[Sub Mod] Vanilla Country Colors

[Arrowfiend]

While for the most part I love the CK2+ mod, one thing that has always annoyed me are the bright and obnoxious colors that most titles have been changed to. Thus why I came up with idea of making a sub-mod that reverts the colors back to a more vanilla feel. Right now, the mod is just in the idea stage. Changing title colors is pretty simple, since it just involves changing a couple lines of code. However, it is very tedious and time consuming. I'd like to see if other people are interested, and perhaps even want to help, before I start the long process of reverting the country colors.

One thing I am divided on is whether to make the colors the exact same as vanilla or just make them more muted and subtle than the current ones. Reason being that the current colors, while bright, do help with distinguishing different lands.

 

[schwarherz]

If you decide to do option two we may end up folding it into the main mod.

 

[Arrowfiend]

If you decide to do option two we may end up folding it into the main mod.

Alright, I'll probably do option two. At most, I'll do all the way down to the duchy level. There are way too many counties to change and independent counts are rare, so I don't think its worth doing.

 

[DavidYung]

I've actually been busy trying to change the colors to a more chromatic type color-system all the way to the county level for a while now. It covers almost all areas from Ireland to India. And are based on national colors, flag colors and whatever the next color on the scale is to make it more distinctive. My files include all dejure colors as well as most of the CK2+ Titles (Special Titles/Titular Titles) which correspond with the respective religion, region and culture.

Two things though, I haven't updated my CK2 since the release of Way of Life, so it will have to be updated, as I am sure some parts are now incompatible. But it should provide a good working body. And as you can tell by Egypt being called 'Masr' and 'Misr' and Aragon being 'Aragó' I've also been implementing many culture swapping names for countries. I am not sure if you're wanting that, but that would simply be something you wouldn't have to copy. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a couple of pictures:

769 Counties Eastern & India
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2

769 Counties Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#1

769 Counties Middle East & Africa
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#2

769 Counties Scandinavia & Steppes
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#3

769 De Jure Duchies Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#4

769 Indian Ocean Duchies
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#6

769 European Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#5

1066 Western Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#8

1066 Eastern Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#7

These colors are quite bright and obnoxious to your tastes maybe. I never minded the ones in CK2+, but did miss the transitional colors. I chose these colors to get rid of hideous colors like electric greens and the big green blob around Europe.

 

[Slayen]

I've actually been busy trying to change the colors to a more chromatic type color-system all the way to the county level for a while now. It covers almost all areas from Ireland to India. And are based on national colors, flag colors and whatever the next color on the scale is to make it more distinctive. My files include all dejure colors as well as most of the CK2+ Titles (Special Titles/Titular Titles) which correspond with the respective religion, region and culture.

Two things though, I haven't updated my CK2 since the release of Way of Life, so it will have to be updated, as I am sure some parts are now incompatible. But it should provide a good working body. And as you can tell by Egypt being called 'Masr' and 'Misr' and Aragon being 'Aragó' I've also been implementing many culture swapping names for countries. I am not sure if you're wanting that, but that would simply be something you wouldn't have to copy. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a couple of pictures:

769 Counties Eastern & India
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2

769 Counties Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#1

769 Counties Middle East & Africa
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#2

769 Counties Scandinavia & Steppes
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#3

769 De Jure Duchies Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#4

769 Indian Ocean Duchies
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#6

769 European Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#5

1066 Western Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#8

1066 Eastern Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#7

These colors are quite bright and obnoxious to your tastes maybe. I never minded the ones in CK2+, but did miss the transitional colors. I chose these colors to get rid of hideous colors like electric greens and the big green blob around Europe.

Oh my that is lovely.

As someone who finds the wild patchwork of colors ck2+ uses kind of eye searing, this is soo much better.

 

[DavidYung]

Oh my that is lovely.

As someone who finds the wild patchwork of colors ck2+ uses kind of eye searing, this is soo much better.

Oh thank you so much! Maybe you'd also like a culture group chromatic scheme where individual culture groups have similar colors. I hate seeing those off-white yellow colors.

769 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA

1066 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#1

1066 Culutre Middle East & Steppes & India
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#2

1337 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#3

 

[Arrowfiend]

I've actually been busy trying to change the colors to a more chromatic type color-system all the way to the county level for a while now. It covers almost all areas from Ireland to India. And are based on national colors, flag colors and whatever the next color on the scale is to make it more distinctive. My files include all dejure colors as well as most of the CK2+ Titles (Special Titles/Titular Titles) which correspond with the respective religion, region and culture.

Two things though, I haven't updated my CK2 since the release of Way of Life, so it will have to be updated, as I am sure some parts are now incompatible. But it should provide a good working body. And as you can tell by Egypt being called 'Masr' and 'Misr' and Aragon being 'Aragó' I've also been implementing many culture swapping names for countries. I am not sure if you're wanting that, but that would simply be something you wouldn't have to copy. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a couple of pictures:

769 Counties Eastern & India
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2

769 Counties Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#1

769 Counties Middle East & Africa
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#2

769 Counties Scandinavia & Steppes
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#3

769 De Jure Duchies Europe
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#4

769 Indian Ocean Duchies
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#6

769 European Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#5

1066 Western Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#8

1066 Eastern Kingdoms
http://imgur.com/AAs63gI,HKLxKCL,pP9jqCu,2tj6ELR,kLwMm0v,ALV2Ze4,fraaGFy,6JY71CH,SQ62wT2#7

These colors are quite bright and obnoxious to your tastes maybe. I never minded the ones in CK2+, but did miss the transitional colors. I chose these colors to get rid of hideous colors like electric greens and the big green blob around Europe.

God. Damn. Amazing work. Way better than anything I could have done. The colors were diluted just enough not to be obnoxious but make countries stand out between each other. A few modifications can be done to the kingdoms IMO and I wouldn't include the cultural names, but otherwise its perfect. Just need to get it updated to Horse Lords.

 

[schwarherz]

Oh thank you so much! Maybe you'd also like a culture group chromatic scheme where individual culture groups have similar colors. I hate seeing those off-white yellow colors.

769 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA

1066 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#1

1066 Culutre Middle East & Steppes & India
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#2

1337 Culture Europe
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA#3

Ok, yeah I have to admit I love those cultural colors. A little too "same" between some of them for my tastes (e.g. I'm not color blind and even I have issues telling some of them apart without looking close), but overall they're gorgeous.

 

[DavidYung]

@Arrowfiend
@schwarherz

I am very happy to hear you both like the colors so much. I'll get onto updating them to Horse Lords as soon as I can. And I agree that places like Armenia, Syria, Georgia Alania and Trebizond with Nicaea are very difficult to tell apart. On the other hand they hardly ever get formed on their own.

The cultural colors for the Balkan are all this off-red pink color that is very indistinguishable. As plain colors they stand out, but in-game with the filters that the game uses the colors get samey. For some reason the game just pumps up pink, purple and tyrian colors. That's what makes the Byzantine Empire stick out so much.

And when you play a small country it's far easier to notice the difference in color and once you get bigger the differences become only more stark because of the gradient being disrupted. The idea is that cultures and counties share some form of heritage with one another because they are closer in contact with each other. It's the reason why I've decided to make Greek and Persian cultures have similar colors throughout because they've interacted so much with each other in history.

I'll get onto cultures as soon as I can, since the realms will take me much longer to do.

Thank you.

 

[DavidYung]

Alright, I've updated to Horselords and added in the new cultures as well as changed the color of the Kurds to an orange color and the Copts to go inline with the Eastern African colors. Here are two screens for you:

769 Steppe Culture
http://imgur.com/tVsdZyK,zGzlRJf#0

1220 Mongol Bookmark Steppe Culture
http://imgur.com/tVsdZyK,zGzlRJf#1


As for the culture swapping names, there are a lot in European Iberia for Arabic cultures, but it's incomplete. I've added all counties, duchies and kingdoms within Iberia to swap names for each Arabic culture group character holding that specific title. The same I've done for Jerusalem, where placenames have Israelite, Crusader and Arabic names. For anyone who knows Arabic knows that Negev is very uncanny to be the title of an Arabic named county. Likewise, it makes little sense for Turks to hold Arabic titles when they have Turkic and Turkish equivolents. As well as for the Greeks keeping Armenian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Italian and Serbian placenames where there are Greek counterparts, exonyms and respelling. This also goes for the Persians who've had a massive influence on place names in their respective region. Same for places on the German and French borders having always been swapping names when held by either French or German culture group in history. It gives more flavor and makes culture have more impact on your realm, at least superficially.

There's also a couple of geographic errors in Arabia in particular where placenames are wrong. The duchy of Damman for instance should be called (Al-/Ash-)Sharqiyyah while the county of Sharqiyyah below it should be called Rub' al-Khali.

It's something to consider, the feature is already in the game, just very incomplete and I've done my best to mend that as far as I have done so.

 

[Arrowfiend]

Alright, I've updated to Horselords and added in the new cultures as well as changed the color of the Kurds to an orange color and the Copts to go inline with the Eastern African colors. Here are two screens for you:

769 Steppe Culture
http://imgur.com/tVsdZyK,zGzlRJf#0

1220 Mongol Bookmark Steppe Culture
http://imgur.com/tVsdZyK,zGzlRJf#1


As for the culture swapping names, there are a lot in European Iberia for Arabic cultures, but it's incomplete. I've added all counties, duchies and kingdoms within Iberia to swap names for each Arabic culture group character holding that specific title. The same I've done for Jerusalem, where placenames have Israelite, Crusader and Arabic names. For anyone who knows Arabic knows that Negev is very uncanny to be the title of an Arabic named county. Likewise, it makes little sense for Turks to hold Arabic titles when they have Turkic and Turkish equivolents. As well as for the Greeks keeping Armenian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Italian and Serbian placenames where there are Greek counterparts, exonyms and respelling. This also goes for the Persians who've had a massive influence on place names in their respective region. Same for places on the German and French borders having always been swapping names when held by either French or German culture group in history. It gives more flavor and makes culture have more impact on your realm, at least superficially.

There's also a couple of geographic errors in Arabia in particular where placenames are wrong. The duchy of Damman for instance should be called (Al-/Ash-)Sharqiyyah while the county of Sharqiyyah below it should be called Rub' al-Khali.

It's something to consider, the feature is already in the game, just very incomplete and I've done my best to mend that as far as I have done so.

Wow that was quick. I take it you will release the colors and the cultural names seperately?

 

[DavidYung]

Wow that was quick. I take it you will release the colors and the cultural names seperately?

Well that's definitely doable, but not practical and very time consuming. I just spent the last two to three hours trying to get the colors corrected for the CK2+ Titles and culture groups alone.

As far as it goes I am willing to update my version of the map up to Horse Lords with most everything intact as I had it. After that it would be quite easy to just go kingdom to kingdom to remove all the (additional) culture swapping names. But I am not going to go through both (color list and additional name list) of the newer list of 2.4.3 and the older Way of Life version just to get one out quicker, because that will only make it take longer to do in fact. But yes, it could be managed.

It won't be as soon as I originally thought, because the structure of the landed_titles file have changed significantly. So don't expect anything as fast as the culture map, because the cultures are far fewer than counties and easier to fix than the county map itself.

 

[Rylock]

Insofar as the color changes go, I'd like to see this first as the proposed sub-mod and get some opinions before I consider adding it into the base game. Satisfying one group of "oh god! my eyes!" people just to have a completely different group now start going "oh god! change it back!" would not be particularly helpful. Near as I can tell, there will always be people who complain about the colors. If there's some consensus that this is an improvement, however, then by all means.

As for the culture swapping names, there are a lot in European Iberia for Arabic cultures, but it's incomplete. I've added all counties, duchies and kingdoms within Iberia to swap names for each Arabic culture group character holding that specific title. The same I've done for Jerusalem, where placenames have Israelite, Crusader and Arabic names. For anyone who knows Arabic knows that Negev is very uncanny to be the title of an Arabic named county. Likewise, it makes little sense for Turks to hold Arabic titles when they have Turkic and Turkish equivolents. As well as for the Greeks keeping Armenian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Italian and Serbian placenames where there are Greek counterparts, exonyms and respelling. This also goes for the Persians who've had a massive influence on place names in their respective region. Same for places on the German and French borders having always been swapping names when held by either French or German culture group in history. It gives more flavor and makes culture have more impact on your realm, at least superficially.

There's also a couple of geographic errors in Arabia in particular where placenames are wrong. The duchy of Damman for instance should be called (Al-/Ash-)Sharqiyyah while the county of Sharqiyyah below it should be called Rub' al-Khali.

It's something to consider, the feature is already in the game, just very incomplete and I've done my best to mend that as far as I have done so.

We're pretty leery of adding more culture-specific names into the landed titles file. There's a rabbit hole which exists there, where we start needing to put in minor re-translations and re-spellings...and, while I know some people like that, we really don't. The line we've drawn so far is for places where the name is actually a different name altogether...or, if it's just a translation, it has a different enough flavor (or, at least, can be expected to happen quite frequently since it exists in an area that is frequently conquered by that culture) to justify the change. We also try to avoid changing the names of well-known provinces, unless the alternate is also well-known.

It's a fine line, and I'm afraid I can't specify exactly where it'll be drawn other than "we'll know it's been crossed when we see it". Hence why, in the past, we've required that such culture-specific names go into a sub-mod for the people who want it, to avoid such arguments as "well, you already have x why don't you also have y?".

So I'll take a look at the file once you put it up (and I wouldn't expect you to separate them -- that's more work than it's worth), but expect half of the name changes (or more) to be taken back out. Truly, if the existence of some culture-specific names seems to justify adding more, we'd sooner remove them all altogether than add even more.

 

[DavidYung]

@Rylock

I knew from the get-go that there are many people I am not going to please and that when you change colors people want to see alternatives. Why is Scotland blue and not yellow, why isn't Spain more green, why is Norway pink, and on and on. Even in posting the things that I have as of yesterday I am only hoping to offer up the time I've sunk into the map to offer an alternative for people who want one. I am not asking for it to become part of CK2+ whatsoever, but the fact that you might consider that is quite charming.

I'd been iffy on the whole adding culture specific names, but I accepted CK2 as a game wherein people alter history, and to me it makes no sense that a dominant culture wouldn't take their own name over the base name or even the English name over the endonym. And that is a big problem for recognition sake. Why Saqartvelo instead of Georgia, everyone knows Georgia, who knows Saqartvelo? I didn't before I even added it in.

I will update my files to the current map as soon as I can and it wouldn't take much time to remove titles. But considering the CK2+ team has also added alternative names for Arab culture groups in Southern to Mid Spain and Sicily, I don't see why there shouldn't be Arab culture group names in Jerusalem, Northern Spain and Portugal. Though it would be silly to add Arab names for places like Sjaelland.

In any case it doesn't bloat the files too bad. With the additional names landed_titles is 625 KB instead of the current 539 KB in the standard CK2+ mod. But you might think that that's too much.

Once I am done with the update I am willing to remove the names myself. I'd be glad to help.

 

[Arrowfiend]

@Rylock
I'd been iffy on the whole adding culture specific names, but I accepted CK2 as a game wherein people alter history, and to me it makes no sense that a dominant culture wouldn't take their own name over the base name or even the English name over the endonym. And that is a big problem for recognition sake. Why Saqartvelo instead of Georgia, everyone knows Georgia, who knows Saqartvelo? I didn't before I even added it in.

Indeed, CK2 is a game where you alter history. However, that has nothing to do with the naming of countries. The reason they have their English names is because the game is in English, not because English was the dominant language at the time (which it wasn't). If the game was in Georgian, then sure, go ahead and call Georgia "Saqartvelo."

Not trying to put down your work, its great, I just disagree with the cultural naming.

 

[DavidYung]

Indeed, CK2 is a game where you alter history. However, that has nothing to do with the naming of countries. The reason they have their English names is because the game is in English, not because English was the dominant language at the time (which it wasn't). If the game was in Georgian, then sure, go ahead and call Georgia "Saqartvelo."

Not trying to put down your work, its great, I just disagree with the cultural naming.

I don't think this is the place for an argument that's already been had multiple times on this forum, and we shouldn't dig ourselves in a hole here. I don't want to dismiss your point, neither do you want do mine, I'm sure, but there's no reason to talk about it here. It's a matter of taste.

Why not discuss it? Because it is inconsequential, if the developers of the mod decide to pick it up those names will either make it in or get scrapped. I will keep the names for myself, because that's what I want and why I have put them in in the first place. I am not subjecting anyone to it either, because I am willing to take out these additional names and make two versions so people can pick whatever they'd like, provided the CK2+ team agrees with this, because I am using their mod as a blueprint here of course.

 

[Rylock]

I agree. Putting this up as a sub-mod is the best option for now. If someone wants to separate the cultural names from the colors, that's on them to make a separate sub-mod -- no reason to expect DavidYung to do that work himself. Insofar as what (if anything) goes into the main mod, that's a separate conversation entirely. I only brought it up to explain our philosophy on the matter, just as a caution regarding how much (if anything) could potentially make it into the main game. He needn't care about that, as the idea first and foremost is to make an option for those who care about such things.

 

[Arrowfiend]

Apologies, I shouldn't have brought it up. Anyways, when DavidYung is finished and posts the mod, I'll make a color only version and post it.

 

[LordPeter]

Just wanted to step by and say that I also adore the new colour scheme.

But the one (and only) thing that really bugs me is that some neighbouring realms and cultures just can't be told from one another.
Like the Frankish/Occitan and the German/Wend/Saxon/Czech block of cultures in this picture of yours:
http://imgur.com/bmCKeZJ,hVcxqzs,qxQ5Gzc,DPSsCWA
It's not a problem in the screenshot, because they are all properly aligned, but when bordergore takes over and there's a patchwork of different cultures next to each other, you won't be able to tell which is which. Same goes for the realms.
So maybe you could take a look at the places again where such problems exist, and make those neighbouring colours a little more distinct from each other.

If that would be taken care of, though, I'd vote on the colour part to be included in the main mod



Edit: Off topic: Is embedding pictures on the forums currently broken? Hasn't worked for me in a while.

 

[DavidYung]

@LordPeter

Thank you!

I will look into that, you're right about that. If border gore happens there might be some problems with those specific culture groups. When playing a small nation it's more easily distinguishable, and once you become a big nation your color sets off more because it ranges further into the chromatic color scheme. But you're right, Wend, Czech and German are but a few shades away from each other. Though I do think that Occitan and Frankish are quite distinguished. I'll look into this more specifically when I have time and try to fix this issue.

I have tried embedding pictures and it didn't work for me either. Hence I used an image hosting site.