YMMV / After the End: A Post-Apocalyptic America

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Americanism may look like a wacky All Hail the Great God Mickey! situation poking fun of Americans obsession with patriotism, but there's actually a sociological theory about an "American Civil Religion" of quasi-worship of the nation, its institutions, and its symbols. The Americanists take it one step further by deifying their leaders as actual gods like their pagan or Christian neighbors.
• Awesome Art: The modders have produced many beautiful and awesome artworks for lore appropriate loading screens. Not to mention the gorgeously detailed rendering of American continent in-game.
• Creator's Pet: During the Fan Fork mod's development, this accusation was made frequently towards a few characters throughout the map. These characters have commonly been accused of being self-inserts of developers, which is denied by the developers themselves.
  • Zakariyya Abbas, the first and second, and their entire dynasty. A lot of focus is given to a small minority of pious but surprisingly tolerant Muslims who somehow come to rule over a vast population of people in Southern California for nearly 600 years before they are deposed by a cartoonishly evil coup which involves killing a baby. These criticisms were largely dealt with in the Crusader Kings 3 mod, where Zakariyya Abbas practices a different Islamic faith and his family no longer ruled Socal.
  • Allison Maverick and the High Queen. Both are heroic rough and tumble cowgirls who are respected and beloved in Texas of all places despite their status as non-Christians (or LGBT). This is exacerbated with the case of Allison Maverick, who is surrounded by courtiers whose names are clearly references to a series involving technicolor ponies. Allison Maverick makes a reappearance in the Crusader Kings 3 mod, though without the High Queen or her colorful companions, with most of Texas becoming non-Christian to boot.
  • Levi the Liberator. A strong heroic Jew who rebels against an unknown oppressor and is the only independent Jewish ruler in his part of the map at the beginning of the mod. Levi's status as a Creator Pet however has mostly been tempered by the fact he comes from an earlier era of Fan Fork when it was just a submod adding Judaism, his realm's small size, and his relative recent emergence in the lore, contrasting with the previous two examples. Levi is also featured in the Crusader Kings 3 mod, with little to no changes to his story or character surprisingly.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Tribe of the Mouse. Why? Because it's a freaking Disney-worshiping Americanist tribe in the middle of Florida, that's why.
  • Their neighbors, the Orientalists of Sun Coast. They have a massive Foreign Culture Fetish for The Theme Park Version of the Middle East, by way of Aladdin and Arabian Nights. They also picked up the Koran (rendered as "Alcoran" in Neomoor) and have taken everything so far that they are begrudgingly acknowledged as technically qualifying as a new, post-apocalyptic sect of Muslims with a unique culture. Who are in an excellent position to dominate Florida, spread their faith by the sword, and present the greatest single threat to the Holy Columbian Confederacy/Commonwealth and the Evangelical Council on the map.
  • Don Pelayo of White Sands. The only Cristero north of the Rio Grande, he starts in a difficult position as the vassal of an Atomicist lord where he must tread carefully. When his liege callously kills his dog during a meeting however, he can fly into a vengeful John Wick-esque rage that eventually unfolds into a war that sucks in multiple regional powers. If you succeed in surviving this war, you may expand north into Texas to claim the High Kingdom for yourself or south to reclaim the Cristero homeland; the choice is your's.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Thinking the Californian religion is Celtic and some kind of celtic neopaganism. The Californian religion is called Cetic, short for "Ascetic" and is supposed to be a satirical jab of New Age, syncretic and "spiritual but not religous" beliefs turned into a hierarchical state religion. Funny enough, a "Celtic" neopagan religion exists but in Newfoundland, and it's named "Druidism". The Crusader Kings 3 sequel renamed to "Guruism" to make it less confusing.
• Goddamned Bats: Adventurers and raiders, while present in the base game, are much more common in the mod, because many cultures allow raiding and adventuring regardless of religion, not to mention many more religions that are tailored to do so. Be prepared to be constantly harrased by raiding parties and stacks of adventurer armies, regardless of your power or place on the map.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Quite a few elements from the original mod and Fan Fork have been removed or changed due to the changing attitudes of the dev team (and the community at large), most notably the Holy Columbian Confederacy.
  • As said above, the Holy Columbian Confederacy was perhaps the most affected by these changes in attitude over the years by the Fan Fork developers. A Southern realm inspired by the Confederacy, wearing Confederate hats, led by a dynasty with a family name inspired by a man who cooperated with the Klu Klux Klan, and with a vassalized mercenary company named the Knights of the Golden Circle suddenly became less acceptable after the death of George Floyd and the unrest that followed. The Holy Columbian Confederacy remained in Fan Fork as a post-racial realm united more by Christianity than race, but it has changed dramatically, with much of the Neo-Confederate flavor dropped in favor of leaning more into Southern genteel chivalry. The most notable changes were perhaps the change of the HCC flag from a Confederate inspired cross to a more American inspired eagle and the change in race of the HCC's founder from white to black. This trend for the HCC continued with the Crusader Kings 3 mod, where "Confederacy" was dropped in favor of the less politically-charged "Confederation" and later "Covenant", before finally settling on "Commonwealth." In addition, the developers have made it clear that the Confederate-descended Brazilian Confederados will never be added.
  • In older versions of the original Crusader Kings 2 mod, there is evidence in the code of a planned second bookmark where the Caribbean Empire, led by Barrington Stepping Razor, assisted the Tuskegean (black) nobility of the HCC in rebelling against their Southron (white) overlords. This bookmark was never implemented, and the framing of the HCC as a realm based on race has also been thoroughly rejected by the developers.
  • Mid-way through Fan Fork's development, a "Sheban" culture was added to reflect the Black Hebrew Israelites, a sect of African-Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. This culture was removed after an attack on Jews in New Jersey by a man inspired by Black Hebrew Israelite beliefs.
  • The existence of the "Afro-Anglo" group as a cultural group for all black cultures in North America was something of a controversial element since it meant all black cultures were hostile to their immediate neighbors but not other black people who lived thousands of miles away. This was changed around the same time the changes for the HCC were made. As Crusader Kings 3 separates physical appearance from culture entirely, most of the cultures were remixed to acknowledge this.
• Just Here for Godzilla: During its' existence the mod has greatly expanded out of United States proper, featuring much content in Central America, northern South America, Caribbean and Canada. So naturally, many players focus almost exclusively on the old world cultists and pagans in the Northeast and Midwest US areas.
• Spiritual Adaptation: In a post-apocalyptic world, the world's civilizations have turned back into the medieval nations, the Pope of St. Louis rules over New Rome, a new nation rises in Texas and a secret order exists to preserve old world knowledge. Clearly, it's the closest thing to a video game adaptation of A Canticle for Leibowitz that there is. Alternatively, it could be described as a massive Adaptation Expansion of the novel, showing what happened to the rest of North America after an apocalyptic event.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The Fan Fork mod notably averts this despite being an offshoot of what was already a very popular mod. Fans of the original mod generally welcome the tweaks and changes to the setting in Fan Fork, and even when they don't nobody starts griping that it's ruined forever. It helps that Fan Fork is very engaged with the player community and always provide explanations for why certain changes happen. In short, fans are pretty grateful that the Fan Fork saved the setting from being consigned to Development Hell.
  • This has been a complaint of some fans of the Fan Fork mod in regards to the Crusader Kings 3 mod, as many of the original religions have been changed radically and there are many more religions on the map than in the Fan Fork mod, with reception varying. There is also the matter that the mod didn't release on Steam until late March 2024, only being available for direct download until then. However, the Crusader Kings 3 mod has a support from its community for consistently updating them on developments and keeping up with the constant updates of Crusader King 3.