Map size - then and now

[RedRooster81]

I've often seen the Sheiks of Praha and the Emirs of Sjaelland, yes. But no less common than Counts of Mecca and Dukes of Algiers or Baghdad, and if any game ever ended with one of the two civilisations being completely extinguished, it's almost always mega-Burgundy or something like that owning all of the East, hardly ever the other way.

I know what you mean. By 1300 most of the known world in my games pay tithes to Rome and Spanish is more commonly spoken in Mecca and Damascus than Arabic. I vassalize the pope (I've modded a few files ), allow Iberian, North African, and Arabian sheiks to keep their titles, and convert the world to the Church of Rome. It's pretty interesting what if actually, but hardly realistic compared to what really happened in thirteenth-century Palestine and Egypt, not to mention Mecca and Medina. What no jihad to retake the holy places of Islam? The only political side effect I get is when I hire dispossessed Muslims to lead my armies and manage my demesne. I once had to bring my marshal before the Inquisition while he was busy sacking Alexandria. You would think the Pope would be more pragmatic. I did build a church there when I annexed the Fatimid empire.

 

[sjones25]

Its true that in CK1 the Muslims could pull off some weird and completely ahistorical conquests, but in the end the Christians would almost always take over all of Iberia, much of N. Africa, all of Levant, and often some parts of Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.

The Mongols never quite worked out. In all my games, they either ended up with one or two provinces, their hordes disappeared, and they got wiped out by some random Russians; or they conquered most of Russia, Poland, Hungry and wherever else they happened to walk through and then proceeded to fall apart into a miserable mess.

I agree that Iceland should be included (for real this time!), but what would be the point of Greenland and the Arabian desert or any of the other TI being included? The only purpose of controlling provinces is to make money and provide you with troops, and these remote wasteland provinces wouldn't do either. And not even the Vikings had any way of reliably communicating with N. America so it would be impossible for a king living in Europe to govern land there.

Including places south of the Sahara or east of Persia wouldn't be realistic, since other than some long-distance trade they really didn't interact with the nations in CK.

 

[Hakudoushi]

This is going to sound a little odd, but imagine that when the Mongols show up, you suddenly see the rest of Asia with the Mongol Empire, an empire larger than all of Europe combined, bearing down on your tiny little kingdom. I realize it's not the most realistic of ideas, but it would make the Mongols functional monsters.

 

[RHKINC]

I feel more provinces would be great if a new approach to provinces was made. There would be three types of provinces (city, village, and farm...or similar terminology) with the related province interactions available for each level. I doubt that is easily modded on current Paradox engines but it would be a way to make sure the Alps don't become mega defense metropoli.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Wales has 6 provinces and if you look at the area it covers and compare it to other regions is just fine (for CK1). f.e. Denmark has 8 (for a kingdom that had conquered most of England just 2 generations before the start of the game). The kingdom of Sicily has 17 provinces, while it was one of the richest kingdoms in the mediaval world.

OK I was close enough

My apologies for my ignorance of European Hisory of the Dark Ages

In my Apulia game I though Siciliy was fair enough. I just find Wales was a pointless title for its size.

Your right I do remember in my Saxony game seeing a very small and relativly weak Denmark.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

I would like the map to cover the same area as the CK1 map without any more bloody provinces.

There's been a development in Paradox games to include ever more provinces with every sequel and while they do satisfy the dark and unnatural cravings of some players for "more detail!!!!" they seldom contribute anything meaningful of either strategic or tactical depth when actually playing the game - their main in-game contribution is increased micromanagement since every game features a large number of items that scale by number of provinces.

I would really, dearly, and sincerely prefer to see a map that does not have any more provinces, not even in "the areas of the map that really needs it due to historical reason X that I just pulled out of my arse", and development effort focused squarely on deepening the strategic and tactical features of gameplay, including those dealing with individual province development.

Frankly, if what is interesting (from a game mechanics perspective) about a province is its population breakdown and that I'll always construct N buildings there (and usually the same ones in each province with only a few variations based on resources), the game doesn't become twice as good to play for me because I need to do it in twice as many provinces - so long as it has enough provinces that I cannot handle them all in my head at the same time to start with (which is the case with CK), it becomes worse.

Given me better strategic and tactical depth and, if I am really, really, lucky, take a stab at adding logistics... but spare me the use of a larger map or one with more provinces unless they add significant strategic value (and in almost all cases, they don't).

 

[Tufto]

I don't see much need for a huge amount of change. I would like to see Greenland, though, and possibly Newfoundland, although made in a way which would make it very difficult to colonise. The knowledge of America wasn't lost, as they continued to use it for wood for many years in Greenland. Greenland and Vinland would be a great addition, as we could recreate the Vinland Sagas, and would be a nice little extra selling point.

 

[DPS]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the map cuts out the part of the CK1 map that is east of the Caspian Sea. Whatever playable provinces do end up on the edge of the map,however, I do want the be able to access easier than in CK1. It got hard to do, especially with DV.

 

[Lahvac]

Even if Paradox were to use the HOI3 map (which they won't), this game would probably run significantly faster than the other Clausewitz games; It's based only on Europe.

Not true. Every province has its own tag in CK II. Unless you're ok with making more stuff hard coded (not modable)...

 

[sjones25]

The knowledge of America wasn't lost, as they continued to use it for wood for many years in Greenland.

The people in Greenland remembered about N. America for a while and they they apparently did use wood from northern Canada for several centuries, but eventually all contact with N. America was lost and even the settlers on Greenland died out or left the island, so any knowledge they had of N. America was lost. The people of Iceland at least remembered what general direction it was in and that it was really far away, but they didn't have any idea how to actually get there. What little knowledge of N. America that ever made it back to Europe proper was always sketchy at best.

So yes, there was probably a vague idea floating around Europe that some Vikings had at some point landed on a piece of land that they had called Vinland, but all practical knowledge of what N. America was, what it was like there, where it was, and how to get there had been lost long before Columbus set sail.

 

[Sinbuster]

The area covered by the current CK-map is just fine IMO adding a few provinces, like perhaps 500 or so, spread out over the map. Would make the map just fine.

I'm in agreement with this. Funny how 500 provinces seems inconsequential after HOI3. My hope is that the provinces are larger as things got pretty clustered on the CK map, especially when looking at iberia or the middle east in political mode. Oh, and make sure Stalingrad is in the right place

 

[GaiusC]

Making sure the map has some margin or TI, so that Nubia, Iceland and Lappland can be easily seen and clickable probably doesn't even need mentioning - I guess the Paradox team knows it, they play their games after all


Greenland's population was marginal, very low, far lower than any CK province, and totally disappeared during CK's timeline, so I don't know if there's any point including it, really. Besides, how do you portray the loss of Greenland's settlements? With EU3's colonies, you can do it, but not with CK system.


The overall map is fine, even if Persia is weirdly cut - I can understand the need to cut it somewhere. Though, sa said before, I'm not sure if it's wise to cut half of Arabia out of the map; but then, having too many Muslim unplayable provinces could have weird consequences for the game by twisting the evolution of the Muslim nations you usually interact with.

Bottom-line: I wouldn't mind if the same map was used, basically.

 

[Garak]

I'd like to see a bit more to the east, to the edge of Persia, but not beyond. Also more of Nubia, but not anything further. We could have some flavor events or something mentioning lands farther out, but I don't see much need for them to be in the game. Same with Russia and the Urals. What would be over at the Urals but a lot of mostly empty land waiting for Mongold to invade? Make Iceland more accessable (form a UI standpoint, not gameplay), but I don't think Greenland would really add much. As for the Arabian penisula, including the interior strikes me as highly implausible. It's a wasteland. More of the coasts on either side could be good, but I'm fine with the interior being left as PTI.

 

[Chaingun]

I could stand perhaps 25-50% more provinces on the existing area of map, if this would lead to something meaningful.

PE has a strong point regarding huge number of provinces not adding to playability however. I cannot honestly say I prefer HoI3 to HoI2, and some of that reason is the extreme number of provinces and units.

In CK there were lots of situations with log notes like (approximately) "County of Somewhere has joined the war on you" without having any clue where Somewhere is. Adding provinces will increase the frequency of this kind of situation.

As a side note the search function was annoying to use because it presumes perfect spelling including diacritics, so it could be very difficult indeed to locate the opponent in many a non-sensible war.

 

[Lortto]

You said it.

Make the Map so big that you HAVE TO rely on Dukes and Counts because of ingame-reasons and not because some magical demesne(?)-malus.
Europe, North-Africa and "Middle east" (Still confusing because it's called the "Near East" in Germany ^^) are enough.

I agree wholeheartedly. More provinces but not as much as HOI3 Europe has. One of my favorites in CK1 was playing as Ireland and by 1200, I could often play without any dukes since my ruler with not so special stats had a demesne limit of 17 and that's something I would like to see gone.

 

[Francis II]

I think the current map, with the possible addition of Ethopia, would be perfect. Adding the top of Scandinavia and the bottom of Arabia, even if they're mostly PTI, would be nice too.

Off-map holding areas where Muslim / Mongol armies could spawn might be a way round this.

I was thinking along the same lines. The Mongols should have some rich provinces in the Far East to draw troops and money from. In 1066, they should not have discovered the West and the West should not have discovered them. When the time comes for their invasion, the should discover the West (or at least part of it) but the Mongol lands should remain permanently undiscoverable to Westerners.

In this way, the Mongols could function more normally and the events to represent their problems back home could actually happen back home. When the Khan dies and his kingdom divides or falls to anarchy, this too could be represented in the undiscoverable lands. It should make their behavior more regular.

 

[.Spartan]

I could stand perhaps 25-50% more provinces on the existing area of map, if this would lead to something meaningful.

PE has a strong point regarding huge number of provinces not adding to playability however. I cannot honestly say I prefer HoI3 to HoI2, and some of that reason is the extreme number of provinces and units.

In CK there were lots of situations with log notes like (approximately) "County of Somewhere has joined the war on you" without having any clue where Somewhere is. Adding provinces will increase the frequency of this kind of situation.

As a side note the search function was annoying to use because it presumes perfect spelling including diacritics, so it could be very difficult indeed to locate the opponent in many a non-sensible war.

That constantly bother me as well. I always found myself wanted a geopolitical map to be present in the message so I could have a general idea of what I was dealing with when the situation occurred.

I think the current map, with the possible addition of Ethopia, would be perfect. Adding the top of Scandinavia and the bottom of Arabia, even if they're mostly PTI, would be nice too.



I was thinking along the same lines. The Mongols should have some rich provinces in the Far East to draw troops and money from. In 1066, they should not have discovered the West and the West should not have discovered them. When the time comes for their invasion, the should discover the West (or at least part of it) but the Mongol lands should remain permanently undiscoverable to Westerners.

In this way, the Mongols could function more normally and the events to represent their problems back home could actually happen back home. When the Khan dies and his kingdom divides or falls to anarchy, this too could be represented in the undiscoverable lands. It should make their behavior more regular.

I firmly support this idea.

 

[Arko]

ck1 map is nice for me

-cut a bit more on its eastern limit (caspian sea)
-iceland really on the map
-perhaps less muslim lands as they can be abstrated like mongols (+ muslims seems to will not be playable)
-a bit more provinces in Europe for historical/geographical accuracy : main limit to that will balancing the game

also : more provinces will prevent conquering all map and keep kingdoms a reasonnable size

about the perfomance thing and more provinces : ck2 release is planned in 2012... computers perf will increase till that date and even an old machine will be surely replaced till ck2's release.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

I would like the map to cover the same area as the CK1 map without any more bloody provinces.

There's been a development in Paradox games to include ever more provinces with every sequel and while they do satisfy the dark and unnatural cravings of some players for "more detail!!!!" they seldom contribute anything meaningful of either strategic or tactical depth when actually playing the game - their main in-game contribution is increased micromanagement since every game features a large number of items that scale by number of provinces.

Total and complete disagreement. Because of move=attack and provinces being atomic entitites, EU3 was a ca. 2000 Total War game and remains so without mods that either add a ton of provinces (MEIOU) or write overwhelming amounts of events to make conquest really hard (MM).

EU should not be a total war game.

I would really, dearly, and sincerely prefer to see a map that does not have any more provinces, not even in "the areas of the map that really needs it due to historical reason X that I just pulled out of my arse", and development effort focused squarely on deepening the strategic and tactical features of gameplay, including those dealing with individual province development.

Again, some vague fear of micromanagement and a nebulous appeal to "more depth". Those aren't good arguments.

Pray, what depth? The province is simply a square on a board the way Paradox has it, and adding more micromanagement per province will do NOTHING if 25% of them change hands in year one of the game, and the map becomes the playground of 7-9 disjointed blobs halfway through the campaign.

The only way to prevent that happening without adding more strategic depth with more provinces is to have events that prevent you from playing generically.

Given me better strategic and tactical depth and, if I am really, really, lucky, take a stab at adding logistics... but spare me the use of a larger map or one with more provinces unless they add significant strategic value (and in almost all cases, they don't).

Provide an actual example of tactical and strategic depth.

I have one - more squares on the board. That's depth. You have nothing concrete that I can see.

 

[Garak]

Total and complete disagreement. Because of move=attack and provinces being atomic entitites, EU3 was a ca. 2000 Total War game and remains so without mods that either add a ton of provinces (MEIOU) or write overwhelming amounts of events to make conquest really hard (MM).

EU should not be a total war game.



Again, some vague fear of micromanagement and a nebulous appeal to "more depth". Those aren't good arguments.

Pray, what depth? The province is simply a square on a board the way Paradox has it, and adding more micromanagement per province will do NOTHING if 25% of them change hands in year one of the game, and the map becomes the playground of 7-9 disjointed blobs halfway through the campaign.

The only way to prevent that happening without adding more strategic depth with more provinces is to have events that prevent you from playing generically.



Provide an actual example of tactical and strategic depth.

I have one - more squares on the board. That's depth. You have nothing concrete that I can see.

Well said.