How would you describe the politics and cultures of some faction?

[fomalhaut]

Well the Hellenes seemed, to me at least, to be very ethnocentristic self important jerks, but that's just me.

And the broad 'Hellenic' blanket might not be sufficient, as you can't realy compare the culture of Sparte, or Athens, or Massalia, or Syracuse yet they are certainly are Hellenic cultures

Maybe when talking to barbaroi they would assume the Hellenic term as a way to attribute to a wider and perceived superior culture, but when talking to eachother you know they would be all about their home polis

[QuintusSertorius]

Well the Hellenes seemed, to me at least, to be very ethnocentristic self important jerks, but that's just me.

And the broad 'Hellenic' blanket might not be sufficient, as you can't realy compare the culture of Sparte, or Athens, or Massalia, or Syracuse yet they are certainly are Hellenic cultures

Maybe when talking to barbaroi they would assume the Hellenic term as a way to attribute to a wider and perceived superior culture, but when talking to eachother you know they would be all about their home polis

And the Romans were the same, according to their own (different) mores. Even after the Romans conquered the Greeks, the Greeks still regarded Romans as half-barbarous and barely civilised. Hell, look at the way they regarded Macedonians even after Philip then Alexander put them down.

[VikingPower]

The Greeks were always quarrelsome and windbags in their nature.

Like how ignorant can people get in destroying each other in city-state warfare within a territory which was about 1/60 of the whole Persian empire AFTER they became aware that they could beat that empire.

Its like when Xenophon said that all Greeks knew what was right but the Spartans alone acted upon it (in the tale about the old man which could not get a seat).

The most industrious nation wins, but a great libraries can not save peoples whom are without discipline.

[antisocialmunky]

Eastern Nomad Cultures:

Ride horses, pillage dudes, acquire gold and chicks, repeat.

[fomalhaut]

not much nuance there, eh? i'm sure we'd make those same type of generalities about our cultural ancestors had they no permanent monuments or surviving writings :P

[Ca Putt]

well judgeing the greeks from todays perspective may hold some problems. whereas today you may call it sectionalism as we all live in organised and somewhat centralized states in 400 bc things were different and the beeing independent from sparta maybe was just slightly less important than beeing independent from Persia. apart from that conquest is no end in itself as the romans may have thought by times and the greeks valued their individual(poleic(new word YAY)) freedom even to ally against them higher than the prospect of more land and riches.
that and they were always quarrelsome and windbags in their nature.
:D

this however would be the significant difference to roman thinking.


on factions of the ingame Culture group "Barbaric" or just slightly or un- hellenized european settled people as I prefer to call them jsouhesp:
you cannot just put them all in one pot, even amung the celts there are significant differences when germanics Lusotanns(and iberians and celtiberians(no expert on them so don't complain)) and Tracians come in the chaos is perfect, so you have to either add extra groups (celts, Germanics, inhabitants of Iberia(ha) and tracians) or leave out some.

[Brennus]

It is difficult to ascertain how Celtic social structure operated. Caesar informs us that Celtic society was divided into 5 classes (Kings, Warrior Aristocracy, Druids, Craftsmen and finally peasents with Druids and Warrior Aristocracy being in rough parity). It does appear that over time the Celts adopted the more Mediterranean system of government, electing rulers rather than passing power down the male line (evidence of this can be found in Caesar's descriptions in the Gallic wars) although those Celtic tribes further from the Med continued to practice hierachical power transfers (strong evidence of this can be found in Belgic and British coinage of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD). Certainly amongst the Aedui and Arverni leadership was elective by the 1st Century BC and amongst the Arverni at least there was a republican movement. Later Irish and Welsh vernacular literature also suggests that insular Celtic communities had a complex governmental system, with several tiers of kingship beginning with a High King (the Ard Ri in Ireland, the Rex Britorum in Wales) as well as several tiers of nobility, the divsions between which were very small. Whilst amongst the Bretons possible kings had to prove they were of sufficient power to rule as King and if unable to do this then they had to accept a lower title, for example Alain Twistbeard who, despite liberating Brittany from the Vikings could not impress his fellow nobles enough to claim the title of King of Brittany. I would say, however, that key to maintaining a social position in any Celtic society was your prestige, the ability to impress others appears to have been key to maintaining a title. It wasn't sufficient in Celtic society to simply have a title, you had to re-inforce the fact you were the most suitable man to hold such a position in society.One final thing of note is that, unlike Hellenic, Roman and Punic society Celtic society was very mobile, in some cases the state would be entire tribes (for example the migrations of the Galatians and the Boii) whilst in others a "Je suis l'etat" system appears to have existed with individuals like Ambiorix, Llewellyn ap Gruffyd, Brian Boru and possibly Commios the Atrebatian being the living embodyment of the state.

[antisocialmunky]

not much nuance there, eh? i'm sure we'd make those same type of generalities about our cultural ancestors had they no permanent monuments or surviving writings :P

You can be as general or specific as you want in your description. However, I went with the one that that would probably make our ancestors have a good laugh if we had a time machine.

[Tyrfingr]

Problem is that most people sees the greeks and the celts as one people, where in reality there was no such unity...there were independent greek city-states and independent celtic tribes, yes, but no unified nation. If quite a few of the celts and greeks unified under one banner from time to time, these federations were both rare and short-lived.