How to claim territory that has "no character"?

[Jomanda]

I'm very new to this game and I have a question about how to expand into "unclaimed" territory. By unclaimed I mean the "brown" counties that "have no character". I really don't know how to describe it any other way. See attached screenshot.

I see the AI do it, but I have no idea how to do this myself. Could anyone enlighten me?

 

[Rags17]

By the font used I would guess that you are using one or mods, one of which is causing the "no_character" bug. I'm not sure how it arises or what the solution is, personally I'd actually like to know how this arises as I would love to be able to set certain provinces to "uninhabited" and or unplayable.

List the mods you are using and someone may be able to help further.

 

[WJS]

It looks like you took a save file from before Holy Fury and started it again in 3.0.

What happens is that the new "unclaimed" territories are generated, found empty, and the game generates characters to rule them. In essence, the game breaks.

If you want to keep playing, roll back to 2.8 and play ahead. Otherwise, I highly recommend starting a new game. You'll also see some bizarre border gore in the de jure maps.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

if you're very new to the game you probably shouldn't be using mods at all. get the hang of how the game works first. then you'll know what you'd like to work differently.

 

[Qwertyu858]

There should be an option to colonize those places (perhaps giving money and sending a small guard? Some event chains with you declaring is now yours, peasents moving to farm, stuff like that)

 

[Rubidium]

There should be an option to colonize those places (perhaps giving money and sending a small guard? Some event chains with you declaring is now yours, peasents moving to farm, stuff like that)

Places with "no character" are empty provinces, and shouldn't happen (outside of intentional wastelands, like parts of the Sahara, which can't be interacted with at all). They are caused either by bugs (usually starting a game in an old patch and then loading it in a newer version) or mods (some fantasy mods, for instance, introduce new maps with uncolonized land to colonize through decisions like that).

The game engine really doesn't support truly empty provinces (even those mods generally give them a placeholder character as an owner; at least one D&D mod uses monsters, while the Game of Thrones mod just has characters called "Ruin" and a revamped portrait to look like a ruined building). That's why Iceland, for instance, is always inhabited by someone (either Irish monks or Norse characters) even though the Norse didn't actually colonize in Iceland until slight after the Old Gods start date (and the Irish monks in Iceland may or may not be mythical).