[Map] Ibn Battuta's Legacy 2 - An alternative vanilla map WIP

[elvain]

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen!

I'd like to introduce to you the greatest traveller of medieval world, أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Lawati al-Tanjiri ibn Battuta

...and inspired by his travels, here is a mod, which will try to slightly adjust/improve the vanilla map without completely reworking it. In areas visited by Ibn Battuta and beyond.


mod now updated to Royal Court / 1.5.0 patch

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Mod concept​

- The mod is meant to improve the map's de jure structure and add baronies, provinces and cultures. Where possible in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. (despite the initial look of things, this is NOT a mod focused only on Africa, but also Europe and MidEast).
- First of all - Unlike many modders I don't inherently imply that the vanilla map is wrong, inaccurate etc. at least not in the areas I am most interested about, which is roughly the areas travelled by Ibn Battuta. I do respect the great effort the developers have done. Partly because I know that they invested a lot of effort and resources into this and I made my best to help them with it. Yet some of the choices could be made differently and this mod is a platform for my alternative designs to the vanilla map.
- I respect the development team's design choices as well as basic principles which were behind them as far as I have learned about them.
- I also want to keep this mod minimalistic and relatively close to vanilla if possible, just like I did in the previous iteration of this mod
- Yet I see there is still quite a lot of room for improvement of the map.
- For the sake of compatibility with other mods, this will be solely map mod dealing with map, de jure structure and with very tiny changes in cultures map. Like in CK2 I plan to build an upgrade of this mod "Ibn Battuta's World", which will also edit some titular history and potentially also change other gameplay features on the top of this mod.

Mod objectives (what to expect and what not to expect)​

- From the above said it should be clear that this mod doesn't plan to repaint the map's projection, nor to remove the content already present there, although I do agree with other map modders that some of it shouldn't be there if we want some consistency.
- The mod also doesn't plan adding hundreds of baronies or even counties, completely overhaul the de-jure structure
- What you can expect however is small changes here and there to improve the accuracy, yet remain close to the game's basic design.
- I plan to add also several cultures, but since I'm not a fan of micro-cultures for every duchy or every 2 counties, don't expect me to flood the map with them, although they historically existed. From gameplay perspective (after the game is unpaused) they way too often decrease the general accuracy instead of increasing it. Quite frankly I would myself even get rid of several vanilla cultures which are IMHO way too small. But as I said, I don't intend to remove any content.
- Also I don't plan nor intend to use localized names for kingdoms into their local languages. This game is in English and hence the names will be in English and in the forms used by modern historiography. Even the ones which are recently contested.

Features (already in progress)​

- more details to Bohemia region in order to adjust the density of baronies to the same level present in all surrounding Central European countries
- adjust the de jure map of West Africa such as split the kingdom of Toro between Mali and Guinea, and split the kingdom of Adiukru between Guinea and Akan kingdom.
- added kingdom of Benin + fill the wasteland in the western part of
- edited the former Igbo-Benue kingsom - renamed to Greater Nri, number of new provinces and counties added (with new rulers)
- fix some of my errors in the Sahara region - county of Waddan splitted into Waddan and Tajrift, the huge county of Tamentit divided into 2 new counties and the rest is wasteland
- The heartlands of West Sahelian civilization - the kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Jenne densified with over a dozen of new baronies.
- the Beja teritories east of Nubia got small boost with 2 counties and several baronies added.
- Nubians and Ethiopians can no longer recruit Camel riders

Compatibility (and recommended other mods)​

- the mod disables achievements, obviously....
- Sinews of War - works well with a compatch
- Muslim Enhancements - works well with a compatch
- BlackEmperors's Africa Plus - works with no need of compatch or anything
- VIET/RICE and any of @cybrxkhan 's amazing work
- More Cultural Names - works with a compatch
- it should work with most of other mods, which don't change the provinces layout, rivers and the base aspects of map. Mods editing map graphics should work fine, though

Spoiler: detailed changelog

chengelog for Ibn Battuta's legacy:

New counties:
- c_egerland splits from Vogtland and becomes part of Bavarian Nurdgau
- c_velehrad in Moravia, is replacement for deleted c_jihlava
- c_tajrift in Syrte - splits from Waddan
- c_timmoun in Touat - splits from Tamentit
- c_nubt in Naqis - splits from Wadi Amur
- c_musmar in Baqlin
- c_aguleri in Igboland/Nri
- c_ikwere in Igboland/Nri
- c_west_igbo in Igboland/Nri
- c_urhobo in Ijaw/Benin
- c_warri in Ijaw/Benin

New baronies:
k_bohemia (12)
b_osek in c_litomerice
b_drevic in c_zatec
b_tepla in c_plzen
b_kourim in c_caslav
b_stare_mesto in c_praha
b_libice and b_zeleznice in c_boleslav
b_hradisko and b_stavenice in c_olomouc
b_velehrad in c_velehrad
b_rajhrad in c_brno
b_landek in c_prerov

k_bavaria (1/3 - 2 baronies moved from vogtland)
b_asch in new county of Egerland

k_ghana (6)
b_musala_hodh in c_hodh
b_labiar in c_masin
b_koronga in c_awkar
b_toubel in c_kouga
b_kobadi in c_mema
b_massina in c_massina

k_africa (2)
b_jufra in new county c_tajrift
b_temedd added to c_waddan

k_anbiya (3)
b_timmoun in c_timmoun
b_wallen and b_ain_zize in c_wallen

k_jenne (3)
b_toguere in c_jenne
b_upper_do in c_dodugu
b_tiebala in c_bindugu

k_mali (5)
b_bako in c_dakajalan
b_upper_wasulu in c_niani
b_farakoro in c_tabon
b_koukouba in c_sibi_mali
b_jahaba in c_gangaran

k_benin (8 - new kingdom title)
b_amafa in c_ijaw
b_ikibiri in c_urhobo (new county)
b_ogobiri in c_urhobo (new county)
b_sapele in c_benin
b_ilah in c_ominije
b_warri in c_warri (new county)
b_ogbinbiri in c_warri (new county)
b_aboh in c_warri (new county)

k_igbo-benue (6)
b_anioma in c_west_igbo (new county)
b_ikwere in c_ikwere (new county)
b_oweri in c_ikwere (new county)
b_nri in c_igbo
b_awka in c_igbo
b_aguleri in c_aguleri (new county)


k_egypt (2)
b_bir_gidami in c_qusayr
b_sikait in c_jabal_quzlum

k_blemmyia (3)
b_musmar in c_musmar (new county)
b_tabot in Nubt (new county)
b_samadi in Nubt (new county)

other changes
b_tidikelt made impassable
b_sedlec renamed to b_tepla and relocated
b_jaromer renamed to b_opatovice
b_milevsko renamed to b_ostrov
b_dvur-chvojno renamed to b_skalice
b_veseli to b_hradiste

Edo > Uromi (8073)
Ode_itseriki > Ilah (8086)
Benin_marshes > Gwato (8088)

b_tagant_west > b_assaba
b_hodh-west > b_affole

b_east_igala > b_tiv (8113)
b_south_igbo > b_ogwuta (8114)
b_otukpo > b_ezza (8120)
b_uburu > b_yako (8119)

b_NORTH_JBL_QUZLUM > b_bir_nakheel (6118)
b_CENTRAL_JBL_QUZLUM > b_kab_marfua (6119)
b_SOUTH_JBL_QUZLUM > b_jbl_quzlum (6120)

b_gebeit > b_bit_atyafit (6373)
b_naqis-north > b_al-hofra (6374)
b_upper_amur > b_ariab (6383)

Plans for the near or further future
- add a savannah terrain type for the Sahel
- add few more navigable rivers, but stay minimalistic (the ones under consideration - Benue, Sokoto, Volta, some 3-4 in Europe aswell)
- as the time goes I would like to touch the Alps, the Low countries, parts of historical Hungary (Slovakia), Germany or Anatolia
- add some more granularity (if possible) to East Africa, split some of its cultures which at the moment represent rather culture groups than cultures
- add some cultures, the ones currently planned are: Carantanian, Jukun. In consideration are: Ijaw, splitting Ethiopian and Welayta into few more cultures (I don't plan spamming Europe with micro-cultures, though)

Known Issues​

- cultural names are somehow messed up. Not very sure why, will investigate as the work goes on
- BALANCE - the map is still a WIP, very early stage. In terms of balance it's an alpha version. Bohemia in 867 will be tough despite added baronies, 1066 AI Bohemia is way too strong to stay inside the HRE, yet too weak to survive imperial re-conquest... and many many more

Contributors and honorary mentions:
- although I am working on this mod myself, I wouldn't make it possible without the help of these people:
@Keizer Harm who helped me sort out quite a few technical problems
@daniloy who has been very helpfull and providing tons of feedback and suggesting very interesting design choices
@Arko because, you know, you have great ideas, mate
@Atimo3 - provider of amazing feedback and ideas/sources for African areas I'm far from knowing enough about
@Wenceslaus II. @Rhipeen @panparba for providing awesome feedback about Bohemia and Moravia setup
@Dragatus - one word. Carantanians
@Black7Emperor7 - invaluable help with the Igbo and Yoruba regions
@Cèsar de Quart for very detailed suggestion of Iberian overhaul amd other consultations in this area
@Torngasuk for additional help wuth Iberian history
several others whose help will be mentioned later as it
the Paradox developers, whom I will not mention here in person for their own convenience don't want to disturb them from the amazing work they are doing.

 

[elvain]

Screenshot gallery:​

Benin area:
Baronies:

kingdoms:

West Africa de jure kingdoms:

new counties and baronies in the Sahara:

more dense baronies and changed borders of counties in Bohemia and Moravia (+ added the county of Egerland in Germany)

Screenshots from version 0.02
updated Western Sahel - new baronies and counties in the kingdoms of Ghana, Jenne, Mali and Takrur:

Update of the Niger Delta and Benin

Update of the Middle Niger area, in partucular the Songhay kingdom:

 

[daniloy]

Happy to help and awesome work.

 

[Koyraboro]

Do you think you will increase the barony density in Subsaharan Africa proper and are you planning to add more navigable rivers in West Africa? Having only the Niger is not only ahistorical but also make the Canoes technology rather useless.

 

[elvain]

Do you think you will increase the barony density in Subsaharan Africa proper and are you planning to add more navigable rivers in West Africa? Having only the Niger is not only ahistorical but also make the Canoes technology rather useless.

Very good points.

As for the first one, there could indeed be something done in some of the areas

as you can see on a comparison of my WIP project mapping historically relevant territories for this period, you can see that the areas of Manding and south and west of Inland Niger delta could get a few more baronies.
OTOH, considering how dense they already are, I'm not sure if it can be anything significant. The only counties which could IMHO get more historically accurate baronies would be Dakajalan, Sibi, Tabon, Dodugu and Jenne, which are already quite packed, but I think I can add one barony to each of them.
Maybe also Bindugu and Massina could get one.
Then there is a dense cluster of archeological localities known in what has later became Dogon country, but most of these are quite insignificant villages, but the area is denser mainly due to intensive interest of archaeologists unprecedented for the other areas.
I would also like to add more dense baronies to the core of Wagadu/Ghana kingdom, since researchers describe it as very densely populated area in the 9th-12th centuries. But sadly we don't know the localities (this area is one of the most researched on my end).

Then, as already shown, I plan adding more baronies to the Benin area. In other parts of West Africa my research doesn't offer enough more localities for denser baronies, except maybe the Senegambia, but looking at the CK3 map that one also already is quite dense.

The limit here is projection - Africa is made far smaller than Europe. OTOH, looking to the north of the Sahel I can see a reason I can understand with this - the Sahara already has very huge counties and baronies. Making it more accurate would mean it would cover very large, but empty area.

Tl;dr
But despite this written above, I have already added few baronies to some of the areas I mentioned above, so yes, the barony density will slightly increase.


The second point is also good. But the question is which rivers. I don't want the map look ugly (which it does if too many rivers are navigable). I can imagine Senegal being navigable to Silla or perhaps all the way up to Guidimaka or extending the Niger up to Sibi/Dakajalan, but that eats space necessary for potential additional baronies.
I think the main problem with boats innovation being worthless is that now everyone is able to raid because almost the entire West Africa is tribal, which shouldn't be the case.
Volta, Sokoto, Benue would also make some sense, but I frankly haven't read any of the rivers (but Niger) to be used for military operations.

 

[Thure]

Great work as allways! I will keep your mod on watch. Especially since you and a lot of your work on the African and Bohemian region were a big inspiration for my own Map Mod in CK2 in this regions

 

[Koyraboro]

Very good points.

As for the first one, there could indeed be something done in some of the areasView attachment 623401
as you can see on a comparison of my WIP project mapping historically relevant territories for this period, you can see that the areas of Manding and south and west of Inland Niger delta could get a few more baronies.
OTOH, considering how dense they already are, I'm not sure if it can be anything significant. The only counties which could IMHO get more historically accurate baronies would be Dakajalan, Sibi, Tabon, Dodugu and Jenne, which are already quite packed, but I think I can add one barony to each of them.
Maybe also Bindugu and Massina could get one.
Then there is a dense cluster of archeological localities known in what has later became Dogon country, but most of these are quite insignificant villages, but the area is denser mainly due to intensive interest of archaeologists unprecedented for the other areas.
I would also like to add more dense baronies to the core of Wagadu/Ghana kingdom, since researchers describe it as very densely populated area in the 9th-12th centuries. But sadly we don't know the localities (this area is one of the most researched on my end).

Then, as already shown, I plan adding more baronies to the Benin area. In other parts of West Africa my research doesn't offer enough more localities for denser baronies, except maybe the Senegambia, but looking at the CK3 map that one also already is quite dense.

The limit here is projection - Africa is made far smaller than Europe. OTOH, looking to the north of the Sahel I can see a reason I can understand with this - the Sahara already has very huge counties and baronies. Making it more accurate would mean it would cover very large, but empty area.

Tl;dr
But despite this written above, I have already added few baronies to some of the areas I mentioned above, so yes, the barony density will slightly increase.


The second point is also good. But the question is which rivers. I don't want the map look ugly (which it does if too many rivers are navigable). I can imagine Senegal being navigable to Silla or perhaps all the way up to Guidimaka or extending the Niger up to Sibi/Dakajalan, but that eats space necessary for potential additional baronies.
I think the main problem with boats innovation being worthless is that now everyone is able to raid because almost the entire West Africa is tribal, which shouldn't be the case.
Volta, Sokoto, Benue would also make some sense, but I frankly haven't read any of the rivers (but Niger) to be used for military operations.

Are you satisfied with the current state of navigable rivers and the mechanics surrounding them?
You have some reference then. The fact that you only heard about the Niger used in war is probably due to most books focusing on the Sahelian empires particularly Mali and most of all Songhay. This was their backbone. But there is no evidence to suggest that the tributaries of the Niger and other rivers were not used in that capacity by smaller polities since we do not have info on most of them.
I think you should pull back the Niger and implement at least part of the Volta. The Senegal and Gambia I do not know.

 

[klopkr]

Hell yeah! Bringing back the best of the ck2 mods!

I see you've found Ibn Battutas secret legendary travel chronicles to Bohemia even!

You should bring back some of the province density in Ireland if you get a chance. Very much excited to watch this mod mature.

 

[elvain]

Great work as allways! I will keep your mod on watch. Especially since you and a lot of your work on the African and Bohemian region were a big inspiration for my own Map Mod in CK2 in this regions

Thanks for the nice words. It's great honour to hear that! Especially from somebody who's up to the task of making the most maximalistic map mod announced yet, while this is meant to be the most minimalistic of non-regional map mods.

Hell yeah! Bringing back the best of the ck2 mods!

I see you've found Ibn Battutas secret legendary travel chronicles to Bohemia even!

Hehe, yeah. It's written very small in his notes, so most historians and editors of his work haven't really noticed it. But while he was in Spain, he got an invitation from the emperor Charles IV. to overview the foundations of the university of Prague, but the visit was very brief, you know

You should bring back some of the province density in Ireland if you get a chance. Very much excited to watch this mod mature.

Interesting and good idea. I will add it to my list, although I can't say it would make it to the higher levels any time soon. But for some later time, a good idea!

Are you satisfied with the current state of navigable rivers and the mechanics surrounding them?
You have some reference then. The fact that you only heard about the Niger used in war is probably due to most books focusing on the Sahelian empires particularly Mali and most of all Songhay. This was their backbone. But there is no evidence to suggest that the tributaries of the Niger and other rivers were not used in that capacity by smaller polities since we do not have info on most of them.
I think you should pull back the Niger and implement at least part of the Volta. The Senegal and Gambia I do not know.

To be honest, I take it that the game has just been released and the major focus was not West Africa, so I can't say I'm dissatisfied, although to be honest I imagined it differently. But considering that the tech is only given to the riverine people on the Niger, the Sorko and Bozo, I understand why only Niger is navigable. In the parts where it was used for this sort of warfare it has no tributaries(I mean no large ones). The big ones are all downstream Bussa rapids, which are described as inpenetrable obstacle for river navigation (similar to the cataracts on the Nile), all except the Sokoto river. So perhaps the Sokoto river could be made navigable, perhaps to make the Sokoto and Gobir counties reachable. As for other rivers, while it might be realistic, I don't see much ingame purpouse for it right now.

I have indeed done some rather extensive reading about West Africa far beyond the major empires of Wagadu, Kawkaw etc. as well as about local warfare(my database of downloaded articles and books solely on the Western Sahel counts some 160 items + physical books + dozens of online bookmarks).
It is beyond doubt that smaller polities used canoes for military purpouses, but so did people/states all across the map. The navigable rivers mechanic in this game isn't meant to represent every singhe boat ever used to transport armed men (and women), just like raiding isn't meant to represent every raid on a village ever taking place. I understand why, respect and accept it (for now).

As I said earlier, I don't want to pull navigable Niger far upstream. It would eat the small space necessary for denser baronies, which is something I am going for in the first place:

here I have added 14 new baronies to the parts where it makes sense both historically and gameplay/game-design wise.
In terms of counties it means that 14 counties in the heartlands of the most advanced parts of West Sahel got a small boost.

As for the county map, I don't plan to change it rapidly apart from tiny bodred changes forced by adding a barony on/near the borderline. The borders which have slightly changed are:
Hodh-Masin, Kouga-Mema, Dodugu-Bindugu and Tabon-Bure

But in general, being faithfull to my mod's concept, I must say that with all the data I have ammassed when they finalized their map I couldn't do a better map of West Sahel than CK3 has

 

[klopkr]

Hehe, yeah. It's written very small in his notes, so most historians and editors of his work haven't really noticed it. But while he was in Spain, he got an invitation from the emperor Charles IV. to overview the foundations of the university of Prague, but the visit was very brief, you know

Lucky he didn't get defenestrated while he was there!

 

[elvain]

This is awesome! Legacy of أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة and of
I have some nitpicky suggestions that I almost dare not mention for this perfect project:
-since we have Plzeň (instead of the English usage of German Pilsen), shouldn't it be Praha?
-since the modern orthography is used (and it is the obvious and preferable choice), shouldn't it be Telč instead of Telcz?
-wouldn't Bardo/Wartha be a better choice than Frankenstein, it being mentioned in Cosmas chronicle?

Thanks for the feedback!

- Telcz - You're obviously right. I missed it in my original work and yes, it is on my list and deffinitely will have the correct modern spelling Telč.
- Praha - To be perfectly honest I'm myself divided in this issue. My approach is this: For names which are notoriously known in English speaking word under their English names, use English. That way we have Prague, Cairo instead of al-Kahirah, Jerusalem instead of al-Quds... there is Ghana instead of Wagadu etc.
Local names should only be used when the place is less known and even modern English sometimes uses the local form. Pilsen/Plzeň is a borderline example.
- Bardo - Bardo is at its correct location between Kladsko and Wroclaw. Placing it instead of Frankenstein would be misplacing.

But keep the feedback comming!
I hope I will soon be able to upload a playable version

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Can we get a quick and dirty guide on how to add baronies into the game?

I tried following the same system I used for CK2 but it didn't work. Seeing you adding baronies liberally and successfully makes me jealous.

 

[famaouz]

Can we get a quick and dirty guide on how to add baronies into the game?

I tried following the same system I used for CK2 but it didn't work. Seeing you adding baronies liberally and successfully makes me jealous.

Try to join discord server and ask for help there, they may help...

 

[elvain]

Can we get a quick and dirty guide on how to add baronies into the game?

I tried following the same system I used for CK2 but it didn't work. Seeing you adding baronies liberally and successfully makes me jealous.

it's not very different from adding a province to CK2.
- First add it to map_data/definition.csv
- then paint it with the defined RGB colours to provinces.png in the same directory
- then add the barony to the de jure structure in common/landed_titles/00_landed_titles.txt using the province ID from definition file

these are essential steps without which done correctly the game will break/won't load.
if everything is ok there and the game still crashes, you also probably need to edit the default.map

- then define its barony type in history/provinces/k_(the kingdom where it is located under the duchy and county where it is located
- then you need to add the provinces building, armies, combat and siege positions, which are in gfx/map/map_object_data
then you need to add localisations for the title (the exact file will be added later)

there's of course bunch of potential problems. will try to navigate solving them (like otgers have navigated myself when I have encountered few of them already)

EDIT: I'm sorry for not providing everything exactly. I'm not with my computer now.

 

[mechl]

it's not very different from adding a province to CK2.
- First add it to map_data/definition.csv
- then paint it with the defined RGB colours to provinces.png in the same directory
- then add the barony to the de jure structure in common/landed_titles/00_landed_titles.txt using the province ID from definitions file

these are essential steps without which done correctly the game will break/won't load.
if everything is ok there and the game still crashes, you also probably need to edit the defines.lua (not sure about file name, but sure about file type).

- then define its barony type in history/provinces/k_(the kingdom where it is located under the duchy and county where it is located
- then you need to add the provinces building, armies, combat and siege positions, which are in gfx/map_data something/map (exact location to be added later)
then you need to add localisations for the title (the exact file will be added later)

When it comes to positions is there a way to make it auto populate the new provinces like CK2 would so I can only go straight to the map editor? I've had to manually add a template for each positions file to make it actually give me an option to set those. Not exactly hard to do but kind of annoying.

 

[elvain]

When it comes to positions is there a way to make it auto populate the new provinces like CK2 would? I've had to manually add a template for each positions file to make it actually give me an option to set those. Not exactly hard to do but kind of annoying.

yes. when you load the game, it auto-generates some locations in the same directory structure, just under "generated" directory.

but you still need to copy the values for every single of the 5-6 necessary files for every province

EDIT: I will provide the exact location later when I get to my computer

 

[mechl]

yes. when you load the game, it auto-generates some locations in the same directory structure, just under "generated" directory.

but you still need to copy the values for every single of the 5-6 necessary files for every province

Thanks. At the very least it creates less file editing as I can just copy those generated files into the directory then load the map editor and modify the positions then without me having to manually modify the files. I do wish the auto placement cared less about county size so I wouldn't need to move things from the corner of the map but at least this will help a bit.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

it's not very different from adding a province to CK2.
- First add it to map_data/definition.csv
- then paint it with the defined RGB colours to provinces.png in the same directory
- then add the barony to the de jure structure in common/landed_titles/00_landed_titles.txt using the province ID from definitions file

these are essential steps without which done correctly the game will break/won't load.
if everything is ok there and the game still crashes, you also probably need to edit the defines.lua (not sure about file name, but sure about file type).

- then define its barony type in history/provinces/k_(the kingdom where it is located under the duchy and county where it is located
- then you need to add the provinces building, armies, combat and siege positions, which are in gfx/map_data something/map (exact location to be added later)
then you need to add localisations for the title (the exact file will be added later)

there's of course bunch of potential problems. will try to navigate solving them (like otgers have navigated myself when I have encountered few of them already)

EDIT: I'm sorry for not providing everything exactly. I'm not with my computer now.

More than enough to steer myself in the right direction, thanks! I think I was missing the building positions, assuming they'd be auto generated like in CK2.

 

[elvain]

okay, now I have edited and threadmarked the post with instructions.
Now I'm planning to release a playable version of the mod ... hopefully some time this week

Thanks. At the very least it creates less file editing as I can just copy those generated files into the directory then load the map editor and modify the positions then without me having to manually modify the files. I do wish the auto placement cared less about county size so I wouldn't need to move things from the corner of the map but at least this will help a bit.

I think that once you have them placed from the auto-generated positions, you can edit details in the map editor. It's far easier there and despite the editor being quite unstable, it can be much faster than coding it. But still this work is IMHO a last instance detail you need to do.

More than enough to steer myself in the right direction, thanks! I think I was missing the building positions, assuming they'd be auto generated like in CK2.

Í'm glad it helped. Anyway, the missing positions are and should not be game-breaking, although they generate error logs. And as discussed above, you can still take them from the auto-generated files and copy them where necessary.

 

[Koyraboro]

Do you think you could add more baronies to downstream Songhay? The place was densely populated (and still is, look at Niamey) Kukya is a big county and Gao could use more baronies. Counties in Duchy of Dendi could also be densified. The Mossi could also used a little more baronies (they were a big factor in Mali's downfall).