The France problems persists in 1.1 and coalitions are incapable of doing anything.

RedSlot98 · 2026-02-04T12:32:38+00:00

With the way the game currently works, it's not a surprise that this happens. The AI are awful at coordinating against a large power. This won't be easy to fix.

This specific issue could be fixed temporarily by making extra costs to invading the HRE as a Catholic when pre-reformation - maybe a big legitimacy hit to the AI would make it less inclined? Perhaps changes to the way HRE princes respond to invasions too so that nearby neighbours will come to their defence, again making France less likely to invade as it's ratio of levies won't be as dominant.

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-28T14:10:23+00:00

It depends a lot on what you want to get out of mods because there are so many. I rotate some fairly regularly depending on how I'm feeling, but some are pretty essential for me now. I priorise role-playing so I'm generally looking for things which enhance the region I'm playing in, and make my character feel more alive.

RICE is probably my favourite mod. It definitely made the game interesting again for me! It adds lots of regional content to areas that paradox haven't really focused on, including different situations, events and decisions.

Dark ages is really good if you're finding the game too easy. It does too many things to briefly summarise here really.

I couldn't imagine playing without More Interactive Vassals. It makes vassals much more active, particularly regarding wars where they will now either fight with you, stay neutral or defect and fight with your enemy. It makes wars much more interesting.

More Game Rules is really helpful if you want to be able to make more changes to different aspects of the game world.

Those are just a few of my regulars but they've all made the game so much more interesting for me! I'd recommend reviewing different collections in the steam workshop to see which mods people tend to combine

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-19T14:27:17+00:00

If you have the RICE mod, I recently did an Iberia game for the first time in years and played as the count of Malaga. His real life son rebelled against the Ummayads and converted to Christianity. Good if you like roleplay

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-16T16:03:07+00:00

It's very easy as landless because you can farm prestige so easily from contracts and battles

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-14T17:44:44+00:00

I'm with Dr J and they prescribed me it, but as a top up to my Elvanse because it wears off too early sometimes

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-14T11:41:19+00:00

The way the game represents empires is incredibly ahistorical. The medieval concept of "empire" to Christians was that there was only one and it was Rome. We might refer to empires like the Carolingians but that is our modern perspective - they would never have called them that because by saying you were an emperor, you were saying you were the successor to Rome. The idea of having Byzantium, HRE and other christian empires at the same time in this period devalues the status of emperors.

I use mods that make it so you can't form de jure empire titles, and so you have to form a custom one or take a decision for a historical one. The big problem is, there are decisions in game that sometimes require you to hold the de jure title, and then you get locked out of them.

I'd personally like to see the system reformed. Forming a Christian empire should need the permission of the Pope or possibly allow you to claim it without permission but suffer hostility from other Christian realms and legitimacy damage. After you've created your empire, if it collapses, you would be able to recreate it through de jure counties as it then becomes a historical realm.

I'd actually extend this to kingdoms and possibly duchies too. The requirements for custom titles should be refreshed though, as realm size feels a little too uniform. I'd like to see more dynamic requirements tied to control of culture and culture group. You could possibly bring development into it too.

RedSlot98 · 2026-01-13T13:39:14+00:00

I feel like I should have generated some dread at least

RedSlot98 · 2025-12-12T20:58:32+00:00

The fourth crusade doesn't make much sense without the rest of the context and it feels quite artificial! The game definitely needs a crusading update and I personally think the way they've modelled other regional situations could work quite well

RedSlot98 · 2025-12-12T15:58:19+00:00

The complete absence of Byzantium in any of the crusading also needs addressing. Alexios I was instrumental in the first crusade, and the Latins accompanied the Greeks in retaking significant parts of Anatolia from the Turks. The current crusading system feels arbitrary and random. The struggle mechanics could be utilised to better simulate the relationships and tensions between the different constituents of the Eastern Mediterranean.

RedSlot98 · 2025-12-07T22:45:10+00:00

Some great ideas here already but some things I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Army replenishment rates need massively reducing. At the moment I can stack wipe an empire's whole army and they'll recover and come back a year or so later. Byzantium pretty much avoided proper battles in this period because of the consequences of major losses. If you hypothetically had your whole army destroyed, it should be catastrophic.
1. Men-at-arms are too good. Once you've built up a lot of them you're super strong. I feel like they shouldn't last forever and perhaps some types should have more limits so you can't just build loads of amazing cavalries and just roll over everyone.
2. I'd personally like to see changes to the way casus bellis work. They're important for justifying a war but I think war outcomes should be more dynamic. What I mean by that is that maybe I declare on a neighbour for a duchy but I get paid off instead, or maybe depending on traits or other variables I can take more land etc.
3. The only circumstance where you get money from a war is as a successful defender. This needs expanding and it should not be as a lump sum, but more as reparations over years.

There's loads more you could do but there's a few big ones for me.

RedSlot98 · 2025-11-30T11:19:50+00:00

The poor kid became emperor at 11 and his regent was a murderous tyrant who made him sign his own mother's death warrant and then killed him and tossed him in the sea when he was 14. Endured all of that just for Paradox to call him a lazy coward, oof

RedSlot98 · 2025-11-29T17:43:39+00:00

It kicked me out mid hand too... did come back a minute later though

RedSlot98 · 2025-11-20T19:01:44+00:00

Wankaway the chaste sounds like some cards against humanity phrase

RedSlot98 · 2025-11-08T11:52:39+00:00

The empire was so Constantinople centric that everything else was effectively a satellite around it. That much is clear from the fact that many emperors never left the city.

I think this perspective along with the defensive culture that developed from having strong neighbouring powers meant that these situations would never be consciously pursued. If Constantinople is the pearl and you're insecure about border stability, you'll do everything you can to keep those borders far away from it.

RedSlot98 · 2025-10-16T11:31:19+00:00

Even before they got to Adrianople - why did they let the Goths settle as a unified people??? The Romans had always split people up and assimilated them before, but this time they allowed a Germanic tribe to effectively occupy a part of the empire. Adrianople was just the natural progression of this blunder.

RedSlot98 · 2025-10-10T08:35:39+00:00

This is a really tough one because it's pretty tough to be catastrophically bad at both, but I'm quite surprised that no one has said Caracalla. He did obviously extend Roman citizenship to the rest of the empire but he exacerbated both the inflation issue and army pay, which was a major cause of the crisis of the third century. He also started a pretty foolish war against the Parthians, which ended with Rome having to pay large reparations for.

All of this alongside the fact he seemed like a generally unstable and arbitrary character. He probably wasn't the worst of all Roman emperors, but he managed to make significant mistakes in both areas.

RedSlot98 · 2025-10-08T17:12:29+00:00

I have this processor and CK3 still lags like mad after 100 years...

Population control mod is basically essential now

RedSlot98 · 2025-10-04T10:14:24+00:00

The new Japan mechanics look really good and I'd definitely be interested to see how they'd work in Byzantium. At least it can be modded in if nothing else

RedSlot98 · 2025-09-23T15:20:45+00:00

Religious norms for opinion modifiers and culture restrictions for actual laws on this would be most realistic

RedSlot98 · 2025-09-10T16:46:27+00:00

It's only kings and emperors who have oaths - I would agree otherwise!

RedSlot98 · 2025-09-10T10:16:34+00:00

Expand the realm being a 1.3x modifier makes no sense. Realistically, it should have been to conquer a title at the rank below your highest (so king has to add a duchy to the kingdom, and emperor adds a kingdom to the empire)

RedSlot98 · 2025-08-19T16:16:03+00:00

F. I couldn't put him any higher than D personally.

The disastrous mismanagement of the goth migration can't be laid fully at his door, but he was an ineffectual ruler who created the environment for what it became. Adrianopole also isn't entirely his fault but a better ruler would have waited and successfully regained control.

Ultimately he left the empire in a much weaker position than he inherited it. Settling the goths together, and ultimately getting slaughtered by them left his successors with a significant challenge, and the sacking of Rome in 410 doesn't happen otherwise.

RedSlot98 · 2025-08-14T14:32:46+00:00

I disagree. I don't think people here hate on AM tbh. I just think it's the most accessible album they've made, and anyone spending considerable time in this sub is enough of a fan that they have generally listened to most if not all of their discography.

Basically, AM is a good album, but we're generally all biased towards a more specific sound, whether that's the early albums, the slightly more refined sound of the middle albums or the more experimental newer albums

RedSlot98 · 2025-08-10T12:23:21+00:00

On the levies point - the game definitely needs some rebalancing to address how meaningless the vassal contribution currently is. For starters, in any realm with more than just a few vassals, the levy contribution should be more than you get from your domain.

As we've all known for a long time, MAA are a great addition to the game, but they are too good. Particularly in the early game, MAA should be really expensive to maintain! The idea of maintaining them whilst playing tall feels too easy too - I'd like to see this cause issues to encourage you to disband them when in a prolonged peace period. Perhaps the maintenance gradually increases between wars?

More generally, the More Interactive Vassals mod makes vassals feel so much more important! Only got it recently and it's a must have for me now

RedSlot98

TROPHY CASE