WIP: unnamed Earh-like planet

[Akubra]

Yes! I'm excited to work on the History and the political context for the novel.

Good! I'm excited for you ...and curious too!

Are any of you doing some world-building with your maps, even if basic ideas of peeps living in them?

Oh yes, I do have ideas, since a long time actually. But I've got a bit of a dilemma, and it keeps nagging me. There are two scenario's I'm considering:

1. The "standard" scenario in which living beings evolve on a planet. As time goes by they develop human-like characteristics and start exploring the planet, concquering new lands, trade, wage war, and do all the things we do here ...but differently.
2. An alternative scenario in which the planet already has animal-like and plant-like beings, but nothing human-like. Space explorers from our own Earth would end up colonizing this planet. Of course, it would have to be a habitable planet for humans. One of the first questions to solve would be: how do they get there? They probably would need millions of years to reach the planet. First I thought about generetion ships, then I started thinking about sleeper ships, and finally a combination of those sleeper ships and embryo space colonization. I've got a few ideas about how it would go once they get there, but it's still a bit chaotic.

In both scenarios some aspects of the lives of the inhabitants could be taken from here, and others could be quite alien to how we do things. Most of the time I do have a preference for scenario 2 though...

Cheers - Akubra

[groovey]

This post is mostly about world-building in response to Durakken, so if that bores you, don't bother.

Durakken, yes, as I said it, it's a weird mix of both concept map (their POV, my detailed needs), I never said it makes sense! But it works for my world-building purposes. I only posted that political map as a nod.

You add very interesting stuff. The Roman Empire along with the Persian one are two of the main inspirations for mine, but the actual location of the Empire has changed quite a bit with each revision. Its current position came from adding a layer in PS with an average temperature map of our world and adjusted to match the latitudes in my world, the placed the empire on the continent I wanted yes, but put the limits where the temperatures worked best for me.

Picsi and Hemlia, and the other power's approximate borders, are known to the Empire only through maps they got from the other powers by shady means, the Empire doesn't have detailed maps about them.

Arlians have advanced naval tech, both for trade and war, at the level of the Late Middle Ages let's say, so it's not so weird for me to think they'd be able to get to Picsi through the islands' chain.

Doesn't seem that farfetched for me that looking for new markets (and following rumors about new lands) the Arlians or Oncar would find Hemlia, and from there they could follow the islands on the west to Enenlia, or would find the little islands first and then get to the big lands.

Arlians got to Arlia escaping the advance of the Empire, a bit like Pilgrims that got to the Americas from England, they ended up there because of a series of reasons and mixed a bit with the natives. So they have common ethnic roots and language to the population of the area where the Empire grew from.

Arlia, Picsi and Hemlia have nothing to do with each other except trade. The light colors on the map are areas of trade influence, a bit like the Greeks and Phoenicians had going on the Peninsula Iberica before the Carthaginians and Romans came to stay.

About the capital for Swifendlia: what the 6 powers do is act as trade re-distributors among themselves, since each guards their own areas of influence so the others don't mingle on it. It took time and lots of small conflicts to get to the current frail equilibrium.

So not much is going on on the peninsula on the external side, since trade between Arlia and the Empire can take place near the borders of their areas of influence.

Inside the empire, I don't find the peninsula specially significant for trade (yes for defense, since it had narrow land borders and has a bit of height), since it would only be another stop on the route. I mean, they'd be enough cities along the coast on the Esilec sea, so I don't really see what a city on the peninsula's coast would be more automatically significant than the others. What am I missing?

Plus the capital stayed there through the centuries on purpose, for political reasons, since the ruling dynasty originated from around that area and they believe they're the chosen ones and that crap, so of course they'd set their capital on the sacred land where they came from.

I agree about moving Ontir to the west to be on the mouth of the entry to Toec, near one of the two small rivers around there.

Yes, Inalia is weakest of the 3 and her navy, as the Empire's, is mostly just good for coastal navigation. Oncar probably should control the area of influence between itself and Inalia. I figure the Empire didn't want Oncar near in both of its ends (since Oncar and Arlia and the only 2 powers that can be potentially problematic), so they favored having Inalia in the middle on the North as a buffer and would have had a hand in stopping Oncar from advancing further.

I have not figured the details about 4 of the powers and their dynamic to be honest, I'm just warming up to them existing at the moment, since I had only conceived the Empire and Arlia until I did the last map.

That said, I loved how you made me have to think about it all Durakken. I don't agree with all that you suggested, but perhaps only because you didn't add much detail in your arguments to be convinced.

From how self-assured you sounded it feels you've got experience in this sort of thing, I guess from working on your Web novel, where did you get your guidelines from? My arguments sound kind of weak against yours. I can't see any map of yours, the links on your 2012 thread are dead. If it's a project you are posting about somewhere I'd love to keep an eye on it.

[groovey]

Akubra, if we think about it, both of the two scenarios (the most typical when creating a fictional world) are a stretch:

- If COMPLEX life (who knows about the origins of the first living organisms) of the planet are 100% endogenous it's a stretch that in most of our worlds animals and humans are basically the same or completely the same that on Earth.

- If humans are imported to the planet, how did they get there if they come from Earth, as you very well explain in point 2?

You sound willing to let your "humans" not be 100% like us humans, so you could work out any of both scenarios if you figure out how they'd manage to do option 2. Problem for me is, in my stories I don't want magic, or science fiction and so, my "humans" have to be 100% humans, which is not realistic at all, and I don't care about fauna and flora. I just want to tell stories about humans (it makes me sound so anthropocentric, which is not what I would define myself like, but well).

I have played with the idea of setting my fictional world on Earth, for practical reasons, and that option would be the more realistic I could work with, if around the Roman times a big natural disaster took place that shattered civilizations and they kind of had to start over and eventually evolving into my fictional world. Problem was, I'm so "bored" with maps of Europe by now, mostly because I play or watch videos of gameplay of CKII and EU4 so much, plus it's so easy to tell the western countries just by the shape of the land, that it's hard to erase them from my head when I work with a blank Europe map.

I thought of focusing on beyond Scandinavia, where the land is more uniform and I can't see countries, or use North America, but it feels so tacky.


P.S.: Sorry for the double post, but my reply to Durakken was long enough on its own.

[Durakken]

Arlians have advanced naval tech, both for trade and war, at the level of the Late Middle Ages let's say, so it's not so weird for me to think they'd be able to get to Picsi through the islands' chain.

Doesn't seem that farfetched for me that looking for new markets (and following rumors about new lands) the Arlians or Oncar would find Hemlia, and from there they could follow the islands on the west to Enenlia, or would find the little islands first and then get to the big lands.

Arlians got to Arlia escaping the advance of the Empire, a bit like Pilgrims that got to the Americas from England, they ended up there because of a series of reasons and mixed a bit with the natives. So they have common ethnic roots and language to the population of the area where the Empire grew from.

Arlia, Picsi and Hemlia have nothing to do with each other except trade. The light colors on the map are areas of trade influence, a bit like the Greeks and Phoenicians had going on the Peninsula Iberica before the Carthaginians and Romans came to stay.

It's not impossible, but think of it this way, Australia and North America is only widely known to us today, after the era of colonization and great ocean exploration which came after the late 1400s. Before this point all known explorations was coastal at best and not very distant at that. Island hoppers were very rare and there is no known travel to Australia (at least that I know of) and only very sparse viking travel to the Americas that as far as we can tell was a one way trip. The only other Oceanic exploration that is a posibility was Zheng He, but that is highly debated and still leaves you in the early 1400s which isn't much of a difference in tech. Guns were a thing in the late 1300s and most people don't like guns in their fantasy worlds so it dictates that if the tech follows along roughly the same path as it should for guns and ships then you probably wouldn't have any island hoppers that go back and forth on a regular basis.

That being said, there is evidence that long ago there were ships that did cross between the americas and the old world, but their existence seems have made no cultural impact at all and as such, even if their existence was known to some it wasn't a widely known thing that one would include on a map...in fact it might have been a guarded secret. I mean think about it. Let's say you knew of a place that you could get to that noone knew about. Yes it would take a 2 years to get there and get back, but doing so would mean that you'd gain access to stuff that wasn't available in your home and as a result was really rare and expensive. I'd certainly think of that as a treasure trove I might like to keep hidden from others, especially the rulers who would want to colonize so they can exploit the resources more.

About the capital for Swifendlia: what the 6 powers do is act as trade re-distributors among themselves, since each guards their own areas of influence so the others don't mingle on it. It took time and lots of small conflicts to get to the current frail equilibrium.

The problem here is that 3 of the 6 wouldn't even interact with the others.
Arlia, at best, would only be known as far distant traders that come from time to time, or if they are advanced beyond the others and have oceanic travel they'd be colonizers in which case the other 3 would have no real chance against them and would be played against each other. Look at what the west did to Japan, China, and Korea when they got to them. It's not pretty, but more importantly, they make very little impact in a way that the commoners know, but are influential in the background simply to get technology and goods which affect policy and attitudes the others. But they wouldn't be like you're describing.

Newori and Reuran based on their distance from each other might have naval cold wars going on between them, to control the area around them, but their territory, with 1300s and before tech wouldn't extend to the other side of the continent where the other 3 powers are so they couldn't be well known, let alone be wrapped up in a 6 way redistribution of resources of the area.

So not much is going on on the peninsula on the external side, since trade between Arlia and the Empire can take place near the borders of their areas of influence.

Inside the empire, I don't find the peninsula specially significant for trade (yes for defense, since it had narrow land borders and has a bit of height), since it would only be another stop on the route. I mean, they'd be enough cities along the coast on the Esilec sea, so I don't really see what a city on the peninsula's coast would be more automatically significant than the others. What am I missing?

Plus the capital stayed there through the centuries on purpose, for political reasons, since the ruling dynasty originated from around that area and they believe they're the chosen ones and that crap, so of course they'd set their capital on the sacred land where they came from.

The very simplistic answer is Trade dictates all. The more trade, the more population, the more population the more trade and the more need and ability to develop as well as support military power. That Peninsula is a major port and as it is a major bottleneck for any navy in the area that wishes to travel around in the area. It also allows for a nearly central base which means they can attack just about anywhere in the sea with a firm knowledge of how much they need to get there and back which allows for standardization which allows for increase in building speed of ships. In other words, whoever controls that peninsula controls that entire region in one way or another. So even if it isn't a capital it is a major city. But why is it the capital? If it wasn't at first it would become the capital very quickly because it can excersize it's power on the capital which means that it is either the capital or it is puppet mastering the capital. A leader recognizing this wouldn't allow it and so would make it their capital.

I agree about moving Ontir to the west to be on the mouth of the entry to Toec, near one of the two small rivers around there.

Again where I suggested you move the capital to here is based on the power that it would have. It is a bottleneck. Harder to control and less important to the overall country, but still a very important place for the country, especially if you are thinking in terms of trade. If Arlia uses the oceans as I would assume they do then they must go by that port. If they do then they are at the very least put under threat of that city, in which case Arlians either trade there or avoid it making it a powerful or important city in maintaining balance with Swifendlia

Yes, Inalia is weakest of the 3 and her navy, as the Empire's, is mostly just good for coastal navigation. Oncar probably should control the area of influence between itself and Inalia. I figure the Empire didn't want Oncar near in both of its ends (since Oncar and Arlia and the only 2 powers that can be potentially problematic), so they favored having Inalia in the middle on the North as a buffer and would have had a hand in stopping Oncar from advancing further.

Inalia poses no problems from it's positioning. It may have control over some of the coastal nation around it, but Oncar and Swifendlia's positioning is so powerful with reguards to all that territory Inalia is at best a neutral zone and possibly an unstable shelter/protector of other nations in the area with them seeking protection from one of the 3. Inalia would have to be careful because if it pushes to far either of of Oncar or Swifendlia could easily crush Inalia or at the least make them struggle. In other words. Inalia's strength lies fully in balancing the equation of the other 2. If one has an advantage Inalia has to step in, because Inalia only lives so long as neither becomes powerful enough to wipe the other out, because it's position is strong for its neighbor, but in the general area it is weak against the other 2. This is a situation that the US has found itself in many atime. In fact the US is only extant because of this type of situation. Britain vs France. The US revolted with no chance of winning. France messed with Britain causing Britain to not really be able concentrate on the US which resulted in Britain just giving the US up to not stretch itself between 2 fronts.

From how self-assured you sounded it feels you've got experience in this sort of thing, I guess from working on your Web novel, where did you get your guidelines from? My arguments sound kind of weak against yours. I can't see any map of yours, the links on your 2012 thread are dead. If it's a project you are posting about somewhere I'd love to keep an eye on it.

I don't follow guidelines so much as I look at things and see the patterns, but in this case you're asking why I can be so certain of what I said. It's largely just a question of technology and knowing how cities come to be. In that case the guideline for a map of this depth is where are the Bottlenecks/Natural Ports. Who's going to run into each other with their tech and how will that tech interact. Also, this a fair bit easier with your map and how you've set things. Everything in your map is sea/ocean based and is very easy to predict from that because it comes down to who is the controller or governor of that sea, which are defined by easily spotable bottlenecks. On land though it is harder, only because bottle necks are harder to spot and more often than not you're creating them whole cloth rather than following a natural terrain. Another thing is we have examples of situations your countries would be in in history and we very much know that most of the reason why it is, say Rome, was able to dominate a lot of the area and where its shape came from... it's because the Italian peninsula can project it's power as I've described above while being safe.

Some other things to point out...
Swifendlia is about the size of Rome was when it started falling apart.
It's important to remember that a nation can have multiple capitals in a way. That is to say there is a Political capital which is it's actual capital and then it can have its Spiritual, Entertainment, Economic, and/or Military Capital. More often than not the latter 2 and Political are the same, but this is not always the case. For example in Japan, the Imperial Capital was not the Military Capital and in the US the Political Capital of Washington DC is not the Economic Capital which is New York. This is largely defined by its culture rather than practical reasoning. The practical reality is most nations can't split the capitals because there is usually only one major city in them or because they are sorta built on each other...

My maps suuuuuuck. I'm bad at choosing where to lay out things, names, etc, but I have a keen eye at figuring out whats wrong or right. I spend most of my time building histories and timelines which have yet to get to the stage where I can actually do and publish the thing I'm making it all for. The 2012 thing is a project that has 5 game series IP idea, at least 2 novel ideas, and a ongoing game series IP idea attached to it. Another project have 4 novel ideas and 4 game ideas associated with it. The current web novel is based on an idea I have 2 years ago, but didn't explore much into, but now I'm trying to rush and I'm gonna do it more on the fly... The map I have for this one is slow going cuz it is tedious, and it's not up because this site decided to say you no can upload those files. I have no idea why. Anyways... Those old projects I constantly revise them in one fashion or another, either in my head or written somewhere, because I have to go back and refigure a bunch out from notes I've left all over my hard drives or have lost lol. And I don't have any place I'm posting info about them because, really, I don't have the money to support what I want to do with them and I have bad luck with people helping with anything so no point in pursueing them until I can afford to do them. This latest project is more or less just writing and I hope to soon to be writing it on a wordpress thing and posting data about it as I go. I don't like the limitations of word press, but no other choice ^.^ If you want to know about that... then I'd more than willing to discuss it on the post I made in this section to not take over this thread ^.^ http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=31649

[groovey]

Another long post about my world-building. You've been warned. Feel free to skip

Hi Durakken. I hope you're not bored of me already. I'm loving our combo, you make me think a lot.

"Arlia, at best, would only be known as far distant traders that come from time to time, or if they are advanced beyond the others and have oceanic travel they'd be colonizers in which case the other 3 would have no real chance against them and would be played against each other."

Well this is not good because for the novel the Arlia and Swifendlia need to have a casual relationship through trade.

In my head, Arlia got rich trough trade and with the profits reinvested to keep improving their ships and keep expanding their influence. Meanwhile, the Empire is rich enough from exploiting its own resources, so it has a strong and diverse economic foundation, thus why naval trade is important, but their whole economy is not built around it.

To be honest, I know I said Late Middle Ages, but when it comes to Arlia and their naval tech, I think more of the Spanish ships constantly going back and forth from America from the XVI century on. They managed just fine. So I don't see how it'd be so hard to keep a route going from the Acelor coast up to the Empire areas or Oncar areas.

I agree it'd be strange to see Arlian ships on actual Swifendlia land, but mostly because of this heavy protectionism against foreigner traders, EXCEPT in few key cities on its borders where they'd be allowed in to do the redistribution.

The Empire has a great military organization, so there's no way Arlians could colonize Swifendlia, and actually, when it comes to anything else but naval tech, the Empire is way ahead of the Arlians.

"Newori and Reuran based on their distance from each other might have naval cold wars going on between them, to control the area around them, but their territory, with 1300s and before tech wouldn't extend to the other side of the continent where the other 3 powers are so they couldn't be well known, let alone be wrapped up in a 6 way redistribution of resources of the area."

Yes, I see them engaged in constant tension, and they are weaker than the other 4.

The 6 way division is not something they came together to settle, and the Empire never would get in contact with Newori, physically or diplomatically. The division was mostly based on expanding the area of influence on the coast until two of them met, then dispute or settle a border, under the premise that for example, Oncar would want some resources from the Northern areas but without going over there, so they could get those trough trade with Newori, which would take place at the southern tip where both areas of influence meet.

The point of the areas of influence is for each to have monopoly of trade with the settlements along the coast under their influence, so even less each power would want the other powers trading directly within their ports EXCEPT in a few key cities as I mentioned before. So heavy trade protectionism within each power, which leads each power to act as redistributors with other powers. I'm aware this system has its own pros and cos, but it seems interesting to explore.

Would you say the whole concept of trade area of influence is silly?

About the capital...I understand your reasoning now, but it feels way too exposed if I place it there, with Oncar so relatively close. Where exactly would you place the capital in this map with terrain? Note that there isn't any big rivers on the tip of the peninsula.



I hope once you get your political map where you want it, you'll explain your reasoning too, since I find world-building from maps most interesting and you seem to have clear ideas about it. Thanks for chipping in.

[Durakken]

Would you say the whole concept of trade area of influence is silly?

Nope it's just where you have it doesn't make sense as it is...
A solution would be to take Newori and Reuran and set up a Silk Road between them and Inaria which if you don't want to go further would make Inaria quite a bit more powerful as it would become a center of culture and trade... Or you could create another empire between the three that is that.

Also, Arlia doesn't need to necessarily the colonial and the technology to make ocean fairing boats to do it would exist. They just didn't do it until that point and once they started doing it just about everyone did it that could. Remember China, Japan, and Korea were more advanced in several ways technologically. They just were isolationists due to their culture so you could always make up an excuse.

About the capital...I understand your reasoning now, but it feels way too exposed if I place it there, with Oncar so relatively close. Where exactly would you place the capital in this map with terrain? Note that there isn't any big rivers on the tip of the peninsula.

Not really exposed. I little math shows that 1px = ~6km^2 on your map if your world is about the size of earh. That peninsula is several pixel wide and so far more than enough to not be exposed
However, just from the way the shape and size of the peninusla is it would probably be hard to have enough resources there. If you travel up the peninsula, and go to the left, there is 2 rivers. Skip over the first one and put it at the 2nd. The first has trade all to 1 area where as the second is spread out. And then you'd set up Fortresses on either peninsula and a fortress on the other side of the gateway one. That's probably how it would be set up imo.

I hope once you get your political map where you want it, you'll explain your reasoning too, since I find world-building from maps most interesting and you seem to have clear ideas about it.

I had somewhat of an epiphany the other day so I tossed that city layout out and worked on a much easier layout and more realistic to the purposes, but less realistic overall..or somewhat more, i dunno. It's just more based around the idea for what it's for which isn't a "real" world to begin with. So not really interesting probably.

Thanks for chipping in.

No problem-o

[Pixie]

Hey groovey and durakken!

Your posts are very interesting to follow and I couldn't help adding my two cents. I scribbled this map from info in this thread (Azelor's climates, groovey's maps) - as innacurate as it is, I think it still adds something to the discussion. My point is that you should add some considerations about climates/biomes. First, the scribble:


(pink shows mountains/highlands, coloring is labeled)

As I see it, the Empire has an historical origin in the lands just north of the main isthmus. It's a mediterranean climate, mild and easy for early civilizations and it matches the areas on Earth where urban societies emerged. It nowadays stretches south covering most of the arable land surrounding the inner sea. Trade, colonization and conquest... Equally, it spreads north through forrested areas, occupying river valleys and such. Nowadays, the core activity in the core of the Swifendlia - that's Albiroba and other cities in that coast - will be trade between two drastically different parts of the empire. Cities closer to the strait that leads out of the inland sea will do more trade with the large prairy land close to Oncar, the capital and other cities to the west will mostly trade with the coast closer to them. I can see this leading to fierce competition and rivalry.

There are surely settlements on the eastern coast south of the empire. They will know the empire and trade regularly with it, but the mountainous terrain and the difficulty to cross the highlands to reach the inland sea makes them a backwater. This would explain why the Empire doesn't bother to control them. These will probably be visited by Arlian traders as well as Empire traders, but local politics should be always shifting. I like your idea, groovey, of having the Empire allowing for seafaring trade only in one city of the west coast. This, however, will generate pirates and smugglers... both from the north coast (based within or beyond the empire) and from those minor chiefdoms.

On to the other side. Oncar must be drooling over the huge swath of prairy land close to them but controled by the Empire. It's a very large region, possibly fertile, watered by two rivers and 10x closer to them than to the core of the empire. Any army deployed there from Oncar would have enough time to land, conquer and entrench before a force sent from the empire responds. However, if it belonged to Oncar, the empire, able to deploy a much larger army, could send one and have it land anywhere on the north coast. This army would march south and be able to conquer all down to the sea. That region is an open door for war between Oncar and the empire - at least, until it develops enough to generate a local autonomous culture and achieve independence.

Inalia is in an interesting position. It might have developed independently and have an autonomous culture. And I agree with durakken, there is probably one or more land routes across Ascarlia all the way to Reuran and Newori. I can see Inalia being the western terminus of those routes. Thus, Inalia becomes a significant power house and a trading hub. A place that the inhabitants of Swifendlia would know as a synonym for exotic ways, goods and animals, but at the same time, with a similar climate and not very different technology. However, Inalia does not control the forests-filled regions to its north. This is certainly "barbarians land" and constantly repelling hords of invaders means that Inalia cannot spare resources for expansion. And if it expands it is either north, to stop the barbarians or east, to control the silk road. I would place Inalia's capital on the west coast or close to it, by one of the rivers, instead of where you have it, although having a large trading city in there is very reasonable.

Anyway, these are just some ideas, based on the map and on likely biomes.

... groovey ... your world is definitely taking shape. I'm glad you are enjoying this part so much - this is what all that work on tectonics and climate is for !!

[Durakken]

As I see it, the Empire has an historical origin in the lands just north of the main isthmus. It's a mediterranean climate, mild and easy for early civilizations and it matches the areas on Earth where urban societies emerged. It nowadays stretches south covering most of the arable land surrounding the inner sea. Trade, colonization and conquest... Equally, it spreads north through forrested areas, occupying river valleys and such. Nowadays, the core activity in the core of the Swifendlia - that's Albiroba and other cities in that coast - will be trade between two drastically different parts of the empire. Cities closer to the strait that leads out of the inland sea will do more trade with the large prairy land close to Oncar, the capital and other cities to the west will mostly trade with the coast closer to them. I can see this leading to fierce competition and rivalry.

I agree and disagree.

Firstly. There are around 6 cradles of civilization. They all originate in a river basic and all show markedly different cultures to each other which have only somewhat started to blend nowadays, though a few have been completely wiped out. These cradles form along a river and then extend out so it's not the area you're looking at, but rather the rivers.

Secondly, what you're describing I would say isn't the "origins" of that empire so much as it is the Greece to Rome.
The history would be something like main powers in the territory will be at those river intersections at first. They are the centers of trade and while none of them are too powerful the one under the E in FOREST of Deciduous Forest area and then the 1 for the 2nd river you come to if you go right will likely be the second most powerful. This would likely still be in the City-State era though and what would be where I'd put the imperial capital is probably only a fishing village or something at that time. It is only when more nations around sea start coming into being that the imperial capital will start having power as a major trade port. It will start to expand nortward and the westward to take that peninsula to the left of it and establish a fort there as well as destroy resistance that it would be able to muster if not taken.

The north will Either have to be strong enough to hold its own, or not developed enough to be worth taking. In other words, it's like Gaul was to the Romans. The people are clearly related in terms of population spread, but they are a different branch of the spread of the earlier civilization. And they would likely be left to take much later as the important aspect of the empire is the sea so they will take land from around the ring, probably head around counter clock wise until they can build a fort on the peninsula to the right as well as that island which will allow them to move at much more rapid pace and then they will start moving north. resulting in your current political map. The future lies in 3 directions, they either continue to expand to the north and the east which if they're not careful will lose them that southern teritory around the sea, but at that point not very much an issue, but then they'll run into whatever power control the Silk Road area. which will deadlock them there. The second direction is they spread out north and south equally. This would take longer than the previous set up, but eventually you'd get roughly the same result, but maybe with less territory as it allows the Silk Road empire to expand more. The Southern part of the empire would also grow to be an unwieldly amount of land and this would lead to them likely trying what failed with Rome if they are an empire, which is to divide the empire into 2 empires. The North and the South... Although this could be handled more successfully with a system of 2 sub-emperor and then 1 overall emperor. It failed in Rome, I'd surmise in large part to the fact the overall ruler was one of the rulers of one half while the other was subordinate.
The 3rd posibility is that the empire is too much to handle for some reason and crumbles whether it's because decadency or splitting the rule or whatever, it is bound to happen.

These will probably be visited by Arlian traders as well as Empire traders, but local politics should be always shifting. I like your idea, groovey, of having the Empire allowing for seafaring trade only in one city of the west coast. This, however, will generate pirates and smugglers... both from the north coast (based within or beyond the empire) and from those minor chiefdoms.

The problem with the Arlia is that they have to cross an Ocean and even though there are islands there Ocean is different than Sea travel. As I mentioned, the tech "existed" to do Ocean travel long before it was really used, but noone thought to use it that way. So an explanation of what's happening is something that can be, again, stolen from history, and all major powers. Arlia could have focused more on Ocean travel and trade as a result built ships and advanced that tech to do it where as the nations they're dealing with are warring with each other and mainly concerned with Sea travel so never develop that tech or rather don't have the same designs nor can they afford to invest in them to get them right, especially not for their purposes. That would solve the situation, but I'm not sure how much I believe that. Swifendlia has a pretty safe region to test in and all that so not exactly a problem. Another reason might also be due to that testing. To test correctly they'd build on the west coast of their empire which means they'd have to build a lot of infrastructure to get resources out to a port town out there and then if they have the common empire mindset of "we're the best" they'd likely not see the point with Arlia being able to do whatever they wanted at a price that would ultimately be cheaper in their view.



@grooney, Suggestion... I mentioned that there are about 5 or 6 cradles of civilization. Place 1 or 2 and see how they grow as well. And keep in mind that each cradle is a significantly different base structure. So that even though they go through the same stages, they have different quality to them. Feudal Japan and Feudal Europe are wholly different animals based on this base difference, but they are theoretically the same system and such. Same with Modern US vs Modern Japan. We live in virtually identical civilizations in many terms, but there are very pulpable differences between the US and Japan that go back to the fact that they arose from different river basin cradles... Also it might make your map a slight bit more interesting as different pressures play out. One such thing is that if Arlia is in regular contact with both groups and 1 had a massive dying off, or 1 has and 1 hasn't it indicates that they are a lot more related and connected than if one has suffered a massive die off, because most of the die off that happened in the americas happened due to viruses. If Arlia was in regular contact then those viruses aren't a problem, but if they aren't then they are. If it is a problem for 1 but not the other then it indicates Arlia is closer to one than the other in origin.

[groovey]

I love the Silk Road idea and you two's vision of Inalia! It gives a good reason for Inalia to keep existing and not being quite superfluous.

Wow Pixie! The biomes map is really a good input to consider. Thanks for taking the time to do it. It's going to be very useful to me in general.

Pixie, your take on the Empire's origin and development matches mine in general terms, tough in my head the Empire would be aware how the area close to Oncar would be a hot spot for conflict, and so it'd be perhaps the second most heavily defended area of the Empire only second to the core. I need to think about Durakken's input on it though and grab a book I have around somewhere to try to get to some conclusion.

Since the Empire is big and its areas diverse in resources, I do think there's a lot of room for inner competition on trade.

Since the juicy trade takes place on the inner seas, I guess trade on the western external coast on the Empire is pretty basic and poor, and the isthmus (on its lowest elevation points, with a land route) would be the obvious point to do whatever trade is needed between both sides.

I don't know about pirates being a constant worry Pixie, that city were trade with outsiders would be allowed seems to me it'd be heavily protected, to begin with, because I see now that it'd have to be somewhere on the land close to Oncar and as I mentioned early, the Empire, being paranoid about Oncar or Arlia being around with their superior navy, would surely take measures to make the area protected?

I fear though, by Durakken's reasoning, that this city where trade would be open to the other powers should have to be the capital? Which I would not like because I want this city a bit outside the inner seas to keep the Arlians out, in fact, keeping the Arlians out of the inner seas it the main strong point in common the Empire and Oncar (and Inalia tough there's not much she can do about it) have, but of course, they want to trade with Arlia for the goods it'd get from trading in "exotic" lands where the others can't reach.

The Empire, though at the time represented on the map is about to explode in a big war because of it, is heavily centralized when it comes to administration and militarization. Oh yeah, I know the Empire will implode. In fact it lasted as long as it did because until two or three generations it was still expanding. Once the expansion stopped because it was getting hard to handle so much territory, inner problems that got subdued for so long finally exploded. The Empire will win the war against the rebels because of the nature of the main conflict and a series of reasons, but it will never be the same and will start losing most of the regions in the next 200 years, thus at the moment the Empire has actually reached its peak and from now on will lose territory and not gain more.

About Arlia at the end of your post, Durakken, I guess you're talking about its relation with Picsi? Arlians are definitely close in origin to Swifendlia, but in my head trade with Picsi is declining because the local stronger powers fell as such and so the population scattered off and moved inland, not really because of viruses.

From what I understand, you think it's too much a stretch to have Arlia trade with Picsi at all because of tech? Then what could I do to make Arlia an important trade power then, but without being too physically close to the Empire and them having the most advanced naval tech at the moment being significant? I need this for story purposes. The easiest solution would be making Oncar be Arlia, but it's too close... in the story a princess gets kind of kidnapped by Arlia and one of the problems is the Empire doesn't have the ships to do oceanic travel to rescue her or attack Arlia, otherwise, Arlia wouldn't get away with it.

Thanks to both of you for contributing to the discussion, you bring such interesting points. I wish I could be half as useful when commenting about your projects, but I'm so limited in vision and skills.

[Pixie]

I can't help throwing 2 more cents..

This time, concerning traveling between Arlia and Swifendlia. This started out as a short post to explain why (in my point of view) Picsi should be unknown to Arlia, but ended up as a detailed (and possibly flawed) account of the typical trade trip between Arlia and the Empire. I started drafting stuff on top of a map from groovey, then I decided to make some neater notes and suddenly, voilá, a self-standing map.


It's yours to do with it whatever you want groovey.

As for pirates, I wasn't thinking about threats to the land. I was thinking about smaller armed ships that could attack trading vessels and/or smuggle Arlian goods to other ports avoiding Empire taxation.