Just in case the map hasn't been finalized

[Connacht]

Just some ideas...

There are some provinces in northern Europe [...]

I also think that certain far provinces can be merged, for instance those two ones that occupy today's Carelia, Finland, Estonia and the territory near Moscow.
However, only the EB staff can decide this. ;)

EDIT: 100th post! Yeeeeha!!!

Amazing.
Here's a balloon for prize:

[Puupertti Ruma]

I also think that certain far provinces can be merged, for instance those two ones that occupy today's Carelia, Finland, Estonia and the territory near Moscow.
However, only the EB staff can decide this. ;)

Erm... Carelia, Finland and Estonia are already a merged into a one region called Sápmi. But you do have a point with that it could be merged with the region near present day Moscow, called Dahyu Thissikata.

There is a thing though. Dahyu Thissikata and Sápmi are two totally different kinds of regions both in geography and culture. Dahyu Thissikata consists mostly of the steppes, and has little of the taiga in it, and therefore would have mostly nomadic and pastoralist people living in it, probably of sarmatian origin. In EB it indeed has the ability to have nomadic or pastoralist goverment chosen by a nomadic faction. The Sápmi province in other hand is covered wholly in woodland. Coniferious in north and mixed and decidious at the baltia. The people in there are fenno-ugric and most of them have taken on a sedentary life of farmers, cattle herders and part time hunters. So as you see, these two regions, while close to each other, are quite different actually.

Also, The Sápmi province is a valid, although quite distant, target for the Swebóz and even more so, if another german tribe is added. For the sarmatians Sápmi is also a valid target but quite far. The Dahyu Thissikata in the other hand is really far for the germanic tribes, but it's practically next door to the Sarmatians. This would make for some balance issues, which could be bad, and could be good, if it would force the germans to the southern europe, where they ended up after all.

I am myself from Finland, and know my prehistoric times of Finland well enough to know that there wasn't too much of anything interesting here at 272 BC - 0 BC, at least in EB's perspective. Also, the archeological findings from that period are in my knowledge quite limited, at least if compared to other time periods before and after the 0 ad. So maybe Sápmi and Seliun Gentis, the region just south of Sápmi, could be merged in to one region. They are culturally and also geographically similar, and if my memory serves me right, they have exactly the same units in EB1. Or maybe the two Gentyses (or however the plural should be typed) could be merged into some Great Gentys/Gentis.

There are possibilities up here to do some scissor work.

[Connacht]

Erm... Carelia, Finland and Estonia are already a merged into a one region called Sápmi.

In fact I didn't speak of a lot of different provinces, but only _two_ in the northern side of the map (one is Sápmi, the other Dahyu Thissikata). ;)

In my games Tuat was always conquered by the Carthaginians after some turns, and they also sent a lot of forces in order to garrison (or defend from my armies) it. And even after crushing the whole Carthaginian dominions on Northern Africa and Spain, if a family member is still alive, they can continue to develop a Fabulous Kingdom of the Desert with a strange large city that trains the last hopeless defenders and attempts to invade nearby provinces... ok for the Garamantines, but I think that it would be better to merge Gaetulia with Eremos.

[Puupertti Ruma]

In fact I didn't speak of a lot of different provinces, but only _two_ in the northern side of the map (one is Sápmi, the other Dahyu Thissikata). ;)

Yeah, I actually figured that out after reading your post more carefully and looking at the map. I honestly first thought that you spoke of only one province, as the Sápmi province is kind of patchworky, with the Gulf of Finland and other gulfs and bodies of water. I apologize for my mistake. Nonetheless the reasoning I did in my post was not made under this impression, as you might guess from the early inclusion of Dahyu Thissikata.

All things said, my points are still valid, at least in my books: Dahyu Thissikata and Sápmi are culturally and geographically too varied to varrant for a merging. A better option would be to merge the Seliun Gentis and Sápmi, as there is little gamewise to warrant the inclusion of Sápmi province.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

Another option might be to add sápmi to that "wasteland"-province that currently covers the Sahara and the Arabian desert, and is called Eremos. Might not be possible for some reason though...

Otherwise, Sapmi and Seliun Gentis could be merged, and Gotland could be merged with the rest of Sandinavia, since, as Puupertti Ruma stated, neither the Baltic, nor Scandinavia was very important in this period. If I'm not mistaken, Tacitus wrote in the first century AD that the "Sueoni" (Swedes) lived on an island in the ocean, and went to sea in ships driven by oars, as they did not know of the sail, and this is the first we hear of them. It has been suggested that the spread of Celtic culture throughout central Europe caused the trade with southern Europe to cease completely, and this, along with climate changes, flung Scandinavia into a dark age which lasted from about 500 b.C to the first century AD. Archaeological finds have also implied that Scandinavia was indeed a backwater during this time.

Anyway, if these, and maybe also the two provinces in Ireland were merged, and if it is true that both Augila and Gaetulia are to be removed (pure speculation, I know), this would give us 5 new provinces to disperse over the map. Of these, I actually think that one or two might be put in another place in north Africa (Especially if there is to be one or maybe even two Numidian factions), maybe yet another one, or maybe more, in Greece. I know there are many there already, but I still think it has a tendency to get rather cramped down there. And then some in India or on the Iranian plateu.

But, as always, this is not up to me to decide...

Amazing.
Here's a balloon for prize:

Well thank you, kind sir!

[Connacht]

And then some in India or on the Iranian plateu.

Hmmm, but the team already stated that India won't be added because for many reasons, for instance it will require too many provinces so these new 5 provinces aren't enough and should be added in the Mediterranean area or in the Iranian lands.
Greece? Dunno, there is a bit crowded down there with Sparte, Corinth, Athen etc. perhaps instead a new province nearby, in Illyria or in Thracia.

Speaking of other things, I would also suggest to toggle the sea access from today's Jordan (I don't remember the name of the city, but it is the one on the right of Hierosolyma) and give those lands to Petra, forming what was called Arabia Petreia (instead in the EB map there is a province in the Sinai peninsula and a "Jordan/Northern Arabia" province).

Well thank you, kind sir!

Lol.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

Hmmm, but the team already stated that India won't be added because for many reasons, for instance it will require too many provinces so these new 5 provinces aren't enough and should be added in the Mediterranean area or in the Iranian lands.
Greece? Dunno, there is a bit crowded down there with Sparte, Corinth, Athen etc. perhaps instead a new province nearby, in Illyria or in Thracia.

I didn't mean to include the whole of India. What I meant is that the three provinces there are rather big, IMO, and thus, you could divide one of them into two... maybe.

And yes, Greece is crowded, but in my experience the KH has a tendency to blitz the Makedonians and Epeiros, and thus creating one huge balkan-empire, stretching from modern Slovenia to Athens.
(They might do this anyway, though...)

[chairman]

I heard awhile back during a discussion concerning Gotland that it is where the team placed the city/province that is hardcoded as the Vanilla "Rome". They did this because the island is unlikely to be conquered very easily, thus preventing the AI from prematurely upsetting the script to end the game. I can't remember all of the details from that discussion, but that's what I do remember. AFAIK, eliminating Gotland might cause an AI or player controlled faction to accidentally end the game early by conquering the new city that is linked by hardcode to the Vanilla "Rome". I dunno.

Chairman

[Perturabo]

Chairman,

Indeed that is correct for RTW, Gotland is Rome (think maybe Rilder might have said that?). Visby is the same place in MTW2, and I can assure you the AI has no compunctions in assaulting it, in fact seems to have an unnatural fondness for it.

There might need to be some little unconquerable region (as in EB1) in the desert that can be used for the same purpose, perhaps the Eleutheroi hidout can be one and the same.

[Dumbass]

Why no just make Terhazza rome then. The Ai will never be able to conquer that.

[Cartaphilus]

What about Balearic islands?

If the city change to Ebussus (Iboshim) you could keep it under carthaginian rule as it is now.
But if you want to maintain the city in Majorica: Bocchoris, and the government system will be similar to what we have now, think in changing to type III or IV for more historical accuracy.

[Cartaphilus]

If you will make a new celtiberian or iberian faction maybe a new province will be needed in Hispania.
As well in North Africa with two new numidian kingdoms.

[General Appo]

Just to add here Cartaphilus, the EB team has never officialy stated that there will be two (nor one for that matter) Numidian factions. I´m sorry if this is not what you meant, but to me it sounded like you believe that they actually have.

[Cartaphilus]

I know that.
It was only a simple assumption (and not made by me), like all the posts in this thread.

I expect only one numidian faction - but another one will be welcomed too.
But if we have new factions in the area (as in Hispania) they will need some "Lebensraum" - and the fight for it will be hard.

[Fondor_Yards]

Another option might be to add sápmi to that "wasteland"-province that currently covers the Sahara and the Arabian desert, and is called Eremos. Might not be possible for some reason though...

I like this idea. No faction would conquer the lands up there, there was zero reason to at all.



Unless one of the new factions is a baltic faction, hmmmmmm?

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

Exactly!

It was hardly possible to keep such a large are, bereft of all sorts of unity or infrastructure, under direct controll. And also, none of the factions currently in had any real interests there. Its simply to far away...

[Zenith Darksea]

Unless one of the new factions is a baltic faction, hmmmmmm?

Unless the EB team has scholars with literally miraculous powers of historical research, then I doubt that one of the new factions will be in the Baltic. After all, I've already heard one of the EB team explain why such a faction can't be added (to whit - we know sod-all about them).

[General Appo]

Indeed. If such a faction for some reason was added, it would probably still only have the 4 units the Balts have now, and probably even less so since those units are divided over two rather different kinds of balts, the eastern and western ones. The "cities" would still just have generic names, not historically proven ones, the characters names would be just guesswork, I mean, everything would just be guesses. Plus it wasn´t really like they had any chance of expansion, much less so than for example the Sweboz. The Balts were to my understanding almost less advanced than the tribal system of the Germans, and an actualy unification of any more than a few semi-nomadic families or "towns" of no more than a few thousand people if even that, seems very unlikely. Nor does the conquest of any other faction appears likely, at most some Germanic or Steppe nomadic (though not actually from the sauromatae) raids would have been conducted on the very brinks of the actual baltic culture. Well, maybe in modern eastern Poland and such some Balts perhaps lived under a Germanic ruling class, but... that I really don´t know about and I very, very much doubt anything could be done with it.
No, a Baltic faction seems doomed no to appear.

[Fondor_Yards]

That was a joke, I don't think there will be baltic faction.