Countdown to Open Beta - SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS

[Shigawire]

They didn't have J nor U.. and up until 312 BC, they didn't have a G.
The creation of G was attributed by Plutarch to have been created by the grammarian Spurius Carvilius Ruga in the 3rd century BC. Both the K-sound and the G-sound were heard in different words when using the letter C. Thus, the letter C had two distinct sounds. Ruga split the C into the two respective sounds by creating the G, which he did by adding a little line to the C.

In 312 BC, the Censor Appius Claudius Caecus passed the motion in the Senate to make the letter official. Though he was still quite adamant not to adopt the greek Z, because the sound looked like the "curling lips on a dead man's mouth"..

[Ab Urbe Condita]

Well done, well done!

One thing though, not sure if this was intentional or not but...

The conical helms on the principes and hastati seem... non-conically. There is no smooth curve around the helm. It almost looks like 8 triangles stitched around each other.

That is also my only complaint about this preview; the relatively low polygon count in the premarian helmets.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

That is also my only complaint about this preview; the relatively low polygon count in the premarian helmets.

Many people have complained that the models seemed to have too many polygons and therefore were system intensive. Now you two say they have too few polygons...

[caesar44]

Looks good !
Why are you using the Varonian chronology ?

[Marinakis]

ive got a friend whos mother is lebanese(phoenician) and she has light skin, green eyes and brown hair.
and apparently its quite common in lebanon.http://www.stylemodeling.com/index1.htm

which makes me wonder if its accurate to depict the carthaginians as dark as they are in those pictures above.

either way it doesnt really matter, i could always just justify the darkness as "they got a suntan from drilling all day in the sun"

im british and im pretty sure that if i was hanging around doing military drills in tunisia to this day, id get a tan too.

also i've also met loads and loads of light skinned greeks and southern italians.
(I say southern italians because northern italians tend to come from the lombards)

Well Northern greeks tend to be more white, and southern italy is heavily greek (aka Epirus, northern greece)

About the Phoenicians in the game being to dark you have to remember they are mixed with Libyan, numbians, and other africans in carthage.

Seeing how the greek world was dominated by Northern greek peoples at this time i guess its the beter compromise to pick the more Nortic look.

However, Italians, true italians (cantral italy) are quite Darkly tanned peoples.




P.S. Lebenon is not Phoenician. Acording to their own nations stats they are

- Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

The "white" look is most likely their armenian side, half my family is Armenian and they look european.

[SwordsMaster]

Thanks, EB for complying with my request. Only one thing to say: cool

[Steppe Merc]

A general comment on skin coloring: it is difficult to know the exact coloring of all the people in any place. It is even more difficult to show when the peoples were quite varied, like the Parthians, who varied from the dark to quite fair.
So we try and go for a compromise. But I don't know much about the Romans in particular.

[khelvan]

He was talking about the skin color of some Carthaginians. Remember that our Carthage has Phoenician people, Libyans, Ethiopians, and others, so some units will be darker than others. In addition, some Carthaginians were created darker than they should have been, and will be fixed. However, we would need to know which unit you are talking about, in particular, to discuss the reasons for choice of skin color.

[Steppe Merc]

He was? Damn. Well it still applies.

[aleh]

Great!!! I was leaning towards trying Macedonia first, but now for sure te Roman first, and who can blame me for putting off resurrecting ole Alex' dream , eh? But I have a question, and this is because of my extreme rustiness. I know how to switch from melee to ranged weapons, but how can I switch from the spear for the Early Principes to their short-swords, or can it even be done for that matter. Might just be a cool, but relatively useless sword, yes?

[khelvan]

Using ALT-click, I believe, will force the unit to attack with its secondary weapon. Or CTRL-click...one or the other.

[econ21]

Well, for instance, we're using 107 BC for the Marian Reforms at the moment.

Will anyone ever see these reforms? If EB has four turns per year (one for each seasons) and starts at 280BC, that means we have to play 692 turns to get to the Marian reforms. I don't think anyone is going to play that long. And goodness knows how long it would take to get Imperial reforms.

Am I missing anything? (e.g. variable start dates for campaigns? Like the early/high/late in MTW?).

One problem I have with RTR is that they have rather dragged out the campaign. And again, I am not sure anyone has seen Marian reforms with RTR 6.0. One of the main improvements of RTW over MTW and STW was that it made it easier to actually finish a campaign.

[the_handsome_viking]

Well Northern greeks tend to be more white, and southern italy is heavily greek (aka Epirus, northern greece)

About the Phoenicians in the game being to dark you have to remember they are mixed with Libyan, numbians, and other africans in carthage.

Seeing how the greek world was dominated by Northern greek peoples at this time i guess its the beter compromise to pick the more Nortic look.

However, Italians, true italians (cantral italy) are quite Darkly tanned peoples.




P.S. Lebenon is not Phoenician. Acording to their own nations stats they are

- Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

The "white" look is most likely their armenian side, half my family is Armenian and they look european.

However, Italians, true italians (cantral italy) are quite Darkly tanned peoples.

what do you mean by true italians? Etruscans? latins?

About the Phoenicians in the game being to dark you have to remember they are mixed with Libyan, numbians, and other africans in carthage.

though I have no doubt in my mind that the mixed apperence of modern day tunisians as well as other north africans has come from racial mixing, I do think that historically they may not have been so dark.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ent_lybian.jpg
thats a lybian from the book of gates, not very dark looking. you can compare to the other peoples here .
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...f_Ramesses.jpg

I see no real reason to think that other berber groups(numidians for example) would look any different unless they had and influx of sub saharan dna.

P.S. Lebenon is not Phoenician. Acording to their own nations stats they are

- Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

The "white" look is most likely their armenian side, half my family is Armenian and they look european.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Lebanon

"The Lebanese Maronite Christians are descendants of the Phoenicians/Canaanis (30%)."

my friends mother is maronite.

There was also a program on tv, I think the discovery channel that ended with genetic test results proving thatthe lebanese were the descendents of the Phoenicians also, which I think explains the lighter appearance of the christian maronites in lebanon.
that said, im sure the armenian blood will also be part of the reason why you have white people in lebanon also.
I've seen a lot of white armenians too.

either way , weither they had dark skin or not, it doesnt matter, when i play this mod ill just say "they got a sun tan"

I'll be happy either way, unless of course they make the generals look like denzel washington... that would make me cry.

[GoreBag]

Yeah, Denzel Washington would be silly. Samuel L. Jackson would be okay, though... he can do anything.

[Marinakis]

yeah i agree with most everything u said Handsome Viking

just to clerify when i say True Italians i mean the non greeks of the south, and the non guals from the north. So Umbra, Compania, Latium, Etruria, etc


And about Lebenon, I have never been there, and im sure there is some minority of people connected to the Phoenicians but they are not the majority, there are armenians there as well so does that make it an Armenian nation? Same thing applys with Kurds in Turkey, i can assure you Turkey is not a Kurdish nation. Lebenon is Arab. Dont get me wrong i think the Phoenicians were in the upper echelon of great peoples, along with Babylon, Egypt, Assyria and Greece

I dont know where Wikipeda got those numbers, but here are some numbers from the United States C.I.A.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/le.html

They have the same numbers i said before, Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

[khelvan]

Will anyone ever see these reforms? If EB has four turns per year (one for each seasons) and starts at 280BC, that means we have to play 692 turns to get to the Marian reforms. I don't think anyone is going to play that long. And goodness knows how long it would take to get Imperial reforms.

We've had test games that went longer, but not to worry. This is just a stopgap until we have the time to put together real triggers for them. We'll examine what conflicts with which type of cultures would lead to such reforms, and then when such things happen in the game, there will be a chance for the reforms to happen.

Just like what we're doing with the Seleukid Kataphraktoi reforms, but more complicated.

[Urnamma]

yeah i agree with most everything u said Handsome Viking

just to clerify when i say True Italians i mean the non greeks of the south, and the non guals from the north. So Umbra, Compania, Latium, Etruria, etc


And about Lebenon, I have never been there, and im sure there is some minority of people connected to the Phoenicians but they are not the majority, there are armenians there as well so does that make it an Armenian nation? Same thing applys with Kurds in Turkey, i can assure you Turkey is not a Kurdish nation. Lebenon is Arab. Dont get me wrong i think the Phoenicians were in the upper echelon of great peoples, along with Babylon, Egypt, Assyria and Greece

I dont know where Wikipeda got those numbers, but here are some numbers from the United States C.I.A.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/le.html

They have the same numbers i said before, Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

This is an asinine discussion. But remember who controls the country, and you'll see why they list it as Arab. It is worthy to note that syrians also have light skin tones, but what the hell does it matter? Some of it is Greek, Assyrian, Syrian, Phoenician etc influences, but you're stereotyping all arabs as darkish people, which they aren't.

[Fenrhyl]

To Marikanis :

I'd like to point out the many imprecision about "racial" differences in your text but i dont have neioter the time nor the will to do so.

I'll go the shortest way : as an antrhopologist i perfectly know that races do N O T exist. This goes to the extent that a people is now defined by an unity of customs and language rather than from their ascendency.

What exist is the great population groups sharing some common traits (but not much) like indo-european folks or semitic ones. Iranians, armenians, turks, hinds, europeans and so on are indo-europeans while arabs, hebraics, phoenicians and north africans are semitic.

What you point out about skin tones is irrelevant. When two different folks come into contact a slow process of blending takes place, a first the physical differences issued by very slightly different gene pools are strong but from the mment they meet they are to mix, exchange genes through marriage and some generations later the blend takes root and expand. Thay's why inhabitants of the middle-east and near east are a mosaic of people and physical types. They mixed so lon ago and so well that you can meet arabs with blond hair and blue eyes or with perfect armenian or iranian features.

PS : you can't tell a sun exposed woman from southern France from a maghrebin one living in the north. That's because skin tone has a lot to do with sun exposure. Peole have a tendency to forget this point.


About the preview :

It is great, this will make up perfect romans to crush.

[the_handsome_viking]

yeah i agree with most everything u said Handsome Viking

just to clerify when i say True Italians i mean the non greeks of the south, and the non guals from the north. So Umbra, Compania, Latium, Etruria, etc


And about Lebenon, I have never been there, and im sure there is some minority of people connected to the Phoenicians but they are not the majority, there are armenians there as well so does that make it an Armenian nation? Same thing applys with Kurds in Turkey, i can assure you Turkey is not a Kurdish nation. Lebenon is Arab. Dont get me wrong i think the Phoenicians were in the upper echelon of great peoples, along with Babylon, Egypt, Assyria and Greece

I dont know where Wikipeda got those numbers, but here are some numbers from the United States C.I.A.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/le.html

They have the same numbers i said before, Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%

I was more basing my comment on things my friend had told me, in his words, you can walk down the street of a maronite neighbourhood and be surrounded by light skinned people with hair that ranges from blonde to brown and eyes that range from light brown to blue to green etc and then when you leave you will be surrounded by dark haired people with black eyes and black hair oh a more mixed complexion.

though I will point out that arabic is a fairly ill defined group and is based on a language and a culture rather than a race of people, you can have arabs of all races.

http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F36V.html
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F38R.html
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/prblms/F22R.html
personally I think this is a great picture for looking at the racial differences of the arabs.http://history.missouristate.edu/jch.../Crusades6.jpg

so in short arab could be anything.

but yeah, as I said in my previous post, its the christian maronites that are the ones that are supposed to be the decendants of the phoenicians and tend to be the lighter people in general.

[Steppe Merc]

I've seen a lot of white armenians too..

Because Armenians are white, or at least were. Armenians were Iranians, like the Scythians, Persians, Parthians and Sarmatians.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

So what's the countdown now?

[Marinakis]

Because Armenians are white, or at least were. Armenians were Iranians, like the Scythians, Persians, Parthians and Sarmatians.

Can u prove that with facts? Im not saying it isnt true.I just never realised my ancestry can be traced back to Iran

I thought Armenians were from the Hittites

[VandalCarthage]

Armenia was traditionally settled by Noah's grandson Haik, which was why it was originally called the 'land of Haik' in the original semitic language. That in mind, I'd always been unders the impression that Armenians were at least in part semitic in origin, despite some later Persian based nomenclature.

Steppe Merc probably knows the subject better though, so I wont commit to my older opinion

[Steppe Merc]

Well, I just know that Armenia had great amounts of Iranian culture at this time. They were controlled by first Persia, then the Parthians and Sassanians, and were fought in practically the same manner.
I always thought they were Iranian peoples, but I may be wrong.

[GoreBag]

I always thought they were from a separate denomination of Indo-Europeans, but have learned really nothing about them to explain this inkling.

[Marinakis]

Well, I just know that Armenia had great amounts of Iranian culture at this time. They were controlled by first Persia, then the Parthians and Sassanians, and were fought in practically the same manner.
I always thought they were Iranian peoples, but I may be wrong.

I think they come from the Hittites and share VERY close ties with the Assyrians

Yes they shared alot of Iranian influence but when greece controled them they shared a LOT of greek influence as well so thats not a good reason to connect them to the Iranians

Herodotus claimed that the Armenians came from Thrace, along with the Phrygians, and the Armenians spoke a similar language. Those that moved eastward eventually became the Armenians

They are Indo-European peoples

[VandalCarthage]

The Iranian base of their later name, and the general proximity, is however a fairly good reason for the connection.

Like I said though, Armenia was traditionally settled/founded by Noah's grandson Haik, so I'm inclined to agree with you Marinakis - that it was of Semitic origin, though I'm not knowledgable enough to isolate the period to any particular Hittite dynasty.

[Marinakis]

intresting conversation

[GoreBag]

The Iranian base of their later name, and the general proximity, is however a fairly good reason for the connection.

Like I said though, Armenia was traditionally settled/founded by Noah's grandson Haik, so I'm inclined to agree with you Marinakis - that it was of Semitic origin, though I'm not knowledgable enough to isolate the period to any particular Hittite dynasty.

Traditionally, some Biblical figure also came into contact with Scotland's Stone of Destiny... you can do better than that.

[Malrubius]

Looks great. I hope the traits for the other factions are just as superb.

I'm pretty proud of what we've done for the Hellenistic factions and the western barbarians, as well.

A quick question about politics: how are the various offices going to be represented in EB (consul, praetor, the like), and the standing of various generals in the senate? And are there going to be documents included with EB to indicate how armies of the various nations were formed, as some kind of houserules/guidelines so players can attempt to play in authentic ways?

BTW, I love the work on the various characters, both in the ancillaries and trait format. Very indepth.

I have done some work to restore the Cursus Honorum, but there are significant limitations on what we can do (like making sure there are the correct number of office-holders for each office), and balance issues have to be considered. I guess you can imagine that there are various men, outside your family tree, who hold some of the offices.

I like the "house rules" idea, like maybe only consuls can lead armies or something. Might be too much of a handicap, who knows?