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Thread: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

  1. #421

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Here is a map of what is done so far.


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    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15219029

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  2. #422

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Hi
    I can do all three regions of sicily,but this won't be so fast
    Last edited by chomakov87; 01-20-2017 at 01:27.

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  3. #423
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by chomakov87 View Post
    Hi
    I can do all three regions of sicily,but this won't be so fast
    That would be great! Take your time and feel free to post in-process work or ask questions. When/if you do, please "mention" me as otherwise my visits to this thread are not frequent.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  4. #424

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Hi guys, I'm new here. I have just finished doing the description for Elimya and in my research I discovered that salt was a major resource that was mined in Elimya as early as 800 BC by the Phoenicians. However, in the game files there is no salt in the trade section for Elimya in the descr_strat (or wool, as that is the EbII salt). I was just wondering @Kull, is there anyone I can get in touch with that does the modding for the trading resources, to get salt added in as a resource?

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  5. #425
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Hippo123 View Post
    Hi guys, I'm new here. I have just finished doing the description for Elimya and in my research I discovered that salt was a major resource that was mined in Elimya as early as 800 BC by the Phoenicians. However, in the game files there is no salt in the trade section for Elimya in the descr_strat (or wool, as that is the EbII salt). I was just wondering @Kull, is there anyone I can get in touch with that does the modding for the trading resources, to get salt added in as a resource?
    For now, feel free to mention it in your province description. I'll take a look at the distribution of resources. Sometimes we deliberately leave them out in order to encourage trade between neighboring provinces (i.e if, for example, three neighboring provinces all have the same resource, there's no trade between them, at least of that resource). If that's not the case here, it's a simple matter to add it in. Good catch.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  6. #426

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Ah that makes sense, because Trinakrie has salt (wool). Sorry, my inexperience showing up here a bit but that's really interesting.

  7. #427

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quick update: I have finished the description for Elimya and will move on with the other two. However, I am going to refrain from publishing it until the other two are done, as Sicilian history, geography and so forth overlap a bit, so I don't want one description to have too much while the others have less information.

    Quick question @Kull, which I should probably have asked a long while ago but thought I would figure it out: Where are these province descriptions going? Will they be in game and if so where?

    Apart from that, I hope everyone is having a good summer!

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  8. #428
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Hippo123 View Post
    Quick update: I have finished the description for Elimya and will move on with the other two. However, I am going to refrain from publishing it until the other two are done, as Sicilian history, geography and so forth overlap a bit, so I don't want one description to have too much while the others have less information.

    Quick question @Kull, which I should probably have asked a long while ago but thought I would figure it out: Where are these province descriptions going? Will they be in game and if so where?

    Apart from that, I hope everyone is having a good summer!
    Yes, they will absolutely be going in game. In fact, every city (of course there's only one per province) has a "province building" which has a photo that's representative of the geography, and the text below that contains these province descriptions. Start up any game of EB2 (any faction) and you'll see that all provinces have this building, but not all of them have the completed descriptions.

    The map in Post #421 shows roughly where we stand in terms of which provinces still need descriptions.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  9. #429

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Cool. The map is looking fairly green but I see there is still some way to go yet.

  10. #430
    iudex thervingiorum Member athanaric's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    As a general note, I've noticed that many of region and unit descriptions have inappropriate apostrophes in them (notably "it's" everywhere). I suspect this is actually not due to poor English skills on behalf of the writers, but the fault of primitive spell-check applications. So I think it's a good idea for every writer to manually go over his texts in order to sift out the wrong "auto corrections".

    As far as I could see by skim-reading them, the province descriptions of Britain and Iberia are not affected.
    Last edited by athanaric; 07-23-2017 at 20:38.




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  11. #431

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Kull View Post
    For now, feel free to mention it in your province description. I'll take a look at the distribution of resources. Sometimes we deliberately leave them out in order to encourage trade between neighboring provinces (i.e if, for example, three neighboring provinces all have the same resource, there's no trade between them, at least of that resource). If that's not the case here, it's a simple matter to add it in. Good catch.
    @Kull, Any luck with changing the resources? It doesn't really matter but the Salt pans and mines in western Sicily seem quite iconic and a big tourist site, whereas salt in eastern Sicily seems much less so. Could we just switch the salt from Trinkarie to Elimya? Trinkarie already has 10 resource entries, so I don't think it would miss it much.

  12. #432
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Hippo123 View Post
    @Kull, Any luck with changing the resources? It doesn't really matter but the Salt pans and mines in western Sicily seem quite iconic and a big tourist site, whereas salt in eastern Sicily seems much less so. Could we just switch the salt from Trinkarie to Elimya? Trinkarie already has 10 resource entries, so I don't think it would miss it much.
    That sounds like a workable solution. In a related vein, I looked for the sourcing on the Sicilian resource distribution (digging through ancient threads) and couldn't find any discussion on the salt. I suspect your research is probably better, so I'll make the change.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  13. #433
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by athanaric View Post
    As a general note, I've noticed that many of region and unit descriptions have inappropriate apostrophes in them (notably "it's" everywhere). I suspect this is actually not due to poor English skills on behalf of the writers, but the fault of primitive spell-check applications. So I think it's a good idea for every writer to manually go over his texts in order to sift out the wrong "auto corrections".

    As far as I could see by skim-reading them, the province descriptions of Britain and Iberia are not affected.
    Thanks. I'll run a text search of the province file and perhaps can fix all those today.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  14. #434
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Kull View Post
    Thanks. I'll run a text search of the province file and perhaps can fix all those today.
    @Hippo123 - Speaking of text, the primary text tool used by the EB Team is Notepad++. We use it for all our text editing since it has quite a number of great features, PLUS it uses "EB-friendly" character sets. I'll get into this in more detail later, but most of our large text files are created in the xml format and then a tool converts and combines them into the required M2TW text file formats. Both the tool and M2TW "blow up" if they find incorrect characters. The biggest offenders come from Microsoft word....a "long apostrophe" and a "long dash" in particular, although there others. If you create your province descriptions in Notepad++, it eliminates that issue altogether.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  15. #435
    iudex thervingiorum Member athanaric's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Kull View Post
    @Hippo123 - Speaking of text, the primary text tool used by the EB Team is Notepad++. We use it for all our text editing since it has quite a number of great features, PLUS it uses "EB-friendly" character sets. I'll get into this in more detail later, but most of our large text files are created in the xml format and then a tool converts and combines them into the required M2TW text file formats. Both the tool and M2TW "blow up" if they find incorrect characters. The biggest offenders come from Microsoft word....a "long apostrophe" and a "long dash" in particular, although there others. If you create your province descriptions in Notepad++, it eliminates that issue altogether.
    Which version of it would you recommend, 32- or 64bit?




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  16. #436
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by athanaric View Post
    Which version of it would you recommend, 32- or 64bit?
    I have a 64-bit O/S but continue to use the 32-bit version. I've seen comments that there may still be issues with the 64-bit O/S version and for what the EB team uses it for, there's not a noticeable difference between the two. I suppose the day may come when certain desirable plug-ins are only available in the 64-bit version, but that's not an issue at the moment. For now, flip a coin.

    BTW, I just completed the search/replace for the incorrect "it's" in the province descriptions. Good God, there were a ton of them! Will take a look at buildings and units next.

    Edit: Fixed the "it's" problem in 8 different files (and updated the dev build). Should be a non-issue going forward.
    Last edited by Kull; 07-25-2017 at 19:48.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

  17. #437

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Kull View Post
    @Hippo123 - Speaking of text, the primary text tool used by the EB Team is Notepad++. We use it for all our text editing since it has quite a number of great features, PLUS it uses "EB-friendly" character sets. I'll get into this in more detail later, but most of our large text files are created in the xml format and then a tool converts and combines them into the required M2TW text file formats. Both the tool and M2TW "blow up" if they find incorrect characters. The biggest offenders come from Microsoft word....a "long apostrophe" and a "long dash" in particular, although there others. If you create your province descriptions in Notepad++, it eliminates that issue altogether.
    Then I better get notepad++ toute de suite!

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  18. #438

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    @Kull - I know that you guys are keen on native names of settlements but what about the people that live there? Are the names Roman, Carthaginian, Syracusan etc fine? Otherwise which language should they be in: Latin or Greek?

  19. #439
    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    The vast majority of the people living there were Hellenic speakers, even the local Sikeloi, Elymoi and Sikanoi, although not Hellenes themselves, adopted the Hellenic alphabet and were largely Hellenised by our timeframe...

    Political power resided mostly on Syrakousai and the Mamertinoi, who mostly hailed from Campania and were themselves Hellenised Oscan people. Overall be it as the official or second "business" language, Koine Hellenic was the main language used in the island...

    Afaik Punic power consisted mostly on exercising leadership over a network of alliances and there really wasn't a program of Punicisation of the people there. Still Punic trading and military colonies/outposts definitely existed...

    Overall I'd say that Hellenic names should be preferable, while the few Punic foundations should preserve their original nomenclature...

  20. #440

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    @Arjos - Thanks for the very coherent answer. I'll get on it. Trinakrie is done(ish) but I will have to change all the names. Are you a historian by profession specialising in this time period or are you just insanely good at researching (or are you an immortal being that lived through the Hellenistic period right up until this day?)

  21. #441
    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    I just read a lot ahahahah
    By education I'm a linguist, that helps with ancient languages and reconstructions a bit, otherwise as you said researching is the key ;)

    BTW for good narratives on Sicily you can check Jeff Champion's "Tyrants of Syracuse" and some paragraphs from his "Pyrrhus of Epirus"...
    Regarding the history of Syrakousai he really went through all the sources currently available and wrote a comprehensive narrative, augmented by archaeology. Which is essentially what we do for these descriptions...

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  22. #442

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Gee thanks! I was pondering over whether I should buy a book on the subject and this one looks great.

  23. #443
    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    For a complete picture you'd need to look for sources covering the Punic history on the island (Champion unfortunately touches it more on the matter of Hellenes vs Qarthadastim), but at least down to circa 212 BC that book helps a lot...

    Afterwards there are 2 more centuries to cover, but that's other material to research :P

  24. #444
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    @Hippo123 - Just beware of "paralysis through analysis". It's better to have a "pretty good" province description than to spend so much time researching that you get sick of the whole subject and never finish it. One problem with researching the Sicilian descriptions is that there is so MUCH historical information out there. It's easy to bog down.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

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  25. #445

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    @Kull - Thanks for the heads up. My worry though is that I might not be displaying all the information that there is just because there is so much of it. I just hope that it does not turn into some paraphrased piece of crap or some massive long and boring analysis...I guess you guys will just have to be the judges of that. @Arjos - My take on Sicily is that Carthage and Syracuse were powerful and fought each other a lot during the classic period but after Rome took over it all became one province and not that much interesting happened. I have covered the history up until the second Punic war so far but no further. There were one semi-significant revolts in Sicily under the Romans and then the civil war between Octavian and Anthony; do you guys want me to include that? My dilemma is that after the second Punic war Sicily was all united into one Roman province. So if I describe and history after the second Punic war, which description should I put it in? Or should I put it in all of them copy and paste style. I would rather each one be unique but describing the historical events of these revolts can't really be rewritten in 3 different ways in my opinion. I would love to hear your input on this, it would help me out a lot! The descriptions are already fairly long (in my opinion), being 6000 words for Trinakrie and Elimya so far. Although I want them complete and not half-arsed I am very aware that there is so much to talk about and talking about one historical event can lead on to another and spiral out of control. If you guys could indicate where to draw the line then that would be great and I just want to thank you guys again for your help.

  26. #446
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    As a general rule, the most important history is that which covers the game period. It's good to know information from outside that period, but it's of more limited value. So post Punic Wars is worth doing up to about Augustus, but after that a much more superficial survey is about all that's needed.

    In general I'd prioritize "description volume/detail" as follows:

    1) Prehistoric peoples up to 272 BC = Priority 2 (always good to know how the province got to be what it was in our era)
    2) The EB2 Era 272BC to roughly 40AD = Priority 1 (especially helpful for role-players)
    3) Post EB2 era = Priority 3 (I won't say "who cares?", but it doesn't matter much in game terms)
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  27. #447
    COYATOYPIKC Senior Member Flatout Minigame Champion Arjos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    The approach I follow is this:

    - Traveller's Guide, an eye witness in 272 BC of what people might've seen in the province (cities, landscape, current wars, what people lived where).
    - Geography, a more technical description of the environment, the flora and the fauna.
    - People, Society and Government, who lived there, how were they organised, what was their culture (for example what is specific of Syrakousan society compared to other Hellenes?). Here one can also include infos prior to 272 BC, to avoid making the history section too long.
    - History, the events from 272 BC to 14 AD pretty much. Regarding the Roman Period, yes funny enough things start to get almost less documented in certain cases, or they get too generalised. As far as Sicily is concerned I'd maybe go in describing how important and what role played the island in Roman administration (since it was the somewhat first outside province, its importance as the first bread basket for the growing republic etc). To avoid copy and pasting it over the three descriptions, maybe if a revolt was focused over this or that portion, it could be covered in the corresponding province and leaving the others with just a brief mention or just a summary that Roman power came.
    - Strategy, the gameplay approach to the province, its pros and cons and what the player should expect or do with the province in question.

    Basically when it comes to the Roman Period, try to make it as specific to Roman history as possible, meaning that if something peculiar or just there took place we write it. Otherwise a summary will do...
    If you feel that you are repeating yourself, a good idea could be to focus on Syrakousai and its history for that province, for the Punic part that point of view and all the history of Hamilcar etc, while for Sikelia, since it belongs to the Eleutheroi, you could make a shorter history section (focusing mainly on the Mamertinoi and Messana) and write more about the Sikeloi, their deities, their origins and so forth. Ultimately as you said trying to make each province as unique as possible, without copy and pasting...

    I think 6000 words for two descriptions is already well covered. 2500-2600 words for a single province is already a lot (since we are dealing with some of the better documented ones it is ok. You are perfectly free to cut some parts, or shorten them if you deem it possible), but for example it is perfectly fine to have descriptions of say 1500 words, for those that basically only archaeology can chip in...

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  28. #448

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Thanks for the tips guys, that cleared a lot up. The Sicilian revolt seemed to play out mostly around Messina, so I am going to write in detail about that in the description for Sikelia. That works out almost perfectly because I anticipated that the description for Sikelia would be shorter than the others anyway. Again, thank you guys very much and I'm going stop jibber-jabbering and get on with it now!

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  29. #449

    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Umm guys @Kull, @Arjos - just wondering. Do you guys have some sort of website or map with the Ancient Greek names on them? I have been trying to find out what the straits of Messina is supposed to be called but have had no luck...kind of pathetic, I know but your help would save me a lot of time.

  30. #450
    EBII Council Senior Member Kull's Avatar
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    Default Re: Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

    Quote Originally Posted by Hippo123 View Post
    Umm guys @Kull, @Arjos - just wondering. Do you guys have some sort of website or map with the Ancient Greek names on them? I have been trying to find out what the straits of Messina is supposed to be called but have had no luck...kind of pathetic, I know but your help would save me a lot of time.
    If Arjos has a resource, that would be nice, but it's not strictly necessary of course. The description for Brettia (province_043 on the other side of the strait) makes no mention of the ancient name.
    "Numidia Delenda Est!"

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