Quote Originally Posted by Al-Masri View Post
Found this on Twcenter.net in the forum for the Ortus Romani submod of EB2:
The Jewish kingdom is rather difficult as it would have to be an emerging faction, which I am trying to avoid, and even as one would swiftly be swallowed by the seleucids or Ptolomatics as per game mechanics.
In that case, could you skip the Jewish kingdom in the overall campaign map,

but make a provincial campaign (a special map) in which the player can play as the Jewish kingdom?
XGM couldn't add all the factions on their overall campaign map, but they wanted the players to be able to play some extra factions, so in addition to the overall campaign map, they have 5 provincial campaign maps (Galatians, Pergamum, Chersonesus, Syracuse, Epirus). These provincial campaign maps are actually as big as the overall map, but the player can only play as one faction, the faction for which the provincial campaign was made for.

So, EB could skip over the ancient Israel faction for the overall campaign map (they could be included in Seleukia, or they could be a rebel province to be contested between the Arche Seleukid and the Ptolemaioi).
However, EB could have a provincial campaign, which is a specially designed campaign map (as big as the overall campaign), where the player can play as a special faction. So for ancient Israel, the start date could be in the year of 166BC, in the middle of the Makabim Revolt.
Few modification would be necessary to the map, except perhaps canceling a few towns from the periphery (like Britain, or the steppes), and adding a few towns in the Levant area (Jerusalem, Samaria, Hebron, Ashkelon, Gaza).
The player would start with perhaps a stack.
And something like 3 or 4 stacks of Seleucids are marching down the coast, in the first turn.

It's just really wonderful to be able to build shrines to Yahweh.

Researching the appearance of the Israelite units of that era shouldn't be very hard at all, there must be entire books available, easily found by asking the Jewish community.


And for every faction that doesn't make the overall campaign, the EB team could make a provincial campaign where the only playable faction is that special faction, like how XGM did it. A peripheral faction (most likely Britain, or Bactria) can be taken away in each of these cases, so that the extra faction can have a slot.

Also, for a faction like the Galatians, maybe the map can be changed, to extend from the Alps to the Levant. That way more towns can be included.