Well. It's been a very long ride. Way longer than I anticipated. Latest patch introduced custom_tooltip changes that completely messed up my events in such unpredictable ways that it took me 4 days to figure out what was going on. On the bright side, it also gave me an opportunity to make last second changes, like getting in Udmurts, splitting Sarkel and Itil, minor localisation cleanups and such. All the relevant info can be found in the From Varangians to Greeks post.
A small teaser:
What'll happen next? A short break for Brigmore Witches and EU4. (I hear surviving as Byzantium IS possible! In the age old way of blocking the straits by loans! I can't be at peace until I reestablish the theme system now! :happy: ) And then I have 3 things I plan to improve on first.
I. TRIBAL KINGS II
Now that I've got it under way - I plan to finish de jure overhaul of the East according to my liking and vision of history. The hardest part being done (Finnics and the Steppe) it should be quick and smooth. The changes being mostly cosmetic. For example:
* Splitting Mesopotamia into Jazira and Sawad
* Kingdoms of Tabriz (Azerbaijan + Tabriz) and Tabaristan (local Wales/Brittany) in Persia.
* Further split of Byzantium. If anything - to make it more resistant to all the neighboring invasion CBs.
* A new duchy of Ohrid (Ohrid + Skopje) as de jure subject of Bulgaria. This has been my peeve for ages.
* Splitting huge empire of Arabia into Africa, Egypt (+Palestine +Syria) and Arabia itself (which badly needs Syrian desert and the sharifate of Mecca).
And of course renaming it all. I'll finally get rid of all of my OCDs about the map (some of which are already adressed: primarily Tartaria, Yagbuids). Out with anachronisms, and let's embrace relevant recognizable names!
* I'll never get Paradox's obsession with Khiva. I guess it's some sort of Easter egg? /shrug There're such awesome names to use that pierce any history book on the region: Khwarazm and TRANSOXANIA. (The latter, of course, for authenticity sake will have to be either Fararud or Mawarannahr. The good news is that both are AWESOME too!)
* Duchy of Hijaz, d_medina becomes sharifate of Makkah, Jazira on the map, Iran/Eran, Palestine (Filistin? Filastin? Falastin?).
* Something HAS to be done about the ghastly Wendish Empire and Carpathia.
I'll post a detailed report covering what has already been done within a few days.
Edit: And I've uploaded the images. I've tried to be more attentive to color scheme and changed quite a few colors around, trying to stick with vanilla approach: de jure kingdom colors should resemble de jure empire and so on. So I hope they aren't so bad on the eye as beta anymore.
Empires:
Kingdoms:
Now that Volga Bulgaria is not part of the steppe anymore, I tried to make its color inbetween the steppe yellow and Volga emerald.
Kingdom of Perm tribal setup:
Pretty much corresponds to de jure duchy setup. You might notice that the Perm bear doesn't have book with cross anymore.
Udmurtios are allegedly the self-name of Udmurts (aka Votyaki).
Mendsi are self-name name of Mansi peoples.
Komi are Komi-Zyryane.
And finally Perm is mostly fictional - in that I don't think it's right to unite Yamalia with Perm. But given the dubious map layout, we have to make some compromises.
Steppe:
Rus:
II. KHAZARIA
Despite history files, the game loads Tengri Khazars with Gavelkind succession. The interesting consequence is that titular emperor of Khazaria destroys de jure kingdom title. Thus undermining his power over the region. Smart AI! Smart! Well. I guess it gives me enough motivation to make Khazars Judaic. Should be easy and painless.
III. MAGYARS
The big one. Even after all the facelifts vanilla Magyars is a disgrace.
First they have to wage a fictional pretense war with Bulgaria. Because of how the game works, they have to win this war. Even though in fact Bulgarians were successfully resisting Magyars for almost a century following the game start. To achieve this completely ahistorical overwhelming success they get a huge amount of troops. And then the event of forming Hungary is setup in such a way that a (frequent) rebellion by duke of Pest during the war with Bulgaria means Magyars eat tonn of land and summon 20-40k troops when they finally conquer Pest.
So I ask you. Why bother with all this mess to make certain that Magyars conquer Hungary? With a quite possible and often outcome of ridiculously overpowered Hungary? (I've already made it less likely by editing the decision to be easier to enact - now it requires not d_pest, but OR = { pest, esztergom, pecs }.) Why not make Magyars settled in the Moravian Hungary immediately, Paradox, if all you do is prop them to conquer Hungary invariably, disregarding the possibility of such nasty side-effects? (If your only concern is Hungarian survival because of "New Administration" province modifier, then my god - just remove the modifier from Hungarian provinces by the same decision that forms Hungary. Don't give them 30k troops to eat the steppe with or Byzantium with. >< )
I suggest an alternative event chain with two possible starting points. Either immediate Magyars in Moravian Hungary in 867. Or by triggered invasion of Moravian Hungary if Magyars in Taurica lose independence or something. Following settlement, they shouldn't be able to immediately go after Pecs and the rest of it. Books give us an interesting scenario for a series of interactive events for the king of Bulgaria: Magyars keep migrating. Either allow them to settle as foederati on your soil, or a small stack is granted to independent Magyars. If Tsar accepts - culture in border provinces flips to Hungarian. The price is that eventually this facilitates conquest and easier settlement by Arpads. Something along those lines.
But in broader terms - anything to prevent overpowered Hungary capable of eating everything back to Kimek or plow through Byzantium for giggles.
Once all this is done (the groundwork, the framework of the project), I'll finally be free to address gameplay twists (integration with PB) and populate it all with events, modifiers, factions, special CBs and so forth.
A small teaser:
What'll happen next? A short break for Brigmore Witches and EU4. (I hear surviving as Byzantium IS possible! In the age old way of blocking the straits by loans! I can't be at peace until I reestablish the theme system now! :happy: ) And then I have 3 things I plan to improve on first.
I. TRIBAL KINGS II
Now that I've got it under way - I plan to finish de jure overhaul of the East according to my liking and vision of history. The hardest part being done (Finnics and the Steppe) it should be quick and smooth. The changes being mostly cosmetic. For example:
* Splitting Mesopotamia into Jazira and Sawad
* Kingdoms of Tabriz (Azerbaijan + Tabriz) and Tabaristan (local Wales/Brittany) in Persia.
* Further split of Byzantium. If anything - to make it more resistant to all the neighboring invasion CBs.
* A new duchy of Ohrid (Ohrid + Skopje) as de jure subject of Bulgaria. This has been my peeve for ages.
* Splitting huge empire of Arabia into Africa, Egypt (+Palestine +Syria) and Arabia itself (which badly needs Syrian desert and the sharifate of Mecca).
And of course renaming it all. I'll finally get rid of all of my OCDs about the map (some of which are already adressed: primarily Tartaria, Yagbuids). Out with anachronisms, and let's embrace relevant recognizable names!
* I'll never get Paradox's obsession with Khiva. I guess it's some sort of Easter egg? /shrug There're such awesome names to use that pierce any history book on the region: Khwarazm and TRANSOXANIA. (The latter, of course, for authenticity sake will have to be either Fararud or Mawarannahr. The good news is that both are AWESOME too!)
* Duchy of Hijaz, d_medina becomes sharifate of Makkah, Jazira on the map, Iran/Eran, Palestine (Filistin? Filastin? Falastin?).
* Something HAS to be done about the ghastly Wendish Empire and Carpathia.
I'll post a detailed report covering what has already been done within a few days.
Edit: And I've uploaded the images. I've tried to be more attentive to color scheme and changed quite a few colors around, trying to stick with vanilla approach: de jure kingdom colors should resemble de jure empire and so on. So I hope they aren't so bad on the eye as beta anymore.
Empires:
Now that Volga Bulgaria is not part of the steppe anymore, I tried to make its color inbetween the steppe yellow and Volga emerald.
Pretty much corresponds to de jure duchy setup. You might notice that the Perm bear doesn't have book with cross anymore.
Udmurtios are allegedly the self-name of Udmurts (aka Votyaki).
Mendsi are self-name name of Mansi peoples.
Komi are Komi-Zyryane.
And finally Perm is mostly fictional - in that I don't think it's right to unite Yamalia with Perm. But given the dubious map layout, we have to make some compromises.
Starting setup
De jure duchies
Bashkorttar are Bashkirs.
De jure duchies
Bashkorttar are Bashkirs.
867 layout
De jure duchies
De jure duchies
II. KHAZARIA
Despite history files, the game loads Tengri Khazars with Gavelkind succession. The interesting consequence is that titular emperor of Khazaria destroys de jure kingdom title. Thus undermining his power over the region. Smart AI! Smart! Well. I guess it gives me enough motivation to make Khazars Judaic. Should be easy and painless.
III. MAGYARS
The big one. Even after all the facelifts vanilla Magyars is a disgrace.
First they have to wage a fictional pretense war with Bulgaria. Because of how the game works, they have to win this war. Even though in fact Bulgarians were successfully resisting Magyars for almost a century following the game start. To achieve this completely ahistorical overwhelming success they get a huge amount of troops. And then the event of forming Hungary is setup in such a way that a (frequent) rebellion by duke of Pest during the war with Bulgaria means Magyars eat tonn of land and summon 20-40k troops when they finally conquer Pest.
So I ask you. Why bother with all this mess to make certain that Magyars conquer Hungary? With a quite possible and often outcome of ridiculously overpowered Hungary? (I've already made it less likely by editing the decision to be easier to enact - now it requires not d_pest, but OR = { pest, esztergom, pecs }.) Why not make Magyars settled in the Moravian Hungary immediately, Paradox, if all you do is prop them to conquer Hungary invariably, disregarding the possibility of such nasty side-effects? (If your only concern is Hungarian survival because of "New Administration" province modifier, then my god - just remove the modifier from Hungarian provinces by the same decision that forms Hungary. Don't give them 30k troops to eat the steppe with or Byzantium with. >< )
I suggest an alternative event chain with two possible starting points. Either immediate Magyars in Moravian Hungary in 867. Or by triggered invasion of Moravian Hungary if Magyars in Taurica lose independence or something. Following settlement, they shouldn't be able to immediately go after Pecs and the rest of it. Books give us an interesting scenario for a series of interactive events for the king of Bulgaria: Magyars keep migrating. Either allow them to settle as foederati on your soil, or a small stack is granted to independent Magyars. If Tsar accepts - culture in border provinces flips to Hungarian. The price is that eventually this facilitates conquest and easier settlement by Arpads. Something along those lines.
But in broader terms - anything to prevent overpowered Hungary capable of eating everything back to Kimek or plow through Byzantium for giggles.
Once all this is done (the groundwork, the framework of the project), I'll finally be free to address gameplay twists (integration with PB) and populate it all with events, modifiers, factions, special CBs and so forth.
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