Phoenix Fire: The American Post Apocolyptic Mod

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Hm. graphics.log is complaining about circular rivers where there are no rivers at all, and rivers that are too short everywhere there's a blue pixel. I'm going to put that aside for now and come back to it later.

EDIT: Your post hadn't appeared when I'd posted this. Looks really good. I'm thinking that we should create a wiki of some sort to keep track of all this information, given how fragmented it can get at times.

What you can do is basically "clip" the rivers out (I usually make them in photoshop on their own layer) and then add them back one by one. See which one is causing the issue. I had something similar happen with the localization of my Atlantis mod.

Thanks, and I agree. It might be useful.

The only four mods I think are essential are:
Better Rebels (because it is a good idea)
Climate (It will take some time to adapt, but will add a layer of depth to the mod)
Improved CoAs (vanilla's look... way too colorful)
More clothing (so different groups look different)

 

[Orinsul]

Probably for most the CoAs and clothing eventually we'll need new ones, but for the Latins, mostly Europe minded stuff would work fine and there are quite a few great mods out there for it that with minor editing would be great for the mod.
A wiki might be good, the Docs are working alright and its the same principle, ive no idea how youd go about setting one up though.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Probably for most the CoAs and clothing eventually we'll need new ones, but for the Latins, mostly Europe minded stuff would work fine and there are quite a few great mods out there for it that with minor editing would be great for the mod.
A wiki might be good, the Docs are working alright and its the same principle, ive no idea how youd go about setting one up though.

I think the Hurric peoples will have more traditional CoAs.

You can go to wikia, but it is not the best idea. I'd stick with the docs and the threads. External links must be approved on the forums and we are unlikely to be approved.

 

[ulrichomega]

What you can do is basically "clip" the rivers out (I usually make them in photoshop on their own layer) and then add them back one by one. See which one is causing the issue. I had something similar happen with the localization of my Atlantis mod.

I tried to do that at one point, but it refused to even start the game. Since I posted that, I've been experimenting with how errors propagate from errors, but it's lead nowhere. I think I'll go back to adding rivers one by one, though. It's more likely to lead somewhere.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Just remember to have at least one river. If this is anything like EU3, the map needs one river even if it is one pixel at the bottom of the ocean.

Also, add the Cuyahoga river, please. It is important to making Cleveland decently defendable.

 

[ulrichomega]

Given that our rivers.bmp has about 1/3 the rivers that the vanilla one has, I'm planning on adding a bunch more. Anyone have any more suggestions?

EDIT: This makes no sense at all. I'm down to one river (having deleted all others), and even it doesn't work. I don't know what to do, here. I'm going to pack it in for the day and finish duchies/cultures for South America.

EDIT2: Even Green->Blue->Blue->Blue->Blue->Pink(water) doesn't work. I'm stumped and just wasted a day on this.

 

[Dysc]

Eagerly awaiting this mod. Looks great so far, keep at it guys.

 

[Arcaul]

Mr. Capitalist when exactly, in the Meridian Calendar, did the Hurric people unite into the Huron Empire? Just kind of important for the lore surrounding the Quebecois. I will start writing that as soon as I get a response really. Also really good job on the lore there yourself.

Some other minor things. I think I might go back through the cultures and change the names around a bit. Quebecois sounds too English to me even though all the names there are technically French. Also I fully intend on corrupting the Laurencois names. That is a point I would like you to help me with Mr. Capitalist just because you are so good at it. Also I decided the name of Quebecois/Canadian kingdoms should be Dominions. Now we just need to figure out to call all the remaining holdings titles (ie Kingdoms, duchies, counties, baronies).

Orinsul since I still don't really get the religion thing would you be willing to write the religious lore for the Quebecois and Canadiens?

 

[Orinsul]

Basically for Canada, its international issues between canadians are settled by judges, a system developed from the traveling circuit judges of the late ash times who brought law in a cowboyish fashion to the tribes who apart from the Judges had nothing else in common. but if you want something different for canada then go ahead as its your bit.

 

[Arcaul]

Screw it I'm just going to do the history now if it needs to be changed later we can do that.

After the fall the majority of what was Canada lay in ruins. Ontario and the Maritimes collapsed into to petty tribalism. However, in Quebec a prominent family, the House Garandeau, from Quebec City quickly took advantage of the situation and declared themselves the Director-Generals of the newly formed Dominion of Quebec. The Dominion quickly grew in size as the Townships in the south submitted and Montreal was conquered in a bloody siege. Soon after the Garandeaus started passing strict laws to perpetuate and preserve the French language and culture within the Dominion of Quebec.

In Newfoundland the ancestors of Joey Smallwood took the opportunity to slowly build up power within the Avalon peninsula before slowly expanding out towards Cornerbrook and Port-aux-Basques. This resulted in the slow creation of the Dominion of the Rock. The Dominion of the Rock took to a career in piracy raiding the trading routes of the Quebecois and Maritimers and even going as far south as the Carolinas to raid shipping lanes. This all ended when the Union came into being.

As the Union became more united and centralized they became a serious threat to the North. The Quebecois took advantage of the situation and forced first the Maritimers and then the not already subjugated Ontarions into a union called the Confederation. The union took place in 174 with the Imperial Coronation (ie the Confederation of States) of Artur I Garandeau. In 178 the Confederation conquered the rebellious Newfoundlandic of the Rock and installed their own Director-General to govern the Dominion.

The threat of invasion by the Union had seemed all but a pretext for the the Confederation of Canada, however the invasion was soon realized when President Daniel III orders an invasion of the North. This invasion is repulsed and leads to a weakening of the Union. Over time the raiders from the North exact a toll on the Union and begin to expand. The Maritimes which were always semi-independent declared their allegiance to the Union in the south which are then quickly taken back by the Quebecois. This coincides with the dissolution of the Dominion of Quebec by the de Lavals as they come to power as well as the earlier dissolution of the Dominion of Newfoundland in order to centralize power in the Confederation.

With these attempts at unity succeeding in the short term to stabilize the Confederation the de Lavals start a period of expansion into the Northern Union. This sees the acquisition of much of former New England and the attempts to Francophy the population of the subject states of Quebec within the Confederation. The Garandeaus manage to reclaim the throne from the de Lavals (a cadet branch of the Garandeaus in the first place) ending their 99 year rule. This plus the policies of the Frenchification lead to instability within the exterior parts of the realm starting a long a bloody series of wars for the Rocks independence. These wars end with the ascension of the Allrock dynasty to the throne of the Dominion of the Rock and the Fall of the Garandeau to the Beauvoir in the Confederation. With much instability the revenues usually accrued by raiding Union shipping lines begin to falter.

The Beauvoirs greatest achievement during their reign was a starting a golden age through trade with the Hurric peoples across the Great Lakes and raiding and largely keeping at bay the Meridians to the south. Although they never manage to re-expand the empire to its greatest extent they prevent further losses to their own territories. However, the scheming house Garandeau manage to cause a succession crisis and see themselves reasserted upon the imperial throne of the confederation.

This is quickly followed by a gambit invasion of the Hurric peoples to assert hegemony over the great lakes. This coincides with the Age of Storms among the Hurric People. However, it only manages to weaken the Confederation as a whole. Soon the Meridians in the Union are able to reassert power and stop the raids that netted the Quebecois so much money and perpetuated their golden age. This leads to petty squabbling amongst the Administrators of duchies of Quebec sparking a full blown succession crisis. With this the Maritimes, New Englanders and Ontarions seize the opportunity to at last secede from the Confederation leading to its collapse.

At the present date Quebec is being fought over by dukes trying to regain former glory while the Maritimes and Ontario are in complete disarray with local chieftans trying to assert some degree over control and prevent the recurrence of any Quebecois tyranny. However, the stains of Quebecois rule are everywhere leaving the Maritimes and New England a tainted half-breed culture, a mix between English and French. The extreme emphasis on law by the Imperial Household of the Confederation has lead to the adoption of many legalistic ideas among the other cultures. Even now revolutionary heresies are beginning to take root among the former Dominions of the Confederation as its remnants spiral ever closer to war.

 

[ulrichomega]

Just finishing up Venezuela now.

As with Colombia, there are two main culture groups, though a third one with a single culture also exists.

In the west around Lake Maracaibo, out to Barquisimeto and up to the Paraguana Peninsula, is the Democray cultural group. Along the western shores of Lake Maracaibo live the Betancay people. Across the Lake, and a bit inland, are the Chavay. The last subdivision are the Peray.

To the East and along the lower Orinoco River is the Antiguin cultural group. Along the northern coast and the Coastal Range are the Boliv. Further East along the coast are the Marin. South, along the Orinoco are the Piarin.

The last group, only in the western llanos, are the Llanoan people.

There was supposed to be a map here, but the upload is taking an inordinate amount of time, and I'm going to keep trying.

EDIT: HERE!

I'll have a writeup on how these groups came to be later.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Arcaul: I'll have to check when I get home from work. I saved my timeline on my home desktop. As long as you leave the Eastern extreme until later we can figure something out (like a disinherited son builds and army and heads west or something along those lines).

 

[ulrichomega]

Was working off an old version of my notes, Democray should have been Caudilay. I also folded the Piarin and the Marin, because the Piarin alone weren't doing much. I'll probably consolidate even more, most likely in Colombia. There are a lot of cultures here, and probably too many.

Here's a copy of all the cultures I've added to south America.

caudilay = {
	betancay = {

	}
	chavay = {

	}
	peray = {

	}
}
antiguin = {
	boliv = {

	}
	piarin = {

	}
}
llanoan = {
	llanoan = {

	}
}
ciudades = {
	bogotan = {

	}
	calain = {

	}
	medellain = {

	}
}
campestre = {
	tairona = {

	}
	magdelanya = {

	}
	muisca = {

	}
	embera = {

	}
	paez = {

	}
}
sierran = {
	pichinch = {
	
	}
	cotopax = {
	
	}
	sanga = {
	
	}
}
costa = {
	coaque = {
	
	}
	amotape = {
	
	}
}

EDIT: And now even the base rivers.bmp file doesn't work. I'm going to reinstall and then see if our rivers.bmp file works.

EDIT2: Looking over the vanilla cultures, it seems I'd forgotten how few there were. For some reason, I thought that they'd been subdivided a lot more. I think I'm going to merge all of the culture groups into individual cultures, and put them all into one culture group.

This results in:

latin = {
	caudilay = {

	}
	antiguin = {

	}
	llanoan = {

	}
	ciudades = {

	}
	campestre = {

	}
	volcoa = {

	}
	mayrinar = {
	
	}
}

and this:

 

[Arcaul]

Six cultures is probably good for Northern South America. Anyways I`ll do my religion blurb now. I changed the names of some of the heresies for the Northern group just to fit with what I had going on in my head. So here they are:

After the fall to quickly restore order to the cities and country side drastic measures were taken. In the North this resulted in a judiciary with extreme power. Judges acted as both law enforcers and jurists and even some times if the situation called for it as law makers by setting precedents. Law was passed off of a common law practice as it was the most adaptable after the fall the Quebecois quickly dropping civil law in favour of it. In some extreme cases judges, as the only law enforcement in some areas, could even act as executioners. This system of law quickly brought stability to Quebec and later the areas it conquered and incorporated.

However, there were many detractors from this extreme form of law. Revolutionaries demanded that the Judiciary relinquish some of its powers but not before taking powers away from the monarchic state. They quickly became known as Constitutionalists as they sought to curb the power of the monarchs. This in turn caused a reactionary movement to form. They were known as Royalists because they sought to transfer power from the Judiciary, as they saw them as being too powerful with the possible ability to limit the power of the nobility, and pass these powers to the nobles themselves.

Some viewed the Judiciary themselves as the problem wielding too much power and needing to have that power curbed. They sought to weaken the Judiciary by introducing juries of independent randomly selected citizens. They became known as Jursists or arch heretics to those who supported the power of the Judiciary as it currently was. This in turn spurned on a nationalist movement known as the Controllists who believed that the Judiciary should elected and controlled by the public and they should be the ones to run the show.

The common law system put in place after the fall soon became cultural and distinctive of the North. The Judiciary had power over everything including religion. Only the nobles were more powerful but the battle between powers was always contentious. The nobility easily maintain control through sheer force of power over the Judiciary however. The citizenry however, believe thoroughly in the powers invested in the Judiciary and revoke other ideas in its place.

 

[ulrichomega]

Has anybody started working on dynasties.txt? It's my understanding that no two dynastic IDs can be the same, so I'm thinking we should coordinate that in some way to avoid more work in the future. I've only just started on the Campestre cultural names, but I've been using 10000+. The usual method of doing this is to assign some number to each culture, and then slap on a few zeroes to the end of that in order to give them enough ID's (for example, for the Campestres, if we give 1000 to each culture, they'll have 10000-11000). I'd say that, since there are no numeric limitations on IDs, 1000 is a good amount to give to each culture.

I've already given 27 dynasties to the Campestre culture, but since the vanilla dynasties.txt file isn't in any order that I can see, I don't know the standard number to give to each culture. I'm going to exhaust my source, and we can maybe delete some later if need be.

EDIT: I went through and counted a few cultural dynasties. I stopped counting Swedish at 100 dynasties, and Persian had 77. My estimates were, indeed, off.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Has anybody started working on dynasties.txt? It's my understanding that no two dynastic IDs can be the same, so I'm thinking we should coordinate that in some way to avoid more work in the future. I've only just started on the Campestre cultural names, but I've been using 10000+. The usual method of doing this is to assign some number to each culture, and then slap on a few zeroes to the end of that in order to give them enough ID's (for example, for the Campestres, if we give 1000 to each culture, they'll have 10000-11000). I'd say that, since there are no numeric limitations on IDs, 1000 is a good amount to give to each culture.

I've already given 27 dynasties to the Campestre culture, but since the vanilla dynasties.txt file isn't in any order that I can see, I don't know the standard number to give to each culture. I'm going to exhaust my source, and we can maybe delete some later if need be.

We should seriously give every region a range of IDs for both Characters and Dynasties.

 

[Orinsul]

Has anybody started working on dynasties.txt? It's my understanding that no two dynastic IDs can be the same, so I'm thinking we should coordinate that in some way to avoid more work in the future. I've only just started on the Campestre cultural names, but I've been using 10000+. The usual method of doing this is to assign some number to each culture, and then slap on a few zeroes to the end of that in order to give them enough ID's (for example, for the Campestres, if we give 1000 to each culture, they'll have 10000-11000). I'd say that, since there are no numeric limitations on IDs, 1000 is a good amount to give to each culture.

I've already given 27 dynasties to the Campestre culture, but since the vanilla dynasties.txt file isn't in any order that I can see, I don't know the standard number to give to each culture. I'm going to exhaust my source, and we can maybe delete some later if need be.

EDIT: I went through and counted a few cultural dynasties. I stopped counting Swedish at 100 dynasties, and Persian had 77. My estimates were, indeed, off.

The History Concepts doc has a dynasty page but brainstorming rather than .txt https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag3L8vwBbhqOdFNhV3RtbC01YjFSVDJwbzVrZFZSYnc#gid=7
So 100 dynasties a culture would work? Just named dynasties and leave of Provinces up to the computer?
And twice that for characters? 250 character IDs allocated for each culture and the small cultures only 100 maybe. [Thatll maybe only have a handful of starting date characters with no background]

 

[ulrichomega]

Well, the easiest way to assign numbers is in batches of 100 or 1000. I see no reason not to allocate 1000 dynasties to each culture. There's no real reason to limit ourselves here, given that we have almost unlimited IDs (the vanilla one goes up to over a million, which would require 1,000 cultures for our scheme to reach. I'll add a new page to the spreadsheet where we allocate to each culture. I'm not sure how many characters there are, but I'd think that 1000 might not be enough for the really large cultures.

 

[Orinsul]

A new column on the Groups page would probably do it. Its probably best to avoid getting the ID numbers too high though, four-five digits at most id hope for as it makes things easier, but really like you said theres no real limit.

 

[Arcaul]

I'm just wondering how the dynasties work. For instance will we have a problem with only 1000 dynasty names for each culture when you can have dynasties named after baronies. Because in that case you have the possibility for 6300 dynasty names right there (assuming we use all 7 baronies for each province). I bring this point up because you can have in vanilla the dynasties of Monmouth, de Monmouth, von Monmouth, bm Monmouth, etc all for the same place. Would we need to independently add in those dynasties for each culture or is there a shortcut that saves us from adding in 6300 dynasty names for each culture? I'm just concerned that if we implement cultures like this we might run out of dynastic room.