Map

[redmark]

England:
London (probably Sussex with this region shape)
Norwich (East Anglia preferable to Norfolk)
Exeter (Devon, or Devon & Cornwall)
Gloucester (Gloucestershire, or West Country)
Leicester (Leicestershire, or The Midlands)
Chester (Lancashire)
York (Yorkshire)
Durham (Northumbria)

Alternatively, substitute Winchester (Hampshire) and Warwick (Warwickshire, or The Midlands) for Gloucester/Leicester, with some redrawing of boundaries. This would shift focus away from Wales, towards France a little more.


Scotland:
Edinburgh (Lothian)
Ayr (Strathclyde)
Perth (Alba, or Perthshire - Alba was the name of the kingdom prior to Scotland, before incorporating Lothian and Strathclyde, roughly equivalent to the province on the attached)
Inverness (Highlands)

Edit: the island was pretty well settled at this point; Scotland had incorporated Lothian and Strathclyde prior to 1080 (though Strathclyde might have a rebel army in the hills to the south). Durham should start English, as the Harrowing of the North had quelled rebelliousness in the region almost 10 years earlier.

[Darkmoor]

Are ours stupid? IF so, please tell us and we'll gladly change it.

I cant run the mod sadly (only one i cant get to work) so my only reference was a screen shot.

Wales:

Its very difficult to split wales up without putting in lots of petty kingdoms. A north/south divide though is equally inaccurate as the two "powerhouse" welsh kingdoms of Powys and Gwynned are both in the mid-north.
The four major Welsh Kingdoms though were: Gwent, Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth but at the start date of the game there was actually (pretty much) a "unified" wales.

You have put in two town names relating to the great king of wales which although relevant die--out through the game period as the norman castle strongholds take over. I wouls suggest changing them from the little known townships to larger later-day cities:

If you want two provinces:

Gwynned (province) in the North - only choices are Conwy and Caernafon, either will do fine.

Glamorgan (province) in the south - HAS to be Caerphilly and a castle(?) (OK, Caerphilly castle wasn't built until the 13thC but it remains the single most impressive medieval castle in the world, bar none, as well as one of the largest.

(If you want 3 provinces add in Powys in the middle of wales, can provide suggestions).


English provinces:

I think the current provinces will constantly cause issues with naming due to the odd geography chosen for them. I would suggest some changes:

Chester was more significant (to keep an eye on the Welsh) than Stafford,

The Welsh were watched by the Marcher Lords form Shrewsbury (Earldom) Chester (Earldom) and Hereford (Earldom).

They were known as the Marches and didnt even come under the Law of England (they were largely autonomous Norman-English enclaves and hence given to only very trusted lords)

Those are your only 3 real choices for *historical* lands/towns bordering modern day Wales as they were the only 3 "provinces" that bordered Wales. (Chester in the north, then Shrewsbury in the middle, then Hereford in the south)

Shrewsbury was the economic powerhouse of the period over Hereford and Chester and wins points in terms of economy throughout the period.

If you *really* wanted to represent that area correctly then you would have to have all 3, however: if you want to keep it a single border province then centralise it and call it Shrewsbury (for the town) and use the province name as it actually was "The Welsh Marches" (IMO) which would stretch all along the Welsh border, north to south (it STILL is called the Welsh marches after all and has the highest concentration of castles anywhere in the world)

Also bear in mind who William put into Shrewsbury as a guide to its significance (Roger de Montgomery). It really has to be the de-facto "capital" of the Marches (but, as ever, its just an opinion)

The number of provinces shown on your bitmap screams for the Marches to be put in as a single province with some changes elsewhere:

Other provinces (suggestions):

South of London - Canterbury: wasn't really that significant to warrant a province for that time, Dover is probably better for that area and the name of "Cinque Ports" screams for inclusion (as province name) given both the placement and historic significance from 1066 onwards. Indeed the Cinque Ports are surely a given as an ideal province??!!

Stafford - If you make the Marches border Wales then get rid of Stafford.
Move the province south and east a bit and call it Oxford. It should fill from the london province to the edge of the marches and upwards into the middle of England.
The significance of Oxford obviously grows over the period hence its suitability to grow from small beginnings and its English heartland positioning.


Norwich - East Anglia as suggested

Winchester - Change to "Portsmouth" and call it Hampshire (it was the major royal port after all, the Mary Rose sank there and the placement is exact)

Exeter - Everything west of Exeter was in the diocese of Exeter so its a good province in terms of area, can only really call it Devon tbh.


(cant draw it so explaining it

Marches - tall oblong East of the welsh mountains extending as far east as your current placement of Stafford.

Oxford - go west from the bottom of London province till you hit the Marches border, go north to just south of Stafford, come east and then back south to meet the London province border again.

Extend York a little way left to fill in the gap north of Oxford to where it hits the Marches near modern day Chester.

[redmark]

English provinces:

I think the current provinces will constantly cause issues with naming due to the odd geography chosen for them. I would suggest some changes:

The Welsh were watched by the Marcher Lords form Shrewsbury (Earldom) Chester (Earldom) and Hereford (Earldom).

...

Those are your only 3 real choices for *historical* lands/towns bordering modern day Wales as they were the only 3 "provinces" that bordered Wales. (Chester in the north, then Shrewsbury in the middle, then Hereford in the south)

Shrewsbury was the economic powerhouse of the period over Hereford and Chester and wins points in terms of economy throughout the period.

Considering balance of provinces however (see also below), they're not the only choices. Gloucester was a major town - the map needs towns as well as castles - and a major Duchy. It is close enough in game terms to 'watch' the Welsh, though I'm aware that Hereford was one of the marches. I think you overstate Shrewsbury's case; Chester was both much more significant throughout the period (in English revolts as well as bordering the Welsh) and more prosperous. In terms of geography (both actual and in-game), the north and south coastal areas of Wales and their routes into England were more significant than poor and sparse central Wales - Shropshire, therefore the better selections for English towns are in those areas.

Other provinces (suggestions):

South of London - Canterbury: wasn't really that significant to warrant a province for that time, Dover is probably better for that area and the name of "Cinque Ports" screams for inclusion (as province name) given both the placement and historic significance from 1066 onwards. Indeed the Cinque Ports are surely a given as an ideal province??!!

Dover doesn't need a settlement - it is represented as London's port. A province in that position isn't needed at all; London represents the south east corner fine; the provinces are better used elsewhere.

Stafford - If you make the Marches border Wales then get rid of Stafford.
Move the province south and east a bit and call it Oxford. It should fill from the london province to the edge of the marches and upwards into the middle of England.
The significance of Oxford obviously grows over the period hence its suitability to grow from small beginnings and its English heartland positioning.

Oxford is a good candidate for inclusion (as are many, many others, including Warwick, Leicester, etc for the midlands alone), but you're running into a problem...

Winchester - Change to "Portsmouth" and call it Hampshire (it was the major royal port after all, the Mary Rose sank there and the placement is exact)

Portsmouth didn't exist as a town until 1180; it did quickly become an important port, but again that could be represented as the port to a town elsewhere, if required. Also runs into the same problem...

Exeter - Everything west of Exeter was in the diocese of Exeter so its a good province in terms of area, can only really call it Devon tbh.

Agreed.


The problem? The original map (and my alternative) has 8 provinces for England. You're proposing 3 on the south coast, plus London, Norwich and Oxford not too far away. With Shrewsbury also infact roughly level with Norwich and the Wash, you have 1 province - York - to represent 35/40% of the landmass of England - destroying the dynamic with Scotland (a more significant issue than the Marches), as well as looking plain odd. Durham is a more important inclusion than Dover or Portsmouth (or Exeter, for that matter). For others, Chester vs Shrewsbury and Oxford vs Leicester say, by choosing the more southerly option you distort the balance of the map and therefore the dynamics of the campaign game.


See attached.

[Re Berengario I]

Interesting discussion

I'm trying to settle down an opinion and at the moment I think that I will change Alnwick with Durham for sure (maybe not in the next release as it is already in playtesting phase) without changing the province border.

I'd like to keep London a separate "central" province for mostly strategical reason and balance.

Take always in account what I said, sometimes balance and playability is needed over historical importance (which is often under discussion as you all can see). If we had an unlimited number of provinces to play with there won't be any problem but at the moment we cannot add ANY province except ones of incredible importance as we're close to limit and we want to keep some spares for gameplay emergences.

I really hope CA will increase the number of provinces in the upcoming patches but it's not something I would bet on they'll do (as probably is too linked to the code and overall stability).

[Re Berengario I]

I cant run the mod sadly (only one i cant get to work)

The sure shot to make it run is to replicate ALL your original MTW2 directory structure and copy the modded files into it. From that you can delete more and more to see if the game is still able to read the originals or not (I play mods without video for example to avoid issues). It's not still clear which files should be present in the modding directory and which files are read from the original directory.

[dag231]

In terms of balancing the map, which does look very Western European centric so far, why not take a look at the Crusader Kings map (or even any from the Europa Universalis series)? Lots of provinces to choose from Crusader Kings.

In terms of balancing, lets use a 200 province map.

Including, say, 10 in the Americas, there should be 100 on each side of the East/West divide (essentially a straight line from Oslo through to Venice and down to Tripoli).

Without such a balance, the game quickly becomes brutal for the AI to compete with a European human, unless you give serious economic benefits to an Eastern AI faction (such as rate of growth, faction specific buildings that increase rate of growth expodentially, and then also add massive dissent if a non-eastern faction conquers them, ala the Crusaders taking Jerusalem).

[Darkmoor]

Considering balance of provinces however (see also below), they're not the only choices. Gloucester was a major town - the map needs towns as well as castles - and a major Duchy. It is close enough in game terms to 'watch' the Welsh, though I'm aware that Hereford was one of the marches. I think you overstate Shrewsbury's case; Chester was both much more significant throughout the period (in English revolts as well as bordering the Welsh) and more prosperous. In terms of geography (both actual and in-game), the north and south coastal areas of Wales and their routes into England were more significant than poor and sparse central Wales - Shropshire, therefore the better selections for English towns are in those areas.



Dover doesn't need a settlement - it is represented as London's port. A province in that position isn't needed at all; London represents the south east corner fine; the provinces are better used elsewhere.



Oxford is a good candidate for inclusion (as are many, many others, including Warwick, Leicester, etc for the midlands alone), but you're running into a problem...



Portsmouth didn't exist as a town until 1180; it did quickly become an important port, but again that could be represented as the port to a town elsewhere, if required. Also runs into the same problem...



Agreed.


The problem? The original map (and my alternative) has 8 provinces for England. You're proposing 3 on the south coast, plus London, Norwich and Oxford not too far away. With Shrewsbury also infact roughly level with Norwich and the Wash, you have 1 province - York - to represent 35/40% of the landmass of England - destroying the dynamic with Scotland (a more significant issue than the Marches), as well as looking plain odd. Durham is a more important inclusion than Dover or Portsmouth (or Exeter, for that matter). For others, Chester vs Shrewsbury and Oxford vs Leicester say, by choosing the more southerly option you distort the balance of the map and therefore the dynamics of the campaign game.


See attached.

I'm offering advice, not looking for an argument. So I'll keep this brief:

There were only three earldoms that border Wales, Fact.
The capitals of those earldoms were the major towns in each - and those remain as stated. Fact
Gloucester was not one of those. Fact.

The income of Shrewsbury in the period was higher than either Chester or Hereford - check out the wool trade and guild sites or do a thesis on it. Try to avoid modern interpretations as per below:

"the north and south coastal areas of Wales and their routes into England were more significant than poor and sparse central Wales - Shropshire, therefore the better selections for English towns are in those areas." - lol. Look where they built the most castles and work backwards. (There was nothing (nothing) poor about the area at all, indeed the total opposite.) You've got a pair of modern day glasses on.

"Dover doesn't need a settlement - it is represented as London's port."
London is London's port, always has been.

The Cinque Ports were of massive significance throughout the period and of major economic influence as well as strategic military importance - trying to represent them by a port icon attached to London is daft. Capturing that *province* (area) is always the first step to invading England. Odd that eh?

"The problem *big snip*" -

Haven't seen the North, cant get the mod to work (yet) and no screenies of it that far up, so rather hard to "balance" it.

If I get a chance to see the North i'll offer some OPINION on that.

[Darkmoor]

That post came out sounding very aggressive - it wasnt meant to be, just rushing between keyboard and oven as Im cooking dinner so came out a tad "hasty".

Please accept it with far less testosterone and a dab of pathos.

[Re Berengario I]

In terms of balancing the map, which does look very Western European centric so far, why not take a look at the Crusader Kings map (or even any from the Europa Universalis series)? Lots of provinces to choose from Crusader Kings.

I know CK and I played it a lot and it has a completely different gameplay where regions in the east being more numerous but a lot less populated than western one (I managed to conquer a little empire in the east being the count of Salerno)

[Matty_P]

Kilikia.

why is it using 'k's and not 'c's in the spelling? Cilicia is pronounced with 'k', why then have you decided to spell it with 'k's? The Greeks would have spelled it using their equivalent of 'K', but the rest of the Western world would definately have spelled it with 'c's as was proper in the latin to pronounce the 'k' sound.

if you're doing it to inspire some form of 'Greekness' then you wouldn't use 'k's because the Greeks have their own script which doesn't correspond to the Latin alphabet.

please change it.

[redmark]

I'm offering advice, not looking for an argument. So I'll keep this brief:

:shrug:

For gameplay and map balancing purposes, it really doesn't matter that Gloucester was not a Marches earldom - it is geographically close enough to play that role in game, and was an important town (this is not Castles). England needs some redesign from vanilla to make Wales relevant, but it's not the only (or even most important) consideration for England's provinces.

Likewise, of course I know London has it's own port. In game, that really doesn't matter - the town/port system allows the use of a settlement to represent the most important town in the region, with the port representing the most important port in the region. They do not need to represent (and in the vast majority of cases do and can NOT represent, as they cannot share a tile) the exact port of the town. Precisely because that area is so important and the key to invading England is why I don't think it needs a province separate to London: if you land on the south east coast, you head straight for London.

Finally, the number of castles in an area does not itself indicate the prosperity or even importance of an area - it may indicate increased rebelliousness, geographical features that require greater defensive strengh, etc.

If you haven't seen the north, just try working it out with any map of England: the mod has 8 provinces for England - where do you put them? So far, you've used 7 and haven't got past the midlands.

[redmark]

That post came out sounding very aggressive - it wasnt meant to be, just rushing between keyboard and oven as Im cooking dinner so came out a tad "hasty".

I don't mind aggression, but don't patronise with "fact", "lol" and d'oh! smilies. I'm not a 10 year old making stuff up; I simply disagree with you on how to balance fact with gameplay.

[Shaba Wangy]

why is it using 'k's and not 'c's in the spelling? Cilicia is pronounced with 'k', why then have you decided to spell it with 'k's? The Greeks would have spelled it using their equivalent of 'K', but the rest of the Western world would definately have spelled it with 'c's as was proper in the latin to pronounce the 'k' sound.

if you're doing it to inspire some form of 'Greekness' then you wouldn't use 'k's because the Greeks have their own script which doesn't correspond to the Latin alphabet.

please change it.

wow. just wow.

[aves]

Um... this may seem odd, but as an actual professional historian, who makes a decent living teaching much of what is covered in this period, all I have to say is... Thanks... for an awesome map, that represents a fairly accurate regionalization of the low middle ages, yet would play well in the high middle ages.

Most have been a lot of hard work involved and I applaud the effort and the result... no need to alter a border to include my favorite province, no rude, superior insistence that you change the spelling because I say so.... just thank-you for a map I'll enjoy for a very long time.

[Re Berengario I]

Um... this may seem odd, but as an actual professional historian, who makes a decent living teaching much of what is covered in this period, all I have to say is... Thanks... for an awesome map, that represents a fairly accurate regionalization of the low middle ages, yet would play well in the high middle ages.

Most have been a lot of hard work involved and I applaud the effort and the result... no need to alter a border to include my favorite province, no rude, superior insistence that you change the spelling because I say so.... just thank-you for a map I'll enjoy for a very long time.

As an actual middle-age history student I really appreciate it. Thanks

[redmark]

It's certainly IMO the best representation for a more detailed and 'slow' game (in Western Europe at least) out there yet; which is why I think it's worth the time trying to improve it further with suggestions to improve both the aesthetics and gameplay, by balancing province location and the tidying up of some descriptions like 'Yorkshire' rather than 'York County'. I'm not seeking to belittle it, or include my 'favourite' provinces.

Back on England, another possibility with limited province numbers (and I think 7 or 8 is about right) would be to remove Exeter to use that province elsewhere. Devon and Cornwall aren't pivotal to the period, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for a city such as Gloucester/Winchester etc to have a province which incorporates the whole of the south west.

[ELJAY]

I like this mod its going a very well way !

The map is great but I feel to save. I mean that the KI isnt aggressive to me.

Another point : Maybe i havent played the Mod enough but i have only found rebel-castles, not cities. Only exception i know is Praha and Kyv.

I am poland and nearly everyone accepts to be my ally. And i get more and more provinces by giving the KI an Ally or a Tradetreatment

Denmark isnt moving out of Denmark, same as Venice.

Just some data from my actual campaign with AD.

*ELJAY*

[ELJAY]

oh and i forgot : Plz improve Kyv or however its called. In german we say "Kiew". Its been a very rich and huge city untill the mongols ****ed it up.

[Darkmoor]

If you haven't seen the north, just try working it out with any map of England: the mod has 8 provinces for England - where do you put them? So far, you've used 7 and haven't got past the midlands.

I wasnt aware there was a limit of 8 provinces.

Still aren't as it happens.

[Yuri Zhivago]

Would it be possible to add Malta to the map ? Might increase the possibility of clashes between Moors and Sicily, and in general some more cross-Mediterranean conflict. Not imperative though, just a thought. Would be great to control Malta and have a Major St John's Chapter house there