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CK2 Dev Diary #81 - Cleaning up the Map

Greetings!

The last few Dev Diaries have had you visit the Cartographer’s office to look at several reworked areas of the map - while there are more, we don’t want to show them all in a row, lest we risk you getting bored of them!

Today we will instead take a look at a minor free feature, an optional new Game Rule that might just help those of us that really can’t stand irregular borders! Like the map changes, this change will arrive in the free update that will accompany the next expansion. This feature is a pet project of mine, and an attempt to cure situations such as these:
Bordergore_example.png

As you can see in this example, Scotland holds a province in mainland Anatolia. There’s no logical way for them to control this territory - there’s no land connection, it’s not connected via ports, and it’s not part of their De Jure area.

The Game Rule is called ‘Exclave Independence', and aims to do just that - set exclaves independent. Being an optional Game Rule, it’s very modular, and is mainly intended as a tool for increasing immersion.
Exclave_GR.png


The Scotland example pictured previously is really the worst case scenario, and would be covered by any of the settings. As the ruler of Scotland dies, the game will try to identify any ‘exclaves’ and take appropriate action. If there are rulers whose land is completely situated in an exclave, they will be set independent, otherwise a peasant leader will seize control of the land. In this case the result will look like this:
Bordergore_cured.png


I can tell you that, if you’re like me, the difference playing with this Game Rule is like night and day. After a few hundred years you’ll no longer have a map that makes you want to claw your eyes out! As I mentioned earlier there are many different settings, and here is a full list of them:
Added the ‘Exclave Independence’ Game Rule, with the purpose of eliminating disconnected land on succession. As long as the new ruler during a succession isn’t at war, their exclaves should be set independent according to the setting. If the AI is at war during succession, they will try to remove exclaves once every year until such a time they are no longer at war (does not apply to Players). Settings:
  • Off - The default option, no removal.
  • Limited - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected to the Capital area with gaps no larger than one County, via a naval path or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Limited (Naval) - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected to the Capital area with gaps no larger than one County, via a limited naval path (1000 distance units) or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Significant - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected via a naval path or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Harsh - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless as they are connected via a limited naval path (1000 distance units) or part of the characters primary De Jure.
  • Total - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless as they are connected via a limited naval path (1000 distance units). Disables Achievements.

To show a more tangible example, I loaded up an old save and added the Game Rule to it. It looked like this:
Exclave_ex2.png


After the death of the ruler of the Mongol Empire (the light blue spots) the result produced this:
Exclave_cure_mongol.png


And after the death of the King of Bengal:
Exclave_cure2.png

As you can see, the two Mongol provinces were overtaken by Peasant Leaders as they were much too far away from their steppe overlords. Bengals land, on the other hand, simply had the vassals declare independence, as they held no land in non-exclave land.

I hope this small feature will be of interest to some of you, in the next DD we will return to the cartographer's office with another exciting update!

Please note that the time between Dev Diaries will be irregular, as we’re still early in the development cycle.
 
Its a little blunt but I like it overall. Will definitely try it and see whether it works well right away or perhaps needs modding/further refinement by Paradox in future patches.

Edit: Might be interesting to have events for second sons asking for exclaves or some mechanic/ai feature to direct the AI to land family members/loyal vassals/courtiers/commanders in soon to be lost exclaves so random peasant'ss don't always get the land :).
 
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Small suggestion: from usability point and flexibility better to divide whole thing to 2 rules:
Exclave Independence - Off, Limited, Significant, Harsh, Total.
and Naval distance limit - 0 (naval border doesn't count at all), 500, 1000, Unlimited (same ocean).
 
I've seen random counts inherit random other counties on the other side of the continent before. A two-county count with one county in Finland and the other in Castille definitely shouldn't be exempt from the rule.
Maybe if there's only one realm between you and the land?
 
Game Rule feature is probably the best thing ever added to CK2.

People here are debating whether distance of 1000 is too high or too low. Some believe the very feature about exclaves is perhaps pointless, since there was bordergore in real history. But we now get to tweak the feature, even turn it off. And I'm sure it will be possible to change the distance eventually, either by mods or by an official game rule.

Let us just appreciate this awesome feature...
And you still get to play with ironman in a lot of those options to earn achievements. Those who would argue you should 'mod it out' are both saying you have to mess around with mods and that you can't go for achievements if you want to change something slightly about the game. The game rules make that much more flexible. They're also great for mods as well, since you can use them to turn on or off specific features about mods if you do or don't want to play with them, without needing submods or a long series of start up events to choose those options.
 
And you still get to play with ironman in a lot of those options to earn achievements. Those who would argue you should 'mod it out' are both saying you have to mess around with mods and that you can't go for achievements if you want to change something slightly about the game. The game rules make that much more flexible. They're also great for mods as well, since you can use them to turn on or off specific features about mods if you do or don't want to play with them, without needing submods or a long series of start up events to choose those options.
You really should try modding. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable. I mean I love game rules too.
 
But there is already a mod with the same name that does the same thing practically.
 
Just a suggestion/request. Any chance that the allowable enclave distance could be set by government type and mode (ie overland or by boat ?). Holy Orders and other Theocracies might have max_exclave_distance_land of 10000 (ie effectively infinite) but with say a max_exclave_distance_naval or only 100 because they generally didn't have lots of boats, naturally the opposite would be true of MRs.

This would introduce an extra dimension to government modding allowing modders to add custom dispersed government types (eg variations of MRs or societies) or governments that had zero opportunity for dispersal (ie highly centralized bureaucracies).
 
First of many kingdoms in this era had no capitals, but the capital was simply the castle where the king currently held court, secondly pretty much every time there was a dynasty shift, heck it wasn't all that uncommon for it to shift with every succession look at the HRE during the Hohenstaufen and the early abassid caliphs.
Exactly this; and a monarch would often have to tour around and drop in on a vassal, to maybe hunt and take a look at the levies/finances, and make sure the vassal isn't filling any taverns up with manure etc.
In England, one of the big gripes behind the Magna Carta, and fixing the judicial capital at Westminster was that it was really expensive to track down the king's court when you needed justice, because he could be anywhere.
 
Exactly this; and a monarch would often have to tour around and drop in on a vassal, to maybe hunt and take a look at the levies/finances, and make sure the vassal isn't filling any taverns up with manure etc.
In England, one of the big gripes behind the Magna Carta, and fixing the judicial capital at Westminster was that it was really expensive to track down the king's court when you needed justice, because he could be anywhere.
Sees resonable one of the clauses of Sweden's counterpart Alsnö Stadga is that neither the king nor his nobles can drop in unannounced on their subjects and demand to be housed and fed.
 
So out of curiosity, what is a distance unit? What's an example of 1000 distance units?

Quoth Meneth:

Anything with a port in the Strait of Gibraltar is just above 1000 to anything with a port in the Nile Delta.
Gibraltar to Suf (Jerusalem) is 1130.
Gibraltar to Cornwall is 710ish.
Austisland to Nidaros is 760ish.
Prussia to Castile is just around 1000.

Note that those are naval distance unit, not distance as the crow flies. As the crow flies, I believe Paris -> Navarra is around 300.
 
Yes, this is amazing. The amount of time the immersion of a game is killed when Hungary or Mongolia or Castille has random blobs all over the place is mind boggling. Thank you Paradox !
 
This is a dream come true. I can't wait for the patch and the new DLC. Instant buy.