Monday 31 August 2015

Methodology for Determining Government Type

I showed you that government type map before (link), but I never actually explained how I got the government types for each province. Part of making this blog was as a resource for anyone who actually wanted to make an insane timeline extension mod, so I guess it's time to show off my research.

The "wealth" of a province, in this blog post, refers to the maximum number of holdings that it can host.

Civilisations
The first layer of the map, so to speak, was that of the major civilisations existing at the time, which were unfortunately quite sparse. I used Geacron to find the boundaries and names of the civilisations which were around, which number four:
In addition, I considered one more civilisation, which Geacron didn't mark the boundaries of but still existed at the time, in an early form:
 I then marked these by their government types. Minoa, Egypt and Ebla were monarchies.

Yes, I know that the Pharaoh of Egypt is considered to be an incarnation of the sun god, and therefore it's technically a theocracy. No, I don't care, it doesn't count because the ruler wasn't appointed from the extant clergy.

Sumer, on the other hand, is a theocracy, as attested to on both Wikipedia and John Green's Crash Course World History Ancient Mesopotamia. It's ruled by an ensi, which is a type of priest, and later becomes a monarchy but not right now. Fast and loose.

The Indus Valley is still a chiefdom because it's not marked on Geacron yet. Faster and looser.

Uninhabited
The next layer of the map is that of the uninhabited islands. This was the easiest part of the research by far, since it was basically going on the list of countries and islands by first human settlement then crossing off anything after 3000 BC. This gives the following areas left uninhabited
 Socotra is also marked as uninhabited, but this is a mistake - its government form should be hunter-gatherers.

Hunters and Gatherers


Any province not featured as having adopted agriculture by 3800 BC or copperworking by 2000 BC on these maps is automatically marked as being of the Hunter-Gatherer government type, unless the province is in Africa, in which case it is of the Nomad government type, unless the province is in Nubia and does not have a high wealth or if the province is in Mali.

If the province is in a region that adopted agriculture between 4300 and 3800 BC, then it is a hunter-gatherer if the province has a low wealth, otherwise it is tribal.

Tribes and Chiefdoms
Any province that isn't hunter-gatherer, and hasn't already been designated, is either tribal or a chiefdom. Everywhere east of the map, but south of the Caspian and/or the Ganges is tribal, save for the Indus Valley civilisation, which is a chiefdom.

Otherwise, the tribe/chiefdom distinction is made depending on the wealth of the province, with the threshold of wealth needed to be a chiefdom decreasing as copper was adopted earlier.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

The Timeline

While I've made a few dev diaries, concerning specific regions, I've never really zoomed out to show the big picture: the entire world in the earliest start dates. I aim to change that here.

The world in 3000 BC is a very different place to how it is later: most of the familiar cultures haven't formed yet, and settled civilisation is limited to a narrow area in the Middle East around a few river valleys. Iron working is a startling technology of the far-flung future, and, if writing was around, you'd probably be seeing ancient bronzepunk novels.

Actually, Bronzepunk would be pretty cool. It would be sort of like the Flintstones, except that it takes itself seriously somehow and has no dinosaurs. I'll set my amazing Bronzepunk novel in an alternate universe where iron doesn't real, but somehow all modern technology is developed using only primitive metalworking techniques. Most of the technology in the book will be normal modern technology, however, but with some hieroglyphs glued on.

One thousand years later, the world will look like this:
So just imagine this but with more yellow and less of the other colours, probably. I don't know, I'm not a history.

A first question is that how will this be dealt with. Because paradox is a bunch of philistines, the game engine doesn't support BCE dates, so I need to shift the 0 point of the calendar somewhere. Totally arbitrarily, I'm going to set the zero point at 4,000 BCE, meaning that conversion from the normal calender to the common era one is just a matter of adding four thousand. Handy.

So, zipping around the world:

Britain is primarily tribal, but with some hunter-gathers still present, especially in the cooler north where agriculture is harder. In southern Britain, there is the Windmill Hill culture, which is centred around Windmill Hill and responsible for building the earliest stages of Stonehenge among other things, and in northern Britain, there is the Grooved Ware culture, centred on Orkney.

In the Denmark region, the remnants of the tribal Funnelbeaker culture hang on, being displaced from most of the continent by their Globular Amphora successors. Further north and to the east, along the coast of Sweden, there are the hunter-gatherers of the Pitted Ware culture.

In Northern France, there is the Seine-Oise-Marne culture, in eastern France, there is the Linear Pottery Culture, and in southern France, there is the Véraza culture.

Spain is in some kind of weird grey zone where it's just described as megalithic but with no Wikipedia links to specific culture names. Maybe, just for fun, I'll make them all Vasconic, to mess with the linguists. The Basque will rise again 5000 years ago! Again, these guys are all tribal - the chiefdoms and copper-working swept in from the south-east of Europe and still hasn't hit the west yet.

Okay, enough bullshitting about the important parts of the world. Time to go

*puts on sunglasses*

Chalcolithic

It just doesn't have the same ring as medieval.

Unless you have a phobia of pottery, in which case "going Chalcolithic" would be absolutely terrifying. Also yeah TW:Chalcolithic Pottery and stuff.
And, in today's environment, those Chalcolithic folk are down in the Middle East and the Nile.

So, first civilisation is Minoa. This wasn't really a term they used for themselves, instead named after the probably fictional King Minos, but I don't care. It's their fault for writing in Linear A and not leaving any convenient translations around. They could have done a Rosetta Stone in hieroglyphs, but no. That would be too convenient for those high-and-mighty "Minoans", wouldn't it?

I can't even type these fuckers because my computer doesn't have the right fonts. That's how awful Linear A is. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know any good Linear A fonts?
Since they built palaces, they were probably a monarchy, so that's their government type in-game. This is the extent of their grand dominion:
Connoisseurs of Cretan bronze age history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.
 The blue provinces (all two of them) are the Minoans. Bronzeworking still hasn't fully reached continental Greece, but it's started doing so, in over the next 200 years Greece will enter the Bronze age and have tons of wonderful chiefdoms that didn't both to exhaustively write down all of their territorial changes in terms of CK2 counties.

Further down is Egypt, comprising a unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. If I was a masochist, I would extend the timeline back to the days of Upper and Lower Egypt, but I'm not; not even my trusty Geacron goes that far back (for those keeping track, that means that I'm almost certainly going to do this).

Connoisseurs of Egyptian bronze age history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.
And, going north, you have the city-state of Ebla, seat of Levantine civilisation, and apparently site of the first recorded war between countries in history; between Ebla and Sumer.


Connoisseurs of Levantine bronze age history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.

Speaking of Sumer, here it is, the only state society in 3000 BC that isn't a monarchy, but instead a theocracy, being ruled by a priest-king from the clergy.
Connoisseurs of Mesopotamian bronze age history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.
 So, that settles the major empires of the timeline extended world in the earliest start date. Here's the rest of the stock Crusader Kings 2 map, for comparison:
The meaning of each colour is left as an exercise for the reader. I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out.

Monday 17 August 2015

On Britain

In 3000 BC, Britain begins as a Neolithic bunch of obscure folk, chilling in the isles and making ditches and stuff for future archaeologists to find. Agriculture came to Britain from the continent two thousand years ago, but in places the hunter-gatherers still remain.

The government type map looks like this:
Connoisseurs of British neolithic history, feel free to shout at me about how wrong I am in the comments section.
 Where brown is tribal (the new tribal, not chiefdoms), and yellow is hunter-gathers. Ignore the France in the bottom right corner. The method to decide on these was simple: I looked at the maximum number of baronies in each province, and if it was three or less, I made them hunter-gathers. The exception is Orkney, since they are the home of the grooved ware culture and are therefore more advanced than their primitive British counterparts.

Orkney is technically part of Scandinavia according to the de jure map, and hence not British, but whatever. It's ours now, go team Britain.

Britain of the third millenium BC will all have an as-yet unnamed religion (anyone know any pre-Beaker neopagan restorationist groups?), representing the native religion of the pre-Beaker British peoples, with its five holy sites located around the islands. The map of holy sites will look as such:



These are, for posterity, the counties of Gwynedd, Kildare, Dublin, Orkney, and Wiltshire

This corresponds to a few holy, or at least suspected or theorised to be holy, sites that actually existed in Neolithic britain:
  • Bryn Celli Ddu
  • Hill of Tara
  • Newgrange
  • Ring of Brodgar (I know this was built in 2500 BC, 500 years too late. I don't care. I'm an Orkney nationalist now.)
  • Stonehenge

Friday 14 August 2015

On Iceland

Today's blog post is going to be about everyone's favourite duchy of Iceland, the Duchy of Iceland.

In Existing Media
In Stock CK2, Iceland is inhabited by norse germanic tribal rulers right from the start (769 AD), split into the two counties of Vestisland and Ostisland, the first containing the tribal barony of Reykjavik as their capital holding and the second containing the tribal barony of Husavik.

This is obviously flawed: Iceland wasn't settled until 874 AD, over a hundred years later. The When The World Stopped Making sense mod is even worse for this, having it be ruled by the feudal Paparia inspired by the Paper monks, which even if it did exist as an actual kingdom in Iceland probably wasn't around at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.

And, even if that's accepted, going back further to the BC years and still having Iceland be part of a kingdom or tribe becomes more and more absurd.

Settlement
Consequently, up until 874, Iceland in Cu&Si will have no holdings, and each county will be owned by a dummy wasteland character that is unplayable. It will need to be colonised by any player - this may be useful to someone wishing to form the kingdom of Norway, since the Icelandic provinces will count towards the requirement for that.

The Papar monks will make an appearance, however, in the court of the wasteland characters, with some Gaelic courtiers chilling in Iceland. There may be an event to form a Papar state if Iceland is left uncolonised for too long, which could lead to some interesting alternate history results.

Vestisland will be settled first, with Ingólfr's settlement in Reykjavik in 874 being the first colony. After 882, Iceland will be as it is in stock Crusader Kings II - split between two counties, each with a single tribal barony ruled by a Norse chief.

Old Commonwealth
In 930 AD, Iceland unified as a single duchy, the Icelandic Commonwealth. This will be tribal up until 1000 AD, when Iceland was converted to Catholicism, at which point Iceland becomes Feudal overnight as God uses his deific powers to convert tribes into castles. The barony of Alftanes will also be added to Vestisland at around this point.

Really, they were castles the whole time, and the adoption of Christianity means moving away from tribal customs and towards the traditional monarchies of western Europe or something, but that's how I imagine it going down. I'm not a historian.

During the time of the Old Commonwealth, Iceland will be ruled by the Ingólfid clan, my new clan OC representing the descendants of Ingólfr Arnarson, who was traditionally the first settler on Iceland. In reality, they weren't strictly the leaders, Iceland instead being a decentralised federationy-thing, and were instead just Allsherjargoðar, but it's close enough to count probably. I'll just give them minimal crown authority or something.

This means that I can just use this wonderful list here, and be done with it. Those gaps from 1055-1160, and from 1160-1197, and from 1234-1262, will be filled in with fictional rulers, possibly based off the descendants of Ingólfr though historians actually lost track during those times. Oh well, I can do better through the power of bullshit.

Any other major clan leaders during the time of the old commonwealth will probably get a county in Ostisland or a barony in Alftanes depending on how good they are. This will especially be useful when it comes to the Sturling Era.

Sturlung Era
The Sturlung Era began when Snorri Sturluson became a vassal of Norway in 1220. This will be modelled in game by, wait for it, the Mongols Snorri Sturluson becoming a vassal of Norway in 1220. At this point, he will be the count of Austisland, with the duke of Iceland controlling the barony of Alftanes and Vestisland being controlled by the Haukdælir clan.

In 1234, following the death of Magnús, the full duchy of Iceland is gained by Árni óreiða Magnússon, a fellow Sturlung. In 1258, the title passes to Gissur Þorvaldsson. He swears fealty to Norway in 1262, and the duchy of Iceland becomes a vassal of the kingdom of Norway.

A clusterfuck of epic proportions, in other words.

The Scandinavian Yoke
Yep. I went there. I called it a yoke. In the following years, Iceland will be a vassal of the kingdom of Norway, which in varying times is owned by the kings of Denmark and Sweden, and in 1380 it is transferred to be a vassal of the Kingdom of Denmark, where it stays until Iceland becomes "independant" under a personal Union, in this case being a duchy vassalised to no other titles and owned by the king of Denmark. In 1944, the government type will change to a republic and it will become fully independant, and thus concludes the saga of the duchy of Iceland.

Since it's still de jure Norway, it gets invaded in like three minutes, but that hasn't happened historically yet.

Lessons to Learn
Fuck the Sturlungs.

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Top-Notch Bantu and a Cheeky Sultando's

Top bantu, lads.
I recently learned about these chaps, the wonderful east African city-states and later sultanates (pictured: the Kilwa sultanate). Speakers of the Bantu languages (sounding awfully like banter), and sadly neglected in stock CK2, these will be there in Cu&Si and ready to play.

A major choice with these city states will be to stay with the local Bantu mythology (which will be in the East African Pagan religion group, which is geographical rather than cultural but still better than CKII's Pagan religion group and the single West African religion), or to switch to the Islamic religion of the north and enjoy the benefits of trade with the Caliphate.

Historically, these Swahili states converted to Islam, but it would be an interesting challenge for the player to remain pagan and even spread north and west and gain the wealth of Egypt and Mali.

Monday 10 August 2015

Governments 2

Here are all the government types I have planned, as well as brief descriptions of some mechanics.

Feudal
  • Monarchy - This is what CKII calls 'Feudal', named more neutrally for pre- and post-Feudal monarchist states (such as the Roman Empire and early modern France).
  • Imperial - Whilst CKII treats Imperial administration as a feudal law, Cu&Si will split this off into a separate government type.
  • Iqta
Republic
  • Republic - These will have patrician families, like merchant republics, and be playable.
  • Merchant Republic
  • Dictatorship - Similar to republics, however monarchist inheritance laws are available
Nomad
  • Hunter-Gatherer - These will be similar to nomads, however retinues will only be light infantry, succession is gavelkind, and titles can not be created.
  • Nomad -  These will no longer be forced to be Emperor rank.
Theocracy
  • Theocracy - These will be playable.
Tribal 
  • Tribal - These will be similar to CKII tribes, however titles can not be created.
  • Chiefdom - What CKII calls "Tribal"
  • Clan Council - Similar to chiefdoms, but with clan vassals.

Friday 7 August 2015

Colonisation

Colonisation

One problem that will need to be faced in Cu&Si is the problem of colonisation. Many regions of the world were just completely uninhabited in 3000 BC. Even Iceland, a feature of the stock CK2 map, was barren of people until 874, meaning that it is already ahistorical before the 1066 start date, but going back further would only exacerbate the problems.

To fix this, provinces that would be otherwise devoid of people will be controlled by a placeholder 'Wasteland' character, who can be warred against with a colonisation CB in order to take control of the province. This will then give you control of the province, which will be completely empty of holdings.

To add more challenge to colonisation, empty provinces will require expenditure of money and prestige to maintain the player's control over them (so long as the player is not a nomad or a hunter-gatherer). There will be events that allow the player to either lose control of the province, giving it up to either a randomly generated character or a dummy wasteland character depending on the level of settlement of the province, or to pay a large amount of gold to continue the settlement of the province.

Whilst newly colonised provinces will initially be very expensive, in time they will be able to be developed to the level of ordinary provinces

Monday 3 August 2015

Government Types

Ordinary Crusader Kings 2 has a few government types:
  • Feudal
  • Iqta
  • Nomad
  • Merchant Republic
  • Republic
  • Theocracy
  • Tribe
Obviously, these are inadequate for the full 5,000 years of entertaining gameplay. A few more a needed.

Hunter-Gatherer
The hunter-gatherer government type represents pre-agricultural humans who, as suggested, hunted and gathered. To properly simulate the hunter-gatherer experience, the only possible succession law will be gavelkind, and forming titles will be impossible. This will limit most hunter-gatherer "realms" to bob around one province, since it's not like sprawling hunter-gatherer empires are a thing.

Like nomads, hunter-gatherers will avoid holdings (being unable to construct any holding type) and will rely on an army raised with prestige or gold, with population and manpower. Unlike nomads, they won't blob over your lovely Eurasia with their bullshit horse armies.

Native Council
Native councils are the government that native Americans and Siberians have in EU4. I don't know much about them, but they'll probably be a mix between republics and tribes in terms of succession and gameplay.

Monarchy
Monarchies will represent despotic and absolute monarchies, rather than the precarious decentralised nobles of the feudal system.

Dictatorship
Dictatorships are the autocratic states of the modern era. I'm not sure how these will work either, but it will be sort of like republics except with less freedom somehow.

Other Changes
Republics will have patricians etc. to allow them to be playable. Theocracies will also be playable. 'Twill be good.