Goidils

**Ghaust the Moor** · 06-23-2009, 18:46

Well, I was just curious as to wether or not the the Goidils were being considered as a faction in EBII. Please and Thank you.

P.S. Plz say yes

**Martelus Flavius** · 06-23-2009, 20:05

This question is currently being analized by our occultus specialists, which are going to prepare (or maybe not) a report on this subject written in one of the international language of our era.

I hope this was a decent answer!

Salve!

Martelvs

**Ghaust the Moor** · 06-23-2009, 20:14

who are occultus specialists?

**athanaric** · 06-23-2009, 21:48

Originally Posted by Ghaust the Moor

who are occultus specialists?

Team members who work on new factions.

**Watchman** · 06-23-2009, 22:02

Drat. Now everyone who read that will be dead by morning.

**Ghaust the Moor** · 06-23-2009, 23:57

oh...I'll sleep with one eyed open...So what are the chances of getting an answer to my question?

**Martelus Flavius** · 06-28-2009, 16:04

About Occultus :

Originally Posted by athanaric

Team members who work on new factions.

Nope, they are our secret agents, gathering information, spilling doubts, appearing where they are not waited... A mysterious cloud of fog encompass every statement they made, to fool one's soul on the wrong mystical path.

Sincerly yours,

Martelvs

**Cyclops** · 06-29-2009, 02:06

Originally Posted by Martelus Flavius

About Occultus ...they are our secret agents, gathering information, spilling doubts, appearing where they are not waited... A mysterious cloud of fog encompass every statement they made, to fool one's soul on the wrong mystical path....

...like what you're doing now?

Ah ha! You are one of the Occultus! I will expose you, I'll tell everyone and...wait I'll just answer that knock on the door...

(walks away from PC)

...

(never seen again).

**Constantius III** · 06-29-2009, 07:30

Originally Posted by Martelus Flavius

This question is currently being analized by our occultus specialists

That's gotta hurt, especially if they're not used to it.

**oudysseos** · 06-29-2009, 12:11

Cyclops, your reasoning is sound, but incomplete: our goal is to represent the whole of the world covered by our map as best as is possible, given all the limits of the game engine and our knowledge of the peoples involved. Now, obviously, the peoples of the British Isles (just as an example) have much less information available for the time period in question, so the task of recreating their societies and trying to make a viable faction is very much harder than it is for, say, the Romans. This does not necessarily mean that there won't be any faction(s) there. It would be very unrealistic for such a large part of the map to be "empty", when we know that there was a lot going on there, even if we don't have very many details. But we don't want to fill up the map just 'cos it's empty: there is a minimum amount of information that we need to make something work.

'Goidils', by the way, is kinda meaningless. 'Goidelic' is a term used in the past to group together the Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx languages, but as nomenclature is pretty old-fashioned. There is no evidence that there was ever a group of people who called themselves 'Goidils', and particularly not in the EB time frame (the word dates to somewhere in the 6th century AD, I believe). The 'Invasions' model of Irish pre-history has also been by and large abandoned, so you're not gonna hear many modern academics talking about 'Goidils' at all.

So if the OP is interested in seeing a native Irish faction in EB, he needs to do a little more research. Too bad he won't have time before the Occulti remove his internal organs and replace them with Cheez Wiz as a warning to others.

Oh, Alsatia? No, you shouldn't.

**Cyclops** · 06-30-2009, 03:31

Originally Posted by oudysseos

Cyclops ...

Thank you for responding so courteously and promptly. For some reason I felt there should be hostility between us, but Nobody can tell me why.

Originally Posted by oudysseos

...Cheez Wiz...

Mmmmmmmm...cheez wiz...

Well its better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. Dang, why does that ring a bell?

**oudysseos** · 06-30-2009, 08:19

Well, I can do hostility, if you really want.

But seriously, there is a conundrum for us that is both frustrating and fascinating. Sticking with Britain as our examplar, Cunliffe's massive body of work gives us a lot of archaeological material to work with, and we can can broadly identify at least two "cultures" that could fit well into the EB framework: the Arras Culture to the north (maybe the Parisi, or the Brigantes) and the Aylesford-Swarling Culture to the south (the Cassi and others mentioned in Caesar). From these sources we have weapons, chariots, horse architecture, household goods, votive offerings and settlement patterns. A lot, really. What we don't have is any written history until 200 years or so after EB begins, and since we don't do emergent factions, that's a real problem. There is a lot of coinage that gives us the names of Kings/Chieftains and indirectly indicates some of the political history, but these don't appear until maybe 150 years after our starting date, and are anyway probably a result of increasing Belgic influence (not invasion) in the southeast of the island, something which, in an alternative timeline, might not have happened as it did.

Bugger.

So what should we do? Clearly, there were people there deserving a faction, and probably more than one (if we had no hard-coded limits, of course). But we don't have most of the information that we would really need to be historically accurate as per our mission statement. We don't even really for sure know the names that the tribes called themselves in the 3rd century BCE, although 'Casse' is a damn good guess. We don't have any real battle narratives, so we have only a vague idea of what kind of units to model/skin: we have to retroject from Caesar and extrapolate from the physical remains. Which is fun, of course, but a lot more work than some of the Hellenic factions with (relatively) a lot of textual support.

Multiply this problem by every other area of the EB world besides Rome and the Diodachoi and you may begin to see why it's not done yet.

Oh, Cyclops, your poke in the eye with a burnt stick is on the way. With love from the Occulti.
Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

**Alsatia** · 07-01-2009, 11:23

Originally Posted by oudysseos

Oh, Alsatia? No, you shouldn't.

Sorry

. Didn't read that post

.

So sorry

. Honest!

It is hard to do ancient Britain as Odysseous said, there are few sourcers and they only get the information when Caesar invaded. Before then, it seems Britain is a dark world.

**Irishmafia2020** · 07-03-2009, 00:17

Here's a vote for another British faction... whether they are called "Goidils" "Caledonians" or some more specific name doesn't matter to me especially, although i do applaud the historical accuracy attempted, but from a gameplay perspective, another faction would really spice up the isles, and the Goidilic unit roster (however inaccurate) was nearly complete in EB1.

**Ludens** · 06-29-2009, 13:55

TA posted a long time ago that the Erain (a southern Irish tribe) were a candidate for the final faction slot that eventually went to the Saba. However, my impression is that Ranika and Anthony were the team's Goidel/Briton experts, and that no one has replaced them. Given that they are already short on Celtic historians I doubt they have anyone to work on the Goidels.