So I noticed the Caucasus seems to be all wrong.

[Rock Lord]

When I was playing as the King of Armenia, it always felt pretty weird that there was a "Count of Azerbaijan" as one of my vassals. Eventually, it bothered me enough that I decided to change the title name to "Artsakh" because that name struck me as one that fit in more with the other titles in my realm and also as more historically accurate for the time. And from what I could tell, the "County of Azerbaijan" is actually located almost exactly where Artsakh's borders were at the time, based on this and this.

Eventually, I looked up the holdings located in the CK 2 version of the County of Azerbaijan to try to figure out exactly where it was supposed to be. And near as I tell, three out of four of them were in the completely wrong part of the world. Urmiah, Takht-e Soleymān, and Bastam are all places in Iranian Azerbaijan, which is I believe is actually where the Duchy of Tabriz is in CK 2. All of those places are in modern day Iran, south of the river that appears on the CK 2 map. Kapalak actually DOES appear to be a city in the roughly correct region, but I'm not certain if that is supposed to be right either, because it has the same name as the capital of the County of Albania, so I was left wondering if there were two different holdings in two different counties that were supposed to be referring to the same place.

The Duchy of Azerbaijan in CK 2 seems to correspond to the borders of the modern nation state of the same name, but that's not what it would have been called at the time. That is where the Duchy of Albania should be, I think. Yet the Duchy of Albania is placed entirely separately to it's north.

I was really impressed with the fact that the game includes different names for provinces depending on who controls them, but the list seems rather glaringly incomplete. It kinda seemed off that "Albania" became "Aghvank" while in my realm, but "Azerbaijan" just stays "Azerbaijan."

I know I'm not the only one to mention stuff like this. For example, I saw this mod recently, but that's a level of detail way beyond what I was asking for here. It just seems like a lot of names are in the wrong places. I mean, obviously changing or adding a few names around is not going to capture the full complexity of the real Caucasus, but I learned about a lot seemingly really obvious errors just from a cursory glance through Wikipedia and Google.

 

[Czert]

they fix it in time, mayby.

 

[Matihood1]

I was really impressed with the fact that the game includes different names for provinces depending on who controls them, but the list seems rather glaringly incomplete. It kinda seemed off that "Albania" became "Aghvank" while in my realm, but "Azerbaijan" just stays "Azerbaijan."

That issue is actually pretty common. If you, say, start in the earlier bookmarks as a Polish high chief and you conquer Pommeranian Slavic tribes to the west, the Slavic names of their holdings switch to German for no reason. It may have gotten sorted out since the Poland-centered DD though.

 

[Rock Lord]

That issue is actually pretty common. If you, say, start in the earlier bookmarks as a Polish high chief and you conquer Pommeranian Slavic tribes to the west, the Slavic names of their holdings switch to German for no reason. It may have gotten sorted out since the Poland-centered DD though.

Are the names of provinces based on the culture of the liege? I don't know enough about the history of Poland (or Pomerania) to comment on that particular example. Aghvank IS actually the Armenian word for Caucasian Albania, which is why I was so impressed by it being included. But my point was that just makes an Armenian county having the name "Azerbaijan" stand out as being anachronistic and linguistically inappropriate, all the more. Especially since they are almost right next to eachother on the map.

 

[Matihood1]

Are the names of provinces based on the culture of the liege? I don't know enough about the history of Poland (or Pomerania) to comment on that particular example.

Yes, they are. I'm mostly talking about older bookmarks before Germans conquered Pommeranians. It doesn't really make sense that cities that were never German before got their names changed to German after being conquered by another Slavic tribe. It's like if a Finnish ruler conquered Estonia and changed the names of Estonian cities to their Russian equivalents.

 

[Kljunas]

That's because the German names are the default and alternate names have to be specified for every culture individually, which is a pretty cumbersome system to handle every possible alternate history case. It would probably make sense for the Slavic names to be the default though.

 

[elvain]

Are the names of provinces based on the culture of the liege? I don't know enough about the history of Poland (or Pomerania) to comment on that particular example. Aghvank IS actually the Armenian word for Caucasian Albania, which is why I was so impressed by it being included. But my point was that just makes an Armenian county having the name "Azerbaijan" stand out as being anachronistic and linguistically inappropriate, all the more. Especially since they are almost right next to eachother on the map.

yes, the list of names is incomplete. Not all provinces, even in their region have all names of potential regions. That said, even the region/province of Azerbaijan may have missing Armenian name. You can simply mod it in, though

EDIT: also if you want it get improved, I'd recomend not saying "It's all wrong" but instead "How Caucasus could be improved" and post name lists for all provinces in question. To make your point more relevant, including more than just one language would be even more helpful and might dramatically increase the chance of it being 1) noticed and 2) taken into account

 

[klopkr]

That's because the German names are the default and alternate names have to be specified for every culture individually, which is a pretty cumbersome system to handle every possible alternate history case. It would probably make sense for the Slavic names to be the default though.

So shouldn't it be the opposite now that we have older bookmarks?

 

[Snow Crystal]

yes, the list of names is incomplete. Not all provinces, even in their region have all names of potential regions. That said, even the region/province of Azerbaijan may have missing Armenian name. You can simply mod it in, though

EDIT: also if you want it get improved, I'd recomend not saying "It's all wrong" but instead "How Caucasus could be improved" and post name lists for all provinces in question. To make your point more relevant, including more than just one language would be even more helpful and might dramatically increase the chance of it being 1) noticed and 2) taken into account

As always, Elvain is correct. Just saying something is wrong, is not as constructive as say HOW it is wrong, or how it could be improved. We are aware that there are areas in the game that are less than optimal, but we have to prioritize what we can fix and what we cannot. An example of this is a massive post we (Arthur and I) were sent by @El-Daddy , where he explained in great detail how we could improve a region in the game. That is more helpful, and makes it somewhat more likely for us to take a look at a region.

So shouldn't it be the opposite now that we have older bookmarks?

Maybe it should be, but that means we would have to set aside the time to go through a lot of regions in the game and take another look at them, to see if they need to be renamed. As most map work done outside of office time, I'd say it is somewhat unlikely unless someone is actively working on the provinces already.

 

[Rock Lord]

yes, the list of names is incomplete. Not all provinces, even in their region have all names of potential regions. That said, even the region/province of Azerbaijan may have missing Armenian name. You can simply mod it in, though

EDIT: also if you want it get improved, I'd recomend not saying "It's all wrong" but instead "How Caucasus could be improved" and post name lists for all provinces in question. To make your point more relevant, including more than just one language would be even more helpful and might dramatically increase the chance of it being 1) noticed and 2) taken into account

As always, Elvain is correct. Just saying something is wrong, is not as constructive as say HOW it is wrong, or how it could be improved. We are aware that there are areas in the game that are less than optimal, but we have to prioritize what we can fix and what we cannot. An example of this is a massive post we (Arthur and I) were sent by @El-Daddy , where he explained in great detail how we could improve a region in the game. That is more helpful, and makes it somewhat more likely for us to take a look at a region.

I apologize for not getting back to the thread sooner. I had meant to respond but there were real life distractions that got in the way.

Anyway, I'm sorry if perhaps title came across more negative than I intended, as obviously the Caucasus isn't literally all wrong. But I thought I was at least a little bit helpful in the body of the post. I did point out where a few things on the map were or were supposed to be. I did have some more detailed suggestions I had intended to post, but I hesitated because I had to do more research. And I also don't always have access to the Crusader Kings map 2 for comparison.

Unfortunately, I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of what all the most important medieval cities, forts, monasteries and cathedrals were in Artsakh. Nor do I know exactly how far the borders of Caucasian Albania extended during this period of history. Nor do I know much about what would be the most balanced number of provinces for the gameplay in the region.

But I believe the County of Azerbaijan should be renamed Artsakh. The holdings should also be renamed as well. From what I've been able to deduce, the capital holding should be the fortress of "Khachen."

It's kind of difficult to determine what the other holdings should be called because there appears to be so many different names for places in the region, and many of the historical sites have multiple names. And you'd also have to filter out the places built after the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, also there's a lot of historical revisionism and propaganda to deal with because of the real life regional dispute.

But based on my perusal of Wikipedia and tourism websites, the other holdings could potentially be any of the following:

- The city of "Vararakn" is the medieval name of the current capital.

- "Tsar" is also the name of a city in the area that was important as a regional capital.

- From what I could tell "Vaykunik" also appears to be the old name of a modern village in that area.

- "Aghuen" is also settlement name that comes up as being relevant, but I seem to have read conflicting reports about whether it was part of Artsakh or Albania.

- "Tigranakert" was also the name of an ancient city in Artsakh. But I don't know for sure if it was still populated in medieval times. There's also a fortress there, but it was built in the 19th Century.

- "Ktish" is the name of an important fortress capital there in medieval times.

-"Togh" is the name of a town near Ktish.

- "Handaberd," "Kachaghakaberd," and "Jraberd" are also both places that appeared on a list of Artsakh fortress and were noteworthy for medieval Armenians.

- "Amaras" is a very old Monastery in Artsakh that was apparently important in medieval times. It could work as a Church holding.

- "Gandsazar" is also famous monastery there, but it seems to have first been built between the 10th and 13ths centuries.

- "Tsitsernavank" is another old monastery built before the Middle Ages.

- "Jrvshtik" was the old name of an old monastery in Artsakh as well.

- "Vankasar" is a church first built in the 7th century.

My understanding is that every county has a long list of potential names for new holdings, right? I figured it is better to suggest a lot of different name options.

My first thought is that the County of Artsakh should be added to the dejure Duchy of Armenia and the other provinces of the Duchy of Azerbaijan should be part of the dejure Duchy of Albania. I don't know if that is too many counties per duchy. I don't really have a solution if it is, but maybe Albania's borders should be shifted further south? That kind of seems to be more in line with some of the maps I've seen, but as I said, I don't know how far Albania's borders stretched north into Dagestan.

And I guess maybe the Duchy of Tabriz could be renamed into the Duchy of Azerbaijan. In modern day Iran, the city of Tabriz is apparently a major city in the province of Azerbaijan. Actually perhaps the County of Tabriz could be renamed East Azerbaijan, while a County of West Azerbaijan could be added next to it. That way you could keep Takht-e Soleymān, Urmiah and Bastam in the game.

Although if "East Azerbaijan" and "West Azerbaijan" are names too long for the map, then you could just leave the County of Tabriz as it is and just create a County of Azerbaijan next to it with those three holdings.

The dynamic names in the Caucasus would also an issue. And unfortunately I can't name them all off the top of my head either. I thought I should post this first and try to tackle some of that in any later posts.

 

[Rock Lord]

So upon playing the game further, I managed to remember or notice a few more things. I also updated my previous list, slightly.

The counties of Syunik and Azerbaijan are both part of the Duchy of Azerbaijan. Adding them both to the Duchy of Armenia seems like it would make the Duchy too big, so my new thought is that the County of Azerbaijan should be renamed the County of Artsakh, and then both Syunik and Artsakh could form the Duchy of Artsakh, and that could become part of the dejure Kingdom of Armenia. Then maybe Shirvan, Shemakha, Albania, and Derbent can form the Duchy of Albania. I don't know if the historical holdings in the County of Semender were ever part of Caucasian Albania, but the province as is on the CK 2 map seems too far north to me.

I've looked up a lot of maps I noticed on a some Shirvan seems to include the area where Shemankha (or Shamakhi, as google seems to say it is called) is on CK 2. Shemankha was an important city in the territory of Shirvan. Maybe it would be better to just shift Albania and Derbent further down south to where Shemankha is and divide the holdings between the three other provinces. Based on what I've read and most of the maps I've found, "Arran," "Shirvan" and "Derbent" all appear to be parts of "Albania." So perhaps those could be the names you give to the the Duchy and it's counties. "Arran" and "Albania" also both seem to be the word for the territory west of Shirvan and the whole of the region together. So I don't know if it's better to use one for the Duchy and one for the County or just call them both Arran or both Albania.

I'm not sure which dejure kingdom they would be part of, but the map I saw of Daylam doesn't seem to include the Caucasus at all.

One other weird thing I noticed is that when Armenians control the county of Albania, is is called Aghvank, but when Armenians control the entire Duchy of Derbent, it is called "Aghbania" even though I thought they are supposed to be the same word.

Another thing I realized from playing the game more is that Takht-e Soleymān is actually in the game, elsewhere. There's a holding in Irbil with that name, which is closer (I think) but still not quite in the right place. Irbil is in Iraqi Kurdistan, not Iran. I also noticed the capital holding of Irbil was "Oromieh," which a Google search leads me to believe is just another spelling for Urmiah.

I also googled all the holdings in the Duchy of Kurdistan, and they all appeared to be places in Iranian Kurdistan, so I think they are all correct. I guess if you wanted to keep a more historically and geographically accurate Takht-e Soleymān and Urmia in the game, just move them to the other side of Kurdistan.

As for dynamic names, I still don't know a lot. The most obvious one would be that Karabakh would be another name for Artsakh. Wikipedia says the name first appeared in the late Middle Ages. I suppose that would be used by Turkish or Iranian cultures.

I think most of the places I listed above probably have had (or could have had) contentious debates on their Wikipedia talk pages about which names should be included on their Wikipedia pages, but I haven't been able to find a lot of examples. And the Azerbaijani name for the capital only dates back a century or two.

Wikipedia does also seem to include a lot of different names for Albania:

In Armenian it's "Aghvank." In Persian its "Arran." In Arabic is "Al-Ran," I think. In Georgian it's "Rani." I imagine there are more, but I guess Albania would be the best default?

 

[Rock Lord]

Anyway, I've tried to find a lot of maps about the Caucasus to support my suggestion, and most of them seem to be show roughly what I've been saying. Although I'm not sure if I can format the post to make the smaller.

Here are a few in addition to the two in my OP: