[MOD] Silk Road

[Shian]

So, without further delays, here is the 0.9 version of the mod in a zip file:

View attachment 106048



This one idea has been with me ever since I seen the screenshots from the dev updates about the Rajas of Inda map expansion. My first reaction, to be frank, was "WHAT? NO TARIM BASIN?!".

Well, got around to changing that.

The Tarim basin, especially in this period, was a melting pot of religions and artistic traditions. This is the place where manicheans, muslims, nestorians and buddhist all rubbed shoulders. This really was a crossroad of worlds and nations, with Kashgar as its main, most lavish city. However, each oasis silk road town was a world of its own. To borrow a quote from Xuanzang (7th century Chinese buddhist monk and traveller) about one of the less well known ones - Kucha:

... the fair ladies and benefactresses of Kizil and Kumtura in their tight-waisted bodices and voluminous skirts recall--notwithstanding the Buddhic theme--that at all the halting places along the Silk Road, in all the rich caravan towns of the Tarim, Kucha was renowned as a city of pleasures, and that as far as China men talked of its musicians, its dancing girls, and its courtesans

(Just so you know - Kizil and Kumtura were some of the most important centers of buddhist monasticism in the period).

So this is a very vibrant, colorfull part of the medieval world. in 867 there are lots of possibilities - sunni islam, manichaeism, nestorian christianity and buddhism are all present and well established here. Given its small size, it has lots to choose from a player's perspective.

I've started working on the map with some big help from Sabratha (as I'm still ahving some issues running RoI under my 32 bit system).



So far its 11 counties, 4 duchies (Kashgar, Hotan, Turpan and Kucha) adding up to a signle kingdom.

We are gonna work on the mod for some time to add more than just new provinces. A Kara Khitan horde invasion, new cultures and possibly new culture specific (Karluk, Khitan, Uighur) events.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Looks pretty good so far!

 

[dyrhet]

Very nice! Looking forward to it.

 

[Baalshazar]

Nice, but I was kind of hoping for the actual road, if there really was one. Still good luck, and hope it all goes well!

 

[unmerged(174159)]

Can't wait for this, will you use Ahhheygao's Khitan portraits?

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Nice, but I was kind of hoping for the actual road, if there really was one. Still good luck, and hope it all goes well!

No, it refers to a whole trade network.

 

[cybrxkhan]

In the update for VIET after this upcoming one, we're working on adding quite a number of Silk Road-related stuff - Sogdians and Sogdian merchants, various Silk Road cultures like the Khotanese, the Khitan invasion, and so on. You may be interested in that.

Edit: Also, if you need help with research, I am more than happy to point you to some of the sources I've been using for that part of the world - as you may have figured Wikipedia can only go so far with such an obscure part of history limited to a small pool of specialists (in many cases I've learned that Wikipedia, while technically not inaccurate, does not provide enough information for a decent picture of what was going on)

 

[Baalshazar]

No, it refers to a whole trade network.

Didn't think so (though it would just be really neat to see a whole road on the map like in GoT mod), but still it'll be exciting to see how it goes and however you make it!

 

[ahhheygao]

Awesome, I look forward to this! I've been working on something similar by adding Silk Road events and introducing exchange/mix of merchants and missionaries, but I was too lazy to add in the provinces on the map myself (yes, I know how to do it, but it's a lot of work... more importantly, it's maintenance/upkeep-heavy because it's patch-sensitive). So I presume you'll be adding the Uyghurs from the Kingdom of Qocho, who pledged allegiance to Yelü Dashi and became vassals of the Kara-Khitan... and the Kingdom of Khotan as well, at the southern edge of the Tarim basin?

 

[Shian]

Nice, but I was kind of hoping for the actual road, if there really was one. Still good luck, and hope it all goes well!

Well, to simulate the trade routes, the cities in 867 will start with higher level of city technology and trade than most cities on the map. I believe that under the current gameplay system, this is the best way to go.

Further down the road, we may also add specific events related to trade, chinese merchants and scholars present in the area etc. Unlike other egions, this part of the map had direct access to China. So perhaps adding events that bring chinese characters to the court (a bit like the christian events for getting jewish advisors) would be for the best.

In the update for VIET after this upcoming one, we're working on adding quite a number of Silk Road-related stuff - Sogdians and Sogdian merchants, various Silk Road cultures like the Khotanese, the Khitan invasion, and so on. You may be interested in that.

Edit: Also, if you need help with research, I am more than happy to point you to some of the sources I've been using for that part of the world - as you may have figured Wikipedia can only go so far with such an obscure part of history limited to a small pool of specialists (in many cases I've learned that Wikipedia, while technically not inaccurate, does not provide enough information for a decent picture of what was going on)

Love to hear more about the features you guys are planning, also happy to share ideas and content. Are you expanding the map further east and north? My mod is by design limited in scope - we do not plan to add any ethnic chinese provinces (In our opinion it would make little sense without including the rest of China).

As for sources, would be nice if you do have any monarch lists for Uighur kingdoms in the area. I have enough info on Kara Khitans and Karakhanids, but not for Uighur Turpan, Kucha etc.

Also early (860s) Kashgar remains murky. I mean I know that sunni islam was not yet official and that nestorian and manichean religions were stong, but what in your opinion would be the proper province religion for Kashgar and the "official" ruler religion for it in 867?
My impression would be that the 867 rulers should be Tengri Karluks, but the province itself should be Nestorian, Buddhist or Manichean karluk.

Awesome, I look forward to this! I've been working on something similar by adding Silk Road events and introducing exchange/mix of merchants and missionaries, but I was too lazy to add in the provinces on the map myself (yes, I know how to do it, but it's a lot of work... more importantly, it's maintenance/upkeep-heavy because it's patch-sensitive). So I presume you'll be adding the Uyghurs from the Kingdom of Qocho, who pledged allegiance to Yelü Dashi and became vassals of the Kara-Khitan... and the Kingdom of Khotan as well, at the southern edge of the Tarim basin?

Exactly, we have already added the provinces and will work on localisation etc after the weekend. Qocho (aka Turpan), Khotan (aka Hotan) will both be "petty kingdoms" by game terms.
The individual baronies will be pretty rich, but the actual number of them is limited, as these are all isolated oasis states.

We have been discussing which empire should our new Kashgaria Tarim kingdom be a part of. We came to the conclusion that both Tartaria and the Perisan empire are already too large. So far we are carefully considering creating anew empire "Turan" that would include the current kingdoms of Turkestan, Khiva and our new Kashgaria/Tarim.

Can't wait for this, will you use Ahhheygao's Khitan portraits?

We originally planned to ask permission from the portraits and cultures revamp pack and use their "centralasiangfx" visual culture. But now that a lot of people made new Khitan portraits, we will have to think about this.

 

[cybrxkhan]

For sources your best bet is encyclopedia Iranica, which covers the Iranian world (which includes the Tarim Basin and such). It's comprehensive and scholarly, yet accessible and understandable to a (educated) layman - which is quite amazing given that Iranian studies is a somewhat niche specialist area. Granted its search function sucks, but overall its a better source than Wikipedia, which, while not necessarily inaccurate, doesn't really give comprehensive information. FOr instance here's their page on Kashgar: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kashgar-kasgar-town-in-xinjiang

Love to hear more about the features you guys are planning, also happy to share ideas and content. Are you expanding the map further east and north? My mod is by design limited in scope - we do not plan to add any ethnic chinese provinces (In our opinion it would make little sense without including the rest of China).

We have no plans to extend the map itself further than it already is (i.e. no parts of China), we only have vague plans to add in some stuff in Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin at this point. Anyhow once we have some stuff coded and tested properly we'll be writing up a dev diary for the Sogdian/Silk Road/etc. shenanigans, so you can see if there's anything of interest.

As for sources, would be nice if you do have any monarch lists for Uighur kingdoms in the area. I have enough info on Kara Khitans and Karakhanids, but not for Uighur Turpan, Kucha etc.

Ruler lists are hard to come by for Turfan, Kucha, etc., so you may have to add in some made up rulers. I believe there may be some rulers of Khotan listed here and there, but most of them come from before CKII's timeframe.

Also early (860s) Kashgar remains murky. I mean I know that sunni islam was not yet official and that nestorian and manichean religions were stong, but what in your opinion would be the proper province religion for Kashgar and the "official" ruler religion for it in 867?
My impression would be that the 867 rulers should be Tengri Karluks, but the province itself should be Nestorian, Buddhist or Manichean karluk.

I'd say that Islam had not made any real inroads into the Tarim Basin at the 867 start date - in fact Islam's still having a lot of trouble being established in the eastern Iranian world, for that matter, so having any Muslim rulers or provinces wouldn't be accurate. Kashgar, according to encyclopedia Iranica, was "still under Chinese administration and the local dynasty in 788, when the pilgrim Wu Kong visited it. Soon after that it was probably conquered by the Uighurs, and later by the Qarā-khanids or Ilak-khanids of Qarluq origin." I do know that in the 10th century Khotan and the Qarakhanids fought long and hard over Kashgar. I'd say for the 867 start it'll probably be under one of the Uighur successor states, though perhaps to represent Khotanese interests in the area you might give the southern province of the duchy of Kashgar to Khotan.

As for religions, while the Uighur Khaganate was strongly Manichean, it seems that a good number of them soon converted to Buddhism - by the 1066 start date most of the Uighurs should be Buddhist, in my opinion. However in 867 the situation is murkier, and it's also murkier for Kashgar proper - and for a lot of these cities, anyways, which tended to be rather mixed in religion (Khotan I know though was heavily Buddhist - in fact it has quite a bit of shared religious history with Tibet during this time). Personally in VIET I'll be making the Uighur rulers a mix of Buddhists and Manicheans at the 867 start, even though it should probably more heavily lean towards the latter, to encourage the historical outcome of Buddhism eventually supplanting Manicheism as the main religion of the Uighurs.

It appears that at least before the CKII timeframe, Kashgar was heavily buddhist, at least according to encyclopedia Iranica: "From this period [the 1st century] until the 10th century, Kashgar became a part of the Buddhist world, although the local religion, called the “God of Heaven,” is attested to as late as the 7th century. "

In fact I'd still consider making Kashgar Buddhist in the 11th century (i.e. the 1066 start date), although obviously ruled by the Muslim Karakhanids.

We have been discussing which empire should our new Kashgaria Tarim kingdom be a part of. We came to the conclusion that both Tartaria and the Perisan empire are already too large. So far we are carefully considering creating anew empire "Turan" that would include the current kingdoms of Turkestan, Khiva and our new Kashgaria/Tarim.

Personally I think Serindia would be a better name - it was used for this region in sources in antiquity (though it sometimes confusingly could also refer to China). Turan I think refers more to around the area of northern Kazakhstan in traditional Persian sources.

 

[Shian]

For sources your best bet is encyclopedia Iranica, which covers the Iranian world (which includes the Tarim Basin and such). It's comprehensive and scholarly, yet accessible and understandable to a (educated) layman - which is quite amazing given that Iranian studies is a somewhat niche specialist area. Granted its search function sucks, but overall its a better source than Wikipedia, which, while not necessarily inaccurate, doesn't really give comprehensive information. FOr instance here's their page on Kashgar: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kashgar-kasgar-town-in-xinjiang

Funny you should mention it, since afaik that's the main online source Sabratha has been using working on this. Kashgar's religious status in the 800s still seems murky though. Perhaps nobody relaly knows what was going on there at the time.

Either way, if you plan to add provinces to the tarim basin, then feel free to use mine if you feel these seem proper for you. We decided not to go further than Kumul in the east and Urumqi in the north.

Ruler lists are hard to come by for Turfan, Kucha, etc., so you may have to add in some made up rulers. I believe there may be some rulers of Khotan listed here and there, but most of them come from before CKII's timeframe.

That's pretty much what we had gathered. Sabratha found a few rulers mentioned here or there, but these are mostly specific individuals in crucial moments in time (Mongol conquest etc), not complete king lists.

Personally I think Serindia would be a better name - it was used for this region in sources in antiquity (though it sometimes confusingly could also refer to China). Turan I think refers more to around the area of northern Kazakhstan in traditional Persian sources.

That's certainly not tsomething we made up ourt minds about yet. According to european geographers of this and slightly later periods, Turan starts on the northern bank of Ammu-Darya. This would still have culture-specific names for various cultures.

I'd say that Islam had not made any real inroads into the Tarim Basin at the 867 start date - in fact Islam's still having a lot of trouble being established in the eastern Iranian world, for that matter, so having any Muslim rulers or provinces wouldn't be accurate. Kashgar, according to encyclopedia Iranica, was "still under Chinese administration and the local dynasty in 788, when the pilgrim Wu Kong visited it. Soon after that it was probably conquered by the Uighurs, and later by the Qarā-khanids or Ilak-khanids of Qarluq origin." I do know that in the 10th century Khotan and the Qarakhanids fought long and hard over Kashgar. I'd say for the 867 start it'll probably be under one of the Uighur successor states, though perhaps to represent Khotanese interests in the area you might give the southern province of the duchy of Kashgar to Khotan.

As for religions, while the Uighur Khaganate was strongly Manichean, it seems that a good number of them soon converted to Buddhism - by the 1066 start date most of the Uighurs should be Buddhist, in my opinion. However in 867 the situation is murkier, and it's also murkier for Kashgar proper - and for a lot of these cities, anyways, which tended to be rather mixed in religion (Khotan I know though was heavily Buddhist - in fact it has quite a bit of shared religious history with Tibet during this time). Personally in VIET I'll be making the Uighur rulers a mix of Buddhists and Manicheans at the 867 start, even though it should probably more heavily lean towards the latter, to encourage the historical outcome of Buddhism eventually supplanting Manicheism as the main religion of the Uighurs.

Khotan and Kucha are strongly buddhist in 867, though Khotan is decisively persian culture (we have not decided if its gonna have its own culture or be classified in a larger "sogdian" group"), while Kucha is Uighur dominated at this point. One is Mahayana, the other Theravada dominated.

The Uighurs in Turfan were going to be a mix of Buddhist and Manicheans, possibly more of the former in terms of province count.

The "Southern province of Kashgar" that you are refering to in Yarkant. (we already have all the counties and baronies named, I just don't have that version t get images from - wait for Sabratha to do it circa Monday). Yarkant will be an independant county level state in 867 and actually nestorian (Sabratha dug up some info that there was a strong Nestorian community in Yarkant).

Kashgar I think will start probably Buddhist (or nestorian, again sabratha found data indicating that there was a thriving nestorian community in the 9th century), but governed by Tengri Karluks (I don't have any references to Karakhanids converting to buddhism at any point, so by my best assumptions they were following their local karluk steppe religion before adopting Islam).

 

[unmerged(174159)]

I'd like to see Khiva/Kashgar removed from the Persian Empire (Afghan/Baluchistan too? <_<)

 

[cybrxkhan]

Hmm... All sounds good. It's good that you guys are doing a lot of research into this, the region is obscure and something not really well-known save for a few specialists, so I guess it would be easy to make mistakes if you only rely on Wikipedia.

Khotan and Kucha are strongly buddhist in 867, though Khotan is decisively persian culture (we have not decided if its gonna have its own culture or be classified in a larger "sogdian" group"), while Kucha is Uighur dominated at this point. One is Mahayana, the other Theravada dominated.

I do have a Khotanese/Tumshuqese/Saka namelist (and dynasties!) I'll probably release to the new cultures thread soon - I was surprised I could even get a decent name list given that it's usually harder to find decent names for these more obscure peoples, but fortunately I stumbled on some good sources. Ideally they shouldn't be Sogdian, as the two were pretty different groups, though both eastern Iranian; Khotan in particular had close ties with China and the Khotanese nobility often intermarried with Chinese elites who lived in Dunhuang, as you may already know.

Anyhow speaking of cultures I also have a Tocharian namelist (and dynasties) - actually I previously already released a Tocharian namelist, but I've revamped it recently with even more names and will be releasing it soon in the new cultures thread.

I'll be adding in the Khotanese at any rate in VIET, I feeel they are distinct enough from the Sogdians/Tocharians/Uighurs/whatever to warrant that.

Kashgar I think will start probably Buddhist (or nestorian, again sabratha found data indicating that there was a thriving nestorian community in the 9th century), but governed by Tengri Karluks (I don't have any references to Karakhanids converting to buddhism at any point, so by my best assumptions they were following their local karluk steppe religion before adopting Islam).

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Karakhanids were Buddhists before they became Muslims, but I can't remember where and I might just be imagining things.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Here's a good article Cybr found about Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'd like to see Khiva/Kashgar removed from the Persian Empire (Afghan/Baluchistan too? <_<)

Khiva, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan as part of the Persian Empire makes sense from a historical viewpoint. It was part of the Achaemenid and Sassanid Empires, which the Persian Empire is based on. Kashgar not so much, yeah, but I guess that's why there's a new Empire for that.

 

[unmerged(174159)]

Bleh, makes trying to eke out some hardcore existence in the valleys and mountains difficult with Saffarid just eating you for lulz.

 

[myfishes]

This mod has all my +1. Can't wait for it's release...

 

[yannou94]

I'm also exited about this project, this place is a melting-pot of religion (buddhists, manicheans, nestorians, islam then) and of people (indoeuropean sogdians, tocharians and khotanese and turkic uyghurs) I can't wait to create my tocharian buddhist empire o

 

[Shian]

I'll be adding in the Khotanese at any rate in VIET, I feeel they are distinct enough from the Sogdians/Tocharians/Uighurs/whatever to warrant that.

Sabratha seems to have expressed a similar opinion and we will probaly do just that. My main notion behind not making them a separate culture was the low amount of provinces. However it seems they will be the culture group in some 3-5 starting provinces and one whole petty kingdom. So I think this does warrant a separate culture, especiall;y given the differences.

Bleh, makes trying to eke out some hardcore existence in the valleys and mountains difficult with Saffarid just eating you for lulz.

That is probably a good cause why the Karakhanids should think seriously about following the historical path of adopting Islam. That way they can avoid huge islamic perian empires going holy war on them.

Also this is why we do not want to have Kashgar in the Persian empire - not to give Perisans an easy legal pretext to invade the Tarim if its not a different religion.