Trees

[Brennus]

A question to the team.

So far with the development of EBII discussions have focused on which factions will be included, how new skins will look, new units and new weapons, in short the interesting stuff.

Here comes the boring part. Recently whilst playing in the British Isles I noticed that alot of the forestry is made up of conifers and this appears to be the case for most of Gaul, Germany and Scandinavia, however the palynological records for this period as well as wood preserved in various forms indicates that most of temperate Europe during this period (with the possible exception of Scandinavia for which my knowledge is lacking) was covered in climax forest (oak, elm etc.). Thus the vegetation depicted in EBI is historically inaccurate.

My question is then will the vegetation in EBII be historically accurate? Or is this just too low priority to be concerned with/lacking in information/hardcoded?

Thanks.

(By the way if anyone has superior palaeoenvironmental knowledge of Iron Age Europe i surrender to you without a fight)

[Megas Methuselah]

Hmm, that would be pretty cool, I think. For some reason, it changes my mindset on the Celts, making them appear even more civilized and advanced. Don't know why, but the conifer trees suggest barbarism or something. :shrug:

Moreover, it makes fighting in forests more bearable, I think. Oaks and elms are prettier.


(By the way if anyone has superior palaeoenvironmental knowledge of Iron Age Europe i surrender to you without a fight)

Lol.

[Brennus]

Precisely, fighting in pine forests is terrible. I agree with you, there is something sinister and dark about conifer forests and something more innoccent about climax forests.

[WinsingtonIII]

M2TW has a much better variety of trees than RTW. RTW pretty much just had pines or palms, whereas I've seen plenty of deciduous trees in M2TW. Considering this, I think it's likely we'll see less pine forests.

[Cute Wolf]

the trees near nottingham is really nice..... in M2TW grand campaign

[Subotan]

Big leafy Sherwood forests?

[Cute Wolf]

That's it, especially when my entire sherwood archers battalion spring an ambush from there, to some unfortunate scottish guys...

[athanaric]

(By the way if anyone has superior palaeoenvironmental knowledge of Iron Age Europe i surrender to you without a fight)
No, you're correct. Forests in Germany at that time were made up mostly of beeches, with oaks and other deciduous trees thrown in. On sandy ground you'd find more pines (PINES NOT SEQUOIAS, Creative Assembly!) among the oaks and beeches. In mountain forests, more firs (not spruce!) among the deciduous stuff. Only in the highest woded places of the Alps and some other mountain ranges some woods dominated by spruce and Swiss Pine.
In low regions, especially in the vicinity of water, you'd find oaks, maple trees, hazel, Carpinus betulus, willows, alders, and other stuff I can't remember just now.
Generally, forests would be somewhat less dense than they are now in most places.

Interestingly, there are many trees in East Asia and North America that could be found in Europe once - but they were eliminated there by the ice ages.


P.S. for anyone interested (including the EB II team): I can upload some pictures of typical forests in Germany and Denmark, if needed. Though I've found that M2TW is not as horrible as RTW when it comes to representation of the environment.

BTW, does anybody know how to change the ambient sounds for RTW and M2TW? American birds are nice, but I'd prefer historically accurate background noises.

[Brennus]

(PINES NOT SEQUOIAS, Creative Assembly!)

lol


BTW, does anybody know how to change the ambient sounds for RTW and M2TW? American birds are nice, but I'd prefer historically accurate background noises.

I never even considered the faunal ambient sounds. Good point. Be lovely to hear pheasents and grouse in the background.... or maybe even an auroch (difficult due to the laws of extinction, i know, but i'm sure we can get domestic cattle angry enough).

[bobbin]

We can certainly change the climate map so regions will have the correct vegetation, but we cannot add new types of trees so i'm afraid your stuck with m2tw vegetation (which isn't that bad really).

[Brennus]

Your right it's quite good, just in the wrong place.

Do we have hazel trees in MTW2? (very important for Britain and Ireland).

[athanaric]

I never even considered the faunal ambient sounds. Good point. Be lovely to hear pheasents and grouse in the background.... or maybe even an auroch (difficult due to the laws of extinction, i know, but i'm sure we can get domestic cattle angry enough).
Pheasants only for Asia and Caucasus, though. IIRC the Romans experimented with them, but they certainly weren't present in Western Europe at that time.

Reminds me of a (re-enacted) documentary on Neanderthals in Western Europe. At more than one point, you could clearly hear a pheasant calling (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch) in the background. Almost made me cry...

[Brennus]

Well I never knew that about pheasants, thanks!

I think I remember that documentary about Neanderthals.

Well so far no illumination from one of the team members about vegetation in EBII. Where are you gods among men?

[B-Wing]

(By the way if anyone has superior palaeoenvironmental knowledge of Iron Age Europe i surrender to you without a fight)

I'm afraid I have nothing at all to contribute to this discussion, but I do have a question burning in my mind:
How on earth did you ever come to take an interest in the vegetation of ancient Europe? It just seems very... unusual. But my hat's off to you!

[Brennus]

My undergraduate degree was in Archaeology and Palaeoecology. At first I had very little interest in past environments but I had one of those lecturers who could make tone nail clippings sound interesting. However earlier this week I was visiting Iron Age hillforts in Scotland and noticed that the county I was in had extensive conifer plantations and thought to myself "well it wouldn't look like that in the past" and then remembered how prevailent conifer forests were in RTW and EBI and so decided to post this thread.