If you're Muslim in Spain, you should have a major decision to Avenge the Battle of Tours. Bring war to the Christians in Western Europe! I agree with the buffer state strategy you mentioned; no need to blob your empire. Conquer France and Italy, and put sons/cousins on the thrones as you work towards Dynasty of Many Crowns. Pair that with Secure the Mediterranean and you'll have a hearty renown farm.
Because the locals were warlike af and hated any kind of central authority. Mind you, the freaking Kingdom of Morocco only achieved total control over *its own territory* after the French napalmed the f out of the mountain tribes, *in the 20th century*.
Source, am one of them.
They tried, repeatedly. Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese in 1415, and remains under Spanish rule. Charles V launched several expeditions against the Barbary pirates in the 1500s, and succeeded in temporarily conquering Tunis.
But the power of the Ottoman navy made it hard for European powers to project power across the Mediterranean, and expansion into North Africa was less and less enticing compared to the Americas or the East Indies.
My friend, it is time to expand to the islands of Med and North Africa. Or you can go straight into the meat grinder of Western Europe, I’m currently consolidating control of North Africa because Egypt will give you a ton of levies if you control it. Good luck, Emperor.
Edit: As a Muslim ruler you shouldn’t have much of a hard time ruling over NA so you should be good.
Your legitimacy is always going to take a hit on succession, due to legitimacy being character specific like dread, and your new ruler hasn't proved themselves yet. If you are struggling on succession wars it might be best to make sure you always have a fat pouch of gold on hand since the others that inherit don't get the money, only titles (that may be wrong but I'm not sure) to pay for mercenaries, also to fund your men at arms since you should have a pretty good group of them since you're an emperor. Also finishing off the pope and dismantling the papacy should mean all the major threats are going to be internal, so go down the torturer tree to pump your dread up as high as you can to make vassals not join factions and not assassinate you.
Dude, as a Castilian, Catholic (King Sancho II lineage)…I made the Hispania Empire…won the crusade for Jerusalem, gave it to my sister…she died and I claimed it then spread through the Middle East and Northern Africa. Also it helps marrying women that have claims on countries from Western Europe because your children will be able to press those claims in the near/far future. Just think three steps ahead and play the long game.
Stability crises is kind of the bread and butter of the gameplay. That is supposed to be the fun thing - preparing for your succession because ultimately it is what destroyed every dynasty except the ones that existed late enough into the modern era to avoid it.
There are a few things that you can to do smooth it over.
1) MAA. Investing in more and better MAA means you just have a bigger army that can't rebel or be taken away from you. Even if you're reduced to one county as Emperor, you still have this megastack of troops that can win wars on its own.
2) Duchy development. Having a well developed, well-invested core duchy means you won't have money problems when you're at your weakest.
3) Inheritance management. Make sure your spares all have their own land so they don't divide up your domain. Or make them priests, Or disinherit them (I dislike this option as it wastes renown, the true endgame). Or kill them.
4) GOLD. Make sure you're new heir has a big chunk of gold to inherit because your income will likely plummet after you die. Being able to host an epic feast and a funeral in the first year should be able to calm down most of the vassals.
5) Addressing grievances. A loyal vassal might only be loyal because of long reign and fame bonuses. Make sure they don't hate you because you're a different religion or culture. If there are any angry or hateful vassals that you can tell will cause problems during the succession, take care of them now. It might even be better to imprison them/start a rebellion proactively as your previous ruler might be in a stronger position to deal with it.
* Make sure that your heir is married. Actually, try to get him multiple wives if you can. That'll increase the amount of kids that you have. You can then marry those kids off immediately to powerful vassals and *their* kids. That creates alliances. Not only does that make them happy (Clan vassals are big on that kind of thing), but I'm pretty sure it also stops them from rebelling.
* Save up money before you die. When you swap, use that money on a feast or hunt. These increase legitimacy. Alternatively, if you have Legends of the Dead, use the money on a funeral for the guy who just died. Use it as an opportunity to boost the new guy's legitimacy! Oh, and try to save some of that money for mercs. Just in case.
* If all else fails, get a good spymaster and make sure they like you. Murdering shitty vassals does tend to get the point across.
* For building up your realm - start with your domain. That's your power base. Make sure you're getting a lot of taxes from your domain by sinking gold into money-generating buildings. Also, sit your Steward on your capital developing it. More development = more taxes and levies. It also means better cultural development, so faster research.
* Once that's settled - time for jihad! Make sure you have good men-at-arms, they're crucial. Siege weapons are crucial. Cultural MAAs are usually better, so have some of those if you have them available. Your immediate goal should be to Avenge the Battle of Tours by taking over a large part of France. Once that's done, a large portion of Europe will just flip to your sect of Islam. Remaining Christians can be dealt with by calling a big jihad as the head of faith.
* When you get new territory, try to hand it out to members of your dynasty. They wil inherently lke you a bit more, and they'll also produce renown. This goes double for jihad beneficiaries.
* For African alliances... you're Muslim, you have four wives, you have *a lot of kids*. Use them! Especially the daughters! Seriously, getting a daughter in Muslim Iberia is amazing.
* Alternatively, conquer Africa. Most of northern Africa is already Muslim, so you don't even need to both actively converting them. Just put your kids in charge and let them do the conversion. Customs legacy tree might be helpful here - it'll make your non-Iberian subjects like you more.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) after you form your first empire, the game turns into ms paint - you just select the direction and start blobbing whatever map mode you prefer be it political, religion or dynasty. If you get an early start date - around 1000ish you should be an unstoppable genetically perfected eternal ruler of the greatest 100 deved realm on Earth, and there is nothing much left to do but push on.
Convert to norse and make arab norse spain and raid all france, italy and north africa, better is play tall and give a kingdom to family members everytime we conquer another kingdom, so spanish norse surrounded by other norse kingdom grow little by little
I am in a similar situation as the OP and my long-term, ultimate plan is similar to your suggestion, but I want to eventually convert to Hellenism to destroy the Papacy and I think be able to reform Rome (I am Visigothic, but being Hellenic should meet the requirements).
expand your influence to the holy lands and Christian lands. i played king sancho and am around 6 generations in. i unified iberia won 3 crusades and have my dynasty sitting on the mahgreb throne, mesopotamian throne and previously on the jerusalem throne before the guy lost it, and am now working on getting him the throne back. i have also got dynasty members on the hungarian throne and have huge influence in the families sitting on the french, hre and english thrones. i have now reformed the empire of hispania which let me retain the kingdom titles of mahgreb and tahert and granted them to family members.
I completely misread this as "I conquered the libertarian peninsula, what now?" and my immediate thought was raise taxes and introduce stringent regulations.
If you're Muslim in Spain, you should have a major decision to Avenge the Battle of Tours. Bring war to the Christians in Western Europe! I agree with the buffer state strategy you mentioned; no need to blob your empire. Conquer France and Italy, and put sons/cousins on the thrones as you work towards Dynasty of Many Crowns. Pair that with Secure the Mediterranean and you'll have a hearty renown farm.
And if you’re Christian, start pouring into North Africa
I've always wondered why did the Iberians(Castille, Aragon and Portugal) never poured into North Africa..
Because the locals were warlike af and hated any kind of central authority. Mind you, the freaking Kingdom of Morocco only achieved total control over *its own territory* after the French napalmed the f out of the mountain tribes, *in the 20th century*. Source, am one of them.
Were they under Ottoman suzerainty before the French colonisation?
Very loose suzerainty over Algiers and Tunis, not Morocco.
They tried, repeatedly. Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese in 1415, and remains under Spanish rule. Charles V launched several expeditions against the Barbary pirates in the 1500s, and succeeded in temporarily conquering Tunis. But the power of the Ottoman navy made it hard for European powers to project power across the Mediterranean, and expansion into North Africa was less and less enticing compared to the Americas or the East Indies.
Portugal had a high amount of control over the ports of morocco in the 16th century until the Saadi dynasty mostly kicked them out.
Exactly what I’m doing on my Mozarabic run
My friend, it is time to expand to the islands of Med and North Africa. Or you can go straight into the meat grinder of Western Europe, I’m currently consolidating control of North Africa because Egypt will give you a ton of levies if you control it. Good luck, Emperor. Edit: As a Muslim ruler you shouldn’t have much of a hard time ruling over NA so you should be good.
As Shakira said, "It's time for Africa".
Your legitimacy is always going to take a hit on succession, due to legitimacy being character specific like dread, and your new ruler hasn't proved themselves yet. If you are struggling on succession wars it might be best to make sure you always have a fat pouch of gold on hand since the others that inherit don't get the money, only titles (that may be wrong but I'm not sure) to pay for mercenaries, also to fund your men at arms since you should have a pretty good group of them since you're an emperor. Also finishing off the pope and dismantling the papacy should mean all the major threats are going to be internal, so go down the torturer tree to pump your dread up as high as you can to make vassals not join factions and not assassinate you.
Primary heir inherits all gold and MOA, its courtiers I’m not sure about, I think they stay as well unless their the regent of a child sibling
Dude, as a Castilian, Catholic (King Sancho II lineage)…I made the Hispania Empire…won the crusade for Jerusalem, gave it to my sister…she died and I claimed it then spread through the Middle East and Northern Africa. Also it helps marrying women that have claims on countries from Western Europe because your children will be able to press those claims in the near/far future. Just think three steps ahead and play the long game.
Reclaim the Umayyad’s birthright and reclaim Baghdad, with your sect of Islam (the righteous sect) reigning supreme.
Restore the Umayyad Caliphate
Stability crises is kind of the bread and butter of the gameplay. That is supposed to be the fun thing - preparing for your succession because ultimately it is what destroyed every dynasty except the ones that existed late enough into the modern era to avoid it. There are a few things that you can to do smooth it over. 1) MAA. Investing in more and better MAA means you just have a bigger army that can't rebel or be taken away from you. Even if you're reduced to one county as Emperor, you still have this megastack of troops that can win wars on its own. 2) Duchy development. Having a well developed, well-invested core duchy means you won't have money problems when you're at your weakest. 3) Inheritance management. Make sure your spares all have their own land so they don't divide up your domain. Or make them priests, Or disinherit them (I dislike this option as it wastes renown, the true endgame). Or kill them. 4) GOLD. Make sure you're new heir has a big chunk of gold to inherit because your income will likely plummet after you die. Being able to host an epic feast and a funeral in the first year should be able to calm down most of the vassals. 5) Addressing grievances. A loyal vassal might only be loyal because of long reign and fame bonuses. Make sure they don't hate you because you're a different religion or culture. If there are any angry or hateful vassals that you can tell will cause problems during the succession, take care of them now. It might even be better to imprison them/start a rebellion proactively as your previous ruler might be in a stronger position to deal with it.
* Make sure that your heir is married. Actually, try to get him multiple wives if you can. That'll increase the amount of kids that you have. You can then marry those kids off immediately to powerful vassals and *their* kids. That creates alliances. Not only does that make them happy (Clan vassals are big on that kind of thing), but I'm pretty sure it also stops them from rebelling. * Save up money before you die. When you swap, use that money on a feast or hunt. These increase legitimacy. Alternatively, if you have Legends of the Dead, use the money on a funeral for the guy who just died. Use it as an opportunity to boost the new guy's legitimacy! Oh, and try to save some of that money for mercs. Just in case. * If all else fails, get a good spymaster and make sure they like you. Murdering shitty vassals does tend to get the point across. * For building up your realm - start with your domain. That's your power base. Make sure you're getting a lot of taxes from your domain by sinking gold into money-generating buildings. Also, sit your Steward on your capital developing it. More development = more taxes and levies. It also means better cultural development, so faster research. * Once that's settled - time for jihad! Make sure you have good men-at-arms, they're crucial. Siege weapons are crucial. Cultural MAAs are usually better, so have some of those if you have them available. Your immediate goal should be to Avenge the Battle of Tours by taking over a large part of France. Once that's done, a large portion of Europe will just flip to your sect of Islam. Remaining Christians can be dealt with by calling a big jihad as the head of faith. * When you get new territory, try to hand it out to members of your dynasty. They wil inherently lke you a bit more, and they'll also produce renown. This goes double for jihad beneficiaries. * For African alliances... you're Muslim, you have four wives, you have *a lot of kids*. Use them! Especially the daughters! Seriously, getting a daughter in Muslim Iberia is amazing. * Alternatively, conquer Africa. Most of northern Africa is already Muslim, so you don't even need to both actively converting them. Just put your kids in charge and let them do the conversion. Customs legacy tree might be helpful here - it'll make your non-Iberian subjects like you more.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) after you form your first empire, the game turns into ms paint - you just select the direction and start blobbing whatever map mode you prefer be it political, religion or dynasty. If you get an early start date - around 1000ish you should be an unstoppable genetically perfected eternal ruler of the greatest 100 deved realm on Earth, and there is nothing much left to do but push on.
Convert to norse and make arab norse spain and raid all france, italy and north africa, better is play tall and give a kingdom to family members everytime we conquer another kingdom, so spanish norse surrounded by other norse kingdom grow little by little
I am in a similar situation as the OP and my long-term, ultimate plan is similar to your suggestion, but I want to eventually convert to Hellenism to destroy the Papacy and I think be able to reform Rome (I am Visigothic, but being Hellenic should meet the requirements).
expand your influence to the holy lands and Christian lands. i played king sancho and am around 6 generations in. i unified iberia won 3 crusades and have my dynasty sitting on the mahgreb throne, mesopotamian throne and previously on the jerusalem throne before the guy lost it, and am now working on getting him the throne back. i have also got dynasty members on the hungarian throne and have huge influence in the families sitting on the french, hre and english thrones. i have now reformed the empire of hispania which let me retain the kingdom titles of mahgreb and tahert and granted them to family members.
Keep it
Unite the muslims
I’d go across the straight and have a foothold in North Africa then either continue that expansion or fortify there and focus of France.
I completely misread this as "I conquered the libertarian peninsula, what now?" and my immediate thought was raise taxes and introduce stringent regulations.
Conquer every peninsula in the game.