Mod Proposition: Martian Magi

[Orlunu]

Mars, M26
Almost a thousand years since the worst throes of the scouring warp, three thousand since humanity's mechanical servants turned to wage a galactic war of annihilation on their masters, the inhabitants of this ravaged orb dare start to hope that they can rebuild.

High on the firm ground of mountains and volcanic plateaus, schismatic cultists of science war over the implications of the destruction their tools have wrought. In the last low-lying lichenlands and clinging to the edges of what noxious waters remain, tribes of radical ecologists prepare a fanatical defence of what life remains on Mars - even if the cost will have to be death on an untold scale. Between them, nomadic caravans of scavengers, occultists, and simple survivors carve out their existance in an endless landscape of craters and red-stained dust.

This planet is the very image of the ruin of war, the light of all its achievement guttering on the edge of extinction. Among these ruins, however, there now walk men of purpose and opportunity. Charismatic leaders emerge among peoples utterly convinced that their path is the only path to survival. These leaders are starting to command loyalty or tribute from wider realms, to lay down stable successions, and the question is posed: which will prosper, and which will die?

So, anyway, this post is mostly just to ask about interest and for initial spitballing. The 40k Universe has, for obvious reasons, been one of the big repeated desires that people have had for Paradox strategy game mods. There have been several attempts. They have all faced more or less crippling fundamental problems. I briefly contributed to one myself before I realised that that too, despite having been conceived specifically to mitigate against them, was still majorly compromised by them. It is a deeply unfortunate state of affairs.

When I was browsing through the mod plans and ideas thread, however, I found a few of them inspirational. It hit me, this is the combination that would work. Other points in the timeline, or other games in the category, you're left trying to work out the least janky mechanics to try and represent things that don't really fit, but here you have true alignment. Wiith isolated, post-apocalyptic, forge-feudal Mars your questions are just how much content you have time to write for the rich characater-driven dynamics, how awesomely thematic you can go with your battlefield dominating knights and feral infantry hordes, how intriguing you can make the crises of politics and faith.

Anyway, that's the image that flashed itself into my head, and I found it pretty awesome. Now I'm here, hoping to find that other people would also find it awesome, might even want to help develop the concept or work on implementing it.

My initial thoughts were as roughly sketched out above. We have a post-apocalyptic regrowth type setting, some vibes of After the End. Roughly three major government types, three major terrains, three religious groups sketched out, all roughly aligning to start.
Forge-feudal governments are the start of the model seen in the core 40k setting, and sees powerful rules dividing out holdings to their underlings in fief, in return for their loyal support - proto-hives, war forges, generatoria, and the like. Nomadic clans ply the wastes, groups of warlike raiders and scavengers and their home caravans, loyal to those of themselves powerful enough to command. In the least devastated areas are the closes reflections of what went before - confederations of cities, bastions, and the like governed not by the strict contract and exchange of resources of the forges, but by confederation and kinship.
Religiously, the most obvious faith group is the scientistic cults. These are viciously divided in the wake of the Cybernetic Revolt and other events. Do you seek perfection in the machine, or in biological advancement? Are your mechanical studies of the Omnissiah's mysteries those of blinkered archivalism, or reckless experimentation? Second most obvious, we have those turned against the spectre of technology: naturalists, ecologists, humanists. A myriad of different faiths exist in opposition to the soul-killing science, and often in opposition to each other, and to anyone else who happens along. Our third category is a negative cateogry, that is defined by what it is not. It encompasses the other faiths - shamanist, esoteric, or the like - which have served to get people through the millenia without dealing with the same fundamental question at their core.

Warfare is of course a major component. Our levies represent the various garrisons, militias and the like. Light infantry, highly variable in number and quality depending on government, culture, religion. Men-at-arms are for the centrepiece units. Regiments of genehanced shock troops, armoured formations, units of knight-titans or even the dread god-machines themselves or mighty ordinatus weaponry. With a strong influence of cultural/religious units and heavy terrain modifiers, I believe we can make this highly thematic and also engagingly show a development of warfare and production which is authentic to the setting. Wars themselves are as they should be at this time - raids for resources, seizures of peripheral holdings, or brutal religious conflicts. The interplay of units, governments, faith and terrain could and should make the geo-strategy of the scenario emergent and relevant. The wars should be a major component of the game, but not the be-all that everything is exclusively oriented towards.

Off-planet powers are relevant, too. In this period, major space travel is not usual, but some communication and transit between planets in the solar system exists. Space port trade posts, event chains and decisions, the rare character from another world, all of these things have a place and rich potential. Even, eventually, extra-planetary invasions such as that of the Pan-Pacific tribes against Moravec, or the obscure xenos infiltrations alluded to in various places.



It's a pretty cool concept in my mind, at least. What do you think? Would you be interested in helping out on such a project? Do you have any ideas to add or exchange?

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

Crusader Kings and ... Warhammer 40k. My interest is piqued.

How do you plan to handle the Omnissiah, though?

 

[Orlunu]

How do you plan to handle the Omnissiah, though?

Well, my thinking was that one of the major religion groups is Omnissian religions, which will essentially be the knowledge cults. Of these, the Cult Mechanicus is the major religion and is the classic Martian engineering direction, although there will also be religions along, say, biological or esoteric lines of knowledge hunting. In the Cult Mechanicus religion you have various schismatic faiths - singularitarians who are pro-AI, logicians who are pro-exerimental and pro-developmental, archivalists who are focused on the recovery of the old rather than innovation of the new, and so on.

In the canon timeline the Archivist Cult Mechanicus win out, of course, but they were far from the only interpretation of the Omnissiah to have existed. In game, the Omnissian religions will be by far the largest starting force, although probably not an absolute majority on map, and although they will be fun-balanced, there should be a tendency for roughly "historical" outcomes to unfold - this potentially including things like violent reactions by other groups to a blobbing singularitarian power (Moravec).

For the actual interaction of the Omnissiah, I think that something akin to the semi-supernatural events that can be found in CK2 would be good. Interactions and events whereby you're really pushing on that line of "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" and it's not really clear to what extent actual divine (warp) intervention is playing a role. Of course, in this setting divine energy is literally real, but during this time period is supposed to be relatively minimal. That could actually be a really nice thing to leverage the moral authority of a religion for. As my yard-stick, I'll probably take the Emperor's appearance on Mars as the utmost upper limit of how inexplicable it could go.

Spoiler

For those who haven't read the relevant book, when the Emperor arrives on Mars after this period, more or less his first act is to basically cast "lay on hands" on a Knight-Titan with chronic injuries, and this is taken as proof the he either is an avatar of the Omnissiah or at least its prophet.

Does that answer the question, or have I misunderstood what you're getting at?

 

[Provenance]

I don't want to sound harsh, but it seems overly ambitious for a mod based on a very minor part of the WH40k franchise. Obviously a WH40k mod would have an inbuilt audience, but your proposal sounds like dropping 99.9% of the setting and thus most of its appeal. That also means not being able to recruit modders who could e.g. create the necessary visual assets.

I think you should look into an original concept instead, because the core idea is still strong: a space colony that has regressed into feudalism and barbarism after the collapse of interstellar civilization. Just drop the WH40k part and you'd have a lot of creative freedom.

In the 40k canon, this whole period seems to be just footnotes (if very evocative footnotes) for one faction's backstory. To expand that into a game on the scope of Crusader Kings, most of the mod would still have to be original content.

The Machine Cult fans know hasn't even formed yet, so you'd need to detail their development, and then create and flesh out the opponents they must have defeated but who only get a passing mention in canon.

So you would be basically be working on an original mod anyway. I think at that point the WH40k part of it becomes a hindrance.

I don't want to discourage you, I just think you would have an easier time with an original and less ambitious concept. That's why you need to pick your battles. If you can't fit your concept inside the boundaries of Crusader Kings, you won't be modding the game, you'll be modding AGAINST the game.

At the end of the day, your idea is "Crusader Kings but on a hostile alien planet". That's a very good concept as long as you keep your goals manageable.

Unless you know how to mod 3d graphics or know someone who can, you'll probably have to accept that a lot of people on Mars will look and dress exactly like Medieval Europeans. Unless you want to revamp the combat system, maybe Men-at-Arms equipped with rayguns arent that different from Archers. Unless you want to rewrite every event, maybe Kings of Mars is not that different from the base game.

But even if it's just the base game on a wildly different map, it can be a fun mod. A lot of AtE's appeal comes from not having to stare at the Old World for another 100 hours.

I guess what I'm saying is to start small and work up from there.

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

Well, my thinking was that one of the major religion groups is Omnissian religions, which will essentially be the knowledge cults. Of these, the Cult Mechanicus is the major religion and is the classic Martian engineering direction, although there will also be religions along, say, biological or esoteric lines of knowledge hunting. In the Cult Mechanicus religion you have various schismatic faiths - singularitarians who are pro-AI, logicians who are pro-exerimental and pro-developmental, archivalists who are focused on the recovery of the old rather than innovation of the new, and so on.

In the canon timeline the Archivist Cult Mechanicus win out, of course, but they were far from the only interpretation of the Omnissiah to have existed. In game, the Omnissian religions will be by far the largest starting force, although probably not an absolute majority on map, and although they will be fun-balanced, there should be a tendency for roughly "historical" outcomes to unfold - this potentially including things like violent reactions by other groups to a blobbing singularitarian power (Moravec).

For the actual interaction of the Omnissiah, I think that something akin to the semi-supernatural events that can be found in CK2 would be good. Interactions and events whereby you're really pushing on that line of "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" and it's not really clear to what extent actual divine (warp) intervention is playing a role. Of course, in this setting divine energy is literally real, but during this time period is supposed to be relatively minimal. That could actually be a really nice thing to leverage the moral authority of a religion for. As my yard-stick, I'll probably take the Emperor's appearance on Mars as the utmost upper limit of how inexplicable it could go.

Spoiler

For those who haven't read the relevant book, when the Emperor arrives on Mars after this period, more or less his first act is to basically cast "lay on hands" on a Knight-Titan with chronic injuries, and this is taken as proof the he either is an avatar of the Omnissiah or at least its prophet.

Does that answer the question, or have I misunderstood what you're getting at?

I was actually simply asking about the section marked with orange, but I like the way you put thought into what cults exist on Mars at that point. Some things of note, though:

1. Inside the vaults of Moravec is the earliest known example of a Daemon Engine, created by none other than the Emperor himself, so I will be more ambiguous about casting Moravec as some "big bad" blob;
2. I agree with Provenance's opinion that you need more people on board and start with something more accessible to 40k fans in general, say the Mechanicum civil war during the HH (order has crumbled so much with Kelbor Hal's betrayal and the influence of Chaos that a semi-feudal structure could fit anyway).

 

[Orlunu]

I don't want to sound harsh, but it seems overly ambitious for a mod based on a very minor part of the WH40k franchise. Obviously a WH40k mod would have an inbuilt audience, but your proposal sounds like dropping 99.9% of the setting and thus most of its appeal. That also means not being able to recruit modders who could e.g. create the necessary visual assets.

I think you should look into an original concept instead, because the core idea is still strong: a space colony that has regressed into feudalism and barbarism after the collapse of interstellar civilization. Just drop the WH40k part and you'd have a lot of creative freedom.

[...]

So you would be basically be working on an original mod anyway. I think at that point the WH40k part of it becomes a hindrance.

That's not overly harsh at all, it's a good criticism. I think the difference between our takes here is one of perspective, and it may be that your perspective is a better way to look at it than mine; you seem to be coming at it as a 40k mod with things taken away, where I am more picturing it as this generic sci-fi mod with things added. Say, let us take the map - by not going with the de-terraforming Mars, we get freedom to define the map ourselves - what is the result of that? Well, it will be an awful lot more work involved to come up with a map that will probably be less good at the end result anyway. By using this setting's fuzzy pre-history as a basis, we have that spine of basic material to work with creatively, rather than having to create from nothing.

The mention of the clothing is a very good point. A lot of art and flavour will need to be replaced for it to be fully converted, and until then it will feel very much part-done. The thing is with what you describe as it being "not that different from the base game". My concern is, if one goes for a more purely step by small step basis for development with the game feeling fully fitted in all early patches, then the most one will ever get is After the End on a different map. After the End is great. After the End has already been done and already exists. My feeling is that people would not be as interested to play or mod "After the End but on Another Map". Perhaps I'm wrong. I'll need feedback on that to know - would people rather a game that looks and feels a lot more like the base CK or AtE and is set on another planet, or would they rather the more differentiated conversion?

I don't want to discourage you, I just think you would have an easier time with an original and less ambitious concept. The big sci-fi mod for CK2, Crisis of the Confederation, never really got off the ground because it had to reinvent every part of an extremely complex but still fairly limited game. AtE on the other hand thrived because it transplanted the base game into a different but still similar setting.

That's why you need to pick your battles. If you can't fit your concept inside the boundaries of Crusader Kings, you won't be modding the game, you'll be modding AGAINST the game.

Again, yes. This was one of my major considerations with the concept, but I think we differ on the analysis. CotC struggled because it had to reinvent all parts of the game - its interstellar map and the implications of that, the fundamental gameplay loop of dynastic government being shifted away from, the radical redefinition of what the military forces represented, and so on. AtE thrived because it kept the gameplay in alignment while swapping out enormous amounts of actual flavour and content. This was the basis of my picking this setting and this game - the gameplay fundamentals being very closely aligned while the thematics are very different. Replacement of the fluff and preservation of the crunch. It would certainly be a large undertaking, but I suppose that is kind of the point. It should be a true Total Conversion that utterly re-casts the setting whilst still being very much the same game.

1. Inside the vaults of Moravec is the earliest known example of a Daemon Engine, created by none other than the Emperor himself, so I will be more ambiguous about casting Moravec as some "big bad" blob;
2. I agree with Provenance's opinion that you need more people on board and start with something more accessible to 40k fans in general, say the Mechanicum civil war during the HH (order has crumbled so much with Kelbor Hal's betrayal and the influence of Chaos that a semi-feudal structure could fit anyway).

Ah, I do not really plan to cast Moravec as anything at all, I had been working on the basis that he is after the game's time frame. I simply used him for an example of one of the types of mechanic that might bias the game towards historical outcomes; in this case specifically he is an example of a highly threatening and disliked religious power blobbing hard and getting itself ganked by a pre-emptive coalition attack. Another example would be a dynamic similar to CK de-tribalisation seeing the forge-feudals taking over the highlands from the nomads.

I agree with him too on the need for more people. That is part of why I am fishing for interest. The issue with the more "general" setting is as he alluded to with the scale of conversion. The point of the setting selection was to work optimally with the original game and with the limits of modding, and a HH conversion would both require an awful lot more modding resources and put significant strains on the underpinnings of the mod by being mechanically different rather than just thematically different. The rebuilding of Mars is the vying for power of various feudal, tribal and similar powers on a planet under heavy religious influence while technological and cultural progress is made over centuries. The HH on Mars is a war between two major powers on a particular planet in the context of a much larger war with next to no dynastic considerations under radically and fundamentally different forms of government from the feudal and tribal. One of these naturally jives with CK, the other would take a lot of bending and twisting to fit.



Thanks for the feedback from you both, those are some good things for me to take away and think about for a while.

 

[Ezumiyr]

The sad reality of total conversions is that if you don't plan to make them yourself (at least launching the project and doing the basic work), it's just better to abandon all hopes.
There are never modders looking for ideas for big total conversions. This kind of modder already has ideas about what they want to do.

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

an awful lot more modding resources and put significant strains on the underpinnings of the mod by being mechanically different rather than just thematically different. The rebuilding of Mars is the vying for power of various feudal, tribal and similar powers on a planet under heavy religious influence while technological and cultural progress is made over centuries. The HH on Mars is a war between two major powers on a particular planet in the context of a much larger war with next to no dynastic considerations under radically and fundamentally different forms of government from the feudal and tribal. One of these naturally jives with CK, the other would take a lot of bending and twisting to fit.

Ah yes, that was a misstep on my part. In addition to the problems you pointed out, the HH lasted around seven years, definitely no more than twenty. Too short a timespan to portray a dynasty.

 

[Orlunu]

The sad reality of total conversions is that if you don't plan to make them yourself (at least launching the project and doing the basic work), it's just better to abandon all hopes.
There are never modders looking for ideas for big total conversions. This kind of modder already has ideas about what they want to do.

Yeah, I would be planning on doing a lot of it myself, and I can do fine with a lot of things, but I need to find out what interest people would have in joining in on such a project. It would be far too much to get it significantly completed on my own, and some areas like art are just completely outside my capability.

 

[nweismuller]

I don't feel qualified enough in the setting to meaningfully contribute, but I do very much like the idea. I'll keep an eye out to see if it ends up being made.

 

[tribnia]

A story for techno-barbarians sounds cool! Though I would say it could be freer if not set strictly in 40k worlds.
If you create a different world, you could add more element to it.

 

[zombaxx]

What a coincidence, I actually started creating a Mars map last week. I am still working on finalizing the map and terrain, and will edit the color map to be more red afterwards. It currently works in-game with the “random world” setting.

I’m thinking a projection based on the Southern Hemisphere would be better for Mars than this projection (so that the Pangea continent would essentially be an island instead how it is displayed now. The current projection is not ideal since you can’t wrap maps at the edges into a globe in ck2, though if I keep the current projection I can just have an offmap empire live where the map ends or have it be an untraversable wasteland to have a lore reason), but I have struggled to find a detailed topography map using a different projection.

I was planning an original setting rather than in the 40k universe, but if you’re down with that I would be glad to join forces. I’m not planning a huge overhaul on features, mostly just relocalizations from vanilla, at least at first, to keep the scope from expanding out of control. Will probably add in a few features I had created for the Crisis of the Confederation mod later on.

 

[Orlunu]

I was planning an original setting rather than in the 40k universe, but if you’re down with that I would be glad to join forces. I’m not planning a huge overhaul on features, mostly just relocalizations from vanilla, at least at first, to keep the scope from expanding out of control. Will probably add in a few features I had created for the Crisis of the Confederation mod later on.

That would be great, I'll slide into your DMs soon. It's a really nice looking map even without the finalisation.

 

[mike2343]

Here is the Discord channel Zombaxx was planning to use to collaborate. Nothing is in it yet as he was planning to wait until uploading to steam before seeing this post https://discord.gg/QDKFFdR

 

[klopkr]

@zombaxx That's absolutely gorgeous. Keep up the great work!

 

[zombaxx]

The initial version that can only be used with the Random World setting or one of the recommended save files is available now at the discord link above and steam