Sweboz EB 1.0 comments

**Barry Soteiro** · 01-08-2008, 22:14

Cool another troll polluting the forum

Do you know that allowing military port where you want is a 2 minutes work ? But obviously you won't even change it even if it seems to cause you much troubles. I mean it's alaways more difficult to move your lazy ass rather than bash a team that work freely for you.
Please continue crying little spoiled child

**sdk80** · 01-08-2008, 22:27

Originally Posted by Gertrude

Cool another troll polluting the forum

Do you know that allowing military port where you want is a 2 minutes work ? But obviously you won't even change it even if it seems to cause you much troubles. I mean it's alaways more difficult to move your lazy ass rather than bash a team that work freely for you.
Please continue crying little spoiled child

WTF?? In contrary to others I don't pollute the forum with silly comments or stuff like: "My General in game just won a large battle"
My intention here is contributing to the so called EB ethos (if it really exists) by trying to help coming closer to historical accuracy! I am no modder, I can't do it myself, but I can help EB and everyone, who cares about this mod to make it better and actualy to enjoy a more accurate Sweboz faction! But anyway people like you are a mere waste of time

**Geoffrey S** · 01-08-2008, 23:25

Originally Posted by Gertrude

Cool another troll polluting the forum

Do you know that allowing military port where you want is a 2 minutes work ? But obviously you won't even change it even if it seems to cause you much troubles. I mean it's alaways more difficult to move your lazy ass rather than bash a team that work freely for you.
Please continue crying little spoiled child

Lazy ass? I'd wager writing up the fairly extensive texts sdk80 took a fair amount of time, and at least he also had the guts to come out with his opinion and actually attempt to substantiate it, unlike many have done. At the very least I find it infinitely more informative than the drivel contained in the above quoted post of yours.

sdk80, if I had to give possible a game-balance reason for the restriction of ports, it's that the quite different naval approaches from the Baltic to the Mediterranean mean that giving Sweboz access to far more ports would give them either an unfair advantage in that regard over other factions, or the cost and efficiency would be low and they'd end up being spammed. As it is, it looks like the team has made an effort to limit the availability of fleets for all factions (not just Sweboz!) across the map to a small number of military ports located nearby, to limit the amount of fleets in comparison to vanilla RTW, where they were often numerous, a-historical in nature and extremely annoying.

As it is there is absolutely no way to portray naval activity accurately in the RTW engine, so limitation to some kind of abstract is necessary as a compromise. It's certainly not ideal, but it is making the best of a weak part of the engine.

Edit: just thinking out loud. Naturally the interests of people such as the Sweboz wouldn't lay across the North Sea, at most following the coast in most cases. I was under the impression that it was mainly the population explosion of later periods which made extensive population movements overseas more attractive to them as an alternative to similar migrations over land? Perhaps the means were available, but even then it perhaps wasn't an active interest.

What I do get out of this is that maybe the military port option should be moved from exclusively Scandinavia to somewhere more local along the southern Baltic coast. But considering the gameplay issues mentioned above that is more of a matter of emphasis than a major change in the policy of limiting all shipbuilding all the way across the map.

**sdk80** · 01-09-2008, 00:21

@Geoffrey S
thank you Geof

I undestood the EB port system and the difficulties with the RTW engine, but still why do you believe a military port for the Sweboz in
the Baltic would fit better than the one on the North Sea, for which I thnk, that I have given undeniebale arguments and even proofed it, where it was possible?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for something else.

I have found grave mistakes of ethnicities in the eastern European part of the EB map. First I will post a link of a scientific book on ancient Germans, which will contain a map showing archeological cultures of the EB timeframe (=LatePreRomanIronAge) of the area. (it's a online study edition)
http://books.google.com/books?id=ds2...l=de#PPA144,M1
translated legend: Europe in the Early Pre-Roman Iron Time: 1. North Group 2. Jastorf culture 3. Pommeranian [Przeworsk] culture 4. West-baltic hilltomb culture 5. Estonian group 6. East-baltics 7. Milogrady culture 8. Harpstedt-Nienburger group 9. Celtic groups 10. Getian and Thracian groups

out of "Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (2nd ed.)" 1998

So what we have here above is the archeolgical map of the area in the Late Pre-Roman Iron Time (450 B.C. - 0).

As additional evidence I'll also include another map below out of wikipedia which has very slight differences, but showing the same issue, when compared with the current EB map and the possible troops to be recruited in Eastern-Europe!

Legend:
dark green - Nordic group
dark red - Jastorf culture
yellow ochre (left center) - Harpstedt-Nienburg group
bright green (left center) - Houseshaped urn group
orange - Celtic groups
yellow-green - Przeworsk culture
carnation - east-Baltic cultures of forest zone
purple - west-Baltic culture
turquoise - Zarubincy culture
black - Estonic group
bright red - Guben group of Jastorf culture (influenced by Przeworsk culture)
brown - Oksywie culture
taupe (bottom right) - Getaian and Thracian groups
yellow (bottom right) - Poieneşti-Lukaševka culture (influenced by Przeworsk and Jastorf culture)

here the link as proof: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Ar...manIronAge.png

If you compare it with the link of the history online source book from above you will see exactly the same as on this map.
List of errors on EB map:
Carrodunum is the Przeworsk culture, but actualy in EB there are Celts and the Oksywie culture unit available instead of a non-existing East-German Przeworsk culture regional unit, which should be Celtic influenced.
Ascaucalis needs to be the Oskwy culture with the regional Oskwy culture unit instead of Baltic culture and recruiting zone like in current EB 1.0.
Gintaras-Ostan needs to be West-Baltic with the special regional West-Baltic units, instead of having the possibility to recruit all Baltic regional units like in EB 1.0.
Seliun-Pilis needs to be East-Baltic with the special regional East-Baltic units, instead of having the possibility to recruit all Baltic regional units like in EB 1.0.

Then there is the "special building" (don't know how you modders call this building type) "Limios Alses" in Gawjam~Silengoz: the description mentions Proto-Slavic tribes in direkt link with it and Silesia, which is absolutely unhistoric and absurd, since the Slavs came very much later, about more than 300 years after the end of EB timeframe into that area. There were no Slavs at all that much western like Silesia is situated in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. Just check the archeological culture maps from above: Gawjam~Silengoz would be the mix-zone of Jastorf and Przeworsk (Pommeranian in the link to the book) culture.
The same with the Oksywie culture unit, which also mentions Slavs in the description. Look again on the map where Oksywie culture is situated and tell me again why one should mention Slavs in the description? By the way Oksywie culture is absorbed into Wielbark culture (Goths) around 100 A.D.

The problem I have with these descriptions is that, since 19th and early 20th century mainly Polish nationalistic "historians" tried to fake an early slavic presence in the area, which has been neglected ever since by serious historians and humane discipline/arts and I would not like EB to repeat such comepletely unhistoric statements. The area was Celtic first, then in the Pre-Roman Iron Age time, which EB portraits, the ancient Germans came (= later eastern German tribes) and after most of those had left duing the Migration Period the Slavs settled there, coming from the east.

Now one last map to illustrate it, also out of Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:G...0BC-1AD%29.png

Legend copied from Wikipedia: The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after the Penguin Atlas of World History 1988):

██ Settlements before 750BC

██ New settlements until 500BC

██ New settlements until 250BC

██ New settlements until AD 1

**Geoffrey S** · 01-09-2008, 00:39

Originally Posted by sdk80

@Geoffrey S
thank you Geof

I undestood the EB port system and the difficulties with the RTW engine, but still why do you believe a military port for the Sweboz in the Baltic would fit better than the one on the North Sea, for which I thnk, that I have given undeniebale arguments and even proofed it, where it was possible?

I don't really know to be honest. Remember that the Rome engine can place one port per province in a particular site; any port in the region of Germania should be placed on the Baltic in my opinion, since that is where their main interest would be rather than the North Sea. In any case, I could have sworn there was a possibility of building a port in the Belgic province? Again that'd be a compromise, a European mainland port for the North Sea region as the one in Scandinavia currently is for the Baltic region.

**cmacq** · 01-09-2008, 04:28

Originally Posted by sdk80

@Geoffrey S
thank you Geof

██ Settlements before 750BC

██ New settlements until 500BC

██ New settlements until 250BC

██ New settlements until AD 1

I didn't want to get mixed up in this, yet think you may want to rethink this to a very great extent, as I do not believe there is any solid evidence to support these conclusions.

If you do respond please try to be nice, as will I.

**MeinPanzer** · 01-13-2008, 23:12

Originally Posted by sdk80

Gintaras-Ostan needs to be West-Baltic with the special regional West-Baltic units, instead of having the possibility to recruit all Baltic regional units like in EB 1.0.
Seliun-Pilis needs to be East-Baltic with the special regional East-Baltic units, instead of having the possibility to recruit all Baltic regional units like in EB 1.0.

What evidence do you have for differentiated western and eastern Baltic units? Separate western and eastern Baltic funerary material cultures can be differentiated, but to my knowledge there is next to no evidence for the armament of the Balts during the EB timeline, and certainly not enough to differentiate regional variants in equipment.

Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Yet in that case, you get questions such as those of sdk80, wondering why Scandinavia of all places. If gameplay is taken into account in the sense that it's unwanted to have too many 'military' ports in one area, why not in an area on the southern Baltic coasts closer to Sweboz, since the means for them to build ships were closer than Scandinavia? It's already an abstraction, yet one which doesn't yet fully suit gameplay purposes in that region in my opinion.

I think that Scania is given a military port because there is some robust evidence for military boatbuilding and raiding coming from that region in the form of the Hjortspring finds, which are now widely believed to have belonged to raiders from the Scanian coast (in part based on the following piece of evidence); a seat dredged from a bog in Scania which is almost identical to the seats from the Hjortspring boat; and late Bronze Age or Iron Age rock drawings from southern Scandinavia of war boats which are very similar in form to the Hjortspring find.

If we can agree that the basal language was some form of proto-Old Norse, why is this linguistic group called Germanic?

Documented practice concerning a given tradition, among the historic Cimbri.

http://books.google.com/books?id=G-Q...Uwtk#PPA395,M1

The artifact type associated with the tradition, found near Gundestrup in Himmerland (Cimbri-Land), Denmark.

Iconography on the artifact that depices a practice documented within the area of its discovery.

Iconography on the artifact that depices known Keltic deities.

Cernunnos

Lugh of the Long Arm

The artifact type disposed of in a fashion (dismantled and buried in a peat bog) documented among Keltic groups. More than one example from the same area (the Rynkeby Cauldron).

The Blekinge Mask

Individual bull's heads like those on the Rynkeby cauldron have been found on Funen and Lolland. Another two fragments of a torqued mask have been found at Ringsebølle on Lolland. These fragments nearly identical to the face on the Rynkeby Cauldron. Now we have alot of LaTene artifacts coming from Denmark.

Please read

http://www.blekingemuseum.se/mapp5/pdf/maskbilden.pdf

The Gundestrup cauldron almost certainly came from around the Danube and is of Thracian or Thraco-Celtic and not Germanic origin. Cf. "The Gundestrup Cauldron" by F. Kaul in Acta Archaeologica 66, 1995 (one of the latest treatments).

The mainstream, based on stylistic grounds, claims that the Gundestrup Cauldron was manufactured by the Scordisci in Romania. Initially, it was proposed that the Cimbri captured it from the Scordisci and returned it to Denmark. At some point the mainstream realized this rational was untenable as the artifact depicts a ceremonial practice similar to that described by Starbo as conduced by the Cimbri. The mainstream next insisted that the Cimbri had commissioned the Scordisci to manufacture the artifact and then transported it by land across barbarian Europe from Romanian to Denmark. However, many examples of this artifact types have now been found in Denmark along with numerous other artifacts that display a similar artistic style. One may suggest that a more logical explanation would be that these were made either in Denmark or very nearby and if indeed this was the case this region could be included within the LaTene III sphere.

I don't know who you are quite railing against by titling "the mainstream," but this is not the scholarly consensus on the Gundestrup cauldron. Some attempts were made to link the introduction of the cauldron into Denmark by the Cimbri, but these could be little more than speculation at best. It should be noted that among the finds of the Hjortspring deposit was a single sica or small rhomphaia, which was undoubtedly of Thracian manufacture; this strongly suggests trade ties of one sort or another between the Balkans and northern Europe in the latter 4th C. BC, which gives more than enough time for the Gundestrup cauldron to make its way north, the latest scientific analyses of which now indicate a date in the first century AD or so (cf. "The Gundestrup Cauldron: New Scientific and Technical Investigations" by S. Nielsen et al in Acta Archaeologica 76, 2005).

Then from Hjortspring, Denmark we find the type of shield depicted the Gundestrup Cauldron. Also at Hjortspring, investigators found evidence of mail armor.

The Hjortspring shield shares the fact that it is an oblong shield with the shields on the Gundestrup cauldron, which is to say, not much. The Hjortspring shields date to the 4th C. BC, while, as stated above, the Gundestrup cauldron almost certainly dated to the 1st C. AD, and perhaps the 1st C. BC at the earliest. They are two varieties of a type of shield which was in use all over Europe for hundreds of years.

And the same type of shield boss from Illerup, Denmark.

Shields which have been dated to the 3rd C. AD.

Yet, the Gundestrup foot appear to carry Nordic type spears and sword. Again we have examples from Hjortspring (below), and Illerup (above). The top photo from Hjortspring (below) displays mostly Kelt type spear points.

The Gundestrup cauldron is so stylized that I doubt any attempt to classify the style of spearheads depicted would result in any good. I also highly doubt that one could distinguish properly between "Nordic" and non-Nordic spearhead types on such a crude depiction. I'm curious what "Nordic" spearheads from contemporary sources you would use for comparisons?

All of these Hjortspring swords are the IA Nordic type; single edged.

These single edged swords are broadly Germanic and by no means solely Nordic. Also note the sica I mentioned earlier on the far right.

Gundestrup Cauldron also clearly shows the western Keltic breed of horse (Equus gracilis).

Again, the depiction is so stylized that I sincerely doubt that any specific species of horse could be identified.

Now closely notice the type of shoe worn by the figures depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron. These are identical to other examples found in Bog contexts.

The same shoe type from the Cernunnos panel of the Gundestrup Cauldron.

See the top view of the Amscotts Woman’s Shoe, from Lincolnshire England (AD 350-400).

And these found with Yde Girl, the Netherlands (1st century BC and AD).

Again, more converging lines of evidence that become increasingly more detailed. Now if the mainstream is correct in their thesis that the Scordisci were commissioned to manufacture such cauldrons, it appears to clearly demonstrate that this Cimbri ceremonial practice was intimately associated with numerous LaTene style (Kelt) artifacts.

Once again, the depictions of footwear on the cauldron are so crude as to be useless. And besides, even if they perfectly matched the numerous shoes from bog finds across northern Europe, such shoes were also worn by peoples living in the Balkans.

**Tellos Athenaios** · 01-09-2008, 00:40

Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

As it is, it looks like the team has made an effort to limit the availability of fleets for all factions (not just Sweboz!) across the map to a small number of military ports located nearby, to limit the amount of fleets in comparison to vanilla RTW, where they were often numerous, a-historical in nature and extremely annoying.

Actually for the purpose of giving people a hand distinguishing military-port area's from mercantile-only regions, there used to be this map by Teleklos; detailing even the level of naval-port you could build...

Edit: just thinking out loud. Naturally the interests of people such as the Sweboz wouldn't lay across the North Sea, at most following the coast in most cases. I was under the impression that it was mainly the population explosion of later periods which made extensive population movements overseas more attractive to them as an alternative to similar migrations over land? Perhaps the means were available, but even then it perhaps wasn't an active interest.

Well at least from what I understood the Sweboz were mainly focused with west and south.

What I do get out of this is that maybe the military port option should be moved from exclusively Scandinavia to somewhere more local along the southern Baltic coast. But considering the gameplay issues mentioned above that is more of a matter of emphasis than a major change in the policy of limiting all shipbuilding all the way across the map.

And then we would get the complaints of "but surely those proto-Swedes or whatever they were, did build ships did they not?" And people would be right as well. Just like with the Frisians: anybody on the coast did invest in ships and shipbuilding; some more than others and there's only a few of them who get the military port for a number of reasons;
1) The more limitted availability of militray fleets than with Vanilla RTW, for all its reasons;
2) The fact that certain areas/locations were famous for [part of] the industry involved (in case of Umbria, just like with Scandinavia it's the timber);
3) The fact certain areas simply appear not have developped such things as a 'military port'

--

A simple comparison: of all places, Sidon does not have the capability of building a military port. Why?! Phoenicia, the stories, the legend, the facts: how can that be?! Well, for one thing Antiocheia with it's big military port capabilities is right next door. And Kypros isn't far away either...

Same goes for Frisia: Bagacos, Skandza-warjoz already get the possibility. (Incidentally Nervii lived partly in the south of modern day Netherlands, and the Frisians lived just about right where you find that port as well.)

**Geoffrey S** · 01-09-2008, 01:23

Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

And then we would get the complaints of "but surely those proto-Swedes or whatever they were, did build ships did they not?" And people would be right as well.

Yet in that case, you get questions such as those of sdk80, wondering why Scandinavia of all places. If gameplay is taken into account in the sense that it's unwanted to have too many 'military' ports in one area, why not in an area on the southern Baltic coasts closer to Sweboz, since the means for them to build ships were closer than Scandinavia? It's already an abstraction, yet one which doesn't yet fully suit gameplay purposes in that region in my opinion.

Thanks for taking the time to answer by the way, it's certainly been informative from both sides! Certainly provides an interesting break from more work on the Yom Kippur War in Moscow...

**TWFanatic** · 01-09-2008, 02:47

This thread reminds me of something I've been curious about for a long time but have yet to ask. Why is the famous Roman port at Ostia not represented in EB? You cannot even train a fleet in that province if I remember correctly.

Thank you for your time.

**blitzkrieg80** · 01-09-2008, 03:29

Slavs did not mysteriously and spontaneously generate! Many tribes are unmentioned throughout history for a variety of reasons, one of which is the masking/ assumed identity of a more powerful neighbor, such as the Antes who are steppe people but thought to be among the earliest true confirmation of Slavic identity (Venedi, Sclaveni) and differentiation. The Steppe peoples have a long history of identity conglomeration and sudden turns of dynasties, peoples, and powerbases. All one has to do is consult the various timelines of the Eurasian steppe peoples invading and conquering (such as Scythians, Sarmatians, Aryans, Persians, Parthians, Huns, Alans, Avars, Bolgars, Magyars, various Uralic peoples, various Tartar peoples, Kippchak, various Turkic peoples, Mongols, "oh my"- although I admit I forgot an awesome tribe or two). If Indo-Iranian leftovers fought for Goths, they were 'Goths' or known as 'Scythian' [by those enlightened thinkers who called everything by what they knew before] altogether for some time. If Goths and others fought for Huns, they were still dubbed 'Hun' just like 'Rome' continued in the East into the Medieval Era. Lusatian culture and a number of Bronze age cultures add more flavor to our understanding then is possibly explained by the simplicity of Roman authorities who had little interest beyond their fickle scope.

(don't even touch Przeworsk (I say to all)! there is no sure link between it, Lugi, Celt, Slav, Balt, Germanic, or other Indo-European, nonetheless pre-IndoEuropean)

Great Moravia (a little known and lovely thing) didn't come from thin air, just as Germanic peoples did not, nor Carpi or Wend. The Identity of peoples in Eastern Europe are vastly misunderstood due to a lack of interest by all, which is truly unwarranted for their varied cultures are indeed complex and deep.

I happen to agree that Eastern and Northern Europe is misrepresented (although hardly a tragedy- EB does accept change and criticism) to the degree that Gaul is more favored with similar port technology.

I must say that Wikipedia and similar online and non academic web organizations are hardly a good source of historical information, nonetheless the high level of evidentiary and extrapolated information needed for an understanding of the true Germanic peoples, esp. during a time period of which we have so little literary evidence.

I can tell you that early Germanic literature (Old English, Old Norse) shows a definite trend to associate water with danger (to the point that antagonism is directly related), esp. moors fens bogs ect. (this and 'other'-worldly creatures was aptly touched upon by Tellos) It is true they would have knowledge of their nature, but that does not mean respect and fear was not maintained.

Word of the Day: From an early beginning, Boii-home was not exclusively home either to Celt or German: Bohemia is a junction of culture and peoples! We know of certain possession and dynasty but what we do NOT know is of demographic influx and immigration, esp. during times when all tribes were near alien to each other. Let's not get into the question of where all the Thracians had gone (mentioned as Second Most Populous people in the world behind the Indians by Herodotus). There was no "people" consciousness known best in late form as 'Deutsch.' Indo-European derivative languages were not isolated organisms and the migration and development of those peoples is not a linear progression.

**sdk80** · 01-09-2008, 14:28