CK2 Dev Diary #78 - Polishing up the Map

[Me_]

Yeah, this one was the most time appropriate I could find : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbols_of_Kraków#/media/FileOL_Kraków_COA.svg


Arthur

The eagle in the gate is a later addition, here's a sigil from 1343 with a kneeling man instead https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Krakowa#/media/File:Pieczec_krakow.jpg

 

[elvain]

View attachment 331597
View attachment 331598

I found two scans of maps from history books which could help you to rework Bohemia and Moravia to more historical look. One is from 13th century. I underlined cities which could be suitable for naming provinces. Second map shows king's cities in the 14th century. I’ll start with Moravia, it's easier to repair.

1) Please, rework the province of Znojmo. It's a Moravian king's city on the Austrian border and it protected the border from enemy's advance many times. It was one of the three seats of what is in czech called "údělné knížectví" (small duchy for minor branch of Premyslid dynasty). Other ones were Brno and Olomouc. I recommend to rename County of Hradec (Kralove) to County of Znojmo or Jihlava (Moravian city on the Bohemian border) and the other city to be made into a barony of that province. You could move old baronies of Trebic, Mikulov to Moravia, or delete them (the third barony is called "Iglau" - that's in German "Jihlava"). Old province of Znojmo in the place between Moravia and Danube could be renamed to something that is in Austria (someone here wanted a rework of german-speaking regions).
In 867 start the old County of Znojmo (part of Duchy of Österreich) is a part of Great Moravia. That’s a good thing - in that time it was really a part of Moravia (nowadays historians think that in that time Moravia was something slightly different than it is now). Bad thing about it is that in game it's still in the Duchy of Österreich (but there could be an inspiration in the Duchy of Powys, which in one start is de iure and after that only titular duchy)...

2) Please rename County of Hradec (Kralove) to County of Znojmo or Jihlava. Hradec Králové is city in eastern Bohemia. Also, baronies of Pardubice, Chrudim and Litomysl are Bohemian towns. Please, move it all to Bohemia, for example by replacing the County of Boleslav. It could be a good idea to move the fourth holding slot to the County of Brno or Olomouc - they were richer.

3) County of Brno is quite fine in the old version. The only strange thing is that there is Velehrad (for Great Moravia) as a barony, but no Barony of Brno...

4) County of Olomouc was also fine. In the new version of the map the County of Hradec (in my point 2 renamed to County of Jihlava or Znojmo) is strangely drawn out so that the old County of Boleslav and Olomouc have no borders. It would be better move it back - north of Moravia (Jeseniky Mountains etc.) wasn't connected as much with the west of Moravia.

5) If you would like to have a more detailed map not only of Poland but also of Bohemia, it could be a good idea to add County of Opava. Later it became a part of Silesia, but in the time of the game it still is in Moravia and the seat of a cadet branch of Premyslid dynasty).

6) Now to the Duchy of Bohemia - County of Boleslav. I recommend to replace it with the old County of Hradec (Kralove) and it's baronies (Pardubice, Chrudim, Litomysl - not Iglau - that's Jihlava). Only Barony of Glatz (in czech Kladsko) could stay there, but it depends on the limit of holdings that you prefer.

7) Prague. It's really great that you moved Elbe (Labe) and Vltava to flow in a more realistic way, but County of Litomerice is way too big now. Maybe bigger Prague or old Boleslav could be a solution. On the other hand, it's fine that in the new map you can’t go directly from Moravia to Prague
It would also be nice if you made Czech version of the Barony of Kuttenberg - "Kutná Hora". Or it would be a good name for a province if you created a more detailed map of Bohemia

8) Holdings in the County of Domazlice lie partly in south-west Bohemia which is in the old map between C. of Domazlice and Pilsen. Beside Domazlice it's also the case of Barony of Hohenfurth (Vyšší Brod in Czech - translation could be fine).

I hope it will help you to improve the map

Good suggestion and helpfull suggestion.
Though I would have few notes:
1) I think that Moravian provinces should be Olomouc, Brno and Znojmo, since these 3 were the seats of Moravian Premyslid "principalities", and then possibly Opava. Jihlava was important mining city, but its political influence was way behind the 3 mentioned. Opava would deserve its province in case that Moravia gets its 4th province added.

2) Kutná Hora / Kuttenberg should not be separate province. Its importance starts in the 14th century, so quite late for CK2. That area on border of Bohemia and Moravia between Prague and Moravia should be covered by Hradec province. In order not to make it too large, I think the area of the north of Bohemia should belong to Litomerice/Leitmeritz. Then on the western bank of Elbe there could be province of Žatec to cover the north-west Bohemia. Žatec has been one of the most important cities in Bohemia since the very early periods, so it would be less anachronistic.

3) the south is problematic, since there is no natural center which could be dated before mid 13th century. It would look weird to have province of Budejovice in 1066, or even more in 867/769, when Budejovice was founded 200 (400/500) years later. Since all local centres (Netolice, Prachen, Chynov and Doudleby) were only small towns none of which had ever held any importance, I would suggest to call the province South Bohemia instead. Its starting baronies should be the 4 centers with perhaps Vyšší Brod and then Budejovice/Budweis and Rosenberg/Rožmberk to rise as local baronies later on.

So basically the province setup for Bohemia could be
Praha (center)
Plzen (west)
South Bohemia/Jižní Čechy (south)
Hradec (east and north east)
Litomerice (north)
if they'd be willing to add one more (6th) county to d_Bohemia, it should be
Zatec (north, west of Elbe) with Litomerice being moved little eastwerds

 

[madaszo]

Where is Gniezno?

 

[AndrejK]

Greetings!

We’re working away, and we’ve been working away for quite some time now - it’s just much too early to go into detail on what we’re doing yet, but rest assured that we have a lot of interesting stuff going on!

Without spoiling the theme of the upcoming expansion, we want to give you something to look at and discuss. In addition to all the theme-specific features we’re making, we’re also slowly working our way through some of the more neglected areas of the map, correcting mistakes and increasing the granularity of the playing field. Here’s one such area, Poland:
View attachment 331233

- Map Update to Poland
    - General overhaul to the De Jure territory of the Kingdom of Poland
    - Vistula (major) river tweaked to be more geographically accurate
    - (Minor) river Oder tweaked for more geographical accuracy
    - (Minor) rivers Warta and Bug added
    - 6 new provinces, mostly improving granularity in Mazovia and Lesser Poland
    - All old provinces moved and reshaped for more consistency
    - Some updated provincial Coats of Arms

Later this spring (date yet TBD) we’ll release a bug-fixing patch, so remember to head over to the bug forums and report any issues you find.

Please note that the time between Dev Diaries will be irregular, as we’re very early in the development cycle.

Yes yes yes

 

[Matihood1]

so where is Rawa and Łęczyca? or Gniezno !

Where is Gniezno?

Gniezno is apparently going to be a part of the Kalisz province now. No idea about the other 2 though.

 

[Ksiendzu]

Also, if you want to make 4 counties out of the 5 yellow regions of the map, you should probably merge Sieradz and Łęczyca (like it was done in the old version of CK2), and not Kujawy and Łęczyca. Sieradz and Łęczyca had more common history than all the other possible pairs (maybe except Kujawy and Dobrzyń, but they are on different sides of Vistula, and players love to have borders on major rivers).

Of course it'd also be a good idea to just have 5 counties here.

View attachment 331317

Great suggestion!

 

[Matihood1]

Finally, that map before was horrible.
@rageair I hope you are also changing the towns (baronies) names. It is even more horrible. The worst example are Lubusz and Szczecin counties, they share three (!) towns - Cedynia, Pyrzyce and Myślibórz. Lubusz has them in Polish, Szczecin in german with Cedynia in Latin for some reason. To add insult to injury, Pyrzyce in Lubusz is written with typo. Also I think at least one town should be actually in old Brenna province by looking at the map. There are many such cases in entire Polish region and some other slavic/baltic provinces near it. This was really done by someone with no historical or graphical knowledge at all. I hope that person was fired.
I started to add polish (and some pommeranian/bohemian) counties/baronies names to the landed_titles.txt, where I should post/send them so you could add them in incoming patch? Could you also send me final landed_titles.txt, so I could update it to new provinces and towns which will be added in next patch? I already see things needing change, one province is called "Nowa Marchia". Pommeranians or Poles wouldn't call their land using german term.

It's not just that. IIRC there are 2 holdings caled "Grodno" - one using Polish spelling and the other using Belarusian spelling (Hrodna) in provinces of Grodno and Trakai. I really hope the devs finally take care of it. Also, I definitely agree Poles wouldn't use the name "Nowa Marchia" because it was a name introduced by the Germans and used only by them.

 

[Ruwaard]

@martas33 & @elvain, wouldn't Bohemia benefit from a separate, albeit smallish province of Glatz/Kladsko/Klodzko? As for the current Znojmo province in Austria, you better add a Traungau (Oberösterreich) and a Österreich (Niederösterreich) province instead.

 

[Urzhail64]

I don't know much of those particular Slavs...
But polish is always welcome in Poland.

(that sounded weird)

There's already Polish who speak Polish in Poland. Just polishing up your quote...

 

[MagicBird.Mo]

hello, this is the debate test for my silence account.

 

[Slime99]

hello, this is the debate test for my silence account.

what do you mean by "debate test"?

 

[performer]

Yay, Dev Diaries return.


Also it seems that CK2 is nearing its end

Why are some people so interested in "the end of CK2"? The game is still phantastic, a CK3 is not needed right now - and would need years and years to rech the quality of CK2.

 

[elvain]

@martas33 & @elvain, wouldn't Bohemia benefit from a separate, albeit smallish province of Glatz/Kladsko/Klodzko? As for the current Znojmo province in Austria, you better add a Traungau (Oberösterreich) and a Österreich (Niederösterreich) province instead.

I would add @Wenceslaus II. to this question too...

That would definitely make sense. Glatz/Kladsko/Klodzko was in fact the only region within Bohemia which had lasting status of separate unit within borders of Bohemia and then leaned towards Silesia.
The major negative is that it is too small and Bohemia IMHO needs other divisions. And since It is very specific, we can't help ourselves by expanding it into other Bohemian regions.
I'm somehow undecided. I would love to have it added, but since it is too small and Bohemia might require other provinces to be added, we might end up with 7-province duchy, which would be way too much.

 

[DisorderlyFashion]

"Polishing the Map" - "Polishing" - "Polish" - "Poland"

Punny.

 

[Woifee]

"Polishing the Map" - "Polishing" - "Polish" - "Poland"

Punny.

 

[noknok]

Thanks for the insights.

Paradox - if you are considering map updates, please consider changing what is now called Grissons to something like Bellinzona or some historical correct name for the area Bellinzona controlled.

Graubunden is not a fitting name for this period. Graubunden was firstly used in 1442.

During the middle ages the largest part of this area was ruled by tha Prince Bishop of Chur. So Chur as a province makes sense.

But yes. Grison should be renamed to something else. Even Bellinzona would be more fitting.

 

[Calahir]

I would add @Wenceslaus II. to this question too...

That would definitely make sense. Glatz/Kladsko/Klodzko was in fact the only region within Bohemia which had lasting status of separate unit within borders of Bohemia and then leaned towards Silesia.
The major negative is that it is too small and Bohemia IMHO needs other divisions. And since It is very specific, we can't help ourselves by expanding it into other Bohemian regions.
I'm somehow undecided. I would love to have it added, but since it is too small and Bohemia might require other provinces to be added, we might end up with 7-province duchy, which would be way too much.

Why would it be too much? Kingdom of Bohemia was a major player in the Medieval European politics considering its constant meddling in German and Polish affairs, its wealth and its economic prowess. I believe if there is any country that the game does not do its justice, it is Bohemia. Take into account that while Bohemia has 8 provinces, Wales (without Cornwall) has 6 and Ireland 13 (which is ludicrous in relation to Bohemia). Finland (without Estonia), such poor and backward piece of wood (no offence, I'm talking about Middle Ages) has 9 provinces... Neither of them deserve to be more powerful or nearly as much potent as Bohemia was.

 

[Woifee]

Bohemia can be strengthened by adding holdings and holding slots.

It derserves to be a powerfull kingdom.

 

[Slime99]

Why would it be too much? Kingdom of Bohemia was a major player in the Medieval European politics considering its constant meddling in German and Polish affairs, its wealth and its economic prowess. I believe if there is any country that the game does not do its justice, it is Bohemia. Take into account that while Bohemia has 8 provinces, Wales (without Cornwall) has 6 and Ireland 13 (which is ludicrous in relation to Bohemia). Finland (without Estonia), such poor and backward piece of wood (no offence, I'm talking about Middle Ages) has 9 provinces... Neither of them deserve to be more powerful or nearly as much potent as Bohemia was.

Well Ireland is splitted by different nations and Finland is tribal and also divided. Although, I get your point and Bohemia could indeed use a couple more holdings.

 

[Prometheus_1]

so when will we get new Expansions ?

I really hope to see the follwing Expansions:

1 Asia Terriroty , from South east Indonesia to China , Mongolia and Japan.
2 well you added Aztecs , Add then the western lands possibly, or a way to have a fantasy world discovery like in EUIV
3 Continuation in EUIV timeframe since dinasties kept exhisting till very modern times.
4 More events, more Events, more events.
5 More ideas and micromanagements
6 Macroregions that can be developed by nomads into smaller regions by building settlements.
More stuff!