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CKIII Dev Diary #26 - Map Scope

Salutations!

As a continuation from last week, I will be talking about the scope of the map and, perhaps more importantly, showing you how it all actually looks. Get ready for a very screenshot heavy DD!

Europe
Europe has been reworked from the ground up. We made sure to give all of Europe proper attention when painting baronies and counties. It was important for us to make sure we have a good and consistent quality level across the map. I’m sure you’ll find eastern Europe in particular fleshed out with a lot more detail than what you may be used to in CK2.

26_01_kiev.jpg


26_02_novgorod.jpg


Since we’ve already shown bits and pieces of Europe in screenshots and videos, let’s have a look at a few specific locations, and what special buildings they have available. Starting with France, it felt like an obvious choice to include Notre-Dame, one of the most recognizable cathedrals of the time period.

26_03_notre-dame.jpg


26_04_northern_france.jpg


26_05_aquitaine_burgundy.jpg


Next up, Iberia. Featuring two major rivers, plenty of hills and a few special buildings. In the county of Granada you’ll find Alhambra. While merely an old ruin at game start, it can be upgraded to offer some of the highest fortifications in the game.

26_06_northern_iberia.jpg


26_07_southern_iberia.jpg


26_08_alhambra.jpg


Speaking of special buildings. The city of the world’s desire, features not one, but two, special buildings. This makes Constantinople a very spectacular holding, and if that isn’t enough, it also has the highest development level in the game.

26_09_theodosian_walls.jpg
26_10_hagia_sophia.jpg


26_11_greece_anatolia.jpg


Before moving on, I’ll just leave this culture screenshot right here:

26_12_what_cultures_now.jpg


The Middle East
The Middle East has seen the same level of attention and rework as Europe, with some particular attention spent on updating history across the region. For example, the Seljuks control a vast empire in 1066, properly representing their historical borders. They have a plethora of different cultures as their subjects and may fall apart if not careful.

26_13_seljuk.jpg


Development in the region is above your average starting levels. Baghdad, for example, starts out with one of the highest levels of development in the game — bested only by a few other locations such as Constantinople! Baghdad also has one of the single most impressive special buildings available, the House of Wisdom.

26_15_house_of_wisdom.jpg


26_16_baghdad.jpg


26_17_nishapur.jpg


26_18_jerusalem.jpg


Africa
Africa has seen some of the greatest additions to the map. No longer cut in half, the Sub-Saharan kingdoms have plenty of space to expand in as we have included the entire Nigerian coast.

26_19_west_africa.jpg


We have a total of five different pagan faiths to play as, giving you plenty of different options. A solid first pick would be Benin, within the Niger delta. They start off with a decent development level and access to a special building: The massive construction that is the Walls of Benin.

26_20_faiths_west_africa.jpg


26_21_benin.jpg


26_22_walls_of_benin.jpg


Some cultures will start with the ability to sail major rivers, allowing them to use the Niger to quickly ferry troops back and forth. The coast on the other hand, will be open for everyone to use. You won’t be able to sail around the African coast to reach Europe however, or vice versa. That route is blocked by impassable sea, since it was often difficult, if not impossible, to sail along the western coast due to storms and rough seas. No viking raids in Africa, I’m afraid!

26_23_ghana_niger.jpg


26_24_coast_of_guinea.jpg


26_25_impassable_sea.jpg


Let’s not forget the Horn of Africa. Expanded to include Mogadishu, the area offers more space to play in, with christian, muslim, jewish, and pagan rulers all wanting a piece of each other.

26_26_ajuraan.jpg


26_27_ajuraan_close_up.jpg


Finally, let's mention Egypt. A rich area that has a lot of floodplains, good development levels, and even a couple of special buildings. All encompassed by the Nile, a major river with green and lush vegetation.

26_28_egypt.jpg


26_29_pyramids.jpg


The Far East
Looking east, the map has been expanded to include the entirety of Tibet, along with a small extension of Mongolia, accompanied by a whole set of new cultures and faiths!

Starting with Tibet, the area has a whole bunch of independent realms since the Tibetan Empire is long gone by the time of our two start dates. There’s a wide range of rulers of different faiths and cultures spread out across the plateau. The two most prominent faiths being Bön and Nangchos, a Buddhist faith syncretized with different Tibetan beliefs and practices.

26_30_tibet.jpg


26_31_tibetan_faiths.jpg


26_32_lhasa.jpg


Turning to Mongolia, there is a powerhouse present in both bookmarks. In 867, you have the Kirghiz Khanate, and Great Liao in 1066. Counties and provinces include Karakorum and the entire area surrounding lake Baikal.

26_33_baikal_867.jpg


26_34_mongolia_1066.jpg


Expanding Tibet and Mongolia left us with a small empty space in the south, and we really couldn’t have that, now could we? So we went ahead and filled out Myanmar (or Burma) down to the Gulf of Martaban with brand new baronies and counties. Which gives you two rather interesting starting options. In 1066, you’ll be able to play as king Anawrahta of the Pagan Kingdom. Starting shortly after his conquest of the Mon kingdoms to the south, most of the area will already be under his control, giving you a great opportunity to push into India! Alternatively you can start as Pagan in 867, yet a small and upstarting kingdom, allowing you to play with the unique faith of Ari Buddhism.

26_35_pagan.jpg


26_36_shwedagon.jpg


I’ll wrap it up here. Otherwise I’ll end up posting screenshots all day. Do you think I missed an important area somewhere? Let me know and maybe, just maybe, I’ll see if I can’t share some more.
 
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I noticed that one of the regions in Siberia is named "Kuzbas". But it's modern abbreviation of Kuznetsk [coal] Basin. Please, change it to something else.

And other Russian names of modern cities in Siberia and Volga-Ural looks strange too - such as Tomsk, Omsk, Pavlodar, Kainsk, Shchuchinks, Palniki, Glazov, Votkinsk, Orenburg, Durovka, Petrovsk, Atkarsk, Kazanskaya. Same for modern names in Ukraine and Crimea - Odessa, Kherson, Dnipro, Perekop.
The worst offender is Astana - literally a 21st century name.
 
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Going to admit i'm quite upset by the fact "Porto" is still a single county. Ideally, it should be 3, (Porto, Braga, Guimarães) but realistically i would be happy with just 2 (Porto and Minho)
Minho is always ignored and merged with Porto on strategy games, it has been this way in every CK, EU and HoI game.

This particular area in Northwestern Portugal has always been the most densely populated in the country and probably in the entire Penisula, expecially in the middle-ages.
View attachment 576855
(These are Populations from the early 16th century, sure already a bit outside of this game's scope and isn't representative of 1066, however, it is a documented fact that the Portuguese kings made great efforts to repopulate the centre and the interior (Beiras) in the 12th and 13th centuries, so by 1066 the difference between Minho and the rest of the country (especially Beiras) should be even more exagerated and not less. Unfortunetely I couldn't find detailed analytic data from the early middle ages, so if you do, please feel free to share).

As you can see, 3 out of the top 10 largest cities in Portugal are entirely located within the county of Porto, not a single other county has even 2 of the major cities, much less 3.
It's strategic, economic and symbolic importance is also absolutely fundamental in Portuguese history, the county of Portucale was unsurprisingly seated in Portus Cale (Porto) since 868, Guimarães (founded sometime in the early 10th century) was the second seat of the county from 1095 to its independence in 1143, and court of the first king. Braga dates back to the 1st century A.D, being the Capital of both the Roman district of Gallaecia and the Suebian Kingdom. And was by far the most important bishopric in the country. These three cities definitely warrant being counties and not mere baronies (i can't even tell if they are even baronies, Braga seems to be there but i'm not even sure about Guimarães).

I also don't see the argument of "them being too close to eachother to be represented by different counties" to hold any water, since Porto looks (very ironically considering it was the densest area of Iberia) one of the largest counties in the entire Peninsula. Even if you split Porto into 3, the resulting counties would be no smaller than existing ones such as Moura and Viseu. I can't visually directly compare them to the rest of Europe, but i'm pretty sure France and England are going to have much smaller counties (In CK2, Porto alone was the size of 5(!) counties in Wales) which is completely unjustified considering the populational density of Porto is on pair with the French average and far surpassed the English average (I guess its unsurprising that it was the only county who repeatedly tried and succeeded in becoming an independent kingdom).

(Ideally, the entire Iberian peninsula would have more counties but fewer baronies, the Reconquista was a very long ordeal and you shouldn't be able to take a large part of Iberia in a couple of wars, but that's asking for too much at this point, so i'm just going to ask to please consider spliting Porto into at least 2 counties (Porto and Minho).
Thank you for reading.

Alright, since we already have access to the county map i can make my comparison outside Iberia and seems like indeed, Northern Portugal is much less dense than anywhere else in Western and Central Europe.
CK3 Counties.png

Just compare it to wales, you could divide Porto and Guarda by 3 and still have inferior density to wales.
The massive detail discrepancies.png
I get it, i get it, province density =/= population density, baronies and development should also de taken into consideration, however I am asking to divide Porto into 2 counties, (Minho and Porto), for another reason, because, you cannot take individual baronies in a war, only counties, however Porto fell back into moorish hands for a brief period between 922 and 988 while Braga and Guimarães (Minho) did not. So they definitely should be different counties to allow the portrayal of these land exchanges.

However, there are two other very large provinces that i would also request to be splitted, namely Coimbra and Alcácer do Sal, here is the map with my split proposals:
My humble suggestions.png
(As you can see, these are pretty reasonable requests that keep the provinces very resonably sized, no smaller than their nearby ones, these additions would increase Portugal's total province count from 12 (ck2) to 16 (ck3) that's a 130% increase which is a perfectly reasonable request since Ck3's map actually increased in county number by 150%)

But Leiria and Évora already exist as baronies, why should we add them as counties instead? You ask...

Basically, same argument as before, right now Leiria and Coimbra are part of the same county, "Coimbra", but Coimbra was conquered in 871 (then switched hands a dozen times before being permanently conquered in 1064) while Leiria was only conquered in 1135. In this case it is even worse because as it stands, the kingdom of Galicia has the wrong borders in 1066 because it should only stretch down to Coimbra and not Leiria yet.

BUT HOLD UP! you say, Évora is already a county.
Indeed... but its in the wrong place : p
Évora wrong place.png

Currently, the county of Évora would make far more sense as being the county of Beja instead, and the barony of Évora should be moved a bit northwest to the area of what is currently the county of Alcácer do Sal (the little red arrow in my suggestion map), however it should be made its own county, why?
Again...
Évora was conquered in 1166 by Afonso I, while Alcácer do Sal was only permanently conquered in 1217 by Afonso II and Beja was only conquered in 1236 by Sancho II. So in Crusader King's terms those were three different wars. And therefore, for historical and gameplay purposes of an accurate Reconquista, Évora, Beja and Alcácer do Sal should be different counties.

Please take my suggestions into consideration, this is no longer a "X area deserves more detail because of its importance" request, this is now a "X area deserves more detail because otherwise you are making your borders necessarily historically innacurate" and i believe Paradox cares about keeping their historical titles accurate.

Thank you for your time again.
 
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I noticed that one of the regions in Siberia is named "Kuzbas". But it's modern abbreviation of Kuznetsk [coal] Basin. Please, change it to something else.

And other Russian names of modern cities in Siberia and Volga-Ural looks strange too - such as Tomsk, Omsk, Pavlodar, Kainsk, Shchuchinks, Palniki, Glazov, Votkinsk, Orenburg, Durovka, Petrovsk, Atkarsk, Kazanskaya. Same for modern names in Ukraine and Crimea - Odessa, Kherson, Dnipro, Perekop.
Maybe Kemerov or Kemer, as is the administrative unit. Or lower Tom after the Tom river?
 
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I'm Vietnamese (with some distant Chinese ancestry) and I would love to be able to play my ancestors, but I guess I personally don't feel like PI would do it justice (not because they don't want to, but because of the limitations of the game's design). Having wasteland would be a theoretically workable solution, but it would just be bizarre having, say, China all filled in but literally the rest of Asia as giant black voids of nothingness, due to the heavy interactions with these regions - Tibet as a wasteland in CK2 worked because other than the early medieval period, it sort of kept to itself, and it was less populated, whereas with much of Asia we're talking about developed, large-scale civilizations and societies that frequently interacted with China, whether through direct conflict, trade, or the tribute system and influence. I do think Southeast Asia and Japan would fit okay in Crusader Kings' framework though (not that great, if at all, but workable), but China and to a lesser extent Korea and Vietnam I think would be a real big problem, especially given China would be the focus of any potential expansion in East Asia.

I could see maybe filling in Southeast Asia and leaving the entirety of China blank at first, but again that's a little odd to me given China's commercial and political involvement in the region.

I digress.
Well the problem is that Mongolia and Myanmar are already on the map and so they already suffer from being against a wasteland. And they both interacted more with their off map neighbours than on map neighbours (plus the Cholas are missing a large part of their area of influence). So I imagine any piecemeal move east will be about giving themselves more time to properly research each area, not because they want to have awkward areas of wasteland.

Also I don't see the far east being different than the west as a reason to keep them off the map as their inclusion should give impitus to add new mechanics that both enrich the new regions and the rest of the map.

The government was not feudal, but that's true of a lot of the CK2 map (the Byzantines along with Muslim countries seem like prime candidates for benefiting from mechanics aimed at China's burecratic government). And the team seems to have realized that their portrayal of non feudal governments in CK2 was poor. They seemed to have learned their lesson and want to represent them better this time around (and at least on other topics they seem to have also built the code to be more flexible for adding new features, so hoping this is true here to).

How religion and government interact is very different in East Asia than in Europe a d the Middle East. But India and the steppe could also benefit from any improvement.

Finally I hope that since trade was very important to the political landscape of Indonesia, that adding Indonesia will be mean that non-merchant Republic will be able to play a meaningful role in trade. Improvements to how trade works could be applied across the map.

So while I don't expect it to be perfect (cause, let's be honest it's a game, so not even Europe is completely acturate), what I've seen so far from CK3 dev diaries has given me hope that CK3 will be able to do a better job of representing China and Southeast Asia than CK2 ever could. And if they do actually manage to pull it off, then I think that it will help enrich the whole map.
 
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Lower Tom then?
Maybe. It's up to devs.

I understand how hard it is to find proper historical name for every region. But on the other hand, maybe when you cannot find a good name for some region, it is the sign that this region just shouldn't exist in the game at all. Just a thought.
 
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Maybe. It's up to devs.

I understand how hard it is to find proper historical name for every region. But on the other hand, maybe when you cannot find a good name for some region, it is the sign that this region just shouldn't exist in the game at all. Just a thought.
The region was inhabited though, at least according to Russian Wikipedia.
 
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Well the problem is that Mongolia and Myanmar are already on the map and so they already suffer from being against a wasteland. And they both interacted more with their off map neighbours than on map neighbours (plus the Cholas are missing a large part of their area of influence). So I imagine any piecemeal move east will be about giving themselves more time to properly research each area, not because they want to have awkward areas of wasteland.

Also I don't see the far east being different than the west as a reason to keep them off the map as their inclusion should give impitus to add new mechanics that both enrich the new regions and the rest of the map.

The government was not feudal, but that's true of a lot of the CK2 map (the Byzantines along with Muslim countries seem like prime candidates for benefiting from mechanics aimed at China's burecratic government). And the team seems to have realized that their portrayal of non feudal governments in CK2 was poor. They seemed to have learned their lesson and want to represent them better this time around (and at least on other topics they seem to have also built the code to be more flexible for adding new features, so hoping this is true here to).

How religion and government interact is very different in East Asia than in Europe a d the Middle East. But India and the steppe could also benefit from any improvement.

Finally I hope that since trade was very important to the political landscape of Indonesia, that adding Indonesia will be mean that non-merchant Republic will be able to play a meaningful role in trade. Improvements to how trade works could be applied across the map.

So while I don't expect it to be perfect (cause, let's be honest it's a game, so not even Europe is completely acturate), what I've seen so far from CK3 dev diaries has given me hope that CK3 will be able to do a better job of representing China and Southeast Asia than CK2 ever could. And if they do actually manage to pull it off, then I think that it will help enrich the whole map.

There's been a lot of good discussion in another thread about how the game could potentially portray China, so I won't rehash any of the walls of text there, but my general opinion is that portraying the bureaucratic aspects of China (and to a lesser extent Korea and Vietnam) is an insurmountable challenge because
  1. The game is focused on map painting and conquering land and titles that are inherited by the family, which does not fit well with Chinese style administration (it would be nonsensical for a court-appointed governor in times of peace or stability to attack another governor to conquer his land), so you would need to incentivize the player to NOT give a damn about blobbing and making family members inherit the same property, while then somehow swerving back to making them care about it during periods of civil war and unrest
  2. The interface, UI, and overall design still reflect this blobbing and inheritance game so any attempts to add in extra systems would just be a side show, the way secret societies were, for example. How could one get the player to ignore that for parts of the game?
  3. Simulate the exam system to a good degree (pun intended), because a Chinese style bureaucracy without an exam system is like having Catholicism without a Pope - how to make the player care about what would be a bunch of events and decisions instead of, again, conquering random stuff?
  4. Simulate the scholar-gentry families, representing their various power bases and local interactions without tying it strongly to owning titles, land, and map painting.
  5. Simulate regional variations of these systems such as that of Korea, Vietnam, and other states.
  6. Simulate the transition from the jiedushi system of the late Tang to the more bureaucratic system of the Song and later dynasties
  7. Simulate court intrigue among varying court factions without relying on civil war and constant assassinations
  8. On a related note, simulate the rise and fall of dynasties and periods of disunity in such a way that avoids Mingsplosion style shenanigans in EUIV.

Ultimately, for all its changes, CK3, like CK2, is still based on a very limited, narrow scope of 12th century France in terms of its "feudal" mechanics. I don't see much improvement in that regard; it's still tied to owning land and titles, it's still tied to a tiered hierarchy of Emperor > King > Duke > Count > Baron, it's still tied to owning land on a map that you keep across generations. This system doesn't even fit that well in other "feudal" places even in Western Europe, much less more bureaucratic states like the Byzantine Empire or the Caliphates, and even much less something like the gargantuan giant of China. There is just too much the devs would have to do if they want to get a semblance of similarity to history, that it almost seems like these systems would be better off in a separate game (though I understand that might not be optimal from a business POV), otherwise we'll just get some bland blobs of culture and a handful of flavor events like India did with the ROI DLC that would look absurdist compared to what went on. Actually, it'd make RoI look like an extremely accurate brilliant simulator of medival Indian minutae by comparison.

But I'm digressing now, as I basically just rehashed a lot of my discussion in that other thread in very, very summarized form - I suggest you look at the thread if you're interested in seeing the challenges of doing Asia and how it could be done (though still not too satisfactorily in my opinion, but a great and cool thought experiment nevertheless). There's been a lot of good discussion that convinced me even more that it will be difficult.

TLDR: It's not just a matter of slapping on a bureaucratic government. It's also simulating the rest of the nuances of that bureaucratic government, society, and culture that Crusader Kings is not really designed around, because it is a map painter at the end of the day, and bureaucratic China gameplay would simply conflict with that in so many ways from a design standpoint.
 
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There's been a lot of good discussion in another thread about how the game could potentially portray China, so I won't rehash any of the walls of text there, but my general opinion is that portraying the bureaucratic aspects of China (and to a lesser extent Korea and Vietnam) is an insurmountable challenge because
  1. The game is focused on map painting and conquering land and titles that are inherited by the family, which does not fit well with Chinese style administration (it would be nonsensical for a court-appointed governor in times of peace or stability to attack another governor to conquer his land), so you would need to incentivize the player to NOT give a damn about blobbing and making family members inherit the same property, while then somehow swerving back to making them care about it during periods of civil war and unrest
  2. The interface, UI, and overall design still reflect this blobbing and inheritance game so any attempts to add in extra systems would just be a side show, the way secret societies were, for example. How could one get the player to ignore that for parts of the game?
  3. Simulate the exam system to a good degree (pun intended), because a Chinese style bureaucracy without an exam system is like having Catholicism without a Pope - how to make the player care about what would be a bunch of events and decisions instead of, again, conquering random stuff?
  4. Simulate the scholar-gentry families, representing their various power bases and local interactions without tying it strongly to owning titles, land, and map painting.
  5. Simulate regional variations of these systems such as that of Korea, Vietnam, and other states.
  6. Simulate the transition from the jiedushi system of the late Tang to the more bureaucratic system of the Song and later dynasties
  7. Simulate court intrigue among varying court factions without relying on civil war and constant assassinations
  8. On a related note, simulate the rise and fall of dynasties and periods of disunity in such a way that avoids Mingsplosion style shenanigans in EUIV.

Ultimately, for all its changes, CK3, like CK2, is still based on a very limited, narrow scope of 12th century France in terms of its "feudal" mechanics. I don't see much improvement in that regard; it's still tied to owning land and titles, it's still tied to a tiered hierarchy of Emperor > King > Duke > Count > Baron, it's still tied to owning land on a map. This sytem doesn't even fit that well in other "feudal" places even in Western Europe, much less more bureaucratic states like the Byzantine Empire or the Caliphates, and even much less something like the gargantuan giant of China. There is just too much the devs would have to do if they want to get a semblance of similarity to history, that it almost seems like these systems would be better off in a separate game (though I understand that might not be optimal from a business POV), otherwise we'll just get some bland blobs of culture and a handful of flavor events like India did with the ROI DLC that would look absurdist compared to what went on.

But I'm digressing now, as I basically just rehashed a lot of my discussion in that other thread in very, very summarized form - I suggest you look at the thread if you're interested in seeing the challenges of doing Asia and how it could be done (though still not too satisfactorily in my opinion, but a great and cool thought experiment nevertheless). There's been a lot of good discussion that convinced me even more that it will be difficult.

TLDR: It's not just a matter of slapping on a bureaucratic government. It's also simulating the rest of the nuances of that bureaucratic government that Crusader Kings is not really designed around.
Agreed. At this point, adding China would probably just devolve into a lot of weird hacks and rickety work-arounds. Something this complex would probably need its own separate game.
 
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There's been a lot of good discussion in another thread about how the game could potentially portray China, so I won't rehash any of the walls of text there, but my general opinion is that portraying the bureaucratic aspects of China (and to a lesser extent Korea and Vietnam) is an insurmountable challenge because
  1. The game is focused on map painting and conquering land and titles that are inherited by the family, which does not fit well with Chinese style administration (it would be nonsensical for a court-appointed governor in times of peace or stability to attack another governor to conquer his land), so you would need to incentivize the player to NOT give a damn about blobbing and making family members inherit the same property, while then somehow swerving back to making them care about it during periods of civil war and unrest
  2. The interface, UI, and overall design still reflect this blobbing and inheritance game so any attempts to add in extra systems would just be a side show, the way secret societies were, for example. How could one get the player to ignore that for parts of the game?
  3. Simulate the exam system to a good degree (pun intended), because a Chinese style bureaucracy without an exam system is like having Catholicism without a Pope - how to make the player care about what would be a bunch of events and decisions instead of, again, conquering random stuff?
  4. Simulate the scholar-gentry families, representing their various power bases and local interactions without tying it strongly to owning titles, land, and map painting.
  5. Simulate regional variations of these systems such as that of Korea, Vietnam, and other states.
  6. Simulate the transition from the jiedushi system of the late Tang to the more bureaucratic system of the Song and later dynasties
  7. Simulate court intrigue among varying court factions without relying on civil war and constant assassinations
  8. On a related note, simulate the rise and fall of dynasties and periods of disunity in such a way that avoids Mingsplosion style shenanigans in EUIV.

Ultimately, for all its changes, CK3, like CK2, is still based on a very limited, narrow scope of 12th century France in terms of its "feudal" mechanics. I don't see much improvement in that regard; it's still tied to owning land and titles, it's still tied to a tiered hierarchy of Emperor > King > Duke > Count > Baron, it's still tied to owning land on a map that you keep across generations. This system doesn't even fit that well in other "feudal" places even in Western Europe, much less more bureaucratic states like the Byzantine Empire or the Caliphates, and even much less something like the gargantuan giant of China. There is just too much the devs would have to do if they want to get a semblance of similarity to history, that it almost seems like these systems would be better off in a separate game (though I understand that might not be optimal from a business POV), otherwise we'll just get some bland blobs of culture and a handful of flavor events like India did with the ROI DLC that would look absurdist compared to what went on. Actually, it'd make RoI look like an extremely accurate brilliant simulator of medival Indian minutae by comparison.

But I'm digressing now, as I basically just rehashed a lot of my discussion in that other thread in very, very summarized form - I suggest you look at the thread if you're interested in seeing the challenges of doing Asia and how it could be done (though still not too satisfactorily in my opinion, but a great and cool thought experiment nevertheless). There's been a lot of good discussion that convinced me even more that it will be difficult.

TLDR: It's not just a matter of slapping on a bureaucratic government. It's also simulating the rest of the nuances of that bureaucratic government, society, and culture that Crusader Kings is not really designed around, because it is a map painter at the end of the day, and bureaucratic China gameplay would simply conflict with that in so many ways from a design standpoint.
I have looked into that thread, and as you said, it really interesting and shows a lot the challenges that exist.

But I think what will make CK3 be able to make burecratic fun is that they have improved their intrigue system. It looks like it could actually be fun to be a landless character. Don't know if PI would go as far as letting you play a landless Character. But it gives me hope, the fact that, I would never want to play one in CK2, where as with CK3 the idea at least intrigues me (I would actually have to see how much I like the new intrigue system before I can really say).

And while I agree that they shouldn't be just slapping a burecratic government on top. I'd argue that also goes for the Byzantine empire which should be centred around court drama in the capital. So again I see potential for improving both at the same time.

Ultimately, the way I view it, is if I can't have a properly represented Byzantine Empire, I'd rather have a feudal Byzantine empire than no Byzantine Empire. I wouldn't want the Byzantine Empire to be a wasteland just because it isn't properly exicuted (I'd find that even more immersive breaking). And even a feudal Byzantine Empire I can enjoy playing as I can let my imagination fill in what's missing (obviously it'd be way more enjoyable if I didn't have to rely on filling in the gaps myself). Now if PI wants me to pay money just to play a Byzantine Empire with burecratic window dressing, that a whole other problem. And this same sentiment carries over to the China and the rest of East Asia.

So I'm guessing the point where we differ is that I'd find the exclusion of East Asia more immersion breaking than a not fully accurate East Asia, where as, you find the latter more immersion breaking. And honestly, I can respect that and I don't see anything wrong with it. It just happens not to be my personal position. And I truly hope PI can make both of us happy.
 
Agreed. At this point, adding China would probably just devolve into a lot of weird hacks and rickety work-arounds. Something this complex would probably need its own separate game.

If they do add China in, I'm quite certain they'll do these sort of weird work-arounds, kind of like Jade Dragon (though with Jade Dragon they had the advantage of keeping China off the map, which made things much, much easier to portray), given the fundamentals of the politics and map blobbing aspects of CK seem unchanged. I could be wrong, but we'll have to see.


I have looked into that thread, and as you said, it really interesting and shows a lot the challenges that exist.

But I think what will make CK3 be able to make burecratic fun is that they have improved their intrigue system. It looks like it could actually be fun to be a landless character. Don't know if PI would go as far as letting you play a landless Character. But it gives me hope, the fact that, I would never want to play one in CK2, where as with CK3 the idea at least intrigues me (I would actually have to see how much I like the new intrigue system before I can really say).

And while I agree that they shouldn't be just slapping a burecratic government on top. I'd argue that also goes for the Byzantine empire which should be centred around court drama in the capital. So again I see potential for improving both at the same time.

Ultimately, the way I view it, is if I can't have a properly represented Byzantine Empire, I'd rather have a feudal Byzantine empire than no Byzantine Empire. I wouldn't want the Byzantine Empire to be a wasteland just because it isn't properly exicuted (I'd find that even more immersive breaking). And even a feudal Byzantine Empire I can enjoy playing as I can let my imagination fill in what's missing (obviously it'd be way more enjoyable if I didn't have to rely on filling in the gaps myself). Now if PI wants me to pay money just to play a Byzantine Empire with burecratic window dressing, that a whole other problem. And this same sentiment carries over to the China and the rest of East Asia.

So I'm guessing the point where we differ is that I'd find the exclusion of East Asia more immersion breaking than a not fully accurate East Asia, where as, you find the latter more immersion breaking. And honestly, I can respect that and I don't see anything wrong with it. It just happens not to be my personal position. And I truly hope PI can make both of us happy.

That's fair enough! I think the intrigue system, for all its massive improvements, will not be enough to overcome the map painter focus of the game, but maybe I will be proven wrong when the game is released since, as you say, we'll actually have to play with it to see whether it really is a revolutionary change to the way the game works or is just improvements on the same core system (though of course good improvements nonetheless from what I can see).

As mentioned above, I think Crusader King's weird theme park version of 12th century France is closer to the ERE's situation than it is to China - but very relatively speaking, and not just geographically, hehe, and I am not satisfied with the ERE portrayal either but accepted it as is. Anyways, for all of Jade Dragon's flaws - and there were a lot of flaws - I thought Jade Dragon's manner of handling China was an acceptable compromise, though I suppose like all compromises it meant that partisans on both sides were unsatisfied. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether they'll have a similar kind of weird compromise for East Asia or will add to the map!
 
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What about Greenland? It was inhabited for most of the timeframe of CK and sent some trade goods to Europe.
The only Greenland content we could get if you pushed really hard is a modifier giving a very weak increase in tax to show its contributions, and then an event removing that buff once it properly collapses.
 
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I hope China comes out soon so people can finally stop making pointless discussions about whether or not China will be in teh game.
Then we can get pointless discussions about whether or not China should have been added to the game!
 
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Well, China is old dream for game "from ocean to ocean".

But take a note, I think it's impossible to add China and don't add Korea or Vietnam. Skip Japan will possible, but illogical.
With adding Indochina and Siam we'll get problem with Malay region (to cut or to add).
If add Mala region, need add as well Indonesia.

"For complete dream game", ofc we need get expansion with China-Korea-Japan, Indochina, Indonesia and expansion eastern coastline of Africa to Zanzibar.

I hope eventually devs get opportunities to fix all troubles and add it.
 
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Adding China would be a completely new game... It would be like a 50€ DLC or such in 2025 and I truly hope that base CK is fully fleshed out when they even think about focusing on China.
 
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