[Map] Ibn Battuta's Legacy 2 - An alternative vanilla map WIP

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okay, now I have edited and threadmarked the post with instructions.
Now I'm planning to release a playable version of the mod ... hopefully some time this week :)


I think that once you have them placed from the auto-generated positions, you can edit details in the map editor. It's far easier there and despite the editor being quite unstable, it can be much faster than coding it. But still this work is IMHO a last instance detail you need to do.


Í'm glad it helped. Anyway, the missing positions are and should not be game-breaking, although they generate error logs. And as discussed above, you can still take them from the auto-generated files and copy them where necessary.

Yea I used those files last night and it was far easier with me only having to move the position files around. I loaded up the game opened map editor so it made the generated files then copied the position files over and re-loaded the game. It seems the game does at least do the CK2 thing of auto placing everything in the middle of a province regardless of size when it's generated so I also didn't need to move things from the corner of the map.
 
Do you think you could add more baronies to downstream Songhay? The place was densely populated (and still is, look at Niamey) Kukya is a big county and Gao could use more baronies. Counties in Duchy of Dendi could also be densified. The Mossi could also used a little more baronies (they were a big factor in Mali's downfall).
I would love to!

But as far as I have researched the area, I can't find any historical settlements which could be added there beyond what already is on the (vanilla) map.
Historical records don't mention many and archaeological researches have yet concentrated around Gao and Kukiya. And pretty much all known settlements known from those researches are either already on the (vanilla) map, or so close to them that there's not enough place for them. That's for Songhay and Dendi area.

If you have any sources which would allow a more dense settlements for the area, I'd be glad if you wouldn't mind sharing them.

As for the Mossi the main problem is that they were nomads we don't know many of their settlements even from periods of the 15th century, when there are historical records about their kingdoms. For the era before 15th century we only have few oral histories which all also take place on the right bank of the Niger, and if the places can be identified, they also already are on the (vanilla) map.
Again, if you know sources which could help densifying their original areas of Dyamare, I'd love to see them. I have only spent few weeks researching them, though, and it was already 2 or so years ago, maybe new sources got online or otherwise became available in the meantime.
 
the mod is heading its alpha version... here are some more updates.

Thanks to the help of @Black7Emperor7 I have updated also Igboland, which now has few more provinces and 3 new counties.
2020_09_18_4.png


then I'm finally reaching some areas closer to Ibn Battuta's travels.
I increased the power of the Beja tribes by adding them two more counties, including the ancient capital of the Beja/Blemmyes in Nubt in central Bejaland...
and there are also several new baronies in the area, including the Egyptian Eastern desert.
2020_09_18_1.png


That's it for now...
I'm still hopefull the mod will be out in an alpha version by the end of this week, so stay tuned!
 
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Lucky he didn't get defenestrated while he was there! :p
You know, there's part of the tradition, which says that we don't do this to guests. Just to foreign power's videroys (of local origin) or our own representatives :D

Do you think you could add more baronies to downstream Songhay? The place was densely populated (and still is, look at Niamey) Kukya is a big county and Gao could use more baronies. Counties in Duchy of Dendi could also be densified. The Mossi could also used a little more baronies (they were a big factor in Mali's downfall).
Okay, so after just another check... now correcting myself, I have indeed found some new sources, which would allow me to do some adjustments to the area.
There's a question, though. I could potentially add one more county between Gao and Tadmekka (there are 2 potential baronies spots to the north of Gao), but it would mean 2 things:
- Gao wouldn't be directly connected to the desert route
- Gao county would in fact end up with fewer baronies than it already has.

There is also a potentiality that a county could be added to the inland desert area away from the Niger off Kukiya towards Zarma (based on map depicting 16th century situation) around Meneka + one or two baronies along the rivers. But still the ammount wouldn't be high.
Ideas?

This one should be definitely corrected though ;/
I'm not very sure if that would be correction. Even the scholarly sources use the name Ghana as the basic reference and then turn to Wagadu when they go under the surface. When they speak towards the general populace, they use Ghana. Should a video game be more scholarly than the scholars themselves?
Well, for some mods like SWMH it would be good, since their main goal is total accuracy. But I don't have this high ambitions.
 
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You know, there's part of the tradition, which says that we don't do this to guests. Just to foreign power's videroys (of local origin) or our own representatives :D


Okay, so after just another check... now correcting myself, I have indeed found some new sources, which would allow me to do some adjustments to the area.
There's a question, though. I could potentially add one more county between Gao and Tadmekka (there are 2 potential baronies spots to the north of Gao), but it would mean 2 things:
- Gao wouldn't be directly connected to the desert route
- Gao county would in fact end up with fewer baronies than it already has.

There is also a potentiality that a county could be added to the inland desert area away from the Niger off Kukiya towards Zarma (based on map depicting 16th century situation) around Meneka + one or two baronies along the rivers. But still the ammount wouldn't be high.
Ideas?


I'm not very sure if that would be correction. Even the scholarly sources use the name Ghana as the basic reference and then turn to Wagadu when they go under the surface. When they speak towards the general populace, they use Ghana. Should a video game be more scholarly than the scholars themselves?
I need time to draft a comprehensive and sourced suggestion but off the top of my head:
-You could add Kabara as a City holding of Timbuktu. It was the port of the city.
-Koima can be added to the south of Gao towards Ansongo. Mentionned as a noteworthy city during Sonni Ali Ber's time
 
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I need time to draft a comprehensive and sourced suggestion but off the top of my head:
-You could add Kabara as a City holding of Timbuktu. It was the port of the city.
-Koima can be added to the south of Gao towards Ansongo. Mentionned as a noteworthy city during Sonni Ali Ber's time
Sure, take your time.

As for your suggestions. They can't be added. They both already are on the vanilla map.

20200730170817_1.jpg

As I said, the research for vanilla's Africa (at least some regions) wasn't as shallow as many people believe.
 
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As I said, the research for vanilla's Africa (at least some regions) wasn't as shallow as many people believe.

Yeah, looking at Spain at the barony level, the research was mostly sound (some notable exceptions), but then the shape of the counties and the assignation of temple or city status seems to have been done by another team (probably the balancing team), which is a shame.
 
I'm not very sure if that would be correction. Even the scholarly sources use the name Ghana as the basic reference and then turn to Wagadu when they go under the surface. When they speak towards the general populace, they use Ghana. Should a video game be more scholarly than the scholars themselves?
Academic sources use the most common name first for better accessibility, they aren't RPGs meant to be immersed in. CK3 is in turn an RPG strategy game and uses the most immersive names: hence the theoretically plausible neopagan or made-up names are used instead bland "Norse faith" etc. In this case, I really think that Wagadu should be the name used, as "king of Wagadu" definitely sounds more immersive than "king of warrior king".
 
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Yeah, looking at Spain at the barony level, the research was mostly sound (some notable exceptions), but then the shape of the counties and the assignation of temple or city status seems to have been done by another team (probably the balancing team), which is a shame.

The 'temple or city' thing comes from how they don't designate which holding a lot of baronies should have which makes the game auto populate them by city, temple, then empty. Shaping the provinces was definitely done on the strategic level. In my mod where I'm going through and modifying areas I still tried to make sure there was some level to strategic movement especially with mountain passes.

The main thing I do for rough locations is just use Googles My Maps.



1600710842198.png
 
The 'temple or city' thing comes from how they don't designate which holding a lot of baronies should have which makes the game auto populate them by city, temple, then empty. Shaping the provinces was definitely done on the strategic level. In my mod where I'm going through and modifying areas I still tried to make sure there was some level to strategic movement especially with mountain passes.

The main thing I do for rough locations is just use Googles My Maps.



View attachment 629982

Nice! Can I comment on the mountain passes you mention?

The County of Cerdanya, it must cut through the Pyrinees and be a pathway into Rosselló. It was its whole thing, the gateway into France, separated from the county of Besalú by the mighty Cadí ridge, which to this day is quite hard to travess (and that's why they built a tunnel underneath). Like so (notice the valley that runs north-east from Urgell and into Perpinyà.

58601330.jpg

I don't know why Paradox made the ports of Andorra the main gateway into centra Spain, when Cerdanya has always been specifically that. That's why France took half of it in 1640, and that's why it's stacked with level 3 Vauban forts.
 
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Nice! Can I comment on the mountain passes you mention?

The County of Cerdanya, it must cut through the Pyrinees and be a pathway into Rosselló. It was its whole thing, the gateway into France, separated from the county of Besalú by the mighty Cadí ridge, which to this day is quite hard to travess (and that's why they built a tunnel underneath). Like so (notice the valley that runs north-east from Urgell and into Perpinyà.

58601330.jpg

I don't know why Paradox made the ports of Andorra the main gateway into centra Spain, when Cerdanya has always been specifically that. That's why France took half of it in 1640, and that's why it's stacked with level 3 Vauban forts.

So would Andorra just be blocked off with impassable while there'd be a path to Perpignan or Elne? Are there semi important towns/forts along that path that could be made into a barony to prevent a long snakey barony? I wanted to do the mountain pass between Germany and Italy with the Valtellina but ran into the issue of there just not being very many important places to make baronies with besides Sondrio and maybe Bormio.
 
So would Andorra just be blocked off with impassable while there'd be a path to Perpignan or Elne? Are there semi important towns/forts along that path that could be made into a barony to prevent a long snakey barony? I wanted to do the mountain pass between Germany and Italy with the Valtellina but ran into the issue of there just not being very many important places to make baronies with besides Sondrio and maybe Bormio.

Something like this:

65fwtf3.png

In my own mod I've added Castellnou to interior Rosselló (but you can also exchange it for Vallespir or Conflent, it's just that there was a noble family with seat at Castellnou) and Capcir to Cerdanya, between Puigcerdà (or Llívia, which is the most accurate province capital) and the border with Rosselló.

You don't need to close off Andorra, but it was the lesser mountain pass. Still, the mountain pass through Andorra may be interesting to keep around.
 
Thanks for the info I went ahead and roughly did that

1600718142584.png


Anyway Elvain is probably going to wonder why the hell we're talking about something that isn't his mod.
 
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Academic sources use the most common name first for better accessibility, they aren't RPGs meant to be immersed in. CK3 is in turn an RPG strategy game and uses the most immersive names: hence the theoretically plausible neopagan or made-up names are used instead bland "Norse faith" etc. In this case, I really think that Wagadu should be the name used, as "king of Wagadu" definitely sounds more immersive than "king of warrior king".
I don't say I totally disagree, and I can't rule out that eventually some day I might change it to Wagadu, but...
1) the game has huge RPG element, but it is still played by 21st century people. Most of these, especially those who speak English have probably heard of the kingdom/empire of Ghana, but not many did hear about the kingdom of Wagadu. Sad fact, but unfortunately a true. The Immersion works only as long as you can identify yourself with it. You can't identify/immerse yourself to something you barely know. For instance when discussing the upgrade of Benin, I was asked to change the name of Benin duchy to Igodomigodo, which was the local name of the duchy. But honestly, as a European myself I had hard time reading it, before I read it for the 20th time. Can you identify with something you can barely read? I'm not perfect. I don't. Maybe I will some time later release a localisation submod for Ibn Battuta's Legacy mod, where these titles will be named locally, but it won't be the basic version.
2) I take it also partly as a mission to educate people about Africa and its history. For me a video game is something similar to elementary school history teacher. The mission of the teacher isn't to give the children all the correct facts exactly as they were in history. If he would try to do so, he and his students will very soon end up in a mess of facts, dates and characters. My own experience of a radio reporter is that it's more important to tell the story in a legible and understandable way. You sometimes need to omit some facts in order to keep the story clear. If in a 3 minute story I would mention 15 names none of which is familiar to them, they stop listening. Even I do that when listening to radio, so I do understand that some sort of simplicity is often better than 100% accuracy.
That said, I want to give the people things they are familiar with, or things they can easily get basic information about and ignite a sparkle of interest by additional flavour and by telling an interesting story. Once the interest is ignited, I can continue in more details or they can do it themselves... and they will all eventually find out that the kingdom's historical name was Wagadu.
then there's also a point 3, which I will add below...
I think a mod like this, that aims to deliver a more accurate sandbox, immersion should come first. If sources speak of X or Y, but modern historians say Z, I'd go with X or Y.

Looking at you, Byzantines.
As I mentioned above, my main goal is to communicate with people of 21st century, not with medieval people who won't play this game unles some of us invents time-travel mashine.
You are partially right. But well... the point 3 is that my mod is not SWMH. I can't express enough how I admire the level of detail, proffessionalism and accuracy-entitlement of the team... but I don't want this to be semi-SWMH or mini-SWMH. That mod has its own principles and amazingly ambitious goals and it's good that the team sticks to them. If I would share those principles I wouldn't have left the team or I would have returned.
I, on the other hand, got to understand and identify with Paradoxes basic principles of game's legibility to wider audience, and I prefere minimalism over big ambitions.

I think it's good to have some variety in mods. For those who want perfect and total historical accuracy there will be SWMH and I will do my best to promote it (although I think it won't need my help :D ). For those who want a decent, but slightly better map than the vanilla's, there's Ibn Battuta's Legacy.

EDIT: Oh and btw, it's the sources, who call kingdom of Wagadu as Ghana. It was actually modern historiography, who discovered, that historically the Soninke people have called it Wagadu, but due to our reliance on sources people everywhere in the world have been calling it Ghana. And because even these modern historians admit that everybody knows it as Ghana for ages, they stick to that name.
I'm not here to judge whether it is good or wrong. My priority is to make more people know how great of an empire it was... and through that they will learn its true name :)

Yeah, looking at Spain at the barony level, the research was mostly sound (some notable exceptions), but then the shape of the counties and the assignation of temple or city status seems to have been done by another team (probably the balancing team), which is a shame.
Yes, there are certainly parts of map which are researched better than others. And I can also agree that while on the barony level (at least of the areas I am aware of) the research is done in quite deep detail, but their distributions into counties and other higher-tier decisions aren't always perfect. Anyway many of them are disputed even among historians and with no clear-cut solutions, many are in borderline areas where any clear borderline is wrong etc. From my perspective I believe I can understand many of the wrong decisions and as much as I can understand, I disagree with some (and it even happens to my own decisions at times)...

as for the distribution of castle/city/church type of holdings - I can agree that they are often distributed quite randomly. As already explained somewhere, it's simply because the province history files don't have them defined in many/most cases and hence the game distributes them automatically.
I can understand it from the time-savvy perspective - doing the research itself consumes insane ammounts of time. Going this deep into detail also in the code would reauire another insane amount of time.
Frankly I don't mind if the base game didn't do it. At least there's a space for me to do my mod to fix this and yet stick to the vanilla principles... and still leave a great space for other mods with their own design choices :)
 
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Thanks for the info I went ahead and roughly did that

View attachment 630055

Anyway Elvain is probably going to wonder why the hell we're talking about something that isn't his mod.
oh no, don't worry! I'm glad.

I actually would like to take a look on Iberia one day too, so this is good, at least as an inspiration. Or maybe we could potentially join our work, since, I guess, each of us has slightly different regional priorities...
 
There is a middle ground solution: Wagadu can be a localisation used when a Soninke owns Ghana, Roman or Eastern Roman Empire can be a localisation when a Byzantine owns Byzantium, and so on :)
 
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There is a middle ground solution: Wagadu can be a localisation used when a Soninke owns Ghana, Roman or Eastern Roman Empire can be a localisation when a Byzantine owns Byzantium, and so on :)
:)
hehe, nice try. But it's not a middle ground. :D It's totally the one on your side. And you know that.
Sorry to disappoint you, but Byzantium and Ghana it shall be, as long as this is my mod.

As I said, I might make a localisation submod, or you can make one. But it won't be in the base version. As I said, for these things, there will be SWMH and I will be happy if all who want this sort of things would use SWMH instead of Ibn Battuta's Legacy.
Just please respect my principles.
 
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