Planning to start a patreon: pitch me some map ideas, please!

Greetings and salutations!

Thinking of starting a Patreon over at my Deviantart account, and it occurred to me that if I'm going to be paid for it, I should be providing rather more original content and less of my usual mix of map covers and maps of published AH or SF scenarios.

I'm currently stressing about various things and not overflowing with ideas, so I was hoping to get some help from the AH.com collective. Can't promise you financial rewards (right now I don't know if this is going to make any real money: for one thing, I'm not sure Deviantart is even the best place for it!), but I certainly will name and shame celebrate those people whose ideas I use.

Thanks in advance.
 
Perhaps make a map of the results of a map game? For example, some particularly long ones like 1789: Who Tells Your Story? or my Historica: Tale of Empires?
 
If you want prompts I can give you a few:

What if Japan wins the Imijin War? The real fun here isn't Japan controlling Korea centuries ahead of schedule, or even a mega-China-Japan-Korean Empire. It's that Hideyoshi has to try and offer land and titles to many of the samurai and sons of samurai. I don't know how this can be done, or for how long. When the mega-Shogunate collapses, Japan could descend back into the Warring States. Other butterflies could include the bureaucrats being even more powerful in China, the Spanish being kicked out of the Philippines, further Russian advance into Central Asia, and a larger Chinese diaspora in SE Asia.

During the Byzantine-Sassanian War the Byzantines abandon Constantinople and flee to Carthage. The victorious Sassanians are less fatigued than OTL but still have a hostile Rome-in-exile, some difficulties with their new Avar neighbors, and oh yes, the Caliphate is preparing to leave the Arabian Peninsula. Later centuries could have all sorts of butterflies. Perhaps Russia is the last Zoroastrian country and Islam goes deeper into Asia with a more Eastern power base. North Africa may be more united to itself and Italy, perhaps setting a precedent that a later Italian state tries to use. The Visigoths remain in power in Spain a bit longer until they're replaced by some other invasion. Perhaps one eventually sees an *Amazigh state in Iberia.

A few decades after a Fatherland-style Cold War between Germany and the US went hot, the world is trying to put itself back together with Apartheid South Africa & *Maoist China as the preeminent global powers. Because it wasn't pessimistic enough yet.
 
How about a twist on the classic "What if Rome never fell?", except that here, the Romans have undergone a *Communist Revolution and are locked in an ideological Cold War with some other Empire (possibilities could include Persia, India, China, Japan, a New World power, or some combination of the above).

Another could be a world where the Carthaginians defeated the Romans, and have undergone a vaguely similar path as the SPQR did OTL, but now it's the equivalent of the Middle Ages and Carthage survives now only in a Byzantium-style Eastern Carthage centered in Egypt.

Another could be a scenario where the Royalists defeat the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War (I wrote a short story based on this concept for a contest but my scenario wasn't very well done and I'd like to see a different take on the same basic "What If?")

Anyway, big fan, hope to see your work in the future!
 
Some ideas (sorry that these suggestions are admittedly rather generic - I'm not in a creative mood either) And given the basic nature of these, you might have done some of them before already, or something close. But I figure tossing them out in any case if you need some suggestions. You always have the option of not using them)


1. You might have done this before, but what about a basic future history scenario? Not based on any specific sci-fi or fantasy etc book or movie. But rather your own prediction as to how things will be, say, circa 2100 or 2150. A realistic or maybe semi-realistic (with the crackier, more sci-fi-esque ideas, if you so please) take. Admittedly, this a pretty hard one, there being no external resources to depend on and, of course, predicting the future is always an unreliable (and extremely hard to spell out) game - but that's part of the charm, maybe. And there really is nothing more original than this, I'd think. (Plus, who knows, if you do make this, maybe your predictions turn out eerily Simpsons-correct and you become like an early 21st century Nostradamus or something.)

2. Somewhat iffy about this due to the problems it has, but what about a "Baddies" world: every country the cartoonishly evil, stereotyped version of itself. It doesn't have to be strictly the OTL "evil" one: there are plenty of Nazi Germanies and Imperial Japans and British Empires-analogues enough historically, and it would feel cheap and wonky when you have, say, a surviving Black Myth-dialed-to-the-11 Spain neighboring OTL Nazi Germany, a butterfly holocaust (heh) in other words. One problem is the territorial clash - say, there's be a bit of a problem having an absolutist-and-even-more-racist British Empire right next to a fascist and expansionist USA, not to mention having these mighty surviving evil European empires probably leave little wiggle room for independent Latin American, African and Asian dystopias (I'm thinking diverse mix of nasty nationalist fascist, famine-prone communist, Islamic fundamentalist and angrily nativist-xenophobic regimes taken to their cartoonishly evil limit). So I'm not sure about this - might require more work than it's worth to get it feeling authentic. Perhaps it'll just work better as a purely ASB, "some Supreme Being Above decided to drop the worst versions of each country across the Multiverse on one planet as punishment for their follies"? I dunno.

3. "Disaster universe" mash-up: in the late 20th century, all the cataclysmicly devastating geological (and perhaps astrological) phenomena start wreaking havok on the planet. Japan sinks, California becomes it's own island, modern day Tunguska, etc. It could also be a homage to the disaster thriller genre itself, sort of like your horror movie one. The disasters are frequent and globally widespread enough that, but maybe not enough to totally destroy world civilization - damage it a great deal, but not the end, since that probably wouldn't make for much of a scenario beyond "uh oh, everyone dies!". The "twist" here there is no clear evil force or conspiracy society driving the disasters: it's just that their universe is particularly incredibly unlucky, and perhaps has somewhat different laws of nature than our own, say, to explain the ASBness of the perhaps more fantastical / broad-ranging catastrophes. Admittedly, the lack of a cohesive structural system explaining these disasters might be a negative mark on it's own, being that it might take a lot of effort to make all the separate disasters feel connected enough to be one self-contained scenario rather than just several loosely-connected ones somehow set in the same world. (And not, say, basically an abbreviated 2012-expy). Not sure if it gets points regarding "originality" since it does take from a variety of disaster genre media, though you could go with your own unique take on it.

4. Maybe a series of more maps revolving on this idea? It's a fairly broad and open concept - not in and of itself being based on any published AH or SF work - though the problem being that it'll consequently need more effort too. It doesn't need to be itself based on any particular alphabet set or combo. It could well as be based on region, religion, ideology, bloc, etc. Say, how do the WW2 Axis, after being transported to a virgin earth, fare with each other (they have the whole world to themselves, after they beat each other up of course) Or the socialist bloc just before the Sino-Soviet split. Or modern NATO, etc. (Admittedly this might well come off as a wank-fantasy for certain prompts...)

5. Crack general idea: DBWI-type Alphabet wank series or alternate history from the perspective of an alternate universe historian. Operating and writing with the societally-widely-held social, cultural and historical assumptions and notions of that world, you theorize about other worlds. Say, it's a classical Greek/Punic Mediterranean dominated world - what do they think, of, the prospects of an enlargened Pretani/aka *British empire, that, in their world, was not much more than a coastal backwater? Or whether any Latin state could have ever unified Italy? Of course, saying that this requires a lot of work would probably be an understatement - it's hard enough making a believable and plausibally-constructed alternate world, let alone operating from the assumption of one in making another (in AH-ception). So yeah, but I'd say it'd definitely be unique content.



6. If you're not into these non-specific suggestions, I still think people would appreciate covers of established works of media just as much as original works - besides the general AH/SF mix, maybe more fantasy-ish works could work? Say a map-scenario of Westeros (there's some unexplored bits in the east and south of the planet you could make your own ideas for?), or the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, or I dunno, Lord of the Rings, or maybe ASB mashups of these: I recall seeing a pretty map for a scenario involving Columbus' ship stumbling upon Westeros somewhere back in one of the old map threads, and that could be some fuel for scenarios. (If you're into ASB scenarios of "ISOT!", anyway)


In any case, just tossing out ideas! No need to particularly use any of these, though I'd be glad if they ever manage to help you.
 
1. I think a map on an updated version of your opposite world would be interesting to see, as it would be cool to see what other countries look like in that world as well, and a map can be helpful and show that.

2. I think seeing your take on the emberverse would be interesting to see as a world map.

3. I think a Zootopia/Beaststar-like world map would be interesting to see.
 
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Maybe a scenario of an Islamic West and a Christian East where Sassanid victory in the Final War leads to Rome being absorbed by the Rashidun Caliphate while the Sassanids hang on behind the Zagros and end up being smashed by Nestorian Turks who spread the teachings of the Church of the East across Asia by fire and bow?
 

qazse

Gone Fishin'
How about a version of your Amerika scenario translated to the modern day, with Putin’s Russia taking the role of the Soviets?

either that, or a cover of the Splatoon universe.
 
Perhaps you can do a map focused on a specific country, with attention given to alternates divisions ? The Commie USA maps we see sometimes are a good example of this kind of work
 
Greetings and salutations!

Thinking of starting a Patreon over at my Deviantart account, and it occurred to me that if I'm going to be paid for it, I should be providing rather more original content and less of my usual mix of map covers and maps of published AH or SF scenarios.

I'm currently stressing about various things and not overflowing with ideas, so I was hoping to get some help from the AH.com collective. Can't promise you financial rewards (right now I don't know if this is going to make any real money: for one thing, I'm not sure Deviantart is even the best place for it!), but I certainly will name and shame celebrate those people whose ideas I use.

Thanks in advance.
It isn't exactly AH, but maybe you could do urban maps of major cities perhaps including transport systems, major academic/business/touristic places, lateral pictures, and the like. If you want to make it more interesting, it could be alternate history stuff such as a modern Constantinople as capital of a Byzantine Empire, a socialist New York with left-wing names for subway stations, or things like that.
 
Perhaps you could do a For All Time-type scenario but, say, starting with the year 2000 politically and spiraling into madness from what could have happened and been totally whack but we ITTL are lucky didn't occur...?

Will think of a more original concept just tossing that one out there for now.
 
What about doing your own take on alternate history tropes, like Axis victory, Central Powers victory, Confederate victory, Napoleonic victory, and the like?
 

qazse

Gone Fishin'
Here’s another idea from me: An Axis victory scenario, but China is the Asian Axis power, not Japan.
 
Aftermath of a failed Axis victory.
What I mean is, the Axis wins in Europe, then invades North America as-in MITHC or something like that, but the USA, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Newfoundland, etc, repeal them. No idea what the aftermath of this would be, but I imagine it would be VERY messy.
 
A few more ideas of various length, hailing from the medieval and ancient worlds:

What if the Sui won the first Sui-Goguryeo War? The Sui would survive longer, butterflying the Tang. I don't know what they would do with Goguryeo, but if could annex it and digest it then most of what we call Korea would become part of China, potentially resulting in its inclusion in more dynasties, and leaving the fate of the small Korean kingdoms on the coast unclear. Given your skill with butterfly effect, I'm sure you could do something interesting with that.

What if the Hyksos conquest of Egypt didn't happen? After the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, the Hyksos established a dynasty in the North. This resulted in Egypt being temporarily divided between North and South again and may have prompted the New Kingdom when it formed to take a greater interest in expanding North. But what if none of this happened? How would the ancient Middle East have looked with a different Egypt?

Commenting on the plausability of Carthagenian victories in the Punic Wars, someone once commented "Carthage wasn't going to win the Third Punic War unless a meteor hit Rome or something". The impact would result not merely in a rump Carthage possibly surviving, but also in global crop failure and general chaos. It could be fun.
 
I think the thing is to try to sort out in your own mind what you are most interested in and then decide if it will be long lasting or find a format you like that you can apply to any period in history [feel like I'm teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs]
 
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