The tribal to feudal transition

[Battle bunny]

The ability of AI realms to transition from a tribal to a feudal government is a bit of a hot-button issue for me, and after I saw a post in the suggestion thread about pagans, I was inspired to bring this issue up once again, hoping that we can have a discussion about it.

Although CK2Plus has tried to help the situation (for example, by offering "medium tribal organization and legalism/noble customs/majesty at 3" as an alternative to "absolute TO" as one of the possible requirements), the AI still has a lot of trouble making the tribal to feudal transition. Off the top of my head, I believe Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Hungary and the Russian principalities are some of the states/regions that are tribal in the 867 bookmark but feudal in 1066. (Most or all of them are feudal even in the 1000 bookmark, for that matter.) In practice, the only one of them that usually seems to be able to make the transition when starting from the 867 bookmark is Ireland and Scotland (because these two have higher tech levels across the board and mostly monocultural de jure kingdoms, aside from Norse Dyflinn and some of the southern Scottish counties, and thus an easier time fulfilling the alternative feudalization requirements, with the medium Tribal Organization and the legalism/noble customs/majesty tech requirement - needless to say, Absolute TO is still a de facto player-only thing). With all the other examples, them going feudal is more of a fluke than something to expect, and the most likely way for these realms to actually go feudal is by them getting a feudal vassal in some way (subjugating one, or whatever) that then takes over in a revolt.

Just out of curiosity, I've checked all three of my current games (version 4.06.8, all started in 867) to see where all the unified tribal kingdoms and any other prominent tribal realms are regarding feudalization requirements, post-1000s:

Game 1: currently in 1125.

• Norway: Minimum TO, 1/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 5/8 demesne provinces (1 wrong-culture demesne province without hillfort). Catholic.
  
• Finland (yay for liberation revolts!): Minimum TO, 2/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 7/8 demesne provinces. Unreformed pagan.
  
• Kiev: Limited TO (probably going to go down to minimum again due to a civil war it's losing), 0/3 tech requirements fulfilled (but the capital is in an odd location right now - would be 1/3 if it were in Kiev) stone hillforts in 4/5 demesne provinces (1 wrong-culture demesne province without hillfort). Most of the demesne provinces are scattered around Livonia and Finland at the moment. Unreformed pagan.
• Sweden: Minimum TO, 0/3 tech requirements fulfilled (would also be 0/3 in Uppland, which is not currently the capital), stone hillforts in 1/2 demesne provinces (1 wrong-culture demesne province without hillfort). Catholic. Severely reduced in size due to Norwegian and HRE incursions.
• Poland: Minimum TO, 1/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 2/2 demesne provinces. Unreformed pagan. Title was created by Hungarian kings who conquered Poland, later split by Gavelkind (so it wasn't a native Polish effort). In the middle of civil war.

Successfully transitioned: Ireland, Hungary (went feudal due to feudal vassal installed by faction demand), Scotland.

Game 2: currently in 1096. (This is my reformed Finnish game, so I've influenced the state of the Norse and Russian areas heavily, bear that in mind.)

• Poland: a rare example of this actually being formed by Poles. Minimum TO, 0/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 7/8 demesne provinces (1 wrong-culture demesne province without hillfort). Unreformed pagan.
  
• Denmark-Sweden: Minimum TO, 1/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 6/9 demesne provinces (2 wrong-culture demesne provinces without hillfort). Reformed pagan as of very recently due to my proselytizing (unreformed pagan before). They conquered Sweden by themselves, and used to have Norway before losing it to me. Sweden used to be Orthodox, didn't go feudal.
  
• Lithuania: Minimum TO, 0/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillfort in 1/1 demesne province. Reformed pagan, again due to me proselytizing. I left Lithuania alone for the most part during this game.

Successfully transitioned: Ireland, Hungary (title history says "peacefully usurped" for first feudal ruler), Finland (human player, doesn't count), Norway (conquered by human in great holy war, doesn't count). Scotland doesn't exist.

Game 3: currently in 1059. (This is a "random choice" game where I play one character for a while and then make another random choice after a while. The game was characterized by Hungarian nomads losing against Bulgaria, only to then run rampant and conquer all kinds of strange areas, including parts of Scandinavia for a while.)

• Norway: High TO (this is a weird anomaly right here, the realm is unusually stable), 0/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 2/9 demesne provinces (5 wrong-culture demesne provinces without hillfort). Catholic. Controls Norway, parts of Sweden, patchwork provinces along Baltic coast.
• Novgorod: Min TO, 1/3 tech requirements fulfilled, stone hillforts in 3/7 demesne provinces (3 wrong-culture demesne provinces without hillfort). Unreformed pagan.

Successfully transitioned: Ireland, Scotland.

(I also checked a game from a few versions back which I played as the Idrisids, and ended up wrapping up in 1110. I won't analyze it in detail because it's an old game and I don't remember everything about it, but it has all the same patterns - almost everyone is at minimum TO at any given time, tech is below the required levels almost everywhere. etc. Poland went feudal in a strange way that apparently involved it briefly becoming a theocracy after a high priest got elected, before the realm was taken over by a liberation revolt and promptly went feudal. As for Hungary, I'm not sure how it happened - at some point a king got to power as a tribal while all his vassals were already feudal, but the next king, who was already feudal, got the title through inheritance.)

The basic takeaway seems to be:

• Almost every tribal seems to be at minimal TO all the time, due to the constant civil wars. Reaching Medium TO is hard for the AI. In our sample, even Limited TO was noticeably missing (we just had the one anomalous high TO Norway).
• The tech requirements (Legalism, Majesty and Noble Customs at 3) are almost never reached by any tribal realms (sans Ireland/Scotland) by 1066, or even by 1100. In theory, you don't need all of these. In practice, you do - unless you reach Absolute TO (which the AI just doesn't).
• There is little difference between unreformed pagans and those following organized religions in the feudalization process.
• The "no wrong-culture province without Stone Hillfort IV" requirement will likely sabotage even those few realms who fulfill the other requirements - just a single county conquest against a backwards, undeveloped Finnish tribe will be enough to prevent the feudal transition, since the AI does not realize that said province is what prevents them from going feudal and should be given away or upgraded quickly. Norse pagans are particularly susceptible to this since they tend to acquire a patchwork of overseas provinces all across Lithuania and Finland. If a tribal king holds onto a set demesne for a while, though, it seems to be able to get the stone hillforts on time.
• There is very little chance of any big tribal realms going feudal in "the intended way" by the 1100s. This is partly due to the tech requirements (which might eventually go away), and partly due to other factors (which plague tribals constantly and probably wouldn't go away even by the 1200s). It is possible that, due to the short-sightedness of the AI, the current "tribal to feudal" model is simply hopeless for AI realms. (Rarely, a two-county high chiefdom might go feudal, because it doesn't have vassals to drag the TO down, nor the strength to conquer wrong-culture provinces, but that's it.) The tech development is sometimes sabotaged by realms changing rulers, who then start to develop a new capital instead, as the old capital stagnates. (They cannot revoke the de jure capital of the kingdom, since tribal rulers cannot revoke at all without Absolute TO.)
• Therefore: we will likely need to either introduce more "cheats", i.e. alternative feudalization paths for the AI if we want them to go feudal reliably, or revise the current requirements - unfortunately, as things are now, even medium TO is usually too much for the AI. Or, before that, we need to ask: do we even want more feudalization, or are we content with half the world staying tribal even centuries into the game when we start with the 867 bookmark? (I assume the situation is even worse with the 769 bookmark, but I never play that one.) Personally, my stance is that there should at least be a decent chance that the realms that are tribal in 867 but feudal in 1000/1066 should be able to make the transition in a 867 game, if they can actually unify those realms. Perhaps the dev stance is different, of course.

Abolishing the "wrong culture provinces" requirement, dropping the tech level requirements to 2 and establishing "X prestige" as an alternative condition to medium TO would probably make it much easier for the AI to go feudal (and for the player too... unless it's an AI-only requirement, of course), but perhaps it'd create the opposite problem: realms going feudal ahistorically early, possibly when they're not ready yet. So it's not an easy issue - one that will likely take quite a bit of brainstorming and testing.

 

[DeathLawlie]

Maybe feudalism could have an event alternative:
If the Carolingian Empire, the HRE, or a strong feudal kingdom like France or Germany is still around in 1000, independent tribal rulers in Western Europe could receive an event to adopt feudalism on the model of the Empire.
It would lead to a little event chain for everyone of them (like earning the support of their warriors, merchant, and priest), and one of the possible outcome could be a successful feudalisation (and conversion to a reformed religion in many cases). And if he succeed, his vassal will have to choose between staying tribal or not, etc.
And if the feudalisation is achieved by this way, they will earn a castle (with some early buildings), a city and a temple in all his county and a little event army (to represent the new nobility and also to help them to not die instantly).
p.s: and eastern europe could have an altered version : taking the inspiration from the ERE

 

[LordPeter]

Maybe feudalism could have an event alternative:
If the Carolingian Empire, the HRE, or a strong feudal kingdom like France or Germany is still around in 1000, independent tribal rulers in Western Europe could receive an event to adopt feudalism on the model of the Empire.
It would lead to a little event chain for everyone of them (like earning the support of their warriors, merchant, and priest), and one of the possible outcome could be a successful feudalisation (and conversion to a reformed religion in many cases). And if he succeed, his vassal will have to choose between staying tribal or not, etc.
And if the feudalisation is achieved by this way, they will earn a castle (with some early buildings), a city and a temple in all his county and a little event army (to represent the new nobility and also to help them to not die instantly).
p.s: and eastern europe could have an altered version : taking the inspiration from the ERE

That is an idea, but imo I would not implement it this way: There is a chance that completely different, strong feudal realms emerge, and your version would require specific "names", so to say, which doesn't make sense.
Plus, at least to my understanding the influence was first through religion, i.e. tribal pagans were impressed by the powerful, centralized European realms, and Christian priests convinced them that Christianity was the way to go - not just for spiritual fulfillment, but also for centralized power. Thus, they converted, and with the new religion got the power base of priests etc o actually transform their realm to a Feudal model.
Twas the same with Charlemagne imo: Not only did he convert the Saxons because he was a Christian believer or a tyrant, but because he knew he needed the Catholic priests as his power base.

Which leads me to conclude that

There is little difference between unreformed pagans and those following organized religions in the feudalization process.

this is a valid point - provided it is true. I play so little lately, I don't know if this is the case XD
Organized religions, be it reformed Pagan or Christian etc., should be a major aid to Feudalization, for reasons I mentioned above.

And I also agree with OP that the AI is sh*t at increasing Crown Authority.

 

[Battle bunny]

this is a valid point - provided it is true. I play so little lately, I don't know if this is the case XD
Organized religions, be it reformed Pagan or Christian etc., should be a major aid to Feudalization, for reasons I mentioned above.

In theory, it should be. In practice, realms that convert to (for example) Catholicism don't tend to become much more stable either. Some vassals seem to convert immediately (a CK2Plus tweak, or did vanilla improve on that? Things were dreadful when the liege was the only Christian with like five pagan vassals), while others don't, so there are still a bunch of civil wars anyway, which then often cause the realm to revert to paganism because a pagan vassal or relative takes power (e.g. if the closest heir is a landed pagan vassal and there are no Catholic children yet).

As for the direct requirements, off the top of my head, it goes like this: "needs Noble Customs 1, or (Noble Customs 3 if unreformed pagan)". But that requirement is more or less irrelevant since Noble Customs 3 is required to go feudal anyway - unless you manage to reach Absolute TO (which, as we've mentioned, is Mission Impossible for the AI). (Basically, it goes like "needs either Absolute TO, or (Medium TO with three different techs at level 3 including Noble Customs)".)

 

[DeathLawlie]

...

I completely understand your point, my idea is really a bit messy !

My main inspiration was how the feudalisation process occured in Denmark:
The christianisation of the king was a part of the process of feudalization but it was already in progress with the support of the Danegeld and raid.
There were also great influence coming from the conquered part of the british island.
Also the direct frontier of the Denmark with the Empire makes it more sensitive to the "german" influence (and by extension Norway and Sweden later).
Because in these region, christianisation change from a personal choice of a king to an important matter of stability only in the end of the XIth century and the XIIth century (for example the great pagan temple of Uppsala was still active in 1090), when the young feudal kings faces succession crisis.

My idea is that at this point, if everything follow a somehow historical line, feudalization should not so hard to reach for any kingdom in this region. But the issues coming after would be a dangerous threat for the young and still weak kingdom.
Also, I think that tribal ruler with feudal county under their rule could very easily convert to feudalism (it would help the many tribal adventurers coming in others region)

 

[BrokenSky]

I feel like there should be a catch option based on tech, so perhaps having those three techs at 2 with medium tribal organisation and 3 with only a nominal (scaling with rank) amount of prestige cost?

 

[vukica]

I feel like there should be a catch option based on tech, so perhaps having those three techs at 2 with medium tribal organisation and 3 with only a nominal (scaling with rank) amount of prestige cost?

That exists for other stuff one can progress through in game (e.g. gaining primogeniture at a certain level of development)
And I could swear we had something like that for the tribal/feudal conversion.

 

[BrokenSky]

That exists for other stuff one can progress through in game (e.g. gaining primogeniture at a certain level of development)
And I could swear we had something like that for the tribal/feudal conversion.

There is, but the current catch option is the one which still requires medium organisation. I'm saying I think there should be one based on just techs (with a maybe scaling prestige cost) at level 3 and another with medium organisation at tech level 2.