CK2 Dev Diary #78 - Polishing up the Map

[rageair]

Greetings!

We’re working away, and we’ve been working away for quite some time now - it’s just much too early to go into detail on what we’re doing yet, but rest assured that we have a lot of interesting stuff going on!

Without spoiling the theme of the upcoming expansion, we want to give you something to look at and discuss. In addition to all the theme-specific features we’re making, we’re also slowly working our way through some of the more neglected areas of the map, correcting mistakes and increasing the granularity of the playing field. Here’s one such area, Poland:

- Map Update to Poland
    - General overhaul to the De Jure territory of the Kingdom of Poland
    - Vistula (major) river tweaked to be more geographically accurate
    - (Minor) river Oder tweaked for more geographical accuracy
    - (Minor) rivers Warta and Bug added
    - 6 new provinces, mostly improving granularity in Mazovia and Lesser Poland
    - All old provinces moved and reshaped for more consistency
    - Some updated provincial Coats of Arms

Later this spring (date yet TBD) we’ll release a bug-fixing patch, so remember to head over to the bug forums and report any issues you find.

Please note that the time between Dev Diaries will be irregular, as we’re very early in the development cycle.

 

[rageair]

Thx for the DD

It's also oddly quite in the bug forum. When will a dev go through and confirm bugs?

Don't worry, QA has just been busy testing all of the new cool features we're making. They'll have time to go through the Bug Forums (including the bugs on the previous pages) in time for the patch.

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

It seems Pomerania also is getting a facelift as the provinces there do not appear to match the current ones, unless my eyes deceive me. Nice!

A small facelift indeed : both duchies (Pomerania & Pomeralia) get one new province each (Nowa Marchia/Neumark & Bytow)

Will East German provinces like Brandenburg be cut up?

Because of river placement tweaking, Brandenburg ended up 50% bigger than before (believe it or not...), so yeah, we ended up cutting it a little bit, pushed some stuff around and added the province of Gorlitz just south of Lausitz. Brandenburg is still relatively big, but to a more acceptable degree

So to state the obvious: Bohemia (Prague on the right side of the river), Brandenburg and Pomelia got some tweaks besides Poland.

Bohemia has indeed been moved a bit down south to adjust with Neo-Poland, Eastern Germany 2.0 and the Elbe II - The Ultimate Final Return

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

Most of the German speaking provinces of the HRE (so today Germany, Austria and Switzerland) could seriously need some polishing, rework and tweaking. Most provinces there haven't been changed since CK II was released and are basically leftovers of CK I. Bohemia (and to a lesser degree the Low Countries) might need some extra attention too, though relatively speaking, it's more urgent for the German speaking provinces.

Can't promise anything, as map reworks are somewhat time consuming and moving stuff around in Germany/France is a bit tricky (because if you move one thing, it means you have to move 10 others, basically).

However if you have good references, map & general documentation from the CK2 timeline (so not a map from the XVIIth century, for example), feel free to PM links to me ; I'll take a look and see if we can squeeze some improvements in, but again, *no guarantee*.


Arthur

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

Looks like it got incorporated into Kalisz, judging by its relative location to the new borders and the Warta river?

Indeed

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

However, even if you are not planning on adding provinces, an update on the coat of arms of the duchies would be really great. Most the current coats of arms for the counties and duchies ingame are based on the dynasties that ruled there at the time, rather than the lands themselves. The duchies ingame are based on the real life "Provinces" of Ireland, and the coat of arms / flags used here are contemporary to CK2, and would be much more appropriate. Some of them are very similar to ingame ones - Munster is v similar to Sweden, Leinster is the harp but on a green background. Ulster is v similar if not identical to what is currently there. Connacht and Meath would need to be changed however.

If you would like any historical details on borders, coats of arms, dynasties, please let me know if you would like me to PM you!

Sure, feel free to PM me with as much details as you wish. As always, I can't guarantee anything, but if time permits, some changes aren't out of the question. It also really depends on the scope, because just adding one province is already considerably more work than updating a few coats of arms for example !

But yeah, feel free to PM and I'll take a look


Arthur

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

are we getting any new duchies too (including changes to areas outside of Poland)?

Nope, all the new provinces are part of the already existing duchies, and the "logic"/shape of the duchies hasn't changed to much. I guess the only duchy that looks somewhat different now is Kuyavia (which contains Dobrzyn, Kujawy, Sieradz & Wielun)

What I can see is that Hradec and Praha/Prague looks weird and too small and it doesn´t really fit with the rivers, it´s inaccurate

Bohemia didn't undergo a "large update" like Poland did, but more of minor tweaking. I actually struggled to find interesting, detailed AND historically relevant maps of Bohemia (it was often just shown as one big "Bohemia" blob :/), so if you have anything that fits all three criteria, feel free to PM me and I'll see if I can do something

Also, it looks like there is only one duchy (no bold border between Moravia and Bohemia?)

Duchies in Bohemia haven't been touched, Bohemia & Moravia are still there like before

IMO map still needs some changes. So, here is a map of historical regions of Poland.

That's actually one of the map I used While your arguments are all valid, it's a bit more tricky that just pasting the map in Photoshop and painting over it, and a few things are a bit wonkier than the others because of Gameplay/Level Design constraints, basically


Arthur

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

I found this if it helps you. This one is really detailed and from 11/12th century. I think Leitmeritz/Litomerice is too big, Prague small and Elbe/Labe too South so it makes Leitmeritz bigger.
@[Arthur-PDX]

Cool, thanks ! Saved that map, and I'll see if I can do some quick readjustments to the zone at some point


Arthur

 

[[Arthur-PDX]]

Did You fix Coat of Arms of Krakow to be a proper one? It still uses CoA of city of Kielce.

Yeah, this one was the most time appropriate I could find : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbols_of_Kraków#/media/File:POL_Kraków_COA.svg


Arthur

 

[Snow Crystal]

Any word on when the next diary will be? Need not be next week; just need a rough idea.

There is no set date for the next one yet, as mentioned in the dev diary we're still pretty early in development and it'll probably be a little while in-between the dev diaries.

 

[Snow Crystal]

what do you think the dlc is gonna be about?

Bears.

 

[Snow Crystal]

the balkans should have its own de jure titular empire

What kind of Empire?

 

[Snow Crystal]

Balkania. Very special trait tough: I always shatters

Oh yes, of course. The well known Balkania