Nations in Exile

[Fafnir]

Alright, picture this. The Byzantine Empire is raped by both the Venetians on the west and the Turks on the east. Their empire is completely destroyed. Except... they have a small enclave on Cyprus that goes unnoticed for 100 years/turns.

Or, let's just say you're the Julii and you're tired of taking crap from those Scipii perfume-users. So you take all of their provinces in Italy, only to realize they have all of Africa.

Here's where I'm getting at...

Nations must have ALL of their territories taken from them to be eliminated, or their entire royal line must be killed. This means that factions will stay alive forever, in the most wildest of places, like Scotland in Norway. But... with a map covering a good 1/4th - 1/3rd of the world, how can CA expect European countries to honestly NOT be wiped out in Europe?

The player (or Milan...) will easily destroy a country's homeland in the Old World. This will be especially true if a country's resources and military are being exported to the ends of the earth so they can have a little more gold in their coffers. But there won't be any more coffers... except in their colonies in America, India, or wherever, where they are now surviving perfectly fine.

How can CA expect to hold to historical accuracy if things like this will easily happen? And who believes this will completely screw up gameplay?

[Ahiga]

Not really sure.

But what about situations where the colonies were reasonably well off, and could perhaps continue to exist?

[sirfiggin]

Fafnir's right, how can factions exist if their homeland is overrun? There has to be a way to mitigate this....

[The Sundance Kid]

If a certain territory is conquered, say England loses, well, England, then their American Colonies become a breakway state or something? Like the Western and Eastern Roman Rebels in RTW BI? Or in the Kingdoms Teutonic Campaign, where Denmark becomes a different faction if it conqers Norway.

[General A. Skywalker]

Fafnir's right, how can factions exist if their homeland is overrun? There has to be a way to mitigate this....

They can. I mean, a nation would not simply stop to exist when it still has colonies. The royal family would escape to their neares and/or safest colony (like the Portuguese king did in 1808) and wait for better days .

But: The loss of the homeland can cause unrest in the colonies. (Although Spain was under Spanish control again, in the 1820ies anti-colonial movements began to rise in Southern America. It was a result of the loss of Spain in 1808)

[00Jebus]

possibly dynamic names (changing when conditions are met) are in order for factions instead of being constantly called the same thing?

eg: 1 province = duchy of -province name-
2 -4 = kingdom/republic of - factions proper name-
5 - 9 = Imperium of -factions proper name-
10 + = Empire of -factions name-
factions that lost most of there provinces and family tree = -factions name- remanant

that way in the Byzantine example, it starts out as "the Byzantine empire" but gets relegated to being known worldwide (in the game) as "the Byzantine remanant", with appropriate "laughingstock" traits for its new faction leader...

[Shadow_Imperator]

Well the founding of Carthage occured on similar lines..
The Phoenician homeland was overrun by foreign forces (Alexander the Great??), Seleucids? Whatever.. Anyway, Carthage grew into a power in its own right..

[simple]

isnt this game also about writing your own version of the hostory? and changing things?

also you can have armys in your homeland AND in your colonies...

[jarnomiedema]

Ehmm.. Well, conquering European territory doesn't necessarily mean the country ceases to exist..

It seems obvious the good people at CA will let our provinces / cities have some kind of nationality meter (like the one in Medieval II: Kingdoms - Britannia), which could be tricky to turn around to your nationality..

Nations in exile existed during this period as well: when Napoleon annexed the Netherlands, the Dutch East-Indies remained under joint Dutch-British control, similar to several other colonies, until the country was liberated and released from France, after wich all colonies (except South Africa) were returned. The exact same thing happened during World War Two with most conquered European nations..

I really hope it'll be very difficult to expand to a large Empire on the European continent, whereas taking colonies should be somewhat easier. Capturing European provinces here and there shouldn't be totally out of the question ofcourse, but true total European conquest shouldn't happen until the Napoleonic age, which is waaay towards the end of the period the game is set in..