Aberration - Interest for a new project

[TheArchduke]

I had my fun creating Aberration and though there still will be updates, patches and changes to come the main bulk of Aberration is finished. Question is what to do now. I like the idea of a new scenario creating a new gaming experience. Thing is I can´t decide which one. My ideas would be:

- Aberration for HOI 2, working name "The Empire strikes back", an alternate scenario very much alike Aberration for HOI 2. The Central Powers won the WWI as the U.S. was divided into U.S. and CSA. Being not an inch more prudent they devasted G.B. and France through massive after-war payments. Now the British Empire under a newly restored absolut monarchy is poised to strike back, whilst the C.S.A and the U.S.A. flex their muscles again. France and Rest-Italy are communist, Russia is a white ally with internal problems an China and Japan battle for supremacy over Asia.

- Totally Aberrated, for Eu2, basically what we have done but going way further with the whole world aberrated. Meaning crazier alternate (unrealistic) ideas for Europe, own states for the Indians, and colonizing Asians.

- Total Fantasy, for Eu2 going even further. A totally new world created, with fantasy states all around. Still a realistic enviroment, so historical weapons and so on (No Magic or totally strange things.), but no resemblance to the vanilla GC at all.

- Something else? Elaborate further.

Posts why you voted what are preferred.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

First to vote!

Total fantasy.

 

[Avernite]

Total fantasy, esp. considering HOI2 prolly won't run on this 600MHz pc

 

[unmerged(1047)]

I really want to mess with the ROTW in Aberration... have already had ideas regarding Vinland and a Greater Hawaii...

 

[tombom]

For me it was a tough decision between Totally Aberrated and Totally Fantasy Aberrated. I choose the latter. One of the reasons I never really contributed to aberration was becuase I was scared of my ideas not being plausible enough.

 

[Medicine Man]

Well, I already know what I'm planning on doing.

I have *alot* more things in mind for Abe:

I'm going to add event sets for Milano, Florence, the Papal States, and some expansions/re-balancing for Granada, Genoa and the Teutonic Order. (I'm also going to get AD to put in the proper Genoa event file, because my little mistake is going to create some ugly problems later.)

I'm going to pick up the great colonization and general debates and work on rebalancing, adding, re-arranging officers.

I'm going to put in colony, army and navy names for the nations I worked on.

If the dev team hasn't killed me by this point, I hope to craft up some Aberration scenarios: a 1485 (for a more peaceful game), a 1520, a 1680 and a 1735 scenario. I would probably do 2 or more versions of the 1485, to account for the many alternate futures of the Aberration scenario.

Edit: I'll also work on a strategy overview guide for Abe, just so folks don't have to leaf through the event files to know what's going on.

 

[TheLoneTaco]

voted for fantasy... thinking more along the lines of "fantasia" though :^D

i should be done with nsis hopefully by mid-november, so if you guys need any help i should have some free time then

-Matt

 

[TheArchduke]

@ MM: Great ideas.

On the scenario issue, we have to talk.

I would LOVE to have those, but if we have those, we would predetermine history a bit I fear. This would need extensive discussion.

 

[Kaigon]

If the dev team hasn't killed me by this point, I hope to craft up some Aberration scenarios: a 1485 (for a more peaceful game), a 1520, a 1680 and a 1735 scenario. I would probably do 2 or more versions of the 1485, to account for the many alternate futures of the Aberration scenario.

How come you chose those dates?
I'd be interested in the 1520-scenario btw

 

[unmerged(33565)]

- Total Fantasy, for Eu2 going even further. A totally new world created, with fantasy states all around. Still a realistic enviroment, so historical weapons and so on (No Magic or totally strange things.), but no resemblance to the vanilla GC at all.

I REALLY like this idea, sort of a completely different world. How about where the roman empire never formed and brought "civilization" to the western world which stays, for the most part, disorganized with no real sense of unity. Move the true competition in the game to Persia, India and china turning that into the new Europe. I would be more then happy to help in your next project, what ever it is, although I would need to take a coarse in event coding .

 

[ZhugeKongming]

What kind of fantasy scenario are we talking about? Would it be based on real history like Aberration, but aberrated from a much earlier point? Or would it be something totally different, only using Earth's geography as a guideline? Or something in between?

I think Total Aberration would be best. One of the things I really like about Aberration is its thorough grounding in history and plausibility. You didn't pull any of the great powers out of nowhere: they were underdogs, annexation fodder, or pipe dreams. Aberration is like the second chance those powers never had. The Kievan Rus becomes Ukraine instead of being dominated by Russia, the Union of Kalmar stays together, the Kaliphate and Granada aren't destroyed, Brittany, Scotland, Eire, Sicily, and Genoa all enjoy their independence (and in the case of Eire, existence), and of course Byzantium and all its imperial splendor still reigns supreme. I would much rather see this interesting and very entertaining treatment done for the RotW than a complex version of Fantasia, as some people here seem to be suggesting.

Anyway, just my two cents.

 

[artemis667]

Total Fantasy Aberration would be so awesome...

God knows what the premise would be, though.

I reckon it would be cool to have events with a bit of a light magical/mystical thing going on - not to effect gameplay, but have some flavour... and change the religions dramatically

Some ideas:

The Roman Empire never formed. Despite the sinking of their continent, the Atlanteans (out of Knossos) remained dominant in the Mediterranean (out of their capital on Krete) and Atlantic oceans, and the Greeks remained subdued, however the Atlantean empire is ripe for decline.

Christianity never existed.

Zoroastrianism and Persia could be dominant forces in the Middle East.

The world has been dominated by an extended ice age for some time, and the frontiers are the polar halves of the 'temperate' regions.

Israel could be in Ethiopia... and a vassal state of the Egyptians...

Could go anywhere with this...

 

[TheArchduke]

Total Fantasy will only take geography as a guidelines, but won´t cross the "realistic" frontier.

Religions off course could be changed as many other things.

 

[unmerged(33565)]

Total Fantasy will only take geography as a guidelines, but won´t cross the "realistic" frontier.

Religions off course could be changed as many other things.

Alright I realized that I mixed up total fantasy with total abbreviated. I think that total abbreviated would be allot of fun. For instance:

- What happened if Persia had won at Marathon

- What if carthage had won the punic wars

- What if Islam had not expanded beyond Iraq

- What if the Timmons had not existed and pillaged most of Persia

- What if china had stayed in civil war divided up between warlords and had not united

- What if the Native Americans had formed several large nations that could have actually challenged Europe’s powers.

These are just a couple of world changing things that we could look at and talk about what would have happened. I really like the idea of Carthage winning its war vs Rome, then as opposed to going north into Europe, going south to western Africa so it can control the gold trade. This would have left most of France, England and Germany without a true unifying force that the Romans gave them. Also, since its capital would not be in Europe, it would not have been as easy to overrun by barbarians, so it might have lasted longer.

This is just one example of what we could do with this

 

[unmerged(1047)]

And what if the Polynesians had tried to (and managed to) set up a multi-island nation of some sort prior to King Kamehea? (Did I get his name right? It feels to short. But you know who I mean...)

Or an organized Maori state that could have resisted becoming New Zealand... and of course what if the Vinland (and Greenland) colonies had actually survived?

And the Taino/Carib wars would be interesting too....

And as for Carthage and Rome... what if it had evolved into a long-term "cold war" across the Mediterranean, with the Romans able to expand in Europe and the Carthaginians in Africa, with Iberia and Palestine becoming border wars?

Oh, and on Islam... it started in Arabia, not Iraq. Though Baghdad and Najaf were important early sites... maybe just Iraq and Arabia and Transjordan? Which, interestingly, leaves us the possibility of an actually functioning Jewish state in Palestine. (If we tinker with religions, we could change one to Jewish.)

 

[TheLoneTaco]

the romans kicked out the jews earlier than the rise of islam, but if the romans never did that... :^)

-Matt

 

[unmerged(21937)]

I think mystical stuff is viable if it's rare and can be explained as "superstition" and "wild imagination" by later scholars. There is a plenty of such in real history and what else these genius warleaders and statesmen are, but legendary heroes of our time?

Btw, I think Total Fantasy is so good thing, because I noticed in Aberration how much people felt constrained by historical personages and some things that happened in real history.

 

[TheLoneTaco]

but really what can the eu2 engine do that is "fantasy"? it could model fantastic nations...but wouldn't they be confined to the same boundaries as historical nations? i suppose you could give a fantastic hun nation +999 moral, which is way over the top, but aside from that? or unique sprites?

-Matt

 

[artemis667]

but really what can the eu2 engine do that is "fantasy"? it could model fantastic nations...but wouldn't they be confined to the same boundaries as historical nations? i suppose you could give a fantastic hun nation +999 moral, which is way over the top, but aside from that? or unique sprites?

-Matt

If you have the time, talent, and motivation you can draw unique and fantastical sprites for every single country in the game
Aside from that, well, you're pretty much limited to the engine. The only fantasy flavour you could really add would be with text and graphics.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Fantasy, as in, things that never happened. All shield and flag graphics are moddable. Unit sprites are moddable, though much harder. I don't think fantasy should mean elves or dwarves or stuff like that, but just completely fantasy history about this Earth. Map is not also too moddable, so we are confined by real geography. We can rework religions, nations, events, monarchs, leaders and hugely many aspects to make it something completely different and therefore fantasy.