Hi all! I am Karolus Magnus, programmer at Crusader Kings II. Now is finally the time for my first dev diary! Today I will be talking about the Silk Road and Raiding Adventurers.

With Horse Lords we are adding in an addition to the trade system which is the major trade route of the Silk Road that stretched all the way from Cathay to the Italian States. It does not require you to be a Patrician or Republic however to utilize this system. As long as you own the provinces yourself you are allowed to build Trade Posts along the trade route no matter what government form you are. You can upgrade these trade posts to make the Silk Road worth even more.

However the Silk Road is much more dangerous to deal with than normal coastal trade posts as it relies on safe passage through land. If a war breaks out and a part of the trade route is caught in the conflict, the trade will be cut from that province and onwards for that branch. The trade will instead go through any other branch and result in them receiving more of the trade than they normally would. The Silk route can be viewed from the Economic mapmode but also in more detail from the Trade zone mapmode.

Next feature is Raiding Adventurers. This system was made to better represent the Normans in Northern France and Sicily in how they settled in foreign land. It is also used for nomads who lose their home. The Germanic raiding adventurers spawn with ships, but even nomads who do not get ships can travel far, as these raiders unlike others can raid in any province (except the provinces of the one who conquered your home lands).

Raiding adventurers will use the money they gain from raiding to recruit more troops, and when they have grown to a certain level, they will try to become landed. A ruler can offer to settle these raiding adventurers, giving them coastal or border provinces. They might however refuse to be settled if they do not like the lands that you are offering. Ambitious raiding adventurers will usually not be settled unless they are given a duchy. If no such offer is made however, they will eventually start a war on one of the rulers they have raided, targeting a duchy.

The same Settle Adventurer interaction can be used to settle the dynamic mercenaries we already covered, if you have managed to make them your friend. Settled raiding adventurers will become Feudal or Iqta depending on their religion, and also be disinherited from the nomad realm from which they came from.

One of the benefits of settling a raiding adventurer is that the provinces that are given away will be blocked from raided again in the near future.

Raiding adventurers that do not spawn from being conquered as well as dynamic mercenaries will get the Adventurer trait that makes the character much more ambitious and military capable. So even if they give you several benefits to settle, they can become dangerous for your future generations.

That's all for this week! Next week we are going to go through map and culture revisions and new events!

 

[Arcvalons]

One thing. The Silk Road is missing the portion that went through Tabriz and ended in Trebizond, and there should be a branch from Antioch that goes into Constantinople and then Rome.

 

[Groogy]

One thing. The Silk Road is missing the portion that went through Tabriz and ended in Trebizond, and there should be a branch from Antioch that goes into Constantinople and then Rome.

Technically there should be about a hundred branches of the route. We are not gonna represent every single of them. If you want that obscure unimportant detail, add it as a mod.

 

[riadach]

I'm not sure Constantinople's role in the silk route was historically unimportant or obscure. Wasn't it the fall of constantinople that precipitated the search for the westerly route to India/China?

 

[Groogy]

Love all the ideas here but I have 2 questions. Firstly will the mongols have an event/decision which improves the lucrativity of the silk road by reestablishing it in the east?

They never reestablished it. They strengthed the security along it. Very different from what you are implying. Anyway doing that is possible as anyone, not a specific decision for Mongols.

 

[riadach]

What does it take to disturb the route? Cities being sieged/raided or simply being part of a country engaged in war?

 

[DC123456789]

Will the Grand Trunk Road be represented?

 

[Groogy]

Sieges

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

I'm not sure Constantinople's role in the silk route was historically unimportant or obscure. Wasn't it the fall of constantinople that precipitated the search for the westerly route to India/China?

This

 

[topotamadre]

One question: Are there going to be any kind of "Tocharians"? I think that some kind of remain of the White Huns in Central Asia will be funny

 

[Ashagar]

Thinking of the silk road it has a rather interesting history as silk went both ways on the route as the Chinese empire imported Sea Silk from the Byzantine empire which was a highly valuable textile made from the Byssus of the Noble Pen Shell which could be woven even finer than silk gathered from from silk worms and when treated with lemon juice turned a golden color that never faded. Makes me wonder mentions of the various exotic goods that were exported not just from the east to the west but from the west to the east will get much mention.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

. Wasn't it the fall of constantinople that precipitated the search for the westerly route to India/China?

I'm quite sure it was the Mongol conquests.

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

I'm quite sure it was the Mongol conquests.

No, It was the fault of Constantinople (Or at last is what one is teached)

 

[selteur]

I will literally post something about China on every dev diary from here on out until the end of times just to annoy the shit out of you.

Ok kid do your shit...

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

Y

They never reestablished it. They strengthed the security along it. Very different from what you are implying. Anyway doing that is possible as anyone, not a specific decision for Mongols.

i was refering to the parts of the road in China and Mongolia which aren't in the game yet. Enhancing the security in those areas would increase the amount of trade which can reach the CK2 map.

 

[laserytuna]

So I have a question that I wanted to ask about the DLC in general. Will Horse Lords get rid of the Event Spawned Mongols?

 

[Coldfire4134]

You can't play as a raiding adventurer when you loose all of your land as a steppe nomad?

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

So I have a question that I wanted to ask about the DLC in general. Will Horse Lords get rid of the Event Spawned Mongols?

I think no. Mongolia isnt in the map. And shouldnt. Because if Mongolia was in the map, the player could avoid the Horders from creation.

 

[Rags17]

Will the Grand Trunk Road be represented?

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Grand_Funk_Railroad ?

On a more serious note - they give us the world so we get to ask for the universe - will the provinces on the Silk Road be dynamic? Can we burn a route so badly that the only alternative is to build a new route further north or south ? Can we dynamically create our own routes, eg the Fur Road, the Salt Routes etc ?

 

[cybrxkhan]

They never reestablished it. They strengthed the security along it. Very different from what you are implying. Anyway doing that is possible as anyone, not a specific decision for Mongols.

The Mongols never re-established it per se but they did revitalize the land route significantly, partly due to strengthened security. The decline and collapse of the Sogdian trade networks in the 9th and 10th centuries that had monopolized much of the trade in the region for centuries, along with other structural changes such as political instability following th collapse of the Uighurs and Arab/Persian merchants trying to take over more of the trade, are tied to the shift of focus from the land routes of the Silk Road to the Indian Ocean maritime routed. With the Mongols the land routes once more became much more viable, though not to the extent they were during the era of the Sogdians' monopoly, mainly because so much of the trade had permanently shifted to the Indian Ocean already. Without the Mongol presence the land routes would have simply declined into irrelevance even faster.

Of course, it appears that the Indian Ocean routes are going to be added, so that may be simulated more or less.

Actually, that makes me wonder, how will the Ondian Ocean Silk Road routes play with any merchant republics that pop up on the Indian Ocean? Would those provinces in the Silk Road who a,so have a merchant republic presence simply make more money? Would there be two separate types of trade posts?

 

[Jorlem]

Thinking of the silk road it has a rather interesting history as silk went both ways on the route as the Chinese empire imported Sea Silk from the Byzantine empire which was a highly valuable textile made from the Byssus of the Noble Pen Shell which could be woven even finer than silk gathered from from silk worms and when treated with lemon juice turned a golden color that never faded. Makes me wonder mentions of the various exotic goods that were exported not just from the east to the west but from the west to the east will get much mention.

Given how trade routes work in EU4, my bet is that they will be ignored entirely. Or, upon conversion it will be another of those weird things, as those in the east stop receiving western goods.