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Dev Diary #91 - Altering the Alps and Idealizing Italy

Hello there! I hope everyone’s summer is going well, and that you are as excited for this week’s Dev Diary as I am to write it!


As I mentioned last time, this week we are going to take a look at the area around the Alps, as well as take a look at Italy. For our first preview, we will take a look at the western Alps, around the Kingdom of Burgundy, southern Germany and northern Italy.


Keep in mind that not all the changes are finalized, so there might be more updates before everything goes live. All the pictures will be taken from 1066 and with De Jure map modes, so things might look somewhat different in other bookmarks.

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So the first change we will be talking about is the changes to the County of Burgundy. We have cut it up, and made it into its own Duchy (of Franche Comté). The old Duchy of Upper Burgundy has lost its headway into the Swiss heartlands as well, moving the county of Schwyz (old Grisons), Zurichgau (old Schwyz) and Thurgau (old St. Gallen) into the new Duchy of Upper Swabia. In the later starting date, they will be part of the Duchy of Switzerland instead of Upper Swabia, a change that can happen throughout a game as well.

The county of Vaud has been added to the game, to the old Duchy of Upper Burgundy, cut out of certain parts of Geneva and Neuchatel. The final noticeable change on this side of the Alps, is that we have added Aosta to the mountains between Savoy and Italy.

For that part of the Alps, we wanted to make smaller changes, cut up some of the larger provinces and fix a lot of the barony errors and some of the county errors (see Schwyz further up the text). It was important for us to try and fix a lot of these minor issues, as it felt weird seeing some areas so misplaced on the map.

On the other side of the Alps, we have cut up some of the larger provinces. Monferrato has been cut up to make room for Ivrea, Lombardy has been cut up to make room for Milano, Como and Leventina, and Genoa has been cut up to make room for Noli.

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We can start out in Italy, where we left off from the previous picture. Trent has been turned into its own minor Duchy, opening up Brenner Pass between Bozen and Innsbruck. Innsbruck and Tirol has moved a bit westwards, to make room for Pongau as part of the new Duchy of Salzburg. In Bavaria, we have added the county of Regensburg, as it was the capital of the Duchy for quite a while, and we wanted to see that reflected in the game. Passau has also been moved into the Duchy.

To the east, Austria has gotten quite the rework. We have added Traungau, Steyr Freistadt, Krems and Melk as Counties, moved Znojmo into Bohemia and Passau, as previously mentioned, into Bavaria, and Styria has been moved south into its own Duchy. The Duchy of Carinthia has been cut up into Carinthia and Carniola, and the Duchy of Friuli has been added around Aquileia.

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So for our last location, we have central Italy. I figure I will talk about the mountains first, as we have added parts of the Apennines throughout Italy. We’ve felt this has increased the tactical value of Italy somewhat, as the choices you make for movement and county conquering feels a bit more valuable, and we also felt it cut up the county more nicely, particularly considering the new Kingdom we added in central Italy (this will be discussed further down).

We have added Perugia into the Duchy of Spoleto, moving the whole Duchy a bit further north. Rimini has been added to the Duchy of Ancona, turned the two county Duchy into a three county one, to lessen the amount of chokepoints post-mountainfication.For the old county of Aprutium, we have turned it into the Duchy of Abruzzo and moved it into the Kingdom of Sicily. And we have taken parts of the old County of Firenze, and added the county of Arezzo, to make sure Firenze doesn’t stick its fingers into everyone else, as it has had a tendency to do.

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So for what I assume will be the most controversial change to the region, the two new Kingdoms added.

For Carinthia, it felt weird giving even more land to a Kingdom that is meant to reflect the historical Stem-Duchy of Bavaria, when we have the Principality of Carantania, the March of Carinthia and later on the Duchy of Carinthia as inspiration that could take the same role. We have made sure, as this is quite the small Kingdom with a lot of land held by the same person in some bookmarked starts, that the AI won’t create the Kingdom right away, so it should be more of a player goal than an AI goal.

And… For Romagna, we wanted to cut Italy into its more historical pieces, without adding a Kingdom called “the Papal States” that was only for an unplayable Theocracy. This was done for several reason: having the Pope try to seek out central Italy as he did throughout history, having the old East Roman areas be more difficult to hold onto for the Kingdom of Italy in the first bookmarks, and to lessen the massive size of the Kingdom of Italy.

So I hope the Dev Diary didn’t get too wordy this time around, and that people can learn to love the changes made to the region! Next time around, we will have a (probably smaller) Dev Diary about the changes made to Holy Orders in Holy Fury!

PS. For those of you with an interest in the Habsburg jaw and the Archduchy of Austria, we have something special for you as well! (A special decision to create the Archduchy.)

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Speaking of the italian region, my humble suggestion is to rename the two kingdoms more appropriately:

- the "kingdom of Italy" can be renamed "kingdom of Langobardia" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langobardia_Major)
- the "kingdom of Romagna" can be renamed "kingdom of Italy" (the concept of "Italy" has changed many times during roman and medieval era and here we can conveniently stick with the old pre-augustean definition that excludes what is now considered North Italy -and more or less correspond to the Langobardia Major-)

This is not exactly historical, but neither the kingdom of Romagna is...
 
Speaking of the italian region, my humble suggestion is to rename the two kingdoms more appropriately:

- the "kingdom of Italy" can be renamed "kingdom of Langobardia" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langobardia_Major)
- the "kingdom of Romagna" can be renamed "kingdom of Italy" (the concept of "Italy" has changed many times during roman and medieval era and here we can conveniently stick with the old pre-augustean definition that excludes what is now considered North Italy -and more or less correspond to the Langobardia Major-)

This is not exactly historical, but neither the kingdom of Romagna is...

That's absolutelly ahistorical. Really. The Kingdom of Italy was based on Padova, so rename Romagna into Italy makes the absolutelly last sense.
 

Right. Pavia. Confused the two.
But the medieval Kingdom of Italy was allways the territory it's ingame now. The kingdom of Romagna was occacionaly part of it, but it was never the core kingdom, just an addition.
 
Thank you for the changes, which are really interesting and surely will improve the gameplay.
However, the name "Kingdom of Romagna" is really painful to watch, since Romagna historically represented only a small province near the Adriatic Sea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romagna). Furthermore, Kingdom of Romagna never existed in history nor in the imagination of political leaders, writers, philosophers...

My suggestion for this kingdom's name are:
- "Papal States" or "State of the Church" if owned by the Pope,
- "Roman Kingdom", if owned by a non-ecclesiastical charachter

The Roman Kingdom, of course, never existed, but this territory is linked to the historical Ducatus Romanus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Rome) which was a state within the Byzantine Exarchate.
Also, I am pretty sure that if a Kingdom had been created in the Middle Ages it would have linked its name to the famous and glorious city of Rome, rather than to a small province.
Finally, even in the XVIII century, the adjective "Roman" was used to indicate the area, when a Directorate Republic, extended from the Adriatic Sea to the Tyrrenian Sea in Central Italy) was established by the French. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic_(18th_century)).
 
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You are right about it, @Thure, but as I stated my considerations are based on previously established geographical denominations. Romagna was only a small part of the Papal State and do not make sense to call it "Kingdom of Romagna".

Really, if we want to go historical, we should call it Papal State and give it to the Pope (a thing excluded by the devs) and leave the "kingdom of Italy" as it is. On the other hand, if we go ahistorical, then call Marche, Umbria, Latium and Romagna "kingdom of Romagna" is fairly ridicuolus...
 
I can't wait for Balkans omg it's going to be awesome!! Please add korcyra-corfu-kerkyra to eastern Roman empire and more detailed islands to Bosnia like you did in Denmark with roads if its possible !
 
Really wish we had a graphical update for the game. At least bring it to EUIV standards :(
(I know is difficult to change engine but ).
 
That sword icon below the states makes me think that duels will become a thing. If so, I can't wait to duel during battles.
 
They can't give a release date if they themselves don't know the release date. It's better for them to finish their goals for the expansion than to rush it out and end up having it not being finished.
The fact is you don't sell something in preorder whereas you don't have at least even a very far away release date.
 
It aches my heart to see the history of my people trampled in the name of gameplay.

But well, it is just a historical game, although historical accuracy appears to be an afterthought...
 
It aches my heart to see the history of my people trampled in the name of gameplay.

But well, it is just a historical game, although historical accuracy appears to be an afterthought...

So, then tell us how to make it better. I'm pretty sure SWMH did split Italy the same way. They just us another name for it.