Htw Spin-off Mod - Ancient: TW

[macsen rufus]

@Dimitrios - I'd like to see your stuff on the Sea Peoples & Syrians, please! The Hyksos, I'm afraid are already in the past at this point, as are the Mitanni.

One main focus is trying to get the chronology right - not easy when the sources disagree as to whether the Trojan War happened before or after Kadesh, for instance! Whilst we have a good date for Kadesh (1275 BC +/- 5 years), I've seen dates for the Trojan Wars everywhere from 1300 to 1180 BC. I'm trying to avoid names/factions/portraits that are more recent than the target period (eg found LOADS of stuff for Assyria, but all based around 600BC or thereabouts ), but I guess I'll have to fudge a few issues eventually!

I will also be doing recruitment on a "homeland" basis, though a few faction-specific units will be recruitable everywhere (eg Egyptian archers are just archers trained Egyptian style and with Egyptian bows and will be available anywhere, but Nubian Archers will ONLY be available in Libya and Egypt).

Some units will have a homeland and available to all factions in that homeland - I'm still undecided whether to make them culture-specific though - if the Celts took Arabia, would the cameliers fight for them or not, for instance?

I'd really like to make a Hebrew faction too (I've already given Palestine a valour-bonus for light slingers ) and I'd love the idea of producing wall-levelling trumpets at a siege engineer's workshop My first thoughts were to maybe dump "The Exodus" in Sinai, but it might be better to wait til approx 900BC and set up a proper Israelite kingdom in the "high" era. But then if I was to include Phoenicians we could be a bit short of provinces...

Western European factions are going to be harder, as we're really talking about distributed ethno-linguistic groups rather than any sort of organised nations at this stage. At the moment their unit roster is the most limited of all, especially the Germanics who never had chariots. I'm verging more towards having lots of rebels across western europe and keeping the factions in small homelands to start with (ie celts and slavs especially) to mimic the culture spreading with time (Halstatt and Lausitz, respectively). Also I'm not yet sure what to do about the non Indo-Europeans of western europe - Iberians and the Atlantic culture.

So far the most developed faction roster I have is the Egyptians and Assyrians:

EGYPT
Egyptian chariots (BG unit)
Nubian spears / Nubian archers / Nubian guards (Libya + Egypt only)
Light + heavy slingers (ALL FACTIONS, ALL PROVINCES)
Egyptian archers
Tower shield spearmen ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Sherdan mercenaries
Medianite cameliers (Sinai + Arabia ony)
Eastern ("Syrian") archers ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
To add: Ne'arin (elite infantry) and light infantry (armed with maces)

ASSYRIA
Assyrian chariots (BG unit, valour bonus in Mesopotamia)
Light + heavy slingers (ALL FACTIONS, ALL PROVINCES)
Assyrian archers (Mesopotamia, Armenia, Edessa)
Tower shield spearmen ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Eastern swordsmen ("homeland" units for middle east - limited factions)
Medianite cameliers (Sinai + Arabia ony)
Eastern ("Syrian") archers ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Assyrian spearmen (Mesopotamia, Armenia, Edessa)
To add: possibly horse archers depending on research regarding dates - definitely by 900BC
Battering ram c. 600BC (first siege engineers were Assyrian)

I'm toying with the idea of making light slingers "dismountable" to heavy slingers (which have flaming missiles for wooden walls, and also AP missiles against troops - I've altered the ammo already so that light slingers have 100 (IIRC) as they can just use stones....)