I told you so.. and assorted queries thereon

**amritochates** · 08-30-2005, 08:23

Hah! I had predicted that Armenia would be the next faction preview in my "Occultus Revealed" thread and you wouldn't believe me:

But seriously speaking it can only refer to the following factions that are left:

a. The three roman factions and the senate, though in my opinion highly unlikely at this point.
b. Thrace
c. Dacia
d. Armenia- the most likely faction in my opinion considering the last four factions have been from that general area- Sauromatae, Koinon Helleon, Pontus and Pahlava.

And I was proven right as I shall be proven right when I predict that:

Since the new Faction Preview- Hayasdan has been posted and Khelvan is still using his occultus sig, so it is definately not a Faction then. Since now we are square one, I am going to take a leap of faith and say the unthinkable- Occultus is the release date of the Open Beta, and going further on a limb I say this without any proof other than my faith in the spirit of Christmas that the BETA is coming out on December,25 as our collective Christmas Gift.

But speculation apart, on looking up the partial unit list one realises that certain factions like the Armenians, Pontus or the Baktria are defecient in melee infantry just as other factions are defecient in cavalry which is both realistic as well as historically accurate.That EB will follow historically corraborated unit lists was one of the stated objectives of the Mod from the very beginning and there can be no controversy or compromise on that issue.

However one also realises that these unit lists were drawn upon the basis of the historical realities existing in what may be termed as OTL (Orthodox/Our TimeLine) where the Tsorim are defeated by the Romans and the Armenians never expand past the boundries of Asia Minor. But the very premise of any TW game whether STW or MTW or RTW is to present Points of Divergence (POD) in the OTL which leads to an Alternative Time Line or ATL. An excellent illustration of a POD and its resultant ATL is given by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire where his POD is that Charles Martel loses the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD, whereupon he aasumes the following:

A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the Rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet."

My query basically relates to the results of such a POD and its resultant ATL occuring in Game, for ex If as Armenia I conquer the area occupied by the western roman empire, now that since all units are region specific, will I be able to recruit my normal unit line after the conquered provinces are culturally integrated as in the CIV series, or will I be able recruit units from the Unit line of whatever Culture was predominant in that area, for ex. Iberian Units from Iberia. And finally will my unit line change according to such a POD since the units and tactics that suceed in the plains of Cappadocia will hardly be suitable for the forests of Germania, unless I have a pechant for pulling my hair in moments of despair and screaming "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

or words to that effect.

So to sum up what I desire to know is that whether such POD's and their subsequent ATL are actually considered by the EB team when the Unit lists for each facton is drawn up and what is the attitude of the entire EB team regarding such events.

**Steppe Merc** · 08-30-2005, 16:16

Wow.

Um, well you can recruit certaint troops from areas, but it depends on you're faction. If you're the Sauromatae, you'd be able to recruit fellow Iranians better than say Romans.

**Divinus Arma** · 08-30-2005, 16:42

xmas? Hope not.

**amritochates** · 08-30-2005, 16:42

Um, well you can recruit certain troops from areas, but it depends on your faction. If you're the Sauromatae, historically Germanic tribes fought with Sarmatians, so you might be able to recruit more of their soldiers once you take over their land than say Rome would..

That is however but an partial answer only. You are still following the OTL (Orthodox/Our TimeLine), wheron the Sauromatae do not expand into say north africa. What happens in case of such a POD as illustrated above and its subsequent ATL, and does EB acknowledge the case for such POD and take measures for accomadating such ATL. That is the moot question.

Finally what is the official EB POV then??

**jerby** · 08-30-2005, 17:31

well, i guess that in the east. practically every Faction can raise Pandotopoi..sinc ethey are very basic. and the units "sauromatae" woudl rais ein Africa will probably not differ very much from what romans can (in troop type) but just not as differse...
[/mode=speculating]

but it is indeed a weird issue, becuase if it's not treated 'good' factions could, quite possibly, not expand much further than they 'historically' did...

**Epistolary Richard** · 08-30-2005, 17:47

Hmmm... interesting question.

ATLs and PODs are, of course, a favourite topic of pop history "What If?" books which try to extrapolate beyond a particular event should things have gone a different. Classic questions such as "What if the Spanish Armada had landed?" "What if the Luistania had never been sunk?" "What if Archduke Ferdinand had fallen over, bruised his thumb and decided not to bother with Sarajevo after all?". It's all in fun, an amusing past-time and so forth.

It's rather more grist for the mill for the many alternative historical novels out there (alternative C16th century was in vogue a year or so ago, but I believe we've moved on since then). Who, for example, has read Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus?

Now there's a book that takes the issues of ATLs and PODs and addresses them head on and comes to some quite surprising, though perhaps unsupportable, conclusions delivered in an easily-digestable style. EB, of course, is as historically robust as is possible given the pool of knowledge available, though inherently the open-ended nature of this game means that ahistoric situations are possible, even certain, to arise.

So, amritochates, given the limitations imposed upon any mod maker, what would your approach be to reconciling the historical priority with the certainty of ahistorical development?

**eadingas** · 08-30-2005, 20:05

The unit and model limit seriously hampers any efforts to produce fully alternate timelines.

**Reverend Joe** · 08-30-2005, 20:14

Originally Posted by amritochates

Hah! I had predicted that Armenia would be the next faction preview in my "Occultus Revealed" thread and you wouldn't believe me:

But seriously speaking it can only refer to the following factions that are left:

a. The three roman factions and the senate, though in my opinion highly unlikely at this point.
b. Thrace
c. Dacia
d. Armenia- the most likely faction in my opinion considering the last four factions have been from that general area- Sauromatae, Koinon Helleon, Pontus and Pahlava.

And I was proven right as I shall be proven right when I predict that:

Since the new Faction Preview- Hayasdan has been posted and Khelvan is still using his occultus sig, so it is definately not a Faction then. Since now we are square one, I am going to take a leap of faith and say the unthinkable- Occultus is the release date of the Open Beta, and going further on a limb I say this without any proof other than my faith in the spirit of Christmas that the BETA is coming out on December,25 as our collective Christmas Gift.

But speculation apart, on looking up the partial unit list one realises that certain factions like the Armenians, Pontus or the Baktria are defecient in melee infantry just as other factions are defecient in cavalry which is both realistic as well as historically accurate.That EB will follow historically corraborated unit lists was one of the stated objectives of the Mod from the very beginning and there can be no controversy or compromise on that issue.

However one also realises that these unit lists were drawn upon the basis of the historical realities existing in what may be termed as OTL (Orthodox/Our TimeLine) where the Tsorim are defeated by the Romans and the Armenians never expand past the boundries of Asia Minor. But the very premise of any TW game whether STW or MTW or RTW is to present Points of Divergence (POD) in the OTL which leads to an Alternative Time Line or ATL. An excellent illustration of a POD and its resultant ATL is given by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire where his POD is that Charles Martel loses the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD, whereupon he aasumes the following:

A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the Rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet."

My query basically relates to the results of such a POD and its resultant ATL occuring in Game, for ex If as Armenia I conquer the area occupied by the western roman empire, now that since all units are region specific, will I be able to recruit my normal unit line after the conquered provinces are culturally integrated as in the CIV series, or will I be able recruit units from the Unit line of whatever Culture was predominant in that area, for ex. Iberian Units from Iberia. And finally will my unit line change according to such a POD since the units and tactics that suceed in the plains of Cappadocia will hardly be suitable for the forests of Germania, unless I have a pechant for pulling my hair in moments of despair and screaming "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

or words to that effect.

So to sum up what I desire to know is that whether such POD's and their subsequent ATL are actually considered by the EB team when the Unit lists for each facton is drawn up and what is the attitude of the entire EB team regarding such events.

Whoa. You sound like the mixture of a historian and Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. However, despite the validity of your point, I doubt that any changes will be made this late in the game.

**hoom** · 08-30-2005, 20:59

Well this is very much what the AoR system in RTR6 does and I think its been previously made quite clear that EB includes something at least on a par with that.
I think the quote was something like "very complex and multilayered system"
So yeah, pretty sure they are all over this like syrup on pancakes.

**amritochates** · 08-30-2005, 21:03

Why the reference to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson?? - I had to look him up on the Wikipedia(the fastest though not necessarily the most accurate online source)
and found no connection between him and my article, so I am

.
Also I expect no changes in EB through this article, what I am looking for is the official POV of the EB team on both POD and ATL.

Now getting on with serious business, referring back to the Post by Epistolary Richard, where he states that:
ATLs and PODs are, of course, a favourite topic of pop history, not only that they are the Lifeblood of CA. All their games are based on the creation of a POD and its subsequent ATL. To illustrate in STW one had to lead any one faction to secure the post of Shogun which meant that clans that were in OTL unsucessful contenders to ultimate power like the Takeda can now form the Shogunate. Similarly in MTW one had to conquer all of Europe, something that no nation has been capable of doing till date and continuing onto RTW where it is possible that the Aedui or the Casse end up ruling Rome instead of the other way around.

So as you rightly pointed out given the limitations imposed upon any mod maker what are his/her options- well in my opinion three possibilities are open to the Modder:
Firstly, to allow any faction to recruit faction units from any region after a suitable period of cultural integration or what I term as the CIV approach.

Secondly to create a sub structure of regional mercenary units based on the different cultures, for ex. Arveni recruiting Pezhetairoi in the Middle East or the Romans recruiting Indohellenikoi Hoplitai from the regions inhabited by Baktria.

Thirdly and finally to create a sub structure of assumed units- units that have no strong base in historical reality but are the logical assumption of a POD and its subsequent ATL, a good example being the Silver Shield Legionaries in Vanilla RTW.

But these are merely my opinions what I am still interested in and what has not yet being clarified is, since as Jerby so rightly points out that because if it's not treated 'good' factions could, quite possibly, not expand much further than they 'historically' did...as stated above:

Whether such POD's and their subsequent ATL are actually considered by the EB team when the Unit lists for each facton is drawn up and what is the attitude of the entire EB team regarding such events.

I was expecting either Khelvan or Mongoose to have commented on this by now.

.
But other Patrons I am equally intersted on your POV so do elaborate.

**Reverend Joe** · 08-30-2005, 21:19

You have to know what he was like, and you can't find that out by reading some damn Encyclopedia. Watch "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", read his books... you'll get it.

Also, all these abbreviations are freaking me out.
POV, POD, ATL, OTL, EB, RTR, AoR, MTW, RTW...

I'm getting scared.

**hoom** · 08-31-2005, 09:24

See this thread for the Word of Khelvan.

**Es Arkajae** · 08-31-2005, 14:54

I would wager that certain regions have certain mercenaries suited to that place historically and regionally.

For instance in vanilla if you were the Persians and you were invading the West you would use mercenary troops such as Thracians, Bastarnae, Merc Hoplites and Illyrians whenever you could for infantry, not your shitty hillmen and eastern infantry.

Considering the amount of thought the EB crew has put into this kind of stuff I would think they'd revamped the mercenary system to be much more dynamic then it was in vanilla and so foreign conquests will be all the more interesting for it.

In fact maybe thats what your 'occultus' is, mercenaries