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Looks awesome. I just start to work on my application. Becoming a part of the This Is Madness-Story is great!
 
Since this is going to be an interactive AAR - something I've never done before - I'll start with your comments concerning the interactivity of the story :)

Not sure I will bear to do this interactive stuff, never been fond of that. But I loved your CK2 AAR, so I'll at least sub and see how it goes.:)
Good luck with this! Like Nikolai, I think I'll forego participating in the interactive part, but I look forward to the story. :)
Count me as another who'll be foregoing the interactive part. For one, I've never been able to stick very long with the few roleplays I've ever participated in, and certain responsibilities I have elsewhere on the Internet will undoubtedly be taking up a good portion of my time anyway (before we even factor real life into the equation!)
Nevertheless, I'll most definitely be cheering this AAR on from the sidelines, as I did for Part One :)
Fine with me :) The interactivity is going to be strictly limited to Senate Session (at least for now, we'll see about that in the future) so for the most part it should be as enjoyable as "This Is Madness" - it's only that for those who participate it may be a little more fun :p I think we will do some dry run of the Senate Session before the AAR begins for real (that is before "Art of War" release) so that everyone could see how it works in practice - and so that I could make some changes to the rules if it turns out things don't work quite as well as I imagined.
A great start! I'll try to be a senator, as it sounds interesting, but a few questions:
1. Do we need to think about a non-existing house, or do we need to find a real house? (if so, Kantakouzenos it is, if not, I'll have to do some research on Greek names :D)
2. If we can invent our own house, can we also invent positions and titles owned by past members of this house, or notable members? Will have to somehow fill the template :p
3. When off-character and not in senate meetings, can we continue the RP we did in the CK2 topic (Enlil the heretic, supporting Mongols and Xenoi etc)?
1. You can make up your own House, it doesn't have to be a historical one; you could name it however you like (remember however that everything must be approved by me)
2. Yes, just don't overdo it.
3. No. This is the first time I'm doing an interactive AAR so - for now - all in-character interaction is strictly limited to Senate Session. However, I want to make it more flexible in the future but this depends on how this whole interactivity (which is a new thing for me as well) is going to work out.
Yay! Looks awesome.

A few questions, though:

1. Can we scheme against the emperor to place new empires on the throne, or even another fellow senator?

2. Can we form factions with fellow senators?

3. Does the Imperial High Council still exist and can PCs be promoted to it? If so, what are the powers of the imperial high Council? (For ex., would it be like being appointed to the cabinet in a V2 IAAR?)

4. Can our dynasties be promoted to dynatoi?
As for today, the answers are:
1. No.
2. No.
3. It exists (more about its functions will be revealed in next updates, that is after "Art of War" release) though your characters may only be Senators, not members of the Council.
4. No.

Once again, since this is my first interactive AAR I prefer to start with limited interactivity and - if everything works smoothly - I'm willing to slowly introduce more and more possibilites for your characters to act and influence the story. This is mostly because of my lack of experience, not because I don't want to introduce these kinds of things. Moreover, taking small steps in expanding the interactivity not only makes sense for organizational reasons (so to speak), but also makes sense story-wise: in real life all parliaments and similiar advisory/legislative bodies started small and were slowly growing in power. We'll see how it all works :)
Maybe we could have factions for each monarch point :
-The Administration faction, focusing on internal matters of the empire
-The Exploration faction, focusing on what is outside the empire (trade, diplomacy and of couse colonization)
-The Tagmata faction, focusing on the army and its use for the goals of the empire

Could be fun if the senators are giving a role as grand admiral, or domestikos, to have them on the battlefield :p
We roll the dice to know their stats, then one create an event to make them spawn to lead the mighty Rhomaion !
This was almost exactly the same idea as mine when I started thinking about the interactive AAR:

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I wanted to create three factions for every MP which would then depending on the vote influence position of the factions in-game added by "Purple Phoenix Arises" mod. Alas, the faction system in this mod is broken since "Res Publica" so this is impossible and even if it was fixed, I think that "Art of War" would only break it once again.
YES! Oh, I'm so happy. This looks great already, just because of all the measures you're taking so that everything runs smoothly. Even better, you've confirmed to continue into Victoria 2. As I haven't ever played EU4, I am hesitant to make a character. That said, this story might just convince me. Anyway, I'm really excited to see the groundwork being laid, and I can't wait to see what changes you're doing to make the world make sense, given tech and taxes.
Thanks! Yes, I'm 100% willing to convert to Victoria 2, assuming this whole thing (CK2 2.0.4 exported save + mods + EU4 with "Art of War" patch) will be transferable by the time I'm done.

Yay second !
Awesome picture for the introduction, where did you find it ?
Somewhere in the Internet - unfortunately I couldn't identify the author. There are much more great Aztec/Age of Exploration artworks around the web but vast majority isn't in the public domain, which means I can't really use them.
I wish I could sign up but I'm terrible at making histories/biographies! :sad:
It doesn't have to be very long, you know :)
I'm torn on whether to participate. Playing a character who *isn't* cheering on the Aztecs and Mongols would be weird for me, but it sounds like so much fun.
Part one was great and I'm looking forward to it, in any event.
Interesting. I'll have to start cooking up an application.
Well, I just sent in my application. With all hope I'll be an Imperial Senator soon.
Looks awesome. I just start to work on my application. Becoming a part of the This Is Madness-Story is great!
I'll send my application soon.

By the way, you should definitely try to make the AAR works with Art of War, even if that means to wait a little longer to make the converter work. The huge map changes alone are a good reason to wait.
Thanks and good luck with your applications (for a lack of a better word :p) and to those who already sent theirs - it's being processed right now, so expect my answer today.
@viola - that's the plan :)
 
So we can make up our own house- what about a historical house which wasn't mentioned in the AAR and thus isn't important?
Oh, and will it be ok to use a name randomly generated by the game, playing as the Byzantium? It can help with inventing a whole dynasty :D
 
So we can make up our own house- what about a historical house which wasn't mentioned in the AAR and thus isn't important?
Oh, and will it be ok to use a name randomly generated by the game, playing as the Byzantium? It can help with inventing a whole dynasty :D
1. Sure, go ahead.
2. Yes :)
 
Subbed.

3. No. This is the first time I'm doing an interactive AAR so - for now - all in-character interaction is strictly limited to Senate Session. However, I want to make it more flexible in the future but this depends on how this whole interactivity (which is a new thing for me as well) is going to work out.

Mark my words, you have not seen the last of me!
 
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Uhm... maybe you could give Pisa to... Pisa? In ck2 they own it and mantain it for the whole AAR. Its weird to see all of Italy under the Imperium.
 
Uhm... maybe you could give Pisa to... Pisa? In ck2 they own it and mantain it for the whole AAR. Its weird to see all of Italy under the Imperium.
Oh I will, it's just the vanilla converter weirdness. I will explain all the changes I made to ensure that everything makes sense in dev diaries :)

Subbed.
Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
Sorry!
 
Is the war against the Xenoi continuing from CK2 to EUIV, or is it canceled (as I can see that there's no aztec province in Italy)?
Oh, and btw, my Roman game is going well, the Aztecs came and took Francia and Britannia but they have been repelled (through they still most of France, Aquitane and England) thanks to Imperium, Poland and rebelling Christian lords. :D
And Mecca is Miaphsyte (didn't know if you already read this in the CK2 thread since you didn't answer the comments yet) and held by my allies from Abbysinia.
 
I would say, that it should be some days (2-3), so everyone has a chance to post. With just a few hours, not everyone would see the session in time or had the time to post immediately.
 
I've updated the first page of this thread - welcome, new Senators! For now the Senate is pretty small but I think by the time the first Senate Session is announced we will have at least 10 senators :)

Is the war against the Xenoi continuing from CK2 to EUIV, or is it canceled (as I can see that there's no aztec province in Italy)?
Oh, and btw, my Roman game is going well, the Aztecs came and took Francia and Britannia but they have been repelled (through they still most of France, Aquitane and England) thanks to Imperium, Poland and rebelling Christian lords. :D
And Mecca is Miaphsyte (didn't know if you already read this in the CK2 thread since you didn't answer the comments yet) and held by my allies from Abbysinia.
I'll share all the details with you in dev diaries; I didn't export any war since I don't think AI would be able to handle this. The first few years are needed for the AI to put itself together since the start is so different from the vanilla one.

Repelled? Lucky you :) Miaphysite Mecca sounds delicious - you should really consider doing some AAR of your own.
can't wait for it to get started :D
Me too but it will take a while - remembe that I'm waiting for "Art of War" release. We will have dev diares in the meantime however.
so, how long would a senate session be, roughly? Would it just be open for a few hours, or for a day or two?
I would say, that it should be some days (2-3), so everyone has a chance to post. With just a few hours, not everyone would see the session in time or had the time to post immediately.
At least 2-3 days - we're all in different timezones, so there is no way a few hours would be enough. It will depend on the topic though: if the Senate is voting on some minor issues, the Session can be short. But if it's something reallly important and there are multiple votings it could take even 5 days or more. That's the plan at least.
 
DEV DIARY 1
MONGOLS & MUSLIMS

Hello there! This is the first „dev diary” of „This Is Madness 2 – Imperium Sine Fine” so before I proceed let me say a few words of introduction.

General idea
Why change what converter gave me? Well, because the conversion is not perfect (sorry Groogy!) and there are lots of details which simply have to be fixed. While tweaking the converter I used several rules as a guidelines to not overdo it:

1. Make changes only there when it's necessary game-wise or story-wise and as small as possible
2. Changes buffing me (Imperium) ARE NOT allowed; changes buffing the enemy (AI) ARE allowed – Imperium starts pretty damn big and I consider myself to be pretty good at EU4, so to have a decent challenge I buffed most of my enemies a lot
3. No intervention in the game after the starting date (11 Nov 1444), which means I can rig the start so that it reflects what we saw in CK2 but later RNG takes over completely; no cheats etc.
4. Big changes for big players, small tweaks for small countries (I generally left OPM untouched)
5. All changes have to be based in „This Is Madness” story and the world presented by it

Keep in mind that I'm still tweaking the converted save, so things may change. This also means that if you have any suggestions or comments concerning changes I made, now is the time. But let's take a look at the changes themselves – we'll start with Mongols and Muslims in this „dev diary” and I'll proceed to other countries in the following updates.

[size=+2]MONGOLS[/size]

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[size=+1]1. THE HORDE (Ilkhanate in CK2)[/size]

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The Horde was a constant threat to the Imperium since the first invasion of Armenia during which Saint Markos proved for the horse-lords can be defeated. Nevertheless, the Ilkhanate despite permanent internal struggle and civil wars is still one of the greatest powers in Europe. And there's no doubt that the mark left by the Horde on the continent is going to be felt for centuries, if not forever.

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As you can see, I changed the Tengri religion somewhat so that it may better represent the greatest strength of the Horde – its endless numbers.

Code:
vanilla: +50% heir chance, -1 revolt risk
tweaked: +10% manpower recovery, +1 true faith tolerance

I also changed the government from Empire (used by Byzantium in vanilla EU4) to a more proper steppe_horde. And the Horde (Ilkhanate) wasn't the only country to receive this treatmeant – all Tengri states are now proper hordes with two exceptions (more on that later). The Horde is very homogenic culturally and religiously (200 years of Mongol occupation and genocide can change a lot) but not politically:

sLDF0tW.jpg

This is one of these occasions when converter gets things right: since the Ilkhanate had a low level of Crow Authority in CK2, it was exported with a bunch of vassals. They not only occupy all of its diplomatic relations slots but also prevent the Horde from getting steppe horde CBs on Timurids. To all of them – Turkestan, Itil, Chernihov and Novgorod – I gave steppe_horde government and proper Horde National Ideas with the exception of Novgorod, who keeps its vanilla NI.

National Focus aka Old Save Bonus

Every major country converted to EU4 receives also a small boost from me. After all, they were important part of our story and by the virtue of mere surviving all this time since 1066 or 1264 they deserve some additional flavor. The bonus I'm talking about is basically extra 999 ADM points at the start of the game plus 1 (or maybe 3, I haven't decided yet) ideas from carefuly chosen Idea Group which would reflect the history of such country. In case of the Horde it's Quantity – they surely had A LOT of troops in CK2 and I would like them to remain a challenge in this aspect. Plus they basically became Russia so I guess it's fitting.

Historical rivals

Historical rivals of the Horde are Imperium and Timurids: countless wars between all three powers made this choice rather obvious.

[size=+1]2. LITHUANIA (Khanate of Lithuania in CK2)[/size]

8ndU41b.jpg

Khanate of Lithuania is a unique state. As a splinter of the Horde, it keeps it's Tengri faith but its ruler and creator was one of the few remaining Russians, not a Mongol. This combined with a mix of nationalities living within the borders (Lithuanians, Russians, Estonians) makes it very different from a homogenic Horde. Moreover, since it was founded by Afanasiy of Myadzel, Lithuania was ruled with an iron fist – and that's why unlike all other Mongol realms, it has a Despotic Monarchy (converter gave them Feudal Monarchy but I changed it to a more proper government).

qPtIApL.jpg

But what's most important is its position. After succesfful invasion of Jylland, Lithuania is the westernmost Tengri realm, which gives unique possibilites of expansion.

Historical rivals and friends

Historical rivals of Lithuania are Poland (numerous wars) and the Horde (Great Khan wants these lands to once again become part of the Horde). Luckily for Lithuania, I gave them one powerful historical friend – the xenoi themselves, who are interested in keeping Lithuania alive so that it may serve as a buffer state between them and the Horde.

[size=+1]3. HUNGARY (Khanate of Hungary in CK2)[/size]

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Khanate of Hungary is the second independent splinter of the Horde. Surrounded by enemies it has only one advantage to speak of – unusually talented leader. But khan Arpad is old and when he dies there may be no hope for Hungary.

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Since converter treats all provinces within de jure lands as cores, Hungary may have a slight chance of surviving but to do so, AI would have to be really lucky.

[size=+2]MUSLIMS[/size]

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[size=+1]4. TIMURIDS (Timurids in CK2 - duh)[/size]

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Timurids. The empire carved out of the rotting Horde by Timur himself and kept together by his sons. But Timur is no more and vast realm created by him is teetering on the brink of destruction and collapse.

MlSXCVE.jpg

As you can see, Timurids are much, much bigger than in vanilla EU4. For some reason converter made a lot of strange mistakes while dealing with them – Timurids got three provinces (Shahrizor, Gilan, Mazandaran) without cores for some reason, which I obviously fixed. You can also notice that unlike on 1444 CK2 political map, there are no Ilkhanate enclaves scattered along the Roman-Timurid border. Why?

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The war between Timurids and the Horde was almost over when CK2 part of the story ended and Timurids were winning decisevely. Not only that, they managed to capture the Ilkhanate's khagan, which gives them 100% warscore. If only the game could run for a few more days, they would get these counties. Instead, I just gave them to them manually, which in my opinion was a much needed tweak to what converter gave me. But there are more changes.

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Timurids's realm is dived both ethnically and religously, even more in vanilla 1444 start. Since it would make much sense for them to collapse instantly in EU4 after having existed for over 100 years, I decided to give them a small bonus by changing their National Ideas – to be more precise, one of their Traiditions:

Code:
vanilla: years_of_nationalism=-5
tweaked: accepted_culture_threshold = -0.25

Which IMHO makes sense since story-wise in „This Is Madness” Timur united the eastern tribes. This allows Timurids to have Persian as an accepted culture at the start of the game. I didn't make any changes concerning religion however – with the sole exception of Mecca (which as a religious center can't be converted and would have to stay Tengri for decades, which is really silly – hence I change it's religion to Shia) all of their provinces remain exactly the same as they were before. Which means their religious unity is really, really low.

I also had to manually create khagan Menggei and his heir since the converter assumed that since Timurids already exist in EU4, the vanilla history files should be used, which in turn meant that they got the crappy 1/1/1 rulers from vanilla 1444 start. I changed this so now they have a proper ruler and heir just like they had in CK2.

National Focus aka Old Save Bonus

Timurids besides of 999 ADM points at the start of the game used to unlock ADM level 4 get also Religious idea group. After all, Timur the Terrible saved ummah from virtual extinction by uniting eastern tribes under banner of Islam and ghazi remain the pillar of the Timurid's power.

Historical rivals

Historical rivals of Timurids are Imperium and Ilkhanate.

[size=+1]5. MALI (Sultanate of Mali in CK2)[/size]

v17Stsk.jpg

Ah yes, Mali – a silent and mysterious power in the Crumbling Europe, still standing despite sharing border with xenoi for hundreds of years. It's pretty amazing that the AI survived so long although let's be honest, it was mostly luck and the remote location that made it possible.

nNKWu8S.jpg

Since Mali is following Yazidi heresy, I had to make a lot of changes to make them work - converter just gave them Sunni and called it a day. There are a lot of them, so I'll just post all of them below:

1. changed state religion for Yazidi: sunni → sunni_heresy
2. changed government for despotic monarchy: feudal_monarchy → despotic_monarchy
3. changed technology group for Ottoman: muslim → ottoman
4. changed gfx: muslimgfx → africangfx

Why Ottoman tech? Well, I consider it a small gift for the AI for surviving so long – I'm curious what it will be able to achieve with slightly better tech group. But let's take a look at Yazidi faith:

VZTQglZ.jpg

List of all changes concerning Yazidi:

1. changed to proper name: sunni_heresy → Yazidi
2. changed to proper color: color = { 0.2 0.2 0.7 }
3. changed bonuses completely: vanilla: +1 true faith tolerance, +100% heir chance; my version : +20% defensivness, +2% missionary strength
4. Yazidi religion in provinces like in CK2: Gao, Timbuktu, Bambuk, Dendi, Yatenga, Jenne, Massina, Tadmekka, Azawadd, Taodeni, Tuat, Wasuju, Segu, Bure → fixed; Gurma → stays Animistic like in CK2 (West African)

By the way, all religious icons were bugged for some reason so I had to fix this too – it was a little weird to see xenoi use Catholic icon.

National Focus aka Old Save Bonus

Mali gets Defensivness; cut off from the world by xenoi, they somehow managed to survive and attacking their realm hidden beyond the jungles and deserts of Africa isn't going to be easy.


That's all for now – if you have any suggestions or questions, please post them in the thread. Next time we'll take a closer look at Christians and heretics who survived the Sunset Invasion.
 
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1. I am already in love with the dev diaries. The changes you have made so far make sense, especially the Mongols. I am pretty sure Hungary is going to get destroyed quickly though.
2. Are you planning on altering the nations that have not appeared yet, like China, Japan, or the others in the New World? I'm just thinking if you leave them as they are, the Aztecs might rule all of the New World by the time you get there, and the Mongols might dominate the Far East.
 
Nice DevDiary, now I have three to wait for: Charlemange, Art of War and This is Madness!
It is already looking like we get a very diverse Senate and I'm sure there are more illustrious senators out to join us, time to brush up on “Famous Speeches in the Roman Senate”!
 
1. I am already in love with the dev diaries. The changes you have made so far make sense, especially the Mongols. I am pretty sure Hungary is going to get destroyed quickly though.
2. Are you planning on altering the nations that have not appeared yet, like China, Japan, or the others in the New World? I'm just thinking if you leave them as they are, the Aztecs might rule all of the New World by the time you get there, and the Mongols might dominate the Far East.
1.Thanks!
2. Well, in CK2 the known world was limited to Europe, northern Africa and Middle East. Who knows what is happenning beyond the seas...
[video=youtube_share;yz38PkCWxqU]http://youtu.be/yz38PkCWxqU[/video]
Have you considered taking advantage of the CK2-EU4 Converter Improvement Project?
Not really - I'm going to use land units from this mod for High American (because they have correct number of pips) but that's about it.
This is awesome! Count me in for the interactive part!
Glad to hear this, I'm waiting for your application.
Nice DevDiary, now I have three to wait for: Charlemange, Art of War and This is Madness!
It is already looking like we get a very diverse Senate and I'm sure there are more illustrious senators out to join us, time to brush up on “Famous Speeches in the Roman Senate”!
Indeed :)