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Greetings!

Once again we will scour the tomes in our cartographer’s office! In the last DD we visited the Baltics, in this one we’re heading further up north – to the land of the Finns, a land of a thousand lakes and bear-gods.

As for Finland, the main reason for us doing a map update was the poor definition in the area. Anyone who has moved armies in the region knows that the pathing, at the best of times, can be quite strange – with armies often taking massive detours to reach their destination. The main contributing factor to this was the massive size of the provinces, and that they were connected to each other in illogical ways. As you can see, almost all provinces in the area have been cut up rather significantly (its rather subtle, but what constitutes ‘Pohjanmaa’ in the new image is actually three Counties). The average power of the area has not gone up significantly though, with most Counties containing at most two holdings (some even contain only one). What has gone up though is the enjoyment while playing in the area!

FinlandComparison.png

Credit, once again, goes to [Arthur-PDX]!

Code:
- Map Update to Finland
    - 8 new provinces in Finland, improving mobility and spread noticeably in the area
    - 2 new duchies in Finland (Ostrobothnia and Savonia)
    - 1 new province in Lapland, in the duchy of Kola

Please note that the time between Dev Diaries will be irregular, as we’re very early in the development cycle.
 
All counties we make have 7 baronies as a minimum, just in case of this.
It'll be interesting to see which ones were picked. The old ones were pretty inaccurate, with many named after cities that didn't even exist before 1800 or areas that were completely underwater until centuries later, whereas actual historic settlements (such as Isokyrö and Vähäkyrö in Pohjanmaa - http://skaik.eu/assets/files/Arkiv/skyltar/Levaluhta.pdf, http://www.sarks.fi/fa/PDF/FA26_81.pdf) were completely missing.

I wouldn't even know where to begin with Laukaa. It was pretty much unoccupied until late 1500s, it's hard to come up with two accurate baronies for that area, let alone seven...

One or two holdings makes sense for most of Finland. But I hope that Käkisalmi got a boost, it was along a major trade route and was heavily fortified during this time period[1], minimum of four holdings would be reasonable. Pohjanmaa was also prosperous enough to deserve three.

[1] There were hill forts in Antrea, Lumivaara, and Kaukola, Tiurinlinna in Räisälä (hill fort c.900, castle ~c.1260), and castles in Käkisalmi (c.1200) and Viipuri (1293). There were also multiple castles in Kurkijoki (c.800), but the new county borders seem to place that in Sortavala.. In the current version, there's a barony named Jekaborg in Käkisalmi, I have no idea what that is supposed to be. Should be replaced by something like Räisälä or Kaukola.
 
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Yes, we all try to come up with the best pun, then update that region, rince and repeat :D
THAT'S HOW YOU DO THEM? Well, I'd know a PUNchy girl who could lend you over an ARM on the subject. Sadly, her jokes tend to be XIAO LONG. :D
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(I think I've caused enough damage already. Better leave while the night's still YANG!)
 
Yes, we all try to come up with the best pun, then update that region, rince and repeat :D

Altering Alania!
Bettering Bengal!
Bulldozing Bulgaria!
Constructing Cumania!
The Danish Do-over!
Fixing Frisia!
Improving Italy!
Correcting Khorasan!
Molding Moldova!
Perfecting Persia!
Puns with Punjab!
Retouching Ruthenia!
Scotland in Scaffolds!
Setting Serbia Straight!
Transforming Transoxiana!
Tampering with Tamilakan!
 
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tl;dr: big ugly provinces make sense for Finland in this time period and having all the counties called "Tribe of [historical province with legit historical name]" was good for immersion. having Savo as a big duchy with Häme as a single county is weird (better if reversed, but all options are awkward) and Finland Proper would be better as the duchy than Satakunta.

Very interesting post overall, I'll try to answer to some of your points in TL;DR fashion (otherwise I'll be here all day)
  • Big ugly provinces did make sense, just as the steppes do, but from a gameplay perspective it was particularly annoying to just move around those parts and made the flow of the game somewhat boring compared to more granular areas, that's why we wanted to divide the place
  • Savo - Häme : depending on the scope, I can still do some minor tweaks, so if you have specifics in mind, feel free to PM me
  • "Finland Proper" -> Not entirely sure I understand what you mean here ?
  • The provincial borders and even DeJure structures are indeed a bit weird for the timeframe, but research was particularly complicated and the earliest reliable maps I could find were mid-EU4 era (I did find a very early one, but it placed a mountain range between upper Karelia and c_suomi, so...). I had to kind of improvise and go with semi-historical and semi-level design on this

I'm so concerned about as much as the cultures

I'll be honest, it's extremely unlikely there will be any culture update for anyone, as it's extremely time consuming for not much added gameplay value

It'll be interesting to see which ones were picked.

Lots of non-CK2-historical names, and some geographical-landmarks based names. As I mentioned above, data was fairly scarce, and some areas seemed to be unpopulated for quite a long time, and I'd rather put for example lake names as holding names instead of names of cities founded in the modern era, as it feels like if there were settlers back in those days that would have gotten there, they probably would have went with the usual "Bridge-under-[lake name]" or stuff like that


Arthur
 
As I mentioned above, data was fairly scarce, and some areas seemed to be unpopulated for quite a long time, and I'd rather put for example lake names as holding names instead of names of cities founded in the modern era, as it feels like if there were settlers back in those days that would have gotten there, they probably would have went with the usual "Bridge-under-[lake name]" or stuff like that


Arthur
It seems to be a lot of work to come up with 7 holdings names for every province. Have you ever considered making a window to name/randomize a holding every time a new holding is being built? It could work in a similar manner children naming works.
 
Correcting Khorasan!
Perfecting Persia!
Transcending Transoxiana!

done

Apfhodisiacs for Africa would be nice though
 
Cool any chances you're planning to redo the white sea coast?
 
Just gotta keep digging, right? :D

giphy.webp
And we would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling content designers and your blasted dog. ;)
 
Lots of non-CK2-historical names, and some geographical-landmarks based names. As I mentioned above, data was fairly scarce, and some areas seemed to be unpopulated for quite a long time, and I'd rather put for example lake names as holding names instead of names of cities founded in the modern era
Sounds good. River names are some of the oldest known Finnish names, including Isokyrö and Vähäkyrö that I mentioned: Kyrö is the river, and the riverbank settlements were simply named 'large-kyrö' and 'small-kyrö'. The names persist to this day.

Then there's Saarijärvi ('island-on-lake'), viitasaari ('thicket-island') and Rautalammi ('iron-lake') settlements in Laukaa area..
 
Please make lake Ladoga navigable and give adjacent counties docks! :)
I have a dream that one day all lakes and rivers in ck2 will just work like coastal sea provinces.

The Duchy of Karelia has a very strange shape.
...this is a paradox game, the duchy, state, state and region of Karelia has always had something odd going on with it, it's tradition at this point.
Jokes aside it's a bit hard to tell which provinces belong ti which duchy on the southern end of the screenshot.

Ironing out Ireland?
If they were going to do ireland they'd have done it the same week as st pattys day.
 
Tuning Tunis and morphing Morocco would be nice indeed.
No more neglect for the niger
Satisfying change on the swahili coast
 
Did you just say Upper Hungary?
bLR7oY4.jpg

But I agree. Presporok and other areas are a bit odd.

Yes, indeed I said... I know, Slovaks hate the term "Upper Hungary" as I am Slovak too xD
But by Upper Hungary I meant all the regions of Slovakia + Ungvar (Užhorod), Esztergom (Ostrihom), which were reshaped recently, but could use a translation when a Bohemian ruler owns them (Though more counties would be good, but I don't know if there is any space for them :( Creatable Titular Duchy of Slovakia would be nice anyway)
 
Yes, we all try to come up with the best pun, then update that region, rince and repeat :D
I've got one for you: Better Bohemia and More-avia.:D