• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

CK2 Dev Diary #84 - Renovating Russia

Greetings!

Today we’re going back into the cartographer’s office to view the latest maps of the vast lands that lie just before the eternal steppes, where the Volga flows - the land of the proud Rus’. The Russian lands have always felt rather underdeveloped in CK2 compared to their size, even very important sites such as Kiev or Novgorod have been occupied by massive Counties that hardly give the area justice. As the area is one which lies in between the lords of feudal western europe, the Roman remnants in Byzantium and the relentless nomads of the steppes we thought it much too interesting to not develop further.

As Russia is quite big, we’ve broken the images up into three parts. These pictures are all from the year 769, so if something isn’t named as you expect it to be (i.e. Novgorod being named Ilmen) that’s the reason why.

Starting off with the north:
RussiaDD_North.png

As you can see, the definition has increased rather significantly. Historicity has also been improved, as the new borders are all based on sources from between the years ~600 to ~1300 (From proto-slavic tribes migrating in the area to the dissolution of the Kievan Rus' by internal strife and the Mongol hordes) with a focus on the 700-1100 timespan.

Now the south:
RussiaDD_South.png

Of primary note is that Kiev is now split up, and no longer one single humongous County. Those of you with sharp eyes might also notice that there is a new nomadic nation up by Radimichia and Severia - the Burtas clan, which is Turkic.

And as a bonus, Wallachia:
RussiaDD_Wallachia.png

As Bessarabia was so interconnected with the Kievan and Crimean lands, it felt right to also give the kingdom of Wallachia a facelift.

And now for the De Jure maps, as they have been requested in every previous map Dev Diary so far!

Duchies:
RussiaDD_769DeJureDuchies.png


Kingdoms:
RussiaDD_769DeJureKingdoms.png


You may notice that the old Rus’ kingdom is gone, replaced with the much more historical kingdoms of Novgorod and Vladimir. There are also several new smaller kingdoms, such as Galicia-Volhynia and Chernigov which both provide new opportunities and new risks, depending on if you’re playing in the Tribal era or Feudal era.

Empires:
RussiaDD_769DeJureEmpires.png

There was no doubt that the Tartarian empire was too big, that’s why when we had to add to it (the Kingdom of Perm is now part of it instead of Russia) we felt the need to break it up. In the south you can now see an empire of the Pontic Steppe - closely representing the Khazarian sphere of influence at its height.

Here’s a screenshot of how the 867 setup will look:
RussiaDD_867.png

And here’s 1066:
RussiaDD_1066.png

The major thing in this date is that after Yaroslav the Wise's death in 1054, his land in the Kievan Rus was divided between his 5 sons. Internal strife erupted quickly after between the sons and other relatives (like the prince of Polotsk), hurting the stability of the state.

That's why although the Kievan Rus' still existed as somewhat centralized around the Grand Prince of Kiev, at least for a while, unity wasn't the key word to describe the state. We've reflected that by keeping the different duchies independent but still tributaries to Kiev - until civil war starts again when brothers, sons, and cousins start pushing for their claims...

Changelog:
Code:
- Map Update to Russia
   - Major overhaul of the whole russian sphere
    - All major & minor rivers reshaped
    - e_russia is now created through 5 kingdoms (Ruthenia, Novgorod, Vladimir, Chernigov & Galicia-Volhynia)
    - 3 new kingdoms : Vladimir, Chernigov, Galicia-Volhynia
    - k_rus renamed from "Rus" to "Novgorod"
    - 4 new duchies (Cherven Cities, Karachev, Novosil, Murom)
    - 37 new provinces added to the general area
    - A few titular russian-tribes-themed duchies added for earlier startdates

Note that from now on, CK2 Dev Diaries will take place on Fridays rather than Mondays!
 
... No, I was actually being serious. I think we even said so earlier in this thread, that we have no DD planned for today :p
If not a dev diary, could we at least get a hint about what the next week's friday DD will show? So we aren't left starving for an entire week, please :D
 
After all the misconceptions people got about it last time, I really rather not repeat that :eek:
Uh, well, I see your point on that. Maybe it should be something a little more clear and simplistic for our fellow heads to comprehend, or at least clarify these are purely "dev suggestions" or something :confused:. But hey, too much joy makes it all feel stale, so a little longer break is going to pay off when the DD finally comes :D
 
Het is Vrijdag. Waar is mijn nieuws?
Helaas, je zal nog een weekje moeten wachten op het Ontwikkelaarsdagboek van Kruistochtkoningen 2 :p
 
Since we have one more week for speculation...

I'm a bit surprised that the fenno-ugric (for all I know, which admitedly is very little when it comes to this part of the world) kingdom of Perm gets mixed in with the very altaïc empire of Tartaria, even when the dev admits that it's always been too big to their taste. Especially when there are two other fenno-ugric kingdoms (sapmi and finnland) that only loosely fit the empire they're in (what with scandinavia being generally defined as denmark/norway/sweden, scandinavian being a branch of the germanic languages and the world itself deriving from Skane, isn't it a bit weird that the empire of Scandinavia incorporates land that is not culturally germanic and is in modern day russia and finland). And now with the creation of Estonia, yet another fenno-ugric kingdom, between finland and lithuania.

It seems as if conditions were about as right as they could have gotten for the creation of an ahistorical (but really, which empire in this region is even remotely historical?) fenno-ugric empire. Admiteddly it would have looked just as terrible as the empire of Rus does right now, but that's pretty much a given with perm in it, and it seems to me that it would have made a little bit more sense.

Then again, I actually know jack about the place, so it's entirely possible I'm wrong on every count.
 
Since we have one more week for speculation...

I'm a bit surprised that the fenno-ugric (for all I know, which admitedly is very little when it comes to this part of the world) kingdom of Perm gets mixed in with the very altaïc empire of Tartaria, even when the dev admits that it's always been too big to their taste. Especially when there are two other fenno-ugric kingdoms (sapmi and finnland) that only loosely fit the empire they're in (what with scandinavia being generally defined as denmark/norway/sweden, scandinavian being a branch of the germanic languages and the world itself deriving from Skane, isn't it a bit weird that the empire of Scandinavia incorporates land that is not culturally germanic and is in modern day russia and finland). And now with the creation of Estonia, yet another fenno-ugric kingdom, between finland and lithuania.

It seems as if conditions were about as right as they could have gotten for the creation of an ahistorical (but really, which empire in this region is even remotely historical?) fenno-ugric empire. Admiteddly it would have looked just as terrible as the empire of Rus does right now, but that's pretty much a given with perm in it, and it seems to me that it would have made a little bit more sense.

Then again, I actually know jack about the place, so it's entirely possible I'm wrong on every count.
So you would put 2/3rds of the medieval kingdom of Sweden in a separate empire from the kingdom of Sweden? Not to mention making the already to easy too form Scandinavia even easier.

Instead perhaps move Perm to Scandinavia or move Perm and Volga Bulgaria to a separate empire... Uralic empire?
 
Last edited:
So you would put 2/3rds of the medieval kingdom of Sweden in a separate empire from the kingdom of Sweden? Not to mention making the already to easy too form Scandinavia even easier.

Instead perhaps move Perm to Scandinavia or move Perm and Volga Bulgaria to a separate empire... Uralic empire?

Well again, I don't know much about it but yeah, I think I would? I'm not sure I'd equate how 1066 de Jure Maps should look like with how big Sweden was from the late thirteenth century on (or even late 16th to reach that "two thirds" figure I'd say, but I'm trying to eyeball it on a mercator projection so really I dunno why i even bother mentionning that) De jure frontiers can always change, like how finnmark becomes part of Norway between 867 and 1066. Having parts of finland become de jure Sweden after the second swedish crusade sounds...reasonnable to me, I guess? I dunno, I just don't really see the issue.

As for the empire being easy to create, I agree that it could be problematic, notably because of how easily the germanic pagans can subjugate each other and unite all three kingdoms in like 10 years if the stars align. Nothing you couldn't solve by adding additional requirements for the title creation, like Italia, Francia or Mali have but eh...this isn't the most elegant solution, is it?

Overall I just meant to say that, regardless of how practical it is, this empire proposal made a certain amount of sense to me, at least compared to tartar perm, and I'll stand by that :p
 
Nothing you couldn't solve by adding additional requirements for the title creation, like Italia, Francia or Mali have but eh...this isn't the most elegant solution, is it?
Well in a way it might be a more elegant solution, but Paradox will never do it, I think they like seeing Scandinavia form in every other game.
 
Two DDs in one week? Preposterous! Nobody could handle that! :eek:
The exploding troll heads would be worth it. And then you could get a few days of peace and quiet to get work done before they managed to regenerate. Or are you saying that 2 DDs in a week would result in physically draining the dev team? We can't have that. Here, let me send you good feelings about brownies and pulled-pork sandwiches.