CKIII Dev Diary #26 - Map Scope

[Slime99]

Besides that I saw a Youtube video where the map is shown in religion mode. In the 867 start date, the Curonian peninsula was 100% Baltic, which does not make any sense whatsoever.

It's like every time Paradox makes a CK game, they greatly overestimate the extent of the Baltic tribes and later fix the culture/religion borders a few years later...

Here is a map of Finnic tribes in 1000AD, in 867 the Livonians inhabited a slightly bigger area in Latvia:

The weird thing is that was already fixed in CK2.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I spy with my little eye the Chinese polity of Guiyi in Dunhuang being portrayed as Tengris

That's a crazy good catch - had to look at it for a while to see it.

At the 867 start date, Guiyi should be ruled by Han Chinese who follow Mahayana Buddhism, if going by Crusader Kings rules/logic. The elites of Dunhuang were famous for their patronage of Buddhism - the Mogao Caves, a major network of various caves for worship and other religious and secular reasons, was a major feat of Buddhist art spanning across 1000 years, including almost the entirety of the Crusader Kings period. The Chinese rulers of Dunhuang, perhaps even more so than their Chinese brethren back in the other parts of China, were quite direct and open about their patronage of Buddhism via these caves and other activities.

 

[es333]

The weird thing is that was already fixed in CK2.

Yeah... Here's a map of Finno-Ugrians in the 9th century:

Edit: I created a new thread regarding this oversight as such mistakes on the map are immersion breaking.

 

[klopkr]

@elvain Yeah honestly I never really cared for crossing the ocean to africa.

How do you feel about the map of africa by the way?

I really like it but I feel a bit that the granularity is artificially limited by the size of county's. Especially seeing as the game has on map baronies and if the devs allowed them to be independent you could really represent the balkanisation of many tribal regions.

 

[maxk94]

Maybe a chance paradox switch to the Imperator:Rome-Map? Looks so much better tbh

 

[tsf4]

The map does not seem very dense with provinces, bummed about that. Was hoping with removal of baronies they would have 2 or 3 times the prov amount

 

[SchwarzKatze]

The map does not seem very dense with provinces, bummed about that. Was hoping with removal of baronies they would have 2 or 3 times the prov amount

Aren't baronies the smallest "provinces" you can maneuver in? And the Paris and Hellespont areas look pretty dense to me

 

[tsf4]

I mean counties, I guess. places you can actually play as the lowest level.

 

[steampvnc1880]

No viking raids in Africa, I’m afraid!

I take that as a challenge.

 

[tribnia]

I spy with my little eye the Chinese polity of Guiyi in Dunhuang being portrayed as Tengris

I thought that was Yugur, a vassal of Guiyi. It seems that Guiyi was portrayed as Mahayana.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I thought that was Yugur, a vassal of Guiyi. It seems that Guiyi was portrayed as Mahayana.

I considered that as a possibility, but if you look extremely closely, there is an area on the political map that shows the word "Guiyi" albeit partly cut off - compare that with the religion map, where it isn't a solid color, but has blue diagonal lines going through it. If this is similar to how CK2's maps worked, this mean that though the province religion is orangey aka Mahayana, the rulers are the blue religion, i.e. Tengri.

 

[AHumpierRogue]

Bit of a shame that they aren't Taoist, I'm playing a game of CK2 as 936 Guiyi and they are Taoist in that start(not sure about 867) and it's pretty fun.

 

[tribnia]

I considered that as a possibility, but if you look extremely closely, there is an area on the political map that shows the word "Guiyi" albeit partly cut off - compare that with the religion map, where it isn't a solid color, but has blue diagonal lines going through it. If this is similar to how CK2's maps worked, this mean that though the province religion is orangey aka Mahayana, the rulers are the blue religion, i.e. Tengri.

Neither is the county with "Tengri" a solid color. So the rulers are Confucians, Chinese in Dunhuang are Mahayana, Yugurs are Tengri.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Bit of a shame that they aren't Taoist, I'm playing a game of CK2 as 936 Guiyi and they are Taoist in that start(not sure about 867) and it's pretty fun.

Historically the rulers of Guiyi were devout Buddhists (though like the usual Chinese of then and now, they had occasional inclinations towards Taoism, and Confucian philosophy formed a part of their administrative outlook, but not to the extent as in China, I'd argue). In fact, the Dunhuang region was a major hub of Buddhism in the early Crusader Kings period.

Neither is the county with "Tengri" a solid color. So the rulers are Confucians, Chinese in Dunhuang are Mahayana, Yugurs are Tengri.

Hmm... not 100% sure what you mean there (I can see that Tengri isn't solid color next to it, but I'm not sure what the relevance of that is), though good point with Confucian, it might be Confucian and not Tengri. Though if the Chinese rulers of Dunhuang/Guiyi are Confucian, I'd have issue with that too, as Dunhuang was a major center of Buddhism during much of the Crusader Kings time period, and patronage of Buddhist art, temples, and so on was an enormous part of the cultural and political life of Dunhuang's elites. In fact the famous Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, which features a lot of spectacular Buddhist art and religious architecture, were sort of a dick measuring contest between the various Dunhuang elite families about who was the most devout.

But then again I guess that's just a symptom of trying to impose the usual understanding of religion in Europe and the Middle East to the complicated and nuanced, mixed religious systems of East Asia.

Edit: That's not to mention that classifying Confucianism as a religion is a bit of an ambiguous thing itself to do.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I thought that was Yugur, a vassal of Guiyi. It seems that Guiyi was portrayed as Mahayana.

I considered that as a possibility, but if you look extremely closely, there is an area on the political map that shows the word "Guiyi" albeit partly cut off - compare that with the religion map, where it isn't a solid color, but has blue diagonal lines going through it. If this is similar to how CK2's maps worked, this mean that though the province religion is orangey aka Mahayana, the rulers are the blue religion, i.e. Tengri.

Good catch - the "cut off" one looks more like where Dunhuang is supposed to be.

From what I can tell, both parts of Guiyi have teal stripes over it, so the ruler seems to belong to this "teal" religion while different parts of the realm are Mahayana and Tengri.

 

[elvain]

Winds and currents to the north assume? So as a one-way travel with a lot of supplies stocked on your ship it would have been possible to travel from Guinea to the north?

As already explained, the currents + winds were directed southwards...
I actuall had a quite long comment on this. But lost it. If I find some time later, I'll try to put it down again...

so does this mean that, since all baronies within a county must fall under the county holder, a pope-owned Venaissin will encompass the whole county all the way to the coast?

couldn't maybe sailing around Mauritania be unlocked with technology? if Henry the Navigator could do it, we should let him!

IMHO, if they are going to allow transversing of the coast between Europe and West Africa, it should be tied to having the highest level of naval tech.

Sounds interesting.
As I said above, it wasn't just a question of technology, but also climate etc. But.... yes, if Paradox gas a concept similar to Civ's future technologies, then I can imagine some of them, perhaps 'renaissamce navigation' or sth. like that could unlock it.

As I tried to explain in the lost post, it was similar to crossing the Central Atlantic to the Americas...so if something like that is planned, then okay.

@elvain How do you feel about the map of africa by the way?

I really like it but I feel a bit that the granularity is artificially limited by the size of county's. Especially seeing as the game has on map baronies and if the devs allowed them to be independent you could really represent the balkanisation of many tribal regions.

How do I feel about that Africa?
To be honest, would anyone of us expect that Paradox would want this level of detail which seems to be given to Sub-Saharan Africa?

I was helping the devs with HolyFury Africa map expansion with providing maps and other sources. I wouldn't have imagined that they would go this further... it actually goes to the level of detail I myself can consider accurate, yet feasible gameplay wise and possible to research at the same time.

In the central and southern (coastal) parts of West Africa there were areas which were either uninhabited or with no records until about 12th/13th century, next to them there were small chiefdoms which I would in ideal world imagine or simulate as independent baronies, yes.
And frankly, in areas where we do have records, these independent chiefdoms could be as dense as HRE's imperial cities, counties and principalities...next to them there would be great empires of the Sahel ruling with semi-imperial system of vassal kings submitted to imperial garrisons and governors...
As for grsnularity. I can imagine Yorubaland or Inland Niger delta (the screenshot with Mema) even more detailed, with even more dense provinces. The wuestion is how could such a contrasting world be simulated. Can a game have single-barony independent chiefdoms right next to a hunge empire and not have the empire swallow them and expand alll the way to the coast? Look at the contrast between Ghana/Wagadu and its neighbours! Could it work with even smaller states around without Ghana snowballing them?

I can be sad that Africa is relatively small, especially compared to that huge Europe, yes, but looking at India or Middle East, I realize it isn't about making Africa smaller, but Europe larger (well, Africa is relatively smaller even compared to India, but...). I may dislike and disagree with it, but I deffinitely understand it. Aftica is huuuuuge.

Looking at the map, if I can be honest, I never knew if a video game developed in Europe could get this close. The empires of the Sahel seem great, dense and nicely detailed (hopefully also accurately advanced and rich), the areas further south are very granular for a region with not that many sources, which seems to simulate the political and social fragmentation of those areas. The question is what will be under the surface.

Let's be realistic. If we compare CK2 Africa from Sword of Islam to CK2 Holy Fury Africa and then to this, I frankly see this as incomparably larger improvement than what was acheived by Holy Fury expansion, to which I personally contributed.
It isn't perfect, but... considering that we talk abou a real map in real game (not fantasy ideal world or a Africa-nerdy mod) I don't think I myself would have drawn it better, TBH.

 

[Dragatus]

Before moving on, I’ll just leave this culture screenshot right here:

View attachment 576523

Hey! Where did my Carantanian culture go!? Please don't tell my I'm going to have to LARP Carantanian by actually playing Croatian all over again.

Will there at least be a West/South Slavic equivalent to Norse? As in a broad more general culture that later splits into regional/kingdom variants? I'd be okay with that and it would actually be historically accurate and wouldn't cause the issue of everyone else also demanding their culture.

 

[pengoyo]

As already explained, the currents + winds were directed southwards...
I actuall had a quite long comment on this. But lost it. If I find some time later, I'll try to put it down again...


Sounds interesting.
As I said above, it wasn't just a question of technology, but also climate etc. But.... yes, if Paradox gas a concept similar to Civ's future technologies, then I can imagine some of them, perhaps 'renaissamce navigation' or sth. like that could unlock it.

Basing it solely on technology isn't realistic, but IMHO works well from a game play perspective. Especially with how the new technology system is look. While they don't seem to have a renaissance era in the new tech system, if they add one (maybe with ~1300 as it's start date), then it could fit nicely in there. That way technology matters, but a really advanced Europe or Africa still has to wait until at least a certain year for the tech to unlocks, after which they can start researching it (assuming I understand the new technology system correctly).

Edit: they have a Late Medieval era which starts in 1250 (at the earliest), which could work, depending on how much time is takes to unlock the tech.

 

[Kartuvės]

Besides that I saw a Youtube video where the map is shown in religion mode. In the 867 start date, the Curonian peninsula was 100% Baltic, which does not make any sense whatsoever.

It's like every time Paradox makes a CK game, they greatly overestimate the extent of the Baltic tribes and later fix the culture/religion borders a few years later...

Here is a map of Finnic tribes in 1000AD, in 867 the Livonians inhabited a slightly bigger area in Latvia:

Ehhhhhh, while the map doesn't show the Livonians in Curonia, they weren't as big as in your map, If it was areas with Finno Ugric influence sure, but only the tip of Curonia was Finno Ugric, and apparently they might've been subjugated already but that isn't known exactly. A big problem is that both sides claim different stuff regarding Curonia. Most Latvians claim the majority of Courland was Baltic, with only the tip finno ugric, while I've seen Estonian textbooks who flat out list the Curonians as finno ugrics. Most modern historians consider them Baltic though.

 

[Woifee]

so does this mean that, since all baronies within a county must fall under the county holder, a pope-owned Venaissin will encompass the whole county all the way to the coast?

couldn't maybe sailing around Mauritania be unlocked with technology? if Henry the Navigator could do it, we should let him!

Yeah, techology might be the only way I can see it coming. Maybe they add it later with the DLC Sunset counter Invasion when the player invades Murica