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I do not think I have parsed this correctly; it sounds like you are averse to mixing government types within one realm, which converting to a religion incompatible with Confucian Bureaucracy would achieve? That is the case in vanilla though: nothing is stopping a feudal realm from vassalising a Chinese one, etc. And wasn't the point of ConBur that it did not care what religion its vassals have and cannot revoke them for it? Ergo, it shouldn't care if they are feudal, monastic feudal, theocratic, Japanese Imperial etc. either, right?

I don't mind the government types in a realm sometimes becoming a mix, and it will still be possible for that to happen in various other ways (e.g. you could convert to Sunni after that spreads along the Silk Road and ends up in your realm, or you could swap to a different culture), but these particular decisions were meant to only allow (the culture-appropriate subset of) conversions that didn't result in that.

As for religious revokation not being possible if you've got the Confucian Bureaucracy government (or Chinese Imperial), that is the case, but since a more open decision would have the potential for conversion to a reformed faith that isn't "Chinese enough" and that thus doesn't get Confucian Bureaucracy it would create issues from the other direction (e.g. I want to weaken certain vassals, so I flip to a version of Reformed Shenist that isn't "Chinese enough", pass religious revokation (we'll assume I've depowered the council so that it doesn't matter or that I can force it through), and go on a revokation spree (and maybe convert back later)).

While we potentially might open up Confucian Bureaucracy slightly more, we're not going to make it something that you can get with any reformation of a religion that has the potential to be "Chinese enough" since there are reformations that seem like they wouldn't be particularly likely to result in a religion that is unlikely to consider a multi-religious society to be a great idea (e.g. Dogmatic anything), and we also want the option to intentionally reform to a religion that wouldn't be "Chinese enough" (or "Viet enough", or whatever) to escape from Confucian Bureaucracy (and/or Chinese Imperial), since some people might want to do that.

Right, that's a valid gameplay argument; though if I recall correctly, the vanilla Dharmic religion decision can only be taken once a lifetime. So no temporary flipflopping possible there.

I'll grant that vanilla doesn't allow multiple conversions using the Dharmic decisions, and something similar could (and probably should) be added for these decisions (there currently isn't anything like that, since I based the script for the Chinese/Viet/Korean decisions on the script for the Jurchen one-way conversion decisions that didn't have the check as there's no decision for reconversion) but the decisions still make it easier to move between religions than it normally is (you'll still have the "Convert to secret religion and instantly go public" option, the "Move capital and convert to local religion" option, and a bunch of other less straightforward options for the conversion or conversions that you'll be doing outside of the decision), and I don't really think it needs to be easier in a more general case.

I agree that a specific "convert to the pagans we used to be" decision would be out of scope and lacking from vanilla, but that was not what I was suggesting: only for the decisions you added to be congruent with the vanilla Dharmic decision.

It of course depends on how exactly you interpret the rationale of that decision. Does it mean: "in this realm we do not care about religion, so feel free to follow any that we are accustomed to"? Then it would make sense for Koreans/Viet living in a Chinese Realm, to not be able to convert to a religion China is not comfortable with. But it would not make sense for people living in a Korean/Viet Empire of their own making, which doesn't even have to have the Confucian government type, and ergo, does not even have to be religiously tolerant. Easy solution: only allow these decisions if the top liege is a Chinese Bureaucracy.

If the rationale behind the vanilla Dharmic decision is independent of the current realm, and rather goes like "these three religions are our cultural roots, and we do not care which of them you follow so convert away!" it again makes no sense for a weird version of a character's ancestral religion to be excluded, because by definition it is part of the cultural heritage.

How do you interpret the Dharmic decision?

I interpret the Dharmic decisions as "These religions, with these historical features, would normally be okay with conversion from one to the other, and thus there's an easy way to do that", and the new decisions are meant as something similar (with "these historical features" replaced by "these features that are reasonably close to the unreformed religion, Buddhist, and Taoist" in the case of reformed pagans), restricted to a small set of cultures that can get certain government types that would work well with multi-religious realms, and with the conversion to/from the pagan religions also being restricted to the cultures that seem the most likely to swap to them (as e.g. a Korean Silla swapping to Thanist shouldn't be particularly common compared to it swapping to Muist and it thus feels like the former swap doesn't need to be allowed with a decision).

As for the potential Korean/Viet feudal realm that doesn't have Confucian Bureaucracy or Chinese Imperial, there are currently only two ways that situation could arise in Tianxia (at least as far as I can remember): You're already following a religion that isn't "Chinese enough" (e.g. Catholic, Sunni, Norse, or a weirdly reformed Muist), or (assuming you've not become a pretender empire (and thus Chinese Imperial), as that takes precedence) you hold the ERE/RE (the Roman Government takes precedence over Confucian Bureaucracy, since the PDS devs have decided that that is an option regardless of religion and culture (we've make Chinese/Japanese Imperial take precedence, in the unlikely event that either is relevant, but have otherwise not restricted it further)). In the former case, I don't feel that the conversion needs to be easier (except possibly for a future, slightly expanded "Korean/Viet enough" set of reformations that would allow Confucian Bureaucracy but not Chinese Imperial) as you've moved away from "This religion is historically compatible with Taoist/Buddhist", and in the latter case the conversions would still be an option since nothing in the decision checks if you're Roman Imperial.
 
I don't really understand the balancing of it all and I assume that it works well but is there any actual historical justification for those holy sites? Not only having sites of a same religion spreading across different cultures seem a bit odd to me, the even the ones within the culture don't seem too obvious to me as to why they are chosen. For taoism for instance, from my limited understanding, the 5 yue mountains, where the emperors had been performing fengshan ceremonies since han times, should be the most obvious equivalence.
 
I don't really understand the balancing of it all and I assume that it works well but is there any actual historical justification for those holy sites? Not only having sites of a same religion spreading across different cultures seem a bit odd to me, the even the ones within the culture don't seem too obvious to me as to why they are chosen. For taoism for instance, from my limited understanding, the 5 yue mountains, where the emperors had been performing fengshan ceremonies since han times, should be the most obvious equivalence.

As in the case of (most of) vanilla's religions, the holy sites are intentionally spread out a bit to make it somewhat hard to get control over several of them (to say nothing of all of them), which sometimes means you can't pick the most obvious sites. The new Taoist/Shenist holy sites were mainly picked so that three are spread across the China region (in rather important cities) and the other two are in locations that China historically sought to control and that might convert to Taoist with the new decisions.

If you can tell us some other counties that would be more sensible and that wouldn't cause them to be located much more closely together (and that put at most four of them under the direct control of any one realm that follows (or is somewhat likely to flip to) the religion in question at any start date), we might consider moving the holy sites accordingly (and we might make that decision on our own if we come across some better candidates on our own).
 
The ones outside of China are usually semi/wholly fictitious. Kunlun is the axis mundi of the world and the place where Xiwangmou hold court. Various mountains in Tibet have been attributed as the site. Tibet also have Tianshan and Tianchi, both carry mythological association. Penglai is a supposed paradise that was traditionally associated with Japan. I imagine any Japanese island would do since it isn't real anyway. The Southern China Sea is where the Guanyin bodhisatta resides according to Taoist tradition. Taiwan and Vietnam would probably tangentially qualify.

For the two or three in China, Songshan in Henan is probably the most important and should perhaps replace Kaifeng. Huashan is the sacred mountain of the West but Shaanxi is too close by so Qingchengshan near Chengdu would probably be more qualified. Plus Chengdu is already in. Hengshan in Hunan to the South is also a bit too close to Henan and maybe can be replaced with Longhushan in Jiangxi, which was where Zhang Daoling studied. In the East, Taishan in Shandong seems far away enough.
 
Sorry if its already been mentioned, but are there incompatibilities between any of this mod's portrait addons? Im just running this mod (and all relevant DLC) but there's a ton of alignment issues.
Edit:Nevermind I read the readme and feel dumb now.
 
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Absolutely loving this so far. I've been following this mod for a while and just discovered the alpha release today and booted it up as soon as I got off work. Hanging out in eastern Japan, slowly plotting my takeover of the empire from the inside and having a blast doing it. Thanks for all the hard work Silversweeper and the rest of the team. Fantastic job, truly.

I found a couple issues though so far, posted them over in the bug thread. With pictures! :)
Three minor, one major (but possibly working as designed), but its not getting in the way of my enjoyment. Well, the fourth issue is pretty frustrating, but I'm getting by.

Also, I'm mostly a lurker and don't know the finer points of how to format a post. How do you make spoiler tags? I wanted to hide the images I posted on the bug thread for convenience but wasn't sure how to do it.
 
Development Diary 28: Japanese Government Changes
Development Diary 28 - Japanese government changes

The historical situation in Japan was rather different from that of many other places during the CK2 era. In addition to the Tenno (a.k.a. the Emperor (not in CK2 terms) of Japan) not being in charge most of the time (by which I obviously mean that he willingly appointed a regent or Shogun, not that he in any way was coerced into it; there is surely nothing to base any such accusations on!), which is not what this dev diary is about, the government gradually shifted from following a very Chinese system (i.e. using the Confucian Bureaucracy government) to becoming essentially feudal (i.e. using the Japanese Feudal government).

In the 6.0.0 version, this switch is set up in a very simple way; you get the Confucian Bureaucracy if any liege of yours is the Tenno (or Chinese Imperial, in case you've ended up under the control of a Chinese Imperial realm) and get Japanese Feudal otherwise. However, while this had the potential to result in some Japanese Feudal rulers, it didn't really happen very often, and you could lose the government type if you ended up under the Tenno's control again, with no warning that this might happen.

In 6.0.1, the government transition mechanic will change, and it will only happen if you take certain decisions (or if you convert to a religion or culture that would use something else, if you become the Tenno, and the like). There's also a new government type that's not Japanese Imperial, Japanese Feudal, or Confucian Bureaucracy: Japanese Monastic Feudal; more on that below.

ck2_1.png


Before showing the requirements for the decisions and the mechanics for the different government types, I should point out that while these things are unlikely to change before 6.0.1 is released it is very possible that we will change some things down the line as we continue to work on Japan.

I should also note that we have not set any characters to actually use the new government types yet, and that we won't be changing that in 6.0.1 since the history files are being overhauled in other areas for 6.1.0 (which hopefully will contain a few more start dates), which will break pretty much every save (6.0.1 will hopefully be mostly compatible with 6.0.0 saves, even if we can't guarantee anything).


Confucian Bureaucracy:

You should already be familiar with this government type. Nothing has changed about it (other than the government transition), and it is always free to swap to it (though you can't have a regent, be at war, or be inaccessible/incapable/a child) from Japanese Feudal and Japanese Monastic Feudal.


Japanese Feudal:

The decision to become Japanese Feudal is available to Shinto rulers and rulers that are Buddhist and part of the Japonic culture group. To switch to Japanese Feudal, one of the following must be true (in addition to not having a regent, not being a war, and not being inaccessible/incapable/a child):

- You have the Japanese Monastic Feudal government.
- You are independent and have 500 prestige.
- None of your lieges have the Japanese Imperial, Chinese Imperial, or Confucian Bureaucracy government and you have 500 prestige.
- Your direct liege is Japanese Monastic Feudal or Japanese Feudal, you have 500 prestige, AND none of your lieges is Chinese Imperial.
- Any liege above you that's Japanese Imperial or that has the Confucian Bureaucracy government is incapable, inaccessible, or in a regency AND none of your lieges is Chinese Imperial.
- You have 2500 prestige AND none of your lieges is Chinese Imperial.

ck2_4.png


Currently, Japanese Feudal works like Confucian Bureaucracy in most respects, but you get the ability to tyrannically imprison people and to tyrannically revoke titles. Religious revokation and demanding conversion is still off the table.


Japanese Monastic Feudal:

The new Japanese Monastic Feudal government is meant to represent the fact that there were some Japanese clans (e.g. the Suwa clan) that were both part of the Shinto priesthood and part of the warrior class (i.e. the feudal nobility). It is only available to Shinto characters. To switch to Japanese Monastic Feudal, one of the following must be true (in addition to not having a regent, not being a war, and not being inaccessible/incapable/a child):

- Your capital is a Shinto holy site, follows the Shinto religion, and is part of your culture group AND you're either part of the Japonic culture group or of the same culture as the Tenno AND you have 2000 piety.
- You have 5000 piety.

ck2_5.png


Japanese Monastic Feudal rulers trade being able to hold cities for being able to hold temples. They also get the option to demand religious conversion (non-imprisoned targets can still refuse), and can freely revoke titles from non-Shinto rulers belonging to all governments other than Japanese Feudal, Confucian Bureaucracy, and Chinese Imperial (and also from Japanese Imperial rulers, but the Tenno is obviously Shinto) if normal title revokation is allowed (religious title revokation isn't accessible, as that would give Japanese Monastic Feudal rulers the ability to go after Japonic Buddhists, which would be a problem).


Japanese Imperial:

ck2_6.png


The only thing that has changed for the Tenno is that he now can ask people to convert to the Shinto religion (they can still refuse if not imprisoned), as it felt rather weird for a religious head to not be able to do that.
 

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So as a Japanese (Monastic) Feudal, do you automatically become Imperial if you become the emperor of anything?
 
So as a Japanese (Monastic) Feudal, do you automatically become Imperial if you become the emperor of anything?

You'll flip to an imperial government in the following circumstances:

- You become the Tenno (by gaining k_chrysanthemum_throne). This results in Japanese Imperial.

- You take the decision to become Chinese Imperial (or inherit/conquer a Chinese Imperial empire (or just China) and convert to an appropriate religion (if Shinto) and/or culture (if not "Chinese enough", assuming the game rule for that isn't unrestricted; Japanese and Yamato culture are "Chinese enough")). This results in Chinese Imperial.

- Your top liege is a Chinese Imperial ruler of China and shares your dynasty. This results in Chinese Imperial.

- You take over the ERE/RE. This results in Roman Imperial unless the title is flagged as a pretender empire (in which case you become Chinese Imperial) or you control k_chrysanthemum_throne (in which case you become Japanese Imperial).

Simply becoming emperor tier does nothing special.
 
You'll flip to an imperial government in the following circumstances:

- You become the Tenno (by gaining k_chrysanthemum_throne). This results in Japanese Imperial.

- You take the decision to become Chinese Imperial (or inherit/conquer a Chinese Imperial empire (or just China) and convert to an appropriate religion (if Shinto) and/or culture (if not "Chinese enough", assuming the game rule for that isn't unrestricted; Japanese and Yamato culture are "Chinese enough")). This results in Chinese Imperial.

- Your top liege is a Chinese Imperial ruler of China and shares your dynasty. This results in Chinese Imperial.

- You take over the ERE/RE. This results in Roman Imperial unless the title is flagged as a pretender empire (in which case you become Chinese Imperial) or you control k_chrysanthemum_throne (in which case you become Japanese Imperial).

Simply becoming emperor tier does nothing special.
Alright, so it sounds like I could turn Japan into a theocracy if I simply avoid gaining the Chrysanthemum throne title? :) I'm looking forward to the new patch!
 
Alright, so it sounds like I could turn Japan into a theocracy if I simply avoid gaining the Chrysanthemum throne title? :) I'm looking forward to the new patch!

Japanese Monastic Feudal, at least (a normal Theocracy is of course unplayable).

Of course, depending on how you view things, Japanese Imperial is also borderline theocratic...
 
Looking forward to the changes to the Japanese government. The current implementation has me flip-flopping back and forth between Japanese Feudal and Confucian Bureaucracy seemingly at random depending on how well-liked the shogun is, and frankly I hate being Confucian. It isn't easy as a small duke/viceroy or count in Japan to fill out your council when every character is required to have 10 learning to hold a position. In my current game I often find myself with empty seats or the best candidate for Marshal, for example, having a martial score of 4 or 5. No restriction under Japanese Feudal makes the situation much more bearable. If you guys are dead-set on keeping that mechanic, I'm honestly just going to mod it out myself.

Story time ahead for the misadventures of the Taira Dynasty starting in 1066, if anyone is wondering how the mod plays as a Japanese vassal. But it's just my personal take on it. Maybe I just suck at the game.

I wonder if playing as Shogun or Tenno from the start would be more fun. My current game where I started as count of Hitachi has turned out to be an absolute slog, honestly. It started out really fun because it was a new and exciting part of the world to play in, wheeling and dealing to take over more land through marriage and assassination. But the wheeling and dealing has all it has been for 250 years or so now. The crown laws are so high all the time and I just can't seem to get ahead. Vassal wars are always either external only or completely disallowed. Often times the Shogun and Tenno are the same dude, and he'll also control the title kingdom of Japan. There will frequently be a situation where he changes the laws for the kingdom of Japan from disallowed vassals wars to external only, simultaneously changing the empire's laws from external only to disallowed (or vice versa) and nothing really changes because I'm a vassal to both titles.

External inheritance is disallowed. Council power never gets above war declarations. AI Japan is strong enough to never be seriously attacked, but not quite strong enough to really make any gains against anyone other than Korea and Manchuria because of the Great Wall that is the Song Empire. I can't attack anyone it seems. The only potential targets in diplo range are China, the Khmer Empire, an Indonesian Empire that formed, and the Mongol Horde (though somehow a Seljuk-controlled merchant republic managed to get trade posts in my counties when I can't even interact with them). Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Ryukyus are always tributaries of either Japan or China.

I'm only a four-county viceroyal duke in modern day Chiba, but I'm an absolute power-house as far as dukes go with 80 gold per month profit and 20-25k levies (easy to do when all I can do to pass the time is improve technology and upgrade my holdings). Of course, none of that matters because I don't have permission to attack my neighbours, and if I do somehow pick up something, the Shogun will take it away. I can't go against his decision because no other vassals will back me up due to the governments free title revocation, so if he wants something from me, I just have to let him take it or I'll lose absolutely everything. Those levies mean nothing against the independent realms in diplo range, but I could easily stomp through Europe or Africa if I had access. Frustrating. I haven't tried it out, but I imagine playing a duke level vassal in China would be much of the same.

I think if I started in Hokkaido or the Ryukyus, independent of Japan, things might have turned out more interesting, but I don't think I would ever willingly play a vassal of Japan again. The only saving grace in the last century and a half of gameplay has been the Black Death honestly. It thinned out the Yamato line and crippled Jin across the sea. They stopped being a tributary and became completely vassalized, but they have a different culture and religion and are united in how much they hate the Shogun and since they recovered from the plague they frequently revolt when the Shogun tries to revoke something, and sometimes they even manage to depose him and replace him with one of his sons.

Centuries of inbreeding ended up with a Yamato woman married into my dynasty with a claim to the throne of the kingdom of Japan (which thankfully became a vassal of the Empire title rather than being controlled by the Shogun directly). Pressed her claim when the king was weakened because all of his troops were in Mongolia dying of winter attrition and won, with the idea being that a member of my dynasty would be next in line for the kingdom. Naturally, she decided to go attack the Mongols just like her predecessor and died in battle fighting Genghis Khan's great-grandson for two counties in Siberia and lost, never having given birth to a son, with her heir being the Emperor who of course is both Tenno and Shogun. Effort well spent on my part. I took advantage of the first opportunity that surfaced in over a century and all it ended up doing was strengthening the Shogun which makes my situation worse. Raged out and I don't know if I'll go back to it. The only thing I can think of to try at this point is to save up like 30k gold, buy all the mercs, and revolt against the Shogun's 90k levies the next time he tries to revoke some stupid little county in Manchuria.

I'm not salty. I am the salt.
7/10, might succumb to masochism again. Maybe the next time I feel like playing in Japan, I'll start in 769 Scandinavia and conquer my way across.

TL;DR In my opinion, playing in Japan kinda sucks if you aren't in charge. But I didn't come across any game-breaking bugs, so I've got that going for me which is nice.
 
@morlund: Thanks for the feedback.

Looking forward to the changes to the Japanese government. The current implementation has me flip-flopping back and forth between Japanese Feudal and Confucian Bureaucracy seemingly at random depending on how well-liked the shogun is, and frankly I hate being Confucian.

How exactly is the flip-flopping happening? Obviously, we've changed how the government switch will work, but if the switch is happening without taking into account whether your liege is the Tenno something odd is going on...

It isn't easy as a small duke/viceroy or count in Japan to fill out your council when every character is required to have 10 learning to hold a position. In my current game I often find myself with empty seats or the best candidate for Marshal, for example, having a martial score of 4 or 5. No restriction under Japanese Feudal makes the situation much more bearable. If you guys are dead-set on keeping that mechanic, I'm honestly just going to mod it out myself.

We might tweak the mechanic (e.g. by scaling the Learning requirement based on tier), but it probably won't go away entirely. Mod it out if you want to, but make sure you make it clear in any future bug reports that you've modded Tianxia itself as you'll mess up the checksum.

Story time ahead for the misadventures of the Taira Dynasty starting in 1066, if anyone is wondering how the mod plays as a Japanese vassal. But it's just my personal take on it. Maybe I just suck at the game.
I wonder if playing as Shogun or Tenno from the start would be more fun. My current game where I started as count of Hitachi has turned out to be an absolute slog, honestly. It started out really fun because it was a new and exciting part of the world to play in, wheeling and dealing to take over more land through marriage and assassination. But the wheeling and dealing has all it has been for 250 years or so now. The crown laws are so high all the time and I just can't seem to get ahead. Vassal wars are always either external only or completely disallowed. Often times the Shogun and Tenno are the same dude, and he'll also control the title kingdom of Japan. There will frequently be a situation where he changes the laws for the kingdom of Japan from disallowed vassals wars to external only, simultaneously changing the empire's laws from external only to disallowed (or vice versa) and nothing really changes because I'm a vassal to both titles.

"Good" to hear that there are issues arising from k_japan and e_japan being held by the same person. I've been of the opinion that there would be gameplay issues with the current setup for a while, so having concrete examples as opposed to just hypotheticals that support my position is nice for future discussions about Japan's de jure and de facto setup and how we model some things there.

There almost certainly won't be any changes to it in 6.0.1, as changing de jure setups and titles is quite likely to break saves, but later patches might change things (and we're planning to e.g. add some ways to become Shogun without first claiming Japan at some point (though since the Kamakura Shogunate only became a thing over a century after Stamford Bridge the mechanics for it aren't exactly at the top of our list of priorities at the moment...)).

External inheritance is disallowed.

I don't think that's particularly likely to affect your situation as a vassal, as you're rather unlikely to end up with an external heir in the first place, and considering that Japan didn't have stuff get inherited out of it historically I'd say that it is how things should be under normal circumstances.

Council power never gets above war declarations.

Japan probably should start shifted significantly further in the council's favour in 1066 (and maybe earlier, too). Not sure if we'll change anything in 6.0.1, though, and it obviously wouldn't affect ongoing saves.

AI Japan is strong enough to never be seriously attacked, but not quite strong enough to really make any gains against anyone other than Korea and Manchuria because of the Great Wall that is the Song Empire.

That honestly sounds like Japan is too expansionist already (I'm guessing you've left the JD "Easy blobbing for everyone!" CBs on?), considering they historically didn't expand much (I believe they got a foothold in the southern parts of Hokkaido fairly late in the CK2 era) outside their 1066 territory, and making it easier to blob is even less desirable in circumstances where blobbing didn't happen historically.

As for not being threatened by foreign invasion, that also is in line with history (well, the Yuan tried...), so we'll probably not make Japan more susceptible to it under normal circumstances.

I can't attack anyone it seems. The only potential targets in diplo range are China, the Khmer Empire, an Indonesian Empire that formed, and the Mongol Horde (though somehow a Seljuk-controlled merchant republic managed to get trade posts in my counties when I can't even interact with them).

Well, playing as a vassal when nearly everyone nearby is a blob will of course limit your expansion opportunities outside the realm. I don't really see what we could do about that, particularly since the area was rather blobby historically and since we're not going to introduce mechanics to break up blobs just for the Far East (and having them everywhere isn't an option, as we don't mess with vanilla).

As for not being able to interact with the Seljuk MR, that sounds like a vanilla issue.

Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, and the Ryukyus are always tributaries of either Japan or China.

Aside from Manchuria not transforming into a rival of China (which is unsurprising, as there aren't great mechanics for that in 6.0.0) and becoming the overlord of Korea (until the Mongols replace them), that sounds fairly historical, which makes it seem like things are working as intended.

I'm only a four-county viceroyal duke in modern day Chiba, but I'm an absolute power-house as far as dukes go with 80 gold per month profit and 20-25k levies (easy to do when all I can do to pass the time is improve technology and upgrade my holdings). Of course, none of that matters because I don't have permission to attack my neighbours, and if I do somehow pick up something, the Shogun will take it away. I can't go against his decision because no other vassals will back me up due to the governments free title revocation, so if he wants something from me, I just have to let him take it or I'll lose absolutely everything. Those levies mean nothing against the independent realms in diplo range, but I could easily stomp through Europe or Africa if I had access. Frustrating. I haven't tried it out, but I imagine playing a duke level vassal in China would be much of the same.

While Japan -- as mentioned in the dev diary -- wasn't entirely bureaucratic, the "ideal" Japan as far as the Tenno is concerned is still a bureaucratic realm, and in a bureaucratic realm consolidating titles in your family and passing them down is a sign of the system breaking down. While we obviously can't have bureaucratic realms not have inheritable titles (as that would result in a game over for anyone playing there), and while we likely will be weakening the Tenno in various ways down the line (e.g. by changing the starting laws in Japan and by introducing mechanics that might make the Tenno a figurehead), it is intentional for it to be more difficult to grow inside a bureaucratic realm than a feudal realm.

I think if I started in Hokkaido or the Ryukyus, independent of Japan, things might have turned out more interesting,

It would be rather different, considering you'd be starting as an independent ruler, would have a different religion, would have a different government type (at least initially), would be part of a smaller realm (at least initially), and so on...

but I don't think I would ever willingly play a vassal of Japan again.

Well, we can't make every start appeal to everyone, and neither can vanilla...

The only saving grace in the last century and a half of gameplay has been the Black Death honestly. It thinned out the Yamato line and crippled Jin across the sea. They stopped being a tributary and became completely vassalized, but they have a different culture and religion and are united in how much they hate the Shogun and since they recovered from the plague they frequently revolt when the Shogun tries to revoke something, and sometimes they even manage to depose him and replace him with one of his sons.

The Black Death is known to sometimes change things, yes.

Centuries of inbreeding ended up with a Yamato woman married into my dynasty with a claim to the throne of the kingdom of Japan (which thankfully became a vassal of the Empire title rather than being controlled by the Shogun directly). Pressed her claim when the king was weakened because all of his troops were in Mongolia dying of winter attrition and won, with the idea being that a member of my dynasty would be next in line for the kingdom. Naturally, she decided to go attack the Mongols just like her predecessor and died in battle fighting Genghis Khan's great-grandson for two counties in Siberia and lost, never having given birth to a son, with her heir being the Emperor who of course is both Tenno and Shogun.

We can't cure normal AI stupidity, and without messing with vanilla to an unacceptable degree we can't limit it very much.

Effort well spent on my part. I took advantage of the first opportunity that surfaced in over a century and all it ended up doing was strengthening the Shogun which makes my situation worse. Raged out and I don't know if I'll go back to it. The only thing I can think of to try at this point is to save up like 30k gold, buy all the mercs, and revolt against the Shogun's 90k levies the next time he tries to revoke some stupid little county in Manchuria.

I'm not salty. I am the salt.

Well, sometimes your plans don't pan out. Next time, making sure that there was an heir before pressing the claim might be prudent...

7/10, might succumb to masochism again. Maybe the next time I feel like playing in Japan, I'll start in 769 Scandinavia and conquer my way across.

To be honest, if your preferred gameplay isn't compatible with being part of a bureaucratic realm and/or playing in an area where blobbing is difficult, the Far East in general and the bureaucratic realms in particular are probably not the right place for you to be playing, and there's only going to be so much that we can change without throwing away all semblance of historical accuracy...

TL;DR In my opinion, playing in Japan kinda sucks if you aren't in charge.

As mentioned above, it is intentional to be rather difficult to play in a bureaucratic realm.

But I didn't come across any game-breaking bugs, so I've got that going for me which is nice.

That is good news for us, at least.
 
We might tweak the mechanic (e.g. by scaling the Learning requirement based on tier), but it probably won't go away entirely. Mod it out if you want to, but make sure you make it clear in any future bug reports that you've modded Tianxia itself as you'll mess up the checksum.
Sounds like you could add decisions to invite proper courtiers to fill those positions, in exchange for a hefty amount of (also scaled) gold/prestige. It doesn't make sense that a ruler would have empty spots for many years, just because they prefer nothing but the best.
That honestly sounds like Japan is too expansionist already (I'm guessing you've left the JD "Easy blobbing for everyone!" CBs on?), considering they historically didn't expand much (I believe they got a foothold in the southern parts of Hokkaido fairly late in the CK2 era) outside their 1066 territory, and making it easier to blob is even less desirable in circumstances where blobbing didn't happen historically.
I think this is where a game rule would be wise. Of course Japan did not expand beyond their isles throughout the game timeframe... but neither did France ever expand into Spain or Germany conquer Italy, yet that is what happens in CKII: and that is what makes the game fun, for it to be dynamic. The game isn't meant to replay history, it is to create alternate history, and just that Japan didn't expand in our reality doesn't mean that they couldn't have. So if you have taken measures to make the game more historical and therefore static, might I suggest that you put them under a Game Rule so those of us who prefer a more dynamic map can have that experience? :)
 
Sounds like you could add decisions to invite proper courtiers to fill those positions, in exchange for a hefty amount of (also scaled) gold/prestige. It doesn't make sense that a ruler would have empty spots for many years, just because they prefer nothing but the best.

Maybe something to consider.

I think this is where a game rule would be wise. Of course Japan did not expand beyond their isles throughout the game timeframe... but neither did France ever expand into Spain or Germany conquer Italy, yet that is what happens in CKII: and that is what makes the game fun, for it to be dynamic. The game isn't meant to replay history, it is to create alternate history, and just that Japan didn't expand in our reality doesn't mean that they couldn't have. So if you have taken measures to make the game more historical and therefore static, might I suggest that you put them under a Game Rule so those of us who prefer a more dynamic map can have that experience? :)

We've not taken any major steps to target Japan specifically. The only things that are remotely relevant are the following:

1. Unless you switch to a completely foreign religion (in which case the game already has gone off the rails), nobody in Japan will have access to Great Holy Wars, as neither the Buddhist nor the Shinto religion has access to them. That's hardly unprecedented, as e.g. all the other Eastern religions don't have them either.

2. The Shinto religion has no holy wars. Again, not unprecedented, as the Taoist and Jain religions don't have them either.

3. Various government types (Chinese Imperial, Japanese Imperial (impossible to get without also being Shinto), Japanese Feudal, and Confucian Bureaucracy) that don't care about religion (which are present in Japan, but not only in Japan) don't get holy wars even if the religion otherwise could get it (Buddhist being the religion normally relevant for Japan). I don't really think we'll change that ("Worship as you like!" and "Buddha vult!" don't fit together particularly well), and since we can't add game rules for everything I feel this is a case where someone that would prefer for things to be working differently can mod the CB files as I'd rather add them sparsely (and maybe reconsider something not added later) than end up with so many game rules that it becomes prudent to cut some of them because they're making it a mess to script something due to all the possible combos that have to be checked.
 
Sounds like you could add decisions to invite proper courtiers to fill those positions, in exchange for a hefty amount of (also scaled) gold/prestige. It doesn't make sense that a ruler would have empty spots for many years, just because they prefer nothing but the best.
Agreed. I was thinking of disabling it, but if there is something I've had no shortage of in my campaign (other than salt), its cash. I have no issue with buying people to fill out my council. The character finder alone isn't enough. Not many people fill the criteria of having 10+ learning, male (until centuries of tech boosting let me raise the status of women), are at least semi-competent in some other skill, and are willing to join the court of what the game would consider to be some minor Duke in the far end of the world. I can find people that meet the first three points, but not any that will join my court because they are already councilors in another duchy. Prestige or Purity/Piety would also work.

How exactly is the flip-flopping happening? Obviously, we've changed how the government switch will work, but if the switch is happening without taking into account whether your liege is the Tenno something odd is going on...
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I don't mean to say that it is bugged or literally random, just that I am not notified when the change happens. It is definitely linked to whether or not the Tenno is my liege. Its just that the Tenno title seems to change hands quite often, sometimes to the Shogun himself. Sometimes I'm vassal to K. Japan but not the Tenno and thus Feudal, sometimes I'm vassal to both and Confucian. It isn't sign-posted, so I only find out I've switched to Confucian when I realize I can't appoint new councilors anymore. As far as I can tell, its all working as designed on that front, which is why I'm looking forward to it being changed. I just hope that in the next version if spend a boat load of prestige to switch to Japanese Feudal, I won't automatically revert back on succession. As it stands, Confucian Bureaucracy feels like a punishment lol


While Japan -- as mentioned in the dev diary -- wasn't entirely bureaucratic, the "ideal" Japan as far as the Tenno is concerned is still a bureaucratic realm, and in a bureaucratic realm consolidating titles in your family and passing them down is a sign of the system breaking down. While we obviously can't have bureaucratic realms not have inheritable titles (as that would result in a game over for anyone playing there), and while we likely will be weakening the Tenno in various ways down the line (e.g. by changing the starting laws in Japan and by introducing mechanics that might make the Tenno a figurehead), it is intentional for it to be more difficult to grow inside a bureaucratic realm than a feudal realm.
I'm not super well versed in Japanese history, but I was skimming through the wikipedia page on the Heian period, and it seems that Japan was pretty much only nominally "Bureaucratic" until around the time of the Kamakura Shogunate, which you mentioned as not being a priority at the moment, far from the Tenno's ideal. It seems in practice the real power was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan, with the Taira clan (my boys) and Minamoto clan (my long time rivals) as secondary powers. Reading through it made me think of a bit of a mix between CK2s Nomad and Merchant Republic governments under a puppet Theocratic head.
As it stands in game, current year 1343, it is somewhat parallel to history with the Taira and Minamoto clans being the first and third most powerful vassal dynasties respectively. The Fujiwara dynasty died out completely in 1242. The second most powerful vassal family is currently the Wanyan, a Taoist Jurchen family that controls the kingdom of Bokkai and were probably a mistake for the Shogun to vassalize. However, none of these "powerful families" have any real power with how tight the reigns are in the government system.

Japan probably should start shifted significantly further in the council's favour in 1066 (and maybe earlier, too). Not sure if we'll change anything in 6.0.1, though, and it obviously wouldn't affect ongoing saves.
That would be ideal in my opinion. I think starting out with at least Council Title Revocation and getting rid of viceroyalties would make things much more dynamic for vassals without crippling the top liege too much I hope. All I want is to be able to fight the stupid Minamoto pricks to get back the barony of Soma in my capital county which they somehow managed to inherit from me over a century ago. And Sagami. I want the county of Sagami. I also want Musashi back, but that isn't the Minamoto's fault. I upgraded the hell out of it so the Shogun revoked it from me and moved the capital there. It isn't in my de jure duchy of Fusa so I couldn't really say no.

As for Japan's AI being too expansionist, uh, that might be true. Here's a picture of the current state of the far east for fun with some notes.
fun_times.png
Green: Me
Yellow: Used to be me
Red: This is where my dreams go to die
Pink: This chunk of Korea was a long time tributary of Japan. I'm not sure when or how China took it as their tributary instead.
Blue: This is the Merchant Republic that has ports in all of my counties somehow. I don't know either, dude. They used to be part of the Great Seljuk Blob before it collapsed from decadence. They were the second most powerful realm after China before that point.

Also of note:
Saliendra, bottom right. Completely blobbed out, took all of Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Malay Peninsula. They are getting a lot of revolts now though, I think they got too big for their britches.

Mongol Empire targeted China very early on after they spawned and lost most of their event troops. Never managed to expand as much as they probably should have but they are still relevant. It probably doesn't help that Temujin died almost immediately of "poor health" as if the game thought he was irrelevant and cleaned him up for performance. I think he was actually landless with just the titular Empire. It was his son that did most of the conquering. Is that supposed to happen? It doesn't seem like that's supposed to happen. I don't know if that's a bug, I mean its CK2, shit happens, but maybe something to look at
And this is a bizarre little gem I stumbled across just looking around the map, He recently moved his capital back to Middlesex from Wolgast, Pomerania.
wtf.png
 
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Agreed. I was thinking of disabling it, but if there is something I've had no shortage of in my campaign (other than salt), its cash. I have no issue with buying people to fill out my council. The character finder alone isn't enough. Not many people fill the criteria of having 10+ learning, male (until centuries of tech boosting let me raise the status of women), are at least semi-competent in some other skill, and are willing to join the court of what the game would consider to be some minor Duke in the far end of the world. I can find people that meet the first three points, but not any that will join my court because they are already councilors in another duchy. Prestige or Purity/Piety would also work.

There are some issues with such decisions (for one thing, the AI won't be able to use them intelligently; for another, you'd have less incentive to use a pre-existing character that's eligible if you easily could get a new one that's guaranteed to not owe someone a Favour or something like that), so it isn't certain that we'll want to use that approach.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I don't mean to say that it is bugged or literally random, just that I am not notified when the change happens. It is definitely linked to whether or not the Tenno is my liege. Its just that the Tenno title seems to change hands quite often, sometimes to the Shogun himself. Sometimes I'm vassal to K. Japan but not the Tenno and thus Feudal, sometimes I'm vassal to both and Confucian. It isn't sign-posted, so I only find out I've switched to Confucian when I realize I can't appoint new councilors anymore. As far as I can tell, its all working as designed on that front, which is why I'm looking forward to it being changed. I just hope that in the next version if spend a boat load of prestige to switch to Japanese Feudal, I won't automatically revert back on succession. As it stands, Confucian Bureaucracy feels like a punishment lol

You shouldn't revert back on succession with the new system unless something weird happens, though it is possible that you might switch to something else in some circumstances, mainly if your heir is/was landed and has/had a less restrictive government type.

As for Confucian Bureaucracy being a punishment, it is intentional for it to be the least vassal-friendly government type in Japan and for vassals to want to get something else. Obviously, the 6.0.0 implementation didn't have a lot of great ways for you to get something else, but considering that we would have had to delay the release of Tianxia as a whole in order to implement something different and that the area isn't literally unplayable we deemed it acceptable for an Alpha version of a mod.

I'm not super well versed in Japanese history, but I was skimming through the wikipedia page on the Heian period, and it seems that Japan was pretty much only nominally "Bureaucratic" until around the time of the Kamakura Shogunate, which you mentioned as not being a priority at the moment, far from the Tenno's ideal. It seems in practice the real power was in the hands of the Fujiwara clan, with the Taira clan (my boys) and Minamoto clan (my long time rivals) as secondary powers. Reading through it made me think of a bit of a mix between CK2s Nomad and Merchant Republic governments under a puppet Theocratic head.

We can't really use any of the nomadic/MR government stuff for a feudal government (both government types are DLC-locked (and I'm not sure how many parts of them can be used elsewhere without the relevant DLC, at least not if you want someone to be playable), very hardcoded (and/or tied to defines that we can't change without changing how some vanilla government works), and extremely messy to use for anything other than what vanilla uses them for), and using the actual Theocracy government for the Tenno is not an option if we want him to be playable (which we do).

As for where the power really was, we're aware that the current setup isn't ideal, and that the regency ends as soon as the first regent dies (because the AI Tenno is smart enough to realize that it is stupid to appoint a new regent when he doesn't have to).

A very rough (and off the top of my head, so I might have messed something up) outline of how things probably (it depends on whether we can make it work in a fashion we like) will work at some point in the future (not in 6.0.1):

- 769: Empress Koken is the bureaucratic ruler of Japan. There is no regent, and no Shogun. Most (possibly all) vassals have Confucian Bureaucracy as their government type.
- 867 and 936: The Fujiwara regency is a thing, and the Chrysanthemum Throne is losing/has lost a lot of actual power. Vassals are transitioning to Japanese Feudal.
- Stamford Bridge: The Fujiawara regency is the power behind the throne. While the Tenno keeps some power (mainly the bits we can't remove with laws), approval is needed from the regent on most things (there will probably be some way for the Tenno to attempt to forcibly oust the regent that the regent doesn't need to approve). Nearly everyone is Japanese Feudal/Japanese Monastic Feudal.
- 1066 to 1185: Various regents (mostly Fujiwaras) rule in all but name. Essentially, this is the same as 1066.
- 1185 to 1333: The Kamakura Shogunate is a thing. The Tenno is a figurehead, and there's a regent. Aside from the Tenno, Japan is basically completely Japanese Feudal/Japanese Monastic Feudal.
- 1333 to 1336: The Kanmu Restoration. There's no shogun. The regent is a factor. Japan is basically completely Japanese Feudal/Japanese Monastic Feudal.
- 1336 to 1337 (and later, even if that's not playable): The Ashikaga Shogunate is a thing. There is a regent. Japan is basically completely Japanese Feudal/Japanese Monastic Feudal.

There will also likely be special factions to attempt to install a regent, to replace the regent, to attempt to end the regency (which most vassals should have no interest in), and the same for a shogun, but until we've figured out if various things can be implemented it is hard to say for sure.

As it stands in game, current year 1343, it is somewhat parallel to history with the Taira and Minamoto clans being the first and third most powerful vassal dynasties respectively. The Fujiwara dynasty died out completely in 1242. The second most powerful vassal family is currently the Wanyan, a Taoist Jurchen family that controls the kingdom of Bokkai and were probably a mistake for the Shogun to vassalize. However, none of these "powerful families" have any real power with how tight the reigns are in the government system.

Well, historically powerful families can die out or become irrelevant elsewhere in CK2 (or might stick around longer than they should; looking at you, Karlings!), so that's not a Japan-specific problem. Of course, I don't remember if we're missing a bunch of Fujiwaras (or Fujiwara spouses, which might be a factor since there's not a lot of potential spouses around at the start) in 1066, so it is possible that that is a contributing factor.

That would be ideal in my opinion. I think starting out with at least Council Title Revocation and getting rid of viceroyalties would make things much more dynamic for vassals without crippling the top liege too much I hope. All I want is to be able to fight the stupid Minamoto pricks to get back the barony of Soma in my capital county which they somehow managed to inherit from me over a century ago. And Sagami. I want the county of Sagami. I also want Musashi back, but that isn't the Minamoto's fault. I upgraded the hell out of it so the Shogun revoked it from me and moved the capital there. It isn't in my de jure duchy of Fusa so I couldn't really say no.

We're going to have to see just what would be reasonable from a historical standpoint and will work with other things we do (e.g. making the regent a real factor) before we make any changes, and we'll not make it completely impossible for the Tenno to reach the point where nobody realistically can oppose him inside the realm. After all, if you're playing as the Tenno you'd presumably wouldn't want to spend the whole game being a figurehead to one degree or another...

As for Japan's AI being too expansionist, uh, that might be true. Here's a picture of the current state of the far east for fun with some notes.
View attachment 507114Green: Me
Yellow: Used to be me
Red: This is where my dreams go to die
Pink: This chunk of Korea was a long time tributary of Japan. I'm not sure when or how China took it as their tributary instead.
Blue: This is the Merchant Republic that has ports in all of my counties somehow. I don't know either, dude. They used to be part of the Great Seljuk Blob before it collapsed from decadence. They were the second most powerful realm after China before that point.

Also of note:
Saliendra, bottom right. Completely blobbed out, took all of Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Malay Peninsula. They are getting a lot of revolts now though, I think they got too big for their britches.

Mongol Empire targeted China very early on after they spawned and lost most of their event troops. Never managed to expand as much as they probably should have but they are still relevant. It probably doesn't help that Temujin died almost immediately of "poor health" as if the game thought he was irrelevant and cleaned him up for performance. I think he was actually landless with just the titular Empire. It was his son that did most of the conquering. Is that supposed to happen? It doesn't seem like that's supposed to happen. I don't know if that's a bug, I mean its CK2, shit happens, but maybe something to look at
And this is a bizarre little gem I stumbled across just looking around the map, He recently moved his capital back to Middlesex from Wolgast, Pomerania.

Regarding AI expansion, we might need to buff the Mongols as they generally will have to contend with a strong China that's more united than it historically was at that point and a Mongol takeover of China should be reasonably likely, though that will likely have side-effects elsewhere (particularly if the AI decides to ignore China for one reason or another). The other stuff is likely mostly due to JD CBs (and AI going "I have a CB. I must expand if I think I can win the war!").
 
So I've started a different game, and I just noticed things have gotten a little weird in Japan. Not buggy weird, just CK2 being CK2 weird. I've never played nomadic before so I figured I would test it out and conquer my way East eventually.

I started in 867 as Cumania, expanded a little locally at first, died with a child heir and lost the Khaganate, subjugated the Samanids as a kid, revoked all their crap, got enormously powerful, turned 16, conquered Byzantium (still as a Khan, hordes are OP), the Khagan died with a child heir so I inherited the Khaganate once again, conquered Bulgaria, conquered Punjab, some other parts of India, and the Saffarids.

At this point I'm just going for world conquest but forgot that I originally intended to conquer eastward. So I went North East and took over three Khaganates: Kirghiz, Obid, and Liao. Now I share a pretty large border with Tang China, but I'm not ready to go against them yet. I see there are a few border-gore exclaves in my newly conquered Siberian region, belonging to the Khanate of Daidoji. I think, "that's weird, I don't remember that being there. And just a Khanate, not Khaganate?" So I can click on him and I see its a tribal king with Jurchen culture, which I guess gives him the title of Khan.

That's when I realize he's a tributary, and Daidoji is the name of the ruling family of Japan. I didn't know Daidoji was the ruling family, because last time I looked it was Hojo. Shortly before that it was Minamoto for a long time. It was originally Yamato obviously, but it seems like it changes hands a lot. Now here's the weird part.

Japan's a Theocracy.

And no, I don't mean the Tenno is in charge and he's technically the religious head. I mean their government type is Theocratic. From what I can piece together in the history tab for the empire, the Minamotos inherited the Empire from the Yamatos and reigned for several generations. In 924, the celibate Minamoto Tobo ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne with a glorious stewardship stat of 2 and diplo of 4. It would seem to me that he or a relative granted a temple in Yamashiro to his elder sister Minamoto Gensho. Who had a claim to the Empire. And pressed it. And won.

On January 8th of the year 944, Kogo Minamoto Gensho II usurps the Chrysanthemum Throne and takes her theocracy government type with her. Now the title of Emperor and Tenno no longer have dynastic inheritance and every vassal is a confucian bureaucracy and will likely remain that way for a long time. The now Daimyo Minamoto Tobo realizes what an enormous screw-up he is and commits sudoku 19 days later. There only a few claimants to the Empire and every single one has a non-inheritable weak claim.

So yeah, there's basically a Shinto Papacy now, and from what I gather, it is not an enviable position. Reigning Tennos last an average of 12 years before dying of depression.

...

And now I'm realizing that I can't possibly conquer Japan because I only have 44 boats for 80k horsemen. I have so many troops and so much gold from pillaging (sitting on 143k right now that I occasionally get to spend on upgrading my sheep) that I haven't had a need for regular vassals, but I guess I'll need to make a vassal Merchant Republic just for fleet levies. Maybe I'll try to take Venice since they own cities in two of my holdings that I took off of Bulgaria. They can't possibly stand against me, but getting to them with only 44 boats will be a nuisance
 
Update: Same game, the Chinese Emperor converted to Nestorian a little while back and after a series of revolts many of the counties are converting as well. It's now just a Feudal Empire. This is a weird game yo.