Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #121 - Maps Maps Maps

[PDX_Lufthansi]

I wonder why we're getting Luri and Mazanderani, but not Khorosani. Especially since all three are present in EU4.

The answer as always is abstractions. If by Khorasani you mean Khorasani Persians, then we felt that the regional differences between 'regular' and Khorasani Persians was not great enough to justify a separate culture.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

I have quite a bit of feedback on this developer diary so let me just get out my notes... ahem.

1. While I love the Central Asia setup, would it be possible to consider the splitting of Turkmenia into multiple decentralized nations reflective of their historical clans? These were the Teke, Yomut, Saryk, Chowdur, and Ersari. It would feel much more naturally better if these were represented.

2. Please consider adding the Georgian principalities! In one of the previous developer diaries, Abkhazia was added as a tag, and I'd love to see that tag utilized since it had quite a lot of autonomy from Russia! Same with Mingrelia and Svaneti!

3. Similarily, please consider adding some of the Kurdish principalities, especially since neither Persian nor the Ottomans had fully direct control over the Kurdish areas, where many states like Baban, Bokhti, Ardalan, Soran, Bitlis and Hakkari had considerable autonomy from the Ottomans and Persia.

4. Since Kashmir was recently touched, I'd love if Ladakh, or Maryul as it was known then, to be split off as an independent Tibetan nation from the Sikh Empire, since it wouldn't be owned by them until the mid-1840s following a war between the Dogras of Jammu (a Sikh subject), and the Qing dynasty and their subject of Tibet.

5. I'd love if Las Bela or Kharan could be represented as well, especially considering Las Bela was independent from Kalat altogether.

6. Please rename Persian Kurdistan to Ardalan, as that name is more thematically appropriate.

7. Please rename Chorasmia to Khwarazm or Khorazm to be less antiquated.

8. Southern Turkestan needs a different name, and I'm not sure what it should be, but it should certainly not be that.

9. While I appreciate the new cultures, I'd appreciate if a few more were added, such as the Karakalpak or the Qashqai.

10. Please consider breaking up North Caucasian more. Such an amalgamation really looks odd now if we have a Circassian and a Chechen culture, so please consider breaking that culture further up.

11. Likewise, please consider breaking Ugrian up, either break it up completely, or use it for the Khanty and Mansi, and split of Nenets and Komi. That would be greatly appreciated.

12. Can the Baltic Governorates be properly split up into Estonia, Livonia, and Courland? I know on a state region level they were split up, so it wouldn't be hard for them to be split up. I'd also appreciate for them to get content relating to Estonian and Latvian nationalism arising. It is weird on many historical factors to keep them together since they functioned separately internally.

13. Going into the Russian releasable nations, I'd appreciate if the Mari were represented too, since all of the other groups in the area like the Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Udmurt, and Mordvin have their own states, but Mari El has been left out, and I'd appreciate if they were here too.

14. Tungus should be releasable from Okhotsk, not from Upper Yeniseysk. If you need a releasable there, Siberia should work fine.

15. North Caucasia should be a formable for the North Caucasian states, as it gives them something to do.

16. I'd appreciate if the new Abkhazia tag would be releasable as well.

17. Can Azerbaijan also be a releasable from Persia's northern territories? Since Armenia stretches across borders, I'd appreciate if Azerbaijan can do the same, especially considering that's what they did in Victoria 2.

18. Idel-Urel and Siberia should also be formable by their respective nations.

19. Sapmi should be able to be released from Kola.

20. Can Kuban be represented in the Russian states of Krasnodar and Stavropol instead of the Don Cossacks? That would be appreciated.

21. If the Komi and Nenets are split off, I'd appreciate if they too got their own releasable nations, Komi in Vologda, and Nenetsia in Nenetsia and Ob.

22. Khanty-Mansi has an H in the name that is currently not there for some reason.

23. Could a Volga-German releasable state be considered in Saratov?

24. If willing, I'd love to see the Bukey Horde be represented in the Russian parts of Western Kazakhstan.

25. Can Wati be renamed to Aṉangu? I know the usage of endonyms for native groups is more prevalent in Victoria 3, so I'd love to see the endonym for that area be used as well, since that's what the cultural bloc where the Wati are use.

26. If the other aboriginal tags are decentralized, can we consider decentralizing Kaurna too? They are ahistorically centralized, and I'd love to see them be properly represented.

27. In North America, I'd love to see the Athabaska tag include Yukon and the Northwest Territories, with the Inuit parts of all three state regions and Nunavut being given to a new Nunavut decentralized nation.

28. The Seminole should own more land in Southern Florida.

29. I'd like to see the Bannock reduced in size in Western Idaho so that when the Shoshone are added, they can have their part of Idaho as well.

30. Niimíipuu should be extended into Northwestern Oregon and Western Washington to represent the entire group that the term represents.

31. If possible, I'd love to see a Cherokee unrecognized nation in Georgia be there and given some flavor so that the US can have more to do during the Trail of Tears. Same with a Chickasaw unrecognized nation.

32. Finally, please consider adding a releasble nation for Alaska, as for the Russian-American Company at first, and maybe it switches culture to Yankee if it gets sold to the United States and then adopts the currently used flag.

That's a lot of feedback, but I hope it can be utilized!

- Yasha

That sure is quite the list. Forgive me if I don't reply to all of this.

1. We could, but that would be a level of granularity too much in my opinion, especially since splitting them up would have little to no effect on gameplay.
2. Georgian principalities were considered, but omitted due to them lacking in size and significance.
3. Considered, but decided against in the end. Depicting them without accompanying narrative content felt a bit off, so they never came to be.
5. If we were to represent all the vassals and tributaries of the Khans of Kalat the area would look... insane. Abstractions wins the day again.
6,7,8. Persian Kurdistan is known as just Kurdistan within Persia, both then and now, Chorasmia was the main English word used for the region in Victorian times, and Turkestan / Southern Turkestan was a common name for the region in question, especially at the time of the Uzbek khanates. It was also the name of an administrative Afghan province centered on Mazar-i-Sharif, that included large parts of Northern Afghanistan.
9,10,11. Considered, but felt too granular.
12. They could have been, but were united for gameplay reasons. In any case there was one Governor-General overseeing all of them, so it did not feel too ahistorical to unite them.
28. To my knowledge South Florida was not inhabited by the Seminole at the time, but was rather a reservation they got pushed to in the 1840s.

As for the ones I did not reply to, the issue is usually that while, yes, you can easily argue that certain cultures are distinct from others, and that they should have their own culture, we have to abstract at a certain level, or the game would be quite unplayable.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

I notice that Outer Manchuria has been divided, so there’re two proposals:
1. Since Primorye is not a part of Russia in 1836, can it be renamed to some more neutral form?
2. Can northern Manchuria and Southern Manchuria be renamed to Heilongjiang and Jilin, since Outer Manchuria has no longer been called as Manchuria?

Hmm. Perhaps. I'd need to ponder a bit on the options here, but this might (emphasis on might) get changed sometime after the release of 1.7.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

There should be some Manchu minors in Amur and Primorye, representing the Chinese-speaking people in Russian occupied territory.

They were all murdered if my memory does not cheat me.

There are some, but they are outnumbered by other Siberian peoples in Outer Manchuria and therefore not displayed on the culture map.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

With the addition of Kafiristan in-game, does that mean we will have something akin to Zunism as a religion?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a unique religion for the people of Kafiristan did not quite make it when we made our plans for 1.7.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

I don't exactly know what naming scheme you're going for, are states supposed to be named after the most notable city in them or by a more commonly known name for that region? Since there's Kola instead of Murmansk and Bessarabia instead of Kishinev. If it's not that first one then the Kuopio state in Finland should probably be called Savo or Savonia instead. Oulu should be Lapland.

It's no great secret that our state names are a bit all over the place, heh. In the case of Kuopio and Oulu specifically the names were chosen based on the historical provinces of Kuopio and Oulu.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

Fantastic change, much better than having everyone be Buddhist. Though I do wonder what the basis is for these Buddhist vs. Confucianism percentages.

Welcome to Chinese Religious Demographic Data Club. The first rule of Chinese Religious Demographic Data Club is: you do not talk about where you got the Chinese religious demographic data from.

Jokes aside, how to depict the Chinese religious/philosophical 'system' in Paradox games has always been a difficult topic, especially since most of our games follow a mutually exclusive either/or approach to religion, which has great difficulties accommodating the more "pick-and-mix" approach to religion/philosophy that was and is the case for China.

V3's Confucian / Buddhist split relies on a set of assumptions that help split up the pops in Confucian and Mahayana pops, such as whether or not the pop is Han or not, if a state region is considered an especial hot-spot for Buddhist or Confucian practices, how rural or urban it is, or rough 'estimates' given in academic literature, etc.

I am more than open to feedback on the division here, so if you have any strong feelings about it, feel free to report them in the forums.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

No Fort Ross?

No, apologies.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

As a Chinese, and having had some research on Chinese religions, I agree with this solution personally.

But please be ready to accept feedbacks of the community. Some players may not be happy to see that some province are more Mahayana or more Confucian. You see, these useless SYMBOLIC things hurt or matter.

My only hope is that, do not making Confucian pops sharply separated from Mahayana pops, like some laws discriminate Mahayana while do not discriminate Confucian.

If it’s up to me a player, I’ll never make Confucianism a religion in Vicky3 or any PDS GSG.

We are more than happy to receive feedback. Also do note that China will start out in 1836 by accepting both Confucian and Mahayana pops. Only in Korea will they be discriminated against.

 

[PDX_Lufthansi]

Fair. Follow-up question, is Crimean one of the new cultures in Russia, or will it remain grouped with Tartar?

Crimean Tatars are still just Tatars, we did not give them a unique culture this patch.