These Fractured States of America - Development Thread

OzzyKP · Aug 11, 2007

What if every movement for independence and/or secession in the United States was successful?

How would the continent look?

I have begun work on an ambitious new mod/scenario that will attempt to answer that question. I hope I can enlist the help of many people here to make this a reality. Anyone interested in creative new scenarios or interested in alternative history should contribute.

Download here.
VERSION .11 - Added 8-14-08

Background:

Spoiler :

Civs:

Spoiler :

I hope to not only create an enjoyable and entirely playable scenario, but make it historically plausible. For example, the election of 1844 really came down to 5,000 votes in New York. That is the margin that James Polk won the state, and with that state he won the election. Under Polk's administration and insistence of Manifest Destiny the United States annexed Texas, went to war with Mexico, and reached an agreement to take the Oregon territory.

But what if those 5,000 votes went in the other direction? What if Henry Clay won and his administration avoided all the expansionist policies of Polk? Such a small thing as 5,000 votes changed US and world history. This mod sets out to explore those "what if" questions that fans of history love so much.

Some other important questions to be probed:

What events could have happened to stop the Compromise of 1850 from happening?
If the Civil War started in 1851, and the North didn't benefit from an additional decade of industrialization, could the South have won?
Who would win the US Presidency in 1848, and what effect would they have on this unfolding timeline?
With a fragmented United States, could the Native American tribes remain independent?

Other potential features I hope to have in this mod include:

A comprehensive storyline and vision for this alternate history
Modified civics
Customized events/quests that fit in with the alt. history storyline (extinction of the buffalo, transcontinental railroad, indian raids, gold rush, etc)
New tech tree
New units
New wonders
New buildings
New religions (Mormonism, Baptist, Catholic, Mainline Protestant, etc)
New great people/generals from famous people from this period
Quotes to flesh out the mod

A very rough idea of the scope of the map:

This mod is still in the early stages, right now I am working on the map and figuring out the timeline and other generalities. I really hope to immerse people in America of the Nineteenth Century. With an approximate timeline of 1851 to 1920. I am very intent on keeping things balanced and not getting out of hand with new units/buildings/etc, while maintaining the look and feel of 1800's in America. Please lend a hand to make this a success.

Version .11 Change Log:

Updated mod to be compatible with 3.17 patch
Fixed some bugs that caused the game to crash around turn 50-60

Version .10 Change Log:

Starting using the Civil War mod as a base.
Added in Fractured States civs & leaders
Tweaked Confederacy, Mexico & Canada
Added Buffalo, Silk & Oil resource
Removed Salt, Cannabis, & Olives
Added in lots of techs
Removed a few
Moved heaven to accomodate removing those techs
Added religions
Removed a few units
Added sepia HUD
Added in military techs
Organized the tech tree
Removed spearman, warrior & caravel
Added names for great people
Created 7 Unit Styles:
- Union
- Confederate
- Canada
- Mexico/Rio Grande
- Native (Apache, Cherokee, Chinookan)
- Sioux (a separate flavor since bernie14 has made so many amazing units)
- The Rest (Oregon, Texas, California, Deseret, Vermont)
Added a bit of unit art
Added Circus, Public School & Ship Yard
Added Horseman trait
Added Government civics
Added Opera, Religious buildings (sorta), saloon, museum, horse track
Removed some more tech
Moved earth to accomodate removing those techs
Removed new units & unit styles due to crashes
Added cities on the map
Tweaked rivers on the map
Adjusted population of cities based on 1850 census figures (at least for the US)
Added resources in roughly accurate locations
Adjusted maintenence costs, calendar, and other various settings
Tweaked religious buildings some more, added protestant church
Added religious missionaries
Added water tower (awesome design btw)
Fixed city icons for religions & fixed .tga file
Added new title screen, loading screen, & civilopedia/tech screen
Removed more old tech
Added urban planning tech, moved water tower there
Created & added public school art files
Added printing press tech, tweaked tech prereqs
Removed default eras and added new eras:
- Ante-Bellum
- Civil War
- Gilded Age
- Progressive
Added Phonograph Parlor
Added some tech, organized tech tree
Added lots of new buttons, fixed old buttons
Added art for newspaper, war factory, cannery, fishery, grain elevator, brewery (just art so far)

JeBuS27 · Aug 11, 2007

This guy has had this idea up on his site for years. I've always wanted to do something with it, just never got around to it. It should be a fun idea to play with.

OzzyKP · Aug 11, 2007

Yea, I've seen that site, cool stuff. His version is a bit bolder than what I had planned. I wanted to focus on how small changes can have big effects and send things spiraling in another direction. Really analyzing how a balkanization of America could happen.

I'd love to have your help with the project.

CornPlanter · Aug 12, 2007

Nice idea. Consider Metis Rebellion for Canada also.

Other indians is complicated matter. If we treat one rebellion as successful than there is no room for another one which took part later; see what I mean. E.g. if Pontiac was successful (really successful), I have no doubt that we had no Tecumseh war. Anyway I guess Iroquois Confederacy could be included. Navajo and Apache also, probably as a single civ.

Also if Aleut successfuly resisted to Russians (and later probably Americans, Canadians, French, English, Spanish etc

) )....

edit: (I just noticed you said "United States", not "North America", but anyway probably you could use those ideas).

OzzyKP · Aug 12, 2007

Yea, see the posted map for what I was thinking of the scope. Aleut is definitely out. I think we could squeeze the Metis in though. Iroquois might be hard though since their area of the country was mostly settled by Americans by 1850. I was thinking more Indians out west. So like Sioux, Apache, Cherokee (in Oklahoma).

OzzyKP · Aug 13, 2007

So does anyone have any modding experience? I'm good with maps, but fairly new to actual modding.

OzzyKP · Aug 18, 2007

Proposed Building List

Grain Silo: -4 , +8
Entry 2

thomas.berubeg · Aug 19, 2007

I'de be interested to play, but don't have time to help, sorry. :sad:

it isn't hard to learn XML modding, and that is a good start.

masonl · Aug 20, 2007

Sounds like a great mod. It reminds me of the info I saw on "Shattered Union" but I never saw it on the store shelves. I wish I had time to help but I will be coverded up until the 1st of November

OzzyKP · Aug 23, 2007

Another thought I had was for creating some kind of advanced system of diplomacy.

I don't want the map to include Europe and Asia, it would be too much clutter/too big, but certainly you can't tell the story of America without including some kind of foreign policy. So I was thinking of a creative way to simulate that without actually having any foreign civs in the game.

So I'm thinking of creating a new type of specialist - the diplomat.

I have a few ideas on how to implement it, I'm not sure which would be best. Both sound like they would be difficult to code. Maybe TheLopez could help out.

First is to have diplomat specialists produce some special type of yield. "diplo-points" or something like that instead of hammers, science, gold, etc. These "diplo-points" could be used to build diplomatic projects. These specialists could also create GPP and spawn a Great Diplomat who can finish a diplomatic project or do other elements of diplomacy (stop wars, sign permanent alliances, etc). Another thought is the "diplo-points" could be used to build regular diplomats (instead of diplomatic projects) and they could do smaller things like be sacrificed to boost relations with a civ, or sign defense treaties, etc.

To implement this first idea we'd need to create an entirely different type of yield and accommodate a second build box in the city (one for standard production, and one for diplo-point projects). That could be a bit too complicated/intensive for us. So that leads me to my second idea - replacing great people with the diplomacy system.

Instead of great scientists, engineers, merchants, etc, we could have just one type of great person - the great diplomat. You could still place scientist, priest specialists, but they wouldn't create GPP (they'd be compensated with a boost to their yields). All GPP would go towards creating master diplomats.

This would be simplier in that we wouldn't need a new type of yield. But we'd lose other great people and it'd be entirely reliant on the great diplomats instead of using minor diplomats. Unless perhaps a great diplomat could either be sacrificed to create like half a dozen minor diplomats, and/or he could create a building that spawned minor diplomats every few turns. Anyhow... one thing this system would allow us to do is create more types of great diplomats.

For example you could have an English diplomat, a French diplomat, a Spanish Diplomat, etc. And those would be able to broker agreements with those individual nations.

For example, during the Civil War (the real one), one thing that could have turned the tide for the South would have been support from England or France. They worked on it, but couldn't pull off an agreement. For this scenario imagine there are all sorts of smaller American nations all jockeying for support from the great powers.

So ok, lets say Texas is at war with California and builds a French embassy and places 2 French diplomats (or ambassadors or whatever). They build French diplomacy points and after some time a great French diplomat spawns. That great diplomat can be used for actions to help in the war vs. California like:

1. War support - Free units spawn to help Texas with their war effort.
2. Blockade - California's trade reduced greatly.
3. Sever relations with enemy - All French diplomat points that California has built up are erased. And/or all French embassies in California are removed.
4. Remove Blockade - A blockade that California had placed on Texas (like from England or Japan or whoever) is removed.
5. Trade partnership - Additional trade routes in Texan cities.
6. Supply agreement - Texas gets free resources (iron, coal, etc).
7. Sign peace treaty - The war with California ends (text could be, "French diplomats broker a peace agreement between California and Texas, Treaty of Paris signed)
8. Build permanent French consulate - Free minor French diplomat specialists placed in a Texan city

Using the Great Person system allows us to combine different nations this way. Lets say you place 2 Spanish diplomats and 1 English diplomat. Then you roll the dice to see which great diplomat you get. And there can be all sorts of buildings and modifiers that affect the results.

Oh! Another thought. Trade has always been incredibly important for the United States. International trade needs to take on more significance here too. Not just trade routes, but resource trade as well. So lets say the Confederacy has a lot of cotton it wants to sell. It is at war with the USA and none of the smaller powers can offer enough for it. The CSA could either use a diplomat, or build a building that consumes one cotton resource and produces X amount of gold. Or produces a different resource it needs. That would simulate trading that resource with a European power.

Then diplomats could be used to break off that trade, or sign exclusive trade agreements. Lets say Texas and CSA are both selling cotton to England. CSA creates a great English diplomat who signs an exclusive cotton supply deal with England and from then on no other power can sell cotton to England.

Events could be used to spice things up as well.

Thoughts?

OzzyKP · Aug 23, 2007

Oh, also. Events could be used to trigger changes in AI behavior. All AIs have a personality of some kind. Since most of the nations here are democracies they will have new leaders every so often. Events could trigger "elections" that place different parties in power and change the personality of that civ.

OzzyKP · Aug 23, 2007

thomas.berubeg said:
it isn't hard to learn XML modding, and that is a good start.

Ugh... I wish it really was easy.

I just spent two hours simply trying to combine the California, Texas and CSA mods and there are all sorts of errors and crashes that I can't figure out. There is just so much. Every little change I want to make I need to adjust like 20 different XML files. It is too overwhelming for me.

*sigh*

OzzyKP · Aug 23, 2007

Ok!

It took me most of the fricken day, but I have created a rudimentary Deseret civ AND combined it with the Texas mod!!

I am on my way!

Edit: Adding California and the Confederacy is presenting me with problems... it doesn't help that the California mod hasn't been updated to BTS so I'm trying to wing it.. Ugh. Maaaaybe I can get something basic but playable up this weekend.

OzzyKP · Aug 24, 2007

Some more brain storming...

Immigration

Balancing this thing will be difficult since for this time period the USA and CSA are so much bigger, more populous, and better developed than any of the other nations in the game. A major northern city like Boston or New York probably had more people than the entire territory of Oregon or California.

So we will definitely need to use the immigration mod to balance things out. Does the immigration mod take population too? Or just add? It would be nice if population from back east actually left and joined western cities. It would help balance greatly.

We can script this with events as well. Like a gold rush can bring in lots of people. We could also incorporate the diplomacy system into this as well. Lets say California is hurting for people, so they use a great diplomat to sign some open borders treaty with china to add one population to each city. Or spawn X amount of settlers (no doubt covered wagons for this scenario).

I'm thinking of something special with Deseret since their nation is so tied to Mormonism we could also tie their immigration to their religion. If Mormonism spreads to non-Deseret cities, those cities are more likely to transfer population to Deseret. Maybe siphon off wealth too.

Mormonism

Oh! Idea! (if you haven't noticed I have a tendency to brainstorm outloud here). Mormonism spreads to Atlanta lets say. One or two gold is deducted from Atlanta and goes to Salt Lake City (tithing, etc). That means there is a penalty for the Confederates for having Mormonism, so they change civics or stamp out Mormonism in Atlanta (hello inquisitor mod) and that leads to a population loss that goes directly to Deseret. (i.e. persecuted Mormons flee back to safety in Deseret). So the more developed eastern nations (or anyone really) has a choice, allow Mormons to sap some of their cash, or drive them out and lose population. A win-win for Deseret (who is gonna need the help the most with their crappy land).

The other religions probably won't have any holy cities. Realistically the general protestant religions America has aren't centrally organized, or if they are, their base is in Europe somewhere. They'd still be useful for diplo-modifiers, but would only give cash to Deseret. As the owner of the only religious shrine in the game spreading it would be central to their strategy. I figure their UB would be a Mormon temple too. A beefed up temple.

Hmmm... I bet I should add polygamy as a civic option too. It should help population growth somehow since that will be a major deficiency for Deseret. Despite being land locked and stuck with crappy desert & mountain land, Deseret will definitely be one of the more interesting civs to play.

Slavery Civic

Speaking of civics.. the Confederacy and Texas will obviously have slavery as a civic, but I want to tweak it as well. It'll have the general population sacrificing qualities of slavery, but it should also give bonuses to plantations (of which the South will have plenty of). I'm also thinking of a mechanism for capturing units.

More brainstorming... lets say the United States (and other civs potentially) are able to - with a certain civic/tech/building - create Black units. Like a Buffalo Soldier unit. They could be cheaper versions of regular USA units. If a slavery civ defeats a buffalo soldier in combat there is a 100% chance they will be enslaved. However there is a civic option (or wonder or something) for the Emancipation Proclaimation (or maybe Brown vs. Board of Education or something similar) that stops the nation from building black units but gives all its regular units +1 strength (integration of the military). A definite bonus. But it comes with the downside. Now ALL units defeated in combat by a civ with the slavery civic are at risk (25% lets say) of being enslaved (since there are now Black soldiers in all units and are able to be captured and enslaved). So this is a big potential downside that has to be weighed against having that +1 strength.

I think I'd prefer it if the captured units didn't turn into workers, but remained military (or maybe the civ would get a choice). Since the Confederacy had a habit of putting Black slaves into the military and making them fight for their side. Plus it gives a larger bonus then simply having 10 million workers sitting around. OR... if they were workers, they could be sacrificed for production. Anyhow, if they become military units, then I think they should get some promotion that weakens them (Enslaved unit, -10% strength) and also has a percentage chance the unit will abandon that civ's control (Like Chaos Mauraders in FfH2).

Civics like slavery or polygamy would of course have a diplo penalty where appropriate.

Edit: Adding subject headings to my ramblings

say1988 · Aug 24, 2007

Some things:
I don't think you should have a seperate Quebec. Sure there were the Rebellions of 1837, but I don't think you can give a credible reason for it succeeding.

Canada could be balanced by shipments of troops (and perhaps access to resources) arriving from Britain, and the rest of the Empire (say give them access to sugar without having any in their territory, if possible), as Canada was directly controlled by Britain at this time.
There could be an event in which the Dominion of Canada is formed (the power of a post-civil war US was a significant reason for Confederation, so there is no problem if it doesn't occur), significantly decreasing British support, but giving another bonus (perhaps increasing trade between Canadian cities).
Another possiblility would be to take this a level further and give Canada the ability to declare independance and completely remove British support (perhaps even spawn hostile troops).

Why is Vermont independant?

I don't think the Iroquois Confederacy or any North-Eastern Natives should be added, as they were pretty much out of the picture after the War of 1812.

Possible leaders for Canada are:
La Fontaine (he was the head of the elected government of Canada in 1950)
Queen Victoria (the top person in the Canadaian government throughout the early part of the game)
McDonald or another later Canadian PM
It would depend on what you are going for, but La Fontaine would be great.

OzzyKP · Aug 24, 2007

I could go either way on the Quebec issue. The map I'm using focuses mostly on the United States, so there isn't a whole lot of land for Canada in the first place. Then again, most Canadian population is along the US border, so most of the main cities will still be there (out east at least).

I think your ideas are good though. :b:

What do you think of the Metis?

Another issue to resolve is the matter of settlement. A lot of the interior United States will be up for grabs from the various US successor nations. But I think regardless of the political situation it'll be harder to explain if Canada starts building cities in Minnesota or Maine. There isn't a good mechanism for territory ownership in civ. Just cities/culture. We'll need to brainstorm about that. Maybe something with forts.

What do you think would be good leader traits for La Fontaine or Macdonald?

dh_epic · Aug 24, 2007

Yeah, that's a good point. Canada is Britain. And if the US wasn't going to be a huge unified powerhouse, then Britain wasn't going to give up total control over its remaining North American territory. In fact, it might even try to do some kind of power grab in the western chunk of North America.

say1988 · Aug 25, 2007

Yeah, that's a good point. Canada is Britain. And if the US wasn't going to be a huge unified powerhouse, then Britain wasn't going to give up total control over its remaining North American territory. In fact, it might even try to do some kind of power grab in the western chunk of North America.

Nah. After kicking the French out of Canada (combined with some political changes in Britain), North America wasn't really popular in England. The power of the US was not signifcant until after the Civil War. Yet the British governemtn signed many treaties in America's favour simply because it didn't matter to them. In the 19th century India was where it was at for the Imperialists.
The big thing is one of the primary causes for the Confederation was the American power in the 1860s. This worked in two ways, a united Canada could better resist the expected invasion, and a (more) independant Canada could have better relations with the US, decreaseing the chance of invasion and increasing trade.
This would be Canadian fear, not British, that promoted Confederation.

As for its role in the game, they should try to build up their current cities rather than expanding (as all the expansion is off map, but all the wealth flowed through the Eastern cities). In the game they should be more of a background civ. Not particularily important, but a possible threat if you piss them (or their Ally) off.

The Metis could have a small settlement the the West of Lake Superior, but would not be playable.

dh_epic · Aug 25, 2007

Who kicked the French out of Canada? I don't know a lot about Canadian history, but that's the first I've heard of that.

orinsul · Aug 25, 2007

The civil war happened because of Inudustrialism and slavery, at the start of the war slavery was unimportant, The war was one of independance from the North, they were laws in place preventing the industrialisation of the south as it would drive up the price of southern export resources to the north. Slavery was just the staw that broke the cammels back.
But i do think this is a good idea.
The chance for enslave captured soldiers should defiantely not be 100%, maybe 40% as fighting does lead to a certain amount of death.
You could have Canada as a minor civ which cannot be declared war on but it a spawing site for British Soldiers in the event of intervention.

These Fractured States of America - Development Thread

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