The Flemish Community

To quote the modder above's sig: "Back to Civ business..." I've been thinking to get involved again and what better project for me than the Southern Netherlands! I'm seeing it big and have plans for separate Couny of Flanders, Duchy of Brabant, Prince-Bishopric of Liège, County of Hainaut and the Duchy of Luxembourg. All in all covering Belgium and environs (Namur will be a city state, sorry). For me the whole region is interesting enough to be worth it and I hope enough others share that vision. Because on my own I'd probably struggle to get to Liège even.

I have many ideas in my head and just as much still needed but I'll try to be brief or everyone would go tl;dr . I'll only mention some and spoiler the reasoning and/or alternatives. Basically many of the cultural traits are shared between these entities and their assignment is often based on "mosts" and "firsts". I'll be including events/decisions support and list some examples. Moreover, I would include a number that are applicable for multiple or all civs mentioned, e.g. the Beeldenstorm, invention of the chocolate bar or regular international beer award. So the first sketches:

Couny of Flanders

Leader: Robert III (or Philip I?)
UA: Urban Prosperity = From the Middle Ages onwards, cities having 2 or more simultaneous trade routes for at least 20 turns are granted City Rights. This allows them to construct a Belfort (Belfort: +10% building , +2 and +2 )
UB: Cloth Hall = replaces the mint. +1 for local sheep and +2 for each trade route with a city which has improved sheep nearby. Grants +1 to the market and +2 to the caravansary in this city
UU: City Militia = replaces pikeman. bonus in march and cheaper to purchase
D: patronize the Flemish Primitives, innovate financial techniques to create the Bourse
E: stop/condone the Bruges Matins, silting of the Zwin channel, writing of the Lion of Flanders

Duchy of Brabant

Leader: John I
UA: Joyous Entry = Starting in the Middle Ages, each 20 turns a different city will be visited. It receives two Merchant, Scientist or Enigineer slots, +20% and +4 and WLTKD is celebrated.
UB: Beguinage = replaces garden. can be built anywhere, +1 and + 1
UU: Count = replaces knight. number limited to the amount of CS friends and gains +10% for each CS ally
D: organize Guild of Saint Luke, expand main harbor
E: papal bull to found Leuven university, lord killed during jousting, writing of Brabantsche Yeesten.

This is proving to be hard work . I'll be saving the other 3 for later.

Prince-Bishopric of Liège

Leader: Notker
UA: Bonnes Villes = The first 4 cities reaching +7 or +7 per turn receive this title and increase their religious pressure by 50%. The capital gains an amount of and equal to 10% of these cities' base amounts.
UB: Collegiate Church = replace temple. +1 extra and +2
UU: Canon = civilian unit, replaces nothing. Units that die on home soil within two tiles of a Canon are martyred for an amount of culture and may cause a partizan to rise in one of your cities. The Canon gains experience this way and may receive the medic I and II (after many deaths) promotions. The canon is also martyred when he dies.
E/D: move the see of the bishopric, rediscovery of Ambiorix as folk hero, Adolphe Sax, something industrious TBD

County of Hainaut

Leader: TBD
UA: Sillon Industriel = Chance to discover additional Iron and Coal with the appropriate techs. The Borain can call a General Strike, awarding unrest points towards free Social Policies, based on the and output of the city in revolt.
UB: Lacemaking School = replaces zoo. Gain a Lace resource (and nothing else)
UU: Borain = replaces worker. Slightly cheaper and requires less maintenance.
E/D: documentary film Misère au Borinage, maybe a Van Gogh reference, Ducasse festivities, carnival of Binche

Duchy of Luxembourg

Leader: TBD
UA: Gibraltar of the North = Receive when a foreign friendly unit ends its turn in your territory, with the amount based on the unit's strength and the defense value of nearby cities.
UB: Fortress of Luxembourg = only in the capital. multiple (5?) elements can be added, each also boosting defensive buildings empire-wide by 5%.
UU: Chasseur Ardennais = stolen from JFD's Belgium
E/D: provided Holy Roman Emperor (maybe too specific) or archbishop, "promote" international banking, dismantling of the fortress of Luxembourg

You're back to modding?

That's the idea. Will see how far I get. I'm hoping the ideas above give rise to some interest. Artistic contributions are especially appreciated. As are comments from locals of the regions I'm planning to represent. And anything else really.

Luxembourg's UA looks really interesting! I wish I could come up with ideas that creative!

Good luck! Ill ditch my plans to do a low countries split and focus on the northern netherlands instead

I like the idea for Liege, but I don't know whether 10 faith per turn is attainable in places other than the capital. It would require either taking a faith pantheon with a lot of relevant resources around, or getting lucky and snatching most (if not all) faith-yielding wonders, and spreading them out in the empire.

A shrine, a temple, and maybe a pagoda don't cut it unless the player forces himself into Piety (5 faith per turn, 7 with that Piety policy, 10 only with a Pantheon bonus or with a Holy Site built nearby.) It might be attainable by late game, but then religious pressure is not that necessary anymore.

As for the Flemish Cloth Hall, I was planning to include it in a Burgundy civ under Philip the Good - a civ that might or might not come, depending on whether I have the time to do art, and whether JFD is compelled enough to code it. So one day I would make the icon for this building.

I'd be interested in providing maps, just let me know what you need.

bouncymischa said:

Luxembourg's UA looks really interesting! I wish I could come up with ideas that creative!

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Thanks! Now hope all goes well because it's the last on my to-add list .

DJSHenninger said:

Good luck! Ill ditch my plans to do a low countries split and focus on the northern netherlands instead

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Oh perfect. I was thinking about how awesome it would be to have a full Seventeen Provinces mod. I think I once saw an 80 years war scenario appearing on the workshop btw but didn't check it out (I don't usually play scenarios).

janboruta said:

I like the idea for Liege, but I don't know whether 10 faith per turn is attainable in places other than the capital.

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You're right. I didn't want to make it trivial but 10 is too much. Pushing a player into piety was kind of the idea, but then there's also the case were you fail to secure a religion (when trying, common on high difficulties). Maybe 7 faith or 7 culture. That's easiliy obtainable - even without piety - by the mosque, or another building combined with a faith pantheon/belief. Or you could get creative like sharing that holy site between two cities to activate it for one then switch the tile.
Culture would be harder and requires spreading out those guilds or wait for opera houses or a foreign relgion with appropriate belief to spread to you.
In general everything is a first sketch and up for debate. It might change during the course of implementation too.

janboruta said:

As for the Flemish Cloth Hall [...] one day I would make the icon for this building.

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You're going to base it on the Ypres cloth hall, right, right ? And another thing: you redid some of the Flanders art for JFD and I'm thinking to use the old art for Brabant. But the guy wears the wrong colors. Would it be hard for you to touch up that image a little? That would be awesome if possible . I'm of course talking about:

Viregel said:

I'd be interested in providing maps, just let me know what you need.

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Great! My first objective is Brabant. It is included in the map janboruta did for Flanders, but it wouldn't do because I'd pick out different cities of importance. Mainly because of my choice for Leuven as capital. But I wouldn't ask before the civ starts to take form. I'll let you know .

Just a minor update. Progress is slow due to real life and way too much thinking rather than implementing. I've decided on leaders, cities (which I've taken way too seriously) and gathered most placeholder art. So a word on the leaders. The only one I kept as intended is John I of Brabant. As for the others:

Flanders: Philip I. He ruled Flanders during a time of great economic expansion and was instrumental in increasing the power of the cities, which would define its political landscape in the future. Later counts, like Robert III, would find themselves caught up between the demands of the cities and their obligations to the king of France. They would wield either more limited power, or forced their ways through oppression. I initially took Robert III as he became a powerful symbol - the "Lion of Flanders" - for the Flemish cause much later on.

Hainaut: William I. Though choice. First there was Reginar, a powerful figure in Lorraine, who ruled a precursor to the later county. In time of the personal union with Flanders, Joan of Constantinople would be well suited. Her father became the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople during the IVth Crusade and she has an interesting back story. After her death, a succession war raged for 3 generations, in which Hainaut formed a personal union with Holland. William took to the battlefield (allied with France) at the time of changing fortunes against Flanders and ended the conflict two decades later. The coat of arms of his family - the House of Avesnes - is still that of Hainaut today.

Liège: Érard de La Marck. As the founder of the prince-bishopric, Notker is "built into" its design, but its territory at the time was tiny and not very representative. Érard has better image material too . He (among other things) advanced the industries (coal, iron and arms) which will feature in a decision.

Luxembourg: Henry VII. Most rulers of Luxembourg seem to have had little impact on the wider region in that qualification. But then there are the members of the House of Luxembourg that became Holy Roman Emperor, king of Italy, king of Bohemia, or king of Germany. It begs the question whether these qualifications still leave them as suitable candidates for leader of Luxembourg. E.g., Charles IV is more known as "father of the country" for the Czech Republic than as duke of Luxembourg. I went for Henry as a middle ground. Famous for his campaigning in Italy, he initially ruled Luxembourg exclusively for 2 decades. Caveat is that he was count - not duke (a position created by Charles IV) - of Luxembourg. The first duke, Wenceslaus I, could be an interestenting choice: has was also duke of Brabant and thus wielded influence in the Southern Netherlands, but I fail to see anything impressive in his reign. Edit: Ermesinde is not out of the runner, too. Depends on which the artist (if any) wants to depict .

Hope you enjoyed the read . I'll start focussing on implementation now. I'm not expecting to get something ready before summer. Then I hope to release all 5 together in an alpha version. I'll make some post on changed UA's etc before that most likely. The UA of Flanders especially has been given much renewed consideration.

Looking forward to them, Moriboe!

I see you have posted your mod on civfanatics.

Merci! Bedankt! Thank you! Really, I have once "disturbed" a modder for making a Liege mod.
Question: in what kind of stage is the mod? I see you have not yet included music (or am I blind?).

Does the UA of Liege scale according to the map size? If not, I had a long time ago made the idea of giving cities that meet the conditions of being a Bonne Ville the ability to make a perron.

Does the Belfort disapear when you no longer have the conditions?

I hadn't realised people use the downloads database as a point of entry, so I didn't add any information there. The mod has its own topic now: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=561890

I answered your questions there . I'll add the link to the file description.

EDIT: wrong page. Again.