings don't count toward your total holding limit, this means they can theoretically hold an infinite amount.

4. Not only do they have the ability to take four wives, but they actually lose prestige if they don't - giving the AI excuse to max out their wives and thus increase their chances of having children x4. This makes their dynasties not only bigger, but harder to extinguish because thanks to the Decadence system they're inclined to land all their sons before they die, and of course their sons will always provide their father with the maximum amount of levies they can unless they hate him for some reason (which they shouldn't).

5. The Caliphate is often in possession of a King or Emperor tier character with many strong vassals; which just improves the loyalty of said vassals.

6. Most Muslim states start off with more counties and holdings than their non-Muslim neighbors, which makes them larger on average than most others.

7. Every Muslim state in the game has at least one (though usually more) Silk Road trade post or room to build one, giving them more money to hire mercenaries and maintain large armies as well as the added benefit of quicker tech research; advantages Europe lacks due to the absence of the Silk Road or any similar trade routes like the Trans-Saharan (which is dumb, because it makes Europe the only section of the map without a trade route present and thus puts it at a massive disadvantage).

8. For some reason pagans are more inclined to convert to Islam than any other religion. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but it's probably a bug of some kind.

9. The Charlemagne and Old Gods start dates are when the Muslims are strongest and have an obvious, definite advantage over everybody else. I have literally watched them take over the entire world with little issue before the year 1000.

10. And lastly, for whatever reason, Muslim realms are insanely stable. They rarely ever enter civil war even with several, recently-conquered vassals of different culture groups and religions who should hate their conqueror's guts if only for the fact he robbed them of independence which should just add onto the fact he's of a foreign culture and practices a heathen religion. And of course even when they do enter into civil war, 9 times out of 10, the rebels lose. I also watch Muslims put down Liberation revolts like it's an Olympic Sport; usually with deathstacks twice the size of the revolters (if not more).

Suffice to so Islam is incredibly strong, stable, and horribly unbalanced in CKII and I take great pleasure in trying to destroy it whenever I can because of this. Muslim AIs will literally pull armies out of thin air to win wars they were otherwise getting creamed in. It's fucking absurd and frustrating to the extreme.

You just seem to have litteraly every issue I have never had in any game beofre. I have often watched as the King of Croatia single handedly wins the first Crusade, I have seen the muslims get BTFO'd out of Iberai every time i plat. I have seen the Byzantine Empire get THICC in almost every game. I have never one seen Isalm spread deep into Eroupe.

[Abserdia]

Speakin' of CKII, anyone else feel like Jihads (and possibly all Holy Wars) are a bit OP? I'm a complete newb, granted, but my recent game had me constantly lose to an Abbasid deathstack of ~13K despite having slightly greater numbers to compensate for slightly inferior generals. Then I cheated and gave all three of my generals 100 Martial, and only won once out of five times I tested.

Maybe it comes down to traits?

It's not Jihads that are OP, it's Islam in general.

Muslim states in CKII are the strongest, most stable realms in the entire game. Especially in the early start dates. There are various reasons for this:

1. They have a special "Conquest" casus belli they can use to take counties from their fellow Muslims, and that paltry little -0.2 piety per month they get for being at war with other Muslims doesn't deter them from using it every chance they get.

2. The Decadence system is broken as hell in part due to how weak the whole thing is, and how easy it is to correct any relative whose gone off course.

3. The Iqta government type allows them to hold Temple holdings in addition to Baronies. Since Temple holdings don't count toward your total holding limit, this means they can theoretically hold an infinite amount.

4. Not only do they have the ability to take four wives, but they actually lose prestige if they don't - giving the AI excuse to max out their wives and thus increase their chances of having children x4. This makes their dynasties not only bigger, but harder to extinguish because thanks to the Decadence system they're inclined to land all their sons before they die, and of course their sons will always provide their father with the maximum amount of levies they can unless they hate him for some reason (which they shouldn't).

5. The Caliphate is often in possession of a King or Emperor tier character with many strong vassals; which just improves the loyalty of said vassals.

6. Most Muslim states start off with more counties and holdings than their non-Muslim neighbors, which makes them larger on average than most others.

7. Every Muslim state in the game has at least one (though usually more) Silk Road trade post or room to build one, giving them more money to hire mercenaries and maintain large armies as well as the added benefit of quicker tech research; advantages Europe lacks due to the absence of the Silk Road or any similar trade routes like the Trans-Saharan (which is dumb, because it makes Europe the only section of the map without a trade route present and thus puts it at a massive disadvantage).

8. For some reason pagans are more inclined to convert to Islam than any other religion. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but it's probably a bug of some kind.

9. The Charlemagne and Old Gods start dates are when the Muslims are strongest and have an obvious, definite advantage over everybody else. I have literally watched them take over the entire world with little issue before the year 1000.

10. And lastly, for whatever reason, Muslim realms are insanely stable. They rarely ever enter civil war even with several, recently-conquered vassals of different culture groups and religions who should hate their conqueror's guts if only for the fact he robbed them of independence which should just add onto the fact he's of a foreign culture and practices a heathen religion. And of course even when they do enter into civil war, 9 times out of 10, the rebels lose. I also watch Muslims put down Liberation revolts like it's an Olympic Sport; usually with deathstacks twice the size of the revolters (if not more).

Suffice to so Islam is incredibly strong, stable, and horribly unbalanced in CKII and I take great pleasure in trying to destroy it whenever I can because of this. Muslim AIs will literally pull armies out of thin air to win wars they were otherwise getting creamed in. It's fucking absurd and frustrating to the extreme.

Well first of all, unless I’m EXTREMELY oblivious...

temples do count towards your demesne.
So I have no idea where you got that from.

Also, though a Muslim Hispania does occasionally happen, I’ve seen them get beyond Aquitaine maybe two or three times. Meanwhile, a strong HRE can conquer all of Africa with little to no resistance, the ERE can hold invaders off consistently, the Reconquista usually ends by 1100, and India usually keeps the hordes out unless they strike really early, if you have Turkic Conquerors set to random.

[Purpelia]

Right, but as I said the practice of the army choosing emperors had ended in Byzantium by the time CKII takes place so it's totally out-of-place for the Byzantines to still have such a system. As far as I'm aware, most Byzantine Emperors who didn't inherit the throne came to power via civil war or coup d'etat - both of which are possible with Factions, making the elective system redundant.

It makes more sense for a revived Rome to continue such a practice because as far as I'm aware it never ended in the West, though I might be mistaken, but for Byzantium it's out-of-place as the system had switched from a stratocracy to a (admittedly highly unstable) autocracy by the time of the 8th century and the earliest start date of 769.

I concur that a superior option would be to just make the pretenders start a civil war. But would that not be too game destroying? The real problem if you ask me is that at this point it's just way too easy to make sure the new system just ends up being "pick your heir". And that means it's not actually fun.

I can easily forgive historical inaccuracy if it's a fun system. But I can't have fun with a mechanism that I can just bypass easily.

1. Expansion will have to be slower than normal in order to ensure you have enough viable candidates for holding titles as you have to wait on new relatives to be born and then mature and, depending on your succession laws, religion, culture, government type, and Status of Women law, you can only give away titles to dynasty members of a certain sex.

Yea, but realistically you only get 2-3 kingdom sized conquest wars per character anyway. And that's the best case scenario of 80 years old pagan religious head with a conquest oriented religion and Alexandrian bloodline to give you the invasion CB. So most of the times you'll be chipping away duchies and counties anyway. And for those you don't really have to care about who you put in power just as long as you remember to save the last one needed to form/usurp the kingdom for a family member.

2. The risk of inbreeding is higher as kin from one duchy marries kin from another, and in my experience incestuous relationships don't yield as many children as non-incestuous ones plus the risk of defects and illness is higher for newborns.

True. But as long as you manually marry off the people you give new titles to you can keep the tide of babies coming. Mostly. I've had a few hiccups here and there. But that just means I have to chip away at another kingdom for a while.

Really, the main problem I encounter is the fact the fools intermarry and eventually my carefully handed out kingdoms tend to blob up. But that happens with any vassals, family or not. And with family members I can at least make sure that the inevitable rebel blob is still of my dynasty.

3. Catholicism is the only religion that can remove the kinslayer trait and even then it only happens if the Pope is feeling generous enough to send you that random issue that absolves you of it. This means you can't execute them even if they've been excommunicated, decadent, or are heretics/heathens without incurring a penalty, the severity of which varies depending on how close of a relative they are. This also applies to dueling (and killing) any rivals/rebels that might also be your relatives, and any exposed assassination plots against your relatives. Relatives also won't like you humiliating, torturing, mutilating, abducting, castrating, or blinding relatives either.

I tend to not do any of those things anyway. Not even with regular vassals most of the time. I'll only ever go the assassin/torture/murder route if someone rebels against me or is about to.

Don't get me wrong, I try to satisfy my relatives' ambitions by giving them stuff every now and then - especially when using Primogeniture (which I always go for, because it's the best) - but I'd rather not make all my vassals kinsmen. It's too messy.

And I enjoy playing games where the stated goal is to place a family member on each kingdom on the map.

[Sefy the Great]

I need to learn how to mod Stellaris. just need to get these robot butterflies from the synth. portrait mod to be actual genocidal robots, they I can have my holy trinity of three death butterfly empires.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Islam being OP really fits with the times though. Aside from several powerful but short eras in Europe the Islamic world was leagues more powerful. It took the Mongols and the Black Death to even the odds. Even then there was a small resurgence with the Ottomans for 200 years or so.

[The Batavia]

Honestly, from what I've seen from YouTube videos it seems hella fun to play Pagan religions (Germanic and Hellenism in particulair). I'm probably gonna buy Holy Fury somewhere in the future.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Honestly, from what I've seen from YouTube videos it seems hella fun to play Pagan religions (Germanic and Hellenism in particulair). I'm probably gonna buy Holy Fury somewhere in the future.

If you want a fun challenge after you do play Erik the Heathen in 1066 and try to save your religion.