This is a cosmetic issue more than anything else.
The extreme southeast area of Belgium is, more or less, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
I'm not sure if it's possible to do this, but it would be nice if, instead of showing a Belgian control marker that one area displayed a Dutch control marker.
The idea would be not to make any substantive chages in the game: if in reality that area is controlled by Belgium it would stay that way. But it would sport its own independant flag.
I haven't checked on the situation in the 19th century yet, but from the mid 20th century on the flags of Holland and Luxembourg are almost impossible to tell apart. Supposedly one of them has a slightly lighter shade of blue in its tricolor, but I can never remember which was which without looking it up.
Since the Dutch and Luxembourgeois control flags would never be next to each other, it really wouldn't matter if they were identical. So no new textures would have to be created. The only question would be could you put a note in Belgium's file that one particular area would use a(n apparently) Dutch rather than Belgian flag.
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Aphrodite Mae
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youre missing something
luxembourg is a region divided in two.
one is part of belgium( in modern belgium map if you look, you see luxembourg erea, as much part of belgium as california is part of U.S)
then there is the independent part, which is much smaller than the belgian region.
its a tiny country, hardly worth beeing put in as the whole luxembourg
luxembourg is a region divided in two.
one is part of belgium( in modern belgium map if you look, you see luxembourg erea, as much part of belgium as california is part of U.S)
then there is the independent part, which is much smaller than the belgian region.
its a tiny country, hardly worth beeing put in as the whole luxembourg
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yellow ribbon
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jamitar is right,
historically it gets even worse, since there was a crisis when the french wanted to buy a part of the "dutch" Luxembourg, while the "german" Luxembourg was even a part of the Zollverein.
the "french quarter" (after the third split) shown in game was really a part of the belgian independence movement and thus a part of Belgian national soil...
the GD Lux. was only a fraction of the province.
tricky, at least
historically it gets even worse, since there was a crisis when the french wanted to buy a part of the "dutch" Luxembourg, while the "german" Luxembourg was even a part of the Zollverein.
the "french quarter" (after the third split) shown in game was really a part of the belgian independence movement and thus a part of Belgian national soil...
the GD Lux. was only a fraction of the province.
tricky, at least
yellow ribbon wrote:jamitar is right,
historically it gets even worse, since there was a crisis when the french wanted to buy a part of the "dutch" Luxembourg, while the "german" Luxembourg was even a part of the Zollverein.
the "french quarter" (after the third split) shown in game was really a part of the belgian independence movement and thus a part of Belgian national soil...
the GD Lux. was only a fraction of the province.
tricky, at least
Err. Even that is over simplified. The Dutch Luxembourg as you say was actually the one part of the Zollverein (there also is/was a German Luxembourg, namely the region around Bitburg which used to be Luxembourgish until 1815 iirc., certainly even today we speak mutually understandable dialects (yes, I'm from the Grand-Duchy)). All of the post Vienna treaty Luxembourg was pro-Belgian during the Belgian Revolution, the only reason the remainder of the country was split at that time was the presence of a Prussian garrison in the city of Luxembourg (one of Europe's most important fortifications of the time, dismantled in the late 1860's as part of a Prussian-French crisis ;-) ). The Prussians first permitted the dutch governor to stay out of harms way (except for a brief period where he was abducted by Belgian/Luxembourgish revolutionaris and then liberated under Prussian pressure) and then essentially enforced that the so called german speaking (so called because no part of old Luxembourg was ever just german or french speaking, both languages co-existed since at least the middle ages) part of the country remain under their dominance. After the post Belgian-Revolution split, many Luxembourgers remained in Belgium to make careers in politics, law or other areas, the Belgian province of Luxembourg also continued to be developped under Belgian rule. The Dutch/Prussian controlled Grand-Duchy in turn started to gradually become independant (territorial separation from the Netherlands played an important role there), though it still required som time before a national identity would develop (possibly only fully blossoming during the 1939 100 years of independance celebrations and even more due to resistance to Germn occupation during WWII). During the 19th century, under German influence, the Grand-Duchy also started developing industrially (steel mills with close ties to the Prussian Saar, while Belgian-Luxembourg naturally had closer ties to Namur and Liège regions). When the German Federation was first considered, the Grand-Duchy sent a delegation to join, eventually it was decided not to adhere, but to simply stay a member of the Zollverein...
In PoN terms the province of Luxembourg should remain Belgian (even the Grand-Duchy retained strong economic ties with Belgium), simply because Belgium, a 19th century major industrial power is already underrepresented in the game. By removing one more of that country's regions it would lose some important resources (Belgian-Luxembourg had important iron deposits, started some steelmills, exploitations of Wood and industries centred around that resource, later tourism (one industry not represented in PoN). One possible ammendment might be to give the Prussians a trade-agreement with Belgium at the start of PoN, up the resource availability (mostly iron) in the province of Luxembourg and add at least one Prussian iron mine to the province (G.-D. steelmills were only just starting to expand around that time). But that would risk opening all of Belgium to Prussian industry unrealistically. The other, probably more important issue is the question of the fortress of Luxembourg that almost started the Franco-Prussian war a few years early (the solution of the Luxembourg crisis was the dismantlment of the fortress). But if one were to add the fortress to the Belgian province and give Prussia military access to Belgium and a garrison in Luxembourg would again lead to too much Prussian access to Belgium as a whole. Right now I'd say the issue is unsolvable in PoN, therefore another argument to leave things as they are (a Luxembourg crisis could probably be included in other ways anyhow)...
P.S.: Luxembourg partitions were as follows: The region of Longwy to France in the 17th century, Bitburg to Prussia in 1815 and Arlon to Belgium (assuming the G.-D. represents a "true" Luxembourg, which I'd disagree with) in 1839. Other areas had also previously belonged to the old Duchy of Luxembourg and been separated at different points, but these were mostly vassals of the dukes (for instance parts of the county of Vianden, most of which eventually became German, som Belgian and some Luxembourgish) or possesions of the dukes outside de duchy proper (county of Chiny). Oh and to confuse matters some more, before the erection of the duchy of Luxembourg there was a county by the same name, the counts of said county at times also were rulers of a number of other counties (Namur, Durbuy, Laroche, Longwy, Bitburg, Arlon etc.) in the region by the end of the 12th century and the start of the 13th, they also had vassals throughout the region (including several counts like Vianden, Salm etc.). All of that area is sometimes mistakenly (the various counties still had their own laws and traditions) referred to as the county of Luxembourg in history books. Sometimes they are also referred to as a duchy long before such an entity existed. Even when said duchy was finally erected it did not include all the territory formaly (or still) ruled by the former count and new duke. Oh and of course at least three (four if you count Hermann of Salm older brother of one of the counts) king/emperors of Germany were counts/dukes of Luxembourg.
Marc aka Caran...
Oh I forgot the flag question...
The G.-D. eventually adopted a flag based on the colours of the historic coat of arms of the counts, later dukes of Luxembourg (the grand-dukes still bear a variant today). The coat of arms was "barry argent and azure, a lion rampant gules, crowned armed and langued or" (in common speech, a red lion (crowned gold, also golden tongue and nails) on a 10+ times horizontaly divided field of white and blue). So red for the lion, white for the white stripes and blue for the blue striped. I'd have to look this up (while Wikipedia is your friend, don't always rely on it, someone could well have overwritten my old sourced contribution to that topic, some nationalists like to rewrite history (an attempt to adopt a new flag (coincidentally identical to that of Belgian-Luxembourg) a couple of years ago)) to be entirely certain when the flag was ffirst adopted. By the way, originally the Dutch flag had not been red-white-blue. At some point it became inofficial practice to use a lighter blue to distinguis the Luxembourgish flag from the Dutch one. Yet later this distinction was passed into law, going as far as defining specific Pantone colours for the flag...
Two rumours as to the origins of the flag have been disproved for some time. One was that it's simply a dutch flag from the pre- or post- Belgian Revolution times (the flag was apparently already used by Luxembourgish/Belgian revolutionaries (the Belgian flag has a similar origin to the Luxembourgish one, just being the colours of the coat of arms of the dukes of Brabant), which would not make much sense if it were seen as a symbol of the Dutch Kingdom). The other that it was a simple (mistaken) copy of the French flag, there certainly was a french inspiration the the Belgian Revolution including in Luxembourg, but there is no direct demonstrable connection between the two flags...
The G.-D. eventually adopted a flag based on the colours of the historic coat of arms of the counts, later dukes of Luxembourg (the grand-dukes still bear a variant today). The coat of arms was "barry argent and azure, a lion rampant gules, crowned armed and langued or" (in common speech, a red lion (crowned gold, also golden tongue and nails) on a 10+ times horizontaly divided field of white and blue). So red for the lion, white for the white stripes and blue for the blue striped. I'd have to look this up (while Wikipedia is your friend, don't always rely on it, someone could well have overwritten my old sourced contribution to that topic, some nationalists like to rewrite history (an attempt to adopt a new flag (coincidentally identical to that of Belgian-Luxembourg) a couple of years ago)) to be entirely certain when the flag was ffirst adopted. By the way, originally the Dutch flag had not been red-white-blue. At some point it became inofficial practice to use a lighter blue to distinguis the Luxembourgish flag from the Dutch one. Yet later this distinction was passed into law, going as far as defining specific Pantone colours for the flag...
Two rumours as to the origins of the flag have been disproved for some time. One was that it's simply a dutch flag from the pre- or post- Belgian Revolution times (the flag was apparently already used by Luxembourgish/Belgian revolutionaries (the Belgian flag has a similar origin to the Luxembourgish one, just being the colours of the coat of arms of the dukes of Brabant), which would not make much sense if it were seen as a symbol of the Dutch Kingdom). The other that it was a simple (mistaken) copy of the French flag, there certainly was a french inspiration the the Belgian Revolution including in Luxembourg, but there is no direct demonstrable connection between the two flags...
Marc aka Caran...
Jamitar wrote:okay, really, a too simple explanation seemed okay to me.
you just wrote the history of rome in detail there, its a lot of text!
Oh I could write the history of Rome too. But I fear it would be even more text ;-) ...
Some topics just get me starting, particularly if they are a bit obscure but close to my interests (I could write much more detail about medieval "Luxembourg" still, but what's the point here and now :-) )...
Sorry if it was too much...
Marc aka Caran...
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yellow ribbon
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thank you caranorn,
always better to learn from natives than from museums, eh?
you will forgive me, that i did not have the time for looking it up at work, just remembered the three times it was divided and the crisis of 1867 between Napoleon III. and the dutch.
thus, of course my post was over-simplified
the point is just that, after being on the loosing side (in the Rhein-bund during the napoleonic era), the "four quarters" (German idiom, Literature speaks from "Quartiere" in the old sense of the word, not meaning houses/sheltering of military troops) took completely different paths afterwards.
but we both totally agree, since they were for the smaller or larger part within the Belgium independence movement in 1830, and was torn apart in 1839, the better part of it can be accepted within the Belgian contemporary state.
this is underlined with the extremely large provinces in PON and the problem as you described it, resources...
BTW:
till 1866 it was represented on the assembly of the Deutsche Bund by the Dutch Kingdom with its "Virilstimme" (Viril-representative) anyway
and back we are, too many involved politics for simply declaring the whole province to be under one single flag
always better to learn from natives than from museums, eh?
you will forgive me, that i did not have the time for looking it up at work, just remembered the three times it was divided and the crisis of 1867 between Napoleon III. and the dutch.
thus, of course my post was over-simplified
the point is just that, after being on the loosing side (in the Rhein-bund during the napoleonic era), the "four quarters" (German idiom, Literature speaks from "Quartiere" in the old sense of the word, not meaning houses/sheltering of military troops) took completely different paths afterwards.
but we both totally agree, since they were for the smaller or larger part within the Belgium independence movement in 1830, and was torn apart in 1839, the better part of it can be accepted within the Belgian contemporary state.
this is underlined with the extremely large provinces in PON and the problem as you described it, resources...
BTW:
till 1866 it was represented on the assembly of the Deutsche Bund by the Dutch Kingdom with its "Virilstimme" (Viril-representative) anyway
and back we are, too many involved politics for simply declaring the whole province to be under one single flag
Although the history is very interesting, it doesn't change the fact that the landmasses, as portrayed on the gamemap, give a slightly distorted view of things if you eliminate Luxembourg as a separate entity.
Just to be absolutely clear about this, here is what we're talking about:
It is true that sticking a non-functional flag on the area in the extreme southeast of Belgium is not 100 percent accurate. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg only occupies about 75 percent of the area in question. But 25 percent visual inaccuracy is preferable, in my opinion, to 100 percent inaccuracy, which is what you get if you omit the country altogether.
And remember that we are not talking about changing any game functions, just the appearence of one particular control flag. Belgium will still control the area for game purposes.
Just to be absolutely clear about this, here is what we're talking about:
It is true that sticking a non-functional flag on the area in the extreme southeast of Belgium is not 100 percent accurate. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg only occupies about 75 percent of the area in question. But 25 percent visual inaccuracy is preferable, in my opinion, to 100 percent inaccuracy, which is what you get if you omit the country altogether.
And remember that we are not talking about changing any game functions, just the appearence of one particular control flag. Belgium will still control the area for game purposes.
nah, I (and many others probably, especially those not reading this thread)
would get frustrated at seeing their even smaller empire and their protectorate.
it wouldnt feel the same, you get only two flags instead of one, when you lose it and take it back there might be a mistake and shows belgians, when someone invades it might shows luxembourg
dont pay attention to that please, theres much more urgent!!
Diplomacy changes (more options, and stop making it impossible to make allies, always threat to world peace.[ even when I just started the game as prussia])
bug adjustments, AI scripts fixing (no german and italian unification is quite big one you must admit)
extra features which were still in production (loan feature? why is there a colonial building feature in economy mode, which has no buildings at all?)
and more, most of it in other thread
speak about cosmetics later, this already is the most precise game I know, and there aint no other game I know that even represents the region of luxembourg
would get frustrated at seeing their even smaller empire and their protectorate.
it wouldnt feel the same, you get only two flags instead of one, when you lose it and take it back there might be a mistake and shows belgians, when someone invades it might shows luxembourg
dont pay attention to that please, theres much more urgent!!
Diplomacy changes (more options, and stop making it impossible to make allies, always threat to world peace.[ even when I just started the game as prussia])
bug adjustments, AI scripts fixing (no german and italian unification is quite big one you must admit)
extra features which were still in production (loan feature? why is there a colonial building feature in economy mode, which has no buildings at all?)
and more, most of it in other thread
speak about cosmetics later, this already is the most precise game I know, and there aint no other game I know that even represents the region of luxembourg
Jamitar wrote:
speak about cosmetics later, this already is the most precise game I know, and there aint no other game I know that even represents the region of luxembourg
While I agree on much you said (no need to change Luxembourg in PoN) I have to disagree on that last statement. Luxembourg is found in Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis (at least I and II), Hearts of Iron (at least I and II) and a number of other historic games. Not to mention any serious game trying to portray world wars I and/or II...
Marc aka Caran...
Been playing Belgium in our glorious MP game. Seriously, I think Luxembourg as a territorial part of Belgium (since most of its land indeed was) is the most precise approximation. 
I wonder if the Luxembourg crisis of 1868 is simulated in the game though. Haven't checked the event files cause I didn't want to discover any other spoilers for my campaign. It would be nice if Luxembourg has the possibility to become completely independent in the course of the game, one way or another. We even have Flanders (with its own unique flag) as an emerging faction, so why not Luxembourg?
I wonder if the Luxembourg crisis of 1868 is simulated in the game though. Haven't checked the event files cause I didn't want to discover any other spoilers for my campaign. It would be nice if Luxembourg has the possibility to become completely independent in the course of the game, one way or another. We even have Flanders (with its own unique flag) as an emerging faction, so why not Luxembourg?
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