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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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Granularity looks great and an option for the Erzherzogtum is cool. Nice work! I am a little worried about how often Berthold of Carinthia is going to form that kingdom, though, are you guys considering putting restrictions on it similar to the empires of Francia and Italia to make it harder to form?
This is a big concern of mine too. Seems like it'd be really easy to make the kingdom of Carinthia.
 
You could have made a 3 county titular empire with that method:

Get amalfi, form duchy of Amalfi, make primary title.
Take Genoa and Venice.
Form custom "Kingdom of Amalfi", make Genoa and Venice titular.
Form K_venice and k_genoa.
Form custom "Empire of Amalfi"

How do I keep the bizantines from taking a independent amalfy during the 50-100 years it takes to make genoa a king-teocracy vassal?

But ty for the help, will try.
 
@Snow Crystal
You should change the "fantasy" name Romagna to a more historical "Exarchate", "Exarchate of Ravenna" or "Exarcate of Italy"... Like many others have suggested.
Why using a fictional name when you could use a more realistic one? Just wondering.... o_O
 
Petition to make the Kingdom of Italy be permanently renamed to Lombardy and change it so that you need to have Lombardy, Romagna, Sicily and Corsica Sardinia to form the Empire of Italy.

Also, we could (suggestion) give the Orthodox their own version of the Latin Empire when they conquer Rome, Ravenna and Milan...maybe call it the Western Roman Empire?

The Lombards AND the HRE called the territory in North Italy 'Kingdom of Italy'. No reason to rename it Lombardy.

How about a petition to permanently change the CoA of Italy to the Lombard one? The default Sforza CoA is such a terrible one to use for the kingdom.
 
How about a petition to permanently change the CoA of Italy to the Lombard one? The default Sforza CoA is such a terrible one to use for the kingdom.

I still want a version of the Latin Empire for the Orthodox. It'd be neat restoring the Roman Empire as the Western Roman Empire following its own little event chains and decisions. You could tie it to Legacy of Rome and use all the Roman Border Restoration events as well as some of the unique Byzantine events to make it more thematic.~

The Requirements for forming the Western Roman Empire would be: Be Independent; Holding Rome, Ravenna & Milan as well as two Kingdom Titles; Be Orthodox and have a 100 relation with the Byzantine Emperor.
 
I'd like to see an event that allows the Roman Empire to be formed if the character controls both Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire.
 
I really like it, but may I suggest spliting the Kingdom of Italy even more by creating a Kingdom of Tuscany with the duchies of Firenze and Pisa, and maybe merging it with the Kingdom of Sardinia?
On another note, maybe the Kingdom of Romagna should be renamed Kingdom of Rome?
 
Concerning Italy could you, as well as fragment Italian culture, in the earliest start dates at least make some sort of late Roman culture/s, very susceptible to lose their identity but allowing through decisions to restore the Roman State, if successfully holding out from germanic influences and key territory ? Considering mentions of the Roman Senate somewhat near the earliest start date, it's not really unthinkable and it would be on the same lines of the White Huns achievement, restoring an ancient empire from a very tiny start. A Paradox would be it :) Personally i always play on the earliest start date and love to restore the roman empire, as a latin though. The addition of Romagna is awesome btw. Even if you don't pick up anything for the Roman part, please still considering splitting Italians.. They really don't fit the earlier start dates. Great job on the development. I'm loving it, gladius licking good ;D
 
2. I agree.

By a quick look, Treviso seemed to have been/can be seen as part of the duchy/mark of Fruili for first 300 years in game, before there are closer
connections to Verona, as the latter became stronger and not part of Fruili anymore.
It's complicated, i suppose. :cool:
Quickly collected internet knowledge admittedly, but still.
A 50/50 decsion to me.

PS: It appears any de jure map that does't dynamically change through history can't be perfect, especiallly
in Italy. We'd need far more dejure changes by start dates, as it seems.
Yes, it's complicated.
Dolce Vita. :rolleyes:
 
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I kinda feel that the kingdom of Romanga (or Ravenna or Rome as I feel it should be called) should appear rather than be created under a few circumstances either:

1. The creation of the holy roman empire when the pope gains land from the decision
2. Be a decision ala Leon

Futhermore I think that Lombardy should be called Italy from the start as Italy with the Iron crown as the COA throughout the period.

Why?

1. The kingdom was called kingdom of the Lombards and kingdom of Italy with the former being an Ethnic title while the later refered to the territory which is why Chrlamagne took both with the subjugation of the Lombards.
2. The Iron crown Italy remained an important symbol of coronation for the Kingdom with holy roman emperors reciving it between the 9th to 18th century.
 
For the past few years, I've been writing music for a mod that adds a song to every kingdom in the game and plays it randomly if you have any territory in that kingdom. Now I'll never finish because you keep adding kingdoms.
 
So I think everyone's big issues with Romagna are: 1) It's not historical (there will not be a Kingdom there that is historical though) and 2) It only partially overlaps with the historical Romagna region.

Has Paradox considered adding a Principality feature? I noticed there are a lot of minor Kingdoms that should eventually be Principalities and have the titles of Princes. Carinthia, Romagna, Whales, etc. It could be some sort of in-between feature for title hierarchy that is above Dukes and below Kings but doesn't operate as a total/full step between them. Maybe to emphasize that, for gavelkind inheritances Principalities and Duchies would be divided up as if the Principality was a duchy (and therefore the Principality would lose the duchy unless it was dejure). Then something like Austria could go from Duchy to Archduchy (where the Archduchy is just an alternative title for it) and split up between Tyrol and Styria as it did historically.

Also as a quick fix for the name. Making Kingdom of Italy into Lombardia won't help and keeping it the same is fine in my opinion (though a more Italian color and flag for the Kingdom and Empire would be appreciated). I think to fix Romagna you could just name it Umbria, since while it doesn't cover the Romagna region fully, it does fully cover the Umbrian region.

Finally, since Orvieto is historically part of the Tuscan region, and since the Papal States now has a dejure expansion route to Romagna, have you considered moving Orvieto to the dejure Tuscany region (while keeping it under Papal rule)?