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CK2 Dev Diary #81 - Cleaning up the Map

Greetings!

The last few Dev Diaries have had you visit the Cartographer’s office to look at several reworked areas of the map - while there are more, we don’t want to show them all in a row, lest we risk you getting bored of them!

Today we will instead take a look at a minor free feature, an optional new Game Rule that might just help those of us that really can’t stand irregular borders! Like the map changes, this change will arrive in the free update that will accompany the next expansion. This feature is a pet project of mine, and an attempt to cure situations such as these:
Bordergore_example.png

As you can see in this example, Scotland holds a province in mainland Anatolia. There’s no logical way for them to control this territory - there’s no land connection, it’s not connected via ports, and it’s not part of their De Jure area.

The Game Rule is called ‘Exclave Independence', and aims to do just that - set exclaves independent. Being an optional Game Rule, it’s very modular, and is mainly intended as a tool for increasing immersion.
Exclave_GR.png


The Scotland example pictured previously is really the worst case scenario, and would be covered by any of the settings. As the ruler of Scotland dies, the game will try to identify any ‘exclaves’ and take appropriate action. If there are rulers whose land is completely situated in an exclave, they will be set independent, otherwise a peasant leader will seize control of the land. In this case the result will look like this:
Bordergore_cured.png


I can tell you that, if you’re like me, the difference playing with this Game Rule is like night and day. After a few hundred years you’ll no longer have a map that makes you want to claw your eyes out! As I mentioned earlier there are many different settings, and here is a full list of them:
Added the ‘Exclave Independence’ Game Rule, with the purpose of eliminating disconnected land on succession. As long as the new ruler during a succession isn’t at war, their exclaves should be set independent according to the setting. If the AI is at war during succession, they will try to remove exclaves once every year until such a time they are no longer at war (does not apply to Players). Settings:
  • Off - The default option, no removal.
  • Limited - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected to the Capital area with gaps no larger than one County, via a naval path or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Limited (Naval) - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected to the Capital area with gaps no larger than one County, via a limited naval path (1000 distance units) or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Significant - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless they are connected via a naval path or part of the characters primary De Jure territory.
  • Harsh - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless as they are connected via a limited naval path (1000 distance units) or part of the characters primary De Jure.
  • Total - Exclaves of Independent Rulers at peace will be removed on succession unless as they are connected via a limited naval path (1000 distance units). Disables Achievements.

To show a more tangible example, I loaded up an old save and added the Game Rule to it. It looked like this:
Exclave_ex2.png


After the death of the ruler of the Mongol Empire (the light blue spots) the result produced this:
Exclave_cure_mongol.png


And after the death of the King of Bengal:
Exclave_cure2.png

As you can see, the two Mongol provinces were overtaken by Peasant Leaders as they were much too far away from their steppe overlords. Bengals land, on the other hand, simply had the vassals declare independence, as they held no land in non-exclave land.

I hope this small feature will be of interest to some of you, in the next DD we will return to the cartographer's office with another exciting update!

Please note that the time between Dev Diaries will be irregular, as we’re still early in the development cycle.
 
Holy Orders are exempt from this system, as they historically had holdings all over the place. Otherwise stray baronies work exactly as counties.


The converter is already updated for 1.25. Also if you're referring to not being able to form Russia in EU4 that's because converted CK2 games are run with 'normal_or_historical_nations = no', which blocks most formable nations.

One of the stray baronies that comes to my mind is the Church of Axum in 1066. It's held by a vassal of the Zagwes, but is in Duke Gideon's capital county. How would this be handled under the new system?
 
Greetings!

The last few Dev Diaries have had you visit the Cartographer’s office to look at several reworked areas of the map - while there are more, we don’t want to show them all in a row, lest we risk you getting bored of them!

Today we will instead take a look at a minor free feature, an optional new Game Rule that might just help those of us that really can’t stand irregular borders! Like the map changes, this change will arrive in the free update that will accompany the next expansion. This feature is a pet project of mine, and an attempt to cure situations such as these:
View attachment 356427
As you can see in this example, Scotland holds a province in mainland Anatolia. There’s no logical way for them to control this territory - there’s no land connection, it’s not connected via ports, and it’s not part of their De Jure area.

The Game Rule is called ‘Exclave Independence', and aims to do just that - set exclaves independent. Being an optional Game Rule, it’s very modular, and is mainly intended as a tool for increasing immersion.
View attachment 356425

The Scotland example pictured previously is really the worst case scenario, and would be covered by any of the settings. As the ruler of Scotland dies, the game will try to identify any ‘exclaves’ and take appropriate action. If there are rulers whose land is completely situated in an exclave, they will be set independent, otherwise a peasant leader will seize control of the land. In this case the result will look like this:
View attachment 356430

I can tell you that, if you’re like me, the difference playing with this Game Rule is like night and day. After a few hundred years you’ll no longer have a map that makes you want to claw your eyes out! As I mentioned earlier there are many different settings, and here is a full list of them:


To show a more tangible example, I loaded up an old save and added the Game Rule to it. It looked like this:
View attachment 356428

After the death of the ruler of the Mongol Empire (the light blue spots) the result produced this:
View attachment 356429

And after the death of the King of Bengal:
View attachment 356426
As you can see, the two Mongol provinces were overtaken by Peasant Leaders as they were much too far away from their steppe overlords. Bengals land, on the other hand, simply had the vassals declare independence, as they held no land in non-exclave land.

I hope this small feature will be of interest to some of you, in the next DD we will return to the cartographer's office with another exciting update!

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

You are the most wonderful man I have ever heard of.
 
This system does not interact poorly with Gavelkind, I tested it quite a bit to make sure. You won't end up with new rulers getting everything insta-removed, as that would have made for a poor experience.

Will they still have post-split exclaves removed if those exclaves would have been removed under primogeniture rules? For example, if someone gets Sweden + Jerusalem in a gavelkind inheritance, would they instantly lose the secondary title (as I believe the naval distance is above 1000) since they'd not be allowed to keep that title if they had gotten both of those titles under primogeniture rules?

Also, how are vassalgore exclaves handled on gavelkind top-level inheritance with the exclave rules in effect? For example, if the Dorylaion in the OP belonged to a vassal under the Duke of York under a (pre-inheritance) Britannia-ERE, would it become independent or be inherited by the heir that gets the ERE (since it is part of the same realm pre-inheritance but under the wrong title post-inheritance)?
 
Totally amazing ! You guys never cease to amaze - next thing we know you'll be adding playable theocracies, inland republics and cadet dynasties ! :D

Seriously though, keep up the AMAZING work !
 
I wanted to do something like this a while back but script wise it was quite complicated and probably not very efficient. I wonder what the new triggers that allowed it are.

Really excited to see what's next !
 
I bet there's some kind of titular exemption for fringe cases like this.
As said earlier, Monastic Orders are exempt, so I don't think Theocracies would be a stretch.
What will happen to isolated duchies or baronies in these circumstances? All of these examples look to be counties.
The Kingdom of Bengal here is an example of a breakaway kingdom and several duchies from the Mongols. They used the same picture twice instead of one where Mongols own them for some reason, though.
 
I personally would prefer much stricter vassal limit that you can actually hit and start shedding territory; with vassals costing more the further they are away and less accessible they are, but this is still a step in a direction I like.

This feature would also be nice by allowing player to surf into one's second son on gravelkind and get independent frontier instead of remaining on old title (Doable now, but only if you have multiple top-level titles)
 
Though in-real exclaves are allowed, I hope they still have some special rules like a strict requirement to have a vassal in it. One can hold lands far away, but they need to delegate control of it to someone.

Ok.
Still enclaves like Avignon also existed in real life.

Kind of a moot point since CK2 can't really replicate the Western Schism at all. I don't think we can get canonical "Papal State now controls Avignon" situation at all.
 
It was Polishing Poland actually, alliteration is the name of the game when it comes to map-based updates! It's gonna be harder to come up with good ones in future DD's though, as the easy ones have been done already...

I hereby hope you shall refrain from revamping such parts of the map as I shall not suffer punless DD!