Update XIII - A Little bit of History II
Replies
Simcity 4 Devotion
Shadeslayer – I understand that, yeah the total area covered is initially 420 large tiles broken up into three separate regions. I only have that banner, if you have another one I’d be more than happy to use it.
Tomas Neto – thank you for your high praise and I am thrilled you like what you see.
Ethan(Ecoba) – when all is said and done I do intend to formalise many of the tutorials you will see in this diary over the coming months. I am glad you enjoy the demonstrations and it really is pretty simple when you get used to it.
Battlecat – thanks.
Sumwonyuno – thanks, but there is a long way to go on that particular map.
Gjermund(kwakelaar) – yeah I really want this structure to dominate its skyline, and the St Paul’s reference just leapt into my head. Secondly, it really is the easiest way I have found of smoothing gradients in a greyscale map.
Connor – well this may well turn out better than the Vagrant Peninsula, if it is a marked improvement I may well go back and update certain elements of the original.
Joan(Jmouse) – well terraforming in this sense is unbridled creativity, it always has been an art form. Although really its geoscaping rather than terraforming as there is no atmospheric manipulation involved here, just sculpting of terrain. I will squeeze this update in just before the final whistle, and will endeavour to set up a contents page in the first updates post if it is possible could I get a pinned contents stapled to the top of every page, like in various NAM threads.
Simtropolis Forum
CG – congrats on taking me to 100 replies here on Simtropolis. I have tried to keep the scenery varied to allow for many possibilities, but also challenges to the city planners and to me as a player, I want to face aspects of gaming in Simcity that I have deliberately avoided up until now.
Ded – welcome to The Iron Coast, I am pleased I have you as a follower and I think you can never put too much detail into a project. Furthermore if that is my credo, why not share it with everyone.
Roger51 – that map is far from finished but I am glad you like it.
Korot - as I said above, it is merely where the map stood at the end of that update, there is at least another 20-25 hours of work to go into it.
Tostartpressanykey – thank you for the quote, I hope so XD.
Benedict – I am thrilled you like the name of the area, and as to the title not standing out enough, I tried various borders but all made it stand out too much. I felt that this was the nicest overall composition.
Will(Penguin007) – thanks for your kind words, there will be more of all of those things later on.
After nearly 2000 words of responses for two updates on the trot, under 500 here seems like a blessing, although it did worry me a little bit, Setting the Water II was my most replied to update and this is third from bottom. I am confident things will pick up again soon. Anyway on with the update.
A little bit of history II.
Last time I showed you some of the work I was doing behind the scenes conjuring up the back story of The Iron Coast. I want to elaborate at this point on what this is trying to achieve.
Alternative history is a sub-genre of fiction that consists of prose set in worlds not unlike our own but where history has diverged to a greater or lesser degree from the actual history of the world. It can variously be described as a child of literary fiction, science fiction or historical fiction. Works of historical fiction may contain devices or common themes from any or all of these genre. Alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate history works may use tropes or devices from any or all of these genres.
Initial works in early alternative history primarily involved some form of parallel universe or time travel. This cross time awareness thus invoked a clear character or situation based reason for the distinctions in the literary timeline. While effective and clearly understandable to a fresh audience; it lacked artistry and became rapidly repetitive. This is also why virtually all early allohistories where seen as science fiction.
As the genre grew in size and age, other approaches to the theme were adopted, the great “What if?” Craze followed with many, many titles being released in this new and exciting refreshed genre. This second stage led to subtler changes to history leading to further reaching changes in the timeline. This was finally compounded and reaffirmed with the popularisation of the butterfly effect.
This basically takes us to where we are now, succinct and seemingly insignificant changes 1000 years ago leading to a drastically different reality in the present. I want The Iron Coast to be that subtle. So what changes have I made to the timeline you ask, some of the core ideas are charted below.
1. Climate Sphere, The overall global climate is around 4-5 degrees centigrade warmer than our world. While this means that the Polar Regions are smaller and more inhabitable land exists at higher latitude it does mean that the deserts at the equator are somewhat larger. However this increased temperature does not lead to higher sea levels as the remaining moisture is stored in the atmosphere offering globally higher levels of humidity and rainfall.
2. Geological Sphere, obviously The Iron Coast has had to be supplanted onto the British Columbia coastline, and the Kingdom of Aetheria added to the Siberian coast; other than that there are minor changes to small island chains around the world.
3. The English Sphere, Ælfgifu of Northampton succeeds King Canute, son of Swein as ruler of England through her son of Canute Harold Harefoot, who acts as Regent of England in the absence of his younger half brother Harthacanute (son of Canute and his chosen queen, Emma of Normandy). This is not different from historical events and Harold was made King of England in light of the continued delays of his younger sibling.
a. My change is that in 1040 Harold I does not die, but instead lives and subsequently repels the invasion of Danes from his half brother. This is the key authored change.
b. This repulsion of the rightful King of the Empire cuts confidence in Harthacanute among the Thanes and raises the profile of Harold I. This is Interpolation.
c. In 1062 Harold I is killed by Norman assassins and his son Harold II (not Harold Godwinson) rules in England. In reality Harold II was unrelated to Harold I and ruled after Edward the Confessor to die at Hastings in 1066.
d. In 1066 Harold II proves his worth by repelling the Norman invasion and Duke William II of Normandy dies in battle. This is the key resultant change in the English sphere of influence.
e. Following talks with Wales, Scotland & Ireland, Britain is united and forwards Harold II as King of the Empire to rule over Norway and Denmark also. This victory at Hastings was not expected and the Thanes vote to Depose Harthacanute in favour of Harold II. Harold II goes on to conquer much of Normandy and gains lands in northern France. This is Extrapolation.
f. This is the first instance of an English Empire, date 26th March 1067.
That last part (Point 3) is the first of a series of Spheres of Influence that act like giant cogs in my narrative machine. Once all the cogs are in place, I simply crank the handle and the story writes itself. This sphere can be summed up in two points; firstly, the key authored change (KAC): Harold I survived past 1040; and the key resultant change (KRC): the result of the battle of Hastings is reversed. The former causes the latter. Everything else in that sphere is just logical interpolation and subsequent extrapolation of those two points.
So far I have charted maybe 20 spheres and bar 1 & 2 all are minor changes such as 3 that have far reaching implications. The master timeline passed four hundred entries as of writing, but there is still a myriad of things to chart and describe. Here are a couple of out of context examples.
“Veny Sainvillaird, captain of the Tapageuse, founds the French trade Embassy in Ho Chi Minh”
“Jasper Huxley III, marries Frances Riddington in the Kensington Monastery of Order of Moral Flagellents”
And one more...
“Iano Sandoario, leads the Revuelta Honesto, 8000 people march through Gibralta protesting anti-Semitism”, leaders are executed many hundreds injured”
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