CK2 Dev Diary #61: The Dragon Throne

[shirreff101]

A very clever solution for including china in the game without straining computing power, should also provide a good basis for any modders who wish to expand the map further east. Still have plenty of questions but I'm looking forward to seeing the new expansion.

 

[Krayzie31]

A very clever solution for including china in the game without straining computing power, should also provide a good basis for any modders who wish to expand the map further east. Still have plenty of questions but I'm looking forward to seeing the new expansion.

This, plus you could use the mechanic for Native Americans or in the South some african kingdoms.

 

[Notho]

As someone who's been staunchly anti-China (mainly because of the performance that a map extension would cause), I'm very interested in this.

Who knows, maybe more people will play in India now...

 

[Keizer Harm]

And as someone who's been staunchly pro-China, for all the obvious reasons, I am quite curious what they will do with this. Better UI China than no China!

 

[PopehatXI]

just thinking,would be good if add an "Another Map" something like a Page of Collection of Maps

The problem with adding China to the map is that it would lag the game. By that I mean adding it similarly to the way India was added, by making enough provinces to simulate it properly.

While if what you are discussing is a second "macro-map" where the world would be represented by larger provinces or something like that (like one province for china one for Korea), would probably not work with the engine.

 

[Pte Baldrick]

I doubt the performance hit would've been all that much, more that if they filled in mainland Asia, all of it would be badly represented. For China, we may not even be given a representation of bureacratic governments at all, and the balancing required would be huge. It'd be almost double the current game map, and even still the current game map has a lot of issues (West Africa and Arabia are... not good at the moment.)

Still, with any theoretical future expansions, a South East Asian expansion does sound pretty doable. Though I'd probably rather one based around merchants and noble families, or one based around West Africa (with a focus on trade, and ideally adding in mechanics for Tuareg nomads, which could also be used for Bedouin nomads as well.)

 

[Thure]

China wouldn't double the current game map... Only Mainland China is missing at this point. And Mainland China was around the same size (by area and population) as India. So it would only as large as RoI.

 

[Pte Baldrick]

China wouldn't double the current game map... Only Mainland China is missing at this point. And Mainland China was around the same size (by area and population) as India. So it would only as large as RoI.

It was closer to double the size of India by land area, by even a really conservative estimate that doesn't include states like the (Jurchen) Jin. Even still, it would be extremely odd to feature mainland China, and exclude Machuria, the Korean Peninsula, and Indochina? Bengal is a reasonable point to cut off the map, it was a dense jungle which was extremely difficult to cross, the local infrastructure was poor, and traders and travellers instead favoured various mountain passes through the Himalayas.

 

[Keizer Harm]

It was closer to double the size of India by land area

He was talking about China's core territory, the part not on the map yet, which is very definitely not twice India's area on CKII's projection:

Spoiler

 

[Pte Baldrick]

He was talking about China's core territory, the part not on the map yet, which is very definitely not twice India's area on CKII's projection:

Spoiler

Crusader Kings II doesn't use any standard map projection I'm aware of, and I'm presuming that map with China projected in it is from the Umbra Spherae mod?

 

[Keizer Harm]

Crusader Kings II doesn't use any standard map projection I'm aware of, and I'm presuming that map with China projected in it is from the Umbra Spherae mod?

Afaik it came from reddit.

 

[Thure]

Okay a better map.It's based on a Cylindrical equal-area projection so which means: Every area is as large as it really is:

Spoiler

So please... explain me how China would 'Double the size of the map'?
Even if we add Indochina it would be just a little bit smaller than RoI map expansion. And even with Indochina China would still be smaller than all map expansions we had for CK2 since release.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Regarding the size of China, I did some math back in February where I compared the Tianxia map (which adds more than just China) to the then-current map (which is more or less the same as the 2.7.1 map). The TL;DR version is that the Tianxia map adds about twice (1.92 times) the amount of (non-wasteland, non-sea, non-river) provinces that RoI added and increase the overall province count by roughly 42 %, but that if you merged a bunch of small provinces, provinces with few holdings, and provinces in areas with a very generous number of provinces you could probably get down to about 1.48 RoI map expansions or 32 % more provinces overall (comparable to the 28 % increase between 2.0 and 2.1, though it obviously should be noted that there have been a number of optimization changes since then so the performance cost would probably be smaller). Of course, there could be other maps to look at instead that might be better or worse in some ways, so the above percentages would possibly change a bit; however, doubling the size of the map seems like an exaggeration.

Of course, performance is only one factor to consider when adding provinces and not necessarily the most important at all times. Balance is also of importance (so e.g. removing too many provinces from Korea and not weakening China and Japan enough at the same time would likely lead to Korea generally underperforming (though it should be mentioned that we already have some parts of the map that almost always end up falling to outside powers despite not doing it historically (North Africa, Abyssinia, Asturias, etc.))), as is (some amount of; there will always be gameplay considerations and practical limitations preventing full accuracy) historical accuracy (e.g. a hypothetical China woefully outmatched by the HRE/ERE in troop count if both have their de jure land is obviously bad), and there might also be various other factors (wanting to add a specific minor historical ruler in a small province, wanting to have a separate Macau or Hong Kong province for some achievement, wanting to split some provinces to better represent shifting borders, etc.) that could result in a need for more provinces.

 

[Andrelvis]

Okay a better map.It's based on a Cylindrical equal-area projection so which means: Every area is as large as it really is:

Spoiler

So please... explain me how China would 'Double the size of the map'?
Even if we add Indochina it would be just a little bit smaller than RoI map expansion. And even with Indochina China would still be smaller than all map expansions we had for CK2 since release.

The map size itself is not a problem. The issue is the quantity of provinces, and China is likely to be very province-dense.

 

[Thure]

The map size itself is not a problem. The issue is the quantity of provinces, and China is likely to be very province-dense.

Nope. It has as much population as India back than. And only in China proper not in Manchuria etc. And because it was very centralised they don't need much provinces. Fewer provinces with many holdings would be mor accurate.

 

[13arabba]

Will there be an event where the Emperor sends a monk and three troublemakers over to Europe to learn of their scriptures?

 

[ChaosOnline]

Will there be an event where the Emperor sends a monk and three troublemakers over to Europe to learn of their scriptures?

Wouldn't he send them to India though? Because that's where they went in the original story?

 

[13arabba]

Wouldn't he send them to India though? Because that's where they went in the original story?

That bunch went to India in the 600s to save the Dynasty. Maybe when the Dynasty starts to fail again, they can send another group to get some more scripture even further West.

 

[ChaosOnline]

That bunch went to India in the 600s to save the Dynasty. Maybe when the Dynasty starts to fail again, they can send another group to get some more scripture even further West.

But the reason they went for the Buddhist scriptures was because the country was Buddhist, but had no access to the original Buddhist scriptures. Why would they need to go to Europe, since they probably had very few Christians in the country, let alone in the government?

... You know what, I need to stop being such a contrarian. It would still be a fun event and cool reference, so they should include it. Nor just for Europe though. Just, like there's an event where you can get several visitors from China looking for scriptures. If you give them to them, there's a chance that China will convert to your religion, be it Catholicism, Sunni, Buddhism or whatever.

I think that'd be interesting. That's a good idea man.

 

[frolix42]

Nope. It has as much population as India back than. And only in China proper not in Manchuria etc. And because it was very centralised they don't need much provinces. Fewer provinces with many holdings would be mor accurate.

Paradox has already made the decision not to include China in their map. At this point, we are simply debating why they made their decision.

"Double" is hyberbole, but RoI was a massive expansion of the map. So if Paradox were to expand the map to include China with the same detail it gave RoI, it would still be a huge expansion. China is at least as big, generally richer and more different to Europe than India was. Furthermore, any rational projection that adds China would include SE Asia. In fact, adding Burma and Indochina to the current CK2 map makes more sense than adding China, geographically speaking. It would be ridiculous to have on the map a huge, prosperous and developed area left blank, which would lead to people complaining about that.