Preview: The Qarthadastim

[Mouzafphaerre]

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My apologies.

None needed.
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[RawPower]

THanks for the detailded preview! Love the uniforms and shield details.

[B-Wing]

Thrilled by the new preview! Amazing unit models and skins! Oh my gosh, I think EB2 will easily be the most beautiful and visually fascinating mod for any Total War game yet.

I did have one question/concern after reading the preview, though, regaring the decision to make a new province out of the interior of Sardinia. I understand this was done because the interior was never truly conquered in the mod's timeframe, but I wonder if this could not have been more optimally represented through the new Authority system. It seems the team is going to put a major focus on modeling the varying extents of factional control throughout different provinces via the Authority buildings, and I assumed it would be ideal for this very scenario. If any team members care to comment, what fueled the decision to represent this island as two provinces instead?

[Tanit]

Zarax, Paullus and I spent a lot of time discussing this and Zarax did some superb research on the region. There were a lot of reasons for making it another province, rather than using the new authority buildings. Firstly, there was a major cultural and social difference between the interior and coastal peoples of the islands. The coastal people had been heavily influenced by Punic and Greek settlers and were essentially no longer true Nuraghe. The interior tribes could still, and did still, consider themselves Nuraghe. Secondly, the peoples of the interior were relatively organized in their resistence to outsiders. Although they had come to be relatively peaceful with Carthage, who had finally given up attempting further expansion in the island, they thoroughly resisted Roman occupation in a comparitively organized manner. it was even commented that had the mod been set a couple of decades earlier we might have made the Nuraghe a faction. Thirdly is access to resources from the interior. This was impossible without alliance with the natives, as proven by a failure of Carthage to expand into the interior of the island, and the difficulties suffered by Rome later. Overall we made the interior a seperate province for the same reason that all of Spain is divided into different provinces rather than being one big province, that is to say that some levels of resistence cannot be represented by authority buildings. Our only other option was to remove one province slot from the islands completely and make the interior Eremos, but we all agreed that was not an ideal representation of the region. the final solution, reached after a rather long discussion, was agreed to be the best solution by all.

[B-Wing]

Very informative response, thank you!

[Zarax]

The conquest of interior Sardinia and Corsica was long and bloody, the nuragic people although under-equipped were stubborn guerrilla fighters and incredibly traditionalists.

Carthage tried to subdue them since the 6th century BC, with mixed success.
Their first invasion was beaten down after some initial success and Malchus' expedition was one that earlier achieved great results in Sicily, while their defeat was so unexpected that the general's fate was to be crucifixion.
Knowing this, Malchus on return assaulted Carthage and installed a short-lived dictatorship before being finally exiled.

In the following centuries 3 major campaigns managed to conquest the coastal and plain areas of Sardinia, managing to create an uneasy peace but definitely not a quiet one, proved by the "punic limes" in Sardinia.
Corsican coast was inherited from the Etruscans around 280BC and since then the two islands were ruled pretty much jointly.

During the first punic war romans had moderate success in the coastal areas but their offensives in the interior faced heavy losses, leaving the romans content with keeping the punic navy away from bases closer to Rome.
The truceless war marked the major shift, as the carthaginians mercenaries killed the punic officers and appealed for roman protection.
When Rime refused they were left alone to face a major Nuragic offensive that ousted them and gave the romans the excuse to invade Sardinia since it was now "independent".

Between the two punic wars they faced a similar situation to the Carthaginians, in which the plains were relatively easy to hold but the mountains were not.
After Cannae the most known uprising resulted in two pitched battles between roman and puno-nuragic forces, resulting in roman victory due a failure to properly connect between the allied armies.
Hampsicora's defeat at the battle of Cornus marked the start of a long and bloody guerrilla campaign in the sardinian and corsican mountains, on which many roman generals earned triumphs against the 3 main tribes of the area: Balares, Ilienses and Korsi, living respectively in north-western Sardinia, Central Sardinia and between north-eastern Sardinia and Corsica.

The last major uprising occurred around 178BC, but unrest continued until it was finally put down by Publio Conrnelio Scipio after his Iberian campaign.
Romans despised the nuragic populations, exterminating 80000 out of a population of little over 300000 and writers like Livy, Plutarc and Cicero used expressions like Sardi venales (sardinian cheap slaves because they had a reputation of trying to kill their "owner" at the first chance), latruncoli mastrucati (thieves dressed up in mastruca, a goat/sheep skin dress typical of the nuragic tribes) and a mixed race that took the worst habits of both barbarians and africans.

A distinctive culture with unique monuments (possibly partly related to the balearic tribes), which was a significant player from the bronze age until the 5th century and still important enough to be mentioned sending envoys at Delphi and Alexander the great in the 4th felt as deserving some more representation compared to EB1.
Many historians also consider the loss of Sardinia (which to carthaginians was a core province, home to many colonies) what ignited the revenge feeling that animated Hamilcar Barca to create the iberian domain which would one day serve as base for his young and promising son to deliver the promise he made when he was 9 years old.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Thanks Zarax.
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