Huge props to Soul Tomato for making this video, it was an absolute pleasure working with him and I hope we can do some more collaborating in the future! 🍅
Fun fact: "Sons of the Lightning" refers to the Barcid dynasty, founded by Hamilcar Barca and his sons Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago (who, I would assume, don't die in wars against Rome in this timeline hahaha)... the name "Barca" literally means "lightning bolt" so these guys were *literally* the Lightning family... obviously the Romans were going to lose, they never stood a chance against General Lightning
The translation of the name is really interesting, I think it stayed the same in most Semitic languages and phenation ones, as the Arabic word for lightning is "Barq".
As the city of Rome burnt to a crisp, its earth salted and its people enslaved by pirates and mercenaries. Hannibal was said to utter these words: “Kachow!”
@@wiel5908 He was a Roman senator who (after nearing the end of a speech) would finish it off with, "and I firmly believe that Carthage must be destroyed!", in latin being, 'Carthago delenda est!'
I can never hear Flavor Cats - Age of Mythology without thinking of mighty, Settra. Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great Unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds The Sceptre, Great Hawk Of The Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra's Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Scion of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer off Reddittras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emperor of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the Eternal Necropolis, Herald of all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Wakers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God's Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek's Lands, Breaker of Djaf's Bonds... and many, many more... And about a certain man whoms pancreas doesn't work.
Ancient Mediterranean history has always fascinated me, especially North Africa and the Levant. However, because I am from Romania, I do want to check out what happens in that region once the mod is going to be released (If there are a couple Dacian provinces in the Carpathians that somehow managed to retain their culture despite multiple migrations, that would overjoy me).
Hey there! You'll be glad to know that the Dacian culture survives in a few pockets, plus we also have the fictional 'Zmievan' culture, which is a Daco-Slavic melting pot culture :)
@@Super7700-SotL I think i'll be in love with the mod when it comes out, not only because i'm a hopeless larper but also because the general detail from what showcases are public eclipse most other mods out there. I await the mod's release eagerly.
@@dennishogan5696 haha well this is very much not that also I DO like making those but if that was all I did that wouldn’t be fun for viewers i don’t think.
You certainly got me interested in this mod. Your storytelling/explanation of this world was excellent. This Mod reminds me of the recently released Mod for EU4, Post Finem. Thank you for this preview and I hope you have a GREAT rest of your day!
I know this would blow up most people’s PCs but a mod I really want is the full map with the Americas. Imagine building an American tribal empire or building a kingdom in Greenland before the Vikings come
Yeah already I’m spotting several problems. Like if the Roman’s were checked by Carthage in the early 190’s bc then that means the Roman’s never interfered with Greece, which means that Antiochus the great, united Alexander’s empire, which means that even if Parthia did rise, they would have been taken down by the Seleucids, but even if by some miracle they did win, they’d still only been relegated to the eastern provinces which means Jesus would have been under Hellenic controlled Judea. This also means that the other Hellenic dynasties would have been killed off before being able to rise any further, like Mithridates ancestors and the antigonids. The only 1 I see surviving is Egypt with Carthages help and maybe southern Greece, ( kingdom of Hellas in ck3) which would be under Ptolemaic rule, i say this because Hannibal was famously a Philhelene, which basically means Greek lover or Heelenic over,( he lived their culture) so he’d brocket some type of peace in that world since Carthage is now an invested super power in the west. Now idk how the Visigoths and other Germans got so far south in Europe, they’d have to pass through several hostile Gaulic tribes that gave even the Roman’s and Carthaginians Trouble
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! We actually put a fair amount of thought into the situation among the Hellenistic kingdoms, here’s my reasoning for doing things the way we have: - Without Roman intervention it's plausible that Ptolemaic Egypt would have actually collapsed sooner. According to Polybius there were plans by Antiochus III and Philip V to partition the Ptolemaic Empire during the reign of the child king Ptolemy Epiphanes, but these were scuppered by the Romans. Antiochus and Philip were both shrewd and ambitious rulers and I think it’s quite likely they would have succeeded in their plans. Don’t forget that a few decades later, Antiochus IV almost succeeded in taking Alexandria and was only stopped with the threat of Roman intervention. - You’re correct that the Seleucids would have initially benefited from not having to fight Rome, but their large empire was seriously prone to both native rebellions and dynastic infighting. Sure the Seleucids might beat the Parthians in a 1v1, but it’s more likely that they’d have to withdraw and accept an unfavourable peace treaty because the Medes have rebelled again, or the king has been assassinated by his brother, or the strategos of Ionia wants independence. Even without Rome bothering them I’d give the Seleucid empire another century of survival, at best. - Carthage would be powerful for sure, but I don’t think they would be able to exert the same degree of soft power as Rome, certainly not enough to dictate a peace in the eastern Mediterranean. - In terms of the Gallic and Germanic tribes, there’s so many factors at play it’s very difficult to say whether a particular outcome is realistic or not. In particular, I think the success of the Germanic/Gothic tribes hinges on whether the Gallic tribes are able to unite in defence against a threat, which in turn is fairly unpredictable given that it may change depending on inter-tribal dynamics and the various personalities in charge of the tribes.
@@Super7700-SotL in regards to the Egyptian, you’ve just helped prove my point that the seluecids would be too dog. But I gave the Ptolemaic empire a shot of life because it is commercially and intellectually valuable for the Carthaginians to keep them around and also to make sure that the Seleucids don’t border them directly and realize Alexanders ambition of going to Carthage and then Rome. 2 in regards to the Seleucid infighting, that only happened in our timeline after severe setbacks with outside forces. Plus the seleucids were well known for not batting an eye when it came to killing rebellious sons, the reason for the Fractures in our timeline was because any person with the last name Seleucus had a shot if becoming king since no one among them had enough prestige to keep them at bay. If Antiochus succeeded as I said, he’d be that person. Even the Argeads with Alexander constantly fought each other in civil wars, until there was someone with so much success and prestige that no one dared. (In our world it was Phillip, who even though had a living nephew of his older brother around and who he himself was an ex king, he didn’t have enough prestige to challenge Phillip, nor did he want to, and then it was Alexander) in this world Antiochus would take the role of Phillip, becoming a star builder, and his son would take the role of Alexander, expanding and holding the empire. This is a sure thing because there was literally no one left strong enough to stop them. 3 Mithridates and his dynasty would not have survived long enough to accomplish this even if Antiochus and his heirs did slpinter the empire to pieces, Antiochus himself would have gone after them, right after dealing with Perfamon in my option because of historical grudges, he would have exterminated the males and taken the daughters as wives for his sons and grandsons. Same thing with the Antigonids, the Greeks did not screw around when it came to that stuff, Kassandre was bold enough to murder Alexander’s own sons, if they weren’t safe, no one was. 4 even if the Parthian’s had every best case Scenario go there way, there’s no way Mithridates would have let them get that far west if he did survive like in your alt world, literally every Hellenistic ruler wanted to be Alexander or create what he had, especially Mithridates, there’s no way he pulls have let Seleucid Syria fall into Barbarian hands, especially not since he was literally right next to it and his cause in real life was to unite the Greeks. Also in regards to the Germanic migrations yes there are many factors especially in Gaul, but there in lies the problem, you accounted for the travel of the Germans going into Iberia but you didn’t realistically portray the trouble they’d have settling it, not only would they lose numbers when encountering every single Gaulic tribe on there way there, but they would then arrive in Iberia with way less people and have to fight of the natives of the land who had better terrain Knowledge, local alliances and the inhospitable geography of Spain, the Roman’s took over very 100 years to conquer Iberia and Noted along with the Carthaginians of how unruly the land and its people are. It’s a miracle they were able to take it over in our timeline and they were Rome, these are just Some migrating Germans, their chances are way lower, and even in our timeline, once the Suevi went to northwest Iberia, the Roman’s had such a hard time rooting the out they had to rely on the Visigoths, who didn’t even finish the Job 100% I think what you did is cool, but I think that you maybe gave some factions too much plot armour in a way, especially considering that many real life factors seem like they’ve been Taken out of play
@@billychops1280 You make some fair points, and what you're suggesting here could certainly make for a neat alt-history timeline. In the end of the day though, because there's too many unknowns and possible curveballs my approach has never been to figure out the most likely outcome, but rather to create something that's fun and at least somewhat plausible. Even if it's not the approach you would have taken, I'd like to think what we've come up with can still be interesting and engaging, but honestly I think there is always going to be a degree of personal preference when it comes to alt-history.
@@Super7700-SotL I get what you’re saying. And if it were up to me the Aegean’s would have somehow survived and reunited the Hellenic world. That’s my alternate/fantasy timeline. The timeline I suggested is what is most historically plausible, not what I would personally like to see, but u do u
16:30 That's a Sassanian Zoroastrian coin. Parthian treatment of the Jewish people was basically second to none as they were extremely tolerant towards them mimicking their Achaemenid forbears. The timeline of the mod would make much more sense if it was the intolerant Seleucids that burn the Second Temple as it was the Seleucid Empire that triggered the Maccabean Revolt that gives the Jewish people the holiday of Hanukkah. Also it does not make much sense that the Sassanians would be defeated by the Caliphate, as during our time the main reason for Islam's rapid expansion was the last Persian-Roman war which devastated and exhausted both empires. Only Rome was able to prevent Sassanian expansion west, and without Rome and her vast empire in the way, Pontus probably would not be able to withstand Eranshahr's martial prowess. Unless of course Carthage and Pontus allied to curtail such an enemy and that final war they fought devastated all three states completely which would cause the Carthaginian Empire's collapse and Pontus and Eranshahr to lose to the new Caliphate. But that's just my two cents for the historical possibilities for such a vast change in the timeline. Regardless, everything else seems thrilling to explore!
@@Aq_3 from the map and some mission tree descriptions, its basically that not only Carthage won but the Diadochi states remain intact, even Seleucids staying in power and defeating the Parthians. Thus, the Diadochi basically become the most centralized states outside of Carthage and basically keep the Hellenic status quo for a centuries.
Post Finem is mostly gameplay focused, using mechanics from DLC's for some interesting nations. I mean the Theodokus Christian Caliphate is one of the most unique nations along with Macedonia's war mongering mechanic and Italia HRE.
11:32 this makes no sense, The Seleucids were not really well seen by the Jews for the maccabei revolt, the parthians would have likely restablish the same relationship with the Achaemenid empire, I know you struggle to fit Christianity but this doesn't make sense. I like the mod still.
@@Soul_Tomato I see last time I did so I was banned from an EU4 discord server one for questioning and understanding a lore so it's better to do not, too I can understand their reasons in this situasion
On like day 1 of the Discord going public I was in it trying to influence the mod to have a greater divergence with Christianity and Islam. Seems like the devs have gone a different direction especially with Islam seemingly completely identical to OTL which is pretty disappointing. Still I'll try the mod, I'll just mourn what could have been.
Hey there, the lore for Christianity and Islam is still being worked on and still keen to hear people's suggestions. A lot of things regarding Islam especially are still up in the air, which is why there isn't a huge amount of time spent on it in the video. I think the challenge is, a lot of the feedback we get is essentially "don't do it this way" which is difficult to do anything with. We're a lot more likely to take a suggestion on board if it's concrete and actionable - if you think Islam should diverge more for instance, it would be useful to know how you think we could go about it.
Not to be negative, it’s a great mod, but I will always think it’s such a missed opportunity to actually make a unique timeline, so many events occur to Carthage the same way they would to Rome
This is great, the only think i dislike is the existence of christianity and islam, sorry but without rome there is no christianity (Even if Jesus was a historical figure that i very doubt) and without christianity ther eis not islam. I would like that Tanith mixed with Isis and other regional Goddess to eventually become a henotheistic religion.
This might be the first alt history mod for ck3, there's alot of fantasy but i don't think I've actually ever seen something like this for ck3 which is strange because for similar games like hoi4 this is normal
I would assume the release would be within the next month or so. They have a good bit of content ready already so it won’t be terribly long I don’t think.
Not yet, it may come down to how quickly we can get the mod working with Roads to Power. I don't think I'll release it before the update since it will probably break save games.
@@Soul_Tomato I mean it's still good I'm being nitpicky over the way alternate history is done usually. Stuff like there needing to be Christianity and Islam and a Papacy, needing to be raided by Vandals and Visigoths, etc etc etc. And even then, it seems to be doing that well. Ends up being more of a preference thing, didn't really intend to imply it was low quality or that they shouldn't be making it or something.
@@alphasword5541 you would probably prefer Post Finem for EU4 so, or at least that setting (I feel like Post Finem's problem instead is that it would make more sense as a CK start than EU, history was too static)
@@alphasword5541 That's fair enough, I think we all have our own preferences for how we'd like alt-history to be handled. In the case of this mod, our reasoning for preserving Christianity and Islam is as follows: i) It makes the mod feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read a whole bunch of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on. ii) In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions. iii) From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content. As for the Germanic migrations, it kinda just fell into place that way when I started working on the mod. I've found that in some cases following the historical outcome has provided a clearer framework with which we can better visualise the world and start looking at interesting melting pots and aesthetics.
If i had a nickel for every time someone made a mod for a paradox game about carthage winning the punic wars id have 2 nickels, which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice
Seems like a lot of hand waving to shoe horn in Christianity to this mod, without Rome it's likely the Seleucid Empire would be able to hold it's own at least somewhat against the Parthians and even if they did still conquered the Levant the Parthians were pretty well known for their religious tolerance even more so that the later Sassanids it's unlikely they would have executed Christ. Thats my only complaint otherwise it seems like a solid mod *Response as an edit because our corporate overlords hate me:* I'm not a Christian so I'll just trust you on the religious end of things but historically i still don't really see it. It'd also have been nicer to potentially see other religions go mainstream in Europe instead of what I feel is shoe horned Christianity. With the Parthians making so far west as the Levant that could open up a world of religions gaining access to the west such as Zoroastrianism or even Buddhism. That or even see some native religions spread and reform in similar matters to the origins of Hinduism or Zoroastrianism, a big candidate for this could be the Dacian Zalmoxism or further reforms with Mithranism.
Well if it went the same way it did for Jesus in the Bible it would TECHNICALLY just be the Parthians bowing to the whims of local Jewish elite who wanted him dead.
@@Soul_TomatoI mean I'm not a Christian, so I'll just trust you in that regard but historically I just don't see it. Personally it'd be more interesting other religions possibly gain traction in Europe as opposed to what I feel like is shoe horned Christianity. Like if the Parthians made it that far West there could be real potential for Zoroastrianism or even potentially Buddhism to spread and become mainstream in Europe. Not to mention the potential for reformation of native pagan faiths akin to Hinduism or Zoroastrianism, maybe in regards to Zalmoxism or some other pagan spirituality.
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! I made the decision to keep Christianity (and Islam) very early in development - the emblem itself is actually a nod to a hypothetical Punic-Visigothic-Christian syncretism. Putting aside historical or theological arguments of whether or not it would have emerged regardless, Here's my reasoning: 1. It makes the mod feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read a whole bunch of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on. 2. In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions. 3. From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content.
@@chaosmorris5865 We do actually have some reformed pagan faiths around the Black Sea based on the varying historical cults of the Theos Hypsistos. Christianity in Sons of the Lightning is more prevalent in Africa but much less in Europe.
Magyars start in a similar location to the vanilla 867 bookmark, but I've also added the Savard Hungarians in the eastern Caucasus if you'd like to take the Magyars on a southward journey instead...
If in this timeline Carthage rose to prominence after the First Punic War, rather than the more pivotal Second, how did Hannibal and the Barcid dynasty rise to prominence?
The Barcid family were the main generals in the first Punic war - see Hamilcar. I assume his son, Hannibal, was the one conquering land after their victory. There’s also no telling Rome didn’t attempt more than one war. That was a bit unclear to me as well.
Hey there! I think there's still a decent possibility of the Barcids campaigning in Iberia after the First Punic War, and perhaps they got involved in future punitive expeditions against the Romans. A lot of the lore surrounding the this decades after the POD is still fairly vague, in part because I've tended to prefer focusing my efforts on the situation in 867 and working backwards.
The cool thing about Carthage is that the golden bull worship in the Old Testament is likely related to the cult of Baal which was still worshiped in Carthage during the Punic wars. Likely the 2 religions are related or share some sort of cultural exchange and trade during the time the bible was being written for the first time.
I am no master in history, but without the Roman empire, would that not mean that the Franks and Goths are never converted to Catholicism ? Rome would obviously never conquer England so it stays under Viking control. Vikings in general probably looking at most of Northern Europe as if it is free real estate, seeing as there wouldn't be many big empires to contend with?
Britain would probably be under Celtic control at the first start, not Viking. Unless the Viking invasions happened early for whatever reason. Can’t speak on the franks. A lot of the lore for that area isn’t solidified yet. As for the goths, they converted in Iberia but whose to say elsewhere.
It feels like they just switched the Roman empire with Carthage. And is Jesus being crucified, the visgoths invading Iberia, the destruction of the second temple, and the Jewish revolt are just cannon events or something? I think it is too similar to our universe in ways it shouldn't.
Yes and no. •Carthage acts much less imperialistically than Rome for one, which was stated at least 5 times throughout the video. •Jesus being crucified (idk why people are so pressed about this one) was a choice to give people a basis of familiarity in the world, per the devs. •Alaric’s Visigoths were invited to Iberia to aid the Barcid ran Hisfanics from a Germanic invasion in this timeline, they themselves didn’t invade.
@Soul_Tomato Wow, you answered really quickly 😮 The main issue with the crucifixion is that it was a Roman form of execution, and I don't think parthians ever practiced it. I think the visgoths coming to power in Iberia is ok, if a little similar to our own timeline. The parthians acting the same way as the Romans in Judea is more unlikely though.
The crucifix is a good point. The symbol should have probably changed to something else to reflect a different form of Christianity or means of his execution.
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! In the end of the day I'd like to think it's a matter of personal preference - personally my goal has been create something that's "familiar, but new", and as such I've been willing to accept a degree of determinism, especially with Christianity and Islam, in order to provide some familiarity but also some opportunities for interesting melting pots, syncretism etc. From a development perspective it also saves a lot of headaches as we can focus our energy on creating new content rather than having to scrap or completely repurpose large portions of vanilla. In the end of the day, my goal hasn't been to come up with the most likely or wacky outcome, but rather to create something that's plausible but still accessible. A lot of the alt-history in SOTL is instead presented in the finer details, e.g. the name-lists for melting pot cultures which blend languages and orthographies, or the faith emblems and coats of arms which blend different art styles and hint at local traditions.
@@TheOneCalledSloth I mean I feel like it is fine to have those if you believe in some sort of religion. After all, it would be predetermined then that it would happen. They did a great job at making alternative christian sects, even if the descriptions arent really descriptive about their theology.
I would say, it's too early to talk about the mod, if it isn't yet available on Steam. However, I would say it's not much different than various mods which randomize and fracture the map (like More Game Rules, AGOT has it's own version too, etc.): since it begins in 867, uses only vanilla assets, and is an alternative history mod, it doesn't introduce much new into the game. Also, it's not familiar or relatable to the players: we play in vanilla because it's our history and we know the rulers, kingdoms and empires in our history, we play total conversions like AGOT or Realms in Exile because they are based on well-known popular IPs (I know that you're a proponent of Godherja, but it has 5x less subscribers than AGOT), and this mod doesn't have that familiarity, besides geography. So, at this point I wouldn't even install that mod to check it out. I also do not agree with the simplistic way they treat the alternative history: they essentially assumed that everything went exactly like in our history, but there was no Rome. It's not that simple. Everything in the history is interconnected, if there was no Roman Empire, most of the institutions, satellite states, cultural and technological inventions, and so on, wouldn't exist. I doubt even Christianity would exist (yeah, Parthians had never interfered with local cults, no way they would crucify Jesus, if he was even born; if they ever conquered Palestine that is), and if existed, it wouldn't spread (since it spread thanks to the Roman Empire and within its territories, it found only very limited popularity outside). Also part of Jewish identity was based on their resistance against Romans, that religion and culture would be completely different. All European states exist only thanks to Rome, where there was no Rome, there was no statehood until sometimes the 10th c. CE or later (existence of the states in Western Europe was through a process known as a secondary state formation, there is no Rome, no secondary states from Balkans to Iberia and Britain). It's butterfly effect, you change one thing, the entire world would change.
Hey there, thank you for your feedback! I think it might be useful if I could give you a bit more context on the mod and our approach. This is a fairly new project, and we've only got a small team, so of course there won't be the sheer amount of content that you're used to from CK3's major mods. And given that this isn't an established IP, it's more difficult for us to attract experienced programmers and artists so we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve. If I'd decided to do this on a new map, gone crazy with the butterfly effect and radically changed the religions and cultures present, there's unfortunately no way this would even get close to a releasable state. Even with our "simplistic" changes there's a significant amount of work required: - Devising plausible plans for every region and its history, cultures, faiths, realms, de jure setup. - Every new faith needs to have an icon, flavour description, deity list, holy sites, doctrines and tenets. From there, there's usually base game content and behind-the-scenes code that needs to be updated to account for the existence of these new faiths. So far we've got about 20 faiths fully implemented and another 20+ partially done. - Every new culture needs traditions, pillars and a name-list. Name-lists are particularly time consuming: in some cases we have to figure out alternative orthographies for a language in order to remove Latin or another inappropriate influences. So far, we've added more than 80 cultures, 7000+ personal names and 1500+ dynasty names. - Hundreds of title names will have to be changed because so many toponyms in Europe and around the Mediterranean derive from Latin or a Romance language. Sometimes, finding an appropriate toponym takes a fair bit of digging through maps, academic journals etc. - There's obviously a lot of flavour content in the game referencing Rome or other things that don't make sense in our timeline, so this all has to be adapted or removed. I accept that the mod, at least in its initial form, won't have lots of new features and for some people that will be disappointing. However, I would much rather make fewer changes that meaningfully affect the gameplay experience and are implemented well, than tack on a bunch of half-baked mechanics which end up just getting ignored. Another thing worth noting, is that we've never been interested in predicting the most realistic outcome of this alternate timeline, as there's simply way too many factors at play. Instead, we've taken an approach balancing several factors including familiarity, plausibility, practicality, and what we think is interesting. Keeping Christianity around for instance gives us room to play around with interesting heresies and syncretic sects, saves us a lot of coding and art headaches, makes the world a little more familiar, and probably still could be reasonably explained - maybe the Parthian governor sanctioned the crucifixion to avoid an uprising?
@@Super7700-SotL First, kudos that you’ve even answered to my harsh comment, and you do not seem offended, at least officially 😉 Obviously, I cannot tell you how to develop things, so if some decisions are caused by the development issues, I guess you cannot do much about that. I can only say that you can definitely reuse other people’s work: usually modders do not mind it, and are often friendly if asked for a permission. For religions and regional flavor, I would definitely contact the guy who is making RICE and VIET, from my occasional contacts with him he is very friendly, and he is already closely working with two big mods, The Fallen Eagle, and Rajas of Asia. He has lots of religions you surely could reuse, since he covers the same areas, also cultures, traditions, as well as regional struggles you can edit to make your own. I suppose, The Fallen Eagle team maybe also will be able to help you, since there is a lot of overlap. As for your historical decisions I have more to say, since I have more knowledge about that topic. As for keeping Christianity, and, by extension, Islam: in effect you’re mimicking vanilla, where two dominant religions in Europe and Western Asia/North Africa are Christianity and Islam. Why I understand the reason to leave it for some familiarity effect, as a result you’re just giving slightly new flavor or name to what already is present on vanilla map, not offering much new, but at the same time wasting opportunity of keeping some more interesting religions those two replaced. Also, you make a player to fall into familiar way of playing with Holy Wars, which is usually a shortcut to quick conquest. For example, the process by which Carthage was Christianized while not being present in the Levant and Palestine, and having no real reason to do so, requires some mental gymnastics. On the other hand, the original Phoenician religion is very interesting and controversial: e.g., the practice of sacrificing infants and small children they were practicing introduces some points of conflict between Carthaginians and their neighbors. Also potentially introduces some dark side of that civilization, which is not present when you convert everybody to Christianity. Similarly for Islam: you eliminate other interesting religions by covering the map with Islam like it is in vanilla, especially from Western Asia (I understand you didn’t make eastern Iran Muslim?); for example, RICE has some of these religions in the mod. At least, I would consider removing Holy Wars from the game, like they did in AGOT, since that practice is really late, is only in game to reflect Crusades really, and it can be easily explained, that it didn’t develop in your reality. E.g., the fact they have it in The Fallen Eagle doesn’t make much sense, because there were no holy wars before at least Islam (and early Islam didn’t force anybody to convert, maybe even up to Seljuks, so were they really holy wars?). That would also introduce some additional difficulties for players and would slow their progress. Same for Mithraism in Rome. Mithraism developed among Roman legionnaires in Asia Minor, and historians of religion do not consider it now as an offshoot of Iranian religion, since besides the name of the god, there are really not many similarities between Iranian traditions and Mithraism. Since there were no Roman legions in Asia Minor in your reality, there should be no Mithraism. Also, Mithraism was exclusively the religion for men, women didn’t follow that religion. That’s impossible to do in CK3 I think. Roman women rather followed a Hellenized version of the cult of Isis, and its spread in your reality would be more understandable, since it didn’t spread through legionnaires, and cults of mother goddesses were always popular. Same for the cult of Kybele. As for the Pontic Empire, I would say Mithridates VI wouldn’t do what he was doing as not for Rome, most of his wars were aimed at removing Roman influence from Asia Minor, but okay. Still, making his capital in Byzantium doesn’t really make sense, and what it does it only makes a replacement for the Byzantine Empire, which only has a different name, covering the same area and having the same capital (its also red on your map, I think? lol). Also, if you have Pontic Empire, you should have Armenian Empire established by Tigranes the Great (both were destroyed by Romans, and since there are no Romans…). This brings me to the Parthians. Parthians didn’t practice administrative government, so in most cases they didn’t have governors (I cannot think of a single case of Parthian “governor” from the top of my head). The land was divided among extremely powerful noble families and local dynasts (you can call them all local dynasts really, since they functioned as such). Those dynasts were semi-autonomous, they had their own armies, they waged wars independently, and sometimes their loyalty towards the Parthian king was only formal. This is well reflected in The Fallen Eagle, since Sasanians inherited that system (although, admittedly, they did a better job keeping it together). Very similar system was in both, Pontic Empire of Mithridates VI, and in the empire of his neighbor, Tigranes the Great (they only subjugated local rulers, they haven’t removed them in most cases). What brings me to the problem of Jesus. In case of Judea, Parthians would leave Hasmonaean dynasty in place, they would only subjugate them. So, if any religious conflicts arose, these would be internal conflicts within Judaism, Parthians wouldn’t care at all. Also, since there were no Romans, Jesus wouldn’t be crucified. I would say he wouldn’t be killed at all, not for a religious disagreement, since Judaism had a lot of sects during that time. If you want to kill him that much, I don’t know what punishments Hasmoneans practiced, in Middle East he would be most likely impaled, after cutting off his nose and ears, possibly. But on the other hand, Jesus alive and well, living up to the old age, would change the history of Christianity tremendously, and maybe would make it more limited (since only Paul was supporting spreading it to non-Jews), as well more peaceful (no Holy Wars then). Catholic Church justified a lot of its aggression by early “conflicts” with the Jews who “betrayed” Jesus, and by martyrdom (about which below), if that didn’t happen, it would be definitely more calm religion. Good example of religious policy by Parthians is Adiabene, which was under Parthian rule: during Parthian period they rebuilt temple of Ashur (Assor during that time) in Ashur, and practiced cult of old Assyrian gods. Parthians didn’t care. Also, thanks to that Adiabene was one of early places were Christianity spread. Only Sasanians changed policy regarding “pagan” cults and Christians, but not for long either. There are Christian bishops on Sasanian court in later period. The whole Christian martyrdom is mostly invented, in most cases didn’t exist either in Rome or in Sasanian Iran, as shown for example by Candida Moss (now University of Birmingham) who debunked the whole martyrdom tradition of early Christianity. If you accept that, that would make Christianity much less militant. In general then, I think rethinking your Christianity-centric world building would make your world more diverse, and wouldn’t make players fall into the usual habits.
@@ShayGamerD3 Sorry for the late reply, and thank you for your detailed response - I appreciate the thought you've put into it! I’m not offended, I think we just have essentially different ideas on how we’d want to approach an alternate history. Personally, I don't believe there's a right or wrong approach since it's all speculative anyway, but rather it depends on what interests us, what stories we want to tell and what sort of gameplay experience we want to provide. What one person might consider super fascinating might be a wasted opportunity for someone else. So I think it's important to keep that in mind when offering feedback. Regarding working with other mods, for sure that's something we're open to and honestly I probably should be more proactive about it, so thank you for the reminder! One thing I should clarify is that a lot of faiths historically displaced by Christianity still exist in the mod, so it isn't quite a case of there being two mutually exclusive approaches. While we do have Christianity, we also have Punicised pagan faiths, Druidism, remnants of Arab paganism, Hellenistic henotheistic cults based on Theos Hypsistos, Kushite/Kemetic religions and so on. I never intended for the mod to be Christian-centric, it just so happens that the regions the video focuses on are mainly Christian. In the Discord there's a document where we've drafted a list of faiths which might interest you, and hopefully it shows that we've put considerable thought into non-Christian faiths. You raise a fair point about holy wars, though I think if we were to remove them for some/all faiths we'd want to come up with a mechanic to compensate (wouldn't have to be related to conflict, just something to ensure there isn't a net loss of content). In the case of Mithraism, it all kind of fell into place when we started conceptualising Rome becoming a mercenary state - their military service across the Mediterranean would lead to various cults being imported to Rome. Rome's fascination with eastern mystery cults in particular made Mithraism an appealing choice for us. That being said, it's not going to be a carbon copy of historical Mithraism. Regarding Pontus, it's also not just a copy of the Byzantines though it's certainly one of our influences. In 867, they're a rump state that only holds onto some of the Black Sea coast, as they lost Byzantium and most of their Balkan & Anatolian holdings during the Arab campaigns. Imo, I think it's pretty reasonable that Byzantium would become a major city in any timeline given its strategic location. Regarding your points on Parthia and Jesus, I am certainly opening to revising some of the details - Parthia doesn't have to be the culprit behind the crucifixion, maybe it could be a Hellenistic rump state in the area, or a tributary. However there are some things that will remain as is for practical reasons. The crucifixion will still happen because a lot of the art I've already made for the mod (including the main logo), have some form of cross symbolism, not to mention all the art from the base game. Besides, crucifixion was also practiced by the Hellenistic Greeks so I don't think it's completely far fetched. In the end of the day, a lot of what you're saying is valid and we can definitely take some of it on board, but for better or for worse we've decided on a vision that simply might not align with your own expectations from an alt-history mod.
Seeing this makes me want to play as a populist roman landless adventurer, obtain wealth and glory abroad as a mercenary and then return to Rome as a conqueror.
We've got a handful of Jewish rulers in Mauretania and Iberia, and Judaism has left a sizeable imprint on the Christian faiths present in Morocco and Ethiopia :)
Having the second temple still being destroyed in this timeline is a huge waste. You can do so much with the competing (but still officially united) sects of temple judaism. Second temple judaism also had mandatory pilgrimages (a fun doctrine that not enough faiths use in-game).
Hey there, I certainly get that it's one of the more controversial parts of our premise, but we made the decision early on to treat Christianity (and Islam) with a degree of determinism for the following reasons: - It helps to make the world feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read pages of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on. - In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions and heresies. - From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content.
ngl this is ass why do so many names come from latin even though it never became a dominant language and carthage expanding around the mediterranean is baffling given they tried (and failed to) to conquer sicily for hundreds of years. christianity would most probably not have existed and DEFINITELY not spread like it did. aside those and tens of other things i could nitpick on it pisses me off that big historical events still happened mainly like they did and rome just gets switched for carthage (which would not happen)
I do not believe for one second that Christianity would even exist without the Roman Empire. Why is it just assumed that Jesus would even still be a prophet, let alone be crucified?
@@Soul_Tomato But in the Bible his rise to prominence only comes out of the unique social conditions born out of Roman rule of Judea. And many of those conditions were very specific to clashes between aspects of Roman and Hebrew culture and religion. And if this is supposed to be a well thought out alt-history mod, then this seems like a silly oversight.
Huge props to Soul Tomato for making this video, it was an absolute pleasure working with him and I hope we can do some more collaborating in the future! 🍅
I cant wait for mod it looks so interesting
my anxiety can't handle waiting for this
@@OUTLAW1345 Thank you so much - we look forward to sharing it with you all!
GLORY TO CARTHAGE!
Chewbert, take notes. THIS is what alt hist looks like.
When they talk about honour and loyalty so you hit them with that mercenary stare
Money talks and we listen...🤑
"User Niccolo Machiavelli disliked your comment"
"We fight to the death" uhhh
Honour and loyalty are just fictions told to us so we die for rich assholes, might aswell be the rich assholes instead
Hannibal: "Oh, I gotta tell you, it was perfect. Perfect. Everything, down to the last minute details."
"I love it when a plan comes together!"
@@Elyseon "Same here."
Fun fact: "Sons of the Lightning" refers to the Barcid dynasty, founded by Hamilcar Barca and his sons Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago (who, I would assume, don't die in wars against Rome in this timeline hahaha)... the name "Barca" literally means "lightning bolt" so these guys were *literally* the Lightning family... obviously the Romans were going to lose, they never stood a chance against General Lightning
The translation of the name is really interesting, I think it stayed the same in most Semitic languages and phenation ones, as the Arabic word for lightning is "Barq".
@@aliahmedwadi5849same for Hebrew
As the city of Rome burnt to a crisp, its earth salted and its people enslaved by pirates and mercenaries. Hannibal was said to utter these words: “Kachow!”
@@aliahmedwadi5849”Barca” is the Latin translation. The original Phoenician word was something like “Baraq”, which is even closer.
Sounds like the perfect mod to form Rome in
Romano delenda est
@@Soul_Tomato Centurion John Cleese: "Right! Wot's this then?"
Soul: "It says 'Romans go home'!"
Centurion Cleese: "No it doesn't."
@@JimRFF Biggus Dickus needs to teach theres Carthiginians a thing or two about manners
Paradox Game: Exists.
Paradox Player: But can we form Rome in it?
Cato the Elder: *internal screeching*
“Seethe and take this L old man.” - Carthage probably
@@Soul_Tomato Rome be like: 😵
who?
@@wiel5908 He was a Roman senator who (after nearing the end of a speech) would finish it off with, "and I firmly believe that Carthage must be destroyed!", in latin being, 'Carthago delenda est!'
@@SirBoggins i know, i meant the fact that in this world, he prob wasnt that relevant so that's why i said who
I can never hear Flavor Cats - Age of Mythology without thinking of mighty, Settra. Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great Unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds The Sceptre, Great Hawk Of The Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra's Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Scion of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer off Reddittras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emperor of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the Eternal Necropolis, Herald of all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Wakers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God's Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek's Lands, Breaker of Djaf's Bonds... and many, many more...
And about a certain man whoms pancreas doesn't work.
Love that channel and this comment with all his proper titles
And modest, too...
Love to see the mention of the Mithraic Schism between the plebeians and the patricians!
Of course! It’s crucial.
Carthage has fallen... Billions must sacrifice babies....
Carthage will rise again
It's Romever
They probably didnt
Cvrthvgv brvs... vt's nvt vvvr yvt...
@@ortan123They definitely did, we have loads of archaeological remains
Im gonna play this mode which is built on the idea of Carthaginian Empire, just to form Roman Empire for the 1254986th time
Gross. I’m gonna be an abbot in my little desert monetary and stack mad cash.
Salt may have been poured upon the banks of the Tiber, but Carthage shall make good use of Roman minds for better farmhands and galley thralls.
I wish their were more mods like this in ck3. Its so cool!
Maybe in time!
@@Soul_Tomato I hope so
We love our alt history
And what better vehicle for it than CK3
I love this kind of alternative history
So excited!
Me too! :)
Wow this mod seems amazing, definitely going to play it when it releases
“The elite wanted to create a ‘Greater Carthage’.”
Oh that can’t be good 😰
Lol me literally when I read it in the docs the first time
Love these mod breakdown videos. Keep up the great work Soul!
Of course! They’re taxing but very rewarding too.
Very cool that someone made my childhood fanfics into a total conversion mod.
You could always make your dream come true and contribute further to the mod itself
Ancient Mediterranean history has always fascinated me, especially North Africa and the Levant. However, because I am from Romania, I do want to check out what happens in that region once the mod is going to be released (If there are a couple Dacian provinces in the Carpathians that somehow managed to retain their culture despite multiple migrations, that would overjoy me).
Sounds good!
Hey there! You'll be glad to know that the Dacian culture survives in a few pockets, plus we also have the fictional 'Zmievan' culture, which is a Daco-Slavic melting pot culture :)
@@Super7700-SotL I think i'll be in love with the mod when it comes out, not only because i'm a hopeless larper but also because the general detail from what showcases are public eclipse most other mods out there. I await the mod's release eagerly.
I know it’s not your favorite topic to make but I appreciate the videos you make on mods.
Huh. No I love making these haha
Sorry I thought I remember you in a video saying you don’t want to just make interesting Star videos for mods all the time
@@dennishogan5696 haha well this is very much not that also I DO like making those but if that was all I did that wouldn’t be fun for viewers i don’t think.
The Age of Mythology Egyptian theme in the background still hits so hard
You certainly got me interested in this mod. Your storytelling/explanation of this world was excellent.
This Mod reminds me of the recently released Mod for EU4, Post Finem.
Thank you for this preview and I hope you have a GREAT rest of your day!
Thank you my friend, you as well
Mfw I download just to be Roman in it and reconquer Rome
Romano delenda est
Think about it, this is the world we would live in if those elephants didn’t run into Hannibal’s cavalry at Zama
Y’all I love alternate history mods for CK3. Thank you.
This will be an amazing timeline to travel through in the new update.
Agreed
I nearly forgot about this. Can’t wait for it to come out.
Damn, alt history sure can be awesome
Hell yeah it can
this looks so cool! im so excited for the first version of this to release
Me too! :)
I know this would blow up most people’s PCs but a mod I really want is the full map with the Americas. Imagine building an American tribal empire or building a kingdom in Greenland before the Vikings come
Oh god the CPU would erupt
At least there's the Americas mod (starting with Mesoamerica)
Man I redownloaded ck3 for this before realizing they weren’t out yet😭
Sorry my friend
looks awesome im hyped to play the mod when it comes out
Hopefully soon!
This looks far more interesting than Post Finem
I couldn’t say but I’m glad you liked it!
Yeah already I’m spotting several problems. Like if the Roman’s were checked by Carthage in the early 190’s bc then that means the Roman’s never interfered with Greece, which means that Antiochus the great, united Alexander’s empire, which means that even if Parthia did rise, they would have been taken down by the Seleucids, but even if by some miracle they did win, they’d still only been relegated to the eastern provinces which means Jesus would have been under Hellenic controlled Judea. This also means that the other Hellenic dynasties would have been killed off before being able to rise any further, like Mithridates ancestors and the antigonids. The only 1 I see surviving is Egypt with Carthages help and maybe southern Greece, ( kingdom of Hellas in ck3) which would be under Ptolemaic rule, i say this because Hannibal was famously a Philhelene, which basically means Greek lover or Heelenic over,( he lived their culture) so he’d brocket some type of peace in that world since Carthage is now an invested super power in the west. Now idk how the Visigoths and other Germans got so far south in Europe, they’d have to pass through several hostile Gaulic tribes that gave even the Roman’s and Carthaginians Trouble
You’ll have to bring all that up with the devs on the discord. I’m just a video maker.
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! We actually put a fair amount of thought into the situation among the Hellenistic kingdoms, here’s my reasoning for doing things the way we have:
- Without Roman intervention it's plausible that Ptolemaic Egypt would have actually collapsed sooner. According to Polybius there were plans by Antiochus III and Philip V to partition the Ptolemaic Empire during the reign of the child king Ptolemy Epiphanes, but these were scuppered by the Romans. Antiochus and Philip were both shrewd and ambitious rulers and I think it’s quite likely they would have succeeded in their plans. Don’t forget that a few decades later, Antiochus IV almost succeeded in taking Alexandria and was only stopped with the threat of Roman intervention.
- You’re correct that the Seleucids would have initially benefited from not having to fight Rome, but their large empire was seriously prone to both native rebellions and dynastic infighting. Sure the Seleucids might beat the Parthians in a 1v1, but it’s more likely that they’d have to withdraw and accept an unfavourable peace treaty because the Medes have rebelled again, or the king has been assassinated by his brother, or the strategos of Ionia wants independence. Even without Rome bothering them I’d give the Seleucid empire another century of survival, at best.
- Carthage would be powerful for sure, but I don’t think they would be able to exert the same degree of soft power as Rome, certainly not enough to dictate a peace in the eastern Mediterranean.
- In terms of the Gallic and Germanic tribes, there’s so many factors at play it’s very difficult to say whether a particular outcome is realistic or not. In particular, I think the success of the Germanic/Gothic tribes hinges on whether the Gallic tribes are able to unite in defence against a threat, which in turn is fairly unpredictable given that it may change depending on inter-tribal dynamics and the various personalities in charge of the tribes.
@@Super7700-SotL in regards to the Egyptian, you’ve just helped prove my point that the seluecids would be too dog. But I gave the Ptolemaic empire a shot of life because it is commercially and intellectually valuable for the Carthaginians to keep them around and also to make sure that the Seleucids don’t border them directly and realize Alexanders ambition of going to Carthage and then Rome.
2 in regards to the Seleucid infighting, that only happened in our timeline after severe setbacks with outside forces. Plus the seleucids were well known for not batting an eye when it came to killing rebellious sons, the reason for the Fractures in our timeline was because any person with the last name Seleucus had a shot if becoming king since no one among them had enough prestige to keep them at bay. If Antiochus succeeded as I said, he’d be that person. Even the Argeads with Alexander constantly fought each other in civil wars, until there was someone with so much success and prestige that no one dared. (In our world it was Phillip, who even though had a living nephew of his older brother around and who he himself was an ex king, he didn’t have enough prestige to challenge Phillip, nor did he want to, and then it was Alexander) in this world Antiochus would take the role of Phillip, becoming a star builder, and his son would take the role of Alexander, expanding and holding the empire. This is a sure thing because there was literally no one left strong enough to stop them.
3 Mithridates and his dynasty would not have survived long enough to accomplish this even if Antiochus and his heirs did slpinter the empire to pieces, Antiochus himself would have gone after them, right after dealing with Perfamon in my option because of historical grudges, he would have exterminated the males and taken the daughters as wives for his sons and grandsons. Same thing with the Antigonids, the Greeks did not screw around when it came to that stuff, Kassandre was bold enough to murder Alexander’s own sons, if they weren’t safe, no one was.
4 even if the Parthian’s had every best case Scenario go there way, there’s no way Mithridates would have let them get that far west if he did survive like in your alt world, literally every Hellenistic ruler wanted to be Alexander or create what he had, especially Mithridates, there’s no way he pulls have let Seleucid Syria fall into Barbarian hands, especially not since he was literally right next to it and his cause in real life was to unite the Greeks.
Also in regards to the Germanic migrations yes there are many factors especially in Gaul, but there in lies the problem, you accounted for the travel of the Germans going into Iberia but you didn’t realistically portray the trouble they’d have settling it, not only would they lose numbers when encountering every single Gaulic tribe on there way there, but they would then arrive in Iberia with way less people and have to fight of the natives of the land who had better terrain Knowledge, local alliances and the inhospitable geography of Spain, the Roman’s took over very 100 years to conquer Iberia and Noted along with the Carthaginians of how unruly the land and its people are. It’s a miracle they were able to take it over in our timeline and they were Rome, these are just Some migrating Germans, their chances are way lower, and even in our timeline, once the Suevi went to northwest Iberia, the Roman’s had such a hard time rooting the out they had to rely on the Visigoths, who didn’t even finish the Job 100%
I think what you did is cool, but I think that you maybe gave some factions too much plot armour in a way, especially considering that many real life factors seem like they’ve been Taken out of play
@@billychops1280 You make some fair points, and what you're suggesting here could certainly make for a neat alt-history timeline.
In the end of the day though, because there's too many unknowns and possible curveballs my approach has never been to figure out the most likely outcome, but rather to create something that's fun and at least somewhat plausible.
Even if it's not the approach you would have taken, I'd like to think what we've come up with can still be interesting and engaging, but honestly I think there is always going to be a degree of personal preference when it comes to alt-history.
@@Super7700-SotL I get what you’re saying. And if it were up to me the Aegean’s would have somehow survived and reunited the Hellenic world. That’s my alternate/fantasy timeline. The timeline I suggested is what is most historically plausible, not what I would personally like to see, but u do u
16:30 That's a Sassanian Zoroastrian coin. Parthian treatment of the Jewish people was basically second to none as they were extremely tolerant towards them mimicking their Achaemenid forbears. The timeline of the mod would make much more sense if it was the intolerant Seleucids that burn the Second Temple as it was the Seleucid Empire that triggered the Maccabean Revolt that gives the Jewish people the holiday of Hanukkah. Also it does not make much sense that the Sassanians would be defeated by the Caliphate, as during our time the main reason for Islam's rapid expansion was the last Persian-Roman war which devastated and exhausted both empires. Only Rome was able to prevent Sassanian expansion west, and without Rome and her vast empire in the way, Pontus probably would not be able to withstand Eranshahr's martial prowess. Unless of course Carthage and Pontus allied to curtail such an enemy and that final war they fought devastated all three states completely which would cause the Carthaginian Empire's collapse and Pontus and Eranshahr to lose to the new Caliphate.
But that's just my two cents for the historical possibilities for such a vast change in the timeline. Regardless, everything else seems thrilling to explore!
You could always reach out on their discord and give feedback!
Damn, the Age of Mythology music hits hard...
An all time bop
Great stuff ! hyped !
always nice to hear pharaoh soundtrack :)
I loved the og game as a kid. Not as much as Zeus but still good.
This is a super interesting mod very well done on the devs part
Right?!
This mod is so much better researched and thought than Post Finem for Europa Universalis. Can't wait for release ^^
what is even post finem lore in a very simplified summary so i can view how terrible it is
Haven’t looked into it because I don’t play EU4 but I know they have a banger main theme for the mod
@@Soul_Tomato It's basically the same premise: "What if Carthage won Punic Wars?" but execution is much worse
@@Aq_3 from the map and some mission tree descriptions, its basically that not only Carthage won but the Diadochi states remain intact, even Seleucids staying in power and defeating the Parthians. Thus, the Diadochi basically become the most centralized states outside of Carthage and basically keep the Hellenic status quo for a centuries.
Post Finem is mostly gameplay focused, using mechanics from DLC's for some interesting nations. I mean the Theodokus Christian Caliphate is one of the most unique nations along with Macedonia's war mongering mechanic and Italia HRE.
Cato the Elder probably views this mod like TNO
Now this sounds really cool.
Only question is, what about the Vikings??? What are they like? I’ll just go get the mod.
I’m not sure what their plans are for that. They haven’t made it that far in world yet with the lore.
They're still around and wreaking havoc, though they may end up settling different places!
Eremetism makes me wanna do a Yugoh run
im curious how big of an impact the norse age of expansion and exploration would have on a less consolidated europe in this senario
Hard to say. Not a lot of lore written for that part of the world yet from what I’ve seen.
Probably still writing that part, I don't think the mod is completed yet anyway.
13:03 thrives under your WHAT
Took me a minute
My autism
11:32 this makes no sense, The Seleucids were not really well seen by the Jews for the maccabei revolt, the parthians would have likely restablish the same relationship with the Achaemenid empire, I know you struggle to fit Christianity but this doesn't make sense.
I like the mod still.
You could always join the discord and impart some wisdom there. I’m not on the mod team amigo. I just make videos.
@@Soul_Tomato I see last time I did so I was banned from an EU4 discord server one for questioning and understanding a lore so it's better to do not, too I can understand their reasons in this situasion
This isn’t the same mod team but do as you like
On like day 1 of the Discord going public I was in it trying to influence the mod to have a greater divergence with Christianity and Islam. Seems like the devs have gone a different direction especially with Islam seemingly completely identical to OTL which is pretty disappointing. Still I'll try the mod, I'll just mourn what could have been.
Hey there, the lore for Christianity and Islam is still being worked on and still keen to hear people's suggestions. A lot of things regarding Islam especially are still up in the air, which is why there isn't a huge amount of time spent on it in the video.
I think the challenge is, a lot of the feedback we get is essentially "don't do it this way" which is difficult to do anything with. We're a lot more likely to take a suggestion on board if it's concrete and actionable - if you think Islam should diverge more for instance, it would be useful to know how you think we could go about it.
This is amazing!
Isn’t it?
Cool rundown. Do a playthrough!
I will!
Do we have punaboos in this timeline
Oh yeah
Hell, we have them in our timeline!
Not to be negative, it’s a great mod, but I will always think it’s such a missed opportunity to actually make a unique timeline, so many events occur to Carthage the same way they would to Rome
This timeline is way cooler, why didn't we get this one😔
Rome always had more men to make more armies and were masters of borrowing technology and making it better
Did a Carhtaginian write this??
I hope the Dacian Empire will be a formable
Perhaps
This is great, the only think i dislike is the existence of christianity and islam, sorry but without rome there is no christianity (Even if Jesus was a historical figure that i very doubt) and without christianity ther eis not islam.
I would like that Tanith mixed with Isis and other regional Goddess to eventually become a henotheistic religion.
My thoughts too
My exact thoughts as well
CK3 NEEDS more alt-hist
Agreed
This might be the first alt history mod for ck3, there's alot of fantasy but i don't think I've actually ever seen something like this for ck3 which is strange because for similar games like hoi4 this is normal
It certainly seems like it could be. AtE is technically also a bit of alt history with a touch of fantasy.
@@Soul_Tomato AtE is but I meant like in the setting of ck3, so in the 9th century for example
Does the mode have a release date?
Same release date as anbennar or geheimenacht
I would assume the release would be within the next month or so. They have a good bit of content ready already so it won’t be terribly long I don’t think.
Not yet, it may come down to how quickly we can get the mod working with Roads to Power. I don't think I'll release it before the update since it will probably break save games.
Kinda wish that it didn't do the thing where Carthage winning means that they just do everything Rome did lol.
did you... watch the video? the mod did not do everything rome did in this particular mod.......
They… literally didn’t do that though?
@@Soul_Tomato I mean it's still good I'm being nitpicky over the way alternate history is done usually. Stuff like there needing to be Christianity and Islam and a Papacy, needing to be raided by Vandals and Visigoths, etc etc etc. And even then, it seems to be doing that well.
Ends up being more of a preference thing, didn't really intend to imply it was low quality or that they shouldn't be making it or something.
@@alphasword5541 you would probably prefer Post Finem for EU4 so, or at least that setting (I feel like Post Finem's problem instead is that it would make more sense as a CK start than EU, history was too static)
@@alphasword5541 That's fair enough, I think we all have our own preferences for how we'd like alt-history to be handled. In the case of this mod, our reasoning for preserving Christianity and Islam is as follows:
i) It makes the mod feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read a whole bunch of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on.
ii) In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions.
iii) From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content.
As for the Germanic migrations, it kinda just fell into place that way when I started working on the mod. I've found that in some cases following the historical outcome has provided a clearer framework with which we can better visualise the world and start looking at interesting melting pots and aesthetics.
Cool mod
Very!
**Restores Rome out of spite.**
Nothing to restore 😎
Oh it will be possible alright, but we plan to throw in a few curveballs 😉
What if Carthage was actually Rome(acting as rome)
🤔
If i had a nickel for every time someone made a mod for a paradox game about carthage winning the punic wars id have 2 nickels, which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice
I mean it's probably one of the most popular alt history scenarios outside of ww2
So... is it what happens when I convert a Carthage campaign from Imperator Rome to CK3?
Uh no?
Seems like a lot of hand waving to shoe horn in Christianity to this mod, without Rome it's likely the Seleucid Empire would be able to hold it's own at least somewhat against the Parthians and even if they did still conquered the Levant the Parthians were pretty well known for their religious tolerance even more so that the later Sassanids it's unlikely they would have executed Christ. Thats my only complaint otherwise it seems like a solid mod
*Response as an edit because our corporate overlords hate me:*
I'm not a Christian so I'll just trust you on the religious end of things but historically i still don't really see it. It'd also have been nicer to potentially see other religions go mainstream in Europe instead of what I feel is shoe horned Christianity. With the Parthians making so far west as the Levant that could open up a world of religions gaining access to the west such as Zoroastrianism or even Buddhism. That or even see some native religions spread and reform in similar matters to the origins of Hinduism or Zoroastrianism, a big candidate for this could be the Dacian Zalmoxism or further reforms with Mithranism.
Well if it went the same way it did for Jesus in the Bible it would TECHNICALLY just be the Parthians bowing to the whims of local Jewish elite who wanted him dead.
@@Soul_TomatoI mean I'm not a Christian, so I'll just trust you in that regard but historically I just don't see it. Personally it'd be more interesting other religions possibly gain traction in Europe as opposed to what I feel like is shoe horned Christianity. Like if the Parthians made it that far West there could be real potential for Zoroastrianism or even potentially Buddhism to spread and become mainstream in Europe. Not to mention the potential for reformation of native pagan faiths akin to Hinduism or Zoroastrianism, maybe in regards to Zalmoxism or some other pagan spirituality.
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! I made the decision to keep Christianity (and Islam) very early in development - the emblem itself is actually a nod to a hypothetical Punic-Visigothic-Christian syncretism. Putting aside historical or theological arguments of whether or not it would have emerged regardless, Here's my reasoning:
1. It makes the mod feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read a whole bunch of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on.
2. In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions.
3. From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content.
@@chaosmorris5865 We do actually have some reformed pagan faiths around the Black Sea based on the varying historical cults of the Theos Hypsistos. Christianity in Sons of the Lightning is more prevalent in Africa but much less in Europe.
Because TH-cam hates me and keeps deleting my responses please refer to my newly edited original comment.
Just a quick question since the mod touched upon the avars: Are/will be the Magyars/Hungarians present in this alt hist?
I would imagine so. Would have to ask on the discord
Magyars start in a similar location to the vanilla 867 bookmark, but I've also added the Savard Hungarians in the eastern Caucasus if you'd like to take the Magyars on a southward journey instead...
BIG Rashidun
YUGGGGGE
If in this timeline Carthage rose to prominence after the First Punic War, rather than the more pivotal Second, how did Hannibal and the Barcid dynasty rise to prominence?
The Barcid family were the main generals in the first Punic war - see Hamilcar. I assume his son, Hannibal, was the one conquering land after their victory. There’s also no telling Rome didn’t attempt more than one war. That was a bit unclear to me as well.
Hey there! I think there's still a decent possibility of the Barcids campaigning in Iberia after the First Punic War, and perhaps they got involved in future punitive expeditions against the Romans. A lot of the lore surrounding the this decades after the POD is still fairly vague, in part because I've tended to prefer focusing my efforts on the situation in 867 and working backwards.
The cool thing about Carthage is that the golden bull worship in the Old Testament is likely related to the cult of Baal which was still worshiped in Carthage during the Punic wars. Likely the 2 religions are related or share some sort of cultural exchange and trade during the time the bible was being written for the first time.
: )
But.... I dont want to play as Pontus!
Who would be your favourite nation to play as? 🤔
You don’t have to! Personally Egypt and Iberia excite me most
I am no master in history, but without the Roman empire, would that not mean that the Franks and Goths are never converted to Catholicism ?
Rome would obviously never conquer England so it stays under Viking control.
Vikings in general probably looking at most of Northern Europe as if it is free real estate, seeing as there wouldn't be many big empires to contend with?
Britain would probably be under Celtic control at the first start, not Viking. Unless the Viking invasions happened early for whatever reason. Can’t speak on the franks. A lot of the lore for that area isn’t solidified yet.
As for the goths, they converted in Iberia but whose to say elsewhere.
@@Soul_Tomato What about the Germanic tribes, while the faith was similar to the vikings, they weren't exactly buddies per say.
I love how the truth of Christ transcends alt history multivurses
Only if you shoe horn it in hard enough
Kalp altın yorumları
Do a play through
Is this from the same developers as the EU4 mod?
No. Different team and lore entirely
It feels like they just switched the Roman empire with Carthage. And is Jesus being crucified, the visgoths invading Iberia, the destruction of the second temple, and the Jewish revolt are just cannon events or something? I think it is too similar to our universe in ways it shouldn't.
Yes and no.
•Carthage acts much less imperialistically than Rome for one, which was stated at least 5 times throughout the video.
•Jesus being crucified (idk why people are so pressed about this one) was a choice to give people a basis of familiarity in the world, per the devs.
•Alaric’s Visigoths were invited to Iberia to aid the Barcid ran Hisfanics from a Germanic invasion in this timeline, they themselves didn’t invade.
@Soul_Tomato
Wow, you answered really quickly 😮
The main issue with the crucifixion is that it was a Roman form of execution, and I don't think parthians ever practiced it. I think the visgoths coming to power in Iberia is ok, if a little similar to our own timeline. The parthians acting the same way as the Romans in Judea is more unlikely though.
The crucifix is a good point. The symbol should have probably changed to something else to reflect a different form of Christianity or means of his execution.
When it's coming out?
Probably a month or so
Honestly pretty disappointing in my opinion. This is barely alternative History as things centures after the point of divergence STILL pop up.
You could always join the discord and impart some wisdom there. I’m not on the mod team amigo. I just make videos.
@@Soul_Tomato I know you cant change anything and are just the messager, dont worry. Just saying how this isnt really "alternative" history.
Yeah having christianity and islam still be dominant despite the historical events that led to their creation being removed is just silly.
Hey there, thanks for your feedback! In the end of the day I'd like to think it's a matter of personal preference - personally my goal has been create something that's "familiar, but new", and as such I've been willing to accept a degree of determinism, especially with Christianity and Islam, in order to provide some familiarity but also some opportunities for interesting melting pots, syncretism etc. From a development perspective it also saves a lot of headaches as we can focus our energy on creating new content rather than having to scrap or completely repurpose large portions of vanilla.
In the end of the day, my goal hasn't been to come up with the most likely or wacky outcome, but rather to create something that's plausible but still accessible. A lot of the alt-history in SOTL is instead presented in the finer details, e.g. the name-lists for melting pot cultures which blend languages and orthographies, or the faith emblems and coats of arms which blend different art styles and hint at local traditions.
@@TheOneCalledSloth I mean I feel like it is fine to have those if you believe in some sort of religion. After all, it would be predetermined then that it would happen. They did a great job at making alternative christian sects, even if the descriptions arent really descriptive about their theology.
no way super ethiopia???
so post finem but for ck3?
Not really because, and I’ve not looked into it so could be wrong, post finem focuses on the diadochi more
I would say, it's too early to talk about the mod, if it isn't yet available on Steam. However, I would say it's not much different than various mods which randomize and fracture the map (like More Game Rules, AGOT has it's own version too, etc.): since it begins in 867, uses only vanilla assets, and is an alternative history mod, it doesn't introduce much new into the game. Also, it's not familiar or relatable to the players: we play in vanilla because it's our history and we know the rulers, kingdoms and empires in our history, we play total conversions like AGOT or Realms in Exile because they are based on well-known popular IPs (I know that you're a proponent of Godherja, but it has 5x less subscribers than AGOT), and this mod doesn't have that familiarity, besides geography. So, at this point I wouldn't even install that mod to check it out.
I also do not agree with the simplistic way they treat the alternative history: they essentially assumed that everything went exactly like in our history, but there was no Rome. It's not that simple. Everything in the history is interconnected, if there was no Roman Empire, most of the institutions, satellite states, cultural and technological inventions, and so on, wouldn't exist. I doubt even Christianity would exist (yeah, Parthians had never interfered with local cults, no way they would crucify Jesus, if he was even born; if they ever conquered Palestine that is), and if existed, it wouldn't spread (since it spread thanks to the Roman Empire and within its territories, it found only very limited popularity outside). Also part of Jewish identity was based on their resistance against Romans, that religion and culture would be completely different. All European states exist only thanks to Rome, where there was no Rome, there was no statehood until sometimes the 10th c. CE or later (existence of the states in Western Europe was through a process known as a secondary state formation, there is no Rome, no secondary states from Balkans to Iberia and Britain). It's butterfly effect, you change one thing, the entire world would change.
Hey there, thank you for your feedback! I think it might be useful if I could give you a bit more context on the mod and our approach. This is a fairly new project, and we've only got a small team, so of course there won't be the sheer amount of content that you're used to from CK3's major mods. And given that this isn't an established IP, it's more difficult for us to attract experienced programmers and artists so we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve. If I'd decided to do this on a new map, gone crazy with the butterfly effect and radically changed the religions and cultures present, there's unfortunately no way this would even get close to a releasable state. Even with our "simplistic" changes there's a significant amount of work required:
- Devising plausible plans for every region and its history, cultures, faiths, realms, de jure setup.
- Every new faith needs to have an icon, flavour description, deity list, holy sites, doctrines and tenets. From there, there's usually base game content and behind-the-scenes code that needs to be updated to account for the existence of these new faiths. So far we've got about 20 faiths fully implemented and another 20+ partially done.
- Every new culture needs traditions, pillars and a name-list. Name-lists are particularly time consuming: in some cases we have to figure out alternative orthographies for a language in order to remove Latin or another inappropriate influences. So far, we've added more than 80 cultures, 7000+ personal names and 1500+ dynasty names.
- Hundreds of title names will have to be changed because so many toponyms in Europe and around the Mediterranean derive from Latin or a Romance language. Sometimes, finding an appropriate toponym takes a fair bit of digging through maps, academic journals etc.
- There's obviously a lot of flavour content in the game referencing Rome or other things that don't make sense in our timeline, so this all has to be adapted or removed.
I accept that the mod, at least in its initial form, won't have lots of new features and for some people that will be disappointing. However, I would much rather make fewer changes that meaningfully affect the gameplay experience and are implemented well, than tack on a bunch of half-baked mechanics which end up just getting ignored.
Another thing worth noting, is that we've never been interested in predicting the most realistic outcome of this alternate timeline, as there's simply way too many factors at play. Instead, we've taken an approach balancing several factors including familiarity, plausibility, practicality, and what we think is interesting. Keeping Christianity around for instance gives us room to play around with interesting heresies and syncretic sects, saves us a lot of coding and art headaches, makes the world a little more familiar, and probably still could be reasonably explained - maybe the Parthian governor sanctioned the crucifixion to avoid an uprising?
@@Super7700-SotL First, kudos that you’ve even answered to my harsh comment, and you do not seem offended, at least officially 😉
Obviously, I cannot tell you how to develop things, so if some decisions are caused by the development issues, I guess you cannot do much about that. I can only say that you can definitely reuse other people’s work: usually modders do not mind it, and are often friendly if asked for a permission. For religions and regional flavor, I would definitely contact the guy who is making RICE and VIET, from my occasional contacts with him he is very friendly, and he is already closely working with two big mods, The Fallen Eagle, and Rajas of Asia. He has lots of religions you surely could reuse, since he covers the same areas, also cultures, traditions, as well as regional struggles you can edit to make your own. I suppose, The Fallen Eagle team maybe also will be able to help you, since there is a lot of overlap.
As for your historical decisions I have more to say, since I have more knowledge about that topic.
As for keeping Christianity, and, by extension, Islam: in effect you’re mimicking vanilla, where two dominant religions in Europe and Western Asia/North Africa are Christianity and Islam. Why I understand the reason to leave it for some familiarity effect, as a result you’re just giving slightly new flavor or name to what already is present on vanilla map, not offering much new, but at the same time wasting opportunity of keeping some more interesting religions those two replaced. Also, you make a player to fall into familiar way of playing with Holy Wars, which is usually a shortcut to quick conquest.
For example, the process by which Carthage was Christianized while not being present in the Levant and Palestine, and having no real reason to do so, requires some mental gymnastics. On the other hand, the original Phoenician religion is very interesting and controversial: e.g., the practice of sacrificing infants and small children they were practicing introduces some points of conflict between Carthaginians and their neighbors. Also potentially introduces some dark side of that civilization, which is not present when you convert everybody to Christianity. Similarly for Islam: you eliminate other interesting religions by covering the map with Islam like it is in vanilla, especially from Western Asia (I understand you didn’t make eastern Iran Muslim?); for example, RICE has some of these religions in the mod.
At least, I would consider removing Holy Wars from the game, like they did in AGOT, since that practice is really late, is only in game to reflect Crusades really, and it can be easily explained, that it didn’t develop in your reality. E.g., the fact they have it in The Fallen Eagle doesn’t make much sense, because there were no holy wars before at least Islam (and early Islam didn’t force anybody to convert, maybe even up to Seljuks, so were they really holy wars?). That would also introduce some additional difficulties for players and would slow their progress.
Same for Mithraism in Rome. Mithraism developed among Roman legionnaires in Asia Minor, and historians of religion do not consider it now as an offshoot of Iranian religion, since besides the name of the god, there are really not many similarities between Iranian traditions and Mithraism. Since there were no Roman legions in Asia Minor in your reality, there should be no Mithraism. Also, Mithraism was exclusively the religion for men, women didn’t follow that religion. That’s impossible to do in CK3 I think. Roman women rather followed a Hellenized version of the cult of Isis, and its spread in your reality would be more understandable, since it didn’t spread through legionnaires, and cults of mother goddesses were always popular. Same for the cult of Kybele.
As for the Pontic Empire, I would say Mithridates VI wouldn’t do what he was doing as not for Rome, most of his wars were aimed at removing Roman influence from Asia Minor, but okay. Still, making his capital in Byzantium doesn’t really make sense, and what it does it only makes a replacement for the Byzantine Empire, which only has a different name, covering the same area and having the same capital (its also red on your map, I think? lol). Also, if you have Pontic Empire, you should have Armenian Empire established by Tigranes the Great (both were destroyed by Romans, and since there are no Romans…).
This brings me to the Parthians. Parthians didn’t practice administrative government, so in most cases they didn’t have governors (I cannot think of a single case of Parthian “governor” from the top of my head). The land was divided among extremely powerful noble families and local dynasts (you can call them all local dynasts really, since they functioned as such). Those dynasts were semi-autonomous, they had their own armies, they waged wars independently, and sometimes their loyalty towards the Parthian king was only formal. This is well reflected in The Fallen Eagle, since Sasanians inherited that system (although, admittedly, they did a better job keeping it together). Very similar system was in both, Pontic Empire of Mithridates VI, and in the empire of his neighbor, Tigranes the Great (they only subjugated local rulers, they haven’t removed them in most cases).
What brings me to the problem of Jesus. In case of Judea, Parthians would leave Hasmonaean dynasty in place, they would only subjugate them. So, if any religious conflicts arose, these would be internal conflicts within Judaism, Parthians wouldn’t care at all. Also, since there were no Romans, Jesus wouldn’t be crucified. I would say he wouldn’t be killed at all, not for a religious disagreement, since Judaism had a lot of sects during that time. If you want to kill him that much, I don’t know what punishments Hasmoneans practiced, in Middle East he would be most likely impaled, after cutting off his nose and ears, possibly. But on the other hand, Jesus alive and well, living up to the old age, would change the history of Christianity tremendously, and maybe would make it more limited (since only Paul was supporting spreading it to non-Jews), as well more peaceful (no Holy Wars then). Catholic Church justified a lot of its aggression by early “conflicts” with the Jews who “betrayed” Jesus, and by martyrdom (about which below), if that didn’t happen, it would be definitely more calm religion.
Good example of religious policy by Parthians is Adiabene, which was under Parthian rule: during Parthian period they rebuilt temple of Ashur (Assor during that time) in Ashur, and practiced cult of old Assyrian gods. Parthians didn’t care. Also, thanks to that Adiabene was one of early places were Christianity spread. Only Sasanians changed policy regarding “pagan” cults and Christians, but not for long either. There are Christian bishops on Sasanian court in later period. The whole Christian martyrdom is mostly invented, in most cases didn’t exist either in Rome or in Sasanian Iran, as shown for example by Candida Moss (now University of Birmingham) who debunked the whole martyrdom tradition of early Christianity. If you accept that, that would make Christianity much less militant.
In general then, I think rethinking your Christianity-centric world building would make your world more diverse, and wouldn’t make players fall into the usual habits.
@@ShayGamerD3 Sorry for the late reply, and thank you for your detailed response - I appreciate the thought you've put into it! I’m not offended, I think we just have essentially different ideas on how we’d want to approach an alternate history. Personally, I don't believe there's a right or wrong approach since it's all speculative anyway, but rather it depends on what interests us, what stories we want to tell and what sort of gameplay experience we want to provide. What one person might consider super fascinating might be a wasted opportunity for someone else. So I think it's important to keep that in mind when offering feedback.
Regarding working with other mods, for sure that's something we're open to and honestly I probably should be more proactive about it, so thank you for the reminder!
One thing I should clarify is that a lot of faiths historically displaced by Christianity still exist in the mod, so it isn't quite a case of there being two mutually exclusive approaches. While we do have Christianity, we also have Punicised pagan faiths, Druidism, remnants of Arab paganism, Hellenistic henotheistic cults based on Theos Hypsistos, Kushite/Kemetic religions and so on. I never intended for the mod to be Christian-centric, it just so happens that the regions the video focuses on are mainly Christian. In the Discord there's a document where we've drafted a list of faiths which might interest you, and hopefully it shows that we've put considerable thought into non-Christian faiths. You raise a fair point about holy wars, though I think if we were to remove them for some/all faiths we'd want to come up with a mechanic to compensate (wouldn't have to be related to conflict, just something to ensure there isn't a net loss of content).
In the case of Mithraism, it all kind of fell into place when we started conceptualising Rome becoming a mercenary state - their military service across the Mediterranean would lead to various cults being imported to Rome. Rome's fascination with eastern mystery cults in particular made Mithraism an appealing choice for us. That being said, it's not going to be a carbon copy of historical Mithraism.
Regarding Pontus, it's also not just a copy of the Byzantines though it's certainly one of our influences. In 867, they're a rump state that only holds onto some of the Black Sea coast, as they lost Byzantium and most of their Balkan & Anatolian holdings during the Arab campaigns. Imo, I think it's pretty reasonable that Byzantium would become a major city in any timeline given its strategic location.
Regarding your points on Parthia and Jesus, I am certainly opening to revising some of the details - Parthia doesn't have to be the culprit behind the crucifixion, maybe it could be a Hellenistic rump state in the area, or a tributary. However there are some things that will remain as is for practical reasons. The crucifixion will still happen because a lot of the art I've already made for the mod (including the main logo), have some form of cross symbolism, not to mention all the art from the base game. Besides, crucifixion was also practiced by the Hellenistic Greeks so I don't think it's completely far fetched.
In the end of the day, a lot of what you're saying is valid and we can definitely take some of it on board, but for better or for worse we've decided on a vision that simply might not align with your own expectations from an alt-history mod.
Please shows full world map next time
@@shafinhanif8802 most of it isn’t done. Plus it’s not really relevant for a lore video
Seeing this makes me want to play as a populist roman landless adventurer, obtain wealth and glory abroad as a mercenary and then return to Rome as a conqueror.
Unfathomably based
Punic pilled
Where is the link
Mod isn’t out yet but you can follow its progress on their discord
What's the situation for Jewish people in the setting? You mentioned them briefly but they seemed to vanish from the current players in Egypt.
They’re around. I can’t recall specifically but I think they even had a pretty big foothold near Egypt still.
@@Soul_Tomato ty
We've got a handful of Jewish rulers in Mauretania and Iberia, and Judaism has left a sizeable imprint on the Christian faiths present in Morocco and Ethiopia :)
Having the second temple still being destroyed in this timeline is a huge waste. You can do so much with the competing (but still officially united) sects of temple judaism. Second temple judaism also had mandatory pilgrimages (a fun doctrine that not enough faiths use in-game).
@@Super7700-SotL Thanks for the answer! What's the Jewish diaspora like outside of Egypt?
Is this canon to post finem?
no the mod does its own take
I believe they’re separate but just happen to be in dev in parallel
Ngl I find the entire premise that christianity exists perfectly ridiculous
If Jesus existed, then Christianity would by extension exist. In this timeline he did 🤷🏻♂️
Hey there, I certainly get that it's one of the more controversial parts of our premise, but we made the decision early on to treat Christianity (and Islam) with a degree of determinism for the following reasons:
- It helps to make the world feel more familiar to players, meaning that they don't have to read pages of lore beforehand to get the basic gist of what's going on.
- In terms of world-building, we really wanted to see how religions such as Christianity and Islam might interact with the various historical and fictional faiths present in the mod. For instance, it gives us some interesting opportunities for syncretic religions and heresies.
- From a modding perspective, removing and/or replacing these religions means removing or altering a significant amount of content from the base game, which is a lot of work for what would ultimately be a loss of content.
Has it been released on steam yet?
Not quite!
@@Soul_Tomato When will it be released?
You’d have to ask the devs - which I am not.
is it out yet?
Soon
By the way, it’s actually out yet?
Not yet but soon
Should link to mod
It isn’t out yet
Looks pretty rad. Rome is eternal 😈
Been dead for at least 500 years. Not very eternal tbh
@@Soul_Tomato 😆 Literally a place in Italy that's still there.
is this mod on Steam?
Not yet
carthage beating rome is cool but hilariously unrealistic lol
ngl this is ass why do so many names come from latin even though it never became a dominant language and carthage expanding around the mediterranean is baffling given they tried (and failed to) to conquer sicily for hundreds of years. christianity would most probably not have existed and DEFINITELY not spread like it did. aside those and tens of other things i could nitpick on it pisses me off that big historical events still happened mainly like they did and rome just gets switched for carthage (which would not happen)
Just show me the full map 😢
You can see it on their discord!
I do not believe for one second that Christianity would even exist without the Roman Empire. Why is it just assumed that Jesus would even still be a prophet, let alone be crucified?
Because that was (according to the Bible) his entire purpose on earth?
i could see some offshoot of judaism becoming popular if the temple is still destroyed by some other empire, but christianity as we know it? yeah nah
@@Soul_Tomato But in the Bible his rise to prominence only comes out of the unique social conditions born out of Roman rule of Judea. And many of those conditions were very specific to clashes between aspects of Roman and Hebrew culture and religion. And if this is supposed to be a well thought out alt-history mod, then this seems like a silly oversight.
You think the hypothetical son of God destined to die wouldn’t have had some divine help in…dying?
@@Soul_Tomato That seems like it is giving more priority to Christianity being true than being accurate alternate history though.
Rome must RISE! Build the Roman Empire that should have been.
Cringe
Hannibal < Scipio
Well yeah, Zama happened