Hey guys, I'm currently stumped with my current game and it seems to boil down to one question. Is there any advantage to being the defender in a war rather than attacking?
I started as Palermo (Shia just to be clear, only other Shia state of worth are the Fatimids) and I'm now Sicily and have all of the kingdom of sicily and a few duchies in Italy. Of course this now means I'm facing down both the HRE and the Byzantines who will both happily declare holy wars on my territory when not busy elsewhere. Of course, I can declare holy wars and such back against them, so considering that I know they'll declare war at some point is there any benefit to waiting instead of just attacking?
From what I can tell, if I'm on the defensive I stand to lose territory if I lose, and if I win (white peace since getting 100% warscore would probably be too difficult) I simply gain a truce for 10 years and I can't press the advantage and try to get something tangible from the victory without breaking the truce, and dismissing/regathering my armies from far away.
If I decide instead to attack, then I stand to gain territory if I win, and if I lose I simply lose I gain a truce which lets me rebuild and lose some prestige, piety and money depending on what type of war and how badly I lose, none of which is a big loss in my eyes.
The truce doesn't help much besides letting me replenish my armies because my expansion options are: swipe territory from the HRE (which is what I've been doing by taking advantage of their internal strife whenever possible) or declare a holy war for something overseas, which means I'm fighting either France for Corsica (HRE would probably jump in, no way I'd win), Croatia/Provence/Genoa (same problem), Byantines for something (I'd win by calling in the Fatimids but they could implode from decadence any moment now) or one of the two smaller (4-8 territory) Sunni states in north Africa, but the Almoravids (who are huge) might jump in.
For completeness sake here's most of the world map, I'm the Kalbids in southern Italy. The Almoravids hold Granada and such, and most of the west of the HRE is independent and mostly grouped into Lower Burgundy but all the independent states there are grey as well which is irritating.