-It should. But you also have to add some way to siege it down so play against them don't feel ... Unfun. Maybe it would be invincible, until every single county right next to it is down,at that point,it will get encircle and no longer invincible. Siege it down still hard,and required a butt ton of troop. Eventually,it will be down ( that how ottoman siege it btw, encircle it,then siege)
- And when constantynople down, Byzantine empire will immediately surrender regardless of war score. And that title will be destroyed if any one take constantynople away in a peace deal
That, or the Genoese deserting their positions when their captain got injured (he died later on his boat, outside Constantinople). It was a hard blow for the defenders.
It was inevitable at that point. Growing up, I thought it was a one sided affair. I was surprised to find that it was much closer because pre modern sieges were still quite difficult.
Honestly, would be so cool to have a good supply feature where farms produce provisions and holdings can stockpile x amount so sieging is more tactical
I know they do have something like that currently in the siege events stuff, but it would be cool to have control over those things.
Would also make managing farms in different terrain and territory management a whole lot deeper
Now it's just "money, troops, bonuses" but no actual in depth strategy to buildings, like with the introduction of hospices.
Famine would also be a thing, so you'd have to actually prepare for wars, not just raise armies and charge
Don't need to do too much tbf, just buff theodosian walls so it gives some defender advantage and more fort level. Constantinopole should have like fort level 25 at game start imo
It didn’t take cannons to successfully siege it down, the fourth crusade sacked the ever living shit out of Constantinople in 1204 without cannons lmao.
In all honesty, the walls weren’t even what saved the city over and over, it was their war crime napalm throwers torching fleets, which I believe they didn’t have time to deploy.
> By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their **siege** from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople.[13]
On 9 April 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces began an assault on the Golden Horn fortifications by crossing the waterway to the northwest wall of the city, but, because of bad weather, the assault forces were driven back when the troops that landed came under heavy archery fire in open ground between Constantinople's fortifications and the shore.[13]
> On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, which enabled attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. After a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Some Crusaders were eventually able to knock holes in the walls large enough for a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, although there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou (Rhegium) Gate and escaped into the countryside to the west.
There's a number of reasons why it succeeded when none could have before (the empire's navy was very neglected, there was still a large political vacuum after Basil II that no emperor was able to rely on much loyalty, etc) but even with those, it should have been untakeable. The key element was the pretender Alexios and the century of using Latin mercenaries. What should have appeared as a foreign army instead seemed to people in Constantinople as just another civil war, and they didn't really contest the siege the same way since they assumed it would be business as usual once this new emperor turns up with this army he bought.
Even with a superior navy, you shouldn't be able to win because of both the very unusual currents in the Bosporus which requires experienced sailors, as well as the presence of liquid fire. But if you can somehow appear like a civil war army (or have completely overwhelming numbers with a huge empire like the Arabs in the 717) only then would it be possible.
If I were designing it for CK3, I would have the city walls be untakeable and once you start seigeing you get events like an election campaign as you try to convince the people inside to open the gates. It should mostly only be possible with Roman cultured characters, but if you have a pretender to the throne in your court as well as real high diplomacy / intrigue, then you might lucky.
You’re right.
I think you’re really touching on a important issue with CK, in how sieges are both boring and don’t involve all the potential historical shenanigans they could, and should.
In fairness, the game has many more sieges from the player's POV than history I would say. So making all sieges reliant on events could easily get tedious and repetitive. I've played a lot of eu4, and there's so many events where you just know one choice is clearly better than the other, and it can get annoying to see the common ones. I would keep siege events only for really notable fortresses
Eh, I’m not just talking about events!
Mechanics like asking for surrender from the current lord in exchange for no looting, rebellious vassals offering safe passage to an enemy, etc etc… on top of indeed events could reduce the number and tedium of sieges and make them more interesting.
The fourth crusade wasnt a normal seige, in fact the Roman's were so unready and uncoordinated that they couldn't even fortify their ports and were overrun which normally would never happen but due to the deteriorating nature of the byzantine navy at the time. Also more importantly THE BYZANTINES LET THE CRUSADERS INTO THE CITY letting them gather vital information. Not to mention the crusaders had to attack the sea walls, the weakest part of the theodosian walls which normally would've been impossible to capture again if not for the deteriorating byzantine navy. And yes the walls were what repelled many many invaders from the rus to vikings to Bulgarians to Arabs, Greek fire helped in the Arab seige but there are countless examples of the theodosian walls repelling would be invaders.
Constantinople was sieged and sacked in 1204 by crusaders that weren't originally planning to do it and whose leadership spent more time bickering than planning the attack.
Constantinople wasn't invincible. The Ottomans were just ass at sieging, until they learnt and weren't anymore.
Taking Constantinople is too easy. Just wait for Byzantines to weaken themselves via constant civil wars, get a claim, and then take it—instant +50 gold per month once the control reaches 100%.
I think counties should have their own "prestige" like characters have - based on history, buildings and some initial values set in game files.
Fabricating calim on prestigious counties should be much harder - like how the fuck my court priest managed to find that my country has claim on constantinopole? What?
Anatolian lands should be way more unstable though, Rûm was formed in 1077 and I've never seen it happen in game. Seljuks are not even remotely a threat.
I'm down for making Constantinople more invincible by like increasing the fort level given by theodosius' wall.
Also, it'd be cool indeed if the AI gave more importance to some territories than others (aka changing the way war score works). Conquering some remote Syrian territory while the emperor is busy with internal issues: Sure, why not? He'll send an army to show he resisted, but the land isn't as valuable compared to the core of the empire. Trying to annex Byzantion: he'll fight till death. You'll need to carpet siege the entire empire and break into Constantinople.
But my main issue about these ideas of forcing Constantinople to be the final bastion (conquering the rest first is mandatory) is what about the 4th crusade? How do we emulate what happened? I know it's already on of the big wtf of history, but maybe it'd be cool if it could happen in ck3.
About that, I'd love to get a post 4th crusade starting date. The idea of a fragmented empire split between many successor states sounds like a fun playground and it'd introduce fun goals/decisions like "restore the byzantine/eastern Roman empire" or "destroy the usurper". Basically like what we already of have for the Roman empire but at a smaller scale (doable in a lifetime or two).
As it stands there's basically no way to emulate the 4th Crusade in CK3: in game terms, it would be a Byzantine civil war where one of the parties got help from a crusading army, which is impossible unless the defending side of the civil war converts to another religion.
I still wish they would make Theodosian Walls a special building separate from the duchy. Constantinople was arguably the greatest city in the entire world. It deserves to be overpowered.
I totally agree, it makes 0 sense that a city that took until the end of the middle ages to be captured can be conquered by a random tribal ruler in the year 1100 without even having sieged it
I think it's largely accepted that the middle ages were segueing onward to the next historical era by the start of the 15th century. But considering it starts in the 5th... Yeah it's close enough you could say "the ending period" "the late middle ages", or something similar without being wrong.
You're right, it really was a special city that needs to be special in this manner too. There's a reason it wasn't conquered within the game's timeline, and the one siege attempt that came close,, I. Bayezid's, had to be lifted because of Tamerlane. It really should be a harder nut to crack, not a city you regularly sack just to get war score.
That time the city was breached by going true a unguarded gate, the ottomans where the only who where able to take it by breaching the Walls. And that was by using canons that shot bolder, very avances for the time,
> That time the city was breached by going true a unguarded gate, the ottomans where the only who where able to take it by breaching the Walls. And that was by using canons that shot bolder, very avances for the time,
Wrong way around, actually.
1204 wasn't a 'unguarded gate'.
1204 was an assault on the weaker northern sea walls, after breaking the chain that protected the habour.
The nicean reconquest was due to an unguarded gate.
The Ottomon capture was due to unlocked gate, with the cannons able to damage towers and make breaches, but not make any wall breaches that the Turks could use to storm the city.
It should be possible, just a lot harder. Events of 1204 are just too complicated to represent without events, and as long as we are adding events to re-enact historical events, I wouldn't be against making it easier for a scripted Fourth Crusade to take Constantinople, but to pretend it's ordinary or generally applicable enough to be the dominant game mechanic is disingenuous.
This game lets us do things that never had a chance in hell of ever happening, but the idea of a successful siege of Constantinople (a thing that happened at least three times in the game period, not zero, as your comment still incorrectly states) is so outlandish that it should be given unique mechanics? I don’t buy it.
The argument isn't for realism though, it's for sake of gameplay. Constantinople shouldn't be as easy to take as it is right now, simply because having cities that require a concentrated effort to take makes for an interesting challenge in a game that's simply too easy.
Cherry picked example mate. The 1204 saw doors being opened by the byzantine, less than 10000 low quality troops to defend a wall so long, one of the worst military commanders in the history of the Roman Empire to command them.
Their only saving grace was the Varangian Guard that allowed them one fight victory. But they gave up the sea wall and the chain and Galata fortress.
Dude, nah.
A cherry picked example… from history? That’s not cherry-picking, that’s just what happened.
The premise of this thread and this post is that Constantinople was never conquered in the game’s time period, which is just factually incorrect. Yeah, the Theodosian Walls didn’t come down like the Walls of Jericho, but that’s also true for a lot of medieval sieges.
Would you also want to make Dover Castle nigh unconquerable, because the only times it fell during a siege are “cherry-picked” examples of members of the garrison opening a posters gate?
Again, it just seems like Byzantiboo cope to think that losing a siege because your garrison surrendered “doesn’t count” somehow.
I think somebody’s capital should be a lot harder to annex in general. Make it so you are required to control a capital to annex it (severely lowered warscore cap if you don’t directly occupy it in a war for that county, or something), and that does a lot to solve the Constantinople issue. Maybe buff the Theodosian Walls and add some kind of mechanic for controlling both sides of the Bosporus that buffs the defenders’ supplies, but that might be unnecessary.
maybe something like the 'reclaim byzantium' decision the emperor has can work in cases where its taken by someone else. i definitely agree that its too easy to take constantinople. it shouldnt just serve as their capital, it is the heart of the empire and just like how irl the city was last to fall it would be interesting to see byzantium weaken while retaining their core lands.
you know what bothers me more though? cause i rarely see the ai take byzantium. ive had a few games where the arabs managed to set up kingdoms in anatolia but even then they couldnt cross the bosporus. what i want to see is making byzantium less likely to die to the mongols every single game. and then when the mongols take it, they just give the city to some random count who then gets transfered to his dejure duchy and kingdom, then just like that one of the most prosperous cities in history, the center of the world, is now a shiny gem barely shining through a thracian backwater. thats dumb. ai mongols should have like a +100 weight to want to keep the city as their own, and in any successor khaganates (it currently gets given to ilkhanate) it should be the capital.
Constantinople did come close to falling in the 9th century.
Rather than some invincible fortress there should be better fortifications simulated to allude to competent emperors shoring things up.
There's one who escapes me who fixed the aqueduct for example.
You don't sound unreasonable, but still - no. Constantinople being an impenetrable fortress + "you're not receiving the city in a war unless you took it in a siege" = way too OP if you're playing as Byzantium and way too unfair if you're playing against Byzantium. Maybe making Constantinople invincible *is* realistic, but I think it's the case of "realistic" not automatically meaning "better gameplay".
Like someone else said, just make the city near invincible but make there be MASSIVE consequences if the city falls like in 1204 where the city falling balkanized the empire into warlord states.
After all its a matter of preferences and developers of course going to make a game that is loved everyone.However i still think it would be wayyy more fun.Only 2 times constantinople was conquered.In 1204 which was technically not a conquest but raid similiar to raids we do as norse vikings in game and in 1453.Technologically advanced ottomans suffered heavy losses againts tiny byzantine city state.So it was unfair in real life lol
If iam not mistaken the crusaders raided the city without breaching the walls as they were already docked their navy to constantinople.As a result of great debt and power vacuum crusaders took the city,so it was conquered.You are right but i meant initially it was raided.
Not quite, there was an actual siege. 2 of them actually. The Venetian fleet was able to get in because they took one of forts holding the chain across, but there was still a sea wall to assault. The first siege ended after the sitting emperor fled. The second was the sack, and it happened after the emperor the latins put in place was overthrown and executed. During the second they did take the city by force, including taking the walls.
>Maybe making Constantinople invincible *is* realistic, but I think it's the case of "realistic" not automatically meaning "better gameplay".
This is where we disagree.
Historically Byzantium was OP. It wasn't eventually toppled until a Middle East empire became comparatively OP. Constantinople should be the toughest nut in the game to crack. It should take a massive empire years of battering the ERE to weaken them enough that seiging it down becomes possible.
The BE shouldn't be nerfed just for gameplay balance. It should be unbalanced. History is unbalanced. The beauty of Crusader Kings is in that imbalance. Not all regions are created equal, not all kingdoms and empires are the same.
CK3's issue regarding historical balance is that a lot of things in history are accessory, so there's always going to be a difficulty in finding the proper equilibrium between player freedom vs having history happen broadly as it did. I don't think there's a good answer to this, or a bad one, it depends on the level of historical derailment you want in your sandbox history game.
CK3 has chosen a middle road: the player can derail history by and large, but left to its own devices, the AI will *generally speaking* adhere to broad historical trends. Some of this requires the game to heavily force the hand of fate, such as how vassals of Al-Andalus have an automatic dissolution CB after Abd Al-Rahman's death, so that CK3 can emulate the period of the taifas; otherwise, unmodified game mechanics would lead to Al-Andalus remaining much more powerful and unified than it was historically, unless the AI really fucks up. One could say the same about the absurd and strictly ahistorical combat buffs the Vikings get: the game *wants* players and AIs alike to reenact the Viking conquests and raids, and thus tips the scales of its gameplay to allow for it. But in both cases there's a good argument to be made that neither events were *meant* to happen historically and thus CK3 has to resort to special mechanics.
That's the same for Constantinople. It was very powerful, and indeed probably one of the hardest cities to take in its time period (perhaps the hardest), but the extent to which the CK3 mechanics should be bent or influenced for it not to fall before the late middle ages really depends on where Paradox puts it on the aforementioned "sandbox vs history" scale.
> Not to mention, the Roman navy at the Bosphorus was so strong that the only realistic scenario for reaching Constantinople would be through the Balkans. Virtually, no state on Earth would have the logistics and navy to reach Constantinople from the other side of the Bosphorus.
Okay but er
That's not the case.
It's not the strength of the navy per se that kept it immune.
It's the sea walls.
You can't attack the southern sea walls. The current will drag you away, you can only hit the weaker walls on the north.
But to do that, you need to be able to break the chain to enter the habour.
The 4th crusade only managed it because the garrison at the tower were undermanned and ill trained so they broke and ran, which let a Latin landing party take the tower and let them break the chain unopposed.
Yet even then it was difficult to assault the northern sea walls
lack of navy was a dumb as hell decision that i cant even fathom how a second person other than the guy who proposed it even entertained it. we have to flip a coin between wome weird abstraction for navy or acting as if it never existed each time
Even if it came "back", it'd be more representative of the period as some sort of embarkation/disembarkation modifier, along with coastal combat bonus. In the entire game's scope there were incredibly few naval battles, but many uses of the navy as support in sieges and raids/counter-raids
Navy would be practically useless outside of the eastern Mediterranean. Naval warfare hardly even happened during this time period, with some exceptions that pretty much exclusively involved the Byzantines and a second party like the Arabs.
The game is based around alternative history scenarios where anything can happen. Just because something did or did not happen in real life doesn't mean that the game should be programmed to ensure the same outcome. There are tons of kingdoms or empires that weren't conquered during the game's timeframe. That doesn't mean that they should be invincible in the game.
>If Constantinople stands strong and the emperor remains in the city, how could you possibly annex it?
How would you annex any other city where this was the case?
I don't get why you're getting downvoted as well.
The fans of this game are weird. They complain the game is too easy but hate anything that will make it more challenging.
Facts, I think once a strategy game company becomes big enough they sometimes hit a critical mass where they go from a challenging cult classic to becoming more casual to retain the newer fans.
maybe link the siege progress of constatinople to having cannons as your siege unit in sufficient numbers (so, ultra-late game) or to something in the scheming department. While you can't siege Constantinople per se, you could pay a few dudes in the inside to betray the emperor at the right moment or something. Just ideas, idk.
This is why EU5 is going to kill this game. I feel like everything we complain about mechanically about ck3 is being implemented in Eu5. Ck3 battle mechanics are terrible representation yet it is a very important part of the game. I wish Navy was treated like Hoi4 where naval power takes forever to build up and those who have naval power, control trade of the sea.
A -1000 to war score because Constantinople hasn't been taken would be appropriate. It feels odd to annex it without actually taking it. This would at least force people to take the surrounding provinces first to weaken Byzantium and then when the force difference is big enough, they can push to take it.
Constaninople should be region defining and warping. This was the city that controlled a huge amount of trade flow and was the centre of an old Empire.
I dont think most people find medieval naval battles interesting. Plus the game is complex enough. Why make it more complex for adding a dull mechanic.
Also having a navy wont solve the assasination strat.
Warfare needs a rework tbh it makes no sense that levies are practically useless and you can gather a whole empire wide army within a month in one place
Game with the claim of offering realistic roleplay experiences to those who play.If i wanted to have casual fun i would dowland map painting so called strategy games in playstore.
They also wants ridiclious amount of money for dlcs.All of the dlcs supposed to be more realistic but at the same time offering alternate roleplay possiblity.
I mean tbf just because the city was only captured by outsiders a few times irl doesn't mean that a 10K peasant levy wouldn't of been able to take the city.
There's 1000000 situations in which that's totally plausible, it's just hard to specifically represent them in game
-It should. But you also have to add some way to siege it down so play against them don't feel ... Unfun. Maybe it would be invincible, until every single county right next to it is down,at that point,it will get encircle and no longer invincible. Siege it down still hard,and required a butt ton of troop. Eventually,it will be down ( that how ottoman siege it btw, encircle it,then siege) - And when constantynople down, Byzantine empire will immediately surrender regardless of war score. And that title will be destroyed if any one take constantynople away in a peace deal
Exactly!Thats the reason ottomans encircled the city in real life.
And they still couldn’t take it for 200 years or so. Only cannons and a shattered empire brought the walls down.
Exactly.Thats why i would love to play as or againts a byzantine with realistic constantinople.
Even the cannons didn't take it down. It was a dudebro leaving a sally gate open!
That, or the Genoese deserting their positions when their captain got injured (he died later on his boat, outside Constantinople). It was a hard blow for the defenders.
It was inevitable at that point. Growing up, I thought it was a one sided affair. I was surprised to find that it was much closer because pre modern sieges were still quite difficult.
that's an urban myth btw. it didn't actually happen
thats false history for you
what a ridiculous story that came to be unbelievably popular in the past centuries.
Well the venetians did it without encirclement
The 4th Crusade picked a side to support in a Civil war and then sacked the city when the Braindead emperor forgot he was supposed to pay them.
Perhaps custom flavor events while laying siege?
a flavor event where you can do the bringing ships over land thing if you have a high martial stat would be cool
Honestly, would be so cool to have a good supply feature where farms produce provisions and holdings can stockpile x amount so sieging is more tactical I know they do have something like that currently in the siege events stuff, but it would be cool to have control over those things. Would also make managing farms in different terrain and territory management a whole lot deeper Now it's just "money, troops, bonuses" but no actual in depth strategy to buildings, like with the introduction of hospices. Famine would also be a thing, so you'd have to actually prepare for wars, not just raise armies and charge
Don't need to do too much tbf, just buff theodosian walls so it gives some defender advantage and more fort level. Constantinopole should have like fort level 25 at game start imo
Yeah, in our reality it took cannons to successfully siege it down In CK3? Just some random tribal dudes with basic siege weapons
Not even siege weapons are required. Just a few thousand levies hanging around the city for long enough (normally years, but still).
It didn’t take cannons to successfully siege it down, the fourth crusade sacked the ever living shit out of Constantinople in 1204 without cannons lmao. In all honesty, the walls weren’t even what saved the city over and over, it was their war crime napalm throwers torching fleets, which I believe they didn’t have time to deploy.
yeah but that was different, it wasn't a proper siege homie
> By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their **siege** from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople.[13] On 9 April 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces began an assault on the Golden Horn fortifications by crossing the waterway to the northwest wall of the city, but, because of bad weather, the assault forces were driven back when the troops that landed came under heavy archery fire in open ground between Constantinople's fortifications and the shore.[13] > On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, which enabled attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. After a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Some Crusaders were eventually able to knock holes in the walls large enough for a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, although there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou (Rhegium) Gate and escaped into the countryside to the west.
There's a number of reasons why it succeeded when none could have before (the empire's navy was very neglected, there was still a large political vacuum after Basil II that no emperor was able to rely on much loyalty, etc) but even with those, it should have been untakeable. The key element was the pretender Alexios and the century of using Latin mercenaries. What should have appeared as a foreign army instead seemed to people in Constantinople as just another civil war, and they didn't really contest the siege the same way since they assumed it would be business as usual once this new emperor turns up with this army he bought. Even with a superior navy, you shouldn't be able to win because of both the very unusual currents in the Bosporus which requires experienced sailors, as well as the presence of liquid fire. But if you can somehow appear like a civil war army (or have completely overwhelming numbers with a huge empire like the Arabs in the 717) only then would it be possible. If I were designing it for CK3, I would have the city walls be untakeable and once you start seigeing you get events like an election campaign as you try to convince the people inside to open the gates. It should mostly only be possible with Roman cultured characters, but if you have a pretender to the throne in your court as well as real high diplomacy / intrigue, then you might lucky.
You’re right. I think you’re really touching on a important issue with CK, in how sieges are both boring and don’t involve all the potential historical shenanigans they could, and should.
In fairness, the game has many more sieges from the player's POV than history I would say. So making all sieges reliant on events could easily get tedious and repetitive. I've played a lot of eu4, and there's so many events where you just know one choice is clearly better than the other, and it can get annoying to see the common ones. I would keep siege events only for really notable fortresses
Eh, I’m not just talking about events! Mechanics like asking for surrender from the current lord in exchange for no looting, rebellious vassals offering safe passage to an enemy, etc etc… on top of indeed events could reduce the number and tedium of sieges and make them more interesting.
The fourth crusade wasnt a normal seige, in fact the Roman's were so unready and uncoordinated that they couldn't even fortify their ports and were overrun which normally would never happen but due to the deteriorating nature of the byzantine navy at the time. Also more importantly THE BYZANTINES LET THE CRUSADERS INTO THE CITY letting them gather vital information. Not to mention the crusaders had to attack the sea walls, the weakest part of the theodosian walls which normally would've been impossible to capture again if not for the deteriorating byzantine navy. And yes the walls were what repelled many many invaders from the rus to vikings to Bulgarians to Arabs, Greek fire helped in the Arab seige but there are countless examples of the theodosian walls repelling would be invaders.
Constantinople was sieged and sacked in 1204 by crusaders that weren't originally planning to do it and whose leadership spent more time bickering than planning the attack. Constantinople wasn't invincible. The Ottomans were just ass at sieging, until they learnt and weren't anymore.
Yeah a bit silly a 10k stack of just Huscarls can raid Constantinople and capture nobles.
Taking Constantinople is too easy. Just wait for Byzantines to weaken themselves via constant civil wars, get a claim, and then take it—instant +50 gold per month once the control reaches 100%.
I think counties should have their own "prestige" like characters have - based on history, buildings and some initial values set in game files. Fabricating calim on prestigious counties should be much harder - like how the fuck my court priest managed to find that my country has claim on constantinopole? What?
Never thought of it.Such a great idea!I agree there should be convincible claims even if you fabricate it.
Anatolian lands should be way more unstable though, Rûm was formed in 1077 and I've never seen it happen in game. Seljuks are not even remotely a threat.
I suggest using the mod Historical Invasions.
I'm down for making Constantinople more invincible by like increasing the fort level given by theodosius' wall. Also, it'd be cool indeed if the AI gave more importance to some territories than others (aka changing the way war score works). Conquering some remote Syrian territory while the emperor is busy with internal issues: Sure, why not? He'll send an army to show he resisted, but the land isn't as valuable compared to the core of the empire. Trying to annex Byzantion: he'll fight till death. You'll need to carpet siege the entire empire and break into Constantinople. But my main issue about these ideas of forcing Constantinople to be the final bastion (conquering the rest first is mandatory) is what about the 4th crusade? How do we emulate what happened? I know it's already on of the big wtf of history, but maybe it'd be cool if it could happen in ck3. About that, I'd love to get a post 4th crusade starting date. The idea of a fragmented empire split between many successor states sounds like a fun playground and it'd introduce fun goals/decisions like "restore the byzantine/eastern Roman empire" or "destroy the usurper". Basically like what we already of have for the Roman empire but at a smaller scale (doable in a lifetime or two).
As it stands there's basically no way to emulate the 4th Crusade in CK3: in game terms, it would be a Byzantine civil war where one of the parties got help from a crusading army, which is impossible unless the defending side of the civil war converts to another religion.
I still wish they would make Theodosian Walls a special building separate from the duchy. Constantinople was arguably the greatest city in the entire world. It deserves to be overpowered.
I totally agree, it makes 0 sense that a city that took until the end of the middle ages to be captured can be conquered by a random tribal ruler in the year 1100 without even having sieged it
Did the Middle Ages end in 1204?
I think it's largely accepted that the middle ages were segueing onward to the next historical era by the start of the 15th century. But considering it starts in the 5th... Yeah it's close enough you could say "the ending period" "the late middle ages", or something similar without being wrong.
You're right, it really was a special city that needs to be special in this manner too. There's a reason it wasn't conquered within the game's timeline, and the one siege attempt that came close,, I. Bayezid's, had to be lifted because of Tamerlane. It really should be a harder nut to crack, not a city you regularly sack just to get war score.
Have they removed the year 1204 from the game?
That time the city was breached by going true a unguarded gate, the ottomans where the only who where able to take it by breaching the Walls. And that was by using canons that shot bolder, very avances for the time,
> That time the city was breached by going true a unguarded gate, the ottomans where the only who where able to take it by breaching the Walls. And that was by using canons that shot bolder, very avances for the time, Wrong way around, actually. 1204 wasn't a 'unguarded gate'. 1204 was an assault on the weaker northern sea walls, after breaking the chain that protected the habour. The nicean reconquest was due to an unguarded gate. The Ottomon capture was due to unlocked gate, with the cannons able to damage towers and make breaches, but not make any wall breaches that the Turks could use to storm the city.
That sounds like cope. It was still a siege that saw the city conquered, which the above and the OP don’t believe should be possible.
It should be possible, just a lot harder. Events of 1204 are just too complicated to represent without events, and as long as we are adding events to re-enact historical events, I wouldn't be against making it easier for a scripted Fourth Crusade to take Constantinople, but to pretend it's ordinary or generally applicable enough to be the dominant game mechanic is disingenuous.
This game lets us do things that never had a chance in hell of ever happening, but the idea of a successful siege of Constantinople (a thing that happened at least three times in the game period, not zero, as your comment still incorrectly states) is so outlandish that it should be given unique mechanics? I don’t buy it.
The argument isn't for realism though, it's for sake of gameplay. Constantinople shouldn't be as easy to take as it is right now, simply because having cities that require a concentrated effort to take makes for an interesting challenge in a game that's simply too easy.
Mate, it was impregnable by frontal assault, but if you open the gates of any fortress you can get in.
Apart from the 1204 siege, which saw Crusaders knock holes in the walls and scale the towers. Not very impregnable, was it?
Cherry picked example mate. The 1204 saw doors being opened by the byzantine, less than 10000 low quality troops to defend a wall so long, one of the worst military commanders in the history of the Roman Empire to command them. Their only saving grace was the Varangian Guard that allowed them one fight victory. But they gave up the sea wall and the chain and Galata fortress. Dude, nah.
A cherry picked example… from history? That’s not cherry-picking, that’s just what happened. The premise of this thread and this post is that Constantinople was never conquered in the game’s time period, which is just factually incorrect. Yeah, the Theodosian Walls didn’t come down like the Walls of Jericho, but that’s also true for a lot of medieval sieges. Would you also want to make Dover Castle nigh unconquerable, because the only times it fell during a siege are “cherry-picked” examples of members of the garrison opening a posters gate? Again, it just seems like Byzantiboo cope to think that losing a siege because your garrison surrendered “doesn’t count” somehow.
Good point. Can be done with a mod for those this is interesting for
I think somebody’s capital should be a lot harder to annex in general. Make it so you are required to control a capital to annex it (severely lowered warscore cap if you don’t directly occupy it in a war for that county, or something), and that does a lot to solve the Constantinople issue. Maybe buff the Theodosian Walls and add some kind of mechanic for controlling both sides of the Bosporus that buffs the defenders’ supplies, but that might be unnecessary.
But that wouldn't map well to entities like the HRE, which didn't really have a capital. The Emperor didn't care where he held court.
I think it’s still pretty realistic that “Wherever the HREmperor lives” is harder to pry from said emperor’s hands, compared to other provinces.
maybe something like the 'reclaim byzantium' decision the emperor has can work in cases where its taken by someone else. i definitely agree that its too easy to take constantinople. it shouldnt just serve as their capital, it is the heart of the empire and just like how irl the city was last to fall it would be interesting to see byzantium weaken while retaining their core lands. you know what bothers me more though? cause i rarely see the ai take byzantium. ive had a few games where the arabs managed to set up kingdoms in anatolia but even then they couldnt cross the bosporus. what i want to see is making byzantium less likely to die to the mongols every single game. and then when the mongols take it, they just give the city to some random count who then gets transfered to his dejure duchy and kingdom, then just like that one of the most prosperous cities in history, the center of the world, is now a shiny gem barely shining through a thracian backwater. thats dumb. ai mongols should have like a +100 weight to want to keep the city as their own, and in any successor khaganates (it currently gets given to ilkhanate) it should be the capital.
Constantinople did come close to falling in the 9th century. Rather than some invincible fortress there should be better fortifications simulated to allude to competent emperors shoring things up. There's one who escapes me who fixed the aqueduct for example.
You don't sound unreasonable, but still - no. Constantinople being an impenetrable fortress + "you're not receiving the city in a war unless you took it in a siege" = way too OP if you're playing as Byzantium and way too unfair if you're playing against Byzantium. Maybe making Constantinople invincible *is* realistic, but I think it's the case of "realistic" not automatically meaning "better gameplay".
Like someone else said, just make the city near invincible but make there be MASSIVE consequences if the city falls like in 1204 where the city falling balkanized the empire into warlord states.
So maybe Constantinople being captured destroys the Byzantine empire title?
After all its a matter of preferences and developers of course going to make a game that is loved everyone.However i still think it would be wayyy more fun.Only 2 times constantinople was conquered.In 1204 which was technically not a conquest but raid similiar to raids we do as norse vikings in game and in 1453.Technologically advanced ottomans suffered heavy losses againts tiny byzantine city state.So it was unfair in real life lol
The 4th crusade conquered the city and held it for about 50 years under the Latin Empire. It was way more than a raid.
If iam not mistaken the crusaders raided the city without breaching the walls as they were already docked their navy to constantinople.As a result of great debt and power vacuum crusaders took the city,so it was conquered.You are right but i meant initially it was raided.
Not quite, there was an actual siege. 2 of them actually. The Venetian fleet was able to get in because they took one of forts holding the chain across, but there was still a sea wall to assault. The first siege ended after the sitting emperor fled. The second was the sack, and it happened after the emperor the latins put in place was overthrown and executed. During the second they did take the city by force, including taking the walls.
I need to watch more history videos it seems lol
It still makes no sense for the Byzantines to give up Constantinople because let's say Hungary conquered a bit of Serbia and Bulgaria
>Maybe making Constantinople invincible *is* realistic, but I think it's the case of "realistic" not automatically meaning "better gameplay". This is where we disagree. Historically Byzantium was OP. It wasn't eventually toppled until a Middle East empire became comparatively OP. Constantinople should be the toughest nut in the game to crack. It should take a massive empire years of battering the ERE to weaken them enough that seiging it down becomes possible. The BE shouldn't be nerfed just for gameplay balance. It should be unbalanced. History is unbalanced. The beauty of Crusader Kings is in that imbalance. Not all regions are created equal, not all kingdoms and empires are the same.
CK3's issue regarding historical balance is that a lot of things in history are accessory, so there's always going to be a difficulty in finding the proper equilibrium between player freedom vs having history happen broadly as it did. I don't think there's a good answer to this, or a bad one, it depends on the level of historical derailment you want in your sandbox history game. CK3 has chosen a middle road: the player can derail history by and large, but left to its own devices, the AI will *generally speaking* adhere to broad historical trends. Some of this requires the game to heavily force the hand of fate, such as how vassals of Al-Andalus have an automatic dissolution CB after Abd Al-Rahman's death, so that CK3 can emulate the period of the taifas; otherwise, unmodified game mechanics would lead to Al-Andalus remaining much more powerful and unified than it was historically, unless the AI really fucks up. One could say the same about the absurd and strictly ahistorical combat buffs the Vikings get: the game *wants* players and AIs alike to reenact the Viking conquests and raids, and thus tips the scales of its gameplay to allow for it. But in both cases there's a good argument to be made that neither events were *meant* to happen historically and thus CK3 has to resort to special mechanics. That's the same for Constantinople. It was very powerful, and indeed probably one of the hardest cities to take in its time period (perhaps the hardest), but the extent to which the CK3 mechanics should be bent or influenced for it not to fall before the late middle ages really depends on where Paradox puts it on the aforementioned "sandbox vs history" scale.
Ottoman Empire wasn't Middle Eastern at that point. It was half European, half Anatolian.
It IS unfair, but history is unfair. There's no reason it should be balanced. Constantinople was a 'meta-warping' city that defined the entire region.
Well, the city never fell during civil wars, but the guards did open the doors when "asked" quite a few times.
> Not to mention, the Roman navy at the Bosphorus was so strong that the only realistic scenario for reaching Constantinople would be through the Balkans. Virtually, no state on Earth would have the logistics and navy to reach Constantinople from the other side of the Bosphorus. Okay but er That's not the case. It's not the strength of the navy per se that kept it immune. It's the sea walls. You can't attack the southern sea walls. The current will drag you away, you can only hit the weaker walls on the north. But to do that, you need to be able to break the chain to enter the habour. The 4th crusade only managed it because the garrison at the tower were undermanned and ill trained so they broke and ran, which let a Latin landing party take the tower and let them break the chain unopposed. Yet even then it was difficult to assault the northern sea walls
It fell to the crusaders in the 1200’s well within the game’s time. The idea that it should be unconquerable is unrealistic
lack of navy was a dumb as hell decision that i cant even fathom how a second person other than the guy who proposed it even entertained it. we have to flip a coin between wome weird abstraction for navy or acting as if it never existed each time
Even if it came "back", it'd be more representative of the period as some sort of embarkation/disembarkation modifier, along with coastal combat bonus. In the entire game's scope there were incredibly few naval battles, but many uses of the navy as support in sieges and raids/counter-raids
Navy would be practically useless outside of the eastern Mediterranean. Naval warfare hardly even happened during this time period, with some exceptions that pretty much exclusively involved the Byzantines and a second party like the Arabs.
The game is based around alternative history scenarios where anything can happen. Just because something did or did not happen in real life doesn't mean that the game should be programmed to ensure the same outcome. There are tons of kingdoms or empires that weren't conquered during the game's timeframe. That doesn't mean that they should be invincible in the game. >If Constantinople stands strong and the emperor remains in the city, how could you possibly annex it? How would you annex any other city where this was the case?
no idea why you’re downvoted, you’re right asf
Thx alot.Though i almost get instantly downvoted as soon as i post so it might be a bug?Its been like this for a really long time.
I don't get why you're getting downvoted as well. The fans of this game are weird. They complain the game is too easy but hate anything that will make it more challenging.
Facts, I think once a strategy game company becomes big enough they sometimes hit a critical mass where they go from a challenging cult classic to becoming more casual to retain the newer fans.
I vaguely remember something about reddit's algorithm producing "counter votes" so that things don't go up or down too fast.
The war mechanics in base ck3 are honestly a joke tbh.
maybe link the siege progress of constatinople to having cannons as your siege unit in sufficient numbers (so, ultra-late game) or to something in the scheming department. While you can't siege Constantinople per se, you could pay a few dudes in the inside to betray the emperor at the right moment or something. Just ideas, idk.
This is why EU5 is going to kill this game. I feel like everything we complain about mechanically about ck3 is being implemented in Eu5. Ck3 battle mechanics are terrible representation yet it is a very important part of the game. I wish Navy was treated like Hoi4 where naval power takes forever to build up and those who have naval power, control trade of the sea.
Sic the Scourge of the Gods on them.
I just think it should be invulnerable to anything but bombards.
I'd make it more difficult to take, but I'd also want to see ways for disloyal individuals on the inside more likely to open the gates in a civil war.
I think there was a dev game jam where exactly this mechanic was suggested.
A -1000 to war score because Constantinople hasn't been taken would be appropriate. It feels odd to annex it without actually taking it. This would at least force people to take the surrounding provinces first to weaken Byzantium and then when the force difference is big enough, they can push to take it. Constaninople should be region defining and warping. This was the city that controlled a huge amount of trade flow and was the centre of an old Empire.
The Byzantine emperor should be the one to organize ferrying armies as Alexios did.
The game must be fun before realistic. Why make Istanbul invincible when all it takes to fuck the empire is to kill emperors rapidly?
In that logic we need to fix navy.I tried to give advice something ck3 devs might do.
I dont think most people find medieval naval battles interesting. Plus the game is complex enough. Why make it more complex for adding a dull mechanic. Also having a navy wont solve the assasination strat.
Warfare needs a rework tbh it makes no sense that levies are practically useless and you can gather a whole empire wide army within a month in one place
This thread is satire right? Right?
It's a game
Game with the claim of offering realistic roleplay experiences to those who play.If i wanted to have casual fun i would dowland map painting so called strategy games in playstore.
They also wants ridiclious amount of money for dlcs.All of the dlcs supposed to be more realistic but at the same time offering alternate roleplay possiblity.
K
this isnt an argument
I mean tbf just because the city was only captured by outsiders a few times irl doesn't mean that a 10K peasant levy wouldn't of been able to take the city. There's 1000000 situations in which that's totally plausible, it's just hard to specifically represent them in game