• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Tang is going to be a bit more broken up in future versions of the mod (867 is a bit better for Tang than this) as some jiedushi became de facto independent following An Lushan's rebellion.

ck2_3.png


To use the more historically appropriate names for the breakaways:

- Hebeidong is Youzhou/Lulong, under Zhu Xicai (by 769).

- Hebeixi is Chengde, under Li Zhongzhi.

- Taiyuan is Weibo, under Tian Chengsi. Notably, he gets his 5000-man strong Headquarters Guard as event troops.

- Dezhou is Zhaoyi, under Xue Song.

- Jingdong is Pinglu, under Yi Jeong-gi/Li Zhengji. Since his family was from Goguryeo he'll be ethnically Korean (culturally Han) and Muist (it is unclear what his religion actually was and that was the most interesting option).

- Jingji is Biansong, under Tian Shenyu.

- Suizhou is Huaixi, under Li Zhongchen.

- Jingxibei is Shannandong/Shannan East, under Liang Chongyi.

ck2_4.png


Chengde has marriage alliances with both Weibo and Pinglu, and Chengde, Weibo, Zhaoyi, Pinglu, and Shannandong also have a 25-year alliance at the start of the game, so for those realms it will probably be possible to fight off Tang in the short term and possibly even to make gains; the alliance outnumbers Tang by about a 2:1 ratio (slightly more in the game I took the screenshots in, but the numbers might vary a bit depending on various factors) if you count the non-reinforcing event troops (though if Tang starts collecting money from the Silk Road and Tributes they'll probably have the edge if they hire mercs). Biansong and Huaixi were never allied to anyone, and Youzhou's alliance with those that are allied ended when the previous ruler was murdered, so for them things might be a bit more interesting...

It should also be mentioned that the above changes don't really make up a large part of the necessary file tweaks in China. They've not made a noticeable dent when it comes to the characters that have to be added, and there is also the matter of cleaning up/restructuring the placeholders.
 
Last edited:
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.
obviously i cant comment on what constitutes an empire as far as the mechanics of vanilla or of the mod are concerned. and i referred more generally to the ck timeframe rather than any specific scenario. as far as i can tell, dali later monarchs retroactively used emperor as the posthumous title, but employed chinese era names. vietnamese monarchs since the 10th century generally conceded themselves as chinese vassal kings in diplomatic dealings with china but referred to themselves as emperor within the state and issued their own era names. chinese style tianming/divine and universal rule was imitated widely in chinese neighboring countries, even if these generally had little desire to claim the world or even china and employed tianxia mainly to described their their own realms--which actually was also the case with even china as time went on. Even the prim and proper korea sometimes had paricularly frisky monarchs issuing their own era names. this is something of a problem in the game when it ties chinese imperial with 'pretender empire.'

as for the designation '10 kingdoms,' the name seemed to be derived from the longevity and power of the states rather than whether or not the rulers posited themselves as 'imperial pretender.' most of the rulers of these 'kingdoms' and not just of min honored themselves as emperors. if we take all of these guys at their words, we'd have more than 15 empires/dynasties if counting tiny rump states like yin and yan.
 
Last edited:
obviously i cant comment on what constitutes an empire as far as the mechanics of vanilla or of the mod are concerned. and i referred more generally to the ck timeframe rather than any specific scenario. as far as i can tell, dali later monarchs retroactively used emperor as the posthumous title, but employed chinese era names. vietnamese monarchs since the 10th century generally conceded themselves as chinese vassal kings in diplomatic dealings with china but referred to themselves as emperor within the state and issued their own era names. chinese style tianming/divine and universal rule was imitated widely in chinese neighboring countries, even if these generally had little desire to claim the world or even china and employed tianxia mainly to described their their own realms--which actually was also the case with even china as time went on. Even the prim and proper korea sometimes had paricularly frisky monarchs issuing their own era names. this is something of a problem in the game when it ties chinese imperial with 'pretender empire.'

You can already have an empire that's mechanically very similar to being Chinese Imperial without being a pretender, since the differences between Confucian Bureaucracy and Chinese Imperial are fairly small; the latter has the Mandate of Heaven, CBs for (re)conquering the de jure of China and the China region, and 250 times as many concubines (with the resulting extra children being a thing because we cheat behind the scenes as vanilla caps out at/about 9 living children/ruler, discounting bastards, the final birth being twins, or other exceptions we can't touch), plus some behind-the-scenes modifiers to a few event weights that should/shouldn't favour the emperor of China/pretenders, which a non-pretender realm with a similar government would not automatically deserve to be part of.

The Mandate of Heaven is a double-edged sword that's scripted under the assumption that you want to rule China (and changing it to not be about that is not trivial), the CBs for taking China are obviously something tied to ruling/claiming to rule China (and something that others should not be given, much how random realms shouldn't get the Roman Imperial Reconquest CB), and the extra concubines and children are a thing to both make sure that the Emperor of China can accept concubines sent as tribute and to make it more likely that there are princesses for Imperial Marriages, and there's little reason to make any of those things available to everyone that's "Chinese enough" (or Shinto), particularly not when it would complicate things behind the scenes to a large extent as the standing assumption of "Chinese Imperial and emperor-tier" being the same as "China or a pretender empire" would no longer hold true.

I don't really see a good reason to either redo (and complicate) a bunch of things to handle "Chinese Imperial and emperor-tier, but not a pretender or China" or to create another government that'd basically be a slightly fancier Confucian Bureaucracy for emperors.


As for holding an emperor-tier title instead of a king-tier title, it partially comes down to whether it would result in better or worse gameplay and/or AI behaviour. A Dali (or whatever the name was at a given time) that's emperor-tier would stupid itself to death in AI hands because non-nomadic emperors are set to not want to be tributaries of China (and a "unless you're Dali" exception causes more potential problems than it solves) and a Dali that's not a tributary will be gobbled up by China (and Burma, if the new empire was titular rather than de jure) in short order because it simply can't fight those off consistently. A Vietnam that's emperor-tier would cause playability issues for Champa due to de jure claims (and giving them a titular title would be silly) and would also result in the realm having an equal interest in acquiring the de jure land in the south (that it didn't hold much of in the era) and taking back the land China holds that they actually got back during the era if memory serves. Korea would be less likely to stupid itself to death or to cause major issues due to de jure desires (though Jeju would notice it as that's not de jure Silla or Goryeo and those are the only kingdoms around for long (Hubaekje is fighting a losing war in the IC start that'll result in the title's destruction if they lose)), but on the other hand they're reasonably able to be able to get the prestige and realm size (200 holdings, which should be possible with Prosperity) necessary to become a pretender empire without expanding somewhere, and that feels like something that they shouldn't really be doing if they're contained to the Korean peninsula, and there's also the historical submissiveness to consider, plus the fact that you'll devalue Balhae if you make Silla/Goryeo emperor-tier (and making Balhae emperor-tier is just empire inflation).

There's also the size issue. Empires in CK2 tend to be rather large unless they're in decline (e.g. the ERE throughout most of the game) or they're squabbling successor states (e.g. Nikaea and the Latin Empire) fighting over the corpse of the empire that spawned them (which is where the FDaTK emperors will fall), and there's precedent for demoting smaller empires to king-tier (see Trebizond). Dali and Vietnam both hold very little land, and they're neither successor states or declining realms. Korea is reasonably sized, unlike those two.

Mechanics-wise, I don't really see any benefits from having Dali or Vietnam be emperor-tier as I don't really see any mechanics to add to either that'd be easier to handle if they were emperor-tier than if they're king-tier, unlike e.g. Japan where the future need for a Shogun and the need to potentially have a Regent that's got playable vassals under the Tenno while there's a Shogun around means all four playable tiers are needed. Korea would get the benefit of being able to de jure war the whole peninsula (plus some islands), which might be good, though I don't really see anything else being gained mechanics-wise as chances are there wouldn't be a need for king-level vassals without expanding far enough outside the Korean peninsula that you'd already be able to create the empire title during the game.

As for the vague "conquered large areas/various people" definition of "empire", while both Nanzhao (at the time of its founding, which was before the CM start) and Annam (following the Anarchy of the 12 Warlords) conquered certain areas their conquests were fairly modest and feel more similar to e.g. Haraldr Fairhair uniting Norway than e.g. Song reuniting China, and there are other medieval realms that conquered significant areas without being considered empires in CK2 (see e.g. the Seljuks). The unifications of Korea are rather more impressive than those, though whether it's impressive enough on its own is harder to say.

Summarizing the above, it really doesn't seem like you gain anything good for Dali or Vietnam other than "accurate ruler titles" and that you create new problems if you give them an emperor-tier title, so I'd say there's not really a good reason to make either of those two emperor-tier. Korea is more iffy.


How about "King-tier, but called (the culturally appropriate version of) 'Emperor' "? There are two options for setting that up (as there's no "kings_called_emperors" equivalent of "dukes_called_kings"), and neither of them are good. The first is to localize a specific culture to use "Emperor" (or the cultural equivalent) where it currently uses "King", which either would cause confusion due to emperors and kings using the same title or would mean replacing the emperor tier title with something (and it'd also possibly result in petty kings called the cultural version of emperor if the culture has petty kings, which is silly), and which also would result in every king-tier of the culture everywhere using "emperor", which isn't necessarily good (e.g. if we did it for Korean then Balhae would be ruled by an "emperor" and a Korean who became the new petty king of Jeju would be an "emperor"). The other option is to use a custom FOA and custom ruler title for specific king-tier titles, which would break cultural localization (the ruler of the Roman Empire is always called an Emperor (or Empress), not a Badshah, not a Kaiser, not a Huangdi, etc.) and would result in silly things if the the title is a subject (e.g. Dali (Yunnan) as a subject of the Mongols or Yuan should definitely not be ruled by a local "emperor").

as for the designation '10 kingdoms,' the name seemed to be derived from the longevity and power of the states rather than whether or not the rulers posited themselves as 'imperial pretender.' most of the rulers of these 'kingdoms' and not just of min honored themselves as emperors. if we take all of these guys at their words, we'd have more than 15 empires/dynasties if counting tiny rump states like yin and yan.

I'm fairly sure the only states pretending to be emperors of China on 936.8.7 would be Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Shu, Yue/Southern Han, Wu, and Liao based on the information I've found. All of those other than Liao will count as full pretenders and thus be empire tier, with Liao becoming a pretender if they settle using their special decision (as we can't really have pretender nomadic empires), by virtue of the rulers there claiming to be emperors at the time of the IC start and thus deserving access to mechanics related to uniting China (particularly as the player might want to start as a weaker emperor and attempt to unite China) and the Mandate of Heaven mechanic (the extra concubines don't add much to these realms as they're not the Grace target, but creating a "Chinese Imperial, but fewer concubines!" government for the FDaTK emperors is not worth it).

Jingnan/Nanping never claimed imperial dignity, nor did Wuyue or Chu, based on the information I've found (at the very least, I'm confident they didn't claim all of China at the time of the IC start, which is the only thing that matters as far as gameplay is concerned), which should cover basically everyone else in the IC start other than Da Yining (I've not found a lot of info about them, but considering neither Nanzhao nor Dali claimed China I'm prepared to call them a non-pretender) and perhaps some tiny realms between Da Yining, Later Shu, and Chu that there's basically no information about (the maps I've seen don't really cover that area in detail), which I'm prepared to declare non-pretenders by virtue of there not being information to the contrary.

Former Shu, Yan, Yin, Later Liang, Later and Northern Han, Southern Tang, Later Zhou, and any others I've not mentioned wouldn't be around in the IC start. We can easily create a few extra titular empire titles to contain the ruler lists for those if we add the rulers in the history files (all the ones I named other than Yan and Yin are already in the history files as of shortly before when Dev Diary 31 was written) and there's not already a FDaTK title to add them to (e.g. Former Shu'll go into the Later Shu file), without affecting gameplay beyond possibly giving someone that's alive in a certain start date a Chinese Imperial or pretender bloodline if they're the descendant from a pretender. We could even conceivably add dynasties in other eras that are irrelevant down the line (as long as they're from after year 1) if we feel like it, though it's really not a priority to do that as we've got many other things to do and dev time is finite.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
mechanic-wise, id imagine that the reason states like vietnam could be converted to empire-tier is because the playstyle--historically speaking--should, for the most part, be similar to that of china: pretenders claiming the mandate first and then fight for the entirety of the realm, rather than what it is now, which is the classic style of accumulating titles to consolidate into a higher-tier title. however, given how small annam was, im not sure how fun or viable this is, or whether creating multiple mandate of heavens would even be possible. it is also largely inapplicable to yunnan/dali.

at any rate, my only concern is that having too lax a requirement for what constituting an empire could cause some consistency issues.
 
mechanic-wise, id imagine that the reason states like vietnam could be converted to empire-tier is because the playstyle--historically speaking--should, for the most part, be similar to that of china: pretenders claiming the mandate first and then fight for the entirety of the realm, rather than what it is now, which is the classic style of accumulating titles to consolidate into a higher-tier title. however, given how small annam was, im not sure how fun or viable this is, or whether creating multiple mandate of heavens would even be possible. it is also largely inapplicable to yunnan/dali

I'll admit I don't know Vietnamese history like the back of my hand, but is there any point in a playable start date (which rules out the Anarchy of the 12 Warlords) when a) a foreign realm claims that they're the emperor of Vietnam specifically (as opposed to China claiming to be an empire and trying to subjugate Vietnam) and invades (similar to Liao, Xia (not that they accomplished much...), Jin, or Yuan) or b) when the realm starts fractured into squabbling states and normal consolidation mechanics are insufficient (similar to the FDaTK)? From what I recall, the non-peaceful dynasty changes in Vietnam were either coups (which we're probably not adding mechanics for due to them probably not being fun for the player (you can at least try to fight off a faction, and a murder plot is less damaging than "Oh, you're dead, and your realm has been usurped!") and due to the absence of them in vanilla (and we don't want to mess with vanilla or only add them in the Far East)) or something analogous to either "Fabricate claim and push it" (possible), "Inherit claim and push it" (possible), or "Takeover faction" (possible), so I don't really see where special mechanics are necessary.

As for separate Mandates of Heaven, it would be very messy to have generic Mandates of Heaven due to there being factors associated with holding China specifically (e.g. checks for controlling stuff in the China region) that you can't check for generically, factors tied to being an appropriate ruler of China specifically (e.g. Han > other Chinese culture group cultures > "Chinese enough" cultures > cultures that normally are disabled without the game rule, and Taoist > Shenist/Reformed Shenist/Buddhist > other "Chinese enough" religions), and balancing of various province factors based on the size of China (e.g. a single province with at least one castle or city in de jure China or the China region being held by a pretender decreases one of the variables behind the scenes by 10 (holding e_china is worth 1000 by itself), while a Vietnam that loses one province has lost considerably more of its territory unless it has blobbed a lot (in which case they're probably a player and are considering becoming a full pretender)), and doing it specifically for Vietnam would a) not add any flavour that's usable by Viet/Thanist rulers elsewhere (unless we did a ton of extra work to create a copy of the pretender empire system for Vietnam, which I really doubt we will), b) would go against the general precedent of not giving every small realm its own government mechanics (e.g. England doesn't have the Magna Carta to deal with), and c) would risk creating issues due to stacking Mandates or Mandates conflicting with one another.

at any rate, my only concern is that having too lax a requirement for what constituting an empire could cause some consistency issues.

I feel "The ruler (sometimes) used 'emperor' rather than 'king' as their title" is quite a bit laxer than what we've currently got, particularly since there are precedents for not using the tier someone claimed all over the place.

While not every current empire checks all of the boxes they check at least one of "China or pretender" (Tang, Song, Yuan, Jin, Liao, Xia, and the FDaTK emperors), "Mechanical advantages and few/no mechanical drawbacks" (Tang, Song, Yuan, Jin, Liao, Xia, the FDaTK emperors, Japan, Khmer (de jure claims on areas they controlled), Bagan (de jure claims on areas they controlled), Srivijaya/Saliendra (de jure claims on areas they controlled)), and "Conquered/controlled a large area" (Tang, Song, Yuan, Jin, Bagan (conquered the majority of its 1066 territory over the decade just before), Khmer (controlled basically all of its de jure at some point), Srivijaya/Saliedra (controlled the Malay peninsula, most of Sumatra and Java, parts of Borneo, and several smaller islands, even if some areas might have been tributaries rather than full vassals), possibly Japan (controlled its de jure), possibly the larger FDaTK pretenders (controlled significant chunks of China), and possibly Liao (controlled parts of the steppe and parts of China, and controlled Manchuria through Jin)).

Vietnam and Dali don't check any of the boxes (they never pretended to be China, there are mechanical drawbacks and no real advantages, and they didn't conquer or control large areas), and Korea is borderline in two areas (mechanical advantages and conquering/controlling a fairly large area) and complicated by Silla and Balhae in a way being equals and Silla and Goryeo being somewhat subservient towards China or pretenders at times.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
well, by nature the mandate theoretically confer its claimant universal rule, so technically the claimant empires like xia or liao didnt claim the chinese throne in the western sense (these rulers already had a throne) but rather world hegemony. the expression for this was "zhulu zhongyuan," chasing the deer in the central plains. in vietnam, probably the closest equivalences were 2 separate attempts from the nungz chieftain family of the zhuangs in the 11th century. father and son nungz cienzfuk and nungz ciqgaoh tried to create zhuang empires independent from both song china and ly vietnam, conquering areas around guangxi and cao bang.

vietnam also tried to prop up a mini tributary system in southeast asia, mostly against champa and campodia. if vietnamese medieval historians were to believed, the reason vietnam pushed into the south was supposedly because the southern kingdoms had ignored their tributary duty, thus giving the heavenly realm a casus belli. vietnamese rulers also emulated the tradition of han emperors, marrying off princesses to 'barbarian' chieftains. the giap/than chieftain family of the tai-zhuangs in lang son became hereditary son-in-laws of the ly monarchs. in the early 14th century. tran nhan tong married off his princess to jaya simhavarman iii in exchange for tributes and some territories but the precises circumstances were disputed.

otherwise, most of the time, tianming involved mostly capricious regents and peasant rebel leaders, which was also the case with china. even in china, civil wars or 5d10k style balkanization were among the few exceptions rather than the rule.

in any case, i dont think any of this really justifies vietnam being an empire, perhaps only that if it were to be an empire, there might be some mechanics to fill in. and of course, since any implementation is already too unrealistic, all of this is really just academic.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
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.



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.
Oh, ok, sorry
 
Some more historical characters you'll find in China in 769 in the next version.

ck2_5.png


Guo Ziyi was regarded as one of the most powerful generals before, during, and after the An Lushan rebellion. He was also the grandfather of Dowager Empress Guo, wife/consort of Emperor Xianzong and granddaughter of Emperor Daizong, and (based on Wikipedia, at least) was a Nestorian (which isn't considered "Chinese enough" (which is somewhat unlikely to change since excommunication and Chinese Imperial would be unlikely to work well together), hence the regular Feudal government type).

ck2_6.png


Li Baoyu (born An Chongzhang) was another general who fought against An Lushan and also against Tibet. He was given the imperial surname when he requested to change his surname due to not wanting to share An Lushan's surname.

ck2_7.png


Wang Jin was a devout Buddhist and chancellor who convinced Emperor Daizong to also become a devout Buddhist. He eventually was demoted due to corruption.


There has also been a change to the culture and religion setup in Bianjing (Kaifeng), for those that want to try something different (even though chances are neither the new religion nor the new culture would be dominant).

ck2_8.png


Kaifeng culture is "Chinese enough" (meaning you get to keep Chinese Imperial/Confucian Bureaucracy without the game rule), while the Jewish religion isn't (and since they potentially can get GHWs that's not changing).
 
Some more historical characters you'll find in China in 769 in the next version.

View attachment 536724

Guo Ziyi was regarded as one of the most powerful generals before, during, and after the An Lushan rebellion. He was also the grandfather of Dowager Empress Guo, wife/consort of Emperor Xianzong and granddaughter of Emperor Daizong, and (based on Wikipedia, at least) was a Nestorian (which isn't considered "Chinese enough" (which is somewhat unlikely to change since excommunication and Chinese Imperial would be unlikely to work well together), hence the regular Feudal government type).

View attachment 536725

Li Baoyu (born An Chongzhang) was another general who fought against An Lushan and also against Tibet. He was given the imperial surname when he requested to change his surname due to not wanting to share An Lushan's surname.

View attachment 536726

Wang Jin was a devout Buddhist and chancellor who convinced Emperor Daizong to also become a devout Buddhist. He eventually was demoted due to corruption.


There has also been a change to the culture and religion setup in Bianjing (Kaifeng), for those that want to try something different (even though chances are neither the new religion nor the new culture would be dominant).

View attachment 536729

Kaifeng culture is "Chinese enough" (meaning you get to keep Chinese Imperial/Confucian Bureaucracy without the game rule), while the Jewish religion isn't (and since they potentially can get GHWs that's not changing).
awesomesauce. fun fact: people may be familiar with sanxing or fu lu shou, the good luck figurines representing the deities of fortune, prosperity, and longevity.
Three-Chinese-Porcelain-Men-Fu-Lu-Shou---Qing-China-Sanxing-1543874671-product-8eee.jpg

guo ziyi was one of the people associated with the guy in the middle, the celestial of prosperity, for reaching what was often considered the pinnacle of life accomplishment in ancient china: serving the state with distinction and becoming imperial in-laws. indeed, he was one of the few people who managed to make great contributions to the state without either monopolizing power or falling afoul with the imperial court in the end.
 
Why do the Japanese use Mongol portraits rather than Han?

It was decided that they probably were the less inaccurate choice for our Japanese and Korean portraits (when it comes to fallbacks, the Chinese portraits take precedence because the Mongol clothes are very inappropriate, so if you disable the Japanese (or Korean) portrait pack you'll get the Chinese portraits if you've got JD active) when we were updating the portrait packs. My input when the decision was made essentially consisted of me saying that I shouldn't be making the decision or really be involved in it at all, which I stand by.
 
A few more Tang vassals in 769 that have the potential to be a bit more troublesome than those previously shown:

ck2_9.png


Zhang Yanshang (born Zhang Baofu) was a capable administrator who was made the jiedushi of Huainan after the An Lushan rebellion. He was later placed in command of Jingnan (technically in 770, but as there was no clear ruler in 769 he gets it a year early in the game).

It should be noted that both Huangshan and Zhenjiang are going to be vassals of China rather than independent; they're just not properly set up at this moment due to various tweaks to the history files in China being ongoing.

ck2_10.png


Down in Guangdong (or Lingnan, if you use the Tang name for the province he ruled) you'll find Li Mian. He's a descendant of Emperor Gaozu of Tang (distant enough that he doesn't have claims, but he's still got the Chinese Imperial bloodline) and currently the only playable member of the Li dynasty in 769 that isn't Emperor Daizong or adopted.

As mentioned previously, Annam (shown as Thanh Hoa) will be a proper vassal of Tang; we just haven't gotten around to adding the characters that are necessary to set it up properly just yet.


I can also tell you that the Learning requirement for chancellors, marshals, stewards, and spymasters for Chinese Imperial and Confucian Bureaucracy has been halved if they're sufficiently good in the primary stat associated with their job, as this will help make it possible for some historical characters to hold council positions without us having to give all of them high Learning when we're adding them to the history files.
 
So has china and indonesia gained some COA for their kingdoms and duchies or are they still white blanks?

Every de jure title in China, Korea, Balhae, Dali, Annam, and Japan (at least as things currently stand) should have a better CoA in the next version, though a bunch of them will just be Chinese characters spelling out the title name (which isn't ideal since it e.g. means that renaming titles results in the CoA reading something else, but still is better than what we had). If we find better CoAs we can use it is very possible that at least some of these CoAs will be replaced down the line.

Indonesia will probably be mostly unchanged as there are few CoAs to be found that we could just copy-paste from somewhere (particularly since we need to respect copyright), since nobody has offered to create CoAs there, and since we don't have anyone active on the dev team that's good at graphical stuff.
 
Every de jure title in China, Korea, Balhae, Dali, Annam, and Japan (at least as things currently stand) should have a better CoA in the next version, though a bunch of them will just be Chinese characters spelling out the title name.
ck2_661.jpg

I assume this is what it goes like to be, pretty nice for China proper. But would be terrible for Balhae and Japan.
For Japan, I've seen there've been some kensyō (県章, emblems of prefectures/countries) using for d_kyushu. It's historically inaccurate but still a better solution for now.
So did CoA for Taiwan, there's also some shishō (市章, emblems of city) in early 20c. I think I could find you some if you need.
While using static CoA, will you devs add "has_coa_on_barony_only = no" for pagan religions in Balhae, Pacific Rim and Malay Archipelago? It could work as a temporary solution. Just like vanilla CK2 did in lots of countries, especially in Muslim realms.

And just out of curious...is administrative divisions of China in Tianxia based on divisions in Song dynasty? It looks alike but different in small places. Or are you having long-term map province/de jure revision plan?(Sorry but 230 provinces under a de jure empire is too OP for me, splitting it would simulate history plausible Southern and Northern dynasties better.)
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
View attachment 538670
I assume this is what it goes like to be, pretty nice for China proper. But would be terrible for Balhae and Japan.
For Japan, I've seen there've been some kensyō (県章, emblems of prefectures/countries) using for d_kyushu. It's historically inaccurate but still a better solution for now.
So did CoA for Taiwan, there's also some shishō (市章, emblems of city) in early 20c. I think I could find you some if you need.
While using static CoA, will you devs add "has_coa_on_barony_only = no" for pagan religions in Balhae, Pacific Rim and Malay Archipelago? It could work as a temporary solution. Just like vanilla CK2 did in lots of countries, especially in Muslim realms.

has_coa_on_barony_only = no is a poor solution in general as it only works for specific religions and results in a completely random CoA for those religions unless your dynasty belongs to a culture with dynasty_title_names = yes, which wouldn't be set in most of those areas. I doubt we'll change our religions to use has_coa_on_barony_only = yes, and considering the presence of vanilla religions (Buddhist, Tengri, Taoist) without that set in several areas it wouldn't really fix the problem even before you consider strange religions that can show up during a campaign. However, if you wish to mod it in for your own games, we certainly won't stop you.

China does indeed use CoAs similar to those in the screenshot, as do most of the areas I listed in the previous post. Japan will generally have has_coa_on_barony_only = yes (and get non-random CoAs since both Yamato and Japanese culture use dynasty_title_names = yes) and will have the mon of some family associated with a certain province for nearly all counties when some other religion is present (there are a few counties that use CoAs consisting of the name in kanji instead as things currently stand), while the duchies use the name in kanji and the kingdom and empire currently are unchanged from the latest public verson. If you've got better suggestions we'd be open to considering them, but unless there are public domain images we can use or you can create the CoAs for us it is unlikely things will change due to the previously mentioned lack of people that can do graphical stuff.

Regarding Balhae, given that the current choice is between fully white CoAs and CoAs like those in your screenshot the latter seems preferable. If you can provide any suggestions that live up to the criteria above we'll consider them.

As for Taiwan, I don't think we've changed things there since the last public version, so if you've got suggestions that live up to the criteria above we'd be open to considering them.

And just out of curious...is administrative divisions of China in Tianxia based on divisions in Song dynasty? It looks alike but different in small places. Or are you having long-term map province/de jure revision plan?(Sorry but 230 provinces under a de jure empire is too OP for me, splitting it would simulate history plausible Southern and Northern dynasties better.)

The de jure kingdom setup in China is based on the Song circuits, though with some adjustments in some places to keep the number of kingdoms and their size reasonable. There are no current plans to overhaul them unless we become aware that some provinces need to be moved to have more accurate borders and that wouldn't result in something we feel is significantly worse from a gameplay standpoint.

Breaking up the de jure of China would create issues when it comes to certain mechanics (e.g. every non-de jure vassal would be able to join the Independence faction unless blocked by a council position/etc., but China shouldn't constantly be at risk of imploding due to that faction, and stuff like the Grace system and the MoH system require us to have one specific title that's the real China, which makes having one de jure appealing for that reason too), and I doubt we'll do it, particularly as the de jure would be mostly united during a considerable part of the era (especially when you consider the periods between the early start dates and the period after 1337). China is also supposed to be rather strong if it is united since it historically wielded a significant amount of influence, so a united China being "OP" is intentional (at least to a certain extent) since the mod and CK2 as a whole are more balanced around history than around being "fair" across the board.
 
quick question here from an old player but new poster...

i love the mod and was wondering if it is possible for me to use this with the umbra spherae redone mod? i ask cause it also adds in the east coast as well as some of the west coast of the Americas.

i was wondering if you and they used the same province setup so that i could [ossibly just drop your mod into that one :)
i lvoe your mod like i said, it is a hard decision for me cause i love more room on the map too haha.