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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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Still. No. Release. Date.
I'm mad to see all these awesome changes and don't know how long i should wait for them. Same for EU4 and HOI4. You don't did well on this Paradox..

I don't care if they take another year doing updates... Honestly, this is the most meaningful and significant dlc they have released since TOG. Please Paradox, keep it up! This is what a DLC truly is!
 
While I don't directly care about vanilla map changes in any of the games (I play with mods like HIP/SWMH and MEIOU&Taxes) it is interesting to see the parallels between vanilla and the mods I play, such as the new kingdom in central Italy.

I guess it makes quite a bit of sense as the historical sources used by the different teams are probably quite similar or even the exact same!
 
"n.For the old county of Aprutium, we have turned it into the Duchy of Abruzzo and moved it into the Kingdom of Sicily."
Finally, been waiting for that for ages. Thank you.
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Regarding Romagna instead, well, I like the gameplay implication and the A.I behaviour that will result, but it's extremly weird the name Romagna considering that only 2 of 11 provinces are in Romagna. I'd change the name in Exarchate , or "Exarchate of Ravenna" if I were you, it make more sense considering that most,if not almost all, of those provinces were part of the Exarchate(except Latium) and considering that the name Romagna, albeit indirectly, comes from the Exarchate it will be still linked. (And, naming it Exarchate, would gives a lot of sense to the inclusion of Latium for obvious reasons).
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EDIT:
To give more substance to my suggestion,I'd like to provide an historical map and explain it.
800px-Mappa_italia_bizantina_e_longobarda.jpg

Now, this map is a map of Italy while it was contested between Lombards and Byzantines(outside Ck2 time-span), Byzantine territories are marked by a clear yellow colour, Lomabard ones are marked by dark orange colour, contexted territory(With territories inside dark red line controlled mostly by Lombard and territory outside controled mostly by Byzantines). Now, as you can see, the contexted territory is almost the same territory of this new "Kingdom of Romagna" except for Latium and this territory was called simply "Exarchate" or also "Exarchate of Ravenna" or more rarely "Exarchate of Italy",. Now, Latium (as almost 100% of the Exarchate) was under Byzantine control and sometime the word "Exarchate" was used to indicate all territories controlled by Byzantine. So, it makes only sense that this new kingdom be simply called "Exarchate", or, if you want a less general name , "Exarchate of Ravenna" than call it "Romagna" while only about 18% of provinces are in Romagna while almost all provinces were in the Exarchate.
 
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"Exarchate" sounds as a political entity, or rather, a dependency of a greater polity (i.e. the Roman Empire), whereas Romagna designates the land proper.

It will become clearer when the title of k_Romagna is held by the Pope and it becomes the Papal State.
 
Can we get an update to the MP engine to be at least like EU4? Maybe even like the HOI4 MP engine?

A kingdom for hotjoin and desync hotfixing! Or at least $19.99
 
More brown titles! I HATE THIS!
Why you change this? Previous color was great!


We have a lot of brown, orange, brownish red and dark cream colors right now. We don't need more.
We have already lost Brittany, Armenia and Lithuania in favor of brown. Finland, Syria, Croatia and the Empire of Abyssinia also changed colour to brown: / Khotan to yellow-like colour.
Only Lotharyngia is no longer brown :)

Maybe I'm obsessed, but I think it's very important.
Sometimes it's hard for me to find a kingdom title for my ruler to not be brown (or similar colour) on the map :(
The map is less transparent through it IMO.

Maybe give us the possibility to change the color of countries on the map? Please.



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The Pope shouldn't hold "Romagna".

Can you imagine this abomination?
Pope Benedictus VII - Pope - King-Bishop of Romagna
 
The Pope shouldn't hold "Romagna".

Can you imagine this abomination?
Pope Benedictus VII - Pope - King-Bishop of Romagna
It's not that hard to localise the title, so if held by the pope, it would be called Papal states or anything else... and with the papal title overriding everything else.
 
It's not that hard to localise the title, so if held by the pope, it would be called Papal states or anything else... and with the papal title overriding everything else.
So it'll be like this instead?

Pope Benedictus VII - Pope - Pope of Papal States? Or am I misunderstanding?

If that's how it will be displayed, it is not much better. The Pope is simply 'The Pope' (of the Roman Catholic Church), he is not 'Pope of the Papal States' or any realm.
 
So it'll be like this instead?

Pope Benedictus VII - Pope - Pope of Papal States? Or am I misunderstanding?

If that's how it will be displayed, it is not much better. The Pope is simply 'The Pope' (of the Roman Catholic Church), he is not 'Pope of the Papal States' or any realm.

No it will allways be 'Pope Benedictus VII'. Nothing more. The title 'Pope' overwrite all other titles.
 
So it'll be like this instead?

Pope Benedictus VII - Pope - Pope of Papal States? Or am I misunderstanding?

If that's how it will be displayed, it is not much better. The Pope is simply 'The Pope' (of the Roman Catholic Church), he is not 'Pope of the Papal States' or any realm.
Nope.
Just "Pope Benedictus" with this disallowing display of any other titles. Just like any king or emperor only has his primary title displayed in the main view. And I btw think that this is also the case of the Pope and will be so there won't be no necessary editing.
Even now if pope holds also some other titles, he is still just simply Pope and nothing else.

I don't know how you started thinking that this would change. Maybe your bias against kingdom of Romagna? IDK
 
The pope can’t marry, but personally I find that only more reason to elect a genetically identical Pope every succession for six consecutive centuries.
Popes in history have had bastards.
 
This is what I meant:
G7GU01x.png

In this picture Pope Gregorius VII is not only Pope but also 'King-Bishop of Italy' (which is an abomination and horrible travesty!).

I don't want 'King-Bishop of Romagna' as one of the Pope's titles!