Anyone help me understand the EB factions?

[Ca Putt]

Welcome to EB,

Aedui - Gauls
Arche Seleukeia - Seleucid empire
Arverni - other Gauls
Baktria - easternmost Hellenic empire, close to "india".
Casse - British tribe
Epirus - Western Makedonians, remember Phyrrus of Epirus?
Getai - Tracians and Dacians along those lines.
Hayasdan - Armenians
Karthadastim - Carthage
Koinon Hellenon - Hellenic League, Sparta, Athens, Rhodos and friends
Lusotannan - a somewhat celtesque Tribe in Portugal
Makedonia - Macedonia
Pahlava - Parthians(tho you start out as their even more nomadic Predecessors, the Parni
Pontos - mix of Greeks and "persians" living in northern Turky
Ptolemaioi - Greeks in Egypt^^
Romani - Romans
Sab'yn - A people living on the southern tip of Arabia, remember the queen of saba?
Saka Rauka - nomads also known as Sakans.
Sauromatae - nomads also known as Sarmatians
Sweboz - a germanic tribe also known as Suebi

That's roughly the faction list for starters. I skipped prefixes.

[Anndra]

Thank you very much for that list :D and thanks for the other welcomes. Looking forward to learning a bit about history and having fun in RTW.

[Anndra]

Welcome to EB,

Aedui - Gauls
Arche Seleukeia - Seleucid empire
Arverni - other Gauls
Baktria - easternmost Hellenic empire, close to "india".
Casse - British tribe
Epirus - Western Makedonians, remember Phyrrus of Epirus?
Getai - Tracians and Dacians along those lines.
Hayasdan - Armenians
Karthadastim - Carthage
Koinon Hellenon - Hellenic League, Sparta, Athens, Rhodos and friends
Lusotannan - a somewhat celtesque Tribe in Portugal
Makedonia - Macedonia
Pahlava - Parthians(tho you start out as their even more nomadic Predecessors, the Parni
Pontos - mix of Greeks and "persians" living in northern Turky
Ptolemaioi - Greeks in Egypt^^
Romani - Romans
Sab'yn - A people living on the southern tip of Arabia, remember the queen of saba?
Saka Rauka - nomads also known as Sakans.
Sauromatae - nomads also known as Sarmatians
Sweboz - a germanic tribe also known as Suebi

That's roughly the faction list for starters. I skipped prefixes.

I've just went in game and why are factions names spelt differently :S this doesn't make much sense to me. Ie: epirote = epeiros. On the map they're epirote but elsewhere epeiros.

[Ca Putt]

Epirote is the Adjective to Epirus. Epeiros is greek, Epirus is english.

I don't think it's too confusing, It's not like the faction names were all allike. Marginal changes like k-c and o-u-v and adjectivations(is that a word?) are a trademark of Ancient History related literature :D

[Ludens]

Epeiros is greek, Epirus is english.

Nit-picking: Epeiros is the Greek name transliterated to English, while Epirus is the English name.

@ Anndra

The names used in EB are, as far as we can ascertain, the names that were historically used by the factions themselves. The difference between "Epirus" and "Epeiros" is indeed trivial, but, for example, the Carthaginians never referred to themselves as "Punic" or "Phoenicians". Those are the names given to them by the Greeks and Romans (IIRC it means "purple" and refers to the fact that only Phoenicians knew how to make purple dye - which was worth a fortune in those days). Their city wasn't called Carthage, but Kart-Hadast ("New City"). Hence, the EB team decided to call them the "Karthadastim".

[Ca Putt]

ah, my bad. Offcourse Ancient Greeks did not use the modern Latin alphabet.

[Anndra]

Epirote is the Adjective to Epirus. Epeiros is greek, Epirus is english.

I don't think it's too confusing, It's not like the faction names were all allike. Marginal changes like k-c and o-u-v and adjectivations(is that a word?) are a trademark of Ancient History related literature :D

Nit-picking: Epeiros is the Greek name transliterated to English, while Epirus is the English name.

@ Anndra

The names used in EB are, as far as we can ascertain, the names that were historically used by the factions themselves. The difference between "Epirus" and "Epeiros" is indeed trivial, but, for example, the Carthaginians never referred to themselves as "Punic" or "Phoenicians". Those are the names given to them by the Greeks and Romans (IIRC it means "purple" and refers to the fact that only Phoenicians knew how to make purple dye - which was worth a fortune in those days). Their city wasn't called Carthage, but Kart-Hadast ("New City"). Hence, the EB team decided to call them the "Karthadastim".

It's not confusing, just trying to get to grips with the game :) though I must admit the use of ancient names like in the "this year in history" or even some building descriptions is a little overwhelming. I'm interested in this part of history but despite the many documentaries I've watched none of them go into this detail of history.

Does anyone know of good documentaries that would make me more familiar with the actual history of these peoples and cultures during this era? (understand this is semi-off topic, but it came to mind)

[Arjos]

If you really want to know actual history, these books are far better than any documentary :)
Think you can find a good portion of them, online and free to read ^^

EB itself, as you found out, gives a good amount of informations...
It is definitely a game to explore and discover!

[athanaric]

If it helps, you can group the factions by linguistic and cultural affiliation:

Aedui, Arverni, Casse - some important Celtic tribes. Casse being somewhat anachronistic as they appeared later.
Epeiros, Koinon Hellenon, Makedonia; Baktria, Arche Seleukeia, Ptolemaioi - Greeks (more or less). Koinon Hellenon literally means Greek Federation, being a (historically short-lived) alliance of three traditional Greek states and also representing various Greek koina that formed at the time. The other five Hellenic factions are naturally more influenced by related peoples or even their non-Greek subject peoples (e.g. Iranians, Semites, Tharcians, Egyptians, Anatolian peoples etc.). Baktria in particular is a crazy mix of several different cultures, united under Makedonian rule. Epeiros is actually the name of a landscape in NW Greece (nice place BTW), Makedonia is a landscape in N Greece (but you probably know that) and Seleukids and Ptolemaioi are dynastic names. Baktria is a geographical name, again.
Qarthadastim, As Sab'yn wal Jau - Semitic factions, one obviously being the Republic of Carthage and the other a South Arabian kingdom AKA Saba. I believe EB is the only game where you can play as Saba, BTW.
Pahlava, Sauromatae, Saka - some of the more powerful Iranian tribes, from a time when half of Asia spoke Iranian languages. "Pahlava" being the one that became known as the "Parthians" later on.

Does anyone know of good documentaries that would make me more familiar with the actual history of these peoples and cultures during this era? (understand this is semi-off topic, but it came to mind)

The thing about documentaries is, they're always edited so as to sound more dramatic. Often, when a serious historian appears in them, he has to "read" from a script that's been approved by the filmmakers, and his words are taken out of context. So it's difficult to find the ones that are really trying to be historically accurate.

[V.T. Marvin]

Does anyone know of good documentaries that would make me more familiar with the actual history of these peoples and cultures during this era? (understand this is semi-off topic, but it came to mind)

As it was already stated, good books are way better in order to actually learn anything than TV shows and the EB Bibliography thread is particularly useful starting point for finding them. But I would not completely scorn all "historical documentary" TV shows - for instance The Barbarians by Terry Jones are quite good (despite, or perhaps because, their particular anti-Roman spin) and also fun to watch and also some are in full on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl96VLPCAqw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLM06LKUqiw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtxSeGkeyKk

And of course, the game itself! Read the huge amount of text descriptions for buildings, units, faction info, even ancillaries and traits - it is a treasure-trove of knowledge. It is also a way to show respect for the hard work done by the Team that was put into collecting it.