After the End - A post-apocalyptic America mod

[Celt de Brun]

I don't want to jump the gun, but after stalling a little bit on some things, we're getting back on track now and the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to emerge for the West Coast, and California in particular.

 

[a89a89]

I didn't realize that they followed that ideology, I apologize then. I always thought that they had meant to have The Event happen after our current time period.

I personally think they should fix the mac version before adding anything else.

 

[Orinsul]

Could Cali have this as a one province religion (I'm thinking Merced?) surrounded by more organised and civilised enemies who hate them and their weird pagan ways.

From the old thread

I think there should be some sort of 'Church of the Avocado' in California; worshiping the Holy Guacamole.

Heresy of an agrarian fertility cult? rejecting the adoration of the seasons and the harvest gods of fruit, love and grain for a syncretically adopted monotheism from the infidels that surround the mother valley absolute adoration of the perfect fruit, manifest divine food, processed by the creator and spreadable from the go, proof of the gods love for humanity even after the great blight, the link between the humble farmer and divine forgiveness and so the sole physical object worthy of mans worship.

Sure it's a bad joke(tm), but the thing is, almost a year later. It still occurs to me when while playing this mod and I think it's a good idea, as long as it's you know, tiny. Maybe spin it as accidentally founded by a mexican missionary who sought to convert a fertility cult to the sacred heart but didn't quite succeed.

 

[SteelyGlint]

I personally think they should fix the mac version before adding anything else.

We would love to fix the Mac crash, but I've mentioned in the past that none of us have Macs. If you know a modder with a Mac who would like to help us out, have them contact us.

 

[Moopli]

I may not have a mac, but I'm interested in helping work on the mod. I've already cloned the dev repo, and so far I've gone through a bunch of the event files, read the dev notes, and fixed a few localization typos. How can I help?

 

[damanamana]

I think the idea has been for the Consumerist's to have decadence as a mechanic but in the reverse; as for Atomicists, the actual decay of an atom, or loss of power I guess? And the Americanist's from das' suggestion; but yeah, my main focus is on the Rust Cultists (largely because of the 4, they're the only ones I've played extensively)

IIRC the Atomicists shouldn't really understand atomic decay anymore, but instead be all about the invisible world with terrible power that had something to do with the Event.

I'm still not seeing it fit into the Consumerists, and I don't think that an Americanist heresy should have decadence if Americanists don't.

It definitely fits the Rust Cultists tho.

 

[Bosporus]

Just wanted to first say thanks for such an awesome mod! I'm excited to see California finally make it to the party.
On that topic, I know your setup for California is still probably undergoing revision and development, but I've got some feedback (sort of like what someone did with Indiana earlier) on the geography/set-up if you're interested in getting some input from someone in the region.

I've also been trying to work on seeing what's up with the Mac crash but so far I haven't had any luck...
Anyways, best of luck as your project continues - I can't wait to see what you all do with the Pacific Northwest!

 

[SteelyGlint]

On that topic, I know your setup for California is still probably undergoing revision and development, but I've got some feedback (sort of like what someone did with Indiana earlier) on the geography/set-up if you're interested in getting some input from someone in the region.

If you have suggestions that would be easy to implement, I'd like to hear them. The farther along we get, the more work it takes to make changes... so it's better to let us know early.

Just remember that gameplay considerations and aesthetics come before accuracy, especially accuracy with regards to modern borders.

Hopefully you have an alternative name for the county of Merced, which ended up not containing the city of Merced...

 

[SteelyGlint]

I may not have a mac, but I'm interested in helping work on the mod. I've already cloned the dev repo, and so far I've gone through a bunch of the event files, read the dev notes, and fixed a few localization typos. How can I help?

You can create a Github pull request for your typo fixes if you want us to include them. Is there any particular area you're interested in working on? Event scripting and writing? We could always use more testing for bugs and troubleshooting any issues that are discovered.

 

[Bosporus]

So far, I've only gotten a chance to look at SoCal but I've got some time this weekend to start looking north as well.

Here's my suggestions:
Duchy of Bernadino -> My first choice would be "(The) Inland Empire;" but if that's too confusing since it's actually a duchy you could do Riverside, or San Bernardino or (San) Berdoo.
- County of Lancaster -> Antelope Valley
- County of Palm Springs -> Coachella (Valley) (Also, should probably have a Palm Springs holding)
- County of Riverside -> Should probably have a Riverside holding, also....
- You could also split Riverside and Palm Springs/Coachella each horizontally along the mountain line, making an Apple Valley/Victorville (D. of IE) and Joshua Tree/29 Palms (D. of Mojave) province respectively. It'd be slightly more realistic and would fit better with the geography.

Duchy of Imperial -> Would rename to Salton
- County of San Diego -> could possibly rename to Dago if you wanted to keep the slang like you did with Bako or San Berdoo
- County of Descanso -> rename to Anza-Borrego (Should have a Descanso holding)
- County of Pendleton -> could rename to North County or keep as-is
- County of Salton -> would rename to Imperial

Duchy of Los Padres -> Honestly, I had never heard of this before and I live in the next duchy over, but it does a good job of spanning the whole territory. My only other recommendation would be Santa Ynez after the mountain range (or Transverse Range(s) but that sounds dumb)
- Channel Islands -> To me, it doesn't really make sense for this to be in Los Padres; Catalina's the only really populated one and its much more closely tied to LA/Long Beach so I'd move it to the duchy of LA
- Tejon Pass -> Name is good (could also be Tehachapi or Grapevine) but I would shift it to the Duchy of Kern
- Ventura -> Should have a Ventura holding...

Duchy of Mojave
- County of Las Vegas -> Could probably justify having a couple more holdings
- County of Blythe -> Just barely includes Blythe, would possibly recommend "Colorado Desert"?
- County of Hollow Hills -> Another one I'd never heard of; it seems to contain Barstow so I would recommend that or possibly Mojave. (or you could go the fun route and name it Zzyzx or Zzyzx Road) I would also recommend moving it to the Inland Empire/San Bernardino Duchy. You could also split this in half as well with the west being IE and the east being Mojave...
- County of Grand Canyon -> It seems odd that this isn't part of Arizona... Also it's a bit large - could probably safely be split into a Grand Canyon and Havasu province
County of Los Angeles -> Probably the most extreme request here but you could most definitely split the County of LA in two (I think it's justifiable but then again I'm biased haha) into a north (Los Angeles) and south (South Bay (technically the South Bay and Gateway Cities regions)) part basically where the 10/605 FWY is today

I also have revised county holdings too but I can PM those to you if you'd like so as not to clog up the thread.
Lastly, I don't know if you've already chosen the holy sites for the Cetic religion but my recommendations would be the provinces of Orange (Crystal Cathedral, Hsi Lai Temple, Saddleback Church), LA (Hollywood), Mendocino (City of Ten Thousand Buddhas), Riverside (Gold Base), and San Francisco (Seat of the Archdiocese) (San Diego could also be an option as it has the oldest church in CA).

Hope that was helpful and apologies for chopping Los Padres to bits - I'll see what I find when I get to NorCal!

 

[Shade2]

That's pretty good stuff!

 

[Cruxador]

Feedback on the map? I can say a lot about NorCal and it's definitely a first draft state as it is now. I'm presenting this two different ways, so hopefully you guys can pick one that doesn't seem too rude to you since apparently I'm not very good at that, I think the solution centric one is more clear and useful but I've been told off before for "telling the devs what to do".

Problem-centric:
In the Sacramento area, it's weird to omit Solano. That's a county with, in real life, a pretty distinct culture as it's the only one in California with an African American majority and it has its own dialect of AAVE. CK2 cultures aren't granular enough to give it a unique culture mechanically but it definitely deserves to be its own county at least.

Yolo should be part of Sacramento duchy. It has nothing in common with Motherlode. Or make a duchy for the I-80 corridor (the Yay Area) with Napa, Solano, and Yolo.

Eel River and Six River duchies could use another thought. Eureka and Humbolt have way more with each other than either does with Mendocino or Redding.

Alta Cali is a bad name for the kingdom in Jefferson, since that refers to everything that's not Baja. Why not just call the part of California that's more Cascadia than CA "Jefferson" like everyone does in real life? Death Valley shouldn't be part of that, but it doesn't make sense for it to be anyway.

And Inland isn't a good name for the Valley, there's tons of things that are inland.

Solution-centric:
Kingdom of Alta Cali becomes Jefferson. That's what we really call it. Death Valley and Mojave become a new kingdom of Nevada (with Elko and Winnemucca thrown in as oasis-sytle counties to keep them company, and presumably not de jure part of California). Jefferson by itself becomes a de jure part of the Empire of Cascadia once that's added.
Jefferson contains the duchies of Modoc, Klamath, Redding and Humboldt.
Modoc contains the counties of Modoc, Black Rock, Lassen, and Burney while Klamath contains Redwood, Shasta, Yreka and Klamath. Redding contains Redding, Glen, and Butte. Humbolt contains Eureka, Humboldt, and Bragg. The border between Lassen and Tahoe would want redrawing, and Lassen and Burney are kind of border bits between two duchies that don't really belong entirely to either so I positioned them based on gameplay rather than realism, and Modoc and Klamath were picked as duchy names mostly because they're distinct and refer to pre-modern organizations as there isn't really a big clear association of counties in those areas now. Besides those regrettable imprecisions, I'm confident that this is a good and straightforward way to make the Jefferson region represent real-life perceptions of region and local cultures. I know that's a big reorganization but I think it's the only area that really needs it.

Further south, I'd put Yolo, Yuba, and Colusa into Sacramento Duchy. I know you guys probably made it a one-county duchy for the mechanical reasons of wanting a super figure-head emperor, but increasing his direct holdings slightly doesn't actually impact that more than slightly. I'd split Solano from Napa as I mentioned, but otherwise the region is pretty good in my opinion.

Kingdom of Inland becomes Kingdom of the Valley – As with Jefferson that's what we really call it, though this naming isn't quite as preposterous as that case.

The South:
This isn't where I'm from so I have only a couple comments.
I think Baja should be part of the de Jure empire of California (since, you know, it's California in every way that matters) though keeping it a separate religion is fun and increases diversity.
Shortening San Luis Obispo is weird since I rarely hear it shortened at all, but when I do it's far more commonly Obispo; I don't think I've ever heard "San Luis" by itself unless people mean the one in Missouri. And I agree with Bosporus regarding San Bernardino, that shortening doesn't make any sense.

Culture:
The folks you call Angeleno tend to be called Sureño (or scraps, but that's derogatory) since most of them aren't from LA. Yolo people are culturally valley folk, and I'd say that Napa people are too though they have something in common with folks from Marin. "Valleyan" isn't a proper word, that's how folks from the East talk. It's hard to say what it should be, but "Valleyfolk" would be reasonable. Or, hell, just "Valley" culture. What's now Eel River is made up of Cascadians, although I'm not sure that's a good name. Much like with "Californio" you're giving the name that should apply to a whole group to only its southermost constituents. I'd call those people "Jeffersonite" I think.

Religion:
Well this isn't the map but I wanted to say something positive, the religion is a great concept. It does seem weird to put Hubbard on the same level as Jesus and the Buddha, but I reckon adding a Hubbardism heresy would help support the idea of him as relatively prominent in local mythology. As the current description focuses a lot on what's syncretized, I'm quite excited to learn more about actual beliefs within the religion.

 

[Voltspark]

It would actually be kind of cool if the Californian religion had heresies that distinctly follow one of the "Gods." You can actually put heresies in different religious groups from their parent if they are defined after the parent, so a Christ centric heresy could be in the Christian group, Buddha centric could actually be Buddhism, and Hubbardism could just be a "normal" heresy.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

If humans weren't around enough to maintain the extensive waterworks that are used in central California, would there not be some regression towards the historical habit of Central California? The whole river system from the Sacramento deltas up to Shasta and down to Modesto were inundated marshlands. There were also marshlands from the area in between Firebaugh and Madera down to Buena Vista and Kern Lakes. And, without the water being used for agriculture, I would imagine Lake Tulare would show back up. When colonists first arrived in California, it was possible to take a boat from Lake Tulare all the way up to San Fransicso.

EDIT: Here's an image from the USGS showing the extent of the original wetlands in California.

 

[Moopli]

Speaking of waterworks, why isn't the Mississippi going down the Atchafalaya by now? The Old River Control Structure can't have survived that long without continuous operation by an entity capable of heavy engineering. The fall of the ORCS could by now be a mythical part of cajun lore, with stories ranging from a great flooding carving a new path for Old Man River, to the silting up of old New Orleans, to the rebuilding of society around the new river. Since lots of people would've died anyway during the cataclysm, the rerouting of the river would just be seen as another small part of the general upheaval; nature reasserting herself, as it were. I'm wary of fiddling with the map concurrently with the work on California, since git doesn't handle binary merges well, so I'll just leave this as an idea for now.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Speaking of waterworks, why isn't the Mississippi going down the Atchafalaya by now? The Old River Control Structure can't have survived that long without continuous operation by an entity capable of heavy engineering. The fall of the ORCS could by now be a mythical part of cajun lore, with stories ranging from a great flooding carving a new path for Old Man River, to the silting up of old New Orleans, to the rebuilding of society around the new river. Since lots of people would've died anyway during the cataclysm, the rerouting of the river would just be seen as another small part of the general upheaval; nature reasserting herself, as it were. I'm wary of fiddling with the map concurrently with the work on California, since git doesn't handle binary merges well, so I'll just leave this as an idea for now.

The Atchafalaya could easily be the new lobe of the delta, or it could be somewhere else entirely. Mapping the Mississippi is like mapping the Huang-He: It's just endless changes, especially without modern waterworks to control it.

Back to California, here's something I've been looking for since I first saw it, and after some digging, I was able to relocate it. It's a "Satellite Map" of California in 1851, with the full wetland extent just to give you an idea on what California without people* would look like.

And while it doesn't show the extreme Southeast corner of the state by the Colorado River delta, the Salton Sea, with some good rain, could easily have expanded to fill the historical size of Lake Cahuilla.

EDIT: Most of the Sacramento Delta is ten to fifteen feet below sea level. Before the construction of the levees following the exodus of other Americans to California chasing gold, that whole area would be up to 100 percent underwater at least twice a day with the tides. I can only imagine how quickly it would regress with nobody to keep the sea from swallowing it up. It's basically California's Holland.

 

[Cruxador]

It would actually be kind of cool if the Californian religion had heresies that distinctly follow one of the "Gods." You can actually put heresies in different religious groups from their parent if they are defined after the parent, so a Christ centric heresy could be in the Christian group, Buddha centric could actually be Buddhism, and Hubbardism could just be a "normal" heresy.

I was thinking a Hubbard one because his church is markedly unpopular in general, and it makes sense that if an accepted form were to be born, there would be radicals who oppose the main cetic faith. A Christian heresy would be fun, I think, mostly for reasons of interaction with other Christians if at all. I don't see using actual buddhism, mostly because that exists in the game designed for use in India and modifying all the necessary events would make the cost/benefit ratio rather dismal.

If humans weren't around enough to maintain the extensive waterworks that are used in central California, would there not be some regression towards the historical habit of Central California? The whole river system from the Sacramento deltas up to Shasta and down to Modesto were inundated marshlands. There were also marshlands from the area in between Firebaugh and Madera down to Buena Vista and Kern Lakes. And, without the water being used for agriculture, I would imagine Lake Tulare would show back up. When colonists first arrived in California, it was possible to take a boat from Lake Tulare all the way up to San Fransicso.

EDIT: Here's an image from the USGS showing the extent of the original wetlands in California.

I think you may be rather overstating the case; it's true that things would degrade but the levies are basically just big piles of dirt and the irrigation is basically just a network of ditches. Sure, there's a bit of science to each of those but they're still fundamentally able to be worked with by medieval-level technology. All it takes is a lot of manpower to haul dirt around, it's easily possible to maintain, especially since there are long summer months when your serfs won't be doing much else. Of course, all this is assuming that the climate changes revert, they could just as easily continue and leave California a desert. But that's too scary and depressing for a fun mod so let's not go that route.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

I think you may be rather overstating the case; it's true that things would degrade but the levies are basically just big piles of dirt and the irrigation is basically just a network of ditches. Sure, there's a bit of science to each of those but they're still fundamentally able to be worked with by medieval-level technology. All it takes is a lot of manpower to haul dirt around, it's easily possible to maintain, especially since there are long summer months when your serfs won't be doing much else. Of course, all this is assuming that the climate changes revert, they could just as easily continue and leave California a desert. But that's too scary and depressing for a fun mod so let's not go that route.

Climate changes reverting or not, the biggest thing is that you will not have Central California being the agricultural powerhouse that it is currently. I don't think I'm overstating the case at all. Tulare would come back in some capacity. Even if the drought conditions continue perpetually, that lake is formed and was formed from meltwater that would replenish it since the water would not be pulled away from massive irrigation. The same thing for the Sacramento Delta: The only reason that place is not inundated now is from careful regulation of levees and through constant pumping of the water away from the delta throughout the San Joaquin valley. They deliberately lower the levels to be manageable by pumping the water elsewhere or regulating spring inflows by diverting water before it reaches the delta.

And the levees are not perfect. They have had almost 200 failures since they were made, although only one major one in the last three decades. But both conditions for California's future involve changes to the delta without the constant management we currently do. If the current climate changes are longterm, rising sea levels inundate the whole region with brackish water (which is the current future being planned for in California). If the changes reverse, thicker snowpack and meltwater restore the area to its original state.

I'm aware that people can maintain levees using medieval technology. What they can't do is operate modern dams and giant state-spanning hydraulic pumps without the skill to do so or electricity or a myriad of other things that do not exist in this alternate future.

 

[Jalathas]

I believe it's been stated that there won't be any messing with the map in terms of geographic features because it's just too complicated and open to speculation. We can't possibly predict what it will look like in 600 years, especially after an apocalyptic event of some sort that we don't know the details of, so they're using a modern map for simplicity's sake and the sake of focusing on the game mechanics.

 

[Cruxador]

Climate changes reverting or not, the biggest thing is that you will not have Central California being the agricultural powerhouse that it is currently.

Exactly as now? Of course not. Relative to the rest of the country? California supported the greatest population density in what's now America without agriculture, in pre-Colombian times. Even if agriculture becomes nile-style flood-based affair with quite limited supplemental irrigation, how is it not still going to be an agricultural powerhouse by medieval standards? Hell, Egypt was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean and they had nothing BUT a flooding river. Sure, we're not looking at a modern population or infrastructure but the California valley should reasonably be on par with the river-based agricultural economies of India and China in the middle ages.

I don't think I'm overstating the case at all. Tulare would come back in some capacity. Even if the drought conditions continue perpetually, that lake is formed and was formed from meltwater that would replenish it since the water would not be pulled away from massive irrigation.

Adding some swamp terrain might be reasonable, sure.

The same thing for the Sacramento Delta: The only reason that place is not inundated now is from careful regulation of levees and through constant pumping of the water away from the delta throughout the San Joaquin valley. They deliberately lower the levels to be manageable by pumping the water elsewhere or regulating spring inflows by diverting water before it reaches the delta.

And the levees are not perfect. They have had almost 200 failures since they were made, although only one major one in the last three decades. But both conditions for California's future involve changes to the delta without the constant management we currently do. If the current climate changes are longterm, rising sea levels inundate the whole region with brackish water (which is the current future being planned for in California). If the changes reverse, thicker snowpack and meltwater restore the area to its original state.

I'm aware that people can maintain levees using medieval technology. What they can't do is operate modern dams and giant state-spanning hydraulic pumps without the skill to do so or electricity or a myriad of other things that do not exist in this alternate future.

Obviously not. But your initial post made it sound like you think the whole system is going to be gone, and honestly you're still kind of giving that impression a bit. Sure, there'll be a great big flood every once in a while (and events reflecting that would be a fun addition) but there's no reason to suppose that California won't still have exemplary water-management infrastructure by medieval standards.