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

[Byzantium2000]

after the small edits of Egypt and big changes in al-Andalus, I am finally bringing Ibn Battuta to the core of his legacy.
Here are some preliminary shots of how is the Levant going to look like...
View attachment 796487
View attachment 796488
but much bigger changes are happening in Maghreb - here is a first shot of how will the High Atlas area look after the next update - some 4 new duchies in k_maghreb, some 8 new counties, and countless new provinces/baronies...
View attachment 796486

Awesome work! Making the vanilla map feel barren in comparison. The difference really is staggering for Syria.

I have to ask thou why you decided to include Apameia in dejure Antioch? Since In 1066 it was under the Mirdasids of Aleppo and had been recognized as part of Aleppo by the Byzantines since the treaty of Safar.

 

[elvain]

Awesome work! Making the vanilla map feel barren in comparison. The difference really is staggering for Syria.

I have to ask thou why you decided to include Apameia in dejure Antioch? Since In 1066 it was under the Mirdasids of Aleppo and had been recognized as part of Aleppo by the Byzantines since the treaty of Safar.

Thanks. I think the compliment is little too strong. In the Levant there isn't much space to add any big change.... and looking at Maghreb, considering my own research at the time we could first see vanilla map, I wouldn't be able to make it look better.
Fortunately I was able to dig far deeper and get some additional improvement.

Anyway the main point:
To be honest, I was only working with my old notes and maps I made some 2 years ago, and since most of them were pretty straightforward, I didn't check any sources and only considered gameplay, or rather setting to have 3 baronies per county if possible.
And that is basically the only consideration I had. So thanks a lot for the reminder!

 

[elvain]

the first phase of Maghreb's overhaul is now done - all the new provinces, counties and duchies are added, province histories are set and ready. Now I need to do terrain and... due to the sheer amount of newly added provinces, also title histories... anyway, here are some preliminary screenshots: Duchy setup (5 new duchies), county setup (21 new) and terrain map with the amount of newly added baronies visible as plain terrain

 

[elvain]

okay... and now a funny reminder... my OneDrive showed me that on this day, 9 years ago, I shared my first sketch of an improved Maghreb and West Africa for CK.
It was for the amazing SWMH mod, here is the duchy setup

it wasn't my entirely first sketch of the region (that would date back to 2009 and Arabia Universalis mod for EU2 or EU3? later replaced by a game project), yet, in today's perspective, it gives me some laughs as to what we could consider as improvement of the region back then.
I mean, in the context of the early CK2, this was a huuuuuge improvement and I was quite proud of myself of how much I am adding to West Africa.
but then compare it to CK3 vanilla West Africa and Maghreb...

well, we all started somewhere

 

[elvain]

Status report:
The update for Royal Court/1.5.0 is now pretty much done.
I still want to add some more characters to Maghreb which I planned, but didn't make them in time... and I want to test things a little aswell.

but later today/early tomorrow the update will be released.
Stay tuned...

 

[Zeeg]

Status report:
The update for Royal Court/1.5.0 is now pretty much done.
I still want to add some more characters to Maghreb which I planned, but didn't make them in time... and I want to test things a little aswell.

but later today/early tomorrow the update will be released.
Stay tuned...

You are doing a great job

 

[elvain]

You are doing a great job

thank you so much!

And I obviously forgot to post here, that the mod has been updated... already yesterday.

Steam Workshop::Ibn Battuta's Legacy

steamcommunity.com

here a look at the newly added major rivers:

and the look of the new Maghreb

not only have I connected Figuig with Ziz and hence made closer way from Tahert to Sijilmasa, but also connected Figuig directly to Laghwat opening entirely new corridor... above all the other added provinces and counties.

Maghreb will see some further updates, as there are still dozens tribes and their leaders missing... some dynasties will undergo reconstruction etc. but I was hit by Covid and then some work to catch up, so I wasn't able to finish everything before the update...

EDIT: also first compatch has been released as well.... with More Cultural Names:

Steam Workshop::Ibn Battuta's Legacy 2 - More Cultural Names

steamcommunity.com

My own work on updating compatches with Sinews of War and Muslim Enhancements will take a while... For some reason I can't even run Muslim Enhancements for now, so if you run the 2 mods togehther, it will be sort of messy

 

[Clever_dog98]

Great work!

What do you think about adding the Scheldt as a major river? It's pretty wide going from Antwerp to Ghent and you could maybe extend it to Tournai. The river marked the border between the Kingdom of France and the HRE in the north, so it would be cool if it were represented as such.

 

[felipetonini]

Status report:
The update for Royal Court/1.5.0 is now pretty much done.
I still want to add some more characters to Maghreb which I planned, but didn't make them in time... and I want to test things a little aswell.

but later today/early tomorrow the update will be released.
Stay tuned...

Mate, would be very nice if you update on Paradox Mods too. I can't download from Steam.

This is my favorite mod and completely necessary on my gameplays. Cheers!!

 

[elvain]

Great work!

What do you think about adding the Scheldt as a major river? It's pretty wide going from Antwerp to Ghent and you could maybe extend it to Tournai. The river marked the border between the Kingdom of France and the HRE in the north, so it would be cool if it were represented as such.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I can't rule it out, but the general rule is not to add every single regionally important river as major river. Sorry about that. Even for much larger rivers I am only adding their lowest parts as major rivers. So despite the undeniably huge importance of Scheldt for the Flandre region, I don't think I am going to add it in the near future.
Once I will finally get to the planned overhaul of Low Countries, if I will see there is enough space for adding also a major river, I might do it, but as things are now, I wouldn't give it more than some 20% chance to be honest.

Mate, would be very nice if you update on Paradox Mods too. I can't download from Steam.

This is my favorite mod and completely necessary on my gameplays. Cheers!!

oh, thanks for being so kind.
I'm sorry, I was having some problems with working on other mods compatibility and with several un/re-installations of the entire game, launcher and everything and a big cleanup of my mod folder I might even have deleted the Paradox version... and I prioritized it over the Paradox mods update. Sorry for that
Fixed - the mod is updated also there

 

[elvain]

compatches for Sinews of War and Muslim Enhancements have been updated

Steam Workshop::SoW-IBL-compatch

steamcommunity.com

Steam Workshop::Muslim Enhancements & Ibn Battuta's Legacy - compatch

steamcommunity.com

 

[Azarias59]

Hey - wondering if perhaps you will consider in the future revamping Europe... I really miss some of what SWMH did for CK2 with the title revamp in the HRE and France specifically.

 

[elvain]

Hey - wondering if perhaps you will consider in the future revamping Europe... I really miss some of what SWMH did for CK2 with the title revamp in the HRE and France specifically.

hi,

yes, that is the plan to gradually review also Europe.
One of the first to be revamped, will be the Low countries... I'm not sure if then I will connect it with Bohemia through Germany, or with Iberia through France..
I had also several requests for the Baltic region.. and I want to look at Poland in the future as well.

As for Germany and France, I see it I won't be about adding too many provinces, it will be more similar to the edits I made in Egypt or Levant with only few additional provinces, but I certainly plan to look at them

EDIT: if you have some particular ideas of what you think should be done, pleas e feel free to post them here or on IBL discord.
Although I do have good sources for Europe, there are so many new ones comming all the time, that I'm not able to catch up

 

[Zeeg]

Ibn Battuta has arrived to Al-Andalus, at last...

... which means that the long debated Iberia update is finally out.
My very special thanks for this all go to @Cèsar de Quart who made absolutely amazing comprehensive suggestion, without which this would never been done. I took some liberties and edited his ideas and suggestions, so if there's something wrong, it was my doing. All the good stuff comes from him... as well as @Torngasuk, who helped me filling histories of the new provinces

View attachment 792991
it contains:
- 57 new baronies (+ 4 new impassable mountain ranges)
- 25 new counties
- 3 new de jure duchies (Zaragoza, Ávila and Urgell)
- 3 new major rivers (Ebro and Duero in Iberia and Sokoto in central Sahel)
- 2 new dynasties and several new characters, while another number of already existing characters now gains land and became playable.
View attachment 792992
View attachment 792993
a minor overhaul of central Sahara:
- Touat duchy is now adjoined to the kingdom of Sahara (although it historically leaned to Anbiya, it looks way better if it's part of Sahara)
- Ghadames is moved from Jerid duchy to Ghat
- minor adjustment of wastelands on the border of Jerid, Tripolitania and Fezzan to avoid weird looking map, caused solely by one wasteland province (as described here).
View attachment 792994

did you consider adding taifa of carmona, banu birzal?
love your mod, appreciate all the effort you put into this grand work

 

[Flockingbird]

did you consider adding taifa of carmona, banu birzal?
love your mod, appreciate all the effort you put into this grand work

FYI, from the Steam page for this mod,

Big thanks to TheNunnceler for maintaining the mod, while I currently can't do the job

Sadly, I'm currently unable to work on the mod myself and the update to 1.5.1 was only possible thanks to other guys (theNunnceler) of the CMH team (Community Mods for Historicity). They did the necessary update and I'm grateful for that.
Once RL makes it possible, I will make a full update with planned fixes. My apologies I can't do more now.

So elvain is unlikely to be able to reply anytime soon.

Edit: spellcheck substituted another name for elvain. :/

 

[elvain]

did you consider adding taifa of carmona, banu birzal?
love your mod, appreciate all the effort you put into this grand work

thanks for the tip. I must have overlooked.this one.
As soon as I'm back to modding I will add that one... Hopefully by the time of the game's update, so I could take over the mod again (can't promise, but I fear that the guys who currently maintain the mod will be too busy with other stuff)

 

[Zeeg]

thanks for the tip. I must have overlooked.this one.
As soon as I'm back to modding I will add that one... Hopefully by the time of the game's update, so I could take over the mod again (can't promise, but I fear that the guys who currently maintain the mod will be too busy with other stuff)

Nah it's totally okay, don't bother yourself with this please.

Take as much time you see fit and be safe!

 

[elvain]

Nah it's totally okay, don't bother yourself with this please.

Take as much time you see fit and be safe!

oh, thanks. I do am safe, no worries.

I just work in sector, which has been overwhelmed by the current situation.

I still hope I will be able to get back to full-scale modding some time soon, but although the situation at work is now better, my capacities (and will) somehow aren't

 

[Wixelt]

Would Morocco not get some plains/farmland provinces around Tangier?

 

[elvain]

Would Morocco not get some plains/farmland provinces around Tangier?

I don't think they should

Farmlands and plains give bonuses and are generally set for European cultures, while Middle Eastern or African cultures have their plain/farmlands bonuses set to drylands/floodplains.

That said, giving Morrocan provinces European terrains would mean that European cultures would have better bonuses in those areas than local Moroccan cultures. I don't like that prospect tbh.
The other choice would be to adapt the terrain-tied cultural traditions and bonuses. And, to be honest, that's a hell lot of work needed for some 2-3 baronies, which, furthemore, IMHO are totally fine with drylands.