[MOD] Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion

[Silversweeeper]

Here's a small, player-only (for performance reasons, mainly, though figuring out the AI logic would probably be a bit messy since we don't know how the marriage logic works...) improvement that should be part of the next version when you get it (not terribly soon, as we have a bunch of things we want to include in it that aren't close to done).

It is now possible for the Emperor of China (and the dynastic ancestor of a female member of the imperial dynasty, e.g. a father towards his daughter) to selectively make Chinese "princesses" available for marriage/betrothal outside the Request Imperial Marriage Grace interaction for a short while (until the next trait update, which happens roughly once per year unless Emperor ruler of China changes; it shouldn't cause any marriages or betrothals to break, but there's a small risk of an update being poorly timed and re-applying the trait in the middle of a marriage/betrothal offer (it's the least bad way to do things behind the scenes, I'm afraid)). This will cost you and her some prestige (currently 500 each) and might hurt the Mandate of the Emperor of China (it'll subtract a set amount from one of the three categories that are being checked behind the scenes the next time it is checked, which could be enough to cause a Mandate drop, but it's not guaranteed to cause a Mandate drop), but if you really need to secure an alliance/NAP (or you're a vassal and you feel like hurting your own dynasty's rule just because you're feeling contrary...) it could be a good idea.


There are also two new bloodlines around in Indonesia (though only one of them will be around at any time because the male line goes extinct), one for the Srivijaya dynasty and one for the Saliendra dynasty (the exact starting point for this one is subject to change as it might make sense to put it one or more generations earlier as the history of the region gets improved). Both of them convey the same benefits (I'm aware the text looks weird, but it is hopefully readable).

AI rulers with these bloodlines will also generally be more interested in waging war for tributaries (permanent if JD CBs are active, non-permanent if not) than other rulers, and Chinese Imperial emperors have also been made quite a bit more interested in doing that, provided the target doesn't hold land in China and that the attacker isn't part of the Genghis Khan bloodline (as Mongols that rule China should be a bit more interested in conquering stuff than just making tributaries).

 

[TheAnguishedOne]

More bloodlines are always appreciated, and I can see some fun alliances being made with that player-exclusive decision.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Dev Diary 31 - Familiar and unfamiliar rulers in China

As mentioned before, the history files are being overhauled quite extensively for the next version. A consequence of that is that there have been some tweaks to existing rulers of China and a considerable expansion of their family trees.

The Emperors of China in 769, 867, and 1066:

Spoiler

(Please ignore that it says "Yuan"; I grabbed these screenshots from the Late Middle Ages start)

Emperor Daizong of Tang has had a number of children (and siblings) added. He's also a zealous Buddhist now, since he was a devout Buddhist.

Emperor Yizong of Tang has gotten a few more children (and siblings) added. He's also a Buddhist and has some... interesting traits to deal with.

Emperor Yingzong of Song has a few more children, and he also has some... issues to deal with on a personal level.

Rulers of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms:

Spoiler

While the Iron Century start date still needs significant work, particularly in China, various rulers have been added in the character history files.

The smaller states:

Meet Emperor Yang Pu of Wu. He's a decent enough guy, putting a lot of faith in...

Xu Zhigao, who is the Chancellor (or most likely Spymaster, in the AI's hands) of Wu. He seems like a guy you really can trust! Maybe even if you have border issues with...

King Qian Yuanguan, who doesn't particularly care for having an imperial throne, as ruling Wuyue is quite enough. He is nominally a vassal of Later Tang at this point, unlike...

Emperor Wang Chang's Min. He's a Buddhist, which isn't particularly common, and rules what most would just call a mid-sized kingdom. To his south, we find...

Emperor Liu Yan of Yue. Well, the Emperor of Han, though his bloodline reflects the fact that he initially proclaimed himself Emperor of Yue. To the west and north of him, you'll find...

King Ma Xifan of Chu. He's a bit suspicious as to what his brothers are up to, but I'm sure he has nothing to worry about. To his north you can find...

The small state of Jingnan, in the capable hands of Gao Conghui. Considering he'sthe underdog by quite a wide margin, swearing fealty might be wise, particularly as he borders Later Tang, Wu, Chu, and...

Emperor Meng Chang's Shu. The ruler there is quite young and doesn't have stellar traits, but he can probably accomplish something, even though he borders the area ruled by Later Tang.

The Five Dynasties:

Nearly extinct at the time of the Iron Century start, the Liang dynasty was the first dynasty of the Five Dynasties. They were replaced by...

The (Later) Tang dynasty! Though not related by blood to the original Tang, the current ruler Li Congke was adopted into the family by Li Siyuan, who was adopted by Li Keyong, who got the Li surname from Emperor Yizong of Tang. That's clearly a valid claim to all of China!

However, when the Iron Century start takes place, he's got trouble with none other than...

Shi Jingtang, who has proclaimed himself Emperor of (Later) Jin. He's invading with the backing of Abaoji (Taizu) of Liao, and has promised to turn over the Sixteen Prefectures if he wins, which surely is the best idea ever!

There are also a couple of generals running around in Later Tang or Later Jin service that might be of interest...

Oh, and there's also this kid that might be important some day...

 

[TheAnguishedOne]

I see a lot of fun potential characters, but Yizong of Tang will be a true treat.

 

[Fitzjacob]

The (Later) Tang dynasty! Though not related by blood to the original Tang, the current ruler Li Congke was adopted into the family by Li Siyuan, who was adopted by Li Keyong, who got the Li surname from Emperor Yizong of Tang. That's clearly a valid claim to all of China!

However, when the Iron Century start takes place, he's got trouble with none other than...

Shi Jingtang, who has proclaimed himself Emperor of (Later) Jin. He's invading with the backing of Abaoji (Taizu) of Liao, and has promised to turn over the Sixteen Prefectures if he wins, which surely is the best idea ever!

Nice, the Later Tang dynasty added in Iron Century is woefully lacking. Looking forward to this!
How are you dealing with their Sha-t'o heritage? I notice that the characters themselves are Han but Congke's grandfather appears to have a different culture.

Also, how is adoption handled? Are you using real parents or adoptive parents? When attempting to fill in the gap of offmap_china for my own mod project, I went with the former while adding fictional descent with common ancestors (but avoiding placeholder characters) which, in hindsight, was probably a bad decision. Screenshot in spoiler for clarification.

Spoiler: Screen

 

[Silversweeeper]

Nice, the Later Tang dynasty added in Iron Century is woefully lacking. Looking forward to this!
How are you dealing with their Sha-t'o heritage? I notice that the characters themselves are Han but Congke's grandfather appears to have a different culture.

Also, how is adoption handled? Are you using real parents or adoptive parents? When attempting to fill in the gap of offmap_china for my own mod project, I went with the former while adding fictional descent with common ancestors (but avoiding placeholder characters) which, in hindsight, was probably a bad decision. Screenshot in spoiler for clarification.

Spoiler: Screen

View attachment 531885

Their grandfather/great-grandfather (Zhuye Chixin) is set as Uyghur (which is the closest approximation we've got at the moment), and a handful of other characters have Uyghur/Mongol/Khitan ancestries handled in the same (or are set as e.g. "culture = mongol" and swapped to "culture = han" on birth/early in their life). I'm not sure if that results in something noticeable (e.g. would a child of a Han (in the history files) child of an Uyghur (in the history files) character be more likely to have the Uyghur portraits than a child of a Han character with no Uyughur parent if the other spouse was the same?), but I believe it is the best possible approach as we'd otherwise have to define characters as "This character looks Uyghur/etc." on a case-by-case basis, which likely would be arbitrary as there aren't too many portraits and portraits aren't always good enough to make a decision on (or could have been intentionally drawn to look like someone looked ethnically Han/not ethnically Han based on whether that fit a narrative ("I'm totally Chinese and therefore get to be the emperor!") or not ("He was a foreigner, so he had no right to rule China!")).

Right now, real parents are used nearly all the time unless it doesn't matter (I believe Xu Zhigao and one or two other characters have their adoptive parents set (still not as birth parents, but set with set_father) because their real parents didn't show up and it didn't really matter when it came to gameplay). I'm not certain, but I suspect that it might mess with historical bloodlines (which should be passed to biological children only) if the adoptive father was set in some cases, and it also avoids making the Validator cranky because someone adopted a child that was born when the adoptive parent was too young or something. It might result in some historical successions not being possible in the game depending on whether there was someone that was passed over by an adopted brother, but it should be a rather rare issue.

In the game, I'm toying with the idea of perhaps creating a custom succession law that'd essentially be "Tanistry, but only the Emperor votes, the AI logic favours some Chinese stuff, and you can only pick distant descendants under special circumstances (e.g. if you don't have children)" to handle it, but that risks running into problems due to you never risking having a bad heir (which already is less likely due to heir designation being an option) and due to making it impossible to inherit China/pretender empires as another dynasty (because the Emperor would just pick some very distant dynastic relative instead of letting your closer non-dynastic relative inherit) unless the children of the current ruler are from your dynasty (which isn't ideal from a gameplay standpoint, but which wouldn't really affect historical inheritances), so it isn't certain that that'll be something we add, and e.g. a targeted decision for adoption is quite unlikely as that has a bunch of issues (e.g. making it possible to dodge a game over, either messing with vanilla too much or not showing up for non-Far Eastern cultures/religions that should have it (Romans, to name one), and having nothing to go on when it comes to AI logic (and making it player-only doesn't feel great)).

 

[vnth]

xu zhigao claimed patrilineal descent from wu prince li ke, son of tang taizong. authenticity notwithstanding, maybe there could be an event for him or his dynasty to be viewed as legitimately a part of tang's li linage with sufficient power? for that matter, can he take over and establish southern tang through scripting?

 

[Silversweeeper]

xu zhigao claimed patrilineal descent from wu prince li ke, son of tang taizong. authenticity notwithstanding, maybe there could be an event for him or his dynasty to be viewed as legitimately a part of tang's li linage with sufficient power? for that matter, can he take over and establish southern tang through scripting?

There will probably be a decision added for him and his starting children (but not for all descendants, as that could cause issues) that lets them change their dynasty to the Tang's Li provided they rule a pretender empire (or China itself) named Tang (which they're set to heavily prefer as the name of their pretender empire if there's not another Tang around) and that there's no other Tang Chinese Imperial empire when they become Chinese Imperial (and Later Tang will probably not be along for long after the Iron Century start, as they'll be starting out facing off against Later Jin and Liao in a war that will be balanced with the intention of making Later Tang lose most of the time).

There's nothing special letting him take over Wu (or some other empire he somehow ends up as part of), and the most I'd feel like adding is a non-inheritable claim (that'd likely not be usable by the AI because chances are Xu Zhigao will be placed on the council as he'll probably be a powerful vassal (and as he was the regent of Wu it makes little sense to disqualify him from being on the council), which would make him unable to join factions unless Yang Pu becomes a tyrant or he gets fired since the AI doesn't understand that it should resign in order to start a faction for a title). Any special decision for usurpation would be railroady, would break the rules for how titles are usurped elsewhere, and wouldn't be particularly fun for the player to be targeted by (and wouldn't be particularly fair if the player was immune by virtue of being the player), so I can't say I'm remotely interested in adding something like that, and if someone else feels like doing it I'll probably add a game rule to disable it as soon as I become aware of it existing. However, if you want to create a submod for it you can certainly do that, and it would probably be reasonably straightforward.

 

[Silversweeeper]

I would like to remind everyone that tomorrow (the 14th) is the last day to PM me if you're interested in helping out with the testing of future versions of Tianxia prior to their release. I have already gotten some applications, but as things currently stand your chances of becoming a tester are still pretty good if you apply before the deadline.

 

[vnth]

regency and council potions generally in this game really do not reflect the same mechanic in bureaucratic monarchies. if any thing it's a massive disadvantage for the ai. i feel like people like liu zhiyuan and xu zhigao should somehow be disqualified from council to nudge them toward rebellion.

regardless, the team's attention to details is truly astounding. cant wait for the new update.

 

[MechaShadowV2]

Speaking of Iron Century, China is non existant at that start, is it just not done yet or is that a glitch?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Speaking of Iron Century, China is non existant at that start, is it just not done yet or is that a glitch?

The fact that China itself has no holder is as it should be, as 936 was in the middle of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era and there wasn't a reasonably united China at the time. The lack of rulers in the region is due to the history files mostly predating the map rework (with new counties using old counties' history files as placeholders, which already had placeholder characters pretty much everywhere) and thus predating Iron Century's release by quite a while (I believe many of them haven't been touched since before the 2017 Open Alpha version, which was before I joined the team).

The above, plus the fact that we haven't really polished 769/867 and that those two dates have some known errors (for example, the Three Fanzhen of Hebei (which should be independent) and some nearby de facto independent "vassals" of China (unsure if they'll be fully independent or some form of tributary) don't exist at present), is why we're saying that we only support using the Stamford Bridge start as we're reasonably sure that start date is mostly correct (which means that the bug reports and feedback we get regarding things there is less likely to boil down to "Unfinished/WIP things need work!") and that the game won't crash if you start from it (we've not run observer/playtest games in the earlier start dates for quite a while (and we've not run any in the IC start unless you count launching it to do character searches/to check borders in areas that have been worked on/to use the console to see that the one war we've gotten around to adding works as it should), so we don't know if the mod is stable or not in those starts).

Getting Charlie, the Old Gods, and the Iron Century done enough that we are prepared to say that we support them is at the top of our priority list along with a few other things (fixing bugs, cleaning up/restructuring the character history files (just adding more characters in a haphazard manner is how the current mess happened in the first place), tweaking mechanics such as the Mandate of Heaven as necessary (I suspect it'll need some work to make various pretenders in IC have a Mandate rating that's not always Poor or Lost), and [Redacted, though it might have been mentioned in the past]). Some other things will occasionally be worked on/added in between the start dates and other high priority issues because -- quite frankly -- it gets a bit tedious to work on the history files all the time and sometimes there's not something on the priority list that can be worked on (e.g. if there are no known bugs we can't bugfix something).

There will likely be a dev diary later this week (probably Friday or Saturday) that'll give a somewhat detailed overview as to where we are when it comes to CM, tOG, IC, and Stamford Bridge (there are reasons to include this even though it is "done" to an extent). For now I'll just say that there's still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Dev Diary 32 - A bookmark progress update

I had some extra time on my hands today, so I figured I might as well write the dev diary early.

As previously mentioned, getting the early start dates in order and cleaning up/improving the history files are a couple of the things we want to do before the next version is released, and though there still is a bunch of work to be done some areas are starting to become relatively finished.

Why "areas" and not "start dates"? Quite simply, it tends to be easier to work on a file-by-file basis rather than a date-by-date basis, both because you don't need to switch between files as much and because it tends to be easier to keep track of references when doing that; for example, if you look up a ruler on Wikipedia chances are the article will contain links to his children, predecessor, successor, and possibly other relevant characters, and those characters will usually go in the same file.

As a lot of areas are very WIP I'll ask you to NOT point out issues unless they are about the Stamford Bridge borders or it is something I write the equivalent of "Please give feedback about this!" about, and I'll also ask you to give feedback based on the screenshots and not the version of the mod you've got access to (unless you're a tester, in which case you can give feedback about the Closed Alpha version in that forum). The usefulness of feedback elsewhere is going to be extremely limited as it both is possible that we already know that something is wrong and is possible that we'll forget anything pointed out now before we get around to working on a certain area as we'll not be doing that right away.

It should be noted that holding density (and type) probably will be revised a bit across the board as the earlier starts start being completed and that that thus isn't included in something being "done".


Africa

Spoiler

Both West/Central and East Africa are "done" up until the end of the game, though nearly every character we've added in the area is a fictional placeholder; I believe there are six historical characters and two Easter eggs in addition over two hundred completely made up placeholders. Should we discover any good historical replacements we'll of course add them, but it is not really a priority to improve Africa further, at least not when other areas need more work. As the borders barely change at all I'll only include one screenshot.

Japan

Spoiler

The de jure of Japan has the proper top liege up to the beginning of 1185 (though the exact setup in northern Honshu might change slightly in 769), but things fall apart at that point as the Kamakura Shogunate isn't included in the files at present. However, there aren't currently very many vassals around despite there being a number of possible vassals to add, and both the Imperial Family and the Fujiwara family are missing quite a few members that probably should be added due to there being enough information (if there's a date of birth, a date of marriage, a date of death, a date for when they ruled or held an office, or a date of a child's birth it tends to be possible to add a character with guesses for other things) about them to add them. This is of course something that will be improved as the history files get cleaned up.

We'll also almost certainly have some vassals that start out as Japanese Feudal or Japanese Monastic Feudal down the line, and some other mechanics are being prototyped in the area that should make certain things more accurate if they turn out to work well. I'll probably hold off on writing a dev diary about these mechanics until they've been tested a bit more, though, as I'd rather not say that we're adding something and then have to retract that statement.

Korea

Spoiler

The Korean peninsula (plus islands in de jure Korea) should have correct top lieges up until the end, though some ruler changes might be possible to improve due to happening on January 1. I believe it is possible to add some more family members for some rulers, but I'm not certain. Currently, there aren't very many vassals around, which might be something to improve over time, particularly as it might be possible to find some good historical candidates. We are, however, largely done with improving the existing character history files in the region.

If something in this area looks odd, please let us know.

Hokkaido and Sakhalin

Spoiler

Neither of these are done. While there are rulers in the area, many of them have the wrong culture and/or religion, and they need to be updated as a result. Chances are basically everyone here will have to be a placeholder.

Manchuria

Spoiler

Manchuria is, with the exception of two counties in the north-east, mostly done up to 1066 (and a little bit further). Aside from the kings of Balhae and their family members and the Wanyan clan in 936 and later basically everyone is a placeholder, and the pre-1066 non-Balhae borders are made up. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let us know. We will probably need to add some extra (most likely placeholder) vassals in some places since some rulers start well over their demesne limit, but that's not a lot of work.

Mongolia and eastern Tarim Basin

Spoiler

We've not really worked on this area yet. Vanilla areas will probably remain essentially the same aside from the WP not being just one title (and the tributary type for the realms there might change), though once the Mongol Empire shows up we might have to change things, particularly when Yuan forms, as we can't handle everything exactly the way vanilla does. One thing that potentially will change when it comes to the vanilla area is that Xi-Xia might be given a titular empire title to reflect that they actually were a pretender empire. The setup in the non-vanilla parts of Mongolia might be tweaked a bit, but as it is hard to find historical borders and historical rulers in the area there'll have to be some guesswork and some placeholders. Note that "Yelü" is just Liao.

Non-vanilla Tibet, China, Nanzhao/Da Yining/Dali, Taiwan, and Ryukyu

Spoiler

Easternmost Tibet is not done. We'll probably need to have some placeholder rulers here.

China has the right holder in all start dates when the title exists (at least up until Yuan; the Mongol character files have not been worked on yet), and a bunch of family members have been added (though some spouses and consorts are still missing and a number of princesses currently use their non-personal name, which are things we can improve down the line). However, basically all Han vassals (and a bunch of landless Han characters) still need to be looked at, and given that probably all of them are placeholders we'll also have to see if we can add some historical rulers in their place (I believe we'll be able to find a good number of historical rulers, or at least historical characters that can work as better placeholders than completely fictional ones), and some of the placeholders down the line might actually have a different culture than just Han.

It should be noted that the file that's full of placeholder Han characters is the largest character history file by a wide margin, sitting at around 5k characters. It is nearly 4.5 times the size of the next closest one, and that it currently makes up about 40 % of the size of Tianxia's character history files (and still more than a third if you count the vanilla files we've included), so even if it was the only thing we had left to deal with it would be a significant undertaking.

As previously mentioned, the China region hasn't been worked on at all when it comes to the Iron Century bookmark, though a good number of noteworthy characters exist in the history files. Actually having the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms on the map is of course something that's a goal. Some areas (such as the Three Fanzhen of Hebei) will also be broken off from Tang in the earlier starts. Also note that the 1066 screenshot is from a game where Liao was set to settle right away, and they've absorbed their current Han tributary as a result of that.

Nanzhao/Da Yining/Dali is mostly complete, though we might break up some of the vassals (and thus add some extra placeholders). The main thing that might change is whether the area (and possibly some nearby areas in de jure China) starts tribal or feudal (Confucian Bureaucracy) in different starts. Input on this (and the same for nearby areas) would be appreciated.

Taiwan hasn't been worked on yet. I believe all of the current characters we've got there are placeholders, and I believe we have a few more placeholder dynasties than necessary as the island lost a couple of counties as part of the map rework. Chances are we'll need to use placeholders here in the future, but we'll see.

Ryukyu is done. Most characters are completely fictional, but towards the end there are a few historical rulers. I rather doubt we'll be able to find more historical rulers to add.

The Philippines

Spoiler

This area hasn't been worked on yet. I expect we'll need many placeholders here, though it might be posssible to find some historical rulers. It is also possible that the Tagalog culture will be split as there's a Cebuan namelist to be found in the New Cultures thread and that thus might be relatively straightforward to add, but we'll see what happens.

Borneo and Sulawesi

Spoiler

This area hasn't been worked on yet. It is possible that there will be several new cultures added since there are several namelists in the New Cultures thread that might be usable, but we'll see. Again, placeholders will probably be necessary.

Java and smaller islands to the east

Spoiler

Another area that's not been worked on, and another area that might get a new culture (Sundanese). Other than that, I'd like to add Borobudur as a Great Work, which seems reasonably straightforward aside from the 3D model and picture (and we could use a placeholder for both).

Sumatra, nearby islands, and the Malay peninsula

Spoiler

This is yet another area that's not been worked on yet, aside from the Andamans and Nicobar Island (there are placeholders there until 1337). It is possible a few more new cultures will be added, but we'll see.

South-eastern Asia

Spoiler

Annam/Dai Viet (shown as Thanh Hoa in the 769 screenshot) is mostly done aside from double-checking some dates and adding various Chinese viceroys (that also will need to be given at least one county). There are some placeholders that might be possible to replace, and there might be some spouses or children of rulers to add, but the kingdom is essentially done except for those things.

Champa is done (save for possibly making minor tweaks), though the vassal dynasty there is completely fictional. If we figure out some historical characters to use instead we'll of course do that. It should be complete until 1337.

The de jure of the Empire of Burma (or Bagan) is mostly filled in, though towards the end (roughly when the empire ceases to exist in 1297) of the game there's some work to be done. Some of the rulers in the area are placeholders, but there are some historical dynasties around. We might be able to add a few more historical characters (e.g. spouses and children for rulers), but overall the area is in a good place.

The assorted smaller realms between 1066 Bagan and the Khmer Empire are largely done, though a good number of rulers in the area are placeholders and we've had to guess the dates for a bunch of historical rulers because the real ones weren't available. The area is done to an extent up to 1337, though there are things that can be improved after 1066.

Cambodia/the Khmer Empire (depending on start date) has the proper top rulers until the end of the game, though again there might be some missing spouses or children. I believe there are a handful of historical vassals and at least one placeholder vassal dynasty, and we'll probably work a bit on that. I'd also like to add Angkor Wat as a Great Work here, but as that's not around in 1066 it's a bit less important to get done right away.

Overall, the borders in this area are something we'd like input (aside from "Annam should be under China!" as we already know that and will fix that once we add the necessary Han characters (and one Yamato character: Abe no Nakamaro, who probably will be the viceroy in 769 despite technically only being in charge until 767). We'd also like some thoughts regarding the possibility of making several of the smaller states in Shan, Lan Xang, and Annam tribal early on.

Religion

Spoiler

Finally, here are some WIP religion setups. We'll probably make adjustments in many areas, particularly if we discover that some area becomes troublesome to play in due to religious uprisings happening very frequently or if we manage to discover information about something converting to something at a certain point.

769:

867:

936:

1066:

Since barely any work has been done as far as culture goes (aside from making Japan and Hokkaido Yamato/Emishi early on as opposed to Japanese/Ainu) I'll refrain from posting any screenshots of that. Until we get around to adding new cultures (assuming that happens) there probably won't be a lot of changes.

As has been the case in the past, I'm not sure when next there will be a dev diary, as that depends on when something gets done that's interesting enough to write about, and given that a lot of the time being spent working on the mod is directed at updating the history files and that changes there tend to be hard to notice and not overly interesting unless something major gets done it is possible that it will be a while before we have another proper dev diary. Then again, I've been wrong about that in the past...

 

[MechaShadowV2]

The fact that China itself has no holder is as it should be, as 936 was in the middle of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era and there wasn't a reasonably united China at the time. The lack of rulers in the region is due to the history files mostly predating the map rework (with new counties using old counties' history files as placeholders, which already had placeholder characters pretty much everywhere) and thus predating Iron Century's release by quite a while (I believe many of them haven't been touched since before the 2017 Open Alpha version, which was before I joined the team).

The above, plus the fact that we haven't really polished 769/867 and that those two dates have some known errors (for example, the Three Fanzhen of Hebei (which should be independent) and some nearby de facto independent "vassals" of China (unsure if they'll be fully independent or some form of tributary) don't exist at present), is why we're saying that we only support using the Stamford Bridge start as we're reasonably sure that start date is mostly correct (which means that the bug reports and feedback we get regarding things there is less likely to boil down to "Unfinished/WIP things need work!") and that the game won't crash if you start from it (we've not run observer/playtest games in the earlier start dates for quite a while (and we've not run any in the IC start unless you count launching it to do character searches/to check borders in areas that have been worked on/to use the console to see that the one war we've gotten around to adding works as it should), so we don't know if the mod is stable or not in those starts).

Getting Charlie, the Old Gods, and the Iron Century done enough that we are prepared to say that we support them is at the top of our priority list along with a few other things (fixing bugs, cleaning up/restructuring the character history files (just adding more characters in a haphazard manner is how the current mess happened in the first place), tweaking mechanics such as the Mandate of Heaven as necessary (I suspect it'll need some work to make various pretenders in IC have a Mandate rating that's not always Poor or Lost), and [Redacted, though it might have been mentioned in the past]). Some other things will occasionally be worked on/added in between the start dates and other high priority issues because -- quite frankly -- it gets a bit tedious to work on the history files all the time and sometimes there's not something on the priority list that can be worked on (e.g. if there are no known bugs we can't bugfix something).

There will likely be a dev diary later this week (probably Friday or Saturday) that'll give a somewhat detailed overview as to where we are when it comes to CM, tOG, IC, and Stamford Bridge (there are reasons to include this even though it is "done" to an extent). For now I'll just say that there's still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done.

Ah, ok, thanks. I'll make sure I focus on that then (as a side note, it's played well so far, I've even tried it with other mods just to see how well that would do and it seems to work well).

 

[SOSHaruhi101]

Is Confucianism represented in this mod? And if so is it a religion? A society? ..Flavour text for Taoism?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Is Confucianism represented in this mod? And if so is it a religion? A society? ..Flavour text for Taoism?

At the moment it only exists as flavour text due to how PDS handled it and Taoism when JD was released. We ended up cutting our (basically flavourless)Daotic group due to some mechanical issues related to that, and not all of those issues can easily be resolved.

It is possible that we'll consider adding back some Daotic religions (including Confucianism) as part of the Eastern group in the future, but we should probably flesh out the religions we already have before adding more and the only ones that we're likely to do stuff for in the near-ish future are the Taoist, Shenist/Reformed Shenist, and Shinto religions (plus Buddism, as they're occasionally relevant in the areas where the religions above exist) as the current focus when it comes to flavour is China and Japan; leaving other areas/religions underdeveloped is not ideal, but we assume most people would prefer not having to wait even longer between versions.

Ah, ok, thanks. I'll make sure I focus on that then (as a side note, it's played well so far, I've even tried it with other mods just to see how well that would do and it seems to work well).

Don't use other mods (unless they're purely cosmetic) when testing the Closed Alpha version. The value of any feedback goes down with other mods enabled as we don't know if they are properly integrated with various mechanics and we can't be certain it doesn't introduce any new bugs.

Also, discuss that version in that forum, not here. We don't want to have feedback or bug reports for that version elsewhere as that makes it harder for us to keep track of it, risks confusion if something happens (e.g. if a Closed Alpha update is very buggy and that's posted publicly chances are someone will think the Open Alpha is buggy), and makes it more likely that something is revealed that we're not ready to reveal publicly yet.

 

[AuxOlives]

Hello guys, first you're doing a great work and I really look forward for the release of Tianxia!

I was curious about the Dev Diary 31, seeing Ming rulers with Han culture.

(1) Is this intentional considering that foreign rulers of whole China or part of China had to adopt at some points Chinese Han culture to rule.
(2) Or do you plan to make them Manchu with Han flavors in future dev of the mod?

My question also stands for Yuan Mongols rulers.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Hello guys, first you're doing a great work and I really look forward for the release of Tianxia!

I was curious about the Dev Diary 31, seeing Ming rulers with Han culture.

(1) Is this intentional considering that foreign rulers of whole China or part of China had to adopt at some points Chinese Han culture to rule.
(2) Or do you plan to make them Manchu with Han flavors in future dev of the mod?

My question also stands for Yuan Mongols rulers.

There are no Ming rulers in that dev diary (and the Ming rulers will barely show up in the history files, considering that the Hongwu emperor was born in 1328 and that we only care about history up to 1337 (as you can't start later in vanilla and we're really not planning to go beyond that as it'd mean we'd have to update the vanilla map in places)); the rulers in the dev diary are the rulers of Min (which was an empire for part of its existence despite the article calling it a kingdom). I also believe that both Min and Ming would be Han (or at least some Chinese culture) as they were led by native Chinese rulers rather than Jurchen (a.k.a. Manchu) rulers, and that Jurchen would only be the right culture for Jin (and Qing, which is well after CK2 ends and thus won't be added at all).

As for what we'll do with the rulers we add (or have), I don't believe we'll culture-swap foreign emperors to be Han unless we've good reason to do so (e.g. Later Tang's emperors had Shaotuo (Uyghur in the mod) ancestry but had been Sinicized by the time of Later Tang). It is possible that we'll consider something like a Mongol-Chinese melting pot culture (or the same for some other invader culture), but currently we've got Xia as Tangut, Liao as Khitan, Jin as Jurchen, and Yuan as Mongol (and the history is very incomplete that late in the game) and don't have any specific plans regarding changing things.

 

[vnth]

is min an empire in the mod? in that case, dali and vietnam might also need to be upgraded to empires.

 

[Silversweeeper]

is min an empire in the mod? in that case, dali and vietnam might also need to be upgraded to empires.

Min will be an empire during the IC start (along with Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Shu, Wu, and Southern Han (and several others that aren't going to be around in the IC start due to existing before or after it)) because they're claiming to be the emperor of China at that point and thus should be Chinese Imperial with the standard pretender mechanics enabled (e.g. the Mandate of Heaven and CBs for (re)conquering China), which are set up to only work for emperor-tier titles. It would not be straightforward to change the relevant mechanics to work for king-tier rulers for a number of reasons I'll refrain from listing here, and we don't want to arbitrarily prevent any of the pretenders from having access to the mechanics in question as chances are there will be people that want to play as them and that want to try to reunite China when doing that, particularly considering that the person who pulled it off is nine years old at the time of the IC start and that his family hasn't thrown its proverbial hat into the proverbial ring yet and that the underdog pretender empires (with the possible exception of Later Tang, which will start out fighting a losing war that'll result in its absorption into Later Jin if they lose) thus start in a comparatively better position to try.

Dali wasn't yet a thing in the IC start (it was still Da Yining at the time, with Duan Siping preparing to overthrow that regime; he starts with a claim on his liege, as the target of a failed abduction attempt by his liege, as the rival of his liege, and as someone that's been fired from the council, so he should start a faction and press the claim rather quickly in AI hands), and considering Dali had good relations with Song and spent basically the whole of Song's existence as a Song tributary (minus a few years towards the end when they had been conquered by the Mongols, who kept the existing regime around as Maharajas of Yunnan) I'd not characterize them as a pretender empire (and having them as one would probably cause Dali to go up in flames quickly because their Mandate rating would drop like a stone due to being tiny, Buddhist, a tributary, etc.). Even Nanzhao, which didn't play nicely with Tang, didn't claim the Dragon Throne as far as I'm aware, so the Trebizond precedent (and the precedent that is the whole "petty king" mechanic for small "kingdoms") makes it seem like it is perfectly fine to keep them as a king-tier title.

As for Vietnam/Annam, they'll be freshly independent from Southern Han in the IC start (with Southern Han possibly having a claim as a result; it depends on whether we decide to consider Annam a former tributary or a former vassal; considering Southern Han tried to subjugate them the latter is reasonably likely to be what we go with) and as they had no real interest in taking over all of China I'd not consider them a pretender empire. I'll admit the rulers there claimed to be emperors (at least for parts of the era; from what I remember they and China kept disagreeing on just what title was to be used and they sometimes tried to be more appeasing by not claiming to be an emperor), but considering the gameplay impact of having permanent de jure claims on Champa (which they didn't make significant gains against during the era) and other issues arising from being emperor tier I'd say keeping them as kings is a good idea, with the Trebizond precedent being invoked again.

I'll also add various realms in Korea to the list of realms that certainly shouldn't be pretender emperors, and I'd say that they're considerably more likely to be upgraded to emperor-tier than Vietnam or Dali considering that both Silla and Goryeo controlled basically the whole of the de jure of Korea, but as they kept being successfully bullied by Liao, Jin, Yuan, and possibly other dynasties in China and sometimes tried to appease them I'd say there are arguments for not making them an empire, too.

Also, the Far East already start with a lot of non-nomadic emperor-tier rulers compared to the rest of the map in most starts (looking at 1066 we have Song (China), Japan, Bagan (Burma), Srivijaya (Nusantara), the Khmer Empire, and possibly Liao (if they are set to settle ASAP), with Jin being likely to form and Xia being likely to be upgraded to emperor tier in the future due to historically being a pretender empire and thus probably deserving those mechanics, while the only non-nomadic vanilla empires are the HRE and the ERE), so it would devalue the tier quite a bit if we added a bunch of more emperor-tier rulers, particularly as it'll also make it easier for non-emperors to get a claim or an inheritance on an empire.