[MOD] Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion

[LumberKing]

What is this mod's primarily focused start? Charlemagne, Old Gods or Stamford Bridge?

Vanilla, so Stamford Bridge (so everyone can access it). But that's just so we can have a somewhat working version out for the Open Alpha. You can bet that we will definitely do all of the playable bookmarks and dates in between for the vanilla ones.

 

[Celcerwony]

Not to be annoying but do you have any idea of when an alpha could be released?
Also, could it be possible to update the images on the first page please, the images are not valid.
Thank you
Good luck and Best wishes

 

[Deathlinger]

Not to be annoying but do you have any idea of when an alpha could be released?
Also, could it be possible to update the images on the first page please, the images are not valid.
Thank you
Good luck and Best wishes

Alpha I believe is very very soon, I just need to finish up some map work in Indonesia.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I've gone through the entire thread, but I only caught glimpses of China in screenshots of neighboring regions, did I miss something?

BTW, if you still have Rikuō and Mutsu together, I suggest changing one of them. They were different pronunciations of the same name (陸奥), used to differentiate the pre-Meiji kuni and post-Meiji kuni.

 

[spendabuck]

China has been in pictures, but they're not showing up for some reason.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

China has been in pictures, but they're not showing up for some reason.

I saw that the earlier pictures posted by LumberKing are all dead, but I don't think we have a China screenshot since Deathlinger became the map maker.

 

[Celcerwony]

Any news?

 

[Deathlinger]

Any news?

I am releasing a Dev diary tomorrow, announcing my role in the creation of the mod, showcasing what i've done. As well as the release date.

 

[LumberKing]

Finally got around to updating the front page. I have removed the old screenshots for now and replaced them with new ones. Apologise for being late everyone.

 

[aruon]

nice! love the new screenshots too. does the chinese empire use dynastic title naming?

 

[LumberKing]

nice! love the new screenshots too. does the chinese empire use dynastic title naming?

Yes, as do most East Asian cultures.

 

[aruon]

Yes, as do most East Asian cultures.

:3

i was hoping for that. i wasn't sure though since the chinese dynasties liked to have family names that differ from the official.
seriously who'd ever guess that these guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Zhu are actually the ming dynasty?

at least the koreans knew what the hell their family names were!

 

[LumberKing]

:3

i was hoping for that. i wasn't sure though since the chinese dynasties liked to have family names that differ from the official.
seriously who'd ever guess that these guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Zhu are actually the ming dynasty?

at least the koreans knew what the hell their family names were!

Yeah, the Chinese and the Koreans liked to establish a Dynasty name which doubled as the country name, separate from the family names which were based on clans meaning a lot of them had the same family names. Though different from the Western concept, I have decided to go for the dynasty names rather than family names for the established dynasty, since a) they sound cooler and b) this is a dynasty game.

 

[Celcerwony]

I know it isn't among the priorities right now but I'd just like to give some indications about emperor's clothings. I hope it will be helpful
Actually the traditionnal Han dynasty emperor's hat that we commonly know

Spoiler

isn't really used throughout the Tang and Song dynasties.
Tang dynasty emperor fashion (7th-9th centuries):
Emperor Gaozu of Tang

Spoiler

Emperor Taizong of Tang

Spoiler

Song dynasty Emperor's fashion (10th-13th century)
Emperor Taizu of Song

Spoiler

Taizong of Song

Spoiler

Shenzong of Song

Spoiler

In the korean kingdom of Silla, the kings were sometimes represented with the han dynasty style hat but also used the more typically silla crown you can see various exemples here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowns_of_Silla

For the later Goryeo kingdom (10th century-14 th century) they rather followed chinese emperor's fashion

Spoiler

 

[LumberKing]

I know it isn't among the priorities right now but I'd just like to give some indications about emperor's clothings. I hope it will be helpful
Actually the traditionnal Han dynasty emperor's hat that we commonly know

The clothing used right now are portrait packs from other mods (apart from the ones which .Me made), as such they are something I had no control over. I would actually like to have era clothing, but at the moment the modders working do not have any experience with clothing. So if anyone has experience, it would be great if anyone can help us out.

 

[Warial]

Yeah, the Chinese and the Koreans liked to establish a Dynasty name which doubled as the country name, separate from the family names which were based on clans meaning a lot of them had the same family names. Though different from the Western concept, I have decided to go for the dynasty names rather than family names for the established dynasty, since a) they sound cooler and b) this is a dynasty game.

You can change the title name through an event, am I right? Wouldn't it be better then to have an event fire on independence, which allows to choose state name from the list? It would allow to keep both family names and state names represented. At least that's how I would do it in M&T if we had this functionality in EU4...

Another thing are personal names. From the screenshot I can see that Ly dynasty uses temple names, which were granted only after the death. They should be either changed to personal names for consistency or China should also use temple names. Or even better, have those be changed after the death. So Zhao Shu after death would be listed in the title history as {smth]zong.

 

[aruon]

is it even possible to have postmortem naming? at face value it seems like not much more than rehashing the newborn naming event but such simplicity generally belies the unceasing pain in the ass that events like these can pose.

 

[Deathlinger]

Deathlingers Dev Diary.
Hello all, as you may know I have taken over as the main map modder of the Tianxia project. I originally started out solely in improving Japan but I decided that I was up for the challenge of improving the already superb .Me map in that area, and so I produced what would be very similar to the historical provinces of the time.

Spoiler: Japan

Spoiler: Kyushu

I added in this area more islands as well as you can see, such as Goto, Iki and Tsushima. But I also added more political instead of regional areas such as Tane south of Satsuma, and Awaji East of Kaido.

Spoiler: San

Here you can see the current capital of Japan in 1066. I added various landmarks such as lake Bima and completed the San circuits.

Spoiler: Central

Here you can see the very populous Kyoto Region with some very powerful and influential provinces.

Spoiler: Fuji

Mount Fuji in all its glory.

Spoiler: The Nurth

The less populated Ainu lands to the north(east).

Spoiler: Ainu

As you can see the Ainu lands are currently split, and could potentially provide a powerful early rival for Japan if they manage to unite.

Spoiler: Mordor

The Frozen wastes north of the Ainu provide an easy target to expand for an Ambitious Ainu warlord, or perhaps could even prove worthy of invading the South. (Props to anyone who conquers from the tip of Kamchatka.)

Spoiler: Before

As you can see with Japan there are plenty of new opportunities for fun and exciting gameplay, with characters to test players of all skill.

Next I worked on improving the area south of Japan up into Taiwan.

Spoiler: The Isles

Spoiler: Ryukyu

I split the island into it's respective "mountains" but also added the Kerema Islands as a naval stronghold.

Spoiler: Yaeyama

The Islands south of Ryukyu are a prime enemy for a strong Ryukyuan Kingdom. Originally these islands weren't on the map.

Spoiler: Taiwan

Taiwan starts off split into various tribes and chiefdoms. With the islands of Penghu being the only Confucian province.

Next I upped the ante on Korea giving it many more provinces and improving the landscape.

Spoiler: Korea

Spoiler: South

Korea starts of unified in the South apart from the Island of Jeju. The many coasts and islands of Korea have been added in as well for flavour.

Spoiler: North

In the North a Korean player has to be very wary of a strong Liao in order to reclaim it's northern border. As well as having Ulleungdo for a stepping stone to attack Japan.(Or a really ambitious player to play as.)

My next step was expanding the map further south so this led to me needing to add areas to Africa.

Spoiler: Africa

Spoiler: Gambia

As you can see it's only small amounts here.

Spoiler: Somalia

As you can see there are more areas to the south, however they are owned by their respective "power player" in the area. In the future this area may be expanded flavourwise.

Next is Indonesia.

Spoiler: Indonesia

Spoiler: Sumatra

Spoiler: Java

Here you can see some good opportunities for each kingdom. So far Bali, despite being small in size, starts off in a strong position.

Spoiler: Borneo/Sulawesi

A tribal island next to a Sinicised one leads to some interesting outcomes.

Spoiler: Philippines

As you can see this area is strong island based and will rely on troop transports to seize control.

I also worked on the frozen North.

Spoiler: North

And finally the latest update in Tibet.

Spoiler: Tibet

I also did a little bit of Graphic design for the mod, as I did the images for the Japanese castles, cities and temples.

Spoiler: Japanese structures

As well as working on updating a lot of the Religious icons

Spoiler: Religion

The Future?
Alpha is being aimed for the 14th of this month. However at the moment it is just that an Alpha. We are planning and working on many more events, decisions, flavour and historical characters in order to create a Paradox feeling experience. With this I also announce that I will be doing a map update to China following release in order to get a more accurate feeling and stronger China. We also have many ideas for mechanics, events and decisions along the line available to each area. Furthermore as someone who can use Maya, I am looking at possibly creating unit models.
We hope you all enjoy our mod that we have poured a lot of work into getting it working (with an incredibly small team.)

Thank you,
Deathlinger.

 

[Celcerwony]

Awesome work! There seems to be so many possibilities and depth in the map! Can't wait to invade Japan with the Ainus...

 

[Keizer Harm]

It looks great, but aren't you overdoing it a bit on the province count in Japan and Korea? They should have density comparable to vanilla. So I don't think Okinawa for example should have three provinces, if Cyprus only has two and Orkey and Shetland only one each.