Corrections for north Caucasus/Caspian region

[unmerged(5822)]

Duchy oversight in Caucasus?

If you take a look at the duchy of Armenia, you'll see that it covers 6 provinces in a pattern that is unnatural for duchy shapes. In fact, it looks more like it's made up of 2 duchy areas - the area covered by the principality of Armenia in 1066, and the area covered by the emirate of Derbent in the same scenario. Since "emirate" is the muslim variant of "duchy" or "principality", it seems to me that the 3 Armenia provinces along the Caspian Sea (Derbent plus the two provinces north and south of it) were originally intended to make up the "duchy of Derbent", a place that right now can only exist in our dreams. Looking at the emirate "flag", it seems like the graphics are there as well (i.e. it should be possible to "add" the duchy of Derbent to the game). None of these 3 provinces start with Armenian culture either, they're all Persian.

Am I right, wrong or just plain nuts?

 

[Lurken]

If you take a look at the duchy of Armenia, you'll see that it covers 6 provinces in a pattern that is unnatural for duchy shapes. In fact, it looks more like it's made up of 2 duchy areas - the area covered by the principality of Armenia in 1066, and the area covered by the emirate of Derbent in the same scenario. Since "emirate" is the muslim variant of "duchy" or "principality", it seems to me that the 3 Armenia provinces along the Caspian Sea (Derbent plus the two provinces north and south of it) were originally intended to make up the "duchy of Derbent", a place that right now can only exist in our dreams. Looking at the emirate "flag", it seems like the graphics are there as well (i.e. it should be possible to "add" the duchy of Derbent to the game). None of these 3 provinces start with Armenian culture either, they're all Persian.

Am I right, wrong or just plain nuts?

Doesn't sound too wrong. If the gfx is there, then it should be to hard to implement it in a beta, or doing it yourself.

 

[Damocles]

If I recall correctly, just recently, alot of that territory had been conquered and annexed by the Muslims, which generally forced the Armenians to the southwest. And eventually resulted in the creation of Armenia Minor where many of them settled (which is also represented in the game).

 

[unmerged(27913)]

Yes you are right, those provinces should not be part of Armenia. Armenia should be made of: c672, c681, c682, c703. Those provinces at the Caspian sea should be a separate duchy using the DERB tag.

If I recall correctly, just recently, alot of that territory had been conquered and annexed by the Muslims, which generally forced the Armenians to the southwest. And eventually resulted in the creation of Armenia Minor where many of them settled (which is also represented in the game).

We are not talking about Armenia Minor/Cilicia but about those three provinces at the Caspian Sea that were never Armenian at all. As it is now they are part of the Armenian demense which is wrong.

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Showid is your friend. The provinces referred to are 673, 674 and 675.

If I recall correctly, just recently, alot of that territory had been conquered and annexed by the Muslims, which generally forced the Armenians to the southwest. And eventually resulted in the creation of Armenia Minor where many of them settled (which is also represented in the game).

While Derbent had been "recently" conquered by the muslims, it was from the Khazars rather than the Armenians...

 

[unmerged(5822)]

After doing a little research, I've come to the conclusion that some things should be changed about the current setup for the region north of the Caspian Sea and in north Caucasus.



Firstly, the default area for the duchy of Armenia is rather odd - it looks like it's made up of two individual duchy areas that border each other, rather than a single Armenian blob. The eastern provinces were also never Armenian, so it's rather doubtful that they should be included in the default area of the Duchy of Armenia. In the 1066 scenario, there is an Emirate of Derbent covering one of the two halves (the three provinces along the coast of the Caspian Sea). This tells me that those three provinces already have a tag representing them, Derbent, and that the engine recognises it as duchy-level (which would be "emirate", in this case). Evidently, the graphics for this tag also exist.
I therefore suggest that the provinces of 673, 674 and 675 are allocated to the duchy of Derbent, instead of the duchy of Armenia.



Secondly, the kingdom of Cuman default area covers lands that the Cuman tribe never held. While this wouldn't be so bad if it just affected single border provinces here and there, it is not so good that it covers the entire area of the tribe of Alania (from Azov to the Volga). It is both quite ahistorical and usually makes the tribe of Alania offer to pledge loyalty to the king-level chief of Cuman, making said tribe much too strong when compared to what it should be.
I therefore suggest that the following provinces are removed from the kingdom of Cuman's default territory and made "none" territory: Alania et.c. (602-606), Tmutarakan et.c. (596-599) and 607

I do see the gameplay reasons for keeping the kingdom of Cuman somewhat large, on the other hand, and if it would become too easy to create the title I'd suggest adding any of these territories to the title requirements:
* The two Byzantine counties in Cherson: 560, 561
* Moldavia (historically correct, since they moved there very shortly after the beginning of the game, and it would help make the requirements for Hungary more sensible): 541, 513
* Wallachia (pretty much the same story as for Moldavia, just taking it one step further): 514, 515, 516



Thirdly, while the empire of Khazaria was pretty much gone at the time the game starts, the Khazars were not. Since no other political body covered the area in question at the time and the Khazars were also localised there on maps as late as 1100 and beyond, I think it's only fair to include the Tribe of Khazars (found in the 1187 scenario, proving that the tag and graphics already exist) in the 1066 scenario as well. The Tribe of Khazars should own the following provinces:
* Itil, 620, currently owned by the tribe of Cuman (capital)
* Kuma, 604, currently owned by a vassal of the tribe of Alania
* Manych, 605, currently owned by a vassal of the tribe of Alania

No data can been found on who the leader of that time would be (let's face it, being on the edge of the civilized world and then getting overrun by the Mongol hordes does not really help the preservation of the history of the region), so it would have to be a fairly random male of Turkish culture and Jewish religion.

Furthermore, these provinces should have their culture changed to Turkish and religion to Jewish (since a rather small amount of time has passed since the fall of Khazaria and cultural/religious change is supposed to take longer than that):
* Kuma, 604
* Manych, 605
* Ryn Desert, 618
* Saray, 619
* Itil, 620
* Emba, 621
* Derbent, 674
* Semender, 675

Finally, for aestetical reasons (and just in case the AI does care), they could be given "claims" on the following provinces: 596, 597, 599, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606, 607, 618, 619, 620, 621, 624, 673, 674, 675



Opinions?

 

[Grosshaus]

Merged some

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Merged some

Ack... the new thread was meant to be a summary of the other one/two...

 

[Grosshaus]

Ack... the new thread was meant to be a summary of the other one/two...

No need for summary threads when one topic is discussed in one thread

 

[Numahr]

The rehearsal suggested by Phoenix IMO is appropriate, particularly for the Khazars. The absence of Khazar structured central power at that time can be perfectly modeled by the patchwork of independant "counties".

 

[unmerged(5822)]

The rehearsal suggested by Phoenix IMO is appropriate, particularly for the Khazars. The absence of Khazar structured central power at that time can be perfectly modeled by the patchwork of independant "counties".

What I was suggesting, though, was that they would still be a single political unit, though a "tribe" (and to a large extent under foreign occupation) rather than an empire or kingdom. Dunno if the three territories should be under direct control of the tribe, or if two of them should be vassals, though.

 

[unmerged(3746)]

What I was suggesting, though, was that they would still be a single political unit, though a "tribe" (and to a large extent under foreign occupation) rather than an empire or kingdom. Dunno if the three territories should be under direct control of the tribe, or if two of them should be vassals, though.

I did some research myself to check up on Phoenix, and his claims are definitely, at the very least, founded in history. I support his changes and especially would like to insist that some of the Khazar provinces have Jewish religion; the game really would benefit from the adding of a Jewish factor to it, which would spice things up.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

I've been hearing that only Khazar rulers adopted Jewish religion, the people (which province religion represents) stayed pagan.

 

[unmerged(5822)]

I've been hearing that only Khazar rulers adopted Jewish religion, the people (which province religion represents) stayed pagan.

If that was the case, the pagan burial rituals would still have been going on (at least in secret). The thing is, though, that the old custom of sending a "sun amulet" with the dead ceased completely after a relatively short time. Even with an anachronistically powerful central authority enforcing a single religion, such a complete prevention would not have been possible. Add in that visiting Arabs reported that "they are all jews" and that there was plenty of Jewish immigrants coming there (escaping persecution in muslim and Christian realms), and the image shifts even further.

There are even theories stating that many/most of Russia's jews are originally Khazar ones, and some theories even go so far that they claim that a large portion of Europe's jews have Khazarian ancestry (but that's a pretty controversial one, for many many reasons).

 

[unmerged(3746)]

I can back Phoenix up in that, during my research, the general consensus was that the original population definitely *did* have a shift towards Judaism, and, more importantly, the cultural and economic elite all the way down the village level adopted the religion earnestly. So while one can argue -- on hearsay -- that the peasant masses were unconverted, an area where the people that matter on every level are Jewish is fundamentally a Jewish area, because it will be mobilized by the important citizens along those lines. If poor serfs tended not to be Jewish, that's an irrelevancy in comparison to the powerful.

 

[Ayeshteni]

Uh huh. Yeah, I like you proposal here Pheonix. Though I balk slightly at NONE tags, thats just me. The Khazars did remain for a while in the area even after being supressed by others, and without doubt its capital Itil should be 'Jewish' at 1066 start at the least.

Yours
Ayeshteni

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Uh huh. Yeah, I like you proposal here Pheonix. Though I balk slightly at NONE tags, thats just me. The Khazars did remain for a while in the area even after being supressed by others, and without doubt its capital Itil should be 'Jewish' at 1066 start at the least.

How about adding the area to Georgia's default area, instead of NONE, then?

 

[Ayeshteni]

How about adding the area to Georgia's default area, instead of NONE, then?

Hmm, personally Id like a Khazaria 'Kingdom' from Azov to the Caucasus myself, but hey. Georgia didnt go to the caspian, But it would be better than NONE (in my opinion). I am sure a Khazaria Kingdom tag could be employed. Khazaria at its height stretched into Georgia (but whether it reached the 'Albania' province. Hmm.)

Ayeshteni

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Hmm, personally Id like a Khazaria 'Kingdom' from Azov to the Caucasus myself, but hey. Georgia didnt go to the caspian, But it would be better than NONE (in my opinion). I am sure a Khazaria Kingdom tag could be employed. Khazaria at its height stretched into Georgia (but whether it reached the 'Albania' province. Hmm.)

No new kingdoms will be added, AFAIK.

 

[Ayeshteni]

Ah of course. well as much as it pains me, NONE would be better as Georgia did not cover the region. If you put those three into Georgia what kind of province increase are we talking?

Ayeshteni