Modern World STGOD Concept

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. Any thoughts on the idea of blocking out an area that I can fill with a country? It's just... I feel almost uncomfortable specifying my country's shape when I don't know what it attaches to. You can draw islands that way, or create whole continents out of nothingness that way. But for a country designed to abut other countries, not so much.

[Steve]

How about this? I'll try to get my idea for the near-Eurasian-equivalent continent for Umeria and Omnia, among others, up.

[madd0ct0r]

What would that entail?

You are the trading hub, huge port, glass skyscrapers, international airport hub.

We're the slightly unsanitary neighbours who are too poor to sell anything, but provide useful toilet cleaners, maids, prostitutes and the like.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm sketching up a map now, purely to get my own head around where everyone is (and who they are )

[Simon_Jester]

Well, San Dorado is supposed to already have a huge underclass of dirt-poor people in favelas and so on who provide all the servant-class needs that might reasonably asked for...

Wait they can be ethnic-Champan migrant workers.

[madd0ct0r]

Steve - this is my preliminary stab at the map. SVG file is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/641 ... allmap.svg
Did it mostly to build that list of players on the right.
Matched Thanas's map, yours, gave Kagaria a duel coastline to excuse the navy, and sketched out Omnia (based mostly on climate - it's huge but the central area is going to be desert).

I may have got the sizing on some countries off, but if I get detailed instructions can easily fix. Once the boundaries are fixed, it's easy enough to do continental shelf, plate zones, mountains, rivers ect.



Based off this projection (less distortion of northern area to make it easy to compare). Overlayed so people can compare directly.

[Simon_Jester]

I think I'd want Umeria to be slightly larger than that. Especially if it's on a big Eurasia-sized continent; I want there to be a large hinterland that is functionally equivalent to Siberia in that it's incompletely settled and developed and there is still a lot of infrastructure and construction work left to do there. Remember, I'm thinking of a population in the neighborhood of half a billion, and not a super-dense one either.

I'm also a little shaky on the idea of Umeria being surrounded on three sides by this Omnian Empire; the country has never been a breakaway province of someone else's larger empire, except maybe for temporary rule by a foreign conqueror, or prolonged rule by a conqueror's dynasty that assimilated into the local culture. Like China.

I was thinking Umeria and Champa might make good neighbors, actually- with Champa being the 'poor but free' alternative to the 'marginally less poor but substantially less free' Umerians. If Champa was relatively badly off until quite recently, its example might help to explain how the Technocrats have remained in power... but now they're starting to finally get their development on and it's creating dissent because Umerians are looking at Champa and going "why can't WE have these mysterious 'elections,' too?"

Hm. I may have to MSPaint up something after all, just to illustrate what I have in mind.

---

On a side note, the problem with the Omnian Empire concept is that we're basically trying to take a state similar in basic social structure to Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, or the Mughal Empire and translate it into the present day by making it too large and rich to attack.

If we're going for social realism that creates some problems. Historically, those states were hideously vulnerable to regional secessionist movements, or to technologically sophisticated outside powers that would just snap individual bite-sized chunks out of their territory like piranhas eating a cow. Even if a San Doradan trading company or colonial power lacks the raw muscle to defeat the entire empire's armies in open battle, they can still nibble away one province at a time, and/or use things like "trading concessions" to suck the empire's economy dry by getting monopolies on various resources.

That's part of how the EIC managed to take over India- on the one hand they'd arm one local prince against another and create a network of local rulers beholden to them. Ultimately they managed to secure enough of a foothold that by the mid-1700s they could challenge the Mughal court and its army in open battle, and wrest from them the right to collect taxes and administrate government over entire provinces.

Since the Omnian social structure makes it hard for them to stay abreast of technological and economic advances elsewhere in the world (much as the Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, and Mughals were all varying degrees of 'backwards' in the 18th and 19th centuries)... they'd be hard pressed to resist that.

The Omnians would almost work better as a backstory thing. Say, they ran most of the continent, then were gradually eaten alive by foreign trading companies in the 19th century and became the gameboard over which other people fought, rather than a player in their own right. Then they had something comparable to the Indian Mutiny of 1858- but because there was no single colonial overlord dominating the entire realm of the former Empire, many portions of the Empire succeeded in gaining regional independence. Others may not have. However, few or none of those provinces, having secured their freedom, chose to subordinate themselves to the Omnian emperors.

So, fast-forward to the present day. Omism as a religion is still a thing, there may even be some guy who claims descent from the imperial dynasty- but there is no vast empire of Omnia, because it was just too much of a dinosaur to survive the Industrial Revolution.

[Siege]

You are the trading hub, huge port, glass skyscrapers, international airport hub.

We're the slightly unsanitary neighbours who are too poor to sell anything, but provide useful toilet cleaners, maids, prostitutes and the like.

I see. Yes, that makes sense.

With regards to the map, the Omnian Empire is far too large. I'd much rather have them half the size they currently are, and the other half divided up between several other NPCs/player states.

I dislike the idea of the Empire having been broken up however. First and foremost because the concept of a nation ruled by a decadent court that's seen better days but still functions to some degree is entertaining. Secondly because San Dorado would not have tolerated the extraction of territorial consessions by anyone that's not San Dorado -- and San Dorado does not and has never cared for more territory, or else it'd be larger than it is. That's also how I would explain the Empire's continued intact-ness: the territorial and economic integrity of the Omnian Empire serves San Dorado well, and it has historically made sure that would-be conquistadors came to a sticky end real fast.

I wouldn't be opposed to having an additional NPC somewhere to the south that's a breakaway province of the Empire, but nothing much more significant than that. And generally I'd propose not locking the entire history of the continent up with the Empire; add a few more states with their own back stories, that'll be much more engaging.

I'd also like San Dorado to sit farther north. Also, it kind of looks like it's located inland now, but it's supposed to be a peninsula.

[Simon_Jester]

OK.

This is a cartoonishly bad map, which I literally built up out of simple geometric figures so I could compute the rough area of the two countries and make sure I hadn't grossly violated scale.

I must request that anyone putting together a 'proper' world map adjust the landforms of this map to look more natural before putting it in. The Umerian coastline does not consist of a series of straight lines and thirty-degree bend angles, obviously.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/732 ... mpaMap.png

One pixel is roughly six kilometers on a side.

Black lines represent mountain ranges (roughly, doodle-ishly), blue lines represent riverlines. Champa is green, Umeria is yellow-orange.

Both nations are just about the correct size (Umeria, with a population of ~450 million and a population DENSITY of 140 people per square kilometer, has a land area of ~3.2 million square kilometers)

Champa was described as "teardrop-shaped," so I drew a literal teardrop, facing north. I then used the area of that teardrop and the known land area of Champa to determine the scale of the map.

Umeria has land on both sides of a major mountain range jutting up to the north. The bulk of the population is concentrated along the east coast.* The sparsely populated 'hinterland' is the southern face of the mountains and the region south of them, which was simply too rugged for anyone to do much of anything with except a bit of terracing for agriculture here and there until modern times and mass use of explosives. It is now a major mining and logging district, and the place the Umerians put most of their labor camps (the chief reason I needed that hinterland was TO have labor camps).

*In hindsight I think I have too much north-south distance along the coast, and not enough east-west distance between the mountains and the sea, to explain that river creating an estuary/bay anything like that size. I'll fix it later.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Steve - this is my preliminary stab at the map. SVG file is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/641 ... allmap.svg
Did it mostly to build that list of players on the right.
Matched Thanas's map, yours, gave Kagaria a duel coastline to excuse the navy, and sketched out Omnia (based mostly on climate - it's huge but the central area is going to be desert).

I may have got the sizing on some countries off, but if I get detailed instructions can easily fix. Once the boundaries are fixed, it's easy enough to do continental shelf, plate zones, mountains, rivers ect.



Based off this projection (less distortion of northern area to make it easy to compare). Overlayed so people can compare directly.

I think the border between Kagaria and the OCSR has to be a lot more extensive than that.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

The Fuso/Ostrheinland archipelago is too small and way too far north. I envision the entire thing as being roughly the size of Indonesia, oriented in a northwest-to-southeast direction with a significant portion below the Tropic of Cancer. The northwestern portion is Ostrheinland, the rest is Fuso. I'll bash together a detailed map later to illustrate what I mean.

[madd0ct0r]

better?




Just realised fuso should still be much much larger.

Has anyone given thought to fossil fuel reserves?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Arcadia has some reserves on the Central Isles, but not Middle East rich by any means.

[Thanas]

http://i.imgur.com/5y7xGHt.jpg

This is the image I promised, I'll leave it up to Pezook, Katr_Kana etc to fill in details of their nations. The Republic Katr_Kana wanted is now at its correct place between Rheinland and the UOCSR (unlike maddoctor's map). It has a few mountain ranges to explain why the raiding Kagarians did not manage to fully conquer it.

Pezooks country is dominated by Steppe and Tundra, but that is the only thing I can really presume there.

I'd like to add the following details to the history of Rheinland:

After the great miner started a history of eastward expansion, Rheinland soon came into conflict with the tribes of modern Kagaria. After a long and bloody conflict, Rheinland conquered part of Kagaria and instituted a barrier zone, in which nobody was allowed to live or settle in. This limited most contact with Kagarian tribes to trade missions while most of Kagaria was conquered by Daedalean troops.

Mainly because it makes no sense for Rheinland to conquer much of Steppe country.

The greatest conflict Rheinland had for most of its history was with the nation of Francia, which comprised nearly all of what is now known as Südrheinland. Francia was finally conquered during the early 19th history after it had ruined itself in wars between Granadia and Britonia

.

To account for Granadian history.


Also, why is Britonia still a seperate nation in the map posted by maddoctor?

[Ahriman238]

Isla Aurum should probably be just about a speck on that map. I pretty much just tweaked the terrain features of Ireland for it, a hair less coastline for instance and taler mountains.

[Steve]

Trying to play with a continent generator.



Here's one possibility for the Umeria-Omnia Continental Region.

[Steve]

The Fuso/Ostrheinland archipelago is too small and way too far north. I envision the entire thing as being roughly the size of Indonesia, oriented in a northwest-to-southeast direction with a significant portion below the Tropic of Cancer. The northwestern portion is Ostrheinland, the rest is Fuso. I'll bash together a detailed map later to illustrate what I mean.

Excellent.

BTW, did you get my PM?

[madd0ct0r]

http://i.imgur.com/5y7xGHt.jpg

This is the image I promised, I'll leave it up to Pezook, Katr_Kana etc to fill in details of their nations. The Republic Katr_Kana wanted is now at its correct place between Rheinland and the UOCSR (unlike maddoctor's map). It has a few mountain ranges to explain why the raiding Kagarians did not manage to fully conquer it.

Pezooks country is dominated by Steppe and Tundra, but that is the only thing I can really presume there.

I'd like to add the following details to the history of Rheinland:

After the great miner started a history of eastward expansion, Rheinland soon came into conflict with the tribes of modern Kagaria. After a long and bloody conflict, Rheinland conquered part of Kagaria and instituted a barrier zone, in which nobody was allowed to live or settle in. This limited most contact with Kagarian tribes to trade missions while most of Kagaria was conquered by Daedalean troops.

Mainly because it makes no sense for Rheinland to conquer much of Steppe country.

The greatest conflict Rheinland had for most of its history was with the nation of Francia, which comprised nearly all of what is now known as Südrheinland. Francia was finally conquered during the early 19th history after it had ruined itself in wars between Granadia and Britonia

.

To account for Granadian history.


Also, why is Britonia still a seperate nation in the map posted by maddoctor?

Awesome, I'll update both tomorrow. P

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

BTW, did you get my PM?

If you mean the one dated 30 April, then yes. Considering everything she went through in her original franchise, it really is no surprise that SDNW4 Homura was a complete basket case.

I'll probably be toning down the Madoka Magica references for this game, though. Whatever references may exist will most likely be limited to background fluff (Saint Madoka of Fuso, anyone?).

[Force Lord]

Made a few more additions to Fuso's history. As to where I got the inspiration for "Fernanda Marcos" and "Benita Aquino-Cojuangco," well... I'll just leave this and this here. (Always be vigilant for NSFW ads if you're not running an adblocker.)

Also, I'm particularly interested in hearing from Force Lord, as it concerns the nature of National Populism. While it goes without saying that there would certainly be sympathizers in other countries, have the various despots of Granadia ever been the sort to try actively exporting their ideology?

Well, certainly Salazar would try to export National Populism to other countries, by force if necessary, but after the Second Great World War and his death his successors have alternated between "let's ape Salazar!" to "let's be subtle about it" to "we can't afford to piss off the damned democrats".

And having seen the maps, I still can't decide if Granadia's size should remain the same or if it should be a bit bigger.

[Thanas]

Awesome, I'll update both tomorrow. P

Hmm...might want to hold up on that in case Pezook and others have more changes to make. THis is just me going off what they said but the shape of their nation has not been approved by them.

And having seen the maps, I still can't decide if Granadia's size should remain the same or if it should be a bit bigger.

Well, I could make it bigger, but it would probably necessitate moving you further to the south.

[Simon_Jester]

Trying to play with a continent generator.

[snip]

Here's one possibility for the Umeria-Omnia Continental Region.

Truth be told, that is... impressively hideous. That generator is clearly relying too heavily on fractals.

I'd rather have landforms that don't look realistic than ones that do and have so improbably many inland seas and giant offshore blob-islands.

I mean, the chunk of map I linked actually is more or less how I'd like my nation to be shaped- I didn't put random squiggles in the coastlines, but I wanted to convey the overall landform. I can be flexible, but I was hoping to have coastline to the north and east.

[KlavoHunter]

Does anyone want a (surprisingly stable) basketcase of Kommunists living next door? I'd like a land neighbor or two for getting onto wars with.

Unfortunately I can't share a continent with the Omnians, as I am a colony of theirs.


Perhaps Klavostan Komradstan should be along the south border of Cascadia and Dreigsgond?

[Steve]

As in you would border Beowulf as well? If so, we can talk about your WWII and pre-WWII history since I was going to have a landwar with neighbors in that timeframe to account for the long delay in Cascadia putting down the Nipponese Navy.

Simon, there is values for changing the squigglyness of the continents, I'm just learning how to use them, and it seems some options kills the generator or freezes it up too. For the record, inland seas can be easily filled in when continents are shifted to the map.

[Kartr_Kana]

Republic of Ceannaire is the largest and most populous of the nations and tends to set the tone for the rest of the Federated Republics.

The Saothraigh Republic, is a wide open nation of rolling plains and meandering rivers and is the breadbasket of the Republics.

Cheannsa is very mountainous with a number of mines. Its two rivers feed into the ocean via fjords each of which has a port city dating back to the colony era or before.

Unified Cities of Taigh-tionnsgain is the industrial heartland of the Federated Republics, and is composed of a half hundred cities spread across varied terrain.

The Republic of Eolaiocht is the educational and scientific center of the nation.

The Ruithligean Republic is a dryer area primarily composed of large ranges and cattle ranches.

Needless to say these nations are not one trick ponies and all have varied and robust economies, but those are their strengths. If anyone wants to use them for their backgrounds feel free.