Holy wars. How do they work?

[Marcus Butthurticus]

I seen twice now, how Muslims and Vikings in a offensive holy war got pretty much every SINGLE vassal with them. As in joining! While we defend ourself as Caprarthia and Byzans against this, no one care to join among our vassals. They simply rather either sit and watch or fight among each others.

I can understand the muslims being the last state on the map among muslims. But a Scandinavia with Great Britain plus Gardariki, Northern France, Germany and Western/Central Iberina peninsula g etting hundreds of hundreds of thousands of troops that was so many that we could not stop it with our combined effort. Why is this? Why is our vassals not joining?

We have 100 authority and the Norse about 75. Is the AI so stupid it do not understand when to join? Just thinking 100 > 75 and not giving a fricks about people joining in the conflict?

[Nocturnal]

You should have access to (most of) your vassals' troops. They won't "join your fights" because you just use their troops in their place.

[Marcus Butthurticus]

But so did the Scandinavian player and the Umayyad AI. This was extreme. As if every single vassal was player controlled.

[Razorblade]

Originally posted by Marcus Butthurticus:

But so did the Scandinavian player and the Umayyad AI. This was extreme. As if every single vassal was player controlled.

Vikings have tribal vassals. As for the Umayyads, you are simply mistaken. They either had allies, or were just using vassal levies.
Edit: Unless its a Great Holy War (Crusade, Jihad, etc.), but that is completely different from a Holy War.

[Surimi]

Great holy wars (including crusades and jihads) are an exception to the rule that vassals cannot join a war started by their liege. Anyone of the same religion can join them, and often will. This only applies to the aggressor, and it is why they are so devastating and can only be used once every 30 years.

[Marcus Butthurticus]

I say this is some "BS" tier thing. The Defender, lets say a dying faith would in my opinion be more keen to call out to it's people for defence of the faith. Also, Ortodox got the whip of no great holy war at all, right? So why is this so? We can just sit there and be slowly eaten up by a rabid viking while we waith for EU4 then.

[Surimi]

Originally posted by Marcus Butthurticus:

I say this is some "BS" tier thing. The Defender, lets say a dying faith would in my opinion be more keen to call out to it's people for defence of the faith. Also, Ortodox got the whip of no great holy war at all, right? So why is this so? We can just sit there and be slowly eaten up by a rabid viking while we waith for EU4 then.

The reason the Orthodox has no crusades is because there is no papal primacy and therefore no single authority figure capable of uniting the entire Orthodox world. While the ecumenical patriarch is theoretically head of the church, he has no direct power to compel the other autocephalous patriarchs.

Addititionally, Orthodoxy in this period was deeply associated with the Byzantine Empire, in which the Emperor was considered to be above the ecumenical patriarch in authority, unlike in the Latin world where (with the possible exception of the Holy Roman Emperor) the pope was considered to have direct authority over secular kings and therefore had more ability to make demands on them. Finally, and probably as a result of this, the Orthodox church was just less militant than the Catholic church and had less of a direct hand in going out and killing the heathens.

It's debatable whether "Jihads" in Islam ever really existed in the way they're represented in game, but again, Islam did have a single religious authority (the Caliph) and a doctrine of exceptional holy war under which it became every Muslim's duty to contribute or participate. What the game doesn't represent very well is quite how difficult it often was to invoke Jihad.. the Mongols, for example, despite destroying the Islamic golden age and killing probably millions of Muslims were religiously tolerant and allowed their subjects (the ones they didn't kill) to practice Islam freely. This meant resisting the Mongols was often seen as a matter of politics rather than religion and greatly weakened Islamic resistance. The crusaders, however, weren't so tolerant and thus it was much easier to invoke Jihad against them.

So no. It's not about willingness, it's about authority. An Orthodox Byzantine Emperor can legally compel his subjects to fight for him, but he cannot compel them to take up arms independently out of religious duty because he doesn't have that authority.

[Marcus Butthurticus]

Well, why do Vikings get it? It is not a good arguement to point to history. I mean, vikings never did any Greater Holy Wars. I would say for balance, atleast give the Ortodox a "Roman Empire Call to Great War" or something. We can not at all, do anything to counter this insane feudal viking. This is also before the tribal holding patch so both me and viking player got no tribal holdings.

[Surimi]

Originally posted by Marcus Butthurticus:

Well, why do Vikings get it?

They don't.

They have to reform religion first, which means radically deviating from history and in some ways losing many of the advantages of being vikings.

Orthodox characters can do that to. You know how? Convert to Catholicism. You lose all the advantages of autocephalcy (such as the ability to tax your churches) but you gain a single religious authority who can call crusades.

I suppose hypothetically Paradox could add an "enforce caesaropapism" decision for the Roman Empire to make the Emperor the religious head of the Orthodox church, but considering the ridiculous advantages the Roman Emperor gets anyway it would need to be accompanied by some major limiting factors, like possibly creating huge religious unrest (like reforming the pagan faiths tends to do).

[Nocturnal]

Doesn't the tooltip say that any member of the same faith can join a defendant of a holy war after it has been declared?

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by Deep Hurting:

Originally posted by Marcus Butthurticus:

Well, why do Vikings get it?

They don't.

They have to reform religion first, which means radically deviating from history and in some ways losing many of the advantages of being vikings.

Amen to that. Well a viking amen. Losing the 50% retinue bonus and halving your own personal levies hurts. Also, suddenly all that gold stacked up from raiding gets depleted. Quickly. Being feudal means spending a ton more gold than as tribal. I've already regretted a lot reforming and adopting feudalism. Oh sweet 500 prestige 2500 man army.... I could easily get way too much prestige and freely wage any war I wanted to, even if it was only to conquer a single province... *sigh*

[Marcus Butthurticus]

Originally posted by Deep Hurting:

Originally posted by Marcus Butthurticus:

Well, why do Vikings get it?

They don't.

They have to reform religion first, which means radically deviating from history and in some ways losing many of the advantages of being vikings.

Orthodox characters can do that to. You know how? Convert to Catholicism. You lose all the advantages of autocephalcy (such as the ability to tax your churches) but you gain a single religious authority who can call crusades.

I suppose hypothetically Paradox could add an "enforce caesaropapism" decision for the Roman Empire to make the Emperor the religious head of the Orthodox church, but considering the ridiculous advantages the Roman Emperor gets anyway it would need to be accompanied by some major limiting factors, like possibly creating huge religious unrest (like reforming the pagan faiths tends to do).

Clearly it is not enough when 1/4 of the map vikings conquer a 3/4 Ortodox Roman Empire-Carpathian super alliance and will continue to do so and never show any sign of weakness. Being catholic? Can you even mend the schism as a catholic?

I do not buy that. Even the collapsing Umayyad put up a fight to the Roman Empire with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Great Holy War where 20-100 vassals hop in on.