Hey all! Ryagi back to give you another Mod Spotlight, this time we're taking a short dive into the alternate history world of Post Finem. Lead dev, Chewy does a great job introducing you straight into that world, so I'll let him take it away! _________________________________________ Hello everyone! My name is Chewy and I am the lead developer for Post Finem (and Im also the guy who watches the AI ruin itself on YouTube). For those who dont know what Post Finem is, it is an alternate history overhaul mod for Europa Universalis IV that aims to answer the question: What if it was CARTHAGE that was victorious in the Punic Wars, and Rome was dismantled upon their completion? Of course everyone has their ideas of how alternate history should unfold and what is realistic and unrealistic, and at the end of the day, the beauty of fiction is that reality is often even stranger! The lore dump is available on the wiki (still WIP, but will answer a lot of questions): https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Post_Finem/Lore_Dump Taking a look at the map you will see that Europe, northern Africa, as well as eastern Asia are very different, and that is for good reason! You will also notice some very sweeping changes in Arabia, the Horn of Africa, and into southern India, but that is yet unreleased content that we will explain toward the end of this showcase. So, stick around, because its content were VERY excited to release!
The political map of Post Finem in 1444, with Carthage a shell of its former glory. Without the rise of the Romans, there is a very large cascading effect on history. Without Rome, Christianity fails to take off and encompass much of the Western world. The Hellenic pantheon remains dominant in the east, while the Punic pantheon becomes the de facto faith in the west, even pushing into the Italian peninsula via trade relations and political pressures. The Carthaginian Empire continues to grow, incorporating all of Mauretania, Iberia, and southern Gaul into the fold. This is fairly evident when you look at the religious map of the mod.
The religious mapmode in 1444, with a diverse array of faiths throughout the entire scope region. Keep an eye on the Romana in northern Italia, as well as the Evangelos and Jewish provinces in northern Arabia. For the sake of brevity, we will explain that the so-called barbarians of Gaul, Germania, Slavia, and Scandinavia were mostly unaffected by the Punic and Hellenic worlds, as external forces were often viewed as untouchable and thus there was ever interest in pursuing conquest in the lands to their north. That allowed these faiths, although evolving internally over the centuries, to remain relevant in their homelands. These nations have a diverse cast of players, with multiple formable nations and dozens of unique mission trees scattered throughout the regions. A few notable examples are: Saxony, whose mission tree pushes them to unite Germania, proclaiming the Konigreich of Germania, and beyond. The Ostgermanic nations of Ostholm and Vildheim, pushing to unite Ostgermania as Donova, and eventually mend the schism that exists between the Germanic and Ostgermanic peoples. Kashubia, the de facto leader of the Slavic world, uniting Severoslavia, and eventually incorporating the Jugoslavians to form Slavia, with unique additions to the mission tree along the way.
Though the Gaelic peoples of Gaul and the Celtic Isles have embraced the feudal government system, the vast woods and highlands of northern Europe remain primarily in a tribal structure, with the Feudalism institution yet to be present. And while on the topic of government structure, the Zoroastrian Empire of Persia must be brought up, having recently (within the last 300 years) pushed the Selecuid Greeks from the Persian heartland and established a regional governance system known as the Satrapies.
The Satrapy system demands specific conquests and freedoms granted to the special subjects in exchange for more efficient governance of the borderlands of the Persian Empire. This lends itself to a VERY unique gameplay experience for anyone looking to utilize a vassal swarm game. There are currently over 60 unique mission trees in the mod, and I cant show off all of them, but I will happily show off a few of my personal favorites that I feel showcase the talent of the contributors and developers that work(ed) on the mod since it started last August.
Carthage, the shadow of the once great Carthaginian Empire, exists in its heartland, governing a few loosely incorporated vassal nations in the region. The Qahal, the parliamentary system utilized by Carthage, rules the nation and dictates a lot of the internal politics of Carthage.
Their mission tree will push them to reconquer their lost territory and beyond, all the while industrializing their nation and reclaiming the glory of their once great name. Macedonia is another formerly great nation, experiencing civil war after civil war for the past few centuries, with small breaks here and there to lose territory to outside forces. In 1444 they are ruled by a weak king of the Philoxenos dynasty, with the military War Cabinet dictating military organization and operations
Starting in a precarious circumstance, Macedonia must be careful not to get involved in costly wars early as their low Organization will lead to low military quality. If Organization were to hit 0, the War Cabinet may just coup the Basileus!
The Macedonian mission tree, as you would expect, pushes them to reconquer the lost lands of the once-great empire of Alexander, complete with flavorful events, and the opportunity to rule southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and Aegyptos as personal unions. Though the Hellenic world is ripe for reform, as the Hellenic pantheon has centralized dramatically over the past thousand years, with the Archonic Hierophantate of Athens dictating the beliefs and doctrines of the Hellenic faithful. Not everyone, however, is happy with that, and a certain conservationist movement known as the Paradosi have been making moves, primarily in the eastern portions of the Hellenic world. This is not even to mention the Kemetic synergist movement happening within Aegyptos, which is due to reach a boiling point within a few decades of the game start.. Over in Italia sits the land of the Italian Federation, an institution which was initially formed to act as a defensive alliance network to deter direct Carthaginian incursions into the Italian peninsula from their bases on Sardinia and Sicily. Over the centuries the Federation has reformed its contractual obligations, centralizing around a Grand Adirim, a lifetime appointed ruler to oversee the large scale operations of the federation. There is a lot of internal strife between the Punic majorities of Italia and Illyria, and the latin Romana minorities of the northern Portions, primarily in the Kingdom of Italia.
The new interface for the Italian Federation coming to Post Finem in the 1.2 update, complete with 24 possible reforms and the Religious Tension mechanic that acts as an engine to drive the Religious Leagues toward their inevitable conclusions. More on REDACTED at a later date. Of course, centralization will allow the Adirim to unite the Federation under the Roman banner, reclaiming that long-dead name. There is a lot of content to enjoy within the Federation. The Federal Seat of Roma, looking to unite the Federation under one banner, ruling with their special subjects, the Principates. The electorate of Sardinia, ruling the waves and challenging the piratical menace that plagues the Mediterranean. But perhaps one of the most impactful and engaging nations within the Federation would be Italia, the Romana minority leaders.
Italia is poised to challenge the Punics, especially following their persecution at the hands of the Scarlet Delegation, instituted by the Adirim in the year prior to game start. But for those looking for a power fantasy, look not further than the rump state of the Seleucid Kingdom. Despite falling very far from the powerful position they once occupied, the Seleucids are very much not to be counted out.
The Seleucid mission tree pushes for massive conquests, uniting the Hellenic world, all the while buffing their already powerful military, becoming the undisputed militaristic hegemon of the world. The branching missions open up upon the initialization of the Paradosi reformation of the Hellenic pantheon, allowing Seleucia to reform and lead the reformation, or reject it and defend the Archons Diktat! And those are just to name a few of the many beautifully crafted mission trees in the mod. On top of mission content, there are HUNDREDS of flavor events, including an entire rework of the colonial game and the new world, unique national ideas for almost every single new nation on the map, large generic mission trees that are shared across regions, such as the non-Saxon Germanic nations, and much, much more. We have also adopted the Ante Bellum system of updates for Post Finem, focusing heavily on specific regions of the map and going all-in on injecting them with as much engaging flavor and content as possible. The 1.1 update, the New Horizons update pushed large changes to Iberia, including 3 new formable nations (Boraliber, Gadrium, and Kusi-Iber), each complete with unique mission trees, as well as a rework to the map of Mauretania, introducing new tags, a regional mission tree, and Mauretania formable, complete with a unique and powerful mission tree, as well as a rework of the entire new world, trade nodes, colonial nations, and post-colonial formable nations, all complete with shared or unique mission trees and national ideas. It was huge! Currently the 1.2 update, the Sons of Abraham update is DEEP in development, and we are announcing today that it will be released on Friday, the 21st of June! This update overhauls Arabia, the Horn of Africa, and southern India, introducing 3 new Christian religions (Evangelos, the Levantine Christians, Sevasam, the Indian Christians, and Concetus, the Italian Christians), the Jain religion, and a rework to the Arabic religion. All religions included in the 1.2 update are receiving mechanics, with Evangelos and Jain receiving entirely custom mechanics, created from scratch!
The Evangelos faith is focused around spreading the faith, either by diplomacy or by the sword, and will lead to powerful buffs along the way, ultimately pushing for the unification of the Evangelos world into a united tag, the Theodokos.
The Jain faith focuses on enlightenment, and each of the 3 colored hands can be clicked to reveal various paths that enlightenment can be spent on, granting various bonuses that stack nicely. There will be dedicated mission content for many nations, with many more sharing regional mission trees that expand upon forming various nations such as Arabia, Dilmun (Gulf of Persia), Munifara (Horn of Africa), Sumukiun (Southern India), and many more!
The top portion of this tree is available in 1444 to Heliopolis, the leader of the Sacred Empire of Christ, with the bottom portion being unlocked upon unification of the Theodokos via the Christian Zeal mechanic shown previously.
The Munifara mission tree, with the shared portion being built upon by the yellow portion (East African vs Semetic tech groups vs coastal Somalian nations) and the red portion upon uniting the Horn and forming Munifara.
The Indo-Greek nation of Simylla, a one province minor in western India, has the ability for grow far beyond their 1444 borders and unite India as Yavana, unlocking this BEEFY mission tree to aid them in their conquests.
And the last mission tree to show for 1.2 will be Zulfaar, the theocratic center of the Islamic world, based in Yemen. The holy city of Taiz, the spiritual center of Islam, where the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) established the faith. Their theme will be to unite Arabia and the Horn, pushing beyond, and developing the home lands, creating a beautiful homeland for the Islamic peoples. All of that to show that we are VERY excited for what is to come in the near future for Post Finem. If you are interested in participating in an open beta for 1.2, we will be opening the Discord server up to it on June 7th, so hop in and expect a ping before too long! Additionally, Patrons to Post Finem get early access to the development alpha builds, so check that out in the Discord as well if that sounds appealing to you and you want to support development. https://discord.gg/postfinem Thank you all for taking the time to read about my little mod! I hope you enjoy playing Post Finem as much as I have enjoyed working on it over the past ~10 months! _________________________________________ We hope you enjoyed this Mod Spotlight. Even you Rome lovers (The Glory of Rome would surely never fail us as depicted here). If any of this sounds interesting to you, check out Post Finem over on steam workshop. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3142739241 If you're interested in some of Chewy's other work, you can find our mod spotlight on his other overhaul mod, Land of the Free, and his YouTube over at both Chewyshoot and Chewbert We'll see you next time!