Circassia (and Caucasus) Overhaul
ALSO CHECK PATLICHAN’S HOI4 MOD: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2519289302
So we proudly present to you – The Ultimate Caucasus Overhaul Project for EU4.
The screenshots may be old and may not represent the current and better state of the mod.
This is a mod that attempts to increase the historical accuracy of the Caucasus region, adding new national ideas, events, and more. Mods that change the look of the map in the pictures are not included. Feel free to give a suggestion to make this mod better, and to rate this on whether you enjoyed it or not. Keep in mind it is still work in progress.
Compatible with 1.30x
UNIT PACK SUBMOD: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2231195061
Features: (As of v2.1)
The history of the Caucasus has been redone, and new cultures have been added – Abasgi, Karachay-Balkar, Nakh, Laz, Lezgic, Avar-Tsezic, Lak, Dargin, Kumyk, Kartlian, Kakhetian, Gurian, Imeretian, Maskhetian, Megrelian and Tat are some of them. Tons of new provines and countries, and a rework of every already existing province (in Caucasus). New national idedas. New religions. Fixed names for Caucasian nations. New events. Dynamic province names. Aside from the stuff you can see on the screenshots, releasable countries such as Lazistan have also been added.
For almost all of history, Circassia has been divided between clans, families and tribes, all of which striving non-stop for power. This all changed with Inal – who was a Circassian prince that took power in the Taman peninsula during the early 15th century and announced his goal to unify all of the Circassians, into one state. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inal_of_Kabardia ) He did succeed in this goal – as represented in the game with the Circassian tribal federation, dominating the Northwestern Caucasus region. The Northern Abasgi, Abazins, are represented with the Abazinia tag – as a vassal of Circassia, this is due to the claim that it is known that Inal has made treaties with Abazin lords and made them his vassals, and if we made Abazins independent, Circassia would just eat them immediately. Tthe Southern Abasgi, the Abkhazians, are represented with the Abkhazia tag, again, a vassal of Circassia, because it is commonly known by both Circassians and Abkhaz that Inal conquered northern Abkhazia with a campaign. Circassian tribal-states have also been added, as in 1453, after the death of Inal, Circassia has been divided, and after 1500s, the tribal-states started to form. This is also represented in-game, if Circassia is played by AI, an event will trigger in the late 1400s and Circassia has a %80 chance of disbanding into different tribes again.
Before the Mongol invasion, Alania was a medieval kingdom federation of the Alans that flourished in the Northern Caucasus that gained its independence from the Khazars in the late 9th century, roughly in the location of latter-day Circassia and modern North Ossetia–Alania, Chechnya, Karachay-Balkaria and Ingushetia. The descendants of Alans are usually considered to be Ossetians, Nakhs (Chechen-Ingush) and Karachay-Balkars. Western Alania, home to Kipchak nomads before the fall of the Alans, has been colonized by Circassians led by Inal, and named Kabardia. Slightly to the South of Kabardia is Karachay-Balkaria, vassal of Circassia, home to Caucasified Kipchak tribes. Because of lack of sources, the ruler of Karachay-Balkaria has been selected from local mythology, Karcha, the legendary founder of the Karachay. The dynasty, "Karchaulu" translates to "Son of Karcha", and again, has been done this way because of lack of sources. Eastwards, there is Ossetia, perhaps the last remnants of Iranic Alania. Their leader is the last king of Alania – solely, again, because of the lack of sources. Their neighbors, Chechnya, represent the Nakh teip-states of the time, and their dynasty are the Ortskhoy, one of the largest Teips, and although taips aren’t dynasties, we decided to use them as a dynasty for the lack of a better choice.
In the years after the Mongol Invasion, Gazikumukh came to dominance in Dagestan, holding most of the smaller states as vassals, and yet it never managed to annex them. This is now represented in the game. There is a dynasty problem in Dagestan: in that all the information on the dynasties is vague, unreliable and insufficient. In the vanilla game they just came up with bogus dynasties. We, however, decided to make the unique Dagestani titles into dynasties. So, now Shamkhal and Nutsal (as well as the newly added Utsmi) are dynasties, not titles. This is probably the closest we could get to historical accruacy, as these titles were usually (though not always) kept within one dynasty. Historically, around the start of the game, the majority of Lezgic territories were ruled by a member of Utsmi dynasty of Kaitag. So, we decided to give Lekia the same dynasty as Kaitag to let them ally easier. As for Tumen, it is a lesser known principality in the northern Dagestan. You’ll probably only find it in Russian sources ( https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Тюменское_владение ). They have contributed to the formation of the Kumyk ethnicity, which are lowland Turkic Dagestanis. Their dynasty is Tumeni, as historically the rulers of this little khanate integrated into Russian nobility and their surname became "Tumensky", which literally means "of Tumen". We’ve also added a Kumyk-ruled city-state of Boraghan in what is modern-day Chechnya ( https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Брагунское_княжество ). The territories for both of these city-states are not clearly defined anywhere, so we had to use some creativity. Kumykia is now a formable state, which requires to control 3 provinces to form: Tumen, Enderi and Tarki. The latter two also have tags under Gazikumukh control at the start of the game.
First of all, there’s two new provinces in Georiga. The first one is Lazika, which is the homeland for the Laz people, living next to Trebizond. The second is Hereti, which is the easternmost point of Georgia. Most Iranian nations (except for the Tat ones), when owning that province, can now create Chartalakh ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djaro-Belokani ). Though Chartalakh was historically an area, which consisted of Avar- and (Lezgic) Tsakhur-ruled republics, the area is too small to accurately replicate that split. So the decision was to make the rulers Lezgic (apologies to our Avar brethren), simply because Tsakhurs have their own flag (while the Avar flag is already used for Avaria), and there were actually more Tsakhur-ruled republics there than Avar-ruled ones. The province layout of Shirvan was created mostly in accordance with the 18th-century khanates in that area ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanates_of_the_Caucasus ). There was also one Armenian province added, Syunik, simply for more flexibility with the borders. There has also been added a Turkification event, which triggers every 50 years after 1600 and converts one Tat province into Azerbaijani culture. This event triggers only for Shirvan, Persia and Ottomans. The misspelled Kharabakh tag and the Melikates province it occupies were appropriately renamed into Khachen (the tag) and Artsakh (the province) for more historical accuracy.
There’s been a few other minor changes made: Armenian and Albanian cultures are now part of the Byzantine culture group, there’s been two Assyrian provinces added, Macedonian and Cappadocian cultures were added as well as the appropriate tags for them.
