[MOD] Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion

[Silversweeeper]

As promised, here are the patch notes for the next Open Alpha version.

Spoiler

Open Alpha 6.0.0 (SQVP) - 23/07/2019
--------------------------------------
Update:
- IMPORTANT: ONLY THE STAMFORD BRIDGE START DATE IS SUPPORTED AT THIS TIME.
- IMPORTANT: VANILLA SAVES AND OLD TIANXIA SAVES WILL NOT WORK.
- IMPORTANT: THE EU4 CONVERTER AND SHATTERED/RANDOM WORLDS ARE CURRENTLY UNSUPPORTED.
- Updated the map significantly, adding over a thousand new provinces, over eight hundred of which are counties.
- Added over thirty new artifacts.
- Added event chains related to finding the new artifacts that aren't around from the start.
- Tweaked the Chinese Imperial government slightly (particularly the number of concubines).
- Added the new Confucian Bureaucracy government (chinese_vassal_government), based on the vanilla government with the same name and Chinese Imperial.
- Added the new Japanese Imperial government, based on vanilla's Chinese Imperial.
- Added the new Japanese Feudal government, based on vanilla's Feudal government and vanilla's Confucian Bureaucracy.
- Moved the Mongol spawn location to the northern edge of Mongolia instead of in some provinces that no longer are at the edge of the map and made them spawn sligthly earlier in the historical case, to better match history.
- Added a system to represent the Mandate of Heaven for Chinese Imperial realms, along with a game rule to disable it (if desired).
- Significantly overhauled starting technology in the Far East.
- Added Temple Names for Chinese Imperial rulers, granted on_death (in line with history), not when taking the throne (as in vanilla). Historical rulers will get their historical temple name if they die while holding a Chinese Imperial title.
- Added an event for the Tenno to pick a new name on getting the throne.
- Added Secret Religious Societies for all of Tianxia's religions.
- Blocked various kinds of holy wars for a few governments that don't care about religion.
- Added a number of permissible intermarriages between Tianxia's religions and some vanilla ones (e.g. Buddhist-Shinto and Shenist-Taoist), since that now is handled explicitly.
- Added the Seafarer flag to a few cultures.
- Restricted the Chinese Imperial Reconquest CB to de jure China and the China region and regular holy war distance (bordering or within two sea zones), and made it possible for pretender empires to use it.
- Tweaked the old Chinese Subjugation CB to now be usable by Chinese Imperial realms against de de jure China and the China region.
- Nerfed Japanese cultural buildings to be more in line with vanilla.
- Nerfed a few cultural retinues to be more in line with vanilla.
- Added a decision for the Emperor of China to move his de jure and de facto capital.
- Added a unique bloodline for the Wanyan dynasty.
- Added pretender bloodlines for the Liao and Xia (Li) dynasties, which will make it easier for them to adopt the Chinese Imperial government.
- Tweaked the decision to become Genghis Khan to avoid some silly cases where the "Greatest of Khans" was the tributary of some other, presumably greater, kha(ga)n.
- Tweaked Muslim religion spread in Indonesia to take advantage of the secret religion system and to actually let the player make a decision about converting or not.
- Blocked Indian Subjugation for Chinese Imperial and Confucian Bureaucracy realms, except for Shinto-Buddhist subjugation within the same culture group.
- No matter how uppity they get, the vassals of Chinese and Japanese Imperial realms can no longer enforce Full Council Authority or Feudal Elective succession.
- Added Yamato, Emishi, Yoruba, and Nivkh cultures.
- Ensured that all Tianxia cultures have access to a cultural retinue of some kind.
- Replaced Tianxia's old Bön and Reformed Bön with the vanilla religions with the same name.
- Removed the unreformed version of the Shinto religion and made the religion itself part of the Eastern group (indian_group), meaning RoI now is required to play it.
- Removed the ability for the Shinto religion to wage holy war.
- Removed the ability for the Tenno to wage Great Holy Wars.
- Locked many religion-specific features previously accessible to unreformed pagans behind reformation, consistent with vanilla.
- Gave some "civilized" pagans access to better succession laws prior to reforming.
- Added a new liberation-style revolt that can happen in Chinese Imperial realms with a Poor or worse Mandate of Heaven rating (assuming tOG is active).
- Restricted the access to raiding to only a few of the new pagan religions (unless a specific HF reformation enables it).
- Added a decision (and related events) letting Shinto and Buddhist characters in the Japonic culture group celebrate Hanami.
- Significantly expanded the Silk Road, both in the Far East and on the vanilla map.
- Slightly expanded the Trans-Sahara Trade Route.
- Added Council Eunuchs for Chinese Imperial realm, requiring Conclave and Jade Dragon.
- Updated the spawn point of the Black Death to be in China proper.
- Updated the plague patterns to include the Far East (including the historical pattern), and added a few new patterns that miss certain areas in the Far East).
- Added Demon Worshipper secret societies for all of Tianxia's religions and for Taoists.
- Gave Shenists, Reformed Shenists, Sanamahists, and Reformed Sanamahists access to the Hermetic Society.
- Incorporated most of the vanilla Grace system.
- Expanded the Grace decisions a bit beyond vanilla.
- Added Grace penalties to many, many vanilla events and decisions.
- Added tiered tributaries for a Chinese Imperial China, if Jade Dragon is active.
- Tweaked the conditions for adopting Chinese Imperial slightly.
- Becoming Chinese Imperial no longer destroys your primary emperor title, letting you keep your de jure claims.
- Added ways for characters in/near China to get special Chinese characters (Scholar-Bureaucrats, etc.) and artifacts without using the Grace system, requiring Jade Dragon.
- Incorporated most of vanilla's JD events tied to China.
- Slightly expanded the Kowtow events to account for the fact that the player might be involved in other ways than in vanilla.
- Added events to pick the name for any Chinese Imperial empire you take over from another dynasty or create.
- Added new bloodlines for creating a pretender empire or for founding a new Chinese Imperial dynasty in China itself.
- Added unique reformation Doctries for all of Tianxia's pagans (requiring HF).
- Added the ahistorical Three Mountains Doctrine (requiring HF) for Ryukyuan pagans.
- Added the Confucian Principles Doctrine (requring HF+JD) for Shenist, Muist, Thanist, and Ryukyuan pagans, granting access to Chinese Imperial/Confucian Bureaucracy with specific reformation picks.

 

[Wixelt]

Do we have a mechanic for renaming dead Tennos?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Do we have a mechanic for renaming dead Tennos?

No. You get to pick a regnal name when getting the throne (and get to pick a new one if you lose the throne and then regain it), but that's it at the moment.

 

[FIorance]

Will open alpha be available for download?

 

[SHACA]

Could we know how many bookmarks will next version have？

 

[Silversweeeper]

Will open alpha be available for download?

Yes; you'll have it no later than Sunday (well, depending on timezones it could possibly be Monday for someone...), barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Could we know how many bookmarks will next version have？

It is impossible to say, since it depends on what you consider the next version and various other factors, with one significant factor being how many issues there are with 6.0.0 (as mentioned before, there probably will be some issues that we've not discovered before as there likely will be a lot more people playing the mod)l.

- Any hotfix patch (6.0.0.1, etc.) won't contain any additional bookmarks, since such a patch is meant to quickly fix a critical issue (e.g. an event resulting in a CTD).

- Any bugfix patch (6.0.1, etc.) is extremely unlikely to contain any additional bookmarks, since the focus will have been on fixing bugs. Smaller additions might be made as part of such a patch, but even that isn't extremely likely.

- Any content patch (6.1.0, etc.) might contain additional bookmarks, but it depends a lot on what we've managed to get done. Bookmarks are quite high on the list, but they take a lot of time to get done (in part because there's a significant amount of research going into them), and people will probably work on other things on the list as well, some of which aren't insignificant.

- Another major overhaul patch (7.0.0, etc.) is unlikely in the near future (though it partially depends on what happens with vanilla).

I think CM and tOG are in decent shape at the moment (it has been a while since I checked them, since they've not been a priority), so they might get done at the top-liege level (which is the level Stamford Bridge is done at right now) relatively soon. IC needs significantly more work (in part because it wasn't something we thought we needed until the CK2 devs started teasing it), so that's a bit unlikely to be released as quickly as the other two (though it partially depends on when we decide to release the next content patch and what we focus on when it comes to new content).

The post-Stamford Bridge start dates (which are anything from 1066.9.16 to 1337.1.1) are probably decently complete early on (say a decade or so post-Stamford Bridge) but become significantly less complete later on. They'll also have a lower priority than the pre-Stamford Bridge start dates (since we know people like to start early), so it will probably be quite some time before we even get started on them and it will likely take us quite a while to get them all done even after we have gotten started. We'll probably also complete them in chronological order, so while it is possible that e.g. the Alexiad (and various dates between that bookmark and Stamford Bridge) will be supported decently soon after the pre-Stamford Bridge bookmarks get done you'll probably not see the Third Crusade or the Late Middle Ages bookmarks anytime soon.

 

[LumberKing]

The download for the Open Alpha 6.0.0 is now up on front page!

 

[Owukox]

The download for the Open Alpha 6.0.0 is now up on front page!

Wow, it was quicker than expected, thank you very much ! I'm gonna download it right away .

 

[Silversweeeper]

SURPRISE!

In addition to reporting any bugs you discover, it would be interesting to get some feedback about which rulers you choose to start as (and why), how it was playing them, and (if relevant) what made you end the campaign earlier than you normally would, so that we both can get an idea of where people are playing and what we can try to improve.

 

[Tetragrade]

Yeah boiiiii.

 

[Salx182]

Congrats on the release guys! This mod looks amazing, and I've been waiting to sink some serious time into it once a release came around.

Just a question though, is the content pack up to date as well? When I launched with the main mod, some of the portraits had issues with floating features and the like, and I'm not sure if I borked the installation or something, or if it just isn't ready yet.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Congrats on the release guys! This mod looks amazing, and I've been waiting to sink some serious time into it once a release came around.

Just a question though, is the content pack up to date as well? When I launched with the main mod, some of the portraits had issues with floating features and the like, and I'm not sure if I borked the installation or something, or if it just isn't ready yet.

All the graphical submods other than the Chaldean one (which is unused) and the Late Western Clothing one (which only should show up late in the game) should be up to date (those two should probably have been left out of the release...), but they require various vanilla graphical assets to work. See the README file for which DLCs you need, and deactivate anything you don't have the correct DLCs for, as well as the two that aren't up to date.

If you still have issues after having done that, narrow down the issue (by using them one at a time to see which one(s) break things) and make a bug report in that thread.

 

[Elminister]

Seems that the early Chinese and Tibetan portraits pack mod is causing clothing to float away. I have all dlc and clothing packs and no other mods active.

Edit: Also Borneo is coming up as no character just terrain. Will do some more checks for that one.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Seems that the early Chinese and Tibetan portraits pack mod is causing clothing to float away. I have all dlc and clothing packs and no other mods active.

Edit: Also Borneo is coming up as no character just terrain. Will do some more checks for that one.

Please bug report the portrait issue in the bug thread, with some screenshots showing the problem. As the portraits in question don't show up in the Stamford Bridge start (or later), it is possible that there are issues that we've not noticed during testing.

The central parts of Borneo is a wasteland, so if that's all it is as it should be. As far as I can tell, the coasts are fine in the Stamford Bridge start, but if you've got issues for that start you should bug report it. All other start dates are unsupported at this point.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Development Diary 26 - Post-6.0.0 development

The 6.0.0 release appears to have gone relatively smoothly, based on the number of bugs reported and the severity of those bugs. As things currently stand, there's nothing that's broken enough that we'll need to hotfix the mod, but there are a few things that will be fixed in a bugfix patch (6.0.1) at some point in the next month or so. If you discover any issues, make sure you bug report them in the bug thread and that you include the checksum, the version of CK2 you're running, and a list of any other mods you've got active.

Looking beyond 6.0.1 (and any further bugfix or hotfix patches that turn out to be necessary), there will be an eventual 6.1.0 (barring something major happening that results in us moving straight to 7.0.0) content patch. It is far too soon to say anything about when this patch will be done, but it is likely that it will contain at least some of the following:

- The Charlemagne start date.
- The Old Gods start date.
- The Iron Century start date.
- Cultural buildings for the cultures that need them.
- Holy orders for the religions that need them (Shinto, Taoism, various reformed pagans), with related events (founding, castle construction, etc.).
- Tweaks to the government setup in Japan, possibly regency mechanics for Japan, and possibly Shogunate mechanics (this is lower priority since the Kamakura shogunate only became a thing in 1185).
- More dynasty names.
- A Lunar New Year celebration for Taoist/Shenist/Reformed Shenist rulers, and some other flavour related to China/the Chinese religions/the Chinese governments.
- Tweaks to the CBs used to reunite/reconquer China.
- Tweaks to the Mandate of Heaven.
- A Monastic Order for the Shinto religion (+ Japonic Buddhists, most likely).

We're also doing a bunch of cleanup when it comes to our characters, since a lot of placeholders ended up landless following the map rework and our current ID ranges are all over the place. This is a fairly big undertaking, considering how many characters we have (there's almost 5000 non-vanilla Han characters, for example) and that we need to change various references to them as we update the ID ranges, which might affect when we can release 6.1.0, but since it will cause some issues with saves it is preferable to get it all out of the way at once if that is possible, and since we'll need to tweak various title history files as we support more start dates it would be a bad idea to postpone things as that just will cause more work for us down the line.

We'd appreciate maps showing the independent realm setup for the earlier start dates, particularly Iron Century (and particularly what's going on in China as close as possible to 936.8.7). Ideally, these maps would show some landmarks (a bunch of Wikipedia maps regarding the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era don't even show the major rivers, which makes them basically unusable for us). If you feel like creating mock-ups using our province layout, that's an option, though we'd prefer for you to also show us your sources in that case since it would be easy to create inaccurate maps.

Finally, some WIP screenshots from the Charlemagne start:

Culture (the main differences with Stamford Bridge are currently in Manchuria and Japan).

Religion (things south of China are rather different from Stamford Bridge)

Some areas a are a bit less developed in the south.

 

[Wixelt]

Source on Nestorian majorities in the lower Yellow basin?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Source on Nestorian majorities in the lower Yellow basin?

It is a leftover from an old version of Tianxia that I had nothing to do with. There was historically some Nestorian presence in China, but whether it ever became a majority religion in a province is rather more doubtful, so we might reduce their presence a bit. We'll probably keep a few provinces as Nestorian, though, since it is a good way to show that there were some Nestorians around and it can allow for some interesting gameplay possibilities through (secret) conversion to Nestorian (or, if the provinces flip to Messalian due to low MA, conversion to that) for someone that wants to do that.

In general, we have to do a lot of guesswork when it comes to religion since it generally isn't easy to find information about the religion in specific provinces, which means we have to extrapolate from things like the setup around the end date (which we've got the EU4 religious map for), information about when rulers converted (where relevant), information about when certain important temples were built (e.g. Borobudur), information from visitors that might comment on it (e.g. Marco Polo and Zheng He), stuff like Wikipedia's maps showing roughly when a certain religion spread into a general area (which can be quite vague), and what makes for good/interesting gameplay (e.g. Borneo is fully Kaharingan in 769 despite there possibly being some Hindu presence there (it is hard to say how extensive it was), as that presence would open the island up to invasion thanks to removing defensive attrition).

 

[Warial]

We'd appreciate maps showing the independent realm setup for the earlier start dates, particularly Iron Century (and particularly what's going on in China as close as possible to 936.8.7)

Liucheng's maps are generally a good starting point for research. He doesn't have a one for 936, for 935 is close enough I believe.

Spoiler: Map of 935

I'm not sure how whether you guys are literate in Chinese, so just to be sure I'll write down states and their leaders:

- At Yuzhou 蔚(州) you have Zhang Yanchao 张彦超. A Shatuo who was made a prefect of Yuzhou sometime in Tiancheng era (天成, 926-930). When Shi Jintang was made a Jiedushi in Taiyuan he rebelled in 932 and offered allegiance to Liao. (so probably a vassal of Liao instead of independent)
- In Xiazhou 夏(州) you have Tanguts under Li Yichao 李彝超.
- In southwest you have Later Shu 后蜀 under Meng Chang 孟昶.
- To the east of Later Shu you have Nanping 南平 under Gao Conghui 高从诲.
- Pink spot not connected to Nanping is the tribal chiefdom of Peng Shichou 彭士愁 at Xizhou 溪(州). His father was made a prefect of Xizhou by Chu, while his cousin was a wife of the Chu Emperor Ma Xifan. Peng invaded Chu in 939, after she died in 938, so depending on whether you want to treat it as a vassal's rebellion or tributary's defiance, he can be either made a tributary or vassal at the bookmark.
- Between Peng and Nanping you have Chu 楚 under Ma Xifan 马希范.
- The yellow blob is Wu 吴 under Yang Pu 杨溥. The future Emperor of Southern Tang 南唐 Li Bian 李昪 already is a Prince of Qi 齐王 and serves as the regent, he also personally controls 10 provinces Jinling 金陵府, Runzhou 润(州), Changzhou 常(州), Xuanzhou 宣(州), Shengyuan army 胜元军, Chizhou 池(州), Shezhou 歙(州), Raozhou 饶(州), Xinzhou 信(州), and Jiangzhou 江(州).
- To the east there is Wuyue 吴越 under Qian Yuanguang 钱元瓘.
- To the south you have Min 闽 under Wang Chang 王昶.
- In the south you have Southern Han 南汉 under Liu Gong 刘龚.
- A predecessor state to Dali, Da Yining 大义宁 under Yang Ganzhen 杨干贞. In 937 this country will fall to the Jiedushi of Tonghai 通海 Duan Siping 段思平.
- Vietnam is under control of Jiedushi Yang Tingyi/Duong Dinh Nghe who will be killed in March 937 by a noble from Fengzhou/Phong Chau 峰(州) Jiao Gongxian/Kieu Cong Tian, who in turn will be killed by the prefect of Aizhou/Ai Chau 爱(州) Wu Quan/Ngo Quyen.
- In Anxi we have Guiyi Army 归义军 under Cao Yuande 曹元德.
- In Liangzhou 凉(州) we have Liugu Tibetans 六谷部. The area was also the administrative centre of Hexi Jiedushi Li Wenqian 李文谦, who will have to run away from the prefecture to escape from rebelling population.

EDIT: Added info on Li Bian 李昪.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Liucheng's maps are generally a good starting point for research. He doesn't have a one for 936, for 935 is close enough I believe.

Spoiler: Map of 935

I'm not sure how whether you guys are literate in Chinese, so just to be sure I'll write down states and their leaders:

- At Yuzhou 蔚(州) you have Zhang Yanchao 张彦超. A Shatuo who was made a prefect of Yuzhou sometime in Tiancheng era (天成, 926-930). When Shi Jintang was made a Jiedushi in Taiyuan he rebelled in 932 and offered allegiance to Liao. (so probably a vassal of Liao instead of independent)
- In Xiazhou 夏(州) you have Tanguts under Li Yichao 李彝超.
- In southwest you have Later Shu 后蜀 under Meng Chang 孟昶.
- To the east of Later Shu you have Nanping 南平 under Gao Conghui 高从诲.
- Pink spot not connected to Nanping is the tribal chiefdom of Peng Shichou 彭士愁 at Xizhou 溪(州). His father was made a prefect of Xizhou by Chu, while his cousin was a wife of the Chu Emperor Ma Xifan. Peng invaded Chu in 939, after she died in 938, so depending on whether you want to treat it as a vassal's rebellion or tributary's defiance, he can be either made a tributary or vassal at the bookmark.
- Between Peng and Nanping you have Chu 楚 under Ma Xifan 马希范.
- The yellow blob is Wu 吴 under Yang Pu 杨溥.
- To the east there is Wuyue 吴越 under Qian Yuanguang 钱元瓘.
- To the south you have Min 闽 under Wang Chang 王昶.
- In the south you have Southern Han 南汉 under Liu Gong 刘龚.
- A predecessor state to Dali, Da Yining 大义宁 under Yang Ganzhen 杨干贞. In 937 this country will fall to the Jiedushi of Tonghai 通海 Duan Siping 段思平.
- Vietnam is under control of Jiedushi Yang Tingyi/Duong Dinh Nghe who will be killed in March 937 by a noble from Fengzhou/Phong Chau 峰(州) Jiao Gongxian/Kieu Cong Tian, who in turn will be killed by the prefect of Aizhou/Ai Chau 爱(州) Wu Quan/Ngo Quyen.
- In Anxi we have Guiyi Army 归义军 under Cao Yuande 曹元德.
- In Liangzhou 凉(州) we have Liugu Tibetans 六谷部. The area was also the administrative centre of Hexi Jiedushi Li Wenqian 李文谦, who will have to run away from the prefecture to escape from rebelling population.

Thanks. Some of the rulers were already known to me (it's easy to look up the various pretenders and the big kingdoms), and some of them happen to die before 936, but they will probably be useful

As for being literate in Chinese, I'm not, and I don't know about the rest of the team, so anything that's not transliterated (or translated, if it is a big block of text) isn't necessarily useful. The map will probably help, though, since the borders themselves will be useful.

 

[Will Steel]

This looks great. Especially interested in the 935 scenario now.

India looks rather too small and off-scale though. The peninsula part needs to be larger/longer than it is.