[MOD] Project Oikoumene (WIP)

[Rams]

Is there a chance you're going to include a Nakh culture? I read your description on the Caucasus and I immediately thought of them. There was a good 500 000 of them and I believe they've been a good influence of how things have shifted in the Caucasus.

And perhaps a titular title for em'? :3

 

[Konstantinos XV]

"Bogatyr" (Polish form: "bohater" -> hero) isn't native Slavic either, it's a word of Turkish (or Bulgar) origin...

Indeed it is. So? And once again, whereas in Polish it means simply hero (correct?), Russian medieval folklore had a very specific notion of Russian bogatyrs (who were protagonists of those tales). But the origin of the name is one more reason why I decided to stick to "Vityaz" (originating from "viking") in localization rather than using the much later (I assume?) form "bogatyr".

Is there a chance you're going to include a Nakh culture? I read your description on the Caucasus and I immediately thought of them. There was a good 500 000 of them and I believe they've been a good influence of how things have shifted in the Caucasus. And perhaps a titular title for em'? :3

The chance is much bigger now that this is in a thread (and as such I'm less likely to forget ).
Thread from CK-II general forum saved for future reference.
But at this point Caucasus is way-way down in my pipeline. Couple months is an optimistic assessment. :blush:

 

[Rams]

That't good enough for me, thanks!

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Nice to see that the mod is coming along nicely. I've got a lot to say, so I'll break this post up into different parts:

Zalesye de jure set-up:

I have a recommendation for the de jure set up. I don't think it should be so deterministic that the region starts off with a Russian name. In my personal mod, I've split off the areas not owned by Russians in 867 into a generic k_volga (well, I renamed k_rus to Volga and k_ruthenia to Rus, and then put all Russian lands into Rus).

Overall, I think the best solution is to put k_volga/zalesye into a Finnic Empire with Perm and Finland, and let Russians in the area form titular kingdoms named after local duchies - either that, or put in events to shift the duchies to k/e_rus when Russians own them. It isn't directly related to this, but I support an overall model of all Russian lands being de jure Rus, and having other Grand Principalities (including Novgorod - though I'm open to it being a de jure kingdom with just d_novogorod and perhaps Pskov) as titular kingdoms.

Zalesye tribes:

One way to handle the tribes might be to split them into counties - CKII is horrible at abstracting relatively large realms of virtually autonomous vassals, and the Finnic tribes were so disorganized I don't think they can be represented by a duchy in game. To keep the Volga Finns pacifistic and divided, they could have the county conquest CB restricted, and encouraged to have the maximum number of concubines allowed - that way, they don't blob by conquest or inheritance. To upgrade them from snowball's chance in hell to snowball's chance in the Sahara, you could enable county conquest for high-MIL rulers, and put in events that allow chiefs to rally behind a high MIL and/or DIP ruler after the Russians start taking territory.

Trade modifier:

I think this could rather easily be activated and deactivated based upon whether or not the Kiev owns coastal territory on the Black sea.

Transliteration:

I think it would be better to adopt a more Slavic transcription scheme for Bulgarians and Russians. Specifically, the ISO or standard Scholarly schemes, which would give us Bulgarija and Knjažestvo. Bulgariya just looks wrong.

It isn't the most common transcription, but I also think we should use "h" for Cyrillic "x", on the Serbian model (it's also optional in scholarly transliteration).

 

[Konstantinos XV]

Yes, transliteration is a real pain. I eventually gave up on names because I couldn't see any consistency among patterns whatsoever. Choosing some single standard and sticking to it will have to be an answer. But it's one of those "too much effort for little benefit" things. As in something I'll get down to only after I'm happy with events. More on that later.

As it's another report day. I'd like to share some of my recent work on just them transliterations for judgement. First - the names

Spoiler

		male_names = {
			# Pagan only
			Briachislav_Bretislaus Radoslav_Rodislav Rogvolod_Rogvolod Sviatopolk_Svatopluk
			
			# Religion-wide
			Gleb Igor Iziaslav Mstislav Oleg Rostislav Stanislav Sudislav Sviatoslav Viacheslav Vseslav Vsevolod Vysheslav Yaropolk 
			
			# Christian only
			Afanasiy_Athanasius Alexandr_Alexander Alexei_Alexis Andrei_Andrew Boris_Boris Daniil_Daniel Davyd_David Dmitriy_Demetrius Fedot_Theodat Feodor_Theodore Gavriil_Gabriel 
			Grigoriy_Gregory Iakov_Jacob Iliya_Elijah Ivan_John Kirill_Cyril Konstantin_Constantine Koz'ma_Cosma Lev_Leo Matfei_Matthew Mikhail_Michael Mitrofan_Mitrophanos 
			Nikita_Niketas Pavel_Paul Roman_Roman Simeon_Simon Stepan_Stephen Trifon_Tryphon Vasiliy_Basil Vasilko_Basil Vladimir_Vladimir Vladislav_Vladislav
			Yaroslav_Jaroslav Yefimiy_Euthymius Yelisey_Elijah Yemelyan_Emil Yeremey_Jeremiah Yevstafiy_Eustathius Yuriy_George
			
			# Truncated
			# Demid Dobrynia Ingvar_Ingvar Putiata Rodislav Rurik_Rurik Ruslan Svetozar Terentiy Voislav Volodar Vyshata 
		}
		female_names = {
			# Pagan only
			Malfrida_Malfrida Rogneda_Rogneda
			
			# Religion-wide
			Boleslava Dobrava Dobronega Dobroslava Gorislava Gradislava Gremislava Liubava Liudmila Malusha Olga Pereyaslava Prebrana Predslava Premyslava
			Pribislava Rostislava Sbyslava Sviatoslava Veleslava Verkhoslava Vseslava Viacheslava Yaroslava Zabava Zvenislava
			
			# Christian only
			Agafya_Agatha Agrafena_Agrippina Aleksandra_Alexandra Anastasia_Anastasia Anna_Anna Darya_Daria Yefimia_Euphemia Yefrosinia_Euphrosyne 
			Yekaterina_Catherine Katerina_Catherine Yelizaveta_Elisabeth Yevdokia_Eudocia Yevpraxia_Eupraxia Apraksinya_Eupraxia Feodora_Theodora Feodosia_Theodosia 
			Irina_Irene Ksenia_Xenia Maria_Maria Marina_Marine Olena_Helen Praskovya_Eupraxia Sofia_Sophia Tatyana_Tatiana Varvara_Barbara Uliana_Juliana Vasilisa_Basilissa
			
			# Truncated
			# Fevronia Praksida Ulita 

			# Project Oikoumene
			# Christian names
			Avdotia_Eudocia Alyona_Helen Elena_Helen Arina_Irine Orina_Irine Yulia_Juliana Oksana_Xenia
}

Apart from general transliteration (if anyone's bothered) you might want to argue truncated and pagan-only names.



And I decided to do somewhat more elaborate narratives for establish principality events. Let's see what's the public opinion on my story-telling. They characterize 3 reasons for emergence of such principalities: military, economical and political (more seats for sons!).

Pskov (from Novgorod)

Spoiler

As the lands in the area become more populated and prosperous and Pskov rises as a major city, you make it a seat of its own principality. Situated on the banks of the Velikaya River, Pskov has access to the lake Piepus (Chudskoe) and through it to the Gulf of Finland. Boasting a healthy merchant class, unlike Novgorod it looks primarily to the West, engaging in lucrative trade with Polotsk, Livonia and the Baltics and showing all the signs of a merchant republic in the bud. But common enemies will definitely keep Novgorod and Pskov close to each another.

Pereyaslavl (from Kiev)

Spoiler

Only brute force can pacify the restless nomads and never for long. Whenever one tribe is defeated there's always another prepared to take its place. Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians... will the stream ever end? Kiev, the domain of Velikiy Knyaz, practically borders the wild fields. You fortify and raise the frontier city of Pereyaslavl to become a seat of its own principality charged with protection of both Kiev and Chernigov.

Novgorod-Severskiy (from Chernigov)

Spoiler

Only brute force can pacify the restless nomads and never for long. Whenever one tribe is defeated there's always another prepared to take its place. Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians... will the stream ever end? The frontier city of Novgorod-Severskiy is well placed to guard Chernigov and Smolensk. You fortify it and make it a seat of its own principality charged with protection of Rus' from this direction.

Vitebsk (from Polotsk)

Spoiler

There're never enough worthy seats for all the sons. However Vitebsk has now matured to become one of such and you can turn it into a principality belonging to your family. It will border larger principalities of Novgorod and Smolensk, but surely Polotsk is strong enough to keep its grip on Vitebsk.

Galich (from Volhynia)

Spoiler

There're never enough worthy seats for all the sons. However Galich has now matured to become one such. It is well positioned to eclipse Volhynia itself and intervene in politics of nearby Kiev and Lesser Poland. A great domain for an ambitious knyaz - you turn Galich into a principality belonging to your family.

On top of that I attempted to stick to Paradox cheesy one-liner style reply options. So be prepared to click on things like "Slavsia Rus'!" and "Grow and prosper, Mother Rus'!". (It was really hard to restrain myself from "Live long and prosper"... :rofl

I have a recommendation for the de jure set up. I don't think it should be so deterministic that the region starts off with a Russian name. In my personal mod, I've split off the areas not owned by Russians in 867 into a generic k_volga (well, I renamed k_rus to Volga and k_ruthenia to Rus, and then put all Russian lands into Rus). Overall, I think the best solution is to put k_volga/zalesye into a Finnic Empire with Perm and Finland, and let Russians in the area form titular kingdoms named after local duchies - either that, or put in events to shift the duchies to k/e_rus when Russians own them. It isn't directly related to this, but I support an overall model of all Russian lands being de jure Rus, and having other Grand Principalities (including Novgorod - though I'm open to it being a de jure kingdom with just d_novogorod and perhaps Pskov) as titular kingdoms.

I think Zalesie has the same reasons for belonging to e_russia as, say, Armenia to e_byzantium. Although not ruled directly for almost two hundred years, there was already a large degree of influence exerted over the tribes even at the game start and there were very good reasons for expanding primarily in that direction rather than anywhere else: the Volga trade and allegedly very good climatic conditions. And otherwise e_russia will look like a stub.

Zalesye tribes:
One way to handle the tribes might be to split them into counties - CKII is horrible at abstracting relatively large realms of virtually autonomous vassals, and the Finnic tribes were so disorganized I don't think they can be represented by a duchy in game. To keep the Volga Finns pacifistic and divided, they could have the county conquest CB restricted, and encouraged to have the maximum number of concubines allowed - that way, they don't blob by conquest or inheritance. To upgrade them from snowball's chance in hell to snowball's chance in the Sahara, you could enable county conquest for high-MIL rulers, and put in events that allow chiefs to rally behind a high MIL and/or DIP ruler after the Russians start taking territory.

I'll look into it after a few test-drive playthroughs. The ability of charismatic rulers to rally the tribes is something that has to be a feature of all the tribal realms, I'm all behind it. I just wish it was possible to check technologies and make events and decisions available based on technological progress (which I assume is impossible at the moment). :sad:

Trade modifier: I think this could rather easily be activated and deactivated based upon whether or not the Kiev owns coastal territory on the Black sea.

Well, given that I want to make steppe unconquerable by non-nomads (and vice versa - nomads won't be able to displace settled populations but only enforce tributary relations outside steppe areas) this is not something that would work. However, naturally, something like "not conquered but at least pacified" relationship is required.

Transliteration:
I think it would be better to adopt a more Slavic transcription scheme for Bulgarians and Russians. Specifically, the ISO or standard Scholarly schemes, which would give us Bulgarija and Knjažestvo. Bulgariya just looks wrong.
It isn't the most common transcription, but I also think we should use "h" for Cyrillic "x", on the Serbian model (it's also optional in scholarly transliteration).

It might look wrong, but I think it's in accordance with Romanization of Bulgarian?
(An additionally there's Romanization of Russian.)
I think it is a good idea to use different styles for Western+Southern Slavs (diacritics) and Bulgaria+Russia (digraphs) for aesthetic and authentic reasons. But point taken. Eventually I'll try to redo localisations for each separate culture in accordance to a single standard for consistency.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Back to the modular format:

Romanization:

Using a blatantly English-biased (and inaccurate, to boot - c+x can't be distinguished from ш) system isn't what I think of as authentic. It's used in practice because of the global dominance of English, but officially, the older ISO standard (the actual Slavic-looking one I think should be used) is still officially valid. And I don't see why there should be such a heavy divide between Serbian and Bulgarian, but it's your decision.

I guess this is a minor issue to most people, but I just hate to see English orthography being used for Slavic languages.

Trade Route: Perhaps the steppe-plains divide can be placed on the Dniester? I think settled peoples were able to exercise more influence in that area than further east, and for game purposes, it would lead to a very awkward border between Bulgaria and Russia, and permanently divide de jure Wallachia (Belgorod is steppe atm, I think).

On the subject of the steppe, don't forget to change the territory of d_cherson to non-steppe.

Zalesye:

Russians will still expand into the area without it being de jure Russia. An empire of Perm and Finland will have no meat to it, and its unfair to the Volga Finns (and anyone who plays them) to make their land de jure Russian from day 1, Jan 1 867. De jure empires are fantasy anyway, and even if you plan on making e_russia and important part of play in the region, you can shift de jure Zalesye to it in the event of Russian conquest.

Kingdom and empire set-up:

I don't think much heed should be paid to how the de jure empire screen looks. Anyway, IMO, you shouldn't try to shoehorn more kingdoms into it - it could easily be like Italy, where it's assumed that you conquer other kingdoms from the core territory, THEN declare yourself Emperor. If you have special mechanics in mind that make use of e_russia, then I still see no reason to create the potential for multiple grand princes under the Tsar - and as the HRE and ERE already show, empires work fine as a collection of duchies under the emperor.

As for the choice of whether to make use of e_russia for anything but fantasy or very very late game play, I don't think it's necessary. Princes are well represented by duchies, Grand Princes by kingdoms, and Tsars never arise until after the time period. Though an earlier Tsar is plausible, I think it better to leave it as the near-fantasy title for a near-fantasy medieval Russian "Empire".

Actually, reading over what you've written, I don't know if you're serious about e_russia being used in normal gameplay, but, I'll let this stand, because I've already typed it.

Technology:

It might be better able to model certain things, but I think every instance can make use of other conditions for basically identical effect, as technological progress should probably be relatively constant throughout this region in this period.

Better, IMO, to base colonization events on the rise of non-tribal Russian states - any Russian state that is duke or above and non-tribal gets a shot at the events. Perhaps a bonus could be given for Orthodox Russians.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

I'll put this upfront because it's one of the subjects I'd like to hear more opinions on. Namely, if you think there's justification to further de jure split original Rus' down the line (with Novgorod de jure secession already coded in) into codename "Belarus" and codename "Kiev". ("Belarus" being the sort of "middle Rus" kingdom of Turov-Pinsk, Polotsk-Vitebsk and Smolensk.) And if so - how would you name these kingdoms.

And should we also do a culture split at some point? I happen to be in the "politics shape nations" camp, as in kingdoms do. CK2 is rather inconsistent in its approach though. Huge Germanic culture lives side by side with "per-kingdom" minors. So idk. And then again even if we split - how do we call them cultures (I guess if we go down this route k_novgorod has as much justification for its own culture as Kiev, Vladimir and Polotsk-Smolensk axis)?

Using a blatantly English-biased (and inaccurate, to boot - c+x can't be distinguished from ш) system isn't what I think of as authentic. It's used in practice because of the global dominance of English, but officially, the older ISO standard (the actual Slavic-looking one I think should be used) is still officially valid. And I don't see why there should be such a heavy divide between Serbian and Bulgarian, but it's your decision.

Teheh. S + h and ш is an interesting thing that has never crossed my mind. I guess that is why modern passport standards define Russian x as kh according to the article. (Bulgarian doesn't though. :unsure

My point about aesthetics was more about modern people being accustomed to digraphs when it comes to Russian/Belarusian/Ukrainian/Bulgarian Cyrillic (?). And also it would add an aesthetic dimension to difference between Eastern and Western Slavs.
Whereas I can't help but unconsciously associate diacritics with Latin influence (used today mostly in post-Catholic lands). And even they (well, Poles, Czechs and I think Slovenes) were using digraphs during the whole CK2 period in an attempt to adapt Latin to own use - hence authenticity.

Still an interesting argument. I'll have to dwell on it. Would love some additional input from native speakers. Won't Ukrainians come knocking in the thread with questions like "y u use Czech spelling for Rus'!?"?

Trade Route: Perhaps the steppe-plains divide can be placed on the Dniester? I think settled peoples were able to exercise more influence in that area than further east, and for game purposes, it would lead to a very awkward border between Bulgaria and Russia, and permanently divide de jure Wallachia (Belgorod is steppe atm, I think).
On the subject of the steppe, don't forget to change the territory of d_cherson to non-steppe.

Well, yes. Wallachia is beyond the steppe. However my ambition suggests concepts like "proper steppe" and "secondary steppe". I'd really like to implement a dynamic mechanics for tribes being pushed West. And when they are expelled from Taurica they'll attempt to settle in (k_) Wallachia, Hungary and probably Dobruja. Something along those lines. Alternatively though it might be argued that Pechenegs and Cumans were quite comfortable in the whole Wallachia itself. So maybe something like "steppe is allowed to vassalize Wallachia but not displace local rulers and as such culture/religion".
(On the other side of the steppe I'm having similar concern about Volga Bulgaria - if it should be considered part of the steppe proper.)

Cherson was on my mind as well. I've been hesitant as to what de jure kingdom to assign it to. Probably its own like Brittany. (And like Tabaristan way down the line.)

Zalesye:

Spoiler

Russians will still expand into the area without it being de jure Russia. An empire of Perm and Finland will have no meat to it, and its unfair to the Volga Finns (and anyone who plays them) to make their land de jure Russian from day 1, Jan 1 867. De jure empires are fantasy anyway, and even if you plan on making e_russia and important part of play in the region, you can shift de jure Zalesye to it in the event of Russian conquest.

Kingdom and empire set-up: I don't think much heed should be paid to how the de jure empire screen looks. Anyway, IMO, you shouldn't try to shoehorn more kingdoms into it - it could easily be like Italy, where it's assumed that you conquer other kingdoms from the core territory, THEN declare yourself Emperor. If you have special mechanics in mind that make use of e_russia, then I still see no reason to create the potential for multiple grand princes under the Tsar - and as the HRE and ERE already show, empires work fine as a collection of duchies under the emperor.

As for the choice of whether to make use of e_russia for anything but fantasy or very very late game play, I don't think it's necessary. Princes are well represented by duchies, Grand Princes by kingdoms, and Tsars never arise until after the time period. Though an earlier Tsar is plausible, I think it better to leave it as the near-fantasy title for a near-fantasy medieval Russian "Empire".

Actually, reading over what you've written, I don't know if you're serious about e_russia being used in normal gameplay, but, I'll let this stand, because I've already typed it.

And once again persuasive argument. I'm inclined to concede because indeed no - I don't expect to have e_russia early in the game. More of a middle-to-late-game (middle because in the spirit of CK2 players will still achieve it way earlier than intended ) reward for anyone holding some sort of combination of Rus' kingdoms and/or duchies. I'm already comfortable enough with events to setup a de jure empire flip based on conditions.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Perhaps you can make use of the plains terrain as the quasi-steppe? Steppe culture mechanics could still work on it, but settled people could capture it.

The dichotomy between steppe-cultured Hungary and ultimately Vlach-cultured Wallachia is a problem, though. You can, and probably should, chalk it up to Hungarians creating and holding a strong state in Pannonia, while the Pechenegs didn't permanently hold Wallachia, but there was more going on historically. In the short term, it might be enough to add events to replace steppe culture in k_wallachia with Vlach if a steppe culture doesn't hold the land, and in fact, that might be good enough for the long term. The Pannonian basin is historically more prone to steppe invaders setting up shop for hundreds of years, and while I don't know if k_wallachia's lands were mostly populated by steppe people until a supposed Vlach migration, or if there was a large Vlach population since before 867, I think that there is justification for treating the area as less steppe-like than Pannonia, and so letting the Vlachs take over via event.

The steppe is an area of particular interest to me, so I'll lay out some ideas for it here.

I think a new "tribal migration" CB, apart from invasion, would be a good addition. On victory, and event would fire, which would shift most or all steppe (and maybe plains) provinces in the target kingdom, but also destroy your old title, and make all vassals outside of your new de jure kingdom independent, and, if they're of a different culture, change the culture of those provinces. If we want to get more complex, you could let other tribes take some or most of your old land, either by taking your old vassals with you (which, come to think of it, should definitely be done), and having randomly generated foreigners take their titles, or by giving the land to nearby land. If you lose, a different event fires, which gives away much of your pre-war lands to neighboring tribes, who instantly culturally assimilate it.

Within tribes, military skill should be more important. The big OP CB's like tribal invasion should require a certain degree of military prowess in the Khan, and MIL should give you similar bonuses to vassal opinion as diplomacy.

I'm really tired now, but I had more ideas, and I might post them tomorrow.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

I've updated the Rus' module storefront post a bit. Not many changes if you've read it before. So I'll single out the important new stuff - 3 starting layout screenshots.

First - de jure. I stopped on the name Rostov for de jure Zalesie. Apparently it was used by both contemporary Rus' (Rostovskaya Zemlya - Rostov Land) AND it's probably a Volga Finnic name for the major settlement of the Merya tribe. So I guess it's as neutral name as it can be.
You can see the stem duchies on the 2nd screenshot. I feel like doing some splitting in Zalesie too. Maybe Tver+Moscow and Yaroslavl+Rostov to be united in the beginning. With additional d_murom and in particular d_suzdal tags to follow to split Ryazan and Vladimir later?

Spoiler

And here you can see the starting tribes. I still haven't touched Lendians-Vholynians - yes, yes. I'll get to it at some point. Merya might be too strong. One solution I've managed to come up with is more tribal tags like Rostov Meria, Other Merya, Yet Another Merya, Galindians etc.
Notice localisations too. :happy:

Spoiler

Aaaaand having read through the threads mentioned earlier I can barely look at the whole pagan setup now. So I'm really itching to go on a de jure pagan spree. What a masterful distraction and misdirection by Dragovit et al! :laugh:
Finnics:
- Finnic de jure kingdom of Livonia?
- Tribal tags for Livs and Curonians?
- Splitting duchy of Cheremisa into 2-3 duchies (Mari, Moksha-Erzya)
- A question I can't find a definitive answer for. Can Volga Bulgaria be considered a Finnic kingdom where ruling elite got assimilated just like in the other Bulgaria and neighboring Rus?
Slavs:
- All over really. But starting with Lendians-Volhynians split.
- Maybe when Hungary forms its Ukrainian lands get occupied by Tivertsi, Ulichians, Buzhans tribes?
- Carantanians. Carantanians!
- All the Avar Slavic tribes. I just can't look at Avar culture map without cringing.
- And I haven't really looked into it, but I guess (based on the other regions) Pomeranians and Poles might need some attention too.
- While at it (and due to a modular approach), I can add a couple of Czlocket's events and label it a Slavic package. ^^
...Why do I have a feeling that I'll discover all of it already done in SWMH and VIET? :laugh:

Steppe <snip>

Rmhrm. I guess I'll have to look into early Bulgarian history. I used to assume that Wallachia was that nomadic mainstay for Bulgars (all the rest being mostly mountains). But one adijarca insists here that Wallachia was a heavily forested region.

And then there're a few exceptions and factoids about nomads that really confuse me. Serbs were famous for their cavalry late in the period. Where did they get good cavalry in their mountains? How did nomadic Bulgars settle and thrive in (what is usually assumed as) quite mountainous Bulgaria? (Hence my opinion of Wallachia.) And then there's Azerbaijan. Once again usually imagined as a mountaineous country - it was the favorite pasturage place of all the Turks and Mongols invading Persia. Time to brush the dust off the books on the Balkans.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I'll work backwards to forwards responding to your post:

Azerbaijan: If you look at a topographical map of the Caucasus, there are two ridges, the main northern one, and a southern one. Between them runs a depression which includes the hearts of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Remember, the Caspian is belowsea level, and Azerbaijan runs right up to it.

Balkans: There are many mountains in the Balkans, but I think there's also enough valleys and flat areas that it isn't too difficult to maintain a good cavalry force, if culture and central policy encourages it. And remember, the nomadic Bulgars fully assimilated to the Slavs in that mountainous area which they supposedly "thrived" in.

It seems to me that the best way to handle things is to just make plains territory quasi-steppe in function, which lets Hungarians or later migrants to set down deep roots in the Pannonian basin, but switch around some of the terrain on the border of the steppe region (such as Wallachia) away from plains so that the mechanics don't apply where they should. Any land that was historically flat and open, but which we want to exclude from any steppe mechanics, can be made farmland. As for Cherson, the southern Crimea is very mountainous terrain, and it should at least be hill country, if not full mountains, which is what I would make it.

Volga Bulgaria:

I think the Chuvash people might be the direct descendants of the Volga Bulgars, though they might instead be descendants of a related group (either way, they're the last speakers of the branch of Turkic languages that Bulghar belonged to). I'm not too familiar with my Volga Bulgarian history, but I think it would be enough to make their plains and steppe land Bolghar, as well as perhaps a few of their forest provinces, but make the rest Finnic.

De jure Kingdom of Volga Bulgaria covers too much land, IMO. If Cheremisa were split up, I think it'd be better to assign the northern provinces to Rostov, and perhaps keep the southern ones in Volga Bulgaria.

Or perhaps move all of Cheremisa out of Volga Bulgaria, and perhaps split up the current duchy of Volga Bulgaria so that it has more than one duchy.

Volga Finns: I've read that there was at least one settlement of Volga Finns that was similar in size and political organization to the Russian states, but I forget exactly what it was (my gut tells me Murom or Merya, though - it might even be Rostov). I could see that one getting a duchy, but IMO it's better to represent the rest of the Volga Finns as county-level entities, who get the cultural bonds alliance-thingy with all same-cultured neighbors.

Slavs: I think the Hungarian invasion should be handled by generic mechanics as much as possible, such as my proposed tribal migration CB. If it's possible to actually do that, priority could be given to settled peoples when giving away pre-migration land that isn't on steppe territory.

Speaking of the Hungarians, they didn't actually invade Pannonia until very near 900, so perhaps something should be done that will make their invasion possible or even likely, but not certain.

I don't know much of anything about Avar Slavic tribes. Was most of the Pannonian basin populated by ethnic Slavs in 867? How many Turkic Avars were left, and where (in all of the Balkans) at that time?

As for duchy set up, messing with de jure duchy set up feels wrong to me. Might I suggest splitting the duchies into all the ones that you want eventually, but put restrictions on creating duchies as a Russian, so that you can have a stable situation where the Knjaz of Vladimir initially rules over de jure d_vladimir and d_suzdal, until d_suzdal is created by event/the Velikij Knjaz, and given to someone else?

Alternatively, you can keep the large stem duchies, and handle the later split ups via titular title.

Baltic Finns: I think a de jure Livonia, covering Curland, Livonia, and Estonia, would be a good addition. Ingria, however, makes for very ugly borders if Estonia isn't part of k_finland, so would it be better to reassign it to another duchy than Estonia, or just put up with an awkward looking map?

 

[cybrxkhan]

...Why do I have a feeling that I'll discover all of it already done in SWMH and VIET? :laugh:

SWMH maybe. VIET isn't meant to change the game that dramatically.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

SWMH maybe. VIET isn't meant to change the game that dramatically.

I meant the event part. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that you were inspired by the event competition.

And it turns out that SWMH hasn't tackled 867 date yet (well, at least according to the front page). So I can do whatever I like without the "why am I doing what is already done?" stress. :happy:

 

[cybrxkhan]

I meant the event part. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that you were inspired by the event competition.

And it turns out that SWMH hasn't tackled 867 date yet (well, at least according to the front page). So I can do whatever I like without the "why am I doing what is already done?" stress. :happy:

Oh events, yeah. Haven't really done anything for the Slavs yet, but they will get one when I do my Slavic themed update in the far far future.

 

[Galaahd]

Any news, by chance?

 

[Konstantinos XV]

And news by chance. It's a summer of 33 disasters. My motherboard gave up. It was still on warranty... and apparently the warranty allows them up to 4 weeks to fix hardware. Happened to be slightly more than two, at which point I was simply grateful it wasn't longer (I had already been anticipating the worst). ...on the bright side, I read an excellent "Social history of Byzantium" and a bunch of stories by Lovecraft (touching him for the first time :ninja: Death to the world, Cthulu's come!) on my spare time.

Having got the motherboard back on this Tuesday I just jumped into the modded game to recall at which point my modding abruptly ended, to see how well it functioned and to FINALLY play ToG. Yes. In early August I played my first 200 years of ToG. Along with some FVTG tinkering though I noticed that not much changed in the East since 10.0 and 10.1 (when I ran a bunch of hands off games just to see what was happening). And I just couldn't simply carry on from there. Fixing! It. Needs. Fixing! To get another glimpse (and also to see how AI would behave with FVTG systems in place) I ran another hands off 200 years game. So here comes a report on what I've been doing this week.

VANILLA STATE-BUILDING AND PROJECT DERAILING

First thing I noticed was that subjugated tribes just vanish. Of course it's an obvious no-brainer if you give it some thought. I mean, what could possibly happen otherwise (considering game mechanics) if a duchy "subjugates" a duchy. But I deem this approach so damn lazy and bad it's in DW hordes category of bad. What's the point of working on all the tribes if half of them are eradicated during the first 10 years? That's not even mentioning how tribal identity persisted for 150-400 years following the game start. And of course the whole subjugation casus belli is a lazy "historical arcade sandbox" tool. Something I so emphatically wish to get away from.

How to deal with all of that though. One relatively easy solution is breaking up blobs into smaller tribes and principalities to prevent snowballing.
* For example, that huge vanilla perm duchy (not a tribe) existing in 867 is destined to snowball.
* Cumans have DE JURE KINGDOM title in 867? No wonder they so quickly overrun the steppe.
* Although the quick and inevitable collapse of Khazarian khaganate - another massive sore eye worthy of double facepalm because single facepalm is not enough - naturally helps Cumans a lot.

This is where derailing comes in. First of all, I discovered that whereas assigning de jure duchies to kingdoms via events works fine, assigning de jure counties to duchies via events (or history files) can be quirky (every so often those duchies revert to being titular... because I don't know why, but I assume because they have no counties in landed_titles). And besides, I was planning considerable de jure revamps all over the map. So I've come to grips with reality and bunched all my changes into the single landed_titles.txt. There goes landed_titles interoperability. Preliminary results of map changes can be viewed below.

THE UNKNOWN WORLD

...as opposed to the known world. Because it's ridiculously difficult to map everything to the north and east of Rus. ><

Empires

Spoiler

I think I solved the problem of Zalesie-Rostov and Volga Bulgaria empire affiliations. Volgyda is a Mari name for Volga apparently. And despite Volga Bulgaria actually being Bolghar (not Mordvin, as I speculated in my ignorance earlier), I'm fairly certain it's more than justified separating it from the steppe and uniting with all the Volga Finns. Whenever you read something substantial about Volga Bulgaria, it is described as a heavily populated sedentary country with considerable urban population, capable of resisting Mongols more successfully than many others. In other words - separated from the steppe and relying on the Volga trade.

Yes. Khaganate and Volgyda are debatable names. Debate and suggest alternatives!

On a side note, you might notice duchy of Cherson being separated from the steppe. And the kingdom of Liivimaa-Livonia on the far West.

Kingdoms

Spoiler

Let's debate. I felt that all the tauricas and turkestans were unnecessarily breaking up the steppe and not doing justice to the actual political setups. (The weird shape of vanilla Cumania is my witness.) A clear line can be seen between the Turkish/Cuman steppe and Khazaria (later pretty much overtaken by Pechenegs within the same borders) till the Cuman invasions. And resembles well some of the later divisions within the Golden Horde. Although they are quite natural - the Volga. Which raises questions about status of the big duchy of Itil and thus the Eastern border of de jure Khazaria - Volga or Yaik/Ural River.

Alania and Turkestan are flavor titular kingdoms in this scenario.

De jure duchies

Spoiler

Here you can see a whole bunch of new de jure duchies.
* Big Livonia is split into Livonia and Latgola.
* Huge Cheremisa is broken into codename Mari, Moksha and Erzya.
* Huge Perm is broken into Komi and Perm. Komi are Komi-Zyriane (Zyriane is even a vanilla ingame province). While Perm serves for Komi-Permyaks (no wikipedia article on this one, but trust me on them being a distinct enough group ). The literal translation "they inhabit the North-Western bit of Perm Krai which of course means they can't really inhabit the Urals. I was thinking of Nenets people for Yamalia and maybe Surgut provinces (because Yamalo-Nenets), but I honestly can't dig enough info. Not yet anyways.
* Some smaller principalities for Rostov. Namely Suzdal (the name is too important in the history of the region) and Murom (because epic Ilya Muromets... and because otherwise Ryazan was too big and it actually is justified enough, Murom being "in the 9th century CE, the city marked the easternmost settlement of the East Slavs; it is one of the oldest cities in Russia").
* Bashgyrd are Bashkirs.
* And yes. The names of Bashgyrd, Deshtiqipchak and Oguzlar are names I semi-blindly picked from a host of alternatives. So if you think you can suggest something better - please do!

And finally actual political setup at 867

Spoiler

Mendsi are Mansi. Bashkorttar are Bashkirs (thank you, wikipedia-translate). Kumanlar are Cumans (thank you, wikipedia-translate). That weird purple Galindai thing in Rostov are the interesting Galindians Dragovit hinted at.

In case of Mansi, despite their capital being in-game vanilla "Khantia" (hinting at Khants), from what I could gather, Khants are a branch that lives further east (next to the Ob River behind the Urals).

I'm also considering adding Nenets peoples to Yamalia. Not sure.

HOW TO MAKE TRIBES WORK?

I have one idea which I'd like to discuss and hear opinions on. I feel it's relatively easy in execution (always a bonus), elegant and kills 2 birds with one stone.

Whenever you read about tribes, they always act as a single unit whenever it comes to resisting oppression and such. Or alternatively they remain a single entity even when vassalized by someone (currently not the case by vanilla mechanics). However this "unity" doesn't translate into outward aggressive action. We discussed the importance of charismatic leaders in uniting tribes and setting them on statebuilding rails earlier.

I suggest the following to preserve tribes till duchies are established in their place, to simulate them leaders and to prevent the early snowballing and subjugation madness. Obviously, to preserve the tribal duchy title, it has to be vassalized by a king title. So any tribe under certain conditions (high martial score of the ruler among them) can create a tribal king title. And only then it can wage subjugation wars. End results being:
a) subjugated tribes actually remain a single political unit under the aspirant king;
b) whenever the "become king" ambition is fulfilled, the tribal kingdom title (if I understand everything correctly) will just transparently become replaced by a de jure one;
c) it's fairly easy to implement - literally copy-pasting all the code for tribal duchies and replacing d_ with k_

WHAT'S NEXT?

I have a free weekend to myself. (And also I don't really plan to religiously play EUIV. Maybe a couple of days to become sure that Byzantine survival is impossible. ) So I'll just run a few games to polish things mentioned and shown above. Nothing more.
I won't add anything new other than maybe some minor de jure / de facto changes based on results of my observations.
I'll try to make it compatible with CPR.
And thus the first release should finally come on Monday/Tuesday.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

A daily report. Slightly realigned things here and there. In particular breaking down large Merya and Muroma. Given that Rostov and Murom are mentioned as already Rurik's vassals, I simply made duchies of Murom (doesn't match it's de jure map) and Rostov to break the tribes up. And so far I'm quite happy with how all the Finno-Ugrics behave - immediate snowballing seems to be virtually eliminated, whereas Rus' forms almost all the time. (In a couple of interesting scenarios where Rurik was halted for one reason or the other, the unification was achieved by Askold. Fun times.)

One thing I'm extremely unhappy about after a day of playtesting though is Pecheneg-Khazar relations. Pechenegs get so many troops that they wipe out Khazaria in 867 invariably. The only way around it is to somehow minimize the number of troops they get in 867. But I fail to find the file and code that sets them up in the first place (along with Magyar, Cuman, Yabguid* troops). :glare:

Another nitpick is, of course, aggressiveness of Sweden and Rus' in Finland. But that's something that can't be amended without CB overhaul.


* Yes! Yes, you read that right! I renamed the dynasty to proper YaBGu instead of vanilla YaGBu! Such a burden off my shoulders.


Edit: Found it. Of all places, the troops are specified in character files.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I like the de facto "tribal" duchies at the 867 start. Anyhow, I'd suggest adding the Udmurts in the eastern half of Permiaki. I've done something similar in VIET.


On the idea about kingdom-tier tribal titles, it will probably require a bit of balance testing, it sounds like one of those ideas that are good on paper but might turn out terrible (or great).

 

[Konstantinos XV]

I finally managed to crack why realigning de jure duchies by events reverts to landed_titles de jure setup "sometimes". The problem is, save game don't carry over such de jure shifts because theu don't track county de jure lieges (nor do they write down history of de jure shifts). And so after loading a save everything reverts to landed_titles. (Since I'm usually running ~60-100 years in one sitting, mostly on independent realms map, the titles becoming titular seemed completely random to me )

This messes up with one feature where I was making larger duchies split by establishing new ones. (And it is also a feature that allows the grand prince a relatively short window of time (too deterministic is not that fun after all) to put his family on the duchy seat. Painting Rus Rurikid as it were. (During my test runs I've seen Kryvichians and Kievans form Rus too btw - although way less often than Rurik, but still ) And of course to facilitate the engaging fratricide and intestine strife that was the hallmark of Rusian existence.)

I'll amend it by tomorrow evening and will make a release. Nothing else seems to stand in the way anymore (and making a compatch for CPR was very easy).

A few more observations and ideas aloud. Maybe someone knows a solution or reasons behind or can contribute to brainstorming:
* Overall Khazaria with separated Cumanian kingdom worked rather well. Still I want the khazar chief to be khagan even if titular. So I gave him de jure kingdom of Khazaria (to make him more stable - otherwise his large vassals of Azov and Alania declaring day 1 independence faction along with unfriendly Pecheneg neighbors make quick work of Khazaria) with titular e_khazaria (both set to primogeniture). However every so often the kingdom title seems to just vanish during the life of a khagan. Which makes me suspect that it is destroyed by AI (immediately making his position virtually untenable because of the reasons above). Could it be the case? Can it be averted?
* Khagan boasts his own Varangian Guard of Sunni al-Arsiyya cavalry.
* Having the Cuman Eastern Steppe kingdom also works well overall, and has a special bonus of halting Seljuks if they decide to go that way - they stop at it and don't eat the whole steppe at once. However I think that along with Seljuk invasion of Khiva-Khwarazm we should launch a Cuman invasion into the actual steppe (from what I gather - Kipchaks were the reasons for Oguz movement into Persia).
* Curiously both Magyars and any tribe controlling Scythian steppe show affinity towards invading Wallachia. It's great. But also mysterious and inexplicable.
* A bit more on steppe de jure setup. I'd really love to avoid anachronistic names at least on county and above level. And this is one of the major problems when coming up with names for things in that part of the world.
However I think it makes geographical sense to split the (too) large duchy of Sarkel into Sarkel (Sarkel itself and the left bank of Don - so it becomes the fortress guarding the Volga-Don portage as it was famous for) and Donets (the other 3 provinces are pierced by the Donets River - the primary Don tributary).
In the same vein the duchy of Itil can be split into Itil itself on the left bank of Volga (aka Itil) and Yaik covering the right bank of the Yaik River (aka the Ural River). Yaik should probably go to de jure Cumania.
* At this point I'm desperate enough to lazily start using Turkish names for all the steppe tribes and locations for some uniformity and because I don't know any better. :/
* I guess it makes sense not to make post-Hungarian Crimea random culture-religion but give it all to Pechenegs. Interestingly enough, counts can declare independence of this tribal title. I believe this is the case only for counts of wrong culture or religion (there're 2 Manicheans at game start). But still it makes me pissed off. And makes me think of a "tribal unification" casus belli allowing war on counties of the same culture. Idk.
* So the tribal gavelkind AI doesn't create additional kingdoms (or duchies if he's still a duke) out of fear of losing them on succession? Isn't such succession split the whole point of gavelkind?
* I'm almost committed to further splitting de jure Rus into codename "White Rus" and "Red/Kievan Rus" during 1050-1150. With White Rus actually including Vitebsk-Polotsk, Smolensk and Chernigov-Bryansk clusters. Reasons being that these duchies were powerful enough to remain virtually independent of Novgorod, Rostov-Suzdal-Vladimir and Galich-Kiev. And thus they form a natural de jure kingdom cluster.
* Just have to comment on how inadequate the whole Hungarian situation is with them soundly beating Bulgaria by design, considering that from Boris I and down to Simeon I (d. 927) Bulgarians were actually very successful in their warfare with Magyars. With Bulgaria losing its lands to Magyars only in the 2nd half of the 10th century? Go Paradox.

I like the de facto "tribal" duchies at the 867 start. Anyhow, I'd suggest adding the Udmurts in the eastern half of Permiaki. I've done something similar in VIET.
On the idea about kingdom-tier tribal titles, it will probably require a bit of balance testing, it sounds like one of those ideas that are good on paper but might turn out terrible (or great).

Udmurts were one of my options. But then I figured they'd be too small. And why Eastern half of Perm? Granted, my only source is the location of contemporary Udmurtia and some smaller articles (because there were no big and definitive, as usual ), the most fitting vanilla province for them seems to be Komi - between Kama and Volga rivers (and yes, I do rely on vanilla rivers because otherwise I'm completely lost on the map :blush: ). Fun fact though - there's a vanilla province of Votyaki. And apparently Votyaki is a Russian name for Udmurts. It is, however, is even further West (NW of Komi). It's not unheard of Paradox to map tribes wrong though, so I decided I won't rely on that name too much.

I think I'll give PB a few major runs after the first release before going any further with such major overhauling attempts as tribal preservation. Apparently even by 10.3 vanilla game still causes mind-blowing mayhem on the map by 1066. And its advertisement claims that it's the best balance mod in business. So why invent the wheel.

 

[Konstantinos XV]

Gnarl. I'm set back by the new micro-patch.

But on the subject of Udmurts, I happened to do a google-translate on Ugric-Uralic peoples in general (has nice directions on a lot of them): uralgalaxy (among other things it covers "Permian Komis And Zyryan Komi" I modded in). And also stumble on the pretty map in spoiler below. Both of which seem to confirm that vanilla Votyaki and Komi for Udmurts might actually be pretty accurate.

Spoiler

Speaking of. Tribe of Tivertsi is also on the Oikoumene map.

And does this mean that Paradox messed up Chud and Veps? ^^

 

[cybrxkhan]

Gnarl. I'm set back by the new micro-patch.

But on the subject of Udmurts, I happened to do a google-translate on Ugric-Uralic peoples in general (has nice directions on a lot of them): uralgalaxy (among other things it covers "Permian Komis And Zyryan Komi" I modded in). And also stumble on the pretty map in spoiler below. Both of which seem to confirm that vanilla Votyaki and Komi for Udmurts might actually be pretty accurate.

Spoiler

Speaking of. Tribe of Tivertsi is also on the Oikoumene map.

And does this mean that Paradox messed up Chud and Veps? ^^

Awesome, I knew I was right. Well, depending on how reliable that map there is.

As for the Chud and Veps, I'm guessing their source was messed up or the moved the folks there for balance reasons.