[BAW 2] Truncated Chapters 1 and 2

[Dan the Man]

Si signore, to both.

[Barry Goldwater]

Molte grazie, amico!

[Dan the Man]

Prego!

[EmperorBatman999]

Bongiorno amici!

Personally I would want a "realistic" world without any sort of magic or dragons, but that's just me.

[Barry Goldwater]

I think that's pretty much where we're headed, actually. I've seen no rise in support for including more fantastical elements (magic, monsters, etc.) beyond the few remotely fantastic creatures we already had from BaW 1.0 (sea serpents, their terrestrial wyrm cousins, and megadeathwhales) in this thread, so it does indeed appear that we'll be going in a very low fantasy direction like we did last time; or IOW, think less Lord of the Rings, more...idk, the Eagle & Radiant Cross mod for M&B (if you've ever played that). If anyone wants that changed, they've got until the weekend to make their arguments - as I've said, when Dan sends me his stuff we'll kick right into chapter 3, AKA the good stuff.

[Lucius Malfoy]

Alright this is gonna be WIP, but after talking with Barry, I have an idea for a culture (or cultures) that I wanna throw in (Chinese, Manchu, Turkic and Mongolic cultures) with a Celestial Empire (Chinese Septim; yes hard to understand but it will make sense shortly) included as the nation I will create among the various clans of Manchus, Turks and Mongols. This has the approval of Barry.

WIP

Gonna update my post with a cropped picture of the map where these cultures will exist.
http://imgur.com/JqDQBty

The lime-green territory within the red circle is where the Chinese culture/Celestial Empire will exist.
The massive brownish territory within the blue circle is where an unified collection of Turkic, Mongol and Manchu tribes/cultures will exist.

Hope this is alright with everyone. Barry says it should be.
I can write up everything needed for the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol and Manchu culture since East Asia is my specialty in history.

So in general, it will exist in region

[Barry Goldwater]

You may want to wait until tomorrow or Sunday to post all of it, btw. I'm still waiting on the package of finalized maps & notes from Dan (the map we have atm will be rendered obsolete, though I don't think much if anything has been changed about your specific region) before formally opening the Chapter 3 (culture-building) thread.

[Lucius Malfoy]

You may want to wait until tomorrow or Sunday to post all of it, btw. I'm still waiting on the package of finalized maps & notes from Dan (the map we have atm will be rendered obsolete, though I don't think much if anything has been changed about your specific region) before formally opening the Chapter 3 (culture-building) thread.

Well I might as well just state what I was doing is all. I am like that after all; stating my contributions ahead of time.
I was gonna wait anyways cause I plan to go to bed shortly. My brain is too tired to even consider doing major thought processes.

Thanks again for the help, Barry!

[Kip]

First day off from work in 3 weeks! Time to do some writing to unwind. Lucius, PM me your ideas when you get a chance - your chosen region abuts the Delta Culture I wrote, so we can play off of each other to get a better mutual history.

[Barry Goldwater]

Btw guys, while we're waiting for Chapter 3, I think it would be prudent to decide now (before we properly get into our cultures, and thus have to write timelines for them) two things:

1) How far into the future should we go with this game? The High Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Early Modern period or the modern day? For the record, we stopped writing at the Dark Ages/early Middle Ages last time. Personally I'd prefer writing as much as possible, so we should power on through to Modern Times if we have the time, in order to maximize the potential options for games (now we can rotate between, for example, a Modern political RPG-->a Late Medieval char-and-combat based RPG; a Bronze Age tribal game, and so on) but failing that, I'd like to at least reach the end of the Late Middle Ages. What do the rest of you say?

2) We should also divide the timeline into a multi-age system, like the RL divisions between the Stone/Bronze/Iron Ages. We didn't have this last time, so I was confused as to when each 'metal age' ended and the next one began. I'd like to propose the following initial divisions, taking into account the fact that 5000 AU (After Urbanization, that's to say, when the first permanent human settlements started cropping up) was where we stopped writing for 1.0:

9,700 BU (Before Urbanization, basically early human prehistory; prior to this I guess we'd still be in an Ice Age?) - 300 AU: Stone Age (this could be further divided into our Paleolithic, Mesolithic & Neolithic eras if you guys like)
300 AU - 1000 AU: Copper Age
1000 AU - 2500 AU: Bronze Age
2500 AU - 4500 AU: Iron Age
4500 AU - 5000 AU: Dark Ages (this was also our equivalent to the Dark Ages in BaW 1.0)

What do you guys think?

Edit: None of the above stops you guys from writing calendars for your own cultures, btw. The BU-AU timeline is just there to give us all a single common chronological framework & avoid confusion, as was the case in 1.0.

[Dan the Man]

Just a quick PSA from me to everybody on map-making: For the love of all that is holy, if you're using Microsoft Paint (like I generally do) please do not, do not use the paintbrush tool to draw lines! They don't come out cleanly and created weirdly-colored stray pixels everywhere which makes things look really ugly and it's a total pain to clean up. When drawing lines for borders, please use the pencil tool. It can be enlarged to the same size as the paintbrush using the brush size settings and it draws clean lines without stray pixels.

Cheers!

[Xion]

Btw guys, while we're waiting for Chapter 3, I think it would be prudent to decide now (before we properly get into our cultures, and thus have to write timelines for them) two things:

1) How far into the future should we go with this game? The High Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Early Modern period or the modern day? For the record, we stopped writing at the Dark Ages/early Middle Ages last time. Personally I'd prefer writing as much as possible, so we should power on through to Modern Times if we have the time, in order to maximize the potential options for games (now we can rotate between, for example, a Modern political RPG-->a Late Medieval char-and-combat based RPG; a Bronze Age tribal game, and so on) but failing that, I'd like to at least reach the end of the Late Middle Ages. What do the rest of you say?

2) We should also divide the timeline into a multi-age system, like the RL divisions between the Stone/Bronze/Iron Ages. We didn't have this last time, so I was confused as to when each 'metal age' ended and the next one began. I'd like to propose the following initial divisions, taking into account the fact that 5000 AU (After Urbanization, that's to say, when the first permanent human settlements started cropping up) was where we stopped writing for 1.0:

9,700 BU (Before Urbanization, basically early human prehistory; prior to this I guess we'd still be in an Ice Age?) - 300 AU: Stone Age (this could be further divided into our Paleolithic, Mesolithic & Neolithic eras if you guys like)
300 AU - 1000 AU: Copper Age
1000 AU - 2500 AU: Bronze Age
2500 AU - 4500 AU: Iron Age
4500 AU - 5000 AU: Dark Ages (this was also our equivalent to the Dark Ages in BaW 1.0)

What do you guys think?

Edit: None of the above stops you guys from writing calendars for your own cultures, btw. The BU-AU timeline is just there to give us all a single common chronological framework & avoid confusion, as was the case in 1.0.

I like the multi-age system and would have to say at least Late Middle Ages for how far we should go. So the High Middle Ages would be potentially 5000-5500 and Late Middle Ages 5500 onwards?

[Barry Goldwater]

I'm not so sure about the lengths of the Middle Ages, actually. As technological progress speeds up & spreads further (and it should unless ASBs keep us from developing stuff like the printing press or w/e - stuff that in turn leads to a greater exchange/spread of knowledge & faster development of new techs, rinse & repeat), I think the ages would get shorter and shorter. So maybe 5000-5400 for the High Middle Ages (100 years less than the Dark/Early Middle Ages, equivalent to our 950-1350) and then 5400-5600 for our Late Medieval + Renaissance periods (half the 400 years of the High Medieval era) or you could even cut it off at 5400-5500, attach the last hundred years to an Early Modern period instead.

[jacb547]

So I'd like to know if I can be confirmed for the Southwestern Islands? I'd like to write some fauna and flora for it if everyone is alright.

Also really liking the ages, I think 150 or 200 years of High Middle Ages/Renaissance might be best.

[Barry Goldwater]

No probs with your presence in the SW islands, AKA Astonogo Veli (as per Dan's names for the continent from the last page) over here. What are your ideas for flora/fauna?

So, shall we say the Middle Ages span 1000 years from 4500 to 5500 then? 4500-5000 equaling the Early Middle/Dark Ages (476-about 1000 IRL), 5000-5350 equaling the High MA (1000-1350 IRL), and finally 5350-5500 equaling the Late MA? (1350-1500) The Renaissance could be tacked on to the start of an Early Modern period, lasting from 5500-5650 (equivalent to 1500-1650).

[jacb547]

That seems about right! Thanks! I'll write my ideas in a tad, mainly some giant tropical snakes, an off span of the humans like Homos Florensiensis, great Sharks, smart monkeys (not too smart thought) and a few other minor things.

[Kip]

I think flora/fauna should remain a community-voted enterprise. Leaving continental ecosystems up to individuals is going to spawn alien planets before we know it.

[jacb547]

Hmm you're right Kip but I just wanted to add a little exotic feel to the place.

[Kip]

Oh yeah, go nuts in terms of exoticism - I would just say keep things within species, rather than creating new ones. One could argue that a given Earth continent has a more exotic fauna than another, but when you take a step back they all have birds, reptiles, fish, and bugs, just in different colors.

Edit: Oh, and I should add, so long as "giant tropical snakes" describes something along the lines of a boa constrictor or an anaconda, I'd take no issue with it. Any physics-breaking or fantasy creatures should go to public vote though.

[Barry Goldwater]

Oh yeah, of course, any new stuff would still have to be voted on by the community. The sharks, snakes and even monkeys all sound reasonable enough (we had giant snakes & Megalodons in the past anyway, and monkeys are kinda close to humans in intelligence too so yeah) but I'm especially curious about what you mean by 'an offshoot of Homo Floriensis'.