TheGryphonPrince
King
MedIOT: A Game of Medieval Politics and warfare
Welcome to MedIOT! This game is, as the title will suggest, set on the medieval ages. This IOT was inspired by, *drums roll* Crusader Kings II. However, I swear I won’t make it half as complex as that. I promise. However, this RP involves a lot of roleplaying in peacetime. You can use gamey tactics all you want though, but it's strongly discouraged.
So let’s get to the basics of the IOT.
Income
The income you have depends on how many provinces you have. All provinces give you 30 income.
Armies
Your army is broken in three parts.
Normal armies cost 250 gold to create and they cost 50 gold to maintain. Fleets costs 400 gold to create and 80 to maintain.
For every 5 provinces you automatically have a peasant army. Since you automatically gain peasant armies, you may choose not to deploy them or deploy a few of them when at war. Peasant armies take 2 turns to deploy. They have no maintenance (unless deployed, which then have 75% less maintenance than normal armies) but have 50% less strength.
Battles are decided by probability, which is mostly affected by army size.
Stability
Your stability naturally increases by 5% every turn, but it also depends on various other things. Mainly how your subjects fit in with your nation.
Your subjects, depending on how similar are on you, will be loyal or rebellious if you are too different. If you are on France and you are Catholic and French, your subjects will be loyal to you. If your nation is too big, or it spreads in lands very different of eachother (for example, an empire that rules Italy, Spain, Greece, Tunisia and southern Russia), it will also suffer penalties which will eventually lead to rebellion.
Stability is measured by percentages and, depending on how high and low they are, they may also affect your taxation and for every 1% positive or negative, you will have 1% positive or negative bonus in taxation that, when negative, may affect up to 75% of your taxes.
Stability is also affected by other factors, such as how different your provinces are from eachother, roleplaying, etc. In short, common sense will tell you what will put your nation in a very stable mood or about to collapse.
Religion
General stuff about religions
All religions will be on the map like most religions IRL. (Although if your story is convincing enough, I might change that) Areas like Russia are places where you may choose whatever religion you want but an area like France will stay loyal to Catholicism.
You may start an alliance with someone from other faith, though you will suffer a penalty. Allying yourself with someone from a different branch of your religion (Catholic with Orthodox for instance) will give you 7% stability penalty. Allying yourself with someone from other religion (Catholic with Sunni for instance) will give you 20% stability penalty. Allying yourself with a heretic from your religion (Catholic with Cathar for instance) will give you 30% stability penalty.
Religious heads, in special cases, might call for Crusades/Jihads/Holy Wars. For example, the pope might call a crusade on Jerusalem if the year is after 1090 or Rome falls to infidels, or the Caliph will call a crusade on Mecca if it falls to the infidels.
If a religion is faring badly (losing territories to infidels, having rulers of the religion convert to an infidel religion, etc) there will appear heresies. Heresies, unless a ruler embraces them, are never a good sign and need to be exterminated immediately or else they might spring into a rebellion against the ruler. While a strong empire might handle them, a weak ruler will have a very bad time if they spread. The stronger the moral authority of a heresy is, the faster they’ll spread. If they have more territories than their father branch, they will replace said branch as the head of the religion and the former branch will become a heresy instead.
Example: If Catharism has more moral power than Catholicism, and is big in comparison to Catholicism, Catharism will replace Catholicism and Catholicism will become a Cathar heresy.
Converting from an organized religion to another organized religion (EG: Catholic to Sunni) will give you a 30% stability hit and 50% hit for crown authority/tribal unification for feudal kingdoms/tribes/khanates. This penalty will double if you convert to unreformed paganism (EG: Reformed Norse to Old Slavic).
Christianity
Catholicism
Catholicism is the religion predominant in most of Western Europe and widespread in Eastern Europe. The head of the Catholics is the pope, which will be represented by the papal state and which will have its territory placed at the start of the game in a convenient location. You may attack the pope, but you’ll suffer severe penalties like excommunication, a crusade called against you and other nasty stuff.
The unique features of Catholicism are that, when stability is at very high, the nation will get 25% bonus at income (because the priests like their ruler more than the Pope).
Orthodoxy
Orthodoxy is the predominant religion of South-Eastern Europe. It does not have one head (save the Patriarch of Constantinople), but rather several heads subjected to the desires of their lords. A patriarch may be summoned once a nation has 30 provinces. If an orthodox territory doesn’t belong to an orthodox nation with its own patriarch, it will be assigned to the closest patriarch. A ruler may call for excommunication on lands which are under his own patriarch. In addition
For example: If all of Russia is Orthodox and it only has one nation with more than 30 provinces, which is Novgorod, most of Russia will be subject to the patriarch of Novgorod. The Duke of Southern Finland may call for the excommunication of Kiev, but may not call for an excommunication of Bulgaria since he belongs to the Patriarch of Constantinopile.
Eastern
Eastern Christianity represents the Nestorian, Ethiopian and Armenian churches. They are predominant in parts of the Middle East (such as Armenia and Northern Mesopotamia) and also in Ethiopia. They don’t have a single religious head, but they have multiple heads that work like the orthodox.
Islam
The head of the religion is the caliph from their respective branch. The caliph will be randomly selected from the nations at the start of the game. Heresies don’t start with a proper caliph, but if they grow strong enough they can declare themselves caliphs.
Sunni
Sunni Islam is predominant in Arabia, North Africa, Southern Hispania and parts of Sicily.
Shi’a
Shi’a Muslims are predominant in Persia.
Pagan
Pagans are predominant in areas like Northern Russia, Finland and Tartaria.
The pagans are especially strong when it comes at war and infidels suffer penalties (40% less military strength) when attacking pagans. However, they also suffer instability problems more than any other nation (10% less stability). It is also harder for them to convert infidels and infidels have a higher revolt risk.
Pagans may also declare their own pseudo-wars known as raiding. This is not a war de jure, so you may not conquer a territory nor the raided can conquer yours, but you instead can loot the enemy’s territories. For every province raided, you will gain 150 gold.
However, if a pagan kingdom grows strong and big enough, they may reform their faith, which will remove the instability problems attributed to being a pagan, they may convert infidels easier and may even send missionaries from their branch to convert other pagans. They will lose, however, most of their military strengths as pagans and their enemies will no longer suffer so many penalties.
The pagan religion is not one huge religion but rather several religions like the other branches. I am just too lazy to come up with special mechanics for even a couple of them. Their penalty from allying with other of their branch (say, Norse with Finnish) is also reduced to 5%.
A pagan kingdom which converts to other religion will receive a 15% stability bonus, a 5% income bonus, a 25% chance that a province converts to the religion you converted to and will have the side effects of having people from other religion removed (side effects from pagans are removed permanently, but you will get 25% less taxation in pagan provinces). All of these bonuses last for 10 turns. You may only convert to another religion if you are 5 territories away from the closest province or nation having said religion.
Just for fun, also try restoring Greek, Germanic and pre-arab cults
. Just for fun, I'm going to allow you to join as a pagan in those areas.Zoroastrians
Zoroastrians are predominant in Northern Persia and are located between Persia and Tartaria. Although they are already an organized religion, they may “reform” themselves and become even stronger (that is, if they don’t start out with Persia or something like that) and they will also gain features similar to catholicism.
Government
Feudal kingdom
Feudal kingdoms are the governments predominant in Western, Central and parts of Southern Europe, as well as in Russia and on some places of the muslim world. If a feudal kingdom manages to maintain a stable kingdom (stability must be very high) and with a powerful crown authority, it will evolve into an absolutist kingdom.
Crown authority is the measure of how powerful your king is. At first, it starts at a minimal level, but as long as the nation doesn't suffer many rebellions, it will increase very slowly. Crown authority is measured by a percentage and when you have positive stability, it will increase crown authority by 5% per turn. Negative stability won't affect crown authority unless stability falls below 25%, which will then decrease crown authority by 3%. A heretic/religious/cultural rebellion will reduce crown authority by 3% and a feudal rebellion will reduce it by 5%. If a rebellion is successful, it will decrease crown authority by 7% (if said rebellion takes over a country, it will decrease crown authority by 15%). Once crown authority is by 90%, you may proclaim yourself an absolute king.
Feudal kings have armies that have 10% more power than other armies, but have a 20% stability penalty.
Absolutist kingdom
Absolutist kingdoms are predominant in the Muslim areas and in much of Southern Europe (see: Greece and the Byzantine Empire). An absolutist kingdom is a type of government where the king reigns supreme over their subjects. An absolutist kingdom is free of many of the problems that plague a feudal kingdom, but they suffer a bigger revolt risk thanks to their oppression on peasants. For this matter, the only kingdoms that may start absolutist are Muslim and Southern European kings. Absolutist kings have armies which are 30% more powerful but they have 10% revolt risk when they rule over areas which differ from their opinion.
Tribes/Khanates
Tribes/Khanates are a more exaggerated version of the feudal kingdoms and may only exist in Pagan, Muslim or Zoroastrian nations and must be located in the east of Europe or Central Asia. Tribes/khanates can convert to feudal kingdoms if they are unified enough. The tribal unification mechanic works the same way as crown authority, except that it doesn't decrease save in the dire situation where the stability is below 70%.
If a tribe/khanate converts to Christianity, it will automatically become a feudal kingdom. They have 30% more strength and have 20% less maintenance but are 30% more unstable.
Republics
Republics are predominant in much of Italy and the Baltic Sea. Republics are meant for very small kingdoms or kingdoms which are small in their local area but have “colonies” in the rest of Europe. They have 30% more income (their capital province has 3x more income) but 40% less military strength and can become unstable once they have more than 30 provinces.
The one rule
The one rule is that your nation must make minimal amount of sense. You can make a Sultanate of Greece if you want (although you’ll suffer rebellions from the Orthodox population), but a pagan crusader equestrian khanate of France in Ethiopia won’t cut it.
Map
I removed India since I don't know enough about it to put it into the game and Mali since, well, it would be boring trying to play as Mali.
Spoiler :
Joining
Simply state the basic things of your nation (name, government, religion, etc.), give yourself some claims and you’re all set.
The claims may be very big, but not too much (France and England is fine, but not an Empire ruling the Middle East, all of North Africa, all of Hispania and France). Be aware that, the bigger you start as, the less stability you have. For every territory you claim, you lose 0.15% stability.
Other stuff
Russia is pretty much for grabs for any religion. Tartaria can also be grabbed by any religion (save christians).
There are other two religions which aren't mentioned but you may join as. Judaism in very small areas around the map or as kingdoms in Russia or Tartaria, and Yazidis in Mesopotamia. Both of them will also have surrounding NPCs following their same religion.
Roleplaying events, of course, will also have a say on your stability, income and crown authority. Mary Sues (that is, people that are roleplaying only to receive positive bonuses with little to no backfiring) will be warned at first, and if said warning is ignored, they will suffer.
Yes, if the game survives that far, there will be mongols.
Updates happen every 4 days.
Turns
Timeline + Turn 1 (1066)
