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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Feb 2021 at 8:03 AM
Default Kedatuan: A Pre-Hispanic San Simeon
In anticipation of the 500th anniversary of the Philippine leg of the Elcano-Magellan voyage, I'd like to announce this next project. Kedatuan is a Malay word meaning "realm of the Datu," and describes the (tentatively nameless) city-state that controlled what will eventually become the Province of Nombre de Jesus, occupying what will centuries later be called San Jacinto Cadatuan.

My ambitious aim is to get something ready for release by the 27th of April 2021, the 500-year anniversary of the Battle of Mactan, but a June 12 release, in time for Philippine Independence Day, is also a good (and perhaps more reasonable) deadline. Note that this will put some of my other projects (Old Manila and Camayao) on hold in the meantime, but these are pretty long-term projects anyway.

I'm currently open for collaboration for this one, too, both in terms of planning, lot building, and eventually family building. You can contact me either here, through my Tumblr (jg-abuyuan-art), or through Discord (DM for link). I am more active on Discord and Tumblr, though.

Background

The idea of creating a pre-Hispanic Philippine setting has been in my mind since before I laid the groundwork for San Simeon. The idea began when I first started ruminating on playing a history challenge set in the Philippines. This challenge had three major phases: the pre-colonial, Spanish colonial, and late-colonial eras, all of which demanded a tropical setting that resembled Southeast Asia. I had a few false starts in the past, which were all set in Isla Paradiso that had been cleaned of buildings.

Thanks to jje1000's emptied out Isla Paradiso (which led to the final version of San Simeon), I've gotten quite far into making that happen again. I already created an emptied out, forested version of the modified Isla Paradiso and started a building spree on it. Right now, I'm just building on the world I emptied out. But I have plans on making it a separate, playable, populated world. Not only that, I want to create two versions, set at very different junctures of history.

Unlike the current version of San Simeon at the time of writing (which requires Monte Vista), the Kedatuan worlds will only feature CC and few to no store content.

About

The first version of the world is set in the 1300s through the 1500s, long before the Spanish arrive. At this time, the datus (aristocrats) were at the height of their power. The city-state serves as the nucleus of a hegemonic polity under the rajah, who commands the datus through alliances supported by favor and military supremacy. The other will be set 100 years later, in the 17th Century, after contact had been established. By then, the Spanish have begun construction of the town of Fort St. Simeon and have established a tenuous, fragile peace with the native lords. The 1600s version can work well into the 1700s through the early 19th Century.

The chief population in both worlds would be native Filipino, possibly comprising the Austronesians who swear allegiance to the city-state, and maybe a mountain tribal group. I had planned on adding a group that corresponds to the indigenous Aeta peoples in some parts of the country. Currently, I am in need of more resources to ensure an accurate depiction of their culture should I include them. The main world may also feature immigrant populations (from distant China, Japan, Indonesia, and India). The one set in the 1600s will, of course, feature the Spanish and the Chinese more prominently.

Map

The following pic shows the main built up area representing the chief settlement. Once completed, it should be dotted with walled or stilted houses, many of which are residential or community lots. The rest of the main island can be populated by smaller villages based on clans. The world is roadless, so the main form of fast transportation would be through boats. Priority is thus on coastal stilt homes. Inland homes may consist of self-sustaining farm communities that barely need to go anywhere.



Progress

Here are a few pictures of the world so far.















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Mad Poster
#2 Old 26th Feb 2021 at 12:20 AM
I absolutely love what you are doing. What I am very curious about is how will you keep the feel of being in another time when the game will always generate modern Sims, and so on? I have been working forever on a world I am calling Ancient World, so clever LOL, and finally decided it is an ancient site in today's time. In effect a tourist destination, as there will be modern Sims, modern cars, modern boats and so on that will generate. I did not figure out a way to handle this other than it being contemporary in time.

I am very interesting to see how you plan to get around this challenge.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 26th Feb 2021 at 6:36 AM
Thanks. Usually in worlds like this, the random-generated townies are an afterthought. Most pre-modern simmers actively edit any game-generated sims that pop up as they come. And that rings true even if they outright made an entire fleet of townies from scratch (honestly, this is probably what I need help with; the in-game residents and townies). I do take issues with paparazzi, since they bring with them cameras that shouldn't exist until the 19th Century (and use models from the 20th), but I can probably keep them at bay by turning off the celeb system, which probably doesn't apply to the setting anyway.

For when I can't just edit the sims myself, I do have the option of just ignoring them, which is what I do for historical playthroughs.

I'm not worrying much about motor vehicles since unlike San Simeon, this world is completely roadless. People can only go about by walking around, and I am incentivized to put people as close to the town center as possible to reduce said walking. For the modern boats, I plan to use the default replacement water taxis to help maintain the immersion from a gameplay perspective.

I will be using rabbithole rugs for this world as well, though I'll need to playtest since my last attempts at playtesting a different world reveal issues with the rabbithole school.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 26th Feb 2021 at 11:39 PM
Those water taxi replacements are perfect!
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 1st Mar 2021 at 6:20 PM
This world looks perfect for those Jungle Adventures conversions from ATS. Lovely.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 2nd Mar 2021 at 11:36 AM
@SonyaYU

Jungle Adventures' Selvadorada is set somewhere in a place analogous to the Yucatan Peninsula, which was also conquered by Spain (indeed, Isla Paradiso itself seems to be from that general area). It depends heavily on what items, though, since I changed the setting to a tropical Asian island, which doesn't have the same flora and is home to a totally different culture. For the colonial setting, I will definitely be using converted Jungle Adventures items because the selection of furniture from that set that's colonial resembles the kind the Spanish likely brought with them during the colonial period. ATS' Jungle Adventures conversions however are is distinctly Mesoamerican in nature and most pieces there are incompatible with my current build. The best and most compatible of the ATS sets is the Island Living one, which is Polynesian-inspired admittedly but the Polynesian cultures had a lot of cultural similarity with the Ancient Southeast Asians so the items from that conversion set were things I've used for similar builds for added authenticity.

It can work, however, on the blank world itself which while edited to be more reminiscent of Asia is a blank world that can be edited to look like any tropical forested world. I've been looking for a Mesoamerican themed world and building on an emptied Isla Paradiso could help make that a reality.
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 2nd Mar 2021 at 8:44 PM
Oh, good point.
Glad you will be able to find some use for these sets, I really like them and I kinda suck at building so seeing other creators make use of them makes me happy.
Do you plan on adding any WA "tomb" elements? They can be a bit complicated but really versatile. They could actually perhaps also give some insight into actual history and culture with a clever use of the plaques and inscriptions.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 3rd Mar 2021 at 4:08 AM
I have considered adding tombs since they add to the lore but that's veering into unfamiliar territory. Sadly, the Ancient Philippines didn't have much in the way of elaborate monumental burials like the rest of Asia so at this time I'm not too familiar with how I can make a conventional WA tomb (I'm thinking now of something more similar to cave burials than anything deliberately constructed). Which is a shame because the ancient rajahs loved golden grave goods. The plaques on their own though might still be useful since actual metal plaques containing writing are of significant historical importance here
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 16th Mar 2021 at 11:09 PM
A quick little update on this world. So far, I've nearly built up most of the main settlement (and am now stuck with the tedium of decorating the larger houses).



Details of the exterior of the Rajah's palace, included are the houses for the higher-ranking slaves, the kitchens, and the facade with the thrones.





Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#10 Old 25th Mar 2021 at 7:00 PM
Well, this week's update plus a possible change of plans.

First off, I've begun making edits to the way I make the native thatch houses. Before, I was content with using the EA walls on their own, which admittedly made the houses look a touch samey. For added realism, I decided to vary up the walls a bit. These will apply mostly to the homes of the slaves, free peasantry and warrior classes, and low-ranking nobles. The rich nobles will, meanwhile, have more rigid houses made of wooden planks.











While I tend to default to the same patterns over and over again, they at least don't seem as samey. It's based on actual images of the thatch and weave walls surrounding traditional Filipino houses (as opposed to the colonial ones). The varying patterns add an ad-hoc element to the houses that make it seem more rustic. Moreover, I based the style on the actual sets used in the television series Amaya , which together with various museum exhibits, books, and historical documents have been my key inspiration for the aesthetic of my precolonial builds.

Of course, this means, I must redo most of the already extant houses to follow suit. I've also considered enlarging the map somehow while containing much of the islands' original shape (it will result in a decrease in islands, but discoverable islands are kind of not the main draw, so it's okay for me to ditch some or all of them). I'll see how that experiment goes. But if it succeeds, I may push through with making the formal release date be on the 12th of June (anniversary of the Philippine declaration of independence) rather than the anniversary of the Battle of Mactan a few weeks from now. Right now, I do welcome collaborators, especially among interested Filipino simmers.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 13th Jun 2021 at 11:16 AM
An update.

So, as you can probably tell, I missed both the two deadlines because I decided to think outside the box and enlarge the main island of Isla Paradiso, which set me back quite a bit because I must rebuild the entirety of the world from scratch. On the upside, I finally have a world that's big enough for the level of density I'm after. In the process, I had to ditch some of the uncharted islands (which, TBF didn't exactly mesh with what I'm after for this world).

My further attempts at doing heightmaps were met with mixed success, but this expansion project so far has been successful.

The "new" world in the early stages


Scenes from the "main settlement:"







After that, I took a break from the pre-colonial stuff and did a completely differently build in the interim. But anyway, I've resumed work on this, though here's a heads up! I also expect to start school some time soon (I've signed up for a short course in animation) so this may affect progress.
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