CK II - Mercenary groups are hiring Chinese characters and applying province modifiers

[TheDarkMaster]

One line summary of your issue
Mercenary groups are hiring Chinese characters and applying province modifiers

Game Version
3.1.0 (KKAD)

What expansions do you have installed?
All of the above

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Mercenary bands are currently able to hire Chinese characters, which will then apply their province modifiers to whatever province the band is based in. This ignores diplomatic range, so often leads to province modifiers like paper mill appearing in odd places.

Their generals also are used as leaders for the mercenary company and can potentially be captured in battle.

Steps to reproduce the issue.
This cannot be controlled, as the player cannot choose to make the mercenaries hire Chinese courtiers. However, you can let the game run for several years with diplomatic range limits on for China and then check distant provinces for Chinese province modifiers.

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[Ceebie]

Hi, do you have more specific reproduction steps or a save just before the issue occurs? As I'm having trouble reproducing internally. Thanks.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Like I said, I don't think you can control this. However I did load up my latest game and found a couple examples of the issue. I've attached the save.

On this save, the two relevant characters are highlighted as characters of special interest. Both are special Chinese characters serving mercenary groups that are outside diplomatic range of China. Zhang Huangshang is of particular relevance, as he is a master engineer serving the Victual Brothers in Marienburg. The mercenaries do not own any counties, but Marienburg has a paper mill and blast furnace modifier. This province is tribal land outside diplomatic range of China. The other, Wang Guaishen, is a Chinese physician.

As an aside, there's a couple Jewish courtiers in the court of the Victual Brothers mercenary band as well, they probably shouldn't be there. I suspect the event that spawns them can occur for a mercenary band.

 

[jruderman]

The "chinese_master_engineer" decision has an "is_landed = yes" requirement, so landless mercs shouldn't be requesting master engineers using Grace. However, mercs may get master engineers as refugees in JD.10030. It's also possible in theory that a courtier was master engineer was banished from somewhere and moved to the merc's court, but I'd be surprised if the AI were smart enough to grant the honorary title (title_master_engineer) to a courtier.

I suggest fixing this in two places:
* In JD.10030 trigger, add the conditions: "is_landed = yes" and "mercenary = no" and "holy_order = no"
* In JD.20033 trigger, add the conditions: "independent = no" and "liege = { is_landed = yes }"

 

[Fitzjacob]

I suggest fixing this in two places:
* In JD.10030 trigger, add the conditions: "is_landed = yes" and "mercenary = no" and "holy_order = no"
* In JD.20033 trigger, add the conditions: "independent = no" and "liege = { is_landed = yes }"

It's been awhile since I checked the issue but perhaps this could be extended to the search for court physicians too? Having one eyed geniuses inheriting companies left and right made the character seem a little less unique.

 

[MonzUn]

Thanks for the additional info!
We have been able to reproduce the issue and it has been logged in our bug tracker.