From the cold mists of Hibernia, through the Alpine passes to the central plateau of Anatolia, there are none who have not heard the beating of our drums and shuddered under the slash of our swords. Punic wanderers, Roman babblers and even the Great Greek kingdoms of the East have bowed in fear with the looming threat of our spears yearning for their heads. Tales of war and great deeds fill our warriors hearts with vigour, and we shall ensure the pathetic Romans do not forget the lessons branded into their memory by Brennus. Our god Damoma ensures our people's bellies are filled with the foods of the earth, and great riches like amber, copper and livestock are traded across our lands. But now we are faced with a menace. From the Black Forests of Germania a relentless foe has emerged, hordes of vicious warriors strike in their thousands to burn and pillage our lands. The river god Condatis has saved the Iberic Greeks south of The Ebro for long enough. He has also ensured the safety of the Italics south of the Po as well as the Hellenes below the Danube, but no more. For if we were to unite, we would conquer the world.
Sometimes I feel when I'm playing IR, that I'm playing a football game with no offside rule, no referee and generally no system. A game without rules stops being a game and that's what we're missing. We're missing rules, mechanics....regional mechanics. Like the HRE in EU4, conquering in Germany means trouble, in IR messing with the Celtic world should mean trouble. And for the Celts within it, there should be a system they have to abide by.
- Families are the same globally (all have great and minor characters and all great families demand jobs)
- Government positioned are generally only reskinned globally.
- There's no separate rules or consequences to conquest anywhere on the map. (LOA cb's are event orientated, shortlived and a bonus to diadochi, other nations suffer from not having them and they all play the same after these cb's disappear.)
The map doesn’t force situations upon pops enough. Storms, volcanic events and extremely cold winters should effect food and migrations consistently. The ability to migrate should be removed as a frivolous ‘decision’. Instead, extreme weather, lack of food and disease should force Germanic and even Celtic tribes to migrate. The map needs its own identity. It needs to be Mother Nature, the Gods will it. All these pops bow before the power of the world. The map is so beautiful in IR, but somehow it doesn’t actually seem to effect pop migrations and I never ‘feel’ it as a mechanic. The entirety of the Celtic world should be extremely vulnerable to weather conditions that force migrations upon the pops and tribes. This should result in common migrating hordes and plummeting levels of pops in regions through war/ famine.
Celtic society was worlds apart from the Mediterranean. While family is important everywhere, for the Celts family was so important it was destructive and divisive. Familes/ clans were huge and all members were viable candidates to be elected chief. This sometimes resulted in 'cadet branches' forming under whom retinues/ warbands had divided loyalties. Sure, there were 'democratic elections' but usually it was a strong character (willing to play dirty) with connections who won out. In a rather gangster way. Nobility and charisma was important but it was just as important as the 'front' they put up. In gameplay this means that there can no longer be more than one 'great family' for the celts per tribe/ federation. There can only be one, a family clan as tribes were usually dominated by a clan. In place of 'jobs required' the candidates to be chief should all desire power. This means that you can rarely satisfy everyone and clan civil wars are common, and peace generally only endures until the next succession.
Livestock and horses were sacred and extremely prestigious to the Celts. It was a mark of extreme pride for a Celtic warlord to own vast herds of cattle. Celtic characters should strive to accumulate these goods as a sort of substitute for holdings. And Celtic heavy cavalry should have a modifier.
As a regional mechanic there needs to be a system where for example, the Gallic Celts are split between two focuses, ‘civilisation’ and ‘pastoralism’. Even simplified down to EU4 Ottomans ‘legalism vs mysticism’. Southern Gallic tribes influenced by Massalia or Rome will want to civilise and acquire more civilised goods like wine, olives etc. But Northern tribes will resent this and be far more warlike and averted to civilisation, continuing to consider the acquisition of livestock as essential and keeping their warlike bonuses to heavy cavalry, light infantry and chariots. Therefore, Northern tribes will be far more effective in war but much more susceptible to clan civil wars. Southern tribes will introduce codified laws and be less likely to fall into a civil war but will lose their warlike bonuses (until standardised inventions recover them).
A new Celtic World tab, similar to the HRE is needed. Land traditionally Celtic will have its own map mode. In this tab there are two main 'focuses', civilisation and pastoralism, each with their own benefits but strong diplomatic maluses to tribes of the opposing focus. The focus you choose will impact your campaign as pastoral Celts will deeply resent those forgetting their traditions, as civilised celts will look down on the dirty pastoral celts. A circumstantial position, the federation leader will emerge in a ‘crisis’, i.e. a pastoral Celtic federation may form in the midst of a Germanic migration. A civilised federation may also form in a migratory crisis, but founding a city and forming trade networks is a strong attraction for fellow civilised Celts to unite also. Maintaining these federations and developing them is difficult and strongly character attitude orientated (subject rework needed). These federations are regional, with leader contenders being regional powers of similar culture. In Gaul you may have rivalries like the Arverni, Aedui and in eastern Europe you may have the Noricii vs Boioi/ Scordisci.
At Max Pastoralism Focus
- Heavy Cav , Light Infantry+5% discipline
- Pastoral tribe opinion +20, civilised tribe opinion-20
- Chief gains +2 martial
- Prestigious livestock, herding ground (Celtic holdings) enabled (enabled before 100% pastoralism)
- +1 martial innovation for every successfully managed crisis
- Diplo relations +2
- Civilised tribe opinion +20, pastoral tribe opinion -20
- +2 trade routes in capital
- Construction on library/ academies enabled (enabled before 100% civ focus)
- + 15 max civilisation
Diplomatically this could work where each focus requires a tribe as a leader but these ‘leaders’ are on either side of the political divide and can hardly expect to ever unite all the Celts. A nation that can strike the balance between the two is much better suited to this, like the Arverni or Aedui who will aim to maintain Celtic traditions while building some civ value. This middle man (to unite the celts) is a circumstantial position and is not always viable.
To aggressive outsiders, the Celtic world will assist migrations out of their lands to a migratory target. Nations volatile to the Celts can expect to be a victim of these. Should Rome invade Cisalpine Gaul and defeat the Boioi, Insurbres and Sennoness they can expect Celtic Migrations that may otherwise have stayed north of the Alps to now actually be assisted into Italia. In this way defending the Alpine passes is crucial and even Germanic migrations will be helped by the Celts and the Romans may find the Cimbri and Teutones on their border. Germania should be a constant source of deadly tribal migrations as a result of extreme weather/ food shortages and clan warfare.
I know this seems like an overhaul but to be fair I think Paradox became famous for ‘mechanics’ and not events/ missions. Famous mechanics being CK2’s crusades and regional governments as well as EU4’s trade, diplomacy, vassal interactions and HRE/ MOH designs. I think we all expected IR to have regional mechanics similiar to this too.
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