Questions from my Byzantine game

[jonjowett]

What are the prerequisites for the Fourth Crusade? If I fabricate a claim and take Venice, would that disable it? Pre-emptive self-defense!

It can be triggered by any Catholic MR, so this would not be sufficient.

It appears I will not be able to set my succession the way I wanted to. Eldest son is pretty good, betrothed to a ruling Duchess in Bulgaria, younger sister and heir (and only fellow dynasty member) of the ruling Queen of Bulgaria. But when he married her, not only could I not give him the Despot title, he lost his existing Byzantine minor titles, and isn't on the list of people I can select as my choice for heir. I gather that unlanded characters in the court of a vassal of a vassal are ineligible for any of those things? That doesn't seem like a situation that will resolve itself, so my choices are either break the betrothal, or marry her and assassinate the Queen of Bulgaria so that Duchess Little Sister becomes Queen and my eldest son will become "visible" to titles and designated choice of heir again.

Minor titles can only be granted to people who are in your court. The obvious solution here is to invite your eldest son to your court. (I'm assuming his marriage to the duchess is patrilineal.)

Another random thing - I noticed that the King of Aquitaine is now a double king, King of Aquitaine (real title) and King of Crusader Aquitaine (titular title). Since they're both gavelkind, the game claims that one of the King's sons will inherit one, and the second will inherit the other. That seems absurd - is that really what the game will do? What land would the younger son get with the titular version of the king title?

Normal gavelkind rules: if the king has more than one county then one son will get the "real" kingdom, the other will get the de jure kingdom, and all other titles will be divided up as normal (attempting to preserve the capital duchy for the primary heir). (If he only has one county then his eldest son will inherit everything.)

 

[jhhowell]

Argh! There was no point educating that son to be such a good character in the first place, because apparently Harelip counts as "mutilated". From the word choice, I always thought that only meant blind characters and eunuchs were disqualified. Presumably all of those purple traits count too.

 

[jhhowell]

Another night, another "WTF is this game doing?!?"

Five of my Dukes, all Greek culture Orthodox religion, somehow converted to Tengri. There's no Tengri realm closer than the north shore of the Caspian Sea, they all have Greek Orthodox wives, the nearest Tengri province is somewhere in Hungary I think, unless they've finally been converted by now. How can the game possibly think it makes any sense for the Dukes of Sicily, Dyrrachion, the one just east of Dyrrachion, Samos, and the one just east of Samos (sorry, I have a hard time keeping track of Greek place names...) to become Tengri of all religions?!? Iconoclast, Catholic, even Fraticelli or some such, OK, but this is incredibly weird and annoying, especially since Sicily and Dyrrachion have NAPs with me so I can't revoke.

 

[jonjowett]

Another night, another "WTF is this game doing?!?"

Five of my Dukes, all Greek culture Orthodox religion, somehow converted to Tengri. There's no Tengri realm closer than the north shore of the Caspian Sea, they all have Greek Orthodox wives, the nearest Tengri province is somewhere in Hungary I think, unless they've finally been converted by now. How can the game possibly think it makes any sense for the Dukes of Sicily, Dyrrachion, the one just east of Dyrrachion, Samos, and the one just east of Samos (sorry, I have a hard time keeping track of Greek place names...) to become Tengri of all religions?!? Iconoclast, Catholic, even Fraticelli or some such, OK, but this is incredibly weird and annoying, especially since Sicily and Dyrrachion have NAPs with me so I can't revoke.

Do you have secret societies enabled in game rules?

• If yes, the most likely explanation is that a tengri secret society spread through your realm, and they decided to go public.
• Otherwise, it's possible that the secret religion spread organically via guardians and events, and they all decided to go public at around the same time for some reason.

 

[jhhowell]

If yes, the most likely explanation is that a tengri secret society spread through your realm, and they decided to go public.

That's quite possible, yes. I remember using a secret society in my Arles game to turn Orthodox (because Orthodox and Catholic are so different from each other in the 10th Century... ). I don't think I enabled anything special for that game, since that was not a planned strategem, just something that seemed worth trying when I was well into the game. Probably all of my saves have it enabled, especially if it's enabled by default.

That is a really freaking weird secret society to see in the Byzantine Empire, though!

Anyway, the game is progressing nicely at this point.

Two fairly minor questions:

Are de jure empires defined by a set of de jure kingdoms, or by a set of provinces? I notice that the Kingdom of Serbia (independent, very low on my priority list) is 50 years into making the Duchy of Bosnia de jure drift into their kingdom. When that happens, will d_bosnia also be de jure part of the Byzantine Empire? Doesn't matter that much to me, since it would be even lower on my to do list than the normal part of k_serbia, but maybe it could affect whether I try to defend Serbia against Venice or something, if that comes up.

What's the rule (and changes thereof based on Status of Women laws) for granting landed titles to women? I'm doing a bit of vassal cleanup, and was hoping to grant the two-province duchy in question to a particularly capable daughter. The game tells me that's not allowed, so I'll give the counties and duchy title to her husband (matrilineal marriage, so in a generation it'll be in my dynasty anyway). I don't see anything about "can grant counties to women" in the Status of Women laws though. It must be possible in some circumstances, since I've seen the AI do it occasionally.

 

[jonjowett]

Are de jure empires defined by a set of de jure kingdoms, or by a set of provinces? I notice that the Kingdom of Serbia (independent, very low on my priority list) is 50 years into making the Duchy of Bosnia de jure drift into their kingdom. When that happens, will d_bosnia also be de jure part of the Byzantine Empire? Doesn't matter that much to me, since it would be even lower on my to do list than the normal part of k_serbia, but maybe it could affect whether I try to defend Serbia against Venice or something, if that comes up.

It's perhaps easier to think of it from the bottom up than the top down.

• Baronies are de jure part of a county; counties are de jure part of a duchy; and these relationships do not ever change.
  • (Technically, the county-duchy relationship can be changed by events and decisions - and by choosing a different start date. However, I believe there is only one example of this in the unmodded game (Powys), so it's pretty safe to treat the county-duchy relationship as immutable.)
• Duchies may or may not be de jure part of a kingdom; and kingdoms may or may not be de jure part of an empire.
  • (Titular duchies and kingdoms are common examples of titles which are usually not de jure part of any higher title.)
• Duchies and kingdoms can drift into kingdoms and empires respectively.

In your specific example:

• when the duchy of Bosnia drifts into the kingdom of Serbia;
• then Bosnia will be de jure part of Serbia, which is de jure part of Byz;
• so Bosnia will be (indirectly) de jure part of Byz.

What's the rule (and changes thereof based on Status of Women laws) for granting landed titles to women? I'm doing a bit of vassal cleanup, and was hoping to grant the two-province duchy in question to a particularly capable daughter. The game tells me that's not allowed, so I'll give the counties and duchy title to her husband (matrilineal marriage, so in a generation it'll be in my dynasty anyway). I don't see anything about "can grant counties to women" in the Status of Women laws though. It must be possible in some circumstances, since I've seen the AI do it occasionally.

You can only grant titles to characters whose gender is preferred in your primary title's succession law.

• If you have agnatic or agnatic-cognatic, men are preferred, so you can only grant titles to men.
• If you have enatic or enatic-cognatic, women are preferred, so you can only grant titles to women.
  • (I'm actually not 100% sure about this: it's possible that men can be granted titles under these succession laws, due to hardcoding.)
• If you have absolute cognatic, the genders are equal, so you can grant titles to anyone.

In general, if you want to grant titles to women, you need to get the "full status of women" law (which unlocks absolute cognatic), and change your primary title's succession to absolute cognatic.

(There are occasional court events where a character will ask you to give them a title. This may be how the AI is giving out titles to women. Alternatively, they may be doing so by using the intrigue menu decision that automatically grants titles when you're waaaaay over your demesne limit. Or there may be other options I haven't thought of.)

 

[jhhowell]

Thanks. I think the AI countesses I see are a mix of events and in some cases titles being gavelkind unexpectedly. Not sure why d_cilicia is gavelkind when all the others are primogeniture. Something about usurping it after conquering, presumably.

the only Orthodox realms that can lose holy wars are the Duchy of Armenia and Kingdom of Georgia, I think. For defensive holy wars I can and will intervene to make sure they win.

I have discovered a flaw in this plan. Two flaws, really. I had thought Armenia was Orthodox, but it was Miaphysite, so now it's Abbasid. Probably not a big deal, there's a potentially interesting character with strong claims who I should be able to use.

The bigger problem is that the Queen of Georgia is defending two Holy Wars for one of her two remaining duchies. I can only join one, and Georgia is so weak right now that even the count she's facing in the other one will beat her (looks like Georgia just lost a faction civil war for gavelkind). Is there anything I can do, or is she toast? It looks like her heir is too distantly related to her to form a NAP, so an alliance appears to be off the table until something changes. Not sure she'll still be an independent ruler by that point.

 

[jonjowett]

The bigger problem is that the Queen of Georgia is defending two Holy Wars for one of her two remaining duchies. I can only join one, and Georgia is so weak right now that even the count she's facing in the other one will beat her (looks like Georgia just lost a faction civil war for gavelkind). Is there anything I can do, or is she toast? It looks like her heir is too distantly related to her to form a NAP, so an alliance appears to be off the table until something changes. Not sure she'll still be an independent ruler by that point.

I can think of a couple of options.

If you want to intervene "normally", pick whichever antagonist is easiest to 100% occupy. (Probably "the count".) Kill him as quickly as possible. (Spend the lives of your troops freely - assault everything.) Wait a few days for him to surrender. Intervene in the other war.

If you can form a NAP with the heir, you could: murder the current ruler, form the NAP, form an alliance, join everything. The major disadvantage is that murdering takes months (except in the unlikely event that you have right-click-and-pay-money assassination turned on in game rules), and she will probably have lost by then.

---

But my most common approach in these cases is to reconquer the territory, and reinstate the previous ruling family. (As if they fled to your court and petitioned you to recover their lands.) They failed at independence, so it's only right that they're your vassals now.

 

[Thrake]

Weak rulers are kind of a lost hope. This is because of the vulturish behaviour of the AI. Once a war is declared it will get dogpiled even by random vassal counts, especially once their holdings are occupied (and thus available levies are down). Even if you ally it the AI won't consider it when declaring war on Georgia so you would need to babysit it constantly. Also the AI will call you to arms once and doesn't seem to do it again until you fended off all the current wars you're in. It's not uncommon that I like get called to war for 3 wars and then another 3 are declared before the first 3 are won so it's a constant race to win the current wars before the other AI win those you haven't been called in.

 

[jhhowell]

But my most common approach in these cases is to reconquer the territory, and reinstate the previous ruling family. (As if they fled to your court and petitioned you to recover their lands.) They failed at independence, so it's only right that they're your vassals now.

Weak rulers are kind of a lost hope. This is because of the vulturish behaviour of the AI.

Yeah, I think that's the right approach. She's down to a single county now, and the only reason I haven't taken over is because I want to burn off threat to take another piece out of Edessa first.

Another question, pretty random this time - how valuable is 1-3% "disease resistance"? I don't have Reaper's Due, just the base game disease mechanics. Those numbers sure don't look like much, but on the other hand if the game is asking for two Great Work feature slots (Hypocausts and Heating Pipes for Hagia Sophia) you'd think the effect would be pretty good.

I'm also quite impressed by the income from a personally held city. I have money and time (burning off threat, as previously mentioned) so I built a couple of coastal cities. It didn't take much before the one I had demesne limit to keep surpassed Constantinople and Blachernae with their Castle Town IVs! I won't keep the city long term, since I doubt the next emperor will have the demesne limit, and eventually I'll get to Alexandria, but for now it's surprisingly good.

 

[jonjowett]

Another question, pretty random this time - how valuable is 1-3% "disease resistance"? I don't have Reaper's Due, just the base game disease mechanics. Those numbers sure don't look like much, but on the other hand if the game is asking for two Great Work feature slots (Hypocausts and Heating Pipes for Hagia Sophia) you'd think the effect would be pretty good.

If you don't have RD, I believe disease resistance is completely worthless, so you shouldn't build these GW features.

(However, I cannot be completely certain because I have never investigated how non-RD diseases work at any time in the many patches since RD's release.)

I'm also quite impressed by the income from a personally held city. I have money and time (burning off threat, as previously mentioned) so I built a couple of coastal cities. It didn't take much before the one I had demesne limit to keep surpassed Constantinople and Blachernae with their Castle Town IVs! I won't keep the city long term, since I doubt the next emperor will have the demesne limit, and eventually I'll get to Alexandria, but for now it's surprisingly good.

Firstly, and most importantly, if you're building cities or city buildings - you know those cost money, right?! Most cash-producing buildings in CK2 take decades (sometimes more than a century!) to pay off their initial investment.

(And the non-cash-producing buildings obviously never repay their investment in cash form.) (Eg: "+3 income" in a building description is +3 per year. With insane (+233%) bonuses, that's +10 per year. If you paid 200 for the building, it would be 20 years before it became profitable.)

Whether you're building a holding as a short-term demesne-filler, or building buildings in a short-term demesne-filler holding, both are probably going to be massively loss-making.

---

On the general point of holding cities vs castles: It's clearly a trade-off (money vs armies) and, IMO, in a game about war, it's probably a bad idea to choose a little bit of money (vassal baron-tier republics are free cash!) instead of much-better armies.

(There are niche exceptions - eg. holding cities in a capital where you personally own nearly everything and set your steward to increase taxes - but they really are very niche.)

 

[jhhowell]

Firstly, and most importantly, if you're building cities or city buildings - you know those cost money, right?! Most cash-producing buildings in CK2 take decades (sometimes more than a century!) to pay off their initial investment.

The original intent was just a long term investment, getting another couple of city barony vassals in coastal provinces where Ports make cities even more lucrative. But since I have the demesne to keep one, I did, and may as well get those economic buildings built up. I'm getting their full value now, and vassal income value (50%, at current burgher obligations laws) later.

If I thought every emperor would have this demesne limit or higher, I'd probably have built a castle in Thrake or Kaliopolis (for the capital duchy levy bonus) or Antioch (since it's a very important but very exposed province where more troops and fortifications would be helpful). But at the moment I'm expecting to click that button to generate a new mayor the day the current emperor dies. And I've been expecting him to die for ten years now.

While it's nothing compared to Sanvone's income in his Siberian Prosperity AAR (specifically, my income is just under 1/3 of Permo-Siberia's), I already have more money than I can readily use. If Antioch had the tech for a Grand Fortress, I'd already have started one. Until then, the question is whether to build cities or castles in empty holding slots, or start a University or Royal Palace in Thrake and/or Kaliopolis.

 

[jonjowett]

The original intent was just a long term investment, getting another couple of city barony vassals in coastal provinces where Ports make cities even more lucrative. But since I have the demesne to keep one, I did, and may as well get those economic buildings built up. I'm getting their full value now, and vassal income value (50%, at current burgher obligations laws) later.

Nitpick: 50% from obligation laws, yes, but you're omitting the huge disparity between your state stewardship and a no-name mayor's. So, giving the city to a direct vassal mayor will reduce your income from that city by approx 70%.

(Assume you have 50 state stewardship, and the mayor has 10. This is lowish for an emperor and highish for a mayor, ie. a slightly optimistic scenario, and the round numbers make the maths easier later. The city's multiplicative "owner income modifier" decreases from 200% to 120%. The mayor pays half of that to you in liege tax, ie you receive the equivalent of a 60% owner income modifier. Overall change: 200% -> 60%, ie. new income is 30% of old income.)

 

[Thrake]

Baron level also need money to develop their holding.

 

[jhhowell]

Assume you have 50 state stewardship, and the mayor has 10. This is lowish for an emperor and highish for a mayor

Minor nitpick, Konstantinos VII (the Basileus who just won't die, and who I'm keeping as long as I can since his stats are so much better than his sons and grandsons) has personal stewardship of 16 and state stewardship of 47. Getting to 50 is certainly possible (switching Hunting for Rulership would do it, for a month or two before he dropped dead ) but quite difficult.

But yes, clearly I'll get less from the city once I give it to a mayor, which I just did. But like I said I don't have much else to spend money on, and it will be a long term benefit.

I dropped the city now since I think I'll gradually rearrange my demesne. Give counties in d_adrianople to a spare grandson, possibly great-grandson by the time the process finishes, build castles in the empty holding slots in Thrake and Kaliopolis, and hold the counties in d_antioch personally since they're outside my de jure borders and rather exposed. I just picked up Alexandretta, which is what got me thinking about this. Two holdings in each province in d_thrace, plus Antioch, Alexandretta, and eventually the other one (whatever it's Greek Orthodox name turns out to be), plus eventually Alexandria, makes ten, which looks likely to be my typical demesne limit. It'll be a slow process though since the d_adrianople castles are fully developed and I don't want more than one newly built castle building up at a time. No need to ask for faction trouble, particularly with a succession that's been imminent for 15+ years now.

New question: am I correct in thinking that if Ruler A DoWs Ruler B, then they make peace, then Ruler B DoWs Ruler A, that wipes out the truce from the first war? I've been wondering how the Sultan of Egypt and the Shia Caliph of Ifriqiya keep fighting each other over and over and over again. Not that I mind - "Let's you and him fight!" is a great strategy when feasible!

 

[jonjowett]

Minor nitpick, Konstantinos VII (the Basileus who just won't die, and who I'm keeping as long as I can since his stats are so much better than his sons and grandsons) has personal stewardship of 16 and state stewardship of 47. Getting to 50 is certainly possible (switching Hunting for Rulership would do it, for a month or two before he dropped dead ) but quite difficult.

I think the reason I think 50 is a bit low is (in part) because running with all DLCs allows for power creep. If {40 or 45} is more realistic, you can use {180% or 190%} instead of {200%} in my previous post.

New question: am I correct in thinking that if Ruler A DoWs Ruler B, then they make peace, then Ruler B DoWs Ruler A, that wipes out the truce from the first war? I've been wondering how the Sultan of Egypt and the Shia Caliph of Ifriqiya keep fighting each other over and over and over again. Not that I mind - "Let's you and him fight!" is a great strategy when feasible!

Yes, it does.

But I would be rather surprised if the AI declared before the one-sided truce ran out, since both the winner and the loser tend to find themselves exhausted after a war, meaning they take a long time to recover.

On the other hand, Muslim (and Christian) infighting was definitely a thing in this period of history - in fact, you're arguably seeing one of the more realistic aspects of CK2. (There may also be some AI prodding to try to force the Fatimid Shia Caliph to take Egypt, as happened in our timeline.)

 

[jhhowell]

Those Africa vs. Egypt Shia/Sunni Holy Wars have been happening with peace periods lasting from four months to about two years for quite some time now. Africa is on the second Caliph, I think Egypt is still the same ruler as when all this started. Definitely not complaining, it's interesting to watch and does seem more historically accurate than a lot of the craziness we see in this game. Likewise the Sunni/Catholic fighting over Barcelona, though at a slower pace. The Empire of Hispania finally retook it just a couple years before the Catholics became eligible to have another Crusade, so the second is the same as the first. I'm curious to see if that means there will be a third Kingdom of Aquitaine title created, to go with the original and the titular Crusader Aquitaine title from the first one (both still held by the same Karling - gavelkind split off Burgundy instead). Though that assumes the Catholics will win; it's been stuck at 50% war score in favor of the Pope every time I've looked.

Speaking of Karlings, I noticed something odd in the King of Bavaria's family. All of his sons, all underage, got "killed by rabble" some years ago. That's clearly some sort of event, but one I don't think I've ever seen. Is that event the consequence of bad decisions, or can one's children be wiped out purely from RNG with nothing the ruler can do to prevent or mitigate the event?

Edit: One other question - does Business Focus only do anything if the capital province does not have the Trade Route modifier in place? The old Basileus finally died, his most-OK grandson inherited (I switched the succession with literally days to spare), and in two years and three months so far zero focus events have happened. So far Business is basically equivalent to Rulership, does nothing other than boost stewardship while it's active (less bonus, but doesn't give stressed/depressed). Very disappointing so far, especially since it's usually such a reliably good focus...

 

[Whizzer]

Speaking of Karlings, I noticed something odd in the King of Bavaria's family. All of his sons, all underage, got "killed by rabble" some years ago. That's clearly some sort of event, but one I don't think I've ever seen. Is that event the consequence of bad decisions, or can one's children be wiped out purely from RNG with nothing the ruler can do to prevent or mitigate the event?

That's what provincial revolts can do, if they siege down your capital. As is the case with lods of old CK2 content, it's really unbalanced, killing either no one, or everyone in one fell swoop.

 

[jonjowett]

Edit: One other question - does Business Focus only do anything if the capital province does not have the Trade Route modifier in place? The old Basileus finally died, his most-OK grandson inherited (I switched the succession with literally days to spare), and in two years and three months so far zero focus events have happened. So far Business is basically equivalent to Rulership, does nothing other than boost stewardship while it's active (less bonus, but doesn't give stressed/depressed). Very disappointing so far, especially since it's usually such a reliably good focus...

You can't get a second trade route modifier in your capital. I think the event chain can fire even if you already have a trade route (because I think I've had this in my own games), but I'm not certain about this.

You can definitely experience all of the other business focus event chains as normal. However, note that these event chains will only start if you do not have a lifestyle trait. Maybe that's your problem?

What I tend to do is move the capital for the duration of my business focus, get the trade route modifier in {insert silk road province}, and move it back afterwards. (Moving out starts a 50-year cooldown, but you can always instantly move back to the traditional capital of the empire. There is also at least one exploity way to move your capital during the cooldown.)

 

[Thrake]

Focus events feel a lot more common when you have low stats, and I mean beyond the events that particularly fire with low stat to boost it. Business feels a lot more reliable than rulership in triggering events. I don't think I ever received the rulership way of life trait. Rulership feels like one of the worst focus to powerplay but I like it personnally. Scholarship gets old quickly for exemple. I don't think I ever had a positive outcome with the trial events, I'm starting to think it may not even exist.