Merchant ,Priest and Princess in EBII

[Bellum]

Their is no mechanism to use the priests for earlier religions?

I don't think there is a valid reason to use them, or even religion. Culture would be much better, IMO. Most peoples in those days just werent very worried about what gods other people worshiped, as far as I know. They were much more willing to accept other gods, or to compare them to their own.

[BozosLiveHere]

I don't think it's possible to affect generals' abilities with other agents.

We couldn't in RTW, but we can in M2TW using the same conditional that makes witches and heretics affect other characters.

[HistoryProf]

I've already said that priests will likely not make it in.

won't exist. The papal states is going.

Foot

So, The Papal States are getting tossed only because nobody can think of a good way to implement their unique ability?

I thought someone had the idea of having the Seleucid Empire be the Papal States and various Satrapies be the 'catholics' with varying start values of loyalty? Like the Maccabee and Bactrian rebellions would equate to excommunications. So if you were playing the Seleucids you'd have a few factions that were closely allied to you, but you had to maintain that relationship or they'd go to war with you.

Actually, I just came up with that off the top of my head. You guys are smart. You can't get this sorted out?

Have you guys asked any other mod teams what they thought? Seems like an awful waste of something useful. If nothing else, they can surely be a faction, right?

[HistoryProf]

Can agents affect city income, you mean? You're not talking about the merchant income when staying on a trade resource? I don't think I've spotted any change to the city from agents staying there. Then again I haven't played the game all that much.

Well, Generals can affect the happiness of a town with traits and ancilliaries, there may be some mechanism for something similar with priests: they can make a religion go up, and that affects another value, in this case religion. But I am thinking scrap the works and replace it with religion, culture, language or trade.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The current plan is to make M2TW religions into cultures. I don't recall what the hardcoded max is on religions, but hopefully it is more than 4.

[Zaknafien]

So, The Papal States are getting tossed only because nobody can think of a good way to implement their unique ability?

I thought someone had the idea of having the Seleucid Empire be the Papal States and various Satrapies be the 'catholics' with varying start values of loyalty? Like the Maccabee and Bactrian rebellions would equate to excommunications. So if you were playing the Seleucids you'd have a few factions that were closely allied to you, but you had to maintain that relationship or they'd go to war with you.

Actually, I just came up with that off the top of my head. You guys are smart. You can't get this sorted out?

Have you guys asked any other mod teams what they thought? Seems like an awful waste of something useful. If nothing else, they can surely be a faction, right?

Doesnt seem useful to me at all. sorry.

[Zarax]

The idea has its merits, the problem is that the same principle would have to be applied at least to another faction (Carthage) and AFAIK papal abilities are unique...
Something like this would be excellent for an alexandrian era mod where the satrapal system was even stronger.

[Shifty_GMH]

I don't think there is a valid reason to use them, or even religion. Culture would be much better, IMO. Most peoples in those days just werent very worried about what gods other people worshiped, as far as I know. They were much more willing to accept other gods, or to compare them to their own.

I agree with Bellum.

I've always had the impression that the average Roman took a very open and relaxed attitude towards religion....at least up until Christianity took hold. Kind of viewed as more of a tool to control the masses and/or a way to justify actions taken by the senate and later by the emperors. Excluding, of course, the occasional over-zealous general, politician, and emperor.

[HistoryProf]

Hey, thanks Zarax. So I'm not a total idiot! LOL.

How Marcus can't see a single useful thing in the Papal characteristic seems frightfully obtuse. Someone out there has a brilliant idea for it.

The Papal States are at least going to be a faction?

Shifty, you're absolutely correct. A concerted effort was made across the Med. to link deities from different cultures. Zeus-Ammon is a perfect example.

[bovi]

We couldn't in RTW, but we can in M2TW using the same conditional that makes witches and heretics affect other characters.

But that would be an action against an enemy character, not joining up with him. Assassins already have an effect on characters, but AFAIK there is no trigger when a character joins an army or a conditional that he is staying with it? I'd love to be wrong here.

[Zarax]

Maybe you could have "inquisitors" with extremely low chance of success giving traits upon "trials"?

[HistoryProf]

Bovi: don't spies increase a Generals resistance to assassination? Some characters may have a similar line cause/effect that's just not being used?

I just can't shake the idea that Archimedes was so instrumental during the siege of Syracuse that that sort of character deserves more than ancillary status. Especially since there are so many characters that can be redefined and reskinned for EB2.

Philosophers were pretty important:

How many philosophers can the average grad. student name? Ancient Generals?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I believe that Priests are hardcoded to add one point of relgious/cultural conversion. If Priests were used to represent something other then religious figures, this conversion would still exsist.

Plus, you have to take into account how the AI handles Priests. They will have them standing around in territories adjacent to them, 'converting' their enemies, no matter what they are supposed to represent. Philosophers or something similar wouldn't be standing around in enemy territory, changing their culture. I've also seen the AI to increadibly stupid things with M2TW Priests, like clusting 19 in one of my territories (true story).

[HistoryProf]

I don't recall speaking on behalf of any particular type of character for any particular purpose (except Princesses) since I have no knowledge of the process of teaching silicone rocks to display images on a screen. The thread title is "Merchant [sic] ,Priest [sic] and Princess [sic] in EBII" and, curiously enough, that's what's being discussed. Possible uses. Personally I would like to see them all totally done away with, and a random system of effects put into place instead.

Generals, Princesses, Diplomats and possibly Regents are all you really need. Priests, Merchants, Spies, Assassins are all rubbish. To think that one of those characters can represent entire 'networks' is fairly infantile.

[Bootsiuv]

That might be true, but it's the only option to represent the "darker" side of government operations, like state-sponsored assassinations and intelligence gathering.


I would prefer to keep spies, at the very least.

[HistoryProf]

Bah, you're right. Just wish it wasn't so hokie.

Like the start map, for instance. Why the advanced factions don't have access to complete maps escapes me, at least of Greece. The leaders of Rome knew where Athens was, and what faction was controlling it at the time. Does anyone think Pyrrhus had to send a spy or diplomat to Lilybaeum to know it was a Carthaginian province? He was just there a few years earlier.

Forget that argument for a minute, even though it should suffice the most low-brow among us. Forget that a King (any King) might have access to decent maps or a functional, working knowledge of Geography, but consider this: ships plied not only goods, grains and amphorae around the world, but they also carried information with them. News got around as fast a galley in those days, and not a minute slower. As soon as a ship made harbor they were asked, "What news of Lydia?" or "I heard there was a great battle in Asia, know you who is the victor?"

The game begins in 272 BC; knowledge doesn't, and certainly not trade.

sigh...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Bah, you're right. Just wish it wasn't so hokie.

Like the start map, for instance. Why the advanced factions don't have access to complete maps escapes me, at least of Greece. The leaders of Rome knew where Athens was, and what faction was controlling it at the time. Does anyone think Pyrrhus had to send a spy or diplomat to Lilybaeum to know it was a Carthaginian province? He was just there a few years earlier.

Forget that argument for a minute, even though it should suffice the most low-brow among us. Forget that a King (any King) might have access to decent maps or a functional, working knowledge of Geography, but consider this: ships plied not only goods, grains and amphorae around the world, but they also carried information with them. News got around as fast a galley in those days, and not a minute slower. As soon as a ship made harbor they were asked, "What news of Lydia?" or "I heard there was a great battle in Asia, know you who is the victor?"

The game begins in 272 BC; knowledge doesn't, and certainly not trade.

sigh...

This annoyed the team too. There was some nice work done on a trick that will alleviate this problem a bit for the next release.

[BozosLiveHere]

But that would be an action against an enemy character, not joining up with him. Assassins already have an effect on characters, but AFAIK there is no trigger when a character joins an army or a conditional that he is staying with it? I'd love to be wrong here.

---------------------------------------------------
Identifier: HighestAttAdjacentChar
Trigger requirements:
Parameters: attribute type, character type, logic token, level
Sample use: HighestAttAdjacentChar piety heretic >= 5
Description: Is the highest attribute rating of any adjacent character higher than specified?
Battle or Strat: Strat
Class: HIGHEST_ATTRIBUTE_ADJACENT_CHARACTER
Implemented: Yes
Author: Scott

With some creative coding it can be done.

[HistoryProf]

Good work, BLH.

Marcus, that's good news. I remember being impressed when I heard about the spies that were put on the startegy map, then 'killed off' before the game starts to increase the usable map by the player.

I just hope that culture takes a backseat to trade in the final run-up to the development of EBII.

The main reason is: trade has immediate effects if it is cut off: it can be extremely political. It works on a day-to-day basis, and has a year-to-year scale as well. Culture on the other hand is a generational effect, that changes over the millenia (historically anyway, pre-industrial revolution. Some (I'm not one of them) say it's even more immutable than languages.

[Bellum]

And yet cultures and languages do change.

Cultures, even for the ancients, could change very radically within one or two generations. Think of the difference between the Romans at the start of the game and Romans after the Punic Wars. Even money can change ones behavior.

Or, more recently, the Norman Conquest of England, which had an effect on both language and culture. Or the Greek conquest of Persia. There are all kinds of examples, I think.

[HistoryProf]

Sure, language and culture change, but within the scope of the game is that as easily represented as trade?

Better question: Did young William make a concerted effort to alter the language (a case can be made) or even more improbably, British national identity?

It is true: certain key events, a sword-stroke, a well aimed dart, even moments in time down to a few seconds, nay! even a single word can have a lasting impression on the course of history, but I don't see those things being within the capacity of a video-game to represent.

Perhaps the AI could randomly generate events?

And Persia: exactly who absorbed who? The application of Hellenic cultural forces did not uproot the pre-existing language.

China, India and Greece have been absorbing entire populations for thousands of years, and frankly, not that much has changed.

If Rome did change over the course of some years measurably, is it perceptible (or exciting) enough to merit a time-consuming game add-on?

Keep the smithies of Athens from metals, or the drillmasters of Egypt from Horses. That is both measurable AND exciting.

My main point is that culture is too big, too chaotic, and too wonderful to be encapsulated.

[HistoryProf]

May want to flip through "Colonisation and Cultural Resistance: Egypt and Iran after Alexander" by Donald J. Puchala if you are going to swing down the 'Hellenistic Influence' ideology. It was an article written in a journal, I think by the University of Kent.

Also:

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/a..._hellenism.php

is another good article.

[Bellum]

My main point is that culture is too big, too chaotic, and too wonderful to be encapsulated.

Sure. I think the way it's done in Kingdoms: Britannia is fine, really. Give it an abstract statistic with some effects on law and be done with it.

[HistoryProf]

I feel you. My point is, is that if it's between this or that, I'd rather see trade as the aspect used, since it has more relativo à guerra

Can you dig that?

[abou]

May want to flip through "Colonisation and Cultural Resistance: Egypt and Iran after Alexander" by Donald J. Puchala if you are going to swing down the 'Hellenistic Influence' ideology. It was an article written in a journal, I think by the University of Kent.

Also:

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/a..._hellenism.php

is another good article.

I haven't had a chance to read the article, but I scrolled down to see what sources they used and noticed a very distinct absence of the most critical and recent publication on the Seleukids - From Samarkhand to Sardis. In fact, most of their sources seem to be very old. That worries me.

[HistoryProf]

Now, THAT'S what I'm talking about! Whoo hoo! Bust out the JSTOR...

You think those two sets of authors would disagree?

I don't. In fact, I think they both might be in agreement: the tenants owned the land, the landlord just had the palace.

You see, abou, the author of the article cited in Iranchamber is using the sources cited against each other.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler was a supporter of the idea that Hellenism had a long-range and profound impact on Iranian culture.

I'd bet Sherwin-White and Kuhrt would agree with me, that the Seleucids (200-ish years) weren't nearly as significant as either the Achaemenians before (300 years) or the Sassanids after (400 years).

[Bootsiuv]

I think saying the Seleukids weren't as "significant" as the Achaemaenids or Sassanids is, perhaps, a poor choice of words.

The impact of hellenic culture on the middle-east was far more "significant" than the aforementioned factions because it was so different....everything official was uprooted from persian to greek. There was significantly more change for the local inhabitants under the Seleukids than either the Achaemaenids or Sassanids, because the Seleukids were a "foreign" power, as opposed to the native dynasties of the other two.

[Geoffrey S]

The impact of hellenic culture on the middle-east was far more "significant" than the aforementioned factions because it was so different....everything official was uprooted from persian to greek. There was significantly more change for the local inhabitants under the Seleukids than either the Achaemaenids or Sassanids, because the Seleukids were a "foreign" power, as opposed to the native dynasties of the other two.

Achaemaenids and Sassanids were hardly native. Sounds like a pretty eurocentrist view.

When it comes to organization, the positions of power, cultural leanings things only really seemed to change among the elites; down on the ground, things went on as usual, paying taxes and raising troops for foreign lords. Impact of the elites on the masses was rarely if ever significantly different from other elites, so if change is to be represented in culture it'd only really be applicable to the highest, ruling classes.

[Bootsiuv]

Achaemaenids and Sassanids were hardly native. Sounds like a pretty eurocentrist view.

They were far more "native" than the greeks.

Although I fail to see how Sassanids and Achaemaenids weren't native to Seleukid controlled territory.

Both came from Persia, although I suppose an argument could be made that the Persians were as foreign to those of Asia Minor and the Levant as the greeks, perhaps even more so.

It's something of a grey area, really. But to say that the Seleukid's were insignificant seems incorrect, at the very least.

[HistoryProf]

I didn't say they were insignificant, I said they were less significant.

Bootsiuv, that point mentioned would've received howls of laughter at your teams expense in my high school Debate Club.

But really, is your argument that the Seleucids, because they were from a different culture (or for any other reason, really) weren't mere short-lived, usurpers but in fact had more influence over Persian culture than that of the Achaemenians, who brought Persia one of the greatest Empires in history?

If only we could ask the Persian people of the time what they thought...

You have people in the most powerful, richest, information-laden society in the history of mankind who can't even point their own country out in a map of the world. What makes you think 3rd cent. B.C. Persian country-folk were any more involved?

Now...