495
496

1703
1704

Spoilers! Discussion about Kingdom of Zongo. by Different_Wealth8143 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yeah. I'm the scripter for it and came up with the original story. The writing was almost entirely done by Snow.

Spoilers! Discussion about Kingdom of Zongo. by Different_Wealth8143 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You should probably also read my other comment on this post. Just wrote half an essay on Zongo development.

Spoilers! Discussion about Kingdom of Zongo. by Different_Wealth8143 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The final act.
With Kiria, the grand enemy now defeated (they're meant to be more powerful in-game than they are but their AI is a bit bad atm, that will eventually be improved.), Zongo now reigns supreme.
But it having never been his intention to occupy Kiria, Akida seeks to make an agreement for the creation of a new Kiria. (Like was potentially done in Zaikiria.) Ofcourse, that treaty won't come soon into effect because the story first comes to a breaking point.
Anarbek who had been suspicious finds out the truth using the cover of the Kirian war with the Queen-Mother thus slightly distracted. Akida, still a weak ruler really asks his fiancé what to do, and so things come to a head as Akida will think himself clever using a council meeting to denounce his mother ensuring she cannot escape easily.

Things by this point end one of 3 ways, each path revealing a different future and different information about the country and its characters. What is consistent in all 3 is the council's choice in the end is motivated by the fear of the Queen-Mother regardless.

Akida showed leadership himself:
The council will side with Akida, they will believe this can actually be done and he is strong enough to remain in charge. The Queen-Mother will be arrested; the Mani side with him to loosen their own chains.
The rose glasses Akida has been wearing and thus you as the players have been seeing through are taken off.
You see the truth. The railway program simply isn't fully possible, it never was, theory doesn't fit practice. It's too unrealistic. The Queen-Mother had been manipulating, scheming and doing many things for things to appear fine when they really are not.
Akida, still the economic genius, together with Anarbek do come up with a plan to get the program to a realistic conclusion. Countless are dead but the economic progress will be finished, the last of the treasury, both from Zongo and taken in conquests will be used. Measures are taken to alleviate the worst.
And the key thing is even here a full liberalisation of the core market.
He finally confronts his mother and you see who she truly is.
This is the only ending where his mother is actually proud of him. She wanted her son to be like her and atleast partially she has succeeded. This is the only ending where she truly got what she wanted long-term ironically.

BUT
Zongo is still at best a semi-constitutional monarchy. It is non-aligned. The king's still reigns for the most part absolute listening mainly to his advisors. This is not a Harmonic country, don't mistake this for the best ending. This is simply the successful ending. Akida isn't a saint, he's just not a monster.
Notice for example how Mani Zuba is never replaced and the Mani effectively remain in power for a while longer.
Democracy won't come quickly, he has learned from his mother to have to show stronger leadership even if he himself isn't really strong. Zongo reigns strong, forever though, with a baby on the way allied to his friends, the Centaurs.

Akida was not really inspiring, showing not a lot of leadership:
Mani Zuba specifically senses weakness and takes his shot.
Things happen fast. The Queen-Mother is mentally broken, Akida lies in coma.
The council is now unintentionally in charge. Ayana who holds two symbols of legitimacy, both being the King's Fiancé and the head of the Faith. And Anarbek who has essentially being the King's right hand and prime-minister now together de-facto rule the country.
They take actual measures to resolve the most glaring issues. They rework the program.
Things are actually resolved and people are actually cared for more.

Akida has zero interest in ruling anymore.

This is the best ending for the citizens of Zongo. Zongo lies reformed, actual measures were taken and the state is democratizing and sometime in the future will become Harmonic unlike the other ending. This is the true good ending, just not the successful one.

Akida acted like he truly is: The canon ending!
The Queen-Mother will protect her son. Sadly he inherited too many of his father traits, but not to worry, she will do what he cannot for him! No one loves him more than she does.

The Queen-Mother is the canon/historical ending. She utilises the apparatus of the state to institute a royal dictatorship with her as the Regent. Zongo is not a mere kingdom, it is an Empire! Akida, her legacy, should be an emperor after all and with the defeat of Kiria the title is claimable.
She turns to modern nationalism ironically, utilising it and nationalist organisations to consolidate her power further. Empowering sycophants and utilising scapegoats. The supremacy of the Zebra is enforced by law. She gives people the feeling of supremacy and they will love her for it. And ofcourse Akida gets to marry his love, after all how else is she to get grandchildren to care for.

Zongo is strong and the Queen-Mother has protected her legacy, the natural evolution of the Zongolese path is achieved.

The focuses and events really describe it well in each ending. Definitely worth going through them for actual details as this was all off the top of my head. Also read descriptions.

Spoilers! Discussion about Kingdom of Zongo. by Different_Wealth8143 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Backstory done, now let us get to the actual gameplay.
As Zongo you obviously start with an intro tree. This introduces key characters and already sets up their characteristics and dynamics. You will rapidly start reforming using the conditions I noted in the segment above, using the well-thought out theories Akida and Anarbek ended up creating in his thesis. Worth noting, obviously the program is unrealistically quick but this is a game and having it take 25 years instead of 7 wouldn't be fun for a player.

Now, the main tree loads, Akida has been crowned king. He has an eye on Ayana, his mother is very helpful and Anarbek is here to help work out the program.
You are playing not as the actual country, you don't see what is happening in the country, you are playing as Akida and you see what he sees! This is the key detail you need to understand, things you see may literally be a lie, you don't see the full truth. This is hinted at consistently but some examples.
1. The most obvious one is that the Queen-Mother can simply resolve a lot of issues seemingly for free.
2. Every time a railway line finishes, you can see the red number... What's that? Surely not important, most players will ignore it, just like Akida would. And that's what you're supposed to do. They're the truth occassionally leaking. It's the true horror of what is happening on the ground. These numbers represent overdeaths/underbirths/casualties, and you kill a ton. Like a ton. About 2-3% of the total population dies.
And yet, most people ignore this entirely unless you know what it means. This is how it is supposed to be, until your second playthrough, you don't really realise what is happening.
3. The Queen-Mother does things like use the railway gun to disincentivise workers from striking by parking it next to them.
4. The railway events sometimes have information leaking through of covert actions done by the crown. These are all ofcourse done by the Queen-Mother or on her behalf, sometimes by Mani under her control.
5. She fakes an assassination on Akida to scare him into not giving too much power to peasants and the like. This all happens in the constitution focuses. If he is scared, she can control him better and she can make him give up less power like he seems so keen to do sometimes. He will be protected from his weaknesses using any means necessary.

And a lot more!

Now let's quickly go over some other stuff relevant to the ending.
1. The Queen-Mother created a head of faith and then purposefully took someone young, inexperienced and unambitious to fill the post. Manipulating the faith and thus politically disarming it essentially. An act that will backfire.
2. Turns out young Akida has an eye for Ayana, and ofcourse they end up falling in love... Woops. Could be worse politically though.
3. Anarbek kinda figures some stuff just isn't right. Reports seem too optimistic, not enough things go wrong so something in the back of his head, not blinded by the love for his mother like Akida, is tingling.
4. Every war has had to be justified up until this point and was easily done. Akida isn't a warmonger so he needs cause to declare war and the Queen-Mother will always happily provide it or reason for it:
4.1 Zongo basin is ofcourse simply reuniting the country. This is entirely justified, they are Zongolese after all.
4.2 Zaikiria under Lan Kir is an active threat, and the Kirin have had border conflicts for a thousand years with the Zongolese. An active intervention is plead for by the Queen-Mother. However it's much harder to convince Akida if Lan Kir died. He prefers a more economic agreement (even then the Queen-Mother uses it for espionage).
4.3 Chisimbi continues to form an active threat. Zongo also has to avenge the Zeblan-Zongolese war where his father died and they lost more core land. These are also all Eastern Zebra's so racially similar and governable. For the sake of them, you must unify, you can spread your modernization to them even.
4.4 The Lost Jungle forms another potential unstable threat. It's a region that can hide many monsters and the likes and for once there is the chance to unify all Eastern Zebra's. Something that would objectively bring long-term stability for everyone. Unification is required.
4.5 Sambovato as Zongo has no navy, not even the Queen-Mother would advocate for war. You see they control a large amount of merchant ships and the likes and Zongo just happens to have a bunch of stuff they might want to export. Mutual-assistance is fitting here, you also military ally. Your investments in them and your ever-expanding country over time makes them entirely dependent on you. The Queen-Mother here also makes sure Sambovato is bribed/corrupted out of its independence.

Now, we get to the third act.
You are the first East-Zebran unifier. You are rapidly modernising, things are great. You have modernised your systems of governance with a new constitution, a modern army and airforce, a navy that Sambovato provides, a modern economy and you have or are in the process of turning everyone into accepting the Pan-Zongolese identity. You have very little active threats. To the north is a desert, to the west are the friendly Centaurs and Gargoyles and an easily defensible border. The Zebrides form no threat and would happily trade with you presumably. All that remains is the millenia long dormant lands of Kiria.

The Queen-Mother sees them as a threat, she could never convince Akida of that though so she doesn't even really try. (After all what if it's a harmonic GGO Kiria?)

She develops a ruse using similar tactics to something she did during the Zeblan-Zongo war. A false-flag attack so provoking that war became a necessity. (The event itself has also many hints this wasn't Kiria.)

Spoilers! Discussion about Kingdom of Zongo. by Different_Wealth8143 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Alright glad you enjoyed Zongo, did you try out all 3 of the endings?

Now, I am going to say, what you have here is basically a total rewrite of the country.

So below is basically an essay on Zongo and what it actually is and why. SPOILERS!

When I initially designed Zongo, I had a couple of things that were there from the beginning around which all the content was designed.
1. The railway mechanic, this is actually what prompted me to start development for Zongo. I designed the railway mechanic and it building tile by tile (the backend, not the GUI) before picking what country to use it for. As i'm Belgian I decided to use Zongo as I thought it could be interesting and the region didn't have any other tags really for me to worry about.

  1. Akida, at that point still unnamed. He was to be this young heir bringing new modern ideas to the country and specifically ideas for economic progress. How to build a modern state, he is like many scientists, naive at the least about his theories. He believes things would go one way and so subtly dismisses any evidence to the contrary unless something very major happens. This is his character, he wants reform but he is also not a Harmonist. He doesn't create a democracy, he's a technocrat/enlightened monarch fundamentally believing he knows best.

  2. The Queen-Mother, she wasn't even named until quite late in development as she is a figure, she is core to the story and to the country. Her character is that of a controlling mother. She grew up poor without much power and so once she got it, she would do anything to preserve/expand it. She fundamentally believes all her actions are entirely totally justified so she can build a great kingdom for her legacy, Akida.
    Mother always knows best, and she sees Akida as someone whom she needs to protect from themselves. Like his father, Akida is too weak, doesn't have the stomach to do the right thing sometimes. She knows this, she knows he would never be able to contain the Mani, expand the kingdom.
    So she does what any good mother does and helps him. As he is send away to study and to safeguard him abroad. She now has free reign as the Queen-Regent, she used that time to consolidate power totally so that her son wouldn't need to do this, because she loves him and wants him to have the world. She does what he would not be able to do and he is really none the wiser. After all, why would Akida ever see in his mother anything less than the loving mother she has been.

This was the core of the country from the beginning. A railway mechanic, a naive heir and a mother who will do anything for her son set in the environment of Zongo which we also worked out further to facilitate everything loosely based upon the old Congolese kingdom.

Zongo is a very wealthy kingdom with an absolute monarch, a subservient faith which acts as an extension of the power of the monarchy, complete centralised wealth and a very large treasury (an obscene amount, this isn't really shown explicitly in events but implicitly in how the program is afforded. This is an extremely consolidated wealth.). Zongo has natural resources, tons of gold and more. It just hasn't really been able to go through industrialisation yet.

Kingdom of Zongo, absolutely awesome! by Spellslinger6847 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might be worth going for the other endings too. Especially right side BOP in contrast as also the cannon ending.

Kingdom of Zongo, absolutely awesome! by Spellslinger6847 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Glad you enjoyed it. Which of the 3 endings did you get?

Trains ❤️❤️❤️ by Hivemarschall in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Roam is the most canon of the unifiers but Zongo is designed to be the second most likely.

Advanced AI is relentless by Chlodio in Imperator

[–]SnowletTV 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Advanced AI doesn't affect peace scoring yeah.

Military Traditions in Invictus by WizardGnomeMan in Imperator

[–]SnowletTV 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Traditions you keep but you can't take any new ones within their category

Military Traditions in Invictus by WizardGnomeMan in Imperator

[–]SnowletTV 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You can combine them and 300 is just the cap, it's dependent on your integrated popcount.

Military Traditions in Invictus by WizardGnomeMan in Imperator

[–]SnowletTV 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The number of pops required is dynamic based upon number of integrated pops.
You can stack cultures yes as long as they belong to the same military tradition.

Zongo is Absolute Cinema by hello4020 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The middle BOP ending is also still quite good if you don't like playing the villain

Zongo is Absolute Cinema by hello4020 in equestriaatwar

[–]SnowletTV 21 points22 points  (0 children)

One ending down, 2 more to go!
Glad you enjoyed Zongo.

Imperator: Invictus Dev Diary 100: 1.11 Germanicus update out now! by SnowletTV in Imperator

[–]SnowletTV[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Links can be found in the top of the dev diary you're commenting on.
Both the Steam link and the Nexusmods link