Regional Descriptions: Help the EBII Team

**Arjos** · 08-03-2017, 15:55

For a complete picture you'd need to look for sources covering the Punic history on the island (Champion unfortunately touches it more on the matter of Hellenes vs Qarthadastim), but at least down to circa 212 BC that book helps a lot...

Afterwards there are 2 more centuries to cover, but that's other material to research :P

**Kull** · 08-03-2017, 18:48

@Hippo123 - Just beware of "paralysis through analysis". It's better to have a "pretty good" province description than to spend so much time researching that you get sick of the whole subject and never finish it. One problem with researching the Sicilian descriptions is that there is so MUCH historical information out there. It's easy to bog down.

**Hippo123** · 08-03-2017, 21:12

@Kull - Thanks for the heads up. My worry though is that I might not be displaying all the information that there is just because there is so much of it. I just hope that it does not turn into some paraphrased piece of crap or some massive long and boring analysis...I guess you guys will just have to be the judges of that. @Arjos - My take on Sicily is that Carthage and Syracuse were powerful and fought each other a lot during the classic period but after Rome took over it all became one province and not that much interesting happened. I have covered the history up until the second Punic war so far but no further. There were one semi-significant revolts in Sicily under the Romans and then the civil war between Octavian and Anthony; do you guys want me to include that? My dilemma is that after the second Punic war Sicily was all united into one Roman province. So if I describe and history after the second Punic war, which description should I put it in? Or should I put it in all of them copy and paste style. I would rather each one be unique but describing the historical events of these revolts can't really be rewritten in 3 different ways in my opinion. I would love to hear your input on this, it would help me out a lot! The descriptions are already fairly long (in my opinion), being 6000 words for Trinakrie and Elimya so far. Although I want them complete and not half-arsed I am very aware that there is so much to talk about and talking about one historical event can lead on to another and spiral out of control. If you guys could indicate where to draw the line then that would be great and I just want to thank you guys again for your help.

**Kull** · 08-03-2017, 21:37

As a general rule, the most important history is that which covers the game period. It's good to know information from outside that period, but it's of more limited value. So post Punic Wars is worth doing up to about Augustus, but after that a much more superficial survey is about all that's needed.

In general I'd prioritize "description volume/detail" as follows:

1) Prehistoric peoples up to 272 BC = Priority 2 (always good to know how the province got to be what it was in our era)
2) The EB2 Era 272BC to roughly 40AD = Priority 1 (especially helpful for role-players)
3) Post EB2 era = Priority 3 (I won't say "who cares?", but it doesn't matter much in game terms)

**Arjos** · 08-04-2017, 09:12

The approach I follow is this:

- Traveller's Guide, an eye witness in 272 BC of what people might've seen in the province (cities, landscape, current wars, what people lived where).
- Geography, a more technical description of the environment, the flora and the fauna.
- People, Society and Government, who lived there, how were they organised, what was their culture (for example what is specific of Syrakousan society compared to other Hellenes?). Here one can also include infos prior to 272 BC, to avoid making the history section too long.
- History, the events from 272 BC to 14 AD pretty much. Regarding the Roman Period, yes funny enough things start to get almost less documented in certain cases, or they get too generalised. As far as Sicily is concerned I'd maybe go in describing how important and what role played the island in Roman administration (since it was the somewhat first outside province, its importance as the first bread basket for the growing republic etc). To avoid copy and pasting it over the three descriptions, maybe if a revolt was focused over this or that portion, it could be covered in the corresponding province and leaving the others with just a brief mention or just a summary that Roman power came.
- Strategy, the gameplay approach to the province, its pros and cons and what the player should expect or do with the province in question.

Basically when it comes to the Roman Period, try to make it as specific to Roman history as possible, meaning that if something peculiar or just there took place we write it. Otherwise a summary will do...
If you feel that you are repeating yourself, a good idea could be to focus on Syrakousai and its history for that province, for the Punic part that point of view and all the history of Hamilcar etc, while for Sikelia, since it belongs to the Eleutheroi, you could make a shorter history section (focusing mainly on the Mamertinoi and Messana) and write more about the Sikeloi, their deities, their origins and so forth. Ultimately as you said trying to make each province as unique as possible, without copy and pasting...

I think 6000 words for two descriptions is already well covered. 2500-2600 words for a single province is already a lot (since we are dealing with some of the better documented ones it is ok. You are perfectly free to cut some parts, or shorten them if you deem it possible), but for example it is perfectly fine to have descriptions of say 1500 words, for those that basically only archaeology can chip in...

**Hippo123** · 08-04-2017, 09:30

Thanks for the tips guys, that cleared a lot up. The Sicilian revolt seemed to play out mostly around Messina, so I am going to write in detail about that in the description for Sikelia. That works out almost perfectly because I anticipated that the description for Sikelia would be shorter than the others anyway. Again, thank you guys very much and I'm going stop jibber-jabbering and get on with it now!

**Hippo123** · 08-10-2017, 19:15

Umm guys @Kull, @Arjos - just wondering. Do you guys have some sort of website or map with the Ancient Greek names on them? I have been trying to find out what the straits of Messina is supposed to be called but have had no luck...kind of pathetic, I know but your help would save me a lot of time.