So that time of the week again and its time for me to make something up to write about. Today I decided to talk about regions and forts, two new concepts in Crusader Kings II.

First, regions isn't something that is going to affect you directly but it works somewhat like how it have done in the Europa Universalis Games. It's an area on the map that denotes a region with a name and it's mostly used to improve on our localization of things, such as hunting for tigers in India or hunting a deer in western Europe. So no longer will you find Tigers in the woods of Poland if you manage to move your capital of your Indian Empire out of the subcontinent. You can see these regions by opening up a province and click on the new region icon to get an outline of the region. It's also possible to search for regions in the old title finder.

Next is a gameplay feature you will actually interact a bit more actively in. It's called forts which is an additional type of holding you can build in provinces next to the normal ones and trade posts. Because of this we had to extend the province view with a window you can open and close which will show "extra holding slots" which will contain the trade post and fort slots. The fort can be built anywhere from your own territory even enemy provinces that you have under your control. Their biggest advantage is that they are fortifications that you can build up really fast and very cheaply. The main point of them being to let you build up a region as your march towards a big neighbor which will let you slow down their advance but at the same time let you set up forward positions in the enemy territory.

They do have some added bonuses though beyond that, for instance in Tribal land where you have the homeland attrition bonus, that bonus will be removed from the province as long as you have a fort there to supply your troops with. There is also a feature for the forts that is too related to the expansion so I can't delve into that any deeper.


And again here's some more random changelogs

Spoiler

- Fixed crash when a war is invalidated because of no defender
- Fixed the "hostile against everyone" bug
- Fixed bug where the AI would keep their units attached to characters they no longer participate in a war with.
- Added alert for having high prio minor titles available to grant.
- Fixed various provinces in India that had no rulers scripted for some start dates.
- Monks and other people living in celibacy will no longer try to arrange stealth marriages if ruled by a patrician.
- Defensive religions now properly also give defensive modifiers for Camel Cavalry and Elephants.

 

[Redwulf_Storm]

Looks good team, can't wait for my hedgehog toupee!
Honestly those guys are soooo cute, I'm amazed groogy gets anything done!

EDIT: It is also interesting how there is a Western Steppe Region in the first picture, makes me wonder if there will be an Eastern Steppe Region soon. Hmmm.

 

[aitaituo]

The western steppe is probably just Cumania and the eastern steppe is Turkestan.

 

[TheDungen]

If it is so easy, go write a program that does it for you?

Writing a search engine is an extreemly common task given in begginers programming courses (it's almost hello world). The problem for me would be integrating it into the game. Pretty sure the character finder is hardcoded.

 

[Dracko81]

Make it run along side, or adjust savegames. I never said it was difficult to write a program that utilises regular expressions.

It comes down to needs and I don't see the need for it. Traits have very little effect on how things work in the game.

 

[classicist]

One wonders if the region mechanics could be made to prevent Byzantium going after Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Alania, and Mesopotamia rather than Antioch, Jerusalem, etc. Could the AI be scripted to try and reach hegemony (say, 70% of the provinces) in its starting region before switching its preference to another one? Or, basically, anything - please! The Byz madness has been inveighed against in several threads already (and hence I won't go on in here).

 

[Kenlin]

One wonders if the region mechanics could be made to prevent Byzantium going after Azerbaijan, Tabriz, Alania, and Mesopotamia rather than Antioch, Jerusalem, etc. Could the AI be scripted to try and reach hegemony (say, 70% of the provinces) in its starting region before switching its preference to another one? Or, basically, anything - please! The Byz madness has been inveighed against in several threads already (and hence I won't go on in here).

I kind of like this idea - that a ruler would have a "region focus", with a sort of tunnel-vision drawback, perhaps?

 

[classicist]

with a sort of tunnel-vision drawback, perhaps?

Yeah, I suppose it would have to be handled cleverly, so that it wouldn't fall within the category of overt railroading.

 

[Groogy]

No that's not how regions work. There is no "Rome" region that encompasses the old possessions of Rome. There is Asia Minor, West Europe, and similar.

 

[riadach]

Forts still seem a bit mysterious.

We need more info, stat.

 

[Kenlin]

No that's not how regions work. There is no "Rome" region that encompasses the old possessions of Rome. There is Asia Minor, West Europe, and similar.

I assumed that it wouldn't be, but perhaps it could be through modding? With more specific regions, probably. So a King who lost territory in one specific part of the country would become obsessed with regaining that lost territory. Could even lock out CBs that weren't regaining territory there?

Just spitballing

 

[Sdaeriji]

From the look of the screenshot they have a fortification level and a garrision, no levy or income. From what Groogy said about them being cheap and quick to build I think they are meant to represent pretty basic forts mainly for use in war like the pre-fabricated wooden castle the Normans brought over with them in 1066. All that has been said about where they can be built is that they can only be built in provinces you control including enemy provinces you have sieged down. I agree we need to know who can build them - can they be built in vassal lands freely by a liege. Groogy did mention they have another ability that is dlc related. Maybe they are going to add the ability to designate Marches and the liege could build them freely there or maybe it will be dependent on laws, like in England you needed the kings permission to build a castle except during The Anarchy.

If sieged down they are destroyed, that was mentioned.

Marches could be a government type maybe.

 

[iniudan]

Marches could be a government type maybe.

You don't need special mechanic for marches, just need powerful count and/or duke on the border and not raise your crown authority above high. But I admit an honorary title of marquis that would give something like 15-20 opinion, garrison and levy bonus, lower revolt risk in their holding and a tax penalty, could be nice, without need to add new mechanic.

Off course the ability to declare a county or duchy title a march, with actual special mechanic would be nice.

 

[Will Steel]

How about implementing an 'auto education' choice button to get tutors for kids automatically (like Muslim daughters)? Apparently, every character of mine is having 18+ children, sometimes even without any seduction because of many wives/concubines. And it gets worse when they all start turning 6 every few months while more are being worn. Plus more trouble when a tutor dies.

A feature like this would be nice aid to maintaining sanity in my huge harem.

 

[omega20056]

No that's not how regions work. There is no "Rome" region that encompasses the old possessions of Rome. There is Asia Minor, West Europe, and similar.

The problem with that is that certain areas of the map, such as Mauretania, Syria, Bavaria and Hungary, don't conform to Roman borders. LoR's Imperial Reconquest leaves you with ugly borders because the game's de jure structure is based on 1066 even in CM and TOG. Considering CM was meant to focus on Charlemagne's attempt to restore the Roman Empire, it should have included the WRE as an alternative to the HRE, a re-creatable Roman culture (Iberio-Roman and Gallo-Roman really should have been added too), the historical Chalcedonian faith and the schism (If mods can do it, so can you), and a de jure structure that suits the era.

EDIT: Hellenic was also present in Morea until the 870s, so you missed an opportunity there too. It's known the Hellenics who lived there used the crescent moon of Hecate on their shields, so you could have included a model pack.

 

[Groogy]

The problem with that is that certain areas of the map, such as Mauretania, Syria, Bavaria and Hungary, don't conform to Roman borders. LoR's Imperial Reconquest leaves you with ugly borders because the game's de jure structure is based on 1066 even in CM and TOG. Considering CM was meant to focus on Charlemagne's attempt to restore the Roman Empire, it should have included the WRE as an alternative to the HRE, a re-creatable Roman culture (Iberio-Roman and Gallo-Roman really should have been added too), the historical Chalcedonian faith and the schism (If mods can do it, so can you), and a de jure structure that suits the era.

EDIT: Hellenic was also present in Morea until the 870s, so you missed an opportunity there too. It's known the Hellenics who lived there used the crescent moon of Hecate on their shields, so you could have included a model pack.

No because of reasons I feel too obvious to say. I can start with that Charlemagne didn't try to recreate the WRE he was piecing together his father's empire, his model of land owner obligation were based on theirs but if anything he was doing big moves away from the old. Being crowned by the pope being one of them

If mods change any of this, good for them. Use them instead.

 

[Knotz]

TGIT.

 

[Voy]

TGIT.

Amen!

 

[TheDungen]

No that's not how regions work. There is no "Rome" region that encompasses the old possessions of Rome. There is Asia Minor, West Europe, and similar.

No overlapping regions?

 

[TheDungen]

a re-creatable Roman culture (Iberio-Roman and Gallo-Roman really should have been added too),.

French is what happens when a german ruler tries to ressurect the roman culture. And between the visingoth the frankish and the lobards that pretty much covers western europe.

 

[Karolus Magnus]

Do forts count in your demesne limit? I guss not, but still would be nice to get confirmation.

They do not count towards any limit.

From a modding perspective, can regions overlap like in EU4? If, for example someone wanted to make a dedicated hunting mod, would they be able to define the ranges of various animals as wolf region, deer region, bear region and so on, that could overlap and be seperate from regions that might be used for other things, or would they instead have to just go for more approximate ranges based whatever regions happen to be in use? And is it possible to use regions in things other than events - would it be possible to make a mod tying the recruitement of elephant retinues, and building of elephant buildings to the India region (or elephant range if overlapping regions are possible?) and then have an 'acquire elephants' CB for anyone who wants to get into said region?

No overlapping regions?

It is possible to have overlapping regions, and they can be used for events, decisions, buildings, cb's.. Anywhere in the script where triggers are used.