Casse Rivals- A proposition

[oudysseos]

Punctuation: it's not just for That.

[bobbin]

and before the brigantes there´s still alot to be discussed around sicily and massilia since we can now subdivide regions to express that there might a leading city but she wasn´t totally in control of the region wich ofc gives the western greeks a fair chance to show up and fight their regional power batles

Massalia was ruled out by the team a very long time ago.

[Macilrille]

Unfortunately. I would really- really like to see Massilia in.

[Ludens]

Massalia was ruled out by the team a very long time ago.

Was it? I thought they merely ruled out a KH-style alliance between Massalia and its colonies Emporion and Saguntum, on the grounds that the ties between them were never that strong.

[Horatius Flaccus]

Well, according to this post (83), it was.

[Ibrahim]

Well, according to this post (83), it was.

well, maybe they will unrule it out now?

[oudysseos]

The problem with Massalia is that, in game terms, it starts out with the same amount of territory that historically it achieved- it never really showed a propensity to expand. The TW engine is not well suited to showing the kind of economic influence that Massalia exerted, so it's hard to see it as a stand-alone faction, although it is high on our list of things we would do if only there were no hard coded limits.

[Ludens]

Well, according to this post (83), it was.

I stand corrected.

[moonburn]

sorry for the way i barged in it might have been too enthusiastic/agressive

i think that if the western greeks have a fair chance at the game they should start with sicily and then have an objective like conquering the entire sicilian homelands and then going for sardinia and corsica when the sicilians do this the massilians would join them in a kinf of western greek confederation but only if the siracusians/sicilians proved to be able to defend the western greeks from the poeni by conquering sicily and sardinia/corsica

once the western greeks managed to conquer the baleares the wester greeks in iberia could maybe join the union as a type 3 group

or then if the sicilians conquer sicily the massilians would join them in a type 3 alliance if they conquered corsica a type 2 union and if they conquered sardinia and the baleares (or kick out the poeni from the med islands) they would gain the suport of the iberian greeks since they would be perceived as strong enough to "suport" the greek colonies of iberia and their merchant interests against the poeni

a secondary goal to be to defend magna grecia from the romans by liberating southern italy

it´s like the getae trying to gather all the thracians together

ofc this is just me day dreaming but could make a siracuse campaign the best gaming experience ever imho with the siracuse hoplites holding the center the massilians cutting off the flanks and the greek noble cavalry pressing home for the victory while the balearic slingers range havoc from a distance

[oudysseos]

Whew!

Moonburn, there is something to what you say, but there was never any kind of Western Greek Confederation of the sort that you mention, nor, as far as I am concerned, any indication that such a confederation was ever possible. Just because the people of Agathe Tyche and Locri Epizephyrii both spoke Greek doesn't mean that they had any political common ground. Quite the opposite, I'm afraid.

[moonburn]

i know odysseus you explained it to me in an all too painfull detail but for instance the fall of tarentum happened out of their arrogance by sinking a roman fleet and then they runned to phyrrus for suport (had syracuse been the stronger greeks around they would probably have runned to syracuse for suport)

when corsica alalia (?) fall to the poeni the massillians wanted to intervene but they weren´t strong enough thus the reason why i say "if syracuse and the sicilian greeks managed to be strong enough to defend the other western med greeks" they would all eventually ask for suport from them and would ofc in the nice greek tradition be forced to join in a new league (athens did it spartha did it and so did thebes so why wouldn´t the syracusans do it ?)

as far as i can recall tarentum was an extremly wealthy city so rich that they hired mercenaries to fight for them instead of recruiting and "forcing" their citizens to fight, syracuse was a pearl amongst greek city´s and thats how it managed to fend off the poeni time after time after time and they even burned alot of poeni 6 store high buildings in retaliation in the 4th century (?), one can argue that had they been smarter when dealing with the marmentines and the bruttians and more politically united they might have been able to flush out the poeni out of sicily instead of going to italy to fight wars against other greek city´s in the times of agatocles or hiero the 1st (and there was another one i can´t recall that was a tiran)

just because the western mediterranean greeks weren´t very united that doesn´t mean we can´t rewritte history and a strong greek ruller in the western mediterranean can´t win their wars against the poeni instead of having to resort to roman influence time after time after time until the greeks are all tied up by what rome says

we know that the mediterranean was always an hub for trading wars (as far back as the trojan wars) we can deduce that there was some sort of cold war beteween the greeks and the poeni over trade
we also know that syracuse if they manage to gain control of the entire sicily and sardinia and corsica will be trapped beteween rome and carthage but a few of us wouldn´t mind the challange expecially if we get to win over massilia or emporion or arse in the process of kicking the chartaginians and roman butts and become the great western soter \o and be able to scream "no more will roman boots trample and humilliate the greeks for zeus and mars onward to liberate Tarentum" <--- herm got a litle bit carried away on this part

ofc i´m going on a very long stretch to compare the way tarentum acted and compare the leagues of greece proper to what might have happened if the syracusans had managed to be "smarter" but in the end it would all come down to how well a player could act if the player is not advanced enough in all arts then syracuse would never survive past the 1st 40 turns but the trufh is that a single language is a way to be closer to someone and thus easyer to ask for suport because some iberian tribe or some celtiberian tribe is threatning you if you don´t pay them more for the metals they offer you

[A Very Super Market]

You don't seem to be getting the point. Yes, certain greek cities were indeed quite powerful. But they never did join together to create a confederation, as history demonstrates.

[moonburn]

You don't seem to be getting the point. Yes, certain greek cities were indeed quite powerful. But they never did join together to create a confederation, as history demonstrates.

and thus i wanna gave it a try on the what if they did i mean they where greeks afterall they couldn´t be oblivion to the concept of league alliances and since most of their primary concerns where around trade routes (at least the smaller more isolate places i don´t mean places as tarentum or syracuse who had a developed farming and pretty sophisticated societal bonds ) one can´t ignore that a powerfull combined navy and a strong numerous army did help to open new trade routes or close them to their enemies

one must remember that the poeni closed the strait to the greeks or took alalia because they where united and strong

damm i even have an aar on my head with nice letters from the syracusan greeks to emporion or arse explaining that they need their armies and war navies once every 5 years and when they do they don´t provide the desired results but if they accept to join the alliance their army and navy will be part of a great powerfull force that will help protect other greeks open trade routes give them bigger profits and when that time comes once every 5 years that they need their army or navy they will be there 10 times more numerous then if they stood alone and kicking ass in the name of emporion

after 272 everything goes in terms of politics wars and who gets to live on and who gets to die

[Brennus]

But if you are going to use a faction slot to create a hypothetical Western Greek league which, aside from never existing in 272, never existed in reality, then you may as well give weight to confederecies and alliances that existed after 272 but never the less existed, the Caledonians, the Brigantes, the Aetolians, or even (to bring this thread in one big loop) give a faction slot to a group we definately know existed but whose year of origin is debateable ie the Atrebates.

[bobbin]

and thus i wanna gave it a try on the what if they did i mean they where greeks afterall they couldn´t be oblivion to the concept of league alliances.....

Please use punctuation, it makes reading posts much easier on the eye and brain.

The point is that they never had or showed any inclination to form such alliances during their history. This makes any what if ? scenario for a western greek alliance completely divorced from the prevoius history, not to mention that the EB team like to keep clear of what if scenarios all together.

At the end of the day it has been stated that such a faction will not be included so we are going to have to live with that, you could always make a minimod when EB2 gets released.

[Brennus]

And if I may say with the announcement of the Bosporan kingdom and the high likelyhood of Pergamon being included there is a danger of EBII becoming too Hellono-centric, do'nt get me wrong the Seleukids are one of my favourite factions and i really like Epirus and Macedon but i would much rather see some new "barbarian" factions than more Hellenes.

[bobbin]

Pergamon has already been confirmed, it was the first faction to be revealed.
Given the time it is set in EB was always going to be fairly Helleno-centric but I think we have reached or are near the natural limit for hellenic factions, only Kyrene and Syrakousai could be conceivably added to their number.

[Brennus]

And thus with the addition of Pergamon the Arche Seleukia difficulty moves from "very challenging" to "nigh impossible".

[WinsingtonIII]

With all due respect, moonburn, keep in mind that if you really want to play as a Western Mediterranean Greek state, you can always start a KH campaign where you migrate them to Syracuse or Massalia at the beginning of the game, and then go into the edu (or whatever it's called) and change the faction name and color. It seems that in this situation you would get access to most of the units you would probably be able to recruit if a Syracuse faction was included anyways. I think it's a pretty easy solution, the only downside being that the KH will not exist in your campaign, but frankly I rarely see them expand much anyways. If you want more, then try to drum up support for a minimod. If the Galatians are not included, I think you will certainly be able to find support for creating a minimod that adds the Galatians and a Western Greek league of some sort.

Also, I agree with Brennus, although any mod focusing on the Hellenistic Era will certainly be Helleno-centric to some extent, I think we've got enough Hellenic factions as it is. Nine is quite a bunch.

[B-Wing]

I'll harp in and express my agreement with the notion that there are plenty of Hellenic factions at this point. The name of the mod, after all, is Europa Barbarorum. And if I count correct, there are only 7 European barbarian factions represented (and presently confirmed) in EB2. So I'd consider it false advertising if we didn't get at least twice that many.

(That's a joke, though I'd personally think it awesome)

[oudysseos]

Not so: the Greeks wrote that the Romans were ignorant uncultured barbarians; the Romans wrote that the Greeks were effete barbarians; seeing as how Phoenician culture in the Western Mediterranean was older than either of them, I bet that the Carthaginians thought that both the Romans and Greeks were noveau-barbarians; the Romans definitely thought that the Carthaginians were barbarians; the Macedonian Successor Kingdoms were barbarians anyway according to "real" Greeks; the oldest of all world civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia surely regarded their Macedonian overlords as inconvenient barbarians; gods know that the various peoples of northwestern Europe were all barbarians to the literate cultures of the Mediterranean, and what they thought of the Romans etc. is largely unrecorded but I bet that "barbarian" was high on the list; and the various horse peoples of the Eurasian steppes largely thought that anyone else was barely even human.

Every single faction in Europa Barbarorum is in fact a Barbarian faction, depending on who you ask. That's the point of the name, eh?

[Brennus]

Dubliners are barbarians, not like us good civilised people in Belfast. lol.

[oudysseos]

Dubliners are barbarians, not like us good civilised people in Belfast. lol.

I know I didn't just read that.

[Subotan]

Dubliners are barbarians, not like us good civilised people in Belfast. lol.

Too right

[B-Wing]

Well I figured it was obvious I was using the term "barbarian" in the modern sense. Guess that's what happens when you assume.

[Horatius]

Well about Massilia it did have a major part in our timeframe besides economic, the Alliance between Massilia and it's allies with Rome is the reason Rome sided with Suguntum, causing the Second Punic War. It's colonies in Spain, and the allies of those colonies fell under Roman protection, so perhaps Massilia could start out in a way that makes it permanently submissive to Rome, and it's goal is to Colonize the Iberian Penninsula?

If even that is hardcoded against I apologize for yet another suggestion into the obvious.

[oudysseos]

Look, in real-world terms, many of these suggestions are perfectly reasonable: but Total War is not a model of the real world. It is an engine whose primary function is to generate battles, and whose only goal is to conquer territory. Many real, historically important entities (like Massalia) simply do not fit well into that paradigm, and it is very difficult to make economic or cultural dominance significant in the game. So yes, Massalia was part of the process that brought Rome and Carthage into conflict- but how do we realistically introduce something like that into the game? How can there be a faction that starts with one territory and always stays that way? Would anyone really play that faction for more than a few turns?

I'm afraid we're up against the limit of the engine, here: it was not intended or designed for these things. You might as well complain that your Dodge mini-van can't win a Grand Prix. It's just not what it's for.

EDIT: Completely OT, but Horatius, with all due respect, I'm a little tired of the kind of sentiments you expressed in your sig. I certainly am not in favour of bombing soft targets for political purposes- but that standard has to apply to everyone, not just Hezbollah or Al Qaeda. Why is it wrong for the 7/7 or 9/11 bombers to attack civilians (and it is wrong), but not wrong for Israel, the United States and Great Britain to do exactly the same kind of thing but on a much larger and more terrible scale? Do you even know how many totally innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians have been killed by us? Is it impossible to conceive that the peoples from whom Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda draw their ranks might just have some legitimate grievances, and that Great Britain and the US just might bear some responsibility? A moral standard that you don't apply to yourself (and that has to include the nation to which you belong) is worthless and hypocritical rubbish.

[Brennus]

EDIT: Completely OT, but Horatius, with all due respect, I'm a little tired of the kind of sentiments you expressed in your sig. I certainly am not in favour of bombing soft targets for political purposes- but that standard has to apply to everyone, not just Hezbollah or Al Qaeda. Why is it wrong for the 7/7 or 9/11 bombers to attack civilians (and it is wrong), but not wrong for Israel, the United States and Great Britain to do exactly the same kind of thing but on a much larger and more terrible scale? Do you even know how many totally innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians have been killed by us? Is it impossible to conceive that the peoples from whom Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda draw their ranks might just have some legitimate grievances, and that Great Britain and the US just might bear some responsibility? A moral standard that you don't apply to yourself (and that has to include the nation to which you belong) is worthless and hypocritical rubbish.

Where on earth did that come from?

[Brennus]

Oh wait I just read his signature, now I understand. You spelt Britannia wrong.

[Genava]

Each one at home and that will be much better.