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What should be aberrated next?


  • Total voters
    70
No magicians, elves, dwarfs, superpowers or god knows what. A medieval world but just without much resemblance to the historical one in Fantasy Aberration.
 
Sheridan said:
And what if the Polynesians had tried to (and managed to) set up a multi-island nation of some sort prior to King Kamehea? (Did I get his name right? It feels to short. But you know who I mean...)

Or an organized Maori state that could have resisted becoming New Zealand... and of course what if the Vinland (and Greenland) colonies had actually survived?

And the Taino/Carib wars would be interesting too....

I like this idea, a power state south of a ununited china, and an almost Germany like city state type area in India, with Nippon maybe being a major player too. Vinland vs Native American states would be interesting.

Sheridan said:
And as for Carthage and Rome... what if it had evolved into a long-term "cold war" across the Mediterranean, with the Romans able to expand in Europe and the Carthaginians in Africa, with Iberia and Palestine becoming border wars?

I have been doing a little research into the era of the Punic wars and it seems to me that Rome only became an empire after the wars. Up until the second war, it was basically a leader of an alliance of city states, albeit the most major player in this alliance. Carthage, on the other hand, was much more what we think of as an empire with direct control of most of Iberia and Africa, and was a major naval nation. Really, Carthage would have won the second war if Hannibal could have had gotten any sizable force that could lay siege to a city. As it was, all of Carthage's Iberia possessions came under Rome’s rule and the stage was set for it to become an empire.

I do like the cold war idea though, although I think it would be cool to have a eastern theater for them being in Greece, not Palestine leaving room for a Jewish state.

Sheridan said:
Oh, and on Islam... it started in Arabia, not Iraq. Though Baghdad and Najaf were important early sites... maybe just Iraq and Arabia and Transjordan? Which, interestingly, leaves us the possibility of an actually functioning Jewish state in Palestine. (If we tinker with religions, we could change one to Jewish.)

Doh, I should have known this, Mecca and Medina and all that.

We could have it that instead of expanding outward, the Sunni majority decided to take care of the shi'it minority, and because it was so devastated by the purges, that it could not sustain an as aggressive policy of conquest. In RL they had great timing as the Persian armies had just been devastated by the Byzantine, whose southern provinces (Syria, Egypt, Palestine) had also been ravaged, and so it made easy pray.

The more I talk about this project, the more I want to do it. The fantasy is an interesting idea, but it really is starting an entire world from scratch, sounds like a TON of work.
 
Well, yes. I think we should try working it in reverse. Do the ROTW stuff, in such a way that it can be integrated with the existing almost-normal-Europe Aberration... then redo Europe and the Mediterranean area.
 
I've been enjoying Aberration a lot and think this is a really cool idea. (Thanks, guys!) :D

I think an interesting `fantastic' aberration scenario would be best if it keapt some grounding in the real world. I think a cool scenario would be where Europe was mostly wiped out by the Black Plauge (or something) and the colonizing civization's arise from North America or Asia instead.

A massive Olmec Empire, Wabanaki warships, Incan colonies in northern France. The only real problem with using NA is the massive amount of PTI. I even tried to make a scenario like this myself, but I was using the scenario editor too much and it got really corrupted.

Asia Universalis would be interesting too, but you'd probably need to break up China or have it be weak and get partitioned early on...
 
Kaigon said:
How come you chose those dates?

Pulled them out of my arse. :)

In the case of 1485, I was trying to think of a start date that was far enough in to have had several of the main players get more secure. Enough time to have a less-violent start while not so far in that all of the strategic decisions of the 15th century have come and gone.

Kaigon said:
I'd be interested in the 1520-scenario btw

Well, I'm hoping that Archduke will let me be team-lead for any scenario work, although I'm betting I'll need help -- and your pedigree as a modder is well established. :)
 
TheArchduke said:
@ MM: Great ideas.

On the scenario issue, we have to talk.

I would LOVE to have those, but if we have those, we would predetermine history a bit I fear. This would need extensive discussion.

Right with you on this point, Boss. I have a *real* good idea about how to handle all these issues.

As I indicated above, I don't think we should be thinking about scenarios quite yet anyhow -- there is more work to be done on the existing mod. I will however stalk you down on ICQ sometime soon so we can talk about future projects though.

Cheers.
 
Fintilgin said:
I've been enjoying Aberration a lot and think this is a really cool idea. (Thanks, guys!) :D

I think an interesting `fantastic' aberration scenario would be best if it keapt some grounding in the real world. I think a cool scenario would be where Europe was mostly wiped out by the Black Plauge (or something) and the colonizing civization's arise from North America or Asia instead.

A massive Olmec Empire, Wabanaki warships, Incan colonies in northern France. The only real problem with using NA is the massive amount of PTI. I even tried to make a scenario like this myself, but I was using the scenario editor too much and it got really corrupted.

Asia Universalis would be interesting too, but you'd probably need to break up China or have it be weak and get partitioned early on...

No can do.

Read the "Years of Rise of Salt" a very good book and check Sam Vimes sig for a download!:)

@ MM: Icq, okies.
 
I've followed Aberation from day one and loved every minute. For your next amazing trick I'm going to have to go with the total fantasy Aberation option. I do love the HOI 2 Empire Strikes Back idea, come to think of it I feel like playing it right now while I'm writing this. :)

However, HOI2 is probably going to have to go through the same patching and editing frenzy that all Paradox games do before they settle down to a fairly stable playability level. So my vote would be to hold on to this fantastic idea until HOI2 is thrashed about a bit first.

While I am in favour of the fantasy Aberation, I too do not want it to branch off into fairyland. If I wanted to play swords & sorcery then I'd play Baldur's Gate some more or Age of Mythology etc.

Some of the idea's about the Roman Empire time-split off for a fantasy Aberation sound interesting, but in my opinion they need to go even further. If we're going to twist history then lets tie it in knots!!!! :wacko:

Go mad I say, have the volkswanderung tribal migrations of the European peoples like the Germans, Franks, Slavs, Magyars etc take totally different courses. Have a Western 'Byzantine-style' Roman Empire survive with a fortified Great (Hadrian's?) Wall on the Rhine and Alps with the barbarian hordes diverted through the eastern Empire and then the Middle East into northern Africa possibly forcing Rome and Carthage to form an (tense and temporary) alliance.

Have the Turkic peoples migrate eastward across Kamchatchka and Alaska to California rather than westward.

Have a successor state founded by Alexander the Great in India, retaining the Greek gods and merging them with Hindu beliefs (as the Romans merged the Greek gods with their own.) Have the lost tribes of Israel settle in Ethiopia in large numbers and found an East African Jewish state. Have powerful advanced African (Black not Arabic) cities and states

Or have the Roman Empire survive as a stagnant beaurocratic state gradually being overtaken by the more rapidly technologically evolving peoples of wherever (shades of China).

Hell, why not change the climate of parts of the world due to solar flares or other cosmic weirdness/iceages/meteor strikes/earthquakes etc that didn't occur in our timeline.

Well that's enough of a rant from me, but as I said if this is the way you end up going I'd like it to be REALLY Aberated! ;)

Looking forward to your next masterpiece guys....
 
Sheridan said:
Well, yes. I think we should try working it in reverse. Do the ROTW stuff, in such a way that it can be integrated with the existing almost-normal-Europe Aberration... then redo Europe and the Mediterranean area.

I think this is a good idea, maybe starting in Asia around China, Indonesia and India. First and foremost we need to figure out a way to chop up China so that it is simply not the super power to end all super powers if we want to have the ROTW flex its muscles.
 
Billdo said:
I think this is a good idea, maybe starting in Asia around China, Indonesia and India. First and foremost we need to figure out a way to chop up China so that it is simply not the super power to end all super powers if we want to have the ROTW flex its muscles.
No, we can't chop up China. Not totally, anyway. There aren't enough provinces to go around. The provinces in the RotW are way bigger than those in Europe. It could be divided amongst two or three powers, but we can't fracture it like the HRE or something.
 
Why can't we? I could see city-states built around Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Kowloon and Macao at least, along with a perhaps more unified but technologically/event-wise hampered inland area. There does not, to me, seem to be an absolute need to *not* chop China up into tiny pieces. If it's a matter of province value, that can be edited.
 
If we divide it too much, I think we'll just end up with a HRE-2, and that, to me, seems like a waste of tags. As well, the provinces are too big, so that means that any Chinese state won't be as powerful as a similarly-sized European state, and a largish Chinese state could be annexed in two short wars. So I don't think it's wise to divide up China too much, although I agree that it shouldn't be the usual East Asian monster it is in vanilla, and should be parceled out to at least two or three powers.

And arguing from a purely historical perspective, it seems to me that since the Han, the Chinese have had this culturally-ingrained desire for large, unified empires. They have their periods of internal division and civil war, but China has always reunited after these periods. So, an utterly fractured China doesn't seem plausible enough to me even for Aberration. Just my opinion, though. :)
 
Calanctus said:
And arguing from a purely historical perspective, it seems to me that since the Han, the Chinese have had this culturally-ingrained desire for large, unified empires. They have their periods of internal division and civil war, but China has always reunited after these periods. So, an utterly fractured China doesn't seem plausible enough to me even for Aberration. Just my opinion, though. :)

But during several periods it has despite this been divided into several states/statelets - which have been united later.

So allowing China to begin divided into 4-7 states and expecting one of them to have won by 1600 doesn't sound like a problem to me.
 
You could have a scenario where the Mongol Horde focused more energy on China, and managed to 'crack' them open... so maybe the northwest/central regions of China could be controlled by the Chagatai, then split the rest of china between a relatively powerful Cantonese state and Nippon in the north... Or maybe do something where the Koreans came out supreme before the start of the scenario :)
 
total abberrated

well, i have never worked on a mod so far for eu2, but personally i'd love to twist history into a complete knot, and make a whole new world out of it.
so i voted for totally aberrated.
ideas:
Let Carthage win the punic wars and destroy rome.
that would be essentially enough to complete fuck up history as we know it.
forget italy, forget france, forget england, Northern Africa is going to rule.

Of course it would need to be thought through, but in essence it would result in having a completly different europe, without a roman empire to compete with the germans would have had no opposition, so the changes would be BIG.

For other regions, i am no expert, but thinking up a whole new european history, combined with the usual what if scenarios, should be task enough for a year or two ;) )


Scenario 2 (or maybe included) is that Tsubodai (the son of Dshingis Khan) doesn't die at the german border (making his whole army go home) but rather eats europe for breakfast before they go home
 
Nikolai II said:
But during several periods it has despite this been divided into several states/statelets - which have been united later.

So allowing China to begin divided into 4-7 states and expecting one of them to have won by 1600 doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Doesn't sound like a problem to me, either. However, I think Sheridan was talking about permanently keeping China fractured, which is what I disagree with. I could be mistaken, though.
 
I wasn't exactly arguing for it to be broken up. Just arguing against the idea that it *couldn't* be broken up. Honestly, I really don't have an opinion other than wanting to see China weaker than it normally is... because let's face it, if we toss it into Aberration that strong, it's the strongest country in the world.
 
Anyone saw Jet Li "Hero" or the game "Romance of the Seven Kingdoms", that would be my suggestion.
 
TheArchduke said:
Anyone saw Jet Li "Hero" or the game "Romance of the Seven Kingdoms", that would be my suggestion.
Err... Do you mean "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"? :D The Three Kingdoms period, if that's what you're talking about, was only ninety years long... and all three contenders claimed legitimacy for emperorship over all of China, not just the parts they ruled.

As for "Hero," well, that movie isn't exactly historical, although I have not seen it.
 
Sheridan said:
Honestly, I really don't have an opinion other than wanting to see China weaker than it normally is... because let's face it, if we toss it into Aberration that strong, it's the strongest country in the world.
You'll find no disagreement with me there. It definitely needs to be broken up. I just don't think geography and such will permit it to be broken up beyond a certain point.