Quote Originally Posted by Mount Suribachi
Kraxis - you make valid points about the decline of the Moors and Byzantines. I think lower loyalty generals/princes giving more civil wars and rebellions would be a better way for the game to reflect this decline. As it is I don't MTW has anywhere near enough civil wars for any of the factions, let alone those like the Byzantines who were crippled by them (I've only ever had1, when I stoopidly got my King killed by friendly fire).
I second that. While there was the 60% loyalty drop and civil wars for other reasons I think that the factions were much too stable. One of the mail reasons the "Christians" (quite often in name only) were unable to expel the Moors was due to internal upheaval; Spain was a cesspool of politics. Yes the Elmos or whatever you call them did suffer a decline later on as their culture/religion was very conservative and did not change rapidly enough. They were quite advanced in other areas while brutally oppressive in others.

Even early on the different Islamic regions did not always cooperate. They mostly received their guidance from the Caliphate in modern Iraq but they were far from one cohesive empire (much like Christendom).

On Muslim expansion and trade: MTW 1.1 was right to put a lot of emphasis on trade as the closure of the Mediterranean trade had horrible repercussions for Europe. It would be nice to see an AI that can trade better when at peace. Historically Christians did not trade with the Musulman (or however Pirenne spells it) early on except for the Venetians et al. I also think that the Black Death should feature prominently in the game. The increase in trade after tensions cooled allowed it to spread into Europe. After it hit, everything changed. I know the game should still be "fun" and that would be a real downer but more attention to the plague and the Medieval cooling period would provide another welcome challenge to the game.