Crusader Kings III

Crusader Kings III

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Kievan Rus fix
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4.548 MB
3 Sep, 2020 @ 9:59am
23 May @ 9:14am
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Kievan Rus fix

In 1 collection by Whimsical835
My Mods
10 items
Description

What is this mod?
• This mod primarily fixes two major historical inaccuracies in the game; the "Empire of Russia" title and the "Russian" culture names, renamed to "The Kievan Rus" and "Rus" respectively. Additionally, it changes the coat of arms of Ruthenia and Kievan Rus to the coinage tridents of Yaropolk and Vladimir The Great, respectively.

Why?
• The Tsardom of Russia (predecessor state to the Russian Empire) historically wasn't formed until 1547, nearly 100 years after the "end" of the Medieval Period/Middle Ages, in which CK3 is set. It doesn't make sense then, that the territory historically referred to as the Kievan Rus/Rus' at its greatest extent, is called "Russia" in the game. Equally, it doesn't make sense for the ancient Rus people to be called "Russian" when the cultural split between Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians didn't begin until after the fall of the Kievan Rus.
• As for the tridents of Yaropolk and Vladimir the Great, these symbols are commonly associated with the lands ruled by the House of Rurik and the Grand Prince of Kiev, as they are the among most common symbols found on archaeological finds of coins and other artifacts from the Kievan Rus. Another reason is that the Kievan Rus saw its greatest extent under the rule of Vladimir the Great, so it makes sense to attribute his personal coat of arms to the de jure Kievan Rus lands in the game. This is similar to how the Palaiologos dynasty banner is used for the Byzantine Empire in the game, as neither the Kievan Rus nor the Byzantine Empire had a single unifying flag. The colouration of the Rurikid symbols I added follows the same colour pattern as the Rurikid dynasty coat of arms in the game.
• In respect to Ukrainian and Belarusian history, this mod fixes the apparent historical revisionism that somehow, be it deliberately or accidentally, made it into the game.

Gameplay Changes
• Moved Galicia-Volhynia from West Slavia to Kievan Rus
• Moved Pomerania from Baltic Empire to West Slavia
• A new decision called "Christianise the Rus" has been added which becomes available to all non-Christian independent Rus rulers (AI takes it from 988 onwards). This allows the AI to adopt Orthodoxy as opposed to Kabarism/Paganism or being holy warred to extinction. The decision becomes "Christianise the East Slavs" for Rus-divergent or East Slavic hybrid cultures.
• Added two new decisions: Gathering of Rus Princes and Recruit Nomad Host, for additional immersion for certain titles. Also, a new character background for Rus characters. (Credit: Steam user Gigachad for providing a lot of useful code)

Additional Renaming Changes
• Renamed White Rus' to Polotsk (Credit to Steam User YuriVII).
• "Ruthenia" has been renamed to "Kyiv" due to common obscurity and confusion around the name of "Ruthenia" which is just Latinised "Rus". Additionally, the Rus cultural title holders and heirs have been changed as follows for cultural and historical accuracy:
- Grand Prince (Duke) -> Knyaz
- Grand Princess (Duchess) -> Knyaginya
- Grand Principality (Duchy) -> Knyazhestvo
- Kingdom -> Grand Knyazhestvo
- King -> Grand Knyaz
- Queen -> Grand Knyaginya
- Prince (Kingdom heir) -> Kniazhich
- Princess (Kingdom heiress) -> Kniazhna
- Prince (Empire heir) -> Tsarevich
- Princess (Empire heiress) -> Tsarevna
^ Credit: Steam User jojo26123 for the ideas of improving the title holder names, changing Ruthenia to Kiev
- Baron/Baroness -> Boyar/Boyaress
- Barony -> Volost
- Count/Countess -> Namestnik/Namestnitsa
- County -> Uyezd
- Improved Russian localisation (Русачск/Русачи -> Русичи/Русичск, Графство -> Уéзд)
^ Credit: Steam User LawfulNeut
• Changed the names of Rus culture knights to "Bogatyr". (credit: Steam user Riml121)
• Changed the names of all other East Slavic language cultures' knights to "Boyar". (partial credit: Steam user InΔmatus)
• Changed the barony and county of "Moskva" to "Moscow" as the proper exonym in English.
• Changed additional cultural titles of some South Slavs by request and for extra historical accuracy:
- Vlach:
Duchy -> Voivodeship
Duke -> Voivode
Duchess -> Voivoda
Kingdom -> Hospodarate
King -> Hospodar
Queen -> Hospodarka
- Serbian:
County -> Zhupa
Count -> Zhupan
Countess -> Zhupana
Duchy -> Grand Zhupa
Duke -> Grand Zhupan
Duchess -> Grand Zhupana
- Croatian:
County -> Zhupa
Count -> Zhupan
Countess -> Zhupana
- Bulgarian:
Kingdom -> Tsardom
King -> Tsar
Queen -> Tsaritsa
(Partial credit for Vlach changes: Steam user Gigachad)

Compatibility
• Should be fully compatible with mods that don't edit the above localizations and flavorizations.
• Compatible with Culture Expanded

Language Localisation
• I did my best with localisation in other languages, but have not extensively tested them in-game. If you see mistakes, errors or flaws in a non-English language, please let me know and I'll try to fix it.
Supported languages are English, French, Russian, German, and Spanish.

Sources/Further Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsardom_of_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbols_of_the_Rurikids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knyaz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Kievan_Rus%27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_flags_and_insignia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDupa#Usage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria#First_Bulgarian_Empire
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bogatyr#Noun
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/voivode
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hospodar#Etymology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posadnik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uezd

Feel free to ask questions, or add suggestions and feedback in the comments. Also Like and Favorite the mod if you like it, thanks!

If the mod doesn't work from here, you can download the files directly from a steam workshop downloader site, and paste them into your CK3 mod folder, or download the Paradox mods version.

Other Credits:
• The mods "coat of arms fix" and "Roman Fidelity" for helping me learn how to mod by example.
• Steam user Warlock Engineer for giving me a helpful suggestion on using the override system.
Popular Discussions View All (4)
13
22 Mar, 2023 @ 6:01pm
PINNED: Suggestions Submission
Whimsical835
3
15 Feb, 2021 @ 4:02pm
French language ?
Gwenael
2
15 Dec, 2024 @ 9:43am
PINNED: Bug Reports
Whimsical835
379 Comments
Whimsical835  [author] 5 Oct @ 4:03pm 
Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it is regardless a high quality meta-source, given the fact that you can freely check its citations/sources, and it most certainly is independent, if nothing else, given that Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit operating from donations. Neither "Grokipedia" nor anything LLM-related is worth taking seriously given the fact that LLMs are fundamentally probabilistic, prone to hallucinations and error, and are entirely dependent on the quality of their training data which itself is sourced from humans that may or may not be biased. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up with the same content as Wikipedia anyway. But that's getting off-topic for this comments section.
WhiteXTC 5 Oct @ 3:46pm 
Apparently, as many historians as there are opinions. I also know many people who think differently. And I try not to take information from the current Wikipedia at all, as it changes with remarkable regularity, especially in the last couple of years. Let's wait for Grokipedia from Elon Musk. Wikipedia is not an independent and objective source of information.
Whimsical835  [author] 5 Oct @ 3:41pm 
I trust Paul R. Magocsi, Janet Martin, Barnet R. Rubin, Jack L. Snyder, Ivan Katchanovski, Zenon E. Kohut, the Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, Joshua J. Mark, and more, to decide what to call it, regardless of what the eminent city or capital was at the time. And again, the in-game title covers the territory during Vladimir the Great's reign, during which that city was Kiev, not Ladoga or Novgorod or any else, so that point of yours is also moot.
Whimsical835  [author] 5 Oct @ 3:29pm 
Nobody called the Byzantine Empire that either. Nobody called Estonia that either. All of these and more are names that historians use to describe the lands that these terms refer to. Russian historians coined the term "Kievan Rus" but it is used today by all historians to refer to the first East Slavic state, ruled by the Rurikid dynasty, not a "period of time". The title in the game very specifically encompasses the territory at its height under Vladimir the Great. This territory is called the Kievan Rus by historians. Between game developers and actual historians, I know who I believe is right.
WhiteXTC 5 Oct @ 3:10pm 
Nobody called that territory "Kievan Rus", it's a name that Russian historians use to describe the period, not the state.It would have been more correct to simply call it "Rus'"After all, everyone knows that Kiev was not the only capital of Rus; there were also Ladoga, Novgorod, Vladimir, and even Moscow. I just stumbled upon this mod by accident and remembered a topic on the official game forum where the developers were asked to change the name. They explained why the name is what it is and why they don't plan to change it. I believe they are right.
Whimsical835  [author] 5 Oct @ 2:51pm 
@WhiteXTC
"Eesti" only came into existence as an endonym for the nation/people of Estonia in the mid-19th century, and "Estonia" as a word only came into formal English language use in the early 20th century, but it's still in the game as the "Kingdom of Estonia". I fail to see your point.
A title in CK3 must reflect the truest modern historiographical term that describes the medieval territory the title encompasses; hence "Estonia", "Kievan Rus", "Byzantine Empire" and other terms that didn't actually exist at the time.
WhiteXTC 5 Oct @ 1:47pm 
What is the historical significance of this? The term "Kievan Rus" only appeared in the 19th century.
Whimsical835  [author] 19 Aug @ 2:15pm 
@Odin
searching kyivan rus still gives you kievan rus as the top hit and there are more kievan rus mentions than kyivan https://iili.io/FyJzVPS.png my point is that both are correct but kievan rus is simply more common and well established in historiography. At the same time, "Kyiv" is better established today as the English exonym of the city's name so I (and Paradox) use "Kyiv" for the barony, county, duchy, and kingdom titles. For the sake of simplicity, I will stick with the English Wikipedia's naming convention, so if they change their page to "Kyivan Rus", I'll update this mod accordingly.
Odin 19 Aug @ 2:02pm 
@Zugidor if you intentially text in search bar Kievan Rus obviously you'll get that lol. Check on Wikipedia there are two options. "
Kievan Rus',[a] also known as Kyivan Rus',[6][7] was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities[8] in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.[9][10]"
I'm not saying Kievan isn't correct in English, but Kyivan is historically correct transliteration and if there's two option, I recommend using Kyivan for historical accuracy. Because Kievan Rus's capitol was Kyiv that's why it has to be Kyivan. Otherwise the name loses logic and meaning
Whimsical835  [author] 15 Aug @ 2:46pm 
@Odin
https://iili.io/Fb34kiP.png
https://iili.io/Fb34eWB.png
This is why this mod uses "Kyiv" and "Kievan Rus"