UCS Clarification Conference

[mowque]

You know that I stand fast against people who try to overload the UCS with too many. .

I know. hence my support (and this map would be t e ultimate worse case scenario, ). A few questions then I'll be quiet.

1. Pakistan needs a color?

2. So Dominions and such are up to our discretion?

3. What if our TL has no head Communist country, just many scattered about?

 

[Thande]

1. Pakistan needs a color?

Yes, for two reasons

1) To show when Pakistan was made up of two geographically separate regions before Bangladesh became independent

which would not be enough in itself, but

2) I am also using it to show Muslim Indian empires. This is important because historically and in ATLs they often coexist with Hindu empires in the south of India. For example, the dark purple for the Mughals and the light purple for the Marathas in the mid-18th century. This convention was actually used as early as Roberto's OTL maps, I'm just fixing the colour shades and making them a bit more distinct from each other.

2. So Dominions and such are up to our discretion?

Can you be more specific? I'm not sure what you mean.

3. What if our TL has no head Communist country, just many scattered about?

You can use the red diagonal stripes on them and not colour any of them fully red.

(NB, this works for any radical ideology, not just Communism).

 

[Alex Richards]

I think that's pushing it. Besides I tried giving Mali's colour to Sardinia/Piedmont and it's surprisingly hard to distinguish when next to France's.

How about Malaysia/secondary Indonesian power?

Malaysia already fits the critrea of having disjoined territory, while at the same time as Srivijaya there was Kediri controlling east Java and every island between that and Timor. There's at least three other examples of this occuring, not to mention regular occurences of smaller states controlling multiple islands.

 

[Thande]

How about Malaysia/secondary Indonesian power?

Malaysia already fits the critrea of having disjoined territory, while at the same time as Srivijaya there was Kediri controlling east Java and every island between that and Timor. There's at least three other examples of this occuring, not to mention regular occurences of smaller states controlling multiple islands.

That's a very good point. I'll pencil in Mali's colour for Malaysia then (hey, at least they sound similar...)

 

[Orioes]

Specify.

All three (Colombia, Suriname and Guyana) are pretty close (particularly when viewed on a iffy monitor) but Guyana seems the worst of the lot. Even on a good monitor it looks like Egypt has a colony.

That is up to the person making the map. Having set ones is silly because the point of a UCS colour is that it is unambiguously identified with a specific nation.

I don't think that is a good point against it for a couple reasons. Firstly, we are already accepting (and in fact with the TCS slightly increasing) a level of ambiguity in the scheme. I don't think it would make things substantially more ambiguous then using the US for republican Britain or Oz and the other colonial colors for any former colonial state of that nation. Doing such is essentially the same thing except it gives us a vague idea of their history. You still end up having to explain it in the blurb. Secondly, it does nothing to prevent and in fact invites the color creep and conflict that plagued the UCS. A problem you yourself have acknowledged. Better to have 2-3 colors that are vetted, set and known to be customs then having colors unintentionally added to the scheme or to have people puzzle out whether that blob of blue in Africa is a Danish colony or an ATL Songhai Empire.

 

[Alex Richards]

That's a very good point. I'll pencil in Mali's colour for Malaysia then (hey, at least they sound similar...)

Great. I'll incorporate it into the 1100AD update.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

I think the Sardinia colour works, though I can see what you mean about shades of green. Korea looks good. I never had any beef with Brazil so I'm happy with it.

 

[iori]

Too similar to Israel.

That made me want t actualy look to see them together.

Personally I don't thin they're that similar, but your scheme, so yeah.

 

[Lord Insane]

Thanks for that. There's a reason I took out all those colours - they're all too close to other ones, especially that daft blue Argentine one. Besides the fact that they're unnecessary.

TBH, I don't really see why Korea is all that much more necessary than Argentina.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

TBH, I don't really see why Korea is all that much more necessary than Argentina.

Yeah, unless it's for that one island.

 

[Lord Insane]

Yeah, unless it's for that one island.

I will admit that the Malvinas show up less often than I would have expected, and I suppose that on most maps with Argentina possessing those islands and this system being used, Argentina would be the only reasonable white-coloured (er... white on the map, that is) contender. And the overseas territories Argentina has in OTL tend to be in similar situation. Then again, that is an argument against giving Korea a colour for that one island, too.

 

[Helios Ra]

I sort of miss Hungary. But it's better.

Should modern Russia be considered Radical or Conservative?

 

[Alex Richards]

OK. Big problem here, I've got about 4-5 major hindu Indian states co-existing all of which have powerful empires (though the greatests territorial extents do not align). Essentially, keeping one colour means flipping to different nations when the previous one still exists.

 

[IsraFrance]

I think that the radical Russia or whatever that is is too similer to the USA color. can cause ALOT of probloms

 

[Thande]

I don't think that is a good point against it for a couple reasons. Firstly, we are already accepting (and in fact with the TCS slightly increasing) a level of ambiguity in the scheme. I don't think it would make things substantially more ambiguous then using the US for republican Britain or Oz and the other colonial colors for any former colonial state of that nation. Doing such is essentially the same thing except it gives us a vague idea of their history. You still end up having to explain it in the blurb. Secondly, it does nothing to prevent and in fact invites the color creep and conflict that plagued the UCS. A problem you yourself have acknowledged. Better to have 2-3 colors that are vetted, set and known to be customs then having colors unintentionally added to the scheme or to have people puzzle out whether that blob of blue in Africa is a Danish colony or an ATL Songhai Empire.

What's the point in having set colours that could stand for anything depending on the TL? That conveys no additional information than just colouring it white.

 

[Thande]

TBH, I don't really see why Korea is all that much more necessary than Argentina.

Tends to be a colonial power a lot in ATLs, based on the ATL Map Database thread. Probably due to the whole "Reverse the Japanese-Korean relationship" cliché.

 

[Thande]

OK. Big problem here, I've got about 4-5 major hindu Indian states co-existing all of which have powerful empires (though the greatests territorial extents do not align). Essentially, keeping one colour means flipping to different nations when the previous one still exists.

Gotcha. I don't think these colours should be used for any old state. Basically just for situations where India is divided into two main empires, one Hindu and one Muslim (which, you could argue, is modern OTL). But I don't want to see situations where there are a bajillion Indian states and people colour in one of them just to have an excuse to use the colour.

AFAIK, India tends to see situations where an empire rises, falls and then another rises rather than one overthrowing another as you see with Chinese dynasties, so I don't think there's quite so much potential for ambiguity. However I appreciate we won't know for certain until we try it out on maps. As I say, though, a similar system was used on Roberto's OTL maps without problems.

I think that the radical Russia or whatever that is is too similer to the USA color. can cause ALOT of probloms

I originally worried about that (and also with the dark green Chinese colour), but looking on maps where people used this proposed Russian colour, it's actually OK.

And I wonder what an "Alot of Problems" would look like.

 

[Thande]

All three (Colombia, Suriname and Guyana) are pretty close (particularly when viewed on a iffy monitor) but Guyana seems the worst of the lot. Even on a good monitor it looks like Egypt has a colony.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. But I just really want those Muslim Spanish colours to avoid an annoying itch in the ATL Map Database we've had with constantly having to colour big colonial empires inappropriate colours or leave them white. Hypocritical though I know it is, unless anyone can suggest a way to make them more distinct, I'm going to leave it. If you want a logical answer, I can only offer the weak one that in these TLs with Muslim Spain and its colonial successors Egypt tends to be Ottoman or Caliphate rather than independent anyway.

 

[Alex Richards]

Gotcha. I don't think these colours should be used for any old state. Basically just for situations where India is divided into two main empires, one Hindu and one Muslim (which, you could argue, is modern OTL). But I don't want to see situations where there are a bajillion Indian states and people colour in one of them just to have an excuse to use the colour.

AFAIK, India tends to see situations where an empire rises, falls and then another rises rather than one overthrowing another as you see with Chinese dynasties, so I don't think there's quite so much potential for ambiguity. However I appreciate we won't know for certain until we try it out on maps. As I say, though, a similar system was used on Roberto's OTL maps without problems.



I originally worried about that (and also with the dark green Chinese colour), but looking on maps where people used this proposed Russian colour, it's actually OK.

And I wonder what an "Alot of Problems" would look like.

OK. Probably need to specify which empire is being talked about though.

Looking further, I think we would only need 4 colours for India in total: Bengali based, South India based, Deccan Based, Muslim state. There's at least two large empires for each, often with an example of each cooexisting and one rising in power as another is declining but still extensive. That would only require two extra colours which (considering that India has a history as complex as Europe but is not as well represented) is quite managable. I'd suggest having the South Indian colour as 'Hindu dominated state', as there have been powerful muslim states in the Deccan and Bengal.

Essentially, I think it would be highly beneficial to show the fact that Viyangara and the Deccan Sultanates both have vassals and are seperate to the Dehli Sultanate (and the Deccan is muslim as well).

 

[Thande]

OK. Probably need to specify which empire is being talked about though.

Looking further, I think we would only need 4 colours for India in total: Bengali based, South India based, Deccan Based, Muslim state. There's at least two large empires for each, often with an example of each cooexisting and one rising in power as another is declining but still extensive. That would only require two extra colours which (considering that India has a history as complex as Europe but is not as well represented) is quite managable. I'd suggest having the South Indian colour as 'Hindu dominated state', as there have been powerful muslim states in the Deccan and Bengal.

Essentially, I think it would be highly beneficial to show the fact that Viyangara and the Deccan Sultanates both have vassals and are seperate to the Dehli Sultanate (and the Deccan is muslim as well).

I don't think we need Bengali or Deccan colours. The Hindu/Muslim divide basically works well for South/North as well. As I say, this should only be used for big empires, not individual states that just happen to fit the bill...I appreciate it's a bit vague but hopefully once we've tried it out on some maps we can refine the definition.