[MOD] Silk Road

[Latheloi]

I had an idea for the silk road (that is sat on my "someday, maybe" list of things to do) which was to represent the mercantile element using the merchant republic dynamics - as you can actually have inland tradeposts, by creating them in the province history. You can't access them through the province panel, but you can by moving to next holding. The key difficulty was positioning the capital next to a body of water so you could have a port.

Haven't fiddled enough to see if it is possible to dynamically create new trade posts or anything.

 

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Couldn't you just add in some single prov sea-zones that only connect to the new provs?

 

[Latheloi]

That would only get the silk road as far as the new provinces, rather than further out - although the new multi sea areas is a boon for that sort of approach in general

 

[Shian]

I don't think I want to mess by adding oceans to the Tarim basin. That is simply too gimmicky and gamey for my tastes. Besides, the Silk Road functioned in a very different way to med trade republics.

So far I think just high tech levels should be enough, plus maybe some events down the line.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Perhaps some province modifiers boosting tax, etc might be worth a go?

 

[Sparticulous]

I will be very happy once this is done. I am still confused why they left out tarim basin in the game. It should have more contact and been more involved with central asia than east asia.

 

[explicitsnark]

I will be very happy once this is done. I am still confused why they left out tarim basin in the game. It should have more contact and been more involved with central asia than east asia.

they're probably going to include the area at some point in the future through a dlc

 

[ahhheygao]

I will be very happy once this is done. I am still confused why they left out tarim basin in the game. It should have more contact and been more involved with central asia than east asia.

Same reason Tibet isn't included: too much work for PDS. Heck, they didn't even bother setting up the history entries for Kara-Khitan in the steppe area they did add into the game.

 

[Shian]

Same reason Tibet isn't included: too much work for PDS. Heck, they didn't even bother setting up the history entries for Kara-Khitan in the steppe area they did add into the game.

Which I do consider somewhat weird. I mean I understand why Tibet was not added:
1. Very huge tough terrain sparesly populated provinces
2. Very unique buddhist system, this would probably have to be a separate denomination
3. In the game's timeframe, Tibet did not have extensive contacts with neighbouring areas (Unlike the late 700s or early 800s)

The Tarim basin however requires no new religious systems (especially now that nestorianism is a separate denomination), provinces are really pretty regular for that part of the map and the region had extensive contacts with other provinces around the map. (Karakhanids who rule khiva in vanilla, also ruled much of the Tarim).

So to me not including the Tarim basin seemed much more odd than not including Tibet or areas east of Arakan.

BTW, we finished the map and provinces, now we are busy working on history files (rulers etc).

 

[ahhheygao]

The Tarim basin however requires no new religious systems (especially now that nestorianism is a separate denomination), provinces are really pretty regular for that part of the map and the region had extensive contacts with other provinces around the map. (Karakhanids who rule khiva in vanilla, also ruled much of the Tarim).

So to me not including the Tarim basin seemed much more odd than not including Tibet or areas east of Arakan.

PDS considered proper historical presence of Kara-Khitan too much trouble already, and going into Tarim Basin would remove any sort of excuse/pretense of not having Eastern Asians. They just don't want to deal with anyone remotely East Asian and non-nomadic, even if it's the Uyghurs or Khotans... even the current "Asian-looking" people like Samoyed, Kirghiz, and Khanty don't get Asian/Mongol portraits.

 

[TurtleShroom]

NEED.

I was hoping that someone would add Tibet and legitimate Mongolia, but this is definitely a start. I will download this immediately.

 

[Sparticulous]

PDS considered proper historical presence of Kara-Khitan too much trouble already, and going into Tarim Basin would remove any sort of excuse/pretense of not having Eastern Asians. They just don't want to deal with anyone remotely East Asian and non-nomadic, even if it's the Uyghurs or Khotans... even the current "Asian-looking" people like Samoyed, Kirghiz, and Khanty don't get Asian/Mongol portraits.

Why not, PDS could totally sell face packs for $3 for central asian portraits.

 

[KKoop3]

I don't think I want to mess by adding oceans to the Tarim basin. That is simply too gimmicky and gamey for my tastes. Besides, the Silk Road functioned in a very different way to med trade republics.

So far I think just high tech levels should be enough, plus maybe some events down the line.

I would suggest perhaps some events related to the intermingling of religions and the spread of ideas. Perhaps new religions or cultures come out of the area?
I would also like to suggest that there be many intrigue options for the silk road nations regarding their interactions with the Western cultures.

 

[Careful Plum]

Just a suggestion (sorry if it has been made before):

As I understand it, the various trade routes really go along the borders of the basin, the center being a hostile desert. Perhaps it would be nice to have the provinces road-shaped along the trade routes instead of covering the whole territory. That would emphasize the fact that these states really existed only because of the silk road. I don't know whether anyone lived IN the desert (away from oasis towns), but even if someone did, I doubt the cities were able to effectively control them.

 

[Shian]

NEED.
I was hoping that someone would add Tibet and legitimate Mongolia, but this is definitely a start. I will download this immediately.

We plan to start small and get the Tarim basin working, then we may move on.

Tibet is certainly our least priority because of the game timeframe. In this period Tibet was fragmented and had very minimal influence on the grand scheme of things (unlike in the 8th century). Plus asdding tibet would require a ton of mountain range and pass map edits, gettin in exchange a few very large but sparsely populated provinces. And for historical reasons, they would be all single province states till the mid 1200s. So in short, this would be little "bang" for the amount of workload required.

If we get stuff done with the Tarim basin then locations like Senegambia, Hausa lands, Mongolia or Kordofan would be higher on our "to do lists" as far as map expansion than Tibet.

As I understand it, the various trade routes really go along the borders of the basin, the center being a hostile desert. Perhaps it would be nice to have the provinces road-shaped along the trade routes instead of covering the whole territory. That would emphasize the fact that these states really existed only because of the silk road. I don't know whether anyone lived IN the desert (away from oasis towns), but even if someone did, I doubt the cities were able to effectively control them.

We certainly planned it this way at the begining - to have an unpassable taklamakan desert in the center.

However, Sabratha dug up info that there were routes through the Taklamakan between the states (From Kucha to Hotan for example or from Tashkurgan to Miran). So both for accuracy purposes and for smooth map name transposition, we have decided to leave this out. Paradox made the same decision with the Karakum and we are gonna stay with this.

 

[ahhheygao]

We certainly planned it this way at the begining - to have an unpassable taklamakan desert in the center.

However, Sabratha dug up info that there were routes through the Taklamakan between the states (From Kucha to Hotan for example or from Tashkurgan to Miran). So both for accuracy purposes and for smooth map name transposition, we have decided to leave this out. Paradox made the same decision with the Karakum and we are gonna stay with this.

I'm glad you guys decided to go this route. Smooth map name transposition is a big deal; I've often gone to war just to make my title display with better alignment/kerning.

 

[Shian]

Well, we failed to find a list of Uighur Rulers for the period, so yeah. Religious wise, two uighur provinces including Turfan start manichean.
Kashgar and Yarkant start nestorian. As an associated change, Merv starts nestorian in 867 (a major center for nestorian priesthood and missionaries). The metropolitan officials at Merv were the ones who brough christianity to China (through the Tarim basin). In 644 AD an entire Turkish army and its officers coming through Merv had accepted nestorian christianity from its metroplitan.

In other news, the various provinces now have different names depending what culture owns them.
For example Turfan will be named "Turpan" under Uighurs, "Qoco" under khotanese and "Tulufan" under Khitans.

We currently have all dynasties and characters done up to the khitan invasion. We are now working on the khitian and mongol periods.

Here is the individual province brakedown:

 

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[Shian]

In other good news, we have just finished all the history files and we plan to release a beta 0.9 version of the mod tomorrow. We have some really nice historical characters to play around with, including Yelü Dashi and our lovable Mongol that we all love to hate: Küchlüg.

The 0.9 will feature the new 11 provinces, new cultures, history files from 867 to 1337 etc.

Events will come later. Neither of us is an expert in CK2 events, so we leave this for last and plan to release an event-less version first and foremost to those waiting impatiently.

PS - if anyone has any good info on Uighur rulers before 1220, please share!

Also, kara khitan khanate in 1200:


Also, does anyone know how to set a fixed flag for a buddhist kingdom?

 

[ahhheygao]

In other good news, we have just finished all the history files and we plan to release a beta 0.9 version of the mod tomorrow. We have some really nice historical characters to play around with, including

This will feature the new 11 provinces, new cultures, history files from 867 to 1337 etc.

Events will come later. Neither of us is an expert in CK2 events, so we leave this for last and plan to release an event-less version first and foremost to those waiting impatiently.

Also, kara khitan khanate in 1200:

Excellent; I eagerly await its release. Know that I've suspended my recent Kara-Khitan playthrough in anticipation for the release of this mod.