CK Equal-Area map

[Mad King James]

I thought of a dramatic name for this map but I think I'm just going to go with Equal Area. This map is based on the "stereographic" projection, so the north and south poles shrink to nothing while land grows as you approach the equator, as in real life.

I have also tilted the map to open up three new areas that CK previously did not include:

1) The rest of Arabia not included in the original CK map
2) Ethiopia, Sudan and part of Somalia not included in the original CK map
3) The Sahel corridor from Darfur to Koumbi Saleh not included in the original CK map
4) Part of Pakistan, Afghanistan and central Asia not included in the original CK map

On the other hand a few areas are NOT included:

1) Iceland
2) Canary Islands
3) Bjarmia and other areas in far northeastern Russia



Click the image for a 50% size image of the whole map.

 

[faboj]

is intrsting but are you sure you can put all that new provinces?

 

[Mad King James]

is intrsting but are you sure you can put all that new provinces?

It'll be a bit of a tight squeeze but I should be ok

 

[Prinz Wilhelm]

Why did you include northern Sweden, Norway and Finland? There was nothing there at the time, and there was certainly never any direct rule there. They were like colonies in FTG. I'd stop at Gästrikland and Jämtland, and Vasa for Finland.

 

[Mad King James]

Why did you include northern Sweden, Norway and Finland? There was nothing there at the time, and there was certainly never any direct rule there. They were like colonies in FTG. I'd stop at Gästrikland and Jämtland, and Vasa for Finland.

Halogaland in Norway was most certainly important even this early in history, and virtually all of Sweden was loosely governed by the Swedish crown via Birkarls by the 1300s, even northern Lappland and Norrbotten.

 

[Auvar]

This is fantastic. Nubia is no longer consigned to a little tiny wedge of southern Egypt, and northern African muslim realms might actually be able to put up slightly more of a fight with more counties and more strategic depth. Now all we need is a scenario for this thing!

My only worry is that parts of Europe - Italy and parts of Germany, specifically - seem even more dense, while most middle eastern Muslim lands (save Egypt) look the same as before. The Muslim middle east might roll over even more quickly during a Crusade unless province wealth is changed a lot to compensate.

 

[Mad King James]

This is fantastic. Nubia is no longer consigned to a little tiny wedge of southern Egypt, and northern African muslim realms might actually be able to put up slightly more of a fight with more counties and more strategic depth. Now all we need is a scenario for this thing!

My only worry is that parts of Europe - Italy and parts of Germany, specifically - seem even more dense, while most middle eastern Muslim lands (save Egypt) look the same as before. The Muslim middle east might roll over even more quickly during a Crusade unless province wealth is changed a lot to compensate.

Yeah the primary issue isn't one of not enough provinces, but rather there is terrible game balance in terms of province base values, which directly equates to number of soldiers.

I have added more provinces to Europe but they will be "more but poorer".

 

[unmerged(207113)]

Looking good, James.

Austen

 

[Auvar]

Yeah the primary issue isn't one of not enough provinces, but rather there is terrible game balance in terms of province base values, which directly equates to number of soldiers.

Absolutely - that is the primary issue, and "more but poorer" is a fine solution to it. I think, however, that there are a few other secondary issues:

Firstly, since (as far as I can tell) movement between provinces depends only on their terrain, not the actual province size, won't a denser Europe make Europe much slower to travel through? This could turn into a balance issue because war in CK is all about seizing demesne provinces that are often far-flung. Forcing a peace on the HRE in regular CK is hard enough, particularly once the German king has appropriated a few random rebellious counties throughout the land; with scores of extra provinces to wade through (and get attrition in), it might be all but impossible.

Secondly, the demesnes of N. African/ME kingdoms are going to be much smaller in terms of provinces than those of European ones. You can make them richer to compensate, but that won't change the fact that it will take far less time to capture a Muslim ruler's demesne, since rich provinces can be taken just as quickly as poor ones. Anybody with a "rich but small" realm is automatically disadvantaged in the besieging game. Combined with the comparative ease of movement through such a realm, it means that Muslim domains will fall much faster to invading armies than European ones.

This is a little bit off-topic, I suppose - this is a thread about your map (an excellent map), not any particular scenario based on it - but I do think that changing the province density of certain areas will have implications that can't all be addressed simply by changing county income.

 

[Mad King James]

I'm pretty sure there is a size modifier that increases or decreases the travel time from province to province.

Despite how it looks, the province density is actually about the same, only a few areas have more provinces than in the original CK map and some actually have fewer. This is because Europe in the original CK map is heavily distorted in that it is about 50% larger than everything else around it, and everything else is squished and compressed, so European provinces look about the same size as other provinces but in reality they are much smaller.

for comparison look at the default map and mine:

In mine, Europe is "actual size".

 

[Auvar]

I'm pretty sure there is a size modifier that increases or decreases the travel time from province to province.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder if anyone knows where that information can be found.

You're probably right. Some areas look quite a bit denser to me, but it's hard for me to just glance at the map and definitively say "well Germany has 40% more provinces" or something like that. It's probably best to just wait for a scenario and see how it plays - and I hope we do get one, because the map really does look superb.

I just noticed there aren't any sea regions on your map - have you established those yet? I'm mildly curious as to how you divided up the Red Sea/Indian Ocean, and what the atlantic looks like now that you've presumably taken out the big atlantic sea regions that CK used to make long distance sea travel faster.

 

[Mad King James]

Germany really doesn't have that many more provinces than the original map, the only country that's had a really significant increase in provinces is Italy.

If you compare the two maps, Europe is simply physically larger in the original map.

 

[Mad King James]

Map is now completely drawn and I have begun adding in province IDs.

First version of the map will contain no new provinces, so new provinces will either be lumped together or be PTI for version 1.

 

[Mad King James]

Posted an image (click to see full size) of the entire map with all the provinces.

 

[unmerged(207113)]

I love the scale - particularly the British Isles in ratio to Sweden : ]

Austen

 

[Drake Rlugia]

This looks beautiful. Can't wait to see more.

 

[Herr Doctor]

Nice project. There are couples of very anachronistic names so in Eastern Europe. For example, Jonava was just a tiny village first time mentioned in the chronicles of the 14th century. Vilna is very odd to see in the 11th-13th centuries too. Grodno was not that important until the very late 15th century. Same with Krychaw and BialYstok (you misspelled it btw) etc etc. I have several propositions as alternatives if you interested.

You can grab several ideas from here if you like.

 

[jordarkelf]

Two Frankfurts can be confusing.
Suggestion: rename the middle-German one to Brandendamm, after the dam the city (together with its eastern half, now Poland) was founded on?

 

[Prinz Wilhelm]

Halogaland in Norway was most certainly important even this early in history, and virtually all of Sweden was loosely governed by the Swedish crown via Birkarls by the 1300s, even northern Lappland and Norrbotten.

I'm sure you'll find that the Birkarls didn't do anything but act as middlemen for the trade, they didn't govern anything. The first person to control anything in Norrbotten for the King was one of my ancestors for Gustav Vasa and all he was allowed to do was to get furs from the Sami to send to Stockholm. The crown had no control or knowledge, they "ruled" through middlemen.

I'm sorry, your theory doesn't make sense. Northern Sweden has never been ruled feudally and wasn't that economically important during CK. The first person to be assigned by Stockholm to govern northern Sweden and Finland was a knight who based himself in Oulu (IIRC) but his rule was in name only.

Halogaland can be put in yes, but going north of Gästrikland is pointless. The people there first follow Swedish law (only law, not anything else) after the 1300s. It wouldn't make sense to put it into a game like CK. The Sami in CK was also the weirdest decision I've ever seen.

Oh and Birkarls controlling northern Sweden for the crown? Not really, the crown saw northern Sweden as wastelands even into the 1500s, the Birkarls sure didn't do any ruling, they traded. How these lands worked don't fit in the game. You'd also save IDs you can put in other places from not putting in useless fish provinces. Jämtland should be in though, and you could put Härjedalen in the same province. Härjedalen has never had more than 15,000 people in it at the same time, during the middle ages it was probably nothing at all. Idre and Särna have always been regarded as Norwegian before the 1650s when they were taken by Sweden, you should put them in a Norwegian province (if you don't know what they are you can google that.)

 

[Mad King James]

Nice project. There are couples of very anachronistic names so in Eastern Europe. For example, Jonava was just a tiny village first time mentioned in the chronicles of the 14th century. Vilna is very odd to see in the 11th-13th centuries too. Grodno was not that important until the very late 15th century. Same with Krychaw and BialYstok (you misspelled it btw) etc etc. I have several propositions as alternatives if you interested.

You can grab several ideas from here if you like.

Sure I'm interested in collaboration, let me know what these names should be changed to.