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My only gripe with SWMH's province shapes is that too many of them are 'square' and blocky. Needs more squiggly borders. :D
Uh, you must be referring to vanilla province borders because SWMH operates exactly by this principle:

As a general rule, I try to make geographic boundries (Mountains, deserts, rivers, etc) serve as borders as they did until the modern era.
 
Uh, you must be referring to vanilla province borders because SWMH operates exactly by this principle:
Look at all the large provinces in the more wild parts of the map, like the desert regions. They are too big and too blocky; I will never understand why SWMH doesn't use island provinces connected by overland straits, it would look so much better. Kind of how M&T does it for EU4.
 
Look at all the large provinces in the more wild parts of the map, like the desert regions. They are too big and too blocky; I will never understand why SWMH doesn't use island provinces connected by overland straits, it would look so much better. Kind of how M&T does it for EU4.
Could you give more specific example? SWMH does exactly oposite of what you describe, which is on the vanilla map (as well as many other map mods which deal with deserts - in many other mods they tend to be rectangular or cubic and look much worse than in SWMH). Borders of desert provinces are more rough than those in densely populated regions with complicated borders, but still are far from what you describe, which is a vanilla thing.
Even in the deserts the idea was to have borders follow some land features.

Also from long-term feedback, people tend to prefer this kind of provinces over "inland islands". Furthemore borders of such "inland islands" are usually no less rough than of desert provinces as they are now in SWMH.
 
I would suggest Jemtland (Noregr) moved futher south since Storsjön is the senter that county. Another thing about Þróndalog is that it has a small mistake that have been there long. Skeynafylki is a part of Ytri (outer) and not InnriÞróndalog (inner). This map should show how Innri (Eyna, Sparbu, Verdalr, Skeyna) and Ytri (Stjørdalr, Skeyna, Gaudalr, Orkdalr) should look like.

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Small note, Frosta (a peninsula near Skeyna) and Leksvik (currently inn Nordmære bordering Skyena) is part of Ytri
 
SWMH did use island provinces in the past (check Arabia in this SWMH dev diary, for example).
Yes, I remember when the map looked like this. I still prefer this sort of deal over what we have now.

Turn off coloured wastelands and that map with its inland islands will look like arse. And there are no coloured wastelands in CK2.
Why do you need wastelands to be coloured in? Oasis island provinces would represent direct authority over the small area surrounding a settlement in the wilderness.

Could you give more specific example? SWMH does exactly oposite of what you describe, which is on the vanilla map (as well as many other map mods which deal with deserts - in many other mods they tend to be rectangular or cubic and look much worse than in SWMH). Borders of desert provinces are more rough than those in densely populated regions with complicated borders, but still are far from what you describe, which is a vanilla thing.
Even in the deserts the idea was to have borders follow some land features.

Also from long-term feedback, people tend to prefer this kind of provinces over "inland islands". Furthemore borders of such "inland islands" are usually no less rough than of desert provinces as they are now in SWMH.
Well I guess it's a matter of personal taste, then. I much prefer large spans of wilderness with settlements dotting the desert oases than provinces that encompasses nothing but 98% sand. The recent versions reduced the amount of on-map wasteland by 50% in this highlighted regions, making the super large desert provinces feel much too empty and large.

Current Version of the Map, Wastelands
fsI6kw4.png


Old Version of Map w/ Oasis Provinces, Larger Wastelands
eXkAUi3.png


Comparison Overlay Between Versions
lC2texX.png
 
Well I guess it's a matter of personal taste, then. I much prefer large spans of wilderness with settlements dotting the desert oases than provinces that encompasses nothing but 98% sand. The recent versions reduced the amount of on-map wasteland by 50% in this highlighted regions, making the super large desert provinces feel much too empty and large.

Current Version of the Map, Wastelands
fsI6kw4.png


Old Version of Map w/ Oasis Provinces, Larger Wastelands
eXkAUi3.png


Comparison Overlay Between Versions
lC2texX.png
Not just a matter of personal taste.

For instance inner Arabia, especially Nejd would be represented incorrectly if you have oases there and nothing in between. The nomadic Arabs lived mostly in between those oases, they were moving across that land. Arabia is mostly inhabited semi-desert, not uninhabitable wasteland and thus the current map reflects reality much better than previous one (btw, from which version is that? I was SWMH team member for few years and IIRC, neither of your maps reflects any version of SWMH I can recall, since like 2014 or so...

If you talk about this particular submod, then talk about the submod and criticize the submod, not the SWMH map. If you are as critical as you are, be at least correct.

And you are wrong in SWMH having provinces with 98% of sand. It is SWMH which has placed wastelands into uninhabited wastelands instead of provinces which are 98% sand (in vanilla). With very few exceptions (each of which has some good reasoning behind) all the provinces cover area which was inhabited, even if it was semi-desert.

Also, there is no example of too large and especially blocky provinces (in SWMH, not talking about the current stage of this submod, which is still in development). In some areas the provinces might be quite large, but they always take into account local historical reality and I would swear they are not blocky. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Not just a matter of personal taste.

For instance inner Arabia, especially Nejd would be represented incorrectly if you have oases there and nothing in between. The nomadic Arabs lived mostly in between those oases, they were moving across that land. Arabia is mostly inhabited semi-desert, not uninhabitable wasteland and thus the current map reflects reality much better than previous one (btw, from which version is that? I was SWMH team member for few years and IIRC, neither of your maps reflects any version of SWMH I can recall, since like 2014 or so...
It was from memory. I remember there being a version of the map with oasis provinces scattered throughout the desert, so I mocked it up in the map I made. I guess my memory has failed me and brought forth incorrect and wishful thinking.
If you talk about this particular submod, then talk about the submod and criticize the submod, not the SWMH map. If you are as critical as you are, be at least correct.

And you are wrong in SWMH having provinces with 98% of sand. It is SWMH which has placed wastelands into uninhabited wastelands instead of provinces which are 98% sand (in vanilla). With very few exceptions (each of which has some good reasoning behind) all the provinces cover area which was inhabited, even if it was semi-desert.

Also, there is no example of too large and especially blocky provinces (in SWMH, not talking about the current stage of this submod, which is still in development). In some areas the provinces might be quite large, but they always take into account local historical reality and I would swear they are not blocky. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
I guess my mistakes can be contributed to ignorance, then. I didn't know any of this, and thought that the deserts were only conquered fairly recently. I'll stop talking about SWMH in this thread if it's a problem, as you make it to be.

I dunno. I just find large provinces ugly. A shame they have historical backing. I wish the rest of the map had the province density of Western Europe. :(
 
For the record, any claims on deserts, inaccessible mountains, wastelands, tundras, etc. were shaky... at best. Most "governments" at this time were more akin to organized crime rings wherein the "governments" would extract, basically, protection money from their subjects (Obviously, this applies more to some governments then others). Some governments would claim ownership over certain swaths of barely populated stretches of territory for increased prestige, but their ability to actually extract revenue or exert governmental controls over the territory was basically non-existent

Look at some of the ludicrous maps of the mid to late Ottoman Empire. Logically, the Ottoman empire was not exerting significant controls over Sahara Desert, Arabian Desert, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Sudan, etc. Its more of a case of - Look, my map is bigger than yours.

Personally, this is why I like the oasis setup for Arabia and sub-north Africa and west and south of Ethiopia. But this isn't something I will really look to address is my first draft.
 
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For your reference, here's a post with the old "wormhole" provinces in Arabia.

IIRC when the SWMH team decided to get rid of the wormholes, one of the reasons was that, simply put, Arabia was the only place where SWMH had such provinces. And elvain nicely summed up everything else above me.
 
Good News, I finally figured out what was causing the CTD in Iran!

As such, I am slowly working my way through cleaning up the borders in Iran, Afghanistan (the graveyard of empires) and the modern Kazakhstan region.

This region is a major pain in the ***.

Making this region of the map gives me a deep found appreciation for how unbelievable it is that any military has ever been able to conduct any operations within Afghanistan or Pakistan... Logistically... yuck

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Don't make the Soghdia-fans angry, you're in for a HORDE of complaints! Heh.

Yeah, well I can only do so much. The default map is hugely destorted in that region. I don't want to go too far east for a handful of provines due to the the vast swaths of land I would have to populate with wastelands.

I assume its just india left?

Mostly. I still am touching up the Afghanistan/Pakistan regions first though.
 
I don't want to go too far east for a handful of provines due to the the vast swaths of land I would have to populate with wastelands.
But... there are actual provinces there (a handful, yes). I assume you are saying that you will be cutting those provinces off?

On a related note, do all e_rajatstan provinces fit on your map?
 
No, I'm not going to cut them off completely if I can avoid it. I will use some "artist liscense" and try to squeeze in the most easterly ones.

All the india provinces should be fine. I think my map has slightly more India then the default one.
 
No, I'm not going to cut them off completely if I can avoid it. I will use some "artist liscense" and try to squeeze in the most easterly ones.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "trouble". Even Kashgar, the westernmost province in the Tarim, is barely on the edge of your map. I don't think squeezing in provinces eastward is really feasible. It would be like trying to map out all provinces of Brittany when there's no peninsula to be seen.

The same goes for the provinces east of Lake Balkash - Lakes Zaysan and Alakol are cut off, and there are provinces around those lakes.
 
As a general rule, I try to make geographic boundries (Mountains, deserts, rivers, etc) serve as borders as they did until the modern era.

Rivers cotrary to popular belief oftentimes did not serve as borders. You can put ships on these so they were important for trading and in the center of realms, not on the fringes. Just look at the Danube.
 
Rivers cotrary to popular belief oftentimes did not serve as borders. You can put ships on these so they were important for trading and in the center of realms, not on the fringes. Just look at the Danube.

The Danube served as a border for a thousand years. The settlement of the Bulgarians and slavs on both sides of it is the only reason that stared to change.