Preamble (skip if you have a short attention span)

Eight years ago, a YouTube video popped into my recommended list titled “MotE Lets Play!”. As soon as I laid eyes on the map, the clean and crisp visuals and the simplicity of this Paradox game, I was awe-struck. I downloaded MotE that very day and that’s where my love affair with the game started.

Eight years later, and I have developed countless total conversion mods on MotE and scrapped countless others. I have torn this simple game down to its foundation and rebuilt it in many different ways – sometimes to simulate the Libyan Civil War, for example. I have traveled to the far-flung corners of LinkedIn to track down ex-MotE devs to try and get every little bit of information I could obtain that would help me better mod this game, only to find out that the source code itself has apparently been lost forever during a server migration. I came to the realization that if there was a MotE expert in this world, it was me.

While I toiled on my own MotE mods, slowly developing systems and scripts that would help me build an entirely new game upon its simple foundation, I was well-aware of the pathetic state of Cold War modifications for various games. They’re slow, clunky, quite boring at times (unless you’re an epic Vic2 gamer who loves converting pops around or messing with pie charts) and they play more like visual novels than proper Cold War experiences. After years, the cancellation of East vs West, and the release of HOI4, there STILL wasn’t a proper cold war mod out there.

The time has come for that to change.

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Main menu screen

What is it?

March of the Eagles: East vs West is a total conversion mod for MotE that will FINALLY combine an accurate, realistic and dynamic systems-based approach to mod-building with the Cold War, building upon the idea of the cancelled Paradox game of the same name. Although the mod itself is built on March of the Eagles, an infamously unfinished game (it was basically a test bench for EU4), it shares nothing in common with its vanilla counterpart. Through the power of harnessing hundreds of hours of high-level Paradox modding, an entirely new game will be created atop the solid foundation that MotE’s exe files offer.

The basics:

- A start date of May 1948

- An end date of 2000 or more

- Highly detailed gameplay constructed with event-based scripts and code

- An in-depth economic aspect (interest rates, taxation rates, tariffs and inflation)

- A focus on proxy wars, regime change, nuclear deterrence and indirect conflict

- Tried and tested communist-capitalist factionary system to bring realistic civil wars and proxy wars to the mod in a way no one else has done (well, apart from my own previous mods)

Edit: Extremely early video footage of the mod being "played". It's not playable yet, but this should at least give a basic idea as to what the bones of the gameplay will look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH7WWUsCbe8

Why MotE?? Why?

Let me quickly answer everyone’s favorite question. MotE was a terrible game, but it provides a very clean foundation on the Clausewitz engine with very little in terms of baked-in buggy features (such as the ones in Victoria II, Europa Universalis, etc). This makes it a great way to access the “core” of the Clausewitz engine, perfect for creating total conversions (or in this case, a whole new game). Furthermore, MotE is far past its development cycle, meaning we never have to worry about updates bringing bugs and breaking mods.

Don’t let the March of the Eagles’ lackluster performance as a game turn you away from this mod. We’re using its advantages as a test bench to access a virgin Clausewitz platform upon which we can build anything we want.

An overview of the world in 1948. The world is divided between blue and red, the quintessence of the cold war. Every country has two tags, one capitalist and one communist. This is the foundation of how the mod represents situations accurately and realistically

"Woah, what the hell is that??" That's right. This ain't the MotE you knew or expected.

A New Map

For the past three weeks, I’ve been slaving away nonstop to create the foundation of MotE: East vs West. The majority of this work has gone towards creating a high-detail, hand-crafted, accurate and beautiful world map using QGIS and other professional programs. I cannot begin to explain the level of work that went into representing the amount of detail that can be found on this map. There are thousands upon thousands of individual land provinces; each accurately placed using satellite overlays and existing data.

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The terrain and colormap is taken from real-life satellite data

A high level of accuracy was desired, so I ended up using almost 4,000 individual provinces to represent the world. This can be seen by looking at the map in the Clausewitz Scenario Editor, where province borders are a bit more visible. As much detail was represented as possible using the space constraints I had to work around on the world map. When possible, province borders follow administrative divisions or natural landmasses.

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This zoom-in on Asia shows the ridiculous amount of province density in India and China. This was done due to the fact that these areas have such a high population. There was a MASSIVE megalopolis and then 4 feet away there was another MASSIVE megalopolis, so I had no choice but to up that sweet province density and also up my misery when I was drawing the province map

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A zoom-in on North America, showing the level of detail in a slightly less dense part of the world

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Central Asia, with deserts and steppes visible

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The lush, impenetrable Amazonian rainforest with its snaking and twisting tributaries. Real-life tree data was used to accurately place various coniferous and deciduous forests onto the map

The map was a labour of love and dedication, but it was not quite enough just by itself. I also researched names and flags of all countries in this time period and implemented more than SEVEN HUNDRED (700) tags and countries into the mod.

With 4,000 provinces and 700 tags in the game, I am happy to report that there is still no slowdown or lag. The wonders of MotE!

"N- no slowd.... no slowdow.... what?" said the frazzled Victoria 2 modder who is used to the game slowing to a crawl after adding 1 culture

(March of the Eagles is also notoriously well-optimized)

How will the mod work?

Let’s zoom into Europe at the game start to get a better idea of the basics of the mod.

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In 1948, Europe has just recovered from a devastating war. The continent is split, with the Iron Curtain splitting both blocs down the middle

As you can see, the world is divided into blue (capitalist) and red (communist/collectivist) countries. In fact, every country has two versions, or factions. For example, in Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany (blue) and the German Democratic republic (red) coexist side-by-side in an uneasy peace. If war were to break out between the two, it would automatically be considered a civil war.

“Wh - WAIT. What about non-aligned countries?? M- muh Yugoslavia! Muh Tito-Soviet split! This is a BAD mod!!”

Just because a country is Red or Blue does not mean it’s forced to be in an alliance with all the others. The color simply represents the ideology, which in the cold war could often be broken down into either communist or anti-communist. In the case of Yugoslavia, the nation is communist, but it is not in a pact or alliance with the soviets. This means that Yugoslavia is free to pursue its own foreign policy and agenda. Yes, two countries of the same color can go to war and fight, it just means that regime change will not happen automatically when provinces are controlled (unlike, for example, a blue country invading a red country).

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Asia, showing the destructive Chinese civil war as well as the beginnings of various communist insurgencies that will come to consume the region

In Asia, we can see multiple examples of civil wars ravaging the region. For example, the deadly Chinese Civil War is in full swing, offering a view of the dynamic civil war system.

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Communist and anti-communist troops squaring off in Northern China

In civil wars, two factions of the same country face off in open combat. When provinces from one faction are controlled by the other, they are automatically annexed. The two-faction system makes up an essential part of the realistic warfare system from the mod, and will be implemented entirely through “event scripts” (code funneled through offscreen events that act as invisible game code for new features).

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The first Arab-Israeli war at the game start. Unit positions and sizes are definitely not final, some units were used as a small example of what warfare would look like

The 1948 Arab-Israeli war offers a great example of inter-color fighting that can happen in the mod. The Arab League countries were all firmly anti-communist, the war occurring before the wave of pan-Arabist socialism swept through the region. The new State of Israel itself is also blue, so this is a blue-on-blue conflict. In this case, there is no automatic regime change, but Palestine is considered a “civil war faction” of Israel, so Arab League countries can use the “allied government” warfare system to hand conquered Israeli provinces off to the Palestinian State. If Israel manages to conquer, say, Egypt, there will be no regime change.

Frequently Asked Questions

• **This mod is way too ambitious, and amounts to nothing more than a bunch of idealistic blah-blah and mumbo-jumbo. How will you even begin to-**Hold it right there, buddy! Let me tell you about Victoria Universalis: Vic2 in EU3, my mod for EU3. All of the systems I described above have been pioneered and implemented in this mod already! It’s not some idealistic jargon, it’s pages and pages of Excel-based Paradox game code that is ready to go and does exactly what I describe above.
• **Yeah ok but like bruh this mod still way too ambitious and it’ll just die out and fizzle away. You don’t even have a mod team! It’s just you working on this! Dead mod.**Yeah, it’s just me working on this mod because no one else can understand my high-level high-IQ on-the-spectrum Paradox-Game-Code-Crafting required to build such a game. However, I have drive and determination and with a little help from the community I know I can start cranking out solid progress really fast. I mean, I created the mod itself (map countries history) in like 3 weeks. I gave up SLEEP for this. I gave up SHAVING for this. I gave up BATHI… uh, anyways
• Hahaha *wheeze* bro haha why u even play march of eagal haha it like a meme game, haha that's funny mod man, ur funny hahaYes, haha, le meme game haha, but seriously I could not imagine undertaking a project like this on any other game. I automatically discount the new games because they’re in a dev cycle, and building a whole new game from scratch won’t work on EU, Vic2, or even HOI. See the above paragraph on why I used MotE in particular.
• **How does the map transition across the International Date Line??**I used some globe emulation by creating fake adjacencies for provinces on either side of the International Date Line. You won’t be able to infinitely scroll to one side like you can in EU, but units and ships can easily cross over
• **How will you represent [obscure country]?? Checkmate!**This is usually when the mod creator tells you that they aren’t going to represent it because it’s too obscure and go pound sand. But not in this case. 700 countries and 4,000 provinces, using my various civil war, coup d’etat, regime change and rebellion systems I can definitely represent something as intricate and complicated as even the Congo crisis or the Ethiopian infighting or even the whole Rhodisia-Zimbabwe thing.
• **You said you’ll implement a fully-functioning economy? How? MotE doesn’t even have an economy?? Dude??**That’s right, but we can build anything with PGC scripts. I’ll be consulting some experts in the forums who will explain to me exactly how interest rates, monetary policy, taxation and tariffs affect things like inflation, joblessness, and other facets of the economy. Then, I’ll make a basic road map with tangible differences between communist and capitalist economies and how they work (and how they’re balanced) and then get to work on building them, just like I did in Vic2 in EU3 (which also had a pretty lackluster economy).
• **HEY!! U gave one of province in chinna to PRC but actually this countryside province should of have of been given to (2) ROC instead how DARE, this is a bad mod(e),**Please share these inaccuracies in my discord server and I’ll change it and credit you too in the mod credits. I speedran All Wikipedia Articles Any% while making this mod, but I’m sure I missed a couple of things

How to get involved and participate

“WOW!” said the r/paradoxplaza user, “Finally a REAL cold war mod! And my COOL theorycrafting ideas n’ stuff can make it into the mod too?”

That’s right. I know all of you guys are idea people and this is the perfect opportunity to voice all those ideas in the mod’s discord:

https://discord.gg/RS4HcWHjTk

If you have an idea about a system that could be implemented, a piece of history you’d like to see represented, or if you’re a BASED-PILLED giga-chadded r/wallstreetbets economic major in college and want to drop a huge paragraph about how I should represent collectivist economies, this is the place to do it. I’m very active on Discord and this is the perfect place to gain access to secret mod leaks and media the moment they get released.

In conclusion

Thank you for listening to my ramblings (my brain is frazzled after modding MotE nonstop for 3 weeks), and I truly hope that I can deliver an extremely fun and engaging cold war experience that channels what all of you guys wanted out of East vs West before it got cancelled.

People to thank

This is a list of people who have proven themselves invaluable to the mod and deserve public recognition and praise for all their efforts in assisting me with various things:

Radsterman#6821: A high-level Victoria 2 coder who took pity on me and showed me the the inner workings of a program called QGIS and how to export data from it. This was crucial to set up the base files for the map itself. Without the busy modder Radsterman taking time to hand-hold me through setting up various things in QGIS, the map itself could have never gotten off the ground. Also helped me discover the viability of metaregions as a coding tool that will prove extremely useful in building scripts

Obstination#6820: A famous and well-respected Victoria 2 map-maker who actually turned me on to the idea of using QGIS to hand-craft a world map. Although he only showed me an hour or so worth of material for QGIS, he was crucial in helping me tinker with the program and realize its potential for March of the Eagles

Squidward Tortellini#4759: A well-known Paradox modder who specializes in shader file editing, which is a bunch of incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo for someone like me. Helped me try to crunch common MotE problems such as the coastline LOD bug and the unit icons spawn level. Extremely friendly and I owe a lot to him

Cheese#8160: This guy has stuck around, offering helpful tips and tricks through my insane ramblings during the creation of the world map and the mod. He helped crosscheck history and was generally there for emotional support

BlackFreshMint#9238: A young kind-hearted modder who noticed the project in its infancy and stuck around loyally through the creation of the map and countries, always there to reassure and give helpful tips whenever possible. This guy was ALWAYS around, and would check in on the mod constantly. When I would post an update that I thought no one would see, my man would come through with a reaction gif or some comment about it. Helped me get through 3 weeks of nonstop slaving

Grapefruit#9647: This man SINGLE-HANDEDELY created the very essential positions.txt file for the map using a script and triangulating the "most likely center" of the province for almost 4,000 individual provinces. Without him, I would have had to spend countless hours rebuilding positions.txt manually in order for units to show up correctly in the center of the province

Papoose#2222: Has already offered to help with creating a roadmap for the economy, including third-way economics and important factionary aspects such as trade unions