Map Improvements

New thread about any sort of map improvement and the level DEIOU integration. Evander will be interested in knowing your opinion about that last point.

PS : I'll quote the interesting parts from the previous topic of course. Just later when I have time.

Then I'll post the map I prepared. It's WIP, but most counties and shapes are quite solid. Except in La Mancha and Extremadura, that's one mess of a region.

Spoiler:

(Solo) EDIT : I'm placing your previous comment and input from the moderated topic here. That way it's not lost and other readers still know who's been writing those.

That's another thing I'd like to discuss: the height map. Right now, heights are overly exaggerated. I was playing Foix and it bothered me not to be able to see my county most of the time, because it's in the other side of the damn Pyrinees and I can't turn the view around. It's also a bit disturbing to play as any county or duchy close to the Alps, the Pyrinees or some other big mountain because then everything goes down.

So lowering the mountains, as well as moving the cities away from the tops (those town in the top of the Alps...) would be, in my opinion, a good idea concerning apperance.

I think the physical map appearance of EU: Rome was very good, I don't know why did they abandon it. If we have to choose between a flat map with abstract relief, like in the last version of EUIII or in MEIOU, and the Vanilla relief, I choose flat.

You can even play with the CK1 feeling that it's all a map. Pity we're stucked with the floating baroque CoA's and cannot experiment with flat, drawn-like CoA's, but I think it's worth a try.

But, at least, I'd make the relief less extreme.

I'm working on a map of counties for Spain. I'm adding a lot of counties, but better to have a lot of them and then merge them if need be, than have too little and then scratch our heds looking for potential splitting. (I have, of course, added as many Catalan Counties as possible xD)

Well, I'm trying to have a coherent setting that can be used by both Christians and Muslims. Also, this map represents quite accurately the distribution of cultures among the rulers in Muslim Spain:

Spoiler:

The Taifas ruled by Andalusi rulers are in yellow, while the ones ruled by Berber petty kings are in light yellow. In light purple you can see the Saqaliba taifas, the Muslim petty kingdoms ruled by Slavic emirs and kings.

That looks great.

As I mentioned: playing DEIOU is really hard on my PC, anyone else experiencing this? I wouldn't want my TPatT affected because of that...

I believe what we would do is have DEIOU included as an optional mod along with TPTT (ie you'd have both mod folder included and would just have to check it or not in the launcher).

I think Evander wants to keep publishing a standalone version of the mod and it's the best solution we could come up with. Also, before considering any further, we'd have to listen to players feedback because of the impact it could have on minimum requirements. Right now, including his personnal mod along with the main mod seems the best way to get feedback without any specific downside (other than additionnal work).

In any case, he'll probably give more details by himself if/when needed.

Solo wrote:I believe what we would do is have DEIOU included as an optional mod along with TPTT (ie you'd have both mod folder included and would just have to check it or not in the launcher).
I think Evander wants to keep publishing a standalone version of the mod and it's the best solution we could come up with. Also, before considering any further, we'd have to listen to players feedback because of the impact it could have on minimum requirements. Right now, including his personnal mod along with the main mod seems the best way to get feedback without any specific downside (other than additionnal work).

Yep, due to the memory issue, I think it would be best to have DEIOU as a graphical plug-in that can be turned on/off at will without corrupting the savegames. That's the best way to minimize any future issues but that would also mean working on 2 sets of map files ... the TPTT and the DEIOU4TPTT ones.
I don't see myself reworking an entire 2048 map but I'll try to get the new terrain map to the current TPTT map.

Naoki wrote:As I mentioned: playing DEIOU is really hard on my PC, anyone else experiencing this? I wouldn't want my TPatT affected because of that...

That's the kind of feedback I'd like to have. A bigger map means a bigger memory requirements, my computer is quite powerful (Crysis 3 in ultra) so I do'nt see any differences myself but on not so powerful computers that could be an issue.

Evander wrote:

Naoki wrote:As I mentioned: playing DEIOU is really hard on my PC, anyone else experiencing this? I wouldn't want my TPatT affected because of that...

That's the kind of feedback I'd like to have. A bigger map means a bigger memory requirements, my computer is quite powerful (Crysis 3 in ultra) so I do'nt see any differences myself but on not so powerful computers that could be an issue.

This is something we need to be careful with. Now my computer is a fine piece of equipment, but half a year ago I was in possession of a seven years old machine that coult barely run Civilization V and that suffered greatly when playing EUIII: MEIOU. Some mods suggested adding stuff and stuff to CK2 and I was always saying "stop, and consider that these additions are very heavy and will make the time go twice as slow".

My reasonment was that if something made the machine work too hard, time passed more slowly ingame. When the day becomes twice as long, at top time speed you'll pass half the time. That means playing twice the hours. Or the same amount, half the fun. Which sucks, especially since I don't have that much time to play CK2, or any other Paradox game, since they're all very time-consuming games. It's not bad, but if the game runs so slow, I have to be more time on the computer to play half of what I'd play if my computer was better.

That's part of the reason I changed it into a better one. So now I don't care at all, I'd say load it up with stuff, the more the better! But think of the people with older machines, because not everyone can play Crysis 3 on Ultra.

Hmm, would it be possible to instead make a lite version of DEIOU to integrate to TPTT? A different map is also a different experience, not to mention that after all those months playing in the SWMH map setting going back to the regular map would be quite weird >.<

Naoki wrote:Hmm, would it be possible to instead make a lite version of DEIOU to integrate to TPTT? A different map is also a different experience, not to mention that after all those months playing in the SWMH map setting going back to the regular map would be quite weird >.<

I would dislike it if the map went back to Vanilla too.

I was thinking about shrinking the DEIOU map to a 2048 sized-map (so same memory usage as the vanilla one) but that would require a lot of work (i.e. redrawing every single borders and rivers ...)
I may try however to shrink the borders of the current DEIOU setup (so losing central asia, central africa and north of scandinavia) but it may requires too much shrinking so I don't promise anything.

The extra borders are a nice improvement, perhaps try the shrinking of the map? Do a rough version with bad borders and rivers and I can test out if it solves the problem.

Evander wrote:I was thinking about shrinking the DEIOU map to a 2048 sized-map (so same memory usage as the vanilla one) but that would require a lot of work (i.e. redrawing every single borders and rivers ...)
I may try however to shrink the borders of the current DEIOU setup (so losing central asia, central africa and north of scandinavia) but it may requires too much shrinking so I don't promise anything.

I'd do as Naoki says first, I wouldn't like that you lost so much work.

I forgot to mention but I was also thinking about redrawing the whole sea provinces (mostly by using the MotE ones) to better represent some sea routes.
For instance having a lot more sea provinces in the north sea but mostly oriented east/west to give incentives to norse to go west and arrive in scotland/shetlands/feroyar.
Also a lot more sea provinces in mediterranean sea so that the republic can only own the coastal zones while the middle of the sea remains untouchable.

There are however 3 points where I'm not sure :
- Is that plausible (to have the middle of the "Mare Nostrum" as unclaimable areas) ?
- What will be the effect on the republic AI (nerf or OP ?)
- Will it be memory burner ?

There, what do you think ?

EDIT : Just realized ... if I just put some sea provinces (say around Iceland) as major_river (even though it's just high sea), would it work fine and let only the norse being able to cross the high sea and reach Iceland ? ... if it works it would be nice !

Evander wrote:I forgot to mention but I was also thinking about redrawing the whole sea provinces (mostly by using the MotE ones) to better represent some sea routes.
For instance having a lot more sea provinces in the north sea but mostly oriented east/west to give incentives to norse to go west and arrive in scotland/shetlands/feroyar.
Also a lot more sea provinces in mediterranean sea so that the republic can only own the coastal zones while the middle of the sea remains untouchable.

There are however 3 points where I'm not sure :
- Is that plausible (to have the middle of the "Mare Nostrum" as unclaimable areas) ?
- What will be the effect on the republic AI (nerf or OP ?)
- Will it be memory burner ?

There, what do you think ?

EDIT : Just realized ... if I just put some sea provinces (say around Iceland) as major_river (even though it's just high sea), would it work fine and let only the norse being able to cross the high sea and reach Iceland ? ... if it works it would be nice !

Interesting ideas. They should be tested, though. The Mediterranean as "impassable" is a bit unrealistic. More sea provinces in the coast would defeat the point of the sea, which is to move faster than on land.

As for giving more provinces to the families, that wouldn't be a bad outcome, but we need to consider if it's worth losing "speed" at sea.

Cèsar de Quart wrote:Interesting ideas. They should be tested, though. The Mediterranean as "impassable" is a bit unrealistic. More sea provinces in the coast would defeat the point of the sea, which is to move faster than on land.

As for giving more provinces to the families, that wouldn't be a bad outcome, but we need to consider if it's worth losing "speed" at sea.

I didn't mean to set the center(s) of mediterranean sea as impassable but only the north sea accesses to the north sea's islands and Iceland so that only the norse would be able to set sail in the high seas.
And about the movement speed on seas, I don't know if it will get impacted; I always thought that the time required to go from one province to another was directly calculated from the distance separated by the ship positions in the two provinces.
That still need to be tested indeed but if I'm right that wouldn't slow down the speed on sea while giving more possible paths on sea (interesting if PDS where to work on a naval overhaul).

Evander wrote:

Cèsar de Quart wrote:Interesting ideas. They should be tested, though. The Mediterranean as "impassable" is a bit unrealistic. More sea provinces in the coast would defeat the point of the sea, which is to move faster than on land.

As for giving more provinces to the families, that wouldn't be a bad outcome, but we need to consider if it's worth losing "speed" at sea.

I didn't mean to set the center(s) of mediterranean sea as impassable but only the north sea accesses to the north sea's islands and Iceland so that only the norse would be able to set sail in the high seas.
And about the movement speed on seas, I don't know if it will get impacted; I always thought that the time required to go from one province to another was directly calculated from the distance separated by the ship positions in the two provinces.
That still need to be tested indeed but if I'm right that wouldn't slow down the speed on sea while giving more possible paths on sea (interesting if PDS where to work on a naval overhaul).

If it doesn't slow down sea travel in relation to land travel, then let's go!

Let's wait for more opinions, though. I'm not sure about the big impassable (unacquirable, would be more accurate) Mediterranean "high seas".

cesar some quick thinking about the map:

Why the kingodm of aragon has 21/22 provinces and the sum of the kingdom of Leon and castille 11/12?

one example,Galicia 4 Catalonia 11(we are not playing football here)

You can say that they have a similar size now (32.113 km² Catalonia /29.574 km² (in the middle age galicia was bigger )).


iberia estimated population in 1100 is 4 million,at that time the highest density of population of the peninsula was in Cantabrian Coasline,they are who filled the south in the reconquest.

But if it be for political importance,neither.in the High Middle Ages was more important Galicia.


I really appreciate your effort,and if you want I can help you with the provinces in the west side.

iago6666 wrote:
Why the kingodm of aragon has 21/22 provinces and the sum of the kingdom of Leon and castille 11/12?

You are right there, a thing I didn't consider. We can split Leon and Castile into more provinces, I'm all for more counties. The more the merrier.

Don't think it's bias, it's not. It's just that in Aragon, feudal jurisdictions are much more clear than in Castile and León. That's why it's more atomised. Especially Catalonia, which was made as a mirror of Carolingian adminsitration, and therefore counties and pagi had very clear frontiers, counts and viscounts being true feudal lords, as opposed to Castillian-Leonese comites, which were much more "visigothic" and Late Roman in meaning (companions of the king, officers of the crown, sometimes being just Counts with no specific land holdings (except for their estates, which, like late Roman senators, were all over the place).

one  example,Galicia 4 Catalonia 11(we are not playing football here)

You can say that they have a similar size now (32.113 km² Catalonia /29.574 km² (in the middle age galicia was bigger )).

Galicia was not as populated as Catalonia and the Mediterranean coast, as far as I know. I'd like some input on this, anyway. Although it's true that it became depopulated during the late Caliphate of Cordoba. Frankish settlers were of little importance and there was no other source of population except natural growth, which happened very fast the pacification of Tortosa and Lleida.

I've never bought the "repopulation" thing. Most big cities were repopulated, but that's about it. While repopulation was a thing, it was a thing mostly in name only. Aragon proper, for instance, had such low density of population that Alfonso the Battler had to call Gascons and Occitans into repopulating a phantom Zaragoza, because he had depopulated it too fast from Muslims. Southern Aragon, the New Catalonia south of the Llobregat and most of Valencia were still mostly inhabitated by "moriscos" even in the XVth Century, although the nothernmost areas of these places had "merged" their cultures to the new waves.

So the amount of repopulators, which in my opinion has always been exagerated, is not really a reason for anything. But we could discuss it. After all, most of the lords that became super-magnates in the New Castile were Basques or Navarrese, also Cantabrian, as you said, and Galician. Zúñiga, Mendoza, Velasco, Haro...

iberia estimated population in 1100 is 4 million,at that time the highest density of population of the peninsula was in Cantabrian Coasline,they are who filled the south in the reconquest.

I honestly haven't read anything in depth about overall population in Medieval Spain, but from what I've gathered over the years, the idea that 500.000 christians fled to the Cantabrian mountains and then started the Reconquista southwards, only to leave the area very deserted again is quite old and obsolete. And in any case, Cantabria might be densely populated (surely some fled to the mountains, but 500.000 is both hard to prove and implausible) but that doesn't mean it was very populated. I'll take a look, but as I said I have my reservations about the sentence "filled the south". I don't think anyone did fill the south, except for the people that had always been in the south.

But if it be for political importance,neither.in the High Middle Ages was more important Galicia.

It depends on what is your input. I don't know what do you consider "more important", since Galicia and Catalonia were in completely different circles. Galicia was important for Leonese politics, very much, but Catalonia was also important in the other side of Spain, so much that the king of Castile treated with him as if he was a sovereing king (in a time where feudal hierarchies were not firmly established, a sovereign count was sovereign first, then count, and thus of major rank than any vassal). Be it the early or the late middle ages, where Barcelona is the main port of the western Mediterranean, with Palermo and Naples subdued under Alphonse the Magnanimous and Genoa close to be wiped out of the face of the Earth and its ground sown with salt (King Alphonse V's own intentions, by the way, I'm not making this up).

I think that making this about population density or population in general is also the wrong prisma; following this point, Wales would have to be two counties, at most. But Wales had a lot of petty kings which we all like and love, and we have to put them there. Also, smaller level of lords means better management of military resources and therefore, a fighting chance that doesn't correspond to size.

Just look at how Aragon resisted French invasions twice, or how most kings of England found it especially hard to conquer Wales. The same could be said of Granada.

I really appreciate your effort,and if you want I can help you with the provinces in the west side.

I'd love to!

As I said, this is just a preliminary and I post it to get feedback and get the map right. If I overstepped in Catalonia, well, counties can be cut down. After all, I put there all the original Catalan Counties. Tarragona is there so that the Archbishop of Tarragona can have a county-level tier. Osona and Girona are there to make the Count of Barcelona really the master of it, his Three Counties is what gave him primacy. Other counties, like Cerdanya, Pallars and Besalú, are there because I like them, and why not.

Good news, everyone !

I tried what I mentionned and it works :
See by yourself
I added a LOT of provinces in the sea and it doesn't affect the travel time. The republics now mostly tries to maintain their supremacy on coastal regions since there are a lot more coastal provinces all families have chances to fight back.

I also set some north sea provinces as major_river and it works only norse pagans can cross them. So I plan to add also lots of sea provinces there and as only norse pagans can cross those provinces I will set some longer routes in the north so that everyone can use them and some specific shorter routes for norse pagans.

When it comes to memory issues ... well there's none (I even got more memory used when starting a last bookmark game without the new provinces than the map with the added provinces ... !)

Nice! This will make republics more interesting and slow to build up.

The rest of the map, is it DEIOU or SWMH?

It's DEIOU for vanilla. I still haven't updated DEIOU4SWMH (shouldn't be long from what I've seen in the 2.752).

I have worked on the map mending Evander's and Iago's remarks:



Several new counties in Andalusia, Extremadura and La Mancha reflect the jurisdictions of great towns (like Trujillo, Ciudad Rodrigo...) and military orders (presence of Santiago, Alcántara and Calatrava. 

New counties in Galicia correspond to bishoprics of Mondoñedo and Tuy. Mondoñedo was also the seat of one of the prominent Galician noble families.

Portugal, at this point, it very WIP.

Repoblacion:you dont need more provinces,only more holdings constructed

good link for fill the map: http://www.geneall.net/site/home.php

one example http://www.geneall.net/H/tit_page.php?id=3013

Sarria for Lugo sounds like a good idea, but Ribadeo for Mondoñedo, I'm not so sure. It depends if we want the province to represent the bishop of Mondoñedo or something else. In any case, I try to go with names that are either real titles, family names (at least, if there's no other title avaliable) or city counciles with real, wide jurisdictions.

I agree that Galician culture and legacy was very important in the Middle Ages, but that doesn't mean Galicia was very strong or very populated. But Galicia could use more counties, although then we have to check the balance between Galicia and the county of Portucale. 

I'm a bit of a determinist, I like that my games happen not exactly like in real life, but inside the plausible area of what could have been. At game start, the independence of the Count of Portugal, especially since the wars between the three royal brothers are much more vicious than in actual history, was quite unavoidable.

I'll make changes and post the new map. If you could provide help with Portugal before that, I'd appreciate it.

Now, for Portugal I used three sources: distinct moments of conquest, ecclesiastical dioceses and old, post-Renaissance province maps. Portugal is a very hard one to break apart into counties, much more than Castile and León, because there are none. The upper half of the county is controlled by the King and the magnates, who own land everywhere, and the southern half is controlled mainly by military orders. Tough thing. I guess I could divide southern portugal into several concepts: territories owned by different orders and bishoprics.

Let's see what we can get.