Possibilities and the tech tree

Looking at technical advancements in Europe during Roman times it presents some oddities.

Rome started out as a backwater city on the edge of the Civilized World. It took ideas from the greater pale and used them in different innovative ways. For Rome there were mostly military, improvements in engineering , and construction.


The Parthians did much the same in the east. They were a backwater filled with semi-nomadic tribes with fighting tactics that the rest of the world couldn’t figure out how to counter. They brought down most of the Seleucids and held the Romans. The Sasanians were basically just a different dynasty who followed them.

This was part of a pattern. From the beginnings of human settlement, peoples from the edge of the more advanced civilization invaded and took over what was there before. They brought new ideas and new ways of doing things, most usually military.

This time, however, things were a little different.

To the north of Rome was a vast region dominated by peoples we know as the Celtic Tribes. Some historians refer to it as the Celtic Empire. It was not a real empire but more on that later.

Beyond the Celts were the Germans, who would overcome Rome and bring about a very long Dark Age.

The Celts were no empire in a united sense. They were culturally linked and linked by a huge trade network. They built paved roads hundreds of years before the Romans and one may assume the bridges to go with them. They were highly advanced in metallurgy and are credited with bringing the Iron Age to most of Europe. Their improvements to the wheel remained unchanged until the pneumatic tire as well as other transportation innovations later adopted by the Romans. Agriculturally they were not equaled until the mid 1700s. Their settlements and fortifications were of a type to withstand any siege artillery until the advent of the Howitzer. The descriptions of their ships sound like the descriptions of ships from the High Middle Ages. In their first encounter with the Romans they crushed them and looted Rome its self.

So why is it we look back on the Roman Empire and these Celtic Barbarians are only a footnote in History? Because the Romans were not stupid. They copied the arms, armor, and some of the battle techniques that had been used against them and began their rise to greatness. In other words Rome had two advanced civilizations on their borders and learned from both.

The Germans, on the other hand, were different. They traded with and adopted some from the Celts but very little from the Romans. At times it seemed like an active disdain for their ideas and accomplishments. They seemed to be far more conservative when it came to change and preferred their own way of doing things. If they didn’t think of it, then it must be of little value. This was seemingly their mind set. They overwhelmed a divided Roman Empire and spread to every part of the old Western Roman Empire bringing with them a dark age that took over 1000 years to recover from.

In game terms limiting all the Barbarian factions to low tech gains seems wrong. However, allowing the Germanic tribes much leeway also seems at odds with their way of thinking.

Gaul was conquered because Rome had a well organized and standing army. I doubt it could have been accomplished before the military reforms. It also lacked unity, which Caesar actively played upon. Had it been otherwise it would have been far more difficult. Had even a portion of the Celts united into a state it could have been much different in history.

Looks like it could be modelled by having different tech trees. The Celts could be limited on the civic side, for example, or make the civic side more expensive for them.

A bigger problem in gameplay terms is a cultural one. The game we have now is very much a product of modern political ideas retrojected onto ancient times, so that the different cultures are modelled as nation states, and military conquest is accomplished by occupation, and so on. This doesn't allow something like the sack of Rome you mentioned, nor of the Germanic migration/invasion toward the end of the Western empire.

Couldn't you perform a "sack" by just attacking the city and leaving no garrison behind? In Medieval 2 Britannia Campaign, I did it a number of times when playing Norway.

And I think the previous Rome did have a mechanic where factions could leave all their cities behind and find some new homeland.