Lack of advancement for 'Barbarian' factions.

[Laevex]

OK as a disclaimer: I love EB and would have had probably months of more productive activity if it weren't for this immense mod.

BUT why do barbarian (for wont of a better word) factions not have the chance to advance beyond a tribal coalition even when they get rich and powerful?

For example in my Getai campaign I have a decent-sized empire, a strong economy and I am the 2nd greatest power points-wise. I have conquered all of Greece and inhabited their huge cites. So why do the Getic builders still not understand that paved roads would be awesome?

Surely in history if a small tribe started an empire (like the Romans) and encountered the more advanced technology of other nations, provided they had the economy to support it, they would attempt to employ this new technology.

I understand that for some factions it would seem pointless (why would the nomadic Saka want huge walled cities and paved roads when they lived on the endless plains of Asia?) but surely if those factions who were underdeveloped in 272BC started to make it big, they would upgrade their technology.

To be fair it's mostly paved roads that bug me because I can just see no reason not to build them if it was possible. But I guess stuff like seige weapons would be awesome too.

Does anyone agree with me? Feel free to debate it and if you can satisfy my queries then everyone's a winner because I will be even more happy with my Getic Empire and my new AAR will be better.

[russia almighty]

I understand that for some factions it would seem pointless (why would the nomadic Saka want huge walled cities and paved roads when they lived on the endless plains of Asia?) but surely if those factions who were underdeveloped in 272BC started to make it big, they would upgrade their technology.


Actually, the Saka ended up settling down. Only the nobility was able to continuing their equestrian traditions. They became settled to the point that they had a written script (I think, kern, can you confirm this?).

I do agree to a certain extend. Though look at modern race relations; for the most part blacks like being separate from whites, and so on. Same thing, these tribes might have seen themselves being a part of a similar culture, but they saw the other tribes almost like another race. So, they wouldn't want anything to do with being ruled by an absolute dictator, monarch ect, from another tribe.

[Dhampir]

I agree, but I think it would be nearly impossible to set up possible units and buildings for every contingency--if not completely impossible in the game engine. I don't know, but I keep hearing things about hard-coded limits.

The Celtic factions do get more advanced technology--in reforms, as do the Germans (I think). (Time of Tribes, Bondsmen and Something else) Playing against the reformed Celts, I think that some of their units are pretty damn good. A match for anything else.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

"Lack of advancement amongst the Barbarian Factions" is indeed a major concern. Embarrasingly, I must admit that 9 times out of 10, I end my Barbarian campaigns pre-maturely b/c of this. I too find it hard to believe that Barbarian Factions would not see the good in paved roads, but then again, we have plenty of history to prove that this is so.

I am imagining that the EB Development Team is trying to stay away from too many "what if's". Perhaps they have something in the works? Do all barbarian factions get the same abilities to ape the "civilized factions"? Now we begin to tread controversial waters. When 1 barbarian faction can make "X" but another one can not. It seems a very tricky situation.

However, you bring up a valid point, but one that needs to be discussed in seriousness without nationalistic fervor and with an eye towards the game and historical accuracy.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

If you want an advanced barbarian faction, play the Aedui or the Arveni - they get paved roads.

The Casse, Sweboz, Getai and Lusotanns don't get paved roads. Probably because there is no record of them ever building paved roads historically, even after the fall of Rome.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I have conquered all of Greece and inhabited their huge cites. So why do the Getic builders still not understand that paved roads would be awesome?

Surely in history if a small tribe started an empire (like the Romans) and encountered the more advanced technology of other nations, provided they had the economy to support it, they would attempt to employ this new technology.

To be fair it's mostly paved roads that bug me because I can just see no reason not to build them if it was possible.

If you want a realistic, role-playing reason why your successful barbarian faction doesn't build paved roads or stone walls, here's a couple:

1. Paved roads and stone walls are viewed as 'foreign' because the hated enemy used to build them. Your people want the conquered Greek/Roman cities to become like home, and that means knocking down and tearing up what the foul enemy scum built and replacing it with more homelike buildings and walls using natural materials like wood.

2. Religious reasons. Paved roads are man interfering with nature. Covering the soil that the gods or Mother Nature provided with cold, hard, dead stone. Your priests/druids decree that these 'scars on the land' are a blasphemy and an insult to the gods, and shall not be built. (Men of many nations have been known to make very stupid or very uneconomic decisions for religious reasons (even today some still do so!) so this is quite realistic.) Even though you are king of a great kingdom, and are lord of all you survey, as your empire expands, your High Priest has become more powerful. Your people are very religious and follow the teachings of the priests - so you can't oppose the priesthood because if you do they'll declare that you've betrayed the gods, and you'll lose the love (and obedience) of your people. (Equivalent to the Pope excommunicating an early Christian king.) Your people will rebel and you'll be deposed. So you have to obey the religious laws laid down by the priests even though you disagree with them.

[lobf]

If you want a realistic, role-playing reason why your successful barbarian faction doesn't build paved roads or stone walls, here's a couple:

1. Paved roads and stone walls are viewed as 'foreign' because the hated enemy used to build them. Your people want the conquered Greek/Roman cities to become like home, and that means knocking down and tearing up what the foul enemy scum built and replacing it with more homelike buildings and walls using natural materials like wood.

2. Religious reasons. Paved roads are man interfering with nature. Covering the soil that the gods or Mother Nature provided with cold, hard, dead stone. Your priests/druids decree that these 'scars on the land' are a blasphemy and an insult to the gods, and shall not be built. (Men of many nations have been known to make very stupid or very uneconomic decisions for religious reasons (even today some still do so!) so this is quite realistic.) Even though you are king of a great kingdom, and are lord of all you survey, as your empire expands, your High Priest has become more powerful. Your people are very religious and follow the teachings of the priests - so you can't oppose the priesthood because if you do they'll declare that you've betrayed the gods, and you'll lose the love (and obedience) of your people. (Equivalent to the Pope excommunicating an early Christian king.) Your people will rebel and you'll be deposed. So you have to obey the religious laws laid down by the priests even though you disagree with them.

I don't think there is much evidence for such conservatism as to limit the practicality of government like destroying roads from any successful empire.

[Ayce]

Conquerors have always adopted bits of tech from the conquered nations, so road reforms might be in order.

[fjkwgv43]

Nobody in the ancient world was even remotely close to the levels of Roman engineering, especially in terms of building roads. It just isn't realistic that anyone at that time could build huge networks of paved roads stretching from Sparta to Oxus. Other factions who paved their roads did so for only short stretches in important and high-traffic areas, and ended up having to repair them rather often. Rome had already forgotten more about building straight, level, long-lasting roads than anyone else had ever known.

It's not just a matter of "I can examine it, therefore I can build it", or "seeing the benefit of it". Non-Romans were, quite simply, technologically and logistically incapable of doing it.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I don't think there is much evidence for such conservatism as to limit the practicality of government like destroying roads from any successful empire.

The barbarians usually didn't destroy paved roads where they already existed, they just didn't maintain them (so they fell into disrepair and disuse) and didn't build any more.

The Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain didn't build paved roads, Nor did the Visigoths in Spain, or the Huns in Germany.

[Dhampir]

Nobody in the ancient world was even remotely close to the levels of Roman engineering, especially in terms of building roads. It just isn't realistic that anyone at that time could build huge networks of paved roads stretching from Sparta to Oxus. Other factions who paved their roads did so for only short stretches in important and high-traffic areas, and ended up having to repair them rather often. Rome had already forgotten more about building straight, level, long-lasting roads than anyone else had ever known.

It's not just a matter of "I can examine it, therefore I can build it", or "seeing the benefit of it". Non-Romans were, quite simply, technologically and logistically incapable of doing it.

I think that what is being said is that if someone else conquered the ancient world, they would develop the logistics and technology to build reliable paved roads just as the Romans did because they would have to--just as the Romans had to. They didn't develop their road building technique because they thought it was fun; they did it to meet the demands of an ever-expanding region of control. The sentiment expressed in the original post and in subsequent posts is that others, faced with similar demands and in similar circumstances, would have as well. I tend to agree.

[Aranor]

Non-Romans were, quite simply, technologically and logistically incapable of doing it.

I wouldn't say that the Romans were technologically far superior to everyone else. I seem to remember reading the Getai did build and use paved roads. ( Honestly I cant remember where I read that right now) But I think you are correct many factions would not have had the logistical support to build and maintain large expanses of paved road networks.

[HanBarca]

Exactly.....and don't forget that, after the Roman Empire faded, it took more than 1,000 years before someone building paved roads again.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Nobody in the ancient world was even remotely close to the levels of Roman engineering, especially in terms of building roads. It just isn't realistic that anyone at that time could build huge networks of paved roads stretching from Sparta to Oxus. Other factions who paved their roads did so for only short stretches in important and high-traffic areas, and ended up having to repair them rather often. Rome had already forgotten more about building straight, level, long-lasting roads than anyone else had ever known.

It's not just a matter of "I can examine it, therefore I can build it", or "seeing the benefit of it". Non-Romans were, quite simply, technologically and logistically incapable of doing it.

Hogwosh, the Greeks and the Persians were both enthusiastic road-builders, one Macedonian King, Amyntas I (I think), built roads all over his kingdom to allow his army to move effectively and to increase comercial traffic. The network was the basis for later expansion and was in use up until the end of the Roman Empire, at least.

Roads aren't that technologically difficult to build but they're time consuming and logistically expensive because someone has to dig all the ditches and smash up all the rocks. The Roman innovation was to get the standing army to lay and maintain the roads, making them a state concern rather than a matter of private donations from wealthy citizens.

[Dhampir]

Exactly.....and don't forget that, after the Roman Empire faded, it took more than 1,000 years before someone building paved roads again.

It took a thousand years for anyone to need them.

[fjkwgv43]

I wouldn't say that the Romans were technologically far superior to everyone else. I seem to remember reading the Getai did build and use paved roads. ( Honestly I cant remember where I read that right now) But I think you are correct many factions would not have had the logistical support to build and maintain large expanses of paved road networks.

The scope of Roman roadworks were never surpassed by a single nation even up to the 19th century AD. I'm not exaggerating the Roman engineering advantage. If anything, I'm failing to do it justice.

Some people here seem to think this sort of expertise just "happens", or is some natural consequence of "having a large empire". Quite the opposite. This is what gave Rome its large empire, and was not a consequence of them already having it. So no, it makes no sense at all that had another power risen instead of Rome, they would have somehow (through osmosis?) learned how do this sort of engineering. Non sequitur, sirs. Non sequitur.

[Moros]

Royal Persian roads?

Also don't discredit other cultures. There were greeks who had designed steam engines. They were the original creators of Theathers. Or do you perhaps remember our Syracusan freind Archimedes? And this is not only true for the greeks. Parthians and Celts had pretty advanced astronomy and engineering too.

[Watchman]

And let's not even go to the Indians and Chinese. When it came to logistics and organisation, the latter in particular made the Romans look like a bunch of bumbling amateurs.
...
...well, during their peak periods anyway. The interregnums kind of sucked.

[russia almighty]

Watchman, any idea were Zak is? We need the head roman dude to put the Romanophile in his place.

[Watchman]

*shrug* Could be he developed an aversion to the public fora due to much too many ingrate whiners in the wake of the 1.0 release. Wasn't the only one AFAIK.

[Watchman]

...how come you're asking me like I would know, anyway ?

[NeoSpartan]

........
The Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain didn't build paved roads, Nor did the Visigoths in Spain, or the Huns in Germany.

nor did the Franks in Romanized Gaul

but anyways...... there many other factors that dameged these people, the Black Plage of Jusitinian (sp) in th 6th Century being one of them.

Also, Some empires were more open than others to the mixing of ideas and people. Just look at the differences between AS/Ptolemoi and Imperial Rome, one segregated the native population, while the other had means for the native population to become "romanized" (citizenship, anyone?)

But anyways.... to the Original Question.
-There is actually a script with a complex set of conditions for Hyadastan which increase their type I areas and expand them through the rest of Persia. (someone can elaborate on this). Here, the point is to illustrate the posibility of Hyadastan becoming a Persian power like it was on its way of doing, but the Parthians ended up doing it instead and made Hyadastan a "buffer" state of sorts with Rome. (our ThePersianCataphract can expand on this).
-Saka also has a Reform were they become a settled people and can train their own hoplites from their Greek subjects.
-Rome.... well that one needs no explenation.

So I guess there could be a posibility of making another HUGE script for each barbarian factioins to "absorb" other civilizations and their knowledge. HOWEVER:
--How should those conditions occur? What should they be? How would they be implemented by each different faction? When should it occur? At what pace? What evidence do we have that shows us how X faction "absorved" conquered people into their culture? Did they even bothered to so do?
This is where the S** hits the fan. This is where it gets complicated. For the Romans, and other major factions this is easy, as they left large empires and there is eveidence (writen and archeological) of how they absorved other people. But for other factions its not so easy. Hell even some of the larger ones didn't want to absorb anything.

In addition:
I believe what Original Question is proposing has already been implemented in EB thanks to the local MICs and the ability to train local units.
(I would highly recomend that u fellas "READ" the descrition of Type I, II, & III gov'ts it explains what they were for each faction, how they were implemented, and administered. This should give an "idea" of how each factions managed its conquered peoples)

[Ayce]

Then, any chance of posting a stickied guide on the forum to adding the option of building something to a certain faction?

[Laevex]

Fair enough. It seems that either that EB knows best after all or that such a script would be stupidly hard work to write and probably historically innacurate.
It's the old conflict between historical accuracy and 'what if?' scenarios which fuels this debate and I know that at the end of the day, historical accuracy is much cooler with regards to EB.

I need to do some research and thinking and come up with reasons to justify my factions lack of advancement, but that's part of the fun of roleplaying - coming up with smartass explainations for inconsistencies.

[Ayce]

As I sayd, you can try manually adding paved roads and schools/academia to the build options for later use.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The scope of Roman roadworks were never surpassed by a single nation even up to the 19th century AD. I'm not exaggerating the Roman engineering advantage. If anything, I'm failing to do it justice.

Some people here seem to think this sort of expertise just "happens", or is some natural consequence of "having a large empire". Quite the opposite. This is what gave Rome its large empire, and was not a consequence of them already having it. So no, it makes no sense at all that had another power risen instead of Rome, they would have somehow (through osmosis?) learned how do this sort of engineering. Non sequitur, sirs. Non sequitur.

You do realise that Rome had a huge Empire across which to build roads, right? I.e. that level of planning was possible because the Romans controlled it all. The actual quality of the roads varried from excellant to horrific, as the Vindolanda Tablets record.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The scope of Roman roadworks were never surpassed by a single nation even up to the 19th century AD. I'm not exaggerating the Roman engineering advantage. If anything, I'm failing to do it justice.

Perhaps we should not talk of surpass, because it would be true that all of them including the Romans basically built on top of other structures made by others. Something for you to keep in mind: by the time the Han dynasty was gone China had roughly 10000km of various defensive walls. Each being accompanied by the required roadworks to supply the forts...

Some people here seem to think this sort of expertise just "happens", or is some natural consequence of "having a large empire". Quite the opposite. This is what gave Rome its large empire, and was not a consequence of them already having it. So no, it makes no sense at all that had another power risen instead of Rome, they would have somehow (through osmosis?) learned how do this sort of engineering. Non sequitur, sirs. Non sequitur.

Actually I feel quite the opposite indeed: people all over the world have roughly the same level of intellectual capabilities. As various states have shown it just takes a good deal of workforce + resources + time to get things done. Something the Romans weren't exactly short on. May I remind you that by your reasoning there exist a minor but subtle complication when one tries to explain the rather major consequences of corporate espionage on companies in the UK during the Industrial Revolution?

[The Persian Cataphract]

Nobody in the ancient world was even remotely close to the levels of Roman engineering, especially in terms of building roads. It just isn't realistic that anyone at that time could build huge networks of paved roads stretching from Sparta to Oxus. Other factions who paved their roads did so for only short stretches in important and high-traffic areas, and ended up having to repair them rather often. Rome had already forgotten more about building straight, level, long-lasting roads than anyone else had ever known.

It's not just a matter of "I can examine it, therefore I can build it", or "seeing the benefit of it". Non-Romans were, quite simply, technologically and logistically incapable of doing it.

So let me get this straight, you discredit the Silk Road, the Persian Royal Road, the caravansaries, and the fact that Isidorus of Charax wrote an entire treatise in Greek, describing in minute detail the intricate planning behind the Parthian infrastructure, or how the Parthians came to dominate the bulk mercantile trade in the Indian Ocean? That's right, I said the bulk. Charax was made into the de facto greatest port in the East, and this is verified by the fact that Charax just wasn't a single city, but instead consisted of several harbour towns nearby to maximize the bandwidth of commerce. It wasn't enough! The Parthians had to build another port city in Persis proper, Sirap, in order to not lag behind in deliveries. Between Rome, India, Transoxiana and China, there was a commercial colossus who enjoyed every single minute of being in this lucrative position. Ship-wrecks outside of aforementioned Sirap, were advanced Partho-Sassanian merchant vessels, using two rigs, in order to harness monsoon winds. Even the on-board vessels for transporting the goods and the commodities had to be changed in order to attain greater stability.

The Sassanians inherited a vast trading network spanning from the horn of Africa to the Champa ports in Vietnam, all the while by land, they had connections about everywhere in the known world. The Achaemenids, before the Parthians and the Sassanians had themselves discovered the bulk of the known world, under the voyages of Scylax and Sataspes. The Hyrcanian defense wall, some of the greatest adobe fortifications in the world, freeze-houses, underground irrigations, kârîz channels... Hell, Darius I The Great built a canal in Egypt linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, several centuries before the digging in the Suez. The Parthian battery preceeded the Voltaic pile equally be centuries, and even though the voltage is close to horseshit, it produces not only ample voltage for electro-plating by serial linking, but its construction stands the scientific test. Wind-catchers. Persepolitan architecture. The first windmill with vertical axles was built by the late Sassanians. By communication, fortification, city-planning, health-related structures, agriculture, commerce, military technology and contemporary popular culture, within dancing, crafting of music, the arts and theatre, the ancient Iranians were right at the level with the Romans. Is it a surprise that they are called "rivals of Graeco-Romans" by a vast academical majority?

Get off your high horse. We don't live in the Classicist age anymore. A successful empire needed a viable infrastructure, otherwise it would meet failure. Lest you wish to ascribe more than 800-years of Partho-Sassanian hegemony as a failure, I'd advise you to take a handful of minutes and spend them in... Google?

[pezhetairoi]

Wikipedia, even. XD

The Persian Cataphract speaks again, and when he does, even Grivpanvar fall off their horses in awe.

Okay. On the OP's gameplay issue topic, I just have problems with the maximum settlement level of barbarian settlements being Large City. It just feels wrong when Avaricum in my Arverni campaign had more people than Roma and it was still a large city. :\

[Tellos Athenaios]

That's more of an hardcoded matter though: considering you need to have a settlement plan for the hughe city and ditto palace (model + skin) and accompanying strat map GUI elements. The large city is actually a feature from BI IIRC.