The (n+1)th Crusade

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The Theutonic Order is a mighty beast early on. As the time progresses they get a variety of cultures and many many poor territories. This spells poorly for the stability of the country. Multicultural countries historically have been proven very vulnurable to disintegration and more so at those times.

A clever ruling elite would likely insitute a military class of young men (Jannissaries, Malwas) to fight on foreign soil.

Why indeed not ship off all of the young men of one minority, preferably religious, in the Teutonic Order in disproportionate numbers to a Crusade?

No actual territory is actually needed to be gained in the secret understanding of the TO elites.

If Kingdom of Jerusalem is in no posession of any of the holy land a really good way to kill off a bunch of your own (Teutonic Order) unruly citizenry is to ship them off to fight them pesky Baghdadians upon the request of the King of Jerusalem who, of course would not say no to this secret proposal to ask if his calaims woudl be accepted for the good of all cristiandom. It also helps if the Knights Templar are involved with their finances and maybe jesuits with their spy network.

So the event chain would start if TO has had a positive outcome crusade in russia, aquired many a culture, has good realtions with KOJ and templars.
Various european leader can then be asked for a donation to the crusade coffers. the ones close to to would be wary but likely not want a diplo hit from the army with a country and the ones further away could be interested in hurting the caliphate spice trade.

Byzantium would be non plussed about "Another crusade" but then again they might want to get their turkish cores at this time

 

[Incompetent]

A clever ruling elite would likely insitute a military class of young men (Jannissaries, Malwas) to fight on foreign soil.

Interesting idea which could be applied elsewhere, but I don't think it fits into the mentality of the Teutonic Order, certainly not early on or under the 'Whites'. The Greys might do it, but they're not so concerned with military matters anyway, and they're much more tolerant of different ethnic groups. As for the ethnic cleansing idea, even the TO doesn't field armies large enough to wipe out millions of Poles or Russians, and the many veterans who came home from any such massive military operation would be likely to cause more trouble.

In 1419, the TO sees itself first and foremost a military order, an army of holy warriors out to bring God to the heathens at sword-point, or at least to protect the world of the faithful from the godless. As such, they have quite a different perception of what separates the elite from the masses: while in most societies it's titles and land ownership, for the Order, it's far more important for you and your ancestors to have had an illustrious history on the battlefield. And what greater glory is there for a Christian Knight, than to fight in the Holy Land?

In this context, preserving the social order means making sure the great German families continue to occupy key roles in battle, as otherwise 'lesser' men could steal the glory and work their way up the ladder. Of course, the Order itself is rather small - historically there were maybe 250 at the battle of Grunwald, in Aberration this would probably grow to a few thousand by the time of the civil war. But quite a way down the hierarchy, the idea of glory in battle would still be a powerful motivator, especially as in later years exceptional individuals are able to rise far up the ranks from modest beginnings by sheer bravery and skill.

So what would happen is you'd get less favoured groups (such as Poles and Russians) serving in and leading 'auxiliary' formations, as referring to them in this way would imply they had a lesser role in any victories. These might well be used as arrow fodder, and so suffer high attrition. But the idea of allowing 'inferior' types to form the elite force of an army would be totally alien to the Knights - they are the elite force!

I do have an event with a silly crusade, but it's slightly different in that the Order wants to get rid of a troublesome Grand Master. His untimely death in battle would be convenient for all concerned, as it gets rid of him without upsetting the social order.


That said, you do raise an important point about the economy of the TO: if their rivals are so much richer, how can they keep up militarily? There are a few factors in the TO's favour:
1. Grain countries count as 'poor' in vanilla, when in reality, agricultural output would be the primary measure of a 'continental' country's wealth for most of the EU era. This can be corrected somewhat by increasing Grain's resource price. The TO's land is no France, but it shouldn't be seen as a wasteland either.
2. The TO starts off unusually Centralised, which helps a lot in the early tech race.
3. The TO is still better off than vanilla Russia tech-wise, as it generally has Latin tech. Also, while it doesn't have Siberia to call on, General Winter is very much on its side, and can turn the country into a deathtrap for invading armies. Also like Russia, the TO's manpower should be pretty good with all that grain, and if it isn't we can certainly make it so. (This is why the Whites can keep Russian culture and the Greys can't - the Whites need that extra manpower!)
4. Teutonic generals are supposed to be good in the early period, slightly above par for the Greys, and absolutely amazing under the Whites. Monarch military scores should also be high on average. Whether this comes true of course is a balance question, and I'll have to look at lots of other leader files to see how good they should be.

Nevertheless, I'm still worried about how this plays out in MP, especially for the Whites. I'm inclined to be quite generous to them post-civil war so they can still go on the offensive in the later game, but I know how MattyG feels about putting too many goodies in events.

 

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I thank you Incompetent for the reply. The main reason me, tarakan, proposed this was to check the green blob(s) it seems that in late game no one really interacts (DOW Happy) much with the Caliphate. Cordoba has some late era events but the spirit of the nation is lost somewhere in 1500s

it is true for most of the Aberation. Most of the project was done on pure enthusiasm at the beginning it seems and the democracy in who wants to do which country allowed for many a people to jump in and still the policy persists. early on there are a slew of magestic events and great struggles and then it tapers off as the completion of a country's events depend heavily on their neighbours

For the recent work I salute Matty, Mikl, you and Calipah for your continued effort. Calipah put so much into islamic countries that they outbalance their neighbours.

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So going back to the Crusade
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I proposed TO as the only real power that seems would be powerful enough, interested enough spiritually, and far enough to be relatively safe from retaliation to check the Caliphate.

Working from this premise i wrote the things above.

A crusade is not something taken too lightly. Scotland and Hansa might cooperate on one to Granada late in the game should there be a protectorate in southern france with other majors at granada and protectorate's border joining in.

Since already there are sets of majors that are posed to form alliances and ententes and also sets that are not amicable to each other no matter what this complicates other crusade options

Another possibility is a Byzantine / Ukrainian alliance if the moslems threaten Anatolia or Ukraine picking up the Tsar of all slavs event if anyone takes Constantinopol and the Byzantines are no more and this gives cores and the greek culture to the ukrainians who accept emperor's family and then there is a reconquista to take the Byzantion.

For the ortodox, that city is much more important than the Jerusalem.

It all has to be plausible. Byz is too strong all by itself even for the caliphate.

 

[unmerged(31994)]

Well, I was going to begin writing down the destruction of the Rum event sequence as a struggle for the Caliphate - to completely eredicate Byzantium and capture Constantonople as the Jewel of Islam.

However, there is something I would like to have a crusade for...


event = {
id = 532018
random = no
country = CAL
trigger = { owned = { province = 493 data = CAL } }
name = "The Muslim Hammer Strikes the Crusaders"
desc = "When the armies of the Caliph marched into Jerusalem in triumph, the Muslims immediately clambered up and removed the cross that the Crusaders had mounted on the cupule of the Dome of the Rock. According to an eyewitness, the combined roar of the Muslims shouting 'Allah is greatest!' and the groans of the defeated Crusaders, watching the fall of their sacred symbol, were so loud it shook the ground. When news of this reached Baghdad, there were celebrations for months and around the Dar al-Islam the faithful blessed the Caliph's name.Hoping to shape the new policy in Judea after many years of Crusader rule, the Grand Mufti and Alim of the Caliphate Hisham al-Mustansir raised an enormous fund: his only condition - that Jerusalem be banned to all Christians. Many in the Islamic World were in favor of the Mufti's agreement.Still, though the funds were needed for war, several Christian countries were willing to come to a reconciliation to keep the city open to them. Moreover, the Divan diplomats believed that this would spark a Crusade if Jeruslem was banned from the Christians. The city was after all home to Muslims, Jews and Christians and a site of pilgrimage for centuries. Expelling the Christians would appeal to the majority of Arabs and appease the Ulema, but imposing a Jizziya on the vanquished enemies of Islam is more in line with the true principles of the faith."
date = { year = 1419 }
offset = 90
deathdate = { year = 1820 }

action_a = {
name = "Remember the tolerance of the Prophet!"
command = { type = stability value = -1 }
command = { type = relation which = BYZ value = 25 }
command = { type = relation which = SIC value = 25 }
command = { type = relation which = JER value = 25 }
command = { type = domestic which = INNOVATIVE value = 1 }
command = { type = ADM which = -1 value = 36 } #Loss of Ulema support weakens Caliph
command = { type = DIP which = -1 value = 36 } #Loss of Ulema support weakens Caliph
}
action_b ={
name = "Slaughter the Christians and sack the city!"
command = { type = relation which = PAP value = -200 }
command = { type = relation which = GEN value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = SIC value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = BYZ value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = HUN value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = BUR value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = BRI value = -150 }
command = { type = relation which = JER value = -400 }
command = { type = domestic which = INNOVATIVE value = -1 }
command = { type = treasury value = 500 }
command = { type = infra value = -300 }
command = { type = trade value = -500 }
command = { type = badboy value = 3 }
command = { type = provincetax which = 493 value = -2 }
command = { type = conversion which = 493 }
command = { type = population which = 493 value = -5000 }
command = { type = revolt which = 493 }
command = { type = revolt which = 493 }
command = { type = sleepevent which = 532019 }
}
}

Perhaps, just perhaps, a counter crusader like St Stephan would be nice?

 

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I would fathom a guess that closure of Jerusalem to chrstiandom and should addcore to 493 for each of the countries listed above plus ukraine and finland and the union of Kalamar and Scotland. the addcore event would be revoked when it is captured by any of these and then passed to koj again.

 

[unmerged(31994)]

Immmm, then lets forget that idea for a while (wihoo) - I like the idea of Byzantium destryoyed and Ukraine coming to the rescue.It was pretty much a Muslim dream to take Constantinople by the way so a conflict could be well to add some spice.

 

[Incompetent]

I had the following ideas for the fate of the KoJ:

KoJ dies before the Reformation: Sicily inherits KoJ, and gets some of its cores. If Sicily DOWs the Caliphate, they can choose to ask the Pope (who is quite pro-Sicily early on) to call it a 'crusade' which brings in wider Catholic involvement, but I think we should only give Sicily one crack at this - subsequent attempts to retake the Holy Land can be made on their own. This also goes for a player KoJ - if they want to make one 'big push' they ally with Sicily, triggering the Crusade events, only with the KoJ in charge.

KoJ survives longer: Western Europe has its own religious problems, and loses interest in the KoJ. Byzantium however sees the KoJ in an increasingly positive light, as a way to fend off the Muslims, and the KoJ is grateful for any allies it can get in its hostile surroundings. If Byzantium does the right things, the KoJ becomes increasingly aligned with Byzantium, and if it gets far enough along the event sequence before being conquered, Byzantium inherits its cores and culture.

If none of this works, and the Holy Land is still Muslim in the late game: tough. The world has moved on, and the more important concerns are about shipping in the Eastern Med and Black Sea: who controls the islands, who controls the Straits.


If the Caliphate does something nasty in Jerusalem, it should hand a CB to all the Christian majors for some years, giving the Christian world plenty of time to prepare an invasion force if it wants to. But I think giving them all a core that lasts until 1819 would be excessive. Players in MP would just use this randomly as an excuse to gangbang the Caliphate centuries later, rather than with any actual desire to retake Jerusalem.


The fall of Constantinople is possible by sheer ferocity on the Caliphate's part, but I think the 'complete destruction of Rum' is probably in the 'too far' category for events. That means we may let it happen, but we won't feed it or encourage the AI to do it, just as we wouldn't give Hungary cores on all of Italy, or give Burgundy German culture.

 

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this is what happened in history.

When the Ottoman Turks defected the Mameluke forces in 1517, Palestine came under the rule of a new empire that was to dominate the entire Near East for the next 400 years. At the outset, particularly during the reign of Sultan Suleiman, known in Arabic as "the Law maker," but better known as Suleiman the Magnificent, Jerusalem flourished. Walls and gates, which had lain in ruins since the Ayyubid period, were rebuilt. The ancient aqueduct was reactivated and public drinking fountains were installed. After Suleiman's death, however, cultural and economic stagnation set in, Jerusalem again became a small, unimportant town. For the next 300 years its population barely increased, while trade and commerce were frozen; Jerusalem became a backwater.

Although the renewal of Jerusalem's Jewish community is attributed to the activity of Nahmanides, who arrived in the city in 1267, the community's true consolidation occured in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the influx of Jews who had been expelled from Spain.

The 19th century witnessed far-reaching changes, along with the gradual weakening of the Ottoman Empire. Political change in Jerusalem and indeed throughout the country was accelerated as part of a policy of Europeanization. European institutions in Jerusalem, particularly those of a religious character, enjoyed growing influence. Foreign consulates, merchants and settlers, grew in numbers and in power.

These foreigners brought in their wake many innovations: modern postal systems run by the various consulates; the use of the wheel for modes of transportation; stagecoach and carriage, the wheelbarrow and the cart; and the oil-lantern. These were among the first signs of modernization in the city. By mid-century the first paved road ran from Jaffa to Jerusalem; by 1892 the railroad had reached the city.

For the first time in more than a thousand years, settlement began outside the city walls. The Jewish quarter of Mishkenot Sha'ananim was built, followed by other Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods. Of particular note is the European influence on the city's appearance: European-style buildings, bell towers that altered the skyline, and monumental structures such as the Russian Compound and the Notre Dame de France Pilgrims' Hostel.