Development Diary 0: From Ireland to Cathay
You are William II, the natural son of Robert the Magnificent.
As you await for the right tide to sail to England, you hear words that one of the contestants, Harald III Hadrada of Norway has been killed during the Battle of Stamford Bridge by an arrow to the neck. You also hear that a Viking Berserker, trying to defend the corpse of his King, was killed by getting his scrotum pierced with a sword. Disturbed at the barbaric ways these Saxons fight, you compose a letter to the dastardly Harold II of Godwin:
"To the wretched Harold,
Tales of your misdeeds are told from Ireland to Cathay, give up your claim to the English throne and I shalt reserve a place for you on the King's Council.
From,
William II, Duke of Normandy"
You think about that phrase, "Ireland to Cathay". Ireland, which is known for its green pasture, hence the term "The Emerald Island", is not too far from England itself. Once the business with England is dealt with, perhaps you should force these people to recognise you as their overlord?
Then you think about the second part of the phrase, Cathay. An intriguing place even further East from the mystical realms of Hindustan, Cathay, has always been known for its civilised culture since the times of the Romans, having established the lucrative Silk Trade Route. You dismiss such foolish thoughts as your men prepare to embark on your ships for Hastings, but you think to yourself, "Ireland to Cathay; different worlds which is under one Heaven".
Hello everyone and welcome to the first general development diary for Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion.
For those who do not know, this is the so-called "China Expansion" for this awesome game, Crusader Kings II. Of course, saying that it's just a "China Expansion" does injustice to what this modification aims to do.
Now, it was my intention to do a series of general development diaries myself and leave it to the project leads of each of the individual projects to do theirs concurrently, but due to the fact that there's essentially no staff I have decided against doing a general development diary and instead opt for development diaries for each of the projects.
Since this is Diary 0, this is just an announcement Diary in that there will be diaries in the future . As such, unfortunately, I won't be able to give much in terms of features and what not. However I can say that there will be lots of exciting stuff coming sometime in the near future. In terms of release, here is the current plan:
- There will be four Open Alpha releases for the general public
- There may be additional patches for these individual updates should it be necessary, but probably no hotfixes
- The first release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for the Vanilla bookmarks
- The second release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for The Old Gods bookmark
- The third release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for the Charlemagne bookmark
- The fourth release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for in-between dates for the Vanilla bookmarks
- Alpha being Alpha, these versions will be quite barebone in that there will be nothing balanced, limited special features for the new religions, limited amount of new decisions and events, and missing fluffs
Since I got the official announcement for the project out of the way, I have something more important:
Recruitment
At the moment it is just myself working on this, as well as .Me for minor graphical stuff. I am need of modders who are capable of filling up the historical titles as well as setting up the characters themselves. With the change in leadership, there has been a huge change in terms of the fundamentals such as the changing of ID tags (which has caused a huge mess). Also, anyone with a good historical knowledge (especially in areas of vassals) of both the Far Eastern and South Eastern Areas would be greatly appreciated.
One more thing, provinces. Although .Me and co did a good job of expanding the map, I am somewhat unsatisfied with the amount of provinces. Am I being greedy? Hell yes! However, I do think that for the sake of accuracy, it would be best to have at least 1.5 times more provinces than Europa Universalis IV has for equivalent areas. In other words, I need someone who can do provinces too.
In all seriousness, due to the sheer scale (also my lack of knowledge in the area), this mod is in serious danger of not getting a single release, so I definitely need more people!
Well folks, that's it for today. Unless I change my mind, the next diary will also be the first development diary for our flagship project: Sons of Heaven.
You are William II, the natural son of Robert the Magnificent.
As you await for the right tide to sail to England, you hear words that one of the contestants, Harald III Hadrada of Norway has been killed during the Battle of Stamford Bridge by an arrow to the neck. You also hear that a Viking Berserker, trying to defend the corpse of his King, was killed by getting his scrotum pierced with a sword. Disturbed at the barbaric ways these Saxons fight, you compose a letter to the dastardly Harold II of Godwin:
"To the wretched Harold,
Tales of your misdeeds are told from Ireland to Cathay, give up your claim to the English throne and I shalt reserve a place for you on the King's Council.
From,
William II, Duke of Normandy"
You think about that phrase, "Ireland to Cathay". Ireland, which is known for its green pasture, hence the term "The Emerald Island", is not too far from England itself. Once the business with England is dealt with, perhaps you should force these people to recognise you as their overlord?
Then you think about the second part of the phrase, Cathay. An intriguing place even further East from the mystical realms of Hindustan, Cathay, has always been known for its civilised culture since the times of the Romans, having established the lucrative Silk Trade Route. You dismiss such foolish thoughts as your men prepare to embark on your ships for Hastings, but you think to yourself, "Ireland to Cathay; different worlds which is under one Heaven".
Hello everyone and welcome to the first general development diary for Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion.
For those who do not know, this is the so-called "China Expansion" for this awesome game, Crusader Kings II. Of course, saying that it's just a "China Expansion" does injustice to what this modification aims to do.
Now, it was my intention to do a series of general development diaries myself and leave it to the project leads of each of the individual projects to do theirs concurrently, but due to the fact that there's essentially no staff I have decided against doing a general development diary and instead opt for development diaries for each of the projects.
Since this is Diary 0, this is just an announcement Diary in that there will be diaries in the future . As such, unfortunately, I won't be able to give much in terms of features and what not. However I can say that there will be lots of exciting stuff coming sometime in the near future. In terms of release, here is the current plan:
- There will be four Open Alpha releases for the general public
- There may be additional patches for these individual updates should it be necessary, but probably no hotfixes
- The first release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for the Vanilla bookmarks
- The second release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for The Old Gods bookmark
- The third release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for the Charlemagne bookmark
- The fourth release will be available once all the top-tier titles are playable for in-between dates for the Vanilla bookmarks
- Alpha being Alpha, these versions will be quite barebone in that there will be nothing balanced, limited special features for the new religions, limited amount of new decisions and events, and missing fluffs
Since I got the official announcement for the project out of the way, I have something more important:
Recruitment
At the moment it is just myself working on this, as well as .Me for minor graphical stuff. I am need of modders who are capable of filling up the historical titles as well as setting up the characters themselves. With the change in leadership, there has been a huge change in terms of the fundamentals such as the changing of ID tags (which has caused a huge mess). Also, anyone with a good historical knowledge (especially in areas of vassals) of both the Far Eastern and South Eastern Areas would be greatly appreciated.
One more thing, provinces. Although .Me and co did a good job of expanding the map, I am somewhat unsatisfied with the amount of provinces. Am I being greedy? Hell yes! However, I do think that for the sake of accuracy, it would be best to have at least 1.5 times more provinces than Europa Universalis IV has for equivalent areas. In other words, I need someone who can do provinces too.
In all seriousness, due to the sheer scale (also my lack of knowledge in the area), this mod is in serious danger of not getting a single release, so I definitely need more people!
Well folks, that's it for today. Unless I change my mind, the next diary will also be the first development diary for our flagship project: Sons of Heaven.