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Mouthwash

Charlatan and Idiot
59 Badges
Jul 27, 2013
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(Final Version: 2.09)

(Files are found at the bottom of the post. Change 'jewishimmersion.txt' to 'jewishimmersion.mod'.)​

No fancy Sanhedrin or Kabbalists here! Just a hugely comprehensive overhaul of the existing Jewish mechanics, namelists, and cultures. This project sprung out of my attempt to fix the Jewish namelists, since I was dissatisfied with the ones in other mods... and a month later, I'm giving birth to a monster.

The portrayal of Jews in vanilla is *extremely* lacking, with only two cultures (Ashkenazim in every part of the world except for Iberia) using a bizarre mash of misspelled Jewish names, barely any dynasty names, and a banking system that gives out a century's worth of taxation to obscure counts whenever they ask for it. I have redone nearly every aspect of Jews in Crusader Kings II, with a focus on improving immersion and namelists rather than adding new mechanics.

Cultures

The new cultures added in Jewish Immersion are:

Mizrahi: Arabic-speaking or Arabized Jews

Kalimi: Mainly Persian but also Caucasian and Central Asian Jews.

Hebrew: The resurrected Hebrew culture, which can only exist after Israel is established. It does incorporate modern Hebrew names, but also Biblical/Judean names to reflect its more religious focus.

I've also reworked Sephardim to also represent the Romaniotes, and to a lesser degree all Mediterranean Jews. Finally, since the game starts before the emergence of Yiddish as a distinct language, I've avoided its use and have minimized the number of Yiddishisms in the Ashkenazi culture. Ashkenazi Jews believe that a certain 't'-sounding letter (the Taf) should sometimes have an 's' sound instead, so this is still reflected in namelists, province names and dynasties. The result is hopefully something like a proto-Yiddish culture.

The Jewish courtier event will now give the appropriate culture type depending on your location in the world, and all other events that create a Jewish character have been changed to reflect the new cultures. Please note that some locations have the potential to give two different cultures (though the overall chance of receiving a courtier isn't changed).

tl;dr: there are now five Jewish cultures in all.

There are already other mods that do the same thing - why should you use this one?

I think mine is by far the most comprehensive and consistent. My design philosophy was to use mostly Hebrew names and minimize the amount of Gentile names - while this does not provide as much historicity, it also gives the Jews a unique feeling and a more distinct culture. Also, the four Diasporic cultures use non-Hebraised names (e.g. Hezekiah rather than Chizkiyahu) except when needed to distinguish them from their Gentile counterparts.

I have tried to keep the spelling as consistent as possible (when Hebraising I've substituted 'Y' for 'I' to mark their different pronunciation and stress - for instance, Azariah [Az-ar-IE-yuh) becomes Azaryah [Az-ZAR-ee-yah]). I've noticed that many Hebrew namelists apparently can't get enough of apostrophes and use them wherever possible. I've avoided this, only using them in names like 'Rechav'am' where they actually reflect the pronunciation.

Nobody who doesn't read Hebrew and is not in contact with Israelis and Middle Eastern Jews could make the list as accurate as mine is. Many transliterations on Wikipedia are quite misleading and I learned many things - not found in my online research - about which nationalities use which names.

Aside from the Jewish namelists, I've added a ton of overlooked names to other cultures (especially to the Arabic ones), made many names restricted by religion (no more Zoroastrians being named after Biblical figures), fixed an unbelievable number of inaccuracies and mistakes, and crossed-referenced every name with an appropriate counterpart (so that it changes when culture changes, regnal numbers recognize them as the same, etc). Any name I felt was too religiously associated or 'Talmudic' is restricted to the Jewish religion, but there are special names like Yeshua and Notzri available for culturally Jewish characters who convert to Christianity - along with names like Mustafa for Islam. If you've ever wanted to guide an Israelite kingdom into the arms of Yeshua the Messiah, or submit to the doctrine of the Ishmaelites, this mod is for you!

One final thing: in the base game, there are ten Ashkenazi dynasties and seventeen Sephardic ones. I'm sure the other Jewish mods worked very hard to improve on this. But I doubt any of them have:

134 original Ashkenazi dynasties (replacing the old ones)
168 original Sephardic dynasties (replacing the old ones)
106 original Mizrahi dynasties
91 original Kalimi dynasties
250 original Hebrew dynasties

For a total of 749 new dynasties, almost all of which are unique to their culture. :cool:

(Important: I have excluded any name derived from Cohen or Levi as I don't feel they would have been used for a dynasty. Cohen is already used in CKII in a different way, and all Levi signifies is descent from the Biblical tribe - 'Halevi' means 'the Levite.')

Province names

The provinces depicted in CKII, especially those outside of Europe are rife with ridiculous errors, inaccuracies, doubles, typos, and all-around laziness. I have overhauled the province names of the Levant and, to a lesser extent, Egypt, right down to the baronies.

Here are (just a few) examples of where vanilla is wrong:

1. Archa in the Antioch duchy is named after an incredibly obscure ancient archaeological site. EDIT: Or it may be a misspelled Ariha. Either way, the city of Idlib was completely overlooked.

2. Manupura in the Nile delta is supposed to be 'Mansoura,' a city which in real life is not located where the province is but near the coast.

3. The eastern provinces of the Syrian desert (Az Zarqa, Al Mafraq, Bostra, and Druz) are literally hundreds of miles away from their real-life locations. Their names are actually locations in Jordan and southern Syria.

Not only have I fixed nearly every single mistake, but I've also added a tremendous number of dynamic names. The ones you see in vanilla are an inconsistent mishmash of Crusader-era, Arabic, and Greek. Now provinces can change to their appropriate Crusader, Arab, Byzantine, Persian, Kurdish, Syriac, Turkish, Hebrew, or Armenian names depending on their ownership. (The major provinces will have most of these options, depending on their historical ties to the culture in question, but the majority will have at least a couple.)

Mizrahi generally follows Arabic naming, and Kalimi follows Persian, except for provinces and holdings important to Judaism.

Mechanics

The crown jewel of the mod is the Hebrew melting pot. Upon founding the Kingdom of Israel you may find that your demesne, so long as it is within the consecrated borders of Eretz Yisrael, will change culture as a result of Jewish immigration (you must be one of the five Israelite cultures for this to occur). The event causes one province in your demesne to transition to one of the four 'Diasporic' cultures and become Jewish. It will most often be your own culture (unless you're Hebrew), and this process will usually take about two decades to make Jewish cultures the majority in the Promised Land. It feels much more realistic than converting the Levantine population and offers a substantial benefit to Jewish players, who will have less need to put down revolts while also fighting off Jihads and Crusades.

Once your demesne includes at least one Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi or Kalimi province, there is a chance for the Hebrew melting pot event to appear. Modeled off of the English melting pot, it makes both you and that province Hebrew culture, and the odds rise the more immigration you've received. Like immigration, it also cannot happen outside the de jure borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Note that these events require you to be in the religious Jewish group and either be an emperor or have Israel as your primary title, OR have your top liege be one of those (the liege must also be religiously Jewish).

There is one other mechanic in Jewish Immersion - not a new one, but a revamp of an old one. It never sat well with me that, no matter my power or position, I could acquire a fortune overnight by borrowing money from Jewish merchants. For dukes and counts, 300 is basically a warwinning button in any equal competition (with its only weakness being campaigns of attrition).

My new system goes by rank:

A count may borrow 50, and owes 75.
A duke may borrow 100, and owes 150.
A king may borrow 200, and owes 300.
An emperor may borrow 400, and owes 600.

Jews themselves are no longer excluded; they can borrow these sums but are not subject to interest. Once you take out a loan, your payment is fixed and will not be altered by changing rank or converting to or from Judaism.

Other changes

Since Jewish Immersion is about immersion rather than mechanics, I have listed here every single change made to gameplay in this mod for easy perusal.

1. The aforementioned cultural dynamics and new melting pot events.

2. The aforementioned changes to the borrowing mechanic.

3. k_israel now has 80 dignity, so that the AI will want to make it their primary title. Its religion is now Jewish (I could not make it culturally Hebrew since that might spawn a Hebrew character before the melting pot took place).

4. The culture of Zealots is now ROOT. This has an odd effect - its founders will take the culture of a random Jewish ruler/character. Therefore they are most likely to use common cultures of Jews in the world (I've seen Ethiopian, Khazar and even Alan). This only affects their founding members, though.

5. I've tweaked the Jewish holy war weights and added many more.

6. Samaritanism is removed. They added nothing in terms of content and their status as a Jewish heresy is only slightly more realistic than the Aztec invasion of Europe.

7. The new Jewish/Karaite holy sites are Jerusalem, Tiberias, Baghdad (the Babylonian academies lasted until the eleventh century), Alexandria and Cordoba (for the historical Jewish presence).

8. Manicheans cannot get the Jewish courtier events anymore, and Han culture no longer unlocks them.

9. Taoists can no longer borrow money from Jews. (Not sure why they could to begin with.)

10. Expelling the Jews now expels Karaites as well.

11. You must either be independent or have your top liege be in the Jewish group in order to build the Third Temple.

12. The capital of Mudar duchy is now Rahbah (renamed Euphrates in the mod). It was previously mistakenly placed in Bira, which is in the Al-Jazira duchy.

13. The capital of Damietta duchy is now in Pelusia (renamed Damietta).

14. One empty holding added to Darum (renamed Gaza).

15. One empty holding taken away from Kharibta (renamed Beheira).

16. One empty holding taken away from Giza.

17. Two empty holdings added to Faiyum.

18. One empty holding taken away from Jerusalem.

19. One empty holding added to Acre.

20. All holdings except for the main one taken away from Bostra (renamed Badiyat Ash Sham). I tried to look for appropriate names for them, but this area in real life is basically Mars. Every tiny, way-out-in-the-boonies settlement is already accounted for by neighboring provinces.

21. Two empty holdings (plus one built castle; *not* the holding itself) taken away from Antioch (renamed Latakia), and it is no longer a patriarchate or a holy site.

22. Two empty holdings (plus one built temple) added to Alexandretta (renamed Antioch). It is the new capital of the Antioch duchy and the patriarchate and holy sites have been moved here.

23. The Silk road has been changed to go through Alexandretta (the new Antioch) and the trade post has been moved there. It no longer goes down through Jerusalem, instead going from Damascus to Acre, which also now has a trade post. One was added to Palmyra as well.

After 1.01:

24. The Jewish courtier event has a 20% chance of giving you a Karaite.

After 1.02:

25. Antioch (former Alexandretta) is now plains.

26. Latakia (former Antioch), Tartous (former Tortosa), Tiberias, Acre, and Tyre are now hills.

27. Safed, Beirut and Tripoli are now mountains.

After 2.07:

28. Jerusalem being Jewish or Karaite is no longer a requirement to form Israel.

The list of updates:

Version 1.01

1. Many updates and fixes to the Levant's dynamic names. Byzantine and Crusader names have had extensive improvement.

2. You or your top liege having Israel as primary title is no longer the only way for Jewish immigration and the Hebrew melting pot to fire - it will now also happen if either of you are emperor rank.

3. The 'mysterious Jewish courtiers' now have a 20% chance of being Karaites (this will not happen for the Ethiopian courtier event).

Version 1.02

1. Antioch (former Alexandretta) is now plains. Latakia (former Antioch), Tartous (former Tortosa), Tiberias, Acre, and Tyre are now hills. Safed, Beirut and Tripoli are now mountains.

2. Al Jawf, Al 'Ula, Tabuk, Al Mafraq (former Amman), Wadi Musa, Maan, Al 'Aqabah, Sinai, Eilat, El-Arish, Farama, Hail, Rafha, and Dariya are now Bedouin culture rather than Levantine. Bahariya (former Buhairya) is now Egyptian culture. Aswan is now Nubian culture.

Version 2.00

1. Improvements and additions to the Coptic dynamic names.

2. Faiyum now has the vanilla number of holdings.

3. Assyrian is again part of the Byzantine group.

4. Loans from Jews have been doubled. The loan from the banks of Israel has been slashed by two-thirds.

5. Many Abrahamic names restricted to Abrahamic religions.

6. Blaming Jews for a recent plague is now its own event, which fires only for Christians, Muslims and Mazdans.

Version 2.01

Added a few names and fixed some small bugs.

Version 2.02

Fixed some Assyrian and Hebrew names and changed some province terrains: El-Arish, Eilat, Beersheb, Julfar, Bahrein, Uwal, Jeddah, and Khaybar are now deserts, Tyrus and Limisol are mountains, Famagusta and Baalbek are hills, and Damascus is plains.

Version 2.03

A few name corrections, plus a few added ones.

Version 2.04

Fixed some mistakes with dynasties file.

Version 2.05

I took away a slot from Kharibta, Giza, and Jerusalem, added one to Acre, and added two to Faiyum (Egypt was redone in Iron Century, so forget everything I've done to it in previous updates). Farama is now hills and Alexandria is now desert. Added in some missing updates in 00_silk_route.

Version 2.06

Added some cultural and dynastic names.

Version 2.07

Added many cultural, dynastic, and dynamic map names. Major bugfix. Farama is now Egyptian culture, Yabroud is now Levantine culture, and Palmyra and Rakka are now Bedouin culture. Decision to create Israel no longer requires Jerusalem to be Jewish religion. Judaic rulers of any culture may now receive the Jewish immigration event. Judaic holy site moved from Semien to Cordoba.

Version 2.08

Some dynastic and cultural names added.

Version 2.09

Scholae Palatinae company is added back in. Unsure why it was missing to begin with. This probably is the final version.

Extra things to mention:

If you're planning on using console commands to give characters land in the Levant, Egypt, or Mesopotamia, I recommend you keep landed_titles.txt open for reference. Province names are no longer a reliable guide to their title ID. Or you can use charinfo.

Neither the event to convert a courtier or a vassal work. They are triggered properly and appear ingame, but just have no effect. Their counterparts in the English melting pot also don't work, so there's not much I can do until they're fixed. Actually, they work some of the time. Haven't figured out why yet.

I advise you to consult a Hebrew speaker before claiming I've gotten any of my names wrong. A lot of them sound very strange to the English ear, but I assure you that there really are Israeli women called Or and Tal, as well as men called Lidor and Raz.

This is all my own work. Please credit me if you take stuff wholesale for another mod.
 

Attachments

  • jewishimmersion.txt
    117 bytes · Views: 177
  • jewishimmersion.zip
    5,9 MB · Views: 57
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Maybe more people would be interested in this mod if, rather than forcing people to use the buggy Steam Workshop, you provided a direct-download link.
 
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Holy moley! Ho. Ly. Mo. Ly. This is amazing and you must have put so much work into it! I have a bunch of questions.
Since you added new holdings, is your mod converter-friendly?
Why did you fold Romaniotes into Sephardim?
And: I made my own Jewish content mod that adds a Mashiakh trait, a Beit Mashiakh trait, a building in the Temple barony in Jerusalem once the Third Temple is created, and some more crusade weights. My mod also does some of the culture rework that yours does (but not nearly as comprehensively). Do you want to collaborate? I don't want to just take your content and slap mine onto it in a new mod, so would you mind if I made a submod of my mod for your mod?
 
Holy moley! Ho. Ly. Mo. Ly. This is amazing and you must have put so much work into it!

Thanks. I'm really glad it's released now, you would not believe how obsessively I built it.

Since you added new holdings, is your mod converter-friendly?

I don't know much about conversion to EUIV, but that game doesn't have holdings... I don't see why not.

Why did you fold Romaniotes into Sephardim?

Because I felt Sephardim could represent eastern Mediterranean Jews quite well (there is a lot of overlap in real life), and because Romaniotes aren't a significant enough group to justify their own culture in a game with 'Italian' or 'Turkish' culture. If I made them separate, then I'd also have to split off Yemeni Jews from Mizrahi and Mountain Jews from Kalimi.

And: I made my own Jewish content mod that adds a Mashiakh trait, a Beit Mashiakh trait, a building in the Temple barony in Jerusalem once the Third Temple is created, and some more crusade weights. My mod also does some of the culture rework that yours does (but not nearly as comprehensively). Do you want to collaborate? I don't want to just take your content and slap mine onto it in a new mod, so would you mind if I made a submod of my mod for your mod?

You don't need my permission to make a submod; just credit me. Not personally really interested in adding extra mechanics, but I'd support your project.
 
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Are you planning to introduce additional events or decisions?

I would like to suggest the introduction of the Levites and Aaronites as a clergy caste. Normal Jews shouldn't have possibility being priest.
 
Thanks. I'm really glad it's released now, you would not believe how obsessively I built it.
I don't know much about conversion to EUIV, but that game doesn't have holdings... I don't see why not.
Because I felt Sephardim could represent eastern Mediterranean Jews quite well (there is a lot of overlap in real life), and because Romaniotes aren't a significant enough group to justify their own culture in a game with 'Italian' or 'Turkish' culture. If I made them separate, then I'd also have to split off Yemeni Jews from Mizrahi and Mountain Jews from Kalimi.
You don't need my permission to make a submod; just credit me. Not personally really interested in adding extra mechanics, but I'd support your project.
Awesome!
For the melting pot event ("either have Israel as your primary title OR your liege's primary title"), how would this work with empire titles? Because k_Israel is a titular title, and because my realm is usually multiple kingdoms by the time I get to Jerusalem, I usually make a Charlemagne custom empire out of that title. Would the melting pot fire? Or would I need to give k_Israel to a vassal?
 
Awesome!
For the melting pot event ("either have Israel as your primary title OR your liege's primary title"), how would this work with empire titles? Because k_Israel is a titular title, and because my realm is usually multiple kingdoms by the time I get to Jerusalem, I usually make a Charlemagne custom empire out of that title. Would the melting pot fire? Or would I need to give k_Israel to a vassal?

It simply won't work (it isn't 'liege' but 'top liege'). The melting pot is supposed to be a nationalistic thing; already possessing a Jewish empire disqualifies you.

My reasoning is that a different culture that already gives Jews rights and autonomy wouldn't be conducive to rebuilding a Hebrew culture. Bundism is a real-life example of this.
 
It simply won't work (it isn't 'liege' but 'top liege'). The melting pot is supposed to be a nationalistic thing; already possessing a Jewish empire disqualifies you.
My reasoning is that a different culture that already gives Jews rights and autonomy wouldn't be conducive to rebuilding a Hebrew culture. Bundism is a real-life example of this.
Bundism was a bunch of Jews trying to be part of a secular non-Jewish culture. What if the top liege is religiously but not culturally Jewish? I'm thinking about an Ethiopian or Khazar conquest game.
I'm just not seeing how often the Hebrew melting pot would happen. Most players are already empires when they conquer Israel. And because k_Israel is titular, I don't think most players would give it to a vassal.
 
I'm going to preface this by admitting this is likely a profoundly stupid question. However, I am new to Steam installations as well as CK2. So what do i have to do to install this mod? I think I just C&P this somewhere, right? If so, where to?

Many thanks for creating this mod. It is clearly a labor of love.
 
Version 1.01

1. Lots of updates and fixes to the Levant's dynamic names. Byzantine and Crusader names have had extensive improvement.

2. You or your top liege having Israel as primary title is no longer the only way for Jewish immigration and the Hebrew melting pot to fire - it will now also happen if either of you are emperor rank.

3. The 'mysterious Jewish courtiers' now have a 20% chance of being Karaites (this will not happen for the Ethiopian courtier event).

I've uploaded pictures on the Steam page showing many of the new province names. Please note that many names may not be updated properly unless you unsubscribe or pull the mod files out of Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings II/mod, open and close the launcher, and then resubscribe/place the files back in.

You can continue savegames, of course. And this will probably be the only major update before Holy Fury comes out, so enjoy!
 
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