Sekenr said:
We could call it Rus' or Ruthenia, but that sounds too much like the historical Russia. Can you think of a better name for the area which is now called 'the' Ukraine?
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We could call it Rus' or Ruthenia, but that sounds too much like the historical Russia. Can you think of a better name for the area which is now called 'the' Ukraine?
Since Ukraine has such a strong presence in the game from the start it would seem prudent to assume that Kiev survived the onslaught of Mongol and Pechaneg Hordes much much better. Possibly due stronger support of Byzantium and Varangians. Seeing that Byzantium survived much better that is not too wild of a guess. So they would probably keep their name Kiiv or Kievskaya Rus. And if that happened then Magyars (Hungarians) would never had a chance of passing through burning and pilging Kievan Lands. then byzantium would have absorbed hungary likely as it would be missing Magyars there to hold them off. The reverse holds true, If Magyars never passed through and were repelled then Mongols would have no chance to burn Kiiv. if they never burned Kiiv all slavic people would likely be more united or amicable to each other.
One interesting fact.
Word Hungarian
The word derives from the old Slavic word og'r- for the proto-Magyars.
Now read it again ogr. Ogres. Orks. Hairy smelly horse riding, burning and pilaging ogres, that is what the ancestors of modern day civilized people from south easern Europe were. But dont get too proud of your ancestry if you were not Hungarian. Your and mine ancestors, to their respective neighbours were also dirty, smelly, mostly retarded looking, since they spoke no common word ogres.
Through Germanic languages, the word got into other European languags ((H)ungarus, (H)ungarn, Vengry etc.). The Slavic word is thought to be derived from the bulgaro-turkic Onogur, which could have arisen because the proto-Magyars were neighbours of the Empire of the Onogurs in the 6th century, whose leading tribal union was called the "Onogurs" (meaning "ten tribes").
The H- in many languages (Hungarians, Hongrois, Hungarus etc.) is a later error. It was taken over from the word "Huns", which was a similar semi-nomadic tribe living some 400 years earlier in present-day Hungary and having a similar way of life. In ancient times and in the middle ages such false identifications (Huns=Hungarians) often occurred in history and literature.
One interesting fact.
Word Hungarian
The word derives from the old Slavic word og'r- for the proto-Magyars.
Now read it again ogr. Ogres. Orks. Hairy smelly horse riding, burning and pilaging ogres, that is what the ancestors of modern day civilized people from south easern Europe were. But dont get too proud of your ancestry if you were not Hungarian. Your and mine ancestors, to their respective neighbours were also dirty, smelly, mostly retarded looking, since they spoke no common word ogres.
Through Germanic languages, the word got into other European languags ((H)ungarus, (H)ungarn, Vengry etc.). The Slavic word is thought to be derived from the bulgaro-turkic Onogur, which could have arisen because the proto-Magyars were neighbours of the Empire of the Onogurs in the 6th century, whose leading tribal union was called the "Onogurs" (meaning "ten tribes").
The H- in many languages (Hungarians, Hongrois, Hungarus etc.) is a later error. It was taken over from the word "Huns", which was a similar semi-nomadic tribe living some 400 years earlier in present-day Hungary and having a similar way of life. In ancient times and in the middle ages such false identifications (Huns=Hungarians) often occurred in history and literature.
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Is there an aberrated history of Ukraine I can read somewhere ? The in-game description is awfully short. I assumed that Ukraine is a faction, led by opportunistic leader (possibly a cossak leader?) that jumped the Lithuanian wagon.Incompetent said:
If my assumptions are correct than Ukraine sounds like a valid name actually. I'm thinking that a bandit leader probably wouldn't be eloquent enough to try to attach himself to the Kievan Rus root.
anyway, why does we still have both russian and ruthenian culture in the game, especially since many russian provinces are becoming baltic, hanseatic and ugric. Why not merge the few russian provinces we have left with ruthenian.
yourworstnightm said:
That would be too large a cultural area. At the moment Finland and the TO have access to Russian culture - we certainly don't want them getting the whole Ruthenian culture as well! We could perhaps change the name of Russian culture, though I don't know what would be a better replacement.
In Abe, the history of the 'Russian' provinces develops quite differently to that of the 'Ruthenian' provinces. Ukraine is not meant to reach historical Russian extent, and as such the Russian provinces aren't meant to be Ukraine's turf in the same way that the southern provinces are.
It would be nice to see some Ukrainian claims on Balkans, as the only remaining slavic state, or an Ukraine helping Byz if Kaliphate expands a lot.
almoravid said:
Ukraine has the Ruthenian culture group. I don't believe it should get any cores outside of this, as it is already a bit of a monster. Not having claims or cores in the Balkans will not stop it from expanding there, but I don't see it as having anything that would be recognized ahead of Byzantium or Hungary.
The relationship with Byzantium is a more complex one. The Ukraine is too small and has too many of its own problems early on to help the Romans. Later, there is an event that grants them +200 relationship, which is a good start. But I agree that we could add some more complexity to the relationship in the mid 1500s to late 1600s. And it shouldn't all be good. The Ukraine might want just as much to devour Byzantium if it is weakened, as to support them.
Perhaps the concept we could work with is that, should Byzantium be small, that the Ukraine gets it in its head to unite all of Orthodoxy under its banner?
I think Byz-Ukranian cooperation should be mandatory if the Caliphat eats Armenia and Georgia and/or expands into european part of Byz.almoravid said:
Sekenr said:
I strongly disagree with mandatory responses. I don't think diplomatic direction should be forced on players. If, as the Ukraine, I was doing well and Byzantium poorly, I would want to take the best stuff while I could, then turn on the Caliphate later when my land tech was stronger and take it all back. Keeping Byzantium alive would be of minimal interest to me.
Even with ai this can be dicey. If Ukraine is already struggling in a war against - say - the TO or Finland, then to have it forced into war against the Caliphate by some event. Well, it doesn't make sense, they wouldn't do it.
However, I can see there being a need for more ai-only event that assist the two countries it maintaining close relationships.
I've had a look at Ukraine, and there are quite a few things which need work:
- Ukraine has no generic leader names or colony names. I can give them Russian names for the moment, but if anyone has some specifically Ukrainian names, that'd be better.
- Ukraine gets a conquistador in the 1490s. While playing as Ukraine, this guy meant I could explore almost the entire colonisable area of northern Asia before he finally died in 1506. Given that Ukraine only starts getting cores leading to Siberia in the 1580s, this is clearly not working as intended, so we can ditch this conquistador. We might want to look at later conquistadors as well, depending on how quickly we want Ukraine to colonise. My preference is that Ukraine almost never reaches the Pacific, with other powers getting some way into eastern Siberia.
- Ukraine gets loads of goodie events. This is not unique to them, but whoever wrote their events seems to have really gone to town, with around 40000 (yes, forty thousand) ducats of free tech, literally hundreds of thousands of free troops, plenty of free buildings, several sweeping increases to tax value and manpower and cores all the way to China. In one event, Ukraine even gets 14 cores to the WEST of its initial allotment, and all it suffers is reduced relations. I don't mind giving Ukraine a leg-up early on so they can beat the Golden Horde and survive vs the TO, but this is not the way to do it. If Ukraine really deserves this much tech, why not just bump them up to Latin (say when the Ukrainian Republic is founded in the 18th century)?
- Ukraine's DP sliders get thrown all over the place by events. For example, failing to separate church and state (ie preserving the status quo) gives -6 innovative, and half a dozen other events give a total or 6 or more DP clicks each.
- While there are some interesting events, I'm not that convinced by the political development of Ukraine (a major theme of the event file). In particular, it looks like Ukraine can become a modern representative democracy in 1571 - how plausible is that?
No offence to Archduke, but I think we're going to have to largely rewrite the Ukrainian event file, at least transferring most of the goodies to AI-only events. The Ukrainian story also lacks any critical choices - externally they expand on all fronts, and internally they develop a democratic republic, but this happens with little effort on the player's part, and with almost no internal resistance to change or difficulties in administrating the new land.
Edit: More possible names for Ukraine, if people don't like 'Ukraine':
Zaporizhia (Cossack state/group in the 16th century, centered around modern-day Zaporiz'ka oblast' in SE Ukraine)
Cossack Hetmanate (or something shorter with a similar meaning. Cossack has various spellings, but I think this is the standard English one)
Halych-Volhynia (successor state to Kievan Rus'. This is some way northwest of where Ukraine starts in Abe, though - the name refers to the EU2 provinces of 'Galizien' and 'Volyn')
Alternative names for ruthenian culture:
ukrainian (obviously), cossack, zaporojian (if we decide to call the country Zaporizhia)
- Ukraine has no generic leader names or colony names. I can give them Russian names for the moment, but if anyone has some specifically Ukrainian names, that'd be better.
- Ukraine gets a conquistador in the 1490s. While playing as Ukraine, this guy meant I could explore almost the entire colonisable area of northern Asia before he finally died in 1506. Given that Ukraine only starts getting cores leading to Siberia in the 1580s, this is clearly not working as intended, so we can ditch this conquistador. We might want to look at later conquistadors as well, depending on how quickly we want Ukraine to colonise. My preference is that Ukraine almost never reaches the Pacific, with other powers getting some way into eastern Siberia.
- Ukraine gets loads of goodie events. This is not unique to them, but whoever wrote their events seems to have really gone to town, with around 40000 (yes, forty thousand) ducats of free tech, literally hundreds of thousands of free troops, plenty of free buildings, several sweeping increases to tax value and manpower and cores all the way to China. In one event, Ukraine even gets 14 cores to the WEST of its initial allotment, and all it suffers is reduced relations. I don't mind giving Ukraine a leg-up early on so they can beat the Golden Horde and survive vs the TO, but this is not the way to do it. If Ukraine really deserves this much tech, why not just bump them up to Latin (say when the Ukrainian Republic is founded in the 18th century)?
- Ukraine's DP sliders get thrown all over the place by events. For example, failing to separate church and state (ie preserving the status quo) gives -6 innovative, and half a dozen other events give a total or 6 or more DP clicks each.
- While there are some interesting events, I'm not that convinced by the political development of Ukraine (a major theme of the event file). In particular, it looks like Ukraine can become a modern representative democracy in 1571 - how plausible is that?
No offence to Archduke, but I think we're going to have to largely rewrite the Ukrainian event file, at least transferring most of the goodies to AI-only events. The Ukrainian story also lacks any critical choices - externally they expand on all fronts, and internally they develop a democratic republic, but this happens with little effort on the player's part, and with almost no internal resistance to change or difficulties in administrating the new land.
Edit: More possible names for Ukraine, if people don't like 'Ukraine':
Zaporizhia (Cossack state/group in the 16th century, centered around modern-day Zaporiz'ka oblast' in SE Ukraine)
Cossack Hetmanate (or something shorter with a similar meaning. Cossack has various spellings, but I think this is the standard English one)
Halych-Volhynia (successor state to Kievan Rus'. This is some way northwest of where Ukraine starts in Abe, though - the name refers to the EU2 provinces of 'Galizien' and 'Volyn')
Alternative names for ruthenian culture:
ukrainian (obviously), cossack, zaporojian (if we decide to call the country Zaporizhia)
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Absolutely.
I was deeply suprised by the intensely good monarch quality for the Ukraine. Archduke suggested it was because they had annually elected Hetmen and so there was better quality, but I think it's pretty outlandish myself. Better event than Genoa's loooooong run of quality.
And you know how I feel about Goodies events
I was deeply suprised by the intensely good monarch quality for the Ukraine. Archduke suggested it was because they had annually elected Hetmen and so there was better quality, but I think it's pretty outlandish myself. Better event than Genoa's loooooong run of quality.
And you know how I feel about Goodies events
MattyG said:
Indeed. Ukraine's awesome warrior-kings early on are to help them beat the Golden Horde, as far as I can tell; after about 1500 I can't think of a balance reason why they need to be so good. But even the early ones don't quite address the issue of Ukraine vs the GH.
What happens when AI Ukraine and GH meet is as follows: Ukraine occupies quite a few provinces by the power of free troops and amazing leaders, but after a while the campaign gets bogged down, as the armies of both sides have been devastated by attrition. However, the GH AI is extremely stubborn due to its large size and won't accept it's lost, so the war drags on for ages. Eventually GH is saved by its own rebels, who liberate provinces occupied by Ukraine, and the war ends in indemnities. Either that or the Ukraine AI wimps out, because it is scared of continuing to fight the (theoretically) more powerful GH, and the GH won't hand over any provinces.
Instead, what we could do for (AI) Ukraine is this: while the GH is in meltdown, their control over any given province could crumble at the slightest provocation, and the locals much prefer Ukrainian to Mongol rule. So if (AI) Ukraine occupies one of the Ruthenian provinces, the GH is forced to cede that province to Ukraine by event. After all, some of the GH's provinces (Crimea, Donetsk) flake away even before the Ukrainian invasion!
Incompetent said:
I have a few comments about this. Since there still isn't any "official" aberrated history of Ukraine, the only way to figure something out was to read the event file. And I don't see any other way for this state to evolve other than democracy or complete anarchy.
What concerns the lack of internal resistance on their way to democracy, I just don't see much of that (except for hemans themselves being afraid of losing their power). In RL cossaks accepted runaway serfs, bandits and all sorts of antisocial elements into their ranks. They only had to prove their elan and bravery to be accepted. Such a society that mainly values freedom, should naturally evolve into some sort of democracy, or devolve into anarchy IMO.
The reason why they didn't do so is probably because of their economicall weakness, they despised peasant labour in the fields and such. The proper thing to do for a cossak was raiding and pillaging, mercenary work, and combination of these. Or to put it simply - war.
Maybe there should be a choice between extremely decentralised, warlike and technologically backward, unstable society with lots or cores and free troops, and a more centralised "conventional" state with bonuses to tech and less cores ?
The name: Zaporoshie is probably not good. Why Zaporozhie? There were Zaporozhskie cossaks, Donskie cossaks, Cubanskie cossaks (not Cubans
there is an area called Cuban) etc. Ukraine is actually quite valid IMO.And the last thing - I'm rather happy how the Ukraine performs under AI control currently. Considering that it starts with 4 or 5 provinces there should be a substancial bonus so that AI will make it a major (I never played Ukraine myself unfortunately
)Just a bit of feedback that will hopefully help you somehow.
Sekenr said:I have a few comments about this. Since there still isn't any "official" aberrated history of Ukraine, the only way to figure something out was to read the event file. And I don't see any other way for this state to evolve other than democracy or complete anarchy.
What concerns the lack of internal resistance on their way to democracy, I just don't see much of that (except for hemans themselves being afraid of losing their power). In RL cossaks accepted runaway serfs, bandits and all sorts of antisocial elements into their ranks. They only had to prove their elan and bravery to be accepted. Such a society that mainly values freedom, should naturally evolve into some sort of democracy, or devolve into anarchy IMO.
The reason why they didn't do so is probably because of their economicall weakness, they despised peasant labour in the fields and such. The proper thing to do for a cossak was raiding and pillaging, mercenary work, and combination of these. Or to put it simply - war.
Maybe there should be a choice between extremely decentralised, warlike and technologically backward, unstable society with lots or cores and free troops, and a more centralised "conventional" state with bonuses to tech and less cores ?
The name: Zaporoshie is probably not good. Why Zaporozhie? There were Zaporozhskie cossaks, Donskie cossaks, Cubanskie cossaks (not Cubans
And the last thing - I'm rather happy how the Ukraine performs under AI control currently. Considering that it starts with 4 or 5 provinces there should be a substancial bonus so that AI will make it a major (I never played Ukraine myself unfortunately
Just a bit of feedback that will hopefully help you somehow.
I agree that Cossack society was remarkably free for its time. What it didn't have was central organisation, and I think this would be very difficult to set up. What I meant by a modern democracy is a representative one, with nationwide elections and a leader capable of commanding millions of people - that takes a lot of organisation.
Any form of government for the Cossacks would inevitably involve curbing some of their anarchic traditions, and as such would come up against a fair amount of resistance.
Perhaps resistance isn't the right word for some of Ukraine's problems - what it should have in spades is instability, especially as it gets larger. Overall, the player's control of what happens in the country should be somewhat less with Ukraine than with most countries.
Also, what proportion of the population of the 'ruthenian' provinces would actually have a Cossack lifestyle? It's fine to talk about a mostly Cossack state when they just control eastern Ukraine, but when the state starts to expand, aren't more and more of its populace going to be settled people, more interested in farming than war?
Good ideas for how the state could develop - the key thing is that players have to make difficult choices on the matter.
As for the bonus events to help Ukraine along - I propose we give Ukraine good opportunities early on to expand, but we don't need to give them huge freebies throughout the game. The AI's performance is largely determined by how quickly it takes over Kiev and beats the GH - as long as we help AI Ukraine to do this before 1500, the AI will usually do fine without the freebies.
A creation of a more radical cossack republic could acctually be fun for Ukraine. Resulting in a civil war between nobles and cossacks (a little bit like in Russia).
Hmm I don't think there'd be any nobles left if the cossaks took over. I think it would make sence of the cossaks themselves would eventually become aristocracy, heredatory-like. "True" heredatory cossaks would become lords over peasants in captured and their own landyourworstnightm said:
I have an idea about hard choices for player.
If the player chooses the warlike decentralised path it would lead to a really hard times with fast expansion at first, and with civil wars, revolts and hetmans acting without regard to the "over-hetman". But since hetman is a representative of the cossak "clan" and his position is elective, this could be a basis for democratic reforms later in the game. With some bonuses too, so the player could regain what he lost technologically.
The other choice would lead to initially more stable feudal monarchy with cossaks becoming aristocrats, but with turmoil and decline later in the game ?
Edit: And these choices could be tied to the cores that they get. Monarchy would get fewer cores overall, but some cores in the west and maybe a free building or two. The other would get more cores but all of them in the east and maybe north.
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My experience with UKraine v GH is very different. I have never seen it get bogged down, because the GH usually has its government collapse in one of the early wars, because of all the revolts, and the Ukraine grabs 3-6 provinces at that time. From then on, the wars end with UKR getting two provinces each time untill its all over. I have not yet seen the GH do well in the early game, although it would if player run.
The thing about the cossacks is that they fall into a similar political niche as native north american groups, in that their political structure cannot be adequately rendered in the EU2 model. even the relatively-highly organised Iriquois fit the model at best as an abstraction. The case is the same for the Cossacks. They didn't have a state structure, but we have to give them one in this game format, and then endlessly tinker and gripe beause it doesn't reflect things the way we would prefer.
Personally, I think its a stretch to have the cossacks chose to become more state-like and organised, but then this happened to the Horde, so shut-up MattyG. But it would need to revolve around either a crisis or a brilliant individual with the energy and vision to move the cossacks willingly into a new way of being. This character would need to emerge if Ukraine (or whatever it is called) grows in size and in about 1500.
The thing about the cossacks is that they fall into a similar political niche as native north american groups, in that their political structure cannot be adequately rendered in the EU2 model. even the relatively-highly organised Iriquois fit the model at best as an abstraction. The case is the same for the Cossacks. They didn't have a state structure, but we have to give them one in this game format, and then endlessly tinker and gripe beause it doesn't reflect things the way we would prefer.
Personally, I think its a stretch to have the cossacks chose to become more state-like and organised, but then this happened to the Horde, so shut-up MattyG. But it would need to revolve around either a crisis or a brilliant individual with the energy and vision to move the cossacks willingly into a new way of being. This character would need to emerge if Ukraine (or whatever it is called) grows in size and in about 1500.
Well you said it yourself, the Horde is an example But I think that introducing deus ex machina leaders that change everything looks artificial. I'd rather have an event or a set of events where the hetmans convene to create some code of conduct for cossaks, so they'd act more civil (like make upholding the law part of their duties). This could be a start in becoming a state
But I think that introducing deus ex machina leaders that change everything looks artificial. I'd rather have an event or a set of events where the hetmans convene to create some code of conduct for cossaks, so they'd act more civil (like make upholding the law part of their duties). This could be a start in becoming a state
Sekenr said:Well you said it yourself, the Horde is an example
Inevitably, one or more of those hetmans would be that individual. Nothing just 'happens' in human affairs. Great ideas, great leadership, great change is alway precipitated my powerful individuals. There is no deus ex machina, there is only people ex machina (sorry I don't know the latin for 'man'). Far from being artificial, I would say that anything that any situation like this which does not revolve around one or more significant individuals would appear artificial. It still needs to happen in a time of 'crisis' (people can't move forward their brilliant ideas for national change in times of peace and prosperity) and that crisis would either be the failure of the culture (cossacks being hammered) or such an overwhelming success of the culture that it cannot sustain itself (Ukr growing very big).