Folks, the Bengal tiger has been out of the bag for a week now, so I think it's time for the first dev diary on Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India! In this first entry, I will just give you a quick overview of what this new expansion to Crusader Kings II is and what it is not. In the weeks to come, I will cover each feature in detail.

First of all, why India? Well, it's always been a long-term goal of mine, and we have gone through the obvious stuff by now. The old eastern edge of the map is suboptimal, both politically and geographically. Many powerful states that interacted with Europe are cut in half, not to mention that the southeastern corner of the map is unhistorically dull. In general, adding India will make the whole Middle East more interesting to play. Most importantly though, India is such a dynamic and fascinating region!



Now, there has been some speculation about how the map will be handled exactly, and the answer is simply that we are extending it far to the east. It's not a separate map or anything like that. This means that everyone who owns the game will be able to interact with, (and conquer!) India, whether they own Rajas of India or not.

In order to extend the map and try keep the wasteland areas to a minimum while at the same time making sure India was big enough, we had to twist the entire eastern part of the old map. While the new map projection is no more realistic per se, we did seize this opportunity to correct some fairly major problems with the old map, especially around the Caspian and Aral seas. The addition of all this new territory also meant we could finally put many provinces in their correct place (we had tended to crowd the eastern edge of the old map with provinces that were actually off map, due to their importance.) Apart from all the new Indian provinces, we have also added provinces in central Siberia, Transoxania and Afghanistan. So far, I think we're at about 330 new provinces, bringing the total count up to 1442 (including all sea zones), and it's likely we'll add some more before we're done.



Best of all, none of this will cost you a dime. However, if you wish to play as a Hindu, Buddhist or Jain ruler - with all the associated mechanics, graphics and events - you will have to buy the expansion. You really don't want to miss out on things like reincarnation, holy cows, levitating monks, Thuggees and tiger hunts! Oh, and there will be a unique set of Indian portraits included in Rajas of India.

Can the game really handle all these new characters and provinces without slowing to a crawl? Yes. Actually, memory usage was the bigger issue, but we've comfortably reduced that by more than 300Mb, which allows us to add all the extra characters. We've also optimized the game for speed, but it might end up running a bit slower than before (though it should only be noticeable on speed 5 unless you have an ancient rig.) I should also mention that due to the drastic changes we are making to the game, old save games will not remain compatible with version 2.1! However, version 2.0.4 will remain available as a beta branch on Steam.

That's all for today folks! Peace.



[video=youtube;TBQmY4TKUrc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQmY4TKUrc[/video]

 

[aesthete]

@ Doomdark and the rest of the Paradox Dev team -- looking good, if very, very ambitious. Filling out the dates between 1066-1337 +867 is going to be heroes' work. Looking forward to the next Dev diary, and since you are including de jure kingdom/empire maps, could you throw in a map of religion and culture when you guys have it done? Would appreciate it.

Vis a vis Orientalism: FFS. 1) It's a game. 2) Poking fun at India using Orientalist tropes is in keeping with how the other religious and ethnic groups are treated in CK2 (e.g., witches for Christian, Cthulhu for Pagans, etc). 3) There is no indication that these things will be any more or less excessive than the fun one-off events already associated with the Abrahamic faiths and Pagans. 4) Dragging politically-inspired nonsense into this is no more topical or interesting than when Slavophiles used to spam the comment boards with assertions about Paradox's anti-Slav biases.

 

[DominusNovus]

If you're still adding provinces, please ensure we have Nepal and Bhutan as well. Areas north of that are "China", but these regions are part of the Indian sphere.

They're not in. You'll have to wait for Crusader Mings.

 

[AJ2009]

This is very exciting and its great that the optimization issue was addressed. Thanks Doomdark

 

[von Fulda]

looks gooooood

 

[eissturm]

It doesn't look like you guys are making the Tigris and Euphrates into navigable rivers for Norse Characters, but the Indus and Ganges will be. Is this intentional? Why?

 

[Yradnegel]

"reincarnations"

Do we get to reincarnate as bears?

Also, hooray for finally being able to navigate Persia/Abyssinia/Arabia by sea.

 

[scelestus13]

Yay! And I don't even understand how adding India is an abortion

Ahura Mazda will reign supreme! I think my borders will be all of Achmaemenid Empire, plus Greece (take that 300!), India, Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa. Good luck Tamerlane.

 

[kemmy23]

I love this!

 

[riadach]

I'll talk about that in a later diary.

You tease!

 

[Jia Xu]

Any word on how India is divided up in the de jure empire map mode?

 

[Morgothic]

Very few people here are likely to know the political and semantic meaning of "Orientialism" so there's little value in bringing it in.

That said, I don't think Paradox perpetuates too strong an orientalist view of places outside of Europe - I think they do genuinely try to engage with the cultures and religions they show.

Then you too misunderstand Orientalsim, as Said puts it. He suggests that any Westerner, no matter how much they care for or wish to study the Orient, will indeed be orientalist, even if they have a genuine wish to present an objective view of the East. Personally, I find his view far too extreme, and do think that the West and East are compatible (they are merely social constructions, in the end), and Said himself is a mystery to his own concept. He is a man of the Orient educated by the Occident, and appears to study both. Of course there is also the faux term 'occidentalist' to refer to the other side.

But the term is made worse by the fact its meaning is contested, with some historians proclaiming it instead to mean a love of the East, not a destiny to stereotype it.

 

[Federalist girl]

Vis a vis Orientalism: FFS. 1) It's a game. 2) Poking fun at India using Orientalist tropes is in keeping with how the other religious and ethnic groups are treated in CK2 (e.g., witches for Christian, Cthulhu for Pagans, etc). 3) There is no indication that these things will be any more or less excessive than the fun one-off events already associated with the Abrahamic faiths and Pagans. 4) Dragging politically-inspired nonsense into this is no more topical or interesting than when Slavophiles used to spam the comment boards with assertions about Paradox's anti-Slav biases.

Supernatural and silly things are fine -- like you said, they're already present in the base game. That's not the point: the point is that it shouldn't be based on an imagined fantasy portrayal of what the east is like. We didn't see Flying Carpet events with SoI, after all.

Nobody's asking for a completely serious, boring expansion. But if it's going to be silly, let's not have it be Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? For example, Christians have events associated with demon children and the like, because that reflects some supernatural stuff that medieval people were worried about. But they don't have events talking about how the Eucharist is cannibalism The former is an example of a silly event that makes sense in the Christian context, the latter is an example of a stereotype held by non-Christians (in this case, pagan Romans).

We're asking for silly events that make sense, not something that you'd find in a bad movie

edit: also as someone who plays basically every culture and every faction, I don't have an axe to grind. I just want this to be the most immersive and fun game possible

 

[Mummolus]

We've seen exactly one dev diary and this is all a lot of overreaction based on a single throwaway line in a post. It might have been a joke for all we know - until we actually see some evidence of this stuff in the game itself, how about putting the shame and recriminations on pause?

 

[DominusNovus]

But they don't have events talking about how the Eucharist is cannibalism The former is an example of a silly event that makes sense in the Christian context, the latter is an example of a stereotype held by non-Christians (in this case, pagan Romans).

And yet, it would be perfectly in place for the game to have events for outsiders of any given religion to incorporate such stereotypes.

 

[Wuddel]

I have played a lot around the Caspian in trying to get the Zoroastrian Saoshyant-Achievement. No luck so far. Will this be easier or harder in the expansion?

 

[AndrewT]

"reincarnations"

Do we get to reincarnate as bears?

You're misreading it - it's "rein carnations". Any precious petal can now rule the flowers.

 

[KPJ]

Well-put, federalist girl.

To those who say to me, 'FFS', or that I'm over-reacting, I disagree. I take the time to punch out a few sentences on a forum to let PDS know what kind of content I would appreciate and to let the developers be aware of my expectations on the topic. It's perfectly fine, just agree to disagree. If you want to come in and say why you want the game to reinforce colonialist stereotypes, go right ahead, but you're wasting your time if you think you can make me stop letting my preferences be known.

 

[turnad]

Well-put, federalist girl.

To those who say to me, 'FFS', or that I'm over-reacting, I disagree. I take the time to punch out a few sentences on a forum to let PDS know what kind of content I would appreciate and to let the developers be aware of my expectations on the topic. It's perfectly fine, just agree to disagree. If you want to come in and say why you want the game to reinforce colonialist stereotypes, go right ahead, but you're wasting your time if you think you can make me stop letting my preferences be known.

I'm confused, Holy cattle and the belief in the powers of monks were not a thing in Dharmic religions? As far as we know, Paradox might have the Holy cows as an event similar to other religions festivals, the levitating monk could literally be "I saw a monk that could levitate, it was rather cool: +5 piety". As for the Thuggee, I suspect they may be a creatable religious order for Hindu, as far as I know, they don't have much to draw on for that spot. Or they could just be related to some events and not feature very heavily. You're making the assumption that just because they have these things included, they are going to portray them badly. We can't know the answer to that yet.

 

[KPJ]

No assumptions. If you read the thread you will see that I am stating my preferences and expressing my interests. I would recommend you do the same, it's probably more effective than picking my posts apart.

 

[turnad]

No assumptions. If you read the thread you will see that I am stating my preferences and expressing my interests. I would recommend you do the same, it's probably more effective than picking my posts apart.

We have no idea how much those things play into it though.