Hey all! Vasi here -- I’m stepping in for Ryagi this week to bring you our latest mod spotlight: Aurora Regnorum.
What would have happened if an isolated Alaska had been visited by Europeans much earlier?
This is a niche but intriguing alt history mod, featuring a unique map and bringing richly detailed flavour to an overlooked region. Difficulty options are also embedded in the mod, for those wanting a variable experience.
>> Aurora Regnorum on the Steam workshop <<
Read below for a full write-up on the mod by its creator, SeagullSox.
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In the mid-1300’s a revitalized Khanate had emerged like a phoenix, reuniting many of the fragments of Genghis Khan’s shattered legacy. From Crimea to Korea, the Second Mongol empire ruled with an iron fist. The Khan, having ambitions for a great and prosperous Beijing as his capital, wanted people of all kinds to be forced to contribute to his plans. Tens of thousands of people on the fringe of the empire were forcefully immigrated to the outskirts of Beijing. Slavs, Fins and even Arabs were brought for their forced labor to the capital.
At first, it was tolerable, but once the Khan died, his successor had a different tone. He was far more oppressive and barbarous than his father. In a stroke of complete providence, the immigrants rebelled successfully, taking the city of Beijing. But with the Mongol Horde soon reinforcing, they knew their demise was imminent. In a show of logistic and diplomatic genius, the leaders of the rebellion were able to acquire ships and sailors, where they sailed into the night as far as they could from their vengeful oppressors. Sailing past Korea and then Japan, the refugee armada didn’t see land for a long time. Finally they came upon a distant and cold land.
Aurora Regnorum is an alt-history mod about an isolated Alaska that gets visited by a wave of very early Europeans. It explores what the clash between cultures and religions might look like. What power struggles would emerge? What diplomatic alliances might result? Who would lead Alaska’s future; the Native Alaskan people or the Strangers from the West?
Regions
So far, there are 6 regions that are fully developed and playable. There are a bunch more provinces and potential regions to the southeast, but that area is much earlier in its development and is a lot less stable/playable. The Trade all generally flows towards modern-day Anchorage, as this is where Alaska’s population has flourished in our timeline. Each of the regions are generally unique.
- Kodiak: Semi Isolated from the action, Kodiak will typically be dominated by the Russian-tag of Kadyak unless otherwise challenged.
- Kenai and Anchorage: These regions are by far the busiest and where you will find the most traditional EU4 experience.
- Susitna and Glenallen: These regions begin very empty, but are intended to be colonized by whoever and create an opportunity for growth.
- Prince William Sound: This is my personal favorite region. PWS is all about trade and naval maneuvering. Most provinces here are hard to fight on but their goods produced make them worth seeking after.
- Southeast mega-region: As I said before, this area is underdeveloped. The terrain will look unfinished but I hope that it is at least functional enough to work as a colonization avenue.
Religion
The Catholics have formed their own mini-papal system, as they are far too disconnected from the mainland to rely on them. The Orthodox are here as well and there is one province that is controlled by a Shia nation. Totemism obviously makes a comeback but I also incorporated Shamanism, using assets with permission from the Arctics Expanded team. There are basically two groups of native so far, the Alutiiq (related to the Inuit) who are shamanist, and the Dene (related to the more common North American Native American), who are Totemist.
Countries
While I love all the countries that I’ve made here, some have a lot more content than others.
- Afognak: Afognak is a rough start to be sure. If victorious, it’s designed to replace Kadyak as the dominant Kodiak tag. If Afognak survives its initial wars with Kadyak, it will easily be a dominant power. Afognak also follows Shamanism.
- Kadyak: This tag is more in line historically with colonial Russia. Exploitation of land and people for the sake of their own is a key principle.
- Svatosk: Maybe the most unique tag, Svatosk is built to peacefully integrate with the natives. It uses a mostly functional event system that is designed to build trust with their two Alutiiq neighbors, once trust is high enough, Svatosk can peacefully vassalize them.
- Velreiz: This nation happens to occupy maybe the most important province in the mod. There will be blood over the Kahtnu River.
- Kenaitze: Velreiz’s rival, Kenaitze has maybe the most content in the mod.
- Kordovaa: Only three unique missions, but this is for some reason my favorite tag in the whole thing. It is definitely the sassiest tag and prefers to use its diplomatic savvy to dominate the economy.
- Nanwalek: This country is very odd as I never made a mission tree for it, yet it has the most unique events by far. This is because it has a lot of events related to the Afognaq-Kadyak struggle and their role in it. Also Bigfoot lives there.
Unique Events
- War of the Kahtnu River: I created this event to cause an initial shake up between Velreiz and Kenaitze. If you play either of these countries, you will be pressured to go to war in the first year or so. Very similar to “The Surrender of Maine”
- The Pirates of Kalgin: I really loved making this event. Basically if Velreiz is losing the War of the Kahtnu River, the unique island tag of Kalgin will break free from Velreiz. It is the most unique tag in the game: A Native Alaskan, yet Catholic, Pirate Republic. If you are playing as Velreiz when the event fires you will get the option to play as them.
- The Nantiinaq: Fun little event chain. Currently only works if you are Nanwalek, but essentially it's about Bigfoot. This is because of the modern-day lore around the region of Port Graham, Alaska.
Province Names
It is worth stating the amount of effort I went into to get accurate place names. I spent a lot of time trying to find the original Denaina, Alutiiq and Russian names of these places. It was super fun but very challenging, but there always came a time where I had to improvise. But there are hundreds of dynamic province names which focus on Alutiiq, Dene, Estonian/Finnish, and Russian cultures.
Great Projects
Maybe my favorite part of this mod was making Great Projects. There are 5 and I love them all very much. My wife helped me greatly with the pictures.
- Fort Puyurniq: This is to give the Alutiiqs a chance to survive on Afognak. It is basically just a really cheap fort as they don’t start with much money. Completely fictional.
- Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection: This is based on the real building that exists today in the city of Kodiak, Alaska. Something for the Orthodox nations to use.
- The Great Longhouse: This is another fictional building, but is essentially a way to get more goods produced in a central Kenai.
- Redoubt of Saint Nicholas: Based on a real nearby fort, “Fort Nikolaevskaia, built in 1899”, this great project essentially backs up the lore of Velreiz settling up the Kenai River.
- Mount Susitna: My favorite Great Project, the only one that is non-fictional that is related to Native Alaskans. There is a ton of lore on this mountain in oral native tradition, and I find it fascinating.
Spicy Options
- Hard Mode: This is based on Anbennar’s Great Conquerors feature. With a world this small, you may find yourself being too dominant too quickly. I added this to give an extra dose of challenge.
- Vinland Challenge: This option enabled Brimirhavn, a fierce offshoot of a wildly successful Vinland. Basically you are enabling a timeline where Vinland never died, but instead manifest destiny’d itself all the way to your doorstep; and they don’t like you.
Finally, a note on the size of the playable world so far: it’s small. It’s probably around ⅓ the size of europe. Throwing in the southeast area it is probably about half the size. I tried to implement this mod into the normal EU4 map but it was complicated and I felt really dispassionate about it. Basically I hope that people have a fun time with this mod despite its small size. I think there are some good games to be had here. Thanks for taking a look at Aurora Regnorum!
Special thanks to my wonderful wife for helping out on a bunch of the art!
Faithfully yours,
SeagullSox
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3169715493