(Rising Tide) North Sea Alliance

[Ryika]

KP is a cult surrounding a religious guru and is, as far as I'm aware, not based in any real religions and is more a symbol for "spirituality". I'm glad they're leaving most of these real life politics out of the equation.

 

[Veras]

I don't know about you guys, but these late factions are sounding really really cool to me in a role play point of view.

I mean, let's take a look on this part of the North Sea Alliance's blog entry:

"To my mind, NSA chose the better course eighty years ago when we renounced our Seeding program the first time around"

From this, we may assume that the Seeding of the NSA occurred at least 80 years after the first Seeding programs of, lets say, Brasilia, the Slavic Federation and ARC (which in my mind were the first seeders, probably in this order). So when Duncan Hughes makes planetfall, he is actually interacting with people who were born more than a hundred years before him.

It is like if we were capable of interacting with Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Ghandi, De Gaulle, Chang Kai-Shek, Vargas and so on.

On the other side, Al Falah is even more radical. When Arshia Kishk makes planetfall, she is actually interacting with people who were born at least four or five hundred years before her (assuming that Al Falah took more time to leave the planet than NSA).

So in this case it is like if we were able to interact with entities like the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch West India Company, the Mughal Empire, the Ming Dinasty, the Spanish Empire and so on. But Arshia hadn't the opportunity to know how History was developing anywhere outside her generation ship, so I guess the impact for her is smaller.

I spend my day wondering about all this nonsense If I was some of the Vanilla leaders, I would be really eager to ask Hughes how things were going on my former country.

 

[GenyaArikado]

KP is a cult surrounding a religious guru and is, as far as I'm aware, not based in any real religions and is more a symbol for "spirituality". I'm glad they're leaving most of these real life politics out of the equation.

It's the hottest mix of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and weed worship ever actually

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[Josephias]

I don't know about you guys, but these late factions are sounding really really cool to me in a role play point of view.

I mean, let's take a look on this part of the North Sea Alliance's blog entry:

"To my mind, NSA chose the better course eighty years ago when we renounced our Seeding program the first time around"

From this, we may assume that the Seeding of the NSA occurred at least 80 years after the first Seeding programs of, lets say, Brasilia, the Slavic Federation and ARC (which in my mind were the first seeders, probably in this order). So when Duncan Hughes makes planetfall, he is actually interacting with people who were born more than a hundred years before him.

It is like if we were capable of interacting with Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Ghandi, De Gaulle, Chang Kai-Shek, Vargas and so on.

On the other side, Al Falah is even more radical. When Arshia Kishk makes planetfall, she is actually interacting with people who were born at least four or five hundred years before her (assuming that Al Falah took more time to leave the planet than NSA).

So in this case it is like if we were able to interact with entities like the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch West India Company, the Mughal Empire, the Ming Dinasty, the Spanish Empire and so on. But Arshia hadn't the opportunity to know how History was developing anywhere outside her generation ship, so I guess the impact for her is smaller.

I spend my day wondering about all this nonsense If I were some of the Vanilla leaders, I would be really eager to ask Hughes how things were going on my former country.

It's quite an interesting tought... indeed, many of the leaders may have been role-models for Huges when campaigning for a new seeding... and for Arshia, they are more like legendary figures that her grandmother or grand-grandmother talked about...

So, its like Washington meeting Elizabeth I, or Caesear... oh wait!

(well actually its a difference with standard Civ... there we know leaders are an abstraction of a civilization carácter... now we know it's for "real")


PS: On faction alliegance names: As Polystralia is the COMMONWEALTH of the Pacific, we know Brasilia is the ORGANIZATION of South American States, so here you have the title for that faction. I think that only leaves Franco-Iberia and Al-Falah.

For Franco-Iberia, giving its assumed ties to the romans, I'd go for REPUBLIC (IMPERIUM its quite strong in an space-based game. Otherwhise, I always figured DIRECTORATE for them).

For Al-Falah, given its backround in a colony ship, I'd try something like FAMILY or TRIBE, probable in its arabic versión...

 

[gyrobot]

Here is my take on what would Duncan had said to the politician.

"With the recent announcement that I was chosen for the expedition that I worked so hard over the years to ensure that the common men and women of the North Sea Alliance have a chance at finding a brighter future that the Green Resiliance party in their gleaming ivory towers decides we are not ready for colonization for under their honeyed rhetoric. This as expected from the gutless city dwellers though, I commend the others who decided that dying in a drab floating platform on Earth while the new money twits watches is not their final fate.

When I was a lad, I saw the other seeding ships head towards the stars, all of them held only the best of the best. From that aged wench Elodie and her prudish elitist attitudes. Or Hutama's populist new money lifestyle where he ate the finest meals with ARC executives and NSA Green Party politicans. Even Kozlov for his similarities with a blue collar lifestyle had a military background to propel him to celebrity status. I grew up as a working man and like others saw little of the good things happen to us over the 30 years of my life. My father would talk about the Thatcher era and how it rival the Great Mistake in depriving us of everything while the politicians smugly go on about how the resources are going towards treating, not solving a problem. By the ballot or the brick we would have our voices heard and I say I almost wanted to chuck at brick at the writer of this article right now.

This expedition isn't just some sort of colonization effort, it is another day at the platforms for me and the crew. A long term investment which when done, will offer the working class more than anything else and finally prove the useless politicians that the working man did more for his country than the policy makers ever did. "

 

[Galgus]

Given the general snapshot we have of the NSA, I think you are inserting your own politics into this.

 

[Halbbruder]

A great update indeed.

The North Sea Alliance is great. Now, like Svensgaard in SMAX, we get to experience this in CivBERT. The UA is understandable though because the big sea creatures could just own those sea cities very early and quickly. My only issue with the North Sea Alliance is the colour choice, a mere cosmetic matter. Even though red is my favourite colour, I thought a sea faction would have a blue-themed colour. Of course we already have ARC with light-ish blue, so maybe a darker blue would have been better and then leave red for some vicious-looking "Chairman Yang"-oriented leader and sponsor. Well, given the NSA leader's background, now I see this sponsor as a combination of the drones and pirates from SMAX.

The diplomacy system has also been a great improvement. It's way more interactive, it's more tangible and measurable. I still wish to see how it works out in MP though, as well as AI use of diplomacy too. But definitely this addresses the "easy-to-warmonger" criticism of this game.

I think that leaves me with the victory conditions and also health. If they reform these areas well enough, I'd say they've convinced me to buy the game on release. Getting the AI right in combat is often a hassle, but I have expect some small improvements.

 

[winddysphere]

Tasty! Ahem I mean never expected the British and Scandinavia here.
And is it just me but his arms seems to be already mechanized just like Jax from Mortal combat? It's strangely similar.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Tasty! Ahem I mean never expected the British and Scandinavia here.
And is it just me but his arms seems to be already mechanized just like Jax from Mortal combat? It's strangely similar.

I thought it looked more like an "Exoskeleton" suit. Would make sense if he spends his time in an industrial setting.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...eleton-firefighters-superhuman-abilities.html

 

[Josephias]

A great update indeed.

The North Sea Alliance is great. Now, like Svensgaard in SMAX, we get to experience this in CivBERT. The UA is understandable though because the big sea creatures could just own those sea cities very early and quickly. My only issue with the North Sea Alliance is the colour choice, a mere cosmetic matter. Even though red is my favourite colour, I thought a sea faction would have a blue-themed colour. Of course we already have ARC with light-ish blue, so maybe a darker blue would have been better and then leave red for some vicious-looking "Chairman Yang"-oriented leader and sponsor.

Red was shocking for me at first too, but then I realized it is red ON dark blue. And, in some way, this fits a seafaring civ. First, it is the UK color schema (skipping the bit of white in the middle). Also the colors for Norway and Iceland, and even the Netherlands. Plus, red is not uncommon (mixed or not with black/dark blue) on industrial-type ships (oil tankers, container carriers, repair ships, even big transoceanic liners,...)

Only, due to the way the schema is used, red is overrepresented in the world interface - mainly city labels (same problem with Kavitha were teal "overwhelms" purple, even if the secondary color is as linked to the faction as the first). Maybe making it a tad less bright (i.e. garnet instead of crimson) could help with this.

 

[Thetford]

I had almost similar for a similar faction, but just focussing on the industrial port cities, with Rotterdam as the capital, and without a fat Scotsman leading it. Not sure how I feel about that last point.