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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.
 
Can you also somehow look into limiting AI blobbing and being just ridiculous (I understand that's what CK2 is basically about) but still it can be sometimes a big turn off. I want to be a French King managing my French Kingdom that's basically the province of Roman Gaul without seeing Byzantium owning the Kingdom of Perm and sticking to it's more historic Mediterranean area or being a Byzantine Emperor without having Karling King being Pagan, owning France and having his primary title as Kingdom of Saxony or Kingdom of Denmark.
 
Can you also somehow look into limiting AI blobbing and being just ridiculous (I understand that's what CK2 is basically about) but still it can be sometimes a big turn off. I want to be a French King managing my French Kingdom that's basically the province of Roman Gaul without seeing Byzantium owning the Kingdom of Perm and sticking to it's more historic Mediterranean area or being a Byzantine Emperor without having Karling King being Pagan, owning France and having his primary title as Kingdom of Saxony or Kingdom of Denmark.

Seconding this, one of my biggest turnoffs is the byzantine blobbing into the north and east.
54e235fc9afdfc4f0154e769ce6b3de4.png
 
This is great but this should extend to vassals as well. The same logic can be applied at this level too, say I am the holy roman emperor and a random count owns provinces on in the opposite sides of Europe. It is the in the same realm but it would be as well, logically, hard to control that territory.

To me, internal border gore is far more frustrating, as I can attack Scotland for my land if I am the Byzantine emperor, but revoking a province in the middle of Anatolia from the king of Italy is just messier, because now I will incur tyranny penalties, a possibility of a revolt, and that king will now forever hate me.
 
This is great but this should extend to vassals as well. The same logic can be applied at this level too, say I am the holy roman emperor and a random count owns provinces on in the opposite sides of Europe. It is the in the same realm but it would be as well, logically, hard to control that territory.

To me, internal border gore is far more frustrating, as I can attack Scotland for my land if I am the Byzantine emperor, but revoking a province in the middle of Anatolia from the king of Italy is just messier, because now I will incur tyranny penalties, a possibility of a revolt, and that king will now forever hate me.

Internal bordergore DID exist... did you even see maps of France or the HRE in this era?
 
@Aventius: your Saxony and France example isn’t the best possible example, since you need both (and more), if the goal is to restore the Empire of Charlemagne. Though that seems more appropriate as an ambition for a Catholic ruler than a Pagan one.
 
Seconding this, one of my biggest turnoffs is the byzantine blobbing into the north and east.
54e235fc9afdfc4f0154e769ce6b3de4.png
I swear I uninstalled CK2 for hundreds of times just in order to install it again after 5 minutes because of things like that.
@Aventius: your Saxony and France example isn’t the best possible example, since you need both (and more), if the goal is to restore the Empire of Charlemagne. Though that seems more appropriate as an ambition for a Catholic ruler than a Pagan one.
That happens when AI is playing not me and it's just ridiculous in my opinion.
 
We need french portraits DLC

I agree and this can be accompanied with West & South Slavic and Magyar Portrait DLCs.
If we look at how the Mediterranean Portraits were redone, with a redrawn and a new one; then this would be a two birds one stone solution (since there also is a demand for new Portrait DLCs for the parts of Central Europe, which also still use the Western European Portrait Pack).
 
Speaking about a portraits. It would be even more cool if mechanism of mixing of characters be realized.
if Ethiopian meets Roman, a mulatto with traits of both nations is what we will get.
... sorry for racism...
allegedly the same is working for others
I believe it really could make a game more interesting for female market sector.
... sorry for sexism ..
 
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I understand the feature, but I disagree with it being 100% of the time. Vassalage, in my understanding, already implies significantly independent, but simply willing to be allegiant.

If you're dedicated to this code, I would suggest perhaps a 2nd rule option, something like a roll against diplomacy, tech-level, and prestige of the new ruler.

Could go even further, and make the roll stats dependent on the holdings in the territory. For instance, each holding in the territory adds a factor. A city would check against tax level, distance, culture, prestige, diplomacy, and faith, and drop the results as one factor. A temple could check against faith, piety, distance, levy/tax etc. A castle might check against culture, distance, war-skill, prestige, etc. etc.

New to this game, but impressed with the depth.
 
I understand the feature, but I disagree with it being 100% of the time. Vassalage, in my understanding, already implies significantly independent, but simply willing to be allegiant.

If you're dedicated to this code, I would suggest perhaps a 2nd rule option, something like a roll against diplomacy, tech-level, and prestige of the new ruler.

Could go even further, and make the roll stats dependent on the holdings in the territory. For instance, each holding in the territory adds a factor. A city would check against tax level, distance, culture, prestige, diplomacy, and faith, and drop the results as one factor. A temple could check against faith, piety, distance, levy/tax etc. A castle might check against culture, distance, war-skill, prestige, etc. etc.

New to this game, but impressed with the depth.
or a possibility to sell such province to...anyone who's interested
maybe to a vassal itself...oh God...
 
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I understand the feature, but I disagree with it being 100% of the time. Vassalage, in my understanding, already implies significantly independent, but simply willing to be allegiant.

If you're dedicated to this code, I would suggest perhaps a 2nd rule option, something like a roll against diplomacy, tech-level, and prestige of the new ruler.

Could go even further, and make the roll stats dependent on the holdings in the territory. For instance, each holding in the territory adds a factor. A city would check against tax level, distance, culture, prestige, diplomacy, and faith, and drop the results as one factor. A temple could check against faith, piety, distance, levy/tax etc. A castle might check against culture, distance, war-skill, prestige, etc. etc.

New to this game, but impressed with the depth.

Nothing of this would help to elimante it. The AI would still keep it and it would still look ugly.
 
May 1st is a pulbic holiday in Sweden, so chances are the devs have the day off because that gives them a long weekend.
 
Can you also somehow look into limiting AI blobbing and being just ridiculous (I understand that's what CK2 is basically about) but still it can be sometimes a big turn off. I want to be a French King managing my French Kingdom that's basically the province of Roman Gaul without seeing Byzantium owning the Kingdom of Perm and sticking to it's more historic Mediterranean area or being a Byzantine Emperor without having Karling King being Pagan, owning France and having his primary title as Kingdom of Saxony or Kingdom of Denmark.

Seeing how real life history allowed such abominations as Holy Roman Empire to exist ("not Holy not Roman not Empire"), or Habsburg patchwork empire...
 
..("not Holy not Roman not Empire")

18th century quote, thus irrelevant.

or Habsburg patchwork empire.
Habsburg empire is not a medieval phenomenon, thus also irrelevant.

Context matters.

Please leave those comments to the EU forums.
Thanks :cool: