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Link to code 1
Yesterday I had a post that got quite a bit of traction on here. The post revolved around the fact that despite countless alternate history mods being made, nobody has seriously pursued a mod that is about a potential Southern victory in the Civil War. So, I took some time and drafted up a code 1 as well as a written-out scenario for a potential mod series revolving around this timeline. As I am currently working on MacArthur 1952, I cannot make this right now but if nobody takes this offer, then I will try and make it happen. If anyone out there would like to use this code as well as the "lore" I will provide later in this post then you can do so without asking, this is open-source material!
The backstory behind this scenario is that in late 1862 Great Britain and France intervene in the Civil War and broker a peace deal between the Union and the Confederacy. Before you suggest that this is far-fetched, it nearly happened in our timeline. Lee was confident that if he could just threaten DC enough he could get Europe to intervene. I picked 1862 since that seems to be when the Union was at its worse and the Confederacy at its best. Thus, in this timeline, France and Britain stop the fighting around November or early December of 1862 with the Treaty of Paris (lol). The war is officially over and the Union is forced to recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation.
As soon as the war concluded, the Confederacy quickly sends troops to Mexico to aid in Napoleon III's conquest of Mexico. In return for helping the French, the Confederacy gets the Northernmost Mexican states as well as a strong ally in France. With the fighting now completely over, the Confederacy can focus on rebuilding its economy and establishing its presence on the global stage.
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Contrary to popular belief I don't think the Confederacy would be in awful shape right away. It would have favorable relations with Europe since they were the ones who promoted its independence as a way to split up what they considered to be a rising threat. Thus, they would have access to the European markets to sell their cotton and other cash crops. They also would have been spared the heavy damage inflicted upon them by figures like Sherman in this timeline. So while it wouldn't have all the advantages the Union would, I believe at the outset of the nation's creation it would have a promising future.
The election of 1867 -
Realistically, if Lee wanted the Presidency, he could have it and face no real opposition. However, for the sake of this scenario, he does face opposition in the form of John C. Breckinridge. This would help highlight the immediate political divide in the Confederacy. As many of you said, one issue around writing an alternate Confederacy victory mod would be to not fall into the trap of just making everything about racism and slavery. The fact is right after the war, these issues would have been truly settled and thus nobody would need to talk about them. The main issues the parties would fight over are economic ones. In this scenario, I have Lee being a part of the "Reformed Whigs". The name doesn't matter, but in essence, this party would be the remains of the old Whig party forming a new party, similar to what Republicans did in the North. It would be the party of planters, businessmen, industrialists, and other more well-off folks. If you are interested in what this party's ideology might be like more in-depth simply look up the Cotton Whigs and that is pretty much how this party would like.
John C. Breckinridge meanwhile would lead the newly formed States' Rights Party. Obviously, this would be a continuation of the Southern Democrats. I could see this party headlining in a more populist direction similar to our own timeline in which they focus on economic reform, promoting more liberal economic policies instead of just protecting the status quo. It would obviously also focus heavily on state's rights. However, at the onset of the Confederacy's formation, I'd imagine these two parties would be fairly similar in ideology as the main concern would be the preservation of the country.
Lee wins the election. I'd imagine he picks another prominent former Whig such as Judah Benjamin as his VP. Breckinridge likely selects a war general to counteract Lee, but to no avail. Lee would not be President for long as he would pass away in 1870 due to a stroke. This would probably be a boon for him as it would remove him from politics and cement his legacy as a Southern legend. His successor would finish out the remainder of his six-year term. As I stated earlier, I'd imagine this time in Confederate history to be relatively stable and peaceful.
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The election of 1873 -
This time, I'd picture we'd see yet another Civil War veteran emerge as the frontrunner candidate for President. This time in Stonewall Jackson. Jackson would probably be pretty similar to Lee in many regards but this time he'd be running on the States' Rights ticket instead of Lee's party. His opponent would probably be someone like Alexander H. Stephens. While Jackson probably does not win by the same margin that Lee did, he most certainly wins by a very wide margin. The state of the country probably does not change much under Jackson. They continue to recover from the Civil War and build trading partners across the globe. Still a time of great optimism in the country. During this time, I'd imagine the CS might acquire Cuba.
The election of 1879 -
Now we getting to the point where things start to get interesting. On the Reform Whig ticket, we get James Longstreet, another general. For those who do not know, Longstreet was probably the most "sane" CS general when it came to civil rights. In real life, after the war had concluded he encouraged Southerners to accept the end of slavery and to support the Republican party. I think he gets elected and considering the time period we are in, ends slavery. You might be wondering how on Earth he manages to do that and to that, I'd simply say outside pressure. By this point, Europe was 100% behind the abolishment of slavery. If the Confederacy wanted to keep doing business with Europe, they would have to end slavery. Plus, they could get cheap labor elsewhere. Considering the fact that Brazil ends slavery in 1888, I'd picture the South ending slavery around the end of Longstreet's term, so 1885.
The election of 1885 -
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At this point, I feel the era of Civil War generals becoming President is over. Perhaps we get one more like Wade Hampton or something but that is about it. From here on out, actual politicians would be elected. While slavery has been abolished, the situation for black residents would not improve. The time period we are about to enter would be Jim Crow on steroids. Black folks being arrested for pretty much nothing and being used as cheap labor would be commonplace. Discrimination against blacks would be so awful it would make the Reconstruction era look like a true success. Terror groups like the KKK would basically be totally legal. So this raises the question, what do black residents do? The fact is there would not have been a flight to the North since that was now a separate country. During the Civil War, I believe the black population accounted for around 39% of the Confederacy. Assuming that percent holds that would mean that there was a very large black population in the Confederacy. So what do they do? I'd imagine they start their own communities. Build towns away from white settlements. Move out to the rural territories. And set up separate neighborhoods inside urban areas. I could even see this going as far as setting up their own micro economy and even having their own elections.
The election of 1891 -
Whoever is elected now would have a massive problem on their hands. Racial tensions would be at an all-time high with black folks setting up their own towns and economy. Meanwhile, groups such as the KKK would go out and terrorize these communities, killing many of their members. In response black settlements arm themselves to defend against these attacks. These attacks would escalate to the point in which it becomes an all-out race war. White para militias such as the KKK would fight against newly formed black para militias for unofficial control of areas of land. These conflicts would be based primarily in the Deep South as well as the territories out west. If you want a real-life example of what I'm referring to look up The Troubles in Ireland. This continues for quite some time until the CSA army steps in. However, I actually believe the black military would be able to muscle their way into getting some actual rights such as citizenship and the right to vote (maybe).
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The election of 1897 -
Because of the events of the past six years, I'd imagine the white population in the South would be quite terrified after witnessing a literal black military uprising. Because of this, they elect a firebrand. A populist who uses fiery rhetoric to crush dissent. They elect Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina. Tillman would unleash a wave of terror upon the black citizens. Lynching would increase, KKK terror attacks would increase, and racist laws would increase. Tillman would utilize the military to occupy black-owned settlements and disarm black citizens. While seems might seem bleak, black citizens would find a critical ally in the United States. Sensing growing cracks in their old states, the US funds these black militants, providing them with weapons, supplies, and training. Despite Tillman's best efforts, he would be unable to quell the rebellions. His administration would be viewed as an utter failure.
The election of 1903 -
Due to the failure of Tillman, the voters would be willing to elect a more moderate candidate. Someone who would be willing to quickly solve the uprisings. Whoever they elect would meet with black leaders and make some concessions. Perhaps some sort of voting bill is passed that does a little. Another aspect of Southern society at this time would be the extreme wealth inequality that would exist. The South would likely retain a very wealthy planter class that controls nearly all the land and has nearly all the wealth. It would be a handful of well-connected families such as the Lees and the Randolphs. Imagine the antebellum lifestyle on steroids with massive antebellum homes far larger and more grand than the ones in our timeline. This system would be quite similar to feudalism in Europe with the wealthy families being similar to that of royalty. The average citizen would probably own little and would either work in sharecropping or in some menial factory job.
The election of 1909 -
Tensions with the United States would be at an all-time high. By now, the US meddling in Confederate affairs would be common knowledge. War would certainly be on the horizon. So whoever is elected now would be someone who would be willing to rebuild and modernize the CS army and navy in preparation for the coming conflict. That conflict would come in 1914 with the outbreak of WWI. I'd imagine the CS would be loosely aligned with the Allied powers while the US would be loosely aligned with the Central Powers. However, neither side would really be committed to the two sides in Europe and rather simply the ongoing war as an excuse. The Confederate strategy would revolve around attempting to tire out the Union and waiting for Great Britain and France to finish the war in Europe and then come and aid them, hoping to acquire the region formerly known as the Upper South. The US meanwhile, would simply use overwhelming force to crush the South and reclaim its former lands.
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The election of 1915 -
Realistically, this is where the South's journey ends. The war at the onset might go ok since the South would be on the defensive and make the invasion by the North incredibly difficult. They elect James K. Vardaman, a firey figure promising to crush the Yankees. Speaking of Presidents, the President of the US at this time is Teddy Roosevelt. It is hard to say how exactly Roosevelt would take down the South. I'd imagine he'd use the navy to put key ports such as Savannah and New Orleans in a chokehold, similar to the original war. Meanwhile, federal troops would travel down the Mississippi, splitting the nation in half. The main front in the war, however, would be NOVA. I could even see some sort of trench warfare beginning here. Another front would open up in Tennessee. I could see Tennessee falling quite early on, providing a base to launch a campaign in the Deep South.
The front in NOVA would be extremely bloody. Fighting would be similar to that of Western Europe, huge battles are mere feet of territory. This would go on for some time until the armies in the South, after conquering the Deep South marched northward towards Richmond. In a desperate attempt to salvage their country, the remaining Confederate forces set up fortifications at Richmond. The Siege of Richmond would mark the end of the war and the collapse of the Confederacy. Vardaman and the remaining Confederate leaders would be arrested thus concluding the 56-year-old experiment known as the Confederacy.
The Reconstruction of the South -
It is hard to say how someone like Roosevelt handles reconstruction. Unlike in our timeline, the Confederacy would have existed as its own entity for a good while. It would have developed its own culture and identity. I feel the way the government approaches reconstruction would be to present the Union as a force of good. They provide new social services, bring in new technology, and industrialize the South more. At the same time, they would be attempting to erase the Southern identity as quickly as possible. I feel in this timeline Confederate monuments would be removed rather quickly by the federal government and replaced with United States propaganda. I feel the main theme would be trying to act like this never happened. Just a blip in history. The other main issue would be the racial divide in the South. Since the South's secession, I'd imagine the North would have become far more invested in Civil Rights as a sort of "us vs. them" kinda thing.
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So yeah, that took way longer than expected but here is what I feel this mod scenario would look like.

Hello everyone! This is a follow-up post to the video I posted earlier today, where I showcased a new way to become immortal in a party (and we did some lvl 28 ubers for the memes). In this post I will explain how it works exactly, and go over some of our troubles during the past leagues with this support.

What is Vampiric Link?

Introduced in 3.16, Vampiric Link is a vastly underused link skill that causes the leech of the user to apply to the linked targets. It gives the user overleech and applies the recovery from the leech to the linked targets instead. It also sets the linked target's 'maximum total life recovery per second from leech' to the user's instead. But the most important part here, is the FLAT bonus Vampiric Link provides to the user to their 'maximum total life recovery per second from leech'. To clarify, the base recovery per second from life leech is 20% of your maximum life. Using a lvl 20 Vampiric Link without any buff effect will boost this to 25.8%, before any other multipliers apply (the multipliers being 'increased maximum total life recovery per second from leech' and Vaal Pact).

Vampiric Link with Strength of Blood

Previous immortal builds were using the keystone 'Strength of Blood', provided by Lethal Pride Timeless Jewels, in order to get 100% less damage taken. If you can somehow leech 200% of your maximum life per second, you would be literally immortal: 100% less damage taken FROM ALL SOURCES.
Previously it was possible to reach this 200% of life leeched per second by scaling both 'maximum total life recovery per second from leech' and 'increased life recovery rate', but that got patched and with that, solo immortal builds got killed. It is no longer possible to reach 200% of life leeched per second using just the sources of 'maximum total life recovery per second from leech', the maximum possible is ~114% (details on this number below).
However, with the fact that Vampiric Link adds a flat amount of leech cap to the base 20%, it is now possible to reach the 200% of life leeched per second again. Our fully juiced level 32 Anomalous Vampiric Link with with 92% quality and a ton of buff effect adds a flat amount of 14.48% flat to our leech cap, which is basically 75% more leech. With this, it is possible to reach the infamous 200% of life leeched per second again!
The only difference with using Vampiric Link, however, is that the leech applies to the linked targets instead of to the users. The person that is leeching can not use SoB to become immortal, however all of the linked targets can. This means that we can have one person that stacks all of the sources of 'maximum total life recovery per second from leech', somehow leeches 200% of their life per second, links 1-5 other players in the party and those players will leech 200% of their maximum life per second. If those players then have SoB allocated, they will have 100% less damage taken, allowing them to go full glass cannon Zhp builds.
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Reaching 200% leech cap

In order to reach 200% of our life leeched per second, we can invest in a couple of stats:

• 'increased maximum total life recovery per second from leech', a multiplier to our leech cap
• Link buff effect (which got buffed this league on the passive tree, huge!)
• Vampiric Link level, each level increases the flat amount that the buff adds to our base leech cap
• Vampiric Link Quality, using Anomalous Vampiric Link this provides 'increased link buff effect'. Fun fact: this alternate quality was bugged before and did not give any effect. We reported it and GGG patched it the next league. Thanks GGG!

Let's go over these sources and see how we reached the 200% leech cap with our Champion Support (POB above). To start off, we will grab the following sources of 'increased maximum total life recovery per second from leech':

• 90% on the tree (Hematophagy + 2 small nodes in front, Vitality Void, Taste for Blood and 25% leech Mastery
• 20% on Elevated Crusader Influenced Gloves
• 35% on a Crusader Influenced Simplex Amulet with Life and Mana Catalysts
• 48% on Replica Soul Strike (using a bow with '20% increased bonuses gained from equipped quiver')

This brings us to a total of 193% 'increased maximum total life recovery per second from leech', that's a lot!
*A quick side note on the usage of Replica Soul Strike: for those who do not understand leech it basically reduces your leech packet duration to 1 second from 5 seconds, since it gives '80% reduced maximum recovery per life leech'. We counter this by allocating the Slayer node 'Brutal Fervour' using Forbidden Flame + Flesh, giving us a total of '4% increased maximum recovery per life leech' (not 20% because we have '20% increased bonuses gained from equipped quiver'). Another way to counter this leech duration would be by using 'Divergent Life Leech Support', however we tested that and it seems that this alternate quality is bugged and does not apply at all. We submitted a bug report in order to get it fixed.
We also grab two link clusters on the passive tree, namely 'Empowered Bond' and 'Inspiring Bond'. 'Empowered Bond' gives Vampiric Link +2 levels and the small passives give us 15% link buff effect. 'Inspiring Bond' gives us 20% link buff effect if we have linked recently (in the past 4 seconds).
Using this bow
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Immortal Support Bow
we get a lvl 32 Anomalous Vampiric Link with 92% quality (using a 20/20 gem, lvl 3 Empower, lvl 4 Enhance and +2 levels from the passive tree).
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So in total we have 81% increased link buff effect, which gives us 8*1.81=+14.48% flat to our leech base cap of 20%. This 34.48 base is then multiplied by our 'increased maximum recovery bla bla' (this is getting annoying to write lol) for a total of 34.48*2.93=101.03% leech cap, which is then doubled by Vaal Pact to 202.06%!
Because these calculations were becoming very annoying to do each time we made a small change to our builds, we created a simple calculator to do it for us :)
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Having consistent leech

Now that it is possible to reach the 200% leech cap, we need to find a way to make the support leech as well. If the support leeches 200% of their life per second, Vampiric Link will then cause the linked targets to leech 200% of their life instead.
It is very hard to leech 200% of your life per second, especially when we want to be able to leech when there are no monsters around (this is needed when your carry and aurabot are glass cannons). We came up with a couple of options:

• Self-hitting with the flask mod 'Damage taken leeched as life during flask effect'.
• Devouring Totem with consistent corpse generation (e.g. Corpsewalkers).
• Herald of Thunder Autobomber using 'Vessel of Vinktar' and 'The Writhing Jar' (and 'The Traitor' Keystone if not pathfinder).

In the end we ended up using the last two methods, as we encountered issues with recovering the self-inflicted damage (more on recovery in the next section). By combining the last two methods, we have incredible uptime on our leech. This is important because if we are not leeching for a single second, our carry and aurabot would die to any damage taken.
We scale the leeched life using multiple sources of 'increased total recovery per second from life leech', with the bulk of this stat coming from a catalysed, max rolled 'Wurm's Molt'.
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Becoming Tanky

One of the main hurdles we had to overcome was making this 'Immortal Support' as tanky as we could, because it would be the 'weakest link' in our defences. Because we are using both 'Vaal Pact' and Vampiric Link, we do not have access to life regeneration or life leech. This makes it really hard to get decent recovery without having to invest too much. Luckily, this league introduced a way to become 'immune' to small hits using just two jewels, 'Bloodnotch' and 'Immutable Force'. If you don't understand how these work by now, I heavily recommend checking them out because together they form a very strong defence layer. This combo becomes even stronger if you also include the Champion node 'First to Strike, Last to Fall' with the Stun Mastery 'Gain Adrenaline when stunned'.
We started using this combo on the third day of Crucible start, and have been very tanky ever since. Because we have an aurabot as well, our main defences would be (with non-optimal gear):

• 4.6k Life
• 89% Elemental Resistances
• 75% Chaos Resistance
• 200k Armour
• Fortify
• Taunt
• 85% suppression

Together with 'Vaal Arctic Armour', this was enough to tank Uber Maven Memory Games.
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Abusing Immortality on Carry and Aurabot

We could now build a DPS carry and an Aurabot as absolute glass cannons. This means that after equipping a Lethal Pride and allocating the 'Strength of Blood' nodes, these builds would not have to invest into ANY defence. This resulted in some crazy builds, pushing our total burst damage to somewhere between 3 and 5 billion dps using Stormbind.
Carry:
For the carry we decided on using a power charge stacking Occultist, mostly because A) our carry really likes playing Occultist and B) it allows for some crazy AoE scaling which is really good for Stormbind. The carry uses righteous fire (which deals no damage because 100% less damage taken), reverses 50% of their life for 'Pain Attunement' and uses 'The Annihilating Light' without capping their resists.
Aurabot:
Being Zhp allows the aurabot to not invest into any defences. This means that our aurabot was using 'Eldritch Battery' to easily support one of their auras with 'Divine Blessing' without investing in 'Reduced mana cost'. The aurabot also picks up as much 'increased aura effect' as possible, and uses three 'Voices' setups with small reservation clusters. Also most of the auras are supported with 'Generosity', because the aurabot has no use for defences. This causes most of our defensive auras to reach 190%+ aura effect.
2-man party play:
Technically it is possible to play this support without an aurabot, however you would need to change a lot of stuff and have better gear for the Immortality support. The passive tree for the support is quite tight, and so is the gearing. However, I do think it is possible to do with more investment.
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POB's

• Immortal Support (Champion): https://pobb.in/dOBdI2QzYeiy
• Zhp Stormbind Carry (Occultist, still on a 4link): https://pobb.in/13sCkQ3zzDiP
• Zhp Aurabot (Ascendant): https://pobb.in/_4TJT1w0Wm51
• Zhp Markbot (Deadeye): https://pobb.in/sN1oKcSePZ5N

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(Accidental?) stealth nerfs at Crucible League Launch

Originally we had slightly different plans for our league start. Instead of using a Champion, we wanted to use a Pathfinder since the new life flask node would solve our recovery issues. However, we were under the assumption that the buff that Vampiric Link provides would stack PER PLAYER LINKED. This would mean that 1 link would give a flat bonus of ~+14% to our base leech cap, but 2 links would give us 28%. In the previous leagues, this was how Vampiric Link worked. However, as soon as we hit act 5 on league start we wanted to confirm if it was still the case since GGG did some changes to the link skills on the passive tree. And to our disappointment we discovered that it no longer stacked.
You see, because the buff was stacking per link we did not have to use Replica Soul Rtrike, which in turn meant that we did not have to allocate the Slayer node in order to increase our leech duration. But because GGG changed the way link skills work (without putting it in the patch notes, if they even knew Vampiric Link buff stacked in the first place), we had to change our plans to a Champion instead using the Forbidden Jewels.
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3.19: Lake of Kalandra Changes

We originally created this comp in Lake of Kalandra League, where we decided to do this in a private league with ~10 people playing. We wanted to do a 6-man party, so that meant we first had to farm 5 Lethal Prides PainChamp. In Kalandra league, the buff of Vampiric Link still stacked so we had a very easy time hitting the 200% leech cap. We were also playing as a Trickster instead of a Champion, using 'Coruscating Elixir' in order to utilize ES instead of Life solving our recovery issues. We also used mirrored jewellery with 'increased curse effect on you' and used self-curse Temp Chains in order to increase both our link duration and (potentially) leech duration.
However, back then we did not have the link QOL that we have now (link two targets as once) and keeping up 5 links in a 6 man party was very hectic and stressful, especially in a bossing scenario. It was, however, a ton of fun to pull that off in a private league!
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Solo Immortality

We did some more theorycrafting in order to find out if this tech can be used for a solo build. WARNING: The following tech is extremely scuffed, we do not recommend doing this.
The main issue with doing this for a solo build is that fact that you still need to use Vampiric Link in order to reach 200% leech cap. This means that you are going to have to link to your minions. However, if your minions die you will also die.
We discovered that it is possible to link to your minions with Vampiric Link, fill a leech packet with enough leech to last for 5+ seconds (longer with temporal chains, slayer, divergent life leech support which is still bugged and doesnt work) and then weapon swap back. Weapon swapping desummons the minions, but does not cause you to die. You then have immortality for the full duration of the leech, and once it expires you have to weapon swap (preferably to a 'summons spectral spirits' essence weapon), link, leech and weapon swap back. Very scuffed, and it requires further testing for sure!
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Conclusion

This was quite the journey, over the past 6 months me and 2 of my close friends spent countless hours coming up and testing these builds! I'm glad to finally make this post and reveal our tech to the rest of the player-base, hopefully you all get to play this before GGG patches it :)
Thanks for reading!