What EB era city would you want to live in? [Archive]

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antisocialmunky

01-08-2009, 01:18

So if you had to live anywhere on the EB map, which of the named cities in EB would you live in?

Alexandria hands down so I could start the hypothetical industrial revolution. Or serhaps somewhere in India might be nice. Having a nice vineyard in a out of the way place in Southern Italy would be nice too. Good air, good view. :yes:

Titus Marcellus Scato

01-08-2009, 01:31

Alexandria, definitely. THE place for cultured people. Fantastic library, ancient monuments, you name it.

Not Rome, that place is such a dive, the locals are mostly close-minded dickheads who think their sprawling overpopulated shithole is the centre of the universe....

But if you want to get wasted and laid (in that order, the chicks have to be wasted too) Bribracte is where it's happening, man....only barbarians REALLY know how to have a good time!

Aemilius Paulus

01-08-2009, 01:49

Pfft, Roma for me. No explanation needed. Greek pervs and northern barbarians cannot hope to compare.

gamegeek2

01-08-2009, 02:18

Qart-Hadast. Hell, I could make a lotta money as a merchant and live the life. Oh, and vote for the Barcid party.

You got everything there - especially those priestesses of Astarte...

a completely inoffensive name

01-08-2009, 02:18

Rome.

||Lz3||

01-08-2009, 02:40

Alexandreia... THE civilized city...

Rome was just a big, dirty, sewer smelling city... as said before.. full of ****heads with closed minds. DId I mentioned forced levies?

Perhaps interesting to live in, but not... that nice...

The golden age of Rome was in the mid empire IIRC

A Terribly Harmful Name

01-08-2009, 02:43

Pretty much every city on the Ancient World had unordinate amounts of squalor and crowding. Rome had actually one of the best water and sewer systems in antiquity (every big guy, including the Romani faction leader in EB, cared to build an acqueduct time to time), so it would be my choice. Along perhaps with Alexandreia or Athenai.

But I would probably live on an estate instead: fresh air, lots of room to do whatever you like, lots of slaves, etc.

Aemilius Paulus

01-08-2009, 02:47

Qart-Hadast. Hell, I could make a lotta money as a merchant and live the life.

Hmmm, your argument does have certain weight, gold is sweeter than water, but you do not have to live in Kart-Hadast to be a merchant. Plus, Roma had gladiatorial games. How can you compare the entertainment provided by even someone as supposedly exquisite as the priestesses of Astarte to the spectacular blood and gore offered by various types of arena games? There was nothing on the world like the Games. Nothing so splendid, grandiose, bloody, and engrossing, but at the same widespread and available even to the poorest. Sea battles, more than 15 different specific and distinct styles of gladiators, animal-human clashes, and large-scale land battle "re-enactments" (with probably the accuracy of modern-day Hollywood, but who cares? - it's bloody and unlike 300 it is real!!!)

Aemilius Paulus

01-08-2009, 02:49

Alexandreia... THE civilized city...

Rome was just a big, dirty, sewer smelling city... as said before.. full of ****heads with closed minds. DId I mentioned forced levies?

Dude, Alexandria was just as smelly. All ancient cities were. Rome probably had better sewage than it anyway, although more so during the imperial days. You are supposed to be a Roman fanboy too, so shut your face, you Quisling :)!!!

||Lz3||

01-08-2009, 03:04

Enjoy your un-covered cloaca maxima.

Besides who needs gladiatorial games when you have access to the best library in the world :book:

LordCurlyton

01-08-2009, 03:06

Well it depends on what time in the EB era you want to be in. If its close to the beginning, Qart-Hadast or Seleukeia. If its mid-way (say 130 BCE or so), hmmm....Pergamon. Late period, definitely Rome.

desert

01-08-2009, 03:16

During my campaigns to enslave civilize the entire world, I would keep my HQ in Roma for sentimental reasons. Also, that is a good place from which to organize expeditions into northern Europe. Armored troops, tanks, and helicopters only - I wouldn't want those natives to think that we can be killed...

Once I have the southern half of Asia, North Africa, and Western Europe, I will assemble a large force to attack through the Hindu Kush, Khwarezm, the Caucasus, and Skythia. At this point, my HQ will be in Athens. After that, I will probably go back to the present day and leave all the administration to my trusted subordinates.

LordCurlyton

01-08-2009, 03:26

And as any good Evil Overlord should know, the only trusted lieutenant is a dead one. Your inherently flawed plan has now doomed you to be shot upon returning to the present day by your own Legions of Terror. Never mind that quantum mechanically speaking you could never return to your present day...

desert

01-08-2009, 03:40

kekailoa

01-08-2009, 03:45

Massalia.

Beautiful Mediterranean views, well-built Greek city, but mixed with Celtic culture.

Or maybe the area around Biarritz in France. Uncrowded surf, open countryside. Or maybe the Atlantic coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. Gorgeous landscape, more uncrowded surf.

The area around Morocco. Once again, temperate climate, uncrowded surf.

Aemilius Paulus

01-08-2009, 03:48

Enjoy your un-covered cloaca maxima.
???
Explain please. How do genitals relate to what I said?

Besides who needs gladiatorial games when you have access to the best library in the world :book:

You got me there, I would prefer the greatest library to some coarse games for plebs. Reading is my passion, above everything, in both the time I allot to it, and the amount of pleasure I derive from it.

However, I was choosing the EB-era city based on what it has that the cities of today do not. I was not choosing the best city to live in indefinitely, but the best one to live in only for a short period of time, as a visit. I have libraries aplenty in my city, but I will not find gladiatorial games even slightly comparable to that of Rome's anywhere in the world. They should really either enslave or "gladiatorize" all of modern criminals. Much better than to let them rot in prison, occasionally coming out to work. Very few US prisons have regular labour gangs. Russia is different though. Prisons will keep you alive and well in relatively semi-tolerable conditions but you'll be working your ass off all the time.

Plus, considering that you are not some drug lord or a son of a wealthy businessman or important politician in Mexico, you are a common man as I am given to understand. Common men of those times were ignorant to the extreme. You would not be able to read, let alone to read text of such complexity and sharpness of wit as the ones written long ago by the best of the societies. Standards have fallen dramatically since then. Now almost any pleb can publish a book. even the best of today cannot compare to the glorious past.

LordCurlyton

01-08-2009, 03:57

A. I travelled back in time, so I might as well be able to do the reverse.
B. I am not an Evil Overlord. I am a Good Overlord. Among my many reforms will be abolishment of slavery, mandatory attendance of regional educational institutions supplemented by volunteers from the present day for all citizens under 12, food aid to hungry villages, improved roads and trade networks, etc. As such, they are not legions of Terror. My armies will be trained to adhere to the Three Phases:

Phase 1: Pre-battle speeches to enemy soldiers with megaphones, firing guns into the air.

Phase 2: If panic and desire to surrender are not induced, or are induced but do not produce intended results, then armored vehicles, airplanes and helicopters will be brought in in a classic example of Shock and Awe tactics. A small amount of fire will be concentrated into the enemy lines. The helicopters will play "Ride of the Valkyries".

Phase 3: If the enemy does not break, the order to Fire at Will is given, and an order to halt a minute later. This cycle of orders will be repeated until all hostiles are terminated or have fled/surrendered.

After a few battles, everyone will just surrender to me as if I were Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde.

So you want to go back in time to impose your will with well-trained army forces? *Looks in lil' black book o' evil* Yep, qualifies. And quantum mechanically speaking, you COULD go back in time assuming wormholes are possible and the right amounts of unobtainium could be had, but then you'd have created an entirely new universe in our multiverse diverging at your entry point, which means going forward to "present day" would be the present day of your new 'verse. Stephen Baxter's Timeships is a good fiction demonstrating that.
Also, modern body armor will not stop melee weapons, so unless you actually do some killing somebody will figure out that you are unwilling to hit them and/or may believe that the gods are protecting them, thus causing them to advance and poke your troops. And, as recent history has shown again, the heavy hitters may win the battles, but the grunts are needed to win the war. Put another way, tanks and air power can win land, but only the infantry can keep it. And a spear in a marine will still be quite fatal to said marine.
We won't even begin to speak of the cultural upheaval you propose with your reforms....we ESPECIALLY will avoid the obvious references to a certain departing POTUS and his unilateral thinking...

desert

01-08-2009, 04:10

There are many theories. :P

And I was actually thinking of body armor made of this substance: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/17/buckypaper-material-02.html
http://thefutureofthings.com/articles.php?itemId=24/61/

Military use in "two to three" years, baby. I'll call them stormtroopers. :yes:

And yes, I will have a way to mass produce it... :juggle2:

russia almighty

01-08-2009, 04:56

Kerberos from Panzer Cops, and Jin-Roh would make probably every ancient army run like hell.

Excluding the whole MG-42 thing, they look like the devil's spawn.

A Terribly Harmful Name

01-08-2009, 05:00

Are you kidding. The MG-42 is more devilish than the entire kit put together :clown:.

Olaf The Great

01-08-2009, 05:07

Qart-Hadast and Atiqa if I was a citzen, and I would visit Alexandria often.

Probably Swebotrausdamnoz or whatever if I was in power, and I'd rapidly modernize my people and carve a vast empire. :D

Oh and probably get in a good writing system etc.

chenkai11

01-08-2009, 05:09

Carthage, and I will be the riches noble to support Hannibal Barca.

antisocialmunky

01-08-2009, 05:18

I'm surprised no one wants to live in Parthian Mid-East or anything east of Alexandria as a matter of fact.

... or Sparta.

Aemilius Paulus

01-08-2009, 05:27

... or Sparta.

I hope you know how tough it was to live there. I have read the original texts of Plutarch, Xenophon and Aristotle on the Spartans, which were actually compiled into a single book consisting of nothing but their material. Sparta was more ruthless than a concentration camp.

johnhughthom

01-08-2009, 05:30

Indeed, life in Sparta sounds like it was very tough for the upper classes never mind the helots.

antisocialmunky

01-08-2009, 05:38

Honestly, I was just throwing it out there as I know some Killtarded(Sp?) people who lament the fact that they live in an age of limited warfare. Also This is 272BC-14AD, there are no more helots. They were settled at Megalopolis(first thing that comes to mind, I'm probably wrong though) after the Corinthian War ended or somewhere else near by.

Codyos Vladimiros

01-08-2009, 08:17

Probably Baktria. Or Alexandria. I can't decide where I'd rather live...

HunGeneral

01-08-2009, 10:54

It would be hard to say. I never thougt about were I would live. Probeably were I would have been born - theres no place like home:laugh4:

I don't like large city life so I could just aswell end up somwhere on the steppes with the Sauros or another nomad tribe always on the move. Never bound to a place, able to take you home with you wherever you want it to, hear great stories of you ancestors hunt with the tribesmen... Fisrt however I would have to learn how to ride and use a bow perfectly ...:dizzy2:

@||Lz3||: with cloaca maxima do you mean the main open sewer in Rome which was later fully covered but still works today?

Ibn-Khaldun

01-08-2009, 11:17

Around 270BC I would like to live in Seleukeia. Would visit Babylon and it's wonders quite often.

Around 170 BC I would like to be in Alexandria. The Great Library and lighthouse of Pharos. Also, I really would like to see Pyramids and Sfinks and other ancient Egyptian sightings.

Around 70BC probably in Capua. Rome could be too dangerous because of the Civil wars couple decades later but Capua seems nice 'little' and peaceful place. Would prefer to live in a estate outside the side though.

And around 14AD.. Rome of course.

Dayve

01-08-2009, 12:15

What good is the library of Alexandreia when the books are all written in a language none of us can read!?

Rome on the other hand, who needs to know the language slaves and criminals are shouting in the arena as they're being torn apart by starved lions?

Nobody, that's who!

delablake

01-08-2009, 12:30

I'd be a rich aristrocrat touring the Middle Sea: Spring in Rome, Summer in Capri, Fall in Pergamon and Winter in Alexandria...

satalexton

01-08-2009, 12:31

xD A silk merchant in chang'an, now you all will be buying stuff off ME all the way in Sinae xD

Zett

01-08-2009, 14:07

Terhazza. Far away from all the troubles of war. Unreachable and untakeable.:clown:

geala

01-08-2009, 14:12

The city with the best water supply and sanitation. And of course a Greek city. Athens had very good water supply but I don't know much about her sanitation. Have to search.

artaxerxes

01-08-2009, 15:37

Babylon, of course... And then Ekbatana and Susa in the summer...

Lixus

01-08-2009, 17:19

Carthage, -1 i love food. As Carthage was the trade center of the ancient world. they probably had more choise of spieces. -2 I hate snow. So the location is good. -3 I love women with long hair. In Carthage the women whore pride of their long hair. -4 Wealth. It was not the American dream back in these days. IT was Carthage baby! -5 Honour. Romans allways talk about it yet when their city was sacked by Alrik. Their garrisons abandoned their post and their citiezens run like headless chickens. At least the Carthaginians faced their end with pride and give the romans a fight before being killed or inslaved.

CirdanDharix

01-08-2009, 17:21

Qart-Hadast at her peak, Alexandreia thereafter until the Ptolemies really degenerated from all the inbreeding. Then I'd move East, maybe to Ctesiphon (I know she's not in EB, but with Seleukeia and Babylon in it's practically the same thing).

The Romans invented slums, not in the sense of Hoovervilles on the outskirts of town but proper "estates" or "projects", like those you have in Europe and the USA today. High-rise buildings of cramped flats, and they didn't even have proper safety norms...

Zradha Pahlavan

01-08-2009, 17:37

Susa in the winter, Phraaspa in the summer, though only after they had been liberated from Greek rule. In the meantime, the city of Khiva would suffice as long as the smelly Saka keep to themsleves.

Hax

01-08-2009, 18:07

Pergamon.

Library! <3

Ibrahim

01-08-2009, 21:01

nah, i wouldn't live in the mediteranian-I wouldn't live in a city even. a little hut somewhere south of Gerrha or something...at home, in the desert, some sheep and goats, the qur'an, a dynamo, and this laptop= happiness.*

*assuming I have a time machine.

then again, I've always been a loner:clown:

EDIT: will raid pergamon and Alexandreia every other yar for books...

gamegeek2

01-08-2009, 21:39

Ken? Qart-Hadast is much better than Rome! Se Ba'al yekalel otkhem, ya bnei klabim!

And as they say, the women here proudly wear their hair long, and have a nice sun tan.

Ibrahim

01-08-2009, 22:02

Ken? Qart-Hadast is much better than Rome! Se Ba'al yekalel otkhem, ya bnei klabim!

And as they say, the women here proudly wear their hair long, and have a nice sun tan.

wow, dude! don't call them that-that is offensive:no:

desert

01-08-2009, 22:55

Originally Posted by gamegeek2
Ken? Qart-Hadast is much better than Rome! Se Ba'al yekalel otkhem, ya bnei klabim!

And as they say, the women here proudly wear their hair long, and have a nice sun tan.

Something about dogs, right?

Say, would any of you want to live in Chighu?

gamegeek2

01-08-2009, 23:57

"klabim" is curs/dogs, now figure out the rest.

desert

01-09-2009, 00:11

Sorry, but my experience with Semitic languages is limited to "Shabat Shalom."

I caught Ba'al as well, but the rest...?

Beefy187

01-09-2009, 00:34

I would say South Italy. Capua would be nice.

Either that or Alexandria

KozaK13

01-09-2009, 01:01

Why always the more major cities? Rhodes would be nice for monuments, and merchantile needs, before Rome basically cut it off though.

Havok.

01-09-2009, 04:42

Athens

Fixiwee

01-09-2009, 05:18

Probably Rome. And I'd make gameshows like "Who wants to be a millionaire." "Romes next top dictator". Or "Bigbrother".

Watch the senator, the gladiator and the mob boss do nothing all day. Yay.

Damn I'd be rich.

(Sorry for the nonsense. It's late and I'm not sober.)

antisocialmunky

01-09-2009, 05:43

a completely inoffensive name

01-09-2009, 06:12

Don't forget about XXIV. :laugh4:

Where the main character manages to topple singlehandedly the averni's plot to attack Rome, torching half of Gaul in the process.

lenin96

01-09-2009, 07:24

I would live in Baktra and some of those other hellenic places in the East.:yes:

betoelbicho

01-09-2009, 07:54

Helots got killed for the coming of age of Spartan boys (they had to be killed without anyone noticing to train the boys in the importance of stealth and surprise, if someone noticed they were severly punished), Sparta is easily one of the worst cities were you could grow up in the ancient love.

Have fun with ur permanent military training haha.

antisocialmunky

01-09-2009, 16:01

If you survived, you would have been a pretty awesome dude. You could also go and merc yourself out everywhere and see the world and kill peoples of all races, colors, and creeds. Then you come back and nail your hot wife and your buddy's hot wife in the dark.

But yeah, I agree.

Smeel

01-09-2009, 18:39

I would want to live in Syrakousai, the gem of the Greek world :beam:

Marcus Ulpius

01-09-2009, 20:29

If I had to make three choices, that would be:

1) Rome - the center of the new world (it was a new world at the EB time).

2) Alexandria (already explained - the center of culture, sciences and philosophy, a gem of the Hellenistic world, the world that is slowly giving way to a new world - Roman world. Living there would be like living in today's Paris or Amsterdam).

3) Probably Antioch (this is not as obvious as first two choices, but it's a big Hellenistic city with a distinct Eastern flavor - something that first two choices don't have). As for going further East, I'm not that fascinated with all those purely mid-eastern or central-Asian civilizations.

eliad91

01-09-2009, 20:47

Either Rhodes,Athens,Jerusalem or Crete for me :rtwyes:

ziegenpeter

01-09-2009, 21:03

Subotan

01-10-2009, 00:13

Alexandria hands down so I could start the hypothetical industrial revolution.
YES :2thumbsup:
My Aeolipile Hypothetical Industrial Rebellion WAS a possibility :clown:

I'm surprised no one wants to live in Parthian Mid-East or anything east of Alexandria as a matter of fact.

Either Qart-Hadast/Antioch/Anywhere in Baktria as a Greek/Indo-Greek. Europe sucks.

Havok.

01-10-2009, 00:18

...and Armavir too

Gatalos de Sauromatae

01-10-2009, 10:01

Roma for me.
Center of the new world for EB time frame and ofcouse wish to see the real gladitor fights daily.
:charge:

Cambyses

01-10-2009, 10:11

Massilia, or one of the Greek cities in Spain. Its a great climate, bit of culture, up and coming location, cosmopolitan, terrific.