Why does EB start in 272 b.c.? The Pyrrhos-Question...

Planning an epeirote campaign next, I have researched a few dates and facts. Pyrrhos started the invasion of italy in 280, called to help by the city of tarent. In 278 he went to sicily and got involved in a war with carthage, too. Rome and Carthage allied against him. In 275 he had to return to epeiros because his phyrric victories had left him without hope to win the war. His samnitic and greek allies continued to fight in southern italy, but they were defeated and finally in 272 tarent (taras) was conquered by the romans. Pyrrhos himself was killed in a battle in greece in 272. After Pyrrhos death epeiros lost its importance. So all the events that made pyrrhos famous happened before the game starts.
In my opinion, the starting army of epeirus, with indian elephants and lots of other good quality troops looks like the army pyrrhos took to italy in the first place. If I start my campaign, I will first go to italy and sicily, following his historical steps (I am quite interested in finding out what happens if I try to fight a war against rome and carthage at the same time - I somehow have the feeling, I will follow the historical reality regarding the outcome, too...).
Now, here is my question: concerning the starting positions (troops, taras is epeirotic, no war with rome), the early death of Pyrrhos and the quite interesting story of his italian endeavours, why does EB start in 272 and not (for example) 280 or 278? Are there other reasons? From a purely epeirotic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to start in 272. Honestly, I don't know what has happend in the year 272 in other parts of the world, especially in the far east. But i am curious, because the starting date has been changed from 270 (vanilla) to 272 - but why not to an even earlier date.
Don't misunderstand me. EB is a fantastic mod, and everybody can see that the makers put a lot of energy and especially of thoughts concerning historic realism in it. So I guess there is a good reason to start in 272 - only I don't know it.

Making it any earlier really makes it much more difficult to argue for: a Pontos faction (at all), an independent Baktria faction, and a Greek "alliance" faction. Pushing Epeiros to its last year with Pyrrhos makes it a little easier to tolerate some of those other faction's existence as independent (or even semi-independent) groups. There may be other reasons too, but this is "one" good one.

I admit that baktria is a problem. But it became independent round about 250 b.c. so it is a problem already now. AFAIK Pontos became an indepenent kingdom in 301 b.c. (Mithridates I). In greece there were already other alliances like the aitolian or achaian league (both refounded 280 b.c.), even though they are not as strong as the actual KH-alliance of Rhodos, Sparte and Athens. Probably in a mod based on MTW2 it is possible to have one or two more greek factions in greec and another like syrakusai or massalia outside the homeland.
Another problem with an earlier starting date would be the galatians which settled in asia minor at about 275, after they had been plundering in greece and "helped" in forging defensive alliances of greek cities against them (like the achaian and aitolian league). Probably they could be represented by a horde or a large stack of aedui / arverni troops in the region.

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Originally Posted by marodeur

Probably they could be represented by a horde or a large stack of aedui / arverni troops in the region.

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that is probably the hardest thing to deal with as the galatians settling in asia minor had a huge impact on that region in terms of military technology, culture and mercenaries. The Ptolemaioi recruitment policy made heavy use of these fearsome celts, and even set up galatian colonies, iirc.

Baktria is a problem, but that can be dealt with through roleplay. As it is the game doesn't help us represent the many shades of politics in this period, and both set-ups can be seen to be plausible as interpretations of history. Baktria was certainly quite autonomous, distant as it was from heartlands of Arche Seleukeia. Technically it was still part of the AS, but having it as a seperate faction serves both history and game better imo.

Foot

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Probably they could be represented by a horde or a large stack of aedui / arverni troops in the region.

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In turn 1 the owning AI faction would call them back to home. Typical TW AI for you. ~:handball:

ADD: Foot is always quicker. ~:)
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Imagine an EB in 270... No epeiros at all!

Imagine EB starts 100 BC...
no more these greedy carthies, no more numerous greeks and all that...

Heresy!

Thou shalt rue for thy wicked sins!

I have to admit that I sometimes think about later starting dates for EB (for example via the provincial campaign option). Without a proper civil war-capable engine, playing rome in later times would not be very interesting - but for example playing Pontos (Mithradates Eupator VI) or Numidia (Jugurtha) or Arverni (Vercingetorix) at their respective times, standing against super-power-rome would be quite interesting and challenging I guess...

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Originally Posted by Hax

Heresy!

Thou shalt rue for thy wicked sins!

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:help: moderator: report on a threat to MiniMe post here :help:
it's against the rulez methinx

The other problem at 280 would be Makedon. There were at that date at least two :grin: Ptolamaios Keraunos ruling in Makedonia proper and Antigonos Gonatas in Athens, Korinth and Chalkis (and some other cities)