Crusader Kings on "medieval" Mars

[ragot]

I went to see The Martian yesterday and afterwards I had this idea about mankind terraforming Mars and then getting hit by some sort of apocalypse which sends Mars "back" to medieval age, pretty much like in the mod After the End.

This morning I did some googling to find out if anyone had thought about the same thing and found out about this book called Medieval Mars: The Anthology. Don't know if it's any good but the description is very fitting to what I was thinking.

"A future terraformed Mars, where civilization crashed back into a Medieval Era. Christian Knights called “riders” patrol the Pilgrim Road from Olympus to New San Diego, on the Chryse Sea. The technological past is known as the “Age of Magic” and only a handful of people understand how the remaining ancient devices really work. Lighter gravity in dense air makes flying dragons and bird riders a reality; alloys of the past make “magic” swords; and masters of ancient knowledge wield wizard-like power."

I'm not meaning to start a mod project or anything like that, I barely even visit these forums anymore, but I just felt like I had to share this. Especially after I found out about the book.

 

[doccarnby]

I had an idea for a Sword and Planet Mars type thing, with a bit of John Carter and a bit of War of the Worlds, but making a new map with new graphics and figuring out a good way to make a mono-gendered species work well was something I just don't feel up to yet.

 

[Vintage Zombie]

This sounds like a really cool premise. Let me know if decide to go with it (or anyone else reading this does) and get it off the ground and want help with flavour text-type stuff. I can do implementation, too.

 

[klopkr]

Sounds cool but I hear if you add water to mars it ends up land on on side and water on the other. Would that make for a kind of bland map?

 

[edza101]

Sounds cool but I hear if you add water to mars it ends up land on on side and water on the other. Would that make for a kind of bland map?

To be honest that's basically earth, Im sure some of the coastline would be very interesting.

For example you could put nomadic hordes further inland, a steppe sort of area, with more urban centred civilisations further out.
Maybe some sort of feudal civilisation set around Olympus Mons? Lots of possibilities!

 

[klopkr]

Maybe it's not as bad as I originally thought.

But if the map is like this:

It might be a little disappointing.

 

[Muffinforall]

Yeah and let's put whalers on the moon too.
In all seriousness it is a good idea, I like the idea of like old metal scraps being reforged by legendary blacksmiths to create legendary swords. It would be cool if there was a very adventuresque feel to it. The map would have to look good though to really make it work. And since it's mars it could be from North Pole to South Pole, which would be cool. And then cults that came out of different countries colonies. These cults would encompass religion and culture groups. A new mechanic and a very adventuring feel to it would make it different than after the end. Because otherwise it's after the end but on mars, and after the end is CK 2, but in America. Definitely a cult focused on worshiping olympus mons and maybe a pilgrimage option, where you spend like 8 generations trying to build a space suit so eventually, one day you might just be able to go on a pilgrimage to the top.

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

A quick search on google reveals interesting images on how an earth-like mars could look like, and even early drawings of the planet. Rivers, other geographical features and different climates could be added to spice things up and simulate how mars would look like with erosion form rivers, seas and the like.

 

[Bj0rn]

This would be interesting

 

[grisamentum]

Maybe it's not as bad as I originally thought.

...

It might be a little disappointing.

There's a lot more variation you can do:

or here:

http://orig04.deviantart.net/27d9/f/2012/096/d/b/mars_relief_map_by_axiaterraartunion-d4v6w0a.jpg

Ultimately any vaguely realistic map of Mars should have a large northern ocean and a large southern continent. Of course any detailed variations on that can be excused with whatever fictional premises (like terraformers intentionally lowered a particular area in order to change weather patterns or something, or adding islands in the ocean where desirable).

Or you could keep raising the sea level until you got something different.

 

[IamOzymandias]

Some good maps, but, on the premise, what if, instead of an ATE reverse in tech event, the difficulty in getting from earth to Mars makes it difficult to procure modern tech and the result is a semi feudal society that relies mostly on manual labor and lacks gunpowder based weaponry.

 

[Orinsul]

Would you want to do the whole of mars? CK2 isnt the whole of earth. the half/half thing goes away if you make the map only a europe sized bit of coastline, or that india looking peninsular there. It looks big and has an island chain at the end for the britain stand-in.

 

[klopkr]

Would you want to do the whole of mars? CK2 isnt the whole of earth. the half/half thing goes away if you make the map only a europe sized bit of coastline, or that india looking peninsular there. It looks big and has an island chain at the end for the britain stand-in.

Mars has no useful splits unless you split the map along the northern water area. The whole of mars wouldn't be an issue but the projection may look strange and there would need some way to connect both ends like eu4.

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

there would need some way to connect both ends like eu4.

Is that possible with CKII, though? If not, maybe splitting up the map will prevent the awkwardness of an unconnected map. Even if it were possible, however, the surface of mars is still rather big and a map covering it all would massive.

 

[klopkr]

Is that possible with CKII, though? If not, maybe splitting up the map will prevent the awkwardness of an unconnected map. Even if it were possible, however, the surface of mars is still rather big and a map covering it all would massive.

I don't believe it is. So you'll just have to find another way. If you made the map from a south pole view it would just look like one giant island surrounded by an ocean.

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

I don't believe it is. So you'll just have to find another way. If you made the map from a south pole view it would just look like one giant island surrounded by an ocean.

That could work although such a projection would cause a rather big distortion if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Keperry]

Alternatively you could just choose one part of Mars, which would solve both the size problem and the projection problem.

 

[Orinsul]

I reckon that peninsular would be the place. Or a little square centred on that crater late

 

[Vintage Zombie]

This seems like a topographically interesting region with a good mix of biomes:

 

[AlexJG]

Nice big desert for nomads.