[MOD] La Couronne des Alpes / The Alpine Crown : a large scale map and overhaul mod

[Arko]

La Couronne des Alpes / The Alpine Crown

Hi everyone ! You'd likely know me from my other modding projects, the "Arkopack" and "Les Trois Tours".
Today I am coming with another and quite big project called "La Couronne des Alpes", or "The Alpine Crown" in English.
You can either call it LCDA or TAC or whatever you'd find good to use over time.



THE MOD

This mod brings a very large scale map focused on the region of the Alps and unique mechanics.


WHY ?

First, it is more or less my originating region, so I know it quite well and bringing up to life those magnificient mountains is an awesome project.
Next comes the historical context of the region in the middle ages: Until 1032, existed the Rodolphian kingdom of Burgundy, that more or less in name came to the Holy Roman Emperor. In name because the emperor had very grasp over the region, even none for most parts.
That is were it becomes interesting : it offers a very sandboxy playground of independant lordships that is already nice in vanilla game. Historicaly it brought up entities like Savoy, Dauphiné, Swiss confederacy... So let's see what you'll do there.
Finally, such scale permit to specialze gameplay, f.e. there's no need to have a generic feudality that have to fit either Scandinavia, Italy, HRE, Spain etc. Having no pagans, nomads or a lot of religions allows to focus on the region and its dynamics and flavour.


A BIT OF HISTORY :

I started working on a similar project back in the days for CK1... that proved being not very modding-friendly in regard to the map and was definetly very limitative feature-wise.
I initiate the new project in 2012, as a full overhaul this time. I soon split the project in two : "Les Trois Tours" that represents a bit part of the gameplay, and the map I more or less stalled until now, updating it over patches but not really expanding it.
Ii've recently came back to it, updated it, made a lot of cleaning, a lot of feature design with the great help of new vanilla features (tributaries, offmap power etc.)
Lastly I dedicated a lot of time into porting the initial map from 2048*2048 into 3072*3072, well I only ported already drawn provinces, all the rest was done again from scratch (topology and such).


FEATURES :

• a large scale map that runs from Provence to the Konstanz lake, on both sides of the Alps (the size it 3072*3072 pixels, vanilla is 3072*2048)
• First bookmark will be 1032, I'll try to spread the playable period until ~1400/1500
  
• full historical and detailled setup (as much as sources can bring on such scale by the way)
  
• playable inland republics
• alliances system to simulate the swiss confederacy formation, its politics and its satelites
• regional and medieval flavour (abbeys, wälser migration, passes, dioceses... )
  
• interacting with The Holy Roman Empire through an offmap power panel (à la China in vanilla)

THE DEVELOPMENT :

Currently the mod is at an alpha state. A small part is playable, features are incomplete for most. I'll keep you informed through previews and DevDiaries.
I'll bring soon a test version.


PLAY !

(Download link will come later)


MODS COMPATIBILITY & RECOMMANDATION :

The mod is designed to work, and will require L3T. Arkopack CoA will likely be required too.
It is likely that I'll distribute everything into a single package. Workshop is an option either, I have not decided all the details yet.
As an overhaul mod, It won't work with most mods.


CONTRIBUTE !

You are a modder and interested into this project ? Contact me if you want to contribute.
Usual work tools are Github and Slack, a dedicated google map to compile historical research.


If you want to support the project :

 

[Arko]

reserved for download link and changelogs.

 

[Arko]

DevDiaries index

• THE MAP
• THE TITLES
• Drawing the map
  

 

[Arko]

First sneakpeek, an overview of the covered area.

 

[tsf4]

Nice! I look forward to playing this

 

[misiame]

Yay! I can't wait to play this. Play as a swiss lord and create the confederacy

 

[the_hdk]

looks very interesting

how will you handle crusades?

 

[Arko]

looks very interesting

how will you handle crusades?

Well, no crusade probably, or maybe directed toward heresies.
Muslim presence in Provence and raids in the Alps are over before the mod's earliest starting date. But muslim raids continues on the Provence coasts... one can still imagine a muslim version of aztec invasion, that could lead to crusades. But it is just a far idea, definetly not the mod focus at the moment.

 

[Arko]

I had an idea for a similar mod, just southeast of the area, so to say. I love the idea "microhistorical" mods like this and it's a shame they haven't gotten off the ground before.

Such "microhistorical" have great potential yes, Iberia alone for example could be a great setup, India alone etc.

Should France also be an off-map power?

I am not decided yet, but it is a possibility. It is much less a need like HRE is.

 

[killferris]

maybe for crusades it would be more of a pilgrimage like event rather than something on map

 

[LordPeter]

Ha, so the secret thing indeed was this!
People capable of reading French (or the English LTT wiki) are not surprised, @Arko van Qlimax


Well sounds fun, a micro-approach with superior detail as opposed to the broader catch-all main game. Could provide for a fresh experience, good luck

 

[Arko]

Ha, so the secret thing indeed was this!
People capable of reading French (or the English LTT wiki) are not surprised, @Arko van Qlimax


Well sounds fun, a micro-approach with superior detail as opposed to the broader catch-all main game. Could provide for a fresh experience, good luck

Yes it's not that secret since I started some years ago, even though I never officialy posted about it there yet. There were even several alpha released, a fresh one will come soon.

 

[ngppgn]

Hm, it surely is an interesting dilemma wether to integrate L3T at some early point (and thus having to develop two branches of L3T, but having each one more optimised for each map) or to retain L3T as a module (but then having to go out of your way to retain L3T cross-map compatibility..

I'll have to set aside some time to try this out. The micro scale also offer much more possibilities for roleplaying I'd say (a lowly knight would have much more time for carousing than an HREmperor, after all, for example).

 

[Arko]

Hm, it surely is an interesting dilemma wether to integrate L3T at some early point (and thus having to develop two branches of L3T, but having each one more optimised for each map) or to retain L3T as a module (but then having to go out of your way to retain L3T cross-map compatibility..

I'll have to set aside some time to try this out. The micro scale also offer much more possibilities for roleplaying I'd say (a lowly knight would have much more time for carousing than an HREmperor, after all, for example).

-L3T will remain standalone. But since LDCA will require L3T, I'll probably distribute LCDA merged with L3T, for simplicity sake for the player, and well, to make it work on steam workshop that just can't deau with depencies (if I go for a workshop distribution).

-Let's carouse yay !^^

 

[Arko]

THE MAP

So today let's have a first look at the playground. As I said, I've just recently upscale the map from its original size to make it much much bigger. When provinces are still a bit rough, I've push terrain work much further than I ever from the beginning of the project.
Let's show the general overview you'd get from the game menu. Trees are lacking at the moment.

Now entering the game as the count of Geneva and his ruling region southern of the Leman Lake.

As you can see I've added my own textures for basic terrain types. Lakes are a new one because I just can't dig abysses in the middle of moutains to get some sea-level lakes. Using vanilla texture here would display a beach instead of a proper lake.
Now the cherry-on-top is glacier texture, because, well, glacier are cool to have !
So let's have a closer look to the Mont Blanc/Monte Bianco area. You may recognize the famous "Mer de glace".

PS. I am aware that the period was warmer and the glaciers didn't went that low at the time being, but I prefer having them in that familiar way

 

[misiame]

Ooooooh, nice.

And I too prefer if the glaciers were that low especially now!

 

[Arko]

TITLES


General ranks :

Let's talk a bit about the titles in LCDA.

Since the scale is much larger than vanilla, it would be ridiculous to call everyone who holds a few castles within a small area.
So the "tiers" are shifted by one degree to fit the mod, here is what we have

• Emperor level is called King
• King level is called Duke
• Duke level is called Count
• Count level (province level) is called Lord
• Barony level is called Chatelain

According to this, I've changed texts whenever it was necessery, aswell as icons, rank crowns etc.
Note that it is a bit more than a transposition, I've put some efforts into the details.

Religious titles :

I/ Secular Vs Temporal powers

Some that always bothered me in vanilla game is the lack of distinction between secular (religious power) and temporal power (land power) of the Church. When I admit it wouldn't worth the effort for vanilla, LCDA scale would fit better such level of detail anf flavour.

So in LCDA, the bishops and archbishops will hold their secular titles. These are titular and permanent like Papacy is for example.
If they came to also own lands, beyond the barony level, they will be considered temporal power aswell. In such context they will also get a regular landed title, making them Prince-bishop or Prince-Archibishop.

II/ Bishops and Abbots

With my other mod "L3T" providing holding specialisation either into episcopal see or abbey, it was natural to dig this further in LCDA.
So when regular bishop keep using their traditional government type, abbots will have their own with their dedicated nomenclature and stuff. Abbeys owning temporal power, could also receive the title of "territorial abbey" that would be their equivalent of "Prince-bishopric".

So here we have Aymon, Archbishop of Tarentaise, Prince-bishop of Tarentaise, owns as well two provinces as vicar of the Ecclesias of Saint Maurice and Moutiers and also the decanate of Hauteluce in another neighbouring province (please all hail border-gore and cross vassality !).
This somehow illustrates the level of detail I am trying to put into the mod.
PS. looks like that this glutonous guy loves carousing

Now this is Berthold, ruling as Abbot of the Abbey of Agaune, and since this powerfull (and very important abbey for the whole region) also holds a good chunk of as count, he is also prince-abbot.
Note the "monastic order" governement type icon and portrait frame (the frame is a 5 minutes made sketchy placeholder).

Don't worry about screenshot in French, the mod will be 100% bilingual.

 

[ngppgn]

Fascinating. Seeing all those vanilla western faces I just realised we won't be seeng most dlc portraits and that makes me a bit sad, but otherwise looks awesome.

 

[Arko]

Fascinating. Seeing all those vanilla western faces I just realised we won't be seeng most dlc portraits and that makes me a bit sad, but otherwise looks awesome.

I rarely play with vanilla portraits. My favorite set is the anime portraits mod, even in the Alps

 

[Pheonix330]

Looks very good!