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CK2 Dev Diary #69: Another Journey to Tibet

Greetings!

We’ve previously had a DevDiary about Tibet, where we talked about the new provinces, cultures and religions in the area. That was quite some time ago, and we’ve since then improved the area even further! We want to ensure that the area is both interesting and fun to play in, so we’ve put some work into making it just that - with an improved title setup and additional interesting cultures.

Tibet 2.0.png

The province density in the area has been increased - Counties in Tibet are now roughly the same size as those in Persia or Transoxiania, both in order to present a more appealing historical scenario, and to make the area less of a chore to actually play in (with the old Counties, it could take months to move armies between them).

Note that for those who fear that this will decrease performance - we’ve done plenty of work on it, and all our tests show this version of the game to be the fastest yet.

Tibet 2.0 Cultures.png

In the very earliest start dates (769 and 867) there are still going to be remnants of two ancient cultures that existed in western and northern Tibet, the Zhangzhung and the Sumpa. While they are subjugated by the Tibetans (Bödpa) they still retain their traditions. Both of these cultures are known by the Chinese for having ‘Kingdoms ruled by Women’, and thus have access to the Absolute Cognatic inheritance law much like the Basque.

De Jure.png

The setup of De Jure kingdoms has changed as a consequence of the new Counties - now Xia is a De Jure title along with Kham, Ü-Tsang, Guge and Nepal. This gives the Xia more staying power, enhancing their historical role. Note that all titles in the area have plenty of cultural naming options, so the kingdom won’t be named Xia unless ruled by a Tangut-cultured character, for example.

Between Tibet, the new Tarim basin and the enhanced Persia you will now see a lot more movement, trade and conquest between the areas on the eastern half of the map. It will hopefully no longer feel as if the steppes and India are ‘worlds of their own’, but rather parts of a greater whole.
 
So now that Saka is in the game, how do they relate to their very close ethnolinguistic cousins, the Alans? What game things are in place that represent this relationship, the common Scythian descent?

This also might be a good time, if the Middle East (and the East in general) is being redone, to put forth some changes that the Alan fans have been asking for (such as Iranian graphics of some measure, or a non-Tengri religion)
These Buddhist oasis farmers on southern tarim might not know what are alans or scythians, due to they had divided for thousands years. Their culture deeply influented by Buddhist and Chinese culture and their Tocharian neighbors that basically non similarities with nomads on southern russia. They did not call themselves saka aswell, the name comes from their language which closes to pashto. They call themselves hvatanai or something like that.
 
That means it consumes more processing power than usual. I'd rather play a slower game for a longer time than to get bored with a quick running game that loses immersion after 150 years.

Thing is not all of us would make that trade. That's why the devs don't really want to add China.
 
That means it consumes more processing power than usual. I'd rather play a slower game for a longer time than to get bored with a quick running game that loses immersion after 150 years.
How does independence fix anything? Instead of bordergore, half of Western Europe becomes an assortment of independent duchies and counties instead.

The real problem is vassal and demesne assignment under gavelkind.
So now that Saka is in the game, how do they relate to their very close ethnolinguistic cousins, the Alans? What game things are in place that represent this relationship, the common Scythian descent?
Linguistically, Encyclopedia Iranica doesn't mention any special link between then beyond being in the Eastern Iranian group, and the attested cognates in Khotanese and Ossetian mentioned within fall pretty safely into the mutually unintelligible zone.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eastern-iranian-languages
These Buddhist oasis farmers on southern tarim might not know what are alans or scythians, due to they had divided for thousands years. Their culture deeply influented by Buddhist and Chinese culture and their Tocharian neighbors that basically non similarities with nomads on southern russia. They did not call themselves saka aswell, the name comes from their language which closes to pashto. They call themselves hvatanai or something like that.
Actually, what are the historical sources that associate the nomadic Saka with the sedentary Khotanese? The wordings of Wikipedia led me to assume that some contemporary Chinese histories mention it, but after Ctrl+F through the sections about "the West" in Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han, Book of Later Han, Book of Sui, Old Book of Tang, and New Book of Tang, while all of which except the first mention Khotan, I was surprised to find that only the Book of Han mentions the Sək (塞) people at all.

In the Book of Han, the said people was said to have lived northwest of Shule ( = Kashgar, at the far western end of the Tarim Basin) before it splintered, and the two states identified as remnants of the Sək were said to live in valleys in/by the Pamir Mountains and were nomadic. Meanwhile, Khotan was already a country with 3,300 households and 19,300 people, which makes it the second most populous country mentioned in the Tarim Basin, but with no mentions of any connection with the Sək people.

Perhaps some Persian account does connect Khotan and the Saka, but unfortunately I know no Farsi so it's a dead end. I don't think the Greeks, the other source of many contemporary records, knew Khotan either.
 
In the Book of Han, the said people was said to have lived northwest of Shule ( = Kashgar, at the far western end of the Tarim Basin) before it splintered, and the two states identified as remnants of the Sək were said to live in valleys in/by the Pamir Mountains and were nomadic. Meanwhile, Khotan was already a country with 3,300 households and 19,300 people, which makes it the second most populous country mentioned in the Tarim Basin, but with no mentions of any connection with the Sək people.

塞種 Sək was only shortly mentioned as a nomadic race that meet by Yuezhi in their migration in Chinese historical source. there is no connection between khotanese and saka that recorded by Chinese. the reason might be morden linguistic research. Due to the original khotanese culture was ruined by karakhanid, archaeologists didn't name the language from the local name.
 
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Please add a game rule that helps diminish "border gore". Maybe make it so that vassals that are relatively far away (rank dependent) break away to become independent or become de jure/facto vassals of whatever high up liege is in the vicinity.

*snip*

Two things!

1. There is already a mechanic that does this. Vassals that are far away from the capital are already more inclined to join independence factions.
2. That rule really wouldn't help with the border gore in those images, since all of those are Karlings inheriting each other's land very close to their capitals. The best way to avoid that particular bit of border gore also doubles as the best way to play the game in general, which is to say Kill All the Karlings.

Three things.

3. The most grotesque border gore is found in (where else?) history.

This is a map of the HRE circa 1400. Edit: spoilered for size, good thinking

HRR_1400.png
I want you to look at Thüringen.
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.
 
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Two things!

1. There is already a mechanic that does this. Vassals that are far away from the capital are already more inclined to join independence factions.
2. That rule really wouldn't help with the border gore in those images, since all of those are Karlings inheriting each other's land very close to their capitals. The best way to avoid that particular bit of border gore also doubles as the best way to play the game in general, which is to say Kill All the Karlings.

Three things.

3. The most grotesque border gore is found in (where else?) history.

This is a map of the HRE circa 1400.

HRR_1400.png


I want you to look at Thüringen.
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.


There are different levels of border gore. One is scattered ownership of counties within a particular region as was the case with within the HRE. The other is a scattered Kingdom of Empire throughout a continent (from Western France to Central Russia).
 
I mean, I'd be all for a Gavelkind rework that results in the Karlingblob not being scattered across Europe, but it's important to recognize that the problem here is Gavelkind, not border gore, and that a forceful solution like you're proposing (that is, regularly chopping off bits of your empire for not being to the algorithm's aesthetic tastes) won't actually solve that problem while introducing a slew of new ones.
 
Rehashing the same topics in development diaries makes it feel like the team is out of fresh ideas.
Or working on stuff that's conceptually simple to explain but hard to implement.
 
Two things!

1. There is already a mechanic that does this. Vassals that are far away from the capital are already more inclined to join independence factions.
2. That rule really wouldn't help with the border gore in those images, since all of those are Karlings inheriting each other's land very close to their capitals. The best way to avoid that particular bit of border gore also doubles as the best way to play the game in general, which is to say Kill All the Karlings.

Three things.

3. The most grotesque border gore is found in (where else?) history.

This is a map of the HRE circa 1400. Edit: spoilered for size, good thinking

HRR_1400.png
I want you to look at Thüringen.
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.
No one is disputing vassal set up, that's fine as long as its within a realm. Imagine if all those small colors belonged to different realms, that's when you get a situation that just doesn't hold up. They should either find a way to make realms more united across a connected landmass or they introduce a double liege system. Having Kingdom of France and the HRE both being equal in size but with half their domesne scattered across the respective realm like small islands and small enclaves doesn't work.
 
Rehashing the same topics in development diaries makes it feel like the team is out of fresh ideas.
Or maybe development doesn't proceed with the linear growth and even progress that the expectation of regular weekly dev diaries might imply?

nd
 
Forgive me if this has already been answered, but has it been established whether Buddhist characters are playable without RoI and/or Bon/Khurmazta characters playable without ToG? I imagine that it would be disappointment to new players who are moved to buy the base game+expansion specifically for this content to discover that they are barely able to interact with the new content since they are restricted to Christian rulers (and maybe Taoists, if any exist after 1066).
 
Forgive me if this has already been answered, but has it been established whether Buddhist characters are playable without RoI and/or Bon/Khurmazta characters playable without ToG? I imagine that it would be disappointment to new players who are moved to buy the base game+expansion specifically for this content to discover that they are barely able to interact with the new content since they are restricted to Christian rulers (and maybe Taoists, if any exist after 1066).

They have stated that Buddhists are not playable without RoI. However, Bon and Taoism (though not Khurmazta) are playable without TOG, requiring only JD.

It may be worth noting that they appear to have added several Christian counts (Nestorians) to the eastern edge of the map. That should help those who don't own previous expansions.
 
@Metz @Guancyto Look at realm of Charles V... That is true meaning of border gore...
To be technically correct in CKII terms, one would say that the blue areas on that map are his direct vassals (since he certainly did not personally hold every county in Hispania), and the rest within the red line are his indirect vassals. I wonder what territory he actually personally owned.
 
Forgive me if this has already been answered, but has it been established whether Buddhist characters are playable without RoI and/or Bon/Khurmazta characters playable without ToG? I imagine that it would be disappointment to new players who are moved to buy the base game+expansion specifically for this content to discover that they are barely able to interact with the new content since they are restricted to Christian rulers (and maybe Taoists, if any exist after 1066).

Do we have any inkling of how they are handling Khurmazta?

They have stated that Buddhists are not playable without RoI. However, Bon and Taoism (though not Khurmazta) are playable without TOG, requiring only JD.

It may be worth noting that they appear to have added several Christian counts (Nestorians) to the eastern edge of the map. That should help those who don't own previous expansions.

What I'm more interested in knowing is if I can play Monastic Feudal if I own RoI, and if I can play Bon and Taoism if I own ToG.