The Tournament of Shadows - Asia-centric mod

[Sheogorath]

This is just an idea I'd like to float, but I think it certainly deserves attention.

For those who dont know the term, 'Tournament of Shadows' is the Russian name for the 'Great Game', which was essentially the 19th century version of the Cold War between the UK and Russia for dominance in Asia.

It's generally held to have begun when the British got word of Tsar Paul's plan to march an army of Cossacks into India, after which the British apparently never trusted the Russians ever again (not that trusting the Russians was ever a good idea in the first place :P), and started two hundred or so years of Anglo-Russian/Anglo-Soviet rivalry.

The period covered would probably be from the 1820's until the late 1870's. Although the Great Game lasted longer, post-1870's starts entering an era which would be much more difficult to render within the limitations of the TW engine.

In terms of map work, obviously, an entirely new map would be required to render not only India, but the rest of Asia (including at least southern Siberia) all the way to Japan, since they become an important player later on. The elimination of the Americas map might also be necessary to preserve a focus on Asia, besides the fact that America was more or less isolated and encompassed in its own affairs during this period besides few minor overseas ventures.

A rather large number of units would be required, given the massive changes encompassed in this period, uniforms alone would require at least two renderings (one for the colorful post-Napoleonic sort, another for the more muted post-Crimea period when grey and olive became the colors of choice for everybody but the British). This could perhaps be achieved with a sort of 'Marian Reform' type event activated by achieving a certain level of technology (assuming the technology tree is modifiable to that degree).

A little more fun might be had with the central Asian Khannates, given their status as, essentially, semi-medieval states. Uniforms could be quite colorful and fanciful...although I imagine the bulk of their forces will simply be peasants armed with whatever comes to hand.

Not to sound overly ambitious, but a fun little side project might be including some details of Japan's civil war, making good use of the 'emergent faction' feature. That would definitely be a side project, however, once the bulk of the other stuff was completed.


So, interest?

[Sir Beane]

This sounds like a great, if work intensive, idea. China and other Asian countries are going to be hell to represent properly though. It will involve making new units, models, buildings, technologies and possinly even new vegetation if you want to do it properly.

If this goes a head I would be extremely interested however. Asia is sorely under represented in TW games and is in serious need of a modern update since Shogun. It would be nice to see Japan and other Asian countries as factions .

[Sheogorath]

This sounds like a great, if work intensive, idea. China and other Asian countries are going to be hell to represent properly though. It will involve making new units, models, buildings, technologies and possinly even new vegetation if you want to do it properly.

If this goes a head I would be extremely interested however. Asia is sorely under represented in TW games and is in serious need of a modern update since Shogun. It would be nice to see Japan and other Asian countries as factions .

Definitly, however, it SEEMS like some of the Native American factions will have melee specific units, so at least the animations will be there for non-spear units.

I think that the main challenge will possibly lie in the technology tree...if CA makes it a 'hard' feature which is difficult to mod, it could well end everything. It's difficult to say before the game's even out.

Second would probably be the units. Since I'm betting that uniforms wont be updated for the late-game, it seems likely that we'll be stuck with post-Muscovite Russians unless we can get somebody to model new ones.

As to factions, I think the primary focus should go to four:
The British and Russians, obviously.

The Chinese, again, for obvious reasons.

And a sort of big Central Asian faction 'placeholder' unit set to fill in for all the tiny Khannates until some research can be done to determine which ones need proper unit sets.

A big 5th place goes to the Ottoman Empire, given that holding the Straits of Marama probably wont be that big of an advantage in the game, the Russian player will have little incentive aside from historical grudge-grinding to go after them...accurate in terms of Russian response, but not so much in terms of everybody else...

[Polemists]

Shouldn't india be a faction?

I mean they are already in the game and seem a natural inclusion.

[Sir Beane]

Shouldn't india be a faction?

I mean they are already in the game and seem a natural inclusion.

I the Maratha, Mysore and the Mughals are obvious choices, and will probably all be in the game. If they were historically still existant.

How about including the British East India Company? After all it was primarily them that fought over and ran India.

[Sheogorath]

By the point of the mod, I think India was already effectively British-dominated.

So, for the sake of expediency, it would probably be best to leave off making an EIC faction until the big boys were done.

Keep in mind, that list was simply the factions I think the primary focus should fall on, not a comprehensive list, which would be fairly long, I hope, since ETW will apparently lack a faction limit.

Minor factions would (hopefully) include such countries as Khiva, Kokand, and Bukhara in Central Asia, along with the Indian princely states not yet under total British control.

Hopefully it will be possible to give China some nice rebel emergent factions as well, especially the Taiping. How could we miss a chance to give a leader the title of 'Brother of Jesus'?

[Greyblades]

I quite like this idea and I cant wait to see the Lion and Bear trying to turn asia against the other. Allthough I have a question: how will you make it historically accurate if you end up having 1/2 of Britains revenue not actually being on the map?

[Sheogorath]

I quite like this idea and I cant wait to see the Lion and Bear trying to turn asia against the other. Allthough I have a question: how will you make it historically accurate if you end up having 1/2 of Britains revenue not actually being on the map?

I think an initial solution may simply be setting up one of those 'trade zone' things off in the west Atlantic to represent Canada and the Caribbean. We'll have to see how those work. Either way, whoever owns the trade zones could be said to 'own' the area.
Maybe, later on if there's sufficient interest, a North America theater can be added so that the massively historically important Canada/Russian Alaska border conflict can be properly represented

India will still be on the map, definitely, after all, that's what this whole thing is about.

[chairman]

If the map includes China and you try to represent the Taiping Rebellion, you should try to include France as well. I'm thinking specifically of the 1860 Anglo-French expedition and the French Indo-China (even though most of their expansion there didn't come until later).

Also, with China, it would be nearly a crime not to have the Opium Wars and the Sino-Russian conflicts in Manchuria, Mongolia and Central Asia.

Chairman

[Sheogorath]

Aye, as the default Europe map would still be there, I imagine all the European factions would remain as well.

However, initial focus would be on those factions I listed earlier, as they were the big players in the mods main theater. France would be a secondary concern.

[Sheogorath]

So, with release day approaching and my 1337 modding 5|<1llz no better than last week, I'm open to any modelers, coders, mappers or whoever else has some skill which may have some impact upon the mod.

All volunteers take one step forward.

[Subotan]

(I'm presuming that you'd have all the original factions from E:TW as well, sans the Americans)

China
Japan
Iran
Afghans (Not sure what they were called at this point)
Kazakhs/Uzbeks
Various Indian states
Burma?
Korea?
Georgia?

I also recommend that it start slightly earlier, as it would be a bit boring IMHO if you had an all-powerful Russia and Britain, with no room for the other factions.

[Sheogorath]

As I said, all factions of the area and era will be represented as historical, possibly with future factions acting as emergent factions.

However, the FOCUS will be on a few primary factions at first, in order to produce something playable.

A full faction list would probably include all of the major Khannates as separate factions, with minor ones either integrated or represented as a generic 'small khannates' faction, considering a proper map of Central Asia would look rather like a map of the German States. However, Khiva, Bhokara and Kokand will definitely be represented as the 'major powers' of the area (that being a very relative term).

As to the era, while France would start out weak (and possibly under occupation, if I recall rightly) it would certainly by no means be 'out of the game', and Prussia would have plenty to do. Austria was a bit tipsy at this point, of course, but could still sort of hold its own provided somebody helped them stamp out all their various internal revolts.

I believe the Ottomans more or less sank back into corruption after this, but the Turks did make a rather good comeback in the 1850's, and the ability to achieve that would certainly be within reach for a Turkish player via the technology system.

So while, at the start, Russia and the British would certainly be dominant (having rather nicely covered themselves in glory (amoung other things) in the Napoleonic wars), they were definitely not alone on the world stage. I still maintain the opinion that no single power of the era could take on another single power and achieve the total defeat of the other without itself suffering seriously from the effects of many decades of war.

Either way, that's the gist of it.

[Beskar]

Is it possible to simply add China, Japan and Australia (etc) to the current map?

[Sheogorath]

Is it possible to simply add China, Japan and Australia (etc) to the current map?

What I think would be done would be to extend the India map north and East, although, for performance purposes, it may need to be divided into a southern and northern portion.