Sweboz EB 1.0 comments

[bovi]

In EB2 we should be able to represent this better, there you can have mercenary fleets.

[CirdanDharix]

Tellos: well, since the locals' idea of a war fleet was a trade fleet with warriors inside, and we're agreed that they had loads of trade vessels (right?) and Germanic naval units in EB are the aforementioned trade ships with warriors in them...why shouldn't the Germans be able to build their fleets where they can have trade harbours? IMO the whole concept of separate naval harbour provinces is almost like forcing the Seleukids to automatically lose battles at Raphia against the Ptollies. If you've got the deep-water harbour, you should be able to build the facilities for the war-fleet, even if historically no major naval power was based there.

[sdk80]

thank you again for taking the time, Tellos.

Whoa slow down a bit. First two questions I defer to my comment regarding the design of the cog (but for the echo of the fact that the cog actually is a Frisian type of ship)

Why are we actualy talking about cogs? The earliest cogs are dated 900 A.D. and are a true medieval ship type. The ancient Frisians must have used other ship types in the antiquity, most likely very similiar to the Iron age Hjortspring type and the later Nydam type and Saxon types, which were common in the area.

I think that such invasions would have (if there you would want to speak of 'invasion': my initial thoughts would be more akin to gradual migration/settling, as the Frisians, Belgae, and other Germanic & Celtic tribe did do all the time, btw) centered around fleets made up of mercantile ships.

And as for sea-faring traditions. Well, allow me but I don't see why the military navy is a prerequisite for being renown as sea-faring peoples? Methinks that the extensive trade network the Frisians had built up on its own more than meritted their reputation; not to mention their engagement in piracy.

It is absolutely not in any way comparable with the organised, centralised development of naval infrastructure - not even the very smallest levels. Note that a military port is not just about storing your ships (with the cog types it's not a big deal: you can pull them on the beach/terp and anchor them: by the time the waves will reach your precious boat they will be broken already, because of the long stretch between the beginning of the coast (or rather 'wad') and the place where you'd typically tie your boats up). A military port is also about building the fleet, about repairing it.
[...]
Well, as has been pointed out:
A) For the most part that was how the local naval military was.
B) For the most part that was how the local culture was (trade first, and the rest uses what trade can spare)
C) For a substantial part the regions simply lacked the means as required for a military port of their own.
Make no mistake: nobody is saying that it is perfect. But just consider this: to properly accurately represent the way how a fleet would be raised, we'd need to have a lot of mercenary fleets in the region. Basically to simulate the fact that the peoples who had the cogs/etc (virtually every village had a few) would join the army. Just like Antigonos persuaded Agean & Kretan pirates to join his war against the Koinon Hellenon.
But does the game support this kind of mechanism? Well, not RTW... (Incidentally M2TW does, so it could feature in EB2.)
Well first of all: that's quite indeed way out of time frame. But again I'd like to defer this to earlier remarks:
A) Most notably the one about how a fleet would be gathered. This is quite distinctly separate from the way which is represented through military ports as in-game: RTW enforces that you'd need to build the fleets as a faction (aka ruler). This is perhaps (incidentally in various poleis it was customary for individual, prominent citizens to pay for equipping a ship rather than to draw upon state-funds) quite accurate for the various Mediterrean powers, but in no way is it even close to accurate with societies based on a much smaller scale: i.e. the difference between the size of a Greek or Roman or Carthaginian coastal city with military port and that of a Frisian village, or a Frisian town.
It was much more de-centralised, much more geared towards 'private' commerce/piracy; there was much less of a central thing that enforced the construction of the required infrastructure: there was no need, for every community had it's own ships. (You'd need to.)
B) The one about how a ship would be pulled on land and anchored: i.e. the local villagers would have their ships close at home. There would not be any such thing as a true port in the biggest part of the Netherlands, and certainly not any such thing as a military port.
It boils down to one real simple sentence: AFAIK there was a substantial naval activity (even military at times) on the North and Baltic Seas, but - especially so with the DGD-coast the use of ports and especially military ones was very limitted at best. The ships various commuities would gather a fleet, recruited from the local 'tribesmen' if you will, by simply adding each other's ships to the big ensemble. Not by building a brand new one with the sole purpose of going to war and leaving the 'working' ships at home.

It was an invasion, all sources speak of an invasion and contemporary witness have had the impression of a large scale violent invasion (ok, sources have tendencies and sometimes they can create a very contorted image of what really happened, but still you musn't neglect them) - but logically it took decades untill the Anglo-Saxons were able to establish themselves as the the power-bearers and even leading culture in England. By the way the medieval Vikings most of the time just conquered and actuialy settled lands in the very same way as the Saxons did in Britain - bit by bit, quite unorganised, from each other independant war parties, most likely some charismatic leaders as main actors, which got more and more followers as success grew and so on. When the first Saxons established themselves word came to the ones, which were unlucky at home, that it's a good choice to follow their path so the whole thing becomes a automatism and gains momentum. (The late antiquity German tribes did their large scale migrations the same way f.e. Goths, Vandals, Alemanni, Franks) Just because invasion of tribal societies just don't happen the same way as for example with Imperial Romans or Alexander's Makedons, it is no invasion?? That's not the point I think.
Back to the Saxons and migration by Sea: Most likely they used mercantile ships and most likely their own easy to build troop transports - so what?

In EB,RTW and M2TW fleets are used for the only purpose to transport troops and to cross the sea with them, and in antiquity it was possible for the ancient Germans to transport toops from the DGD-coast to f.e. Britain or Gaul, so if you don't admit a "military" port there (we all know that it wouldn't ba a military port in a Roman or Greek sense) you neglect the posibility of the Sweboz faction to transport troops in the North-Sea from the nearest coast. I agree, tribal societies like the Sweboz didn't have military ports in a classical sense, but they still had the possibility to transport their troops by Sea with their own easy to build ships and "confiscated" (sounds so modern ) mercantile ships of the area, while the game engine or better your EB port system doens't allow this and therefore Sweboz have a big game-balance disadvantage compared to the civilized factions, which isn't historic like this. Hiring merceneray ships is also no solution, since it would make a faction dependent on them, while it actualy had the possibility to build own ships for landing operations - even if this happened in a de-centralised and quite more unorganised way. Your system may be great for the Romans, Greeks and Greek successor states, but it's not a good system at all for tribal societies - you really should make adjustments here for the Sweboz, like allowing a second "military" port or any other port which allows the player to carry troops form DGD coast, which is historic justified.

And we both agree that the antic German ships were no real war ships at all in a classic sense, but served many purposes and some even modified to serve its purpose even better. But still in RTW and EB ships are used to transport troops, which was very much possible fro ancient Germans, but your system actualy doesn't reflect this and therefore gives the Sweboz a big disadvantage. They already have the big disadvantage that their ships are too primitive to face others in game and now you even don't want to admit them at least the historic justified possibility to have more places to build these very weak Hjortspringtype "war" ships?

So if you and me accept all premises of your EB port system you have to make a decission; 1. possibility: You don't give the Sweboz and Celts any type of military port, because the EB definition of a military port doesn't fit into tribal societies - this would be the silliest way to deal with the problem, because like this transport by sea would be completely impossible
2. possibility: You guys account for the fact that tribal societies used no war ships for transporting troops and didn't have military ports, but very much had the possibility to make landing operations and therefore you admit more "military" ports for them. It even wouldn't spoil game balance at all, because the recruitable ships can't match with Roman or Greek counterparts anyway. The player of Barbarian factions doesn't want to build up fleets and having Sea battles with other factions, but he wants to have the justified possibility to transport his troops in a adequate and historic way, which isn't included in the EB mercantile port system.

But that's not exactly how you can actually build any sizable, central, state/tribe/confederation-owned fleet. You can't build a fleet without material. And in the Netherlands the material for large-scale production of fleets just isn't there: by around 1600 just about every forest that had been in any way close to populated areas, and which were sufficiently accessible (as opposed to the Biesbosch) was virtually gone IIRC.

The Netherlands has a long tradition of importing basically everything and being the middle-man. A very long tradition: the Frisians themselves were middle-men already. (Timber, btw was typically imported from Sweden. Interestingly this was one of the foundations of the lucrative trade with the Baltic. Timber and grain were imported to the Netherlands, went through the whole chains of various industries and was then in some form exported again. A most striking thing is the trade in Iron ore from Sweden to the Netherlands where it was used in the various weapon industries. Second-rate quality weaponry was then sold back to the Swedes, the best quality was either kept or sold elsewhere.)

Anyhow: I think we can agree that if, as is being done consequently, military ports are only allowed in regions which historically had the resources, the expertise and the 'location', then we should exclude the Netherlands if only for the fact that they did not have the resources, right ? Same would go for Denmark which is pretty much a copy of the Netherlands (ok, apart from what those weird humans did to it), with proper hills if you will. Or was that the other way around?

Sorry but no. The Netherlands are quite a good example, that it is possible to have a vast fleet even without the resources like enough wood. Dutchmen were very much present in all Oceans after around ~1640. Like you said, it's no problem at all to import wood and then to build your ships, which is the way it actualy happened. That the Dutch had deforested their territory already in the early modern time around 1600, because of their huge need of wood, is no argument at all for not beeing capable of having a military fleet, like history shows.
It's the same with Northern Germany: The Hanseatic Leage also deforested whole northern Germany during the whole Middle Age, because of their huge need of wood for their cogs - but still they continued to be one of the strongest forces in the North-and Baltic-Sea untill the late Middle Age, because they imported excellent wood very easily from South-Germany via the Rhine. Now this is Middle Age and the Duch example is early modern times - but we are supposed to talk about antiquity and the area wasn't deforested at all at this time - so plenty of wood in Danmark, Germany and Netherlands in antiquity - even bogs, which have been a very common landscape in the area had enough good quality wood in order to build many ships with it.
Even without those resources, which is a hypothetical situation, because resources were still very much present in the Middle Age! Our two examples out of two different eras, show very well that lack of resources near ports is no argument at all for not having a huge mercantile and even a strong military fleet. (the famous Dutch Fregates guarding the Cargo Fluyts, armed Hanseatic tower cogs guarding the mercantile cogs)

here are some examples of the landscape of the DGD-coast area in the antiquity out of that book, which I mentioned the page before


Text reads: Bog in Northern Germany - below: reconstructed sacrificial place in Danish Lejre


Text: Bog landscape in Danmark

Do you also see the plenty of nice trees, which would make good planks for my de-centralised tribal navy

Now back to the Hjortspring boat and Nydam type boat. Don't you guys think that there must have been a stage between those two? The first is dated around 300 B.C. and the second around 300 A.D. I didn't play untill Sweboz reform yet, so did you guys implement another boat type for the Sweboz, which must have been in use in the time between? Like I said Hjortspring boat is very primitive Iron Age type while the Nydam boat is the early ancestor of the Viking longship already - I hope you guys have a solution for this problem and don't let the Sweboz paddle around in the Hjortspring type boat for 300 (don't know exaclty when EB timeframe ends) years.

And please inform me about the Celtic big warship - I really doubt that the Celts had such kind of ships in the EB timeframe, allthough the EB-Celts all in all make a very good impression on me

[Tellos Athenaios]

I was talking about cogs, mainly because a) this ship type is a prime example of the ships you can use on the North Sea, but mostly in the coastal waters; and b) because atcually, that type of ship is far older thant 900 AD...

Let's not bother with the exact nomenclature of the entire migration of tribes from point A to B. I do not call it an invasion in itself, since to my understanding it was not like: today we're here, tomorrow we sail and we'll conquer ourselves a new home. But yeah, you could call it an invasion anyway. Silly me.

In EB the purpose of fleets is a bit more than just transport troops with 'em. It's of course the limitted enviroment we work with: the naval aspect of the game just stops with role-playing. But you gotta admit that if we thought: all you need is a ferry, we would not have included any such thing as 'triereis' or above. Pentekonteroi: those are the troop-carriers; anything above is purely a big weapon, and a matter of prestige.

Yes, we appear to compeletly agree on "how this stuff works", yet we draw a different conclusion. I would say that Scandinavia with it's timber, and perhaps the north-german coast on the Baltic would be the only source of (apart from Belgium and Brittain) forests that were both that big, and accessible enough to allow for a local timber-industry of sorts. You also got to keep in mind that to build ships you can't just use every type of timber (mostly because not all timber is sufficiently water-thight) and that lot's of forests you can find today are the result of either human activities (planting trees) or the result of the on-going evolution of the landscape. And actually this type of landsacpe (bogs) is very dynamic, and very susceptible to change. (A few interesting maps http://dronten.flevoland.to/geschiedenis/ ; keep in mind though that more than half of the territory you see there is, in fact, one big bog.)

Mind you, the fact that there are forests does not mean that they are used, or can be accessed in anyway. Distance is a relative concept: what's easier, to import the timber from Scandinavia when that's a week sailing up and down at most with good weather (and you'd have your timber ready-made so to speak); or to venture into a bog you know of one big fact: anyone to make a little mistake is going to die, period. I would definitely say that the local people were actually afraid of that territory. According to their (and later) legends it would be the realm of all sorts of evil-doers and man-eaters. Nasty place.

And it's a long road to where you could find your forests in the Netherlands. Roughly from the North-Sea coasts of the modern-day islands (back then: part of the mainland) to Drenten at least. I would not go as far as to say 'uninhabited' but you weren't going to find many people on your way down either: most of the territory at this stage is not usable for farming purposes.

There were bog roads, of the type which has some famous Irish examples, yes; but those did not go everywhere. There are a few typical examples of where forests occur in the bog of the Netherlands, old, 'sandy' stretches, usually surrounded by younger, very dangerous stretches of vast swamp. The most reliable places to find your woods would be comparatively dangerous also: what with wolves, wild boars and actually a pretty much uncharted (and even today it's a location to get lost thoroughly) territory? Again the sites are useless as farmland, because the landscape has only come into existance of the effects of glaciers (way before our time-frame yes, but the effect is still notable today; for one thing it created a vast bassin of drinkable water under the hills it created as well, which is nowadays the source of 'Sourcy' and the tap water in the province of Utrecht), and therefore contain very little, and poor quality soil (again, sand mostly) but lot's of impenetrable, compressed rock.

Enough of bogs: I agree with you that it is not accurate the way it is. But I also disagree with you when it comes to the idea "because they imported it, that means you need to be able to have a port there" - by that line of reasoning there would be no settlement that would be not landlocked and yet not have such a port. Heck, I think the Sauromatae did have coastal settlements with semi-subjugated peoples which surely knew the concept of sea-faring et all. And doesn't southern Russia have a *real* forest, clearly old enough to provide you with timber? ... Uhm, yes. But I still doubt that they built ships on such a scale it'd warrant the inclusion of a military port, though they must have also built ships to raid each other.

Essentially it's very much the same situation, albeit on a much smaller scale. You have a people located somewhere that so happens to maintain a vast network of sea trade, and uses mercantile vessels for other purposes than strict commerce as well.

Mercenary ships would be a most excellent way of representing the Frisian type of navy, but unfortunately that's not possible with RTW.

Finally: it is not like the Sweboz are that 'disadvantaged' compared to other factions. Aedui and Arverni have only a few ports in their near vicinity which they are not likely to get their hands on any sooner than the Sweboz as we have them now. And let's just not talk about the Casse. By the time other factions reach this territory it doesn't really matter either because no way are other factions' navies going to sail all the way up the North Sea. The statement about 'unfair disadvantage' clearly comes from lack of experience with the Celtic factions.

[sdk80]

Tellos you shirk arguments and facts.

First you said that there are no resources for a "fleet", then I proofed that in antiquity the area of the North Sea had large forests and Bogs, where it was possible to gain good quality wood for shipbuilding, which is proofed by historic evidence, since the ancient f.e. Frisians (only to mention one tribe on the coast) somehow must have been able to build their ships, which they did (remember Mare germanicum and beeing credited for it by ancient writers). The pics I posted are out of a scientific book and they are in there in order to give people an imagination how the landscape of ancient Germans situated in northern Europe in the antiquity looked like! But still you don't want to see the obvious.

Now again you come up with modern Netherlands and that the next forest is far away from the coast - like modern northern Germany the landcape changed significantly since the antiquity!! One of the most obvious reason is constant shipbuilding in the area from the Antiquity to the early Middle Age even untill modern times and therefore massive deforestation and another reason is landgaining from natural bogs in order to have more farmland. There is no way to compare the landscape of the area of now with the wilderness it was in antiquity. Even the coastline was completely different then from now! So keep the modern landscape completelky out - it is nonsense!

Than your last and craziest "argument" (don't want to offend I'm just aghast) was, that people actualy were afraid of going into the bog for gaining wood or the forests weren't accessable!! I really can't believe it. Those bogs are only scary for us modern humans, while people inhabiting that area in the antiquity pretty good lived with it. But they also were a place of community like religious rituals (there are plenty of bog-corpses which proof this, because those bodies didn't go down there accidently, but were sacrificed) and working places (like gaining wood and cutting peat, which they did without any doubt). Many of these bogs were also holy places and therefore highly frequented - only with christianity the perception on places like bogs changed dramatically - During decades of christianisation they became strange, creepy places in the mind of the now christianised people with devils, demons, ghosts and whatever else wandering around - and this mindchange since christianity about places like Bogs and Deep forrests is well documented and an everywhere accepted fact. It was even activated and cultivated by the early missionaries in order to keep people away from those pagan shrines!

I really get the impression that you've (I'm adressing EB as a team now) made up your mind on a topic sometime ago for whatever strange reasons and nothing in the world -even real historic facts - can change your mind.

And mercenary ships are no solution, because it makes a faction dependent on those while in reality they had their own ships.
On the disadvantrage: Sweboz have to move via land all the way up to Scandinavia in order to get ships, which is completely unhistoric, allthough the nearby North-Sea coast would be absolutely justified for a shipbuilding port, while f.e. Aedui or Averni have to conquer a nearby province.

[Barry Soteiro]

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]

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]

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.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Tellos you shirk arguments and facts.

First you said that there are no resources for a "fleet", then I proofed that in antiquity the area of the North Sea had large forests and Bogs, where it was possible to gain good quality wood for shipbuilding, which is proofed by historic evidence, since the ancient f.e. Frisians (only to mention one tribe on the coast) somehow must have been able to build their ships, which they did (remember Mare germanicum and beeing credited for it by ancient writers). The pics I posted are out of a scientific book and they are in there in order to give people an imagination how the landscape of ancient Germans situated in northern Europe in the antiquity looked like! But still you don't want to see the obvious.

Now again you come up with modern Netherlands and that the next forest is far away from the coast - like modern northern Germany the landcape changed significantly since the antiquity!! One of the most obvious reason is constant shipbuilding in the area from the Antiquity to the early Middle Age even untill modern times and therefore massive deforestation and another reason is landgaining from natural bogs in order to have more farmland. There is no way to compare the landscape of the area of now with the wilderness it was in antiquity. Even the coastline was completely different then from now! So keep the modern landscape completelky out - it is nonsense!

Eh, please read again: I wasn't talking about modern landscape at all. Had I been why would I bother to provide you with a source, containing a series of maps, one of them reconstructing the rough size of the Netherlands in 0-500 AD.?

Constant ship building? Have you any idea where the trees stood that were turned into timber which would be used for shipbuilding in the Netherlands? Any idea where the stuff came from which would be turned into the famous mercantile fleets of the Dutch in the wharfs of the Zaanstreek?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sweden.

It's one of the fundamental anchors of one of the most ancient trade networks in all of the Baltic and Northern Europe; a network which indeed dates back to the very people you argue about (Frisians).

Than your last and craziest "argument" (don't want to offend I'm just aghast) was, that people actualy were afraid of going into the bog for gaining wood or the forests weren't accessable!! I really can't believe it. Those bogs are only scary for us modern humans, while people inhabiting that area in the antiquity pretty good lived with it.

C'mon That wasn't an argument it was utterly and competely a note aside. And FYI according to the local legends: trolls, witches, ghosts, goblins etc. etc. all are said to live in the bogs. I do not think that they would not at all have ventured into the bog (mainly because the better known stretches would have been used for hunting & fishing purposes): but they would not have been happily going there to set up a timber-industry either (trees that would be usable are located in the oldest, and dry parts of the bog).

Mind you: nobody says "you can't build ships in the Netherlands" or "there's not forest in the Netherlands of the right kind or such". But there isn't anything the size and scale and sufficiently accessible required for any such thing as the military port. This would not have been such an issue if, for instance, we knew there was some Frisian council which gathered and decided: "time to build a new squadron again, lads - let's ship in another ton of timber" - but as far as I am awar no such thing (i.e. the central decision) ever happened.

Also I suggest you take a look at your pictures again: the trees you see there are by far too small (not too mention you can not actually go and cut them down... they're located in the wet part of the bog...). Again:
A) For ship building purposes you can't use any kind of tree. It just won't work (either too heavy, or too brittle, or won't be bended easily enough or whatever)
B) Your tree need to be the right size, and most importantly the right age. Old trees will make better timber than younger ones; small trees will contain relatively little usable wood at all (some kind of trees, incidentally the ones you posted a picture of are actually virtually useless for anything but making a fence/pallisade which doesn't involve timber very much at all)
C) You need to have a great many of them should you wish to keep up an industry of sorts. Because you need some next year as well. And 20 years later you are still using basically the same 'shift' of trees.

Apart from that you need to have a site which is suitable for locking up your boats and keeping them there. Something which is flooded half the time; or the bogs will not do: the ships will rot away faster than you can mend them. Take a look at this link: http://www.historischekringdebilt.nl...nederland.html
Scroll all the way down (second last map from below) to the map of 50 AD. (Na Chr. in Dutch). Observe the fact that all the pink-ish areas are just one big bog of the sour, and very wet types; akin to the Bieschbosh. Observe the fact that only the sandy/yellowish colours allow for the building of settlements apart from the dark-brown (but the dark-brown territory is even today not a place you'd go and set up a farm); also observe that the bigger sandy-parts are in fact just that: sand. Not something which is going to grow you much crops, apart from potatoes - but they didn't have those back then.

The various blue's are water, the lighter ones are the bits that flood every odd 6 hours or so. The green is the only place with substantial farming potential; but alas it tends to flood (during winter; the sandy-specks are the only places with some kind of 'dike' at this point, one that is naturally generated by the river), so you can't build your houses there.

But they also were a place of community like religious rituals (there are plenty of bog-corpses which proof this, because those bodies didn't go down there accidently, but were sacrificed) and working places (like gaining wood and cutting peat, which they did without any doubt). Many of these bogs were also holy places and therefore highly frequented

- only with christianity the perception on places like bogs changed dramatically - During decades of christianisation they became strange, creepy places in the mind of the now christianised people with devils, demons, ghosts and whatever else wandering around - and this mindchange since christianity about places like Bogs and Deep forrests is well documented and an everywhere accepted fact. It was even activated and cultivated by the early missionaries in order to keep people away from those pagan shrines!

Actually... there's more to that story, you know. It is mainly an incorporation of the local beliefs & stories into christianity, a practice which is well-documented also. Frisians proved a though nut to crack (though not as though as some other peoples) for any hard-line-missionary (one of them got lynched for it, and was later proclaimed a saint); but those who had been willing to 'compromise' a bit so to speak could be quite effective.

I really get the impression that you've (I'm adressing EB as a team now) made up your mind on a topic sometime ago for whatever strange reasons and nothing in the world -even real historic facts - can change your mind.

Sorry. All historical evidence you showed me, and I can recall seems to indicate that if anything the Frisians simply did not gather a fleet in this way.
Neither that they were actually, actively busy with maintaning a military presence on the sea or any such thing.

And mercenary ships are no solution, because it makes a faction dependent on those while in reality they had their own ships.
On the disadvantrage: Sweboz have to move via land all the way up to Scandinavia in order to get ships, which is completely unhistoric, allthough the nearby North-Sea coast would be absolutely justified for a shipbuilding port, while f.e. Aedui or Averni have to conquer a nearby province.

Uhm... it would seem that simple perhaps, and IIRC the Aedui have a lucky hit (Cenabum is already in their possesion) but you got to keep in mind that you can't really develop the place sufficiently (at least you have 20 other, more important things to spend your funds on) before you would do so with the province of Skandza as the Sweboz. Finally, the Celts just like the Frisians had their share of the pie as well; and most likely I'd say a big share: what with the Tin and Copper trade...

Also: why 'should' it be fair from a game-play perspective (only)? What, actually is 'fair'? Should basically every settlement on the coast be able to build military fleets (provided you play on hughe: 52 ships/unit at least)?

[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?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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]

@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.

[Tellos Athenaios]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[cmacq]

@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.

[sdk80]

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 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.

You are absolutely right about sources, ancient writers and the unfortunate manner to name every "newcomer" tribe with a name which already was known long before and you are absolutely right that Slavs didn't just appear out of nowhere.

But it is undoubted that Slavs came very late into Poland, Bohemia and the Balkan region. In the 6th century A.D. the big Slavic migration began and in places like Poland, which were left by the East German tribes long before (Langobards, Vandals, Goths, Burgundi) they established themselves very quickly and slawicized the remaining inhabitants. (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landnah...auf_dem_Balkan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_...hthonic_theory - HERE FOLLOWING SENTENCE IS IMPORTAND: in the early 6th century, they have inhabited most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans)

(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)

Pommeranian (Przeworsk) culture is the basis of the later East German tribes, which all came from that area. Read any academic litrature you know about Vandals, Brgundi, Goths, Langobards. They all came out of this huge, big melting pot of German and Celtic culture.

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.

Never doubted that Slavs have a very interesting culture, nor am I against Slavs or anything like this, please don't misunderstand me! That's not my intention!! Great Moravia is an early medieval "empire". What has it got to do with the subject? I never doubted it, when Slavs came in the area in the 6th century A.D., that they establisjed their own realms over decades, sure thing and interesting subject.

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.

nice, we'll see

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.

In fact wiki is not a good solution, but it isn't that bad either and I din't back it up with Wiki only, but with a very academic book namely the "Rellexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde". Just look it up in your nearest University Library, they will have it for sure, if they are any good. The mentioned academic book is also published online for study purposes - don't see anything wrong with it, or why someone should miscredit it therefore. Please keep in mind that the most credited historians on ancient Germans are Germans and therefore publish in German language - if you don't understand German you miss most of the newest literature on the subject, because there isn't much translated since many native English-speaking historians of that subject, understand German anyway.

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.

I know all early Germanic literature like Beowulf and the Edda and the Nibelungs Song, but they all have in common that they are created after christianisation and therefore have big christian tendencies. It's a known fact that christianisation changed the mind of the former pagan people gravely.

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.

I know all this, but two things are undoubted: Pommeranian culture was heavily Celtic and German influenced. Around the first century A.D. it is a completely East-German tribe area according to the sources like Plinius and Tacitus. It is also undoubted that Slavs later (6th century A.D.) migrated from the East in the during Migration Period left behind area of the East-German tribes and established themselves there successfully. But for sure there haven't been Slavs or Proto-Slavs in the area in the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Now 19th and 20th century was a cruel age of exaggerated nationalism, Slavish nationalistic authors tried to proof a Slavic presence in the area from early on, which has been refused ever since and you can read everywhere in serious academic literature that those crude theses have no evidence or proof. It's the same with this mad guy, who says "Alexander was an Albanian" The psychological reason behind is, that 60 years of communist and russian supression has left most of the former Eastern Block states hungry for national symbols and nationalism, which is a bad anachronistic thing for modern day Europe, because Western-Europe has left behind this sad chapter of history. You can monitor this exaggerated nationalism all over Eastern Europe currently, which is a socio-cultural fact. But that's off-topic!

How about presenting the sources and quotations of academic books you guys used for representing Eastern-Central Europe in EB? Otherwise you just miscredit my sources with mere opinion. It's always the easiest way to say "I don't think so and your sources are no good", but also it's a very ignorant and absolutely non-academic way. I mean, I invest a heck of a lot time in here in order to help you guys achieving more historic accuracy on ancient Germans, but instead of getting a thank you, I get quite simple refusals.

@cmaq
what are you refering to exactly and where is your backed up counter statement?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I mean, I invest a heck of a lot time in here in order to help you guys achieving more historic accuracy on ancient Germans, but instead of getting a thank you, I get quite simple refusals.

Are you serious? 17 posts, "a heck of a lot of time in here"? We have 143,000 posts in our internal mod development forum. Over 1,200 I can see on Germanic faction development just in two threads (not counting tons of others in various ones). We've had a *tremendous* amount of work put into the Sweboz. Plus you're abrasive and arrogant in my opinion, and whether or not you've got a point in your posts when you come across as you do the folks on this volunteer mod we've made here aren't necessarily going to put much into trying to make sure you're happy. I'm surprised Tellos and Blitz are spending as much time trying to explain things here as they have, but then they're nicer guys than me I guess.

[TWFanatic]

I fear my tiny post may have been eveloped by the massive ones surrounding it, and forgotten.

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]

As to everyone, I look foward to offering you some fresh sources to compliment your 1 book. Give me some time (I am currently busy) and I'll post something.

btw, I agree there are some great books in German on the subject but that does not mean they are inherently more academic or more accurate. Not all books are created equal therefore a comparison of all sources breeds best. Yet I must admit that my favorite book is one that I can only read in German: F. Holthausen's Altenglisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch seems pretty unbeatable in quality. I am sometimes biased in such decisions on scholarship and presentation.

[cmacq]

I fear my tiny post may have been eveloped by the massive ones surrounding it, and forgotten.

Like I said I didn't want to get mixed up in the Swabo thing, but I'll try to answer your Ostia question, TWFanatic. But, to do that I'll open another posting, OK?

[sdk80]

@Teleklos Archelaou

First of all, people started beeing rude to me (3 persons) and they even got personal just like yourself now, where I always tried to stay on academic topic - BUT I realised that it isn't possible and that it's useless anyway in here (it's so simple, if people are rude to me I give it back, but seems like you guys only can dish it out, but can't take it back - that's indeed very poor)

Whatever, forget it, I recognized that I was wasting my precious time in here. I threw pearls befor swine.

[blank]

Anyway forget it, I recognized that I was wasting my precious time in here. I threw pearls befor swine.

Ah, so we are swine now?
Pardon me, Your Excellence, but us puny mortals might not understand the vast and unmistakably perfect treasures of information that surely lie in Your head.

I have, however made a few conclusions about you as a poster;

1. You think you're always right
2. Everybody else is always wrong
3. Everybody is out to hurt poor little you
4. Everything must be done exactly how you want
5. It's okay for you to post nonsense like having metal for Sweboz soundtrack (seriously, what the...?)
6. Nobody can say anything bad about the aforementioned nonsense
7. You are the one and true source of historic knowledge.

Am i close? Yeah i'm not polite, but you have proven yourself to be an asshole in this thread, so too bad...
Btw, the "silly and ignorant" member named paullus most likely knows more about history than you ever will.

Cheers

[cmacq]

@Teleklos Archelaou

First of all, people started beeing rude to me (3 persons) and they even got personal just like yourself now, where I always tried to stay on academic topic - BUT I realised that it isn't possible and that it's useless anyway in here (it's so simple, if people are rude to me I give it back, but seems like you guys only can dish it out, but can't take it back - that's indeed very poor)

Whatever, forget it, I recognized that I was wasting my precious time in here. I threw pearls befor swine.

I'll get back to you. But I promise you may not be able to handle what I have to say?

[Frostwulf]

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.

I believe this is based on the spread of the Jastorf and other archeology attributed to the 'Germanic' peoples.

Pommeranian (Przeworsk) culture is the basis of the later East German tribes, which all came from that area. Read any academic litrature you know about Vandals, Brgundi, Goths, Langobards. They all came out of this huge, big melting pot of German and Celtic culture.

I have read both sides on this. It seems that it is not conclusive yet. What does seem to be of general opinion is that the Slavs became Slaves in the 6th century just as the Germani became Germani around 500BC. Seeing as how I'm mostly ignorant on anything more then this I will no comment any further(at least until I become more educated on it).

As to everyone, I look foward to offering you some fresh sources to compliment your 1 book. Give me some time (I am currently busy) and I'll post something.

Excellent I always look forward to reading your informative posts.

I think sdk80 has some legitimate points, it would be nice for all involved to forget the past name calling and etc. and just stick to the academic portion.

[Markus_Aurelius]

Tellos you shirk arguments and facts.

Than your last and craziest "argument" (don't want to offend I'm just aghast) was, that people actualy were afraid of going into the bog for gaining wood or the forests weren't accessable!! I really can't believe it. Those bogs are only scary for us modern humans, while people inhabiting that area in the antiquity pretty good lived with it. But they also were a place of community like religious rituals (there are plenty of bog-corpses which proof this, because those bodies didn't go down there accidently, but were sacrificed) and working places (like gaining wood and cutting peat, which they did without any doubt). Many of these bogs were also holy places and therefore highly frequented - only with christianity the perception on places like bogs changed dramatically - During decades of christianisation they became strange, creepy places in the mind of the now christianised people with devils, demons, ghosts and whatever else wandering around - and this mindchange since christianity about places like Bogs and Deep forrests is well documented and an everywhere accepted fact. It was even activated and cultivated by the early missionaries in order to keep people away from those pagan shrines!

In my mind this argument makes no sense to me. You said here that these bogs were indeed used as holy places, correct? Now if they were holy places, why would its people defile the place by wading in there and chopping down the trees. Im sure the priests or whatever would not agree to his, or the people who, you say, frequent these places. Now dont get me wrong im not backing up the other guys argument im just bashing yours, also Christians cultivating the place has nothing to do with ancient germans

[Geoffrey S]

I think sdk80 has some legitimate points, it would be nice for all involved to forget the past name calling and etc. and just stick to the academic portion.

Agreed. I've seen both sides present informative posts, it'd be a shame to disregard that because of earlier objectionable language.

sdk80, I'd recommend you mellow your tone just a little since I agree it might offend some people who have worked for many, many hours on what you see in EB; to others, I ask a bit more patience. Single-word and single-sentence replies in a snide tone don't help anyone at all and may as well not be posted. Tends to be discouraging to people who would like to know more.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

I threw pearls befor swine.

Çüşşş!

This one is way too much for the ORG.
.

[Gothic]

@sdk80:

You do make sense in some of your posts. The sad thing is; your argument is lost because your written tone comes off as arrogant. You probably don't even mean to make your posts sound as arrogant as they do, so it is most likely just a matter thinking about your wording. Here are a few examples.

You frequently call others' opinions "absurd" and "nonsense" and you say that the EB team "should" do as you say, instead of "could". There is a huge difference between should and could - one is basicly an order while the other is a suggestion. You keep saying "no offense" after these outburts (as if you actually do realize people might be offended), but by then the damage will in most cases already be done.

Remember that the people you're talking to have spent thousands upon thousands of hours working on this mod, all for the love of the game and for the love of ancient history - trying their best to mesh those two things together. They will probably have thought many times over about whatever issues you have, or at least that is what you should expect. If you put forward your thoughts as suggestions instead of orders or demands, I am sure people will be more willing to debate the issues with you. :)

[cmacq]

I believe this is based on the spread of the Jastorf and other archeology attributed to the 'Germanic' peoples.

and just stick to the academic portion.

Which Germanic people? German is just a Latin word meaning 'genuine.'

The Jastorf complex is just the local expression of the late Halstatt and early LaTene cultures? As we all know the late Halstatt is the basal and the LaTene the full on expressions of what was the Kelt ethnos. Regardless, how would one know if the people of the Jastorf expression spoke Kelt or Nord? The progression of specific elements of material culture associated with the late phases of Halstatt culture from southeast to the west, northwest, and north does not support a proposed early southward expansion from Scandinavia. Neither does the progression of the LaTene nor that of the early phase of the Halstatt. In fact, along the Frisian coast and Denmark many aspects of the EIA material culture (ceramics and architecture) appear to be associated with the local LBA expression as well.

Sdk80, I can get very detailed on this subject, but it will only add to disprove your thesis of an early Nordic southward expansion into Denmark and northern Germany. The reason I didn't want to address the direction this thread was heading is because this is a typical quasi-national socialist view of the subject. If this is indeed the case I want no more part of it. If not, debate away if you must?