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unmerged(15337)

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Mar 6, 2003
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Playing as the Kingdom of Sicily (i.e. the de Hautevilles), I have run into a snag during a war against the King of Egypt. His personal demesne consists of 10 provinces, somewhat scattered; he also has quite a few little vassal sheiks. Of his 10 provinces, I've captured 4 and my ally, the King of Croatia, has captured 5. I tried to make peace several times to get the title to Alexandria, but the Egyptian King has refused every time. So apparently I need total victory.

His remaining province is rather remote, in NE of modern day Turkey. Further exploration confirmed that he has a huge army there, a conglomeration of many regiments from throughout his realm. Essentially the AI, whether by accident or design, has gathered all its eggs in the one basket and is leaving the rest of the realm nearly defenseless. I probably can't get total victory, or if so, only at great cost. Meanwhile, the AI Egyptian King can get away with essentially abandoning the rest of his realm and never actually lose anything.

Is there a good solution for this situation?
 
First, those troops will eventually disband and not be able to re-form because you hold most of the provinces. Also, if a lot of the troops are coming from his vassals, declare war on them and annex them and the troops will disband. Second, if Alexandria is all you want, just recognize his claims to the provinces you don't want and it will lower the war score enough that the AI will accept peace.
 
jwolf said:
How long does it take, typically, for "eventually disband" to happen?

If I DOW and annex multiple vassals wouldn't that give a big hit to my reputation? Or is there a way to finesse that problem?
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Sure. Don´t annex them. Demand that they become your vassals instead and give up your claim to their lands in the peace deal.
 
Any vassal won't last long that far away from you. I typically try to engineer a strong, independent knightly order (wait for the event to fire and force vassalize, then give the nearby titles away and wait for them to break free).

How long does it take, typically, for "eventually disband" to happen?
Click to expand...
That depends, but after about one year it becomes pretty likely.
 
If you take their vassals' lands, you can return them in the peace deal for big amounts of warscore (their king will get those lands instead of their old vassals), making it much easier to get a deal that's good enough for them. Giving away land in a peace deal is also a good way to improve your reputation, so after all you won't suffer too much badboy.
 
Update: The big enemy army contains several regiments from vassals that were annexed already by Croatia. I watched for several months and nothing happened to those armies. They don't disband. As far as I could tell, he can sit there indefinitely with all the forces he has at present, barring a really unlucky event striking him.

Attempted peace deal asking for Alexandria but giving up claims on four other provinces, with a cumulative negative war score, was rejected repeatedly. I didn't yet try to annex a new vassal and then offer it back to him, but I must admit to being pessimistic.
 
to get rid of the armies of his vassals you can't just vassalize them yourself, you really do need to take their land. Yes this will drop your reputation but you also could just immediately give that new land to some courtier of yours and your reputation will drop some.
 
OK, I conquered an Egyptian vassal Quena by the Red Sea. I asked for Alexandria while returning Quena and giving up claims to 4 other provinces: Mecca, Cairo, one just north of Cairo and one in Lebanon. Peacescore -190. Rejected. I don't see how I can get the concession I want without a total victory, which means going deep into debt to ship just about my whole army to a remote place manned by about 12K of his troops.
 
Magmaniac said:
to get rid of the armies of his vassals you can't just vassalize them yourself, you really do need to take their land.
Click to expand...

But my ally Croatia did exactly that (to several of his vassals), and the regiments from those provinces -- admittedly, small forces badly beaten down -- are still under control of the King of Egypt.
 
Well, sometimes there is no explaining the AI. If those troops aren't moving from the one province, just disband your troops and wait him out, maybe keep one regiment in Egypt to deal with rebels. The AI will eventually accept a peace deal, remember there is no cool down time between asking for peace in CK; I sometimes send out a peace proposal on rapid repeat before it is accepted.
About, those troops remaining...it seems weird, are the Egyptian Croatian provinces showing the troop symbol? The raised troops should be tied to the province and no one else. Eventually those troops will not be around and once AI Egypt has no troops, it will accept peace.
 
If you take a vassal's land, the army from it doesn't always disband. But there will often be a unit in your province screen. Mobilize it and the other army will disband after all. (I think this is a bug.)

@Magmaniac: if you give a conquered province to a vassal, you can't trade it back in a peace deal. I think trading it back drops your badboy more than giving it to a vassal and it also makes a peace deal much more attractive.

Jasonpk is right, though. You can simply sit it out. You have all the provinces you need, your enemy isn't moving, so you can simply sit tight until they do move.
 
Well, I tried it again. Started to gather my armies together back in Italy. I was just about to send them on -- and pay for -- their trip to the far end of the Black Sea, but I thought, "maybe we should try that peace deal again." So I asked for the title to Alexandria but offered no concessions of my own. Accepted! Pretty funny and ironic. My guess is that that was a really lucky die roll to get their acceptance on maybe a 5% chance or less. Moral: better to be lucky than good?
 
Well everything in the game is chance ;) ... so unless the chance is 0.00%, you can have a chance. This is also why spamming offers can work out .... eventually the dice roll comes up to your advantage.

Now that you got what you needed, I guess advice is no longer neccessary. But with such a big realm, spread out over the map, I would probably wait for the next ruler and hope his intrigue was lower, so he would have to give up provinces, making it easier to deal with ... you could even help the old king along on his way to the afterlife ;)
 
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